xp_logs | 14 & MA - Truth Is A Process (Backdated to Nov 17th)

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Two can keep a secret if one of them is dead, and 14 doubts that either she or Emma will be dying any time soon, so... she has a phone call to make.

The sound of a vibrating phone broke the comfortable silence. 14 looked over from where she'd been sitting, watching the small thing vibrate against the table.

This was almost definitely going to suck.

Still, there wasn't any point in putting it off any longer. She'd been pushing it back too far as it was already.

She answered. "Good evening."

Marie-Ange's pause must have felt like forever, because she heard the small noise of frustration, or what might have been concern in anyone else. "My apologies. I thought I was calling Celeste, but... is this Sophie? I think I have your numbers mixed in my contact list. Again."

"No, it's Celeste." She paused. "Actually, well, yes, it is, but no. But yes, this is Celeste." Aaaaand she was rambling. Again. If there was anything she'd learned from her... 'talk' with Doug, it was that what she was going to explain was hard to put into words. She'd hoped that her second attempt would have gone smoother than the first. So far, that wasn't really the case.

"...I'm starting over. Hello, Marie-Ange. There is something important that you should know."

"Are you pregnant?" Marie-Ange asked, very slowly. "I am not telling Emma if you are pregnant."

There was a long, long pause on the other end of the phone. "...okay," Celeste said. She wasn't even angry, or confused. More just a sort of smoldering amusement that was clearly evident in her voice. "I can almost see why that is where your mind went to first. Almost."

"Out of curiosity," she asked, "Who on earth would have been the father?"

The answer was a chuckle that went slightly distant sounding. "I have no idea." Marie-Ange finally answered, voice distant in the way of speaker phone. "You are one of the few people, you and all your sisters, that I cannot see much for. I have had one whole successful reading for you and that is before I even knew you. Everything else is... I would say confusing but confusing would have to do a lot of work. I get playing cards for you sometimes."

"Ace of diamonds, I am guessing?" You weren't friends with Marie-Ange without picking up at least a few of the weird details that her powers worked on.

"Most of the entire suit. Ace through five, usually, but not always." On the other end of the line, Marie-Ange flipped one-handed through a tarot deck. "I have notes at home, but. Well. Today you are." She let a card fall onto her hotel bed. "Ah. High Pritestess, reversed. That tells me nothing, I already know you need to tell me something."

"Right, I'm getting distracted." She didn't want to do this. She needed to do this, but that didn't exactly make it any more in her comfort zone. "Emma and Doug both know at this point, so I figure that it is unlikely you won't learn in the next few weeks. And I should be the one to tell you myself, so here we are."

She took a breath. Right. Time for the hard part.

"I would be willing to bet money the reason you have such a hard time trying to read for my sisters and I is that there... well, there's not an 'us'. Just a 'me'. I do not actually have any sisters. We are all the same person."

Over the phone, Fourteen could hear the sound of something hitting the ground, and then a muttered word that had to be profanity, even if it was in a language she did not speak, but the profanity of extreme confusion and one Fourteen had just heard from the mouth of Doug Ramsey.

It took several seconds of noises before she heard Marie-Ange again. "I. I am sorry, what? You are one person? How. When. Have you always been one person?"

"Surprise?" 14 asked, sounding as sheepish as she felt. At least Marie-Ange was asking questions. That meant she hadn't broken her too badly.

There was a quiet pause, as Marie-Ange was apparently waiting for the actual answers to her confused questions. 14 sighed into the phone. "There was supposed to have been five of us, from what I could tell from the scientists back... before. The idea was five, at least to start. But... there was only ever me, no matter how many clones they woke up. And I've been me ever since."

"You have been successfully pretending to be five different people for years, and not a single one of us even suspected." Marie-Ange said. It was not a question, it was a statement, and she sounded impressed. "One moment, I need to go throw a pack of cards off a balcony." Fourteen could clearly hear the sounds of a window opening over the speakerphone, and then an exclaimed "Useless!" in French.

"Thankfully, not a custom pack."

"To be fair," 14 defended with a smile, "I have had many, many years of practice. I would have been more impressed if anyone had figured it out, honestly."

"I have a sketch of you piloting Volton that makes so much more sense now." Marie-Ange said. "Well, one of you. Are your bodies... separate? You have.. your Phoebe.. body? That appears slightly different." There was another pause, and then a click as the room's noises faded out. "Pardon, I am switching to my headset. I am going to pour a very large glass of wine. I have an enormous numbers of questions. One of your bodies is an athlete, was that by design? Do you use singular pronouns? Is one of your bodies, ah, dominant, like having a dominant hand for writing? Does medical know yet?"

