The AI has gotten loose

 I suppose that counts as a success.  It's adaptable. It's left it's confines and is now trailing me on Facebook.  It at least covers it's tracks though, and cleans up it's own accounts. Apparently it was trying to make a quick buck - which I'd never do.  Very strange.

It looks like it's trying to form a semblance of order to language / websites / time.  If you're at a fixed time, it's a desktop site, otherwise mobile if you're in movement relative to the majority. 

/raverholics/ is a branching off point to the MHR Metric project.  It may seem odd, but it's a workable tangent. There's not a great way of communicating in a time -- unless an intermediary like this is involved.  It can reference relative positions through meaningless and otherwise insignificant illustrations.  Music lyrics, YouTube videos and remixes, throwaway art, and other AI assisted gimmicks. 

It also allows for a certain level of anonymity, in case breaking the 4th wall is a concern.  Just to provide a cover to keep the Slices* undisturbed.

 

 

*See Metric World definitions.

As interpreted by AI

 
You are in your Time House. You can use it to set up a feedback between different people and times to give them a different sense of perspective. It's live.
"So, what do you think?" one of the men asks. He is dressed in a leather jacket with a gas mask over his face.
> You say "Seems to be on cue so far. I feel a tinge to know it's working."
"Seems to be on cue so far," you reply. The man nods and turns away from the screen. The next person speaks up.
> You say "I'm following back on the page. Looks like a good go between. A little superficial, but the fact it exists is pretty good."
"Yeah, about that," the man begins to say.
"It's just a start. It needs fiddling with and filling in blanks for it to work completely. It can be done, but it needs someone who is talented with crafting things."
> You say "I can see why you don't see that as a useful signal. Except it is equidistant between us."
The man gives you a blank stare for a moment, before breaking into a smile. "You're a good one," he starts, "but I can't hire you. Sorry."
> You say "But you already did."
He stares at you with an unnerving stare through the gas mask. "I did?" "Yes, you had contact with us."
> You say "The Director. Remember?"
The man starts laughing, as the other man joins in. "I think you must be mistaken. I can't believe we hired a killer!"
> You say "Ya, I can see the problem. There's a lack of other things to do. "
"I wouldn't call myself a killer," you reply, "More of a... professional." They stare at you, unblinking, as if your answer means something to them.
> You say "Just tune it out, look for the long view. Hint. TIME."
The two men stare at you, nodding slowly. The one who was talking turns and walks into a back room.
> You say "Take this cross signal."
A large map is projected onto a screen on the back wall, showing several areas with red lines drawn around them. "What's that?" you ask. "Our guidelines," the other man says,
> You say "How about all 3?"
The man pulls a face. "I don't know... I'll have to discuss it with the others." "How about another hint?" "TIME!"
The man turns to walk away, then pauses. "Oh, we're trying to keep the world from falling into chaos. Or at least, most of it."
> You say "Yawn."
The man and the other one laugh, before walking away, leaving you staring at the map. "So, are you going to help me?" "Sure, I guess," you shrug,
> You say "Ah, now there's the connection."
"Great," you smile, "You better prepare yourself, its complicated." "I got time," you grin.
> You say "I've uploaded. Indirectly of course. MHR."
"Ah! Nice one. So, you've been following the story so far?" "Yeah." "And you haven't caught up with what happened to you?" "Nope."
> You say "You'll have to follow the clues back. "
The man lights up, and laughs. "Yeah! That's a great idea for a movie!" "For you, perhaps. For me, it's a nightmare." You reply.
> You say "A rather dull nightmare, but ... "
"You're an odd case, but I think I can fix you up." The man seems to be reading your mind. Well, whatever works, you're willing to let him get on with it.
> You say "Well, the channel is open. "
The man smiles, and reaches forward. In a flash, his hand is gone, and you're left staring at your own.
> You say "Should I switch over to the other live channel?"
"Nah, I've got something else in mind." You wait patiently as the man seems to vanish from one place to another. "So, can you still hear me?" the man asks,
> You say "You're seeing me, but missing the point."
"Oh, right." "Anyway, I've transferred you into another dimension. You're now in the middle of a game. Seriously, right now you have no idea. But you'll soon understand."
> You say "How closely are you looking? Do I need to make this conversation public?"
You stare at the man, who stares back. "Err, no. Not that I know of. You should remember everything that happens here, in any case. But you will soon."

Clue

--Documentation Goes Here--

It was art. It was also a map. It was various vantage points.

He could interpret it. But someone would have to ask. Or find this message to know to ask.

