theairlock | the final week

Entry tags:

!round 2,
!week 8

the final week

[Eight weeks. Eight weeks of friendship and love, death and loss, hope and despair all muddled together in a cocktail that's too sweet on the tongue and leaves an acid-y pit in the stomach. With nine of them left (ten counting their dear but lone surviving host), things look darker than ever. Come Sunday morning the last of the Champions missing memories will be returned to them while they sleep. For some of them this will reveal answers, for others it might just be a fate worse than death. They could even be death.

But how does the song go? "It's always darkest before the dawn"?

There are no announcements from PAL this week. Not even morning and evening announcements.

Sunday Monday Tuesday

[ooc: Welcome to endgame, everyone! We're all very proud of you for making it all the way to the end. As you can see this is going to be a short IC week but we promise things will not be going down until this weekend (7/7-7/9). On Tuesday we'll be unveiling the OOC post for what to expect during the final investigation. There is no official AC this week, just a check-in and as mentioned above characters will be at their true canon points on Sunday morning.

Buckle up, kids, the ride's not over yet.]

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Nothing about you is normal.

[One of them has got to say it though, and Church is llllless in the mood for fun than usual.] You came here to talk?

...If you want. I came here to check on you. 'Cause... uh, you know.

[Because they're friends. Because that's what bros do.]

It's been one hell of a weekend.

That's a fucking understatement.

[Okay. Now he's lacking things to do with his hands other than occasionally fiddle with the orange scarf Ardyn surprisingly let him hold on to from the post-memory fuckapalooza...he'll just...have to sit on his bed and maybe talk things out like an adult, or someone actually responsible.

It's had time to settle, and some of it's come loose with Queenie's reappearance. None of it is by any means easier, but maybe he can actually put it into words without feeling like he's about to die.

He won't start with that, though.]

You get Q's message in a bottle? I know you didn't want it at the time, but...

...I have it. I still haven't opened it.

[Junpei rubs at the place on his arm where flesh meets metal, then sits sideways in Church's desk chair so they can see each other. Not just because it's the cool, manly thing to do, keeping distance, but because for real, he doesn't want to corner Church. He just wants to be there. He sighs and links his hands together, hunching forward in his seat.]

I don't know if I should give it back or what.

[Church'll get to his point eventually. He and Junpei, they always do.]

I...I don't think I'd do that to her. I don't know, the whole situation is fucked up. Can't give mine back, anyway.

It helped, you know? Me and Ardyn, it helped us, because we were a disaster, but what she left for us was just enough to help pull us away from whatever cliff we were about to drive straight off of.

And now she's back, and she doesn't remember saying any of this stuff, and it's almost like none of it ever happened? But it did. What we felt, it was all real.

[Immediately:] Of course it was.

[That's the answer, isn't it? To the timelines where he didn't make it--to his fragmented and multiplied memories of the Decision Game, now all collected, recollected. To stupid goddamn Delta's stupid goddamn question, What is my crime?

Everything that happens, happens. Junpei lowers his gaze to his wrist, where once, he was injected over and over with memory-wiping chemicals--and now, two rabbits chase one another in perpetuity.

He lowers his voice.]

You were right, you know. About the way I was treating SHIFTing. I mean, the timeline jumping horseshit that I can do. Or could do, if--if things were different.

[If their powers weren't blocked. If he had one hell of a boost to his frankly weaksauce ability. ...If Akane were there.]

Messing around with that--it's reckless. And I wasn't really thinking about the consequences. I don't regret making Yuuri that promise and I still fully intend to go through with it, but--but I'm sorry. For not listening to you more closely. Because you were right about all of it. And about me.

[He won't ask about whatever Junpei remembered to make him come to that conclusion. Partly because it's sure to be frustratingly complicated, partly because he's sure Junpei will tell him whatever he needs to know when he's ready, partly because if he does? It invites questions about his own memories. He's sure they're there in the underlying current of the conversation. And he should, he should say.

Normally he might make some smartass comment about how right he naturally is, but it doesn't come.]

You do stupid shit for the people you love. At least you know what you're getting into now. You might even be more careful.

[He hesitates, trying to figure out how to broach the so many subjects.] Q took away her own memories. She offered to do the same thing for Ardyn. You've got a shitload of timelines and stupid bullshit to deal with; if she offered, would you want her to take anything away? If it was bad enough?

