# Turning Point 4
TURNING POINT FOUR
Leon meets his mother in The Real, who reveals she was trapped by ImpCorp and will soon be absorbed by a biological upgrade. Leon manages to return to The Real, determined to save his mother. He uses the recent grief of his team to force the job ahead, but is assaulted by an angry Princess, and finds himself in security, but inside ImpCorp. He frees Princess, infiltrates ImpCorp to the inner chamber and returns his mother to The Real. He discovers his mother’s body is a mangled, cyborg wreck and he has doomed her to suffering. An alarm sounds.
Step One
Leon despairs at his leaving The Real. He meets his mother: she is trapped in fabric of The ImpVerse. He discovers he was connected to his mother when she was trapped by ImpCorp: the Jade Rhino is a manifestation of their separation. He manages to reignite his tether with the assistance of The Jade Rhino and by subsconsciously influencing Nort. He wakes at his funeral and struggles with his physical connection. The Abstract bleeds through to The Real. He must find a way to reconnect, access ImpCorp and find his mother.
CDQ
Will Leon find a way to return to The Real and find his mother in ImpCorp and return her to The Real?
Step Two
Leon knows he needs to get into ImpCorp, fast, but the team are not willing or ready. He enters the ImpCorp reception and struggles to gain entry and is assaulted by an enraged Princess. He wakes in security. He is interrogated until his bioscan, just implanted by Fix, appears. He frees Princess from her cell by linking his mind pocket to her, but struggles with The Abstract interrupting his perception of The Real, casting doubt on his ability to connect to The Abstract, or return his mother to The Real. He must find his mother’s body and a way to stabilise the connection to The Real.
Step Three
Fix and Hamelin shield Leon from the AI security with the assistance of Ms. Penumbra, who guides him through the restricted access. Leon’s glitches means he loses Princess during a fight and he takes a beating. To enter the final chamber, he must give Ms. Penumbra total control of his mind to bypass security and the AI memory scan. He makes it through, but she now knows every secret. He also has serious reservations about his ability to maintain a connection to The Abstract.
Step Four
Leon enters the inner chamber and is cut off from the outside world. He locates his mother’s stasis pod, but it is submerged on roation in the pool of biological fluid. He struggles to connect to the source. He is distracted momentarily by a sense of his childhood memories, but uses his connection to the Jade Rhino to return her to her body. Leon is pushed from his connection and returns to The Real. Her body is barely recognisable as human, and fused to her stasis pod. He realises he has made a terrible mistake. An alarm sounds.
CDQ Answer
Yes, Leon manages to return to The Real and return his mother’s consciousess to The Real, but he has doomed her to a physical existence of pain.
Character Arc
Leon goes from a mixture of triumph and deep regret — to — terror at realising he has doomed his mother to suffering.
Moral Dilemma
Returing to The Real to repay the team and save his mother from eventual destruction, or staying with her, for an unkown amount of time, before the biological upgrade takes her. Telling the team of his quest to save his mother, or keeping them in the dark. Working with the team to infiltrate ImpCorp in a measured way, or using their grief for his recent death to propell them into action. Bypassing the mission objective in order to free his mother. Ignoring the call of his missing memories in order to free his mother.
Leading to situation desperate where there is genuine uncertainty around the cdq going into tp5
Key Points to bear in mind for this Turning Point
- The Main Character has a clear committed goal from the midpoint
- They have made a character-defining choice
- The Main Character comes under ever-increasing intense pressure until they reach Situation Desperate
- This is the point where the strength of the inner and outer opposition becomes overwhelming.
TP4 back from the dead entering the lobby and evading security - deception and physical confrontation getting into the fluid vats area. detained and cant get hold of Princess - an explosion - Princess returns to help him. Laughs, leaves. the horror of the machine and the fluid that runs through it. moving through scientists and workers, until he sees the machine. His mother is on rotation. She appears - mangled and infused with technology - he sees the jade rhino tattoo. She is not returning. How can he save her now?
