A Certain Infinite Line Charge

[cleanupcrew]

Location: Soledad Fermion Super-Collider, Soledad
Time: 01/13/G.R. 2015; 12:42 am
Description: Inter-Universal Affairs Office, Black Box Bureau, Project ℝ^m Experiment #6433-Xi-Samekh


Dr. Taro: Alright, time to kick BB-C-Co-89247 to another universe. I’ve had enough of this Lavoisier-damned crystal and its containment breaches.


Test Subject: Are you sure about this? What if it breaches containment mid-transfer?
Dr. Taro: The IUAO has done this plenty of times, you'll be fine. Won't be the BrikVerse's problem anymore, in any case.
"You may notice some minor inconvenience upon transferring to an alternate universe. Medical assistance will be on standby to ease the adjustment process. Remember to keep moving when entering the portal."


Collider techies: Lepton-antilepton pair accelerating to hyper-relativistic velocities.
Collider techies: Entering FTL phase. Initiating collisions.
Collider techies: Liang bosons detected in Solenoid Detector Experiment Beta. Characterizing asymptotically Schwarzschildian regions of the time-symmetric manifold.
Collider techies: Confirming surface stress–energy tensor of a lightlike brane, verifying correct fundamental constants of destination universe and value of Miller-Yang parameter.
Director-General Dr. Dempsey: Dilating throat of Einstein-Rosen bridge. Initial radial value of 9 nanometers, holding. Destination universe Xi-Samekh confirmed. Dr. Taro, your package is cleared for delivery.


Test subject: Dr. Taro, are you sure I'll be alri-
Dr. Taro: Just keep moving, it's not my problem anymore.


Dr. Taro: Alright team, I think we're done for today. Thank you for letting me use the SFSC.
Dr. Dempsey: I hope you are, beamtime is not a cheap commodity.


Department Chair Dr. Pang: Hold on, keep that portal open.
Dr. Taro: Dr. Pang? It's an honor sir.


Dr. Miyako: Your presence is an unexpected pleasure, your honor, but wasn't it risky teleporting during an active run of the SFSC, given all the disruptive synchrotron radiation?
Dr. Dempsey: Dr. Pang, you are in violation of protocol! You have brought unauthorized armed personnel into a sensitive SFSC facility, threatening the Trattorian accelerator program. Be it further resolved that have you abused your teleportation privileges by arriving unannounced into a secure experimental area. Do you realize that the queue for Einstein-Rosen bridge access- nay, SFSC beamtime in general- is several months long?


Dr. Pang: I am fully aware of these restrictions, yes, but my office comes with certain privileges. As I outrank you in position, pay, and scientific achievements, I order you to let us through the portal.


Dr. Dempsey: Dr. Pang, you are exceeding your competence! As the Director-General in charge of Trattorian SFSC and OSFC operations, I invoke the doctrine of separation of scientific expertise. You are a biologist and thus unfit to issue orders with regards to our particle accelerators.


Dr. Pang: Fine, I'll just go in myself. After all, you're only an engineer. You wouldn't dare call guards against your superior, would you?
Dr. Dempsey: Fool! One may not merely stroll into an Einstein-Rosen bridge without catastrophic consequences! Each transfer requires intense Planck-scale calculations from a Central AI beforehand to adjust the portal's parameters.


Dr. Pang: Listen, I don't know if being buried a hundred meters below the ground in an accelerator control room has dulled your knowledge of current events, but Dr. Liang is attempting to coup the government in a scientific revolution. I am trying to stop that, but I need to get to universe Xi-Samekh in order to do so.


Dr. Miyako: I'll do it.
Dr. Dempsey: Dr. Miyako, as a theoretical physicist, you have no standing to take part in the operation of an accelerator experiment.
Dr. Miyako: I'm your minifig calculator, remember? For unexpected occasions like this.


