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The Perk- Wednesday evening

Jaina had inteded to stop in at the Perk, get a coffee, go over some news from home and then go back to her apartment. She'd walked in on two baristas in a very loud fight about who was supposed to cover one day and how one was taking too many hours. But when they saw her they paused just long enough for one of them to fill her drink order, and then the second the cup was in her hand they resumed the fight.

So now Jaina was sitting at a table with her datapad in front of her, but it was hard not to be paying more attention to the fight. She almost wished she had popcorn.

[Open!]

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Sam looked up from her omni-tool from a few tables away and winced sympathetically in Jaina's direction. "Distracting, isn't it?"

Edited 2013-05-29 22:37 (UTC)

"I just can't imagine fighting this hard about hours," Jaina said, shaking her head.

"If they're on the same shift now, surely they can just share their hours," Sam said, sounding a bit strained because all this fighting had led to a bit of a headache already. "Wouldn't you think?"

"Or at least deal with it elsewhere. So unprofessional." Then she admitted, "Not that I care about professionalism that much right now, because I don't think I've ever gotten a show with my coffee before."

"I suppose it's a bit like dinner theatre," Sam mused. "Though it's... not exactly crowd-pleasing and there doesn't seem to be a scheduled intermission. But even so, it's... entertainment?"

Oh, Sam. Keep searching; you'll find that bright side somewhere.

"I take it you don't want them to start throwing punches," Jaina said with a little lopsided grin.

Sam grinned back. "Well, they could, but this is the only time I've been here that the espresso machine's been working, and I have an awful suspicion that if any violence broke out, that machine would be the first to get knocked over," she reasoned. "Also, I've only got about a third of my coffee left, so I hope I can at least get a refill just under the wire before they start anything."

She'd thought this through.

"Are you hoping it'll escalate, then?" Sam could see the appeal, really. If it weren't for the espresso matter, she might be singing a different tune.

"Not really, but I can tell that one," she said, nodding towards one of them, "kind of wants to hit the other already. I'm Jaina, by the way."

"Sam," Sam said in return, looking curious now. "How can you tell? They look equally annoyed with one another to me."

Because Sam had no sense of people's violent urges. She was a technical specialist instead of a field agent for a reason.

"I'm a Jedi," Jaina said, and explained, "I have some degree of empathy. So I don't know why, but that one's extra frustrated."

"Oh, I see," Sam said, nodding in interest. "That's a useful skill." Then with a little smile, she requested, "Would you do me the favor of letting me know if she actually is about to throw a punch? I'd like to move to a table that's further away."

She was already a pretty safe distance from them, but still. Couldn't be too careful.

"Oh, not a problem," she said. "You took that really well, by the way."

"Well, my world has people with powers as well," Sam offered, blushing faintly at the compliment. "Er. Not that I, ah, have any myself, but they are there."

They were also generally more about physical abilities than empathy and having bad feelings about things, but she figured it wasn't much of a stretch.

"So is 'Jedi' just another word for being empathic, then?" she asked curiously, switching off her omni-tool to listen and everything.

"Well, empathy is one of the things we can do," Jaina told her. "We have telekinesis and danger sense and things like that, too. Handy in case of barista fights."

"Also a good combination for just about anything," Sam observed. "If you're floating a heavy box off of a high shelf, for instance. The danger sense would clue you in if it was about to tip over."

Or you could use the powers to fight, Sam. That could be a thing.

"Very true. I usually use them for fighting, myself."

Because of course Jaina's brain went there. It was what she did.

Sam laughed, mostly surprised that she hadn't thought of that herself. "That's a bit more useful, yes," she granted. Weird how someone who worked for the military would never think of fighting before lifting heavy things. But then again, she'd just moved into a new house. Boxes were on her mind.

"That's how powers in my world are often used, too," she offered. "I mean, I suppose people must use them for shelving as well, because why wouldn't you, but the proportion of biotic soldiers in the Alliance is quite high."

