video.

[dissent]

[ It's late, and Anders is up on the surface, face lit occasionally by the rolling crackle of the sky. But he's not thinking about this strange place called Earth, his eyes distant. ]

Has anyone else met someone they... knew in their Matrix, but who was extracted from a different Matrix?

[ He's fumbling with the question, not sure how to ask what he wants to ask and not daring to voice what underlies it. ]

There are other versions of us still living their lives. It feels like I'm ...

[ A pause, and he decides not to follow up with whatever point he was planning, sighs instead, switches the feed off and tries to work out if there's some way to delete the recording from the network. ]

Comments

voice

[rathercommon]

[ Oh, he looks so...sad? Disoriented? Something. So Kitty speaks up, her voice a little quiet: ]

What's the other version of you like, then?

voice

[dissent]

I don't know. A better man, probably.

voice

[rathercommon]

Oh - [ A little embarrassed: ] Sorry. I meant, more - How is he different? What's changed in the other Matrix?

voice

[dissent]

Only small things. Imagine if you had a friend who was a chef at home, but you meet him here and he tells you he's a ... a repairman. And he's always been a repairman. Or he has curly hair instead of straight.

text;

[unwrit]

They're out there. But they're happy.

text;

[dissent]

Are they? Do you think?

text;

[unwrit]

People like not knowing. Living the lie, believing the lie. It's easier.

text;

[dissent]

Not me. I wouldn't go back. I've never been a fan of the easy life. Or I've never had a chance to be, anyway.

anon text;

[lostsoldier]

not real?

[dissent]

Or at the very least easily replaceable.

[lostsoldier]

[ In person there might be nodding here, acknowledgement, but in text form, he doesn't fill that silence with words. Instead: a long, weird pause. ]

hard to know if you're the one they want

[dissent]

[ Yes, that's exactly, terribly it. ]

Yes.

It's good that I'm not the only one. Though it would be better if you weren't so mysterious.

anon text;

[nightride]

i haven't.
who did you meet?

[dissent]

[ It takes a little while longer for Anders to respond to this than anything else, wary of spilling his heart to an anonymous stranger, but needing to find something to talk to. ]

Someone very important to me. He's exactly the same except in the ways that he's not.

[nightride]

what ways?

[After a short delay:]

specifics not necessary.

[Yeah, great. There's some instant phrasing regret. Beep boop, Driver the prying robot.]

[dissent]

I'm not quite sure how to explain without the specifics. It's entirely in the specifics.

text.

[jomi]

INCRDIBLY LUCKY?

text.

[dissent]

Undeservedly so.

text.

[jomi]

nah man you woke up
you deserve it
good job

[echopraxia]

When I am extracted from the matrix, there are bodies beside me, also, in other pod. My own bodies. Row of faces, just like this one.

( ...replaceable. anya is impassive as she recounts this, but it--

is complicated. she understands complicated, when it comes to the matrix, and where they stand with it. )

I see no one who comes from there also.

[dissent]

Just like you?

[ Anders shivers at the thought of waking up to that, mildly creeped out. ]

[echopraxia]

Identical in each way. It is a function of the matrix that I was held in.

( the context for it doesn't make it less unsettling. )

It is so easy, to move me from one to one to one. So perhaps it is so easy to replace me there, and then, also here.

voice;

[fabulistic]

[Varric hesitates before responding. His feelings when it comes to Anders are complicated to say the least, and to know he's here...

It's not a question of whether he will speak to him. Of course he will. It's just there are times that even Varric doesn't know quite what to say.]

I don't know, Blondie, but from the way you're asking I'd guess any differences between us aren't going to be the ones you're hoping for.

[Or the ones he'd hope for either.]

voice;

[dissent]

Varric?

[ There is hope in his voice — it's been a while here, and for as much as he loves Hawke despite the problems that drew him to record to the network in the first place, he's missed having other people he knows. He's missed having someone to call him Blondie.

But he's not sure what to say either, where to even start apologizing — not for the Chantry, but for Kirkwall, maybe, and for ruining Hawke a little bit, and most of all for the years where he stopped being capable of laughing at the dwarf's jokes. ]

voice;

[fabulistic]

[The hope cuts him more than he expected. Anders was his friend once. Maybe he still is. But it's different now. What they once had is long gone and maybe that's not entirely Anders fault. He can't change the past, but he can see the places where different actions might have helped, and while his stories might mask it to some extent it would have been hard to be entirely blind to just how far he'd been falling. Especially for a man like Varric.]

That's me.

[It's the best he can manage for the moment. Even that simple confirmation is hard to work out of the tightness of his throat. It's a far cry from the easy trade of stories they used to share in his suite in the Hanged Man, or even the later years where Varric had talked and Anders had become more and more withdrawn. It's easy to be angry when he isn't there, but now he's talking to him (or trying to) it's the hurt he feels the most.]