First (lack of) sleep note audio; un:pnws

[11calls]

[Because Alex is most comfortable doing audio (podcasts, they're radio on demand) that's what her posts are going to be. Her voice is soft and ready for radio, and there's a hint of a Canadian accent in it.

Also, it's two am so feel free to yell at her if she woke your character up!]

You know, I think I'm handling all of this rather well. Taken to a different world, okay. Might be in a coma or something back home but okay. Magic users and superheros, definitely okay. Still might be in a coma, but it's nice to know about.

My problem with being here is time. Back home, it was the end of September, not even proper Thanksgiving [Sorry, someone is from Canada where Thanksgiving is in October] or Halloween. And now suddenly it's Christmas. I've been here a month but I still keep feeling like I've lost all of this time. Losing this time makes me wonder: what do they know back home? Have they noticed I'm gone?

[That's a huge worry for her, she doesn't want people to think that she's just run away and abandoned them when the world may be ending. Or whatever.]

I'd like to think that when I go home, it'll be at the same moment but then I wonder: will I have all this extra time then? Memories of this place? I've been around more weird stuff in the last two years than I care to admit, but I think this might be the weirdest thing ever.

So, that's what keeping me up tonight. [Among other insomnia like things because she's Alex.] What's keeping you up?

Comments

@ciscodelamancha | audio

[franciscoramon]

I know what you mean, except I got the opposite problem. It was October at home when I left, and I showed up here in early April. Technically, I'm like five months older than I oughta be. By the time my birthday rolls around, I'll kinda already have been 25 for five months! How messed up is that?

[ The questions about whether people miss her back home are a little thornier, and Cisco doesn't have the answers she wants. All he can do is commiserate. ]

What's keeping me up is science. Working on a device that'll be able to accurately measure the frequency different people and things vibrate at, so I can determine what universes they're from.

[ He says all of that like it's a perfectly normal thing to be working on at 2AM. For him, it kinda is. ]

[11calls]

Jeez, I hadn't even thought about birthdays. Mine's in February, so maybe I'll be safe.

[She doesn't quite sound like that she believes that, but she's attempting to be hopeful.]

All the universes have a different frequency? That's actually really interesting. I hadn't thought of that.

[franciscoramon]

Hey, mine too! Birthday month buds.

[ Okay maybe it's not all that much to get excited about, but Cisco has been awake for almost 20 hours now. Which means his verbal filter is less than at its best. ]

Yep. That's pretty much the core of multiverse theory - that each different version of reality vibrates at its own unique frequency. If I can come up with something that measures that precisely enough, it'll be really useful for a lot of stuff.

[ Not the least of which is it'll probably be useful if he ever wants to try opening breaches between worlds using his powers, but that's not really something he's going to share. ]

If you wanna help out you can always come by my workshop some time and be a guinea pig. Wait, that sounds bad. I mean, all you would have to do is basically just sit there while I wave a prototype in your direction.

[11calls]

Really? When? Mine's the 22nd!

[Hey, not sleeping buds who get excited over silly things. Alex can join that club. She practically is a founding member of the Seattle chapter!]

That makes a lot of sense! And yeah, I'd love to help.

[franciscoramon]

The 10th! If you're still around when the time comes, you're invited to the inevitable surprise party my friends are going to throw.

[ There's no ego in that; Cisco just knows his friends, and his boyfriend, and there is no way they're going to let the day go by without planning something fairly elaborate. Which is fine by Cisco. ]

Sweet. I'll text you the directions. Just come by, like, whenever. Even if it's 2 AM. I'm obviously not the poster child for a healthy sleep schedule.

[ Something that Eddie has gotten on his case about repeatedly, but... old habits die hard. ]

@maverick

[deploy]

I once took an 800 year nap, after a 48,000 year jump into the future.

I don't sleep in much anymore.

[Or sleep at all.]

[11calls]

[Okay. Alex is just going to slow blink at this, and then pinch the space between her thumb and forefinger with her other hand because welp, that may have been among the weirder things that she's heard since she's been here.

When she speaks, she doesn't sound concerned, instead she sounds fascinated.]

Was the sleep a recuperation from jumping so far forward into the future?

switching to audio;

[deploy]

No. I needed to wait for a solar flare to take me back home.

The next flare-up was in 800 years, and I had about 24hrs, give or take. The only option was to enter stasis.

