forty-second jump;

[ataraxites]

CHARACTERS: Any and all.
LOCATION: Gravity Couches and beyond.
WARNINGS: Maybe some swearing, or even some violence, and more than likely some implied (and possibly explicit) nakedness.
SUMMARY: Another month, another jump, another round of new faces.
NOTES: There's a strange sense of contentment that greets you as you wake from the jump. Deep and certain, it doesn't warm you or cloak the unpleasantness of the stasis fluid on your skin and the disorientation spinning in your head. It feels disconcertingly distant, instead, a sense as though an answer has been decided on - and that you won't much like to experience it coming to fruition...

New arrivals will find messages spraypainted across their lockers telling them not to follow their tattoo numbers, and instead to find a room on Floors 001-010.


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ＹＯＵ͘ ̨ＷＡＫＥ̢ ̧ＵＰ ́ＩＮ ＤＡ̛ＲＫＮ̢Ｅ̕ＳＳ̶

There's a breathing tube jammed down your trachea, and you're suspended in a tube of clear blue fluid. Upon registering your level of consciousness, the gravity couch drains the fluid surrounding you and retracts the breathing apparatus; the doors in front of you open, and you're deposited on the floor of a stark, sterile medical bay.

ＹＯ́Ｕ̴ ̧Ａ̨ＲＥ ＮＯＴ҉ ̷ＡＬＯ̨ＮＥ҉

There are others who have come before you, others who are awakening beside you. Some may be familiar to you, perhaps even friends. Others have much less amiable plans. Some are merely alien and inexplicable, but there are always those who might mean you harm.

After you catch your breath and your vision returns, you notice a number on the inside of your forearm. Maybe it's a familiar number. Maybe it means something. Maybe it's just a number. But the number—completely unique to you—is a tattoo, and it does not come off.

If you enter the room adjacent to the medbay, you will find a small locker with your number on it, surrounded by rows upon rows of identical lockers. Inside, you will find a few of your personal items, a communications device, and a ship's uniform in your exact size. The comms device is fully powered and connects directly to the ship's network; it's your only means of communication beyond physical conversation. Upon turning the device on, a neutral, automated voice will say, "Please take the blue lift to the passenger quarters." Any other attempts at communicating with the rest of the network are met only with static.

ＴＨ̀ＩＳ͜ ̶Ｉ͠Ｓ͡ ͘Ｙ̵Ｏ͝ＵＲ ̕Ｗ͝Ｅ̛Ｌ̨Ｃ͡Ｏ͝Ｍ͏Ｅ Ｐ̛ＡＲ̴ＴＹ͜

Comments

Lockers

[bailedontheempire]

[Bail is a bit out of sorts. Two years is a long time. And Luke's vanished again. Nothing is ever simple.]

Never entirely.

[He's been coping by simply accepting his life was never going to make sense again. Most days it's enough.]

[servator]

I know that feeling.

[ "Nothing is ever simple." Truer words.

Shepard half-glances at the stranger, not quite recognizing him. ]

I don't think we've met. [ And she sticks out her hand. ] Shepard.

[bailedontheempire]

[He shakes her hand. Years in politics have left him with a handshake that is precisely the right amount of firm.]

Bail Organa. I've been on board for... well, this makes two years.

]Not a comforting thought.]

[servator]

Shit. [ Definitely not. ] I've only been here half a year.

[ Puts things into perspective, doesn't it? ]

[bailedontheempire]

Half a year is more than long enough.

[A month is long enough. It's too long to be away from anyone.]

[servator]

Sure. But compared to some of the others... I mean, the experience has got to count for something, even in a crazy place like this.

[bailedontheempire]

At the very least, there comes a point where one accepts that very little will ever make complete sense again.

[He says it with an utterly straight face. Then again, he'd been nearly at that point since involving himself with Skywalkers.]