[ closed ] I wanna touch the edge of greatness

[lyingheart]

WHO: Annie Leonhart & Houka "Senpai" Inumuta
WHERE: Nonah, NC, Residence #001
WHEN: Prior to Starscream's epic failures on 6/25 & 6/26.
WHAT: The end result of 4AM challenges issued by telephone. Maybe it's cryptography lessons, maybe it's one hell of a big nerd trying to teach Annie about "computers and life and junk." So long as she calls him senpai.
WARNINGS: None shall be suffered to surrender aka none as of now, will update should that change.

[ Annie tapped her pencil eraser on her paper, taking a moment to again admire the fact whole books of blank papers could be purchased for relatively low costs with an ease that's astounding. Paper was so widespread and common, everyone might have it; places gave it away, people handed out samples of paper, and people threw it away like it was nothing.

Paper. Of all the countless things that awe her in this world, paper was one of the nice, tangible, easy to hold ones that she enjoys. This piece happens to be strewn with the calculations for various molarities, but she's being methodical, and it's all starting to make a sense that she retains.

In this subject. History's turning out to be heartbreaking as well as head-breaking, biology has a twisted sort of fascination when she looks deeper into the systems that all work in tandem to create the magic of life as we know it, technology is that mystery she tries to hold off on, and...

Right. She pushes back from the table, stretching her arms over her head and walking out into the front room. There's a television there, draped over with a sheet. She doesn't like seeing the big blank surface there, like some gaping eye that goes nowhere. Technology ties in with that guy heading on over. She's wary of Houka Inumuta for the things he could do, as either evidence in his rash attempts with the government files earlier on, or his rather arrogant, presumptive manner about the value and worth of skills in this world they're all living in.

She can have patience. If he's insufferable, she'll find a way to suffer through, and learn in spite of him. What she learns will be up for debate. She'll also learn all that she can from him in direct interactions. Annie has a better read on people when she sees them than she does through the technologies that seem so omnipresent in this world.

Still, when there's someone at the door that doesn't have a key to turn the lock, Annie leaves off stretching her arms to walk over and peer out the nearby window. There aren't any guarantees. Connie has surprised her out there before, Eren has promised to confront her at some point, and Armin's just insane enough he might try the same, just to get at Reiner or Bertholdt. Who knows if Wally might show up again, or if she might find one of Reiner's friends standing in wait. Even others that she knew. It's almost a relief to see a shock of blue hair instead of any of the other possible variables. (The sad day when someone explains that on other worlds, strange to her hair colors are actually, totally, one hundred percent real...)

Answering the door, dressed in jeans and a loose fitting hoodie, Annie is the picture of the five foot even sixteen year old teenaged girl next door that you never really paid much attention to, outside of probably noting at one point that boy, she sure has a Roman profile. ]

Please don't tell me you ran here.

[ That's... not a standard greeting, and she knows it, stepping to the side to stop barring the entrance at the door. ]

Welcome to Nonah. Make yourself at home.

[ In this house that the government built. Things might be spartan throughout, the kitchen clearly used if mostly kept neat, and the kitchen table in a state of mostly organized stacks of textbooks and notebooks and pencils and erasers and a waterglass (real glass!) or two, but it's roomy, and it's a house, and she can appreciate that the bedrooms are all upstairs. Makes the downstairs much more the business end of the whole place.

She keeps her expression neutral, her tone conversational, adding one ridiculous, meaningless (to her) word: ]

Senpai.

Comments

[databoner]

[A very sparse apartment indeed. He knows that few Imports live on their own, although he's sure she doesn't, given the quick look around he has before he steps too far into the building. Of course, someone is always at his apartment, at some point or another. Ever since joining Satsuki's team, he's always had the presence of someone around, even if it was just in another nearby room. Seeing a place this organized and clean feels a little... uncomfortable. Sterile. But maybe that's just how Annie liked it.

Annie herself was also a little different in person than what he had expected. She was careful- had never put her face on the network, and that, he could appreciate. All he had to judge her by was her voice, which can account for a few things, but never gave away as much as one's facial expressions could. He's not really sure what to think of her, other than that she looks very... foreign, to him. As strange as he must seem to her, really. She might notice he's wearing the same outfit as he always does- the same jacket complete with wires and studs, the same white pants- it's not like he wouldn't prefer to wear something easy and simple as a hoodie and jeans, but it's more important that he sticks with this, for now.

