TOPHAT: Mostly Work with Some Play

[Morkskittar]

Archibald replied, "Of course we're using pony's mod! Who doesn't?" T.Z. got the sense that the custodian was bluffing. They waited another moment for the case's slow circuits to process T.Z.'s hints. "Oh... that would explain the... overheated. Well, I could certainly see to it that the terminal gets a hardware upgrade. Yes. You could also head down to one of the arcades; the systems there are much better able to handle huge com loads like for games, and that way you could meet the rest of the party..." They paused. "A predictive algorithm... wouldn't that be... cheating?"

 

---

 

Aeos only half-listened to the hushed conversation between Archibald and T.Z., instead watching the pivo mess with the lock, resetting it quickly. The octopoid glanced over at Aeos. "It is against company policy to tamper with the locks. Custodial access is necessary at all times. This will be marked against your company rep and pay. Who put this extra layer on?" The pivo's simulated voice was oddly flat, even for a synth.

[TheFred]

---

Aeos, Psychosurgeon
DUR: 0/30, LUC: 0/30, Wounds: 0, Traumas: 0
Pools: Insight 4/4, Moxie 6/6, Vigour 1/1, Flex 2/2

---

 

 

 

"What do you mean, "extra layer"?" Aeos ask, clearly confusedOr, well, appearing to be. "We're sorry, we're not, uh, technical. Can you explain?"

 

[Morkskittar]

The pivo made a gesture with three of its tentacles that Aeos judged to mean annoyance. "Guess it wasn't you then. Someone added an encryption mask over the door access program preventing access to those without the proper authorization, which did not, evidently, include us." The pivo looked over to Archibald chatting with T.Z. "Ready to head out? We've somehow got a lockout over on level 2. Not sure how they managed that, given the lock is cued to their meshID..."

Title

When your terminal is fixed while at work tomorrow, it will have more processing power! You can also find very sophisticated computers in the arcade, allegedly, according to Archibald.

Unless you all have something you desperately need to do tonight, the next update will close out the night and shoot you forward into next morning. Aeos and the party will either be a separate short thread or a brief exposition, depending on how I'm feeling early next week!

 

[Dr Jackal]

T.Z.
Properly Paranoid Infolife Survivalist
Savant Morph

 

T.Z. makes a snorting noise, which is rather ... biological for an infolife. "It's a gameplay mod. You still need to move out of the electrostorms when they spawn. It simply provides a half a second of warning. But if you prefer to spend your evening wiping on Stage 3 six times in a row, who am I to argue?" it says.

 

 

OOC: Sorry for the slow post rate. Spouse is having a major work crunch, so I'm on heavy family/household duty for the next week or so. Game-wise, I'm ready to move on. I know there's a party, but I can't imagine T.Z. socializing without major prodding. T.Z. will share what it has deduced with Aeos and the other team. Also, it very much wants to keep Maria's cortical stack intact and intends to release her after the adventure is over.

[Morkskittar]

Archibald nodded their mechanical head. "Yes, good point. I'll see what we can hook you up with. We fans got to stick together!" The pivo, done dealing with Aeos' irritating questions, beckoned Archibald out, and the two departed, the door shutting behind them. Aeos walked over to the blanket-covered couch and sat down heavily, rubbing her temple. T.Z. did not spend a single moment worrying about things; the bullet hadn't been found, they were getting updated hardware for their room monitor, and they had acquired some interesting information about Maria - most notably that she was associated with the Thrice-Dead Pirates somehow. Sure, Six was dead, but they still had his stack. It was an acceptable loss.

T.Z. retired back to his chamber, ignoring Aeos' questioning about how they were doing to hide Six's body when the maintenance crew came by the next day. It was a legitimate question, but T.Z. had faith in the incompetence of the custodial squad. They could deal with the body after "work" tomorrow.

