enigma variations

[tetractys]

Who: Bill Cipher
Broadcast: First to the SS Golden, then to the rest of the fleet after a few days
Action: Aboard the Golden
When: Wednesday - Friday

[Action:]

[There's a distinct smell of smoke when the comms fry, on the Golden, and a horrible electronic whine just barely within the high range of human hearing. The ship blinks off of fleet radar. Fifteen seconds go by, and the system fails to reboot itself. Thirty seconds. Sixty.

By the time any of the rest of the crew can come investigate, a bespectacled man with his sleeves rolled up is elbow-deep in the comm array, a small flashlight between his teeth. He hasn't been around the ship before, no one will recognize him. The ship's had all the equipment associated with a Communications officer for a month now, it's just that nobody's touched it, or even showed up to claim the title. So maybe this is the guy making an appearance, finally? Then again, it's a little weird that he's never come out of his cabin for meals, if he's been here that long.

The man waves over anyone who gets close and pulls the flashlight out of his mouth to hand it to them, if they'll accept it.]

Hi. Hold this, will you?

[Text, to the Crew of the Golden.]

[It's a few hours of tinkering before this message appears. Bits of the communications array have been tossed haphazardly around the entire surrounding area. Try not to step on anything breakable or sharp?]

The good news is that I found the problem! The bad news is that it's going to take the rest of the night to fix. It's good and cooked in here! I'd say the router is about medium-rare! Bring me some protien sauce to put on it and check back tomorrow morning.

The other bad news is that this was sabotage! But the other good news is that I've got a plan! I wrote an executable for you guys to all run on your communicators so that we're all on the same page when I can get the system running again.

Attachment: sysupdate.exe

Just type this in like you would if you were sending a regular message. Don't make any typos or we'll be isolated in the unforgiving depths of space for another six hours while I try to find out what you did wrong. Ha ha! :)

[What Bill isn't mentioning is that this little bit of code has nothing to do with fixing the ship and everything to do with remotely scripting any communicator it's run on.]

[Audio, fleetwide.]

[It's thirty-six hours into the rebuild when the systems suddenly click back on in a burst of static and feedback. Muffled, triumphant cackling is audible down the entire main corridor of the Golden. The ship comes back into radar detection. On the communicator network, an unfamiliar male voice crackles to life. Anyone who's heard Bill's real voice in a dream won't recognize this one - he's borrowing it from a friend.]

Hellooooo, fleet! This is a systems test, the SS Golden hailing any other satellites that can recieve. Please respond if I'm getting through to you! I've got some pret-ty interesting news about what just put us into a blackout.

[Text. Double-encrypted; Private-locked to self only.]

THAT SURE WAS A DUMB MISTAKE YOU JUST MADE. FORTUNATELY, I'M A GENEROUS GUY. I CAN SMOOTH ALL OF THIS OVER AND MAKE SURE YOU CAN STILL COLLECT WHATEVER IT IS YOU NEEDED. I WON'T TELL THE OTHER SHIPS HOW TO CORRECTLY UNHOOK YOUR LITTLE DOODADS, AND THINGS WILL GO BACK TO NORMAL FOR YOU. ALL I WANT IS TO GET IN ON WHAT YOU KNOW. LET'S BE A TEAM!

I WANT ACCESS TO PRIVATE FILTERED COMMUNICATIONS, FLEET-WIDE. I'M GOING TO GIVE YOU 24 HOURS TO THINK ABOUT IT. IF I GET MY PRICE BY THEN, I'LL ASSUME WE HAVE A DEAL. IF THERE'S NO CHANGE BY THEN, WELL - YOU WOULDN'T HAVE PUT THIS ON MY SHIP UNLESS WE HAD SOMETHING YOU WANTED! AND IF I DON'T GET WHAT I WANT, NO ONE DOES.

◬
[(FQ PBBJP XQOLJX EXP X CLB, XK FKQBOZBMQLO PQFII RKKXJBA
F'SB PELTK JV ZXOA IBQ'P EXSB PLJB CRK
QEBOB KLT XOB QEOBB PFABP FK QEFP DXJB)]
((Want your character with a Commuications augment to be able to catch and decode that last message? PM or hit me up on Plurk, I'm totally down for that!))

Comments

[tetractys]

[The man studies the indicated wire, then reaches out with his bare hands and bends it up so it's out of the way of his workspace. If it shocks him, there's no sign, not even a twitch.]

Nah.

[That's not the point, though. The point is... what was the point again? Oh yeah, the little part he pulled out of the console that definitely didn't belong there. He circles back to poke at that some more.]

You know the rest of the crew, I assume.

[noprophecies]

[......................

She quietly murmurs a spell under her breath and lightly pokes his shoulder. If he feels it, it's like a static shock] Do you not feel that?

And I know some - the young lady Barriss and our captain. And you, I suppose.

[tetractys]

[The man's face goes puzzled for a moment as Bill stares at the place where he was poked. Oops. Darn it. Humans react to electrical current. Especially this one. Ha ha.

This gives him a really really fun idea. Outside, he makes the human face frown.]

Don't experiment on me. I felt it. Was that magic?

[noprophecies]

[she draws her hand back, crossing her arms]

That is far from "experimenting" on you. [she nods] It was magic, yes. I am a mage.

[tetractys]

I see. So it is your learned ability, not just a mutation?

[He looks very interested now.]

[noprophecies]

[both eyebrows shoot up]

It isn't a mutation at all, mm. I had to learn how to cast my magic.

[tetractys]

How long did it take?

[He looks like he's itching to take notes. Bill knows how to mimic this expression really well because the original guy used it WAY too much.]

[noprophecies]

[she tilts her head]

I was five when I cast my first spell. But one does not just learn a spell and that's it; a single spell can have a number of different uses, and it can be changed to be weaker or stronger, depending. It is a constant process.

[tetractys]

And that one? I gather it was some kind of lightning.

[noprophecies]

No, it was a fire spell. I rarely use lightning spells. And mostly, I use them as I just demonstrated.

[tetractys]

No, no, I mean the one you just used now.

[noprophecies]

Ah - yes, it was.

[tetractys]

[He nods, thoughtful.]

I'm a natural insulator, not to worry. It makes me suited to electronics work.

It sounds as though magic in your dimension has something in common with disciplines like medicine, or chemistry. Always something more to discover!

[noprophecies]

That is not a human trait, is it?

[she's pretty sure humans are excellent electricity conductors.

She can't help but make a face, though she tries not to seem amused, either]

It certainly has something in common with medicines, especially my healing magic. But comparing it to a science would offend a great many scholars back home. [dryly] They like to think magic isn't scientific at all.

[tetractys]

It's my mutation! Along with these.

[He holds up his hands - there's an extra finger on each, completely functional. He's a very good typist.]

Oh, magic is just science that's not understood yet. And vice versa! It's a mistake not to apply a scientific approach just because a field's underlying mechanism isn't fully mapped out yet.

[noprophecies]

Mutation - you are a mutant?

[what . . . she knows about mutants and mutations, but she's never encountered physical mutations before]

Tell that to the scholars. Hell, and the wizards. They're all a bunch of stubborn old men.

[tetractys]

Well, I don't make much of a fuss about it - I prefer to be judged on my merits. But, yes.

[He chuckles at her comment.]

Change is the burden of the young, I'm afraid! They'll die out. Hopefully!