Arriba, abajo;

[idkmybffbloodwing]

CHARACTERS: Mordecai, OPEN!
LOCATION: Space Babylon
WARNINGS: None
SUMMARY: Mordecai found the bar. Good luck getting him to leave, ever.
NOTES: Prose or action is fine, take your pick. Oh, and feel free to join existing threads or start a new one.

It was amazing how quickly time could pass. Already, Mordecai had been stuck on this damn ship for a week - a week too long, in his opinion, but there wasn't much to do about that. Most of his and Lilith's thoughts on how they might get out of here already had proven futile. Having spent as much time reading the comms as he had, though, that didn't really surprise him. There wasn't much that they'd thought of that hadn't already been tried.

He wasn't about to give up on at least finding out more about the workings of the place, though. There was a lot of information out there that the ship's other residents knew that wasn't written down in any obvious place - he'd learned that much already from Jaye and her descriptions of the ship's interior. He doubted those he really wanted information from - namely, the ship's Captain and Commander - would ever visit the bar and talk openly with the passengers while inebriated. That would be too good to be true. But getting to know a few more people could yield surprising results.

Well, that, and really, he just wanted a drink, so justifying it to himself didn't actually matter. Besides, he was curious about the place. He sent a quick text to Lilith, who he'd never known to turn down a night of social drinking, then headed on in to see who was there, and most importantly, what the regulars recommended he try.

Comments

[idkmybffbloodwing]

"I admit, I dunno what the hell's believable or not anymore. Same girl's a shapeshifter. Like, she changes into animals. And I'd say there had to be some kinda trick to it, but hell if I know anymore, after the stuff I've read on the comms, with people being from all kinds of fucked-up worlds, with superpowers and whatever."

[supfirehawk]

"Can't be anymore fucked-up than ours. Remember the wereskags from Jakob's Cove?" Never mind her own powers.

[idkmybffbloodwing]

"That's still different from calling it magic. Makes me think there's either more to it than she's saying, or more to it than she herself knows about." He shrugged and had a drink. The girl had gone on about gods and the like, too, and that kind of suspension of disbelief required of him was even more extreme.

"Anyway, it doesn't matter. She can call it what she wants. What does matter is she can help on an exploration trip. I don't think it'd hurt to have another pair of eyes, especially ones that have been there before."

[supfirehawk]

She folded her arms on top of the counter. "Now that, I'm fine with. But we should be ready for if she goes crazy on us in the middle of the ship."

[idkmybffbloodwing]

He laughed a little at that. "So what if she does, are you worried you can't handle one single unarmed woman? Even if she tries to change into some animal and attack, I think we can handle it."

[logicunlocked]

He'd taken a seat a couple stools away some time ago and found a bottle for himself, seeking to unwind, though his interest was piqued by the conversation he could overhear from down the bar. After a bit he decided to go behind the bar and trade out the alcohol he was drinking for something else. Once he made his way behind it, he found himself practically face-to-face with the two who were conversing. "You talking about exploring the locked areas of the ship?" he asked, switching the bottles out and looking at them with a raised eyebrow.

[supfirehawk]

"Yeah," she answered cautiously and sized the man up. His scar said he wasn't a stranger to fights, but he had been clearly eavesdropping. "Who are you, the bartender?"

[idkmybffbloodwing]

"No no, this is the guy who wants to be friends with everyone. You know, it's not good manners to eavesdrop. Might wanna work on that if you want people to like you so bad." Yeah, the kid wasn't that bad, really, but he couldn't help but make fun of him.

[logicunlocked]

He chuckled, pouring himself a glass of something and coming back around the bar. "Hey, you're the ones talking about it so loudly. Might want to use your indoor voices, talking about that kind of shit."

[supfirehawk]

"More like you have good ears," she countered.

[idkmybffbloodwing]

"Besides, wanting to see what the hell this ship's hiding isn't that secret. I get the feeling lotsa people here have tried it. We'll just get farther." And hopefully make it back intact. That would be best.

[logicunlocked]

"I do have good ears. Need to make up for the eye somehow, thanks." He sat down again, choosing the bar stool next to Mordecai's this time instead of further down the bar. "The stuff about the ship changing, that just sounds like people getting panicked, and getting lost because they panicked. Same with the stuff about smelling blood and all that." At least, that sounded logical to him. Sounded like something D would say.

[supfirehawk]

She shook her head. "There's a chance it's in their heads, but there's also the chance it's real. We have to be ready for both possibilities." Because they had just been yanked from their planets and tossed onto a random spaceship. She wasn't ruling out moving walls and the smell of blood just yet.

[idkmybffbloodwing]

He nodded. "I'm findin' myself leaning more and more toward there being something to it. When I look back through old comms posts, there's all these references to people getting seriously hurt or even killed, or just getting lost forever in the thing. It's bad news, and I wanna know why it's there and what we can do about it."

[logicunlocked]

That's not something he had engaged much in. Reading archives would strain his eye after not long at it. He barely kept up with the current text posts. Most of the stuff coming across the network was about the masks, and that sounded like mass hysteria to him. "I've only got word-of-mouth to go on. How many references are you talking about?"

[idkmybffbloodwing]

"Enough. It's hard to separate out who got lost in the ship and died, and who got sent home, but easily a dozen people have gone in and come out with something to say about it. I haven't gone through everything yet, though. Doubt I ever will, there's a lot that's archived."

[supfirehawk]

She gave a nod toward Mordecai. "If anyone can find the important parts out of that mess of a backlog, it's you."

[logicunlocked]

"Hm." He tipped his glass a little, slowly swirling the drink under the lip of the glass. "It's been hard for me to find out some of this kind of stuff. They have their help files, but it's a lot of solid text. Difficult for me to wade through."

[idkmybffbloodwing]

"There's a text to voice function if you ever want storytime from a computer." He shrugged. It'd take a lot more time to wade through that way, though. The thing wasn't always a quick reader.

[supfirehawk]

"I think I'll pass on that kind of storytime." She'd heard enough computerish voices from Hyperion's robots, but it was good to know that function existed.

[logicunlocked]

"Yeah, listening to that is boring as hell. It works as a sleep aid, maybe."

[idkmybffbloodwing]

"No wonder you don't know shit about what's goin' on here, then."

[logicunlocked]

He shook his head, smiling wryly. "You can't believe everything you hear, or read, either. There's gotta be a rational explanation for all of it."

[supfirehawk]

"So there's a rational explanation for why we were kidnapped and thrown on a ship for seemingly no reason?"

[idkmybffbloodwing]

"I bet there is. Just haven't figured it out yet. And no, you can't just believe everything you hear, pendejo, of course not. Why do you think I'm spending so much time trying to get to the bottom of this?" And the bottom of his bottle but heyyy, there were lots more.