Memories: part two. Unlocked Cell.
"So when we became legendary world-saving heroes, is this how you thought we'd be spending our weekends?" asked Quill, holding Rocket's head over the toilet on the Milano while the racoon wretched and dry-heaved. They'd decided to slip him an emetic to bring up as much of the booze as possible before his body absorbed it, but true to form even unconscious Rocket was fighting back and holding onto every last drop. The stomach pump from the med-suite had been their next plan, but he seemed to have eaten it.
Gamora considered this. "No… frankly I didn't think we'd live this long." She said, handing Quill a mug of freshly-brewed caffeine and a bottle of ice-cold water.
"Huh. Well that's something I guess." Said Quill, accepting the steaming mug with the exhausted calmness that comes in the sixth hour of trying to induce tactical chunder. Groot had got Drax back to the ship soon enough, and true to his word taken the first shift minding Rocket with a care and gentleness that would have been quite touching were it not for the fact that it had left Quill and Gamora to try and get Drax into bed, and the man weighed a ton and went inconveniently floppy when passed out. Quill, already exhausted from hauling Rocket back to the ship and getting spooked twice by what had looked like the Controllers mind drones, but were in fact perfectly ordinary fire-control robots, had set the ships controls back to Knowhere and managed to grab perhaps two twenty-minute naps that night in-between piloting the ship and caring for Rocket.
Quill nodded to the airlock. "You flush all the booze?" he asked. Given the situation they'd decided to clear out the ship of alcohol for a while. Gamora sighed.
"Everything that I could find, but that doesn't prove a thing. There are a thousand places on a ship this size you could stash a bottle or two, and Rocket could hide contraband in an unfurnished box if he had a mind to. He's the only one on ship who can fit into the ducting, and given how he cache's food and guns it's impossible to tell."
Quill frowned. "There can't be that many hiding places on ship…"
Gamora gave him a look. "There was a still hidden in the main fuel-coil, packaging for 200 death sticks under one of the bunks, and someone had filled the slot in the engine for the back-up osmotic membrane with empty beer cans and what looked like the entire back-catalogue of Playbeing's Raunchy Aaskvarian Specials. You could hide someone the size of Drax on this ship and we'd only know about it when the life-support started to struggle with the extra O2 use."
"Fair enough. And I'm, like, 80% sure those magazines are Groot's" said Quill, slurping his caffeine a shade guiltily.
"I believe you." Said Gamora, raising one eyebrow a measured fraction as she sipped form her mug.
"I mean aside from the fact he doesn't drink and is functionally asexual , the dates on the magazines would indicate he snuck in and planted them there about two years before we met, but fair enough. What time do we get into Knowere?"
"Ugggg. Less than an hour. The Moment Control Gyro just Kicked in." muttered a small voice from the toilet. "At least, I hope it did, otherwise the room really is spinning two different ways at once."
"Hey, welcome back to the land of the living fuzzbucket. How do you feel? Is it awful? I really hope it's awful." Said Quill, full of the milk of human kindness.
"Bite me Hummie, I feel just swell." said Rocket making a noise like a cat throwing up another, angrier cat. "Dafuck? I don't remember eating a stomach pump… that dude's fingers, yes, but a pump?" he muttered. "So how'd I get back here and who do I have to thank for the fact someone's stupidly given me ipecac when my chemical warfare system will just metabolise it and make my hangover worse?"
"Hey, don't blame me that you won't tell anybody how your bod-mods work... and besides, I thought you had a photographic memory?"
"I still have to be conscious, numb-nuts. Stars, are all terran's this stupid or did you take special classes?"
Quill put down his mug and checked his watch, still holding Rocket by the scruff of his neck with his other hand. "Consciousness to sarcasm in twenty-eight seconds. That's a new record. Here, take this water, you need it more than me. If I let go of the back of your head, are you going to drown in the toilet?"
