madimpossibledreamer (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
madimpossibledreamer) wrote2017-08-22 11:09 pm
madimpossibledreamer) wrote2017-08-22 11:09 pm
Entry tags:
Secret Time Traveler
Main Points:
Steins;Gate Universe Optional (tho probably after Breakdown)
Chapter Summary: Okabe's self-imposed deadline has come to tell the Lab Mems about the misdeeds of Hououin Kyouma.
Word Count: 3737
Rating: gen
Note: (kind of a character study of how Okabe would deal with summarizing everything for everyone, so it's more of a character study hidden within a party)
For whatever reason, Okabe was oddly smiley about that name, but when pressed, he’d only said in that smug, teasing voice that made her want to hit him, “…Come now, you think I would reveal my secrets? Imagine if the Organization stumbled on the secret to my success! They’d conquer the world in two minutes flat! Banish the thought from your mind, woman!”
And then Mayuri hit him lightly, giggling, and he’d taken the abuse with merely a smile.
Unfortunately, this time the part-timer couldn’t make it.
Now, though—
“We should play Two Truths and a Lie!” Daru suggests. His wife immediately agrees with the suggestion.
Okabe responds with a quickly concealed grimace. “Maybe I’ll stay out—”
It’s that which decides her response. “I think it’s a great idea. What’s the matter, Okabe, can’t tell your delusions from reality?”
“Don’t be a party pooper,” Daru replies with a scowl. “Don’t make me sit on you to keep you here, bro.”
“You’re hardly my type,” he responds, backing up into the wall in case Daru actually tries anything.
Mayuri grabs his hand. “Pleeease?” she asks, and as usual he can’t say no. Though part of it might be the beer in his hand as well. It’s really rare that he goes for alcohol. Usually caffeine is enough, but for some reason he decided to get one today. Maybe he was under the delusion it was the ‘whim of Stein’s Gate’ or something.
Everyone else takes a few turns as Okabe slowly sips the beer looking like he’s about to bolt at any moment.
Kurisu wrinkles her nose as Daru goes first. “My harem, including my beautiful wife, now numbers 47, I made it to a time-travel conference seven years ago, and Yuki-chan and I play eroge together.”
“The—harem one?” Ruka-kun states quietly, blushing deeply, and Mayuri giggles and leans into his arm.
“Nope! He just acquired the last one! I saw him put her name into a document on his computer!” She sounds completely innocent and proud of herself.
“Don’t tell me I have to throw things at you for trying to corrupt my—er, Ruka’s—hostage again,” Okabe joins in, sounding completely normal. “I can actually confirm the thing about the eroge. They think it’s ‘cute’ and ‘romantic’.”
“With a little girl in the house?” Kurisu asks, scandalized. Yuki just grins.
“Yep, I missed the Time Travel conference. Which was all Okarin’s fault.” Daru scowls.
Kurisu takes her turn. “I’m well known on @ channel, I used to live in Akita, and I’m working on publishing a new article on quantum physics and the human brain.”
“BORING,” Okabe proclaims loudly.
She rounds on him. “What the hell do you mean by boring? I bet you don’t know which one is the lie this time.”
He smirks. “I’ll take that bet, rich girl. Given that your father lived in Aomori, I’m guessing that is from where you hail.”
She blinks, mouth falling open, busy thinking through all the conversations she’s had with him over the years. “I—I’m pretty sure I never told you that, and it wasn’t heavily publicized considering my father’s relationship with the press…”
“I have my ways,” he states mysteriously and takes another sip of the beer.
The rest of them take multiple turns while Okabe nearly finishes off his bottle. The more he drinks, the quieter he becomes. He’s still uncannily good at guessing, even though he has yet to join in himself, but it mostly involves things from their past. He keeps up with them, usually via creepy texts, but he’s not near as good with the present day as, say, Mayuri. Things from the past, especially things from before Kurisu joined the ‘lab’, especially things that no one ever told him, he’s uncannily good at knowing. Honestly, if it wasn’t a good idea to feed a twenty-five year old’s chuuni delusions she’d ask if he was psychic or something.
As they play, Kurisu finds herself not memorizing the revelations along the way, partly because by now she’s feeling pleasantly buzzed, and more paying attention to the way aside from revelations he can make like a stage magician, Okabe gets quieter and quieter, more the ‘Time Travel Was Mentioned’ serious Okabe.
Mayuri giggles and starts another turn. “Mayushii☆’s favorite chicken is Dry Chick—”
Okabe interrupts her, speaking loudly, practically verbally trampling all over her, but he’s nervous. “My True Name is Hououin Kyouma. I met John Titor. And I’m in love with Christina.”
Her head pops up. His head is bowed, staring into the beer bottle as if it has the answers to the questions of the universe. Then again, it’s entirely possible he actually believes there’s a chance.
“Oh, it’s the Titor thing. I mean, you’re obsessed, bro, but…” Daru guesses, not taking it seriously.
