Isaac had picked up a dark green pen from the pile. He had a more professional black pen in his pocket, but, well, he didn’t necessarily have to be professional all the time. Just often enough that people took him seriously, despite his age. It was less of a problem here than it had been elsewhere, but some habits were hard to break.
There were also some habits that didn’t need to be broken. Like the habit Isaac had from observation research of sitting back and listening, completely unobtrusive, to a research conversation. He scratched notes, but they remained conspicuously vague – he decided to write ‘godbait’ in the place of ‘Ira’ or ‘1003’, which might be what the 9ers did knowingly or otherwise. Names had too much value there to be passed around.
“So. Death cultists who don’t mind being destroyed – that explains the ambivalence Annie had toward its own life, and why Ira doesn’t seem to mind its death.”
That was really all there was to be said about that, just tying the two ends together. His own sheet was full of crisp, small letters, easily legible, yet organized in that security way that often made little sense unless they were talking about numbers. He didn’t make any attempt to obscure it. He tapped the back of the pen against the area of desk he’d been working on, not distracted or emphatic, just idle as he worked out his phrasing.
“For security purposes, most of what I’m about to say is considered a cognitohazard, and I’ll have you both placed under observation by Dr. E after we’re done here. For the record I’m approving the two of you due to your involvement with 1003 – although for further research, Dr. Krasniqi, you’ll need to get approval from Councilman Jupiter to regularly access Dr. Mueller’s audio logs. I’ll put in a good word. I’m not so worried about Agent Corby, with the training you’d have under Strings.”
With that aside, he started to make symbols beside notes as he addressed them, as if still working through them even as he explained, or organizing them and determining relevance immediately before discussing a poing.
“With regards to baseline information. As you two likely know, 1003’s anomaly creates a hazardous zone while she’s asleep. However, an additional anomaly was discovered following her return after the Big-B Breach.” He looked at Pepper, who may not have received this part in the doctored audio she’d gotten from Dr. Mueller’s recordings. “Following the Breach, Councilman Jupiter found inconsistencies in ACF-1003’s written files, and that many of them had become both fully corrupted and an infohazard that inspired worship of 1003. I won’t give too many details, but just know that if our written notes on her change it’s because we’re in range of it, which is why it’s best to discuss it right now. As Dr. Mueller observed, it seems like she can’t change audio logs, so observation security should be able to review this conversation even if our written notes are changed.”
He glanced at one of the office’s security cameras. Pepper should know that no room was safe from eavesdroppers, but she’d also likely know that nobody in security was allowed to discuss personal information they overheard, or participate in the betting pool. He then switched back to the conversation at hand.
“1003 has always told the Foundation that she believes herself to be an Eldritch goddess of another dimension. Maybe different from the C’Thulhu family, under Azathoth, but still a relevant distinction from our usual Deity-Class entities. She enters that dimension when she’s dreaming, and calls it her ‘waking world’. This seems to follow with Dr. Krasniqi’s theory that the form of the Goddess that comes while 1003 is sleeping could be her dream – or waking – self. What you describe in that anomalous zone, up to and including her ability to create matter? That’s very similar to the death zone that exists when godbait is asleep. Make sure to bring up the approval issue with Cody when he gets here – I think that’d be relevant to his work with synergy.”
The pen tapped against the paper again, and Isaac’s face faded to seriousness.
“I cannot express enough: godbait cannot know that we know about her ontokinetics. Many of her abilities in this reality seem to be based on what a large population believes she’s capable of. Power rooted in faith, which tracks more for something deity-class than eldritch, but that’s a whole other playing field.” Here, he looked at Cait. “Now, it is theorized that if a containment measure can be invented that godbait would find satisfactorily – I believe Dr. Mueller used the word macabre, even her reality alteration could be fully suppressed. That’s been a work in progress for a while, but if this reach of information starts to be affected by that, I might start picking your brain about it while you’re here.”
He knew how to use the assets at his disposal, after all, and he had a feeling that he had ways to convince Cait to stick around, and 9 to let her stick around. L-9 seemed to keep cropping up with this, too, which made sense given its locality and specialization.
“There are a lot of unknowns about the Dr. Holtzheim situation, as well as the situation with the instances of 1003-B – the cultists that were taken back to your location, Corby, presumably because 9 is inaccessible from other planes unless someone wants accessible. What is known is that he presumably volunteered to research 1003 following the death of his wife and daughter, that he Named godbait in the Strings sense of Names, and had a dead example of That-Which-Binds in his house on the night of his death. After that, and after the discovery of her ontokinetic abilities, we’ve been running fake research, basically. At least until Jupiter had me invite Cody to initiate conversation, and she proved synergetically receptive to him. What research he has on that he’s been wrapping up after his interaction with her this past week.”
"True love, was in her eyes. Burning truth, was on her face. Even though – it was late at night, Saw her once: there's no mistake."
Cody couldn’t get it out of his head. He’d tried everything – listening to the song on repeat usually cured that, but it was still up there. He was carefully choosing to blame Ira’s use of the word “fool,” and not the fact that he’d been thinking too hard about Dr. Krasniqi. Because, well, to think about her and still be functional, he had to keep it professional.
He hadn’t been on a date since his sophomore year of high school. He knew he hadn’t been ready back then – dating for the sake of it rarely went well, especially at that age, and he was becoming more isolated at that point. The idea that Pepper had invited him on a date and not said anything made it difficult to actually categorize that way, but –
"Two heads, are better than one. Two hearts, bleed so much more. Serious! But no one's laughing. Why run, when you can crawl? True love – around the corner – out of reach, so hard to hold."
He rounded the last corner with casual slowness, coming up behind– wait, he knew this office. Before he could stop he saw Isaac sitting next to Peppers in the room, but hadn’t come up fast enough that Peppers had any way to notice him.
Powers that be, why was she here? He immediately reversed three steps, already knowing that Isaac would’ve seen him as he slid his headphones back. What was this, an intervention – no, wait, someone else was there. It had to be a research thing, then. Something classified that involved Pepper – something new with Ira, maybe, after their talk? Or something about the Dark Dimension that management needed to know about.
Okay. So it was work.
Good. He could do work. A quick breath, a second to straighten his “I found this Humerus” t-shirt and lab coat and 255 and push his hair back off his face, and then he stepped forward again, wearing the signature smile instead of the “hey not to make this awkward” smile he’d almost put on.
"Hey, Pepper! I have not forgotten about Friday – got caught up in inspections, but I’ll be free as promised." Boom, super smooth. Until he saw Isaac give Pepper a knowing look. Oh, fuck, he knew, too. Why didn’t anyone tell him? He was the one who was supposed to be going on the date.
To his credit, he didn’t visibly deflate. If anything he brightened up even more, and hovered behind where Isaac was sitting at the desk, with a friendly little nod to Cait before he started skimming whatever notes he could see. The only indication of any kind of nerve was the way his hand tugged at 255 while his other slipped into his free pocket.
"So? Where’s the fire?"
Isaac just nodded to Pepper – Dr. Krasniqi – in the way that meant he was opening the floor to a primary researcher so they could nerd talk. He wasn’t obvious about the way he glanced at what she was wearing under the lab coat – something with lace, which his limited knowledge about sewing meant that it was pretty complicated to make? And a nice, light pink skirt. He didn’t stare, very carefully, and instead looked like he was reading her notes upside-down, a rare talent that he possessed.
