fandomhigh | Computer Lab, Thursday morning

Jak nodded along - he'd found it fine, thanks - then went through the process of digging through his pocket looking for the list. Which he did find, eventually, even if it now had a hole in at least one place, and a spiderweb of crazy folds running all over, fudging up some of the details.

He came closer, smacking the paper firmly down on the scanner in what he was confident was the right way around (it wasn't) and grinned at her.

Dinah grinned, and carefully turned the paper around and over, then shut the lid. "Got it." She hit the button, and waited for the light to get done, the opened up the file on the computer and sat down. "See?"

Of course, with the holes, folds, and and smudges across it, there was no way the computer could make sense of it at the moment. Dinah grabbed the mouse and started clicking and zapping extra lines. "This is the mouse," she moved it around in a circle, "Um. No one knows why it's called that." She grinned at him. "But it helps me do stuff on here." Clickety-zap! "Professor Atreides suggested that maybe you'd want flash-cards. Of stuff you say a lot, or answers to questions people ask you about, aside from the one you have with your name and the talking explanation. You think?"

He'd pulled his hand up and away from the paper when she'd moved for it. Now, he was leaning over to see what she was pointing out. And leaning more, to get a good picture of the screen. And leaning more. And-- okay, that was strictly more leaning than absolutely necessary, Jak.

Although at least that way she could totally see him nodding at the suggestion. Flash-cards, right! ... he'd have to let her do the typing, though. He frowned at the screen.

Clickety-zap! They were getting a lot closer to a comprehensible document now. Dinah looked up and involuntarily 'eep'd' at the personal space invasion, blinking at him, then stifled a giggle of nerves at Jak's proximity. Which was dumb, because he was someone she wasn't actually too worried about touching. She waited a second, then said, "Um. You want me to move out of the way?"

Jak blinked (which wasn't exactly an unusual thing for him) and shot her a curious look. What? No, uh, where did she get that idea-- oh. Right. He pulled back abruptly, rubbing the back of his head, and looking sheepish. He gestured with the other hand. No, no, just. Uh. Keep going.

"It's okay, I just didn't want to be in your way!" Um. "I can move," Dinah said, sliding her rolling chair sideways, hoping she hadn't discouraged him, face warming. "Look. See? It's a keyboard. Too bad we can't get you one with Sandover symbols on it." The alphabet sheet was almost cleaned up now, with the rows of 26 symbols from his language, then the Roman alphabet. "You want to try?"

No, no, seriously, she was awesome whre she was--

Aaand then she wasn't there anymore. Oh well. Jak was going to cover that up by bending over the indicated keyboard, one finger hovering over it. Samos had been pretty big on telling him not to touch random Precursor artifacts - not that Jak ever listened - but this didn't look Precursor.

And hey, she was telling him to. So he reached over, and tapped the squiggly key that looked like the symbol for the first letter of his name.

Dinah grinned, and leaned closer to him again to hit the 'a' key. Then pointed across him to the 'k'. "Jak." ja appeared on the screen so far, just below the cleaned-up alphabet.

Unlike Merlin or Firekeeper, he didn't seem to surprised by any of this stuff; curious, but not hugely overwhelmed, which was good.

Edited 2009-09-10 16:52 (UTC)

Hey, these things worked out a little differently when you were from a civilisation that manged to combine bamboo huts with complicated Precursor blue eco grids for electricity and a veritable bounty of godlike machinery just stashed around where anyone could run into it.

His finger hovered a little more. He frowned. The other one looked like-- okay, there. He tapped the 'k', and grinned. Looked back at her. He was going to get it in no time!

Stroke his ego. Stroooke it.

Giggling at the smug, Dinah elbowed Jak and said, "Yeah, yeah. You're a genius. You don't need me here." She grinned at him and pointed at the 'Print Screen' button. "That one to print out a copy on paper."

Jak elbowed her back - that worked, unlike the leaning, which had just been-- okay, Jak was smooth, okay? He nodded again and poked at the mouse. Buttons. Okay. He could do that whole buttons thing.

