Metal rods stretch across the white window frame like misplaced skeletons. You are loathe to touch them. You can see your garden in your peripheral vision, the cabbage overgrown this year because there's no one to tend to them. The placement of the bars across your window means that there is only a small gap of fresh air that can squeeze through. \n\nThere's a stone path wrapping around your house, caressed by wildflowers and other weeds. It's a tantalizing, summery image. \n\nYou can just try your best to find your calm in your [[bedroom|Bedroom01]], or you can go to your [[closet|Closet1]].
You're quite proud of the inventiveness of this typewriter. With a few missing keys, no one would think that this is a heritage piece and take it away. However, it actually hides an encryption scanner for some of the most important people in your life. \n\n[[Scan it|Encrypt01]] t-h-r--oug-h w-h-e-re-- the-- p-a-p-er-- is-- su-pp-os-e-d--t-o--f-e-ed---.
<<silently>>\n<<set $window_porridge ="no">>\n<<set $desk_porridge ="no">>\n<<endsilently>>Your eyes automatically snap open. After endless months, you have come to expect that, within fifteen minutes of 07:00, booted feet will echo along the floorboards, steadily climb up the straight wooden staircase, and come to an abrasive knock at your bedroom door. \n\nYou used to feel distantly mesmerized by how rhythmic those footfalls are, as though with a complete disregard for the follies of hysteria. You've taught yourself to keep your gaze low, knee-level, unless some kind of gesture told you otherwise. Your eyes automatically flit away from their faces after a while (there's nothing to see there, their expressions carved from stone). You used to hate your own subordination. Recently, you don't know if you should hold onto those flights of feeling and fantasy. Sometimes it's become so habitual that you don't even bother.\n\nYou still hold onto some things, like missing your own kitchen on the first level of the house, with the tangerine-coloured tiles opening out to the veranda, and missing the scent of lavender and sage in your miniature vegetable garden. \n\nYou can go to your [[window|Window1]] or to your [[closet|Closet1]]. \n
The encryption key has an etched design on the back that is reminiscent of something Jamie would used to doodle on your margins, and nobody else's. \n\nAre you considering this with [[hope|Encrypt02]] or [[trepidation|Encrypt03]]?
You are in your bedroom. The very pronoun in possessive case feels cloying and discomfiting to you. \n\n<html>There is another door to your left that is boarded up and padlocked. This used to lead to your ensuite washroom. Because of the wall-mounted mirror and the two windows in the washroom, they just thought it'd be easier to prevent any <i>incidents</i> by removing your access to it altogether. You <i>could</i> go use the hallway bathroom in the middle of the night, but you rather not run into them, so you have an old bucket as chamberpot. It used to feel a bit sordid, at first.\n</html>\n\nThere's the thrashing knock on the door. You had barely any time to stare at the hinges before the knob turned and slammed into the opposing wall. \n\nYou see a pair of [[military boots|Bedroom02]] snarl past the threshold, scraping the varnish.
The uniformed man who invaded your privacy today is known to you as "Jack". You don't know if that's a real name. His grey slacks flex around his knees, and he seems ready to steamroll into military exercise. \n\nHis voice is smoke-torn: "Get up. You can head out to the hallway of this floor today." It's a very typical start of the day, these voices with gravelly direction and no inflection. Those can be considered decent days, at least as a start.\n\nYou are already up, and you wonder about the routine. It's a common habit, as you know that you're important enough to be kept alive and healthy (enough). You still have slippers that you wear, socks untidily mashed into its cushiony lining. \n\nYou tiptoe out into the hallway, walls bruised with morning light. You can go to the [[study|Study01]] or the [[hallway washroom|Washroom01]]. You sense from the shadows moving behind the door of the second bedroom that you're not supposed to go in.
You peer out the window, grimy with weathering, crosshatched by metal bars. In the past, with the window open, you can hear the squeals of playing children from the nearby daycare.\n\nA guard stands idly by your garden, his bald head bouncing some of the early morning sunlight. He tosses a finished cigarette into your vegetable patch. \n\nYou look away. You should be used to the little moments of humiliation like this now, but there's not much reason to stay in this room. You can go into the [[hallway|Hallway01]].
