"Jack, could I have another one of those purple ones?"
Roda pointed past the counter to one of the chalkboards, written in something that let it flow under ultraviolet light. 'Dark Poison.' Not the most comforting name, but it was something that tasted vaguely of concord grapes or cough medicine, though oddly good. The alcohol content probably helped with that, covering up what would normally be a disgusting aftertaste. Not that she was actually getting intoxicated to further that along, or had previously cared much about how drinks fell on her palette. But the Rabbit specialized in cocktails, and she was getting used to them- along with becoming fast friends with the bartender.
But nonetheless, Jack flashed his teeth and winked, rocked on his heels, and went picking through the shelves for the correct ingredients. "Indeed you can, dear Roda."
Interrupting that however, something very close to them beeped out some sort of alert. Roda checked her communicator, but it wasn't her. Jack pulled it out of his pocket and had a glance at his, but it wasn't that either. Finally, the beeping turned to a buzz, and when Jack picked up a cup, the source of it was evident as the very glass started to sing.
"What the-?" Jack placed it back down and felt at his left wrist. It was his hand. "Well, that doesn't normally happen..." He looked it over, checking if something could be stuck to it. He had heard of rumours about this place having bugs everywhere, with Irving being more paranoid than he remembered. While unlikely, it was a possible concern.
Roda leant forward, curious about what could've been wrong with it. Yes, she still wanted her cocktail, but this garnered her attention too. "What d'ya think is up with it?" She never did get a good understanding of how it worked- too shocked at the trick he pulled on her when he first showed it to peek at the mechanics of it and appease that inner engineer.
"Well, I suppose it could be a problem with the cooling..." Jack rubbed the back of his neck with his other, screwing up his face and trying to think of ideas on how it could be doing this, but coming up short. Roda looked equally invested now, but still a little amused.
"A hand needs cooling?"
He spun around on his heel and waved Roda off, leaning back on the bar. "The ship parts it's built from do... but it doesn't feel like that. Not at all." Something different. Something far weirder.
Ready to check inside, he pulled open the front plate and lifted it up, the screen underneath it glowing to life. There was some kind of text, in a format that he didn't recognize, from a source that he didn't recognize.
Jack clicked his tongue and rolled his eyes, as if he'd just got some annoying karma. "That's what you get from trading signals with robots you don't know..." finally ending it off by shaking his head.
Roda pointed over and stopped. "You- what?"
Jack glanced back and sighed. This was going to be a long day. "Benny's little porter Joseph infected it with something last week. Evidently, it's actually started affecting the firmware," he moaned, every single syllable emphasizing his withheld frustration.
But that just left Roda more confused. "Isn't he one of the big heads of security? Why would Joseph infect anything?"
Jack tapped around on the screen, picking things out. The font was somehow legible now, but tiny, and to actually read it he had to get close and really squint. He wrote a few lines of code for it to execute to try and dig through it. Some of it did manage to decompile- and the result was certainly interesting. "I don't know... but there's some weird signals here. Something called 'CIA' is all over in the code?" He scratched his head over it.
But at the mention of the word, Roda's eyes widened. She vaguely pointed over at the wrist of it. "CIA? Could you gimme a look at that?" she asked, not meaning to be rude- just a little invested, perhaps somewhat concerned.
He rolled his eyes, seemingly resigned, but already trusting and liking her too much to be too rude about it. "Just be careful. It's more delicate when it's open."
His hand came off and dropped into hers. Still somewhat disturbing, but at least this time she knew what she was in for. This wasn't what she meant when she asked for a look though, just for him to show the screen. But Roda took it anyway and tapped around on the screen, forcing it to recompile the raw data Jack had pulled apart. Yep, there was no doubt about it, this was the trans-temporal data link. She passed it back, head falling into her hands and started gathering her thoughts on it as he refitted his wrist into the socket.
