[Rowyn] (encrypted) From: Kaede Takeuchi Date: Noon Friday February 27, 2004 (Japan) Subject: SM To: Taki Shimiru, Katie Andrews, Kyon Sorata, Satoshi Watanabe, Haruko Kinsha, Wataru Yamada Alright. Finally got to investigating that social media site. Been busy with a lot elsewhere, but we'll start with that. Long story short. Shuffle is a trap. I'm not quite sure how they do it myself yet. Need to do some testing. But basic access doesn't seem to do all that much. Not surprising. It is a social media site. There's definitely an attempt to pull from your contact list. It's all being logged for sure. The trick is the set up. Somehow, they've got the card draw trick set up. I had to focus on it like I was doing a reading to not draw my own card. One for yourself, one for your match. Two of the same card drawn and you're into "premium" content. And probably logged. Fortunately, whatever I did didn't trip the mechanism. But it was a damned close call. Though I presume it's only a matter of time before they figure out I got into premium content when I shouldn't have. Because we have an old friend to deal with. Computer Club President Yorihisa Murimura. The site itself, admittedly, is a hack. The fact that Yorihisa is even promoting it is a joke. But admittedly, that does make it a tough nut to crack. And also means that I'm probably not going to be as free as I'd like. Once you get into the premium content, it doesn't even try to hide what it's about. It could just be some innocent mechanism for Arcana to meet up and hang out and find each other, but I sincerely doubt it. There's also a name: Global Personnel Services. That an a studio, but I have to go digging for that. That's our next target. Katie, I've got some more I'd like to share personally with you, but I think that's best sent in a separate email. There's also a reading too. I ran it by the Star, just to make sure. But I figure this stuff here already is a lot of information, so it's probably best to let people process this first, respond, then save the reading for something additional. I'll fill in details where I can. Takeuchi Out. (Encrypted) Date: Noon Friday February 27, 2004 (Japan) Subject: Can you analyze this for me? To: Katie Andrews Okay, two things. One, I got some recording from the site. Some overlayed speech and some video. On the surface, it's pretty identifiable, but I figure it best if you look at it yourself to see if you see or hear anything I missed. Here's the thing: [loading Yorihisu.mp3. Remi.mov. (No he wouldn't actually name the files that, they'd probably have random digits and numbers, but it helps for the narrator to identify them!)] I need to know if the second is a fake. If you can spot it. The other thing is that apparently people have been trying to contact us from the site and add invites. You. Me. Akemi especially. Whatever's going on there, those requests have been actively blocked. Whether it's a firewall or someone actively preventing those requests from going through, I don't know. But apparently that means a lot from both our circles are on the site and also there's an active effort for us not to know about it... This doesn't bode well, Katie Andrews. I thought we'd be over this nonsense by now. -Kaede --- [Grysar] (encrypted) From: Haruko Kinsha Date: Afternoon Friday February 27, 2004 (Japan) Subject: SM To: Kaede Takeuchi, Taki Shimiru, Katie Andrews, Kyon Sorata, Satoshi Watanabe, Wataru Yamada So I haven't been following the social media thing that closely. This Shuffle things sounds a lot bigger than Council of Mysteries promotion. I hadn't managed to keep track of the unresponsive Computer Club president after high school, but he barely talked to me then, so that's no surprise. I suppose I'd be more bitter about that if the Cup hadn't completely healed the wounds I took on his behalf, and he did help out in the final battles. Still, your trap assessment seems dead on. Have to say, I also now feel a bit outclassed with my little black book of telephone numbers and emails. Do you think i could join up? If he's actually successfully drawing Arcana in, I'd like to know what conversations are happening there, even if I keep any real outgoing information to other channels. Hibiki might have an invite already, he says he gets too many and has a standing fight whether the Soccer Team captain who wants him to join up to some team group. I'll spare you all his opinion on such services, but the point is I'm sure I could find an avenue to make it look natural. I can also add this to my list of things to talk to my network about, they may know something. Regardless, Katie and Kaede, let me know how you'd like me to handle this. I don't mind being the exposed member of the group, but I do want to make sure I'm not taking stupid risks and I'm not entirely sure of the context. Haruko --- [Jihatsu] (encrypted) Date: Evening Friday February 27, 2004 (Japan) Subject: re: SM To: Katie Andrews, Satoshi Watanabe Hey. This sounds pretty serious and I have no idea what it's about. I don't want to bog everyone down with my n00bness, and if you don't feel like clueing me in that's fine too, but if one of you gets the chance to let me know what/who we're up against here I'll do what I can to help. Thanks, and good luck with whatever this is. Wataru --- [Ciara] (Encrypted e-mail) Date: Evening of Friday February 27, 2004 (Japan) / Morning of Friday February 27, 2004 (Maine) Subject: Re: Re: SM To: Wataru Yamada, Katie Andrews Yorihisa Murimora was the Computer Club president at Sakuragaoka. More importantly, he's an Arcana; he's the something of Pentacles (he's one of the numbers, but I don't remember which number it is). He's also a colossal jerk. I didn't think he had it out for us in particular; most of the time, we tended to ignore each other. Well, I did. Kaede would likely have interacted with him more. I'm kind of confused by the rest of this, too, to be honest. Sorry I can't be more helpful. This is definitely something to keep an eye on, though. Satoshi ***** (Encrypted e-mail) Date: Evening of Friday February 27, 2004 (Japan) / Morning of Friday February 27, 2004 (Maine) Subject: Re: SM To: Kaede Takeuchi Kaede, The reading you refer to in your e-mail, that's the one you did when we were talking, correct? Satoshi --- [Rowyn] (Encrypted e-mail) Date: Evening of Friday February 27, 2004 (Japan) / Morning of Friday February 27, 2004 (Maine) Subject: Re: SM To: Satoshi Watanabe Yes. Sorry it took so long. The Star was very insightful though and helped quite a bit. I will give more details later. I didn't realize this social media site Katie gave me was so big. It couldn't have just been something perfectly innocent, didn't it, Watanabe-san? No, it had to just come to drag our lives right back into the fray. It does make me wonder what Temperance is doing if so many blatant holes are popping up all over the place. The method is known at least. The agenda is not. And that is what worries me most. Takeuchi out. --- [Ciara] (Encrypted e-mail) Date: Evening of Friday February 27, 2004 (Japan) / Morning of Friday February 27 (Maine) Subject: Re: SM To: Kaede Takeuchi I'm on my way out to catch the team bus because we have away games this weekend, but something just occurred to me: have we seen or heard *any* sign of Temperance recently? Satoshi --- [Ardweden] Katie finally checks her e-mail on Saturday, and there's a surprising amount of activity in her inbox. She