You are one odd cookie.
Something bothers me about all this, something partly unconscious. The other day, I was reading through the clues (for the 5000th time) and something about the Tempus page really bugged me out. I couldn’t put my finger on it, so I began playing a video game and eventually forgot about it. But it came back today, so I went onto the page again and I think I figured it out. The bolded and italicized letters–I figured out why the “he” is italicized. It’s not accidental–it’s done to indicate that it’s actually a split in the message. This extra message has been noted as a possibility before, but I don’t think it’s been brought to the table that it’s intended.
The message, with no breaks and the formatting intact, is: seek Code out [/size]he is I watchin s g[/size] AI[/size]
The “he” signals the breaking point in the messages, so that there are actually two messages:
“Seek Code out he is watching.”
“Seek Code out he is AI.”
This is also reinforced by the fact that the “Is” and “AI” are bolded but not italicized.
Now, this isn’t anything too revolutionary, but it does beg the following question: If Storm was Code, and we discovered this, why then would he say that he was the AI? All of this time we have been seeking some renegade AI whilst Horn is supposedly on the run from people in the lab who were on to him . . . but why? Why would a man get so mad about them taking his niobium pizzas? The dude could just order more. Why would he communicate in such a halted manner–“Steals them. Eats them.”–versus simply directly communicating? We also receive various automated messages with random bits of data. Granted, this could all be shaped around the obscurity of the ARG, but I’m starting to think there’s more to the story.
I think the AI took over Dr. Horn, or is in some way directly influencing him. It explains why he is so upset about the niobium pizzas, and why he often speaks in broken English. It’s entirely possible that he was putting the niobium on the pizzas not only to sneak them in, but also to ingest them (thus supporting the AI in some way). We do get some direct hints that aren’t obscure, but these are the ones initiated by Storm–in this case, the ARG master, not Dr. Horn. The “It has come to my attention” message is one. Everything else is absolutely up in the air. The AI could actually be controlling someone else, for all we know.
The only thing that seems to go against this is Storm communicating with me over PM as Code, which brings me to a second possibility: The “he” could indicate both a split in the message and a stop. In other words, we are supposed to seek Code out for help, but there is also some other “he” watching which happens to be AI. If this second situation is the real one, then we have two distinct possibilities.
- Storm/Code is operating like the ARG-master and simply wants to help us along.
- Storm and Dr. Horn are both Dr. Horn, per-say, but Dr. Horn is the “antagonist” version whilst Storm is the “protagonist” version.
I definitely think that the AI is influencing someone directly, and my money’s on Dr. Horn (the antagonist version, if there are two). The rest of the scientists (Stone, etc.) are simply trying to either stop him from accomplishing some deed or trying to save their friend (and Horn is simply reacting as if they are evil). It makes far more sense in my mind that one man is potentially committing criminal acts versus a whole team of scientists doing the same.
EDIT: Unless they really are that pissed about the budget.
