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 Posted: Mon May 30, 2011 4:56 pm
At ten in the morning, the screen was still blue, bright and gleaming.  Jada scowled at the $4,000.00 laptop fiercely, and stabbed the buttons on her keyboard that Zora had told her to. Nothing. Viciously she stabbed the power button to turn it off. No way to connect to the internet; No way to fill out the pile of online applications she had been told to fill out. "I hate you!" she hissed at the laptop, whose screen went contently, uncaringly black. "One miss-iss-ipp-i, Two miss-iss-ipp-i, Three..." All the way to ten, and she hit the power button again. "Don't you make me go to a Mac." It was less than five minutes after the restart when her screen went blue again. Under normal circumstances, she would slam the cover and call for Zora; the redhead knew about the electronological thingies, and normally fixed Jada's problems and got her on quickly, and with no added cost her parents could potentially complain about. But now, she didn't have Zora. No; the girl was safe in France, with Szelem. Away from the war zone. In her phone, however, she had the number of another redhead who apparently knew how to fix computers. Pressing a button on her phone, she listened to the rings, and the greeting. "Hey, is this Kirin?" Jada crossed her ankles, her mind summoning images of the fluffy red hair of the girl she'd 'helped' just a few weeks prior. "My name's Jada. Do you remember me?"
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Posted: Mon May 30, 2011 5:23 pm
Kirin was awakened by the persistant blaring of a pop song. Eyes closed, he rolled over and felt around on the bedside table. Several items crashing to the floor later, Kirin grabbed the phone. Flipping it open, he brought it up to his ear.
"H'lo?" he mumbled.
Who the hell was calling him on the weekend? The few who did have his number knew better than to call this early. Kirin was a late night owl - between patrolling and programming, he was rarely in bed before 1am on weekdays, weekends not til the sun was already rising. So running on four hours sleep if he was lucky, Kirin wasn't enthused about the phone call.
Surprise kept him from taking it out on the caller. Jada? Of course Kirin remembered. Good food and a fake lesbian date. And he'd briefly seen her at Prom.
"J'da? Yeah, I r'ember." Kirin held the phone away for a second as yawned loudly. His finally forced his eyes open, peering at his alarm clock, then giving it a deadly glare. "What's up?"
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Posted: Mon May 30, 2011 5:44 pm
"I am really sorry if I woke you up." The other woman's voice was husky and groggy with sleep. "I just remembered that you said you might be able to fix my computer." How lucky, that the other girl could sleep in. Jada herself was a creature of habit, and even on the weekends was up by eight or nine in the mornings. Weekdays she was up promptly at six. Between patrolling and..... oh, right... patrolling... she had nothing better to do.
In theory, she could sleep in late. Jada snuggled into the hotel pillow as an example, stretching her legs out over the mattress. Switching the phone over to speakerphone, she set it on the nightstand and went back to smacking keys on her keyboard. "I'm getting the Blue Screen. Again." All she knew about this screen was that blue and white was the most annoying mix of colors known to mankind. Who cared if blue was supposed to be calming? The screen raised her blood pressure like nobody's business.
Through the open back door, she could hear the sounds of children playing in the pool, and the sounds of fountains and running water coming from the fancy pool area. The Xanis hotel had a waterfall in the pool area. Seriously? How fancy. "I can call back later if you need me too, it is just that I have all these job applications to fill out, and I am getting really, really frustrated." She didn't want to work retail anyway! But until she had her bachelor's degree, with her complete lack of real work experience?
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Posted: Mon May 30, 2011 6:06 pm
"S'cool, I'm up," Kirin yawned again, but resigned himself to the fact that he was awake now. An energy drink or two and he'd be fine. Possibly not up for a patrol tonight, but there was nothing that said he had to be out there every night. The good thing about doing the senshi thing freelance was that no one could complain if he took a day off.
He raised an eyebrow, listening to Jada talk. Hadn't she been working as a businesswoman already, when they met? Or had that just been dressing up for lawyers? He couldn't quite recall.
Blue screen of death... "You tried restarting?" he asked, pushing himself off his bed. Clothes, he had to find clothes. "I assume you don't want the machine wiped. When was the last time you did a backup? Install anything new on it recently?"
God, he could open his own service desk. Except for how he didn't spend half an hour making Jada prove it was her on the phone before providing the basic of help.
Did he have anything decent to eat for breakfast? Kirin wandered out of his room, heading for the fridge. Hmmm... how old was that pizza? Maybe he should just get something on the way - because he doubted Jada's laptop was going to be fixed over the phone, if Jada really was as computer un-savvy as she had previously claimed.
