[IC][Arc 1] Weekend Update

[robkelk]

Just a short little thing to fill a couple of holes. One prereader complained about Zoom calls making it into our fics... but this is Washuu-chan's software, not Zoom.

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October 1, 2016


The teleconference app that Washuu had written for everybody connected to the weekly meeting. Rob was the second-last to connect, followed only by Terry. "It looks like everybody's online now. So, what happened while Mako-chan, Rui-chan, and I were out of town this week?" Rob asked, innocently.

After a moment, Brent replied, "I got a new batch of residents in my building. You might know their names: Chiyo-chan, Tomo, Yomi, Sakaki, Kagura, Osaka, and Kaorin."

"Do you want to trade? You'll know my boarders, too: Ranma, Akane, Ukyo ... Soun, Gen...ma, Nabiki, -"

"Hang on a minute, Epsilon," Rob interrupted. "Is anybody else getting a lag on the conference?"

After a moment, Ben answered, "Only from you, Rob."

"Be right back." Rob muted the conference and turned to Kazari. "Why is the network lagging?"

Kazari logged into the firewall and checked the activity logs. After a moment, she looked at Ruiko, who was concentrating on her own laptop in the corner of the building's common room. "Saten-san, do you really need to download files now?"

"Sorry," Ruiko answered. "Do you mind if I let it finish? The download - Asahi Sakurai's new single - is almost done. No, it is done now."

Rob sighed. "Please don't start another download until after we've finished the teleconference."

"Okay... Sheesh, you're acting like I did something out of the ordinary," she muttered as she plugged her headphones into her laptop and started listening to her downloads.

At the same time, Rob turned back to his laptop and took the conference off mute, to hear Brent offering "I'll take girl Ranma, but you can keep boy Ranma."

"Sorry about that," Rob said to announce his presence. "Problem solved."

"Welcome back. Did anything interesting happen to your group while you were away?"

Rob laughed at Ben's question. "Does a Predator showing up count as interesting?"

"What? Where?"

"Do we need to scramble?"

"No need, Ben; Sailor Jupiter took care of it. As for where, Brent, two-and-a-half degrees of latitude north of Ottawa, give or take a few minutes."

Nobody said anything for a moment. The silence was finally broken by Wolf. "This job isn't as safe as we thought it was."

"Our tenants aren't as safe as we thought they were, either," Bob added.

"I'll ask Washuu-chan to put something together," announced Ben. "We can't rely on these conference calls any more to stay up to date with what's going on."

"Good idea," Bob agreed.

"Make it something that we can install easily, and Uiharu-kun and I can come help set it up," Rob offered. Kazari waved at the screen at the mention of her name.

"That's kind of you. You're treating us all as good neighbors, even though we're separated in real life."

"Sure, Ben, why not?" Rob stopped and thought. "Wait a minute. 'Asahi Sakurai'?"

"Who?" asked Brent.

"The singer whose music Rui-chan was downloading, that caused the conference to lag here."

"Oh, right," Bob replied. "You were on mute when I mentioned we got a group of tenants this week, too. How did you know her name?"

"I've seen Comic Party. But that's not important right now. Anybody have anything else that we all need to know?"

There was a moment of silence, then Brent replied, "I think today's Belldandy's birthday."

"Has anybody actually met Belldandy yet?" asked Wolf.

"I have," answered Ben.

"So have I," added Terry.

"How about one of you send her a message, then?" Rob suggested. "Let her know we're thinking of her, too."

"Yes, somebody else do that, please," added Epsilon.

"I'll do it," offered Terry.

"Thanks. Anybody else have anything to add?" After a moment with no replies, Ben continued, "Then I'll let everyone know when Washuu has something for us. Talk to you next week!"

"Good-bye!"

"Talk to you later!"

"Be seeing you!"