vivarium | CALHOUN HOUR - Get ready to party!

Every third day, there would normally be an Ambidex Round going on, but today, it's different. Calhoun still screeches for everyone to wake up, that will never change, but instead of trying to rush people into a Chromatic Door, he instead splits everyone up into groups.

Child Test Subject (Kariya) with Fancy Test Subject (Zelos)! That's Team One.

Team Two will have the Nice Test Subject (Hershel), Hat-wearing Test Subject (Akiko), and Ditzy Test Subject (Aoi)!

Team Three is the Giant Test Subject (Jake), Also Nice Test Subject (Colette), and the Blind Test Subject (Light)!

Finally, the rest will be Team Four, with Tiny Test Subject (Clive), Mean Test Subject (Heiji), and Will-Gladly-Drug-Again Test Subject (Ema).

Oh, why is Team One having only two people instead of three? Where is the French Test Subject (Enjorlas)? Well, he got sick too, there must be something going around, so he was also quarantined for this moment, but don't worry, Team One! Calhoun has something up his sleeves for you, so you're not missing out.

But anyway, each team needs to go into an AB Room and stay in there. This is going to be a fun game, and anyone who refuses? Well, then he can gladly make those bracelets go off, and then you can have a nice long death. It's up to you, really, but let's make this easy and have fun inside the rooms, okay?

Well, he'll see you all soon!

BASIC INFO ✖ TEAMS + ROOMS ✖ POST-GAME MINGLE ✖ CALHOUN'S CORNER ✖ GENERAL MINGLE

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Heiji winced. "Yeah, I talked to Akiko and it sounds like she didn't make out so well, either. But hey, at least ya got a few stars to work with. What're you going to do with 'em?"

Their own board hadn't been too bad -- maybe they'd all played on different boards, or Heiji and the others had just been lucky.

"I suppose I should have been so lucky I was able to play at all. Calhoun gave me a game map to feel around so I could determine moves." He wasn't able to take the map with him.

"The logical thing to do would be to gain a point. However...with the way that I am, I would like to have some background about myself."

"Well, wasn't that generous of him?" Of course, even more generous would have been to not require them to all play this game in the first place.

"You think you're gonna find out anything useful? I still have kind of a hard time believin' that they can just restore your memory like that in the first place, but I can't really doubt Hershel..."

"I don't know, but if I don't try at all, I'll never know, will I? What about you, Heiji? What are you going to try? To see if you're from Osaka?"

"Oh, I gotta be from Osaka," said Heiji. Suddenly, he switched to Japanese. "With a dialect like this." Not that Light would likely appreciate it, but he had a very distinctive Osaka area accent. It was... really strong, man. Then he switched back to whatever mystery language they usually spoke.

"I wanna see this facility where they restore memories. Hershel described it to me before, but... seein' is believing, right?"

Well, that language switch proved one thing. He didn't know Japanese.

"When you do see it, describe it for me, would you? I have a feeling they're not going to let me touch anything."

Getting a memory though. What kind would they get? "I'm wondering if...if the memory I get will tell me what happened to me so that I'm like the way I am now. I want to know yet..."

"Of course!" said Heiji. Although it would be kind of funny if they did stop to let Light feel all the machines. It was only fair, right?

Suddenly, something occurred to Heiji. "You know, you might even get somethin' from before you got that prosthetic." Maybe even something from before he was blind, if he hadn't been born that way.

"That...that would be interesting. Although I'm not sure how I'd be able to tell." He gestured to the room at large. "When you remember things from being here, you probably remember scenery and the people you talked to. Visual cues. Since I don't have that, all the memories I have from being here are based on what I heard and what I feel. I have an impression of the rooms I'm in but that's all. If they give me a memory, it might be of a conversation I remembered or just that I'm on a hill somewhere and I can feel the sun on my skin and the grass on my back."

"I guess so, but... well, how can ya tell you got a prosthetic now? Your arms and legs and so on, you can tell where they are because of proprioception, and pain and pressure receptors and so on -- even if you can't see where they are. You sayin' it doesn't feel any different from your other arm? At all?"

Because that. Was kind of impressive. SCIENCE.

"Perhaps that was a poor choice of words. Let me try again." How to describe this exactly?

"Imagine you're holding a baseball in one hand. You can feel the texture, the weight, the way the stitching presses into your hand. If you caught the ball barehanded, your palm might sting on impact.

"Now imagine you hold the baseball in your other hand, but you're wearing, oh, say an oven mitt. You can tell there's a ball there, feel its weight but all your other impressions of it would be blunted. Also, if you caught it with this mitt, there'd be no pain. That's about how I feel.

"With memories though, unless it's something specific about my arm, how would I know if it's still there or not? If all I can recall is a conversation, my brain wouldn't be consciously thinking about the status of my arms."

All this was just making Heiji really want to touch Light's hand. "So it's all about what's included in the memory and what's not, huh?"

He tried thinking back to his own memories for comparison, but he really only had a week or two's worth to compare it to. "Well, whatever ya end up remembering, I hope it's something happy." Or useful. But considering the probability they'd let Light have back a memory that might actually shed some light on this case...

"I think I'd like something happy before I remembered something unhappy. We'll see how it goes." Perhaps he does something commendable in his life? It would be nice to know something about himself.

"Well, if we can't get anything useful, then I guess I'd wanna know why I know all this random stuff," said Heiji. He was smiling while he said it, but it really was kind of weird.

"I dunno if I want to know about my family. That might just make it more depressing to be in here."

CALHOUN HOUR - Get ready to party!

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