TUELLER: “This is a more modest dreamspace than our last time. The familiarity is nice, at least.”
ALEJO: “It didn’t start great. For me. But it’s getting better.”
TUELLER: “Let’s go find the Doc and speak to the manager.”
ALEJO: He nods.
TUELLER: “Bad memories?”
TUELLER: Tueller gets up and goes to open the door.
STORY: You open it and emerge in boarding armor, standing on the surface of the fungal planet.
TUELLER: “Well this makes sense.”
STORY: How much time passes before you do something worth putting on TV?
TUELLER: Hmmm. What do we do with Space Wolfram and Hart?
TUELLER: Hey, let’s have a quick confab on what we’re doing with ourselves.
MILLICENT: Do we take it as read that we’re going in a drastically demilitarization and humanitarian aid direction?
TUELLER: Yeah, that already happened!
MILLICENT: Okay I thought so but it’s been a couple weeks.
MILLICENT: Do we pick our jobs within the org or should Tueller do that?
TUELLER: Millie set aside a big part of our budget to fight/investigate/etc the Collective.
STORY: Do you want jobs in the org?
TUELLER: Though I do not know what that actually means, in practical purpose.
MILLICENT: Maybe a seat on the board? Is that a thing?
STORY: I want to know what you do next!
TUELLER: There were vague talk about going into the Weave to do something there.
MILLICENT: Yes! We wanted to build a machine that would allow us to enter the Weave and examine what effect the Collective was having on it.
TUELLER: Also, figure out how to teleport!
TUELLER: Oh, also we have two AI friends.
TUELLER: Well, one AI friend, and one AI something or other.
ALEJO: I think that we need to figure out if we can bargain with the Collective rather than just fight with them. They need something. I thought we were trying to figure out exactly what that something is so that we could try to replace it or use it as leverage.
ALEJO: But I have only a vague recollection of what we actually wanted to do in the Weave.
MILLICENT: Right, that’s part of what the Weave trip was, I thought. To figure out what they’re doing there and if that’s part of what they needed.
ALEJO: Yeah, exactly. That’s my recollection.
ALEJO: But going to the Weave was dangerous. So, we should figure out a way to tether ourselves to the real work or something, so that we can get back out without, you know, dying.
MILLICENT: Yeah I think that’s part of the work of making a way for us to go there.
STORY: Noma said she could help you with a failsafe to get out of things get dicey, and she ALSO said this was suicide and you shouldn’t do it
ALEJO: I mean, I’m also completely open to other ideas, if someone’s got something.
MILLICENT: That’s all Millie’s got for next steps.
MILLICENT: We’re missing so much information
STORY: Is there anything you are having trouble remembering?
ALEJO: Alejo, however, keeps banging on about two things. He’s a little annoying about it. First, why does the all powerful Collective need human soldiers? Second, what if we had one of those communication thingies. That would let us plot wild jumps, right?
STORY: Ansible
MILLICENT: To reiterate, I don’t believe there’s any known technology or even designable technology that would allow us to perfect wild jumps
ALEJO: Yeah. Alejo calls it a communication thingie. ’Cause he can never remember ansible. (And neither can I.)
MILLICENT: They’ll always be a risk. That’s my understanding.
STORY: An ansible could do that, Millie
MILLICENT: gdjhfkahjgkhag
ALEJO: Haha.
ALEJO: Alejo’s annoying banter gets Millie to thinking!
ALEJO: So, another possible option would be to steal one. Though that also seems suicidal.
MILLICENT: Sorry, that’s my bad.
MILLICENT: I still think we ought to try and enter the Weave to spy on the Collective before we try and steal an ansible.
ALEJO: But, that does suggest that the Collective is manipulating all of us. There’s an option, other than jump relays, but the Collective wants us stuck using jump relays.
ALEJO: Right?
MILLICENT: Right.
MILLICENT: They’re making us reliant on them.
MILLICENT: Which is good business, but terrible morals.
TUELLER: And using the brains of our clones for processing power.
STORY: You don’t know what an ansible looks like
STORY: so it would be hard to steal one
ALEJO: Are the relays necessary for whatever they are doing to use us–not just our clones– as processing power?
