Log:Lost Time, Scene 10

Lost Time 2017/03/24 	 Ellbeth Ten Grimm Griffin Ten Daemon

10

Here stand the grand buildings of the city constructed during the rapid 19th-Century expansion, on low land reclaimed from long-lost Harrisburg Creek. Main Street is broader here that to the south, though still paved with cobbles, and surrounded on all sides by grandiose edifices (though at any time at least one seems to be under renovation): the heart of this district. Around this are narrower residential streets with a flavor much like that of Old Town, all with faux-gaslamp street lighting.

The team has figured out that the items wanted by the Time Pharaoh were previously owned by him, from the time of Hatshupset. But, they were technological devices from the far future, the nature of which was disguised by magic. The magic had been peeled away, and the data unlocked, only to reveal that the 'historical data' doesn't match known history for some reason. Why is that the case? And why does the Time Pharaoh want the data if it's inaccurate?

Ellbeth scratches her chin with her right hand, "Maybe that is the history he wants to be true. Either he or some other time traveler changed history and he wants this data as a guide to changing history back?" she suggests after a moment.

Ten says, "Have you checked if the device only contains a single version of history?"

Ten says, "or just found a few anomalous facts?"

"Oh- so its just a great big wishlist?" Griffin asks as a look of deeper confusion spreads over his face. "If that's the case- why even leave it behind? Why not take it with you to make sure its safe? I mean- how could he know that these things wouldn't be smashed to bits a thousand years after he left them?"

The SuperSoldier sits back in his chair and crosses his arms. "That's a good question too, Ten." He adds.

Ellbeth says, "It's still 99% encrypted. It will take hours, days, to decrypt and collate the data, Ten."

Ten nods. "But two mutually exclusive facts would tell us."

Ellbeth sighs, "It's not that simple. The data in this isn't laid out in a neat and tidy fashion. It's like a huge jigsaw puzzle with each event scattered seemingly randomly all through the storage media."

Ellbeth adds, "I haven't discovered any inconsistent internal data as yet. But I've only looked at a tiny fragment of the total data."

Ellbeth shrugs, "Maybe we can call in a professional? I'm good... but there others far better than I am."

Ten says, "Still, it may be indicative. Guess we'll work with the theory for now that it represents a single history... So what's most useful? To find the earliest point of divergence from ours we can?"

Grimm rubs her face in thought. "But it's in our timeline. That's why I don't understand why it has an alternate timeline history on there. A wishlist doesn't make sense," she groans. She draws her hand down and peeks over it at the talk of a professional. "I...know a guy," she murmurs, knowing it's a sketchy guy by some standards.

Ten frowns. trying to think if she knows anyone who could be useful.

Griffin just shrugs. Give him something to fight and he'll fight it. Give him something to strategize and he'll come up with a viable plan- but temporal physics and advanced technology? He's an 80 year old man chronologically speaking- probably not the best person for this discussion.

"Call your guy." Griffin adds to Grimm.

Ellbeth nods in agreement. "Yes."

Ten says, "THe only person I can think of who would have any clue is Timekeeper. But he's a villain."

Grimm nods and rather than call, she lifts up her phone and texts her old buddy. She's been busy, and so has he. She sends off a message to Daemon. << Hey, I have a project for you. I think you'll find it super interesting. Strange tech, huge amounts of data. I think it's right up your alley. >> She clicks send, expecting an immediate response.

Ellbeth waits until Grimm has 'sent' the message and then chuckles, "Grimm, we're in a Black Room. That isn't going to go anywhere. You'll need to step outside."

Griffin stands as he flips through a couple of menus on his CommBracer. His tech guy would be way outclassed here so he doesn't even bother to drop a line to Milos.

Instead he pulls up a classic game "Super Barrio Brothers Prime" and begins a game.

