Mitheral

Not Good Enough - IC (Duncan and Violet)

"Hello, sir! I see that you appear to be having some trouble. May I interest you in perhaps a tablet of some sort?"

Duncan looked at the sales rep like he was nuts. “Nnnooo? I don’t have a dog. No use for a frisbee. Besides as frisbees go, they are kinda expensive.”

The sales rep looked confused for a moment. “Uhm ..?

“I am looking for two computers. Well … three. But the technology will change before I need the third. One - system, possibly mobile, designed for music. I’ll need the programs to go along with it. I have a list. Multi track, professional grade. I work mainly with guitar and keyboard. So I’ll need the computer to generate all the other instruments plus voice. Two - high end math and graphics system. You know the stuff you see in movies. I want that. I’ll need something that can record data in the femtosecond range. But I am probably going to have to custom build that myself or cannibalize a femtolaser.”

The associate got a glazed over look in his eyes.

“Ignore the part about the femto stuff. I’ll figure that out. Here’s my program lists. I need something that will run all of these, if not better. Cost isn’t an issue. So don’t worry about finding deals. I am looking for performance. If it happens to cost less, great. If not, no biggie.”

The sales associate finally got the picture. It was the wrong picture. But he got it. Duncan was one of those guys who wanted to sound smart. He’d buy a fancy computer that would be an antique before he could ever figure out how to use it. A fool and his money were soon parted…

“One moment sir. I’ll have to look up most of these. Most will have to be ordered. They won’t be in stock here.”

Duncan nodded. “That fine. I expected that. And I don’t even have to have an answer today.” He sighed as the associate ambled off.

Duncan looked over at Violet and gave a thin lipped smile of impatience. He held up one of the tablets. “Skeet anyone?” His nose wrinkled with disgust at the thing. “I know they have uses. And I do use them on rare occasions. But they are designed to limited. I could build a better tablet myself. It’s just noone make the parts yet. I mean, a tablet should have at least a terabyte drive, a mini USB port. Flash drives ought to have mini USB connections. Or heck, just use bluetooth. And bluetooth devices ought to use a Tesla powergrid. This thing is a dinosaur.

“I hate buying computers. Everyone always tries to sell me prepackaged stuff that does half of what I want. Or I find one that does most … only to discover it isn’t in stock.

“You go to the Academy too. You started about two months ago. The school doesn’t usually accept students without pre-enrollment the year before. That places you in one of two categories. Very, very rich family capable of offering a substantial endowment - or witness protection. I won’t ask which. Not my business - especially if it is the latter.

“And if me knowing that sounds a little stalker-ish, I’ll calm your nerves and tell you that I happen to work in the Admin building. I also happen to know you ride a motorcycle. My driver was checking it out. He has a M1030M1 - the USMC diesel motorcycle. He convinced our butler to go riding with him. Gave me some lessons too. But I have just never had a use for a motorcycle. And … Mom would freak. She’s a doctor and more than a little overprotective. And I can’t blame her. I can’t even mention going into the military. Forbidden subject at home. I had my driver speak with her and reassure her that he wouldn’t encourage such notions. I got hugged for that one for about 10 minutes. She was trying not to cry about it. And before you get the idea she is a crybaby, she works with terminal cancer patients. She pretty tough most of the time.”

Guys Like Us Don't Get the Girl

Yep, I saw that. Finally. They had been broke for months.

LOL, decided to have him poke a little fun at Jonna's story. Couldn't resist. I didn't want to get too far ahead or try to run her father. But eventually I may have him suggest something like grabbing some food. He's one of those guys who is always hungry. And yet if he gets busy in the lab he can easily forget to eat.

Guys Like Us Don't Get the Girl

Duncan was clearly not angry in the slightest. If anything he was very much the opposite. But he took one look at the wheelbarrow and balked. “Uhm … hmm. Give me a second to grab some work gloves from my car. I have no grip with my left hand. But after ten years I have learned to adapt very, very well.”

