Volunteers and those about to die. The program is as ethical as it can be, all things considered.
"It felt only... right. Once I realised I could talk about it, I wanted you to know." He glances at Kyle and smiles slightly. "You should be kinder about your own body. Don't think I missed your comment about your diet."
"Yes, I have," Philip laughs. "But it's just a body. It will age. It will change. Enjoy it while it's healthy and strong. Don't just polish it up for others." He pats Kyle's arm. "Love it. Enjoy it."
Kyle glances back at the house, staring at it for a minute. His gaze comes back to his hand, looking at he ring he wears now. Finally he looks back to Philip, a bit more serious.
"It's a body the represents the only time I get with someone I love. I will age and one day leave him while he won't age a day. I want to keep it as healthy and strong as I can to be with him as long as I can," he says softly, shrugging.
"I used to do it just to polish it for show but now I have a reason to work hard on it."
Philip listens, nods slowly. "I can't have a relationship, unless it's with another traveler. And no children. It's to maintain the integrity of the timeline." No children. No relationships. No substantial impact.
"Trevor's host was young and an athlete. Active. And 0115 loves it. He goes for runs and exercises... he's trying to convince me to join in. My host is a bit..." He shrugs. "Drug addiction isn't that healthy a lifestyle."
"It doesn't matter here though," he points out. "I mean, that's why you're telling me, right? So you could have one here."
Kyle has leapt in with both feet in having a life here and he knows that it's because he fears losing these things when he has to go back home. If he ever has to go.
"How do they pick the hosts? I mean, is there a reason for them?"
"I... guess not." He's slowly coming to understand what 'outside time and space' could mean for him. The things that he hasn't really thought about. Like this.
"Variety of factors. They try to have a team arrive within a day or two period, usually about forty eight hours. So, you need to find people who will die in the same forty eight hour period, of a death that can be prevented by the intervention of the traveler arriving or another traveler, who are physically able to do the role required of them. Mac, our team leader, arrived the day after the rest of us. Partly, because suitable candidate. His host is an FBI agent. And in part because he needed intervention to save his life. He fell down an empty elevator shaft. We were there to pull him out and back. Then 3468 arrived shortly after." Whereas 3326 only had to not put the needle in his arm. 0115 conceded the cage match before the fatal blow to the head.
He looks at the ocean again. "The big thing is, we all arrive moments before death. We only take hosts from those who are about to be lost to time."
"So they only take those who has no future in your timeline," he says with a nod. That part makes sense. "So nothing you do will change the future in unforeseen ways, just the way you're trying to change them."
That much makes sense.
"Do you know what it was you were going to try and change for the future? If you don't want to talk about it, you don't have to."
"Exactly. No future actions, but it also means we have to keep to ourselves as much as we can."
Philip taps his head. "I have nearly the entirety of human history uploaded in here. There were smaller things along the way but the big mission we had been working on was an asteroid impact. It would trigger the events that led to the global collapse. We managed to avert it but we were waiting to hear from the Director what new changes it brought."
He shifts on the sand. "Historians... sometimes we get updated. It's dangerous. Really dangerous. Sometimes it kills us. But we get updated with the new timeline, new information, changes since we landed in the twenty first. It causes some pretty serious side effects. It's a last resort sort of thing. If we enact another major two or two, I'll probably be contacted about it. If I'm willing to do it."
Kyle nods at that. "I mean it makes sense." At least in as much as he's keeping up with things and this life that Philip has lived. "You can't risk changing things with a life that shouldn't be there," he says with a nod.
"I was going to say," he whispers. "They can really do that? We have that technology?" He shakes his head, a doctor just trying to imagine what that's like and all it means. "If they can do all that, do you think it's possible they could find you here? Even if they haven't yet?"
He can't help but wonder, not that he would mention that to Alex or Tim who might want to know of a possible way to get out of here.
Philip goes quiet for that. "I don't know. I don't understand enough about the way this place interacts with time and space and normal quantum physics to begin to guess. I... someone suggested that we go back, to the exact same moment, never missed. There might be no one looking because they haven't moved past the moment we vanished."
Kyle frowns at that, shifting on the sand and trying to make sense of that. "Wait, really? Huh. No one has said anything like that to me," he admits, not liking how that sounds. "How? How is that even possible?"
Because if anyone might know, he suspects it would be Philip. Maybe?
Philip can explain... with a bit of effort. "Okay... So time/space is a continuum. Imagine that..." He draws a little circle on the sand. "That is 'space', the physical occupation of mass inside the universe. And these..."
He draws some lines radiating off it. "These are time lines. This is very, very simplistic, but run with it." He draws a square in between some lines, not touching any. "This is Duplicity, if we're right and it's a pocket dimension. It has nothing to do with any timeline, time runs at its own place. So you can be taken from here." He points at a place on the line. "Into the square. And back again. Make sense?"
Kyle listening, watching the diagram. He nods though because he can understand that, nodding. "Okay. I get that. It's creepier than I thought it was, but now it really..." He sighs, biting at his lips before nodding again.
