Crazyface Bird and Laptop Girl Plan to Break and Enter

Aster shares her technoghosty findings with Alma. They make further plans.

Date: 12/02/2018	Alma's Office, Wayne State University The door opens inward to an office. There's a wooden desk next to a window. some bookshelfs. a coatrack. Spangly twirly things hang from an articulated desk lamp. Colorful pencils mixed with twigs and leaves fan out from a jar. Next to the desk, a magazine holder is filled with lucite and wood parts for making behavioral puzzles. Along one wall there is a bookshelf crammed with books. One shelf is given over to poetry, fiction, myth, and history. The other wall has enough space to lean a bike against. Sometimes there's dirt on the floor there. The coatrack in the corner has scarves and things hanging from it. some very garish ones too. A crank handle controls a clear plane of glass that is set within an array of glass bricks. It is almost always open regardless of the weather. There's no screen. A rectangle planter of succulents sits on the windowsill. If you peek close you can see an artful display made of found things. There's an ewer of water filled with rocks to put the water in easy reach for a drink. Next to the window there is a magnetic whiteboard surrounded by pictures.
Cast: Alma Aster
The rain is pouring outside and Alma has stayed inside for hte most part today. She's stuck on campus until she wants to bike back in the thundering rain. She texts Shadi and Aster, "meet me at my office on campus? :map:" Aster had shot back a text saying she was on her way, and soon after, arrives on campus. She thanks heaven for her coat, but still supplements with an umbrella on a dreary, rainy December day. Because of course December starts off like this. She raps at the door upon her arrival, before inviting herself in. "Crazyface bird, you in?" Alma replies with, "Hey, tech girl." and waves her arm over to the coat rack in the corner with Alma's rain coat. "I've been thinking about Shadi's classmate and want to talk to you two about it. I guess, first, did you find any evidence of someone pulling a mean prank on the students?" Aster holds up a finger. "/Laptop/ girl." That's the emoji Alma had used. She slips out of the coat, revealing a heather-grey sweater-dress and full leggings. "No, but I did find evidence it /wasn't/ that. The email wasn't sent by normal means -- when I investigated via the Digital Web, it ultimately traced back to a temporary rift between it and what you'd call the Lower Umbra." Alma looks intrigued. "I didn't even know that was possible." Alma is interrupted as Notion flies in through the window. Note ruffles her feathers scattering small water drops everywhere. Alma gets up to shut the window. "I've been thinking about what to do if it wasn't a prank. This is all new territory for me. I can imagine he might be out there with what he remembers as his phone, but I don't know. Normally when I call for a ghost I give them a little power. I might cut myself or offer food. I have no idea how to do that by calling someone. I think maybe you should be around when I try to call Shadi's friend. If he's somehow online, maybe you'll need to be there to monitor things. maybe you'll have to connect him to Shadi's phone." She looks questioningly at Aster. "Shadi and I will need to get on campus somehow," She frowns at that, "and maybe you could be on the network?" Aster holds up a finger. "More likely a computer than some phantom phone. See, that portal meant the data was corrupted to hell and back, but we managed to un-corrupt it and find out there it came from. The metadata includes the IP addre--" She cuts herself off and clears her throat. "It shows where it was sent from, physically speaking. A machine at the American Islamic Academy. We haven't tracked down the exact machine yet." Alma looks a little less confused once Aster finishes her explanation. "Ok," She puts a hand up to her chin. "I'd like to figure out the most propitious time to try and call for him. Sometimes it's midnight, but it depends. Anyway, assuming I can get on campus to do this, we could sync up? You can be online in the school's coputer lab?" Aster gives a wry smile. "The most propitious /place/ is probably going to be the campus computer lab, and it'll be much easier for me to track down the right machine if I go with you. If it turns out to be a problem to get us both in, though, then I'll just link in via telepresence and see if I can guide you to it." "Oh! I wasn't sure if you would be in person with us or on the 'digital web'" Alma says the last part carefully to make sure she has it right. "Can you unlock doors from the web? Shadi doesn't have keys for the school. I don't know if she will want to talk to friends who still go there about this." "Depends on the lock," Aster says. "Electronic ones, maybe, but they don't tend to go under central control. This ain't Shadowrun, you know? So if we need to do some breaking and entering..." She sighs. "...then I can only really help with that in-person." Alma picks up her phone to see if Shadi has replied to her text. "I was hoping Shadi would come by. Maybe she'll have ideas about how to get on the grounds." Her tone gets more serious, "Do you think she'll be okay there?" Aster wrinkles her nose and checks her phone, too. Nothing. "Must be busy with something. Just... inconvenient timing there. We'll have to leave it up to her, but I figure she's going to push herself to go regardless." Pause. "As an aside... does WSU have a decent psychology program?" Alma nods. "That's the impression I got, that she'd push herself. I'll try to be considerate." At the question about WSU she pauses to reflect. "I'm not direclty in a program here. I'm visiting from the University of Auckland department of psychology. I'm staying her for at least two years while my niece comes of age. Anyway, the people I've worked with here have been good. Are you thinking of pursuing a degree? What kind of psychology? I've got a background in cognitive psychology and ethology." Aster nods, lips pursed. "Shadi is... not the type to take good care of herself, no. Too busy pushing herself for the benefit of others. We'll have to measure her response that time -- maybe it'll be good for her to face it, or maybe it'll do her damage and we should get her to stay." She turns and leans back against a desk, sighing. "Clinical and counselling psych. I've been thinking... we, people like us, need to be able to talk to someone who would actually /understand/. Not just put us on pills for our 'psychotic delusions'. You know?" Alma's gaze intensifies on Aster. "You're absolutely right. People should be able to talk to a therapist without needing to hide what is actually going on. And partners of people like us should be able to get help to, you know? Like, maybe there could be a group sessions for people. and pamphlets on what to expect when you have someone like us as a family member." Alma opens one of her drawers and pulls out a campus directory. "I'm not in the clinical psychology department but I can help you talk to someone there. Ever since I've moved to Detroit I've tried to learn more about how to help people and I took a few classes in the department." Aster's eyebrows lift at the intense look. She adjusts her glasses. "Er. Pamphlets seem a bit plain, given just how /varied/ things can be. Like, you /might/ need to expect someone coming home having been gored by demonic boars, or maybe they slip into the Hollow Earth and fight Nazis with jetpacks, or they got lit on fire trying to charge up their magic... all that... stuff." She smiles. "But yes. Good to see we're on the same page. And hey, bonus. Means I understand people better in general." And can talk them into doing what she wants. Alma adds, "Or like that time I came home after being chased by a howling spectre. yeah, stuff like that. I'm sure there's bound to be something all of that has in common." Alma rubs her head. "I"m pretty tired. I think I'm going to bike home while the rain has let up a little." She starts typing on her phone. "I'll tell Shadi I'm gone. Maybe we can all meet together to do some planning?" Aster lifts her hands to put finger quotes around her suggestion of the common factor. "'Weird shit.' You can't know the /specifics/ of what to expect, but you can know that there is an awful lot of weird shit." She glances outside, spying the state of the rain, and nods as she grabs her coat. "Yeah, sounds good. I'll see if I can brush up on by entering-without-breaking skills."