4222/Mindscapes

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Mindscapes
Date of Scene: 25 November 2020
Location: ???
Synopsis: Quentin decides to go on a magical journey inside Mori's brain.
Cast of Characters: Mori Merritt, Quentin Quire




Mori Merritt has posed:
Despite the fact that the outdoors isn't a great studying location in the middle of a New York City fall, Mori Merritt seems to have no problems doing so. Bundled up in a peacoat, she rests on the grass, staring up at the partially cloudy afternoon sky. Next to her backpack is a pile of books, a sketchpad, and a few stubby pencils that likely need replacing. Half-finished on the sketchpad is a sketch of a duck pond, a mother duck with six little ducklings following after her.

Quentin Quire has posed:
Now that he's based in one area yet again, Quentin Quire decided to head to New York for some supplies, finding Westchester a bit inadequate for his modern material needs.

Plus he wanted a New York stand hotdog.

But as he's walking through the park, munching on his hotdog, something catches his mind. He turns and stares directly at Mori, squinting, then he immediately begins walking over to her.

He doesn't say anything at first, he just takes a seat right next to her as if he were a familiar old friend.

"So anyway, what the fuck are you?" he bluntly asks, before taking another bite of hotdog, staring out at the ducks.

Mori Merritt has posed:
The abrupt comment and sudden appearance of someone next to her doesn't seem to deter Mori too much. She turns her head just a little to raise an eyebrow in Quentin's direction, blinking a few times. "A person, last time I checked. That's an odd question. Especially given the myriad of answers you could give to it. I mean, what the fuck are any of us?"

There's an amused laugh somewhere in her tone.

Quentin Quire has posed:
"Well, let's say I had a large zit on my nose and someone asked 'hey, what's that'. If I had, what, thousands, maybe millions of conscious things buzzing around in my mind, I'd think, 'oh, yeah, that's probably the weird thing about me'." Quentin finishes his hotdog, brushing the crumbs off on his jeans before he pulls a can of root beer from his pocket, popping the tab. "I'm going in there." he states with no context.

Mori Merritt has posed:
"... I'm sorry, I don't actually get what you're talking about," Mori sits up a bit, tilting her head as she glances back over at him. "Are we talking literally or metaphorically or...?" There's a quizzical look on her face and she takes a brief glance around the nearby area on the grass. "Going in where?"

Quentin Quire has posed:
"Patience is not a noted trait of hypercognitives." Quentin suddenly forms a pink see-through revolver made of pure energy in his right hand, points it at her head, and immediately fires a psychic bullet.

It's the sort of thing where, as opposed to trying to dig in somewhere with pure finesse, one just gets to the point and fires through mental blocks and complications to immediately assert his telepathy as deep as possible.

So he starts digging through her mind, rapidly trying to pull her mindscape together so that he can actually find her in the sea of weirdness in her mind, and see exactly what that sea of weirdness even //is//.

Mori Merritt has posed:
"Hypercog--" Mori's barely got a few syllables formed, much less a whole word, and by the time there's even an attempt to continue it there's a telepathic venture into her brain. It doesn't hurt, mostly because it feels just like what she's used to--zoning out and being somewhere else is commonplace.

It's certainly like swimming through a sea of weirdness, fragments of voices and thoughts that don't seem to match up with Mori herself just seem to be lost and disconnected in there. Some bits seem to be more solid, but others just seem like they're things that can never be whole.

The scene her brain seems to have settled on is a forest. Something outside of a city, though the architecture seems a little foreign. The trees are more of a faded muted pastel, the whole environment coming out like a watercolor painting that someone used a bit too much water in. The forming of the mindscape is enough to startle Mori, mostly because /this is not how she normally sees things/. In fact, as she looks down, she appears to be startled to see herself.

"... what did you just do?!"

Quentin Quire has posed:
"I went into your brain and made it not a complete mess. Let's look around." Quentin begins a slow treck toward the city, as he doesn't want to brute force his way around this place too hard. It's a rather unfamiliar situation, given that he has no idea what the hell is going on.

