Part 41: 23:00-1:09: Error Undefined

Chapter 41: 23:00-1:09: Error Undefined



ARIST: ...God, really? Do we *have* to?
VOLITION: [Challenging: Success] Yes.
ARIST: Fine. Let’s… get in there, I guess?

This should go well.




THE PIGS: Scavenged battery-powered police lights protrude from her back. The flickering light-show reveals a gun in her shaking hand.
INTERFACING: [Medium: Success] Her hand is trembling from some sort of neurodegenerative disease.



AUTHORITY: [Medium: Success] Look at Kim, projecting strength. He had that gun out and ready in an instant. Where’s your gun, huh? Oh, right.[/i]

THE PIGS: “Failure to comply. Suspect is displaying aggression! OFFICER UNDER DURESS! OFFICER UNDER DURESS!”
REACTION SPEED: [Medium: Success] Her eyes bulge with terror. Veins protrude on her forehead.



THE PIGS: “LATERAL VASCULAR NECK RESTRAINT! CAROTID SLEEPER! CAROTID SLEEPER! Critically reducing blood from passing through the neck of the suspect!”
KIM KITSURAGI: “Be careful, detective. Don’t do anything that might set her off.”
COMPOSURE: [Medium: Success] The situation looks bad. Calm yourself. Steady your breathing.



THE PIGS: “OFFICER IN NEED OF ASSISTANCE!” Her eyes dart between you and Kim. “SUSPECT AT LARGE, GET ON THE GROUND!”



THE PIGS: “Disturbance reported, authorize deadly fore. SECTOR, TAKE THE SHOT!” Her head snaps at you. “BIG RED KEY, BIG RED KEY!”
ENCYCLOPEDIA: [Medium: Success] Big red key? That’s code for the battering ram. Cop talk. You know this.
EMPATHY: [Formidable: Success] What happened to make her like this?
INLAND EMPIRE: [Challenging: Success] Loneliness.



THE PIGS: The woman looks at you, but through you. Like you don’t exist. Her eyes gleam feverishly and the rotating police-beacon lights reveal deep scratch marks on her cheeks. “THIS IS THE POLICE!” She howls through her megaphone. “UNLAWFUL ENGAGEMENT. HANDS ON THE GROUND, SCUM-BAG!”



KIM KITSURAGI: The lieutenant’s eyes stay fixed on the woman and her gun—he studies them closely, then mumbles: “Fascinating.”
COMPOSURE: [Challenging: Success] His shoulders relax and a look of realization appears in his eyes… Did he notice something?



THE PIGS: “IT’S THE GODDAMN POLICE, SHIT-BAG,” she yells into the megaphone. “HUG THE PAVEMENT, YOU’RE UNDER ARREST!”



THE PIGS: “CONFISCATED CONTRABAND!” The megaphone makes her voice almost painfully metallic. “RESTRICTED ACCESS, TWO KILOS MISSING, EYE-WITNESS REPORT COMPROMISED!”




THE PIGS: “No,” the crazed woman mumbles, shaking her head. “No, no, no… I thought Mr. Morrant… Gareth…” Suddenly she raises the megaphone and screams: “AGGRAVATED ASSAULT, MAN DOWN, OFFICERS IN PURSUIT!”
LOGIC: [Medium: Success] There’s a scenario unfolding in her head right now. It has nothing to do with what’s happening here.
KIM KITSURAGI: “What’s the situation...” the lieutenant hesitates addressing the woman, “…officer?”
THE PIGS: “LAW ENFORCEMENT COMPROMISED,” she creams in the megaphone. Red and blue lights illuminate the spit flying everywhere. “IMPERSONATING A POLICE OFFICER!”



THE PIGS: “LICENCE AND REGISTRATION!!!” She repeatedly bashes the megaphone against her head, then screams at the bloody mouthpiece: “LICENCE AND REGISTRATION! COME IN DISPATCH! SECTOR, SECTOR, AZIMUTH!!!”




ARIST: [Challenging: Success] You’re not confident about this prospect, but you see no other choice.






ARIST: [Easy: Success] Oh fuck.

