Scene #9507: Case Study

Owner	Pose
Foundation Scions	Courtesy of an 'anonymous informant' with 'credible claim', and by review of recent St. Pavlov Foundation incident report notifications, LSCC Upper Management has sent, multiple days ago, with both digital and internal-mail, to the office of one Lilian Rook, a formal notice of growing concerns around a (stated in vague terms) 'susceptibility to substance and poison ingestion'. It's as clear as day who that anonymous informant is, of course, and its just as clear that Included within the notice, which stresses that it is not an ultimatum, are a large list of managerial as to matters of operational and information security which the grant review committee will look unfavorably-upon for project approvals. None of the language is formal to the point of becoming obviously-masked scorn, but nor is it friendly, a plain ticket of precaution as to maximizing the efficiency of her scientific residency. Unfortunately, that hardly makes it anything but an ultimatum. As a gesture again towards convenience, efficiency, and Lilian's new ties to the group, Laplace Scientific Computing Center has decided to expedite analytical and treatment-efforts through their very-own world-class Artificial Somnambulism department. A tentative start-date, too, is offered, should she take the organization up on a de-facto mandator treatment- that day is today. . . . Of course Mesmer Jr. is already there, in the set-aside patient room, fiddling with the connections of not one, but two, Artificial Somnambulism consoles, attached to a bed and attached to a chair. One has far more cables connecting it to roller-wheel units of chrome and glass, ticking and whirring disc-recording mechanisms visible like guts within them. It's painfully sterile, but the view across the wide-open window is pleasant: green hillsides to mountain-caps in the secluded vale the dual headquarters of the St. Pavlov Foundation and the LSCC share. What light shines through is the only illumination in the room; the overhead lights are off, which would be cozy, were it not an antiseptic hospital chamber, and were it not flanked on all sides by similar, occupied rooms, of catatonic patients undergoing psychiatric dream-simulations, to alter personality in a scary number of ways. Each one of them started their courses like this, too. With her back turned and focus elsewhere, Mesmer reacts only a decent bit after Lilian's entered the room, and she's satisfied with the cord-setup of the beeping machines. With a clipboard tucked under-arm, she straightens up from leaning over, turns on her heels, looks Lilian up and down, and says with a frankly alien professionalism, "Oh. It's good you've arrived. We can begin as soon as you've gotten yourself comfortable for the procedure." With a shoulder-gesture to a vinyl-and-polyurethane patient cot, the glass halo of the Artificial Somnambulism helmet in place of a headboard, it's clear that that, and not the sitting-one, is for Lilian, with the machinery needing to read from her, write to disc, and allow Mesmer Jr. herself deep-dive access. With an unusually casual sigh, Mesmer Jr. says, before extra prompting, "If you've any questions, now's the time. Otherwise I'll walk you through an overview of today's plans, and we'll begin. If you need help with the helmet, I'll assist you, if you need help falling asleep, I'm afraid strictly no medication is allowed in order to facilitate." God, why is she acting kind of normal? Is it just because there's bound to be attention on this from her superiors? What a freak.
Lilian Rook	Man. If anyone saw the timestopped tantrum Lilian had about this one, it'd probably have been worse for her career than not going would. Knowing that she has once again been dragged back into the life of Annika 'Junior' Mesmer, ordering decided on by her, Lilian has spent intervening days obsessing over this as much as is possible between the Voyager probe and the W Corp collectors. A round of divination on the subject-- something Matilda would approve of and Mesmer would surely hate if she knew of-- tells her little more than is flagrantly obvious already: That it cascades into a sequence of serious consequences for her reputation to angrily welch and ultimately costs nothing to humour it. Four more rounds succeed only at assuaging seventy-five percent of her concern that Mesmer could succeed at altering in her personality; the remaining quarter is, appropriate for thr place and time, wholly irrational. Her reply to staff is prompt, but not that prompt. Polite, but not that polite. She fudges the date once due to 'urgent Paladins appointments' like she's trying to throw off a criminal ambush. And then, finally, on the day . . .. . . . . . . . "For the sake of maintaining trust and transparency between professionals," LIlian says, instead of 'doctor and patient'. She'd only thought to requisition a uniform a little late, so she wasn't able to swing it for today, and her plans at tacky chrome aposemitism haven't panned out. "I'd first like to responsibly inform you of a matter of relevance to employee safety guidelines." Since getting in the door, she's started off swinging. Lilian retrieves from her pocket, and places on the edge of the bed furthest from the sitting chair, what an eye better suited to minerology and linguistics could infer more than 'a runestone' from. She holds it up to the light and tilts it back and forth to get Mesmer's attention. "This object, should you approach within six inches of my body, will react with the ambient energies of Laplace Scientific Computing Center and complete an electrical circuit that may cause grievous bodily injury. Please observe proper safety procedures and physical distancing as you begin." Lilian disclaims it all with some amount of catty-stiff pleasure that nevertheless is psychotically defensive. "Don't worry; it's a non-magnetic ore. It shouldn't affect anything as scientific as Artificial Somnambulism 'Therapy'." This is a reasonable thing to perceive as a petty, pointless, demeaning, actually slightly cruel power play, and frankly a touch homophobic. Unfortunately, the real reason is dumber and worse. 'I'm afraid strictly no medication is allowed in order to facilitate.' Lilian, halfway through retrieving a bottle of medication from her handbag, stops to stare in disbelief. "Are you joking? You expect me to just lie down on this . . ." She gestures at the cot. "Thing until I pass out from boredom? Do you have any idea how busy my schedule is?" Unfortunately, the choices are: lock in, or, run away from Mesmer at the last second and damage her career as well. Therefore Lilian seethes venomously the entire time she takes off her shoes, her jacket, futzes with the helmet, tidies up her hair, complains of the lack of silk pillow covers, and unintentionally flashbangs Mesmer approximately ten minutes before dozing off.
Foundation Scions	'For the sake of maintaining trust and transparency between professionals,' Mesmer's eyes fix on motion and hands, and stay locked to the runestone once Lilian places it atop the hospital bed. When Lilian continues talking, eyes track her way, but always return to the object of discussion. Clearly, Lilian has startled her in some way- though, whether she were panicked, or cool as a cucumber, it's an easy guess that the next words out of her mouth would be the same routine, empty air of self-detachment- "I've no intention otherwise. I've a job to do." 'Don't worry; it's a non-magnetic ore. It shouldn't affect anything as scientific as Artificial Somnambulism 'Therapy'.' "If it projects no electromagnetic interference field other than through activation, there's no issue with the keeping of personal affects nearby." Mesmer busies herself configuring the second artificial somnambulism device, then, rummages for a uniform-clipped audio-note recorder, clicked-on, "Stating for the record, patient has rescinded authorization for emergency medical intervention barring conscious, sane reconsideration. Patient has presented an uncategorized arcane object of claimed danger within six inches of contact. In the likelihood of an emergent crisis, will ensure the utilization of high-voltage protective measures and grounding. End." Clicked-off. Is it worse that she doesn't look Lilian's way while saying that audibly? 'Thing until I pass out from boredom? Do you have any idea how busy my schedule is?' "As busy as it is, this is a functionality-focused endeavor, and my own time is on the line as well. Unfortunately, it's been deemed contradictory to today's pursuits, loose perspectives on substance utilization are the long and short of what we'll be working on over the course of our interactions." Mesmer shrugs, and, carries on with her little explanation- "There's hardly anything needed from you in the moment beyond trying to sleep, but it would be helpful for you to try and hold some thoughts onto the topics of your relations to psychoactive substances, reckless behavior, and un-thinking impulse. Still. Consider the whole thing an excused nap. During it, I'll be following an analytical regimen that involves myself witnessing first-hand aspects of your dream-state, for follow-up initiation of treatment programs. It will be recorded, it will be routine, it will be productive." Unneeded, same-tone, but obviously hostile, "You won't feel a thing." Final touches made, curtains pulled over the wall-height mirrors, Mesmer herself sits down in the chair, waiting for Lilian to pass out so she can induce the same in herself- it's that quiet, boring, routine set of actions that Lilian's 'flashbang' of brain-activity jolts Mesmer to a panic, as much as causing her to knock her forehead against the rim of her own Artificial Somnambulism set-up- hopefully, Mesmer's frustrated 'Tsh,' at the pain, and wrinkled-up expression of annoyance, isn't the last thing the nearly-asleep Lilian sees! She'd hate for that to form the seed-bed of a dream, as if that's even how the seed-bed of a dream is formed. But, eventually, after oscilloscope-readouts indicate Lilian is asleep, and nearly passing into the requisite brain-state to potentially dream, Mesmer sighs, swallows back a high-dose of sedatives, and starts up her own side of the task. . . .
