The Wormhole in Her Bedroom.

Gadfly83
(Shouldersurf, -1 diff)
Dice: 2 d10 TN4 (1, 3) ( fail )

Gadfly83
(Trying again, +1 diff)
Dice: 2 d10 TN5 (1, 4) ( fail )

Gadfly83
((Alright, screw that.  Just going blind))

Grace
Around Grace, apartment sounds, the thudding of someone's music through the bare white walls, and the unmistakable sound of feet on the ceiling -- these didn't even register. Hell, the white walls barely registered. Why does she live in a cell? Because even if there were something interesting to look at, she wouldn't.

She had many things up on her screen that night, again in bed, huddled over her laptop in ways that no human body should be able to bend comfortably. One of the more prominent features was the primer given to her days ago, and a chat log.

She had put pieces together, and had been looking for a certain Gadfly all weekend. He was probably like her, though, with many names. Hah, more like her than most.

She hung out, logged in under the name she used the other night. An old name. And waited. And read.

Gadfly83
Curiosity and excitement was its own bait it seemed.  Whatever else 'gadfly83' had been doing all week, at this very moment he was attempting to check in on the latest object of his curiosity, and having very poor luck at it.  Somewhere in the Denver area, the face behind the online handle had to take a break and let his frustration pass over him.  Then he goes back to doing things old school.

The message screen pops up moments later.

Gadfly83 says:  Hey.  How's it going?

Grace
She saw Gadfly come online, and was about to send her own message when one popped up. Fast...

Chimeric1 says: You know, don't you?

Gadfly83
Gadfly83 says:  Come again?

This was not good.  Across the city someone was sweating in an instant.  Where did that response come from?  What did it mean?

Grace
Chimeric1 says: That file you sent me, it wasn't just for some inspiration, was it?

Come on... pick up on it... don't make me say it.

Across the city, someone else was nervewracked too. What if he didn't know? What if he'd picked up on all that stuff he'd said online, and truly did not know, and...

Breathe. Come on.

Gadfly83
Gadfly83 says:  Oh!  That!  You read it right?  Good stuff?  Bahtini, man.  They did stuff right.  But yeah, it was for inspiration.  On that thing you were working on.

Phew.  He wasn't in trouble.  That's a relief.

Grace
Chimeric1 says: Inspiration for my stories? Ahh. Okay. I was just thinking maybe it was something more.

Well, shit.

Serafine said there were people like her around, people who could do something with her other than get high and cut themselves. But none in Denver. Just look for them in the internet she'd said, though even Sera didn't know what that meant.

She'd hoped that she'd found one of them.

Chimeric1 says: Where did you find it, if I can ask?

Maybe he found it in a place where she could go looking...

Gadfly83
Gadfly83 says: Dunno.  Found it years ago, have a ton of the stuff now.  Don't remember.  Well, I probably do remember, I just can't be bothered to search for the instance.  Funny how the human mind works.

Gadfly83 says: Not for your stories though.  For that thing you were working on the other night.  How did that go, by the way?  Did you get to a visual rendering or was it just spacial calculation?

Grace
The chat window stayed blank for the longest time, as Grace read the text on the other end, and her eyes got wide. Did you get to a visual rendering? Oh fuck, he did know.

The indicator on Gadfly's end then went back and forth between "Chimeric1 is typing a message" and not, before:

Chimeric1 says: So you do know. How did you know that? I never told you that.

Chimeric1 says: It was a help. I didn't have a real solid idea of the data format before.

Ahh, a chat interface. Everyone's favorite emotion eraser. On the other side of the screen, someone's going through a wash of them. Fear (how did he know?) excitement (they do exist!) wanting (can I get more of those primers?)

Gadfly83
Gadfly83 says:  Good.  I'm glad.  I was just checking up on you again but I guess I have to to some tweaking to my own stuff.  Its all a work in progress, y'know?

Gadfly83 says:  I still don't get it though.  What is it that I know?  This is really hard to wrap my head around just by text line.  Can you give me a couple minutes?

Grace
Chimeric1 says: How do you know what I was working on?
Wow, he needed to be told directly... The unasked question, how did you know I was Awake? Did he have to have that one stated as well?

