004 ↯ audio

[feathery]

Who: Davesprite and whoever.
Broadcast: Fleetwide
Action: Indoors, moonside.
When: Now sounds good.

[Someone is done to death with masks and getting accosted by randos on the street. Thus, Davesprite has taken refuge indoors, since that's as good as it gets short of returning to the ships. He'd normally opt for text, but he honestly just wants to talk for a while. Even if his voice is equal parts bored and sullen.]

Sportball ambushes on the street are great and all, [it probably isn't possible for him to sound more sarcastic] but I got to ponder the selection happening in this contaminated stain on the face of space. Like, sure, there are "strategy games" [yes, those are actual, audible air quotes], but where my real battles at. You know, the wordplay variety, where you drop a witticism to a sick beat and slant it to rhyme. Twist that shit into ill verse and cause some deadly delirium not even the most decorated doctor could cure. Dude could be veteran to World War Disease and still find himself stymied by this nasty flow that makes even the gutsiest guerilla fold. Ain't a medic around who can mend my rap battle burns.

[A beat.]

So, yeah, maybe I'm only pissed about moon pollution central 'cause all these hostile idiots keep hailing me out of the blue and yet: not a single fuckin' rap battle. [This is definitely not the only reason he's pissed about moon pollution central, but priorities.] What's a guy got to do, besides deck himself out in a shitty respirator and biohazard costume. A live performance? God, this is stupid.

Comments

[forsometimenow]

I've learned that, too. Something you think may be impossible is old hat in someone else's universe.

[feathery]

Yeah. I guess sometimes I just kinda wonder how we end up in the universes we do. Or if there's a reason why, I dunno.

[forsometimenow]

Well, there's a theory that there are an infinite number of universes that have versions of us that are basically the same in personality, but ended up on radically different life paths due to chance or choices. Like, maybe somewhere out there, there's a me that passed up the chance to join the Stargate program and is running a clinic in rural Wisconsin. And it was just pure chance that the versions of us that we are ended up being sent here.

[feathery]

Yeah, that's, uh. Not so much a theory where I'm from, but kind of a major component of reality. I'm not even from the real timeline; I'm just an offshoot Dave that had to exist to help out the real guy. Which...

[He trails off, only vaguely aware of where he wants to go with this.]

I don't know. The places other people are from don't seem to care too much about that.

[forsometimenow]

Wow, really? [She blinked in surprise.] And yeah... I guess in the end, it doesn't make much of a difference. We're here, we're stuck and we can't get home.

[feathery]

Yeah, it's complicated.

[UNDERSTATEMENT.]

And I guess so. The situation gets especially nebulous when none of us are sure what happens when people disappear. Like where they go or if Atroma even controls it in the first place.

[forsometimenow]

Yeah, I've been trying to figure that out myself. Mostly if Atroma has any control over who comes and goes. My gut's telling me they don't, but any theory has holes in it.

[feathery]

Yeah, not gonna lie. Kind of skeptical about the claim when a bunch of interdimensional gods couldn't keep their hold on us properly in the last primordial cesspool I crawled out from. And there have been a shitload of people who have cycled through just while I've been aboard. Seems logistically implausible to keep that many people in... I don't know. Storage? Whatever alternative locations we have on the table.

[forsometimenow]

And there have been people who have stayed for a matter of weeks before being taken away. That's not much time for the alleged audience to really get a feel for them and whether or not they'll be a good fit for the show, you know?

[feathery]

Yeah, kind of figure ratings have nothing to do with it. They probably don't matter at all, unless you care about making bank. I mean Atroma has got to be profiting from them, 'cause the whole thing reeks of them scraping together an opportunistic buck. But. The very premise of kidnapping people from alt realities just for the sake of a reality show sounds pretty fucking unlikely. That'd require the perfect storm of boredom and limitless cash and I don't think Atroma has their shit together enough for either.

[forsometimenow]

So it's like that one show... uhh... Whose Line? Where everything is made up and the points don't matter.

I have to agree with you there. Bringing people across dimensions should require a tremendous amount of power and the technology to do it as they choose, which few universes seem to have. Then there's keeping the ships fueled, giving us money and food and bonuses, allowing us to put in significant ship upgrades every month... I doubt even the universe's most popular reality show would make them THAT rich.

[feathery]

Do they still have Whose Line in the future. Damn.

[It had definitely been reduced to reruns by 2009.]

