IC Voicemail

[solvethepuzzle]

"This is Nathan Brooks. My apologies for being currently unavailable, but please leave a message and I will return the call as soon as I am able."

Comments

Voice

[solvethepuzzle]

[No new memory comes flooding into Nathan right now. He just . . . keeps playing with his hair, trying to figure things out. These people were so strange, and they make so little sense sometimes.

[To hear that statement is saddening, but he cannot really fault it.] Honestly, I'm not certain I would put Near above that kind of behaviour. [He sounds uncomfortable, almost apologetic about that fact. It may have been the kind of person he was in that other life, but it isn't the kind of person he wants to be in this one.]

But when we get things . . . they are almost invariably things that were important to our Others, or had some importance in something that happened to them. If that photo weren't important to Near . . . I do not think I would have gotten it.

[The fact that he has the photo, more than anything, lends Nathan toward believing that the statement had been genuine. So much of Near's other behaviour doesn't seem to bear it out, but with the way Echoes work . . .]

Voice

[enflammen]

[The photograph was important? But how ... as a bargaining chip of sorts, maybe - that's what Mello thought, that Near must have known they'd meet and that's why he held onto it, why he let Mello know he had it.]

And you still have the photo?

Voice

[solvethepuzzle]

[That could explain it, yes. But it would not explain the writing on the back. It doesn't seem like Near could have reasonably expected Mello to think it was genuine.]

I've kept every object I've Echoed. [Because they are important. Because he thinks that maybe they will help him understand.] My house wasn't too badly damaged by the fires, so all of them are still intact.

Voice

[enflammen]

Do you think I could take a look at it sometime?

Voice

[solvethepuzzle]

I do not mind.

... What are you hoping to learn from it?

Voice

[enflammen]

I dunno ... you said it's important, right? Maybe just ... why.

[Like maybe if he holds it in his hand, he'll get another Echo, with a better explanation, or more insights. Maybe there will be some kind of clue as to who Mello and Near were, something better than what they've been shown in memories.]

Voice

[solvethepuzzle]

It's never given me the reason why, but I suppose I cannot rule out that you might get something from it.

Voice

[enflammen]

Yeah ... I guess there's just no way of knowing what's gonna set off a memory until it happens.

[If the process were entirely predictable, it could potentially be avoided, if not fully, at least in part. Like with the memory that prompted the phone call.]

Hey ... thanks for talking with me about this. I'm feeling ... [tired, mostly] a little better about it. It's kind of a shock, you know?

Voice

[solvethepuzzle]

[It's true. Sometimes the most unexpected things can set off an Echo. And even the expected triggers could give something they don't anticipate. There had been a combination of the two factors for Nathan when they'd fled Willow Ridge during the invasion.

[He still does not quite know why that had triggered gaining riot gear. Custom-fit for his size.]

It's no problem. And I suppose it would be. I'm not sure most of us ever remember . . . that part.

voice

[enflammen]

I guess ... maybe there's a reason for it. Something to learn from it.

[A more full picture of who Mello was, maybe, though Micah doesn't have a clue about what the overall purpose of that could be.]

Anyway, if you think of anything else you know about this guy, will you let me know?

voice

[solvethepuzzle]

Perhaps.

[Or perhaps most of them had actually survived the ordeals which they all have come to remember. Lazarus remembers that he'd died. Nathan does not. Putting together what he knows . . . he thinks that Near probably survived the Kira investigation.

[... Possibly thanks to Mello. Strange as it seems, given their relationship.]

I will let you know.

voice

[enflammen]

Thanks, Nathan.