No. No.

[He shakes his head, too; two nos aren't enough. He rakes a hand through his hair and looks at the wall.]

I already got my mind wiped enough before here, I don't--even the memories of mes from other timelines, I mean, those turned out to be so important. For me, for... for making sure as many people around me could survive. That was the whole point of putting me through those games. To make someone who could remember all of that, and use it to... to save lives.

[Six billion. Eight billion. Nine. One.]

If I just forgot... it'd be like it never happened. And those memories mean too much to me for that.

...You ever think it's possible to go through something so awful that you have to forget it or you'll just...go completely insane, or die, or something?

Jesus, Ardyn didn't even want to let her take out two thousand years of being what he was. Or the people he killed, the planet he fucked over, his brother and his shield and everyone he ever gave a fuck about betraying him. [His eyes drift to the spot on the floor where the glass vials of potion had been stomped out of existence.] And there can't be a whole hell of a lot worse than that, right?

You're asking the wrong guy about scale, Church. Is two thousand years of shit worse than one? Two billion survivors guaranteed worth purposefully killing six billion--or putting even ten people through hell? At some point, it's all just numbers to me.

[He finally looks at Church again.]

I think for Ardyn... he's gone through so much back and forth about who and what he is-- [The Chosen King, the Scourge of Eos, Lucis Caelum, Izunia, Tenmyouji...] --that the thought of losing any of that must scare him. And for me, the worst memory I can think of--the worst memory I have--is Kanny taking that time away from me when we were together. Making... making me forget being with her. So I can't... I can't.

He'll never forget. Never. None of it. But Junpei sighs and shifts in his seat.]

I don't know how I feel about Queenie forgetting all of... [He makes a vague gesture in the air.] ...as if it didn't happen. It feels--I don't know. Too easy. I mean, to forget what Nishitani-san did for her...

[Yakuza are about loyalty. About making an impression. It takes years to complete a full-body irezumi tattoo like Nishitani's, and for her to go and shed his final act like water off oilskin--it stings.]

But at the same time, having her back, having her--able to smile and love us like she did... I wouldn't want her to lose that, either. So if forgetting is what it takes... If that's what she needs to be here, and it's her choice, then I guess... I'll remember for her. Or something. You know?

...I mean I'm angry, kind of, at her. For it. But she meant well by it. She meant to--it's not really her I'm mad at because I don't know that mad's the word, but I'm mad anyway because [he emphasizes with a punch to the bed] fuck this place.

[He breathes for a second, two seconds.] I don't want to forget anything. But I don't always have a choice. I don't--I don't want her in my head. Ever since she told us about the kind of magic she does, weeks back, fuck man, that scares me. But I definitely don't want it now. I don't want her in my head, because she shouldn't have to see that, and I don't want to risk that she'll just...take something. Alter something. It's too important.

Yeah, I. Yeah. [He glances back at the bathroom door, towards his room.] That's why I haven't opened that thing yet, because I know what--being that close to someone else's mind, so that you can't even tell what's you and what's... just, no. And I don't want her or anyone messing around with my head anymore, ever.

[Remembering everything, understanding everything has brought Junpei some kind of closure about the whole what the fuck, Akane thing, but also, fuck off, universe, leave his poor psychic skull alone.]

...What... don't you want her to see? Uh, I mean. Is it war stuff?

I mean, I don't want her to see the stuff I dumped on my head, for one.

...It's--

This morning wasn't a good morning. Ardyn helped me out, cuz of course he did, and I'm glad I didn't wake the fucking room, but--I don't--I'll try to explain it to him later; I wasn't in a place where I could, and I think you might...understand it. better. than he might.

It's not really war stuff. It's...kinda...post-war stuff?

I lost my memories. [There, finally, let's start with that.] I, uh. So you know how everyone's profiles ended up being right except for mine, except mine's also totally right now? Cuz it's right. Now. I know that. But I didn't remember what I was because I dumped my memories of it. And nobody bothered to correct me, I guess.

Oh.

[It takes Junpei a moment. At some point, the profiles stopped being useful as far as surviving this hellhole went, and he'd stopped trying to make sense out of Church's, because why would his be the only one to be incorrect? But now it all clicks. A.I. Age 7.]

