thirty-ninth 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: A feeling of deep dread greets you as you stumble out of the gravcouch, strong enough to hold you still for a long moment, searching your surroundings for the source of your wariness. Nothing becomes apparent, only your fellow passengers waking up. Eventually you gather the resolve to pick yourself up and start moving, the feeling fading slowly as you progress through routine.

New arrivals will find messages spraypainted across their lockers telling them not to follow their tattoo numbers, and instead to find a room on Floors 001-010.


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ＹＯＵ͘ ̨ＷＡＫＥ̢ ̧ＵＰ ́ＩＮ ＤＡ̛ＲＫＮ̢Ｅ̕ＳＳ̶

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.

ＹＯ́Ｕ̴ ̧Ａ̨ＲＥ ＮＯＴ҉ ̷ＡＬＯ̨ＮＥ҉

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.

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Comments

[forgodssake]

[ It's been over a year since this latest iteration of Charles Xavier tipped himself out of a stasis pod, and he's undergone some changes since then. The scruff, the hair, the cynicism that stacks on with age, and the dog, apparently, a eight-month-old black labrador whose recent brush with radiation sickness has left him, mercifully, less excitable this jump round. Charles is seated nearby, dressed in mostly Tranquility standard issue clothing, damp hair swept back and hands occupied in petting his dog, who lies at his feet.

It's a waiting game, to see if he needs to make a medical officer play veterinarian some more.

But one thing that can't be identified as a change is a propensity towards nicotine, and the smell of it is sharp and smokey in the sterile surroundings of the medical bay. Charles looks up when Jax heads nearer, with recognition easily overtaking what got his attention initially.

A nod, then, in greeting. ]

Welcome back, sleeping beauty.

[kutte]

[ people change. charles had changed, and jax wasn't asking a lot of questions about it, even though he probably should. instead, he swings a leg over the side of the bench, nodding in response. ]

Nice dog.

[ though jax thinks of tig briefly, how tig would be fawning over that dog if given half a chance. it's a weird thing to think of, but the longer jax stayed here, the more prone he was to that sort of thing. ]

When'd it show up?

[forgodssake]

[ It's kind of nice, that there are perfectly decent people who haven't asked. Charles is not so insecure to imagine it's because they don't care, exactly. Things change. In the same way he does not inquire as to who Tig is, at least immediately, in part because he doesn't really need to.

The dog, weak but with a willing spirit, kind of scrapes around to be able to nose at Jax's knee. ]

Born and bred on the Tranquility, actually, of Petrelli's dog's wee litter. His name's Lincoln.

[ Lincoln, meet Jax, Jax, meet Lincoln. There's existing curiousity latent in his tone and consideration of Jax, but doesn't immediately barrel in to ask what a month's coma in stasis is like. ]

Last cycle had us park near a patch of radioactive cloud, or some such, so anything without nanites had a bit of a time of it.

[kutte]

[ it's for the best. even jax isn't sure to describe anything that went on, can't even pluck up the fragments of the dream to make the attempt. instead he holds out a hand, lets the dog snuffle at it. ]

Lincoln. [ jax says, stretching the name out. ] Not bad. He'll grow into it.

[ that's maybe a more optimistic statement than the tranquility warrants, but if they can't be optimistic about pets, what's the point? ]

What happened with the cloud?

[forgodssake]

Provided cover of interference, likely on purpose.

[ Charles watches his dog insert his sleek canine head under receptive hand, a half smile faint at the corner of the telepath's mouth as he sits back. ]

Someone externally's staging a rescue effort. We're all very excited.

[ That would be sarcasm. Dry as English gin. ]

They'd experienced technical difficulties due to the cloud, seemed to be believe it was a deliberate evasive manoeuvre. So it did that, made our animals sick, and looked very pretty out the window. I assume we've gotten away from it by now.

[kutte]

Someone? Which someone?

[ there's no denying it, that's got jax interested. he's got a vested reminder of why he needs to get off this ship crumpled in his hand. external rescue? he's willing to look into it, though charles tone doesn't hint at anything promising. ]

Defensive maneuver by who? I can fucking vouch for the fact that no one's driving this rig. It's autopiloted.

[ spend that much time on the bridge, the fact that there's not a pilot is painfully obvious. though that led to a bigger problem, didn't it, if something had altered their course. ]

[forgodssake]

[ There's a sympathetic kind of gentleness to Charles' squint after Jax's consideration of rescue. Maybe he shouldn't joke about it. He may have done his year, here, but others have done it longer. ]

Then it autopiloted itself defensively to prevent our network getting tapped by their signal. It stopped moving, Jax.

[ Charles reaches down, petting Lincoln roughly along the ribs, gaining a tail wag for his troubles. ]

Go back and take a look, when you're done here, but I'll advise against relaying information even of a harmless kind. Cassandra will be wanting word with you.

What do you know of the autopiloting?

[kutte]

I know the piloting controls were locked. Nathan tried 'em.

[ and nathan's long gone now. jax hasn't thought about that in a while, how many of the people he'd nearly died with weren't here anymore. ]

I'd need to talk to her anyway. [ and he wanted to, was the thing. but that goes unspoken. ] All that thing wants is information. It gave me nothing but questions. And I said, nothing asking that many questions is good.

[ though admittedly, jax's assessment is skewed by nature of being a filthy, law breaking asshole, but he doesn't think that necessarily makes him wrong. ]

[forgodssake]

At least we can determine what information it's after, and thereby what it wants from us. What it needs.

[ Charles is no knight in shining armour himself, all the time, but it's certainly not a criminal mentality that has him agreeing. Maybe a paranoid one. Maybe Lina had the right of it, when she deduced this place had made them crazy.

They're not going to figure this all out immediately, anyway, but rather than find a means of closing the conversation; ]

Did you dream of home? While you were asleep. You were thinking of someone, just now.

[ There's a slight note of apology in Charles' tone, for that. Prying was not deliberate. ]

[kutte]

[ what a subject change. jax's eyebrows raise, tensing up slightly. it's not really about home. he's talked about charming plenty, him and tara both, and what he has to hide there isn't really applicable here. ]

I don't think it was of home.

[ but he doesn't remember, so he can't be sure. ]

I was thinking of home because of this, [ holding up the baby hat, shrugging. ] Not because of the dreams.