Archive of Our Own

WEATHER-BEATEN BENCH - In the heart of Jamrock Quarter, on a weather-beaten bench at the edge of a waterlogged meteorite crater, an officer of the RCM is stirring from deep sleep.

YOU - “Hnnngh...”

WEATHER-BEATEN BENCH - The bench does not respond.

YOU - Good morning, I think!

WEATHER-BEATEN BENCH - There is nothing but more silence.

YOU - No one’s chiming in? Really?

WEATHER-BEATEN BENCH - The only chiming you hear is the faint ring of a faraway clock tower. You count six in total; the brilliant sky to your left fades quick into a deep blue at your right. You have no idea where north is, and, therefore, no way of telling dawn from dusk.

YOU - Usually there’d be some useful directional factoid coming up, right about now. Why is my brain so quiet?

WEATHER-BEATEN BENCH - You sound plenty loud to me.

YOU - No—like, the other guys. You know, with the colors, and the arguing, and the dice...

WEATHER-BEATEN BENCH - Oh. *Those* guys.

YOU - Yeah! Where’d they go?

WEATHER-BEATEN BENCH - Why do you care? Are you saying you *like* having 24 disembodied voices shouting nonsense into your mind?

1. Yeah, love those guys! They make me *unpredictable.* They’re my *secret weapon.*
2. It’s better than being alone in here. (Knock your fist against the side of your head.)
3. Hmm. Maybe you’re right. I should reconsider my stance on this...

WEATHER-BEATEN BENCH - Sure, sure... but have you forgotten all the shit they’ve made you pull? Don’t you feel saner without them?

YOU - I’m talking to a bench with my mind right now.

WEATHER-BEATEN BENCH - Touché.

LIMBIC SYSTEM - You feel a faint whirr in the back of your skull. Spark-plugs catching light, the flywheel churning into movement once more. The infernal engine starting up.

LOGIC - Give us just a second. You napped so hard, it temporarily switched off your higher-order thinking. We’re still rebooting back here.

PHYSICAL INSTRUMENT - Speaking of naps: that was a damn good one, son. You are rested as *fuck* right now. Keep it up and we might make regionals!

WEATHER-BEATEN BENCH - You take a moment to survey the world around you. The mildewed wooden slats of the bench cradle your copious behind in a surprisingly comfortable embrace. Cigarette butts cool in the gutter. A wind whistles hollowly through the branches, utterly empty of their foliage.

WEATHER-BEATEN BENCH - As empty, in fact, as your head is right now.

YOU - Wait, what?

1. Try to remember what you were doing before the Great Nappening.
2. Panic.

ENCYCLOPEDIA [Trivial: Failure] - Uh... I got nothing, boss.

1. Panic.

YOU - Fuck! Oh, shit, not this again. Am I going to need another reality lowdown?

LOGIC [Easy: Success] - The fact that you remember getting a “reality lowdown” in the first place indicates short term sleep-induced confusion, not retrograde amnesia. Try getting your bearings, orienting yourself in this world, before jumping to conclusions.

YOU - So... getting a reality lowdown... from myself?

LOGIC - If you must put it in such puerile a manner, yes.

CONCEPTUALIZATION [Medium: Success] - Or, just a thought: you could get a reality lowdown... from *reality.*

LOGIC - That makes literally zero sense. That makes less than zero sense—you’re making negative sense right now.

1. [ENCYCLOPEDIA - EASY] Get a reality lowdown from yourself.
         -1   Still rebooting back here
2. [SHIVERS - CHALLENGING] Get a reality lowdown from reality.
         -3   Makes negative sense
3. No, I think I’m good, actually.

ENCYCLOPEDIA [Easy: Failure] - Uh. We’re. In a park. On a bench. That’s in... Jamrock. (Where is Jamrock? I’m just repeating what the bench said, don’t ask me.)

YOU - That wasn’t helpful at all.

ENCYCLOPEDIA - I said we were still warming up! Go ask the fabric of reality or whatever, you ungrateful prick.

1. [SHIVERS - CHALLENGING] Get a reality lowdown from reality.
         - 1    No other choice (Still kind of stupid)
         + 2   Spites Encyclopedia
2. No, I think I’m good, actually.