<<set $window_porridge = "yes">>You look outside as you eat, hoping distantly that the guard in your garden isn't damaging your plants. The porridge is thick and congealed, so you mash your spoon around as though it'd help things. \n\nYour spoon hit something hard and metallic that gave out a clang. You dribble some porridge down your shirt in surprise, and in the mess, you flail your arms around. \n\nThe guard in the garden below swings his hawkish gaze up at you, and immediately you can see him gesturing to a fellow guard out of your line of vision. You come to your senses and move from his view. You quickly pick up the [[gleaming metal thing|Metal01]] about the size of your thumbnail, still goopy with porridge, and stuff it into the toe box of your slippers.\n\nWithin a second, the [[door|Metal01]] bangs open.
It's almost strange that they've left you this one true luxury, the wooden bookshelf lined with books of all shapes, colours, and content. Some of the tomes are dog-eared, inherited and well-loved, both from friends and from strangers. Some of them seem uncreased but for the first few pages. \n\nSome of them are missing since the guards have taken over the premises. You try not to assume too much about why a certain volume is missing, instead of another. Sometimes you find a page leaving around, but you know that you're pretty meticulous about your collection. The gap-tooth look does bring a pang, since this is your fondest sanctuary of all.\n\nThere's deep memories here, embedded between citations and philosophies, opinions and fictions. Here's Baudrillaud's //Simulacra and Simulation//, which you remember keenly reading out loud with [[Jamie|JamieIntro01]]. Here's Lefebvre's //Dialectical Materialism//, which apparently took [[Matthew|MattIntro01]] two years to puzzle through because it took him forever to return it.\n\nThere's a kind of calm here, even after all this time. You can look out a [[window|Window02]], sit down at the [[desk|Desk01]] or go back out to the [[hallway|Hallway01]].
You are back in your study, surrounded by your little treaures, your library collection. \n\n<html>If you were being honest, there's a few "guilty pleasures" in there too. <i>Dracula</i>, <i>Frankenstein</i>, <i>Lord of the Rings</i>, the <i>Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz</i> are all titles which you've re-read so much that their spines bore brunt marks.</html> \n\nYou can eat [[by the window|Window03]], standing upright, or [[at the desk|Desk02]].
You are in your study, surrounded by your little treaures, your library collection. \n\n<<if $desk_porridge eq "yes">>On your desk, there is an old [[typewriter|Typewriter01]] that probably still works, and a [[stack of lined paper|Paper01]] that is kept from budging with an apple-size of a piece of [[concrete|Rock01]]. <<else>>That observation seems to ring hollowly. Your gaze skitters; Today so far has been lucky as far as the extent of disciplinary measure is concerned.\n\nOn your desk, there is an old [[typewriter|Typewriter01]] that probably still works, and a [[stack of lined paper|Paper01]] that is kept from budging with an apple-size of a piece of [[concrete|Rock01]].<<endif>>
{{{<You never wait a moment, do you.>}}} Jamie responds. There's a touch of humour in her voice, and an edge. {{{<Well, let me bring you down memory lane a bit. Remember how I had always wanted to become a doctor when we were still in public school? Look after both my faculties as well as that of my fellow mates. Suppose I'm truly trying to pick up that role again.>}}}\n\nShe pauses, because even for her deflections, she may be aware that she's laying it on too thick. Her vertebral column cracked like a whip, and she must've twisted in her seat. \n\n<[[What are you actually saying?|JamieConvo05]]> So much smokes and mirrors, you're sick of it. \n<[[I remember. You wanted to help people, once.|JamieConvo06]]> So obviously passive-aggressive.
