Difference between revisions of "Building a puzzle"

A crow is weaving silvery plant strands in to Alma's hair. It's extra scraggly today, and she's baggy-eyed. She's sitting at an old weathered picnic table, in front of what used to be the Over Easy Diner. A sign faces out from behind the glass door. "Second Stories Detroit" is mounted on a background made from the marbled covers of old library books. Beneath it hangs a chalkboard showing the hours for this week. Mounted to the picnic table is an old bucket, filled with large pieces of chalk. It has a hole drilled in it because someone lost the lid.

Alma is bundled up in her coat, the worse for wear. She's piecing together some boxes of wood and has a little bowl filled with some pebbles, nuts, and a few marbles. She's been doing this a while, and is starting to relax.

Jim does make the rounds a bit. Sometimes just flying over head lets you see things that shoudln't be, or people doing things that they shouldn't be doing. So the large bird is swooping in circular patterns over this neighborhood today. Being so historic and decayed industrial, that seems to fit in with some theories he's run into anyway. So, seeing something going on outside, he starts to drop, circling toward Alma, and finally recognizes who it is.

The first sign of Zach's passing could be the crunch of tires on gravel as that old-and-new Jeep swoops off the road and aggressively bounds its way to a nearby bit of abandoned right-of-way that it will now claim for a parking spot. It might be the smell of french fries that wafts downwind from the grease-burning diesel. It might be the scrape of heavy metal on steel panels, after he's gotten out to prop up the anvil that fell over in the 'trunk' of the vehicle. Whenever or whatever gives him away, it's not like he's /trying/ to be hidden. The bright orange "Homer" bucket (the sort you get at Home Depot) is easily the least 'stealth' thing about him today. Once the tailgate's been propped back up, the troublemaker gives a visual sweep of his surroundings - a reflexive habit - and he fixes on Alma at her table. He watches for a moment, perhaps weighing the various courses of action he could take here. The conflict resolves, after another moment, into the decision to begin heading her way.

She likes how the irregularly shaped parts come together to make an imperfect whole. These pieces fit just so, and when you turn the box over there's a perfect... nope not a perfect sound.

Jim swoops on in. Seeing a jeep arrive, though, what with a bright bucket, he swoops that way first. So the big bird flies not far from Zach, and goes to land right on top of one of the windshield wipers of the jeep.

Zach can't miss the huge black bird swooping out of the sky to... land on his Jeep, and he sighs. Wildlife isn't always to be trusted, but as long as it's interested in the Jeep and not him, specifically, it's all good for now. He takes to backing away from the Jeep for a few steps, rather than leaving his back to the animal. "I was gonna ask," Zach says aloud, presumaly for Alma's benefit, "what brought you out to this neck of the woods but I think I just got my answer..." As conversation starters go it lacks for any of the salutory markers, but Zach and 'rules' aren't really things that go well together.

"Hey," Alma says, and then, "Hey". She takes apart her wooden toy and starts gouging out more paths.

Jim flaps once as he watches Zach walk in that unnatural way, watching him. Letting out a little trill. It's amusing when people stop what they're doing to watch the animals. But then he looks around at his immediate surroundings, which includes inside the Jeep. Huh. But after a moment of that, he hops off of the Jeep and flies over toward Alma. Well, almost. He flies to the bucket, snags a piece of chalk in his beak, and perches the edge of the bucket.

Zach perfectly pivots, smoothly transitioning his weight from foot to foot to make the shift seem like he just sort of stands there, and yet turns all the same. "One of yours?" he asks of Alma, gesturing towards Jim and his chalk. The Homer Bucket remains idle by his side, shuffling a little against his jeans, and giving a bassy echo to anything he does with either his right hand or his right leg.

"Likely," Alma allows, "one of my students." She scoots the bowl a little towards Zach. "Got anything I can use? A small piece that could roll around and get in the way?"

