Re: The Fatal Conflict (GBS2G7) (Round 3: The Infinite Playground!)
10-17-2011, 02:57 AM
Originally posted on MSPA by Pinary.
The kids beat him to it.
Scott had sighted them a few minutes prior- if he'd been an anthropologist and they'd been adults (and the jungle gym jungle had just been a regular jungle), he'd've called them a native tribe. Instead, he'd just called them "holy crap," sheltered himself as they practically swarmed out of the mesh of pipes and plastic behind him and back into the mostly-indistinguishable maze before him, then called them a few other rude things and carried on.
By the time he reached the crashed shuttle he'd been heading for, they were already swarming around it and crying about the burns on their fingers. Well, and the cuts from the sheared metal. And being scared by the dead man in the front.
Scott wasn't a big fan of kids. They cried a lot.
And of course, the moment a pair of them saw him, they rushed over and buried their faces in his shirt and started wailing incoherently to him. The rest soon followed, and he quickly found himself in the middle of a throng of wailing children. This one had hurt itself, that one was scared...
It took a few minutes and more than a bit of patience on Scott's part, but the gaggle of kids slowly began to disperse. It was actually easier than he'd expected- sometimes all it took was saying "It'll be alright" or some such and they'd brighten up and go back to looking around. There were still a few persistent hangers-on, but by and large, they'd calmed down.
Then the pilot had to go and wake up, and suddenly they were all freaked out again. Scott shoved his way through the throng that did its best to latch onto him for dear life, and by the time he made it to the shuttle, the pilot was starting to unbuckle himself. When he saw Scott coming towards him, ridiculous cape flowing behind him, he blinked and touched a hand to his forehead, searching for gashes.
"That's a shame," he said once Scott was close enough.
It was Scott's turn to blink and be confused. "What is?"
"I thought I'd just blacked out," Carter explained. "But if I'm hallucinating, then there's got to be something more serious going on."
"Oh, no, you're not, uh..." Scott gestured vaguely at his outfit. "It's... a long story."
Carter wasn't convinced. Nevertheless, he accepted Scott's help in getting him unbuckled and out of the shuttle's cockpit, and he was just getting his bearings when one of the kids, a little girl hiding something behind her back, came up to the pair.
"Mister Scott?" She didn't look at either one of them in particular when she asked- her eyes moved back and forth and she clearly wasn't sure this was such a good idea after all.
Scott frowned at her. "How do you know my name?"
She looked sheepishly down, didn't answer for a second, then thrust out a hand and said, words all coming out in a rush, "Mister Thandov wants to talk to you."
Scott accepted the proffered object and took a close look at it. It was a metal sphere, and its only real distinguishing characteristics were the handprint on one side and the crack on the other. Inside, there were some sort of electronics, but Scott couldn't really see into it enough to have any idea what he was looking at.
It was a complete accident when he activated the thing; he'd been turning it over in his hands when he just happened to put his hand in the print. A voice entered his head, and though it was a bit tinny, he still recognized it.
"Good, you figured it out," his own voice said. "Well, not figured it out, but whatever. We can talk now, that's what matters."
Scott looked from the little girl to Carter to the rest of the kids. None of them seemed to have heard anything.
"Yeah, a neural link's my best guess as well."
Scott formulated a reply and thought it at the device. So... what exactly am I holding here?
There was silence for a few seconds, then, "Oh, right, I forgot about that. You still have to actually talk, it doesn't pick up your thoughts or anything."
"Oh, gotcha. So what exactly is this thing?" (He gave Carter a 'sorry I look insane, I'll explain in a moment' look. Carter rolled his eyes. The little girl, for her part, didn't seem to think anything was up.)
"Best I can tell, it's some sort of inter-universal communications device. I'm actually a fair ways ahead of you, one round ahead. It's in another universe and apparently, these two times line up so that we can communicate."
Had Scott not lived with loads of miniature time-loops as a part of his typical day, he might've done two things: asked for information and assumed that he was safe until he experienced the other half of the conversation. As it was, however, he didn't bother with either. Knowing what was coming could easily change what it actually was, and he had no reason to believe that his future self hadn't survived by the skin of his teeth.
Instead, he just asked, "There anything I need to know?"
"Yeah. The imprisoned 'something' Zaire mentioned? It's got a tendency to twist peoples' minds, but the jungle you just came from has enough metal pipes and stuff that whatever energy it uses can't penetrate it. Other groups of kids, they're twisted and nuts and you need to be careful, but these ones in front of you live in the jungle, so they're clean. They're as close to normal kids as you can get, considering they're shipped here as food."
"They're what?!"
"Crap, right, you haven't talked to Carter yet- that's that guy's name, by the way. He'll fill you in on what's going on in more detail. For now, just get the kids back into the jungle, then... well, you'll figure it out from there. I've got to go; keep your head on straight!"
Scott rounded on the pilot and gestured at the ship. Before he could even get out a word, Carter raised his hands and said, "Look, it's not my choice, alright? I just fly the thing, and if I don't they feed my kids to this place."