Lilian Rook	'I've no intention otherwise. I've a job to do.' Lilian sneers at Mesmer. It's the easy out and they both know it. It's also the sensible and professional thing to say, and whether they both know that is more dubious. She can't help one catty interjection of "Oh, good, because I don't remember giving that permission in the first place." while Mesmer is trying to record, and then one when she finishes; "It's not an arcane object. Get your fixation under control." Neither make her any less faintly white-knuckled about handling the Artificial Somnambulism equipment. 'try and hold some thoughts onto the topics of your relations to psychoactive substances, reckless behavior, and un-thinking impulse' "You'd hate that." Lilian blurts out, non-sequitur. "And I don't need an excuse to take a nap. Unlike you, I look after my body. I'm not tired." 'It will be recorded, it will be routine, it will be productive.' "It'll be none of those things, but I do so hope it makes you feel better." . . . . . . . . Out of all the places to choose for a dream 'featuring Lilian', a semitropical forest by a resort-like ocean seems like an odd fit. One would be forgiven for expecting something more ancient, mystical, austere, or posh; but in the end, it's a dream; it's sorting out the day's events through incoherent semi-symbolism, not a demo reel for the ego and id. The ambient timbre of it isn't easy to get used to. The Storm in a Bottle simulation was a good clue, but the substrate of that was Flamel's dreamscape, not hers. Here, the subconscious conjuration of reality is eerily crisp for a 'naturally occurring' dream. Exact details and physical dimensions come seamless into focus wherever Mesmer looks, to the point she can count leaves on palm trees. The sound of waves if perfectly monorhythm, without stopping or slowing, regardless of attention. The usually-absent sense of smell intrudes with a realistic rendition of salt and out-of-place petrichor. The colours are strangely saturated along the red half of the spectrum. There are no bugs. Because it's a dream or otherwise. But from the moment Mesmer drops in, it's hard to shake a feeling like there are. A sourceless, wandering sensation like dry spider silk; like something microscopically small skittering between the fine hairs on her arms. The first thing in front of her, in the middle distance, is a pair of young men. Even that much is a difficult descriptor. She can see, clearly, a generic polo shirt, button up, two pairs of shorts, socks and sandals, a pair of loafers, and gauge their relative heights. Hair is a visual smear of blurred brown close-cut disinterest and barely more notable blonde. Skin tone is relative at best. Focusing on their faces causing every other detail to slip away when one is defined. Frankly, even 'young' is an inference from vocal tone; only maleness is easy to read.
Lilian Rook	"I swear she just went up here." "Yeah it's cool, I believe you." "The same bitch from earlier too." "Nice." "Let's just go!" "Yeah?" "We can just talk! See if we can hit it off!" "Isn't it just forest?" "No man, there's an old building." "We can't just go to her house." "Nah it's okay she just ran away there." "Cool!" The conversation is nearly parodical. Dull, perfunctory, and made almost entirely of shorthand that should be intuitive to a dreamer, but isn't. Two incorrectly-dressed nobodies communicating on an invisible wavelength about an event of impossible-to-grasp relevance. Someone elss experienced than Mesmer wouldn't exactly go forgetting it's all a dream even before they both walk to a shallow river outlet, swan dive into five feet of shallow sky-blue water, and smoothly transform into a pair of sharks; a hammerhead and a great white, annoyingly specific. They swim inland as if the water is a squiggly blue road. Travel isn't really supposed to be an element in dreams. Mesmer should naturally be wisked along the moment she wants to get there. The fact that she has to follow along (or what else? swim out into the empty ocean? pick a random wall of thick trees and try to fight through in some other direction?) on foot, subject to uncomfortable heat, unsteady sandy footing, and an intimately accurate sense of fatigue, feels extraordinarily 'off'. It isn't long, but it's not normal for a dream to contain time that exists solely for the sake of being blank, processing nothing, calling only on bone-deep memories of physical exertion to fill it. And she arrives late too. Both sharks, now boys again, have surfaced at the front of a cabin set by the river, which is now lined with natural grey stones and surrounded by trees that are distinctly darker and more northernly. The 'cabin' itself, even, is more like an abandoned equipment shed that has merely taken on the dimensions of a vacation house. Corrugated steel siding, windowless and painted dark green, blocks most of what she can actually see. What's notable is that the woman that the two young men are animatedly talking to, on the concrete front steps, isn't even Lilian. Someone else. Indistinct except for 'femaleness', bright blonde and curly hair, shorter than both, barefoot, and radiating discomfort. Some dreamy awareness that she shouldn't be able to hear from this distance is in pay, because it substitutes their speech for muffled non-noises. As they talk, the woman backs up further into the entrance of the building, and the boys approach after her. Showing no signs they recognize her discomfort, step by step, they advance towards the threshold, stopping neither when she is over it, nor when it's their turn to cross it. It's a mundane sight. The tension is ghastly. With each passing second, the air gets hotter and more stagnant. The roar of the surf that had faded creeps back into focus, rising like a hearbeat. The crawling feeling on her skin intensifies, as a dreadful whining builds up in her ears. Her body feels leaden. A pressure settles on her that makes it difficult to even breathe. Dimly, she can hear the woman screaming. Both boys are panicking, backing up, holding up their hands to avoid seeming threatening. Then they're screaming too.
Lilian Rook	Her distance from the building can't be a blessing. The nauseating pressure feels like it was meant to ward her away. An instinct made like a physical wall; magnetic repulsion manifest in iron-tasting, gut-churning, palpitations and hyperventilation. She doesn't see what drags both of the young men back in, nor even the instant it happens. She sees hands clutching onto the edge of the threshhold for dear life. Arms wrapped around the corner, straining until the grisly snap, and then fingertips squeezing until the nails crack and bleed. She sees kicking, scrambling legs; first the frantic motions of trying to find a foothold, then the violent convulsions of spinal reflex. The woman's sobbing is barely audible between the guttural screams of terror, then howling agony, both equally spine-chilling for their stark specificity. It's nothing like the token of 'screaming' that people are familiar with. The place where a startled, or playfully scared noise should go, amplified into artificial menace, is fullied occupied with a double rendition of something that feels like ice and falling vertigo deep in the primordial brainstem. It's unrealistic to be able to smell it from so far, but the hypervivid red of blood, sheeting down the concrete steps, carries the salt of saliva and sour of bile and the stench of paramedic unmentionables all the way over to the trees. The kicking already look like the jerking spasms of octopus tentacles drenched in soy sauce; the comparison is intrusive, immediate, and vivid. "What are you doing? We have to go." The harsh whisper in her ear is the subject of her dream. Lilian, in the woods behind her, watching the same sight, grabs Mesmer's hand and pulls. She only gets to see her eyes for an instant, but they're wide and urgent in a way she's never seen, and strangely devoid of genuine fear. Her strength is unusual, but less remarkable than when the both of them are awake. What stands out is that, in the direction Lilian chooses to run, the forest yields. What had previously seemed to be a solid wall of vegetation reveals a rocky path was there all along. Where thorns and solid rock had funneled Mesmer in one direction, they display narrow passages when Lilian drags her to one side. Without even asking who she is, Lilian drags Mesmer as hard as she can, until her visitor starts to run as well. Even if the horrific sounds in the background weren't reason enough, the sensation of sprinting through the woods, aimless except for 'away', as straight and as fast as possible, feels like it peels back the clinging 'film' stuck to Mesmer's skin. At least some of it. Enough to return to a mere itch, and not like sweat-soaked latex gloves she can't wait to rip off her clammy and wrinkled hands.
