Tadashi spent the weekend watching movies with Hiro, helping Aunt Cass in the café, and trying to make sense of his text book for Advanced Multilanguage Coding. Saturday morning he woke up with a black eye. Hiro thought it was hilarious. Sunday night, Tadashi closed his text book and reached for his backpack. He'd shoved the paper Risa had given him in the pouch without really looking at it. It was a business card. "Hacker and Programmer," Tadashi read with a smile. It seemed like such a mundane title for Risa. He dialed the number. Risa answered on the third ring.
"Hello?" Risa asked. The background noise was absurd.
"Hi. It's Tadashi," Tadashi replied. "I was wondering if you'd still be willing to help me with the coding."
"Hold on one sec," Risa cut him off. Tadashi could hear her yelling at someone, but there was too much other background noise to make out the words. The familiar screech of metal on metal cut through the noise and made Tadashi wince. "BAKA!" Risa screamed. Tadashi blinked in surprise. The background noise faded. "Sorry about that," Risa apologized.
"Are you okay?" Tadashi asked.
"Better than okay actually. I just won a couple hundred dollars," Risa beamed. "Anyway, Yeah the offer stands. How far did you make it?" She changed the subject.
"I made it through the first three chapters, but they make no sense. Are you bot fighting?" Tadashi frowned. One his side of the bedroom Hiro turned to look at Tadashi.
"Maybe," Risa replied. Tadashi could practically feel her smirking through the phone. "I never would have figured you for an ex-fighter," Risa teased.
"I'm not. I've spent a lot of years dragging my brother away from fights," Tadashi snapped. "Be careful. You'll get yourself arrested."
"Yes mom," RIsa snorted. "I'm free after class tomorrow," she added.
"Thanks. I really appreciate the help," Tadashi sighed. "Be careful getting home."
"I'm not far from my apartment, Mom, and I can take care of myself," Risa replied.
"See you tomorrow then," Tadashi said.
"Bye Mom," Risa snickered and hung up. Tadashi stared at the phone in his hand and wondered what he was getting himself into.
"Do NOT get any ideas," Tadashi glared at Hiro. Hiro put his hands up defensively.
"I'm out," Hiro insisted. "Too busy with school to waste time building bots just for them to get trashed." Tadashi nodded and leaned back in his chair. "So who's your new friend?" Hiro asked.
"Her name's Risa. She's some kind of a crazy hacker. She volunteered to help me get up to speed on my programming," Tadashi explained.
"What's she like?" Hiro asked.
"Odd," Tadashi replied without hesitation. "She kind of reminds me of you."
"Hey!" Hiro protested. Tadashi just laughed.
Tadashi got in bed. Hiro insisted on staying up a bit longer to work on the scanner for his search and rescue bot. Tadashi woke up just after 1AM to see the light still on at Hiro's desk.
"Baymax?" Tadashi whispered. The robot looked up from his charging station. "Is Hiro asleep at the desk?" Tadashi asked. Baymax nodded. "Would you bring him here please?" Tadashi asked. Baymax nodded again. He stepped out of the charging station and disappeared from Tadashi's view. The light on Hiro's side of the room went out. Baymax reappeared in Tadashi's door, cradling Hiro in his arms. Tadashi patted the bed beside him. Baymax tucked Hiro in and turned to Tadashi.
"I recommend Hiro take mild pain relivers in the morning. He was lying with his spine out of alignment. He will be sore in the morning," Baymax whispered. Tadashi chuckled softly.
"He'll probably be fine. The kid's like a stinking ferret when it comes to sleeping," Tadashi smiled. Baymax just blinked at him. "Night Baymax," Tadashi sighed.
"Good Night," Baymax replied before returning to his charging station.
Tadashi sighed and settled back into his pillow. He draped an arm over Hiro and drifted off to sleep.
Mack's lecture went over Tadashi's head. He recognized some of what the professor was saying, but the connecting bits were gibberish. Tadashi frantically copied whatever Mack put on the board and did his best to keep up. Risa had a notebook out, but unless she was tacking actual notes in some coding language, Tadashi doubted she was even hearing Mack. What she was writing bore no resemblance to the examples Mack put on the board. Risa looked tired. There were circles under her eyes and she was sporting a new cut on her cheek. Her pink hair was in pigtails again. She was wearing the same black leather jacket from Friday with a black mini-skirt and a dark red t-shirt. When class let out, Risa put her notebook away and turned to Tadashi.
"Ready?" she smiled.
"Yeah. Are we doing it here or…?" Tadashi trailed off.
