InsaneJournal

"London, huh? Sounds awesome."
Who: Kitty and Roy
What: Security inspection, overly blunt talking, and friends are made!
Where: The Ranch
When: Today!
Status: Complete
Rating: PG-13



Kitty could have taken a company truck, but for an initial lookover she didn't need much more than her toolkit, which fit in the saddle bags of her bike. She brought a couple extra pieces for demonstrations - a hardware firewall, a router and some other associates equipment, along with a company laptop. This all fit in the other saddle bag. She opted to leave her own backpack in the office, taking only her phone.

The ranch was a long drive. She took the time and the drone of her Honda sportsbike's engine relaxed her.

Roy was watching his kids shoot, calling out encouragement or stopping to give corrections here and there. "Okay, Tomas, if you move your arm a little higher like this...There you go, kid. Perfect." They were about to conclude the lesson for the day and he had some time before another shift was getting sent to him, and he was sort of looking forward to the break. Not that he didn't love the job but it had been kind of a long afternoon.

The motorbike rose up a hill and started down the other side and she got her first look at the ranch. It was gorgeous. She grinned to herself, gunning the bike as she approached what looked like the main building. She came to a halt, and powered it down, removing her helmet and looking around.

Roy glanced at his watch as the kids sent off their last arrows. "Okay guys, good lesson. You're really getting good." and he wasn't lying either. Not that he could have, these days. "If someone would gather the arrows you used and then head on off..." When they were finished, and the arrows were back and ready for the next lesson, he wandered up to the main building, figuring he'd go hang out for a while until he was needed again. And was when he saw the lady on the bike, and changed his pace to a quicker run. "Oh hey." He greeted her with a little nod that clearly was approving. "Badass ride." and she looked like a total badass too, so that worked. "I'm Roy and actually staff. Anything I can help you find?"

Kitty didn't want to be reminded of potential verbal vomit. It was going to make things difficult as it was! She smoothed her slacks and blouse, and raked her fingers through her hair to try to tame it. And failing.

She smiled at the man, "I'm Katherine Pryde. I'm here to take a look at the security of your computer systems and network so we can give you a quote."

"Oh sure." Roy vaguely remembered something about that being announced. "I'll show you where they are and let you get started. " He added, getting the door for her without really thinking about it, and gesturing for her to go ahead and come inside, where it was nice and air conditioned.

"Thanks. You can call me Kitty or Kate if you want." She walked in and breathed in relief, "Its hot as hell out there, isn't it?"

She had her phone out, scanning for the wireless network, and squinted at it, "Okay whoever you guys hired last time was retarded."

She clamped a hand over her mouth.

Roy snorted at that. "I'm not up on the tech levels myself, but yeah, let's just say that sometimes I swear my boss is living in the stone age when it comes to tech. Knows what he's doing with the kids but..." He shook his head sadly. "Seems to be cursed, really."

"He's using WEP!" She didn't know if Roy would understand, so she clarified, "Its like locking the door and then hanging the key on the doorknob. Okay, that part is easy to fix if your equipment is five years old or less, give or take. Can I take a look at the computers?"

"Be my guest." Roy gestured to the lone computer that was present. "Though that's kind of it." He was vaguely aware that WEP was used for passwords and access and such, but not what really went into it. "Like I said, really not up on the tech out here." And he shook his head a little sadly. "I'm sure that's got to be a first."

"Not really. Everyone has their areas of expertise. But sometimes people are so fucking stupid!" She balled up her fists, then winced, "I'm so so so sorry about that. I mean to say that its okay if you're willing to, you know, learn, its okay. Okay and I'm not even sorry but how hard is it to take CARE of a computer?!"

She sat down in front of the computer, and she squinted, "I'll give him this. This thing isn't bad, and the keyboard is really clean." She smiled up at Roy and prayed he wouldn't report her to her boss.

Roy grinned back. "hey things keep popping out of my mouth today too. I actually got fired from my other job today because I couldn't keep it shut. It seems to be some kind of verbal epidemic. People are acting like me full time, and I'm even getting worse. Creepy."

".....That was your post?" She stared at him, "I'm so sorry about taking it over like that. That guy just pisses me off."

"Oh Scotty? Yeah he can get a little carried away sometimes." Roy admitted. "But, so can you I guess." then he paused. "Uh, no offense about the brony thing. Just because I'm not into it doesn't mean you shouldn't be." Heh. "But so. You two have some kind of messed up history or something?"

"I called out his girlfriend for being an idiot and posting naked pictures of herself online," Kitty explained. "I suppose I could have been nicer about it but you don't want to know how easy it is to stalk someone if you even had two brain cells to rub together. You can use pictures to figure out what a person is like, their posts too. Foursquare and facebook tells you where they are, often up to the second. And then you show yourself off. A bikini is bad enough but that's okay. Naked stuff.... Those kind of pictures are for private, you know?"

