fandomhigh | Camp Shenanigans, Wednesday, June 5, 2019

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summer games

Camp Shenanigans, Wednesday, June 5, 2019

"Good morning!" Anakin blared through the microphone. "An essential skill of a camper is the ability to feed yourself over a campfire--BEAKER, GET AWAY FROM THE CAMPFIRES."

There was slightly charred sounding apologetic meeping as Beaker moved away from one of the two campfires that had been carefully set up in the park. There were rickety looking folding tables arranged nearby the fires with cutting boards, knives, bowls, and other ~~moddable~~ kitchen items nearby. There was, however, no power. Everything would have to be chopped and grated and opened from a can by hand.

"Today, you will be paired up and asked to feature one of two different sets of menu items," Anakin continued. "And then you will present them to our esteemed panel of judges: Summer, Hannibal, Peebee, and Vette." He pointed to the judges. "Your meal must be cooked over the campfire. We have an array of other ingredients--" he pointed to a pantry and set of mini fridges that Beaker was now standing near, so expect that to spontaneously fall over any minute now, "--for you to use to supplement your original ingredients, but you must use the three ingredients we give you." He took a deep breath. "Please don't give the judges food poisoning, and remember that presentation matters. Listen for your names!"

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One moment, Nina was playing—okay, trying to hack into someone else's system, but that was playing if you squinted and tilted your head just right—the next moment her phone was…

Was…

"OHMYGOSHWHATHAPPENED?!?!?!?!??!?!??!??!?!?!?!!"

She was not even sorry for her breaking anyone's eardrums.

She was too busy staring in absolute horror at her phone. Which had, like, totally bricked itself.

Well. That made it easy. Hardison hadn't expected quite that level of reaction, but there wasn't really any doubt about who he was looking for, now was there?

"Hey," he drawled, ambling over. "Yo, everythin' okay over here? You seem upset."

"My phone died!!!!!!!!!!!!!" she wailed. Nina was, yes, going to wave that phone in his direction, for extra emphasis. It was probably the pinkest, most blinged out phone he'd ever seen, too.

It was, like, nice of random stranger man to come see if she was okay, but she was so not okay with this.

"It was all, like, oh my gosh DELETE and then it was all oh my gosh DEAD and—"

Shit. Shitshitshitshitwhat if she'd lost everything.

"I need what's on here!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

"You know, I'm pretty good at fixin' phones an' things," Hardison said easily. "If you want, I could check it out? See if I can't get it workin' again? I mean, what's the worst that could happen, right? It's already pretty bricked."

Don't oversell the con, Hardison.

Yeaaaaaaaaaaah.

Nina was dramatic but she wasn't stupid and, really, now that she thought about it suspicious helpful stranger coming over to help her right when she needed it, because her phone was bricked..................

"You!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! You did this, didn't you??????????????!!!!!!!!!!!!! Oh my gosh, how could you??!?!?!?!??!"

Even if he wasn't the one who'd done it, Nina would have said the same thing.

"Easiest way to figure out who was the person I was trackin'," Hardison said, motioning for her phone. "I mean, I coulda done some Hollywood nonsense where I talk to you through it an' have you meet me somewhere, but that just seems creepy. This worked."

Beat.

"If you wanna be a hacker, you need to have better safeguards. An' maybe don't use the same machine for hackin' as you keep your Instagram account."

"My Instagram account is a national treasure," Nina muttered, since that was, clearly, the most salient point to address first. Clearly.

"You could have, like, just called!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" she protested, looking genuinely distressed as she considered her phone. "And can you fix this?????????? Some of it's actually important!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I don't know how to safeguard my stuff, I'm just learning!!!!!!!!!"

"Of course I can fix it," Hardison said, gesturing for the phone once again. "That's hacker rule number one. 'Don't do somethin' if you don't know how to undo it.' I safeguarded your stuff even before I pretended to crash your phone. Been rude not to."

"And it wasn't rude to crash my phone??????????" she said, though now she sounded more amused than outraged as she handed her phone over.

Enjoy the bling, Hardison.

"What did you do to it???????? How did you do it???????" And yes, she was going to sidle over to see if she could watch him fix it.

"Big words from someone who's been messin' around my systems, tryna break in," Hardison said, giving her a sideways smile, while he pulled down his overriding program. "You think I wouldn't notice, little baby-hacker?"

"No one else noticed!!!!!!!!!!" Which was both truth and rather sad, given that she'd been hacking into Noctis' phone across the multiverse and he was a prince.

But then, given the state of his bedroom, he was sort of a terrible prince.

"Though, like, no one else was giving me so many problems either!!!!!!!!!"

"Course not," Hardison said, with the simplicity of truth. "I've been a hacker for longer'n you been alive. An' I'm one of the best there is."

Not a brag. Just truth.

He handed her phone back, working perfectly now.

"So you ain't just tryna get through my defenses, then?"

He'd wondered, but if she was mentioning others...