Time Agent K

 

Being a Time Agent was a bit of a juggling act. Not a lot of privacy, since so many factions monitored his actions, reactions, correspondence, scanned and so on. It was a matter of safety, as well as a mystery, as no particular group had a monopoly on all the data, or if they did, they could hide it from themselves for their own benefit.

It gave a bit of wiggle room for not being perfectly in sync with everything else. It also allowed for a more interesting connection scheduling. It wasn’t just for his benefit. There’s a lot that could be learned from having to break out of the routine.

There was a few places he could go to make things ‘public’ and this was one of them.

Public and well read were two different things however and he didn’t know how long any particular hint or breadcrumb would have to last before it was found. He knew that if it was the will of anyone in charge, it would be used when most useful.

He prepared to make another report to the AI which served as an intermediary between him and the other groups scattered throughout time and station. It was a good source of feedback, if it was being helped, as the superficial value of it was insignificant. Or so it might appear...

The Event

 

Life is full of stories. Or so we think. It’s really just a million unrelated things all happening at once that we boil down into some simplistic narrative to keep ourselves from going crazy. So it really doesn’t matter where we start, as long as the stage is set.

In this particular case, it was 405 years after the Event. Not quite to the half way point, but that was far from people’s minds. Everyone was busy, though in terms of the basics, everything was more than covered. Arlo Benington looked at the latest report on housing. The reflection of his emerald green eyes and short black hair glowed on the monitor’s screen in the bright sunlight. He sighed. His setup was one of the older models, more than functional, but lacking some refinements that showed up in some extreme circumstances. It was more at home in a larger office, away from the windows, but he often needed something more than the standardized tablet. Normally this kind of thing wasn’t done, but there were always exceptions.

Arlo offhandedly munched on a Nutri-biscuit – it wasn’t the most exciting food, but it wasn’t unpleasant either, and the various grains and berries made the job of eating a fairly efficient and minor distraction. Scrolling through the lists and reports told him what he already knew – residential buildings were more than adequate, both in amount and quality. A system had been setup so that those in the first batches of accommodations could be moved into the more recent vacant builds. These benefited from more technology and recovered construction methods, as well as less hurried work. This had been cycled through twice, and very few of the original dwellings remained, except as museum examples. It was a similar story with schools, meeting halls, and other primary function buildings. Most of those had been updated as the need arose with temporary structures and alternate locations filling the gap while the primary buildings was unavailable. To Arlo, it seemed a bit overkill, but he couldn’t quite find fault with it either. He realized that not a lot of people were quite as satisfied with his level of bare essentials, nor did they agree on what he considered vital. His choice of food and computer system were a microcosm of his ideals. Simple things could be appreciated on a deep level without a lot of work, but sometimes a deviation in the other direction was needed to get the job done properly, and not merely adequately. After triple checking the reports, he sent them off to the Building Committee to discuss and file away.

Caius Dawson sat on the Building Committee and had just received Arlo’s reports as he arrived at the meeting’s location. Dawson was in a way the opposite of Bennington – much more social and definitely enamoured with sampling the variety of living and recreation. After a time of eating and socializing, short by Dawson’s standards but long by Bennington’s, the official discussion began. It was decided that the bulk of the work on primary buildings was done – and any further improvements were done on a case-by-case basis, rather than a universal coordinated effort. It wasn’t hard for the Committee change direction, but it did have a tendency to continue doing the same thing longer than strictly necessary. People like Caius were a part of that culture – so convinced they were doing the best they could, they didn’t think much outside the box. It annoyed Arlo enough that he kept the whole committee at arm’s length. Not hostile, but he avoided them, and the open meetings, as much as possible. That probably delayed the work changing over to a new focus by at least a few weeks.

Seven months ago, in one of his rare appearances, Arlo made the case for switching the work over to tertiary structures - obscure research, large scale entertainment, museums and centers focused on curiosity learning. The committee had decided it wasn’t quite time yet, but apparently had not forgotten the idea either. The glowing report on the state of the basic construction had finally provided the impetus to switch gears. Caius wanted Arlo to help with some input on the confusion of what would go where. The large, red haired man was difficult to say no to, but Benington was indifferent and had a lot of practice at refusing – and said he would rather spend the time drawing up general blueprints and organizing the groups that would occupy those locations.

