Quite Contrary, Alpha

Drums in the deep.

The shared imagery was doubled. Mordor was a blasted hellscape, a land scarred and seething with blood, pain, and evil. Just like the Mines of Moria had become once the Balrog had been awakened, the legions of orcs driven before it, the warning of the dwarves of their coming. Drums in the deep.

Drums in the distance.

At least the Mines and Mordor had been solid underfoot. Here...

Mud. Lifeless, endless MUD. Mud and craters and befoulment everywhere, the sweeping drumbeat marking its way across the poisoned lands. A smell that reached beyond the noise and seemed to grip the stomach and lungs in claws of revulsion. Faint cries carried on the wind, sometimes heard before the drums resumed.

Sine stood without issue.

Daniel Ackermann, on the other hand, hit the mud and began sinking like he had just blundered into quicksand. His yells of surprise and general unhappiness just managed to reach above the drums, though the sudden joining of another voice, as Carol popped in and found the mud immediately trying to suck her into its grip, her legs going up to her knees almost as soon as she stepped down, helped.

"Daniel? Carol? Why are you in my simula...Daniel! Simulation! Say 'Reduce weight to one thousandth analysis!'" Sine said, grimacing and gesturing to the side. A hologram of dials briefly popped up, and the drumbeat lessened.

Carol was quicker on the uptake, shouting out the words before she sank any further. Instantly, her weight in the simulation lessened by several degrees, and she was able to yank her legs free from the clinging, sucking mud. Prior hazard training in the sim had prepared her for such sudden perils.

Daniel, however...

"-FUCKING GODDAMN SON OF A SHITBISCUIT FUCKSTICK-"

In the end, it took Carol running over and calming him down in order to get him to focus on what to say. And it also to Carol grabbing hold of both arms to help pull him free of the morass - his struggles had caused him to sink up to his waist. In the end, they managed to pry him loose, and the older mutant spent several moments cursing between his teeth as he clambered to his feet and scraped the muck off his trousers.

Carol had been lucky he hadn't drawn his spikes out of panic.

"Where the fuck are we?!" he growled at last, still obviously spooked.

"Paschendale." Sine said quietly. "It's a battlefield from the First World War. Sorry, didn't put up a sign. Didn't expect company."

"...Aw geez Sine..." Carol said, having pulled up her own hologram screen. "...Verdun? The Somme? Why th'heck are you hanging around recreations of such ugly places?"

"To remember what power does."

The drumbeat passed by. Daniel could see mud, the terrible sucking grey mud, being thrown up in the distance.

He grimaced, already picturing what was going on over in that direction.

"I remember reading about this," he mused as he looked around the awful landscape. "Had a load of old history books in Rutledge, that we managed to liberate from some libraries. Snuck a look in them sometimes, in my off hours."

He fell rather sullenly silent, as if searching for something to say. Something not irreverent or offensive, anyway.

"The things about war is that they're often pretty understandable. People want something, so they try and take it. Sometimes it's 'We don't like these people'. This war though...a comedy show put it best. It more or less happened because it was too much trouble NOT to have a war." Sine said. "The people behind this...they had all the power and had to bear none of the consequences. They stayed at the back with all their maps and all the constant lessons that technology had completely outstripped their ways...and those without power endured this."

The hologram simulation flickered a glove over Sine's hand.

"And I in theory have brief moments where all that power and all that came from it looks like nothing. Even with the self imposed limits. So I come down here. In the blood and mud and history. I need to be constantly reminded, you know this Carol...what power does. Is. Can do. Especially this. This is power as inertia. A meat grinder that basically exists because no one no longer has any clue on how to say no. You know?"

Carol nodded. "I know. And it's this that puts it all in perspective. You missed a lot, Dan, but trust me when I say she needs this."

A short pause as the group all observed the endless stretch of mud.

"...so how long do you usually spend in here?" asked Daniel, breaking the silence.

"Long as I really need to. And even I can't bring myself to make it fully...real. Like they had it." Sine said, indicating her standing on the mud. "At least...your Fears were...well, for lack of a better term, pure. They were absolutes in what they were. They were made that way, to be anything else would unmake them. Still beyond terrible...but they really had no choice but to be terrible. Humans do...but how easily we don't...well, evil's rare. Weakness isn't. I mean...you saw how eager I was to take Cauren and 'fix' her."

"Sure did," Daniel agreed, permitting himself a smirk. But he made no further comment than that.

"...But really Sine...you DON'T need this. None of us do."

"Beg pardon?"

"Okay, yes. You have responsibilities...but...you're not that good with dials, you know? You never seem to pick out smaller stuff. It's always lookit this vast plateau of human misery, to contrast the yoke I must bear."

"She's carrying eggs?"

"Yoke, Daniel. Eggs are yolk, y-o-l-k. You're kind of the same when it comes to fixy fixy, Sine. I will save this world made dumb. I will fix this broken universe. I will give this woman all these magic powers. You're no good at just being...middle of the road. You seem to forget there IS a road because you immediately run to go off it and keep going. Sometimes I think you like all the grand sweeping stuff because if it fails, you can just go 'Well it got away from me'. But the small stuff? That screws up, that's on you. That's also darn scary and you're notsogood at facing that. Even now."

"...I guess."

"I mean...if all you're going to do is huge things...you'll leave us behind. Just...is that what you want?"

"What? No! No!"

"Well then why are you hanging around horrible World War battlefields? When will you trust yourself to not abuse your power?"

"...I...really don't know."

"Oh, shut the fuck up!" Daniel suddenly burst out. "How about let's talk about me being dragged along on this?! I didn't come here so I could listen to bullshit philosophy about power and responsibility, like I'm in a rejected Spider-Man comic book!"

Daniel took two long strides forward, and then briefly paused. When he didn't start sinking again, he continued marching his way in front and put a hand roughly on Sine's shoulder.

"Listen to me, Sine, because you told me the same shit a long time ago when it came to my anger management. The next time you're gonna blow your top over something, or do something hugely over-the-top or jackass-y, ask yourself 'is this what somebody else in my position would do?' And if the answer is 'no', then tone it the fuck down or try something else! Simple as!"

"...do as I say, not as I do. Slippery phrase." Sine said, as she pulled out a hologram keyboard. Several keystrokes made the hellscape fade away to a white void. "I'm going to do a runthrough of our current inventory and deliveries before I get out. You can hang around if you want..."

Sine was not surprised Carol and Daniel immediately found a reason to leave. Losing herself in busywork, two questions failed to occur to her.

One was why Carol and Daniel had come into her VR simulation in the first place.

The second was when had Daniel overcome his immense distrust about technology.