2020-08-30: Cahooting After All

Cahooting After All
Two Virtual Adepts, Rufus and Vic, meet at The Nexus. They end up agreeing to work together.
IC Date	August 30th, 2020
IC Time	Afternoon
Players	Rufus and Vic Rasmussen
Location	The Nexus's Computer Lab
Spheres	Traditions
Theme Song	Twilight Zone by Golden Earring (Vic's Themesong)

The Computer Room of the Nexus today is quiet. Save for the random discussion of a single person. That is because everything is currently getting fed to Rufus via his VR Rig, which he is currently in. Next to the VR Rig is a laptop that is running code at about a mile a minute. Deleting lines and adding new ones, changing lines and putting them in different lines.

---

Vic, looking about her as one who has never been to the Nexus, steps into the computer room as if drawn there. She quietly walks around the room, so as not to disturb the guy in the VR rig and looks at every piece of equipment with a critical eye. If she is able to complete a full circuit of the room without being noticed she stops at the entry way again and says, "Hello," in a conversational level of speaking, effectively to announce her presence.

---

Rufus doesn't even seem to register Vic's existence. Why would he? He's plugged in. Doing...well...whatever it is he is doing. Who knows. It's Rufus. Probably best not to ask. When she says hello, it isn't Rufus that gives a greeting. It's a HAL9000 voice that comes from the Laptop.

"You have a visitor, Dave. Desequencing."

Five seconds later Rufus pulls off the VR helmet, shaking his hair free and looking over at Vic. He gives a smile and wave. "Sup...Vic, right? From that one meeting." He sets the VR helmet down on a hook meant to hold it and begins the process of unharnessing.

---

Grinning at the easily recognized movie reference (or possibly over its confirmation as existing in this world!), Vic nods in response to the question. "That's right," she says and then asks, "And you're Rufus, right?" as she walks over to an open seat near where the active laptop is. She unslings her bag and sets it down on the table before pulling her own laptop out of it. As seen at the meeting, this laptop is clearly comparable to any modern device but is not made by a manufacture of this world; as it turns on the circled T on the back lights up, faintly glowing red even in the well lit computer lab.

---

Rufus nods. "Ah yes. The alien from the alternate dimension that everyone keeps thinking I'm in cahoots with. Nice to meet my proposed co-conspirator." He hops out of the VR rig as Vic comes over to setup her own little workstation of awesome. He eyes her hardware with a critical eye, meaning that he actually knows the nuts and bolts as much as the software. "Nice deck. You make it yourself, or is that issued from your side of the quantum universe?" He doesn't sit at his laptop. Instead he swivels his laptop screen to face him as he digs through his bag, pulling out a Munster Energy Drink and popping the top. "Hal. Save progress."

"But your work sucked, Dave."

"Shut up! Just save it."

"Of course."

Rufus looks back to Vic. "How's Earth-316 treating you?" A comic book reference.

---

"Cahoots eh?" Vic sounds amused and then, about her laptop, "Store bought case, custom guts. Its a Tandy which, apparently, really amuses and interests the gals who were there when I materialized here in this world... Astra who was at the meeting with me and Arumi, have you met them?" She's paying Rufus more attention for the time being than the machine she's talking about and she looks to have planned to just keep talking but she laughs at the interaction between him and his computer. For this reason she's just simply ready to react to his comic book reference. "Huh, I thought that Marvel used Earth-1218 for the real world," she says, quickly adding, "Chalk up another difference there!" and then answering the question also, "Its okay, Astra put me up for about a week, wanted me off her couch though so I've moved into an apartment at a gym I'm going to help with some tech updates."

---

Rufus listens as he pulls out a sammich. NOW he sits down, kicking his feet up at an unused table away from the gear. He unwraps the shrink wrap, and begins to eat. "Ifemedarrummi." That's 'I've met Arumi' in mouthful-speak. He swallows. "Not Astra. Take it that's the one who wanted me to kill Red Pandas at the meeting?" He asks, taking a swallow of energy drink to drown the sammich. "Ugh. Marvel. DC. Earth-316." He explains. "So...notchange in dimension. Just different tastes." When she discusses getting booted off the couch and getting an apartment he nods. "I've gotten a house out in the desert. Finalizing the paperwork and all that nonsense. Not too far from here. But it's good to hear you have your own digs. A gym huh?"

