retrospec | Point of Order

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Point of Order

Hitori Togusa shared a photo.
5/11 near Recolle Police Station

So. A few things.
First. Dave! I want my membership card! Talking robot spider tank with a grenade launcher. Apologies to Koutarou for stealing some of his modeling clay to make my toy up there. I still remembered nothing about myself, though, so the betting pool is still open. Anyone who wants in on the 'What Is Togusa Repressing' pool, let me know. I think the odds on 'samurai' just got a lot longer, though.

The second thing is a little more important. A few of us made it into the subway, which is supposed to be shut down, the lines were damaged. The trains sure aren't running, but either it's shut down intentionally, or someone has taken advantage of it. Throughout the line connecting Enprise to Tisse, there are these QR codes all along the floor. They're those things you can scan with your phone to see a picture or other information. Scanning them didn't get any data, though.

The other area I went through, I don't even know how to explain what I saw. Try going to the middle of town. Next time, I ought to bring a camera with me.

I know that as soon as I post this up, Retrospec will probably try to lock it all down even tighter than they already have. But seeing as how I was assuming that's how they were getting things through the city without us noticing? If we can make them stop using it, I'll call that a victory.

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She laughed and shook her head. "No, no, I meant Jovanni. She does all those generic spy roles these days. I guess she's the favorite, but she's quite good at them." She chuckled and shook he head. "But Emilie would make a lovely actress I think, though don't tell her that. She might get too big of a head. She's already quite famous after all."

"And, perhaps you as a street samurai would be interesting, but I suspect it might be a little disturbing too. Just imagine what you'd have to fight!"

(OOC: ^.~, figured I'd use a generic stand-in for Johansen for a favorite spy girl thriller actress.)

"Mmm," Togusa nods sagely. "Feed into other people's theories. Then I'd have to be a motorcycle samurai, and shoot up other rival Japanese gangs. I suddenly wake up covered in tattoos, we'll know everyone was right."

Aw, but it would make sense, wouldn't it, Togusa? That's why they sent you a possibly-illegal Japanese gun in the mail?

Nope, Togusa is taking a long drink of his coffee to try to shove that thought back down.

"Emilie, she mentioned that her family owns a software company, gaming? Does that really get you so famous, in the right circles?"

[OOC: And then someone shows Togusa a Scarlet Johannsen movie and 'hunh that kind of looks like the Major' and we have a recursive explosion.]

She considered that for a moment and ran her fingers over her chin. "You know... that really does sound like the sort of thing I would have read when I was younger," she said, before nodding. "But as outlandish as these hallucinations are, why not? And with these Tachikoma, who can say what was possible?"

"In the right circles, though I might be overstating it because she's my friend," she said, which was admittedly rather true. "Wealth does tend to add fame, after all. In the right circles."

(OOC: Oh lord. That'd be a trip.)

"In the right circles," Togusa agrees with a smile. "That charity fundraiser last month was a good chance to spot all the rich and famous in the city, really. I didn't know we had quite so many of the 'upper crust' so to speak."

"Was interesting seeing people like me and Professor Izunia doing our best to fit in. Some of us did better than others." A small smile, because that's something he'd much rather think about. There's a photo on his desk of himself with Gentiana, and that night is going to stay with him for a long time.

"I believe that there are some who view Recolle as a project, wanting to make the city rival some of the larger ones in wealth and in how much a jewel the city is," Chloe hazarded. It certainly felt like it at times, that they wanted the city to stand toe to toe with the San Frans, Chicagos and New Yorks of the American world. She wasn't sure how well that would go, but it made for interesting events as they tried.

"I enjoyed myself, but I am a decent dancer, so that didn't hurt at all. It was... certainly not something I was as accustomed to being part of."

"I don't think I'd want that sort of event to be something I'm accustomed to," Togusa muses. "I wouldn't want to get used to it, and think it's boring. You could pick out the people in the crowd who felt that way, though," Togusa points with one finger.

"For some people, it is just another weekend." Togusa frowns in puzzlement as he remembers one or two people who were fitting in surprisingly well. "For some of the people you'd least expect it, too."