reads and rereads, tapping her fingernails on the edge of her laptop. If Kyon hasn't seen this yet, she really needs to point it out to him. In the meantime, she checks the attachments that Kaede had sent her. Twice. Three times. She's frowning by the time she starts responding to people. (Encrypted) From: Katie Andrews Date: Early Morning Saturday, February 28, 2004 (Japan) Subject: Re: Can you analyze this for me? To: Kaede Takeuchi You thought the sound file is Yorihisa, right? It sounds like him. Why would he want to be involved though? I'll put that in the e-mail to everyone else. The other one, the one with Remi Okui: That's her, at least to me. Her eyes look right and so does everything else. I'm not spotting any photoshop tricks. (Also, why? Unless just as bait.) She's acting but she at least looks like she's doing it because she wants to be there and do what she's doing mostly. Actually makes me feel like it's more likely to really be her and not a controlled her, because a controlled Remi would be a lot more enthusiastic. You knew her better than anyone else. Does this look like a thing she'd do? Or did she just change a lot? The thing with the invites is weird, esp if they want to lure in Arcana. We're Arcana and not even esp dangerous ones, so why block us specifically? Does it have to do with the Council of Mysteries - are people in our little group prevented from getting access codes, at least digitally? Doburoku didn't go through anything official to get them to me. Just pencil & notebook paper. I wonder if people one or two removed from us even knows. Probably not. What do you want to do about it? This doesn't feel like something worth keeping from people. I feel like I should tell Kyon at least. Katie ***** (Encrypted) From: Katie Andrews Date: Morning Saturday, February 28, 2004 (Japan) Subject: Re: SM To: Taki Shimiru, Kyon Sorata, Satoshi Watanabe, Haruko Kinsha, Wataru Yamada, Kaede Takeuchi Thanks for checking out Shuffle, Kaede. It sounds a lot worse than I thought it was probably going to be. The card draw especially - how could they even do that? I guess I never tried messing with internet tarot sites so maybe it just works...? Maybe I'll give it a try later & see if I come up Page of Swords over and over again. I think Yorihisa's a big worry, but I guess it also explains why Aka started paying attention to us as a group (and me in specific? idk I don't like being spied on so someone can write about me). He would have been in a position to get early info on us or at least point Aka to us. The weird thing is it doesn't sound like a thing Yorihisa'd do. He was a selfish asshole but he also left other people alone & I think he wanted to be left alone. Why would that change now? Though I guess he's not a public face. Also Global Personnel Services is a dumb name and could mean anything. Haruko: idk if it's worth exposing yourself that way. I mean Aka knows you know about him. So I guess in one way it makes sense. In another, we don't know what this site's supposed to do & what it actually does. Kaede's the expert on that right now. I'd listen to him. What was the reading about? Katie ***** (Encrypted) From: Katie Andrews Date: Morning Saturday, February 28, 2004 (Japan) / Evening Friday, February 27 (Maine) Subject: Re: Re: Re: SM To: Satoshi Watanabe, Wataru Yamada Hi. I'm not really sure what's going on either & I think I filled you in on what I do know, but basically, Aka Uehara Who Is Masaru Uehara's Asshole Brother is writing the Council of Mysteries series under a pen name. Yukio Akatsuki I think? You know all of that, but the thing is, the ex-Sakuragaoka student who was giving him information about me & had his memory erased is working on graphics for some sort of social media project or something now, so I had some other students in the art dept spy on him (they kind of already were). I got some beta invite-password things from one of them & gave them to Kaede, and that's what he was emailing about. The worrying thing about what Kaede's saying is Yorihisa's an Arcana, like Satoshi said. idk his exact card, either. At Sakuragaoka, he mostly kept to himself. I tried to get him to open up some times, or just talk about anything interesting, or even say thank you when we saved his life against that asshole with the scythe, but he was always really stubborn in not wanting anything to do with anyone else. He was a really private guy. Also ungrateful & an asshole. But he knew he was an Arcana. So it's very weird that he's coming up now & attached to a social media site, but then we never really knew a lot about him anyway. Does that help? Katie --- [Rowyn] And now to the rest of Kaede's e-mail rounds. He's frowning too. Going over the thread. Yes, it only ends up making less sense. (Encrypted) From: Kaede Takeuchi Date: Morning Saturday, February 28, 2004 (Japan) Subject: Re: Can you analyze this for me? To: Katie Andrews Your questions are the same as mine, which is the problem. All of this...can we talk Monday? I really don't like the direction where this is heading... I'm sure you don't either. Yorihisa is a given. Sometimes, though, recordings can have tells in the background unless they are very good at filtering out the mixes. I was hoping there might be someone else talking or coaching from the background, but I guess that would be too much to hope for.... I don't know...okay, I do potentially know why our favorite little Five of Cups might be involved if there's no conversion...just...I hate the sense of running into coincidence like this. The Wheel must really hate us. When are we ever going to get away? I don't intend to keep this from the others. I only wanted you to know for certain that this was specifically for you. Although...I don't know. I really don't want to talk about the Five. I really don't want to talk about the implications of us being blocked, though I suspect, at least for me, it might have been at the Five's request... I can't imagine she'd want me to see her like...whatever she is. But I get the feeling she'd throw away her principles in a heartbeat if she got the opportunity to feel important. In which case, if Yorihisa took advantage of that... I really wish when I sent you that I actually believed there was a possibility of photoshopping. I think we all know better that reality itself is messier. Stay safe, Katie Andrews. -Kaede ------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Kaede Takeuchi Date: Morning Saturday, February 28, 2004 (Japan) Subject: Re: SM To: Taki Shimiru, Kyon Sorata, Satoshi Watanabe, Haruko Kinsha, Wataru Yamada, Katie Andrews Kinsha-san: I can't recall how much Hibiki was involved in the end or how much he actually ended up knowing. If he knows, it might be easier to convince him to look into the site if he has an invite, but if not, I suspect convincing him might be a touch harder. I did manage to, by chance, obtain someone else's login and password, though we would have to be cautious to make sure that person is not using the account at the time. Still, I believe it's a better way to slip in and observe conversations without being caught. As I am already in the system, I will do what I can but I have a feeling once they look into the matter it is only a matter of time before it is shut down... Which leads me into the reading. Me and Satoshi were considering how Uehara might be accessing his information, so we attempted a spread. Since it'd take longer to