voice testing like woah. canon is y: the last man

[mann]

And I'm supposed to be eager to leap into yet another post-apocalyptic shithole, if only because there are real, live men in it?

Go to hell! I'm not trading one worldwide disaster for another-- and especially not when there's still a chance I can help fix the one that's already on my plate.

[A beat. And then, coldly--]

No, I don't want to hear about Yao's advances in regeneration and cloning. Not after what you've told me those monsters have done.

Comments

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[verinumeri]

[ l...anguage... ]

[verinumeri]

I take it your present post-apocalyptic cesspool has a notable lack of men.

[mann]

Bingo.

[Man. If everyone's going to be asking her this, she's gonna get sick of it real fast.]

Unfortunately, I can't speak on a more global scale, since a good deal of our communication networks are down, but... the sudden deaths of a significant portion of the world's population in one go has a very profound effect.

[verinumeri]

While chaos would be the understandable result of that sort of mass death, men are hardly essential to the maintenance of communication networks. Initially, at least, you must have had global data. Unless whatever caused their genitals to erupt [ yes he saw that, note his bland tone ] also disrupted radio waves or the satellites.

It's irrelevant, in any case.

[ Don't worry, Dr. Mann. He does not actually care. Her problem to fix, not his. ]

You are aware, of course, that this post is the actualization of precisely what you are attempting to avoid, if only in small part?

[mann]

As much as I'd like for that to have been true, there are-- were-- more men monitoring those networks than we thought. Highways have been down for months, hundreds and hundreds of planes and ships went down, electricity's still entirely gone in some places--

[IT'S TOO LATE allison didn't hear anything past 'irrelevant' sry hermann]

Irrelevant? The fate of human fucking existence is not irrelevant! You don't even realize what's at stake here, how much we're dangling by a thread here!

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[verinumeri]

[ Right, well, he cannot much fault or judge it. Some 3 billion people essentially spontaneously combusting would make infrastructure, however vital, something of a reduced priority.

Before he can comment to that effect, however, she's off. He leans back a little, startled. ]

I-- That wasn't my--

[verinumeri]

Doctor, it wasn't my intention to call the fate of human existence irrelevant. I am more than capable of conceiving of how dire it must be, as if men are entirely gone, then reproduction and thus obviously the species carrying on become jeopardized, if not outright impossible. As you intend to fix it, and intimated an interest in cloning, I grant jeopardized.

It is, however, irrelevant to your current and more immediate dilemma, which is that of your mundane's interest in dragging you to another brand of hell.

1/2

[mann]

[...Fine.]

[mann]

[Yes, she's jumped to conclusions. She's made a bad habit of it. And yet she won't fold or apologize: the momentum of her frustration's already tumbling off at full speed. He's a potential colleague, maybe someone who'll help her if she DOES land her sorry ass in Haven, but he still can't understand what these last two years have been for her.]

[stubbornly.] I am in the process of fixing it, and I will fix it as long as I don't get taken to wherever this Haven place is. This stupid kid's whims aren't as important as the human race; she'll fold.

[irredeemed_ant]

Wait.

A world where there's no other guys?

...Huh.

[mann]

[AND GUESS WHO DOESN'T MISS THEM.]

Yes. A plague was present on our world that killed every organism with a Y chromosome instantaneously, or near instantaneously, anyway: those who weren't killed by the sheer shock of it all died soon after from blood loss. To my knowledge, each and every one of their organs ruptured into a bloody, pulpy mess upon its onset.

[cool and utterly deadpan:] Beginning with the sexual organs.

We've yet to bring any men from alternate universes onto our world to test whether whatever caused it is still present. Would you like to volunteer?

[SO SHE BENT THE TRUTH A LITTLE. DEAL.]

Apologies for Eric... being Eric.

[irredeemed_ant]

[Oh. Gloopy. Eric knew they'd be a catch to all the awesomeness of little to no competition.]

Nah, not especially. Knowing my luck you've all turned into hot lesbians yonks ago.

Oh, wait a tick, if there's no guys, virus dies out from nothing to get, ergo no virus. [Ha, still a chance!]

no apologies necessary!! 8)

[mann]

Viruses are contagious. Homosexuality isn't, you idiot. [Her tone's still utterly frigid: her patience had been gone from the get-go, and Eric's not making it any better.]

And for all we know, we're all carriers-- just unaffected. [Yorick's not dead yet! Not true! (or, er, she certainly hopes so, anyway.)]

Good!

[irredeemed_ant]

I know that! I'm just saying that in the absent of males it's bound to be the case that most of your fellow sex over there wouldn't have much else to do, sex wise. I dunno, it's your universe, I'm just spectulating, whatever. [His tone has changed to a slightly more apologetic one, if still slightly charged with the promise of a world with just women.]

Hmmmm, well if that's true you just brought it over here. So thanks for that. If my male bits explode I'll know who to blame. Anyway, sorry for being so testoerone charged with the questions, I'm Eric. If I can help you I'll try. And not just because of the world of women thing. I know a lot of smart types.

