02: Love is like pi - natural, irrational, and very important [Video]
[The video feed begins with a confused looking twenty-something with messy, reality defying blond hair, and dressed in plaid. The background is possibly familiar to some--he is in a corner of Juke's Lab under some flickering lights.]So I have a question? Are there always random spam messages of people with puppets, food and tiny green talking
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I invited your friend Ciel over for applesauce, by the way.
Did you like the caramels?
[ And now she notices the private part. ]
Finally! I thought I'd have to stay out of there for a week!
Sure you can come get me. How long is it gonna be a mess?
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I saw! I can't believe you made Applesauce. Look at you! You're like a pioneer woman.
Ah...does a gamer love a 100BASE-LX10 connection? Of course!
[Yeah I just made that shit up. Also oh hi private]
I stayed up all night finishing it.
Ah...I can clean it up after I give you your present?
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Ahah I am not! Pioneer women sewed things, and dealt with oxen and crying children and being a grandmother at 28. It's just mashing apples! It was actually kind of fun in a kinetic sort of way.
I didn't know how to give them to you so I hid them in your jacket. I hope that's okay? [Worried girlfriend look goes here.]
[private]
Oh. Oh. Okay. I'm in the Northern room. There are enough rooms in this building that we could turn it into a residential hotel. If there were running water. We should name them, maybe. What do you think?
I'll help.
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The sewing, crying children and maybe even oxen could still happen. But you're safe from early grandmotherhood, clearly. 28?! Gah gross.
You do have a mean right hook.
[Pause. Have a sudden horrified look.]
I MEAN--Not that I blame you for it. I mean--when you decked me that once--totally deserved it! Why did I even bring it up! I didn't--lets pretend I didn't say anything.
[HANDS UP]
I said nothing.
Wait--there's candy in my pocket?
[He scrambles to look and...ew. Squished.]
They ah...look delicious. [Cheesy smile.]
[private]
Got it. I can always track your PCD if I get lost. Names like--cities back home? No gods or military talk please.
Sure ok!
[And he'll be walking up to meet you as soon as he's finished talking to the strangers on the network, honey. oh dear.]
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Crying children. Really? Isn't it kind of early for that conver- Nevermind. Someone else's crying children, maybe, but who'd be nuts enough to leave children with us? Claire would be better at that sort of thing, I'm sure.
You said something? [ Smirk. Giggle. ] I didn't hear anything.
I probably should've mentioned they were in there. [ Squint. ] Sorry.
[private]
Cities...or other things. No, no gods. No people, no objects. So places or ideas. They don't even have to be in English! But we could stencil the names on the doors. Might make organization easier.
I'll stay in here, then.
Great!
[ Pfft, no rush Topher she's just annotating her PCD map based on what she's learned and gone to already. ]
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Children as in other people's. too too too too too too early!! [flail!] Nobody that loves their children should leave them with us. Or Claire. Noooo to Claire.
[Put the child with a doll? lol No. He learned his lesson thank you very much.]
Nothing at all. [yay saved!]
No no, I love melted caramel. It'll be delicious honest!
[Private/unhack to the blah blah blah]
Ideas--how about parts of the brain? We could totally organize it based on potential functionality! Prefrontal cortex, Broca's Area, the cerebellum--everything!
[yeah we need to play stupider characters Cait.]
Be there in a sec.
[He turns off the video-feed but leaves his PCD active so they can still talk. God they're like teenagers who refuse to get off the phone.]
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Wait, what, why not? Oh. Oh. Well not like that, I mean, it's Claire not...erm, nevermind. I am saying that a lot today, I knew I'd turned this thing off for a reason.
Okay if you say so!
[private]
That would be great! I'll get started on a list.
[ Lies and slander, Kikos. Now she turns it to voice. ]
Gotcha. Still not going anywhere.
Also: I'm proud of you.