And she was going to cradle that phone protectively now. Yes, darling, it was fine. It was fine, you were all better…

"Noooooo," she said, figuring that admitting that much at this point was really not a risk, like, at all. "Like, at first it started as a game????????????? One of my friends kept saying that he'd introduce me to his friends back home but then never followed through on that, so I decided I'd try to figure out if I could contact his friends without his help. And I got their info without him or them knowing, but since it'd be totally weird to say anything, I didn't actually contact them until, like, he had… like, he needed to go hang with them, after a rough weekend here……….????????????????"

She shrugged a little.

"Then, like, after that, it was fun, so I kept seeing what I could do. And now it's still fun, but I have to get good at it too, because I don't think I'm going to get the information I need to……………. to help someone without being able to do it really good. So you were the hardest to get through on the island so, like, I kept coming back because if I can't get through your stuff, then I'm not good enough at all......."

"Not the worst reason I ever heard," Hardison said. "I was mostly bored when I got into hackin'. An' hey, you can't be upset about not gettin' through my defenses, you're untrained an' I been doin' this for decades now."

Okay, two, but that was pretty much forever in internet years.

"But I noticed you. You got through enough that I had to come out here an' try to figure out who was pokin' at my stuff. An' that ain't nothin'. It's more than I've had to do yet."

He leaned back, ultra-casual. "Seems like if you really wanna do somethin' with this, what you need is a teacher."

Nina considered all of that.

"Are you, like, offering???????????????" she ventured, after a few moments. "Like, what would be in it for you?????????????"

Because Nina was seeing all the good sides to this for her, but not so much for him.

"Well, for one thing, I can stop worryin' about who's tryna break into my system," Hardison said wryly.

Look, he had a lot of sensitive stuff on there, including all of Leverage's old and potential clients.

"For another, I know exactly what kinda trouble a baby hacker can get into. Next person you run up against could brick your phone for real an' use the info they get off it to boot. Seems messed up to let that happen."

Nina grimaced. Joking about her Insta aside, there were things on her phone she definitely didn't want to lose.

"It would, like, be totally cruel of you to let that happen to me," she said earnestly, looking as harmless as she could.

Which was pretty harmless.

"What would it cost me????????????"

"I mean, I could also just tell you to take this as a lesson an' stop," Hardison said, amused. "An' then if you don't listen, that's on you."

He wouldn't. He was just pointing out that maaaaaybe she wanted to lay off the 'his responsibility' thing a bit.

"You feel better if you had to pay?" he asked. "I wasn't gonna charge, but if it's a Pride thing you got goin' on here, I could come up with somethin'."

Nina's grin was entirely unrepentant, even as she took his meaning. What? It wasn't like he was Grumpy Bus Guy, who Nina delighted in obliviousing at. So, like, fine. Fiiiiiiiiiiiine, she'd stop blaming him for it.

At least, for a little bit.

"Well, like, it just feels more official if there's a transactional aspect," Nina mused, considering him. "Like, even when we stole Grumpy Bus Guy's office from him, we made a contract that we wouldn't, like, destroy the art on the walls and would let him know if any future shenanigans were going to involve him……………"

Kanan had called all three of the Drama Diamonds to his office for a talk. It had gone well, but not in his favour.

But hey, new digs for them!

"So, like, I'm Nina, at your service??????????? I'm totally great at researching, magic, and getting into places I'm, like, not supposed to be and knowing things I'm not supposed to know," she said cheerfully. "And I'm better at those things when it's not online because, like, I only found out online was a thing a year ago. It doesn't exist in my world!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

A beat.

"I'm also really, really good at hitting things and making them stay down," she added. "So, like, any of that likely to be helpful for you?????????????"

Hardison couldn't help but laugh. "I'm Hardison," he said. "Of Leverage, Inc. Unfortunately, my partners got there first; Parker's our infiltration specialist, Eliot's our hitter, an' I'm research an' computers."

To put it simply. And leaving out a host of other things.

"Looks like this is gonna be less you payin' me for lessons an' more an apprenticeship. I'mma teach you how to hack an' you're gonna use what I teach you to do a bunch of the stuff I feel like puttin' on your plate instead. How's that sound?"

Nina had to take a moment to wrestle down the near breathtaking stab of envy she felt at the idea of having a team, not having to know and do everything herself, of working alone because that was just the way it was.

She had the Diamonds now, but that was here, not—

"One question," she said, since it was a priceless gift this man was offering her and she wanted it. "I might get called home to do work now and then. Is that, like, going to be a problem with what you want to give me???????????????"

Considering Hardison wouldn't even be charging if it hadn't made her feel better?

"Nah," he said. "Most of the stuff is either portable, or it won't be time-sensitive. I'll let you know if there's somethin' I need you to do by a specific time."

He entered a few things in on the keyboard and suddenly there was a folder on Nina's phone with a list of names of restaurants in New Orleans. "Here," he said, "get me whatever you can on these restaurants. See what you can dig up beyond just a Google search. Sound good?"

Most peoples' reactions was probably not going to be 'hell yeah, homework!' but Nina was delighted.

"You got it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" she chirped, beaming up at him. "Oh my gosh, thank you so much!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

"Yo, you're welcome, Nina," Hardison said with a smile. "Just...stop tryna break through my stuff, would ya?"

He sincerely doubted she actually would. He wouldn't have, at her age.

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Camp Shenanigans, Wednesday, June 5, 2019

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