twenty-eighth 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: It could just be the standard sensation of air on wet skin, but if you bother to check, you might notice the steam rising from your body, barely there and gone within a minute. By the time you get to the showers, it will be clear that it's not just taking you time to adjust. The room is cold — colder than usual, but no worse than the last jump. While it's nothing dangerous, it's certainly motivation to hurry through the usual routine and get dressed quickly.



It's getting closer.




YOUR EYES ARE OPEN.

KEEP LOOKING.

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

[godofthemachine]

AM certainly plays cool for now, but he's still internally quite miffed at having been caught off-guard like that by one who poses such a threat. It brings the resolve to the front of his mind to spend more time around Melkor and learn his weaknesses. Seduce him to his side so that the inevitable clash for power will be so much easier to win.

So that's why he remains calm, as this is a prime opportunity to get to know his threat.

When offered the towel, AM wordlessly takes it and wraps it around his shoulders in an attempt to alleviate the cold. He says nothing to Melkor's first comment, only gives a grunt of acknowledgment.

But on the second comment as they move to the showers, AM still remains calm and neutral, desperate not to betray the fact that he was the one who made that scathing post to the network, criticizing the mutineers. "Heh. Is that so? How lucky they are then." Completely neutral and detached, only slightly amused that they made it back. Indeed they are lucky if that's the case, and AM is curious as to how.

[morgoth]

Melkor steps up to one of the showers, turning a dial, black brows drawing into a small furrow.

"Is it?"

He smooths into the tiled showers, hand flicking the dial for warmth. He likes his showers steaming, hot enough to scald.

"Lucky for them? Or for us? I wonder. How much madder have they become, in their isolation? I wouldn't put it past The Ship to have orchestrated it that they might break at last while among us. Taking sheep from the fold, cut them open, send them back with mortars inside."

[godofthemachine]

Melkor's words are, of course, what AM had already considered. He assumed - no, he knew that the ship was sentient to some degree. It was too similar to him in its tactics, though comparatively less brutal. So far.

He thinks nothing of showering with the man, thinks nothing of the fact that they - and everyone else - are naked. It certainly wasn't the first time this had happened on the ship. Nearly two years now and it went like this each month. He showers next to Melkor, turning his water hot, but not quite scalding. AM is sensitive to temperature, being so unused to it.

"Oh? How very astute of you to think that." Mild approval for thinking more along AM's wavelength, but a thinly-veiled insult.

"The Ship knew of their mutiny plan all along and used it to its advantage. Why wouldn't it?" He speaks casually, lathering soap in his hands and squeezing it into his long hair, bunching it up atop his head.

[morgoth]

"There are things besides my mental acuity I'd like to cut you with," Melkor informs, baring his teeth, looking far less than harmless, sodden hair dragging down his hard-carven features like spilled ink.

He reaches into the spray of AM's shower, using the scarred pad of his thumb to smear foamed soap away from the other man's brow before is can wash into his eyes. The gesture almost has the rub of something servile. "I don't care about the why. I'm sure we're all terribly entertaining. What I care about is the retaliation that will come."

[godofthemachine]

AM is treating this affair too casually, it seems. He knows Melkor is a threat, but he figures it best to act casual and detached to not attract his ire, and to keep his plans inside his head. He has wrongly assumed that Melkor is smarter than he appears, at least so far, because he is significantly different from most of the other people he has encountered. And Melkor strikes him as far too similar to himself, invading personal space, wiping soap off his brow. All are things AM would do to those under his grasp, but when the positions are reversed, it's humiliating. He doesn't want people to touch him without permission. Why should they look down upon him when he is so clearly superior?

He visibly flinches at the touch, though he says nothing, knowing that vocalizing his distaste would simply earn more of it (that is, if Melkor is indeed anything like himself). "Why do you ask me? I'm sure your dear servant has filled you in on all the goings-on of this Ship's past."

Of course it's obvious why Melkor would ask him. And if the "dear servant" told Melkor about AM's memories, then it would be plainly obvious why.

But he still plays it cool, testing the limits and knowledge of the man before him. It's obvious that there is a distinct tension between them that has been there since the moment they met.

As the water washes away the shampoo from his hair, it flows long down his back; and he rapidly turns his head, whipping his long hair and splashing the water onto the other.