ENCYCLOPEDIA - Oh *come* on—

SHIVERS [Challenging: Success] - It is a brisk winter evening in the year ‘52, Current Century, and motorized carriages tear through the slushied alley-capillaries of the city Revachol. You are in the Jamrock Quarter: the living, beating heart of it all. Yesterday was Sergeant Judit Minot’s birthday—your coworker. You gifted her a gorgeous fountain pen you found in a storm drain. Tomorrow, a foul-mouthed redhead will freeze underneath the 8/81.

SHIVERS - In twenty-two years, a bomb detonates over a Revachol you will not recognize. You will not live to see it. But, for now, you are Lieutenant double-yefreitor Harrier Du Bois, and the city shivers a hymnal beneath your disco-clad feet.

PERCEPTION (HEARING) - Hear that? Something beautiful is going to happen.

YOU - I keep hearing that... but *what exactly* is going to happen?

CONCEPTUALIZATION - Who knows? Who cares? There’s so very little future left, and so much present to explore.

REACTION SPEED - Stay in the moment, Harry. Take your time. It’s beautiful here.

WEATHER-BEATEN BENCH - The world waits for you to take it in.

1. Look around.
2. Look at the water.
3. Look at the sky.

PERCEPTION [TOUCH] - The bench is still molded comfortably to your backside, radiating residual warmth from your brief detour from consciousness. Still, you shiver, the gray winter breeze in your hair and the gray winter ground under your feet. Your hands rub together against the chill.

LONELY CHICKADEE - It is mostly quiet, except for the melodic fee-bee of a single chickadee in the tree behind you. Occasionally the wind whistles a few harmonizing notes; past that, only the occasional motor carriage breaks the dimly lit silence.

PERCEPTION [SIGHT] - Wilted grass, long since tramped into the mud, lines a well-drained gravel path that winds in front of the bench. It circles the pond, looping lazily around a small playground, before making a straight run for the gate. Urban skyline rises past the fence that marks the park’s boundaries. Mostly brick townhouses, rust-red fire escapes mounted rattling to their side, but the occasional glassy edifice to the west gives away the gentrifying influence of Curonese investors.

EMPATHY - A sudden feeling of protectiveness lances through you. This is your quarter, goddamnit, and those bougie shits better stay out of it.

LONELY CHICKADEE - The bird sings on, alone, undaunted.

1. [DRAMA - Medium] Whistle some birdsong.
2. [HALF LIGHT - Easy] Stew in territorial, curmudgeonly outrage.
3. Move on.

DRAMA (Medium: Success) - You wait for the next fee-bee before replying with a quick, tuneful two-note sequence of your own. After a beat, the chickadee responds in kind.

LONELY CHICKADEE - You and the bird duet a playful little melody to the haunting backbeat of the wind in the trees. After a minute or so of music-making, it takes off in a flutter of black-capped feathers, swooping towards the next perch. Watching it soar, the weight that sits heavy in your gut temporarily lifts.

|     HEALED MORALE     |
|              +1                 |

1. [HALF LIGHT - Easy] Stew in territorial, curmudgeonly outrage.
         - 2   Feelin’ too good to feel bad
2. Move on.

WEATHER-BEATEN BENCH - The world waits for you to take it in.

1. Look around.
2. Look at the water.
3. Look at the sky.

PERCEPTION [SIGHT] - The lake is still, save for a smattering of sinusoidal waves blown across its surface. There is a small ship circling its perimeter. It leaves only the tiniest of wakes behind.

ENCYCLOPEDIA [Medium: Success] - Current isolary guidelines require such research instruments to cause as little ecological impact as possible. This particular model of search-boat, despite its size and apparent harmlessness, took five years to develop before it met regulations.

CONCEPTUALIZATION (Easy: Success) - The surface of the water alternates silver and gold in the setting sun. Like metallic disco-suit fabric under a mirrored ball.

ELECTROCHEMISTRY (Formidable: Success) - Like what she wore when you first met.

1. Who?
2. [CONCEPTUALIZATION - Challenging] Try to observe the lake without the emotional baggage.
         + 1    You’ve, like, totally gotten over it
3. Move on.

ELECTROCHEMISTRY - Don’t play dumb, Harry. *That* woman. The blonde in the silver pants.