THE PIGS: A click. Nothing happens. She looks at the useless weapon. “This isn’t police issue. Police weapons have bullets. This isn’t real! What is this?”




EMPATHY: [Medium: Success] She looks devastated.







THE PIGS: The woman stands in front of you, motionless, unresponsive. Almost like an inanimate object now. A mountain of police paraphernalia.
INLAND EMPIRE: [Challenging: Success] In there she is alone, trapped in a world of blue and red lights.






KIM KITSURAGI: “I don’t think there’s any need for that. In her current state—and without the gun—she isn’t really a threat to anyone.”




KIM KITSURAGI: “But I think we’re done here for now. Let’s head out, this is done.”
THE PIGS: As you turn to leave, the faintest of voices comes from the woman. “Please leave the radio on…” she mutters. It seems like a reflex, a half-remembered sentence.
LOGIC: [Medium: Success] Reflex to what? Being left alone?
EMPATHY: [Legendary: Success] Exactly. With only the voice of Gareth Morrand to accompany her on Channel 8.




We successfully recovered our firearm!



Now, we check the Pigs once more.



PERCEPTION (SIGHT): [Easy: Success] Is one of those things a… police cap?




KIM KITSURAGI: “Oh. Is that yours?”






ARIST: [Legendary: Failure] I see absolutely nothing wrong with this.

LOGIC: [Medium: Success] She didn’t consume them. She didn’t look high. She ‘confiscated’ them, a little like you are doing now.
KIM KITSURAGI: The lieutenant coughs. “You’re taking those, are you?”

ARIST: Oh, right.







We should go talk to Soona now that we’ve made our deal with the speedfreaks.







AUTHORITY: [Medium: Success] You know, just hypothetically. You’re not going to actually *do* it, after all.



SOONA, THE PROGRAMMER: “The Wayfarer Act states that citizens have the right to gather in public spaces unless they’re disrupting the public order.”
KIM KITSURAGI: “And she’s not. Disrupting any order, I mean.”




Yeah, that’s a non-starter even if we wanted to.




There we go.




SOONA, THE PROGRAMMER: She thinks about it, a glassy look in her eyes. A gust of wind brings more snow in from the broken gallery. It touches her hair.



SOONA, THE PROGRAMMER: “No, that’s the production schedule you stole and accessed without authorization.” She’s tapping the table in a badly concealed impatience. “I don’t need it.”
KIM KITSURAGI: “In his defence, it was simply lying in the desk drawer of an abandoned cubicle.”



SOONA, THE PROGRAMMER: “It’s a back-up of my former employer’s project—the radio game we were working on. It’s stored on a *filament memory* just like the one inside this radiocomputer.” She points to the glowing cube inside the machine.
INTERFACING: [Medium: Success] She’s making it *extra simple* for you.
SOONA, THE PROGRAMMER: “The backup itself is destroyed now, but I’m hoping to use what’s left of it to pinpoint the exact location of the anomaly. You just have to go to my old workspace and get the filament.”



SOONA, THE PROGRAMMER: “Oh god, not *this* again…” She takes a deep breath, before letting it all out: “It is not *on-site*, it is *in the basement*, perfectly safe and not connected to the front *at all*.”
RHETORIC: Basement? Sounds like it’s *technically* still on-site…
SOONA, THE PROGRAMMER: “And no, taking it outside the building *wouldn’t* have protected it from the data loss. There’s nothing wrong with keeping the backup in the basement. What happened was a freak accident that has nothing to do with how the backup was stored. We clear?” She stares at you with pleasing, furious eyes.






SOONA, THE PROGRAMMER: “In the giant ice bear fridge—I just told you. It has red glowing eyes, it’s impossible to miss. You just need to get the off site copy from the ice bear.”




SOONA, THE PROGRAMMER: “Zawisza, of course…” She relaxes. “Our project lead Sulislaw Zawisza. God, he was always so hell-bent on keeping the copy somewhere ‘safe’. And feature creep…” she mutters, “And the Valley of the Heads… Like it would have made a difference—the off-site copy was perfectly safe when the data loss happened. That data loss was *anomalous*.” She crosses her arms defiantly.



