or "Meme Sixteen"
(Content Warning: Language, Inclusion of Crowds, This Awful Fucking Timeline)
Xephyl'Zorp navigated the throbbing mass of humanity as best he could. Face after blurry face came suddenly into view and faded more quickly than he could put description to the features he saw. One thing was the same in every face he came across, however. Their eyes. Their eyes were filled with a manic light, more present and focused that it seemed possible to be, literally living in the space of every single new moment. Bodies jostled him from every angle, head to toe, and he made more contact with pliant flesh and bony protrusions than he had ever wanted to. The contact had a numbing, desensitizing effect on him after a few minutes and there almost seemed to be a natural current that flowed through the humans.
He focused on that. The current. The natural subconscious eddies that swirled around them and through them, passing from one person to the next more swiftly than the chill winter wind that filled the famous Times Square and hurled confetti about with much more abandon. The collective consciousness of Humanity, their psychic resonance in toto, was (to put it perhaps at the most mild) a powerful force. It had the capability to reshape reality itself if harnessed, if focused, strongly enough. It wasn't a force of nature. It was Nature. The very essence of it, Creation and Destruction balanced in a dangerous existential dance.
And tonight, it was focused on one thing. That ball. 2016, gone forever. The humans danced and stomped, clapped and screamed, and frantically wished with all their collective might for 2016 to get behind them. Xeph allowed the currents to carry him through the crowd. It was a dangerous line for him to walk. As a psychic time agent, he could feel all the forces at play. The Human Resonance was like a siren's song and the heartbeat of time pounded away beneath it like waves crashing against a ship. He had to follow it, take advantage of it, but beware losing himself in it.
Finally, he came close to the ball and fell from the crowd past a police line. They didn't even seem to notice him as he picked himself up and dusted his suit off. There, at the center of the ball, a rift was beginning to form. As his attention focused upon it, everything shifted. His head spun as he developed a severe case of double vision. Everything seemed to expand. It took him a moment to wrap his head around what he was seeing. Not double vision. No, two versions of 2016. One of the doubles had subtly different movements. Less manic, somehow.
And something was wrong with the music. Xeph cast about for the stage nearby and winced as he caught Mariah dropping the ball a full fifteen minutes early. But on the other side of the stage stood Prince himself, giving a magnificent performance. The rift grew larger by the second as the time agent ogled the dualistic trainwreck up on stage and the space between the two realities expanded again. It gave him an unnerving sensation of vertigo and he refocused on his task.
He knew he couldn't just allow the perfect reality to fully form and overwrite history. The inconsistency rating would be too high. Folks would start to question the nature of reality. And not in that delightful first year of college philosophy class kind of way but in the kind of way that would cause an outbreak of splinter realities. And that was a mess Xephyl did not want to clean up. On the other hand, the Humans of the Dumpsterfire Reality were almost united in purpose, becoming a monstrously potent psychic gestalt.
Xeph knew what he had to do. He needed to displace the Humans from each realm into the other. The Collective would have no worldly energy on which to draw and the confusion of the suddenly conflicting memories would cause them to lose focus. The psychic becoming would fail and that reality would fade from existence and the true timeline. The memories of the Satisfied would be altered too but they would simply chalk it up to feel good cheer and alcohol. Their gestalt would still be operating but at a much lower level, enough to autocorrect wild inconsistencies but not enough to trigger another event. Xeph wished he could get around the autocorrection. It was against the Chronolaws and he didn't have the personal power to override such a powerful psychic presence anyway, but if he could, there were definitely a few people he'd like to save from the good reality and a few he'd love to forget from the bad.
C'est la vie, he thought as he positioned himself directly under the ball. 2017 was moments away and he had little time for wishing.
(Content Warning: Language, Inclusion of Crowds, This Awful Fucking Timeline)
Xephyl'Zorp navigated the throbbing mass of humanity as best he could. Face after blurry face came suddenly into view and faded more quickly than he could put description to the features he saw. One thing was the same in every face he came across, however. Their eyes. Their eyes were filled with a manic light, more present and focused that it seemed possible to be, literally living in the space of every single new moment. Bodies jostled him from every angle, head to toe, and he made more contact with pliant flesh and bony protrusions than he had ever wanted to. The contact had a numbing, desensitizing effect on him after a few minutes and there almost seemed to be a natural current that flowed through the humans.
He focused on that. The current. The natural subconscious eddies that swirled around them and through them, passing from one person to the next more swiftly than the chill winter wind that filled the famous Times Square and hurled confetti about with much more abandon. The collective consciousness of Humanity, their psychic resonance in toto, was (to put it perhaps at the most mild) a powerful force. It had the capability to reshape reality itself if harnessed, if focused, strongly enough. It wasn't a force of nature. It was Nature. The very essence of it, Creation and Destruction balanced in a dangerous existential dance.
And tonight, it was focused on one thing. That ball. 2016, gone forever. The humans danced and stomped, clapped and screamed, and frantically wished with all their collective might for 2016 to get behind them. Xeph allowed the currents to carry him through the crowd. It was a dangerous line for him to walk. As a psychic time agent, he could feel all the forces at play. The Human Resonance was like a siren's song and the heartbeat of time pounded away beneath it like waves crashing against a ship. He had to follow it, take advantage of it, but beware losing himself in it.
Finally, he came close to the ball and fell from the crowd past a police line. They didn't even seem to notice him as he picked himself up and dusted his suit off. There, at the center of the ball, a rift was beginning to form. As his attention focused upon it, everything shifted. His head spun as he developed a severe case of double vision. Everything seemed to expand. It took him a moment to wrap his head around what he was seeing. Not double vision. No, two versions of 2016. One of the doubles had subtly different movements. Less manic, somehow.
And something was wrong with the music. Xeph cast about for the stage nearby and winced as he caught Mariah dropping the ball a full fifteen minutes early. But on the other side of the stage stood Prince himself, giving a magnificent performance. The rift grew larger by the second as the time agent ogled the dualistic trainwreck up on stage and the space between the two realities expanded again. It gave him an unnerving sensation of vertigo and he refocused on his task.
He knew he couldn't just allow the perfect reality to fully form and overwrite history. The inconsistency rating would be too high. Folks would start to question the nature of reality. And not in that delightful first year of college philosophy class kind of way but in the kind of way that would cause an outbreak of splinter realities. And that was a mess Xephyl did not want to clean up. On the other hand, the Humans of the Dumpsterfire Reality were almost united in purpose, becoming a monstrously potent psychic gestalt.
Xeph knew what he had to do. He needed to displace the Humans from each realm into the other. The Collective would have no worldly energy on which to draw and the confusion of the suddenly conflicting memories would cause them to lose focus. The psychic becoming would fail and that reality would fade from existence and the true timeline. The memories of the Satisfied would be altered too but they would simply chalk it up to feel good cheer and alcohol. Their gestalt would still be operating but at a much lower level, enough to autocorrect wild inconsistencies but not enough to trigger another event. Xeph wished he could get around the autocorrection. It was against the Chronolaws and he didn't have the personal power to override such a powerful psychic presence anyway, but if he could, there were definitely a few people he'd like to save from the good reality and a few he'd love to forget from the bad.
C'est la vie, he thought as he positioned himself directly under the ball. 2017 was moments away and he had little time for wishing.