shifted_logs | I've been building the tallest sky-scrapers

I've been building the tallest sky-scrapers

Characters: Reiko (

tomysister) and Jade (

fonicartestry)
Location: The Astral Kitchen
Time: after this
Summary: Reiko spills to an unlikely person
Warnings: spoilertastic, potential trolling, and Jade.

The kitchen was empty, which was pleasing. Although it technically didn't matter now - the gates were closed, after all, and everyone left behind would face whatever end came. There were no more secrets, just as she was sure that there wouldn't be much society left. There hadn't been after the evacuations had been announced. It had been a global upset, with looting, raiding, rioting, and everything in between. She was glad that she had been in a well-protected location while sustaining the portal, as she was sure that she would have been a primary target otherwise.

She sat up on the counter as if she owned the place, crossing her legs primly in a manner that would have been passable if she was wearing a skirt... which she wasn't, in her projection body. Force of habit, she was too tired to care about what she was making her projection do anymore. It didn't matter - the projection was useless. There were no other dimensions to patrol and protect. She was now obsolete. It made sense in a way that she would be left behind. The new world of humanity would be far less foolhardy as to attract the attention of something like AIDA... well, she could hope.

Thinking back, though... the strange journey it had taken to get to this point... she wasn't sure why she was telling this man. Then again, there wasn't a point to keeping secrets anymore, and he had expressed interest. It had been a while since she had last spoken with Satoshi, who had been remarkably absent when things had started to go downhill... and Tomonari, or Kuhn, or whichever this iteration considered himself seemed to have all but disappeared from her radar since their last time speaking. Then again, she had been rather absent herself, bogged down with catastrophe and then sustaining a hole in reality large enough to evacuate a fair chunk of regional humanity.

All of this was summed up with her adjusting her glasses, glancing at him before taking another look around. It was doubtful that anyone else would enter here at this point in time. This plane was rather unpleasant now, and surely they would be dealing with their own paranoia.

She was used to strange sounds and hidden monsters and miscellaneous weirdness. She spent half of her life the past two years thrusting herself beyond the veil of reality. If anything truly threatened her now, her Avatar would appear and take care of it whether she wanted it to or not. That was just how it would go. She was simply the vehicle for what her subconscious had become...

That was it. She closed her eyes.

"I'm not entirely sure where to start. At the beginning, but which beginning is the question."

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Jade pulled out a chair for himself and took a seat, observing Reiko with the sort of dispassionate interest that other scientists had to work so hard to cultivate. Jade always had an interest in knowledge, and in this situation, the damage done to an individual's world was something to look into. It was far too likely that Asch would be too impatient to fully look into the consequences their actions might have. The troublesome children were keeping him far too busy.

The changes made him alert, but not too much so. Temperature changes were something Jade could certainly handle; the noises were no more concern than those in the forest. Anything he sensed that needed to be dealt with would be more noticeable as it approached, and if not, it was unlikely to kill him instantly. He could rely on Tear's healing abilities if he got into too much trouble. It was not that Jade wasn't more alert because of the atmosphere that was building. It was just that paranoia was too irrational a behaviour for him to indulge in it.

"Whatever beginning you think best. I know nothing of the story."

After a moment, she nodded, making her choice.

"Very well. I will say that I don't know the difference in technology levels between our worlds. If there are concepts that are outside of your technical scope, I will explain them to the best of my ability."

With a small pause to indicate the change in topic, she
continued. "Science is a double-edged sword. In an attempt to create a superior method of communication transmission, a man inadvertently drew the attention of extra-dimensional life forms. These life forms were drawn to our human emotional qualities, and seemed to feed on emotions, fostering negative qualities in people who they would attach themselves to in a symbiotic relationship. In return, they would grant their host special powers or abilities, and sometimes even bodily mutations. The longer the possession continued, the more powerful the person would become.

"Finding a way to remove the being with minimal harm to the human it was connected to was important, but also understanding what it was and where it was coming from were essential knowledge. Our technology at the time was ill-suited to keep up, and so experiments were conducted to attempt to learn more about this creature and its phenomena."

She paused in case of questions, but did not expect any.

Aside from the flicker of a twisting smile at 'science is a double-edged sword,' Jade listened in silence. The narrative was reminiscent of a morality tale, the sort of story that Jade himself had chosen to ignore when he engaged in his own research. Recognizing the pause for what it was, he inclined his head for her to carry on.

She took a moment to lay her thoughts in order, as she could feel the rising bile of thinking about him... she concentrated for a moment to keep that part of her down, before choosing to speak.

"I will give you a warning. If you see lines like these" and she indicated the glowing marks around her eyes and ears "except in patterns similar to eyes... I would leave the area at once. While I can be held responsible for what happens, I can't really control it."