"I am not really the high society type myself, so I have to agree. One of my friends is much more accustomed to that sort of thing, but she is part of a very wealthy family, so it is to be expected." When you were an heiress, these were just things you went to, she assumed.

"Who surprised you, if I may ask?"

"Dante Rantanen," even the way Togusa says his name is like he's surprised. He props his head up on his hand. "This kid has been raising absolute hell all over the boards, in the best ways," he holds out a hand. "It's been hilarious to watch, it's just typical teenage trolling, but he's so good at making people angry."

"And then he's there at the party and schmoozing and rubbing elbows like he belongs there. Pretty big contrast to how he'd been behaving before."

"..."

She turned more fully to face him and the look of surprise was apparent on her face. One eyebrow raised and she smirked. "Ok, I admit, I didn't notice him there as I was busy, but that name is a bit surprising. He is not what I would expect to be within a mile of that event." She was trying to suppress laughter at the same time.

"I know, right!?" Togusa gives in to the urge to laugh. "The last guy you'd think. I'd expect Dave to be behaving himself before Dante. And Dave is still just my imaginary friend."

Togusa leans back in his seat, almost bringing the front two legs up off the ground. "Dante and I have really been getting along, it's uncanny."

She kept chuckling as he mentioned Dave. Yeah, even Dave was better behaved than Dante seemed from their few conversations. "Your imaginary friend? Whatever do you mean by that?" She cocked her head. "And you never know. Sometimes people just have a knack for getting along, even when you did not expect it, no?"

"Okay, if you have seen Dave in real life, if you have some kind of evidence that he actually exists? Do not give it to me." Togusa shakes his head and waves his hand back and forth. "I don't want this to get ruined intentionally. One day, we're going to run into one another and the game will be up. But for right now, Dave and I have no real contact with the other one, and it's turned into a joke that he's an imaginary friend. One of my best contacts! With some of the most interesting theories about what's going on. But yes, imaginary." This is all a joke, but sometimes they need some joking in order to cope with everything else that's been going on.

She laughed and shook her head. "The games we play. Very well, I will not. You have to keep your mind fresh, I am sure," she said, grinning at Togusa. "I will leave it up to you when you find out the truth. Games like these... they almost feel normal for us now, don't they?"

Wait until that imaginary friend started to really use those time powers.

"They do. You'd almost think we'd have enough games going on in our lives, but sometimes it's nice to be playing one that we made the choice to play." Togusa tilts up his coffee cup and drains the rest of it.

"You've already seen what I was up to. What's your next step from here?" Because Togusa knows better than to think that Chloe is going to sit idle and wait for Retrospec's next move.

"It is the fact that you have made the choice. That is what I think truly changes it." Honestly, that really did feel like the most likely thing to distinguish one game from another. "My next step?"

She paused for a moment before reaching up to scratch her chin. "I want to see if I can find someone who knows blueprints. An engineer if I could find one, but anyone that knows how to read them, preferably someone discrete. I'm patient, but I want to find it." Why? Well, that was totally illegal. But she could pretend to some extent.

Cue Togusa's eyebrows shooting straight up. "Blueprints?" Oh. Never mind. "Somebody's on this angle again? Good, I didn't get the time to look into it."

Hmm. "Instinct would be to send you to Ardyn Izunia, but he's just a lawyer." He scratches the back of his head. "I don't think I know anybody in construction or contracting. And those things aren't easy to read, I know I wouldn't be able to make heads or tails of it."

"Yes, Blueprints," she said, nodding when he asked that question. "What angle is that? I didn't know if there was an approach someone might be making."

She considered Ardyn and tapped her lips. "Ardyn might have to ask someone off of the network, and I am not sure that this is going to be productive. So I might need to look around a little."

To Togusa, the direction from here seems obvious. "You're interested in the blueprints of the Retrospec building. Which, if you can even find those documents, I'd be impressed, and I'd owe you a coffee back." Togusa has a bad feeling about what they're going to find.

"On that note, I'd be impressed if someone off the network can even see the prints. I don't even remember construction happening there."

