Scene #2552: Of Skinny Clocks And Things

Owner	Pose
Elodie Vautrin	After so long bound to one place, it would appear that the very last thing Elodie wants to do is stay cooped up in one place. She's barely in her dorm room assigned to her by Setsuna, and so getting ahold of her has been somewhat difficult. She's often wandering the campus grounds or even into Tokyo itself which Amy saw her do when she got caught up in the attack by Seriss Nyx. When Amy finally did reach her -- as she was not answering her phone and offered to explain some things, Elodie was more than grateful for it and recommended that they go for a walk and talk about it like they were on the set on Aaron Sorkin show. Without much in the way of belongings as of yet and only just formally being made a student for summer Japanese classes, she doesn't actually have a school uniform yet or any other clothes -- so she is back in the thankfully somewhat vintage look of a black turtleneck, casual black pants, with a cute black purse. Her long hair is neatyl styled into big drill curls. She's silent, at first, willing to cede the ground to Amy to begin the conversation.
Amy Faust	Amy looks over Elodie. It's after school, and she hasn't bothered changing out of her uniform. "...So do you have ''magic'' to make your hair do that, or do you... I have no idea how one makes hair do that honestly. Some kind of huge curlers...?"
Elodie Vautrin	"The secret of good hair is a certain magic," replies Elodie, bouncing her curls with one hand, very satisfied with the comment. Preening, almost. She's speaking english at the moment with a heavy french accent. Her japanese skills amount to recognizing things like 'Sayonara'. She raises up the 'skinny clock' that Amy gave her earlier, having produced it from her purse. "So what is it you wanted to talk to me about? It is it about the fight?" She asks, curiously, "or about the ... thing?" She feels around in her purse before proudly producing the 'skinny clock' that is the smart phone that Amy gave her originally. "I have even plugged it in at night on the wire you gave me! I was told I am supposed to do that." She nods.
Amy Faust	Amy also defaults to English when talking to Elodie. Otherwise, this author uses [square brackets] in dialog to indicate when the OOC translation convention does not apply to text. Amy smiles, almost beaming, as she expectantly waits to hear a little about the secret of good hair. ...Okay then, seems they're moving on. She makes a bit of a :I expression trying not to be amused at the way Elodie is talking about the modern invention. It is unfair to judge! A kid could do the same to her talking about Roblox, after all! "Well... that too, and it feels a little unfair to just ask you why there were ''cracks'' in you without giving a lot of information, so..." "Uhhh... yeah. So... what do you know, so far, about what happened over the years you were gone? I'm not actually sure how easy it is to glean it all from MeTube and Hayaipedia."
Elodie Vautrin	Elodie looks at Amy for a long moment, as if to say 'metube?' 'hayaipedia'? without actually asking that question, and those words never crossing her lips. The eyebrow is raised, though, and the confused look on her face more than likely says enough. "Very little. To be honest, everyything is very dizzying on top of being in another country altogether!" She looks up towards the buildings. "It is a lot. I don't blame you for being unsure where to start. So let us do this. I won't ask you to give me a brief on the last fifty years. Instead, let us focus on 'immediacy'." The mention of 'cracks', though, got a smug smile and an upturned nose. "It's magic," she says gravely once more.
Amy Faust	Amy listens. Okay, she hasn't heard those. Did Elodie... /talk/ to people? Not like there aren't exchange students and students eager to practice English or French. Honestly, Amy was already working up to a summary of history, so she deflates a little on being told to pivot to more immediate things. At least that comment she can give an awkward smile to. "It's okay if you're a rock. You wouldn't be the only one." Then she looks more serious, "...I guess by immediacy you mean Seriss Nyx? It's like Rashmi told you... she's possessing the body of our friend Molly, she makes monsters. Very dangerous. I'm not sure there's a lot more to brief about her? You saw what she does, barriers, flying, homing energy bullets... uh... we have reason to believe Molly is still alive and fighting, but we've yet to figure out a way to get Seriss ''out.''"
Sugata Shindo	It's not unusual to see a student on the campus, or near it, and Sugata is certainly a student. He'd been making his way towards the school's interest, half-heartedly planning on dragging Takuto in for an extra training session given that Kendo Club didn't meet today, when he overhears the conversation, unusual mainly for the French-accented English. Eavesdropping is rude. He does it anyway, as he passes by, recognizing Amy Faust and wondering if this is related to their other jobs, and then he hears the name Seriss Nyx, and casually wanders over. In mostly un-accented English, he asks casually, "So she's started unleashing those monsters she escaped with last time? I didn't hear about this fight, I assume you were all better able to manage her, then?" There's no judgement in the words, though they certainly are brusque, and he glances at Elodie with professional interest. "Sugata Shindo, also known as Ginga Kingu. And you are?"
