Danger Shop, Friday, Lunchtime

[bitten_notshy]

Jack had spent parts of the last few days paging through the Danger Shop manual Gibbs had given him. It wasn't instinctual -- it seemed to start from the premise that you'd used a computer in your life, for one -- but it was all a bunch of buttons to fiddle with, and he thought he had the gist of it, or could get it easily enough. Armed with that marginal knowledge and a bag of sandwiches and chips, he went to the Shop to wait for Valentine.

It would probably be better if they worked with the computer before they ate the chips.

[OOC: For one, please.]

Comments

[a-demosthenes.livejournal.com]

Valentine had plenty to help her get through the less-than-happy time that was PE class earlier that day, but it was nice to have a little something else to look forward to on this first day of it, as well. Fiddling around with computer stuff and hopefully being able to pass the knowledge onto Jack definitely would make up for her beautiful display of civilian grace in the obstacle course.

"Hey, Jack."

[bitten_notshy]

"Hey," Jack returned, glancing up easily from the manual. "I don't think we can break it, do you? Considering some of the instructors they let use it."

[a-demosthenes.livejournal.com]

Valentine chuckled a little. "Jack, really, that's not a criticism on the competence of some of our instructors here, is it?" she asked, although her tone made it pretty clear that she would probably agree with an assessment like that. Especially after her PE class. "If we manage to break it, I'll consider it an accomplishment."

[bitten_notshy]

"Not a criticism, although I'll note my criminal justice professor didn't know phones had email." Jack would let that statement rest there, figuring it would explain why the man was letting a boy from 1899 play with a very sensitive -- and, Jack figured, expensive -- piece of equipment.

He flashed a grin. "That would be one way to go down in school history, wouldn't it? We'd be the ones who ruined the danger shop."

[a-demosthenes.livejournal.com]

"Don't tempt me," Valentine said, grinning wryly back, "with such suggestions of infamy." As if she ever had much of a thing for infamy, anyway, the Eternal Other Wiggin. "It'd be just as easy to teach you how to destroy such technology as it would be to cultivate it. Actually, destroying it would be much easier."

[bitten_notshy]

"I think I could destroy it right now, all my myself," Jack volunteered. "Most things break if you kick them hard enough. Though that wouldn't be very interesting, as ways to earn infamy go."

[a-demosthenes.livejournal.com]

"Hardly the blaze of glory most people strive for, anyway," Valentine said. "Although I've always been a fan of subtlety myself."

She nodded toward the instruction manual. "What've you picked up so far from that?" she asked.

[bitten_notshy]

"It wouldn't be subtle to kick it in, either," Jack said, as he stood and took the few steps toward the console. "So breaking it fails on that count as well. And -- I'm not sure? I think I can tell where the on switch is. I may or may not understand anything that happens after I hit it."

[a-demosthenes.livejournal.com]

"Well," Valentine said with a grin, "that's as good a place to start as any if you ask me. Why don't you go ahead and switch it on. If it blows up, I guess you got that part wrong."

[bitten_notshy]

That got an amused version of a dirty look. "Do you have a bucket of water to douse the flames?" Jack queried as he hit the button ...

And watched the console peacefully beep to life. "Saved again."

[a-demosthenes.livejournal.com]

"For now," Valentine said, as ominously as one could manage for being amused. "And I saw a fire extinguisher in the corner over there; it's probably a safety violation if it wasn't there. But okay, the thing is on. Now we've just got to get you figuring out how to use it. Basically, the Danger Shop is just setting up sims, so we should just start with something extremely simple to simulate, and go from there."

[bitten_notshy]

"The manual says to start by simulating a bouncing ball," Jack said, after turning to smile at her for that amused/ominous tone. "So ...."

He mumbled a little to himself as he tried to walk through the first few screens. "Val? What does it want me to do, here?"

[a-demosthenes.livejournal.com]

Valentine grinned a little, watching as Jack fumbled through the first few things, and marveling a little at just how easy they'd managed to set something like this up. She knew her way around computers and programing, could do a little bit of hacking, so she had a worry that maybe sims might be beyond her reach, but they really had engineered the thing to be incredibly user friendly.

Just with the assumption that you were used to computer technology.

"Defining parameters, it looks like," she modded said after a moment of leaning in and having a better look, and she pointed toward something. "Look, you've got an option to just give it general instructions or you can specify them more. Naturally, the more data you can enter on what you want, the more stable and predictable the sim will be."

[bitten_notshy]

There was nothing naturally about it to Jack, but he could go with it. "It's like the difference between if I told an artist,'draw a cat' and if I said 'draw a gray cat asleep in a striped chair'," he said, trying to make sense of it all.

He tapped a few things, setting the size of the ball (small) the color (red) and the path (diagonal). And, quickly enough, a chute modded opened in the wall and out popped a solid ball that dribbled its way across the room before stopping against Jack's foot.

He picked it up.

"This is incredible."

[a-demosthenes.livejournal.com]

Valentine just sat back and let Jack piece his way through it, chuckling a little once he sent it through. "And that's just a ball, too," she offered.

She held up her hand, wiggling her fingers and little the quirk of her eyebrow make the request for him to toss it her way.

[bitten_notshy]

"I know, but I made it out of nothing."

Probably not quite out of nothing, but it hadn't been there, and now it was, tossed in a neat arc toward Valentine's hands.

[a-demosthenes.livejournal.com]

The neat arc was appreciated, as it meant Valentine caught it easily and she gave it a little squeeze as she inspected it. And then she dropped it toward the floor, getting it to bounce back, and smiled in approval. "Not bad at all," she said, tossing it back toward him. "You're a natural, Jack."

[bitten_notshy]

He snagged the ball out of the air one-handed. "Why, thank you. I should see if I can get it to do anything a little more complicated..."

Bending his head over the console, he paged through the screens until he found one that controlled the danger shop as a whole. "I think this is all pre-designed. Forest, city or mountaintop?"

[a-demosthenes.livejournal.com]

"Mountaintop," Valentine decided with a grin. "I don't have enough mountaintops in my life."

[bitten_notshy]

"We'll be cold," was all Jack said as he fiddled with the controls. "Still. A picnic on a fake mountaintop ... there are worse ways to spend an hour."

[a-demosthenes.livejournal.com]

"Can't we enter in some coats for ourselves?" Valentine said with a grin that made it clear that if he didn't want to get into that quite yet, she'd gladly do it for them.

[bitten_notshy]

Which was good, because he had no idea how to get the premade setting and the coats at the same time.

"... you get to do that part," Jack decided gratefully. "Just so you have some practice too, of course."

[a-demosthenes.livejournal.com]

"Of course," Valentine said, leaning in toward the console herself. "So long as you watch and see how I do it and try to take at least something from it. I expect you to learn at least sleeves."

[bitten_notshy]

"At least sleeves?" Jack asked, as he stepped out of the way while hovering close enough to see what she would do. "That's not too useful. Just gloves, perhaps."

[a-demosthenes.livejournal.com]

"Just gloves, then," Valentine agreed, taking a second to orient herself and then idly going through the process of putting together the gloves for the sim, explaining how she was doing it as she went along and then, there were gloves.

A bit like playing God, really.

Which meant Valentine could get pretty used to this kind of thing.