Room 307, Tuesday Afternoon

[dollpocalypse]

Nothing to do? Why not check on some spybots? Well, that was Topher's motto, anyway.

Topher clicked through the interface, going camera by camera -- huh, random blurry scuffle on the roof, what was that about? -- until he got to the one that spent the most time chilling in Peter's room. It seemed to be working, although, okay, that was weirdly close to Peter's desk. He was going to have to work on its spacial recognition or something so it didn't just climb on top of things and wind up filming Peter's freaking emails... huh.

Look, it wasn't like he could just not read it when it was all zoomed in on the screen like that, okay?

I can only hope that, in the event of success, you will choose to emulate Washington, MacArthur, or Augustus rather than Napoleon, Alexander, or Hitler.

Colmin

...what?

Okay, there were totally about five tabs being opened right now, and only four of them were to figure out who the hell those people were.

[[open door, open post! spybots nfb and all with the permission of the majestic lockestheway. eta: initial subject of the ender thread is gonna be nfb as well, la, but the fact that he stopped by and there was gaming is okay.]]

Comments

[endsthegame]

"You don't have to tell me," Ender said, "But right now you're not doing a very good job of making me believe it's of no interest me."

[dollpocalypse]

Topher drew in a little on himself. "So?" he mumbled.

[endsthegame]

The game finished its install procedure, and Ender offered Topher the desk back.

He smiled a little. "It's not my intention to make you uncomfortable, either," he said. "You're just making me curious, that's all."

[dollpocalypse]

"Oh," said Topher, visibly relieved as he took the desk back. "I mean. It's just... stuff." He scratched the back of his neck, then added, "Like, you know. Things. That I'm not supposed to talk about."

[endsthegame]

Well, Ender already knew about Tony, and Topher knew that, which led him to suspect...

"Peter?" he asked. He sounded wry. "Of course."

He nodded at the desk. "It's a tactical shooter, by the way."

[dollpocalypse]

"What? No!" Topher, this strategy never worked. Seriously. "I mean. Really. It's not him. At all."

Less deceptively emphatic this time, but the hugely wide eyes still sort of gave him away. Whoops.

[endsthegame]

"Topher, I'm from several years in Peter's future," Ender pointed out. "There's very little he can do that'll surprise me at this point."

[dollpocalypse]

"Or not do," Topher said hastily. "'Cause he isn't doing anything."

[endsthegame]

Ender observed him for a moment.

"You want me to walk you through the game?" he asked.

Mentally, he was trying to work out roughly where in the timeline Peter fell out right now, and whether anything significant had happened. Had Peter taken Topher in confidence about something? It didn't seem like him.

[dollpocalypse]

"I bet I could fi--"

Topher glanced at Ender and remembered that time with the zombie game.

"Yeah, okay."

[endsthegame]

"Okay," Ender said, getting up off the bed so he could get closer to the desk. "The controls are pretty simple for this type of game, but this system involves a different kind of key orientation than you're used to. It's not really like typing forward or backward like you do on a 21st century computer..."

[dollpocalypse]

Topher followed, settling next to Ender. "Got it," he said, and he took another minute to process the layout of the desk and figure out how it could be used in the game. "So to move, you just swipe like this?" he tried, gesturing.

[endsthegame]

"Exactly," Ender said, "Whereas you can shoot by moving like this..."

He performed a hand gesture.

[dollpocalypse]

"Got it," Topher said again, nodding intently. Then with a glance up at Ender, he asked, "Single or multi?"

[endsthegame]

"The original game was multi," Ender said. Most games from Battle School were. "This one is more single-player oriented, though it's still got multi options."

[dollpocalypse]

"Wanna?"

Brilliant idea, Topher. That was sure to end in... well, a sweeping defeat.

[endsthegame]

"Sure," Ender said, tapping them back to the main screen and activating the multiplayer function.

Poor Topher. Again.