Page 1 of 4

Well, what if there is no tomorrow?

PostPosted: Tue Feb 01, 2022 1:52 am
by Miriam Bell
Sam, Will and Miriam make their way to the Point. It's still morning, so Miriam is carrying her needlessly fancy umbrella as they cross the grounds. On their way she steps off the path, one arm across Sam's chest to force her and Will onto the lawn as well to dodge the speedster haphazardly zipping past them. "He barreled into me on the Quad once and I got a face-full of sunshine before I even hit the ground. After that I made sure I know his exact route throughout the day." she mutters. The rest of the short trip is uneventful except for when they're heading down the tunnel towards Cerebra Miriam briefly stops to open the workshop doors and without bothering to step inside shouts at the confused Tosh inside.

"Hey, Shark-Nerd, food for thought. That time the Point exploded and time-loops. Come up with some ideas while we jeopardize Sam's already fragile mind by scattering it all over campus."

Re: Well, what if there is no tomorrow?

PostPosted: Tue Feb 01, 2022 2:13 am
by Toshiro Narumi
A bewildered Tosh said, "Wait, what?"

"Oh my god, are we in a loop?!" he asked, far too excited by the idea. Again, apparently.

Re: Well, what if there is no tomorrow?

PostPosted: Tue Feb 01, 2022 2:55 am
by Samantha McManus
"We didn't need a time loop to predict he'd do that."

Re: Well, what if there is no tomorrow?

PostPosted: Tue Feb 01, 2022 3:06 am
by Miriam Bell
"None of the things I said should have been exciting, yet here we are. Trust me, the loop loses it's appeal after a couple dozen go-arounds. Here's what you've told me before, just so we can skip ahead. There's chrono-whatevers on campus. A lot of them, not in any one place but just everywhere. No black holes, no magic, no gravimetric... stuff. Gravitons? I forget. You guys seemed very confused by the presence of chrono-parts without any gravity... distortion... patterns?" she half recalls, half skims Tosh's thoughts for the inevitable 'mentally filling in the right words while listening to somebody talk'.

Re: Well, what if there is no tomorrow?

PostPosted: Tue Feb 01, 2022 1:41 pm
by Toshiro Narumi
He nodded as he took mental notes.

"Very perplexing. And what about when it starts and ends?"

Re: Well, what if there is no tomorrow?

PostPosted: Tue Feb 01, 2022 3:18 pm
by Miriam Bell
"Some time during the night. But even if I could be deigned to have you around to take readings, you couldn't exactly tell me the results. It's more or less one day."

As they're making their way down the corridor something doesn't feel right. Neither of them can put a finger on what it is though and even after walking for several minutes without anything happening the feeling doesn't relent. Ever since they passed the workshop doors moments ago something's been off. it's not like anything out of the ordinary is even going on. The hallway is lit, not particularly spooky unless one has an objection to the clean, brushed metal look of the walls or the arguably pointlessly X-shaped door to Cerebra just down the hall. No rampaging robots bursting through doors or Skrulls sabotaging reactors, just a feeling that something is wrong looming over the twenty minute trek towards Cerebra.

Re: Well, what if there is no tomorrow?

PostPosted: Tue Feb 01, 2022 4:03 pm
by Samantha McManus
"What... is that?" Sam mutters as they walk, glancing over her shoulder.

Re: Well, what if there is no tomorrow?

PostPosted: Tue Feb 01, 2022 6:03 pm
by Will Stanton
"What's what?" Will said, blissfully unaware of whatever telepathic presence is haunting the two teeps.

Re: Well, what if there is no tomorrow?

PostPosted: Tue Feb 01, 2022 6:08 pm
by Narrator
They're a couple steps from the workshop doors where they picked up Tosh half an hour ago.

Ahead the door to Cerebra continues to wait for them just down the hall.

Re: Well, what if there is no tomorrow?

PostPosted: Tue Feb 01, 2022 6:49 pm
by Samantha McManus
"...well, Miriam. You wanted fuckery, and fuckery you shall have."

Re: Well, what if there is no tomorrow?

PostPosted: Tue Feb 01, 2022 7:00 pm
by Miriam Bell
"Sam. Samantha. Morrigan the Phantom Queen." she says, somehow making it sound like a cute nickname rather than impressive title. "None of this is even remotely what I want. And yet."

"Somebody explain me how we have spent what feels like half an hour walking only to make absolutely no progress down a twenty foot hallway?"

Re: Well, what if there is no tomorrow?

