when and what and why and--

[unriddling]

When was the last time he ate? Two days ago? No, yesterday, he choked down a granola bar he'd found buried beneath some paperwork. Stale, perhaps, but enough to keep him going. He hasn't slept in more than that, but the science building has copious amounts of coffee even for Gotham University standards.

The demonstration is in four days. 

Edward's done all he can. Julie too, though she's spent more time in the wheres and whens over the whys and hows. That's entirely his job. And he's done well, as always.

Nonetheless, he hasn't gone back to his room except to shower, double- and triple-checking his bio-harddrives.

That's what he's doing now, hunched over the lab table and going over the circuitry in front of him, then shutting his eyes to do it again, in his head.

They're fine. (He's fine.)



Of course they are. He's done something everyone called beyond impossible. His work is perfect, and it's performed perfectly for months. This is only the confirmation. 

It's fine. It's perfect. All of it. From function to design to size.

...He keeps telling himself this, over and over, until the litany turns into disconnected noises inside his brain. The coffee's gone cold on the counter beside him. His bio-harddrive slides to the cool table below. 

And Edward Nygma isn't awake to notice the world shifting around him.







Now there's a man in a labcoat with his face resting among the ballroom's cakes. Maybe someone should wake him before he moves his head and gets frosting in his hair?

Comments

an unceremonious return because SOMEbody needs to pester this dork

[buttercup_eater]

Chara wakes up groggy and hungry and generally feeling awful, but this isn't unusual enough to really bother them. But it does mean they need to get breakfast, so like any unsupervised kid would they drag themselves out of their blankets and creep to the room full of free cake.

They almost don't notice Edward at first, not with his face to the table like that. It's enough to make them pause partway through a brownie and consider leaving but... they're really hungry and he doesn't seem to have noticed them yet, and curiosity is currently a stronger force than caution. Enough so that, after a few minutes they go from lingering at the other end of the table to poking his face with the side of a book from their inventory, thoughtfully chewing a cupcake while they examine his reaction.

prepare for Jumpy Disaster

[unriddling]

He's had a long few days. The book alone rouses him just enough to try brushing it away, as if it's his own hair against his face.

Only then, on the way down, his hand plants directly into a slice of cake.



Edward bolts upright with a shout, then freezes completely. The surrounding room is so completely different from what he fell asleep to, even his sharp mind can't process it at once. Blanket beneath his elbows--no, tablecloth, ceiling a hundred feet high, miles of food (on his hand too?), a person.

A person. Edward twitches away, eyes fixing on them.

how does Jumpy Disaster feel about Creepy Disaster Children

[buttercup_eater]

Chara bites back a giggle at how the stranger tries to push away the book, and winds up squishing a cake instead. Less amusing is the shouting, but they take a few hasty steps back and blink at him until he settles down.

(The first thing Edward might notice is how much smaller Chara is compared to him, or even an average adult. The shabby sweater and the smear of icing on their cheek from a cupcake currently clutched half-eaten in one hand are also noticeable. The red eyes, slightly less so, thanks to their overgrown bangs.)

"Greetings," they say in a monotonous voice. "Were you having sweet dreams?"

learning experience ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[unriddling]

Person. A child. He takes in the details he finds relevant--mainly the food. No, that's his body betraying his mind. The eyes stand out even partially hidden, if only for the fact he's yet to meet an albino.

The visual details of them don't matter. What they have to say matters. No, what they have to answer is what matters.



"I wasn't--" No, it seems he was. Some idiot frats might've carried him out, despite the fact they should know better. But how long did he actually end up out? He needs to find a computer, a newspaper, something with a date. He might've slept an entire day away.

Edward twists out of his chair and stands, towering. "Where am I?"

[buttercup_eater]

Towering- but so many people do and this stranger seems more confused than wrathful right now. "You are currently in the ballroom," Chara says, helpfully. "By the way. You might want to be careful where you stick your hands."

They pause, take a bite out of their cupcake, chew it for a few moments, and swallow, all before clarifying: "You can sometimes find sharp things in the food."

