theshimmer | Continuation.

Continuation.

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Vitali doesn't seem inclined to come much closer to any of you; there's a wall of glass between her and you, and she appears to want to keep it that way. Any attempts to breach it are likely a terrible idea; just because there aren't any soldiers with them doesn't mean that they're unarmed, after all.

"So you've decided to act up," she says, her hands folded behind her back, her posture formal and stiff in a way that doesn't suit her; her gaze remains as icy as her words, though she's refraining from making direct eye contact with any one of you in particular. She's still audible, despite the glass; it isn't as all-encompassing as the Shimmer seemed to be whenever it spoke to you within the boundary, but it's sharp, commanding. "If that's what you want to do, then fine. We can talk about that. You guys haven't wanted to settle since you got back; maybe this will make you actually sit down for a moment.

"If you're going to talk, get it out of your system before we throw you back in quarantine and figure out what to do with you. And try to keep from launching at the glass or doing anything stupid to yourselves in the meantime. We'd hate to have a reason to classify any of you as a threat."

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[She's so unimpressed, Page.]

I actually have the discipline to know that after coming back from a mission like that, dangerous or otherwise, I'm not going to be greeted with hugs and cake. We don't know how infectious you are, and we have no way to know how affected you're going to be by this whole experience.

There's no point in destroying that thing only to have it possibly continue to spread immediately because you decided you deserve to have free run of the place.

[At least it's mutual.]

So communicate with us? I don't even disagree with you! I don't want to spread this bullshit back to Bowerstone, and I'd imagine my friends feel the same about their worlds. If you'd taken the time to tell us what you were doing, we all might be a little more inclined to work with you. But you're treating us like animals with no explanation as to why!

[Don't get her started on the forced medical examinations....]

[...Please tell her how you expected anyone to find out what was going on with you physically without a fucking medical examination, Page. She wants to hear this.]

I'm sorry I expected you to use critical thinking with regards to the situation. It won't happen again.

[ He's bristling. ]

You know we're going to 'get' this shit out of our system faster if you don't treat us like a piece of crap, right?

[ Lancer's never been good at asking questions; some people have already asked about their fates and stuff, so he'll come back to that if that's not answered soon enough. He's been wondering about something else. ]

So. Movin' straight along here...what do you plan on doing with that other group if or when they do wake up?

We've put a lot of effort into keeping them alive. It would be more than a bit pointless to kill or otherwise dispose of them because they had the audacity to wake up.

[Show them some basic respect and explain why you're doing it, rather than going straight for sedatives if they're understandably unsettled?! She knows this is the military but my god-]

Easy to say when you're not the one who went through six weeks of hell, on half the information available. Forgive me if I'm not thinking critically.

[Right....right, speaking of which, Page can at least recognise that getting into an insult match with their captor isn't the smartest course of action, if she wants to get home any time soon, but god does she wish she still had her weapons.]

When does this end, then? Despite what you might think, I'm not stupid, so I'm assuming you plan on throwing us back down there once we're done chatting.

So do you realize or care that several members of your group were dying when you got back, or is that something you're just going to ignore in favor of self-righteous yelling? You're going to have to forgive us for not releasing you back to your worlds immediately so you can spread the Shimmer to everyone you know, and for actually taking the time to make sure you don't die.

That still doesn't answer the question of duration.

[ Hugh has his usual smooth, calm, almost carefree tone. ]

Please think. That's all I'm asking you to do.

We can't give you a duration until you're worked out.

And that would be your answer for an estimation too?

[...]

I'm not quite sure how I was supposed to know that several members of my group were dying, but I appreciate being informed. Thank you for telling me, and - I'm assuming - stopping the process.

[To her credit, that isn't quite as sardonic as it could be.]

There were noted anomalies like body parts replaced by crystal growths, clockwork, and some other membrane we haven't figured out, your blood turning into some other substance entirely, and some of you having your insides...moved around. All of that is not exactly an indicator of good health.

[That is not...as aggressive as it has been, at least. But yeah, you guys weren't doing great? You guys weren't doing great.]

[Well. That will make Page pause for a moment, as she looks down at her hands.]

...it makes so much sense when you put it that way, but it didn't...I'd never thought of it like that. It all felt so...normal.

You were still alive and that's what mattered. You get used to everything else because you have to.

[She gets it.]

I'm not saying you guys had it easy in there, and I'm not saying that I don't appreciate what you've done, even if it feels like that right now. Bluntly put, you did what you couldn't do. We've largely been trying to make sure we don't negate that completely.

I guess I would’ve appreciated the communication instead of being locked in a basement for a week.

We also didn't know how much fight you'd have. One person didn't make it out from the last group because they were murdered by a couple of the others. Wesker and Krauser apparently put down their entire original group. People do not have a good track record of not getting murderous in there.

...Jesus.

[He’s really not surprised about Wesker and Krause though.]

[Oh?]

Did you happen to meet Krauser at any point after we left?

[The guy kind of wandered off into the wild blue yonder, presumably.]

We didn't. The odds are extremely high that he's dead.

Hmm.

[It really could be worse, they have definitely seen worse at this point. Still kind of a downer, though.]

(no subject)

shimmermods - 2020-08-29 19:06 (UTC) - Expand

[.......]

....I understand.

[Urge to use explosives and generally be shouty....diminishing, rapidly. Now Page just looks tired. She'll lift her head, however.]

I suppose I should be grateful that you haven't killed us, in light of what we've become. I don't suppose there's any chance of a cure...?

We're still trying to figure out what needs to be cured in the first place. It's a complicated process, and it's not anything we've ever dealt with before. We've done a few experiments here and there, but...

[She glances over at the comatose people over there.]

It's been suggested that we take a couple of them off life support and see what we can get out of them, but I'm not willing to do that. And their condition seems to have been improving since the Shimmer was brought down. We're cautiously optimistic.

[Page will similarly look over to the...collection of their 'colleagues', off to the side.]

I suppose that's the most jarring part of all this. I don't feel sick. If anything, it's...

[...probably stupid, to go into this much intimate detail when she still can't be sure she trusts either of you, but. well.]

...not needing to eat or sleep...it's odd, certainly, but I don't miss it. Which is in itself bizarre. It's a vicious cycle.

[...sigh.]

But it seems I should count myself lucky, compared to them. We even fared better in terms of everyone making it out in one piece; there was Rean's disappearance, but other than that....

[......no one was murdered by cougars or hostile corrupted villagers, basically.]

It seems beneficial, if anything. And who knows, maybe it is - we're not saying that everything put into place by that thing is deadly, or even a negative thing in the first place. If we could somehow engineer a way to function with no food or sleep... Well, it would solve a lot of problems, is what it would do.

[She looks at N again, briefly.]

With regards to trying to understand everything, there's also that thing, which claims to be a vessel for the Shimmer. That'd be the most viable candidate for experimentation, if that turns out to be true and not a matter of delusion or other psychosis. But that still seems a little...

[...Human experiment-y? Unethical? ...More unethical than we've already been, she doesn't know.]

[She...is trying not to point out to the military here that soldiers who don't need food or sleep would be. handy, so let's focus on N over there-]

Have you managed to get any decent information out of it?

[Yes, it's an 'it'. Fuck you, Shimmer.]

We found that the....I suppose the 'main' body of the Shimmer never had that much to say, in terms of useful information.