Conversation · Soona, the Programmer

"Yeah, yeah," she says, disappointed. "Nothing happened, let's move on."

Despite her fear she was hoping for something extraordinary to take place.

"What do you mean 'nothing happened'? Did you find the swallow?"

"No." She rests her face on her hands, massaging the forehead.

"No, my hypothesis was wrong. According to this, I should have heard something if I got the coordinates right. Like I said: silence is only what surrounds it."

"But this..." She raises her head, staring at all the machines that litter the church, cables coiling up on the floor like pests. "This is just another failure. Silence sounds like silence. That's all it is."

"You can try on the headphones, see if you can hear anything, but don't get your hopes up."

Silence is silence? You're sure there's more to it...

This can't be it. You should have a listen.

"Great -- and here I thought we were finally going to the island..." the lieutenant murmurs to himself.

'But I am interested,' you read from his face.

Great -- you do know that we can just abandon this mission and go to the island? Let's close this case!

Cuno must be already on the island, wondering where the hell you are... or maybe he doesn't care. Yeah, he probably doesn't care.

"Come on, did you hear anything?"

"No, of course not," she says, clearly disappointed. "Nothing happened, let's move on."

"Can you hear anything?"

She doesn't answer, her eyes closed and brows knitted together in a state of deep focus, one hand cupping the headphone.

"Why assume that something that has no presence, existence or qualities has to be terrifying?"

"Because it reminds us of death. And we humans tend to think that death is pretty scary."

Death is scary. You can't just start over again. Or can you?

"Hey, I don't think I want to do it anymore... seems too dangerous." (Slowly start to back off.)

"No..." She breathes in, determined. "We have to do it." She puts on her oversized headphones, ready to press UNMUTE on the keyboard...

"What?"

"I don't know, I'm just scared. Maybe it's going to be something terrifying. Maybe it's going to tear the world apart."

Like that evil ink that filled the printout, erasing coherence and meaning.

"You're overthinking this."

"Wait, why did you have your headphones on mute in the first place?"

"Honestly..." She's avoiding your gaze. "Honestly, I'm a little scared."

"What's wrong?"

"Yeah," she snaps out of the lull. "Nothing. Now the only thing left to do is to unmute the headphones."

"About the off-site copy you asked me to bring..."

"Yes?"

"I found a note from the ice bear fridge. It said the off-site copy had been moved to 'a safer place'."

"Wait, a note from whom?" She freezes. "Did it specify where they took the filament memory?"

"It said the off-site copy had been taken to a nearby ice cream maker. The note was signed by someone named Sulisław."

"Zawisza, of course..." She relaxes. "Our project lead Sulisław Zawisza. God, he was always so hell-bent on keeping the copy somewhere 'safe'. And feature creep..." she mutters, "and the Valley of the Heads..."

"Like it would have made a difference -- the off-site copy was perfectly safe when the data loss happened. That data loss was anomalous." She crosses her arms defiantly.

"And the Heads -- I won't even get into the Heads, millions of them..." She stops. "Go find that copy from that ice cream maker, will you? Thanks."

Valley of the Thousand Heads? You like the sound of that.

"If it's called an off-site copy, then why is it still on-site?"

"Oh god, not this again..." She takes a deep breath, before letting it all out: "It is not on-site, it is in the basement, perfectly safe and not connected to the front at all."

Basement? Sounds like it's technically still on-site...

"And no, taking it outside the building wouldn't have protected it from the data loss. There's nothing wrong with keeping the backup in the basement. What happened was a freak accident that has nothing to do with how the backup was stored."

"We clear?" She stares at you with pleading, furious eyes.

This is clearly a painful topic for her. She must have had to explain herself numerous times.

"I found the ice cream maker, but couldn't get it open -- it's completely frozen."

"This is getting ridiculous. Can't you just defrost it? Or I don't know, I don't know about the ice cream maker... just figure something out."

There's a solution, but she doesn't want to hand it over to you yet. It's a thing, something she holds dear.

"By your old workspace do you mean the studio of Fortress Accident in the Doomed Commercial Area?"

"Yeah, that's the one. You can get in through the bookshop. You just have to do some explaining to the bookstore lady."

"And where exactly is the off-site copy?"

"In the giant ice bear fridge -- I just told you. It has red glowing eyes, it's impossible to miss. You just need to get the off-site copy from the ice bear."

But... you've been to the fridge and it wasn't there. There was a note saying...

"There's this giant ice bear fridge in the building's cellar -- it's there."

"Don't worry, you can't miss the bear." She gives you a rueful smile. "It's hideous."

"Actually, I've already been inside the Doomed Commercial Area."

"Good -- then you might know the giant ice bear fridge in the building's cellar. The filament is inside the fridge -- just go and get it."

"Wait -- bookstore lady -- you mean Plaisance?"

"That's her name, I believe."

"Why can't you go and get the filament yourself?"