update from sparkleup

writing/post-self/qoheleth/RJ/006.md

@@ -3,7 +3,9 @@
 
 It took AwDae just under two hours to find the microphone.
 
-The first hour was spent searching the auditorium top to bottom. Ey walked around clapping and humming, then singing songs half-remembered from productions ey had worked in the past. Ey would've whistled if it wasn't for the structure of a canid muzzle.
+The first hour was spent searching the auditorium top to bottom. Ey walked around clapping and humming, then quoting lines half-remembered from productions ey had worked in the past. "So set its Sun in thee," ey called in an affected accent. "What Day be dark to me." Wistful Dickinson to fill an empty hall.
+
+Ey would've whistled if it wasn't for the structure of a canid muzzle.
 
 Silence.
 
@@ -13,11 +15,11 @@ After an hour, venturing even into the overhead areas where sound was muffled, d
 
 Ey slouched in an auditorium seat and pulled out the slip of paper with Cicero's transactions. Ey had found that if ey focused on the page just so, rows would sort themselves by columns, so ey spent a few minutes aimlessly zooming through the page of digits.
 
-Ey scanned over the titles of the initiatives voted on. Very little there to latch onto. Or, rather, way too much. AwDae couldn't manage to boil down the table into any single sentence, much less something useful. The cat had apparently voted on just about everything, without taking any breaks.
+Ey scanned over the titles of the initiatives voted on. Very little there to latch onto. Or, rather, way too much. AwDae couldn't hope to boil down the table into any single sentence, much less something useful. The cat had apparently voted on just about everything, without taking any breaks.
 
-Eventually, when neat rows of letters began to blur into one another, ey levered emself up from the seat. Paper refolded, ey slipped it back into a pocket before checking on the board once more. Everything remained set as it was before the break.
+Eventually, when neat rows of letters began to blur into one another, ey levered emself up from the seat. Paper refolded, ey slipped it back into a pocket before checking on the board once more. Everything remained set as it was.
 
-AwDae had imagined ey would work in concentric circles away from the auditorium, which turned out not to be the best idea. The hall was nestled between two arms of the school which did not meet except via the auditorium itself. Eir route grew arduous: ey'd walk down one hallway, poke into classrooms, and make noise before moving on.
+AwDae had imagined ey would work in concentric circles away from the auditorium. That turned out not to be the best idea. The hall was nestled between two arms of the school which did not meet except via the auditorium itself. Eir route grew arduous: ey'd walk down one hallway, poke into classrooms, and make noise before moving on.
 
 When ey reached the end of eir circle, though, ey had to jog around the auditorium through the student center to go down the other hallway and do the same.
 
@@ -27,7 +29,7 @@ It was there that ey heard the first, faint hum of feedback.
 
 It threatened to skim beneath eir attention, sounding too much like an echo from eir own voice in the cavernous common area. The door to the auditorium caught eir eye, and ey tried once more, getting another faint hum. It slowly died out as space and air dissipated tone.
 
-It took another few minutes to find the microphone itself. A lavalier mic, disguised as a button resting obsequiously atop the door handle leading into the principal's office. It was just to the northeast of the auditorium doors. Ey would've found it soon enough. It was surprising, in a way, that ey hadn't managed to trigger any feedback earlier.
+It was only a few minutes from there to find the microphone itself. A lavalier mic, disguised as a button resting obsequiously atop the door handle leading into the principal's office. It was just to the northeast of the auditorium doors. Ey would've found it soon enough. It was surprising, in a way, that ey hadn't managed to trigger any feedback earlier.
 
 The door was labeled 'Admin.'. Ominous.
 
@@ -41,11 +43,13 @@ Eir ears slowly uncringed. Ey pocketed the mic in eir trouser pockets and straig
 
 Remembering the position where ey had found it, AwDae pocketed the mic and straightened up, wandered back over to the auditorium, turning the gain down on the board and lowering the house volume to a reasonable level. Ey even turned the mic back on and mumbled a quick "one-two" to ensure that none of the speakers had been damaged.
 
-*This is a sim. Not even mine,* ey thought, the inside of eir ears tinted pink with embarrassment. *What does it matter if a speaker blew?*
+*This is a sim. Not even mine,* ey thought, the inside of eir ears flushed warm with embarrassment. *What does it matter if a speaker blew?*
 
 Ey shrugged it off. Habits were habits. No reason to break them now.
 
-Back to the admin office, then. Tail swishing behind em, AwDae couldn't help but feel as though ey was trapped within a game. One of those first-person puzzle solvers that seemed forever popular. One of eir favorite of the genres. It was surprising the adroitness with which eir perspective had shifted. Sobbing: now behind em.
+Back to the admin office, then. AwDae couldn't help but feel as though ey was trapped within a game. One of those first-person puzzle solvers that seemed forever popular. One of eir favorite of the genres.
+
+It was surprising the adroitness with which eir perspective had shifted. Sobbing: now behind em.
 
 Perhaps the fact that ey seemed to be receiving what amounted to clues while in a complex abandoned building added to that. Perhaps it was the shift from RJ to AwDae. Perhaps something about emself. Countless hours in sim. Countless changes in scenery. Countless changes in form.
 
@@ -63,15 +67,15 @@ Memories of being hauled into the room, all those years ago, with the lights all
 
 Rummaging through the desk revealed little of note.
 