He half walked, half jogged to his car, and drive it back over closer to the work. Then he hopped out and opened the trunk to grab some heavy work gloves. Then he grabbed a moving strap. The strap he used to put the weight of the left side of the wheelbarrow more on his shoulders. Then he looked at the bags.

“Uhm … ten trips?” He tried not to smile. Then he grabbed a bag with his right hand and flipped it onto his left shoulder and grabbed another. He laughed. Then he lowered the bags into the wheelbarrow and started stacking more. “When I was a kid I used to do this sort of work all the time. So don’t be shocked by how many bags I stack on. I am just going to limit it for the sake of balance. Don’t care to go pulling muscles.”

He tossed on a total of six bags - 300 pounds. Then he slipped one ends of the moving strap over the handles of the wheelbarrow and got under it to lift. He hardly seemed to notice the weight. But any more bags would have bounced out at the pace he kept while walking along. On the barn end he offloaded - again with just his right hand. At his pace the job didn’t take long at all. And he hardly even worked up a sweat.

Duncan excused himself to put the gloves and strap away. Then he rejoined Jonna. “Don’t worry about the details of our reunion when you father gets here. But I do plan to hold it over your head as blackmail material.” The humor he portrayed suggested that he had absolutely no nefarious motives. He found the whole scene funny. “Would have been better if I had worn you out by egging you on to chase me. But … eventually I would have run out of road.”

He decided to change the subject and catch up on the times. “So what have you been up two since we last met? Any good stories? Oh! You see the youtube thing about some flying guy that caught a bus?” Duncan laughed, shaking his head pitifully. “Every year or so they have another video about some flying guy. You could practically see the wires. But I did like the technical accuracy. No Star Wars special effects to cut the bus in half. Lasers aren’t visible unless they reflect off something. That would have had to be about a 10kW+ industrial laser to just slice a bus in half like that. So kudos for the special effects.”

Duncan had some of the facts wrong. The superdude - he needed a better name - hadn’t actually caught the bus. But Duncan did seem to have some clues as to the technical abilities the guy had demonstrated and just what it would take. Already social media was taking the scene apart and analyzing everything. The video had been poor quality, largely thanks to wind and rain. Jonna’s editor almost refused to run it. But it was the first actual save caught on video. But it had taken CGI animation to show what had happened based on witness accounts.

Duncan, of course, was keenly aware of the full truth. The superdude - Gawd, he needed a better name … before that one stuck - was becoming a public figure. He was going to have to watch everything he said in his alter ego.

“I don’t really DO social media. But I’d have to live in a cave for someone to NOT show me that clip. It had a zillion views already.” He shrugged. “I guess people want a superhero for real. What do you think? Real? Hoax? Alien?”

Guys Like Us Don't Get the Girl

@SinfulSkills

Hider

Two years ago. The woman before him had been an assistant to a prima donna newswoman who was annoyed with covering some cutesy story about some disabled vet giving a bear to some brat with leukemia. The program, Bears for Courage was begun by Duncan when he was nearly 16. The program was in its 7th year at the time. While her Jonna's boss was whining about the assignment, Duncan had entered along with some US Marines but split off from them. He stood about 6'7", a handsome caucasian male with black hair, and steel blue eyes hidden by Ray Ban sunglasses (though he removed them for the interview). He looked like anything but a doctor.

Dr Duncan Moran tended to shun the Press. However, the words of Jonna's boss had been picked up by his sensitive ears. He had observed silently, not getting involved at all. He listened to the rather abrasive tones in the prima donna's voice and rolled his eyes, clearly bored. If anything he took a little pity on the assistant. Once Jonna's boss was busy pasting on her smiles for the camera, Duncan moved in to join the crew. He had leaned in and whispered asking if any job was worth being treated like that. Then he asked Jonna if she could get away for a 'real' interview.

