sheets all on the floor just like an ocean ...

[headandhand]

WHO: All y’all!
WHAT: Your regularly scheduled NAPs event for the month
WHERE: Fort Pillowtown
WHEN: Oct. 7-10
WARNINGS: Please use these if applicable!


Look at all of these bright, shining new faces! There’s even a few less bright, less shining faces - maybe even a few folks without faces - but hey, this city welcomes all types. Chances are, if you’ve just arrived, you're seeing some pretty crazy things, unless you're used to an eye-blinding amount of neon, robots, weird-ass technology, magic, and an omnipresent police force...and hey, if you are, congrats, you're gonna settle in juuuuust fine. But for the rest of you, the Head knows this has gotta be pretty overwhelming, right?

Well, since your quaint individual processing units are probably having a hard time, why not link up with another one? By which the Head means...

Hello, new citizens of Dualis,
and welcome to your monthly Network Adjacency Protocol~!

NAPs are a monthly community networking event similar to the Earth concept of speed dating! Two citizens (new arrivals and old hands alike) are placed at a table together with a handy cue card of queries to help break the proverbial ice. Ask queries and receive results, or ignore the card and yeet yourself straight into a brand new friendship! But don't be too shy, you've only got ten minutes together, and if you just sit in silence for the whole ten, the Network Admins are likely to come supervise and try to repair the uplink through a mild shock to the ol' central nervous system. You might find yourself saying all sorts of unintended facts about yourself if that happens...probably better to just make friends, right? Who doesn’t like friends?!

This month’s event is held at a new, super-comfy all-ages establishment called Fort Pillowtown. As the name suggests, it’s a large indoor space filled wall to wall with permanent pillowforts. There are a variety of sizes, shapes, and colors, with each individual fort constructed of gauzy hanging sheets, strings of soft lights, warm blankets, plush toys, a mini television with on-screen menu for choosing movies to watch and video games to play, and yes, lots and lots of pillows. Snacks and drinks of all sorts are available for purchase, as are whimsical onesies and comfy slippers to wear. Board and card game sets are also available to borrow or buy. Sounds like a dream, right?

So pull up a pillow pile, get to know your new neighbors, and enjoy a well-earned and comfy chill-out session. And hey, if you end up napping at NAPs, rest assured that it’s absolutely allowed.

Comments

[axiomed]

[ ah, this is his area. charles immediately launches into his usual spiel. ]

A mutant is the next step of evolution for humans. We come with special abilities such as telekinesis, concussive vision and so on.

[notalive]

[Connor's eyebrows lift. He's long past the point of questioning this, and there are already people here with abilities like what's being described.]

I have an obvious question - what special abilities do you have?

[axiomed]

[ charles smiles, though there's no real pleasure in it. ]

I'm a telepath. I read minds.

[notalive]

[The smile doesn't look...entirely genuine, but he doesn't get why, not right now. So instead of thinking too deeply about that, he considers the words themselves.]

Like interfacing. [He looks down at his own hand, then, figuring he should explain himself.] I can touch other androids and read their memories - I could send my own as well, or we could share thoughts and emotions, but I never did that before.

[Because he's never interfaced with an android that had emotions, or any interest or need to see Connor's mind. But he's not going to talk about that immediately.]

What does it feel like - reading a human's mind?

[axiomed]

[ interfacing. who would have thought robots could do that? he wonders how closely it mirrors his own abilities. but charles cuts it short so that he can address connor's question. ]

Feel like? It's rather hard to put into words.

[ another beat. ]

It's like . . . light. But in all spectrums. Colour and symphony. Like you're hearing a unique version of Beethoven through the lens of a kaleidoscope. No mind is the same, but in a way, they're all similar. They all feel constantly.

[notalive]

[He didn't quite expect a description so...beautiful. It's not how he would describe an android interface, which is simply a thread of ones and zeroes connecting two beings for as long as that thread needs to be drawn between them.]

Wait, you're picking up all this constantly? From everybody around you?

[He's trying to imagine what it would be like to have android thoughts and memories directly transmitting into his memory banks at all times. Overstimulation, never getting a moment alone in his own brain. He remembers, for a moment, his AI handler Amanda being able to reach into his mind and virtually pluck him right out of it.

...And then coming here to find utter silence.]

[axiomed]

[ there's a brief moment of hesitation before charles nods. ]

I can hear people from great distances. Always. There hasn't been a moment where my life was silent.

