Log:Hope Against Fear, Scene 4

Hope Against Fear 2014/01/31 	 Liam Allison 4

Champions Mush - Friday, January 31, 2014, 7:25 PM

Liam hmms. "Would it be better if I showed you? Just a window, nothing we have to step through."

Shaking her head, Allison remarks, "No, it would be better if you just answered my questions instead of eluding or evading them."

Liam sighs and nods. "I have the ability to create portals to other dimensions, but only those I have seen before," Liam says. "A friend I trust showed me a view of the space where the gremlin we search for is located, but also told me that I would be poorly equipped to deal with the creature on its home turf. Clarion, my friend, also told me that if I came directly to the gym I would find someone who was the key dealing with it - I assumed at the time she meant Regan, but Regan isn't here and you are."

Liam gestures toward the door. "I assume she didn't mean the lady who just left who offered to beat it with her fists, but I could be wrong."

Snorting, Allison shakes her head, "So, you're asking me.. the kid who just got hired to maintain the programming here and keep the machines working, to go somewhere else... without a location in mind, where ... you said 'Gremlins' lurk... if I recall correctly, their entire purpose is to pervert, destroy, and otherwise do bad things to tech. All on blind faith that someone you know, who I have never met or even heard of, told you to come here and find... someone suitable?" She shakes her head, "Sir, we get twenty metahumans a day working out in here. Perhaps you'd like to wait and speak to one of them when the next one comes in to work out?"

Liam says, "If I asked twenty metahumans to go with me tomorrow - and no, I don't know why tomorrow is best either - I'm certain I would have twenty volunteers. But I was told to come here and ask today, so either the person I seek will not be here later today or tomorrow, but will be somewhere that you will be between now and then; or you have skills that even you don't understand."

"I write programming. Yes, I -built- STEEL.. but seriously, how does that qualify me to go do what 'you' are talking about?" asks Allison. "I think that your friend... Clarion was his name? Is a few doughnuts short of a twelve pack of beer."

Liam says, "Her name, and clairvoyants often have that reputation, especially those that see extra-dimensionally as she can."

Rolling her eyes, Allison turns to head behind the counter. "Once again, you answer my question, with an unrelated fact or note. I'm not stupid sir. I don't begin to understand what this friend of yours is seeing, but I'm willing to wager it is -not- me."

Liam pulls a piece of parchment out of his suit coat and unfolds it as he hurries to meet Allison at the counter. He pulls out not paper, but actual parchment as thick as cardstock.

"I'm told that the person I seek would be familiar with this incantation," Liam says as he unfolds the paper. The "incantation" is written in purple ink by someone using a calligraphy pen, but is a simple DOS command to request an IP address.

"Does this mean anything to you?" Liam asks. From his expression, it is pretty obvious that the command means nothing to him.

"Seriously? I think anyone who's ever used a computer could figure that one out. I bet you could stop ten people on the street, and eight of them could tell you specifically what that means. The other two might be able to give you the general gist of it." remarks Allison.

Liam looks a bit sheepish at basically being called an idiot. "Would you like to see what Clarion showed me with this piece of paper?"

"Why not?" asks Allison. "This couldn't get any more weird. I mean.. I help run a freakin' gym. I don't go off through portals to pour water on Gremlins who used to be Maugwai until they ate too late. And seriously, it's always after midnight -somewhere-, right?"

Liam gestures and says words that can be heard but not remembered. A glowing portal appears in the air. Through it can be seen several flat glowing disks with a pale-sky-blue color. Glowing pathways of the same color connect the disks like spokes of a wheel to a smaller disk. Other than the glowing bits, everything else above below and between the glowing bits is a dark blue.

"This, I am told," Liam says "is cyberspace. A place above the internet in much the same way that the astral plane is above our physical reality."

Liam tosses the paper at the disk and it exits the far side to flutter harmlessly to the gym floor. However, a second paper glowing faintly blue appears at the same time within the portal and flutters down to land on the glowing disk. When the paper rests fully on the glowing disk the numbers "192.168.2.12" floats back up from where the paper landed.