He was frowning in concentration, but the mouse did not seem to be doing what he wanted.

Leaning over to see what was happening, Dinah said, "You need to push the buttons on the mouse-- here." She got up to stand behind him, and put her hand over his, clicking her finger down on the left-hand button. Okay, looming now, but, how else was she going to show him? Right?

Right. That was totally logic. Logic-logic. He glanced down at her hand, grinned, glanced up at her, and then quickly plastered his eyes back on the screen. Click. Something changed on the screen, a big grey... thing with a lot of letters on it.

And something that looked kind of like the printer. So now what? he thought, at her, as best as he could. It was kind of a thrill - idle conversation was something that didn't happen to him a lot.

Or at all.

"This one," Dinah said, moving the mouse and his hand around in a circle again, and making the arrow hit the PRINT button on the print-screen. The screech-growl of the printer started up, and she grinned at him. "Yay copy!" She grinned at him, wondering if he actually needed flash cards. They seemed to do okay without them. Um.

She let go of his hand to grab the paper with the Sandover-to-Roman alpahbet from the printer and sit down to show it to him. "We can make a lot more of these, or stick this one in the laminator over there, to cover it with plastic so it can't get ripped or torn as easily. It'll make it stiff, but it'll last longer?"

That was... probably... a little dirty. Dinah was just lucky that Jak's sense of humor, while sophomoric, wasn't bad enough to make him snigger, but he did pull an amused expression before shoving that one down deep.

He turned to get a better look of it. It really did look like an exact reproduction. He looked duly impressed for about .3 seconds, which was as much as he managed to muster for any kind of Precursor technology unless it had bright colours or exploded or something.

But the plastic thing sounded good. He did have trouble with his pockets. So he nodded.

Yeah, Dinah was just as glad that he hadn't snickered at her for that. "Cool!" She bopped over to the laminator and stuck the paper in the slot, hit the button, then bopped back over to Jak while the machine did its thing. "Right. Okay. Want me to type out stuff you want on little cards we can laminate? Just to go faster?"

She typed as she said aloud, "Hi, my name is Jak, I have difficulty speaking." She grinned. "We should print out one that says 'Thanks, Jono' while we're at it."

Jak shrugged, leaning back a little so he could prop up his (yes, shoeless) feet. Would he really have to thank Jono that much?

"Well, maybe not." Dinah shrugged, then grinned and resisted the urge to tap at his feet. For about thirty seconds. They were right there! She would do the same to Tahiri!

"Okay, so, how about, a 'Where is?' card, and you can spell out what you want on the sheet?" The laminated sheet was done now, and Dinah slid over to take it out of the machine and show it to him. "And ... hmm. Not sure what else...?" She gave him a questioning look as she handed over the sheet.

Jak's toes, for the record, wiggled once they'd been tapped, and he grinned up at her.

Then he affectd a thoughtful expression. Um. What would be important to know? Oh, right. He pointed at the laminated sheet, one letter at a time. 'I M G O O D'. There. People kept asking him about that. 'C L A S S--'

Okay, this was going to take some time.

Dinah typed out I'm good and then tilted her head. She bit her lip, and offered her hand, fingers wiggling. "Short cut?"

He snagged her fingers gratefully. And maybe a little smugly, but hush. Classes were awesome, he said, What are your classes? ... You guys like to talk about classes. Pause. A distinct sense that no, that last one wasn't one.

Dinah giggled, then moved his hand up to her elbow so she could keep typing and talking to him at the same time. We do. It's either that or the latest invasion or weirdness. Sometimes food. She typed up the first two sentences and asked aloud, "What else? And hey, what are your classes?"

Uhhhh. Punching People for Fun and Profit, Jak ponied up, And Physical Films.

Clearly, Samos had thought it would be better for everyone involved if Jak kept his body occupied so that he wouldn't get any ideas of using it somewhere else.

