answers and questions [open]

[animusnpcs]

Characters: Dax, Riki, Jason, and Zo; open
Setting: cafeteria, after lunch, February 10
Format: either
Summary: Some of the administrators answer questions.
Warnings: possible language, possible violence


This question and answer session was obviously hastily-planned. Ruana isn't here, but the others are, though for the most part they don't look quite at their best. Zo looks half asleep and distracted, having slid his chair close enough to the wall that he can lean on it to catch a bit of extra sleep in the middle of this session. Jason, usually improbably neat for his often messy, bloody profession looks wrinkled and tired, like he's been spending one too many nights in surgery. Dax looks entirely exhausted, and every time the lights in the cafeteria flicker that exhaustion only seems to grow worse as he looks more concerned. Only Riki seems himself--but then again, he's always been stoic and silent, so reading him in general is a difficult task. It's Dax who speaks once enough people are assembled.

"Greetings, residents--I'm sure you know the four of us by now. And guests, welcome--you probably don't know of us. I'm Dax, and these are Riki, Jason, and Zo." Dax gestures to each one in turn. "We are four of the administrators of this Tower. As you may have guessed, we weren't exactly planning on visitors, and you weren't brought through the same channels. Still, we thought this would be a good time to answer a few questions. With the network--down--we have opted to speak to you in person."

"If you try to attack us, you'll regret it," Jason says from his seat, and while Dax looks sidelong at him neither man can seem to muster the energy for a proper verbal sparring.

"Okay, the floor is open to questions," Dax says, just barely managing a smile. "We will answer what we can."

Comments

[seekinganswers]

"How do you decide to put on each floor? Is it just whatever strikes your fancy while you're working on it, or is there a method to it?"

The distribution of floors seemed fairly random to her, but if there was some sort of common thread between them, that could prove useful to know...

[animusnpcs]

"Sometimes I get orders. Sometimes it's just inspiration." Riki looks interested in a way he hadn't before--there's the spark of an artist in his eyes.

[seekinganswers]

"Orders, huh...?"

So there was someone else pulling the strings here. She's pretty sure it's Ruana - but the look in Riki's eyes is a little more compelling than the bit about orders, so she smiles. The more she can keep him talking, the more information she might be able to get.

"Were any of last batch of floors ones from inspiration? Some of them are really impressive!"

[animusnpcs]

"Most of 'em were inspiration," Riki says; his voice picks up emotion and tone for the first time--he seems interested, and makes a sweeping gesture that brings up perhaps a dozen screens of floor schematics in front of him. The pictures are of completed floors; the writing is in an unknown language. "Stretching the limits of the possible is exactly what I like doing."

[seekinganswers]

Sheba's eyes widen when the schematics appear - maybe she should have been expecting that, given what these people have been able to accomplish, but she wasn't. Curiosity keeps her from backing off, though, and she steps forward to get a closer look.

"May I?" She asks, gesturing for one the the screens. "I've really been wondering how you managed some of them... especially the hundredth floor. How does that one work? Is there something in the room that creates the projection from our memories?"

[animusnpcs]

Riki expands the screen in question with a wave of his hand. There seems to be a lot of technical work that went into that room--there are various computer schematics drawn out and detailed and labelled. Still, all the writing is illegible.

The screen shifts to face Sheba--she'll be able to scroll through the images if she wants just by moving her hand.

"It's all technology--that's what I'm best at," Riki said. "The specifics are classified--sorry, not my rules--but no one said I couldn't show you the pictures."

[seekinganswers]

"Thank you," She murmurs, bringing her hand up to scroll through the images. She examines them intently - architecture has never really been one of her strong suits, but even she has to admit that it's fascinating to see the plans for the floors that she and the others in the Tower can visit every day if they wish. She just wishes she could read the writing, but perhaps he wouldn't even be allowed to show her the pictures if the writing was legible...

"I'm not very familiar with technology. We don't have such things were I'm from," She admits, "But this is all really interesting, and it's impressive that you can do so much with it! What can you tell me about this sort of thing, if not the specifics?"

[animusnpcs]

"I shouldn't," Riki says, though it's obvious he'd really like to. "It's--hm. Similar to some of the things we've done with the terminals, but much more advanced. The terminals are intentionally held back from what we could accomplish."

[seekinganswers]

"Some of the things you've done with the terminals...?" Sheba looks puzzled; sometimes, it's hard for her not to be a little frustrated by her lack of knowledge about this sort of thing. "I know it's possible to record images of ourselves on them, and to capture the sounds of our voices... but what else can they do?"

The terminals mostly seemed to be for communication, and they were exceedingly powerful tools... but their current capabilities had been lessened? To Sheba, for whom communication had always been in the form of ink and parchment and for whom delivery could take weeks, if not months, the terminals seemed almost miraculous.

Their major limitation seemed to be that they could only communicate with others who were inside the Tower with them. She had wondered what lay outside the Tower's walls...

"You can clearly access other worlds in some way, since you were able to save all of us..." She's mostly thinking out loud now. "Theoretically you could communicate with them, right? And with the world outside the Tower...? The things you make definitely seem like they'd be powerful enough to do things like that, especially with all you've accomplished in building these new floors..." Her thoughts kept wandering to the hundredth floor. She really wished he could explain that one to her, but chances were, those were "specifics" he wasn't meant to divulge. "I'm sorry. I know a lot of this is probably stuff you're not supposed to talk about! It's just really interesting..."