[unriddling]

Edward almost wipes the frosting (pink and white) against his lab coat, changing his mind and wiping it off on the tablecloth instead.



"Sorry, but I made no plans to visit the concert hall this week," he says, trying to sound dry and ending closer to 'strained'. This obviously isn't the massive one he knows, but it's the one experience he has with such a thing.

He knows things about children, or at least their brains and ways how they differ from adults', but in practice his knowledge is limited. They tend to be obnoxious and loud when it's most inconvenient, they can learn certain things more quickly than adults but fail to put that information to use, and they're often nastier than adults around them want to think. Most of these he knows from when he was young. The university tends to be low on them, aside from the occasional young mother that bring toddlers around when they can't find sitters for a class or two.

Sharp eyes slip to the surrounding cakes, and then back to the child. "You're risking your own mouth, then." He doesn't quite believe them.

[buttercup_eater]

"Your apology is accepted," Chara says, innocent as can be, before stuffing the last into their mouth. They finish it off quickly and absently wipe their frosting on their cheek off on the back of their hand, then onto their pants.

"I was hungry," they say with a shrug. That, and they already poked around in the cupcake before eating it. They're sharp enough to catch that skepticism but can brush it off. Not their problem if he doesn't believe them.

[unriddling]

"Being clever, are we?" He looks at them again, already knowing he won't find anything useful. The sweater is too threadbare to indicate they're from some wealthy chunk of mob.

His stomach sends him a pang. He ignores it and turns away.

"Why am I here?" Edward's sure he won't get a useful answer, but even scraps of information might be helpful later. He has to get back to campus.

[buttercup_eater]

"Would you prefer me to play dumb?" Human grownups don't seem to like it when they're being smart after all.

They shrug, again. "I don't know. When I came in, there you were." They think for a moment, and decide to stop beating around the bush. "Is this your first time in the ballroom? Or are you new to the castle all in all?"

[unriddling]

Where the kid can't see, Edward's mouth thins into a line. It wasn't that long ago he was talking to Julie about the truth, the past, his father, and perhaps that's why it rises into his head so easily.

"No, I wouldn't. But I'd prefer..." a riddle, really. Something hinting at what he wants, leaving him to untangle it. But even with their clever answer, that isn't the kind that gives anything useful, and he's sure this is beyond their abilities. "...an actual answer, for now."

And he gets one. When he looks around and down at them again, his forehead is pinched.

"I've never been here before. Do you know who owns this...castle?" He's guessing it's more of a mansion.

The demonstration is going to be inside one, his thoughts remind him, and he glances around for a door.

[buttercup_eater]

An actual answer? Chara considers the idea while waiting for him to turn around.

"A variety of people live here. But nobody owns it. It seems to be very old, and abandoned, in some parts. If anyone did, they're long gone," they speak haltingly, partly out of habit but also gauging how Edward reacts as they explain. "Nowadays, it seems as though the castle owns itself."

(His forehead is pinched, and so appears to be the rest of him. It's as if someone took a more normally proportioned human man, took either end between their fingertips and stretched it all out like putty.)

"Were you hoping to leave?"

[unriddling]

Edward listens carefully, though his face slides further into a scowl by 'abandoned'. Altogether it isn't much information, but it still galls him that it doesn't ring any bells. He knows of Gotham's abandoned places, from warehouses to Cobblepot Manor, and none of it matches with this massive ballroom.

"I have to," he answers immediately, putting a hand to his chest and just as quickly arcing it towards the doors. "I have a demonstration soon, and I still have to finish preparing for it." He didn't, before, but for all he knows whoever kidnapped him did something to his invention.

...Is this Gorman's work? Getting him out of the way? Edward bites his lip in thought. He does seem like the type to play dirty, though he'd expect a watery grave than a musty abandoned prison.

[buttercup_eater]

This person sure is unhappy! It's a shame, Chara thinks, that they're the ones stuck with this conversation. They could try to placate him more, the way they assume Frisk would, but they don't really want to no matter how much more sensible it would be.

Speaking of which:

"You probably won't make it," they say, simply. "A demonstration for what?"

