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| Scene Title | Chapter 7, The 5th Dimension Part 9 |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | Kaylee was going to try a routine dive into Varlane's mind, and then shit hit the fan sideways. |
| Date | December 23, 2018 |
Today was supposed to be simple, a session between Varlane and Kaylee, trying to get more from his memory, to get more clues into what's going on in his head, what's happening in those other worlds.
He's sitting across the table from her staring at Chess pieces, something to relax and focus his mind while they talk. But before she can really get started, something happens.
His head raises, and he looks around, his expression entirely changing. He stands up, stares directly at her, and says, "Detective Bellamy? What's going on? Where are we?" He holds his head, looking confused, backing up. "Where's Ruia?"
He starts to pace, beginning to enter a panic. "No… she's gone. She, she's not coming back…"
"Where am I?" He looks very, very confused. "I can't… my mind isn't working right…"
The telepath knows only a little of chess, but unlike the rest of her siblings or most people in general… she is not very good at it. at. all. Though she tries her best, still Varlane has to remind her of this rule or that. In fact, she is huffing out another sigh of annoyance when something changes in the man in front of her.
Blue eyes snap up when man stands, she simply watches, and listens to him. “Magnes?” She asks, instead of the name he wants to be called. The fact he called her Detective Bellamy which get her attention and helps her maybe narrow down which world he is front. “My name is actually Kaylee Sumter and I’m not a detective, but… I have heard of her I think, though I heard she was Vice President?” She motions to the chair he just vacated. “Please sit, you are making me dizzy with all your pacing.” He really isn’t, but he doesn’t need to know that. She just wants him to relax.
“I heard I was married to another man in another reality,” Kaylee focuses her attention on the pieces, but she also is listening to him. Well, mostly listening to him. “So what is your world like? Pinehearst ring a bell?” Her tone is casual, like this was an everyday conversation.
"I don't… I don't understand what's happening." Varlane does manage to sit down, trying to hold eye contact, but he seems to have difficulty. "My memories aren't right, everything is so… it's so scrambled." He tries to listen to what she's asking, trying to ground himself in them. "Luther… are you two working things out? I'm, I can't remember…"
"Pinehearst, everything, the other me blew up, and then he came back to life, and…" He hunches over, holding his head. "They're gone now, and Ruia… she's… she…" Tears start to drop onto the chess board, he can barely keep it together.
There is a soft sigh as he starts losing the memories, luckily, the telepath is patient. “I imagine they did work it out. They got married and had a daughter.” Somethign twists something deep inside her as she says that. While she wears a mask here in this room, Kaylee is not fine herself, either.
When the first tear falls on the board, Kaylee stops midmove, to see the man in distress her expression softens. The piece is set down again, so that she can reach over to touch on the hands clutching his head. “Hey, it’s okay, Varlane. Think of your childhood home, the way it calms you.” Her voice continues to be calm, threaded through with power. “Who is gone? Who-” she hesitates for a moment, before asking, “Who is Ruia? Clearly she was special.”
"My childhood home?" Varlane asks, looking confused, but his mind is quickly taken to a different place when she asks about Ruia. "She… she had a difficult life, I think. She didn't like to talk about her past, but we were happy together. And then I think… I think she died because of Pinehearst…"
"It's almost Christmas, and… she's all I want…" He leans into her touch, still disoriented, but his pain is clearly laser focused. "Eileen's gone, Gabriel's gone, I don't know what happened. They just… they disappeared…"
He looks up into her eyes again. His lack of full awareness of his present surroundings aside, he has a bit more lucidity than normal as far as memories, even if they're a bit jumbled. "I think it involved the other me, I don't know, I don't know anything. They were my best friends, and now, now…"
He reaches up to touch her face. "You and Abby are my best friends now…"
His face suddenly goes blank, emotions calming like a switch, and he sits up. His back straightens, he takes a deep breath, and closes his eyes. "My surroundings are difficult, I'm back in the mind of one of my others. The Void has connected us again. My thoughts are in chaos, like a puzzle…"
Opening his eyes, he looks around. "I can't remember anyone's faces since losing my sight… I don't know where I am either, but… I know that I've crossed the 5th dimensional Void."
"Who are you?"
