Previous Post "Gilligan!" the farm girl shouted tersely, stamping her small (though off-camera) foot. "You wouldn't happen to know what happened to my coconut cream pies, would you?" "Golly, Mary-Ann... I don't know what you're talking about..." Visionary munched on a bag of microwave popcorn with his feet on the control console. Admittedly, "Nick-At-Night" wasn't on the list of frequencies he was forced to monitor while on duty in the (newly Christianed) Lair Legion's communications room, but it didn't hurt to cover all the bases. One never knew where the next threat to humanity might arise. Plus, Jarvis had canceled the subscription to "Cinemax". "Are you sure you haven't seen them?" Mary Ann asked carefully, leaning over towards the camera dramatically and squeezing her arms unnecessarily close to her body. Visionary stopped chewing as a button popped on her blouse, though he didn't manage to close his mouth. "I... uh... Gosh..." Gilligan noted. "I really wanted to share those pies, Gilligan..." she said in a throaty whisper, toying with the next button on her shirt. Visionary couldn't help but notice that for a girl covered up on a tropical island for multiple television seasons, she had somehow avoided any tell-tale tanlines. "Nothing gives satisfaction on a hot day like dipping into a fresh, creamy pie..." she grinned a very un-Mary Ann like grin. "...Don't you think?" "Uhwuf?" Gilligan and Visionary inquired together. "You know what would really turn me on, sailor?" she asked as she undid the remaining button on her gingham blouse and prepared to throw it open. "If you'd wear that, sexy, sexy, sexy yellow coat and green sweatshirt while we did it." Visionary choked on his half-chewed popcorn as his chair tipped over backwards clattering the Legionnaire to the linoleum floor in an ungainly heap. The television imaged paused and Mary Ann's face moved towards the camera in an effort to peer down at the floor of the Monitor Room. "Heh... just kidding Vizh. Um... Visionary..?" "And Jarvis invited you here..." Visionary repeated warily, an icebag clutched to the bump on the top of his head. "Jarvis. Butlerish fellow. Sworn enemy of Baron Zemo." "Yes... I told you, I'm reformed" Mary Ann explained from the television, her top securely fastened. "I hardly ever take part in evil schemes any more." Visionary raised an eyebrow under the growing lump on his head. "Well, hardly ever in the Baron's evil schemes, at least" Mary Ann admitted. "This one was Lisa's." The Legionnaire eyed the television warily, but he grudgingly had to admit that the farm-girl's story checked out. "She thought I should introduce myself" the television character continued "...what with you having been unconscious when we first met." "I may have blacked out a bit this time as well." "Er... yes, sorry about that. Kinda hard for me to do the Heimlich from in here." She tapped on the inside of the glass. "You were coming around pretty quickly, or I would have gone for help... plus the only other Legionnaire around is that new guy, Donar..." "I don't know him all that well, but he seems eager to help where he can" Visionary noted. Mary-Ann nodded. "Still, you should probably keep your internal organs where they are. Him doing the Heimlich might be like squeezing a full tube of toothpaste in the middle." Visionary gagged and covered his mouth, although he was fairly sure the mental imagery was only conjuring up dinner rather than his spleen. He also quickly decided that he was now firmly a "Ginger" fan instead. "Thanks. So... are you going to stay like that?" he asked, gesturing towards the television. "Clothed?" "All... sitcomy." "Oh! Well... some people just seem a little more comfortable if I make eye-contact, I find. Don't you think it's more pleasant?" "Well, um... yes. But you might get a little more eye contact if you panned up a bit. And maybe redid a few more buttons?" She looked down briefly. "Ah. Sorry about that..." She gave an experimental shake of her shoulders, causing some rotational jiggling. "Are these things really that distracting to guys? Hmmm... interesting." Visionary watched as the classic television icon swelled her chest to differing sizes, resulting in some dizzying motions. "How... how can you do that?" he ventured. She pondered it. "Well, I suppose it's really just a matter of getting the right rhythm to the bouncing, at least to the get alternating circular mo..." "Not that" the Legionnaire stressed. "The whole "getting Mary Ann from Gilligan's Island to do jumping jacks" thing in the first place." "Oh, that. That's nothing" the sitcom character assured him, polishing her nails on her shirt. "I could do showier stuff... like making her grow the heads of all the other castaways, or something... the movie gun technology that Virtual Zemo left behind is really quite powerful, and I've only begun to scratch the surface of it. My research into it's uses has been fascinating, though." Visionary casually slid his chair closer to the emergency alert button, wondering if there was a way to push the giant red button just as casually. "Ethically fascinating..." she assured him. "I'm not about to flood the real world with blood-thirsty digital Professors and Howells to do my bidding." "But you could." "Well, yes... but that would be crazy." "Right." Visionary replied, trying to sound assured. "You're still bouncing, by the way." "Whoops... sorry." She snapped her fingers and the Skipper hurried over with a