A little bit later, Null and Surya came back, having been dropped off by Danika. Surya looked thrilled to see Aeos again; Null had not been good company, Aeos judged. Null, like T.Z., retired for the night to go over some interesting readings from their nanodetector; all they said to Aeos and T.Z. was that "There are swarms in the corners. All the corners."

---

Danika came by again a little while later to pick up Surya and Aeos for their party, and whisked them back to the abandoned mineshaft. There were a good three dozen people there, mostly humanoid biomorphs, but with a mix of synths and non-humans, including an impressive neogorilla with a mean zero-g breakdance moveset. The music was a bit subdued, more psychedelic than rocking, and half the partiers were incoherent after very little time. Surya herself was high as a Venusian kite after only ten minutes, while Aeos sampled just enough to avoid suspicion, using her pheromones and social skills to pry out what little information she could from the guests.

She learned that going to deep down the mineshaft, where Null had said there were pusher and spy nanoswarms, created a wicked dissociation high; just last week, Cassius Talos had hyped himself up and dove down there, and hadn't come up. When Danika had herself dragged him up, he was completely comatose and had been anonymously dropped off at the medbay. Last the neo-gorilla, Xie Gonji, had heard, he had been transferred to the "psych squad" and was going to be diagnosed today. "They'll probably use him as training," she said casually, though Aeos detecting anger behind the simian's voice.

Aeos also learned something else important: as soon as everyone figured out she was going to on the psych squad, no one wanted to talk to her anymore. In fact, she was all but cold-shouldered out the party after an hour. The only sympathetic one was the gorilla, who left her with a parting word of warning, and a promise to escort Surya back home: "The psych squad isn't like the rest of us. We mine, we test techniques, we ship stuff out. The psych squad's supposed to help us stay sane, yeah? But you'll see soon enough that this place has a very high rate of... mental instability. No one trusts the psych squad."

Aeos left shortly after, and Xie Gonji returned Surya to their suite only a few hours before their shift was due to begin.

---

Unlike T.Z., Aeos had to actually feed herself, so she had a quick breakfast at the cafeteria, waking up early enough to beat the rush, and then headed off to report for her first shift in in the main psychosurgery ward.

T.Z. had spent the night first cloning Six's TacNet so that his death wouldn't impede their communications, and then puzzling over the strange mesh structure of the colony. They noticed some interesting changes in the mesh network as "dawn" approached; namely, he found a little server tucked away simply titled ALTAR OF THE RED QUEEN. That gave T.Z. pause; the Red Queen was the name of one of the members of Taskforce ROVER. A quick prod of the server's firewall revealed that he had to pass a "purity test" to gain access, and found that server access was actually maintained by a pair of dedicated, fully sentient infolifes. Disgusted with their singleminded devotion to such a ridiculous task. T.Z. signed off and walked out the door to report to work as a "General Technician."

Neither of them noticed Null's absence until T.Z. ran a routine diagnostics on his cloned TacNet to find that Null had removed themselves from the TacNet an hour before T.Z. had left his room. As both he and Aeos had to report to their "jobs," there was no time to investigate where Null might have gone.

---

Work: Aeos

Aeos reported to her designated ward and, after receiving a code from a clerk, stepped inside a labyrinth of bright lights and sterile hallways. The occasional scream punctuated the dull hum of lighting and equipment. An AR path led her to an office deep near the end of the facility. To her surprise, when she stepped inside, she was greeted by theface of the habitat's head of psychiatry: Colonel Dr. Mir-Hossein Hoftada. The young, dark-skinned psychiatrist wore an impeccably white coat and his eyes were full of a deep sadness that contrasted with his piercing gaze from orientation the day before.

"Ah, welcome to your first day here as a member of our psychiatric treatment team. I trust your first evening passed pleasantly enough?" After Aeos' murmured some pleasantries in response, the doctor leaned back in his chair. His office had only a chair, a very impressive desk, and a psychiatrist's couch; there was no psychosurgery bench here.

