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[Walter has recorded a video message from the point of view of someone who has just come through the door into his cabin and sees Walter at his desk in the chair turned around to face the viewer. He gives a little salute-wave.]

Didn't get me. But nice try.

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"Great!" Walter says. "I was thinking theme for the next meeting would be guests from backgrounds super exotic compared to my own more mundane one, where the movie would kinda. Show off how our little lives work. So, you're a perfect fit! Welcome aboard."

He knows he's being obsequious. That's okay. Go ahead and underestimate him.

[ Well, well. Durandal assesses what is said and what is not said, and then his smile widens just a little bit. ]

I am taking this as confirmation that you do not wish to change your emergency contact.

[ It had been a real question on his mind, since wardens have more powers on principle - it might make some people feel more secure to have one of them on call instead of a lowly inmate. ]

That depends.

[Walter shelves the last little book dramatically. Like they're in a spy movie and he's disguising the gesture of checking whether they're observed and he also has vital info to exchange. He's coolly transfixed now, and any pleasantries about the trouble he caused by not calling Durandal during the flood (?) have totally left the forefront of his mind.]

That last breach where you were a rat, did it permanently damage your relationship with the concept of reality?

[ Durandal's eyebrows go all the way up, then he breaks into a short laugh. ]

I would hope it has not. If I feel any residual craving for cheese or strange affinity to riddles, I will let you know though.

[ Being a rat was strange... He remembers it, certainly. He remembers how he felt - but it's less a memory that feels like part of himself and more like recalling a particularly vivid dream.

Walter does seem awfully serious though, or at least is play-acting the seriousness very well. It feels out of place, and after that moment of levity Durandal returns to a more serious cadence very quickly. ]

So what brings that up, after all these weeks?

...man, maybe that's why I made a blanket fort the other day.

[Perhaps the mood would be better suited if he remembered whether the rat was the bandit's son or what have you. The absurdity is yet another component of the mental torture, though. Walter is... bitter. It's a smiling expression he unleashed a lot that Durandal is seeing for the first time.]

You see, my warden said that was normal. That we all grapple with it after enough breaches. For me to worry about someone struggling with reality at all, well, I'm just a big jerk who hates everything.

[ If Durandal had been aware of how close Walter and Pyotr are, this would have made him instantly understand why. ]

Well, for my part I don't think it's impolite to worry about your acquaintances losing their selves. In fact, I'd rather appreciate it if you kept that scrutiny.

Being a rat was an... interesting experience and maybe even amusing in hindsight, but I have no interest in being shown untrue worlds.

[ The breaches seem like they're custom-designed to showing them the things they can't have, a manifest nightmare of the 'what if I had chosen differently back then' kind. "Keep thinking like that and you're gonna run out of time", Rau had told him and Rau had been right. It's worthless to entertain. ]

That's a good point. [A new thought that Walter can agree with.] If you can't completely perceive the world around you, no choice but for someone else to hold you accountable. You could say all we've got is each other.

[Though, wardens don't really do that. Almost more like Walter's talking about inmates. He turns a book over in his hands, a small one he's been carrying around with him in his cargo shorts.]

I've been thinking about a lot of things that have happened here over time, I guess. The flood... excuse me, other type of event that somehow can't be blamed on the Admiral either... was pretty hard for my good friend Pyotr Stepanovich. I think the breach might have been, too. I'm sure you'd hate it if anything you did happened to be making it harder for him.

[Or else I would have to make things harder for you.]

Pyotr doesn't bother Walter while he's at work anymore—perhaps another subtle sign of a light slowly dimming, a spark that has gone out, or perhaps he has just found 'more productive' things to do with his time— but he still spends quite a bit of time at the library, when he isn't helping Frankie with custodial. Today he's seated at an out of the way table covered in various books, obscuring the pages he's ripped out of a chemistry textbook. When Walter approaches, he starts picking up the books, surreptitiously slipping the chemistry pages into his jacket like a pickpocket.

