tampered | By the Pricking of My Thumbs...

Entry tags:

!npc

By the Pricking of My Thumbs...

When; October 1^st (backdated)
Rating; PG-13
Characters; Members of the Anonymous Movement and YOU!
Summary; A mysterious cottage (and goat!) has appeared on the side of the mountain outside the City. And it's doing strange things. In an effort to get more information about said cottage, the Anonymous Movement has organized a volunteer group of both their own members and any Cityzens who might volunteer to go up the mountain and see what can be seen...
Notes; There will be a few comments below for various stages of the exploration. Please feel free to tag into any of them! And if you'd like a different bit or one not mentioned here, we can set that up. Prose tags and action brackets are both welcome.
Log;

Half an hour was enough time, right? Yeah, sure, half an hour, definitely. The trucks were already ready, Blackdog was back at the house and watching everything. Sure, the Network was going apeshit, but there was more going on than just that...

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The half hour is ticking away. The two trucks are idling (kind of noisy). If anyone cares to look, there are some helmets (of various kinds, ranging from horseback riding to bicyling to motocross to anything in between and beyond) in the bed of one of the trucks and a pile of electronic equipment (of a distinctly vintage flair--is that a geiger counter?) in the other.

Tristero (in his usual all-black) is leaning against one of the trucks with a meter in his hand. He's fixated on the screen of the thing. And he looks concerned.

Are you coming with them?

As far as Chekov is concerned, this is a win-win-win situation: not only does he get to spend time with Anonymous and investigate a mysterious and foreboding cottage, but he also gets to examine what is, to him, a remarkable antique. It's a good day to be nosy.

The teenager barely nods at Tristero, intent on getting a look at a truck. And what a bonus--the truck is full of all kinds of ancient instruments! It takes an immense amount of self-control to not climb right into the truck bed and comb through the rusted wonders there. Ignoring Tristero's mood and the generally foreboding atmosphere, he fixes the Anonymous group member with an eager smile. "This is where the expedition is meeting?"

It takes him a second to pull himself out of the dial on the contraption in his hands (it's spiking again--sooner than he expected and a lot faster this time).

"What?" Pause. "Yeah, you're in the right place."

At least he seemed eager--that was...actually kind of comforting, considering the skepticism that generally greeted him, them, any of them when they did...pretty much anything.

Chekov is neutral where Anonymous is concerned. Right now, Anonymous just happens to be doing something that's in line with his own interests and doing that something with amazing outdated stuff. And Tristero himself seems like a perfectly acceptable person.

"May I ask what you are doing?" May I please poke everything in this truck bed, followed by the truck itself? They will work their way up to that.

A moment of consideration, a tense smile, another moment of consideration, then a shrug.

He turned the meter around, just to show off the dial.

It looks distinctly vintage

"This is kind of unsophisticated, but there's stuff up on the mountain that's hitting some weird frequencies and levels. It's a lot higher and a lot stronger than is really, you know, good for things."

He goes back to studying the needle as it bounces near its upper limit.

"I mean, there's straight up electrical stuff going on, electromagnetic stuff going on--I mean, we've got VLF and ULF receivers in there--" he jabs his thumb at the truck bed "--for a reason. Something's up. It's not crazy curse pressure this time."

That thing is not the sort of thing that Chekov has ever seen with his own eyes. It has to ancient even in the twenty-first century. He hovers near Tristero's shoulder, paying more attention to the antiquity itself than the needle.

"How high? High enough to be mutagenic?" Curiosity has to move over to make room for concern. Weird electromagnetic energy can't be a good thing. "And what is there of interest in the lower frequencies? I know of them mostly in the context of taking magnetospheric readings, but maybe I can help?"

"Yeah, no, probably not that high. But it's higher than, you know, we'd kind of like to see coming out of a place where there wasn't anything a couple of days ago."

If you catch his drift. There should be nothing but normal readings.

"So--oh, hey, here it goes again." And the needle starts dancing near the limit of the dial once again. "I mean, it's really the fact that it's doing that at all that's weird. There's a lot of energy up there."

He pauses and watches that needle a moment and, after a moment, it slows again.

