A day before the earthquake's the earliest I tried. [He'd been focused on trying to stop the wrongness, so it made sense to focus on that.] Tried closer, too, but even Planck time didn't work.
[He's not sure whether that's reassuring. Something shifted, and now they're all trapped - doubly trapped - within this smell and persistent awareness of death, and even time travel apparently can't do anything about it. And maybe their impending secondary - final? - deaths to come, judging by the video Mysterio posted before crumbling. Starting to watch it again, he still can't see any visual glitching that implies it was a fake broadcast. He keeps looking for hints like that.]
Yeah. It makes sense. Can't go back before I knew how to go back. [Makes sense, but it's frustrating.] An earthquake set off the whole transforming thing to begin with, too. It's always been down there. [That thing that's whispering.]
[Papyrus nods along slowly at first, still rewatching the video and starting work on his new wheeled locomotion setup. He stiffens at the mention of the earthquake, pausing the video to stare up at his brother.]
\E5WAIT, YOU'RE RIGHT^1.AND WE DREAMED&ABOUT ONE FIRST./
[It had been an earthquake, right? He most vividly remembers that there was a cave, and being unable to move as rocks fell from above, and fragments of dreams about his body changing. But it's all analog memory, harder to just pull up and replay fragments of.]
Yeah. [That was basically a prediction of the future itself.] When whatever's down there moves, something big happens. [Then there's the lightning that brought them here. Then there's everything else that happens here. The leeches came out of the lake. The lake supposedly has something in it.] There could be one thing. There could be a lot of things. [Not humans. Not monsters. Sans doesn't know what.]
[He continues nodding slowly, feeling increasingly and annoyingly aware of his (metallic) spine and its resemblance to organic bodies. If he could crawl and deposit just his thoughts into his phone, would that feel better? Frustrating.]
\E3MAYBE WE COULD&TAKE A LOOK./CAREFULLY.&WITH A DRONE./
[He saw that uploaded partial-journal, after all - the one about the impenetrable darkness down in some caves (just another way that caves are terrible and not to be trusted). Still, he had some luck sending the helicopter drone into smaller tunnels in search of a monster with a regrettable appetite for more things than chocolate bars. Maybe if he flies it down, they can search for whatever's going on? And it'd give Sans a line of sight for intentional teleportation. (If he needs that anymore, if he can't just superimposition himself to teleporting to the right spot the "first" try.)
Just thinking of the drone is enough to power it up and bring it aloft, hovering between them almost before he realizes. It's much the same as before, but now with a small blue bone painted on the side over some flames - a commemoration of a successful, non-damaging trip to achieve something important.]
[Seeing the little bone decoration, the drone with its own little commendation, sends a spark of fondness through him in spite of the situation. He hopes Papyrus doesn't paint over it.]
The tunnels aren't safe. [But doesn't Papyrus know that better than any of them? Sans remembers how he looked with his skull caved in and how he'd shaken afterward.] If we're sending something in, we should start smaller. Simpler tech, too. Fewer parts, fewer ways for it to go wrong. Might still be a bad idea. If something's holding it down there-- [Sans laughs, bitter and darkly amused.] Well, if some human back home popped the barrier from the outside, we wouldn't have stayed underground, y'know?
\E3WHO KNOWS,&MAYBE THIS IS&ALL A MISTAKE./JUST SOMEONE&TRAPPED, IN&NEED OF RESCUE./
[His face is dry as he says this, not bothering to look convincingly like he believes it. But it is a real possibility, one that easily comes to mind given their entire lifetimes of captivity due to humans thinking they were dangerous. Potential danger isn't a good enough reason to lock anyone away. Dead not-monster, not-human, rotting dead something that causes earthquakes and transformations or not.]
\E3SOMETHING THAT&CRAWLS, INSTEAD&OF FLYING.../
[It would be easy to get caught up in designing something else, but he still has repairs to do on himself. Which he gets back to, while Sans makes whatever faces he makes at Papyrus's comments.]