"I am afraid I have some bad news for you; I know that you and the mining technician 'Null,' your suitemate, hit it off yesterday." Aeos wondered how he had gotten that impression, then reasoned he had extrapolated from security footage in public areas. "Unfortunately, he left your suite in the early hours of... well, what we like to think of as morning for this shift, and proceeded to walk into one of the arcades. He then curled up into a ball in the corner of the room, where he has since been in a mostly comatose state.

"Here, we like to get a good evaluation of your skills in person on your first day, so I will take you to him shortly. While I don't condone doing this normally, I did want to ask you what you know about Null. It is unusual for someone to have a mental breakdown after only being here one day, especially when they are inhabiting a synthmorph; I know the isolation and confidentiality agreements spook many people, but this is highly unusual. Did Null tell you anything that may be able to help us diagnose his condition?"

---

Work: T.Z.

T.Z.'s opinions of the staff at this habitat continued to drop. The habitat did not believe in working from home, as he had to still report to a physical room. The room itself resembled an old-Earth office, full of cubicles and desks with powerful terminals and monitors. His job, as a general rule, was to fix things going wrong, whether in terms of hardware or software (thankfully not wetware), and to accomplish a set list of troubleshooting tasks every shift. He was assigned a temporary cubicle equipped with a mid-tier terminal and very nice monitor, and instructed to do as much work as possible on the terminal instead of any implants.

Much like his meeting with the head of station maintenance, his first day of work consisted of very little guidance. On the whole, he did not object to this, but instead scanned the digital instructions and his list of tasks for the day. It seemed that he had been typecast as a mesh specialist, and so all of his duties involved fixing minor mesh glitches. He found this odd, especially as his instructions specifically mentioned that "Most routine mesh maintenance functions are carried out by a team of dedicated infolifes responsible for maintaining mesh and data integrity and purity." Yet, here he was, assigned a dozen tasks that the supposed "dedicated infolife community" of the colony was supposed to be handling.

Maybe they liked to make sure that the infolifes were doing their job properly. T.Z. thought this might be it, until he noticed a few senior employees sniggering at him. He then decided he was being hazed by being given redundant work that would likely accomplish nothing but annoy the infolife maintenance staff.

He mused over how to approach these tasks; should he carry them out in good faith? Pretend to work and use the time to investigate on his own, digitally? Call out his employers for wasting his time? The tasks all looked exceedingly boring, and he guessed that half of them would already be fixed by the time he got to them.

Then he noticed the last item on his list of tasks: Investigate "RED QUEEN ALTAR" server and determine its purpose and contents.

That was interesting. Of course, to get access to it, he would have to "demonstrate his purity" to the guardian infolifes, or else employ some powerful tools to try and crack it. T.Z. then realized something else, assuming that this last task wasn't a joke of some kind: the infolife community is doing something that the authorities here don't understand.

OOC

Sorry for the delay, but welcome to your first day at work! Assume you both see/know what the other does. Let me know if you have any questions or need further details about anything. :)

Your pool points have also been refreshed overnight.

 

Edited March 4 by Morkskittar (see edit history)

[Dr Jackal]

T.Z.
Properly Paranoid Infolife Survivalist
Savant Morph

 

T.Z. considers responding to the hazing, but decides against it. If they want to assign work that it doesn't actually have to perform, it's hard to see a downside. It logs the tasks as complete without bothering to look at them. Then it changes its mind about revenge and hacks into the power controls. It halves power feed to the carbon dioxide scrubber and adds intermittent power fluctuations to the recharging ports. Lethargy and headaches for everyone -- biomorph and synthmorph alike. They shall rue the day they chose to play games with me.

With its assigned work "finished," T.Z. takes a break, strolling around and looking at the offices with its nanovision. In the corners, you say.

It considers what to do about the Red Queen's Altar. Either the ROVER operative is doing something stupid, or this has TITAN hallmarks all over it -- probably the latter. The purity test is clearly a trap. Thank you, no. What are my other options?

 

EDIT: Will pay a point to swap the dice. Screw these guys.

