strangetrip | [GP/EP] We are programmed to receive

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[GP/EP] We are programmed to receive

Fifteen days into this particular strange trip, Kitty had redistributed alcohol supplies between the cafe, restaurant, and night club to make it possible to easily tend bar wherever people decided to gather. Today, as most days, she settled into the lobby cafe after chivvying the cook into chicken tenders and french fries (after convincing him it was a single plate meal). It was the closest she could get to "bar food" from him and someone would probably arrive sooner rather than later to make something else.

A few people trickled in after awhile, but none of them demanding. Like her, they drank coffee from the samovar she'd put out. And also like her, most of them had something else to keep them occupied. At the moment, Kitty had a notebook open (from the gift shop; she kept her school notebooks separate in case she made it home during the term) and was sketching plans to upgrade the hotel's computer technology. She needed more raw computing power to work out the energy requirements to do what Illyana did with a thought.

She lifted her head periodically to check for new customers, and had just seated herself at the end of the bar after refilling the samovar when the first new new customer arrived. Immediately, she flipped to a fresh page in the notebook and headed it "Day 15" and made a hash mark for one new arrival. Then she looked up from her notebook and offered one and all her best bartending smile.

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"Guilty as charged," Kitty replied and shot the other woman a broad smile. "Trying to design a Beowulf cluster that won't frag the early 90s hardware." She lifted her chin at the other woman. "What're you working on?" If she was stuck, Kitty could probably help, and maybe they could work together.

"Trying to make the dial up to be wifi so more people can have access to it. But I'm not having much luck with getting parts that I can use. Man I will never take my computers for granted again." Abby said with an eye to what the other girl was working on. "What if we Frankensteined something for the Beowulf? A little bit of old and a little bit of new so that it wouldn't be such a shock to the system. Like my friend, Gibbs. You have to ease him to the twentieth century."

Yes, Abby did mean 20th for Gibbs.

Kitty laughed at her description of her friend Gibbs as something kluged together. "I've met a few like that myself."

She paused for a slug of coffee while she considered the proposal the Goth woman had made. "Frankensteining is where I started. The problem is that I don't have enough transitional pieces to make the handshake less rude. Although..." Excitement flashed in her eyes as it occurred to her. "VCR, DVD, Pay Per View. Parts and systems to cannibalize. And we can probably hijack the PPV systems to create a LAN. Wifi... we might be better off just building from scratch."

The excitement that flashed in her eyes were mirrored in Abby's as she followed that trail of thinking. "Oh yeah, that should work. There's got to be a lot of empty rooms and storage areas that we can pilfer for this stuff. Man, I knew I'd miss my lab while I'm here but I really miss my lab on stuff like this."

There were so many bits and parts that she could have used, but it would have killed her to cannibalize it, but she would have.

"Lab?" Kitty perked up visibly, even from her already obviously excited state. "What kind?" Not that it really mattered since they didn't have access to either of their labs at the moment, but geek-bonding. "I'm Kitty, by the way."

"Abby." She responded with her name. "I'm a Forensic scientist with NCIS and man my lab is sweet." Abby grinned, "I'm biased, I'll admit, but it is sweet. I have everything I need but my baby is my mass spectrometer."

"Forensics are so cool!" Kitty knew a little bit (most people's a lot) about most of the sciences, but forensics was one she'd never really gotten a chance to study. "Quantum mechanics and computer engineering are what I'm studying at school, but only because I had to specialize. With my lab and your lab, I bet we could get out of here in no time."

"Ooh, my friend Tim studied computer engineering. He would be able to figure a way to get a signal out." She realized how that sounded and held up her hands, "not that you couldn't. I mean studying both you definitely could, just that our minds together, yours and mine should come up with it, too. I work well with computer engineers." Abby smiled slightly, "okay, I'll shut up now before I really put my foot in it."

About halfway through Abby talking, Kitty started laughing and by the time she finished, Kitty had collapsed into a fit of giggles. It felt amazing to laugh like that, even if she knew it was probably a little manic. Especially since by the time she pulled it together she actually had to wipe her eyes she'd laughed so hard.

"Sorry," she said around another laugh. "I've just been there. I'm sure your friend Tim's a great guy and no offense taken. Does he work with you at NCIS?" That was Naval Criminal Investigation Service, she thought, and it made sense with Abby a forensic scientist.

Abby couldn't help smiling along with Kitty's laughter. It was contagious and it did feel good to have a little lightness. ""Yeah, he does. We've been working together a long time. I'm good with computers, but Tim, Tim is magical. Uh, not literally though it might seem like that sometimes."

"Magic and computers don't tend to get along very well." Kitty said it so evenly, Abby would be forgiven for thinking she wasn't serious. It probably sounded like a joke. "The last time that happened, it almost crashed a flying stealth platform."

Abby was about to make a smart comment but stopped. There were a couple of people that she knew in the hotel could do magic and not Houdini magic but real stuff. So why not try the two together? It made sense as did why it wouldn't work. Theoretically.

"What about a bridge between the two? Magic is just enhanced physics or another form of science. So we just have to figure out a way for them to talk to each other without it shorting out wires with all the energy. There's a couple of people here that are magical, maybe they've done the same thing in their world."

If there were computers in their magical worlds.

"So far, I haven't been able to manage it." Even though Kitty could wield Yana's Soulsword, which meant she had some sensitivity to at least her magic. "But magic's weird in my world. More--" How was she going to explain this without literally demonizing Yana? "--uh, I guess more like faith than physics? What I've seen of it tends to be personal, needing a specific individual to trigger and use it, which makes for an interesting challenge."

She grinned, lopsided and then shrugged. "I've never met a challenge I wouldn't take, so I'm game."

Abby liked her enthusiasm, it matched her own and that was rare, even with McGee. "Me, too! I love challenges, which is probably obvious with the forensic scientist. We should talk to people that are magical here and see what their magic is like." Her brow furrowed as she thought on the fly, "but we should find out if magic works different here. Or heck even science. You know I've been under the assumption that our rules of science is the same here but if this is a different reality, world, whatever it might be maybe it's opposites or just slightly off."

"I've done some small experiments. Basic gravity tests and kitchen chemistry. So far so good. I'm worried about changes on the quantum level, though. Things we don't have the equipment to detect, let alone test. Asking the magical people is a good idea. They're likely to know more quickly if their magic is behaving oddly."

She gave Abby a lopsided grin. "It's really cool to talk to another polymath. Usually I get stuck with trying to explain everything outside my friends' primary fields."

"I really wish I had even just a microscope." Abby said wistfully and then she returned Kitty's grin before continuing. "Yeah, it is nice not to have to explain some things, but I'll apologize in advance if I start doing it. I do it so often at work that it's second nature." Sometimes she did it outside of work, too but Abby chalked that up to habit.

"Same. Just kick me and I'll quit it." It really was nice that if she had to be trapped in a pink hotel, at least the company seemed pretty cool. "I should probably make the rounds and see if anyone needs anything. You wanna make a plan to meet up again later or tomorrow?" Not like she had anything else important to do.

"Sounds good to me and yeah I should do the same. Make sure the new ones aren't as freaked as they were when they first arrived." She smiled slightly and rose from her seat. "It was great meeting you, Kitty. I definitely look forward to more conversations like these."

"Yeah. Me too." Kitty gave a thousand-watt smile and slid down the bar to help the cute guy who looked like he could use a drink. "Thanks for helping with the new arrivals, too."

"Anytime." Abby said with a wave and headed in her own direction, back to the project and someone else that looked a little shell shocked.

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[GP/EP] We are programmed to receive

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