Logs:Rocks and Computers

Rocks and Computers
Dramatis Personae Amo, Halim
In Absentia Joshua	2024-08-17 "Sounds like a pretty big change in environment."
Location <XAV> Lake - Xs Grounds
Bright, bright, bright; the lake glitters wide and expansive here, stretching off into the distance. Sunlight, moonlight, starlight, it catches them all. Lapping at the rocky shore, its deep waters are frigid in winter and cool even in summer. A stone pier stretches out a ways into the water, wide and smooth, though often icy in winter. The water teems with life nevertheless, home to myriad species of fish that provide for ample fishing or just lazy watching on a slow summer day, for those who want to take a boat from the boathouse out to the center of the lake, or perhaps lounge on the pier and try their luck. It’s been a cloudy day today, with occasional moments of sunlight peeking through the grey cover of the sky. Warm, but still much cooler than the weeks prior. The Lake is quiet, perhaps a few students scattered along the rocky shore, but even then their heads are down in notebooks as they prepare for the upcoming finals. Amo is—was—seated at the pier working on one of the final extensive safety procedures she’d been preparing, laptop now folded shut and cautiously returned to its bag to protect it from any stray splashes of water. She’s now launching some rocks into the water, watching as they skip and counting the number of bounces under her breath. Sometimes they go far, other times they land straight into the water with a Plonk. She wears cargo pants and a dark green t-shirt tucked into the waistband, with black sneakers that have bright green details. Her phone sits in one of the side pockets of her cargo pants, lighting up silently from an email she has yet to read—and very likely won’t read if the 11,251 other unread email notifications have anything to say about it. She whips another rock into the water, and for the third time in a row it enters the water with a succinct plonk. She huffs, and scours the ground for another one. There's a sallow skinny man trudging along the lakeshore, hands shoved into the pockets of his jeans, his grey t-shirt rumpled and with that too-long-in-the-dryer sour smell clinging to it. He's kind of idly kicking at one larger rock as he moves towards the pier, watching it skitter along the beach, but he pauses when he spies the woman sitting on the edge of the stone. He kicks it once more -- a PLONK to echo her rocks, and trudges halfway down the length of the pier. "... you met Joshua yet?" Is this a greeting? He's staring out at the water, his voice gruff. At the secondary PLONK, a rocky texture ripples up the back of her neck past the collar of her shirt, and then smoothes away back to normal skin after a moment, but otherwise she doesn’t seem to react. Nor does she respond to Halim right away, first picking a rock off the pier and tossing it a few inches in the air to test its weight. Her eyebrows tick upwards and finally she glances behind her to scan Halim, up and down. She jerks her chin in greeting, “Aye. Joshua? Sure I met him. He’s the one that told me about a job opening here.” She turns her attention back to the rock and chucks it. This one skips twice before sinking. “Why d’you ask?” She asks curiously, turning her gaze back to Halim. "Chemistry?" Halim is trudging just a few steps further down the pier, eyes ticking over to watch the rock skip. His brows crease critically as it sinks. "Similar habits." He isn't looking at Amo, just at the ripples left behind by her rock in the water. "I'm starting here. Too." Amo hums in thought, and nods, “Yeah Chemistry, a few other things too.” She brushes her hands off on her pants, and squints at Halim, “Habits? He miss a lotta rock skips too?” She asks, perhaps jokingly, and continues “I didn’t think we’d met yet. I’m Amo.” She picks up a stone and rolls it towards Halim, an offer for him to throw some stones as well. “What’re you teaching?” "I think everyone misses a lot. I'm Halim." The stone taps against Halim's sneaker, and he turns his frown down at it. He doesn't look all that pleased to be offered the stone, but despite the frown he's crouching, picking it up and weighing it in his hand. He's rolling the stone in his palm, and then squinting at the water. Squinting at the stone. Hefting his hand back. There's a very long period of contemplation as he shifts the angle of his hand one way, then another, then finally winds back and throws -- all the deliberating and preparation makes it somewhat farcically anticlimactic when the stone goes PLOP without skipping even a single time. Halim is now frowning at the lake like it has somehow betrayed him. "... I'm not teaching physics." Amo watches with bated breath, studying his