maskormenacelogs | a new world hangs outside the window

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a new world hangs outside the window

WHO: Elliot Alderson and OPEN
WHERE: Arriving in Heropa, trying to get to Nonah, his new place at De Chima #004... or wherever you like! Hit me up for a starter.
WHEN: This week.
WHAT: Just your average intro log.
WARNINGS: Darlene and Elliot's thread (in the comments) will contain spoilers. Elliot also comes with a bunch of content warnings, threads may turn dark.

As a note, I started in prose but can also do both prose-with-brackets-around-it and short af action spam, so I'll follow your lead.

000000. heropa.boot
Elliot is quiet, obedient, as they give him his welcome package of information and take him up to the surface to wait for the bus. He sits and flicks through the phone they gave him, realizing almost immediately that he might need to code his tools from scratch again, since none of his programs came with him. That's fine. It means he's missed an opportunity to get manual access to the system while he's still in the complex, but he can come back.

On the bus, he sits and looks out the window, watching Florida slide by for the twenty minute drive. Is he all alone here? Or as much as Elliot can be alone. For one thing, the file in his hands spells it out clearly, not just the DID and anxiety printed shamefully in black and white, but the new superpowers.

Technopathy he already knew; he can see the lines of code behind his eyes when he closes them, senses intuitively the connection he has between the phone in his hand, just as he'd felt the maze of electronic connections in the underground base. It's strange, because it's new, but it also just feels like a natural extension of himself. Being able to think in code instead of having to wait for his fingers and eyes and a plastic keyboard and a bright monitor to catch up to the speed of his brain.

The other thing, though. Mr Robot's manifestation. He's not sure how he feels yet about that. Sharing a body with someone else is crazy, but at least now maybe he won't be able to land Elliot in hot water, won't be able to use his face. And maybe that means he won't see him any more, which is not a loss he would regret in the slightest.

You, though. You're still here. Listening in. So even without Mr Robot, Elliot thinks, I'm still never going to be alone. I'll always have one friend-- and we are still friends, aren't we? Even though I lied to you?

Is that why I'm here now?

Is this a punishment?

The brakes squeal and Elliot gets off the bus, hands stuffed into the pockets of his black hoodie despite the thick humidity. Tries not to look too lost, tries not to look like the new guy, even though passers by are already pointing, whispering like they might approach, as excited as if they know him. Eyes on him, he hates having eyes on him. Elliot's shoulders hunch inwards and he tries to will himself invisible as he hustles away from the crowds of Heropa citizens. It doesn't work.

000001. nonah.hpj
He uses the Portal. Might as well take advantage of it while he can, right? Elliot has no intention of registering or even attending the Swearing In Ceremony, but until that outright refusal his arm still scans as Registered, so they let him through.

Darlene had said she'd meet him here, but without Google Maps or the easily navigable grid of NYC he is immediately lost, so he just stops the nearest person. Not quite meeting their eyes. "Hey. Excuse me."

000010. dechima004.exe
There is a Catch-22 when you live on the streets: employers need to have a residential address to hire you, and you need somewhere to shower and dress to be suitable for employment, but you need to be making money to get a place and pay rent. So Elliot does appreciate that he starts out with a room (even if it's in Virginia) and a job (even if it's the fucking worst), and resolves to use them as starting off points rather than squandering the opportunity.

(That's a very Mr Robot phrase, squandering the opportunity, except Elliot is pretty sure he doesn't approve of the stability of government housing and government employment, would rather have Elliot living out of his backpack on the subway.)

So he shows up at De Chima 004 and claims his room by putting like, exactly two things in it. He's already trashed the folder they gave him and he wasn't really carrying much more than the items he'd signed for before he became an imPort. He'll have to buy more clothes. But apart from that, he's never really been attached to much in the way of stuff.

There's some furniture; he turns over all of it, goes through the whole room looking for bugs. Unscrews light bulbs. Reaches into the dark corners of the closet. Borrows a knife from the kitchen so he can slit open the mattress, the pillows. If he had a deposit he probably would have just lost it.

Anyway, anyone who wants to check out their new housemate after he's don't being a tornado of paranoia will find him sitting cross-legged on the ruined mattress, shoes still on, elbows on his knees, as he looks at the screen of his phone.

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[ Damen knows a little something about not fitting in. In his case, it's not a hooded sweater or a pair of hunched shoulders that draws anyone's attention. It's the fact that he's taller than most everyone else around, it's the bulk of the muscles around his shoulders. It's the way the clothes - a plain t-shirt and jeans - sit strangely on him, as though they don't comfortably fit and he's not quite convinced by them anyway. It's most definitely the heavy broadsword hanging from his waist. The looks he attracts from the crowd are quickly turned away the moment his eyes make contact, and no one has yet managed to approach. That isn't a problem. He's used enough to that response, and at least it means they don't ask him to sign anything.

