[handwritten / audio]

[neonnerd]

[The beginning of this entry is filled with what looks like pieces of lecture notes, a mishmash of engineering calculations and medical facts, mixed in with half explanations and unfinished anecdotes. It's mostly organized, equations on one side and medical concerns on the other, but the overall result is probably still a bit confusing, as Benjamin writes whatever comes to his mind. It's how he's taken to preparing lecture notes for his classes - only this time, he's written down the number that's stuck in his mind and then continued on without realizing it.

Fortunately, it isn't too long before he notices the change in his whiteboard, and then his attention is, quite obviously, very far from lecture preparation.]

This is quite unexpected. And - fascinating. How is this possible? I'm quite certain I would have noticed before now, had my whiteboard been capable of user interface. Did they replace it while I was gone? This would be much more convenient, though there was nothing wrong with the traditional version, I can easily make do with markers and -

No, this is something far different. How many people can read this?

Comments

[espigeonage]

I could leave. That does seem to be the surest fix. But, y'know, even if I can't do much good I'd do significantly less if I wasn't here.

[neonnerd]

The surest fix? So - leaving reverses anything that's happened?

[He'll get to the rest in a moment, but he's distracted by that.]

[espigeonage]

If you go too far out of the city - pretty far, actually, past the suburbs, way out in the country - you don't remember any of this. Any special items, anything weird-looking, it just goes back to normal. Then you come back in range, or whatever, and there it is again. It's pretty weird.

[neonnerd]

And - any changes to your person, they revert as well?

[espigeonage]

That's right. So it's still possible to go on vacation or whatever and be untroubled by all this. I'd guess if someone tried to leave to escape all this and didn't have like a destination in mind, like they're moving, they'd come back.

[neonnerd]

Interesting. Yes, that makes sense - if you no longer remember any of this, you'd no longer remember the reason you'd left. I assume people have tested this?

[espigeonage]

Sort of! You get your people leaving just to be out of this and I assume it works for them, there've been a few vacations, and some attempts to talk to these people about all this. A kid left himself notes about the goings-on and just assumed he was writing about a story.

[neonnerd]

[The story writing bit gets a chuckle - although now he's thinking of testing this out himself.]

What of the people you've met because of this? Do you forget them, too, or simply not remember how you came to know each other?

[espigeonage]

Well that seems to depend! When I was out for a while a friend I met here called me, and I knew her and that we were friends, but even if we'd done some numbers club stuff together, we'd also just hung out, too.

[neonnerd]

Another thing that seems to depend on the person, then, like these 'echoes.' Perhaps I should test it, somewhere down the line.

[espigeonage]

I prefer calling them 'pulses', myself. And hey, if you like!