I Text Dead People
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Date: 11/02/2018 |
1337 Temple Street Basement, Corktown
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Cast: | |
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Aster's place has become utterly /festooned/ with little bits of electronica. Yeah, she has a number of desktop machines around the place, but it's more than that. Against one wall, bins store components which she hasn't yet found a use for; speakers and wind chimes hang in different spots throughout the main room; and right now, she's busy soldering away to hopefully get one working motherboard out of three or four recycling victims. The speakers each offer different tones and different rhythms, all together creating the music of 1337 Temple Street. <<IC TEXT>> Shadi to Aster: You busy? Got time to talk tonight? Want your advice on a computer thingy
Aster has her phone on the desk right beside her, a reference manual open, but the text notification pops through to partially cover the screen. In seconds, she's tapped out a response. 'Sure. Usual place?' <<IC TEXT>> Shadi to Aster: I can come by, sure. I'll be there in... ten?
Aster checks the time in the top corner of her phone screen. 'Sure,' she texts back. And she starts work first on getting those motherboards into a state she can leave alone for a while. True to her word, Shadi arrives at the door to the house ten or so minutes later. She's parked PRNCSS and she's marched up to the front door to ring the bell and let ASter know she's here. She is punctual as always. Aster's door doesn't have a doorbell; they go uncharacteristically low-tech with that, just bearing a heavy metal knocker. Of the 'I will beat up your house until you answer me' kind. After the initial knock, she checks through the eyehole... and soon gets the door open, stepping aside to usher her in. "Unicorn Princess! Come on in. I'll have a couple other things to ask about myself, but first, what's this computer thing?" "*The* unicorn princess," she agrees, arriving. "So, ah... I mean, I'd normally say this sounds strange but for you it's a walk in the park. Do you know if maybe like... dead people can... talk to us through comnputers?" says Shadi, getting right to the point, it would appear. Aster bobs her head. "Yeah. It's not something I've handled much before -- I'm just not an 'I see dead people' kind of girl, you know? -- but one of my colleagues back in Cambridge did a lot with that. 'Ghost in the machine' stuff at the most intensive level of haunting, but even below that, spirits of the dead can distort probability in ways which show up in random number generators." She smirks. "The /modern/ necromancer doesn't toss bones or look in tea leaves. The modern necromancer starts a randomised stream and watches for non-random trends and their inclinations." She adjusts her glasses. There's a hitch in Shadi's voice when she responds after Aster's affirmation. "So it IS possible, then. I got this email..." She holds up her pink, be dazzled smartphone to ASter's eyes. An email text thqat redas, "Is anyone out there? Is anyone seeing this?" Thee message is strange for other reasons though, only the first half of the sender's email address is showing, whatever the domain was the rest appears as a garbled mess of unintelligible characters. "...the name attached, Jasar Lashgari. He's dead. He died in the shooting at my school." Aster folds her arms as she peers at the screen. "Mmn. Looks more like ghosts-in-the-machine type stuff, even literally. Especially if it's causing that kind of corruption in the address. So that went to your email -- private email, school email?" "My email," says Shadi. "And I wasn't the only one. A bunch of us got it. I tried to respond but the email bounced back. I was wondering if maybe you could help me." She looks down. "I left a message for him on facebook. Like, maybe you saw my video talking about him on my social media. But, anyway, I was hoping he'd reach out to me. Maybe he needs help to find Jannah." Aster taps a fingertip against her arm, lips pursed with thought. "Mm. Help to get to where he belongs on the other side. For the ghost side of things, I'd have to talk with an, ah, colleague of mine who knows these things better. But for however far the /computer/ side helps you, I'll be happy to." She steps away to go and get a couple glasses of water. "What kind of other people received the message? And all to personal accounts?" "I mean, the email didn't have their addresses attached but a bunch of my friends from school all got it and they were posting on their snapchats and instas about it." Shadi puts a her hand on top of her head, tightening her purse against her side. She takes the water when its delivered. Aster sits down on the couch, folding her feet up underneath herself. "Have you reached out to any of your friends about it? The receiving address is important -- my first thought is getting into the server and taking a look at the back-end code of these emails, to see if we can track down the origin point better." "I haven't. People mostly want to move on, I think, and figure it was some kind of glitch. I kind of want to let them. Everyome's had a bad couple years." Shadi looks down for a moment in thought. Aster chews her lower lip. "That'll make tracking things down harder on my end. Fewer data points, the harder it is to trace the underlying information, you know? Who's your email provider?" "AT&T," replies Shadi with a pained look on her face, but tbis should surprise no one. "I can give you the names of students who got the emails, at least. Can probably dig up their emails in some cases." Shadi wrinkles her nose. Aster smirks at first, but then wrinkles her nose. "At least it's not one of the /real/ tech giants. I would not look forward to needing to crack Gmail or Microsoft... but this still isn't going to be /easy/. Please do; there could be some underlying trend about email addresses among those who received the messages. And if not, that's valuable information in itself." "Okay, ASter. I really appreciate it. Maybe we can talk to him somhow." Shadi closes her eyes for a moment. "I hope he can find peace, regardless." Aster nods. "I hope so. Is it okay if I talk with my colleague about this, too? She knows more about the dead. I'm more about, you know. Places