[b]Everyone:[/b] [b]ProvocativelyFickle: [/b]Thanks 3V, I threw in what I could, as always [b]ProvocativelyFickle: [/b]Wasn’t much, sorry [b]NumbToNothing:[/b] working on it. [b]Neon Czolgoz: [/b]dont sweat it Eli, just throw the link in the flog-blast piece [b]NumbToNothing: [/b]ah fuck guess i’m still doing that [b]Neon Czolgoz: [/b]im getting your ass youre still doing that [b]NumbToNothing: [/b]owo [b]NumbToNothing: [/b]okay, okay- The piece goes live, with 3V’s crowdfunding effort attached. With any luck, it’s not the only way it’ll spread, but it always helps to paperclip this stuff to content. The minor notoriety the site’s getting from Persephone’s association with it couldn’t hurt. That’s not strictly true, actually. [b]Neon Czolgoz: [/b]comments sections have been cooking off too [b]Neon Czolgoz: [/b]might need to bring on some new moderators at some point [b]Neon Czolgoz: [/b]since me and Junta have better shit to be doing [b]JuntaSThompson: [/b]Ostensibly. [b]Neon Czolgoz: [/b]see he keeps using internet fights as an excuse to procrastinate and I’m calling his ass out on it. [b]JuntaSThompson: [/b]That’s a [i]me[/i] problem, huh? [b]Neon Czolgoz: [/b]when I do it it’s critical research actually [b]Neon Czolgoz: [/b]anyway yeah [b]Neon Czolgoz: [/b]so if anyone can think of anyone who’d be a good fit [b]Neon Czolgoz: [/b]help protect us from ourselves [b]JuntaSThompson:[/b] Please. Worth keeping in mind. [quote]Persephone: in no particular order Persephone: @ProvocativelyFickle i'm alive, unbeaten, and not arrested. doing fantastic. Persephone: @JuntaSThompson if you have any way to track police attention, now's the time. i want to know where they're acting squeaky clean around to find out where to dig Persephone: @all in case the above doesn't make it obvious i'm not dropping this. i already got burned and i refuse to let this fuck up my life with nothing to show for it. that being said... i'm also low on leads. i've got one name and police behavior to go off. so i'll be in my hole digging. Persephone: and @NumbToNothing *sprays with water* no shit-talking your own work[/quote] [b]ProvocativelyFickle: [/b]Hey!! [b]ProvocativelyFickle: [/b]Yes!!! [b]Neon Czolgoz: [/b]fuck [b]Neon Czolgoz: [/b]well, you heard the lady [b]JuntaSThompson: [/b]I mean, kind of? Listen, what I can do is aggregate press reports. I don’t have any way to see if what they’re actually doing has changed, but usually OESN acts as a police stenographer. If the reporting changes, I can maybe flag that. But I’m going to be honest, this is going to be looking for signal in a noise factory. [b]NumbToNothing: [/b]Don’t bother, noisefactory’s a dead genre. [b]JuntaSThompson: [/b]Fuck off, there’s no way that’s real [b]NumbToNothing:[/b] [file attached] [b]JuntaSThompson: [/b] [b]JuntaSThompson: [/b]I’m going to go put my mouth to a firehouse of police procedural reporting now, it will hurt my brain less. [b]NumbToNothing: [/b][url=https://emojipedia.org/face-blowing-a-kiss/][color=#1155cc][u][b]😘[/b][/u][/color][/url] [b]ProvocativelyFickle: [/b]Hey just because nobody’s said it yet [b]ProvocativelyFickle: [/b]I promise we won’t let this fuck up your life, okay? @persephone? [b]ProvocativelyFickle: [/b]We’re all here and we’re all going to help [b]ProvocativelyFickle: [/b]We’re going to make things okay! [7 people reacted with :blinking_neon_up_arrow:] [b]Neon Czolgoz: [/b]we’re in this as long as you are, as deep as [b]Neon Czolgoz: [/b]but don’t throw good money after bad if you don’t got the chips [b]Neon Czolgoz: [/b]never think you don’t have more to lose [b]Neon Czolgoz: [/b]because you will always be wrong. [b]JuntaSThompson: [/b]Grim. [b]Neon Czolgoz: [/b]That’s a reminder of how seriously [b]we [/b]need to take this as well, yeah? [b]NumbToNothing: [/b]Ah shit, York using grammar [b]Neon Czolgoz: [/b]Sure am. [b]3V:[/b] The kind of problem you can’t escape, no matter how far you run. No matter where you go, you take yourself with you. But as long as you’re out here, it’s obvious why you can’t be expected to handle it. Physical distance justifies emotional distance. The vacuum of space insulates you against social discharge. Still. But for your host, sleeping in as long as she’s allowed, you’re alone out here. You have an entire mountain, all to yourself. Apparently your only assignment is to find some meaning in all of this, whatever that means. Does this change anything, for you? Does this reaffirm the solitude as something to find comfort in, or does this sharpen it against you? Does