"Quentin Quire, by the way. Omega level mutant telepath. Nice to meet you." He slides his hands into his pockets, talking without looking back. "So do you just have no idea what's going on in your own brain?"

Mori Merritt has posed:
"... pretty sure if you're trying to make it not a complete mess you're not doing it right," Mori says, hugging her arms a bit and looking /distinctly/ uncomfortable. She doesn't, however, let him just go wander off on his own, especially because they're apparently... in her brain? "I'm Mori Merritt. But no, I don't exactly know. Not really. It's... well, you weren't kidding about the mess. I've got some friends trying to figure it out a bit, but there have been a few complications."

She peers in the direction of the city. "... I don't know if you want to go that way. Pretty sure the forest's a little safer."

Quentin Quire has posed:
"I'm only treading carefully to make sure that whatever this is doesn't give you brain damage. I'm not worried about myself." Quentin looks back at her, a perpetually impatient expression on his face. "I'm making sure that your mind stays cohesive, I don't need you becoming some insane mess because of these things."

He continues walking until they're just outside the city, and then he holds his hand out to her. "Hold my hand. Whatever this is, I need to make sure I don't lose you if it suddenly decides to freak out. I plan to stay lowkey, to see if it doesn't notice us. If we can see what it is, at least we won't be totally blind."

Mori Merritt has posed:
Mori frowns, peering at his hand carefully. "Pretty sure you're too late for insane mess already." She glances towards the city, then at his hand. "I'm not worrying about you, I just mean that I've seen that city before. It may not be a great place to be in. It's not always."

But there's something about 'it suddenly deciding to freak out' that gets her attention. "It?" She hisses, her voice low before she grabs for his hand. "What do you mean it? What do you mean /notice us/?"

Quentin Quire has posed:
"It's clearly alive. It feels like there's a countless amount of people in there. The only reason this many minds isn't threatening to drive me mildly insane is because I'm a hypercognitive. If I was some Average Joe Idiot who just happens to be a telepath, I'd probably be a drooling mess." Quentin finally starts to head inside, taking very careful steps as they cross the boundaries of the city, not touching anything or making direct eye contact.

He uses his telepathy to hide their presence, trying to simply make them go unnoticed by anyone who happens to look their way. "I don't know how //you're// not insane. You don't exactly seem like Michio Kaku."

Mori Merritt has posed:
As they proceed, it doesn't exactly seem as if no one's taking notice of them. The people, as it turns out, aren't exactly there. Vague shapes of people move about, features obscured and impossible to really make out. Voices are nearby, conversation, though none of it sounds exactly like it's language or really anything that could fully be made out. If they've been noticed, it's impossible to tell.

"I mean, I'm glad that I didn't cause you to be some drooling mess, that's appreciated. I'd rather not have something to feel guilty over." She looks both ways, trying to determine where they're going. "I'm not sure I'm not insane. People don't believe me when I try to explain this. They think it's all... I dunno, hallucinations. The people that believe me, though, they aren't really sure what we need to do to... I don't know, fix this? It'd be one thing if it was just what you can see in here, but it's not just that, it's the powers too."

Quentin Quire has posed:
"Don't get me wrong, you're hot, and I'd drool if this nonsense in your brain wasn't more interesting right now." Quentin says as he takes the obvious shot, but focuses on the task at hand as he continues walking deeper into the city.

He looks at the strange shapes and listens to the voices, squinting. "God I hate Inception, but it looks like we're doing an Inception."

He holds his hand up at one of the more clear shapes, and tries to reach out to its mind. His intent, if he can actually find consciousness of substance, is to drag both him and Mori into //that// as well.

Mori Merritt has posed:
"I'm going to take that as your weird attempt at a compliment..." Mori mutters as she follows after him. She mostly seems to be taking it all in, visually taking advantage of the fact that usually she doesn't have much control over what she's able to see inside her head like that. As she notices him going for one of the person-shapes, she tenses up.