STORY: it’s a two-pronged problem. You don’t know what an ansible is or how to find it, AND you wouldn’t know how to use it if you had one
ALEJO: (We are all being used, right? In our sleep?)
STORY: Everyone who has traveled through a jump relay is being used as part of the cloud
ALEJO: So, there’s something about the jump that seems necessary to the Collective hooking into our brains. Do we know what that is?
ALEJO: Sorry. I don’t mean to be all questions. But this is very helpful.
ALEJO: And if we don’t know, that’s cool too.
STORY: I don’t understand that question!
ALEJO: Okay! No problem. I’m just trying to understand why the Collective has manipulated us into using jump relays. But I think that we can surmise that at least part–and maybe all–of the reason is that they want to use us as processing power.
ALEJO: I think that going to the Weave is the best option. Most other things would require us going through another jump relay, which just seems . . . not a great idea right now?
TUELLER: Tueller is not convinced on this. Sorry.
ALEJO: What’s he want to do?
TUELLER: I don’t know what going into the Weave will do.
TUELLER: Tueller wants to invent working FTL.
TUELLER: Get our AI friends and AI hostage and the wildcatters in Tueller’s family to get working FTL going to free the universe from the chokehold of the Collective.
ALEJO: So, steal an ansible?
ALEJO: Assuming we can figure out, from our AI hostage, what it looks like?
TUELLER: Invent one ourselves, if necessary. Do it without one. Noma didn’t say an ansible was necessary when we discussed this with her before she and Remiel dusted up.
STORY: She didn’t?
STORY: She should have
ALEJO: Yeah, my recollection is that the ansible would be the only means of making wild jumps stable. Is that right, Jess?
ALEJO: Or predictable, I guess is the better word.
STORY: Safe
STORY: Yeah
STORY: Wild jumps are wild because it’s impossible to calculate all the variables to arrive in the right location safely, by the time you know the situation at your destination, that situation has changed
STORY: an ansible allows for instant communication between two locations and solves that problem
TUELLER: sorry, Noma didn’t. We thought it might be possible with her. Sorry. Got confused in my memory.
STORY: It’s fine, it’s been months
ALEJO: So, problems with stealing an ansible. One, we don’t know what it looks like. Two, if we steal it, we’ll piss off the Collective immediately. That probably means, we’ll start the fight? Three, even if we get it, we don’t know how to use it.
ALEJO: Other problems?
MILLICENT: That’s part of why Millie wants to do the Weave trip. Less likely to kickstart the fight.
TUELLER: Other issues are the people on the relay.
TUELLER: Who we said we’d work to rescue, but haven’t yet.
MILLICENT: Five, the Collective will probably take the theft of an ansible out on someone even if it’s not us
TUELLER: And we also have Calixta’s body kicking around somewheree.
STORY: It’s plugged in to the ship
STORY: she needs it for processing power.
TUELLER: Ahhhh, right.
TUELLER: Okay.
ALEJO: Unless we can think of a way of stealing an ansible without kicking off a war right away, Alejo still thinks the Weave gives us more information.
ALEJO: Do we know how Noma knew about medieval world, by the way?
STORY: Oh! I don’t know if you ever asked her that.
MILLICENT: It was removed from her memory, if I recall correctly.
ALEJO: If I recall correctly, that version of Noma was following a hunch? Do we know what that hunch was?
TUELLER: We asked her, and she said she couldn’t tell us.
STORY: Yeah, it was a hunch. When Chandra tore her into three pieces, it left some file fragments she was able to read and make an educated guess about.
TUELLER: I assume because she didn’t want us to learn what we now know.
STORY: She didn’t know what was on the planet, only that its location had been removed from her memory when she left the Collective.
TUELLER: Uh, can we hack her memory to get it back?
STORY: Once she got there, it confirmed some other suspicions she had and yeah, she was ahead of you on those conclusions.
STORY: No, AI don’t work like computer programs, they can’t be accessed or hacked.
STORY: They’re more like noncorporeal NPCs
ALEJO: Do we know if there are other planets like it?
STORY: You wouldn’t know where to look, but she’s confident there are.
ALEJO: So, we could try asking our AI hostage about this. I suppose another way of trying to gather more info would be to find another of these worlds? I mean, I’m not sure what we could learn, but that might be another thread?
