Will Stanton wrote:Will, meanwhile, had recovered enough to not be quite so clingy on Sam and Miriam. All throughout the walk to theroller rinkfield office, he had been walking rather carefully and deliberately, as if going through a well-practiced mental checklist as he recovered his...what, mental fortitude? It didn't seem to have much, if anything, to do with the still missing chunk of him, though that did appear to be slowly regenerating on its own.
He sat on one of the small plastic chairs around a table, taking some slow, deep breaths.
Toshiro Narumi wrote:Tosh, becoming worried about the mountain of stuff the mousey woman was carrying, walked over to her and asked, taking care not to startle her, asked, "Do you need any help with all that?"
Miriam Bell wrote:Miriam pulls another chair over to plop herself down next to Will.
"Okay, what is going on? Your head's all kinds of out of it and it is driving me crazy."
Cassiopeia MacPherson wrote:"Uh..." she says as she unloads the thing on a table and her rolled up posters and document case on a neighboring one. "Yeah. Needed a portable machine. Hooked uh... a state of the art LCD screen to it. Th-they're only out in Japan." she starts rambling, avoiding eye-contact with Tosh the entire time. "It's not as powerful a-as the setup back at the base, but it should be able to run my algorithms. I h-haven't actually tried it yet. Hold these." she says and pushes the document case into Tosh's hand and unrolls the first of the poster-sized papers onto the table. It's showing some kind of intricate design that looks half like circuits and half like a magical circle with flat metal contacts set into it at certain points. The second sheet she unrolls is transparent with a hole not quite in the center that goes right onto the other one, showing more circuitry-designs made of thin metal strips that touch on the contacts of the bottom design. Spinning the transparent disk changes the contact points and thus the resulting circuitry. "I didn't have the right star chart for today's date, but I th-think it'll still work with the generic one. The data is f-from NASA so it's a lot more accurate."
Toshiro Narumi wrote:To Tosh's surprise, he actually had little idea of what he was looking at. What did star charts have to do with what these people did? It was exciting, though. "Star charts? You use that to, what, predict paranormal phenomena? I would have never thought of that. Or that you had access to powerful enough hardware to run such an algorithm."
Samantha McManus wrote:"I'm a bit banged up, but I don't think I have a concussion or anything. Probably came out better than most people who tangle with her."
Miriam Bell wrote:"You remember that? From before that whole Antarctic thing, right? Floating in space for who knows how long?"
Dr. Mariya Chasovnya wrote:"Pretty sure if you can take Agent Ryn you can take a couple tests and a shot, you're a big girl." she smirks.
Will Stanton wrote:Miriam Bell wrote:"You remember that? From before that whole Antarctic thing, right? Floating in space for who knows how long?"
"Some of it. Too much of it. Not all of it," Will said, with a slight, practiced shrug, trying to downplay things. "Packed away some of it in the box, and it opened back up again and I remembered it.
Not the full time, mind you. And there wasn't exactly a calendar around to keep track. So just...some of it."
Toshiro Narumi wrote:"A mass phenomenon like that would certainly throw off the data." He nodded. "I've never worked on combining astrology and mysticism with hard science but it's fascinating. Any chance you'd let me peek at your code? I know I'm young, but there's a reason I got sent along as the scientific observer. Though I get it if you can't trust us that far."
Miriam Bell wrote:"You are a little clingy." she says with an attempt at a good-natured bump with her shoulder against Will's. "I can't really imagine... any of that. And I'm honestly a little afraid to try and glean it from you. It sounds bleak."
Leo N. Eskandari wrote:Dr. Mariya Chasovnya wrote:"Pretty sure if you can take Agent Ryn you can take a couple tests and a shot, you're a big girl." she smirks.
"Speaking of shots," Leo commented, "When you're done with her, I need you to take a look at me. As you can see, the serum wore off in the heat of battle."
Will Stanton wrote:Miriam Bell wrote:"You are a little clingy." she says with an attempt at a good-natured bump with her shoulder against Will's. "I can't really imagine... any of that. And I'm honestly a little afraid to try and glean it from you. It sounds bleak."
"I'd recommend a bunch of things you'd never think to try, but I'm afraid I can't really endorse spending an eternity of eternities as a rock in a universe without stars. Bleak is...an understatement.
And that's what that little thing hit me with. Remind me to return the favor..."
Miriam Bell wrote:"Bloody hell. No wonder it got you all fucked up."
Cassiopeia MacPherson wrote:"S-sorry but I'm not just gonna let you take a look at my life's work. And it's far from done. I'm still trying to figure out how to move away from statistical input to more directed data. I guess th-this is kind of a field-test." she laughs at her own joke.
Dr. Mariya Chasovnya wrote:"As you might recall, I have a limited supply of it because you brought me a limited supply of whatever progenitor-monster got into your DNA. There's one left, your call if you want it now or later."
Will Stanton wrote:"Yeah," Will said, misunderstanding her. "A hit below the belt indeed. No respect for the rules of behavior, that one."
It wasn't just joking to diffuse tension; Will truly believed (or had convinced himself) that sympathy wasn't needed for what was objectively a traumatizing experience; one that had wrecked his mind and body and put him through eons of torture.
Miriam Bell wrote:"What rules. To keep it breezy in a fight? So you can keep your trauma nice and buried?" the pot calls the kettle black.
Toshiro Narumi wrote:Tosh chuckled. "I figured it was a long shot. I'd probably be just as protective."
"Hey! How hard would it be to track a specific magical object? Ryn and Agent Kane have that wish orb thing with them, right? That seems to be the source of the musical theater nonsense."
Will Stanton wrote:"Eh, felt like it was...unnecessarily personal. That was some deep stuff. She doesn't know me; you don't need to go there," Will said, with a practiced casual shrug. "That's a third-fight sort of thing."
Miriam Bell wrote:"Is that how it works? Like one third of Sam is just perpetually horny and it comes out as punches?" she snarks. "And how can it be personal if she doesn't even really know you? Or is this some kind of mythological bullshit?"
Samantha McManus wrote:"Let's stop short of setting my circulatory system ablaze for an hour, unless you know something you're not letting on."
Will Stanton wrote:"I mean, I don't know. Maybe it is a mythological thing; archetypes and roles being recast and replayed. Maybe she's got some sort of telepathic juju and was able to just pull it out of my mind. Maybe she's cribbing from our friend the roller-skater over there and found a similarity. Maybe it was a shot in the dark, and she brings that sort of sensation to everyone. You get any of that existential nothingness feel when she was just broadcasting wide?"
Miriam Bell wrote:"No, it was more that kind of... horror movie feeling. You know, something's watching me, waiting to jump out and murder me kind of feel. Just... primal, don't venture from the campfire shit."
Cassiopeia MacPherson wrote:"That's a pretty big on, f-fortunately. And we have some data from when they first found it. Still, it's not like I can punch in 'magic orb' and have it spit out map coordinates. It's so widespread there'd be tons of false positives anyway. Maybe if there was enough real-time data but even if the military satellites could monitor musical outbursts, which they can't, and ArpaNet could patch it through to us fast enough, which it can't, and I had some kind of filtering program in place, which I don't then maybe. If I had a sufficiently detailed global map. Which I... you get the point."
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