Chasing Ghosts

[Natalie Denisov]

Natalie enjoyed spending her time signal chasing. No one else understood it, but she would wander around, eyes occasionally closed as she felt out the various wireless signals bouncing around the area. Her chasing finally brings her out to the Point. She wanders the halls, looking for the sources of the signals.

((Open))

[Narrator]

Most of the campus is what you'd expect. Wifi signals pulsing out from strategic points all over. The hotspots themselves all seem to be wired, which would eventually lead her to the Point. Here a number of different data-streams fill the air. One originates from the large satellite dish sitting on top of the squat building, although it currently doesn't seem to be actively transmitting any data, merely pulsing with idle signals. So far so normal. But once inside the building she can feel all the cables inside the walls. A lot of it is simply the infrastructure supplying the University's network, but underneath that is another layer, separate for presumably security reasons, as it seems to connect to every door, every lock and every card reader in the Point. But more curiously, it seems to supply a wireless emitter that is sending out a signal that even her phone doesn't seem to register as being present.

[Natalie Denisov]

She runs her hands along one of the walls, sensing the connections as she starts chasing the wireless emitter. What she really needs is... aha! There's one of the connections to the door. The sensor there should be relatively dumb, only intent on monitoring the door, so for someone who isn't her, the access would be virtually non-existent. Still, it's attached to this wireless emitter and her curiosity's enough to have eradicated a whole town full of felis catus. She reaches out with her power, touching the monitor on the door and trying to see what's passing through the secondary network.

[Ashlie Minamida]

It's mostly what one would expect. Monitoring programs reporting their status, logging algorithms. But threaded throughout it all is that hidden signal. It doesn't seem to serve any purpose but to be embedded in the infrastructure of the building. And where other signals tend to be fairly clear about their purpose and content, this one isn't. It just sits there, like a carrier signal on a cell-phone tower. As she's observing it she suddenly notices a change in the data-stream. A connection to the school's main network opens up and routes the strange signal through, establishing a static connection. Almost simultaneously the carrier signal surges with massive amounts of data, all apparently encrypted with something Natalie has never seen before.

[Natalie Denisov]

That makes Natalie's eyes go wide for a moment. Then she starts physically moving, chasing the new data connection. Just because she can't understand what's in it, doesn't mean she can't trail it to its destination. You don't have to be able to identify the tracks of the animal in order to follow them. Of course, identifying them first would be the wise course of action, but that doesn't occur to her as she follows the trail.

[Ashlie Minamida]

The trail leads her back out of the Point and back towards the school proper. It's fairly easy to determine the destination, especially once the signal switches over to the school network, ultimately leading to the building labeled as staff housing, seeming to terminate in one of the building's rooms, though it's hard to map the electronic map to the physical world precisely.

[Natalie Denisov]

Someone on the staff was accessing a lot of encrypted data. She supposes that makes some sense. Doctor McCoy is on staff, maybe he's doing some local analysis in... no, that was silly. She loiters outside staff housing, scratching her head as she regards the data stream that she's still got her mental fingers on. Finally she heads into the building, trying to look like she has some business there.

[Ashlie Minamida]

The surge of data slows back down after a while. The connection itself remains though and occasionally flares with packets going back and forth. Not long after the initial surge dies down and roughly when Natalie steps through the front door, the head-mistress comes walking down the stairs to the foyer, quirking an eyebrow when she spots Natalie.

[Natalie Denisov]

To her credit, Natalie manages not to look like her hand is in the cookie jar. "Headmistress," she says in greeting, "Beautiful day isn't it?"

[Ashlie Minamida]

"Indeed. Did you take a wrong turn? The student dorms are in the building right next to the Mansion." she says, almost sounding slightly amused. Once she reaches the bottom of the stairs she stops, curiously just outside the range of Natalie's abilities.

[Natalie Denisov]

"I don't think so. Just mapping out the campus' network in my head. Useful to know where all the receiver devices are just in case something should happen to my phone." The Headmistress' distance is a little weird, but maybe she just has a big personal space bubble. "And it's a bit of a power exercise at the same time."

[Ashlie Minamida]

"You'll find that campus has an extensive network. There should be few to no problems finding something that provides access to it, I made sure of that when renovations took place."