A few steps into the apartment, and he's looking over his shoulder back to her. Senpai. She really doesn't know what that means, does she? Well, he's not exactly planning on telling, either.]

Ran? Why would I do that? I'm on time, aren't I?

[And running without the proper clothes for it means getting even more sweaty in the summer heat. No thanks.]

Thank you for your welcome. Where are you working?

[lyingheart]

[ It's funny how unintentionally what he wears reminds her of her own uniform. White pants, wires instead of belts and cables, but a uniform less than a fashion statement. (She understood fashion statements even less than the rest.) The consistency with which he wears what he's in now tips the scales further in favor of a uniform - she's not sure what it means. Like most of what she doesn't know, it makes her cautious.

Legacy like with the man called Venom, or active and functional part of something else... he's talked about a leader, before, and another flashy person involved with his group has appeared on network. They're a small, organized force, and that's enough to pay attention. More so if the questions that woman on network posed came down to any particularly firm and fast stances for them all as a group.

Yet that's all secondary; she doesn't plan on being more than peripherally involved. That's a safe enough place to be, as long as she looks after her own interests as well. It's an uncluttered assessment, as uncluttered as these public spaces, and about as misleading. They were all less organized souls beneath the surface of their presentations, but surfaces were where most people stopped looking.

She barely notes the sterility of things around her. She's too used to it being the others around her who make a place seem lived in. Annie doesn't respond with his timeliness, or why she asked about running in the first place. Modern people have strange habits. She was just checking. ]

In the kitchen. [ Saying such, she walks, barefoot, crossing the wood floor. She likes this better than the carpet stuff she's run into elsewhere. Wood she knows how to clean. ] It had the most table space.

[ Impinged on table space, as becomes apparent once in the relatively open kitchen. Annie leans over the table to grab the glasses there, nodding her head to the pushed in chairs. Only hers is pulled back from the table. ]

I'll probably have to start staying within my own room. Are you thirsty?

[ It's a polite offer, made as she pours the remains of the glasses in hand into the windowsill herb garden starting to grow. She's slowly picking up on household manners around here. It's not far off from being a decent host back home, excepting the fact she'd never acted as a hostess, and had mostly been hosted in military barracks. Not quite the same sense of hospitality there. ]

[databoner]

I am, actually. If you have any sort of tea...

[Breaking the nerd stereotype for a moment, preferring tea over some energy drink of soda beverage. Water's fine too, of course, but tea does amazing things for one's sanity. At least to him.

He takes a seat at the kitchen table where most of Annie's papers and books are laid out, he glances over a few of them as she moves around in the kitchen. She really has been studying hard, and that he can appreciate. Unlike his slacker roommates, he's the only one attending school despite the fact they never formally graduated high school. It's kind of disappointing, but... he can still understand why they wouldn't want to go back. He's seen Sanageyama's math grades, and Mankanshoku's... every grade. Terrifying.

While Inumuta waits for Annie to return, he casually takes out his phone and begins idly running through some of it's processes.]

[lyingheart]

Tea?

[ His request ties back into those presentations and expectations of excess and money, though in fairness, she recognizes that more comes from her point of view on her own world, less about things on this world. Tea isn't prohibitively expensive here. It isn't even hard to find. ]

I'll put the kettle on.

[ Microwaves are for losers and also people who are comfortable with modern technology. She picks the kettle up, turning on the tap and filling it while being amazed yet again to have easy flowing water that's clean and potable this available. Water, paper, tea... the world can be an amazing place. Heartbreaking, but that's the condition of humanity. ]

I hope you're fine with rose tea.

[ She says, since it is all she has at the moment, loose leaf and all. Turning on the burner, Annie moves toward the cupboard where she keeps her little antique store purchases. (All the big, modern ones are too much. The small antique places always gave her strange looks for being there, but she understood more of the wares they had for sale.) Out comes the china tea pot and two matching tea cups and saucers. Setting them on the counter with careful precision, she has a very European sense of style and preference with her purchases, though she doesn't recognize it as such. It's another oddity, more delicate and effeminate than anything she presents herself as, hand painted flowers on the saucers, the edges gilded in gold. The cups themselves continued the floral theme, with swallows flying by in the stillness. Yet more gold gilding, and another blossoming flower painted in the bottom of the inside of the tea cup itself. She'd never seen anything like it. With the matching tea pot, it'd seemed like an affordable extravagance.

One she mostly keeps up and out of the way. Some things are better to hide away.

