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is it Tuesday?
All right, I managed to do a bit more of Cyberpunk. So hopefully this, plus what was posted earlier, makes for the entirety of Chapter 4. I've thought about adding more to it, but I think that content's going to be pushed back into Chapter 5. Although everyone's thoughts on the matter would be very much appreciated.
Main Storyline
Chapter 1: Welcome Home
Chapter 2: First Day on the New Job
Chapter 3: Search Parameters
Chapter 4 Part 1: Memory Parity Failure
Chapter 4 Part 2: Is it Tuesday?
Issues with the power grid shut down the University, unexpectedly freeing up Shuurei's day. It's always something, she thought with resignation as she put away her precious copperized skillet. Between the periodic Anarchist Organized Anti-Establishment League protests, budget cuts, prodigious red tape, corporate headhunting, and occasional explosions from student experiments (not to mention dealing with the students themselves), it was a wonder to her that the professors could get any research done at all. It was also one of the main reasons she was disinclined to pursue a career in academia-- interesting it might be, but all the inefficiency rankled her orderly mind.
Her father was at work, although it would be more correct to say that he had never actually come home from work. "Corporate Librarian" wasn't exactly a high-paying position, as evidenced by the continuously deteriorating state of their residence, but Shouka certainly seemed to love it. Seiran, too, had already departed; a battered old Xinkai400 that might have been white once had screeched to a halt out front, and he had left quickly before its driver could come out to fetch him.
But that meant she was at loose ends for the day. Her research projects could only be completed at the University, so that option was closed to her. And while the residence was slowly falling apart, between her efforts and Seiran's it was at least clean. It was still very early in the morning, but she was already awake and dressed, so going back to sleep was out. For the first time in a long time she actually had nothing to do.
Although that wasn't precisely true. There were her projects for Westcorp-- and due to the absence of her partner they were all behind schedule. She wasn't supposed to go to the Imperial Palace Facility, but there was no way the projects would get finished at all if she didn't put in some extra time.
Provided, of course, that I can finish them, she sighed to herself later, walking down the featureless halls of the Facility and frowning at the viewscreen she carried. It was clear that some of the projects required two people to complete, either for a cyclic generation of data that couldn't be duplicated by a simulation, or requirements that went well beyond her area of expertise. Presumably her absent partner would take up the slack-- if he ever showed.
Which remained as puzzling as ever. Why was Westcorp keeping her waiting around? For that matter, why was a megacorp's experimental operations being kept on hold for want of input from a single recalcitrant source? Westcorp could clearly draw in top talent, so why--
The intense hum of busy processors startled her out of her thoughts as she entered one of the labs. She had chosen it because it was unoccupied-- and indeed there was no one sitting at the terminals or jacked into the network. Even the viewscreens were dark, and yet the computers were clearly involved in some sort of resource-intensive activity. She frowned, and with barely a thought her fingers activated the necessary program mole to patch her viewscreen in to their processing--
--and the display exploded suddenly with data windows and code, scrolling almost too fast for her to follow. Images flickered in one corner in a relentless flow, switching from one to the next with barely enough time for them to register. Text scrolled and swam in the background, characters running both from left to right and up to down. Charts and graphs came and went, data highlighted, enlarged, cross-referenced, generated more data. Information downloaded from the archives in a constant flicker of completing status bars. An image in the corner paused, and Shuurei had enough time to identify it-- jungle animals-- and then it flowed into a file, and another followed, and another-- lightning, a spanner, a tropical seascape, flowing quicksilver, an old-fashioned metal desk, a fireworks explosion, heavy black boots, a coiled jack plug, a computer core, a tool bench, a window, stairs covered in tile, a mattress, a bowl of rice-- then the images were gone and it was just text, the lyrics of a song, something that looked like an encyclopedia article that went by too fast for her to read, a sudden bold character--
--instinctively her hand shot out and captured the image on her screen before it could disappear--
--夢--
--and then abruptly the viewscreen went blank, all the data and activity gone in an instant as the connection she had made to the computers in the lab was cut. The processors, too, were slowing down from their frantic whirr to the normal electric murmur of idle machines.
What was--
"Sorry about that," the contrite voice came out of nowhere and made her jump-- no, it had to be from the audio systems hooked up to the computer network. It was also clearly recognizable to Shuurei's ears as the voice which had guided her to the data she'd needed a few days beforehand. "I thought this lab was free today."
"Well, it is free," she said, regaining her composure. "That's why I came here."
"That's right, you're not one of the researchers," the voice noted. "The new hire, right?"
"Special consultant," Shuurei said somewhat stiffly, then realized she was being ridiculous and relented. "I'm Kou Shuurei."
"Don't you come in Wednesdays to Saturdays? I thought today was a Tuesday-- yes, the network chronometer says Tuesday, there's a .05% chance of a system error and a 1.445% chance of undetected outside attack, it must be a Tuesday--"
"It is a Tuesday," Shuurei assured him-- at least, she was fairly certain the voice was male-- surprised to find herself laughing. "I had some free time, so I decided to come in. And I believe it's customary to respond with your name, when someone gives you theirs."
"Is it really?" There was a pause. "Oh! Um, sorry. I'm-- ah. Sai. That's me. Um. Nice to meet you?"
Sai? Shuurei remembered her meeting with the portly project director, and his supercillious tones bore no relationship whatsoever with the mysterious but at least somewhat helpful presence with whom she spoke. In fact the contrast was completely ludicrous, and she couldn't imagine any of the serious researchers or Westcorp scientists being quite so . . . so . . .