Grimm's text is answered almost immediately- after she steps out of the Black Room of course.. << How interesting are we talking here? I'm monitoring a peace summit at the moment in Israel. >>

Her phone chimes again almost immediately. << This is boring as hell though. You providing transport and more importantly, do I have time to grab my bottle of scotch from my hotel room? >>

Grimm shadowsteps out of the room (as her way of stepping out). She reads the response and texts back <> She knows the spider's fast. Maybe not that fast. She gives him some time to get there, then draws open a portal to the museum and peeks through before stepping out and waiting for him, keeping it open.

<< Clearly you've never had a bottle of 100 year old Macallans. >> Daemon responds as he steps off the ledge of a building in The Towers district and begins making his way towards the Art Museum.

As he falls, he responds once more. << I'm on my way. ETA 3 minutes. >> He doesn't question the levity of the situation- though Grimm can be sure he's disappointed about not being able to bring his scotch along.

He arrives with 12 seconds to spare, but still minutes behind Grimm's arrival.

His costume becomes a solid black suit with stylish cuff links and a collarless grey shirt beneath. His helmet and gauntlets remain as always.

"So- what's the big deal?" He asks as his webline is relinquished.

"I'm...just going to let the others explain it. But it's a huge database that we need intel from," Grimm says as she leads him through the gate. As soon as Daemon is through, it winks shut and she leads the way into the blackroom. "Team, this is my tech expert..." she trails off and gives Daemon a look to introduce himself. Who knows if he'll use his usually moniker in this situation. "You can brief him on the situation and what we need."

Ten says "Hey" to Daemon. But leaves the explaining to those with more clue.

All business, Daemon looks around the room and nods to those present. "Sounds like you guys have some databases that require... a specialist." He says as he recognizes a couple of faces from his own metahuman database.

"I'm familiar with some of you & your work. You all may call me Daemon." He says professionally.

"So what exactly are we dealing with here today?" He asks as his eyes stare at the objects on teh table. They sure don't look technological to him.

Ellbeth taps the vase and dagger on the table with a finger. "These are data stores. Hi-tech from the future. Despite the appearance. We need the data decrypted and collated. There's no jacks or ports so I hope you are a cyberpath?" she says to Daemon. "We're in a Black Room. If you need to connect to somewhere outside, well my best guess is we'll have villains in our faces a few seconds after that. So ideally you don't have to."

Ellbeth adds, "The future of the world may depend on this. Literally. So... No pressure."

Ten says, "Also the past. Maybe."

Looks at the 'devices' on the table, then to the others before stopping on Ellbeth. He's glad his helmet reveals nothing or else the others might see the look on his face that says, 'These people are all loons.'

"No jacks? What the hell... Ok... well then we have a problem. I'm no technopath. So how have you guys been able to access the data before I arrived? Maybe we can patch that system into my own." He says tapping his head.

"Oh no jacks and the past, present and future are all on the line? No pressure at all." He sucks his teeth as he sends a message to Grimm, knowing she won't get it until after they leave the black room. << All this on the line and my $60,000 bottle of scotch is just sitting there... on the verge of destruction. Next round at the Rage is on you. >>

Ellbeth smiles, "I am. A cyberpath that is. So, all you have to do is allow me into your mind and I can act as a bridge between you and the devices."

Grimm is mildly surprised to find out Daemon isn't a technopath. He's so fast with machines that he seems like one. She sits down at the table while the others discuss the plan. She has no idea yet that she's going to have to dig deep in her pockets next time for calling in this favor without his beloved Scotch.

<< The next TWO rounds at the Rage. My defenses are still in beta. You knew I was going to have to mind-meld with someone didn't you?! >> Daemon says as his paranoia piques.

He sighs. "Just once, I'd love for something like this to go as easily as expected."

He looks at the devices once more as his tuxedo reverts back to its standard skintight spidery-affair. "Alright- but keep your connection to my tertiary lobe's surface systems. There are safeties I'm still working out..." He's bluffing. He's barely been able to make the modifications to himself that he's made already- the knowledge it would take to install safeties at that level is still quite beyond him.