Gadfly83
[Adjusting Shouldersurf - Int+Comp]
Dice: 8 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 2, 5, 6, 6, 6, 9) ( success x 4 )

Gadfly83
[Shouldersurf, -3 Diff, +1 Willpower]
Dice: 2 d10 TN3 (2, 3) ( success x 2 ) [WP]

Gadfly83
[Roll 2]
Dice: 2 d10 TN4 (6, 10) ( success x 2 )

Grace
[Notice the Shouldersurfing?]
Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (3, 7, 10, 10) ( success x 3 )

Gadfly83
His 'couple minutes' turn out to be just short of thirty and in that time the message screen doesn't stir.  Whatever Gadfly83 was doing had him indefinitely AFK.

There was something happening on Grace's end, however.  There was...someone in her apartment.  Or at least there was some sort of energy, something erratic and distracting.  Something she's likely felt in dreams.  That thing hovering just behind her, just over her shoulder.

Moments later and her online pen pal is back.

Gadfly83 says:  There, that's better.  You're a little freaked out though.  Is everything okay?

Grace
Grace turned to look behind her, halfway expecting there to be a real person standing there. She'd felt something like this before with the others -- Justin and his vitality, Hawksley and his sundrenching... This time, however, it wasn't a presence she'd felt before. But it was familiar.

Was he here?

The messenger chimed at her, and she swung her head back around. 'You're a little freaked out though.' No shit.

Chimeric1 says: I can feel you. Where are you?

Gadfly83
Gadfly83: Oh!  What a question!  Remember Turing?  He was interested in telephones as well, y'know?  He theorized a place between two communicating ends, a special room where only the two people were, separated from the rest of the world.  You'll be amazed when you see what spun off THAT crazy idea!

Grace
Chimeric1 says: That's interesting, but not an answer to the question.

She turned again, and looked behind her shoulder, at the place where someone should be but isn't. Here and not here? She remembered the feeling of being everywhere and nowhere, that damn primer and its concepts swum around in her head. It's called holographic -- wholly written -- data, because it's everywhere. And we are it.

Chimeric1 says: You're here aren't you?

Gadfly83
Gadfly83 says: Oh, because it's such a hard question to answer!  I'm in my lab, and I'm in Turing's room, and I'm...Oh!  I know what we'll do!  Your program.  The one you were working on.  Give it a try.  Map your apartment.  You think you know where I am?  Find me!

Grace
[Doing a quick look over the code to make sure there's nothing blatantly stupid in it. Int+Comp -1 diff]
Dice: 8 d10 TN5 (2, 4, 4, 5, 6, 6, 7, 9) ( success x 5 )

Grace
[Booting up the visualization program -1 diff via the code checking]
Dice: 1 d10 TN3 (1) ( fail )

Grace
He was playing with her. Taunting maybe. She'd had lessons like this before, though. Think you know where I am?

Another program joined the others on her laptop then, hers. If it worked. That was a big if.

She brought up the code and perused it, somewhat self-conscious about this now that she was fairly certain she was being watched. The code wasn't up to her usual standards. She made adjustments, fine tuning the constants, checking for the random missed logic error.

So far, so good.

And this time, instead of just running the interface, instead of doing a unit test on the pieces, she built it all together. She threw her will into it. Find him. You've got the data, it's all around you.

Black. The screen went black. And a chill shuffled over her skin like ice under the surface. What in the hell.

Grace
[Baby's First Paradox]
Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (6) ( success x 1 )

Grace
[Soaking, 3 Sta]
Dice: 3 d10 TN6 (1, 3, 6) ( success x 1 )

Gadfly83
Gadfly83 says:  Was that it?  Wow.  You really are new at this.  Why don't you get up.  You have some soda in the fridge?  Coffee?  Caffeine usually helps me.  For a little while at least.  Make yourself a sandwich.  Get centered.  Try again.

Grace
She bent back onto the bed, stared up at the ceiling for a bit. Why? Her laptop chimed at her again, but she resisted looking at it for a while. When she returned, she went with snark to cover the embarrassment.

Chimeric1 says: Thanks so much for the vote of confidence. It was my first try.

First runs usually don't go well, she reminded herself. Usually, you're surprised if you code for 2 days and it works on the first try. But that feeling of ice... It almost hurt.

In the end, she did go with his suggestion and padded her barefoot way over to the fridge to grab an Amp before settling down again into the comfort of bed and home and caffeine. Get centered. Try again.

Gadfly83
Its quiet for a while.  Well, its inactive for a while.  Whatever external noises Grace has in her apartment are beyond his control.  The next message, oddly, only comes the next time Grace looks at the screen.

