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

[ImpInTraining]

Barney rolled his eyes. He said, "Look... I said I'd help, and I will. I will talk to my friends the next time I see them to see if they are interested in helping your cause. If they say no... so be it." He shrugged and added, "If they say yes, I'll introduce you when the opportunity arises. If that isn't good enough, then find some other hamsters." He looked at both men and asked, "If there's nothing else... I have someplace to be."

[Philulhu]

"Nothing from me," replied Bill.

[Mr. Handy]

"Just one more thing," said Yeager. "How are we going to contact you again? We can't count on running into you through sheer luck a second time."

OOC,[b]Barney[/b], when you're ready to leave, please let me know where you intend to go from here.

[ImpInTraining]

ooc,Barney still had some more research he was going to do, so he'll continue what he was doing in the library until it's about 4PM, then head over to where the experiment was supposed to take place.

"If you need me... you mean before tonight or ... like tomorrow? Bill knows my home address. I'll jot down my phone number for you. But I don't plan on going back to the studio tonight. From here, once I'm done, I'll be heading over to Dr. Anderson's lab," Barney explained.

[Mr. Handy]

"All right, then," said Yeager. "Try to contact us tomorrow during the day and fill us in on how it went." He nodded to Bill. "Back to headquarters?"

OOC,You're heading there that early? You'll be finished the first research topic at 3:00, and it will take until 7:00 to finish the second one. The experiment starts at 8:00, so there's also time to have dinner in there.

[ImpInTraining]

ooc,fine. I can swing by the cafeteria or a diner.

[Philulhu]

"Yeah," replied Bill, "We'll head back. Perhaps we can find a lead on the woman who seems to be behind this."

[Mr. Handy]

OOC,[b]Bill[/b] and [b]Yeager[/b] are moving to the thread linked below. Please stop reading the current thread at this point. [b]Barney[/b] remains in the current thread.

Friday on my Mind

After Bill Johns and John Yeager departed, Barney continued his research into the early evening. He dug into Assistant Professor Nancy Remington's background and was fairly sure he'd found out all he could about her here. She had been born in Philadelphia in 1932 to Rodney and Stacy Remington. Rodney Remington was a retired doctor who had used to work at Thomas Jefferson Hospital. Nancy had gone to Girls' High for high school and then gone to Princeton University for college, where she studied clinical psychology, excelling in her coursework and research. She had continued her education through most of the 1950s, and she had actually earned an M.D. degree by the time she finished in 1958. She had worked at a few hospitals, including Jefferson, before accepting a tenure track position at the University of Pennsylvania in 1965. She had never married.

Nancy Remington had published a number of papers on psychology over the years. Her thesis subject had been the causes of schizophrenia, and there was a copy of it here in the library. A lot of her work seemed to deal with mental illnesses that made it difficult for the patient to distinguish fantasy from reality. Barney found one of her papers particularly interesting. It concerned the account of a fireman from New York who had suffered a mental breakdown in 1964. The patient, whose name was redacted for confidentiality reasons, had claimed that he was from the year 2001. He had said that he and many other firefighters had been called out to something called the World Trade Center, a site that Nancy had noted did not exist. There had been some kind of air attack involving planes being deliberately flown into skyscrapers, and he had gone inside to rescue people. He had still been in there with a bunch of other firefighters and police when the building started collapsing on them, and the next thing he knew he had awoken in a vacant lot and it was 1964. Nancy had tried to treat him, but unsuccessfully. He had insisted on the reality of his delusion and wanted nothing more than to return to 2001 and try to save his buddies. Eventually, he had committed suicide by jumping off the roof of a tall building. Nancy had speculated that he had killed himself in the belief that doing so would return him to his imagined world of 2001.

OOC,[b]Barney[/b], please roll Psychology to see what else you understand about [b]Nancy[/b]'s research.

[ImpInTraining]

Psychology - success!,[url=http://invisiblecastle.com/roller/view/3968710/]Psychology (50%) (1d100=19)[/url]

Barney's eyes widened as he read the information about the displaced mentality of the fireman, noting how similar it was to Bill. He wished Bill were still there so he could show the man, but he'd bring it up later for sure. There had to be a link between her work then and now, but he wasn't sure what it was just yet. Scratching his head, he dug a little deeper.

[Mr. Handy]

Barney's knowledge of psychology helped him to understand Nancy Remington's paper on a deeper level. She had diagnosed the unnamed patient as delusional based on the criteria that he believed his delusion to be absolutely true, it was just as absolutely impossible, and nothing could convince him to let go of it, thus perfectly fitting the criteria laid down by noted psychiatrist Karl Jespers in 1913. Further, she had determined that it was a bizarre delusion due to the obvious implausibility of time travel. However, it fit none of the common delusional themes, which is what particularly intrigued her about this case. She had also noted that he appeared to suffer from auditory and visual hallucinations, occasionally hearing the voices that he claimed were from people in 2001 or seeing scenes from the future on television screens. She had therefore ruled out delusional disorder, which required the absence of such hallucinations as well as the delusion being non-bizarre. Instead, she believed that he had most likely been suffering from schizophrenia. He did not have multiple personalities, but the hallucinations and delusion seemed to fit. Even so, the case perplexed her. She wrote that the patient had confabulated an entire future history from 1964 onwards, with a listing of major events. He had correctly predicted the election of President Lyndon Johnson, but that didn't exactly take a prophet or time traveler to foresee.