Foundation Scions	It's a bad sign that immediately, within the dream-scape, Mesmer Jr. goes along her usual shorthand-coded command to the Artificial Somnambulism device, (three, then two, taps on her left clavicle with her left middle and ring fingers,) to lower the portrayal of sensation- but this isn't the manner of dream she can alter functions on, it's raw data, still being dreamt, the usual conveniences bypassed just to make the procedure take less time. As such, that awful, pervasive spider-silk feeling stays, at the front of Mesmer's mind. More than the rarity that is the overall level of sensory detail, that has her mood absolutely ruined off the bat. But it's fine, it's better than real bugs, even if it demands she take up a crossed-arms, nearly shoulder-hugging posture, instinct trying to reduce the air gap between clothes and skin that something must be skittering around on, exacerbating the discomfort regardless. When she realizes it's warm enough to sweat, on top of that, she feels as if her stomach should twist up. Taking a steeling breath doesn't really work, because changes to psychological state through the manipulation of physiological state, are dependent on her not being physically unconscious in a chair. The steeling action Mesmer relies upon, each time, is to remind herself the observational role she's to take, and how in the end of this, there won't be real, lasting consequence. It never helps much. Muttering, presumably just for the record, "Passive discomfort, ants-under-skin sensation. A facet of the dream, or a facet of her core psyche? Red, stands out unlike other colors. Both points for later discussion." Trudging along the beach, as odd as it is for this kind of dream to require, beyond specifically-curated simulation programs, is scowl-worthy strange, but the scowl doesn't abate when watching the men in their conversation. "And prosopagnosia. Useful to have solidifying evidence on that front. Doubtful relevance to the matter of reckless acceptance of offered substances." Focus on the indistinct men's actions helps her take herself out of the moment, important, given she's not here just to experience a dream but study it and its dreamer- the motif of 'boys turning into sharks' has her formulating assumptions before, even, the two of them cornering the dream woman. There's only so much one can take oneself out of the moment when watching sickening behavior, obvious, even without audible words, even once the display is out of sight. It isn't news to her that the subject matter of dreams can encompass grisly affairs, as memory can- for someone who doesn't dream, she's spent more time in them than anyone could keep track. It doesn't mean her personal measures for witnessing things and moving on, are particularly successful at mitigating chest-tightening horror and disgust, separate from the way the constant, awful sensation of the dream demands she feel that way. Hearing the men scream is a surprise. Trying to take a step forwards is revolting, trying to take a step back is too- watching on in observational horror, that's her job, for all the comfort that offers, and what extrapolations one can make in 'something, somewhere out of sight, is tearing scary, trespassing men apart, in response to misdeeds towards another', Mesmer isn't making it now, when she still has to smell the blood.
Foundation Scions	'What are you doing? We have to go.' "What?" Unsteady standing still, the impulse-fright to turn and face a familiar voice leaves her to feel as if she's reeling, spinning in or out of consciousness, even if her state of awareness doesn't change. Registering 'pull' before 'touch', she stumbles forwards to try and catch a fall, before her throat tightens up in spotting Lilian's hand. If speaking were easier, no doubt she'd voice a 'don't touch me,', or let out the scream that's caught-back in a too-tight throat, but she's dragged, moving, and eventually running alongside, and there's hardly any point. At least Mesmer wore gloves, for all that ould matter. Dubious as to whether she's trying to piece together more from the dream, or if she's forgotten she's even in one, "You were watching. You should say what you remember seeing, if you can." Still wide-eyed frantic, voicing it like an instruction to a dream-construct instead of the dreamer herself, comes immediately, speaking to a person doesn't, until, fast-speech scared, "Did it see us? Whatever it was."
Lilian Rook	Despite the nonsensible run through the unnaturally yielding forest, the directionality of it is strangely logical. Even down to the way the anomalous trees slowly regain their equally inappropriate tropical shapes, the geographical layout of the nameless, fictional island is subtly very clear in Lilian's mind. It shouldn't be a surprise that she knows where she's going. And yet even that idea is baffling; a dream should have events follow events, with the set dressing of place and time merely appearing to fill demand. 'You were watching. You should say what you remember seeing, if you can.' Lilian, in the black dress, even her own facial features just very slightly smudged, as if photobrushed, looks over her shoulder at Mesmer as if stunned that she can talk. The headlong sprinting through the forest is just now drawing to a close; she can feel that in Lilian's diminishing pace and the brightening of the sky. The timing of the former is coincidental, but the latter feels as if it's part of a tonal shift. "It's already too late for her." says Lilian, in place of 'why should I actually?'. "I guess she was already too sick. Now that she's started, she can't stop anymore." 'Did it see us? Whatever it was.' The look of curiosity Lilian gives her; noncomprehending and yet unbothered, more analytical than anything else; feels like Mesmer has said something slightly stupid, but that Lilian is taking it in stride as 'something a character would say'. It is now her 'role' to give the 'correct answer'. "No she didn't. It'll take her twenty minutes or so to finish them." It's a strangely precise measure of time for a dream. Mesmer could keep track of it by the sound of the waves. "You're safe. If you get frightened, come and find me. As long as you're close to me, you won't die." When Lilian leads Mesmer to the edge of a short, but steep slope; one that she slides down with bare hands and feet, and waits for at the base of; the trees peel back almost entirely, and reveal what must be a mile of dazzling sand and cyan-blue water at another corner of the island. A crescent clearing cut out of the woods, the water foams in a moon-shaped inlet filled with coral that should be much further out. On the other side of it, raised on a rambling scaffold of metallic struts and criss-crossed pipe, an entire building is supported halfway off a cliff by what amounts to a partially-rusted gantry. The weather platforms that surround it, belonging on an oil rig, create the bare illusion of a chunk of city street. Despite being as cheap and dilapidated as the 'cabin', it bears some notable resemblance to a hospital. It's unpleasant, how intuitively certain it feels that this destination would have been here the entire time, if Mesmer simply knew of it, and walked around the coast. Dwelling on the subject reliably makes her skin feel itchier and sweatier than before, until she turns her thoughts away from space and the things occupying it. Even after slowing down, it feels like she still can't catch her breath. A subtle weight pushes on the inside of her ribcage, rather than outside, feeling like she can't fully exhale. It takes stressful, forceful effort, to breathe any more than increasingly shallow. Like oxygen itself is a one-way ratchet that can only be used up. On such a clear day, too.