But yeah. Like it turns out my alt universe mom and Jade's alt universe granddad could...sort of send shit back and forth between our universe and theirs. But the energy cost was fucking astronomical, and that was still within the same contained reality. I don't know, it's just frustrating when there's all this fucking garbage that doesn't add up, but we can't do anything about it. Like anytime anyone tries, it just turns into dead ends upon dead ends.

[forsometimenow]

I catch it every now and then on TV, yeah. What year was it where you were from? I'm from 2009.

[She then nodded.]

They've certainly perfected blocking us from finding out anything useful, too. They can fiddle with our memories, they can seal off anything that might give us clues, they don't talk to us directly. It's hard not to feel hopeless sometimes.

[feathery]

Oh. [That's...way more contemporary than he was expecting.] Uh, I guess it would have been 2012, but 2009 is the last time years meant anything. We didn't have space travel or anything like that, either, unless you wanna count hammerspace storage. That was considered basic tech, though.

[Being in jamjars for two years means he's finally over the fact that only video game protags think hammerspace is normal.]

Anyway. I dunno what to do about it, the whole Atroma thing. 'Cause it does feel futile, and I mean—there's no way to know what they do to our memories besides that. And if they've got that much control over everything we do, what's the point in pretending they don't.

[forsometimenow]

Most of the public wasn't aware of the space travel thing, to be fair. I only talk about it freely here since I figure it doesn't matter who knows, but I had nondisclosure agreements and security clearances a mile long back home. I couldn't even tell my dad where I was.

[She bit her lip.]

Yeah. We can't exactly go behind their backs when they can knock us all out at will and implant knowledge into us. But on the other hand, I have a feeling they'll slip some time. They HAVE to.

[feathery]

Was it later in the year where you're from.

[This question is less random than it sounds.]

But I guess they do. Or maybe they have before, but they wipe the memories. The whole augment bullshit makes this a thousand times more complicated than it needs to be. And like, I'm used to complicated, but this is above and beyond anything that's remotely necessary.

[forsometimenow]

It was around the middle of the year, actually.

[She nods, making a frustrated sound.]

When we can't count on our own memories, it makes it even easier for them to control us. Manipulate us for entertainment. Whatever the story is behind this, it's deeply screwed up.

[feathery]

It was April 13th, where I'm from.

[Which is a really precise date. But the combination of your best friend's birthday, the apocalypse, and your life generally going down the shitter all within twenty-four hours in linear time leaves a lasting impression. ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ]

...Do you think Atroma is after anything in particular, 'cause I've got nothing. Besides, I dunno, some kind of mass social experiment. But that still doesn't really explain why they snatched us all up from other worlds instead of people from their own.

[forsometimenow]

Hunh- must be an important date if you remember it so precisely. I'd been in another galaxy and in the middle of a firefight beforehand, I don't remember what the date was back home.

[She shook her head.]

And I'm positive they could have found willing volunteers if they were so desperate to run an experiment of some sort. But then again, they'd get better results from unwilling participants, no? More genuine emotions and behavior, rather than playing to the cameras or conforming to the expected script like volunteers would have been.

[feathery]

Yeah, it's kind of memorable when you dimension-hop on the same date on two separate occasions. [His canon really loves its arc numbers.] A firefight sounds pretty intense, though.

And I guess. But it's not like anyone could have stopped them from kidnapping people from their own planet, or any others. So what have we got that they don't.

[forsometimenow]

Jeez. I don't know which one I'd prefer, honestly.

[Jennifer nodded.]

I tried to ask Diamond once- I asked about myself specifically. She basically told me that the audience thinks my lack of self-confidence is cute. Surely there are enough people similar to me they could have picked instead?

[feathery]

Whichever one results in the better outcome, I guess.

[Aka FEWER PEOPLE DYING.

But that explanation kind of makes him ????????? Enough that he passes over the question part.]

That's...uh. I know her and the other guy are all about condescension, but that's taking it to a new level.

[forsometimenow]

Yeah. She also added in that the audience just loves my friendship with Beverly. It was a little... weird to hear myself examined in that way, like I'm nothing more than a fictional character for people to obsess over.

[feathery]

Yeah, it's fucked up. I mean it's one thing to sort of know that shit from speculation—like let's be real, the only reason I ended up captain instead of someone actually qualified is because Atroma thought it'd be funny—but. I dunno. It's another thing to hear it confirmed we're being kept in a big ol' fishbowl and Atroma likes to tap on the glass.

[forsometimenow]

Yeah. It's easier to ignore the whole "we're watching you" thing when it's come nebulous concept... and haven't they talked about broadcasting our pasts to the audience, too? Talk about Big Brother.