applesaucedream | What's Stopping Us From Breathing Easy [Open to All]

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What's Stopping Us From Breathing Easy [Open to All]

Dreamers of Manhattan, you've lucked out. Rather than finding yourselves in some kind of dystopian nightmare, you'll end up in a series of formal gardens on a lovely day, the air filled with birdsong and a cloud-scattered sky arching overhead. Some of the gardens look a bit wilder than others, in an artful sort of way, but it's clear that all of the gardens are well kept and frequently tended. Aside from each other, dreamers aren't likely to run into any creature larger than a rabbit. True, there are no actual exits - every doorway or arbor leads to another garden - but that's hardly a problem. It's beautiful, it's safe... what could go wrong?

Well, that depends on the dreamer's honesty. No uncomfortable truths will drop unbidden from anyone's mouths like last time, but the dreamers will find that any time they attempt to lie or prevaricate, they'll be beset by a sneezing fit. A tiny lie by omission might only prompt that uncomfortable feeling of an impending sneeze; a larger, more significant (or more stubborn) fib will lead to a sneeze attack so crippling that the dreamer might just need to sit down for a minute.

You could try to pass it off as allergies, if you could get the words out without making everything worse. But while telling the truth is not compulsory, lying is punishable - and pretty well obscured - by sneezes.

[OOC: Usual dream party rules apply. All are welcome to participate regardless of whether they've been apped in the game or not. Dreamers can remember or forget the events of the dream at the players' discretion.]

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"No!" he says indignantly, then, "achoo!" Then, "not, ah, not sleep-dreaming, there's Sleep Mode but that's not quite the same as you humans, is it? It's an energy conservation setting and there wasn't any kind of dreaming involved, not typically, just a sort of - drifting. Shut off until you shut on again."

He flaps a hand vaguely. He'd always had a mind that that's how sleeping just more or less worked for humans, but he's never really known it.

"Is this dreaming?" He looks at the other man, eyes owlish and alarmed. "Not how I pictured it - at all. Not that I ever, um, pictured - chooo!"

The Balladeer leans back from the sneezing, as well as he can while still keeping Wheatley more-or-less upright. He doesn't quite have faith that the former personality core won't take a spill, left to his own devices.

"It's not always like this," he explains, "but the Rift does strange things to dreams. Lets us see each other in them. Every month or so, it puts us all in a big one - I think this is one of those." His own dreams don't tend in this direction. It's quite nice! He's not sure he's grasped this round's theme, unless it's just flowers, but he's just glad it isn't apocalyptic again.

"Hmmmm," hums Wheatley. Interesting, alarming, the whole nine yards now that he gives it a think. Dreams are a terribly human sort of thing but he's human now, so the Rift seems to have decided, and that is - well, he's still not sure how he stands in relation to that, honestly. So this person is a city-type person, which makes sense, since Wheatley cannot remember the last time he saw a human who was not her. He's pretty sure he'd remember something like that. Leaves something of a big impression.

"Right," he says, "okay. So do I just pop back awake, is that how it works, then? Switch off the old Sleep Mode?" He sounds a bit too hopeful and it all does seem a bit too good to be true, but he's certainly allowed to speculate, isn't he? Nothing wrong with some good healthy speculation!

The Balladeer shrugs. "I know dying does it, but you don't want to try that." It'd be an overreaction to such a benign dream. Even in the worst ones, he'd prefer to stick around in them as long as possible if the other option is death.

"You're better off just waiting to wake up on your own. It'll happen eventually." He hates to crush Wheatley's hopes, but that's just the way it is. He'll have to get used to it, being here.

Dying? Oh no. No no no, that's no good. Despite all the new and overwhelming stimuli that's come with having this sort of body, Wheatley's somehow failed to note that, yes, he'd be human now and therefore he'd be capable of all sorts of human things, including but not limited to dying.

"Dying!" he squawks. "No. No, wait. Don't panic! Not panicking! No, absolutely not!"

He seems to be having trouble maintaining his own advice. He's now vibrating on the spot, shifting weight from foot to foot as he tries to come to grips with the new and terrifying concept of his own morality, even dream-morality. Especially dream-morality.