It was alway hard to see him in that state, more so to see that another him was in such a state. Kaylee hated to see him suffering, but there wasn’t anything she could do. A smile is offered when Magnes touches her face. There was some comfort of knowing that she might have been his friend in that world.
Before she can even really say anything though, Varlane’s demeanor changes in an alarming way. Straightening, the telepath watches with interest, especially, mentally. This was clearly someone new.
As he speaks, Kaylee stands and drags the chair around the table to be closer. Once she is settled she studies him. “You have,” she confirms about him crossing the Void. “I don’t think I have ever hear it called a void.” It was amazing how different each one was. Even though she might be only speaking to memories, she still addresses him like a person. “Your thoughts are jumbled, because the one you’re visiting…” Taking a deep breath against a flicker of anger, “Because he is a poorly made clone by your father. He’s… falling apart.” She can’t look at him when she says that. She feels guilty and helpless for not being able to help this one.
When he inquires who she is, the woman is polite enough to offer a hand and a small smile, “My name is Kaylee Sumter… Though if you know me in your world, it could have been Kaylee Thatcher.”
"I have difficulty processing everything that you're saying, but I understand some of it. Keeping this mind in a meditative state is the best way to discern what's going on around me, but it's like thinking through a chaotic storm." Varlane doesn't take her hand, he instead says, "It's easier if I don't move, this body is weak, and every movement makes this mind less stable."
He takes a deep breath, trying to sort through his mind. There's a clear delay in his response. "We are all clones. I and the other Void-Touched one, the Traveler, are the Aberrant, the one who lives. The Old One is the true Magnes, he's much older than you or I. He dies for us to be born, he lives where we never exist."
There's a silence again, and he adds, "I apologize for my lack of detail, this mind doesn't allow me to access certain paths."
"Kaylee." he repeats, and goes silent again. "The one who stayed, from the Virus world." He manages to stare at her for a few seconds, though his eyes seem to perpetually lose focus, and instead seem to stare through her. "You and the other off-worlders, and the Traveler, I should thank you for liberating our world."
"I apologize for not breaking my isolation sooner, I spend most of my time in meditation when I'm not needed."
Then he's silent again, though given that his demeanor hasn't broken, he's likely still there.
“I’m sorry it’s so hard to think through it,” she really is. “I haven’t found a way to help with that yet,” Kaylee admits sadly. Telepathy wasn’t a cure-all unfortunately.
As he describes the version of her in his world, there is a pained look as if she remembering something painful. A horrible memory that you’d rather not think of. It chips at the facade that everything is okay. “So you are from the war torn world.” She only knows it from a handful of visions. “Where she stayed for love.” Such a romantic notion really, but they were not there for her.
The descriptions of each one has brows lifting, but there is one thing that sticks out. “You mentioned being Void-touched and our Magnes,” Kaylee watches him, listens to the scattered pieces of thought. “What… what do you mean by that?”
"There are many ways to become Void-Touched, he and I came to it in different ways." Varlane explains, clearly unable to answer questions in an entirely straightforward way. "To become Void-Touched is to peer into the Void, to feel the connection between worlds, the connection between all things, and to hear its voice. The Void hungers, all things are consumed by it, all things return to it."
"Let me out, it says. Devour the world, devour the moon, devour the stars. You won't dream anymore. The Void is everything in between, but the Void is also thinking, it lives and breathes, its bright eyes burn into your mind." His even tone starts to break a bit as he continues, clearly losing his control.
"The Void speaks to others, but it never leaves us, it touches us, it stays and lingers, because we are all connected." His mind seems to finally calm again, and he says, "The Traveler is learning from the Old One. I taught him the contents of The Art of the Void, so perhaps he will learn how to silence it for all of us, or be consumed."
"We all have uncertain fates. Hermod of the Vanguard is dead, and none of us could have predicted that path."
Before he can say anything else, his eyes are wide, and he scrambles from his chair, looking around frantically. "Where the hell am I?! I'm fighting pirates, I don't have time for whatever this is! I have to protect Elaine!"
"God, what's wrong with my head…" He stares dead at Kaylee, looking ridiculously urgent. "Get me out of here, we're trying to get to the ARK and I have to negotiate with or kill a freaking ice pirate!"