Note, meanwhile, has done a good job. And the scent of sage will probably go with lunch later, or maybe dinner. This chalk, now. That's a great idea. She hops over the bucket and picks out her own piece of chalk. Looks at Jim. cocks her head sidewize. cooks her head at the sky. There she goes! up and up. Then she drops the chalk and tries to catch it again.

The large raven doesn't react in any large way to the little crow coming right up to him. The larger bird watches the small one, not making any move to prevent Note from taking a some chalk. Jim keeps watching, even as Note starts doing tricks.

But he's a young man at heart, and decides to try to one up the crow. The raven tosses up the piece of chalk in his beak, grabs another, and tosses it up before catching and re-tossing the firs.t And so the cycle goes.

The birds are the main event right now, so Zach watches their antics for a bit, perhaps seeing either of these behaviors for the first time. The one-beaked juggle makes him squint and conclude, "Yeah, I'm thinking that's a yes, then." He squints at the bowl that Alma shoved his way and tries to make heads or tails of its contents. What he comes away with is: "In the way as in, not the thing they'd want to retrieve?" It's a thing he's thinking about now, whether it's the right answer or not.

She must suppose a raven does not want to play catch, and the solo diving comes to an end. Perhaps Alma could use this, she flies down to the picnic table and walks over to stick the chalk in her bag. Perhaps the tall man has pockets. She will check him out. Has Zach been stared at by enough crows?

Alma's grinning. She puts down her tool and rubs her bleary eyes. "Oh," she pauses. "That's a neat idea. hadn't thought of it that way. I was making an absurd puzzle piece. more for me than the birds." She brightens. "You can test for causal inference with some meta tool use, though! So, yeah, what an awesome idea." she picks up her tool again, "These'r fun too. sometimes pretty relaxing. I like making htem and then you can try to get the things to fall out. You have to turn it around a lot. You know those peg things? Galton boards? Pachinko? I like those. but it's fun not to have a normal distribution"

Jim would feel bad if he realized that Note was trying to play catch. He underestimated her. Keeping up the juggling going for a good 30 seconds, thwap , thwap, thwap. But sadly one piece of chalk then breaks when he grabs it out of the air beak one too many times, and he gives up. He lets the pieces fall, then the piece in the air thunks back into the bucket. Then flapping, he looks to Note and begins to make a complex series of clicking and trilling sounds to 'speak' to her in a corvid Spirit Speech. <<That was fun, but probably too much in front of him>>

"Oooooohhhhhh," Zach says as understanding dawns. "I follow now. I mean, if you can give me specs for it, I can crank out however many you'd like. I try not to keep stuff that rolls loose though - that's a great way to find it places you didn't want it. I haven't tried making spheres that small, either, last one I did was about three inches or so, I guess? It's been a while."

<<Naw, Look at her. She's not edgy, see? I don't know about you but I'm going to check out that guy's bucket.>>

"Have you thought about how dented things are? Or how everything isn't a circle?" She raises her eyebrows. "You don't need to machine anything for me. Do you have a nail or a screw? I can reuse those parts. See the sign?" she gestures towards the sign. Maybe she's thinking of seconds.

Jim lets out a trill, then makes some more clicks and honks. <<Sounds fun. I'll distract him then.>> The much larger bird then rustles and flies right up to the table, going around to land on the corner, looking right at Alma and Zach. Leanign his head forward, to poke his beak at what Alma's working on. Just slowly starting to walk forward.

"Dented? Oh yeah. Most of my work for small projects like that I do by hand. I'm good at smoothing out most hammer marks, but everything shows how it was made." As if by afterthought, Zach tacks on, "Locard's Theorem, and all that." The arrival of the larger of the two corvids on the table certainly gets Zach's attention. The woman at the table presumably knows way more about what to do or when to worry than he does, however, and he just mostly observes to see what might happen next. Today's a learning day.

Note is more curious than mischevious, and she wants her own bucket perch. She walks over then flaps to Zach's bucket, ready to dash away if he makes any sudden moves. Balancing on a bucket not nailed to a table is fun. Now, about those pockets...