Gadfly83 says:  How do you work in this place?  That music...even I find it distracting.

Grace
She responded quickly this time, nerves or caffeine accelerating everything. She shuffled off the black and green Amp can to the side table of her bed, and got right back into it.

Chimeric1 says: I just tune it out. Or I put on headphones and drown it out.

Chimeric1 says: I guess it needs a bit more work. The program, I mean. What was that?

Gadfly83
Gadfly83:  Constant work,  This is your life now.  Whether you want to or not the new horizon's gonna push you for the rest of your life.  At least, that's been my experience so far.  Its easier when you take your time.  Plan ahead.  What are you looking for?

Grace
Chimeric1 says: You.

That was the point, yes? To find the mysterious something just behind her shoulder. The something that felt like distraction itself, taking up a place in her room, watching her do everything.

And it felt familiar?

She bottled up that particular creepy sensation for the time being. Instead, she opened up the code again, looking for where it all went bizarre.

Gadfly83
Gadfly83:  Break it down.  I'm really fighting the urge to just TELL you what to do here.  But that wouldn't be very beneficial for either of us.  I'll leave you to it.  Take your time.  Whenever you're ready.

Grace
[Debugging -- Int+Comp -1 diff]
Dice: 8 d10 TN5 (2, 2, 5, 5, 9, 9, 10, 10) ( success x 6 )

Grace
[Again! Try again! -3 diff from taking time, looking over the code, spending WP]
Dice: 1 d10 TN1 (5) ( success x 2 ) [WP]

Grace
There was something there. A piece of code that would never be reached, and thus was going to mess her up if certain parameters triggered it.

Should write a test for that one. Make sure it doesn't happen again. Yes.

But for now, the adjustments continued, and she focused on that feeling, that distraction, the being that hovered beyond her reach. That thing, where is it?

And hit the 'Run' command.

Her room materialized on the screen in shades of grey (colors, not yet...) and there was that leap of joy inside. It worked. It worked! Never mind that a camera could probably accomplish the same thing, she'd done it from scratch. This program wasn't looking at what a camera could see. And she looked inside that viewport for the invisible.

Gadfly83
And there it is...all coming together as it should...or, as it shouldn't.  Because this kind of thing isn't possible, right?  Well, according to the absolutely perfect, precise spacial representation of Grace's apartment that she just brought up, it actually is.  Its just difficult to get to.

Was that a precise spacial representation?  Make that almost precise.  There must be some flaw in the baseline data somewhere, or an error in the calculations, because there also seems to be a gaping wide wormhole hovering just over her right shoulder and funneling off to...god knows where.  It pierces straight through her walls but leaves them whole and solid.

Gadfly83 says:  Goood job!  You've proved yourself.  I figured you were a l-user, but turns out you're a full fledged n00b.  Welcome to the club!

Grace
She swiveled the viewport axis to the wormhole in her apartment. Holy. Fuck.

Chimeric1 says: Me? A l-user? Yeah, no. That's you, though?

After sending off that last message, she waved behind her at that piercing hole in reality just behind her, shaky hands betraying the emotion that text won't show.

Chimeric1 says: That's how you knew, you were watching me.

Gadfly83
Gadfly83 says:  Yeah.  It starts with 'whereami'.  That's what most of us end up calling that thing you just ran.  That is, that's usually the first thing we run.  Handy little tool for things like this.  Anyway, eventually you tweak it enough and you get to things like my handy dandy ShoulderSurf (tm).

Gadfly83 says:  Oh, and do you see why I couldn't quite answer you?  There's no way I can fit in that little space, right?  Just like there's no way I can fit through a phone line.  That's Turing's room.  There's a window in my place, and window in your place, and we're meeting in between.  Cool huh?

Grace
Whereami. Well, of course it would be named so. She read his responses, and they did make some sense. But she was still in her apartment in her pjs, barefoot and drinking a can of green stuff to make the embarrassment of failure go away. And someone was watching all of this. She felt intensely vulnerable. Like, this was fantastic, eye-opening stuff, but underneath it all was an undercurrent of 'how dare you'.

Chimeric1 says: ShoulderSurf? I've heard that before, but not by you.

Gadfly83
Gadfly83 says:  Not possible.  My security is impeccable.