[unriddling]

The thought alone plunges a knife through his chest. But he's speaking to a child, and children have far more limits than the usual adults, let alone one as sharp as him. "Hell or high water, I'm going to make it," he says firmly.

And--ah, that's a question. He shifts into a shaky grin.



"My invention, the bio-harddrive. A disc that'll change the way people think! Can't remember a phone number? Boom!" Edward flashes his hand next to his face. "More memory. Having trouble with homework? Boom! More power to process it."

He's obviously been kidnapped for this tech, though that only mildly tempers his excitement explaining it. Even to a child.

suicide tw

[buttercup_eater]

"Neither of those are exactly the problem," Chara says. "But. You may as well hold onto your determination." They haven't really tried to leave the way others have (passive suicide attempts aren't exactly the same thing, they think) so who knows, maybe he just needs to ~try harder than everyone else!~

They listen to his explanation, with an air that's at least polite, if not especially enthusiastic. They can tell from the way he talks about it and from thinking about it logically that it's very impressive, but if they were to try and change the way people think, Chara feels like overall intelligence wouldn't be near the top of their priority list.

They're still hungry so they partly turn their attentions back to the desert table and begin pulling apart a cake with their free hand for stray jewelry, though they also resume talking as they do. "So. It's like the operation from Flowers for Algernon?" That ended rather badly, as Chara recalls. "How do you use it? Most people don't come with CD drives."

They pull a small, jeweled brooch out of the cake, brush some crumbs off, and slip it into their pants pocket.

time to bullshit some comic book science

[unriddling]

Edward's had to explain this to plenty of people (professors, fellow scientists) enough he rattles it off as if by rote.



"No, not like that--it's not an operation at all. Entirely external, the disc is a patch that's placed on the forehead. It uses electronic pulses," Edward presses a finger to his temple, tapping along with every two words, "to assist in storing and recalling information, and the majority of it stays on the drive instead of overflowing the average human brain. The only side-effect is increased perception of concepts for a few minutes after removal, which is easy enough to negate outside of extreme sources of stimulation. In other words, don't use it at your next rock concert or the circus unless you'd like a nasty headache."

Edward pauses, finger shifting from head to tapping at his lips, changing gears from excited to just on the edge of flat in an instant. "That is quite a sharp thing." It's an observation, not admitting to anything. He didn't say he didn't believe what the child told him before.

[buttercup_eater]

This person certainly gestures a lot, especially when he's excited. Chara listens to him with much more reserved body language, and imagines a CD stitched into somebody's forehead. They suspect that's not actually how it's attached. Unless this person is some sort of mad scientist. He does have a bit of that air, now that they think about it.

"It would make a lousy weapon. And an even worse snack." Unlike the cake itself which, having investigated it, Chara is now contentedly eating with their bare hands. (A bit reminiscent of a joke, isn't it?)

A thought occurs to them and in between swallows- they're at least polite enough not to talk with their mouth full- they ask, "So. Besides the overstimulation. Does the information stay on the drive after you take it off? If so, could you share a memory by attaching it to a second person?"

[unriddling]

That nets them a small chuckle, surprised and unmocking, though his forehead pinches again. "And do we know why the baker is sabotaging their work?"

...Now he's curious. One lanky-legged step back to the table to reach for a fork, as he doesn't need to get more frosting on himself, and he starts jabbing the prongs into the first cake that looks appealing. (In other words, one with mainly green frosting.)

"Very little, once it's removed. The key to it all is the individual's brain, and the smallest difference between one and another would render any potential absorption of what is left next to impossible, though a different person could use it just as well as the first for their own separate reasons. But once it's taken off, many of the facts that were there are harder to recall--stored in the subconscious. There are different levels of how much it's necessary to continue wearing--tiny details such as an address or a phone number or a shopping list would be easy for the brain to save, with the harddrive merely keeping it more prominent once removed. For a bigger example, if you decided to read, say, a particularly wordy book on baking..." Edward points oddly, three fingers on his free hand, at them, at their meal, at the surrounding cakes. "...with hundreds of recipes and thousands of ingredients, my harddrive would let you read it all in seconds and access every individual recipe and step as soon as you thought about them! But once removed, most of it would fade. It's an advanced fact filter--it would overwhelm if every detail was as easy to find as it was while wearing it. Photographic memory is supposed to be a curse, and it absolutely would be. Yet once you put it back on, you have nearly as much access to everything you absorbed before--most of it's still there, in your head, just placed where it isn't needed.