The boy who gets off the bus, though, is a different story. He looks almost fearful; the way he lifts the hood as if he can shrink into it, the way he rolls his shoulders like he can make himself smaller. The modern world is a confusion of different sounds and different rules and different everything to Damen, but he knows worry when he sees it. He approaches quietly, and the prying eyes start to mind their own business. ]

They'll stare less if you catch them doing it. [ He says, by way of introduction. His tone is friendly. ] They are used to new faces. Imports might as well be royalty, to them.

[ Already, he thinks they threat them like it. ]

Aren't you hot? [ He nods at the hood. He's in a state of regret over exchanging his chiton for full length pants; that hooded piece is a step too far. ]

[ The guy who approaches is like a modern day Conan the Barbarian, would probably dwarf Elliot's 5'7 frame even if he wasn't sitting down. That kind of guy coming at you is always a sign to be smaller, stiller, pray it's not some weird-ass gang member looking for a dick-measuring contest.

But instead he offers friendly advice. It takes Elliot a moment to put away his instinctive hedgehog prickles and raise his head, look up, squinting a little against the light. ]

Nah.

[ Shaking his head to answer the question about the hoodie. He wears it in the damp heat of New York summers just as much as through the subarctic blizzards. It's as much a comfort blanket as it is a uniform and he doesn't really notice when his body sends him signals like 'hot' or 'cold' anyway. ]

Nice sword,

[ A little glib, since what the actual fuck. ]

[ Damen glances down at the sword. That’s a fair point. He will admit that most people here aren’t carrying bladed weapons, at least not so obviously as he is. That’s incredible to him given that this is a time of war. But still, he can only defend his own behaviour. ]

It wouldn’t be normal to go without one where I am from.

[ Well. For tailors, or merchants, it might be, though it would be inadvisable. For soldiers it would be unheard of, though, and Damen is royalty besides. He wouldn’t go unarmed unless he had no other choice, especially in a land as strange as this one. That he’s yet to be attacked doesn’t factor into his reasoning; it’s about being prepared. ]

I’m not yet used to the customs here. [ And he might ignore them even if he was, given that he’s not really on board with acclimatising. ] Are you an import? I took that same –

[ What had they called it? They have a dozen names for their vehicles. ]

– bus? A few days ago.

Importing people is just another word for human trafficking.

[ Elliot says quietly, maybe finally managing to draw his eyes away from the sword. Where still uses swords? It makes him feel more fish out of water than even the hover bikes and bricklike cellphones. Anyway, wherever it is he doesn't really expect that term to mean anything. ]

But that's what they call us, isn't it.

[ So yeah, he's new. And sullen about it, apparently. ]

I don't think swords are common here. But I'm not sure the internet is either, so maybe we'll both have to make some adjustments.

Human trafficking.

[ Interesting term. Damen hasn't heard it before, but in fact the meaning is clear enough to him. It's fair to say he'd been resentful when he was taken.

Quietly, he sits next to Elliot. ]

That's what your people call slavery? This is not that.

[ He's rather intimately familiar with the difference. But still, it sits wrongly; the tattoos on their arms, the things that have been injected into them - the soldiers explained this to Damen, but they may as well have been speaking a foreign language. What he knows is that they've been injected, but that the things in them are meant to help rather than harm. He doesn't exactly believe that, but he knows that he's had worse, and he'll take this treatment over that. It's in his nature to look for the brighter side.

He glances at Elliot. ]

What is the internet? They have many things here that my world lacks. That might be one of them.

[ He nods at the comparison to slavery, though if he was planning to explain specifics it's immediately derailed. ]

Oh man,

[ Elliot's immediate response to that question about the internet is dismayed but also kind of happy. Imagine having no concept of the internet and discovering it for the first time. Maybe because it meant so much to him as a kid, but he thinks that would be amazing, even if starting to learn about computers from scratch would suck. ]

The internet is pure information. Imagine if everyone in the world could link minds if they wanted to. Not just to each other, they would think out into nothing and everybody who could hear it would be able to pick up on it. And it would stay there, so one year, ten years later someone else, some total stranger, could come along and read that same thought. It's like that, except with text on a screen. It's thousands of little switches that form the sum total of human knowledge.

[ And memes. ]

[ Damen's eyebrows lift. This boy had been quiet and careful, hunched into his seat as though he could hide there. Now, this one subject has his eyes brightening and life coming into his voice. Clearly, Damen has done something right here.

Even so, this is something he finds hard to visualise. Such communication had never even been imagined where he came from. They still sent riders off on horseback with letters in their hands. The idea of instant communication is still something he's getting his head around. ]

But, how...could one access this information? Where is it stored, where... is the internet?