. . . in fact, who could it be but her recalcitrant project partner? "Nice to meet you, too," she said,
Shi Ryuuki.
Main Storyline
Chapter 1: Welcome Home
Chapter 2: First Day on the New Job
Chapter 3: Search Parameters
Chapter 4 Part 1: Memory Parity Failure
Chapter 4 Part 2: Is it Tuesday?
Issues with the power grid shut down the University, unexpectedly freeing up Shuurei's day. It's always something, she thought with resignation as she put away her precious copperized skillet. Between the periodic Anarchist Organized Anti-Establishment League protests, budget cuts, prodigious red tape, corporate headhunting, and occasional explosions from student experiments (not to mention dealing with the students themselves), it was a wonder to her that the professors could get any research done at all. It was also one of the main reasons she was disinclined to pursue a career in academia-- interesting it might be, but all the inefficiency rankled her orderly mind.
Her father was at work, although it would be more correct to say that he had never actually come home from work. "Corporate Librarian" wasn't exactly a high-paying position, as evidenced by the continuously deteriorating state of their residence, but Shouka certainly seemed to love it. Seiran, too, had already departed; a battered old Xinkai400 that might have been white once had screeched to a halt out front, and he had left quickly before its driver could come out to fetch him.
But that meant she was at loose ends for the day. Her research projects could only be completed at the University, so that option was closed to her. And while the residence was slowly falling apart, between her efforts and Seiran's it was at least clean. It was still very early in the morning, but she was already awake and dressed, so going back to sleep was out. For the first time in a long time she actually had nothing to do.
Although that wasn't precisely true. There were her projects for Westcorp-- and due to the absence of her partner they were all behind schedule. She wasn't supposed to go to the Imperial Palace Facility, but there was no way the projects would get finished at all if she didn't put in some extra time.
Provided, of course, that I can finish them, she sighed to herself later, walking down the featureless halls of the Facility and frowning at the viewscreen she carried. It was clear that some of the projects required two people to complete, either for a cyclic generation of data that couldn't be duplicated by a simulation, or requirements that went well beyond her area of expertise. Presumably her absent partner would take up the slack-- if he ever showed.
Which remained as puzzling as ever. Why was Westcorp keeping her waiting around? For that matter, why was a megacorp's experimental operations being kept on hold for want of input from a single recalcitrant source? Westcorp could clearly draw in top talent, so why--
The intense hum of busy processors startled her out of her thoughts as she entered one of the labs. She had chosen it because it was unoccupied-- and indeed there was no one sitting at the terminals or jacked into the network. Even the viewscreens were dark, and yet the computers were clearly involved in some sort of resource-intensive activity. She frowned, and with barely a thought her fingers activated the necessary program mole to patch her viewscreen in to their processing--
--and the display exploded suddenly with data windows and code, scrolling almost too fast for her to follow. Images flickered in one corner in a relentless flow, switching from one to the next with barely enough time for them to register. Text scrolled and swam in the background, characters running both from left to right and up to down. Charts and graphs came and went, data highlighted, enlarged, cross-referenced, generated more data. Information downloaded from the archives in a constant flicker of completing status bars. An image in the corner paused, and Shuurei had enough time to identify it-- jungle animals-- and then it flowed into a file, and another followed, and another-- lightning, a spanner, a tropical seascape, flowing quicksilver, an old-fashioned metal desk, a fireworks explosion, heavy black boots, a coiled jack plug, a computer core, a tool bench, a window, stairs covered in tile, a mattress, a bowl of rice-- then the images were gone and it was just text, the lyrics of a song, something that looked like an encyclopedia article that went by too fast for her to read, a sudden bold character--
--instinctively her hand shot out and captured the image on her screen before it could disappear--
--夢--
--and then abruptly the viewscreen went blank, all the data and activity gone in an instant as the connection she had made to the computers in the lab was cut. The processors, too, were slowing down from their frantic whirr to the normal electric murmur of idle machines.
What was--
"Sorry about that," the contrite voice came out of nowhere and made her jump-- no, it had to be from the audio systems hooked up to the computer network. It was also clearly recognizable to Shuurei's ears as the voice which had guided her to the data she'd needed a few days beforehand. "I thought this lab was free today."
"Well, it is free," she said, regaining her composure. "That's why I came here."
"That's right, you're not one of the researchers," the voice noted. "The new hire, right?"
"Special consultant," Shuurei said somewhat stiffly, then realized she was being ridiculous and relented. "I'm Kou Shuurei."
"Don't you come in Wednesdays to Saturdays? I thought today was a Tuesday-- yes, the network chronometer says Tuesday, there's a .05% chance of a system error and a 1.445% chance of undetected outside attack, it must be a Tuesday--"
"It is a Tuesday," Shuurei assured him-- at least, she was fairly certain the voice was male-- surprised to find herself laughing. "I had some free time, so I decided to come in. And I believe it's customary to respond with your name, when someone gives you theirs."
"Is it really?" There was a pause. "Oh! Um, sorry. I'm-- ah. Sai. That's me. Um. Nice to meet you?"
Sai? Shuurei remembered her meeting with the portly project director, and his supercillious tones bore no relationship whatsoever with the mysterious but at least somewhat helpful presence with whom she spoke. In fact the contrast was completely ludicrous, and she couldn't imagine any of the serious researchers or Westcorp scientists being quite so . . . so . . .
. . . in fact, who could it be but her recalcitrant project partner? "Nice to meet you, too," she said,
Shi Ryuuki.
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