sixthiterationlogs | [EVENT] The Simulation Ends

[EVENT] The Simulation Ends

WHERE: 6I Fountain Park & Elsewhere
WHEN: April 1
OPEN TO: ALL - Mingle
WARNINGS: N/A

In the snug circle of an old park, a fountain sits burbling beneath a broad, midday sky.

Once-neat paving stones have buckled and cracked from the slow nudge of wayward roots. Benches stand covered in lichen and rust. Three paths push into the underbrush like the spokes on a wheel, the encroaching forest creating lush tunnels through the dark.

But the fountain stands singular and pristine, brightly splashing in open rebellion of the deep, muffled sounds of a place long ago gone to seed. A vibration hums through the ground, there and quickly gone, and the water in the fountain trembles, lapping against the high walls of its cool, pale reservoir.

Far, far away, in a place that isn't really there, people begin to blink out of existance.

It is the first of April.

It is precisely ten o'clock in the morning.

[Please see event details and guidelines here.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Kira's dry sarcasm is a relief; it means that things, while definitely fucked up, haven't gone hopelessly off the rails. Had he come at me with anything approaching genuine seriousness, it would have been time to really worry.

"Did everyone else already come through?" I ask, my hand instinctively lifting to pull at the novelty of my new beard. Plenty enough of us are still milling around the park looking dazed and confused, but I don't exactly keep a census in my pocket.

"Until someone asks me a name I haven't written down, I think most of us are here." At least the dry greeting comes alongside some of the work already done; too many walls of photos and phone numbers on the safe houses back home to leave it. At least the displaced number fewer in the village, and so far, it seems like there are homes with belongings to return to.

"Aside from some dirt and rust, everything seems in better shape than we left it." The new stove still sits in the kitchen of the inn, the lights still come on. But it still seems older, untouched save to deliver clothing and pets.

"Fair warning; on top of the beards, you're going to run into some new features. Nerys said something about getting stuck in a human body, before? Apparently that didn't carry over."

That draws me up short, and my eyebrows shift toward my hairline. "Really?" I ask, blinking at the improbability of that little change. I'd made it a point to never entirely rule anything out when it came to this place (or the version before, apparently), but it had always seemed unlikely to me that people who claimed to have been non-human before had simply been manipulated into thinking so. Even when they were my friends. It wasn't personal; it was just Occam's Razor.

It does make me wonder now, though, about whether dietary needs are going to change.

"I guess the fun times just never stop," I add with a cant of my head, and then look over my shoulder to the path behind me.

"I'm going to head home, see what's changed, get into something dry, check in with Helen if she'd there. You want me to meet you back here, or in the inn?"

It doesn't occur to me that Kira doesn't want to meet to piece together what we can. He's already taken point; this is just the next step to that.

"Come back to mine," he decides, knowing the crowd at the inn will soon rival the one at the fountain. Once everyone's through, it'll be the logical draw, and Kate came through in a state worth dodging for a few hours. "They're sorting some new supplies at the inn, I don't want to get in the way."

Or be tempted into hoarding more at his house, for those odd itches to go spelunking with complete strangers.

"You can be first in line for a haircut," he adds, knowing as he lets Mark go that he'll have to dig out the kit soon. He doesn't want to see the kind of sewing-scissor trims these people are capable of.

My hand lifts again to pull at my new beard; I'd almost forgotten about it in the hub-bub. "What, you don't like my Old Man and the Mountain look?" I ask with a faint snort, and then turn to plod soggily toward home.

Later, standing in front of the bathroom sink with the kitchen shears in my hand, hacking away, the deja vu is almost palpable. I doubt it was intentional, but with this place, you really just never know.

I show up on Kira's doorstep a little later than I planned; I stopped first by the fields and then at the inn to get a quick look at the new equipment, but found it hard to get away with all of the confusion. I am dry, though, and shaved. My hair's scraggly but shorter, at least. Kira can trim it up if he feels it's not to his standards.

"Well, the good news is we have some actual tools to help with growing food," I say as I nudge open the door.

And lo, there is the first of many. Kira's mouth slants down as he opens the door, gaze judging every edge of Mark's face. His own hair has simply been combed back from his face until he decides how best to deal with it. "You know, I wasn't being facetious; I really am going to fix your hair."

A much higher priority than food, clearly.