Oh.

[Oh, shit.]

That's... wow. That's kind of a huge thing to forget. I guess, uh... you needed to?

[This already-heavy conversation is taking a horrible turn.]

[That is a laugh that is both tired and slightly unstable, because wow that hit the nail right on.]

So I'm told.

Literally--it's literally all second hand. Third hand, actually. [Because Epsilon knew and that went off on Wash and then got told to him.] But uh I'm not a ghost, just an AI. So's Tex. So was Tex. And I removed my own memories to survive the fact that-- [They tortured it.]

Jesus, it's a long story. I'm full of holes because I apparently ripped myself apart because I needed to for experiments and no moral code and I forgot and then it went to hell and I got moved around and then I got to Blood Gulch and then I had actual memories and everything that's happened is kind of my fault and I got told everything and I didn't believe it but I had to go along with anyway so now I'm dead and I can't take anyone home since I'm fucking dead.

[He can take a breath now. He can, but it feels like his chest is too tight to make room for air.]

[Junpei opens his mouth once as Church starts babbling, shuts it as he keeps going, realizes he's not going to stop and says, "Wait--" just once, uselessly, because there's no damming this flood and just desperately trying to keep up with it all.

No, there is no keeping up, there is only trying to hold onto bits and pieces but the important piece, as always, comes at the end. Junpei sits there in stunned silence for a moment. Then:]

...Shit.

[Because what else is there to say? Ain't that a bitch.

Church sounds small, not in the way his voice is shrinking but the way his words do, the way everything just kind of happens to him and he doesn't get to choose anything, and Church shouldn't be small, Church carried Junpei all the way to the first aid room and has stood up to and for Ardyn, and to hear this... to register even five percent of this, viscerally, while his conscious mind struggles to catch up--

Junpei gets up and sits next to Church on his bed, making the mattress bounce with his weight. He looks at his hands. He looks at Church's hands.]

Shit. What the hell. You went--you went along with it, and it got you killed? What the fuck.

It's not--it's not--there's a lot. I don't know where to start. I couldn't tell Ardyn because it was--there was too much? And it's still a lot.

And it's not even a lot that I experience, but it also is?

I...okay, um... So last time. Last...Sunday, I remembered getting talked into some wild shit with a Freelancer, Wash, because they found Tex's ship, but she wasn't there, and then there's this big fucked up bad guy stealing Freelancer AI and tech and we have to stop him, or Wash does because I don't give a shit, and one of the AI we found before he got taken tried to leave a message through me to Wash that memory is the key, and Wash figured out what it means, and I don't know if any of this is going to make sense, really?

Project Freelancer was one of humanity's last ditch efforts to find a way to end the war. A bunch of soldiers with experimental tech and an AI to help run their shit and try to make one mega super soldier. They had a bunch of AI, like Omega who's an angry piece of shit, or Delta who's logical, or--there's a bunch of them? I don't know--I didn't know how many.

But the project--see this stuff is coming from Wash, so I can't even really verify--they only had one AI. One full, smart AI. And smart AI, they're based on people, on a person's mind. So they only got one. But they needed more for their experiments. So you've got the Alpha, the original, the full blown person-type AI, and you can't copy an AI, so you have to break it another way. You fracture an AI like you fracture a human psyche.

[He's distant, or more distant, the longer he goes on, hands balling in his pants and smoothing them out again.] I'm not making any sense, it's complicated, it's not as complicated as time travel but--I don't know that I'm going to make any sense.

Just--give me a second.

[No, Church really isn't making any sense. Maybe this would be easier of Junpei were writing things out--he's a visual thinker--but that is not the cool, sensitive friend thing to do, especially when the things Church is saying are--

He's not going in order, but as Junpei backtracks, as he slides pieces together--Church is an AI, Church ripped himself apart for experiments, no moral code--an ugly, chilling picture emerges.]

You're saying... this Project Freelancer, they... Are you saying you're--that full person AI, and they...

['You fracture an AI like you fracture a human psyche.'

'You have to beak it another way.']

[It's a disgusting slithering disconnect, because he wants to say I'm the Alpha, but it doesn't...it doesn't want to happen, it doesn't want to come out. Because it's not him.]