Dr. Miyako: We can make certain assumptions about universe Xi-Samekh due to the small delta in the Miller-Yang parameter, so the decreased chance of top to down quark decay will alter the Wolfenstein parameters and thus the area of the unitarity triangle, changing the degree of charge-parity violation in the universe. Let's see...then I get a few easy infinite-order functional integrals.
Dr. Dempsey: If you can do these calculations with a few desktop quantum computers so quickly, then why in the name of Newton do they take so damn long normally?
Dr. Miyako: It's personal- I'll do anything to take down that bitch Liang. Also, I'm mostly piggybacking on the earlier crystal calculations.
Dr. Dempsey: Excuse me, what did you call our Chief Scientist?


Dr. Miyako: OK Dr. Pang, you and your TRF team should be good for portal transfer. It'll be a little rough, but you should survive.


Dr. Pang: Thank you, Dr. Miyako. Trattoria will appreciate your services.

[Zupponn]

Trattoria will appreciate your services.

[Gorthaff]

Did they have you write dialouge for Star Trek? That's some rather fluent Technobabble you speak.

[cleanupcrew]

Dr. Pang: Where the hell am I? And why can’t I grab this iPhone?
TRF-00015-2: We appear to have arrived in universe Xi-Samekh. Noting that our equipment and teleporters seemed to have been damaged in transit.
Dr. Pang: Mine says it still works. Gravity doesn’t seem to work the same way in this place.


Dr. Pang: Figures that the first thing physicists build in a new universe is another particle accelerator.
TRF-00015-2: The accelerator in this universe should maintain the portal terminus for about half an hour. We may want to move, your honor.


Dr. Pang: They really seem to enjoy the impossible architecture here too.


Dr. Pang loses his breath climbing the ramp while the TRF operatives are unfazed.
Dr. Pang: I would...like to...speak with this site’s...lab director.
TRF-25223-1: Oh, Dr. Pang. It’s an unexpected honor to receive a Department Chair visit. Did you schedule this inspection?


Dr. Korupolu: Dr. Pang! A biologist is indeed an unexpected sight in a parallel universe. Are you here regarding the recent transfer of BB-C-Co-89247?
Dr. Pang: To the contrary. I'm seeking to transfer a Black Box out of this universe back to the BrikVerse.
Dr. Korupolu: Which anomaly would that be, Department Chair?
Dr. Pang: I'd like to bring BB-B-Cu-23542-M with me.
Dr. Korupolu: ...Her? But Dr. Pang...


Dr. Pang: BB-B-Cu-23542-M is a sentient, organic anomaly under the jurisdiction of the Biology Department, thus I am exercising Chair's discretion and ordering you to release her to me. This matter is of vital interest to Trattorian national security.


Dr. Korupolu: And what matter would this be, specifically? I'm under direct orders from the Chief Scientist-
Dr. Pang: Dr. Liang has gone rogue. The remainder of the Council of Scientists has ruled a Code Gamma situation, thus each Department Chair shall be free to exercise chair's discretion in taking actions necessary to maintain the stability of Trattoria.


Dr. Korupolu: Secure testing chamber 3-A, to your left. I will report this incident to the Council for independent verification.
Dr. Pang: Thank you for your, if somewhat unwilling, cooperation.


Dr. Pang: I cannot believe they would put up Tesla gates in a middle-of-nowhere facility like this. This would hardly stop a containment breach, and they're just inconveniences.


Dr. Pang: OK, secure testing chamber 3-A. This is where our objective is.


Dr. Pang: TRF's, on guard. I have my shield, but this monster has killed Department Chairs before. I want you to neutralize her immediately upon any signs of suspicious activity.
TRF's: Yes, your honor.


Dr. Pang: Mike check? OK, I'm going to open the holding cell door now. I want you to walk out slowly and with both your palms showing.


Dr. Mikoto: Visitors are so rare, being in an alternate universe.
Dr. Pang: A good biologist never apologizes to his test subjects, but I know you have had some rough experiences. Nonetheless, I ask of you an important favor on behalf of all of Trattoria.


Dr. Pang: No minifig can out-hack Dr. Liang. She is admittedly one of the brightest minds in Trattoria, and her coding skills are on par with her mathematical and physics ability. You, however, have a cheat. You have demonstrated prodigious precision in your anomalous electromaster esper ability, to the point of atomic-level manipulation of Dr. Yuan's blood. If I were to give you physical access to an interface for the Central AI's, could you revoke Dr. Liang's Level 5 administrator privileges using your electrical ability? Without the AI's, she will lose all her power and her coup will fail.
Dr. Mikoto: What would I gain from helping you?