TP5 The scientist confronts him about his presence. Ms. Penumbra physically arrives? and dismisses the scientist. He is hesitant until she mentions a phrase. She tells him she knows he wants to find his memories. They are all there. All he needs to do is open the lock. He connects to the machine - everything is there. He senses his memories and his mother as part of the fabric. The rats appear and burrow into the machine and the locksmiths start work. Everything is behind the wall. They can’t open the lock. The connection has its limits. The mission is over, even with Nort and the Acolytes acting as a link through the rats. Leon has an idea - stew himself into the fluid and bleed with it. It works. The locksmiths open the lock.
- memories: he has to find the and give them up to save his mother and The ImpVerse? His actions bring his mother back, but he sets in motion the destruction of The ImpVerse? Or does Ms. Penumbra do that? Better she does it, then Leon is the hero.
TP SIX
Ms. P meets Emmet though the machine. He rejects her and when she tries to take The ImpVerse for her own, she is pushed back to The Real by Emmet. She will taint the whole ImpVerse with her rage.
She returns to The Real - the ImpVerse is unstable…
Leon frees Emmit
rejection by Emmet - he wants to go. They have both moved on. The rage of Ms. Penumbra fighting for the control.
Ms. P tells him not to return her to The Real. It will destabilise The ImpVerse. He ignores her. It does. She appears screaming and as parts. - we are not meant to try and recreate the past. He tries to return her, but the path is locked now. She is behind the door, with a few hours to go, and the vitural lock still needs to be opened. Maybe Emmet is physical still?
Ms. P encourages him to return his mother to The Real. He can bring her back, but there will some issues with her body. She thinks returning her is possible, but there will be some issues theoretically with her body. The stasis process has kept them fresh - they were deep diving suits, designed to keep them nourished and moving.
Behind a physical lock that can only be opened via the machine and The Abstract. His mother is there, but she is locked behind the door. He has to first open the physical lock - he facilitates the connection of the locksmiths to the lock.
Maybe he has to merge with the fluid? That will add a dimension of being part of the tension of the living and the dead. Or does he have to plug himself into a suit? He has to bleed into the fluid, and connect to it that way. It will probably kill him, but it will mean his mother will be free and The ImpVerse stabilised.
Is Ms. Penumbra killed at this point by her number two and falls into the vat as well? It becomes a struggle for control of the ImpVerse?
transitioning is the taking of the bodies and adding it to the soup
Small timeframe for the job to take place. He has a choice of finding his memories or returning his mother to The Real - he choses returning her. She appears, but is screaming in pain. Her body has no use for pain killers - her conciousness was not there to feel it. She feels it now. TP5 - the security is coming. He has to fix it. He can kill her, but will she go to the ImpVerse? Ms. Penumbra suggests he focus on the person behind the pane of glass - if he frees him, he can enter for a short period of time and control the ImpVerse - pulling her into The ImpVerse will be a simple thing. He will oversee the fabric of the ImpVerse from in there.
He enters the chamber. No mind pockets work here? Lined with stasis pods. Massive bath of fluid. He searches for his mother’s name, but she is not there. The stasis pods rotate in an out. He realises his mother must be under the fluid in the pod. He tries to figure the connection. If he can’t contact the team, he is lost and will not be able to open the lock for Ms. Penumbra. He does not even know what she wants him to do. He has to find a way to contact them again. He tries to port in, and is sucked into the power of The Abstract. A wild man appears behind a wall of glass. He watches Leon. A calm man returns and smiles at him. He says - ‘Hello Leon. I have been expecting you.’ (two aspects of Emmit’s personality).
He talks in riddles, and asks if he is the person who has come to free him. He can read him, and he knows what he wants. Words are hard to put in the right order. Instead, he speaks in feelings, memory and moments. He feeds him moments of his own memories as a way to communicating. Leon is fascinated and intrigued. He does not know what to make of the man behind the glass.
Emmet pushes him from the connection - he has things to deal with back in The Real.