"Only if I'm lucky." Rocket muttered Queasily. "And that wasn't sarcasm, genius. Although that was." He said, accepting the water gratefully and pouring about a third of it over his head and yelping at the coldness, before shaking himself off and spraying Quill. He then draped a towel over his head and lay back down with his snout hovering over the toilet, sipping from his bottle listlessly as Groot came over and Groot'ed at him.
"Yeah I know, but the fuckers jumped me mid-drink. Ya' want me to take that lying down? I was… was in a dark mood as it was." He muttered to the Flora Colossi, as Quill got up, stretched the knot out of his back, and decided to go lie down for a bit before they got into Knowhere now that Rocket was out of danger.
"No Quantum grenades." Said Quill as he picked up his caffeine and patted Groot affectional on the shoulder, symbolically passing the baton. "I don't care if someone jumps you at your goddamed funeral no quantum grenades, that was ship rule number one Rocket."
Gamora frowned. "I thought that was 'No touching Quill's tape deck.'"
"Rule one A." said Quill, pausing en-route to his bunk. "No quantum grenades was rule one A."
"Yeah, whatever Starlord. " muttered Rocket.
"What about. 'No interrupting mid-air guitar'…"
"Rule one B then. Jesus, Gamora, I'm trying to make a serious point here for once. Can I not be treated with the dignity befitting a brave and heroic starship captain?"
Gamora raised an eyebrow. " 'Playbeing Special issue two-million and nine: ten more things to do in zero gravity', 'how much is too much tentacle?' and my personal favorite in that issue 'The thirty-seventh Aaskvarian G-Spot: Real or Myth? Grab you neck-brace and lab goggles to find out.' "
"Hey I was just curious all right? You can't seriously think I'm into that. I mean they've got needles for teeth and tentacles everywhere! It's like Lovecraft had a baby with some tapas. It's harrowing. Have you ever seen a female Aaskvarian naked?"
"Yes." Said Gamora, sipping her caffeine calmly. "Real, by the way. Ninth lumbar vertebra" She noticed Quill's jaw drop and smiled, very slightly. "Xen Whoberi traditionally had a very sex positive attitude that encouraged openness, but it's not that if you're wondering: Seduction is a staple technique for assassins to get close to targets and separate them from their security detail, and pillows make good improvised silencers. The trick is to shoot them as soon as you've got their clothes off. Nothing ever happened: unlike some people I have standards." She said, walking away to make herself some breakfast while Quill got momentarily distracted by the sway of her hips and accidentally poured hot caffeine on his crotch, cooling his ardour somewhat, although in the process scalding something closely related to it geographically at least.
"Hot daaaaam! Owww! Hot! Damn! Fuck! Goddamit!" he yelled, grabbing Rocket's head-towel and shield against the awful world of sobriety and trying to towel himself off with it.
Rocket groaned, and muttered something, pitching his voice too low for Gamora to hear. When this didn't work as Quill was a tad preoccupied, red hot underpants doing that to most people, he tried again.
"Quill!"
"Huh? Oh dude, don't worry about that you just bring that right up, we've got a spare tube for the pump… holy fuck is that a finger? Oh man that's nasty."
"Quill! About last night, about… about what I said. Did you tell anyone?"
Quill hesitated, glanced over his shoulder to Gamora, and then shook his head. "No, I… I kinda felt that would be inappropriate. You were spouting some heavy shit there, and I figured if you needed to tell Gamora you'd do it at one of your late night thingies. Yanno?"
"Heh. So she finally told you we knew about you ease-dropping that first night? Look Quill I… I don't like people digging around in my past. Hell I don't like me digging around in it. There ain't nothing good there and nothing to be gained going there allright? It's just sometimes I…. I get a little low and it all comes back up, like now, you know? Sometimes, sometime I get drunk and it all comes gushing out. "
Quill leaned over to look in the toilet bowl. Rocket glared. "The past, moron not your stupid plastic tube! Stars, you're as bad as Drax at metaphor at times! I… I just need to let it all out sometimes, I and can't bring myself to say these things normally. And that frightens me. Last night… last night I needed someone to vent at, and you were there and well, I guess you got a good load of it and, well, what I'm trying to say is, well…"
"Hey, it's okay buddy" said Quill, ruining a hand gently down Rocket's back. "I know, I know what you're trying to say. It's okay little buddy. It's okay. You ever need to talk, I'll be there for you. Okay?"
