[Once Abel figured out how the network worked, how to navigate it, search, access his own inbox, read what was being posted, he was almost immediately acclimated. He thinks the OS could use some functionality tweaking, but that's hardly what he's focused on now. He's looking at photos of New Amsterdam when the message comes across-- it's a new thing for him, but when he sees who it's from, he curls up a little on the couch and smiles to himself.]
Hi Alexei! I was thinking about lunch actually, getting kind of hungry. What do they have?
[Having someone use his name so casually is new, somehow unique in the context of a message. He finds himself staring at Alexei for a heartbeat longer than necessary. The giddy jolt of feeling is private to himself, at least.]
nothing great just shit that doesnt go bad easy. canned and preserved/prepackaged. maybe we could cook? they got... frozen fish. some vegetables are fresher.
I already have a list of things to ask you. Sorry to say, you're not off the hook.
I did. I haven't noticed anything yet, and honestly I'm not sure I want to put myself in any kind of situation where it could manifest. What if I jump off a building and find out my power is something like being able to run very fast? Doesn't do me much good then.
i get that. but it just happens whether you want it or not. dont jump off a building to trigger it, youll figure it out some other way.
[Sometimes just feeling angry, feeling cornered is all it takes. He hesitates before constructing a reply to the latter half of Abel's message, but this is a conversation they can't avoid. He's expected it for a while.]
yeah i do you remember what the weird tech on the reliant did? how it made the ship disappear and reappear again somewhere else i can do that. with things.
[And himself, but that wasn't strictly real, so he'll bypass it for now.]
[Abel sits back in his chair, considerably less flushed and besotted. The thought creeps back in that this wasn't just a coincidence, that Abel's somehow done this to them by using highly experimental technology.]
Alexei... I've been thinking, and even though plenty of people have reassured me that this probably doesn't have anything to do with what happened before we got here, I feel like the evidence against that is piling up. What if I... irradiated you with this kind of energy somehow when I used the drive? What if I DID bring us here?
hey. no. this isnt your fault theres no way the jump drive couldve moved us through to some other universe its not that strong. and theres too many others here who came under the same circumstances there are people behind this. thats how we all go here. and now we're looking for them those guys in the truck, remember?
Why would they bring us here and then dump us out of a truck, though? And if they were doing it for some abhorrent purpose, why did they make sure we all were physically fit to walk through the snow before letting us out? If we're being kidnapped, what's the reason? What are they getting in exchange?
But, what if all of us were, for lack of a better word, dimensional refugees? And we're being collected out of that space and released like rehabilitated animals? I could have put us in that position.
[There's sense and logic in that. Cain's gut is still telling him no, there's no way, the coincidence is absurd. Yet he knows nothing about dimensional travel.]
i dont know. but its not a simple answer... you met fitz right? he talked about us being experiments so we were picked for this. it wasnt random if youre worried you can just ask the network what others situations were before they got here they cant all have been perfect for kidnapping
[Right?]
anyway, still rather be here than back there we'd either be stranded somewhere or in prison or dead.
[He could ask the network, and he's been considering it since his conversation with Angel, but it's a hideous question to ask. His and Cain's situation was bad enough, what if some people had it worse? What if some of them were dying? It seems in very poor taste, to him at least, to arrive and start interrogating people as to where they were before they were here. Maybe he just needed to settle in a bit more, let his own story heal over before he started dredge up everyone else's.]
Fitz does seem to know what he's talking about. It's just hard for me imagine people being used for experiments. Which is it's own form of irony, isn't it?
[He sighs and looks at the ceiling for a moment. He wishes Cain wasn't out suddenly.]
About that... Alexei you mentioned that you weren't the only person involved in Project Thebes. That there were other Fighters on other ships? I think we have to go back and blow the whistle. Figure out how to get there with both of us in one piece, not anywhere near the fleet, and expose what Cook and Bering were doing.
