The Profound and The Foolish

Mick scowled at the drive that Graham had left him, and at the post that Graham had made to his blog, just before arriving at Mick's place.  The fucker hadn't even given him a heads up that he was posting about his visit, let alone anything else!  Mick would be very surprised if Graham was not arrested the moment that he set foot in the hospital again. Hastily, Mick started shoving clothes and supplies into a duffel bag as he continued to curse Graham's name.  If he hadn't been paranoid enough to check up on Graham's online activities the moment that he left, Mick knew that he would have been picked up himself in very short order. As it was, he closed his bag and, as soon as the copy he'd started of the drive had finished, he shoved it into one pocket, slung his bag over his shoulder, and left the house.  He would drop the drive into the fountain in the city park as he went through.  That would give whoever was tracking the thing a bit of trouble, at least....

Carrie's in a coma.  Who knows how long it will take for her to wake up.  The medics won't say one way or the other, even to her family.  (Yes, I met them.  They thanked me for saving her life.  I don't want them to thank me, not yet.  After all, she isn't alive again yet.  Not really.) I'm going to see my old friend Mick the Hungry Ghost this afternoon.  He's an interesting character, is Mick.  He served in the Amazon War. Q: did Graham meet Mick during the Amazon War? A: Yes. It's where I met him.  We were both drafted into the same unit and, after our first offensive, we did our level best to avoid as much action as possible. He's heavily into computers these days - he works for one of the Megacorps.  He'll be able to tell me what I should do with the Drive. Competition roll: Graham's skill as a liar:  Graham: 5  The Medics: 6   Graham's good, but the medical staff know a liar when they see one....

Question:  Does Graham drown? Answer:  No. Question:  Does Carrie drown? Answer:  no but. A/N:  I was all prepared for the answer to those question to be yes.  Anyway... It's been longer since my last post than usual, but things got very exciting for a while there. We were sitting on the roof, waving at the other people from the bus, the ones who had chosen different buildings to sit on than us, when our building started to show signs of collapse.  It began to sway, which was when I made my last post.  I posted it, and made sure that my phone and the Drive were both safely stowed within my jacket.  (I'm really glad that all computer tech is waterproof these days.  That was a good advance, you know?) Then, the roof we were standing on fell away beneath us, and we dropped.  There were beams and bits of masonry and broken glass and all sorts of stuff all around us. Carrie got hit on the head on the way down and knocked ou...

Question:  Do they get rescued before the building collapses? Answer: Flat No. The building is getting awfully creaky.  We've been spending our time on the roof, talking, since we finished exploring the building.  To be honest, I'm not so sure that we shouldn't brave the flood waters.  It may well be safer than staying where we are, especially now that the waters have subsided a little bit, and seem a bit calmer. We were talking about politics.  I told her that I wasn't unsympathetic to her cause, I just didn't see the point in still raising consciousness.  People aren't going to become any more sympathetic than they are now.  They aren't going to be any more likely to join the cause than they were before. She kind of wilted at that point.  She admitted that they didn't really know what else to do - it's just that the other communist groups are in favour of violent revolution, and nobody in the Neon Marxists wanted that. She asked me abou...

Level 1 Attention to detail roll for Graham (ie the PC):  For: 6  Against: 3  No modifiers.  Graham wins. Carrie and I decided to explore the building, since we're trapped here.  Actually, it's by way of a truce.  She and I clashed pretty quickly on the subject of politics - I mentioned my opinions of the Neon Marxists in my last post, and she took exception.  Fair enough, really - nobody enjoys having somebody tell them their political ideology is stupid. Most of the apartments are at least partly furnished, and they're all pretty mouldy, too.  Which is also reasonable, given that they wind up with their foundations in water every time a storm cell comes over.  We found a large mattress in one of the apartments that isn't too mouldy, and some drapes that are actually mould free.  So we're dragging the mattress up to the hut at the top of the building where the stairwell comes out.  We'll put the mattress there, and cover it wit...