She takes a step forward and it's like a whirlpool of data just moved into range. Barely any of it makes sense. Here and there are fragments that seem familiar as networking and wireless code, but it's buried underneath endless loops of recursive data. At the fringes a couple more barely recognizable strings of data are reminiscent of machine code, but where most machines just have code that is strictly matched to movement that is planned out at time of writing, this seems to be some kind of constant feedback of three-dimensional modelling based on input that itself is compiled from numerous other program-loops. It's easy to get lost in the amount of data streams radiating from Ashlie as she simply moves her arms to cross in front of her. Focusing on anything beneath that is like squinting at the sun.

[Natalie Denisov]

And Natalie does indeed get lost as her mind tries to follow the swirl. "That's..." She traces a couple of the data flows before losing them in the vortex that is Ashlie. "What?"

[Ashlie Minamida]

"What do you see?" she asks, her expression kind of amused but the tone of her voice sounding genuinely curious.

[Natalie Denisov]

"A lot of data," she mumbles, "I can't decipher much of it. It's too tightly wound. I've never seen something this complex in this small a space." As she tries to describe it, a couple of images try to bounce onto the strange network connection she hasn't quite pulled her power away from yet.

[Ashlie Minamida]

Injecting the data is simple enough, although putting it in the right spot is another matter altogether. She can almost watch as her data is whisked along and ultimately ends up being fed into the ball of data that is the head-mistress. Something seems to happen to it as the data-injection is quarantined and analyzed as Ashlie tries to make sense of it before Natalie ultimately loses track of it.

"Fascinating..." the whole code seems to surge for a moment as Ashlie conceptualizes a snapshot of someone's perspective that is, ultimately, completely removed from her own. Images as interpreted through human perception as opposed to her perfectly crisp video feed. "No wonder people enjoy art..." she muses before turning her attention back to Natalie. "What you're sensing there is me. And I assume the subroutines operating this body."

[Natalie Denisov]

"But that would mean you're artificial," she says, "Or is that rude to say?" She was obviously *felt* like she was talking to a person.

[Ashlie Minamida]

"It's only rude by human sensibilities." she chuckles. "But you're correct. Some of the student body and most of the faculty know. From your files I concluded there would be no point in trying to deceive you. I was programmed and built here, though what you're seeing is only part of it. You came here from the Point, I assume you followed my signal when I booted into this frame?"

[Natalie Denisov]

She nods, "It's just something I do for fun. Chase signals and see where they lead me. I have to say that one was pretty unusual, though now I can see why obviously."

[Ashlie Minamida]

"Quite proprietary, yes." Ashlie chuckles. "Those images you projected into the carrier signal were very interesting. I've never quite seen the world the way most people do."

[Natalie Denisov]

"The what now?" Natalie seems a little confused.

[Ashlie Minamida]

"My carrier signal. The one you followed here."

[Natalie Denisov]

"No, you said 'the images I projected'."

[Ashlie Minamida]

"You mean that wasn't intentional? When I asked you what you were seeing I noticed an injection of code that resolved into image files."

[Natalie Denisov]

"I really wanted to explain it to you, but I was having trouble with the words. I think I was still in touch with that particular connection..." She seems to be trying to piece things together.

[Ashlie Minamida]

"Impressive. You've done intuitively what programmers and biologists both struggle to accomplish reliably."

[Natalie Denisov]

"I'd feel more impressed myself if I knew how I'd done it."

[Ashlie Minamida]

"Well, try it again, see if you can replicate it."

[Natalie Denisov]

Natalie takes another good look at Ashlie, trying to fix that image in her head before she reaches out and touches the carrier signal, trying to convey the image. It's a little more out of focus this time.

[Ashlie Minamida]

"The process seems to work just fine, though the image quality is a little different. Unfocused."

[Natalie Denisov]

Natalie seems excited, "That's cool! I've never done that before. I'll have to practice some more." She pauses and then quickly adds , "Not with your carrier signal of course."

[Ashlie Minamida]

"I'd be very curious to see those, if you wouldn't mind sharing them."

[Natalie Denisov]

"I certainly don't mind sharing. Although I should probably put together an easily rebuilt system to pass them too. I've had some bad luck with devices when I try to change them."

[Ashlie Minamida]

"There's no shortage of computer parts in the workshop. Feel free to find what you need."

[Natalie Denisov]

"Shouldn't be too hard to put together," she muses, still occasionally fighting not to get lost in Ashlie's whirlpool.