explain it, I will just post this here: [Picture of Kaede's spread, taken by phone.The Subject: The Magician. The Problem: Justice Reversed. Method (Primary): Seven of Cups. Method (Secondary): Three of Cups. Method (Tertiary): Nine of Swords.] ....obviously, this is a spread I'd prefer not to take literally. So I went to consult on it. And the thoughts are that The Magician represents the author. So Aka. And how he might see himself. He controls the world. He controls people's perceptions. As long as he believes he controls that, he'll be pretty unshakeable. And it's a foundation we would need to shake if we want to make any headway on this. The problem: A perceived slight or wrong. Unfairness. That's what we're up against. I don't know if this is a crazed revenge scheme or not...we don't know enough about the why and where of his methods. Regardless... The three methods of delivery: Seven of Cups, Three of Cups, Nine of Swords. Promises and hidden costs. Perhaps blackmail, it's hard to tell from that first one. But definitely not something entirely straight forward. The three, people working together with a common goal. So he's not working alone. He may have tricked some but there's others who may actively want this to happen.... The nine always worries me though. Someone being haunted by fears and anxiety. That may be part of the blackmail. It may be how Masaru fits into the picture. Or Gustave. Or whatever he calls himself now. So. To go back to your question, Haruko, we're dealing with someone who is playing a field control game. You exposing yourself changes the nature of the game. I can't tell you exactly what to do, but I suspect it best not to use that card unless we are prepared to pull on a snare. Out of all of us, Yorihisa might be most likely to recognize any associations with you, so whether he reacts to that or not is anyone's guess. Katie: If you're going to test it, get back to me on that. If it does work, it's just an additional annoyance we have to watch out for being, well, us. If it doesn't, I have to suspect an algorithm is at play here, and that will take some time to unravel... That's all the information I know and can think of right now. I do intend to follow up on our leads and let people know my findings, but at this point, at least there's a direction. Even if that direction makes me want to punch Murimura in the face. Let me know if anyone has any specific questions. Takeuchi out. --- [Ardweden] Katie hits send to her e-mails and closes her laptop, taking it out to the living room to set it on the kotatsu. After that, it's a lot of stretching and wandering about without getting properly dressed: going to the toilet, brushing her teeth, getting breakfast... it's a pretty lazy Saturday morning for her, as Kyon's already off for practice or work or whatever his schedule demands right now, but she's not enjoying it especially much. She returns to the kotatsu with coffee and a plate of eggs, and she has to set them down before shooing Kumaguro off of her laptop. That done, she tucks herself under the blanket and opens the thing - oh, Kaede replied already. Okay, let's see... Ah. Katie frowns. She'd been so intent on identification that she forgot everything else she should be checking for, and that's- She stops the thought right there and opens the files again, breakfast already forgotten. This time, she's going to get it right. (Read a Situation on both files Kaede had sent: 10 + 1 = 11 total, as I found out Katie's Hunger applies after the fact. http://orokos.com/roll/318573. Hold 3, spend them: Who's in control here? What's my enemy's true position? What should I be on the look out for?) --- [Grysar] Not too much reveals itself on the first through runs through. Katie ends up spending part of her morning dealing with laptop frustrations as trying to really inspect media with a standard player doesn't work too well, particularly combined with a cat that wants attention. As her breakfast grows cold she checks back to her old notes and finds some software recommendations from Doburoku who had walked the class through an animated short he'd made earlier in the year. He'd actually recorded a few hours of natural footage and then picked out a few specific bird and insect sounds and did a pretty good job of using it to paint animated cels that capturing the foreground wind and background scenery change over the course of a day.The actual installation process and initial mastery of the interfaces is annoying, almost worth distracting Kaede from whatever he's doing levels of aggravation, but she gets through it with a little bit of help from Doburoku via email. He's a little excited she's interested in such things and offers to show her how he set up his his camera and mic for that recording if she ever wants to do similar landscape work, but doesn't ask too many questions. Finally to able to get to the interesting part, breakfast chilled and forgotten, Katie works her way through the images first. In one of the first group shot with Remi there's actually a shot of water glass in the foreground. Something about it catches her eye and after picking the clearest frames and zooms in to the degree that the resolution allows. She flipping back and forth between the cells, eyes better than any software, she's able to mentally filter out the foreground set and focus on what the glass reflects of the people standing behind and adjacent to the camera, the filming crew and a few others. She can't enhance the image beyond what's actually recorded in the web-video and can't make out any facial detail, but she can make out four people standing around the video camera for the scene. One is clearly the camera woman, another has a posture and bearing similar to Yorihisa and that seems to be ignoring the taping and working with a laptop, the other two are consulting one another, one is a guy in what Katie recognizes as pretty typical working uniform for those around 'photoshoots. That man is conversing with what looks like a middle aged woman in elegant modern garb. His posture is deferential, hers is not. Katie's research continues, she has more questions to get answers to, but her stomach grumbles and she realizes she really needs to eat something. --- [Ardweden] Katie downloads and installs the new software with quite a lot of difficulty - if only she were as technologically savvy as Kaede - but she's genuinely grateful for Doburoku's help and agrees to see his set up in the near future, because it doesn't hurt to learn new things and she does owe him at this point. A little bit of her time shouldn't hurt. Then it's back to actually doing what she wanted to do, which is inspect these files more closely. Katie spends minutes or hours working on it. She's not really sure. But she's positive she's getting somewhere. The number of people, an idea of the social hierarchy, a clear picture of Yorihisa... she saves screenshots of the blown up pictures and- ugh. Her stomach. Right. Food. She reaches over and has a forkful of cold eggs, making a face. Okay, that's disgusting. Katie gets up to go throw them out and make some toast, mentally reviewing how she wants to lay this information out in any sort of way that anyone else can see it. She has trouble, sometimes, figuring out what other people can see or hear. Also, it's cold when she's not under the kotatsu. Who made winter cold! Some bullshit higher power, probably. She quickly spreads some