ARIST: [Heroic: Failure] You’ve said it before you can even think to stop yourself. Nice going.

SOONA, THE PROGRAMMER: “Wait, what?” She looks up, alarmed. “*Whose* dead body?”
KIM KITSURAGI: “You know, we don’t actually have to tell the entire world about the fridge,” the lieutenant says, looking at you.



SOONA, THE PROGRAMMER: “*And what is it doing in the fridge?!*”




SOONA, THE PROGRAMMER: “Okay,” she says, pressing fingers into her eyebrow ridge. “Very cool, thanks for keeping me in the loop.”
KIM KITSURAGI: “We would appreciate if you kept this knowledge to yourself, miss.”



ARIST: Well, at least that worked out.





SOONA, THE PROGRAMMER: “No.” She stares at you with droopy eyes. “She literally started praying for the higher powers when she first saw my Rehm Civic. I’m not making this up.”
KIM KITSURAGI: The lieutenant coughs like he’s amused.




SOONA, THE PROGRAMMER: “And here’s my Kvalsund multitool. You might need it to hack loose some ice. It opens everything. If you get me the off-site copy, then you can keep the Kvalsund.”






Let’s talk to the washerwoman. We never did ask her about Ruby.



PERCEPTION (HEARING): [Medium: Success] The buzz of electric lights blends together with the slow rumble of ocean waves at night.



WASHERWOMAN: “Yes. I can’t really sleep any more. Only a few hours a night. It happens when you grow older…” She sloshes the water in the bucket around for a bit.






WASHERWOMAN: “Nay, I haven’t *seen* anyone lately.”



WASHERWOMAN: “He’s a sharp one,” she says to herself and runs her hand across the washboard.
RHETORIC: [Easy: Success] She’s being evasive. She knows something.
KIM KITSURAGI: “There was a murder in Martinaise.” He points East. “She might be a suspect. We would appreciate your help.”





KIM KITSURAGI: “I see, ma’am.” The lieutenant turns to you. “I hope you don’t mind if we look around anyway.”



We’ll do that—just not right now.




It appears that Titus has, in fact, left for the night. Welp, the Pigs is just gonna have to wait out in the cold tonight! But enough about that, talk to the smoker (not) on the balcony!






SMOKER ON THE BALCONY: “The *homo-sexual underground*?” The smoker sits up immediately, his eyes wide with amused surprise, a honeyed smile lingers on his lips.





SMOKER ON THE BALCONY: “Oh we’re ambitious, we want to destroy the last vestiges of meaning, the last things people in Revachol have to hold on to, the true symbols of security—the meaning of man and woman, mother and father, their marriage.”



ARIST: [Challenging: Success] What are you *talking* about, you have no idea who that even *is*!

SMOKER ON THE BALCONY: “But do you also like the *razzle-dazzle* of gold? Do you like parties and discos and having fun under the vibrant lights of Saturday night?”



Really disappointed in myself for not picking “That much fun should be illegal” here.



SMOKER ON THE BALCONY: “Beautiful!” The smoker crawls up to you like an animal preparing to jump. “Beautiful, that’s exactly what we’re looking for! Who knows, maybe you *were* homo-sexual in the past, maybe all of that has been *repressed*… He circles his hands around you.






This “twenty-hour mind project” really only takes eight, weird.



Let’s say hey to Garte while we’re in the area.



Aww, he liked the bird.



Now, we enter the dreaded basement to recover the filament memory.




ICE CREAM MAKER: Turning the crank feels oddly satisfying, like stirring your childhood dreams… In the distance you hear water dripping.



ICE CREAM MAKER: You slip your fingers under the frozen lid, but the ice is too cold for you to get a good grip. A prybar would come in handy here… or something stronger, like the Kvalsund KR+2 Multi-Tool.
KIM KITSURAGI: “Didn’t Soona give you a perfect tool for this kind of job—the Kvalsund? You should take it out.”



Good idea, Kim.





Oh hey, and we unplugged the machine two days ago, making this slightly easier! It’s almost like I already knew we’d need to do that!

