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evermore_crystal Vice Captain
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 Posted: Tue Nov 14, 2006 6:47 pm
It's been 2 months since Lorika's best friend, Mare, had gotten the project grant. Ever thing seemed notmal for a while, as normal as they have always been. Then...then, all the plans and theories and bunches of this and that suddenly sprang up, were tested and approved of, and now...they're almost finished. With the first stage of their plan, at least. 2 months is not a very long time for something like this to be set up and running, but among all he haste, there was a certain surreal order that managed to keep it all in one bundle.
And their theories have actually been proven to be correct.
So far.
Lorika gazed at the semi-translicent pod erected in the center of the room, with various wires of all kinds pertruding from it at odd angles and entering several instruments at even odder ones. The "girl" inside looked...serene, naive. Sleeping, without the worries and dilemmas that must have plagued her true self. Lori quickly checked all the readings; everything seemed fine. There is order among the jumble of seemingly senseless numbers. All's well.
She sighed, waiting for her friend to show up. It should be soon.
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Posted: Tue Nov 14, 2006 7:01 pm
She skipped happily into the room, sitting abruptly in the chair. It slid, running into the wall back-first; Mare only giggled, then scooted back over to the panels next to Lorika. "How's she coming, Lori?" She could read the mechanics well enough herself, but she liked having her friend tell her. At least that way she didn't have to pretend she was the boss of the closest thing she had to a sister; she was just a stupid coworker.
The scientist- for she supposed that was what she was, since she was running her own project and all- peered at what she had recently begun calling the 'cradle'. "I hope we did okay, don't you?" she asked innocently, then scooted to the main program controls to start seeing about giving this girl's memory back. "I mean, I hope we didn't miss any important memories of hers." They had, of course, compiled her memories into what could be best described as a program for the cradle as accurately as they knew how. But there was always room for error.
With a final command and a pressing of a deceptively small gray button, she commenced the program and thus the restoring of Namine- for it was indeed the memory witch inside the cradle- began.
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evermore_crystal Vice Captain
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Posted: Tue Nov 14, 2006 7:14 pm
"She's doing fine," Lorika responded, unfazed by the stark contrast between her friend's cheerfulness and the supposed seriousness of what theyre trying to do. Or maybe she was just puzzled by it; it was hard to tell. "No errors as far as I can tell; all statuses seem normal, and in case you're wondering about the 'magical aspect' of it," she quikly glaced back to check (yes, the blue glow of spiritual energy is still there), "things seem to be perfect as well. Though it's impossible to tell if this was merely an exact re-creation or actual...resurrection, so to speak. There is a possibility that we'll be pulling at the actual links of her real memories and placing those within the new body." She paused for a moment to wonder out loud. "Is it possible at all to test that, I wonder?"
Lorika watched calmly as the lights began to blink, in that rhythmic pattern of dancing dots, indicating all functions are going as programmed. "I think so," she murmured absently. "If anything even starts heading in the wrong direction, we should know right away."
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Posted: Tue Nov 14, 2006 7:18 pm
Mare nodded, spinning in her chair once she had slid far enough from any wires to do so. "Well, at least the program is pretty streamlined," she said, happy that they had taken the time to take out unnecessary functions. Of course, she'd done that herself at the suggestion of Doctor Sychko. She didn't understand why he wanted the heart gone- and why he didn't want her to tell Lorika! She told Lorika everything, but not this. "Do you think we're missing anything really, really important?" she asked, slowing to a gradual stop.
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evermore_crystal Vice Captain
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Posted: Tue Nov 14, 2006 7:26 pm
"Simplicity's best," Lorika agreed. "Seriously, most of 'em just make their devices look all fancy shmancy and a hundred times more complicated than it really is just to confuse the public and impress the press." She leaned back against the wall, taking care not to accidentally put pressure on anything impoortant. "Not that we'll get any press time soon, and this looks pretty complicated anyways."
The linghtscontinued in their patterns of dance, on and off, on and off, all over the entire room now. Every machine seemed to be whirring to life, prompting even more to do so at their awakening. The process was designed for mazimine efficiency without rushing anything; there will be none of that "Six Days" percentage stuff like the Prologue. A few minutes should be enough, if all goes well.
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Posted: Tue Nov 14, 2006 7:33 pm
Mare fell quiet, unable to think of much anything to say- for once. She simply watched the lights flash and the bar on the screen fill up, eyes wide and glassy. One might even suspect she wasn't really watching her own invention, theorem and process work.
Finally, the cradle let out a loud ringing sound. It was done; Namine would be waking up any second now, and then they would have to let her out.
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evermore_crystal Vice Captain
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Posted: Tue Nov 14, 2006 7:45 pm
She remembered...smiling. To him, in a place she's seen only in her dreams and sketches. Everything was birhgt, happy, warm...and then...it all dissolved into darkness. She remembere falling, though there was no rush of wind, just that weird feeling you get in your stomach when you jump too high on the bed.
And now she's actually feeling. Not as in feeling emotions or anything (she wouldn't really know, anyways), but in the senses: a dull rumbling sound that seemed to surround her, a cool yet somehow comfortably warm vapor or something floating around wherever she is, and a dim light attempting to penetrate her closed lids. She tried to turn her head away, but the glow refused to go away, urging her to just accept it and get it over with. Surround lighting, maybe?