“It’s that you’re in love with me,” Kurisu states with certainty and is instantly shushed by the others.
“Have you seen how he looks at you?” Ruka-kun asks quietly, and it’s a ridiculous question. It has to be. She would’ve noticed—wouldn’t she?
“It’s the True Name thing, isn’t it?” Mayuri asks quietly, understanding, hand on his arm, reassuring, tears in her eyes, and though the Mad Scientist hasn’t been present the entire time, his absence is never more glaring than now. It’s a ridiculous guess. Okabe holds on to the Kyouma persona with a white-knuckled grasp. There’s no way he’d list it as a lie—
“This was a bad idea,” he insists, tears in his eyes, and flees.
Mayuri stands up faster than anyone expects and catches his sleeve. “This has to do with the seven years promise, doesn’t it? If you don’t want to talk about it, Okarin, you don’t have to.”
He goes to sit on Daru’s old couch, eyes half-dead, manner entirely defeated. “No, I made a promise. I realize that it might be difficult to believe me of all people on this. The-what, wolf-boy?”
“Boy who cried wolf,” Kurisu corrects helpfully, still a little in shock.
“But I assure you, I am not insane, and everything I’m about to tell you…I lived through.” She notices that his hands are shaking for a few moments before he clasps them together. “Before I begin, however, I would like us all to present our Member Badges to verify our identities.”
Kurisu is actually slightly surprised that all of them have theirs on them. Mayuri especially she would’ve thought would have forgotten it, but no, the girl produces hers, beaming.
Okabe brings out two and sets the second on the table. “This is for your daughter, Lab Mem #008.”
“Oh! I wondered who the last lab mem was!” Mayuri grins happily, half bouncing.
Daru, though, is frowning. “How the hell is our daughter a lab mem? Did you just make these to randomly give out, because—”
“Kindly look at the letters,” Okabe states, utterly unfazed. At least, not by that. “The year is 2010, the year—”
“The year we met Kurisu!” Mayuri yells happily. “And when the pins were made!”
“And the year, in another timeline, when time travel was invented,” Okabe finishes gently. He has to be joking, but he looks completely serious. “The letters are the members’ names in the order they joined the lab. O for Okabe, S for Shiina, H for Hashida, M for Makise, K for Kiryuu, U for Urushibara, F for Faris, and A for Amane.”
“But—that means you—you made these seven years ago. How did you know Lab Member #008 would have the last name starting with Amane, or that we’d ‘meet’ her in seven years—and how did you decide suddenly that everyone was going to join the lab?” Kurisu asks shakily.
He smiles. The magician, with a magician’s trick. The smile, though…the smile is a black hole, consuming everything, leaving only an empty husk behind. “I already stated it. It’s not my fault if you don’t listen.” Before she can begin yelling at him again, he continues. “I said that, in another timeline, in 2010, we completed a means of time travel.”
There’s a moment of pure silence before they’re all yelling at him, and he holds up a hand to ask them to quiet down.
“Two means, as a matter of fact, but I’ll get to that in due time. The first we were using far before we had any true realization as to how it worked. Hmm, but where to begin? I could go chronologically, but you’d be missing several key components to understand the nuance of—”
“Time travel is impossible,” Kurisu interrupts him, red and furious, and he merely nods.
“Thank you, Kurisu, that’s as good a place to start as any.” His hands still shake, so he takes another sip of the beer for courage.
“How many times do I have to tell you; my name’s not—” She stops, realizing that he hadn’t, in fact, called her Christina, and he meets her furious gaze with a smirk that isn’t one hundred percent genuine.
“John Titor’s model of time travel is correct. And yes, I met Titor, though that comes later. What we see as reality is merely one of many worldlines. In most cases, they are found in bundles, referred to as alpha worldlines, beta worldlines, and so on. Each bundle, or attractor field, converges on different points in history, things that occur on any of the alpha worldlines, before the worldlines diverge again. For example, somewhere else, the Y2K bug was a real event that happened, but that is not the case in our worldline.”
He takes a deep breath before continuing. “Time travel in general is, perhaps, a bit of a misnomer, since you invariably travel worldlines while doing so. You probably won’t even notice, since wordlines in an attractor field have less than one percent divergence, but nonetheless, time travel is more like…dimensional travel. There is almost no occasion in which a grandfather paradox can occur, since if you are on a worldline different than your original one, even killing yourself in the past will not prevent you from having traveled to a different worldline.”
His hands are definitely fidgety, and he himself is twitchy, but his voice sounds normal and strong. “There is only one way in which the grandfather paradox can occur, and that’s with physical time travel using a time machine. These are almost impossible to create, and as such I’ve only physically experienced it twice. Fated events will occur, and in general you will have barely any effect on the timeline. The only way you can break the timeline is by altering certain events—and by certain events, I mean events of which you’re certain—that then cause your previous memories to change, or by removing the impetus for you to have time traveled in the first place. Fortunately, I haven’t experienced either. I suspect that if you travel far enough, you end up in a different worldline, since I believe Titor changed worldlines during the trip, but I can’t be certain.”
