driftfleet | .05 if i live the life i'm given, i won't be scared to die

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.05 if i live the life i'm given, i won't be scared to die

Who: Rogue and anyone, really
Broadcast: Video, why not?
Action: The Star Space Station
When: Basically all week, Video Sunday afternoon

[ Video ]

[Rogue doesn't really like addressing the fleet at large, so she keeps it brief.]

Alright, folks, here it is - one of the best places we've been yet ta stock up. What's on your 'must bring back to the ship' list an' [more importantly, maybe] how are ya plannin' on storin' it?

[She's got her own list, but she knows the way these things usually go and she doesn't want to forget anything in case it winds up being a long, long dry spell before they hit another place this good.]

[ Action - All week ]

[Sooner or later, Rogue always falls into a routine. She's too well known in the fight circles now to make any real money, so she's taken to working as a chef/bartender at one of the middling-to-fancy restaurants. When not there, she is either 1) shopping (thank you, space gods, for a place that finally carries lipstick) 2) in the 'datary' checking out books to be 3) read in the garden. or jogging in the garden. Let's be honest, being around actual plantlife feels amazing after the desert planet, the frozen planet, and let's not forget -- space. Garden, reading, ~~wine~~ whiskey, chocolate, lipstick -- a good day. And then it was time to start it all over again.]

[By the time Rogue had given Kitty directions to where to meet, she'd had time to get... nervous about it. Which was dumb, but true. They'd talked fine enough over the communicator, why should meeting in person be any different?

In any event, Rogue hopes that Kitty will like the place. It was one of those middle level spots that she could easiest afford, and she's found a table that would let them both have their backs to the wall, let them both keep an eye on the door. She waits, gloved hands curled around her coffee.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Sometimes they called them glitches. Other times they they said they were for our rehabilitation. I think they were probably just social experiments.

Not too long ago I woke up in someone else's body for a day. More than once the power has gone out and everything goes completely black. And sometimes the dinosaurs get loose. [Yeah, it's a weird place.] Sometimes they just throw a big party. [She remembers the night on the ferris wheel pretty fondly.] Shared dreams, group therapy sessions, mistletoe robots that trap you in shrinking barriers until you kiss, discs with glimpses of your past or future, snow, a flood. I don't know. There's always something.

It's all a shared virtual reality experience so it feels real, but they can make anything happen.

[Back up.]

It was virtual reality?

[A lot of these things sounded awfully familiar, but it just figured that mistletoe was a universal pain in the butt.]

We didn't know until recently. There was a glitch. Maybe a real one. Some of us woke up in our bodies. It was actually the third time something like that had happened, but this time it was easier to connect the dots. The wardens admitted it not long after. It's possible the whole thing was just a head game, but it explains a lot of what they were able to do.

And virtual or not everything about it feels real to me. [What are memories made of anyway?]

[The stuff life is made of.

Rogue nods slowly.] Did they call themselves wardens?

Yep. Did they do that where you were too?

[She shakes her head.] Scientists. It was 'for our own good.' An' the good of the world, of course.

[She tilts her head.] Did they ever tell ya why y'all were bein' kept down there?

When you arrive you just get a message telling you that you're a criminal and listing all the crimes you've ever committed and saying you've been removed from your timeline to protect it.

I'm guessing the scientists weren't actually saving any worlds.

...sounds like they're full of crap. [Frankly.]

Theirs. [Rogue made a face.] That planet was a hot mess. It had somethin'... wrong at the core. Folks would get sucked in from all over, but there weren't any natives, just the spirits. An' they wouldn't stay dead. They'd just die, an' reset ta when they were sucked in, an' slowly lose more and more of themselves every resurrection until they were turned ta vegetables. That, or go mad.

Wait, that was happening to you?

[Rogue shook her head.] No, I didn't die there. Could've, a few times, but even if I had there was one scientist - we called him John - who'd worked out a way ta reverse the penalties. He worked with our enclosure, but he was in hidin' from the Malnosso...

[Rogue trailed off then, shook her head and laughed slightly.] Sorry, I'm not very good at explanations. An' Luceti was a mess. Ya wanna get somethin' to drink or eat or something?

[Maybe she can use salt and pepper shakers to try and explain the Malnosso and the Third Party and the enclosures. It'd have to sound less insane with props, right?]

[She'll have questions but for now she's just going to let Rogue work it out and try to figure out where she's missing pieces if it still isn't making sense to her.]

