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

[mikangirl]

There's a flicker of recognition there. Nami's vaguely familiar with the idea of space, but only because she knows a madman who tried flying there once. The recognition turns to skeptical doubt, because this... doesn't feel like a ship. Shouldn't there be some kind of sense of motion?

So yeah, she's a little anachronistic on that score.

"And here I kinda just left the sky." She blows her bangs out of her face, giving Tadashi a curious look. "You haven't been outside to confirm it, huh? Has anyone else?"

[tadashiwashere]

"Judging from the records and what I've heard, it seems like it." Tadashi digs his communicator out of his pocket, tapping to get to the information he's created shortcuts to. The current chief of the medical department kept some solid records, and Tadashi refers to them a lot when he's not sure how things have gone down in the past. Looking up again, he continues. "I plan to go out soon. I signed up for training on the shuttles... just in case it's a skill I ever need."

Gesturing next to the nearest of the spray-painted lockers, Tadashi skips to the next important topic. "It actually helps to settle in with a place you can call your own before diving into everything too deeply. They have patrols on the first ten floors, so everyone recommends you pick an empty room somewhere in there. My brother and I stay on floor six."

[mikangirl]

"Settling in..." She glances at the lockers again. The spray paint everywhere was kind of a creepy effect, but then again, she's kind of getting the idea about this place--

Wait.

"Ten floors?" This is a ship. Isn't it? Supposedly? "Just how big is this place?"

[tadashiwashere]

"About the size of a small city."

That's just a wild, completely inappropriate guess. But from how long it takes to travel anywhere by lift (and he's assuming they move at a decent clip, given the tech here), along with the amount of floor numbers available for travel... they could have enough people living here for a small city or a large town.

"Roughly." Tadashi rubs the side of his neck, trying to think of the best way to put it in perspective. "The longer you're here, the better feel you get for the size."

[mikangirl]

...that's...

Okay, there's Thriller Bark, and that was huge enough for its own castle and graveyard and miles of forest, but-- she has a feeling this place is much bigger.

"How many people are even here? Why do they need more of us?"

It occurs to her she's probably asking questions of the wrong guy, especially if he's pretty new, but ugh. What a bizarre place. And unsettling, if she's been yanked here alone. Nobody will ever know where she went.

"And we're all stuck here."

[tadashiwashere]

"A hundred?" Tadashi guesses, puling a face that shows just how uncertain he is about that number. He's had individual interactions with maybe a dozen people, but with how busy the departments stay, it's been hard for him to feel like he's successfully met and at least exchanged a greeting with everyone on board.

Aaaaaand... she's right on that count. He's probably the wrong person to ask about all of this, even if he does the best he can. There's still a lot of information he hasn't been able to absorb yet. Or just hasn't had a chance to even hear about. He does think he knows one thing:

"I'm not sure it's a case of needing any of us. I wouldn't say we're purposefully picked up. But... yeah." He offers an apologetic smile. "We're stuck. Some people have gone home... come back. But no one knows how or why."

[mikangirl]

"So-- are there original crew members here? Someone that's actually in charge that I can yell at?" Because that sounds an important and practical use of her time.

No, seriously. There has to be someone behind this, right?

[tadashiwashere]

Tadashi has to sympathize a little. There seems to be people in charge, but no one in charge who would be who he yells at. Normally he's a reasonable guy, but when it comes to his brother, if there was an office where he could get answers and force results, he would be standing in it right now.

"There's at least a few from early on when this started to happen, but as far as original crew goes?" He shrugs. "Not that I know. I think there might be two. They seem really reclusive and not completely reliable when it comes to giving information."

[mikangirl]

That sounds more like it. Especially the whole 'reclusive and not reliable' part-- that just sings responsibility to Nami.

"Know their names?"

[tadashiwashere]

"Resnik and Ward?" His tone is questioning because, honestly, he doesn't know much about them and they haven't been the most prominent of what has filled his thoughts lately. It even took him a moment to dredge his memory for the names.

"There was a mutiny against them at one point," he recalls, but shakes his head, expression somewhat frustrated. "But I haven't heard much more than that. All I know is what I could read in the files available."

[mikangirl]

Committing those names to memory, then. She's going to assume the mutiny failed.

"Those files available to anyone to read?"

[tadashiwashere]

"Yep. There could be some that require special access, but I haven't run across any yet."

Eventually, he plans to write some code to trawl through the data available on the network to find anything that's not directly accessibly by just anyone who thought to skim through the past records. Things have been crazy lately, but... maybe he'll find a way to make time at some point in the coming month.

[mikangirl]

"Great!" She smiles cheerfully at him. "So how do I find these files?"

[tadashiwashere]

That, at least, was simple to answer.

"You take the blue lift." Tadashi pointed in the appropriate direction. "Once you're free of whatever interferes with the comms right after a jump, you'll be able to go back through the network and browse everything that's there."

[mikangirl]

"The network...?"

Sorry, Tadashi, you're talking to a girl who comes from a world without computers. Stupid questions are us.

[tadashiwashere]

Tadashi lifted an eyebrow, but he doesn't take the question as a stupid one -- Nami isn't the only person here with limited knowledge of tech. Instead, he pulls out his comm again, showing her how to swipe through the screens.

"The network is just where all of the data posts are made by the passengers. You can do text, voice, and video, depending on what suits you best. If you scroll here," he taps a point on the screen, demonstrating before continuing with, "you can scan through the backlogs and see what was posted in the past months or years. It will all make more sense once the screens aren't locked up with static like this."

[mikangirl]

Oh, okay. She'd wondered what the comm was, and digs through her bags until she finds where she stashed it, flicking it on herself.

"...we don't have anything like this at home. Kind of wish we had." It'd make keeping up with the news a whole lot easier, that's for sure. "So I guess... take the lift, find a place to stay, and then I can find what else I need to know on this thing?"

[tadashiwashere]

"Yup."

That about covered it, as far as he knew. Hopefully there wouldn't be anything too crazy happening before the poor girl managed to get settled in.

"If you need any help, my brother and I are generally around. You can catch us in room 60 or 61 on floor 6."

[mikangirl]

Oh, he has a brother here? So it's not entirely random then, right--? Maybe some of her crew will turn up or... well, maybe she shouldn't hope for that. She smiles briefly.

"Floor 6. Got it. Thanks, Tadashi."