The Director of Project Freelancer had an idea. [The words are his, the voice is his, but he can only hear Wash's version of it. It's the story he's got.] He wanted more AI for tests. He only had the one. You can't copy a smart AI. But he figured he could...make them himself. You fragment a mind. You... [He grimaces at the fact that he's going to say it word for word.] It's like reverse engineering a personality disorder. It...compartmentalizes aspects because it needs to shed it or it'll go crazy and won't survive. And these...aspects, they become the AI fragments that the Freelancer agents got to use.

...Jesus Christ.

[Junpei's never known Church to be anything but a real, warm, solid human being--good for giant bear hugs or petty-ass mock fights, for the casual, fleeing contact of guys being guys, for bodily carrying him out of danger, he's not heavy, he's my brother. So even as Church talks about this in third person, distancing himself from a reality he doesn't remember, Junpei can't help but see Church suffering, the man next to him shattering himself for military experiments--

'Have you heard about the Ganzfeld Experiment?']

You--they did that to you? So they could... What the fuck?

[Another realization pops into his head. By now, he's fisted his hands in Church's bedsheets, as if he has to anchor himself there or else fly off to punch an entire branch of the space Marines.]

And they kept you in combat? After--after what they did to you? Making you break pieces off and... I'm gonna kill them.

[HE'S GOING TO FIGHT EVERY SHITTY OLD MAN IN THE UNIVERSE!]

Edited (I'M GOING TO FIGHT HTML!!!!) 2017-07-05 23:14 (UTC)

It's not--okay. I'm trying to figure out--

[Breathe. He can breathe. He's trying to breathe.]

The Alpha got--that happened to him, to it, and it kept shedding things, logic, anger, creativity, I don't know, but then...memory. He ripped out his memories because he couldn't deal with it. He literally couldn't keep his sanity and his memories of the torture-- [Shit, there's that word.] He couldn't.

And then he got moved. Epsilon was put in Washington's head, but he was the memories, and it drove them both crazy, so they stopped trying to break the Alpha. Things went nuts, the Project started breaking down, I don't know. And then they sent the Alpha away. Hid it. Where nobody would find it.

So.

I guess that's me.

Or what's left of me.

Church...

[Torture. They tortured his best friend and hid him away, and he didn't even know it. He forgot what they did to him.

Sitting beside him, being there, isn't enough. Junpei wraps an arm around Church's back and holds him close. He's not heavy, he's my brother.]

You're you. All that shit that happened to you, that's--that's such bullshit that they did that, but you--all I've ever known is you the way you are. And even--even after all that, you still...

[How can that be right? Shedding logic, all right, maybe, but anger? Creativity? How does that make any sense, when Church is right up there with him and Yuuri and Ardyn for wrath, when he's the one making lube slip 'n slides out of the dance studio and letting Cece tape him to a wall and being their friend?]

Want me to fight the space army? I'm gonna fight the space army. You're the best of us, Church, and I'm going to make them know it before I'm done.

[The touch is...good, it's good, it's grounding. It's going to be what grounds all of them, when the need it. And Church is still...here, mostly here, not when he first woke up and was still in Wash's head, still in the Meta's head, still digital and ghostly. He doesn't mind the idea of leaning against Junpei, because if he can't rely on Junpei, who the hell else can he?]

I didn't believe him. I mean, obviously. Tex, uh, Tex is one, too. Part of me, I guess? I don't...I don't know what that means for everything I think I remember. Everything before Blood Gulch. It can't--none of it can have actually happened, and only some of it could be residual memories from whoever the fuck I'm copied off of, and that's just a big chunk of my life that just doesn't fucking exist!

[Wow that got...steadily louder and louder and ended in loudness.]

And--and the--I had to--I had to distract the Meta because all these pieces he was collecting were looking for me and nobody but Delta even knew what I was, and then while the Meta's distracted, Wash had to trigger an emp! [...wait did he just--] To erase us all except for Epsilon, because the Reds and Caboose needed to get out with that fucking tin can full of memories and get it to the authorities so that everyone involved can get arrested or whatever! All because he fucking guilt-tripped me into finding out about myself and everyone the hell around me!

Like--like what the FUCK, okay, why did they--why--they just shoved me in a robot with a bunch of FUCKING MORONS and let me think--

I...jesus, I don't know how--all those pieces and holes--

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the final week

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