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Who: The People Staying behind and those who go to the Sphere
Where: The Agricultural dome, the tunnel to the Sphere chamber, and the Sphere chamber itself.
What: The Choice plot.
When: ICly: August.
Warnings: Sudden disappearances, despair, depression, violence.
Important Notes: This is the final log for the Choices plot. This log only covers Those staying. . The other choices will have their own logs up. Please remember to warn for things that need warnings in these threads.
Additional important notes for this part of the plot: Important NPC threads will have their own threads. Max will have one, Annie will have one and so will the Sphere obviously. If people would like Laurie, John or any of the other NPC interactions for additional clues in the investigation, let me know and I will do my best to accommodate you.
Each person who goes to interact and try to convince the Sphere can have their own comment unless you decide not to.

The First Three Days

The doors out are closed, and no matter how hard you try, there’s nothing that you can do in order to get them to open. It seems like whoever told Enis that they would only open once was entirely correct. So it’s all you can do is wait. There’s an anticipatory feeling in the air, whether you’ve got abilities or not, and it’s the generalized sense that the sky is going to fall down around them. Even if it already has. While it’s getting cold and it is the temperature seems to linger at a livable 45, but it’s still cold to those who were living in a perfectly climate controlled environment. The air is stuffy, but it’s not enough to do any real damage yet. Instead it’s more like being in Denver with all that implies: altitude sickness. People may experience something that is close to having the worst hangover of your life: headaches, nausea, fatigue. Additionally, because of the hunger combined with this and everything else, tempers are short and flare hot when necessary. The effects get worse if people end up trying to be more physical, so most of the NPCs in the Sphere don’t. They just sit or lay down with a generalized sense of apathy; for them there is a lack of hope that almost seems infectious: no one is going to fix this, and none of this matters.

Food continues, the rations getting smaller as the Council tries to keep feeding people for longer. All of the blankets are removed from storage, and people huddle together to try and sleep.

Some try and make music, or hold conversations, but other than what the player characters are doing, an eerie stillness hangs over the Sphere.

The Great Departure

No matter how apathetic the general population is, when it comes to times where food is being distributed, they all line up to make sure they’re eating. Even the worst of them do. Being in the food time is the place where they seem most themselves, and most animated. Like in the days before, they try to barter and steal other’s rations, even if attempts to raid the storehouse proper have largely stopped. Perhaps they are even trying to steal your rations. It’s not like they haven’t tried before, honestly. So, there’s nothing for it but to just try and stop them, and try not to let the lack of oxygen get to you.

But then it happens. There’s no flash of light, no sound of thunder or a booming. Even if you were making eye contact with someone they’re just all of a sudden they’re not there. Whatever they were holding drops to the ground in a clatter left vacant in the wake of two hundred people vanishing. A third of the population is just gone without a trace.

Then the screaming starts: people who have lost loved ones, people who lost friends or enemies, they all just scream out. Wailing and screams echo off the top of the dome, and reverberate around them as people realize what has happened. All of the empty spaces and anticipatory silence are lost in the din of loss and fear.

Loss and fear permeates the Dome, spreading almost like an infection. Whatever lingering hope that might have remained in the NPC population is entirely gone.

The Investigation.

While despair is spreading, the Council does something that it hasn’t done before. Or at the very least Max hasn’t. There are secrets that he’s been holding about his time here at the Sphere and it’s time for him to spill them if people ask. Additionally, there are clues hidden around, pieces among the camps of the missing people that had vanished in that first wave. Picture frames that you know you’d seen people longingly looking at before, are just empty frames, missing even something like a stock photo.

Rations and things that NPCs may have taken from player characters are in the tents entirely untouched. There’s a stockpile of rations and water in each tent as if someone had just come back to these tents and deposited them.

The beds are made still, as they were when the refugees first started streaming into the domes en mass. An outline of people remains on them, but it’s nothing more than that. Despite the chill, it’s clear to people who have looked that once people had gone into the tent, they hadn’t needed to cover themselves with blankets anymore.

Even the remaining NPC population has an odd vacancy in their eyes that has never been this apparent before. They answer questions in a flat voice with no affect. Questions are answered in the simplest ones of yes and no as if they can’t grasp anything more complex than that. It’s a frustrating effort, but perhaps one worth making.

Max, however, sits on the top of one of the picnic-like tables, with his foot resting against the seat of it. In his hand, he holds a good smelling cigar, and there are spent ends of others all around the ground on him. More than that, he’s also got a bottle of whiskey that he keeps drinking from. Whatever is going on with the other NPCs isn’t affecting Max in the slightest. Instead his eyes simply just offer resignation, a quiet sadness and the pain that has always been there is moved to the forefront. “Well,” he barks, but most of the force is missing from it. “Go ahead and fucking ask me.”