Leon has a rat biting him and blood runs down his neck. There are a few rats in the console now and they have formed a communication chain to the outside world through a wired connection between them. Leon feels the pressure of everyone on his mind pocket. He connects with Ms. Penumbra first and asks her to explain what he is seeing. She tells him - the fluid is the connection - the port enables him to connect. He says he has already connected - what is with the man? She tells him to concentrate on unlocking the wall. It is his sole concern. He wants to know about the stasis pods and the biological upgrade. She is surprised he knows, and about the upgrade, but she tells him. It won’t matter much anymore. She tells him to get started. Time is pressing for her.
He contacts Suunto, who is going spare. He gives her a brief update and pulls Gem and Fix into his mind pocket. He struggles, but eventually gets both of them in there. He ports in and stabilises their connection through the rats. The lock is nothing like they have seen, and they get to work. He glitches from time to time, but the connection holds, somehow. His mind is under some physical stress.
He is surprised by the few people around, until he sees them all, lined and connected to The Abstract in pods - they are all in temporary stasis, working through their consicous, connected to a vast vat of fluid. It is just the start.
Making his way through ImpCorp - a few issues with infiltration - tracked by physical security. He converses with Suunto and tells her there is more at stake than the job - his mother’s return. She cannot believe he has not told her and tells him that if he messes this up, the team will never forgive him. In fact, they don’t forgive him now. He says if they get paid, they will find a way to. She chooses to keep it amongst themselves for now. He locates a building schematic through Hamelin’s rat and the security protocols of the inner building. It is surprisingly lax in terms of locks and technology. The AI which is now offline for him on behalf of Ms. Penumbra, is the main form of security. He should be able to hand a good measure of locks based on his rudimentary lock skills. He comes to a sealed door manned by guards at the entry point to a more protected area. They recognise him from the previous security threat and approach him. He tries to talk his way out of it, but they have been given order to detain him if he is found to be in areas he should not be, like this protected area. Princess goes in his pocket and he kicks some arse in order to make it through a door, with some dropouts along the way which results in him being knocked down a few times. Princess eventually subdues them. It is a conflict between her brutality and his compassion. His hesitation results in him being hurt a few times when she drops out - he has security vulnerable and Princess does to dislodge his shoulder, but she drops out. He knows what she was going to do, but can’t do it himself. The security guard recovers, Princess returns and is irate the guard can still use his shoulder. She finishes the fight and tells him to stop being a pussy and remember what is at stake. He does. The security has a fix on him as a possible threat, and their attention is starting to turn his way. He tells her if she is going to start making a distraction, that it might be time to do so. But don’t get caught. Ms. Penumbra arrives in his pocket and tells him to come to her. He tells her he has to do something first. She is enraged by it, and enquires as to what it is. He says he needs to get to the founders. She laughs and he is alarmed. She needs him to go to the very place. In fact, she is going to lead him there. She asks what he has in mind there and he says the new agreement is that he wants them returned. She reveals that his request is impossible. They have been in stasis for since The ImpVerse was created. Their bodies, even though they are in stasis, or their consciousnesses, having been in The ImpVerse that long, will not know how to be human again. He says he knows that, but needs to see for himself. He thinks he has a way. She tells him that removing a founder from the ImpVerse will weaken the fabric of what is there. He says he knows about the biological upgrade to the system that is taking over their role. She seems genuinely surprised. She did not know that was happening so soon - it is not her department. Inside though, she is livid. They have kept it from her. She hopes it has not ruined her plans. Leon makes his way past the security and Jem and Fix quickly open the door. They have the coding algorythm now, so it is quike easy for them to do so.
