2013.04.24 - Afternoon at the Library

It's afternoon, and Jocelyn had to get some books from the library. Sometimes the manor didn't quite have what she needed, and so the teen had made her way to the public library. It wasn't a terribly glorious trip, but she wanted to get ahold of some test preparation information if she was going to pass the GED. So, the woman found herself walking through the halls of the rather large library looking absolutely confused. How did people find anything in this place, anyway? It was so huge compared to what she was used to!
Regardless, the woman has found herself near the section where the newspapers are kept, and has found herself looking through them quietly, just a little bit distracted from her initial mission. Libraries had a way of doing that to a person if they weren't careful. Currently she's going over a copy of the Daily Planet from a few days ago, mostly because it was already out.
Finding her way around the library is easy for Barbara Gordon. There are some that are convinced she was born in the library and raised in its stacks. It's not entirely far from the truth. She's always immersed herself in books and research and learning. So, libraries qualify as some of Babs' happy places. Too, she has lots of friends there from when she used to work part-time in the stacks, trying to pay her way through school. It's something of a joke, really, that several of the old guard on staff refer to the young woman as 'Doctor Gordon' (pompous emphasis on the 'Doctor' part, just for fun). They were as proud as she was, when she finally earned her PhD in library sciences. ("It was a team effort," is sometimes boasted, causing Babs just to smile and laugh.) Of course, they were also somewhat disappointed that she didn't choose to stay on at the library, forming her tech company Clocktower Systems, instead. But, never mind. She's still 'family', as far as they're concerned.
Thus, it's with a friendly wave to the curator that she wheels herself out of the media archives room, a canvas bag on her lap, and out onto the main floor of the newspaper section. She has to pause when a careless wooden chair impedes her path, leaning forward to shove it out of the way. It scrapes loudly across the wooden floor boards, and clatters against the old oak table. She grimaces at the noise, a true librarian at heart. 
"Sorry," she says softly, raising an apologetic hand to the one or two folks that raise their heads, startled by the noise. As they bend back to their work, she starts shoving her wheels forward once more. 
Noise doesn't bother Jocelyn that much, though she does glance up at the woman with the canvas bag in the wheelchair. She doesn't seem too terribly concerned with her, however. If Barbara was the type to keep up on recent events, there's the possibility that Jocelyn might be recognized as someone who was briefly accused of arson in Detroit, though charges were dropped and she was cleared shortly after the media broke that story. Otherwise, Jocelyn would just be another particularly tall face in the crowd.
"No, no, that isn't why I'm here," the girl mutters quietly to herself, putting the newspaper away. She starts off again, and her path will cross Barbara's. Jocelyn has that look of someone who is in a completely alien environment to her when she looks around the library. She also has a bag with her, though it is a simple black messenger bag.
"Oh, pardon me," the offers when she realizes she's stepped into the woman's path. Jocelyn sidesteps out of the way to allow Barbara through.
Babs pulls up short as her path is yet again impeded -- this time by a pair of lanky, jean-clad legs. She looks up (waaaaaaaay up!) and blinks mildly at the Jolly Red Giant she now sees there. A light smile touches her lips. "No problem." Her head cants some at the girl's completely lost look. "You okay? You look lost."
"Is it that obvious?" Jocelyn asks Barbara with a casual smile. "Guess I don't spend a whole lot of time here". She does keep her voice down, however. She knew that much about being in the library!
"Trying to figure out where some of the test preparation stuff is, actually". It was that time of the school year. Standardized tests and exams and all that stuff made those books fairly important commodities to be had. "Haven't had much luck," she admits with an easy shrug. "I got this aisle down, but I'm having a hard time finding it," she admits to Barbara.
"Find the shelves marked 373.1264," Babs tells the other red-head with confidence. "That's where the GED test guides are kept." She flashes a quick smile and a self-deprecating shrug. "Sorry. I've got the whole place kinda memorized." She glances around. "Here. I can show you where the collection is." She reverses her chair a little and redirects it some, gesturing for the girl to step ahead of her so she can get out from between the tables. Once free, she wheels casually across the open space, toward a ramp up to another level. 
