Memory 11, Skill 2, Memory 12
Oct. 20th, 2013 09:21 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
in_loving_mriMemory: The Swimming Pool Experiment (Chapter 3)
Form: Cloth mask
Source: Odile's game (Day 282)
Summary:
In the dark basement of Dread Hill House, dripping with water and filled with ominous machines, Styles has been running secretive brain experiments on his Lambs. Totally legit experiments approved by an ethics committee!
Turns out he's investigating how guided visualization of exercise affects the brain! Could these mental exercises help the injured or paralyzed relieve stress and keep their motor pathways intact? That's also why he has creepy anatomical models and pictures of amputees in his house; they're old patients! (He... also wants to see if he can learn something about mind over matter and GHOSTS, but that's not part of the official research documents...)
In this experiment, the Lambs are to imagine themselves swimming while fMRI machines record their brain activity. After strapping down the students in the beds, Styles notices that Sam's faintly smiling at him, perhaps at a private joke. "Do you have something to say to me, Miss Everett?" he asks. "No," she replies, her smile vanishing.
Wondering what that was all about, Styles then spots Harvey Kinderman recording the proceedings with a camcorder, which he must have somehow snuck into the bed with him. This is, of course, a privacy nightmare. "Turn that thing off, please," he says, with forced politeness, and Harvey glumly complies.
"Dr. Styles," says Angela, "Are you sure it's safe... after what happened last night?"
"Safe? Of course. Why wouldn't it be?"
The Lambs glance at each other nervously. What the hell is going on? Did something happen? Styles just catches Harvey's whisper behind his back: "He doesn't even know!" Malik replies, "Why should Dr. Styles concern himself with fraternity pranks?" Ah. Some idiot must have tried to play up the rumors with a frightening prank.
"I still feel as nervous as a virgin on prom night," says Kinderman, ever tiresome. "Settle down," says Styles, patience wearing thin. "Settle down. I'm not paying you to chitter-chatter. Lie back. And close your eyes."
The students do so, and Styles speaks slowly and gently: "Relax... sink into the bed... take a deep breath... exhale. Tonight, you're at the swimming pool at St. Edmund. Your eyes are closed, and you're standing on the rough cement surface next to the pool. You grip and relax your bare feet. Your toes can feel all the tiny bumps and smooth paint of the cement. You smell the chlorine in the air, and feel dampness on your skin. When you open your eyes, you will see a pleasant illumination, from the lamps reflecting off the water..."
And the experiment runs uneventfully. Nothing untoward happens, as far as Styles is aware. But he has no way of knowing that, at the very moment his participants sunk into meditation, a phantom, a darting black ghost, swept through the pool at St. Edmund Hall, terrifying the swimmers, and turning the water blood-red. He'll find out about that later!
Effects:
* I'M NOT KILLING THEM??? FANTASTIC!!!
* So the rumors are owing to... fraternity pranks. Or not. How would a fraternity know about the experiments? Is there a leak? Was it a coincidence? Or is a colleague trying to ruin him?
* Damn it Harvey Kinderman is a nuisance
----
Skill: Juggling
Form: Knotted ball of twine
Source: 3 of 3's game (Day 283)
Summary:
At some point before the game, David learned how to juggle quite competently! He's not going to be using flaming chainsaws or anything, but he's pretty good at it. Though a sudden distraction can and will make him drop all of the balls...
----
Memory: That Damn Rabbit
Form: Handkerchiefs, to be held by two people.
Source: Guinevere's Romantic Love Game (Day 284)
Summary:
Being a magician, Sam is accompanied by her stage assistant, a white rabbit named Houdini. Houdini is ordinarily supposed to reside inside a cage in Sam's upstairs room, which is kept closed. There is no reasonable way in which that rabbit should be able to get out!
This is a montage of all the times Styles has found Houdini wandering around the house, getting underfoot, nibbling on rugs, and so on. It is getting to be a problem! But no locks seem sufficient to keep Houdini in his cage.