Mayuri gets up from where she’s leaning on Ruka-kun and comes over to hold Okabe’s hands. He greets the motion with a dazzling smile, gripping on tightly like she’s his sole lifeline. “There are two other methods of time travel. One is D-mail, short for Delorean-Mail, so named by Daru. You can send an email of thirty characters back in time. While this will involve traveling between worldlines, it’s fairly uncontrollable, since the effects can be entirely arbitrary based on the actions of the recipient. The other is the Time Leap Machine. Your memories from the future can jump back to the past, and given that you have your memories and can time leap again if you fail, it is much more controllable than D-mail. It’s also far, far easier to avoid unintended consequences. Both D-mail and the Time Leap involved Future Gadget Numero Eight.” He pauses, swallows.
It’s very, very detailed, in a way that none of his previous delusions was, and yet—
“You haven’t explained how they work,” Kurisu complains, just as Daru frowns.
“Wait. Number Eight? That remote microwave we trashed seven years ago because you suddenly decided heating popcorn on your way home was dangerous?” He looks, well. It’s not quite disbelief. It’s a little confusion, and a little slow realization.
“I’ll be cagey for the same reasons as Titor. Anyone manufacturing time travel is dangerous. Even if it’s us.” He grimaces, and the suppressed horror and agony in his eyes is…well, it’s a little terrifying. “Time travel is possible via naked Kerr black holes. An electron injector is needed. No, we have no idea still how, precisely, a microwave was able to create a black hole. If the black hole is not naked and still has its singularity, most objects that pass through it…gelify.” He gags. “It’s just odd when it’s bananas; when it’s people, it’s…” He looks on the verge of a breakdown, but he breathes quietly and composes himself. “And no, we were not the idiots testing it, as far as we could tell, on humans first.”
“So…the electron injector’s used to remove the event horizon?” Kurisu asks, even as her mind screams at her not to humor him.
“Very well done, assistant. Yes, your genius girl brain has it.” Rather than being overbearing, his voice is just…gentle, affectionate, pleased.
Faris’s eyes narrow in a smart, catlike motion. “If we weren’t being the mad scientists, then there had to be an enemy, nya?”
He shivers and half looks like he’s going to throw up, but he doesn’t. “Also true. As Titor said, it was SERN.” He shakes his head to forestall Kurisu’s complaints again, which is a little eerie, but it’s like they’ve had this conversation before. “Thank you, KuriGohan and Kamehameha, I’m well aware that SERN is a research facility. I don’t believe they were the source of the conspiracy. But scientists can be easily led astray by the ones writing the grants, especially when their overlords have the power to kidnap friends, compatriots, family, to force work, and if the overlords have the power I believe them to…”
“Conspiracy theories?” Kurisu asks, unimpressed.
He shrugs. “I have no proof that there’s anything in this worldline. I continue to take precautions because I’ve seen how the grunts act, and I have no desire to attract their attention once more. Three of their members were Moeka, Mr. Braun, and his chipmunk, which is why this is not being discussed with either present and should not be discussed with either present.”
“You’re kidding,” Daru groans.
Faris shakes her head, for once deadly serious (just like Okabe). “I don’t think he is. He likes them but he doesn’t fully trust them.”
“I know things none of you have ever told me—because you didn’t tell me, not here.” He shrugs. “Each of us sent a D-mail. Each of us, that is, besides Kurisu, because everything, good and bad, made her what she is, and she didn’t want to change anything and become someone else.”
Kurisu gasps, shivering. That’s—That’s exactly what she’d say.
“I tried to win the lottery. Mayuri tried to get world peace, before settling on changing the flavor of her…” He pauses. “I didn’t relive that one multiple times, and I didn’t have to undo that one, so I don’t remember now. Something canned. Might have been oden. Daru attempted to cheat to win the Faris Cup, but Faris is enough of a strategist that the attempt failed. Moeka—” He sighs heavily, staring at his and Mayuri’s hands as if they’re completely alien. “Moeka warned SERN and took the IBN 5100. Again, as Titor said, the computer was necessary to crack the database encryption on SERN’s time travel experiments. The Z Project, they called it.” He closes his eyes and somewhere finds the energy to continue. “Ruka became a girl. Faris brought her father back. Suzuha wanted to meet her father.” He’s practically rushing through, like it’s embarrassing, problematic, and given the way Ruka flinches and Faris blinks back tears and Daru looks suddenly furious, maybe he has a good reason after all.
“I’m not gonna abandon my girl!” he yells, while Yuki sits beside him stiff enough to be sculpted from ice, and if possible Okabe gets even more serious.
