fandomhigh | Driver's Education, Thursday, Period 1

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driver's ed

Driver's Education, Thursday, Period 1

"I think it's high time we got off this block, don't you?" Brian asked his students at the beginning of class, and then, without waiting for their answer, went on. "So, today you'll be racing through the streets of LA. They're conveniently empty for you, of course, and you'll be getting your course from the GPS mounted on your car's dash. For those of you who haven't seen one of these before, it will show you the next section of the course and alert you to upcoming turns. Now, if you miss a turn, it'll just reroute you and get you back on course, but, as always, if you crash, you go back to the starting line. Are there any question?" After a pause, he clapped his hands together and said, "Then let's get started."

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With freedom!

Ronan Lynch

Kira Yukimura

Garik Loran

Anders

Ada Miller

Kathy Li

Alex Mack

Thorin

Blue Sargent

Hanna Heller

Such as it be.

Thorin
Anna of Arendelle
Jalian d'Arsenette y ken Selvren
Alex Mack

Thorin did not listen to the strange voice in the car. Instead, he got terribly lost and... somehow ended up winning the race.

This would never happen again.

"I won?"

"Looks like you found a shortcut," Brian said.

He was as amazed as anyone.

If Thorin understood a fistbump, he would be offering one right now.

"And I didn't crash my car once."

Because he got lost instead.

"You're improving!" Brian said, perhaps too optimistically. "Way to go!"

Garik Loran
Blue Sargent
Anders
Ada Miller

Anders felt like he would have been okay on the roads, but he wasn't so okay with trying to drive and monitor the GPS at the same time. He crashed into a mailbox and a telephone poll before he got the hang of it.

Face quickly figured out that a GPS was kind of like having a really dumb astromech, and found he had very little trouble splitting his focus between it and the actual road ahead of him.

Which was good, because he kind of had a leadfoot when it came to speed.

This Gee-Pee-Ees thing was so NOT OKAY with Ada. It kept talking and not giving TIMELY directions and sounded weird, and eventually Ada started taking wrong turns just to spite it, but then it talked more.

FINE. She crashed -- on purpose -- to go back to the start, hit the damn thing's little squares and buttons until it quit talking, and then took her own sweet drive around LA. Heat? What heat? This was a victory lap to celebrate no nagging voices telling her how to drive.

Blue didn't do anything exciting, she just drove carefully and did her best to follow the GPS unit's instructions. It might have bored their teacher to tears, but it was enough for second, so she was happy.

Ezra Sagishi
Kira Yukimura
Kathy Hana Li
Ichabod Crane

Kira missed one of the turns - thanks GPS - but got herself back on track without too much trouble and, thankfully, without crashing.

Kathy was surprisingly weirded out by having the streets of LA empty of cars and pedestrians. Her hometown never looked like this. It sufficiently distracted her enough that she kept missing turns and slowing down randomly.

Spooky. Empty LA gave her the creeps.

Ronan Lynch
Gwen Stacy
Hanna Heller
Johnny Storm

Ronan hadn't been anywhere near the west coast but he didn't care either. Give him a fast car and some empty streets and he'd beat the hell out of you.

In racing that, is. But with fists, if that was your thing.

Once he got his GPS mounted and a path plotted out, he slammed his foot down on the gas and gunned it. Didn't surprise him at all when he crossed first and fastest.

"Turn left here," instructed Hanna's GPS. At one of the red lights, she tried to get it to work in German.

Unfortunately, that seemed to mess it up enough that she wound up on a few one-way streets going the wrong way. Ooops.

You can even independently explore virtual Los Angeles, as long as you don't mind the GPS telling you it's rerouting over and over.

"I wonder how accurate this is," Kathy mused aloud, looking at the familiar tangle of roads. "My neighborhood's not far that way." She pointed towards where Koreatown was located. "I wonder if my building's in the sim. It's pretty old."

Did she want to drive over there and see? Or would the creepiness of the otherwise empty city make a quick jaunt to her neighborhood unsettling as all heck?

"Want to drive over and look?" Anders offered. "I'd even tag along so you don't get lonely on your journey."

"You want a guided tour of the city?" Kathy offered, giving him a smile to try to offset the weirdness she was feeling. "You'll never get a better opportunity, since this is the only time the city won't be seven cars deep in traffic."

"One of the benefits of it being imaginary," Anders ventured, smiling back. "I'm up for it if you are. Do you think it's really the whole city? That would be massive."

"Probably not," Kathy said, because it would be huge. She slid behind the wheel of her car. Her city, she drove. Just made sense. "But, here's hoping Koreatown exists properly. If the sim takes it from something like GoogleEarth or whatever, my building will be here. It was built in, like, the 70s or something. It'll probably just be a facade, but you can at least see some of the places I go and visit when I'm home."

"A tour of Kathy's world," Anders said, and slid into the passenger side without complaining. "I'm not sure whether I should feel honored or scared."

"It's mostly the stock simulation for LA," Brian responded, "so it goes pretty far. I modified it a little, but mostly just the areas we're using. So I guess it depends on how close the sim or my LA is to your LA." The areas he'd altered were very accurate to his LA, though. Brian knew his streets.

"Please tell me your LA has a K-town," Kathy said, turning wide eyes up to Brian. "Because otherwise you are don't know what you're missing out on and you'll have simultaneously made this sim LA even weirder than it already is, all empty and echoing."

"Of course," Brian said. "And there's no traffic because I didn't want to give some of you more things to crash into."

"Oh, yeah, I figured that much, but still. An empty LA is just kinda...creepy." It made her think of half-remembered talks from that weekend of the future. "No tourists? No street artists? No one panhandling or cussing us out? It's just weird."

If you have any questions about GPS or anything else, he is here for you.

Once he pings in.

Ronan felt pretty damn fortunate to not feel any residual awkwardness in this class since he'd last seen his teacher when they'd both been female. It'd happened, it was over.

At least Brian had a pretty sweet car. That made up for a lot in Ronan's mind.

Feel free to mod your GPS unit's instructions.

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Driver's Education, Thursday, Period 1

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During the Lecture

Race Time! -- Heat 1

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Race Time! -- Heat 2

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Race Time! -- Heat 3

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Race Time! -- Heat 4

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Take Another Turn

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Talk to Brian

Talk to Ronan

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OOC