[ He shuts the door to the cabinet with the vases and reaches for the next one over. This one has some bottles of different colored liquids, which seems promising. Pulling one bottle out, he inspects the label on the front first and then turns it in his hands, passing a glance over the fine print.
Halfway through, his attention is pulled away by her answer. Of course, he can hardly hold her nervousness against her. Even without the mutant aspect, the military isn't exactly a trusted organization. Hell, he'd been in it and still thought it was full of shit.
(Or maybe he thought that way precisely because he'd been a part of the experiments). ]
I was young and naive; I'd enlisted right after high school. It seemed like it would do more good than harm, then.
[ Just another way to say he was young and stupid. He knows better now. ]
It was for training, for the soldiers. Drop them in a dream landscape that looked like an active front, let them experience a fight in so-called real time. Pain still registers in the mind, even in a dream. The military thought they could get soldiers used to injuries and death before they hit the real ground.
A good idea, in theory.
[ Sufficiently convinced this bottle must be drinkable, he unscrews the cap, takes a cursory sniff. Yeah, smells just like spiced rum of some sort; he recaps it after. In the same cabinet is a shelf of glasses– he pulls two of them out, rims pushed together between his thumb, index, and middle fingers.
Straightening, he walks over to where Rogue is floating and takes a seat in the nearby chair, momentarily leaned forward to set the glasses and the bottle on the coffee table. ]
Those early tests were uncomfortable. The drugs used to induce the dreams weren't as good, didn't last very long. You'd be sick for days afterwards, sometimes weeks if you had exceptional sensitivity.
[ A number of people had to drop out for that reason alone. Arthur undoes the cap and pours out a measured amount in both glasses. ]
As the drugs got better, the dreams got clearer, which was technically a good thing. The major downside is that people lost track of what was real and what wasn't. Recruits would wake up from an injury in the dream and think that injury was still with them, topside.
[ Fuck, it's been a while since he's had to think about this. He bites down on the memories, reaches out and hands her a glass. ] Some... some of them killed themselves, thinking it'd "wake them up", like death normally does in a dream.
no subject
Halfway through, his attention is pulled away by her answer. Of course, he can hardly hold her nervousness against her. Even without the mutant aspect, the military isn't exactly a trusted organization. Hell, he'd been in it and still thought it was full of shit.
(Or maybe he thought that way precisely because he'd been a part of the experiments). ]
I was young and naive; I'd enlisted right after high school. It seemed like it would do more good than harm, then.
[ Just another way to say he was young and stupid. He knows better now. ]
It was for training, for the soldiers. Drop them in a dream landscape that looked like an active front, let them experience a fight in so-called real time. Pain still registers in the mind, even in a dream. The military thought they could get soldiers used to injuries and death before they hit the real ground.
A good idea, in theory.
[ Sufficiently convinced this bottle must be drinkable, he unscrews the cap, takes a cursory sniff. Yeah, smells just like spiced rum of some sort; he recaps it after. In the same cabinet is a shelf of glasses– he pulls two of them out, rims pushed together between his thumb, index, and middle fingers.
Straightening, he walks over to where Rogue is floating and takes a seat in the nearby chair, momentarily leaned forward to set the glasses and the bottle on the coffee table. ]
Those early tests were uncomfortable. The drugs used to induce the dreams weren't as good, didn't last very long. You'd be sick for days afterwards, sometimes weeks if you had exceptional sensitivity.
[ A number of people had to drop out for that reason alone. Arthur undoes the cap and pours out a measured amount in both glasses. ]
As the drugs got better, the dreams got clearer, which was technically a good thing. The major downside is that people lost track of what was real and what wasn't. Recruits would wake up from an injury in the dream and think that injury was still with them, topside.
[ Fuck, it's been a while since he's had to think about this. He bites down on the memories, reaches out and hands her a glass. ] Some... some of them killed themselves, thinking it'd "wake them up", like death normally does in a dream.