“You presume in the shadow of a dystopia that you have a choice, or, further, that you would not do so to protect her, for it’s hardly like any of us endeared ourselves to the ruling masters.” He’s gentle and terrible all at the same time. “The Alpha attractor field converged on SERN’s dystopia, Mayuri’s death, Moeka’s death, and Tennouji’s. The Beta attractor field converged on World War III and Kurisu’s death. It should be obvious why I didn’t wish to live in either attractor field.” His voice is shaking, and Kurisu is staring. Remembers how overbearing he can be sometimes, but only with her and Mayuri. How he insists on check-ups to ensure she’s alive, Mayuri’s alive, how he insists that their survival is more important than his own happiness.
“How many times.” She doesn’t recall having decided to believe him, doesn’t remember deciding to ask, despite the flat tone, but—
She doesn’t want to know, never wanted to know, and yet here he is, shouldering the burden alone. How can she be selfish like this?
“You? Twice.” He thinks for a few seconds, then shakes his head. “Mayuri? …H-hundreds. I don’t—” Suddenly, he’s weeping, loudly, openly, and there’s the broken look in his eyes, in his voice, she’d heard a mere three years before. “Every time, her watch stopped. Every time. Shot, usually, but—there was a train, and a car, and I—I don’t…”
Mayuri hugs him to her, tightly. “Mayushii☆ isn’t going to disappear on Okarin. She’s done it before, and she’s sorry.”
“It’s not your fault,” he gasps into her shoulder.
“What about meeting John Titor?” Yuki asks quietly.
He starts giggling, the laughter mixing with the tears. “She was your daughter. It was a misdirection, and as it kept SERN off her tail, it worked beautifully.” He pauses. “We, by the way, exist on a worldline my arrogant chuuni ass decided to name Steins;Gate. It’s a worldline that exists outside attractor fields. The future is not decided for us. We decide for ourselves.”
“That’s why all the time travel sabotage. You don’t want anyone deciding the future—or, the past, I guess—for us,” Daru realizes.
“I remember dying. I used to dream about it, though the nightmares are mostly gone. I time traveled to save Okarin, too, but I don’t remember much about that,” Mayuri says, and that’s a shock. Even Okabe stills.
Then, hoarsely, he responds, “I—I think I remember that. Talking to you.”
“I remember the date, though I thought that was just a dream,” Ruka adds, before giggling. “Kyouma-san, you’re bad at that.”
“I’m aware, thank you very much,” Okabe responds haughtily, tears still streaming down his cheeks.
Faris’s smile is entirely sad. “Thank you for letting me see my Dad again.” She pauses. “But let’s never talk about this again.”
“I understand that desire all too well,” he responds. “Of course, we’d already established that Reading Steiner is a trait every person possesses.” He smirks. “Just, some of us have more than others.”
Kurisu joins Mayuri in the hug.
“I don’t know who Okabe is. I’m starting to learn. I can’t quite cope without Kyouma, though. It’s no longer for Mayuri. She’s grown up; she doesn’t need me. It’s for me. I’m broken, and it’s entirely possible I’m damaged or something from how many times I’ve leapt through time. I’m terrified I’ll end up on another worldline and I’ll lose everything I sacrificed so much to gain. Time travel terrifies me, because I keep seeing one of you two die, but I am not going to be the ignorant one who just lets things happen, either. I’m scared about SERN and what they’re up to, but as long as I don’t see anything irreversible I won’t make an enemy of them. I would give everything I have for any of my friends. The mad scientist is sometimes all I have to hold on to my sanity—ironic, I know. I don’t know if my paranoia is making me see things that aren’t there, sometimes, but in general I have a firm grasp on reality.”
“I know I’m not a Lab Mem, but—I’d consider myself an Honorary Lab Mem, at least, and you need to realize that your Future Gadget Lab is there for you. I’d wager we’d met in a different timeline, or whatever, but that’s not the point.” Yuki glares at him, putting her hands on her hips. “You don’t have to carry this burden alone. Let us help.”
“What she said. Though I’m glad you didn’t attempt to do the sabotage on your own, dude, because you’re hardly coding literate.” Daru states, and yeah, that’s right, he’s had to put up with a lot of oddness over the years as Okabe’s right hand man, hasn’t he?
“We are going to talk about the ‘love’ thing though,” Kurisu insists, and at Okabe’s startled wide eyes smirks back. “If you can confess about how you were a secret time traveler that no one remembers, I can talk about how you’re actually kind of attractive when you’re not being a jerk.”
He attempts to smile at her and takes one of his hands out of Mayuri’s to wipe away the tears. “I should—hopefully—be less of a jerk from now on. Now that you all know my secret, I don’t have to misdirect you anymore, and, well…I’m trying to cut down on the chuuni bs.”
“You say that, but from the sounds of it, your whole life is chuuni bs,” Daru remarks lightly, and Okarin grins, for the first time in this whole conversation like he means it.
“Well, maybe that’s true.”