ALEJO: I guess, Alejo thinks we need more information before we risk open, all out war. So, he’s trying to think of ways to get that. But he’s all on board with the long-run plan being getting an ansible and figuring out how to use it.
MILLICENT: I thought we tried our hand at interrogating our AI buddy whose name escapes me.
TUELLER: Remiel
MILLICENT: Thanks
TUELLER: Yeah, he wasn’t particularly forthcoming. We basically agreed to not kill him and that’s about as far as we got, friendship wise.
MILLICENT: And even if we find the planets we know they’re a sure-fire way to kickstart the fight if we expose ourselves even a little.
MILLICENT: Maybe we could direct some independent investigators from hopefully allied planets to check them out, but if we did that there’s no guarantee they and their entire civilization wouldn’t bite the bullet immediately.
TUELLER: Also, anything we do has to go through the jump relays.
TUELLER: Which is not a thing I feel comfortable doing right now.
TUELLER: Alejo, what do you want to do in the Weave?
TUELLER: Practically.
ALEJO: We could use space Wolfram and Hart to start alerting the universe to the relays, as covertly as possible, trying to ready allies for a coming fight?
MILLICENT: Practically we examine what the Collective is doing there. How they are leaching it dry and hopefully figure out why.
TUELLER: I don’t understand what that means.
MILLICENT: We know that the Collective is active in the Weave. They’re doing something that is hurting that psychic race.
TUELLER: Yes, and we know the entity we talked to was immensely powerful and could read our minds.
ALEJO: So, maybe we talk to whatever it was that Alejo talked to last time. Presumably, that might be the Collective.
MILLICENT: We know that whatever they’re doing is probably linked to using the minds of people who never make it through the jump relays and instead are kept asleep as permanent processing units.
MILLICENT: And if we understood that we might be able to figure out another way to meet that need, giving us a bargaining chip, or figure out a way to break their hold, giving us a bargaining or fighting chip.
MILLICENT: Seems like it could give us an advantage when it comes to confronting the Collective, something I think we have to do no matter what else.
TUELLER: It’s just, it’s immensely powerful, could read our minds and give us some semblance of our life’s wish, is probably the Collective, which is the thing we don’t want learning about the situation in our solar system because we worry that it would launch an invasion force or just kill us all.
MILLICENT: Right, but it’s a little less straight forward than – go back to the jump relay, take it back over, search it for a piece of technology we don’t understand and wouldn’t recognize if it smacked us in the face, seek to understand it while a jump relay’s worth of pissed off people probably rebel at us, and backwards engineer the thing.
MILLICENT: That seems like a bigger risk.
ALEJO: Any third options?
TUELLER: Noma had the ansible erased from her memories as well?
STORY: For the record I think it’s probably more efficient for you to have this discussion OOC but know that I am pretending it is happening in the galley of the Peregrine
MILLICENT: Okay.
MILLICENT: Fair.
MILLICENT: Yeah, can Noma shortcut any of this conversation for us? Does she remember the Weave, for example?
STORY: Yeah, Noma does not know where to look for an ansible or how to use it, though she could take a guess. It’d be about as good as Millie’s guess.
STORY: She does not remember the Weave! She never went there
STORY: AI do not dream, so there’s no mechanism for her to access it.
ALEJO: So, I’ll repeat a possible third option, which is more like a punt. But it might be smart. We could start building a covert coalition of allies. Now that we have a bit of breathing room and resources, we could start telling some folks about what’s happening. Assuming that’s our ultimate plan anyway.
MILLICENT: Does she remember why she agreed to come with Millie initially?
STORY: She was curious about Millie.
TUELLER: Every person we tell is conscripting them into a war.
TUELLER: Or a drastically new way of life.
ALEJO: It is.
MILLICENT: Yeah, it seems like we have two options where the downsides are Might Start A War
TUELLER: It’s worth discussing.
MILLICENT: A good third option doesn’t seem to be Starting The War
ALEJO: I mean, we’ve danced around this point: if we tell folks, we take away their choice about war. But, I don’t see a way around this, at least if we’re going to do something to end the jump relays.
STORY: Noma asks again: Are we going to end the jump relays?
STORY: There is an argument to be made that this is the way that harms the fewest people.
ALEJO: Only if we think that the clones aren’t people.