"Anyway--the low frequency stuff is starting to form patterns. And it's my guess right now that it's maybe some kind of communication thing going on. The fact that it's patterns. That's what's getting to me. So I want to get a good, clear listen to it. This ain't the usual Dawn Chorus stuff, okay? So I'll take all the help I can get."

"Your people have no explanation for it?"

Yeah, no. Where there should be nothing, there should not be any anomalous readings.

"I can take readings, if you will show me how to operate these instruments. Or maybe I can make sense of the patterns you are receiving."

"No--not yet, anyway. I mean, we have some suspicions, but I don't want to say anything until we've actually got some stuff figured out. No use in spreading rumors, right?"

Rumors spread themselves well enough. And no good would come of saying anything about what these early readings were starting to suggest.

"Hey, that'd be great! Seriously, this thing is about as unsophisticated as it comes. I'm just noting spikes, when that needle hits the upper limit--how often they happen, how high they go, how long they last, that kind of thing. I'm just writing it down, man. But if you want to look at the low frequency stuff, hey, I'm game for that too. It's more pencil and paper stuff, if you're okay with that."

"Rumors will spread even if you say nothing." Especially with the general suspicions most Cityzens hold against Anonymous.

Chekov is quick to jump at the chance to do something. "Yes, good, I can do that."

"Yeah, I know. Once we figure things out a little, we'll be able to say more with more certainty. But we can't wait too long." He looks a little grim...

...but brightens quickly enough: "Really? Hey, that's great man! Here, hold onto this, I'll get the notebooks." And he passes over the hefty meter and clambers into the truck bed.

Chekov eagerly accepts the whatever-it-is (electromagnetic radiation detector? is it even sophisticated enough to warrant that name?) as Tristero returns to the truck. From the rumors going around about anonymous, he had expected Tristero to be closed-off and unfriendly. He's delighted that this has been proven wrong and that he won't be monitoring anomalies with someone hostile.

"You seem short of help. Are the others not concerned about this?"

Go with that. Electromagnetic radiation detector. That will do nicely. It serves for a name.

He surfaces from the pile of equipment with a battered backpack, from which he pulls out a notebook filled with graph paper and notes.

"What? Oh. Well, we've got a shit-ton of people up on the roofs just kind of eyeballing the situation. But I wanted to go up and see it up close. We might get a few more coming along in a bit. It's kind of up to them. They're concerned but, you know, they're just going about it in a different way. Anyway--here's the notes so far. If you can't read something, lemme know. I can usually decipher my own scrawl."

And just ignore the doodles in between.

Ooh, this is seriously old-school science! Graph paper doesn't even exist in the twenty-third century. Seldom has Chekov been so happy to help conduct research.

"They are just looking? I am glad that you are taking a more proactive approach." He begins to study the notes with a great deal of seriousness. Tristero's penmanship is little better than his own, so sussing it out shouldn't be too much of a problem.

If it's written on paper, it's harder to hack. There's a lot to be said for working in analogue.

"Thanks. We've all kind of got our own ways of, you know, handling things. I guess this is mine. I mean, really, I'm just looking too. But I'm looking from closer up. That's the difference."

But what he won't admit to so openly is how concerned he and all the rest are about what might have sprouted on the mountain, what it might mean, and what it might do.

Maybe Starfleet should invest in print-outs.

"You will be more likely to learn something. Nothing can be found out from a distance." This is not strictly true since things are learned at great distances in space, but it sounds like solid reasoning. "What are you hoping to detect? Or to not detect?"

Edited 2013-10-13 22:23 (UTC)

"We're hoping not to detect, um..." A pause; how to say it...

"We're hoping not to detect a hole, basically."

Oh. Oh. Chekov glances up from the notebook to give Tristero a look that could be described as guilty.

"A colleague and I have been contemplating the possibility of a multiversal wormhole, and the math has been going well. Would you recommend that we not attempt to puncture local space-time?"

"Yeah...I am definitely going to recommend against that for the time being."

Although no small part of him wondered if it could be done--should be done--and if doing so from this side, by the Cityzens, would make the process even slightly easier than his own calculations had suggested. After all, wasn't that the real goal? To set up a pathway in and out of the City, to allow those who wished to go their freedom and to give those who wished to stay a peaceful life in the City.

"But just for the time being."

