War Week

[mockmods]

[A week has gone and past, as has the first of your number. The Researcher revealing himself, more or less, by punishing Patches, the Trusty, for pushing an unclear boundary.]

[And yet, routine seems to have returned. The Researcher makes morning and evening announcements as if nothing has happened. Meals are served in the dining hall. The copies of Oregon Trail in the computer lab now have a text-only mode for some reason? Penny has not been seen since Friday, and attempts to access the Security Room have been fruitless.]

[But overall, life in the Facility has remained unchanged. But the atmosphere is getting tenser - sooner or later something is going to break.]

Sunday | Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday Thursday

Comments

[eudaimonikos]

[This morning, Michael is inexplicably hanging around in the kitchen! He's going through all the pre-packaged stuff in the freezer, turning boxes over in his hands and scanning the labels and cooking instructions.]

...well, I'm not a child...

[Eventually, he puts it all back and cracks an egg in a frying pan instead. He's turned the heat up as far as it will go, and no butter or any other ingredients at all have been involved in this. So...that'll probably turn out some way or other.

After that mess, he'll be in the library for most of the rest of the day. Lounging across one of the chairs, he's got a big pile of books on the table next to him. He's flipping through them pretty quickly, just scanning the pages before moving on, like some kind of obnoxious speed-reader. When he settles down to read one at a normal person speed, it's with a bit of a different air; he glances up at anybody entering the room, like he's a little self-conscious.]

kitchen

[canbebeautiful]

Not to rain on your parade or anything, but are you gonna grease that pan?

[She just came in here for juice. Why this.]

[eudaimonikos]

Is that part of it?

[At least he sounds very polite about it.]

[canbebeautiful]

Usually, yeah. It keeps the egg from sticking and burning. [But also she's aware people are from other places so:] If you've got some secret technique for keeping that from happening, though, feel free.

[eudaimonikos]

Oh, no, I don't cook.

[...]

Hearing that out loud, it sounds like I think cooking is beneath me, but I didn't mean that. Requiring food is. Beneath me. I only eat for fun.

kitchen

[biolence]

[Rosa's sitting in the corner drinking something that looks like water and watching Michael try to cook. Eventually, she lets out a snort.]

Should've stuck with the Kid Cuisines, dude.

[eudaimonikos]

Oh, probably! [At least he's cheerful about it? Just kinda sliding that egg around, watching it to see what happens.] But where's the fun in that?

[biolence]

[Rosa arches an eyebrow, and after a moment, cranes her neck up to look at the egg he's frying.]

It's not supposed to be that color.

[eudaimonikos]

What color should it be?

[biolence]

Not brown.

[eudaimonikos]

Huh!

[Michael reaches out to turn the heat up higher. But it's already as high as it goes.]

I assume it's not going to go back to yellow at this point?

[biolence]

Nope. It's fucked, dude.

[not forked. fucked.]

Better start over and turn the heat down.

[eudaimonikos]

[Shrug! He...peels the burnt egg directly off the extremely hot pan and puts it on the countertop like some kind of cave troll.]

You probably can't tell, but I don't really eat human food much. Definitely never any I've made myself.

[biolence]

[A normal person would probably nag him into putting it in the garbage but Rosa Diaz doesn't care, actually, about that shit.]

It's whatever. You gotta learn to adapt, man. You ever had huevos rancheros?

[eudaimonikos]

Not at all! In hell, we mostly serve things like...tuna salad that came from a hospital vending machine in rural Michigan.

Library

[mockmods]

[Well, don't flip through those books too fast, Michael. You might miss the loose sheet of paper tucked into one of them.]

[eudaimonikos]

[Oh? Well, let's check that out.]

[mockmods]

[This paper looks to actually be something of a twofer. At a glance, one side is typeset and printed, the other's been covered in neat, dark handwriting that you may have noticed popping up in a few places before now.]

[eudaimonikos]

[Hm.

Let's start with the handwritten portion, then.]

[mockmods]

[Congrats, Michael! You found math.]

[And a few notes and sketches of what might be electrical systems? But mostly a whole lot of math.]

[Though Michael might be in a mostly unique position to understand this stuff. There's no good way to ask for an INT roll on this, so; would Michael be able to recognize calculations dealing with the soul, or self, or however you'd like to define the metaphysical side of someone's existence?]

[eudaimonikos]

[Well, the entire premise of The Good Place rests on a system using points values to calculate if people are good enough to go to said Good Place or not, so their whole afterlife is definitely based in some form of math?]

[mockmods]

[Seems legit!]

[It might take a little bit to decode, but this is definitely someone sciencing the soul, or at least something very soul-adjacent.]

[This seems to be a lot less about morality, though, and a whole lot about exchange or transference.]

[eudaimonikos]

[Well. Michael wonders if this would be familiar if he'd worked in making the human bodies for incoming demons to inhabit. But alas, he really only knows that process from the client side.

What's on the typewritten side, then?]

[mockmods]

[There is one more thing that might jump out a little about the handwritten side. A quick note added to the margins in the small space left from all the calculations.]

Tech from Project Equinox and Project P.E.N.N.Y. definitely useful. Look into integration w/ Flesh.

[eudaimonikos]

Charming.

[This seems important. He should show Janet.

Possibly everyone else, too.

Okay, what else?]