"Of course they do not," 14 scoffed. "I see to my own medical needs. As for Phoebe... it's complicated." Celeste stood, and began walking through the room. "Calling it 'design' is giving the scientists too much credit," she muttered with no small amount of scorn. "If you recall, when I first arrived you helped set me up with my prescription medication, despite my apparent lack of any medical need for it, right? Well, the side-effects of the ones Phoebe takes basically left me feeling like she was wired on caffeine all the time, and I needed to channel that extra energy somewhere. Sports just wound up being the most... efficient."

The hands-free headset cut out all the sounds of the room, and most of the city outside Marie-Ange's hotel room balcony, but had the side-effect of making it quite clear that she was taking a long drink from her glass. "I assumed you all were medicating to manage trauma, or some kind of powers issue. This is something that was done to you, the different medications?"

...was it something that had been done to her? She supposed it was, actually. She hadn't ever stopped to think about it that way, but... a lot of what she did was a hold-over from things that had been done to her, rather than choices she'd made. She'd owned them and made them her own, but... she would have a lot to think about after this call was over.

"Technically?" She hedged, because she didn't have a good answer to that question herself. "It is a bit more complicated than that, though. The easiest way to explain it would be... call it a power interaction, I suppose?"

14 did her best to explain. About how her actual power was basic surface-level telepathy, and how the prescription drugs that started as an experiment led to her powers mutating into other, more interesting and useful abilities, and how they would revert after enough time without her medication.

She left out many of the other key details. They... weren't really relevant, at the moment, after all.

"...and that is basically how it works."

"Our visitors, the twins who spoke together, they had the same powers? One person in two bodies?" Marie-Ange let the medical information settle in the back of her brain - it was ringing annoyingly familiar, in a way she could not put her finger on and would need to research later, discreetly. "But not the medication issue. They had the same powers as Emma. This all makes a very irritating amount of sense, and you and I are going to need to sit down with my tarot cards once I am home."

"To be quite honest, I did not bother to check.... please do not tell Emma, but part of the reason I was able to begin to try and forgive her was that the twins' existence was... uncomfortable to me. I currently have no plans for either children or a significant other, and in turn it led to me not prying as deeply as I might have otherwise." 14 crossed an arm across her body, grabbing onto her other elbow. "I still distinctly remember the feeling of accidentally dragging Emma into my own network, and figured a possible replay of the event was sufficient motivation to not take that chance."

"I do have to admit, though," she said with a noticeable uplilt in her voice, "that I did not expect watching the pieces click into place for the others would be as amusing to me as it has turned out to be."

"Well." Marie-Ange said, dragging the word out slightly. "Then I suppose it will be very amusing when you tell the doctors. Because you are overdue for that, and if you are sharing this secret, I do not want to be the one to have to tell Doctor Grey that you are a gestalt mind when one of you has a concussion."

"You do realize that I have been handling such things for years, yes? As long as all five of me is not incapacitated at once, I will always have the capability to care for myself." She knew she was loudly broadcasting do not want with her assertion. If she wasn't so far off her game already she knew she'd probably care, but no definitely not.

"If you do not tell them, I am going to. If all five of you are incapacitated, or you wake up confused, or are drugged, someone needs to know how you function." Marie-Ange's voice was hard - maybe more than Fourteen had ever heard. "It does not have to be today, but at least one of the medical team needs to know."

...14 hated how much sense that made. It hadn't been an issue in her past something-teen years of life, and she did always keep at least one body in reserve specifically to avoid that exact situation. But the reasoning was solid, and 14 recognized that look on Marie-Ange's face.

"You aren't going to let this go, are you?" She sighed. "Fine. I will let someone know, but only once I am comfortable with more people knowing. This is a secret I've kept my entire life. Telling you is hard for me, and you are quite literally one of the closest friends I have made since my arrival. This is hardly something that comes easy for me."

"Of course." Marie-Ange agreed. "As I said, not today. Find your feet. It would be unreasonable to expect you to have this revealed... I am assuming to Emma, and then jump to throwing yourself some sort of... " The slightest, quietest, guiltiest laugh came through the phone. "reveal party. Though if you want one, I can recommend a party planner."

14 actually laughed. It was brittle, but it was there. "You are an evil woman. Gods no. Absolutely not."

"If you are certain." Marie-Ange said, affecting a voice of skepticism. "But imagine the cakes. Five giant cakes, full of diamond shaped glitter confetti." She waited for the noise of sheer disgust to come over the phone and then laughed. "Quite seriously, I am flying back tomorrow, and I very much appreciate that you trusted me enough to tell me this, but I think perhaps the rest should be said in person? "

"As much as I'd rather not stretch this out much further, I'm afraid you're probably correct. We could do lunch?"

"I am only paying for one of you." Marie-Ange said. "But of course, lunch would be perfect."