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We're all too afraid to go outside, Bennett. Even Claire. We'd make horrible babysitters.
[Any maybe even parents but woah there. Conversation is forgotten! lalala]
[voice/private to Bennett]
Proud of me? For what?
[ignore the shuffling noises, Bennett. Somebody is just cleaning up and making their way up to you.]
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[ A pause. ]
Which is probably hard in any given situation, and even more here. So.
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They're not friends, they're either fellow lab monkeys trapped here by a bunch of mad scientists crazier than me or you (and that's saying something) OR they're my bunk buddies in the Attic. Either way, I don't think the typical social strata that kept me at the bottom of the high school food chain apply here.
[Bitter. So much bitter. Also going up the stairs now. Left or right?]
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Hey, I am perfectly comfortable in my label of crazy, Mr. Brink. In fact, if I turn out to be the madwoman of the hour, I'm fine with that too. It's all a matter of perspective.
[ He's bitter and she's certain she has no physical redeeming feature. Oh, high school. ]
Better high school than middle school. [ You can hear the sneer in her voice at that.
Left. ]
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[Just a tin with sterilized bandages for Clare. Your giving it to her btw. Congrats.]
I think we're all a little on the side opposite of sane, Ms. Halverson. We worked for Rossum after all. But apparently those Animus are crazier--did you try figuring out their signal location? It was impossible! So creepy.
[Fuck you high school]
Really? I kinda skipped most of it. I was the youngest in my high school class by three years.
[Left it is! Also avoiding room with the mushrooms of doom kthanx]
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[ Her disbelief. You can hear it. Also yay! Besides Topher giving Claire a valentine's day gift was just on this side of too odd to get away with comfortably. ]
Figuring out their signal location just gave me several dozen hits all over the map. Very creepy. People here talk about them like they're meddling gods, though. Don't know what I think of that.
My parents did that whole 'she'll be more adjusted if she's forced to go through it the normal way' spiel. It went about as well as could be expected.
[ Yes, let's avoid those for the moment. Lord knows they're probably not happy about being locked up but as long as they don't learn to unlock doors everyone should be fine.
For the moment.
Bennett's got her back to the door and the PCD propped up at eye level so she can work on writing this map. Finding pencils and graph paper? Definitely a highlight of her week. The room is a little dusty but the table is clean enough to eat off of.
There's a cut up pear on a plate too, near her right elbow. ]
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[It's kinda like how fathers get their kids something for v-day? Or he just thought that she'd be all alone without a gift and that made him feel bad.]
Yeah I got that too! It's possible they are everywhere but more likely they're splitting their signal somewhere. Gods? Doubtful.
[He touches his silver bracelet as he says this, rubbing his finger along the words etched into it.]
Yeah I didn't let my parents make such a decision--I corrected my teachers constantly to the point where they couldn't wait to make me someone else's problem. ...You know, let's just try and repress our traumatic genius childhoods like most American adults.
[And on that glorious note, he arrives at the room and despite the sad topic, smiles at the sight of her working away. Even her little pear is cute! He's got it bad. He's only carrying his PCD and the metal tin stuffed with bandages for Claire.]
Ok. I'm here. Close your eyes!
[He waits till she's ready before he slips the tin into his pocket and turns off his PCD ( ... )
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Repression isn't healthy, Topher. [ But she's laughing anyway.] Oh, you're here. [ Suddenly grinning. Most everything is improved by having Topher in her immediate line of sight. ]
Okay. [ Right hand flat on the table, eyes shut! ] My eyes are closed. Just sit here?
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[He smiles indulgently at her and walks up to her slowly till he's standing right behind her. He carefully kisses the top of her head before putting the PCD in his left hand and moving it close on her left side so when she opens her eyes she'll see the screen.
Then pulls up the program he tweaked to perfection. He launches it and immediately it pulls up a map of Adstringendum. There's a blinking white light directly over Juke's lab.]
Ok. You can open them.
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