Lilian Rook	"Come on. You have to go inside." Lilian indicates, without explaining, in the direction of the building. The only way up is an open-air cable elevator; one which she reaches quickly and holds for Mesmer as if uncertain what to do about someone else being with her. The platform itself has the paint-markings for a helipad. "I need to do something, but I'll be quick. Don't open any doors. If you do then I'll leave you behind." Surely this all makes sense to her, via some prior-established narrative. The only response Mesmer gets unprompted is the weirdly vivid smell of deisel and the unpleasant rumble of a winch motor. The upwards lurch of the lift comes without vertigo. The stop at the end is pitch dark. So dark that Mesmer's eyes have to adjust; in a dream, no less, though it takes no mor than three seconds. This building-- surely it must be the same one-- was distinctly raised off the ground. Half was on a steep cliff, and the other half was on stilts over the ocean. There should be no reason that Mesmer finds herself up to her knees in ice cold water, reeking of salt and rust. Lilian, in the same situation, groans, dismayed, as though this were merely something worse than expected. She squeezes her hand around Mesmer's wrist, sloshing closer to her the dark, evincing every prepatory urge to hit the same mechanism and descend the elevator once more and get out of this cold, dark, wet hole . . . And then someone-- some tall, vaguely male figure, impossible to see in the low light, soundlessly appears out of thin air next to her, a flashlight offered in his outstretched hand. With a look of grim resignation, Lilian sighs, takes it from his hand, and, naturally switching it to an underhand grip by her head in a way seems at odds with her appearances, switches it on without a word. The light banishes him like a spectre, and reveals the dingy walls, streaked with corrosion and decay, the bland, clinic-style tiled ceiling, tube lights and all, and the oily film that coats the frothing seawater that has risen to the level of submerging the hospital furniture around them. "I only looked away for a second. How is it already this bad?" Lilian whines, stifling tones of more significant distress in the back of her throat. Sweeping the narrow light back and forth only reveals just how many flying insects are already inside. "Oh no. Oh god I'm going to have to . . . All the way up to the third floor?" Isn't this the first floor? "Hhhh . . . Perhaps if I'm fast I can . . ." She has plenty of reason to sound this distressed. It'd be a shock if Mesmer weren't, around the time that something cold and slimy brushed past her leg. When she moves her legs, the skin the water touches is visibly stained green-black, as if exclusively the outer epidermis had spent a week rotting in the sun. Lilian isn't any better off. Over the buzzing flies, Mesmer can hear her teeth chattering. A second figure appears, this time over Mesmer's shoulder; someone in a suit, or perhaps a uniform. The faceless apparition extends its hand, offering Lilian a poorly understood (surely it'd never work in reality) replica of a welding torch (no goggles), and with equal dread and equal uncomplaining silence, Lilian takes those too.
Lilian Rook	Torch in hand, Lilian wades through the water up to the dead end of the corridor behind the elevator-- which is now a staircase, having altered itself when she stopped observing it. Visibly swallowing nausea, she leans as low down as she can without getting her hair in the water, and identifies a hole in the wall, which should be high in the air, through which a constant flow of frothing, filthy water is pouring into the building. The sharp flash of the welding arc-- god it even smells like ozone; a welcome relief from rust and rot-- should naturally drive away the buzzing insects, but it only seems to intensify their interest instead. It's clear enough to see that what Lilian is doing is 'sealing a breach in a ship hull'. As she works, the rate of the water's rise, now mid-thigh, slows down, bit by bit. Ignoring Mesmer for a while, as an unimportant detail, she hurries off to the next stop down the same corridor, stopping to seal and breach there. When the water reaches Mesmer's waist, and thus Lilian's chest when she has to bend down, she hesitates; and then a maid-like figure appears at her side like a surgeon's assistant to hand her a rebreather; one she equips with a gagging noise, and forces her head underwater to get at the third. Over the course of subjective minutes, running around the decaying interior of a hospital and trying to patch it up like a leaky ship that nobody seems to care is sinking becomes a persistent pattern. One that Mesmer is ill-motivated to prevent, since the water only slows, stops, and starts to recede again, when Lilian gets to work, and there are no stairs to higher ground that she can see (thus raising the distinct possibility that if Lilian stopped, they would both drown). Even though the water is ice cold, the air is sweltering hot. The air is so swampy and tastes so strongly of iron that it ceases to feel any different from breathing blood. Somehow, the difference between oily seawater and Mesmer's own sweat is staggeringly sharp. It doesn't take Mesmer's own germophobia to inherit Lilian's dreaming hyperawareness of the teeming bacterial soup inherent to both of them as well; the flies swarm her with the intent of drinking it from her skin, entirely fitting for how it's since come to feel like sodden cloth clinging wrinkled to her muscles. The damnable sound of the waves is still audible, too; pounding on the hull like a heartbeat. The tension is familiar. The same sense of dread as before builds inexorably towards a vague yet vividly looming 'point of no return' that is entirely separate from drowning. The busywork of draining the water back down to the floor below, and then scrambling down the stairs into neck-level filth to drive it further back, is something incidentally in the way; an anxiety-inducing drain on time that even Mesmer feels instinctively short of. Lilian doesn't think to ask for help. She doesn't seem to even conceive of the idea that Mesmer is another pair of hands who probably doesn't want to die. If Mesmer chooses to ignore her and obsess over her own state, she'll miss the fact that each time the encroaching rot-stains cover more than half of Lilian's body, a pair of smoky black hands, like those of a ghost, appear to peel or brush the saturated grime off her, as though it were wet fabric; a capacity unique to their touch alone.
Lilian Rook	The same hands manifest when a fly swoops in to bite at her skin, and splatter it between two fingers. When she is handed further tools by mysterious, silently demanding figures, those bodiless hands are what catch the equipment she lets go of, hovering around her like a silent orbit of orderlies. Or like a fleet of servants keeping Lilian's condition from ever quite becoming intolerable, dutifully beating back the signs each time. She finds them, somehow, even less unusual than anything else. And it'd be a shame if Mesmer missed the instant that a somewhat more definite figure, with a few streaks of hair that practically glow, finally appears next to Lilian to hand her a bottle of water and a hanful of pills, both gratfully consumed in moments. Only then, with the water level a full floor and a half below, does Lilian come right back to Mesmer and say "I have to get to my appointment now. Can I trust you to at least do this much?" She sounds like she's on the verge of tears. In short sequence, Lilian foists the welding equipment off on Mesmer, including the rebreather she'd just spat out, and runs around the nearest corner, down a corridor that Mesmer hadn't seen before, and towards a staircase that now descends from the ceiling. The corridor is lined with heavy steel doors with tiny sliding windows; cells, most likely, all of them with viewing holess The way the stairs look, clearly folded down as if to reach an attic space, implies they were being withheld until now by someone above. Lilian is quick to sprint up them, skipping every odd stair to get to higher ground as quickly as possible. No sooner has she left that random space in a wall nearby groans, cracks, and then begins spewing water back onto the floor again. If Mesmer sticks around to patch it up again, before the water gets back to her ankles, a second will appear, and then a third, a fourth, and so on. No such authority figures will appear to hand her a single thing.