[mann]

[Well-intentioned, but a little block-headed. Eric's beginning to sound a hell of a lot like Yorick, and now she's remembering that he's not here and she's starting to stress out all over again. She softens, but only slightly.]

Dr. Allison Mann. And I was mostly kidding about the exploding testicles: the most obvious symptom that'd been seen was extreme hematemesis. Any organs that ruptured were ones on the inside. In any case, I doubt that any potential disease I've brought along will carry over to you, here: the girl yammering away at her keyboard's saying something about a "nexus" and "non-continuity". Or something like that.

...Any female researchers? I'm not kidding when I say that, when the actual laws of nature begin to apply again, the existence of any man in our world is one that'd be at an extremely high risk. We don't know what factors would keep him alive long enough to actually help.

[irredeemed_ant]

[That's pretty much Eric to a tee, prone to being something of a perv at times but a hero when it counts most. In respond to her own softening he becomes a little more pleasant to speak to as well.]

Nice to meet you, ah, Doc. That still sounds exceptionally gloopy so I will hopefully try avoiding that. Yeah, my guy says I should be just fine too so it's nice for the heads up there, Doctor Mann. Boy in your situation you must have heard every Mann in a Woman's World ever, huh?

Ah, well strictly speaking most of the bright sparks I know are dudes, I mean there's one but she does have the unfortunate handicap of being bat shit crazy insane. That said, I guess you could try Susan Richards? I mean her husband's a real brainbox but she's a smart cookie, plus she has energy shields so she might be able to shield a smart guy like Reed until she was certain that he would blow up.

hello there come to me beautiful

[355]

Just when I thought I'd have no one to gripe about the shithole with.

I WAS GONNA KEEP IT A SECRET but you tempted me/I'm overeager

[mann]

Happy to oblige. [Nope. Not happy AT ALL.]

But these people are insane! If they think they can just pick us up and pose us around like a pair of Barbie dolls, they've got another thing coming!

i just uploaded a lot of icons that's how excited i just got

[355]

Look, I know stressing-the-fuck-out is kind of your thing, but we'll figure something out. We've survived more abrupt changes before, right?

[ Look, she's. Trying to be encouraging here. Because she doesn't like seeing Allison upset, and because it's stressing her the fuck out too. ]

screams internally

[mann]

R-right. You're right.

[A beat. Allison fidgets, uncomfortable, before piping up again:]

Three-fifty, you should hear the crap she tells me about it. Supplies were kind of tough to come by back home, but there, they're all in close proximity and they've got even less. When it dissolves into free-for-all chaos, and I've got more than a hunch it will, who's to say I won't end up dead weight?

[Because she may still be the best hope they've got for keeping humans from dying out, but if she drags 355 down, no one's going to go home to Yorick. They can find other scientists; finding another man's another story.]

[homemademolotov]

Plenty of otherwise good people make deals with monsters. What makes you think you're better than that?

[mann]

Because I wouldn't torture children.

[homemademolotov]

But at a certain remove you might be able to justify involving yourself in working for a company that somewhere might or might not have tortured children, for the right price or goal.

[mann]

The right--

Are you shitting me? I'd rather find it out for myself, however long it takes. If turning myself into Josef fucking Mengele is the only way to save humanity, I'd rather give the whole damned planet back to the plants.

[homemademolotov]

You say that now. Plenty of people take and break the Hippocratic Oath.

[mann]

[Ha ha don't remind her.]

Within reason!

[homemademolotov]

[Lydia just says: hmmm.]

[Way to prove her right.]

[mann]

I don't need to explain myself to a fucking child.

[She's on the defensive. Her child-- could it even be called her child?-- is dead because she took an unnecessary risk; she's mostly let go of the superstitious belief that the plague was in her hands, the hands that played God, but the doubt gnaws at her. And when pressed upon it, like now, it gnaws even more fitfully.]

If you're so interested in human experimentation, go make your own deals with the devil.

[fortunefavored]

No, you really don't wanna hear about them. I got a snippet of them, and I'm telling you: You don't wanna hear about them.

[mann]

[See, that's just having the opposite effect now. She knows it'll be horrible, but...]

You got to hear? So they've-- have they actually done it? Save the gruesome for later, I just... I just have to know.

[fortunefavored]

I found some research material when I first got to Haven; down in the bunker. It's gone now, but...I'm fairly certain they've accomplished regeneration and gene splicing, at least, but I don't know to what extent. Considering how Kite keeps coming back, and quickly, it wouldn't shock me if they were far more advanced in it than even what I was able to find.

[rebelwithoutaface]

Fixing worlds is notoriously difficult. How big a chance are you talking?

[mann]

If we can't figure out how to mass-engineer women into goddamn Virgin Maries in less than a generation, humanity is finished. And more than a decade of my cloning research was destroyed in one fell swoop several months ago.

How's that for chance?

[rebelwithoutaface]

Hold on.

[Vague, under the breath uttering.]

One in one hundred million and forty, give or take and depending on if a Virgin Marie is what I guessed at.

So good luck!

[mann]

Wow. I appreciate the vote of confidence.

[rebelwithoutaface]

Longer odds have succeeded. Not often, but it has happened.