Step Four
Leon enters the room. It is not what he expects and his sense of The Abstract is overpowering. His connection with The Real falters and he can feel The Jade Rhino with him. He sees it trying to press through. There are a series of bodies wrapped in what seem to be space suits. They are plugged in and moving slowly, controlled by a machine that moves them to keep their bodies going. There are only a handful left still moving. There are plenty of them. He examines them, one at a time, with Ms. Penumbra chatting all the way. She wants him to realise that what he wants is not possible. He is determined though and insists on finding her. She is not there, and Ms. Penumbra tells him she is likely in the next chamber. She tells him to remember his deal. He needs to gain access through the port. The locksmiths will need time to unlock The Abstract lock. He goes to open the next chamber, but he is unable to enter. Ms. Penumbra tells him that it is time locked. He complains, but she tells him that if she had known about this, then she could have made accommodations. He was the one who decided in changing the mission. He tries to connect to the port, but finds himself struggling to maintain a connection using the regular process. He decides it is time for more unorthodox ways and contacts Nort. He arrives in his mind pocket and tells him to gather the acolytes. They are going to access everything, and he needs them to be ready to assist. Nort can sense the Jade Rhino and they are fearful but Leon lets them know that he is one with it. Nort needs a few minutes. He searches and talks to the team. Jem and Fix are ready, Suunto is waiting and Princess cannot be contacted. Ms. Penumbra tells him that she is doing an entertaining job. She is going to throw in a bonus for her at the end of this. She is magnificent. She suggests Leon prepares himself a moment. A large explosion rocks the building. Leon swears, but Ms. Penumbra laughs. She tells him not to worry. The building is safe, but she is managing to cause some beautiful destruction. Leon establishes a blood connection - dirty and biological and makes a connection to the room sized pool of biology that exists before him. He is sucked into it and it consumes him. His body screams, but the enhancements do what they are designed to do and they quickly steady his connection and repair the damage. A black room appears before him. It is just like The Abstract. He feels another presence, and Emmit arrives. He is behind a wall, and is surprised to have a visitor. Leon is alone with him, but he is unable to communicate. There is a simple lock and Leon knows it is a metaphor. Leon senses he is not a founder. He is something much more than that. He is the ImpVerse, whereas the founders were just the skin. Leon feels everyone pressing against him, and he takes a moment to try and communicate with the man behind the glass. He simple smiles back at him. He has a serentiy and wisdom he cannot explain. He looks at his watch, and pushes Leon from the connection.
Step Five
Leon returns as the doors are opening. He has been there an hour and did not notice it. He cannot fathom how so much time has passed. He is told that it has only been less than a minute - the sequence has changed. He sees his mother - parts at least and is distraught. Or is this out of order? Should Jem and Fix start work on the lock instead?
CDQ Answer
Character Arc
Moral Dilemma
Tags: #template
#turningpoint
Links: Chasing The Rhino Masterlist
The rats hitch a ride with Leon.
FInal Step Two Notes
He is determined to enter ImpCorp and uses the team’s grief over his recent death to try and force the job to continue. He enters the Impcorp reception, but struggles to gain entry. The team scrambles to help him, but his biological files have not been implanted as planned. Princess arrives and tries to prevent him from entering by knocking him almost unconscious. He is dragged through to the medical bay. It is unorthodox, but he has made it in. He convinces the medical staff he is fine, but it taken by security immediately. His biological files do not match and the AI is struggling to lock on to him. Fix manages to implant the files, using a remote connection created using Hamelin’s rat, who makes his way to him through a conduit pipe. He also needs to find Princess in the cell area. He does so and opens the lock with Fix and Jem’s help. Jem opens locks by taking over his body and notices the difference in him. She sees the interruptions of The Abstract into The Real through him. It kicks her from his pocket momentarily and irregularly. She knows he is not OK, and he tells her it is OK. It will settle down. She talks to him as she works, telling him the next step constantly before she is kicked from him and he has to figure out the next step and continue the process, or at least hold the position until she can return to finish. He does it once, but she asks him how he expects to maintain a connection with her and Fix to unlock the big lock and steal whatever it is they need to steal? He does not know. He frees Princess, helps her with a disguise, and tells her to stick around a while before leaving. She is determined to settle a score or two before she leaves. Ms. Penumbra encourages her to make some noise before she goes. Leon tells her to wait. He may have a use for her. Princess protests, but says she has a few ideas on how to make some noise and that will take some time. Leon is thinking he may need some help to get his mother out.