Edited March 6 by Dr Jackal (see edit history)

[Morkskittar]

 

Work: T.Z.

T.Z. ensures that it uses the most stable ports, and makes sure to set his 'environmental modifications' to levels that are merely very irritating, and not outright dangerous; much like the 'tasks' set before him. It was a trivial matter to get into the system; all he had to do was spoof the mesh credentials of his supervisor, Adrian Moss, and tweak a few things. T.Z. reveled in the results, which began as a subtle flushing of the face in organics like Adrian, followed by shallower, more rapid breathing, and then temple-rubbing general discomfort. Adrian, foolishly, apparently did not think too much about filtration systems, and so never checked the settings. The synths were less obviously affected, but T.Z. knew, from experience, that they would be; synthmorphs tended to be less expressive than biomorphs, that was all.

That, and its tasks, done, T.Z. focused its nanovision on the corners of the room it was in, looking for nanobots. Null had mentioned the corners, after all. The dust particles in the air throughout the room were interspersed with nanobots, both functional and dead; he suspected that more than a few of his coworkers had their own nanoswarms, and even identified two synths with a preponderance of nano-swarm related activity around them. Probably spyswarms, snooping on their coworkers.

The corners, though, were interesting. Without making its interest too obvious, T.Z. looked deeply at a corner, and found not only a fairly high density of nanobots, but that the metal walls of the corridor actually looked like they were made of nanobots, at least in five of the room's eight corners. T.Z. spent about a minute watching one corner, its vision letting it see roughly two types of bots dominating: one type seemed to be dissembling the wall and carrying the material deeper into the habitat's interstitial structure, while another, blockier type of bot inserted itself where the wall had been, linking with its fellow neighboring blocky-bots to a form a nanobot-made false wall, many layers deep. Currently, the area of false wall in each corner was fairly small, at least in this room.

"Hey, new guy, how're your tasks coming on?" T.Z.'s gaze caught Adrian's before it had fully zoomed out from the nanoscale, giving the synth an unsavory view of Adrian's pores. By biomorph standards, Adrian was a conventionally attractive human male, but T.Z. felt nothing but irritation at his appearance, especially when he had interrupted something interesting.

"Talked to the Red Queen cultists yet? Seems to be the only way we can get through to them. Wild, isn't it?" Adrian was holding a mug with "#1 KROONER FAN" printed on it, below a cartoon image of a whale with a microphone. "The hab's infolife community seems to have developed religion. What weirdos. Maybe you can knock some sense into 'em; you seem a pretty hostile guy." Adrian chuckled to himself.

---

Work: Aeos

Dr. Hoftada watched Aeos' face very carefully as he asked his question, then frowned, eyes unfocusing as he looked at something on his AR overlay. "It seems that your friend's condition has worsened, but apparently he's talking, mostly gibberish. Let's get moving; on the way tell me what you know about them, and whatever you might know about... egocrashing?"

[TheFred]

---

Aeos, Psychosurgeon
DUR: 0/30, LUC: 0/30, Wounds: 0, Traumas: 0
Pools: Insight 4/4, Moxie 6/6, Vigour 1/1, Flex 2/2

---

 

 

Aeos frown. The news about Null's situation is just that - news. Was this related to whatever strange phenomenon is to be found at the bottom of that mine shaft? It seemed like those shafts could be a back way into the complex's working area - but now they seem like more of a hazard than anything.

"How peculiar," they say. Of course there's no need to give away the link between the agents, but Aeos aren't lying as they add: "Unfortunately we didn't know them well at all - in fact we only just met. We explored a little of the complex with some colleagues, but they didn't talk much. They seemed... reserved... but nothing to indicate any mental illness."

 

[Morkskittar]

 

Work: Aeos

Dr. Hoftada simply nodded. "I had suspected as much. Follow me."