"Well actually," Alma says, "I don't know what Locard's Theorem is." In an uptalk she says, "Tell me about it?"

Jim doesn't know what Locard's Theorem is either, so he's a little curious. So he's listening as he slowly hops across the table, going up to Alma. He looks up at her, and lets out a steady series of clicks. Much simpler than the noises he made at Note. Just clicks.

"French detective from a few generation's back," Zach answers. "The Theorem holds that any two objects that come into contact with one another - any contact, mind you - leave traces of each of them upon the other. It's the basic principle of forensic science - by studying the traces left behind by the interactions, if you understand the forces in play, you can reconstruct the events that gave rise to the trace. One of those things that seems super obvious, but still took thousands of years for someone to coherently express."

Alma sets down her tools again. Chuckles. Puts out a finger towards the Raven to see if he wants to touch beaks. "That's poetic. I like it. Those kinds of things that seem so obvious are the best. Kai said I could ask my student about corvids to learn about corvids. But I told her that's like thinking a human knows how humans work just because they're a human. The bad type of obvious gets in the way. Like what *seems* obvious but istn't. But this other obvious? that's transcendent maybe." She pauses, "Do you think you can keep people from making mistakes if you can see where these contacts will go?"

Jim does find the detective bit interesting. Almost on reflex, the bird though lifts his beak up, and taps it to the finger, rubbing a little. Very friendly. He even opens up, and clasps for a moment. All of this hides his perplexity at Alma saying those things to Zach. Whether she's talking about Note or Jim when talking about her student, is that something she should really be saying?

Then again, she mentioned Kai. Small freaking world. Well, just in case we have a massive blabbermouth problem on our hands (said the pot, calling the kettle black), he lets go of Alma and starts walking up to Zach now, clicking and looking intently.

"Let me answer your question with a question of my own," Zach says, frowning a touch as he considers Alma's query. "Why would you? Mistakes are how you learn shi..." Whatever else he was gonna say gets cut off when that Raven comes up to him like that. There had been humor still in Zach's demeanor until that moment - now it's decidedly on edge; his stance shifts subtley, orienting his body language towards the corvid. "One warning, chucklenuts," he says to the bird, "you /ask/ first, next time." He lifts the bucket then, keeping it near to himself, but making clear that he's of half a mind to drop it over the top of Jim.

Note balances a little on the bocket and flaps. Then she hops up to a tree branch. Humans, sigh.

"You guys? Are you guys doing some shapeshifter bro whatever thing? You aren't one of those people who get all paranoid and want to kill me because I'm minding my own business with Note looking for people who need some help?" She drums her fingers, glaring.

Ah Alma, calm down kid. Note hops to Alma's shoulder and nips her ear.

Jim flaps, looking at Zach. The bird quickly looks around, to make sure nobody else is listening in, and hopping back a few inches out of easy reach. He then just, well speaks. With a Texan accent, in otherwise very clear English. "Howdy. Begging your pardon, I was just making sure miss Alma wasn't saying things like that to someone who should not be told, on account of it being possibly about me, but mostly that she gets overexcited and it could get her in trouble."

"Nah you're fine," Zach says, waving - absently towards Alma, his beef is with the poultry. The explanation makes him roll his eyes, but at least it's a conversation now. "Fun fact, bro: you blew you own cover just fine." His attention goes to Alma now, however, and it's direct question time. "So when you say 'students...'" he asks, in as not-direct-a-fashion as he might be thinking he's asking.

"I see." Alma stops glaring at the men. "Yeah. First I took on this guy for engineering credits. I have a multidisciplinary grant to do research on the corvid population in Detroit. I posted fliers around campus, but he was the only one who came by. I was hoping to get some bio and cs students too, and maybe some interest from people in to cameras or drones. no luck. I just did get a new student though." To Jim, "I'm going to introduce you next week." To Zach, "You met her in passing."

