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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.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"I hope not. But if I get one, I hope it's a really cool one, and not with harlequins!" Other than being a little smudged and bruised, John seemed to be okay. Not that he would know, since he was frantically patting his face in case he had a gaping wound. Without any blood on his hands, though, he was fairly content. On the other hand, at his own mention of harlequins, he seemed a little emotionally shocked.

"I guess we should do things now," he said thoughtfully, still staring down at his hands in case he dropped blood everywhere. "Do they have places we can go, or is it just a lot of tubeythings?"

The Doctor claps his hands. "Plenty more than tubey things! Check out your arm. There's a number there. Nanotech tattoo. Does a whole lot of nifty things, but most importantly right now that's your locker assignment. If you can walk, we can go and find it."

He held out his own arm, showing off the 001 » 018 there, to prove he had one as well.

In a monkey say monkey do sort of way, John instinctively puts out his own arm to check. The 002 » 001 (his Ghostbusters telephone number) looked up at him with all its nanotech nanology, and John thought it was telling him something. The number had a lot of significance to him.

"I think it's trying to tell me I'm 21," he said somberly. But since that did not seem very plausible, he started to wander towards the lockers instead. Util a thought hit him, anyway.

"Does this also make food for you?" Nanotech nanology sure had improved since he was last awake and/or alive!

"Got microwaves for that." The Doctor paused at his own locker, and opened it with a scan of his tattoo. Inside: his clothes, his psychic paper, his sonic screwdriver. Just like last time. Along with one of those jumpsuits, which he did not toss over his shoulder this time, but merely left inside.

"See? Scan the tattoo, it opens your locker. Works the same way with the doors on the ship. Well, most of them."

"Wow. This is a really serious power." And John was going to use it to open and close the doors all the time. Waste of electricity? Pshaw, they should have thought of that before they gave nanonology to thirteen-year-old boys. He wandered to scan his own locker, which had the jumpsuit he put on, and a single wallet.

He opened the wallet slightly to peek inside, and then sighed with relief.

"Hi, Casey," he told the wallet, and then slipped the wallet into his suit. "You have weird stuff! But those seem really handy."

"Handy and cool," the Doctor amended, bobbling his bow tie. "Not everybody gets their original clothes. I got lucky."

Even he had to admit that was very cool! Though he suspected, by the way the man said cool, that it wasn't very cool at all. But it was still cool to get the original clothes back.

"But why do you have a screwdriver?" That seemed very curious. Then again, maybe this man was Mario. He shouldn't be mean to Mario.

"Why d'you have a wallet?" He tosses the sonic end-over-end and catches it again before pocketing it. "Because it's useful."

"I... guess? Are you a plumber?" It would be unfortunate to be a child named Doctor who grew up to be a plumber, or a child named Plumber to grow up and become a doctor.

He shook his head 'no.' "Told you, I'm the Doctor. Try to keep up." He tossed the comment off before continuing: "By the way, there's a comm device that would've been left in your locker. Connect you to the rest of the ship, everybody on it."

"But you're the Doctor, not the ship's doc..." No, too easily distracted by the shiny things, he was turning around the comm device in his hands excitedly. It was so shiny.

"Can I try to contact you here?" Too late, he was already trying to ping the Doctor, even if they were standing not even a feet away.

Why yes, John. Yes you could. The Doctor's device went off; he picked it up on an audio channel and spoke into it.

"John, come in Johnny-boy. Can you read me?"

"Loud and clear. Whiskey tango foxtrot." He did giggle a bit to the side, but resumed his very serious face.

"Doctor, Doctor, we have a situation over here. What's your twenty?"

"Standing three feet away from you." He pointed at John, extending his arm all the way out. It didn't quite reach to the boy. "Got you in my sights. Can be there in a flash."

"10-4, Med Bay." John took the comm away from his mouth for a second to mouth, that's your code name. He then resumed to busy himself over the comm like a squirrel over a newfound nut.

