fandomhigh | Computer Lab, Thursday morning

Computer Lab, Thursday morning

Dinah was currently surfing the web while waiting for Jak, who she'd left a message for on his answering machine about what time to meet. The scanner was warming up, and right now, she was typing up a few phrases.

Hi, my name is Jak, I have difficulty speaking.

Where is the Men's Room?

Did I just see that? Whoa.

Actually, most of that Jak seemed to get across just fine without words, but hey. You never knew.

[for the guy with the ears who doesn't wear shoes, to narrow it down.]

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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?

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Computer Lab, Thursday morning

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