Does Not Compute, Skye
"Don't even think about it." Bobbi glared at Mary once they were back in their room in the girls dorms after dinner. The words had been running through her head for the last hour; how injured? Enough that you wouldn't be able to continue classes.
"Think about what?" The girl looked overly innocent under her glare. Too much innocence was a giveaway.
"Do. Not. Hurt yourself." Bobbi spoke slowly, quietly, slightly threateningly. How injured? Played back in her mind over and over again. "Promise me you won't hurt yourself or purposely be hurt so you can leave here."
"Why not?" Brown eyes glared back just as hard as blue, dropping all pretences of innocence. "If gets me out here I can be hurt for a little bit."
"Not just a little bit, you have to be nearly dead to be sent home, you could just as easily end up dead instead of at the orphanage." Bobbi snapped, was it really that bad that she was willing to almost die instead of be here?
"At least at the orphanage I'm not a prisoner." The kid had fire, she could admit.
"You're not a prisoner." Bobbi could feel her volume rising, but she couldn't help it.
"Then why can't I leave? Why am I here anyway? Why did that man kidnap me instead of taking me back." Mary was yelling too, her eyes welling with angry tears.
"How the hell am I supposed to know?" Possible powers unknown. "I was just told to take care of you, and that includes not letting you kill yourself."
"I don't need some stupid babysitter, I need to not be kept here." Before Bobbi could really register it the door was slamming shut after a whirlwind of dark hair, a picture frame fell off the wall near the door making the glass break.
Bobbi glared at the door, but didn't follow the girl. She needed to calm down before she went to find her or the shouting might start again. Day two with the kid and she'd already tried to run away, gotten a broken arm, gotten lost, and walked out after a shouting match. She definitely wasn't looking forward to her report to Agent Hill.
How injured?
It was that question that had started the whole argument. Bobbi swore that nothing had made her feel as much dread as that question. She'd only had the kid for two days and she was already questioning her sanity.
She thought she'd been kidnapped, but surely someone went to her guardians (because she didn't have known parents) before just taking her. Mary clearly wouldn't believe anyone until someone she actually knew told her they were the good guys.
With a sigh, Bobbi ran a hand through her hair before heading for the door. She didn't know if Mary would try and run again despite her promise that she wouldn't. Except when she opened the door Mary definitely hadn't run far. Sitting on the floor of the opposite wall with her knees pulled up, Mary looked nearly the same as just a few hours before when she was lost and crying.
Bobbi didn't say anything as she went and sat next to the girl, staring straight ahead. There was one thing that Barbara Morse knew when she was sitting in the hall with her 11-year-old charge; Mary Sue Poots was going to be an uphill battle to mentor.
"If I can get hold of one of the nuns so they can talk to you, will you believe I only want to look out for you?" Bobbi asked after a moment, she'd never noticed how uncomfortable the floor was until today.
"Maybe." Mary shrugged, "I won't really hurt myself just to leave."
"Good." It wasn't exactly the promise she'd asked for, but she'd take it. "Don't scare me like that again."
"What do you care?" The fiery defiance was still there, Bobbi had the feeling it would always be there, simmering just under the surface of every smile or word that fell from her lips. "You've only known me for a day."
"I care because..." Why did she care so much about the kid? Sure she liked Fitz and Simmons, but she'd never cared for the. This much. "Because very kid needs someone to care and you've got me." She ended lamely, "so deal with it."
Mary arrived at S.C.H.O.L.A.R on a Thursday. She got lost on a Friday. And she found a computer on the Saturday.
Mary had woken up when Bobbi left early in the morning when it was still dark - something about Tai Chi and working out - and couldn't get back to sleep. The nuns at St Agnes' always said it was a sin and she'd go to hell for snooping, but if she was living with an axe murderer she wanted to know. So far she hadn't found any blood covered axes in any of her foster families closets, but she liked to think it was because she always checked for herself.
There weren't any bloody axes in Bobbi's closet either, which Mary took as a good sign. Mary found that Bobbi had some weird looking underwear (black and lacy and way too small, from the looks) but she wasn't the only older girl she'd lived with that had those underwear. Must be an older girl thing, Mary shrugged.
