[Fiction] Mysteries and intuition...?

[Tuesday Childe]

Professor Sydney Holland.

Alex Mackenzie.

An ocean adapted nova named Jade.

Q:What do these three people have in common?

A1: They corresponded on an encrypted opnet site called N!Prime.

A2: They met briefly in an underwater domicile off the coast of Japan.

A3: They've all disappeared into the wind.

How likely is it that three diverse people would vanish into the air at the same time? I can see Jade having her own concerns and being preoccuppied but I was under the impression that Professor Holland was of a more sedentary lifestyle and had at least a passing interest in some photonic design work I was engaged in.

I took the time to put in a call to Caulfield this afternoon, where Professor Holland was supposedly working and finally got in touch with the Deans office. A very nice lady named Deidre that sounded older than god was more than happy to discuss the facility with me. Very chatty until I mentioned Professor Holland's name. I got zero information from her. Nada. Zilch. Either he's working on a govenment project somebody decided to classify or something weird is going on.

I can't find a record on Alex Mackenzie anywhere associated with Caulfield. I even tried to get a hook on Alex's op-bunny and came up with absolutely nothing. Well, not actually nothing; I got my harddrive wiped remotely for my efforts. Speaking of which, anybody notice that the post from Alex mentioning her name in the "A place to rest" thread is wiped?

And then of course, I come back home this afternoon and find my neighborhood sealed off by a metric ton of unmarked vans with four digit license plates and lots of faceless mooks milling about in containment suits. This could be one of my old sins coming home to roost but it's a little coincidental in light of circumstances.

So call it female intuition but it strikes me that something unusual is going on. Anybody have a way to get ahold of these three and find out if they're okay?

[Jager]

Tuesday, are you a nova? Holland and Jade were, but Alex wasn't. I will check with a few friends of Alex in Canada and see what shakes loose.

[Guest]

Oh my! I'm sorry about wiping your hard drive like that. (I've had Nova Hacker problems before, and that technique tends to be rather effective in deterring them, especially when I do it on them, and not their HDs). I've been trying to contact Alex for the past few days and I still can't find him. I'm starting to get worried; not even his uni friends have seen him, and he keeps in almost religious contact with them. That's why I'm here, actually. I checked his computer and saw he frequents this place. Obviously you guys have no idea either.

I've also been trying to find Holland. The problem is, With Alex missing, Holland becomes about 10 times more difficult to find (due to being unable to interact with the world), I'm trying to set my ZWIR to his quantum sig, but whoever made this thing was either mad or a hell of a lot smarter than I! Anyone know much about old 1920's tech?

Oh, name's Teknokat. semi-friend of Alex's. Pleased to meet you all.

[Tuesday Childe]

You've got a ZWIR?!

Okay, let's take this one thing at a time. It should have three color coded dials along with a focusing knob on the base of the handle. You need to twist the knob fully counter-clockwise to maximize the aperature. The green dial represent background Zeta level functions and is the base variable computation for cone numbers. The red represents the delta of the...

You don't have any idea what I'm talking about do you?

Give me a location and I'll meet you there. Preferrably near the last known location of Alex and the Professor. That should have the strongest proportional shift in ether... Let's just call it the best place to start and the likliest to establish a quantum wave base measure.

I take it you're already in Canada? It'll take me at least another five hours to get to Caulfield. I've got some company I need to ditch before I get to Canada. Don't sweat the hard drive. Either the feds have it locked away or the uppies snatched it. Either way I can't lay my hands on it anytime soon

[Jager]

A ZWIR?!? Good God! That device must be ancient, not to mention unreliable. Make sure the damn thing doesn't blow up. Just tell me you don't have to sit in some device that looks like an electric chair every time you need to use it.

Technokat, do you have any idea who built that thing?

So far, Canada is coming up dry, so to speak. I have one or two more leads to run down.

[Guest]

Quote:

Tuesday Childe wrote:
You've got a ZWIR?!

