ataraxionlogs | thirty-ninth jump;

Entry tags:

thirty-ninth 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: 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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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.

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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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"... Right." Awkward as ever, Shepard steps away for a moment, allowing Rey whatever privacy she may want or need. In the meantime, she crosses her arms and paces a few steps on the other side of the lockers, thinking over the whole situation again: jump, pods, sleepers, coma (?), dreams, nightmares, cycles. Everything seems to be in cycles around here, she thinks, glancing down at the numbers printed into her skin. Maybe there were more patterns that they hadn't noticed, something less obvious lurking beneath the surface...

Rey is all about practicality. She doesn't waste time dolling herself up, so much as throwing on the necessary wears.

Less than a minute later, she finds Shepard this time fully dressed, donning her usual casual attire and combat boots.

"Could use a drink," she huffs, putting on the last piece. The dogtags chink together as she slides them over her neck. "What about you?"

"Usually, yeah." Shepard smiles in a weary sort of way; the offer is, truthfully, not one she takes up often, but around this ship... She's spent a lot of her time thus far frustrated that there isn't much to do to help their situation. Though she's far from a regular drinker, she has taken to one or two more per week than she had in the past.

"Where to?" she asks, rolling her shoulders and cracking her neck. Since she's only been around for two jumps prior, she still isn't particularly acquainted with the major "social spots" of the ship, if they even exist.

Fortunately for Shepard, Rey is more adept at knowing what goes where in this place. She should, having lived on the ship for over three years now and patrolling it for as much as she does.

"One of the upper deck lounges should be quiet. Fairly stocked. You been to one of those yet?" Rey asks as she heads towards the blue lift to take them to any one of the passenger quarters.

"Not yet." Shepard shrugs lightly, following Rey down the hall and into the lift. "Haven't done as much socializing as I should, probably. Just trying to keep busy around here and not let the spaces get to me."

It's pretty honest, even for Shepard. She's not usually a volunteer of her own feelings unless prompted, but this is important; that she stay busy and active and not think about what might have befallen her crew. Her world.

"Not much of a social butterfly, either. Just like going to the lounge sometimes. Something calming about it." Perhaps it's the lighting, or the colors. It's not something she's used to seeing in her old nitty gritty life, so it's a scene that keeps her grounded to the present moment.

But Rey can sympathize about keeping busy. Ever since her return from the last recon mission, nothing has felt right. There are times she feels like she may be going crazy again.

She doesn't want to be crazy again.

The lift doors close. Rey braces herself in the brief silence, occupied by the mechanical hums moving around them like clockwork.

"I know what you mean." They'd had two on the Normandy and one or more of her crew could usually be found sitting around, looking out at the stars, having a drink...

"I'm just surprised this ship even has a lounge. Doesn't seem like the 'looking out for passenger welfare' type."

She doesn't know much about the Tranquility, but not much about it is reassuring.

"It is, in a way. It wants to keep us," Rey blurts, her tongue heavy. Her mind is still a fog, but she is slowly starting to recollect her conversation with Joshua more. "Just like it kept them."

There's a method to this ship's madness. Something that she's become quite familiar with in the last three years that have come and gone. Between the little gifts that appear in their lockers and the inclination of coming back regardless of her efforts to leave the Tranquility, she's afraid that there's a reason for some of its more hospitable qualities.

For a moment, she's in a daze. It's not until the lift jerks and the doors open to the hallway leading down an empty passenger deck, in which it seems as if Rey's just awoke from a dream.

Shepard notes the change in Rey's demeanor, but doesn't think enough of it to pester her. She's a soldier herself and has seen countless others; she knows the look of someone lost in memories or old nightmares too well to put Rey through a conversation about its meaning.

"If it wants to keep us, it could just ask nicely," she says, dryly. As they move down the halls, she keeps an eye out for rooms and areas she hasn't seen before, people she may not have made a note of. It could all be important... probably will be before too long.

"... 'Them,' though?"

On that, she has to clarify.

"The old crew, most likely."

There's no way of knowing for sure, but who else could it be? She very clearly recalls the shapes in the hallways. The shadows and voices of the people on both the Tranquility and Cyllene. Both places seemingly abandoned when they had first arrived.

In a strange way, it makes sense.

Rey's pace is guided by instincts. She knows exactly where they're headed and how to get there, and before long they're standing in front of a cool blue-tinted room stocked full of booze, tables, and booths.

She waves a hand towards the room, allowing Shepard the liberty to choose a spot. It's not like they're in want of a quite place.

"Been thinking a lot lately." She pauses, her brows knitted. "What if the previous crew are still with us?"

That's a loaded question. Shepard picks a booth without much care, settles in, and... thinks.

"Depends what you mean," she says, slowly. "Literally with us, somewhere in the ship? Or..."