[ This is a ridiculous question, and yet to him it's the only sensible thing to ask. ]

Can it be used by anyone at all?

[ Elliot's eyebrows lift. Fortunately he isn't really into trolling genuine ignorance, so he doesn't try and explain that all internet is a series of tubes in the clouds. ]

Have you ever sent a message using signal fires? Morse code?

[ He's not totally sure what level of technology he's dealing with here. ]

Even right now, when I'm talking to you, I make a noise and you hear it, but we can't see the noise while it travels. The data is stored in machines: computers, servers, phones, I don't want to get into hardware engineering with you.

[ A wry tilt of his mouth. ]

Data travels using light. So it's fast. Invisible. Changing. That's where the internet is.

[ 'Morse code' makes him frown again. Signal fires are a different story; he's a soldier, and he's used those often enough. He's never found them as inspiring as this boy finds the internet, though. That enthusiasm is what he's interested in.

This sounds like something from a story. Information travelling through light. How did anyone ever discover how to do something like that!? ]

You like it because it connects you to everything.

To me it sounds... [ He turns to smile at Elliot. The look is a little wry. ] My people send messengers with letters in hand. They rode on horseback, and you tell me of information travelling through light. I'd like to see that. You say they do not have it here?

It's not the same as I'm used to, but they definitely have the tech. I mean.

[ He was looking at his brand new government issue phone before Damen approached, so he just holds it up in demonstration. ]

These are networked, far as I can tell. Look, I'll send you a message.

[ If Damen tells him his display name, Elliot can hit up his inbox with a Hello. using his mental link to the devices. ]

Faster than a horse.

[ Damen obediently brings his phone out. His name can be seen at the top of it, though he doesn't actually know Elliot needs to have that. He watches, and the words from Elliot's screen seem to jump to his own. ]

That is...incredible.

That is how people talk on these things. I have seen their faces inside it as well. And heard their voices.

[ At a push, the letters are understandable enough. It's just like a much faster letter, after all. Video calling is not something he could have imagined at all. ]

How do you understand it so well?

[ Elliot doesn't react strongly to the joy and wonder of the other man, but he's pleased by it. Still, at the question he gives a little shrug. ]

I grew up with stuff like this. It was the nineties so everything was new and simple, and I started learning about it when I was about — I dunno, young. Just a kid. My dad had a computer store.

[ He pauses, expression going briefly shuttered as he pushes down an awkward swell of emotion. Even in passing, his father and his childhood are complicated topics and he wishes he hadn't said something like that to a stranger. After a moment where Damien might think he's done, he carries on. ]

Then I studied tech in college, got a job. It's the one thing I know.

[ What Elliot says about his father is not much, but his reaction is strangely familiar. Pain. Conflict. Those are feelings that Damen tries to shutter away, and has been doing since he lost his own father.

He doesn't push at that shard of vulnerability, though the sight of it makes him warm towards the young man.

He smiles. ]

My father was a great warrior. His tools were the same ones I use today. We use what we are given.

[ But still, it's hard to believe the world has changed so very much. Men value different things. ]

If you know it so well, could you create it in this world? With all the machines that they have, I think they would value this.

Maybe. I wanna get to know what they've already got a little first.

[ Like, nanotech is way out of his league, he's jumping at the chance to study his own arm. ]

If you want, though, I could keep helping you learn about this stuff. You know, if you have any questions, or want a hand keeping your shit secure. People can intercept messages on these just as easily as they could if it was... I dunno, a guy on horseback.

You would do that?

[ Admittedly, it has been a concern. Others use these devices so easily. He knows that there's a way to make private conversations, but he doesn't know how. And at that, it only says that it's private. How would he know if it truly was? It does not feel secure, in the way that a sealed letter feels secure.

But Elliot is right, ultimately. A letter can be intercepted, and lost. Each message is only so good as the rider carrying it.

Damen's face blooms into a smile.

I appreciate it very much. This world makes me feel ignorant, but I have no wish to be.

How would I contact you?

Uh.

[ He doesn't have a secure set up yet, and even if he did this guy is asking him for help using the devices, so those won't work to set up a meeting. ]

They gave me a place. De Chima number four. You can stop by and ask for Elliot.

[ Making Damen the first and only person Elliot's given his address to, but he is pretty sure he can trust this guy. Has a gut feeling he's learned to believe. ]

Or write me a letter, I guess.

[ The address is enough. He wouldn't say that he knows any of the other Porter cities that well. not yet, anyway, but it's a work in progress, and he thinks he could find government standard housing easily enough.

Damen nods. ]

They sent me to Heropa 037. I do not think that we will stay there, but if we move, I shall let you know.

[ Honesty deserves honesty. ]

If ever there is aid you need in return, you must come to me. My name is Damen.

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a new world hangs outside the window

Heropa

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