1. Well, there’s two people that fit that description, y’know...
2. [CONCEPTUALIZATION - Challenging] Try to observe the lake without the emotional baggage.
         + 1   You’ve, like, totally gotten over it
         - 1    Can’t play dumb
3. Move on.

ELECTROCHEMISTRY - What did I literally just fucking say.

1. [CONCEPTUALIZATION - Challenging] Try to observe the lake without the emotional baggage.
         - 1   You have not, like, totally gotten over it
         - 2   He literally just said that
2. Move on.

CONCEPTUALIZATION [Challenging: Failure] - You can almost see past the sequin-flash of silver, snug against apricot curves. The glossy surface looks nearly crystalline: a shine firmer than fabric, less glittering, more solid. But then it fades.

INLAND EMPIRE [Medium: Success] - Even now, seven years later, you miss her. You see her in all things beautiful—it renders them nearly unbearable.

ELECTROCHEMISTRY - Take heart, Harry! *Nearly* unbearable isn’t enough to stop the party-beast!

INLAND EMPIRE - ...It often is.

PERCEPTION (SMELL) - The smell of tutti-frutti chewing gum wafts from some forgotten corner of your brain. Not even a soaking in strong alcohol could soften where it has ossified, snug under your amygdala.

ENDURANCE [Challenging: Failure] - A gun to your temple, though...

COMPOSURE [Legendary: Successful] - Hey. Chin up. Hands down. Move on, quickly, now. There’s nothing left for you here.

1. Move on.

WEATHER-BEATEN BENCH - The world waits for you to take it in.

1. Look around.
2. Look at the water.
3. Look at the sky.

PERCEPTION (SIGHT) - You wrench your eyes from the water just in time for the sun to hit the distant skyline. Bright and familiar safety-orange floods your vision, reflected off of Couronese skyscrapers, off of meteorite-crater water, off of the million Jamrock windows that peer into a million Jamrock lives. Revachol set alight—all this radiance at a wavelength of 620 nanometers, concentrated by the mirrors of the city and slamming into the thin photosensitive tissue of your retinas.

SHIVERS - Your eye-glands water. Your breathing quickens. You’re... scared.

INLAND EMPIRE - The sun detonates like a thermonuclear bomb above the glassy ghosts of La Delta. It is an echo of a memory that has not yet come to pass.

YOU - An echo of a what?

SHIVERS - AN ECHO OF A MEMORY THAT *CAN NOT* COME TO PASS.

PAIN THRESHOLD [Impossible: Failure] - Phantom pain ignites in your lungs. The fireball engulfs your visceral organs, burning like neon medicinal spirits in the bowels of your bowels. It levels your spine, flattens your musculature, drags nerves apart by the synapses. Nuclear fallout poisons your breath and extremities.

PAIN THRESHOLD - It feels like every hangover, heartbreak, and horrible decision you have ever made, come back to roost.

|     DAMAGED HEALTH     |
|                -1                   |

SHIVERS - MY VITALITY TORN TO SHREDS—A BLUE-WHITE AGONY. IT IS UNENDURABLE, UNTHINKABLE, UNENDING. THAT WHICH SPLITS ME IN TWO.

SHIVERS - IT HURTS. I AM AFRAID.

YOU - I’m sorry... God, I’m so sorry.

SHIVERS - IT IS NOT YOUR FAULT. YOU CAN SAVE ME.

YOU - I don’t know how. I don’t know if I can.

SHIVERS - I KNEW YOU WHEN YOU WERE A SQUALLING BABE IN A PLACE WHERE PEOPLE GO TO DIE. I WILL KNOW YOU WHEN YOUR BRITTLE ALCOHOLED BONES FORTIFY MY ASHEN DIRT. I KNOW YOU NOW IN THE INFINITE MOMENTS BETWEEN.

SHIVERS - I KNOW YOU. I KNOW YOU CAN. LOOK UP.

EMPATHY [Heroic: Success] - The heavens spill over with the deep crimson of fuel oil, burning like Cindy’s aerograffito. Your chest aches at the sight.

SHIVERS [Godly: Success] - IT IS MY LIFEBLOOD THAT PAINTS THE FIRMAMENT AT DAWN AND DUSK. HYDROCARBONS AND RED AIR THAT POURS FROM MY INDUSTRIAL HEART.

