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CHARACTERS: EVERYONE
LOCATION: MED BAY
WARNINGS: ... Partial nudity? It should be pretty tame, but let me know if I need to add anything.
SUMMARY: Side-effects of a jump may include disorientation and temporary memory loss. Fortunately, there are a handful of others who have been through this before.
NOTES: Yes, it's a rehashing of the game premise. Don't worry, you can personalize your own (re-)introduction!

You wake up, alone in the dark.

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.

Don't worry, you are not alone. There are others who have come before you, others who are awakening beside you. Some may be familiar to you, perhaps even friends. They will help you through your disorientation, even though they might suffer from it too.

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.

This is your welcome party.

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"No. I'm ex-military, but I'm definitely not a terrorist." No matter what people feel about Cerberus, so far he hadn't blown up anything that didn't honestly need from a galactic safety point of view, need blowing up.

Though he's still not sure about Shepard nuking an entire fucking solar system, okay? That's-- still something that sits poorly with him. Ends and means, are one thing, but that was billions of lives. The math is there, but its still some pretty fucking daunting math.

"I guess the name Commander Shepard didn't mean anything to you," he adds, as he starts to climb to his feet once the splint is in place. "Otherwise you'd know. I mean, Shepard's famous and it kinda rubs off on all of us. No. Not a terrorist. Saved the fucking galaxy twice."

Or at least, stymied it's current threat. It may not be 'saved' just yet.

Aberdeen pushes herself up to standing again then, leaning over him, offers a hand to help him up onto his feet. She's not familiar with space travel, it isn't something that's happened beyond the most perfunctory babysteps in her world, but she's familiar enough with quantum mechanics and the basics of astrophysics to know what is and isn't theoretically possible. By all intents and purposes, they were in an overgrown science facility of some kind, but she can hear her way all the way down into the cargo hold, into the engineering bay, past the lifts and two the warp drive and then, beyond that, into the silent void of space. Since arriving, Aberdeen's managed to successfully avoid dwelling on that last part, but she knows it's there, waiting for her, daunting but ignored for the time being.

So for all that this should be impossible, given her point of reference, all evidence points to being on a spaceship. The dotted conversations of the other passengers heard through the walls and the ceiling and floors, do nothing but confirm this fact so Aberdeen doesn't fight the evidence; she accepts it and moves on, asking: "Literally?"

"Totally," he says, as he gets himself stable, she's his crutch for now. But he doesn't even bother going into the day to day ass kicking and world saving that the Normady's crew does because... really, once you've lived it, bragging about it seems kind of petty.

"Where he hell does a guy get some shorts? A towel? Anything. Shit, a fig leaf will do," he asks, giving the place a quick glance. "I mean, I might be makin' some of these other guys feel inadequate. That's just not cool."

Aberdeen isn't the type to roll her eyes in amusement (or is it exasperation) but there's something in the way she looks sideways at Joker and then looks away that seems to imply the expression anyway. She's met his type before, the kind that always have something to say and a devil-may-care-see-my-self-deprecation way of saying it. For all that she may be something of a maladjust, and a social recluse at that, her function in the Order means she's constantly 'around' people — listening in on their daily lives, trying to interpret the things that she nears out of context to mean bigger and broader things. If she was inclined, she could probably draw a couple conclusions around Joker. Maybe later, after clothes and answers.

There's a moment when she stops mid-hobble as they make their way from the gravity couches to the locker room adjacent. Aberdeen listens for a moment, concentrating on the noise around them, peeling it back in places to unearth conversations. Then: "There are clothes in the lockers. People are getting dressed."

"I'm not going to ask how you just spaced out and then suddenly knew that. You a biotic?" he asks, as they continue to hobble together, looking for 'lockers.'

"I mean," he continues, continuing along the verbal path that Aberdeen is already aware of, "you didn't light up or anything. Biotics usually do when their field flares."

But who knows. Maybe she's just a really good guesser who likes math.

