ataraxionlogs | forty-fifth jump;

Entry tags:

forty-fifth 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.
NOTES: There's a sense of quiet as you wake from the jump, a silence that seems to stretch into the medbay around you despite the slowly increasing sounds of gravcouches draining, releasing, bodies tumbled to the floor. A lack of any shadowed presences could be a relief, but as you fall into the process of cleaning up and getting dressed, you begin to notice it - there's no confused, uncertain faces in the crowd. No new, scared people, number 045 on their arm.

The bustle is thinner, the medbay a little emptier. People have left, been taken in the jump. But no one new has been brought in.

~~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 ́ＩＮＤＡ̛ＲＫＮ̢Ｅ̕ＳＳ̶

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 ̧Ａ̨ＲＥＮＯＴ҉ ̷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 ̕Ｗ͝Ｅ̛Ｌ̨Ｃ͡Ｏ͝Ｍ͏ＥＰ̛ＡＲ̴ＴＹ͜

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Pods | Closed to Tadashi

[Wrang.

The impact noise is hollow, wet stone, heavier than a man could be, and badly proportioned judging from the squeal of friction dragged across the inside wall of the pod. Another lurching clang of a falling step, metallic this time, the automated ejection process pushing the creature's too-large mass, and then the thing lumbers out of the gravcouch's open mouth. Its misses the top edge, but only barely. And when it comes to stand in the middle of the hall, it's eight feet tall, casting a starburst of shadows across the floor and illuminated by the Medbay's bright white lights.

Under the circumstances, one may be forgiven for forgetting a small, frowny CMO had stepped into that gravcouch, one Jump ago.

Discolored by the runny blue goop, it looks like something out of a story. An old one, long predating the modern space-age aesthetic of light-up circuitry and minimalistic, stark shapes. The carved heads of creatures-- dogs? wolves?-- form the ceramic epaulettes on its shoulders, and kanji too faded to read implies a poem or a blessing across its age-chapped breastplate. There dozens of cracked and broken suns in the chainlink sleeves. There's brutish power in the bulky proportions of its shoulders, the husky girth of its waist, something too coarse in the slanted shape of its hollow, faceless helmet to suggest it had been hewn by a human artisan.

For three seconds, it does nothing. Four.

And then it hears the tread of naked feet, human voices.

Turns, more abruptly than you'd think possible; a broad arm slams into its now-empty pod. It's either an accident or a warning. The glass doesn't break, but nor does the golem. Not surprising. You'd probably expect it to be stronger than Heather Mason's leg, a little.

Maybe meaner, too.]

Showers | Closed to England

[Later, William just looks like William again. Thinner, maybe; not really because of the diet, although he'd started to hit the gym again in the final days before the Jump. Older, maybe; but not by much.

He remembered something people used to say about hot showers. Their transformative power. Feeling human again, something like that; sounded transcendental, almost. Clean again. People find such notions compelling.

But the water turns out to be just water, hitting his back with discomfitting fervor, muddling eyes that had already found the involuntary necessity of blinking to be disorienting. William's feet feel treacherously light on the slick tile, and his hands little and weak when he wrestles the faucet into a less punishing flow. Afterward, the towel weirds him out a little, all squashy and soft, simultaneously insubstantial and kind of smothering. He pulls it around his shoulders like a cape and trudges out, looking to his wrist for instruction, strongly entertaining the idea of turning back, when

he sees the butt.

Hmmmmmmm, he thinks intelligently, as the butt starts walking on its legs. That is a butt. It's not the first one he's seen since the Jump, of course; but it is the first he's noticed.

Well; he had been going for a human moment.]

Lockers | Open

[He is out of order. Functioning, I mean; going about his routine with the slow precision of someone trying to remember it as he goes along, but he's already forgotten a number of once-crucial (or at least neurotically reinforced) steps. It doesn't occur to him to look for Heather, his comm device sits neglected in its locked compartment beside his office console, and he's precariously late fetching his goldfish out of his pod before it closes. After a five-minute stare into his locker, he zips himself into his Tranquility-issue jumpsuit because the prospect of choosing seems separately exhausting, and then pulls out the musty-looking Chinese book at the bottom of his locker.

He sits down in the middle of the floor to read it. His posture is terrible. You might literally stumble upon him on your way to the elevator, or else, find the inefficient use of the walkway space worthy of comment. It's awhile before he picks up and moves back into his office space.]

Edited (butt warning) 2015-07-08 08:04 (UTC)

[ Stiles tends to zip around medbay like he's late to something even when he's not really in a hurry, skidding on the wet floors to get around corners like he's in Risky Business. A collision is always inevitable, and he takes the role of the injured party every time like he couldn't just get better at watching where he's going.

This time he basically trips over William and faceplants hard into the floor with a comedic Waaaaugh. He catches himself with one hand, which bends too far back, not enough to break but his wrist will probably hurt for a while. Splits his lip but doesn't break his nose. ]

Dude.

[ He picks himself up a little, still seated but adjusting his three towels (who needs three towels) rubbing at his knees, licking away the blood, brow furrowed. He's obviously looking to William for an apology. ]

Ow!

William Tsang | Closed & OTA (cw/note nudity)

"butt warning"

Lockers

#butt warning

Pods

drops in.

no subject

Muscovy | ota

Lockers.

Grav Couches

no subject

Grav Couches

samantha traynor | ota

valya | ota

no subject

england | ota

Lockers.

Max Rockatansky | in which max's an overachiever and almost punches someone (but doesn't)

GARDENS.