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twotiime2 · 1 year

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Reality Adjustment, pt. 5

[[ Discord log to follow, yadda yadda, this one is SUPER long! Best read in Dark Mode! ]]

[[ tw for: Themes of not trusting your perception of reality, frequent use of casual ableist language. Later on there are mentions of animal death, some implied light nsfw descriptions, and a whole lotta Fake Nonsense Science Jargon since neither of us have any formal education related to any sciences. Toward the end there's a scene that includes some accidental fantasy racism, but it's very brief and handled with more than a generous amount of apology and guilt... and then that goes straight into Fiction territory. this is an isekai now. ]]

After some shuffling things about and repeated neuralization of Otome, the pizza dinner was back underway and back on course. As it turned out, Otome knew the following things - and nothing else…

The Technocratic Union was a super secret conspiracy agency (probably of the government, or some global international thing?).

The Union did spy stuff using cutting edge technology that the commercial market wasn't ready for.

Normal people weren't ready for the supertech stuff because of some quirk of ultra-high technology science something.

Nobody could ever learn of the Technocracy, or the weird science quirk thing would happen to everyone, everywhere, or something.

The Union was basically MiB, like in the movies, but… whatever they dealt with was secret. Might be aliens. Maybe not. Who knew?

Simon worked for Q Division, the tech support and computer R&D department.

There was also the money group, the MiB spy people, the biolab freak science people, and the space research people.

The Union protected the world from super dangerous forces that defied reality somehow (Cthulhu, Demons, Aliens, whatever?)

The Union was super into Loyalty and Secrets and Trust, keeping your mouth shut won tons of brownie points.

The Union had seemingly unlimited authority, resources, and money. And thank God too, because they'd need it to fight Demons.

Otome's knowledge of anything deeper was limited to guesses and things she kept to herself, either because she wasn't sure she was right, or because she was pretty sure that Simon had one of those Memory Pen Flash things and he might flash her and leave her if she knew too much. So, she was a Good Girlfriend™️ and kept it to herself.

And of course Simon was brilliant with super secret agency technology that might be from space or another dimension. After all, he was certifiably insane and a walking checklist of eccentric quirkiness. He was perfect for the job!

Once all of this was known and settled, and pizza had been redone in detail - Simone/Edith had some real talent for detail - they began the dinner again from when Otome had just put down the drinks and rejoined Simon and Simone. This time, she was kept clear of any clues as to Simone's reality-breakage, excessive special effects, or any questions about reality's limits and the depths of the Union's activities.

- - - -

Instead of asking Simone, Simon asked Otome, "So, when did they come out with new Mountain Dew flavors? They only had original green-yellow lemony-limey whatever for… ever." He waved his hand in a vague circle from the wrist, as he was trying to describe the flavor of Mountain Dew.

At the end of the sentence, while waiting for her reply, Simon stroked Edith's back, all the way down to the tip of her tiny tail. It was genuinely such an adorable form! So very distracting. And he was, again, not much of an animal person, before.

- - - -

Otome thought while she chewed, and after swallowing, said, "I have no idea. But it sounds very Googleable."

- - - -

His eyebrows screwed up. "…The doctor said something about a Google, and now you've used it as a verb. What the fuck is a Google? Like, I know a googolplex, but I feel like that isn't something you would usually consult for obscure bits of information. And he had no idea what Dogpile… was. I guess."

- - - -

"Isn't a dogpile when there's a bunch of guys on one girl?"

" That's a gangbang. Big difference. "

"Google is a search engine. Like, the search engine. So much so that Googling something is a slang term for looking it up. On most devices, if there's a search bar for you to type into, chances are it defaults to the Google search engine. They're so big now, as a company, that they own YouTube, FitBit, Waze, and a bunch of others, plus they own investment capital in Robinhood, Duolingo, Uber and… well, a bunch of other stuff."

She paused, noting his expression. "Uh… they're a search engine that got crazy rich and owns like ten percent of all the names people think of when they think of the tech industry."

- - - -

Simon closed his eyes and tilted his head, consternation clear on his face and in his knit brow.

"Rmm. So much jargon that flew over my head. That explained everything. Thank you for the simplified version."

He finally took another bite of his pizza, still delicious as before and hitting a craving he hadn't realized he was suffering. "And, uh, you were thinking of a gangbang. Dogpile was a search engine that launched toward the end of the century- it'd pull results from everywhere, even like, other search engine results- and, personally, MetaCrawler had nothing on it. Shame it's not being used anymore."

- - - -

"I thought you still used 'Crawler? Oh, I guess you wouldn't remem- yeah, they're still around. You're the only person I know who uses it, but it's around."

" They relaunched in 2017. "

When he clarified that she'd referenced a sex act, Otome choked a little on her japanese soda, turning red. After clearing her throat, she said simply, "Oh."

"Uh… yeah, not that. Hey… is it wrong to ask what the 90's were like? I mean, we were in diapers during those years in the real world, so…. what was it like? I know how they show it on TV, but that's…. that's fake, right?"

- - - -

He gazed at her over his pizza.

"…I have no idea how they show the 90s on TV. If it's anything like they did the 70s and back, probably not. I'm not sure what to tell you."

- - - -

She pondered that for a moment, and shrugged. "That's fair. And probably accurate. It's just a little awkward having you back, but not… really being able to talk about anything we'd normally talk about."

She touched his hand with hers, but only along the outer edges of their hands, since they both had pizza-hands.

"But I'm trying."

- - - -

His gaze softened, and he reached to touch her back.

"…I appreciate the effort. On the bright side, we can have a movie marathon where you show me your favorites of the last twenty years? And introduce me to mine, again? Totally blind, not even having seen the trailers during ad breaks on TV." He considered for a second. "And the ones you hate. Especially those. If you can sit through them."

- - - -

Her head tilted. "TV has ad breaks during the shows?"

- - - -

Aaaaand his gaze hardened again. "Tell me you're not fucking with me again. Did they finally get rid of the two-minute breaks between five minutes of show?"

- - - -

She shrugged, "I have no idea. I don't watch TV. I stream everything, and I always have. I mean, I think we had TV when I was like, super little? But I don't remember it."

- - - -

Seriousness gave way to consternation. "Tell me what you mean by 'streaming'."

- - - -

She winced. "Oh! Oh, right… sorry. Streaming has replaced a lot of TV for a lot of people. It's when a streaming service, like Disney+ or HBO, or YouTube, keeps a big library of watchables in their servers and users subscribe - usually for a monthly fee, but not always - to the services they want, to watch the things they want to watch, when they want to watch them. We could go log in to Disney+ right now and watch Snow White… on a television, a computer, a cellphone… any device with a screen and an internet connection. It's like hitting play on a video file, except instead of having the movie on a flash drive, the movie is on Disney's computers… and you need to make sure your internet connection is solid enough to watch it without any screwups. But you can do it anytime you want… if you have a subscription."

- - - -

"…Huh." That explanation sounded very logical and also fucking impossible given what he had known of technology's capabilities in the 90's. They didn't even have external storage that could hold one movie-length video in the common market, much less that could hold multiple, or internet connections strong and fast enough to access those video files on external servers, then play them. He chewed as he thought about that, staring into the middle-distance.

The Union had brought technology a long way in the last twenty years.

They didn't quite have Mobius's sentient-nanite tech in the Consensus yet, but boy, were they well on their way.

"Wow. Do you even still keep hard copies of the shit you can stream? I am gonna have so many questions."

- - - -

"Yes. Because… what if it's not streaming anywhere when you want to see it? Not every service can sustain more than a hundred titles in active rotation at a time, while some can handle several hundred. Usually, the shows and movies go on rotation from one service to another, and sometimes, it's just… not showing. Or they decided not to stream it for cultural reasons… like some of the old racist stuff in cartoons and movies where celebrities tap-danced in black face and stuff. And then there's …. you know…. adult material. That doesn't stream anywhere."

" Except for every porn site ever. "

"Unless you count things like PornHub, but… that's not a real streaming service."

" I'd make a joke here, but it's too easy. And a little gross. "

- - - -

"Fair." He nodded to Edith, in response to her, not that Otome knew that. "…Well, at least it's not all online-only yet. I have to say, with a clear head and in retrospect, having everything exist only in a digital space is just asking to lose humanity's cultural history to a disaster way less impressive than burning a whole library to the ground. Data decay was already a bit of a problem, I can't imagine how bad it effects things now."

"But, uh, it's not great that they're deciding what is and is not available to people that are paying them for the ability to watch the things in their archives. They're- you're- paying for the service expressly for access to that company's stuff, so it's… really shitty they hold anything back without it being a restriction of their tech rather than their policies."

- - - -

Otome paused. "Uh… Boybot? Most of your video games are online only. Some consoles and computer games are only online gaming capable."

- - - -

Oh, that brought a distressed grimace. "Jesus Christ."

And then a disappointed shake of his head. "Why??"

- - - -

She looked confused. "Because it's easier and cheaper for indie game devs to publish and distribute through Steam on PC, or through Online Marketplace for Polystation, Sintendo, XXXBox, and the rest? They can just put up a few paragraphs of description, a few screen shots, maybe a video file trailer, and sell their game for $5 or $20, without having to pay for marketing and packaging and stuff. And it keeps clutter to a minimum."

- - - -

He looked at her from above his glasses, head half-hung from where he shook it. "Is that true? Or is that just what those companies want you to think? I- well, I admit, I don't know anything about the gaming scene now or its variety of content. But without those companies cornering the market, would it actually be that hard for individually-published titles to be distributed? Word-of-mouth or of-text on like, bulletin boards, used to work fine. And game hardware was simple enough, they could be made into console cartridges without too much trouble."

"My collection was… my collection. From their publishers. But they were my copies. What happened to that?"

- - - -

She looked thoughtful and nodded between bites. "Something we've discussed many times. Skipping to the end, I don't know what the Union is capable of, and I don't know what could be if things radically changed… I just know what is. Without knowing more, I don't think I can really know enough to feel that strongly about something I can't change."

- - - -

"Hmph." He harrumphed over his next bite of pizza. "The decline of physical media is a crime to people's right to the things they pay for, based on capitalism's own rules of exchange. Fucking stupid, full stop."

Simon sulked for an entire slice, and its bones.

- - - -

She offered a sad smile, "Okay, Che, calm down. At least you're still you on some things."

- - - -

He paused, considering her remark, and then nodded. "Good. I never liked how the Union supported that crap; it was like, part of the main thing I left 'em for."

It only occurred to him after a few bites that he was still working for them in this reality. "…In. The life in my head. I just heard the dissonance."

- - - -

Otome did look confused, but then nodded when he explained. "So… they put you inside the Matrix, but back in the 90's… and you left, in the simulation? Must've sucked."

"Caution here. I wanna know too, but you should keep it to a minimum. Unless you wanna do this pizza thing a third time?"

- - - -

He raised a brow and glanced at Edith, noting her warning, but continued to Otome after a moment.

"…Yeah. I had an alternative offer that gave me the same creative freedom without all the fellating of Capitalism- or, at least, as much. It was still kind of the Union anyway, though- just, like, an offshoot. I think maybe some of the drugs they put in me while they were trying to keep me alive fucked up their Matrix sim in more ways than just crazy dreamscapes interspersed with details of my actual life."

- - - -

"You think maybe the offshoot thing was part of the… whatever the doctors called it? The psychotic reaction thing?"

" Bored now. I'm going to go upstairs and do something more fun than talking about capitalism and crap. If you take too long down here, I'm going to walk down here naked and force you to have to try and carry on your conversation with me being lewd or whatever. That way, you don't bore Otome to death, and I still have something to do. "

The kitten hopped down and stood as a girl once more, before finishing her root beer shot.

" You better pray I find a comic to read or something, or I'm comin' back down here in my birthday suit."

- - - -

Simon pouted at Edith. "Aww, come on, we're establishing personal belief baselines! What do you wanna talk about, Eed? Besides how much pizza to leave in the box for you when I bring it up, or whatever you consider 'lewd'."

- - - -

Edith rolled her eyes and sulked, shoulders slumped. "But that's boooooring!! Can't we go take something apart, or blow something up, or juggle chainsaws, or something? I'm falling asleep over here! You're my boyfriend, darnit! You're supposed to keep me entertained!"

- - - -

"Oh, I'm supposed to keep you entertained? When I haven't hardly had any time with either of you, t'do anything yet, much less time for myself to let this reality set in? D'you want things to go back to kinda-normal, or do you want me to be trying to figure out how it is you want me to entertain you while also trying to puzzle through my life with Otome without any time to hang out with her? I'm sorry you can't exactly participate in the conversation, here, but it's not my fault you don't care about the things we're talking about."

He had half-turned in his seat to face Edith, legitimately frustrated with her self-centeredness and perceived lack of care for the differences between what he knew and what was. It may have been self-centered of him to be wanting more to catch up than to just spend time, but, he felt it wasn't unreasonable for someone in his position to want to do so, before they tried to do anything else.

"If I could fucking hang out with both of you at the same time, that would be great, but guess what? I can't do that. So."

Simon fixed her with a more legitimate, annoyed frown.

- - - -

Otome blinked in surprise at his outburst, and so did Edith. The latter hesitated, before going upstairs, muttering something about staying out of his way.

His girlfriend looked where he was looking, then back at him. "Is everything okay? Did I do something?"

- - - -

Simon suddenly felt kind of like he had yelled at a child harshly, for just wanting his attention while he was busy with something else, and all of his annoyance deflated into guilt. He turned back to Otome, that guilt coloring his face.

