[hatch log] the stealth ship's running out of fuel

[onemind]

CHARACTERS: All
WHERE: The Station + Concordia
WHEN: DAY :29 - :30
SUMMARY: A new brood hatches; two new hosts arrive in Concordia.
WARNINGS: Will update as necessary.

YOU WAKE UP. Something is different - something unnamable, but palpable. You aren't the same person you were the last time you were aware of yourself.

You might not know it right away, though. What you do know: you're in a just slightly claustrophobic compartment. A gentle white light diffuses from the top panel. You're wearing the clothes you remember from wherever you came from. You feel... good - regardless of what condition you might have been in before you came to this place. Whatever injuries you might have had, whatever agony you may have been experiencing, whatever fear dogged your heels, they’re all gone. It’s quiet. Lastly, there’s a faint pinch at the base of your skull. Reach back to it and there's a small cable connected to the base of your neck and running back into the rear wall of the compartment. Disconnect it. Then it’s not so quiet anymore. Wherever here is, you aren't alone. You can feel that in your head: something big taking up space.

Welcome to Station 72, Mara and Murphy. All new hosts will have one day aboard the Station before being whisked off to Concordia to join the others. Get to know one another, ask the guardians of the Station - Prince and Cathaway - any burning questions you might have, explore Station 72. At the end of the day, a slick stealth shuttle will arrive in the hangar to take you to Concordia.

The pilot of the craft of a young man who buzzes across the fresh mental connection. It's loud enough to be irritating; he apologizes for it a few times during the trip through the pieces of the multiverse, as the ship pops into existence over the planet, and descends into the bustling inner city of Concordia in the dark hours of the morning on DAY 30. Nirad lands the stealth craft in a garden district; once you've disembarked, the ship reverts to an autopilot sequence and lifts off of it's own accord.

From there, it's just a short tram ride to the Bearings Apartment block building. The hosts, Nirad explains, have rented out Level 13. There are still some empty rooms there if you want one (you probably want one). That said-- if you don't want to go to Bearings and meet your new family comrades in arms ...friends...?

No one's stopping you. But some of them might come looking.

---

((OOC Notes: This is a mini-hatch log for Mara Jade and John Murphy; on-Station prompts should be closed to either one another or Station NPCs, but Concordia prompts may be open to everyone.

If you have questions about the mission specifically, direct them to the most recent calendar post HERE. You can find a more detailed overview of the hatching process HERE; you might also want to take a glance at the MISSION CONCORDIA BRIEFING. For all other questions, please hit up either the FAQ or MOD CONTACT pages.))

NAVIGATION • SETTING • FAQ • MOD CONTACT • GLOSSARY

( CODE BY WHAMBAM )

Comments

[wrackful]

[Murphy doesn't know if he believes it either, except he has to. He'd seen Bellamy stood with Clarke, Kane alone, on his knees amidst the rest of ALIE's ex-warriors. That had been before. Only moments, but still before.

Caution resolves into something harder, wariness and suspicion in Murphy's eyes. He stands again, slowly, no longer comfortable sat while Bellamy's stood. If that one piece was different, what else could be? The fresh impression of Kane's hands around his throat draws similar to the surface easily, Bellamy with the noose around his neck, Bellamy's face as he kicked the crate out from under Murphy's feet, Clarke crouched over him, holding his ruined hand, Bellamy behind her threatening to kill him. Too many twists and turnings in their path, ways things could have gone differently, that maybe they could have wished they had.

But then this wouldn't be the Bellamy he knows. This would be someone else.]