How does one memorize an entire library's layout, let alone the shelf numbers? Jocelyn just blinks a couple times as the woman wheels around and starts off in that direction. "Okay, thanks" Jocelyn responds, a little bit of surprise mixed into the tone of her grateful thanks, before she follows along. "Do you work here?" Jocelyn asks. Because why else would someone have the library memorized, unless they lived and worked here?
The girl glances around and smiles a little. "Whole lot more here than the ones we had in Detroit," she admits with an easy shrug. Funding was pretty much non-existant in that city right now for things like libraries, so they'd had to do a lot of cutbacks. Also, New York was a lot larger.
"I used to." Barbara answers the girl's question easily. "While I was studying for my doctorate." So, yes. That's why she has the whole place memorized. Never mind the fact she has an eidetic memory. That's not worth mentioning. 
She regards the girl, glancing over her shoulder briefly as the chair coasts forward. Of course, since she's 'driving' it's not a long look. Detroit, though. And the girl has a familiar face. It doesn't take too long for her aforementioned memory to scan through old Detroit newspaper articles and place the kid. Jocelyn Stream. Accused and then cleared of arson charges. Huhn. Okay. 
"I like to think there's no better library in the world, than this one," she admits with a smile, choosing not to tip her hand to the kid. The girl was cleared, after all. No sense belaboring the point. "The Smithsonian may be bigger, but Central has more class." Yes. She loves her library. A lot. 
"Good place to work while studying I imagine," Jocelyn replies. Though the benefits of, well, free access to free books, didn't seem all that impressive at first. But the contacts and time in the library were more useful. And yeah, she was cleared of arson, which happened to kill some people. And blow up a building. But her name hasn't cropped up anywhere since then. "What'd you get your doctorate in, if I can ask?" the woman questions as she walks along. "I've never actually been to the Smithsonian. Haven't been in town that long, and haven't had a lot of reasons to drop by I suppose," she admits. Studying was really not Jocelyn's favorite thing in the world.
"The Smithsonian's in Washington," Barbara notes, "so don't worry, if you haven't been to it. Most people haven't." Even she's only been once -- and that was on a field trip as a kid. A beat. "And, technically, it's a museum rather than a library. The Library of Congress is actually the biggest library in the world -- also in Washington." 
God, that'd be a place she could lose herself in for years, never mind hours or days. Fortunately, they have great online archives... and thus backdoor access to their private network. A fact of which Oracle takes shameless advantage. 
She flashes a grin, now. "I'm actually a Doctor of Library and Information Sciences," she admits. "Soooo, yeah. I really do kinda know this place like the back of my hand."
"Guess they like to grow everything big in Washington. Buildings and government alike," Jocelyn comments with an amused shake of her head. She couldn't imagine digging around places like that though. It just wasn't her style, and most of her interests were outside of that. Though if she ever actually learned to use a computer for purposes that didn't involve them being glorified paperweights, backdoor access would be a wonderful thing. But that was something she wasn't likely ever going to have.
"Yeah, that makes sense then," the girl comments easily. "Me, I'll be glad to get my GED". She didn't consider herself college material in the slightest. Not in the academic sense, at least. Though most kids taking the GED would have started preparing much earlier than this, so she's a little bit behind the curve right now.
As far as Barbara's concerned, the kid's making the effort. That's all that matters. One step at a time. "Getting your GED's a good thing," she agrees. "It opens up a whole world of future possibilities. A lot of good jobs, these days, are inaccessible if you don't have at least a college certificate or, more often, a BA." She gives Jocelyn another smile. "And flipping burgers was never my idea of fun." 
"Just remember, though: A lot of these tests are fairly standardized. You can go over tests from previous years and get a good sense of what the current test will look like. The trick is to understand the way the questions are posed and select the answer that matches that particular modality." She gives a small shake of her head. "A good collection of mnemonic tricks will see most people through them -- as long as you understand the underlying precepts. Personally, I've never had much use for standardized testing. I aced them all easily enough, but my best learning has always been autodidactic." A beat. "Self-directed," she clarifies. 
