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Journal- Pascal Inc.

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Dark_Musashi

PostPosted: Mon May 28, 2007 12:31 pm


Here's Pascal. He's a cute lil' disk, right? User Image

And here's Alessa who's taking care of Pascal. User Image


Pascal calls Alessa by her name, she has no nickname.
Alessa calls Pascal "Cal" for short.
PostPosted: Mon May 28, 2007 12:56 pm


Alessa David

[Age] 26, maybe younger.
[Gender] female.
[Race] Human.
[Occupation] Nurse at a nearby hospital. Often does night shifts.
[Personality in a nutshell] Shy at first, but gets friendly quickly. More of a follower. She denies publicly what disturbs her.
[Place] Lives in a flat.
[Relationship] Has a boyfriend who is working at a .exe factory. But it's not close at all and works requires a lot of time from him. The situation has been disturbing the couple for a while.
[Other] To make up for his absence, Alessa's boyfriend gave her a .exe pet from his factory. It's a random disk, of course, and had no say in the appearance, apparent gender or personality.


Pascal(Taken from the quest thread)
[Name] Pascal
[Owner/Player] Alessa (played by me of course.)
[Gender] Male
[Type] Standard.exe
[Affiliation] Fissure
*[Morph] Any, really. Avian.exe, maybe?
[Base color] (See picture)
[Markings] (See picture)
[Background Info] Alessa is a nurse, working in an hospital at Calanom. Her boyfriend works for Fissure. For now, their schedule don't quite match and they rarely ever see each other. To somewhat make up for this, he gave Alessa a gift disk. The .exe, Pascal, turned out to be independant enough to take care of himself when Alessa was at work, therefore she gave him free access to her flat and the outside.
[this point has yet to happen! Pascal hasn't been activated yet omg.]However, Pascal, though cowardly in nature, managed to get in a street fight involving junkeaters who tried to eat his legs, with no success. He hasn't told Alessa, and since, Pascal has somewhat the trouble-inducing reflex to hit first when he feels threatened, whether by a human, an .exe, or anything else, really. His personality tends more and more to paranoia. Still, he is calm and generally friendly.
Pascal is named after the French philosoph and mathematician, Blaise Pascal, and moreover the programming language he gave his name to ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pascal_(programming_language) ).
[Other]Pascal, as said before, hits first when in danger without thinking beforehand. Probably no scar left on legs: hasn't even been injured enough to limp, the attack left more psychological trauma than injuries.

Dark_Musashi


Dark_Musashi

PostPosted: Mon May 28, 2007 12:58 pm


Timeline goes here.

[05.24.??] Alessa receives a disk from her boyfriend.
Alessa: oh my, a pet. A pet who won't get sick of my nightshifts. YES.
[05.31.??]Alessa activates Pascal.
Alessa:... oh dear. It's a pet. That's intelligent.
Pascal: I am. Right? Oh dear, it's a human. That's not geeky enough.
PostPosted: Mon May 28, 2007 1:06 pm


Relations.

Disk Pascal : Alessa: that's my new pet. I think I love it already, but it's a bit... flat. I don't know a single thing about it... him. At least, he's got a special personality.
Mysterious Boyfriend: Alessa: but you work too much. I know it's too much when you start working more than a nurse. Come back quicklyyy.

Dark_Musashi


Dark_Musashi

PostPosted: Mon May 28, 2007 1:07 pm


I case I forgot something.
PostPosted: Thu May 31, 2007 2:25 am


There was no scratch on the disk. Black, nothing written on the label. It was quite new, a disk that didn't go through shipping, that didn't end up in a store. It was from the very factory itself, with so few people that touched it before her.
Disks had become obsolete for years, and maybe they already were when .exes were first created, but they always had kept this format, probably to keep this feeling of nostalgia. There was a time were computers couldn't think at all, complex A.I. were precious. But disks were useless already. It had an use before people even thought about mixing consciousness with informatics. Now, nobody would know what a disk would be, if it weren't for the .exe.
But they weren't even related anymore to informatics. There was a time where special computers could build them, with the risk, sometimes, of giving them bugs, viruses, or even spywares (the marketing departments thought that a .exe who could give hints to some products was worth its weight in gold, but really, it annoyed more the .exe itself than anything. That, and people would pay a lot to cure their pet from ads.). Now, there were machines which only purpose was to activate the disks, and were separated from any pesky informatic problem. And anyway, .exes don't think like computers. They were doomed from the start to have to be separated from computers.
In fact, disks also had something that more recent things, like USB keys or CD didn't have: the magnetic factor, important to .exes. Of course, those disks are just a carbon copy of what they were first; they now are protected from mundane magnets.
Alessa could not remember what disks were for: she was born way after they were forgotten in informatics. But she could feel that sense of nostalgia the device held. What did it have to do with .exes, really? Nothing. But nostalgia holds that friendliness with the past that the global consciousness contains. She already had affection for the future .exe.

