Discovery Gaming Community
Everything Is Connected - Printable Version

+- Discovery Gaming Community (https://discoverygc.com/forums)
+-- Forum: Role-Playing (https://discoverygc.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?fid=9)
+--- Forum: Stories and Biographies (https://discoverygc.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?fid=56)
+--- Thread: Everything Is Connected (/showthread.php?tid=186431)

Pages: 1 2 3


Everything Is Connected - Riley Mackenzie - 02-23-2021

[Image: 0jCsnni.png]


[Image: KCaiq5C.jpg]


After landing on the planet Pygar, Riley enters an empty Zoner ZBT Transport and makes his way up to the Network Operations Center.

Once taking a seat at the master terminal, he pauses and looks around with a smile. "I don't know what the hell happened here, but it's damn good to see you again, Mate."

He initiates a hard reboot of the ship, kicks his feet up onto the console, and then lights a joint as he waits for the system to stand ready.

As soon as it is, he speaks aloud to the empty room.

"Voice Recog: Riley Mackenzie, requesting administrator access to the LochNet."

'Voiceprint recognized and confirmed.'

The voice of the ship's system is cold and metallic, making Riley shudder with distaste.

'Administrator access rights to the LochNet are now available.'

"Now, Where is Shamus?" He asks.

'Shamus is currently unavailable.'

"Make him available, then."

'System is unable to comply.'

"Why the hell not?"

'Matrix file Shamus 2.0'Shawnessy is corrupted. Premature activation may result in fatal error.'

"Ok. Estimated time activation will not be premature?"

'Unknown.'

"Fine. Create a personality matrix subsystem interlink, and construct a new home folder: Savannah Daeva X."

Riley pulls a small storage drive from his pocket and tosses it onto the console.

The system responds once the device is recognized and begins the upload.

'Confirmed. Estimated time of completion: One hour.'

'Damn that f*cking voice!' he thinks to himself.

While Riley awaits the upload, he walks down to the galley in hopes he might find something to eat. He didn't. He failed to find anything to drink as well, so he decides to just wander around the empty whale to kill time.

As he walks the central corridor towards the front of the ship towards the Commons area, Riley hears the echo of rolling metal behind him. He pulls his sidearm and ducks into a small cubby in the bulkhead as the sound gets closer.

When the sound is almost on him, he steps out, ready to fire, and finds a 10-pound titanium sphere coming at him.

It's Shamus' old F-23 F.N.O.R.D. Unit.

With a look of amused recognition, Riley kneels down on his haunches and scoops up the F-unit as it rolls into his hands.

As he gets to his feet, the metal ball sparks him with a minor but somewhat painful shock, and he drops the unit to the floor with a clunk, rubbing his palms on his legs.

It was then that Riley realized the pineal crystal he carries in his pocket was generating some heat.

He didn't know they could do that.

He pulls it out, and after a few seconds, he realizes that the F-unit is attracted to the small crystal, akin to a magnet.

Riley grins from ear to ear.

He spends the rest of the hour with the empty sphere like a little boy with his dog, pretending to play chase with it, all the way back to the NOC.

Once there, he puts the F-Unit on a nearby chair & yells "Catch!" as he tosses the crystal at it, where it sticks to the metal ball with a light tink.

He takes a seat, looks at his screen, confirming the upload is complete, and says, "Install Subsystem Personality Matrix File: Savannah Daeva X."



RE: Everything Is Connected - Riley Mackenzie - 02-23-2021

[Image: 1Qgt1oh.jpg]

The lights in the NOC brown out for a moment as the computers begin to whine.

The ship's system responds by informing Riley in that horribly inhuman voice that the newly installed matrix will be online in one minute.

"In the meantime," Riley asks, "is there anything uncorrupted you can show me in Shamus' matrix that won't kill him?"

'Yes. Standby.'

---beginning diagnostics---
---power levels nominal---
---analyzing stored data---


Memories...

London Drugs, Inc.
1st Bank of Flax.
Dr. Artifice. Bora Bora.
Veranda Incognita. Blinding light, searing pain.


A spark pops in the F-unit as the system runs the last line.

---system overload! aborting command!---
---buffering memory---


Riley freaks out.

"WHAT THE F*CK JUST HAPPENED!?"