Complex emotions welled in Rocket's eyes, and Rocket reached up a tiny clawed hand, and took Quill's fingers in his…
..and violently twisted, wresting his thumb around and bending Quill's wrist into a position that made it clear he could break it whenever he wanted. He shot up and snarled, giving Quill a very close up look at his teeth and a good blast of vomit-breath.
"..and what I was trying to say before I was so rudely interrupted is if you ever mention this to anyone or you ever make me feel weak again, I'll kill you. I mean, I'll find you as you sleep and I'll really fuck you up, okay? Now ya wanna keep trying to pet me bub? 'cause there's an odd number of fingers I've brought up today and maybe I'd like to even that up a little, eh? They're my problems and I don't need anyone's help!"
Groot leaned in and, quite professionally and carefully, wedged himself between the two of them and pinned Rocket to the floor with his vines as the Racoon snarled and kicked and spat like a scalded cat. But with worse swearing.
"Hey? What are you taking his side for?"
"I am Groot!"
"I would not benefit from opening up to a third party! What is this, frickin' marriage counseling?"
Quill leaned back, gritting his teeth and massaging his thumb in his other hand and watching and Rocket struggled as desperately tried to avoid eye contact with anyone. He sighed.
"Rocket. I get it; they're called personal problems for a reason. But here's the thing, the second they start spilling over and putting the safety of my crew at risk, they become my problem crewman. Do you understand? Do you? You're my friend, but you put us at risk or pull shit like this on a regular basis because of your problems, then you lose all right to privacy on them. You want to keep them bottled up, fine, whatever, but you open up that bottle on my ship they I get to know what's in it or you leave this ship, understood?" He said, tossing the towel angrily back to Rocket.
"Clean yourself up, first officer. You're a real mess." He said, before turning on his heal and striding away.
Knowhere beckoned.
Quill tried to put that out of his mind as they docked at Knowhere, going if via the main dock and not their private airlock, because the nice man at the nova peace-keeping force traffic control told him to and he for one was not about to argue with a ship that had guns the Milano could have comfortably flown into without touching the sides.
He was however pleased to notice that Knowhere seemed pretty much back to normal the way it was when he had first visited it. That is to say, he practically had to fight off a dozen assholes trying to sell him fuel before they would clear enough space for him to land, although one of him asked for Quill's autograph, a nice touch that would have got Quill buying the fuel from him until Gamora pointed out that he was by far the most expensive option and that he'd cut the holo out of a news filmy that game Quill's name as "Starking".
Managing to make it down the street with only the most basic attempts of the locals to mug and pickpocket them, all in a reasonably friendly way, Quill was taken by the large number of people standing on street corners and shouting. True, this was not necessarily that strange in Knowhere, but rather than the traditional yells advertising whores drink and gambling or just yelling 'give me back MY WALLET YOU LITTLE SHIT!' There were also a large number of people trying to talk politics. Given Nova prime had made it clear that if Knowhere wanted permission to keep mining and selling, they needed to build a democracy from the ground up and have elections within six months, it wasn't necessarily unusual.
What was, however, was the posters. They were everywhere. Apparently not having any pre-established political parties, every shop, bar and trade had set up their own one, and it was beautiful glorious chaos, a riot of colours and ideologies of every conceivable spectrum with blatant bribery as parties offered everything from free healthcare to free guns, free housing, free cake to free whores if you would just, please, vote for them. Given no-one had yet worked out an age limit on voting or anything like immigration criteria, people were trying to register kids and visiting ships captains to vote.
It was only as they passed the bar on the main drag and noticed tow separated groups having a fight, with both sides displaying crude caricatures of both Yondu and the nova peacekeeping force leader, that Quill started to realize that this might be his doing.