Yep. Got it from a very old friend of mine. Unfortunately, I forgot to pick up the manual for this thing.

Quote:

Tuesday Childe wrote:
I take it you're already in Canada?

Um, Canada? What the hell are you talking about? No wonder you ain't finding them! Their last known location was in Melbourne, Australia, not Caulfield, Canada . I cannot believe the two didn't tell you people that. That "Caulfield" Campus is the City campus of the Monash Uni. Hopefully, with you looking in the right direction, we'll be able to get the search moving...

But, ah well. When you managed to get to the right country for a start, meet me at the botanical gardens in the CBD (that's where this thing's needle is jumping, anyway).

Quote:

Tuesday Childe wrote:
Okay, let's take this one thing at a time. It should have three color coded dials along with a focusing knob on the base of the handle. You need to twist the knob fully counter-clockwise to maximize the aperature. The green dial represent background Zeta level functions and is the base variable computation for cone numbers. The red represents the delta of the...

You don't have any idea what I'm talking about do you?

None whatsoever. We'll meet and you can give me proper instructions in operating this contraption. I was assured that it was easy to use, and able to identify any known anomolous entity. Ha! Teach me not to pick up the instruction manual...

[Guest]

Quote:

Originally posted by Jager:
A ZWIR?!? Good God! That device must be ancient, not to mention unreliable. Make sure the damn thing doesn't blow up. Just tell me you don't have to sit in some device that looks like an electric chair every time you need to use it.

No, I don't. It apparently has a self-charging battery in it. I can't make heads or tails of it meself, I assumed it was an ancient Quantum Battery. Do you know what it actually is?

Quote:

Technokat, do you have any idea who built that thing?

I know who gave it to me, but I'm not sure if he built it. At any rate, he passed away a few months ago of cancer. It was really sad, I really enjoyed being with him and listening to his stories. Now, when I actually need to use this damn thing, I can't ask him how. It's frustrating to the nth.

[Guest]

Jager,

I will be at your location in a few moments and we shall head to Australia from there. Please, no questions on how I know where you are, I simply do.

Technokat,

Please, please, do not play around with technology that you do not understand. I cannot stress that point enough. Especially when dealing with technology that deals with ancient power sources like Dixon batteries. They are not normally volatile, but if mishandled, problems can occur.

Tuesday,

If you are the person I am thinking you are, I look forward making your aquaintence again. You will not recognize me, I have changed greatly since the last time we met. Where in Melbourne would you like Jager and I to meet you?

[Tuesday Childe]

Quote:

-Teknokat-:
At any rate, he passed away a few months ago of cancer.

Damn, I'm sorry to hear that. It's not who I thought it was, not if cancer was what took him, but you have my condolences. We should be able to figure this out pretty quickly, Most of them were adapted from a singular design made by one man.

They are easy to operate but, and I say this without intending it as insult, not to generations raised on mass marketed appeal and VCR instructions. These were individually produced by specific people for their own use. Think of it as a very personalized computer running an operating system you designed yourself.

That is NOT a quantum battery! Don't treat it as such or assume an energy manipulator would be able to finesse it! That's the shortest trip I know to an explosive experience barring just lighting a stick of dynamite. Trust me, I've got a scar running from my left breast to my right hip from a similar experience and I was standing a good 10 meters away from the yahoo that tried it. He was evicerated.

If the bakelit casing is cracked or a foul smelling liquid starts seeping get the hell away from it as quickly as possible! They're only mildly dangerous to a baseline but then you aren't a baseline are you?

Quote:

Jager avered:
That device must be ancient, not to mention unreliable.

*sigh* They are reliable but you have to shift your worldview a bit to understand what it's doing. I can understand you having an opinion similar to 'Kat but the problem isn't the tech, the theorems or the the device. It your quantum field. You have to zero yourself out the detection cone first.

Quote:

And TeknoKat replied:
Ummm, Canada?

