exsilium; ic inbox

[controlledvariable]

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voice, 2/9

[werewolfing]

So, uh, to ask a weird question, does today seem a lot like yesterday to you? And the day before?

permavoice

[controlledvariable]

[Just the dude she was going to call, because she was wondering if Peter's swadhisthana might have given him a clue about what the hell is going on.]

Yeah, yeah it does. It took me an hour or so to notice but we seem to be resetting at midnight. I wasn't sure if it was happening to everyone.

[werewolfing]

Yeah, that's what we noticed. The locals don't, though. Notice.

Any idea why we might be time traveling when we aren't supposed to be time traveling?

[controlledvariable]

You want the nice answer or the kinda scary one?

[werewolfing]

[he was afraid she was going to say something like that.]

Whichever one is true.

[controlledvariable]

The truth is that I don't know exactly what's going on, but I'm guessing it's the same reason that we're losing Transports almost twice as fast as we used to, and for the same reason a bunch of people turned up despite the Transporter not being turned on for the month.

[And the same reason there were no new arrivals on the eighth.]

Something's wrong with the time stream.

[werewolfing]

People showed up? Who's gone?

[he runs a hand through his hair. peter knows roman's gone, but he didn't realize that wasn't an isolated incident.]

Shee-it.

[controlledvariable]

A lot. I'd been keeping an eye on the network since the moon, 'cause I'd talked to Sonya about people disappearing a lot when we were there. I thought it might be a power thing.

[Power to the Transporter, since they were running on limited resources. Which they still are, so many that's part of it, but it doesn't explain the time loop or the people showing up.]

And a bunch of people from my world, they all know each, too.

[Which is... weird. Liek the Transporter aimed at a certain spot and caught four people in one go.]

[werewolfing]

Well, that's all just really fuckin' weird. Like things are going out of control.

So...what did we do to make that happen? Other than Vegas, I don't even know what missions are being run anymore.

[controlledvariable]

It's mostly been information gathering. Blue ran a fair few of them that had us collecting data with the AI, but it doesn't seem like anything big enough to do this. [She's thought about it a lot, once they got back, but it isn't her area of expertise.] Before that there were a couple missions to change how genetics and cloning was done in the UE, but again - pretty small stuff.

[Maybe it's the small stuff that makes the difference, though.]

[werewolfing]

Doesn't really sound like any big deal, but what the hell do we know about what's a big deal?

[it's not like they know how they ended up in ice-age exsilium instead of flattened-by-nukes exsilium, either.]

There was a movie like this, back home, a guy living the same day over and over while nobody else remembered it. Except I'm pretty sure his time loop got fixed when he got the girl. But since he had pretty much all the time in the world, he learned to do all kinds of stuff. So if we're stuck, maybe there's time to figure out why.

...when did those new people show up, though?

[controlledvariable]

Groundhog Day, yeah.

[She's sure that getting the girl won't fix it for them, but Peter has a point about them having plenty of time to figure it out.]

I think it was the second day we were in Vegas? I didn't find out straight away.

[werewolfing]

Oh, cool, you have it too.

[he's never sure when things are going to overlap.]

So basically a whole week early. And now it keeps being the 7th over and over. Mysteeeeeeerious.

[controlledvariable]

Same as it used to be, almost. It's not the first time people have come in on random days, but usually it's because they've been here before.

[werewolfing]

So there's a problem, probably, but maybe there's two problems. Or something.

I don't know, girl wonder. I'm a pretty shitty detective. I feel it, just before I black out, but couldn't tell you what it feels like.

[controlledvariable]

[She's quiet for a long moment, thinking it over.]

It might be localized. The time loop or whatever we wanna call it. Maybe it'll stop if we get away from the Transporter.

[werewolfing]

How far is away? I mean, everybody's not gonna leave, and the guys who run the thing can't. If you do get out, what happens if you come back? Are the people still inside stuck?

I fuckin' hate time travel.

[controlledvariable]

[She's just - pinching the bridge of her nose, because yeah, fucking time travel.]

I'm guessing it'd be like a bubble where everyone's caught on repeat while the rest of the world or universe or whatever carries on as normal. [He can't see her, but she's making hand gestures to go along with the explanation.] If we managed to get out, I'd say that we'd find ourselves in whatever day it should be? I'm not really an expert, though.

[werewolfing]

Right but then how do we get back? Or get anybody else out? Or...I don't know. This is giving me a headache.

[controlledvariable]

I dunno either. Might be that signals can still get in and out just fine, but I'm not about to send a distress signal to the UE.

[a beat, then:]

Do we know if anyone's still on the moon?

[werewolfing]

...pretty sure there were a couple stragglers who preferred cold space to cold winter. Crazies.

[controlledvariable]

I wonder if they're going through the same thing, 'cause that'd rule out any sorta contained effect.

[werewolfing]

Guess we do have a network thingie we could use to ask 'em.

[controlledvariable]

The network thingie, huh?

[Even panicking a little, she can still tease him.]

[werewolfing]

That's the technical term.