Arc the Fourth: Within, Without
Chapter 1: Opening the Door
Felis, I'm... I'm sorry, sir. I was looking forward to us getting to work together more, think of all the lives we could save, the new era we could bring together! It's been rough, these past few years without your guidance, but I think I'm making the right choice now, a choice you can finally be proud of me for. I'm quitting, I'm going up to Roland tomorrow and telling him I can't do this anymore. Wish me luck, sir, hope the life above is treating you well.
The next morning, after getting ready and having a couple pancakes for breakfast (thanks, Alex, I appreciate it), I checked the Tandy and found some of the files had been moved, but most of it was intact. I flipped through again to grab all the information I could on rifts, but was cut short when I realized we didn't have a printer to hook up to this thing, so I couldn't just print out all of Felix's write-ups, and I couldn't take a picture of the screen all that well due to the glare and flickering, so I instead opted to write down some of the key points. I'll be honest, I don't know what I'm doing, I felt that if we built our own rift then that would put us closer to Felix, but that would require having to find of one of those computers, and those would all be buried deep in the capitol, probably protected with an armed guard or something.
At about 11:00, Nathan came over with a Modifier in his hand. “Hey, Ash, look at this,” he said, dropping something into my hand as he stepped in, closing the door behind him.
It was a ball made of some gray material, it didn't feel heavy like metal, didn't sound like plastic, actually didn't make any real noise at all, it was honestly kind of frustrating. “What is this?” I asked.
“A sphere, Franklin and I found out how to use the Modifier to load in new objects altogether, starting with basic stuff like this as we cracked their hexadecimal values first. We haven't assigned a material to it, it's still using the default mass and settings, but it's a start. I've done a little bit of experimenting with it, nothing much.”
“Nice. Right, anything else you've got for me?”
“Well, I mean, this is just a start, but if we can figure out any more... wait, hold on, I think I've seen a setting... give me something to scan.”
“Oh, uh...”
I set the ball on the table in the front room and pointed at it. Nathan sighed, but scanned it and scrolled through the settings. “Ah, right here, we do have access to individual hexadecimal string, so we could duplicate things, though doing it from scratch, I'm not sure about. Let me just test it with another thing real quick...”
Nathan stepped into the kitchen, scanned an apple on the counter, set a crumpled ball of paper next to it, and within about a minute had produced a second apple. “Ha, look at that!” he said.
“Neat. So what are we going to do with that?”
“Uh... that's a good question, we'll figure it out. Oh, hey, the Tandy's already up, what are ya working on?”
“Well, I was doing a bit of reading with some of the files on the hard drive, and I found this, it talks about the rift, that piece of tech Felix uses to warp in and out.”
“Hmm, interesting,”
“I dunno, I think we could build... most of this.”
“Maybe, I'm just worried, it might be a bit unsafe, I don't know, what with those guys in the suits around and I mean, or what if it only teleports half of you, or a fly gets in there, or--”
“It's not a teleporter. If I'm reading it right, it takes everything that enters one side and rebuilds it exactly as it was on the other, it's more like a portal, there's not like a moment here where things are out of existence, it seems instant.”
“Oh, so you've done your research, at least. Maybe Felix could help us with that when we get him ba--”
“That's another thing, Nathan. Felix... Felix showed up here last night, he came in through a rift or something, and he told me that we... we need to stop this. He's afraid for us.”
“Did he say anything else?”
“No, he really didn't, he said he was planning something but that's all he really said. Honest.”
“But what if his plan gets found out? If you think we can put most of it together, then we could use that to get to Felix and bring him back all without being detected.”
“Wait, I--”
“I think we should do it, it's at least something. What do we need?”
“Um, actually, I was able to find a bit of a list, here.”
“Huh... okay, alright, a—wait, a quantum processor? Where the heck are we going to get one of those?”
“That's probably why they're so hard to come by, Nathan, if anyone could make one of these, there wouldn't be a need for cars anymore.”
“I guess, I'd need to at least be near one enough to scan it, and then maybe we could copy it.”
“Actually, there was another document I saw that mentioned that the civilization software declares those sorts of things singletons, you can't make copies, they get deleted instantly.”