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Posted: Mon May 30, 2011 6:16 pm
"I tried restarting." Jada was resigned to the fact that however she restarted her computer was not how other people restarted her computer. "Five minutes later it blue screened again. Then it wouldn't come on when I pushed the button, so I pushed it a bunch more, and it flickered like it was having a computer seizure, and made a sound like a 'pfffffffffffffffffbbbbzzzzzzzt.'" One thing was positive about living in a hotel- you saw some good sights and some bad sights. Fabio out there in a G-string was one of the dubious. The lifeguard was definitely one of the positive.
Leaving her balcony, Jada moved back within better range of the speaker, closing the sliding glass door behind her. "I'd rather not have the machine wiped." she agreed. "I have some important stuff on there I'd rather not see lost." The last time she'd done a backup? "By backup, I assume you mean those little disks that my sister did when it was first bought? I still... might... have those. Somewhere. In storage. Or in my CD case." Though she might have put them in the lockbox. Or the safe, since Zora told her to keep them someplace safe. "And install anything new? I updated Flash? And Adobe Acrobats."
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Posted: Mon May 30, 2011 9:25 pm
Kirin was more and more awake as Jada kept explaining what her computer was doing. Worse, what she had done to the computer. There was a faintly horrified expression on Kirin's face as he paused in the middle of grabbing juice out of the fridge. She'd managed to give the poor laptop seizures!? And that noise... had she fried it somehow?
Alright. He needed spare parts. "What sort of laptop do you have - if you say the colour, I will hurt you!" he warned Jada. "Brand, model... there should be a sticker on the underneath of the laptop."
If he didn't have spare parts that would fit, he knew where to find them. But it was always better to do the repairs yourself, rather than pay some idiot out the a** for them to just guess (in Jada's case, Kirin firmly amended this to 'better to let Kirin do the repairs himself - he suspected Jada was one of the very rare few who knew even less than the guy manning the counter at Best Buy).
"Do not do anything else to it until I get there," he ordered. Then paused. There was one flaw with this plan. "Where am I going?"
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Posted: Tue May 31, 2011 5:11 pm
"It's V-" Jada paused, in the middle of telling Kirin it was a violet laptop. "-ery far away. Give me a second." She reached her legs out and made light thumping noises with her feet against the floor, then flopped over onto the bed. "It's an ASUS..." she said slowly, peering it over. "It's...." It was purple. "It's big."
Underneath the laptop, there was, indeed, a sticker. Jada peered it over, scowling at the tiny text. "It's a... G73SW-3DE?" How was the last part a question when she was reading right off the sticker? "I think. It glows." The last was added helpfully.
When Kirin said she would swoop in to the rescue, Jada's relief was audible. "Oh, I'm staying at a hotel right now." She gave Kirin the name and address of the hotel. "If you want, you can meet me in the restaurant and I'll feed you and then you can fix my baby. That sound okay?"
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Posted: Tue May 31, 2011 8:50 pm
Jada had an obsession with feeding him, Kirin was beginning to think. Oh well, at least she picked good places. And it wasn't like she couldn't afford it, either, he told himself - with no clue as to the change on Jada's financial status.
"I think I've got some pieces that may work." Kirin grabbed a pad and pen off the kitchen counter, jotting down the details of both laptop and hotel. "Depending on what the problem turns out to be, of course."
Checking the address of the hotel and the time, he said, "Give me half- no, forty-five minutes. I'll see you there."
Ten of those minutes were spent digging out Kirin's toolkit (for computers only, he had neither the time nor inclination for any other kind of fix-it-yourself work) and hunting through a pile of spare parts. Jada might be in luck. He found few second-hand parts and even one brand new piece that might work with her model.
Finally, Kirin was out the door, laptop satchel swung over one shoulder. Time to go save the damsel in distress.
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Posted: Tue May 31, 2011 9:15 pm
"Well, you're the one who might know. My expert troubleshooting is failing." She noticed hand prints on the casing and screen from where she had hit the computer a few times in her agitation, and scrubbed at them with a corner of her shirt. "Forty five is fine. I'll be at the bar." Unfortunately, she wasn't able to drink at the bar in the hotel. First off it was only 10:20 in the morning, and second? The bartender was unfortunately 'wise' to her already, and always gave her a paternal scowl when she ordered anything that wasn't virgin. Her own father didn't scowl at her like that man did- of course, she'd never drank anything that wasn't champagne or wine around him.
