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

[standalonehuman]

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.

Comments

[standalonehuman]

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.

[frostythehitman]

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."

[standalonehuman]

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."

[frostythehitman]

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.

[standalonehuman]

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.

[frostythehitman]

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."