Detective Time - Stanley Apartments

Nathan heard the words of the Narrator as he approached the buildings.

“On the outside, the Stanley Apartments looked plain enough.”

That was almost meaningless in Metric. As with many other buildings, the Apartments were much more than they appeared. Inside they could simulate just about any interior – if given the plans. It wasn’t a hologram, but it wasn’t quite real either.

No, in this case the rooms were grown from programs that, given sufficient credits, could convert digital plans into solid ones. It was probably best described as an organic 3d printer. The process wasn’t particularly slow or fast, not that time meant much in Metric, but compared to the alternatives, it was easier.

“Normally a room was fairly basic. A bed, a chair, a desk and not much else.”

If you were checking in, you got a phone for the duration of your stay. It came with a number of programs added to it to help you navigate the possibilities of the room, and help make connections with the other guests.

“Most of the rooms had a Narrator,”

It was their job to help connect the room to the Story Hallways and the rest of the Narrative experience. The default was Kevan Brighting, which people had grown accustom to.

“It was difficult not to get a meta commentary.”

Anything about the way you dressed, the way you spoke or the way you opened the door were all fodder for the Narrator. It was clear that it recognized individuals.

“Despite this, I’m still going to call you Stanley” said the Narrator.

“Oh, you’re a special guest. You don’t get to leave here till you figure out the puzzle.”

Nathan smiled. He flipped through the phone and made a random finger gesture on the particle program. “You can’t do that Stanley.” said the Narrator “You have to let me control the story.”

“Looking around, Stanley found he could use the phone to match the hallways to each other, and let the others find their way to the employee lounge.” Nathan looked at the poster on the wall and took a picture of it. That opened up a puzzle game and he found that the hallway segments could move and he matched isolated rooms to a central room. He did his own room last. A wall segment raised, and there was a door behind it.

“Stanley made his way to the employee lounge and began to chat with the other guests” The voice echoed in the hallway as the Narrator said the same thing in each room.

Nathan thought about messing around with the map a bit more, but realized he could jump back here again anyway.

“That was one of the features of the Stanley rooms, you can always restart if you wanted to.”

The narrator seemed to have read into his hesitation.

“Alright.” said Nathan, getting up and heading out. “Don’t forget your phone” said the Narrator.

Nathan tried to leave anyway. “Don’t forget your phone” said the Narrator. Nathan appeared back in the room. He grabbed the phone, but felt like there might be a point to push the idea next time. The Narrator often had something to say if you pushed against the instructions enough.

“He walked down the short hallway into the employee lounge. Stanley didn’t know why he was headed there, because he didn’t think he worked here.”

The commentary from the Narrator was a bit nagging, but it had a point. Nathan stopped in the hallway and thought about the situation.

“He walked down the short hallway into the employee lounge.” the Narrator said again, with different emphasis on the words. A short pause, and Nathan continued to stand there. “He /walked/. Down the /short/ hallway. /Into/ the employee lounge.” another pause as arrows appeared in front of Nathan.

“I can’t say anymore till you do that.” said the Narrator. “I have a script I have to follow.”

Nathan put away the phone he was fiddling with and followed the direction. Inside the room he saw several movie stars and various movie crew who were already talking among themselves. They were trading stories about how they got here and what they had seen in each of the rooms.

“Their descriptions are about rooms similar to yours, but with computers and tvs. So not that similar after all.”

Nathan coughed. He felt like he had to take charge here, but he wasn’t quite sure what he was working at. “What, specifically, did each of you see?” He went around the room, and each star had a different set of dialogue, or role to practice, with a short blurb about who they were in relation to everything.

“Stanley had a sneaking suspicion about what was going on, and checked everyone’s Missing Piece cards” prompted the Narrator.

Nathan asked about what the Narrator had suggested. Most had no idea what he was talking about, except a few of the other people assigned as ‘Detectives’. They had a fuller info packet about what they should notice and where it was. Nathan would have to play catch-up. Benedict, the most modern Sherlock, at least in the first batch, showed everyone the Card app and where to find it on the phones.

