recolle | I Thought What I'd Do Was... [Open]

When: 2/10 and onwards, night time.
Where: Togusa's office or apartment.

Togusa has been, for lack of a better term, jumpy. Not only is he suffering from the dual-sided effects of whatever this new effect is? But now, he is trying to avoid people. Difficult when he is being driven to be as helpful as possible. But every time he looks up at someone, he will flinch, at first, looking at their face, before he can focus on them.

It's driving him to be even more reclusive at night time, picking his office most often to hole up with his notes. Or sometimes going home to spread out across his coffee table. The extra copy of Catcher In The Rye is always open, nearby, to a specific page.

Part 25: "Just so people didn't know me and I didn't know anybody. I thought what I'd do was, I'd pretend I was one of those deaf-mutes."

He needs to talk to James. And to Mariko. But how does he bring this up to Mariko so late? She has her own problems to deal with right now.

Whenever he stops paying attention, a certain image keeps getting doodled onto whatever piece of paper is nearby.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"God, Catcher in the Rye. They made me read that in school a few years ago." James hadn't really paid attention to it. No wonder he didn't quite recognize the quote. "What's your deal with it? Or Vanderweele's, I guess, if he's the one putting it on your weird AR filter.

"And I can't get why it's so weird and different for everyone. For me it just looked like a real part of the world, not some digital overlay. And I talked to someone else who said they just went blind for a few days from some weird effect. I don't know what this is."

Good, yes, please. James is the last person who needs to be latching on to the ideas espoused in Catcher. Togusa can't stop a small smile from coming up, just for a second.

"That whole emblem with the quote is the symbol of a criminal from the other Togusa's world. Someone that Togusa and all of his team are going after. I don't entirely know all the details, but that thing is like his calling card or something."

But the idea that people are seeing different things gets Togusa's head tilting. "All illusions. If Vanderweele has gotten track of Retrospec's records, then he knows exactly what to do to each of us."

"So more stuff from the past. Of course." It tracks with what's happened with him so far, at least, and what he's heard from others. Of course it's based on something from other-Togusa. "God, you would have a criminal who's obsessed with some high school English class book."

Then he shakes his head. "It's not just illusions, it's--" He snaps his mouth shut. He doesn't know if Togusa wants (or needs) to hear this. It was messed up enough when it happened to him, and if Togusa's already freaking out about having his vision messed with, and is afraid of getting his brain hacked...finding out about some of the other effects lately might hurt more than help.

"...there's some other stuff too. Not illusions. I don't know if Vanderweele's got control over other things like that too."

Togusa's eyebrows raise and eyes widen in a look of 'yeah, I know' as he nods along with the first part. He has a lot he could say about what little he's figured about in regards to the Laughing Man. Why is he ~~also~~ such a nerd?

But he hesitates when James cuts himself off, fixing him with a cautious look. "It's..what?"

Shit. Togusa immediately regrets asking. He pulls a sharp breath in, and his body language lights up again, putting him back on edge like he was when James first brought him in here. "What else.. is going on?" He knows he has to ask, but he very much doesn't want to.

He sighs. Well, Togusa asked.

"It's behavior, too. A little while ago, there was a week where I just did whatever anyone told me to do. I didn't even have the ability to think about whether I wanted to do it or not, I just did it." James is trying to look and sound calm about this, but it still comes across in his tone that he's very uncomfortable with this. It edges too close to too many bad memories.

"It wasn't even that bad--the worst anyone told me to do that week was like, 'go clean the toilets.' But if Vanderweele's got control over something like that too, then we're in even bigger trouble."

Togusa's first instinct, when presented with something he doesn't understand, is to dig deeper, to learn, to do everything he can to understand. Most of the time, this serves Togusa well, and he is happy with what he learns.

Then there are times where he hates that instinct.

His eyes widen further, with a harsh breath out and he can't formulate a response for several seconds. This is absolutely his worst nightmare in regards to what could happen with his cyberbrain. What if it really is a hack? But he can't have hacked James in that same way. But he probably can easily hack Togusa that way.

Togusa's mouth finally shuts, and he swallows with a click of his throat. "Any one of us. Could become dangerous. If that happened."

James nods. "Yeah.

"I think it has something to do with the memories, though, not just us getting randomly messed with. That only happened to me after I remembered something...pretty close to that. So maybe it can only happen if it's something you remember. Like Vanderweele needs a trigger before he can mess with us like this. If it didn't happen to you before, then you're safe. Especially if Vanderweele can't control what we remember and when, either."

Which means that most people, probably, are safe from something like this. Assuming James's theory is true, anyway. But it must be cold comfort to Togusa, and James knows it. Because what he's just said amounts to you better hope other-you never got hacked.

~~HAHAHAHAHAHAHA ABOUT THAT~~

For the first second, Togusa only gets more uncomfortable, thinking over the possibilities of himself or his Other being hacked. But then he hits on what James just admitted there, and his expression turns to one of greater caution.

"Something.. close to that? How does that happen without a system to hack?" He's already asked if James has a neural interface like him, and nope. His cyber-arm doesn't work that way.

The instant after that question is out of his mouth, he realizes how dumb it is, but whoops, too late.

He gives Togusa a look like he's dumb. "You don't need one. I was brainwashed for about 60 years, and that was before hacking even existed at all. You can do it with a regular human brain just fine if you overwhelm it enough and throw enough mind games at it."

But that's not terribly new--he'd mentioned that to Togusa already, more or less. It's not the incident that sparked...whatever this was. "This time, it was about something else. A guy I'd trained went rogue and had it out for me. He...held someone hostage to make me let him brainwash me into doing whatever he wanted. So I did. As soon as I remembered that, that's when I couldn't help but do whatever people told me to."

I Thought What I'd Do Was... [Open]

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