Tweak

InsaneJournal

Tweak says, "Beware the pout of doom."

Grigory Williamson (arollofthedice) wrote in inpoormerit,
@ 2010-03-21 17:53:00

Entry tags:

gor, gor and riff, riff

In Times of Crisis..
Who: Gor, Riff
Where: The Pub
When: Mid-day

Gor's little adventure had left his pale skin reddened from the sun. He was not at all accustomed to being in direct sunlight, and it seemed his floundering on the beach had been a little too much for his body to handle. Although he was not so badly burned that his skin was peeling, he did, nonetheless, feel somewhat sick.

Driven by the rumbling of his stomach, the teenager had managed to scrounge up a can of condensed chicken noodle soup. The bowl was sitting in front of him now, still steaming from its time on the stove, but the book in front of him had captivated the teenager's attention. The large hard-covered book featured large, colorful drawings of a variety of fantastic creatures, and Gor was combing through the book with an all-consuming interest in its contents.

He doubted he'd ever see any of his gaming group ever again, but if he ever did, at least he'd be ready with 4.0.

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tinfoilhat
2010-03-26 04:41 am UTC (link)

Beverages she could work with because if she looked at an olive loaf or a pickle loaf, she was going to throw up. That stuff always looked bad as it was but when you had OCD like she did, it made her sick the way that they mixed... "Well, I can't cook... Maybe I should just stick to energy drinks. Any of those in there? I can code and down shots of Redbull easy." She peered around him again, still only thinking about the olive loaf and the horrible bits in it... Oh god.

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arollofthedice
2010-03-27 05:20 am UTC (link)

A lot of late night game sessions had been run on Red Bull. Reaching for the familiar can, Gor withdrew it from the fridge along with his own. He miscalculated how far back the mysterious voice was, however, and he turned quickly to hand the individual the drink...only to nearly shove the can into the person's chest.

Despite the glow of Gor's sunburn, he managed to turn a shade paler. Not only had he nearly stabbed her with the can, he had also suddenly realized that this person was...a girl.

How the hell had he failed to notice that?!

His stammer was so hastily given -- and so very panicked -- that it was nigh unintelligible -- but it might have been an apology.

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tinfoilhat
2010-03-29 03:11 am UTC (link)

Riff tried to pull back so it wouldn't kind of smack her but she was too slow in the realization of what was about to happen so all she could do was grab the can so it didn't get dropped. Of course, that meant that her hand was temporarily on his and she jerked back with the can, hoping his hand would GO AWAY.

Apparently she had broken him... Great. Well, she was partially broken too to be perfectly honest. Riff worried her bottom lip as he stammered and panicked and went... crazed. Her pale skin started to turn red with embarrassment and she backed away a little. "S-settle! I-it's okay! Really!" Oh god, where was the off switch?!

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arollofthedice
2010-03-31 03:39 am UTC (link)

Gor gasped in a breath and held it for a long moment, trying to find his center of calm. Obviously, panicking wasn't helping -- any idiot could see that. By the time he managed to say something intelligent, his face was as pale as hers was red.

"S-s-sorry," he finally stammered.

Way to come off as a complete creep, he congratulated himself, wanting to lock himself away somewhere forever now. This always happened to him...

Looking at her, he was surprised to see that she wasn't girly at all, really. She looked more like one of his kind of people than, well, most girls. That was somewhat reassuring, and it helped to steel his nerves.

"Um, it's p-probably r-really shook up now. S-so, um, you-you might w-want to g-get your ow-own."

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tinfoilhat
2010-03-31 04:37 am UTC (link)

Oh thank God. The words started working again. She didn't have to try and reboot him with physical violence then. That was always a good thing especially since she didn't know if that would work. Yes, he was kind of creepish now but he was a tiny creep so it didn't really count. Okay, not tiny but young.

"A-actually I w-was going to take all of them if I c-can manage it... I'm c-coding so I need all the energy I c-can get," she bit her bottom lip, a chant starting to form in her mind that consisted of move, move, move, please move, right now, move as she just wanted to get away with the Red Bull.

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arollofthedice
2010-04-03 05:39 am UTC (link)

"C-coding?" Like with a computer? He appraised her again, this time with the coding thing in mind. He was immensely -- and perhaps a little stupidly -- relieved by this information.