Impromptu tea party, here we come.

Puling open another cabinet over her head to pick out the glass jar of dried roses and herbs, she sets it down next to the teapot, looking back his way to see what he's doing. Her own academic prowess is... up to debate. Back home, she'd passed fine, because she'd needed to do well in all accountable classes to land in the top ten and make it to the interior. Here, it's a different game altogether. A few weeks of highschool has only strengthened her need to know more, though it's also highlighted other personal weaknesses. Being an isolationist by habit makes her an outsider. Being overly studious, but not wise to what it is she's learning, makes her a suck up and a nerd, too quiet, too standoffish, new but not vibrant or vivacious or anything interesting to report back on. She's not competitive, she's not interested in joining the clubs, she's not interested in gossiping, she doesn't share all that much at all. She blends into the background bit by bit. It's a good thing she's not looking to make friendships, because she supremely sucks at it.

Finally wandering back over, she glances over his shoulder to see what he's doing. At least she follows that up with the obvious question: ]

What are you doing?

[databoner]

[It's a good thing she didn't choose to microwave the water for the tea. He'd gasp at the scandal. No true teamaker microwaves their tea water.]

I'm fine with any kind, really.

[He has his preferences, everyone does, but he'll drink whatever kind of tea. He's picky, but not that picky. Inumuta's actually a little surprised she has a tea-set this nice. It's old looking, for sure, but it's nice all the same. Something, that if kept in better condition or painted with real gold, could easily be part of a more expensive set for a higher class.

Leaning his chin on his hand as she prepares the water, he watches Annie. She's careful with everything she does, it seems. Or, maybe not careful, but she moves in a very... planned? way. The kind of person he doesn't expect to ever see trip or bump into something. Much like Lady Satsuki. Maybe he should be keeping that idea in mind when dealing with her...]

Ah, this?

[He holds up his phone to show her the screen. A bunch of loading bars and numbers that are seemingly random, filing down a column on the side.]

I have several programs I wrote for my phone that are linked back to my computer. It's set to analyze my surroundings, and just overall record anything of interest, and then take the information gathered and separate the useful data from the useless. It's run through my A.I., so I don't need to be making all the judgement calls all the time.

[lyingheart]

[ She listens to what he says, but she has to take time to parse what the hell he means. This is part of why she hadn't hesitated in pushing for that challenge when they'd spoken on the phone - she's too aware that she's lacking enough context and understanding of the technological side of things to keep up, or know where to start. People who eat, breathe, live, sleep, and exist in these things have a lot to share as far as insight into the incomprehensible just based on their expectations and assumptions when dealing with their normal.

So it's not hard to tell she's thinking about this, staring down at his phone with her lips pressed together in concentration. The wheels are turning They're not used to handling these gears. ]

Not needing to isn't the same as not doing so the whole time anyway.

[ She says eventually, considering what it all means. How much information retention he has on his own is interesting to her - because she doesn't know of any limits that technology has for what it stores. It's part of why she's wary. Records that contain everything get weighed down by mass and volume of information, but it meant important things are caught up in all the chaff.

Which is what he's talking about. She gives him a sideways look. ]

Is the military using you for information brokering as well, or is that just your team?

[databoner]

I couldn't possibly process all the data I take in alone. It'd take weeks just to sort through what I have already.

[He answers with a shrug, and moves onto the next topic.]

Neither are using me for it.

[Because the way she phrased it sounded so accusatory.]

I don't research anything for the military. I'm just on information security- making sure people like me stay out of the files I had been trying to get into. Ironic, I know. But typically the ones who were capable of cracking security the first time are the ones who know where all the right holes in security lie. Not unlike border patrol. Does this make sense?

[He's not sure exactly how well this would translate, when he knows very little about Annie's world other than humanity having regressed enough that basic commodities were lost. Kind of frightening, really. ]

I guess you could say I'm doing it for my team, rather than being used by them. Although it's really just always been a thing I've done, before I knew them. It's more or less why I was picked to join in the beginning, really. At least on my world, there's very few who have the same skills I do, at my level. That's... a little different here.

[That is to say, a lot more "expert hackers" are wandering around the Network. He has to be a little more careful with what he say on there as well. Might also be a little bitter over the subject, brows furrowing a little when he says that last line, followed by a maybe not-so-smooth subject change.]

You've been taking a lot of classes though, if these books are anything to judge by. I don't think I've seen anyone here so focused on learning as you are.