Nathan was able to match the cards they had with the stories about what was in each of the rooms. It seemed that only a few people had rooms that matched their roles. It was as though the sorting program knew the stars and the crew types they needed, but couldn’t remember too many specifics. Nathan made a quick note of who was in a ‘wrong’ room and figured they might be assigned as a Director to the people who’s info it was – effectively teaming some people up.

Nathan looked around the room looking for anything that might seem out of place. Everyone else sat quietly, except for the water cooler, which opened some mostly hidden eyes and looked around.

“Gotcha!” said Nathan as he took a picture of it. On his phone the water cooler smiled from a seam that turned into a mouth. A digital bar, which looked like a temperature setting, started filling up as the text changed to “Hints”. Nathan pushes the digital water cooler image to the room’s main screen.

Everyone waits and watches. The bar fills and the brand tag flips around and says “Casting Assistant”. It then asks if anyone would like to play a game of Missing Piece to see what kind of roles they will be assigned to.

Everyone gets a crash course on Missing Piece from Nathan, though some learnt a bit about it from the info in the rooms. They take turns playing with the water cooler tv in the room. It notes their gaming style and asks them to read back different lines from fragments of scripts it seems to have in memory. It also asks them to do imitations of other people in the room. In the end it spits out roles for everyone which get made into new digital cards.

Nathan saw that each of the assisting people had a digital face filter that could help them appear as whoever they were helping. In that way they could appear on the TV and speak lines that the real star wouldn’t know. He also noted the complete lack of Temporal cards in their decks. Nathan thought that was odd, but it seemed like these people weren’t from Metric, so too many time hiccups might throw things off. He thought he recognized them from the Actor’s guild, but he didn’t know too much about that place either. It was possible that it was a place for new immigrants to Metric.

Still not sure what to do, Nathan tried loading a few of his apps onto the Stanley Phone. The program seemed to download, but crashed on setup, blanking the phone out and somehow causing the battery to overheat as well. He barely had time to drop it before it popped open and made a small explosion and fire.

“Stanley found out he couldn’t load Metric Apps on this phone. Luckily there was a second one in his room.”

“This might be harder than I anticipated” thought Nathan as he made his way back to the employee lounge. He still wasn’t sure what he was doing with everyone, but finally he got a message from Jade on Ant-Talk – a program on the Stanley phone.

“I’d figure you’d try and get your Apps on the Stanley phone, and I picked up the carnage. It looks like you’re in a new subset of Metric called ‘Deliberate 1.1’ it’s mostly Vanilla time but with a few leaks to the more fluid time of Metric. It’s going to be a pain, but it’ll be a good place to build character. See if you can sort out some time rules that won’t break things. Zapp might be a good one to contact, or your Professor self.”

The Narrator jumps in. “Stanley figured that was a good idea. In fact. It’s so good, he’ll tell himself to do it yesterday. Before his normal phone loses that function.”

Nathan, getting familiar with the ‘Game’ thinks it’s best to just play along. He sends the message and waits as his Metric Phone shuts down for the last time in this place – barring the game resetting.

---Static---

---Blackness---

Waking up in the Room again. Doing the map puzzle again.

“Where are we again?” asks the Narrator. “Never mind, just let me look”

The narrator’s voice goes quiet as the sound of paper rustling takes over. “Ah here we go... A new app appears on Stanley’s phone, along with a message - It looks like you earn Virtual Particles with actions in there, and can trade them for ‘Fun Time Edits’”

Nathan waits the split second for that to happen and looks down at his phone. The Narrator is correct.

“Everyone else has the new app as well.” says the Narrator, apparently trying to keep the story moving without tedious transfers and tech work.

The water cooler image now has a small tag which says ‘Default Director’ and resumes talking after it’s speech hint bar comes back to full.

“Unlike Nathan’s, which is mainly a total tally and a shopping list, each of the others have tasks like ‘Excite target audience’ or ‘Make original sound for scifi action’. So jump to it!”