Steins;Gate Universe Optional (tho probably after Breakdown)
Chapter Summary: Okabe's self-imposed deadline has come to tell the Lab Mems about the misdeeds of Hououin Kyouma.
Word Count: 3737
Rating: gen
Note: (kind of a character study of how Okabe would deal with summarizing everything for everyone, so it's more of a character study hidden within a party)
Kurisu smiles into her cup. As much as she likes to pretend it’s a lie, she feels the most comfortable with this group, the lunatic in the lab coat and the adorable costume designer and the shrine maiden who’s not really a maiden and the famous maid/gamer and the rotund pervert and the congoer he’d somehow tricked into being his wife. She’s contentedly holding their extraordinarily well-behaved baby, Suzuha.
For whatever reason, Okabe was oddly smiley about that name, but when pressed, he’d only said in that smug, teasing voice that made her want to hit him, “…Come now, you think I would reveal my secrets? Imagine if the Organization stumbled on the secret to my success! They’d conquer the world in two minutes flat! Banish the thought from your mind, woman!”
And then Mayuri hit him lightly, giggling, and he’d taken the abuse with merely a smile.
Unfortunately, this time the part-timer couldn’t make it.
Now, though—
“We should play Two Truths and a Lie!” Daru suggests. His wife immediately agrees with the suggestion.
Okabe responds with a quickly concealed grimace. “Maybe I’ll stay out—”
It’s that which decides her response. “I think it’s a great idea. What’s the matter, Okabe, can’t tell your delusions from reality?”
“Don’t be a party pooper,” Daru replies with a scowl. “Don’t make me sit on you to keep you here, bro.”
“You’re hardly my type,” he responds, backing up into the wall in case Daru actually tries anything.
Mayuri grabs his hand. “Pleeease?” she asks, and as usual he can’t say no. Though part of it might be the beer in his hand as well. It’s really rare that he goes for alcohol. Usually caffeine is enough, but for some reason he decided to get one today. Maybe he was under the delusion it was the ‘whim of Stein’s Gate’ or something.
Everyone else takes a few turns as Okabe slowly sips the beer looking like he’s about to bolt at any moment.
Kurisu wrinkles her nose as Daru goes first. “My harem, including my beautiful wife, now numbers 47, I made it to a time-travel conference seven years ago, and Yuki-chan and I play eroge together.”
“The—harem one?” Ruka-kun states quietly, blushing deeply, and Mayuri giggles and leans into his arm.
“Nope! He just acquired the last one! I saw him put her name into a document on his computer!” She sounds completely innocent and proud of herself.
“Don’t tell me I have to throw things at you for trying to corrupt my—er, Ruka’s—hostage again,” Okabe joins in, sounding completely normal. “I can actually confirm the thing about the eroge. They think it’s ‘cute’ and ‘romantic’.”
“With a little girl in the house?” Kurisu asks, scandalized. Yuki just grins.
“Yep, I missed the Time Travel conference. Which was all Okarin’s fault.” Daru scowls.
Kurisu takes her turn. “I’m well known on @ channel, I used to live in Akita, and I’m working on publishing a new article on quantum physics and the human brain.”
“BORING,” Okabe proclaims loudly.
She rounds on him. “What the hell do you mean by boring? I bet you don’t know which one is the lie this time.”
He smirks. “I’ll take that bet, rich girl. Given that your father lived in Aomori, I’m guessing that is from where you hail.”
She blinks, mouth falling open, busy thinking through all the conversations she’s had with him over the years. “I—I’m pretty sure I never told you that, and it wasn’t heavily publicized considering my father’s relationship with the press…”
“I have my ways,” he states mysteriously and takes another sip of the beer.
The rest of them take multiple turns while Okabe nearly finishes off his bottle. The more he drinks, the quieter he becomes. He’s still uncannily good at guessing, even though he has yet to join in himself, but it mostly involves things from their past. He keeps up with them, usually via creepy texts, but he’s not near as good with the present day as, say, Mayuri. Things from the past, especially things from before Kurisu joined the ‘lab’, especially things that no one ever told him, he’s uncannily good at knowing. Honestly, if it wasn’t a good idea to feed a twenty-five year old’s chuuni delusions she’d ask if he was psychic or something.
As they play, Kurisu finds herself not memorizing the revelations along the way, partly because by now she’s feeling pleasantly buzzed, and more paying attention to the way aside from revelations he can make like a stage magician, Okabe gets quieter and quieter, more the ‘Time Travel Was Mentioned’ serious Okabe.
Mayuri giggles and starts another turn. “Mayushii☆’s favorite chicken is Dry Chick—”
Okabe interrupts her, speaking loudly, practically verbally trampling all over her, but he’s nervous. “My True Name is Hououin Kyouma. I met John Titor. And I’m in love with Christina.”
Her head pops up. His head is bowed, staring into the beer bottle as if it has the answers to the questions of the universe. Then again, it’s entirely possible he actually believes there’s a chance.