[Because a subject change isn't complete without some flattery to really divert the conversation...]

[lyingheart]

[ Her opinion on the meaning of use didn't see it as a singularly negative event, something with a variable applicability in defining relationships between individuals. Being of use, or using one another's talents, or whatever it is in the end. She knows that's just a way of viewing people to keep them at a distance. She knows it's not even an honest assessment of how she views others, but she chooses to see it that way anyway.

The military will use them, registered or otherwise, and she'll use who she can (military included) in the meantime. Use Reiner and Bertholdt to have a sense of shifting stability. (Haha.) Use anyone willing to understand this world and work until it made sense, and she wasn't at the mercy of whichever force had more use for her now.

There's nothing she's running back toward so fiercely at home. Eeking out this living is going to be for herself, whoever that self is.

She ducks down her head in an apologetic motion, moving away toward an open chair. ]

It was a poor choice of words on my part. I apologize.

[ People who did identify closely with their friends wouldn't consider themselves used by them. She knows that. She's witnessed and been part of that by proxy over the years. Annie sits, perched on the edge of her chair, keeping an ear out for the kettle.

He's said enough for her to consider. Computers store far too much information, and looking at volumes like that, ah, it makes her head hurt. At least he can't keep up with the influx of what he takes in. That's good to know, just like it's good to see that he's not pleased by the fact he's not the only one around here who can do what he does. It's always humbling knowing you're not the only one.

Flattery works better on someone with either an ego to appeal to, or a need for validation from people outside herself. She recognizes a topic change when it's introduced. It earns him another sidelong glance, but she doesn't oppose it, only files it away. I see what you're doing there. ]

It's mostly private tutors. [ A pause. ] I'm sure you're aware of that.

[databoner]

[Even if she sees what he's doing by changing the subject like that, at least she respects it. That's all he can ask for, really.]

Of course. I saw you speaking to others in your post. Tony Stark, for one. He's smart, but I don't think he'd be a good teacher. He isn't exactly known for his patience.

[Well... then again. Neither is Inumuta, and here he is.]

We should get started, though, shouldn't we? Cryptography was what we were starting with. How much do you know about code breaking?

[lyingheart]

Not much. Or... I should say, it's probably basic compared to what code breaking may involve these days. You could figure out a cypher if you spent time looking for the pattern without too much difficulty. There are a few they use within the Military, for different reasons.

[ Which she really shouldn't know, but she does; there are more than that, but it doesn't seem like explaining how all these old styles of codes are applicable to now. She simply assumes the headache and level of both protection of messages and the speed of transmission have gone up. Everything else has. ]

More that organized criminals cycle through. The better codes are the ones next to no one knows... but a secret isn't much of a secret once it leaves the hands of the original owner.

[databoner]

That much is true. But something that technology offers that differs from the old style of cyphers is that you can have a key that your computer generates, to make it extremely difficult to crack unless you also have a means of getting access to that key. This is, of course, beyond your capabilities right now, but I'm impressed you still agreed to this even though I said the subjects we'd be going over were above your grade and also- probably entirely useless to your skillset.

[Because really, he could teach her about computer code writing, but there's only so much of it she would retain without some sort of beginner lessons, and he knows that. He was just being a jerk, back then. But hey, at least he's admitting it now?]

If this really is a topic you have interest in, we can start with more basic lessons with computer coding, or we can change to more broad concepts like math, geometry, and algebra.

[lyingheart]

If I backed down from everything I knew that'd be over my head here, I wouldn't have shown up to school on the first assigned day. If the worst that happened was you'd mock me for trying and failing, I'd handle that.

[ She only knows how to keep moving by taking steps forward and facing the hurdles she finds there. Including the ones jerks are laying down off the cuff, because they're being brought up at all, and even failure teaches.

Though she can appreciate he's not intending to stick with setting her up for failure. Failure grates, and she pushes hard back against it, but she doesn't need that headache stacked on top of all the books here on the table. ]

Algebra makes sense, it's just using terminology I'm not familiar with. Similar to geometry... math on different levels has the same problem. I'm relearning through all of it to make up what I don't know, and adjust what I do to fit this.

[ A gesture around the room, like this kitchen is the whole of a world. It's a concentrated, filtered down version, and one with a steaming, hissing kettle getting closer to ready in it, but like most microcosms, it has a relationship to the larger world's order. ]

Starting there makes more sense... seeing if the concepts I need are even ones I have to start with.