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content/read/017.md

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-# Qoheleth --- 2305
+# RJ Brewster --- 2112
 
-Transcript of Node: [\[bea0cf302fcd00863f0c67a91b1a75c0e4ba4863\]](http://35.165.134.227/node/bea0cf302fcd00863f0c67a91b1a75c0e4ba4863) with descriptive text by \#d5b14aa.
+It took AwDae just under two hours to find the microphone.
 
-*The footage shows two persons. One of them has to be Dear, Also, The Tree That Was Felled, who is an up-tree branch of the Ode clade, eighth stanza. No one else has ears that big, nobody else can somehow speak in italics. The other took some research, but I am confident that ey is an instance of Ioan Bălan, a historian and writer. Ey is a tracker, but only just, as eir habits tend toward few to no long-running instances. This instance is either \#tracker or one tasked to this project.*
+The first hour was spent searching the auditorium top to bottom. Ey walked around clapping and humming, then quoting lines half-remembered from productions ey had worked with Sasha in the past. "So set its Sun in thee," ey called in an affected accent. "What Day be dark to me." Wistful Dickinson to fill an empty hall.
 
-*The two persons are sitting outside of a cafe, from whom I obtained this footage. They are in conversation. Going to sit down and watch this.*
+Ey would've whistled if it wasn't for the structure of a canid muzzle.
 
-> **Dear, Also, The Tree That Was Felled**: Thank you for your letter, Ioan. Lots of really good stuff in there, most of which I had missed simply out of nearsightedness.
->
-> **Ioan Bălan**: You've got me hooked on this project, I have to say. It's fascinating stuff.
+Silence.
 
-*Dear grins at this.*
+After an hour, venturing even into the overhead areas where sound was muffled, damped, ey gave up and took a break.
 
-> **Dear** We --- that is, some other Odists down-tree from me --- have come up with some further hints about the message.
->
-> **Ioan**: Oh? Anything good?
->
-> **Dear**: I suppose it depends on your definition of good.
->
-> **Ioan**: \[snark, good natured\] Oh great. Excited already. \[more earnest\] The fascination continues. Well, let's have it.
->
-> **Dear**: So, one of us did an exhaustive search of some records and found an old archive server running somewhere.
+*It's probably fruitless to be this thorough in the auditorium,* ey thought. *The gain's high enough that even a quiet clap should be enough.*
 
-*Oh goodie. Better start gearing up.*
+Ey slouched in an auditorium seat and pulled out the slip of paper with Cicero's transactions. Ey had found that if ey focused on the page just so, rows would sort themselves by columns, so ey spent a few minutes aimlessly zooming through the page of digits.
 
-> **Ioan**: Wait, start at the top. What were they searching?
->
-> **Dear**: They were searching for the block of encrypted text --- not what was in it; they cracked that long ago. They searched for the encrypted text itself, and they came across an archive server.
->
-> **Ioan**: Old node boxes? Wow, even I feel crusty using one of those, and I'm a historian.
->
-> **Dear**: \[laughter\] They found the archive server though, and there is a bunch of intriguing stuff on it. New, old, the whole thing. There is stuff from ages ago, shortly after we got here, and stuff from a few hours ago.
->
-> **Ioan**: You're kidding. Newly created stuff?
->
-> **Dear**: I know. It is ridiculous.
+Ey scanned over the titles of the initiatives voted on. Very little there to latch onto. Or, rather, way too much. AwDae couldn't hope to boil down the table into any single sentence, much less something useful. The cat had apparently voted on just about everything, without taking any breaks.
 
-*The fox's ears flop when it gets excited and shakes its head, never noticed that. It is kind of cute.*
+Eventually, when neat rows of letters began to blur into one another, ey levered emself up from the seat. Paper refolded, ey slipped it back into a pocket before checking on the board once more. Everything remained set as it was.
 
-> **Ioan**: Never met anyone who could actually get one working well enough to add new nodes. So the encrypted text was in a node on the server?
->
-> **Dear**: Yes. It is still there. \[pause\] Just sent the URI.
->
-> **Ioan**: I...well, I'll have to take it at your word that it's the same as the one you found earlier, I'm not going character by character.
+AwDae had imagined ey would work in concentric circles away from the auditorium. That turned out not to be the best idea. The hall was nestled between two arms of the school which did not meet except via the auditorium itself. Eir route grew arduous: ey'd walk down one hallway, poke into classrooms, and make noise before moving on.
 
