meadowlark | @stephen.strange | via morningstar network, a couple of days after cassius' post

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@stephen.strange | via morningstar network, a couple of days after cassius' post

[ It isn't real. That's a fact upon a fact: none of it is real, but this even less so.

Usually, knowledge matters. It had for a while here too. Taken him from staggering frantically down part-collapsed tunnels over obstacles whose names he didn't know, calls giving way to bellows, in search first of life and then just of obstacles whose names he did know— to sitting quietly, raking thick air into his lungs, body too beleaguered to be good for more than waiting for the day to end.

And eventually he'd slept. And the day did end. And when he woke and turned on his flashlight to gear himself up for greeting the millions who ought now to be staggering back down into the tunnels, fresh from their reset - he'd found them exactly where he'd left them.

This will not be ending soon. This will not be over until somebody makes it so. But his thoughts won't be gathered into shape. The wall at his back is still hot from the blast. The air is cloying. His skin sloughs under his touch.

The quiet is too heavy. He needs the reminder. ]

Talk to me
Please

[ ooc: for those in the sim, none of the things described in the above brackets will be visible to anyone but him, but Stephen will have been seen by some about half a day before this post searching haphazardly around the tunnels, calling both in general and then specifically for people, then staring very intently with varying expressions of grim hopelessness at patches of nothing, and eventually giving that up for sitting very quietly on the ground in a tunnel somewhere. He's non-responsive to attempts to interact with him throughout and wouldn't previously have been replying to any attempts to contact him via the network either.

Feel free to assume your character has spotted him or been aggressively bumped into by him or heard about him being Weird, or on the flipside to have no idea he's been acting like he's having a really bad trip. ]

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[...Okay, so that's really not a good sign. Wade had chalked up Stephen's lack of response to his remark as yet another example of someone ignoring his jokes, but the vacant way he glances towards Wade (not at him, which is worrying enough on its own) is enough indication that there's something else at play here. Wade slowly passes his hand in front of Stephen's vision, checking for a reaction.]

Doc? It's me, Wade. We were texting a few minutes ago, remember? Can you see me?

[ No, nothing. The tunnel's just as empty as it was. Letting out a breath, he lets his eyes slide closed and his head lean back against the wall.

The silence is a little deafening. He sends a quick message to check up on his visitor. ]

Did you get lost?

[The message pings and Wade blinks in alarm, reading it a few times with increasing concern. This is not normal-- even if Stephen was somehow blind and deaf he'd still probably be able to feel Wade's presence, right?]

I'm standing right in front of you. What's going on?

[ Oh. Well, that explains that. There's a shift in him, pulling himself up a little straighter, subtle changes in posture and expression to try to look a little less concerning. ]

Like I said. Private room.

[ Nobody gets in or out, no matter how close they're standing. ]

I have my own simulation within yours.

[...sphincter says what?]

What does that mean? Explain it to me like I'm five.

I can't see or hear you. As far as my senses are concerned, I'm on my own in the aftermath of a nuclear explosion that to the best of my understanding hasn't, in the wider shared virtual reality, happened.

[Wade is definitely not nerdy enough to understand this weird sci-fi bullshit. Of all the times Weasel wasn't around...]

So you're saying what? Like a show within a show kind of thing? Some Inception shit or something? Simulception?

[Is that even possible? Moreover, how was he still able to see Stephen? Did that mean that all the simulations weren't really real and they were all just wandering around New Amsterdam in a stupor? Or plugged into the Matrix?

This concept is making his head hurt, so he decides to switch to a simpler question.]

What if I touched you? Can you feel that?

[He reaches out to grasp Stephen by the shoulder.]

[ He's silent for a moment, expression stiffening with concentration, waiting. There's some delayed feedback, the sim's altered coding tweaking at his brain in an effort to change his reality— but touch is a little harder to fold into his solitary experience than other senses. And with no other stimulus crafted for his brain to attribute it to, Stephen finally feels the pressure of a hand.

A slow, staggered breath in. He nods. Finally comes out with— ]

Yeah.

[Well then. At least Stephen's not totally cut off from the outside world. Still, the idea of being suddenly trapped in that sort of situation-- like a virtual sensory deprivation tank-- causes a chill to go up Wade's spine. He sinks down next to Stephen with a sigh.]

You said Judas did this to you? How? Why?

[Sitting together texting each other like this, they probably look for all the world like two stereotypical technophobes, more comfortable conversing through a phone screen than engaging face-to-face.]

He has control of my implant. It can't be hard for an AI to personalize the experience.

[ As for the why, Stephen huffs a humourless laugh. It splutters slightly in his chest. ]

To spite me, at a guess.

...shit.

[It comes out involuntarily, even though he knows Stephen can't hear it. Capturing and torturing people is one thing, but messing with their brain? Forcibly changing their perceptions of reality to isolate them? That's a whole other thing altogether, and Wade can't say it's the first time he's heard of such a phenomenon-- or even that he hasn't experienced it before.]

So what's the next step? How do we get you out of there? Back to the real world, I mean?

