i_speak_softly | Forty-Ninth Theory [Action/Voice]

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Forty-Ninth Theory [Action/Voice]

[Don has never been to an ocean before, and last time he was at an amusement park he had to electrify the roller coaster to defeat an enraged colony of nanobots.]

[He is determined that this excursion will be one of pleasant discovery.]

[To that end, he takes the teleporter to the beach on Thursday morning, and spends the next two days exploring the park, the waterfront, and as far out into the ocean as his own limbs can take him. (Or farther, if anyone is kind enough to offer him the use of a boat.)]

[At some point during the two days, he opens his journal and leaves the following message:]

Researchers, experimenters, tinkerers, inventors, curious people of all kinds... join the "Scientists, Hypothesizers, and Engineers of Luceti League". I'm starting it right now and everyone is welcome.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only | Expand All

[A further display of trust! Don smiles at Robert.]

Which way is it?

[From the entrance, it's not particularly far. Robert begins picking his way through the significantly-thinned crowd, past a few other attractions, until he's left standing in front of the outside of the Hall.]

Ah... well, this is it.

[It's a long passage, rather ominous-looking, studded with mirrors on all surfaces... visually disorienting, of course, but Robert got used to it before.

He's still nervous of what Don might see, but he trusts that whatever it is, it'll be okay.]

[Don peers into the low building, then glances back at Robert.]

Do you know how it works?

I wish I did... presumably it is some sort of Shifted simulation.

... But one just... enters it.

[And Robert steps, nervously, into the room.] With any luck, er... a persona will appear soon enough...

[Don steps in behind Robert. As he moves between the first of the mirrors, a shimmer seems to pass down the row, and images appear in one pane after another.]

[A preteen Donatello, spinning a jo and repeatedly dropping it. Donatello without his gear, an orange circle painted on the upper corner of his plastron. Donatello in a strange costume, lightning dancing from his hands. Donatello with metallic limbs. Don with oddly-short bandana tails and a "D" on his belt...]

Whoa...

[Robert steps slowly, quietly taking in all of these forms of Don, even if there're his own there too, standing across from these versions - all drastically different, spanning the mirrors.

The toddler, bright-eyed, in front of a holographic replica of the Randi Institute, studying it with an obsessive gaze that seems out of place on a face that small. The turtle self - that sends a pang of guilt through Robert, standing next to Don the way he is - with reptilian eyes a stark gray against the pastel colours on his blunted face. The junkie again, with that same hollow drug-addled smile and the scruffy clothes and the needle marks stark on his pale skin. Even the math teacher from the AU, handling a piece of what he'd thought was Third Party technology, but was really Daisy's suit all along...]

... Yes.

... Yours are... fascinating...

[Don turns to look at Robert's side of the hall, his eyes tracing over each facet of his partner's multiversal self.]

Do you - recognize these?

Yes...

[He gestures to each of them in turn.] Myself at approximately three... myself during the species changing event... [... A longer pause, and a lowering of his voice -] ... M-Myself as... as a user...

... And lastly, myself from... from the false world, here.

... What about... yours', if I may ask?

[Don regards Robert's personas with varying emotions - fondness, remembrance, worry - then turns to gesture to his own.]

That's me a few years ago. This one I recognize from an experiment. That one reminds me of an experiment too... the others I don't know.

[The orange-circle-marked Don gets Robert's interest first.]

An experiment...?

[This had to be from before Robert knew him. He doesn't recognize the brand on Don's plastron, though it's mildly eerie.

The junkie persona smiles across at Don and gives an almost-normal wave - almost normal, Uncanny Valley-esque to real social ability. He's almost the same age Don is now, even - he looks starkly different from the professional-looking man nearby.]

Last summer. I turned into him, or thought I was him... [He shakes his head and shrugs, turning back to the mirrors opposite.]

[That wave is - strangely unsettling, somewhere between normal-for-Robert and normal-for-other-people.]

Was that really only five years ago?

Like the false life... [Robert half-murmurs it, studying the... experiment-Don slowly before moving his gaze to the others. They're all so... different from the person standing next to him - the preteen in particular reminds him poignantly of watching his own young self hunched over a console.

At Don's words, though, he looks at his old self again... the man from five years ago.]

Yes...

... It hardly feels like it, but... [Robert exhales slowly and looks into his own self's gray eyes. They have that distant, dreamy quality of somebody obviously intoxicated.]

You miss this, don't you...?

[He ignores the words in his head, trying not to think of how easy it might be to fall back down that crevasse again.]

Similar, but less... cohesive.

[He looks back and forth between preteen-Don and young-adult-Robert. They're so unlike each other - how could they have grown up to have anything in common?]

[The younger Don drops the jo again, and looks down at it despondently. Even though it's just an image, Don can't help murmuring a word of encouragement.]

Ganbatte kudasai, touto-chan...

Edited 2011-08-29 00:09 (UTC)

[The drug use masks the fact that this young adult is still brilliant - still a lover of the sciences, still a genius of a sort... but what good is genius if it stagnates, if it never gets put to use?

Robert steps a bit further, moving slowly away so that the next set of mirrors come into play, showing a familiar figure from the last time he was in here. Quite specifically, a little human boy, scarcely older than nine or ten, hunched almost defensively over a nanocomputer console.

It makes him bite his lip gently.]

... I always... wonder, now, how... h-how I would have turned out if I had friends like I do now... back then.

[The pre-teen Robert blinks curiously over at the similarly young figure of Don, hesitating a moment mid-obsessive typing.]

[The younger Donatello catches sight of Robert's persona, and draws back, curious but afraid, before blinking out of existence as Don moves down the corridor.]

I guess that goes for both of us.

[He slings an arm around Robert's shoulders. Behind him, unseen, an image of a very ancient-looking Turtle fades into view.]

[Robert leans slightly into Don at the touch, reassured and comforted by his presence even amongst things that are fundamentally a little unsettling.

The image of a seriously aged turtle makes him look over curiously, though.]

... The future? ... Or a future, I suppose...

[He wonders how close this persona is to the reality.]

[Don turns to see what Robert is looking at, and stops short at what he sees. The older Turtle notices him looking, and winks, before murmuring a few words that only Don can hear.]

Wow...

[Don might've only heard them, but Robert saw the mouth movements. There's no way he'd be able to guess what they were, though, so instead, he asks bluntly:]

... What did this person say, if... I may ask?

Hyaku shichi sai... A hundred and seven years old.

[He finally takes his eyes off his older self, to turn to Robert with a smile of amazement.]

A hundred and seven years old...

[Robert smiles too. That's well within the lifespan of a Terran human... of course, in Luceti, perhaps things would be different, but he's definitely going to make the most of his life here, if he's allowed to persist that long.]

... That is a lengthy natural lifespan.

I... thought it might be like that.

[He looks again at the venerable persona, before that image too vanishes from the mirror.]

Well, it does make sense, for your particular biology. Just... [Robert hesitates a moment.] ... it is still fascinating to see.

... I wonder if this place displays multiversions of oneself...

Isn't that what this is? [What else could these images be?]

[Simulations, perhaps? But Don's probably right.]

I... would think so. Hope so, even.

... You have such drastically different ones, though... it is fascinating to contemplate why.

I'm chaotic. [After a moment, he thinks he had better explain this.] What happened to me in my world was so improbable, I wouldn't be surprised if it didn't happen the same way in any other multiverse. And small differences in events can lead to wildly divergent outcomes. [He gestures to the mirrors around them.] Chaos.

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