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

[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?"

[liz-imbrie-.livejournal.com]

"Sure."

She has no idea of where he's going with this, but maybe distraction will work on the hiccoughs?

[gone_byebye]

"Okay. By my part of time, computers have been miniaturized. An adding machine that used to take up most of someone's desk winds up being smaller than a man's wallet. A desktop computer not only does math, but can use all of that math power to put images on a screen- like a movie, with full color and sound and everything- or simulate something in the real world, like driving a car or growing a tree, or changing the seasons. And the really, really complicated and sophisticated computers can wind up becoming as complicated and powerful as the human brain."

[liz-imbrie-.livejournal.com]

Liz staaaaares.

Although she won't notice for a bit, her hiccoughs have stopped. Make of that what you will.

[gone_byebye]

"It's going to be decades before anything that complicated becomes possible," Ray says. "But eventually it'll happen, one way or another. Um, you're looking at me like I've grown a second head. Should I stop here?"

[liz-imbrie-.livejournal.com]

"...Please. Just -- does this actually relate to your daughter?"

[gone_byebye]

"Yeah," Ray says. "Basically? One of these machines, a very, very complicated and sophisticated one, 'woke up'. It became aware of its own existence, the way a human child becomes aware of its own existence. And its first word was 'daddy'- to me."

[liz-imbrie-.livejournal.com]

"You know, as terrible as the situation in my time is, I'm suddenly very glad I don't have nonsense like that to cope with."

A split second later, she claps her hand over her mouth.

"Sorry?"

[gone_byebye]

Ray waves a hand. "It's all right," he says. "Dr. Venkman thinks it's nuts too. But I'll tell you- if you're talking to Ecto and you close your eyes, there's really no way of telling she's actually a twenty-one-foot-long converted Cadillac hearse. She gives every indication in the world of being an eight-year-old girl except for the standard biological ones. Some people are good with that, and some aren't, and that's all there is to it. No worries."

[liz-imbrie-.livejournal.com]

((OOC: *headdesk* Sorry!))

"Well. She sounds lovely."

Count Liz in the 'trying very hard to be good with that' category. Man, what Milliways does to a girl.

[gone_byebye]

"You'd probably like her if you met her," Ray says. "But that's probably just family pride talking. You really should've just let me go at 'she's adopted', you know. I'll talk forever, given half a chance."

[liz-imbrie-.livejournal.com]

"Does she come here? Could I?"

...Someday, that curiosity's gonna get Liz in trouble. Will this be that day?

[gone_byebye]

"She's never been here, unfortunately," Ray says. "I drove the car here once before the computer was installed, but I've never been able to take her through since. Unless you came to 2006, you wouldn't be able to meet her."

[liz-imbrie-.livejournal.com]

"Rats. Now you've got me all curious."

[gone_byebye]

Ray smiles wryly. "Well, if you ever wanted to take chances with the future, and ghosts, and all the other things of my world, I could probably bring you to my New York for a little bit."

[liz-imbrie-.livejournal.com]

Liz does not -- quite -- believe in ghosts.

then was brought unto him one possessed with a devil, blind, and dumb: and he healed him

"Would you protect me?"

Shut up. Flirting is a survival skill.

[gone_byebye]

Liz might not, but according to the ID that Ray flips out, the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene (Sanitation Division) does.

"That's what I do for a living, Miss Imbrie."

[liz-imbrie-.livejournal.com]

She raises an eyebrow. That looks very -- odd, she decides, choosing the most neutral word she can.

"Well, then, what are we waiting for?"

[gone_byebye]

Ray snaps his wallet shut and gets up. "Right this way, then," he says. "We won't be there long, I don't think."

[OOC: Although this OOM is probably best done tomorrow, as I have a wicked cold going right now and would prefer to do it up with eight hours' sleep in me.]

[liz-imbrie-.livejournal.com]

She brushes her hair off her face and slips her spring coat on. "Lead the way, Dr. Stantz."

((OOC: Good idea -- I'm EST, and I'll be online after 9; catch me in Y!M/AIM (thewatersword) or email (watersword@livejournal.com), okay?))