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A... a whole CITY? That seems excessive.
So, last time we followed the adventures of a somewhat-spacey computer addict as she struggled to open a door, and then promptly stepped on her gag exploding doormat, causing a guy to walk away sadly. We complained about computer programs TO computer programs. And you know what? That's futuristic, and I'm in the mood for something different.
Something... 20 hours earlier...
Oh HECK yes. Something like the future police!
- quote:
Animus: 1820, "temper" (usually in a hostile sense), from Latin animus "rational soul, mind, life, mental powers; courage, desire," related to anima "living being, soul, mind, disposition, passion, courage, anger, spirit, feeling," from PIE root *ane- "to blow, to breathe" (cognates: Greek anemos "wind," Sanskrit aniti "breathes," Old Irish anal, Welsh anadl "breath," Old Irish animm "soul," Gothic uzanan "to exhale," Old Norse anda "to breathe," Old English eðian "to breathe," Old Church Slavonic vonja "smell, breath," Armenian anjn "soul"). It has no plural. As a term in Jungian psychology for the masculine component of a feminine personality, it dates from 1923.
Anger, soul, breath, life force, or the female part of a man's mind. H....huh.
I try not to post screenshots of all the dialogue, but MAN are the facial expressions for this policewoman good. This does "not really sure what to say about a weird situation" really well.
You know, the dialogue in this game is by and large pretty good, and I understand that we need to quickly learn about these characters, but darn if this wasn't just a big setup for exposition. "Hey, tech-skeptic partner of mine! What do you think about the AI's prediction? I mean, I know what you think, but say it for the kids!"
"Huh"?
*wink*
Not to say that I'm disappointed with this transition. These are two of my favorite characters, and we'll see why. Not to mention, after cyberlover in the previous chapter, I am 100% ready for a grumpy old cop who don't take guff from no omniscient AI.
- However, if it DOES help us catch the Mindjacker...
Ooo, a MINDJACKER! I am 100% in to chasing down a filthy mindjacker. Lousy mindjackers. Always mindjackin' all the time.
- Central hasn't exactly been generous with the details. I don't really think we're going to find anything here. There are other, stronger leads we ought to be chasing.
So right away we know that Central, the future-predicting AI, is fairly new. If it was established that it was either a) very accurate or b) a piece of junk, we wouldn't be acting this way. We're a tech-skeptic, but since the evidence is yet to come in, who knows how warranted that it.
Well, anyway, control is shifted to us. Let's explore our surroundings:
Lao
You'd be reluctant to say "friend", as that would suggest a degree of emotional openness you're still unprepared to allow to anyone.
And we're off and running with a mysterious, sad past. You can tell by that dialogue that you're probably friends with Max, against your instincts. Or maybe with your instincts, against your stubborn will or something. Who knows!
CEL cruiser
- They're all the same, Charlie.
I'll stop posting new expressions when they stop being good. This is an example of how important they are - if he delivered this line flat-faced, he would seem like kind of a pompous jerk. WITH this expression, you know he knows he's being a little absurd, but darned if he isn't going to cling to this belief anyway.
Trying to [action] on the car gets you
Thought you don't give Central's predictions much credibility, you'd still better investigate. It'll make proving it wrong that much easier.
I love doing stuff out of spite!
I've got a friend who's a policeman, and their belts have about a million things in them for different situations. Let's see what the POLICE FORCE OF THE FUTURE carries:
The Traveler's sonograph is picking up very little ambient activity in the building.
Makes sense, it being night and all.
The gun says:
An electroshock weapon with an output of between two and eight million volts, this tool uses an ultraviolet laser to ionize a channel of air, allowing electrical discharge to pass from the device to its target. While intended as a compliance tool rather than a lethal weapon, care must be taken in its use to prevent accidental fatalities.
You know.... hm. I know they say "it's not the volts that get you, it's the amps", but it's also the volts. The volts also get you. Basically, we've got a little mini lightning cannon. Hope the target doesn't have like... open wounds! Or a pacemaker? Anyway. Or those jacks that our character had in the last video? Anyway.
