fandomtownies | Turtle & Canary; Saturday [ 05/26 ].

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Turtle & Canary; Saturday [ 05/26 ].

With consideration to the complications that went along with working at a shop when you didn't have hands, Valentine was feeling incredibly appreciative of having a tech-savvy friend and an AI system in her bedroom. She'd gone to Samus and Jarvis with the task of creating a voice recognition system for the register, for those days when you were feeling less than capable of navigating the touchable features, and then they even stepped it up one more for security by throwing in a few other little details in recognizing the face and retinas to help prevent elaborate theft.

It seemed a little overkill at that point, especially considering that they had security cameras, but, at the same time, she knew how easy it was for someone to just wake up as you some days.

At the moment, though, Valentine was just having fun throwing her voice into different pitches to see it that worked, trying to imitate Apu effective, and just generally testing the range of what the new register could do. She'd have to make sure to talk to Frank about getting his voice in there; she still wasn't sure if she trusted Britta with the privilege yet.

Today's Squishy flavors: Technologic, Super Spy, Red

Turtle & Canary is open!

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Thank you, come again!

It may only seem as though she's talking to herself in weird voices...

I wonder if I can send the cheese panda into work for me today...hmmm...

Oh my, it's even worse than that poor excuse of an AI at your place of work, Jane said, before Ender had even gone halfway through the door into the shop.

He could only hope his slight headtilt communicated do not under any circumstance troll my sister, Jane as effectively as possible.

"Were you getting bored, Val?" he called. Because obviously nobody had just informed him someone had been tampering with the register. Really.

Hey, Ender wasn't the only Wiggin who got to play with AI. Surely, he'd be thrilled to find all the horrible smut fanfiction she had Jarvis begrudgingly help her write during particularly uneventful days in the apartment above Stark's.

"Not bored," Valentine said. "Never bored. Just practical. Have you ever tried opening a cash register with hooves? Well, actually, I'm sure you could have figured it out, but I decided to go the easy route and get a few upgrades done."

Her living above Stark's meant that he and Ben were going to have to time their make-out sessions more carefully on Mondays and Fridays, didn't it?

"You could probably get some fine manipulation done if you took a pencil in your mouth," Ender mused. "But whatever you're doing must be more practical, yes."

Amateurish is the word you're looking for, Jane whispered into his ear.

More often than not, Valentine could find a good reason to be out of her apartment for Monday and Fridays. She was pretty good at planning that way.

"Thankfully," Valentine mused, "you remember Apu was spared that weekend, so people only had to wait for him to come over for their change, but I think it would reflect badly on the business if my customers had to wait for me to henpeck with a pencil for their change. However, one aspect I didn't consider was that, if I was henpecking, maybe they'd get tired of waiting and let me keep it."

Ender chuckled. "You'll have to try it next time," he teased. "We'll need all the spare change we can get."

He made it to the counter, and put down a container of pasta.

"Now, before I forget again, Topher was ever-subtly inquiring after your email address for reasons that had nothing to do with the tiny version of our brother at all," he said.

Valentine tilted her head a little curiously at the pasta, wondering if Ender actually planned on making something out of it or if it was just something easy for the pretext of being in the shop for reasons other than chit-chat.

"That Topher Brink," she said with a smirk, "is a master of subtly and surprise, isn't he? Did you give him one?"

Because of course she had several email addresses for various and sundry, some of which she wondered if even Ender knew about.

What Ender was doing was take the plastic off the still mostly-warm pasta. As he spoke, he reached into his bag and got out a couple of plastic forks.

"I didn't," he said. "I told him that was ultimately your decision, not mine. I'm hardly going to saddle you with Peter unless you absolutely want to, especially when I don't know what he wants."

Valentine gave Ender a faint smile, a little wry and definitely sarcastic. "Being saddled with Peter is what I was good at," she said. "Sometimes I almost miss it. It would be intriguing to see what he has to say, and I wouldn't mind letting him have my general email. It's easy enough for anyone to find that one."

She breathed in deep when he opened the pasta, appreciating the aroma. "Home made?" she wondered. "Or take out?"

"Take out," Ender said promptly. "Unlike many of my friends, I'm both aware of my lack of culinary expertise and of the foolishness of making the attempt in the face of my own incompetence."

He offered her one of the forks.

"I'll pass your email on, then, oh foolish sister of mine."

Valentine nodded as she took the fork. "I was hoping so," she stated, "because I'm actually somewhat hungry. And foolish? I prefer the term vaguely masochistic. So help me, I can't say no to a good intrigue with a slice of messing with poor, hapless victims and a little bit of time-warp-AU on the side."

Ender smiled briefly. "I might have been less inclined to honour his request if Ben's mother hadn't just died-- again-- in a time-warp-AU," he admitted. "We'll see how well being sympathetic to Peter works out for me."

