Yeah. Ever hear of Dashiell Gordain? Guy was a survivor of the Titanic's sinking, and because of it he ended up being obsessed with just about everything related to it...including the coffin of an ancient Egyptian Queen. Her bought her from the black market in 1912. About four years later, he bought the Gigantic, the sister ship. He hid the queen, All-Ice, or Alice, inside the bowels of the ship. People searched for her for years, but it wasn't until about nine or ten years ago that someone bought the ship and began searching themselves. But the body was gone. Inside the coffin was a drug called Soporil which was introduced to the market and made the buyer's company, Cradle Pharmaceuticals, rich.
[This is still important to explain the main question.] ...nine years before the Nonary Game I played in, the first Nonary Game was run. Nine people were put on the ship itself that was starting to sink, and nine others were in the building we would find ourselves in nine years later. Nine pairs of siblings, all kids. The purpose of the Nonary Game was to test for telepathy using the Morphogenic Field. [...] You need two factors in order to access the field. The first is epiphany and the second is danger. The game itself was meant to introduce danger and force these kids to access the field to save themselves, to see how easily it could be done to transfer information between pairs. It was life or death, and...a girl died during the experiment.
[So?] Nine years later, we played the same game. Zero kidnapped us and put our lives in danger. The killings started not long after we got there, and that's about the time we realized Zero was among us. It was revenge for what had happened all those years ago. [...] But...[He pauses, and he looks like he's going to stop outright because he thought about explaining this to someone else and couldn't get far enough to explain. The Nonary Game was an experience that changed everything he knew about himself and about the people around him, and he's still not sure how to feel about it. So. He stares at his feet.]
The purpose of the game was for me to save her. That girl. [Hm.] She saw a timeline where everything went a certain way, but it was a timeline in her future and my present. So. Schrodinger's Girl went through and recreated the vision as she saw it, changing rules as she saw fit. This girl was Zero, and she brought all of us to that building to help save herself and make sure she would exist instead of burning alive in an incinerator nine years in the past.
Timelines are a weird thing, you know? That girl was Zero, but she was also in the past and she was also in the present. [He frowns.] I saved her. There was something there that connected us in the Morphogenetic Field, so she could guide me to help me save her. Even though she died in that timeline, I was able to help her get out of that room and escape from the ship before it sank. Saving her meant that she could exist in the current one. But by the time we figured out how to escape ourselves and got out of the building she and her brother were already gone and I lost track of them.
[...he looks like he might say something else, but he rubs the back of his neck instead.] ...that wasn't, like, any of what you asked. [There's a quiet, unsure laugh like he's aware he's said too much.] Anyway. That's why.
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[This is still important to explain the main question.] ...nine years before the Nonary Game I played in, the first Nonary Game was run. Nine people were put on the ship itself that was starting to sink, and nine others were in the building we would find ourselves in nine years later. Nine pairs of siblings, all kids. The purpose of the Nonary Game was to test for telepathy using the Morphogenic Field. [...] You need two factors in order to access the field. The first is epiphany and the second is danger. The game itself was meant to introduce danger and force these kids to access the field to save themselves, to see how easily it could be done to transfer information between pairs. It was life or death, and...a girl died during the experiment.
[So?] Nine years later, we played the same game. Zero kidnapped us and put our lives in danger. The killings started not long after we got there, and that's about the time we realized Zero was among us. It was revenge for what had happened all those years ago. [...] But...[He pauses, and he looks like he's going to stop outright because he thought about explaining this to someone else and couldn't get far enough to explain. The Nonary Game was an experience that changed everything he knew about himself and about the people around him, and he's still not sure how to feel about it. So. He stares at his feet.]
The purpose of the game was for me to save her. That girl. [Hm.] She saw a timeline where everything went a certain way, but it was a timeline in her future and my present. So. Schrodinger's Girl went through and recreated the vision as she saw it, changing rules as she saw fit. This girl was Zero, and she brought all of us to that building to help save herself and make sure she would exist instead of burning alive in an incinerator nine years in the past.
Timelines are a weird thing, you know? That girl was Zero, but she was also in the past and she was also in the present. [He frowns.] I saved her. There was something there that connected us in the Morphogenetic Field, so she could guide me to help me save her. Even though she died in that timeline, I was able to help her get out of that room and escape from the ship before it sank. Saving her meant that she could exist in the current one. But by the time we figured out how to escape ourselves and got out of the building she and her brother were already gone and I lost track of them.
[...he looks like he might say something else, but he rubs the back of his neck instead.] ...that wasn't, like, any of what you asked. [There's a quiet, unsure laugh like he's aware he's said too much.] Anyway. That's why.