Two for One [Open Audio Network] [Closed Action]

[vernal_miss]

Date: October 21st
Characters: Network Number {235 13 892 33} ; Action for Mary Ann, Ornella, and later Feste

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[Action - Joint with Ornella and Mary Ann]
{Nel} In a family of seven, finding those quiet moments to speak to only one other in the household tend to be rare. As the second youngest in the family, Ornella is not quite old enough to suffer a shift towards a nocturnal schedule like her older siblings, and this provides an opportunity. Slipping from her shared room, she heads out into the hallway and downstairs with one hand clutching to a stuffed toy. For a few days now, a number has been quite intrusive in her thoughts, and regardless of her thinking of it every hour awake, cannot recall the reason it feels so important. When it had popped back into her head before she even opened her eyes this morning, she had lost any chance of returning to sleep for a few more minutes with irritation rousing her all the more quickly.

Reaching the living space, she’s relieved to find a mother present. Bare feet carrying her quickly over the last of the distance, she comes up beside the chair to insert herself into Mary Ann’s space without hesitation, sliding one hand under her arm in semblance of a hug to lean in and bury her face in against her shoulder for a breath. Grasping at the calm granted by the contact, she lifts her head to prop her chin on that shoulder and plead for assistance, “Mum? I remembered someone’s number, but I don’t know whose it is.”

{Mary Ann} "A number?" That sounds familiar. Very familiar indeed. Because there's this number that's been on her mind since yesterday, and she feels like she's known it for a long time but she can't put her finger on where from or what it is even for. It doesn't seem to be a phone number... Perhaps she came across it again while Nel was there? That might be something to narrow the source down with. Assuming it's the same number, even. "What is the number?"


[Network]
“That’s funny… It’s not even ringing,” comes the voice of a young girl. There’s no image to be paired to the audio, but she is certainly not alone.

The voice of a middle-aged woman responds, sounding puzzled. "There isn't even a ceased number intercept message." That's what she had expected, quite honestly. After all the number did not sound like a phone number at all. But it was worth a try... is what she thought.

((OOC note: Mary and Nel will respond unevenly in various threads))

Comments

[Action]

[vernal_miss]

Deeper inhale preceding, Nel rattles off the number smoothly, "2351389233." Her perfect memory of the number contrasts sharply with the lack of connection to it, and that, more than anything, is perturbing her. Although she doesn’t make many phone calls or typically use numbers beyond her math worksheets, she knows the phone numbers for her family by heart. Her grandfathers’ numbers for example are easy to recite, yet she could not produce them quite so fluidly as this mystery sequence, and she adores both Sam and Sky.

"It popped into my head on Thursday." That sequence has been haunting her since and she turns her head to rub her cheek at her mother's shoulder with her long red hair falling in against that arm in the motion.

[catted]

It's not the same number, and Nel started to think about hers earlier.

That doesn't make this any less mysterious. "And you have no idea where you know it from?"

[vernal_miss]

Head lifted to look directly to her mother, Nel shakes her head a few times slowly, “No. I think...I knew it before, but now it won’t go away. Like a bad commerical jingle.” Mental gymnastics to disrupt it had not been enough when she realized she could recite it backwards with little focus.

Shifting her weight between her feet, she lightly swings her stuffed toy beside her hip in a manner of fidgetting.

[catted]

"I know what you mean...

I wonder what that number is." What those numbers are.

She shifts a bit so that she can pull Nel onto her lap. "Is that what made you come down this early?"

[vernal_miss]

Recognizing the way her mother repositions and reaches for her, Nel readily moves around to the front of the chair to shift up into her mum’s lap. It makes her feel secure to be held, and her fidgetting immediately vanishes as she reaches to hug her mother with her plush left in her own lap.

“Uh huh. Tried to go back to sleep but it keeps repeating.”

[Network]

[tobodlygo]

Oh there's- Wow okay, there's a whole two of you?

The voice is clear over the phone, and it looks like someone's back on the network after having ignored it for the past like... month or whatever after he binged on three consecutive work projects.

And uhhhh no, not a phone number. Just your own personal little key to the Network. Welcome to the Numbered of Mossgate, guys. I'm Jim, but there are more of us, and I'm not just some creepy dude picking up disconnected calls, Promise.

