[GP/EP] We are programmed to receive

[st_alksthroughwalls]

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.

Comments

Re: Assigned Threads

[st_illcounts]

"The hells!" Johnny couldn't stop the word from forming if he'd tried. "I'll take the temporary fix. And you're saying what, that we're cut off from everyone and everything?" Which at the moment was not a bad thing for him, but hells if he would accept it. It was one thing to take off so what he'd done didn't touch Dutch it was another to be taken.

Re: Assigned Threads

[st_ereoscopic]

"Let me grab a couple of beers and I'll be right back." She didn't want to tell him the answer to that question without a beer handy for him. It didn't take her long to get the bottles and return. "Here you go and yes, that's what it means. At least for the time being, we haven't figured out a way to reverse whatever it was."

Re: Assigned Threads

[st_illcounts]

"See? News is never good when you preface it with, it needs a beer." Johnny took a really long drink out of the bottle. "This just proves my point, but it does help and I'm going to guess from your reaction earlier there aren't AIs to help with this."

Re: Assigned Threads

[st_ereoscopic]

"No, but that would be so cool if we did. Sorry about this, but we're kind of stuck in 1990s Earth." Abby said sympathetically and pointed toward what she'd been working on. "Stuff like this. it's not very advanced. I mean for it's time sure, but now, not so much."

Re: Assigned Threads

[st_illcounts]

Johnny felt the muscles in his hand go slack and he almost dropped the bottle. He'd heard about Earth but in an ancient astronomy class that he'd failed. What the hells is this? He looked into her eyes to see if she was lying or crazy or both but didn't see any indication of it.

"1990s? That's ..." John was having a hard time wrapping his head around that. "A very long time ago for me." Was all that he could get out.

Re: Assigned Threads

[st_ereoscopic]

Abby could see the shock and reached out to pat his arm. "I know, it's a lot to take in. And if I had to go back a long time I would have freaked out way more than you're doing. But on the bright side at least we have indoor plumbing and technology, such as it is."

Re: Assigned Threads

[st_illcounts]

John looked over to the 'tech' in question, he decided it would be the perfect excuse to get his mind off his recent troubles as well as the situation he was in. At least until he could do his own investigating.

"Want some help with it?"

Re: Assigned Threads

[st_ereoscopic]

"Sure! I always can use some help." Abby knew what he was doing. It was why she'd decided to try to do more with the modem. Busy hands, busy minds. She handed over a few of the parts for him to work on, too.

Re: Assigned Threads

[st_illcounts]

Johnny looked a little confused as he took the offered technology but then it didn't take long to be absorbed in the configurations. She wasn't kidding when she'd said they were from a long time ago.