"…Ugh. No." He wiped one pizza-hand on his pants, and then ran it through his slightly-damp hair. "Edith wants to do something, because our conversation is boring her to sleep, and said I'm 'her boyfriend, aren't I supposed to entertain her?' but like, having these kinds of foundational conversations is kind of important, and… god damn it, does my having come out of a hospital maybe an hour ago, not knowing a goddamn thing about the life you guys know, not take priority right now?"

He stared at his pizza, suddenly far less hungry.

"…I guess that is kind of self-centered, too, but… things aren't gonna settle back to normal in a day just because I'm awake and home, you know? I'm not… I'm basically not the me you guys know, and I have to get to know you guys without any prior idea of what you're like or what quirks you have or what your favorite colors are. I get you've been missing your-me, but-" He looked up at Otome from above his glasses. "-that's not - I can't be relieved to be back, because I didn't know you two and haven't known I had anyone like you to miss."

He ran his hand through his hair again, and rested that elbow on the table, half-burying his face into the crook of his elbow while that hand hung in the air slightly above his head, playing with a curl between his index and thumb.

"I've barely landed, why can't she let the jet-lag wear off a little before dragging me around?" he muttered into his arm.

- - - -

Otome's hand was patient and her tone comforting, as if this particular anguish were a well worn road under their feet.

"I quote an expert in the field, when I say, 'Because Edith is part of what drives you and vice versa. Every perfect score, every new program, every brilliant breakthrough, every obsession, every time you got up and did the impossible, when all you wanted was to stay in bed… was, partly, her fault. Because she doesn't let you stay in your ruts, ever.'…"

Otome paused and then offered, with a shrug, "Maybe she thinks you need to be something besides hanging out with your girlfriend, if you want to get better. Usually, her tantrums annoy you, but lead you to the next big thing. I always know when you're about to go off on some crazy marathon project because the first tell-tale sign is you and Simone being inseparable and you complaining about it in bed, talking about how you need a break from her."

She shook her head, hands up at her sides, "Or… maybe she's just being a twit? I mean, you are the only one she lets see her."

- - - -

He listened, and watched Otome's body language, still sulking in his arm while she spoke.

Then sighed out of his nose, slightly fogging up his glasses from the air being redirected upward by his arm.

"I… I dunno, what she said doesn't feel like a tantrum? She's just being insistent about doing something instead of talking about "capitalism and crap". That something might be her, honestly? But. I don't wanna neglect you, by spending all my time on my first day with her, and I also feel like I'm neglecting her right now. I don't know what the right thing to do here is."

- - - -

Otome took his hands in hers - her own having been cleaned at some point he hadn't noticed, but the dirty napkins beside her told the story none the less. "Simon… it's not a competition. I love you and I know you, and I know I'm not the only woman in your life. I've known that since we first started dating. We've talked it out endlessly and we found a way that works for all of us. And you have no idea what it is, and I get that, too. And yes, sometimes, Simone - cat or girl - is a little needy. But, monkey… when Simone gets antsy, it's a sign. It's always a sign. Sometimes it means you're going to do something at work that gets you a raise. Sometimes it means that I'm going to need to buy us a new microwave or toaster or blender, and start keeping little fire extinguishers around the house. And, in one memorable case that shines above all others, it means I'm going to come home to clouds and wind and a snowstorm happening in our living room, with the tile floor in the kitchen being turned into an ice sheet."

She touched his cheek softly.

"And I've made peace with that. Maybe she's being a selfish brat. Maybe she's getting triggered by all your heightened brain activity from the accident. Maybe she's horny. I have no way to tell. And it's none of my business. But whatever is going on… it's okay. We'll get through it. I'm not going anywhere."

- - - -

His eyes searched her face.

She seemed genuine, and caring, and her touch made him raise his head a little bit, if only to lean into the touch of another person in such a familiar area. The softness of her treatment made him sigh, more in relief of a little of the stress he had been holding than in the accumulation of that stress.

"…OK." It was quiet, and he couldn't look at Otome's face for more than a moment, comfortably. "I- I think I should probably go apologize. Sorry, 'Tome."

Simon turned his face into her palm, holding her hand still with his own, and put a small kiss into it, then pulled away from her, gently, leaving the pizza and drinks in their places. "I'll try and come back down later. I really don't want to like, favor one of you guys to spend time with, and make the other one feel left-out… so I'm gonna try t'make time for you, even if you guys had a system going that worked, before. You deserve my time, too."

Then, after another lingering look, Simon left the kitchen to see Edith in her room- or wherever he ended up finding her.

- - - -

He found her dismantling a controller on her bed with tiny tools, and a flashlight strapped to her head. Her movements were slow and she didn't seem to be very into it, her face still making her seem quite rejected and saddened. When she noticed him out of the corner of her eye, she shuffled around a little on her butt, on the bed, to keep more of her back to him. Her voice was heavy with reluctance, but soft in tone.

" . . . . . Hey. "

- - - -

He tried to approach gently, and sat down next to her in an area that he hoped didn't displace any of the controller pieces she had already removed, without encroaching too much into her space.

"…Hey."

Uncertain what to start with, or how to approach this sort of thing, he just opted for the straightforward route.

"I'm sorry I snapped at you, Eed. You've been open and genuine and energetic with me all day… and I haven't given you that, back, at all; I've been too caught up in how overwhelmed I am with… everything, without actually asking you how you're doing. And then, after I totally swapped my attention to someone else… I got upset with you when you wanted your own needs met. That wasn't fair. I'm sorry."

- - - -

She kept working quietly for several seconds, before saying.

" I know. It's not your fault. "

She reached up and turned off her headlight before she looked at him, her red eye greatly magnified by a worker's loop flipped down over her eye to help her work.

" Your head's not in the game, Boybot. You need to accept three things: first, this is real. You're not going to wake up from this, on some weird planet's victorian era, or something. Second, your life is only off by twenty years. Sure, that means a lot for friendships and relationships and family… but everybody knows that and nobody is asking you to make that go away or to catch up all at once. Everybody is being super cool with your time-brain thing. And it means that you have some tech homework to do and a few new company names to learn. Buuut…. that's kind've all it means. This isn't Venus or a space station in a universe you don't know, and it's not some weird hyperviolent cyberpunk future in the year 3050-something. It's… 2023. Woo? Most of the countries are still the same. Heck, most of the elected representatives and major companies are even still the same. Electric cars are more common and so is gun violence. Homosexual and transsexual people have more rights and respect now… unless you just suck at being nice to people who are different. "

She removed her headgear, leaving her ponytail a tangled mess in its wake.

" So…. stop acting like it's a weird new world that has to be deciphered or interrogated. It's new. New is good. New is interesting. New means potential to be better. Stop acting like a victim. I'm sorry you lived a false life in a cyber realm. But I keep trying to take your mind off of it and help you focus on what's ahead, and you won't stop watching the rear view mirror and questioning the now. We're in the car, bro. We're going places. The world passing you by is scenery, not a tragedy. So hands on the wheel. "

She held out her small tools to him.

" Keep your eyes on the road. "

- - - -

It took him a minute of looking down at her tools to mentally chew on what she had said to him. A lot of the smaller details were insensitive at best, but the message she was trying to get through to him was also a little hard to swallow: "Stop lingering on what happened, and start focusing on what you'll do now."

The 'false life in a cyber realm' was real barely half a day ago, to him- it was fresh, and a hard space to emerge from when the space he was entering felt like so much more- but for Edith and Otome, Simon was just trying to recover from a lengthy, bad dream, and they knew what to expect from him, and had their own ideas of how to help him through it. The dream would fade, and he'd settle back into reality and into the same patterns of behavior they knew him for, because, as he had said to Edith when they 'first' met: he was who he was, "whether that's who this reality expects or not."

He couldn't change what had already been done, but he could decide what to do with what was left. And if he was going to do it well, he had to build up his resources, workspace, and knowledge, in order to use all of his tools effectively; it didn't matter what happened before this point, except that all of those moments were stepping stones that brought him to now.

And he needed to focus on now and stop thinking of his life as over. It had just begun again, hadn't it? He just had a little catching up to do.

Edith could see all of these thoughts playing out as Simon considered them, uncertainty and slight insult slowly evolving into a kind of courage: the determination to move forward, to take that next step, after the path he thought he was supposed to take had crumbled in front of his feet. He just had to pivot and keep moving, and he would get wherever he needed to go.

Simon took up Edith's little tools, then, and released a breath he didn't realize he had been holding.

"Right. Let's get moving."

- - - -

Eed dragged out two of the consoles, their controllers, and some cartridges. She walked him through dismantling them, anytime he hit a wall, explaining modern methods of sealing products… though, there wasn't much need, since it was mostly the same - just with more and smaller screws, holding down more things. Nothing was glued, but there were a few pieces where plastic tabs were fit together in a way that would (normally) require special tools to open - to help keep the technology and its repair and modification, proprietary.

"I guess you don't remember anything about what we were working on, huh?"

- - - -

As he tinkered and took things apart, noting the newer methods of holding the plastic together and applying the effective dismantling techniques to future pieces, Simon listened and watched Edith with the senses he wasn't using on his current project. The circuit boards weren't very different, at least, even if the consoles themselves had gotten more complicated and required more bits on the board to control their new features.

"Can't say I do, no. Tell me about it?"

- - - -

"Well…" she said, watching him work, "Your mind seems pretty preoccupied with code and program stuff and whatever. When we first met, you were the same way… but…"

She watched his reaction carefully, almost like she might be worried about how he'd react.

"… we'd gotten pretty far beyond that, even before you learned about Q Division. That's why you wanted to join it, to work with their gadgets. But you were getting frustrated by their restrictions, before the accident."

- - - -

Simon paused, at that, and looked over at Edith with a raised eyebrow.

"Beyond that? Like how? Applying those principles to hardware?"

- - - -

"Kiiiiiind of, yeah. I mean, we've been at this - I know you don't remember - for fourteen years. We went through coding, hacking, wrote our own OS, brought down a few crappy companies' websites for awhile, had some close calls with police and stuff… then we made our own computer designed to run our OS, and explored the Net in ways that were really cool and Matrix'y… but…"

She slumped a little. "It was fun, sure… but you realized that…. it didn't mean anything."

- - - -

He tilted his head and pulled his brows together, then, uncertain. That seemed like a lot! He had made his own ZackAttack-esque Web-interface computer, for his own custom OS! That… didn't change anything for other people, but as steps forward, those were huge!

"…Uh-huh?"

- - - -

"So like… we did some cool stuff, some fun stuff, we made things for the Web, even got inside of it and did some TRON Matrix stuff for a couple of years… it was a ride."

She watched him work at the console, following his hands with her eyes.

"… But the Crash changed all of that. The Union guys call it the Dimensional Anomaly. Tech-heads in particular, they called it the WhiteOut. And we barely escaped it alive. This massive surge of extradimensional energy that blasted the entire digital webspace into nothing. Like Nothing nothing. Even the mundane internet was riddled with signal and domain errors and service problems, for like a week. The whole planet's internet was crap, and everybody was struggling to find or access even the most basic services. And then, suddenly…. it all came back. Everything except for the digital space… that got wiped clean. A lot of it's been rebuilt, but the WhiteOut still lurks online like a roving power surge virus or something."

"But it got you thinking about how… virtual reality wasn't as safe as you'd thought, as a 'world of the future'. Because if mankind moved into the virtual universe… it could be wiped out without warning, by something nobody was able to stop."

She offered him her headstrap, with the flashlight and the magnifying loop eye lens attachment.

"So you started exploring ways to apply new science ideas that might've worked inside the web, outside the web. Sometimes, it goes really badly. Sometimes it works great! But the Union… has some pretty strict rules about what should and shouldn't be. So innovation has to stay within limits. That was the part bugging you."

- - - -

Simon nodded to himself. "…Yeah, I was saying that before- how data decay could totally wipe out humanity if we moved to entirely-virtual space. I didn't know about the WhiteOut, though…" He took her headgear and fixed it to himself, after having made sure nothing he was working on would fall or move out of place when he took his hands off of it.

"Maybe all those Web-spiders fucking up the Web and connections to it and computers was like, my head's way of remembering that… I saved this really cool User from being murdered by that, actually- he went by ZackAttack. Nice guy. A little condescending, if I'm being honest, 'cause he figured the only reason I got past his door encryption was it being too old and not as secure as his newer stuff. I think he had been trapped in the Web for like, a week, before I found him and got him out- and I had to do that after Morpheus updated Zack's old computer to be, like, made of his nanites and safe from the web-spiders."

He shrugged. "Not that any of that matters. It was just, like, one of the last things I did before things went sideways for me."

"So, we were trying to make Web constructs and functions work in Meatspace? What've we gotten to work so far? What did they not like us trying?"

- - - -

"The spiders… are a whole other thing. I'll spare you the details, your memory loss is a blessing on that one. It makes sense that they'd make their way into your nightmare fuel."

"The Union doesn't know about--"

Her next two words sounded more dramatic, being slightly louder and sounding as if they were spoken through a series of echo-filters and were dubbed over her actual words in the after-editing of the audio for his real world moment. And it happened that way every time she said it.

"--'The Lab'. If they ever learned of 'The Lab', they'd probably label you a deviant or a threat to their Consensus. It isn't so much that we were making web constructs in the real world, so much as we were figuring out how to dig through all the junk code that the Union has decided is 'reality' and 'physics', and find the real source code for reality's laws, so we could build machines and utilize forces that had been overwritten by and large, but were still there in the underlying code that reality really runs on."

