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...^♫

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"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."

"Either. We just gotta stop the User from winning. So we can destroy it, or we can win the Game first. Sometimes it's easier one way or the other. Sometimes only one of 'em works, like in fighting Games, deleting the User is winning."

"What do you mean by destroy it? Like, the actual program?"

Somehow that doesn't make sense, computers are supposed to help people.

"Huh? No, the User. The User's avatar, really. The thing they're playing as in the Game."

"Oh, alright, I thought you were trying to take out the whole thing or something, that didn't make much sense. So what do sprites do for fun...do you get free time from the academy?"

"Sure! There's evenings free, once we get our homework done, and spare cycles every second. 'Cept I can't go out much right now 'cause I got in trouble and I've got KP, so I gotta be on campus for meals even during spare cycles. So I can't leave long enough for jetball or anything, which bytes. But I can still read comic bytes and play pool in the dorm lounge and watch movie files if no one's using the media player."

Of course, only his roommates and a couple of their friends will hang out with him right now. But he'd rather not go into that.

Enzo doesn't have to go into that. He can talk about jetball instead.

"Jetball?" Alex gives a knowing smile. "KP sucks...trust me I know."

"Oh, jetball's awesome! Here, look..."

He twiddles the icon on his chest, and a shimmer runs down the length of his body; as it passes, his outfit changes. The new clothes are royal blue, with shiny gold trim, and feature some interesting and rather bulky accessories in matching gold.

"See, this is my jetball gear. You fly around with the jetpack, and you try to get the energy-ball in your opponent's goal. You catch it with the scoop here, and the tube sends it over to the shooter on your other hand."

"So it's kinda like...I almost want to say a mix between hockey and team handball," Alex says. "How'd you get your clothes to change like that?"

He's seen magic before and the unexplainable but that was not magic, at least not any type he's seen before.

"Kinda, but it's one-on-one." You learn a lot of User sports from the Games, too.

"They're stored in my icon." He fiddles with it again, and is back in his cadet uniform.

"Got it," he nods a little bit as he thinks on that and watches the switch back to the cadet wear. "That's cool, jetpacks. We don't have those, people have built them but they're nowhere near what I'm assuming your tech is."

"Yeah, I heard you don't fly much 'cept in planes. We don't use jetpacks much, really. They're kinda silly; we've got other ways to fly. Most people have zipboards, but I got a boogie baud for my birthday. Jetpacks're better for the game, though."

No, the mun doesn't know why. Shut up.

This mun won't ask. :D

"Yeah, we drive mostly, cars and stuff and use planes if we have to get from country to country, or over really long distances, they're the fastest way to get around." Alex nods at the guitar. "So how long have you been playing?"

Quick mental conversion for radically differing timescales... "Almost five months. Tommy gave it to me for my birthday."

"I never learned. Well, I messed around when I was in high school but never actually learned anything that didn't sound like crud."

Alex at least watches his language.

Sprites have different obscenities, but that wouldn't stop a curious child from picking up new ones, so good call.

"It's good for killing time." While holed up in your room, wallowing in self-pity and avoiding the rest of the student body. "And it's pretty fun. I just wish I could reach! My hands're gonna be huge, why can't they start now?"

Alex chuckles quietly. "Even for sprites it takes awhile to grow up, I bet, soon enough it'll be the right size. Maybe the Bar could lend you a smaller one, though? Until that happens."

"Maybe. Prob'ly not for home, though. I wonder if I could get this one compressed?"

"Who knows she can do a lot of things," Alex is so wrapped up in the fact that this kid is a computer program of sorts something sinks in a minute later. "You guys have like, set growth...or upgrades..." he tries his hand at guessing the term. "For how big you're gonna get?"

"Sure, don't you?"

"Well, generally, I mean we don't know exactly how tall we're going to get but it's in our genes. You can tell?"