Elodie Vautrin	Elodie pauses a moment, listening to Amy's tale with regards to this 'Nyx' individual. There's a soft 'hmmm' from her as she continues. "Well, it is good to hear more about the background, I suppose. If I can be of any help --" And then Sugata is speaking and she turns towards him. His English is certainly a littelr better than her's with regards to the accent. Her own is pretty heavily present. "Ahhh. A friend of your's, Amy?" She says, glancing towards her and then back again. "Elodie," she tells him, pausing. She'll let Amy explain who this is and what the deal is with Seriss' most recent actions. She was just (un)lucky to be int he same space when it started last time. A smile, all warm as the summer evening. "But mostly, Ms. Frost, I meant ..." She holds up the phonem. "I am told this is very useful!"
Amy Faust	"Oh, hey Sugata-san!" Amy does greet him with a smile and a wave in Japanese before switching back to English. "Yeah, we managed. But she has a monster that makes monsters now, so... that's not good." Elodie asks if he's a friend. "Oh! Yes, and another magical. As he said, he's... 'The Galactic King'. That sounds a little weird and ostentatious when I say it in English, actually..." Who the heck is Ms. Frost. Amy looks confused for a moment, then: "Oh! It's 'Faust' actually." She repeats it a bit more slower and drawn-out. "Faaaooost." If Elodie repeats it corrected the sides of her mouth turn up a little. Hearing Miss Faust in English does carry a little something Faust-san doesn't. Oh right, the phone. "Y-yes. People call it a 'phone' for short now because it's the most common kind of phone people ''have'' these days -- in the 2000s we called it a smartphone, and the thing is it's also a computer! And a camera, and a recorder, and music player, and more, all with a wireless connection to the internet. Uhh, which is a global network of information, even if people mostly use just social media sites these days, ''ugh''. But, try opening your map. Uhh, what's that in French..." She looks at the screen, she ''did'' change the localization to French before giving it to Elodie in the first place, and points at the Woogle Maps icon. "That, there. ....You tap it. It's a touchscreen."
Sugata Shindo	Sugata nods when Elodie offers her name, looking far more interested in the news about Seriss Nyx. "An enemy that creates more enemies? That sounds exciting, though I'd be keen to see how far that ability goes." Is it an endless source of new opponents, or can they exhaust it eventually? He'd love to find out. "The only reason it doesn't sound ostentatious in Japanese is because Kingu is an objectively ridiculous loan word," he says dryly, thinking of Wako and Takuto's faces when he accepted their choice, and soundly agreed to never let them name him - or his attacks - again. "It's an accurate translation, though." Amy is allowed to explain her own surname, and then - phones? Why would someone need a phone - He turns to Elodie, curious. "Alien or time traveler? We have both, allegedly. Your phone likely has a helper installed, that you can ask questions to. It's not very smart, but it will be able to use keywords to get answers to most of your questions."
Elodie Vautrin	"A ... helper ... installed?" says Elodie, blinking her eyes at Sugata and blushing at Amy's correction. "Oh, Faust," she says, having misremembered. "I am not a rock," she adds a moment later to Amy under her breath. Then she covers her mouth with her hands for a moment to hide a smile. "I am not what I would call a 'time traveller', though I suppose that's a distinction that doesn't really matter. Suffice to say that this new modern world is -- eh -- quite a head trip?" She asks, carefully, then smiles at Amy. "Do I look like a rock to you?" She's teasing her even as she inspects her phone. "It is a phone," she says, "Wait, it has an assistant? Like that girl -- Rashmi -- like her thing?" She asks, falling all over herself.
