toleroid 2021/03/01(Mon)16:05 No. 989641 ID: 66faa3
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Year 1 January 1
13:00

You open your eyes. Searing light comes in from the window beside your bed.

Your heart is pounding. Something bad is going to happen soon. Some kind of disaster. You had a dream about it, but you just can't remember...

toleroid 2021/03/01(Mon)16:08 No. 989642 ID: 66faa3
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Remember… Ah, yes… you remember now.

Your name is ADRIAN OBLONSKY. You're 26 years old. Currently, you live in a dilapidated apartment with a possible gas leak, cockroaches, and a next-door neighbour who is running some sort of short-term rental scheme.

At least it's close to work.

Speaking of work, it’s already 1pm but you’re still lying in bed.

You better call in sick then.

Well it’s a good thing you don’t work until 2pm then! Get a shower and get dressed, best not to stress things out, maybe a shower will help jog your memory of whatever bad thing was supposed to happen. (And who knows this might be the last time you can take a hot shower in a while)

Your management is more incompetent than you, so you can skip work half the time and still get paid for it.
Besides, you work from home.

>>989642
Vox?
What was on the jade ring?
Do you have any survival supplies?

toleroid 2021/03/01(Mon)21:57 No. 989667 ID: 433deb
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>>989645
> Take a shower.
You decide to take a shower. As you walk into the bathroom, it takes a moment for you to find the light switch.

Although everything around you is familiar - your room, your body - it is familiar in the manner of an old and distant memory.

You find yourself staring at your reflection in the mirror. It’s a jarring experience.

toleroid 2021/03/01(Mon)21:57 No. 989668 ID: 433deb
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As a PhD student working in a computational bio lab, you have the rare luxury of clocking in at work really late or not at all. When you don’t have a meeting, you frequently set your calendar to WFH, and spend your day in bed with your laptop.

Today is one of those days, so you’re taking a nice, long shower. After all, who knows when you’ll get one again.

After a few minutes, your brain finally decides to boot up. You’re not in the habit of taking mind-altering drugs, but it’s really difficult right now to remember the near past. You have no idea, for example, what you ate for lunch yesterday, who you’ve talked to last week, and what you’re supposed to do today.

However, you still remember, in a general sense, that you’re in the 5th year of your program, and very recently, your lab has produced some very encouraging results. From this, you can deduce the situation.

As of late, you’ve been sitting at home doing nothing. You’re close to completing your thesis, but your advisor, Professor Petrakis, has repeatedly delayed you from defending because he wants you to continue working in his lab.

Although the project is good, you feel reluctant about continuing here because, to be honest, your advisor doesn’t have a very strong computational background. There’s nothing left that he can teach you.

You’ve considered switching to the wet lab associated with this project, and you’ve had some offers, but…

The water is getting cold.

You shut off the shower, and proceed to towel off.

Although you should really be thinking about your future right now, you can’t help but return to the dream you had this morning.

>>989650
>What was on the jade ring?
What appeared to be Chinese characters. You couldn’t read them.
>Do you have any survival supplies?
You have… two boxes of soylent? Does that count? If a disaster really happens, you have no idea how you’ll survive. Your area of expertise is writing algorithms, not bushcraft.

Paperdoll toleroid 2021/03/01(Mon)21:57 No. 989669 ID: 433deb
File 161466464774.png - (537.67KB , 2160x1620 , 6 Paperdoll.png )

Anyway, you’re naked now. Do you want to get dressed? [Please give suggestions on what to wear.]

Or do you want to do something else?

Whatever you wear, Wear something yellow.

>>989669
Definitely something green.
Where is "home" for you?

Try contacting someone and find out if they're having memory problems too.

Wear heavy clothing

Pop your arm out the window, see how cold it is and adjust your wardrobe accordingly, maybe put on a tee shirt with your favorite cartoon character on it or something?

Pawn_01 2021/03/02(Tue)13:40 No. 989717 ID: 894419
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there is of course, only one acceptable t-shirt choice.

Wear pants to match with the theme.

Oh, and shoes. Shoes are important.

toleroid 2021/03/02(Tue)23:47 No. 989757 ID: 4da22c
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>>989672
Home is Moscow, where you grew up and went to school, and Karelia, where you spent many summers as a child, with your grandparents. Now you live in Midtown Manhattan, and this city has also been your “home” for the last 7 years.

>>989689
It’s around -2 °C today. Normal winter weather in these parts.

>>989717
You only wear the Steve shirt on Tuesdays.

>>989670
>>989672
>>989687
>>989689
>>989718
You get dressed.

toleroid 2021/03/02(Tue)23:49 No. 989758 ID: 4da22c
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>>989672
>Try contacting someone and find out if they're having memory problems too.
Who do you want to message? There’s the following people in your contact list:

Cassian, an undergrad computer science student who is helping out at the lab. You think he’s working on some algorithm optimization stuff. You don’t know him too well. Looks like he sent you some new messages.

