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 Posted: Wed Jun 15, 2011 6:09 pm
Haley wanted answers. After the mysterious death of her friend and sometimes-lover Alex was treated by the police as just another night on the streets of Destiny City, the nineteen-year-old activist had found a new cause: making the very streets of Destiny City safer. She wasn't about to go out and be a vigilante nor was she about to engage in violence, but she sure as hell was ready to protest.
However, she figured if she was going to take it to the streets with a picket sign, she might as well know what the hell she was talking about. Unfortunately, it seemed like nobody in the city had a clue just what was going on. Sure, they knew tidbits - terrorists attacking the city, strange monster sightings, missing people, large ice monsters, and more - but none of the details had been strung together. But it had to be compiled somewhere, right?
As someone who barely uses the Internet, and hardly knows how to use it, the only option to get information was to check the library. Although she hadn't been in the library since her early years of high school for a group meeting once - she had no problem finding the place. However, she did have a hunch she would have an issue finding what she was looking for, if the library was even allowed to have such documents that she wanted.
She had a feeling that the government was trying to cover it up - they were probably behind it all. ******** government.
"Excuse me," she said to a man behind the counter. She slightly raised her voice in a very self-righteous manner as she continued on. "Where can I find information on the recent disappearances and deaths of the innocent citizens of Destiny City?"
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Posted: Wed Jun 15, 2011 8:45 pm
The man behind the counter was not the happiest looking man in the world. He was obviously trying very hard to hide how miserable he as while at work, but his heavy eye lids, his drooping posture, his arm resting in a cast and a sling: it all spoke to his true status at the moment.
He wanted to be in bed, at home, but he just could not bring himself to miss work unless he absolutely could not be there.
It was a curse.
He had such a strange time recently, a difficult time. Balancing life as Camelot and Tony had become much more complicated since damaging his arm so badly in a string of battles. He would have to let it rest, he was ordered, lest he risk permanent damage.
On the back of his head he had a hidden wound from where he had been hit and knocked out by a Negaverse soldier. He was lucky, he imagined, to have gotten away from that fight. He needed to lay low. So he came to work and tried to live his normal life. Dogby was with him, sitting on the counter, watching him with an oddly sad expression on her little corgi face. She instantly brightened, though, as Haley approached the desk.
She yipped just before Haley spoke, and Tony jumped at both noises.
"Recent disappearances... ahh... well, maybe the microfiche room? Periodicals as well, they'll have all the recent papers for you, and any records further back have all been recorded. We're in the process of putting as many of the newspaper stories as we can on the computers, as well, so you might be able to find something on the library's browser and archives..."
He sounded winded after he finished speaking. Dogby was trying to get to Haley, wanting to say hi.
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Posted: Thu Jun 16, 2011 8:51 am
"What is a microfiche room?" she asked. She had never heard of the term before, and it sounded like some sort of computer speak a la Microsoft. As someone who is very unaccustomed to using a computer other than for basic word processing needs, the idea of using the library's browser was as foreign to her as the microfiche room. "I'm not very familiar with the library."
She heard the soft sound of tiny paws pattering at the wood of the counter and only then became aware of the dog's presence. She had not heard the dog's previous yips as she was far more focused on her own self-righteousness. "Is there an animal behind that desk?"
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Posted: Fri Jun 17, 2011 8:37 pm
"Uhm. Well," he smiled, knowing that people outside the library often didn't know all the weird things, besides books, that could be lurking inside. He was used to explaining things, at least, so he tried to come up with the simplest way to explain.
It was still difficult, despite his experience, because he was so tired. Mentally and physically.
"Microfiche, is a kind of storage effort, to reproduce larger prints onto smaller, ah... slides or film. You need the machines in the room to project the images and print them, but it is a very useful thing, especially for newpapers. There's a computer in there with a separate search system from the one most people look for books with, that should help you narrow your search."
He quickly offered her a description of where to find it, before Dogby yipped again.
"Ah, yes, that's Dogby," he said, picking up the little corgi and holding her for the very determined girl to see. Dogby wiggled to try and reach her. She was a small dog, still a puppy, her limbs short and her head large. She had floppy ears and bright eyes, both of which reflected her eagerness to meet Haley.
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Posted: Sun Jun 19, 2011 1:06 pm
Haley's face brightened as she saw the adorable puppy. She was a big animal lover, but never owned a pet at home. Her parents were sort of against the whole idea of pets, viewing owning a domestic pet as taking the creature outside of its natural environment. While she saw their point and agreed to it from an extent, she also saw how adorable pets were and she couldn't motivate herself to care too much when an adorable puppy face was staring into her soul. "Hewwo there, who is a cutie pie? You are, yes you are," she spoke in an odd baby talk.
She then cleared her throat, remembering where she was and her age. "Right, uhm," she paused as she reached out one hand to scratch the puppy behind the ear. "That microfiche thing...can you help me with that? I don't really know much about the library, and to be honest, I don't know much about computers either. I wasn't really raised using one very often." Even as she spoke to the man, her eyes kept meeting with the puppy's.
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Posted: Tue Jun 21, 2011 6:57 pm
Dogby adored attention, but this had to be her favorite. She seemed to have learned that anyone who spoke to her in 'that voice', that high, happy sounding tone that played on her ears like tickles, was someone who liked her. And that just made her like them even more.
Yipping excitedly, she tried to lick at Haley as she bounced on her stumpy little legs, eagerly moving up into each stroke of the young woman's hand when she came in contact with the puppy's head.