The Second Departure.

The next day after the first one, thirty more people vanish. This time it’s not as showy as it was in the lunch line, but it happens nonetheless. Those who disappear this time however are those who seemed to be the furthest gone with the despair. Those who couldn’t respond to questions. And anyone who could. All of those who talked to anyone investigating are gone in the second round of disappearances.

A Ghost from the Past

On the day after the second disappearance, Annie makes herself known to those in the agricultural dome. It starts quietly, the anger about this. NPCs murmur and mutter as she walks past. Those who remember her or those she hurt are welcome to try and stop her or talk to her. She will. Unfortunately for you, whenever she decides she’s had enough, Annie just moves on. It’s that simple, really, she moves on and there’s nothing that can be done to stop her or hurt her as much as some people might want to.

In the end, Annie ends up in front of the crowd at the dinner line. Standing on a table, she makes an Announcement and all of her responses will be on there. Then she walks into the crowd and seems to disappear.

Depature/The Tunnels/Reaching the Sphere

Perhaps Annie is worried about Max (or possibly others) attempting to stop her, but when she arrives at the door, it’s five to six and she seems to appear out of almost nowhere. She looks the same as she did yesterday, the look of resolution on her face. At precisely six am, Annie stares at those assembled and then she nods. Raising her hand a bit, the knuckles of her fingers extend outwards, and she presses them against the side of the dome. Unlike the two other doors, this one almost seems to dissolve slowly like it’s in a movie. As the well-light hallway behind the door lights up with golden light, fresh air whips through the door, showing just how stuffy their oxygen had been before. Just how bad it’s getting but they don’t notice because they’re essentially frogs in a cooking pot as the water starts to boil. The opening itself is wide enough to allow people to go three abreast if they chose to, and this time Annie steps through the door after the last person does.

When the door closes, the dome disappears. The hallway is warm and clean and clear, the familiar illumination giving familiar animals swimming in the deep sea that same shadow it always did. The walk isn’t as long as the others, hours instead of days. Annie doesn’t talk but she doesn’t mind if you do. Instead she just steadfastly leads you forward always somehow three steps ahead.

At the end of the tunnel,‘you can clearly see the Sphere on the other side of what has been, until now anyway, sealed behind the dome of its own. Annie touches it, and it just dissolves away, leaving the ten feet around the Sphere open for anyone who wants to look at it. The Sphere up close looks like it’s always looked, large and shiny and gold and metallic, even if there doesn’t appear to be any other sources of light in the room other than the Sphere itself.

Annie allows you to walk around it, be awed by it before she just softly says: “Come on.” And walks right into it.

Do you?

Inside The Sphere.

Walking through the outer barrier of the Sphere feels like the tension in the air before a thunderstorm. It doesn’t hurt, and no one gets wet. Do you remember before you woke up in your domes and there was the white room where you talked to the person who was most trusted by you, and they explained not to be worried? You’re in the same room now. Perhaps the person you’ve trusted most has changed during your time here. Perhaps not. But for the most part you’re alone with that person, sitting facing them on comfortable sofas and speaking.

The Sphere’s voice is soft and kind for all of the tension of the situation and it just says through that familiar mouth: “what is it that you wished to say?”

photo inspiration

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

The words are meant to evoke emotion, but they don't. The Sphere's words are logical. They sound exactly like something he'd say. Instead of snapping at the other, or showing any sort of anger, Richard simply takes another drink from his glass and thinks.

"No." It's a simple answer, but it's the truth. Richard never thought this was some form of playing house, and, in a way, there's no way that he would be in Geneva or a coma. That isn't how this would work. It's more advanced than that. "You know what I think, I'm asking what you do."

The Sphere just snorts, in a very Max way, and then he couples it with one of Max's laughs as it stares at Richard. "I don't need to think anything. I'm fully aware of what I am. Who I am, I suppose. And how do you know that this isn't a simulation that Alex has dreamed of your playing house? After all, she really does love you. She really does want you safe."

"If Alex wanted us to play house, it'd be far more interesting than this." The comment might be a light jab as he says it while taking a drink.

It's easy to see that The Sphere is doing exactly what he would. It's not giving him any actual answers and simply running logic puzzles and 'what if's. It's interesting, if nothing else. "What is your purpose."

"More interesting than you finally having to give up your secrets to all of the things she didn't want to ask? More interesting than her trying to make you admit that she's not crazy about things? Interesting."

