Kaitlin

Hitting the fan II – this time it’s personal

/ staticsky

I look like crap, I feel like crap.

And tonight I go to sleep. I really have no choice. I’m locked into my room, and I’m not allowed out until after I wake up. And sleep I will, they took away my Orexinal.

They have Kaitlin in the other room acting as my guard. I wonder if they’ll slide me food under the door.

How could it have come to this? Pathetic sad little boy afraid to go to asleep. I am crap.

Earlier today I went to get some Mountain Dew and Twizzlers. I came back from the snack machine to find Alice, Adit, Kaitlin, and Janice in my office. Janice’s eyes were red and she wouldn’t look at me.

Alice noted that the whole group knew not only of my Orexinal habit but what I myself had read about it on the old web. It seems I’m not as good as I thought with the old browsers and I had left a cache of all the sites I visited on Alice’s cube.

Adit and Kaitlin apologized for not recognizing I had a problem because they had thought I had stop using when we had finished the “Rasa” project.
I tried to explain that it hadn’t affected me, and that was met with a strong rebuke. Examples of my failures were too easily given from handling Greystle and the VKV to my inability in getting additional funding.

Janice’s rebuttal hit home the most. “Really Rob? No effect?”

In an effort to relieve my pain Adit decided to increase my embarrassment with a question I couldn’t really answer. When was the last time I took a shower? I’m sure it was just a few days ago.

I tried to explain it was hard to get into a routine without really having a “morning routine” anymore.

When I started to get angry and a little aggressive Adit grabbed my arm, which made me scream out in pain. I hadn’t realized I had begun cutting myself. Late at night I guess. Perhaps I was trying to keep my body awake.

I tried to explain it to them even though I didn’t understand it myself. Janice left the room without talking to me.
I guess that is what an intervention is.

They let me across campus to my room. You’d think a person basically being dragged would grab attention, but the lawns now seem to be just a staging area for near riots between Prescott supporters and activists. No one noticed us.

God I am tired. I’m frightened, what if I don’t wake up? Will this be how Janice remembers me? How will she explain this to Sally?
My head hurts.

Hey Rob, Adit here.

/ staticsky

A blog? I haven’t seen one of these since the Grid came up. Did you know one of my doctors had a Rasa blog going on when I was a kid? When I was tracking your web usage on Alice’s backup I looked it up and read it; it was like meeting an old elementary school friend. Well you know, I assume it would be like that, if I had any elementary school friends. Or if I went to elementary school.

So about your blog Rob, I was able to hack into it via the Grid. It looks like no one else has yet but just in case when you wake up I’m going to give you an old tablet pc that has all wireless connectivity removed from it. I figure that way no one can stumble on to it. That way you can keep updating this knowing Greystle can’t read it.

How ya doin’ Rob? Actually right now you’re snoring, I am five feet away from you. Since you were sleeping I figured this was as good a time as any to set up a bogus Grid account so you can get full write access again. I’ve already done all the other team managers. Tomorrow I’ll do the full alpha crew.

You and Janice huh? Well since I know your secrets I’m going to tell you a secret. Kaitlin and I have been an item since my upgrade.

And Rob. I think it is only a secret to you. You have been seriously missing things guy.

Anyway, about Kaitlin and I, when you wake up I do have something very cool to tell you.

Take care Rob, we’ve all been really worried.

Hey Rob – It’s still me, Adit

/ staticsky

Okay, I was messing with some of your old equipment you have back here, seeing if there was anything Kaitlin can use, and I find another Orexinal stash.

Not cool. First thing when you get up we’re going to go through everything you’ve got – together. I won’t tell Janice – If you help me flush all your stuff.

Look, it’s really important you do right by yourself and your whole team when you wake up.

With what has happened with Greystle we aren’t just a project team anymore we’re comrades in arms, and we need you fearless leader. Ned isn’t one of us, you are.

So stop this crap! If you don’t this is all going to fall apart.

