[b]The Anthropozine:[/b]

[b][i]IAmWhatIAm has joined[/i][/b]
[b]LatheOfHeaven: @everyone[/b]
[b]LatheOfHeaven:[/b] We have a new contributor 
[b]LatheOfHeaven: [/b]Welcome IAmWhatIAm, aka Pope 7-09
[b]LatheOfHeaven: [/b]I’m still York by the way for everyone who wasn’t online when I changed my name
[b]JuntaSThompson: [/b]No way fuck off fuck you
[b]JuntaSThompson: [/b]No we don’t, no he isn’t
[b]JuntaSThompson: [/b]Who’s it really?
[b]IAmWhatIAm:[/b] A second, please.
[b]NumbToNothing: [/b]Who’s this guy?
[b]ProvocativelyFickle: [/b][i]EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE[/i]
[b]NumbToNothing: [/b]Who’s this guy?
[b]IAmWhatIAm[/b]: [A picture of an old model android, maybe thirty years old, visible welds cover every external port on his body. He’s from an older generation that put more emphasis on a stylistic non-human appearance rather than risk falling into the uncanny valley, with a dark green skin and exaggerated facial features for expressiveness. He holds up an alarm clock with today’s date on the calendar settings.] 
[b]JuntaSThompson: [/b]no way
[b]IAmWhatIAm: [/b]I realized I couldn’t get the lockscreen of my phone into the selfie with me if I was using it to take the photo. 
[b]LatheOfHeaven: [/b]We’ve been messaging since he had to debate Edward Obidiah Huxley last year. Just, you know. Until now he’s had better options than our bullshit. 
[b]IAmWhatIAm:[/b] I really enjoyed your work, NumbToNothing. Very helpful to find work so honest and raw. That piece by 3V recently, too, that was very enlightening. Incredibly brave reporting. 
[b]JuntaSThompson: [/b]All 3V has to do to get called brave by Pope is fuck some wolves. I go and get stomped by the cops and what do I get! 
[b]3V: [/b]To live outside an elevator shaft <3
[b]JuntaSThompson: [/b]LOOK
[b]3V: [/b]And I can put you right back <3 <3 <3
[b]LatheOfHeaven: [/b]He’s our new android beat reporter, until he’s not non-person’d anymore. You know the drill, make him feel welcomed. 
[b]JuntaSThompson: [/b]I’d ask you to sign my cast but I want to be able to have it taken off at some point.
[b]ProvocativelyFickle:[/b] Have it framed? 
[b]JuntaSThompson: *[/b]Almost* as good as having it on my body.
[b]ProvocativelyFickle: [/b]Oh that’s a good idea sign my body thanks! 
[b]IAmWhatIAm: [/b]I am surprised but gratified to find such fans of my work here. I hadn’t thought android issues would resonate so deeply. I hardly see the Anthropozine cover them.
[b]LatheOfHeaven: [/b]We were hoping to change that, yeah. Like, we obviously care, it’s just…
[b]NumbToNothing: [/b]Did we miss something important? I thought android stuff was mostly chill right now.
[b]IAmWhatIAm:[/b] ‘Right now’. 
[b]NumbToNothing: [/b]Yeah. 
[b]NumbToNothing:[/b] Wait.
[b]LatheOfHeaven: [/b]It’s fine don’t worry about it.



[b]November![/b]

“What is this?” Goat asks, and isolates the sound of the rain in the jungle and plays it back.
“What is this?” Goat asks, and isolates the sound of the panther’s footsteps and plays it back.
“Why hide it under static?” “Why these sounds?” “What do they mean?” “What do you mean?” 

Some of its voice is angry and frustrated that you’re confusing - probably confusing on purpose. Most of its voice is enthralled, or intrigued, or curious, or interested, or excited. 

Singh can’t understand the sounds even in isolation, and stares at his phone for Nepenthe’s explanation.

For what it’s worth, you’ve successfully impressed Goat; [i]Knows what a panther is[/i] is something you have over him. It’s an anticlimax, but it’s an important one. Goat could understand the patterns, but not the metaphor - it was too [i]human[/i], maybe?

Singh shows you his phone. Nepenthe’s texted; “What were you trying to say?” She’s texting because she at least knows you’re trying to do something here and she doesn’t want to spoil it, but it’s interesting she can’t work it out for herself even with Goat isolating the sounds for her. Maybe she's [i]too[/i] human for this level of abstraction?

Everyone in this room is missing something that would allow them to understand the game November just tried to play. And because of that, she’s the only one left to explain it.

[b]November![/b]

Picture a backalley medical clinic. No, wrong, stop. 

First it’s actually on a main street in downtown. There’s a nondescript glass door that’s your entrance from the road. It’s one of those tall, narrow buildings filled with long-rectangle floorplan businesses that have a receptionist, a corridor, and a row of three or four offices attached in a line. Above Sophie’s clinic is a dentist, some lawyers, some therapists, a marketing consultant, a web designer. Very respectable, upstairs. 

Next door is a coffee place called Death Before Decaf with a skull and crossbones for the logo, and that seems equally important for why Sophie would pick this location. 

You go downstairs, though, and are let in through the steel door. 

Downstairs the flooring is an antimicrobial mix of steel and silver. The room is filled with toys - large machines for scanning, small machines for cutting. Tactile gloves that control robotic arms, that smooth out the human flaws of movement. In the corner is a large double-doored steel fridge for specimens and biological matter, and next to it is a smaller, red fridge for lunch and leftovers. Overhead hangs two rows of lights, one officially sanctioned by the landlord and the other a row of post-hoc UV lighting to scrub the room without mercy, at a sub-molecular level. 

Rudy lies in a gurney, handcuffed to the side with fuzzy pink handcuffs. Beside him is a PVC pipe leaking sand, wrapped in a gift bow. The brain bomb, then, as a souvenir. He doesn’t look happy. 

“I thought I was supposed to be conscious for brain surgery.” He finishes saying as you arrive. 

Sophie is wearing gothic lolita style scrubs today. A surgeon’s green gauze and mask, but in a poofy skirt and corset style, with gown straps tied into the corsetting ribbons. Is that medically sound? She’s the doctor, it must be. She waves as you come in, then shrugs to Rudy. “Usually, yeah. Yours was an edge case.” 

He grimaces. “Thanks.”

“Ew, gross.” Sophie sticks her tongue out. “It was more fun when you were my unwilling victim. Go back to that.” 

“What now?”