calling_net | 💣 001 | CALL network/CAD network | audio

Entry tags:

💣 001 | CALL network/CAD network | audio | un: ASolomons

[CALL network]

[In Alfie's line of work, waking up to find a mysterious envelope on your bedside table is cause for deep suspicion. He'd scoured the room for anything out of place before he'd even considered opening it - and once he did discover the strange little electronic device, he'd spent a good hour learning how it works before he broadcasted anything. When he's finally ready to make his virtual presence known, he first chooses the open network.]

Right - I've got the worlds idea, yeah? And the aliens, City of Tomorrow - all that. I can read what you're all saying.

[That doesn't mean he necessarily believes it, but he at least doesn't need introductory explanations.]

There's just one thing I can't figure out. If I were to push this button here, 'transport' - what would happen? What are we meant to be transporting?

[Themselves, it sounds like. He'll go somewhere - he's gotten that much, from reading the comments - and it sounds like it'd be easy to return. But this is all completely unfamiliar territory to him, and he is going to be cautious.]

[CAD network]

[But he can't help but be curious about this second broadcasting channel - one that people don't seem to be chattering away on. A backup, maybe, in case the first goes down?]

Hello. Quiet, eh?

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

It transports YOU. To the City of Tomorrow. From what I've figured out, everyone ends up in front of the McAran Tower.

[He'll match text with text, because like hell do you get to hear his voice if he can't hear yours.]

Those are just names. Context is needed.

[This is so much more convenient than sending telegrams, wow.]

Edited 2016-05-07 23:04 (UTC)

Sorry. I just got here myself so I don't have a whole lot of context either.

So I finally hit the TRANSPORT button the other day and you kinda disappear and reappear in this really super fancy futuristic city in front of a REALLY tall tower. That belongs to some company named McAran Industries. I'm pretty sure they made the things we found, the CALL device things.

Anyway, the lady there said that that brings you to the City of Tomorrow in what's called the Seven-Fold City. It's supposed to be some weird midway ground between stories and the real world and the different parts of the city are different kinds of stories. From what I can guess, Tomorrow = science fiction.

There's six other sections. I think there's an app that gives you some information on the CALL phone thing.

Did that make more sense?

OH! And time doesn't pass while you're in the City! She said that too.

Sorry.

Yes. How do these work?

[He'd written a lot - more than Alfie wants to take the time to write on this teeny-weeny keypad, certainly - and it had been delivered surprisingly quickly.]

Sent by wire?

Uh... for THESE I have no idea. But they work a lot like a cellphone, looks like. Do you have cellphones where you're from? It's a communication device that uses radio waves to send information.

WireLESS actually.

We have telephones.

Why are you writing instead of talking?

[ There's a bit of scuffling and fumbling as the communication switches over. ]

Oh. Sorry.

[ That is a young voice, can't be older than 16 if that. And he's very clearly from somewhere in the midwestern United States. ]

Is this better? And, uh, a cellphone is like a telephone, only it doesn't use wires.

Yeah, that's better; yeah. Voice to voice, like men.

You're a Yank?

[A pause, then he clarifies:]

An American.

[Alfie most definitely isn't - his Cockney accent is very thick.]

Edited 2016-05-07 23:41 (UTC)

Um... yes?

[ Technically, he's an alien. And he's not particularly great at lying, but he can usually do it when it's important. But here, he's not even sure it's important. Most people in town know about him, after all. And this was... this was even more fantastical than he was. Maybe he could be himself in the Seven-Fold City and no one would mind. Maybe he'd even find other people like him. ]

Are you, um... British?

Yeah. From London.

[And here's the part that he wouldn't normally think was necessary to say, because it should be obvious - but based on what he's read and heard, maybe it isn't.]

In 1922.

Oh wow.

[ Yeah, that was definitely necessary. ]

It's like... 2010 where I am.

[Unbelievable. But he keeps his poker face - or rather, poker voice - on, and acts like hearing that is the most normal thing in the world.]

2010, with the cellphones and no wires and the little transport buttons. All right.

[He doesn't even say it sarcastically.]

Oh! No, no, uh-- we don't have the transport button stuff. That's totally beyond anything we have where I'm from. But we have cellphones, yeah.

We have typewriters, and their letter buttons are of normal size.

We have those too. I do my school reports on them, usually.

Then why do you need the small ones at all?

Because sometimes you want to write a report and sometimes you just want to send someone a message. And you can't really carry a typewriter around, but this you can carry around.

Hmmph.

[It makes sense. He just doesn't see why they don't just use their voices, if their phones are portable.]

There's the second station. You know what that one's for yet?

Edited 2016-05-08 00:40 (UTC)

You mean the HERO Network?

I dunno. I'd assume it's for calling, um... people for help maybe?

I just know they put me down as a Rookie.

It's not called "hero" on mine.

[Surprise.]

Mm, look at that. Says I'm a mentor.

Well, HERO is just the acronym.

A mentor? Huh. Guess I should listen to your advice, huh?

Still not seeing it, mate. I'm seeing this one here, and C-A-D.

[He spells out the letters.]

Oh. I don't have that one.

No?

[Well, that's interesting. He looks around on the device a bit more, looking around for other channels.]

I've only got the two.

Same here. Just the two. But my two are different. Huh.

Nope - just one of yours is different. The one with all the chatter's the same.

[Which surely means something.]

Maybe I'll ask the lady at the front desk. She had answers for a lot of stuff.

Share when you find out, will you?

Sure. It'll be a little bit, though. I'm up in the Satellite at the moment. You have to take a shuttle down. Those only come every hour or so.

You're up in the what?

Edited 2016-05-08 18:30 (UTC)

Satellite. It's a big ship-like thing that's in space above the one tower.

How far up are you?

[He's still picturing airplane height.]

I think we're just above the atmosphere. But I haven't really checked or anything.

Edited 2016-05-10 15:40 (UTC)

Out among the stars you are?

[It's unbelievable, but maybe not more so than anything else he's seen so far this morning.]

[ It's kind of funny but... ]

Yeah, actually. It's amazing. I mean, I have a telescope back home and I like to watch the stars, but this is something else.

Can you send photographs with these?

[ A moment later, a notification pops up with a picture of a teenage boy, a few bandages on his face, smiling at the viewer. A second later, his voice comes through. ]

They can do video too. That's a moving view of me with sound.

Huh. With sound? Let's see that, then.

[He starts fiddling around with his own device, trying to figure out how to make it work on his end.]

[ Clark switches to video, waving at the camera brightly. ]

See?

[Alfie finally gets it up on his end; he appears to be sitting at a desk in a badly-lit room.]

Fucking hell.

[It's like he's really there, right in front of them.]

That's a fair bit better than any film quality I've seen before.

Yeah, these things are kinda futuristically good even for me. We can't afford anything this cool in my house but it showed up so.

[ Shrug ]

I just got my first telephone not long ago. That's fucking new technology, that is.

Our house only got one when my Ma took over the household, apparently. My grandfather didn't like them.

And what year was that? Before your 2010, surely.

Oh yeah. That was like... twenty years ago or something?

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

💣 001 | CALL network/CAD network | audio | un: ASolomons

un: smallvilleguy | CALL

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[audio] oh damn I'm sorry, I thought I'd replied to this

[audio] no worries ^_^

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