James Moriarty (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
hatesdeerstalkers) wrote2023-06-28 01:28 pm
hatesdeerstalkers) wrote2023-06-28 01:28 pm
15 strangers r7 | Week 3, Tuesday (Akane)
[After he's managed to take her somewhere they won't be overheard - most likely either of their rooms, given the soundproofing - his expression turns a bit serious, as he considers exactly what to say. He doesn't want to alarm her, but...
...Ah, maybe he should just come out and say it.]
Akane. The ones who did that to you and your brother - the awful experience you spoke of on sunday.
Would you particularly mind giving me their names?
[So he can...Take Care of it, when they leave.]
...Ah, maybe he should just come out and say it.]
Akane. The ones who did that to you and your brother - the awful experience you spoke of on sunday.
Would you particularly mind giving me their names?
[So he can...Take Care of it, when they leave.]
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... have you ever heard of the Morphogenetic Field, Papa?
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[He'll listen, though - he's definitely curious.]
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The Morphogenetic Field is a hypothetical biological and social field that contains the information necessary to shape the exact form of a living thing as part of its epigenetics, as well as its behavior and the way it coordinates with and interacts with other beings.
Think of it as an invisible plane, or field, where the information for all biological life, and perhaps some things that aren't even alive, is stored. For example, have you heard the story of the crystallization of glycerin?
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Still, he shakes his head, wanting to have her explain more to him in her own way - even if he did know it.]
No, but I have a feeling you'll be happy to explain it to me, hm?
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Glycerin is a sugar alcohol. It can be used as a lubricant, it can be found in food, or even in industrial ingredients. However, for 150 years, no one was able to crystalize it. Scientists even though that a solid form didn't exist.
Until one day, a barrel-full of glycerin on a British cargo ship was found to have completely crystalized while en route. Naturally this excited scientists worldwide, who wanted to research the new, crystalized form of glycerin, and began asking for samples of the seed.
A seed is a sample of the original crystalized substance. It's a starter for it. With a seed crystal, further crystallization of glycerin would be simple.
Only... something strange happened.
Not only did the glycerin samples that were introduced to seed crystals begin to crystalize, but other nearby samples did as well. And, what's more, the phenomenon continued to spread, until eventually, all glycerin in the world began to crystallize naturally when cooled to less than 64 degrees farenheit.
Before then, no matter how glycerin was cooled, it refused to crystalize. But once the crystallization had begun then, even if the preparation and storage methods hadn't changed....
[She finally looks up at him.]
It's almost like that first barrel of glycerin learned something... and the knowledge was able to spread. As if the crystals were able to communicate in some way that humans can't sense....
There are other examples too, which show information inexplicably spreading between mice, or even humans. The more people who passively know the solution to a puzzle, the more likely it is that you would be able to figure it out, even if they were on the other side of the world, if there was no possible way for that knowledge to have spread from them to you.
Do you see?
If there were people who were able to access the Morphogenetic Field more strongly....
Then they would know what other people knew. Or they would be able to influence that. Change it.
It was why they ran the Nonary Game. Aoi and I showed high potential from a Ganzfeld experiment. So they took us.
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This sounds...surprisingly alike to a few concepts in my world, though not under those terms.
[Still, it's fascinating to know that this is a studied phenomenon in her world, and it's potential applications. Though changing such a thing could also have potential consequences on top of it, as well...]
Regardless, you shouldn't have been kidnapped for something like this, potential or no.
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[A sigh.]
The Nonary Game was an experiment, designed to study the Morphogenetic Field. You see, there are two conditions that are able to strengthen a person's ability to access the information in it: epiphany and danger. So they put us in a place where we were forced to solve puzzles, thus leading to epiphany, while our lives were on the line, so we were in danger.
There were 18 children who were kidnapped. 9 were put on the Gigantic, and 9 were put in a building in Nevada that was built to replicate the Gigantic perfectly. They, the group in Building Q, were supposed to find the solutions to the puzzles and transmit them to us. We... were usually missing a crucial piece to solve it. 9 sibling sets. Only they messed up, because Aoi and I, and two sisters, didn't get put in different groups.
[She shakes her head a little.]
I can't really remember all of it, still. But... There was a police officer who rescued us, after we got trapped in the incinerator. But I had dropped my doll, and I went back to get her, and that man....
Hongou, he... he dragged me back into the incinerator. I was too little to stop him. To fight back. He dragged me back in and threw me down and then locked the doors again and then... h-he activated the room. And there was a puzzle that I had to solve or the incinerator would turn on and I'd burn to death, but...
[She smiles a little shakily.]
I wasn't even on the right boat. It's... easier for me to transmit than it is for me to receive, even if it's never just one or the other. But I couldn't solve it, and the fire turned on, and I....
He burned me alive.
He was watching. He had his face pressed up against the glass while I was crying.
