21:26 <banana> Aster's next shift on guard duty looks like a pushover... apart from the fact that he's got THREE of the post-punk rock ladies to watch. 21:27 <Crion> Fantastic. 21:27 <Crion> He wears his most comfortable suit. It looks the same as all the others. It's black, instead of charcoal or heavy grey. 21:27 <banana> His carefully-acquired starcharts don't predict any sudden waxings, and they're not going anywhere. Reveille and DisAster are visiting L-Plate at her home. 21:28 <Crion> Then he'll wear gloves, and keep the FAL FNC near. 21:30 <banana> Lindsey Farris lives in the west of the city, in the rich suburb of Irwell Grove. Gord's dropping you off, which means Aster's in the back seat alone, so Mary turns around to explain: "She doesn't live with her parents, just.. on the same block. A couple of houses down. They're all lovely peeps." 21:31 <Crion> Aster: "I don't care if she lives with her parents. It was the default family arrangement for most of human existence." 21:31 <Crion> "Gord, I'm taking the gun into the house. If you're not coming in with us, remember the buzzer." 21:31 <Crion> "When you return." 21:32 <banana> Mary Morgan: "That's true, like swinging from trees and so on. Something to recommend it. Ow." The client's hair has been re-gelled recently, so the spikes don't move at all when she bumps her head on the roof. 21:32 <banana> Gord: "I'll ring ahead, Mr. Aster, or Mary'll ring me. If another meteor smashes the door in, it's probably someone else." 21:33 <Crion> Humans never swung from trees. Our common ancestor preceeded--irrelevant. 21:33 <Crion> Aster: "Excellent. It's just Aster." 21:35 <Crion> To Mary: "I'll go in first and clear the house. You know the drill by now." After the first room or two, they're just to pay attention and make sure he doesn't go mysteriously silent on his 'Clears.' 21:35 <banana> Lindsey's place isn't an actual villa like the one Reveille has - just a modern fully detached home, which is still pretty expensive. Waistcoat Colony have been hampered by the pandemic - kept from a major breakout, Lindsay-with-an-a claims - but that doesn't mean they don't sell. 21:35 <banana> Gord: "Sure. Bye for now, aye." 21:35 <banana> Reveille: "Cya, luv." 21:35 <banana> There's music coming from the house - bass and drums, more poorly-insulated than it was in the studio. 21:36 <Crion> Are there parents home to object to the sharp-dressed heavily-armed American walking through their house? 21:36 <Crion> If not, Aster's work is easily finished. 21:37 <banana> No adults, unless you count the thirty-something Mary - or Paola Anna, who comes to the door. "Looking sharp," she says to at least one of you. 21:38 <Crion> Yes, he does count them. 21:39 <banana> Mary: "Hey, don't spoil it. Is that one of little-L's riffs?" 21:39 <Crion> Anyway the walkthrough is professionally quick. 21:39 <banana> Paola Anna: "...it's Voodoo People." 21:39 <banana> Mary: "You know I can't recognise anything without lyrics." 21:41 <banana> The house is fine. It's kind of too big a single young woman to live in, but she has multiple sets of very large speakers, so that might be for the best. 21:41 <Crion> Minutes later, if that, clearly and louding: "Declaring clear. You may open the bar." 21:41 <Crion> *loudly 21:42 <banana> In fact, when the three of them reach the living room, Aster finds that Lindsey's tuning some sort of audio equipment made of wood and little glass tubes - there's a sign on it, WARNING HOT. If he knows anything about gear, that stuff's both expensive and loud. 21:42 <banana> Mary: "Yayyy. I'll pour" 21:42 <banana> Lindsey looks up and smiles briefly. Paola Anna says: "Aaron Aster Again. Thanks for saving our lives, and so on." 21:43 <banana> There's a big sofa in this room positioned between the many speakers. In another room he saw drum kits, but less varied - she seems to have one main favourite. 