- - - -

Simon stopped his work and looked at Edith entirely, then, eyes sparkling despite his slight difficulty understanding.

"…We were trying to hack reality and unbury some cool shit?"

Memories bubbled up of being stuck in a padded cell, with voices speaking to him- just hack reality to get out. He wasn't sure when they happened, but he was certain it was a reality he briefly woke up in- and one that he got re-awoken in at least twice, when he didn't respond correctly the first time. But he still remembered the first time.

…It was before Allison's reality. Right before.

"That sounds fucking awesome. But I don't remember how we accomplished it."

- - - -

"Hacking reality is something we tried, but… it went bad, really fast. But it was technically possible. What we were onto more recently was… well, okay, here's an example."

She sat facing Simon more fully.

"Anti-gravity. Possible, or impossible, and why?"

- - - -

Simon squinted at her, and set his current project on the floor so that he could focus on Edith fully.

"…Theoretically possible? I didn't do a lot of research into it, but, I'd imagine pushing against the force of gravity in order to achieve lift is definitely not the same thing. Not sure how you might turn off gravity in an area, but that doesn't mean it isn't possible."

- - - -

"Turning it off wasn't the question. Is Anti-Gravity possible? And you answered… yes. Yes, it is. Gravity is what everyone thinks it is… but it's not only what everyone thinks it is. And it's not everything that everyone thinks it is. The stuff that it isn't, was laid down via conspiracy by the Union over many, many years… and everyone believes it, which makes it quasi-real. That's the Junk Code in this example. But under it all are actual laws of gravity. That's the Source Code. And we were working on ways to sift the Source out of the Junk, across all kinds of topics. Computers run on some basic rules that can be broken, and some foundational laws that can't. Everything else above and beyond that are rules and conditions imposed by the software and hardware you attach to it or install into it. But strip all of those away and it's still a computer, able to parse the simplest commands via the most rudimentary programs that they all understand."

"Reality is a computer. Add new hardware - like land and air and water, animals and humans, sun, moon, stars, the universe - and new software - ideas and scientific or religious beliefs that are taken as widespread fundamental truths - and you get The Real World."

"Some of that Real World is kinda crummy… so you dig through the code and wiring, find what you can do without and what you can't do without… and make new hardware and software - new physical objects and new ideas on which they function - accordingly."

"If…. if enough people can be made to accept the new programs and devices, then the Computer stops being one model and becomes another. Upgrade."

"That became your new slogan… Don't Escape. Upgrade."

"It came to you during one of your big slumps… you read a girl's breasts - I mean, her t-shirt - and the phrase you saw stuck in your brain and made you change your whole way of trying things away from the virtual and computerized and toward mad science, as you put it."

She held out her hand in a sweeping slow gesture.

"The shirt said…. The Road Not Traveled Never Reveals Its Secrets."

She shrugged. "Since you already knew the secrets of computers, you went a different direction."

- - - -

Simon's eyes went fuzzy while Edith explained to him and he imagined these concepts in application. The rules of reality, of the decorations on top of the fundamental forces that made the rest possible, were just commonly-believed "truths". Like the face of a webpage. The common User thinks of that as the page, but anyone who knows better would be able to look at its code, its foundation, and if they also knew the language of its source code, change anything about its face.

Those same principles could apply to Reality, too- if he knew the language Reality was written in, he could do anything with it, within the capabilities of that language in its application. And even those capabilities could be bent with some creativity.

"So… anything about reality I thought could be better, we went about trying to figure out how it worked, and then used its foundational ideas to try and upgrade that facet of reality? Or was there more to that?"

"…Can I see the- uh- The Lab?"

- - - -

"I think you're thinking of much broader, sweeping changes than we were ready for. We're still learning what is and isn't Source or Junk. But… yes."

Eed held up a single finger between the two of them, drawing his attention sharply.

"Otome must never learn of The Lab. We never go to The Lab. We go to Polka Practice. She has no idea what that really means, but she knows it's code for 'I have to go do my super secret stuff for awhile'. She'll leave us alone, and won't follow us or ask to come along."

Edith lowered her finger and scootched off the bed, stretching as she stood.

"We haven't been to The Lab in a couple of years. Because of the Union. But you're off the grid, for now. Doctor Gemini and his Sidekick ½ can finally get back to work!"

- - - -

All of this seemed absolutely ridiculous, which also seemed right up Edith's alley, and made it all charmingly funny. Simon couldn't hide an amused grin. "Polka practice? We couldn't come up with anything better than that?"

Still, he got up, leaving her cute gadget-headpiece on the bed with his half-deconstructed electronic, and made to go to the door.

"I gotta admit, that's stupid and hilarious and really exciting. I can't wait to get into it."

- - - -

SERIOUS TONAL SHIFT HAPPENS HERE

- - - -

Edith ran down the stairs and was waiting for him in the driveway, behind the steering wheel of a …. car? [[a/n: this is a link to the image for the car! ]]

"C'mon!! Let's get going!"

She pulled on big leather gloves, before fastening goggles over her eyes and putting an old bomber's cap on.

- - - -

Simon called out the door behind him on his way down the stairs, "HEY OTOME WE'RE GOING TO POLKA PRACTICE I'LL SEE YOU LATER!!!"

His big grin never faltered, despite the complete absurdity of this situation, as he got swept up in Edith's energy and jumped into the passenger's seat next to her. Then buckled his seatbelt- or, would, if the car had them.

It didn't.

Suddenly a little nervous.

"Wooh!! Oh, man! This is crazy."

- - - -

"Crazy!? Crazy is for beginners, Bay-Bay!! We're going straight to Psycho!!"

Many gears, levers and dials were adjusted in rapid succession, and off they went!! No seat belts, no doors, no roof, just Eed and her 1890's Driver's Outfit, ripping through traffic at … 76 knots? The car's digital speedometer measured speed in knots!?

- - - -

Simon was trying really hard to just take this in stride and believe Edith knew what she was doing. They were completely destroying all road laws, driving insanely fast, with minimal safety features in the car and a windshield that did basically nothing for him or Edith in terms of its namesake. He had to hold onto his glasses for dear life, when he wasn't holding onto his seat with white knuckles or laughing with exhilarated terror. She was not kidding.

Over the wind, he yelled to her, "Can other people see this??"

- - - -

"Nope!! Imaginary car!! Invisible but veeery solid!"

She continued slicing and weaving through other cars, before yelling, "HOLD ON!"

Which is when she jerked the wheel hard to one side, lifting the car from four wheels to two for a moment, taking a left hand turn across active traffic without waiting for the light, dodging cars and settling back down on a smaller four lane road.

- - - -

Simon clenched his asscheeks and gripped the seat with his hands so hard he probably ripped the leather a little bit. Imaginary car!! So, still up in the air over whether he was certifiably insane and that level of belief just allowed things to manifest in reality, or if she was some imagination-fueled being who was just really into his specific brand of weird. Cool. Awesome. Please don't kill him by accident with no way to fix it.

When they leveled out, it took him a shaky second to relax a little bit from his whole-body muscle cramp, but he managed, somehow.

"J-Jesus Christ."

- - - -

"Atheist, actually. Or maybe agnostic. I dunno."

The car then came to a very abrupt halt, showing him the value of the padded dashboard and low-laid rise behind the short windshield as his face slammed into cushion and leather quilting.

"Ta-Da! And I never even drove before. Hah! I just learned by watching you, and then ignored all that slowing-us-down signs and lights garbage you do. Not bad, right?"

Edith pulled off her Driving Accessories, leaving them in the seat, and hopped out.

They were perfectly parallel parked…. between two other cars?… outside of a mansion… castle… thing!? That his shades claimed was an empty lot.

Because why wouldn't this be his evening!?

- - - -

"Mrph." Great. It took him a second of checking to make sure his nose wasn't broken before he got out of the "car", also pulling his glasses off to make sure they hadn't broken and then turning them off so that they wouldn't try to capture the rest of this insanity.

The mansion/castle/laboratory was… impressive, on the outside, even if "reality" said it was an empty lot. He jogged a few steps to catch up to Edith after that second of admiring the building.

"You are so lucky I had faith you knew what you were doing." She didn't even know how to officially drive!!!

- - - -

"Oh, c'mon… imaginary friend, imaginary car, imaginary mansion, imaginary mad science lab…. I'm in my element!! What could go wrong?"

She pulled out numerous keys on a long chain from her back pocket and began unlocking numerous locks on the gate. The gate itself had many warning signs posted to it.

BEWARE : SCIENCE !! CAUTION : SCIENCE INSIDE MAD SCIENTIST AT WORK, COME BACK LATER PROUD REALITY REBELS WITHIN FOR SCIENCE!!™️ YES, WE CAUSED THE BLACKOUT NO SOLITICERS HOT TECH GIRLS WELCOME NO TRESPASSING CLOWNS WILL BE EXTERMINATED IF CAUGHT SCIENCE!!™️ WE DO WHAT WE MUST, BECAUSE WE CAN!!

Eed finally finished unlocking the gates and put her keychain away, swinging it open for him. "Doctor."

She beamed at him with open adoration and admiration.

- - - -

He was… thoroughly confused, but entertained, and followed along with her by walking past with his chin high, shoulders straight, and hands clasped behind his back. "Thank you, ½."

He had no idea what to expect within the property. This was really stretching his idea of what imagination could do.

- - - -

As he crossed the threshold, Simon found himself wearing an outfit similar to Edith's 'For Science!™️' attire. His was more grand, of course, because he was the Doctor, and wore a long lab coat over his apron, with the words Dr. Gemini sewn into it. When she finished closing up behind them, and hurried to catch up, Eed was wearing her outfit as well, her own lab coat saying Sidekick ½.

She walked along, one step behind and to his right, mimicking his stride and posture.

"Welcome home, Doctor Gemini… to Half House!"

The door unlocked itself and opened before his approach. Inside was a blend of victorian antique and cassette retrofuturism styles, in all things. The wooden walls were wallpapered from halfway, up to the ceiling, though electronic panels and retro-computer clunky tech were set into the walls, framed by finely polished wood, making it stand out elegantly from the wallpapering.

- - - -

[[ a/n ]]

- - - -

He had no idea what the hell most of this stuff was for beyond ornamentation.

The hard time he was having taking this at its face manifested as dropping his 'professional' affectation to take off one glove and run a hand through his hair. This was getting to be a lot.

"You know, initially, I thought we were just gonna walk into the closet, or something. For some reason this," Simon gestured to the grand spectacle of the room, "is way harder to fully let myself believe is real. You work on a level of imagination I'm not totally sure I'm up to yet, Sidekick."

- - - -

He saw her remove her own glove and run her hand through her hair as well. "Yes, of course, Doctor. It will take some time for your neuro-mnemonic-pathways to re-integrate into appropriate patterns of cognitive activity and actualization."

She grinned. "I'm a science!"

They were then interrupted by an elderly male voice that was very clearly computer-generated, despite its british accent.

"Ah! Doctor Gemini! I am so deeply elated to see you alive and well, sir. Welcome home."

An automaton approached the pair.

- - - -

Simon flinched away from the automaton, very much not expecting the auto-butler or his aesthetic despite everything that surrounded them. "D'ah!! Uh-! Th- Thank you!"

He leaned down to Edith. "Who is this?"

- - - -

She leaned up and into him and whispered sideways, "Your butler, Mister Gearwhistle."

- - - -

He considered this, then nodded. "Right."

"erhem. Thank you, Mister Gearwhistle. How have things been in our absence? I heard from my Sidekick that it has been a few years, now, since our last visit- I'm not sure how closely you've been monitoring things on the outside, either, given recent events…"

Definitely play along. This was so weird.

- - - -

The butlerbot made its way into the room using a limited range of motion that never the less emulated human movement quite well. His metal mustache moved when he spoke.

"I never bother with the outside world, good Doctor. Much too dirty. And so uncivilized. No, sir, none of my business. Quite the opposite. Besides, I've been far too invested in maintaining the Imaginarium in your absence. Miss Half has been kind enough to assist me from time to time, during your long travels, sir."

Despite having been turned 'off', his glasses still notified him in the corner of his vision, that he had left known space and could not be located by GPS at this time, nor could his glasses connect to a network. This seemed more like a safety advisory, than anything else, in case he didn't know his own situation.

Sidekick Edith 'Eed' ½, stepped forward to deflect on Simon's behalf, by holding up a 'stop' hand toward Mister Gearwhistle.

"The Doctor has no time for pleasantries, I'm afraid. We must away to the Imaginarium, right away!"

The robot nodded, stepping aside.

"Yes, yes, of course. The Great Work never sleeps, does it, Miss Half?"

She took the lead and said quietly, as if to herself, in a very serious but immature play voice, "Science Never Sleeps."

- - - -

Simon mentally frowned at his glasses still tracking his position and network status- he'd have to find a way to genuinely turn them off, later. But it was good to know, he had to admit, that he was really off the grid, even if that was definitely outside the realm of possible. None of this was possible. It was kind of cool, though.

He followed behind Edith at a steady pace with his long stride, eventually almost catching up to her, to stay within the narrative of the one who knew what he was doing and was in charge. He was totally just letting her lead.

And had no idea what the Imaginarium was, beyond what it sounded like.