Somebody is trying to play with me. It may not be related to the disappearances but I am getting very nervous. I had an encrypted email that led me to believe Alex and the Professor were last in Canada.

Quote:

Atwight, smiling said:
I have changed greatly since the last time we met.

??

Sir, do not take this badly but I would have left you behind until you made that comment. Now, I'm curious.

Are you familiar with the Rock? I'll be there in 2 hours but I won't have a way to get to Melbourne without hiking. Sorry to presume but this is the fastest way I know to get there.

[Tuesday Childe]

"Okay, I'm at Ayres Rock," Tuesday spoke into her throat mike and watched the words form on the display of her handheld. "Still feeling sleepy and hot as hell. I suppose I should have waited for a confirmation from you. Sometimes getting to the heart of matter is worth points and occassionally lives. I'm going to be very put out if I don't get a ride. Helluva walk from the nothern territories to Queensland. End msg, attach signature. Send."

The area had changed quite a bit from the last time she'd been here. Graffiti was evident and here and there were rusty beer cans from the days before aluminium. Clucking her tongue disapprovingly Tuesday took it all in then shrugged. Times change. Change with them or join the dinosaurs. She wasn't ready to quit just yet.

Slipping her pack off, it dropped to the ground with a thud. Next came off the long wool overcoat, perfect for the US/Canadian border but just a touch gouche for the outback. On the ground it went. Her shoes, blouse and slacks dropped to the rapidly forming pile Next she stripped off her undergarments and tossed them in the pile. The sun was balefully hot out here and the air dry but but it felt good on bare skin still cool from the cold of the north. It felt... Delicious.

Pausing momentarily she gaze off into the east. Somewhere near here was the buried wreckage of her brother's plane. How many had he gone through in a long and adventurous life? Too many. She shook head ruefully and turned and fished her pack from the bottom of the pile of clothing.

Out came a black body suit that quickly began to fade to white in the bright sun and shoes that appeared to be little more than a sole with heels. The made a metallic clicking sound as they snapped into place. The red-head spent a moment adjusting the body suit slightly around her modest curves then, satisfied with the comfort of the fit, dropped to the ground atop the pile of clothes to wait.

Minutes ticked off and she began to hum, time on her hands obviously not her idea of a pleasant way to spend her leisure. Eventually she began to sing in a low voice barely above a whisper.

"I Been whipped by the rain, driven by the snow"

"I'm drunk and dirty don't you know"

"But I'm still willing"

Looking first to the left and then to the right, she finally snuggled back comfortably into Ayres rock and raised her voice to normal levels for the next stanza.

"Out on the road late last night,"

"I seen my gently Alice in every headlight."

"Alice, Dallas Alice"

Pausing jsut long enough to pull a set of archaic looking sun glasses out of her pack, she adjusted them carefully to perch comfortably on her nose and continued. Loudly.

"And I been from Tucson to Tucancary, Tahathapi to Tanapall"

"Driven every kind of rig that's ever been made"

"Driven the back roads so I wouldn't bet weighted"

"And if you give me weed, whites and wine"

"And you show me a sign"

"Then I'll be willing"

"To be moving"

"And I've Been Kicked By The Wind Robbed By The Sleet"

"And My Heads Stoved In But I'm Still On My Feet"

"'N I'm Still Willing, I Know"

"And I've Some Smoke For Folk From Mexico"

"Get Baked By The Sun Every Time I Go To Mexico"

"But I'm Still"

Tuesday started to feel really good as she rounded back into the chorus. She loved "Willing" though it was more her brothers song than hers. Or maybe that's why she loved it. That it made her think of that goof.

"And I been from Tucson to Tucancary, Tahathapi to Tanapall"

"Driven every kind of rig that's ever been made"

"Driven the back roads so I wouldn't bet weighted"

Her resonator began to beep in her ear with the rapid and rising wave of quantum. If it was passing her, it was on an approach vector that would bring it close. Pity she hadn't had time to get a lightning gun or even one of the chrome colts out of her brownstone before they locked down her neighborhood. Whoever 'they' were.