"But not every single thing. Memory is discarded easily enough for our brains to cope in general." And doesn't that gall him. He'd prefer it if his invention was absolutely perfect, but he's settled for 'utterly amazing' after much stress and peer compliments instead. "If it's being used in a scientific setting, it would be used to absorb incredibly dry details from texts with volumes and pages that go into the quintuple digits. And in that case, it would be better not to remove it at all; not until everything important has been done with your experiment or theory. It was made to be worn for hours at a time if necessary, though it shouldn't have to be."

Edward may have strayed from the subject somewhat.

[buttercup_eater]

They have to suppress the pang of gratification at that chuckle. Not enough people appreciate their sense of humor!

"For the aesthetic?" they suggest. Choking hazards in the pastries, a cage in the candy room, sweet little birds singing about murder and cannibalism- the castle seems to have a thing for the macabre. (Another example: Chara being There.)

Chara eats and half-listens as Edward goes into detail on his bio-harddrive. "So it's more of a stimulator than a storage space?" they say. "Did it take long to make?"

[unriddling]

"Something sweet hiding dangerous beauty--that doesn't sound wrong. If the baker had more sense than style, there'd be poison or needles instead. But! That still doesn't get to the root of it. Any ideas on who that baker would be? I'd like to investigate, if I have the time." He likely--hopefully--won't, but sometimes waiting is all you can do when things need to slot into place.

As he speaks, he hooks a a emerald-and-sapphire bracelet and lets it hang. Less dangerous by lack of points, yet still rather dangerous for the molars. He wipes it on the opulent tablecloth as well before tossing it from the fork to his other hand, almost absentmindedly.

Edward is silent a moment, playing with the gems (if they're real, he's playing with thousands of dollars). The answer itself is simple; the fact that they're asking more intelligent questions than the curious investors he's fended off is more worthy of attention, though he says nothing on this quite yet.

"You could say that. It functions as both, and there are upgrades already in the works." He grins at them, a little too wide and crooked to be real. "Once I had the supplies, we had a working prototype within two weeks. It took not quite a year before the current, completely functional item. Most of the delay were thanks to rules, regulations--red tape I didn't need." And that was hell. Knowing exactly what he needed and could do and being held back from doing it, not even being able to slip behind the scenes to keep from drawing suspicion. (Just because Edward knows how necessary waiting can be doesn't mean he enjoys it.)

[buttercup_eater]

"Not a clue. This is just one of the castle's functions that runs itself. Or reruns itself," they say, and without missing a beat they add, "Were you hoping to give the baker Fun Murder Tips?"

They glance at the bracelet, briefly, when Edward removes it from the cake, but don't pay it any more attention. Finder's keepers, and they're too used to this sort of thing by now. At this point, the food is still more interesting, though Chara's eating has slowed a little.

They know next to nothing about the kind of paperwork that goes into this kind of thing, but they supposes that kind of delay would make sense. "Most people don't like it when you mess with their minds," they say. "Regardless of your intentions."

[unriddling]

"Oh, no. If they're not smart enough to choose something functional, it's far from my job to assist," Edward replies. (Says the man obsessed with complex traps.) It's, of course, a joke. He doesn't want children being poisoned or the like, though it's also not quite his job to go find it out. This child's smart enough not to fall for it. Unless it's a trick fallen for before, of course. Smart enough to fish out the pieces, if not smart enough to hunt down the source.

Another flick of the wrist; another pass of the jewelry. He doesn't like this. This place, those memories, layers of stress triple the heights of the largest cake in the room.

Edward shakes his head, lip curling for a total shift to disgust. "No-one is going to be forced to wear it. Besides, I don't want people paranoid about its' functions getting their hands on my invention in the first place."