bare_my_fangs | RL with Gale

Michael smirked at that - there was no trying about it - as they passed under the gate into Embryon territory. "True, but I did that on purpose." He didn't think he'd be doing that again in a hurry though. Seeing someone else's memories was kinda cool, but wanting to eat human flesh for a bit afterwards really wasn't.

"This, on the other hand, is totally not me."

Gale considered that. "Does it only happen when you hack things?" He frowned in utter confusion. "It is as if your mind is trying to hack the Junkyard without your intention."

The statement didn't make sense. How did you hack the Junkyard? "Or perhaps there is some network operating in the Junkyard that you are detecting."

He hit the button for the elevator and it slid open.

Michael frowned at what Gale had just said. "That... sounds about right actually." He stepped into the elevator behind Gale and, leaning against the wall, deliberately focused on that faint whispering - for lack of a better term - that his quantum brain waves were picking up, this time actively using them.

He got a flash of a pretty, dark-haired woman, before searing pain lanced white-hot through his mind, and he collapsed to his knees, panting.

Gale was shocked when Michael went from apparently thinking to collapsing. He knelt beside him - partly pulled down by the short chain.

"Michael? What is wrong?" There was a note of worry in his normally calm voice.

Michael grimaced, his unbound hand clutching his head. If he were in his right mind, he would have noticed the concern in Gale's typically flat voice. "Won't be trying that again any time soon."

He got to his feet - under his own power, thank you very much; he may have been in pain, but he wasn't about to ask for help - finally knowing how Nena felt after she tried hacking the community.

"Well. There's definitely... something. And it's fucking powerful."

Edited 2009-11-24 23:31 (UTC)

Gale held Michael's elbow, though it was awkward to try to help him up that way, and the boy did seem to be able to get to his feet under his own power. Albeit with difficulty.

"What did you do?" Gale asked, his eyebrows still aloft and that note of concern still present in his voice. "What powerful thing do you mean?"

The elevator doors opened and Gale began to guide Michael out into the hall.

Michael ~~stumbled~~ walked down the hall with Gale. He didn't want - nor need, he insisted to himelf - Gale's help, but he didn't shake off that hand.

"I tried to hack whatever it is that keeps fucking with my head." He shook his head slightly and scowled. "and I just got completely mindraped. That's what I mean by powerful. There's definitely a server or something somewhere..." Michael trailed off as they reached Gale's room, actually thinking that through for a second.

If it was somewhere on this world, then it wouldn't make sense for it to only affect him when he was outside. So what the hell was so different about being outside?

Gale frowned. He didn't exactly know what it meant to be 'mindraped', but he could see the effects of it readily enough. He palmed into his room without letting go of Michael and helped him over the threshold, then to the bed where he encouraged him to sit.

"I do not know what you encountered. Could it have been the Karma Terminal network? That would be a large server that stores our data, and it is throughout the Junkyard," he suggested. But his mind was twinging him with the same thought as Michael. He hadn't had difficulty hacking the Karma Terminal when he'd tried, and why would it only affect him outside?

"The only thing outside is the sky, the rain. Why would it only affect you when you are outside?" Gale mused softly. "I do not comprehend."

Michael started to shake his head as he sat down on the bed at the Karma Terminal suggestion, but found himself staring incredulously at Gale as he continued speaking.

"What rain?" he asked, looking at Gale as though he'd lost his mind. Michael was pretty sure that that had never happened while he was on this world, and he would have thought that he would have noticed something as fucking annoying as rain.

Gale stared at him for a moment. "The...rain. Outside," he said, completely nonplussed.

Maybe Michael just didn't know the term for the water falling from the sky. Maybe it didn't happen on his world. Gale had certainly encountered enough things he'd never heard of, so he elaborated.

"Rain is droplets of water that fall from the sky," he explained.

Michael rolled his eyes. "No, I know what rain is, idiot. I'm not fucking retarded."

His expression turned serious (with a healthy dose of confusion too). "But it has never rained here while I've been on your world, man." And Gale would have only mentioned the rain if it had been raining while they was outside.

Gale was just as confused as Michael. "But, Michael," he said, very slowly. "It was raining just now when we were outside. It has rained every time you have come here. I know this, because it always rains in the Junkyard."

He shrugged. "Always. You truly saw no rain when you were outside?"

Wait, what?

"It rains all the time? he asked, as though making sure that he's heard Gale correctly. "Seriously?" He felt like he was being pranked here.

He raised an eyebrow at him. "Because I kinda think I'd notice something like that, Gale." But raining all the time... that couldn't be natural. His mind flahsed back to when he took a glimpse at Gale's memories; and he recalled that it was mentioned there as well.

So Gale wasn't lying then(although, he really couldn't think of a reason why he would be).

So why the hell couldn't he see the rain? Him not being from this world shouldn't have any effect on him being able to experience the weather. He certainly froze his balls off on Gaia in the Icicle area. So what was the deal with this world?

"There's something seriously fucked about your world, man."

"Seriously," Gale said, and he certainly looked serious. "That is why I am surprised you did not notice the rain before."

He frowned deeply, pushing those invisible glasses up once again as he thought. "I am certain that you would notice the rain, unless there is something about us that is different, something that explains why I can perceive the rain and you cannot. It cannot be the demon atma, because it rained before that."