'Biotic'. Aberdeen knows the terminology, though in the Order it means something decidedly different than the way that Joker means it. The British Order didn't have a biotic, but the Russian Order certainly did. A woman named Sochi who could control the neural relays of the human nervous system, turning sensations of hot and cold, pleasure and pain, on and off like the flipping of a light switch.

Not that Aberdeen would be explaining the difference. Her training dictated secrecy and discretion so all she says on the matter as they finally make their way into the locker room is: "I have a good sense of hearing."

Ridiculously good. Insanely good. Metahuman level good. Though Aberdeen leaves him to assume that she's simply being evasive or joking again.

"Huh," Joker says, clearly catching at least some of the subtext. Thankfully, his military training has kept him from digging too deep for answers. He's a good lieutenant who follows order... to a point. For now, it works in Aberdeen's favor.

"So, just an FYI? You don't sound Scottish," he says, as he limps in the direction of his locker. "Were your parents just cruel, or did they meet there, or what?"

Once they're found the right location, he opens it up -- and oh, look. Stuff. He pulls out the standard jumpsuit, and another-- his uniform from the Normandy. Leg braces, a crutch.

The 'standard issue' jumpsuit is used like a towel, because you know what? Fuck that thing, he's not wearing it. Then it's a matter of layers. Under clothes, leg brace, uniform-- and then his ballcap. Then he has to extend his crutches. He's going to need them.

With Joker set up more or less in front of his locker, she wanders her way down the long aisle of lockers until she finds her own, right near the very end 002 » 200. Even without her hearing, he's still within earshot, so it's not wholly rude. As he goes about sorting through the contents of his locker, so does she, managing to get as dressed as far as her underwear and her black leather jacket before shoving the Tranquility-issued uniform into her bag with the rest of her things. (She, very much like him, isn't going to be wearing that jumpsuit, thanks very much.)

She's combing her fingers through her hair, trying to make sense of all of its roughly-hewn geometric angles when she makes her way over again, messenger bag slung across her body, her legs and torso still very much bare despite the black leather that covers her here and there. "It's a nickname," she tells him; the truth, more or less.

"I was born there." A lie.

"Not shy, are you?" he says -- in the black and white of Cerberus' uniform, he is significantly better dressed. But he' steady on his crutches now -- and moves with the familiarly of someone who is on them very often.

"I was born with my legs busted, but I still got named Jeff," he points out helpfully. Aberdeen is still pretty weird as names go. "So, uh, to the lift? Unless you got more stuff to do down here. I need to get off my feet and regroup some."

She adjusts her bag on her shoulder, the leather of her jacket creaking slightly as she shifts, her head tilting slightly as she looks at Joker in her odd, assessing way. Her fingers have resumed their typing along the strap of her bag, it's less poignant than it was before, more absent and distracted, a subconscious habit almost. For all the Aberdeen is meant to be inconspicuous about her abilities, she's not very good at it (nor does she try very hard).

"You're not either," she says matter-of-factly and though her voice doesn't seem to fluctuate towards either the good or the bad this is definitely a plus as far as Aberdeen is concerned. She then lapses again into one of her long, prolonged silences, her eyes flickering down and then up again to get another once-over of Joker in his uniform before she ticks her head in the direction of the lifts.

A silent, let's go.

He doesn't call her on the oddities-- the funny typing, the strange mode of speech. Really, everybody who goes into the Navy-- or in Shepard's crew -- has some seriously messed up lives and everybody has their quirks. It's just the way it seems to play out. The cripple, the crazy, the imperfect perfect woman...

"Nope, I'm not. Because I'm the best. No hiding your light under a bushel and all that, right?" he says-- before he turns, managing on his crutches with ease-- heading for the lift.

He doesn't bother with ladies first, because he's got to fit on the lift with his crutches, and she can get on once he's situated. "Here's hoping this doesn't jettison us into the vacuum of space, huh? Pick a button."

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