maskormenacelogs | would you get to infinity or somewhere in that vicinity?

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would you get to infinity or somewhere in that vicinity?

WHO:Betty && (Cadel || Mitchel || OPEN)
WHERE: Maurtia Falls and De Chima
WHEN: First two thirds of May
WHAT: Computers and children (respectively?)
WARNINGS: None.

A. Maurtia Falls | Cadel Greeniaus's apt, for Cadel (closed).

Even without the backdrop of Maurtia Falls, the incongruity of a single child living alone is severe. It's only the second time Betty's been by Cadel's apartment and it still bothers her how austere... how sad it looks. There are signs of loving attention - she recognizes Bruce's notations on what must be a new white board, custom-built equipment and computer hardware, and always the computer itself - but the space is still as cold as a classroom before an eight a.m. exam.

Of course, that could also be the daunting behemoth of process-oriented programming in front of her. Encrypting with MATLAB was less useful but also less excruciating.

"Yes! It's compiling!" Instead of collapsing. From her spot on the floor, she passes her laptop up. "Check my code?"

B. De Chima | Community center, for Mitch (closed).

It was more than a week after Betty signed up for language classes and began dropping by the the community center regularly, and it gave her a pretty good idea of when she might run into Mr. Hundred there, having done it once or twice already. It meant that when she found herself mulling over her conversation with Jaime and the situation with Cadel, it was just easier catch him in the halls instead of making an appointment via text. That was more informal, wasn't it? ~~Less traceable?~~

"Ambassador, nothing dire, but are you free some time today or Tuesday afternoon?"

C. De Chima | Open.

For the first week of May, you can ask Betty about the resident ghost of double-o eight (spoilers: it was Daryl). For the following, she'll be preoccupied typing up loose ends with her assigned job, having given her two week's notice to hazmat R&D. If you'd like a starter, just throw me a line. Assumed CR is also fine.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Cadel is seated on his secondhand couch-- unstained and in good repair, at least; he does have standards, and is slowly acquiring marks of living around the apartment. It's his blinkers toward computing that lead his apartment to looking so sad and destitute, not any lack of self-care. He always has scrupulously good hygiene, even if he does eat more pizza and convenience store snacks than is healthy, and his clothes are boring and repetitive but fine.

In contrast, his computers (he definitely has multiple by now) are things of beauty, meticulous, well-kept, and humming along at soft, well-ventilated purrs. The steady background thrum of them is insanely comforting to Cadel, who'd never been allowed to live in an environment that had computers operating. His access to them has always been strictly controlled. That he can just wake up in the morning, roll over, and tug his laptop to him-- the casual network-browsing machine, of course, with its limited processing power-- has yet to wear off as shockingly liberating.

The novelty helps prevent him from thinking on all the things he's lost, instead. (Sonja Sonja Sonja... a litany through his thoughts, at times. Better than when he can't stop remembering Thaddeus.)

Betty is easy to tutor and doesn't seem to take it personally that a kid is so much better informed than her, although Cadel suspects half her motivation here is some kneejerk reaction to an unsupervised kid on his own. It's... okay, actually. Even if she cares for him abstractly rather than personally, most likely, following societal rules and conventions about caring for children. Cadel isn't used to being alone.

He has to set aside his own computer and uncurl one leg from under him, which he'd been sitting on, to reach down and take hers. "Sure." He scans the code readily. "You're getting better," he informs her, without the slightest hint of begrudging.

"Thanks. It's the sort, isn't it. It's too busy."

Betty has a lot of practice not being the smartest person in the room so she can appreciate a sincere assessment.

Cadel has a pretty decent grasp of her motivations. In some areas, he'd already demonstrated more competence and initiative than some people twice his age, but when she'd first insisted on regular meetings, it was out of moral obligation first and foremost; she would have done so for pretty much any other thirteen year old she caught in a similar situation.

It wouldn't have turned out this well, though.