- - - -

She led him to a full phone booth standing against a wall at the end of a hallway on the first floor. After opening the door for him and letting him step inside, she followed and closed the door behind them. A small wall phone was set into the rear wall of the booth and Edith picked up the receiver, wound a revolving lever on the right and then dialed a number on a rotary dial, and hung up the phone.

The interior of the phone booth then began to descend into the floor. An elevator with a secret code, it seemed.

At the speed they were going, it looked like they'd have a moment alone.

She looked at him, searching his face. "Worried, huh?"

- - - -

He pulled his glasses up, then, and gave her a nervous smile. "I am way out of my depth right now."

- - - -

"I grew up here," she said softly, before leaning on his arm like he were a pillar.

"Half House has been my home for as long as I can remember, except for when I moved in with you. And then, Otome moved in, and I didn't want to be forgotten, so I stayed around. I thought for sure if I moved out, you'd… move on. You know?"

The elevator continued slowly rolling down its path on what sounded and felt like well maintained wheeled tracks at a steady pace.

"When you started trying to break the laws of reality in the real world, and not just the digital one… I knew I wanted to share the house with you, and make it yours. It's changed a lot since then, thanks to your presence and imagination."

She bounced lightly on her toes as she stood back upright. "You're not out of your depth, Boybot. This is your pool. It only goes as deep as you want it to. If you see water that's too deep? Don't swim in it. Go back to the shallows and get used to the water some more."

Her arm slipped into his. "I believe in you. You may not know what the heck is going on… but you can… because you have… so if you want to…. you will. Sooner or later. I know you will."

- - - -

Simon fixed Edith with a gently confused and sympathetic look, smiling very slightly in fondness and aforementioned sympathy.

"So… you existed here before you were in school with me? Or revealed yourself to me, I guess? And even after that, it was your house you went home to after school- and what that airship was thematically based on?" It was a lot of questions, but less of an interrogation and more of Simon trying to get her timeline straight. He shook his head gently, eyes closed. "You might've given me the reins, but this is still your horse, Eed. What are you?"

- - - -

She nodded in response to his questions and guesses. "The house used to be the airship, actually… but otherwise, yes."

To his last question, she simply gave him a slightly sad but most reassuring smile as she touched his cheek. "I'm what you needed. I still am, and happily. And I will keep being, for as long as you need it. And I'll love every moment."

The elevator began to slow, before settling into what felt like a cradle at the bottom. There were no windows on the outside this time.

"Deep breath. And try to remember… we worked together for years down here. Okay?"

- - - -

That didn't really answer a damn thing. Simon's eyebrows knit, and he frowned at her, but when she released his face, he pulled down his glasses and did his best to steel himself for whatever was behind that door. He was sort of expecting a Frankenstein-esque mad science lab with a slab in the middle and lots of machines around the outside of the main space. It probably wasn't that, though. That was for making monsters, not breaking the rules of reality.

- - - -

When she slid the door aside, what was revealed was… actually fairly close to what he'd imagined… except bigger… with sections and areas….

And a fucking train.

"Welcome… to the Imaginarium!"

- - - -

Simon had to take a long minute to let the enormous, full, crazy area sink in. There was a train! IN the room! Why?!

He took a step out of the elevator-phone-booth, sidling past Edith, in order to not feel trapped in the tiny space. It wasn't much better when he was surrounded by all of… this, if he was honest with himself. And all of this was way more than he imagined when Edith first broached the subject of figuring out the foundations of reality, to him.

He turned back to her, stomach fluttering, honestly feeling a little queasy but trying his best to just trust the unreality of the space. And the potential flexibility of his sanity.

"…Ready to start the tour?"

- - - -

She looked confused, before comprehension crept across her face. "Oh! Oh, oh…. no. No, no… no. This place isn't really a… tour… kinda situation. You just wander around, until something makes you curious enough to engage, and then…. you start futzing with it. Eventually, you figure out what it is, how it works, and from there…. you figure out how you could make it better, or why it isn't working. It's an Imaginarium! Like…. like a laboratory, but for your mind. There's nothing in here that your mind can't handle… and if you get stumped, there's always something else to work on. After awhile, you start having a few things you're working on at a time, going back and forth between them."

She walked in, gesturing all around in a slow spin while she walked.

"In here, reality is whatever you need it to be… right up until you Throw The Lever!™️ and see what will really happen. And then you tweak and tweak… and it gets better and better, and so does your understanding of how it really works."

"Reality's code doesn't have a neat, tidy console to read off of. That's why people Experiment. But in here, you're not limited in your experiments to what the Union has signed off on. Only reality's source code determines what can and cannot happen, in here."

"We've worked together on hundreds of projects over the years. We built that train!" she said, smiling.

"It runs on psychic energy… more or less. So no matter where we go… if there are people - or even just a boatload of animals - it'll stay fueled up. And it can leave Earth. That was kind've the whole point of making it. We needed some stuff from other dimensions, so we needed a way to get there. We had some spare parts for a locomotive so we went with that."

She pointed toward an alcove with green-liquid tanks and giant tesla coils. "We invented living Pocket Demons right over there. But only three."

- - - -

He stared incredulously as she pointed to devices, and stopped at the tanks with wide eyes and a straight face.

"…Which ones?"

- - - -

"Sparksqueak, Watortoise, and Grassaurus."

- - - -

"…Pikachu, Squirtle, and… Bulbasaur? Where are they?"

- - - -

"They…. they died. Old age, a few years ago. We were only able to give them a life expectancy of four years. But they also provided blood and organs, as signed donors, for future works. We have a template still in the Genesis Engine, but… we never came back to that project."

- - - -

Oh. That was sad. He gave Edith a sympathetic little frown and set a hand on her shoulder. "…Oh. I'm sorry."

Losing a pet was always hard, as far as he was aware (having not had any pets he was aware of), and he hoped the sympathy at least helped. It probably didn't though.

"…Are the scientist getups part of the expected reality in here?" he had to admit it was not his usual look, and a little stuffy.

- - - -

"No. We just thought it would make being down here more fun, to do it in character."

She carefully removed her goggles. "Sorry… "

She muttered under her breath, "Still better than suits, though."

- - - -

He patted her further, then took off the gloves and gently cupped her face with one, bare hand. "Hey, no need to apologize. This is already nuts, okay? And they are way better than the suits. Definitely appreciate that. But I'm not quite used to it enough to need to play pretend in the imaginary-workshop I just got invited to see and work in. Okay?"

- - - -

She nodded, offering a light shrug as she shed her outfit in its entirety as if it were a single bathrobe, leaving her nude as her science outfit pooled in layers on the floor. Little ripples of prismatic and beautiful rainbow sparkles wove their way from her toes, to her ankles, knees, waist, chest, shoulders, and then the top of her head - and in their wake she was wearing her shortalls outfit again, with a ballcap that said SIDEKICK across the front and had a little white hat-pin on it of her Simone kitten form as a cute anime kittyball.

She wore big, wide circular glasses around her mismatched eyes and her hair was in a curly ponytail now, with frizzles sticking out all over.

"So… do you want to see the Genesis Engine, then? Or maybe take a look at the Vampire Detector? We could play in the Ball Pit of Doom, if you prefer, and learn about physics! Or, I guess we could climb inside the Tesla Dome…"

"I dunno… what, about reality, would you like to tinker with, break, fix, and improve?"

- - - -

Oh, shit, she was naked!! And then did a Sailor Senshi into a mechanic-girl! Simon's face went beet-red, with the blush artfully extended off of his face to either side without his intent as emphasis of just How Much he was blushing and flustered. "Buh- uh-!!"

Why couldn't he change outfits like she could? Super not fair. But also, she had adorable tits and a great figure and her muff was just. Hoo-boy. He turned around to try and hide his burgeoning arousal, rubbing the back of his head while the other hand went to his hip.

"W-well! I kind of just wish I had a way to catch up on what I already knew, quickly! I have never needed remedial classes and honestly it kind of sucks!"

- - - -

"Hey!! That's a great idea!!"

She ran over and hugged him tight.

"Inside the Imaginarium, we can fix your memory! As an EXPERIMENT!™️"

She looked around frantically. "We just have to find something that works with the mind… Hypno-Helmet? No, too invasive. We wanna unlock old memories, not write new ones. Forget-Me-Stick? No, you already forgot. Hrmmm…. there's gotta be something around here!"

Eed hopped off on a walk that was almost a skip. "If I were a Mental Experiment, where would I be?"

- - - -

"The loony bin, usually," Simon sighed back to her, after he had unfrozen from being hugged by the previously-naked cute girl.

"But that's for the failed ones. Could we like… apply hypnotherapy principles to the helmet's system somehow? I think I remember seeing shit on TV about how therapists can use hypnosis to help people unblock traumatic memories…"

Yes, he did still have a half-stiffy, no, he was not going to acknowledge that.

"Hey, how do you change your outfit like that?"

He jogged lightly to catch up to her, again.

- - - -

"Sure we can! We can do anything we want! That's the whole point of this place. Huh? Oh, my clothes. Sorry. I just shed one costume to make room for the next one, and called for it. If the thing that you call for is close enough, it comes right to you."

She reached out to her side, and he saw her concentrate for a second, and a brass sphere flew off of a table across the room, straight at her and into her waiting hand.

"See? But if it's too far away for that, like these clothes were, then they have to come to you - or in this case, me - through a channel in reality. My clothes know how I wear them, so… they appear already where they know I'll want them to be."

She held his hand and slipped the little sphere, roughly the size of a golf ball, into his hand. "You used to be able to do it, but stopped when the Union told you it wasn't acceptable. Do you want me to teach you again, or should we get right to work figuring out how to wire a hypno-device to do memory recovery?"

- - - -

Edith's hand got held onto, gently, after she gave him the little ball. She was soft and warm, and he wanted to hold her hand for a second longer.

"…It'd be nice, if you could show me some easy tricks before we get into things. Some pre-work prep, maybe."

- - - -

Edith nodded and wrapped her fingers around the hand he was holding the ball with.

"Feel it. Really explore it, with your senses - most importantly, with your mind. Your mind takes in the temperature, the texture, the shape… but also the weight and density. So don't just feel it with your hand… explore it. Become familiar with it. Everything about it. Toss it around, catch it, juggle with it…. whatever it takes, to get to a point where you know the ball well enough to feel like you could almost treat it like a part of yourself. Like if you toss it up, you'll catch it just the way you want to, without thinking about it. It'll take some time… but it's the fastest way."

"You see, space… isn't space. Space is full. There's no such thing as vacuum, because even a void is something. It's filled with a devouring hunger that drags all light and air and life into itself, but… that's still a thing. It's a force, like gravity, or an idea that can be physically observed, like time."

"But space… the amount of room between you and the ball… is filled with a whole rainbow of unseen forces. If you can become familiar enough with the ball, with the metal and the weight and the feel of it… not just as a ball, but as a thing that is kind've part of you - or could be - then you can throw the ball… and use that unseen force to catch it. Like undo'ing the throw. Or taking back a bad idea. You can pull it back to you, through that space, by tugging on the ball with the space itself… like pulling a yoyo up by its own shifting momentum on the string."

"It's actually harder to figure out, than it is to do. Most of this stuff is. Takes forever to learn…. but once you get it, it's easy. Like basic math, or riding a bike! It's a struggle, right up until you can do it!"

- - - -

Simon frowned at her, looking with an intensity that surely meant he was paying very close attention to her words, visualizing the concepts in his mind while she spoke and trying to understand them from her description alone. It was a little difficult.

"Almost like the ball is a yo-yo, or… the air can be moved back into place where it moved it, sending the ball back in the direction it came from…?" He was having a little bit of a hard time grasping the concept, and that was frustrating.

- - - -

"Kind've. Stick with the yoyo-part… the ball is the yoyo… you must have a good, deep, touch-memory for the yoyo and the way it moves on the string, to make it doooo anything. So the ball is the yoyo… and the string… that's the hard part. The string is the space between your hand - usually the middle or upper middle of the palm, since that's where you started learning it from the first time - and the object - in this case, the ball. The string only exists… if you can hold it in your mind hard enough to get a kind of phantom sensation of it in your hand or imagination, or, preferably, both."

"If you can get used to tossing it and catching it, and feeling it and whatever… always trying to remember that string is there, when the ball leaves your hand…. then when you've finally got it down… you'll be able to let the yoyo fall and then tug the 'string' back up toward your hand. Except, instead of a little tug with your wrist or finger, this tug is more like a mental tug, inside your hand, to reel the string back on."

"Got it?"

- - - -

Simon spent a little while after Edith's explanation just… holding the ball. Tossing it between his hands, back and forth, feeling its weight and how it hit his palm until he Knew the feeling, or, at least, thought so- then, took some time tossing it upward, trying to catch it while looking and then trying to catch it without looking and then trying to pull it back to his hand on an invisible little cord. When he felt comfortable with those motions, he finally started trying to treat it like a yo-yo… It had been a little while, and Edith did her best to encourage his Actual attempts to move it with his Will, or give him some coaching, but he was really starting to feel the mental strain before he even got to the point where he started dropping the ball and trying to pull it back up.

- - - -

Finally having had enough of his inability to grasp the concept (obviously he just wasn't there yet, to his infinite chagrin), Simon threw the goddamn brass ball across the room - instantly regretting his outburst. He instinctively tightened his hand, still outstretched, as if to try and catch it even though that moment was long gone… and yet… he felt the space around the sphere clamp down on it, like a perfectly fitted round velvet pocket of air that just gripped the orb suddenly, stealing all of its momentum. The brass sphere simply remained where it had been, some six yards away, perfectly still in the air. It didn't bob, it didn't rotate, there was no motion at all. It was as if the ball were caught in time and space alike.

