①
“Why not?”
“Well, not everybody is as wonderful as me.”
“Can we hold off the self-flattery and get on with our introductions?”
“Before we go any further, there’s something I’d like to know,” the Journalist interrupted. “Why are there only five of us? Where are the Linguistics? Where are the Psychologists? Where are the Philosophers? Where are the Scientists? Where are the Plants? Considering the scope of this project, there should be more people here.”
“Maybe they’re split off into another research group?”
{Five of you is more than enough}
“There you go. We’re all they need.”
“Now’s not the time,” the Accountant soothed the Journalist.
“What are you here for?” the Girl asked, turning to the young investigator.
The Journalist continued, “Me and the Silver-Haired Reporter are here for Media representation.”
“That’s a little premature, isn’t it? We haven’t even started our process of discovery yet.”
“I came here by choice. I heard there was an open investigation, saw the list of interesting people who were coming, and was fortunate enough to be included. Thought there’d be more, though.”
“Of all the research people present, two-fifths are the media, with one research member who’s still green. That should show where their priorities lie.”
②
The Woman with Fritzy Hair stood up, her head barely poking over the table and spoke in a flat affect. “My actual name is ∕∣∣∣\- ^ O \∕ ∕ \, but everybody calls me ALIEN WOMAN.”
The Accountant nudged her with his foot. “I think they’re going to need a little more than that.”
“I’m in Agriculture.”
When no further explanation was forthcoming, the Accountant interjected again. “She has knowledge of behaviour patterns and insight on Animal thought.”
“That’s what I said.”
“You didn’t express it very well.”
“It should be obvious by allusion alone. There’s no need to spell everything out.”
“Not everybody is as intuitive as me.”
③
“Why?”
“What?”
“Why isn’t everyone as intuitive as you?”
“You’re still talking about that? The conversation’s already moved on from there. Though it’s a good point. Five of us, two professionals, one Assistant, two of whom who work in the Media. That’s 2/5ths of our workforce supplanted to focus on the task at hand.”
“Maybe there’s something in our combination that’ll lead to their discovery that other mix-‘n-matches won’t.”
“If there is, it won’t stay hidden from me for long!”
“And you are...?”
①
“Can we move on?”, the Silver-Haired Reporter asked, feeling somewhat impatient.
“Feel free to introduce yourself. No one’s stopping you.”
The Silver-Haired Reporter stood up, his long hair falling down onto his seat. “You all know me from the daily news segments I do every day, my appearance being a reassuring presence on the screen.”
“I don’t know you since I don’t read the news,” the Girl confessed.
“I’m on all the monitors!”
“Don’t watch ‘em much either.”
“Don’t you want to know what’s happening in the world?!”
“What for? There’s nothing interesting going on. It’s all disappointing stuff. And it’s the same thing over and over again.”
“Our adoring audience,” the Journalist dramatically intoned. “Apathetic.”
“Whenever the news blares, I’m there to present the public with my typical scathing opinionated commentary. I’m here to report on what I see.”
“We don’t need constant background chatter.”
“I have no intention of doing so. I’ll just observe, then give a concise summary... assuming I live that long.”
“Wait,” the Journalist asked. “Aren’t you going to be late for your news segment?”
“I’m not worried. I’ve already prepared my recordings in advance.”
“What if an unexpected emergency happens? You can’t have prepared for every eventuality!”
“You can when the news are controlled. The sponsors dictate what they want to hear, and what they want the public to hear. All I do is relay their wishes out to the world. My views matter not the slightest.”
His speech finished, he reached behind his back and moved his hair away before sitting down.
②
“I’m an Accountant,” the next candidate announced, flashing a wide smile, reminiscent of a cat who’d swallowed a canary. “Granted, this is much more interesting, considering my normal day job. Still, I can’t help but feel my number-crunching skills are wasted in the presence of beings who intuitively know the answers before I even ask them. I look forward to figuring you guys out.”
All of this was said with a smirk as if in possession of knowledge everyone else wasn’t privy to. Someone who gave the air of being very charming when he could be, someone who could talk a grandmother out of her clothes, sell them back to her, and make her think she was getting a bargain out of the deal.
“I’m good at figuring patterns out. I see the intricate designs that make connections between seemingly unrelated sources before converting them into colour, and then changing them back into numbers again.”
Of everyone present, only the Accountant gave an air of professionalism that the others were lacking, even if his unorthodox methods were hidden beneath an incomprehensible thought process.
