I realize that I've been quiet for the past few weeks.

And despite the fact that I've been at AMU for the vast majority of that time, there's a good reason why I din't immediately post about arriving there. Or, for that matter, how I got the job.

See, I managed to arrive in town a few hours before the break-in.

So I spent a good two weeks under investigation. I understand that they wanted to make sure that I wasn't the one who'd done it. But at the same time, what kind of idiot would steal from an organization the night before their job interview at the same place they was just robbed? Even better, for a position in which they would have been given inside access to the very information that they just stole?

Then again, the thieves weren't particularly bright. They stole the physical copies of the tablet translations, or at least the volumes that had been made. On the one hand, it made it painfully obvious how much the contents of those books meant to them. On the other... based on photographs, both volumes are individually thick enough to stop low-caliber bullets.

Of course, it's just as bizarre that AMU only had one copy of each book put out by the project so far. Given their lack of funding, though, maybe those were the only printings that they could afford.
I am being provided with food and board, so there's at least enough funding for that.
I did ask around about the manuscripts, and any ways that could help figure out what those translations actually contained, and why anyone would steal them. For a start, what happened to the copy of the translations they used for the printings? See, one of those photographs I mentioned earlier in this post had Doctor Eiffel posing for the camera while reading one of the volumes.

And it was printed. Not handwritten.

So we're trying to track down what happened to the files that were actually used for those editions. In the meantime, I've been going through what notes that were left behind on the subject of those translations. Though they didn't grab everything, they did manage to grab some of the notes that would have made it into the third volume.

Fortunately, they were Jonas' notes, and he actually keeps several copies of his work. We've been using those for cross-referencing which pages were actually taken.

...I've also been catching up with the blogosphere the past few days. Apparently the ARC has both volumes of the books, so at least we know that they're intact.

Considering that KRAKEN had their hands on them for over a month, it's likely that at least one of them thought to make copies. Even if they didn't have access to a photocopier in their safehouses, or couldn't spend time and money doing so at a library... at a bare minimum? All they would have to do is keep a steady hand and use a camera. Then they'd have digital copies of the text, and so long as that was safe then they wouldn't have to worry about losing the physical version.

But, again, see the note about the thickness of the books.

I admit, for the other three weeks, I was just caught up in trying to sort all of this out with the rest of the team. But hopefully I can explain a little more about what's been happening here soon.