The instant his concentration faltered, it fell to the floor with a loud clang and rolled along a little bit, until it came to a stop.

- - - -

Now he sort of understood what Edith meant when she said it was more often something that was harder to get than to just do.

Simon stared angrily at the sphere for a moment, on the verge of a headache for the third time since waking up, and reached for it in order to pull it into his palm (from the palm-point relative to his middle knuckle) by… pulling it through a tunnel in the gas of the air, a vacuum from his palm directed at just that little asshole ball.

- - - -

It took longer than he would've liked, and he was just about to give up, when he felt it… she was right. There was an unseen force… not quite gravity, not quite space, and certainly not the air. But it was there… a kind of psychic tether, between his hand and the brass orb. It flickered in and out of existence, erratic and wholly untenable and at the very edges of his perception… but when he finally found his sense of it and managed to hold on to it in his mind… to keep the tether there… the tension in his arm, as if flexing a muscle behind his wrist, pulling from somewhere in the air behind his physical hand, he touched the ethereal. He felt the line, made of nothing, completely invisible, intangible, nothing but dream and imagination, latched onto a scientific principle that offered no proof of its own existence… and he drew in the distance between his palm and the brass ball, causing it to fly from the floor and whip painfully back into his grasp once more - as if it had been dragged straight to him by a high-powered tow cable under great force.

He had called it back to himself. Reclaimed it, from the floor. He had reduced the space between the ball and himself and become 'whole' again, in that vague way.

And now that he knew what the sensation felt like… now that he knew what mental, imaginary feeling he was trying to feel, what sensation he was searching for… he knew that he could do it again. Maybe not every time, it would take practice. But he'd just outright broken the known laws of physics as they pertained to forces like kinetic and potential energy, gravity, inertia… but he'd done so by applying a law that he hadn't known existed.

Part of the hidden source code of reality. A force unnamed and unknown, long buried by the Technocratic Union and erased from the Consensus. He'd found one. He had no idea what to call it, of course… but he knew it was there, what it felt like, and a vague impression of how it worked, what it did… a space between spaces.

She was right. Even nothing, was still full of something.

- - - -

Completely mentally exhausted, frustrated, and really at most limits of his stamina, Simon Castor threw his arms into the air and exclaimed, "WOOOO!! YES! I fucking DID IT!"

And then he threw the ball with all the force of that tow cable, and wanted to stick it into the wall hard enough to make a crater. FUCK that ball.

- - - -

The ball flew across the room, tinked gently against the wall, then returned to his hand once more.

- - - -

Simon made a frustrated growl and plopped his ass onto the floor. He couldn't remember where Edith had taken the little ball from in order to return it there, but god damn it, it had come back, and he was fucking tired now.

- - - -

The ball, sharing his exhaustion… fell from him resting hand, limp and rolling along the floor until it came to a stop. Simon could almost feel the ball's frustration and exhaustion, as tired of this exercise regimen as he was.

- - - -

Oh, aw, that garnered some sympathy from him toward the little object. He called it back and held it in both hands, trying to share that feeling of shared accomplishment, too, with it.

"Hey, man, you did great. Thanks for working with me with all that crap."

- - - -

Edith sat down beside him, seemingly out of nowhere. "Once you get better at feeling things out through the aetherium, you'll be able to try finding the ball when it's nowhere nearby… and the next step after that is calling it to you through the space in between, the way I do with my clothes. But… I don't think you'd be able to do any of that outside the Imaginarium. After all…"

She looked around. "… this place is kind've like an emulator, letting us work through reality's settings. But outside, the Union's rules kick back in, in full. That's why we work in here, until a device is totally ready to be applied out there. You wanted to bring some Q gizmos in here to fix them up and work on them, but you said you were pretty sure that they'd somehow find out the Half House existed if you did that, and come deconstruct it or something."

- - - -

Simon nodded to her, still holding and looking at his little ball friend. "Yeah, probably. Unless we took it apart at home and removed anything they could use to track it, but, y'know, with that… aetherium?… the guys who made it can probably track its individual pieces, too. Any luck with that thing? What've we gotten to work outside, so far?"

- - - -

"Any luck with what thing? OH! The Hypno thing… I'm so sorry, I got distracted by the Digitracer. Outside? Well, we've got the MVD - the Mobile Vampire Detector, it's a handheld little version about the size of a keyfob. There's also the Death Ray, the Barrier Shield, Encrypto, and…. uh…. there was something else…. "

She looked off into the distance, absently.

"…. OH! Oh. Um…. yeah. The other thing. Don't worry about the other thing."

She waved her hand at him, all Jedi-like.

"There is no other thing."

- - - -

He frowned at her, totally not mind-tricked at all. "You mentioned it, now I gotta know what you're talking about."

He would ask about those other things after she spilled these metaphorical beans.

- - - -

She reddened a little. "Can't we just pretend you didn't hear that one? Oh! Where's your neuralizer?"

- - - -

He pressed the button on his glasses that made them into mirror-shades. "Nuh-uh. Come on. You can open up a little, and if you're blushing that much, I'm certain it's probably fine since you've been coming onto me since we got home."

- - - -

"Some things are private!"

- - - -

He snorted. "Eed, if you're my imaginary friend and we're in my imaginary mansion slash mad science lab, and it's all mine by rights, nothing is private here. Come onnnnnn."

Simon crossed his arms, still holding the little ball in one hand.

- - - -

Her face fell flat and she sighed. "Fine. But don't judge me."

She reached behind herself and held out her hand, which was now covered in a bright pink and purple wad of writhing tentacles with little ridges, the hues fading beautifully from one into the other and back. It uncoiled and one bright blue eye with an octopus-like figure '8' pupil opened sleepily. Upon seeing Simon, it tensed, shrieked like a horror movie scream queen and slapped him across the face with one of its tentacles, covering its writhing amorphic body mass with other tentacles, before trying to hurry back into Edith's hammerspace.

"He's sensitive."

- - - -

He was not prepared for the tiny tentacle monster, nor for being slapped in the face with one of its brightly-colored tentacles after it screamed at seeing him. He was definitely staring at it and now the situation was completely ridiculous.

Simon very quickly averted his gaze so that it didn't feel so… violated? Was it for violating Edith? He wouldn't have been surprised, though its- his- sensitivity was surprising. Simon now sported a tentacle-print red mark on his face.

"S-sorry, sorry, I have to admit I was not expecting a little tentacle monster! He is fine to exist outside??"

- - - -

She nodded. "His name is Kaiju II."

She blushed as she made sure the little monster was tucked away in the nowhere. "You tried to make one for Otome, but it didn't survive and it turned out that she has a tentacle phobia. But Kaiju I was able to divide and reproduce before dying, and Kaiju II survived. So, I adopted him."

- - - -

"Oh, shit, a phobia? I thought her mentioning her nightmare-version's lack of tentacles was like, a reference to her preference for hentai. I wonder what caused the phobia."

Once Kaiju II was away, he turned back to Edith.

"…Sorry about the first one. You guys… had a lot of little experiments die, huh? I don't… really think experimenting with life is generally a good idea, myself."

- - - -

"It wasn't about experimenting with life, that was just how we dug through the metaphorical code. Curing diseases, seeing which medical conditions are real and which ones have been created as byproducts of Consensual Science, seeing if humans can be made better by weeding out weaknesses that've been bred into them… you have to create life, to have life to study. Even the Vampire Detector required experimenting in the Genesis Lab."

- - - -

He nodded along, though did seem uncertain about one thing. "…Let's. Not do the eugenics experimenting anymore. If that's okay. I really feel like creating life only to give it diseases we wanna cure is extremely immoral."

- - - -

She looked at him in horror, "Who would do that!?"

- - - -

"…Was that not what you were just implying we were doing??"

- - - -

"No!! That's awful!! We didn't create Kaiju to make them sick! We didn't even grow a whole vampire just to tear out its heart! That's just cruel! You only grow the stuff you need, or lifeforms you think will be beneficial in some way! Like the Conductor Worm!"

- - - -

He gazed at her with alarm. "…Conductor worm?" He was thinking of MiB2's big worm.

- - - -

"Yeah. After a few too many accidents in the Voltaic Icosahedron, we designed and tinkered and when it was finally ready to be a stable lifeform, we used the Genesis Engine to create a little worm. It enters the body and feeds on your bioelectrical field, growing like a second nervous system all throughout the body. It takes days, and keeps you fatigued, but once fully grown, a healthy Conductor Worm is able to absorb and redirect otherwise dangerous amounts of electrical current through a human body without damaging tissue or jolting the system."

- - - -

"Ohhhh." He nodded to himself. "Okay, yeah, that sounds like a smart thing to have done. Kinda fucked up, given it's an organic parasite instead of like, some kind of wearable grounding apparatus or something, but still pretty smart. We could change the whole face of the electrician position."

"I thought you were talking about a parasite that controls people, or, like, the giant subway worm from Men in Black Two."

- - - -

She just looked at him. "He has a name. It's Geoffrey."

- - - -

He held his hands up in a mollifying gesture. "Right! I couldn't think of it right away, sorry, it's been years since I saw that movie."

- - - -

"And a wearable device has limits based on what the Union's done to material conductivity and dispersion tolerance. But an organism is limited only by its own biology. Why would we be making mind control worms down here? What kind of mad science do you think we were into?"

- - - -

He shrugged helplessly at her, eyes wide, tone defensive. "I don't know!! I have no idea what you guys were doing down here!"

- - - -

"'We' guys, Boybot. You and me. You'd never go for a mind control worm. Especially after seeing Star Trek II. The original, not the reboot franchise."

She leaned on his shoulder.

"Do you still wanna work on that Hypno-Helmet recalibration, or do you wanna break after learning how to contract spacial aether?"

- - - -

He considered for a second, lips pursing, gaze wandering around the room.

"…I do feel like I just completed a solo mathcounts competition when I was supposed to be part of a team."

Then leaned his head onto hers.

"And I'm not sure how to apply trauma therapy principles to a device I don't remember making in the first place. What do you think?"

- - - -

"I think we didn't build the Hypno-Helmet. We fixed it… but it was already down here when we found it. But, I get what you mean. I don't know anything about therapy stuff either… but does that matter? It's not much different than reversing the function of your Neuralizer, is it? Except that the Hypno-Helmet can do more than make people forget. And since hypnotherapy is already a thing that has been made part of their Consensus, we don't even have to rip out junk code…. just wire it into the helmet somehow."

- - - -

Simon considered her ideas further, nodding absently along. "That makes sense."

Leaning up off of her, Simon used the arm not under her head to turn himself and cradle Edith so that she didn't just fall over as he got up. "I think that settles it; how about we get working on that helmet? I don't wanna lose steam, you know?"

- - - -

She stood with him, using his arms as leverage. She still didn't weigh what a person should, even a shorter framed person like her, not by half or better.

"Steam isn't bad, but it's terrible for the environment, because of the coal and lumber and stuff. Carbon! That. Buuuuttt….. we were working on a Phlogiston Collector and an Aetheric Energy Converter, before you stoppe--…. oh, you mean like… right. Got it."

Edith took his hand and led him toward the HypnoDrome, which was apparently one of the chambers that branched off of the main lab via a corridor large enough to drive a … train… through.

- - - -

Simon looked at her curiously as she led him into this branch of the Imaginarium. "Phlogiston Collector? And Aetheric Energy Converter? So we were working on clean, efficient energy alternatives?"

He did note her continued lack of mass, but was caught up more with the energies Edith suggested than the continued problem of her existence.

- - - -

She nodded. "Some of our designs need more juice than conventional power can provide. Best solution? New power."

She gestured around the pipes and bundles cables that lined the wide and tall tunnel, whose metal grate flooring and general vibe made it seem like the interior of an oversized nuclear submarine.

"Their Consensus refuses to allow anything to run on Essence, sooo… gotta find alternative power sources. The world won't accept them, especially not as commercially viable alternatives… but we can use them."

She frowned. "Stupid Consensus."

- - - -

He patted her tugging hand with his, smiling in sympathy. "Yeah. Some of the restrictions on reality are stupid. I'm excited to see past them again."

Casting his eyes around, Simon found himself somewhat disliking the haphazardly-bundled cables and maze of pipes running around the place, and he frowned to himself. Couldn't they have kept things a little tidier? Or was the pursuit of progress more important than aesthetics, now? If he had cared enough, his room full of wires and cables and things would have, ideally, been streamlined and organized and had all of its cables at least carefully laid out to keep them out of the way, but, well, he hadn't cared enough to do all of that at the time. At least, not in the history he had in his head.

Maybe with a girl to impress with his work, this-him's formative years had been different… and certainly would've been happier.

- - - -

They entered the HypnoDome, a vast… well, dome… with a black and white spiral design that was a little disorienting, painted all across the wide ceiling. It didn't move, he didn't think, but it sure tricked the eye into seeing it move when he looked up at it, which threw the room into a slight tailspin.

All around were enormous tesla coils, electrodes… were those vacuum tubes?… control panels, various work stations… the air here smelled of burnt ozone.

Eed smiled apologetically, "Sorry for the mess, we had to store the Symphoniator in here, because it kept damaging things in the Voltaic Icosahedron. On the bright side, we can work to music, if you don't hold anything metal up too high!"