“Oh, it’s the Titor thing. I mean, you’re obsessed, bro, but…” Daru guesses, not taking it seriously.
“It’s that you’re in love with me,” Kurisu states with certainty and is instantly shushed by the others.
“Have you seen how he looks at you?” Ruka-kun asks quietly, and it’s a ridiculous question. It has to be. She would’ve noticed—wouldn’t she?
“It’s the True Name thing, isn’t it?” Mayuri asks quietly, understanding, hand on his arm, reassuring, tears in her eyes, and though the Mad Scientist hasn’t been present the entire time, his absence is never more glaring than now. It’s a ridiculous guess. Okabe holds on to the Kyouma persona with a white-knuckled grasp. There’s no way he’d list it as a lie—
“This was a bad idea,” he insists, tears in his eyes, and flees.
Mayuri stands up faster than anyone expects and catches his sleeve. “This has to do with the seven years promise, doesn’t it? If you don’t want to talk about it, Okarin, you don’t have to.”
He goes to sit on Daru’s old couch, eyes half-dead, manner entirely defeated. “No, I made a promise. I realize that it might be difficult to believe me of all people on this. The-what, wolf-boy?”
“Boy who cried wolf,” Kurisu corrects helpfully, still a little in shock.
“But I assure you, I am not insane, and everything I’m about to tell you…I lived through.” She notices that his hands are shaking for a few moments before he clasps them together. “Before I begin, however, I would like us all to present our Member Badges to verify our identities.”
Kurisu is actually slightly surprised that all of them have theirs on them. Mayuri especially she would’ve thought would have forgotten it, but no, the girl produces hers, beaming.
Okabe brings out two and sets the second on the table. “This is for your daughter, Lab Mem #008.”
“Oh! I wondered who the last lab mem was!” Mayuri grins happily, half bouncing.
Daru, though, is frowning. “How the hell is our daughter a lab mem? Did you just make these to randomly give out, because—”
“Kindly look at the letters,” Okabe states, utterly unfazed. At least, not by that. “The year is 2010, the year—”
“The year we met Kurisu!” Mayuri yells happily. “And when the pins were made!”
“And the year, in another timeline, when time travel was invented,” Okabe finishes gently. He has to be joking, but he looks completely serious. “The letters are the members’ names in the order they joined the lab. O for Okabe, S for Shiina, H for Hashida, M for Makise, K for Kiryuu, U for Urushibara, F for Faris, and A for Amane.”
“But—that means you—you made these seven years ago. How did you know Lab Member #008 would have the last name starting with Amane, or that we’d ‘meet’ her in seven years—and how did you decide suddenly that everyone was going to join the lab?” Kurisu asks shakily.
He smiles. The magician, with a magician’s trick. The smile, though…the smile is a black hole, consuming everything, leaving only an empty husk behind. “I already stated it. It’s not my fault if you don’t listen.” Before she can begin yelling at him again, he continues. “I said that, in another timeline, in 2010, we completed a means of time travel.”
There’s a moment of pure silence before they’re all yelling at him, and he holds up a hand to ask them to quiet down.
“Two means, as a matter of fact, but I’ll get to that in due time. The first we were using far before we had any true realization as to how it worked. Hmm, but where to begin? I could go chronologically, but you’d be missing several key components to understand the nuance of—”
“Time travel is impossible,” Kurisu interrupts him, red and furious, and he merely nods.
“Thank you, Kurisu, that’s as good a place to start as any.” His hands still shake, so he takes another sip of the beer for courage.
“How many times do I have to tell you; my name’s not—” She stops, realizing that he hadn’t, in fact, called her Christina, and he meets her furious gaze with a smirk that isn’t one hundred percent genuine.
“John Titor’s model of time travel is correct. And yes, I met Titor, though that comes later. What we see as reality is merely one of many worldlines. In most cases, they are found in bundles, referred to as alpha worldlines, beta worldlines, and so on. Each bundle, or attractor field, converges on different points in history, things that occur on any of the alpha worldlines, before the worldlines diverge again. For example, somewhere else, the Y2K bug was a real event that happened, but that is not the case in our worldline.”
He takes a deep breath before continuing. “Time travel in general is, perhaps, a bit of a misnomer, since you invariably travel worldlines while doing so. You probably won’t even notice, since wordlines in an attractor field have less than one percent divergence, but nonetheless, time travel is more like…dimensional travel. There is almost no occasion in which a grandfather paradox can occur, since if you are on a worldline different than your original one, even killing yourself in the past will not prevent you from having traveled to a different worldline.”
His hands are definitely fidgety, and he himself is twitchy, but his voice sounds normal and strong. “There is only one way in which the grandfather paradox can occur, and that’s with physical time travel using a time machine. These are almost impossible to create, and as such I’ve only physically experienced it twice. Fated events will occur, and in general you will have barely any effect on the timeline. The only way you can break the timeline is by altering certain events—and by certain events, I mean events of which you’re certain—that then cause your previous memories to change, or by removing the impetus for you to have time traveled in the first place. Fortunately, I haven’t experienced either. I suspect that if you travel far enough, you end up in a different worldline, since I believe Titor changed worldlines during the trip, but I can’t be certain.”