It had sounded like a pick up line. But once he was assured that he wouldn't get Jonna fired he pulled her into an office and gave a proper interview to explain the real reason this patient was so important. She represented the first patient to receive a new nanotech treatment for leukemia - one that would simulate the disease and bind up the sites in cells where the disease attached itself to replicate and force the cancer into remission.

He finished up by calling his estate manager right there and had her get Jonna’s editor on the line. Duncan explained what he had just done and who he was. Then he asked to make sure Jonna wouldn't get fired over the matter. To sweeten the deal he said he'd call the next time he had a demonstration to conduct for the military or NASA - on the condition that Jonna was the reporter sent. He did suggest that the editor get Jonna some extra training in preparation.

And that was the early start to Jonna's career. One contact with Duncan had opened up doors. It had gotten Jonna stuck working under a far better reporter, a Pulitzer prize winner, whose age was catching up to him. She didn't get any more respect, but at least she got less disrespect. Her new boss decided she lacked real experience and expected her to prove herself.

Last week
Jonna’s new boss has slowed her career down, but had slowly begun to give her begrudging praise, deciding that she was serious about being an investigative reporter, even though much of what she did was eyewitness or on the scene news. She'd had speech lessons and upgraded her wardrobe a bit. Her cranky boss was still hard on her, demanding more than perfection. But the occasional 'could be worse' was like an applause.

They had been assigned to what everyone hopes will be the story of the century - her cranky bos's last assignment for he is retiring. They have been covering the hurricane about to hit New Orleans even though her boss had admitted that his gut said the flying guy was real. But he also said that if he was, he would be moving around so fast that there will be no way to track him. Better to go where he would be needed and let the story come to them.

They had stopped at the scene of an accident where a handicapped access short bus assigned to transport some elderly (6) out of the area had been literally picked up and thrown into the second floor of a building injuring the driver and killing an ambulance tech. The elderly were O2 dependent and could hardly walk on their own normally, much less in high winds. Jonna and her boss concurred; screw the story they came for. It was a long shot anyways. They decided to use their own news van to transport the elderly out. That alone would be a story. Maybe not a Pulitzer, but still good press.

The strain of the rescue proved too much for her boss who suffered a stroke while getting one of the last patients to the news van. So there Jonna was, trying to use CPR on a man who had given her tons of grief, but seemed more like a mentor and uncle than anyone short of family. Then she looked in horror out the windows to see a school bus rolling over and over tossed about by the winds on a collision course.

That's when HE showed up. He wasn’t Superman. He wore multiple layers of biometric sensor defeating systems. His face wasn’t his. His eyes, if checked, had no retinal pattern. Even dental features were faked. His face was a mask. The hair was a wig and made of carbon nanotubes. Even his voice was artificial. But then Duncan simply couldn’t take chances on his technology falling into the wrong hands.

Duncan has been running thermal scans for body heat in his search for stranded survivors. He was nowhere near strong enough to just catch the bus. He couldn’t just lift it to sail over them as the building was just on the other side of them. They had been using it to shelter the elderly from some of the wind and so they didn't have to walk far. So Duncan did something new. He sliced the bus in half with an invisible energy beam (laser) and let it break in half on his body, the two pieces slamming into the building to the front and rear of them. (At least that was what it looked like.) Then he walked to the survivors, projected a ray on Jonna's mentor and told her she had done good. Duncan was getting reading from the medical nanotech he used. The CPR was at least circulating blood and oxygen. Duncan used a life support field - for lack of a better description that would serve the same function as an iron lung until medical professionals could take over. He had then flown them - news van and all - to the nearest operational trauma center.

Did he stick around? Of course not. The only answer he gave was to one question Who was he? The answer? A friend.

Duncan stared through the tinted windows and gave a mildly exasperated laugh. For a moment he wondered what on Earth would possess anyone to want to get out of the car while being threatened with bodily harm. Then yet another idea struck him. Just how badly did she want to hit someone? The logic of the situation hit him with a bit of humor. They were on a farm road.

