(no subject)

[recollecters]

[ For the past few days, Retrospec users may have noticed that Zee has been unresponsive. On the 29th, a message from Delta#68422 appears - for once a network connection in video form. The girl on the screen is recognizable to some as Joanne Wiseman: a blonde teenager with blue eyes and curls tied back, in a Retrospec technician's white labcoat. Far from her usual bubbly appearance, she looks upset and stressed out, her eyes red-rimmed. ] Hi... [ She scrubs at her eyes for a second, then tries to smile. ] Um. So! The thing is - the thing is, I can't tell you exactly, but one of you - someone got something back, and it's... [ Joanne pauses. There are voices in the background, and she glances off-screen to her right, lips thinning before she turns back. ] We can't take it back, you know, we reroute items - Maurice does, I mean - but it's not like we're giving things on purpose. I mean, those we are. He takes them back now if you don't want them but it's not like you can take back things you can do, and - and. Someone did something, but I can't say who, or how, 'cause of restrictions. But I can tell you something happened, and - with all those deaths recently. [ She takes another breath, deep and slow. ] And. Our liaison, Zee, he - he wasn't on the same level, you know? Mid-level management. Like - so he didn't have the... [ another pause as she scrubs at her eyes again. ] So - the news, the normal news, it probably said already but you might not have known if it was real but he's. He's dead, and it's the permanent kind, and we can't fix it. I'm so sorry, he already - he'd already, we'd already done it before, and he ran out of - he ran out. My Aunt doesn't want to send anyone else in until - the, the issue. With one of you. Until something's done, but even then... [ A helpless little shrug. ] I never got to clear up the mess last month, the message. I'm sorry, we've been a little - it's been hectic. I'm not sure this won't get messed up before I send, but I think I can route it around - well, anyway. Jim said it would work, he helped me with it, and...that's. That's it for now? We're trying to - this is bad, but we're trying to avoid something else right now, so. I can't - we can't - focus on this. I'm sorry. I'll try to contact you next month as soon as I can - we're trying to avoid a repeat of August. I mean, last August. God. Stay safe, and - [ And with that, the message ends in static. ] As of this post, Zee is no longer in play until further notice due to player plot and game plot reasons! He may make a reappearance in the later months and player action can change this outcome if characters come up with a solution. Anyone who goes to look for information about this death will find out that Zee has been killed and his body was found staged in front of the Wiffle-Waffle waffle house. What a bad break. We are now entering the final phase of the summer event; please be on the look-out for September's plotting post with details for the next month! Please feel free to use this post as a network mingle. Every toplevel can be considered a new post, and threadjacking is permitted. No NPC response will be given. Characters IDs will be comprised of the following: The date your character first appeared on Retrospec (so in Zee's case, that was 02/01/18) and the last four digits of your character's IC inbox as found in the HTML (in Zee's case, 8329.), not aliases or chosen nicknames or usernames, and seemed to have filled themselves in; nothing characters do can change or obscure their names currently.

Comments

[dulynoted]

[ Beta#12011334

Permanent.

As it should be. ]

How horrible. After everything that's happened...

But how do you know it's one of us?

[odasaku]

Maybe it has to do with the fact that they couldn’t bring him back?

[dulynoted]

I've heard that they can bring people back, but never spoken to someone who was. Would that mean that we have a different affect on non-users?

[odasaku]

I knew one person, but I never talked to him about it. He wrote about his death a long time ago on the app, though.

[dulynoted]

Did he? What was his name?

[maskreant]

they probably see correlation/causation between an item being received by one of us and Zee's death.

[dulynoted]

Perhaps, though people have had some potentially dangerous abilities for some time. Zee had been making himself scarce recently. Maybe he upset someone?

[maskreant]

potentially is the keyword. being able to kill one of them must have been the last straw.

if they somehow got him to meet with them, then that’s a miracle. it’s been a while since i’ve seen the Retrospec staff in person.

[dulynoted]

I was thinking the same thing. It makes one wonder if they've been aware of a threat for some time.

[maskreant]

and engaging or dealing with it leads to this?

[ DEATH ]

[dulynoted]

Perhaps. Or maybe they didn't take it seriously from the start.

[falsepretentious]

That's a good question. It's a shame that no one will appear to answer it.

There is the chance that the detail was fabricated, or it is just being guessed. But if she was saying the truth, then they probably found out through some sort of surveillance. Or perhaps they have some sort of way of tracing the usage of the items that are sent to us.

[dulynoted]

And one of the times we need it the most, too.

[ Not surprising. He knows that Retrospec knows. But they're playing it cautious. Good. He might have the advantage, but he should still be cautious. ]

I'm confident they keep inventory of what they send to whom and when. They do have to notify us and address things appropriately, don't they?

[falsepretentious]

Indeed. We receive tickets for items that are sent to us, and I am sure that measures must be taken to ensure that we all receive only the items meant for us. Their inventory system must be kept to high standards of efficiency for everything to flow as smoothly as it does, and for all deliveries to be accurate.

It's a shame that we're unlikely to get any information from that, either. I don't think that any of our resident hackers have had any success in cracking any of their systems. We'll just have to find other ways of looking into matters.

[dulynoted]

If they want us to stay safe, they could be a little more forthcoming. But I understand that to state all their intentions where they are being watched by that potential threat would be foolish, to say the least.

[falsepretentious]

Indeed. It's hard to say for sure how much of their vagueness can be attributed to their corporate policies and how much of it could be due to not wanting to set the potential culprit off. If we're lucky, then maybe they are intentionally clouding their actions wile taking some sort of action against the person in general.

But there's no way to know any of that for certain, at least not right now. All we can do is see what we can discover for ourselves about the matter and hope that some sort of action can be taken before any further deaths occur.

[dulynoted]

I'm inclined to believe that is the case, but we really only can guess. They are secretive bunch to begin with, as you said.

I suppose the best place to begin would be to seeing who has shared abilities with the group already? The culprit may not be as secretive as Retrospec.

Beta#1101171543

[floret]

Oh I kind of figured they can monitor everything we do. (I mean since the app can follow us around and they send us weird creepshots and stuff sometimes)
So after he died they just, like, reviewed the security footage or whatever, so now they know exactly what happened and who did it.

But I wonder why she can't just tell us?
:/

[dulynoted]

It's possible it's simply to stop this person from acting out against others. We don't know how dangerous they could be. But considering the wide array of abilities people have gotten, it's a little surprising something like this hasn't happened sooner.

[floret]

How so?

[dulynoted]

Excessive power can easily go to someone's head. We've seen it happen throughout human history with less extenuating circumstances.

[floret]

I mean...
I guess
But almost all of us have access to something we COULD use to hurt or kill someone, whether it's a car or a kitchen knife or a heavy appliance we could push off a balcony or something. It takes a lot more than just having the ability to do it before most people start being willing to kill anyone.

[dulynoted]

You're very right about that. So what happened that caused this person to finally act?

[adoringpast]

like how everyone's replied so far, they could've kept track of the items they've been sending out to us for a while now

inventory and all that

the fact that it's still a breach of privacy is more than a little annoying though

[dulynoted]

Oh I'm sure that they do, but that isn't a direct correlation. People have been receiving all sorts of dangerous items and abilities. The timing might be suspect, but it isn't a concrete indication of intent. Someone could have been biding their time.