Conquest Pizza = Pinapple

Grace
It was late, and Grace was still awake, still at work on a 'project' and one that was taking a few cans of Amp to get through. So far today, she's put together a present for Hawksley's birthday party, worked on that over-the-summer thing for school (that has been woefully neglected this past month, wonder why), and now this: encryption protocols.

It's a shame that novel isn't getting worked. It's not all that unheard of nowadays for a story to become the prophetic vision of 30 minutes ago. But she's fairly certain she has some time...

This particular project is important too. In two weeks, class starts. In two weeks, she'll commit a felony, again, and cannot cannot get caught.

So she sits on the bed in pyjamas, surrounded by empty cans and a plate of half-eaten food, working on a Friday night when others might be out listening to or creating music, getting high or drunk. It's a life that works for her, though. The parties they are sure to drag her to will be more than enough of that.

Gadfly
Over the weeks since he's come into her life, the personality known as Gadfly has been a reliable source of random 'wtf' moments.  It led one to believe that he carried on conversations in their absence, and when he realized the people he was talking to weren't in the same room, well that's when he reached out to them with some random non-sequitor.  Take tonight's message to Grace, for instance.

Gadfly says:  Do you think they put something in the pizza?  Other than the usual, that is.

Perhaps it made Grace think of the time she saw him in the back of a crowded room, attention flitting every which way.

Gadfly says:  Unless you're lactose intolerant.  I'm not.  At least I don't think I am.

Grace
Anymore, she's no longer surprised by random messages from Gadfly. He's just become that source of distraction (which, today she honestly needs a little of) and also connection, strangely enough. The IM just makes her smile.

Chimeric1 says: I'm not eating pizza tonight, are you? I can't see.

A subtle reminder perhaps that while he can see all, know all, she cannot.

Chimeric1 says: Also, hi. I'm working on camo for Ginger.

Gadfly
Gadfly says:  And I'm working on the menu.  Do you know how many major start-ups over the past couple decades came about over a pizza?  I don't really know either.  But I bet its a lot.

Gadfly says:  I'm not shoulder surfing, by the way.  If that's what you meant.  I've worked out a technique that allows me to split my attention.  I haven't found a maximum limit really, but I don't like to push it.

Gadfly says:  What I'm saying is, I'm doing too many other things.

Grace
Chimeric1 says: Split attention?

Seemed like he'd have no trouble at all with that one, like he's the type to come with a naturally shattered attention span...

Chimeric1 says: I'm also doing too many other things. I had a pretty full life before, now I am packed.

Chimeric1 says: Listen, something's been on my mind lately, and I need a break. Did you do anything... special to me at that book signing?

He's not likely to get it, she knows, but doesn't want to come out and say it directly. 'Did you do something to make me wake up?' is the real question.

Gadfly
Gadfly says:  At the book signing?  Nope.  I was powered down.  Well, mostly.  I was multitasking a bit, but that's about  it. 

Gadfly says:  Plus, I'd only stopped in en route that day.  Denver was supposed to be just a stop in.  Then you mentioned that visit you had.  That and they'd already hit my SLC set up.

Gadfly says:  You ever play whack-a-mole?

Grace
She had to read those lines again to see if they made sense. The book signing hadn't been in Denver, and she didn't mention her visit to him until weeks later. His mind must be simply going everywhere.

Chimeric1 says: Ahh, I see. It's just that right after that was when I woke up. Right after. I wondered maybe if you had, I don't know, done that to me or something.

Chimeric1 says: Yeah, I think everybody's played whack-a-mole.

Gadfly
Gadfly says:  Not our style.  Our club, I mean.  You gotta earn your way.  All your progress relies on you.  I guess that would keep you busy.  Forever.  Explains my social life.

Gadfly says:  You ever get to that point where you're SURE where the little bastard's gonna pop up next and instead it goes back to where you JUST whacked it and catches you off guard?  That's what I'm doing.

Grace
'But I heard you,' she wants to say. Heard his voice in the vision telling her.. Still, it's something, that -- a sense of pride in having gone that far alone.

Chimeric1 says: Whacking bugs? Or someone else?

Chimeric1 says: But you were watching me, weren't you? Of course you were, I wrote that story... Speaking of which, that 'forum' you told me about?

Gadfly
Gadfly says:  Trying not to get whacked by the Mirrorshades.  But that was your big day, huh?  What was that like?