"Ummm… Gamora?" he asked. As Drax and Rocket shambled along looking for soft drinks and aspirin and Groot playfully chased a horde of screaming children about. "Not that anyone would necessarily need a reason, I am a very awesome guy, but why is my face on that poster and why am I endorsing "The Knowhere amalgamated sex-workers and entertainers union?"
Gamora shrugged. "Maybe they need help finding that Askavarian g-spot. What I want to know is why I'm endorsing the "People's Progress Party." She paused. "At least I think that's me, the artwork is pretty poor, it could just be you but with breasts drawn on."
"Uhuh… you know, when the Watts brothers were about to take over and we gave that big speech about self-determination and how the people of Knowhere shouldn't give in to outside oppression and should pick their own government, not because we really cared, but because we wanted to get them fight back aghast the Watts and Tivan and Yondu and such…. I think we might have sort of accidentally become symbolic leaders of their revolution."
"It would explain why you are strangling Nova prime to death on this poster and shouting 'death to the imperialist Xandarian lapdogs.'" said Drax helpfully, popping open a Chroma-soda Cyan and pointing.
The team went and looked. "Oh gods, she's going to kill me. Do you think Nova knows?" Quill asked, wincing.
"Given the peacekeepers on every street corner? Yeah, could be captain." Said Rocket, sarcastically. "But don't worry, you must have made up because on this one you're having sex with Nova Prime and another political party is calling you 'another foreign stooge here to take over.' Nice drawing on the ball-gag, I think, there's real detail in this one."
"God, she would be the top in that scenario, I'll give them that. What about that one of you and Groot and a friendly Nova officer handing out food parcels to orphans? Apparently that party think you are helping them become a self-governing part of the Nova Empire." Said Quill pointing. Rocket followed his gaze and swore.
"Fuck me, I look sappy as shit in that. What kind of frickin' bleeding heart shit is this? Is there anyone here who isn't trying to use our image to endorse their party?"
They all quickly scanned the nearest wall. "The Knowhere popular front isn't using us on their propaganda." Drax said, after some time.
"Who the hell are the Knowhere popular front?" Quill asked. A passing child overheard and pointed.
"He's over there." She said, indicating a lonesome looking man standing on a box and talking to no-one. The Guardians and the child watched him for a moment, before the child yelled "Splitter!" and kicked the man and ran off.
"Can someone please explain what the hell is going on?" asked Quill, walking past a dog on the street corner sniffing at a poster on a lamppost as if trying decide which of the badly drawn versions of the guardians to pee on, before setting on Rocket. Quill rounded the corner to the street where they had their base, and stopped dead. "And who the fuck are all these assholes?"
A small shanty town of brightly-coloured awnings had taken over the entire street, each one decked out with rosettes and posters.
*I can explain *
Quill froze up. "Whoa, who… did anyone else here that?"
"Yes."
"Yes."
"Yeah."
"I am Groot."
*I am here citizen. I can explain*
Quill looked around. He heard a small frustrated sigh.
*Down here идиот* Quill looked down. A Golden Retriever-Labrador cross was staring intently at him. This was not of itself unusual, but the 1960's cosmonauts EVA suit was a little odd.
* Greetings citizens. This street has been chosen as the centre of out new electoral process and various parties , groups, trade unions and other workers collectives echoing the soviets of the great class struggle have chosen this place for their election headquarters due to its proximity to your base of operations, in recognition of the aid you have given this station in gaining self-determination from imperialist and oligarchical systems of Tivan and Count Bling. I am Vostok 4KA deap space test subject Ветерок 110, codename "Cosmo." *
Quill stared.
"You're a talking dog." He said. He wished he could say something smarter, but there you go.
*Technically I am telepathic dog, you hare hearing me direct in your brains, Da?*
"I can see your mouth move."
*The process is not perfect citizen. I require the jaw movements to facilitate my internal thought process.*
The dog noticed Rocket staring at it, and its ears perked up. *Greeting fellow talking mammal! At last another uplifted quadruped with which to converse as equals in class struggle against two legged oppressor! Oh the joy! For so long I have waited for another with whom I can relate and find understanding of my deep struggle with identity as outsider. Happy Day!We shall be as the firmest of comrades, Da?*
Rocket bust out laughing.
