Inexorable Altercation [Round V - Saint Arthelais' Hospital]

Originally posted on MSPA by Pinary.

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Username: Pinary
Name: Will Haven
Gender: Male
Race: Human
Color: #005000
Biography: Textwall:

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SpoilerWill was quite startled when he appeared several feet above the floor. He was even more startled when he didn't fall, but instead remained suspended in midair, directly in the centre of the room. An oddly familiar voice came out of hidden speakers- "I'm going to bring the gravity online now. Keep calm." Will knew it from somewhere, but he couldn't quite remember where.

A deep, thrumming hum began to permeate the room, and Will felt himself being drawn slowly towards the floor. He was soon gently pressed into the soft, cushioned surface, and after a few moments, the pull was approximately that of normal gravity.
Soon, the hum died away, and Will just lay there. Okay, he thought, gravity. Artificial gravity. That means, then- Space. "The final frontier." Right. But that doesn't make sense. The displacement was supposed to be directly along the t-axis, with no- Shit. "Forgot to account for Earth's displacement." Lucky I landed somewhere with air. "Almost too lucky." Yeah. Even with a massive ship, the odds of being picked up at random are astronomical. Which means someone knew I'd be here. "And when." So who could it be, and how did they know? "And who's talking right now?"

Will froze. Wait, that was my voice, my thoughts. "And yet your mouth hasn't moved since you got now." Slowly, he got to his feet, listening intently. Okay, if you're reading my thoughts- "I'm not reading your thoughts. Turn around."

If Will had had a better sense of drama, he would have slowly turned his head, seeing the screen first in his periphery, then more and more as he turned, eventually realizing that it was himself on the screen and whispering "You..." into the tense silence.

Instead, he just whipped his head around, locked his eyes on the screen, and said, "Oh, shit."

The Will on the screen sighed. "I'm afraid so. It's worse than that, too- The first time through, we materialized in the engine room of an alien warship several hundred billion years after now. When creating the Time-Axis Transmitter, we made a mistake in the calculations- the formation of a wormhole requires much more energy that we expected, and in order for it to fully establish, a certain amount of extra energy is required on the arrival end, or else the wormhole will just delay its arrival. The aliens had poor shielding on their reactor, and the leaking radiation triggered the wormhole's arrival. We arrived, fell to the deck, and were promptly arrested and imprisoned. Our cell was small and dark, and the automated food dispenser spat out some sort of brownish gruel."

"They didn't speak English or German, so we had no way to communicate with them. It was a moot point, though- they all died a few days later. Apparently, they had eliminated all disease by then, so when we arrived carrying a bit of the flu, their immune systems, never having encountered a disease before, were completely overpowered. We were left alone on a ship designed for a crew of five hundred, trapped in a cell with only gruel to keep us alive."

"After a few days, we managed to escape the cell, leaving us in an only marginally better situation. We were free, though, and that was something. Twenty-five years later, we made it to a planet. By that point, we'd learned the aliens' language and the basics of how to fly the ship, and with the money we made by selling it, we were able to start working. Our goal was to prevent that whole situation from ever happening- if we could intercept the wormhole beforehand, we would be able to arrive on our own terms and-" Something beeped, and the Will on the screen looked down. "Almost out of time. Listen, there are videos on the computer system to explain the rest. There are two important things for you to do: first, establish the stable time-loop. The coordinates for a solar flare are stored in the computer- use it as an exit for the wormhole. It'll give you about ten years to get this situation set up. All the instructions are in the computer. Follow them exactly."

"Second, you have to investigate. I'm about to mysteriously disappear, and I have no idea why. When our first iteration came through, he just vanished in the middle of his explanation. The second was confused, and he had a fairly hard time of things- Number One had been planning to teach Two in person, so none of the automated systems you'll have were there. When the time came for Two to explain, he had everything prepared for Three to learn on his own. When I arrived, this video told me that I was the fifteenth iteration to be investigating and that all the data our previous iterations had found was in the computer. You are number sixteen, and their data, as well as mine, is all there. Hopefully, you can figure out why it happens and maybe preve-"

The Will on the screen vanished, leaving the Will in the room all alone. A timer set the door to open, and Will explored the ship. He found a computer terminal and sat down, and helpful instructions written by himself began to teach him how to use the system.

Four years later, he brought his ship, the Timeless, into an empty section of space, which, fourteen years prior, had been the site of a solar flare. The star had long since left, rotating inside a galaxy that was hurtling through space. This is it, he thought to himself. Start the timer. He pressed a button, and the ship moved backwards through time, arriving near a star just after a massive solar flare sent a burst of energy through the star system.

About ten years later, he sat on the bridge of the Timeless, floating in a specific location in deep space. He had continued investigating thoroughly, but still he had no idea what actually happened. He knew he was going to vanish into thin air in about five minutes, but he had no idea what to expect. All he'd managed in his years of research and investigation was to eliminate a few more possibilities.

A timer hit zero, activating a pulse of energy that triggered a wormhole in the receiving bay. The teleprompter activated, and he began to speak to himself. Several minutes later, an indicator beeped- time was almost up. He finished up his instructions, then vanished into the unknown, leaving another Will to complete the cycle again.

Weapons/Abilities: Will, in a desire to be prepared for wherever he vanishes to, is wearing a jumpsuit equipped with heating and cooling pads. Its numerous pockets are filled with a variety of things, mostly survival gear and data chips. Some items of note are a mid-range laser pistol, a multi-tool, and a data-card reader.
Description: Will has shortish brown hair and a matching beard. He is 5'11", in decent shape, and wearing a jungle-camo jumpsuit with numerous pockets.
He's seen a lot of very strange things over the course of his investigations, so the unusual or absurd won't phase him. He is logical and rational and almost frustratingly calm, but deliberately antagonizing him or hampering his work will annoy him to no end. He is not devoid of morals, but whatever his goal, he will work unceasingly to achieve it, often neglecting other people. (There's a reason that, in all of his sixteen different timelines and counting, not once has he formed any sort of meaningful relationship.)