middleofsomewhere | The Endless River

The Endless River

On the morning of day twenty one of the month of Kazoo there is a message on the ICP screens around the train. Their SCA's will light up the colour of the Void and show the following information.

World #398050 is a void nexus known locally as Tshering. As a void nexus this world has strong links with the void and the connection through worlds. World #398050 is home to the Endless River. Legends speak of this river being powerful enough to send thoughts from one heart to another across any distance. All that is needed is for you to know who it is you wish to reach.

On-board

The dressing carriage is open, filled with clothing best suited to a pleasant spring day. Light, airy and in a rainbow of joyful colours and florals. One closet is entirely filled with wide-brimmed hats bedecked with ribbons, feathers and ornaments. A stack of picnic baskets and containers filled with an alarming variety of passenger-suitable foodstuffs and flasked drinks sits in one corner, next to rolls of thick, weatherproof blankets in the four team colours.

The large box marked Do Not Use Yet, filled with small, empty jute bags, is hopefully still sat in the Luggage carriage, ready for passengers to grab handfuls of its contents as directed by the announcement.

Upon landing (after an appropriate countdown), the train remains on the surface, its carriages partially curved to form a gathering site for the day. Welcome to Tshering, the eighth void nexus!

A Day for Picnics

Tshering, system #398050, is a strange place, only habitable by grace of the passengers' SCAs. The sky is shot through with colours, a cascade of sunsets, and through it, the void shimmering through it in seams like a child's painting of the milky way. Still, there's a beauty to the chaotic mash of colours that soaks through its landscape, and in the shelter of the forests of towering funghi that dot its surface, the Void can go unseen by its visitors.

The temperature seems mild, suitable for the provided clothing, and if there are weather patterns around the world they've taken the day off. The funghi are sturdy enough that what air flow there is doesn't disturb their stalks, and carved grooves and holds in some of the larger examples indicate that climbing them to sit atop their glowing crowns is eminently possible, and, in fact, encouraged.

the Endless River

The Endless River is a font of pure chaos, flowing from a multitude of small rivulets across the area to a central reservoir, from which it pours directly upwards, away from Tshering's surface and out of sight, beyond the world's atmosphere.

Anything bagged and placed within the Endless River will also flow upwards and soon be out of sight, passing, presumably, into the Void. Scattered across the surface of Tshering are small, glittering pebbles, as described in the announcement.

The stones are pleasantly cool to the touch, and all passengers need to do is feel. Messages can be in any form that the Voidtreckers wish. Perhaps words, perhaps feelings, perhaps an image from their mind into the stone. Perhaps a mixture. Once they begin their message the stone will glow slightly and continue to glow as they secure it in the bag and cast it into the river. They will feel, almost instinctively, that they need to focus as they do so, thinking of the person they wish to reach all the while.

There are plenty of bags and many more stones; passengers will not be limited in their sendings.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"I'll do my best." It's a weak smile. "Unfortunately, my story's Morgan's story for most of it, and Morgan was involved in this shit at all levels. It's the fact that he understands it and regrets it that makes him a better person than he was in the three years he lost."

The current Morgan is definitely an improvement, if you ask anyone but Alex. That's the problem.

"But so in October 2034, Morgan gets his memories pulled out in the sake of making himself a guinea pig to see if neuromods based on Typhon are a thing that can be done, to see if humans can get powers like this." He levitates his sandwich, spins it in the air, and drops it back onto his knee. "Entrusts his brother, Alex, with basically the sanctity of his mind."

Soldat can probably see where that's going, see why it's nine in ten worse than you think.

"The thing is that doing shit to your brain like that - cycling neuromods that much, putting that much alien matter in, all of the above - it causes personality drift. Makes you paranoid, but also makes you more inclined to empathy in the real 'understand what you're doing to other people is fucked up' way. Makes people blander, too, depending on exactly what's going in and out." He shakes his head. "I've got my thoughts as to why, but that's not the important part. The important part is that starting around December, Morgan decided he wanted out. Wanted the whole thing shut down, actually. Alex... wasn't a fan. Couldn't get it in his head that the 'new' Morgan was still the 'real' Morgan. I'm not sure he has even now, honestly."