He lowers his defenses and prepares for the datarush.

Ellbeth chuckles, "I'm also a telepath and sixty-eight years old, Daemon. I long ago got tired of peeking." she says, and then, maintaining her link with the devices, she mentally reaches out and brings Daemon's mind into the meld.

"Since the world is on the line- I'd better start with asking, 'What am I looking for here?' If its from the future- are we looking for something in that dataset or something else entirely?" Daemon asks as he shoots a couple of weblines to the ceiling then quickly weaves himself a seat.

Gabrielle is still blissfully oblivious to her best friend's paranoid ravings to her phone. She just knows he probably won't be too happy about the mind meld thing, even though she honestly thought he wouldn't need it. She's just sitting pretty and watching everything before her unfold, not realizing just how quickly her next paycheck is going to get eaten up by this favor to soothe her buddy's injuries.

Ellbeth shrugs, "To be honest, Daemon. I don't think we know. I was just hoping as more was decrypted the reason for a villain collecting and wanting this data would become apparent."

Ten says, "It seems to have a version of history that is divergent from our own. Divergences - especially the first one - might be useful to identify."

As Daemon waits for an answer, his super-speedy mind starts working through the problem as he understands it so far.

He has no idea what programming language he's going to encounter, but with his psionic translation that part won't be a problem. It will be programming a script that will do the things he needs in a language that can be understood by the ancient system before them.

"Ah- so we've got a historical database here? Hmm... ok well those types of databases are usually - at least today, organized by a backend organizational system and managed by a a frontend database connector." HE says, looking at Ellbeth before asking, "Did you try to use the frontend system to output the data as is- uncorrelated? If not, I was thinking that maybe we can circumvent the mass of data & its specific details to only pull the headlining datapoints. Then we can cross reference those to historical points we know of today. Every database should at least have 2 datapoints attributed to them- the Object and the Date itself. That ought to narrow down divergences by a large margin."

His programming continues as he outlines exactly what he just said and begins converting the sketched out 'rough draft' into a number of programming languages. NEver can be too prepared afterall.

Ellbeth smiles, "Good luck with that. I mean that. I couldn't make any sense out of the data storage system. Sure the front end will dump the raw data but there's so much I couldn't hold it all in my mind to collate it."

The filter is difficult to apply. But Daemon is able to pick out several altered points in history. First, in ancient Egypt, where dates of the Pharaohs have changed. This could be due to just inaccurate archaeology, though. The next major time variance seems to be in England. Cromwell's rule over England was cut short by an assassin.

In America, a couple of the Presidents are different. Patrick Henry is the third President. George Wallace also held the highest office when he ran.

Starguard was never founded. Instead, there is a United Nations-based group called 'Interguard'. There's a common thread that Daemon picks up on, though...

He notices that Dr. Temple is in each of those time periods, and in many of them, there's a woman named Miranda Crawford, or a variation on that name.

Daemon shares all he finds in the databases, copying what he can for later perusal- nevertheless he knows that most of the 'future' data is useless if so many major historical points have been altered. There is no way to know what will still happen and what won't.

He still wishes he had the time to read a primer on Time Travel before he wound up in this room sized Faraday cage. He hates these unhackable locations that have zero EM penetration- and worse, zero network capability.

The Database Management System is well beyond anything today- and to be honest, Grimm was totally right. Just reading the unmodulated code has expanded his mind on the subject of schemas, tables, queries and reports. It seems in all this time- one of the few things to remain (relatively) unchanged is the actual View System of the DBMS (database management system). He's glad he was brougth along- now his goal is to make sure his bottle of Scotch isn't destroyed with the rest of the world.

He shoots recompiled datapoints with comparisons to his own understanding of history.

At the end, he summarizes his findings audibly.

"So we've got misplaced Pharaohs, the premature death of the Lord Protector of England, Incorrect Presidents and two people who seem to be throughout these eras- one Doctor Temple, and someone going by Miranda Crawford- or something similar. Mira, Myra, Ananda Crawford... all tied to this Temple character. So- are these our time travelers?" He asks.