ALEJO: And . . . as a clone . . .
TUELLER: Tueller wants to end the jump relays, but the only way to do that is if we have a new way for FTL travel.
TUELLER: Not “destroy the relays.” Just end the cloning jump.
STORY: No, she’s arguing that every person who has died traveling through a jump relay is still fewer than would die in an open war with the Collective.
MILLICENT: What’s funny is that someone who has jumped just once is a clone, but the prisoner being forced to work or dream for the Collective isn’t one.
MILLICENT: FTL travel takes away the incentive for the Collective to bargain with us, though.
ALEJO: Alejo was on board with the notion that we need a new means of FTL from long ago. But the point remains: when we stop using the relays, we invite the Collective to fight us.
MILLICENT: Like, we may need it, but we’re taking away their lone Not Killing Us All bargaining chip.
ALEJO: Sorry. Overlapping typing.
ALEJO: Ditto to Millie.
MILLICENT: Can I get this out? I think it’s an important point.
MILLICENT: If we develop FTL by stealing tech from the Collective we are as good as announcing to them that we plan to kill them.
MILLICENT: They have no choice but to try and wipe us out in response.
ALEJO: When you’re done, I have a thought.
MILLICENT: If we figure out an alternate way to let them remain a device-free cloud-based civilization, we’re offering them a different way of life, but it’s one that doesn’t threaten them at a societal level.
MILLICENT: I’m done.
ALEJO: So, adding to that idea, what if we stole an ansible and used the threat of being able to develop FTL as leverage when we go to the Weave? The Collective could destroy us all. But presumably, the Collective needs us. If we’ve got some leverage–the leverage of being able to take away their processing power–either by developing our own FTL and fighting them, or by being wiped out–we can then bargain for a more mutually beneficial option that would include working with them on an alternative way to remain a device-free cloud-based civilization. We could also avoid having to tell others. At least right now.
TUELLER: All solutions have to include an end to slave-planets and slave-stations.
ALEJO: Maybe we offer a transition period? And we commit to helping them? They’ve bargained from a position of power, so it seems like going without some leverage isn’t going to cut it. But they are rational, presumably. At least rationale enough to want to avoid mutual destruction or at least, for them, deep discomfort.
MILLICENT: We can’t cut off their water supply and pretend we have their best interests at heart.
TUELLER: “Water supply”?
ALEJO: We can threaten to cut it off.
TUELLER: Planets full of goddamn people. Some of them our friends.
ALEJO: Or at least show that we have an alternative to begging.
MILLICENT: I’m saying the Collective has responded to threats one way.
STORY: Millie is arguing for the carrot rather than the stick
MILLICENT: They have responded to bargaining in a different way
MILLICENT: Noma’s defection shows us that the Collective has members in it that are interested in living a different life.
ALEJO: Well Remiel even said that.
MILLICENT: I think if we threaten we’re guaranteed war.
MILLICENT: If we figure out a way to get what they need without enslaving us they might come to the bargaining table.
MILLICENT: You’ve got to think that millennia of being on your guard must get tiring.
MILLICENT: Millennia of scheming and running slave planets and relays has to get old.
MILLICENT: There are right now hundreds of AI who will have to work their whole lives just running relays.
MILLICENT: You’ve got to think they don’t want to do that forever.
MILLICENT: That’s my pitch. Let’s evolve.
MILLICENT: Not to get too meta, but we all started this game as folks who were trigger happy, violent monsters as a default.
MILLICENT: Our growth can be expressed in finding a better way, even if the violent option makes us feel more secure.
TUELLER: What’s the first step towards doing that?
ALEJO: But it works. Even if there’s another option, unless it’s a better option, why would they take the risk of taking it? What would make it better? One thing would be that it’s actually superior tech. But it seems like a huge stretch to think that we’re going to invent better tech then they can. Another thing that makes it better is avoiding war and conflict that could result in a mess.
ALEJO: If we think we can make a better tech or somehow convince the Collective, which has enslaved planets and manipulated all of us for a very long time to be nicer, I’m all for it.
MILLICENT: We enter the Weave and figure out what and how they’re doing.
MILLICENT: Then we work on finding a better way.
MILLICENT: I don’t think we can invent better tech.