[The first half of that, Cain lets slip past. It is ironic. It's exactly what happened to Abel prior to this. And now they're back in it, potentially being used as fodder for some grand scheme. It was the trip to that strange, underworld, dream-like facility that's altered his impression of this place more in line with Fitz's idea.]
its not that i dont think we should but how? how do you even think its gonna matter what you or i say? the first second anyone hears about.. us, theyre just gonna say we tried to get around the rules theyll just dismiss us and i dont think those other fighters will be so easy to convince. if they were anything like me.
[Cain's too used to getting beaten down by the system, at this point. He has to be realistic.]
you need to get back home. at least youre safe there.
[Abel must look very odd right now. He's staring at the ceiling with a very angry look on his face, then suddenly sits up looking like the couch has personally offended him. He can elaborate on his evil plan to ruin Project Thebes later, he has bigger things to deal with right now.]
[Abel's planning for a return, but his head's still in New Amsterdam. Maybe it's the distance of time -- he's been here longer, he's adjusted. Even the delirious nostalgia and panic of the dreams felt... removed from him.]
i dont know. guess id go into hiding? cant go back home. i wouldnt stop you from coming with me ethan. but i dont know how i could help take down the alliance. theres just no fucking way. theyre too big.
You're going back home, I promised you would make it back and I'm going to stick to that. You're going to see your sister again and go home.
I'm not going after the Alliance, I'm going after Project Thebes, I'm going after the people who are using Fighters and Navigators to test technology without their knowledge. That's not too big, that's going to make people angry. The right people if I have my way.
Either my father gets you a pardon and investigates and ends Project Thebes, or he lives out the rest of his career with a very vocal gay son. That's how we do it.
And if you think for one second that I would abandon you and save my own skin I don't know Alexei, I'm not sure who you think you've been back-to-back with this entire time.
[Halted where he stands browsing the shelves of the nearby convenience store, Cain focuses on the words as they spill across his field of vision. It feels as though his throat has closed around a swallowed stone. There's conviction in the message that he's not sure how to respond to, because he's never had this turned on himself -- always Abel toward a battle, toward his next move or strategy.
And because, still, he wonders whether he deserves it. Going back home was his goal from the beginning, it was why he did everything for Project Thebes at all.]
not saying youd abandon me [Truly isn't, although he'd never deny Abel wanting to leave.] just that youre safer on earth than anywhere. i just dont want them to kill you.
[The rest doesn't matter in the face of that fact.]
does your father really have that much power and hed listen to you? his reputation matters that much?
Then I guess we'll have to make sure they don't kill me. Or you.
We've suffered enough at the hands of these people, I'm not going to let either of us disappear into the ether like we did something wrong. We didn't. We're not paying the price so they can sit comfortably and plan to extort more Fighters and Navigators. I refuse.
[Abel takes a deep breath and lets it out. He needs a shower, he needs to lay down, he hasn't felt this angry in a long time and he's staring off into space while doing it.]
He's influential and he's been looking for a reason to denounce the Alliance. That's enough to get something started. He never wanted to listen to me before, but I hardly think it's because he was worried about me. He was always worried about himself, how I would reflect on him. This would be his worst nightmare.
[And if unleashing that on him would ensure Cain would be free to go home and never have the Alliance darken his doors again? It would be worth the years Abel had spent under his father's thumb, biding his time until he could be free.]
[The stream of messages are more reassuring than he expected them to be. Something brittle in him begins to settle, carefully, until he finds himself leaning against a near wall with eyes pinched shut. Eyelashes flicker open again to answer as words come to him.]
if thats what you want to do we can do it. but maybe we wont have to. maybe the alliance will take them down from inside. who knows
[Another thought occurs to him.]
does that mean im gonna have to uh meet your father?
Maybe. Maybe after losing track of us, the Alliance will get nervous and cancel the project, put them on permanent desk duty, discharge them quietly, I don't care. But this heinous project must end.
Not if you don't want to. I don't need you to be some kind of prop to prove I'm actually seriously gay, he absolutely knows. If I was going to introduce you to either of my parents, my mom would be less of a disaster. She would just look disappointed and not say anything to you.