-Rather than a planner on the desk, however, was a workstation. Simple. Ancient. It didn't respond to any of AwDae's interactions. How it would work, ey didn't know. A sim within a sim? Ey had perhaps hoped that a connection like that might lead outside. Outside of this mess.
+Rather than a planner on the desk was a workstation. Simple. Ancient. It didn't respond to any of AwDae's interactions. How it would work, ey couldn't guess. A sim within a sim? Ey had perhaps hoped that a connection like that might lead...outside. Outside of this mess.
 
-The only other items on the desk were a scratch pad and a pencil. They never seemed to go out of style.
+The only other items on the desk were a scratch pad and a pencil. The expected tools. The perpetual desk-toppers that never seemed to go out of style.
 
-The pad contained a simple breakdown of costs, divided into departments, for the coming year. A simple three-column setup tallying subject, expense, and deductions from some number at the top. Budgets, perhaps. At the bottom of the page, was a final number, circled in dark, angry strokes. Apparently, the administrator hadn't liked the result.
+The pad contained a breakdown of costs, divided into departments, for the coming year. A simple three-column setup tallying subject, expense, and deductions from some number at the top. Budgets, perhaps. At the bottom of the page, was a final number, circled in dark, angry strokes. Apparently, the administrator hadn't liked the result.
 
 AwDae flumped down in the chair at a jaunty angle, eir tail flopping down between armrest and chair back. Tired, so very tired.
 
-Ey rubbed away the sandy grit of tears already shed. Ey was moving in this search with determination, as much as ey could muster. Anything to occupy eir mind, anything to keep em from collapsing into a depression borne of hopelessness and despair. It occurred to em that getting lost was the perfect prison: complete freedom, or nearly so (ey had already fantasized about jimmying open the other doors), with nothing to do. Nothing to dream, nowhere to go, nothing to know.
+Ey rubbed away the sandy grit of tears already shed. Ey was moving in this search with determination. As much as ey could muster. Anything to occupy eir mind, anything to keep em from collapsing into a depression borne of hopelessness and despair. It occurred to em that getting lost was the perfect prison: complete freedom, or nearly so (ey had already fantasized about jimmying open the other doors), with nothing to do. Nothing to dream, nowhere to go, nothing to know.
 
 Ey didn't even know the time. No clocks adorned the walls.
 
@@ -91,23 +95,23 @@ Digits. Numbers. Ledger. Paper. Notes?
 
 If ey was meant to be looking for clues, then...
 
-Ey fished the previous clue out of eir pocket. The ledger of Cicero's DDR interactions.
+Ey fished the previous 'clue' out of eir pocket. The ledger of Cicero's DDR interactions.
 
-It wasn't nearly so simple as the single-column arithmetic on the scratch paper. Each referendum had three columns: a cost, a bounty (if that referendum was referred back to the house), and any number of comments made on the issue. Often out of order on the sheet, as well, given Cicero's habit of voting on everything. Perhaps it was the first thing he did on waking.
+It wasn't nearly so simple as the single-column arithmetic on the scratch paper. Each referendum had three columns of digits: a cost, a bounty (if that referendum was referred back to the house), and any number of comments made on the issue. Often out of order on the sheet, as well, given Cicero's habit of voting on everything. Perhaps it was the first thing he did on waking.
 
-Given the note's interactivity level of expanding on closer examination, ey tried to will a sum out of the columns to match the final row. No luck.
+Given the note's interactivity level of expanding on closer examination, ey tried to will a sum out of the columns to match the final row.
 
-Ey wished for eir rig more than anything. It'd make the task almost trivial.
+No luck. Ey wished for eir rig more than anything. It'd make the task almost trivial.
 
 Ah well.
 
 Ey snagged the half-used pencil and the rest of the scrap and worked it out. Each cost and comment would be a debit, and each bounty would be a credit. One could also buy DDR credits through a mechanism that basically acted as an additional withholding on one's taxes. There were two of those in there, possibly ensuring that Cicero would have enough DDR credit to make what AwDae assumed was some scathing political snipe on an upcoming high-stakes referendum.
 
-Even so, it was clear that the section of numbers on the paper, a month's worth, perhaps, didn't add up. Once more, there was a missing interaction. Three missing interactions, rather: one vote's cost, one vote's comment, and one vote's bounty, at AwDae's best guess. Perhaps a few smaller votes to add up to those totals.
+Even so, it was clear that the section of numbers on the paper, a month's worth, perhaps, didn't add up. Once more, there was a missing interaction. Three missing interactions, rather: one vote's cost, one vote's comment, and one vote's bounty, at AwDae's best guess. Perhaps a few smaller votes to add up to those totals? It was recent, too. A few days before he had gotten lost
 
-Except that one's DDR records were public. Not which way one voted, but that one had voted. Comments were public perforce. The information had to be public, for the system to work.
+Except that one's DDR records were public. Not which way one voted, but that one had voted. Comments were public perforce. The information had to be public for the system to work.
 
-Unless it had been tampered with, their was a combination of 1,252,000 credits unaccounted for in terms of transactions. One million debit to the comment, a quarter of a million credit for bounty, and two thousand to the vote cost.
+Unless it had been tampered with, there was a combination of 1,252,000 credits unaccounted for in terms of transactions. One million debit to the comment, a quarter of a million credit for bounty, and two thousand to the vote cost.
 
 AwDae tore the top sheet off the pad and, working faster this time, ran the numbers once more. Same result.
 
@@ -123,6 +127,6 @@ And the place had a sense of home about it, too. The thought was a barb tugging
 
 Sleep, then.
 
-Sleep, perhaps dreams.
+Sleep, and perhaps dreams.
 
 Or perhaps not. Sleep to get away. Sleep for nullity. Sleep for nothingness.