He's maybe going the long way around it, but given how badly Soldat reacted at first... "So, in late January sometime, Alex tells everyone on the station that Morgan got shipped back to Earth. And Morgan started living that Monday, March 15th over and over until the Typhon broke containment right in front of his nose - literally, the first casualty was one of the scientists administering the Typhon mod tests. It's not a fun way to die."

Yeah, it's about on par with where their brain would've gone. They can keep their reaction to a nod and some grim feelings-- if this weren't in the past, and weren't clearly something Morgan was already free of if he was making alien hybrids named Ghost, they might be angrier about it all. And they're a little angry, as it is.

"No, doesn't seem like it. Given what you can do. He got out?"

"Oh, I'd way rather be killed by a Phantom than a mimic." Anyway, not the point.

"He 'got out' into the middle of a situation with killer aliens everywhere, his own failsafe robot telling him to blow up the station and everyone on it, Alex gaslighting the shit out of him, survivors hunkered down in whatever corners they could find, a dying ex-girlfriend he couldn't even remember, and oh yeah, his corporate bastard father sent a guy with your kind of skillset in to kill everyone so they could write the whole station off as a loss." Beat. "And he did specify everyone. Morgan's family does not have a genetic predisposition towards being decent people."

He sighs heavily.

"And that's kind of where it breaks apart, a little bit. Because what I went through was a simulation based on Morgan's experiences, but it wasn't designed to just be like, a movie. Morgan saved ... Well, everyone it was possible to save, I think, bundled everyone on an overcrowded shuttle and escaped just before the reactor blew. I'm not that good - not at saving people, at thinking ahead, at whatever measures the whole simulation was set up to measure. No perfect scores here." Ghost shakes his head, closes his eyes briefly. "Some of that shit I'm not proud of."

Not like Morgan's any better - but when you're friends with someone you remember shooting in cold blood, because you just didn't really get it at the time, it weighs on you. "After the simulation, I woke up to... Well, a lot of discussion of my performance like I wasn't even there, and certainly wasn't a person yet in their eyes."

Would you let it live?

"The whole thing was set up to measure just how human I was - how much empathy I had, meaning 'is the alien a decent fucking person?' ...Good enough for them at the time, obviously. But they didn't really break the 'you're not actually Morgan' thing gently."

With more pieces to the story, and remembering the time Morgan said they came from, and the date this was really happening... Soldat might manage to get a little mad again. They keep it locked down, letting the Asset mutter with it far in the back of their shared brain where hopefully even Ghost can't hear it, but it's still there.

"They put a baby. From a brand new species. Through a situation he couldn't hope to complete perfectly without actual training and understanding of what was happening. And then blamed him for not getting a perfect score?" they ask slowly. They're not even going to tackle Ghost blaming himself for not succeeding. That cuts way too close to things they don't think about ever, if they can help it.

It's HYDRA but fucking worse. At least they trained their Asset first. Gave it the Words to give it purpose when the Chair took everything else away. Gave it missions with briefings and orders.

Ghost looks... a little surprised, maybe, at the vehemence.

"Nobody blames me but myself. It... might be easier if they did. I'd have a better idea what to do with that, or even just distrust, than someone I remember shooting in the face just having faith that I was a good person."

He really doesn't know what to do with that one. A sigh, and Ghost picks up his sandwich and takes a bite out of it as an excuse to delay, to wrestle with his thoughts, even though he doesn't need his mouth to talk. It still creates an excuse to pause.

"But when you look like the guy who saved everybody, sound like the guy who saved everybody, and generally act like the guy who saved everybody's lives before fucking off because he couldn't handle being in the same survivor hideaway with the brother that fucked him around like that and all the rest of his issues? People are going to fucking compare."

They take the break to have a bite of one of their only-slightly-crushed cookies, going with comfort flavor over healthy lunch, given this conversation. At least now they're pretty sure they're settled enough that it's not going to come back up.

Then the conversation resumes, and, well, if you were looking for a neat distraction from grousing about the people who made Ghost, that was a good one. They freeze for a beat, blinking, then hunch their shoulders just a little bit. "Yeah. Yeah, they really would, wouldn't they." Because they haven't run into almost that exact situation twice already today, themselves? "For what it's worth, I still think you're a good person. And I don't really care about Morgan."