TUELLER: Oh shit.
MILLICENT: But the Collective has never considered, as far as we know, working as partners.
TUELLER: I just thought of something.
MILLICENT: oooh hit us
TUELLER: The Collective needs processing space, right? Or, at least, that’s what we think of. Big brains.
MILLICENT: Right
TUELLER: Well, we did find a planet-sized lump of processing power.
MILLICENT: Remind me.
TUELLER: It was sentient, so it doesn’t solve our not-enslaving sentient being issue.
ALEJO: Didn’t the Collective come for it already?
TUELLER: A giant space mushroom in a destroyed planet.
TUELLER: No, I don’t think it was Collective destroyed, I think they destroyed themselves, right?
ALEJO: I think that the Collective was coming to rescue it or . . . something. We promised it that the Collective would come, and I thought that we set that up. Something like that.
ALEJO: The lie was just how long it would take.
ALEJO: Right?
MILLICENT: That was like Adventure Two
MILLICENT: I have little idea
ALEJO: And we had to bust out of there quickly or get destroyed by the Collective.
STORY: chapter 16 has a good pull quote
MILLICENT: That’s an example of a solution that doesn’t involve war with the Collective.
MILLICENT: This is a good game that we did well at
TUELLER: I don’t remember the details exactly, but if we could grow more of that, and have the Collective run through it, that would be a potential processing method for them that would not require slaves.
STORY: Anyway yes you put that fungus planet in contact with the Collective already
ALEJO: But it’s still a good point. Maybe we could help the mushroom planet and the Collective by helping to grow more sentient mushroom?
TUELLER: Seed the universe with sentient mushrooms—ones that don’t grow separate personalities and instead can be permanent thinking nodes for the Collective rather than enslaved sentient people.
MILLICENT: Again, I think the point is we won’t understand the needs of the Collective until we enter the Weave and investigate.
MILLICENT: This could work! But we won’t know until we can observe what they’re actually doing instead of just hearing it described
ALEJO: I’m sold. But we should probably have a backup plan. If we all get stuck in the Weave, or killed, the Collective can avoid the entire problem.
TUELLER: To be fair, I get what you’re saying about FTL being an aggression. I was thinking about it from the non-Collective perspective. Like Earth would think the relays are worth it even if there are slaves as a result. That’s what the humans we’ve talked to about it so far have said.
MILLICENT: As long as they’re not the slaves, anyway.
TUELLER: So, INTO THE BREACH.
ALEJO: I think that we have to pursue the FTL solution too. I’m not sold that doing so has to be an aggression or a threat. I don’t think that independence while offering an olive branch has to be a threat.
ALEJO: Action?
MILLICENT: I think Weave first, FTL as a secondary option.
MILLICENT: That’s my vote. What about you two?
TUELLER: Weave, sure, why not?
TUELLER: Tueller’s in a better place than he was last time he went into that mind-fuck.
ALEJO: Let’s do it. But let’s set some sort of failsafe, so if we don’t return, someone else can pick up the torch of justice and freedom.
STORY: Noma is your failsafe
ALEJO: Okay!
STORY: She’ll monitor your vitals and pull you out if you start to crash.
ALEJO: Then let’s kick it Weave style.
STORY: Okay! Millie, tell me about the machine you build to get everyone into the Weave while lucid.
MILLICENT: Okay!
MILLICENT: The design note is “Precogs, but we don’t get sued”
STORY: Like a sensory deprivation tank!
STORY: Okay. You have to get nude to use it, because it amuses me to consider that.
STORY: Tueller, where is this machine housed?
MILLICENT: Yup! It’s got cool underwater lightning and the extremely salty water has to be purple instead of blue because Legal insisted
TUELLER: Tueller has it built in his old quarters, which he isn’t using anymore now that he’s king.
TUELLER: It’s basically his teen bedroom, which is very spartan, but also has the odd poster and memento. Not too much because he didn’t want his family to know too much about what he cared the most about.
TUELLER: But you can’t be totally spartan, even in this family.
STORY: Excellent.
STORY: Alejo, what preparations do you make before going in the tank?