and signals." "Yeah, I don't mind," says Shadi, quietly. "Just as long as we can help him find peace. That's all I want out of this. Dying like that.. I mean, if ghosts are real, that's definitely going to be a thing." She closes her eyes for a moment again, seeming pained. Aster grimaces, nodding her head. "And just think of /how many/ of those damn hideous shootings /happen/ in this country. Not a particularly safe place, huh?" She puts a hand to Shadi's shoulder, giving it a squeeze. "Oh, no. It's definitely not. We're insane," says Shadi. "Anyway, I appreciate it. Aside from all that, how are /you/ doing?" she asks, warmly, eyes turning back to Aster's face now. Aster sighs, a distant look on her face during the topic of violence. It takes her a minute to answer, and she shakes her head to clear it. "Ah. Been keeping busy. Not just with the usual stuff, but with some investigations of my own. Which brings me to another topic." She sips her water. "Were-cats. Especially were-big-cats, like lions and tigers. Are they a thing?" "...what makes you ask?" says Shadi, blinking her eyes at Aster. She looks startled by it. Aster sets her glass down. "A few gruesome, body-desecrated murders, with my colleagues describing a massive, dangerous feline creature." "...you mean the ritual scalper in the press?" asks Shadi, "Yeah... I've read about that. The best person to talk to would be Kai. She can answer your questions. Seriously, go find Kai." She nods her head up and down. "That's the best answer I can give you. It's not my place, to a certain extent. Okay?" Her expression has tightened. Not towards ASter, but rather, the notion of the ritual killer. Aster shakes her head. "Not a scalper," she says. "At least, not according to that expert from the first report. Nothing matching actual rituals -- just a big, bloody mess." She gives Shadi a longer, harder look. "Is it that you don't know, or you can't say?" "It's a 'I'd get in trouble if I explained it all because it's someone else's perogative," says Shadi to Aster. "I know a bit but it's something you reaaaaally ought to ask Kai about, okay?" She gives her a sympathetic look. "I operate under...constraints, you know?" Aster nods. "So it's a 'can't say'." She gives Shadi a light nudge on the arm. "You can just /say/ that, you know? Putting in so many extra words makes you sound like a politician." "I mean, everything is politics and I have to be really specific for Reasons," says Shadi. It definitely sounds like a capital R> She leans into ASter briefly at the nudge. Aster wrinkles her nose. "And I can't ask you just /why/ everything is politics with that group -- or at least, I can ask and you can't answer except with being similarly wordy -- /because/ everything is politics..." She sighs, shaking her head. "Give me the cat-herding with wizards any day, I swear. Right. I'll talk with a couple of my people, then. And I'll need as much information as possible from you. But, there's an important, dangerous question to ask." She looks fully into Shadi's eyes. "Would you trust me with your email password? I mean, you can change it once I've done my investigation, but it'd make it easier to have that vector. I /promise/ I won't make you email out anything embarrassing." "Yes," says Shadi. "I don't do anything indiscrete from that email anyway," says Shadi, firmly, "so there's nothing in there that ought to be an issue for you to see. Won't get you in trouble. Or me in trouble with anyone who cares. So yeah," she says firmly, "I do trust you." Aster nods. She takes Shadi's shoulder and gives it a squeeze. "Alright. How soon can you get me the info about the other students? Because if more of them are on AT&T, I'd prefer to check them all out at once. Oh, and... have they mentioned the text of the email? Is it the /same/ email each time?" "Gimme tonight. I'll shoot you an email. ANd yeah, it seems like it was the same for all of us." Shadi adds, glancing down towards the ground with evident worry. Aster pats Shadi's shoulder. "Mm. Well, we'll see what I find once I can get through. Hopefully AT&T's shoddy service extends to their security, at least far enough to give me an easy time getting in, yeah?" "... It's AT&T soo..." They'll suck. It's AT&T. They ALWAYS suck. Shadi turns and huuuuugs Aster all tightly. "Yeah! Okay!" Aster oofs with the hug, leaning into it while she claps Shadi with a light pat on the back. "I'll start looking into my angle of approach, too. Ugh, wish I could screw with minds like some of my colleagues can. Then I could just walk into the office, nobody any the wiser." Huuuuuug. Shadi squeezes Aster. A quizzical look flashes across her expression that seems to be her asking herself if something is different. Then she goes back to hugging. "Would be nice," she agrees. Aster sighs, nodding while still in the hug. "For now, though, I'm just going to have to go in digitally. Ugh, big assignments like this always leave me exhausted for like a week after." She shakes her head, lips pursed and face scrunched up. "Well, you'll figure it out. You're really good!" Shadi offers, happily. "Just promise me you'll be careful, huh? I don't want anything to happen to you." Aster nods. "I'll be careful. That's part of why it takes so long and wipes me out so much. But, I should let you go and get started gathering the data for me, right? And I'll need to grab some face-time with my colleagues." "Yeaaaah," Shadi should go. But hugs are yay! Huuuuugs. She hasn't stopped hugging yet. Aster raises an eyebrow, patting the back of Shadi's shoulder. "You alright there, princess?" Her slight smirk and airy tone make it a tease. "Yep! I just like hugs and I haven't had one today." Shadi is happy to hugs. She is also, perhaps, very tired. Aster wrinkles her nose. "That's too bad." She gives a bit more of a squeeze. Though her eyes find themselves tugging back to the workbench where she'd been fixing things when the first text came in. Compulsion rears its head. Shadi, of course, is a hug Lamprey. How can ASter get to her phone when she's being lean-hugged?! Aster clenches her teeth and forces herself to her feet... but once there, she wobbles, unable to quite manage the weight of a full-grown person. So she thuds back onto the couch with a soft 'oof'. Shadi just sort of curls up there. IS she... is she falling asleep? It's possible. | |