Ah well...

She pulled a ratty baseball cap out of her pack and then kicked the pack off to the side. Turning the cap carefully to face the rear, so the bill didn't block her field of vision, she waited. Listening for the distant subsonic rumble that must be coming.

"And if you give me weed, whites and wine"

"And you show me a sign"

"Then I'll be willing"

"To be moving"

[ 10-11-2001: Message edited by: Tuesday Childe ]

[Guest]

Jager watched the sleek ultra-tech sky vehicle streak across the picturesque skyline of the municipal park and come to a near instantaneous stop. It hovered momentarily and landed not 30 feet from the copse of trees he had been waiting in.

“Christ on a crutch,” he muttered under his breath as he jogged quickly out to the craft. He had no fear about whose ship this was, he recognized the bioengineering almost immediately. About 30 feet long and 15 feet high, the craft was sleek and aerodynamic. It glowed slightly with a violet hue that pulsed rhythmically, almost like a heart beat. It looked more like a living creature made of crystal and flesh rather than the craft of technological engineering it truly was.

A quick scan of the area confirmed what he already knew. People were gawking. Less than a minute on the ground and already the ship was drawing a crowd. When he was a few feet from the craft, a door slid silently open in what appeared to be an otherwise seamless hull. Jager stepped inside quickly and the door slid shut behind him.

“Dammit Atwight! Couldn't you be a little more subtle?”

The man called Atwight cocked his head to the side and regarded his companion. “We are needed in Australia immediately, traveling incognito is simply a waste of time,” He said gesturing over a holographic control panel. Gently, almost imperceptibly, the craft lifted into the air and accelerated.

“But what about all these people? Why just land this thing out in front of world like this? Why the exposure?” Jager gave the alien nova a look of exasperation.

“Jager,” he started. “What the rest of the world thinks of me and mine is no longer an issue or concern for me. I have greater concerns than the fear and wonderment of the baseline population. But now is not the time for such conversation; an old acquaintance awaits our arrival and I so dislike being late.”

Jager sat in a surprisingly comfortable shuttle seat made of the same material as the rest of the ship and contemplated what his golden skinned friend's reply. He sighed and then took in his surroundings. “So,” he said nonchalantly. “Just how do you know Tuesday anyways?”

[Guest]

Jade sat in the darkened room staring at the glowing monitor in front of her. A few moments passed filled only with the sounds of trickling water. I should go, she thought to herself. Alex and the Professor were decent people and if the others were willing to help them then why shouldn't I?

A tiny voice inside of Jade's mind cried out in protest as she entered the Habitat's airlock. The engineer hugged herself in a feeble attempt to combat the growing feeling of nausea she was experiancing. Just the thought of the outside world set her stomach into spasms of pain. No turning back now, she thought as the salty water crept past the collar of her short-slieved eufiber wetsuit.

Half an hour later the sonar operator on board a navel submarine off the coast of North Western Australia noticed a glitch on his screen for a moment. In a report later he would recommend an overhaul of the console; nothing could move at that speed underwater.

A week later in Darwin a supermarket tabloid picked up the story of a towering column of water that tore along a deserted road in the Northern Territory scouring clean everything in its path, yet neatly hopping over a local man and his truck.

As the great bulk of Ayre's rock loomed ahead Jade began to relax, she had never tried to extend her power to work on land before but the test had been a complete success. The torrent of water became a wave that broke over the ancient Rock, neatly depositing a weary Nova at the edge of the sandstone monolith. Jade turned, hearing light footfalls behind her...

[Guest]

Meanwhile in Melbourne

"In National News today, What appeared to be a column of water raced through Dar-"

"Today, on N!, An Interview with a great luminary of our time, Dr-"

"Now Showing on Movie Network, Steven Spielberg's great masterpiece, Nova-"

Sydney moped on the bench. It had seemed like a good idea to try heading to the electronics store at the time. Perhaps they'd have a terminal with access to the Forum. He gotten 5 meters into the store before the manager rather heatedly asked him to get out before he shorted out anything else in the store, and he'd better pay for the broken merchandise.

