milliways_bar | (no subject)

Some minutes later, a teenage girl in a neon blue-and-orange coverall comes up to Dave with a milkshake in one hand and his thumb drive in the other. YT described herself to him last time they talked on T-Minus, so he might put two and two together.

"Yo," she says. "It's YT. You know, rapidRadish. I got that thing you sent me."

She can't listen to it yet, as her computer is at home.

"nice. part two of what i owe in trade still upcoming i gotta get myself a new computer maybe alchemize some turntables

"the shit i gave you is older but it's not bad"

He briefly looks her up and down, taking in her stance and outfit.

"you want some pizza

"did i even actually tell you my name"

"Dave Strider. You kind of mentioned it last time we talked, like, in a third-person sense," YT says, sitting down across from him.

In terms of physical stature, YT is a small person. But what she lacks in size she makes up for in 'tude, something that's evident even in casual conversation.

"So long as the pizza doesn't have ham or anchovies on it, sure. If you want a milkshake, it's my treat."

Edited (Missed closing quotation marks) 2016-07-30 20:30 (UTC)

"okay cool"

Dave is still not great at the 'introducing himself properly' part of bringing online friendships into real life thing.

Or good at any sort of polite conversation, really...

"sounds like this deal is in my favor since anchovies are fucking gross and ham also doesn't belong near my pizza"

This particular pizza includes pepperoni, sausage, mushrooms, and hot peppers.

That's okay. YT can't really do polite conversation either. Even doing non-prickly conversation is sometimes a stretch.

YT picks up one of the slices and takes a bite. "You know," she says, her mouth half-full, "most of the pizza delivery where I come from is handled by Cosa Nostra. They have, like, this thing, where you get your pie within thirty minutes of making your order or it's free. People used to argue with the driver all the time about their pizza being late, even though it wasn't - you know, it was all bullshit. So they did a lot of research into it and then they put digital countdown clocks on the pizza boxes."

Dave shakes his head. "too easy to change" he says.

"you'd need something there's no way anyone can manipulate before jackasses would stop arguing about free pizza. maybe you could stamp the time it came out of the oven on the crust."

"They might've considered that. But the countdown clock thing is part of this, like, system, with the computers in the franchises and the RAM in the delivery vehicles," YT says. "I don't know this stuff too well, but my pod Hiro, he's a hacker, and he says you'd have to get physical access to manipulate the clock. Lot of trouble for a free pizza, even if you also get a trip to Sicily."

And you can bet the Mafia's cybersecurity division checks that shit carefully. The risk-reward ratio for hacking the pizza delivery system is not that good.

"that does sound like more trouble than it's worth. unless you were a pizza vampire. the only thing you can eat is pizza. but unlike the classy as shit vampires who drink blood and live in mansions you live in a trailer park and have to steal pizza to survive."

Dave nods and devours another half a slice.

"what's a pod"

"Partner. We were business partners. Turned out to be a good thing for both of us."

As in, they saved the world and made a lot of money doing it.

"Now Hiro's started his own company and Mom works for him. Or with him. He's not real big on hierarchy."

It's nice, though. YT's mom has a job that she enjoys where she's respected and valued by the people she works for. Not like when she had that shitty Fed job.