v i d e o ][ 007

[diastereomer]

[ For once, the feed kicks on and Yusuf is ready for it. He's in the lab (otherwise known as, the basement, but he's not exactly picky about these things) and the feed gets a clear view of... well. Not very much. For something that is supposed to be a lab, it's noticeably sparse. This, ladies, gents, and pterodactyls, is the reason for this feed. ]

Comments

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[oneminutemaze]

[ Upon seeing Yusuf's post to the network, Ariadne figures that it's safe to go down into the basement without possibly ending up as a test subject. She doesn't knock, though she's not making any effort to be silent as she heads down the stairs, either. ]

Are you just looking for the lab, or for the house in general?

action;

[oneminutemaze]

[ Ariadne's not a chemist. She knows her metals and minerals because she has to, because they're building materials, and if Yusuf wanted to talk about copper then she could talk about copper. But sedatives and chemicals aren't for her, so she'll trust his judgment.

Somewhat. She still hasn't forgotten that he didn't tell anyone they wouldn't wake up if they died. But she has something to share with him. ]

I spoke to a girl here who said there had been a curse one Halloween where people could walk into dreams.

action;

[diastereomer]

[ There isn't going to be a lot of apologizing for that debacle, really. Yusuf might have noticed something unsettling about Cobb (a creeping suspicion somewhere between the shake of Cobb's hands and the look in his eye, that fell more in line with the people he eased into sleep in his den than the likes of a dreamshare prodigy), but he's not a psychiatrist and Cobb is not his friend.

Cobb was just a man with a lot of convincing words and more than enough zeros. ]

Really now? [ What an interesting concept. The dream folding in on itself; becoming a meta dream, if only for a day. ] Did she say how long it lasted? Or if there were any restraints? Projections rebelling against the violation?

action;

[oneminutemaze]

[ She doesn't expect apologies, not really, not even from Cobb. What she does expect is for no one to be that stupid again (and what a hypocrite she is). ]

She said it happened twice to her. I'm not sure about anyone else. Once it was a dream, once it was a nightmare. From the sound of things, the most 'rebelling' was the fact that people could just walk into them and see what was being dreamt about.

[ Ariadne pauses, tilts her head slightly in thought. ]

They didn't sound like lucid dreams.

action;

[diastereomer]

If anything the projections sound.. mollified somehow. As if part of the subconscious mind was put at ease while the conscious part of the brain was in hyperdrive. [ It goes without saying, from the crease between his eyebrows and the unsure way he proposes the thought, that Yusuf has never heard of something like this before. The complications inherent with pacifying a person's subconscious literally too vast to articulate. ]

They may not be lucid, but this girl you spoke with described them as dreams. They must be-- that, or shared hallucinations.

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[oneminutemaze]

But projections can't dream, can they? The person they belong to can, but not the projections themselves.

[ Right? They had hooked the projection of Browning up, but it was Fischer's subconscious they were going into. ]

Can projections even hallucinate? No one really knows much about them, from what I've heard.

action;

[diastereomer]

That, is a highly theoretical question. If we assume that the dreamer creates the dream only insomuch as they inhabit it at any specific moment, then no, projections should not be able to dream because they only fill the space provided- a kind of, coloring in the lines, if you will.

[ The other explanation is much more theoretical, a grey area that Yusuf knows himself well enough to know he doesn't really want to touch. ]

But what if everyone here is not a projection? I have created compounds stable enough to include up to twenty people in a single dream-- science moves at an alarmingly fast pace Ariadne, especially science that isn't held to quality control standards. [ Yusuf would know ] The possibility of more than twenty people attached to a modified unit is... not entirely farfetched.

action;

[oneminutemaze]

[ This is promising in a way other conversations haven't been, and she leans forward, ignoring the fact that she's on a stool. ]

There are a lot more than 20 people here. If it's an unstable compound, that could explain leaving and returning, couldn't it? Or returning but not being able to remember.

[ She catches onto things extremely quickly, perhaps terrifyingly so. ]

But how do we tell who's a projection and who isn't? There are so many people here from places that are nothing like home, but honestly, would you have thought up a dinosaur who's actually the result of a science fair project sending someone's consciousness back in time?

action;

[diastereomer]

Theoretically, there are a lot more than twenty people here. [ Yusuf reminds, diligent in this assertion. Though he is not nearly the social butterfly that Ariadne is, he has at least seen the number of people milling to and fro, the amount of work that gets put into every day- from the grocery stores to the hospital. Hell, Arthur has a job as a bartend. The world is incredibly self-contained in a way that ensures it must be a dream because it couldn't sustain itself this way if it were real. The problems that would arise from housing so many people, let alone supplying a constant dose and maintaining a world that isn't torn apart by the presence of so many foreign subconsciences-- it would be a monumental leap in dreamshare science.That is an explanation, yes, albeit one that hinges on the populace all being real. There is also the possibility that only a few of the people here are real and the dreamer has been trained to allow the inhabitants of the dream to manipulate it without the dreamers own subconscious seeking out the

action;

[oneminutemaze]

Not quite. If other people don't believe someone is a projection, they could think they're meant to be here. The person who originally had that projection could have woken up, but others could continue to bring the projection in because they think they're a resident of the city. If that projection has disappeared and comes back, it could just be that whichever subconscious thinks they're meant to be here is... ignoring them, sort of. Right?

[ She's in your basement lab, sharing her theories.

And that was totally English, Yusuf, what are you talking about. ]

I met this... er, quetzalcoatlus named Janine. Apparently she used to be human but there was a science fair project that was actually a time machine. It sent her consciousness and the consciousness of a few other people back in time and stuck them in the bodies of dinosaurs. [ Pause. ] Or that's what she said, anyway. She's definitely a quetzalcoatlus, though.

action;

[diastereomer]

This dream is unique. There are flaws in all of the explanations we have tossed around. Assuming that were true, the City's inhabitants would still be projections. My suggestions come from a purely theoretical place, as I do not spend much time in the field, [ An annoyed look at the staircase, as if ascending them would take him out of more than just the basement. ] That is, not usually. But I would also assume a marked difference in any future interactions if say, I were to bring my perception of someone else's projection back into the dream. They would only be the same on a superficial level, as the consciousness driving the projection would have changed.

[ Yusuf isn't complaining, this is how he enjoys spending his time. ]

...This must have been something that happened in the city. A science fair project turned time machine would have garnered a smidge of media attention topside.

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[oneminutemaze]

And I haven't been here long enough to really see how differently people might act after they disappear for a bit. [ She hasn't worked in dreamsharing for long enough, either, but she's ignoring that. ]

She was talking about the Cretaceous period and people... dinosaurs... that she missed. I don't think it happened in the City; she's been a dinosaur on more than one day.

action;

[diastereomer]

Nor have I. Honestly our best bet would be asking Eames, as he has been here the longest and is primed to tease those nuances out. [ Recalling one of their very first conversations... ] He was here before Arthur left and after Arthur returned, that might yield some interesting comparisons.

[ Whether either are willing to talk about that is an entirely different story. ]

Sounds like someone was a dinosaur enthusiast when they were younger.

action;

[oneminutemaze]

The same with me. [ She's not sure if Yusuf knows that she's been here before, but it wasn't made a secret to her -- even if it had been, several other residents of the city would have told her. ] I don't remember anything from being here before, though.

There are wizards, too. I have something for you, actually--

[ Reaching into a pocket and pulling out a couple Canary Creams. ]