s2 Leon learns that he was connected to his mother when her conscious was stolen by ImpCorp. The Jade Rhino is manifestation of their tearing apart. Leon connects to his childhood despair that formed the Jade Rhino and calms it. He has found his mother again. His discovers memories of riding The Jade Rhino through The Abstract as a child and a sense of a residual tether back to The Real. He despairs, but realises that if the tether still exists, there must be a way to return. He reaches through the tether, but his body is dead. He strengthens his tether to The Real and senses Nort and the acolytes, deep in service, reaching out to The Jade Rhino. He subconsciously influences Nort to kickstart his body again and Leon manages to sense it in The Real. He uses the tether from the service as a conduit to return to his body. He wakes up at his funeral service, in Nort’s church. His perception of The Real is distorted by The Abstract and his body feels thick. Suunto hugs and slaps him and hugs him again. Leon feels the pull to return to The Abstract stronger than ever, but he is determined not to return. He needs to save his mother.
Leon is taken by the Jade Rhino. Spat out and finds her mother. He meets her, they chat and he realises his thoughts are wrong, or skewed, when it comes to his mother and childhood. He returns and the world is skewed by The Abstract. They blend together and he cannot get his head straight. The team lose it at him and know he is not OK to do the job. He wants to do it anyway. They either refuse or reluctantly agree. If they refuse, he does it anyway, with Princess hitting him too hard in the foyer and seriously hurting him.
Options: he meets his mother
- he wants to rescue her body from The Real to enable her to be absorbed by The Jade Rhino?
- he wants to rescue her body and return her to The Real - why would she want that? She is a God.. unless she is in pain or suffering in some way. Maybe being used as a power source for The ImpVerse and slowly being eaten away?
- Maybe she is a tool of ImpCorp and Leon turns up to find her and realises he is the replacement biology to live as a God?
- He meets her, but it is only fleeting. She stops The Jade Rhino destroying him - he tastes like her memories - and they have a brief interaction, before he is spat back to The Real. She tells him that she is in ImpCorp, her conscious held by a device. He now wants to free her so she can be part of The Abstract. Does he find her physical body as well? He could return her to her body and have the dilemma of chaining her to flesh again, so he can be with her, and letting her go forever - isnt it obvious? Wouldn’t he just want to let her go? Leon is the only one who can get through the lock as he has the connection to his mother and the blood that first opened the lock. He has to hook into the bodies that remain, and he feels them all as he does so. He has to hook into them, and he gets a flood of memories of himself as a child in ImpCorp - Ms. Penumbra is there too? He realises that everything has led to this moment, and Ms. Penumbra has been behind it. He confronts her and she says that she has been a pawn in her plan, but it also meant that he had a shot of freeing his mother as well. Was it wrong of her to try and return a mother to a child?
_Is it between staying and living someone else’s memories of him, and returning to find his own? He hopes that finding his own will make his life make sense. He feels incomplete.
He discovers his mother should still be in ImpCorp - she senses her body, but she is locked out from returning by ImpCorp. They sustain The Abstract, but they sense they are no longer required - an AI appears to be taking their place. They are chained to ImpCorp and wish to be absorbed by The Abstract. They are trapped by the ImpVerse - they sustain it.
Memory - Mum knows it is him, but does not know anything about him. The Jade Rhino tells her it is him, although it has been wrong before. She decides it is him, and he decides it is her, although there are doubts as to if it is or not, because he is relying on a distant memory, and she the word of the rhino, and some hints of what he is now, versus what he used to be as a child. There is no physical there to rely on. In this place, she is as old as he is. She projects as she was when she passed, although body does not matter anymore.
Her body is still likely in ImpCorp, in stasis, plugged into a machine, stabilising The Abstract?
Does he meet Emmit? The first to discover this place. The first not to die, although his body has definitely perished already, unless it has only been a day or so. - it would set up Ms. Penumbra’s cause to find a way to reach him.