peanut butter on the toast, has a big bite, and, feeling better (because peanut butter is among the best things the entire world) quickly scurries back to the kotatsu and eats more toast while she modifies some of these files with paint and such to point out what she's seeing a bit better. Once that's done, with toast safely in her belly, she switches back to the original files to see if she can't find anything new. --- [Grysar] Katie focuses more on the sound this time, first off, she's able to fairly quickly find that the various pieces were spliced together. This definitely took a lot of takes to get Yorihisa sounding somewhat like a person that is pretending to care about your needs. There's something a bit odd in Yorihisa's speech pattern. The way he's enunciated and emphasizing words sometimes uses an older style of Japanese. With some research, and then some more research, and then a few old cultural rabbit holes, she's able to find that in some ways he's touching on the Japanese equivalent of the Mid-Atlantic old-timer newsreel voice, one that seems to fit with some recordings she found of the earliest Japanese radio shows. It doesn't sound natural to him at all, and it seems like the speech was mostly stripped of that, but there's still some legacy bits showing through from his coaching and he isn't having an easy time of it. When she focuses on the words and phrases that come most unnaturally to him, she also finds them showing up in scatter around a variety of Liberal Democratic Party speeches on education related topics in the past few decades. No particular politician is strongly associated with them though, more a range of different people giving the a standard stump speech they've been handed, she can also find some traces over the weird accent coached there, but it's a lot less common, but then you're listening to more natural speakers there, so that's not a huge surprise. Oddly enough, one pattern to those speeches is that they seemed really concerned with high school placement in the Tokyo Metropolitan area. Who knew that was such an important LDP platform point? All this would sound pretty crazy, except that Katie is actually able to assemble a series of audio clips (thanks new software) that show Yorihisa is directly mimicking a weird speech pattern with peculiar turns of phrase that are exactly matched by a variety of low-rank officials throughout LDP history. Finally, you pick up a bit of a sardonic joking tone from "put together with others by distant authority figures without our true selves at heart." He actually leaves off the "s" on figure, it just got filled in by the listener brain naturally in the flow of the sentence. Perhaps fearing that she's gone full crazy collection of documents on the wall connected with strings, Katie switches back to the video as the sun's light dims outside. The clip of Remi breaking the brick actually catches her superior eyes. Remi's karate posture, breathing, and the like don't actually show her to actually be moving like a skilled martial artist. However, the board break is quite real and she definitely shows a confidence that you haven't seen in the you woman except with rare exceptions during the best days of her relationship with Kaede. That's still only so confident, she's still Remi. Instead, she seems to have actually honed her powers to a degree. She shot a thin sheet of ice through the board before it crack, weakening the material and making it vulnerable to her blow. However, she's also developed enough control that her use of the power was largely imperceptible to one other than Katie. This wasn't just a board weakened with ice before hand or some sort of fancy special purpose ice punch, Remi has actually been blossoming into her own under someone's influence. After the blow she actually looks up with a flash of an approval seeking expression. Reflected in her eyes seems to be the elegant woman from before. That said, the image is like ten pixels tall, so can't very well take it to a sketch artist to recreate the image. She continues the search for a bit, but that's really all she can find, a few false leads later, Katie hears Kyon coming up the stairs, home for the Saturday evening and her stomach seeks more toast or something. Greedy stomach. Right before she sates her hunger, Katie does have a sudden flash of inspiration. One of the LDP speakers, not an actual MP, just a warm up act some minor event, rang a bell, Kazuko Yamagata. Given that LDP has been the predominant political party in Japan for decades, there's any number of dues paying speeches and events. The video is actually quite recent and she looks to be just a few years older than the group. Her speeches have a bit more of that accent in a few odd places but more important, Katie recognizes her as the woman who wasn't excluded from her silence field when she was having trouble at a night out with Kyon last december. There's actually surprisingly little information on her on the internet given that she's a political functionary, but Katie does have the name. --- [Jihatsu] Meanwhile... They're like a well-oiled machine. Wataru sits in his computer chair, looking at the long thread of emails over his steepled fingers. What can he possibly contribute? They know more than him, they can do more than him, they know how to work together already. There's nothing a lump like him can add. He sighs, and goes to get his deck, for the comforting touch of the cards more than anything else. He works them through his hands while rereading the emails. He's tempted to just sit this one out. But... Katie, Satoshi, they wrote to him directly. He owes them a response. He neatly puts his deck to the side... (Encrypted) From: Wataru Yamada Date: Evening Saturday, February 28, 2004 (Japan) / Morning Saturday, February 28 (Maine) Subject: Re: Re: Re: Re: SM To: Satoshi Watanabe, Katie Andrews The recent emails have certainly been eye-opening. Is there anything I can do? Do you want me to attempt a reading? If you want to give me something specific to work with, I'll see if I can find an angle. I feel like this whole topic is a work in progress so I don't want to interrupt, but we can keep talking. Are we still on for tomorrow, Satoshi? - W. He presses send, and then prints out a few of the key emails from this conversation, the info dumps, Kaede's and Katie's in particular. He roots around his closet for extra-large paper he used for a project once, and gets a bunch of highlighters and some pens. Then he goes into the living room, closes all the blinds, and spreads out on the floor, ready to cut some paths through a forest of information. --- [Ardweden] Katie had a chat with Kyon when he got home! There will be a log of this. (See "The Soratas *Are* the LDP" log.) In the evening, after fried rice for dinner, Katie sends off two quick e-mails: (Encrypted) From: Katie Andrews Date: Evening Saturday, February 28, 2004 (Japan) Subject: Re: Can you analyze this for me? To: Kaede Takeuchi Kaede, I checked the files you sent again & I don't think it's good. I talked to Kyon about it. I'm going to email everyone tomorrow. I'll see you for lunch on Monday, ok? We can talk about it in person then. Katie ***** (Encrypted) From: Katie Andrews Date: Evening Saturday, February 28, 2004 (Japan) / Morning Saturday, February 28, 2004 (Maine) Subject: Re: Re: Re: Re: SM To: Wataru Yamada, Satoshi Watanabe A reading might be good. I'm going to email