The next drawer was just regular clothes, boring. Before she could get to the next drawer she spotted something metallic with a cord under the bed. Abandoning the dresser Mary belt down and pulled out the computer, switching it on without a second thought. There was only one computer at the orphanage and that was in the office, and she was never at a foster home long enough to get to play with one properly.
Mary looked at the door, how long would Bobbi be gone? But, then something appeared on the screen and she stopped thinking in favour of pressing some buttons as commands appeared on the screen. This was easy, she mused, the commands were all basic and easy to get past to the point that within the minute she was able to open a browser. What could she do? She could do anything now that she had the Internet.
First Mary searched her name, to see if the nuns said she was missing. Nothing.., well, that wasn't entirely true, there were millions of responses, but none of them looked like they meant her so she quickly got bored.
By the time Bobbi got back to her room she was energised from her morning work out and it was late enough that she should probably wake Mary... Except when she got back the girl in question was Latin on her bed, snoring softly with a computer on her chest blaring noise. Bobbi crept over, peering at a series of cat videos on YouTube... On her computer!
"The hell?" Bobbi frowned, taking the computer, she always made sure it was password protected, how on earth did Mary get into it?
After scanning her computer Bobbi found that Mary had managed to remove the password, GoogleMaps herself despite the GPS blocking placed on the whole school, change her school profile picture in the database to an angry wet kitten, and change her background to a picture of the young brunette herself... How the Hell did she manage to do any of that?
"Hey, Kid." Bobbi nudged the girl until the soft snores stopped and her eyes blinked open. "Kid, up." She urged, waiting until she managed to push herself up and had finished rubbing her eyes.
"Crap!" Mary swore, eyeing the computer and its owner, realising she must have fallen asleep and been caught with the computer.
"Yeah, we'll get to that." Bobbi waved her off, sitting on the bed. "How did you get passed the password?" She furrowed her brow, it's not like it was easy one either with a random mix up uppercase, lowercase, numbers and characters.
"'S' easy." Mary yawned with a shrug.
"And how did you get passed the GPS block on the school?" She'd also set up directions back to St Agnes' before discarding it - probably because it was a four and a half hour drive. "The whole point is that no one can trace it or locate it."
"Doesn't work then." Mary shrugged again, "I just told it to do what I wanted and at first it didn't, but then I made it."
"You just made it do what you wanted?" Bobbi was stunned, she wasn't a computer genius by any account, but she knew how to get things done well enough, but she'd never heard of anyone just bypassing the GPS blocks so simply. "Show me." She shoved her computer back at Mary who looked puzzled.
"Huh?" She looked at the older girl like an alien. "Aren't I in trouble for snooping and taking your things?"
"Maybe. Show me how you did it and I'll think about it." Bobbi dismissed, watching the girls hands and the screen carefully.
"Did I do something wrong?" Her fingers hadn't moved, but her voice was uncertain. Bobbi looked up, she looked scared, nervous, she pursed her lips for a moment.
"It was wrong to take my computer, yes." She conceded, and she wanted to know what else she'd look through when they were finished. "But, we'll talk about that later, but this is more important. You may be CS gifted."
"What's CS gifted?" Her nose wrinkled in confusion. "Is that why I'm here? Is that why they took me?"
No. Possible powers unknown.
"Maybe... It's computer sciences, people who are gifted with computers."
"Oh." Her eyebrows shot up and she focussed on the screen this time, determined to prove herself. Maybe she wasn't just an orphan that no one wanted. "Um, it said that so I clicked here." Mary explained, her fingers darting over the keys of the laptop, pointing obstacles and solutions out to Bobbi as they appeared. "And then I make it stop blocking me like that." 'Like that' Bobbi found out was a series of speed typing, clicks, unintelligible characters flying across the screen, and a smug smile from Mary. "It was harder the first time, but this time I knew how to do it quicker."
"Holy Hell!" Bobbi just stared at the screen, flashing back at her that access had been granted. An 11-year-old had just hacked through the GPS blocks on the school... And she didn't even think she knew what it meant.
