PARABOLICAL GRAFFITI

I haven't seen Mantis in a couple of days. He's been paying really close attention to the stuff going on with the Lazarus Pit, so-- I don't know. Maybe he's down there. I can't say I'd blame him if he was. It's not my place to tell him yes or no on the matter, anyway.

I don't think they'd really work for Dave-- his aging is written into his genetic code.


This place is so frustrating.

In the Gospel of Luke 16:19–31, Jesus tells the story of Lazarus, a beggar who lay outside the gate of a rich man who dressed in fine clothing and dined sumptuously every day, but gave nothing to Lazarus. Both men died, and the beggar received his reward in the Hereafter, at the everlasting banquet, while the rich man craved a drop of water from Lazarus' finger to cool his tongue as he was tormented with fire.

In the Gospel of John, Lazarus was a man who lived in the town of Bethany. His sisters, Mary and Martha, sent word to Jesus that he was ill. Jesus delayed, and when he finally arrived it was found that Lazarus had been in the tomb for four days. Martha reproached him, and when Jesus assured her that Lazarus would rise she thought he was referring to resurrection on Judgment Day. To this Jesus replied, "I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die". In the presence of a crowd of mourners Jesus had the stone rolled away from the tomb and bade Lazarus to come out. This he did, still wrapped in his grave-cloths.

There is a Lazarus pit, I saw it on the news. Has anyone been?

( filtered; hal )

Um. Opsec concerns aside.. you all do realise that the so-called 'bad guys' don't argue like this, right? I'm, you know, just saying. God, I feel old, sometimes.


Edit: I just realised this sort of sounds snippy, and I swear I didn't mean it to. I apologise if anyone took it that way. I'm really not a rude person, honestly.

Hold up, wait a minute. Alright, so I get that these PTB want to bring us out of our times. And I can get my head around all this vampire and demon and comic characters stuff.

But making me have to start again on WoW, and with only the 2006 servers? That's just cruel my friends, damn cruel.

I only just got the 2008 expansion pack.

Good God, what is wrong with people?

My cough has turned bloody, but at least my fever's mostly gone and I can keep something down, now. Water, mostly, of course, but still.. it's a start. Dave would probably tell me I'm an idiot.

I've hit a dead end in my research. The equation is resulting in imaginary numbers, strings of questions, and yes/no. Thankfully, I've found other pursuits to distract myself when I'm frustrated like this. Alternate timelines within a certain dimension are possible, aren't they? I'm beginning to believe so. People have left and come back and they remember things. That means their knowledge of events that occurred here were carried back to their own dimensions. Knowing that, how could that not change their perception of their world, the people they know, and their own existence? --But then, that's the point, isn't it?

There's a theory of time travel that I think is interesting. It goes something like this: a future that's already written is unchanging. After all, were you to travel back in time in order expressly to change the future, it's inevitable that you yourself may be changed; a paradox, and therefore an error in reality. What if the change you create is so great as to write yourself out of existence? Does the change even occur, then, without you there to create it? Thus, it's proposed that reality has a kind of self-defense it might use in such an instance. --Those that do said travel and write a change into their future, as well as said changed future, are split off into a branching timeline, whereas the original goes on unimpeded.

If that's so, how many dozens of versions of the same world might there be in some dimensions? Surely others in other places have discovered time travel at some point. Cameron, for instance, is living proof of that.

And how depressing is it, if this is true-- the people the traveler loves, the reason he or she risks time to begin with, aren't changed, after all. Rather, an identical, alternate copy of of those people and things is created. You may never again see your mother/father/wife/husband/brother/sister/child/etc, but instead another version of that person.

It's a bit chilling.


Mantis brought me some sort of cold-medication, so between that and my runaway thoughts, please ignore anything that doesn't make sense. It makes sense to me, which I suppose is really the important thing. And typos. Ignore any typos. I'm really rather too tired to go back and fix them.

Perhaps I'll fix them later.


.. Probably not, though.

I guess it's the flu or something. A bit of it's depression, too, maybe. I miss home a lot, and Sunny and Dave and the dogs.

I can't stop working, I can't sleep, because-- what if he dies while I'm gone? What if
I can't let that happen.
I guess I really am awfully attached to him.

I don't suppose anyone is familiar with the phenomenon of accelerated aging? That would probably be asking far too much, Hal.

I wonder what would happen if he and Sunny were brought here, instead?
But-- no, I almost hope not. They've both seen enough war and death.



