Welcome to Gaia! ::

Anyone who said the tech department didn't have a schedule was wrong. It ran in a very predictable pattern from project assignment through careful planning to debugging, re-bugging, managerial interference, complete design overhaul, collective all-night code marathon fueled by ramen, caffeine and last minute panic to exhaustion and the next assignment. An experienced programmer knew the states as well as the passing seasons - better, if they didn't get out much - and sometimes existed in several at once.

Hayes was currently caught in stages three, five, and the day after eight, leaving him with the odd but familiar feeling of running on air, which was why he went from bed to the second basement floor on complete autopilot save for the moment he splashed his face with water and a little voice said 'Stubble. You should shave,' which he then did. A curious nagging feeling followed him through the day - which passed in a series of screens and recursion loops, the most he remembered of lunch being the flow chart scribbled on the napkin he stuffed in his pocket - but that was also perfectly normal and nothing to be alarmed about.

A bell-like Hayes! greeted him at the door to his quarters, followed by Alphard happily flopping down on his head. "Hey buddy," the agent grinned. He tugged at one of the butter yellow streamers that fluttered down, then unzipped his white jacket and its hated high collar. It and his gray gloves went flying across the room, hit the edge of the bed and slid to the floor as Hayes opened the bathroom door, still with the vague sense he'd forgotten something.

"Evening," Hayes responded, more out of the automated human interaction he'd been in all day than anything else. Then he blinked, as it hit him that the presence of another person in his bathroom was probably something to stop and think about, and then again as his all day nagging feeling resolved itself into a realization.

There'd been a second toothbrush this morning.

Towel! Alphard chirped, settling on the one distinguishing feature apart from the man's scars.

Now that he thought about it, there'd been an e-mail last evening too. He'd read it and promptly forgotten it in favor of more important things, like finding the section in one of his old postgrad texts to work out a bug in the subroutine they'd put in last week. It had been something like.. not random assortment, partner reassignment, to a name which he couldn't recall right now but would in five seconds. Oh right.

"Guess you're Aulus," was the blond's unspectacular reaction. He pinched the bridge of his nose and threw out a "Lemme know when you're finished," as he went back to his room. The thing on his head waved a little white hand goodbye.

"Mmh." The blond had to think about this one. "Yeah, s'me." He seemed to be operating from a stock of rote phrases; if there was thought going on, it was preoccupied with keeping himself upright and had set the whole issue of 'unfamiliar male in bathroom permanent arrangement for forseeable future' aside to process at a more convenient time. Say, after a nap. Alphard beamed when he was acknowledged, his little arm waving more enthusiastically as the door shut. The Jirachi watched curiosly as Hayes poked his rumpled comforter for sleeping Pokemon, then rose up as the Rocket flopped onto his back, boots on the floor and head against the wall as he closed his eyes. One hand reached up and found the legendary's star-shaped head as it settled on his chest.

After a few minutes the blond stirred, prompting an inquisitive chime from the psychic. Nap? "Sorry bud," the Rocket half-smiled ruefully, sitting up. "Stuff to do." He tugged his boots off - they could stay where they were, he wouldn't need them 'til tomorrow - and headed for his closet, pulling the black sleeveless shell over his head as he went. Alphard draped himself over the top of the perpetually open door, watching as his trainer wrestled into some more comfortable clothing and looked down to see what he'd gotten himself into. Green Lantern t-shirt and jeans. Sweet. Right on time, too; there was whatshisface knocking. "Yeah," Hayes called as stepped over his half-full hamper and headed over.

The agent looked considerably more alert when he opened the door, to the point of offering a friendly smile and an outstretched hand to his new partner. "Hey," he greeted, following up with a "Sorry, long day. Nice meeting you."

"Hah-" It was a short laugh, the sort that acknowledged the humor of the situation while at the same time indicating the speaker was, in fact, relieved such a thing had not come to pass. "-yeah, let's stick with this." The Rocket lapsed into an easy, boyish grin as he loosed Aulus' hand, having given it a firm shake along with straightforward, honest eye contact.

