IC contact for lastvoyages

[cactusy]

[If I don't have an active post up, feel free to use this post to have your character call, videochat, text, or knock on Shaw's door.]

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[cactusy]

"You really wanna know?" she says. "It's a lot."

[conning]

“I want to know.” His definition of a lot has changed significantly in the past nine-ish months.

[cactusy]

"Besides the obvious."

It's not really a question. Shaw sighs, her eyelashes scraping against the table as she opens her eyes and stares at the cheap laminated wood millimeters from her face.

"I spent a while back home never knowing whether or not what I was experiencing was real," she says, her voice too calm and collected for the subject matter. "I was in the hands of people who were invested in keeping me thinking that way. And every time I start to feel like I have a handle on it here, something happens to make me think that there's no way this place could be anything but fake. So I figure either I never escaped at all and I'm still strapped to a bed in a lab, where I've been for who-knows-how-long. Or I did escape, and everything that happened after was real, but then they grabbed me again. Or maybe nothing is real. Maybe my whole life as I remember it is a construct."

She doesn't think this is likely - but sometimes, in her darkest moments, the possibility comes to her anyway. She remembers what Lambert had told her once: After seven thousand simulations, it's only logical that some of your old memories have been replaced by new ones. You're not sure of anything anymore, are you?

She swallows hard, but the tenor of her voice doesn't change.

"I spent a week feeling sometimes relaxed, and sometimes exhilarated - good and bad exhilaration. But now I'm back to being tired, and feeling like there's an empty pit inside me. The bugs disappeared, and it all came back to me in a rush." She pauses, and remembering her conversation with Sheehan, decides to take a stab at assigning emotion-based words to the experience: something that makes less sense to her, but that she assumes will make more sense to Neal. "I'm really sad. I guess."

[conning]

He wishes a hug would make a difference. He wishes the things he knows best how to do would reach that hollow place he’s become too familiar with himself, but he also is speechless with the horror of what she’s saying. It’s not pity, not at all. Shock, yes, and fury definitely.

There’s no platitude or expletive he can think of that touches what he wants to convey.

So he keeps his voice soft and teasing instead, with an undercurrent of gentleness. “I mean, do you really think the people that took you are this creative? Please.”

[cactusy]

She shrugs a shoulder, her upper arm scraping lightly against the tables edge, and still doesn't lift her head.

"Honestly? You'd be surprised. It's, uh... it's an artificial intelligence thing. Unlimited imagery to work with."

[conning]

He winces. "Oof. Artificial intelligence. I don't suppose there's any artificial empathy worked in there?"

[cactusy]

"Not in this one."

It's kind of their biggest problem at the moment.