- - - -

The dizziness made Simon hold onto Edith a little tighter, forcing him to hold his attention on her rather than gazing at the ceiling for even a moment more else it might make him hurl. That concentration expressed itself as a very intense stare at the girl, eyebrows furrowed and mouth set into a hard line.

"Symphoniator? And you keep mentioning the icosahedron, what were we doing with that?"

- - - -

She nodded to his first question and gestured to the room at large. "I have Sweet Home Alabama programmed into it, still, if you want me to turn it on. The Voltaic Icosahedron is where most of the direct energy work gets done."

- - - -

He gazed at her. "…What is a Symphoniator? I mean, I'm not huge on that song, but if it's cool I'm not gonna say no."

- - - -

"It uses voltaic shock and plasma discharge, in phased bursts, to burn the air in ways that create music when set up in advance to fire at different phase frequencies and time intervals."

- - - -

That sounded like just enough plausible bullshit to work, so Simon shrugged permissively. "OK, sure, playing music with electricity, why not?"

And he sat through a demonstration of tesla coils playing "Sweet Home Alabama* through the room, loud enough to make his ears ring and definitely at a frequency that made his headache just the slightest bit worse. He winced on every low note, the buzzing of the electricity hitting a bad spot on his range of hearing, but, over all, was sincerely impressed by the performance.

"…Cool. What else do we have on this thing? Can you do a playlist of songs for it?"

- - - -

"We have over nine hundred songs programmed."

- - - -

"Then why is it not playing right now? Besides my headache."

- - - -

She grinned and went to one of the control stations and began punching in various songs and setting it to shuffle and run, as the room lit up with strobing blasts and strings of electricity in blue, purple, yellow, orange, green, and pink. When she returned, she came back with a gumball-looking thing.

"Chew on this and suck all the juice, until the whole thing is dissolved. Cures headaches and hangovers."

- - - -

That was sincerely impressive- more impressive than the tesla music, if he was honest with himself. Given his chronic migraines, he hoped they had a whole mess of these at home. Simon took the little ball and popped it right into his mouth, very much hoping it was well-flavored, too.

- - - -

It was like chewing on a Whopper, except instead of chocolate and malt, it was crunchy blue raspberry that slowly dissolved into chewy juicy bits.

Eed came back over to him with a large helmet that encompassed the whole head, and trailed spiraling cables from a big box unit on the back of it.

"We'll need to tune it to your current brainwaves before we can begin. I think. I don't actually know how this thing works, but it did help get rid of your lisp some, and it can make curly fries. So, I think we're good."

- - - -

The curly fries comment did dampen his enthusiasm a little bit.

"…But it's not gonna fry my brain like those fries, right?" He thought the Union helped him get rid of his lisp, but, well, who's to say what is and isn't from this crazytown science lab anymore? He took the helmet from her and looked it over, trying to gauge how it might be tuned and calibrated as he usually did: fiddling.

- - - -

"It shouldn't fry your brain. It never has before."

The interior of the helmet had a range of speakers and viewscreens, as well as ample cushioning. The exterior had little to work with. The box section on the back, though, had a veritable switchboard of tiny wires and plugs, going to and from different holes in a neat arrangement, as well as four dials and three toggles. It looked like he'd made tiny stickers with tinier writing, trying to label them - but some ended with question marks.

- - - -

That did not inspire confidence in the apparatus. Still, Simon took it over to some kind of seat and plonked it onto his head after sitting down, then gave Edith a double thumbs-up.

- - - -

He heard her put her goggles back on and felt her hooking numerous cables into the back of the helmet, and then the clicking of dials being turned as a low hum gradually grew in intensity, underneath the music happening overhead. And then, he heard Edith throw a loud, frankenstein-esque electrical lever as she screamed without warning, "FOR SCIENCE!!™️"

The inside of the helmet flared to life with violently bright polychromatic flashes of light and barely audible pulses of sound from all around his head, while also spraying him in the face with a fine strawberry-scented mist.

- - - -

The mist was definitely the most unexpected part of this experience, though the rest would've made a migraine instantly if he hadn't just had the little gumball that defeated his headache. Instead, it threw his sense of balance off entirely and made tingles run down his neck and spine from the sound waves, and basically blinded him with all of the flashing lights, while he mentally tried to weather the shock of sensory input and also the discomfort of being misted in the face for no good reason. Silently, Simon was grateful his glasses kept the helmet from just spritzing him directly in the eyes.

As it worked, he yelled to Edith (or thought he was yelling, was he yelling? Could she even hear him?), "Is it working? What's with the strawberry mist?!"

- - - -

His eyes were rapidly growing to sting, and then burn and felt as dry as sand. Blinking hurt.

"It's our not-legally-patented moisturizer to protect the eyes from the mimetic desiccation dangers!"

- - - -

"Oh!" He reached up to take his glasses off, then. Ow ow ow.

Except he couldn't get his hand into the helmet. Shit.

Simon scrunched his face around and tried to intentionally displace his glasses to get them out of the way of the scented mist. It mostly worked, to which his eyes were grateful.

- - - -

The mist helped immediately, just as his headache was gone and showed no sign of returning, despite him still having some medicine-ball still in his mouth (it lasted a little bit). It felt weird at first, but he quickly got used to it, just like he would have gotten used to walking through fog in a breeze.

The weirdness show continued on, surrounding him with increasingly aggressive and overt and wildly chaotic displays of intensity… and then the whole thing shut off with a loud 'thwack' noise, of … maybe a breaker getting tripped? He smelled smoke.

- - - -

He very quickly took the helmet off of his head, worried it might start an electrical fire or something. AC/DC zapped in the background.

- - - -

The smoke was coming from a small fire located at the rear of the helmet, but just as he noticed it - once the helmet was removed - he was hosed with a fire extinguisher that left him… cold and uncarbonated and smelling stale air with a bitter tinge.

"Sorry. I didn't know you were taking it off. I think it worked! One of the things in the back exploded a tiny bit and set fire to some stuff, and it tripped the circuit over there!"

She pointed excitedly to the wall, where the lever she'd thrown earlier was now broken and looked like it was also on fire a little.

"So now we just need to fine tune it and strap you back in, rev it up…. fix the wiring… and see what happens!"

- - - -

That was just the calibration process. Okay! Okay. At least he didn't have a headache, and his ears weren't pouring smoke, though the helmet being slightly on fire was not terribly encouraging, either. For Science!!™️…?

Simon actually opted to take his glasses off for this one, setting them on a table nearby. "Y'know, I think maybe we should cut the music so that you can listen for any like, warning noises. And I wish you had told me about the mist! My glasses totally got in the way."

Still, he turned the helmet around and examined the wiring, where it had shorted, and how he might be able to fix it, or even entirely prevent the short from happening again.

- - - -

Edith shrugged, "Who wears glasses inside a helmet? That one's on you, Boybot. And don't worry about the music, there's never any warning sounds for most of these things. The sound of progress is a lot like the sound of catastrophe… it just depends on where the fires break out and how bad they are."

When he got himself a better look at the burnt helmet's inner panel, he saw that one of the labeled stickers was lightly singed. It read, AUDIO REGULATOR B-3? and the fire seemed to have started there. The cable plugged into that port ran to another port that was labeled POWER SOURCE - CHANNEL 3.

As Simon scrutinized the connections in the adjacent spaces, he realized that 'Audio Regulator B-3' was definitely mislabeled. Audio regulators elsewhere were plugged into ports along the left hand side of the lower grid; this one was in the upper middle, where other power regulation ports seemed to be. So… one of the wires had been feeding energy from a regulator, into a regulator, and wasn't allocating that power to anything else, anywhere.

Further examination showed him that he had already sorted most of the switchboard's ports - and it looked like he had been able to refit the holes into new places in the grid so that it made more sense to him - and he was able to quickly rearrange several plugs in ways that he was pretty sure would set the machine to (1) not burst into flames this time, and (2) induce memory regression and recovery without any active participation from a second party… by giving it a list of questions to pose during regression and hooking that list into the secondary input port. He was pretty sure the primary input port just went to psychedelic bullshit recorded for playback inside the helmet.

It was… completely haphazard and improvised, and yet he felt fairly certain that it would work, based on what he'd seen.

Maybe this was what being crazy felt like… total certainty based on practically no information.

- - - -

Simon checked around him for a few label stickers and a pen to write on them with, so that he could re-label what he had just done and add some notes about the primary input port's recording. Then all he had to do was come up with the questions to put into the secondary port…

"OK, Eed, I think I've got what we need to do here- follow me on this. We should give the helmet some questions to pose during the process, through the secondary input port, that should induce the regression and recovery of my memories without you needing to do much of anything."

During the explanation he pointed at the secondary input port, now newly labeled.

- - - -

"Then who's going to ask the questions?"

- - - -

"…Probably the screens and audio through subliminal messages or something, based on what we write in a program we have the helmet run?"

He raised one eyebrow at her.

"I dunno, man, this is all improv, you know that."

- - - -

"We don't know the OS the helmet runs on, or even if it uses modern programming concepts. It seems to be purely mechanical, like… like analog tech. No digitals. If you write the list down, I could plug a microphone into that port and read off the questions every so many minutes, so you hear it while you're under? Or we could pre-record the questions and plug the cassette deck into the input and hit play? We have options, I guess, is what I'm saying. I was going to plug the Opticon into the helmet's output and record whatever you experience, for later review, too - just to see if maybe it helps you make sense of things more, or maybe like if you don't remember what you remembered, because you were under at the time. I dunno… just seems like we should come at this a few different ways, to be on the safe side."

She gave him a slight hug. "Science wouldn't be science if it worked exactly the same time, every single time, would it? No, then it'd just be…. I dunno, facts or something. There's gotta be some risk and some doubts and some kind of chaos element for it to be real science."

- - - -

He chuckled at patted her between the shoulder blades, then gave a slight squeeze. "Right. Sure. Whatever fucked up, crazy take on things makes you possible, I'm all for it."

"The problem is, I have no idea what sorts of questions should be asked to kick my brain back into its previous gears. Do you have any ideas about that?"

- - - -

She pursed her lips and hopped up on a worktable, wiggling numerous gears and small tools away from the spot with her butt.

"I don't know therapy stuff. I'd say we could google it, but there's no internet down here. We still have the Society of Oracles and Scholars - or the SOS for short - that people turn to for answers in times of need… but I wasn't going to throw you that far down the rabbit hole, this soon."

- - - -

Simon nodded, setting the helmet down into his lap. "Or… Maybe we go find a book in that enormous library wing?"

- - - -

"Oh, I mean… maybe? Most of those books aren't for anything so… mainstream. They cover lore of other dimensions, astral physics, demiplane navigation and creating worlds, portal construction, dreamscapes, Otherworlds, dragons, stuff like that."

- - - -

He blinked at her, eyes owlish. "…Oh." And then waved his hand dismissively. "Well, pssshh, of course all that exists to be researched down here, I mean, that's super important shit to our SCIENCE!!™️, but it kind of sucks that it isn't a universal library where we could look up anything." It was definitely a little sarcastic, but the sentiment was genuine.

"If that's not an option, then I guess the SOS is what we should consult… Or we should go upstairs or outside to ask the internet."

- - - -

"That depends on whether or not you're ready to board the train and make the short trip into another world, to ask a question. If you'd rather go upstairs, I'd understand completely, and will happily wait here while you Google. Just pull out your phone, hit the multicolor 'G' icon and type your question. And the internet will answer. Just avoid results that say sponsored, or ad… they have laws requiring that, now."

"If we take the train, we'll both need to change clothes. I can't go home looking like this, everyone would stare at me funny."

- - - -

FANTASY RACISM WARNING.

- - - -

"……." Simon stared at Edith for a long second.

"So you're a fucking extradimensional being?!"

- - - -

"Not exactly, no. Just because it's another world, doesn't mean it's another planet or another dimension. I keep telling you, I'm Imaginary. I don't understand what's so hard about that."

- - - -

He frowned. He thought he had figured it out! He thought he had finally found an explanation for The Girl Nobody Could See But Him. Alas, she continued to confound him, and that was also frustrating.

"Sorry. I don't- imaginary people were not on my radar until I met you, so I'm just. I guess not understanding how you're so…" Simon gestured to All of her. "Crazy and your own person and possibly my completely made-up girlfriend and--"

He stopped himself, covering his face with his hands. "God damn it."

"Imagi Nations. You're. You're literally a person from the realm of imagination. You're not- I dunno why you attached to me as my imaginary friend, but like, you are a "real" person in the person sense- you're just not from this reality and your native laws work way different? Like a fucking Toon?"

- - - -

She frowned in return, her frown turning into an angry scowl at the end as she hopped off the table and leaned over to look him in the eyes from her mere five feet in height (give or take, it was hard to tell) while he sat on the testing chair, lifting a hand part way and pointing it upward under his chin.

"Did you just call me a fucking Toon, you self-righteous, racist, rigid-minded Meat Sock!?"

- - - -

Simon's eyes went owlish over his fingers for a totally different reason this time, and he physically shrank into the chair, giving her the upper hand in the power dynamic of the conversation.

His voice was small and aghast.

"oh shit that was racist??"

- - - -

"Simon, you just told an imaginary girl that she was--"

She held up a finger for each thing he'd said, counting them off with her other hand as she spoke.

"--a quote 'fucking extradimensional being', crazy, 'My Own Person' - real nice, by the way, very self-centered and invalidating of my right to exist without you - made-up, for fuck sake, a real person…. and a FUCKING TOON!!!"

