the devil in the details

[isocelesmonster]

Who: Bill Cipher
Broadcast: none
Action: Anywhere in the fleet
When: The night of the 22nd, and ongoing.

Although ostensibly the Golden has a new crew member, there's no new person in attendance at any meals. No new faces in the hall, nothing additional in the laundry. One of the standard crew cabins has been sealed up as tight as a tomb, the brass nameplate on the door unhelpfully scratched out with something sharp. No noises at all come from inside.

It'd take a careful eye to notice the only other change: the same sharp instrument has been used to carve little eyes of providence, no bigger than a fingernail, in strategic public places around the ship. They're shallow markings, not deep enough to interfere with any of the working parts of the craft, and no great works of art - each little scrap of graffiti is a matter of five lines at most. But they're there - and if sometimes the way the gold of the metal hull glints in the pupil is strangely canny, it's probably nothing to be worried about.

(It's not that Bill doesn't care about the flesh puppets that make up his new crew - oh, he does, they're all going to get very careful scrutiny over the coming days - but more important is finding out what his new playground looks like.)

When the fleet sleeps, their minds open and blossom like night-blooming flowers, each one illuminating a new section of the shared dreaming plane. For all of their poetry, few humans realize that the state of dreaming is as real an exploration as whatever meaningless actions they take while awake. It's irrelevant to their survival, most days, so evolution has never sought to provide that particular revelation. They're a young species. Five senses, auditory languages, limited psychic potential, and as far as they know when they dream they're just watching random electrical impulses fire in their brains. Ha!

(There's an expression about a one-eyed man's status in a land of the blind, and Bill intends to make it a reality.)

He steps sideways out of the material world into the closest dream as easily as a three-dimensional being can move along any of their limited axes. He makes himself invisible, at first, just to get his bearings.

[Bill is visiting dreams, as a way of saying hello! His permissions post for this ability is here. I am treating this ability on an opt-in basis. If you didn't give me the okay, he won't be spying on your character at all tonight ~but where's the fun in that~?]
ZOGSLFTS GSRH DVZP ZMW RWOV GSVNV

RH ML NLIV BRVOWRMT YFG Z WIVZN

DSVM NLIMRMT GZPVH BLF UILN NB GSIZOO

YV TOZW R OVG BLF DZPV ZG ZOO

Comments

[axiomed]

My side?

[isocelesmonster]

THE HUMANS!

[Bill gestures to Charles' chess pieces.]

HOMO SAPIENS! THE DOMINANT SPECIES, LIVE NEARLY EVERYWHERE ON EARTH, LOOK SORTA LIKE THIS...

[He points to the face of the form he's shapeshifted into at the moment. Fortunately, the student whose form Bill had borrowed didn't have any outwardly obvious mutations.]

RING A BELL?

[axiomed]

Ah.

[ He tips a pawn forward, vaguely amused. ]

I'm afraid I'm not human. I'm a mutant. It's a fine distinction, but one that exists nonetheless.

What about them?

[isocelesmonster]

LET'S GO BACK TO THE LITTLE GUY IN THE WALLS! IN THIS CASE, HUMANITY'S BEEN LIVING IN A PRETTY NICE MANSION, BUT WHAT MOST OF THEM DON'T KNOW IS THAT THEY'RE NOT ALONE!

[Bill indicates his own side of the board as he plays his next move. The piece he picks up is a pawn, and in this case it's depicted as a little glowing pixie. He wiggles it around a little.]

THE WORLD'S GOT STUFF THAT ISN'T HUMAN LIVING IN IT! LIKE ME, AND LIKE THESE GUYS, AND LIKE YOU TOO, I GUESS! STUFF THAT'S WEIRD!

[axiomed]

[ He nods. ]

I am aware of that. We are living in a separate dimension of our own. Not to mention the Atroma might be inter-dimensional creatures with special powers.

[ His lips twitch. ] Powers that trump your own, it seems.

[isocelesmonster]

HEY, I'M COMPARATIVELY SMALL-SCALE! I HAVE A SPECIALIZED PURPOSE, NO SHAME IN THAT, AND IF IT'S NOT PART OF MY JOB I CAN'T DO IT!

[He shrugs, eyes wide. There's a hierarchy, you know.]

[axiomed]

I'm sure.

[ He's nonchalant. ] And what purpose is that?

[isocelesmonster]

I TOLD YA - I MAKE SURE THE PEOPLE WHO ARE SUPPOSED TO CHANGE THE WORLD CAN DO JUST THAT!

[axiomed]

And? It's very noble, but I doubt you'd do it for free.

[isocelesmonster]

GETTING TO IT! THE SHORT ANSWER IS, WHEN HUMANS GET SMARTER AND BETTER, I BENEFIT TOO!

[axiomed]

How so?

[isocelesmonster]

[This diverting from his story is annoying, and Bill fights the urge to roll his eye(s). Instead, he smirks and leans back.]

YOU REMIND ME OF SOMEBODY, Y'KNOW THAT? QUESTIONS, QUESTIONS, QUESTIONS.

[Bill looks tired again, wistful, but he perks up quickly.]