Grace
Well, yes, that would be the one big failing she'd been bashing her head against ever since: how to put that into words.

Chimeric1 says: Like? It's impossible to say. I can describe what happened, but that's way not enough. After I left, I got lost. My GPS led me to a power station out in the middle of nowhere, and there, an antenna reached out to me, literally. I touched it, and saw visions and heard voices -- including yours -- telling me things. I flew, and saw the electric grid. Connections to everywhere, you know.

Chimeric1 says: It's just not enough to say that. Sounds crazy, like a hallucination.

After a bit, it sinks in what he's talking about, not getting whacked by the 'mirrorshades'. She furiously types out a quick response once it clicks.

Chimeric1 says: Are you in trouble? Do you need help? With the whack-a-mole?

Gadfly
Gadfly says:  No more trouble than usual.  You realize that this might be the only thing in your life that's black and white.  You're either with them or you're against them.  Sometimes they leave you alone because they already won the war and what the hell are you gonna do about it?

Gadfly says:  But sometimes you stick your nose in where its not supposed to be.  Half the time you don't even realize you're doing it.  Next thing you know they're seizing your assets, confiscating the contents of your P.O. box and knocking on your mom's door asking if she's seen you recently.

Gadfly says:  So you had like a full on moment of enlightenment.  Do you have a history with hallucinogens?  Or maybe you're just religious?

Grace
Chimeric1 says: They won the war? What do you mean? I mean, my visions of the future don't always end up totalitarian, you know.

He sounded almost defeated. Like the thing's already written in stone. If so, what was the point of all this?

Chimeric1 says: No, and no, on the last questions. Big no on the religious bit. But the offer stands, if you need help let me know.

Gadfly
Gadfly says:  Future?  Oh.  No one's explained this to you?  Oh, I forgot we stopped after the difference engineers.  Didn't you ever wonder how come, after knowing how far back things went with the subtle ones, everything's so secretive and cloak and dagger now?

Gadfly says:  Take a moment.  Look around.  Who's controlling the development of humanity?  The war's over.  Some one set up us the bomb.

Gadfly says:  Also, I don't want to speculate but I do try to keep an open mind.  A lot of the others clubs attribute their big moment to a quasi-mystical source.  Its a bit hard to wrap my head around it.  I'm not sure if its supposed to be a third party or just an aspect of the self or...

Gadfly says:  How's your Jung?

Grace
Chimeric1 says: Bullshit it's over. You can't tell me that we just lay back and wait to die?

Chimeric1 says: I don't even know where you're going with Jung. Collective unconscious?

Chimeric1 says: But see, there's the thing -- I looked that up on Wikipedia. Accelerated knowledge, constantly getting faster due to advances in connectivity. I'll grant you it's a race, but... I look to the next 40 or 50 years for it to be over over.

Gadfly
Gadfly says:  It should have been over a long time ago.  It's been retarded so it can be militarized and commercialized and fed to the masses at a rate that THEY control.  They limit the education, access to it and how far it goes.  They control EVERYTHING.

Gadfly says:  We had an out.  Have an out.  The 133ts were gonna help us pack our shit and go.  Reality 2.0, they called it.  Then I guess the techs caught wind and BOOM!  Snow Crash.  The big white out.  And if you were plugged in at the time it went one of two ways for the most part.  You're brain got fried and you left a smoking pile of empty meat (I don't know if there was actually smoke) or you had to change your address to the realm incorporeal.

Gadfly says:  So now us Lame-O's and n00bs gotta find our way there on our own with very little leadership.  And stay alive doing it.

Gadfly says:  And I was aiming for jungian archetypes but stick a pin in collective unconsciousness.  Has anyone told you the rules of meatspace?  How things...work?

Grace
Chimeric1 says: The l33t I know said something about that reality. Said you could help me get there. I guess not.

He was being downright defeatist, in a way she couldn't let get to her. If that were all true, then there was no point to it all. No point to the writing, no point in the pursuit of understanding. Understanding what? The death of a world? Too easy. Too simple.

Well, she wasn't going to stop. But she also wasn't going to tell Gadfly that.

Chimeric1 says: Yeah, someone told me once that the world works the way it does because the huge mass of people believes it does. I don't know what to think about that one, to be honest.