"Bwahahahahahaha! Ahahahahaha…. Ahaha….. no, wait I can't….. hehehehe please stop…ahahahahaBWAAHAHAHAHA!" Rocket creased over laughing, clutching at his gut, tears of laughter spilling down his cheeks. "Eehehehehehe… it's a talking dog. An actual fucking talking dog….. ahahahaha" he pointed, tears rolling down as he struggled to contain his mirth. "Ahahahaha! What a freak!" he said, pointing.
Drax and Groot Gamora stood there with identical horrified looks, as Quill just watched the scene with mild interest, his brow furrowed in sudden realisation.
"Huh. Rocket's kind of a dick."
"What was your first warning sign?" asked Gamora. "The bit where he tried to kidnap you and put you in a sack, or this?"
"Heh, I think when I sneezed and he didn't say bless you. This is a close second." Said Quill, as Rocket grabbed Cosmo buy both cheeks and started making "Oh coochi Coochi coo!" talking-to-dog noises, in between struggling not to wet himself laughing , apparently completely unperturbed by either the rising Growling noise the dog was making, the bared teeth or the small bits off gravel that started to levitate around it as it warmed up its psionic powers. "Cosmo." said Quill at length,.
Both dog and racoon snapped around, Rocket still pinching at Cosmo's face playfully and Cosmo's teeth an inch from Rocket's throat.
*Yes?* asked Cosmo.
"Is the back way to the warehouse blocked?" asked Quill. "Can we get though if we go thought the Collectors old place? 'Cause I for one have no intention of walking thorough two-hundred different factions who want to slap my face on a lunchbox and claim it as their own regardless of what I might want."
Cosmo pulled his jaws back from Rocket and seemed to consider this, as Quill and the others flinched as small bits of gravel rained down on them.
*I do not believe so citizen, I believe the way should be clear to you: I myself have better knowledge of that particular oligarchical gulag that I would like. Do you require a guide?* he asked, tail wagging eagerly.
Rocket snorted. "Hell, we've been thought the Collectors old place before. It's a short cut. We don't need crotch-sniffer here to lead the way."
"Yeah." said Quill." As much as I hate to agree with you right now, we know the way, and as much as I'm a fan of openness there only so much Glasnost I'll risk in showing talking soviet military dogs the back way into my house when we don't know who he might be working with… no offense Cosmo." He added, not quite able to shift his Regan era paranoia about anything that had CCCP stencilled on it.
Cosmo made a disappointed whining noise, and his ears sunk but he answered, a mite dejectedly. *Understood citizen. Operation security would prohibit such an action. Understood. Much luck in future endeavour, товарищ Звёздный-Лорд. I will be here if you wish at a latter time a didactic discussion on the future of the station or how I may be of aid in the advancement of your cause*
"Ummm, sure okay. You too?" said Quill, having no idea what exactly it was the strange Russian dog had just tried to express but just happy it and Rocket seemed have narrowly avoided killing each other for the moment, as they walked off into a side alley and from their into the collectors lair.
Cosmo watched them for some time, tail between his legs and whining.
After a while, when he caught the scent, he begun to bark angrily into the alley mouth, but of course people ignored him. It was just a dog after all.
The odd drop of water dipped and fell thought the dark of the Collectors shattered home.
"Okay: creepier than ever" muttered Rocket, sniffing at the rank close air. "Uggg, what up and died in here since we were last here? That reeks to high heaven!"
"I am Groot."
"Nah, it's meatier than that its… familiar." he said, walking along at Quill's side as they avoided the crowd outside and tied to make it home, sneaking into their own home like teenagers past curfew.
"Quill sniffed. " Ugg. Smells like hospitals to me to me… come on, let's get going" muttered Quill. "This place gives me the willies." He said, striding forwards into the dark.
There was a brief crackle on his Walkman, and a song begun to unwind, slowly and quietly.
Awesome Mix Vol 2: Barbra Streisand. The Way We Were
Quill startled, and clicked his Walkman off.