Doesn't really feel like it. [it feels wrong. But of course, even if Papyrus isn't saying it like he believes it, Papyrus would suggest that. "Feeling wrong" isn't up to scientific standards for evidence anyway. That doesn't mean Sans has to like it, though. Whatever it is. (Anomaly? That's a very specific term for him, though. He might have to think up something else for this.)] If it's causing everything that's been happening, it doesn't exactly seem friendly.
[Not that the anomaly had been friendly either. Papyrus had approached anyway. Not a good argument, really.]
[It's not as though he sincerely, deep down within his bon-- body - believed the dusty human had been friendly either. But there's a difference between actions and potential, one that people may not notice without something pushing them past their own assumptions. Something powerful enough to cause earthquakes by itself, seemingly cause all these transformations... Something like that, the only way to stop it is to convince it to stop. (This is still familiar. But it's not walking through town, so there's less time-sensitive urgency to act. He can take a little more time to think.]
Sure. [Okay. It's not the same situation, it's not like it's happening right now, but Sans can't not think about Papyrus walking out the door to confront the anomaly.] Maybe control it with a remote control. [Like an RC car. But not directly connected to Papyrus, is the real point here.]
[No sense driving it directly, getting cut off from the connection, and experiencing that echoing quiet again. Even if it's not coinciding with arguing with Sans.]
So later you can build a cool crawling RC car. [Later. Right now Papyrus has repairs to do. Wheels to put on his own body instead of a drone car.] Maybe one of those ones that works even if it gets flipped upside down.
\E4ABSOLUTELY&ONE OF THOSE!/THOSE CAVES&SOUND DIFFICULT&TO MOVE IN./
[Not to mention, the benefits of flight (maneuverability) would be offset by the cons (weight constraints, limited power source). Something that travels on the ground but retains a fair maneuverability can accomplish what he's looking for here.
Sans's deliberate drop of the word "later" is enough for him to continue working like he hadn't paused for this conversation, deliberately cool and nonchalant. On some level he opens a drafting file and starts plotting designs.]
Yeah. Didn't sound very spacious. [Not like back home. But Sans doesn't want to go down into any tunnels, personally. It's so dark down there. The one cave he likes is shallow. (If things reset, would that leave enough of an emotional impression for him to develop claustrophobia or be afraid of the dark or something and not have any idea why? It would make living underground again pretty complicated.)] We could just leave it alone. Pretend nothing's down there.
[But Sans's instincts won't let him, and that's not really Papyrus's style. (Sans hadn't been able to let the anomaly issue go either, even before he knew how awful it was.)]
[His expression is complicated, sardonic and embarrassed and sympathetic. He understands Sans not wanting to go into danger when it's not clearly necessary, or really at all.
But he's on the floor without legs, because he detached them out of discomfort with their existence. Half a year ago, it distressed him to even open his casing to take a look. The sudden shift to discomfort with even the imitation of his original body... He knows it's a sudden change, but it doesn't make the discomfort go away. That he's working on framework designs to replace them with more wheel and engine based appendages is only more proof for the concept - Papyrus hates sitting around doing nothing.]
[Yeah, ignoring it's not happening, huh? It'd sure be nice if one of the murderers would make themselves useful by throwing themselves down into the caves for science or something. (That's a mean thought. It's possible being here has made him meaner. It's possible the anomaly killing just about everyone he knew and a lot of people he didn't made him meaner. It's possible he's just mean.)]
Okay, RC car. [Not that saying no would stop Papyrus. Not that Sans even wanted to say no. Sans isn't good at blissful ignorance.]
[He'll want to set it up to run through a separate tower, showing on monitor and speakers where he can theoretically mute them if something hard to listen to comes through... But given the amount of research going into a journal, something slightly more documented could only be helpful to everyone in figuring this out, and maybe even preventing more people dissolving into dust-rust.]
[Disconnected from the internet, he'll grant, but this thing can't be completely removed.]
\E3I WON'T&CONNECT &TO IT, OKAY?/
[Which doesn't necessarily mean much, when he's never figured out how to block the ambient signals, and Kassabian can get in his head whenever she needs to get in touch. But he can at least sit several feet from the tower in question. Add a slight difficulty curve.]