Ghost snorts. "Well, I can honestly say you're the first person to say that last part. It's weird as hell not having the constant comparisons. They don't even have to say it and I can tell they're doing it. You know, the ones who don't think I'm a ticking time bomb of alien murder."

That's just kind of a fact of life for him.

He's stealing a chunk of one of your cookies with telekinesis, Soldat, don't mind him. It's 'munch shit until you settle' time now.

All of which is familiar. From remembering shooting someone who insists you're their friend, to knowing people around them are comparing them to someone else, to knowing some people fully expect them to explode into violence at any moment. Jesus fucking Christ.

They finish their cookie, and nudge the bag of the rest of them closer to Ghost, if he wants more. Look they offered those cookies to him earlier. He is absolutely allowed to eat some of them.

"There was another version of me on this train before me," they say quietly, after a moment. "From some universe that's not quite mine. There's a bunch of people here who. Knew him. And Steve. He knows the. Person. I used to be. A long time ago. More than I do, even."

Don't worry, he'll definitely be taking more, he's just balancing sweet cookie with somewhat less sweet sandwich, going back and forth between the two. Variety better suits his stimulation needs.

"Before Russia?" Ghost guesses, reasonably confident in it.

"Before Russia." They consider their poor, half-squished sandwich, but don't pick it up again yet. "HYDRA took my memories. Burned them out before and after every mission. When I died, I had twelve hours' worth, all of it mission or mission prep. Things have been coming back, but it's slow. In pieces. Not always with context. I'm guessing, from cross-referencing nightmares with flashbacks, that I've got about sixty actual memories. Less than half of those are from before HYDRA."

Ghost considers that, and after a moment says, "One, that's fucked. Two, fucking up just your episodic memory while leaving your procedural intact is ahead of your arm on the neuroscience technology pre-turn-of-the-millennia Russia shouldn't have scale." He assumes he doesn't have to explain exactly how he knows that, given how much he just explained about Morgan and poorly considered neuroscience. "Three, that's fucked. Worth restating."

"Targeted electrical charges. Here." They very carefully and very gently tap one temple with a flesh finger. "Probably only worked because I'm enhanced. My increased metabolism and healing factor. That's probably the only reason it didn't kill me, actually." They breathe out slow. "And I know. It's pretty fucked. That's not even all of it, that's just the part that means I think I might know how you feel. About being compared to someone else. I'm not. I'm not Steve's friend anymore, I only have a handful of memories about him. But he sees him when he sees me. Even though I tried to kill him."

And the whole "other version of them" problem, of course, but that's not related to HYDRA's fuckery, at least. That's just multiverse shit.

That... really shouldn't have worked, at least not so specifically and effectively without other lasting damage. (At least, further damage other than the general trauma and the split. Soldat seems to have pretty good reasoning, doesn't have issue with the formation of new memories, and their motor control's fine.)

Ghost lets out a low exhale that comes just on the edge of becoming a whistle. "Yeah, that would do it," he says. "Shit. Well, if you ever need someone to run interference, let me know. Fuck knows I was grateful when Mikhaila and Danielle got between me and Alex being the way he is about it."

"I'm not sure if I need it or not." Steve might be comparing, but he's clearly not liking what he's seeing, given how much he's been avoiding them. And everyone else has... admittedly done a pretty good job of acting like they aren't the same as whoever was here before. "But I appreciate the thought."

They go for another broken cookie piece. "HYDRA used me as their personal assassin for. I'm not sure how long. Decades. Maybe seventy years. When I wasn't on a mission or in training or being punished, I was in cryofreeze." They consider the cookie a moment, and whether to share the worst part. No one here knows it. Maybe not even Steve. ... It's probably safer not to share. Even if they like Ghost, even if he can be trusted, the fewer people know there's Words that terrify them, the better. Instead, they say, "I don't even remember anymore how many people I killed."

Ghost feels that flutter of consideration, but doesn't push. Everyone's entitled to a few secrets, after all, and he's hardly told all of his story, either.

Instead, he says, "I don't think it really matters how long it actually was so much as 'how long it felt like,' and the answer to that sounds like your entire life." Because, you know, that's what happens when you don't have any memories from Before.

