text | username: apollo2

[solarcharged]

Hi everyone. Apollo here. I don't think I've met even half of you yet but I thought I’d share this:

IMG TRANSFER COMPLETE: exterior.jpg

Just in case anyone wanted to see what our new home really looks like.

Has anyone had any luck opening the locked doors? This place looks like it’s way bigger than what we have access to so far. Please do share with the rest of the class if you find anything interesting...

Comments

[solarcharged]

Are you suggesting I'm a flower?

[neuralnet]

[ Dangit, he offended him, didn't he? ]

Or like any sort of plant, not necessarily just flowering ones.

[solarcharged]

[ ahhh he's just messin with you, kid ]

No, I don't need to eat or drink. All I need is sunlight.

I'm totally a sunflower, for the record.

[neuralnet]

Tall and brightly colored?

[solarcharged]

Bingo. And they follow the sun around, of course. My favourite flower.

[neuralnet]

That makes sense.

Are you an alien, then?

[solarcharged]

No, I was human once. Not so much any more.

[ Although with Kara on board and burdened with the knowledge of Krypton, Apollo is beginning to question himself. It's been a weird week for him. ]

Although considering the planet below us, I still maintain we're the aliens here.

[neuralnet]

How did you change?

[ Haruto thinks maybe technically, he could say the same thing, although he doesn't think of himself as the same person as the real Hideki Matsukawa. ]

[solarcharged]

I don't know the specifics. A man called Henry Bendix turned my husband and I in to superheroes to save the world. We were a project of his, I suppose. He had computers implanted in his brain, I had solar powers. Our memories were wiped of everything up until that point.

[neuralnet]

[ "He had computers implanted in his brain..." Haruto takes a long moment to let that sink in before replying. Out there, in the vast collection of universes, there was someone like him. Potentially. And Apollo knew him. Was married to him, even how he was.

It's... a lot to process. ]

Was this Henry Bendix a part of any organization?

[solarcharged]

Other than the psychopathic asshole club? Sure. He lead Stormwatch for a while.

[neuralnet]

[ Not Project Integration, then. ]

Is that type of human experimentation common in your universe?

[solarcharged]

More common than we'd all like, I think. We seem to have hit our quota for mad scientists a few times over.

[neuralnet]

I understand.

[ More than Apollo probably thinks. ]

Do you think it's possible for these types of scientists to have good intentions, or are they all "mad scientists?"

[ He didn't hate the people behind Project Integration for creating him. Mostly they were kind to him. He just... Never wanted to see them again, if he could help it. ]

[solarcharged]

I think a lot of them have good intentions but terrible moral compasses.

[ Even Henry Bendix just wanted to make the world a finer place at one point. ]

I guess writing them off as 'mad scientists' just makes it easier for the rest of us to pretend that our own intentions aren't just as fallible.

[neuralnet]

Were you experimented on without your consent?

[ The situation doesn't sound like it lines up exactly with Haruto's-- Hideki Matsukawa had donated his body to science, he was a willing participant, as much as a braindead person could be-- but he's curious nonetheless. It's the first time he's ever heard of something similar happening. ]

[solarcharged]

Oh, with our consent. We signed up to join a team that would make the world a better place.

Well, that's what we were told. We can't actually remember that part...

[neuralnet]

[ That lines up with Haruto's situation as well. Though Haruto's memory wasn't taken from him. It's simply that Hideki was a different person, who had his own memories, which ended before Haruto ever came online. ]

Are you inclined to believe it?

[solarcharged]

Weirdly, I think so. I'd explain why but... It's complicated.

[neuralnet]

No, it's alright. I think I understand.