ALEJO: The three of us have a huge family style dinner 24 hours before we go in. There’s a lot of drinking. A crazy amount of food. A lot of laughing. We don’t invite anyone else and we reminisce about our first adventures well into the night. The following morning, Alejo and Tueller get up late but spar in the late morning. Millie checks and double checks the tank. We all meet up at about 3:00pm for a snack and then get naked.
TUELLER: Any special advice from Noma?
STORY: Noma thinks this is all crazy, but promises to keep you safe. She’ll monitor all your vitals closely and pull you out as soon as you’re outside of normal parameters, either too high or too low.
TUELLER: This is some Inception shit.
STORY: She reiterates again that she does not think this is a good idea and we should all just agree never to talk about this thing we know and go back to being pirates.
STORY: You’ve brought her body in to the room too, and plugged it into a console to help with the processing power she needs.
TUELLER: Just a side question.
ALEJO: Alejo gives Calixta a kiss on the forehead. “Thanks for keeping us safe, sis.”
TUELLER: I can’t remember; is Noma different at all from how she was when she had a body?
TUELLER: She’s still a seamless integration of Noma and Calixta and all? She just doesn’t like being corporeal?
STORY: She’s still both Noma and Calixta, but she doesn’t seem to be all that worried about not having a body to move around in.
TUELLER: That’s the only difference?
STORY: She seems a little more acrid and fearless, less amused about everything
STORY: More like someone who would open an airlock to make a point.
TUELLER: Yeah, I kind of was getting that. Wanted to make sure I wasn’t reading into it.
STORY: I would say Alejo definitely doesn’t see a lot of his sister in this person.
TUELLER: Tueller has a history of misunderstanding, so wanted to not go too far without clarifying.
STORY: She’s got all Calixta’s memories, but she doesn’t swing like her.
TUELLER: Cool. Eventually I’ll have to figure out what I think about all that.
MILLICENT: Millie takes everyone’s hands before they get in.
MILLICENT: “Boys.”
MILLICENT: “Noma.”
STORY: As you inhale to start a speech, standing there in your white cotton hotel robes, you hear someone clear their throat in the doorway.
MILLICENT: Millie squeezes her eyes shut, annoyed.
MILLICENT: Opens them, turns around.
STORY: Ryo stands with five glasses and a bottle of very expensive white wine, moisture condensing on the outside.
STORY: “I thought I’d save the red for when you were back, but I needed something as a bon voyage.”
STORY: He gestures an invitation.
TUELLER: Tueller heads over.
MILLICENT: Millie rolls her eyes and heads over.
TUELLER: “Never going to turn down an open wine from our cellar.”
ALEJO: Alejo smiles and walks over as well. “Thanks, Ryo.”
TUELLER: “I forget I don’t have to ask for it anymore.”
MILLICENT: “I hope you at least have a toast.”
STORY: “Me? No.” He pours a serving into the fifth glass and lifts it as someone else crosses the threshold into the room.
STORY: “My god, you didn’t even take down your posters, T? Very kingly.”
TUELLER: Please be Akilah
STORY: Akilah takes the glass from Ryo and tilts it to the three of you as a greeting.
TUELLER: “Oh god sis.”
TUELLER: Tueller rushes her and picks her up with one hand, spinning her around.
TUELLER: Careful not to spill either of their wines.
STORY: Or re-break his collarbone!
ALEJO: Alejo laughs.
STORY: She laughs. “Okay, okay.”
TUELLER: (One arm, not one hand. He’s not THAT strong)
ALEJO: As soon as she’s back on the ground, Alejo gives her a warm hug. “Hey, Aki.”
ALEJO: “It’s great to see you.”
ALEJO: He steps back.
TUELLER: “Yes, I left the posters. This is where I used to secretly dream. Seems appropriate to its new purpose.”
STORY: She nods to you, Alejo, smiling. It’s a little sad, but she’s good.
MILLICENT: “Akilah. It’s so nice to see you.” Millie lifts her glass.
STORY: Akilah gives Millie a big hug and whispers in her ear. “FINALLY, geez.”
TUELLER: “Okay. A toast.”
MILLICENT: Millie pinches her elbow in the hug and grins.
TUELLER: “Uhhh, I’ve got one. Let’s see if I can remember it.”
TUELLER: “Come, my friends,
TUELLER: ’Tis not too late to seek a newer world.