She felt herself stirr. Her arms indolently traveled up in a hardly inthusiastic attempt to shield herself from this light (is it getting stronger now? Or is she just seeing more?). Finally giving in, she opoened her eyes, just a crack, and was greeted by the sight of some half-lit...white stuff.
Yeah, white stuff. It'll be easy to draw, at least.
The moment the girl began to stirr, Lorika took her station at one of the many control panels. She punched a few keys, and watched in anticipation as the medium inside the pod slowly thinned into good old regular air. the controls for actually opening the thing's on Mare's side. Hopefully.
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Posted: Tue Nov 14, 2006 7:57 pm
Mare slammed her hand down on the release, watching as the face of the pod-cradle slid away down into the groove made for such a purpose. "Good morning, sleepy-head," she said cheerily, bouncing forward with a white, fluffy coat. The chill air of the lab might be a bit of a shock after the near-womblike warmth of the cradle. "I'm Mare, and my green-haired best friend over there is Lorika and you're finally awake!" She bundled up Namine briskly and offered a hand to help the other girl out of the cradle.
"Come on, we've been waiting."
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evermore_crystal Vice Captain
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Posted: Sat Nov 18, 2006 10:27 pm
Lorika only waved briefly at the blonde girl, already back to her station to check some final numbers. "Maré, you're explaining this one," she muttered.
Naminé blinked, her blue eyes even larger, if possible, in a show of confusion. "Waiting? But...I don't even know you." It sounded so strange, and it didn't exactly make sense. But logic can wait, if it even had a part in her mind in the first place. "What do you mean by waiting? And what AM I doing here?"
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Posted: Sun Nov 19, 2006 4:20 pm
She smiled, hugging the girl under the pretense of covering her up with the coat. "Of course we've been waiting, you were only just woken up, really," she said, ignoring all personal-space laws to straighten Naminé's hair. "We fixed you! You were stuck in the darkness, an' you weren't awake or anything, but we got everything right and brought you here! 'course, we dunno if you've got a heart of even a soul but I guess we'll find out, 'cause after a while you should be able to tell us, or maybe one of the others will." Her face held no malice or ill will, but her words were incredibly tactless.
Maré turned away, patting Naminé on the head gently before going to file a quick report. She had to get permission from Dr. Sychko to keep Naminé here; there weren't really any hopes that their first try would be a success, and she wasn't really prepared for the Replica's successful arrival. She unthinkingly babbled all of this aloud as she tapped the last few keys, finishing with, "But don't worry, if all else fails you can stay with Lori and me!"
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evermore_crystal Vice Captain
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Posted: Sun Nov 19, 2006 4:30 pm
Naminé just stood there, blinking in genuine confusing and overall what-the-heck-ness. (Because she’s just too much of a nice girl for any world stronger than heck that might go in there.) “Fixed…? What do you mean, fixed? Am I not…wait,” she blinked, trying to figure out what exactly it is this lady had meant. “You mean…you brought me here?” She did not show and visible alarm, but perhaps that was becase…well, she can’t.
“Way to go,” Lorika murmured somewhere in the background, but did not say more. Interfering just might make it worse.
She’s definitely not going to let Maré do the next one.
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Posted: Sun Nov 19, 2006 4:42 pm
Maré nodded, staring at the screen until it beeped and an attractive male voice said, "You've got mail!" She opened it and grinned. "We brought you here, yes indeed," she chirped. "Lori, could you go to the room at the far end of our sector, yanno, the one with the blue walls, and make sure that the lab grunts dun't break anything? Dr. Sychko says we're good to go." She scooted back towards Naminé, dragging another rolling chair; once she was within a few feet of the other, she gently shoved the chair towards her.
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evermore_crystal Vice Captain
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Posted: Fri Nov 24, 2006 5:32 pm
"Sure," Lorika replied as she finished typing in the last few commands to wrap up the current session. She smiled at Namine, told her, "I'll see ya soon." And then promptly slipped out the door on her way to whereever. Hopefully nothing got trampled where she's going, but you never know.
Namine nodded at Lorika's words, then sat down gingerly in the offered shair. So many things that she really wanted to know about what these too (seemingly) nice ladies are doing, most of which won't be very nice and will, in fact, sound quite accusing. Namine was never one to point fingers of blame and start calling people bad, and besides, it probably won't be a good idea to antagonize people whom she'll likely be stuck with, for better or for worse. So instead, she settled for the ultimate question, the neverending one that philosophers are always trying to find the answer to about one thing or another. "Why?"
Alas, the world'll be all pretty flowers and butterflies before such a simple question could ever have an equally simple answer.
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Posted: Sat Nov 25, 2006 12:29 pm
Mare settled, leaning back in her chair. She didn't know how to answer this question in a way that wouldn't make Namine run screaming. So, she settled for the truth. "Well... because... we want to know how far we can take apart a human soul before all we have is a being capable of reason and logic... but no emotion or soul or attachment. And... we thought it'd be easier to start with beings that were already halfway taken apart." She looked hopelessly at the blonde, apologizing with her eyes.
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evermore_crystal Vice Captain
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Posted: Sat Nov 25, 2006 8:21 pm
The truth was enough to send anyone normal running away screaming as it is. Namine, however, was not capable of doing this. Her eyes only widened as the result of attempting to process this imformation. "You'll..." She willed herself to regain her thoughts, and tried again. "Are you going to do that to me, then? Take me apart? Or am I just...just someone to observe?"
No extra words were uttered, but the atmosphere clearly screamed "Why would you do this!? How could you?"
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