ablankpage | Voxophone 1/?? - Voice - backdated to July 7th

I find myself alone.

[The voice comes over the Journals clearly. It is a lilting, British voice, very calm but very intent.]

I do not know, ultimately, whether the experiment was a success or a failure, but I can be sure of one thing: It is over. Were the sacrifices warranted? I may never know.

[He's taken the Journal to be a voxophone recorder. Something private where he can record his thoughts and experiments to be reviewed by solely himself at a later date. The Guide was easy enough to find, and he has processed the information easily enough.

Another dimension, another place. Not quite what he is used to, coming without his clothes and with wings on his back. Still, it is another set of constants and variables to him.

The most disturbing fact is the first statement. The thing he could not help but note. He is alone. For the first time, he can look to his left without seeing Rosalind there. For the first time in nearly twenty years, a single Lutece is present.

Present... in the middle of a field, so far as he can see. One well into summer, warmed by the sun. Rosalind wouldn't like it -- especially if she were in a similar state of undress. Certainly, that needs to be remedied. All of it goes through his mind as he continues speaking.]

His fate is set in stone, but what of the others? I fear I will never be granted that knowledge.

[And that worries him more than anything. In his attempts to change the world around him, he knows he has destroyed at least as many lives as he has saved. Worst of all, there is no one to tell him whether he did the right thing or not.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

So not only is it inter-dimensional travel, but there is crossing of timelines?

[Because that, obviously, is the most important question to ask. And it's given with... academic curiosity.

He isn't dismissing it as impossible or arguing about it or anything of the sort. It is merely a fact to be noted in data if it is confirmed.]

[It is getting more and more difficult, the longer Jack is in Luceti, to catch him off-guard. But the stranger does: not by being an angel, or levitating a train, or revealing some terrible secret of the universe to him.

No. What's amazing is that the man is perfectly credulous.]

Er. It . . . seems that way. [He gets his conversational feet back under him with audible difficulty, continuing after a second.] My friend Sam is from a bit after me, and another guy is from after him. Everyone's stories line up, though. It just seems like some of us are from earlier dates than others.

So you're all from the exact same universe. So far as you know, of course. Just from different moments in it.

Now, that is worth exploring.

I'm much more used to it the other way 'round, you see. Different universes but the same point in time. It makes studying the constants and variables less difficult, once you know what you're looking at.

Wait, that - I mean, this- [Audio-only conversation or not, Jack waves his hands haplessly at the room around him and, by extension, Luceti and its trans-universal madness, voice rushed with disbelief.] You mean to tell me this is something that regularly happens where you're from?

With the right equipment.

I wrote a book on the theory, actually. [He is far too pleased with himself for being able to say that. And as long as he's discussing his work and science? Rosalind's voice in his mind is a little easier to ignore.] Barriers to Trans-Dimensional Travel.

Wow. I'm actually not sure we've ever had an expert on that sort of thing here in the enclosure. [The announcement is a bit to take in, to say the least, but Jack can feel it settling into a more comfortable position in his conception of what is possible. It's an off-balance sensation, carrying on the conversation while that happens, like walking on the swaying deck of a ship.] As eager as a lot of people here are to find a way home, that's the sort of expertise that could make you awfully popular.

I've spent most of my life researching the barriers between worlds. Even if my notes aren't returned to me...

[Still. The chance to redo his research. Begin again at the very start. Correct the early flaws that he'd spent months chasing down only to find he was following a fairy-tale.]

Well. I'm not adverse to starting over. It's a new challenge, then.

What's curious is that this world doesn't behave like the others I know. Or, rather, subjects transported from one to the other don't behave like I've observed previously.

There is no cognitive dissonance. All the experiments I did showed that a mind, upon arrival to a new universe, struggled to compensate. To create order from the chaos. It invented memories to make sense of the new surroundings. This was accompanied by severe dizziness and nose bleeds.

I have observed neither the mental or physical symptoms in myself.

[Talk a lot? Who talks a lot? Not a Lutece, discussing their field, no.]

[The talking is perfectly welcome, as far as Jack is concerned. Bit by bit, he's overcoming the initial surprise and actually starting to feel excited about a newcomer who might have a chance at unravelling the mystery of how they get here and how they could get out. He takes in the information, quietly, humming when the discrepancy is pointed out to him.]

Oh. Right, I've never heard of anyone arriving like that either, so that's- hm. [A few moments pass, before he twists the problem a few degrees one way and an opening presents itself.] Though . . . wait. Maybe there's a part of arriving that nobody remembers. The neck-marks and the wings, they must put those on at some point, right? Just pulling someone into a new world wouldn't paste a new pair of limbs on them, I wouldn't think.

It is possible that there is some... containment period, though to not remember it and have little to no side-effects from the lack of memory is curious.

It may also be this place. It might be... somehow askew from other universes, allowing for the changes in placement of time, as you mentioned with yourself and your friends.

Depending on one's state of existence or non-existence, the effects might not manifest or might manifest in different ways.

Existence or . . . non-?

[Jack stops himself before he can get too deeply entangled into the hypothesizing, shaking his head.]

Nh, nevermind. I should probably warm up to talking with geniuses. Over tea sometime, maybe?

Presumably--

[But the discussion on theory is cut short. An offer of tea. Or, rather, a placation to not go into detail on the subject at present.

It is something Robert can accept.]

Of course.

Much obliged.

[Jack has the impression that even for the people who've been here years, the particulars of arrival and theoretical departure are things they can debate for days on end. He isn't sure he's qualified to go into it cold, let alone with a man who's figured out dimension-hopping for himself.]

I'm Jack, by the way. Jack Holden. Nice to meet you.

A pleasure, Mister Holden. My name is Robert Lutece.

Voxophone 1/?? - Voice - backdated to July 7th

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[voice] (derp what is proper format, sorry.)

[voice] (no problem! I forget that often myself)

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