What, some kind of spirit, or... memory, locked away somewhere? Could be. There are a lot of unknowns on the ship and they don't seem to get very far no matter how much time passes.

"Both," Rey concludes. "Literally, but transformed -- as we almost were a few jumps ago. And others perhaps still with us in another sense. In the halls. In the walls. Following, watching us."

She's felt it, some times more strongly than others. The inescapable feeling of many eyes studying her. Of shadows moving in the hallways.

The Cyllene had obviously been occupied by something when they had docked there. The Tranquility may still be inhabited the same way.

This ship isn't empty. That's the problem.

Realizing that she's still standing, Rey slides into the seat opposite of Shepard, muttering a quiet apologies under her breath.

"Ghosts." Shepard nods, leaning back. Not necessarily ghosts and spirits in the sense of old scary movies, but in the way that there could be ghosts in the system, subtle changes and odd machinations in ships. This might be more literal, sure, but nothing like this surprises her anymore.

"Guess the real question is what they want." Was it to warn them, scare them away? To give them answers? She furrows her brow again, leaning forward over propped elbows and clasped hands. There're too many questions that crop up on an almost weekly basis and even people like Rey who have been on the ship since the beginning and who seem to know the most struggle to make sense of it all.

"Keep us? Help us? Get rid of us?" Rey shrugs. "Don't know yet."

She hates not being able to answer, after being here for as long as she has.

Her eyes shift to the stacks of liquor lined on the walls, before she gets up from the booth and walks towards the counter. Rather than going for the booze, however, she pours herself a healthier glass of water.

Lifting a second empty glass, she waves it over at Shepard, silently asking if she'd like anything while Rey is still on her feet.

The truth is that they may not know for a while, or for a very long while. Shepard taps a finger against her arm, trying to think back to her time on the ship and if she's had an encounter with these "ghosts," if she's heard anything... but, no, not to her memory.

"Just, ah-- Whatever you're having," she jokes, lip twitching upward. It's too soon from the jump, in her mind, for a drink; her head still has some catching up to do.

"Not much we can do at the moment, seeing as most of our 'exploration' usually ends up with someone hurt."

Or worse. She scowls; refraining from action is something she's often loathe to do, and this is no exception.

Good choice. Even if Rey has long since gotten used to the jumps, her stomach still does hurdles and flips that she doesn't trust herself not to lose her drink just as quick as she is to drink it. She pours Shepard some water in the spare glass and brings it over, sliding it towards her while slipping back into her seat.

"There are still some people who are willing to take the risk. Idle hands are the devil's tools, as the saying goes." She smirks a little, stretching the scars on her lip and jaw.

Rey herself is one of those who would risk anything for the sake of the mission. Despite the mutiny, her attempts to leave on Arima, and even the recon... She's still less inclined to just sit around.

Shepard, clearly, is cut from the same cloth. Since the last Commander was killed in one such attempt and this one is a little too likely to act similarly, she's completely sympathetic to the idea. It's too much to bear to be expected to sit around and play it safe, passively waiting for answers, or enemies, to come their way.

"Thanks," she says with an appreciative nod before taking a few gulps of the water. A real drink wouldn't have hurt, for sure, but this is a nice change after all the fluid in her lungs.

"Maybe we can find some way to look into all this that doesn't just have us moving blind through the dark... uh, literally and figuratively."

"Agreed. We've gathered some intel over the years... Still trying to piece together everything that Van Rijn's people just told us before the jump. How we can use that information to help us."

She hasn't yet had the chance to go over all of the conversations before having to rush to the gravity couches. Rey has to clear her head first, and being able to sit down with some water is helping.

There's still a lot that they don't know, but they know a hell of a lot more now than they did when Rey first got here.

"Have no desire to go back into the corridors," she concludes after a drink. "Thinking perhaps some of the answers we're looking for are a little closer."

"That's usually how it turns out." Shepard sighs, crossing her legs, tapping a finger against the top of the glass. "Seems like the answer's miles away, and it's almost always right there, something you've seen a million times..."

As with the Citadel when it had turned out to be the Catalyst. The one damn thing they'd needed all along that they hadn't recognized until it was too late. Or... almost too late.

"Is all this intel and investigation being collected all in one place somewhere, or is it just bits and pieces between people?"

Rey makes a little affirmative hm in agreement. In her experience, the most seemingly complex problems can be answered for by the simplest solution. Perhaps they've been over-complicating things all this time, and the truths have been right in front of them.

"Bits and pieces," she replies. "We've been able to gather more information based on what was provided to us over time, or what we've collected. Such as the core of the ship that was found while by reconnaissance."

She blinks, and for a moment there's a flash of white. Her head shakes, and she takes another gulp of water in the midst of her efforts to separate herself from the past. Easier said than done, but not impossible with the right focus.

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thirty-ninth jump;

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