milliways_bar | (no subject)

Current Music: "Beastie" by Jethro Tull

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It was difficult sneaking the guitar into the utility tunnels without attracting comment, especially since the most convenient entrance is via the restroom off the student lounge, but Enzo managed it. He's on a sofa now, trying out some of the sheet music Tommy gave him for Christmas. Happily, he's gotten a lot of practice recently, and his voice is decent enough, so no one's ears are actually likely to bleed.

^♫From early days of infancy,
Through trembling years of youth,
Long murky middle age
And final hours long in the tooth...^♫

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Alex laughs. "I'm not makin' fun of you for it, I think it's cool. Everybody should have a lady friend."

"Yeah, but... I mean... she's not, but..." He smiles faintly.

"You're a little young, at least...you look a little young."

*sigh* "Yeah, I know. But there's a girl at school who had a crush on me--" he looks a bit uncomfortable at this statement "--so I guess I'm old enough. ...but Dani might not think so. She's like two and a half years older than me." Another nasty thought occurs to him, and he looks alarmed. "Except she's really not. What if she thinks I'm too old for her?"

"Well if it's someone you're going to school with then you've got to be close to the same age. Are you talking about the girl at your school or Dani thinking you're too old?"

Maybe sprites have shorter life spans or something.

"Pretty close, yeah, but the Academy goes up to almost grown-ups. But I mean Dani. See, she looks like she's thirteen, but really she's only like a year old. But I'm really only half a day old 'cause sprites live a lot faster than humans... I don't even know which of us is older!" he cries.

"Well as long as you guys are both happy I don't see what the problem is, you know? Age is relative anyways."

"It's gotta be," Enzo agrees. "Otherwise we couldn't even talk to each other. Milliways fixes a lot."

"And with all the timelines that come in here? There can't just be one you have to follow. It would screw everyone up."

Not to mention some people might be dead and some not born yet...yeah not thinking about that.

"Yeah, and get this! My world's made of electricity, and we can't even go into matter worlds, Bob tried and he got hurt real bad, and humans can't come into cyberspace, but we can both be here just fine! Unless we try to eat each other's food."

"So what is it that you do eat, then? I mean...do they have certain food just for sprites?"

"Sure. Bar does great piezoelectric pizza." Yes, he actually just said that.

Cue a few blinks of surprise. "Huh. Well she does have everything so...huh. That's interesting. I've never heard of that...and I've heard about a lot."

"Well, they prob'ly don't have it in matter worlds," Enzo says reasonably. "An' my world's almost the only one I've heard of here that isn't matter. Anyway, that's the big thing with the food, we can't eat matter and you can't eat energy. It gets kinda zappy. There's a couple things we can both eat, but I think it's Milliways stuff."

Which, of course, explains everything.

Milliways is the best excuse and most logical explanation for everything, really.

"That makes sense, actually. I wouldn't think that I could eat energy without getting shocked, and it's not like someone who is energy would have the ability to eat solid food."

A beat. "So you're in school?"

"Not just school, the Guardian Academy! That's my format, Guardian. We're intersystem security programs. Our function's to mend and defend."

...says the apparent ten-year-old, puffing up his chest.

"So against viruses and stuff?"

That's what Alex would think a program would need to defend against. This is absolutely interesting to him. Little people inside the computer.

"Uh-huh! And system errors, and hackers, and Games..."

"You have to fight against games? I thought games didn't hurt computers."

That part confuses him a little.

"I know," says Enzo, suddenly solemn. "I don't think Users would play them, if they knew. That was scary, finding that out."

"Yeah I don't think we would. Most of the work I do isn't games though, a lot of research. I'm a...an art dealer."

"Oh? What kind? I don't really know User art." He doesn't know much art, period, but Dot's got some businesses dealing with it. Dot's got businesses dealing with everything.

"Ancient art, lot of statues and relics, sort of like, a treasure hunter but I do more selling and buying of the art for people than actually going out and finding the stuff. I have a friend who's more of the type to get out there. You've got to travel a lot."

"Neat! Actually, that sounds kinda like a Game Dot told me about. Something with the User raiding some tomb. She said there was a lot of fancy stuff in it."

"Yeah, you get to see a lot of really interesting things," Alex agrees. "I like it." Plus it pays well.

"So if the User decides to play the game, do you just have to try and beat the User or beat the game itself? Some of those games are pretty hard."