( april event log )

[hownkai]

Who: Everyone
When: April 14th and on
Where: The Moira + Del Pascia
What: The prison isn't all that contained after all.
Warnings: For the (sort of) undead, possible violence, and nudity. Please label your content!

E V E N T

revive the risk "Big things have small beginnings." Things have been going relatively well for the crew of the Moira thus far despite their current circumstances. With D-E-L’s help, many supplies have already been gathered, and those with the necessary components have begun making much needed repairs. Yet, things aren’t as peaceful on Del Pascia as they might have seemed. The resident facility AI has slowly started growing more and more unresponsive to questions, often answering in rather irritated tones and short, snippy answers. Still, no system glitches appear across the prison except for one minor detail: random doors and hallways suddenly lock and close for no reason and don’t open again for varying amounts of time—ranging from minutes to hours. Does this have anything to do with the unsettling feeling some crew members have experienced since stepping foot onto Del Pascia? Or is there a simple explanation that can be easily chalked up to as an accident? ☄ DECONTAMINATION #2 ( 04.14 - 04.17 ) On the Moira, crew come and go without much hassle. They take a transporter to planets and moons and back again without any fuss... Until today. All crew that try to reboard the Moira coming back from Del Pascia will be denied access, a warning flashing on their MID - Decontamination Required for Entry. It’s a protocol that hasn’t been enacted before, and the MID offers no explanation as to why it is now. The transporter will seal and then be permitted to dock in the Cargo Bay, where the procedure will begin. All crew on the transporter have to dispose of their clothing by placing it inside hazardous waste bags located in a compartment near the front of the craft. After all clothing is stored, a gas-like substance will fill the transporter, breathable yet tasteless, and once it dissipates, crew will be free to go. Other crew members will be waiting in the cargo bay with clothing and blankets, per the captain’s instruction, but no clear explanation will be given for this sudden new protocol aside from “potential health risks”. ☄ D.ON'T E.VER L.EAVE ( 04.18 - 04.23 ) After the decontamination procedures for the Moira go off, the captains issue a ship-wide alert to let the crew know that the ship is picking up on something inside each person that boarded the space station. It is speculated that the crew came in contact with an unknown biological contaminant either during the station’s decontamination procedure or sometime after. At this point, they aren’t aware of what will happen to those that are carrying the contaminant, and the captains ask for anybody with experience to head to the Medbay to begin testing. Crew don’t appear to be in any danger, so they are allowed to continue gathering materials and supplies on board the space station at their discretion. (Every time they come and go, they will be made to go through the procedure described above). Any crew remaining on Del Pascia will find that D-E-L is more vocal than ever before. It is answering questions, as well as trying to convince crew members to abandon the Moira and take up permanent residence aboard the space station. ☄ FEAR ME, LOVE ME, DO AS I SAY ( 04.24 - 04.28 ) Like most unfortunate things, it seems everything happens all at once.The noises you heard, a step falling moments after yours or a rattle coming from the vents, become louder. You can’t place where they are coming from at first. You turn, you follow, but the search yields no results. And then, without any warning, it’s crystal clear as “they” begin to creep and move from within the shadows and ruined sections of Del Pascia: the prisoners and workers said to have been relocated by D-E-L. Their voice is one, regardless of how many gather, and they tell you, “You can be happy here” and “I can make you better” shortly after. Worse than the way they speak in unison is the way they look. Mutated and deformed, their prison uniforms are in tatters and covered in various levels of the same blood that the crew has experienced during their time on Del Pascia while visiting the prison blocks. They don’t attack to kill; they only try to detain, to drag crew members further into the station and are methodical and precise in how they do this as if they’re being controlled by something greater and much smarter than them. To those that fight, D-E-L’s voice will call out, telling the Moiran not to struggle, to stay here and be safe, be better. The AI explains that life there on Del Pascia is easy, peaceful, and nobody will cause you pain. Suffering is a thing of the past and loneliness is something you’ll never know again. The prisoners follow the command of the AI, its voice falling from their lips. D-E-L claims they feel no pain, no hunger. They are united in one purpose and are therefore free of all strife. Wouldn’t it be nice to be free like that? As always, fearing for the safety of the crew (and despite the disrepair of the Moira from events prior), the captains ask for all those capable to assist with extracting those aboard Del Pascia as quickly as possible before D-E-L tries to lock them inside. Running, after all, is better than dying, and it’s certainly something everyone aboard the Moira has gotten quite good at.

Comments

[hellsbel]

Bel doesn't miss the care Sam's taking not to look down, and their own look shades over into the sardonic. One never knew how far the taboos went with non-Betans, though at least the young man wasn't covering his eyes and wailing about perversion.

"Mine didn't come off in one piece either," Bel points out. "I didn't hear them say 'remove all clothing unless it fits your body really, really well'." And yes, that is a frank up-and-down look you're getting, Sam. Aside from the distinctly perfect fit of the undersuit, the circuited armor is interesting in its own right. "Are you worried it'll get damaged?"

[whoami]

"Not exactly."

Considering that if Sam did try to remove everything, it would get stored as a template on his disk, he didn't want to try and find the disk detached as soon as that part of his armor got stored. Or worse; that it stayed. What then? What would be holding it on? Another thought did occur to him though, since this is the second time he's spoken to Bel. Though he's still being studious about where he looks (though being blatantly checked out by someone who's naked feels super weird) Sam does have a comment, though.

"You know if there's something to catch the whole ship already has it by now. Why are you so keen to do what you're told?"

[hellsbel]

The answer is avoidant as usual, but it doesn't take a genius to tell that his culture's taboos aren't the only thing bothering Sam. At that remark, though, Bel's eyes snap back up to his face.