Never, ever have a magician as a tenant. That's the obvious moral here.
Form: Cloth mask
Source: Odile's game (Day 282)
Summary:
In the dark basement of Dread Hill House, dripping with water and filled with ominous machines, Styles has been running secretive brain experiments on his Lambs. Totally legit experiments approved by an ethics committee!
Turns out he's investigating how guided visualization of exercise affects the brain! Could these mental exercises help the injured or paralyzed relieve stress and keep their motor pathways intact? That's also why he has creepy anatomical models and pictures of amputees in his house; they're old patients! (He... also wants to see if he can learn something about mind over matter and GHOSTS, but that's not part of the official research documents...)
In this experiment, the Lambs are to imagine themselves swimming while fMRI machines record their brain activity. After strapping down the students in the beds, Styles notices that Sam's faintly smiling at him, perhaps at a private joke. "Do you have something to say to me, Miss Everett?" he asks. "No," she replies, her smile vanishing.
Wondering what that was all about, Styles then spots Harvey Kinderman recording the proceedings with a camcorder, which he must have somehow snuck into the bed with him. This is, of course, a privacy nightmare. "Turn that thing off, please," he says, with forced politeness, and Harvey glumly complies.
"Dr. Styles," says Angela, "Are you sure it's safe... after what happened last night?"
"Safe? Of course. Why wouldn't it be?"
The Lambs glance at each other nervously. What the hell is going on? Did something happen? Styles just catches Harvey's whisper behind his back: "He doesn't even know!" Malik replies, "Why should Dr. Styles concern himself with fraternity pranks?" Ah. Some idiot must have tried to play up the rumors with a frightening prank.
"I still feel as nervous as a virgin on prom night," says Kinderman, ever tiresome. "Settle down," says Styles, patience wearing thin. "Settle down. I'm not paying you to chitter-chatter. Lie back. And close your eyes."
The students do so, and Styles speaks slowly and gently: "Relax... sink into the bed... take a deep breath... exhale. Tonight, you're at the swimming pool at St. Edmund. Your eyes are closed, and you're standing on the rough cement surface next to the pool. You grip and relax your bare feet. Your toes can feel all the tiny bumps and smooth paint of the cement. You smell the chlorine in the air, and feel dampness on your skin. When you open your eyes, you will see a pleasant illumination, from the lamps reflecting off the water..."
And the experiment runs uneventfully. Nothing untoward happens, as far as Styles is aware. But he has no way of knowing that, at the very moment his participants sunk into meditation, a phantom, a darting black ghost, swept through the pool at St. Edmund Hall, terrifying the swimmers, and turning the water blood-red. He'll find out about that later!
Effects:
* I'M NOT KILLING THEM??? FANTASTIC!!!
* So the rumors are owing to... fraternity pranks. Or not. How would a fraternity know about the experiments? Is there a leak? Was it a coincidence? Or is a colleague trying to ruin him?
* Damn it Harvey Kinderman is a nuisance
----
Skill: Juggling
Form: Knotted ball of twine
Source: 3 of 3's game (Day 283)
Summary:
At some point before the game, David learned how to juggle quite competently! He's not going to be using flaming chainsaws or anything, but he's pretty good at it. Though a sudden distraction can and will make him drop all of the balls...
----
Memory: That Damn Rabbit
Form: Handkerchiefs, to be held by two people.
Source: Guinevere's Romantic Love Game (Day 284)
Summary:
Being a magician, Sam is accompanied by her stage assistant, a white rabbit named Houdini. Houdini is ordinarily supposed to reside inside a cage in Sam's upstairs room, which is kept closed. There is no reasonable way in which that rabbit should be able to get out!
This is a montage of all the times Styles has found Houdini wandering around the house, getting underfoot, nibbling on rugs, and so on. It is getting to be a problem! But no locks seem sufficient to keep Houdini in his cage.
Never, ever have a magician as a tenant. That's the obvious moral here.