twenty-sixth 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: Your average, run-of-the-mill jump—except some characters don't seem to be waking up from stasis like they should.



Don't worry.




THEY NEEDED THE REST.

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

[striking]

[ katniss turns her glare on him. is he chiding her? she gets enough of that from effie, and she seriously doesn't think landing in the middle of the strangest arena she's ever seen is the time to think about manners. ]

He's not exactly going to hear me if I whisper.

[ her tone is deeply sarcastic. ]

[legionare]

[ he's not trying to, but it's not entirely inaccurate for that matter. max wouldn't say that he understands this place, precisely, it's far too different from alera for that, but he knows well enough to accept what is impossible for him to change. ]

There are more effective ways of contacting anyone here. [ more effective even than watercrafting, but max managed to figure out how to use the network eventually, so surely so will she. ]

[striking]

[ katniss' eyes narrow, and she tips her head a little, somewhere between disbelieving and challenging. ]

Am I going to use a telephone?

[ there had only been three in her whole village, and for all these strange tubes, she doesn't see any phones here. ]

[legionare]

What's a telephone?

[ don't talk to him about technology. ] There are communicators here. I don't know how they work, they're unlike any crafting I've ever seen, but apparently you actually don't need furies to make things work around here.

[ a beat, and he gives her a smile. ] That probably means nothing to you, does it?

[striking]

[ katniss' brow crinkles slightly as he talks, but at least he seems to realize that he's speaking gibberish. ]

No.

[ what she gets from it is there's some way of communicating, maybe like a telephone, if he knew what a telephone was. at least the strangeness means she's paying more attention to him now, instead of thinking about peeta and the games. ]

Can you tell me something useful?

[legionare]

You are on a spaceship. We've all been brought here form our respective worlds and no one knows why. There's a ship-wide network of communication and there are showers and lockers provided for after the jump. Most people find uniforms in their lockers.

[ how's that for useful? ]

[striking]

[ that's all good information to have. or it would be, if she believed him. she takes a wary step backwards, and it's hard to tell if she's about to rush him or run away. ]

None of that makes any sense.

[ well, okay, except for the bit about uniforms. that makes the kind of sense than leaves katniss nauseous. ]

[ really nauseous, actually. she bends at the waist suddenly, putting a hand to her stomach as she fights the urge to be sick. but maybe she should vomit — it would put some truth to peeta's lie about her pregnancy, if there's anyone watching. ]

I don't feel so good.

[legionare]

I know. [ he's aware that it doesn't make sense — hell, he's been here for months and so much of it still doesn't make sense, but max has always been good at ignoring that kind of thing and just marching on. ]

Shower might make you feel better.

[ and he's not a healer, he never will be, but he does have the capacity to patch up anything that's terribly wrong if she's under water. looking at her, though, he doesn't think there's anything wrong. ] First jumps are rough. That's what they call this, a jump.

[striking]

[ katniss swipes a hand across the back of her mouth, even though she hasn't actually been sick, like she can wipe the acidic taste from the back of her throat. the nauseated dizziness passes fairly quickly, though. it reminds her of flying in the hovercraft to her first games, not sure how much was movement and how much was her terrified anticipation. ]

A shower might help.

[ she agrees warily, as though she's not sure if she wants to go anywhere alone with him. still, it would be nice to wash off instead of just wiping this stuff on a towel. ]

Why?

[ she looks at him solidly, clarifies which bit she's questioning. ]

Why do they call "this" a jump?

[legionare]

[ there have been plenty of women perfectly happy to shower (or rather: bathe) with him, and some who have declined. he's not even hitting on her right now—she looks as though she'd either skin him for it, or really throw up, and max isn't interested in either even though she is gorgeous. ]

Apparently the spaceship jumps through space and if we're not inside the tubes, we die while it does that.

[ spreading his fingers as though to say but what do i know. ]