[Text]

[lovedramamoron]

 [Jimmy was scribbling in his notebook, trying to work out a twist on a numeric cipher for his most recent story. In between scratching out failed calculations and experimenting with various cyphers and keywords, he manages to write out a certain number.] 

Comments

[channingchanningchanning]

A NEW NUMBER! [The voice of an elderly man yells back at him from the noteboock,] A. NEW. PERSON. IS. HERE!!!!!!

[lovedramamoron]

[Jimmy jumps in surprise at the sudden voice and drops his noteboook. He looks around his room cautiously.]

Hello? Is someone here?

[It had sounded like the voice was coming from his journal. But that was obviously impossible. He'd bought that notebook himself, and knew quite well that it didn't have a speaker or anything inside it. ]

[channingchanningchanning]

[Chad is running forth and back in front of the phone.]

Here! HERE! HERE!!!!!

[lovedramamoron]

That isn't helping. Where are you?

[channingchanningchanning]

I'm home, but you hear me from WHATEVER YOU. PUT. YOUR. NUMBER. INTO!!!!!

[Text]

[iamnotgod]

[Oh. Oh dear. He can't tell yet who this is, but Walter is getting a sense of deja vu.]

Check carefully which numbers you just wrote for me, okay? Can you find one that won't leave your head for any reason?

[This message is handwritten, and thus much quieter, but it has the look of something typed, like in a Word document.]

[Text]

[lovedramamoron]

How are you doing this? Is this some kind of illusion trick?

[Because he knew he didn't write that. It definitely wasn't his own writing, which was more of a scrawl. But how did it get into his notebook? ]

A number? I guess.

[He goes back and circles the number that had been stuck in his head these last few weeks. ]

Re: [Text]

[iamnotgod]

No, though I first thought this was a hallucination myself when my connection went live.

[Not that he can in any way convey his nod when Jimmy circles the Number.]

Right, so you've stumbled upon a phenomenon that's so far been local to Mossgate - there's no rhyme or reason to who can get one, but earlier this summer a handful of us all received a number allowing us to connect to this Network. It works across a large variety of mediums, and those without a number cannot detect anything odd is happening while you browse it.

Re: [Text]

[lovedramamoron]

But what is it? And how does it work?

Re: [Text]

[iamnotgod]

The 'what' is that people are gaining these - 'Echoes' works as a catchall term. They're not all flashbacks, memories from someone else's point of view; some people have had items show up. When doing something, usually for the first time, we experience this sense of hollowness, hear something like a heartbeat, and then we come out of it and we're stuck with something new.

Mostly they're easy enough to hide, but you can check the previous posts on this Network for examples of things that aren't, so much.

The 'how' we're still stuck on, unfortunately. I am not fond of conspiracy theories, and I haven't been very spiritual in a long while, let alone religious, but we've stumbled upon something very strange, here.

Audio

[dragoonrouge]

[Sadie only notices the new edition thanks to Chad's shouting, curiously glancing across at racket her notebook is making. Waiting for a break in the shouting she interject.]

Hello?

Re: Audio

[lovedramamoron]

Please tell me you can explain what's going on. [He was already getting a headache from this.]

[dragoonrouge]

Well, this is the Network. It can only be accessed by people in Mossgate who have a Number. A string of numbers that remain stuck in your head and are unique to you.

[lovedramamoron]

But how is it that I can hear you talking right now? This is a notebook. I've looked through the whole thing, and there isn't anything like a speaker in it.

[dragoonrouge]

Honestly? No bloody clue.

If there's a scientific explanation to this we've yet to find it.

It's tempting to call it magic but that feels like a cop-out but we've yet to come up with something better.

text

[brofistsforall]

Looks like you've already gotten the welcome wagon.

[there's a moment, and then, hand-drawn on impulse-]

:)

But seriously, let us know if you start to notice anything strange. We're trying to keep each other informed.

Re: text

[lovedramamoron]

Stranger than having a conversation through a notebook with no speakers or microphones?

[Jimmy was still hung up on that part. It just didn't make sense to him at all. ]

text

[brofistsforall]

You're in for more than that, I'm afraid. But we're in this together.

[Just..........in case anything happens sooner than later]

Re: text

[lovedramamoron]

What kinds of things should I expect?

[That had been a rather ominous statement.]

Re: text

[brofistsforall]

Deja vu. Possible physical changes. I don't know if this will show too have more.

[tobodlygo]

[A new number? In Jim's engine design calculations? It's more likely than he thinks, apparently. And it's... Cipher? Well, It's a good a distraction as any. As Jimmy is writing down more numbers and twists, there's someone's neat pencil writing appearing alongside it, solving it as he goes. And in between, calculations for carbon-efficient engines in a paragraph off to the left.]

[lovedramamoron]

[Interesting. Jimmy stops for a moment to look at all the new calculations appearing in his notebook. He'd already gotten the explanations from a few people, so he suspected this was yet another person with a number.

He looks curiously through the calculations in the paragraph at the left, but can't quite figure out what the purpose was. It was a little beyond high school mathematics. Returning back to his cyphers, he takes up the challenge to create something more complicated, this time encyrpting the keyword in a caesar cipher before working out the message in a vigenere cipher.]

Tfw u only know comp Sci ciphers

[tobodlygo]

[Yes good, provide him with entertainment while he finishes up his poropsals for the new years. There's a pause as Jim waits for the other writer to finish, taking in the message as a whole. Then, he gets cracking, isolating parts of the message that are most likely to be i's or a's, and going along. It takes him a little bit longer to crack this one, as expected, but also because he's got to the point that he needs to draw diagrams. Probably about twenty minutes pass before this new cipher is decoded. Instead of waiting this time, Jim starts with one of his own. Though it starts off as a mumerical function, it deviates in that it's using prime numbers only. When decoded, it simply reads; 'Hi! I'm Jim.'

[lovedramamoron]

[This one takes Jimmy longer to decode. He's most familiar with the ciphers used in classic detective literature, and this was a little different.But once he catches on to the trick with the prime numbers, it goes much more quickly. When he finally decodes the message, he can only laugh at the coincidence.

He gets to work devising a new code, this time drawing it out as a grid transposition cipher. Once decoded it reads "Hello Jim. I'm Jimmy."]

[tobodlygo]

[Jim can't help but laugh aloud at that, because honestly, what are the odds? He doesn't bother with the cipher this time around.]

Holy cow, really? Who'da thunk there'd be two Jim's with numbers!