[deployed]

[ The tableau presented in Murphy's thoughts is different, an exhausted aftermath where Bellamy's last recollection had been a cacophony of shouting and colliding bodies. He breathes out, afforded a split second of relief at the flicker of Clarke risen from the throne. Alive, she's alive, and maybe—

Optimism never lasts long. In this case it's choked off in a very literal sense. Bellamy's breath catches at the dual hangings, back to back like a one-two punch. He has never harbored any illusions about the ugliness of what he'd done, but he still flinches away as if space between them could dilute the viciousness of his own anger reflected back at him. It's all familiar. There's no sense of incredulousness over what Murphy's reflecting, just regret and guilt and a faint sense of irritation as Bellamy tries to wrench his thoughts free. ]

Don't.

[ Does he have any right to tell Murphy to stop? It's hard to tell one way or another, but Bellamy spends a fair amount of time reflecting on his sins. Having them projected again from Murphy is hard to stomach. ]

[wrackful]

[For a moment something sharper and nastier rises in Murphy, a sadistic satisfaction at the way Bellamy flinches, the guilt pouring off him. There's the temptation to push, like driving a thumb into an open wound, twisting into nerve endings. Isn't he owed that guilt, that pain?

No. Life wasn't a balance book, and the deaths at his hands hadn't made anything better. His own guilt is a thin wire tangled, digging deep, Charlotte, Raven and Finn, his father in the airlock, begging. He grits his teeth, trying to pull back, but it's like trying to stop his heartbeat. It's there, part of him, and completely out of his control.]

You think I know how to stop it?

[He only just got here. Bellamy should be the expert, shouldn't he?]

[deployed]

[ This is more than he'd wanted to see. A man on the wrong side of the airlock answered with Aurora Blake, the last time Bellamy had ever seen her before Shumway pushed the button. Bellamy takes a step backwards then, arms crossing as he ducks his head and takes a deep breath. He tries to remember what Angel had told him, to mimic the way she'd walled off his head and silenced everything, but it's hard to replicate in the heat of the moment. He doesn't want to know that Murphy's father had begged, or be reminded of how Charlotte had jumped or how pale Raven's face had been as she suffered and sweat out the pain of a bullet wound or how Finn's body had gone slack against the ropes. Each memory belongs to Murphy, but they find immediate echoes in Bellamy. It has the potential to blur right into a loop the way he'd only experienced with the Darkling so far. ]

Think about something else, [ Bellamy grits out, inhaling hard through his nose, wrenching his thoughts away. ] Not about them.

[ Between the two of them, they've seen enough death and pain to swamp both their broods. Bellamy has a vested interest in avoiding that. ]

Focus on being here.

[ A world away from everything they know, that should help, shouldn't it? ]

[wrackful]

[Here isn't a solid concept in Murphy's mind. It's the nesting deck, alien and empty, the fear that he was chipped or trapped alone. It's the city, overwhelming, too much noise and lights, people everywhere. It's this room, strange and somehow difficult to accept, the bed, the tech, the idea it could be his. The closed door.

Quiet. He'd wanted quiet, for a minute, for however long until he felt like he could take more piling up on what was already beyond unbelievable. Bellamy had interrupted that, but it had been there. He'd closed the door. He'd had quiet.

It barely feels like anything, drawing back into himself. Not compared to the overflowing wash of Bellamy's feeling and memories bleeding into and over his own. For a second something in him jolts, terrified at the reclaimed distance, wanting to reach out again. Murphy chokes it down.]

Well, I guess you're definitely you.

[He says, after a long moment of silence. There were other events he could check, maybe, but he doesn't need to. He sits down, again, exhaustion rising again now he doesn't have the cycle of other emotions overshadowing it.]

[deployed]

[ Murphy's better at disentangling himself than Bellamy had been initially. The flicker of observation lingers, unchecked, as Bellamy slumps, leaning against the wall. He breathes out a grim chuckle in response, reluctant to press the topic further. ]

Looks like, [ He agrees, though Bellamy had never quite mustered skepticism about Murphy's identity. He's here. He's himself. The prickly sense of his mind already felt familiar. ] You okay?

[ Making a second run at that question might still end up being useless. But it feels necessary, after they'd gotten so tangled in each others thoughts. Bellamy slouches, slides down to sit on the floor, exhaling hard.