Catching up 2 – POV

/ staticsky

When I got back to the office I thought the first thing I’d hear about was the status of Alpha, but instead it was about the subject I dread: Politics

There is some kind of court case against President Prescott going on and that seems to be the new excuse for an increase in crime in town and even in the green zone. The thing Adit and Kaitlin wanted me to know was that there was a curfew now in the green zone. They figured I wasn’t aware of that and I wasn’t.

The campus security is also especially twitchy now.

More importantly though Adit and Kaitlin let me in on their little secret: Using the tech that keeps Adit… umm… Adit (and not Rasa), they are able to share experiences.

They started working on this right after Adit got his upgrade.

If you want any proof that Orexinal was affecting my performance I think you need go no further than the fact that my two main technical resources had basically been working part time on the alpha project and full time on their own experiment, and I had no idea.

Much like how Kaitlin and Adit upgraded Adit so that all electrical activity is recorded and “played back” to trigger his memory, they now can record the specific frequencies of each brain reaction to stimuli and compare that to how another brain reacts to the same stimuli. They can then create a mapping table between the two.

The program would learn how I see blue, and it would learn how Adit sees blue. Then I could look at blue, and record my brain looking at blue and then upload that recording to Adit. He’d then see the blue. It isn’t a recording of the blue or even my brain’s reaction to the blue. It is my brain’s reaction to the blue mapped to Adit’s brain’s reaction to blue. It would be what I saw as if he saw it.

Adit and Kaitlin mapped different sensory experiences. Their reactions to colors, shapes, smells, sounds, lights, all were mapped. Then touch. And as they are intimate now… all touch. They can really “share the experience.”

So besides transsexuals it looks like if Hera and Zeus ever get into an argument about sex again they can ask Adit or Kaitlin rather than just relying on the answer Tiresias gave. And no, I did not ask either Kaitlin or Adit which sex enjoys sex the most. And given the difference in anatomy and thus the difference in neuron wiring to respond to feedback from said anatomy the shared experience can really only ever be an approximation.

Actually all sensations through this tech will just be approximations, but according to Adit even just watching TV from the point of view of the person sitting next to you blows away any sense of “self.” And coming from a man whose every memory is triggered by a computer program that is saying something.

Over some beers we discussed what to call this and though I personally thought Perceptitron was cool and retro, in the end we decided to call the tech POV (Point of View) and we decided not to tell Greystle… or anyone else.

Tatoos and Memories: Relationships

/ staticsky

Alice has upgraded her NetTat so that she can update the imagery via a contact lens interface.

She’s using it like a mood ring.

Sometimes there is a happy kitty on her arm, next razor wire around her neck, then a simple tear drop on her face. And yes I actually saw that progression today, all within an hour. She must be exhausting in a relationship.

And relationships are something I’m starting to get back. I feel like I’m friends again with everyone here. It isn’t like it used to be but it is getting better. I have hope again, hope that we will again be a family.

Luckily the us vs. them mentality here has really made getting back into the fold fairly smooth. The Greystle folks keep to themselves, and we keep to ourselves.

Ned is almost officially a Greystle employee at this point. He is now known as “Ned in Bed,” because he is basically a Greystle lackey and will always take their side in any argument.

One relationship that hasn’t been restored is the only real relationship I had. Janice is keeping me at a distance. I’ve lost her trust. She’s coming to me about Alpha related issues now, so that is an improvement, but she doesn’t treat me like a friend… yet. I hope I can type yet.

One blessing is that I think the whole situation was kept from Sally who is the only person who treats me exactly the way they always had. She is a great kid. How a girl can be so normal with only geeky adults for friends is a mystery. But even she knows her mom and I are no longer together, but she never asks. Its like she just wants to be a kid and doesn’t want to know.

Now Kaitlin and Adit. That is a relationship that seems to be going well, and seems to be pretty public knowledge by now, especially since I’m asked about it by someone at the Coke machine every time I’m there. Which, now that I’m back to traditional caffeine for my sleep denying needs, is someplace I am often at.

Kaitlin actually opened up to me a little about the relationship. She told me how proud she was of Adit to even be in a relationship.

