Who: Jane and John What: Custom equipment When: After Sam/Jane chat on 14th May Where: Jane’s workspace Rating: Low Status: Complete
John had to admit he was intrigued, he had no idea really what to expect. The message had been unexpected and he’d not really been sure she was serious until she had messaged him. So now here he was, custom laptop in bag waiting to be seen by the young student.
He needed to warn her he wasn’t a physics graduate or anything like that, he was just a soon to be ex-student with a gift for computers.
Raising his hand he knocked on the door.
Jane was working hard on deciphering some data from her experiments with Stark’s supercollider, which was difficult since her current set-up didn’t have the processing power or the memory to cope with it properly. It was one reason she had asked John Connor for his help, she had skills with computers, but there were some people who were simply naturally gifted at it. She adjusted her glasses as she read the screen, writing down samples of data she needed to look at later in more detail. She dimly heard the knock on her door, but she was so engrossed she passed it off as a knock on a neighbour’s door.
John waited for a minute before realising she couldn’t have heard so this time he knocked and peeked his head around the corner. “Miss Foster?” he called out.
Jane heard someone calling her name, again like it was from very far away and tilted her head in the direction of the door while keeping her eyes on the screen. “Yes?” she replied vaguely to the currently non-corporeal voice.
“Uh it’s John Connor, you asked me to meet you here at three and it’s three” he replied stepping fully into the room.
“What?” Jane looked around at him. It couldn’t be that time already! She pushed back her sleeve to looked at her watch and swore under her breath, pushing her hair back from her forehead with her left hand and taking off her glasses with her right. She dropped the glasses on her desk beside her mouse and stood to welcome her guest. “Oh go, umm...yeah,” she held out a hand to shake his and smiled at him. “Hi, I’m Jane, uhh...sorry, I get a little...carried away,” she gestured towards her various monitors and computer towers on her desk. “Please, come in,” she motioned for him to take a seat on her couch, happy that she had tidied the place fastidiously that morning before she’d sat down to work. “Umm...would you like anything? Drink? Snack?”
“That’s okay, I know the feeling” he assured her, “I can get really carried away too. Especially when I’m building a new computer or something. Oh, I’m fine thanks”
“Right, well...” Jane rubbed the back of her neck with one hand before she spotted the bowl of cereal left on her desk from this morning. She moved over to clear it away, hitching the slightly too large, check shirt she was wearing onto her shoulder from where it had slipped down her arm. “Sorry,” she apologised as she quickly dumped it in the sink, turning quickly to lean back on the counter. “...distracted,” she joked. “So umm...let’s see,” she moved to sit on the single seat next to the couch. “I’m Jane, Foster, as you know,” she smiled. “I’m an astrophysics PhD student at the the University in Irvine and umm...well, that’s really all there is to know about me,” she joked uneasily, hoping a brief ‘get-to-know-you’ session would settle her nerves.
John felt kind of sorry for this girl, she seemed completely on edge so he went along with the little ‘intro’ session. “Good to meet you Jane” he offered her a smile, “I’m John Connor, I’m about to graduate and I don’t really have any desire to go on to University so I’m trying to see what contacts I can make to find a job. And I’m a computer genius” he half joked.
“I should hope so, that’s what I need you for,” she laughed. She took a deep breath and sighed it out, feeling a little less tense. “So...umm...I guess I should tell you my problem and see what you come with,” she held an arm out to her desk and the jerry-rigged equipment she had set up as best she could.
“Yeah I think that’d be a great place to start” he smiled at her, wincing only slightly as he followed her indication to her computer set-up. “Right, well, that’s...interesting. Good effort” he said standing to go and take a closer look.
“Thanks,” Jane replied sarcastically. “No need to be mean,” she pouted playfully then smiled so he knew she was kidding. “So yeah, what I need is more processing, more memory, more...everything really,” she told him. “Without resorting to quantum computing that is...not quite got the money available for one of those,” she joked.
John threw her a smirk over his shoulder before returning his attention to the ‘mess’ in front of him. “Yeah if only we worked for NASA right?” he chuckled, “Well it’s not terrible what you’ve done but yeah, more processing, more memory, it shouldn’t be too difficult. I’ll need some materials but nothing too expensive” he tapped in a few commands on the keyboard to look at the computers current specs.
“Ok,” Jane nodded. “And would you be able to network it up to the mainframe at Stark industries? That way I can upload the data straight to here and not worry about transporting it,” she asked. It shouldn’t be a problem, she already had access to Stark’s computers on site, so it was only a natural step. She’d run it by him if John said he could do it and include it in her plan for Professor Carter.
“Sure” John replied, “You’ll need Stark to add the access key to his firewall exception list” he could bypass it, but Stark’s security was good and this girl must have access if she was asking him to set it up.
