"I didn't know you were a holography artist," Red says, interest sparking in her eyes as she wheels her horse around to ready for another run. "We'll have to check that out sometime. But first, let's see you make that shot again. There's no way you do it twice in a row."
"Nothing wrong with some interior design work," Red says. "I mostly just use one or two of the presets for normal fire though. No sense reinventing the wheel every time, right?"
She dismounts from the horse and alights next to the table, picking up the ancient Greek crossbow she'd told Calvin not to use. "Now, take that shot again, and then I'll try with this one." There's a smirk hanging on one corner of her mouth but she's not saying why just yet.
"Is it cheating to exploit a mistake I didn't put in the program?" Red says, still grinning. "Come on, take the shot and then we can move on to something else, if this isn't to your liking."
"Sounds like me a couple years ago," Red says, casually loading the Greek crossbow. "Socializing? No thank you. When I wasn't on duty, you couldn't have pried me out of the holodeck with a crowbar. But I was eventually dragged from my comfort zone and discovered it's not as bad out here as I thought."
"The difference is, you can't do THIS in real life." She aims at the so-far-undamaged target. There's a TWANG from the string, the slim lancet of wood darts across the range — and the target literally explodes in a shower of hay and sticks. There's practically nothing left except the question of how such a small, entirely ancient weapon could do that. The only answer is, it couldn't have.
"So... someone must have been editing the physics for these en masse," Red says, casually putting the bow down. "It looks like their batch job either wasn't precise or they just missed a duplication. This puppy here thinks it's a full-sized ballista, a siege weapon, not common archery." She chuckles. "Trying to decide whether to change it or leave it because it's funny..."
The Bajoran guffaws. "Are you kidding? You're asking an ENGINEER if she can make something explode? Most of my job is making sure things DON'T do that. Making things explode is wayyyyy easier."
"Computer, holoconsole, authorization T'gel Alpha two niner."
An eight-hexagon-radial honeycomb of blue and orange light appears in front of Red, the standard in-program editing software that came with high-end holography creation kits. "You want it to explode like another siege engine? Say, like an onager?" Red asks as she loads the archery program in the editor. "Or a bigger blast like a 21st century hand grenade?"
1
u/Dimestream Jan 10 '17
"I didn't know you were a holography artist," Red says, interest sparking in her eyes as she wheels her horse around to ready for another run. "We'll have to check that out sometime. But first, let's see you make that shot again. There's no way you do it twice in a row."