First Thesis
[At the outskirts of town you may find a girl. She's just standing there, holding her arms close in a self-hug, looking terrified. The kind of terrified where the screaming stopped a long time ago.
Just try approaching her. I dare you.]
((Ingrid can be found anywhere on the map you want to call the "edge of town." She woke up in the forest and ( Read more... )
Just try approaching her. I dare you.]
((Ingrid can be found anywhere on the map you want to call the "edge of town." She woke up in the forest and ( Read more... )
Wait, is that a very anxious and panicked-looking person he sees? Somebody who... honestly reminds him a lot of himself?
Most likely a New Feather, as they don't tend to be particularly calm...
Robert stops a few metres away from her, and asks, in a relatively anxious tone:]
E-Excuse me... might you require... assistance...?
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Dr.... Who are you?
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... P-Professor Robert Alexander Hastings, though, er, I did earn a doctorate, so calling me a doctor would not be i-incorrect...
[He pauses.] You must be a New Feather... [Ingrid's mental state is not going to be conducive to this, but Robert is as blunt as always.] I am afraid that you have been indicted into an experimental colony known as Luceti...
... Have the Malnosso perhaps harmed you in some way? [She's honestly panicking far more than most people Robert has seen here, and it worries him.]
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What is the experiment? [Her eyes are darting all over the place, and her breathing has an odd rhythm to it. She holds her breath as long as she can and then lets it out and in in a gust, as though the very air is poison and she wants to avoid breathing it in.]
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There is no consensus, but the official position is that we are... essentially fodder to run simulations upon in an effort to return us all voluntarily to our own multiverses.
I am beginning to doubt the veracity of these claims.
[Robert does notice that odd breathing. The eye-darting thing, however, is exactly what he's doing. Nervous tic?]
... Are you... h-having difficulty respiring? [Genuinely alarmed, Robert tries to gauge the distance to the Item Shop from where he is. Might this person need a filtration system or something?]
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I am going to die very soon. [She says this rather calmly, but with an unhealthy gleam in her eye. She's always known it would mean her death should she leave the bubble and be exposed to the outside, which is precisely what has happened. Now she will sicken and die, and there is nothing anyone can do.]
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The wings have been grafted on you by the Malnosso. They are somehow linked to your biological systems in such a way that damaging them can cause sickness and death...
... [And that shuts Robert up a second. "Going to die" - why? Is this related to her strange respiring?]
What exactly would kill you? Do you need a different sort of breathable air, or some sort of filtration system...? [He's stumbling closer to the answer without realizing it, though he doesn't know.] I assure you, I will try my utmost to assist you if only you inform me how I can do so...
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[Sorry Robert, Ingrid has checked out. You don't know it, but those are very close to the words one of the doctors who worked with her as a child used to explain to her why she had to be inside the bubble. They've become something of a morbid nursery rhyme almost.]
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He tries to put two and two together. She is respiring strangely and speaking about an infection entering a body - hers? Is she... afraid of becoming ill? Robert understands some not-so-healthy OCD cleaning drives, but isn't this a bit much?
Nevertheless...]
... I can get you to someplace more sterile than this, if that would be an assistance...?
[He runs through the possibilities in his mind. Extreme allergies? Some latent micro-organism, only activated here? Some kind of immunodeficiency?]
Perhaps I ought to contact one of the medics here as well... [He's talking to himself more than Ingrid, now, in the cold rational tone he uses to mask panic.]
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It won't matter. [Breath.] I'm already compromised. [Breath.] Immunodeficiency does not allow for mistakes. [That's another quote from the same doctor. Did I mention she hates doctors?]
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He knows that, on the contrary, here it will be an almost impossible undertaking.]
What kind of immunodeficiency? I... I am afraid I am not well-versed in this field, but perhaps something... [His gray eyes dart across her face, taking in her barely-suppressed-panic and almost seeing it.] There wouldn't be stem cell treatments here, this place's medical system is so backward from Terra's... not even a good sterilization agent, and... [Robert shudders a bit. He doesn't know Ingrid, but the possibility of her dying inadvertantly because of him...]
... There could be a way to stem the infection. Perhaps the Malnosso themselves would... i-interfere... maybe I should contact Ms. Molly...? [Robert is battling his own urge to just... shut down, and instead trying to do something actually helpful.]
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If they're the ones that brought me here like this, then they won't bother helping me now.
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And "good" varies. Giles thought it was better than his world. But Giles is from 2007. Robert is from 2332.]
They are imbeciles, but they still generally do not wish to kill their subjects.
... Though they are apparently able to revive us as well, through some method that as of present remains undisclosed... But I would rather not leave that to chance. Besides, dying tends to incur some kind of long-term damaging effect...
[Which means Robert wants to get Ingrid help as soon as reasonably possible.]
At the very least, getting you to a more sterile environment will prevent your microbial load from getting any higher, and will hopefully serve to make it easier to treat you... [The Battle Dome's clinic might be a better place to go. Not that Robert's even set foot in it before, but...]
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... Zombies? [The word is mostly lost on Robert.] ... Well, the revival process seems to leave a person completely intact except for one crucial flaw. And there is a person who is capable of removing these flaws after some time.
[It'd still be better than being out here, in the germ-infested outside.]
... Would you really rather stay out here...?
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If there is a hospital, I might as well go there.
If they can really revive the dead... [And the curiosity she has about that is reminding her that death due to multiple infections will take some time, especially if she does minimize her microbial load. That has never sounded so hopeful as it does now, where there are people who can cheat death to learn from in the time she has left.
You've given her a way to deal with her worst fear, Robert. That is something she will not likely forget.]
Will you take me there?
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