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Aberrant: Wild Card - Act I:Scene IV - Forest


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"It doesn't know the way back home, Lizzie," Jadzia told Lizzie, her sexily accented voice soft and distracted. She couldn't take her eyes off the last three words of text on the monitor. Life and none... "I already asked."

Jadzia glanced at Alexa over the top of her laptop, her grey eyes commiserating. "And it doesn't know about your mother either, 'Lexa. Sorry, hon. It doesn't do well with given names..." She cocked her head to the side, considering one of her requests - maybe she was being too specific. She rapidly typed out another request.

How many Travelers are currently in The In-Between? *enter*

9.

"... But it does know that there are nine Travelers here. So with me, you, Lizzie, Matt, David, and the other girl, that leaves three unaccounted for, unless we want to include Mulligan, and maybe that Deuce guy. He showed up when all the weirdness first began. And that would still leave one."

Her eyes turned to Matt. "And a Traveler? A Traveler is a human that is in The In-Between. And I'm really hoping that doesn't allude to the existence non-humans. And before anyone mentions that shadow... thing, as far as I'm concerned, its code error in the physics that run this place. Which aren't the same as in our world, though I'm pretty sure we're all cluing in to that."

Life and none...

"Life and none..." Jadzia whispered in echo of her thoughts, here eyes on the words again. Her eyes hardened as she drew in a ragged breath. "Okay, okay! Admittedly, it's a little ominous, maybe pretentious, but it might not be that bad. I remember reading this silly novel, 'bout a wizard who takes two people from 'our' world to his, something about rules - whatever, that part's not important. Thing was, he was only able to do it when their death was imminent. They were riding a Big-rig and were supposed to crash, but instead, this wizard took them to his world or dimension. Maybe this is the same thing, except it was a boat accident rather than a truck crash. The In-Between isn't between Life and None, but rather between Life and a Life we wouldn't recognize."

Jadzia's lips curved faintly in a nervous, desperate smile, and she knew it. "I'm reaching at straws here, guys. Just let me reach. I'm rather hoping I didn't just fry my brain during an epileptic fit while playing a video game." Her smile gained a trace of her former braggadocio. "Incidentally, in the novel, the Big Bad Wizard was so Big and Bad because he cheated. Magic was just hyper-advanced mathematics... And he had gotten his hands on a computer." She reached over the top of the monitor to tap the Alien-Head logo on the back of her laptop.

"At least we have our own, eh?"

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"Yeah.. until it runs out of battery or something."

Lizzie sighed and stood up, brushing the dirt off of her legs.

"Sorry - guess I'm frustrated. I don't do frustrated very well. And I don't do 'doing nothing' very well either."

She walked over and knelt down next to the unconscious woman, examining her for a long moment.

"Other than this chick, how do you guys feel? I felt like I was starving to death, but I feel better now that I've had something to eat. Matt, you were the worst of us, but you seem totally fine now. You - sorry, what's your name again?"

"David."

"David. Are you okay? Cause if everyone's alright, I vote Jadzia shuts that thing down for now until we think of some better questions to ask. It would be our luck that it *IS* the only thing in this screwed up place that works according to normal rules, and if the battery life is limited then let's preserve as much as we can. Now, let me see if I can wake her up.. she seems fine other than being unconscious."

With that, Lizzie lifted the woman slightly and tapped lightly on her cheek with the back of her hand, the way one would someone who had fainted.

"Hey.. sleeping beauty. You there? C'mon.. wake up."

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"I don't think she's waking up," Matt said softly after the woman refused to stir. "Not until she's ready.

"As for me..." He paused, feeling his body, hale and healthy. "I feel good. Too good for a man that just fell off a log into ice-fed waters, nearly drowned, slept in freezing wet clothing in the woods, nearly drowned again trying to rescue this woman from the water, fought something that nearly burned off my fingers with extreme cold and smashed the front of my face in on a rock. Frankly, guys... I don't like this. As awesome as it is that I'm not in pain, I'd oddly fell better about this if I was still half-dead."

He shifted the girl again; the pressure she was putting on his legs was making them numb. Matt made sure that his jacket was closed around her; despite still being wet, he was starting to feel warm. The girl was heating up his torso and lap; the fire was doing the same to his feet and legs.

"Regardless," he continued as he resettled her, "we need a plan. We can't sit here forever, waiting for Mulligan or Deuce or the next shadow thing. I know that we're not ready to move yet... necessarily, but we should have an idea. If something happens, we might need to move fast."

Matt paused. "I don't know if this is real or some fantastic, unreal dream," he said. "I started treating it like a dream. But I don't want to react like that anymore. If its a dream, I'll wake up. I've had weird ones before. If its not... I want to be ready for anything. This is real from this point forward."

Suddenly, he grinned a little sheepishly. "Sorry. I guess I needed to pep talk myself. But I was serious. Let's figure out where we go from here."

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Originally Posted By: Lizzie
"Yeah.. until it runs out of battery or something."


"I'm not even sure why it's working now," Jadzia admitted. "It got soaked in the rain. My and Ma - uh, my tent had a leak. Maybe it work 'cause I wanted it to work, eh?"

Nonetheless, Jadzia closed her laptop with a soft snap - if she only had a finite power source, she rather not use it all up now. Jadzia scoot a bit closer to the fire, rooting through her bag with glances up at Lizzie. "Now that I don't feel like my skin is going to shatter, I'm doing okay, though God, I wish I had a cup of coffee. VR, cool. But there is a limit to how real I want a simulation to be and this is way pass my limit."

Her grey eyes darted to Matt, a wry curve to her lips. "Hey, I'd love to have whatever Buff you have. I'd thought I'd die after my one dip in the river. Thing is, where do we go from here?" In the lingering silence, Jadzia opened one of the side pockets of her computer-bag.

"I mean, this place lookssimilar to where I went camping last summer, but it's not the same place is it? And-hmm..." Jadzia trailed off, a forefinger worrying at the her thumb-ring as her other hand pulled out the Okanagan Map from the pocket and idly unfolded it.

If our thoughts and desires can define this place to any extent, just maybe either this place will conform to map - since as far as I know, I just walked away from my and Maddie's campsite a few hours ago - of the map will conform to the place...
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