"What kind of tools," he asks, stepping aside to let Mark in. He lifts an arm out to indicate the dining room, where he has a chair pulled out and the kit unfurled on the table. Another question occurs as he notices Bodhi's tea set still on a counter, through the doorway to the kitchen.

"How are the fields, anyway?" In the logic of this place, there's no telling if the plants fall under belongings, which are largely intact, or something like the buildings--left under a layer of dust and disuse.

"I didn't think you were lying, I just thought I'd give you a head start," I say, only a little mulish, and allow myself to be directed to the chair in the kitchen. Sitting there, I feel a lot like a six-year-old kid getting a trim from Mom.

"They look the same as before, and I don't know what I think about that yet," I say. "I've already got a lot of questions I'll probably never get firm answers to, but what else is new? I guess I should just be glad we're not starting over from scratch. But maybe that's the whole point, to be glad for scraps."

Like the tools, which seem astonishing after nearly two years with almost nothing, but which are still a far cry from what a group this size needs.

"Um, and we got all kinds of things. Saws, shovels, building supplies, some medical supplies. And all of it new."

If anyone but mom had been responsible for haircuts at home, Kira might not have learned to hack it off himself. Hard to rebel against someone or something you're wholly dependent upon--and the Observers seem well enough aware of it. Hovering both hands at Mark's head, he sizes up the general shape, tugging gently at a few sections to see what's been left to work with.

"Old buildings; new stuff." More mental note than contribution. Sometimes puzzling out their situation is like this: hacking off the bulk of what they don't know with what little they do. Setting three fingers to Mark's crown, he aims his head down, then slides them through the length to start trimming what springs between.

"Building supplies and no fucked up buildings, medical supplies and no injuries." Preparing them for the future, and his mind abruptly narrows down one track, considering the state of things.

"Any contraceptives in the medical supplies? I mean, fuck, anything to do with the possibility of tiny villagers at all?" It had been an unnerving aspect of life in the canyon, but with everything else changing--maybe not a permanent one.

"I didn't do an inventory, but not that I could see," I say, wondering briefly if Kira's asking for himself or if there's just someone he really thinks shouldn't procreate around here. It's a worthy question, though, and one I might not have thought to ask on my own: If we came out of a simulation, if this is actually real (and that, like anything else, is a big if), how many subtle controls have been removed that we weren't even really aware of? Was the fact that we had no pregnancies and few illnesses a combination of luck and genetics, or were be playing on easy?

"I have to get a better look around, get my feet under me, but for now I'd say it's safest to assume we've had our training wheels taken off and should proceed with caution," I add. Not that I'll ever really have a real answer for him on the pregnancy count; it's not exactly something I've been tracking.

It's a somewhat recent concern, but not one he doesn't know how to handle. "I'll make sure to pull out," he says anyway, a snort snapping down on the words and his hands carrying on. Even if he says certain things to bemuse his weed-slinging astronaut partner in--multiverse theory crimes--he doesn't expect a reaction.

The back of Mark's head looking presentable, he flats his hands over his ears and puts his head back up, moving on to his left side.

"Obviously my concerns come first, but, I think Nerys is a little worried about the people coming through who weren't human." And rightly so; not everyone rolls with the punches around here. Even some who do might find it a punch too far. "And I mean, concerns about getting to still sit at the lunch table aside--there are all the questions about diet and medical needs, and--"

He stops cutting, before the train of thought can stray his hand. "And I had a really stupid conversation with Major and Ravi once, about how Major was a fucking zombie, so maybe put that at the top of all the lists. We need a new kind of census, and maybe like, more machetes."

"Major was a zombie?" This isn't something Ravi's ever mentioned, but then again, I never asked either. He'd always seemed so worried that I wouldn't believe that he was telling the truth about zombies in general, I'd just gone with it after our first round of questions about the cause. I probably should have thought to ask if anybody he'd known had gotten the disease, and I'm kicking myself now that I didn't.

"That's..." I pull in a slow breath and decide I don't know what the fuck that is. "I'm just going to have to put that one on the shelf for now. One screwed-up thing at a time."

And the question of dietary needs was a simpler problem, a potentially solvable problem unless it required human brains.

"Did Nerys say she needs some kind of special food or supplement?"