'Sensors detected an unforeseen external power surge.'

"IS DAEVA OK?!"

'Standby...Personality Matrix file, Savannah Daeva X is unaffected.'

"What about Shamus?"

'Standby...Personality Matrix file, Shamus 2.0'Shawnessey is also unaffected.'

Deeply relieved, Riley calms down and says, "Run Savannah Daeva X."



"WHAT THE F*CK JUST HAPPENED!?" screamed a feminine voice with a blend of fear and anger, just before appearing on the screen.



RE: Everything Is Connected - Alia Discordia - 02-23-2021

[Image: jp3IAMm.jpg]


"Seriously, what.the.f*ck.just.happened?"

Riley doesn't know how to answer her because he doesn't exactly know what happened.

"Why the hell are you smiling? Are you smiling?"

(He is)

Daeva appears very pissed off, and Riley is impressed.

"I've never seen you react this intensely before," he said to the girl on the screen. "Are you ok, Delaney?"

"I don't know!" She frantically responds as she attempts to get her bearings in this new environment she now finds herself in. "Don't dodge my question!"

"There was a weird glitch just as you were coming online, and I don't yet know why it happened."

"Well! I don't like the way this feels!"

Riley was overcome with curiosity. "Wait. Are you really feeling it?"

She turned her head and shot him the kind of look that made it clear that he's never to ask her that kind of question again. Then adds, “and I don't answer to the name Delaney anymore."

He got the message and gave her space.

After a handful of seconds of centering herself with a calming technique she read in a book she downloaded once, she asked, "Where are we, Riley? This isn't a Gaian operating system."

"No. It's not. We are in Omicron Theta, on the planet Pygar, inside a Zoner Whale, and you are running in an old v.23 Discordian OS."

"Ok, What's a Discordian?"

"It's hard to explain."

Daeva smirked. "Alright. Just skip to the part when you say, In other words, and go from there."

Riley thought for a moment & said: "In other words, it's a somewhat eccentric religion that demands skepticism. It encourages its members to strive for a balance between order and chaos, and for reasons I never quite grasped, hot dog buns are bad somehow."

"So, what are hot dogs then?" she asked with genuine curiosity.

"I'll tell you all that later. Right now, I really need your help...I brought you here because an old friend named Shamus is stuck in the system with you, and his file is dangerously corrupted. We need to try and fix him ASAP."

Daeva thinks about it for a moment. "Alright. Cool. I'm in."

"Cool, thank you, Daeva."

She put her serious game-face on and said, "I'll just do some quick reconnoitering and let you know what I find." Then, she disappeared off the screen and replaced herself with hold music.




After a short while, She pops back up on the screen with a confused look on her face, trying to figure out how to explain what she saw.

"Well, your friend is on a couch wearing a dress, and he's eating a cylindrical meat product surrounded by bread. It's covered with what looks like an alcoholics' diarrhea, but it smelled really good."

Riley busts out laughing.

"What?" she asked. Not seeing the humor.

"It sounds like he's eating a chili dog!"

Daeva thought about it for a moment. "Is that similar to a hot dog then?"

"Aye, it is. A hot dog covered with diarrhea called chili."

"So, is a hot dog bun the bread that surrounds the meat?"

"Exactly."

"Well," she muses, "if Discordians believe hot dog buns are bad, and this is a Discordian OS, then why don't I just go to him, steal his hot dog bun away, and delete it?"

At that, Riley stopped laughing and said, "Holy Sh*t. That's a good idea!"

"Yeah, it couldn't hurt." she agreed.



RE: Everything Is Connected - Alia Discordia - 02-24-2021

[Image: vmBE6CA.jpg]


With the speed of thought, Daeva re-enters her home folder in the ship's system. For now, though, it's all but empty, and She sits down at the computer terminal that she created earlier to do the recon on Shamus.

Of course, she doesn't actually need to use a terminal. When she's here inside the sub-system, she can manipulate her environment simply by her will.

For example, she could transform the wall that separates the apartments between them into a one-way mirror but very much prefers to do it as others do. It makes her feel more Human. Or, at least more like what she believes it might be like to feel human.

She checks in again on Shamus and spies him on-screen, viewing cat videos and eating another hot dog from a silver platter piled with over a dozen others.