By her very intonation, you could tell that Jamie's arched her dark brow. {{{<Aren't you becoming placid, my dear. Not the first question that I expected of you. But since you asked so kindly, I'll inform you that if you at all try to track down the location of the transmission, you will only get an endless force feedback loop. Quite a painful one, as I've heard from one of my engineers.>}}}\n\nIt's such the kind of thing that Jamie would say, the unexpected threats that are decorated with a friendly tone. And it seems so completely out of place. It's as though she is completely oblivious to what you have been going through these last indeterminable months. You stay silent. Sometimes that gets her to say more. \n\nShe does rise to the occasion, in her own way. {{{<Let's just say I have missed you, old girl. You can hear things that no one can. You bring things to the table that no one else does, and I... miss that.>}}}\n\nSaid with so much conviction, it actually sounds borderline genuine. If it wasn't for your current circumstances, you may be inclined to believe her. That she doesn't have an ulterior motive. \n\n<[[So I'm of use to you again?|JamieConvo03]]> Cynical old you. You play the role well. \n<[[I miss you too. You don't know what it's like.|JamieConvo04]]> Might as well kill her with kindness.\n
{{{ <I've been looking out for you too, you abhorrent child.> }}} said the smooth voice. You have heard her voice so many times and for so many years that, when your ties to her completely broke, you were at a loss with your very stream-of-consciousness. Jamie.\n\nYou've had dreams about what you'd say to her when you heard from her again, fantasies scaling from verbal bitch fights to asking her to right things again, to promising that everything would be alright. But that pet name threw you off. That pet name that came from years of you growing up together, as so-called partners in crime, two girls who could rib at each other and get the best out of each other. \n\nBut what do you say now? Your throat feels dry. Your inner voice whispers, even though no one could possibly tamper with this invisible, electronic signal spanning who-knows-how-far. \n\nSo many things you want to ask, so many things you'd rather not know. Where to begin?\n<[[What are you up to now?|JamieConvo02]]> Lightly, way too lightly, as though you two are meeting in a park on a normal summer day.\n<[[What are you contacting me for? Why now?|JamieConvo03]]> Some of your belligerence would've snuck into this one.
{{{ <I tried to follow the rules that we set for ourselves. >}}} Her voice softened, became much more reflexive. {{{ <The demands that we had for purifying government from its corrupted investments really isn't all that radical. We always said that amongst ourselves, yeah? Even Matthew agreed. But somehow it was considered too dangerous after a while. I'm not sure even when it changed. But it did..>}}}\n\n{{{<And you, Allison, you were right in the thick of it. You were making yourself a scapegoat without thinking twice. But the counter-intuitive thing is that you had the best chance surviving all this mayhem out of all of us.>}}}\n\n{{{<Protocol is not just a lie, it's so that we share the same values. You might have started out thinking it as a thing that quashes your creativity, your originality for public assembly and argumentation, but now we need it. You probably know it more than anyone else.}}}\n\nWhat more is there to say? It hurts you to hear that your erstwhile best friend thought you as scapegoat, and with such high consequences. \n\n<[[I've just about had enough of you today.|JamieConvo09]]> You might've missed her, you might had loved her, but you need to lick your wounds. \n<[[It took you long enough to tell me the truth. That hurts more than anything else.|JamieConvo08]]>
<''I remember. You wanted to help people, once.''> You can feel the vibrations of Jamie's eyelashes across the transmission as she blinks rapidly, trying to place your tone and brace for potential verbal blows. You feel an irreplaceable sense of superiority that you can "hear" these elements so much clearer than she can. <''I'm sure that you're still trying as hard as you can to help those people. So how'd you chose between one "innocent" and another?''> \n\nYou weren't expecting an answer. Especially when you can feel that Jamie has stopped blinking and is likely staring off into space. Staring at what she remembers of you. She mutters under her breath, {{{ <Suppose that's why we talk, and why we don't.> }}}\n\nYou scoff: <''Damn right. I wanted to help people as much as you did. Why do you think I spoke so publically about what was wrong about the militants when I did? Tell me, //what did I do that's so wrong?// What made you so quick to give up on me?''>\n\nJamie did that sharp intake of breath through her nose. Your fingers tingled and your mind feels clearer than ever before that you could get under her skin like this. \n\n{{{ <I didn't. Not entirely.> }}} She was measuring her words, her words cautious and finally much more sincere in her uncertainly. {{{ <One day this will all be over and you'll know -> }}}\n\n<[[Fuck off.|JamieConvo09]]> \n<[[Yeah? Because from where I'm standing, you sold me out.|JamieConvo05]]> Said with one-thirds bitterness and two-thirds scientific inquiry.