[This is so depressing. He wishes he could bring Cain into his life in a full and welcoming way, but there's really nothing to show him. Just an empty space that he spent his days in.]
dont have to meet either of them. doesnt matter that much to me who your parents are
[Why would he want to meet a man who would snarl and spit, or a mother who would look coolly down her nose, for the sake of who he is? For the belief that he is colonist scum? It doesn't make him eager. And he's never attached Abel's family to Abel himself -- that was always tertiary to the realm of being both military and intimate partners.]
guess well see what happens cant do much about it here right now
[In the process of a transaction, Cain taps out of the conversation for a moment. Long enough to purchase the fish and vegetables and bundle them away into his backpack.]
maybe you could show me what our earth looks like they got this tech here we can use VR, virtual reality dunno much about how it actually works
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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Hi Alexei!
I was thinking about lunch actually, getting kind of hungry. What do they have?
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nothing great
just shit that doesnt go bad easy. canned and preserved/prepackaged.
maybe we could cook? they got... frozen fish. some vegetables are fresher.
what have you been doing?
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[His face is so pink right now and his thumbnail is likely to be completely gone by the end of this exchange.]
Just reading, trying to get up to speed on everything that's going on. This guide that's been compiled has been very helpful.
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[Cain isn't much better, but at least he can blame the icy wind on any flushed cheeks.]
if you dont get something... you can ask me i guess
you read about the power stuff yet?
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Sorry to say, you're not off the hook.
I did. I haven't noticed anything yet, and honestly I'm not sure I want to put myself in any kind of situation where it could manifest. What if I jump off a building and find out my power is something like being able to run very fast? Doesn't do me much good then.
Do you know what you can do yet?
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dont jump off a building to trigger it, youll figure it out some other way.
[Sometimes just feeling angry, feeling cornered is all it takes. He hesitates before constructing a reply to the latter half of Abel's message, but this is a conversation they can't avoid. He's expected it for a while.]
yeah i do
you remember what the weird tech on the reliant did? how it made the ship disappear and reappear again somewhere else
i can do that. with things.
[And himself, but that wasn't strictly real, so he'll bypass it for now.]
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[Abel sits back in his chair, considerably less flushed and besotted. The thought creeps back in that this wasn't just a coincidence, that Abel's somehow done this to them by using highly experimental technology.]
Alexei... I've been thinking, and even though plenty of people have reassured me that this probably doesn't have anything to do with what happened before we got here, I feel like the evidence against that is piling up.
What if I... irradiated you with this kind of energy somehow when I used the drive?
What if I DID bring us here?
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theres no way the jump drive couldve moved us through to some other universe
its not that strong. and theres too many others here who came under the same circumstances
there are people behind this. thats how we all go here. and now we're looking for them
those guys in the truck, remember?
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But, what if all of us were, for lack of a better word, dimensional refugees? And we're being collected out of that space and released like rehabilitated animals? I could have put us in that position.
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i dont know. but its not a simple answer... you met fitz right? he talked about us being experiments
so we were picked for this. it wasnt random
if youre worried you can just ask the network what others situations were before they got here
they cant all have been perfect for kidnapping
[Right?]
anyway, still rather be here than back there
we'd either be stranded somewhere or in prison
or dead.
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Fitz does seem to know what he's talking about.
It's just hard for me imagine people being used for experiments. Which is it's own form of irony, isn't it?
[He sighs and looks at the ceiling for a moment. He wishes Cain wasn't out suddenly.]
About that...
Alexei you mentioned that you weren't the only person involved in Project Thebes.
That there were other Fighters on other ships?
I think we have to go back and blow the whistle. Figure out how to get there with both of us in one piece, not anywhere near the fleet, and expose what Cook and Bering were doing.
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its not that i dont think we should
but
how? how do you even think its gonna matter what you or i say?
the first second anyone hears about.. us, theyre just gonna say we tried to get around the rules
theyll just dismiss us
and i dont think those other fighters will be so easy to convince. if they were anything like me.
