forty-fourth 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: Awareness comes to you slowly in the smothering quiet of the blue fluid. In the light piercing through from the medical bay you realise there's a shadow, a figure stood at the glass of your gravcouch, a hand pressed to the surface just above your face. Fear spikes through your gut as waves of alien sensation crash into your mind, a rage that feels endless, all-consuming, furious, molten hatred that you know is for you.

When the fluid drains, door sliding open to deposit you on the medbay floor, you remember it. Remember it coming again and again, like a nightmare that plagued your sleep over and over, leaving you with no respite, no rest. Days. Perhaps even longer.

You remember that the light coming through from behind the shadow was red.

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.


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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.

ＴＨ̀ＩＳ͜ ̶Ｉ͠Ｓ͡ ͘Ｙ̵Ｏ͝ＵＲ ̕Ｗ͝Ｅ̛Ｌ̨Ｃ͡Ｏ͝Ｍ͏Ｅ Ｐ̛ＡＲ̴ＴＹ͜

Comments

[familybusiness]

I wasn't there, from what I heard they made some kind of containment device to hold it and trapped it inside. I wasn't kidding about the virtually indestructible part.

[Which means it still exists, yay!]

[hacker]

Wait. So it's still here on the ship?

[ whaT THE FUCK. ]

Can't we, like, jettison it into deep space or something? That definitely sounds like the kind of thing you ditch out an airlock.

[ That's what SHIELD does but with rockets ... #responsible ]

[familybusiness]

I assume so.

[He shakes his head.]

And some other ship could find it, open it up, and have no idea of how to deal with it. It's safer with us.

[hacker]

What kind of ship just scoops up the crap they find floating in space?

[familybusiness]

It wouldn't be the first time someone went dumpster diving. Or got too curious for their own good.

[Maybe they thought they'd get lucky and find something useful. Maybe they were desperate and needed the scrap.]

With all the other crap going on, that thing is the least of our worries anyway.

[hacker]

Yeah, thanks, I feel much better now.

[ Sassy af. This is how she resists visibly freaking out ok. Bones noted her uncanny calmness, and this is the source. ]

[familybusiness]

Sorry.

[Just being honest.]

Anything dangerous usually sticks to the darkened hallways. Just stay where there are lights and you should be fine. There's always people doing sweeps of the perimeter, so if something's going down, people know pretty quickly.

[hacker]

How many people are here, anyway? There's like a million rows of lockers. [ Okay, fifty. ]

[familybusiness]

About one hundred and twenty five people, maybe? It's hard to keep an exact count with how people come and go.

[hacker]

I don't know if that's more or less creepy than the small city this thing looks ready to fit.

[ Ok, exaggeration. But that's kind of Skye's m.o. ]

[familybusiness]

Creepy seems to be the general state of things around here.

[A beat.]

I'm doing that thing where I'm not making you feel better again, aren't I?

[hacker]

On the bright side, you're really good at not making me feel better.

[ She pursed her lips, shrugging one shoulder like hey there you go everyone has a talent. ]

[familybusiness]

It's not all bad. Or it wasn't. So long as we all stick together, we'll figure this out.

[They have to. And being all negative about it isn't going to help anything.]

But I also don't want to lie to you and say you shouldn't watch your back.

[hacker]

[ Skye had to laugh at that. ] Go-go gadget teamwork? You're stealing my lines, dude. [ But she nodded as well. ] I get it. Be careful, buddy system, sharing is caring.

[familybusiness]

At least you catch on quick.

[Her laugh causes the quip along with a smile of his own.]

[hacker]

[ She shrugged one shoulder, trying to dismiss the observation. ] Yeah, well, see enough weird stuff, and you find a way to roll with the punches. What's your excuse?

[familybusiness]

That I've learned to roll with the punches after seeing enough weird stuff?

[He's gonna go out on a limb and guess he's seen at least as much weird shit as she has.]

[hacker]

We're both in good company, then. [ And she smiled as she fondly noted that, but it was muted, as if she were still evaluating him to decide just how weird he means beyond the boggart. ]

[familybusiness]

[And then he feels like he should elaborate, so he does after an awkward moment.]

My brother and I are hunters, back home. As in we...hunt weird stuff.

[hacker]

Hunt as in mount their heads on your wall?

[ Creepy, but as long as they're talking about non-sapient monsters ... Okay, I guess. ]

[familybusiness]

Huh? Oh, no, that's not what I mean. Though I guess I can see why you...went there.

[Oof.]

We investigate things like strange murders, disappearances, that kind of thing. Usually, something nasty is behind them, and we try to take care of it before it can hurt anyone else.

[hacker]

Well, that's ... [ She made a face. ] Grisly and strangely specific. So you're like monster cops.

[familybusiness]

Yeah, I guess that's one way of putting it. Too bad it usually makes us look bad to the actual cops, but there's not a whole lot we can do about that.

[hacker]

That's what's tough about doing the right thing, isn't it? Sometimes, people won't understand. They don't see the whole story. [ She's been guilty of that, thinking SHIELD was the bad guy because she didn't see what they were protecting the world from. Some secrets had to be kept. ]

[familybusiness]

It's better that they don't. Most people can't handle what my brother and I do. Knowing what's out there? Sometimes it ruins their lives.

[But sometimes there was also no choice. It was either spill, or that person dies. It was a hard line to walk, when to come clean and when not to.]