everyone tomorrow. Katie --- [Ciara] (Encrypted e-mail) From: Satoshi Watanabe Date: Evening Saturday, February 28, 2004 (Japan) / Morning Saturday, February 28, 2004 (Maine/Massachusetts) Subject: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: SM To: Katie Andrews, Wataru Yamada Yeah, I agree. A reading can't hurt, right? It might get us some additional helpful information. Satoshi ***** (Encrypted e-mail) From: Satoshi Watanabe Date: Evening Saturday, February 28, 2004 (Japan) / Morning Saturday, February 28, 2004 (Maine/Massachusetts) Subject: Scheduling To: Wataru Yamada You're forgetting it's a leap year. ;) We planned for March 1st, but that's actually Monday, not Sunday. I can see how you'd be confused since normally I'd be in class on a Monday morning, but it's spring break for the next two weeks. Still wish I could have made it home but we have games next weekend so it wouldn't have really worked out to go back for less than a week. Also, we lost last night. :( But it was the first time in over a month and a close game, so I can't complain too much. Talk to you soon! Satoshi --- [Capfox] Kyon settles in after dinner by the computer, and gets to formulating his reply, a cup of tea at his side and a cat at his feet. From: Kyon Sorata Date: Evening (around 10:00 PM), Saturday, February 28, 2004 (Japan) Subject: Re: SM To: Kaede Takeuchi, Taki Shimiru, Satoshi Watanabe, Haruko Kinsha, Wataru Yamada, Katie Andrews Caught up on the e-mails tonight. It's good to have more info, but I agree: it's not good stuff to have to deal with. Going to hit some of the points here. Book stuff: I met with my editor about upcoming work, and she set up a meeting with the CoM editor. Definitely something weird going on there. I got an appointment we can negotiate with the author, but there are some conditions. Limited number of people who can go, they get to pick the place, although I can veto. We should work out more what we want to ask before that gets settled. But that's going to depend on what happens from here. At least we know that we've got a face-to-face coming up. Social media: From the report, it does sound like we're probably being targeted for exclusion. I'll check with a couple of other contacts, as well, see how far it goes. Can't be too hard to tell how many connections out people are being kept from it. But they also probably know that we're going to find it eventually. So we should keep an eye out for changes. Whether they're tracking us automatically or not shouldn't matter - it's only a matter of time before something gets tripped if they really are keeping us out. The reading: I agree that it doesn't sound like it's about the people themselves. But the meaning will probably come clearer once we do a bit more digging. Then we can see the connections more. The computer club president: Might be a good time to do other research on him. If he's developing this, maybe he's also developed other software. Could be another way in. Not liking seeing him pop up again, though. There's a few more actions I'm going to take, but they'll make more sense after Katie explains some of the stuff she's been doing. So I'll wait on her. Stay safe. Looks like we need to be more careful again now. Sorata *** He hits send, and then drinks off the tea. "Your turn," he comments to Katie, as he goes to get a refill. --- [Ardweden] Katie nods from her place on the couch. She'd brought over blankets, and no, she never did manage to get out of her pajamas. "Tomorrow," she says, intent on drawing something. "I've got to scan some stuff first." --- [Capfox] Kyon nods curtly, and deals with the tea. "Whatever's going to make it easiest to follow." --- [Ardweden] (Encrypted) From: Katie Andrews Date: Early Afternoon Sunday, February 29, 2004 (Japan) Subject: Re: SM To: Taki Shimiru, Kyon Sorata, Satoshi Watanabe, Haruko Kinsha, Wataru Yamada, Kaede Takeuchi Ok. Kaede sent me some files that look like an introduction once you double card draw to get into Shuffle’s premium service. They’re attached. One is Remi Okui, the Five of Cups. The other is Yorihisa Murimura, just the mp3 though. I figured some stuff out about both of them & am sending attachments to try to show what I mean about them, too, but they might be hard for other people to see or hear so I also made some drawings to make things more clear, hopefully. About Remi, she doesn’t look controlled at all to me. She’s also mostly using her powers to break those blocks. I put in an attachment so you can see what I mean. This is something she couldn’t do before, so she’s gotten much better. She also looks like she’s going to get approval after she does it. I think she’s being trained by one of the people out of camera. So in the front of the video is a glass of water & I was able to make out some figures who are watching the filming. It looks like Yorihisa is there, hunched over a laptop. His posture matches even if his hair is different now. One’s obv a camerawoman & another is someone who’s probably a photographer. The last one is someone I don’t recognize one way or another. Looks like a woman, maybe middle aged but can’t completely tell, probably wealthy. She wears nice clothes & jewelry and looks like she’s in control. I saw her reflection off of Remi’s eyes for a second & I think she’s the one who’s training her. I think she’s probably Arcana. The audio file is all Yorihisa & I’m pretty positive it’s actually him. His speaking is off though. It’s not natural for him & it sounds like it took them multiple takes cut and put back together. It kind of resonates with older speech patterns from earlier news shows and stuff. He also uses a lot of phrases that are heavily used by the Liberal Democratic Party, esp in speeches about education, and when it comes to that double esp to do with speeches about high school in the Tokyo area. Also they’re used a lot more among lower ranking members of the party, sort of a stock speech thing maybe? One of those kinds of people is Kazuko Yamagata. [wiki link to her; there’s no much to be found, unfortunately]. I saw her when Kyon & I went out in December. She looked kind of familiar but I couldn’t place her then. It might be coincidence but maybe not. At least if she’s involved we know one place she’s been. This whole thing fits with the rumor I heard that Aka Uehara’s dating someone in politics. I’m going to send a bunch of attachments so you can see what I mean about all of this. The files Kaede sent me are there, and I did the best I could with screenshots and stuff. I’m also sending some sketches that I scanned of what I spotted if it’s too hard to make things out. Also Kaede told me that he found out that he, Akemi, and I have all gotten invites to this Shuffle thing & were also blocked from receiving them. So someone involved doesn’t want us in. Since none of you got invites, I wonder if you were blocked too. About Kaede’s reading, idk what to say except that it looks like the Three of Cups is right & we should probably look out for the other stuff. I tried going to a few different tarot sites and flipping cards. Seemed random. Whatever they’re doing is not just card clicking over the internet, but they do have Arcana on their side so it makes sense. Katie [Attachments! So many attachments, possibly spread out across some additional encrypted e-mails that are just attachments. They are as follows:] [1. A .mov of Remi Okui - a Japanese girl about average height, with