[Cain's too used to getting beaten down by the system, at this point. He has to be realistic.]
you need to get back home. at least youre safe there.
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And where do you think you're going?
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to... the convenience store?
[What did he do, he has no idea.]
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So I'm supposed to go home like a good straight soldier and leave you here?
After everything?
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[Abel's planning for a return, but his head's still in New Amsterdam. Maybe it's the distance of time -- he's been here longer, he's adjusted. Even the delirious nostalgia and panic of the dreams felt... removed from him.]
i dont know. guess id go into hiding?
cant go back home.
i wouldnt stop you from coming with me ethan. but i dont know how i could help take down the alliance. theres just no fucking way. theyre too big.
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You're going back home, I promised you would make it back and I'm going to stick to that. You're going to see your sister again and go home.
I'm not going after the Alliance, I'm going after Project Thebes, I'm going after the people who are using Fighters and Navigators to test technology without their knowledge. That's not too big, that's going to make people angry. The right people if I have my way.
Either my father gets you a pardon and investigates and ends Project Thebes, or he lives out the rest of his career with a very vocal gay son. That's how we do it.
And if you think for one second that I would abandon you and save my own skin
I don't know Alexei, I'm not sure who you think you've been back-to-back with this entire time.
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And because, still, he wonders whether he deserves it. Going back home was his goal from the beginning, it was why he did everything for Project Thebes at all.]
not saying youd abandon me [Truly isn't, although he'd never deny Abel wanting to leave.] just that youre safer on earth than anywhere.
i just
dont want them to kill you.
[The rest doesn't matter in the face of that fact.]
does your father really have that much power
and hed listen to you? his reputation matters that much?
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We've suffered enough at the hands of these people, I'm not going to let either of us disappear into the ether like we did something wrong. We didn't. We're not paying the price so they can sit comfortably and plan to extort more Fighters and Navigators.
I refuse.
[Abel takes a deep breath and lets it out. He needs a shower, he needs to lay down, he hasn't felt this angry in a long time and he's staring off into space while doing it.]
He's influential and he's been looking for a reason to denounce the Alliance. That's enough to get something started.
He never wanted to listen to me before, but I hardly think it's because he was worried about me. He was always worried about himself, how I would reflect on him. This would be his worst nightmare.
[And if unleashing that on him would ensure Cain would be free to go home and never have the Alliance darken his doors again? It would be worth the years Abel had spent under his father's thumb, biding his time until he could be free.]
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if thats what you want to do
we can do it.
but maybe we wont have to. maybe the alliance will take them down from inside. who knows
[Another thought occurs to him.]
does that mean im gonna have to
uh
meet your father?
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Not if you don't want to. I don't need you to be some kind of prop to prove I'm actually seriously gay, he absolutely knows.
If I was going to introduce you to either of my parents, my mom would be less of a disaster. She would just look disappointed and not say anything to you.
[This is so depressing. He wishes he could bring Cain into his life in a full and welcoming way, but there's really nothing to show him. Just an empty space that he spent his days in.]
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doesnt matter that much to me who your parents are
[Why would he want to meet a man who would snarl and spit, or a mother who would look coolly down her nose, for the sake of who he is? For the belief that he is colonist scum? It doesn't make him eager. And he's never attached Abel's family to Abel himself -- that was always tertiary to the realm of being both military and intimate partners.]
guess well see what happens
cant do much about it here right now
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I just wish I could do something that was normal. Show you what my life was like before, but it was barely anything worth talking about.
Are you coming back with the fish?
[He wants to move away from both of these topics, onto something nicer. The future, not the baggage they're dragging around.]
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[In the process of a transaction, Cain taps out of the conversation for a moment. Long enough to purchase the fish and vegetables and bundle them away into his backpack.]
maybe you could show me what our earth looks like
they got this tech here we can use
VR, virtual reality
dunno much about how it actually works
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I wonder how easy it is to write a program, I could definitely build something to show you!
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