milliways_bar | (no subject)

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Bob enters and walks up to the Bar. "Bar? A plate of chips and a glass of Ray's Green Stuff, please."

They appear... and so does a very familiar book.

"Not again... look, tell Foxtrot I'm flattered, but I don't want it, okay?"

The Kitsune Sutra stays where it is.

"Seriously. Just delete it or give it to someone else or something. I don't care."

The book stubbornly refuses to go away.

After a moment's thought, Bob picks up his food and goes to sit at the other end of the Bar.

The book disappears and reappears at his new seat.

Bob cringes and makes a strangled noise of frustration in the back of his throat. Then he sighs, turns, and proceeds to eat his meal, pointedly not looking at the unwanted gift.

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"Hey, Bob," says Ray, sitting down at a nearby stool. "Book still after you, huh?"

"Don't remind me. Bar won't let me get rid of it for some reason."

"Probably because Foxtrot and the Bar occasioanlly share a sense of humor," Ray says. "As long as you find it embarrassing or weird, he's going to keep pressing Bar to keep giving it to you. I've got something of an idea of his personality by now considering he seems to think I'm his God."

"Figures. This is like something Mike or Hex would... wait, he thinks you're his what?"

Ray just pinches the bridge of his nose. "Foxtrot decided that the reason I've had so many different entities- human and nonhuman alike- ask me if I'm a god is because I am, and he's founded a whole religion on it. Even though I"m not," he adds hastily.

Bob has only a vague idea of what a god is, and the concept of religion is completely foreign to him. Hence the blank look Ray's getting now.

Ray thinks for a bit.

"The equivalent would be 'are you the root user on this system, with the power and authority to not only do things to the programs and data contained therein but also add or remove other users from the system altogether'."

Egon speaks Linux. Sometimes that rubs off.

"But... you are a User."

Bob can be a bit dense, sometimes.

"Bob?" Ray says. "The Users created the computers and original programs, right? Who created the Users?"

(Who Writes The Code?)

"So..." Bob says slowly, trying to process this, "you're saying that 'gods' are to you what Users are to us?"

"Pretty much," Ray says. "And they're as different and varied among themselves and what they're capable of as humans are among each other, or even as you guys are. But yeah."

"And Foxtrot thinks you're one of them."

A beat.

"That is weird."

"So's Foxtrot," says Ray in a resigned tone. "I can't get him to let the idea go, so I'm playing along with it as far as I can. He's only going to come up with something weirder otherwise."

Bob smirks. "Yeah, I can see that. I have to deal with Hex that way sometimes."

"You may want to consider applying the same logic to this," Ray says, indicating the book. "I can't guarantee anything, but I suspect that as long as you're reacting badly to it..."

"But what am I supposed to do? I can't take it back with me, if Dot finds it she'll blow a circuit..."

"Let him see you reading it-" Ray holds up a hand to forestall any further protests. "Let him see you reading it, but stick another book inside. A skinny one so the book doesn't look weird if you have to close it in a hurry. Read the other book instead, if you want to avoid glowing purple."

"O...kayyyy."

Bob's still not too thrilled with the idea of being seen reading the Kitsune Sutra. But if it keeps Foxtrot from bothering him...

"It's either that or find a way to distract him," Ray says. "And while he's a little easily distracted at times, it's not always that simple."

"...I guess you're right." He looks like a man who's just been condemned to the gallows.

"If I thought it would work, I'd offer to take the book off your hands," Ray says. "I know someone who might be interested."

Bob raises an eyebrow. "I'm probably gonna regret asking this, but... who?"

"She's not from Earth. She's not even human, although she looks it."

An observant sprite might note that Ray's sort of pinking around the edges.

"Her name's Romana."

Yes, Bob has noticed.

"Are you two... together?'

"We're going to be getting married sometime in the next five years or so," Ray says, managing to stop the spread of the color. "In the meantime, she's a far-ranging scholar of all kinds of subjects, and whether she's on her planet or mine she's always looking for new and really unusual reading material."

... although how he said that with a straight face is beyond the narration's imagining.