“He’s not like you and me Rob. Every time he sees me every memory he has of me is retriggered. There is no distance and no priority based on time. He remembers everything and forgets nothing. He remembers how he felt when he met me, how he felt when he touched me, he remembers how I looked on every day he saw me. My bad hair days, my inside out shirts, and every runny nose I had.”

I didn’t really get the significance until she hit me over the head with it.

“Rob, if I yell at him he will remember it forever. He will be both hurt and angry forever. Not only will it never be forgotten, it won’t weaken. It’ll be like it just happened. And every moment of anger towards me will always be there making him both angry and ashamed forever. You see Rob, by getting together with me he’s really put his heart on the line.

It’s weird. I feel a pride in having someone risk so much for me, but god Rob there is also this wall I have to have, a circuit breaker that is always there because there is this responsibility you know. I could hurt him forever.”

I would risk anything for Janice, and I feel like it’d risk everything. But Adit, he has no choice, he really is putting everything out there.

Though I have to say I feel like I’m just as ashamed whenever I see Janice now as I was six weeks ago as I stood there watching her look at the floor instead of at me as all my failings were aired. And for now I want that shame to feel fresh. I deserve to feel it.

Buying Spree and POV

/ staticsky

While Kaitlin is in spec heaven buying every piece of hardware she has ever read and drooled about, Adit and I got to work more on POV.

It was the perfect opportunity, I’m no longer worried about the funding presentation, and I’ve gotten over the fact that the months of preparation were somewhat for naught since Greystle basically threw the money at us and ignored the presentation. It would have been nice if they threw the money at us so that we could do what we wanted with the money, but I’m just glad we can keep Alpha running.

Ned barely ever shows up anymore. He’s off making speeches that Greystle sets up for him at various business events. They are treating him like some kind of politician: free food and free travel.

Adit is trying to get POV to interface with an entity living on Alpha. If we want to “see” really see, what is going on Alpha we have to choose location and time amounts and basically record it and then display the scene. Real time display of a location in Alpha would amount to just a blur as time whirled by quickly. But with POV we’ll see what something on Alpha sees, when they see it.

We’ll just flip the switch on and off and we should have experienced hours of time in that split second. Of course that might also kill us.

So we brought in Janice. Actually the real reason I wanted to bring in Janice was to show her I could reveal a secret to her; that I could open up to her. I can’t get her trust back with my still having secrets. Adit understood and was cool with that. The idea that POV with an Alphan might kill us was a secondary consideration. But Janice could definitely help with that.

When Adit was explaining how POV worked between he and Kaitlin he told a story I hadn’t heard before. In their earliest attempts Adit thought there was something wrong because he’d get sensations that didn’t fit the experience. He’d be plugged into Kaitlin and sounds would be accompanied by colors. Tastes and numbers as well. He was pretty sure they had some problems mapping vision correctly, until Kaitlin complained about how everything seemed a bit “flat.” When she’d hear something that way Adit heard it seemed hollow, though the sound was true.

Then he remembered Kaitlin is synesthesic and basically when she heard noises or saw numbers she would also see colors. The colors didn’t interfere, cloud, or alter what she saw, she just sensed the color. So many sense experiences were, well, colorful. Kaitlin never even thought of it, but when she experienced what Adit experienced it felt flat because it wasn’t the full experience. There was no feel for the color of the moments.

Janice took notes and was in rapt attention. She was fascinated.

Oh God it felt so good to be in the same room with her all day.

I miss her so much.

Strolling on the Grid

/ staticsky

Erik (who is on the tangent team now by the way) let me scan the grid at his room tonight. His desperate gratitude at me having secured him a job is a little unnerving, but the truth is he’s a good addition to the tangent team and his research will definitely be helpful in taking POV to the next level. That is if we ever get a chance to work on it again.

I haven’t told Erik about POV yet. I’m worried about what Greystle will to us if they discover we’ve been hiding such a breakthrough. If it didn’t mean the end of Alpha, then at the very least means then end of my involvement, and that of Adit, Kaitlin, and Janice. It also means that we’ll be kicked out of campus and without jobs. With the way things are going that means tent city. Jackie points out that if Greystle gets a hold of POV they would use it in ways we’d find very unsavory. Of course Jackie says everything Greystle does is unsavory, but I don’t think that is uncorrected thinking.

