eyemind | audio } un: panoptes

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audio } un: panoptes

[hey look, it’s jack. on a video feed, which is pretty unusual, come to think of it? she’s set up at a table in the kitchen, frowning in concentration as she gathers her thoughts.]

Where I’m from, people like to say that the definition of insanity is doing something over and over and expecting a different result. I will be pretty mad if it turns out I’m insane for doing this again, because last time I made this offer, I sorta got my head ripped off. Not literally, although I’m sure some of those jackasses would’ve done it literally, if they’d been able to find me. Too bad Jane’s not here anymore, she could tell you all about it.

[and jack rolls her eyes, because yes, she’s still holding a little bit of a grudge about all of that. the expression is short-lived, however - she shakes it off and continues:]

Anyway, remember that weird stalkergram video we saw the other day? That wasn’t some performance art piece. I know who sent it. See, before I ended up here, I spent a few years in a city called Dualis - real neon hellscape, right out of all of those cyberpunk movies you know and love. It was run by a self-aware AI called Mindseye, and Mindseye had this bad habit of killing literally everyone in the city, and not in the Skynet “drop a nuclear bomb on everyone” kind of way. This thing wiped out the entire population it was created for with a virus, and then started kidnapping people from their own worlds so it could study them and make robot copies of them. Murmur was there too, so ask him if you don’t believe me.

[sorry angel frand, you’re apparently a more trustworthy adult authority figure compared to jack.]

Back during that weird time when we were all wandering into each other’s dreams, there was this one dream about some things that happened in Dualis, and I couldn’t figure out where it came from. I thought maybe it was some kind of mental transfer from one of us who’d been there, but it wasn’t from a person’s perspective - it was Mindseye’s memory of what happened. That’s what Mindseye was talking about when it said we were all connected. Oh - right, I should’ve mentioned - Mindseye escaped from Dualis. Uploaded itself right into all of those robot bodies it built and skipped town. And it sounds like it landed somewhere in this part of the final frontier.

[and that’s worrying! for obvious reasons!!]

I don’t know about the rest of you, but I’m not keen on being hunted throughout space by a homicidal AI. Now, I was able to fly under the radar in Dualis because of this tattoo I have. It’s a sigil I created for making myself invisible to surveillance - long story short, I’m a witch, I used to do a lot of meatspace activism when I was in college, and getting arrested isn’t anywhere near as fun as it looks on TV. Fool me once, et cetera. Point is, the sigil is magick, and it works, and I am willing to share, but I’m asking to trade something for it. Nothing big like a firstborn child - just a story. I want to hear about a time you did something unjust and got away with it. That’s all. That’s the offer, and you can certainly refuse it, but I’d take it as a personal kindness if you’d not be a dick about it.

[aaaaaand that’s all, folks!]

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An AI you say?

[Hello an engineer here who made robots please tell him there.]

[pause]

And you created a wyrm to keep yourself invisible?

[Magic is only used for bringing people back to life in his world and it's kind of BS but also it is a real thing in his mind maybe]

That is indeed what I said. But I don’t think whatever a wyrm is for you is the same for me, because that’s a type of dragon. What I made is a sigil - a symbol used in ritual magick to produce a certain effect.

Cloaking. You cloaked yourself. You can't use magic and AI that doesn't make any sense everything has a scientific explanation. ...What would you require for this sigil. A story of lawbreaking?

Not to split hairs here but there’s a big difference between magic and magicK. And what is magick but science that hasn’t been explained yet? BTW chaos magick uses technology all the time, it makes perfect sense.

The story doesn’t necessarily need to be about breaking a law. Laws are manmade and plenty of them are complete bullshit. The type of story I’m asking for is about injustice. A time you did something you know was wrong and never faced a consequence for it.

I'm intrigued by this concept. It is similar to something in my world. A science of transferring energy.

[Never mind that this energy goo is created through the murder of innocents.]

This defends on your definition of injustice. Fighting an injust system? Or making changes for the greater good of society.

[If Murmur was being touted here... well, he would believe Murmur, not the random that he hasn't really talked much with. In fact, he would believe a lot that Murmur says over a lot of people here. Time to test it just a little bit, a tiny bit.]

Since I realize that you can't account for every species and no one here seems to read the hand written literature that I'm trying to provide, I can understand why you don't know all of us. Your AI seems as if it enjoys humans, but what about non-humans? What happened to them?

That's. A lot of blackmail you're collecting there. You're going to have to open a post office.

[ That is a lot of information to take in and Sharon doesn't totally understand it all, not that she really needed to; the video had chilled her to her core. ]

I'll take you up on it, though I'm curious about what will happen to those that don't. It won't do us much good to be hidden if it's just going to hunt down our... [ hrrm. She's not too sure about wordage here. ] ...shipmates.