“So we're stealing another computer,” Nathan replied.
“Yeah, and there's no way Felix or anyone's just going to sit one out on the front desk.”
Nathan invited Francisco and Franklin over so we could discuss our findings, Nathan setting his upsetting non-specific sphere on the table (which led to me realizing it doesn't even cast a shadow, just great) as they came in. “So, we have a bit of a breakthrough,” Nathan started, before gesturing towards me.
“Right, so on Felix's computer, I was able to find plans for a rift, the thing he uses to get in and out of New Infinity. We can build one, most of the stuff we need is just simple wire and pipe, but we're running into a problem. We need a, what does it say in the... ah, a 'minimalized dark matter core housed in a proto-quantum processor'. Felix has a rift buried somewhere down there so we know he has at least one, and each room of the facility New Infinity is housed in has one as well, but how do we get ahold of one of them? We cannot copy one with the Modifier, we're sure of that.”
Franklin kind of reclined back for a second to think, then lunged forward. “What if we dropped someone into Happy Infinity's system and dressed them up like a Suit, then they can slip in, take the device, and get out.”
“How big are these things, anyways?” Francisco asked.
“If I recall, they're, like, normal computer size, maybe a bit bigger, not sure how much heavier they would be, it might be tough to just take one like that.”
“Could we get someone deep undercover, get them to pitch a new office, and then intercept the truck?” Francisco asked.
“This isn't Payday, we really don't have that luxury, or the time for that matter,” Nathan said.
“We could convince Felix to help out, while we have someone in their system, maybe have him send us one.”
“Oh, that could work!” Nathan said, “Ash, didn't you say that Felix vi--”
“Uh, ix-nay the isit-vay.”
“What visit?” Francisco said.
“Felix showed up here last night, through some sort of one-way rift. He's worried that doing this sort of stuff might get us killed, said we should stop, but he said he has other plans.”
“We don't really have the time to wait for another plan, do we?” Franklin said.
“I think we should just go for sneaking someone in, but who should it be?”
“They're all white guys, they'll know something's up in an instant,” Franklin said about himself.
“Yeah, um, I dunno, if we need Felix's help for this, I'd feel best about sending someone who knows Felix. Ash, could you do it?”
“I... I mean, I... I guess I could.”
“Great, let's see if we can get into the system. If anyone asks, any of the new data or new hires into Happy Infinity are from their regional office in Reno,” Nathan said, as he plugged away at the Modifier.
“So we're getting a rift, and we're getting Felix back!” Francisco exclaimed, “Twitch is next, right?”
“We're not getting Felix right away,” I reminded him, “I'm going to convince him to leave us one of those computers that we need for the rift, and then we can swiftly get him in and out.”
“But wait, if he's visited here before, like you said, couldn't you just convince him to come here?”
“He's being monitored, it seems, so we can build our own rift so he doesn't get caught, or at the very least so we have a rift of our own.”
“Okay then.”
“Oh, and one last thing I figured out,” Nathan said, “this is about the ball, watch.”
Nathan picked up the gray ball and took it to the sink, and held it under running water. “Look, the water goes right through it, but...”
He dropped it, and it hit the bottom of the sink.
“I take it you figured tags out with this thing?”
“Yeah, and what I'm thinking is when I figure out how to patch you into the Happy Infinity system, I can figure out what tag they use, make this thing really big and invisible, and then have it act solid for the Suits, but exclude you from that.”
“Wow, you, eh, really thought this through, didn't you?”
“Yeah, it's like we don't even need Feli-- oh, um...”
“No, I get what you mean, it's just... yeah, that was really... really unfortunate wording, I guess.”
“Yeah, I should apologi--”
“No, it's fine, I think... I think we're at the very least fine for the time being, it'll be a while before we have Felix back, I get what you meant.”
“Okay. I'll, eh, I'll get back to working on patching you in.”
“Alright. In the meantime, we might play a bit more Smash Bros., maybe some Jackbox, if you want to join, it's through the phones.”
“Oh, uh, maybe later, then.”
“Alright.”
ns 15.158.61.45da2