It just isn't.. right. I keep expecting to hear him over codec. I miss Sunny tugging at my sleeve to get my attention. I don't belong here. I know, I know I should just adjust and make some sort of place for myself here, but--
How do they do it? How do other people come here, leaving behind family and friends and husbands and wives and lovers and.. and they're okay with it? I don't.. understand it at all.
I can't stop thinking about them. Even Mantis told me in no uncertain terms that I need to shut my brain up. I just.. can't.




I'm so selfish. If I have to be here, I want them here, too.




I guess I don't really have much to say today.

So I've definitely come down with something. It figures that I'd live in Alaska without so much as a sniffle, but Los Angeles makes me sick. It must be the pollution. I suppose I could walk around with a mask to filter the air, but that would be silly. I can't pull off the Mantis look like he can. Uh. I don't think anyone else could look like him. He's certainly.. unique. I suppose that's another project that I'll have to work on. I don't intend to be ill often while I'm here.

At any rate, I have the device I mentioned finished. Miss Burkle, if you'd like, I'll just email the schematics to you. I don't particularly mind if this one gets out. I made sure that this couldn't be used as a weapon.


I dreamed last night that Sunny was looking for me.


It's funny how the subconscious works.

Headaches are so annoying.

Thanks, Uriel.

Some Lost Boy's reject tried to bite me when I refused to give him my wallet. My, my LA your gang requirments have really gone downhill. Now if someone could tell me why the hell I can't leave, I would be much obliged.

On the brighter side, I wonder if being stuck in some third rate version of Escape from LA is excuse enough for missing the first week of class.

While going through a radar theory website (it's rather outdated, but still!), I was reminded that the Su-30MKI is just now really getting use. Aren't we supposed to be doing some sort of military exercise with the IAF soon? Or is that later.. Anyway! My point is that at this point in time, it's one of the most impressive fighters on the market (other than the F-22, of course). I used its canards-for-thrust-vectoring idea in one of my earlier projects. Granted, that was back when I was in college and I've come a long way since then, but it's still a brilliant aircraft.

Still-- I have a soft spot for SAM systems. I guess I'll always be a ground guy. There's something very satisfying about building something that you know conventional military means can't defeat, and that'll be used to protect human lives. Which was sort of what REX was meant to be; she was going to be used to intercept ballistic missiles.

At any rate, I think this originally had something to do with bombs..

Oh! Right!

Does anyone know precisely what sort of explosion it was that Joker used? I mean, he's been doing this a while, so I'm sure he has a system, but I was thinking that if they're triggered remotely, I might be able to design a device to monitor for emissions in the appropriate band and wavelength. It wouldn't be terribly precise, given what I have on hand to work with and the inadequate facilities, but I'm certain I could tweak it to greater detection given time.

I'm afraid it's the only thing I really know to do for the situation. I'm not terribly helpful, otherwise, having always been something of a reclusive nerd.


Also: alcoholics really can be quite trying. I have spectacular bruises on my neck and shoulders. I felt rather sorry for him after Mantis threw him through a wall, but really-- how rude. It isn't as if I did anything. I was just there.

I don't suppose anyone has a spare cellphone that doesn't work? I need one for the parts.




[ooc; .. I think my geekery is showing.]

What's better? Being stuck in a comic book or the Bible? Question of the day.

Are you somewhere safe?
The clown is odd, he should be telling jokes not blowing things apart.

Hmm. Well. Well, well, well. Isn't this... quaint.

Let's liven up the place.

Do you know that if you poke at and piss off a werewolf enough on a night that isn’t harboring the full moon, they grow their fur despite this apparent setback? I didn’t know that until the other day. Huh. I guess you learn something knew all the time.

[Filtered to Valek]
Have any new babies yet? Or did you decide to dump the idea of making yourself a new friend?

Deadlines. Don't you just love them?

I'm doing another article on how people are adjusting to the city after being brought here. Does anyone want to answer a few questions for me? We could easily do it here over the boards.

Mantis took off. He read something about a Ginny Potter being hospitalised I refuse to believe it's the Ginny Potter, else I'm losing my mind and just.. left. He seemed very concerned.. To be honest, I'm shocked he's actually made those kinds of connections with people here. I mean, I only knew him while I was working on REX, but he never seemed capable of caring. One has to understand, of course, that those in FOXHOUND were a certain kind of people, and I've never met anyone as fundamentally damaged as Psycho Mantis. He's told me about a place called the Hyperion, here, and the people who live there, and how much like family they are to him. I-- I'm honestly shocked. They must be really special people.