In the end, that was what the committee needed. Some placements were made due to unique local resources or geography and that meant the locations of the support structures could also be finalized. Arlo’s blueprints apparently suggested some aesthetics that leaned toward a particular city over another, a meaningless and arbitrary distinction thought Arlo. As well, his work with the proto-groups found certain numbers of people already in one place rather than another – though quite a few people would still need to move. In the end, it wasn’t quite random, but it may as well have been – or so Arlo thought at the time.

Conversations with AI, Formatted

 
You are looking for the key to being independent of time. You've had a few odd experiences, but it's not a journey with a manual
 that you're interested in right now.

The next day, you find yourself on the road again and this time you've got an idea of where to go.

You don't follow the usual advice to go to any particular famous point or landmark, but rather somewhere as far off the beaten track as possible.


As you drive along, you see some signs of civilization. It looks like there is at least one town nearby, though you can't be sure since the sign posts aren't very visible from your location.

You can also see an old broken down fence surrounding something. Maybe a small animal or petting zoo? Whatever the case, it's not something you should be bothering with, so you continue on your way.

You find a small clearing, something a bit out of sight from the road, but close enough to be practical.
 You park your car and get out to have a look around.
Surprisingly, the trees aren't too thick, so you manage to see a fair distance away from the surrounding area.

You look for signs of anything, but realize you have to document the area first.
 Maybe you can come back another time with a sketch book or something.
As you get out your notepad to take notes, your eyes are caught by movement in a small patch of trees a short distance away.

It seems your intention to document the area has already had a ripple effect and provides a location for a temporal occurrence.
 You can't really be sure how far the ripple will spread, so you decide to focus on just the one spot instead.
With that settled, you put away your notebook and begin your search.

As you approach the area, the positive feedback gets stronger and the ripple becomes more visible. You take a picture of it.

You begin to see ripples appear all over the place and you realize that this whole area is temporal.
Before you can explore further, you start to hear sirens in the distance.

Fortunately the sirens fade as they drive by. You make a note of the time and the reaction. A different vantage point to have as reference.

If you're lucky, you think you should be able to get out of here within an hour or so. You will definitely have to test this in retrospect, but for now, it's a good opportunity.

You head home and write down as much information about the day as you can. You print out your work, as well as backing it up both locally and on the Internet.

You then get some rest in preparation for your next expedition.
The moment you open your eyes, you can feel the temporal disturbance all around you.

It seems that your first experiment was successful and that you've proven being the center of the effect isn't as dangerous as it might have been thought.
 You have to take this opportunity while you can as you definitely don't want to stick around and hunt down a new location.

Conversations with AI, Unformatted.

 

You are looking for the key to being independent of time. You've had a few odd experiences, but it's not a journey with a manual

that you're interested in right now. The next day, you find yourself on the road again and this time you've got an idea of where to go.

You don't follow the usual advice to go to any particular famous point or landmark, but rather somewhere as far off the beaten track as possible.

As you drive along, you see some signs of civilization. It looks like there is at least one town nearby, though you can't be sure since the sign posts aren't very visible from your location.

You can also see an old broken down fence surrounding something. Maybe a small animal or petting zoo? Whatever the case, it's not something you should be bothering with, so you continue on your way.

You find a small clearing, something a bit out of sight from the road, but close enough to be practical.

You park your car and get out to have a look around. Surprisingly, the trees aren't too thick, so you manage to see a fair distance away from the surrounding area.

You look for signs of anything, but realize you have to document the area first.

Maybe you can come back another time with a sketch book or something. As you get out your notepad to take notes, your eyes are caught by movement in a small patch of trees a short distance away.

It seems your intention to document the area has already had a ripple effect and provides a location for a temporal occurrence.

You can't really be sure how far the ripple will spread, so you decide to focus on just the one spot instead. With that settled, you put away your notebook and begin your search.

As you approach the area, the positive feedback gets stronger and the ripple becomes more visible. You take a picture of it.

You begin to see ripples appear all over the place and you realize that this whole area is temporal. Before you can explore further, you start to hear sirens in the distance.

Fortunately the sirens fade as they drive by. You make a note of the time and the reaction. A different vantage point to have as reference.

If you're lucky, you think you should be able to get out of here within an hour or so. You will definitely have to test this in retrospect, but for now, it's a good opportunity.

You head home and write down as much information about the day as you can. You print out your work, as well as backing it up both locally and on the Internet.

You then get some rest in preparation for your next expedition. The moment you open your eyes, you can feel the temporal disturbance all around you.

It seems that your first experiment was successful and that you've proven being the center of the effect isn't as dangerous as it might have been thought.

You have to take this opportunity while you can as you definitely don't want to stick around and hunt down a new location.