entranceway | Entry #91

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Entry #91

[In the latest dramatic reveal, it seems that Claudia has been hard at work unearthing a great deal of dirty laundry as it suits her. In the process, on November 23rd she manages to draw out an encrypted broadcast - only it's encrypted no longer.]

[And what's more, it's no longer anonymous. The broadcast bursts across the screen with an eerie screech of static and rapidly flashing images. There's even a voice speaking in the background - a voice that some might find familiar.]

YOU TOOK IT
I SAW

BURNING

[An image flares in a brief sputter of black and scarlet, and is gone again.]

/////////////////////////
////bird flying south////
///////do you know///////
///////what you did///////
/////////////////////////

----checkmate----

[And now, the name of the user who released the video in the first place is painfully apparent. For some, this won't be much of a shock. For others, on the other hand...]

[Did Tim Wright ever strike you as someone who favored cryptography?]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[Tim picks up.]

[Trust him, he is not pleased about this.]

It wasn't me this time. I swear it wasn't me.

[Tim picks up.]

[This outcome is about ten thousand times better than Jay anticipated. Still, this just raises further questions.]

It's your account, Tim. [He pauses a moment. Thinks.] Not that that really means anything, but still. Has anybody hacked your account before?

I...this is from months ago!

[Jesus. Jesus. Where does he even start with this? The tremor is more than evident in his tone, in the way the words hitch. Like he's near tears.]

After you left the first time!

[Bird flying south.]
[It knew.]

[It knew and it was mocking him over it.]

[Jay checks the timestamp, and...he's right.]

Then why the hell is it showing up now?

[Bird flying south. His shadow's teasing nicknames still ring in his head. Is he the "bird"?]

[After he left the first time. He left, and he doesn't remember. He can't remember anything, save a few scattered posts on the network. Another dead Jay.]

'Cause it wasn't off anonymous the last time this happened.

[Someone dug this up. Someone looked through the network and dug this shit up and decrypted it and left it for everyone to see. And what's more? He can't seem to take it down.]

So someone decoded it and...what? Stuck it up for everyone to see? [Why?]

Sounds like someone we know. [He huffs.] But they're not here, so...

[Prime suspect's in another dimension, so that's useless. Great job, Holmes.]

Anybody you remember pissing off?

'Cause my memory's just so razor sharp, right?

[Fuck. No. That's uncalled for. There's a pause, and he blows out a slow breath, easing away a fraction of the tension clenched around his chest.]

This was the night that...some stuff kinda went south. The whole reason I had that cut down my front when you first showed up, remember? [How could Jay not remember? He reopened it.]

So you were-- [He said he lost his meds, and then he lost time. Doesn't take a genius to figure out what that means, but it's good to have confirmation.] --yeah. Then this was right before I got here.

[Would he have been able to help, if he'd gotten here a little bit sooner? Or would he have just made things worse?]

You think the sword guy--or, or girl would've done this? As a reminder, maybe?

I dunno. I don't...

[Where do you even begin when it comes to figuring out who's responsible for this. Is this even...traceable?]

I don't even know who's still here from then. Or why they'd...why now.

[Ever since they pinpointed the time it was posted, Jay has been scrolling back furiously through the archives, back to the original post.]

Decoded...you said 'decoded,' and I'm looking at the original, and--

[He falls silent. He falls silent for an uncomfortably long time, and all that comes over the line is the sound of furious pencil scratches.]

Seriously?

[Is this really the time?]

It's already decoded, Jay. What would be the point in...why?

[What do you mean, why, Tim? He's gotta figure it out. Even if it's already figured out, he's gotta figure it out.]

Uh.

[There's a shuffling of papers.]

Uh.

So, whoever decoded it? They've probably seen this. Wait, just a sec, I'll send a picture.

[In a few seconds, a picture comes across. It's a page from a lined notebook covered in mostly alphabetical gibberish, letters stacked in a few strange configurations, but one line is circled and underlined:]

ABCDEFG
HEISALR

[That barely counts as an answer. It's just this compulsive, frantic desire to be the one to solve the mystery, even if it's already been solved. Consider him unsurprised, even, that the key turns out to be - that.]