“Cool, I’m sure I can get that,” Jane told him distractedly, watching him type in code. “I uh...I also need...some equipment making up for recording live data from some detectors I’m planning on rigging up on the roof, think you could help with that too?”
“Yeah sure” John nodded, fingers moving quickly over the keyboard, “I’m sure that won’t be a problem. Looks like you aren’t using the server to it’s full capacity and you’re going to need a lot more memory if this is just the start of the data you are going to be recording”
“Oh yeah,” Jane laughed. “I am going to be filling that thing practically every night. I’m going to need a huge hard drive and really good processors,” Jane paused to think briefly. “Maybe even a program designed to look for specific patterns in the data and analyse them first but can process the other information in the background, what do you think?” she asked, tucking her hair behind her ear.
“It’s a solid idea” he said, “I’ve built analysis programs before. I can work on something like that easily”
“That would be great,” Jane grinned. “Umm...could you uhh...give me an estimate for it all? I need to write a report for my professor to see if the university can give me a grant for it.”
“Oh right yeah I guess” he picked up a pen and found a blank sheet of paper and wrote down the parts he’d need and an approximate cost. The harder part was his time, since he’d never really charged anything before and wasn’t positive about the costs. Still he estimated the time it’d take and worked out a, fairly modest, hourly rate. Then passed it to her, “Does that seem reasonable?”
“Umm...yeah, I guess so,” Jane smiled. “I’ve never really done anything like this before to be honest,” she joked. “Did you want to see what I’m planning on setting up on the roof?”
“Me either” he admitted, “I guess we’re a bit like the blind leading the blind” he joked before nodding, “Yeah that would be great”
“It’s hard to get started on your own,” Jane nodded, having watched a couple of friends try to start their own businesses. “Sure, follow me,” she smiled, leading the way up the stairs and onto the roof. The view up here of the city really was pretty cool, Jane thought to herself. I really must remember to come up here more during the day.
“It really is” he agreed, though he’d been really lucky so far it probably wouldn’t always be that way. “Oh wow, you got a great view”
“Yeah, thanks,” she smiled, breathing in the fresh air. She’d been in front of the computer for a long time after all, it felt good to have the sunlight on her face and fresh, albeit city, air in her lungs. “So...what I plan is having a gamma ray detector over here,” she point to the left of the roof. “An all over sky camera here,” she pointed to the middle. “And then here I...well, it’s weird, I can’t really explain it yet but something...” she trailed off as she looked at the spot on the right of the roof, trying to catch hold of the concept but it drifted away from her like her dreams. The kind that stayed just out of reach so she knew very vaguely what it was but nothing more detailed.
“The detector and the camera I get but I might struggle with the unexplained ‘something’” he teased as he followed her, getting a picture in his own head.
Jane laughed at that, “Well, until it comes to fruition in my head I can’t be much more specific with it. Basically its going to be some kind of particle detector, I just...I’m not sure what kind of particle just yet.” Jane sighed, in frustration. “Sorry, I’m not explaining that very well am I, but I won’t know it until I build it,” she used her hands to describe something tangible in front of her.
John nodded, “Fair enough, once you have something tangible in front of you maybe it’ll get easier to explain” he suggested, “That happens to me sometimes, I have to start something before it’s fully formed in my head so it can become a complete idea”
“Yeah,” Jane smiled, it seemed they were quite like-minded that way. “I just...I know what I have to do, but I couldn’t write it down or tell anyone else how to do it. It’s kind of like instinct, I guess,” she mused.
“Natural instinct can be a wonderful thing” he replied, “You’re obviously in the right field of work if you’re getting that feeling.”
“Huh...never thought of it that way before,” Jane replied absently as she considered the idea. She shook her head to clear the thoughts and turned to John, “So you think it’s all do-able, yeah?”
“Yes I think it’s do-able” John confirmed, “I think it’ll be quite good fun actually. Bit of a challenge”
“Great,” Jane smiled, clapping her hands together. “If there’s anything else I think of I’ll let you know, in the meantime I’ll put together the grant proposal, present it to my professor and when she gets back to me I’ll get in touch, ok?”
“Yeah just drop me an email or something” John replied easily, “I’ll wait to hear from you”
“Cool, sure I can’t get you a drink or anything?” Jane offered.
“Oh no, I’m good. Really. I should let you get back to work. I’m sure it’s a lot more important” he smiled.
"I don't know about that just yet, but I'm hoping," she smiled. "And besides, this meeting was important too," she nodded definitively. "I guess you've got other people to see today too," she lead him back down to her apartment.
"No more meetings but I did promise my girlfriend I'd swing by" John answered with an easy smile. "But its been good to meet you and find out more about your project.
"And you John Connor," Jane extended a hand to shake. "I look forward to working with you."