TUELLER: Push off, and sitting well in order smite
TUELLER: The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds
TUELLER: To sail beyond the sunset…”
TUELLER: “And so on, and so on.”
TUELLER: “To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.”
TUELLER: “Damn, can’t remember all of it anymore. Anyway.”
ALEJO: “Come on, let’s drink life to the lees already!” Alejo raises his glass and then drinks.
ALEJO: He looks at them all. “What? I know a poem or two.”
MILLICENT: Millie lifts her glass. “To being pleasantly surprised.”
MILLICENT: She grins at Alejo.
TUELLER: “It’s appropriate for you, too.”
STORY: Akilah lifts hers as well. “Good luck. Don’t die.”
STORY: Ryo nods. “Agreed. We’ll be here to pull out anyone who starts to drown, but I think this is mostly your show.”
TUELLER: “Thanks, you too. Oh, hey, do you want to run a government?”
TUELLER: “You’re welcome to take it for a spin, at the very least.”
STORY: “Extremely no, that is YOUR problem, little brother.”
STORY: “I might stick around and whisper over your shoulder, if you need it.”
TUELLER: “Oh yeah. Whisper.”
MILLICENT: Millie snickers.
TUELLER: “You got me into this. A memory of you, at least.”
TUELLER: “We can talk it over after we don’t die.”
ALEJO: “Yeah. Let’s get to it. The not dying.” Alejo walks over to the tank, feels the fluid in it for temperature, shrugs, drops his robe and steps in.
TUELLER: Tueller does the same, turning away and being as modest as a giant naked man can be in the circumstances.
MILLICENT: Millie went to boarding school, she’s not stranger to public showers
MILLICENT: She hangs up the robe carefully before getting in.
ALEJO: Alejo isn’t modest. And he sneaks a long peek at Millie and smiles at her while sitting in the tank.
ALEJO: “See you both on the other side.” He puts the breathing mask on and lays down.
STORY: You go to sleep.
STORY: Alejo, you slip into a river, and burst out at a different point. You open your eyes to find yourself inside a cargo container. It’s small. You recognize it. Oh god, it’s smaller than you remember.
STORY: What do you do?
ALEJO: Feel around for the torch he left attached to the wall. When Alejo finds it, he turns it on and look around. “Jesus.”
ALEJO: He goes to the door, checking to make sure it’s unlocked.
STORY: It is!
STORY: It jams a little as you turn the handle.
STORY: And opens, as you step out into the cargo bay of Peregrine. Wait, that’s not where this happened. The thought passes by you quickly, and you pay it no mind.
STORY: Jac is fixing something, leaned over a crate.
ALEJO: Alejo takes a long breath, enjoying the familiar air. “Hey there,” Alejo says loudly enough to make sure she can hear him in there. “Whatcha doing?” Alejo walks over and peeks into the crate.
STORY: Jac stands, smiling at you. “Remembering.”
ALEJO: Alejo smiles back. “Anything I’d remember too?”
STORY: “Boss, incoming.” Kahn calls down from above, leaning over a railing.
STORY: He leaves again, hustling back up to the cockpit.
ALEJO: Alejo faux grimaces. “The boss?”
ALEJO: “Always work, work, work.” He smiles again. “Tell me about your memory sometime.” He turns and heads to the bridge.
ALEJO: “What’s up?” He asks Kahn when he gets there.
STORY: You step through into your hotel room on the Ark. The air is cooler, dryer. It’s empty and dark inside.
ALEJO: Alejo tilts his head. He looks back over his shoulder, through the doorway. He shrugs. “Hello?”
ALEJO: “Kahn?”
STORY: You’re alone.
ALEJO: He looks for a light switch and turns it on.
STORY: The lights sting your eyes. The bed is still made, your bag still closed. There’s nothing much in this room outside of you.
ALEJO: Alejo opens the bag.
STORY: What’s inside?
ALEJO: “Strange.” It looks full, but when he opens it, the only thing inside is a key. He checks the outside of the bag again. He pushes against it. It feels like it’s filled with clothing. But there’s just a big open space inside. And the key. He pulls it out, puts it in his pocket, and heads out the front door.
STORY: Tueller, you’re sitting in the common room of the hotel suite you usually book on the Ark.
STORY: You’re alone, it’s dim, seems late?