period of contemplation, the way he angles his hand, the way he throws it. She doesn’t make a sound as it immediately sinks into the water, but her lips do press together into a line in an unspoken amusement. “Nah nah bro it was totally the rock’s fault. I must’a gave you a bad one or something. S’all about the rock, yeah?” She’s tossing him another one once she finds one, is this rock much different than the last one? It’s hard to tell. “That one’s way flatter.” She insists. “You a teacher before this too then? Or first time teaching?” Halim is studying this rock with much the same intensity as he did the first. Will it help him? He's very serious about it. He's not throwing it quite yet though, peeking sideways at Amo, too. "I have -- taught." His mouth compresses. "... but not like this. I don't think I'll be good at it." He sounds fairly matter-of-fact about this. He's tipping the rock back and forth in his hand again. "What about you. Why teaching. Why here?" Amo finds her own rock, running her fingers over it, before chucking it like a frisbee, her arm making an arc outwards from her stomach as opposed to the more common side throw. This one skips six times. She looks at Halim and her brow pinches together, “Yeah? Why’s that?” She asks, tone neutral. She’s shifting through the rocks again, and her movements pause briefly at his question. She chews on the inside of her cheek and her mouth skews to the side in thought, “I like passing things along to people.” She shrugs a shoulder, “It’s more than just the information, it’s the experience too, yeah? Shit you can’t just get from reading a textbook or looking it up.” She watches the ripples in the water, “My older brother taught me to skip stones like this.” She mimics the outward arcing motion again, “Not really the way you’re supposed to do it, but it worked way better for us. It’s that experience.” She begins sifting through the rocks again, “As for Xavier’s? Kinda just came at the perfect time. I’m not one to ignore a sign like that.” "Not good with people. Good with computers. That's what I teach." Halim is watching this carefully, if kind of sidelong. His own hand is shifting small and twitchy at his side as Amo throws her rock, pulling in toward his stomach and making minute mimicry of her motion. "Experience is information." It's hard to tell from his flat tone if this is meant to be some kind of argument. He flings the rock, a stiff imitation of Amo's style, and this time his rock skips twice before plunking. There is a long delay before he says, "Huh." He's peering out into the water as the ripples fan wider. "... perfect time," he echoes, then tries it out another time or two, quieter: "perfect time, perfect time," with a small nod like this has confirmed something. "Maybe that happens a lot. Here." “You teach computers? Didn’t know computers went to school.” Amo raises her eyebrows once, clearly proud of her joke. “Nah but that’s cool. I’d say you’re doing just fine with me, and I’m people.” She picks out a new rock and stands, holding it up to the grey overcast sky to inspect it, “Guess it is the same thing. It’s applied information, then.” She nods satisfied with this conclusion, “Look at that, already learning something new from yo-” Her eyes light up when Halim’s stone skips twice this time. “Ay! That was sweet.” She throws her own rock, one skip. She glances at Halim briefly during his echoes, and responds, perhaps reflexively, with her own quiet hum of, “..perfect time.” She gestures towards him with a hand, “Same thing happen to you then? Maybe something big’s gonna happen.” She shrugs a shoulder, and jerks a chin towards Halim, “Why teaching for you? If you’re not big on people and all that.” "I teach computers," Halim agrees after a moment to consider that, with no particular evidence of humor to it. "Better than I teach people." He's still staring down into the water, and after a moment there is an entirely different set of rippling than the one Amo's rock has just made. Something is coming back up, wriggling and squidlike, several clearly mechanical arms surfacing as some cephalopod robot approaches the pier to return two rocks to the pier. A particularly astute observer of rocks might notice that they're the most successful skip Amo just had and the -- well, only successful skip Halim managed. Halim picks the wet rock back up as the robot disappears under the water. "You're people." He's slow, considering this information, and only slow to nod on acceptance. "Big on learning. Wanted a change of --" Something twitches small in his expression. "Environment." He tilts his head, blinks. "What would be big?" At first, Amo’s eyes are widening and she’s crouching down eagerly near the edge to get a better look whatever is bubbling to the