21:44 <banana> The women are chatting... but they keep watching their bodyguard. If he goes somewhere, they'll actually follow, and continue ostentatiously hanging out. 21:44 <Crion> Aster: "You're very welcome, etcetera etcetera. I'm going to take one of the dining room chairs and put it here in the corner, with the rifle, as I usually do." 21:44 <Crion> Then he's going to sit in it, obviously. 21:45 <banana> Aster's chair and gun get a number of curious looks that don't quite rise to the level of "what." over the next few minutes. Reveille hands out drinks, including to Lindsey - she's old enough to drink, in this country. 21:45 <Crion> After some three minutes of this: "Oh for Christ's sake, women. Out with it." 21:45 <banana> ...Will Aster accept some cider? Or how about a neat gin? 21:46 <Crion> Is there brown liquor? 21:46 <Crion> If not, gin and tonic, squirt of lime. 21:46 <Crion> Drinking gin neat is stupid. 21:46 <banana> Gin and tonic it is. Reveille, leaning on the back of the sofa, says: "Wellllllllllll." 21:47 <banana> Paola Anna: "This is a trap." 21:47 <Crion> Aster leans forward. 21:47 <Crion> He's also pulled over a side table, and found a coaster. 21:47 <banana> Reveille: "We're just really curious about your brain." 21:48 <Crion> Aster: "Up until 2008 it was quite literally a state secret." 21:48 <Crion> "It's merely under NDA now." 21:48 <Crion> "So I will not be discussing technologies." 21:48 <banana> L-Plate turns the music down. She's dressed more casually than the other two - she does live here - and seems less talkative but no less curious. 21:49 <banana> Reveille: "See, that's the weird thing, there's normally nothing technological about what we do. It's not even susceptible to analysis... drives parapsychologists nuts." 21:50 <Crion> Aster: "If so, they simply lacked commitment and rigor." 21:50 <Crion> "Not uncommon." 21:50 <banana> "But you've got this power, sharpened to a point, and it feels like telepathy... < Actually, can ya hear me? >" 21:50 <Crion> Aster: "It seems I can." 21:51 <banana> DisAster: "Cool! What other bits have you got? When I was scanning, out at the ranch, your whole body echoed, like you were a para." 21:52 <Crion> Aster, to Reveillie: <My contract does not involve explaining myself.> 21:52 <Crion> *Reveille 21:54 <banana> The singer scrunches up her face; the other two don't seem to sense it. Out loud: "You don't haaaafta tell us anything. But how about doing it for fun? Or in trade? Little-L, want to take a look at his headmeat?" 21:54 <banana> Lindsey: "I'm not doing that without consent." 21:54 <banana> Paola Anna: "That's coz you were brought up right." 21:54 <Crion> Aster sighs. "My what." 21:56 <banana> Mary: "The membrane. Your matter what matters. Little grey cells. Corpus colossal." 21:57 <banana> "Yes, I know it's calossum." 21:57 <Crion> Aster: "It's proprietary equipment. You haven't paid for the right, and I'm not selling it. I would get in exquisite amounts of trouble if I did." 21:57 <Crion> "However, if you wanted me to explain it, I could attempt that." 21:58 <banana> Lindsey: "Understood. I'm not a mindreader like Mary, by the way - I do, um, biology. But not grave robbery." 21:58 <banana> Paola Anna: "Let's get some cheese and biscuits and an explanation." 21:58 <Crion> Aster: "Life is grave robbery. That's what fertilizer is. Nevertheless." 21:59 <Crion> "The Talon module." 21:59 <Crion> "I'm guessing, with education, that's what we're actually discussing." 21:59 <banana> Santierre will have to fetch the crackers himself; everyone else wants to listen. 21:59 <Crion> "You haven't seen Codex, or Postcog, or Tag." 21:59 <Crion> "And you won't. The first thing you need to know is that using the modules of the Wintergreen Process exacts a physical price." 22:00 <banana> Mary: "Right, what I've seen you do iiis... MENSA would call it projective probing. Delivery of a weaponised mental image behind a contact spike." 