Memories ground us to something that is primal within us. They are what tells us that we have been, and they have shaped us in ways we cannot fathom, in thousands of repeated habits that are created from moments. Our thoughts echo our memories, as our experiences have shaped who we are. If we do not have those echoes, we are just a series of habits. Does
Leon consults with mum, is surprised, returns, conflict, job is off, leon says no, he gets in. He has to save his mum.
Leon has been consumed by The Jade Rhino - they are in The Abstract, absorbed by it, having given up The Real. He has found his mother and realises that she is not what he imagined. He believed her to be nurturing and caring. In fact, she left him to be part of The Abstract and never really wanted him. He was a mistake. His split desire? - staying in The Abstract or returning to The Real to repay the team. Or is it realising that he is so deep in The Abstract that his memories are not here. They are in tied to ImpCorp and the ImpVerse. The Abstract surrounds the ImpVerse. Echoes of his memories are there, but his must be in the ImpCorp structure, like hers are. He can exist in The Abstract - they are behind the wall though, and can never leave, or progress, or interact with others. There are a few of them here - the founders. They are trapped behind the barrier ImpCorp created and can never return or interact. The Jade Rhino can though, but to be here, one must purge themselves of their worldly connections. You, Leon, have somehow made it through, and for that she is grateful. Leon wants to stay, but knows that he has abandoned The Real and his body. He does not know the fate of Nort, and he has abandoned the team. His mother is not what he expected, his memories are not there. He is lost again. He knows he can stay and play in the cosmos, but he also has a desire to return. He wants his memories, no matter how skewed they may be. Why would he return? —- Choice: stay in The Abstract, at the source, with his mother and her memories of him? Return to free her and return her to The Real? His memories are in ImpCorp and without memories, will The Abstract be the same? He cannot live in his mother’s memories of him. They are not his own, but then again, are our memories just versions of stories that we were part of? He will be able to return. The Jade Rhino can make it through, but it is a one way trip. Her memories lock her in here. Leon, however, does not have any to hold him and should be able to return, if he moves quickly. Will he return to free his mother and return to The Real? Or is the bond to Suunto so much that he is willing to risk it all to repay them? - that does not seem a strong enough reason to return, and is off theme. Does he need enough memories to stay? Is he weightless? Does the Jade Rhino discard him, as he does not have enough memories to make a worthwhile meal? Is The Jade Rhino an embodiment of his mother’s love and rage? Has she really been searching for him? The feelings associated with the memories remains, even though the actual details of the memory fades.
The founders stabilise the ImpVerse. They hold it in place with their consciousness. She is one of the founders, betrayed by ImpCorp in the early days. They were locked in to the machine, their minds used to stabilise The ImpVerse. They are the conduit between the worlds. They were angry at first, but time does not exist for them. They can see that they exist as no others do and that their sacrifice, although it was not their decision, was for the betterment of humanity. They exist here, nine of them now, remaining to stabilise the souls of humanity. The rest, have gone already. They are merged with The Abstract.
Leon was hooked up to her when the betrayed them. When she realised what was happening, she tried to push him from the remote connection, but Leon held on so tightly. It sucked your childhood from you. You exist here too, as a child, but that does not explain why you cannot remember. You must have been six, maybe eight at the time, I’m… not sure… numbers and time do not mean much anymore. It has been a long time since I thought in linear ways. Time does not exist here. It is something else. It represents what we really are - a mix of past, present and future in our thoughts, all existing in a body that insists on living a linear existence. The binary nature of our existence on Earth is really quite fascinating, and cruel as well. She does not know why he does not have any other memories after though. It is quite fascinating from a scientific point of view. Memories are just echoes of the past that form the basis of stories we tell ourselves to justify our lives. Why you have not imprint of those moments, she does not know. Biologically, you should not have changed.
He is unsettling the nature of the ImpVerse by being here, which is fine, as he is now one of ten. His lack of memory has most definitely helped to counter his influence on the ImpVerse, but he must come to a balance if he is to exist here. He must come to a resolution to be here, and accept his life lost, his debts paid, his emotions in check. Any taint in him will permeate through The Abstract, to the ImpVerse. The stronger the taint, the more the ImpVerse will be tainted. Even though they did not ask for this responsibility, it is something they must support. There are billions of them now, and they must nurture them.