[ save for during the serum years, but those were extenuating circumstances. ]

[notalive]

I hope you don’t mind if I say this, but that sounds awful.

[He’s grimacing a little.]

For a lot of reasons.

[It briefly occurs to Connor that what if this man can hear his thoughts...but Connor’s not an organic person. Broken down into very base form, Connor’s thoughts are all bits and qubits, flashing through his surface brain at near light speed or held deep in his memory banks. Is it possible for any organic being to really read his mind?]

Can you read mine? I don’t mind, I’m just curious.

[He doesn’t quite mind. He isn’t used to wanting or needing privacy, not just yet. But there are certain moments, certain thoughts - mostly things he’s thinking or experiencing with his partner Hank - that the idea of someone else seeing is...not what he wants.]

[axiomed]

[ he shakes his head. ]

Only organic life. I can't read, ah, machines.

[notalive]

Right, I guess that makes sense.

[As much sense as telepathy makes to Connor personally.]

Do you ever get any kind of...quiet, I guess? Can you tune it out?

[...Then he falters a little.]

Am I asking too many questions? [Realising he just asked another question, he grimaces comically for a second.] I don't want to sound like I'm interrogating you.

[axiomed]

[ charles chuckles. ]

Sometimes, but not completely. It's like hearing. You can't fully shut out one's ears without help, after all.

And I don't mind questions.

[notalive]

True... So it's like you can hear, but it's through walls and over long distance and you can't wear ear plugs.

[Maybe he's mostly paying attention to the bad side of it because asking about the good side of it also starts getting into the more...morally grey side. The uncomfortable side.]

I'm a detective - these things can start feeling like interrogations if I get too into it.

[axiomed]

[ huh. charles nods. ]

Generally, telepathy puts people on edge so I rarely get questions.

Out of curiosity, why a detective?

[notalive]

Maybe it would make me nervous if you could read my thoughts. But only because I don’t know what you’d think of them, or what you’d do with them.

[Now that he thinks about the concept a bit more, it occurs to him that maybe he’d think something embarrassing that would immediately be picked up. He’s learned only recently that that’s an emotion he dislikes deeply.]

It was what I was designed to do. I was activated to solve a series of cases involving androids deviating from their programming. Mostly murder cases.

Then I deviated as well. Now…

[He shrugs.]

I’m a traffic cop.

[axiomed]

[ charles blinks. ]

That seems like . . . an odd designation for one like yourself.

[notalive]

They start us off in basic positions. They wouldn't just make me a homicide detective because it's what I was before. And I only had three months experience.

[Is a cop what he really wants to do for the rest of his life, or even the rest of his time in Dualis? He's not totally sure. There a lot more things he can use his skills for. But when he got here, cop seemed obvious.]

At night I repair roombas.

[He offers that with a slightly ironic grin.]

[axiomed]

[ how unusual. why would robots be subject to human experiences and laws? it doesn't make much sense.

with a faint smile. ]

I'm afraid I don't know what that is.

[notalive]

[Connor's been confused about this very thing since he arrived, but he's decided to roll with it.]

A roomba? They're autonomous vacuum cleaners. About this big...

[He holds out his hands to show a circle about the size of a dinner plate.]

...and they're programmed to just roll around cleaning people's houses. I got assigned the job when I got here - I guess they assumed I was a machine, so I know how machines work, right?

[There's just a hint of irony in his voice there - because, wrong: he read an instruction manual and now he does the simple jobs like cleaning out vents that people are too lazy to do themselves. He taught himself roomba First Aid.]

[axiomed]

[ charles rolls his eyes. ]

With that logic, I should be a neurosurgeon.

[notalive]

Logic doesn't have much place here sometimes.

[Something they all learn almost immediately.] When I first got here I kept running internal diagnostics because nothing was making sense. I think the human version of that is pinching yourself to make sure you're not dreaming.

[axiomed]

[ a low chuckle at that. ]

I'm used to things not making sense at least.

[notalive]

I'm used to them making a little bit of sense. At least before I got here, I trusted the laws of physics to work the way they're supposed to, time to go in a straight line, things like that.

[He makes a wry face.]

[axiomed]

[ charles can't help smiling. ]

I've done a little time travel and fought the equivalent of a God. After that, everything else seems more linear in nature.

[notalive]

[Blink. Just when you think you've heard everything there is to hear...]

A God. Like... How? What kind of equivalent?

[axiomed]

He wasn't really a God, though people worshipped him as one long ago.

[ charles' expression shifts with a grimace. ]

But he could collect and steal powers.