"Look, I've seen Inception but I'm pretty sure I'd make for an awful movie right now, I--"

But he's reaching out for the figure, so her protests quickly become a moot point. The shape, however, doesn't really have much substance, like it's not actually there at all. The attempt to go deeper Inception style feels more like when you don't realize there's no back on the chair you're sitting on and lean back.

The experience is jarring to say the least, but they're somewhere else. It's like a fragment of something, though the scenery seems clearer. It's a room, dark but visible enough to tell there's a room, but it's the sounds outside and the rocking of the floor underneath that make it feel like they're more in a bunker in a warzone than in whatever city they were in previously.

"L-Look, I appreciate that you find this interesting and all that, but I'm trying very hard not to end up as a blubbering drooling mess myself and I'm not sure if this is the best way to help..."

Quentin Quire has posed:
"When I was a teenager, I didn't name myself Kid Omega for no reason. You'll be fine." Quentin holds her hand tight, then starts to look around the room. But it's a fragment, so he pulls back out.

He has to think... "These are all, like... ghosts of something, like consciousness that's degraded like data. BUt if they're all fragments, I wonder if..."

He looks to her, very seriously now. "Do not let my hand go for any reason."

He closes his eyes, and then the various figures around them begin to light up a bright pink, with pink lines of energy all linking back to his head. "If they're fragments, then let's see if we can do something like... enter a collective mindscape. I want to see what the hell that was we were just experiencing. If you wanna know what's going on, then this is what it takes."

He closes his eyes, and a mental command forces her eyes to close as well, trying to dive deeper once again, this time into the collective of these figures, to see what kind of whole he can make of fragments...

Mori Merritt has posed:
Mori's certainly not letting go of his hand. She's got a bit of a grip there as she looks certainly more than a little uncomfortable. "I'm not going to lie, this is a little terrifying. It's one thing to watch what's going on around me, it's another to be /acting/ in it. Watching a movie and being on a set are two very different experiences..."

The choice, however, is all on Quentin as he leads the way through the mindscape. At least, in the sense that he's directing the way it proceeds. The sense of trying to piece together the fragments into some kind of whole is hard. Most things feel scattered and hard to place, like puzzle pieces with the picture worn off. Some, though, have more of a whole. Less of a form and more of an idea, a sense, a purpose. A collection of things that feels less like a fragment and more of a larger shard.

Like a person.

Quentin Quire has posed:
"As long as we're not dealing with some sort of powerful psychic parasite, there shouldn't be any problems." Quentin starts to release some of the less useful fragments, purple light no longer glowing around them as he adjusts to the feel he gets for them, while the larger shards start to get more of his attention and focus, trying his best to see how things may fit, occasionally poking at a fragment if he thinks it might fill in a gap.

"It feels like I'm doing a jigsaw puzzle with an entire city." His nose starts to bleed a bit from the strain, but he continues, feeling close... "If I could just get them to be whole enough, we can slip in..."

Mori Merritt has posed:
It's certainly a bunch of pieces, a piece of IKEA furniture with no instructions and perhaps lacking screws. Mori's sticking close, but her anxiety seems to grow as he focuses on trying to stick some of the fragments together. "I really don't know if this is a good idea, Quentin. I appreciate the abrupt help with all of this but..." Her brow furrows. "I don't know how to explain what I'm feeling but you're definitely..." She trails off, however.

Where he was pulling fragments together, suddenly it's like there's a pair of glowing eyes looking at them. Something intelligent.

Quentin Quire has posed:
Quentin suddenly opens his eyes, staring at the glow, and immediately speaks to it in a rather loud, telepathic voice, that of course she can hear as well. <<Who are you? What are you doing in her head? Don't screw with me, because for as much as I don't know who or what you are, you don't know who or what I am, so don't be stupid.>>

He pulls her a bit closer as he forcefully speaks to the intelligence, his effort gradually trying to wrap around the things that make it up and less around random individual fragments. "All else fails, I pull you into my mind and shit gets really serious."