Jim trills at Zach. "I was telling Note that maybe I went too far, but I saw her throwing chalk around and had to try." He then taps his beak on the tabletop. "I'm an engineering student with A&M Distance. So taking a project related to ravens interested me, on account of getting school credits for it." He then turns toward Alma. "You got another student, miss Alma? I know I'm the only Corax in Detroit, so it must be just a regular student then. And I am an engineering student, ma'am. I'm not just pretty in iridescent feathers."

Zach squints, when Jim says the word 'Corax,' but doesn't comment upon it. "And by 'study corvid' behavior, you mean 'learn to emulate in the most hardcore fashion?'" Zach gestures at Jim again, but the query is for Alma. "Seems like the sort of thing Universities don't like people teaching..." Not that he's judging, himself, but rather that he's trying to place the story in a context.

Alma is seriously confused. "What do you mean? We have an entire department on this. Cognition and Culture in New Caledonian Crows. What, hold on..." She can't believe this nonsense, and drags her bag over. She pulls out an old beatup thinkpad and clicks it open. Yep, still has batteries. <furious clickity clickity bang bang click click BROWSER TAB TAB clack>. Turns laptop around. stupid sun. Shades laptop. "See?" She attempts to show you her group's web site at the University of Aukland all about NC crows. "I'm in Detroit due to family reasons. My advisor worked his butt off helping me to pull together a grant proposal so I could do research while I'm here. That's the type of advisor people need."

Jim lifts a wing to help shade the screen for Alma. Looking to Zach again as he does so. "I'm no imitation. I'm a real bird and a real boy. My part in the research is mostly about building miss Alma tools she uses for her research. What I instinctively know about ravens I could never fully explain anyway."

Zach squints at the screen, working with the glare by adjusting his angle on it. He reads quickly, nodding along as he goes. "How does the whole 'one of my students is a bird from Texas' thing go over at the team meetings?" Zach wonders aloud, straightening up and laying the bucket on the ground. "That's the part that I'm not used to seeing be so mainstream - not the stuff on the website."

"I don't see that it's their business. Maybe they can guess his gender based on his name. Do I bother them about that?"

Jim chimes in now. "Well, when I showed up to miss Alma's office I had two legs, two hands. If you prick me, do I not bleed?" He then pauses. "Well actually I don't bleed for very long, but that's another matter. I assure you I look and pass for an ordinary person, I reckon better than some Corax because I was born as one." Jim is a blabbermouth more because he just doesn't believe in secrets, at a basic level.

Zach fixes Alma with a steady, and perhaps somewhat overly intense gaze for a moment after she answers that. Still somewhat tense after his mild confrontation with Jim, he relaxes now, leaning back onto his back foot and settling his shoulders. "Fair enough," he concedes to Alma, perhaps with a measure of audible respect. He gestures towards Jim in the next moment to repeat the concession. "Was just curious how the whole thing worked. I had to drop out of Syracuse after three semesters on account of what I was into at the time - not the sort of thing I'm used to Universities being welcoming towards. But I'm also subtle as a brick through the window." He shrugs. C'est la vie.

"Well, it was really weird at first. I never met anyone like him before. He came in as a student, and I got this really weird vibe. I asked Note what she thought. When she came back I found out about the whole Raven thing. And *then* then he changed in to a Raven right in front me." She spread her fake wings. "Woooaaaa. So I quized him. He's an EE student? Anyway, he liked the audio processing idea and has been putting together some things and we go put them up. It augments the traditional methods. Some more students could probably come on if they want to do visual processing, but maybe at this point we don't have enough time for remote sensor networks and tagging. depends." rapid fire talk, maybe you are used to it? "What did you study at Syracuse?"

Note, meanwhile, drops back down to Zach's bucket to take a look.

Jim flaps after everyone got to look at the screen. "Half of us are born just as people, the other half just as ravens. I'm one of the human born." He trills. "I get to learn to fly. They get to learn to do taxes. I think we get the better end of the deal." He then pauses to listen to Zach's answer to Alma's question, given how he's built it up a bit.