"Sorry, don't know where that came from." He said.
"Uhh, Quill?" said Gamora. Quill looked up from his Walkman.
"Shoot." he said after a while. A big chunk of the ceiling had come down at some pointy, possibly after Rocket had shot up the walls in his fight with Yondu, blocking their path completely.
Still fumbling with his Walkman trying to switch of the tune, he glanced sideways. "Hey, that door over there ought to get us in the right direction." He said.
The team looked. "That creepy, spooky 'portal-to-hell' door that I'm 100% sure wasn't there the last time we were here?" asked Rocket. "There was a wall there before.
Quill shrugged. "Maybe it came down when the ceiling did. It leads the right way, and I want to get home and spend the next week vegetating in my easy-chair. Of course, if you'd rather we go back so you can play with comrade old Yeller…"
"Portal to hell it is then." Said Rocket briskly. "Just try to shut up that soft shit music, willya? Some of us have hangovers to nurse. "
"And whose fault is that? Asked Gamora, as they walked into a bare steal box of a room, about twenty meters on all sides. Rocket grunted, but did not answer.
Quill kept struggling with his Walkman, somehow accidentally activating the dongle that broadcast his music on all frequencies, and suddenly the terrifying sound of a very loud and distorted Barbra Streisand rung out from the internal com's system.
"Jesus, sorry." said Quill, shutting it up as the team walked out of the room into another, identical one. "I don't know what's with this. It's never done this before." He said muttering to himself.
"Here, I can fix it." Said Rocket.
Quill handed it over, before remembering how hungover and nasty Rocket was feeling at the moment. He managed to get the Walkman back in one piece, but not before Rocket had put a visible dent in the wall of the room with it.
"Dude! Not cool, my Mom gave me that!"
"Along with the crappier half of your genes. Where the hell are we going Quill? This corridor seems to go on forever and I for one want to get home and sleep for an age. And will you shut that frickin' thing off?" he asked, as it started up again and they walked into another 20 by 20 cell.
- Memories may be beautiful and yet
-What's too painful to remember we simply choose to forget-
Gamora froze up, as they walked into yet another identical room, and swore and drew her sword.
"Quill! We have a problem." she yelled, as the others cursed and drew weapons on seeing what she saw.
Quill stopped dead, Walkman in his hand and looking at it like an un-exploded grenade. It was one of his special things, his anchor back to earth, and it had never frightened him before.
Before.
"I know." he said, very quietly. "My mother could never stand Barbra Streisand… there isn't any on any of her tapes…"
He looked up.
In front of him in the wall, was a very visible Walkman shaped depression in the sheet steel at about Racoon head height.
As one the crew turned and looked behind them. The backs of five people that looked very like them were visible in the next room, and the next, and the one after that and so on until infinity.
And then the laughter started, the Streisand got louder, and starting at the very limit of vison, the doors of those identical rooms begun to slam shut, coming at them like a tsunami.
The team ran, and they made it a good distance, five, ten permutations of that one identical room before the door in front of them slammed down with a dread finality, And they were suddenly alone in the dark.
For a moment all Quill could here was five sets of panting, and then a sudden start as a small furry body bumped up against his leg in the dark, and then after a long time, the voice, and the little red light.
"Ahh, my friends. So good to have you back in my humble Collection. I would ask you to take a seat, but I'm afraid your little escapades destroyed them all."
"Tivan!"
"Ahh, lady Gamora. I would offer you the kiss of friendship, but I find myself quite unable. No lips to speak of I'm afraid. And Groot, still in that body a see. Taking good care of it for me I hope? I don't believe we have had the pleasure, Drax the destroyer, but I am something of a fan of your work.
"Let us out of here Tivan!" said Quill turning slowly on the spot, pistols raised, trying to see where he could be hiding. The room was utterly bare.
"But of course… Starlord. Only half terran I see from the medical reports those Nova ships send to each other… and dear little Rocket, had I know you were such a… limited edition... I would have been far kinder to you on our last meeting. My humble apologies. " The doors slid open again, revealing identical rooms as far as the eye could see in all four directions, far larger than Knowhere could possibly contain.