"You're," says Wheatley, slowly, "telling me," still slowly, with all the deliberate enunciation of a creeping realization, "that I can - I can die? Is that right? Of course I can. Of course I - they told me, back in the Enrichment Center, that if I did anything at all other than stick to the management rail, I would DIE. They kept telling me that, and I believed them, but then I - I didn't die, not even once though I came rather close a number of times but this is - I can! I could actually -"

He gulps.

"Woah! It's okay!"

The Balladeer rushes to reassure Wheatley, only to realize that there isn't much reassurance to be had in the face of impending mortality. Not for sane people, anyway. Don't computers die too eventually? "You don't need to die right now," he says instead. "I mean, you can. I guess. I know another riftie who just died and turned into a ghost, so maybe there's something going on with that too. But no one's going to test it!"

That all depends on how long they're going to be here for. "Everything dies sooner or later, but nothing's going to happen right now. Don't let it worry you."

"Don't let it worry me?" His voice becomes alarmingly high-pitched as he stares at the other man in dawning fear. "It was - you're - I'm human. Don't you know what that means? It means in something like forty, fifty years it's just ffft!"

One hand flails, palm out in a hopeless gesture of impending existential terror.

"Gone, away, so long and thanks for bloody nothing, I just go and, and what? Pop off into Android Hell?" Android Hell. It's a real place, just like She said! And that's where bossy, monstrous sorts go, isn't it? He doesn't want to go to Android Hell.

"Android - what? No!" The Balladeer has no particular idea what a non-assassin's afterlife might be like, but that's just silly.

He raises his hands in a placating gesture, speaking calmly. "Look, worrying about it won't change anything. You're better off enjoying your life while you've still got it!" If anything, stress will likely kill you sooner, but that might be an unkind thing to bring up right this second. "This is still better than being stuck on some rail somewhere, right?" he hazards.

Is it? Is it really? He's trying to be calm here, it's just that panicking is such a massively appealing prospect in comparison, it feels like maybe that way things will get excised or get better in some inconceivable way, so maybe he should expend as much panic and fear and anxiety as possible, and by the time he wakes up he'll be all worn out of it. He doesn't want to think about dying or Android Hell.

"Right," says Wheatley. "Gotta keep some perspective, here. Got some benefits. Like - flowers! That's the word for them, those little color-y blips, right there? Definitely didn't have any of that down in the, uh, the Enrichment Center. Definitely not. That's gotta be a plus, hasn't it? Right?"

"Right!" The Balladeer snaps his fingers, pointing at the nearest bush. "Right! Flowers! These are roses - I don't really know what kind, but they're pretty, aren't they?"

He takes a step towards them, reaching out to touch Wheatley's elbow as he moves away. Hopefully he won't just go toppling over again - he's still close enough that he should be able to grab him if he does. "Hey, you're getting the balancing thing pretty good. Want to try walking?"

"Flowers, yes!" Yes, he's sure that one was in the mainframe database! It's all coming back to him now! Or, well, it's coming back in fragments and scraps and pieces but good enough, right? Absolutely, right.

"Am I?" he says, genuinely alarmed. He looks down and grins, wide and slightly manic. "I am! Look at that! Not dead, all standing upright and - and - "

He seems to deflate somewhat.

"Well, tell you what," he says delicately, now wobbling uncertainly, "er, I'm actually feeling rather, erm, rather tired, you know. So why don't you just - go on ahead and I'll just, ah, wait here in case the, um, the, the flowers, you know...decide to, uh, to come over here."

He knows flowers don't move, right? He probably knows.

"Sure, sure!" The Balladeer takes a few careful steps backwards, assuring himself that Wheatley won't fall, then turns and walks over to the rosebush. "You're going to want to work on that eventually though. It's pretty important." Where is he, back in Manhattan? Maybe someone should go check in on that...

Careful of the thorns, he pulls off a rose and brings it back, offering it up for Wheatley's inspection. "See? Nice, right? You can take it if you want, but watch the thorns."

"'Course," he says, with a dismissive pfffft for good measure. Clearly he's working on it, isn't he? Clearly he knows that walking's just going to come to him eventually, why, he's probably a bloody natural and right now it's just that standing still is so much more appealing, but he can get on with it and start walking proper whenever he likes! He just doesn't feel like it now, is all. Perfectly valid reason. Absolutely.