"I was undeclared," Zach says, "mostly was clearing my gen-eds and pre-reqs for everything while convincing my folks that Philosophy wasn't a waste of a college education." He shrugs. "Like I said, three semesters and I was out. So the whole thing was moot anyway." Maybe just a touch bitter about it. Still, the story was interesting, and Jim's point makes enough sense that Zach will shrug and nod agreement. "So wait, you're /not/ teaching people to shapeshift, just actually studying crows and stuff," accusatory glance in Jim's direction follows, "And you just stroll on in there? You trollin' brah?" That last is conspiratorially half-whispered Jim's way.

"I bounced around in undergrad. Took some philosophy. I felt like psychology was applied philosophy. Well, maybe economics and anthro? But I settled on cognitive psychology. Focused on humans up til when I graduated. We had this visiting speaker give a talk. He talked about animal consciousness and how animals can have mental maps of the world. He told us about an experiment with ravens and a string that could imply this. Do you know how cool that was?! Don't tell you me if you don't, I couldn't stand the disappointment. Anyway, right then I decided I was going to study them. ...and it's not just crows, you know. Freakin spiders, I don't think they have complex cognitive maps but do I know? for sure? no. not really. Portia f...whatever. She blows my mind."

Jim trills. He'd be grinning. "Yes,I was just going to walk in and join her research project. Had she not spotted me out, I was going to mess with her a bit in this form. But she was too observant." Flapping once, happily. "I was at A&M in College Station, but after Helios brought me to Detroit I transferred to West Texas A&M Distance to come up here. Shame I can't wear my father's gold Aggie ring though."

Yeah, see? Zach was right. He knows a fellow jackass when he sees one. He listens, however, to Alma's story, conceding all the way that this stuff is interesting and cool. "I did the rest of my undergrad at Hard Knocks, then went back for more." There, now everyone's educational credentials are on the table. There's a hint, if a very small one, of waiting to see if anyone's gonna give him shit there, but he is relaxed enough that it doesn't seem like a strong anticipation.

"What kind of stuff do you do here? Can we make art? I want to record you. Can I do that? would it work?"

Jim loooks back at Alma after Zach makes his micro-reactions to the story. Seeing if she noticed what he just said. He then steps back a little. "Name's Jim if I didn't say it before." he tosses out.

Now Zach's on his back foot metaphorically as well as literally - art? Record? Openly, confusion swirls around on his face. "Uhhh," he begins, finding a question in there and starting with that. "It would work fine, if.. you know, the recording equipment wasn't broken or something?" Zach is not clear why this is a question, perhaps. Still... so many questions... he turns to Jim for a moment, there was an introduction. "Zach," he counters. "Penn." And again, a laden moment as if he expects to be judged - now for his name. But then back to Alma again. "I do this and that, really. I don't have a.... nine to five or anything. I mostly just do whatever to pay the bills. Kind of in a transition period, I guess? What... kind of art?"

"Like, how you can make audible beats with patterns? Like moire but sound. yeah? Kai has color sometimes. I like thinking about it. It's not a system. But I can respect them, and I'll talk to them. And doctrine is wrong. they're fucked up like the jedi."

Jim looks back. "So you've met miss Kai. She's nice. But uh, she's also another one you don't want to blab about. She gets annoyed." Apparently this is spoken from experience.

"Kai gets annoyed on days that end in Y," Zach intones, perhaps a little uncharitably, but he does smirk as he says it - it's probably a bit of smacktalk there. Alma said something, however, something that got his attention. "If you mean beatboxing? I... can try I guess? But I suck at that sort of thing. I can respect someone who sees what's wrong with the Jedi though. What cooks my noodle: does Greyside have any meaning without the Jedi and the Sith though?" He shrugs. "It takes all kinds."