EMPATHY - Your chest is her chest.

SHIVERS - YOUR ACHE IS MY ACHE.

EMPATHY - You wear her soul on your spine.

SHIVERS - I WRAP YOU IN MY HUNDRED DUSKY RIBS.

1. It’s too much. I can’t bear it.
2. But why? Why all of this, for someone like me?
3. I’m not alone...
4. What comes next? (Conclude.)

ENDURANCE [Heroic: Success] - Yes, you can.

INLAND EMPIRE - You have no choice. You will rise to the pressure. Ceasing to resist is ceasing to exist.

SHIVERS - FLESH AND BONE AND STEEL AND ETERNITE. YOUR TWO PLANTED DISCO FEET AND MY MANY BRILLIANT STRAINING ARMS. TOGETHER WE WILL BEAR IT.

YOU - What are we bearing, exactly?

SHIVERS - THE WEIGHT OF THE WORLD SPIRIT.

1. It’s too much. I can’t bear it.
2. But why? Why all of this, for someone like me?
3. I’m not alone...
4. What comes next? (Conclude.)

SHIVERS - BECAUSE I HAVE SEEN YOU. BECAUSE I HAVE HEARD YOU. BECAUSE I HAVE FELT YOU IN MY STREETS.

SHIVERS - BECAUSE I LOVE YOU.

1. It’s too much. I can’t bear it.
2. But why? Why all of this, for someone like me?
3. I’m not alone...
4. What comes next? (Conclude.)

SHIVERS - NEVER. NEVER.

1. It’s too much. I can’t bear it.
2. But why? Why all of this, for someone like me?
3. I’m not alone...
4. What comes next? (Conclude.)

WEATHER-BEATEN BENCH - I don’t know. But the world is still here, waiting for you. For now.

1. Look around.
2. Look at the water.
3. Look at the sky.
4. Look at yourself. (Conclude.)

WEATHER-BEATEN BENCH - A bloated old man sits alone on a bench in a park, blinking rapidly at nothing. He has been staring directly into the setting sun for the last ten minutes.

ENDURANCE [Medium: Success] - When you close your eyes, flashes of something like black-green-purple burst behind your lids. It’s mildly entertaining in its novelty. Side note: your eyes hurt a lot.

WEATHER-BEATEN BENCH - The bench-man reaches up with thick, stubby fingers to rub at his face. The face itself is fantastically whiskered, ruddy from the chill and chafed with windburn, mottled purple and green near the bruise of a nose. The thick wrinkles and swollen facial tissue suggest someone in their late fifties. Perhaps pushing sixty.

ENCYCLOPEDIA [Easy: Success] - You are forty-five.

WEATHER-BEATEN BENCH - A weighty sigh wheezes from a voice box caked with ash and liquor. The infernal machine turns its tired gaze on the water once more, now a deep indigo to match the darkening sky. It sits at the intersection of apricot-scented past and atomic-seared future.

YOU - What happens now?

SHIVERS - WHAT HAS ALWAYS HAPPENED. AND WHAT ALWAYS WILL.

INLAND EMPIRE - Yesterday you stood up. There was a familiar ache in your thigh as you traveled along the gravel path, with your jacket collar popped up against the chill. The night market by the bridge was setting up when you walked by. You waved to the man at the kebab stand before continuing on.

PERCEPTION - Today, you are taking the Esperside from the crater, all the way down to the broad sidewalks of Main. From there it is past the shopping streets of Chartreuse and La Plaza, past Clinton and the Boogie Street Diamond, until you are turning off at the fire-trap labyrinth of Perdition. This is the home of the proletariat; three men sit in their yard, cards on the table and beer below their colorful plastic stools. A woman hangs the laundry on a line between fire escapes.

SHIVERS - Tomorrow you will walk past the tenements and tents, turrets turned upside down and made into planters, tanks scrapped and made into fences. Above the florist await three floors of cheap apartments. A wrought-iron gate to let you into the alley; a tarnished key, turned with a firm wrist, to let you into the building. You will climb two stories to a door covered with chipped green paint.

YOU - And then?

SHIVERS - AND THEN YOU WILL RETURN. YOU HAVE RETURNED. YOU ARE RETURNING HOME.