ataraxionlogs | eighteenth jump;

Entry tags:

eighteenth jump;

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.

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[Instead of words or face chewing, he just gets a death glare. She's also choosing to ignore his insecurity about Marty. She's not his therapist and any attempts at being one would end in her probably saying mean, dumb things again.

Which is best avoided.]

Some man asked me about anomalous redshift. Then when I gave him an answer, he told me I was wrong.

[She is still so focused on this. She's sort of hiding the paper she's been trying to work out the problem on.]

[Yes. Good. This is better... Okay, it's not better, but it's not ~insecurity power hour~ with Topher's damaged ego. He folds his arms over the top of the chair and rests his chin on it.]

Whaaat? [HE'S OFFENDED FOR YOU, BENNETT.] I expect people to do that to Wheatley at this point, but that's just rude.

[And now talking about it is getting her all fidgety again. She can't keep herself from working anymore. Slowly, she reaches for her pen and keeps trying to hide that she's calculating things.

Though if he's paying attention, he'll learn that she's ambidextrous when both her hands are functional.]

He said it was a highly advanced answer and that I was qualified to, to answer space questions but. He still said I was wrong and--

I'm really regretting not studying more astrophysics.

[While it's terribly rude to laugh (and he's not laughing at her, he swears), he can't help but chuckle a bit at her intensity.]

Bennett, you're a neurologist. No one expects you to know everything there is to know about space... [He glances at the booth.] Besides that really misleading sign.

[He waves a hand.] Next time, make a really specific and derogatory comment about their brain chemistry and watch them sputter wondering if it was a compliment or not.

Insulting someone based on their brain chemistry is tantamount to making fun of someone for a mental illness. Which is like making fun of someone for being diabetic.

[For a sometimes violent psycho, she's very goody-goody.]

But I, I know. It got me thinking more, though. The universe is organized in a fashion similar to that of the brain. So many things mimic the same pattern. If I can, if I can take what I know about the mind and apply it to, to space then, well.

[Too much talking. THERE ARE RIDICULOUSLY COMPLICATED MATH PROBLEMS TO CALCULATE. She goes back to scrawling for a bit before she shoves her work in Topher's face.]

Not if you just use the... [He trails off, because... she has a point and there's no way to make that sound like less of a dick move and he just ends up staring at her like a shellshocked moron.]

That's one way to put it- Huh? [He flails a hand out to grab at the paper and studies it.]

You did this in, like, five minutes? [Of course she did. She's Bennett Halverson. A smile breaks out on his face.] Have I mentioned that I have this massive crush on your brain?

[God, he hopes she finds that endearing or not creepy and weird, because HE TRIED. HE TRIED SO HARD.]

Well, more like I've been working on it on and off for the past 30 minutes in between answering questions.

[Because devaluing her accomplishments is just what she does.

Which is why she pretty much BSOD's when he says he has a crush on her brain. Her brain has no problems with practically inventing a new form of math but there's a complete system failure when presented with this information. Like an old computer trying to load a simple .jpg, it just doesn't work.

So she ends up just staring at him with her mouth gaped open like a fish.]

...No..?

[She tries to say something but it just comes out as more of a weird squeaky noise than an actual word.]

[Once it occurs to him that she isn't going to yell at him, he gets absorbed in her math again, biting a nail as he reads over every little equation, stopping only when he realizes that Bennett seems to be squeaking.]

How do you not realize this is awesome? [He hands her the paper again and just stares at her, baffled by her own self-deprecation. Maybe he had more pride than either of them, but she was a sexy little brain goddess.]

I only wish I could think like that. I mean, I can think like that, but not... as detailed or... [He flails a hand.] It's art. What I do is macaroni doodles in comparison.

[In hindsight, maybe if he had told her this from the start, they could have avoided all that, but then it smacked of insincerity- after all, he hadn't seen her work then.]

No, no it's not. What you do. Your work is...amazing.

[Self-depreciation, round two. She really doesn't get how brilliant she is.]

What I do, it-it isn't art. I'm just being weird and obsessive because some man I barely know told me I was wrong. I'm sure that you, you could do something far more impressive than me. I'm not, not extraordinary.

[Well, he could. And would. But he still shrugs it off like it's nothing- she might be self-deprecating, but he's flippant and proud of himself.

But rather than make it about himself, he just leans on the booth a bit.]

I think you are.

[This situation would suddenly be so much easier if he would just start talking about himself. Since he's continuing with the flattery...yeah. Bennett just starts getting a little twitchy. And red. But she's been red and nervous so. Why can't these things just come naturally or something.

Bennett just...stares at him a little, blinking and trying to process this but it still doesn't work. At all.

QUICK, SUBJECT CHANGE.]

Maybe you should, I-I think that you should maybe go. Back. Ah, to work. Just in, just in case someone requires neurological care. Since I'm, I'm currently otherwise occupied. Yes. That-that might be a good idea.

[And now she sounds preachy. She'll never win this battle.]

[He slowly backs off. Right. Too much. Again. HE JUST CAN'T WIN WITH THIS CHICK, even if blushing and stammering was generally regarded as a good reaction to someone flirting and taking interest.

He blinks at her for a second and then realizes he should maybe not protest this and take the hint.]

Uh. Good point. Someone might slip and fall in the blue goo and get a head injury and who else are they gonna call? And even though that hasn't happened in a year and a half... you can definitely bet it would happen on the- on the day I'm not... Yeah. I'm gonna go.

[He waves a hand and slides out of the chair.] I'll, uh... See you around.

[SO SMOOTH.]

[But he is winning. That's why she's pushing him away! BENNETT LOGIC. She just doesn't know what she wants, she's too afraid to admit that being more than sort-of friends with him is a very appealing idea.]

We can, we could, uh. Possibly, maybe work on the, the nanite project? Later?

[That's a little better, isn't it? SHE HOPES SO.]

[Internally, he does a little fistbump. IT DID WORK. IT DID.] Yeah! Yeah, I've actually been compiling some notes. Um. I'll get back to you on those.

[He starts walking backwards.] And don't worry about those guys that give you hard questions- they're just being jerks.

[He nearly trips over a table in his insistence in going backwards and has to correct himself.] Later!

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eighteenth jump;

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