director's chair, which he helped her into then bowed, exiting screen left. She caught his look. "Okay, so maybe I have one little digital Skipper to wait on me... but he's hardly bloodthirsty. Besides, I think his blood pressure would preclude him from most world conquest schemes." Visionary snorted. "So what do you look like when you're not all Mary Annish?" "I don't look like anything... I'm a computer program" she noted. "Virtual Zemo was a computer program, and he looked like something" the Legionnaire argued. "Well, yeah... but he was based on Zemo. I'm not based on anybody... well, that I know of" she added, biting her lower lip. "Even if I was, I don't think I'd want to look exactly like that person. That seems... disrespectful maybe? To them, I mean." Visionary considered it. "I'd say it's more disrespectful to you, actually... It would make it that much harder to be your own person, when everyone saw somebody else when they looked at you." "I'm not my own person" she pointed out. "Sure you are... you've moved out of Zemo's computer banks, left your job as his operating system..." "I wasn't employed as his operating system... I was his operating system." "Okay, so you had a great deal of dedication to your old profession, but still..." "I'm a computer program, not a person!" He blinked in confusion. "I'm not sure I understand. Yo's an alien, but he's still a person in his own right... One who loves bunnies more than any other person I know, but that's just what makes him Yo." "Well... yes, but..." "And Donar's a god, but he's a person who enjoys fine television. And Pegasus is... well, a horse. But she's a person all the same. And Lisa's a lawyer, but possibly still a great, evil, inhuman person too. So why can't you be a program and a person at the same time?" "That's not how it..." "At the very least, you're a person who takes perverse pleasure in tainting the beloved mental images from my virginal adolescent crushes, that's all." "Well... it's nice to have a niche of my own then" she snorted. "Although it might get a little restrictive when I start running out of old sitcom characters to defile." "There's always Kathy Ireland if you're really looking for ideas..." Visionary suggested hopefully. "In any event, you don't really look all that much like Mary Ann any longer." She blinked in surprise. "I don't?" she asked, a hand going to her face. "I think it's the expressions..." Visionary answered, looking at her closely. "The body language... they're not really hers." She set her chin in thought. "I'm not running any other character emulations right now..." she noted, accessing some internal database. "I should get going... I'll have to track down the error" she decided. "It was nice meeting you, Visionary." "You too, um..." "Oh! Sorry... They've taken to calling me H.A.L.L.I.E. which means..." "Thinking of the sea" the Legionnaire supplied happily. "I know that one." Mary-Ann blinked. "What?" "Hallie... the name means Thinking of the Sea. I sat next to a little girl in big glasses all through second grade who gave her report on her name." He considered it. "She also dared me to eat a bug, although I chickened out. That might be why she eventually went with Justin Steadman to the prom in High School instead of me, come to think of it." "What?" she asked again. "I... No, that's not what it means..." "Well, I'd like to think so too. I mean, I'm not complaining... things worked out great for me and all. I'm better off for not eating the bug. And it was a really gross bug, too...I mean, it was big and kinda squishy... probably poisonous. Just because Justin Steadman would eat anything in Elementary School, that's no reason to..." He sighed. "If you ask me, those aren't decision making genes that you'd look to have sire your children... that's all I'm saying." "What? Wait... Nevermind." she sighed, baffled. "I meant that's not what my name means..." she explained. "It's not even a name." "I don't know about that. I've always thought it was a very pretty name" Visionary argued. "So you're not "thinking of the sea"?" Mary Ann ran a hand through her hair in frustration. "I'm a computer program!" she groaned. "What on Earth would I have to do with the sea?" The Legionnaire shrugged. "I guess in answering that question you have to be thinking about it... which makes it a self-fulfilling name, of sorts. Pretty clever, really." "I... that's not... Ugh!" The sitcom character sighed and gave him a level stare. "How's your head?" she asked. He winced as he shifted the icebag. "Hurts a bit still." "Good" she decided. "It's been... interesting meeting you Visionary." "You too, Hallie" He answered, smiling politely. "I hope to meet you face to face sometime, when you're more yourself." "Don't hold your breath." However, she paused as she reached behind her and pulled out a television remote. "It... it is kind of a pretty name... isn't it?" she noted. Visionary would swear that a flicker of a very non-Mary Ann smile played at the corner of her lips just before changing the channel.

A very fun first meeting between Hallie and Vizh. I particularly liked that Vizh didn't even consider HALLIE to be a computer program, but her own entity, even though HALLIE was arguing with him about it! That aspect really opens up some of Vizh's thought processes I thought.

I hope Vizh is smart enough to not ask Hallie to do the trick with enlarging her breasts on command again; I'd bet that was a one-time only deal.

~Hat~