Private chat wth Otoha

[Quiver]

Two words opened the chat box:

Computer trouble?

[JNAProductions]

What are you talking about?

[Quiver]

Ah. Is that why we're using Skype? I suppose you wouldn't have been able to edit it if we were using Google...

Was this too aggressive a line? Otoha frowned, then shook her head. It was too late to walk it back now anyway.

011000001 01110011 00100000 01001001

I might have missed a digit. You were rather quick after all.

[JNAProductions]

Oh, that. Yes, I'm a programmer, and I had some binary running in the background. Must've been some crossed wires, metaphorically speaking.

[Quiver]

You 'metaphorically' follow you weren't programming in the middle of a sentence, wrote a string of numbers, then finished your conversation without realising what you did the first time.

Congratulations, Aelita.

You've managed to crack my list of top ten outrageous lies.

[JNAProductions]

Well, what do you think happened?

[Quiver]

Honestly, she had no idea. She stared at the computer screen, biting a thumb. She had gone to aggressive too quickly; she didn't have nearly enough material to answer that question. Instead she followed up with something else:

Question. What's your relationship to the staff at our school?

You have some of the highest grades in our year, probably second only to the Rep. But no one I interviewed was able to say they had ever met you. So your attendance record must be horrible. But you clearly haven't been expelled yet. So either there are mitigating circumstances, you have an 'in' with someone in authority, or both.

[JNAProductions]

I've got a medical condition.