The voice is warm, if not extremely sleepy-sounding.

[vernal_miss]

A man answers, disrupting the silence as Nel earnestly stares at the phone. He sounds drowsy and friendly as he provides an explanation that doesn’t quite make sense yet to the child. Nevertheless, her surprised look to her mother breaks into a smile and she responds with obvious excitement, “Hallo Jim! My name’s Nel and my mum let me call on her phone.” So indeed there are two.

“The number is my key? I don’t remember how I got it... Do you have one too?”

[tobodlygo]

Jim chuckles at the earnest nature of the younger girl. He keeps a mental note that he's going to have to try and keep his cursing off the network from now on. He knows that Kitty's a child too, but she's rude to him anyway.

"Hey, Nel, It's nice to meet you. And Hello Nel's Mum. There's probably a lot of questions you want to ask, and I would encourage you to, there's a fair few of us about if you wanted like, a group conversation too." Jim explains as best he can, but he knows the others have been poking at things far more than himself.

"As for the key thing, Yeah. We don't know what the Number actually means, but you can use it to access the Network, this uh, network that we're all connected to. We've figured out we can do texting, voice and video too, so if you were to write it down, you'd get the written version of this conversation." Jim clears his voice then, as he realises that he needs to tell them about the Remembering.

"You'll also start remembering things that have never happened to you before. We're still figuring that part out, so don't freak out too much about it." Not like him. Don't freak out like he did.

[catted]

She is, quite honestly, absolutely not sure how to react to any of that.

Or what to do with it.

So at the moment, she's rather comfortable with just letting Nel talk and listening in.

"I'll let Nel have a go at questions first, and then I'll add what seems necessary." Alternatively she'll jump in if Nel is about to give her address to this stranger on the phone who claims to not be a stranger on the phone. Or give other information that'd allow him to identify her.

[vernal_miss]

An expectant look given to her mother after Jim extends a greeting to her, she waits for her mother to chime in before speaking again herself after listening to the number of things described. When she does, Nel keeps in mind that she was encouraged to ask questions and does not hold any of her peaked curiosity back.

“So if I write my number down, I don’t need my mum’s phone to talk to you? Do I need to write it on a computer then?” Surely it should. Text, voice, and video can all be done on modern smartphones with ease, but a computer is the only other thing she can get access to that would allow for all those functions.

Then onto the matter of remembering what hasn’t happened, “And remembering things... Do you mean I might think I went two places on the same day? That might be confusing.”

[Network][Audio]

[iamnotgod]

[Jim is doing the Good Work, here. But have another voice chiming in!]

"The Numbers have strange reactions on most devices people use them on. I first found out while on my laptop, where it didn't register as a proper domain name - hadn't even entered it into a browser to start with."

[vernal_miss]

Jim had offered a group conversation, so it's not a shock when a new man's voice comes through the phone, but it's enough of a surprise to raise her brows and get her toy pulled up into her arm. She leans closer to the phone, intrigued by this odd connection.

"Did you use a different program?" her tone is a little more reserved, not having been given a name for this voice.

[iamnotgod]

"A word document, yes... followed by some much less conventional methods when I realized something was happening," Walter elaborates, sounding more than a little embarrassed in the second half of his sentence.

"Among those, post-it stickies were some of the most memorable."

[vernal_miss]

Nel is by no means an expert on computers, but basic everyday use is something she's learned thoroughly at school. A word document should be independent of using the web, and that's puzzling itself. Then, she becomes further confused at the mention of using stickies.

"Aren't those just paper? How can people talk through paper if they aren't in the same place?"

[catted]

Mary Ann wonders the same, because surely paper can't... but she also casts a look around and then leans over to fish the newspaper out of her bag and then something to write with. Maybe that number that she can't forget will function similarly, and in that case that would be a good way of checking if that can really work...