"O-oh. S-Sorry." Again. He stepped away from the door, giving her access to as many of the Red Bulls as she could carry back with her.

"Are y-you a p-programmer?" She looked young to have made a profession of coding already -- but the shaved head thing was distracting, and it made it difficult for Gor to pinpoint her age exactly.

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tinfoilhat
2010-04-04 04:40 pm UTC (link)

She nodded, waiting for him to move and when he finally did, she focused on snatching every one of those cans - or at least as many as she could carry with her scrawny arms along with her computer eventually.

His question kind of startled her and she banged her head on the inside of the fridge before ducking out to rub the back of her head. "Um... Yes. A-and robotics engineer. Designer. Everything..." She grabbed a couple of more cans and stepped away from the fridge and back towards the main area. "I-I'm working on h-hacking the computer s-system to see if I c-can get any info about our c-captors."

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arollofthedice
2010-04-05 01:30 am UTC (link)

Gor seemed to hardly notice her stuttering; in fact, even his own was beginning to vanish, overcome by his curiosity about the work of the individual before him.

"That's r-really cool," he answered her, with noticably less stutter than before. A robotics engineer? That was certainly something he could both appreciate and like to learn more about. Riff's gender hardly seemed to matter any longer. "Did y-you find out anything?"

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tinfoilhat
2010-04-05 02:59 am UTC (link)

"Not yet," she admitted. As his stutter faded, so did her's although a bit more quickly. Her's had kind of been adapted from his in a strange form of mimicry. "I just started... F-first I was working on some bots to t-try and spy around the island but I don't have enough parts."

Riff led the way to her computer and set down the cans beside it so she could show him the code that she was working on. Unfortunately, she was fairly certain they were monitoring what was going on in the computers and building up defenses. That was why she needed the energy drinks - so she could work fast and for long periods of time without rest.

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arollofthedice
2010-04-05 03:39 am UTC (link)

Spy-bots? The idea that Riff had attempted to build real spy-bots was mind-boggling, and, for a moment, he simply reeled in response. Finally, he asked, "Are you going to build any other robots? It would be really awesome to see them."

His attention then turned to the coding. He wasn't overly familiar with it, but he recognized pieces from his coding classes. "How long did it take you to do this?"

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tinfoilhat
2010-04-05 03:57 am UTC (link)

All of a sudden, she was feeling weird again. He was getting all excited about her robots like they were just toys. They weren't. "I don't know It depends on what sort of parts I can scrounge up to be honest..."

Riff ran a hand over her head, listening to the short bristles for a moment. It was a comforting sort of sound that reminded her of Velcro. She liked Velcro in a weird sort of way. "Few hours I think... I don't know. I kind of lost time... But then I started to fall asleep."

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arollofthedice
2010-04-05 04:10 am UTC (link)

Oh, no. Gor was beyond toys. In fact, had they been toys, he would have been considerably disappointed. The fact that she could make working robots... He was, when all was said and done, a huge fan of everything geek.

"Well, I don't really know anything about building robots...and not a lot about code. But if I can help..." He lifted his shoulders, suddenly looking like his awkward self again, as if realizing he was acting like a total nerd.

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tinfoilhat
2010-04-05 04:20 am UTC (link)

Yes, working robots, talking robots, walking robots, slithering robots... All sorts. She had that AI program back home but that was home and her head was not here. Willard. Poor, lonely Willard.

"No, I think I'm good... No offense or anything but I've been doing shit like this since I was fifteen. Well, I mean, not this scale but smaller things," okay, she couldn't really explain to be honest. Very few could accept that a fifteen year old girl had gone to college. Little did she know.

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arollofthedice
2010-04-05 12:35 pm UTC (link)

"Y-yeah," Gor answered in his self-conscious way. "I g-guess I know how you feel. There's a complex logarithm with an inverse arctangent fraction containing multiple variables -- it's actually a variation on Gauss -- that I've been working on for the last three years. I guess I hate it when people offer to help too." It was kind of his pet project...and, come to think of it, their captors had left the equation at home.

Damn.

