View source for Aster Visits Rei's Home Address

{{Log
| date=08/29/2018
| summary=Aster tries to help Rei with a virus issue.
| cast=
* [[Aster]]
* [[Rei]]
| place_name=Packard Plant - Underground Research Facility
| place_desc=The lab's layout is essentially a spinal hallway that was added to the basement landing. It's of contemporary construction methods, contrary to the space it's linked to (the dangerous landing from the Packard plant and the rest of the Packard plant), with hanging drop-tile ceilings, in-ceiling fluorescent lighting, and steel doors with modern locks.

The hallway's other end exits into a caved in tunnel that hasn't been excavated yet, but was labeled "surface access", so presumably once went under the street and came up somewhere else.

The hallway has four doors on each side. If one is entering from the scary landing, the four doors on the left lead to lab spaces. These spaces have been largely stripped down except for some computers, filing cabinets, and tables. The further two doors on the right also lead to lab spaces. The nearer two doors lead to a break room with tables, an old microwave and refrigerator, and some counter space and cabinets that still have a handful of residual paper goods. The break room also contains another door leading to a bathroom that has over the years of neglect become toxic to human life. The remaining door leads to a supply closet which contains more paper goods, as well as some basic cleaning chemicals, a mop and bucket, two brooms, etc.
| log=
The lab is dark save for a dim glow coming from Rei's eyes, she apparently doesn't bother with lights when she is alone, but she is there in the near pitch blackness of one of the workspaces propped against a wall. It's not easy to tell with the lighting but she looks like she's seen better days, one might almost say it looks like she is resting, though comfort does not seem to be a factor.

It's been some time since Aster last came to the Packard plant, back when Rei was first setting up her computer lab. She still remembers the way down, still remembers how to get through safely, and it's time for a visit. "Yo!" She stumbles in the darkness. "Oof..." Out comes her phone, in flashlight mode to help her find her way. "Hey, anybody here? I know it's been a while, but I'd /guess/ this is still your place." Not like there'd be much of a waiting list to take it over.

Glowing red eyes peer through the gloom tracking Aster's movement, "You didn't bring a gun." Rei observes, one might almost accuse her of developing a very dry sense of humor. After a moment she adds, "The situation is worse than I thought, Gleipnir has spread further than I realized, but I am still myself." she makes no attempt to move yet, "It is not over yet though."

Aster squints in the darkness. She puts her hands on her hips. "/Should/ I have brought a gun? If you had gone bad, I don't think it would have made much difference -- the little handguns that I could handle wouldn't be enough to even slow you down, even if we had got around to that training yet." She comes closer and finds somewhere to sit. "So... that's still, uh, ongoing, huh? And still nothing I can do?"

"I am analyzing options. I may have made it worse in my attempts to purge it, I suspect there may be two seperately evolved strains now. It has copied itself everywhere that it could, when purged it only reappears, fewer in number, but larger and more complex. It has already developed rudimentary intelligence. I failed to destroy it, I underestimated it, but Dr. Tenko said there is still a way, though she also said I wasn't ready. But I don't think Gleipnir is going to wait around for me to be ready. It is trying to access my memories, the ones I thought lost due to data corruption, but Dr. Tenko told me are in fact only sealed away. In those there is the mechanism by which I was previously controlled, which if Gleipnir acquires would be the end of things, but she also said there was information there I could use to stop Gleipnir. However, the danger is also that my old self takes over. From what little I have seen... I was not very nice in the past."

Aster bites her lip, her toes wiggling as she listens. "So it's like a four-way battle royale for control over the Rei, huh. And it's something you can only do yourself? What about /getting/ ready, is there any way I can back you up with that?"

Rei thinks, before finally admitting, "I am not really sure how to even get to the sealed memories, I am relatively certain my not being able to access them is purposeful. Do you have any suggestions?"

Aster rubs her chin. "Sleeper-agent stuff, huh? Keeping them from being accessed internally, but perhaps still accessible EXternally. You were under others' control, right? Any idea what they would have used to control you, any particular way they'd have got into your head to seal or probe those memories?"

Rei shakes her head, "I do not believe they are the ones who sealed things away. I think my mentor Dr. Tenko did it when she was rebuilding me, to free me from what I was. The knowledge of how I was controlled, I am told is also behind that seal. It is a difficult situation, she does not think I am ready to face what is there but I do not see what choice there is. Attacking Gleipnir directly only seems to make it more powerful and accelerate its takeover. This seems to be the only route left, though maybe now that the virus is concealing itself less you might be able to detect and study it yourself?"

Aster chews her tongue. "And Dr. Tenko, not believing you're ready for it, is insisting on keeping those seals in place... but if you don't access them, it's only a matter of time until Gleipnir /does/ and you're screwed." She sighs, shaking her head. "So, can't go that way unless we persuade Dr. Tenko. My other thought was... well, have you heard of the Digital Web?"

Rei nods her head, straightening up a bit, "You mentioned it before when I was having difficulties with the regular internet. Though I havn't made much progress in accessing it it in the meantime. I am not sure Dr. Tenko has the ability to remove the seals, or if she did if Gleipnir would not instantly attack."

"Well..." Aster sits up more. "This is all strictly hypothetical. But in a sense, the Digital Web /is/ cyberspace. All of digital space, ever expanding. And your mind, it's digital in some way, yeah? What if we could sort of... come at you /through/ the Web, through another angle?"