Tony watched and smiled, shaking his head. Dogby made social interaction look easy. The librarian often had a much harder time of making friends. Probably because he wasn't adorable or tiny, couldn't get away with licking people without going to jail and didn't like to be pet.
And using baby talk on him would probably seem insulting.
"I can, certainly," he said, smiling. He knew the machines could be complicated. They looked like they would belong in a science fiction film from the 70's, "believe me, I can understand that. And we get people in all the time with similar situations. The machines aren't that hard to use, though they can be a bit... temperamental."
He got up slowly, leaning on his cane while he get his broken arm protectively close to his chest. He didn't like the sling, it made working more difficult, but it wasn't the first time he had ever been in one. And likely wouldn't be the last, considering his other 'job'.
"This way," he said, looking at Dogby and expecting her to stay put.
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Posted: Thu Jun 30, 2011 12:59 pm
Haley waved good bye to the adorable little puppy as she followed the older man through the library. She had a little skip to her walk for the first few paces, still delighted to see such an adorable pet around. However, a few judgmental glances from some of the more studious types in the library helped her tame her behavior. Her walk turned into a more casual walk, with a bit of seriousness to her pace.
"Yeah, I think all technology is temperamental," she agreed. "They're dangerous too. As a society we depend far too much on them, and they waste a lot of energy. People seem to act like without computers and machines we'd be such an un-evolved society but people managed for thousands of years without this technology, so why harm the environment for our convenience? Its so self-focused and..." she paused. This wasn't exactly part of their conversation, was it? She took another moment. "Sorry. Some things just frustrate me."
"So where exactly can I find some of the articles I am looking for?"
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Posted: Sat Jul 02, 2011 11:01 am
Dogby looked very sad, watching the two as they walked away from the desk. She whined softly and whimpered, padding to the edge of the desk but she couldn't hop all that way on her tiny little legs. She couldn't drop down.
Little doggy cries filled the air behind them.
Tony tried not to look back at her. It was just what she wanted. They would never get anywhere.
He did glance at the young woman as she spoke, nodding his head. He looked very thoughtful, knowing he had more than once run into trouble with the various electronics in the library. The Vending Machine was evil, the copiers had minds of their own, the computers had spontaneous streaks.
But he quickly understood that she did not mean the physical dangers of the machines.
"Ah, well. I think that... some people can do without technology..." he offered helplessly, "but ah... at least for the most part it keeps the library running smoothly. "Don't worry about it, I understand what you mean."
He led her to where the microfiche were stored, opening the door for her politely. The lights turned on automatically when they entered, the old looking machines looking like they had stepped out of the eighties. Perhaps they had. He showed her the computer, which was simple in theory, "Just type in key words you might be searching for. It goes back about thirty years so far, and newer articles will be much easier to find than older ones. We do have a separate search for older stories, though they ah..."
It was a lot like digging through a only vaguely sorted file cabinet.
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Posted: Wed Jul 13, 2011 7:31 pm
Haley's heart was breaking as she continued to walk away from the tiny puppy, only to mend itself fully once she could no longer hear its sad cries. She followed the man through the library towards the microfiche room. It didn't look too complicated - although she had very few experiences with computers, she figured it couldn't be too hard to just type in what she was looking for. It was far more basic than she had thought.
"So, what would recommend typing into the search if I'm looking for articles on the disappearances and what could be the actual cause?" she asked. Not knowing what could be causing the disappearances or of any of the supernatural things going on in the city, she wasn't sure where to begin her search. She raised an eyebrow as he seemed to drift off in thought mid-sentence. "'They ah' what?"
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Posted: Sun Jul 17, 2011 12:03 pm
Tony looked thoughtful at the question, looking at the computer as if it might give him the answer if he thought at it hard enough. It did not offer any such insight.
"Well, I suppose you can try to run simple searches first. If you know any names of people who have gone missing, then you can search for them. The database of online stories has a much more expansive reference section, and will link you to similar stories. That might be the best place to start, and it's much easier to navigate."
He motioned to a computer, turning on the screen and waking it up from its sleep mode.
Pulling up the search bar, he typed in a quick search of 'missing person' to start her off. The page was as he described, a search engine designed solely for the archives of newspaper articles the library had gathered and been given by other libraries using the same system. It would also allow her to search other library archives from cities nearby if she so wanted, to see if they had more.
"The physical copies of the paper can be a little harder to navigate, is all I meant, but if you need help sorting through those, I can help." He smiled reassuringly.
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Posted: Mon Jul 25, 2011 9:05 pm
“Thank you,” she said with a bit of amazement in her voice. He had typed in the search result for ‘missing person’ at a much faster pace than she would have ever been able to do. It was like, less than a few seconds! Her typing speed was roughly a dozen words per minute. “I think I’ll try the ones on the computer for now, but I’ll come and find you if I have any issues, or if I need to type anything again.” She probably sounded illiterate with the last comment.
She leaned over the computer, her face far too close to the monitor, as her long silky hair fell down, masking the keyboard and continued to drape down the desk. She was in clear, desperate need of a haircut – it had been a few years.
The search Tony had made left quite a number of search results – hundreds of them! She gasped when she saw the result number. It was going to be a long night, slaving away over the strange (and simple) technology that she didn’t know how to use, but in the end would come up with little results that made complete sense.
There was a lot of talk of terrorists, sleeping spells, the disappearance of Justin Bieber and more, but all the articles ended with the same result: nobody knew quite what was going on in Destiny City. And that was an answer she refused to accept.
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