22:00 <Crion> "I didn't start bleeding in that farmhouse because some debris hit me in the nose." 22:00 <banana> "So you do have a weird brain. Modded?" 22:00 <Crion> Aster: "Again." 22:01 <Crion> "I am subject to a non-disclosure agreement. I will not tell you how the Wintergreen Process is administered or established." 22:02 <banana> Lindsey: "I can't believe you're a real Man in Black. This process, agreement, the stuff you can't talk about- you weren't born with it? You aren't subject to star-dreams, just lawyers?" 22:02 <Crion> Aster: "When they visit, the lawyers are subject to me." 22:02 <Crion> "But generally speaking, yes." 22:03 <Crion> "So. Talon. Mary is correct on the fundamentals." 22:03 <banana> Reveille: "So was that... I will not tell you, or I will not tell you- ah. Shutting up." 22:03 <Crion> "I do not have to choose the image, however. I simply have to provide the power." 22:04 <Crion> "Trauma, as it exists, provides the image. I simply let it cook. There are interesting knock-on effects from this, none of which matter to our current conversation." 22:04 <Crion> "How much do the three of you know about grandmaster level chess." 22:07 <banana> Paola Anna shakes her head; Lindsey looks surprised, Mary... lights up? "I follow FIDE and some of the regional stuff - we're between Iceland and Russia, so you basically have all the best players within reach, and there are some great tournaments you can get to... er, could, before Brexit." 22:07 <banana> "Can't recite you a very long list of openings, but I know how to think in forces and advantage." 22:10 <Crion> Aster: "The finals of the World Chess Championship have begun. Magnus Carlson and Ian Nepomniachtchi, two men that look the same, are beginning a marathon death march of matches across the next week that will determine the man who holds the title across the next calendar year. Carlson is going to win, because Carlson is a machine." 22:11 <banana> Mary: "Unless he gets too depressed to bother playing, yes." 22:11 <banana> "Magnus will probably lose his title to a default, like, rather than a defeat." 22:11 <banana> Paola Anna: "This is an analogy of some kind.. I've heard of those..." 22:14 <Crion> "The pop culture referent for chess is the sly grandmaster beating the novice via the Fool's Mate. As you appear to already know, that is not what high-level chess is. High-level chess is turning your brain into a machine that solves problems in bulk. That is what identifying board position is. You commit to overclocking. You develop, through individual calculation, such caloric potential 22:14 <Crion> that you find yourself gaunt without having visited the gym. You need an nutritional regime to be Magnus Carlson. I am not Magnus Carlson. But my brain generates more heat than his, through the simple solving, again and again, of positional equations. In bulk." 22:14 <Crion> "That creates energy." 22:14 <Crion> "And then I direct it." 22:16 <Crion> "The brain is a muscle; it can very literally be exercised. That is what I do. It's a discipline I apply to the rest of my body." 22:17 <banana> Mary: "Now that is really interesting. And you can't demonstrate this off the cuff, coz of the cost... something's missing, though?" 22:18 <banana> "Life force is one thing, a squeezing brain, chemical energy.. but it's the wrong kind of energy. Telepathy's not.. physical." 22:18 <banana> Lindsey: "That's true. Our powers require a different kind of sustenance, social, mediated by stellar resonance." 22:18 <banana> Mary: "So what's your mediator?" 22:19 <banana> "Or, what's drinking your blood and putting out the kind of energy you can direct mind-to-mind?" 22:23 <Crion> Aster: "I could demonstrate it. I just don't think it'd be a very good idea." 22:24 <Crion> To Mary: "Is your question about my process, or the Process?" 22:24 <Crion> "Put another way: are you asking my psychological fixture or my biological procedure?" 22:24 <banana> Mary: "Whichever one violates more intellectual property rights." 