Towel! the Jirachi interjected brightly. It had been hovering just behind the blond's shoulder, and floated forward to get a better look at Aulus, tilting its star-shaped head back and forth curiously as it studied his face. Hm~ hm~ A little white hand reached out to pat the large scar lightly as the legendary's mouth formed a questioning 'o.'

"This is Al," Hayes supplied, hands migrating to his pockets as he watched the interaction to make sure Alphard didn't poke his new partner in the eye or something. "I'd introduce yourself now," he added, with a rueful quirk of his lips, "or he's gonna call you 'towel' from now on."

The Jirachi's 'voice' was clear and bell-like, the way a star would sound, and its little hands were cool and dry as they explored Aulus' face. It seemed particularly fascinated by the strip of smooth, shiny skin marring one side, returning to it again and again until something said caught its ear. "Partner.." it echoed, floating back a foot to get a better look at the man.

"Taulus."

"Pfft- something like that." Hayes grinned with the expression of someone who was fully aware that their place in the natural order of things was behind computers and at conventions, and was perfectly content with this. "Guess they left it up to us to make introductions.. Huh? Oh, yeah," he added, glancing back at the framed print of a rounded stick figure posing valiantly as a ball hurtled for its head. The caption read 'Courage is Not The Absence of Fear' in bold print. "You should. Way more content - they added a co-op mode. Looks pretty cool but I haven't touched it yet." He let that statement hang in the air a second.

"Sorry-" Hayes had noticed his Pokemon's continued questing. "Hey, Al. Come over here," he nodded at his shoulder, which got bangs in his eyes. He reached up to brush them away, then gave the Jirachi an absent pat as it spiralled over to his shoulder and hung on, watching the brooding man with big eyes. "You wanna go find Switch?" "Taulus," the little legendary repeated. "Aulus. Lose the T." "..Owls."

The blond agent grinned in faint amusement. "Sure. You could probably count it as training - just call it a teamwork simulator." Not that he'd ever done this before, his manner suggested. Ever. "I'll send you a copy."

Geekery == tech was both a broad and vague assumption; plenty of geeks had no interest in technology, but Hayes didn't challenge the notion - just laughed in his light tenor. "That obvious?" He took a step back, allowing Aulus across the threshold. "I'm programming - little bit of robotics on the software side too. You're.." He took in the tan, the bulk, the scars, and his brows - darker than the rest of his sandy hair - drew together in a show of thought. "Field agent?"

"Au-lus." 'Owl..us. Owlus?' "G'job," Hayes grinned; that was close enough for now. "He hasn't done that before," he explained, "but yeah, he gets into things. Pretty good at listening but he's hard to keep track of when he-" 'Switch!' exclaimed the Jirachi and disappeared with a very faint 'pop!' "..can do that."

"Heh," the programmer grinned, not seeming to mind. "Sounds like a good fit then - pretty classic, really. " Brains and brawn, though the brawn seemed to have brains enough to be decent conversation so far, and the brains.. ..well, leave it at decent conversation. And male, which might mean the unspoken code of shared gender might lower the chance of below-the-belt attacks unless they really didn't get on. He hooked his thumbs through his belt loops absently. "I can show you the perimeter defense sometime - from a safe distance, anyway."

The sudden exclamation caught the blond off-guard - enough that he blinked behind his lenses, half-turning to see what had prompted the outburst: the old poster of a metallic tank like a pepper pot against a 1950s-style sci-fi background and the bold word 'EXTERMINATE!' A few pinholes in the corners showed it had been put up on other walls before. "Oh yeah?" Hayes asked, interest lighting his expression. Definitely go on.

The blond beamed, looking more like a ten-year-old boy than a criminal hacker in his mid-twenties. He hadn't expected to find many similarities - hadn't expected anything, really, if you wanted to get technical - but knowledge of the old show was a definite plus. "So'd mine - four and five, and some of six. Seen any of the new stuff?" It was a bit odd, just standing; Hayes closed the distance to his desk chair and fell into it, his momentum rotating it a half-turn, and gestured vaguely at the rest of the casually disorganized room with a loose hand. "Watch for lumps in the comforter; they're probably Pokemon."