Amy Faust	Amy nods at Sugata's judgement of 'Kingu'. "Engrish does always sound silly. I'm sorry, it's not your fault. I mean, your buddy's the Galactic Prettyboy..." "You had a crack in you! And aren't you a time traveler? In what way aren't you?" A helper installed. "What? No, nothing like an Intelligent Device, It's not a real AI or anything, so it's really limited in what it can actually-- Oh, huh, we might actually ''have'' those in phones soon. Not Intelligent Devices, that's alien, but there's AIs we have now that have gotten pretty good at understanding and using languagel They probably ''would'' pretty good at understanding your questions... but you'd never know when they're hallucinating the answers. Although, I've run whAIL and BrainChat on my computer and the versions that could fit in my VRAM weren't very smart, so... Any that fit in a ''phone'' wouldn't be very good for sure..." Oh, she was rambling on a bit of a tangent. "Sorry, um, anyway... Not like Rashmi's, no, but if you hold the button and say 'map' or 'calendar' or ask it basic arithmetic or a simple question it can search the internet for, it can do that."
Sugata Shindo	"No, Galactic Pretty Boy is exactly what he wants to be recognized as," Sugata says confidently, "As much emphasis on the Galactic as the Pretty Boy." His boyfriend does not look and act like that to not be acknowledged as the Pretty Boy he is. His eyebrow is creeping up at the loud cry of 'you had a crack in you' and the disagreement about the logistics of time travel. "Well, you're the one who experienced it, so I'll side with you on whether or not it was time travel. Welcome to 2025, it sounds like you've already seen some of the more prompt points." Faust gives a detailed - but rambling - explanation that Sugata can't imagine will help more than it hinders, and he cuts in, "The helper in your phone could be considered something like a stupider version of Terios-san's Nicomachea. It's not an independent person, who could act alongside you through your machine, but the helper has an ability to process information and guide you that can help. You don't need to worry about BrainChat or... any of the rest of that. It's an advanced technology."
Elodie Vautrin	The distinctions being wrought by them are at least initally something Elodie is not able to grasp. Still, it begins to sink in. A little bit. It's just going to take her some time to find the appropriate context, it seems. Amy's protest about her having a crack in her makes her smile and the comment about time travel makes her smile bigger. "That depends on if you consider sleeping a form of time travel. I do not. I have simply slept a very long time." Semantic games are a favorite, okay? "... as for the rest, perhaps I will be able to talk about it eventually. For the moment, however, I am ... finding it difficult. I am as human as you are," she adds, unknowing about how unhuman Amy actually might be considered. "2025 is a ... lot, yes. Thank you. Let us try this." She holds up her phone in front of her face and hols down a button. "Map," she says, happily after it lights up. "What kind of businesses are you looking for?" responds the phone. 'AH," says Elodie, nearly dropping it.
Amy Faust	Sleeping. "Well if you were alive the whole time, maybe I'm a time traveller too. Just a very slow one. One second per second. But I get what you mean. Less Time Machine, more Rip Van Winkle." Human as you are. "Oh yeah no no I wasn't saying-- Nevermind." As Sugata discusses talking computers, Amy dramatically holds her hand out towards the phone, "''THIS'' was an advanced technology 20 years ag--" Amy starts to retort, then holds fingers to the bridge of her nose and sighs. "You know what sucks? It's getting worse. Someone who learned how to use a computer in the 90's or 2000s, knows how to use a computer. And like, ''some'' people still do, but ''most'' people? Now that computers are so simple to use, people don't understand basic stuff anymore." "And this is going ''even faster'' with newer technology. Setting aside generative AI's issues, two and a half years ago you had to set it up yourself. Nowadays people just feed words into a website." "Whatever the..." Amy waves vaguely at the air in front of her, "Next big thing is that comes out? Like, I bet it'll be ''less than a year'' before no one actually knows what they're doing anymore when they use it." She watches Elodie try a phone for the first time. And instead of going to an app it said something in French. Amy's not sure, something like 'what kind of businesses are you researching'? "Yes. Uh, a lot of things talk now... computers, I mean. But that's just it. That isn't even a ''dumb'' version of what Rashmi has. That just turned your words into text as best it could, looked at that text for some keywords, including the programs installed on the phone, or if it saw question-words it might think it's a question it can search the internet for and read you the first answer it finds. It's not... ''thinking'', or even... ''whatever'' it is LLMs do. It's very dumb. Was whatever it said even a sensible response to whatever you said?"
Sugata Shindo	So this young lady slept through a great deal of time, all without aging? He'd consider that somewhere between time travel, if it were his opinion that mattered, but just this once that isn't the case. "Faust-san," Sugata says, dry and vaguely amused, decidedly not displeased - "This may be a lecture meant for another party. As much as the rapid advance of technology and the dearth of technoliteracy may frustrate you, I'm not sure it's functioning as helpful insight." He has some knowledge of French, having studied it briefly in school, but not enough to entirely grasp what the phone responded with. "It's better to give it a short phrase than a single word. Try 'open map', perhaps."