Is there any consolation in the fact that he hadn't shown Murphy anything he didn't already know? There should be. But it's hard to soften the blow of having such private recollections dragged out for display, and he imagines it's the same for Murphy. Bellamy doesn't know how to apologize for it, when it seems so inevitable here. He's snagged on others people's thoughts, but there's a degree of separation that makes it just a little less devastating. ]

[wrackful]

[Bellamy slumps to sit on the floor and there's something strange in seeing him like this, unguarded, no weapons in his hands while he shares the same space with Murphy alone. It draws on memories again, back when the world was contained to the spread of forest around the dropship, when Murphy sat by Bellamy's side and thought that was just how things would be from then on.

He doesn't want to fall into memory again. But instead he just has the question he doesn't want to answer. Doesn't know how to answer. When was the last time any of them had been okay?

He shrugs.]

Nothing's trying to kill me right now, but I've got an alien in my head. So I guess it's fifty-fifty.

[deployed]

[ Bellamy can't tell if the slow creep of nostalgia is emanating from him or from Murphy. He tips his head back against the wall, chuckling under his breath. It's not really funny, except when he considers the stretch of time they've known each other and how often they've been on the verge of death. He and Murphy had both nearly died multiple times in the brief span of time before arriving here. Fifty-fifty seemed like a generous assessment. ]

Yeah.

[ Identifiers like "fine" and "okay" had lost their meaning a long time ago. They'd narrowed down to simply "are you breathing and relatively unhurt?" ]

They got food. And a working shower.

[ Bellamy rattles off those facts mostly because he doesn't know what else to say. It had been difficult to talk to Murphy before they'd gotten stuck in each other's heads. ]

[wrackful]

Yeah, and some "mission" they want us to work on.

[Murphy bounces back, tone dry. All the comforts and luxuries are nice, and yeah, he fully intends to take advantage of them. But they aren't coming for free.]

[deployed]

I know.

[ Bellamy's mixed feelings about it pulse through the connection. Fighting for the rights of AIs isn't easy, but he hates the ugly viciousness of the opposition too much to stand by. It's an uncomfortable muddle. ]

We'll get through it. What they want us to do isn't impossible.

[ The optimism sounds hollow. Bellamy isn't as good at inspirational speeches anymore. ]

[wrackful]

[The look Murphy gives him is flat, unimpressed. Bellamy's saying the right words, but there's no strength behind them. Just uncertainty, indecision. Murphy doesn't need the connection strung between them to know those cracks in Bellamy's makeup - he's felt the results of them before.]

Sure, maybe this time.

[This time it wasn't impossible. This time they'd get through it. Murphy hasn't even paid enough attention to what they want them to do to know if what Bellamy's said is true or overoptimistic. That isn't the point.]

Do you think it's over when this is done? They pulled us into a war.

[deployed]

[ This time. Bellamy exhales slowly, remembering Rhys trying to count out the days he'd been part of the Hive. There's no way to tell. They'd move around and around the universe until time lost meaning.

And there was no way out of it. ]

It's never going to be over, [ He concedes, blunt. ] We don't get to go back.

[ Carata had been clear. The connection was all but completely severed. Their lives on the ground were over. This was all they had now. Bellamy was still grieving for what he'd left behind, but he couldn't let himself wish for any one of the people he was missing to join him here. Their people didn't deserve to spend a lifetime fighting another war. ]

So we deal with it. We figure out how to survive, right?

[ What a great pep talk. ]

[wrackful]

[Bellamy's been listening to them. Murphy can tell from his reaction, the way he'd talked about the mission, about the whole of it. It's not a surprise - Murphy knows Bellamy's try at leadership, and he knows where he'd landed after it had failed.

The surprise is Bellamy thinking Murphy would do the same.]

Did you check I'm who you remember? I'm not interested in playing along.

[And so far there hadn't been threat enough to force it.]