"Yeah, it makes sense. So eventually you'll just go back to your program, and I'll go back to Roswell and..." He cranes his head, looking back at the house. "You seem to be my resident expert on this. "What would happen if you took someone from a different timeline from your own and took them back to your own timeline? Would it be like you going back and so long as you didn't do anything major it wouldn't screw things up?"
"This is all under the assumption that this is a pocket reality. I can't prove that. I don't know if this theory is right." Without some kind of quantum engine or frame, he couldn't really find out.
And then that.
And that... is a horrifying thought. "That- I don't even know. It could wipe out both realities entirely. Maybe it would do nothing. I can't even begin to wrap my mind on that."
Kyle hates how it makes him hopeful, to think that maybe there is a way for them to stay together, to be happy together. And then there's Philip's reaction to it.
"Oh. Uhmmm, well then," he says, nodding as his expression goes hollow, looking back to the ocean again. "I hadn't even thought about that and... well."
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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"It felt only... right. Once I realised I could talk about it, I wanted you to know." He glances at Kyle and smiles slightly. "You should be kinder about your own body. Don't think I missed your comment about your diet."
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He's been there for Philip since the first days he arrived and he would continue to be.
He laughs though at that, patting his stomach. "Have you seen these abs? Do you think that doesn't come without hard works?"
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"It's a body the represents the only time I get with someone I love. I will age and one day leave him while he won't age a day. I want to keep it as healthy and strong as I can to be with him as long as I can," he says softly, shrugging.
"I used to do it just to polish it for show but now I have a reason to work hard on it."
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"Trevor's host was young and an athlete. Active. And 0115 loves it. He goes for runs and exercises... he's trying to convince me to join in. My host is a bit..." He shrugs. "Drug addiction isn't that healthy a lifestyle."
no subject
Kyle has leapt in with both feet in having a life here and he knows that it's because he fears losing these things when he has to go back home. If he ever has to go.
"How do they pick the hosts? I mean, is there a reason for them?"
no subject
"Variety of factors. They try to have a team arrive within a day or two period, usually about forty eight hours. So, you need to find people who will die in the same forty eight hour period, of a death that can be prevented by the intervention of the traveler arriving or another traveler, who are physically able to do the role required of them. Mac, our team leader, arrived the day after the rest of us. Partly, because suitable candidate. His host is an FBI agent. And in part because he needed intervention to save his life. He fell down an empty elevator shaft. We were there to pull him out and back. Then 3468 arrived shortly after." Whereas 3326 only had to not put the needle in his arm. 0115 conceded the cage match before the fatal blow to the head.
He looks at the ocean again. "The big thing is, we all arrive moments before death. We only take hosts from those who are about to be lost to time."
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That much makes sense.
"Do you know what it was you were going to try and change for the future? If you don't want to talk about it, you don't have to."
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Philip taps his head. "I have nearly the entirety of human history uploaded in here. There were smaller things along the way but the big mission we had been working on was an asteroid impact. It would trigger the events that led to the global collapse. We managed to avert it but we were waiting to hear from the Director what new changes it brought."
He shifts on the sand. "Historians... sometimes we get updated. It's dangerous. Really dangerous. Sometimes it kills us. But we get updated with the new timeline, new information, changes since we landed in the twenty first. It causes some pretty serious side effects. It's a last resort sort of thing. If we enact another major two or two, I'll probably be contacted about it. If I'm willing to do it."
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"I was going to say," he whispers. "They can really do that? We have that technology?" He shakes his head, a doctor just trying to imagine what that's like and all it means. "If they can do all that, do you think it's possible they could find you here? Even if they haven't yet?"
He can't help but wonder, not that he would mention that to Alex or Tim who might want to know of a possible way to get out of here.
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Philip goes quiet for that. "I don't know. I don't understand enough about the way this place interacts with time and space and normal quantum physics to begin to guess. I... someone suggested that we go back, to the exact same moment, never missed. There might be no one looking because they haven't moved past the moment we vanished."
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Because if anyone might know, he suspects it would be Philip. Maybe?
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He draws some lines radiating off it. "These are time lines. This is very, very simplistic, but run with it." He draws a square in between some lines, not touching any. "This is Duplicity, if we're right and it's a pocket dimension. It has nothing to do with any timeline, time runs at its own place. So you can be taken from here." He points at a place on the line. "Into the square. And back again. Make sense?"
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"Yeah, it makes sense. So eventually you'll just go back to your program, and I'll go back to Roswell and..." He cranes his head, looking back at the house. "You seem to be my resident expert on this. "What would happen if you took someone from a different timeline from your own and took them back to your own timeline? Would it be like you going back and so long as you didn't do anything major it wouldn't screw things up?"
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And then that.
And that... is a horrifying thought. "That- I don't even know. It could wipe out both realities entirely. Maybe it would do nothing. I can't even begin to wrap my mind on that."
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"Oh. Uhmmm, well then," he says, nodding as his expression goes hollow, looking back to the ocean again. "I hadn't even thought about that and... well."