-*Dear seems a little frustrated at this. About Ioan's slowness? I know I would not compare the files. It sounds exasperated.*
+When ey reached the end of eir circle, though, ey had to jog around the auditorium through the student center to go down the other hallway and do the same.
 
-> **Dear**: Of course, Ioan. I promise it is the same, though. Needless to say, we found a crusty old archive with the block on it, and there are other public nodes on there as well. I am guessing a bunch of private ones, too.
->
-> **Ioan**: Anything good in those?
->
-> **Dear**: Nothing...penetrable. It is all fairly opaque. To me, at least.
+Ey gave up on the concentric circle plan and started working from north to south, instead. Ey worked through the entirety of one hallway, clapping and hollering, without hearing anything. From there, on to the area of the student center near the auditorium.
 
-*Ioan grins at this.*
+It was there that ey heard the first, faint hum of feedback.
 
-> **Ioan**: Thus us meeting?
->
-> **Dear**: \[nodding\] Yes. The only bit that I have any insight into is the deck listing, which I think might be another bit of old encryption--
+It threatened to skim beneath eir attention, sounding too much like an echo from eir own voice in the cavernous common area. The door to the auditorium caught eir eye, and ey tried once more, getting another faint hum. It slowly died out as space and air dissipated tone.
 
-*Ioan groans aloud, at which Dear grins.*
+It was only a few minutes from there to find the microphone itself. A lavalier mic, disguised as a button resting obsequiously atop the door handle leading into the principal's office. It was just to the northeast of the auditorium doors. Ey would've found it soon enough. It was surprising, in a way, that ey hadn't managed to trigger any feedback earlier.
 
-> **Dear**: My sentiments exactly. It is another encryption scheme which relies on a deck of cards for a stream of random numbers. I have not dug into it in years because the decryption process is so slow, but there may be a node on that box containing the encrypted text.
->
-> **Ioan**: Want me to have a look, then? The techier stuff is going to go right over my head, you know that.
->
-> **Dear**: It is not all tech, promise. I just want you to give it a read and see what you pick up from it, you know? Put your amanuensis hat on and just spend some time experiencing.
->
-> **Ioan**: You think highly of me. No complaints, of course, but I feel I have to ask, why can't someone from your own clade fill this role?
+The door was labeled 'Admin.'. Ominous.
 
-*Dear is quiet. Struggling for words? Our Dear? This must have hit it hard.*
+There was a head office at the front of the school, but administration was where the principal and vice principals' offices were. One of those places that lingered in the mind of every student who passed through the doors of the school. Getting called to the front office was usually bad enough --- a call from a parent? --- but getting called to the admin office was more oh-shit than that.
 
-> **Dear**: We...differ. The Odists, I mean.
->
-> **Ioan**: "Differ"? Within the clade?
->
-> **Dear**: Yes. A hallmark of Dispersionistas is that we treat each of our forks as fully-realized individuals. We may have a shared past, but from the point we fork onward, we grow ever further apart.
->
-> **Ioan**: I assume you mean more than just a matter of increasing conflicts.
->
-> **Dear**: Yes. Although we Odists limit our instances to the one hundred available names, we still consider ourselves Dispersionistas as we never merge back down-tree. But, that aside, we also want someone out-clade for this. *I* want someone out-clade for this.
+Ears pinned back, AwDae picked up the microphone delicately through mounting feedback and quickly shut it off. The hum had grown loud enough that ey could hear faint clicks from the speakers. Magnets clicking, popping as the physical limitations of the ancient-and-not-so-great speakers reached their limit.
 
-*Ioan seems taken aback.*
+The sound stopped a scant few moments after, bouncing around the auditorium and the student center. Echoes.
 
-> **Ioan**: Do the other Odists not like that I've been brought on?
->
-> **Dear**: Of the ones who know, most are fine with it.
+Eir ears slowly uncringed. Ey pocketed the mic in eir trouser pockets and straightened up. The school was silent once more.
 
-*Now frustrated/confused.*
+Remembering the position where ey had found it, AwDae pocketed the mic and straightened up, wandered back over to the auditorium, turning the gain down on the board and lowering the house volume to a reasonable level. Ey even turned the mic back on and mumbled a quick "one-two" to ensure that none of the speakers had been damaged.
 
-> **Ioan**: "The ones who know"?
->
-> **Dear**: You have, of course, noticed that you have not interacted with any of my cocladists. I have told some about hiring you, but not all.
->
-> **Ioan**: Alright, I suppose. If you're independent, then I guess it makes sense that I be your amanuensis rather than the clade's.
->
-> **Dear**: Yes. Perhaps more evidence that we are split on how to tackle this in the first place. Different camps, different strategies, infighting. Ioan, you have to understand that, when a clade gets old, it starts to get a little batty.
+*This is a sim. Not even mine,* ey thought, the inside of eir ears flushed warm with embarrassment. *What does it matter if a speaker blew?*
 
-*Calm down fox, I'm working on it. Not so frantic.*
+Ey shrugged it off. Habits were habits. No reason to break them now.
 
-> **Dear**: Some clades try to get around this by keeping a certain core group of instances --- talking mostly Dispersionistas, mind --- in a setting that keeps them as sane as possible. Something that feels very 'normal'. Or maybe some are researching forking from earlier points, from down-tree, rather than from where they are now.
+Back to the admin office, then. AwDae couldn't help but feel as though ey was trapped within a game. One of those first-person puzzle solvers that seemed forever popular. One of eir favorite of the genres.
 
-*It furrows its brow.*
+It was surprising the adroitness with which eir perspective had shifted. Sobbing: now behind em.
 
-> **Dear**: We do not. First of all, we started way too early on for that to be a thing. We trusted that change itself would keep us sane, that as instances diverged, especially with mutation algos in place, they would change enough to keep us from falling apart.
->
-> **Ioan**: And that didn't work?
+Perhaps the fact that ey seemed to be receiving what amounted to clues while in a complex abandoned building added to that. Perhaps it was the shift from RJ to AwDae. Perhaps something about emself. Countless hours in sim. Countless changes in scenery. Countless changes in form.
 
-*Long pause.*
+Shaking eir head, ey turned the knob on the admin office and peeked inside.
 
-> **Dear**: It kind of worked, I will put it that way. I feel fairly well rounded, as much as that means, and I am sure those across the clade from me do too, but it is complicated. You might not recognize my cocladists as Odists without knowing beforehand. It is like having a very close sib that was raised by a different family in a different sim.
->
-> **Ioan**: More different than you'd expect, then?
->
-> **Dear**: 'Expect'...fits strangely for this. The problem is that they are still *us*, and we are still them. Clades are families of separate individuals in a lot of ways, but you must realize that, in the end, they are still one individual. We are more different than one individual should be. Does that make sense?
+There were no traps, no jump-scares. Just the six-sided room with three doors on the walls this one. One for the principal, and two for the vice principals. Taking the game metaphor to heart, ey started poking around the office where ey could, flipping through a datebook on the secretary's desk (empty) and rummaging through the drawers (office supplies).
 
-*It does, Dear. That's why I'm doing this.*
+The waste baskets were empty.
 
-> **Ioan**: I guess so. \[pause\] So some of your clade would prefer I not be a part of this?
->
-> **Dear**: More than that. They feel that investigating the matter of the Name being written is too risky, too close to investigating the Name itself.
->
-> **Ioan**: I don't know how I would respond to that.
->
-> **Dear**: That is my field, Ioan. Do not worry about it.
+Steeling emself for something...something what, shocking? The game mentality still holding tight, perhaps. Ey tried each of the doors in turn.
 
-*Ioan holds up eir hands, looks apologetic. The fox has tilted its ears back.*
+Surprising. It wasn't the principal's office that opened, but one of the vice principals. The name of the one who had worked there when ey was a student escaped em, and no tags adorned the doors. The office was dark, but the lights responded to a touch on the pad. Ey set it to a comfortable level; warm without being cozy, bright enough to read without being intimidating.
 
-> **Ioan**: Sorry, Dear. I hope I'm not overstepping at all.
->
-> **Dear**: \[calmer\] Do not worry about it. It is okay, I promise. It is just that we are really good at arguing, so I have been dealing with that quite a bit the last few days. That is why I hired you; I am relegated to an administration role so I am a bit on edge. Let's get back to the archive server, yes?
->
-> **Ioan**: Sure thing. Where did you say your cocladists had found it?
->
-> **Dear**: Just in a search. I do not quite know the details about how. Assuming just a text search of the perisystem. Not too sure on the terminology; I bought into being an artist pretty hard. All that knowledge is in exos.
->
-> **Ioan**: \[laughter\] No worries there, Dear. I'm trying to keep up with you is all. I was just wondering if they found anything else.
->
-> **Dear**: You mean like the other nodes on the server?
->
-> **Ioan**: I'll poke around at those, look for ties and such. I was more wondering if they'd found anything in their search that didn't meet the relevancy threshold for them. Stuff like back-links to the server, or anyone talking about this Qoheleth. Hebel. Whichever.
+Memories of being hauled into the room, all those years ago, with the lights all the way up, a gesture of power.
 
-*Silly name. Oh well. Dear looks taken aback.*
+Rummaging through the desk revealed little of note.
 
-> **Dear**: I had not really thought to ask. I do not suppose they did, though. Do you think it is worth having them search around more? Lowering the, uh, relevancy threshold? \[laughter\]
->
-> **Ioan**: Yeah, I think so. Though now that I've got it too, I can do some of that digging myself. I want to see who likes the Tanakh so much as to name themselves that. And why 'kemmer'.
->
-> **Dear**: I...well, it's complicated and out of scope, but it relating to fluidity of gender is relevant to the clade as a whole. Very big for us, if only at a remove. I have opted out.
->
-> **Ioan**: So I noticed. It makes sense, though.
->
-> **Dear**: I am glad someone is thinking about this stuff. You are sounding more like a--
->
-> **Ioan**: Private investigator?
->
-> **Dear**: \[laughter\] I was going to say historian, sounding more like an historian every time we talk. But you never know, maybe you would make a good PI.
+Rather than a planner on the desk was a workstation. Simple. Ancient. It didn't respond to any of AwDae's interactions. How it would work, ey couldn't guess. A sim within a sim? Ey had perhaps hoped that a connection like that might lead...outside. Outside of this mess.
 
-*That was fast! I may have less time than I had thought. Dear's lovely, and it's totally right: on the other side of the clade, there are some who'd not like this kind of digging. Too entrenched. Too Conservative.*
+The only other items on the desk were a scratch pad and a pencil. The expected tools. The perpetual desk-toppers that never seemed to go out of style.
 
-> **Ioan**: I can't tell whether or not I should be flattered.
->
-> **Dear**: It is a good thing. Just keep digging, and we will too. I will be about. Got a few more things to wrap up to finish the current gallery exhibition, but after that, I am just going to work on this --- with you if you do not mind --- and try and figure out what is even happening in the clade. Do keep in touch, yes?  Ping me whenever.
->
-> **Ioan**: Will do. \[pause\] Wait, you're an instance artist, right?
->
-> **Dear**: Yes. Why do you ask?
->
-> **Ioan**: Why don't you fork to work on both at the same time?
+The pad contained a breakdown of costs, divided into departments, for the coming year. A simple three-column setup tallying subject, expense, and deductions from some number at the top. Budgets, perhaps. At the bottom of the page, was a final number, circled in dark, angry strokes. Apparently, the administrator hadn't liked the result.
 
-*Dear shrugs, grins, quits. Very lovely fox. Really quite lovely.*
+AwDae flumped down in the chair at a jaunty angle, eir tail flopping down between armrest and chair back. Tired, so very tired.
 