Another pause.

"Has the math really been going well? Look, I'm just curious, you know?"

"I will keep this in mind." Lydia will be so disappointed. Ripping apart the City, however, would be bad, and they really ought to do what they can to prevent doing that.

"The mathematics have been there since the conception of the Einstein-Rosen bridge," Chekov explains, really warming up to the topic at hand. "The problems are in stabilizing any subspace distortions that could feasibly allow travel between universes and, more importantly, in controlling to where a wormhole might lead. But it is not outside of the realm of possibility to think we may amplify the Casimir effect to create enough negative electromagnetic energy to--"

He stops himself midsentence, remembering that this is classified information that isn't to be shared with anyone, not even if that anyone happens to be looking at an electromagnetic anomaly that could potentially advance their work significantly or destroy the universe that the City exists within (and possibly several others). Chekov collects himself and, hesitantly, asks, "You are hoping to not detect a hole?"

"We are hoping to not detect a hole."

Classified or not, it's the subspace distortions that are the real bitches in the problem. Making a hole is surprisingly easy. The problem is where it leads and how it gets there.

"Actually, no, that's not true. Because...there's gonna be a hole. I mean, there's a goat up there and everything. So I guess, at this point, it's a question of what kind and what made it. I think at first I'd hoped that there'd be some easy explanation for this, something less anomalous."

Something that didn't suggest an unwelcome visitor had forced its way in.

"I am glad that knowing that there is a hole there will not be too upsetting, because that is the likeliest explanation for all of this." This being the readings taken thus far. Chekov taps the notebook in case the this to which he was referring wasn't obvious.

"It could be a naturally occurring intrusion caused by highly focused electromagnetic energy, or a spontaneously generated black hole," he offers helpfully, if not optimistically, "but neither of these can explain the goat."

A very. Long. Silence.

"No, neither of those explain the goat."

The trucks are real rattletrap affairs, banging and backfiring their way through the streets and up the hills. But they're faster than walking. And they can get at least part of the way up the hills.

The noise of the City falls behind soon enough as the trucks rattle and bounce their way through the forests and fields beyond and towards the mountain.

Climb in the bed of the truck and hang on (maybe that's why there are so many helmets).

Edited 2013-10-05 15:51 (UTC)

When Luke said he'd 'tag along', he meant it. Bumpy ride in a crowded, dirty bed? And wearing a helmet, too?! No thanks!

His speed ability allows him to easily keep pace with the moving vehicles ahead. Walks along the roadside, (give or take) four car lengths behind. A safety space to avoid exhaust and kicked-up dust.

Can image how unsettling it must be for those in the trucks; distant ghostly figure, always in their rear view.

Tristero, riding in the truck bed and trying to keep some of the more delicate instruments from being jostled to pieces, notices this figure following along. At a turn, he and the driver share a knowing look.

Well. If it means no harm, let that ghostly figure follow along...

The cottage is at last in sight.

The last distance had to be covered on foot. A little climbing and clamboring, but nothing too bad. No need for any mountain-climbing equipment at this height (if the cottage had been a little higher, though...). The trucks are below, in the last flat meadow before some of the peaks and boulder fields started. Passable on foot, but...

The cottage is ahead now. The black goat is tethered in the yard. It has already eaten the grass down to a perfect circle of dirt at the limit of its tether. The cottage is hidden under dark trees and low cypress boughs. It's not far, and it's easy going from here--or so it looks. There's a path there, after all. It should be simple to get closer.

But...is that wise?

Luke joined the group shortly after they parked and exited the trucks. Resumed following from the rear, but considerably closer this time.

He hiked without discomfort. Stayed alert, senses extended and continuously scanning the surrounding area. Occasional look about (visual check and taking in the scenery - was a nice day with a pretty view).

'Reading' their yet unseen destination, it danced teasingly on the periphery of his range. What little he could glean, felt somewhat similar to the Underground's. Didn't invoke uneasiness in him, but further piqued his interest. When the cottage came into view, he tried sending an empathic greeting.

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By the Pricking of My Thumbs...

In Misery Square;

In Misery Square;

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En Route Out of Town and Up the Mountain;

Re: En Route Out of Town and Up the Mountain;

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Near the Cottage;

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