I had done my girlfriendish duty and sat through the costume fitting. I had checked out the new anime releases and made my 'continue following' selections. I had blown two trips worth of spending cash at the book and model dealers'. I had duly heckled the pompous twits on the 'future of space opera' panel.
And now I was sitting curled up in the hallway while I waited for Stace to get out of the yaoi panel.
Meh. Call it cultural conditioning from my 'Dane days, but I just don't follow the appeal.
I was a few chapters in when she walked up and stood in front of me, just lurking in my peripheral vision rather than saying anything.
I looked up.
Slender and Japanese and rather disheveled, with light colored hair and eyes that had to've been the result of a Change. Despite what should've been a quite striking apprearance she seemed almost colorless, not like a ghost but something physical that had had all the life wrung out of it.
"Yes?" I asked, which was shorter than I'd usually've been, but I'm always cranky when I get interrupted.
"Nagato Yuki, SOS-dan. I need to speak with you privately."
Since about the only thing people knew about the calling group besides their name and the abysmal quality of their translators was that they'd called the Con, that was certainly enough to get my attention. The mystery of it was certainly worth looking at, and not even a fool would have tried to call a Con against schedule without both audacity and a plan... "All right," I said, and we adjourned to a small conference room, which she locked behind us.
Little Japanese girl and she's still taller than I am. Grr.
Then she turned to me and said, "I am a humanoid interface created by the Data Integration Thought Entitity to monitor the ongoing situation which resulted in the creation of the self-sustaining data pattern your civilisation refers to as 'Handwavium'."
Uh?
"Ten years ago an explosion in the complexity of altered data in the region of the Earth provoked considerable concern in the collective data intelligences occupying the galactic core. With effort, the focus of the changes was located as a single human individual, who was then monitored extensively to determine the nature and methodology of the connection. This investigation is still ongoing."
Uhhh... "'Altered data'?"
"Yes. Changes in the descriptives determining the properties and behavior of physicality and temporality."
Changes in... whoa. "Someone was hacking reality."
"The methodology of alteration remains unknown, but yes. Among the alterations induced by this factor is the existence of the Handwavium data pattern. Also among them are changes in the determinants of probabilities of technological advance and physio-biological evolution in the surrounding immediate spaces such to increase the probability of intersteller travel and interaction among corporeally bound entities, as well as direct the psychological and physiological nature of the resulting species." She paused and made some minute alteration in her posture or exression that was too subtle for me to pin down or interpret. "Many of the results have been benign. Others are extremely malignant."
In other words, Earth's immediate vicinity had been turned into a space opera. I left aside, for the moment, the question of her sanity and sincerity in favor of another question. "What's your angle?"
"It has been assessed that the greatest amount of data on the anomaly may be gathered by, in the vernacular, 'giving it its head' and permitting it to act according to its desires."
"And your focus is a member of the SOS-dan."
"Yes."
"Why tell me all this?"
"Your seniority in the fennish community and contacts with and in the National Air and Space Administration and Central Intelligence Agency of the United States of America make you among the individuals best suited to influencing the prexisting sociopolitical order of Terra to cooperate. I will be having similar conversations with other individuals of like qualifications."
Worry about how and all the rest later. For now... "What do you want me to do?"
Nagato hasn't mentioned the criminal syndicates, yet, and I actually do have a plan for where to go with this, but my sister needs the comp for schoolworks, so I'm gonna need to log off here.
Ja, -n
===============================================
"Puripuri puripuri... Bang!"
And now I was sitting curled up in the hallway while I waited for Stace to get out of the yaoi panel.
Meh. Call it cultural conditioning from my 'Dane days, but I just don't follow the appeal.
I was a few chapters in when she walked up and stood in front of me, just lurking in my peripheral vision rather than saying anything.
I looked up.
Slender and Japanese and rather disheveled, with light colored hair and eyes that had to've been the result of a Change. Despite what should've been a quite striking apprearance she seemed almost colorless, not like a ghost but something physical that had had all the life wrung out of it.
"Yes?" I asked, which was shorter than I'd usually've been, but I'm always cranky when I get interrupted.
"Nagato Yuki, SOS-dan. I need to speak with you privately."
Since about the only thing people knew about the calling group besides their name and the abysmal quality of their translators was that they'd called the Con, that was certainly enough to get my attention. The mystery of it was certainly worth looking at, and not even a fool would have tried to call a Con against schedule without both audacity and a plan... "All right," I said, and we adjourned to a small conference room, which she locked behind us.
Little Japanese girl and she's still taller than I am. Grr.
Then she turned to me and said, "I am a humanoid interface created by the Data Integration Thought Entitity to monitor the ongoing situation which resulted in the creation of the self-sustaining data pattern your civilisation refers to as 'Handwavium'."
Uh?
"Ten years ago an explosion in the complexity of altered data in the region of the Earth provoked considerable concern in the collective data intelligences occupying the galactic core. With effort, the focus of the changes was located as a single human individual, who was then monitored extensively to determine the nature and methodology of the connection. This investigation is still ongoing."
Uhhh... "'Altered data'?"
"Yes. Changes in the descriptives determining the properties and behavior of physicality and temporality."
Changes in... whoa. "Someone was hacking reality."
"The methodology of alteration remains unknown, but yes. Among the alterations induced by this factor is the existence of the Handwavium data pattern. Also among them are changes in the determinants of probabilities of technological advance and physio-biological evolution in the surrounding immediate spaces such to increase the probability of intersteller travel and interaction among corporeally bound entities, as well as direct the psychological and physiological nature of the resulting species." She paused and made some minute alteration in her posture or exression that was too subtle for me to pin down or interpret. "Many of the results have been benign. Others are extremely malignant."
In other words, Earth's immediate vicinity had been turned into a space opera. I left aside, for the moment, the question of her sanity and sincerity in favor of another question. "What's your angle?"
"It has been assessed that the greatest amount of data on the anomaly may be gathered by, in the vernacular, 'giving it its head' and permitting it to act according to its desires."
"And your focus is a member of the SOS-dan."
"Yes."
"Why tell me all this?"
"Your seniority in the fennish community and contacts with and in the National Air and Space Administration and Central Intelligence Agency of the United States of America make you among the individuals best suited to influencing the prexisting sociopolitical order of Terra to cooperate. I will be having similar conversations with other individuals of like qualifications."
Worry about how and all the rest later. For now... "What do you want me to do?"
Nagato hasn't mentioned the criminal syndicates, yet, and I actually do have a plan for where to go with this, but my sister needs the comp for schoolworks, so I'm gonna need to log off here.
Ja, -n
===============================================
"Puripuri puripuri... Bang!"