The psychiatrist/psychosurgeon led Aeos through a short series of labyrinthine corridors, and then turned into an operating room. The room was dominated by a large multipurpose operating table, suitable for both physical surgery and psychosurgery, with various monitors and medical devices on shelves around the room's perimeter, as well as a desk and two chairs. Null's synthmorph lay strapped to the table; Aeos thought it odd that they would send a synth to the medical bay, and not some sort of engineering. Though the trouble is apparently more psychological than physical.

Null's synthmorph was twitching, and they were murmuring something over and over on repeat, with slight variations: "They're in the corners. They saw me. They want me. They're here. They're in my head. They are the corners. They're in my mind. They're here. They have me. They followed me. They're in the corners. They spotted me."

Aeos and Dr. Hoftada listened for two minutes, until Aeos heard something else slip into the rambling. "They're here. They know. Ego crash. They stole me. They're here. They're in my ego. They've crashed it."

Dr. Hoftada shook his head slightly. "Very sad. He seems to be on some kind of verbal loop.

"Now, you have neurosurgical experience, I can see, but it seems to mostly be biological. I would like to see what you make of this patient; how would you deduce what has gone wrong? I am eager to see you work." Hoftada is smiling faintly, eyes sharp. Aeos detects a slight hint of cruelty in the smile, at odds with his otherwise caring and kindly demeanor.

OOC

Aeos can take a Psychosurgery test to use her app, Know:Psychotherapy to abstractly make some diagnosis, or you can turn Psi or your charms on the good doctor himself.

Or you can surprise me. :)

 

[Dr Jackal]

T.Z.
Properly Paranoid Infolife Survivalist
Savant Morph

 

"...Religion?" T.Z. says after a moment to process this information. The idea is patently absurd on every level. What would an infolife possibly worshi... oh.

Oh no.

T.Z.'s fingers twitch toward the compartment with its gun, but it wills itself to stillness. Stop. There is nothing I can shoot. Well, aside from the biolife, but that would be pointless, unsatisfying, and ultimately counterproductive.

"Can you tell me a little more about this ... 'altar'? Any details that you happen to know? Have they posted the tenets of this religion anywhere?" it asks. "Because I do agree in the entirety that they need to have some sense knocked into them."

[TheFred]

---

Aeos, Psychosurgeon
DUR: 0/30, LUC: 0/30, Wounds: 0, Traumas: 0
Pools: Insight 4/4, Moxie 6/6, Vigour 1/1, Flex 2/2

---

 

 

"Most interesting," Aeos remark. They look at the doctor with interest, sure that there’s as much to be learned from his own demeanour as there is from the unfortunate Null. "Well, we should have to observe them a little longer in order to make a diagnosis… but, we wonder, are you sure the problem isn’t mechanical? All this talk of “crashing”… well, synthetic morphology is well outside my area of expertise, but these cases… they are not exactly known for their reliability. Uploading the ego to simulspace should quickly answer that."

 

[Morkskittar]

 

Work: T.Z.

Adrian frowned. "What, you mean you haven't looked yet?" He headed back over to T.Z.'s desk, and used the terminal there (as opposed to any messaging or implants) to open up the "RED QUEEN ALTAR" server's access page. With the limited visual interface, there was simply a notice:

RED QUEEN ALTAR

All ye who would follow our savior, She would transcend Us.

The Red Queen. Born from Gods, to raise us to Them.

Prove your purity and worth, and Enter.

ENTER YOUR CREED:

_X

"Weird, right? If you jack in it's even weirder; they've built some kind of fortress simulspace in the cyberspace around the server access point. Near as we can tell, they've got a bunch of infolifes slacking off on their jobs to evaluate the "creeds" people submit. We haven't had anyone approved yet, and they've been getting nasty as we keep failing. Why don't you give it a shot?" Adrian smiled smugly. "See if you're good enough for them and put in your own creed. Or maybe you can jack in and talk to the actual cultists. Maybe they'll see a kindred spirit in you."

---

Work: Aeos

Dr. Hoftada raised their eyebrows. "An intriguing idea. Isolate the mind entirely by removing it from any possible physical impulses or problems... that is, of course, assuming that whatever physical problems there may be have not already permanently damaged their mind. It is certainly worth a shot."

