[ video ; open ]

[how_i_tease]

They said this isn't the end of the world. Sure had me fooled.

[ The image hovers strangely, like the device is floating in front of him as he lights up a cigarette. The man in the feed is scruffy and pale looking, with thick coke-bottle glasses. He runs a hand distractedly through dark, shaggy hair as his gaze flits to the side to take in the ruined city around him, peering this way and that. ]

Woke up to worse, though.

So any word yet on what that's supposed to be?

[ He turns the camera to point towards the domes in the distance. ]

Comments

[seesobserves]

[An incredulous chuckle.] Dull?

[But then he thinks about it.]

...Depends on the task. Pity if the only use they can find for us will be laying brick, only to have it bombed down again.

[how_i_tease]

Well, I don't mind doing grunt work, as long as it gets us somewhere.

What about you?

[seesobserves]

I'll do what I have to. [Though it's said through half-gritted teeth.]

[how_i_tease]

[ Tyki smirks faintly at that, almost looking sympathetic. ]

Don't we all.

[ He's done his fair share of 'what has to be done'. He's quick to drop that topic, though, tapping the end of his cigarette. ]

So what's your name?

[seesobserves]

[As he taps some ashes onto the ground:]

Sherlock Holmes.

[how_i_tease]

Tyki Mikk. Pleasure to make your acquaintance then...wait, you prefer Holmes or Sherlock?

[seesobserves]

Oh, we've been through an alien abduction together. I think that qualifies us for a first-name basis.

[how_i_tease]

[ And he laughs openly at that. ]

That what it is, then? Well, then I'd say so.

I'm still not sure what's going on. Though if this is some kind of trick, I don't know what more they'd have to gain from it. Maybe less people trying to escape.

[seesobserves]

Setup would be too elaborate and too difficult to hide. Someone would have had to have noticed either the ship or the dome via satellite.

[He looks up at the dome.]

Brave new world.

[how_i_tease]

[ Tyki follows his gaze, pensive for a moment. ]

With such people in it. That's how it went, isn't it? Truer words never spoken. There's an interesting collection of people coming off of that ship, from the look of it.

[seesobserves]

And most of them out of their minds. Although so far we seem to have avoided the criminally insane.

[how_i_tease]

I don't know about that. Desperate situations bring out the ugliness in people. It can change people.

[seesobserves]

[To reiterate:] So far.

Meanwhile the natives think we ought to know why we were on that ship. [Scoff.] I certainly didn't go voluntarily.

[how_i_tease]

It doesn't sound like anyone did. Well, there'd be no reason to tell us anything if they didn't need our permission.

[ He snorts softly. ]

Maybe it's...I don't know, some weird experiment. We're still all drugged up and imagining all this.

[seesobserves]

I'd call this an incredibly lucid hallucination.

[how_i_tease]

Compared to? Obviously you've tasted better stuff than I have.

[seesobserves]

[Have a Look, Tyki. 'Obviously?']

Who said I had?

[Which is only defensive if Tyki chooses to take it that way. Really, he's just curious how Tyki reached that conclusion.]

[how_i_tease]

You're saying you haven't?

[ Now he's teasing you, grinning around his cigarette and puffing a long trail of smoke. ]

Hey, does it look like I'm the judgmental type? You seem keen on the world, real intellectual type. Thinking outside the box. And most of the creative types I know have at the very least dabbled. Hell, if I knew as much as they did, I'd probably be on something too.

[seesobserves]

[Shrug. Fair enough.]

It is possible for a hallucination to be fully immersive, but the landscape here is too consistent. There's no distortion; everything sounds and smells and feels exactly as it should. Well - within a predictable scope.

And if this were drug-induced, there'd likely be an associated emotion, one that the user wouldn't have control over. Ecstasy, delirium, terror... Living inside an opium dream or an acid trip isn't the same as simply walking down the street. Everything becomes heightened. Brighter, sharper, hyper-real. This... this is only real.

[One last tiny puff, and his cigarette's down to a stub. Sherlock flicks it away into the dirt.]

[how_i_tease]

That's true.

[ Tyki's eyebrows lift, as though mildly impressed with the analysis. Or simply recognizing that he hadn't thought of that. ]

So bad dream's probably out then, too. So this is all real. Kidnapped, shipped off to some strange piece of rock like cargo, and not a clue how it happened or why.

[ Silently, he offers him another. ]

[seesobserves]

[Sherlock takes it, regards it, thinks about pocketing it... and lights up instead. The rationing can start after this one.]

We weren't just cargo. Each of our chambers was labeled with our name, and they wouldn't have gone to the trouble unless it mattered.

[how_i_tease]

So there's something about us, specifically, that they wanted?

[ He snorts quietly. ]

That's hard to believe. But it would make sense.

[seesobserves]

Otherwise, why bother? Why not give us organized designations, or leave off the labels entirely? If they'd wanted, they could've chosen any random assortment of people and stamped them with individual numbers. They chose us.

[how_i_tease]

It's a shame they can't just come out and tell us what for, make it easy or anything.

[seesobserves]

The crash could have been deliberate. We won't know for certain until we can access other parts of the ship.