Mayuri gets up from where she’s leaning on Ruka-kun and comes over to hold Okabe’s hands. He greets the motion with a dazzling smile, gripping on tightly like she’s his sole lifeline. “There are two other methods of time travel. One is D-mail, short for Delorean-Mail, so named by Daru. You can send an email of thirty characters back in time. While this will involve traveling between worldlines, it’s fairly uncontrollable, since the effects can be entirely arbitrary based on the actions of the recipient. The other is the Time Leap Machine. Your memories from the future can jump back to the past, and given that you have your memories and can time leap again if you fail, it is much more controllable than D-mail. It’s also far, far easier to avoid unintended consequences. Both D-mail and the Time Leap involved Future Gadget Numero Eight.” He pauses, swallows.
It’s very, very detailed, in a way that none of his previous delusions was, and yet—
“You haven’t explained how they work,” Kurisu complains, just as Daru frowns.
“Wait. Number Eight? That remote microwave we trashed seven years ago because you suddenly decided heating popcorn on your way home was dangerous?” He looks, well. It’s not quite disbelief. It’s a little confusion, and a little slow realization.
“I’ll be cagey for the same reasons as Titor. Anyone manufacturing time travel is dangerous. Even if it’s us.” He grimaces, and the suppressed horror and agony in his eyes is…well, it’s a little terrifying. “Time travel is possible via naked Kerr black holes. An electron injector is needed. No, we have no idea still how, precisely, a microwave was able to create a black hole. If the black hole is not naked and still has its singularity, most objects that pass through it…gelify.” He gags. “It’s just odd when it’s bananas; when it’s people, it’s…” He looks on the verge of a breakdown, but he breathes quietly and composes himself. “And no, we were not the idiots testing it, as far as we could tell, on humans first.”
“So…the electron injector’s used to remove the event horizon?” Kurisu asks, even as her mind screams at her not to humor him.
“Very well done, assistant. Yes, your genius girl brain has it.” Rather than being overbearing, his voice is just…gentle, affectionate, pleased.
Faris’s eyes narrow in a smart, catlike motion. “If we weren’t being the mad scientists, then there had to be an enemy, nya?”
He shivers and half looks like he’s going to throw up, but he doesn’t. “Also true. As Titor said, it was SERN.” He shakes his head to forestall Kurisu’s complaints again, which is a little eerie, but it’s like they’ve had this conversation before. “Thank you, KuriGohan and Kamehameha, I’m well aware that SERN is a research facility. I don’t believe they were the source of the conspiracy. But scientists can be easily led astray by the ones writing the grants, especially when their overlords have the power to kidnap friends, compatriots, family, to force work, and if the overlords have the power I believe them to…”
“Conspiracy theories?” Kurisu asks, unimpressed.
He shrugs. “I have no proof that there’s anything in this worldline. I continue to take precautions because I’ve seen how the grunts act, and I have no desire to attract their attention once more. Three of their members were Moeka, Mr. Braun, and his chipmunk, which is why this is not being discussed with either present and should not be discussed with either present.”
“You’re kidding,” Daru groans.
Faris shakes her head, for once deadly serious (just like Okabe). “I don’t think he is. He likes them but he doesn’t fully trust them.”
“I know things none of you have ever told me—because you didn’t tell me, not here.” He shrugs. “Each of us sent a D-mail. Each of us, that is, besides Kurisu, because everything, good and bad, made her what she is, and she didn’t want to change anything and become someone else.”
Kurisu gasps, shivering. That’s—That’s exactly what she’d say.
“I tried to win the lottery. Mayuri tried to get world peace, before settling on changing the flavor of her…” He pauses. “I didn’t relive that one multiple times, and I didn’t have to undo that one, so I don’t remember now. Something canned. Might have been oden. Daru attempted to cheat to win the Faris Cup, but Faris is enough of a strategist that the attempt failed. Moeka—” He sighs heavily, staring at his and Mayuri’s hands as if they’re completely alien. “Moeka warned SERN and took the IBN 5100. Again, as Titor said, the computer was necessary to crack the database encryption on SERN’s time travel experiments. The Z Project, they called it.” He closes his eyes and somewhere finds the energy to continue. “Ruka became a girl. Faris brought her father back. Suzuha wanted to meet her father.” He’s practically rushing through, like it’s embarrassing, problematic, and given the way Ruka flinches and Faris blinks back tears and Daru looks suddenly furious, maybe he has a good reason after all.
“I’m not gonna abandon my girl!” he yells, while Yuki sits beside him stiff enough to be sculpted from ice, and if possible Okabe gets even more serious.