Dr. Mikoto: Indeed, what would I gain from helping the country that turned its back on me and cast me in this cell, stripping me of everything that I owned? I don't care who rules Trattoria- maybe Liang might turn out better than the impotent and powerless puppet democracy in place now. The scientists were always in charge anyway.


Dr. Pang: Please, Dr. Mikoto. I can't restore your original identity or status, but I can offer almost anything else you want. I'm desperate- Trattoria's desperate.
Dr. Mikoto: I didn't want my old identity back anyway. This country can go fuck itself for all I care, I've seen its true nature. No, I want a nice mansion on planet Palo Alto and a comfy senior executive vice president position in a Fortune 666 technology company. I also want all my assets transferred back to me and fake citizenship papers for the United Systems Alliance. In exchange, I'll do your little favor.


Dr. Pang: Thank you so much, Dr. Mikoto. I'll have you on the phone with the Trattorian ambassador to the USA when we get back. Do we have a deal?
Dr. Mikoto: Sure. Better than rotting in this testing chamber, in any case.


Dr. Pang: Welcome back to the real world, Dr. Mikoto.

[Silverdream]

LDD is in an alternate Universe.

[Quantumsurfer]

Well played.

[loafofcheese]

Well, photography was good, setup was good, I think the dialogue was a bit stilted, but that's to be expected from trattorians, pretty good, colette.

[The Shadowscythe]

I uhm, fuck man - LDD is an alternate universe?

Nicely played.

Also sets itself up well for all the alternating forms of kanon out there - if only from the point of view of the website at least.

What comes next sire colette?

[Tzan]

What comes next sire colette?

Inventing a universe where you can actually hold on to an iphone.

[Natalya]

I uhm, fuck man - LDD is an alternate universe?

THIS IS FUCKING GENIUS

I knew colette could do math and stuff, but now he's actually done something really smart.

[Quantumsurfer]

It's an idea that's been posited before by several members. LDD lends itself naturally to the idea of being an alternate universe/dimension.

But Colette gets mega-props for including it so well in a story like this.

[cleanupcrew]

Location: AI Volta Interface Room, Soledad
Time: 01/13/G.R. 2015; 1:10 am


Dr. Pang: The ambassador had to pull quite a few strings to get you those favors. I hope you appreciate them.
Dr. Mikoto: Oh trust me, I do. A position on Appel's executive team is prestigious even in Trattoria. And that beachside estate is far superior to my apartment in Soledad.


Dr. Pang: And now for your part of the deal.
Dr. Mikoto: Yes.


Dr. Pang: This is the interface room for AI Volta, one of the five Central AI's.
Dr. Mikoto: You'd think it'd be busier.
Dr. Pang: The Central AI's mostly run themselves. Every once in a while a techie will walk in here and append a new task to the queue, but I brought you here for that reason. If we were to try to access the actual physical Central AI hardware, security droids would be on us in an instant. Besides, if I understand your anomalous ability correctly, you should still be able to do it.


Dr. Mikoto: Alright, I got this.
Dr. Pang: You can use my Level 4 credentials. Remember the mission: use your electrical powers to get into the Central AI's and revoke Dr. Liang's admin privileges.


Dr. Pang: ...and nothing more.
Dr. Mikoto: What the entropy is this?
Dr. Pang: The Central AI's. You have the keys to the whole kingdom. If any of my various canaries detect you trying anything out of the ordinary- declaring yourself President of Trattoria, debiting a quadrillion Trattorian dollars to your account, denying Legal Department stun-guns against you- I will put a ceramic bullet through your head point-blank. So don't.


Dr. Mikoto: I don't work well under pressure. Anyways, I need to concentrate for this to work.


Dr. Pang: Who turned on the lights? I don't recall-


Dr. Pang's shield materializes instantly as bullets spatter against it.
Dr. Pang: Of course. There is no way to circumvent the surveillance in Trattoria- she had to catch us soon or later.


Dr. Pang: But hijacking the prototype soldier-bots from the Engineering Department? Touché.


