This exception was a very faintly glowing blue circle on one face of the cube, which Ranma decided must be the 'top' of the thing. Placing it flat on the floor before him, circle facing upward, he pressed it cautiously, then leaned away and narrowed his eyes, expecting a blinding flash of light.
What happened, was a spark of light, not the blinding flash he was worried about. And then a beam of it, projecting upwards and expanding into a cone. Then the cone faded until Ranma could just make out the edges, and a flat screen appeared above it. "Neat," Ranma mused.
Then it exploded with a thankfully silent blinding flash, and Ranma spent a long minute blinking away the afterimages. "Dang it," he growled, once he could see the screen again. Now the edges of the cone had vanished -- or he was too blinded to see them, still. But the screen seemed wider, curved with the far edges towards him, and scrolling text flowed across it.
The text was blue, and glowed softly. Reading aloud, he said, "...has been a misconfiguration issue. Please contact your vendor and ask for a replacement. There has been...."
Scratching behind one ear thoughtfully, Ranma eyed the thing. Then he looked at his phone. Heaving a sigh, he picked it up -- it looked like what Ranma thought all cell-phones did, though it was gold, and had a similar pattern to his ID card etched into it. The screen lit up, and spelled out: Who would you like to talk to?
None of the buttons were labeled 'Urd', but Ranma heaved a shrug, and held the phone up to his head. "Urd," he said. Then he heard a click, and a ringing noise. At least the phone was user friendly, he thought, shooting a dark glance at the cube.
Then he heard a beep, and a slightly slurred, "Yullow?"
"Uh, Urd?" he asked, keeping his voice low. "This is Ranma."
"Who? Oh! Yeah," the slur faded from her voice. "Sorry, caught me napping. What's up?"
"Um, sorry to bother you," he said, wondering how polite a hero had to be to a goddess, "but the data-cube thingy is broken."
"What? Did you hit it?"
"No! At least ... I don't think so. And I know it didn't get wet, or nothing."
"Hmmm," Urd's voice noised thoughtfully. "Well, what's it doing, exactly?"
"Uh, it says it's been misconfigured."
"Oh, crud," Urd mumbled. "Hmmm. First rule of mechanical repair, Ranma."
"Didn't know you were a mechanic," Ranma said absently, wondering what he'd need to do.
"My sister makes a lot of machines; I've developed a way to work with them. Okay, so ... take the cube in your right hand."
"Alright," Ranma said, picking it up. The display vanished as soon as his hand covered the blue circle. "Now what?"
"Smack it against the floor, reasonably hard. Also, if it's not against your dossier, swear at it once or twice."
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(Posted Fri, 15 Jul 2005 04:27)
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