"Yeah," Jocelyn agrees with the talk about the BA. "We'll see about the whole college thing. Circumstances kept me from submitting any applications this year, so I've got a year to wait," the woman explains. And by circumstances we mean aging from sixteen to nineteen in the span of a week, thanks to some 'clerical error', but it wasn't like she could do anything about it. But she also refused to be a twenty year old high schooler, too.
A nod is given when Barbara talks about the tests being standardized. "Yeah. They try and trick you into certain answers by asking for the statement that is false or something like that, since most people are accustomed to choosing the true answer". Test makers loved to pull stuff like that. Barbara does get a blank look at the word autodidatic before it is clarified. "I'm usually better at hands-on stuff myself, so written tests and I don't tend to get along very well," she admits.
"Is the problem lack of good study techniques?" Barbara asks quietly, wheeling between shelves now, toward the test guides. "Or do you get stage-fright when the test is put in front of you?" Lots of people do. No shame in that. "It's another reason I don't like tests. I believe anyone can learn just about anything they want to, if they put their minds to it. But whether or not you're actually interested in what you're learning, makes a huge difference. And the more directly useful it is to your life, the more likely you are to master it. I loved school, and did well in it. But, even I know that schools really do make it harder for most people to learn naturally." 
Don't get her started on her opinions of the general state of education and the education system in America today. 
"Probably the former. Hard to get test fright when you know the general outcome already," Jocelyn responds easily enough. "Granted, until a couple months ago, I was the product of the Detroit Public School System, so that has plenty to do with it". Yeah. You want a poster child for America's school system, take a look at Detroit sometime. "Lucky to have the same teacher for more than a couple months at a time, you know, let alone one that's actually any good". She'd been at the Institute for long enough now to realize just how awful her teachers back in Detroit were.
"Unfortunately, I'm not very good at what I'm interested in, so it just means I'm a bit farther behind than everyone else". She shrugs. "Means I'll be playing catch up for awhile so I get up to speed," Jocelyn admits. But, she'd get there eventually. It would just take her a little longer than most.
It sounds more to Babs that Jocelyn suffers from low self-esteem -- academically speaking, at least. Given what she can guess of the kid's troubled background, perhaps that's not a surprise. "So, what are you interested in?" the librarian asks, now. "I think you could surprise yourself, with a little coaching." 
Academically? Absolutely. Jocelyn shrugs. "Energy. Solar, wind, that type of thing. Power and how to make it better. But, math happens to be one of my worst subjects. I'm decent at science in general, but not great". And don't let the girl near a computer. They were still running Windows 95 back where she came from.
"Maybe a bit. Still working on figuring out a plan to make it all work," the teenager says. She just hadn't gotten to the point of having an actual plan yet. But she hoped to get there, eventually.
"So, you're not working here anymore," the woman comments. "If I can ask, what is it you are doing now?" the teenager questions out of curiosity. Because she had no idea what former librarians did to earn a paycheck, really. She kind of thought librarians were like teachers in that once you got in, you never got out.
Barbara smiles to Jocelyn. "I'm the CEO of Clocktower Systems," she says. "It tech startup. We concentrate mainly on information systems and data storage." Not that far off librarianship, really. "I've always been something of a nerd. So, you could say, it's a hobby that got the better of me." 
She turns her chair around expertly within the remarkably tight space -- well practiced, it seems. Wheeling backward, she gestures to the appropriate area on the shelves. "GED. 373.1264. As promised." 
She listens to the girl's list of interests and her brows dip a little in contemplation. It's quite the heady list. She has a degree in science, too -- academic prodigy that she is. So, she actually knows something about what the kid's talking about. As she leans back in her chair now, she studies the girl's face. There's something else about her that twigs. *Snap* Right. Invasion of the Myth Creatures, a few weeks back, when the Asgardians went to town. The kid was in a couple of those pics, as she recalls. There was a lot of power flying around, then. 
