[OPEN; VOICE]

[boygodofneuro]

[The sound pops a few times, the microphone getting jostled all over because the guy holding this communicator? Yeah, he's flipping out something fierce.]

No, no, no, this is so-- Oh man. Oh man. Every kind of not good, it's--

[Awkward, nervous chuckle.]

Help destroy the mainframe, get sucked into it. It's like living The Matrix except I'm not Neo and I--

This is one hell of a mental sock, I mean, wacky space ship, big fancy dome that screams perfect, idealized society free of worry and then all the little people trapped on the outside. Sounds like the premise to a summer blockbuster! Or a B movie on SyFy. But it's not. It's gotta be part of the illusion my brain cooked up to constantly keep the adrenaline running.

So, if I'm gonna believe Echo, Priya and Anthony about their reports on what this whole Attic thing is like, where's the constant conflict, the puzzle I keep looping through, never able to solve no matter which way I think about it...?

Oh, oh! Can I take a guess? Because it's a pretty good guess. I'm gonna keep walking down this quaint little path and I'm gonna find Boyd and his little buddy Clyde in Saunders holding Bennett hostage or something. Save the girl, they get on with the thoughtpocalypse. Let them kill Bennett again and bam! Loop stars all over again and never get to know if it saved the world because I just get to agonize over the choice again! And again! Oh man, that sounds like so much fun! Bundles-o-fun like none other! I just can't wait to feel--

I, ah, Yeah. Gonna shut up now, I think.

Comments

[most_feared]

I could probably follow you there. It's all the other people you're mentioning that's throwing me.

[voice]

[buckingauthority]

Hey, everyone has their niche. Unless yours is making up words like thoughtpocalypse.

[voice]

[boygodofneuro]

I've got plenty of niches cornered. Making up words and rambling run on sentences are just the tip of the iceberg of the complex entity that is Topher Brink.

[boygodofneuro]

People from where I came from, I guess.

[most_feared]

[That calls for being slightly less of a hardass.]

No one here you recognize? Or at least that you've seen yet?

[boygodofneuro]

Nope, none than I've seen. Though not sure if I'd actually, y'know. Want to see two out of the three I mentioned.

[most_feared]

You've got pictures of 'em handy?

[original_fine]

My apologies. I honestly don't know what you're talking about, though I realize you're confused. We all were. You're not... stuck in a mainframe. And I'm afraid it's not an illusion. I am a little curious as to why the scenario of a dome and an outside civilization sounds familiar to you.

[boygodofneuro]

It's not like I keep pictures of them in my wallet.

[most_feared]

[He'd have pictures of who he was out looking for but he is slightly obsessive compulsive. So he guesses he's not official. This may be wrong- Jay talks this confusingly sometimes.]

Your agonizing choices might get switched around now. Figured out much about where you are?

[boygodofneuro]

I'm a bit of a pop culture sponge. Live and breathe sci-fi. Play a lot of video games, yeah. Start combining all the plots and stuff and this whole scenario doesn't seem so farfetched.

[boygodofneuro]

Though...Bennett would probably be pretty recognizable if she were here. If she weren't dead. Brown hair, brown eyes. Average height, thin, cute and a dead left arm in a sling with a glove. If you see a girl like that, yeah, let me know.

But no, not really with the knowing where I am.

[femshep]

[There's a long pause as Shepard decides what to make of all of that rambling, and then (more to the others on the network than the rambler):]

Anyone mind if I shoot it?

[No, she isn't really gonna shoot him, but you probably can't tell.]

[original_fine]

[Jim is looking at you as if you are an alien, Topher.]

Sci-fi. Look, the sooner you realize this isn't a story, the better off you'll be.

[voice]

[buckingauthority]

Speaks in the third person too, huh? I'll add that to the list. I like your name, though. It has character.

[voice]

[boygodofneuro]

Okay, I don't refer to myself in the third person.

Usually.

But yeah, thanks, I guess. 'Topher' is definitely a lot more interesting than 'Chris'. Figured that out the second I figured out how to spell.

[boygodofneuro]

[Well. He's sort of his own species?]

Okay, so this isn't a story. Though it kind of is because everything is a story and everyone has their own. So, dude with the oddly familiar, soothing voice, what's yours?

[boygodofneuro]

Hey, I take great offense to that! I'm not an it! I am a he, thank you very much. Dr. Topher Brink if you'd like to get all super specific, cranky lady.

sorry shepard, he really just has something against you

[seesobserves]

Have you got an answer to anything that isn't 'pick up a gun?'

[seesobserves]

Interesting.


Not what's happening, though, as you've probably already been made aware. Conflicts and stress around here are far more intermittent than constant.

[voice]

[radars]

Not the right stuffy professor, which makes me wonder if I should be looking around for new friends.

Hello. Charles Xavier.

[voice]

[radars]

Ah, my apologies. I've already been accused of being the stuffy, professorial type, you see.

it's okay, he's not her favorite person either.

[femshep]

Ask me that question in person and we'll find out.

[She leaves it like that for a few seconds, then exhales a dry laugh and offers a real answer.]

Let's pretend for five minutes that your smart-ass question actually deserves a response. And let's also pretend that back in the 2180's--[Because she assumes this is sometime in the distant future, thanks to the alien ship.]--my picking up a gun didn't save the galaxy twice in a three year span.

Yes. I do have answers that don't involve putting any ammunition downwind. I kept the peace on a ship full of the ten most dangerous individuals in Citadel space. I negotiated the end of a war 290 years in the making. I talked the interstellar Council into giving the humans a seat for the first time in history.

And I also watched that same Council sit back and discuss while the Reapers invaded the galaxy. They came in without warning, without reason, and without remorse, just like the Authorities did last week. They were going to destroy everything, and the might still, but do you know what's stopped them so far?

Guns. Lots and lots of guns.

[She hadn't meant for this to become a speech, but damn it, she had a point to make to get this asshat out of her hair.]

So if you could take that high horse you're sitting on and shove it straight up your ass, I'm going to get back to keeping the rest of the group alive.

And christ, learn to take a joke.

...sorry for her. >_> sorry for her rant at sherlock, mostly.

[femshep]

[Congrats, you managed to amuse her. And she has a sort of 'alright, you win for now' tone when she offers:] Commander Shepard, Normandy SR2.

[A pause, and then:]

A doctor of what, if you don't mind me asking?

[how_i_tease]

Of course there's a bright side. You're just panicking too much to see it right now.