"Feed? Let me get this straight- the local 'they' feeds kids to the whatever-it-is inside this place?!"
Carter frowned at Scott. "You sure you didn't hit your head? Everyone knows that, it's... Well, it's something everyone knows!"
"I'm not from around here," Scott half-explained. "I'm just, uh... passing through."
"...Sure. Well, assuming you're not a concussed hallucination, let me fill you in: There was this big, godlike creature roaming through space, and it would just descend on colonies, drive everyone mad, then move on once they'd all died. After this happened a dozen or so times, scientists figured out that it actually ate sanity.
"Now, knowing that didn't exactly help, as there still wasn't anything anyone could do about it- the military detonated a bomb inside the thing, and it just kept on going. By the time the idea of trapping it came up, it'd killed thousands of people, and everyone was desperate.
"This planet was constructed in two halves, and a shipload of kids was suspended inside."
"Why kids?", Scott interrupted.
"They always lasted the longest when the thing came by. Scientists guessed they had the least weighing on them, so it had more sanity and stability to eat or something." He shuddered. Like everyone else, he'd just done his best to ignore the blatantly terrible things that they as a race had to do to survive. Actually talking about it and looking at it from the outside... it wasn't pleasant.
Scott finished the story for him. He couldn't really be mad at the guy anymore; it wasn't his fault the only solution was so terrible. "So you trapped it with kids, and you're keeping it from leaving by feeding it more kids every now and then."
"Yeah, basically. I'm stuck shipping the poor kids here thanks to my grades, and even though they're the ones deemed 'troublesome' or 'inadequate', I still feel like- What are you doing?"
What Scott was doing was holding the sphere in one hand and trying to plug a cord into something inside his shirt with the other, completely ignoring Carter. A moment later, there was a small click, and he pulled a little rectangular device out of his cape and tapped it once. One side of it lit up, the whole thing one big screen, and a progress bar practically flew across it. When it was done, a face popped up on the display.
The man being displayed was a bit scruffy-looking, his hair not really kept up and his beard in need of a trim, but Scott would've recognized him anywhere. Take ten or fifteen years off of him and shave him clean and you'd have one of the people Scott had studied the works of for most of his life.
"Wait, you can't be serious," Scott said, addressing the ball in his right hand. "Will freaking Haven?"
At the same time as Will said, "That's me, yes," the future Scott (who had called his past self on the sphere and told him how to transfer him from the ball to the device that he'd revealed to be a touchscreen data storage device) said, "I know, right? Anyway, talk to him, not me, I have to go. Good luck!"
Will narrowed his eyes and spoke before Scott could continue. "Wait, I know you. You're Scott Williams, aren't you?"
The kids beat him to it.
Scott had sighted them a few minutes prior- if he'd been an anthropologist and they'd been adults (and the jungle gym jungle had just been a regular jungle), he'd've called them a native tribe. Instead, he'd just called them "holy crap," sheltered himself as they practically swarmed out of the mesh of pipes and plastic behind him and back into the mostly-indistinguishable maze before him, then called them a few other rude things and carried on.
By the time he reached the crashed shuttle he'd been heading for, they were already swarming around it and crying about the burns on their fingers. Well, and the cuts from the sheared metal. And being scared by the dead man in the front.
Scott wasn't a big fan of kids. They cried a lot.
And of course, the moment a pair of them saw him, they rushed over and buried their faces in his shirt and started wailing incoherently to him. The rest soon followed, and he quickly found himself in the middle of a throng of wailing children. This one had hurt itself, that one was scared...
It took a few minutes and more than a bit of patience on Scott's part, but the gaggle of kids slowly began to disperse. It was actually easier than he'd expected- sometimes all it took was saying "It'll be alright" or some such and they'd brighten up and go back to looking around. There were still a few persistent hangers-on, but by and large, they'd calmed down.
Then the pilot had to go and wake up, and suddenly they were all freaked out again. Scott shoved his way through the throng that did its best to latch onto him for dear life, and by the time he made it to the shuttle, the pilot was starting to unbuckle himself. When he saw Scott coming towards him, ridiculous cape flowing behind him, he blinked and touched a hand to his forehead, searching for gashes.
"That's a shame," he said once Scott was close enough.
It was Scott's turn to blink and be confused. "What is?"
"I thought I'd just blacked out," Carter explained. "But if I'm hallucinating, then there's got to be something more serious going on."
"Oh, no, you're not, uh..." Scott gestured vaguely at his outfit. "It's... a long story."
Carter wasn't convinced. Nevertheless, he accepted Scott's help in getting him unbuckled and out of the shuttle's cockpit, and he was just getting his bearings when one of the kids, a little girl hiding something behind her back, came up to the pair.
"Mister Scott?" She didn't look at either one of them in particular when she asked- her eyes moved back and forth and she clearly wasn't sure this was such a good idea after all.
Scott frowned at her. "How do you know my name?"
She looked sheepishly down, didn't answer for a second, then thrust out a hand and said, words all coming out in a rush, "Mister Thandov wants to talk to you."