With that taken care of, she began to push forward. "A secret division of the government began to work on the matter, drawing in the best of what science had to offer. Working primarily off of theory, advances were made in the understanding of what these creatures were and how they interacted with our reality. Realizing they were simply a protrusion into our reality of a creature living on one separate, a system was developed to attempt to mimic the circumstances of their appearances using a variety of wave frequencies.

"Unfortunately, it was difficult to use, and most people who tried to use it would tire quickly. However, it gave them the ability to view, although briefly, the native plane of these creatures. Unfortunately, there was an... incident with the experimentation, and the project was shut down. However..." and now she couldn't help but hide her disdain, the voice in her mind growing louder at the thought of his name, knowing that he had most likely escaped, her lip curling and eyes narrowing as that need began to rise...

"... someone decided that the project shouldn't be abandoned completely. Using data from previous tests, he felt there was more to the experiments than what had been documented..."

She took a forced break, taking a deep breath and trying to calm herself. In a way she wished she had been able to encounter him. Being retired now would probably be a blessing.

That was certainly a warning to listen to, though Jade was certainly tempted to stick around if that did happened. He was curious as to what it meant. Instead he rose from his seat and walked to the kettle to boil water for tea.

"Is there anything I can get you to calm you?"

It was not precisely a sympathetic comment, but people did generally prefer not to lose control of their emotions in front of other people. And Jade hadn't missed what Reiko had said about the creatures feeding off emotions.

Her eyes snapped towards his movement like a predator assessing its prey. It took a few moments for the words to fully register in her mind, sinking down as the darkness-given-name stirred, trying to put something to this interloper who was so casual in its midst. There was little more she could do at this point but smile inappropriately, which would for now be enough to get Tarvos to growl and settle back down for the time being. If he was offering, it would be rude not to accept.

"Not really. Some tea would be nice, though."

Trying to put thoughts of him aside, she managed to continue with less vitriol. "Additional tests were run, and it was discovered that one person in the test group could use the system as long as they wanted without getting tired. The claim was that the person felt as though they were being protected by 'another skin' while doing so. While there wasn't much to see into that particular dimension, it was still a great success where there had been little before. As long as the test subject stayed within range of the device projecting the appropriate frequencies, he could move inside this other dimension as well.

"One of the infected people was brought in to see what could be learned, and the test subject claimed to be able to see the true body of the creature attached. It noticed him in its reality, and went to attack him, but suddenly he found himself buoyed on by a surge of energy within him resulting from strong emotions and managed to destroy the creature. This effectively "cured" the victim. As this all took place in another dimension, on the earthly side, he hadn't made any sort of movements.

"The key was of course his emotions, specifically his subconscious. He had certain unknown qualities about him that when projected into this other dimension his darker desires took on a physical form, protecting him from the taxing effort of looking in. When the AIDA attacked him, it was his feelings consuming him due to its influence that gave him the power to defeat it. Since they craved repressed feelings, it made sense in a twisted way that the way to their undoing was through the expression of those repressed feelings."

Jade noticed the way her eyes moved. There certainly was that element of danger she had suggested. It contented him that she took responsibility for it. Though he was curious about the precise science behind what she described, he didn't ask.

"Logical enough. But problematic if you were faced with an epidemic."

"It was becoming something of an epidemic in its own way. The situation was becoming difficult to contain, even outside of the powers that many of the infected were beginning to manifest. Rather than wait to have the already infected brought in, the technology was miniaturized so that those who could use it would be able to patrol and monitor wherever they were. The end result was a small implant that generated the appropriate frequencies as well as served as a radio contact through stimulation of the inner ear."

It seemed strange to talk about this with someone else - she had spent so much time trying to cover up the existence of the RA unit, after all.

"Did you come across this place in the course of your work?" Jade assumed she was intimately involved in the project based on her comments about secrecy, her knowledge, and of course her early warning. That she was one of the ones who used their released emotions seemed the most likely answer.

"In a manner of speaking. I accessed it in the usual fashion from my perspective, but it ended up being the same way that everyone else does. Of course, it's a bit more complex from my end." Which was an understatement, really, when she thought about it, especially considering the now.

"I'm always interested in complexities. But I'm sorry for interrupting you. Please, continue your story. Sugar or milk?" The last comment was said as Jade poured the water into two cups and added the leaves. It apparently didn't constitute as quite as great a subject change.

Edited 2010-10-07 00:44 (UTC)

She took stock for a moment to consider where she had been in her narrative - ah, the water was ready. She snapped her focus away from her projection, the image of what she wasn't fading away to show what she was, a petite woman sitting on the counter, legs crossed in an appropriate fashion for the hospital gown she was wearing.