Foundation Scions	'It's already too late for her.' "I didn't ask that." Still, that's a concerning answer. The tone of almost being talked-past, with the expectation of understanding so common in dreams, and so familiar to someone who works in them, is still visibly irritating Mesmer. Frankly, it's her fault for trying to utilize direct speech. She'll still continue, but only because it costs nothing to do so, even if futile. She'd hate it more if everything else weren't so uncomfortable. 'I guess she was already too sick. Now that she's started, she can't stop anymore.' "Elaborate on that. A sickness? Where, how, in what shape and feel? What do you think the method of transmission is?" It'd be easy to mistake that Mesmer Jr., known paranoid germaphobe, is asking purely out of personal concern, but 'disease' is a strong scheme for subconscious portrayals of many matters- the only real clue that that's the line she's asking along is that she's asking what Lilian thinks on it. Her even being able to spit the words out, though, is clearly something fueled by her neuroses- and tertiary to both, awareness of schemas of disgust and disease are both pieces of ammunition in treatment-construction. Of course someone can't themselves die in a dream, even another's, and the prospect of lasting harm exists only in instinctual levels. Lilian's assurance that Mesmer will be fine, if she sticks to her, that's met with annoyance and passive acceptance. Resigning herself to detached compliance frees her to focus on other things than words, and base notes on the fragile, decaying structures in this new part of the island- like why she's having trouble breathing? Why is she having trouble breathing? Is it in the dream, or the real world? The more she thinks about it, the more she thinks about it, disgusting cognizance of the presence of lungs, and their motion. She nods to not opening doors, instead of saying anything, because the base fear that opening her mouth for that pointless escaping of air won't be replaceable. - - - For the first time so far in the dream, an action has been one that's fit, superficially, the pattern of behavior Mesmer Jr. is tasked with rooting-out- flashlight offering isn't much on its own, but at the very least, if she has to do all the work in constructing a treatment program from near-scratch, that's a fragmentary asset she can utilize. That it comes at the moment that Mesmer has to wade through frigid water, so soon after oppressive heat and a lack of air, that's just insulting, on some higher-level. Is Lilian dreaming this way just to fuck with her? "Disgusting, filthy, rot-filled pestilence, it smells bad, it tastes bad-" She can feel the water turning her boots into veritable cinderblocks, wading a struggle, and if she looks anywhere but the ceiling, at the clinging film. Every manner of sensory hell, but without even a dream's usual filter of blur. No, she's certain Lilian is doing this to her on purpose. That blame-fixation is strong enough that when some cold strand of much brushes bare under-water skin, she looks at Lilian with a flinching glare, not the water. The second object-presentation puts a point to a line. Narrating out loud, because her teeth will chatter otherwise, because she'll freak out if she doesn't focus on the motion of speaking, "It's been a tool both times. A flashlight to see, a butane torch-" Sorta, "-To connect? Fix? No, that's the wrong expressive response. Assistance and duty? Obligation? Humanoid figures both times, not objects." Musing, she stops talking as Lilian starts to trudge, and the miserable conditions hit her again. Out loud, forgetting just to think it, "Is the water level getting higher?"
Foundation Scions	Mesmer tries to raise a leg out of the water a bit, as if that's a way to check the rise, and the idea makes her so nauseated once she even looks horizontal in the chamber, that she tries to brace herself on the rusty wall. Any measure of maintaining professionalism and task-awareness is franticly pushed to the back of her mind- "Stop rising, stop, just stop, go back, get down, and stop touching me, it's as bad as the guardhouse, maggots and worms and biting flies-" Focused not at all on Lilian's efforts, specifically, to stop the water, Mesmer shuts her eyes, and repeats the clavicle-tap shortcut, to still no avail. Only this time, only this once, will she ever have to touch this program without preferred safeguards. How fantastic. It's cyclical, over too short of a time, how Mesmer shifts between vocalized comments and notes, disgusted, ranting freak-out statements, shuffling to keep flies off her, shutting her eyes tight, wishing miserably, that prior to this dream, and states of being mostly set in stone, she'd work hazmat gear rather than a minidress, and, actually, intent, passive, wide-eyed stare at everything Lilian does. The hands catch her off guard, but despite different appearance, she slots that in as likely to do with the humanoid figures appearing and disappearing out of seemingly no-where. That the purple one appears, physically startles her- and that she's the one to offer medicine, jolts Mesmer uncomfortably back into focusing on the moment. It's not often that Mesmer feels guilty about the idea of utilizing extant mental constructs to re-shape personality to a more productive form, and this is almost an exception- to have to edit this dream and cause the hand-off aid to be soured, it's miserable- but she'll tell herself she only thinks so because she has to experience the dream right now, and she'll make herself mad instead of guilty another day, and it will be back to business as usual. It's no matter that Lilian doesn't ask for help. Mesmer's never once thought to offer, watching, and desperately trying to convince herself it's nothing close to her dream, no matter how violently, viscerally miserable it is, unlike the norm, and familiar enough to beg her own reaction to the circumstances- to sit by and find a way to try and tolerate it, as if eventually, it'll just stop. The welding torch isn't in her hands right now, after all. 'Can I trust you to at least do this much?' And then it is. "Find someone else-" are the words first out of her mouth, but she takes the torch anyways, because there isn't someone else. Somehow, taking a just-in-someone's-mouth rebreather doesn't register on the levels of germaphobic horror Mesmer is experiencing, the human mouth contains a large amount of bacteria, but its conditions are hostile still to many infectious species in ways water isn't. Once Lilian is out of sight, and the first new crack forms, Mesmer shouts, screams at it, and braces to work- there's no-one else to do it, and nothing else to do but try and not let it drown her yet, bit by bit.
Lilian Rook	'Elaborate on that. A sickness? Where, how, in what shape and feel? What do you think the method of transmission is?' "Are you new?" The question is short, sharp, and sudden, in a way that Lilian usually isn't. It's neither tuned to be cutting nor aimed to attack anything about Mesmer in particular. She could call it 'devoid of non-utilitarian frippery' if she felt charitable. Lilian stares at her again as if Mesmer might suddenly grow a second head. She says "You look like you belong here." like a solemn delivery of 'you have cancer', without the bracing period. "It's not like a disease. There are these tiny particles. Just being around them lets them get inside you. It's like lead poisoning. You can't keep it out." All the same, Lilian is dreaming, and that means, apparently, inexorably moving forward. The way she accepts Mesmer as 'I just don't understand this' doesn't feel like the usual tendency to simply not question things in a dream; it's more like the opposite, as if her focus is so objective-driven that she can't waste time on caring about 'why' and simply has to accept the 'reality' in front of her. "I think it gets into your brain from there. I know that it makes you want to eat people, so that it can mature. Until you eat someone, it's fixable, but after that, it gestates and transforms." She stares at Mesmer once again, and glances her up and down. "It only affects women. You should be careful. You probably can't see the particles, so you wouldn't be able to avoid them. So far it's only me who can. All I'm doing is staying out of them when I see them, but the doctors keep saying I'm immune. They don't listen at all. I fucking hate it when they don't listen." Lilian exhales with a kind of laboured depth of breathing that would feel very good for Mesmer to be able to manage right now. She squeezes, then releases her hand, and whispers "Sorry for yelling." . . . . . . . . 'Disgusting, filthy, rot-filled pestilence, it smells bad, it tastes bad-' "Don't say that. They're going to hear you." Lilian shoots back at Mesmer with an echoing-loud stage whisper. Without looking away from her work, she mutters it in tones of sympathetic franticity. "I know it's bad, but you have to fight it. They'll never admit it's leaking. They'd rather drown first. All you can do is bear with it until you get your chance; and you have to be ready for that chance, so you can't let them know you hate it, or they'll interfere. Are you listening?" Whether or not Mesmer actually is listening is irrelevant. The explanation is more like a mantra than anything. A calming chant. Even while Mesmer is ranting to herself about things that dreaming Lilian doesn't understand, she goes as far as to say "You can do it. I believe in you." heedless of Mesmer's glare. 'Stop rising, stop, just stop, go back, get down, and stop touching me, it's as bad as the guardhouse, maggots and worms and biting flies-' The words leave Mesmer's mouth in a way that evokes churning guts and squelching thick mud. The back of her throat rasps with each word of complaint, coming up as coughing belches of tarry sludge that drip from her lips and burn the inside of her throat like acidic after-vomit. Lilian responds by keeping her head down and studiously ignoring it; as if pretending she can't hear Mesmer is a gesture of kindness.