Air gapped besides the car. [But yes, as long as it can't connect to Papyrus and infect him with gooey whisper cooties that's fine.] Maybe I can look up some old cave maps or something. [Little does he know they'll get a map later and it'll be totally useless.]
[Sans is distressingly optimistic about their ability to take measures against technology messing with Papyrus, but he doesn't want to completely break that sense of hope. Better to just go through the motions of airgapping it, maybe start looking into better EM shielding in the future. For now:]
\E0AN UNDENIABLE&ASSET IN&SEARCHING!/
[Finding that tunnel to drop off a chocolate bar would've been much harder if he was searching by drone the whole time.]
[Sans will take what he can get when it comes to keeping weird technology and Papyrus separate, okay.]
I'll talk to the guys at the dig site. [They're archeologists, they should know about stuff from the past. Hopefully useful cave stuff.] Been checking on Maka anyway.
[In varyingly distressing quantum states, but still. He brings her dinner.]
[Papyrus will continue not killing that hope just yet! No reason to advertise that he's maybe as vulnerable to weird computer things as he was to weird dusty murder children.]
\E5THAT'S GOOD.&I'M SURE&THEY'RE INTERESTED./AND SHE COULD&USE A FRIEND./
[Who wouldn't have lasting grief, after all, if one's disappeared science dad fell into his research? Who wouldn't be distressed if he suddenly reappeared years later as a melted undead mystery...?]
Edited (i was so amused with my lampshade hanging that i forgot an icon) 2022-03-21 22:03 (UTC)
[Yeah, that sort of trauma is the kind of thing you couldn't forget.]
Or at least a snack. Maybe a reminder to go home sometimes. [She really does work too hard. But if Sans is trying even a little bit to herd her this does mean they're basically friends, in the Sans tradition of expressing affection through food.]
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spaghettimonster) wrote2021-07-31 02:32 am
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[He's not sure whether that's reassuring. Something shifted, and now they're all trapped - doubly trapped - within this smell and persistent awareness of death, and even time travel apparently can't do anything about it. And maybe their impending secondary - final? - deaths to come, judging by the video Mysterio posted before crumbling. Starting to watch it again, he still can't see any visual glitching that implies it was a fake broadcast. He keeps looking for hints like that.]
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\E5WAIT, YOU'RE RIGHT^1.AND WE DREAMED&ABOUT ONE FIRST./
[It had been an earthquake, right? He most vividly remembers that there was a cave, and being unable to move as rocks fell from above, and fragments of dreams about his body changing. But it's all analog memory, harder to just pull up and replay fragments of.]
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\E3MAYBE WE COULD&TAKE A LOOK./CAREFULLY.&WITH A DRONE./
[He saw that uploaded partial-journal, after all - the one about the impenetrable darkness down in some caves (just another way that caves are terrible and not to be trusted). Still, he had some luck sending the helicopter drone into smaller tunnels in search of a monster with a regrettable appetite for more things than chocolate bars. Maybe if he flies it down, they can search for whatever's going on? And it'd give Sans a line of sight for intentional teleportation. (If he needs that anymore, if he can't just superimposition himself to teleporting to the right spot the "first" try.)
Just thinking of the drone is enough to power it up and bring it aloft, hovering between them almost before he realizes. It's much the same as before, but now with a small blue bone painted on the side over some flames - a commemoration of a successful, non-damaging trip to achieve something important.]
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The tunnels aren't safe. [But doesn't Papyrus know that better than any of them? Sans remembers how he looked with his skull caved in and how he'd shaken afterward.] If we're sending something in, we should start smaller. Simpler tech, too. Fewer parts, fewer ways for it to go wrong. Might still be a bad idea. If something's holding it down there-- [Sans laughs, bitter and darkly amused.] Well, if some human back home popped the barrier from the outside, we wouldn't have stayed underground, y'know?