"Power development is an interesting area of study," she agrees. "There are huge amounts of new technology and scientific papers being published on it daily. Add to it the the biological sciences as well -- mutant and mutate produced energies, for instance -- and I can see why you'd be interested in it. It's a pretty vast topic though. Lots of great job prospects, though, if you ever change your mind about college." 
The woman may remember something about a couple of girls in that article. One who seemed to shoot fireworks, and then Jocelyn, who seemed to do something with using energy bursts as arrow defense and focused blasts as attacks. Also, some degree of superhuman physical capability. Thor and Sif had been around, too, doing their thing, and Jocelyn had seemed to wield electrical energy as well. Which may track with the girl's scientific thought process for a career.
When Barbara reveals just what she does, Jocelyn blinks a few times. Oh geez, she'd been taking up a major CEO's time? Talk about embarassing! "Computers. That's the other thing that I'm still working on getting the hang of, unlike the rest of my generation. Our school had Windows 95 on it's computers, and even I could tell you that was pretty outdated". Which, well, yeah. It was kind of a joke. Though some enterprising kid managed to install World of Warcraft on it. Somehow.
"Well, still need to manage to do well enough to get into college. If it pans out, perhaps it'll be something to pursue," Jocelyn agrees. There was a tiny article about her age issue, way back when. Something about a false birth certificate being discovered during that whole arson incident, and the girl actually being older than was reported, which was somewhat of a big deal for her previous professional fighting career options.
The statement about the mutant and mutate energies gets a nod from Jocelyn. "How all that stuff happens, yeah. There's a lot of new things being discovered, from the magazines I've been able to get ahold of". And, well, the people she hung out with, but that was a whole different story.
"Thanks for showing me the books," she adds, glancing over the titles. Huh. Which were good and which weren't? Jocelyn hadn't a single clue. The biggest book would probably be best though. She reaches out and pulls it off the shelf.
Babs does, in fact, keep pretty close tabs on any news item that hints at metahuman or similar such involvement -- heroes and villains alike. Her life as Oracle rather demands it. So, the longer she speaks with the girl, the more pieces fall into place. The fighting. The arson. The birth certificate. Energy manipulation. Looks like this kid has a storied past. 
As for being a major CEO? Not so much. A minor one, really. It's a start-up. Not a tech giant like Stark Industries or WayneCorp.
"You're welcome," she tells her, giving another smile. "Look, hon--" she hasn't been formally introduced and isn't going to tip her hand by using the name from the news reports, "dont' give up, huh? I've seen lots of kids like you make good. It's not easy, I grant you, but it is doable. If you get stuck, give me call. Just look up Clocktower Systems in the phone book or online and ask for Barbara Gordon." 
Well, most of the pieces of Jocelyn's past are well-scattered, so even if Jocelyn knew she had been outed, at least it took someone who had a near perfect memory and read almost everything to pull it off. And any corporation CEO, to Jocelyn, was probably pretty major. She just didn't know that many CEOs.
A nod is given by Jocelyn to the woman. "Will do," she says after a moment of thinking about it. She gave the offer consideration before accepting it. Jocelyn wasn't the type to just pay lip service to any offer of any type. "Jocelyn Stream," she offers easily enough, realizing she hadn't given the woman her name. After all, she couldn't just waltz in and ask to see the CEO. Any good receptionist would block her without some sort of identification means. She offers the woman a hand. "Though I should probably get rolling. I've got a few things I need to get taken care of tonight. Thanks again for the help, Miss Gordon".
"You're welcome, Jocelyn," Babs smiles, now. "Good luck with your GED." Her green eyes sparkle and she backs her chair along the aisle toward the end of the shelves. It's only about 10 feet or so away. "I should get rolling, too." And, of course, in her case, it's literal. "Have a good day." 
With that, she spins the chair slowly and heads back for the ramp and her own trip home. 
Category:Log