"So, to summarize: she's talking to her classmates, she's not doing math day and night, and she doesn't come up with... weird ideas all the time. And she's... 'strange somehow'. Did I miss anything?"
"Yeah. And... yeah, that's it. As if she wasn't... herself?"
"I see. Well, you have to understand that there are times for everyone when one's personality is changing faster than usual. In her case, this is to be accounted for the strong influence of the camp."
"So are you saying... it's... normal?"
"Yes. Such rapid advances in personality development are not especially common, nonetheless, ..."
"But this isn't... development, it's... going backwards! She's more and more like people who are... average? And I think it's not a good thing."
"Akos. Most of people are average. There is nothing wrong with that."
*Ohh yes there definitely is!*, he thought. He climbed out of the oversized, cavernous armchair and started pacing up and down in the room. The person in the white coat was watching him, occasionally jotting down notes on a sheet of paper. He sat down again, after a while. How can he explain this better? He decided to make another try.
"Look. First of all, it happened way too fast for it to have happened naturally. Also, she was not this easy to be influenced. I think... somehow, everyone in the math camp conspired to pull her down from the Moon. They didn't like that she was better than them. The entire thing was, most likely, set up by Laci, he's my... most popular classmate, don't know why, and, sadly, it was a success. As if... she didn't have any imagination left."
The psychologist looked up from his notes with a solemn expression.
"It's highly unlikely that this was caused by... a cooperation of any sort. It might be the case that their influence also played a role, but it is debatable that this was an organized effort in any way, and not even such a large external influence could cause such profound changes. We must presume that she already had the intent for a change in her, and it was only a matter of the right catalysts setting off the process. You will get used to it, also. It is only natural that changes in our social environment lead to feelings of insecurity, prompting us to construct multiple alternative hypotheses as an explanation. But the most likely explanation is that this is just part of her growing up."
"I see. I'll try to think it through. Thank you."
Fat chance. His footsteps echoed through the empty corridor as he marched out of the building energetically. This was just the same as his parents were telling him, only with more psychology jargon. Or... actually, it was a bit more. 'First: she's all right, she's just like everyone else. Second: I'm the one who's delusional.' Paranoia, conspiracy theories (what else could "constructing alternative hypotheses" mean?), but don't worry, you'll get over it. Just like his sister has gotten over her creativity.
Okay, now he has actually getting worried. So... what was actually going on here? None of his theories explained why she was so strange since the math camp. The lack of sophistication in the second letter was readily explained by classmates getting her drunk or something like that, but she didn't get over it, not even by the next day. He simply couldn't imagine what could have had such an "averaging" effect.
During the next few days, he didn't get any further either. He'd already read, like, six books on the personality-altering effects of drugs, the destructive effects of being influenced by the community and such, but neither of those resulted in symptoms that were anything comparable. Also, even though there were many negative things to be said about Laci and friends, at least they weren't junkies. (Not that Anne would be easy to turn into one, either.)
Towards the evening, he gave up on literature research. Before going downstairs though, he took a quick look at whether he got anything for him on the internet. It was nothing interesting. The usual ads, an error message... He deleted the former kind without opening, he had a quick look at the latter though, just in case one of his outgoing emails didn't get through. But this was way more mysterious than that.
Sender: isys_debug@proj.fci.com Subject: signal processing error 0x03c423 T: overflow Descr.: ***TODO **** haven't made up a good name for this error yet P: opsys interface, mailer daemon control I Dump (activity log): 0x03c423: d: "noname" v: 1.129637 (--- maxvalue: 1.0 ---) (conn. modified) 0x0545ff: d: "noname" v: 0.6298 0x003a38: d: "noname" v: 0.5723
Lines like the bottom ones were repeating for a while. Apparently, this email was sent out to the wrong address; this "opsys interface, mailer daemon control" most have been the faulty module, that's why the mail server ("mailer daemon") sent this to the wrong recipient. Quite a bug: misdirecting even its own error message.
It must have been coming from some experimental, half-baked system: "noname" this many times? Also, the fabulous accuracy of the error description. But... what's this "proj.fci.com" as the sender? Say, what's at www.fci.com? He opened a browser window and put it in. It did in fact exist. "Fenyes Cartoon Inc.". Is it... them? Laci Fenyes's dad indeed had an animation company.
He had a vague suspicion that this might be important. Especially after Laci's crew and his sister actually... interacting now sometimes. He didn't get much farther that day though.