He perks up considerably when the Balladeer brings the thing back, tilting his head this way and that as if to observe the rose from every angle without moving his feet from where they're planted firmly on the ground.

"Watch the what?" he says absently, reaching out. "Watch the - aaah! Ouch!"

He drops the traitorous object, hand swiping through the air in utter agony as he struggles not to lose his balance.

"Ouch! Ahh! Dastardly little - argh, ow!" Wheatley glares at it. "What sort of manners are that, I ask you? Disgraceful. Terrible."

"...the thorns."

It's a bit late for warning now. The Balladeer reaches out, offering help if needed. Wheatley looks like he could fling himself right over any second. "Are you bleeding? Let me see it." He's going to panic if it is bleeding, isn't he? Best to take that bull by the horns.

It feels a little strange, being the one who's competent and accustomed to things. Normally he gets thrown by aspects of living within time like a normal human being. But it's hardly a bad thing! He's glad he could help someone out. Wheatley's certainly in a much worse position than he ever was. Hopefully he'll at least manage to keep himself fed and clothed.

"Bleeding?" For a moment he looks positively appalled before it occurs to him that right, human now, and humans are just full of those pesky fluids that go leaking out every which way, and he peers anxiously at the pads of his fingers, wiggling them experimentally.

A round, crimson drop swells on the tip of his thumb.

"Nnnn," says Wheatley, shaking his hand and sending droplets of the stuff scattering. "How do you handle it being like this all the time? Inconvenient is what it is! You're all so flimsy. One little puncture and you can all just go dribbling out. What sort of system is that, I ask you?"

The Balladeer shrugs. He can't deny that.

"You're more durable than you think you are," he replies mildly. "That's not so bad, just put some pressure on it. That's always a good thing to do. If it were bigger, you'd want to wash it off and bandage it - don't forget the washing." He will never, ever forget what nineteenth-century medicine was like. Cleanliness is so important when it comes to sticking your fingers in wounds. "Don't worry about it now, though. It's only a dream."

"Right," he says, nodding firmly as if he understands any of it - this wounds and dreams business is just awfully, terribly new, and he thinks he's been adapting quite nicely, but there's just so much information coming streaming for him at once and he doesn't even have the luxury of organized files in his programming anymore. How do humans keep everything straight in their organic little heads?

"Hurts, though." He gives his fingers a final shake and then, without any idea of what he should be doing next but knowing with utter certainty that he's not overly eager to keep looking at it, shoves his hand into his pants pocket. There. That's pressure of a sort, isn't it? Problem solved!

"So you've got flowers but they can hurt you," he clarifies, now surveying the be-thorned roses with more suspicion than awe. "Doesn't seem like such a fair exchange. What's the point of living up on the surface if everything's trying to bloody kill you all the time?"

"Not everything's trying to kill you." The Balladeer dismisses the idea with an easy smile. He can see where it might seem like that. What daily dangers does a robot face? "You won't die from a little prick like that anyway. Here, try this."

Bending, he picks one of the nearby lilies instead and offers that out. Prrrrobably should've led with that, to be honest. "They don't ALL have thorns. You honestly just have to deal with it. There's always some kind of risk, but you can't just sit at home forever." New York's easily overwhelming, but even it isn't all that dangerous if you know what you're doing.

Well that is a relief. He'd been worried, privately, just a smidge, not that anyone'd ever get him to admit it. Not even the suspicious itch in his nose.

He eyes the flower skeptically before extending the tip of one finger to nudge at the soft-petaled thing as if expecting it to spontaneously combust. One can never know these things. He had no idea flowers apparently came equipped with defense mechanisms. He wasn't aware the things had feelings!

Oh. Oh, no. He's not thinking about that. That's a bit too much like Her, now, isn't it?

Bit too much.

Far too much.

Having deemed the flower safe, he accepts the proffered object and holds it delicately between the pinched thumbs and forefingers of both hands, entirely uncertain over what to do with it. Looks nice, doesn't it, but does it have a function other than being a possible finger-hazard?