That was a beautiful gift. If she could, she would keep the empty disk even after the .exe would be built.
And, keeping the nostalgia factor in mind, she decided to look in an encyclopedia, for some old computer languages. How many of them were still in use? After browsing, she already knew what to name the creature.
Were it female, she would be Java. Were it male, she would name it Pascal. It was supposed to be the name of someone who devoted his life to maths, a very long time ago, even before informatics, and what was left of him are his maths and theories about logic. About nobody, today, knows who Pascal was, nor that it was a computer language: it was replaced by more modern ones.
Giving a human name to a .exe, even a name that wasn't even in use anymore, already gave it a sort of humanity.

Was she thinking too much about this pet? But this wasn't only a pet, that was her boyfriend's gift: a living presence.
The disk is no longer a device used to hold little information, compared to modern devices; it was a key against loneliness.

Dark_Musashi


Dark_Musashi

PostPosted: Thu May 31, 2007 10:12 am


Alessa made up her mind once she knew it was a male. And shortly after, it was time to activate the disk. It was vibrating a bit to warn the user, an useful thing.
The nearest machine wasn't too far. It was in front of a small shop dedicated to electronic and virtual pets: some leashes and accessories for .exes, a lot of programs for virtual pets (who were so yesterday today), and that was it. The machines itself looked more interessant than what was inside, anyway, and seemed to be a new one, although some deep scratches could be found on its side. It seemed to work, that's all Alessa needs right now. The disk was put with a bit of excitment inside the machine, which roared like a snarling tiger... and the disk was spit out.
Alessa didn't know much about .exes, just a bit less than her boyfriend; she knew his job was to try to prevent .exes to go wrong before they get out and eat everything they see; she knew .exes had magnets that could be disturbed easily if held carelessly during their stage at the fabric; she knew they were intelligent and could talk; but all she knew about activating the disks was the presence of machines.
Maybe she did it wrong?
What if the disk was somehow corrupted with wrong data?
Disappointed, she sighed. Her excitment vanished into thin air. She bowed, reaching for the disk. Then it VIBRATED. Furiously. To the point of it cracking.
She let out a scream of surprise. What's wrong? Or maybe did her boyfrind do it on purpose? Once she finds him, she...
... she would do nothing, in a few seconds, a .exe was built out of nowhere. It was like a dog, with metallic parts and a floating tail. This one had colors reminding of spring, and seemed healthy. No junkeater
.


The .exe opened slowly his eyes. As for a test, he opened and closed slightly his mouth, twice, thrice, and once reassured, he rose his head and looked at what semmed to be her owner. The sudden stream of consciousness wasn't something he minded at all, he was more concerned about the way to introduce himself to a young woman who screamed.
"Hello", he finally says. "My name is Pascal, you must be Alessa David. Is it right?"

Alessa started breathing slowlier, calming down. She almost seemed disappointed by the very robot-like introduction, but maybe it was only formal, maybe it was the way they were programmed? "Yes, I'm Alessa. Well... welcome here?"

Pascal smiled. His brain worked as well. Everything was good. For now. "Fine! I believe I'm okay, how about you? Don't worry, the cracking part is not supposed to happen again. So, you won't scream, and I promise I won't scream either back home. Okay? You have a home, right?"

That was surprisingly friendly. The sense of humor mustn't be common to all. But weren't they supposed to know their own state? Or maybe was it just its... his personality?
"I have a flat. Stay near me for now, before I tell you everything you need to know."
Alessa smiled back.
PostPosted: Fri Jun 01, 2007 10:32 am


"So, the kitchen is there. You can open easily the fridge if you're hungry, but I will try to leave leftovers for you." Alessa walked a last time to the living room. "If there is any problem, I'll phone. You shouldn't expect me to come home within set hours everyday, so don't worry about me." She made it very clear: Pascal was lucky enough to have dexterous enough paws and jaws, and could take care of himself. Dependance isn't an option.

"What about going out?", asked Pascal. It didn't sound fun to stay home like a guarding dog. As much as he accepted his owner's job, he couldn't stand meeting nothing at all when she's busy.

The question upsets Alessa. The magnetic keycard could hardly be used by Pascal. "Well, I have no problem with it...", she began, thinking. It was a tricky issue. "... I guess that you will have to wait for me to come back inside. Just ring.. or ask a passerby to, to make sure whether I'm back or not. The neighbours may be friendly enough to let you come in, but I know nothing of their schedule. Just wait for me, okay? I'll figure out a solution later."
She added, like a mother to her child: "And stay inside the lit parts."


Pascal shudders. He doesn't like those advices. They were a sort of curse: of he didn't obey, if he was curious, a little be too curious, doom and gloom would fall right upon his head. If she was as paranoid as he started thinking he is, cohabiting would be weird."Don't worry, please. I don't fear temperature shifts, I can wait, that's alright. Okay?"