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[His face is dry as he says this, not bothering to look convincingly like he believes it. But it is a real possibility, one that easily comes to mind given their entire lifetimes of captivity due to humans thinking they were dangerous. Potential danger isn't a good enough reason to lock anyone away. Dead not-monster, not-human, rotting dead something that causes earthquakes and transformations or not.]
\E3SOMETHING THAT&CRAWLS, INSTEAD&OF FLYING.../
[It would be easy to get caught up in designing something else, but he still has repairs to do on himself. Which he gets back to, while Sans makes whatever faces he makes at Papyrus's comments.]
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[Not that the anomaly had been friendly either. Papyrus had approached anyway. Not a good argument, really.]
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[It's not as though he sincerely, deep down within his bon-- body - believed the dusty human had been friendly either. But there's a difference between actions and potential, one that people may not notice without something pushing them past their own assumptions. Something powerful enough to cause earthquakes by itself, seemingly cause all these transformations... Something like that, the only way to stop it is to convince it to stop. (This is still familiar. But it's not walking through town, so there's less time-sensitive urgency to act. He can take a little more time to think.]
\E5BUT A DRONE'S&SAFER THAN&ANYONE GOING DOWN./
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[No sense driving it directly, getting cut off from the connection, and experiencing that echoing quiet again. Even if it's not coinciding with arguing with Sans.]
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[Not to mention, the benefits of flight (maneuverability) would be offset by the cons (weight constraints, limited power source). Something that travels on the ground but retains a fair maneuverability can accomplish what he's looking for here.
Sans's deliberate drop of the word "later" is enough for him to continue working like he hadn't paused for this conversation, deliberately cool and nonchalant. On some level he opens a drafting file and starts plotting designs.]
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[But Sans's instincts won't let him, and that's not really Papyrus's style. (Sans hadn't been able to let the anomaly issue go either, even before he knew how awful it was.)]
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[His expression is complicated, sardonic and embarrassed and sympathetic. He understands Sans not wanting to go into danger when it's not clearly necessary, or really at all.
But he's on the floor without legs, because he detached them out of discomfort with their existence. Half a year ago, it distressed him to even open his casing to take a look. The sudden shift to discomfort with even the imitation of his original body... He knows it's a sudden change, but it doesn't make the discomfort go away. That he's working on framework designs to replace them with more wheel and engine based appendages is only more proof for the concept - Papyrus hates sitting around doing nothing.]
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Okay, RC car. [Not that saying no would stop Papyrus. Not that Sans even wanted to say no. Sans isn't good at blissful ignorance.]
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[He'll want to set it up to run through a separate tower, showing on monitor and speakers where he can theoretically mute them if something hard to listen to comes through... But given the amount of research going into a journal, something slightly more documented could only be helpful to everyone in figuring this out, and maybe even preventing more people dissolving into dust-rust.]
\E3...ON A FRESH&HARD DRIVE./
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[Disconnected from the internet, he'll grant, but this thing can't be completely removed.]
\E3I WON'T&CONNECT &TO IT, OKAY?/
[Which doesn't necessarily mean much, when he's never figured out how to block the ambient signals, and Kassabian can get in his head whenever she needs to get in touch. But he can at least sit several feet from the tower in question. Add a slight difficulty curve.]
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\E0AN UNDENIABLE&ASSET IN&SEARCHING!/
[Finding that tunnel to drop off a chocolate bar would've been much harder if he was searching by drone the whole time.]
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I'll talk to the guys at the dig site. [They're archeologists, they should know about stuff from the past. Hopefully useful cave stuff.] Been checking on Maka anyway.
[In varyingly distressing quantum states, but still. He brings her dinner.]
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\E5THAT'S GOOD.&I'M SURE&THEY'RE INTERESTED./AND SHE COULD&USE A FRIEND./
[Who wouldn't have lasting grief, after all, if one's disappeared science dad fell into his research? Who wouldn't be distressed if he suddenly reappeared years later as a melted undead mystery...?]
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Or at least a snack. Maybe a reminder to go home sometimes. [She really does work too hard. But if Sans is trying even a little bit to herd her this does mean they're basically friends, in the Sans tradition of expressing affection through food.]
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