[A pause. He's used to science types being morbidly curious, but it wasn't so long ago he'd crossed through the gate to his loved ones dead and gone.]

I wouldn't recommend it, if you're looking to catch up on some shut-eye. Your couch is probably a lot comfier.

[11calls]

So you were an astronaut of some kind? A future one, I'm assuming.

[Because as far as Alex has found in her investigating of Thomas Warren and what what he was doing with his shadowy corporation, they hadn't found anything capable of that. Yet anyway. At least not that she knows of.]

And yeah, I can imagine the waking up process is a real pain in the ass.

[deploy]

Something like that. It's a little complicated to explain. But the first trip was a fluke.

Waking up was like the worst jet-lag of my life, times a thousand. Took me weeks to feel right again.

[A pause. John has some deep, unresolved emotions towards his time spent in the future, and everything he'd experienced there.]

Time travel sucks.

Really ruined Back to the Future for me. I can't even look at a DeLorean.

[voice | un: edward.elric]

[alchemyfreak]

Before coming here I lost a few months going from one world to the next.

Kind of lost a few years at one point too, but it's not like time changed just that the dating systems were different.

[A beat. He's not sure if the coma thing is unique to her situation]

Where did you get the idea you might be in a coma? Memories are tricky, the places I was before this you didn't retain those memories when you went home. I haven't seen anyone come back here to say how it works in this place, though.

[Was... any of that helpful?]

[11calls]

How many worlds have you been too?

And honestly, a coma just seems like the sort of thing my brain might do. Sort of.

[Alex your brain would have way more demons in it.]

[alchemyfreak]

Uh, five I guess.

[This was always an awkward question for him to answer.]

Well, this isn't a coma dream if that's what you're thinking. At least, as far as I can tell.

[11calls]

Five? Is that like an ability or something that you have, like visiting worlds or whatever?

[Hey makes sense here in this place.]

And I know it's probably not. I definitely am responding to stimuli.

[alchemyfreak]

More like I make a really good target, apparently. None of them were exactly intentional.

Two of them I got pulled into by higher powers, gods if you want to call them that. The story is we wind up here because we feel displaced, and the last one's pretty complicated.

[So that's four. The fifth one being his home world, where he was born.]

The two I was pulled into before coming here people went home all the time and didn't remember ever being there in the first place.

@r.mckay; audio

[technospeak]

[Okay, proper Thanksgiving in October, the hint of an accent? Rodney's voice is absolutely ecstatic when he answers.]

Oh my god, this is the first time I've run into someone who celebrates Thanksgiving at the proper time. Wow, another reality on an alien moon is the last place I expected to run into another Canadian. Where are you from?

[11calls]

[Hello fellow Canadian! Alex is so pleased to hear from you!]

Vancouver! You?

[technospeak]

[Somehow, having another Canadian around makes this whole place less lonely.]

Man, I've been almost everywhere in Canada with my work, but my sister lives in Vancouver, too, so I know the area.

[He makes a sound in his throat that's pure pleased amusement.]

What year was it, where you came from?

[11calls]

[It definitely does, especially considering Alex's best friend at home is Canadian as well, and they back up each other's stupid decisions because Canada. Or something like it anyway.

She does sound amused as well when she gives him the year:]

The end of September 2017. 2017 is a weird year.

[Even before you add in all the stuff that she's doing with her show.]

[technospeak]

[Well, that's...surprising. Rodney's brows raise, and he lets out an audible 'huh.']

You're from the future then. For me anyway. It was 2008 for me.

[Another sort of considering noise.]

What makes it weird?

audio; @mementomori

[fatedcontract]

I couldn't really say about a coma, my situation is pretty different from most people though. It was March when I left so I definitely understand the lost time.

[He can kind of sympathize.]

I'm actually used to being up at weird hours, personally. So my sleep schedule is kind of messed up.

[11calls]

Wow, that's an even bigger time jump than me. How are you handling it?

[And she gets the next bit too.]

Yeah, my sleep schedule is messed up too. Insomnia?

[fatedcontract]

Eh, it's a little weird? Missed my birthday but that's no big deal.

[Makoto smiles a little but shakes his head.]

Nah, my team and I used to run investigations around midnight every night for about a year. It's hard breaking the habit.

[11calls]

What kind of investigations?

[fatedcontract]

[Makoto scratches at the back of his head for a moment, debating.]

We were exploring a tower that only appeared at midnight each night. And only ever for an hour at a time.