Anybody else notice "Cell B1" in today's comic? I can't remember if that's came up before.

oooooooooooh. Nice Catch Yurak. What you wanna bet that's where it comes from. The conditioned response from the torture of room B1 is what triggers the override.

The reasons that Chen wears his glasses he that he has the same vision deficiency that Riff does. .. they are related.

Torg!
Don't let Chen through that door!
He's too anxious to get in there.

Arghh.

It's possible that there never was a Kusari in the 4U City dimension.

And don't let Chen out that door either!

So, anyone else with me that what happens next is a cut back to the big battle outside?

And...you were right!

Next, a cut back to Torg inside...

Whenever the comic flips back to Kusari, it'll be revealed that she is.... Gwynn. (Yes I know it's not original spec, but still!)

Nonsense. She's clearly Dr. Lorna!

I've actually wondered about this.

We haven't seen her in forever.
Last mention was about her being at Riffs funeral.
We think Riffs dad was involved with Sinthea La'mort, who is almost definitely involved in the Oasis project (possible lying Chen stuff being the only way she's not).
Maybe the reason she's (Dr. Lorna) so bitter is because she got talked into being cloned, and her clone (Kusari) chose to work for HC to stay alive.

In this theory, the 'limited resource' is probably a technical issue.

There's lots of overlap, and lots of holes, but I don't think there's more holes in this theory than in any other.

Interesting to wonder about at least; for the next however long Pete decides to torture us.

As I think about this more, there's other things that could fit into this;

Her relationship with Riff has always bothered me;
Maybe she's also bitter because Riff isn't really hers, in a John Snow kind of way, and she's been forced (bought/bribed/threatened/blackmailed) into at least playing the part. Maybe she doesn't know she was cloned, and is only bitter about Riff, or maybe she does know and she's got lots of stuff to be bitter about.

In this case, Riff might be La'mort's son. If Sasha is a La'morte kid or clone as well, that makes Riff even more of a John Snow character (and makes me cringe a good bit as well). I hope not, but I'll put nothing past Pete at this point.

Roberts chose Riff's screen name as Sluggy, and Roberts is a Steve clone, and possibly aware of / working with La'morte. Maybe momma La'morte picked her son's screen name.

Maybe Sasha is Dr. Lorna's daughter, and Kusari is Dr Lorna's clone and Riff is his dad's and La'morte's son and La'morte had Mr. Riff's dad plant him with his wife (because fate), and Dr Lorna has had to play along with being Riff's mom because HC has been holding Sasha hostage, and raised her as an agent.

And Kusari should feel bad about Sasha because she's a clone of her mother, and she got roped into the HC mess because of Riff's dad so Schlock feels sorry for her, but she chose to work for HC, so she should feel guilty, but doesn't because of how she was raised and / or programmed.

That holds together better than I thought.

Hrmmm...

Probably totally wrong, but it's interesting, and it explains Dr. Lorna's attitude and bitterness, which has bugged me for a long time.

The "Sluggy" thing has to be because of whatever Uncle Time/Tempest is doing to the fate web. He and the spiders can literally manipulate events via tweaks to the web and came up with the idea of having "Sluggy Freelance" be a rallying cry. Plus if Torg is from Timeless Space (child of Calix and Kada) as I suspect, Tempest would be perfectly positioned to impact his choice of middle name.

Followed by another split comic with the tunnel inhabitant and Kusari's face revealed.

I'm with you on shipping Kada and Callix as Torg's parents, but that doesn't rule out La'morte being Tempest's agent.

And even if that part wasn't La'morte, after re-reading today's strip, something caught my eye; in the second to last pannel, Bun-Bun calls Riff 'Riffington'.

Who else calls him that but his mom?
(Sluggy Niftysearch has several occasions where it's used as his last name, and a few where friends use it drunkenly or teasingly, but the only one who normally addresses him like that is his mother)

And Riff's face, that's not another betrayal by a dead girlfriend face.
-She's betrayed him before,
-And he's brought people back from the dead himself (Zoe) and he's seen it other places, both with Oasis, and in DoR.

_That's the face of a whole world turned upside down._

-He already feels betrayed by his father.
-And now the person he believes to be his mother has been one of his biggest enemies for a large part of his adult life.

I'm calling it for the win, place your bets and take your chances, Kusari is a clone of Dr. Lorna.

And I'm liking the rest of my spec too. It explains all the personal interactions between Kusari and Schlock that everyone has keyed in on as important and telling if we only knew. Maybe a few of the blood ties are switched or backwards, but I'm guessing it's #@$&ed up family mess with Riff's parents and HC.

I'll admit it doesn't touch the whole sister angle between Kusari and Oasis, but that could be from Dunuloa and Rana, the imposed minds (if that's what it is) or just that they are similar creations or sister projects.

Or I'm all wrong and backwards.

But I'm still going with:
Kusari body = Dr. Lorna clone