ablankpage | Voxophone 9/??

Voxophone 9/?? - Voice

[The sound of quiet breathing comes over the journal late at night. Quiet but strained. Struggling.]

"The mind of the subject will desperately struggle to create memories where none exist..."

[Gone are the easy, flowing words of Robert Lutece. The sound of a man flitting between questions and knowing the answers to everything.

Now, he sounds utterly human. Shaken and weak.]

"Return to an old life, for the possibility of creating new."

[Those looking at their journals? Might see something on a page. The beginnings of... some writing. But it's smeared.

By drops of blood that are only increasing.]

"Bring us the girl and wipe away the debt."

[The baby, the girl, the woman.

The Prophet and the Lamb.

The lady and the siren.

The door and the interim. A thousand different possibilities, all visible at a single glance. For a moment, he can see them all.

But something isn't right.

His voice moves away from the journal, but it remains open, catching it.]

"A middle C vibrates at 262 Hz, no matter what the universe."

[Then, another sound.

One that might carry throughout the house.

A crash.

Shaking hands didn't set the record right, and a lurching body upset the table, taking down phonograph and man together.

Anyone in the house who comes to investigate?

Will find Robert Lutece on his knees, dressed just in trousers and a loose shirt. He's pale. Very much so... and there's blood under his nose.

That hasn't stopped. For now, it's a steady drip. Not too strong... but one can guess how long it's been going.]

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[Once Elizabeth sees the blood, she knows exactly why Robert lost his balance and why he wasn't feeling so well. She'd known from the beginning that the only reason she was here was because of a shift, and now the same seemed to be happening to Robert. He could be pulling back and forth between infinite and not.]

You're in Luceti, Robert. [She keeps trying to pull him up.] You used to be able to see everything and be everywhere, but you're not infinite anymore. What you saw was real, though. It all happened, don't fight to remember, just know it happened.

[Columbia. A floating city in the sky.

A sister. A double. A woman.

R Lutece.

A whisper through a wall. An insane dream. A failed experiment.

A baby. A man.

Existence. Emptiness. Flickering.

Pain. Pain in his head. Behind his eyes. Through his body. So much screaming.]

Luceti.

[He knows. He knows where he is. But the present refuses to remain firm. He can't quite grasp it, even as he leans against the young woman.]

Constants and variables.

If it has one thing, it has plenty of variables. [She gives a half-hearted chuckle as she pulls Robert to a chair. Next order of business is a towel for his nose. At the rate he's losing blood though, Elizabeth wonders if she should wake Rosalind. A transfusion could be necessary.]

Do you know who I am? Do you remember me?

[He managed a slight smile as he got sat down. He was light-headed, still shaken. But, seated, the room spun less.]

I couldn't forget you if I tried, Elizabeth.

[Which was probably the first fully coherent thing he'd said.

For the moment, his nose wasn't bleeding as heavily, but there was still a slow, steady drip.]

I guess I should be flattered. [She offers her own slight smile as she makes sure Robert is firmly situated in the chair.]

I'm going to get you a towel. Do you need Rosalind? I can wake her.

[Rosalind.

Cool eyes. Warm hands.

A phonograph.

Vivaldi's "Spring."]

No.

No, don't wake her. She... doesn't sleep nearly enough.

It's a very minor matter. I'll be fine.

[Elizabeth gives Robert a disbelieving look-- a minor matter? He's nearly soaked through his handkerchief. And Rosalind had always helped him through these episodes in Columbia, Elizabeth felt woefully ill equipped to help.]

Don't move, I'll be right back.

[She goes to the bathroom and fetches a towel.] At least you remember me and Rosalind, that's a good start.

I remember things clearly.

Just... so many things at once.

[A flash of the Infinite, flickering back and forth in front of his mind's eye, assailing the senses and any sense of time.]

[Ah, so his brain was overloading. It wasn't that Robert was being pulled and pushed between the time before he even met Rosalind up until now, he was flicking between infinite and not.]

Do you want me to sedate you? I'm not going to lie, when Fontaine put me under, the dreams were beyond strange. But it might be what you need to ride the shift out.

That... may be necessary.

[He couldn't control his own mind. It was revolting against him, trying to remember everything at the same time it was trying to push any thoughts away.

Every possibility of the universe flickered in front of his face.

Including, past the open door of the make-shift lab... the living room wall. Where shadows flickered. For a moment, he saw one in utter clarity. A small young woman, all smiles, her dark brown hair (very curly) speckled with paint. She looked back with bright blue eyes.

There's a brush in her hands, an image on the wall. And she laughs brightly.

Robert can hear her clearly.

"What do you think?"

Another voice answers, a shadow in the doorway he can't make out. But the voice is English, warm but perhaps a bit halting. "Lovely, Miss Jilly."

The vision is gone as quickly as it started, and Robert leans forward, clutching the towel under his nose. The blood is flowing a little harder now.]