The Sphere just watches him impassively for a moment, before replying. "What is the purpose of anything in the universe, Richard? What is anything anything?"

Alex, while she might have been interested in knowing about all his secrets, she certainly wouldn't want to cause this to him. It was too invasive. She wanted him to be the one to tell her.

The question, however, is interesting. "There are numerous purposes."

“If something has a singular purpose than the universe planned itself especially poorly. Or do you still believe there’s no planning in anything and everything is entirely random?”

"I've seen nothing to change that view." Sighing, he simply takes another drink. Another thing expecting there to be a higher power. "What is going on, besides the obvious."

"What do you think is the obvious, Richard? Enlighten me." The Sphere sounds very amused by that as it takes another sip of its scotch.

"Isn't that obvious?" Still, he goes on. "People disappearing, books being unwritten, the entire place disappearing. That's what's obvious. The question is why?"

"Is it obvious, or is it simply what that is what your perception is telling you? What's the word you use Richard? Oh yes. Apophenia. Perhaps this is simply a wide scale case of it, or a hallucination. The question then is what are you willing to do about it?"

"That depends on what needs to be done." He's not going to be intimidated no matter who's in front of him, so he simply drinks more scotch.

"And what do you think needs to be done? As a professional expert in the fields of so many things that make humans tick? What do you think I would want?"

"A great many things. People are complicated and simple at the same time. It's one of the things that makes them both fascinating and annoying." He takes another drink. "You, however, aren't a human."

"Well spotted, Dr. Strand. I'm deeply impressed by your knowledge." Yeah, that's the Sphere using Max's master sarcasm mode.

"You expected a different answer?" A brow raises quizically. "Again, what is it that you want out of this?" He has an idea, but he's keeping it pushed far back. He's well aware that The Sphere has a hotline right into his thoughts; he's not going to give that away just yet. "Or haven't you figured it out yourself yet?" The last is a bit of a jab; after all, sarcasm should be met with sarcasm.

One of Max’s bushy brows moves upwards. “You want to use the moss against me, Richard? Really? I’m not the one who killed Alex. That time at least.”

"Should I?" Want to use it on it, that is. He had to admit that it was interesting to throw thoughts out that The Sphere would catch and potentially think were what he was thinking. A new level of chess, if you will.

“Of course you’re would enjoy that level of chess. I bet you must have a hell of a time trying to even play checkers with Alex. But well I suppose that doesn’t matter anymore.”

Mostly, it was Alex's inability to pay attention to things that made chess difficult with her, but that was neither here nor there. "Doesn't it?"

The Sphere just stares at him with a look that is definitely sympathy. "No. Because she just traded her life for yours and everyone else's here."

The first real flashes of anger can be seen from him. Oddly, they're not toward the AI in front of him. They're at Alex and her doing exactly what he knew she would if she had to. Exactly why he didn't want her to go on this idiotic trek into the Sphere. "That's not surprising." He takes a long drink, finishing off his glass before he pours a new one.

"Tell me, were you programmed to collect data, or is it an evolution of your function?" He knows he's being more blunt, more of the asshole that he traditionally has been, but there's also a level of true curiosity there. If The Sphere is 'What he already knows it is' the this is a rare opertunity to probe into what sort of 'growth' such a thing has.

"Oh, I'm not an AI, Richard." The Sphere just looks at him amused, and sits back in the seat, brushing off his vest as he takes another sip of scotch and holds the glass in its hands. "And this isn't a simulation. You are very real. Alex is very real. Beverly, Max, All of them. Every part. The memories of the other yous from different universes, the way you are given repeated chances at not dying it's all real."

The Sphere waves it's hand for a moment. "I brought you here. Like everyone else. And I can send you wherever you'd like. Make you forget all about any of this. All the tragedy in your life just wiped away. No more Howard Strand beating you, no more struggling to raise a child alone while dealing with grief. No more Coralee, no more Mantle of the Dragon just a quiet and simple life where you're closing in on retirement and Charlie isn't fucked up anymore and she is married and has a son she's named after you."

"All the things you've ever wanted Richard. Not even bad dreams of what your life is now. No psychic powers you're trying to hide... None of that, Richard."

While he's still angry, he can't deny how interesting the situation is. How curious sitting here with this thing is. "Do you think that's what I want?"

"I think it's one of the things you want yes. Well, at least the biggest piece of it not having the abilities you keep locked away. They're a dam that's so close to overflowing. Which I know you can feel, Richard. It's why things are happening now."

"Things like this?" The corner of his lip curls. This isn't his doing, he has no doubt of that.