surface, “Hey hey look at tha- the hell-” Her face is pinching in confusion once it breaks the surface, and she’s back on her feet. She takes a quick step backwards as it approaches the dock, and another when it drops off the stones. She’s silent, for a moment, then lets out a breath and lets the hand she’d been reaching towards Halim with drop back down to her side. She watches him as he picks up the rock, his reaction—or lack of one—and after a pause, she steps forward to pick up the other one. She distractedly spins it in her palm, “Yeah I get that. And not sure what kind of big but, fingers crossed it’s something good.” She’s back to watching Halim, and after a delay she speaks up again, “Hey so- we gonna address the robot squid that hand delivered us some rocks? Was that another one of those drones I’ve seen around campus?” She’s gesturing vaguely towards where the robot disappeared back into the water. Halim curls his hand in against his stomach and flings it out again. One, two, a kind of halfhearted skid that maybe counts halfway to three before it glunks back into the water. "I told you," he says, with a trace of impatience. "You grow rocks on your skin. I teach computers." The drone is resurfacing now, though, as if it and not Halim is relenting for his shortness. It uncurls an arm, flings out a rock -- alas, like Halim's first throw, this disappears into the water on its very first splash. "... sometimes slowly." He's following this up, deadpan: "Did your last job not have a fleet of drones? I thought it was standard." Amo doesn’t step back this time as the drone resurfaces, and during the quick look between Halim and the robot, something seems to click. “Computers...” she echoes idly, “Right, course. Should’ve…put that one together.” She says with a wave of her hand. Her eyebrows are rising again as the robot replicates the throw, and she’s crouching back down to get a closer look at it. “Bro that’s pretty sweet.” She says, genuinely. She’s twisting to look up at Halim at his question, “…Nah. Not that I ever saw. Was just an electrician. Especially nothing like this guy at least.” She’s jerking a thumb towards it. She opens and closes her mouth, as if debating something. Then she finally speaks with a small shake of her head, “Has it been standard at all your last jobs?” She’s asking with a concerned squint of her eyes. "Yes. Well. Not like this," Halim is quick to reassure Amo. He's watching the squidbot retreat under the water again. "Mostly just murder bots. Probably even worse at skipping stones." He backs a little away from the water, now, nodding at Amo's answer. "That makes sense. Well prepared for this job, then." Amo’s head turns slightly and tilts forward, processing the Everything that Halim just said. “Murder bots.” She echoes. “At. Your last job. A fleet of them too.” She’s staring off somewhere in the distance. After a beat, she nods, slowly, then turns to Halim, “Did you guys call them that jokingly or…?” She makes a vague motion with her hands. "People didn't joke much with me, there." Halim tips his head back, peering up at the sky, though there's nothing much there at the moment to be seen. "People call them murderbots here. They do sometimes," he offers, slow, "say it jokingly. But I'm very bad at jokes." “Gotcha gotcha. Wasn’t sure.” Amo studies Halim, eyes squinting briefly. She then lets out a sigh, “Well. Sounds like a pretty big change in environment. Just what you were lookin’ for.” She chucks the rock the robot had returned for her, this one skips eight. She nods, satisfied. “Only way to get better at anything is to practice.” She picks up her laptop case, “You should try to tell your students a joke at the start of every class. I think they’d love it—great practice too, yeah?” Halim nods, watching Amo again. As she's picking up her case to go he's moving back to the edge of the pier, selecting another rock to try another skip (three bounces, this time.) "I don't know if they will love it," he answers, flatly, "people often find me condescending." There's a beat, and then he adds, just as flat: "That means I talk down to people." He is picking up another rock as he glances back over his shoulder. "Thank you for the information." Amo nods in approval at his three skips. “Nice.” She tilts her head to scan Halim then, eyebrows furrowing once, a little unsure, then there’s a slight twitch at the corner of her mouth, “That was a good one.” She says with a point of her finger, which then drops back to her side. “Anytime. And you too, I’ll see you around, yeah? And maybe at some point we can do a little stone skipping competition, me versus your robots.” She jerks her chin towards the water before giving him a half wave half peace sign, and making her way back up the pier.