"It is, alright then." Alessa smiled in a friendly way, and started putting her coat on. "It's time to go now. You can visit the place, but there's not much to see. No problem remembering this adress? I'll try to come back early, see you tonight!", the nurse said quickly enough not to receive any reply from the overloaded creature. It was an art she mastered at work, and that was especially useful with annoying patients, or worse, the kind that was litterally dying to tell her how much their life had been rich. He stuttered some nonsensical noise, but Alessa knew Pascal would do well and didn't need anymore information; else, he would have asked.

Pascal sat down. He gives up on holding his owner longer inside, and as she waved and went out, he whispered "See you tonight!". The door closed, and he thought that he could have added a comment about everything going well at the hospital. Well, he could just do that next time, which is merely 24 hours away.
So... what to do here, on his own?
He first took some time to smell the air inside the closed space. Synthetic things, mostly. A bit of soap, but that's normal for a nurse. The electronic sensors could not make up the rest. He then went to the kitchen, in direction of his very first meal. This one was okay: roasted chicken from last night and potatoes. The bones cracked under his teeth. A lot of carbon to use for maintaining the system. He would tell Alessa the potatoes could taste better hot, or at least warm. He was okay with eating what was garbage-worth, as long as it tasted fine.
Pascal pondered, while digesting. He already felt more alert, better. The energy, the natural process of food, what was convinced him to go out today: he will have plenty of time for visiting the inside.

Dark_Musashi


Dark_Musashi

PostPosted: Fri Jun 08, 2007 3:21 am


Out on the town
Or the first step into a conspiracy.
User Image
PostPosted: Mon Jun 18, 2007 4:41 am


Meanwhile, Alessa was working at the hospital.

Everything was calm enough. A normal amount of wounds, burns and cut to take care. No limbs sliced. It started as a nice day.
Then suddenly, the ambulance arrived. There was a normal amount of hurt workers, with a few broken bones, nothing unusual yet. Someone said the last person was stuck outside, everyone had to walk away from the entrance. Alessa watched the door from afar. She was not sure what caused such a fuss, anyway, it was not good.
And then, they managed to come in with a huge creature. Something with fur, claws, and big teeth clenching. She was about to ask, surprised, what an animal was supposed to do here, but when she saw the tail and the back, she understood.
There were big pieces of sharp metal and glass. It was bleeding awfully, though given the size of the creature, the loss of this amount of blood was not enough to be deadly. The huge tail was bending in an unnatural way, probably broken. The creature turned its head in her direction, teeth still clenching, its eyes begging to put a stop to the sharp pain. The forepaws had a strong grip on the edge of the stretcher, almost looking human at moments. Someone shouted there was an accident on tha construction site, only a few streets further, and this guy saved his coworkers from getting most damage.
It was a shapeshifter. And he was fighting against himself not to turn back into a human, or else the wounds would extend to the rest of his abdomen and torso.
She never faced such a case. But the situation frightened her a lot. When had she last seen a shapeshifter? Too long ago.
The animal, though of an unknown species, looked far too human to reassure her.

----------

Alessa overheard the name of the species, whispered painfully by the shapeshifter: a furred wyrm. There was probably a more accurate name for this, but it gave enough information to the staff to know what kind of medication or chemicals they can use.
The decision arrived quickly: they had to perform a surgery quickly, to reduce the wounds, then let the shapeshifter undergo a change back to both relieve him and finish the surgery on his normal form. Letting him change right now would be highly dangerous for his abdomen, groin, torso and internal organs.
Alessa was part of the surgery. She wished she wasn't. But she can't say no. This creature is also a person, a human being, he shapeshifted to receive most damages, which may have been deadly.
The only hope, right now, was the nature of his skin, which may heal and form smooth scars faster than human patients.
Still, taking care of an animal here, an animal that looked and sounded human, was too much for her, she knew it. Nobody tells you, when you're still a student, how to survive freak accidents happening to your patients.
However, she was part of the surgery. It was a special level of creepy. Working with Malacyne nurses was not disturbing, they talked, walked, had dexterous paws, groomed daily, and rarely ever were hurt. But an animal she did not even know until now, a bulky wyrm with dark, stinky blood staining the messy fur, with teeth the size of her fingers, and human eyes... it was scary. She didn't show it, but she was scared.

Then, an instant, she thought about Pascal. He could talk, think, eat, and probably get hurt. What is the difference between this guy, and Pascal getting hurt?
Pascal was a machine, and would not bleed, clench his teeth in agony, look at her with a human expression.
That's what she hoped, anyway. What would she do if her .exe had an accident, and could feel pain? What if he bled whatever he could bleed, clench his teeth in agony, look at her, and beg her to stop the pain?
They were machines, they were not supposed to be life-like as to fear pain and death. The mix of machine and life would be too scary and... inhuman.
She had enough with the shapeshifter worker right now. She decided to stop thinking about Pascal, and went back to work.

Dark_Musashi

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.exe//REDUX

 
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