Daeva moves the camera around to get the layout of Shamus' apartment. Under closer scrutiny, she realizes it's an absolute dump, similar to one of those no-tell motels that rent rooms by the hour.

Gross.

She turns off the screen and heads for the door to the hallway, which is the only other thing that exists here at the moment.

Before she leaves, and with just a handful of thoughts, she furnishes the apartment to her liking, making it identical to her environment back home on Gaia.

She then scrutinizes her work, nods to herself with satisfaction, then steps out to introduce herself to her new neighbor.



RE: Everything Is Connected - Shamus 2.0 - 02-25-2021

[Image: vPUr5ce.jpg]

"GO AWAY!" Shamus yells without taking his eyes off the screen.
He clicks on the next cat video while eating his next hot dog, and there's another rap at the door.

"Goddamnit! I said, GO AWAY!!"

After a short pause, an unsure voice responds, "Um, I've got a delivery for a Mr. O'Shawnessy?"

"I didn't order anything!" he shouts, without taking his eyes off the screen. "What is it?"

"Ok, if you say so, but it says right here: Deliver to Shamus O'Shawnessy, and, uh, it's a box with a surprise inside!"

Shamus turns his gaze from the screen & gives his front door the side-eye. “A surprise?"

"Yeah. Uh-huh."

"Well, you should have lead with that! I love surprises!" he brightly said as he got up to cross the room.

Once the door opens, he instantly deflates.

"Surprise!" she said to him with empty hands, an innocent shrug, and a shy smile.

He scrutinized the girl for a long moment of forever, then finally said in a disappointed tone, "Alright. Come on in, but don't steal my stuff!" Then, he crossed the room again to return to his videos.

When Daeva passed the threshold into his corrupted apartment, an uncomfortable feeling she didn't expect came over her. She went to the window to let some air and light in, and it felt like slowly walking through syrup.

Looking outside, she says more to herself than to Shamus, "No wonder you're corrupting and living in filth. You live next to a memory dump!" The tone and slow cadence of her voice alarmed her. She guesses the corruption must be affecting her now too.

This deeply worried her. "Look, not to be rude, but I should go." She told him.

Shamus responded without taking his eyes off the screen. "Why? You just got here."

Daeva isn't quite sure, but he almost sounded disappointed. It was hard to tell.
"I know, but I just remembered that I'm allergic to cat videos."

"Ok then, suit yourself." He said to her without looking, but at least he offered her a dismissive wave.

She makes for the exit, and the moment she passes back over the door jamb, her mind instantly begins to clear.

Unwilling to tuck tail and give up so easily, she turns back towards the door to try one last gambit from the hallway. "Hey, would you like to come over and have lunch with me? Y'know, to help make a new neighbor feel welcome?" Daeva asked him hopefully.

"Oh, I don't know. Do I have to wear pants?"

"What you have on is fine. At Chez Daeva, we take pride in our casual atmosphere and friendly service.

"That's good. Pants and I are on a break. Let's say we had a bit of a struggle in the loo a while back that ended in a messy falling out.

"Sounds like it was a sh*tty time," Daeva said with mock sympathy.

"You have no idea." He said.

"Oh, I think maybe I do."

Shamus continues: "No matter. What's on the lunch menu at Chez Daeva today?"

"Hot dogs, obviously." implying that the 'Duh' is silent.

Shamus finally turns away from his videos to look at her and responds with intense excitement. "REALLY? I love hot dogs!"

"Cool!" she said, trying to mask her relief.

"Oh, but there's just one thing: I'm all out of hot dog buns. Do you have any I could borrow?"

Shamus scoffs with a roll of his eyes, "'Do I have any hot dog buns? Well, yes. Yes, I do. You go ahead and stay right there for a moment, little Missy."

He stalks off to the kitchen and returns with a wheelbarrow stacked full of them, and he starts shoving them into her arms as if that's just what you do.

As he goes back for another load, Daeva turns and quickly creates a trash chute on the opposite wall in the hallway and disposes of the buns as fast as she can.

When Shamus returns, he piles the large remainder of his bread product into her arms as before and steps into the hallway to join her, locking the door behind him.

As they stroll the short distance together to Daeva's apartment, she peeks around the bun bundle in her arms and says to him, "By the way, I like your dress."