“You want me to do your taxes? I’m your man! You want me to help you cheat on your taxes? I’m your man! You want me to balance your budget? I’m your man! You want me to cook the books? I’m your man! I have a head for figures, have never forgotten a colourful mathematical combination or account number in my life! I solve complicated math problems in my spare time. If you’ve got any forms you can’t figure out yourself, give ‘em to me, I’ll fill ‘em for you later!”
Of course the only professional had to have a foundation of shaky ethics. The Accountant started speaking faster, breathing heavily, warming to the subject.
“You got any math problems looming on your mind getting you down on your life? I’ll help you out! I’ve set up a network to help other accountants so that I’m always six degrees of separation from any mathematical discovery! I get a rebate! They tell me I think about numbers a little too much, possibly more than necessary, but I say they’re not thinking about numbers enough!”
The Girl cleared her throat. “Well, I’m - ”
③
“That’s very nice,” the Accountant dismissed, sounding very disinterested. “We might as well get started. We’ll investigate the SeerSighters as best as we can, and present our findings later.”
“Shall we regroup in say, five hours’ time?”
The Accountant started off with designing some notoriously difficult math problems to gauge the SeerSighters’ ability. The Alien Woman was lost in thought. The Journalist and Silver-Haired Reporter split up together.
The Girl was nervous. She hadn’t introduced herself properly, and if she was considered to be so worthless that no one was willing to even look in her direction, then she’d be the most likely candidate deserving to die. She had to make herself useful somehow.
{We have media of our own to assist you along}
Oh, good! If there were some shows that just required watching or listening, that was the basic minimum level of functioning required. She could just sit back and relax!
The SeerSighter made a waving motion. A wall of static appeared on the curved wall. Apart from the random distortion, there was no change from the snowy images, and the SeerSighter made no attempt to correct it. Okay, this clearly wasn’t going to be as easy as she thought.
①
After several minutes straining her eyes, scrutinizing every surface of the screen, trying to wrest meaning from the meaningless drivel before her, she developed a headache. She looked to the side, and saw the Journalist and Silver-Haired Reporter looking on in invested interest.
“How can you make sense of this?!”
“It’s a bit of a steep learning curve.”
“You have to know where to look, and how to look.”
“Okay, any hints for those who aren’t full-fledged full-time watchers?”
“You have to cross your eyes, keeping your attention fixed upon a single point in the distance, until an image starts to appear.”
“And that helps?”
“It should, but I’m not getting anything.”
“Me neither.”
②
The Journalist turned to the Silver-Haired Reporter. “I must say I’m a great admirer of yours. You probably hear that all the time, but - ”
The Silver-Haired Reporter did indeed hear that all the time, but politely replied, “I’m good at what I do.”
“From what I know, being a Journalist basically consists of going on madcap adventures around the world, instigated by promising leads involving weapons trafficking, drug running, dictators, gangsters, mad scientists, drunken sailors, dank caves, hidden temples, lost jewels, forbidden idols, and a Yeti in there somewhere.”
“It’s not as glamourous as it looks.”
“You’re so lucky! I haven’t been able to do any of that stuff! You ask pointed questions at just the right moment to get to the heart of the matter! I want to be like that.”
“I make it a point to know everything about my subject before I start. I like to know the answer to the questions before I ask them. And if not, then leave that question lingering. To be perfectly honest, I’m a little out of my element here. I’m not entirely certain what I’m doing here.”
“That sounds like a lingering question in itself.”
“You’re learning fast. See why they called for us specifically, and run from there.”
“I’m looking for a scoop that will elevate my status over all others!”
“Sounds ambitious.”
③
The Girl threw her arms up in frustration. This incestuous confessional conversation between media figures was getting her nowhere. “Is there anything about these SeerSighters that we can figure out?!”
“Not if we’re trying to brute force it. We have to deduct through what they’re not telling us.”
“I think it’s beautiful.”
The Girl sat rigid at the sudden presence of the Alien Woman who suddenly decided to make her presence known. She hadn’t said much since her introduction, and the Girl hoped it would stay that way.
“It is?” She asked. Then conceded the point. “I suppose there’s beauty in anything if you look hard enough.”
“I can appreciate the logistics, I can appreciate the perspective, the dimensions, the fractals that converge towards a common point in the horizon. But I don’t have the same emotional reaction everybody else has. I’m far more involved in the intricate minor details than the whole picture. It’s all background noise to me.”
“We could use a set of fresh eyes ‘round here.”
“Any opinions are appreciated.”
“Also, it’s calibrated to the wrong settings.”
The Alien Woman fiddled with the controls and the image changed into a colorful menagerie
of lined images that barely made sense. It wasn’t much of an improvement, but it was better than what it looked like before.
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