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

[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.

[logicunlocked]

"Okay. I thought you didn't seem like the type to believe in ghost stories."

[supfirehawk]

She shook her head and leaned back as she rested her palms on the table. "We'll go see for ourselves what the inner ship has."

[idkmybffbloodwing]

He nodded at Lilith's comment, and had a deep drink. Needed it, really, if people with minds like York's were going to be common here on the Tranquility. At least there was always alcohol to fall back on when the assholes got too dense, both in number and mental capacity.

[logicunlocked]

He'd offer to help get into anything they found locked down below, but after their previous conversation about getting into places he wasn't interested in offering that kind of help until he already knew more details about what they found. Eventually the conversation moved along and York drifted away to find other people he could talk to.

[supfirehawk]

"You've met that guy before?" she asked once York was out of earshot. Didn't seem like the type of person Mordecai would hang around with.

[idkmybffbloodwing]

"Yeah. Ran into him at the lockers when I first showed up." He shrugged. "Kind of a goody-two-shoes."

[supfirehawk]

"That's something we don't deal with on a daily basis." Closest they had gotten to that was Roland and even he wasn't that goody goody.

[idkmybffbloodwing]

"Lotta people on this ship've had pretty cushy lives. That's the only way I can figure they can grow up and still see things like they're ten years old." He shook his head and topped off his glass with whichever bottle he grabbed first of the two between them, not particularly caring if he ended up mixing things or not. Call it a cocktail.

[supfirehawk]

She shook her head. "Then they're going to be stuck here as long as they keep up that attitude."

[idkmybffbloodwing]

"Uh huh." He leaned back in his chair, frowning at his glass. "That or get lucky enough to have people like us fix everything for them just 'cause we don't wanna be here. Damn freeloaders."

[supfirehawk]

"It's not even like they're being actively attacked here." The people in Sanctuary had a damn good reason to be afraid of doing anything more than they already did. They risked themselves just by being there.