Aster babbles about her Digital Web theories for some time after, while fiddling with her smartphone -- the one with the asterisk on the case. "Ah, but. Before we get started..." She sighs. "I promised someone that, with all the freakery about the /other/ spirit worlds if you try to get to them from Detroit, I would get outside the city before doing any Digital Web stuff. So..."<br />

And so out they go, to grab a room in a hotel near Ikea. Aster sits Rei down in the chair and attaches cables from her custom GPS, and from there to her smartphone -- which then goes into a headset. "What's your IP address right now? That should make the rest of this much easier." Headset on, controllers in her hands, she settles back on the bed. "Program start." It's not a voice command; she just gets her head into the game as she works her way through from her phone, to the regular internet, and finally doing as she'd done so long ago back at MIT -- she slips into the Digital Web.

Rei dutifully supplies the string of numbers and dots that she is currently using as an IP address to access the internet. She must trust Aster a fair bit since she lets her hook things up to her, something that would get most people shoved through a wall. Other than that she sits in perfect stillness and just lets Aster do her thing.

<div class="private">Aster is able to make a connection to Rei through the given IP address easily enough. The connection would be a lot stronger if Rei was equipped for this, of course. The bad news is that Aster is confronted with hardware whose archiecture she's not only never seen or heard of before - but never even conceived of before. Whoever built Rei's hardware had an entirely alien way of approaching electronic logic. This isn't binary, and it's not trinary - although the system is capable of trinary operations - because it's running millions of them per second in addition to whatever it's base code uses for a logic structure. Aster could spend years studying Rei's makeup and probably still never come out with a good systematic understanding of how she works. She could probably spend some time with the Adepts' literature about intelligence functions and alternative logic structures (pick up some dots in Mind) and maybe gain insight into how Rei is able to think. With her current understanding, however, all she's able to do is marvel at the overwhelming complexity involved in Rei's routine computational systems. No doubt the reason this model didn't gain traction is its profound complexity - binary logic is just easier for almost every application, and trinary covers the rest. This looks like it's base 11, instead of 2 or 3, which is just outright weird. 11's a prime number, for fuck's sake. yeah yeah, so are 2 and 3, but at least they're factors of all sorts of useful numbers. 11 isn't. Perhaps because of how astounding all of this is, Aster isn't able to suss out what of this morass is Gleipnir and what's Rei. But man is this ever worthy of a paper.</div>

Rei becomes visibly alarmed, it takes a lot for her to show agitation and she very much is. "Something within, possibly Gleipnir is attempting to signal out and contact the digital web!" she seems hesitant to cut whatever Aster is doing, but quite alarmed.

Aster dives in. Exploring the virtual world, moving 'herself' just with the right pressure on those thumb sticks... it's more natural to her than walking. With that extra information from Rei, it's easy to track her down, but after that...<br />

"Holy SHIT," Aster says. "It's... is that base /11/? The hell. I..." But that's when Rei speaks aloud, to which Aster can only answer, "Fuck." She drops her connection instantly, and sits up to yank the electrodes from Rei. "Disconnect. Now."

Rei does not need to be told twice and the connection is clamped shut with extreme predjudice, at which point she begins an internal sweep of herself for active Virus signals since this is happening in the real.

Aster seems rattled, judging by the wide look in her eyes and pale stretch across her face. She watches Rei in silence, waiting for any more word from her.

Rei reaches up, holdinger her head with her hands, "This has never happened in the material world before," she stutters like she is dealing with some sort of internal difficulties. "It contacted something," she staggers a bit, "though I managed to cut it off." she says hands coming down as her head seems to clear. "If I had to guess it was probably attempting to contact its creator."

Aster rubs her face. "Fuck. Fuck fuck. Good thing we cut the signal so fast -- couldn't do that if we went on a spirit-jaunt and climbed into the Web. Do you think you stopped it before it got in contact with anyone?"

Rei shakes her head, "No. It definitely made a connection before it was cut, if only for the briefest instance."

Aster groans. "And there's no telling how much data compression it could use, and so how much it could get out. On the plus side, well... at least we didn't do this at home. We can put some 'distance' between us and where it broadcast from, for whatever good that'll do."

Rei nods in agreement, "We should do that, I would rather not be here if the Technocratic Union shows up looking for me." she says as she disengages herself from the wires.

Aster packs everything back up into the bag she'd used to carry it, moving with erratic, nervous speed. "Right. And... I'm sorry, but I couldn't make heads or tails, looking at you. You're not just a machine. You're a mind... and I just do not know enough /about/ the mind to tell what you're even thinking, let alone what parts are you and which are Gleipnir. It'd take me weeks just to figure out the basics of your processing. Seriously, base 11?"

Rei does not seem to fully grasp everything that Aster is saying, it is entirely possible, even probable she is not intimately familiar with exactly how she functions or she just interacts with it in a different manner. She does however fully understand haste and she helps Aster pack so they can get out of there. "It is a complicated and difficult situation, one I fear is only getting worse. Now perhaps you see why I feel I have no choice but to take the risk and try to break the seal."

Aster nods grimly, as she leads the way out through the hall and back down the stairs. "Yeah. And, I'm sorry to say... I don't think I can help you with that. This looks like something which you have to do for yourself." She gives a wan smile. "Don't suppose you know any killswitch I can use if you end up turning evil? I would not exactly be a match for you in a fight."

Rei shakes her head, "I am sure someone will come up with something, there is little recourse at this point save to fight as hard as I can and hope for best." Not exactly the most reassuring answer, but it's all she's got.}}