Dinah snickered. Isn't Mr. Dex's hair awesome? she sent, typing away. "My friend Priestly met the punching-things teacher. Didn't like him very much," she noted. The mix between inside-talking and outside-talking probably had to do with her having to concentrate on typing at the same time. It was nice that Jak was comfy enough with this that she didn't have to worry about it, a thought she kept to herself. "The teacher insulted his hair." I'm on a hair tangent. I guess. What do you think of him?

Jak shrugged a little. There were films, it's physical, he said, And everyone's way too upset about the uniforms. They're cool, I guess.

Yeah, a wordsmith, he wasn't. He eyed the screen for a while, trying to think of something else. Which wasn't that he had a hand on the girl's arm. Nope. Not thinking of that at all.

How about 'Let's grab a bite to eat'?

"Hate the uniforms, but I only had one class where I had to wear them. They make me look like a stork," Dinah said absently, typing, I'm from Sandover, it's awesome, before starting to type Let's get a bite to eat, and spontaneously thinking, And now I'm hungry.

There was a pause.

Lunch? he offered. Uh, the cafetaria's got some. If you want to go, later.

He'd work his way up. Just you see.

A mental stutter-stop there, then a recovery of, Sure! Don't scare him shouting in his brain, Dinah. "Sorry if I get loud," she apologized. "I don't get to think at people who'll think back very often." She rolled her eyes, then grinned. Anything else?

Jak shrugged. Smooth, smooth. Hotdogs, he said, wisely. I mean, it'd be good to, uh, know the way to some. Pause. And no Red Bull.

"No?" Dinah gave him a mock-tragic look, then grinned. Professor Atreides said 'no' too. She said it's no wonder we need to meditate with that stuff in our veins.

Which way to the hot dogs? got added on, and then Dinah saved the sheet, and printed it. "We can cut these up and laminate them too, so they're easier to carry around in your pockets," she offered. "And I can show you how all this works some other time. If you want." Not wanting to be pushy. Unless you want to figure it out yourself?

You're the expert, he said, and combined that with a shameless grin. He wasn't going to think about Keira now, because he had no clue what was going on there and, well, he was here now, right?

He wriggled his toes again.

"Sooo okay. I'll show you s'more later." Dinah beamed back at him, and flicked one toe with her fingers before getting up, and disengaging his hand. "C'mon, Newbie. Let's get you set up to be a card-carrying ninja, maybe get you a keyring for all these. Ooo!"

She sat back down and typed out, Ask me how fast I can run. Really! before hitting print again.

... Heeey.

He held up his newly-laminated card. He looked at the screen. He held it up again.

Faster than anyone in this joint, he announced. Uhhh.

Rolling her eyes, Dinah said, "Yeah, yeah," even as she grinned. "I want to get you and Zack in a race. Then we'll see how true that is." She grabbed the last sheet and stuck it in the laminator, before looking back at the computer. "By the way, you can play games on this, or look for news of the world, or watch TV... it's pretty flexible. Any of that stuff sound good now?" Before we get food?

The first one! The first one, he crowed, as soon as he realised about the whole, you know, communication deal. Not used to talking! It happened. Show me. We can grab something later.

Dinah blinked, then laughed, and sat down, putting his hand back on her elbow with hardly a blush, and said, "Okay, this little symbol takes you to the Games already on the computer...." Click! "And here's a list, um, card games, Minesweeper, that one's good for eating your brain..." She went through the list with little mental pictures of each attached, Scrabble, Bejeweld, Pac-man...

... Heey, he kind of recognised that last one! Pac-man was, well. It wasn't named Pac-man. But he'd seen inscriptions of that!

... The Precursors were kind of special, although at this stage in his life, Jak had no idea how special. He mentally gestured repeatedly at it.

"That one?" Dinah said in surprise, then clicked on it, and looked around for the game controls. "Here's the controls, your hands go there, and you push this button here when you're ready..." She grinned. You've played this before?

Computer Lab, Thursday morning

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