She rubbed her face and groaned. It was bound to happen eventually. Breaking it down into pieces someone not the most familiar could process, Roda "That's not a virus- well. Sort of. The program is viral and spreads to most devices patched onto it. An easy way for that to happen is your body collecting a large amount of artron energy- something you get by time travelling a lot... or sharing data with something that uses it."
He laughed in amusement, playfully adding, "Virus is literally part of the word viral, Roda." His face fell a little as he paused. "-And neither do I time travel much, nor does that little football with a face seem to have reason to either."
Roda just gave up. "Fine. It's a virus. But it's not malware or whatever you call it in this century. Pretty sure the Braxiatel Collection mainframe here runs through it too. It's a lot harder to erase or hack things that are literally outside time. Joseph probably did it by accident," she tried to come up with an explanation off the top of her head.
Eyes darting back and forth between her and the screen, they fell to something Jack definitely didn't want to show anyone and visibly cringed. "There's some weird stuff on this- can I delete it?" He looked pleading.
She sighed and rolled her eyes yet again. People were people. And that place was typically about as habitable as the normal galactic net. "Weird? There would be, it's a communication channel where you can say anything. And you can talk between any place across all of time and space. And other dimensions too, I think. But, umm... No. You can't get rid of it, I've tried." Roda didn't mention that she tried to delete it to avoid the CIA before she knew what was going on, but that wasn't particularly relevant.
Jack just silently accepted it, even making a pun. "Well, suppose that's handy. But I'm still wiring out a few things if lefty keeps vibrating and ringing whenever it feels like it."
Roda stifled a laugh.
"You named your hand?"
His expression turned cheeky and mischievous. "Nicknamed, thank you. It's much easier than saying 'my metal left hand that I built under bizarre circumstances that apparently is getting messages from all spacetime because why not,' isn't it?" He also didn't elaborate on the bizarre circumstances. Bizarre circumstances that might even make her head spin.
She huffed fondly. "Alright. But still. Lefty?"
He clicked his tongue again. "Does this matter now?" It beeped again and he stared at it in disgust. "Oh, Kadept- well, my break is in ten minutes, might as well use it."
She pointed over to the gauntlet again. "I'll show you how it works- but didn't I order another drink, Jackrabbit?" she grinned.
He played innocent, but couldn't help but crack a smile himself. "You did, didn't you? I'll get right to it then."
"So you have to be able to input text for it to work, can you do that?"
"Easily enough. Here's the keyboard..." He stood behind her stool so Roda could see without him having to pop the thing off again.
She gave an approving look. "Pretty robust interface for something that isn't meant to be a communicator." It was oddly user-friendly, probably something adapted from the software in the ship he apparently salvaged it from.
He backed away from her and bowed. "Why, thank you."
She smirked and went back to explaining most of it while he turned off all the notifications, finishing with: "While the main hub has no partitions and anyone can read it and there's semi-private ones the CIA can still check, I think Braxiatel managed to fully barricade the Collection mainframe from view when it's not allowed. Gotta admit, he's thorough."
He clicked his tongue a few times, feigning being impressed at the skill in question. "Oh, clever, clever Irving. What's this CIA thing supposed to be then?"
"Well, it used to be an organization that 'fixed' time to keep it on the right track, but right now... it's three people on a planet of burnt ashes with two working computers, trying to hold the universe together because this thing is furthering its collapse and they can't turn it off." She explained it like it was nothing, just everyday stuff. No wonder she thought the Collection would be a normal place to work.
"Okayyyy..."
As if not to forget, she added, "Oh, and the universe was unravelling before they made it worse too."
"Huh. I usually have something to say to things like that, but-" Jack wordlessly poured himself a generous glass of some cheap whiskey.
Roda raised an eyebrow at it. "Drinking on the job?"
Putting a hand to his heart as if to swear truthfulness or feign offence- or both, he joked, "Drinking on my break, excuse you dear, dear Roda," before taking a gulp of the liquid. There was something about the number of 'dears' that changed the tone of it. But that wasn't something Roda was realizing yet.