"Neither, please." And then, continuing from before. "Unfortunately, things weren't terribly straightforward. It turns out someone on the team had their own interests at heart, and..." her reserved expression twitched slightly, as once again there was no way to avoid him... at least in this form it was less likely for her to overpower him if she did happen to start Expressing. Her lip curled, highlighting her fierce scowl as words began to pour out in a rush. "Someone was using the whole setup as an attempt to use the emotion-controlling abilities of AIDA to control humanity. One of the members of the team discovered this and managed to defuse his plans - and the attempt failed, throwing the active participants into comas and destroying the mind of the ringleader." Even with so much detail left out she couldn't help but shake in barely-suppressed rage.

Jade didn't comment on her anger. He drank his tea as she drank hers, so there was nothing to do but let it steep. Patiently and silently, he waited for her to continue when she felt ready.

If only things were as simple as they appeared to Jade. It was all too easy for her to just slide down and get it out for a bit, the tactic she usually did as Expressing was acceptible behaviour among other Chosen Ones. Unfortunately, he wasn't a Chosen One, and she didn't feel like picking a fight with someone who she didn't know the full capabilities of.

Of course, trying to explain that to herself was impossible. Her subconscious only listened when it was manifest, not when it was vying for control. Now, it simply wanted what it usually got, not understanding why she was trying to fight it back.

The only visible sign that something was different was that her usually distant expression seemed a bit more annoyed, and she seemed tensed, as though she was going to bolt - or perhaps punch a wall. She fell silent, burning with a sort of quiet fury as she regarded him.

That was odd. He still decided not to make any sudden movements, sinking into a falsely casual posture. It made waits less difficult on his muscles, and it was more likely to disarm an opponent than provoke them.

Unless they were looking for easy prey, of course. A couple of monsters seemed particularly taken with the casual disinterest. Jade kept in mind that he didn't have the usual quick exit off the Plane and continue to drink away.

Her mind turned over slowly - she was telling a story, his story, and the hand holding the cup clenched tightly. Perhaps too tightly, as the ceramic cracked, sending hot liquid onto her hand. Somewhere in the back of her mind pain registered, but as usual it didn't really affect her. She simply stared at her wet hand for a moment, before finally speaking, her voice slightly lower than before.

"I seem to have spilled. I'll get another."

"Of course." Jade, leaning on the counter, didn't move. He knew a lot about responses to pain, and of course this response wasn't quite right. But it would be very rude to comment on it, after all. "We can continue this story another time, if you'd prefer."

She began to open cupboards, searching for the cups. "It doesn't matter when we do this. It's the subject matter."

It took a lot of focus to keep her hands from shaking as she moved, trying not to spill tea everywhere as she poured. She didn't say anything until she had managed to get a cup full and set the teapot back down. She stared at the cupboard, before slamming her hands down on it, hard enough to make both cup and pot bounce.

"But he knew. Even through his broken, sick mind. The one who he claims betrayed him - he arranged for that man's murder!" A waving hand sent the second cup flying. It didn't matter. It was just a thing, in the way.

Internally, she could only sit back as the Expression took on full form, wishing that Ryou was there to beat her back down. Hopefully, if she made it past this part of the story, she might be able to calm herself enough to reassert control.

Instead stepping back, Jade took a short step forward to give himself a little more mobility if worst came to worst. He could only think of one thing to say: "Go on."

Her voice was low, almost a growl, almost a whisper. Normally she wouldn't have divulged this, but she didn't care anymore... nothing mattered but him, and what he had created that day...

"He didn't count on me being that man's sister... and he didn't count on that man making sure that I knew just why he had been killed in front of me."

Jade observed with cool interest, wary but not moving yet. She could likely control it, and perhaps he would be able to overcome whatever happened. There were also escapes. For now, he kept his focus on Reiko. "How did he inform you?"

"Files. Data. Backups. A letter, written by hand. Everything he had access to, copied. A plea, his final request. The vehicle for that request..."

Each word was sharp, the sharp edge of a needle. Venom was practically dripping from each syllable. Her hands were curled around the top of the counter now, the knuckles of small hands vividly white in contrast to the simple black suit she wore.

For someone who didn't often get angry - who actually enjoyed provoking anger in others - this level of extreme fury was curious. It was perhaps like watching an emotion in its unfiltered form. "The vehicle being?"

"The Reality Ascension Unit."

There was a strange dichotomy to her voice. Half of it seemed almost reverent, pleased, while the other half was softer, as though saddened or even ashamed. For the moment her grip loosened, and a spark of defiance flickered in her eyes - a moment to attempt to wrestle control back once more.

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