I guess I was pretty flustered when I wrote that post yesterday.  I left one or two important things out. Taking a bus around the old city takes a whole lot longer than taking a bus through it, and there aren't any express routes that aren't risky.  That's why so many of us risk it every day.  And don't get me wrong - it is a risk.  The weather forecasters do their best, but they're on limited funds, just like everybody else who can't convince a megacorp that they're life's work is worth the effort.  (But I'll moan about my thwarted ambitions another time.  They aren't particularly relevant.) Anyway.  There were eleven of us on the bus, including the driver, when the storm hit.  We all made snap judgements about which buildings looked the safest, and ran for them.  Only two of us ended up this building.  I'm not sure which buildings the others ran into, but that doesn't really matter.  We're all stuck with our choices now. The...

It's a really shitty night tonight.  I'd just like you to know that.  There's a storm cell going over the city, and it's knocked out the power grid.  I wouldn't be sitting here writing this if I hadn't remembered to charge my phone this morning.  The mobile phone network is still functional.  (It's better protected than the power grid, of course.  Why wouldn't it still be up?  It isn't run by the government, after all.) I was heading home from work when the storm hit.  Since the buses all run off the power grid, it immediately stopped when the power went down, and we all had to run into the nearest multi story building before the flooding started or the tide walls broke or something.  There's always something that makes the old city flood when there's a storm cell.  So now I'm in an abandoned apartment block in the wrong part of town, and it's going to be hours - if not days - before I can get home.  The apartment block I'm sh...

The police were back again today.  They asked me about the strange smell, and how long it had been since it had appeared.  I couldn't give them much information about it - I knew that it wasn't there when the old couple's kids sold the place next door.  But it was definitely there when the young couple left. They ambled through the house, trying to find the place where the smell was strongest.  They found it - it was the wall between my bedroom and next door's master bedroom. They told me that identifying the smell and how long it had been there was really important.  They even took away some of my clothing - stuff that had been sitting in my wardrobe for ages unused - for testing. Then a forensic psychologist turned up and asked me a whole heap of leading questions.  I didn't even know there was such a thing as forensic psychology!  But he was really nice.  I even showed him my blog.  He told me that he was going to go through it caref...

Question:  Do the forensics team think it's an accident? Answer:  No And. Yes, I'm using Yes/No/And/But dice.  I did for the last question, too, but got a flat answer. The police came back today, to question me further.  I think that they think that I did it.  I don't know why. It was an uncomfortable conversation - I don't remember much about any of the interactions I've had with any of my neighbours - I certainly don't remember making any of them feel uncomfortable.  In the end, I told the police about the antipsychotic drugs that the doctor prescribed me.  I had to - I felt like they were blaming me for the deaths of those people!  And I didn't do it!  I'm sure I didn't do it! They looked really unhappy when I told them about the drugs, and asked for the name of my doctor.  I told them, of course.  What else could I do?  But they didn't take me away. And my doctor called me up later and told me that they want...

The person from the real estate agency turned up - and had hysterics.  She banged on my door after she'd found the source of the smell, and got me to call the police. I didn't quite believe her at first - she said she'd found two dead bodies.  I thought she was exaggerating, so I went and saw for myself. She was right.  There were two human corpses, right there, in the bottom of the back yard.  One of them was basically a skeleton with bits covering it.  The other...  Well, it was probably the source of the smell. I threw up.  Fortunately, I managed to throw up in the opposite corner of the garden, so the forensics experts won't get too upset with me for it.  I called them, of course, right after I'd finished heaving my guts out.  They questioned us both separately.  The girl from the agency was done pretty quickly - she hadn't been working there for very long, and didn't know much.  She gave them the name of the person wh...

Question for Mythic Oracle:  Does she go to the doctor for medication, and do they work?  Answer:  Yes. I had another really bad night last night, so I called in sick for work and went to the doctor.  And I'm glad that I did - he said a lot of things, and prescribed me some antipsychotic medicines. I know I should be offended and all that, but honestly?  I'm just relieved.  He couldn't pinpoint the cause of the problem, but there is a solid, scientific cause.  I got my prescription filled straight away and took a dose with a cup of hot chocolate at a local cafe, and later, when I went past the place where the burnt-out car had been, there was no sign of the strange symbol.  It didn't smell strange there, either. It's not all roses, though - the police still had the area cordoned off, and I could smell it when I got home.  It smelled like it was coming from the neighbour's place.  It smelled a bit like something had died there. No...