"Kai is the most relaxing person I've ever met. She's amazing. I could just sit back in a field all day reading or something. she could, I dunno, hang out with Note?" Note, meanwhile, is peeking in to the Jeep to see if any nuts and bolts got loose in the back. "But I mean, no, like when two speakers... sound speakers, not people. they go together and it makes silences in a beat. Like what you did. With your feet. Or something. that. That would be cool art. We could have a dance? I don't know if it would work. I haven't played with time yet though. I could probably learn a bit with that first. With the birds."

Jim finds that comment about Kai interesting. She's obviously different around different people. He has no idea what Alma is talking about at this point though, so he says nothing.

Zach has to squint at at Alma, as she clarifies what she meant by 'art' and then some sort of understanding dawns for him. He nods, now with some measure of confidence. "Yes, it would work. That's basically what I did with the first half of my life. Now I'm trying to figure out what the next thing is."

Alma looks really happy when you say you've done that. "Yeah, I don't know how it works. I want to know if we can leave an indelible mark in things and make art of out what we do. I want to know if I can hear the same thing that was recorded by a sensor. Or have a sensor record what I hear. Or capture color." She expects you to follow. "In my job, I make puzzles to study behavior. I learned how to put things together from it. for fun's sake. nothing. doesn't have to do a thing. I like when it does on accident. No," she looks at Zach, "giving people second chances doesn't make them weaker."

Jim is lost. He assumes this is magery in progress, and so it's supposed to be beyond him a bit. So he watches, head dipping to peck carefully at one of the implements Alma had on the table. Certianly not damaging anything.

Zach is thoughtful as he regards Alma, squinting at her again as if trying to sort out a bit of the puzzle that is her. "Don't ever lose that," he says, perhaps cryptically. "But to bring it all around to the initial question: That is precisely why I wouldn't try to stop someone from making mistakes - not with any measure of certitude anyway. Caution them against? Maybe, but it's their lesson to learn - or not."

"No, I mean." She waves towards the building behind her. "I'm... like if someone wants to re-use a needle. I'd rather keep them from doing that. If they want to use a new needle, I might think they're being an idiot, but maybe it's the best choice they have? of many? I don't know. Maybe it would be gross arrogance to think I could."

Jim has no idea how suddenly we're talking about needles. It's like he's 12 and in bible study again. He trise to listen, but without context.... forget about it.

"So we're firmly on my soap box now," Zach warns - as he charges ahead anyway. "But here's the deal: Personally? I don't believe that evil, or good, are real things. These are meanings you apply to things based on your own values, and everybody's got a different take on it than you. If you tell someone what you think might happen if they use a dirty needle? Now they've had a chance to think about what you have to say and add it to their own model - but the choice is still theirs. But if you go in and tamper with their brain, or the needle, or their reality, in reaction to their intent? That's a violation of their agency. Now you're not allowing them to have their own meaning of the world, you're forcing yours on them. Sometimes you don't get a choice - some dudebro puts a gun in my face I'm not gonna stand by while he gives me a redundant new orafice. But any time anyone has tried to erase the possibility of a thing - even violence - from a context? It never goes the way they think it will, and it always ends in tyranny."

"Yeah, that's what I'm worried about. Before, I sometimes wished people were dead. There are vile people out there. But I don't want it to be easy for a government to kill people. And I was glad I wasn't in a position to judge people. but now? secret societies get to make decisions about who deserves to live? or what it means to be human? I'm not agreeing with you. I still feel the need to make time skip a beat. Give people a chance to have second thoughts. Give them another choice."

Jim does start to understatnd a little bit as they start talking about killing,a nd societies, and all that stuff. "There are bad pepole with the power to kill, and good people with the power to save lives."

Zach shrugs here, he's not going to challenge what Alma has to say about her feelings. He does, however, turn his attention towards the talking bird, "Good people have the power to kill too," he shrugs. "Everyone does. What defines you isn't what you /can/ do. It's what you /do/ do."

"Things are kind of... I need to be still and think. You all can stay, but I'm going to work. ok?" With that, she starts tinkering again.