Cadel's a sweet kid who's not at all boring and in fact, too clever by half, and Betty genuinely appreciates 1) his willingness to help, 2) his ability to help, and 3) that he's probably guessed their motivations and is still cooperating. As a teacher, his explanations sometimes skip essential steps, but he's incredible at picking up on and working in alternative ways of framing each task; already, they're well on their way to creating a code with which to discuss code, and it works.

Still musing, "Calling so many antibody objects," data spiders, "is redundant. If I can just figure out how to identify more than one antigen at a time," that is, identify and accept multiple data forms, "I could save on processing and sort more often. But it seems silly to make an identifier for the identifier."

Cadel is still a little baffled by just how this is going, but he's shy, too. He'd known that Sonja couldn't be unique, that she was a representative sample of a larger population, she couldn't be the only intelligent kind-hearted person out there who'd think he was worth getting to know rather than finding him deplorable... But he hadn't really expected to encounter them. Everything about being here has tossed his expectations on their head.

Coding is a lot easier to deal with, so he sticks to that as much as possible. Cadel knows where he is with objects and loops and computers grinding over processing. Making codes is also a familiar activity and so a relief-- even if biology isn't his area.

"It's not silly," he informs her. "It's a problem of specificity. Antibodies want to be very specific, so they can direct further immune response differently for each type of antigen they encounter. You want to do the same thing. You just need to write in if-then statements for your antibody rather than making a bunch of them. Here."

Cadel types in a line of code demonstrating what he means, nested under the data-finding function rather than listed separately, and then passes her computer back down to her.

Unconscious or deliberate, technical conversation is one way to remain engaged without committing to too much, and she pretty much uses it that way. Of course, as universities show, food is the other way. Betty accepts the explanation and the laptop, but the lines swim in front of her eyes and she sets it aside again, rubbing the bridge of her nose.

"I think I understand what you did, but this is starting to look like Cyrillic to me," she confesses. "I'm going to fix us up some lunch while my brain reboots. Want to lend a hand?"

As she climbs to her feet, she adds, "Are there ways to account for antigens that haven't been encountered yet? Say we wanted the antibody to learn a new data type?" Some sort of exception function maybe?

If Cadel doesn't have groceries or cookware, Betty probably brought her own and then left it here, making herself at home in his home with an uninvited and pushy sort of familiarity. While she doesn't see anything wrong with surviving off of pizza and snack foods - she's done it often enough herself - spending time with her housemates, and now with Cadel, makes her feel like she has to be a better adult role model. So there are probably going to be vegetables involved.

It's a good thing she'd brought something over, because while Cadel could certainly cook if he put his mind to it, he generally doesn't put his mind to it. Betty showing up with vegetables had reminded him for a moment of being absently and shrilly told to eat his vegetables if he was going to be fixing dinner for himself, and Cadel insisting veggie pizza counted...

The resulting mixture of resentment and betrayed loss is not something he tries to dwell on. It's uncomfortable, especially here, so far removed.

Cadel sets his computer aside on the couch, sending it into a sleep state with a gentle touch from his mind, one of the first things he'd learned how to do. Typing was actually harder than it seemed, more coordinated, and he was only gradually picking up speed with it. He pads in his socks after Betty over to the kitchen. "Maybe, if you can write ways to identify the input into the code, but it's not really efficient. You'll get things going in all the wrong directions if it's not just right, or really smart. For you it would be more hassle than to just manually add things."

After a moment's consideration he adds, "Just put in something so that it'll flag you if it encounters a new type."

"I can do that. I guess I'll have to build my own library, but in the end, there'll be a library I can reuse. Here, can you wash these?" She's probably moved on to dicing something. Honestly, this sort of thing slips her mind too, and by the time you're hungry, you just want something fast and easy.

If she stopped to consider it, Betty would feel like she's pretending to be the late Mrs. Ross. It turned out that adulthood was just one long stretch of faking-it-till-you-make-it, but the relationship she has with Cadel is still a first. She has a list of things not to do, and whatever she's seen in movies, but that's it. To be fair, she gets the feeling... he hasn't noticed.

"How's your thing coming along? You're messing around on the network, right?" That's a little advanced for her right now.