long, dark brown hair and hazel eyes - practicing karate with a fairly disciplined look. There's just the slightest trace of frost on the board she smashes.] [2. An .mp3 of someone who, now that it’s been said multiple times, is probably recognizable to anyone who’s met him as Yorihisa Murimura. His speech patterns are, to someone who listens very closely, slightly unnatural. What he says is as follows: "I created Shuffle because despite living in the greatest metropolis in the world, too many of us find ourselves alone, put together with others by distant authority figures without our true selves at heart, feeling as if there's no one we can talk to or confide in… But I'm here to tell you, you don't have to be alone. There are other people like you that can offer you so much more than the co-workers and classmates that we're assigned to. High school is an adventure for all of us... But there can be better days thereafter. We all have our roles, major or minor, and it's time someone recognized that rather than just treating you like a test score, an office drone, or a household aide. But I've already droned on too long. Welcome to Shuffle's premium service. We're glad to have you."] [3-6. Numerous screen captures of reflections from Remi’s .mov, blown up and clarified as best as Katie could. The one that shows the use of her powers is clear enough: it’s directed frost that she uses to ice over and then more easily shatter the wooden block. The other two, supposedly of people reflected in a water glass in the foreground, are really hard to get anything from, though Katie’s done her best to point out what she’s seeing with arrows and short notes matching them to the next set of attachments.] [7-10. Scanned sketches that Katie’s made and matched to blown up screenshots. Katie tried to make them as accurate to what she sees as possible, and unfortunately she wasn’t able to spot much detail in the way of facial features. Individually, they are: 7. A camera woman. 8. What’s probably Yorihisa in a turtleneck, hunched over his laptop and ignoring whatever’s going on, 9. A man with deferential posture in what Kaede, at least, would recognize as fairly standard uniform for people who work photoshoots, who is labeled as talking to 10. A woman in modern, elegant clothing, who is standing in a way that is anything but deferential. She’s labeled as the one Remi was looking to for approval.] [11. A .txt log of Katie card clicking across various tarot sites. Her results are pretty random. Across 100 clicks, the Page of Swords came up four times, none of them in a row.] --- [Jihatsu] (Encrypted) From: Wataru Yamada Date: Early Afternoon Sunday, February 29, 2004 (Japan) Subject: Re: Re: SM To: Satoshi Watanabe Looked at Katie's email and attachments. Man. I really hate to be saying this, but is there any chance you recognize that woman? You know the one I mean. I may not be the first person you want to reach out to if you do, but know that you can call me any time. I'm keeping my phone near me and the ringer on. I'm working on a longer email to everyone that I'll send in a bit. Take care of yourself. Wataru ***** (Encrypted) From: Wataru Yamada Date: Late Afternoon Sunday, February 29, 2004 (Japan) Subject: Re: Re: SM To: Taki Shimiru, Kyon Sorata, Satoshi Watanabe, Haruko Kinsha, Katie Andrews, Kaede Takeuchi Hi guys, okay, so I've been working on some stuff on my own but I need to respond to this because it really made me think. It sounds to me like they're trying to draw undeclared Arcana out of the woodwork. People like I used to be, not so long ago. There's still a lot of us that none of you have identified, right? It sounds like this Shuffle thing is meant to bring those people out of hiding. Oh and, if Yamagata is dating Aka, then it's an easy leap to assume they're working on the same plan and Council of Mysteries might be just another way to draw reticent Arcana out. Hey look! Cool adventures! Book heroics! I remember some of this! Let me squee at the author because I'm so clever and special! Hell, if I wasn't hugely paranoid some of this might have gotten me. I'm sure I'm not the only person who's spent years afraid of themselves and the secrets they've been living in the margins of. I can see some people jumping on the opportunity now that the worst seems to be past. Everyone wants to feel like they're not freaks and alone. Not a hard button to push. I guess my main question is, how do we know the bad guys are bad guys? Have they done anything that's actually hurt anyone, besides dredge up the past? Maybe they just want to encourage Arcana to socialize with each other and hang out and have someone to talk to. Or maybe they want to catalogue us for nefarious purposes. Maybe they want to train us to be the best that we can be. Or hell, get us to band together to take the inferior un-Arcana masses down a notch. In nerd terms, are they Professor X or are they Magneto, you know? Or is it something even worse? Do we know for sure that any of the people involved have been - for want of a better term - bad guys, in the past? Is this scary because we're all hiding from Temperance and from public scrutiny and persecution and they seem keen on busting it wide open, or is it scary because these people are bad people? The old-fashioned language is strange though. Aren't most Arcana about our age? Anyway. What I'm wondering, for a next step, is like. Is there any way to piggyback on their recruitment algorithm (or whatever) to know who they're ferreting out? I know we're being deliberately blocked, which I agree is weird - but again, if someone involved knows us and thinks we're meddlers who will be against this grand plan of pan-Arcana kumbayah or exclusive dinner parties where people show off their board-breaking skills and pat each other on the back for being better than the human proletariat or whatever, then that could also be a legit reason for leaving us out. If they think we'll spoil their fun. I think you said you were going to see who else was being blocked, but is there any way to see who isn't? If they're recruiting, for good or for evil, it might be good to see who's taking the bait. Sorry for bursting into your convo full of ideas and ignorance, but I really really know what it's like to be suddenly given an in into a group of people who might be able to understand you, and it's powerful stuff. If the bad guys really are bad guys, and you guys want to help vulnerable newbie Arcana not be wrecked by them, I'm with you all the way. I'll focus my reading on that woman who seems in charge, unless I get objections or suggestions otherwise. Take care, Wataru ***** (Encrypted) From: Wataru Yamada Date: Late Afternoon Sunday, February 29, 2004 (Japan) [A few minutes after the previous one] Subject: Re: Re: SM To: Kyon Sorata, Satoshi Watanabe, Haruko Kinsha, Katie Andrews, Kaede Takeuchi Leaving Taki-san out of this one. But can we be sure the Hierophant isn't also involved? Could Nicola's interest in us be coming from her sister? Most likely it's not related, but you know. I'm just telling you all I'm thinking, do with it what you will. W. --- [Grysar] Haruko catches up that evening, yawning as she goes. She nods along to Wataru's email and types a quick response. Before she hits send she fiddles rewrites the possible identity of the Arcana she mentions in the fourth paragraph. She then plays around with adding a final sentence and discussing past lives