Dr. Pang: Could you possibly work any faster, Dr. Mikoto?
Dr. Mikoto: Not with your distracting me. Besides, why are you worrying with that shield?
Dr. Pang: The shield was designed to take a big hit and allow me to teleport away. Its crummy battery life was not designed to withstand a prolonged firefight.


Dr. Pang: Oh Darwin, they have one of those new railguns. This shield won't withstand many hits from that thing.


Dr. Mikoto: Eureka!


The droids passively slump over.
Dr. Pang: Dr. Liang no longer has access to the Central AI's?
Dr. Mikoto: Correct.
Dr. Pang: Thank Darwin for that. Thus ends her abortive revolution. Now all that's left is to arrest and detain her.


Dr. Pang: Trattoria will appreciate your services, Dr. Mikoto.
Dr. Mikoto: I'm off to start a new life now. Cauchy shuttle waiting for me on pad S-32522.


Dr. Pang: As will I, hopefully, as the new Chief Scientist of Trattoria.

[Silent-sigfig]

Nice lighting!

[cleanupcrew]

Location: Economics Department Headquarters, Trattoria
Time: 01/13/G.R. 2015; 1:30 am


Dr. Liang: I have to give Dr. Pang more credit. Maybe biologists do have some use after all- using Mikoto was a nice trick. But I've figured it out. I might not have the Central AI's anymore, but I don't need them.


Dr. Liang: I thought I was the grand chessmaster in all of this, but it turns out I was only an unwitting piece. Of him. Until now, that is. Now that I've identified the true source of power in Trattoria, I can seize it for-


*ping!*
Dr. Liang: At a time like this?


Dr. Liang: I don't have time to waste with the Legal Department.
Dr. Suzuki: As the Chief Attorney of Trattoria, I am serving a writ of capias against you as issued by the Trattorian Court of the 1st District. You are charged with several counts of first-degree murder of Trattorian government officials, gross negligence resulting in the deaths of Trattorian Citizens, violations of prohibitions regarding neutrina bombs, embezzlement of government funds, malicious damage against Trattorian government property, numerous counts of civilian and military automated systems hijacking, unlawful seizure of military hardware, violations of statutes concerning controlled substances, obstruction of justice, and other felonies and misdemeanors.


Dr. Liang: Impressive catalog. How do you plan on enforcing such an order, anyway?


Four TRF's teleport in, shorting Dr. Liang's shield with their own.
Dr. Liang: What the fuck? You all are under my command!
Dr. Suzuki: I invoked posse comitatus to enlist the Trattorian Recovery Force in this effort. This tactic should drain your labcoat's battery as well, preventing you from teleporting away.


Dr. Suzuki: Now then, I am placing you under arrest. It'll only hurt for a little bit, or so I have been told.
SIRI: "Target is subject of an active arrest warrant. Aim calmly and neutralize the target."


???: That's enough.


Dr. Suzuki: What business does a member of the Board of the Governors of the Economics Department have here, Comptro-
???: No need for introductions. This is our headquarters, after all, I would think we would have some standing.
Dr. Liang: No...it's you.
???: Indeed it is.


???: I am the one who killed Siri for you.


???: Now it's time to return the favor. The Chief Comptroller has decided that you have become an economic liability to Trattoria.
Dr. Liang: That old bastard? He's the one behind everything! Why wouldn't he come here and face me himself, as fellow department chiefs?
???: The Chief Comptroller is a busy man. He employs fine economists like myself so he does not have to waste his own time with these trivial and mundane affairs.


Dr. Suzuki: You're out of line! The court's warrant only authorizes her arrest and detainment, not her execution! As Chief Attorney, I outrank you and order you to stand down!
???: As I said before, my orders come directly from the Chief Comptroller, and I am also not an employee under your department. If you would like to question his judgement, I would suggest that you do that on your own.
Dr. Suzuki: I won't tolerate this insubordination!
???: Is that a challenge? I have not had a good duel since I assassinated the trade minister of Bavaria.


Dr. Suzuki: The Economics Department is worse than the Science Department in its excesses and abuses! I will not let this stand!
???: Better men than you have tried before, Dr. Suzuki. I best be going now.

[Silverdream]

RIP Trademeiser