Unfortunately, due to the -2 to Physical Instrument we currently have while internalizing Waste Land of Reality, our chances look grim. But never fear, because we have another secret weapon…



...taking our fucking shirt off. Thank you, Coach Physical Instrument.



That’s worth a shot at least.



Hell yeah!









ARIST: [Easy: Success] Instead of heading right for Soona, you decide to go back up to the radiocomputer in the decayed wreck of Fortress Accident. You don’t just want to see what’s in the off-site copy, but also the original filament memory which might be accessible as well with the password Tiago gave you.






EAST-INSULINDIAN REPEATER STATION: “Good, I’ve unlocked the production schedule. After ending the call please press PRINT to access the filament.”
KIM KITSURAGI: “Really? She just used the same password?” The lieutenant seems almost disappointed to discover that, as he murmurs: “Maybe those radiocomputer guys aren’t that paranoid after all…”



EAST-INSULINDIAN REPEATER STATION: “Thank you and good bye,” the old lady’s voice disappears along with the static.




MAINFRAME: It’s a project report written by the lead producer Andrew ‘Andy’ Schott about “Wirrâl Untethered,” a radio game developed by studio Fortress Accident.



MAINFRAME: Fortress Accident employed 18 people, the bulk of the team composed of writers and concept artists. There were also radio programmers, sound engineers, a CEO, two marketing experts… and a single overburdened producer who developed a habit of popping Pyrholidon in the basement to escape his obligations.




MAINFRAME: No, definitely not. A few more producers could have come handy though—especially when dealing with writers, some of whom routinely skipped work because of “mental health issues” and extremely unprofessional sleep schedules…



MAINFRAME: In its short time of existence Fortress Accident SCA managed to burn through truly *insane* amounts of money. The first tranche of seed financing brought in 150,000 reál, but then came the *delays*.





RADIOCOMPUTER: No, not the concept artists. It wasn’t even the writers, with their panic attacks and three-hour lunches…
MAINFRAME: It was impossible not to fail. The project was too large and no amount of money could satiate the ever-expanding ambitions of the development team. They tried to make a 4,000,000 reál game with 400,000 in their bank account. They thought they could bridge the gap with pure willpower and imagination.



MAINFRAME: No. Even then success remained within an ever-narrowing margin of possibility that, despite everything, never entirely disappeared…



MAINFRAME: No, it was good. Too good. At the eleventh hour, the lead designer, Ziemsk-born Sulislaw Zawisza decided that what Wirrâl Untethered needed was a secret mystical location at the extreme edge of the map…






























MAINFRAME: On the nature of the data loss there’s ominously little information in the production log. It comes at the very end, where things get fuzzy and dark, where tables and numbers seem to vanish into an eerie nothingness, before their Igaunijan investor pulled the plug…



MAINFRAME: When the project returned it was completely blank.



MAINFRAME: Miraculously enough, it seems that the off-site copy happened to be *on-site* when the catastrophic data loss occurred…



MAINFRAME: S. Luukanen-Kilde, the lead programmer of Fortress Accident: “The off-site copy was on-site because there was no *off-site* anymore, not for me, not after eight months of crunch.”





MAINFRAME: Four months later by an unknown author: “I am the only one left and it’s gotten rather damp here. A few other businesses have gone under, too. Slipstream switched to making skis and the hairdressers just left, cursing Martinaise. They’re right, though, something’s seriously wrong with this place. Martinaise, all of it.”
RADIOCOMPUTER: “Still haven’t gotten an answer from Lintel about what happened. All I could get were the physical coordinates of the error on the East-Insulindian front on that day. Since the computation happened on-air, I reckoned it had to coincide with an actually existing location… I have compared the coordinates to a map of Revachol West. Turns out it’s only 800 metres from here. The address is Saint-Brune 1147. I am going there to look this thing in the eye…”





Let’s try the off-site copy now.







Fuck.

EAST-INSULINDIAN REPEATER STATION: “Received. I will *register* this log-in attempt.”
LOGIC: [Easy: Success] Don’t worry. Passwords have a way of *turning up* sooner or later.

ARIST: [Challenging: Success] You sincerely doubt you will ever find a *different* filament memory password in your time in Martinaise, but you also do not much care, because the off-site copy is blank and you only put it in the radiocomputer out of curiosity.