Diana, a post-doc with expertise in genetic mutations. Her recent paper (which you are second author on) was accepted by a prominent journal.

Ha-neul, a fourth year grad student. You’ve taken several classes with her. She frequently shows you pictures of her cat.

Professor Petrakis, your advisor, and the principal investigator at ACE-VIR2, the dry lab associated with the ACE-VIR project.

>>989758
Cassian. Reading his messages should give you an excuse to send him one.

Cassian seems like the best choice. Plus I wanna see what the new messages are.

Cassian, he sent you a message so you should check it and respond, good enough person to message as any tbh.

toleroid 2021/03/03(Wed)20:41 No. 989867 ID: 62e4a5
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>>989765
>>989793
>>989804
Cassian it is.

Received today at 9:05. ‣ Hey adrian if you have time today, can I borrow your lab notebooks? I can pick them up or meet you wherever it’s convenient ‣ I have a family emergency so I’m going home tomorrow morning. I don’t want to delay progress so it would be awesome if I can scan them before I leave. I can drop them off at your place tonight ‣ Also can you give me access to the server or should I ask Jon? ‣ Sorry for disturbing you ♥ Received today at 12:47. ‣ Hey you there?

Yeah, since you barely know him, it’s not much of a loss if he thinks you’re a little bit weird.

‣Hey ‣ Have you ever had an experience where ‣ You wake up in the morning and you don’t remember anything

Read.

After two or three minutes, he finally replies.

‣ Haha ‣ I asked you about it a while back, so no worries if you forgot. ‣ Sorry, I know this is really last minute, but my uncle is sick. I have to go home and see him and I have no idea when I’ll be able to get back. I might be in a different timezone for a month or something. So if I could ramp up using your notes, it would be a big help. ‣ Are you at home right now? Didn’t see your stuff in your office. If you give me your address, I can come over. ‣ Also, can you give me server access or is Jon in charge of that?

Ah, yes, Jon Keller, the lab manager. You hate that guy.

How do you want to respond?

I dunno, CAN you give him access to the server? Are you allowed, or is somebody (e.g. Jon) in charge of that?

If you don't want him inside, you could meet him out front.

I can't tell how many of these requests are reasonable. I feel like you shouldn't let him know where you live though.
Go and meet him at the office.

...hmm, he's going home, things have gone awry? Ask him if he dreamed of a man with a jade ring.

> Ask him if he dreamed of a man with a jade ring.
‣ Did you dream of a man with a jade ring?

He replies quickly this time.
‣ No? ‣ Is this some kind of reference?

‣ No, it's not a reference. ‣ A long-haired archer, wearing a white robe and a ring on his thumb. ‣ Did you have a dream like that?

‣ Like Legolas? ‣ I have no idea what you're talking about, man

>>989881
Technically Jon is in charge of that, but you can give him access if you want.

>>989882
His requests sound mostly reasonable to you, but you're not sure. Here's what you know:

He needs root-level server access to deploy his optimizations, and if he gets delayed, then parts of the project will be delayed too. The wet lab out in California is waiting on this to run some modeling.

If he gets very delayed, then it's highly probable that you'll have to do this work instead.

He's passed security clearance, so it's not your responsibility either way. Plus, if you don't give him access, he will ask Jon or the professor.

You're pretty sure he's going back to China (since he mentioned a time zone difference) but you're not that worried about him stealing all the research data or something. Basically, it's not that easy. The only way to do that is to physically go into the server room and download everything, but the only people who have access are you, the university server guy, Jon, and the prof.

On the other hand, this is probably Breaking Some Rules™. It's up to you.

Regarding the lab notebooks, maybe he needs them? You can see how they could be helpful, since you've worked on this stuff in the past. However, you don't have any recollection of agreeing to let him borrow them... but your memory is pretty loopy at the moment.

> Meet him at the office / meet him out front.
The university is not that close, but you can go there if you want to do something or talk to someone. Alternatively, you can meet him in a park near your place.

>>989941
Ehhh... tell him Jon's in charge of server access. Let's not break any rules just yet.
Go look at your message history to refresh your memory about the notes.

Tell him Jon’s in charge of server access, you don’t wanna be the one that has to deal with the fallout of that if something sketchy is going on. But in regards to your notes, sure, why not. I mean they’re just notes you made to make work easier, not the actual innerworkings of the project, so they’d only work with someone who knows whats going on.

And you’re still feeling weird from the dream, so have him come to you while you decide what you’re going to do for the day in preparation for the worst (that may or may not come)