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

[mindtricks]

[ the jumps never go smoothly, and there's a certain amount of nausea involved for everyone more often than not. it's worse for some — the ones who went down to engineering that one time, it had started then. anderson hates it, and she hates the vulnerability that comes with it, but she also knows better than to pay either nausea or vulnerability any more mind than she absolutely has to.

she's been through worse, anyway. it'll pass.

at his question, her eyebrows climb a little towards her hairline, though she doesn't exactly smile. ] Trees. [ a beat. ] The forest surrounding the camp on the ground.

[ a shrug. ] You don't have to believe it. [ she's got nothing to prove to him one way or another. ]

[unguard]

[If Engineering sickness makes the jumps even worse than they already are, Bellamy would consider himself damn lucky. As it stands, it's already a difficult enough sensation to swallow, pun not intended. As soon as she says trees, he starts to draw back, shoulders pulling away from her and jaw lifting in disbelief.

He can't even dismiss it as a lucky guess, because she knows exactly which trees, exactly where, and for a second, Bellamy doesn't know how to process it. His lips part slowly.]

That's incredible.

[He manages finally, already deep voice dropping an octave or so in his surprise.]

How-

[Well, there's no point in asking her how she does it, is there? It's not like she'd be able to teach him. The realization that she's probably hearing that fact running through his mind strikes him, the realization that she's hearing that realization as well, and he shifts uncomfortably, trying to drag his conciousness to a minimum.

Frustratingly, it's impossible to stop thinking.]

How do you deal with hearing all the stuff that runs through people's minds all the time?

[He asks, annoyance in his voice. Mostly aimed at himself.]

[mindtricks]

[ engineering sickness makes the jumps a lot worse, but by this time it's already faded to such a degree that at least she's up and moving, even if it isn't quite as quickly or easily as usual, even if it's with an arm slung across her own stomach and occasionally swaying in place or needing to stop to just breathe through another wave of nausea.

it'll pass entirely. for now, she's feeling better having showered and dressed, her primary weapon strapped to her side as usual.

if she's surprised by his question, she doesn't show it. (surprise is a funny thing — she saw the question coming before he voiced it, but she is surprised someone would think of it. very few people have.) ]

It's like background noise in a crowded room. You can focus on a conversation and listen, or you can blend it out. [ it's as good a metaphor she can think of.

she doesn't specify that she tries to listen, that it's safer to know what people around her are thinking. it's saved her life before.

instead: ] Do you have any questions about being here?

[unguard]

[Bellamy has a hard enough time dwelling out the opposing voices of his own mind at any given time, the idea of having to listen to everyone else's was just... probably one of the worst things he could imagine. Then again, he thinks, it would come in damn useful during battle. To be able to know when the Grounders were going to attack, to be able to know what the were saying to each other, to know when they were hiding in the trees... The number of lost lives he could have prevented. He can see how it could be useful.

Even so, he's sure the number of negative thoughts being directed at him would probably have him flying off the handle eight times an hour. He licks his lips at her question, running through what he knows and what he thinks he needs to know.

Where the are- Clarke told him.
Where they're going- nobody seems to know.
Why they're here- same.
Are they safe- probably not.
Is there anything he can do about it- not just yet.

After a second, he does figure out one answer he'd like:]

Do we have any food on board?

[Because those rations sure were limited where he's from, and he's starving.]

[mindtricks]

I grew up with it. [ it's a reaction to something that's gone unsaid, but he's thinking about it, and anderson has never known anything but this. she's never built up any shields against it consciously, and morgoth had proved that her mind is woefully unprotected at times — but she's not thinking about him, and what he did to her. that's in the past, and there's no point in dwelling on it. ] And it's saved my life in combat before.