While we’re in the area, let’s talk to Neha.




NOVELTY DICEMAKER: “Fortress Accident, the radio game studio…” She closes her eyes as some remnant of a memory lights up her face.
EMPATHY: [Medium: Success] She liked them.
NOVELTY DICEMAKER: “They were an interesting bunch. We talked about role-playing systems every now and then. Once I even saw two of them get into fisticuffs over Wirrâl…




NOVELTY DICEMAKER: “Well, I did hear them talking at times…” She looks at the hallway, as if she can still hear them chit-chat behind her curtains on a cigarette break. “They seemed to believe they were historical individuals on some *grand* quest.”



NOVELTY DICEMAKER: “Yes, but when the money started to run out they just began to complain a lot about capitalism. You know, how the markets are *rigged* to keep out new businesses, and so on. In the end they just didn’t get it done. They didn’t have enough willpower to produce something *truly historic*—and to show up to work on time.”



NOVELTY DICEMAKER: “And so is producing something extraordinary.” Her eyes wander to the shelves full of die prototypes and discarded models.
EMPATHY: [Medium: Success] Something strains her face, before she looks up again:




NOVELTY DICEMAKER: “Yes. I guess so. The arcade is an *ancient* failure—before my time. I’m not surprised, however.”



NOVELTY DICEMAKER: “Why would Slipstream SCA have a hundred-years-old recording as their doorbell message? It doesn’t make any sense. I’m still convinced it was nothing more than some elaborate prank.”






NOVELTY DICEMAKER: “Ah, yes, Fortress Accident.” She shakes her head lightly. “It’s too bad they never finished their game… The Wirrâl Untethered die is a variation of a standard role-playing die, only instead of plants it uses motifs of ice and death. And loss, of course.”



NOVELTY DICEMAKER: “It’s an *icositetrahedron*—a 24-sided die that can produced results for 2-sided, 3-sided, 4-sided, 6-sided and 12-sided dice with a single roll. Technically you can also use it for many other sizes, but you may need to re-roll results.”






ARIST: [Easy: Success] Is this the tree across from Roy’s pawn shop that Shivers kept bringing up?






ARIST: [Medium: Success] Let’s try that again. Don’t pat the tree this time.






INTERFACING: It curls up into a mess inside your pocket. If only you could find a way to re-spool it, so that you could hear what’s on the tape…
LOGIC: [Medium: Success] Maybe Roy from the pawnshop can help you with this?




KIM KITSURAGI: “You could also get it fixed at the pawnshop across the street—we shouldn’t waste our time.” He looks at his wristwatch a little impatiently.





To the pawnshop we go, then.





BIRD’S NEST ROY: He slowly finishes his thought: “…but I’m not some Mr. Fixit, I’m a pawnbroker. If you want to pawn the tape, sure. Although it looks pretty… worthless.”






BIRD’S NEST ROY: “Man, you’re really invested in this.” He looks at the bundle of tape in front of him. It shimmers under the shop’s dazzling light show.




BIRD’S NEST ROY: “Yeah.” He nods. “It was. Re-spooling isn’t that difficult, although I had to mend the tape in a few places.”











ARIST: [Formidable: Success] You will never wear this shirt, you already know this. But at least you got rid of some of your disgusting blood money.
LOGIC: [Challenging: Success] It’s not actually blood money.
RHETORIC: [Challenging: Success] All money is blood money.



We return to the humble shack, ready to turn in for the night.





ARIST: [Challenging: Success] As your eyes flit across the room searching for any clues Ruby might have left behind, you notice something off about one of the floorboards…





LOOSE FLOORBOARD: Nothing particular catches your eye. Looks like more reeds. There might be something hidden inside the sand, though.







HAND/EYE COORDINATION: [Medium: Success] It’s extra ammunition. She’s locked and loaded, ready to fight some cops.



ARIST: [Medium: Success] You found Ruby’s hope—her escape. The clue she left behind is ominous, no doubt about that, but you can feel yourself getting closer to *something* even if it’s unclear what that is. Tomorrow’s going to be a long day. Better rest up.