Millitimed to sometime after the thing with k_in_black.

[gone_byebye]

Ray comes in from New York City, rubbing at his face tiredly with one hand. He's got a sheaf of papers in one hand, and he looks as if he could use a drink; what the Bar gives him, however, is his usual green stuff and a plate of dinner. He nods and touches the bar briefly with his Visa card.

"Thank you, Bar, I appreciate it."

That having been done, he scoops up his receipt and goes looking for a place to sit.

Comments

[precocioustilda.livejournal.com]

Matilda has never seen anything like that green stuff before. A small child's rampant curiosity prompts her to investigate.

Investigation, in this case, means getting as close as she can without feeling impolite and then staring at the aforementioned stuff.

[gone_byebye]

Ray happens to glance down as the small child approaches. "Can I help you?" he asks. He doesn't sound particularly put out or annoyed- it's just a question, after all.

[precocioustilda.livejournal.com]

Point at the mysterious liquid. "I'm just wondering what that stuff is. I've never seen it before." Beware the power of the Cute.

[gone_byebye]

"Oh, well-" Ray looks at the glass. "I"ve never taken it home for analysis, to tell you the truth, but the first time I got it, I'd asked Bar to give me something completely artificial, non-alcoholic, non-toxic to standard baseline Terran humanity, and mildly stimulant. This is what I got."

It's dark green, fizzy, faintly opalescent, and occasionally gives the impression of moving of its own accord.

"I myself tend to enjoy it, but an orangutang had some and he passed out. And Lockheed the dragon had some and got so drunk he was calling me his best friend by the end of two or three gulps."

[precocioustilda.livejournal.com]

"Hmm. Sounds interesting. I've never given her a request that open-ended before, although I have asked for foods I didn't think existed... did you know that deep-fried pancakes are very yummy?"

Struck by impulse, she gives the glass of stuff another look and attempts levitating some of it out of the glass for closer inspection.

[gone_byebye]

"Deep-fried anything is-"

Ray stops, watching the stuff rise into the air, and pulls a meter from his belt. He's got the two red sensor arms out and the whole device pointing at the phenomenon before you can say 'boo'.

[precocioustilda.livejournal.com]

Heck if the mun knows whether Matilda's power is PKE or not. If it is it's probably a very odd sort.

Matilda doesn't notice the meter, occupied as she is with the green stuff. An idea occurs to her and, giggling, she tries to concentrate on making the blob change shape.
Her inital attempts to make a snowman out of it fail spectacularly, but she does manage a sort of distended starfish that could, at a stretch, be taken to represent a human being.

[gone_byebye]

Ray's picked up on the use of the Force with the PKE meter, although admittedly the Force is at the very limits of what the meter can perceive. And it's picked up on magic, too, and canonically on Great Cthulhu. It's probably picking up something.

Ray watches the numbers scroll and change, then whistles and puts the meter away. "Nice work," he says. "How are you doing that?"

[precocioustilda.livejournal.com]

She deposits her little green man from Bar back into his glass with a plop.

"I do it with my eyes," she says with a serious air. "I look at something, and this terrific fountain of some kind of power comes out, and I can make things move around. I've never done it to liquid stuff before, though. It's a bit slippery, but kind of fun." She turns back to the glass and raises up the little green man again, making him do a brief and awkward little dance in the air before repatriating him. "See? Fun!"

[gone_byebye]

"Funky," Ray says approvingly. "It's only your eyes that do it? You can't just make it happen by thinking about it with your eyes closed? I mean, not that it's not pretty neat as it is- my name's Ray Stantz, by the way- but I'm just wondering, here. I had a friend who used to be able to move things by thinking about them, but he hasn't got that power any more."

[precocioustilda.livejournal.com]

"Nice to meet you, Ray. I'm Matilda Wormwood." She produces her second-best adorable grin, the very best one being reserved for things relating to academia and possibly food.

"And yes - only with my eyes. I don't know why, but that's where the power comes from."

[gone_byebye]

"Very funky. I don't think I've ever heard of anything like it, but that doesn't necessarily mean anything other than a lack of similar cases in the literature back home. Sit if you want- you can play with the soda some more if you like, as long as I get to drink it in the end." He smiles. "Are you here with your parents?"

[precocioustilda.livejournal.com]

"Thanks!" She lifts out the little green man and makes him do his little green dance a few inches above the nearest flat surface of appropriate height - perhaps a tabletop or the arm of a chair. It seems to provide endless amusement. And as a bonus, she's left two-thirds of the substance for Ray to drink while she plays with the remaining third.

"No, I'm not here with my parents. Or anybody else, really. I haven't yet been able to convince my adoptive mother to come along, and now I'm Bound, so even if I wanted to bring along anyone from home I couldn't."

[liz-imbrie-.livejournal.com]

"Evening, Dr. Stan -- hic."

[gone_byebye]

"Hi, Liz," says Ray, who could have SWORN he tagged this one already. "HOw's it going?"

[liz-imbrie-.livejournal.com]

OMG if LJ would let me reply via email that would be AWESOME PLZKTHNX.

"Pretty well," Liz says. "Spring fixes everything, even still being -- hic -- employed. You?"

[gone_byebye]

"Doing all right, I guess," Ray says. "I got to go home after being stuck riding herd on a friend here for two months, so I've been spending a lot of time with my daughter. Um, have you just got the hiccups, or is this the result of some kind of celebration or something?"

[liz-imbrie-.livejournal.com]

"Sounds lovely," she says. "I didn't know you had a daughter."

Her gaze is unfocused for a moment, wistful, before she shakes herself.

"Just the hiccoughs, I'm afraid, nothing very exciting. Haven't been fired yet. You wouldn't happen to know a cure? The sugar cube under the tongue didn't work."

[gone_byebye]

"It's a long story. She's sort of adopted." Easier than explaining about sentient machines, he figures.

"For not being fired? Oh. Um, I used to have some success with the breath-holding method, but you had to push down with all your muscles when you felt another hiccup about to strike."

[liz-imbrie-.livejournal.com]

She raises an eyebrow. "Long stories are fairly ordinary around here," she points out.

"Well, if you know a way to get fired, I'd love to hear it, but yes, I did mean for the -- hic."

She drops her head into her hands. "I can't anticipate them," she mumbles. "Ouch."

[gone_byebye]

"Okay, then," says Ray. "Do you know what computers are?"

Start small, work up.

"Unfortunately the only way I know of to get fired is to fail to produce results. I got drummed out of Columbia University for failure to publish..."

He sighs. "Okay, that's not going to work. I know that having someone scare you whenyou're not anticipating it works for Egon, but people very rarely appreciate that approach."

[liz-imbrie-.livejournal.com]

"No."

She makes a face. "If that tab notification sign didn't startle me, I doubt anything will."

[gone_byebye]

Ray winces, but nods. "Okay," he says. "So much for that idea."

"All right. Um... Computers are... um. You've worked with adding machines, right?"

[liz-imbrie-.livejournal.com]

Dr. -- hic -- Stantz. I am a photographer. A painter. I avoid numbers like the plague."

[gone_byebye]

"Well, you're aware of their existence, anyway?" Ray says. "A computer is sort of like an immensely, immensely complicated adding machine. If you took every adding machine in the United States of America and rigged them all together so that they could do really, really big mathematical calculations, you'd have a very primitive sort of ccomputer. Still with me?"