savetheearth | iii

[Emmanuel's sitting at his desk at home, in casual clothes, looking a little bit apprehensive. Despite having a job that technically requires public speaking, he's never really addressed the network like this before. But since he hosted the last meeting, there doesn't seem to be a point in hiding his face anymore. There's a rustle of paper, and he looks down. He actually wrote down a few things to say to make sure he'd cover them.]

Hello, everyone. If we haven't met yet, I'm Reverend Hall. [he reaches up to scratch the back of his head.] I'm the minister at St. John's downtown, which is where we had the last meeting. Also, for anyone new, self-defense lessons are held there every Wednesday night.

We discussed a lot of important things the other week, but I noticed something we missed. It seems like the F.A.Q. that gets passed around hasn't updated in a while. I'm not sure if the person who wrote it is still with us...

[he trails off here, frowning, then holds up a hand.]

I mean--not in the morbid sense. Just that they may have forgotten everything. Been...disconnected? I'm not sure we have a term for that yet. Anyway, uh--

[okay, he's rambling. Time to check the list.] I just meant to say that it should probably be updated with a few things, especially since we seem to be getting more new people every day. If necessary, I can take over recording anything important that happens so other people can have the information. This is pretty critical now, I think, because things have been getting steadily more dangerous.

[he sobers here, visually, sitting back and straightening his shoulders.]

I just want to impress it upon everyone, even if you've just connected and you think this is all a joke--there's no harm in being cautious. Please. I don't think any of us want to see anyone else get hurt, or worse. I know someone was trying to gather information on what all of us have to offer, but I'm not sure how far that's gotten. I get that some people still want to be cautious about letting people know who they are here, but if you have any sort of medical expertise, connections, that kind of thing, and you feel brave enough to offer, please do. At the meeting I proposed a mutual fund for anyone that needs it, as well. I can keep track of it, though ideally someone who knows more about making bank accounts untraceable might want to handle that...it could be for anything from emergency food to contact lenses for people who can't really hide their changes.

[as Emmanuel keeps speaking, he gets less hesitant and more focused. He finishes with his hands clasped on the desk in front of him.]

Other than that, I was wondering if anyone had an update on the water situation. I know there was talk about dropping the information to the media, but did that pan out?

[he also writes in a link to said FAQ after his post.]

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Aah, that's right, the FAQ hasn't updated in a while. It's not like that guy was ever the chattiest person here, but I don't remember the last time I heard from him. Hmm. Yeah, it really couldn't hurt to take over on that front.

Hah, I've been a little out of the loop. [he's been depressed.] I'm not sure I saw what we're doing about the water. Well, I did let the people who went out to the reservoir know where I put that camera, at least...

Oh, well, hello. It's John from the reservoir. :)

I can't really offer any medical assistance or anything, but for whatever it is worth, I've become pretty good at navigating the system and grabbing resources for people from the government. (It comes with the territory of my job.) So... There's that?

[Gosh, that seems kind of lame, but that's all he can really offer.]

And if you can keep the FAQ up to date, that'd be great. Didn't know the original author, but I hope he's okay, one way or another...

Exactly how much is missing from it?

[He was around long enough to see the water contamination and that girl's kidnapping, but who knows if he's missed anything else.

Being in the numbers club is bad for Roy's blood pressure.]

Maybe an open Google Document, so that if it goes down ...

Wait, never fucking mind, anything not on this network isn't secure. The NSA could find it and decide we're a terrorist threat.

How would one contribute to this fund?

i left him a message on the entry a week ago, but i never got a reply. there's always a chance he just hasn't had a chance to see it, but considering the kind of danger we're in, i can't help but assume something's up on his end.

Edited 2013-09-12 18:21 (UTC)

What about creating a charitable organization to handle the donations and giving them out? It could be managed among those here. It would not be difficult to create and I could handle the legal ends of it.

Someone mentioned tipping off the media anonymously, but I think other people would know better ways to do that than I would.

The last update was at the end of July, so...I guess the water and what we discussed at the meeting? And the second trip to the mines. [there's the scratch of pen on paper.]

Hello again.

If you don't mind, what sort of resources do you mean? And I'm not sure if anyone knew him personally, but if they do we could check if he's just forgotten.

About a month and a half. The contaminated water, checking out the reservoir, plus a group of us held a meeting and shared some data about Thunder Co. Also, another group revisited the mines. I didn't think it was a good idea, but at least no one got hurt.

That was the concern with us trading information about pulses/echoes/memories, right?

At the very least, I can compile the information, and make a note that any further updates will be in the replies. That way anyone can add things.

It depends on how we decide to establish it. I could take donations at the church, which would make things significantly less suspicious, I think.

I'm not sure whether it would be safer to have a bank account or just store cash, to be honest. The latter is liable to get stolen, but the former can be traced.

Best case scenario, he's just forgotten. Anyone who has is a lot safer, because they won't look suspicious.

That's...

[he pauses.]

You mean, like a non-profit? That's a pretty good idea, actually. The only question is, what would be the cover story?

Yes, like a non-profit. Considering some of what would be provided, I'd say a good cover would be something to help the poor.

Yeah, I know computers somewhat but there are people here who are good with proxies and so on. There's always sending anonymous notes on actual paper and stuff, I'd be good for checking that there weren't fingerprints coming along with those.

I still think that second trip was a bad idea. Heh...

there's always the possibility that the police could still be after them, though, and he wouldn't have any way of knowing why... but that's kind of defeatist. i'd like to believe he's ok.

i was talking to another user about making a faq and maybe a timeline of events on the same server that the echo database is stored on, and making it open source so anyone can edit it. that way, even if all of the original creators of the document left, it would still be open and available for updates.

Chris and...Tamara seem to know what they're doing, I think. And there are a few other people. Ah, I didn't think about that--it's too bad the police are against us, you'd be good with forensics, huh?

[belatedly he realizes that joke might not be appreciated, and feels a little embarrassed.]

I agree. They were mostly kids, too--I wanted to go to make sure they didn't get into trouble, but I was tied up that day. At least everyone's all right.

Believe me, I'd rather believe that, too.

As long as we can be sure it's secure...I think this is a little more sensitive than the other document, though, because it's less anonymous. That's all. But I don't know much about computer security, so I'll trust that to the experts.

As long as it stays as under the radar as possible. I wouldn't want to involve any, uh. Civilians? Ordinary people. [is that even the right word? He considers himself a civilian, but then again...]

They cannot be involved in what they don't know about. In a way it would be like hiding a tree in a forest, we're creating an organization when many of that type do exist already.

[Julien's cool with it.]

Hah. Well, maybe! Funny how many career options have been opening up since I joined the Numbers Club.

I didn't even know anyone was going. People have been talking about heading back in since the first time, and there wasn't a cattle call this time. I hope it was at least more organized.

Yeah but with the Echoes, if anyone outside somehow got in there, they'd probably just assume it was for an RPG or a writer's notes or something. This one is a little more... I dunno.

But I guess that works too.

Man, as a programmer it's so frustrating that I can't... upload things to this "server" or execute code on it. I might be able to make our own document sharing software through it like that, it'd be easy, but I can't do that unless I know how the damn thing works...

You're good at looking on the bright side, you know. [he chuckles halfheartedly.]

I know the guy with the fire department went, so there was at least one responsible adult.

My computer expertise doesn't go very far beyond "word processing", but I can imagine. So there's no way to figure out how this all works? I guess if there's no hardware, it's tricky. I hesitate to call it magic, but that's the only explanation that seems to fit.

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