before yawning mightily, deleting her abortive attempts, and hitting send. (Encrypted) From: Haruko Kinsha, Date: Evening Sunday, February 29, 2004 (Japan) Subject: Re: Re: SM To: Taki Shimiru, Kyon Sorata, Satoshi Watanabe, Katie Andrews, Kaede Takeuchi, Wataru Yamada Good evening all, I'm impressed at all the research that has been done. Playing catch up for the end of term is really eating up a lot of my time at the moment. However, I just wanted to say that everything Wataru is saying makes a lot of sense to me, including the idea that we don't have a clear play here. I'm still willing to put myself out as bait by applying to Shuffle, but between Kaede's comments and Wataru's I suspect the time is not yet right. I've already got inquiries out that may result in some leads as to whether anyone else is involved. Ken would have deleted and forgotten about it had he received an invite. Maki say she did at some point and so do a few other club members. She quickly classified it as spam, a few other people joined up, and one said not to worry, he'll still rely on the club o-mikuji fundraiser for his fortune telling. Nice, I guess. There were comments that it was kind of gimmicky but no one noted anything weird about it. Mom hasn't heard of it, father is still iffy on texting. Hm.. reading wise, the people that are most worried, what are you most concerned about? We might want to focus on that. If we did a reading and learned that the one behind this all was the Emperor (not his Majesty the Heavenly Sovereign of course, I mean the as yet unknown major arcana), then I think we're better off but still don't have a clear play. Not that we can't do multiple readings, but there are some theories of fortune telling that discourage trying to approach the same problem with different occult approaches or questions. That said, I do think if this were like Magneto- level bad (he's the metal telekinetic guy that doesn't like normal humans, right?), we'd probably be getting quests from Hinako. Haruko --- [Ciara] While Kyon's e-mail arrives early on Saturday morning, Eastern US time, Satoshi doesn't read it right away. Because, honestly, what can he do from where he is right now except make himself more anxious? That's no help to anyone. Right now his obligation is to his team here, and helping them avoid back-to-back losses and get in even better position for the playoffs. Kyon of all people, Satoshi thinks, would understand this. Besides, he's got spring break coming for the next two weeks so he'll have time to finish up Council of Mysteries and do whatever research he can manage on this end. Plus he's going to be talking to Wataru on Monday. He does keep his phone with him as much as he can, though, just in case. The Black Bears rebound nicely from their loss, beating UMass Lowell 4-0, with Satoshi and Joshua getting assists on Liam's goal. Satoshi thinks he maybe could have been a bit more aggressive out there, but whatever, they won and he's still getting plenty of points, so. The next morning, exhausted from games and travel and midterms, Satoshi and Liam do the unthinkable... ...and let themselves sleep in. So it's something of a scramble when Grant knocks on their door, expecting them to be ready, when in actuality they've just woken up. The e-mails from Katie, Wataru, and Haruko go unnoticed for the moment. The ride back to Maine is fairly celebratory; the decisive win last night has everyone feeling pretty good, though the impromptu team meeting that happens stresses the importance of not letting up for their last two games despite spring break and the fact that they're pretty much a lock for the NCAA tournament at this point. They do have a couple of days off, and Satoshi, Grant, Liam, and Joshua are planning a trip to Acadia National Park, so they start discussing that. And grocery shopping, because Grant has promised to make peanut butter cookies using his grandmother's recipe, though where they're going to find an oven is anyone's guess... well, Joshua knows someone, apparently. So there's that, too. Satoshi does briefly check his e-mail but he sees that Katie's has a bunch of attachments and so it's probably better for him to wait until he actually gets back to the privacy of the dorm room (Paul went back to Portland on Saturday) to check things out. He is curious about the multiple e-mails from Wataru, but at least one of them is a followup to Katie's e-mail and so it doesn't really make sense for him to read them until he's had a chance to check hers out. When all is said and done, Satoshi really doesn't get a chance to sit down and look at things until after dinner. He reads Kyon's first and makes a note to get the second book finished before Kyon has the meeting with Aka. He idly wonders if it's worth checking in with Paul once he gets back regarding Shuffle, because he might, in theory, hear something about it or maybe even get an invite via Shizaru, but since it's a Japan-based site then it seems pretty unlikely. They may even have prohibitions against foreign members, or something. Then he gets to Katie's and starts combing through the attachments. Politics, that's way over his head right now; the closest he's gotten was someone at a voter registration table on campus asking if he wanted to sign up, and him having to sadly explain that he was a foreign student and thus ineligible. When he gets to #10, he freezes for a moment, because that's... that could be... no, it might not be... but she *reminds* him of... but he can't tell for certain. Wataru's first e-mail, the one that's just to him, comes next. After he's done reading it, he goes back and stares at the attachment again for a while. If that really *is* her, then... well, it goes against what Winston told them, about how she liked to keep her appearance young, but this woman obviously has plans, plans that probably require a certain amount of age- related prestige, so... (Encrypted) From: Satoshi Watanabe Date: Morning Monday March 1, 2004 (Japan) / Evening Sunday February 29, 2004 (Maine) Subject: Re: Re: Re: SM To: Wataru Yamada Hey. So even before I read your e-mail, when I saw the attachment on Katie's, I thought about it, and then I went back and looked after reading yours. And the answer, fortunately or unfortunately, is that I can't really tell for certain. It might be? But it might not be. If we weren't already scheduled to talk tomorrow (well, my tomorrow; your tonight), I think I might take you up on your offer, but at this point I'd rather wait and be able to talk to you "in person," so to speak. But if we have another campus internet outage or we have to cut it short to keep your aunt from getting another visit from the bandwidth police, then I'll call. I appreciate the reminder, though. It's nice to have. Satoshi That having been sent, Satoshi reads over Wataru's other two e-mails and Haruko's followup. Then he goes back and looks at the attachments again. And again. He flips back and forth between Remi and the woman, noting Remi's expression when she's looking for approval... how many times did he have that same expression, growing up? If the woman really is her... If, if, if. He really doesn't want to do this. But he needs to. (Encrypted e-mail) From: Satoshi Watanabe Date: Late Morning Monday March 1, 2004 (Japan) / Late Evening Sunday, February 29, 2004 (Maine) Subject: Re: Re: Re: SM To: Haruko Kinsha, Wataru Yamada, Katie Andrews, Kyon Sorata, Kaede Takeuchi, Taki