unknownseas | WEEK 1

Well, you've now met the brains of the operation, as well as the shockingly nice-looking young lady in charge of day-to-day business. Now all that's left is to get used to your accommodations - there's 24 other people in similar shoes to yours to meet in this building, you know! And who knows how much longer you might have them...

The daily routine in the facility quickly becomes obvious - the only way to tell time moment to moment is to check the strange device The Professor gave you, but at the same time every day the lights in and out of the facility go up, and at the same time every night they go down. Otherwise, it's almost maddening sometimes, how little happens in here. At least you have a few rooms with enough to hopefully keep you occupied. Who knows what secrets they might hold? And there's always that vending machine, if you can find something that fits in the coin slot...

MONDAY | TUESDAY | WEDNESDAY | THURSDAY
FRIDAY | SATURDAY

[ ooc: Welcome to Peace Week! Enjoy it while it lasts. Remember, office hours for The Professor's Assistant are over here if you're interested, while regains can be deposited over here! ]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

It's not like I have anything against jazz. I just needed the stress relief.

[ Just look at that smile! She's feeling great now, clearly. ]

I've no idea what the television did to stress you out, but I'll assume you showed it who's boss.

[Dude.]

So. What'd you think of our host yesterday?

[ Oh. That's a better topic than the television. Some of her lingering tension disperses, taut posture easing as she thinks. ]

He tells us he wants to see what we do with the options available to us, but then he turns around and says things like, "Oh, it's so interesting how many of you assume the point is for you to kill each other!" like there are any other means of escape he's presented to us. I think... Either there has to be some other condition we need to discover ourselves, or he just gets his kicks from being duplicitous. Or both, I guess.

But... If you mean the read I get on him personally, I get the sense that he has a personal stake in this somehow, even if he acts all detached. When I tried to ask about his motives, not just what the point of the experiment is but why he's doing this in the first place, he mentioned that there are things that mean a lot to him but would be meaningless to us.

...Anyway, that's about it. I'm more used to dealing with people with enough money and privilege that they think they can get away with whatever they want, not the evil genius mad scientist type, sorry.

I meant both, so it's good of you to answer for them.

[It's light, though.]

Don't worry, I've got experience where you don't. At least as far as the evil genius mad scientist sort tend to go. They're all about that insufferable, from what I've seen, so I'm not surprised he's hard to nail a read down on - they like being mysterious. It's a pain.

[ Her lips quirk, some genuine amusement coming to her expression. ]

Yeah, and he really wants to keep himself mysterious. Not even a face or name for us to know him by. But I guess that's the other thing? The fact that he wouldn't just give me an explanation when it would be easy for him to lie makes me think he's the type who technically tells the truth. The question is what he's omitting.

Well. I did ask him whether any of us would recognize him, and he said he didn't think so - unless certain multiverse theories are true.

So there's the possibility that he's not from any of our worlds, so we don't know him, per se... But it's also entirely possible that one of us would know who he is if we had a name or appearance. Those possibilities aren't mutually exclusive.

[ She nods to that. ]

Makes sense. Some form of it has to be true if we've been brought here from different worlds, and it's obvious that we have.

[ Actually, that makes her wonder about ~certain people~ she has yet to speak to—but that's neither here nor there so far as this conversation goes. ]

But what about you? Anything you picked up on, aside from the obvious?

[Yeah, for some of you this is like. Multi-track levels of shitshow that he is blissfully unaware of at this point in time, lord.]

I don't disagree that there's possibly some kind of personal stake involved in this on his part, but I have to wonder what it is - he did say that we're permitted to kill literally everyone in the building if we figure out a way to do so, which seems a bit strange if he's trying to get something out of this.

I guess if he only cares about the results of his experiments and not its parts, it wouldn't matter? That, or he's confident we don't have the tools to pull something like that off. It's hard to say when he won't even tell us what he wants to test in anything but the vaguest of terms.

It's like he's never heard of poison.

[Thanks, Birkin.]

I think that if we're being forced to work on assumptions alone, "a purely social experiment" is the safest bet we have. In that case it's less about method and more about overall results, as you said, and a bad outcome is just as interesting as a decent one. Besides, apparently this is all being run by some kind of messed up psychology professor. We'd be a great teaching tool.

If he'll even be able to discuss it with them. He did say this is a side project, when I asked about them.

That doesn't always mean no one's watching. Just not the people that probably should be.

Apparently. Didn't he mention funding?

[ ... ]

Wait. What kind of people are funding this, then?!

Neither of my first two thoughts were comforting.

I mean, if they know what the money is going towards, I can't think of any answer that would be.

[ One messed-up psychology professor, okay. But multiple people who think this is a good use of their time and money?? ]

True enough. It would most likely be people who benefit off of human experimentation or sadists, I'd think.

I'd say it's hard to be one without the other, but... [ She trails off, making a frustrated noise in the back of her throat. ] I guess... It could also be someone who is interested in the technology used to bring us here, and doesn't care how it gets tested. Or all of the above, if it's coming from more than one source.

That's also a strong possibility, yes.

[As usual, he doesn't seem overly bothered by any of this, but it certainly is something, isn't it.]

I'm actually not sure if it's better or worse for them to be sadistic about it. Like I said, I've had my share of experience with the mad scientist sort. Usually it's not so much wanting people to suffer as it is just not caring if they do.

I'd rather deal with someone who doesn't care about my pain than someone who wants to drag it out of me, personally. Better chances that they still have some kind of line they won't cross.

That's fair enough. My thought was that sadists at least do want to drag it out - gives more time to solve things, usually, they dislike things ending too quickly. The Professor will allow it, but it's likely to at least not be encouraged.

...I guess I can see your point, too. [ Even if she says so grudgingly. ] Well, we'll learn sooner or later, but I don't intend to let him beat me either way.

Consider it something we have in common.

WEEK 1

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