[Network] [Written and Audio]

[dragoonrouge]

Sadie is surprised to hear new people on the Network, and honestly a little concerned when it becomes apparent how young on of them is. It was bad enough that they already had Kitty as a part of this mess, and she had a feeling that some considered her and Ben too young too. She decides to mix it up a bit, switching between writing and voice to demonstrate Walter's point, making looping cursive spring up on both the phone and Mary Ann's paper

Hello! So the Network can be accessed like this as well, I'm currently writing it down on a notepad but-

"-If I start talking it should come out like this. My name's Sadie, nice to talk to you."

Mind. Blown.

[vernal_miss]

The appearance of the cursive writing on the phone overlaying the darkened touchscreen catches her notice with her eyes widening in surprise as it flagrantly defies the limited use since she typed her number on the phone pad. Her eyes trace the loops to read as it is written out, and the child actually flinches in surprise as a young lady speaks out following that conjunction.

Looking between her mother and the phone several times with her mouth hanging agape, Nel snaps back into thought and leaps to a conclusion based on all the things they have been told thus far, “…hoooh, is this magic!? Sadie, are we using magic?”

Sadie at least cannot see the hope welling up as a sense of excitement takes hold with Nel clutching her toy close at her chest now.

[catted]

"...I'm starting to think that that might be the case." Mary Ann wasn't the one Nel addressed, but she can't keep from commenting that when a type of lettering that very much should not appear on the phone appears just there.

It's ridiculous. Magic doesn't exist. But then, she's a bit out of alternative answers...

[dragoonrouge]

Sadie doesn't respond to that right away. "Erm, it might be. It's a possibility but we don't know for certain. It's kind of cool though. You can send pictures..." A picture of Squash appears on the screen and on the paper looking grumpily at a catnip mouse. "And if you know someone else's Number then you can contact them directly and no one else can read or hear what you say."

Sadie was forgetting something..."Oh! and if someone without a Number tries to look at any messages it either appears as jibberish or nothing at all. I once accidentally handed my Math's teacher a sheet with the Network in the corner and she didn't even bat an eyelid at it."

[vernal_miss]

To hear her mother give the concept credence is all it takes for a grin to split right across her face and let a happy peep of a squeal slip as her shoulders curl upward. As an avid fan of fantasy, she can be nothing less than delighted at the mere possibility of honest magic. Wiggling her feet hanging in the air, Nel contains the desire to jump up and run in circles by instead snuggling in against her mother’s front.

While Sadie tempers the use of the word, the child is convinced until given an alternative explanation. Science is fun, and she enjoys learning about how the world holds itself in a balance that allows life to exist. But magic!

The appearance of the cat on the phone is promptly appreciated wih a soft ‘ooo’ in awe, and she listens to every detail. Private calls or messages are possible, though Nel wonders if she can memorize other numbers well enough to make use of that function. Then, Sadie reveals just how private this network happens to be. Nel becomes still as she stares at the phone with her brows knitting and eyes narrowing slightly before her gaze turns curiously up to her mother, “...but my mum can hear you and see your writing.”

[Network]

[scarsolderthanyou]

... oh shit. Oh hell.

"Mary?"

Guess who. Your dad just heard you and responded, even though that was obviously not his phone number.

[Network]

[catted]

"....Dad?"

What.

That makes no sense. Why is her father answering this phone?

[scarsolderthanyou]

"Yeah. Yeah, it's me. And it's you. And that's Nel, isn't it?"

He sounds a bit stressed. Maybe not panicked, but definitely not happy. He's been getting used to this network thing, resigned to it maybe, but it's been separate from his family. He could ignore the potential danger if it only affected him and people he never knew before now, but the idea of his daughter and granddaughter involved scares him.

[vernal_miss]

The spark of elation at hearing a familiar voice join the conversation dwindles away as the surprise from her grandfather turns to a mirthless tone. She doesn’t think she’s in trouble for calling the number, but there is obviously something wrong with whatever is happening.

Tenative, she’ll answer to confirm her presence, “Yeah, it’s me... Grandpa, are you okay?”

[scarsolderthanyou]

"Yeah. As okay as I can be finding out two you are involve in this sh... stuff, anyway." There's a sigh, as he tries to think just how to keep his family out of potential danger. Knowing them, it'll be impossible. "How long have you two had numbers? The thing you used to make this call, or whatever it is you did with it. It just popped up in your head, maybe along with a memory or a thing you found, right?"