thisavrou_log | Don't call the doctors, 'cause they've seen it all before [semi-open]

Entry tags:

mcu: wanda maximoff

Don't call the doctors, 'cause they've seen it all before [semi-open]

Who: Athena, Simon Tam, Meh Yewell, and anyone else who wants to join in
When: A couple days after the intro log
Where:The medbay
What:Tfw your hunger strike sends you to the medbay >:T
Warnings: Self-starvation

I might be catching so don’t touch [Closed to Simon Tam || Meh Yewell]
This is pointless. I’m not sick. I’m not injured. I have no reason to be here.

[These are the words you may hear floating into the main room as the doors to the medbay slide open. Athena’s been escorted there, obviously not entirely by her own free will, though thankfully she doesn’t have to be sedated and physically dragged there like she did upon arrival. For one, this uniform offers even less protection from sedative-filled needles than her armor did, and secondly, she doesn’t have near the energy for the evasive maneuvers she would otherwise use to compensate for this. So she lets herself be led, albeit grudgingly.

She glares over her shoulder as the doors slide shut behind her and she’s left alone in the main room. She’ll also glare at any uniformed person who tries approaching her.]

I do not need treatment, [she says shortly. Her appearance, however, would beg to differ. Her skin is sallow, her face gaunt, and her uniform seems to hang a bit too loosely about her. Doesn’t stop her from looking at you as if she’s imagining twisting your head off like a bottle cap and, against all odds, like she could succeed.]

You’ll start believing you’re immune to gravity and stuff [OTA]
[If you enter the medbay at any time afterwards, you might find yourself being stared at very intently. For once, Athena’s intentions aren’t confrontational. She’s just bored. Oh my god, she is so bored. At least when bandits had taken her prisoner, they had provided her with interesting conversation every once and awhile. This “IV drip” is not nearly as diverting. The only reason she hasn’t ripped it out of her wrist and stormed off is because she’s been told if she stays on it for a day and then starts eating actual food, she’ll be able to leave the medbay and that is currently her top priority.

Feel free to talk to her. Or shoot at her. Or spontaneously combust. Honestly, she’s so bored she’d take anything at this point.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

So you look haggard and half dead when you're the picture of health. Good to know. I'll put it in your file as a sign of no need for concern.

[She wasn't beating around the bush, certainly. Meh Yewll had been in a prison camp herself, a lovely place called "Camp Reverie". It's where the ERep sent their most unwanted.]

I guess you can also ask the captains permission to starve to death, but I don't think they're going to let us get away with not treating you. [Despite the sharp glare, Meh doesn't look phased. Oh, undoubtedly Athena could hurt her- Meh heals quick, but she's soft and squishy and not particularly good at fighting. In fact, everyone can lay into Meh and that's why she isn't particularly compelled to hold her tongue. But, for the moment, she's just talking and going about the MedBay business that doesn't deal with Athena yet. Boring, monotonous, repetitive business.]

What do you think this will accomplish? You're not Ghandi.

[Athena’s only response to the other woman’s sarcasm is sullen silence. She knows she’s in bad shape -- she had already gone several days without eating before she arrived on this ship and she can feel herself losing strength as the pattern persists. But in a battle between her hunger and her will, it’s her stubbornness that ultimately wins out.]

I know that. [Especially since she doesn’t know what a “Ghandi” even is.]

It’s against regs to eat food provided by captors. And I have even less interest in eating food provided by bounty hunters.

[Seems her paranoia from the first day is still alive and well. And why shouldn’t it be? It’s served her well enough in the past.]

Whoever wrote your 'regs' apparently was more obsessed with security than the lives of its workers. [She says shortly, but considered the latter part of the statement. ] "Bounty hunters?"

[She doesn't know what the ship was for, and who on the ship provides what.]

Probably. [Atlas may be a bunch of murderous assholes, but at least some of what they taught her was useful, and ensured her survival on many a mission. There was also a lot of it that was bullshit, of course. Figuring out which is which can be difficult, to say the least.]

Yes. Perhaps the entire crew isn’t in on their operations, but someone on board has to be. Likely it’s whoever is controlling the Ingress.

Well, I can say that eating food is a lot more comfortable than intravenous sustenance. You might want to try the former first before the captains order the latter.

And why do they have to be. Why would a bounty hunter in your world need an Indogene? [She tips her head to wait for this explanation, it's probably going to be good.]

[Well, technically they did order the latter already, but she’s not going to mention that. She quick to latch onto the change in subject.]

Before I was taken aboard this ship, I was waiting for either Vault Hunters or bounty hunters. As none of the people on this ship are the Vault Hunters I hired, that only leaves the second option.

And I don’t know what an Indogene is. [Her first thought is that it's some sort of rank or job description. She’s assuming thus far that the person she’s speaking with is human: a very strange-looking human, but those aren’t all that uncommon where she’s from and this woman isn’t even close to the strangest she’s seen.]

I'm an Indogene. And if you've never heard of Votans, we're not even from the same world.

[She finishes up a few minor organizational things.]

So what would bounty hunters want with you?