"Oh, hello. Done already?" He smiles. "I was thinking earlier about what would happen if I asked the Enclosure to make a fake Barge and then I went into the fake Barge's fake Enclosure and asked it to make another fake Barge, and so on... Maybe we could place bets on how many layers of fake reality we could go down before we start to disintegrate."

Alleged lover.

[She interjects, a facial muscle twitching slightly as she leans forward over her tea mug.]

I mean-- that is all just conjecture, right? And you know what they say: assuming makes an 'ass' out of 'u' and 'me'!"

[Walter frowns. He finds this kind of not promising given the gravity of the evidence.]

Well, I guess Kevyn Tan was the only one who heard Jeffrey's version of the story [where, Walter has said, he claimed he got carried away when he found his wife's lover], so in that sense, yeah. [Walter wonders. He'd briefly speculated that Natalie had been Misty's friend with a lover, the one she was so eager to protect - could that be true after all? But the cell phone evidence must have pointed to Shauna Sadecki, right? Who would use someone else's phone for that?] Even if he had lived, that would legally be hearsay.

"Very Russian of you," Walter quips. Like the dolls. He has a bit of a sinking feeling - up until now he thought Pyotr was stopping by less because he was still struggling after the incident, even though his death toll has been cured for a while, but the amount of material does make Walter think this isn't actually the first time since then. That Feeling When you let someone who genuinely felt close to you slip away a bit. This wouldn't be the first time, but... Circumstances are kinda intense. Oh well.

"Do you think we could get a read on whether more fake reality means more comas, or something?" Walter doubts it, everything seems so deliberate, like a stop-motion animated movie, but it's something. A small step forward out of the meaningless spiral their days have become.

"That would be wonderful. I've been trying to put myself into a coma for the longest time." He plops the stack of books onto a random shelf, unconcerned for the decimal system. "I wonder if time will work the same way. What if we get stuck in a fake reality for what seems like years—centuries, millennia, who knows—while only a few minutes pass on the 'real' Barge? Have you ever had dreams like that? It's a frightening possibility, isn't it?"

Have they talked about this before? It's giving him the feeling of déjà vu, possibly because they tend to talk about the same things all the time. There isn't much else to talk about.

"Want me to ask the network before we get in over our heads?" He takes the communicator out of his pocket and twirls it between his fingers.

"A breach like that wouldn't be too out of place..." After all, sometimes breach beings have very different perspectives from humans. And there are long-lived beings on the ship, why not end up as something similar to them? Though Walter senses the repetitions are starting to make the spinning top wobblier and wobblier - the overt wish for a coma isn't the best sign, even if a peaceful disappearance might not be as bad as they're led to fear.

He gives an exaggerated shrugging gesture of his hand towards the communicator. "Might not be bad to find something to post about. As long as you're careful that it doesn't sound *too* useful. I still don't have a whole lot to talk about myself... can't really believe what happened..."

That the Other Misty is gone. That his friend here and so many people were hurt. That he was supposed to accept it and just move on... even accept that the monster who had seemed so sweet and real real was actually some twisted nightmare of no value, and yet that there was nothing wrong with the place that brought him this torture, that it came from somewhere else...

His smile wavers. He almost drops the communicator, but recovers in time to slip it smoothly back into his coat pocket.

"Why not? What's so unbelievable about it? It happens all the time, apparently." A thin smile at the allusion to Malcolm. "People were tortured and killed during the last 'nightmare flood.' Why shouldn't a higher number of people be tortured and killed during another one?" His voice is light. He sounds like he doesn't care, but Walter will remember he was in quite a different state during the first few days of his death toll, though mainly due to physical pain. Pyotr's own memories of that time are a blur, but he still decides to change the subject.

"Do you know there was a port once that got something like twenty-five people killed?" The things you learn sitting in the counseling office with nothing to do but scroll back through the network. "That's about a quarter of the ship. He said once that it takes energy to resurrect people, and his resources aren't unlimited. It was ostensibly meant as a warning against needless dying. I used to think that maybe something like a mass suicide could be wielded as leverage, similar to a strike. It's why I had some interest in Mademoiselle Florbelle's morbid little experiments. However, our dear Admiral can apparently handle quite a lot of death."