the thought at home push or pull at you? I’m being so rude, forgive me. I really should ask. How did you sleep? [b]November:[/b] [i][b]Red, Orange and White[/b][/i][b]:[/b] Muffi operates out of a fourplex unit in Euclid, Classical Apollo - just a single hex counterclockwise from your own place. It’s still a trip out from Saint Ambrose, but closer than Rudy’s office-apartment in Confucious. [i]Aevum[/i]’s[i] [/i]layout is heavily inspired by how Dante described the Christian Heaven. The nine horizontal sections are named for Heaven’s spheres, with six vertical divisions named for human eras. The municipalities, the neighbourhood-level districts, are named after the people who would end up in that sphere of heaven, from that time period. It’s a civil engineer’s idea of adorable, and it means [i]Aevum [/i]has a unique approach to nominative determinism. A quirk of this is that the class divisions throughout [i]Aevum [/i]are inconsistent. Not all fields of human endeavor flourished in all time periods. The middle era in Ares draws names like Nobunaga, Richard the Lionheart and Joan of Arc. Apollo draws its names from philosophers - the dark ages lack star power, relying on important but lesser known people like Saint Ambrose. Sections with lots of large, important names in them tend to be more highly developed, often wealthier. That’s fine - there’s still a need for large, lower density sprawls, and breaking up the uniformity helps make the station feel more… [i]human[/i]. Considering that, it’s almost surprising that Muffi made it into Classical Apollo. It’s neck to neck with the Enlightenment as Apollo's desirable hex. Euclid rubs its shoulders against Aristotle and Socrates, shares a bus line with names like Buddha and Laozi. Not the kind of district you’d associate with Headpattr workers. Muffi had been a good data scientist though. Had to have been, for what she set up. Her move to Headpattr was a form of working retirement, since she had her mortgage paid off and her kids grown. She’d just thought casual cleaning should have been less stressful, just a way to keep moving and keep feeling useful. A chance to take the constant chest pains she’d been suffering seriously. And it was, once she’d solved the tenuous and precarious aspects of the app. Elected to her role is right. There are many archetypes of leadership, and Muffi exemplifies the kind who doesn’t want to be there, but nobody can think of anyone who could replace them. Anyone else who could do it won’t, and everyone else who would do it can’t. No surprises. The position requires long hours, a good head for politics, is largely thankless, and entirely unpaid. She has two shares of her fourplex, both apartments on the left half renovated into a single space. Upstairs are three empty bedrooms; one converted into a hobby space, another a spare for guests, another a storage space when she ran out of ideas for the space she had. It’s not something she advertises. There’s always someone in Headpattr in crisis, someone needing a couch to surf or a place to crash, and if anyone knew Muffi had so much of it… Her home is sanctum. The position asks too much of her already, and this is the last part of herself she refuses to give. When she assigns it to you as your first task, November, understand the full implication of the trust she is extending to you. She sits at her kitchen table, a laptop set up with all three screens unfolded. Her cats - Henry, Thomas and Slaughterhouse Five - weave past her ankles towards the dinner she’s put out for them, and all that shedding fur guarantees that this will be a real job, not just a social call. Her short black curls have all of their colour except for the very roots, the silver flecks giving the impression of steel wool, complimenting the sharp lines of her greek nose and her hard, square jaw. When she asks her question, she doesn’t keep her eyes off the chat programs and maps she has open in front of her. “You know I have to ask what you want this score for.” She says. “You don’t have to tell me, and maybe it’s better if I don’t know. But it’s very…” Muffi hesitates with her choice of words here. “Out of character, for you to want less of a challenge. I’m worried you’re going to do something, and that means we lose a team of our best performers.” “I’d also appreciate a change of linen, for the spare bed, if you have the time, but just a vacuuming and a dusting would be fine, [i]grazie mille, miei cari[/i].” She means it. No matter how you answer, you’re getting your tenners, with