[She still has little to no idea what the woman is talking about. Perhaps the words “Indogene,” and “Votan” are like “Pandoran”: simple descriptions of one’s planet of origin.] I’ve heard of neither. I’m assuming they’re not native to Pandora.

[She frowns at the woman’s next question.] They would want to return me to Atlas HQ for a bounty. Why else would the captains of this ship not tell us its destination?

Not all of us have bounties on our heads. Who knew, a few people on here either have squeaky clean records or some concept or a moral compass. Who knows where they picked that up. [She might have, but she's pretty sure the android didn't, nor did the program. Finally she goes over and leans her hip casually against the edge of Athena's bed, crossing her arms.]

Look, you really need to eat. On your own. Without injections. Without someone holding you down and forcing it into you. Even if you have to stockpile food on their weird stops, you have to. It doesn't matter if there's a bounty, because it's stupid not to.

As far as I know, the captains could be a part of the ship and literally can't tell us. Ark brains often have key holders that are in tune with and can manipulate their programs. They're also genetically predisposed to be able to handle the keys. Usually they're Indogenes- an artificially created race of people with specific properties like me. Or they lucked out in the DNA dice roll. They can hold a key, they're given a key, and then eventually it's bye bye free will for those that don't have the pre-formatted brains to handle it.

But I don't know that nor what type of ship they have. I don't know if their technology is anything like that on the Arks. I never heard of Pandora, I don't know how similar it is to anything I'd know.

You want to figure out where it's going? Keep asking people as they come in and try to put it together. It's too big to be about you.

[So not everyone here has a bounty on their heads. It doesn’t mean the captains don't know about hers. She can’t think of any other motivation to explain why they had brought her here. They didn’t do it for her skills; that much is apparent by the fact that they had tucked her away in a do-nothing job as a “PR Officer,” whatever that meant. And as far as she’s seen, there’s no sign of any corporate logo anywhere on the ship, so they likely aren’t rivals of Atlas either. The only thing they could possibly gain from having a wanted fugitive like her on the ship is that bounty.]

The food could be drugged as a means of enforcing complacency. [That was one reason Atlas had given for the regulation and as far as she knows, it could be true. They’ve been kidnapped and made to work for the shadowy “captains” who had brought them here against their wills, yet it seems like she’s the only person here actively resisting. The logic checks out to her.

And then the woman starts speaking in gibberish. Or she might as well be for all Athena understands of it. Arks, keyholders, pre-formatted brains… Wherever she’s from, it’s clearly worlds apart from Pandora.]

And if you’re wrong, you’re asking me to lie idly by and wait to be sold back to a company of murderers and tyrants. [She doesn’t deny that the woman’s words have reason to them; there’s no reason why bounty hunters would bring this many disparate people onto a ship if they didn’t all have bounties on their heads. But captains of a simple exploratory vessel wouldn’t do that either. Nobody would. And when each conclusion is equally unlikely, it’s easier for Athena to stick to those she knows -- namely that whatever’s going on here, Atlas has some part in.]

I think we have enough scientists here to figure out whether this is drugged or soylent green or whatever is on the menu.

And I'm not asking you to sit idly by. I'm asking you to eat. Punch whoever you like, get thrown in brig, leave shtako on the bridge, in whatever order you want. I just want you to look out for your health. I don't like to see people starve themselves sick.

[She grabs a blanket, and sits it on Athena's lap. She can use it if she wants to use it. Doc Yewll won't make her.] During the war, when prisoners were captured they were in no way given access to ship systems. Some were placed in brigs, some were placed in camps, and some were put in cages and used as labrats.

There's a lot of access and a lot of comforts here that aren't given to most prisoners. Use that for whatever you will.

Has anyone tested it? Or have you all just assumed it’s clean?

[She tenses when the woman approaches her, until she sees that her purpose is only to give her a blanket. She lets it sit on her lap untouched.]

We were all brought here against our wills and made to work with little to no explanation or choice. Just because we’re kept in comfort doesn’t mean we aren’t prisoners.

[The words are said with unexpected anger and for a few moments afterwards, Athena is silent, glaring into empty air at something unseen. Then she shakes her head.]

Test the food, or find someone else to test it. If you can show me that it’s clean, I’ll eat.

I've been in some of the bad prisons. You don't have to like it, but I can tell you it's better to have something to work with. [But it's hard to describe what the ERep prisons put someone through. She doesn't want sympathy- she resents it because it means she's pathetic. It takes her a lot to admit even that much, and when she does it's matter of factly.]

[She takes a few steps back and eyes the door.] And if it has something you don't trust, then you'll at least stock up at places we stop at?

I-- [She knows the Moira is better than Atlas. Miles better. It doesn’t stop the very principle of captivity grating on her, especially since she was so close to being free before she was taken aboard.] I know.

If I can choose the food myself, then yes. I’ll pick something up at our stops.

And I'll go check on the food that's here for you.

Might as well do something worthwhile to pass the time. There's only so many times you can clean the same thing over and over.

[Athena nods, then, somewhat belatedly, adds,] Thank you.

[At least it sounds sincere.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Don't call the doctors, 'cause they've seen it all before [semi-open]

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject