Epigraph
This commit is contained in:
Madison Scott-Clary
@ -1,105 +1,173 @@
|
||||
# Dr. Carter Ramirez --- 2112
|
||||
# Qoheleth --- 2305
|
||||
|
||||
Carter hadn't meant to dodge her subordinate's question. They truly did need to go in to eat.
|
||||
Transcript of Node: [\[bea0cf302fcd00863f0c67a91b1a75c0e4ba4863\]](http://35.165.134.227/node/bea0cf302fcd00863f0c67a91b1a75c0e4ba4863) with descriptive text by \#d5b14aa.
|
||||
|
||||
The food was, as promised, excellent. Carter made a mental note to come here more often. A note filed into the appropriate box in mind, then set aside. She had to work through the implications of what had been spilled by the tabloid.
|
||||
*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.*
|
||||
|
||||
She couldn't visit this RJ any more than she could fly out of the restaurant's second story window and back to her lab.
|
||||
*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.*
|
||||
|
||||
It would be a useless gesture, of course. Her team didn't need access to the patient to do all of their work, because much of their vitals, properly anonymized, were provided as a real-time stream of data. It had been shown that physical contact was not registered at all by the lost; it would hardly matter if it was a researcher any more than a family member.
|
||||
> **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.
|
||||
|
||||
There would be people between her and RJ, as well. Not just doctors and nurses, but her own administration. She would have to go through any number of layers of bureaucracy just to get access to...to what? To variables that likely wouldn't help her investigation at all? Eye color? Hair length?
|
||||
*Dear grins at this.*
|
||||
|
||||
And of course, there was the law. Carter well understood the purpose of the Western Federation Personal and Health Information Protection Act. It was part of her research at a fundamental level. Anyone in medicine knew it, had the inevitable posters tacked to the walls.
|
||||
> **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.
|
||||
|
||||
Hell, she had voted on it, herself, in the DDR. It was something she felt strongly about regardless of her work. The tabloid had breached that, in a way. There was no culpability, of course, but there was a breach by publicly announcing the case.
|
||||
*Oh goodie. Better start gearing up.*
|
||||
|
||||
And yet, there was nothing to stop her from going to a show in the next day or two.
|
||||
> **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.
|
||||
|
||||
Feeling very much the sleuth, she stuffed a small egg roll into her mouth. Savoring the taste. Savoring the idea, the plan.
|
||||
*The fox's ears flop when it gets excited and shakes its head, never noticed that. It is kind of cute.*
|
||||
|
||||
Yes, she'd go to a show up in Soho.
|
||||
> **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.
|
||||
|
||||
With her resolution firmly planted, she found it difficult to make it through the rest of the day. Rather than wrangle the two competing strands of work groups into some cohesive whole, she spent much of her time distracted. Antsy.
|
||||
*Dear seems a little frustrated at this. About Ioan's slowness? I know I would not compare the files. It sounds exasperated.*
|
||||
|
||||
Finding tickets was easy enough, though the price left her winded. She was thinking about all of the ways in which she could approach the cast. Or was it the crew? Would she even be able to get in contact with any of them? Supposing so, what would she even say? *Tell me about your sound tech*?
|
||||
> **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.
|
||||
|
||||
The rush was wearing off, as it always did.
|
||||
*Ioan grins at this.*
|
||||
|
||||
Avery and Prakash were both settling into the routine of investigating what had gone on before the incidences of the lost. Those precious few minutes saved from the precious few cases where a core dump had been provided.
|
||||
> **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--
|
||||
|
||||
Avery was collating what data they had from each case on the social front before the event and searching for social connections between each of the cases, as much as the law would allow. Prakash, meanwhile, was digging through biochemical data that had been collected from each of the patients and searching for similarities for them. All stuff he had been doing before, of course, but now based specifically on the time before they had gotten lost, rather than during or after.
|
||||
*Ioan groans aloud, at which Dear grins.*
|
||||
|
||||
Carter had supposed that this would be innocuous enough, but Sanders had taken the opportunity of the boss dining out for lunch to chat with a few members of the workgroup. Not once, but twice while she was working, she had needed to field private messages from teammates. Both had concerns around the direction of the project, and questions about the wisdom of separating the already fractured group into smaller units.
|
||||
> **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?
|
||||
|
||||
In both cases, she reiterated that this would only be a temporary investigation. If it turned up any useful information, then they would have that conversation again in the near future. If it didn't, oh well. Everyone would cohere once more. There was comfort in the words, she hoped, but all the same, Carter wasn't sure of their efficacy.
|
||||
*Dear is quiet. Struggling for words? Our Dear? This must have hit it hard.*
|
||||
|
||||
She had had an idea. A hunch. One she thought worth investigating. That's what one did in science, right? Have ideas. Investigate. Be open to being proven wrong.
|
||||
> **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.
|
||||
|
||||
Sanders, however, had an *ideal*.
|
||||
*Ioan seems taken aback.*
|
||||
|
||||
Or so Carter assumed. When assessing the team's standing on the issue, she had used the usual three point scale: for, neutral, against. What she hadn't asked was how many fucks each of them gave. There were, after all, two parts to making a decision. Which way you vote, and how much you cared about it.
|
||||
> **Ioan**: Do the other Odists not like that I've been brought on?
|
||||
>
|
||||
> **Dear**: Of the ones who know, most are fine with it.
|
||||
|
||||
Carter could easily estimate Sanders giving ten out of ten fucks against this current plan of exploration, while in fact, until this afternoon, she would have likely given five or six fucks.
|
||||
*Now frustrated/confused.*
|
||||
|
||||
That question hadn't been asked, though. She couldn't make up her mind whether she wished she had asked or was glad that she hadn't.
