There is a planet where all life larger than a mote of dust is well over a hundred miles above its surface.
This planet has humans, who have ships and farms and cities, even if the whole floating around thing causes some issues. And on one particular city in one particular back hallway of one particular building, there is a door that is misbehaving.
She moves to pat Pen on the shoulder, then hesitates away from it. [Terence on this thing? Nevermind I'll just check.]
[Hi smarty-pants.]
[Oh, our little angel likes you enough to brainphone you apparently. You have the transformer?]
[Yep. Sitting on your kitchen floor. So what exactly...?]
Terence starts explaining.
"Yeah, I'm talking to him now. Terence is a smart dude, you made a good choice of someone to find you when you got stuck."
"I'm not so good at reading and sitting in class and stuff. I learn by watching people do things. So since he lets me watch him fix things, it's a pretty good deal."
Sheeee has run out of things to say here.
"Maybe I should leave? I dunno."
"If I stay I'll ramble about electricity and computers at you," she warns.
"Not good at thinking of things to talk about. So I go with what's interesting to me or nothing mostly."
"Computers kind of interesting but I only knowing about about other worlds kinds."
"Bet all computers work the same in the end. Interface, processor, memory, and hard storage. What I find interesting are microcontrollers - they're like really tiny computers that are, well, tiny, so they can't do as much, but they're cheaper and lighter than full big computers. So better for really simple things that don't need a full big computer."
This is how you control valves on a weather balloon without a full, big computer!
She's not great at explaining... Possibly because she doesn't actually have a microcontroller to show Pen right now. But she could show her some of the ideas on Terence's computer and, [Ask him if I can use it so you don't think I'm doing it without permission?]
So she does.
[Terence I can show her stuff on your computer right?]
[What stuff?]
[Programming, logic gates, maybe just watch a movie or find a book if we get bored.]
[Alright, feel free.]
"Great. Computers are really neat though."
This is how to program, more or less. This is how to program microcontrollers! Terence has a thing that can simulate them, for testing. It's pretty different from other kinds of programming and probably too confusing for a little angel unless she's quite clever.
Eventually this becomes clear to her. "Okay I'll stop confusing you, sorry."
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