Muffi being the first. Just say you need to get to Thrones, and she’ll ask why, but again, you don’t need to answer that. You don’t need to tell her that you want to inflict every 80s mid-budget horror movie on your absentee father simultaneously, or bring up anything about what happened with Rudy Merkin. But imagine the look on her face if you [i]did[/i]. [b]Persephone:[/b] [b][i]Black, Brown and Pink:[/i][/b] For subterfuge: Black, your opposition at the apartment has been disgustingly amateur. Most external listening methods can be thrown off by playing music most of the time. Pink’s talking serves the same purpose better. Anything that gets around that means planting bugs, getting closer. So far no journalistic organization has tried so much as a fake handyman bit. That only means that inside Elodie’s place is secure, until the cops show up. Outside’s a different story, since most of the opposition doesn’t seem to care about espionage for now. They haven't given up on conventional methods yet, maybe. Outside are camera crews and interview teams, at least three news vans bringing equipment. At least some seem sympathetic. Would Elodie consent to an interview? An exclusive? Is there any way to pass on that request? Even if it’s from Brad Thoroughgood himself, OESN’s prime sexyman? Eyes on the apartment, they’re looking for anyone bringing her groceries, associating with her. Friends are fair game for ambush interviews. A notice from the landlord gets posted around 08:11. All tenants are to be advised that the stairwell is for residents only, and the police will be called to escort any journalists blocking the stairs or hallways from the building. Elodie got out while the getting was good. It’ll be hard to get back in. A real plan, with real luck. Fucking_Skelator needs no plan. No plan survives contact with Fucking_Skelator. With a professional, you work to the schedule. There is an understanding of cost, of deadlines, and that business will be completed in time and in quality. Fucking_Skelator is not a professional. Fucking_Skelator is [i]Fucking_Skelator. [/i]This shit is so fly by night that the [i]Nachthexen,[/i] the Night Witches of World War 2, would take pilgrimage to Fucking Skelator’s place to take tips. Fucking_Skelator is not a businessman. He is a friend who happens to own excruciatingly illegal, pirated, contraband tools for the repair and maintenance of deeply unethical, highly proprietary, officially discontinued prosthetics of the sort you might get saddled with if you were expecting a life sentence of prison labour in a Jupiter gulag. He is a good friend of Elodies. He doesn’t know Pink. He does not like having to trust Pink, and while he likes Elodie - who couldn’t? - he hasn’t known her long enough to take her vouches as gospel. Fucking_Skelator won’t say this in so many words. Fucking_Skelator will instead say things like; “PERSEPHONE! MY FRIEND. YOU ARE LOOKING TODAY. YES, LOOKING INDEED. HOW ABOUT WE TAKE A LOOK AT YOU, EH? EH? THE PINK ONE. EH. I DO NOT KNOW ABOUT HER SO MUCH. HAVE NOT SEEN HER AROUND SO MUCH. MAYBE I DON’T HAVE THE PARTS. MAYBE I MIGHT NOT EVEN LOOK. MAYBE PINK ONE SHOULD WAIT HERE FOR HER FRIEND PERSPHONE TO BE TOUCHED UP, EH? EH? YES, YES.” Pink? You can either bullshit or charm him to keep close with Persephone when she’s taken in. I do not think this will be a shock for you to learn, but Fucking_Skelator is more cool than clever, so bullshitting is going to be easier. He’s not stupid though, to have lasted this long. [8] and [11] respectively. You don’t have to try, though, if you’re comfy waiting in the alley for a bit. While Elodie gets her tentacles retuned, recalibrated, a followup email advises that residents have been having difficulty getting the police to follow through, so alternate options are being explored. Alternate options appear to be canceling Elodie’s lease, an email that arrives just a minute later. She has four months to find a new place, with the corporate landlord promising reimbursement if she leaves sooner. Four months? Without something to stoke it, the media firestorm can’t last more than four [i]days[/i]. The cops definitely implied that they wouldn’t be providing any services to a building that housed Elodie in any capacity. Good luck proving it. That’s just when she gets the email though. It’s up to her when she actually checks it, notices it, reads it. Persephone: How does the tentacle recalibration go Persphone and Novembers: What’s the plan to get Elodie [i]back [/i]in her (for now) place?