She slapped him hard across the face.

"You…. you….." she seemed at a loss for something vile enough to call him, in her moment of anger, before she found the perfect insult to hit him with for his sudden onslaught of specist rhetoric.

"You Human."

She fumed, arms crossed.

- - - -

It may not have had the same impact that she was expecting, but the slap was unexpected and did hurt his feelings more than just being called "human" did. He had basically been human his whole life, and all of her Imaginary shenanigans had been stretching the bounds of his idea of what was possible, hardcore. Basically this whole time Simon had been staving off some kind of nervous breakdown by just moving forward like he had agreed he would earlier.

He turned back to her, holding his bright red cheek tenderly, eyes a little wet from the sting, and squashed down any guy-feelings about being hit that would have made him yell back, hit back, get angry, anything that wasn't the sincerely horribly guilty and apologetic he knew he needed to be, instead. Simon tossed the helmet to the floor and slipped out of the chair to stand on his knees in front of Edith, hands clasped in a gesture of pleading.

"Holy shit, Edith, I am so fucking sorry," he started, looking up at her. "I didn't- I wasn't meaning to be racist, or invalidate your individuality, and I am so, so fucking sorry that I was anyway. I didn't know that language was so fucking awful, and I won't say it again, I promise, I am so fucking sorry, Edith."

- - - -

She looked down at him, confused as hell, but also touched. She'd clearly never expected him to take the argument this direction. After a huffy moment, sentimentality won out and she sighed and helped him stand.

"Okay…. fine…. I guess. Apology accepted." She sounded like she was really trying to let it go. He could tell that they'd had this fight before, from her reaction, and that she wasn't used to it going like this.

"Um… so… I don't remember what we were talking about."

- - - -

FANTASY RACISM SCENE OVER.

- - - -

He gave her an enormous hug as a "thank you" without actually saying the phrase, because he knew that was not appropriate when you had just hurt someone so profoundly, but trying to comfort them at least helped, right?

"When I remember what it all is, I am so treating you to all of your favorite stuff. But, uh-" he let her go and held her shoulders, "We were gonna go to the SOS and ask about restorative hypnotherapy? I actually wanna go now and see what it's like, now that I get it, and asking the internet would be the boring solution."

- - - -

She looked him up and down, as if re-evaluating him somewhat. "You… cannot… be all stiff-brained and uptight and… that stuff you just did…. if we go. You know that. Right?"

- - - -

He nodded enthusiastically. "No, yep, no, I get it, not doing that anymore and if I do please slap me again."

To be entirely truthful, understanding what Edith was and how she worked as an entity was a relief to Simon's mind, rather than a strain- of course this imaginary space is Real, of course this imaginary girl is Real, why shouldn't they be? Just because they worked on different principles than his idea of Real, it didn't make them any less so, he just had to operate under the assumption that it all was a "reality" with different rules to it. Like the Web, or a waking dream, or Seeing monsters in the way Hunters did. Working on a level that was not a Human one. Totally reasonable. If she knew how he was wording this in his head, he would probably have the daylights slapped out of him.

Simon smiled nervously at her. "Please."

- - - -

HERE'S ANOTHER TONE SHIFT.

(( mentions of parenthood moving forward. ))

- - - -

She nodded, seemingly satisfied, and pulled a little whistle rod from her pocket and gave it a blow - making the loud sound of a steam whistle, that silenced the electrical music playing around them. He heard the locomotive start its own engine down the large hall and the wheels and their pistons begin to turn as it tried to come toward the whistle's call.

"We'll change once we're aboard the Prismaticka."

The steam engine - only a single locomotive engine of exceptional size, since it also seemed to contain living space and such... like a steam engine locomotive that was also a road RV - came chugging slowly into view, spewing multicolored water vapor out of its smokestacks and rainbow sparkles as sparks from its wheels and gears.

- - - -

Simon was infinitely enthused by the train's fantastical exhaust and rail sparks, and Edith saw his face light up. "Oh, shit, that's fun," he had a smile in his tone. "Can't wait to remember how to call for my own clothes, though- what do we have on the train? Er, Prismaticka?"

He held one of her hands in his, and squeezed it gently.

- - - -

"We lived on board for a year and a day, while we traveled across a handful of years and lived as basically husband and wife. When we returned, only a day had passed, just like I'd promised. Uh… speaking of which… do you like kids?"

The locomotive came to a halt in front of them and its door slid open, folding in half as stairs unfolded down and locked into place for them.

- - - -

His eyebrows raised into his hairline. "Jesus Christ it's a Doctor Who time-train," he mumbled to himself, before she got to the 'kids' part, which had him pale spectacularly.

"…Kids?" Oh, despair. He could not tell Otome if he and Edith had kids.

- - - -

"Yeah. Do you like them? Or no?"

She grabbed the handrail and hopped up onto the first step, before climbing the steps and going aboard.

- - - -

The memories of ghost-pale kids with sharp teeth and black eyes jutted into the forefront of his mind; Simon tried to shake them away and remind himself that was likely not real. He hoped those weren't part of this Consensus… everything they dealt with was. A Lot.

But normal kids? Simon considered, while he climbed up behind Edith. "Uh, well, it turns out I can kinda get petulant back at them if they're being snotheads," he confessed, remembering the Peter Pan-esque adventure he and Madison had been on, "But in concept, they're fine? Do we have kids, Edith?"

- - - -

She hesitated before answering, quietly. "Only a couple."

And then hurried past the driver's compartment, which had no one in it. The interior styling was nearly identical to the wooden finery of the airship he'd seen. Every window was circular and stained glass, and the doors were wooden with stained glass interiors, that folded in half when slid to the side. Nice crimson carpeting laid along the walkways of the floor, while powerfully blue carpeting laid directly overhead of those paths, from which tiny chandeliers hung and lit the way in scintillating tinted colors.

"The wardrobe is back here in the master bedroom!" she called from down the hall. He passed a short staircase upward on his right and another directly opposite it going downward on the left, that looped around to keep going up or down respectively. She was in the space beyond, straight ahead, through another set of doors.

- - - -

Simon followed Edith, totally quiet. Oh. They did have kids. And she still let him have a girlfriend?

He couldn't get over the fact that he had kids. What the fuck. He hoped he had been a good dad. He also wondered where the hell the kids were. Part of him wondered what the kids were.

The space of this train was frankly ridiculous, having two more levels at least and this many rooms for each… he decided not to pay much mind to that, as it was Imaginary and didn't have to fit inside the façade of the train it was in, instead following Edith into the master bedroom.

- - - -

The 'master bedroom' was a suite in various wooden hues with a red floor and a blue ceiling, luxurious furniture and many color-tinted mirrors and stained glass windows, in a circular floorplan. On the wall hung a beautifully painted portrait of a family crest… a clockwork gear that was red on the right, blue on the left, steel along the outer edges and digital pixel-fade toward the center where it faded into nothing. The gear served as the circular frame inside of which was a vibrantly rainbow hued butterfly whose body was actually a collage of super tiny paintings that blended together to create an overall rainbow hue effect, while the wings were stained glass.

It was their crest.

She was already dressed in vibrantly colored, overly elaborate and mildly-steampunky Victorian elegance. Her hair was a series of coiled curls and a woven loop in the back, ears and neck adorned in tasteful jewels and gold, while her flowing gown and buttoned collar with its tied bow were hues of blue and red, violet and pink, with the faintest hints of outlying green or yellow here and there.

She held out a bright, vivid blue hat with a stark red satin band around the base of it.

"Your city wear, Mr. Gemini."

- - - -

Her dress was stunning. The room was stunning. The entire space had an elegance to it that really married their styles well; was she some kind of nobility where she was from? Simon took the hat, absentmindedly, preoccupied with all of the detail in Edith's clothing, and then came back to himself with a realization: "Ah, shit, my glasses are on the table--" he set the hat down and made to leave the room, then stopped himself. Maybe he could…?

Simon tried to pull his glasses into his hand, knowing their weight and feeling by heart given he had worn them all of his remembered life, without pulling the air around them- rather, he wanted the space they occupied to be in his hand, instead of on the table. He hadn't tried this yet, so he wasn't sure if it would work, but maybe if he just tried to feel it hard enough…

- - - -

A different pair of glasses appeared in his hands, answering his summons. They felt… somehow more familiar in his hand. They carried the same style as everything around him, each lens colored to match his eyes, and the frames were delicately etched with tiny artworks of pixellation, gears, and even some super-tiny binary code engraved in gold along the hinges. It read GEMINI.

"The hat will dress you. When… um, when you're ready."

She blushed a little and turned to sit ladylike on the edge of their enormous bed as the train began to move again.

- - - -

Hell yeah he did it!!! Simon pumped the other fist in silent celebration, even if it wasn't the exact pair of glasses he had been looking for. He then turned back to Edith, grinning, and took the hat back up.

"I kinda figured, when you just handed the hat to me," it was his turn for a sailor senshi transformation! He put on the hat after rolling it along his arm (a trick he had picked up for fun since it seemed cool as hell), holding it by the tips of his fingers gently on the top.

- - - -

The hat sent a ripple throughout Simon's body; his clothing was blasted away in a cascade of red and blue beams, before new, elegant, Victorian-styled attire befitting a gentleman with title and holdings of the era, slid across his body in scintillating pixel crawl at high speed. As the glow of his naked flesh died down, the transformation left him clad in stark white and black, gold and silver, one cufflink a ruby and the other a sapphire, his beautiful, tinted, round-framed spectacles sitting gracefully on the bridge of his nose and his top hat having turned from red and blue to black and white.

- - - -

He did a little twirl and then bowed to Edith, one leg crossed over the other and left hand sweeping his hat off to hold it in proper fashion. The other hand was held gracefully behind his back.

When Simon came back up, he was beaming. "This doesn't match your dress by a long shot, but it's still really spectacular. Did we design these ourselves?" He settled the hat back on top of his head.

- - - -

"We had them made by a specialist. He felt it fit our family dynamic best to have one of us wearing one set of our stark contrasts while the other one wore the other set."

She smiled softly and joyously from her seat.

"You look quite dashing, Mr. Gemini. I… I'm sorry about… I know this will be a lot for you, going back now, the way you are. There's so much you won't be ready for. I suppose it won't be as happy a reunion for you as it will for the others. But, we can at least consult the SOS and make sure that your memory restoration is free from glitches or complications."

- - - -

Her speech was suddenly far more demure and eloquent- Simon supposed it was probably her preparing to go home and getting into a suitable mindset. The outfit did make him want to be a little more polite, though, too. He came over and sat next to the girl- his wife, actually (still wasn't over how incredible that was)- and rested a hand on her thigh, over her dress.

"It's alright. I opted for this, didn't I? Whatever happens, at least I'll have you there to bolster me." His hand pressed gently down, in a way he hoped was comforting.

- - - -

She gazed up at him, much more openly in love than she normally let herself seem and laid her hand lightly upon his.

"Not just me. I may be the one who found you and stayed with you, but… there is the matter of my… sister."

- - - -

His eyes widened in alarm. "…You have a sister?!" Not that it was a problem, but, he had not been expecting that. Why hadn't he been expecting that? He had a brother, and she seemed to have a lot in common with him.

- - - -

"We're half sisters. I found you, but… earlier on, you two… got along better. I was pretty jealous at the time. She seemed like she was so much better for you than I was. I mean, I'm just an Imagen, very rustic by comparison… but Chip is a Cypherian, so much more sophisticated and advanced in their ways… and so much more forward and bold in their attitudes. And you did so adore Cypher, as opposed to Imago."

- - - -

Those were definitely the names of places and the people from them, but he had no idea what they were actually referring to, and thus just blinked owlishly at her and tilted his head (only slightly, so his hat didn't fall off) like a dog who was trying to find the source of a sound.

- - - -

Edith smiled.

"Imago is what you would consider an Antiquarian culture, whose sciences and technology are befitting a bygone era, but are fueled by a more free-thinking approach to innovation and industry. Cypher is a realm of lights and dark places, where everything works and moves very quickly and life is fast and dangerous. Like your cyberpunk fictions. Chip's father was a Set. I think his name was Ram or Rom?… My father was a Gemini. But very few Sets attended the dual wedding. It was a sad moment for poor Chip, but she understood. Most Cypherians don't find Imago to be a very suitable place for… much of anything, really. And they believe our social ceremonies are much too long. They'd rather hold marriages over a video conference, so nobody has to stop what they're doing, to attend."

- - - -

One eyebrow raised, and he frowned, gently. "Oh. That's a shame. What's a Set, and a Gemini? Am I a Gemini? Your- wait, I'm married to both of you? Or did your mom marry two men? Or both??"

- - - -

"Well, our mother did marry both of our fathers, yes… but yes, you did marry us both, in a beautiful dual ceremony. We're twins, you see, we were both conceived during the same… uhm… evening. The Geminis and the Sets are both very respected Kin Houses. And since our mother was a Libra, it made perfect sense for her to have two husbands, one for each aspect of her sensibilities. My father, the erudite and cultured gentleman of refined tastes and eloquence, and Chip's father, the fun loving, brash, bold, spontaneous adventurer of an exotic domain."

- - - -

He nodded. At least that was understandable. "…Right. Let's get my memory back before I say something really insensitive about all of this by accident, hm?" He leaned his head against hers, turning to breathe in the scent of her and give the top of her head a little kiss.

