eighteenth jump;

[mathematically]

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: Keeping up with the tradition and copy pasted like always from the last one 



You wake up in darkness.

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.

You are not alone.
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.

This is your welcome party.

Comments

[cargojet]

Nathan hesitates. What exactly is he hearing? Thranduil attacked someone? Thranduil? And they threw him in the brig for it? He does a double take, not even looking as Izzie comes splashing back.

"You attacked someone? You wanna give me the whole story?"

[elvenking]

He lets out a breath.

"It is not a story. It is only incidents. I believe...it began shortly after I arrived. One day I had a strange sleep--I had no memory of sleeping at all. I do not sleep as you do, Nathan Petrelli. Elves sleep in what you might call a trance, I suppose. We wander our dreams as they blend with the waking world. I have often found it restful to wander in happy memories at this time, for our memories do not fade as yours. So I believe I did when I slept. Much later, when I tried to recall a memory from long ago--a very precious one to me, more precious than all jewels--all I could recall was a face I did not know.

"It happened again, perhaps two months later. A memory as dear as the last, and the same face had replaced it. I realized they were being taken as I dreamt of them. Since then, I have dreamt of...unpleasant things, lest he come again, but he never did. The things I have visited in my dreams to keep him at bay since then, since before the genetics laboratory was discovered, may have deterred him, or he may have lost interest. I do not know. But one day I believed I spoke with him on the network, for he seemed to know or guess much of what was happening, although he remained anonymous. I believed it to be him, gloating, but he denied it when I saw him.

"He was only a boy, Nathan."

Thranduil's voice shakes slightly as he continues, but his face remains impassive.

"Small and slender, barely of age by the look of him, yet appearances can often deceive. I pushed him against the wall and demanded answers of him. He looked so frightened and confused, and I thought it to be a trick, and so I treated him none too gently, I fear. The answers I had were too few when Miles Edgeworth came upon us."

[cargojet]

Nathan's mind reaches somewhere that Thranduil's can't. He remembers the feeling of someone reaching into his head and changing the world around him, remembers what it cost to fight his way free, remembers people using it against him--and here, he knows someone used Linderman against him, though he can't place who it was.

He knows how angry he'd be if people went in and gently prised away the important memories. The faces of his children, perhaps; how furious it would make him. How he'd look at everyone around him with suspicion. He'd been there; he knew that feeling.

"You treated him none too gently. I need the truth. What you did to him, what made you think he was the one responsible. I can help you, but you need to be honest with me."

[elvenking]

Something in his chest releases as Nathan seems to believe him, seems to want to help. He breathes a little easier, and his voice steadies somewhat.

"I took him by the arms and pushed him against the wall...twice. Once I held him up from the floor. It shook him, but I did not believe I hurt him, and though I suppose mortals are quite fragile I do not know if he is so." It's coming a little easier now. "His was the face I remember in place of those memories. He said to me I did not need them, that I could make new ones. He said they were only dreams, and that he ate them. That he cannot give them back."

The very worst part of this is not only the memories lost, but the memories being brought back. The feeling of powerlessness he has fought since longer than he cares to recall being shoved in his face.

[cargojet]

Nathan seems to pause, to think on it for several moments as he churns over what he's been told. It sounds like a psychic's power. Nathan knows those well enough. Dream eating is new, but doesn't seem that unlikely; not really. He has no doubt that what Thranduil says is true.

But whether the supernatural would be investigated thoroughly by Security is another matter entirely. The supernatural is easily overlooked. After they found that body last month, bloodless, how could nobody's mind turn straight to vampires?

Grimacing, Nathan raises his chin slightly.

"I should warn you now that your memories... They probably are gone. Put into the situation he was, I think if there was some way to return them, he would have.

"But it doesn't make it right. He fed on you without your consent, and that can't happen. Not here--not if we want to keep order. It's Edgeworth I should speak to, then?" A hesitation. "It won't be easy, he's close minded where the supernatural is concerned. I'll need to think on the best approach."

[elvenking]

"Edgeworth was the one who found us and put me in the brig. I doubt he would believe anything I have to say on the matter. But if I am vulnerable to this, then so are others. Certainly my son if no one else. The extent of his powers is still uncertain--tomorrow I may not remember speaking of this to you, or my own name. Were this my own realm I would treat him as a danger until I could find the truth."

He turns his face away. When he speaks again, his voice is very soft, but hard and even as hewn stone.

"Seldom do I ask for help, but I am helpless. I cannot have justice if his intentions were blameless. I cannot be returned what I have lost. I fear him still, for he may come back to my dreams for vengeance, and I can do nothing, for who would believe me now? I cannot sleep, for who would guard my dreams?"