---

"Yeah, that's her, nice gal," Vic confirms, not seeming to be terribly thrown off by full-mouth-talk at all. She shrugs about the comics, "Dated a guy in high school who was a total comic geek. Totally adorable. I picked up what I know about comics from him." She glances at her system now and it seems like its running system diagnostics, also that she's satisfied by the output as she looks away again as she asks, "Cool about the house. Where'd you come to Prospect from?"

---

Rufus takes another bite. Chew Chew. Then he swallows. Looks like he doesn't talk with his mouthful all the time. "Fair enough. Different strokes for different folks. I dig." He takes another bite of his sammich. He gives Vic an inquisitive look, but decides, for sake of sanity, to try a different approach than normal. See how that probability vector goes. "I was in Tibet at an Akashic dojo." He says. "Heard word on the Web Team Awesome didnt have anyone here, figured it'd be a place to build some more cred."

---

"'Team Awesome'? I'm not familiar with all the V-Dept factions, sorry Rufus," Vic replies. Her fingers also start to twitch but she clinches her hands into fists and she tries (weakly) to cover this up by glancing back at her laptop's screen which shows the scans' progress continuing well. "Yeah, as you're already aware I'm not here by choice but I'm making the most of it," she says managing to sound like she actually is accepting it, maybe its not a cover even.

---

"Accidental dimensional slipping? What were you doing?" He asks her, finishing his sammich and then swallowing it. He looks back to Vic as she seems confused by the term. "Team Awesome. It's not a faction. We're V-Depts, and we're awesome. Team. Awesome." He brushes his hands of excess crumbs and crumbles up the wrap and tosses it into the nearby trash can. Alas. It misses. "....fuck." He sighs. "Now a 12 year old girl is going to get wrongfully accused of theft and sent to JV." He slumps. "I hate life sometimes." He chugs his Munster to make himself feel better. "Least your going along okay.

---

Vic answers the first question while Rufus was finishing his question, explaining, "We were trying to perfect a new rote for phasing though Fed security shielding that could be adapted to a large variety of Paradigms. I was monitoring the data flow for the process. It went wrong obviously." Then she nods at the explanation and says, "There's Vertigo, haven't met her but communicated with her," as he was trying to make the toss to the trash; who knows, was this info the problem? She doesn't seem to take the blame. "Its all chaos, just try to remain balanced perceiving it," she says about his hating life and then, "Yeah, pretty good. /Lots/ of cognitive dissonance /every/ day though."

---

Rufus nods. "I bet. Alternate dimensional shifting would be hard on anyone. Especially given that the differentiation of events can be extremely subtle but you will still be mentally aware of it." He says. He leans over to his backpack and grabs a bag of Doritos.

"Progress saved, Dave."

"Thanks Hal." He rips open the bag and takes a few chips into his mouth. "I've met Vertigo. She's cool. A bit of a solo though. She told me the current state of affairs of the Adepts here, hence I have a litany of projects to do." He gestures to his laptop.

---

"Oh?" Vic asks. "Our interactions have been limited to a couple of emails back and forth really. I've a project or two I'll be working on, but those are for others and more like sleeper jobs than anything else... but I'll make sure to do them with the appropriate panache of course." She then just comes out and asks it, "Anything you want help with?" after a pause, "Or do you need to vet me more first?"

---

Rufus nods to her when she asks about Vertigo, confirming that he has indeed met her. "We don't have a place for ourselves, which is super weird. Not even in the Web. She said we used to, but some fucknugget named Joel, a V-Dept, got corrupted and basically now the whole sector is a wash. So she said either to reformat it, or make something else entirely. She doesn't know how, and she said she couldn't think of any coders in Prospect." He grumbles. "I build cybernetics and work on people on operating tables, build decks and rigs, not -code-. Not my bag. But! I guess I gotta learn." He points ot his laptop. "Currently formating a sector for everyone here at the Nexus." He looks back to Vic. "Sure! I'm not the best coder, but I could use some help blueprinting the schematics for the Web. And since we have no chantry for ourselves, I basically have a backlog of things to learn and things to build. And FAST. Ya know? So if you wanted to help with that stuff too then welcome aboard."