Lilian Rook	'Find someone else-' It doesn't extend to words at Lilian, though. Her voice is back to normal when addressing her directly. Lilian flinches at the thought, right in Mesmer's face, but gently wipes away a string of tar from her lips with a black hand, and says "You can do it. You know what'll happen if they bury you." as if it's an encouragement, before hurrying away. The second breach forms the instant Mesmer screams. The pattern emerges just that quickly. If she stays frantically quiet and acts like nothing is wrong, she has enough time to let the water level go down. If she screams, curses, complains, or otherwise acts out in any way, the water level rises that much faster. Exposure to the water only gets worse over time, too. The cold becomes caustic on subsequent washes, like bleach that does the opposite of cleaning. Numb pustules form over time, bursting when scraped, and disgorging textured slurries of something equally similar to mulched up scabs as it is to vomit and acne pus. The feeling of clinging 'otherness' inexorably crawls up Mesmer's skin and into her throat, inching towards her vocal cords, nightmarishly like a hairy spider considering making her throat its new nest, as well as up the insides of her thighs, congealing into strings of slime that feel weighty as lead. After the ninth breach, Mesmer's busywork takes her by one of the locked cell doors so closely that standing up from her welding immediately puts her at eye level with the window. Caked in grime around its corners, the narrow slot gives her a view of a cell that's clearly larger on the inside than it should be; just enough to feel oppressively barren. With no furnishings to speak of, the bare concrete floor and walls are overgrown with tumerous lumps of silvery-grey human tissue, strung together with veins like wires. Flies swarm around rotting spare limbs and the ragged lower half of a human body, strewn around the enclosure and left to gather mold. The human body curled up at the far corner, knees to its chest, stands out for being the only identifiably female one in the room and for technically being in one piece, in the sense that the woman's head, on the opposite side of the room, glued into the ceiling corner like a wasps's nest, is still connected to her butterflied ribcage by the fungus-like fleshy-metal growth that serves as the epicenter of the room's rampant overgrowth. The wall under her head is streaked rust red with old blood all down its length. Her eyes catch Mesmer when she looks through. It's the worst possible timing for a grown man to put his hand on her shoulder from behind.
Lilian Rook	The figure is, once again, indeterminate. Tall, male, at least 'formally dressed', though faceless as before. This one speaks. The voice is difficult to place, but the sheer degree of hostility for Mesmer, a total stranger, is momentarily overwhelming. "Why are you here? Stop fucking about and get to work. They've already called for you." It's hard to tell whether the faceless stand-in is even looking at Mesmer, but his tone is so precise that the one detail alone is enough to perfectly convey that Mesmer is not safe with him, and that this is his idea of being 'patient'. "I'll never understand why you love wading around in this muck so much, and I hope I never do. You can go back to this only after you march up there and do everything they tell you; and keep your mouth shut for Christ's sake." Even without an expression, she can tell the stand-in is sneering at her. Like he's caught her red-handed, joyfully playing in mud like a five year old, rather than on the edge of a mental breakdown. But surely anything is better than being here. And he's marching her in the direction where Lilian went, too. She can tell even without referencing the layout of the floor, because she can hear her voice echoing from above; a shivery-tight plaintive neutral "You've said you'd treat me after the last one." echoes down from the rickety staircase. "You said it before then, too, and I politely didn't say anything because I thought it might embarrass you. Can't we please have a talk about what you already promised? It's been years. You promised that if I did everything correctly and I made no mistakes that--" The figure behind Mesmer shakes his head, and mutters "Another spoiled tart." She can feel a stare sans any real eyes scorching the back of her head "Keep your hands to yourself so the histrionic little whore doesn't make a scene, and you can go. And don't say a word about it all being made up again or so help me god." The borderline frog march carries Mesmer up the entire staircase, then a double set, making no sense at all within the confines of 'a ship deck'; the hairpin turn serves only to lend veracity to the concrete walls, the sense of a solid stairwell, and finally, the opening of the doors ahead of her, cross-hatched glass set into fashionable aluminium overtop of pristine bleached white tiles. Compared to the hellhole level below, the cleanliness here is outright blinding. The silver and white is more intense than Laplace by far. The purpose of the room is completely uncertain; there are consulting chairs, a clinician's desk, an operating table, curtain-separated wards; but the equipment, strangely, is accurately detailed as far as Mesmer can tell. All of it is distinctly medical, and very much functional, even if aggressively sterile and sci-fi. The fact that Mesmer doesn't recognize a few items, and can immediately notice many absences where Laplace would have something, makes it more likely a gestalt made from memory rather than a twisted version of LSCC. It's just this blindingly sterile so that every single trace of Lilian, then Mesmer, stands out like a gaping wound; sludgy footprint remnants on white tile and oily-corrosive fingerprints on the door handle. The overwhelming smell of antiseptic only makes Mesmer hyperaware of the fact that she smells exactly like a rotting corpse. Lilian, hands caked in drying blood up past the wrist, turns to stare at Mesmer in dread from her chair. The blandly official doctor in an outright saintly white outfit looks in her direction expectantly, and wrinkles his nose.
Lilian Rook	"I'm afraid it's too late to change plans." the . . . doctor? says. "We've already gone to considerable cost to contact the Mesmer Group and fly out a specialist to help you. That's their representative standing in the door. You'll have to finish working with them first before we can talk about suspending your duties for personal treatment." The word 'personal' is said with such an aura of nose-holding condescension that it needs no further explanation. What does need explanation is why the man holding Mesmer's shoulder is suddenly more or less just how she remembers her own father. Not a faceblind rendition drawn from Lilian's memory, either. His voice, once vague, now sounds just like Mesmer remembers it, but the tone and cadence and delivery of every word is all wrong; the way he speaks to her, when he leans down to her ear, is the way that men reserve only for other grown men that they hate. "Now. You'll go in there, and you'll introduce yourself, and you'll say Annika, like a respectable human being, and not a word of 'Mesmer Junior'. Incurable little faggot. You've already made things bad enough by presenting yourself in this . . . state." There's probably some symbolism to the fact that Mesmer feels a gun being jammed into the small of her back. It doesn't really matter to the reality of being marched into the middle of the room, between Lilian and the doctor. From here, she can see a little ways down the corridor, through the doorway on the other side of the room, and on the opposite wall of it, a cell identical to the ones below, currently open, with a familiar blonde woman stripped naked and curled up in the far corner. Her skin is ashen grey, covered in cuts, and her eyes are rolled back white, as she appears to be struggling to retain consciousness. "I've already told you a thousand times. It's too late when they do that. I can't fix it." "Please don't give me excuses. You can do it just fine. You're you." "What does doing it even look like?" "I'd appreciate it if you didn't waste any more time. The Mesmer is here." "But there's nothing I can do!" "Complaining won't speed up your treatment. In fact, I might have to move you to another list." "You've already done that a hundred times! Why don't you believe me?!" "There's no use getting hysterical. The Mesmer is already here. You'll be treating the victim in the usual way, with their assistance." "I'm not! She's dangerous! You have to lock the door now!" "Your behaviour is unacceptable. This victim is your responsibility and you will make amends. No one can do it but you." "She's going to turn out like the other girls downstairs! I can't keep saving you forever!" "The Mesmers are going to be very unhappy with your attitude." "If you don't treat me, and I die, then you're going to die too!" "Please sign your notice of deferral of personal treatment. Or I'll be forced to add it to your record."
