[mingle] the space (january).

[fracturamods]

interim mingle

( WELCOME BACK, TRAVELERS. )

There's nothing but the clatter of train tracks, and the odd feeling of almost floating.

When you wake, it's hard to tell exactly what it is that you're missing - only that you are. There are pieces that aren't quite right, even if you're not sure where those pieces would normally be. Pieces of what, exactly....? Well, if you had to put a word to it, it would be - yourself, probably. Or did you get something back recently?

The place you've found yourself in is strange, certainly. It's probably worth exploring a bit. Though it just as easily seems that the only form of welcome or explanation that you have, comes from nothing more than a slab of marble. It might've changed since the last time you saw it.

You might have changed since the last time you saw yourself too - perhaps with a new emblem on your clothes, or a portrait on your skin.

There's no need to fret that much though. You've already gone through the ordeal once, and you might be able to see results from it. Even so, it's best that you don't get too comfortable, because there is still the unshakeable feeling:

There's still much more ahead of you.

Comments

[decryptic]

... Huh.

[ He doesn't know what else he say to that. He doesn't get the sense that Chuuya is yanking his leg, so 9S can only assume it's true, but... what the heck. This will probably be on his mind for some time to come.

What would 2B say? Something like: "Does it matter?" ... And he would have to admit that it probably doesn't. Not as much as the fact that Chuuya seems to be sitting on nothing but air -- though technology that might allow it isn't unheard of... ]

Well... going back to the humans of my time, they were hit with something called White Chlorination Syndrome. It was a global epidemic -- apparently uncurable. The disease itself was incomprehensible. Humanity was never able to develop any real countermeasure for it. As far as I know, they weren't even sure what its transmission method was.

[doublesmall]

...so they all got wiped out without really knowing what hit them, huh?

[He frowns deeply at that, considering. Guess we've gotten kind of close to that before, he thinks briefly, but it wasn't really the same-- they at least had an idea what was going on, the multiple times the city/world/etc have been at risk.]

And not even knowing how it transmitted meant no avoiding it, I'm guessing. [...] How long did it take?

[decryptic]

That's a stickier question to answer. Mankind tried to dodge White Chlorination Syndrome with something called Project Gestalt. It entailed the separation of their souls from their bodies in order to halt the effects of the disease. In theory, they were going to put humanity on hold until they could figure out a cure. Once they did that, they would just pop everyone's souls back into their bodies.

To make a long story slightly shorter, it didn't go so well. Mankind hung on for at least another thousand years, but in the end, they didn't make it. Records from around that time are close to nil, probably because society was on its way to collapse.

[ Though he wouldn't be surprised if those records were also deliberately being hidden. It's not the kind of thing that boosts android morale. ]

[doublesmall]

They what?

[That got very wild very fast, damn. He's used to a certain level of fuckery with souls, after his own experiences, but outright separating them from people's bodies... that's pretty drastic.]

Hanging on for that long is still pretty impressive, considering, but... if they went and did that, then what happened to their souls? Just forever in storage, or did they die too, or what?

[decryptic]

There were mentions of "relapse at an accelerated rate" in the last report I could find. It seems like there was also an effort to collect DNA and record the bodies of the remaining souls, but progress was poor. Beyond that, I couldn't tell you. It's been over 8000 years since then.

[ 9S shakes his head. ]

Sorry. Like I said, it isn't the happiest story.