I've been in and out of libraries since I got here, online doing research. I may have illegally created an identity for myself, appropriated funds, and hacked the FBI.. In my defense, I didn't have much choice. My eyes aren't focusing properly. Odd. Oh. When was the last time I slept? I'm not used to not having my CODEC available. I'm pretty sure it's on the fritz, though, as the technology's not actually available here. Something scrambled the signal, and now they're taking too much energy without anything to regulate them. I'm pretty sure I have a fever. I may have to cannibalise a computer to rig something up to help. Half of the parts I think I need I'm pretty sure don't actually exist.

Oh. The Twilight Zone is on in another room. It still sort of feels that way.


I don't really understand how people take this all in stride. It's very zen. I am not a very zen person. I am a mousy-looking, high-strung scientist with a lot of nervous habits. I guess it's sort of inevitable that I'd react to something like this with shock and curiousity and a necessity to know what in the world just happened.

And well, naturally, leaving Sunny and Dave behind has something to do with it all, as well.

Have I eaten? Huh. No wonder I'm dizzy.



It's snowed. It isn't anything like Alaska, of course, but it still makes me homesick. it's still lovely.

Well, okay. This is an alternate dimension, it's also the past, and apparently there are numerous alternate dimensions. Scientifically, that doesn't make any sense, yet, though it does bring up interesting questions about the relationship between the theory of time and the creation of alternate timelines. Note to self on that.. visit to the local library in order. I mean, it's Los Angeles, it has to have a decent library. Until I can figure out how to access accounts that don't actually exist in this dimension, anyway, after which I'll be able to do less digging in out-of-date books and can have access to the journals I read. Well.. if they even exist here.

Rather on a random note, it's been a long time since I've been at a homeless shelter. They were glad for the help, though, and they're all the same sort of people that ran the one I lived at when I was.. oh, God, fourteen? Fifteen? It takes a certain kind of personality to volunteer at a place like this, I think. It's oddly nostalgic.

Of course, I didn't have a skinny telepath watching my every move, then, either, nor was I misplaced in time. While certain parallelisms are comforting, it's impossible to forget that I'm almost forty, with a home and a pseudo-family, and I've been fighting terrorists for the last decade-and-a-half with a legendary cloned mercenary. I am far too old for this sort of thing. Knowing my luck, Dave will throw out all of my projects while I'm gone, because he'll think it's all junk, and I'll have to start all over again.

I just don't believe in this powers-that-be, god-and-the-angels thing. It all seems a little silly and religious, and while I admit that I'm technically Catholic, it really is sort of hard to believe in that sort of thing when you a) have devoted much of your life to the pursuit of science, logic, reason, and finding answers, and b) haven't been to Mass since you were twelve. That isn't to say that s/he/it/they don't exist in some capacity, somewhere (even here, perhaps), but in every world? No. In mine? No. Not with Psycho Mantis sitting here across from me, not with.. Vamp, and Ocelot, and the abomination that was Liquid Ocelot. There's a certain amount of horror inherent in that which I don't believe would've been allowed to transpire if there had been some sort of force capable of preventing it.

This really is a very long ramble. I haven't had time to express my thoughts for a while, now, and I've unfortunately got a lot of them. Still all rather distressing. I keep telling Mantis that I'll be quite all right on my own, but he gives me that look when I do, which convinces me that he thinks I'm rather helpless. But then, he's been dead a long time. Or.. rather, he should be, and somehow isn't.

It really doesn't make any sense. More sleep may be in order.



Edit: Oh, and this candy-that-makes-people-think-they're-children thing sounds sort of interesting. I've never heard of a drug that specific, that affected that many people so similarly. I wouldn't mind getting a sample to look at, but I'm afraid I'm currently woefully lacking in resources to do any sort of study. Perhaps there's a university nearby that would let me use their labs.

I wasn't in Los Angeles two minutes ago! I'm pretty sure I wasn't, anyway.. No, I was definitely in Alaska. Then that means-- experiment gone wrong? No, I don't think I was working on anything that could've caused this kind of
Oh, but I suppose there's always
No, that doesn't make any sense.
The city sure looks
Oh.
Oh, no.
Oh, no, the date's wrong.
I can't just catch a plane back to Alaska, can I?
Dave Snake? Dave? Sunny?
It would be too much to ask for them to be here, wouldn't it? I'm supposed to be with them.
This could cause all sorts of paradoxes.