He shifted into reverse and peeled out for the first several feet to make sure she wouldn’t mess up the paint job, then slowed down … to see if she would try to run after him. He imagined her chasing him, him backing just enough to stay out of reach and wondering just how far she would go. But he didn’t have the heart to try to embarrass her like that, so he sped up to get enough distance to turn and pull a 90 degree turn. The maneuver left his driver side exposed.

He stepped out and struggled to stand to full height limping a little. He had given himself a good 10 yards to spare. He couldn’t help but laugh, but held up his hands - one bare, the left covered with a fingerless glove. “You’re welcome?” He laughed some more. “And I wasn’t following you. I have a horse stabled here. And I have some business with the manager. You the new coach? Our kids are gonna love that! Jane .. right?” He got her name wrong. “We met a couple years ago. Leukemia? Duncan Moran? Ring a bell?” He jerked a thumb at the car. “I brought uniforms. Oh … and the Patches patches. Patches is my horse. Team mascot …. Which is sort of funny for a team named the Bears.

“Say, while you have me cornered, don’t suppose you want some help unloading all those bags - assuming you aren’t going to use me for batting practice.” He laughed again. “Really … I’m not much the stalking sort. In anything I try to avoid the Press. So … what are YOU doing here? If anyone should be asking it’s … You’re driving Thompson’s …. Uhm … Jonna … Thompson.” He winced. “Ahh … aha … right. That would explain why you are driving his truck. Daughter? Niece?”

Dragons in the City of Angels

No.

Guys Like Us Don't Get the Girl ("Superhero" MxF) - Re-OPENed

bump

Not Good Enough (MxF romance)

Note: While tagged 18+, it is not my intent to run this as smut. This is more about the development of a relationship.

This is NOT a school RP. It IS a romance. But it centers around a young man, Duncan, who is dating a girl who is way out of his league. At least her father will think so. The girl’s father is a business tycoon and won’t consider Duncan good enough for her. He would rather introduce his daughter to better prospects.

Duncan comes from white trash in his opinion. (Never mind that he was adopted by wealthy parents. The girl’s father still sees them as working class professionals. His biological mother was a housewife; stepfather military. His biological father abandoned him when he was 3. He older step brother was in a gang. So … it must run in his genes...)

They attend a private school, Albuquerque Academy. Both are in their last quarter of senior year and preparing to graduate. This school caters to preparing students for Ivy League colleges - places like Harvard, Stanford, MIT. Duncan has “skated” through in courses like Guitar, Theater, and such. He played football. He was the team captain this past year, but has no scholarship prospects. True his adoptive parents can pay.

But … he isn’t good enough …

Of course, the girl’s father doesn’t know the truth about Duncan. Heck, the girl doesn’t either. He DOES have a butler and driver. So they are far from poor.

Duncan isn’t drawn to cheerleaders or popular girls. In fact, he has done his best to avoid serious relationships. He stays too busy. And any girl that has tried to approach him, generally ends up on the receiving end of abuse by some of the cheerleaders. According to Facebook, Duncan is probably gay. (Not at all true, but if the popular girl says so …)

What Duncan IS drawn to is intelligence or creativity. He doesn’t usually care for blondes. (That head cheerleader is a blonde.) He stand over six and a half feet tall now and is built like an alpha male. But getting him to even go out was impossible. He simply wouldn’t make the first move.

Contact via PM please.

Dragons in the City of Angels

Gotcha ... yes, this one is done for a small group. Folks will need to be able to keep up with one another. They don't necessarily have to run together the whole time. But I don't want to have Person A, meeting dragons Day 2 and travels with them for a couple days, while Person B is stuck on Day 1 and takes a week to rejoin group and complains about everyone leaving him behind.

Isla Nublar (M seeking F. Marooned on Island) Re-OPENed

Intimidated?

Isla Nublar (M seeking F. Marooned on Island) Re-OPENed

Bump