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Scene Title | Designs For The Future |
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Synopsis | Alia deciphers part of a message in a bottle, sent from the Wasteland… |
Date | June 28, 2018 |
WRAY Broadcasting
It’s only a day or so after the radio broadcast. It’s somewhat after normal hours at Raytech. Alia is putting in a late night it seems, decoding the digital message that was along side of Alternate Richard Cardinal’s transmission… And finally, Alia had reassembled enough of it to make sense of it. Which leads to a sound, both flung out digitally, as Alia had been working at near full immersion, AND physically. A sound that is best described as ‘a scream of murderous intent and rage’. And it’s loud enough that it’s likely hearable several rooms away within the Raytech building… as for online… Well… That ripple may be noticable much, much further away to those attuned to such things.
The door to the bunker beneath the radio station bursts open in the wake of that scream, and Richard Ray stumbles out of it with a gun in his hand, frantically looking around the radio room for a target or something else going on. Not seeing any immediate threat, he relaxes slowly, inquiring in cautious tones, “…Alia? You, uh, you alright?”
Alia takes a deep breath… the fact that the laptop she was working looks almost like it’s arguing giving up the ghost is likely a good sign of Alia’s mental state. The screen though, stops flickering, and a art program opens. A picture of one Mayes’s face is pulled up. Then she pulls up a picture of Richard from back when he called himself Richard Cardinal, with the colors inverted. Next drawn is a string. And a Mirror attached to that string, and other strings. The image of Mayes is trying to rush the mirror, and the nega-Cardinal is trying to get in her way.
Finally Alia actually says something. And the raw emotion there, a frantic anger, mixed with fear and dread and trama: “Never thought need to kill her -twice-.”
Richard steps slowly over to stand beside her, almost - almost - reaching out to touch her shoulder before thinking better of it. He looks to the screen, brow furrowing at the pictures shown upon the screen.
“That’s Georgia Mayes,” he murmurs, “And— Ezekiel? I… shit. The Mayes from the wasteland— “ He looks at the technopath sharply, “She’s trying to come here?”
Alia takes a deep breath, then shakes her head. “Not only here. Everywhere. Humanis First with Wasteland, being… well.” Alia shivers, and slumps a little.
“Why her?” She grumbles, more at herself than anyone. Alia may just be afraid of this outcome.
“Okay, just… slow down,” Richard says gently, “We’ll take care of this. What— “ He motions to the laptop, “What did the broadcast actually say, what did— er— I have to say to me?”
Alternate timelines and dimensions get confusing, pronoun-wise.
“You specifically? Nothing.” That's blunt. “Was to anyone listening. Warning about Mayes, Humanis First, using Project Looking Glass. To hunt.” Alia’s voice is slow, and icy cold.
Then she cracks a dark grin. “Off with her head. Bishop takes Queen of Hearts?”
“Lovely,” Richard rubs two fingers between his eyes, squinting them closed for a moment, “Now we have two Mayeses to deal with… that’s all we need, next-generation Hunters running around the place…”
If only he knew.
”Okay,” he says then, hand dropping, “Was there anything else in the broadcast? I’ll listen to it myself when it’s cleaned up, but you’ve worked through it already… what’ve we got, here? Did he give any specifics?”
“Identified as director of Commonwealth Institute, saw recording of what happened in his Mount Natazhat, and if we’re hearing him, he’s dead. States Mayes is attempting to send war machines cross-reality. Then file. Schematics. Quantum Frequency setter? It’s missing chunks though. Warren might help, but…IF we get this working? We go find Liz.” Alia pauses, then sighs. “Other? Just a loop. Endless repeat.”
“… Is bad that I am worried that Opposing King lost it on that string now?” Alia finally asks.
The digital aether has been silent in the wake of D.Crypt's technopathic screech, ripples fading out into emptiness. That doesn't mean it went unremarked, only that the reaction has been delayed.
If you're having an existential crisis, keep it off the network, appears in an IM window on Alia's laptop, distinctly acerbic for all that text is a poor medium for tone. I have enough headaches already.
The messages are attributed to Wireless.
“Probably.” Richard’s hand lifts, fingers pinching the bridge of his nose, “If he’s dead, then that means he didn’t build that machine this time, I…” He pauses, then, leaning forward as if he could make heads or tails of the display on the computer.
“Wait. You’re saying that we have partial schematics for Looking Glass here?”