The next morning there was another two messages waiting from him, from the same source. One of them was very similar to the original one, with "noname" occurring lots of times. The other one, though, had a picture attached to it. It was named "05455f.jpg"; he'd already seen that code, next to one of the "noname" things. Attaching a picture to an error message was in fact so unusual that he didn't even notice it the first time he was looking, so he was even more surprised to see what it depicted. In front of a dark-brown, marble-textured background, it was a white-green-ish symbol, as if it was a modernized version of Chinese character? At last, an additional potential clue! He printed it out, along with all the other emails, then he set out for the garden, hoping that fresh air would help, too. Along the way, he grabbed an apple from the fridge, and also poured himself a bit of orange juice (his favorite).
His sister joined him outside, too, a bit later. She surely must have gotten bored of listening to music. In one hand, she held drawing, in another, a plastic CD case.
"What are you thinking about, so deeply? Math?" she asked.
"No, it's... just a couple of strange error messages."
"I think this one ended up being quite good" she pushed the drawing in front of Akos. "It's quite close, right?"
The drawing was... a magnified version of an album cover, which, size aside, did not differ from the one on the CD in any significant way. The artist was someone he'd never heard of. The detail was impressive, with colors and shapes entirely accurate... he has never actually seen her draw something so perfect. But why did she have to copy a simple and boring album cover? He was missing the four-eyed mammoths, still.
"Nice. But... how come you're drawing stuff like this, instead of your... thingies?"
Of course, the question was futile: he knew the answer already.
"Because now I'm into this one, period. Gotta head back, maybe their new album has finished downloading already, I'll go and listen to it..." She grabbed her sheet of paper from Akos's printout pile (in which she wasn't interested in at all), and set out towards the house. He could hear, a bit later, the fridge door opening, plastic bags being shuffled, the fridge being shut, stair-trampling, door slam.
He could only hope that she'll become "normal" some time later. He let out a sigh, then resumed flipping through the pile of pages he'd printed out, with one with the symbol on top. Interesting: they're both eating apples. She must've been looking for apples in the fridge, surely. He felt quite good about this inference, but he didn't stop halfway: he was looking for a connection. Surely telepathy... but he'd read somewhere that lots of phenomena like this were readily explained by two people listening to the same thing, say, on the radio, or they associate soething with the same common experience. But there was no radio on, so... a common experience? There was something that he couldn't really put his finger on... but... symbols. Apples. Labyrinths. This is his latest favorite of a dream! And this is the symbol that is the... that is the apple...
His thoughts started racing, he did likewise, pacing round and round the porch swing. How could he just stay put if... He gets an error message with a picture from somewhere on the Internet. And on this picture there is a symbol he has seen in his dreams, with the very same meaning! But hidden somehow. And his sister associates the same meaning with it. Could this be something with a universal meaning? How come it come from... the Fenyes corporation? That email address can't be just a coincidence: is it some kind of a method for manipulating people?
But what if it's just his imagination being overly active? It's a hot day, apples are delicious, all that is well-known... No, he has to try this again. If it works though, then...
He grabbed the printout with the symbol and climbed the stairs up to his sister's room. The music (disco, of course) was so loud, it made it impossible to communicate.
"Could you turn it down? The stereo? TURN IT DOOOWN!" The latter part had to be accompanied by lively gestures, to make it entirely understood.
"It might be a weird question," (finally, quiet), "but... what does this one make you think?" She was staring at the printout for a while, then back at him. He was trying to stay relaxed and patient, which was quite hard after such a significant discovery, but no, it must not be done hastily.
"... nothing?" she declared eventually. "It's like as if... something Japanese. Or Chinese. It's a really cool remix, right?" she pointed at the speakers.
"Cool... but... couldn't you turn it off for a while? Take another look. No need to hurry. Then..."
"By the way, why is this suddenly so super important? Will you save the world with it, or... what?"
"Never mind. Apparently, not this time... Or... I'm going down, see you."
The music got turned back up right after he closed the door behind him. Well, it's only a coincidence then. He still couldn't really understand how he could have seen the symbol while dreaming, but he'll surely end up explaining it somehow. Theoretically, they could be just coincidentally similar, a symbol in a dream and a drawing, if...
His thoughts were interruped by the music pouring out of the opening door. It was his sister.
"If you're going that way anyway... can you bring another apple for me? The previous one was sooo good! Thanks!!!"
By the afternoon, she had already devoured all the apples to be found in the house, while coming to the conclusion, somewhat surprised, that Akos is, apparently, not to be seen anymore without his favorite symbol. He even glued it to one of the walls of the stairwell! Then he took it down. What might he been up to???
He was being somewhat mysterious, anyway. He had told her nothing at all about the symbol. She didn't really have too many ideas for what it might be. Maybe... they used to send encrypted messages to each other because it was exciting to decode them, but they'd grown out of it, ages ago. But then why did he put it even on the utility pole in front of the local grocery store? And how did he know that she'll go there to buy apples, even though neither of them went shopping that often? Sure, she had eaten quite a few, but they're so juicy... and so much cheaper than...