maskormenace | 002

Entry tags:

002 - Audio

[It's time to play the 'who's awake at 1 AM' game! If you're not, Tetsuo's talking softly enough that it might not wake you. If you want to see or answer this later in the day ~~when normal people are awake~~, feel free, but please specify.]

Everybody's got powers, right? That's why they want us to stick around...

[You can just hear how much he likes that prospect. He all but spits those last two words out like it's a curse.]

So anyway, I'm curious.

How many of you have 'side effects' from them? Anybody know? I know there's gotta be more than one... but it's not all of you, is it?

I - nnghh. I wanna know why that is... why's it only some people?

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Not...really. I mean, you can use painkillers, but it doesn't really do much.

I've gotten pretty good at learning to...put off the pain until the last possible moment, especially when I'm out in the field. Can't exactly get a migraine when you're on duty, so...

Dark places and low sound are good, if you can get them. Lots of water.

...you can put them off?

[Okay THAT's news]

I don't know if everyone can, but... with a lot of work and control, I've managed to... ignore the signs for long enough to get offworld, if needed. Sometimes they happen while I'm in the field, and it's hard to concentrate, but... normally I can ignore it until later. A therapist once told me it's all about breathing.

[All about breathing, huh, like with- wait wait what]

"Off-world"?!? The hell are you? Some kinda astronaut or something?

[They still DO manned missions up there?!]

Er -- No, I'm a Marine.

Astronauts aren't really... a thing where I'm from. Anyone can go to space, if they want, and can afford a ticket on a transport, or if they sign up as a colonist.

[Alternate dimensions, right... but that doesn't mean he'll automatically buy that.]

'Colonist', sure. Where to? There's nowhere to go out there.

Nothing? That depends on how far you go? [ Half-confused, half laughing at the fact that he's so convinced about this. ]

I mean, for us, there were the Prothean Archives on Mars, and a relay on Charon, and...

Well, there are a lot of planets out there, plenty of them sustain life -- or they can be terraformed to do so.

Get real. Mars's just a big rock, there's no archives or whatever on it.

No I'm...I'm definitely certain there are archives there -- at least where I'm from.

We went there after Earth was attacked, so...

[ A beat. ]

Who knows, you might not've found them when you're from -- or maybe they don't exist in your world.

Thought you said they existed on Mars.

[Tetsuo don't be difficult.]

[ omg. The strain in his voice is so obvious. ]

Reality, then. If you want to be pedantic.

That one work for you better?

Okay. Your Earth got attacked by aliens or robots or something so you moved to Mars. What I wanna know is, if you say space travel's so common anybody can do it, where's the money come from? Space isn't cheap.

[He's pretty sure he'd heard something about this back in school. Funding, blah blah, wartime technology, blah... this sounds more like a science fiction movie or something than reality.
But it's infinitely more interesting than lying in bed waiting for his migraine to reappear.]

[ He's trying not to sound frustrated, but it's in his voice, the sound of trying to explain something, and someone not picking it up. ]

No, Earth was attacked just recently. We, ah -- we colonized mars about a hundred years ago, and found the archives just under... what, forty years ago? Anyway -- the government -- the Alliance is what we're called now, we put a lot of money into following the trail left by the Protheans, and found a relay by Pluto. We, er -- we left the galaxy? Some of us. Some people were left back home, but we started to colonize, once we figured out we weren't alone.

There's actually a pretty strong economy out there, a lot of opportunities. Some bad ones, too, but... I like to think this was a good thing.

[ #spacefeels!! ]

You guys aren't past the moon yet, are you?

We sent some probes or something. I dunno. Sorry we didn't have some ancient Greek guy around to invent fucking space travel for us.

[The one time he pays attention in school and this is where it leads him. Be proud.]

Ancient -- you mean Prometheus?

[ Squint. It's there in his voice. ]

We invented our own space travel, but the Relays... they helped get us out faster. Everyone in the galaxy uses them.

[You can hear it in his voice; a cross between sarcasm and genuine curiosity. Ah, teenagers]

What's these relays you keep talking about?

They're... giant... element zero reactors? [A pause.] They help propel ships across the galaxy so that leaving your system takes days, or hours, instead of hundreds of years.

[Uhhh...which element was zero...uhhh... shit.]

Element - you mean like hydrogen...?

[That's totally the first one, right? or was that oxygen?]

Well, I mean, not at all like Hydrogen. [ It's not even an element... ]

It's not an element, it's a material. It's just...when we discovered it, we didn't know what else to call it.

[He's genuinely trying here, but he doesn't get it. Elements that aren't elements?]

Uh-huh. Your dimension's weird.

Yeah, it is. [ Fondly. ]

But it's home, and I kind of like it. Despite it's...flaws. [ And giant, exterminating robot squids. ]

Yours has to have weird things here and there, I'm sure, right?

No. It's this place that's weird.

Well -- Yeah, I mean -- this is the past? Over a hundred years behind when I'm from -- So there's not just that, but...

The whole cold war thing? It's just freaky.

Hmph. I don't care about that -- America oughta fight its own wars. It starts enough of 'em.

Well, where I come from, we're all one country -- it's not...

I don't know, we shouldn't be starting any wars, but you're right, these guys get in more than they probably should. It's not healthy. For anyone.

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