trans_9 | (no subject)

Entry tags:

(no subject)

Allen is back in the Engineering department with more datapad exams at the ready. His omnicom is plugged into a larger monitor that is suspended from the ceiling, and he sprawls in front of it in a fleshy chair, alternating between the large screen and the smaller device, manipulating the data on screen with his hands and something that looks like a section of a very large bug's leg.

He has been working for a while, and so has fallen into his groove as he works - he likes to work with his back to a room, usually, but today his face is towards the door, and as he works, he does not appear bored, or confused, or eager, or intrigued, or - much of anything. He gives off no vibe in particular, other than "focused." Calculators have looked more animated.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Sherry's parents - the first ones, not her new ones - had instilled in the little girl a rather respectable habit of being on time. It was good that she'd left the precinct early; the more she'd wandered the halls, gotten lost for a few minutes, righted herself and found the Engineering department.

The man she finds does indeed have a 'jewfro' (which, she decided, is an awful term for someone who clearly has Bob Ross hair), and she's very, very quiet as she walks up to him. "Excuse me?"

Allen turns from his work to Sherry. His expression stays blank as he turns his face away from his work, and for a moment he studies Sherry like he would a diagram or a text. It takes a moment for his features to soften into something livelier, and more welcoming.

"Hey." He sits back, props one ankle up on his knee. "'Sup? Here for an exam?"

Sherry blinks, recognizing an adult's way of going from work mode to human mode - her mother and father did it enough times when she was growing up, that it's almost unsurprising. But, it's still jarring, and Sherry takes a quick glance at her feet. "Good morning," she greets, with a little smile. "I am, I'm not late, am I?" Sherry shifts her weight from foot to foot nervously.

At least he seems nicer in person, jewfro or not.

"Whatever, it's work-at-your-own-pace thus far at Gentry U."

Position of authority what? Allen spins his chair around to pick up a datapad, which he hands to Sherry. "This is designed to let me know how far along you are in a number of subjects. Don't worry about finishing each section. Just work until you can't answer the questions anymore and move on to the next."

Sherry wrinkled her nose, but took the offered datapad. She didn't want to keep admitting how weird everything was, but when she did to herself, it made her less tense. She'd figured out her omnicomm quickly enough, after all! This wouldn't be so hard. "Okay, I will, then."

It was just schoolwork, and that was something Sherry could do with her eyes closed half the time. She sat herself down in a chair and started up the exam. As much as the little girl would like to believe she was one the proper path to adulthood, and acted accordingly seriously, she still fidgeted in the chair as she worked the problems and sections. Her feet kicked back and forth and she made faces at particularly difficult problems.

"Just hand it over when you're done and I'll print out your results," says Allen, who appears unbothered by her fidgeting, except to occasionally glance at her between calculations. "If you don't know how to answer something, don't guess. This is so I know where you're at, not for a grade."

"Okay," Sherry replied absently, her eyes firmly glued to the questions presented to her. She liked math, liked it a fair bit more than she would mention regularly. But when the questions became impossible, she stopped. She was a smart girl, or at least, she'd simply mastered the art of parroting back answers and formulae with a higher ability than other students her age.

A few more short sections completed and Sherry checked her work and looked over her problems one more time. The last thing she wanted was her teachers' hard work to go to waste because she'd left out a decimal somewhere or missed an apostrophe. I's dotted, T's crossed. She hopped off her chair and padded quietly over to Allen to present him with the datapad. "Um. Here."

"Thanks."

Allen hooks the datapad up to his omnicom and runs the program to check her answers.

"Multiple choice looks good. It'll take me a while to go over the written answers." He beams at Sherry, to put her off edge. "Keep an eye on the network. I'll be putting a student signup sheet up soon."

Sherry drooped in relief, pleased that she seemed to have done well enough. Maybe even better than she expected. "I'll look for it, then. Um. Thank you!" She flashed him a little smile in return and looked towards the door. Other people were going to show up soon, and she'd completed her task. "I'll be going, then. Nice meeting you, Mist-- Principal Gentry, bye!"

Sherry waved briefly and walked quickly out the door, headed for the precinct.

Exams. Steve hadn't taken an exam in what felt like years, and actually was by other people's count. He didn't waste any time in getting to the place where it was rumored the exams would be offered.