PostPosted: Tue Feb 01, 2022 7:06 pm
by Will Stanton
Will frowned. "Alright, I'm going to time us," he said, looking down at a watch that had appeared on his wrist at some point in the intermediate period. "I'm going to read out every 15 seconds as we step forward."

Re: Well, what if there is no tomorrow?

PostPosted: Tue Feb 01, 2022 7:12 pm
by Narrator
They once again walk down the hallway and Will calls out the timing.

"Five."

"Ten."

"Fifteen."

"Five." he starts as they step down the hallway.

"Ten."

"Fifteen."

"Five." he says as they're heading down the hallway for the umpteenth time very first time.

Re: Well, what if there is no tomorrow?

PostPosted: Tue Feb 01, 2022 7:36 pm
by Toshiro Narumi
"This is some non-euclidean bullshit alright," Tosh commented while he did some calculations on his tablet.

Re: Well, what if there is no tomorrow?

PostPosted: Tue Feb 01, 2022 9:05 pm
by Samantha McManus
"I don't think we ever reached Cerebra the prior days, Miriam."

Re: Well, what if there is no tomorrow?

PostPosted: Tue Feb 01, 2022 9:18 pm
by Miriam Bell
"Fuck me, maybe I'm not remembering everything either. Maybe we did make it inside but we're getting looped back to before we did? Either way that must mean there's something important inside, yes? Something we're being kept from?"

Re: Well, what if there is no tomorrow?

PostPosted: Tue Feb 01, 2022 9:31 pm
by Will Stanton
"Maybe we just need to go...faster. If we can get to the door before time loops in on itself..."

Re: Well, what if there is no tomorrow?

PostPosted: Tue Feb 01, 2022 9:34 pm
by Samantha McManus
"It's doing us all as a group. What happens if we're not together?"

Re: Well, what if there is no tomorrow?

PostPosted: Tue Feb 01, 2022 9:36 pm
by Miriam Bell
"Good idea. Will, go sprint to the door. We'll stay here."

Re: Well, what if there is no tomorrow?

PostPosted: Tue Feb 01, 2022 9:48 pm
by Will Stanton
"Right-o," Will said, stretching out his calves before bursting down the hallway at a fast run for a normal person.

Re: Well, what if there is no tomorrow?

PostPosted: Tue Feb 01, 2022 11:06 pm
by Miriam Bell
Will sprints.

Will sprints down the hallway.

Will sprints down the hallway and reaches the door.

Will sprints down the hallway, reaches the door and opens it.

Will sprints down the hallway, reaches the door, opens it and--


Will sprints down the hallway, reaches the door and reaches to open it when Miriam suddenly shouts.

"Wait! Something's not right. Look at the door. Was that always like this?" she says, pointing at the door to Cerebra and the splattered red, brown and grey smears that are just about visible on the threshold. As if the doors had closed on a stain on the floor that looks like Will's clay. Clay and partially dried blood. Obviously that had been there when they'd arrived in the corridor, but... it does seem strange.

Behind Will Miriam has somehow gone even paler than normal, her voice shaking. "I don't like this. If I don't remember having been down here..." she mutters.

Re: Well, what if there is no tomorrow?

PostPosted: Tue Feb 01, 2022 11:29 pm
by Toshiro Narumi
"It's almost as if we've entered another, smaller loop. And either something happened to another Will or we're seeing evidence of what happens if he opens that door," Tosh said, waving his scanning tool in that general direction to find temporal anomalies.

Re: Well, what if there is no tomorrow?

PostPosted: Wed Feb 02, 2022 2:14 am
by Will Stanton
"The blood is what's confusing me," Will said, and paused.

"The blood is what's confusing me more than the average level of confusion caused by a time loop," he corrected. "I typically don't bleed anymore; at least, not when I don't want to. That implies two of us got hurt down here?"

Re: Well, what if there is no tomorrow?

PostPosted: Wed Feb 02, 2022 3:02 am
by Miriam Bell
"It's not a smaller loop." Miriam almost whispers. "If going down here wipes my memory too then... I've been leading you all down here over and over and over. We're just... vaguely remembering bits and pieces we've done before down here, like some kind of fucked up deja-vu. We come down here, open the door and die and when the day restarts we do it all over again because when it happens down here I don't remember!" she says, staggering a couple steps backwards, hands clutching her head.

Re: Well, what if there is no tomorrow?

PostPosted: Wed Feb 02, 2022 3:18 am
by Samantha McManus
"...maybe Miriam's the only one who can't make it to the end of the hall."

Re: Well, what if there is no tomorrow?

PostPosted: Wed Feb 02, 2022 4:15 am
by Will Stanton
"And maybe we never figured out that opening this causes...something to happen, before."