A small sigh. He brings a hand to his face, brushing some hair back, trying not to think about death, neither his own nor the horrible thing he saw in the photograph he took of Stavrogin. "Let's go up on deck, maybe visit the chapel? We can talk about it more there, if you like. About what happened, I mean. How are your injuries, by the way? I'm sorry, I should have asked sooner..."

Edited 2024-09-21 01:31 (UTC)

"No no no no no!" Walter is quick enough to jump against that, the possible disconnect of it. Quicker than the highly alarming strike idea, even. Walter has always wondered whether some such method will be used by a "student activist", and worried about it, considering that there's little consequence in this place to simply not performing jobs on the ship at the number of participants Pyotr would be likely to sway. The only thing that seems to work is taking someone out of the picture for a few days... It's a striking self-destructiveness in his friend, and that ultimately worries Walter more than a lot of other aspects.

"When you put it that way, then of course not. Maybe I mean more like... hard to cope with, hard to accept. For me at least." And that almost everyone else has so easily accepted it... Well, Pyotr is right that Walter would be naive not to realize that's normal here. Those who called it a flood at first, the way it appeared almost exactly like the nightmare flood, have adjusted without issues, especially Malcolm. He wonders if there's a similar drama about to play up - that they finally see each other again where they first met and part ways.

Walter nods and walks over, ready to head out together. He dusts off his own arm. "It's fine, I'm fine. At least, I better be fine now that I've taken all the antibiotics I got. Though who knows, maybe bacteria weren't even coded into the simulation..." Here he is, not assuming his friend hasn't learned (more) about germ theory.

That's because you're weak, he thinks, judging Walter for admitting to struggling. It's not that he accepts it, nor copes with it. He simply doesn't think about it, except during nightmares. But he isn't a child. Dreams are just dreams, and there's no need to ruminate on them during waking hours. Ultimately, he wants to survive, at least psychologically, at least until his body is finally laid to rest one way or the other.

He knows, intuitively, that means he simply can't dwell too much on anything that happens, no matter what it is. Especially since he has possibly years more in this place. He'll be like Fitz, Erskine, and Silver—if he doesn't disappear first. No, now is not the time for these gloomy thoughts...

"I'm glad to hear it," he says cheerfully, patting Walter on the arm as they exit the library. "I imagine if you do come down with something, someone will be able to just magic it away. Worst case scenario, they'll have to 'reset' you with another death. I suppose I'm actually lucky to have gotten it out of the way and not have to worry about it. Who knows if that place has any long lasting physical side effects... I hope not... Oh, but I'm sure it's fine. Long term consequences don't seem to be much of a thing here... Still, you aren't so young. It's a little worrying. I would advise you to listen to your doctors, but, well..." Hilbert and Shaw don't exactly inspire confidence. Their personal issues aside, nothing about the Barge inspires confidence. "Perhaps healthy eating is the way to go? Nutrition, vitamins..."

If Walter let him, he'd chatter all the way up to the deck.

"Effects like from the fog? I'm lucky if those mists weren't actually fumes of some kind... Or it could have just been some gas that made us see really crazy things. And hear. And, well, okay, you know it's probably not precisely that, but."

Walter's lucky it's not fumes because of the asthma, that is. It's actually a pretty terrifying thought. The living memory of this place is only about ten years. Pyotr has expressed skepticism that does strike Walter as paranoid or impractical - in their bad situation, a small risk of harm in five years shouldn't outweigh other benefits. But this time. How do they know they won't keel over from Space Asbestos in twenty years?

"The exercise I've been getting in some actual job is kinda good for me," Walter riffs. "I've got three stretches for my injury that I should make sure I don't stop doing..." He's sure it's a bit laughable, diet and rehab issues that are luxurious compared to the past. "Maybe a reset would be for the best. I think I might end up with a second death without rushing it along though, so..." They have lots of little details they can rib each other on.