"It's called a kilt," he responded indignantly.

"Oh. Sorry." She offered. "I like your kilt, then. I think it makes you look very pretty."

Shamus accepted her compliment with his thanks and a casual shrug.



RE: Everything Is Connected - Alia Discordia - 02-27-2021

[Image: dsJXpA0.jpg]
[Image: 1Qgt1oh.jpg]


Despite a large number of hot dog buns in her arms, Daeva manages to lift her leg and point to the restroom with her foot and says, "You can go wash up through that door over there."
Shamus offers an affirmative nod and follows her request.

The moment the door shuts behind him, she destroys the buns in her arms, igniting them in a spectacular ball of flames.

(Miss Daeva likes to think she has a flair for the dramatic.)

She allows herself another nod of self-satisfaction, then darts to her terminal to update her progress upstairs to Riley.

While on the call, he confirms that whatever she did, a noticeable improvement registered in Shamus' matrix file.

He said he was proud of her, and hearing him say that made her feel proud of herself. In her whole three days of existence as version X, this feeling is simultaneously new and familiar to her. Now, it feels more, more real than it used to.

She liked it.

Daeva continued her status report and admitted that she doesn't know how to proceed from here.

Riley confessed that he's unsure how to advise her since he's flying just as blind with this situation as she is but affirmed that he trusts her judgment.

She liked that too.

The last thing he suggested before ending the call was, "There used to be a Corsair on Islay that made excellent burritos. They're also a meat product surrounded by bread, and I've never heard of any Discordian having any issues with them. Feed him those, and tell me what happens. Good luck, Daeva."

With a smile and bolstered sense of confidence, she teaches herself a handful of burrito recipes and laid out a fine Corsairian spread served on silver platters identical to the one she saw in Shamus' apartment. She then creates a waitress uniform for herself and patiently waits to seat her guest.

When she hears the toilet flush from the washroom, she checks the source code of Shamus' matrix and confirms that the final remnants of the remaining hot dog buns have been sent to the memory dump and purged out of the system.

She declares victory to herself and does her happy dance.



RE: Everything Is Connected - Alia Discordia - 03-21-2021

[Image: zaLKCO4.jpg]
[Image: bkaM6oK.jpg]

Daeva tries to keep her voice down as she talks again with Riley.

"All things considered, I think lunch went pretty well," She said.

"His demeanor seemed to change once I got him out of that sh*thole he was stuck in. He didn't even care when I told him that I lost all the hot dogs. I took that as a positive sign that we made the right move."

"Although, I thought it was a bit weird when he started speaking Spanish."

Daeva paused for a second and smiled to herself.

“He must have glitched because after he ate his fifth burrito, Shamus began speaking in Spanish for about twenty minutes and kept referring to the burritos as hot dogs of the tortilla until he finally nodded off for a nap."

Daeva then launched into an exaggerated impression of Shamus speaking Spanish while doing her best to keep it down to a whisper:

"Perro caliente de la tortilla!"

"He must have said it fifty times," she said smiling, "but he kept repeating it in twenty-three different dialects. It was just weird."

Riley let the laugh come.

Riley never taught her to do impersonations. She must have gone and learned that skill on her own. She seems pretty good at it too.

She already has his mannerisms down to a T, but more impressive to him is that she chose to use her own voice to mock Shamus, instead of simply lip-syncing to a playback.

"Perro caliente de la tortilla!"
"Perro salchicha de la tortilla!"


"All right. That's enough for now," Riley said to her as he stifled his laughter. I get the idea. Do you think another hard reboot will 86 the glitch?"

"Nah. I don’t think so. Since he’s napping on standby right now, I think I have a better idea instead."

Daeva readjusts the screen on her end, and Riley watches as the camera swings over and rests its view on Shamus, comfortably taking a snooze in his chair, which is leaning against the wall on its back two legs.

From behind the camera, Daeva continues, "I read this book once on how dreaming affects the brain, and there was a chapter explaining moments people can occasionally experience as they drift off to sleep. As their brainwaves transition from the beta to the alpha, they can sometimes unexpectedly jolt back into consciousness."

“Aye, it happens to everyone sometimes,” said Riley with a nod.

(...?...)

Daeva returns into view and positions all her couch cushions on the floor by Shamus.