“You presume in the shadow of a dystopia that you have a choice, or, further, that you would not do so to protect her, for it’s hardly like any of us endeared ourselves to the ruling masters.” He’s gentle and terrible all at the same time. “The Alpha attractor field converged on SERN’s dystopia, Mayuri’s death, Moeka’s death, and Tennouji’s. The Beta attractor field converged on World War III and Kurisu’s death. It should be obvious why I didn’t wish to live in either attractor field.” His voice is shaking, and Kurisu is staring. Remembers how overbearing he can be sometimes, but only with her and Mayuri. How he insists on check-ups to ensure she’s alive, Mayuri’s alive, how he insists that their survival is more important than his own happiness.
“How many times.” She doesn’t recall having decided to believe him, doesn’t remember deciding to ask, despite the flat tone, but—
She doesn’t want to know, never wanted to know, and yet here he is, shouldering the burden alone. How can she be selfish like this?
“You? Twice.” He thinks for a few seconds, then shakes his head. “Mayuri? …H-hundreds. I don’t—” Suddenly, he’s weeping, loudly, openly, and there’s the broken look in his eyes, in his voice, she’d heard a mere three years before. “Every time, her watch stopped. Every time. Shot, usually, but—there was a train, and a car, and I—I don’t…”
Mayuri hugs him to her, tightly. “Mayushii☆ isn’t going to disappear on Okarin. She’s done it before, and she’s sorry.”
“It’s not your fault,” he gasps into her shoulder.
“What about meeting John Titor?” Yuki asks quietly.
He starts giggling, the laughter mixing with the tears. “She was your daughter. It was a misdirection, and as it kept SERN off her tail, it worked beautifully.” He pauses. “We, by the way, exist on a worldline my arrogant chuuni ass decided to name Steins;Gate. It’s a worldline that exists outside attractor fields. The future is not decided for us. We decide for ourselves.”
“That’s why all the time travel sabotage. You don’t want anyone deciding the future—or, the past, I guess—for us,” Daru realizes.
“I remember dying. I used to dream about it, though the nightmares are mostly gone. I time traveled to save Okarin, too, but I don’t remember much about that,” Mayuri says, and that’s a shock. Even Okabe stills.
Then, hoarsely, he responds, “I—I think I remember that. Talking to you.”
“I remember the date, though I thought that was just a dream,” Ruka adds, before giggling. “Kyouma-san, you’re bad at that.”
“I’m aware, thank you very much,” Okabe responds haughtily, tears still streaming down his cheeks.
Faris’s smile is entirely sad. “Thank you for letting me see my Dad again.” She pauses. “But let’s never talk about this again.”
“I understand that desire all too well,” he responds. “Of course, we’d already established that Reading Steiner is a trait every person possesses.” He smirks. “Just, some of us have more than others.”
Kurisu joins Mayuri in the hug.
“I don’t know who Okabe is. I’m starting to learn. I can’t quite cope without Kyouma, though. It’s no longer for Mayuri. She’s grown up; she doesn’t need me. It’s for me. I’m broken, and it’s entirely possible I’m damaged or something from how many times I’ve leapt through time. I’m terrified I’ll end up on another worldline and I’ll lose everything I sacrificed so much to gain. Time travel terrifies me, because I keep seeing one of you two die, but I am not going to be the ignorant one who just lets things happen, either. I’m scared about SERN and what they’re up to, but as long as I don’t see anything irreversible I won’t make an enemy of them. I would give everything I have for any of my friends. The mad scientist is sometimes all I have to hold on to my sanity—ironic, I know. I don’t know if my paranoia is making me see things that aren’t there, sometimes, but in general I have a firm grasp on reality.”
“I know I’m not a Lab Mem, but—I’d consider myself an Honorary Lab Mem, at least, and you need to realize that your Future Gadget Lab is there for you. I’d wager we’d met in a different timeline, or whatever, but that’s not the point.” Yuki glares at him, putting her hands on her hips. “You don’t have to carry this burden alone. Let us help.”
“What she said. Though I’m glad you didn’t attempt to do the sabotage on your own, dude, because you’re hardly coding literate.” Daru states, and yeah, that’s right, he’s had to put up with a lot of oddness over the years as Okabe’s right hand man, hasn’t he?
“We are going to talk about the ‘love’ thing though,” Kurisu insists, and at Okabe’s startled wide eyes smirks back. “If you can confess about how you were a secret time traveler that no one remembers, I can talk about how you’re actually kind of attractive when you’re not being a jerk.”
He attempts to smile at her and takes one of his hands out of Mayuri’s to wipe away the tears. “I should—hopefully—be less of a jerk from now on. Now that you all know my secret, I don’t have to misdirect you anymore, and, well…I’m trying to cut down on the chuuni bs.”
“You say that, but from the sounds of it, your whole life is chuuni bs,” Daru remarks lightly, and Okarin grins, for the first time in this whole conversation like he means it.
“Well, maybe that’s true.”