"I mean, there are naked pictures of me but he knows if he ever posted them online I'd rip him a new asshole, literally."

She clapped her hand over her mouth again.

She was compelled to add, "Him as in ex-fiance, not Scotty."

She clamped her mouth shut again.

"That's...kind of comforting really." Roy admitted, eyedarting. "I mean that Scotty's not, you know, collecting nude photos of all the hot women on the network or something. And yeah, it IS kind of crazy dangerous to do that kind of thing. Not that it's not her right I guess but...dumb doesn't really cover it."

"That's the point I was trying to make!" She nodded her head and smiled at him, "I mean she's a great gal and we've hung out. And she's really hot." Damn her, her cheeks colored, "And she's a genius with programming. So she really should know better. But she doesn't care. You can't help when they don't care."

"That's true." He admitted. "I didn't care for a long and it didn't get me anywhere good but until I was ready to help myself, nobody could do any good. You see it here too." Roy said, gesturing out to the ranch itself. "You ge the ones who don't care about being here, and all you can do is hope they start to think about it, and realize that they do need help. Kind of exhausting sometimes."

"Its..wonderful actually." She sat back, tapping a few notes into her phone, "I met some kids in London that would benefit from something like this. Good at heart, but running with the wrong crowd. You do good work. In a lot of ways better than anything I could do."

"Oh, I don't know about that." Roy admitted, "I'm kind of still a fucked up kid myself, a lot of ways. But I try and maybe that's what they look for. Somebody who's willing to do that. But really, that's about all it takes, though if you've got a skill you can teach it's useful too." Then he paused. "London, huh? Sounds awesome."

"Hey, you're making yourself better, that's what counts right?" She had an idea of the work they needed to do. They might be able to extend the wifi to other buildings if the client was willing to pay for it, too, "It was. I spent two summers there. Its beautiful. I almost ended up living there but I couldn't deal with a mature relationship at the ti-fuck!"

She bit her lip hard enough to bleed.

"Hey, mature relationships and I don't get along either." Roy admitted. "The last time that I tried, well, okay, it's one of those on again, off again, we met when we got arrested stories that ends dysfunctionally with the occasional hookup every couple of mo...Oh shit I'm going to stop talking now too."

"You met when you got arrested?" Kitty laughed, "I'm not going to lie. We did a transatlantic booty call last year. I'm still ashamed of it. But Wisdom just has this way of getting my goat. I'm surprised he still wanted to talk to me after I bailed on him."

"I kind of left her in the cell that time too." Roy eyedarted. "But Cheshire's not the nicest...we were both screwed up streetkids then. Now we're just screwed up semi adults..." He shook his head. "I'm not going to pretend I'm exactly proud either.It just...happens."

"Do you love her?"

"What?" Roy asked, looking stunned suddenly, and kind of horrified. "No no no, it's not like that. We're more...semi friends with an agreement. Semi because with me on the right side of the law and her skirting around the outside of it, things get really tricky. I haven't ever really done the love thing."

Kitty grinned at him, "So you're fuck buddies with complicated emotional bullshit?"

"Pretty much. Of the anger sort more than anything else. Then again, that describes about, " Roy shrugged,"Seventy some percent of my relationships so there's that. ...This thing where I want to tell people the truth is kind of freeing."

Kitty smiled ruefully, "Yeah, it can be freeing, until you learn new and interesting things about yourself."

Pleasedon'taskpleasedon'task

"Ouch I bet." Roy wasn't going to ask because they were probably going to venture into more truth and that could get uncomfortable pretty fast. "Learning things about yourself can be kind of...awkward."

"Lets just say I need to make a stop somewhere on the way home." For naughty, naughty things. For research. Really. "Okay I have what I need and we'll email you guys the estimate, and our best layman's explaination for what needs to be done."

"Sounds good. I can pass the message along definitely." Roy should really be setting up for the next group of kids to pass through himself. "Hey, it was awesome meeting you."

She held out her hand, "Good luck, Roy. Keep up the good work. I really realize how good I've had it, when I see places like this." Maybe she'd donate something.

"So do I." Roy agreed, almost wistfully as he shook her hand.

She gathered up her things, and headed out of the ranch house. She put everything away in the saddle bags, and straddled her bike, glancing over towards the house for a bit, thoughtfully.

Roy waved as she pulled out, then turned to back out to the range. Talking to Kitty had been oddly...theraputic in a way a lot of things hadn't been lately. Maybe he should try this making friends his own age thing more often.

It had definitely been fun! Kitty pulled her helmet on, and rocketed away. The trip up had been relaxing times. The trip back was going to be 'risk life and limb' times.