Valentine flinched a little at the news. "How's he doing?" she asked, her brain already switching gears into figuring out what she might be able to do for him. Ben was practically a little brother to her now, too, and a cute and cuddly one she never really had, to boot. One she didn't feel a slight hesitation when she threatened him with tickles and hair ruffles.

"Repressing and deflecting and talking a good game about how it's not technically his mom, so he feels wary about mourning her," Ender said. He poked around at the pasta. "I think he's through the worst of it, but it's not going to be a fun week for him."

Valentine nodded, spearing her fork into the dish a little herself and twisting up some noodles. "All which seem fairly normal responses, as far as normal responses to something like that goes," she mused. "That's good. I'm sure having someone there for him helps a lot, too."

Said almost blithely, as if it didn't really matter much.

"Ben doesn't do well with these things in isolation," Ender said simply, twisting pasta onto his fork.

Jack heard the talking-to-herself and frowned a bit as he paused at the counter. "Should I come back later?" he asked. "I'd hate to interrupt an important conversation."

And as soon as he'd said that he started grinning ear to ear, because this was Valentine and he'd maybe missed her a tiny bit.

"I can't imagine he would," Valentine admitted. "Is he likely to try to be by himself, do you think? Or will he be glad for any offered company?"

"Well," Valentine said, being a bit lofty for a moment, "it is a conversation with one of the most interest people around, but I may be able to put it on pause for a good friend..."

"He'll enjoy company," Ender said, "Especially if it chooses to talk about anything but him."

He'd had some experience in the realm of the Ben Skywalker by now.

Then he brought some pasta up to his mouth and ate it, thus keeping himself from saying more.

"I could wait while you finish up," Jack offered, still smiling. "But it is good to see you again. Here for one last summer with your brother?"

[OOC: Sorry, wasn't around last night! SP powers, activate?]

Valentine's head bobbed in a nod. "Basically, yes," she said. "I thought once he graduated, I won't have to wait around in space for him much longer, but the silly jerk decided to stick around here for the summer. All it took was one cup of good coffee when I was here for graduation to decide for me that I can't handle three more months waiting there. I'm spending the next few years of my life space-traveling to a colony we'll have to set up, so I might as well enjoy a little vacation before that all starts."

She waved her hand dismissively, as if space-traveling and colonizing distant worlds was no big thing.

"What about you?" she asked. "I'll admit, I've been pleasantly surprised to see so many familiar faces still hanging around."

It was going to take just a smudge for Jack to catch up on the colonizing thing. But once he had, and made a mental note to ask more about it later:

"It's a long story," he cautioned. "I went back to 1902 for a war, got ... injured, and ended up taking some time off school. My job in London dried up, and Emma's here for the summer so it seemed as good a place as any to figure out what's next. I'm working for Eric over at Devil's Nest. Paperwork, mostly, not bartending."

"Sounds thrilling," Valentine said wryly, although, really, she would find the paperwork interesting. Probably not as interesting as bartending, where she would get to interact with people, but intriguing all the same. "What were you doing in London?"

"I'm good at it," Jack shrugged. He would have liked bartending too, but the day manager business paid much better and wouldn't conflict with his curse. "I was a receptionist in a law office there. Before that I was reading history at university. What were you doing in space, besides waiting for Ender?"

"Writing the histories of the Formic Wars," Valentine said with a faint grin, though she followed it up with the long-suffering groan of writers everywhere, "and now it's editing."

Which wasn't entirely true, they were well ready to be published at this point, but saying that wasn't nearly as fun.

"Is it taking longer than the writing?" Jack guessed, with a wry smile at that groan. "And ... I don't think I know the Formic wars. Either it was after my time, or they didn't happen where I'm from."

"Way after your time," Valentine confirmed with a nod, "or possibly both. For all we know, history deviates in an entirely different way a hundred years in your future. But, in a nutshell, it's was the war against the bug-like aliens known as Formics, the war my brother fought...and won."

And maybe there was a little bit of bragging and pride in her voice right there. She couldn't help it.

"He mentioned something about that," Jack remembered. "Back when we all charged in to save Karla's world, so it wasn't a time for long explanations. But I like that there'll be a book about the war written by someone in your position. I'll have to read it, when it's done."

"Several books," Valentine said, with a tone of warning. "I'll send you some copies. Might even sign them for you, too."

"Then I'd definitely feel obligated to read them," Jack mock-groaned. "Possibly even write a critique after I'm finished."

Valentine had to bark a little bit of a laugh at that. "Oh, man," she said. "I hope you do. That way, I can be guaranteed at least one generally honest opinion of them. When one brother is the leader of the old world and the other brother's going to be the leader of the new one, you sort of expect people to fluff the truth a little."

"It makes sense," Jack said, tilting his head to the side. "Otherwise, you might end up playing queen and shouting 'Off with their heads!' at anyone who dared criticize you."

His tone was clearly sarcastic; he didn't think Valentine capable of any such thing.

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Turtle & Canary; Saturday [ 05/26 ].

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