Elodie Vautrin	Grabbing her phone and clutching it to her chest after nearly dropping it (and getting a few strange looks from passer-bys), Elodie smiles. "Or perhaps I'm just a time traveller," she informs her with a winning, warm smile. The rest of what Amy said earned a bit of a blank stare. She just has no idea what a lot of that means, and then she shrugs her shoulders before her gaze swings back to Sugata as he speaks, though she clearly can not understand a word he's saying, and thn back down at the phone. "... open maps?" she says, this time, and it does in fact go straight to the unlock screen. Fortunately, she has been prepared for this eventuality when it was given to her and she is able to get past that, before it finally opens a map. "...ahhh! This is where we are?!" She seems modestly excited about it.
Amy Faust	"Oh. Uh... sorry." Amy smiles awkwardly and apologetically. "The frustration of getting asked for tech support..." She shakes her head. Sugata's response and Elodie trying it immediately rather than explaining what she said saves Amy from ranting about how 'map' means she wants a map, dammit, who programmed this, etc etc She does smile earnestly when she sees Elodie excited to open a map on her phone for the first time. "Yup! You can touch it and drag it around, or pinch to zoom." She demonstrates what she means by that, placing two fingers on the screen and zooming in and out, then pulling her hand away again. "You can also get satellite photos -- only updated like every few years -- or street view to see what something looks like from the street, too." Beat. Amy steps back and spreads her arms, grinning. "Welcome to the ''FUTURE!''"
Sugata Shindo	"You can also use it to find directions to most places you can think of, including shops, museums, and other venues you might want to explore. If you prefer not to go out, if you choose a location, it will give you their website - if they have one - and you can see if they offer delivery." Sadly, not every soul had ninja maids who catered to most of your requests, including snack runs across town. Knowing how to access delivery options would be useful to any student. "Is there anything else you're looking to learn about our present, your future?"
Elodie Vautrin	"Website?" says Elodie, puzzledly. "Oh! Everything! I want to know everything -- but I don't even know where to start! There's just ... a great deal!" She waves her hands expressively up in the air. "So how do I make a phone call? Do I just tell it who to call?" Her eyes are wide as Amy reveals the touch screen being more, well, touchy than she imagined. She zips it around afterwards, zooming it out on accident onto a map of the entirety of Japan and then some. "Oh! This is very exciting, but perhaps I am too dumb to figure it out? What is the saying -- dumb as a rock?" She gives Amy a LOOK, though it is one with a smile that suggests she is not actually upset.
Amy Faust	Amy grins more at Elodie's infectious excitement. She shakes her head at the bit about being dumb as a rock, lifting her hand to chest-level to look at her ring. "All the rocks I know aren't very dumb at all." Beat. A darker expression flashes over her face at a thought. "I don't think the dumb ones survive very long." Then she's cheerful and close to Elodie again, "Well, you tap this icon here for the actual phone function, and then here for your contacts" Amy Faust Ikiko Hisakata Nurse Meiou Elodie Vautrin (me) "And then you can tap a name to call it, although of course dialing numbers also works. You can also..." She presses and holds her phone's home button and speaks in that tone of 'enunciating slightly clearly and having zero patience left for dealing with machines' she tends to use when speaking to smart assistants, "Call Elodie Vautrin." She absolutely ''butchers'' the pronunciation, but right now all she cares is that the phone can get the spelling from her voice. Elodie's phone rings indicating an incoming call from Amy Faust, and she smiles.
Sugata Shindo	"If you want to know everything, I'd recommend looking up books and articles on modern history, and moving on from there. If you're interested in anything particular, Tokyo has museums on just about every subject, and it will give you a way to absorb it all without burning out your eyes on the blue-light from your phone." It's a more practical suggestion, as is the way he jots off his number on a bit of paper taken from his school bag, along with the numbers of two others - "This is my phone number along with the one for my fiance Wako's number, and our boyfriend Takuto. All of us are skilled fighters if you find yourself in need of back up, and Wako has purification and shielding powers. There's a fourth Star Driver as well, but she's more... traditional, with this secret identity nonsense." Of course he's too well-mannered to just ''add'' himself to someone's contacts list. No, he's given Elodie the information to do with as she pleases. "I've a meeting to get to. It was a pleasure to meet you, Vautrin-san. Good to see you again as well, Faust-san." With that, he departs, leaving the two girls alone.