Shimiru I can't really think of a good way to put this, so I'm not even going to try. The older woman, the one in the reflection? Guys, that might be my mom. Might. I can't tell for certain. But I can't say with certainty that she isn't. She definitely reminds me of her. But if it were her, then it would go against what Winston said about liking to keep herself under 35. On the other hand, these certainly look like the type of plans where age would have an advantage. I'm sorry. This is really disorganized. And you guys are right; we don't know their plans. For all my personal issues... I'm not really sure we can argue that she's a "bad guy." A terrible person, yeah, but... not necessarily completely on the side of evil. If there really is a side of evil anymore. I just... I just wanted to get this out there. If it really is her, and again, I'm not sure... regardless of what they're planning, we need to be very, very careful. I mean, even if it isn't her we should still be careful and people have already said that, but... I'm sorry. This is a mess. I'm going to go to sleep now. I'll try to have something more together in the morning. Satoshi --- [Grysar] (Encrypted e-mail) From: Haruko Kinsha Date: Later Morning Monday March 1, 2004 (Japan) / Late Evening Sunday, February 29, 2004 (Maine) Subject: Re: Re: Re: Re: SM To: Satoshi Watanabe, Wataru Yamada, Katie Andrews, Kyon Sorata, Kaede Takeuchi, Taki Shimiru That must be a terrible shock to even have to consider the possibility, I agree with your counsel on being very^2 careful. You owe no apology, whatever complications, evil or no, this person causes is not your fault and I don't think it's your responsibility to try to solve this in the morning or anything. I think Wataru's idea of doing a reading makes a lot of sense. Let's figure out what concerns us the most and what we want to cautiously look into. In the bad old days, we got involved in most everything but people were disappearing and it literally was the end of the world. Katie and Kaede did some excellent research and now we have a sense of how deep this might go. Wataru will do his read, I've already emailed people about the Council of Mysteries so we'll see who I hear back from. But I think one of the benefits of good intelligence is to help us decide what is worth sticking our collective noses into and keep an eye on problems but stay out. Haruko ***** (Encrypted e-mail) From: Haruko Kinsha Date: Later Morning Monday March 1, 2004 (Japan) / Late Evening Sunday, February 29, 2004 (Maine) Subject: Re: Re: Re: Re: SM To: Satoshi Watanabe I'm sorry I asked such a big question right before you had another thing forced on you. I just wanted to say that no matter what goes down, I've got your back and put a lot of value on your judgment. Don't be afraid to focus on your team and school. There's going to be terrible majors wandering around our whole lives, and we won't really live them if we spend all our time thinking about them rather than focusing on our vocations. Keep doing what you think is right, but don't punish yourself for not pursuing all the other paths. We always have more we feel we ought to do than we can do. Hugs, Haruko --- [Ciara] (NB: This takes place after Satoshi talks with Wataru (see the “Declaring a Major (Arcana)” log) but before Wataru does his reading (see the “Tarot Time” log.) I mean, you can tell from the dates, but sometimes it's just easier to say these things up front for the purpose of keeping things organized!) Satoshi returns to his dorm room with a nice steaming bowl of possibly over- glopped oatmeal and a refill of coffee. He eats a couple spoonfuls, frowns slightly, and sets the bowl down, going to his e-mail program to write his promised update. (Encrypted e-mail) From: Satoshi Watanabe Date: Very Early on Tuesday March 2, 2004 (Japan) / Late Morning Monday March 1, 2004 (Maine) Subject: Many Re: SM To: Haruko Kinsha, Wataru Yamada, Katie Andrews, Kyon Sorata, Kaede Takeuchi, Taki Shimiru First off, thanks for being patient and supportive, guys. I really appreciate it. I'm glad to have you, and thanks for putting up with me while we sort these things out. Second, while talking with Wataru, he pointed out that the name of the company is Global Personnel Services. Global. As in the world. Or The World. This is the kind of thing she'd do, I think. It's a generic enough name to be subtle, but once you look at it from that particular point of view, well... it's clever. So I think we have more signs pointing in that direction. Going forward under the assumption that it is her... I'm sorry that I don't have a ton of insight on what she's doing and why she's doing it. I mean, I've never quite understood why her plans for me were what they were. I don't really know what she wanted with Hideo, either, other than apparently it was important for Judgement to still be around. But I can offer what I know regarding her behavior and habits, if nothing else. For now, I agree about sticking with gathering information until we have a better idea of what might be going on. Please keep me posted, and again, be careful. Satoshi ***** (Encrypted e-mail) From: Satoshi Watanabe Date: Very Early on Tuesday March 2, 2004 (Japan) / Late Morning Monday March 1, 2004 (Maine) Subject: Don't Worry About It To: Haruko Kinsha Haruko, Don't worry about when you asked your question. It's not like any of us knew exactly what was coming. This was completely out of your purview. That having been said, I haven't really been able to give that much thought to it, given circumstances, but I promise you'll have my decision by the end of the month. And thank you. I'm planning to stay where I am for now. If circumstances change, I'll reconsider things, but after having heard from you and a couple of the others, it really doesn't make sense for me to come running back. After all, she's already dictated a lot of my life. I don't want her to keep doing it. I've got an awesome team who are also awesome friends. Also, to make a terrible pun about bad majors, I'm trying to avoid those by seriously considering applying to the English department. Which may be kind of weird, given I'm not a native speaker, but it's actually very intriguing and I enjoy telling and talking about stories. Good luck with the end of your semester! Satoshi ***** Satoshi hesitates before starting his third e-mail, because this is going to start something in motion that he has no idea of how it will end. But it's been building more and more in the back of his mind, and his conversation with Wataru helped him put a few more pieces together... (Encrypted e-mail) From: Satoshi Watanabe Date: Very Early on Tuesday March 2, 2004 (Japan) / Late Morning Monday March 1, 2004 (Maine) Subject: Taking You Up On Your Offer To: Kaede Takeuchi Kaede, You probably didn't expect me to take you up on your offer to call you if I needed to so soon, but I've had some realizations about why I've been feeling the way I have regarding particular subjects, and parts of the past that haven't really been dealt with yet because the time wasn't right. It may be getting closer to being the right time, but I honestly could use some advice on how I might go about it. Please let me know when a good time to call would be. Satoshi ***** Satoshi also sends a quick text to Wataru: "Hey. Sent e-mail to the whole group re: the relevant things we talked about. Let me know how things go with internet." [End!]