[hatch log] +1, +2, +3, ...+4?

[onemind]

CHARACTERS: All
WHERE: The Station + Concordia
WHEN: DAY :35 - :36
SUMMARY: Another hatch occurs on the Station; new hosts arrive on Concordia and make their way to Bearings - along with a special guest.
WARNINGS: Will update as necessary.

YOU WAKE UP and you will never be the person you were a moment ago. --No. Not a moment. It's been a while, hasn't it? Something feels different. You know intuitively that you've been unconscious for more than just a blink of the eye.

Which might explain how you ended up here: lying in a small faintly hexagonal chamber, a gentle white light emanating from the surrounding walls. It might also explain why any injuries you might have experienced immediately before your escape are also well on their way to being healed. There's something strangely peaceful about waking up here and that feeling persists as you find the tube running from the base of your neck to the compartment's rear wall. But when you disconnect the tube-- Things get loud. A wave of emotion fills the void. Fear, uncertainty, relief, a sense of purpose or loneliness or anxiety; maybe some of these emotions are yours, but they can't all be. After the initial sensory overload, the mental buzz elongates: stretches out into a murmur like the sound of a party behind a closed door.

You can sit up - barely -, and shift out of the pod. There’s a ladder at your feet, and a little cubby just before it with anything you brought with you, as well as a set of crisp, loose-fitting white clothes; while your injuries are healed, whatever you’re wearing is in the exact state it was before. Drop down the ladder to the floor of the Nesting Deck and you’ll find you’re not alone - and that those sounds in your head are louder. Other people’s thoughts swim up: some of them might seem clear, but most of them are a jumbled mess. Every single person here feels like someone you should be familiar with, someone you somehow know. They might look like strangers, but there's something about them that's absolutely vital on a cellular level.

Welcome to Station 72. All new hosts will have one day aboard the Station before being whisked off to Concordia to join the others. Get to know your brood members, and ask the guardians of the Station - Prince and Cathaway -, any burning questions you might have. By the time the day has passed, Carata will arrive on the hangar to collect you.

MEANWHILE IN CONCORDIA plans are being put into motion. Stealth missions are being plotted, espionage-laden ploys are being quietly organized, and somewhere Sam Alexander is probably puking into a bucket. If you aren't following someone suspicious - well, maybe you should be? It definitely seems to be in vogue.

But it can't all be derring-do and covert operations; early on Day 35, Carata disappears. Nirad says she's gone to the Station. "I don't know how many more times we'll be able to do this. Someone's going to notice the ship and start asking questions." And maybe some of those questions might lead someone their way. After all, they haven't exactly been keeping a low profile have they?

     ON THE STATION, the new hosts are herded onto a sleek, black brick-shaped transport. Carata, a woman young enough to almost be called a girl, carefully makes sure everyone is seated and strapped in. She’s all gentle, easy smiles and cheerful responses to any questions posed to her. When everyone’s safely aboard, the ship’s landing platform descends through the floor of the hangar. It snaps into place in the airlock and for a moment there’s a beat of perfect stillness, a shiver of anticipation. Then the transport is flung through the shaft, ejected into the wild black of space. There’s a nauseating lurch in your belly as it bursts through the delicate shell of the multiverse and snaps into real space above the blue and yellow marble of the planet Opia. Somewhere, thousands of miles below in the city of Concordia, the rest of your brood is waiting for you.

     IN CONCORDIA
AS NIGHT FALLS IN CONCORDIA, the transport drops into atmosphere and lands in an gutted strip of an industrial waste facility. Once everyone's disembarked, the transport lifts off of its own volition and winks out of sight as its stealth routines come back online. A few minutes later, a transport van arrives being driven by a stoic android. Carata and the other new hosts pile in. It's a long drive to the Bearings Apartment Block, but it feels undeniably like home when they finally reach the Level 13 living space. New hosts are invited to make themselves comfortable. There are as of yet unclaimed rooms, each of which features a customizable digital display wall (pick your color or wallpaper!); there's a fully stocked kitchen (if someone took time to do the grocery shopping) and a great view overlooking Beta Block from the common room. Get familiar with the other hosts, take a well deserved nap or--

     JUST KIDDING.
In the excitement of new hosts arriving, it might be easy to miss it when the powerlift drops back to the lobby a few hours after the arrival of the new hosts. But it's impossible to overlook the android that arrives on Level 13 when it returns. It's stripped down to its most basic parts: a metallic skeleton with a featureless face plate and bright blue ocular inputs, sparks flashing through its internal synthetic viscera like firing synapses.