Jada poked the computer a little bit, disregarding- or forgetting- Kirin's command not to 'do anything else to it.' Laptop goes on, Laptop goes off. Blue Screen goes on, Blue screem goes off. One pfffffffffffffffffbbbbzzzzzzzt, mwahahaha.... Two pfffffffffffffffffbbbbzzzzzzzt.... mwahahahaha... Yeah, it wasn't working. Outside, the sunshine taunted her. The pool sounded lovely. She pulled back her hair, flipped through TV channels, anything to pass the fifteen minutes more before she could head downstairs and not feel lame. Maybe she'd wear the gold halter top? (She'd got it on sale. 50% off, only $40! Plus? It was cute.)
Thirty minutes later, Jada wandered downstairs and into the hotel restaurant, taking a seat at the bar in blue jeans, the overpriced gold halter and matching sandals. She didn't stand out too much; hotel patrons decorated the place, even so early, enjoying their Saturday morning brunch in their bathing suits. By comparison, she was dressed nicely. Then again, if you wanted to pay these rental rates for a night in a hotel, you could dress however you pleased, she supposed. In the corner, a few people had a bottle of Dom and were toasting their honeymoon. Maybe it wasn't too early in the morning to be drinking.
"I'll have a strawberry daquiri." she told the bartender, and hopped up onto one of the stools. "Virgin." she added, catching the look. Booo. Taking the drink off the bar, she moved to a high-top table not far away and started peering at the menu.
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Posted: Sat Sep 17, 2011 5:39 am
Kirin was early. Only by five minutes, but considering that he viewed meeting times as vague guidelines, he thought it was something worth noting. He made his way through the hotel lobby, heading for the bar. Kirin was well aware of the looks he was receiving and more than once he had to move quickly, ducking the hotel staff moving to intercept him.
Why Jada was here, he didn't know, but it was certainly her kind of place. Swanky yet tasteful. Well, as tasteful as the nouveau riche ever really got - he was sure they thought they were being understated. Why Jada needed Kirin instead of just hiring a professional, he didn't know. It wasn't like she was lacking for money, kicking around in this place.
Really, if it hadn't been for the short ruffled skirt over barely-less-short denim shorts, Kirin was sure someone would have made sure he was removed by now. Other patrons must be thinking him someone's callgirl, if the occasional leer was any indication.
Ignoring them, Kirin spied a familiar figure and made his way over to her. If he was scowling as he sat down across from Jada, well, it wasn't directed at her. Much. (She was the only reason he was here, after all - it was a tiny bit her fault.)
"You didn't leave it alone like I said to, did you?" he chose to open with. As soon as he'd said that over the phone, he'd known she wouldn't listen. Kirin was beginning to think she was the type who, when forbidden something, just wanted to do it all the more.
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Posted: Sun Sep 18, 2011 9:11 am
She peeked over the top of the menu as she heard a familiar voice. "Kirin!" the menu hit the table with a thump, and the redhead was halfway to being hugged when Jada remembered that the other woman had a thing about contact. She froze, hands in the air, half-pounced. She settled for patting Kirin on the shoulder and blowing kisses at her cheeks. "It is so nice to see you again!" So what if Jada was avoiding the question? Kirin would probably take a look at the computer and get it fixed with a wave of her magic wand anyways! Hopefully. Oh god, what if she couldn't? Maybe Jada should stick with the salad instead of going for that teriyaki dish. "You're looking so cute today!" Compared to the people in their bathing suits, Kirin was downright overdressed. Now, Jada would never wear a skirt over a pair of shorts, but...
"Sorry if I woke you up," she continued, "But I don't know what hours you keep. That computer has been nothing but trouble, and I just don't have the money to sink into taking it to the Geek Squad right now. They take forever, and they charge a ton." She'd heard there were little home-run places one could take a computer for repair, but she'd also heard that some of them stole your pictures and sold your information to those people in Nigeria who ran scams. Jada couldn't afford a scam right now either, really. Though she did have a cousin who was living in Nigeria. (She would figure her thought patterns out later, for now, she still had to think about food.)
The young woman took her seat again, running her fingers through her shorn hair. She had some job interviews tomorrow, and she needed that computer! "Anyway, order whatever you'd like. And when you're ready, we can take a look at my baby. Thanks so much for coming by!"
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Posted: Mon Sep 19, 2011 5:38 pm
The whole air-kissing thing was still really strange to Kirin, but he was grateful that Jada had cut off her initial glomp-reflex (because that girl had too much enthusiasm for just a regular hug, he could tell). Rich people were weird, he reminded himself, not bothering to exclude his grandfather from that.
"Uh, thanks?" Kirin said, looking down at his outfit. He didn't think it was all that cute or anything special. Jada was by far the more dressed-up of the two, in a fancy halter-neck top. If Kirin hadn't known ebtter, he would have thought she was going somewhere. But apparently rich people in rich hotels had to dress up just to eat breakfast or sit at the bar. Go figure.