The connection is broken. He finds himself in The Real, bound by ImpCorp security. The church has been raided, saving him from The Jade Rhino.
He knows he is buggered. The Jade Rhino has his scent. She will take him when she can. He has to infiltrate ImpCorp, to find his memories and get the team what they deserve, but it is only a matter of time before she finds him again.
He cannot believe that he abandoned everything for The Abstract - it was worse than last time, when he caught a sense of her. He ran then, and knows it will be a high risk situation to return to The Abstract, but he must repay Suunto and the team and prove it to himself that he is more than his addiction.
He takes some solace in his newly found ability to tether himself to The Real - thanks to the devotees.
Maybe she is a conscious, who is not particularly concerned by motherhood. That is of the flesh. She is spirit now. She is dismissive of him. She was never a mother. She did not want it for herself. She was a scientist. The pregnancy was not her idea. She is glad he is here - she has a fondness for him, but she had no concerns about leaving him. This place was an opportunity she could not resist.
- Leon’s mother shows his memories are mainly made up stories.
He is not ready. He has too many connections to The Real to be here. He will corrupt the beauty of what is behind the veil. He sees his mother, he is disappointed by her, or somethign different, and then he is spat back to The Real. The Jade Rhino will only take those who are lost, or ready, with nothing more they want in The Real. Leon has so much more he wants: repay the team and find his missing memories. If he stays here, while still connected to The Real, he will suffer. He needs to return and come to a resolution.
He gets access to them, but must let them go to free the others behind the lock that sustains The Abstract. He will set them free, so they may wander The Abstract, rather than have them destroyed, as the ImpCorp upgrade will do. He will want to get into ImpCorp to free his mother though. Her body is there, but destroyed, just like the others. Will he find himself in a position where he has to give up who he is, in order to save The Abstract? Or just Fix?
Step One Musings
Leon wakes with the Jade Rhino nuzzling him. A woman is there, stroking it between the eyes. It grunts and snorts as she talks to it, before it ambles away through the lounge of a rickety, wooden beachhouse. He does not recognise the woman, although he does feel a strong connection to her. It is his mother, but not the woman in the memory he cannot think of at the moment. He panics that his memory is gone again, but she calls him by name and it brings him back to her. He recognises her voice somewhere deep down and realises that she is his mother. Somehow, he has found her. She is not what he expected, as she did not expect him to be an adult. She does not realise the impact of time. It has been two decades. She must be almost sixty by now if she were in The Real. She has lived so long already, though, watching humanity fill The ImpVerse. They talk of time and her losing who she is to The ImpVerse. Leon wants to know why she left him and she says she was always going to, but it was not meant to be so soon. They were to be the founders of the ImpVerse. They knew it was huge. - story of Emmet and the discovery of another place - Emmet’s conscious is at the center of it all. They built a universe around his connection. It was luck more than anything. He tore a hole into something else, and they managed to harness that connection, stabilise it and use it as an extension of their existence. His body had died, but he still existed. They realised what they had - heaven. A place for the dead to gather. They were meant to have another decade experimenting, but it appeared that corporations are corporations and saw what they had before them - world domination. It had become routine - the group would connect to The Abstract, and reach out, examining the depths of it and forming a stabilised space to conduct experiments. They created a machine to do the same, but the connection needed biology to work. They rotated through in small shifts, stabilising the portal and stretching the boudaries of what would become The ImpVerse. It ran that way for months, until they started to expand the boudaries of the connection. Everyone was involved, then more people, them more people. Their group expanded beyond the handful of them to twenty. They were playing with a new way of existing. It became hard to return to The Real the more time they spend in The Abstract. A few started to break away from their bodies and floated away. More came and went, until they were all connected at once and betrayed, their bodies locked in stasis and their conciousness caught rigid, linked to each other, fixed in space, holding together the boundaries of The Abstract. Leon realises that her body is still in stasis. He says he could bring her back from The Real. She laughs. She would be returning to The Real after decades of time