<> Allison asks mentally.  replies the AI. "Okay so... some mystical representation of the internet's version of heaven, or The Matrix, or whatever. Yeah, I think you friend really wasn't the sharpest marble in the bag." she says, peering through the portal.

Liam says, "What could you do with a spiral notepad, within there?"

"I have no idea. How do I even know -there- really exists and isn't some elaborate illusion made up by your friend's demented mind?" asks Allison.  And she reaches over, accesses a holo terminal and loads up the trace program. A few seconds later, she nods and adds, "Whatever that IP address is -supposed- to mean to me, it's the address assigned to your phone by the local wireless router."

Liam nods, "That makes sense. I would guess all those disks are computers or other pieces if technology... likely in this room."

"So, this is just an alternate way of viewing the local network hub and computers attached to it. Seriously... gremlins?" asks Allison. Yep, she's dubious, but planning to investigate on her own. She's not blowing her ID here, not to this guy who keeps evading questions, and answering with half answers...

Liam says, "You live in Colonial Bay and work right across a bridge from a Fae embassy and you doubt something like gremlins can exist?" As he speaks, he shuts off his phone and the disk with the paper on it begins to dim. The paper trembles, but doesn't fade with the disk. Liam is looking at his phone instead of the portal however and says with a frown, "It won't shut off."

"Maybe your gremlin is screwing with it. Which means...." She hurriedly starts typing, activating every firewall and antivirus in the system. <> she announces, and the AI Cuts himself off from every network, every signal... and basically becomes a singular computer again.

Inside the portal, the path leading to one of the glowing disks winks out but the disk itself remains visible.

"Well, the system here -seems- secure, but I'm sure that if it's like a trojan horse virus, it -would- seem safe. Time to lock down the computers and run thorough scans." mutters Allison, totally narrowing her focus to the gym itself and keeping it safe, almost like she has totally forgotten about your request to go elsewhere.

Liam holds out his phone to Allison. "What do you make of it?" he asks. The screen says, 'please wait' as if the phone is running a program that has failed to shut down. Inside the portal, the paper trembles again but doesn't dim like the rest of the disk representing Liam's phone.

"I think you should get a new phone and get -that- one out of here." says Allison, inserting commands at the holo-display to cut that IP off from the network, forcibly if need be. "Also, take the battery out, and then maybe run over it with a car."

Liam says, "Oh! I have an idea." and steps though the portal. His body immediately does a face-plant on the gym floor while a copy of Liam walks over and picks up the paper. Returning with the paper, the disk representing Liam's phone finally finishes shutting down. When they return to the portal, both the paper and the copy of Liam disappear while, at the same time, the 'real' Liam wakes up.

"Why do I have a bloody lip?" Liam asks confused as he picks himself off the floor. "And what was I doing prone? All I did was step through the interface and picked up the paper."

"Apparently, you split in two, and fell on your face." suggests Allison, still furiously working at her terminal. She hits a few keystrokes, and a camera viewpoint recording of the incident replays before you.

Liam chuckles when he sees the film, "So this cyberspace is even more like an astral plane above the internet than what I had said before."

"Well, then I really dunno what you want me for, or what I would do if I -was- there. You seemed to handle it okay. Next time... I'll catch you and put you in a chair but... seriously, we need to cut ourselves off from that insanity. Before Agent Smith shows up." offers Ally.

Liam says, "Agent Who? Perhaps this agent is the person you could contact that I could not directly."

"Old movie reference, I highly doubt such a character exists." Allison pauses and then shakes her head, "I'll show you some other time, when I'm not trying to stay offline. But for now, let's just... close that portal, shall we?"

Liam gestures and the glowing disk winks out. "I have come to the place suggested to me by Clarion and spoken, I hope, to the key to this situation," Liam says. "All that remains, then, is to return tomorrow and see what comes of it."

Snorting, Allison shakes her head, "I think you might be the one who's not the brightest bulb on the treet." she mutters as she continues to work at it.

Liam shrugs, "Being thought a fool is a common side effect to the life I live. After all, what sane man would live in a flying house?"