Alia replies to both, at the same time, in about the same terse wording. IN this case, the subtext channel in the IM might be more useful for the emotional loadout of Alia being nervous, upset… not so much -existential- as much the urge to hunt. “Partial Looking Glass. And a Munin-like Detector. Still years, at best, without a jumpstart”
Alia considers her own words a moment, then a very directed packet flys out onto the network, a summons for something. It’s encrypted to hell and back though. Even before it hits Alia’s laptop. “… Richard, ever figure out correct frequency to set Compass to?” That question is asked solely out loud. As if afraid to sully digital space with the co-relation she has.
Sorry. Didn’t mean to scream. Just. Mayes. This is solely said digitally. Alia dumps a few files on top the laptop. A series of pictures and photos, showing some of the things Alia knows Mayes did first hand. Apparently even the mild mannered one can carry a grudge. Beware becoming what we hated… D.crypt muses digitally, remembering, briefly, the mess that was knocking the original Munin out of the sky.
Mayes is being dealt with, is the next line written to the IM window, terse to the point of uninformative — except perhaps in her choice of tense.
If you mean the other one, we'll deal with that if it happens, too. A statement that borders on overconfidence, but certainly characteristic of the woman on the other side of the internet.
No response is given to Alia's mused warning, which is in some sense a response itself, albeit ambiguous of interpretation.
“Why did they name so many things Munin, it’s so fucking confusing,” Richard mutters before glancing sidelong to Alia, a single brow lifting. “No. Compass is proscribed technology, illegal to experiment with last I checked… and we don’t have any surviving examples anyway. Are you thinking that it’s similar to— “
Then he squints at the laptop, “Is that a satellite? Jesus Christ— wait, is that Hana?”
A moment’s pause before he observes dryly with a glance to Alia, “Wolfhound’s impressive, no denying— hell, a third of them were my people once— but I don’t think they can stand up to an army of next-gen Hunters.”
“Shame. The Queen will be dead.” Alia states dryly. “Yes, satellite. Rift detector. Think compass could be retuned for this. Working on surviving example.” Is that a blush on her face? It is. She's got a trick up her sleeve, maybe.
Alia does make a show of waving to the webcam on the laptop. “This why empty laptop, not work one.” she ponders, then sighs. “Partial schematics, missing lots of details. Warren look at?” After all, she's a code breaker and tech, not a maker adept…
Neither audio nor video from the laptop are received by Wireless; she's not actually in the computer, but simply sending messages to the IM program. And in that respect, digital silence reigns; her opinions having been declared, Hana returns her focus to other problems more directly in front of her.
“I didn’t hear that,” says Richard dryly as he looks back at Alia, “If you find a correlation between the two, however, let me know. It’s feasable— “ A hand rubs to his chin, “We know both string connections and Evolved abilities fluctuate based on solar cycles, so there may actually be a connection there.”
A frown to the screen, then, “Warren could build the satellite, but not the more delicate equipment— he’s a mechanical intuitive, when things get too sciency he has some problems. He doesn’t have the physics background for this. The Compass tech might give us a leg up— if it isn’t a dead end— but in the end we need the records from the overlay incident.”
He sighs, “Which means finding Caspar.”
“Will see what I can do with this for now… and have a surprise, I hope, to meet us soon” cagey Alia is hedging bets. “You are the better ghost hunter.” She quips…. Then just smiles and hugs him before grumbling a bit.
“We get this working, we going to go looking for them?”
“We won’t need to,” says Richard, pausing in surprise at the hug before returning it with one arm. A faint smile’s offered down to her, “We just need to set up an anchor portal at the top of the Deveraux Building, and turn it on at the right time… just before midnight, December twenty-fifth. My moth— Michelle will do the rest.”
“Edward predicted it. So did Eve. So did Else. Have faith in them. We will succeed.”
“… Intend to succeed. Intend to have a back up plan too.” Alia offers. “We know how to make an anchor?” SHe notes this as if getting that done by december MAY be an issue in and of itself.
“No.” Richard’s nose wrinkles as he gestures to the laptop, “All we have is what came through from my mother’s end of the broadcast — hopefully you’ve managed to clean up something — and those schematics. We need to find Caspar, or someone else who’s been working on this technology — Schwenkman, possibly.”
Alia makes a noncommital sound, as she has done what she could to save what audio was heard. The amount gained on cleaning up the raw radio is gonna not be much, but there’s no reason to tell him that right now. There’s other avenues to work from to figure out the tuning wavelengths after all. Just need something to work with for the starting point. And for that… well, she has an idea, but Hana is likely going to be upset with Alia later for having sat on it for so long. Nothing she can do about that right now, though.
“I really didn’t want to have to do this,” Richard mutters as he turns to head back to the bunker, shaking his head, “Good work, Alia. Let me know if you can get anything else..”
“We’ll get them home.” Alia declares calmly. “And, pick somewhere out safe zone for something soon.” Alia advises. “With room, and lack of eyes.”