22:25 <banana> "Feel free to loosen up, Paola Anna will see anyone coming from a mile off. And we are suuuuuper harmless." 22:25 <Crion> Aster: "I'll opt-out, then, and describe my psychological fixture. Which is scorn and judgment. Anger tempered by reason. Rage put through a schedule." 22:26 <banana> Lindsey: "Oh..." 22:26 <Crion> "Revving up your brain is about leveraging the stories you tell yourself about yourself." 22:26 <Crion> "It's not important that they're true." 22:26 <banana> Paola Anna: "That much matches our experience." 22:27 <banana> "D'you have to feel it? Do you have to, erm, hate them?" She looks a little unhappy. 22:27 <Crion> Aster: "No." 22:27 <banana> "Whew." 22:27 <Crion> "I've hurt people with Talon I quite like. Bob, for instance." 22:28 <banana> Mary: "It might make for a sort of ethical lock, though, if you did." She takes a drink. 22:28 <banana> "Bob's the guy who always wears the costume.. why'd you mindzap him?" 22:28 <Crion> "That moron asked me to do it to him. He wanted to know what it felt like. In the waterboarding sense." 22:28 <Crion> 'Moron' is said with a slight but detectable touch of fondness. 22:28 <Crion> "So, he found out." 22:29 <banana> The two older women fall about laughing, while Lindsey looks a little shocked. "That.. says a lot for your control, at least!" 22:29 <Crion> Aster sips his gin and tonic, waving a hand. "Yes, I didn't try to hurt him hurt him. I have various thresholds to apply." 22:29 <banana> Lindsey: "I try to keep kind of a tight rein on my powers, too... harmless in intent one thing. But it's too easy to accidentally hurt someone when you can.. see the strings that puppet all flesh." 22:30 <Crion> "What Mary detected at the farmhouse...that was my full power." 22:31 <banana> Mary: "I want to ask who Wintergreen is. But I don't wanna harass you, and we could catch up on other shit if that's the limit.." 22:32 <banana> Paola Anna: "It's a codename. An AI, from William Gibson." 22:32 <banana> Mary: "Ah, well." 22:33 <Crion> Aster: "Wintergreen is a person. I don't know much about her. By design." 22:34 <Crion> "I do know her gender, obviously." 22:34 <Crion> "If she's an artificial intelligence, the cover-up has been robust." 22:35 <banana> 'DisAster' shrugs. "You can give yourself a codename." 22:36 <banana> Reveille: "Or become it. We all know identities change, no matter who tries to put 'em in stasis." 22:40 <Crion> Aster: "No." 22:40 <Crion> "I will not be changing my name or entering witness protection or running." 22:40 <Crion> "I know an extremely capable young woman from the Home Office for the problems bureaucratical, and for everything else, if they want me, they can find me, and try to kill me." 22:41 <Crion> Aster: "This approach has informed our security strategy." 22:41 <Crion> "And all of my co-workers agree with it." 22:45 <banana> Paola Anna: "We've pushed him too far. It's grim man-declarations stuff now." 22:45 <banana> Reveille: "Hell, that stuff's keeping me alive right now. Keep as many secrets as you like... I'm going to the loo." 22:45 <banana> Paola Anna: "Ha." 22:45 <Crion> Aster, finishing a sip: "Well, we fucking brought down the War of the Worlds, didn't we. We earned it." 22:47 <banana> Lindsey: "Yeah.. I wish I'd seen it, although obviously I'm actually quite lucky to not have been present. But thanks for doing this. Every one of us that manages to escape the will of the stars... it's a step back toward reality." 22:47 <Crion> Aster: "Well. It's just business." 22:48 <Crion> "But you're welcome." 22:49 <banana> They don't pry further, although Reveille, contuining to drink, alternates between pestering L-Plate to take a look at Aster's brain and assuring him that she can see people using their powers, so she'd know if the drummer 'tries anything'. The rest of the afternoon's chatter, cheese and an argument about drum & bass. 22:51 <banana> *continuing