Event: Consolidation Theory, Part One and Two

[snowblindmods]

Characters: red-marked characters
Location: ???
Date: Morning & Day 353
Summary: You wake up in a cell.
Warnings: general horror warnings; please note in subject lines for anything specific that comes up

Consolidation Theory OOC Post
Part Two OOC Post

Comments

[jumpthegun]

Well, she's... in one of the suits like us. Have they changed Mycroft or is he just being unusually quiet? I can't hear him. Unless he's posturing at you. [Sherlock sometimes tells people who aren't saying anything to shut up.

How likely is that, love? Mary asks. He's said something's changed.

Sherlock, what's changed about him?]

[howdull]

[There's silence for a moment as Sherlock strains his ears in return, trying to hear Mary speak either to him or to John. Nothing.]

Nor can I hear Mary, something must be preventing us from hearing those in other cells unless we possess the red markings. Something in the pigment, perhaps?

[jumpthegun]

[John glances at Mary, more than a little concerned. Sherlock's explanation... makes sense, though.]

There's definitely something going on with our nanomachines. Are there any symptoms from the drugs you're getting? Mary's fine, but I can't even stand up. I'm not nauseous, but everything's spinning.

[howdull]

Mild headache, possible fever, nothing particularly worrying.

[He's silent for a moment, worrying his lower lip.]

Is Mary otherwise altered to how she has been here?

[jumpthegun]

Mm...

[John looks her over.]

She's not sick, no. Not like me. Us. She looks... gorgeous. [Beautiful. Just as he remembers her from home.]

Is Mycroft different?

[howdull]

Younger.

[There's no real need to lie to John about this, it's only in comparing data that they might figure out what's going on.]

Seventeen, perhaps.

[jumpthegun]

[Seventeen? Mary says. I'd like to see that. Is he all twiggy like he is now?]

Yeah, she's nothing like that. Just like back home. [It doesn't strike him, in this moment, how off that comment is. Mary shouldn't look like she did back home. She'd been through hell here in Norfinbury and it showed in how much thinner she'd grown, the tired bags under her eyes, pale skin. Certainly no make-up like she's wearing now.]

How d'you think we can... can have them be heard?

[howdull]

[The words are an interesting choice. Just like back home, not that she looks uninjured or is simply back from the dead, but that she looks like she did back home. So she is altered, John simply hasn't noticed in his conscious mind yet.]

No idea.

[They can't exactly put the red markings on them.]

I suppose we'll have to act as intermediaries for now. It's possible that neither of them are real, looking as different as they do, of course.

[jumpthegun]

[John's brow furrows in confusion.]

Mary's not any different from usual. She's just in one of these suits like us.

[howdull]

You said she looked like she did at home.

[Mycroft is rolling his eyes at the slow minds of the normal folk, but Sherlock ignores him.]

Telling words, and none of us have looked like we have back home for months.

[jumpthegun]

[He opens his mouth to protest, then looks up at Mary again.

I don't know how it happened, either. I did just wake up from the dead.]

She said she just looked like this when she woke up. Maybe something from when she was killed...?

[howdull]

It's a death loss, John, not a death regain of health and cosmetic appearance.

[It would explain why Mycroft is a teenager and yet shows no confusion over his brother being grown.]

We're obviously hallucinating.

[jumpthegun]

Maybe we're just hallucinating how they look. She's real, Sherlock. I can feel her. I can hear her.

[He reaches up to grasp Mary again.]

[howdull]

[Mycroft and Sherlock both roll their eyes at the same time.]

He's being wilfully ignorant to protect his feelings, that way he doesn't have to face the reality that his wife is still dead.

I know that, I'd already deduced that. [His brother is so annoying.]

[jumpthegun]

Was that to us?

[I don't... think so? Mary looks confused, as well.]

You deduced I could see and feel her?

[howdull]

No.

[He shoots Mycroft an irritated look and turns his attention back to John.]

Mycroft butting in where he isn't wanted, as usual, to tell me things that I already know. Look more closely at Mary, John; her weight, her clothes, her hygiene levels.

[jumpthegun]

[He looks.]

They're fine. [Which is odd.] They're... fine? [He's more confused on the echo.] No. No, but she's... Mary you're real, right?

[Mary just smiles sadly.]

She's real, Sherlock. Peter's the one having hallucinations.

[howdull]

No doubt he is, but I'm sure we are as well.

[He glances to Mycroft, who raises his eyebrows as if to ask what took Sherlock so long in figuring out the obvious.]

I'd rather be seeing Mary than Mycroft, that hardly seems fair.

[jumpthegun]

[Life's not fair. And she has to be real. She has to be. But Sherlock doesn't think so.

Comes down to the same thing, my love. Only you can see and hear me.]

Name off the drugs you've got on your wristband. Maybe there's something the same apart from the anisomycin?

[howdull]

[He does as he's told, but they're mostly boring drugs and nothing that would indicate hallucinations.]

I think it's more likely a change in the nanomachines that's causing hallucinations, drugging would have other side effects as well.

[jumpthegun]

[Boring drugs, anisomycin, and things he's never heard of before. So, the same thing as what he's got... and what he can see on Mary's wrist.]

I can't stand up. Dizzy. Everything's... spinning.

[So, that's one of his other symptoms. If Sherlock was wondering why it sounded like John's voice was coming from down low.]

[howdull]

Is that so? I seem to have no other side effects; a headache, though I suspect that's more from Mycroft's presence than anything else.

[He's still sulking a bit, why can't he have Mary as well?]

think we can ftb on this thread with them checking on others for symptoms

[jumpthegun]

Check... check the people near you. We should get a list. See was else there is.