@catherine.chun

[arkproject]

Sooo... someone suggested I set up a security system wherever we decide on our new safehouse. I can definitely do surveillance, and encryption and retinal scanners and all that, but I can't say I've ever tried to secure something before.

Any volunteers to help me out? Prior security experience or breaking-and-entering experience both apply.

Comments

[arkproject]

[ don't make her say it a SECOND TIME ]

Yes, Simon. That you still trust me. I know I rate better than the WAU, but that's not a glowing recommendation.

[theseuschip]

[ oh...

he really underestimated the mark that left. He's mostly been worried about how he literally broke her.

There are no "is typing" trios of dotty bois to visualize this pause, so just imagine it. ]

I trust you because of everything else. That was a lot.

[arkproject]

[ There's a pause of her own before she replies. ] Thanks.

[ Okay, quota met, that's about all Catherine can handle on this topic, especially in semi-public. It means too much to her to keep digging into. But... Simon's assurance that of course he still trusts her -- that means a lot, enough that she doesn't know how to approach it. ]

I got a job at the biotech company, so I should be able to learn what I need to make you an arm there. Do you have any idea what you want to do yet?

[theseuschip]

[ It’s the fiercest of sibling energy that can get Simon, Captain Planet heart elemental, to be totally on board with “have our Moment and then immediately move on like it didn’t happen”. ]

I don’t know what I can do. My old job’s obsolete and there’s a 500-year gap in my resume.

[arkproject]

We all have some significant gaps in our resumes. I took an entry-level programming job. For some reason they just wouldn't respect my multidimensional PhD.

[theseuschip]

Don’t get too bored.

This is crazy. I didn’t think I’d be job-hunting ever again, but it— I mean, this is real. We live here now.


[ let’s just

be very oblique on this very public network here ]

[arkproject]

I'll be trying to learn their version of neural interfaces and cybernetic anatomical structures on the side, so that should keep me busy.

Yeah... we do. [ She knows what he means. Catherine doesn't care about being oblique, though -- she just doesn't want to talk about it too directly right now, for the sake of her own repressed feelings. ] Welcome to a better future?

[theseuschip]

Yeah. Oh, hey, I read something about virtual reality. Sounded like they have what you do.

[ He thinks this will be new and exciting information.

ur doing great sweetie. ]

[arkproject]

Yeah, I showed up at some kind of gaming convention. It was the first thing I noticed, but they wouldn't let me poke around in it.

Maybe once I build your arm, I'll look into it more.

[theseuschip]

Wait, wait, I woke up in an alley and walked out into Oktoberfest. You got a gaming convention? What gives?

[arkproject]

I don't know, our mysterious benefactors like me more?

[theseuschip]

[ what Catherine probably means as a joke Simon would accept as a given, were it not for the weird caveat. It’s not self-deprecation; he’s never felt threatened by her, or invalidated about the Simon things that he spent his life doing. Or unlikeable, for that matter.

but like

come on. ]

Considering their track record with A.I., I don’t know why they’d like either of us.