"I have fallen a little behind on the movie parties. But I did get some time with this good book I hadn't read in a long time. It's called 1984. Set in this future England where they work in plain white cubicles and rewrite the news to just make up who's winning and losing the wars..." You know, just like the brain rotting videos with contradictory hot takes that they have to keep up with...

Do it to Julia was the main thing that had driven him to look into the matter - both the time Pyotr had accused him of acquiescing to the process of losing his precious thing, then the very literal representation of that dilemma in his subconscious or whatever the hell that puzzle was. However, he was also very curious what Pyotr might think about the theme of being beaten at the long game by a friend who seemed to support the revolution... Surely Trevor hadn't committed such elaborate psychological torture, but Walter didn't see their every conversation, Trevor had videoed with his so called (in multiple senses) father for instance, it could have gone a bit worse than the blunt refusal Walter received.

He laughs a little at the comment about the fumes, and talks about how lucky Walter was not to be born in 19th century Petersburg, describing the yellow and brown fog that covers the city in the summers especially... Fog that rolls in from the swamp and nearby sea, but mixes with whatever the factories are puffing out into the air...

It's an easy conversation. "You better keep doing those exercises!" he teases. "I'm going to remind you, every day..." He really will, too.

They're just stepping out into the deck when Walter brings up the book. It gets his attention. The way Walter uses fiction to talk about the Barge is always clever, even if Pyotr's own relationship to literature is complicated by Stepan Trofimovich. Movies are easier than books, not that he actually dislikes novels as much as he pretends...

"Mm, at least future England has news." The Barge is practically pre-literate the way everything is scattered across random network posts. It keeps everything centered around gossip spread through friendship circles, rather than allowing for narrative that might inspire wider solidarity... No pamphlets, no newspapers.

"What happens? Our hero forms a group of misfits to overthrow the government via good morals and friendship? And, of course, romance..." He may not know a lot about 20th and 21st century media, but thanks to Walter, and movies like The Matrix, he's gotten a certain impression...

Edited 2024-09-23 04:09 (UTC)

"Well, it's not exactly like that," Walter says, quieter, looking out into the open space air of the deck. "Kinda depressing, the author wrote an essay or two just spelling things out. Our hero does meet a girl, which is supposed to be a big no-no, but they're kind of just together because they finally found someone. And it's the same way with how they read the old books, to them they're new. The two of them hang out with this guy who sells them the books, and then finally one of the guy's coworkers invites him to hang out. All of them start talking about how of course some people out there resist, but then..."

It's a lot more like what they're actually experiencing on the barge. Where every single confession in a room feels like a risk, every conversation prone to eavesdropping.

"The guy and the girl get locked up, separately. It's the other two who were playing the long game. The guy gets tortured for months, and finally, his coworker brings out the rats. You know, they never explain how they knew the one thing the guy couldn't take was rats. And he says, no, wait, don't do it to me, do it to Julia, not me."

Usually when Walter tells this story, he mimics the frantic tone Winston used, but not this time. This time his voice is just... empty. Maybe that happened to Pyotr on a lesser scale. Maybe Pyotr has figured out some way to benefit himself by doing the same thing to his comrades in the "movie club" soon. That might not be so bad. There must be something that happens to tiny groups of malcontented inmates if they've all accomplished nothing, might as well know what it is.

"The hell flood, whatever it actually was, was kinda like that... sorta literally for me... because that's just what's supposed to happen here, apparently.."

It sounds similar to the book Malcolm Bright recommended. There's probably a convergence of worldviews between the two, between Malcolm and Walter. They're both Girondins, even if Walter is only that way because he doesn't know any better. Or maybe it's his money...

He's careful to keep his expression neutral, not betraying that he had a similar experience. "It showed you what you're most afraid of, and you told them to do it to Misty?"

A pause. The discussion does present an opportunity. He stops and tilts his head, eyes narrowing but looking him squarely in the face.

"Are you saying you think there's a traitor in our midst, Walter?"