"Is this the right place? For, uh, for school exams?" he asked the supervisor.

"Sure is."

Allen holds out a datapad, not looking up from his work until he's finished a calculation with the hand not holding out a datapad. He looks at Steve after handing him a test.

"Hey. I'm Allen. What's your name?"

"I'm Steve," he answered, then took the datapad and looked over the test. "This isn't to find out if we can get into a particular class or something, right?" He was genuinely looking forward to have something to apply himself to during the days rather than walk around the ship or sit around in the precinct.

"It goes against every one of my convictions to deny anyone the chance to learn something if they really want to, so this is a test to determine where you are so that whoever ends up teaching you will know where you're starting from, and what to teach you specifically to get you up to the appropriate level of learning." He passes off the datapad, leaning back in his seat and regarding Steve with interest. A kid who wants to learn is a kid after his own heart. "Just work until you can't answer, then go on to the next subject. The point is that I figure out what you already know, not so that I can grade you."

Steve hadn't been a real genius at school back home or anything, but he liked it all the same. The subjects (except tech arts and science, which were awesome) were lame sometimes, but he pulled decent grades, his friends were there and there were some cool teachers. On this ship, with all the little crises and stresses he'd been through, he craved the normality of school in any form.

"Okay," he said. "Thanks. I'll work on this, then."

"Just hand it over when you're done."

And Allen goes back to his own work while he waits for Steve to finish.

"Yo," Julian spoke up as he entered. He wasn't really looking forward to school, but recently was developing a hunger for knowledge. It was an odd sort of contradiction, but he decided to go with the latter.

"I'm here for the tests."

"Answer for each section until it gets too complicated, then go on to the next section," Allen says, as he hands a datapad over. "This is for aptitude, not a grade. What's your name?"

"Julian Keller," he answered, taking the data pad and looking it over.

"Eh, can't be worse than the stuff Picard is making me learn."

Now, if you'll excuse him, he's going to find a seat, kick his feet up, and take his time about going through this.

"Why, what's Picard put you up to?"

Allen waits to hear up on that before going back to his own work.

"He has me learning stuff from his universe," he started absently. He was mostly poking at the data pad, answering the questions as he went along.

"He wants me to learn how to fly a Federation Starship, in only a few days. Which would be great, except you need to have a Ph. D. in at least eight branches of astronomy and astrophysics that haven't even been invented on my world yet."

"What did you do, to get into his good graces that quickly?"

Privately, Allen was jealous. Federation Starship pilot might not have been one of his more realistic goals in the past, but now that he was sailing under the command of Captain Picard . . .

Julian shrugged.

"Apparently he and his crew crossover to my world, and some people I knew helped them out. I'm guessing he's returning the favor."

Julian sounded very 'blah' about it, but whatever Picard's reasons, he was quietly grateful that the guy had taken a liking to him.

Roxie shuffles in, hands in pockets of her jacket as usual.

"Hello?"

Oh hey, Allen recognizes those vocal patterns. "Hey, babe. Here for a test?"

Roxie's noticeably taken aback by the 'babe' comment, and it takes her a moment to gather herself enough to answer. It's just not the sort of thing she thinks about.

"... yes."

Allen apologizes for nothing! Until he's called out on it.

"Here you go. Work until you don't understand the questions, this is for aptitude, not a grade."

He rattles off his schpiel and holds out a datapad.

"How you been?"

Roxie isn't entirely sure whether or not it's something that deserves an apology. It's a compliment... maybe? She's not sure.

She takes the datapad and finds a place to sit, peering at it. "... I'm okay," she says softly.

She starts working through the questions pretty quickly, answering the questions almost intuitively. She's that one annoying kid in the class who manages to learn anything without ever actually having to work at it, apparently. It takes her until she's worked up to the point of high school sophomore subjects or so before she starts slowing down, but she hasn't stopped yet.

Katara figured it was always good to know what level she wanted to start with. She was a little glad that she had done some of what Picard had instructed: it gave her a glimpse of what work was like in other people's worlds. When she arrived at Engineering, she was happy to see a familiar face.

"Oh hello!" Katara said brightly. "Is this where I start on the test?"

