Returning Call [Day 4, Late Afternoon]

[Nadia Avaline]

Seeing the doctor brought a suspicious glance cast downward, expecting to find herself in a suit although that was hardly her comfort wear. A sweatshirt maybe in her wildest fears because of its connection to her sneaking out and away for her own purposes. Luckily, perhaps, she didn't focus on that thought for too long no matter what she found as the headache set in from the rushing of memories and senses. Hand instinctually coming up to the bridge of her nose to try and soothe it out of her system.

Given the pause to correct herself, the headache either settling into background noise or settling completely, her attention would properly return to the doctor, "Does the system collect these memories? Are they viewable?" she asks with even professionalism, although the reason for asking had doubled reasoning.

[Boogiepop]

Leo watched, a concerned frown on his rough features. He didn't know what was happening, couldn't know, but his mind was naturally given to suspicion.

He definitely kept an eye on the sergeant.

It seemed the sergeant was standing on guard in the area as he paced around, certainly doing his best to look more cool than bored.


Sgt. Curtis

"Why don't you just take a seat? I don't think anything much is going to happen here while they're doing their dig or whatever."


Doctor Homes

Doctor Homes seemed to watch Nadia impassively, almost studying her reaction if anything. After all, she was like another test subject, albeit one who represented a very important woman. "Yes, it does. To elaborate more on the experience and our work in progress, we're not merely trying to tailor the experience to what you've experienced in the past solely but also the experience of what others have felt and experienced in the past to create an amalgamation of both what you're putting in with your contribution while sharing the same sort of pleasant memories from others. We're still tunning this experience to find a perfect balance. Some testers don't notice this in the slightest while others may see and view things as if they were...well, ghosts, as one has detailed. We can bring the up too, of course, but the date is raw and it is easier to sense them than to read the binary information that comes from having the best ice cream you've ever tasted or sharing the first kiss with someone."

As Doctor Homes spoke, it seemed that people started to emerge from the streets, looking like a stalled effect from loading. They materialized like spectres and began to meander the streets, going out their day. From what Nadia could see, there are some repeated faces among them and some of the female characters had an eerie likeness to Elizabeth...

"Come, why don't you enjoy one of the local ice cream bars?" He said with a wave of his hand as he directed her to one of the convenience stores on the street with a big freezer plugged just outside of the front door. The streets seemed to come more alive with some ambiance of the city, both the sounds of passing traffic and people going about their day.

[Nadia Avaline]

In some strange sense, when he claimed that it was easier to witness the sensations of first kisses, or best ice cream, there was that quick thought indicated only by a subtle widening of the eye as she considered how she was rather certain it would be easier to read the binary for someone like her. Considering, scanning about, she does start to notice the likeness of course. Eerie in multiple ways as it wasn't just the likeness which gave the small shiver. After all, it was alike to seeing one's mother that you're not completely fond of, that need to gain their admiration and respect but on not just one focal point but many.

It certainly became easier to focus directly on the doctor, although the sight of his clothing was strange to her whom spent much of her life around uniforms and suits. Looking to him she nods, and then follows the wave of the hand. Taking a brief glance around as the sounds begin to kick in but deciding it better not to focus on anyone in particular as she looks to the doctor for further direction.

[Boogiepop]

The eerie effect of Elizabeths being everywhere would only last for another minute before it seemed like the system had accepted a few of Nadia's thoughts to only become another contribution to its vast number of experiences. Soon, the faces would meld and many of them became varied with no repeating faces, much like an actual crowd. The idea of spotting someone familiar among them almost felt like a real possibility, not finding Elizabeth but rather an old high school friend or potentially even that acquaintance from the bowling league.


Doctor Homes

He would slide open the freezer and pull out a rather small ice cream sandwich in plain white wrapping, it seemed more kid-sized than one that would be found at the store. Normally, the custom would be to pay for the ice cream bar before consuming but it seemed the doctor had taken liberties in this virtual world. He offered it to Nadia to take and open. "Taste is something we're still trying to perfect here. I know that current virtual reality does emit some pleasant senses when it comes to virtual food but as with everything here, we're more striving for things like the sensation of getting the last ice cream bar, or having a friend treat you to one, and even the disappointment that they don't come in the flavour you want and they only have vanilla."

He did find himself smirking faintly at the last one. As the doctor mentioned these, they seemed to become almost familiar or relatable to Nadia. They weren't invasively implanted but rather offered to be plucked from the ether to be made her own experience if she wished.

[Leo Knight]

Shrugging casually, Leo took a seat. He didn't stop his concerned watching, though.

