Back to the University

Bringing Anna and Mara onboard was a key play. But you realize you need more help... this time with the whole magic context.

Sure the girls can figure out the math of hacking the sim, but you have to believe there's more than math. And there is one field that has made an actual serious study of the whole concept of magic... which, if it has any validity at all, has got to be nibbling around the outskirts of hacking the sim.

So, you head to the Sociocultural Anthropology Department.

It's clear that Sociocultural Anthropology does not rate high in the funding scale. Compared to Physics, the graduate offices are even shabbier. The students are shabbier also, the ragged jeans the girls wear do not look like fashion accessories but cheap jeans that wore out. The guys are mostly bearded with similarly holed jeans and flannel shirts.

You ask around and finally find a girl who is pointed out as the expert on magic.

"I'm Stacy," she says.

"Mike," you say. "I'm told you're the resident expert on magic."

"Sorry," she says. "No naked girls dancing at midnight, no vampires, no drunken Ouiji boarding."

You check her out. She looks... normal? Brown hair, brown eyes. Her baggy t-shirt doesn't hide that she has a pair of tits but makes it hard to tell whether they're small or medium, and whether she's got a gut or a slender waist. Her jeans have enough holes to be ragged but don't have the **** holes that would show off their shape. And her face... well, it's more cute than beautiful. She's got freckles across her nose, wideset big eyes, and lips devoid of a trace of lipstick.

"All that is disappointing, I'm sure," you say. "But I'm looking for someone who can help me with the rituals needed to gain the universe's attention."

"You're assuming the universe is alive?"

"Actually I'm assuming it's a computer program running on some advanced computer."

"That is crazy."

"I'm working with a couple of graduate students in the physics and math departments who don't think so. We're working on formulating a language based on math which is hard enough. But just having a language isn't the only step. Think about a webpage. It has all kinds of content... some of which is to be delivered by the machine for the user to view but others which is instruction to the computer. With HTML, there are clear rules for how to indicate where scripts begin and end... and the browser knows how to interpret these. I'm figuring that humans have spent the past million or so years trying to communicate with gods or demons or the over-consciousness or whatever else is out there and they've developed some theories on how to create these signposts."

"Still crazy."

"But interesting?"

"I admit it does have some appeal. But I can't see getting any funding for it and, frankly, I've got my heart set on a village in Mexico."

"Do not tell me you're trying to track down The Teachings of Don Juan. I mean, that stuff has been discredited."

"You think I don't know that? I'm the Anthropologist, remember. And I never said I was going to try to find the Yaqui Way of Knowledge. Is that what those creeps told you?"

"Uh, no. I just assumed--"

"Well, don't."

"Anyway, how about this. If you let me pick your brain, I'll feed you."

"Where?"

"I'm not rich. Do you have a restaurant you like?"

She sighs. "Fine. But this isn't a date, just me helping you out and you buying me food. A girl does have to eat and, frankly, I'm a little tired of cooking all the time."

"Deal. Want to grab something now."

She sighs again. "I've got a class in twenty minutes. I'll be done in about an hour after that, Can you wait?"

Considering the bus back home will take longer than that, you agree. Maybe you can check on Anna in the meantime.

"Why don't you come to my class?" she says. "You might learn something."

"Okay."