He glanced up. "Logically, the difference is due to your eyes. Your eyes react to the rain, thus your eyes cannot perceive the rain as rain, but instead as something else."

Huh. That actually made sense.

"...If that's true, then the rain on your world is actually raw data. Which is complete and utter bullshit unless--" Michael's eyes shot to Gale, looking at him in a new light. "Unless this world was virtual and holy shit you live in a virtual world."

He peered intently at Gale, as though he'd be able to see whether he was real himself or not. "Does that make you virtual too?"

Well, Michael seemed to have come to some kind of conclusion. The problem was, Gale couldn't see how that could be true. How he knew what the term 'virtual' meant, he wasn't sure, but for once a term didn't cause an unfamiliar ping in his head.

"Virtual?" he asked, his grey eyes widening a fraction. For some reason, Michael's intent look made him feel uncomfortable, and he found himself averting his gaze.

"How can that be true? If the Junkyard is not real, then how can I be real? How can you come here?" His lips thinned, his control cracking just a fraction. "That would make all of this...merely a program. The demon atma a new variable. The Laws parameters for the program to operate within."

Michael snorted. "Yes, yes and yes. I did say your world was fucked up. It fucking rains data," he continued bluntly. He wasn't the most sympathetic of people in ordinary circumstances, and this headache of his had sapped what little patience he'd had left. "Unless you can come up with some other answer, then you're kinda gonna have to deal with the fact that your world is not real."

He took another look at the expression on Gale's face and sighed. "Doesn't necessarily mean that you're virtual though. So calm the fuck down."

Gale blinked and frowned, this time the expression directed at himself. By most people's standards, he was still extremely calm. But by his own, he was badly rattled.

He closed his eyes and drew a breath, trying to calm himself down.

"My apologies," he said after a moment, opening his eyes and looking back up at Michael. "I was merely startled by your conclusion. But if this world is not real, then how can I be real?"

Michael waved a hand, as though dismissing Gale's question. He knew exactly how disturbed by his conclusion Gale was, but Michael wasn't what you would call good - by any stretch of the imagination - at comforting people. "If this is a virtual sim or whatever, then it'd just be your minds hooked up to it; your real bodies would be 'asleep' or something in the real world." He smirked slightly, "For any given value of real, of course."

He flopped backwards onto the bed, not caring if he dragged Gale down with him. His head was still throbbing, after all, and it was annoying him. It was worth it though, he felt, if it meant that he had finally solved the 'mystery' of this world.

Gale shifted as Michael flopped down, repositioning himself and stretching out beside the boy on the bed so their arms weren't bent at awkward angles.

It didn't take much to decide not to communicate these conclusions to Serph and the others right now. If this really was real, then it would cause them undue distress. And if it weren't real, then none of this really mattered anyway.

He wanted some hard evidence before he went to Serph. And as Serph didn't know about Michael, he couldn't use Michael as evidence.

There was something nagging at him, though. "Is that why I see the...the crying woman sometimes?" he asked, very hesitant. Often when he thought of her, her face appeared to him again, but not this time.

"'Crying woman'?" he asked, suddenly intrigued. He'd heard the hesitancy in Gale's voice and wondered if he was the first one Gale had mentioned her to. Either way, it seemed like it was a big thing for Gale.

"Dark-haired woman, kinda hot?" he hazarded, bringing his unbound arm up behind his head. He had no logical reason for suggesting that other than the fact that when he tried to hack this place, her face was the only thing he saw, but it wouldn't hurt to try.

Gale's eyes widened faintly at the words. "Yes," he said, a trace of urgency in his voice. "Do you know who she is?"

He shook his head, then shuddered as the discussion triggered another flash of the woman. He closed his eyes and pressed his fingers to the bridge of his nose, struggling for control.

"I...I keep seeing her. I do not know who she is. She...she is crying. Looking down at me and crying."

He opened his eyes. "I do not want her to keep doing that."

Michael sat up slightly and stared as Gale spoke. He'd never heard him sound quite like that before.

"I don't know who she is," he answered, sounding almost apologetic, "I just saw her face when I hacked into your world."

He dropped back down onto the bed. "I don't know why she cries though. Can't help you there, man. It could be a memory or something," he continued idly, "And you did something to make her cry. I dunno."

"No."

The word was a low, quiet growl. Gale's eyes blazed green. "I wouldn't do that."

He closed his eyes, and when they opened again, they were placid, inhuman grey once more. "I have never met her," he said. "It is not logical to think that I have done something to make her cry."

He shifted closer, though, some need or urge he didn't understand making him slip his free arm over Michael's chest and rest his forehead against the side of his shoulder.

Fascinating.

Michael had looked over when he'd heard the anger in Gale's voice just in time to see his eyes fading from a vivid green colour - the same shade as his hair - back to their usual grey. So it seemed that his eyes changed colour when he got emotional. Michael remembered them doing the same thing when they had s--

Yes. Well.

He was about to question the contradiction in what Gale just said, but his words dried up in his mouth as Gale curled up next to him.

"What... are you doing?" he questioned hesitantly as he stared up at the ceiling, nonplussed. The only person to ever do something like that was his sister; he wasn't exactly one people generally went to for comfort.

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