realityshifted

A research facility. It used to be, at least. It-- [BLAH. HISTORY LESSONS, WRRYY.] How much have I told you about the Gates? Have I told you anything at all?

Very little.

Hold on a mo'.

[vanishes off the plane, returns with two glasses of wine---normally it would be tea, but he's having a bad day]

[Normally she wouldn't accept, either, but misery loves company that brings wine.]

[She settles down on the Plane.] This is going to sound a bit rehearsed, probably. [A sip of wine to clear her throat and head.] Ten--well, almost eleven years ago now, the Gates appeared on earth. Heaven's Gate in South America, Hell's Gate in Tokyo, Japan. They're realms of physical impossibility. Chaos. Where the 'rules' of the natural world as we know them are turned on their heads and then pulverized.

[Another sip.] They're the subject of constant rumor, study, and curiosity, and have been since they showed up. Simultaneous to the Gates' appearance, the real stars and the moon disappeared.

[She pauses there because, ahaha... he's probably going to have questions about that.]

Edited 2009-02-17 23:12 (UTC)

Universal rifts. [the Doctor thinks he understands this]

And then the stars went out.

[Oh Doctor. She shakes her head] No. They didn't go out. They were replaced. And the Gates... they aren't rifts. They're self-contained. Inside of them... I've seen stone flowers growing, monsters that DNA suggests were ordinary creatures once. Blocks of the city preserved as they were when the Gate spaces appeared and devoured them. Dead people walking, talking... corpses that should have rotted away years ago. The geography inside is always shifting. Nothing stays constant. They'll drive you insane--not just because they're strange. They'll make you insane.

[A shudder. She stares at the wine.] They'll turn your own body against you.

[finally notices the thinness of her body and the gray in her hair---he's observant like that]

What happened to you, Misaki?

[...doh. She uses another sip to buy time.] I'm in PANDORA. It's right next to the Gate. They're using it as a sort of headquarters.

[She closes her eyes.] I need your help, actually.

How? How can I help?

M.E. technology. It was an early discovery... it's memory manipulation, basically. It can fabricate whole personalities in its most advanced application. But it can be broken as well. They've been using it on me.

They've taken your memories? Given you false ones?

Blimey. You can't even get away from Plane-like experiments back on your own reality.

[A tired laugh] It's part of an interrogation technique that, I'm ashamed to say, originated in my department.

Why are they interrogating you? You work for them!

It's not... [She rubs her eyes with the heels of her palms] It's not anyone I work for. Everyone who operated PANDORA before this started is dead. They took over. I still don't even know what they're calling themselves.

[slow nod]

What do you want me to do?

I need your help sorting things out. [She taps the side of her head.] With everything they've tried-- [another attempt at a smile] It's getting a little crowded in there.

[the Doctor doesn't make a habit of this and the fact that she knows is enough to make him nervous---but then again, it is Misaki. She's a friend]

All right. Face me.

[She does, feeling nervous herself. She's only ever done this once, really, and that experience wasn't pleasant.]

[A deep breath.] Ready. I think.

[places his fingers against her temple and closes his eyes]

Just relax. Imagine your mind like a walkway. If there's anything you don't want me to see, just imagine a door and I won't look.

[She relaxes, at least. The latter bit is more difficult, seeing as she can't hardly tell what of her recent experience is fabricated and what isn't.

There are images of the wall surrounding the Gate--smooth, reflective, impossibly tall.

A smiling blond man smoking cigarettes that pour blood out of his mouth instead of smoke.

People in white masks with lightning bolts etched on their surfaces, cutting down the people around her with bolts of fire, ice, rubber bands that fly quicker than bullets, all surrounded by a faint blue glow.

And then come the implants; first the mirage of PANDORA, fully active outside of the room they closed her into, her father visiting her, the injection of medication for her heart--

Yeah, she slams the door on the bit about her heart for now. That's a worry for another time.

And now lunch with Kanami at by the mess hall window, looking out at the gray-green fog inside the Gate. Kanami asking questions she has no reason to ask, Kanami looking taller and thinner than she should, not Kanami at all.

Then the painful ones. She's back on the testing table after the first time she died, with scientists promising it won't hurt as much if she'll just talk to them. If she'll at least do that.

Hei. Pinned down, being tortured, answering them the only way to make it stop.

Sam in the same position.

The Doctor, this time with the Master standing over him and drawing a thin blade down the man's bare arm. And then the Doctor becomes Sam becomes Hei, and she can't really tell which is which any more.]

H... [A shudder, the suppressed urge to vomit.] How can you tell what's fake? If you're not me? [Wow, that phrasing sounded childish.]

Edited 2009-02-18 07:51 (UTC)

There's a subtle difference in the image. Emotions are skewed by an implant.

[goes to the one image with the Master, this one must be false]

It's like you're seeing it through a glass. Look.

[She doesn't WANT to look. But the plane, she reminds herself, is safe. Safer, at least. And she's not one to avoid confronting the disturbing, the distressing. It's a job. It's all part of her job.]

[That's how to think of this, too.]

[The first thing she notices is the lack of detail. Grotesque, maybe, but God or the Devil or whoever happens to be inhabiting the space today is in the details. It's like a moving image painted in broad strokes, even the blood seeming out of focus the more she tries to pin it down.

The faces are general, almost right, but really only close enough for her to attach familiar names.]

[No wonder it was hard to tell who was who after a while.]

[She places her hands over the Doctor's in a timid, relieved motion.]

Now, imagine a bin. This is going to be the bin where you can place all of the false memories.

[he helps her along with this, slowly creating a bin out of the floorboards in her mind's hallway]

[he gives a small smile to her relief. He likes knowing he can still help]

[She folds it away into the little imaginary bin, which is much easier now that she's taken the illusion apart herself. The images of Hei and Sam being tortured quickly follow, much to her comfort.]

[Herself on the exam table--that one is harder.]

[Much harder. She keeps her hands over his for the simple contact, shivering a little. This time she has her own details to draw on, her own memories twisted into the lie.]

[he can't help her choose what is and isn't real, but he can keep her strong. He places mental blankets over the parts of her that are in pain or afraid, trying to help ease them]

You can do it.

[he leans forward, pressing his forehead to hers]

[She nearly loses focus to panic, once, but the Doctor's mental reassurance gets her back on track. It's slow, surgical, removal of reality from the construct. Several times she's tempted to just scrap the whole thing, but it's her life, and she's not giving it up to the M.E.]

[It takes several minutes--an hour? Longer? she's not sure--to draw the facade away from the amorphous scene they implanted.]

[She drops it into the little bin and takes a massive mental step back. Free from that, the last ones are easy to distinguish. She gives the Doctor's hands a squeeze as the M.E. constructs fade.] Thank you.

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