Lilian Rook	The completely incomprehensible, nearly one-sided argument comes to an abrupt close when, yet again out of thin air, a vaguely-designed hospital orderly appears to hand Lilian a stack of forms. Swallowing back nausea and fear along with her angry tears, Lilian runs off to a corner of the room, slaps the papers down on an operating table, and begins frantically scribbling them where her back prevents anyone from seeing them. She's racing the filthy water already climbing back up the staircase just outside. Mesmer can hear the rushing sound even from here. If she tries to turn her head to look, the thing wearing her father's face jabs her with the thinly concealed handgun to face forward instead. Forward is the direction she can see the ill woman in the cell beginning to convulse and bleed, her neck slowly tearing at the seams. Lilian is clearly the only other person in the room aware of both these things. She keeps glancing away from her forms, at the cell more often than the water. As the sound from below gets closer, more of those black hands materialize around her, each taking their own pens, doubling, tripling, then quadrupling the speed at which she tackles the utterly asinine paperwork, all the way until foul-smelling water spills up the stairs and finds Mesmer's boots again. The woman in the cell's convulsions get more and more violent, until the wall stains red behind her head. She fixes her eyes not on Lilian, but right past her, at Mesmer.
Foundation Scions	'Don't say that. They're going to hear you.' "What?" Hushed, scared, it's not actually a question. It's good that it isn't, because everything Lilian says afterwards is back to the disconnected, not-conversation form found in dreams, and the mantra is a necessary reminder (it's a very bad sign that she's forgetting otherwise,) that this still is just a dream. As such, the only way Mesmer seems to think about Lilian's words is as they're actually meant to be, self-directed. Too bad, frankly, because Mesmer could use a mooring line. With tar leaking from her mouth, Mesmer's certain she wants out of the dream. It's hard to say, right now, when the points will be passed through that will be most useful for her aims of planning a treatment, but she wants out even if she'll hold it in longer. Hands, glove-covered, though stained by the awful water's residue, reach up to cover her mouth, from view and from opening, as it feels like she's spitting up organs, rotted to a slurry. That Mesmer actually goes through the manual process in the dream, after the dreamer herself leaves the picture, is something she'll curse herself for later, but regardless of any pseudodeterministic belief that if she stood around watching and waiting, any important events would still pass by as normal, she's stuck in the horrible water patching leaks herself, because the water would still be there, rising, and even in someone else's dream, the thought of drowning here is hard-wired horrific. Realistically, she's probably past the part where there's any use to not trying to cut the connection now, and get out of the dream. She's seen some, enough exhibits of habit and action to co-opt for a treatment course, to work by increments to alter and reframe this dream, and it's probably enough, under normal circumstances, for a normal patient, but just because it's this unpleasant doesn't mean she can be certain quitting now will be fine, at the risk of missing information otherwise less-accessible on the eventual recording. But god, does the layering-on of pustule-scabs, crawling slime, filth-stains, ozone-poisoned air she can't keep down, make thinking of anything but being done with it all impossible. Inaction doesn't make it better, but action makes it worse, so keep your head down. Of course that's how it works. It's only sensible. >Locked Cell If only the window was covered-over and opaque. The bodies and rot make her want to scream- eye contact with the nearly-decapitated head makes her wish she couldn't make a peep. No-one wants to see what's left over of someone left in a cell, fly-burrowed and rotting, no matter if it's from outside or inside. The room-spreading viscera, dead, alive, a primordial bacteria-mat on a seafloor, a tissue sample in a petri dish, teratoma growths exposed to air, worms in skin- Waterlogged boots carry her back a step, as if that means anything, the door's still closed-shut, but it carries her into-
Foundation Scions	'Why are you here?' "I was told to," crosses her lips before she thinks better of it, and simply nods in response to the rest. There's nothing to be gained by protesting the movements of a dream- that's what she'd tell herself if the concession wasn't automatic and thoughtless. At being reminded it's best she not talk, an 'Okay', recklessly casual but brief enough to be risked, serves as punctuation. Up and up should be a relief, out of the all-staining seawater, but where it's seeped into boots is a disgusting chain of added weight, to trudge with and pray she doesn't slip and fall back down the stairs. ... Was there blood on Lilian's hands before? Mesmer isn't sure- she should be sure, that's important symbology to reflect some manner of processed sentiment, but in the time since she'd last seen her in the dream, that's gone foggy. Mesmer stares her way, furious, disgusted, pointlessly blaming her for the events of this hell-sequence, it's her dream, after all, her problem that she's here to fix, her as the sole reason she's having to stand back-straight and dripping in corrosive-feeling filth in front of these others, who want and expect from her no doubt what they always do, in this hospital the same as any other, and- 'We've already gone to considerable cost to contact the Mesmer Group and fly out a specialist to help you.' Oh. That's her. Never, not once before, when this deep in a patient's dream, has Mesmer ever herself been placed into the dream's contents- and more, it's been the better part of a decade since she's had a dream of her own. In the case she still has to first-hand view and interact with a linked dream, it's always like the earlier-on interactions: she's sometimes acknowledged as present, but hovering still a bit outside the storyline, talked-past, looked-past, mostly inconsequential. Even trudging through the rising waters, miserable through and through, is the kind of circumstance still within worst-case expectations. But, this? She's left without defense, and just because it doesn't feel real, doesn't mean she can make herself believe it couldn't be. She shouldn't be seeing her father in someone else's dream, and he certainly shouldn't be speaking to her that way, but what can she do about that? It's like all the air's out of her lungs, still, or again, and it hardly matters because even if the words out of her father's mouth make less sense, in different tone, than they should, she's still nodding along, because there's a gun at her back. he gun is the only thing she can think about. Barrel jammed up against the first lumbar vertebrae, she knows just on the point-blank percussion, a shot means she'd never walk again, if she's lucky enough for a deflection to not rupture kidneys or bowel, and how the former is preferable to the latter, because internal bleeding is faster and calmer than septic shock- and that's just the first bullet. A gun to her back gets her to comply, and that's the end of that. It'd be there whether it was jammed against her back or not, and that's the end of that. "Annika Mesmer, I've read the patient files," She lies, but it's a lie she's used to making, speaking only because she's lapsed into horrible uncertainty of if this still is a dream, or some bout of horrible, incoherent memory-break, and somehow is happening. If it is, she should end the dream-connection, right? So the next words out of her mouth should be that, not, doctor-addressing, muck-stained and gloved hand out to shake, "I'll make sure your patient is in good hands." She can hear the water. She can feel it lapping at her boots. What reason is there to look if it's there either way? The gun's there, she knows, and it's enough to keep her acting out this part, no prodding needed.
Foundation Scions	Really, it's just the injury-covered woman down the hall, that tips scales back enough to 'being a dream', and only because the more absurd cases she's worked on, storm syndrome and arcanum-based body-system collapses, feel unreal enough to stare out at in disbelieving horror. What's she supposed to do about someone's head half-detaching and growing across the room? That's what's about to happen, isn't it? No, this is a sick, twisted amalgamation of in-process memories, this can't be what she's to deal with, unbriefed, without even being offered a moment to get to any point of operational sterility. If it's real, if she's actually being stared-at from this distance by that suffering woman, she'd hardly be embarrassed for a universal system-stop gesture and the muttered repitition of, "End connection, end connection, end connection-" - - - Whenever it is that Lilian wakes up from the dream, it's later than Mesmer has. The curtains to the hospital room are still drawn, the door still shut, the lights still dim, but instead of doctoral hovering, with that arms-crossed dismissive expression, Mesmer is quite obviously sitting as far from Lilian as the room provides means for, a chair by the wall, for visitors, or objects, to sit on. The room smells like tobacco, because that's better to flood senses with in the moment than the scent of isopropyl alcohol and bleach, and because smoke reminds her better that she can breathe than oxygen does, and because god, she needs u, something) for the nausea, and the pharmacy is down the hall, out past the security of opaque walls, and might as well be a million miles away. As such, Lilian awakes to see Mesmer Jr., haunted, and staring down at floor-tiles, with a half-burnt cigarette between her fingers. She's changed her gloves, washed and sanitized, the evidence is right there in the biohazard disposal bin, and, in a countertop pill-mortar, used as an ashtray, is the evidence this isn't her first cigarette. Seeing eyes open again, and motion, fading-anger still present in her words, though they themselves aren't overtly hostile, "I can see the utility of that array of yours. I wouldn't want to remember that one either." Then, uncalled for, whispered instead of full-chest spoken, in an attempt to rub-in blame, "That's the worst I've seen." Sighing, cigarette shaky-held near her mouth, "Unfortunately, it's workable material."
