clockwork_doc | [Nexus/Self-Cest] There's Been A Malfunction. . . .

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[Nexus/Self-Cest] There's Been A Malfunction. . . .

*beep* "Damn."

*beep* "Damn!"

*beep* "DAMN DAMN!"

Doc glares at his PINpoint, staring at the error message on the screen. "Why are you giving me an error about returning to Chicago?" he demands of it. "I've gone there after LOLs plenty of times! I even gave this one some time to wear off! What's going on here?!"

The PINpoint, naturally, doesn't answer. Doc stares at it angrily for a moment. Then, slowly, his expression turns to -- almost fright. "Great Scott, am I stuck here?"

He'd thought being trapped in an alternate Chicago was bad. Being stuck in the multiversal Nexus, however. . .that's a whole different kettle of fish.

(OOC: In essence, this is just a write-up of why Doc and Victor are now just Nexusites, as I've left their original game. I've been meaning to do this for a while, so. . . .)

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Victor blushes. "Er -- I've discovered I rather like the Looney Tunes," he admits, sounding a bit embarrassed. "I don't watch much TV other than that, these days. Most of the other programs are -- forgive me for saying this--"

"Crap?" Doc finishes for him. "Trust me, I don't blame you. I was never one for excessive watching myself." He finds the remote and flips the channel to a news station. "Though there is--"

Whatever Doc was about to say is abruptly cut off as he sees the date in the corner of the news program. He stares at it for a long moment. "August?" he finally says quietly. "AUGUST 1st?!"

Victor blushes. "Well -- I wouldn't p-put it quite like t-that," he says.

Victor's jaw drops. "What -- how -- isn't it December?" he demands, baffled. "You said your birthday was October 22nd when I paid my respects in the Nexus, and I know it's been at least a month!"

"It is! I know!" Doc says, staring at the screen like it's going to change and everything will be all right. It doesn't. "It can't be August! It makes absolutely no sense for it to be August! I'd suspect a time loop, except that you're obviously aware of the passage of--"

Doc stops short again as he remembers something. "Great Scott," he whispers as the pieces start to come together in his head. He turns to face Victor. "Victor, has anything unusual happened lately for you here? Anything you can think of?"

Victor doesn't like the look on Doc's face. He starts fiddling with his tie, suddenly very worried. "W-well, not really," he stammers. "E-except perhaps it's b-been unusually quiet a-around here. I h-haven't seen anyone in a-ages. Of course, I d-don't go out much a-anyway, and I've been s-spending more time than usual in the N-Nexus. . . ."

"Quiet?" Those suspicions are getting stronger. "You haven't seen any sign of any -- Biblical plagues? No fleas, no boils, no firstborns mysteriously disappearing for a day?"

Any what?! "No!" Victor gasps, stunned. "There hasn't been -- the Biblical PLAGUES?? I haven't seen any sign of that! And I especially would have noticed the last, I'm an only child!"
He sits down heavily on the bed, beginning to tremble. "Doc, w-what's happening?"

Doc sits down next to him with a sigh. "The Biblical plagues," he confirms. "Our newly elected mayor turned out to be the Devil in disguise, you see. He got killed by being pushed into a Rift, but apparently that led to the 10 Plagues of Egypt being forced on us." He looks around. "With you not knowing that, and with no sign of other people around -- Victor, I think you got sucked into an invisible Rift. So this is what one's like from the inside. . . ."

"An invisible Rift? Doc, I h-have enough t-trouble understanding the n-normal ones!" Victor pulls at his tie, trying not to panic and not really succeeding. "Please e-explain."

Doc sighs, then gently puts an arm around Victor. He knows the young man has odd reactions to touch sometimes, but he's hoping he won't pull away. "An invisible Rift is a different sort of Rift specific to this universe," he explains. "It traps people in a personal pocket dimension and keeps them there until such time as it decides to release them. I've never experienced one, but another friend apparently got taken into one." He suddenly looks very sad. "She never came back out." Damn, Revan, Doc still misses you a little. "When I saw you journal entries stop after late July, I figured the same thing had happened to you. Which it looks like it did."

Victor looks incredulously upset. "So in addition to the regular Rifts that abduct people from random universes, there's also these that trap people in a separate pocket in the same universe?" He leans over and puts his head in his hands. "Oh, this is giving me a headache. . . ."

Doc rubs his back sympathetically. "This universe is a far more complicated place than it first appears. I should know." He tilts his head, frowning a bit. "I have to ask, though -- didn't you notice anything was wrong? That it was unseasonably warm, at least?"