Cadel is the sort of person to prefer maximum accuracy over a more expedient, potentially slapdash workaround. It's what makes him a thoroughly effective hacker, but not necessarily someone that's easy to work with.

He takes the utensils from her and goes to wash them, having an odd moment where he tries to remember ever doing this with Lana and coming up absolutely blank. But then, she'd never cooked much, had she? She'd had her own family to go back to and take care of. He assumes. Cadel realizes he actually has no idea just what their real lives had been like, when they weren't pretending to care about him...

He wrenches his brain out of that train of thought. (He definitely hasn't noticed her own awkwardness.)

"Oh, uh, yeah. I'm setting up a crawler that'll notify me when certain words are mentioned, so if anything big goes down I can hear about it right away." This may or may be including words said in private conversations, which is what's taking him so long about it.

That would make him a good experimental scientist too. She catches the tail end of a dark thought passing by. (Possibly - Cadel isn't an easy read and she hasn't known him for that long.) She lets it go.

"So... sort of like what you're teaching me, but in an open system?" Since he seems willing to help, she'll enlist him as sous chef and hand off an egg and a bowl and a fork when he's finished with the utensils. "Have you ever taught anyone else before?"

It had been nice of him to offer when he'd seen her struggling, since it's not something she would have necessarily known to ask of him. It made her feel a little old, but face it Ross, you're sort of old. It had also been a surprise. He'd seemed a little cagey when they first met, and she'd... had expectations. And Cadel hadn't fit that profile in the end so maybe one of these days, he'll even tell her.

He shakes his head, hesitates a moment, and then attempts cracking the egg into the bowl as he's seen on TV. This results in his hands getting slimy and a few bits of egg shell falling in as well, which he then has to fish out with his fork before he can start whisking. But not before washing his hands.

"No. I was never really doing what anyone else was doing in class, so there was no one to teach. And then this year..." Helping each other hadn't been encouraged, he reflects darkly, feeling sad for a moment that he hadn't done more to help Gazo, who'd been a real friend in the end. However foolish he'd seemed for it at the time.

"This year was too crazy," he finishes.

"Oh?" She's paying attention, she's just also messing around with the stove, so no pressure. He's fine, the egg is fine, if they do this again - and she only knows how to make so many things, so they might - she figures he'll work it out.

Cadel masks his fidgeting with whisking the egg with his fork, staring down into the bowl.

"The school closed a little before I came here. Some people died; the police are investigating it." All public knowledge, that; not incriminating at all.

That's what it's there for. Or, at least that's why they usually have conversations while their hands are busy.

"That sounds pretty crazy. Were you okay?" She probably knows he went to a fancy university, and that's about it.

Mitchell Hundred, De Chima's ambassador and stalwart supporter of the community center -- which considering the fact that he'd started it, it was hardly surprising. He was often found in the community center, sometimes trying to instruct civics -- his mother would be damned proud -- or computers and electronics. Of course they'd get the guy who couldn't do more than actually talk to them to do something.

"Hm?" he turned his head, and looked at her on the approach. Thankfully, he was on his way out, not actually teaching a class. "I have time right now, if you'd like?"

"Yes, that's fine with me." She would have waited for his class to end or a better day, although she'd been putting it off for long enough was it was.

Right to business. "I'm wondering about the younger imPorts here. The ones I've met seem to be doing very well for themselves and I've been advised that this is usually the case," and okay, Jaime had probably been right there, "but in my world, the lack of child-focused support system would be untenable."

Her tone was non-confrontational, and her posture was relaxed, but this had clearly been rehearsed. You know how some people can get when compelled by a Moral Imperative. "I'm sure I can't have be the first person who's had concerns - I was wondering what people have tried in the past." An informational interview on logistics; this wasn't about motherhood or anything like that.

"Ah," oh boy, is what his tone really said. Of course, he was well aware of some of the concerns about younger imports. People brought them to him before, obviously, she certainly wasn't the first. People tended to...well. He certainly couldn't fault them for taking issue with young people being brought in. It wasn't ideal.