Ghost fidgets, pulling a bottle of water out of the picnic basket and looking at his knees for a minute, before saying, "What matters is how you treat the people that are still alive. First piece of real advice someone gave 'me,' and it seems only fair to pass it along. It's the choices you make going forward that matter."

They smile a bit and look down. "Yeah, I know. I do. I've said something like that to half a dozen people, myself. That what mattered was what they did, going forward, not what they used to do. Trying to be better." They sigh a bit, pop the cookie in their mouth, and since their mouth is full, Sarge says for them, (We're workin' on it. The being better part. And this idiot is still workin' on accepting it.) And the Asset, being an ass, adds helpfully, (Reprogramming.) Soldat rolls their eyes at the both of them.

"So it's just the putting the practice in what you preach that's hard, huh?" Oh, the amusement is clear there. The fact that the rest of their brain is ganging up on them is, in fact, fairly hilarious. "Well, if my opinion counts for anything, you're doing pretty well. Reality of the bystander effect and all - most people don't reach out so consistently."

Get used to it, Ghost. The rest of their brain gangs up on them pretty regularly.

Looking vaguely embarrassed by the praise, Soldat says, "That's the easy part. I like people. I like helping." They frankly measure their worth by how much they do for people. How useful they are.

"People are easy to like when they're not being assholes," Ghost agrees. He's an extrovert, he also likes people, when he has the bandwidth to deal with the way they bonk up against his senses. "But most of them still wouldn't stick themselves out for a stranger. Take the damn compliment."

Extrovert with sensory issues solidarity, man. Soldat loves being around people, but hates to be looked at, afraid of too much interaction, too much touch. Different sensory issues, maybe, but still there.

They smile a little and hold up both hands peaceably. "Okay, okay. Thank you. I'm still not really used to being complimented." Their hands come back down, clasping over their knees. "Best I'd get, really, was the occasional 'good work'. I was their weapon. Weapons don't need encouragement, yeah?"

Different but adjacent, considering that they're not exactly the normal sensory issues people get from crowds. (Soldat would probably love the lost in a crowd feeling, so long as no one bumped into them.)

"I realize it's not possible to get less impressed with them, but they can still get fucked," Ghost says, voice at a lower volume that qualifies as muttering. The expression on his face definitely makes it a mutter, but he turns to something more teasing afterwards. "You'll take my positive reinforcement and like it just like everyone else."

If they were sitting closer, there might have been a playful elbow shove there.

"Yes, sir," Soldat says dryly, and follows it up with a sloppy-ass salute, just because they can.

It seems too nice a moment to ruin with more horror stories. So they finally collect the smooshed sandwich and decide not to go into the rest. That edges into having to talk about the Words, anyway. "Anyway, I'm free now, and I'm pretty sure I'm never going to have to go back. The train has said she won't send people back to places they were in danger." Which is fine. Unless they could go back to the moment of their death, to the exact place of it, to try and save Steve... they've got no desire to go back to that world.

It's a lot for either of them, and Ghost doesn't see any harm in letting it just. Simmer in the back of his mind to deal with for a little while. Information overload is a thing aliens get, too.

"That's good," he says. "Going to stick around the train forever, then? It doesn't seem like it would be that bad if it's something you personally chose instead of getting voluntold."

And on that note, Ghost will take another chunk of broken cookie before turning back to his own sandwich.

"Well. If I knew whether Beacon was still there... if my people there are okay. Maybe I'd like to go back there," Soldat says with a little shrug. Have they told Ghost about Beacon yet? "That's the place I was before this. Where I got the lantern." They shift their shoulder, letting said lantern rattle a little against their shoulder. "If I'd come here to the train straight from dying, I'd have been a complete wreck. I've had twenty months, now, to learn how to act normal." They consider their now half-eaten sandwich, and finish, "But otherwise, yeah, I guess here is pretty much it."

"Under other circumstances, I probably wouldn't have minded so much," Ghost says. "It's definitely not boring, and that's the biggest thing I'd want to avoid." His brain just doesn't cope well with nothing to do and that's how we get Morgan-tier bad decisions.

He nods at Soldat's explanation, though. "There's a lot to be said for experience," Ghost says. "Not sure I'll ever be able to exactly pull it off, myself." Since, well, words and his mouth don't get along.

The Endless River

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