It had not been a good few days for Sydney. It had taken him less than a second to notice Alex had vanished into mid air. Identifying the problem in this case was the easy part. The real problem was doing something about it. After he had analyzed the area of Alex's disappearance with everything in his possession but a fine-toothed comb (which wasn't much, really), He had a pretty good idea of what had happened to Alex.

Racing to his apartment to speak to maybe Jager or Tuesday, Sydney ran into a little pothole - Alex had shut down the system for the day. Not for the first time since his eruption, Sydney cursed his massless body. Foiled by an on/off switch. How humiliating.

Thus, Syd tried several other facilities. After realizing that the OpCafe required you to show your license before you could hop on, and that the librarians really didn't like you wiping their borrowing records just by standing at the desk, he'd gotten desperate.

Right now, Sydney just felt depressed. He kept sending small pulses of IR at the Opnet screens in front of him, trying to find a channel he liked. 1,354,972 channels and still nothing on, He thought. Things could not possibly get worse than they already were. He was still waiting for Murphy's Backlash when his "node" acted up (being a holographic entity, he didn't have a node per se. Just a lot of quantum going in and out of him).

He looked around, trying to figure out where it was coming from. It seemed to be coming from a few streets down, so with nothing better to do he tried to follow it. He had gotten half way there when the node, well, shut up. Syd kept walking. He knew that just meant that the nova in question had dormed down, not vanished from the point.

Syd turned the corner to see... Very little. He turned his super-sensitive eyes around the street, trying to find who could possibly have been emitting quantum moments ago.

He didn't need to bother. His ears, as bad as they were, were picking up very loud, very angry screams.

"For god's sake, I dormed down, what more do you want!!!" The woman seemed to be yelling at something that looked for all the world like a small Geiger counter. She was (let's not deny it) an attractive woman, wearing what looked like a leather catsuit, some sort of eyepiece, and several other interesting looking gadgets on her person. Syd started walking towards her. "Next time I ask for an instruction manual." the woman sighed. "How the hell am I supposed to find anyone with this when it gives alarm bells the instant I turn it on!"

Syd walked up to the young woman. "Err, excuse me, do you need any help there?"

"No I do not need help, not from a idiotic baseline li-" It was at this point she had turned around and noted Syd standing there. "My god! Sydney! You have no idea how glad I am to see you!"

Confused, Sydney asked, "Umm, do I know you?"

The woman thought for a second. "No, I don't think you do. But I do know Alex, who I was trying to find along with you. I'm Teknokat, Alex may have told you about me?"

Syd sorted through his memory, looking for the name. Yes, Alex has said a few things about her. "You're the nova he beat at that Opnet scavenger hunt, aren't you?"

The black young woman turned red. "Well, yeah. But enough talk, I have to get to the botanical gardens quick smart. I'm meeting some people from that forum Alex was on. They've decided to help us find Alex."

Syd became very relieved. "You have no idea exactly how glad I am to hear that. I've been trying to contact them for the past few days!"

Now it was Teknokat's turn to look confused. "So, what was the problem?"

Syd didn't blush, not anymore, but anyone who was looking at him would see that he was rather embarrassed at this point "Um, the terminal at home was off. I tried going to the OpCafe, but you need to show your license, the library kicked me out after I wiped their borrowing records, and I went to the electronics store a few streets up from here to try and ended up having to buy $10000 worth of electronics that I made worthless!"

"Ah" was all Teknokat offered. She tried to put some cheer into her voice "Come on, we'd best head off to the gardens before the others arrive." With that, she started walking towards the gardens. Syd started following her.

Kat started the small talk "So, how about I take that crapped out electronics off your hands? I'm a small-time inventor, and I can always use some spare parts..."