Ten says, "Has this Crawford come up before?"

"What was the name of his wife again?" Gabrielle asks as she folds one arm over her chest, while her hand rubs at her chin as her brow furrows.

Ellbeth checks the file of Dr Temple to see if it contains his wife's maiden name.

Ellbeth further looks for images of the mysterious women involved near the changed events and an image of Temple's deceased wife. Just to be thorough.

Ellbeth is able to track down a photo of both Dr. Temple and Miranda Crawford at the ceremony for the creation of Interguard. Sure enough, the woman in the picture looks an awful lot like the woman in Maisie's faculty picture at the university she worked for.

Ellbeth brings the images up on the display of her PDA. "Interesting isn't it?"

Ten says, "A lookalike, or the same person?"

Grimm leans in to take a peak. "That's...wait. So he's still doing all of this for his wife?" she murmurs distantly. There's something terribly sad and romantic about it that she finds so completely foreign. "Or just to be with the next closest thing," her mind quickly sours.

Ellbeth says, "I don't know. Let's assume for the moment not the same person. Temple might be wanting to... uh, no. Forgot what I was saying. And does anyone have a headache pill?""

Ten says, "Sorry. Like I said, I *thought* I didn't get headaches any more."

Ellbeth says, "I can't even see what we could do about it /if/ we knew what he was trying to do. He can travel in time and, as far as I know, we can't. It's like trying to stop a bank robber when your feet are glued to the ground. He can just bypass us any time... ouch, pun not intended.. he wants."

Grimm groans a little bit and grins at the awful pun. "So this is all stuff that's past. He's been there, lived it. Why does he need this? It's like an old photo album for him or something." She's totally stumped.

Ellbeth relists Daemon's help to check on the personal histories of the women, including any alternate version of Temple's wife in the recorded timeline.

The timeline in the device...doesn't have a mention of his wife dying in the lab accident, when you go to look for that specifically. Instead, it's a physics student who died in the same explosion.

Ellbeth nods, "So, given that I can see Temple wanting to change history to that timeline. But, and here's where I lose track, at one time that /was/ the timeline. So why are we here now in our timeline?"

Ellbeth blinks, "Furthermore... if that was the original timeline, do we have any moral right to prevent Temple restoring it?"

"We're the spin off timeline??" Gabrielle sputters/suspects, then falls silent.

Daemon continues searching through the database and its not so non-sensical history. With targets he can now attempt to run a search through the database for instances of Dr. Temple and Miranda Crawford throughout the database.

"I'm doing a secondary sweep for either of our Priority Targets." He seems completely unphased by the possibility of being a spin-off timeline. "We've got every right- I want to live damn it. Even with my past as it is. I'm not going to let him erase me." He sounds certain about that.

Ellbeth says, "What about the right to live of all the other people who were obliterated by the change to our timeline?" Ellbeth says, playing daemon's advocate."

"Those people are already dead." Daemon replies instantly, though he sounds a bit distracted.

"You don't sacrifice your whole flock of sheep for more sheep. Those people died- IF their timeline ended at all. The chances are equal that the timelines diverge and nothing more as I understand it. That said- my expertise is largely computer related." Daemon says, expounding on his prior point.

He begins swinging in his makeshift web-swing as he taps the chin of his helmet.

"So this thing is still recording. That makes me thinks it stays on from the moment it was activated. But then why are there no datapoints in the future? Does that mean he made it in the past or just didn't turn it on there- I mean, 'then' at all?" He asks as he idly checks for incongruencies to his personal time line. "We can be sure nothing else has been changed since Maisie's death was averted..." He mumbles. "So what do we do with it? I say we keep it. Between Doctor Wyrd and I we can download the whole database ourselves. I imagine that that part will have to wait until this crisis is over though, right?" Daemon looks around the room.