{{{<Listen to me. I'm saying that I'm trying to do the right thing but I don't know how to lead anything right anymore. There's no one I trust to give me the right advice.> }}} You were once her closest advisor. And Jamie, she's speaking really slowly, because now it kind of matters, after all this time, that she doesn't make our irreparable relationship worse. \n\nIt should've mattered all along. \n\n{{{<You were the one who was there. At the wrong place at the wrong time. I know it as the Devil's pact that it was.>}}}\n\n<''Do you? You seemed to change your views over night without telling me, in favour of the paramilitary family. Tell me, did you actually believe for a second that they won't follow through on their inclination for violence? While I was out on the streets running off my mouth about how aligning with them to quell the Party's corruption would only weaken everyone, why didn't you stop me, you crazy bitch?''> It suddenly seemed to you that this is necessary NOW, and this was the kind of honest rhythm that was so familiar to you both, if but for the content of the conversation. \n\nThere was almost no sounds emitting from Jamie, just a sped up heartbeat. It was like she forgot to blink. \n\n{{{<I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I did and I didn't. But I also figured that you would be the hardest person for anyone to break. Maybe naively, I really thought you'd be wrong.>}}} She //is// backtracking. The stoic, self-assured Jamie. Even her. \n\nThis is your response:\n<[[You shut me out all the same. The truth. That broke me.|JamieConvo08]]>\n<[[Leave me out of whatever machinations you've planned.|JamieConvo09]]>
<''I miss you too''>, you say, <''You don't know what it's like. I miss us //really// talking together, without any barriers. This used to be my home, and ten months ago you gave me some rent money because you were spending more time here and didn't have a place. So you get it too if I tell you that it feels like my life's been turned upside down and on top of that I haven't heard from you for //months//...''> \n\n{{{ <It's been dangerous.> }}} She returns, and she's injected some force behind her voice as though she's in command. It's grating and it feels a bit decrediting, as though you don't actually know. {{{ <I'd like to think that you know protocol.> }}}\n\nOf course you know. If you and her were a country, you practically drafted the founding constitution! \n\n<[[What of it?|JamieConvo07]]> You still have a modulum of patience left. Which is funny, because you should have so much of it after months as a prisoner in your own home.\n<[[Tell me what's going on, so help me God, because you must be contacting me for something!|JamieConvo03]]>\n
Last time you saw Jamie, she had her dyed red hair swept back into a severe bun, and was overtly ignoring your increasingly shrill questions. Her elbows were covered in soot and she had smudges and stress underneath her eyes. \n\nYou remember that you could barely reconcile this image with your days of youth together. You [[don't really want to remember, not now|Study01]].
It used to be a fuller closet once, but it's generally fairly intact. There's a number of comfortable shirts, some more theadbare from others from repeated wash, some weathered jeans and trousers. \n\nYour gaze linger on a dress that reminds you of a time past, White lace and with trailing ribbons, it looks positively new next to the everyday garb. You try not to think too much about friends in the past, of going out and having a good time, and what passes for a good time. \n\nNow, there's just you and this [[room|Bedroom01]] with a [[window|Window1]] that seems smaller than it is, and this floor.
You had to take a deep breath to slow down your heartbeat again. You had to remind yourself where you are, in your library at home, little solace that it is. All Jack sees is a messy prisoner who can't handle her food. The spoon is on the ground. \n\nYou cast your eyes down because once upon a time you have made excuses and explanations for minor mistakes such as this, and they've beaten you for your transgressions. \n\n<html>Jack picks up the spoon, scoops up some gunk, and <i>FLINGS</i> it hard at your chest. You try to not flinch at the sudden bloom of pain. When you seem completely unfazed, Jack nods, and walks out.</html>\n\nWhen the door bangs close, the [[silence|Study03]] sounds louder than before.