Great. Good. How would they have -

[Wait, no. Hold on.]

[I saw...burning. And just a little ways before, directly preceding all this? He swallows, hard.]

My Mirror. He crossed over just before all this. Took my meds. He sent a message. He burned it on the Checkerboard Hills. [Three guesses as to what it said.]

[There's a short silence, as Jay processes what Tim just said.]

You think whoever decoded it put two and two together?

[It could be a coincidence, and Jay's not sure what the simplest explanation is, but if there's anything the codes and scrawled messages back home taught him, it's that Occam's Razor doesn't always get you the right answer.]

And...do you think there's a connection? I mean, with your Mirror and the key...you...used here?

[You.]

[It's not him. It's not really him. He bites back the fierce protest that wells in the back of his throat, stomachs it with a grimace, stares at the key Jay worked out, pointlessly, instead.]

I have no idea. The last thing we need is the pair of them working together.

[Jay huffs out a small, annoyed breath.] Yeah, that'd be...bad.

[He lays his head in his hands, thinking.]

Still, doesn't make sense. Unless your Mirror somehow got a hold of the network...or, or you blacked out and somehow recovered within a couple minutes, there's no...reason why somebody'd bring this post back. And, I mean, they had to've been doing this on purpose, or else they wouldn't've decoded the whole thing.

Yeah, I might...be able to get back to you on that.

[He's eyeing up the response queued from an unfamiliar username. Could be wishful thinking. It's either answers or someone here to inquire after his well-being. Or, alternatively, someone here to call bullshit on how fucked up this all looks. Either way.]

[There's a shuffling of papers on the other end as Jay sits up straighter.]

What, did you find something?

[Wait, "get back to you." That means he has to get off. Jay thinks. Maybe. Probably?]

[He stays on the line, just in case.]

[He switches over to text, now communicating with Jay and Claudia simultaneously.]

some hacker dug it up
thought it had something to do with wonderland

[And with a click, it switches over to text. He did have to get off.]

[He's still messaging, though, and he's actually got answers.]

you mean this was an accident?
god
how do you even
how do you solve a keyword cipher by accident
i guess there's probably some program that can brute-force it but

[Jay doesn't know what to say, beyond incoherent annoyed noises. 'what a letdown,' crosses his mind, but even he knows that one won't land well. And it's not really a letdown, even if it feels like one. Boring should be a good thing.]

yeah i can sorta see how somebody might confuse the two
if they hadn't seen the cryptic bullshit we had to deal with back home

Edited 2017-11-27 06:02 (UTC)

i guess that's why
if anyone ran into me

i'm pretty sure i was at the checkerboard hills
this lines up with that night

["Checkmate," right?]

[So apparently the masked freak version of him knows what chess is. Great.]

[Checkmate.]

wait
you also said your mirror wrote the key on the checkerboard hills right before this
well the key plus a couple duplicate letters

is there something

[He's not sure how to put this.]

is there something significant about the checkerboard hills

i have no idea
it's not like i had a lot of time to think about it
kind of busy with the bleeding and all

[How's he supposed to cross-reference that with what happened months ago? It's not like his memory's that great.]

look i'm not concerned about what this meant
i'm worried about what this means if it happens again

[And someone draws the correlation between this video and the sort that his masked counterpart is so fond of posting.]

[Jay wants to put the pieces together. He wants to line everything up so it makes sense, so it makes more sense than the scraps he had back home.]

[But he also sees there's a more pressing threat here.]

i'd offer to be around next time something happens to your meds but that went super well last time
to be honest i don't think i'd be able to stop you from doing anything

i'm assuming the other you has access to everything you do, so password protecting the account won't work

we could try locking you up or something but that's kinda weird

look whatever happens we have to make sure the other you isn't collaborating with your mirror

not sure how to manage that
i don't know if the other me just remembered what he wrote there or what
i don't know if they've been working together
i don't know if my mirror has another him

i don't KNOW

[This part sure is familiar, huh? Scrabbling, straining to piece together fragments of a puzzle scattered farther apart than anything?]

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