"No problem." Kirin waved away the repeated apology for waking him. He would have had to have gotten up at some time, and better Jada's voice than the woman down the hall screeching at her brats to practice baseball pitching outside, not in their living room. "I'll just crash early tonight." Yeah, maybe he'd actually be in bed before midnight for once.
He'd grabbed a pastry or two on the walk over, so Kirin wasn't that hungry. As Jada was still working on her icy mocktail, Kirin ordered a coffee. Extra perk-me-up as well as keeping Jada company while she finished her own drink.
"So you're looking for a job?" he asked, while waiting for his precious caffeine to arrive. "I thought you were on a pretty steady income already. Or is it more a case of needing something to do?"
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Posted: Mon Sep 19, 2011 9:24 pm
She beamed at the other woman. "I'm a bit of an early bird myself." she chewed on her lip. "Late to bed, early to rise. Except on the weekends usually." She was chattering nervously. What would Kirin do when she saw Jada's laptop? Would she be able to fix it? The data on that laptop was important. Her resume was on there, links and addresses for her interviews, all her emails, phone numbers... if it had to be wiped, it would be terrible. And how would she get access to it all if the other girl failed?
Jada nursed her drink slowly, and it took her a second to realize Kirin had asked her a question. "Oh, yes. I've had a surprising yet temporary change in circumstances that requires me to find a job. I have actually been living in the hotel for a couple of weeks since a friend owns it, though I have an apartment lined up to move into, provided I get a job offer." she stirred the daiquiri with her straw, watching the whipped cream swirl around inside the glass. She could have her circumstances restored if she were willing to leave Destiny City.
Why should she stay? It was costing her friends, money, and someday maybe her life. She could live like a princess if she were only willing to sit back and take her chances on the darkness eating this world like it had the world of her past incarnation. Maybe it was the knowledge that she was just a piece in a play much bigger than herself? Even a pawn was an important piece.
"So that is why it is so important I can get to the information on my laptop. All my interview locations are on a document. Not to mention I have some very important pictures and bookmarks. I can't imagine losing everything."
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Posted: Sun Sep 25, 2011 5:51 pm
Kirin frowned. A 'surprising yet temporary change in circumstances'? That required Jada to live in a friend's hotel (ie. not on her own money, or at a very discounted rate) rather than one of her own houses, and away from either parent? Sure, Jada's mom had sounded like an absolute terror, but what could the girl have done to warrant being kicked out?
Avoiding mention of the dreaded she-beast seemed in order. Instead, he tentatively asked, "Your dad can't help you out?"
At least Kirin, as a computer-fiend, knew the importance of being able to keep all your data. (This was also why he backed up regularly - he was going to have to ensure that Jada bought an external disk with her first paycheck and started doing regular backups.) He drained his coffee and waited for Jada to be done with her drink. Since this was more important than saving a ton of photos meant for Facebook, or Jada's iTunes library, he wanted to get started.
"Unless it's actually the hard drive that you've managed to kill, I'll be able to get your data back," he reassured Jada. It was rarely the hard drive itself. Still, he hastened to add, "And even if it is, there are ways to get at least parts of the data copied off."
Hopefully it wouldn't come to that. Kirin didn't have those kinds of tools, so it would mean a trip to a computer store to get it done 'professionally' - and Kirin trusted those idiots about as far as his tiny five foot one frame could throw them (ie. unfortunately not that far, when not senshi-ed up).
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Posted: Sun Sep 25, 2011 9:57 pm
Jada smiled. "Everything will work out," she assured the redhead. How was she supposed to answer the question? For the first time she could really remember, her parents seemed in perfect tandem on one thing: Their family needed to be away from Destiny City. "I know it will."
Kirin drained her coffee and Jada did the same with her daiquiri. "I have no clue what is dead or not. I probably should take some computer classes, but I don't ever work with the Zeroes and Ones aspect of things. I'm Office Suite proficient and can fix an internet connection most the time, so I've gotten by." Not to mention that was what computer-smart people like Kirin were kept on staff for. "My sister could fix computers alright, even though she mostly used it for video games." Jada hadn't been on her World of Warcraft account since Audrey...
"I have a couple spare CDs somewhere if you need them." she volunteered, and stood. "Lets go ahead and go on up to take a look at the computer. If you're hungry later we can call for room service or come back down." While she was up there, she could see about educating Kirin on the glories of Gucci and Prada. Every woman needed those two in their wardrobe.
Oooh, and Louboutins. Definitely some more expensive footwear needed in this poor girl's closet.
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