Re: Well, what if there is no tomorrow?

PostPosted: Wed Feb 02, 2022 1:11 pm
by Toshiro Narumi
"Well, I could send my new drone in through the ventilation. I haven't worked out all the bugs yet, but I did just add a sensor package."

Re: Well, what if there is no tomorrow?

PostPosted: Wed Feb 02, 2022 7:40 pm
by Samantha McManus
"As long as you can stand to lose it."

Re: Well, what if there is no tomorrow?

PostPosted: Wed Feb 02, 2022 8:14 pm
by Will Stanton
"Let's do it," Will nodded.

"...Unless that's what we've done every time before."

Re: Well, what if there is no tomorrow?

PostPosted: Wed Feb 02, 2022 10:20 pm
by Toshiro Narumi
"I mean, I'd rather not lose it but desperate times and all," he said, sending a command from his tablet. The disc-like drone soon floated nearly silently into the hall and up to the group.

"Everyone, Roswell. Roswell, everyone."

Re: Well, what if there is no tomorrow?

PostPosted: Wed Feb 02, 2022 10:23 pm
by Miriam Bell
"Oh good, you named it. Now it's definitely going to die." Miriam snarks, which is marginally better than the near-panic-attack she'd been fighting.

Re: Well, what if there is no tomorrow?

PostPosted: Wed Feb 02, 2022 10:39 pm
by Will Stanton
"A pleasure to meet you, Roswell. Now, c'mon down here and open the door," Will smiled.

Re: Well, what if there is no tomorrow?

PostPosted: Wed Feb 02, 2022 10:46 pm
by Toshiro Narumi
"Will, would you open up that ventilation duct for me?" he asked as Roswell flew to Will's position.

Re: Well, what if there is no tomorrow?

PostPosted: Wed Feb 02, 2022 10:52 pm
by Will Stanton
Will does so, so the robot can keep moving.

Re: Well, what if there is no tomorrow?

PostPosted: Wed Feb 02, 2022 11:13 pm
by Toshiro Narumi
Tosh tweaked a few settings and switched to manual controls to guide the bot in.

Re: Well, what if there is no tomorrow?

PostPosted: Thu Feb 03, 2022 3:52 pm
by Narrator
It's a narrow fit, the ventilation shaft not having been designed to be traversed by anyone or anything except airflow. On more than one occasion the drone wobbles and bumps into the walls and ceilings and requires Tosh to manually correct it's propulsion. Finally he reaches the end of the shaft and with it the panel covering it. It's not perfectly flush, otherwise how would the air get into the room, but it blocks at least some of the view. With some maneuvering of the drone Tosh manages to get a downward angle that at least shows at least part of the room.

It is only lit by the operational lights of Cerebra, casting everything into a mix of blue hues and jagged shadows. The inside of the door has some kind of mass piled near it, some of it spread out along the wall to the left and right of the door for a couple feet. It takes a couple moments for the camera to focus and resolve the masses into what they are. Bodies. At least two dozen of them, scattered against the door and wall. All of them look hauntingly familiar. Multiple copies of all four of them seemingly having been dashed against the walls. The least recognizable one being Will, who seems to mostly have been turned into a complete smear, though here and there body-parts remain sticking out of the clay.

At the center of the massacre is the foot of the Cerebra pedestal, console lit up and running though the angle can't get a full view of the capsule itself.

Re: Well, what if there is no tomorrow?

PostPosted: Thu Feb 03, 2022 5:27 pm
by Toshiro Narumi
Tosh was stunned silent for a long moment before saying, "Good news, my drone works. Bad news, room full of dead us-es."

He had the drone extend a probe to get some readings, looking for temporal anomalies. He wished he had a way of opening the vent.

Re: Well, what if there is no tomorrow?

PostPosted: Thu Feb 03, 2022 5:45 pm
by Narrator
The drone is not exactly outfitted for handling extensive particle physics so the best Tosh can tell is that everything seems saturated with chronotons, which is not particularly surprising considering the entire day has been reset countless times. What stands out among the plentiful erratic signals of strange matter is a distinct pattern of Pym Particles.

Re: Well, what if there is no tomorrow?

PostPosted: Thu Feb 03, 2022 5:55 pm
by Samantha McManus
"So... whatever is going on in that room isn't looped in the same way."

Re: Well, what if there is no tomorrow?

PostPosted: Thu Feb 03, 2022 6:03 pm
by Toshiro Narumi
"It's like overlapping timelines ending in some kind of explo-"

"The hell? Why am I detecting Pym Particles?" he asked the air, perplexed.