General Information
Name: Frances Austin
Pronouns: he/him
Aliases: FinisAevum, "the Capital"
Affiliations: Aeternus Center, John
Email: None Currently Known. Reddit @FinisAevum
Status: Alive
About
Worked for Aeternus Center for a while, came across sensitive information which changed his opinion of the company after which he stole several backup hard drives and went on the run. Was hiding from Magus but now can come out of hiding.
Timeline/Puzzles
Discord Chat with Finis
// please be advised that timing on Finis's messages are guessed. Separate input and output channels were combined for this section //
Downlink Active (Warning: Unstable)
Ifmmp?
Gdkkn?
Hello?
Is th s working?
Y s.
G v me a s c.
T st.
Te t.
Test.
Test.
Test.
Okay, this thing is finicky, especially trying to run it off incorrect voltage.
InsaneScots 01-Oct-20 02:06 PM
Yes its working!
Can you see our messages?
There ya go
Hey, whatever works
I'm going to guess you all are with Verum, and not Aeternus?
IncredibleHuck 01-Oct-20 02:07 PM
What is "this thing"?
Spooky 01-Oct-20 02:08 PM
Yes, that is correct. We're with Verum.
InsaneScots 01-Oct-20 02:08 PM
We are indeed
IncredibleHuck 01-Oct-20 02:08 PM
Definitely with Verum
Old computer that looks like its from the 80s.
I only receive text on this terminal, sending images/audio is going to make this machine very sad. Will work on that.
InsaneScots 01-Oct-20 02:09 PM
No worries, I don't think we need images yet
Spooky 01-Oct-20 02:09 PM
Yeah, I can imagine it'll be trouble on dial up
What's the current situation, what do you know so far?
InsaneScots 01-Oct-20 02:10 PM
Well Aeternus is still looking for you, ads in the paper and such
I'm going to guess either A.C. has shut down and its safe to return, or it hasn't and Verum is trying to continue my research.
IncredibleHuck 01-Oct-20 02:10 PM
AC is off on some weekend company retreat to work on some project
They take their Moon science very seriously or something, this interface was setup to trigger when they're likely to be off doing experiments with that.
InsaneScots 01-Oct-20 02:10 PM
AC is having technical issues at the moment but are in the process of rebooting
They've always had technical issues, all their experiments with A.E.
Moon science - Measuring the effects of the moon's phases on various substances/compounds.
InsaneScots 01-Oct-20 02:10 PM
Verum is laying low cos AC figured out they were involved (edited)
Moon science?
Spooky 01-Oct-20 02:12 PM
They're not gonna blow up the moon are they?!
InsaneScots 01-Oct-20 02:12 PM
It's always the bloody moon isnt it
No, afaik they haven't gotten an in with SpaceX or NASA so are firmly kept on the ground and away from blowing up the moon.
IncredibleHuck 01-Oct-20 02:12 PM
Someone accidentally sent us a video today. Means nothing to us but they mentioned there was a large datastream inbound from "the tower" (edited)
I see a link, but lynx is completely incapable of loading that page.
Spooky 01-Oct-20 02:14 PM
That is a relief to be sure! To describe what's going on in that video, it's a video from an account called "Tower of Lost Times" telling us to "Seek the tower" and that we're "On the right track." Do you have any information on what that is?
I'm not sure of the details, the backup drives I stole might have some information on them, but that's its own adventure. As far as I know, The Tower was one of the A.E. systems that Aeternus setup, something about breaking into some place.
InsaneScots 01-Oct-20 02:15 PM
And yeah as Huck said, AC is recruiting. Several of us have applied and gotten in, in the hope of inside info and such
How are you doing with the drives by the way? Any luck beyond that first thing you posted?
Actually, are you ok? being on the run and such
Well, that's a story. After Alexander and friends broke into my reddit account, I hightailed it out of where I was staying. I've managed to stay safe at a friend's cabin up North, but hid the drives before I left, couldn't figure out for sure whether or not they were being tracked.
From what I've gathered, the drives themselves are useless unless we have some way of figuring out how they are compressed/encrypted.
A.C. seems to be all sorts of paranoid, so they must have copies of some of the information on the backup drives.
Any information you can glean about backups Aeternus might have would be useful. There might be something in the database, though that's been acting up ever since I joined, so unclear if you can find anything in there.
InsaneScots 01-Oct-20 02:17 PM
Also some of us received material in the mail, including some very specific objects
coin, key etc
What can you tell us about those two by the way? Are they to be trusted
No idea about materials you might have received, though there were at least two folks messing with A.C. (PL and OS).
IncredibleHuck 01-Oct-20 02:16 PM
What is the A.E.? I found an email to contact it hidden in AC's site code. When I emailed it, it responded that I was an unknown user and I was being reported to "magus"
A.E. is the name for artificial intelligences that Alexander coined, not sure its origin. I think Arithmetic Engine or some thing like that.
Not much, communications have only been one way. PL told me about the contractors that were chasing me, so seems trustworthy. OS might just be a disgruntled ex-employee.
Well, that's more progress than I've made with contacting either of them.
That seems possible.
If you find out more about other backup data A.C. has, once we have a decent chance of being able to decode them, I can send Verum (or someone else, if Verum is keeping a low-profile) information about where the drives are stashed.