there - she barely notices time here. She feels stretched by time, but eternal. Leon says he will stay here with her, and she says that is his decision to make, but there is a process started. Their biological connection to The Real is fading. She knows she is alive. She can hear her heart beating and can feel her mind, but there is a change in the fabric that holds the boundaries of The ImpVerse. She has seen them run experiements with their new biological driven machine. It is starting to work its way through their consciousness constructed Impverse. It is taking over and soon they will be absorbed by it. Leon is upset, but she calms him. It does not matter to her what happens next. She has lived countless lives, and watched a billion unfold through their memories. She senses in him that he does not have a memory of her. That worries her - someone has taken them from him. She reaches out amongst the ImpVerse and says she can see them. They are joyous and sad and everything memories are meant to be, but also that they are unimportant. Leon wonders how they could not be important, but she dismisses him. Memories are not reality. The ImpVerse is a billion people playing out a fantasy they think was their lives. She has done the same to herself and has grown tired of living the past over and over again. She has reached a stage that she struggles to forget that they are not really happening to her. Now, when she relives a moment from The Real, she knows it is not her now. It is a replay of what she used to be. And that person she used to be is so much smaller than who she is now, and she cannot forget it. She used to be his mother. And it is lovely to see what he has become, but she only has a memory of being a mother. She does not feel as a mother does anymore, although she does remember what it used to be like. She would have liked to have been a mother for longer. He was only nine when they took her from him. She will not forgive them for that, whoever it was - was it Ms. Penumbra?
The Jade Rhino is his creation. He had a small rhino toy as a child - he used to ride it in The Abstract while his mother worked. He had The Abstract to play in as a child. He would have felt in in her womb, hence his attraction to it.
Why does he return? His mother is still connected to the machine. A biological agent is taking over. She will be consumed. She is resolved, but Leon wants to save her. She likes the heroism of it, but does not think he should try for her. She also realises that if he stays, he will be absorbed like her.
Leon has his salvation ripped from him. There is nothing in him: no memories worth tasting, so The Jade Rhino spits him out. He is devestated, although he feels another presence. It is his mother. He has found her. She is the part of The Jade Rhino. She talks to him and he realises he has a choice to make - stay with his mother a while and absorb what memories she has of him, then drift away with her to wherever, or return to The Real, infiltrate ImpCorp and try and save her from oblivion.
ImpCorp’s betrayal of the founders - of which she is one. Their consciousness are like the balloon skin of the ImpVerse. Leon reflects on his own betrayal of the team and feels a deep shame.
His mother shares her memories of him, and he feels a comfort, but knows they are not his experiences. They do not feel right. He is glad to have them, but wonders if this is what his memories are destined to be - someone else’s. His mother shares that his memories will be in the ImpVerse. That is where memory goes. She reaches out and finds them in the mass of consciousnesses in The ImpVerse. They are there, but he cannot get them from here. They can only observe, but not intervene.
Leon looks for Fix. He is with Jem and they talk of him - he is dead and has been for days. They talk of how quickly he went, and how they should have done something more to help him.
She cannot reach them, but they will be there. Leon wishes to return, but knows he will not be able to find his way back.
She realises he has no tether, but the rhino can take him back to where he was. The tether, even in death, wants to bring him back. He just needs to find it.
He manages to reconnect to his body and return to The Real to a very angry reception. He declares he is going to save his mother… He wakes up, naked, being prepared by an alcolyte. It has been two days. Nort arrives and freaks out. The alcolytes worship. A procession of people arrive. Suunto who cherishes him, then slaps him, then hugs him. Princess is annoyed as she wanted to do that. His perception of The Real is distorted and he struggles to maintain a connection - his body feels weird - he has been dead for four days - six hours without the life support - everything hurts as it starts up again. His blood feels thick and his muscles ache with the effort. The team does not want to work with him. Leon says he is going in anyway. Suunto asks him to wait, but he wont. He has to go now, even though he is under duresss.
Tags: #template
#turningpoint
Links: Chasing The Rhino Masterlist