OOC,I've given you a check in Library Use for this chapter, as your second roll's effects came after the end of the first chapter.

[ImpInTraining]

ooc,Coolio. Thanks.

Barney looked back again for the date that the fireman was reported to have been afflicted with the psychosis. He didn't have a lot of time left now, but perhaps he could spend a little bit researching past newspaper articles from the same time in New York City to see if there were anything significant reported that might link then and now.

[Mr. Handy]

Nancy Remington's paper indicated that the man's breakdown had occurred in September 1964, but it did not give an exact date. The paper itself was published in December 1964. The Van Pelt Library did have archives of the New York Times on microfiche. However, it would take hours to wade through all of the issues from the month in question to find anything relevant, and he didn't have that kind of time before the experiment. A quick check of his watch showed Barney that it was already 7:00, and the experiment started at eight.

OOC,No problem! It would take four hours to do the research. You could start now if you forgo dinner, but you'd get only about fifty minutes done before having to leave for the experiment, so you'd have to continue on Saturday.

[ImpInTraining]

Barney looks at his watch and shook his head. There simply wasn't time... and his stomach growled.

He put his books/papers away and made his way out of the library to head to the lab, by way of cafeteria for a quick bite to eat.

[Mr. Handy]

Barney ate a quick dinner before proceeding to the lab in Room 110 of John Morgan Hall. He got there a few minutes before 8:00.


John Morgan Hall, School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania
7:55 PM - Friday, July 18, 1969

Barney entered the hallway leading to Room 110. The door was closed, and there were five other people waiting outside it. He recognized Kathleen and Maxine, as well as Harry, the young man who had been talking to Brian in Lenny's Bar just before the arrest. He also noticed Mary among the group. The fifth person was a man about eighteen years old who looked vaguely familiar.

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

[ImpInTraining]

Idea - Success!,[url=http://invisiblecastle.com/roller/view/3978353/]Idea (80%) (1d100=17)[/url]

Barney noted all the people he recognized from before and greeted them with a smile and a nod. "Big night ahead, right?" He looked again to the locked doors, eyes scanning the interior for signs of life. "Wonder if they'll be prompt, or fashionably late?"

[Mr. Handy]

"Oh, they're already inside," said Mary. "I can hear them in there. We're a little early, so we just have to wait for them to open the door. Funny seeing you again here." She looked around at the gathered people. "Most of you look like I know you." She folllowed Barney's glance and focused her gaze on the young man whose name he didn't know, who had just arrived seconds ahead of him and was approaching the knot of people near the door. He was already staring into her eyes. "Do I know you from somewhere? You look so familiar."

"Sorry, I've never seen you before," he said. "I'm sure I would remember meeting a girl as gorgeous as you."

Mary laughed in an almost musical tone.

Barney also was becoming more and more convinced that he knew this young man, and then it clicked. His features looked a lot like those of Bill Johns, except about forty years younger.

[ImpInTraining]

Barney looked to the man with sudden reckognition and asked, "Bill?"

[Mr. Handy]

"Oh, call me Willie," he said. "Only my dad calls me Bill." He gave Barney a puzzled look. "Do I know you?"

[ImpInTraining]

Barney wondered if he should tell Willie what he knew, but figured the lad would just think he was off his rocker. "Uh... no, probably not. Lucky guess," he offered in response. He shot Mary a look that said more though.

Confusion,Little lost here. I thought Bill's mind was sent back into someone else's body. The police officers have accepted him as one of their own, which means they aknowledge a current-day police officer named Bill with Bill's appearance. Now it seems you are introducing the possibility of a time-travelling Bill from the future as well to further complicate things. Do I have this right?

[Mr. Handy]

Mary wasn't even looking at Barney any more, so she missed his signal. She only had eyes for Willie. "I'm Mary," she said with a twinkle in her eyes. "Mary Walters. I'm majoring in psychology."

"I'm studying history and archaeology," said Willie. "I'm very pleased to meet you."

OOC,TIme travel can be very confusing, and I'm not sure you have everything correct there. Let me try to explain without giving away anything you don't yet know. The [b]Bill Johns[/b] you met earlier is a man in his late fifties, and yes, the other cops do seem to accept him. [b]Willie[/b] here is about eighteen years old but looks very much like a younger version of [b]Bill[/b]. It isn't clear to you whether [b]Bill[/b] went back in time physically or mentally (or at all). I never explicitly said what was going on, and [b]Bill[/b] may have been making some assumptions when he spoke. His player doesn't really know what's going on any more than you do, and that's the way it's supposed to be.