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[littletonoidea]

"This is the audio log of Communications Officer Doug Eiffel of the-- previously of the U.S.S Hephaestus, leave a message and I'll see if I can bear to drag myself away from whatever utterly engaging task I must be doing to not notice my comms--"

BZZZZZZZ

Action | Text | Voice | Video

Comments

jesus christ, self

[cactusy]

Decima.

[littletonoidea]

[That gets a long pause.]

What about it?

[cactusy]

I'd like to hear more about it.

[littletonoidea]

Had a peek in the burn book, huh.

Well, everything's right there. I don't think Kepler missed much, and I even included a fun little sound bite for your entertainment.

[cactusy]

I'm curious about its origins. I'm wondering if we have friends in common.

[littletonoidea]

Why are you asking the lab rat who cut the cheese?

[cactusy]

Because it sounds like my options are either you, Hilbert, some guy who isn't here anymore, or some people who have no direct experience and aren't from your world.

[littletonoidea]

Ask Hilbert, then. I only learned about it after Doctor Horribilski *told me* he'd infected me with it.

And if you think *I* love the sound of my own voice, wait until you get Hilbert on a roll about how great Decima's supposed to be.

> Audio

[littletonoidea]

[And then VERY quickly after]

Actually you know what maybe you shouldn't talk to Hilbert solo if you shoot him for playing the Same Name Game you're gonna get demoted let's talk!

still text from her end

[cactusy]

[Buddy. BUDDY. You are a lot.]

Good, because I'd rather hear about it from the victim than the perpetrator.

Any idea how long the virus has been around, who Hilbert works for, and why they picked that name for it?

And still audio from his!

[littletonoidea]

[He's still recording audio on his end, which means skimming over her text briefly to have it on record, but he replies with:]

Well the answer behind door number two is Goddard Futuristics, so, ya know. Evil rogue scientist getting absorbed into the evil capitalist tech conglomerate. Classic story. One and three I don't actually know, but...

[Suddenly the sound of a keyboard being clattered across at high speed.]

Uhhhh... yeah, apparently he's been working on this for like. I dunno, twenty years or something? Dunno about the name, though, maybe they just thought it sounded cool. The brass, not Hilbert, he wouldn't know if something was cool if it kicked him in the dick.

[cactusy]

You have records? Can I see?

[littletonoidea]

[There's a long silence from his open mic.]

You know what, I'm making the executive decision to say negatory on that one, She-Shaw.

[cactusy]

Why?

[littletonoidea]

Cos you sound like you're gonna use it to cut his head off?

Something about Decima is obviously getting under your skin, I'm not gonna give you more ammo to go on some bad idea revenge quest on a guy who is one hundred percent not related to your issues.

[cactusy]

I know what happens to wardens who hurt inmates. I'm not going to hurt him.

[littletonoidea]

[He's not gonna correct her that it's 'kill', not 'harm', because he doesn't want to actually be complicit in getting Hilbert literally tortured.]

Look, I'm totally down with covering any questions the file can answer. But you're not getting it off of me. And if you wanna get an interview out of Hilbert, you gotta go through his warden.

[cactusy]

[UuUuUuUuUUUUUUUGH

His argument makes sense. Decima Technologies doesn't own the name Decima; it's something from mythology, right? She vaguely remembers Root and Finch talking about that, once.

But that's assuming that this is real. And even if it is, that's assuming that coincidences are always just that.]

Can you run a keyword search on that file of yours?

[littletonoidea]

Easy peasy, Coleshlaw. What're we googling?

[cactusy]

It's a long list.

[But here goes.]

Decima Technologies
Samaritan
John Greer
Jeremy Lambert
Martine Rousseau
Harold Finch
John Reese
Sameen Shaw
Samantha Groves
Root

[littletonoidea]

[His tone takes on a bit more sobriety as he actually focuses on the task at hand, keyboard taps and computer beeps punctuating his words.]

I've got some false positives on Lambert - same name as a previous crew member Hilbert worked on, first name Samuel - also... root and John, since- they're common words, obviously, but apart from Decima itself I'm not getting any hits.

Look, if you haven't heard of Goddard, we're not from the same world. I know it's possible to have, like, two things be the exact same even across different universes, but this Decima isn't one of them. Promise.

[cactusy]

Root is a proper noun, so if it's not showing up in that context then you can discard it.

You're from the future, right? Relative to me.

[littletonoidea]

The year of our lord 2015. But I couldn't tell you what happened the last two years back on Earth, I spent them on the other side of the universe.

[cactusy]

Seriously?

[He's from the same year as her? That... huh. That changes things. Possibly. Maybe. Probably.

She'd assumed he was several decades ahead at least, giving Decima time to morph and expand. But if they're both from 2015, and their worlds look this different... alternate universes sound a lot more plausible (for a certain definition of plausible).]

[littletonoidea]

Oh yeah.

Look, when your cartoonishly evil Globex Corporation corners the tech market and starts making A.I. that are so smart they can actually think for themselves? Your standards are gonna be a bit different from the rest of the 2015s out there.