THE FRACTURED WORLD: ARRIVAL

[modormenace]

 

A

rrival for some goes all but unnoticed. It's a sudden shiver, the sensation of being watched... and then nothing at all. Life continues serenely as it always has. The only indication of any change comes with sleep, wrapped in dreams: vague and distant echo imagery of another life, melting away in the morning.

 

F

or others, arrival is a sharp jolt. In the space of a single blink, they find themselves in an unfamiliar world, surrounded by the trappings of a life they have not lived. They are replacements, spirits taking possession of bodies belonging to people very much like themselves...

 

A

nd for the rest, arrival is a procedure. Routine. Those ported in to the Fractured World wake hazily in the comfortably dim light of the Porter room, laid out on an exam table. Their wounds, if they remember having any, have been healed— and even those who remember their own deaths find themselves miraculously restored. As they regain consciousness, an automatic audio-visual presentation is triggered. Regardless of their backgrounds or physiology, all imPorts 'see' and 'hear' this message as if in their own language:

"Greetings, imPort."

The voice is calm and gently authoritative, almost certainly selected by committee.

"On behalf of the Synod and all imPorts it represents, we welcome you to the planet Earth."

A decidedly non-humanoid robotic arm holds out a palm-sized device and rather insistently demands the new arrival take it. This is the imPort's comm, used for accessing the Porter's database of information, as well as the communications Network— though it won't receive communications from outside the Porter building until carried through one of the many Gates set up in a long, crescent-shaped array on the far side of the room.

As each Gate is approached, information about the faction it leads to flashes up on the comm device's screen. Which will you choose?

THE WHITE TOWER SANCTUM AURORAE KRAKOA HOUSE OF M EMPIRE OF LIGHT EQUALITY BEFORE LAW THE TWIN CITIES OLIN VALE EDEN SEEKERS OF THE NEW DAWN NORTHWESTERN IMPERIUM GREEN PIECE MAD BURNISH LUMINARY

Comments

[eightfoldlight]

[ Oh, boy. It's time for a dose of Vitamin Ruka. Yenh tucks herself into an unobtrusive spot alongside the main thoroughfare of Glimmershire. ]

ruka, my friend! it's good to hear from you. my week has been normal. for me anyway! 😸

[ She isn't about to dish confidential political intrigue to Ruka, of all people. Or into the White Tower network. ]

so tell me about yours! i'm all ears 😽

[dragony]

[ If there's one thing this whole mess is making abundantly clear, it's that Ruka is absolutely not cut out for spy material. The pretending, acting, and lying, just to keep her head down? That's miserable, but at least she can manage that much.

It's the whole process of trying to get information without drawing attention that is so much harder.

Ugh. Here goes. ]

i got stood up
💔💔💔
but
when i saw him that night
at our welcome gala
he!!!
(╯‵□′)╯︵┻━┻
kept acting like he'd never met me
he didn't recognize me at all
!!!
!!!
ME !!!
it was like he'd never seen my face before!!!

[ That... could work. It's abstract enough she can play ignorant if it comes to it, but there should be detail enough that if this person has seen anything similar... ]

[eightfoldlight]

[ That hit close to home. Yenh isn't going to give the details of her own encounter with this alternate universe nonsense, but maybe a cover story with the facts will appease Ruka. ]

oh, no, that's so harsh!! he was the one with the downy hair, right?
it may be cold comfort... but there may be a chance he truly and really didn't recognize you
not by any fault of your own of course! you are unforgettable.
you see, a friend of mine reported something similar happening to her boyfriend.

[dragony]

really???
how does someone forget a whole girlfriend???

[ jackpot. thank god. ]

it's so weird
is the boyfriend an import too?

[eightfoldlight]

isn't it strange?
it's tragic, as you can no doubt intimately agree! 😿 years of knowing each other, gone overnight.
at least they did not become complete strangers. they'd met each other somewhere else.
and yes, he is an imPort. your boy is, too?

[ Yenh rereads what she writes, and is satisfied that there are no identifying features. ]

[dragony]

that's lucky
this guy's one too
but
i can't call him MY boy
(；′⌒`)
as far as he knew
we've never met before

[ It's still not a real truth, but it's close to the mark. If Jaime remembered her, he would have found her first. He promised.

She doesn't have a clue how she's going to hold together if she has to endure this world much longer, with a stranger for a husband. ]

but
if it happened to two people
it's probably
not JUST two people
right?

[eightfoldlight]

that's terrible. i am very sorry.
no one else has confided a similar story to me, but it isn't as though i can be everywhere and with everyone at once. despite my best efforts 😸
so i won't rule it out.

[ She stops midway through typing another line of condolences. The tenor of Ruka's follow up question reminds her of Emet-Selch's roundabout attempt at figuring out his sudden arrival without revealing himself. ...no way. She erases the line and writes something different. ]

do you think you might know someone else who is lost and confused? 😿

[dragony]

nooo...
i can't think of anyone else

[ It would be a lot easier if she had, but Ruka's playing her own cards close to the chest. She can't fault anyone else for doing the same. ]

all my staff are local
and there's nothing wrong with any of them
everyone else is
soooo
focused on the synod
i haven't heard anything else



maybe it's just some tactic the boys are using
to get out of trouble
when they've forgotten something important
￣へ￣

[eightfoldlight]

[ Yenh frowns and shrugs it off. ]

yikes! i certainly hope that's not the case! too cruel. and cowardly!
my friend would kill him 🙀 i think he would deserve it. he told her that he's from another Earth!! one where the old USA never fell

stranger coincidences have happened and plenty of men around here were raised poorly.

[dragony]

he WOULD deserve it
cruelty and cowardice travel hand-in-hand

[ does this ruka talk like that? welp. too late to unsend that message. ]

that story though
that's a really weird way to hide AMNESIA
right??
a lot of people come from earths like that
but why describe it like that???

do you think he's telling the truth?

[eightfoldlight]

[ Yenh squints at the text. That is kind of weird. A quiet inner debate rages between there being more than meets the eye or if Ruka is simply more distraught than Yenh had previously guessed. Distracted by the back and forth, she sends her answer a little quickly. ]

yes, i do.

[ Yenh looks at the words she wrote, then sighs at herself and hurriedly follows it up. ]

because it is too much, isn't it??
i've seen and experienced incidents far stranger than this. it ranks up there but it's still below a number of other things i've had happen to me in my life back home
amnesia, real or feigned, is a different beast than claiming to be an imPort imported directly into another version of himself
or he had a nervous breakdown.