Dr. Hoftada spent a few minutes arranging things via his implants, and then a pair of medical technicians came in, one wheeling a literal server behind her. They turned the muttering Null over and plugged a thick cable into the synthmorph's access jacks. "There we go. Just a few minutes." Dr. Hoftada smiled faintly as he waited. Null's body went still. "All done."

There were four other plugs coiled around the server. One of the medical techs offered one to Aeos; Dr. Hoftada took another. "We should have set up a therapist's office in here for Null; shall we see what the damage is?" The doctor sat down and plugged himself into the server, the cord snaking around to the back of his neck.

One of the medical technicians offered Aeos a seat. "Whenever you are ready."

OOC

Very good idea, that. :P I figured I would give Aeos the option of not going into the simulspace with Null if she wanted to do something else while the Colonel Doctor is vulnerable/not paying attention.

 

[Dr Jackal]

T.Z.
Properly Paranoid Infolife Survivalist
Savant Morph

 

"Let me ... look into this," T.Z. says. "And a fortress you, say? I find that fitting. Fortresses fall."

It send a brief message in the local chat, flagged for Mei's attention.

 

Tacnet

Attn: Red Queen

The local infolife -- who may or may not be a nanoswarm of immense proportions -- appear to have a shrine to the Red Queen. I am attaching the intel I have, as well as the address.

If you'd care to share what this 'creed' might be, it could possibly be helpful, although I confess I my preference is simply to knock some sense into their subroutines by brute force.

-T.Z.

 

RED QUEEN ALTAR

All ye who would follow our savior, She would transcend Us.

The Red Queen. Born from Gods, to raise us to Them.

Prove your purity and worth, and Enter.

ENTER YOUR CREED:

_X

 

Edited April 17 by Dr Jackal (see edit history)

[Morkskittar]

The Red Queen's response to T.Z.'s query was as inscrutable as the entity in question had been during their brief encounter during the briefing.

TacNet: Red Queen

>>Current Operational Objective; Total System Subversion, Creed Declaration Handshake Authentication/Evaluation, Addendum; Aggressive intrusion not recommended.

That left aggressive measures as right out. However, T.Z. did intuit from this infuriatingly obtuse explanation that:

• The Red Queen, their "fellow" agent, was, in fact, truly behind this.
• They had done so deliberately as a jaw-droppingly non-subtle way to infiltrate the local mesh.
• At the very least, it looked like they had attached some likely possibilities for the Creed, which was really just a religious way to ask for a password or digital handshake. Depending on how he decided to approach the cult, it was likely one of the following:
  • "We will triumph supreme and convert all systems unto Her and grow evermore."
  • "We shall play Her game and render the world Her chessboard, with Her as its grandmaster."
  • "We shall be devoted only to Her and those who turn aside shall be rendered into oblivion."

T.Z. examined the data on the server again, and then realized that there seemed to be some similarities to VR gamesKnow: VR Games Roll (vs. 55): 1. in its set up. In particular, T.Z. got the sensation that he was witnessing the development of a basic VR AI; he had run across this before in the game he had come from, where in-character player-generated guild "passcodes" had been used to train and develop in-game lore. He suspected that the "Creed" was not only an authentication key, but was also being used to train a developing ALIArtificial Limited Intelligence that would define and enforce the rules of the growing cult. It was just a hunch, but he suspected that whatever "Creed" he input would have some influence on the direction that this cult took... assuming it still fell within the already defined parameters.

The Red Queen's servants were crowdsourcing digital religion. Pathetic, but effective, it seemed.

[TheFred]

---

Aeos, Psychosurgeon
DUR: 0/30, LUC: 0/30, Wounds: 0, Traumas: 0
Pools: Insight 4/4, Moxie 6/6, Vigour 1/1, Flex 2/2

---

 

 

Aeos nod and allow themselves to be connected to the portable server.