[ The problem with human perception is of course its subjectivity. The world where she left off was in the bowels of MAGI, the lightless room chilled to the temperature preferred by the supercomputers, amber text on black, the lingering scent of coffee. From there she traces her way back through dark passageways, elevators going up and up, and up some more, escalators stretching miles it seems, until the view opens: a glass pyramid amid pine trees inside a massive cavern, sunlight reflected on threads tangled overhead.
Up and up again, so she breaks the surface to a city perched above the cavern, a lifeless city, militaristic, robotic. The signs are everywhere: green tanks lining the streets, concrete towers without windows, the sunken buildings she mentioned just to one side, warnings shouting HIGH VOLTAGE, and nobody in the streets. It is this sight that wavers and trembles, the knowledge that it is only a memory makes her hesitate, never mind that the entire exercise is one of remembering. She shows him this and the truth: a lake made of overlapping perfect circles. Upon closer look, the periphery of a destroyed city upon the lake bank, and upon closer inspection, the realization that the circles were carved out by explosions.
The air is warm and humid, and it smells like the sea. The sky is blue. The trees are green. The cicadas shriek in a deafening crescendo. It comes right back. ]
[ It's all foreign, though perhaps less foreign than it might've been before he'd woken up with a view of the station. Some of the images call up echoes, pale imitations of her modern constructs: stone towers, sprawling castle grounds.
The dead streets are met with quick understanding. Not for the tanks and the signs, of course, but the feeling behind it's easy to place. Mat's distracted by the image even after it starts to crumble, though the image of the lake and its devastation lingers, too — not like anything he's seen, no. Similar to things he's felt in dreams, and coated in the same hollow weight that always came with the aftermath of a battle.
The memories of actual life feel tacked on at the end of all of it. Persistent and inevitable, but still an afterthought. Her question doesn't catch him off-guard, but there's a deliberate pause as he sifts through his own memories. Rationalizes that if she's asking, then it's fair game.
The pause after that is his failure to put it into words. So he gives up, dredging up the images Kaji had shared the first time they'd met: a dark room, tall pillars, red glyphs. It's echoed by memories that are closer to home, a round room with tall pillars, yellow lights in place of red, that visceral scent of fur and blood that's always there with them. Mat's hold on his own thoughts is tenuous, at best, but he only puts a mild effort into holding them back. ]
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no subject
Up and up again, so she breaks the surface to a city perched above the cavern, a lifeless city, militaristic, robotic. The signs are everywhere: green tanks lining the streets, concrete towers without windows, the sunken buildings she mentioned just to one side, warnings shouting HIGH VOLTAGE, and nobody in the streets. It is this sight that wavers and trembles, the knowledge that it is only a memory makes her hesitate, never mind that the entire exercise is one of remembering. She shows him this and the truth: a lake made of overlapping perfect circles. Upon closer look, the periphery of a destroyed city upon the lake bank, and upon closer inspection, the realization that the circles were carved out by explosions.
The air is warm and humid, and it smells like the sea. The sky is blue. The trees are green. The cicadas shriek in a deafening crescendo. It comes right back. ]
( What did he show you? )
no subject
The dead streets are met with quick understanding. Not for the tanks and the signs, of course, but the feeling behind it's easy to place. Mat's distracted by the image even after it starts to crumble, though the image of the lake and its devastation lingers, too — not like anything he's seen, no. Similar to things he's felt in dreams, and coated in the same hollow weight that always came with the aftermath of a battle.
The memories of actual life feel tacked on at the end of all of it. Persistent and inevitable, but still an afterthought. Her question doesn't catch him off-guard, but there's a deliberate pause as he sifts through his own memories. Rationalizes that if she's asking, then it's fair game.
The pause after that is his failure to put it into words. So he gives up, dredging up the images Kaji had shared the first time they'd met: a dark room, tall pillars, red glyphs. It's echoed by memories that are closer to home, a round room with tall pillars, yellow lights in place of red, that visceral scent of fur and blood that's always there with them. Mat's hold on his own thoughts is tenuous, at best, but he only puts a mild effort into holding them back. ]
( He didn't show me any bloody lakes. )