I feel like I’m being a little paranoid using Erik’s ID on the grid but we can’t be having a person of authority on the project going to the news and opinion areas of the grid. I don’t want Greystle to think the project is lead by a destabilizer. I assume they’ll be less concerned if it is just a team member roaming about (I say now suddenly feeling guilty). I did make sure to avoid the more outspoken corners.

All the fake IDs Adit made for us months back seem to have abruptly stopped working. The government has announced a Grid crackdown to stop the destabilizing elements, and new security agents have scoured out a lot of fake IDs and took them off the Grid. Adit could probably make even more sophisticated fake IDs but he’s kind of swamped right now.

Janice was right about what is going on on the Grid. Traffic seems down. Interaction seems at a minimum. The news out there doesn’t sound good but it seems… edited.

God, it is probably a lot worse out there.

It feels like the old web. Nothing is live. A lot of text, little real/immediate imagery or video. It’s not that the Grid isn’t being used… it feels like it is being edited. I can’t imagine the resources required to do that, but it looks like it is being done.

Living in the basement

/ staticsky

I used to joke how our team was just a bunch of basement dwellers, of course there were less of us then, but we didn’t live in a basement. But you know. Times change.

They’ve got a huge kitchen/dining area in our new basement campus and have even brought in some pretty good cooks. Though part of me misses the roach coach lady.

We have breakfast, lunch, and dinner there, and we eat in shifts. Not sure if that is really because there are so many folks living in here now or if Greystle want us to think there are.

The place just feels so large now. There are people on the staircase and in the halls that I don’t recognize. I have no idea where they came from or where they go during the day.

Janice, Kaitlin and Adit certainly have their ideas but I’ve pretty loudly told the teams the best thing for us is to just keep working on the project and let the world figure itself out.

Narcissistic? True, but giving basement dwelling nerds permission to live only in their world and not the real one is what I needed to do. Nothing good is going to happen if we get involved. And what could we do anyway. What should we do?

Besides, the project is the only thing that is really joyful in here. Well that and Sally. She’s taken to this so well, though she is definitely getting a little stir crazy. If it ever feels safe enough to pull POV out again I’d love to find some nice field or beach for her run on.

They’ve got some great horse like creatures in one of the southern continents. Sally would love to be one of those.

Sally’s also got the beat theories as to what is going on. Mostly they have to do with aliens.

VIPs

/ staticsky

Some kind of big wigs came today. I asked Adit who they were. I mean, had he ever seen them before. He had.

Two of them appeared on a news show for a minute or so a few years back it seems. They were members of the Walker family.

Relatives of the first family. Wow. I know, though not sure why, that Alpha is pretty important to Greystle. But is Prescott aware of our little project here? Are they really that interested in lizard’s and their breakthroughs in mathematics?

Oh did I mention that? Those guys are wizes at math. Their theories are getting to the point where Adit and Kaitlin’s team are spending their nights reading up on higher math to see what the heck they are doing and if there are some new discoveries being made. I’ve asked Greystle if we could bring in Kim Ng from the math department, Dulles’s own Noble Laureate. But Greystle was pretty cagey about the idea.

Are we some kind of high end sweat shop? I have to ask permission to get someone to explain the science our science experiment is uncovering. Maybe we’ll get a grad student of Ng’s at least.

Violent Tangent

/ staticsky

It might just be in my head, but I’m not alone.

Tangent seems like a more violent place than Alpha. And not just for the primates who now seem to be in constant war. But everywhere.

Thunderstorms seem worse. Rodents seem nastier. Even our lizard friends seem grumpy.

Kaitlin thinks so too and she’s one of the most “grounded,” okay – analytical – people I know.

I wonder if anyone in Adit’s team can come up with a way to really quantify violence and get what is a feeling into the realm of fact.