IncredibleHuck 01-Oct-20 02:25 PM
We've been contacted by PL. They seem to be inside AC's system in a major way, but we haven't been able to contact them back yet. They say we need to "climb the fence".
Any chance OS is "Oakley"? Alexander's old partner?
I can't really provide insight if OS or PL are to be trusted. But maybe you can extract information from them, be it truths or lies.
I'm not sure how long I should keep this channel open, given that magus might be able to track it down. Once I close this channel, it should be setup to pulse high-priority messages occasionally and if critical to communicate real-time, trigger that as well.
I'm hoping that with A.C. being busy with experiments, magus will at least be distracted for a while longer.
InsaneScots 01-Oct-20 02:26 PM
Do you have any leads we can track down at current? Anything we can follow in their internal system?
IncredibleHuck 01-Oct-20 02:34 PM
Also, any info you have on what AC is actually doing would be great. Their site, even the internal one, is maddeningly vague. I have no idea what they're trying to accomplish, or how
The documents that the contractors that were sent after me were sent might have something of use, but have probably already been picked up. Maybe trying to trick some of the newer employees at A.C. to dig those up might be helpful.
From what I gathered before leaving, A.C. is a much older company than the 1990 date that they've been saying. There were rumors floating around about having secret subdivisions within the 4 Divisions, including one dealing with altering records, one dealing with illegal smuggling of artifacts, etc. Even some rumors that Alexander has been around since the 1800s. More concerning is a large number of 'studies' they've been performing on human subjects without any oversight, and its unclear how many of their subjects are still around after their experiments.
Its not clear how much of this is random gibberish you get when dealing with a secretive organization, and what's actually true. What I know for sure is that when I went digging too far, A.C. canned me and is now coming after me.
So there are at least some skeletons in the closet.
InsaneScots 01-Oct-20 02:35 PM
That might be a good shot, any idea of recent hires you were aware of? We only know a Cole Johnson
I don't know of many recent hires, Cole was hired shortly before I left, there was a new batch of recruits coming through when I left, but I didn't get acquainted with any of them.
just_speculating 01-Oct-20 02:41 PM
Do you know whether their IT guy "magus" or a "Paula" are trustworthy?
magus seems to have a lot of access, almost as much as Alexander, so I'm not sure how deep in the guts of A.E. they are. No idea about Paula. (edited)
IncredibleHuck 01-Oct-20 02:44 PM
What's the "strange compound with wonderous properties" mentioned on the AC site? Seems odd that they don't have any information on their big discovery on their website
No idea, as much as they hype it up, I'm not aware of anyone who was working on projects related to that. It might just be PR, or something only the higher-ups dealt with.
InsaneScots 01-Oct-20 02:44 PM
One question, I have access to one of the dead drop files, it makes mention of a failsafe
Would that be something worth triggering, it was filed by "alex"
I'm not sure. alex is probably Alexander?
Also, I'm getting slightly worried that I've kept this uplink open too long, I'm going to close it in a few minutes. Do you have any urgent questions?Otherwise use the priority/criticality functionality, and I'll try to respond when its safe to do so.
Also, tell Verum thanks for all the help so far but to stay safe, these secrets aren't worth risking anyone else's life.
Maybe worth investigating then.
Though if you're trying to get recruited and on their good side, maybe have someone else trigger it so they don't notice you've been nosing around.
Or at least use a slightly different contact method to do so.
just_speculating 01-Oct-20 02:50 PM
Besides being Finis Aevum, is your regular name also F.A.?
Those are my initials. Frances Austin.
Spooky 01-Oct-20 02:50 PM
Oh! What were your login details on the AC site? It's entirely probable they've locked you out, but if there is a chance we can get in early… (edited)
finisaevum:WibblyWobblyTimeyWimey
IncredibleHuck 01-Oct-20 02:51 PM
I guess my only other question would be if you knew what Project Morphic was, but if you need to run I understand
Something about synchronizing things together, we were just told to make sure no experiments were running during a certain period of time.
Thank you for the support and continuing the investigation.
Stay safe.
Spooky 01-Oct-20 02:54 PM
Good luck and remember, we're rooting for ya! 🙂
InsaneScots 07-Oct-20 09:22 AM
The following message is relayed from Oakley (OS): "Don't allow the fragments of the Magician to be joined together. The Magician sees itself."
FinisAevum 07-Oct-20 09:23 AM
Message Queued for Transmission.
FinisAevum 12-Oct-20 08:07 AM
Message Received.
I'll keep that in mind, though not sure exactly what that means. Have you had any luck with getting information that might be of use?
FinisAevum 19-Oct-20 07:49 AM
Any luck getting any information about other backup data A.C. might have or documents they might have on me?
just_speculating 22-Oct-20 05:07 AM
magus at AC is picking at the 5-A games. That means they're only one step away from this Discord. Be careful.
Spooky 01-Nov-20 01:03 AM
Finis you are in danger. An entity called the hunter has likely set their sights on you. Try and get out whilst you can.
FinisAevum 01-Nov-20 07:10 AM
Message Queued for Transmission.
InsaneScots 03-Feb-21 10:36 AM
Frances, I dont know if you will see this but we hope you are safe. If you can reach out to us elsewhere, please do.
