[It’s almost lucky that she gets distracted by stopping him. It means that she doesn’t have to see the worst of the damage, but of course, she can still hear the screams. That might be why her grip on his arms is just a little too tight, or why he might feel her face press into his shoulder.
As he stumbles backwards, though, she lets him go. For a moment, at least - when he says that, she hesitates for just a moment before grabbing his hand and leading him out of the room. She doesn’t know where she’s going, either.]
[He doesn't resist when she takes his hand and allows himself to be led, occasionally looking over his shoulder at the ballroom. He hears her, but he frowns in thought.]
...yours. Mine might be occupied and I can't deal with them right now.
[She looks like she's trying to breathe deeply, to keep calm, as she walks towards the room she shares with Wei Wuxian. She glances back at him as they walk, though.]
Are you...
[Okay seems like a stupid question, but she isn't sure what to replace it with.]
[She stops in her tracks for a moment, looking back at him. She can't quite disguise the distress on her face. She knows Carlos said something similar, but...]
This isn't the first time you've seen him... What?
[Sometimes you just say things without context and this happens. Junpei doesn't stop and it means Beck's arm is pulled a little as he keeps heading for the room.]
Not out here. [This needs to be said in private, as if it'd do any good, but also...now that Carlos is gone he's starting to think he should maybe be a little more open to people.]
[She doesn't resist, even if she doesn't respond, either. As they reach the door, she pulls her clamshell out of her pocket and presses it to the electronic lock, pulling the door closed behind her once they're both inside.
Possibly. Or maybe one of the doors that was locked. Grune mentioned it. [He hates this??] I don't think we have time to try and figure out how to open it, but I don't want to keep waiting around either.
The basements are a possibility but...that doesn't feel right either. So that's what I think.
Sounds like him. [He's just heading for the loveseat to have a seat on the arm of it.] That's how he is, some hero of justice who dedicates his lives to saving people at all costs. Including ours.
[His hand comes up to twist at his watch.] If you had a chance to obtain something you've been searching for for a long time, even if the risk was pretty big, would you take it?
Something that would change your life for the better. The risk is just a five-day test of something that would impact space research and development. Simulation of life on another planet, for example. You're in confinement with a group of people you've never met, no contact to the outside world and isolated miles from all other civilization while undergoing rigorous physical and mental tests.
Alright. Now what would you do if you woke up on the fifth day and found out the whole thing was a trap? Kidnapped and taken to an underground bomb shelter with those same strangers with no way out except to follow someone else's rules? Would those things still be worth it?
It's not exactly something I've thought about before, it's not like I have the kind of life where I'm likely to get kidnapped and locked in a basement or a bunker or something.
[haha i'm funny
anyways.]
But - the obvious answer is no. Not a lot would be worth that.
But anyway. Beck confirms what any sane person would say, and Junpei kicks his heel into the couch from his perch.]
When I told you I met Carlos because of a work thing, that was true...for me. He was here for a whole other reason. We met at Dcom...it was a Mars mission test site out in the middle of the Nevada desert. It was a special simulation test that only ten people were picked for. They offered us $500,000 to complete it, and that's why Carlos was there.
[He doesn't feel like he has to say that he wasn't there for the money.] We were there starting from Christmas Day until about five days later...turns out the whole thing was a trap. We were all kidnapped and locked in a bomb shelter on New Year's Eve and split into three teams. Carlos and I were on C-Team. There was also D-Team and Q-Team.
...the Decision Game was a game designed to determine the fate of humanity. If we didn't play, 75% of the earth's population would die. But in order to leave, we needed to obtain six X-Passes. To obtain an X-pass, a player had to die. We were split into teams in what we thought were separate wards, playing against each other and going through these insane puzzles designed to kill us. A lot of them did. Sometimes we died other ways. Sometimes we killed each other.
[He holds up his left wrist then, rotating his watch toward her.] But after ninety minutes, no matter what, our bracelets would inject us with a tranquilizer that would force us to sleep and erase our memories from the last ninety minutes. Time would pass, and when we woke up, we wouldn't remember what had happened.
...we learned how to SHIFT in the shelter so that we could escape the timelines where one or more of us died and get to the one history we all lived. [He's just. Gonna let that sink in.]
[The aquarium's lovely isn't it? There're fish...and water...and more fish...and as Beck's here looking around, should she make her way through the tunnel and into the comfortable room, she'll soon hear a voice from...a pile of blankets???]
[He'll close the blanket pile so they can be warm and toasty then, even if his eyes are alert and staring at the wall to watch the water.]
Can we ignore everything here? [For a guy who watched a friend melt into goo, he seems pretty okay.] There's still a lot we don't know. But I found out the ocean's also possessed.
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