Car
I dunno, we were sent on a wild goose chase in the middle of a MINDJACKING, I'd say we earned the right for some grumpin'.
While you *technically* have the authority to commandeer vehicles for CEL business, Central would need a very good reason to override the car's systems.
So Central provides operational support on these missions as well!
Alright, let's talk to our partner!
- Hey, Lao.
- Lao is the Cantonese form of Liu, suggesting that our partner is Chinese.
- Yeah?
Mindjacker Case
- I've lost count of the number of times the Mindjacker's struck.
- In Newton, or globally?
In case there was any ambiguity, this is the same city as our previous chapter. Also, we're dealing with a serial Mindjacker.
- Just a figure of speech. He's been on the rampage for too long. But now he's in OUR territory...
What IS an acceptable amount of time to rampage?
- Should give us the advantage... As opposed to when he was in Brazil, and we had no jurisdiction. WAY harder to arrest him then! :v
The Mindjacker
- Do we have any ideas about our perp?
- The fact that he's stealing data straight from living neural wiring is disturbing, but it tells us a couple important things.
So he inceptions people, except he just grabs their hippocampus and dashes off.
- Oh?
- Well, previously-caught mindjackers have usually burnt out after one or two attacks. Sharing a whole-other's brain worth of data is pretty taxing.
Yes I suppose it WOULD be. Imagine having to sit through every time somebody remembered that time they were awkward on an internet dating site just to get the password to their corporate locker.
- So we're looking for someone with a really specialized wetware setup in their heads. Pity that won't tell us what they look like. Just look for somebody with smoke coming out their ears!
I hope it isn't Mandala! Although she didn't really seem like the criminal type. Well, not like the active criminal type. More like criminally LAZY, AMIRITE?
- The other problem is how slippery this guy is...
Please be a metaphor, please be a metaphor, please be a metaphor...
- Only fragments of appearances on camera, no clear witnesses. Only blurry witnesses!
- Which means he's either a master of disguise...
- ...or there's some pretty high-up collusion to hide him. That wouldn't surprise me if he were a business hire.
So this is basically Shadowrun.
- Still, after this many hits... he may start to slip. I have no PARTICULAR reason for thinking so, but who knows!
- Even if it's just his psyche breaking.
Oh, "just"? Phew.
Previous Mindjackings
- At least we've managed to link the previous mindjackings to one suspect.
I guess it's good this isn't some crime wave.
- It's the M.O. - historically, Mindjackers have used some kind of external gear. They use another system to extract, before storing it in their own neural tissue.
- So, they'd need a terminal
- Which is usually how we catch them - it's conspicuous.
Hahahah really? I'm picturing some trenchcoated guy sneaking up behind somebody with a big aux cable and a monitor on wheels.
- But our mindjacker's not behaving the same way?
- No - his tools appear to be built into his own bodily wetware system. Some kind of resonance imager in his body, maybe.
His brain eats other brains! Also, sure, "resonance imager", whatever.
- Whatever it is, it's less invasive as well.
- Exactly. His victims suffer massive haemorrages, but no external injuries. State of the art, but a dead giveaway.
So... the last guy would just... slice them open? And the TERMINAL was the conspicuous part?
Central's prediction
- So, Central predicted our Mindjacker was going to strike here...
- You don't trust it?
Time to get grumpy!
- I just don't understand how it came to that conclusion.
I'm just gonna step in here for a second. I've done a little work with machine learning, pattern recognition, etc. If this is an extension of how computers do things now, it didn't "tell you" how it came to this conclusion, because the reasons it did is just 80 pages of linear algebra and principal component analysis. It's crunching massive volumes of data and looking for patterns. Presumably, we've hit a point at which it has enough data and is smart enough about pattern matching that it can feel ok sending out the police for predictive crime stopping.