[ More questions. Stephen tries taking steady breaths to clear his head, to push away the oppressive weight of the dark stillness he sits in. But the air is thick with radioactive dust - with, his mind helpfully if inaccurately supplies, the final breaths of millions. ]

I've been back to the real world, briefly. It's not a viable exit strategy. There's no long term solution until somebody breaks the simulation.

[More bad news. Wade passes his hand over the top of his head with a sigh.]

Somehow I doubt Cowboy Curtis is gonna show up in leather and Ray-Bans offering us a way out of this.

Can you hold out for that long? Because I mean, I've seen some hard-luck cases in my time and...

[And Stephen looks like a man in the final stages of terminal cancer. Wade would know. He's seen that same look in the mirror dozens of times before.]

[ A coughed laugh that bubbles in his chest. There's the question. He doesn't have the energy for painting a prettier picture, so - ]

I doubt it.

[Wade shifts uncomfortably, feeling something in his chest constrict at the utter wrongness of that laugh. It's a sick sound, a hollow sound-- the sound of someone who's given themselves up for lost long before their time has run out. For a split second he finds himself back in a place with sterile walls and that acrid antiseptic smell, exhausted from the struggle to find answers and safety in a cold and clinical world that offers none of it.

It is probably the memories of that desolate time that prompts his next message:]

Pretty sure I know the answer to this question before I ask it, but what are our options here?

Edited 2020-09-01 15:14 (UTC)

Our?

[ It's less a question and more the gentle making of a point. Wade's options and Stephen's options are two very separate things. His actions have had enough of an impact on the others here that he's not laying the weight of his consequences on their shoulders too. That said - ]

I wait, or I don't. Those are the options.

[ Wade doesn't strike him as somebody who needs sheltering from them. ]

Edited 2020-09-03 10:54 (UTC)

[Wade shakes his head, shooting Stephen an incredulous look even though he knows the other man can't see it.]

Come on. You're smarter than that.

You know what I'm asking. If there's anything I can do to help...

[The tone is hard to carry through text, but Wade hopes that Stephen will eventually catch what he's throwing. He's too smart to be anything but deliberately obtuse.]

[ He presses his eyes closed.

It would be easy. It would be so easy to take the out that's being offered to him.

It would also be yet more selfishness. ]

I'm not going to ask you to do that.

[Sigh. Heroes.]

So you're just gonna subject yourself to a slow painful death because... what?

You feel guilty for something that we readily signed up for? That we knew the consequences of and did it anyway? How does that help anyone?

How does euthanizing me help you?

[ Not the most sensitive phrasing, but he's too tired to argue with him on the matter of his undeniable guilt. That guilt isn't the point, it's the guilt of asking somebody else to pay the fee for his brief peace that's in play now. Killing somebody has weight. It isn't fair to inflict it on Wade. ]

[There's a moment of silence that follows that question. Wade momentarily leans back, resting his head against the wall. He's suddenly very tired.]

Because I've been there, doc. That's not a road you wanna go down. It's slow and it's torture. Way worse than anything those jack-booted fucks back at the facility can cook up. And you're gonna go through that whole horrible process alone. Anyone else would offer the same thing, if they were in my shoes.

And when it comes down to it? It's better if it's me. One more death on my hands won't make much difference, if you get what I'm saying. It'll be quicker this way, trust me.

[ Hesitation follows. Before this place, he's only ever died swiftly. Impaled in five places or blasted to atoms, removed entirely from existence, a raft of bullets from oncoming soldiers. He's never died like this, this slow flaking away. But forever frightening as it might be, pain is no stranger. Pain he can endure.

Stephen breathes in shallow swallows of thick air and knows that not too long from now it'll be rancid with decay. The corpses of millions starting to swell and lose form.

He's been holding onto the freedom to walk outside into radioactive day and die quietly up there in the lifeless wreck of the city when it gets too much. But even as his throat goes thick with emotion and his breath stutters once - twice— no tears well. He's too dehydrated even for that. How long is he really going to be free to wander? How long will his body be able to support that sort of an escape? ]

We'll wait.

[ It's a croak. His voice this time, out loud. ]

I'll live as long as I can, and I'll let you know when I can't move.

[ It's a compromise of sorts. Wade is asking him to spare himself the intolerable. Stephen's just setting his own definition of what that means to him.

He switches back to text for a clarification, logic filtering back in through the exhaustion that robbed him of his filter - ]

If the offer doesn't stand by then, I'll understand.

[Not the most satisfying answer, but it was the answer he was expecting. It never ceases to amaze him, really-- the human spirit's ability to just endure. It's what's saved him, countless years ago, when he was as tired and weak as Stephen. When the cancer had almost finished making a meal out of him and was poised to take the final bite. He can't really fault Stephen for wanting to make the most out of the time he's got left.]

Okay. Just let me know as soon as it gets to be too much, okay? There's no time limit on the offer.

[ Wade grants him a get out of jail free card to be played at his discretion and some of his tension shifts to the side, making space. Amazing what the freedom to die can do. ]

Thank you.

[He's rarely been thanked for offering to end someone's life before. Not like this, anyway. It feels... strange, like he's being acknowledged for doing a good deed when he's really just doing what he's always done back home.]

Don't get used to it. I don't hand freebies out often, you know.

Next one I'm charging full price. In advance, obviously.

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