"Be on standby. Remember, we are on a super duper galuper secret mission. Enemies can attack at any moment! And they'll probably be samurai, ninjas, and helicopters."

The Doctor spun around on his heel, forming his free hand into a shape of a pretend pistol. "Copy that! I'll cover the laser beams and the snacks." He 'shot' off the pistol on John's direction.

He pretended to duck out of the way and shield his head.

"Watch where you're shooting, Med Bay! Roger that, but geez louise! I'll have to explain this hot hole in my hat to my wife and kids at home!" He pulled out an actual hammer, now, from his wallet. It was bigger than the wallet, and it was also very colorful, and he didn't seem to have any problems wielding it.

"I'm going in. Remember, I don't want any of those baked goods stuff. If it's cake, then it's out."

"Roger that. Doritos and Fruit Roll-Ups on their way." And hey now - the Doctor's attention had been caught by that apparently dimension-bending wallet. He stepped forward, dropping the act, looking in amused bewilderment from the wallet to the hammer and back again.

"Now that is interesting. May I?" Without waiting for an answer, he pulled the sonic out and gave the wallet a scan. Whatever technology John was dealing with here, it had to be something similar to the Time Lords' dimensionally transcendental spaces.

John didn't see what was that great about his Sylladex, but it wasn't like he minded or anything. He didn't seem to have much in there, anyway, just his hammer and his salamander daughter who was still in his wallet for the moment. Casey didn't need to see all this hardcore violence. Besides, her fake father had more important matters to deal with.

"No Fruit Roll-Ups," he insisted, folding his arms across his chest importantly. "Did you know those were made by Betty Crocker? She's got her witch hands sunk all over that fruit product. You have to be careful. Think on your feet, but not with your feet."

The Doctor took a second examining the readings he'd got off the wallet. Okay. Deadlocked doors, little blue men, ponies turned into humans, but this was the strangest thing he'd encountered aboard the Tranquility. He paused and stared at the sonic for a moment, then snapped it shut, ready to resume the conversation.

"Noted." He reached out a finger and tapped John on the chest. "Where you from, by the way?" He had been assuming Earth, but after John had produced that hammer...

He opened his mouth to say Earth, but then a great idea occurred to him. It was so great that he could barely even handle it. They didn't call him the master PRANKSTER for nothing! Also, he did not call himself the master PRANKSTER for nothing.

"I come from the planet Farts, and I am new to your type of civilization. I think Earth is a great place, and I have watched your movies about Nick Cage. I think he is a wonderful guy. You should be proud of his accomplishments, because he is better than pyramids and everything." He did, however, hide his mouth behind his hand to giggle.

Planet Farts... riiiiiight. Okay, he'd bite. But he'd do it with the very obvious look of someone who didn't believe a word he was saying.

"Technologically advanced, Farts?" he asked. "Big on science?"

"I am so big on science. I am all sciencey up in here! If you have seen Ghostbusters, then I am like that. Except I'm really an Ectobiologist?" There was something quizzical about his last sentence that seemed removed from his other jokes, like he was being curiously serious. But that didn't last very long.

"Greetings, human. Or as they say on my planet, pfft pfffft pffffftttt."

"Pfffftttt. D'you want to know how I knew to ask? Because -- well, because you must be receiving an awful lot of Earth broadcasts on Farts to be talking about Nick Cage and Jodie Foster and Betty Crocker, but also because you have got --" He pronounced almost every syllable as if it were its own word: "A di-men-sion-al-ly trans-cen-den-tal wallet."

"Which, seriously, actually seriously, how does a human wind up with one of those? Not exactly standard issue, in my experience."

"It's kinda standard issue..." He let the act slide for a moment and shrugged. "It stores Captchalogue Cards? It's just a Sylladex. It's a pretty good one, though."

But back to really important matters, as he cleared his throat and assumed the face that he thought the aliens would have on when they encountered Jodie Foster.

"Your world is just not ready for us yet," he said with solemnity.