"Bite me, robo-tard. " muttered Rocket, spinning around to look at all the rooms. Tivan laughed.
"Ah, can't fool that nose, I see. Well done"
"What?" whispered Quill to Rocket, the racoon snorted.
"Even over whatever has died in here, I'd be able to smell if the Collector had been back since, that pomade practically violates bioweapon laws. Little blinky light, top left corner, Quarnex memory core. The bastard backed-up his brain in case his body got all blowed up."
"And thankfully it didn't. All records indicate that I am alive and well. My system rebooted after the explosion, quite a while after as it was only activated by Nova re-connecting the station's outer net. And what do I find but my collection destroyed, and you five trying to turn this place into your own civics class democracy experiment. Well, teacher is not impressed. I will be taking my station back now, I'm afraid. But don't feel sad… wielding an infinity stone, saving worlds? Since I saw you last, you've proven yourselves to be quite, quite remarkable. Worthy of any collection, if I may be so bold."
"So that is your diabolical play!" roared Drax. "To hold us in this insufferable maze until your true self can return and kidnap us for some curated horror?"
"More or less…I also planed on gloating."
"I am Groot." said Groot, surprisingly forcefully.
"Huh. Interesting. Groot says if you Squint really hard, you can see a way out: all these rooms ain't real, they're in our heads." Said Rocket.
The team squinted.
"Mind control, really? If you've read up on us properly, you'd know the infinity stone bullshit gave us a pretty good dose of that itself. Everything else seems piss-weak after that." Said Quill.
"But of course, and it is that unexpected ability of yours that makes you all so worthy of my collection. Oh, the illusion of the infinite rooms isn't meant to keep you in here… you are."
"Come again?" asked Quill.
"Take a step forwards, try it out, Starlord."
Quill looked to the other, and shrugged. He took a step forwards.
-The smell of hospitals hit him like a wave, the Snoopy get well card, the beeping of the instruments, and the crinkly feel of the wrapping-paper in his hands.
"Take my hand Peter!" said his Mom, reaching out to him desperately, and he couldn't, he was too afraid-
Peter Jason Quill fell to the ground after one step, wrenching. Gamora hurried forwards to help and-
-Thanos's face, leering in as the smoke from the burning city filled the air and he looked at her, not angry, for angry she could deal with, but proud of her-
Gamora recoiled as if slapped, her hands only half-way out to Peter. She paled. "What is this palace?"
"An NES suite. The reason he NES hacks people try fail, I believe, is that people… people know scripted dreaming when they see it. It's too neat. Reality is never that simple. Never that smooth. Memories of real events are so much rawer than even the least polished writings. The reason mind control won't work on you, for example, is that all of you know it's fake when you see it, the stone showed you the real thing, so nothing else will come close… not unless you know it's real. And the only things you can know subjectively to be real, are your own first-hand experiences.
"This is a memory cell it works on very simple rules, my friends. The doors stay open. You just have to walk to them. And each step will cost you a memory. Not stolen from you, my interest is preserving information not destroying it, but shared amongst the group, with perfect, artificially enhanced clarity. Five people, twenty meters, and each step any of you takes will share one of your worst memories with all the others. So let's play a simple game, shall we? It's called getting to know you. Because, and call me a cynic, I propose that between the five of you, each has memories so horrifying you'll disgust the others so much they can't go on. Or, you'll feel too guilty and protective of them to burden them with the knowledge. Either way, you have secrets and lies that you keep from each other for the sake of the team, or so you tell yourselves.
"That ends today, dear friends so. .. is you friendship really so close you could bare all to each other and stand to look them in the eye, or will you choose to stay in an unlocked cell rather than let the others into the darker places of your own minds. Come on, just a little stroll down memory lane?" Tivan Mrk II said. "Don't be shy, Guardians of the Galaxy…." He purred. "I've got the feeling we're going to be together in this room for a very long time…"
"So my dear friends, who want's to go first?"