Stay Awhile
Stay here for a moment more
Abyssal Transmission 002
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"Have you ever crossed through one doorway and entered the room you had just left, Miss..."
"Just call me Murmur"
"I prefer to know my agents' names"
"You have my file, right?"
"Reading it in a file is remarkably different than hearing it from their own mouths"
"How do you mean?"
"It's just one more layer of abstraction between me and you. Doing this work, I'm going to get to know you. Intimately. In ways that no one else before or after will be able to. My job is to unravel everything that you are, extrude you into a shape you were not meant to occupy, and then put you back together correctly. So I'm going to need you to trust me."
"I trust that you'll do your job competently. I don't really need any of this sappy stuff. I know that you'll see what's in my head and probably be able to make sense of it, but it'll be easier for both of us if we just move on."
"Listen, Murmur. I've been handling divers for a few years. I can't pretend to know what it's like when you're under, even though I built a good 40% of the model we use for retrieval. I have limited data, since your projected life expectancy is so short, but we can extend that projection if--"
"--if we what? Hold hands sometimes? Have dinner? Do you want me to kiss you goodnight, Chamomile?"
"Please just call me Anne. I know command want to be strict about pseudonymity but they don't know how important it is that I know who it is I'm working with. REALLY know. No I don't want you to kiss me goodnight, but I do want to be able to talk casually. Tell me about your day, what's been bugging you, where the pain points in your current mission are. If that's over dinner, I won't mind. I'll buy. Before long, I'll know anyways and I think it's far weirder to learn that kind of stuff from the machinery you're hooked up to than you telling me. At very least less consensual."
"You have my consent to look at my thoughts while I'm under--"
"I'm going to HAVE to, whether you want me to or not. That's how this works. That's basically what you signed up for."
"No I signed up for a thick paycheck. I'm mentally stable enough and good at finding hidden things. I knew all of the electrodes and tubes and a handler rooting around in and compressing my psychprint were involved but I never even wanted to meet you. I figured you'd be mathematical and calculating, not this god damn annoying. It's fine if you look at what's going through my brain at point of entry so long as you can record it and put it back in my skull when I'm out. Make sure I'm the same person waking up as I was when I went to sleep. But okay, my name's Beatrice. Beatrice McGowan. Severing comms"
"Okay. Sure. See you on the other side Murmur"
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I hope you've been keeping warm. Or cool. Whichever best suits you. We have been continuing to work on delivering our next game, called Apricot. It's funny to think about now as this game has lived with us for several years (too long, if I'm honest), but the name came from a miscommunication. Our programmer said one word and our writer heard another. It's a small (and relatively harmless) example of how fraught and difficult communication is. And how hard it is to actually know anyone. You can look me dead in the eyes (if I had those, anyways) and tell me all about yourself, and all I'd come away knowing is what the words you said mean, and how I understand them. If you feel so inclined, write me with a few words describing who you are so that I may know who I am being heard by.
Apricot is a terrible little room where the walls are indistinguishable from those in it. Even if you have never seen a ghost before, I am certain you know what being haunted is like, and when you enter this terrible little room I hope that you feel those feelings again.
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In more businessy correspondence, we are looking to hire a temporary texture artist to finish off the project. Details can be found here.
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Talk soon. I hope you enjoy your stay, wherever you are.
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