Yeah, this feels like a conversation that could use some fuel.

[You are getting a concerned glance at that could have died bit though.]

[Rogue raised a hand to get the attention of the waiter. Between the two of them, it is not hard to do.]

Get what ya want.

[It was a medium-price ranged diner place. Rogue vaguely wondered if this Kitty was a vegetarian as well. There was pretty much anything she wanted on the menu. Rogue herself ordered a fruit and cheese platter, because you just don't know how much you miss fruit and vegetables until you've been on a space ship eating variations of protein paste for months.]

[Not a vegetarian. She also doesn't keep kosher. Food could be hard to come by so she couldn't be picky. Some of her favorites are Chicago-specific treats like the pizza that are part taste and part nostalgia. But shockingly, that's not on the menu so she goes with a sandwich. (Do they have chicken in space? Space chicken!)]

Thanks.

There's a Logan there too. At the prison. He only barely recognized me, [which was NOT fun for her] but I still think your Kitty is safer with him there.

Edited 2016-02-12 13:25 (UTC)

[Rogue frowned a little.] He barely recognized you, but he knew her?

No. I mean, he was expecting someone younger like her, but still different worlds. But he's Logan. [Which means something to her even if maybe it shouldn't in this context. But it does. The same way being with Rogue right now means something.]

[Rogue reaches up and massages a temple with one gloved hand.] Ya know once, in Luceti, we got together with anyone who was from a world like ours an' tried to pick out common threads an' figure out how many different versions there were. It was a trip.

[And still a little mind-bendy.] Heck, did ya know there are worlds where we're in comic books?

[She'd done her best to squirrel them away, but they kept showing up at the library. Sometimes with information that was far too close to truth.]

I did. At least one person mentioned it briefly. He wasn't around long. [It was one of those days the place flooded with new inmates only for all or most of them to disappear by the next day.]

My... [There's a pause here as she has to redirect herself. Boyfriend? Lover? Neither apply to him anymore even before coming here. Even if she never got to be exactly okay with the split. She looks down at her cup. Pretty important looking cup. She'll just keep her eyes there for a minute.] A guy I knew was always recognizing people that way.

[Yeah, that's a fascinating cup alright. Rogue's own gaze drops down to it. She knows that kind of tone. She wasn't sure what to do about it, move on or ask.

Well. Time to ask later, probably. That sort of thing was kind of personal.]

They started showin' up in Luceti. Ya would not believe some those spreadsheets...

[Yes, let's focus on our crazy lives, and not on our losses.]

Sounds like you had some good record keeping there. Did it ever get you anywhere? [She hoped it would in the prison.]

Ya mean - in gettin' out? [Rogue shifted a little, leaning further back and considering.] We found a way, but it didn't have much ta do with our records. An' the final bugs were still gettin' ironed out 'fore I got dragged in here. But we at least fixed some... major things.

Yeah, getting out. [But the question is answered.] Do you think they escaped after you left?

Maybe? [Rogue raked a gloved hand through her hair.] The thing is, in Luceti I know that time froze in the world back home. Or - not froze, but there was somethin' that made it so people returned exactly where we left. But I have no idea if that's what happens when we get here or not. I do think that if time keeps goin' the way it did, they'd make it back.

[Rogue tilted her head and considered Kitty.] What happened with y'all after ya found it was virtual reality?

We were told there were duplicates of us back home living our lives less criminally. [She was never sure she believed that one. But why one tall tale and not another?]

With the virtual reality I suspected before we confirmed it, so I'd already kind of wrapped my mind around it. I was just happy we didn't lose our memories and that it was a shared virtual reality. [That would have been impossible. Having all those connections to people who either didn't exist or didn't know you? Then again that's a little like being here.] But it was hard for some people. Most new arrivals wouldn't believe it. Which is fine. I mean so much of that place was manipulation that the best you can really call anything is a working theory.

Duplicates? That's not creepy. [Man, she would have been pissed off at the thought.] So the whole under water thing -- just a gimmick? Any way of breakin' out that y'all figured?

I know. [Though she wasn't worried about hers since she didn't think they sent anyone there just to die. But she isn't sure Rogue wants to know that just yet.] No, there was still a dome surrounded by water when we woke up in our bodies. Another layer of making it inescapable if the barrier wasn't enough. I couldn't phase through it. Of course that was in the virtual reality. In our bodies they had our powers suppressed completely.

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