And now Sam was doing her best impression of an encyclopedia, apparently.

"I'm a military technician," she added sheepishly. "It's been a paperwork-heavy week."

"You're from the same place as Kaidan?" Jaina guessed. She didn't know much, but you tended to remember the word 'biotic' when you didn't know exactly what it was. "And I'm former military myself, I understand alll about the paperwork."

Ugh, she still hated saying 'former.'

"Same place and same time," Sam confirmed. "There is a lot of paperwork, isn't there? For good reason, of course, but I apologize in advance if this week's abundance of it has reduced my already rusty conversational skills to the bare minimum."

As if Sam's conversational skills were ever above the bare minimum.

"So, ah, what branch of military?"

She was really curious about the 'former' bit, but that seemed rude to ask about.

"Navy. Which in my galaxy means spaceships," Jaina said, since she knew it worked differently here. "What about you?"

"The same," Sam agreed. "I mostly work on identifying ship signals and optimizing communication systems." La la la technobabble. "It's strange, isn't it, when people refer to ships and the Navy as being aquatic-based? I knew that was the case historically, but in my time, fighting across bodies of water would hardly get anything done at all."

"I can see where it would have worked way back when, when there really wasn't much else to get you from here to there," Jaina said thoughtfully. She didn't think much of this planet's technology, still, to this day. "But the battles in my galaxy have been mostly galactic versus planetary so I have no idea how boats would even work in practice now. Except when they have planes on those boats."

"I suppose if the attackers were centered on a heavily water-based planet, a quick defensive might involve unloading defensive forces onto boats on the attackers' homeworld before the threat could spread to the rest of the galaxy?" Sam suggested slowly. "Of course, in reality, it would be very hard to pick up on an emerging threat before they could even leave their home planet."

Mmm, strategy talk.

"For a while our capitol was was on a water-based planet. It still never came to that," Jaina said. "Though the species on the planet did have their own battles, but it still wasn't quite the same. I'm sure I'll be researching that more later."

Darn, giving herself military homework.

"I probably will as well," Sam admitted sheepishly. "Mostly because I can't think of major water-based planets that have necessitated fighting with actual boats. We've got all-terrain vehicles that do the job just as well and can easily drive out of a shuttle."

Oh, the Mako.

"But really, most people these days are decent enough to keep their fighting out of the water," she added. "Considerate of them."

"Much better to keep it on land, where there tends to be way more damage," Jaina said. "Probably why it happens that way. You know I can hear about twelve people in my head telling me I shouldn't be talking strategy at the coffee shop."

OH WELL.

"I think I might be breaking a few regulations myself," Sam agreed sheepishly. "But at the same time, I really miss talking strategy while I'm out of the Alliance labs. From what I've learned over the past few months of managing an office in town, the withdrawal from a dependency on battle talk can be quite brutal."

Another way of saying this was that Sam was a nerd.

"Going back to real life talk really is the worst," Jaina agreed. Then again, at least her galaxy was always at war. "What office?"

Oh dear. "Portalocity?" Sam said a bit hesitantly. She'd become used to people's general reaction to that name. "I'm technically liasing for the Alliance, but it turned into, er, office management, because as it turns out, this company is rather terribly-run."

TELL JAINA SOMETHING SHE DIDN'T KNOW.

"Yeeeeah. You could say that. If you see any gnomes I need you to just knock them over and kick them in the head till they break."

Said the arguable Queen of Getting Screwed Over By Portalocity And Still Never Getting Compensation, I Mean Kriffing Hell Already, Portalocity.

"I'm sure it's deserved," Sam said at once, not questioning the request one bit. "I'll... take some sort of action, anyway. What if I just called you to do the kicking?" That was fair, right?

"You'd be my new best friend," Jaina said immediately.

"Then it's a win-win," Sam declared, "because... I'm not sure I could destroy anything just by kicking it enough. So I'll leave it to you."

That was sad, Sam.

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The Perk- Wednesday evening

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