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	tinfoilhat 2010-04-06 10:29 pm UTC (link)
	Riff stared at him for a long moment. Oh sure, all of that made sense in her head but that didn't make the person saying it sensible as he looked like he was like... twelve and her kind of intelligence level didn't happen that often. "Er, how old are you exactly?" (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

arollofthedice
2010-04-06 11:17 pm UTC (link)

"Um... S-sixteen?" He did, of course, know how old he was, but the hesitancy and questioning tone was born of wondering why she wanted to know. It made him self-conscious, because people usually only asked when they were preparing to insult him.

Hunching his shoulders certainly did little to make him look his age; try as he might, he seemed to be hovering between a man and a boy -- and very, very awkwardly so.

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	tinfoilhat 2010-04-07 12:54 am UTC (link)
	She blinked at him... And then she smiled in a knowing sort of way. She would've patted him on the shoulder if that didn't mean touching him. "Are you in college yet?" Hey, when it came to her, that was a totally appropriate question. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

arollofthedice
2010-04-07 01:31 am UTC (link)

The relief in his expression was so visible that it could almost be physically measured.

"N-no. Next year." His smile was a little timid, although, truth be toldm, Riff was turning out to be pretty damned nice. It didn't take much to impress Gor: a nice person was impressive enough. "I'm pretty much guaranteed a full scholarship to MIT. I just need to write an essay." In the back of his mind, he wondered if he would ever actually see MIT -- probably not. Just his luck: a few months left of his imprisonment at home and he's suddenly kidnapped, whisked away to...here.

So far, it didn't seem any worse.

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tinfoilhat
2010-04-07 02:11 am UTC (link)

Her smile brightened a little. MIT was a very good school and it was turning out that he was very much like her. "That's brilliant. I went to Cambridge when I was fifteen. It's... pretty difficult to be that young and in college but you'll have a couple of years on me." Her coding was almost forgotten. Almost. She was still running it in her head and she found herself counting a little on her fingers although it was only thumb and index finger. She was making memories in binary using a code on her fingers.

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arollofthedice
2010-04-07 02:18 am UTC (link)

Gor might have gone to school when he was fifteen had his parents taken a little more interest in his schooling. His teachers had attempted to advance him a few times, but his parents never granted their permission due to an avid lack of interest That, of course, wasn't Riff's problem, and he wasn't about to come off as the world's biggest whiner.

Fifteen and in college was, nonetheless, an impressive feat, even to him.

"Only fifteen? That's awesome. Robots -- and computer -- must have come a long way since then, huh?" He wasn't quite sure how old she was, but she looked to be maybe five years older than that -- perhaps more. The lack of hair made it a little hard to judge. As far as robots and computers went, five years was an eternity. "Have you got to make any, you know, groundbreaking discoveries or anything like that?"

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tinfoilhat
2010-04-08 01:20 am UTC (link)

Riff had been lucky that her parents had been attentive and loving and encouraging. She loved her parents, really. They were fabulous and she missed them though they had sort of lost touch as her OCD started to take over her life. Really, she probably needed medication or therapy or something... But she was busy. She had projects.

She breathed a laugh and nodded, "Yeah..." Understatement of the year to be honest. Riff rubbed the back of her head, smiling sheepishly, "Um... Well, I worked on some working for Sony but recently I kind of quit. Although back home I have this really great AI programme I'm working on. Willard's really quite responsive and becoming more capable to learn every day... Or was. Without human interaction, I don't know what will happen."

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arollofthedice
2010-04-13 02:23 am UTC (link)

Gor looked truly interested as she outlined her work -- particularly when she mentioned the AI program. Willard. It seemed somehow fitting for an AI, even if he currently knew nothing about it.

It also seemed to fit her, although he couldn't really say why. Nor did he give it much thought.

"You developed your own AI?" He was suitably impressed. "Did you start from scratch, or did you begin the program with defined parameters?"

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tinfoilhat
2010-04-13 03:55 am UTC (link)

Oh it was definitely fitting... Or at least she thought it was. Willard was just a fun name. Unless you used Willard Kraft as a reference but really, one fictional principal wasn't enough to damn a name.

Riff shook her head a little, "I started with something from Sony's Tokyo division. I've just been modifying it. A lot. And translating... Really, apparently they couldn't be bloody well bothered with a translation into English." There was a sharp bitter tone in her voice. She wasn't at all happy with how they'd been treating her or her projects. Good thing she didn't work for them anymore.

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