[open mingle] I do my crosswords in pen

[keepgodwaiting]

WHO: Constantine (keepgodwaiting) & you!

WHAT: Metaplot deciphering!

WHERE: The Welcome Diner

WHEN: Early December

WARNINGS: Probable discussion of human experimentation


Another month, another weird new building, and Johanna has been thinking. If the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results, then they ought to try some new things, right?

Trying to stay away from the dorms at Halloween didn't work. Trying to escape the mall had mixed results. So maybe it's time to abandon the avoidant strategy and see what happens if they approach things a bit more head-on. Starting, in her case, with investigating every open door she could find in the Science Center until she found the director's office.

(Yes, she did just get told off by several friends for running into potentially dangerous situations with no backup; no, she did not alert anybody that she was going to do this; but hey, it was completely uneventful and therefore she has not broken any promises to anyone!)

The most interesting thing in there, by far, is the unlocked computer, and with a little digging she found a very interesting email. More carefully redacted notes. And she wonders ...

So one evening -- around dinner time, after sunset, in the hopes of being available to the most residents -- Johanna posts up in the welcome diner with a stack of notebooks, pens, and her phone. She's hand-copying the redacted file from her phone onto paper, with XXXXXs to indicate the number of characters in the redacted words. It's an arduous process, and every so often she straightens up from the work with a groan to crack her back. After she gets the whole thing copied down, she picks up her phone to make a network post:

Anyone good at crossword puzzles? I've got a doozy of one I'm working on in the diner and could use some help.

Anyone who cares to join her and try to decipher the redacted words, or make additional hard copies of the file to share out, is more than welcome to do so. Or just grab a cup of coffee and share theories with each other.

[ ooc: Feel free to treat this like an open mingle, converse with other characters, hop around, etc! I'll be making a top level with the text of the two redacted files from the newsletter, in which we can crowdsource guesses about what the missing words might be!

ETA: Feel free to put guesses in this document! ]


 

Comments

[featheradrift]

You think I don't know that?

[ The frustration comes out as inappropriate aggression towards Robby—but he's quick to realize it and sighs forcefully as he sits back and crosses his arms. ]

Well, I don't intend on giving up. There must be an opening somewhere. We just haven't found it yet.

[strongroots]

[ He doesn't react to the aggression; he gets it, still has sore spots himself. And while the other sits back, he messes idly with the ends of his fingers, forearms rested on the table. ]

All I thought is trying to stress the environment. I mean, if you do something a program doesn't understand or make it try and do more than it's used to, it makes hiccups in the system. But it doesn't take you out of it.

[ And it brings Robby's thoughts back to something that's bothered him about the report (or one particular point). ] They didn't even shut down the experiment when they decided it wasn't worth it anymore--they had them kill each other.

[ Which makes Robby: why? Why force a killing spree than just having an instant kill button? ]

[featheradrift]

[ Unless they find the source of the simulation, they're not likely to break out of it, he wants to say. But they don't have any leads to work with. No way to figure out anything about what they're trapped in. At this point, any idea is a good idea. ]

It's not like there's anything better to try. But what exactly would stress the system? Mass violence and death seem to be well within its capabilities.

[ Ah, but he wonders if it's possible to fool the simulation into thinking something is there when it's not, or vice versa. Like how his past has been hidden from Irminsul through encoding and transforming it into a fairytale. Could the simulation truly see everything that happened in it?

The other man brings up a good point though. Why didn't they just shut it down? Why the chemical? ]

...maybe they can't shut down the city itself, and they have no way of directly killing us.

[strongroots]

[ it's ok i did that yesterday too

He's quiet for a moment, lingering longer than he knows he should on the thought.

Just something else to bury for now. ]

We could be banging up another wall, but we haven't been able to get outside the fog. Messing with the environment, making it repair itself and trying to find holes--it's the only way I can think of a simulation making a mistake. Multiple people screwing with multiple places at the same time in a big way.

But we know whatever we do's gonna get their attention. Unless there's a place somewhere we can screw with that they don't know, but we do. If someone before us managed to do something.

[ But it's all guesswork banked on nothing but optimism. ]

[featheradrift]

[ It's moments like this where he truly resents their kidnappers for rendering his vision inert. If he could still fly, it would be a piece of cake to mess with the fog.

Ah, but that would be the reason they took away abilities, wouldn't it? To make it less likely for them to mess with the simulation. And probably to see if it'd boost community building or some other such bullshit. ]

Sounds like a party I'm interested in.

[ Even if they got punished for their rebellion, at least they'd have put up a fight. He would hate to let those assholes think he'd listen to them obediently. ]

If we assume the unredacted documents we're looking at right now weren't leaked intentionally, doesn't that mean the sources are unmonitored by them? Those idiots would have noticed otherwise.

[ It's a very big if, though, because he doubts they weren't leaked intentionally. There was no way of verifying them. The only thing that sets them apart from other documents they've found is a lack of redacted words. There's nothing else to go off on though. ]

[strongroots]

[ He's starting to wonder if they should just make this idea more public, get more eyes. There's the question of if the network is good, but Robby's thinking about the reports now, the newsletters. ]

This new one--I found it on my laptop, it wasn't on there before. It just...showed up.

[ which. uh. He doesn't know if really helps...... ]

[featheradrift]

[ Well. He wasn't expecting that answer. The file appeared on a personal device... Well, the ones running the simulation would have access to everything in it, so it shouldn't have been that surprising. ]

Whoever sent that file really wanted someone to see it. Maybe they're expecting a response.

[ That is to say, if Robby left a file where he found the document in his laptop, whoever sent it might see it. ]

[strongroots]

[ Well, that idea is... he furrows his brows for a second, but- ]

I can try... [ A beat. ] Should we try leaving messages in the other places we found files too?

[ He doesn't know if anyone's tried, or if it'll stick, but...maybe it would do something? ]

[featheradrift]

Not all at once. Too many and the... less friendly researchers might find out.

[ He doesn't think this will work, really, but they have very little leads. Anything is worth a shot. ]