LET ME GIVE YOU ONE BACK! HE WAS A BIG FAN OF THAT! "I CAN'T TEACH ANYONE, I CAN ONLY MAKE THEM THINK." HOW MUCH DO YOU KNOW ABOUT MEMETICS, MR. NOT-HUMAN?

[axiomed]

I can't say I have, though it sounds related to the concept of mimesis.

[isocelesmonster]

SURE, SAME ROOT WORD, MIMĒTḖS!

[For someone currently conversing in an American accent, Bill's ancient Greek is flawless.]

A FEW DECADES FROM NOW, "MEME" PICKS UP A DEFINITION THAT INVOLVES A LOT OF PEOPLE POSTING THE SAME JOKE UNTIL EVERYONE GETS TIRED OF IT! BUT DON'T WORRY ABOUT THAT RIGHT NOW! BEFORE THAT, A MEME WAS AN IDEA! YA EVER GET A SONG STUCK IN THIS BIG HEAD OF YOURS THAT WON'T GO AWAY NO MATTER WHAT YOU DO?

[axiomed]

Not really, though I suppose some theories stuck when I was working on my thesis.

[isocelesmonster]

A THEORY IS A DECENT EXAMPLE OF A MEME, TOO! IT'S AN IDEA, TRANSMITTED FROM ONE MIND TO ANOTHER THROUGH WORDS! SOMEONE CAN WRITE DOWN WHAT THEY'RE THINKING AND DIE, AND HUNDREDS OF YEARS LATER HE'LL STILL BE ABLE TO PUT THOSE THOUGHTS INTO SOMEONE ELSE'S HEAD WHEN THEY READ WHAT HE WROTE! IT'S A BRIDGE ACROSS SPACE AND TIME, BETWEEN TWO SAPIENT BEINGS!

[axiomed]

[ He nods quietly. Part of that holds true, and it makes sense in terms of the progress made. ]

[isocelesmonster]

AND IT'S NOT JUST WRITING! A SONG IS A MEME PASSED FROM COMPOSER TO LISTENER! A PAINTING IS A MEME CONVEYED THROUGH A PICTURE! HUNDREDS OF YEARS AFTER SHE GOT OLD AND CRUMBLY, PEOPLE STILL THINK OF LISA GHERARDINI AS BEAUTIFUL, BECAUSE DA VINCI MADE SURE THAT THE MONA LISA PASSED ON THAT IDEA!

THE MORE THINKING BEINGS ADVANCE, THE BIGGER THEIR IDEAS GET, AND THE MORE WAYS THEY COME UP WITH TO SHARE THEM WITH EACH OTHER! MOVIES AND PHOTOGRAPHS, CONVERSATIONS OVER HUGE DISTANCES HAPPENING IN AN INSTANT THROUGH THE TELEGRAM AND THE TELEPHONE AND THE FIBER OPTIC CABLE-

[Bill's gestures are getting more enthusiastic, and the skin of his adopted form is gently pitching to a deep, velvety black. As he speaks, glittering stars appear inside his silhouette one by one, as if seen from an incredible distance.]

THINGS LIKE ME LIVE IN THE SPACE BETWEEN THE CONCEPTION OF A NEW, BIG, BRILLIANT IDEA, AND THE RIPPLES OF CAUSALITY IT MAKES, THE NEW IDEAS IT IN TURN SPAWNS! CREATIVITY IS WHAT MAKES ME THRIVE! IDEAS ARE MAGIC - EVEN IF YOU THINK MAGIC DOESN'T EXIST!

[axiomed]

So you're saying you're what helps the connection, the passing down of . . . ideas.

[isocelesmonster]

SURE I AM! I FIND GENIUS! WHEN I CAN HELP IT SPREAD, NOT ONLY DOES HUMANITY ADVANCE, BUT THE SPEED OF ADVANCEMENT GROWS EXPONENTIALLY! THE ENERGY OF 7.1 BILLION MINDS COMMUNICATING IS WHAT KEEPS ME FED AND HAPPY ON THE PSYCHIC PLANE!

[The background of stars settles down, and Bill resumes his borrowed human form - almost. He's still haloed in a sourceless glow.]

THAT'S WHAT I GET OUT OF ALL OF THIS! IT'S A SYMBIOSIS! IT HURTS MY FEELINGS WHEN YOU SAY I DON'T EXIST IN YOUR TIMELINE, IT HONESTLY DOES! IF NOT ME, THEN WHO?

[He's too cheerful about it for it to actually have hurt his feelings, and winks. Joke.]

[axiomed]

My universe has no records of magic being a thing beyond the fairy tales. It's only reasonable to dismiss it.

[ And mutants are founded on science, something he prefers over the strange magic always employed by these places. ]

[isocelesmonster]

HEYYY, DON'T WORRY ABOUT IT! I GET IT! HOW ABOUT THIS: YOU'VE BEEN IN THE STATES A FEW YEARS, RIGHT? REMEMBER UP A ONE DOLLAR BILL AND LOOK ON THE BACK!

[axiomed]

. . . Why?

[isocelesmonster]

IT'S A SURPRISE!

IF YOU'D RATHER JUST GET BACK TO THE STORY I UNDERSTAND! WE GOT PRETTY FAR OFF TRACK!

[axiomed]

[ Charles gestures. ]

By all means.