She frowned. "If I managed to find those blueprints, would you agree not to ask me anymore about them, Officer, other than helping me find someone who could read them for us?" She glanced to the side, looking decidedly nervous as she said it. But, at the end of the day, she had to trust people, even people that you wouldn't normally.

And Togusa was smart enough to put two and two together. He'd figure it out eventually.

Oh. So not that building. Togusa hesitates, and looks at Chloe in a slightly different light. What is she up to?

"There are a lot of things that I've had to choose not to ask people further about. So, I'll just say the same thing to you that I would to any of them. Can you assure me that you're not going to put anybody in danger with this? Including yourself." Emphasis on that last part.

That was good enough. She nodded and reached into her satchel before pulling out a photocopied page and setting it down upside down, making sure her phone was nowhere in sight. "Mmmm, well, I can't promise there wasn't a little risk, but nobody was hurt at all, and nobody is in any more danger than Retrospec has put us every day."

She slid the page over. If Togusa were to turn it over, he'd find a copy of what looked like the corner of a blueprint. It showed a portion of a building, with a few designations, but the edges were clearly torn, almost like someone had hastily removed it and left a piece. In the corner was the familiar log of Retrospec.

"I am fairly sure it is the building that we all know and love, but I don't know how to read these." Nope, not saying that she swiped this out of the backroom of the mayor's office, nope nope. "I don't plan to put anyone at risk, but ... I don't think any of us can promise us, not if they shrunk us at a whim."

Togusa's eyebrows go straight up, and he stares at the paper. Oh dear. No no, she already has it. He stares at the page and then looks back up at Chloe in surprise.

"I can- try to send people your way." It's the best that he can do. "But, I don't think it was a whim that made Retrospec shrink us. Either it was an accident, or it was specifically to show us the cracks happening in reality."

He shakes his head carefully. "But you're right to worry about retribution. I'm not sure what else I can do to protect people if they're capable of changing so much at once."

If only she'd gotten the whole thing, but alas it had been removed a long time ago apparently, and in quite a haste. "I doubt it was completely a whim. Maybe they were trying to show us something like that. Or maybe something was wrong, like the last time strange things happened," she said, frowning. "I only know that this? Where I found it, it was clear that someone with an actual hand tore it out because they were in a hurry. Their hold isn't absolute." That told her more than the blueprint fragment itself would.

"But this makes me want to ask you something. What... exactly did you see down in the tunnels? In the center?"

Oh. Togusa hesitates, and he props up his elbow on the table, leaning his head on his hand. "It was. This is going to sound absolutely crazy, even in the scope of what we've been seeing so far."

"But it was me and, ah, Mrs. Yata." There are few people he would reveal his partner in crime to, but Chloe has proven to be very trustworthy. "We started out at the stop in Tribunal Terrace, right by the police station. Made our way south, like we were trying to get beneath the center of town. At first, it was just like the regular subway tracks. We saw nothing strange, but also no signs that there was active construction on that section." Togusa keeps going back to that point, it seems important.

"But then," Togusa shakes his head. "It started getting light out. Like we were heading outside. The tracks go all the way to the edge of the city, but at our size? It would have taken us days to get that far. We had to be beneath the middle of town. But it was almost...daylight, like the tunnel was turning into a path outside."

Togusa's head turns in his hand. "And then it was like we took a step too far and blinked, and we were right back where we started."

The response that she gave him when he said this was only possible because Naoto repeatedly hammered at her with the idea that they might not be real, or that this might all be some simulation. Her lips quivered into a frown and she let out a growl. "It is almost as if there were no way out of the city, or as if the paths within the city were not working properly, almost like the strange building itself."

She narrowed her eyes and looked across at him. "Officer, have you ever tried to leave town, since January?" Because this was starting to feel increasingly important to her. "I cannot remember anyone who actually has done so, and I am starting to wonder if we can... not that the world does not exist, but what if the city is affected like the building, and we can only go where they allow us? Considering that they shrunk us down, it does not seem out of the realm of possibility."

She was going to expressly avoid the 'matrix' explanation for now. There were other options, albeit more fantastical ones.

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