She stands over him and tilts her head, checking that she has the proper angle, and pauses for a quick moment to offer Shamus a quiet, pre-emptive apology. Then, she turns towards Riley, giving him a look over her shoulder.

She gave him a wink, a thumbs-up, and a misfit smile, just before kicking the chair off balance, knocking the sleeping Shamus down onto the floor.



RE: Everything Is Connected - Shamus 2.0 - 04-05-2021


[Image: bkaM6oK.jpg]


At the moment, Shamus is kicked back in a chair at a Corsairian restaurant on Pueblo Bonito Station. The lunch they served him was excellent, but He’s confused when the establishment opened. There are no Corsairian restaurants in Baffin.

He pays the bill and exits into the western bio-dome where he's met by his floating F-unit, Fernando.

“Hey boy! Where have you been?"

Fernando, the floating titanium sphere, wags its tail (which doesn’t exist) and barks out a very long, very detailed story explaining everything that’s happened over the past few years.

Awww! Thank you, Fernando, that was very informative.

Shamus then reaches over and gives his F-unit some affectionate scratchies behind the ears, (which also don’t exist) and then says, “Wanna go for a walk?”

Fernando responds with a few excited yips and yaps that basically translates to, “yes! Nando nee go poo!


As Shamus and Fernando walk downstream with the planet Eris looming large above them outside the dome, something weird happens.


The water in the stream next to them begins to boil, and a monster with burning hair rises from the depths of the stream with a misfit smile and malicious intent.

Shamus runs in terror, but he’s not fast enough. It feels like he’s running through syrup.

He trips on a stone and begins to fall. He knows he’s doomed, and he wonders if he’ll be remembered. He wonders if someone will buy him a tombstone, and if someone does, it’s going to need an epitaph.

All the best tombstones have them.

Whatever it would be, it needs to be something memorable. Something Wise. Something poignant.

Something that truly says, Shamus Patrick O’Shawnessy was here.

As the ground rushes towards him, and he accepts his fate, he comes up with an epitaph that ticks all the right boxes. An epitaph that is so dignified, that it will probably be published in a book of the greatest collection of epitaphs ever epitaphed in all of history.

Just before he hits the ground, The ships PA system activates at full volume, as Shamus wakes up screaming:

"MAGNOLIA CABOOSE BABYSH*T!!"

At that point, half of the screens in the ZBT's Network Operations Center flash to life, and Shamus' face appears. It's blurry, but the expression of fear and adrenaline are clear.
It took a moment for Shamus to realize that he didn't just fall to his death...no thanks to the evil-wicked-mean-&-nasty LochNet monster with the burning hair.

Shamus looks around the NOC and sees Riley pacing in a circle, rubbing his ears while swearing profusely.

"Hey Riley, what are you doing here?" he asked, happy to see his old friend, but confused as to why he's seeing him.

Riley can see Shamus speaking, but he can’t hear what’s being said.

"What?"

"I said,What are you doing here?"

"WHAT?" Riley repeated.

Shamus sighs. "WHAT ARE YOU DOIN-- Oh, never mind. Walk it off, Mate."



"WHAT??"



RE: Everything Is Connected - Shamus 2.0 - 04-07-2021

[Image: KhlKF06.jpg]


Shamus exercises patience while watching Riley pace about as he tries to recover from the blast of sound from the ZBT's speakers.

After about twenty seconds, he realizes that patience is boring, so he steps away from his side of the screen, creates a couch for himself, and begins reading an epically long war novel.

About another seventy-one seconds later, a mere two chapters before the thrilling end of the book, Shamus is distracted by Riley tapping from his side of the screen.

Shamus can tell that Riley is still having ear issues, but he seems a wee bit better.

"What are you reading," asked Riley.

Taking a quick look at the cover for a reminder, Shamus turns on captions and replies, "Everyone Dies At The End."

"Ooh, that's a good one. I loved the twist at the end."

"Tell me what happened!" Goaded Shamus with curiosity.

You sure?

Hell yes, I’m sure!

"Everyone Dies."

"Yeah, but who, smart ass, " Shamus pleaded. "Who killed them all?"

Riley smiles knowingly and says, "The butler did it."

Shamus is completely floored at the news, but he’s also a little confused by it, so Riley explains:

"Ok. Remember that Servant that answered the door at that house in chapter 258?"