"L-like I said, I've b-been spending a l-lot of time in the N-Nexus," Victor says, now blushing again from embarrassment. "And I honestly d-didn't notice a-at first. The days s-seemed a bit l-longer than usual, but I thought t-that was because of m-my insomnia. Afterward, y-yes, I thought it was w-warmer than it should b-be, but -- I wasn't g-going to complain." He sighs. "I really a-am a ninny."

Doc frowns at him. "You're not a ninny," he says firmly. "How the hell were you supposed to know what happened?" Then his face takes on a thoughtful look. "The days felt longer, though? Hmmm. . . . Your last entry on the journals was on July 23rd. Did the effect start after that?"

"You needn't spare my feelings, I should have noticed something u-unusual about the w-weather, at least," Victor protests.

He frowns, thinking. "Yes, I believe it did. About a day or two after I wrote the entry. Of course, that was d-during the period I w-was having all those n-nightmares, so. . . ."

Doc nods. "Appears to be some sort of time dilation effect," he says, half to himself. "I wonder if that's what happened to everyone else -- one day, they woke up in a universe without any other people and discovered the days were stretching longer than they used to. Strange -- then again, everything about these Rifts are strange."

Victor nods, then sighs deeply. "I'm very s-sorry this isn't a r-real portal into C-Chicago," he apologizes. "If I'd k-known. . . ."

"Don't apologize, Victor, this isn't your fault," Doc tells him soothingly. "Like I said before, you couldn't be expected to know what happened to you. Even those who come back aren't quite sure." He glares down at his PINpoint. "If this thing was working properly, I could try getting both of us back to the proper reality. Come on. . . ." He tries fiddling with it again, trying to force a dimension shift, only to get a by-now-all-too-familiar *beep*. "Great Scott, what's wrong with this thing?" He arches an eyebrow, then looks at Victor. "All right, better explain before I do this -- I had powers before I came through the Rift. Do you remember me telling you I was abducted and made half-mechanical?"

"I still feel bad," Victor murmurs.

He blinks, then nods a bit hesitantly. "Yes, I do remember. You said you were kidnapped by -- some sort of doctor?"

Doc nods, recalling their time together on Marty and Victor's joint birthday. "Right, well, I didn't give you all the details. The 'doctor' wasn't actually human. He was a Faery -- Great Scott, that never sounds right -- who stole me away to Arcadia. He had me build things for him in addition to being operated on. As a result, I gained a lot of the realm's natural magic -- I used to be able to fix any machine with just pocket lint, build whatever I wanted out of mere scraps -- hell, I could manipulate metal itself. But when I went through the Rift, I lost most of that magic -- probably in exchange for the weather control. I do, however, have a few weakened 'spells' at my command. One of them is something that'll make any device run perfectly for a few hours. I'm going to try it on my PINpoint. I just wanted you to know what I'm doing."

Victor stares at Doc as the scientist explains things, jaw hanging open slightly. "My God," he murmurs. "It -- it all sounds like something out of a penny dreadful, but -- I suppose the proof is right in front of my eyes." Doc's elbows steam right then, as if in emphasis. "I'm so sorry for you. I know I've said that before, but -- that was horrible, what happened to you."

He nods. "Experiment away. I hope it works."

"It was," Doc says quietly. "Thank you. I'm glad you didn't -- freak out or anything when you saw me."

Doc nods back, then starts fiddling with his PINpoint, going through the options and generally poking at the workings. Then he presses one hand over the other and concentrates hard. "Come on, come on. . . ."

After a moment, he feels a hot tingle go through his hand and into the PINpoint. "Success!"

Victor gives him a small smile. "You're welcome. And -- considering at the time I'd spent nearly six months in an alternate, future Chicago, discovered I could leave my body, and -- er -- resurrected the dead shortly before arriving, it would have been unseemly of me."

He watches with interest as Doc does his fiddling, smiling more brightly as the scientist announces success. "Wonderful!"

There's a pause. Part of that needs further explanation. "I'm sorry, did you just say 'resurrected the dead?'" Doc repeats, eyes widening.

Victor winces a little. Right, he didn't think he'd told Doc about that. "It's -- actually, perhaps it's not complicated to someone who's gone through what you have. I actually came through the Rift on the night of my w-wedding rehearsal. I'd been doing h-horribly with my v-vows, and the p-pastor banished me until I l-learned them. I was p-practicing in the w-woods, and I'd f-finally said them r-right when I put the r-ring on what I thought was just a s-stick shaped like a hand." He takes a deep breath. "It was, in actuality, a h-hand. This dead b-bride apparently t-thought I was proposing to h-her, and rose up to accept. I p-panicked and ran for it. The Rift t-took me just as I r-reached the bridge for home."

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