|
||||
> **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 afternoon, with the determination to learn more for the sake of the project (so she promised herself) and the sense that she was on the right path had significantly bumped the number of fucks she gave. And there was the hope of proving Sanders wrong, no small amount of competition within academia.
|
||||
*Calm down fox, I'm working on it. Not so frantic.*
|
||||
|
||||
-----
|
||||
> **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.
|
||||
|
||||
The play was some contemporary work.
|
||||
*It furrows its brow.*
|
||||
|
||||
The Short Trip, the ticket site informed her, chronicled an indecisive youth taking a trip away from family, purportedly to visit a bunch of friends for three days, the real goal of the trip being to visit his long-distance partner, but in the setting of a party, with guests, known and unknown, weaving their way through the scene --- and, at times, through the audience.
|
||||
> **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?
|
||||
|
||||
This much she learned as she made her way south and west. Carter had to duck out of work earlier than usual to make it over to the theater on time. She had actually to travel past RJ in the UMC, borne along the yowling Victoria line to Soho. Glad she left early, too. She needed to wait for three trains to pass before she was able to squeeze aboard.
|
||||
*Long pause.*
|
||||
|
||||
The train vomited her out into Oxford Circus and left her spinning. Looking, looking for the right exit to the tube station, comparing directions on her phone. Each was helpfully lit up with a thin, translucent display overlaid above the older signage in painted tile. Both bore the unerring curves of Helvetica, perpetual winner of the font wars.
|
||||
> **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?
|
||||
|
||||
Neither meant anything to her.
|
||||
*It does, Dear. That's why I'm doing this.*
|
||||
|
||||
Easy enough to find the theater by following the crowds. Her identity --- and thus her ticket --- was proved by a touch from her contacts, a grip around a simple bar in front of the theater. The bar flipped around to provide its other end to the next customer, the end she had touched getting a quick sanitizing so that everyone got a clean surface.
|
||||
> **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.
|
||||
|
||||
Carter was first surprised by just how much she enjoyed the play, then chagrined at her surprise. She had decided not to approach cast or crew beforehand, a decision that had proven surprisingly difficult. She worried that she would spend the entirety of the play thinking of what to say. She wound up engrossed in the performance all the same.
|
||||
*Ioan holds up eir hands, looks apologetic. The fox has tilted its ears back.*
|
||||
|
||||
Lying to parents. Moving through the party. The awkwardness of meeting for the first time. The cast nailed it all. She'd had her own long-distance fling while an undergrad, and she knew the feeling well. *Meet at a public space where you know people,* mom had even cautioned. *Like a party. Just in case.*
|
||||
> **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.
|
||||
|
||||
It was well into the third act of three that she realized she hadn't given any thought to the sound of the play. A passing thought: this was probably a good thing. This was the sign of a job well done. An understudy, perhaps?
|
||||
*Silly name. Oh well. Dear looks taken aback.*
|
||||
|
||||
She applauded as heartily as the rest.
|
||||
> **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.
|
||||
|
||||
Still, her mission, such as it was, was right at the fore as soon as she stood. She was perhaps a little rude in her haste, making her way out into the lobby of the theater where some of cast and crew, as well as the director, were greeting the audience. Opening night, after all.
|
||||
*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.*
|
||||
|
||||
"Mr. Johansson. Mr. Johansson!"
|
||||
> **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 bulky man turned toward her with a pleasant, if bland, smile. A smile at war with the obvious worry lining his face. "Ma'am. I trust you enjoyed the show?"
|
||||
*Dear shrugs, grins, quits. Very lovely fox. Really quite lovely.*
|
||||
|
||||
"I did! Of course I did. I'd like to ask you something, though, if I might."
|
||||
|
||||
"Mm." The sound was assent, but only just. The rest of the audience was starting to stream out of the theater, his mind was elsewhere.
|
||||
|
||||
"I was...It's just, about RJ--"
|
||||
|
||||
The immediate focus of Johansson's attention was a heat lamp against her face. The intensity of it startled Carter out of speech.
|
||||
|
||||
"I mean, if it's not too forward to ask," she trailed off, a hint of a question.
|
||||
|
||||
"It is forward," he confirmed, eyes probing her. Too many reporters? "But I'd like to know how you know of em?"
|
||||
|
||||
"I'm a researcher at UCL, working on the lost."
|
||||
|
||||
Johansson took her elbow gently in his grip and led her off to the side, out of hearing of the rest of the audience and the curious cast. Gently, but brooking no disagreement.
|
||||
|
||||
"That doesn't tell me how you know of em. Aren't you-- isn't that privileged information?"
|
||||
|
||||
"The tabloids had a--"
|
||||
|
||||
The growl was immediate, hidden behind gritted teeth. "The paramedics told me I couldn't contact anyone but the hospital, but the rag said you guys had declined contact."
|
||||
|
||||
Carter straightened and shook her head. "We did not, nor would we have. Although, I must admit, the interview process would be far more formal than this. I only put the pieces together based on location and pronouns."
|
||||
|
||||
"So what do you want from us?" Johansson's shoulders sagged, the intensity lessened, permitting emotion. "We miss RJ. It's been a real mess without em. Please, miss--"
|
||||
|
||||
"Ramirez. Dr. Carter Ramirez." She hesitated for a moment before continuing. "We're looking for...well, a few of us are looking for social connections between the lost, rather than just simple personality or neurlogical correlations. What can you tell us about RJ in that sense?"
|
||||
|
||||
Johansson looked up to his cast, then leaned a little closer to murmur, "O'Niell's, once we're done. Then we can talk. I have more to do here, so it may be a while. Please wait up, though."
|
||||
*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.*
|
||||
|
||||
Reference in New Issue
Block a user