Grace
Chimeric1 says: That day of the booksigning, there was a guy at my work. Said he was with campus security, but that was a lie. I think more like a 3 letter acronym agent, you know? Wore sunglasses in a server room.

Chimeric1 says: He was looking for someone shouldersurfing. Said privacy was a big concern for 'campus security' you know.

Privacy, like she kind of... maybe... wanted. But a second later, she came back with:

Chimeric1 says: He gave me the screaming heebies.

It was a way to try to put Gadfly at ease -- no, I'm not going to tattle.

Gadfly83
Gadfly83 says:  ...shit.

Grace
Chimeric1 says: Yeah. Shit.

She was new to this, but there was some things she could put together.

Chimeric1 says: Maybe, you know, he was just talking about the normal kind of shoulder surfing?

Probably not. No, Mr. Goodson had felt like slime and nausea and weirdness, and she just hadn't known any better at the time to understand what that meant.

Gadfly83
Gadfly83 says:  Not likely.  Its not all enlightenment and Amp out here.  Can never be too careful.  The Batini were careful.  Subtle Ones.  Look where that got them.

Gadfly83 says:  We need a more secure way to communicate.  Any ideas, n00b?

Grace
Chimeric1 says: I could come up with something, but I'm n00b yes? Whatever encryption I could come up with would be thought of before.

She thought for a second before responding.

Chimeric1 says: Face-to-face?

Gadfly didn't do that too well, she remembered. The stuttering, the incoherence, the obsessive nature. He did better in text. But the NSA was watching everything, right? Fuck that noise.

Gadfly83
Gadfly83 says:  That's your idea of secure?  And don't get bent out of shape, I'm a n00b too.  Its all about applying what you know.  The elite are in a field of their own.

Gadfly83 says:  I'll figure something out and get back in touch with you.  In the meantime, How about some more reading material?  Anything I can help with?

Grace
Chimeric1 says: Yeah. Anything, I loved the primer. More primers? Coding or history, I don't care.

Chimeric1 says: I'm not bent. Delphi says to know thyself. I am n00b.

Gadfly83
Gadfly83 says:  The Batini primer covered a lot of what you need to know about them.  All the useful stuff.  The rest is miscellany at best.  At least at this level.  But, lets jump from ancient history to a little more recent.

Once again the alert for the file transaction comes up, only this time its two files.  The first having the title 'Difference Engineers'.  The second is called 'Virtual Adept Manifesto'.

Gadfly83 says:  Delphi?  Like the oracle in Greece?  That's interesting.  I wonder how they did that?  I should look into it.

Grace
Again, they're scanned, like anything that comes through a download with her. Distrustful? No. It's almost instinct. The names of them both are more familiar than "Subtle Ones" to her. Conversations at the Chantry have pointed her at the Virtual Adepts, but she had no idea of how to contact them.

Chimeric1 says: Difference Engineers? Like, Babbage and Lovelace?

Gadfly83
Gadfly83 says:  Yeah, only by the time Babbage was proposing his, the D.E. were integrating vacuum tubes.  Several steps ahead, we are.  Heck, look at what you just did.  Its a good read, until you get to the scary bit.  You thought you were seeing the world differently now, just wait until you find out who's been pulling the strings.

Gadfly83 says:  Man, getting kinda loose with the convo now.  Homeland security must be all lights right now.  I'm gonna sign off.  Figure out a safer way for us to talk.  And now you'll know when I'm around!  We've made good progress tonight, don't you think?

Grace
Homeland security must be all lights right now, he said, and spooked her. He didn't seem incredibly upset by this, just like it was a thing to be handled.

She'd have to see about maybe... spending the night somewhere else, perhaps.

Chimeric1 says: Okay. It went okay. I mean, I fucked up, you saw that.

Gadfly83
Gadfly83 says:  And you learned from it.  If I can make a recommendation, try and streamline the program for specific purposes like these.  Instead of rendering the entire environment, just look for the anomaly, then you'll know someone's peeking in.

Gadfly83 says:  Catchya later Chimeric.  Keep up the good work.

Grace
I'll know when you're peeking in, she thought. At least that was a comfort. Note to self: don't code in your underwear. Geez. How many times has he...

Chimeric1 says: Yeah, thanks.

Chimeric1 says: I'll see you around. Probably. Oh, and by the way, next time... Could you ask first?

Gadfly83
Gadfly83 says:  Ask?  But how else am I supposed to know if you're near your computer?  Oh well.  We'll figure it out.