"No," he says. "No, right, being a go-getter, then, that's what you're saying. All for that. Practically been my motto, really, for the better part of ummm, ummmm. Lots of years? Really big number. It surpassed all my preprogrammed limits, and I've got whole thingies of data crammed up in here!" He knocks one hand against the side of his head lightly in a gesture that just seems appropriate for the conversation and flinches. "Ow."

"That's right!" He grins, relinquishing the flower. "I'm not gonna lie - being a human can be tough sometimes. But that's no reason to just lie down and give up." Or, you know. Haul off and start shooting people. "You'll do fine."

The Balladeer doesn't know enough about computers to decide just how large a number you'd need to outpace whatever mechanisms Wheatley used to have in his head. He'd have to be really advanced though, right? "So you were in some kind of bunker keeping track of experiments that whole time? That sounds pretty dull."

It'd be easy enough to just figure all this out for himself, get it laid out in an easy-to-follow manner, but who does that? He'd much rather go through these occasionally confusing conversational loops.

Wheatley huffs out a long-suffering sigh. Finally someone who understands. Someone sympathetic to the whole miserable experience! Not someone who'll lock down and say nothing, either because he can't or because he's just not polite enough to, not someone who's just raring to go blabbering on about space all day and night, not someone who'll look down his proverbial nose and say You pathetic. Little. Moron.

"It was," he says earnestly. Now here's someone who's reasonable enough to be patient and listen for once. "Drove me absolutely bonkers. Ridiculous, really, leaving one little core in charge of thousands of test subjects while the whole bloody world's falling apart outside! And did anyone pop back in to give me an instruction manual, or even a fair bit of advice or encouragement? Oh noooo, not once did I get a, 'oh, good job there Wheatley,' or 'we just don't appreciate you enough for all you've done, Wheatley,' or 'thanks for maintaining the whole facility while we were away, dunno what we've done without you, Wheatley'! Never. Not once. Heathens, I tell you."

The Balladeer listens patiently. He is not unfamiliar with listening to people's entitled rants about how the world should have appreciated them more.

That's probably not a fair comparison. It sounds like Wheatley's situation was, at least, genuinely unpleasant. Nothing quite like no one wanting to read his book, or Jodie Foster ignoring his letters. Getting upset over being left alone in a bunker for however long is perfectly reasonable!

"What was going on outside?" he asks instead. "Maybe something happened to them?

"You know, they never even told me." He runs his fingers up and down the stem of the flower in an inadvertent anxious tic, worrying it. "Not once. Something about the...fall of civilization or, or society coming to terms with its imminent doom but nothing terribly specific. Just plain bloody inconsiderate, that. Nothing I needed to know at the time, I'm sure."

He scoffs in a manner that could certainly be construed as a pout, which he'd never have willingly engaged in if he'd known the definition of such subtle facial nuances at the time.

"Riiiight." That's such a pout! "Maybe they just didn't come back because they all died. Could you see outside at all?"

It would've been better if they'd told him that nuclear winter was coming, or whatever happened, but the Balladeer can understand how maybe that wasn't the first thing on their minds. Whoever "they" even were. "You're probably lucky to have gotten through that."

"Not really," he says, almost wistfully, then fearfully because, yes, he remembers, he did get to see outside, quite a vast ways outside from the most spectacular aerial view anyone possibly ask for - from space. He sneezes.

"I - yes, all right, maybe a bit towards the end there I got a nice view of the outside but it was vague and they were vague and it was all very - I didn't want to be there at the time, really."

He pulls his arms around himself in a tight hug, hunching his shoulders in an attempt to shrink himself down with a body height that simply doesn't allow any such thing. He'd wanted out, hadn't he, and he'd gotten it, hadn't he. He'd gotten out. He'd been launched out through a portal and sent careening through space - only it hadn't been how he'd wanted out, not at all, and if only he could have apologized to her, told her how utterly and miserably sorry he was maybe, maybe they'd've both gotten out and gotten clean away from Her and could be having a grand old laugh about the whole bloody thing.

"Suppose this is better," says Wheatley faintly, looking down at the flower clasped tight between his hands. "Better than being out there, properly."

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