Because, oh, he could tell him a thing or two about that... (He doesn't remember that he already did, during a moment of delirium.) If Trevor was not receptive to even the milquetoast scheme about the monitor position, then perhaps he'll be willing to believe him? He hates that his heart is starting to pound, for absolutely no reason at all. Be calm, be calm, he tells himself. Stay in control...

Edited 2024-09-25 05:05 (UTC)

"No, I mean literally literally, like actual rats in the same little cage and - my subconscious is a little on the nose, apparently, it's very embarrassing." He scratches his cheek shyly.

"But... Another Misty was with me. Which makes three, I guess. She was a monster, but she was more like how I remembered, she already remembered me. And... Eventually, a monster attacked us. That's how my shoulder was injured, and she was killed. I know it might have just been a dream, but, I don't know, it felt real to me, it lasted for days everywhere we went... Maybe there was something more I was supposed to do..."

He pats his shoulder. "Hilbert gave me more morphine than he should have, I honestly don't know if that was an evil monster or what. Malcolm and I were talking about his experiments, and it did make me think..." Meeting his friend's steely gaze. "Pretty much every graduate seems to give up what's most important to them... You know?"

Like the one inmate who really, truly hated the admiral and was trying to kill him?

He can see the deep pain in Walter's eyes. No, it's more than pain: it's emptiness. It's like he's truly broken from the event, and Pyotr hates it. He both pities and hates him, completely despises the Admiral and his wardens, but most of all, he too feels... not broken, but numb and empty. The difference is that he can use it as a strength, even if he's tortured, killed, and resurrected to suffer the death toll a hundred times over. Why can't he give just a little bit of this stubbornness to Walter? He wants to shake him.

"It was meant to torment us, nothing more." It comes out sharper than he intended, maybe even sounding a little defensive. He quickly corrects himself, speaking softer. "Your worst fear isn't rats, but something happening to her. That's why you saw it. You can't do anything to help her now, whatever she was, but why assume the worst? If not a dream, it might have all been an illusion or a trick, an elaborate theatre."

His tone flattens toward the end. He shakes his head, lowering his eyes to try to think. All these different Ms. Quigleys... Are they all the same? Is giving up one the same as giving up all of them? Or are some more important than others? He'd like to say something that might give Walter courage, but he's realizing now that the man's thoughts must be so tangled by all this mess... In other words, he understands Walter's mind far less well than he would like, and that irritates him.

"I do know..." Maybe talking more about graduation will clarify things. "I'm sure there are some counter examples, like how Allan doesn't seem to have given up on Ken, but I guess that relationship is pathetic enough to meet the Admiral's approval... but I think for you, it won't be so convenient. Probably because she's already graduated, and you have another 'ungraduated' version of her anchoring you to your own world and former life. He probably did it deliberately, bringing her when she hadn't even met you yet and waiting until she was graduated to bring you. He did it to try and drive you mad."

It seems to be working. Are they both going mad? He takes a deep breath, exhaling.

"Walter, don't graduate... I know we speculated that maybe the brainwashing is so sloppy that it might not be such a big deal, but... I'm sorry, I know it's painful because of Ms. Quigley, but you're right. Graduation changes people, at least while they're still here. They can call it a 'meaningful inner transformation of the soul' or whatever flimflam they like, but the truth is clear to see. Look at all the wardens who used to be inmates, and if you go back through the network, you'll see that they used to be quite different... Sometimes it's striking, and sometimes it's subtle, but in the end, they all comply with the Admiral. All of them."

He needs to understand that. He'll tell him about Trevor, if it proves the point. After the rapid stream of words, Pyotr looks at Walter again, eyes bright and intense the way they were during the Avenue Q movie night.

