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

[moonstruck]

[Yuri has a difficult time believing how this can be the equivalent of any sort of vacation, but then again his experiences are likely quite different from hers. He's about to ask, "You don't have hot showers where you're from?", when she asks him something he didn't quite expect.]

I -- [A beat.] I can't say I'm very familiar with weapons in general. [That's a lie. But there's only so much truth Yuri is ever keen on revealing.] Why do you ask?

[cons]

You should learn. Gun training is your best bet. [ yup, simple as that ] You don't really have to worry about these guys most of the time - [ she's twirling her finger, indicating the people around them ] - but this ship is pretty much a horror show. Monsters and whatever. But you don't have to learn how to shoot, plenty of people on board know how to handle a gun, so I mean. Teaming up is an option, too. [ but obviously not her first choice ]

[moonstruck]

[It's a sound suggestion; he would have to be very foolish to not realize that much. But part of him is hesitant and he frowns. (Whether it's because he feels as if it's beneath him, or he's caught on his obligation to be the upstanding judge where guns do not equate, or both... that's up for debate.)

He doesn't reject the idea verbally, though. There's something else that she said that bothers him.]

Monsters? [So not only is he in space, but he's in a horror film.] The sort of... "monsters" that aren't terribly fond of bullets? [He adds, referencing her prior statements. The implied question is, "what exactly are we dealing with?"]

[cons]

As opposed to the monsters that are fond of bullets?

[ she gives him a sideways look, her grin quirking up on one side, but moves right along ]

The thing we end up running into more often than not are, uh, manticores. Which are just- nasty science experiments gone wrong, as far as anybody knows. There were mutated rats one time, but I'm pretty sure they're all gone by now. Who knows, though. The ship is huge, and we haven't exactly been encouraged to go out looking around.

[moonstruck]

[He knows that was likely to be a joke and not meant to be corrected upon, but -- he's in law, and it's difficult for him to not play the semantics game.] Rather, those that are quite indifferent to bullets was my meaning.

[But either way, she answers his question.] So this ship was a setting for... scientific experiments? Like something you may see in a film? [It's very unbelievable, all of this.]