-*No time to dawdle watching Ioan try and figure out up-tree instances, though. Must be getting ready. Quit this instance, flush the server of extraneous crap to guide Ioan a little more effectively --- yeesh, how old is some of this stuff? Need to re-encrypt a bunch of it anyway --- and maybe get ready for some visitors.*
+Ey rubbed away the sandy grit of tears already shed. Ey was moving in this search with determination. As much as ey could muster. Anything to occupy eir mind, anything to keep em from collapsing into a depression borne of hopelessness and despair. It occurred to em that getting lost was the perfect prison: complete freedom, or nearly so (ey had already fantasized about jimmying open the other doors), with nothing to do. Nothing to dream, nowhere to go, nothing to know.
+
+Ey didn't even know the time. No clocks adorned the walls.
+
+Ey would go mad without a task. Could ey create anything? But why create in these empty halls? What would ey even begin to make that would matter the worth of a damn? Ey would never be able to share it. Ey would only be able to spiral endlessly inwards.
+
+All AwDae wanted to do was curl up in the chair. It was comfortable enough. Perhaps ey could get some sleep in.
+
+Instead, ey ground the heels of eir paws against eir face and leaned toward the desk. Numbers, digits, columns. Something familiar. Mindlessly working through the sums in eir head simply for lack of anything else to do.
+
+"Weird," ey murmured sleepily.
+
+The numbers didn't add up. Rather, everything added up within its own row. It was as though a row were missing.
+
+Ey stretched out an arm, snatching up the scrap of note and holding it up to the light. No erasures, whiteouts, or scribbles. There was just not enough information.
+
+Digits. Numbers. Ledger. Paper. Notes?
+
+If ey was meant to be looking for clues, then...
+
+Ey fished the previous 'clue' out of eir pocket. The ledger of Cicero's DDR interactions.
+
+It wasn't nearly so simple as the single-column arithmetic on the scratch paper. Each referendum had three columns of digits: a cost, a bounty (if that referendum was referred back to the house), and any number of comments made on the issue. Often out of order on the sheet, as well, given Cicero's habit of voting on everything. Perhaps it was the first thing he did on waking.
+
+Given the note's interactivity level of expanding on closer examination, ey tried to will a sum out of the columns to match the final row.
+
+No luck. Ey wished for eir rig more than anything. It'd make the task almost trivial.
+
+Ah well.
+
+Ey snagged the half-used pencil and the rest of the scrap and worked it out. Each cost and comment would be a debit, and each bounty would be a credit. One could also buy DDR credits through a mechanism that basically acted as an additional withholding on one's taxes. There were two of those in there, possibly ensuring that Cicero would have enough DDR credit to make what AwDae assumed was some scathing political snipe on an upcoming high-stakes referendum.
+
+Even so, it was clear that the section of numbers on the paper, a month's worth, perhaps, didn't add up. Once more, there was a missing interaction. Three missing interactions, rather: one vote's cost, one vote's comment, and one vote's bounty, at AwDae's best guess. Perhaps a few smaller votes to add up to those totals? It was recent, too. A few days before he had gotten lost
+
+Except that one's DDR records were public. Not which way one voted, but that one had voted. Comments were public perforce. The information had to be public for the system to work.
+
+Unless it had been tampered with, there was a combination of 1,252,000 credits unaccounted for in terms of transactions. One million debit to the comment, a quarter of a million credit for bounty, and two thousand to the vote cost.
+
+AwDae tore the top sheet off the pad and, working faster this time, ran the numbers once more. Same result.
+
+"Well, huh." Ey sat, frowning, for a little while longer before gathering eir notes. Ey folded them together with the original clue and stuffed them into eir pocket. Ey couldn't create a deck here, apparently, but ey could sure take items with emself.
+
+If this all had something to do with what was going on outside, where ey was counted among the lost, that was all well and good, but how would ey get that information back out remained a mystery.
+
+Too early to be thinking of such things. Ey wasn't going anywhere for the time being. Sleep was becoming an imperative.
+
+Ey gave token consideration to where ey would be able to sleep before deciding on the auditorium. The fold-down seats were cushioned. Not very well, but better than the floor.
+
+And the place had a sense of home about it, too. The thought was a barb tugging at eir heart, but there was nothing to be done. Not in this state. Not right now.
+
+Sleep, then.
+
+Sleep, and perhaps dreams.
+
+Or perhaps not. Sleep to get away. Sleep for nullity. Sleep for nothingness.