Lilian Rook	Seeing Mesmer freaking out and rambling something about 'ending a connection' finally drags Lilian away from the paperwork. Leaving the half-completed stack on the operating table, she rushes over to Mesmer to grab her hands, looking directly at her in uncommon alarm. "We can go. I'm going. Come with me. Just follow me and don't stop. We'll just get as far away from here as possible. I don't care if this whole world ends. It'll all be fine as long as--" Bzzt. . . . . . . . . Lilian awakens after the better part of an hour since the session had begun. At first she stirs by finger twitching, then a sleepy groan, then attempting to roll over and grasp something on the other side of the cot, lightly bonking her forehead on the glass instead, and suddenly reaching for the pendant at her throat. Eyes fluttering open, she glances around the room, stares at Mesmer across it, and squints at her, head tilting back and forth, as she visibly tries to figure out who she is. The context takes nearly a full minute to all come back to her. 'I can see the utility of that array of yours. I wouldn't want to remember that one either.' "Was it a strangling dream or an invisibility dream?" Lilian says, blandly as can be, stifling a yawn. She weaponizes the blandness on purpose a moment later. "Surely it wasn't the all-seeing hydra one, or the curfew killings one. I'd think if it were the Eversion one then you'd be worse off, so . . . school or hospital?" The mention of her tattoo pisses her off just enough to be mean about it. "You didn't meet 'her', did you? You look intact." The stench of tobacco loads a little while after. The strange, hostile whisper from Mesmer causes Lilian to pause and reconsider, then swing her legs over the edge of the cot. 'That's the worst I've seen.' "I don't know how to feel about that." Lilian says, strangely simply. "I know I don't feel like I've won. I think it's just nice to hear someone else agree that it's real, actually." She stops to massage her stiff neck, and a reminder of the time she's wasted sours her mood again. "I didn't get that tattoo for something as frivolous as dreams, you know. I just dealt with it like a normal person. It was for something else." And yet her eyes fall on Mesmer's shaking fingers. 'Unfortunately, it's workable material.' "We don't have to do this, you know." Lilian says. "I won't make fun of you. I won't even say anything about it. I can show up to this office, we can ignore each other for an hour, and after six weeks we can both say 'I'm cured'." She leans forward, and folds her hands in her lap. "I'm serious. I don't really want to put you through this. We can drop it."
Foundation Scions	'. . . School or hospital?' "Hospital." Dry, flat, not really even looking Lilian's way, despite her eyes being pointed across the room in the same direction Lilian lies. "There were two- three? Three women, aside from you, though I'd hardly say I met any of them. Would you say that's usual, unusual, or somewhere in-between?" Tone to jot it down on a clipboard, but even her vocal recorder is tossed aside on a shelf, not to be thought of. If Lilian doesn't answer, she can be sure Mesmer probably wouldn't notice. 'I don't know how to feel about that.' Cigarette drag, then, still almost under-breath, "However you want to. It's a plain statement." By tone, Mesmer obviously hopes Lilian feels at least a little bad for it, but still, she shrugs. "Is the 'something else' of it relevant to the current topic of your treatment? If so, explain, if not, I'm not interested." Said with not quite the same hostile-indifference, Mesmer's tone is more akin to just wanting to be out of here, that this is a necessary formality, and that her mind is fully-elsewhere, and fixated on whatever's next. Food? Fresh air? A shower? Sleep? The world won't ever know, because Mesmer would rather lie and move things along than fess up to needing a break out of here after that dive. 'We don't have to do this, you know.' However, that snaps her back to formal-stiff, and back into focusing for real on the moment- "Your offer is noted, but my work is a serious matter, and it would be highly unethical to submit fabricated summaries of case progress. I care about my career, as do others." Making it Mesmer's choice is a surefire way for it to be brushed off, but it's also a surefire way, with the flash of annoyance across her face, that she'd prefer not to go through with it either. Carrying on, "Besides, all future engagements, I'll be utilizing far more sophisticated methods of sanity safe-guarding." Sanity safeguarding? That's the thing she's jumped to? "This room is reserved for your use if you need it, barring emergencies, so there's no rush to vacate. I am in a rush, however." Standing, picking a clip-board up off a cabinet, and stuffing her cigarette into the makeshift ashtray, Mesmer cycles the door lock, takes a breath to brace, and steps halfway out the door. Her free hand goes to grab its opposite's forearm, held down at her side, and she can't hide nervous glances towards the hallway floor. "As a matter of grace, I won't inform management that you've asked me to subvert medical integrity. That's all, good day." While the door closes shut on anti-slam dampeners, Mesmer's footsteps are still audible out in the hallway, rushed, then stopping, no doubt to lean against a wall. Whether or when they start up again isn't clear, the door's shut, and the sound of hustle and bustle in the hallways gone with it, but whenever it is that Lilian leaves the room, under any rock of the Artificial Somnambulism ward, Mesmer isn't present to be found, shift abandoned barely halfway through. What a joke.
Lilian Rook	'Hospital.' "That figures, seeing as you dragged me out to a hospital and all." Lilian grimaces. "Haven't I told you that I don't like them at least a dozen times?" [ansi(243,'There were two- three? Three women, aside from you, though I'd hardly say I met any of them.')] Lilian shakes her head. "You'd know if it was 'her'. I suppose she's staying out of it for now." 'Is the 'something else' of it relevant to the current topic of your treatment? If so, explain, if not, I'm not interested.' "You're terribly committed to this whole 'bit' you know." Lilian says, as if it's an indictment. "All I'm saying is that you seem to think I'm a very frivolous person, so it's perhaps a little bit cathartic to see you admit that you couldn't survive a day being me. That's it." 'Your offer is noted, but my work is a serious matter, and it would be highly unethical to submit fabricated summaries of case progress. I care about my career, as do others.' Lilian first makes a noise of irritation, then gives Mesmer a look of disgust, and then says "Really? Wasn't this just to punish me for throwing away your hangover pills? You've more than made your point; you can flex all sorts of power in this office to make my life difficult; well done. You don't have to keep pretending you care about whatever happens to me." After a little while longer to consider her reaction, though, Lilian lets herself slide back down to one-half hostility. She talks herself down with "Thou shalt use the fullest of thy competence at all times, and thou shalt demand the fullest. Thou shalt not accept substitutes, imitations, or shortcuts, from thyself or any other." and sighs. 'Besides, all future engagements, I'll be utilizing far more sophisticated methods of sanity safe-guarding.' "Whatever. Don't say I didn't warn you if they don't work." Lilian says. "The last girl who tried suffered permanent effects." 'This room is reserved for your use if you need it, barring emergencies, so there's no rush to vacate.' "I've no idea what I'd do with it." 'As a matter of grace, I won't inform management that you've asked me to subvert medical integrity. That's all, good day. "How generous of you." Lilian says, sarcastically. "I'm gladdened to hear that we're still keeping things between us." Before Mesmer actually leaves, though, by some bile compulsion, she lowers her voice one more time to say, "If it was a hospital dream, grab a bottle of water, go outside the building, don't come back until you've finished drinking it, then take a hot shower, and scrub rough." What a joke indeed. Still, Lilian can't quite help but feel like she's a little bit responsible when she slinks out of the room. Or perhaps just a little bit poisonous.