The mention of the Inquest makes Hakkyuu's face scrunch as he pulls back like he's smelt something unpleasant. It's just so out of left-field for him that he wasn't expecting them to be invoked in the same sphere as Duplicity.
"What? No. Not the Inquest. No."
He holds his breath for a moment, not from taking a deep-lunged inhale, just kind of arresting the natural rhythm as he wonders if now is the time he regrets bringing this up or if there's more yet to come. Probably the latter.
"Time's weird when you stretch it out and bend it around different worlds, at least that's what I'm finding. Different timelines, same people; different people, same timelines."
This isn't helping.
Hakkyuu looks to the side, really wishing this were more of a tavern than a recovery space. A drink or five would really help this along.
"I know how this sounds," he says after a moment, "I know. Weird sex city proto-reality, no memories, out-of-world weird experiment bullshit. I know how it sounds."
He hasn't mentioned the sex city bit yet and when he reaches the end of those stilted sentences he squeezes his eyes shut again, annoyed at himself. He has to give this gloss of the situation another try.
"Duplicity is a city that functions, when you get right down to it, as a wide-scale sprawling experiment. They say they're looking for people who don't have what they call the deceit gene, which they're pretty much convinced all their locals have. So they pull in folks from outside Duplicity, all sorts of times and worlds, trying to find people without these gene and, far as I can tell, they haven't found whatever they're actually looking for yet. But they keep bringing people in, keep looking for this thing that may not exist. And they reckon they can find it through monitoring sex acts. It's a whole dual-layered city that's one red light district."
Even saying this aloud feels exhausting and he gives a slow, heavy blink with a slight shake of his head.
"I know how this sounds," he repeats, exasperated at the whole thing.
no subject
"What? No. Not the Inquest. No."
He holds his breath for a moment, not from taking a deep-lunged inhale, just kind of arresting the natural rhythm as he wonders if now is the time he regrets bringing this up or if there's more yet to come. Probably the latter.
"Time's weird when you stretch it out and bend it around different worlds, at least that's what I'm finding. Different timelines, same people; different people, same timelines."
This isn't helping.
Hakkyuu looks to the side, really wishing this were more of a tavern than a recovery space. A drink or five would really help this along.
"I know how this sounds," he says after a moment, "I know. Weird sex city proto-reality, no memories, out-of-world weird experiment bullshit. I know how it sounds."
He hasn't mentioned the sex city bit yet and when he reaches the end of those stilted sentences he squeezes his eyes shut again, annoyed at himself. He has to give this gloss of the situation another try.
"Duplicity is a city that functions, when you get right down to it, as a wide-scale sprawling experiment. They say they're looking for people who don't have what they call the deceit gene, which they're pretty much convinced all their locals have. So they pull in folks from outside Duplicity, all sorts of times and worlds, trying to find people without these gene and, far as I can tell, they haven't found whatever they're actually looking for yet. But they keep bringing people in, keep looking for this thing that may not exist. And they reckon they can find it through monitoring sex acts. It's a whole dual-layered city that's one red light district."
Even saying this aloud feels exhausting and he gives a slow, heavy blink with a slight shake of his head.
"I know how this sounds," he repeats, exasperated at the whole thing.