It looks like a nightmare.

Its jaw unhinges: "I'm looking for Sim Anderson," it says and then abruptly powers down.

---

((OOC Notes: This is the hatch log for all new and recently returning hosts; any threads on the Station should be closed to newly awakened hosts or Station-based NPCs. Any threads on Concordia can be open to both new and old hosts!

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

[cur]

Very loyal and determined, usually.

[ As for the password, nothing happens. Remus doesn't seem surprised by the attempt, and he retrieves the wand from the bed before lightly tapping it against the parchment while it's still in Sam's hands. ]

Mischief managed. [ That's the cue for the ink to scatter, steadily lifting from the page until it's completely blank. And, sounding slightly apologetic: ]

Sort of a password. Technically a spell.

[headinjuries]

[ Well, that...didn't actually answer the question at all, but okay.

He watches the ink vanish, his eyebrows lifting. ]

Whoa. Cool. So, you do magic?

[ Okay, that's cool. Magic's a thing. It's a thing he doesn't really understand jack about, honestly, but it's not like he has a deep scientific understanding of his own powers, so he can't really judge. ]

[cur]

[ Do magic doesn't sound completely accurate, and there's a thread of amusement in his answer. ]

I do. I teach it, actually — at a school for witches and wizards. The one depicted in that map.

[ Any nervousness around speaking openly in front of Muggles faded quickly. The rules are drastically different here, and these people, the nest — they'll find out eventually, anyway. The novelty of being able to share without consequence, on the other hand, is still mostly intact. ]

You're aware of it in your world?

[headinjuries]

Yeah. I mean, "aware" is pretty much it, when everyone tried to explain that weird magical backlash when we fought Red Skull on Genosha I followed like none of it.

[ There was...a spell? And another spell? Or maybe it was just that they had two people doing the same spell, or something. Whatever it was, it got pretty horribly borked, and that's all he really needs to know. ]

I don't...think there are schools for it in my world?

[ But hey, it's not like he ever had a heart to heart with Dr. Strange about exactly how one becomes the Sorcerer Supreme. Sam always pictured that zen meditation alone on a mountaintop training stuff, but with less kung fu and more zapping things with magic lightning. ]

[cur]

[ None of the names make sense, but he can guess at the context. Muggle witnesses, attempts to explain magic away — though they'd usually resort to charms. Remus pockets his wand, eyes narrowing slightly in thought. ]

People without magic are usually shielded from it, in my world. We go to great lengths to keep it secret.

[ Great lengths like wiping memories or rewriting them wOW how v current. ]

Is it common knowledge? [ Or is there a reason Sam in particular would know of it, though that question's only implied. ]

[headinjuries]

I don't think most people actually believe it's a thing. Or they just kind of lump it in with all the mutant, inhuman, superpower stuff.

[ He didn't really recognize much of a difference before he actually got caught up in all of it, after all. Although when he thinks about it... ]

...which kinda seems weird, because you'd think it wouldn't be any more out there than anything else that's going on.

[cur]

[ Pardon.

The flicker of curiosity's quick, though anyone could read it in the lift of his brows. ]

Mutants and superpowers?

[ And inhumans. That stirs up thoughts of non-beings, but he doesn't make the comparison or ask for clarification. ]

[headinjuries]

Yeah. Mutants are...there's this gene, they call it the x-gene. Only some people are born with it, but it gives them all kinds of crazy powers. I dunno how genetically similar they are to the inhumans, but those guys used to be human but a group of them got pulled off by aliens and messed with, so they have their own society and powers like that are normal instead of being a weird case like with mutants.

[ Welcome to Marvel, where everything is ridiculous. ]

[cur]

[ There's something thoroughly hypocritical about a wizard being skeptical of aliens, especially when that wizard is in space, with aliens. To his credit, he's mostly over it — but it's still a concept that doesn't fit very well with much else.

