Voice

[foundafamily]

Is anybody here a fan of Poe? I got this in my locker last jump:

[There's the sound of a paper rustling. Firo clears his throat.]

"Thy soul shall find itself alone
‘Mid dark thoughts of the gray tombstone;
Not one, of all the crowd, to pry
Into thine hour of secrecy..."

[He continues to read, impatiently speeding up at the end so the lines of the last stanza run together.]

To be honest, I never really got the end back when my friend used to read it. But it’s creepy, isn’t it? Really suits this place.

What I'm wonderin' about is if it's supposed to be some sortta threat or message. 'Cause just comin' out and sayin' it would be too easy, right?

Comments

[foundafamily]

[He shrugs helplessly.]

I don't really know what any of that means... Is that all pilot stuff?

[He assumes that the people who fly those machines have their own jargon, so maybe that'd explain his confusion.]

[lastisocorn]

Well--no ...

[She pauses, not sure how to proceed. It seems that there are people from different timelines on this ship, so perhaps ...]

Have you ever used computers? They're machines, originally designed for rapid calculation.

[foundafamily]

I've heard people talkin' about 'em here... I still don't completely get what they do. But you're sayin' you're a program on one of 'em... Like, that's your home?

[lastisocorn]

Well, you're using one right now! A type of one, anyway. A program executes the functions it's written for. For example, there's a program that's ensuring your communication through this device.

[She gestures to herself.]

My home--my system--had a lot of programs with various different functions. To you, a user, we were just lines of code ... but within the system, we looked like I do now.

[foundafamily]

That's... weird. No offense.

[Even the artificial humans he knows have a (mostly) normal physical body.]

So, wait, then how'd you fly that plane thing if you were stuck in a little thing like this?

[He taps the screen of the of the communicator.]

[lastisocorn]

[She shrugs it off blithely. This place, with its trees and peaches, is just as weird to her.]

Because the system inside a computer is its own world. There are buildings, roads, motorcycles ... not a lot of weather, though. Some rain. No sun.

[foundafamily]

...Huh. I don't think I'm smart enough to understand how somethin' like that works.

[He laughs.]

But it's still pretty amazing! There's nothin' like that where I'm from--it's kinda weird that we still have the same books.

[Of all the things to be similar across worlds, Firo would think it would be the more complex things.]