Last time they'd talked, Sam hadn't seemed to understand why sleeping in random, open locations on a deep-space vessel -- places not designed for safety in case of an emergency -- had seemed so wrong and unsafe to Bel. He'd since resumed sleeping in his cabin, no thanks to the talk they'd had, though Bel had just been grateful he'd found his own reason to change his mind. But this... it has to be just an unfortunate turn of phrase unless the boy's been talking to Ivan; it's not something to take personally, not in that way; Bel knows Sam wouldn't know a Betan from a Cetagandan and they're probably the only one he's ever met. But in a way, that only makes it hit closer to home.

No privacy, no self-respect.... they'll do anything, they don't care.... it's their upbringing, you should see them fall in line when there's a radiation drill.... bunch of soft-bellied activists, don't know how to deal with the real world.... they just shift in the wind with every fad, don't know what they want, what do they expect when they bring up their kids that way.... come on, darlin', don't be frigid, aren't you Betans supposed to make nice?

"This is decontamination, not contamination prevention," Bel says coolly. "They're probably doing the rest of the crew as we speak. Why are you so keen on insisting that nobody else on a spaceship from your distant future could possibly know what they're talking about?"

[whoami]

And there, right there, was a shift in Bel's behavior. With no clothes on it was noticeable and as glaring (to Sam, anyway) as a star. Sam had no clue what a Betan or Cetagandan even were…but this is the same sort of argument he's heard before. And really, Bel nearly had him talked into taking his Grid suit off.

Then things got cold, pretty imperious (that 'your future' comment rubbed Sam all sorts of wrong) and so 'better than you' it's ridiculous. Sam couldn't help but feel stubborn, and defensive in the face of it. The urge to look down evaporated as Sam met the jab in kind.

"Because I don't know them. Generally I need a good reason to do something like getting naked in a room full of strangers, then get sprayed with some unknown gas. I don't just do things because I was told by some 'futuristic' machine."

[hellsbel]

Bel sighed. "One, there's no nudity taboo on my home planet, so I don't generally need a 'good reason' to get naked in front of strangers. Two, none of this is futuristic to me. It's life. It's twenty years of my life. I should tell you the kinds of hoops we have to jump through to pass organic cargo through customs without the Interstellar Trade Commission picking it apart for alien lice. If somebody thinks even one person aboard could be endangered by whatever this is supposed to prevent, that's enough for me."

It would have been an overly pious attitude to take at home, even for an expatriate Betan, but things were different here. These shipping lanes didn't have a safe, reliable Interstellar Commission to manage trade and protection and be griped at for their redundant safety measures; to Bel, any precaution felt like a step forward.

The alto grew lower, quieter. Disrobing in front of strangers had never bothered Bel, unless the strangers had made themselves obnoxious already. Feeling perceived as less than a sane and autonomous person in someone's eyes was a different story, unusual this time only in the reason for it. Next time should I try not being from the future?

"You don't know them--" leaving aside how long Sam has been on board, and whether he could have tried to get to know the captains well enough to judge from a place of knowledge -- "but if think cooperating with a decontamination procedure makes me a thoughtless drone for 'some futuristic machine', you're not looking for my story, either."

Absolutely no need to answer at all, I have no excuse sob

[whoami]

If there was one thing Sam really, really didn't like? It was having his own mistakes pointed out. The gas was clear by now, thankfully, because Gridsuit aside, Bel had a point. It didn't alter the fact that in one sharp comment there was a definite change between Bel and Sam. The latter of which completely closed down and leveled actually irritated blue eyes at the former.

"Wow. Well then just walk around this way, since you don't care about being naked. And I gave up my uniform, but this thing? Isn't fabric. Technically it shouldn't exist here. No one is being 'contaminated' by me. On the other hand, you're asking me to be doing what other people tell me to do for the sole reason that those other people have 'capitain' on their name. "

Sam scoffed at that.

I get it, though. It's a lot easier to go with everyone else and let the futuristic machine do the thinking for you. But I recently had a 'reminder' on why letting anything else do the thinking for you is bad."

Alien lice or alien rodents. Sam wasn't stupid and he was done with this. Whatever point Bel might have was overshadowed by Sam's persistent dislike of feeling like he was being spoken down to.

<3

[hellsbel]

Bel smiled tightly. "Thank you for your kind permission. I asked you to do what I'm doing because it makes sense, but if that's some kind of second skin for you, you might have said that in the first place." Sam Flynn was supposed to be human -- a "user". If he couldn't remove his suit, the same armor worn by Tron and Rinzler, did that make him part program? What had happened to him on the Grid?

Perhaps someone else would have known what to say, how to be understood by this young man whose experiences had been so different, but Bel was still burning from the rest of the accusation. A whole military career brushed aside, their own perspective mocked -- in Sam's eyes, Bel was nothing but a puppet for the establishment, passive, pliant, easy. No other self; no other worth; no individuality to respect or trust.

He could just go on thinking that. The effort of arguing didn't seem worth it anymore.

But if he wanted to end the conversation, he'd damn well have to look away first.

[whoami]

No it wasn't exactly a 'second skin', but like hell Sam would say that. He wouldn't say to anyone that his time on the Grid was brief, violent, and amazing then horrifying. He certainly wasn't going to tell Bel that it was a suit in that it went over his skin but it wasn't a suit because it transmitted everything - including the gas - as though it were his skin. As far as Sam was concerned, it was none of Bel's business.

In truth Sam was done with this entire conversation. He was regretting the choice to use Bel's shuttle, too, and at this point? He just wanted to get away.

"...Yeah.I'm out."

Bel wanted Sam to drop his eyes first, right? Well he gets that and then some as Sam walks to the rear of the ship, and all but jumps off the end of the ramp before it's fully lowered. People are going to stare at the lights, but let them. Sam really was not going to stay there longer.