[Nadia Avaline]

Taking the bar from the doctor, almost more out of the expectation to do so than any thoughtful intention. She'd slowly work at opening it. Careful in her methods with most things she was slow and patient with the packaging. Familiar sensation bleeding in was strange from a logical standpoint and she was a logical based entity. Yet, she didn't quite fight it as the curiosity of it all kicked in. What helps more beyond that? This was a unique experience far as she was aware, there could be something to save here.

"This is strange. I do not understand these things.." she says, leaving the unspoken but hanging.

[Boogiepop]

As Nadia unwrapped the white package of the ice cream bar, it would reveal a rather mundane sort of ice cream bar. The sort that vanilla with a soft chocolate cookie on both sides, most mass packaged and sold at convenient stores but most definitely not usually part of Nadia's calculated diet, according to her upkeep schedule. However, it wasn't all there was in the ice cream bar. Curiously, there was a message written on it, as if it was part of the product packaging with its typed font:

We are in danger. Do not cancel the project.


Doctor Homes

Doctor Homes would give a few passive nods. "Well, I suppose there might be something relating to your finding other people's emotions and memories than recalling your own. You've never had an ice cream bar like this before? You're more than free to have as many as you'd like."

[Nadia Avaline]

Nadia was unresponsive a moment as she held the bar. Five seconds passing before she snaps back into it, partially sealing the package up a bit so a few words weren't visible anymore. Slightly shaky hands she looks up from them to the doctor but that doesn't last long as she looks away.

"I.. do not understand," she says, strangely perhaps to the flow of the conversation. However, maybe not so strange considering Nadia's frequent admittance of that very truth. Even though here it almost seemed to feel a little different because she was tapping into an understanding of things that she didn't, it was perplexing.

[Boogiepop]

Doctor Homes

He nodded in understanding at the sentiment. "I suppose it can be rather perplexing and admittedly the system is something we're still trying to work out in perfecting. It does admittedly have a history in the making even before we've ever stepped foot in this facility. Working with a clear idea but doing so from scratch has been both taxing and a costly endeavour. Needless to say that they've kept us monitored when it comes to our conversations, thoughts are a bit harder to translate without sifting through the raw data with a fine comb."

"Perhaps...something strawberry would be to your liking?" He would offer before finding another ice cream bar from the fridge and offering it to Nadia.

If opened, there would be another message waiting for her reading:

We've been kidnapped to work on this project.
Termination of the project will be the termination of the researchers.
There were ten of us, five are left.

[Nadia Avaline]

Nadia would open the next, finding no better of a result she nervously sealed it back up a little. Looking away from the doctor to the now more natural looking crowds. Holding it awkwardly in hand like it was some strangely soft brick. "Ms. Mills.. needs something more," she says, unable to look at him. Had they been in real space she'd probably be sweating a bit.

"When she sent me here she is not interested in just another virtual reality project," she says, there's a shakiness not usually present in her forced on professional tone. However she manages to hit the tone well enough to at least be vaguely convincing of a collected demeanor on the surface. It wouldn't take too perceptive an eye, or a disciplined attention to notice the fraying of her demeanor. "Unless there is something special here that would grab her interest, she intends to scrap the project."

[Boogiepop]

Doctor Homes

Doctor Homes wore his expression like a mask but there was perhaps some clear disappointment from him in Nadia's answer visible in his eyes. It was perhaps a bit silly to hope that she might have been more helpful when she was just a corporate drone, perhaps in more ways than one.

"Of course...So she's heading this project then? I suppose she doesn't share the same enthusiasm as Perez when it comes to the possibilities here. Admittedly, we only managed to take slow steps when it comes to being confined to this safehouse and disconnected from the Network. Naturally, if we have had a greater abundance of information with a clear structure of support on the outside world, it might have allowed us to make leaps and bounds in our progress. Yes, we understand this is for everyone's safety..." He nodded on a dour note.

There was an ad for ice cream bars on the freezer itself, apparently, the vanilla ice cream bars were manufactured by Haas-Bioroid. Strange.

He gave a shrug and gestured to the city at large. "Going back to the project itself, as you can sense here...we strive to make things feel real on a cerebral level. While we're not exactly connecting people's consciousnesses together what we're doing here is logging people's experiences and putting them in a format that can be shared with others. In the long-term, it is my hope that this technology is used to log in people's consciousness, if possible. There must be some slow steps that need to be taken with this, as you can probably feel the system had already begun to log in your feelings and sensation, which is a milestone in itself. The potential next step might even be to replicate a person in their entirety."

[Nadia Avaline]

Nadia catches enough of the gesture to look, after having noticed the ad of course. Hand coming up instinctually to the bridge of her nose even if it wasn't truly the bridge of her nose she massaged it to no relief. Cybernetic eyes were decent, but they certainly still lacked a certain kind of depth to them due to their constructed nature. Still there was some degree of pain to the way she looked about, anxiety.