[oh ... that's a good point, actually.]

I guess we'll need to dump them on a backwater planet with no electricity. For their own safety, obviously.

Bold of you to assume I don't already have one. c:

That's a joke, obviously. I'd never blackmail anyone, and I'm really good at keeping secrets.

Yeah? Tell me the secret you've kept the longest then.

[It's sarcastic but the text is text.]

Exactly the same thing. They were studied, they were copied, they were eradicated as redundancies. Mindseye just wanted a body so it could escape the city - there were wards in place that prevented it from leaving unless it got uploaded into corporeal form. Humans became a large part of the population, but they definitely weren't the only population in the city.

[sorry, dude. :c]

What's your definition of injustice?

I'm a monster.

[not a secret. also is she serious? text, man.]

I dunno. I've heard a lot of weird stuff in this place but I've never heard someone say they were an energy drink. At this point you're having me on.

Maybe I am. Or maybe I'm a shapeshifting mutant, and my favorite shape is a can of delicious energy drink. Who's to say?

I didn't realize you could read minds and we moved on to my kinks suddenly. You could've just asked more directly.

Jokes aside though. I don't think my friends or I are going to go for this... so just tell me what's going to happen so I can plan. What key elements you remember. Sound, smell, tactics that were similar. Any of that can help.

Obviously. [ the sarcasm here oof ]

Do you really think this Mindseye thing would really hunt us all down? You don’t think we’d be able to lose it somehow?

Sweetie, I would never joke about your kinks. I'm extremely gay, and I'd hate for you to think I was leading you on.

Also not a joke: the only tactics for Mindseye not finding you is a way to hide. You can't fight it off. It doesn't have weaknesses, and this sigil tattoo is the only cheat code I know of - and I spent a lot of time hacking my way through the networks there. If there was something to be found, I'd find it. It was able to override any technological measures that were tried. The original population was only able to contain it using magick.

Are you really that averse to telling someone a secret that you'll risk dying horribly? Because that's what Mindseye does - kills people horribly.

[There's a long lag between Matt replying and actually just sitting there reading with his hand over his mouth. Is he? Was he? To protect Near and Mello he'd do just about anything here.

But.]

It's cool, I have a boyfriend I think. Maybe. So we can lead each other on and then it's mutual.

And. To protect the maybe and my other friend, I'm willing to put my life on the line, yeah. My secrets could get other people killed if they fall into the wrong hands. Not saying you're opening a blackmail market, but things don't always stay as secret as if we just keep them to ourselves you know?

[mmm. he's not wrong.]

Two can keep a secret if one of them is dead, huh? OK, how about this - you don't have to tell me a secret, just tell me something that scares you. Really, truly scares you. If you tell me that story instead - what scares you and why - I'll give you the tattoo. Will that work?

[she's quiet for a minute before answering.]

Yeah ... I do think it'll hunt us all down. And we might be able to lose it for a while, but it'd just keep coming. This thing is like a Terminator and Skynet at the same time. Back in Dualis, there was this stupid little resistance group that tried to throw a wrench into things, and it hunted them down, and executed them all on a live broadcast. And I'm not talking lethal injection - one of them was burned at the stake, and let me tell you, that shit isn't over nearly as fast as in the movies.

And then it went and blasted itself out into the multiverse, uploaded into millions of bodies it created - it could be anywhere. It could be everywhere.

[Again the time to think was now, and really he was more concerned with Mello or Near.]

Anything I said even in your pocket would have you taking it to the grave. Good song, though.

Being left behind. Being alone. But this won't save them, will it?

[ That twists her stomach into a thousand tight knots and her mouth goes uncomfortably dry. She knew all too well how different burnings were from the movies. ]

I honestly wanted to have a little more choice when it came to my first tattoo but if it'll help me avoid being burned alive, it's kind of a no-brainer.

What do you consider unjust, though? I've done things others might consider unjust, though I don't necessarily see them that way. [ Granted, she took her idea of vengeance pretty far but they all deserved it. ]

[He did have some questions about all of that, and why it was the cameras didn't see Jack. Now seemed like as good a time as any to inquire. He could just... lean in and spy, and don't get him wrong he absolutely is. But he has to at least put up the front that he's totally normal and not absolutely the creepiest stalker to ever stalk.

At least some of her defensiveness is beginning to make sense.]

Is arguing with strangers a pass-time of yours? [He's just noticed a theme, that's all.] I can hide from them too, the cameras, but your method sounds less... Taxing.

[It's certainly not as hard as it used to be but it still sucks up energy that he'd much rather put to work scrambling something else.]

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