STORY: Alejo walks out of his room.
ALEJO: “Hey T.”
TUELLER: “Hey, is that you, or are you the manager of this dream space?”
ALEJO: “It’s me.” He smiles.
TUELLER: Tueller scans the room for something that seems particularly wishfulfillmenty.
TUELLER: “This is a more modest dreamspace than our last time. The familiarity is nice, at least.”
ALEJO: “It didn’t start great. For me. But it’s getting better.”
TUELLER: “Let’s go find the Doc and speak to the manager.”
ALEJO: He nods.
TUELLER: “Bad memories?”
TUELLER: Tueller gets up and goes to open the door.
TUELLER: He’s not ignoring Alejo, just multitasking.
STORY: You open it and emerge in boarding armor, standing on the surface of the fungal planet.
TUELLER: “Well this makes sense.”
ALEJO: “Stowaway storage container.”
ALEJO: Alejo says this before he adjusts. “Wow.”
ALEJO: He looks around.
TUELLER: Tueller goes to the comms to Millie. Or, really, just thinks hard, visualizing using the comms, “Oh hey, Doc, where are you at?”
TUELLER: Tueller’s trying to actively dream and create reality in this space by consciously visualizing what he wants.
STORY: Let’s make that a FA + Influence!
TUELLER: /roll 2d6
STORY: chris.stuart rolled 6
STORY: Millie appears behind you. She’s not in any kind of suit.
ALEJO: Alejo spins around. “Hiya!”
TUELLER: “Hey, Doc. Or are you the dreamspace manager here?”
MILLICENT: “Quit your nonsense and back to positions, please, Mr. Ya’Makasi, Mr. Soto.”
MILLICENT: “We are going to need to disassemble this thing piece by piece and I can’t do that if you’re dawdling.”
TUELLER: “Huh. That…doesn’t seem quite right.”
MILLICENT: Millie gestures to some kind of mossy rocks to each of them.
TUELLER: “I don’t think I’m going to do that, ma’am. that is decisively NOT the reason we’re here.”
ALEJO: Alejo looks at the rocks. He looks back at Millie. Then at the rocks. Then at Tueller. “Soooo, Doc, what’s your plan?”
MILLICENT: Millie stomps and the ground raises up like she’s goddamn Avalanche or something. Two pillars of stone rise and flow like waves toward Tueller and Alejo.
ALEJO: Alejo jumps over the waves.
ALEJO: He nods, impressed.
ALEJO: Then he turns and watches them. They don’t diminish or slow down.
TUELLER: Tueller does his best to not respond at all.
ALEJO: He turns back to Millie.
MILLICENT: Ooooh, what happens to Tueller not responding to the waves of stone?
STORY: Tueller, you get clobbered and wiped from the earth.
STORY: Alejo, Tueller’s gone.
ALEJO: “That was awesome. But also not. I take it you’re not Millie.”
MILLICENT: Millies smiles like the goddamn Joker.
MILLICENT: “Places!”
MILLICENT: She points to the mossy rock she indicated before.
ALEJO: Alejo walks over to the rock.
MILLICENT: Millie gestures vaguely. You’re supposed to do something.
ALEJO: “On my mark? Wanna tell me what’s up?”
MILLICENT: Dream logic!
MILLICENT: You know what to do!
ALEJO: He picks up the rock.
MILLICENT: Storyteller?
ALEJO: And throws it in the general direction she gestured.
STORY: Millie, what do you do?
MILLICENT: Millie activates the fungus creature
MILLICENT: This is just a description, I don’t know what that means, but I figure this is a bigger picture decision
STORY: Oh! Well in that case, it wraps its tentacles around Alejo and squeezes him to death. Alejo, the lights go out.
STORY: Millie!
STORY: Now that that not-you version is done doing whatever she was doing, where do you wake up in the Weave?
MILLICENT: Millie wakes up where she woke up before, an idyllic semi-moon with a thriving garden.
MILLICENT: The light from the satellite mirrors shines down brightly as Millie is knee deep pulling weeds.
MILLICENT: “I brought every bit of biological life to this god-forsaken rock, where did the weeds come from?”
MILLICENT: On her knees, looking up, appealing to a higher power. She’s Charlton Heston in Planet of the Apes