Issue 1 Downtime

It was a while after his first power training class. Ryan went into the kitchen, fixed himself a cup of coffee, then took a seat at the little table in the corner. All right... let's see... what's the best way to get the attention of a computer...

He pulled out his phone and went into his e-mail, setting the server as the destination. Yes, it would get bounced back at him, but all he needed to do was get her attention, not get the e-mail through. (Even so, though, he did include a message. "Ashlie, can I have a word with you?")

Then he sat down with his coffee, reading the paper as he hit 're-send' every time it came back as an undeliverable message.

A couple minutes pass then the air next to Ryan sparks and flickers, forming a constant swirl of symbols, numbers and code in the air, slowly expanding until it has a rough humanoid shape.

"Good afternoon, Mr. Gabriel. You seem to have misspelled an email-address."

Ryan smiled, sipping his coffee. "Careless of me, wasn't it? But it looks like the message got through anyway."

"What is it that you wanted to talk to me about?"

"I need your help," Ryan said bluntly. "I have a student who's... going to be a problem. He... well, the file's on my laptop, can you access it, or do you need the password?"

"I prefer having permission." she says before accessing the file.


"Mr. Strong. I have talked to him. He assumed I was a prank being played on him."

"Yeah, well, I think that's better than he's taking to anything I say," Ryan said. "Which gives me a problem. I could find a power tutor for him, but that's really not what his problem is. And he'd blow off whatever I told him to do anyway."

"So you would prefer him to blow off what I tell him."

"No, I'd rather he not blow you off. Which is why I'm going to tell him that someone else is his tutor. He'll have a lot less reason to blow you off if he doesn't know that you're keeping an eye on him for me."

"I can certainly try. I suppose for starters I should convince him I am real."

"That would be a start," Ryan said. "If you could get him to figure it out himself it might go over better. Kid has more authority issues than I've ever seen."

"That was what I was thinking." she agrees.

"Glad we're on the same page here, then," Ryan said. "And I owe you one for this."

"I will remind you at an appropriate time." she says cheerfully.

"I'm sure you will," Ryan chuckled. "So are you getting settled again now that you're back?"

"I do not need to settle in. The mansion's system has not been modified in my absence so re-initializing my programming only took 4 minutes, 28 seconds."

"Well, the system wasn't changed, but you did, didn't you?" Ryan pointed out.

"Yes and no. My programming hasn't."

"What is different, then?" he asked, genuinely curious.

"The waveform projected by the congruent sub-programs."