V. An Interesting City

An Interesting City

Oracle and MJ are standing in the middle of a crowded city intersection. 

MJ: Why'd you bring us here?

Oracle: It's the last place you've been. It's always good to retrace your steps. 

MJ: But they'll all lose their memories!

Oracle: If you haven't noticed, we aren't looping. I stopped the loop. 

MJ looks around. The crowd is still.

MJ: So what do we do here? Got a plan?

Oracle: Clues. We'll look for clues.

Oracle removes a notebook from his back pocket, and then pulls out a pencil from behind his ear. He begins scribbling. 

MJ: Clues are good. 

Oracle: Do you remember being here?

MJ: Not really, no.

Oracle: Well, that's problematic. Luckily, I remember being here.

MJ: How does that help?

Oracle: This isn't just any city. This was the first city, the blueprint for all other cities. The world that gave, and still gives, birth to all other worlds. 

MJ: Worlds give birth to worlds.

Oracle: Exactly. Some people even give birth to worlds. Some worlds even give birth to people. Some worlds are people. Some people are worlds. It's all rather ambiguous and exciting.

MJ looks around at the assortment of people surrounding them. 

MJ: How can a person be a world? Or a world be a person?

Oracle: Sometimes the world produces people, like in the loop I found you in. The people it produces are passable - you'd never know the difference. On the other hand, sometimes the world decides it needs to be incarnated. When you meet a world incarnate, you'll know it. Well, usually you do. Maybe you won't. Like I said, ambiguous.

Oracle lifts a camera from around his neck and points it at MJ. The camera flashes and a photo drops from the bottom. He picks it up and watches it as it slowly develops. 

MJ: An antique camera!

Oracle: An antique? I just built it!

MJ: Just built it?

Oracle: Just now. It's the one hundred and seventieth model.

MJ shrugs. Again, she looks around, scanning the city.

MJ: So why would I have been here?

Oracle: It's quite clever, really. Turn the Mother World into a self-replicating memory wipe. Whenever a new world is created, those entering it will be trapped. Eventually you could clear all of Mneomsyne. 

MJ: Wouldn't people notice? Couldn't people be contained to the existing worlds? 

Oracle: You're right. People would certainly notice. And the traps could certainly be avoided. So why would someone corrupt the center of the entire universe, just to cause some temporary chaos? Not that temporary chaos isn't fun. It is.

MJ: What if the memories aren't completely gone?

Oracle: What do you mean?

MJ: Your phone. You said it has its own memory. What if the memories aren't being deleted, but are being moved somewhere else? 

Oracle: Memory extraction. Maybe even memory ransom.

MJ: So what do we do? 

Oracle: What do we do? Or what do you do?

MJ: Obviously I'm going with you!

Suddenly, a new voice is heard.

Voice: Neither of you are going anywhere.