Encasement
You know this man as a cook, a man who often has poor humour but have otherwise done you no harm. Today seems like a bit of an off-day for Cook, and even his breath has a stale air to it. \n\n"Porridge for the Miss," he slurs, "An' you better not choke on it because that'll be all I'm making for you to-day." He limps away. \n\nYou are in the hallway.\nMight as well take the food he's given you to the [[study|Study02]] to eat.
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The stacks of lined paper is just lined paper. You had taken care to remove everything incriminating when the militants started the witch hunt of all revolutionaries, and then you had information on a need-to-know basis. \n\n<html>You happen to <i>like</i> writing by hand, after all these years.</html>\n\n[[Look again|Study03]].
There's the background hum of eyelash battering onto skin on the other end of the vibrations, and you know that you're not alone. \n\nAn indrawn breath, as though your greeting is going to be returned, and a pause. Indeterminable seconds pass.\n\nThen, a husky voice: {{{<It's been a while, my old friend.>}}}\n\n<html><h2><center>End of Part I.</center></h2></html>\n\n[[Continue?|JamieConvo01]]
A hardy oak desk which has welcomed many discussions and literary enchantments. There might even be some "accidental" vandalism when friends are over, little doodles of stick figures in pencil. \n\nThere's a neat dust print where there used to be a computer. There is an old typewriter that probably still works, and a stack of lined paper that is kept from budging with an apple-size of a piece of concrete. \n\nYou can go back out to the [[hallway|Hallway01]] when you are done.
<''Leave me out of whatever machinations you've planned.''> you say tiredly, <''I don't have time for your games. I have nothing but time, but I really don't want to have time for this.''> Your fingers trace eddies into the dust on the tabletop to emphasize your point. \n\nIt sounds like Jamie just swallowed a lot of her protests. Finally, you can feel the transmission shift as she nods. {{{<Fine. You win this round. We'll talk another time. Maybe you'll be more in the mood for it next time.>}}}\n\n<html><h2><center>End of Part II.</center></h2>\n<h3><center>To Be Continued.</center></h3></html>
<<set $desk_porridge = "yes">>You sit at the table to eat like any normal person would. The porridge is congealed, sickly sweet. You distract yourself from the taste by drawing circles into the dust. \n\nYou nearly choke when a sharp piece of metal hits the roof of your mouth. The offending piece of debris is the size of a thumbnail! You want to feel angry, but you have to focus on making sure it doesn't slide down your throat instead. This isn't the first time that your food is barbed with rubbish. \n\nYou spit out the offending piece. It gleams, and sounds heavier than it [[looks|Metal01]] when it hits the table.
Maybe she didn't quite break you yet, but the thought's certainly left your head now and then, and you kind of wonder about the perception of reality in general. It's the kind of recessive spiral that gets stuck in the back of your throat, makes everything taste like bile. \n\n{{{ <I'm sorry. I know no apology is enough. I knew you once. And maybe I don't know you that well at all, even after all those years.> }}} Her voice had a kind of mix of hope and desperation to it that seem almost alien. Very few people would have heard this timbre in Jamie's voice. Weirdly enough, it is almost reassuring. {{{ <I seriously hope that I do actually know you well enough to make this sort of gamble.> }}}\n\n{{{ <I'll give you a break. Can we talk another time?> }}}\n\n<[[Fine. Just stop playing games with me.|JamieConvo09]]>\n<[[Fine. For what it's worth, I've missed the old you.|JamieConvo10]]>
This was your youth: When you and Jamie were together, you were able to cobble together all sorts of inventions. \nWhen you and Jamie and Matthew were together, it was pure mayhem, beautiful and simple.\n\nYou look around you now, what've you [[got left|Study01]]?