Mori Merritt has posed:
Mori's eyes go a bit wide. "What do you mean into /your/ mind?" The intelligence is certainly there, but whatever it is, it doesn't seem to be expressing itself in words. Either it doesn't understand them or doesn't know how to communicate. It does, however, seem to give the sense that it's reaching back at him the more he pulls the fragments of it together.

Quentin Quire has posed:
"If I can be in your mind, obviously you can be in mine. Now hold on and think peaceful thoughts." Quentin opens a section of his mind up, as if giving the intelligence something to reach for, broadcasting it. He wants to make this easier for both it and him. At the same time, he reaches out further across the mind city, trying to connect the fragments like nodes, whatever seems to give the intelligence more cohesiveness.

"You have the most frustratingly obtuse brain I've ever been inside of, and I've been inside of politicians."

Mori Merritt has posed:
"Yeah, but I'm not some omega level... whatever," Mori mutters, but her eyes shut as she does her best to be peaceful. It's not so great, by the look on her face.

The cohesiveness seems to come together the more he tugs, and the more it seems like it's reaching back. Like grasping a hand holding it on the edge of a cliff. While there are no words, it's certainly communicating something. A sense of freedom? Life?

Quentin Quire has posed:
"I think it's broken, like, maybe wounded in some way, I'm not sure. Hell, I need to watch Jean Grey do psychic surgery, but I guess I can figure out a patchwork solution." Quentin tries his best to sort of glue those fragments together, trying to reconfigure them a bit so that they can try to find their own equilibrium. "I think it //wants// me to do this."

He stops trying to force it so much, and instead tries to follow the //emotion// that the intelligence is communicating, following that lead in his attempt to guide the fragments together, rather than push them, trying to give the intelligence help and guidance instead of trying to blindly put it together however he wants. "I don't //think// it's evil."

Mori Merritt has posed:
Perhaps not an evil force, but it's certainly exerting pressure. The more Quentin puts into it, the more it seems to take from him. While it seems to become more cohesive, it seems to be seeking that freedom a little /too/ eagerly. There's the sensation of reaching for him, but also trying to pull back on him.

Mori's eyes go back to Quentin. Peaceful thoughts aren't working. "I don't know what 'it' is, but I'm... not feeling so great."

Quentin Quire has posed:
"Yeah okay it's getting a bit greedy. Next experiment should tell me a lot. Brace yourself." Quentin begins the next experiment, which is that he snaps his fingers, closing himself up to the intelligence entirely, and releases the fragments.

It's a simple matter for him, but he's bracing himself for potential backlash, to gauge the mindset of this thing, what it is, what it needs. "I don't want to give it more, since I'm not sure what's happening to you yet, and I'm not sure what it's trying to do."

Mori Merritt has posed:
While it's not so much a backlash, the pieces seem to stay together more cohesively, but it's still trying to reach out, to pull more and perhaps solidify itself further. While it's still reaching out, it's a lot more solid than it seems to have been before.

"To be honest, I don't really have any idea what's going on..." Mori mumbles. "People have so many different ideas."

Quentin Quire has posed:
"I know who might have a better idea than me poking around in your brain." Quentin releases her hand, then pokes the side of her head, and she finds herself sitting in the park again, with ducks. Though time has passed a bit, it's clearly later. "I need to take you to Doctor McCoy. I might be a hypercognitive, but he's an actually experienced scientific genius."

He pulls out his phone, bringing up his contacts. "Give me your number. I'll work on setting this up and call you about it."

Mori Merritt has posed:
There's relief on her face as Mori finds herself back in the park. "I don't mind seeing another Doctor, I guess. I've seen a few people about this, some of them at least have made some traction, but... I don't know what it is. One of my friends thinks it's aliens, but..." She shrugs a bit, but hurriedly starts putting her books away.

"Alright, you can have my number. Just... I dunno, warn me if you're gonna do that sort of thing again, alright? I feel dizzy now."