[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

[aceslow]

I don't know if they're intending to replicate it with their own citizens. They may well want to replicate this in real life, in their own world. I'm not sure we can make that assumption yet... unless there's something in here that I missed? [ There's a lot there. ] But we do know that our lives are negligible to them, and that even if this experiment is a success, I doubt they'll see us as being worth the resources to keep around.

[ They won't be letting them go home either, will they? That much has become obvious, though Kim doesn't want to voice it aloud; his heart aches for himself, but also for the likes of Robby and his teacher, who have left behind vast lives, people who care for them and depend on them.

He rubs at his forehead, feeling momentarily overwhelmed by just how monumental this finding is. What can they do about it? Should they go along with the experiment and pray that good behaviour will ensure success? It's how he's lived his whole life thus far, and it hasn't gotten him much of anywhere, he admits. ]

I'm still trying to figure out how they accomplished this. It sounds as though we're in some sort of simulation, but... how did they get everyone here, from such disparate worlds? And would it be possible for us to do the same to them?

[ There is the idea, of course, that they are fictional, artifical intelligence that have simply been implanted with memories. But the idea is too unsettling, as much as it would be consistent with their findings. He can't allow himself to linger on it. ]

[strongroots]

Not unless they're a part of this too--hooked up, or as data? We don't know how we're here. For all we know, there isn't a waking up for us: we're just stuck here. That's how little we know.

[ Assumptions is all they have, all they can make, as little as they can help. They have one answer to their situation, but now a hundred more on top of the ones they already had. How do they reach for an outside that they don't know the shape of? How it functions?

He plays with his fingers, his sight down on them before he looks over at Mister Kitsuragi. Says for him the uncomfortable: ] We could be fake. But right now, I really hope we find a way to screw with the simulation more than I wanna think about that. I don't see a good way of ending this without that or help from the outside.

[ Even if that end still leads to the end of him. Robby both recognises it as an outcome, but doesn't focus on it. He'd rather not be stuck in a nightmare, regardless of if there's nowhere else he can be. ]

[aceslow]

We could be, [ Kim admits. ] There are several reasons why we shouldn't be, mainly that if we aren't real, it would make very little sense to pull us from such disparate worlds, painted with such a detailed hand...

[ Different political systems, different worlds, different geography and biology and faiths and relationships... it's all too complicated for someone to think up for each and every one of them, over and over again. ] But I'll admit that the rest of it makes little sense either, so we can't rule anything out.

[ He sets his pen loudly on the table between them, breathing out a long, low sigh. ]

Screwing with the simulation, as you put it, means working outside of the perimeters of this little experiment of theirs. They clearly expect and are perfectly fine with things dissolving into violence and chaos. [ He stares down at the paper, frowning. ] Not that I would advocate with that even if it would put a wrench in their affairs. No point in punishing them in a way that also punishes us.

I know one person has made it out of our programmed geographical limitations. If we can do that, keep on doing that, maybe we'll get somewhere.

[strongroots]

[ A way out of the allowed city scope. Robby says or expresses nothing to Mister Kitsuragi's point against getting themselves in trouble, but his brows do lift momentarily for the last of what he shares, then narrows as-- ]

They got out? When? What happened?

[ This is the first he's heard of it. ]

[aceslow]

Nothing happened.

[ Kim folds his fingers together atop the dingy table between them, looking off to the side. ]

He was... insensible, enraged. I couldn't get much out of him. And he vanished shortly thereafter. Whether that's by design or by chance, I couldn't say. Maybe he found a way out and they didn't want the news spreading?

[ It's just a guess. He didn't know Wrench very well. ]

All I managed to glean from him is that he somehow made it out beyond the barrier. All that waited for him was fog, mist, nothingness. He walked, trying to find a way out, until he found himself walking directly back from whence he came.