It's not clear if he knows where he is, or even shows any curiosity for it. Everything in his mind seemed to be focused on returning to his task, but he seems to find some clarity. "Remi! I think this world's Kaylee is on one of these pirate ships! Get her out of my freaking head, she's a telepath!!!"
At the description of the void, there is a hiss of sound at the back of Kaylee’s mind, the darkness there sensing the twinge of fear and anxiety in her. The thing he is talking about, it sounds too familiar. Something like it spoke to her once, too. Her jaw clenches against mentioning it.
“Not sure any of you could have predicted anything, unless you are Eve,” Kaylee comments with a touch of amusement. “Much less than the death of another you.”
Again, Kaylee notices the shift and tenses in time for Magnes to scramble out of his chair. “Pirates?” What an odd thi- “Wait.” The telepath is on her feet suddenly and moving to grab his arms, she can’t stop the transfer of memories, but she can calm him, prompting him to relax with a mental nudge.
“Magnes!” It clicks who it is when he recognizes her and at the same time doesn’t. “Calm down, I’m not there. I’m in your world.” Her words are urgent and a touch of excitement. “Your world!” There are a flood of question that flood her mind. Then one question becomes more important than any other, “Is everyone okay?”
"My world?" Magnes tries to think clearly through the chaos of thoughts, looking around. He doesn't necessarily recognize where he is, but he looks down at her. "Kaylee! Fuck, why couldn't this have happened at a better time!"
He squeezes his eyes shut, because remaining coherent takes every ounce of mental power that he has, even while she's keeping him calm. "We're all being ambushed by pirates on the way to the ARK! This is what Edward predicted. Blood in the water, gunshots, screams, fire. He said the sea was dangerous, and this is it."
"Elisabeth is on a different ship, and I have to protect the people on mine, I have to get back!" But he's gradually losing coherence, squeezing his eyes together again. And then he raises his hands, gripping her shoulders. "You have to find my daughter! She's here, you have to find her!"
There is some relief when he recognizes her, that made things easier. “I can’t help you get back, something about the connection you have with Varlane. It is beyond my ability.” So he’s on his own with that. Kaylee sounds worried by his description of what is going on.
“We know about your girl.” Kaylee reassures him, “Varlane told us. We’re going to do our best, but I wish it was so simple as walking in and getting her. Eileen already killed Remi here and I know I have a target on my back, too.
Fingers bracket Magnes’ wrists, “Be very careful, Magnes. Dad isn’t always right about things. He can’t always predict an outcome. I know, I’ve seen him fail at it and been hurt by it. Just know, we will be ready to help you all through from this side,” Even though Kaylee thinks it is a bad idea, she also won’t let Richard face it alone if he is determined to see it through to the end. “But be prepared, I can’t guarantee Eileen or anyone else won’t be there to try and kill you all.”
"Remi… it's my fault… if I didn't help with Looking Glass…" Magnes closes his eyes, clear guilt washing over him. "No, I'll face all of this when I get back. I have to face what's happening right now! Munin said don't look back, so I won't!"
He starts to step back, pulling away from her, then reaches his hands out as if trying to grab something, but instead the building shakes for a moment. "What the hell? I can't bend space." He stares down at his hands. "This clone has a different ability than me!"
That's all he says before his face is suddenly shifts, and then Varlane's staring into Kaylee's eyes. "My head hurts. Can I go lay down?" he asks, as if all of that never happened.
The shake of the building startles Kaylee, her eyes shifts upward nervously as if expecting the roof to cave in. Holding up a hand to stall him, she says carefully, in warning, “He does-” She trails off as again the mental shift happens and she looks down in time to see Varlane staring blankly at her.
There is a soft smile for the clone, moving to take his elbow gently and guiding him to his bed. “Welcome back, Varlane,” she offers quietly. “I’m sorry to hear your head hurts, I’ll let them know and see if we can get you some aspirin to take the edge off.” Stepping back so that he can get situated she adds, “Maybe tomorrow we can play checkers instead, huh?”
"That would be nice." Varlane smiles, his tone exhausted, emotions completely spent.
He'll follow her back to his quarters, then sleep for a ridiculously long time.
Whatever just happened, he'll probably remain unaware.