IC-Chapter 2-Did You Ever Have a Dream?(Bill/Barney/Yeager)

[Mr. Handy]

"I think you may be jumping to conclusions," said Nancy with a sigh. "I can see that you want to believe in time travel, but don't fall for someone else's delusion. I'm sure there's a rational explanation for all of this. Perhaps Willie knows about his relative's mental illness and doesn't want to talk about him. Perhaps Bill Johns isn't really a police officer at all."

OOC,[b]Barney[/b], please roll Persuade.

[ImpInTraining]

Persuade - Fail,[url=http://invisiblecastle.com/roller/view/4131442/]Persuade (55%) (1d100=65)[/url]

Barney chuckled, "Oh, I wouldn't say I want to believe in time travel... I just like to understand what is going on around me, especially if it doesn't make any sense." He shrugged, "Perhaps you're right. Guess we may never know."

[Mr. Handy]

"Yes, it's probably best not to meddle in their family affairs," said Nancy. "I would like to talk to Bill Johns, though. I don't know if I can help him. Like I said, I don't see patients any more. But I can refer him to a colleague who does."

[ImpInTraining]

"Didn't you once have a patient... fireman I think it was... who thought he was a time traveler? Seems to me I read something about it once," Barney questioned her pointedly since she'd done a great job avoiding that historical fact thus far.

[Mr. Handy]

Nancy's eyes widened. "So, you've done your homework," she said. "No wonder you were asking some of those questions. Yes, I did have a patient who had that delusion. I tried to help him to overcome it, but he absolutely refused to let it go. He was utterly convinced it was true. In the end, he killed himself." She sighed and shook her head. "I failed him. Maybe if I'd been better at my job, he'd still be alive. That's the real reason I gave up my practice and went into teaching. I wish time travel were real. Then I could go back and save him."

[ImpInTraining]

Barney said, "Yeah... um, sorry for drudging up sore memories. But I mean... how can we know without a doubt that time travel isn't possible? A few hundred years ago, they'd have crucified you for even suggesting you could produce light from your hand without fire or speak with someone across the ocean in real time." He shrugged and said "Sometimes you have to keep an open mind even if it surpasses what you know to be the bounds of reality."

[Mr. Handy]

"If time travel were possible," said Nancy, "we'd be overrun by people from the future. Besides, it would violate the laws of physics. If you could travel back in time, you could use that ability to create a perpetual motion machine. Some things are just impossible."

[ImpInTraining]

Barney shrugs and responds, " If people are traveling back in time mentally only, then the world need not be overrun by people from the future. The people from the future merely need a brain to go to. And as for the laws of physics, as I've stated before, many things are deemed impossible until people wiser than ourselves find a way to make it happen."

[Mr. Handy]

"Well, I'd need solid proof before I believed in something like that," said Nancy. "Whoever's making the claim needs to back it up. Someone who's really from the future would be able to predict future events with perfect accuracy."

[ImpInTraining]

Barney nodded, "So long as they really paid attention to current events and past historical events, I agree." Barney smiled and shrugged, "I don't have all the answers, just a whole lot of questions. Thanks for listening to them." He looked about and then back to the woman, "So can you think of anything that might be similar to the situation with that fireman of your past and our current events? I'm wondering if there are connections... if not about time travel, then about related mental psychosis. Maybe they were both taking the same drugs or something?"

[Mr. Handy]

"I don't know what drugs your friend might be taking," said Nancy, "but my patient was only taking the psychiatric medications he was prescribed following his breakdown. None of them would cause hallucinations or delusional thinking. In fact, they were intended to suppress that sort of thing. There are plenty of hallucinogens out there that could have this effect. LSD is an increasingly popular one."

[ImpInTraining]

"Ah yes... good ole Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds. Something so powerful could be slipped into a meal or drink relatively unnoticed. Is it possible that had happened to the fireman fellow?" Barney asked inquisitively, leaving out his own suspicions about the government perhaps doing the very same thing to many unwilling participants in the armed forces.

[Mr. Handy]

"I can't say for sure he didn't take any before his breakdown," said Nancy, "but once he was committed, it wouldn't have been possible. The way he clung to his delusion so vehemently, I don't think it was caused by a one-time hallucination. He had a whole lifetime of false memories built up, and he had confabulated an entire future history."

[ImpInTraining]

Barney rubbed his chin thoughtfully, "I suppose you have a good point there. A decent trip might give you an afternoon of fanciful recollections, not a few decades worth." He leaned back and asked, "Just out of curiousity, did you bother checking his future details to see if any of them came to fruition?"

[Mr. Handy]

"Most of his recollections were closer to the time he claimed to come from," said Nancy, "which was the year 2001. Like in A Space Odyssey." She cracked a smile. "That in and of itself sounds made up, but he truly believed it. He did mention that Johnson would win the election in the year I treated him, which was 1964, but it hardly took a prophet to predict that. After we lost President Kennedy, Johnson was a shoe-in. He said that President Nixon would win in 1968, but again, that's not such a stretch as an educated guess. He came pretty close in 1960, so it makes sense he'd try again. Oh, and he mentioned that we'd land on the moon in 1969, which is about to happen in a couple of days, though that could also be a good guess. President Kennedy did say we'd land on the moon by the end of the decade."

[ImpInTraining]

Barney nodded with interest, "But ... did he predict anything that didn't happen?"

[Mr. Handy]

"Well, most of what he said would happen hasn't," said Nancy, "but it isn't due to happen yet. Still, some of what he claimed would occur sounds ridiculous. He said that President Nixon would resign in disgrace after being caught in criminal acts and that Gerald Ford would be the next President. But Ford is the House Minority Leader. Agnew is Vice President, and he'd be next in line. I suppose if the Republicans get a majority Ford could become Speaker of the House. That would make him next in line after Vice President Agnew, but something would still have to happen to get Agnew out of the way. But I can't see the Republicans taking the House any time soon anyway."

[ImpInTraining]

"Ok... so some things haven't happened yet... but nothing that he claimed would go one way went a totally different way. So as you Americans are fond of saying, the jury is still out, yes?" Barney questioned with a smile. He nodded and added, "I'll leave you now, maybe mingle with some of my fellow lab rats. Thanks for the talk."

[Mr. Handy]

"Sure, no problem," said Nancy, walking off to confer with Dr. Anderson. Barney saw Willie and Mary chatting up a storm in one corner of the lab. Maxine and Kathleen were sitting on their cots talking, and Harry had gone over to the TV and turned it on. He was waiting for it to finish warming up.

[ImpInTraining]

Barney headed over to Harry to have a little talk with the man. "Anything good on the telly tonight?" he asked.

ooc,I'm sure you noticed my slow posting lately. Sorry about that. I wanted you to know if this is causing any problems you are welcome to either A) replace me as a player, or B) NPC me as necessary. And I'm wondering, are there any other PCs involved in this encounter?