[Elizabeth puts a hand on Robert's shoulder, ready to hold him to the chair should he start to tip forward. If she doesn't have to, she doesn't want to submit Robert to the kinds of visions she had under Atlas' incarceration.]

What are you seeing?

Shadows.

People.

[He looks at the wall, he can see beyond the door, starts to stand, then buckles back down.

No. No getting up.]

A painting. On the wall. Out there.

The wall? [Elizabeth looks towards the hallway, then squeezes Robert's shoulder briefly to indicate he should stay put.] I'll go look.

[She moves quickly down the hall, not wanting to leave Robert for long. What she's going to see, she's not sure. Honestly, she shouldn't be able to see anything, she was whole again. But... parts of those things she'd seen had never faded. She'd only needed the right stimulus. She slips quietly into her room and after a quick search finds a palette of watercolors and a few brushes she'd used to try her hand at adding color to sketches.]

[Elizabeth looks at the wall, and she can only see a blank wall. Tears won't open for her anymore. But--]

[She raises the brush to the wall and her mind spasms. There's the mural, and the people. The vision knocks her back for a moment, and she has to catch her breath, but she saw them.]

[She moves back to Robert's room.]

You're right, they're there. You're seeing something that's been here before, something that I saw-- maybe during Zompania.

Something there before. Something there now. Something there later.

[It's almost melodic. Repetitive.]

Even in this place. In this cross-section. There are a thousand worlds at once.

In some, they were never here. Others, they are still here. And still more, they will be here.

[He can't help but smile, distracted in a way.]

I wonder if they see it too, sometimes. The cracks between the worlds. If they see us.

[The front door of the house clicks open. Clicks shut. And bundled into her coat, a rather nondescript rucksack slung over her shoulder, marches Rosalind Lutece.

It had been the only thing for it, she had told herself. It was a private reassurance that smoothed and salved over the raw-edged fear of waking up to the smell of salt and rust in her nostrils and the throaty, laboured sounds of Robert breathing around blood. It lent purpose to the act of rolling out of bed, dressing carefully so as not to wake him (for even if his unconscious had begun to bleed him, he only worked himself into terrifying haemorrhage while waking), making her way to the clinic and forcing her way inside and taking whatever she imagined she might need.

It was an eventuality she had researched, of course. Even if she rarely wished so dearly for research to any research she embarked upon to ultimately be pointless. But it was the only thing for it. After the things she had done to keep him with her, breaking and entering with a spot of theft was all but nothing.

Her eyes light between the two of them, Elizabeth and her brother, as much light in them as there has ever been. Her cool haughtiness is a skin rendered translucent, illumed from within by purpose and desire and the brittle flicker of fear itself, and she breathes a low string of words, sliding off her coat and laying it on the bed.]

He's still bleeding.

[It's too gentle to be despairing, the tone of her voice, but there is a quiet despondency as she draws up alongside him, for a moment brushing pale fingers along the side of his face and tipping it up to look at her. Another flit of her gaze to Elizabeth, though longer, just enough to leave it uncertain who she is even speaking to.]

I'd thought we'd moved beyond this.

I apologize for the inconvenience.

[The worst part of the sentence might well be that there's no sarcasm. Nothing biting, no little nip at his other half's heels. There's no admonition. Instead, there is an actual trace of contrition. As if it is a mere inconvenience, the blood that won't stop trickling out of him.

The flow isn't as quick as the worst in Columbia, no, but it is persistent. Enough that he's light-headed already. And pale. Paler than he usually is, his often nearly-indistinct freckles standing in sharp contrast and his hair seeming a brighter red.

But those eyes have focused just a little more -- a little better -- at the sound of Rosalind's voice.]

I had hoped not to wake you.

[Elizabeth is glad to see Rosalind, Robert clearly needs her more than he needs Elizabeth right now. It is, as it's always been, hard for Elizabeth to read that lengthened gaze Rosalind gives her, but it does make her feel guilty. She'd disappointed Rosalind, she knew that. Omniscience and croissants.]

I would say 'blame the Malnosso', but given how intense the fluctuations have been I doubt they have much control either. We can lift him up together.

I rather prefer that you did.

[She tucks a disarrayed lock of his hair into place, and her touch lingering at his temple, before dropping to the angle of his jaw. Her free hand is already tucking into her jacket for her pocketwatch, which she flips open, watching the steady tic of the second hand and counting it against the faint thrum at her fingertips.]

Hopefully, we won't need to move him. [She hesitates, then looks at Elizabeth properly, just for a moment.] . . . but thank you.

[The touch is something of a comfort, and Robert doesn't fight it. He even has the sense, staggered though his mind may be, not to speak while she counts.

A hundred and twenty five beats in a minute.

Only after he's guessed the amount of time gone by does he murmur:]

A thousand worlds. Similar but different. I could keep them all straight yesterday.

[But time isn't moving correctly in Luceti.]

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Voxophone 9/?? - Voice

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