An Orbital Pair

[trustycrowbar]

[Action]

[Gordon had taken to a pattern. Get up, work out (behind closed doors and hopefully away from any wry observations of Chloe's), head to the Hold, lose himself in the library. With the VR system still buggy they'd more or less halted training for new Transports, so he had a lot of time on his hands. It's easy to find him around the library, and in the anterooms of the Training facility, not to mention on the streets and at the marketplace, hoping against hope that he can find some actual decent COFFEE somewhere.]

[One thing was starting to bother him deeply, however. First of all, every squiggle on the lightboard, every attempt to bend the field equation to his will and figure out just how the Initiative could change the past with the future intact, had resulted in failure. He KNEW the solution had something to do with the fact that Transports were outside Exsilium's frame of reference; they were more than warm bodies, they were a rouge agent in causality, and the Initiative was using that to their advantage.]

[However, the only time his work came close to correct was when he broke symmetry and allowed no way back for the transports once they got there. And he was NOT about to accept the idea that there was no way back. Screw subjective bias! Not even the fucking confines of cosmology itself was going to keep him from finding her again...]

[Video]

Hey... A few questions for all of you. I've heard tell that the worlds we come from go into stasis relative to our frame of reference when we get here. Time stops for them, in other words. Can anyone actually verify this? Also I'm looking for someone. Woman about half a head shorter than I am, wears a bandanna, a little on the slender side, has a hacking tool that she uses for everything? She goes by the name of Alyx. Has... has anybody seen her here?

Comments

Video

[totallytrustworthy]

I've heard it once or twice, but I doubt there's any way to confirm that without actually heading back home and seeing what-- if anything- went on while we were away.

Which sort of drops a wrench in the whole 'coming back to tell us all about it' plan.

[Vidya]

[trustycrowbar]

Yeah, that crossed my mind, but I figured there may be an inductive way to find out. Something someone else has thought of that by logic proves one way or the other. Something that I haven't thought of yet, obviously.

...Come to think of it, do the Transports age any differently than the natives?

[totallytrustworthy]

I don't think anyone's been here long enough to test that. No more than a year or two at most from what I've gathered.

So...who is she? Your girlfriend?

[trustycrowbar]

...

[He fidgets with his glasses, frowning. Dammit, she makes it sound like they were in middle school. Alyx was more than that. Her lovely caramel-colored skin, the way she'd smile even when the world was going to hell around them, those eyes that always seemed to know a secret that she'd share with only you--]

Unfortunately I was never in a position to find out if she was interested. First time we found a safe place I fell asleep, and woke up HERE.

[totallytrustworthy]

Sorry to hear that, love. Haven't caught wind of anyone like that around here, but you never know what's just around the corner with this place.

Just think of this as a chance to sharpen your charm a bit.

[trustycrowbar]

[He snorts a laugh at that last part, but... Gordon isn't all that familiar with the more mysterious workings of the female mind, but some strange intuition compliments of his Y-chromosome is telling him that these are somehow DANGEROUS GROUNDS and he'd better tread softly. He gives her a slightly confused-looking smile.]

There are times when I could use it.

[totallytrustworthy]

Don't worry, I've got your back. By the time you get out of this place-- if we get out of this place-- you'll have her swooning in no time.

[trustycrowbar]

[What did she mean by... no. No, she couldn't be serious. Nevertheless, he coughs a little awkwardly before replying:]

I, uh, I don't think putting on airs is going to impress anyone...

[That's not what you said for your thesis defense, dude.]

[totallytrustworthy]

Oh...[She seems to be mulling this over carefully for a moment or two.] so you think she prefers the honest, intellectual types.

[whatsupcroc]

Can't say time stops, 'cause I'd have to know for sure that what I know happened since the one guy from home showed up here happened even though he's been here, and he wasn't gone at all back home.

[trustycrowbar]

[His efforts to parse all that, are truly herculean.]

... ...uh... hold on, what?

[But ultimately futile.]

[whatsupcroc]

[ Welcome to the chatty teen years. Pretty horrific, huh? ]

You were asking about time stopping, right?

[trustycrowbar]

[Utterly terrifying.]

Precisely. Someone you knew from your world showed up here, I get that. Your memories are normal before that. But you don't recall him being gone from your world at all?

[whatsupcroc]

Yeah! That's what I said. He never left. Marco was there the whole time. Not two weeks unaccounted for -- he was there.

But he's also been here.

[trustycrowbar]

...I think that's just what I needed to hear.

[Even if it WAS utterly incomprehensible.]

[whatsupcroc]

Why?

[trustycrowbar]

If I understand this right, your lack of memory of his being gone means that those two weeks went by instantaneously for you. So that means that for him, here in Exsilium, time DID stop back in his world.

[Relativity ftw.]

[has_a_cult]

Oh yes. Total amateur mistakes. You can get all kinds of weird time frame effects if you're not careful about jumping from one dimension to another. Freezing your old reference point is a very common one.

[trustycrowbar]

Are... you implying that the temporal freeze could be due to clumsy technology?

[He gives her a look like he just saw her pull her own head off and spin it like a basketball.]

I was suggesting it was just the nature of the beast!

[has_a_cult]

I'm saying I think this "initiative" only has the vaguest idea of what they're doing and are probably going to cause more problems than they solve in the long run.

[trustycrowbar]

I think that's something we all can agree on at this point. I wondered that the moment I heard they were re-writing the past. Even if you ignore the paradoxes, entropic potential difference like that doesn't just go away.

[has_a_cult]

I think you only have the vaguest possible idea of what you're doing as well.

[trustycrowbar]

...

[WHAT.]

What?

[has_a_cult]

Everyone here is just going about in their practically blind states toying with the fundamental forces of the universe. I mean the human body can only see things in a tiny cone directly in front of the head. Sooner or later you're going to unleash something awful and it will kill you all. The only reason I'm worried is that it would kill me too right now.

[trustycrowbar]

[That earns an actual snarl from the man. It looks startlingly fitting.]

Yeah, sure lady, poke me in the chest and tell me I should be ashamed of myself. I don't need a lecture on hubris! I'm trying to catch up with those guys in the Initiative to stop that exact goddamn thing from happening again! So why don't you take your Cassandra act and go somewhere where the literacy rate is low so they'll actually believe you?