Scott accepted the proffered object and took a close look at it. It was a metal sphere, and its only real distinguishing characteristics were the handprint on one side and the crack on the other. Inside, there were some sort of electronics, but Scott couldn't really see into it enough to have any idea what he was looking at.
It was a complete accident when he activated the thing; he'd been turning it over in his hands when he just happened to put his hand in the print. A voice entered his head, and though it was a bit tinny, he still recognized it.
"Good, you figured it out," his own voice said. "Well, not figured it out, but whatever. We can talk now, that's what matters."
Scott looked from the little girl to Carter to the rest of the kids. None of them seemed to have heard anything.
"Yeah, a neural link's my best guess as well."
Scott formulated a reply and thought it at the device. So... what exactly am I holding here?
There was silence for a few seconds, then, "Oh, right, I forgot about that. You still have to actually talk, it doesn't pick up your thoughts or anything."
"Oh, gotcha. So what exactly is this thing?" (He gave Carter a 'sorry I look insane, I'll explain in a moment' look. Carter rolled his eyes. The little girl, for her part, didn't seem to think anything was up.)
"Best I can tell, it's some sort of inter-universal communications device. I'm actually a fair ways ahead of you, one round ahead. It's in another universe and apparently, these two times line up so that we can communicate."
Had Scott not lived with loads of miniature time-loops as a part of his typical day, he might've done two things: asked for information and assumed that he was safe until he experienced the other half of the conversation. As it was, however, he didn't bother with either. Knowing what was coming could easily change what it actually was, and he had no reason to believe that his future self hadn't survived by the skin of his teeth.
Instead, he just asked, "There anything I need to know?"
"Yeah. The imprisoned 'something' Zaire mentioned? It's got a tendency to twist peoples' minds, but the jungle you just came from has enough metal pipes and stuff that whatever energy it uses can't penetrate it. Other groups of kids, they're twisted and nuts and you need to be careful, but these ones in front of you live in the jungle, so they're clean. They're as close to normal kids as you can get, considering they're shipped here as food."
"They're what?!"
"Crap, right, you haven't talked to Carter yet- that's that guy's name, by the way. He'll fill you in on what's going on in more detail. For now, just get the kids back into the jungle, then... well, you'll figure it out from there. I've got to go; keep your head on straight!"
Scott rounded on the pilot and gestured at the ship. Before he could even get out a word, Carter raised his hands and said, "Look, it's not my choice, alright? I just fly the thing, and if I don't they feed my kids to this place."
"Feed? Let me get this straight- the local 'they' feeds kids to the whatever-it-is inside this place?!"
Carter frowned at Scott. "You sure you didn't hit your head? Everyone knows that, it's... Well, it's something everyone knows!"
"I'm not from around here," Scott half-explained. "I'm just, uh... passing through."
"...Sure. Well, assuming you're not a concussed hallucination, let me fill you in: There was this big, godlike creature roaming through space, and it would just descend on colonies, drive everyone mad, then move on once they'd all died. After this happened a dozen or so times, scientists figured out that it actually ate sanity.
"Now, knowing that didn't exactly help, as there still wasn't anything anyone could do about it- the military detonated a bomb inside the thing, and it just kept on going. By the time the idea of trapping it came up, it'd killed thousands of people, and everyone was desperate.
"This planet was constructed in two halves, and a shipload of kids was suspended inside."
"Why kids?", Scott interrupted.
"They always lasted the longest when the thing came by. Scientists guessed they had the least weighing on them, so it had more sanity and stability to eat or something." He shuddered. Like everyone else, he'd just done his best to ignore the blatantly terrible things that they as a race had to do to survive. Actually talking about it and looking at it from the outside... it wasn't pleasant.
Scott finished the story for him. He couldn't really be mad at the guy anymore; it wasn't his fault the only solution was so terrible. "So you trapped it with kids, and you're keeping it from leaving by feeding it more kids every now and then."
"Yeah, basically. I'm stuck shipping the poor kids here thanks to my grades, and even though they're the ones deemed 'troublesome' or 'inadequate', I still feel like- What are you doing?"
What Scott was doing was holding the sphere in one hand and trying to plug a cord into something inside his shirt with the other, completely ignoring Carter. A moment later, there was a small click, and he pulled a little rectangular device out of his cape and tapped it once. One side of it lit up, the whole thing one big screen, and a progress bar practically flew across it. When it was done, a face popped up on the display.
The man being displayed was a bit scruffy-looking, his hair not really kept up and his beard in need of a trim, but Scott would've recognized him anywhere. Take ten or fifteen years off of him and shave him clean and you'd have one of the people Scott had studied the works of for most of his life.
"Wait, you can't be serious," Scott said, addressing the ball in his right hand. "Will freaking Haven?"
At the same time as Will said, "That's me, yes," the future Scott (who had called his past self on the sphere and told him how to transfer him from the ball to the device that he'd revealed to be a touchscreen data storage device) said, "I know, right? Anyway, talk to him, not me, I have to go. Good luck!"
Will narrowed his eyes and spoke before Scott could continue. "Wait, I know you. You're Scott Williams, aren't you?"
Spoiler