Nadia's expression was controlled, to an extent. She emulated Elizabeth but she didn't have the resource of will or drive to call upon like the woman did and thus it fractured much more easily, "I am an Avaline series, I am.. I understand well the concepts here and I find them very intriguing," she says, in a manner that is trying to match the sense of what the doctor has been doing. She struggles, taking pauses to think long about how to phrase things. Not a woman learned too well in deception even if she's used it a time or two.

"I should inform you, however, that I know Elizabeth would be more interested in things she can make use of. She sent me in order to ascertain if there was a potential interest here that might have been overlooked. I do not know what best has a chance, but maybe some of what you said will? If there is anything else that you might have now would be a good time to tell me so that the chances of her continuing the project are improved. I am incapable of helping in any other way," she says with strained detachment, looking back up to the sky and the strange lights she knew only in lectures and early teaching to be stars or at least a simulacrum of them.

[Boogiepop]

Doctor Homes

"I already had a suspicion when we first met but it was clearer by the conclusion of our meeting. I can see that the fact he sent someone to see what we're working on here than going herself could only mean she had little interest, to begin with. It's most definitely not her realm, the asset here isn't exactly tangible and you can't put a sticker price on the worth of this project, especially when much of it is still in development. I'd like to say that much of the real estate is actually built and ready to be sold," he said with a gesture to the store they had taking the ice cream bars from and the bridge that crossed the river.

"Of course, what we're working on is making it possible to get people to live here comfortably with the long-term goal of potentially indefinitely. Immortality or a legacy of sorts, in some sense down the line, and the final goal with being immortality itself. It's far backwards than what she is usually used to. It took a while for Perez to get it, albeit he did twist it to his own ambition." He gave a shrug of his shoulders with a sigh, sound like resigned to his fate either way. "At the end of the day, I am just a talent asset. They were a bit at a loss of what to do with me at first but they supposed that doing what I did would keep me busy and most importantly, return their value for their...investment. Pulling the plug on that would make the whole affair rather retrieval, would it not?"

[Nadia Avaline]

"I understand the feeling, I think," she admits, walking alongside him there was an attention to his words that was customary for a clone like herself. However, in this listening there was an earnest desire to do so. One hand fiddling nervously with the bottom of her sleeve as they walked, and she thought. "I-" she shakes her head, the wording wasn't quite right. Illogical to just make life difficult for herself, to risk so much.

"At the end of the day," she says, somewhat matching his tone when he said it, "I am just a talent asset. One made for the net, and manipulations on it. It is what I am best at I.. do not know how well it will go, but I do hope to try," she says, still cautious about her words but in what she did allow herself to reveal the struggle seems to be leaning more toward making mistakes than not in admitting some of what she had. Hopes were not exactly part of the 'programming' to be sure.

[Boogiepop]

Doctor Homes

Homes watched her as she spoke, almost studying her. It was a very peculiar situation to have your fate put into the hands of clone, who had her own obligations and preset conditioning. If there was a time he has wished they could strive to be just as human as humans, it would be now. He didn't think his chances were high but suspected that it would have been less so with that other company man, Leo. "It is a lot to ask of you, digesting all of this information and processing it into a decision. All decisions are merely an input done with the information we are given or the instructions given, in your case. The minute degrees of variation or even the mistakes made is what ultimately makes us human. You can consider that, Nadia."

"So yes, I will hope as well," he nodded in acceptance. "Is there anything else I can provide for you in my demonstration?"

[Nadia Avaline]

Nadia's brow furrows slightly as she glances down into the space between them at that moment. It was much, and she wasn't processing it all here. However there was a blip of a thought at the prompted question. One that was noted in her gaze as she looked back up to him, the cogs still working as she asks, "What is your and your co-workers specialties, Doctor Homes? I have learned much, but nothing about the other assets connected to this project. I think.. I believe Ms. Mills could find such information useful, if nothing else," she suggests with a restrained smile which she quickly manages to get under control and neutral out her expression.

[Boogiepop]

Doctor Homes

He nodded at the question. "Personally, my specialty is found in technological neuroscience. Admittedly, much of the digital plane and the architecture here isn't exactly my strength except for what translates into experience, memories, and sense. Most of my research and dedication have been put into refining existing brain scan technology, which most of it was used as an archival means to store information or use as a base for artificial intelligence rather than active use. My other co-workers have done the work on the technology that we're experiencing right now, bridging my expertise with virtual reality. They have an understanding of my field and my intent, of course, but are responsible for the writing and translation portion. Building the city as you see here and ensuring that we can re-experience past memories or be fed experiences of others."