"You'll have to ask him for the context on that one," Kira assures Mark--back burners and shelves are all they have right now. "It's just a fun anecdote from the post-apocalyptic RPG journal I left for myself. Apparently you guys had a party when he dumped Helen for his hetero-life partner and moved out?"

The mild, hind-sight judgment of them all is punctuated by the long, crisp sound of scissors shaping the hair behind and over Mark's ear.

"She didn't, but I didn't think to ask, and there were some overwhelming facts to contend with at the time." Staring at the top of Mark's head--he'll figure that out after he's cropped the back and sides. "Which in my experience, if she's not inserting her gluten allergy into every conversation that's still on the table."

Enough biting commentary to ease them off the possibility of zombies? Probably. "Let me get you something to write with," he decides, before they have to have this conversation twice.

"I should have thought to bring something myself," I say as I turn to watch Kira step away. The fact that I forgot when the obvious place for us to start is in writing down what we know just goes to show how thrown for a loop I am. I'm managing, putting one foot in front of the other, but I know this numb forward motion well enough to recognize it.

"You're right about needing another census. That's going to have to be a priority. And we might have to ask people some uncomfortable questions. If things have changed for them physiologically." If they are now, to their knowledge, fucking zombies.

"Of course I'm right," he answers, briefly imperious, posed. One more joke to see them through this insanity. When he breaks, dropping his chin, he also drops a pad and pen at Mark's elbow. Writing will help Mark as much as cutting hair helps Kira. Then, cooking, eating. Have a glass of water and chill the fuck out.

Then: zombies.

Kira gives it another few beats before he picks up the scissors. All that's really left is the top, to trim down and mess up to his satisfaction. "It can't be any worse than your doctor starting in on how sexuality active you are," he says, working out from the crown of Mark's head. "Which, maybe also worth asking, considering how Ravi said the zombie plague was spread." What a wonderful world, having to worry if his dick is going to rot off in the literal sense.

"Mark," he says after another beat, "please put scream-into-a-pillow on the list."

"I assumed you'd already done that," I shoot back, pulling the pad forward across the table. A deep breath in and then sighed out. This could be worse. So much worse. At least, that we're aware of.

"We're not on Mars," I sound out as I write the words across the top of the pad, a sort of directive to keep my shit together. Now: Everything else on the to-do list.

"We need to get over to the Inn sooner rather than later, before everybody scatters again. But we need to know what we intend to do there first. What we need to know to actually start properly assessing how deep we're in the shit. Dietary needs we've already said." I write it onto the paper. "Physical changes— You know, we really should start thinking about having some kind of accountability system in place for when people go off exploring. Like when you register with the park service before heading out camping; when you're going, when you expect to be back. You know these people. Some of them will be out tomorrow. Hell, some of them might be out there tonight."

"I've been busy." A little more effective than screaming, but he'd still like to block out the time. Somewhere after managing Bodhi's own need to scream and unwillingness to do so, if the boy-toy across the way doesn't take care of it. Probably not, Kira's about eighty percent sure the entire relationship is predicated on being human disasters who don't express actual emotion.

Pot, kettles; even the Observers know black is his color.

"Small miracles," he agrees. "There's air, yes." He takes a nice, long breath of it, and blusters it out. There's only so much hair he can take off of Mark's head to make himself feel better, before he'll hate to look at the man, so he moves around the chair to finish off the hairline and call it quits. "Close your eyes for a second," he says.

"Maybe we can impress upon them the implication of Nerys being an alien," he adds. "It's not Mars, but it might not be anywhere on Earth, either. Not if it's at all real this time around."

"Earth seems unlikely, or at least the versions we know, but it's not impossible," I say, eyes obediently if impatiently closed; I've been doing a pretty damn good job of sitting still this entire time, and I'm really ready to be done with with my visit to the salon.

"Just in the sense of it seeming counter-intuitive to what we've already experienced," I add, brushing away tiny bits of hair from my cheeks and nose and eyelashes when I feel Kira finally step away. "And trust me when I say I'm not crazy about the idea. But you're right. Logic follows that if we were in a simulation the first time, we could be right back in another one. A more advanced one." We passed the fucking test, whatever it was. Whoopie.

"And gathering the data to try and figure out if it's at least an Earth-like simulation if not actually Earth is high on the priority list. I have to assume everybody here is wanting answers. But accounting for everyone and any changes in the people has to be the first thing."

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[EVENT] The Simulation Ends

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