"No we'll go to one of the other labs. Mack's got freshmen coming in 15," Risa said. "Come on." Tadashi followed Risa out of the Comp Sci building and to the art building of all places. "My favorite lab is in the basement," Risa explained. Tadashi nodded. He looked around the building and probably could have lingered in the main hallway all day. He'd never actually been in the building before. The walls were a mess of murals and sketches. Sculptures and pottery filled a dozen alcoves. Shelves housed the smaller, more delicate pieces. Risa had to hold the elevator for him, he lagged so much. They stepped out into a lab that was the polar opposite of Nerd lab. The basement was one big room. Most of it was devoted to banks of machinery, blinking in the semi-dark. "That's the school's data storage and main frame," Risa explained. The other quarter was rows of tables. Sleek, state of the art computers crouched atop the tables. A counter ran around the edge of the room. Windows let in the little light that seeped down the window wells. The florescent lights hung on exposed wires from the ceiling. The room was an odd mix of industrial and high tech. A couple of other students were hanging around. Two were working on the computers. Another one was sitting on the counter sipping a cup of coffee. He nodded to Risa and gave a little half wave. "Come on. I'll introduce you," Risa smiled. The counter sitter's name was Dave. He was a junior majoring in graphic arts. He complained to Risa about the library computers not having some software and she nodded her head in sympathy. He and Risa mad quite a pair. Dave had shoulder length hair, dyed black and his ripped black jeans screamed garage band punk, but his smile was open and friendly. He hopped off the counter to shake Tadashi's hand and offered a cup of coffee from the machine in the corner. One of the girls at the computers looked vaguely familiar. Risa introduced her as Christine. Christine was a senior in Computer Science and Business. She was wearing an SFIT jersey.
"I'm on the basketball team. We've got a match tonight," Christine smiled. Her friend's name was Brittney and she was sophomore. Christine was helping her with a bit of coding.
Risa directed Tadashi to a computer and flopped down in a chair beside him. She swiveled in the chair and grinned at Tadashi. "Welcome to Hacking 101," Risa said. Her expression reminded Tadashi of GoGo getting ready to test a new bike. "Get that machine booted up. If you want to build a 'universal' remote control, we've got a lot of work to do," Risa ordered. She walked Tadashi through some basic projects, teaching him the grammar and vocabulary of the three languages they were using in class. "You learn fast," Risa commented. Tadashi shrugged. His head was swimming. "Are you bilingual?" Risa asked.
"Yeah. My parents made sure Hiro and I could speak both Japanese and English. I kept speaking it while we were growing up. Aunt Cass helped me. She's fluent as well, just a bit rusty," Tadashi smiled.
"That's probably why you pick this up so quick. It's just another language," Risa smiled.
"You speak Japanese right?" Tadashi said.
"Some. I'm not fluent," Risa shrugged. "How did you know?"
"I heard you yell at someone last night," Tadashi smirked.
"Yeah. A lot of Yama's people speak Japanese so I'm able to hold my own in a basic conversation," Risa explained. She hesitated, but decided to ask her question anyway. "You don't live with your parents…?"
"They died when I was ten. Car crash," Tadashi told her.
"I'm sorry," Risa mumbled. She ducked her head embarrassed.
"Thanks. Hiro and I live with our Aunt. She's pretty amazing," Tadashi smiled. Risa glanced at her watch.
"I've got class in a half hour and I want to grab some lunch. I can meet you later if you want," Risa offered.
"You could come to the robotics lab. I'm working on getting you a copy of that learning code I was telling you about," Tadashi said.
"Okay. I've never actually been in that building," Risa smiled. Then she was gone. Tadashi saved the programs he'd been working on and packed up. Risa'd been a big help. The lab had filled up considerably while they'd worked. The students were a really diverse group. The ranged from the punk like Risa and Dave to the athletic Christine to the everyday average appearing student. The cavern like lab was starting to grow on Tadashi, but that didn't stop him from relishing the sunlight when he made his way out of the art building.
Tadashi found Hiro and Baymax working away in the Hamadas' office. "How do you feel about letting someone look at Baymax's coding?" Tadashi asked.
"Who and why?" Hiro asked without looking up from his search mostly disassembled search and rescue bot.
"Risa. She's working on a kind of digital Baymax, an antivirus that learns and adapts. It will protect the school's mainframe from hackers and viruses and optimize things. She's struggling to automate the learning piece and looking at Baymax's code might help her," Tadashi explained. "I wanted to know what you two thought before I did anything," Tadashi added.
"That's kind of like asking to let her read a journal," Hiro said.
"I know. She's stopping by the lab this afternoon to check help me with some homework. You can meet her then," Tadashi replied.
"If you trust her that's good enough for me. You'll just let her see a copy right? You don't have to take it out or anything," Hiro clarified.
"Yeah. I was actually thinking this would be a good time to make a backup as well. We wouldn't want anything to happen to Baymax," Tadashi smiled.
"Risa wants to help people?" Baymax asked.
"I don't know, buddy. You can ask her that this afternoon," Tadashi said.
"I would like that," Baymax smiled.
"She's the bot fighter?" Hiro asked.
"Do NOT get any ideas," Tadashi snapped. Hiro just chuckled. Some days it was fun to just ruffle Tadashi's feathers.