In that case, you may want to try dialing. Your ears pick up frequency differently because you've gone through different medical procedures than most. Your hands move with muscle memory to map out the encryption key from the scan, which created grooves like braille, and the friction reveberates up your arm in nano-wavelengths. \n\nIt enters your conscious headspace, settles in like a warm coat, a background hum. Somehow it triggers the scent of cinnamon spice for you, a homey smell that associates with it a flood of memories. \n\nBefore you forget, you scan the metallic encryption key back through the paper feeder of the typewriter, so that it removes all instances of the braille-like indentations. Thankfully, it's a one-time use half-life, but you hide it carefully under a chipped key in the typerwriter all the same. \n\nThen you lean back in your chair. You're connected to somewhere completely disembodied to yourself. You can 'speak' now, internally, using a kind of voice that seems to emit from your stomach. What do you say?\n\n<[[Hello?|Convo01]]>\n<[[I know you're there, what do you think you're doing?|Convo02]]>\n\n
You do your business in the washroom. They removed your mirror here, and you wonder briefly what you look like, now that you don't have to go outside anymore. You wash your hands and carefully squeeze the minimal amount out of the soap dispenser. \n\nClosing the washroom door behind you, you try to make yourself small as you walk past "Jack" in the hallway to get to the [[study|Study01]].
You feel as though the past months of isolation has buried your hopes. But you've so little left to lose, so you may want to try dialing. Your ears pick up frequency differently because you've gone through different medical procedures than most. \n\nYour hands move with muscle memory to map out the encryption key from the scan, which created grooves like braille, and the friction reveberates up your arm in undetectable wavelengths. \n\nIt enters your conscious headspace, settles in like a warm coat, a background hum. Somehow it triggers the scent of cinnamon spice for you, a homey smell that associates with it a flood of memories. You can't quite place why, but the happiness of the past and those memory associations scare you with their voraciousness.\n\nBefore you forget, you scan the metallic encryption key back through the paper feeder of the typewriter, so that it removes all instances of the braille-like indentations. Thankfully, it's a one-time use half-life, but you hide it carefully under a chipped key in the typerwriter all the same. It pays to be paranoid.\n\nThen you lean back in your chair. You're connected to somewhere completely disembodied to yourself. You can 'speak' now, internally, using a kind of voice that seems to emit from your stomach. What do you say?\n\n"[[...|Convo02]]"\n"[[I know you're there. Who do you think you are?|Convo02]]" \n\n
<''I miss the old you. If I could go back in time, it'd be for this.''> you say tiredly, <''But I don't have time for your games, schemes that you've probably set up all over this city. Or, I have nothing but time, but I really don't want to have time for this.''> Your fingers tap on the keyboard listlessly emphasize your point. \n\nIt sounds like Jamie just swallowed a lot of her protests. Finally, you can feel the transmission shift as she nods. {{{ <Fine. We'll talk another time.> }}} There was a moment when you can hear nothing but her breathing, and then, like a breath of wind, {{{ <I've missed you too.> }}}\n\n<html><h2><center>End of Part II.</center></h2>\n<h3><center>To Be Continued.</center></h3></html>
A piece of the Berlin Wall has been shipped around the world to become a decorative bit of memorabilia in your uptown home. Long time ago, you used to wonder how many people have run their hands across this bit of concrete and dreamed of its desecration.\n\nYou are in your [[study|Study03]].
There's the background hum of eyelash battering onto skin on the other end of the vibrations, and you know that you're not alone. \n\nAn indrawn breath, as though you question is going to be answered, and then retracted back. Beat.\n\n<html><h2><center>End of Part I.</center></h2></html>\n\n[[Continue?|JamieConvo01]]
You knew it right away when you saw it. It's an encryption chip of sorts, which could be deadly and almost viral if swallowed. It doesn't seem to be for that kind of deployment though. \n\nIt reminds you of something your erstwhile friend Jamie and you would share, back in the day. \n\n<<if $window_porridge eq "yes">>You knew that there's no way you can find out about this encryption chip while "[[Jack|Discipline01]]" is glaring balefully at you, trying to figure out what caused the commotion.\n<<else>>You can look around the [[study|Study03]] to see what can figure out this artifact.<<endif>>
Tanya Kan
You are back in the hallway, looking at the aging green wallpaper. Suppose it looked verdant before. \n\nA [[man|Cook01]] stands there, and you briefly glance up at his face to see his smirk. He doesn't look like the rest of the guards, and he appears to be waiting there for a minute or two.