But I... I did something. I don't remember what it was. Or... I might do something?
I... The Morphogenetic Field appears to also have a temporal element, because I was able to... to project forward into it, and do... do something. Only I can't remember what, only that it's tied to the second Nonary Game.
Daddy, I don't know how I'm still alive. I know that... when... when I got taken here it was only a few hours away from that nexus point. Something was supposed to happen.
That's why Aoi and I set it up. I...
It was easier to access the field, after, because I could die any time, I'd have been dead already, if I make a mistake. If I break the time loop. And I could see some of it, and....
I get fevers the closer I get to burning. So the worse the fevers get, the further away I am from being able to survive. So I practiced. I tried to scan the future, to run the different timelines until I found the different problems, to work out everything that needed to be done so that I could survive.
That's how I'm the cat. I'm still... waiting for the box to be opened. Only half alive.
I had this tag sitting open last night I THOUGHT I SENT THIS
She'll be able to hear leather creaking from the hand she isn't holding, as it balls so tightly he's sure he'd have cut his nails without it. If not, the sheer ice cold, calculated gaze might, as he almost looks as reptilian as Holmes once said he was.]
...I have changed my mind. Jail is far too good for such a detestable man.
[That smile crosses his face, bright and terrifying.]
Instead, I believe his life should become nothing more than a living hell - everything taken away from him and his body forever mangled beyond repair. Then, and only then, will he have paid off the merest fraction of what is owed of his crimes.
i don't know how many times i've done that
Maybe. It seemed appropriate at the time that... since he took my life from me, I'd take his away from him. He could spend watching life pass, unable to act, even if... even if he doesn't always have to worry about dying.
[A faint trace of a smile steals into her voice.]
He usually burns when I don't make it, at least. We fixed it so that he won't know how to get out. He'll have the wrong bracelets.
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Truly, you should just let him burn - burning alive is rather painful, as I'm sure you know. Kill all of them and let it be...though there is that dramatic irony of having him have the same fate afflicted upon you.
[...]
And I expected nothing less. If you cannot survive, then so he will sign his own death warrant. A bid for Mutual Destruction.
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He can choose, I suppose. Burn, drown, or maybe starve, if he can find enough air to live through the water.
Well, he won't know he's choosing.
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[He grins down at her, as he moves to make another braid.]
Though perhaps you should also think about electrocution as another potential method of death, if it isn't too late.
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It would be harder, I think. Some of the puzzles use electricity, but... it's set up so that water starts to fill up the rooms after nine hours, and the last room is the incinerator.
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[Look at them, acting all domestic while discussing murder. Almost warms your heart, doesn't it?]
Perhaps a sort of wire or barbed wire trap...
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[She bites her lip.]
Some of the other children who were there in the first game. And the mother of one of them. The police officer who rescued us.
I needed them. But... they shouldn't have to suffer in the same way when they die.
And they do. Usually they get killed by someone else, though.
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He doesn't change his voice or stop his work as he speaks.]
That is the Resolve you must have in order to continue down the path you've chosen, Akane. It is...hard, certainly, but if it is for your goals...you must become deaf to their suffering as a consequence of what you have set in motion.
In the end, though, it is all about what you can live with.
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They usually die. I can't help that. I know I can't. But... I still don't think I need to make their ends... worse than I have to.
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[His hands actually do pause for a moment - is he thinking of something? - before he quietly gestures for her to sit up.]
...Akane. Would you mind if I taught you something?
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Daddy?
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[That he's basically a summonable Magic ghost.]
If...anything were to happen to me, then...I would teach you something that, perhaps, might be able to bring me back to your side once more.
I would teach you how to summon a Heroic Servant.
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Teach me, then.
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So I shall. But first, let me go and grab a few supplies to write down what it needed, and to show you the proper seal.
[And so he just.
Makes a portal right in front of her, which shows his room before he steps in and it closes behind him. About a minute later, the portal reopens, and he steps in with a few piece of (stained) paper and a pen.]
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O-oh! I um.... I forgot you could do that.
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[He grins, even as he sits back next to her.]
After all, that way I can control the pertinent information about it. Even if one knows your skill, they might not know, for instance, that it appears completely silently, and that the light surrounding it can be easily ignored if someone has their back to you as you enter behind them.
[Quickly, he draws a perfect circle, and then adds lines and writing until it looks like -
Well, like a magic circle, which he gives to her.]
This is a Summoning Circle, though it's fairly generic. Most Mages would add their own flair to the thing, but this should do for what I will be teaching you.
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I've been practicing too. Even if it doesn't seem terrible useful as something offensive... it would be much easier to avoid something you didn't want to step in like this, right?
[She takes the drawing from him, and begins studying the symbols, looking for any familiar scripts or languages. She had always been interested in the occult, after all.]
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