"At least I know you stayed with me, and Chip didn't. I guess she had more important things to be doing than hanging out in my reality."

- - - -

"Chip was undecided on the matter, at first. I found you first and that meant you belonged to me… but I knew you were more her type, back then, and I was willing to share. And it went really well for awhile… but the Digital Realm - the Web - in your world was just too dangerous. That was why we spent a year and a day roaming the worlds, after the wedding… trying to find a way to undo the WhiteOut threat, so we could all live together. But… we never found a way. It was just too deeply ingrained into your reality and affected too many parts of what she'd be doing. So, she stayed behind, in Cypher, with Simon II. Taylor wanted to live in Imago with Simone and Edward. But we returned to Earth."

"And then, a while later… you met Otome."

Edith kissed his cheek.

- - - -

He blinked owlishly again. "…Me and Chip have kids too? Christ, I need to keep condoms around." That was a phrase he never thought he would have to say. And he didn't even know what Chip had been doing in the Web. And he realized he had married these girls early, before he met any Earth girls he would click with at all. Was that sad? He decided that was a little sad.

Given a couple of the kids's names, Simon still wasn't that creative with names, apparently. "Why did the kids stay in Imago, and not come with us? They could fill out Half House, couldn't they? …Was Half House your dad's before it was mi- ours? I mean, it's all Victorian Steampunk, and that… isn't really my jive, as much as it seems like it's the Imago aesthetic."

- - - -

She lowered her gaze a little. "You… weren't ready to raise children on Earth. Too expensive, you said. And you were probably right. Besides, the Gemini have always had nannies and house servants raise the children and they spend a lot of time in school. They'd be about the right age though, to start spending time with us, if you wanted to bring them home? Well, the three we can pick up, anyway. We can go to Cypher while we're traveling, if you'd like, too? You can meet Chip and Simon II all over again. Maybe she knows more about recovery from bad implants, now that I think of it…"

- - - -

She didn't answer his question about the House, but that was fine. "…Mmm. I feel like that'd get complicated, trying to hide them, and our life with them, from Otome. Unless you finally let her in on," he waved his hand around, "this. Which didn't seem like it was going to go well."

"And, I'm not totally sure I'm comfortable having Mister Gearwhistle raise our kids while we're busy with other stuff? I'd rather we have a more personal role in their lives, if you're alright with that- it just seems. Really impersonal, and a good way to get them to resent us."

"…How long ago did all this happen?"

- - - -

"The last time I tried to include her more in our lives, she thought I'd become some kind of poltergeist manifesting your insecurities about your relationship with her into a weird psychic phenomenon. You have to remember, m'Lord, she knows just enough to make some very wild guesses and consider them utterly possible, but not enough to know when she's being irrational about them."

"Mr Gearwhistle would never raise our kids! He's a butler, not a nanny! Besides, they're practically grown now. And they've never been to the Real World, but they keep asking to go. Um… which 'all of this' are you referring to? We've had a busy life."

He noticed bright light coming in through the stained glass windows around them. They were outside, somewhere. Somewhere silvery-white, from the look of the gleam through the stained glass. He didn't see any other colors or details moving by though, just light.

- - - -

It was probably some space-between-realities they were moving through, like the inside of a wormhole, or the time between selecting a hotlink and actually popping into the space it linked to. Like a loading zone. Simon didn't pay the lack of color much more mind.

"I- well, I guess if they keep asking t'go…" he was visibly uncomfortable at being called "M'Lord", and generally with her suddenly extremely polite mannerisms, charming as they were. The M'Lord really struck him with just how formal Edith's speech had turned, though. "But, I uh, I meant… the wedding, and the kids, since, if they're grown now, but we've only known each other a little over a decade, time must be pretty dilated between worlds…"

- - - -

"Time doesn't dilate, that's a Humanism. It's just different, in different places, at different times. Like how some days take forever to end and others zip past too soon. Clocks measure time out by their pre-approved portions and keep track of those portions, but the rate at which they actually occur is highly variable. The machine is a machine and doesn't experience time the way self-aware beings do, so it just ticks away… but to the person watching that clock, time only passes at the same speed for the person and for the clock, while the person is watching and counting along with it. Once they stop paying attention, time changes again."

She shook her head. "Time is really no reliable measure of how long something is anyway. But they're all well into their teens now. Practically young men and women! And we've visited them several times, each year. They know about your accident, don't worry. They'll just be glad you're okay!"

- - - -

Well. That did make a bit of sense, he had to admit, and just nodded as confirmation of that, to Edith.

"…Right. Well, at least we visit them semi-regularly, and they know I have no idea who they are or how… well, maybe they don't know I can't remember our life, but at least they know something went really, very wrong with my brain and I'm gonna be weird because of it. Weirder? Weirder."

- - - -

She glanced at the windows. "Would it be alright if I opened a window? I always love this part of the journey home."

"Would you like to know anything about your children, or just… be surprised? You go back and forth between asking many questions and asking none, so I can't tell."

- - - -

Simon raised an eyebrow at her. "Well, yeah, of course you can open a window. Is it not just, like, featureless white, outside?" He helped her stand from the bed, if she so desired, intending to follow her to the window to look out at their surroundings once he had a clearer view. "I mean… I have no idea what to ask. What are they like, I guess? Who takes after who? Did we want kids, or were they… y'know, an acci- well, a happy accident?"

- - - -

"Very happy accidents, as I recall your cries of passion, my darling."

She smiled back at him over her shoulders when they'd reached the window, before unlatching it and swinging the two curving halves open, outward. A sweet breeze blew inside the cabin, smelling of spring rains, winter snows, wildflowers, and fresh cheese. Beneath the Prismaticka locomotive was a railway track made of mirrored crystal and glass, with supports and railings that ran into the infinite universe below as the train made its way through its own prismatic vapor trails across the expanse of the solar system. Earth loomed large at one end of the winding trackway which followed no clear path through its own maze of scaffolding, each strut reflecting the lights of moons and stars and cities. They were near enough that Simon could clearly make out the whole of Australia as the planet spun slowly beneath them, and the movement of the clouds and the waves of the seas. Far too near was Luna, bright white and pock-marked with her shadows and craters, her dark side glittering with the lights of megacities unseen by human eyes. Only just beyond the moon were the enormous asteroids that spun and drifted lazily yet beautifully, a ballet of stone in the dark velvet of space, lit only by the delighted faces of billions of twinkling stars that collected themselves into the vibrant ribbon of the Milky Way in the furthest distance - clear and bright and vivid in its splendorous colors to Simon's eyes. Giving silhouette to the wafting ocean of drifting solar rock was the great red eye of Mars, watchful and judging, unwilling to offer gentle approval of anything it beheld. But behind him was Jupiter, off to one side of the Red Planet with her wife Saturn, her rings' scintillating hues glistening in the reflections of the unseen Sun.

Edith leaned her elbows on the windowsill and rested her chin on her folded hands, gazing out upon the Solar System That Could Not Be. "Isn't it lovely?"

- - - -

And it Sure Fucking Was, wasn't it? Mars wasn't that close, by any estimation of human observation, nor were Saturn or Jupiter- and he didn't see Venus or Mercury on this side of the train at all, though, given their position relative to Earth, it was likely that didn't matter one wit to where they actually were out in all of this vast insanity. Simon marveled for a while, stunned into silence at the sight, taking in perceptible Truths that Could Not Be if he held on to Human ideas of what Was and what Wasn't.

It seemed he really couldn't do that anymore if he wanted to have any chance of holding onto any semblance of rationality, not that he had a firm grasp on that when he came-to in the hospital this morning.

His hand came to rest on Edith's back, both to share the moment and to ground himself a little bit, nearly dizzy from the vastness of the space before him. He completely forgot what the subject of their conversation had been.

- - - -

They gazed together, quietly and with awe, at the view of the cosmos as the train whisked along its path at speeds that could not be reached through bodies that were much too close together, along a track that may not have ever existed… only when the silvery glow of the moon's bright side had finally passed and the lands far below were the towering starscrapers of vast mega-metropoli lit by neon that shone upon roads that looked like the fine strands of complex circuitry from high above, and the horizon loomed angry and red under the light of Mars, did she finally close the window. The scent of cheese and wildflowers had become one of cigarettes and bourbon, the smell of rain and snow remained but had been joined by the tinge of unhealthy city air.

She lit a blue raspberry candle to brighten the scent in the room, with a wooden match, and retook her seat upon their bed.

"All of your children are roughly the same age - two sets of twins, one from myself and one from my half-sister. We didn't even know that Imaginary women could take child from a Human, but… well, the honeymoons proved that theory wrong."

She offered a loving smile.

"Our children are Simone and Edward. She's the older by a few seconds and is still in that rough period of needing to prove herself to everyone… including herself. She's always been a bit bossy toward her brother, but she looks out for him as well. She, of course, refuses to accept a woman's life in Imago, just like I did. She wears the pants, between them. Edward prefers skirts and the clothing of young ladies, though never to excess. Timid and shy, he's a very sensitive and loving boy with a big heart, who will find a wonderful husband or wife to care for him someday. Where Simone refuses to accept her assigned gender, Edward often asks what it's like to be a woman, and prefers domestic affairs and hobbies, in contrast to his sister's rambunctious adventures. Taylor is your daughter by way of Chip, and she's as adventurous as Simone, and as kind and gentle-hearted as Edward. Her brother Simon II is more reclusive and introverted, preferring the anonymity of Cypherian schools and online organizations to actual in-person friendships."

- - - -

Blue Raspberry seemed to be a theme with their miscellaneous items, he noted, as he came back to ground from the lofty sights of the passing system. He didn't mind the smells of cigarettes, bourbon, or City; they reminded him of Noir media, of the more mundane, gritty cyberpunks that came around after Bladerunner, and that movie's entire aesthetic. It reminded him of the kind of person he on-and-off wanted to be: a gritty, skilled, tough fighter with a soft spot in his heart hardened by lead, alcohol, and grief. He was also grateful that wasn't his life, though, as it seemed like a hard one and Simon didn't really believe he was cut out for that sort of suffering.

Once Edith smiled at him, Simon took his seat beside her, resting his hand once again on the small of her back and listening quietly until she took a pause.

"…Simon II reminds me of myself when I was- in the sim, when I was growing up, and in-person interactions were complicated and I felt like nobody in the world liked or understood me. Taylor, though, is kind of like if my brother- if he even exists- were kind instead of nice. He was definitely the more adventurous of us, and outgoing, and he could find a friend or asset pretty much anywhere he went; I was jealous of him a lot." He stared into the middle-distance toward the door out of the room, watching snippets of made-up memories that felt real as she did beneath his hand. "…My whole family, on my dad's side, we always ended up with twins; I never knew my uncle, or aunt maybe, but I'm sure Dad misses them. It's too bad Sie' doesn't want to come see Earth with Taylor… I'm sure she'll miss him, too."

- - - -

"Her brother is the only one who has seen Earth. He watches, through the Digital Web… despite the dangers."

She sighed softly. "He just can't seem to pry himself away from the Virtuality."

Edith laid her head on his shoulder.

"Sometimes I wonder what it must be like for you. Shackled to a world you can't change, desperate to fix it like it were one of your inventions, or a program that needed troubleshooting. Having to live in a place that never quite feels like home… but never having anywhere that ever really does. I've done my best to be there for you, to be by your side, always… but you still seem so alone sometimes, all up there in your own head."

- - - -

Simon nodded to himself; that made sense, too, for Sie to go out of his way to watch the world he couldn't be part of, even or especially if it was dangerous for him. That self-destructive and isolation-reinforcing behavior was one Simon himself was very familiar with; it was why he really, deeply hated romantic movies of most kinds, before. He would have to take Edith up on the offer to visit Cypher, so that he could at least commiserate with Sie, if not ask Chip about malfunctioning implants and their interactions with devices that could simulate the experience of an entirely different life.

He rubbed Edith's back in a way he hoped would come off as reassuring. "…I can certainly say that without you, it was a totally different kind of painfully lonely. I think having you in my life really influenced it, and me, for the better, even if sometimes being in-between everything still gets to me and feels like too much to handle. You're probably the best thing that ever happened to me, Eed."

- - - -

She smiled up at him and kissed his chin. "That part goes without saying, Sir Boybot."

She sighed happily at the little backrubs. "If you go to see Chip, let her know that I still miss her, please? And try not to get shot too many times, this time?"

- - - -

He grinned back at her, and leaned down to actually plant a kiss to her lips, chaste and quick. "You don't at least wanna come with? We can do the TRON-suit thing, like the poster on your door!"

- - - -

She gave a light laugh and shook her head. "I wish! No, I'm afraid I… I just can't. Not after what happened. i know you don't remember, but… I can't risk returning to Cypher. There's too much that could go wrong. I miss my sister, but… it's safer this way, for all of us."

- - - -

Simon tilted his head at her, then decided, "…I won't ask. You don't have to relive the memory if it's bad enough you can't go back- I'll remember when I get my head on straight."

Finally, he looked at the window they had recently left, trying to gauge where they were by the color of light outside. "And… how much longer 'til we get to Imago?"

- - - -

"Just as soon as you wake up, my darling husband."

END SCENE

#discord rp log #para rp #ooc #somewhere in another reality...#part five!!! this one is REALLY LONG and personally i think it should have been split into three episodes at the various tone shifts #alas. we have a huge single episode instead #i'm p sure part six is gonna be WAY shorter at least!#ask to tag

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