"Yeah, I've heard concerns before," he rubbed at the back of his neck. "We have Xaviers," he explained. As if that were enough. "School, but imports we're... oddly enough, it's been mostly community-driven, especially with the shared housing, these days."

It wasn't dire, but it was still pretty heavy. At least most of the imPorts Betty had spoken with seemed to have similar feelings concerns so it wasn't a cultural problem, as though her world was especially up-tight about kids; this one was just especially cavalier.

"Community-driven is good. More flexible, which I'm starting to see we'd need. But I doubt every kid is going to," be more mature than the average adult and equipped with reasonable superpowers," wind up in a safe situation. Has some sort of systematic safety net already been tried?"

"Not quite," he sighed, sadly. "It would involve a lot of working with CPS, which I'm sure you can imagine is a nightmare. We tried back in the City, but..."

But Mitchell's heart wasn't in it, and someone wanted him to do the legwork. He was a kid from New York, so he was alright with a little independence. Most of the kids here were mid to late teens, and they seemed to do...alright enough. Probably not great, but... "I've taken a few under my wing personally -- I'm not exactly a, uh, paternal kind of guy, but..."

Ahaha with his language? Probably not. "I can see myself doing that too," in spite of pretty much the same problem, "but it still depends on individual kids getting noticed in time. By decent people."

It wasn't as though she was especially invested in her career here; now more than ever, she could afford to pick up on said legwork. It was just. There were reasons she didn't involve herself with small humans in her past life.

"Even just some sort of... regular check-up on the under-fifteens in the community. Can you put me in touch with people?"

"I could try, yeah," he said, trying to consider who would be the best fit for that sort of thing. His head tipped.

"Let's see, there's Will Graham, he seems pretty invested in the kids..." or at least invested in being a good person. He paused. "And don't let his wife fool you, but April Ludgate cares a lot more than she lets on."

He paused, then. "I think the problem is that most of us...aren't really nurturing types, you know? As imports, we're not exactly born nurturers that get brought in."

That sounds like an excuse, Mr. Hundred. Unfortunately, it also sounded true, and like the opposite end of the same issue Jaime brought up. Unnurturing adults, autonomous kids. Maybe the two would cancel.

"We can worry about that when we find a kid without a support system," she said, "I guess for now I just want to figure out where to start. I'll look up Will and April, maybe we can get something going." She shrugged uncomfortably. "... Superheroes, right?"

"Yeah, go figure," he laughed, his voice just a touch bitter. He knew, of course, that people worried about it. He couldn't blame them. He also couldn't really find it in himself to care. It wasn't personal, or against the kids, but...

But really, he was a politician. He knew how to play pretend. "Yeah, Superheroes. We're kind of only good at very specific things, you know?"

And it was inconvenient. Betty genuinely cared, and she still found it inconvenient - resented, in a general way, that the infrastructure wasn't already in place. She'd opted out of this sort of thing once, prioritized her career, but she wasn't capable of walking away now and she resented that, too. Besides, what career?

"Too well. But there's not a lot that influence, resources, or money can't...at least help with. And it's not like I've been catching crooks." She took a half-step back, earnestness mostly dropped away. "I guess I'm an advocate now. Keep an ear out for me, would you? Unofficially?"

Hah, he liked her. She knew how things worked, at least, and Mitchell couldn't help but nod, in agreeance.

After all, someone who knew how things worked was always easier to work with, in the long run. He couldn't help but plant a hand on his hip. "If I hear anything, I'll send them directly to you. How about that? I think it's... good. To have people in on this. It's not something I can do personally, but having people who have a passion to do it... It means it'll get done, and quickly."

Passion for it. Yeah, that was probably technically what she had. And she could run a personal project on spite. It wouldn't be the first time.

"That would be helpful." A little more cheerfully, "It looks like I have my work cut out for me. And I can let you get back to yours. I'll message you if I have any other questions." Or requests, you know.

She had sought him out for information, but also for this, to make him aware of her position and to obtain his nominal support. So this was fine. At least there hadn't been a former system that had crashed and burned - or was that worse?

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

would you get to infinity or somewhere in that vicinity?

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