@stephen.strange

[rehandle]

I believe I've been gone. I'm back. Update me.

Comments

[rehandle]

No. But I haven't found any trace of drugging or a struggle since waking. Have you?

[possidetur]

I'm not certain where to begin.

[rehandle]

[ wait, what? ]

There's a lot to tell?

[possidetur]

There are months of missing memories. I'm certain there would be if I could remember.

[rehandle]

[ ah. ]

That's the point. I'm not convinced there's anything missing.

[possidetur]

How else would you explain such a passage of time?

[rehandle]

As I recall, you disappeared before we learned much about the thing in our chests. But it's the belief of myself and some others that through it we're still in some way connected to our initial universe and time, and that the disappearances may just be fluctuations in that link.

[ let's take a second to think of a century-sensitive example. ]

Like the sputtering of a candle flame. The light goes out and returns. Everyone watching it sees the flame stop and restart, but the candle keeps on burning all the same.

[possidetur]

Not all candles can be relit.

( she couldn't be. though the explanation sounds possibly nice, if also confusing, she doesn't believe it possible -- not when she'd been dying at home. would that still occur given that her wound had been healed here? what awaited her now? )

[rehandle]

Then it's just as well we haven't gone out yet.

[ he won't pry. if there's something she wants to share, she will. ]

[possidetur]

I find a kidnapping more likely than any alternative.

[rehandle]

I'm sorry, but it isn't.

Of the five who were taken and returned, I know 4. 1 is yourself, 3 are from my own or adjacent universes. Myself, and two superhero types.

None of us register any signs of a struggle. If it were a kidnapping, I don't know about you but myself, Tony and Thor would have struggled. Thor would probably have thrown a few people through a couple of windows. There would be bruises, or other sign of damage.

The only way to have avoided a struggle would have been a drugging. Drugs have side effects. For one, I can't find a single trace of a entry point of a needle. For two, I didn't wake up feeling unusual in any way other than the standard ache in my chest that comes along with any major exertion of whatever magic or technology it is that corresponds with the blue glow.

The safehouse is impregnable without detection. Those of us who were taken and deposited there would have to have been physically carried in. You think that's going to escape the notice of Morningstar and all other inhabitants? And Thor woke up in his own bed. If I know his brother at all, that apartment has stellar security.

This can't have been a kidnapping.

[ none of them can afford to live under false belief anymore. his theory may not be correct, but if he can spare her from wasting too much time looking over her shoulder, he doesn't think he's miles off. ]

[possidetur]

How did we return, then? Who bought us back to our beds?

I awoke with missing time, in a location that I wasn't previously. Someone returned me.

[rehandle]

I don't know. We don't have those answers yet.

[ you technically don't have any answers yet Stephen, let's not get ahead of ourselves ]

That's helpful to know though. Thank you.

[possidetur]

Do we have any answers?