Gadfly
Gadfly says:  Yeah, like I said, that guy's a Disco Warrior.  I dunno.  Seems to me that particular method of sticking it to the man won't help you climb the Matterhorn.  Oh!  Right, that's the big connection.  Blew my mind the when I found out about that.

Gadfly says:  Am I doing you a disservice telling you all this?  See, this is why we don't mess with the sleepers.  Everybody's climb has to be special otherwise it doesn't mean anything and we're no better than the techs.

Gadfly says:  Know what the earliest recorded instance of 'the m word' is?  Its a cuniform tablet explaining how a village managed to change the flow of a river to benefit their crops.   To them he was like Gandalf.  To us, that's just irrigation.

Gadfly says:  The others go into it in a lot more detail and I'm sure you can find some stuff written down.  Anyway, that's not the point I was making.

Gadfly says:  So these Jungian archetypes are aspects of the human psyche that are simultaneously internal and external.  The others have a name for it.  Well, they've got a bunch of different names for it, but most folks say 'avatar' and know they're all talking about the same thing.

Grace
The m word. She hasn't heard it yet, seriously. And the connection does not hit her. It's just another piece of the new tongue that stands unknown for now.

Chimeric1 says: Don't keep things from me. That's not how I work. You have something to share, share it, please. I form connections between the stuff that I know. 

There's a bit of irritation on the other end, but he's not watching. The slightest bit of anger in that 'don't you dare hold out on me' that doesn't come through in text.

Chimeric1 says: Avatar, like in Hinduism? The physical manifestation of a god...

Gadfly
Gadfly says:  Well, yes.  But only in the further mystical sense (that the Hindus really do seem to have a pretty firm grasp on) that states that the gods are all part of a universal soul and we all share in that with them.  Supposedly the avatar, in this usage, is that part of us that is a part of everything else.  The collective unconscious.  The divinity in man.  The one.  (we're not the only folks who find that particular name significant, by the way.)  What was that thing your friend Sid had written down?  "We are made of starstuff"?

Gadfly says:  Anyway, my point was, some of the others are convinced that this divine self is conscious.  That it pushes us.  Hell, some even say they can talk to it.  I'm all 'Bonita Marie' about it.  You ever hear that song?

Gadfly says:  That first primer, was there anything about a Mountain in it?

Grace
Chimeric1 says: There was that, yes. Mount Qaf. And then there was another one, Mount Analogue. There seems to be no end of mountains. And I do think I get this bit. It's a climb, as you said. You don't get to see the top. It's there and it's not.

Chimeric1 says: I did feel like that you know. This once, during the visions, I felt like I was everything and nothing. Someone I know had a name for that. Lakashim. I have been talking to people.

Chimeric1 says: There's another Sagan quote I think fits there. We are a way for the cosmos to know itself.

Chimeric1 says: I don't know if that means that the universe has an agenda, though. Never heard 'Bonita Marie', sorry.

Gadfly
Gadfly says:  The first line goes 'South of the border, in old Mexico, there's a girl you must see to believe.'  Then the second line goes 'Well I've never seen her so i won't believe her.  The girl called Bonita Marie'.

Gadfly says:  That's me and the whole Avatar thing.  Everyone's supposed to have one, but 'I've never seen her'. :/

Gadfly says:  But maybe the universe does have an agenda.  For us at least.  I mean, ten different groups of people with completely different world views and they all agree on one thing: the climb.

Gadfly says:  Also, its an actual mountain.  When they theorized the need for R2.0 they went looking for a place in the Hypersphere to put it.  And they found a mountain already suited to their own needs.  Tons of space already formatted and ready.  Just...there.

Gadfly says:  You never said what you wanted on your pizza.

Grace
Chimeric1 says: I guess you and I are in the same boat then. I've never seen her either.

Chimeric1 says: Wait a minute, what pizza?

Chimeric1 says: And veggies.

Gadfly
Gadfly says:  Our conquest pizza.  For Ginger.  Does pineapple count?

Gadfly says:  Oh, I gotta go.  There's a meth head about to pass by Gus's apartment.  Gotta concentrate.

Gadfly says:  We'll pick this up later, yes?

Grace
Chimeric1 says: Pineapple is under the general plant category, I suppose. And yeah... We can pick this up later.

And she wonders at this one... They will enjoy conquest pizza together, then?

Chimeric1 says: May the whack-a-molers always miss. See you.