Edited 2024-09-26 16:22 (UTC)

Walter gives a soft expression. He hadn't realized that his loved one being hurt was the greatest fear of all... It's a little bit of a comfort that he hasn't totally cracked, the way he fears he would if the two of them had their lives threatened in any normal way. Comfort enough that he should admit something: "Ms. Quigley's case... is a little more like Allan and Ken's. Or like Trevor and his two. Partners. I guess." He stumbles over that odd description even now, though partly because of coming up to the painful truth he's kept from Pyotr. At least it's casually including Trevor in the wardens who are influenced to a man. "There was someone else. Someone from her past. That person used her and manipulated everyone over and over again: when they were young, when we all saw each other as adults, when they were here on the barge. She still loves her and, well, that doesn't exactly matter to me if a relationship were all it was. Things are always going to be complicated now."

Should he just wish or ask for someone to remove his memories? The brainwashed docile Misty couldn't even accept the monster version. How would the reverse ever play out fairly? Friendship isn't so bad, especially when Misty has so few others to slather her affections on... Walter tries to keep his eyes on his goals, but they feel so far away at this point. The pain cuts into his voice here.

"Why?" (Why this? rather than a direct counter to anything.) "I really don't get why the person I care about is the one graduate who doesn't get to be happy. Ulla gave up on her homeland, she has a new home. Hilbert gave up on his experiments, he's back to normal with his team. Trevor gave up on fighting every monster he could get his hands on, he certainly has monster friends now..."

The monsters remind him of something, and he shakes his head. "I don't have much time. Malcolm saw the monster during the flood. He managed to get over it pretty quickly, I guess the werewolf powers helped, but that can't last forever. If I'm going to try to influence her deal, it needs to be soon. That's what matters to me, that's what's making me do this. If I'll be one of the tough cases who's stuck here for another year after that first murder, then fine. But Petya, what's the point of just living like this, getting hurt over and over? They can't ever compromise you with those bonds after enough breaches? Or bring in someone else who 'died' to force your hand?"

It's too serious a conversation for Walter to use the finger quotes that go with that American English inflection. They both doubt the premise of their deaths at this point, at least irreversible deaths. But there's another reason to emphasize that word. They both know there's a person who could change things.

He scoffs. "They don't all get to be happy. You think Trevor is happy? Happy people don't need to drown themselves in liquor every damn day."

It's all so confusing. He starts to lose his temper, somewhere between the revelation of Misty Quigley's lesbian relationship and Malcolm's secret lycanthropy (or was that just another creature like the vampire Trevor? Communication is impossible when the rules of basic reality aren't clear—). The rest sounds like raving, but the final unspoken accusation finally makes him snap. No, they are not talking about Stavrogin.

"What, so because they hurt me, I'm supposed to agree to their terms? I'm not even supposed to try to free myself!? You know they're going to hurt me anyway, Walter. Even if I changed my mind and decided I want to graduate like a good, sensible boy, you think I wouldn't still end up stuck here for years like Sweeney!?" He waves a hand, lowering his voice to a flat tone. "They hate people like me here."

It's a simple truth, one he feels deeply, even if his face and voice are cold. They hate me, and I'm glad. I want them to hate me more. That's the point of all this.

"She's not going to listen to you, Walter, you fool. You're nothing to her—just some uncooperative inmate. You don't have to worry about betraying her to the rats. They already got to her first, and she's already agreed to everything. That's how they are here."

Edited 2024-09-28 03:25 (UTC)

"Ms. Quigley isn't going to listen, I know that. She's going to see. Can they really get rid of any reactions to reminders of the past, any feelings for friends?"

He... He thinks about demotions, terrible events at home that overwrite the progress of the barge and cause the people to resort to violence again, but even those seem to be a ruse, a fairy story to keep wardens from acting in defense of inmates.

"This sucks! It's not right. The way they hurt us, the way they're trying to change us... It's really bad." A fate worse than death in the eyes of some, to be honest. Walter's afraid to even say it out loud, that Pyotr really might be thinking this way. "But if we're hitting our heads against the wall when we run, and ports and wardens can't get us what we need... Maybe it's time for plan B. Like if Erskine can't go home himself, he can make a warden send his friends a note to summon us or something."

Maybe the warden will so convincingly pretends to respect privacy that they don't read it. ... Yeah, he's grasping at straws.

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