Second Floor Common Room, Monday Evening

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Due to Skrull invasions and cabin living, Tony was now three weeks behind on the best vampire detective show on syndicated TV, Darkest Night. And this Wednesday was the season finale.

So Tony picked up a box of goodies from J, GOB and settled in the second floor common room with pastries, popcorn and a bomb bottle of cola to catch up on the episodes he'd missed. Pastries for eating, popcorn for throwing at the screen. Given that the first episode he was watching featured a zombie invasion, he was going to need a lot of popcorn.

"Come on, are you serious? No zombie's that tough!"


[Open! About Darkest Night.]

Comments

[a-demosthenes.livejournal.com]

"Or maybe the right person hasn't been inspired to build them yet. Maybe you should get on that, Tony."

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"I'm not going to build cars. I'm going to make movies," Tony said. "Maybe if I make enough flying-car movies, I'll inspire someone."

[a-demosthenes.livejournal.com]

"Or inspire someone to complain about how your movies are full of lies," Valentine said with a little laugh.

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"Possibly," Tony said. "Can't please everyone, though."

[a-demosthenes.livejournal.com]

"That's true," Valentine said. "In fact, a certain degree of success can come out of not pleasing everyone. You're into movies, though?"

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"Totally," Tony said. "They still have movies in your time?"

[a-demosthenes.livejournal.com]

Valentine nodded. "They do, although most people just spend all their time on the Nets for recreational entertainment."

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"Makes sense," Tony said. "Lotta entertainment's already moving online."

[a-demosthenes.livejournal.com]

"You rarely see someone with a desk on them," Valentine said. "Although, really, I see the start of all that here a little, with laptops and phones."

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"'Desk'?" Tony asked. "You don't mean a big piece of wooden furniture, do you?"

[a-demosthenes.livejournal.com]

"No, sorry," Valentine shook her head, laughing a little. "Colloquialism. It's basically what the laptop eventually evolves into, used for almost everything and connected to everything constantly...including the people using them."

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"What, like implants?" Tony asked.

[a-demosthenes.livejournal.com]

"No, they only give you the implanted chips when you're really young, for a few years," Valentine said. "Those are called monitors, because that's what they're used for. To monitor you."

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"They monitor the kids?" Tony made a face. Cree-py.

[a-demosthenes.livejournal.com]

Valentine's head tilted a little at the face Tony made, intrigued by it. Of course she understood why he made it, but she came from a society where the monitor system was completely acceptable, and Demosthenes had been considered radical when it was approached.

"To see if they have Battle School potential," she explained. "That, by the way, is exactly how it sounds. A school for battle. If the child exhibits traits that would excel in Battle School, they're sent there, usually about age five or six."

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"Like, military school? At age six? That's kinda intense," Tony said.

[a-demosthenes.livejournal.com]

Valentine bit her lip a little, her expression one of helpless agreement. "I lucked out," she added. "They considered me too mild. But it was mostly the need for a way to end the Formic Wars that pressed the issue; now that they're over, who knows what the new Hegemon will do."

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Tony didn't know the terms but he got them from the context: wars, some kind of government. "Hopefully they'll chill, then," he said.

[a-demosthenes.livejournal.com]

"Hard to tell," Valentine admitted. "And I even know the guy who took the position pretty well; he's my brother."

She figured if Ender could mention it in class, it wasn't doing any harm to mention it here.

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"So you know lots about it, then," Tony said.

[a-demosthenes.livejournal.com]

"A bit, yeah."