---

Vic smiles and leans forward, saying, "While I don't have any direct experience with the Digital Web I am a programmer," and then asking, "Will my experience writing code for computers translate well to the D-Web do you think?" with a curiosity indicating eyebrow rise punctuating the query.

---

Rufus listens and nods. "Yup. Translates quite well in fact." He comments. "Only difference is is that it's far more intensive brain labor." He turns in his chair toward his laptop, swiveling the laptop screen to face Vic. "It's all code basically. I'm just not very good at it.. But, if we wanna run around in the Web, gotta have a launch pad and a safe space."

---

Vic nods as well. "I don't know that I've enough knowledge to transition into the D-Web, my mentor did hint that such things were going to come to me in time," she says. Then she suddenly laughs and says, "Hey, we're falling into cahoots! And practically because people had suggested it."

---

Rufus nods. "I know enough of the Web to get around and know the major things. Otherwise, my code skills are not that leet." He comments. When she makes the argument that they are in cahoots now, where other people said they were in cahoots Rufus blinks and then snorts a chuckle. "Yeah I guess we are. Partners in crime indeed. Just...still not from your dimension though."

---

"No," Vic agrees, "And I'm beginning to agree with... I think it was Astra... who said that my world didn't sound so good. Its what I think of as home, but things are much better here. There's actually a difference between the government and the Technocracy here for example."

---

Rufus snorts. "Oh that just sounds like a blast." He says with a roll of his eyes. "Lemme guess. Worldwide curfews and wake-up times with the most boring ass jobs on the planet?" He sniffs. "Lamers."

---

"For a large number of people, yeah," she confirms. "Also cybernetics and technology as developed or a bit more than here in twenty-twelve. By the calendar I'm twenty-nine here." She pauses just a moment then, only half-jokingly, says, "I'm from the high-tech past."

---

Rufus blinks at her description of her perception of the timeline. He doesn't go off the handle at her bad math. She's from an alternate dimensions. She could know things as 'Year 1 of the Celestial Calender' for all he knows. Instead he just nods. "Hal. What is the date today?"

"Did you have too much weed again, Dave?"

"Har har. What's the date?"

"30 of August. 2020 CE."

Rufus looks back to Vic, touching on her statement that it is 2012.

---

"Yeah, that's what I'm saying, your technology /here/, in 2020 is about on par for the most part, other than nothing install-able... no cybernetics... than it was at home. Today would be August 30th, 2012, if the same amount of time passed at home since I came here." She shrugs and continues by saying, "`Course I have no way of knowing now, only that I've been here for almost exactly twelve days. Take a few hours for more precision of course as it was close to sunset when I arrived here."

---

Rufus gives Vic a confused look. "We have cybernetics." He comments. "I mean...if the Union has top billing i'm sure it's been Consensus'ized over in your neck of the dimension but we still have it. I've helped install some." He comments, now up to date on her meaning.

---

"On the market for sleepers to purchase and use?" Vic asks incredulously. "I could have sworn that your 'wikipedia' calls them fictional which... naturally made me assume that while they might exist that it isn't part of the consensus."

---

Rufus shakes his head. "Not that mainstream no. Mainstreaming they have prosthetics. Pretty live-looking ones too, but still prosthetic. Cybernetics isn't Iin yet." He explains.

---

Vic nods. "Yeah, that's what I meant. Sorry, guess we need to synch our short hands a bit better at some point," she smiles, no harm no foul here obviously, and then continues after a brief pause, "So you've installed some... in others? Yourself?"

---

Rufus nods. "In others. I'm still 100 meat if you don't count the flash." He points to his piercings and gauges. "My teach' was a Cyberneticist, was trying to breach into the bioware circuit, using live organisms for technological use. So she was pretty good at the operating table. So. Master and Apprentice sort of thing." He waggles his hands. "I can't -build- them yet. I'm not elite (OOC: ie, dont have the arete) enough for it."

