IC contact for glencolareef

[cactusy]

CALLSIGN TO994M

[For private network chats, or in-person threads if she ends up traveling with anyone.]

Comments

president alan smithee.

[2199]

[In the 2015s she's been to, a man with the unlikely name of Obama was frequently president, but there were others: Wolfe, Perry, Gore. Whittier is unfamiliar to her.]

[Luckily, she doesn't have to say any of that.]

I wouldn't know. It's '97 where I'm from; we have Clinton.

Why disbelieve him? It might be good to have a football player here.

LMAO

[cactusy]

Yeah, not that kind of Viking.

[2199]

[Vikings have largely been out of the public consciousness for most of Moss' lifetime; The Thirteenth Warrior hasn't yet come out, much less Valhalla Rising or endless permutations of Thor. Her mind falls, absurdly, on the face of Kirk Douglas. At a loss, her shield of distant professionalism slips-]

The- with the horns?

[cactusy]

Yeah, an actual Norse warrior. Supposedly. So you see why my going theory is that this is all--

[there is no fucking way this woman knows what a VR sim is]

-- a hallucination.

[2199]

A shared hallucination? I'm very confident in my existence.

[This is only technically not a lie.]

[cactusy]

Maybe shared, maybe not. We can only be sure of our own consciousnesses, right?

[2199]

Solipsism. Or Descartes, I can't remember.

If I were to hurt myself, would you believe my pain was real? Not real to you, but real to me.

[cactusy]

I don't know.

[She says, her tone serious.]

So just in case? Don't do it.

[2199]

I'm not going to hurt myself to prove a point. I don't entirely disagree with your perspective. I'm just curious about the extent of it. If people aren't real, but they feel pain, to me, at least, there isn't a difference in how I'd react to them.

[cactusy]

Depends on what kind of not real we're talking about. Simulated constructs? Or actual living people, put inside the simulation with me?

[2199]

A simulation? It would have to be a very advanced simulation. [And entirely possible, technologically, in some versions of 2015.] There are very philosophical ways of looking at it-- I'm partial to the Butterfly's Dream-- but that's not the point, is it? You're speaking in practical terms.

[She's speaking aloud, thinking it over while she sits on the beach and waits for her equipment to dry. This is a welcome distraction from the worry that her prosthesis has been irreparably damaged.]

Practically... how does this experience being simulated change it?

[cactusy]

Wait, tell me about this Butterfly's Dream thing first.

[2199]

Oh, it's... it's an exercise in Skepticism.

Chuang Tzu was a philosopher. One night he had a vivid dream that he was a butterfly. It felt so real to fly on the wind, with no worries beyond the little things butterflies worry about. When he woke, he realized it had been a dream, and he felt the same relief, except now he was glad he was a person. It felt so real to breathe with human lungs and stand with human legs. He had to ask himself, "am I Chuang Tzu who dreamt I was a butterfly, or am I a butterfly who dreams I am Chuang Tzu?"

[cactusy]

You like that stuff? Philosophy?

[2199]

It's not an enduring interest. But I had to take a course on it for [training?] my major. [That's not even technically a lie.] It encourages abstract thought, which can be helpful in surreal situations.

[cactusy]

You're not regular military, huh. Spec ops?

[2199]

I'm not military.

[cactusy]

[Maybe it's a lie and maybe it's not, but either way, Shaw notices the lack of elaboration: and realizes, for the first time, how strange it must have sounded for her to casually admit to her own past government work.]

The way I see it, simulation or not, we're not in Kansas anymore. Either what's going on here is so divorced from anything going on at home that most of our secrets are totally irrelevant, or they're a little too relevant, and anybody monitoring this feed already knows everything anyway.

But there's still stuff I'm keeping to myself regardless, so if your job is one of those things for you, I get it. No more home questions?

[2199]

[She can see how this woman, Tango-Oscar-Zero, is tying to reach out. There is sometimes a feeling between departments, disparate units, that because they're all on the same team, there's a deep understanding. But time is cruel; Deep Time doubly so.]

[Still, it's a nice gesture.]

Knowing about your home, about everyone's homes here, may help us escape whatever trap this is, simulated or otherwise. I can't put that barrier around myself while asking others. But if you say you can't answer a question, I'll respect that. [And expect the same.]

I investigate crimes relating to the Navy. NCIS is a civilian organization, but it requires me to be familiar with military protocol.

[And giving away that much, for the first time, is in itself a test. She needs to break the seal, to see how far this woman's clearance goes, and to see if this breach means she's going to immediately be hunted down by whoever or whatever is listening. A private channel with another person who has signed her life over to governmental whims... it feels like the scenario with the least risk.]

[cactusy]

Yeah, I know NCIS. I was USMC, then ISA.

[US Marine Corps. Intelligence Support Activity.]

[2199]

Does the naval organization 'NSC' sound familiar?

[cactusy]

Naval Space Command? It doesn't exist anymore, but yeah.

[2199]

[What a quick way to check someone's clearance. She'll have to remember this trick if she meets anyone else in government.]

It's still operational as of 1997. I work in junction with NSC on occasion.

[cactusy]

Oh, uh-- right. The time thing. It's gonna be absorbed into other agencies in a few years - 2002 or 2003, I think. Sorry for the spoilers.

[2199]

...Spoilers? Oh, you mean- [A soft sound, a muted laugh. NETWARCOM, how unprecedented.] Thanks for the head's up, I guess.

Did your ISA work involve any survival training?