The rest of it sounds bizarrely close to home, minus a few odd words. Genes and powers is essentially magic, and they've maintained separate societies to avoid misunderstanding and cruelty for decades. Although— ]

Do the mutants live openly among the humans without powers?

[ See also: muggles. ]

[headinjuries]

Yeah.

[ Hey, he didn't ask if they did so peacefully. ]

Stuff...gets kinda messy sometimes. Some places are a lot better about accepting them than others.

[ Sam doesn't really buy into the prejudice; it's not like he couldn't do just as much damage as plenty of mutants with his own powers. In some cases, he already has. And anyway, he went trick-or-treating with the X-kids once. They were pretty cool, even if they really meant to invite Speedball and not him! ]

[cur]

[ The empathy's in Sam's words, even if it weren't in the vague connection. Still, it's a lot of them and no us. Easiest to assume he has no powers, himself. ]

Accepting like you are.

[ He'd certainly taken magic well, though it helps that he's seen it before. Remus lifts a hand, offering to take back the parchment that used to be a map. ]

It's a house, by the way. Hufflepuff. The school is divided into four.

[headinjuries]

My old team was all over the place. Mutants, inhumans, normal humans with cool tech to help them keep up. I think Robbie got his powers in some kind of weird science accident or something. [ He shrugs. ] We all got along fine. Dunno what everyone else's problem is.

[ Well, okay, he gets that people are afraid of the damage they can cause. But that could be any of them.

He passes back the map...well, if it's blank now, should he still call it a map? Whatever ]

Where'd the name come from?

[ Because that is...sure a name, there. (This coming from the kid who had a teammate codenamed Speedball.) ]

[cur]

[ Cool tech and science accidents. Still sounding more like Star Trek than reality, but glass houses. ]

Helga Hufflepuff. One of the school's four founders.

[ And about that teammate thing, ]

What sort of team? If you don't mind my asking.

[ Going to go out on a limb and assume it isn't a sports team, though that certainly sounds like it'd make for interesting competitions. ]

[headinjuries]

[ Ah, here comes the part that always sounds kind of weird when he has to explain it. ]

Superheroes. Uh, do they have those where you're from? We do like vigilante world-saving...stuff.

[cur]

[ Weird, yes. But also very familiar. ]

Not by your definition, no. Ours are a bit more figurative.

[ A beat as he considers putting it down to coincidence, then: ]

Did you know Clint Barton before the two of you were brought here?

[headinjuries]

Uhhhhh.

[ Oh, geez. Explaining superheroes is bad; explaining parallel timelines is going to be worse, he's pretty sure. ]

Yes and also no? It's kinda complicated.

[cur]

[ Remus smiles, brow furrowed as he casts a quick glance over the room. ]

More complicated than this?

[ This being shorthand for being in another universe and connected to a hivemind, obviously. ]

[headinjuries]

Okay, good point.

[ It still probably sounds crazy when he says it out loud, but what here isn't crazy? ]

So I know, or least, met but didn't know super well - a Clint Barton. But some stuff between my world and the world this one's from is...different. So I guess we're from alternate universes?

[cur]

[ Okay, yes, a little bit crazy. Remus looks bemused by the idea, though there's no skepticism in his voice. He hasn't spent much time worrying about alternate universes, but there's a reason time travel has very strict laws. ]

That must be very strange, meeting someone you do and don't know.

[ See also: the entire hive/brood situation. ]

[headinjuries]

Yeah, it's...weird.

[ Clint, at least, is a little less weird to get his head around than Sam Wilson. Clint he knows in passing. Sam is a teammate. ]

But it's been a while since life wasn't weird, I guess.

[ So, you know. Suck it up, like he does with everything else. ]

crawls back in super late

[cur]

[ Remus would be hard pressed to imagine a life that wasn't 'weird', from any perspective. The first four years of his life, maybe. He doesn't remember them all that clearly.

The realization that someone as young as Sam can say the same provokes sympathy, both in the connection and his voice. ]

Normal is something of a myth, I've found. Though I'll admit that this sets an entirely new standard.

[headinjuries]

Maybe the weirdest part was how long I managed to convince myself everything was normal.

[ It had seemed a lot easier to write off all of his dad's weird stories about space as "put the bottle down, Dad, holy crap" than to consider it was...really a thing. ]