Don't Cry Out - Act 1 - Part 4
It was approximately no time at all before Dave pulled John's hand off of the glass.
"What in the hell are you doing."
"Telling him we're here."
"And telling everyone who's monitoring him that something suddenly happened because some idiot who wasn't invited ran his hands over the glass."
As if on cue, a pair of footsteps started running over their heads, pounding down a side staircase and opening a hidden door right next to John.
"You." The scientist was shorter than John, but not by much, and was completely out of breath. "What'th your name?" The lisp and glasses confirmed that he was basically the worst stereotype of a nerdy scientist ever to walk the earth, but what really pulled John's attention was his two differently colored eyes - one blue, one an almost unsettling green.
"Johnathan." John said, before Dave could spout out whatever lie he was going to say. They looked at each other for a minute, then Dave dropped John's hand and walked off.
"Good. Come with me." The stranger grabbed John's arm and pulled him behind the wall before he could object. "You were the one who ran your hand over the glathh, yes?"
"Well, it was an accid-"
"Doethn't matter, you were the one who did it."
John nodded, just now realizing that he could be in some serious trouble that he probably should have lied about his name.
"Why did you pull me back here?" Shit, his voice was slipping.
The stranger seemed to smile through his words, but he was leading John up a staircase now, so it was getting impossible to tell. "You're not in trouble or anything. But it knowth your name."
"It?"
He sighed, like this was the thousandth time he'd had to explain this. "It. It hath both male and female parth. We don't have any more thubjecth, so it cannot be determined weather the entire race ith like thith or if it'th jutht the individual."
John's blood started to simmer at Karkat being called a subject, but he tried to ignore it for now. "So you're pulling me up for...?"
"We, well, I need to you to thay until the rest of of them-" his head gestured down the staircase, back at the gala, "-have gone."
"Alright then, approximately how long is that going to be?" John reached into his pocket and tried to type a quick message to Dave to get the point across, although it was probably riddled with typos. They were approaching the head of the staircase, and the scientist promptly turned to the left, giving John a glance at teeth that seemed a little too big for the stranger's mouth.
"I'm not thure. Time." He lead John through what seemed like an endless labyrinth designed specifically to keep people from where they were going. "But he hathn't thaid a word in three monthh tho thith ith thort of a big deal."
While one side of John's head was running regrets at a hundred miles an hour, the other was busy fistpumping at the fact that he was inside. He tried to commit the tunnels to memory as best as he could, which admittedly wasn't well, but he got the feeling that he wouldn't get permanently lost in here if he suddenly had to make a break for it.
His phone dinged with Dave's return message, and the stranger glared at him. "Turn that off, pleathe."
John's face flushed with a little embarrassment at being discovered, and he struggled with the phone a little bit before it shut itself off out of apparent sympathy. He hadn't had to shut it off since...well, since he made it. Five years ago now? More. Everything had seemed to blur since sburb ended. Then again, John had never had the best perception of time in the first place.
"In here." The scientist opened up a set of double doors with a code that John couldn't have caught if he tried, and John's eyes were greeted with a lab the like of which he'd only seen in movies.
"Holy crap."
"Imprethive, ithn't it?" The scientist had a snide smile, but immediately walked over to a set of headphones, putting them on to check something, then gesturing John to join him.
John hesitated before putting them on. "I never got your name."
"Tholomon."
"Nice to meet you, Solomon."
"Likewithe, Johnathan. Now put thothe on."
[-=+=-]
John sat himself on an expanse of open table before putting the headphones on.
The sound was faint - it had probably been getting fainter ever since John had taken his fingers away from the tube. The voice was raspy, like it hadn't been used in years, and the throat sounded dryer than he thought it was possible for a throat to get, it was unmistakably Karkat.
John took the headphones off, biting the inside of his cheek to keep from tearing up.
Solomon gave him a knowing look that made John vaguely uncomfortable before going to adjust the knob on something.
"So what're we going to do?"
"You got it to thart doing that by running your fingerth over the outhide of the glathh, right?" He looked up at John from the screen he'd been monitoring. "Tho we do that again."
"Oh, alright." John looked down at his swinging feet. An awkward silence permeated the room while Solomon murmured at screens and John stared at the extra expanse of tube that seemed to go on forever. "So...why're you alone in here?"
"Hhmm?" Solomon hadn't been paying attention. "Oh. Everything'th automated now, I'm jutht here ath a formality. Manual control and all that. They're not actively experimenting on it anymore."
John felt his fingers clench on the edge of the table. "Actively what now?"
"Ethperimenting." He seemed to be hurt by the word as well, which made John feel a little better. "It wath...I don't want to talk about it." He turned to look back at the screen, although John was pretty sure nothing had changed.
"Sorry."
"You've got nothing to be thorry for. You and Thrider have been-"
"Wait what?"
Solomon's eyes suddenly widened like he'd been caught in a massive lie, which, really, he had. "Oh thit I just thaid that. It'th not what you think, I haven't been following you guyth or anything, the whole thing jutht went all to thit and I got out the right way thomehow and-"
"Solomon you're not making any-"
"That'th not my real name and you know it." Sollux took off his glasses and started to massage his nose bridge.
"Fine, Sollux." John's mouth was moving, but it was getting harder and harder to keep track of what he was saying. Sollux seemed relieved, like he wasn't sure John would have known it. "You're still not making any sense."
"The ripth."
"Oh." Oh.
"Thothe."
The rips had been an interesting phenomenon at best, an unparalleled disaster at worst. They'd started when Gamzee snapped and suddenly started killing people that the timestream needed to stay alive. For some godforsaken reason nobody understood, instead of creating a doomed timeline, little paradoxes started opening up all over the place, paradoxes that had slowly claimed all the trolls but Karkat, and let Bec Noir do whatever he wanted, whenever he wanted. It was never quite clear which trolls got what end (especially when rips started opening up under already-dead bodies), but the kids had operated on the concept that they had died, and treated it as such.
"So wait." John managed to reclaim control of his mouth just before he said something stupid. "You're telling me that the rips didn't kill you guys."
"Well, no, they did. But the univerthe wath having none of that. 'Cauthe he-" He gestured to the tube, "-didn't die. We're not thuppothed to be here, but thpace-time ith bending over backwardth to keep him alive. But not everyone rememberth."
John's thoughts flitted to the girl. Oh. "So Terezi's upstairs getting drunk."
"Ith the?" Sollux laughed. "Typical."
"So who's still alive?" It still sounded odd coming off of John's tongue.
"Me, Terezi, and...I'm not thure. But thith ith one of the firtht timeth they've thown KK off, tho I'd think that everyone who wathn't dead would congregate. But people who died in the game are thill dead."
John swallowed and bit down hard on his lower lip. He knew that much. "So I guess Terezi doesn't remember."
"No." He said the word like it hurt him. "But the is thill herthelf. I think the'll manage."
John looked down at his feet again to find they'd stopped swinging. "This is impossible."
"No it'th not. It'th jutht inthane."
John couldn't help smiling. "Insane I can deal with."