forty-third 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: As you emerge from the grav couches following the jump, the chill of the medical bay pales in comparison to the hollow feeling that settles deep within your chest. Grim and foreboding, the grip of isolation spreads through you like a gnawing void, as though you've been left behind. That nagging sensation of neglect that comes from someone turning their back on you only worsens as you move through your routines, leaving you feeling distant, disoriented, and unwanted.

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


----------------

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.

ＴＨ̀ＩＳ͜ ̶Ｉ͠Ｓ͡ ͘Ｙ̵Ｏ͝ＵＲ ̕Ｗ͝Ｅ̛Ｌ̨Ｃ͡Ｏ͝Ｍ͏Ｅ Ｐ̛ＡＲ̴ＴＹ͜

Comments

[hollowchild]

So you know why I don't wear it.

[she has to ponder that a moment, watching his fingers on the button. her words come out slow, almost stilted, like this is something she's never had to think through before. it isn't. groeneveldts being weird and complicated is a universal constant, not something they've ever had to explain to each other.]

Because I like you, [something she hasn't actually said to anyone besides him, possibly ever.] and I want to understand you. There are so many things that look like contradictions, until there's another piece and then they aren't. He seems integral to that somehow. It isn't really about him.

[hybridification]

[He's not sure what it is about that little speech, but after a moment, his eyes lower and he relents, easing his locker door open again to hand it off to her.]

...there's not much to understand, you know.

[worthtempting]

I believe we will have to disagree on that point.

[she says it before she takes the mask, her tone simple. sophie sees endless mystery in someone willing to spend a lifetime ascending to a throne where he will only have to spend the rest of his days checking his back for knives, and without even a reason beyond wanting it. one climbs mountains to look down on people, not corporate structures, even though sophie wouldn't know what a corporate structure was.

she does know how often that ambition seems to contradict with the person she's getting to know.

when she takes the mask she does it carefully, fingers tracing the inside of the thing. it's like feeling someone's face backwards. and the thing must have fitted like a second skin, moving exactly with his face. her fingers catch all the small intricacies of it, the lines of his forehead, the unforgiving curve of his lips, the odd, subtly risen line of scarring that arcs sharply all the way up and down his face. she remembers rhys drawing it on the condensation left on the bar table, closed in a circle. it barely makes a shadow in the light, but it's there all the same.

satisfied with her discoveries she turns it over, to look at jack as he presented himself to to the world. intelligent eyes, heroically square chin, straight nose, cruel mouth. charisma. power. he has, she thought, an expression rather like the devil in dead old baltasar, before his face began to rot too much to make out. like he already owns the world, and the world merely has yet to figure it out. the broken hinges state otherwise.]

I suppose he is handsome, as the moniker states. But he doesn't look very kind. Thank you.

[the last bit is as she offers the mask back.]

[hybridification]

[Rhys just sort of gives Sophie an odd look while she rubs her fingers over the mask like she's trying to memorize it to make her own or something. It weirds him out more than anything, but he takes it back without much protest and shoves it in his locker.]

Yeah, well, you don't get rich and cause the deaths of thousands of people by being kind.

[worthtempting]

[legit. sophie is nothing if not weird, and she has a vastly different point of view on...well, let's go with a whole bunch of stuff. in any case, her curiosity about jack seems well-sated, almost like she's pleased by her findings. but she makes a wry face at rhys' comment.]

No, that would be rather difficult. And it didn't go particularly well for him, in the end. I wonder if that's a universal truth. You seem to have very mixed feelings on your hero, you know.

[hybridification]

I don't-

[Rhys cuts himself off as he turns away from her to close his locker, his mouth pressed in a thin line. She isn't wrong.]

-well, he was sort of the epitome of 'going too far'.

[worthtempting]

Power seems to do that. Or at least it bears out in my family. But I suppose one may appreciate the courage and persistence that it takes to acquire enough power and influence to go too far.

[in other words, she's not judging. curious, yes, because the contradiction of rhys' personality and stated ambitions is a riddle she wants to solve, but not judging. no room to, honestly.]