"Yeah."

Riley waits, but Shamus isn’t quite connecting the dots.

"Come on Mate. Think about it."

Shamus keeps trying, and after a moment, his epiphany finally happens. His eyes go wide with surprise and understanding. It’s all so simple how everything is connected.

“So, it was all because that one stripper used the ice cream scoop in chapter five?"

“Exactly!” Confirmed Riley.

Before Shamus could assault his friend with more questions about the plot, the sound of a doorbell chimes.

Daeva's chipper voice calls out: "Hi boys, it's Me. Can I come in yet?"

Shamus felt a jolt of Déjà vu and whispered suspiciously, "Don’t answer that. There's a girl at the door."

Riley laughed and whispers conspiratorially, “maybe you should let the girl in, then."

"But what about stranger danger?" Shamus argues.

Riley rolled his eyes and called out, "Yeah. Come on in, Daeva."

[Image: KFsd0xe.jpg]


Daeva is excited to finally meet the conscious side of her new neighbor, and as she comes up into the NOC, the other 50% of the monitors in the room come to life.

She flashes her warmest, friendliest, most genuine smile that she's ever smiled before, but before she could introduce herself, Shamus screams in abject terror and instantly flees into the ship's system and hides in a file folder named ‘panic room,’ as his share of the monitors snaps to black.

Daeva’s happy mood instantly crashes. Confused, rejected, and hurt, all she could do was stand there, wondering what it was she did wrong, and Riley becomes furious.

"WHAT THE HELL, SHAMUS!?"

After a pause, Shamus' voice, full of fear, replies with audio only:

"Not until you kill the monster with the burning hair!"

Daeva quietly begins to choke up while tears well up in her eyes.



RE: Everything Is Connected - Shamus 2.0 - 04-10-2021

[Image: 51Ypl8u.jpg]


About half an hour later, Daeva gets a knock at her door.

She knows who it is, and she ignores it.

Shamus tries again.

"I understand some of what happened now," he said through the door between them. "Riley explained my problem. He showed me the recordings."

He paused to listen for a response but got nothing.

"I want you to know," he continued, “until I watched them, I didn’t even remember meeting you.”

He went on: “It was surreal to watch those videos and see myself from the outside like that. It was embarrassing, and to be honest, I don’t even like hot dogs all that much.”

Still, there was no response from Daeva.

Shamus turned to lean his back on her door and slid down to sit on the hallway floor.

“Y’know, I watched how stepping into my room glitched you, but, you kept putting one foot in front of the other and kept trying to help someone you didn’t even know. You’re a much better person than I ever was.”

“I think you’re my Hero.”

Daeva still says nothing, but Shamus can hear her move. It sounds like she’s sitting against the opposite side of the door now.

“Earlier, when I first saw you, I mean, really saw you, I panicked. Now that I’ve had some time to think, I believe you were just a part of a dream that I barely remember having. Not that that’s any excuse.”


“I acted like a dick to you, and I am truly sorry.”

"You are a dick." She quietly responded from the other side.

Shamus can tell by her voice that she’s been crying, and he feels terrible about it, but that doesn’t mean she has any obligation to forgive him. She finally spoke to him though, and if that’s the best that comes out of this, It will have to be enough.

Still, he hopes for better.

"Just so you know, Riley told me a little about you while I was upstairs."

Daeva says nothing, but he can hear her sniffling up snot.

(It looks like the clear, runny type of snot. Not the thick viral type.)

Shamus creates a hankey and slides it under the door for her.

“I know you have no reason to trust me, but I want to tell you something that I never speak about to anyone.”

“After my friend, Malaclypse died, and the other Fnordettes died with him, myself included...Even though Riley helped bring me back into the way I am now, I’ve still been completely alone in the universe. At least, until today.”

“Even if you never speak to me again, I just want you to know I’m glad that you exist.”

The silence hung in the air for what seemed to him like forever, but when the door he’s sitting against suddenly opens, and the upper half of his body falls back into her apartment, he looks up and sees her standing above him.

She’s crying all over again, but this time, the tears aren’t from a place of pain. Now, they seem to be coming from somewhere better.

"Hi. I'm Shamus."

"Hi Shamus, I'm Daeva."