The burnt out car's been taken away by the police, at last.  Thank goodness.  I was starting to dream about it - that I couldn't meet with the boss that I was supposed to have a vital appointment with because he'd been killed in a car accident. Except that it was more sinister than that - his secretary was somehow involved, and the boss was dead, but he was still around.  And I don't mean like Weekend at Bernie's, either.  More like Night of the Living Dead.  And she didn't want me to meet the boss, even though the appointment was really important and starting to get urgent.  She was trying to stop me from making my meeting. (Dreams are weird.  Maybe I should go to a doctor and get some sleeping pills or something.) It's funny - there were some of those Forensics experts crawling around after the car had gone.  You'd think they'd had enough before. But...  There was something in the grass.  Something like a symbol.  Or part ...

My neighbour's place is changing tenants again.  This is the third time in two months! It was never like this before.  There was a lovely old couple living there, they'd been there for years.  But he had dementia, and then she died.  So he went into a nursing home, and their kids put the place on the market. Since then?  Well, first there was a young couple.  They weren't too happy, to be honest - they were always fighting.  And then their dog vanished, never to be seen again, and they fought more than ever.  Then she walked out or something, and he left not long after. Then there was a divorced woman with grown-up children.  She got the creeps, and couldn't stand living there for more than three weeks before she left.  She kept complaining about the smell, now that I think of it.  She thought something had died under the floorboards, or something.  I reminded her that the place is on a concrete slab, like mine is, and she ...

The burnt out car is still there, cluttering up the landscape.  It always seems to take them a week or two to get around to hauling the wrecks away.  But at least the smell is fading! That is, the part of the smell that comes from burnt car is fading.  It isn't nearly as strong as it was.  But the other smell, the strange smell, it's as strong as ever.  That doesn't make sense.  I'll have to do some research about that, about smells that take ages to fade. I also can't figure out what's got me worried.  I had another anxiety dream last night, you see.  About the secretary and her unseen boss that I'm supposed to have an appointment with. The smell was in the dream again, too.  Which is also really weird - I don't usually dream about smells. But it can't go on like this.  Not forever.  I'll give it a few more nights, and if I'm still dreaming about them, and I can't identify what's worrying me, I'll go see a doctor or somet...

Oracle provided keywords:  secretary, scant. I had a disturbing dream last night.  I dreamed I walked into an office in which I had an important appointment.  When I walked in, the office was fully and lavishly furnished, and I was expecting good things of the appointment. There was a secretary at the desk, who passed on to her boss the information that I had arrived.  She told me that he would be out shortly, and would I please take a seat and wait.  I sat down, and arranged myself neatly to wait. Time passed.  It didn't seem like much time at all to me - barely a few minutes - but the quality of the light in the office changed, and when I glanced at the clock, it turned out that more than an hour had gone by. I glanced around the room.  Several items of furniture had vanished.  The secretary was no longer making use of a desktop PC, she had a typewriter. I asked after her boss, since it was now considerably later than it had been when ...

At least, I assume it's criminals at work. There was another burnt out car in front of the underpass near my place this morning.  There's been a spate of them recently, all up and down the main strip between the suburbs.  Usually wedged into the underpasses intended for pedestrian use. The police had already been in attendance and gone again by the time I got there on my way to work this morning - I had to dodge the traffic to get to my bus stop instead of using the underpass. I do wish people wouldn't do this - it's an unpleasant addition to a suburb, even in winter.  And this isn't winter.  It's summer, and that fire could have spread - it would have spread, if the council hadn't been doing their jobs properly and ensuring that the dry grass was suitably short and not likely to catch fire. I was curious enough to get within sniffing distance of the wreck, but that was well and truly close enough.  Like all burnt-out cars, it reeked.  Burnt met...