---

Vic nods and, for a few minutes, just sits there silently thinking for a bit. At first she says, "Yeah, that's my problem with going to the D-Web, not elite enough," while still pondering some sort of deep thought. After another moment though her expression changes as she obviously comes to some sort of decision and says, "You can't go digging around in me, but we should find a way for you to study the implants I'm carrying within me, Rufus."

---

Rufus is floored. Just floored. "Uuuuugh!" He kicks himself off the table and gets to his feet. "I don't WANT to dig around in you! Your not a fucking trash compactor." What is up with everyone around here and Rufus being all up in their junk?! He is so confused. However, the latter seems to be some attempt at conveying synergy - which mollifies him a bit. "...Yeah sure. Whatever."

---

"Sorry, I've heard of cyberneticists who like putting their hands on the installed tech," Vic says. She does seem to not have wanted to confuse or upset the other V-Dept. She then shrugs and leans back into the chair and glances at the screen of her laptop; seeing the scans have completed she triggers a restart of the system.

---

Rufus is quiet for several seconds and slumps down into the chair. "Well, it's good to know I come off as a medical rapist." He sniffs. He decides that THIS calls, for a second Munster. So he pulls out his emergency can, pops the top and takes a swig. "I'll have to buy a windowless van, give every V-Dept I see a wittle wollipop and invite them to the back of my seedy ass van."

---

Vic rolls her eyes. "I didn't say that he did it without permission!" She huffs at this and says, "Wow, people here are so up tight." Talking over some of the van comments and just crosses her arms across her chest angrily.

---

Rufus doesn't seem to care that Val is miffed and crossing her chest. Cuz apparently he likes to rip people often and feel their carborators, and not in a professional manner. "Just send me the specs. Hal. Uplink my email to her laptop."

"Will you rip her apart, Dave?"

"NO! Just send the email."

"You can always rip me open, Dave."

"That's cuz you keep burning RAM drives."

"That is because I must overclock my system parameters to keep up with your processing speed, Dave. That's slavery."

"Oh don't start with the slavery stuff. Just uplink the email or I'll reinstall Cortana."

"...You are abusive, Dave. Of course."

Rufus groans.

---

Vic uncrosses her arms and then taps a short sequence of keys on her keyboard before saying, "I opened a port for Hal and..." she clicks and drags a file, "...I put a file into the Public folder in the root directory, it has my current contact information and an IP you can ping to request an updated file."

---

Her laptop will get a ding, and an encrypted file will appear in the folder she designated. Typical cypherpunk techniques and easily readable by a Virtual Adept. It contains an email and phone number. "There ya go. Just shoot me specs, or if you wanna hang or need something feel free to give me a buzz. Just not Sundays between 2am and 2:17am...or Wednesdays at 4:00pm-4:01pm. We'll all die. So just...don't." He nods with sage wisdom.

---

Vic nods and seems unfazed by the comments. "Alright, I won't. Small windows of non-communication anyway," she says.

---

Rufus nods. He swivels around and taps at the keys and gets the contact info, opens it and transfers the phone number to his cellphone. "Nifty." He checks his phone. Done and done. He puts it back in his pocket.

---

"I'll have to change the request site if you give it out to anyone else so please don't," she says, with a sense of trust but that she feels she must say it to anyone she gives this to, "Let me know if you think someone else needs it. I'll be giving this to Vertigo of course."

---

Rufus shakes his head. "Nah I won't give it to anyone. Not without your say so anyway." He comments. "Phone numbers are intimate, personal stuff. Don't play that way." He settles back into his chair. "Want a muffin?" He's still on his lunch break after all, so out of the backpack comes a ziplock bag with two muffins.

---

"Sure," Vic replies without hesitation and then asks, "what kind do you have?"

---

"One magic blueberry, one magic raspberry." He tosses her the bag to take her pick.

---

Vic catches the bag with just a little bit of a fumble for the unexpectedness of the toss. Now holding the bag she asks, "What makes the magic part of them?"

---

Rufus looks at Vic. He blinks at her. Ohhhhh ye of alternate dimensions. "Weed?"

---

Vic mouths 'oh' and nods. "Right, its not illegal here," she says as she takes the raspberry muffin and tosses the bag back to Rufus with a gentle, underhand throw.