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Truth. Justice. Minesweeper.

Friday, April 16, 2004

I was poking through the back rooms earlier today. Room 28 was locked, but one of the keys in my desk opened it. Inside was a desk with some kind of teleconferencing equipment on it.

I had worked with audiovisual stuff like this at one of my summer jobs, and this setup didn't look exactly right. There were no brand names on any of the components, and the camera, mike and screen were hooked up to some kind of big heavy-duty grey box. It seemed in good repair, though, so I picked up the remote and turned it on.

Onscreen, a menu came up giving me four choices: A, B, C and D. I picked A. Immediately I thought that I had done something wrong and was just displaying what the camera in this room was picking up, because I could see myself on the screen standing there with a remote in my hand.

Then I realized that the me on the screen was wearing a different shirt than I was.

He--Dennis2, let's call him--seemed to notice the same thing at the same time, because he looked down at his shirt and back at me. Tentatively, I waved at him.

He waved back.

"What's going on?" I said into the mike.

He frowned and said something back in some other language.

"You don't speak English," I said.

More gibberish.

We both sighed and shrugged, identically, and grinned.

Dennis2 looked at me questioningly, swirled an imaginary cloak around his shoulders, and glared grimly. I laughed and nodded, gesturing around the office in general in confirmation that I worked for Greyghost. He nodded.

I tapped the grey box and held my palms up in an I-don't-know gesture. He shrugged, his face squashed up doubtfully, and flattened his hands so they were not touching, but parallel to each other. Oh, like parallel worlds. Got it. I inclined my head in semiagreement.

Then Dennis2's eyes lit up, and he snapped his fingers twice and pointed at me. He got a pen and paper out of his pocket and started drawing. When he was done he showed me the paper. He had drawn a question mark with an arrow pointing to a hexagon with a star in it. I shook my head and shrugged, not understanding. Dennis2 nodded vehemently. I shrugged again, and took out my own pen and paper and copied his drawing. He waited until I was done, and put it away.

I tapped my watch, and looked out the door nervously. He nodded, pointed the remote at me, and all I could see was blank screen. I shut my end off too.

I filed my copy of the drawing. It took a while to figure out where to file it, but I eventually settled on 'Miscellaneous'.

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