Allen was mid-calculation when Katara stopped by. So it took him a moment to phase out of work mode and into greeting mode, and that showed on his face as he looked at Katara, blank expression fixed in place.

As soon as he recognized her from the network, his blank expression brightened and he sat back in his chair. "Well, look who showed up. Did you manage to drag your brother, or is it an exam for one today?"

He holds up a datapad, a book-sized, chitinous piece of hardware with a luminescent blue screen.

Katara sighed. "No, I don't think he's coming. I kinda didn't think he would anyway. My brother can be really stubborn when he wants to be. It's a trait we share. It's just me."

As soon as she saw the screen, Katara was instantly reminded of the simulation that Captain Picard had shown her a few days ago. It really was good she had paid attention: she was getting at least familiar to this kind of technology. She took a breath, then exhaled.

"Ready when you are."

"You can tell him how much fun you're having and drag him in later. Or just lord over him how much more science you know, if he's got a competitive streak."

He grabs a small pointer, like a twig or a section of bugs' leg and holds it out to her with the datapad. "Use this to pick the circle next to the best answer on the multiple-choice section, and to write the written answer portions on the screen. Just poke it. There's a 'next' button at the bottom for when you're done with a page. Just work through each section until you don't understand the questions anymore, then hit the 'next section' button, but don't get those two confused. This isn't for a grade. Lemme know if you have any trouble."

Katara wondered if Sokka would be jealous. or just glad that he didn't have to do something extra. In fact, she thought it might be a good idea if she saw all three of the people from her world.

She grabbed the strange pointer and datapad and went to work. The math was easy at first, but got harder as she went along. Still, she was sure she did halfway decent on them. The science questions she was sure she didn't do so well on, although what she learned from Sokka and the others. The basic things she got, but once she moved on to advanced questions about mechanisms and things, she was lost. Katara did understnad something off the bat: there was a LOT she didn;t know about other worlds and their technology.

"Oh boy," she muttered.

"Don't worry about it. Just go on to the next section when things get complicated."

He suspected she was feeling a little overwhelmed by the sort of questions that were being asked, particularly in the scientific departments,

"This test is kind of unfair to people whose strengths are in things like geography and history, since I didn't keep them in. Wouldn't have been fair to teach ONE history when there are so many to go by." He paused for a moment. "I'm thinking about talking to a friend of mine about making a compilation important-points-in-histories log since those who forget the past . . . yadda yadda." He waved his hand. "Don't worry about it."

"I'll do my best," Katara said, her brow furrowed in concentration. She knew it was silly to feel so overwhelmed: she was probably not the only child here from an earlier world. Besides, it was just a run down at what subjects she might take.

She listened to what Allen said, nodding to indicate she understood. "I don't think those two subjects will be bad ones for me. History is just memorizing facts, and considering in my world we had to be constantly concerned with maps, it shouldn't be too much effort."

And suddenly she remembered something.

"Allen? May I please ask a favor of you? Would you know how to rig a communication device that could transmit from one part of Stacy to an entirely different floor?"

"Something other than the omnicoms?" he asks, fingers dancing across the hanging monitor as he speaks to her.

"Well, yes. I'm supposed to be on team Sierra, but there's a team member that won't be able to be there because he'll be in the infirmary. Apparently he has some kind of syndrome that's making him blind for now. I'd like to see if there was some way for him to still participate and listen in on our meeting even though he can't physically meet with us."

"Oh yeah, sure." Allen brightened, already pulling blueprints for a portable intercom together in his head. "That wouldn't be a problem. Actually -" he eyed Katara thoughtfully, pulling at the two days' worth of growth on his chin - "wanna help me build it?"

"Me?" Katara was surprised by the question. She figured that the people who knew how to build those thinbgs wouldn't want her messing with it. "Well sure, of course! I just want to make sure that he isn't left out. What would I need to do?"

And Katara's mood has definitely taking a lift. After all, the girl loved the idea that she would finally have a challenge after being here for a few days.

"I can think of worse ways to learn basic machinery than building a two-way radio. Clear your schedule for tomorrow and show up at 1000 hours. That work?"

"Of course!" Katara was ecstatic. She'd never even seen how some of these things were made, and now she was going to help firsthand!

"See you there!"

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only