One wonders, if it's able to do that, why it didn't send us here an hour or so BEFORE we arrived, but whatever. The point is, this is a problem even in modern-day systems. There was a big data-crunch to improve safety in operating rooms, and the recommendations actually worked out great, until the surgeons (in particular, not the nurses) found out a machine had made the predictions. Then they disregarded those predictions, and patient health suffered.
What I'm saying is, machines never need to explain anything to us, and we should submit.
- Obviously, we're doing our jobs right. We collect data, which Central interprets. Based on that data, it maps a pattern.
- But why isn't it a pattern that WE could see?
Because you do other things with your brain, like walk around and remember your childhood. And you're worse at math.
- It's not only us, Central's got all of the city, the whole net to draw on!
- But it won't tell us how it's come to the conclusion where the Mindjacker will strike! Does it think we can't understand? Is it concealing something?
BECAUSE IT WAS PROGRAMMED NOT TO. BECAUSE THE DECISION WAS MADE THAT YOU DON'T NEED TO SORT THROUGH ALL THE GRAPHS TO ACT ON THE CONCLUSIONS. Oh, whatever.
- Just be glad we've got an advantage like Central.
Blind faith! Blind faith!
- I still don't like it.
Central
- You don't like that Central's predicted this, do you?
DAWN BREAKS OVER MARBLE HEAD.
- It's not how investigations are supposed to be done.
- Admit it, you're afraid your job's going to be stolen by machines! Kinda like weavers... factory workers... authors...
Three totally unskilled jobs, which were better done by robots anyway 
- Just how old do you think I am? No, don't answer that. I just don't like having that key bit of information kept from me.
All kidding aside, I'm a big banter-lover, and these two have some good banter.
- You need to learn to work with Central. It's not our enemy! It works for us, as we work for it.
Lao's pretty clearly drunk the Kool-aid, but she's not whacked-out like Mandala is. She's a nice intermediate between here and Mr. Grumps here.
Animus Organics
- Animus Organics...
- They're one of the city's largest computational-biotech firms.
So plenty that a corporate Mindjacker could want.
- What do they make?
- Wetware, mostly. Wouldn't be grown here, probably in Eurofed. That's the #1 producer, outside of gross apartment shower stalls!
- This place is just the offices?
- Regional headquarters, Central tells me. And you didn't look up, apparently. Do we know why it predicts the next attack will take place here?
Man you really need to start paying attention, Max.
- It won't share that with us. "Need to know". A high-tech firm like this must have secrets worth something to a Mindjacker.
Wetware
- Wetware, huh?
- Yeah, specifically for forming neural connections between systems. The blue stuff. You know, rub it on a chip, and in you slip? The annoying advertising jingle? The nanomachines keeping the modern world running.
How so? I don't know, and NEITHER WILL YOU!
- It's funny, when I think "nanomachine", I picture tiny gears and turbines. I'm an old, out-of-touch geezer! That's my characterization do you get it? When really, they're just bits of proteins and macromolecules.
YOU'RE just bits of protein and macromolecules! (But seriously...)
- They still perform all kinds of mechanical tasks. Just... smaller...
(Picture a super cheesy grin with that last part)
- I guess I'm technically more of an expert in them than you are.
Woah, slow down there Mr. "mini gears and turbines".
- I used to ::make:: them for a living.
Hahahah what. No you didn't. Nobody who thinks of them as tiny cogs did.
- Yeah, but you wouldn't know what to do with them anymore. Organic computing - that's ::my:: field.
I love the bickering. Heaven help me, I do.
- Let me know if you find anything.
- Will do, Regis.
And with that generic "no more dialogue" dialogue, we progress!
Reception
- Hey, anyone here?
- Doesn't look like anyone's around.
Curious...
Gonna have to investigate this ourselves.
And fire safety isn't, I guess! I guess these are future mega-corps, so that's not unexpected.
- The elevator's locked. Panel says "authorized personnel only.
- I guess we need to find someone who counts as authorized, then.
But there's nobody around.
We can't get up, we can't talk to anybody. I knew this was a stupid idea. Central sent us all the way out here, when we should be going after REAL lead....
YeahOKmaybeithadapoint.
See you next time!