She giggled. "Oh come on, still."
Jack scoffed, only sipping more of the burning whiskey and dramatically throwing a hand to the heavens- not literally, at least. "In a couple of hours, my sobriety won't be even remotely relevant, as the wise decision was made to have a serious meeting inside a pub."
"Hmm- Isn't that how most fantasy adventures start? With monsters and stuff?"
He made a sort of so-so gesture. "Oh, probably. Anyway, with the ropes you've shown me, I am leaping straight into this."
In response to his pun, she made another- "Hop back here when you're done. Just be careful who you talk to."
He playfully shook his head. "You think I don't know that? Legion, darling."
"Just warning you, Jackrabbit."
With nothing left to say, Jack winked, disappearing through the door into the back.
An hour later, the Kadeptian returned to the bar with a puzzled and curious expression, Roda still waiting in the same seat. "Well, that was certainly... enlightening. "
"Fun, right?" she joked, her tone still grim.
"Very." He paused, visibly embarrassed by something. "...So, who's Omega? Some Time Lord, right?"
Roda raised both eyebrows. "...Uhh- an ancient founder of my society who died when I was... never mind. But why?"
Jack looked like a naughty child about to be scolded when he realized what he'd just done. "I may have threatened to sue him when he mentioned helping to manipulate time and evolution of sentient life in the whole universe for humanoids to get a biological advantage because that is kind of an absolutely massive crime." He stepped back and showed her all the messages- a list of all the things that shouldn't be said. It was a slow cavalcade of temporal disaster. An exchange that should've been impossible, paradoxical. But to Roda, also unbelievably hilarious.
She held it in and snorted, then laughed, then full-blown cackled. For the Redjay, this was too good to be real. "Oh, yeah. They did that, right. I mean, this is- ha!" Pausing to calm down and take a breath, she attempted to be serious with her chastisement. "What did I say about being careful who you talk to again?"
He played innocent, ears drooping and rocking on his heels. "Well, yes. But he was being a dick. And it wasn't exactly a real threat. Committed too many myself to have anything to stand on, really."
Roda shrugged. "I mean, fair. They tended to be dicks, back then at least. And I'm in the same boat as you in terms of crime. But Braxiatel is just going to be a huge fan of this if he finds out..." Her head fell into her hands.
Shaking his head, Jack sighed. "Oh, Irving throwing another fit when things aren't to his liking? What else is new..."
She waved it off. Nothing too bad would happen, probably. "Oh, I don't think it'll be that bad. He doesn't fire everyone by assassinating them, does he?"
He didn't process her second sentence until he was halfway through speaking. "I'd still rather not be- what?!"
She smugly grinned over her drink. "Oh, I doubt it. But it is in my contract. Something like it anyway. Not in yours then, eh?" She set it down, idly stirring it.
Jack shook his head aggressively, so much so it looked like it might just snap off. "No, no, no, no, no... Irving hired me out of goodwill. And to save my life. That's mad."
She didn't know what to think about that. "Huh. That's me told. When I 'applied,' maybe I just swallowed my foot with how far it was in my mouth. That thing is practically the length of an epic..."
Jack gesticulated dramatically, waving Braxiatel's behaviour off as something trivial. "I knew he had to have lost a few marbles to decide to build a place like this. Massive inferiority complex, I tell you. I'll look that contract over if you want. Have a little experience with laws and loopholes."
She smiled "Thanks, Jackrabbit. Sounds good. And I won't say anything about the Omega thing. Lips are sealed." At that, Roda finished with a zipping gesture over her mouth.
He smirked and winked. "Perfect. Now, dear Roda- I need to shoo these people out of here and close up."
Jack stepped around her and shouted about closing time and possible discounts later, ushering everyone he could out of the bar, forcing them through the doors and checking for stragglers he'd need to call security on. He didn't even notice Toothless Bob.
"I'll be waiting," she huffed.