[ the corrupt judge had been counting on her to hesitate, to be unwilling to shoot another judge, to assume that she'd been sent to help rather than harm. anderson's mutation had been the only reason that particular encounter had ended not with her blood on the ground of peach trees, but someone else's.

the question bellamy asks out loud ends up being easy to answer. ] There's kitchens on every level, and there's generally enough food for everyone, if you're not a picky eater. [ it's said with a slight ironic undertone; everything in his mind suggests that he's not. ] There's also bars on every level. [ but the alcohol is usually not very good, and that's an objective fact and not just an opinion borne from anderson not drinking much. ]

[unguard]

[Given that the alcohol he's used to consuming is this potentially hazardous potato-probably-but-no-one-knows moonshine recipe of Monty's made in space ship wreckage, anything's got to be a step or seven up from that. Still, even though he seems to lift an interested eyebrow at the mention of a bar, ultimately he decides he's not going to be drinking. He couldn't let his guard down during a celebration on the ground just because of the possibility of an attack, he sure as hell can't let it down on his first night aboard a kidnapping space-ship.

Maybe some other time, when he needs to take his mind off of the constant machine hum and the way the air doesn't smell quite right.

A smile quirks at his lips, just at the edges, because if she's reading his mind right now they both know he comes from a situation that does not lend itself to being picky.

And maybe he likes her attitude, too. She's frank, she doesn't seem to mince words, and she has the countenance of a soldier.

Considering where he's from, he respects that.]

Thanks.

[He says with half a nod, and circles around to his locker again. It pops open, and he tugs a shirt out of it. Pulls it on over his head, and then glances back at her.]

What was your name, by the way?

[mindtricks]

[ anderson isn't a soldier in that she isn't part of the military — she trained to be a judge, after all. and yet, in her world there is hardly any separation of powers and judges regularly see combat, the hall of justice runs on a hierarchy not unlike the military — so really, she's a soldier in all but name.

she doesn't comment on the fact that while vigilance is commendable, it'll get tiring quickly because most of the time, nothing happens. sometimes, things do happen and she understands the need to keep his guard up. ]

Anderson. [ a beat, before she adds: ] Cassandra. [ her first name is still an afterthought in introductions. she's been "rookie" or "anderson" most of her life; it's only here that people are tempted to use "cass" or "cassie" or her full first name in the first place.

(the number of people giving her nicknames has dwindled and is currently down to one young boy whose panda has been going around hugging newcomers, but that's beside the point.) ]

[unguard]

[Bellamy isn't part of the military either, but he's definitely a soldier. In his opinion, the definition isn't quite as rigid as the government would like you to believe. Either way, he'll come around to a more relaxed point of view once he's been here for a few weeks. For right now, everything is new and untrustworthy, unsafe, a new threat to a guy who comes from a world with nothing but.

He seems to puzzle for a second at Anderson and then Cassandra, and he's familiar enough to know that the last name probably came first, but it doesn't clear up which one she'd like to be called. Rather than deciding right now, he answers with a simple:]

Nice to meet you.

[And figures time will tell if she's more of an Anderson or a Cassandra. Two names have two entirely different personalities, and he doesn't know her well enough to figure out which one of the two she is. Even if things are tilting toward Anderson for right now.

He slams his locker shut again, shrugging his coat on over his shoulders and slinging his bag around one right after.]

Thanks again for the help.

[mindtricks]

[ she's more of anderson than she is cassandra, even though her time aboard the tranquility has blurred the lines between the two to a considerable degree. these days, she's anderson with people she doesn't know too well, cassandra to those she does. (cass to alex, but he's gone. jax calls her pollyanna but she hardly considers that a nickname, it's too far removed from her actual name.)

so she gives him a smile, for now, and doesn't specify what she'd like to be called. what she knows is that he's bellamy rather than blake. and so: ] You're welcome, Bellamy.

[unguard]

[That earns her a huff of a laugh, because he'd just been thinking about whether or not he should even bother telling her his name if she already knows it. With that question answered, he shakes his head in amusement and slinks off toward the elevators.

Maybe not everybody on this ship is terrible.]