Someone's been stealing more than books from AMU...

I mentioned that there was a photo in my last post, one with Doctor Eiffel holding a printed copy of the first volume of the tablet translations. The one that, if you've paid attention to Avie's blog, shouldn't have actually existed.

See, that's the strange thing. Everyone assumed that there was only one, handwritten copy of each volume of the translations, or at least fully up-to-date versions. As the most recent members of the team, Jonas and I'd considered the possibility that it could actually a printing of the e-book, since that's the only digitized copy available, but it didn't get a wider print release because it wasn't fully up-to-date. A prototype of how a wider release would have looked, both for the formatting and for the design of the cover sleeves. Until Doctor Eiffel noticed the photo, and asked where it had come from.

She has no memory of ever having that photo taken, and none of the other team members remembered taking it.

Now, that was strange, but didn't conclusively prove any shenanigans. For instance, someone could have used an image editing program like Photoshop to create it. We'd still be unsure as to the why until we could find who had made it, but it was one possibility. One that got a little harder to believe we found there were several more photos of the other team members with the volume, all in different poses and angles. Not all of them showed this volume open, but there were enough shots with legible text for us to start cross-referenced Avie's e-book version with the excerpts in the photos.

Several of them were from sections that they hadn't digitized. Sections that the rest of the team is fairly sure are part of their translations.

Given the fact that it was accessible in the campus library for some time, it's still possible that the photos were doctored, and that they were working with the handwritten copy as a reference an not the e-book version. It would still leave the question of why someone would go to all of that trouble to create those photos and then just leave them scattered throughout random files.

...but, at the same time, it was possible that the photos hadn't been doctored at all.

I mean, think about it. The power to erase memories isn't unique to the Blind Man - some of the people I know for sure had that ability are dead, like redlight, but that doesn't rule out the possibility of others cropping up. Doctors Ferris and Grave might have created their Extractors, and thus hypothetically have access to that ability, but at a bare minimum that also includes members of the SMSC.

Or people who worked with them in the past, and removed the memories of ever working with them to gain those powers in the first place.

Of course, that doesn't mean this hypothetical memory thief would even have to have gotten their powers from an Extractor or an Enhancer.

Speculation about where this hypothetical memory thief came from aside, it's possible that actually had been a completed version of a print volume, but both it and the memories of its existence were gone. And that implies someone erased memories of that knowledge, but didn't want to erase every copy of that research altogether. Which, when you have the power to erase memories, it's a lot easier to make things disappear altogether.

Maybe not to the extent of, say, a small town... but several cuneiform tablets wouldn't be as much of an issue. Or these photos, for that matter. So either they were hidden in the event that the team lost their memories, or whoever took the memories wanted them to be found.

So. Tl;dr, we needed to check absolutely everything we had on the project, in case our hypothetical memory thief made off with more than just the team's memories. Some of the tablets, for example. And considering the fact that Doctor Eiffel's team brought back hundreds of them intact...

Or, perhaps even more likely, that complete printed version of the translations. So yet another copy could be out in the wind. Potentially a set of copies, even.

What's worse is that Jonas' notes suggest that the team was even further along in the translation process at some point after he had joined. Because remember how I mentioned those referenced a third volume? The second volume, at the time of the break-in, was only about a third of the first volume's size.

Suffice to say, after we explained our hypothesis to the others, it was met with understandable skepticism. Until we showed them the point where Jonas' "third volume" notes actually matched one of the tablets. And they were, in fact, at the point where the team would have ended the second volume. Ones that had only one copy, in that document lock-box where he keeps his backup copies. Ones that Jonas didn't remember writing.

Notes were dated six months ago.

The rest of the translation team was pissed.

On the Wings Of Eagles

After paying my respects, I didn't have many reasons to stick around in Florida. I uploaded my last post was with the airport Wifi moments before I boarded a flight west. I was able to get some more translation work done over the eight hour flight, far further along in the text than I've shared on this blog so far.

Speaking of that text, I might as well offer some more context regarding the previous post. Seeing as Dr. Ferris is the only one actively commenting on this blog at the moment, I might as well address you directly. There's a reason the previous post's title was "cmjbka.iwlt" - in actuality, it was the untranslated version of the first "line" of that text, as well as it's title.

Needless to say, that post contains only a small fraction of the full text. And even then, the translation's meaning still requires interpretation - both to establish a conventionally readable syntax, as well as to understand what the text is actually referencing. It's one of the most diabolical puzzles he left behind.

Regarding the abrupt location change... I have something I need to check. Three somethings, actually. One of which is because Dr. Ferris decided to go hunting for more samples. While it wasn't originally a priority, it's come to my attention that the Black Garden is going to get a few visitors. In any event, I might as well do so myself while I'm in the state. If nothing else, this will be an interesting point of contrast to the more radiant garden I originally came out to visit.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I've got a phone call to make.