[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]

[ That's a very practical assumption. It's also amusing, and Remus smiles lightly as he continues, stilling his hand and settling the map across his palm. ]

Of this. I was hoping it might work as it had at home, but I'm afraid we're out of range.

[ Sharing this sort of information might be reckless. It's also inevitable, circumstances being what they are. And, perhaps most significantly, it's got echoes of being in the classroom — a small piece of home. Welcome, even if he hasn't really gotten the chance to get homesick. ]

It's magic.

[deployed]

Magic?

[ Skepticism level is high. Though Bellamy doesn't push farther with it, considering that Nova talks about superheros and the Darkling was ancient. But still, casual references to magic take a moment for Bellamy to shake off the initial urge to call bullshit. ]

What does it do?

[ Though the real question is: how can they be out of range? Bellamy's understanding of magic comes from novels and mythology. There's no practical experience to consider. And this man doesn't seem inclined towards secrecy, which makes for an odd sort of change from everyone else who has arrived. ]

[cur]

[ Remus pauses, thoughtful, then he offers the map for Bellamy to take. There are no footprints and no names, but the rooms are still labelled. Common rooms and dungeons and classrooms, ranging from completely mundane to words that look more or less made up. ]

It's a map of the school where I teach. [ Well. ] Taught.

[ The correction comes with a tug of grief, clear enough in the connection even if it's nowhere in his voice or expression. ]

But it's more than that, usually. It allows you to track people, discover hidden passageways — we're simply too far from the school for it to find either, I think.

[deployed]

[ The paper is old, yellowing, and Bellamy handles it very carefully. His hands are rough, marred by calluses and scarred across the knuckles, but he passes his fingers delicately across the words inked on the page. A school. Bellamy can't imagine a building like this. The map suggests sprawling, endless rooms, though Bellamy's distracted from his contemplation by the flicker of grief. His eyes flick up to Remus' face, but something silently questioning vibrating between them. ]

Can't you make it work for this place? This city?

[ Or was it just the school? Bellamy isn't entirely clear if the drawing of the map preceded the magic, or vice versa. Creating magical maps just wasn't part of Ark survival curriculum. ]

It'd be useful in some of the places we've gone.

[ Maybe they'd have been able to catch the bombers with it. Bellamy's gaze drops again to the paper spread across his palm, before he offers it back as if he'd only just realized he couldn't keep it forever. The novelty of paper hasn't worn off yet. Bellamy gets caught up. ]

[cur]

[ The sense of wonder's strong enough to be distracting, all of it associated with details Remus wouldn't have expected. It isn't just the magic that's got his focus; it's the paper, the blueprints. ]

Not this map, unfortunately. It might be possible to create a new one that could be of use. Or to enchant some other object, failing that.

[ The logic of magic in peacetime is very different from magic in wartime. He's no stranger to the latter, and he'd created more than enough tactical charms and hexes in the Order — and again, of late. Remus reaches out to take the map, his own movements unhurried, eyes still searching Bellamy's face curiously. ]

What sorts of places have you gone, if it's alright to ask?

[deployed]

[ They are at war. Bellamy's been assured of it, though sussing out their enemy isn't as easy as he wishes it were. He surrenders the map, a little rueful at not being able to examine it further. ]

There's gaming parlors nearby. And restaurants. Some days there are markets.

[ Which is maybe how his world was once, before the bombs. Bellamy's thoughts flicker to Polis, the nearest equivalent, but even that couldn't hold a candle to the sterile rise of buildings and crush of people crowding the sidewalks. ]

Some people have gone down to subspace. But it's dangerous there, and we should all avoid the security sweeps.

[ Since they're all technically in hiding. Or they're supposed to be. ]

[cur]

[ Words that all track, on their own, though the context is still strange. The cities he knows are cobblestones and hearths and magic; nothing like this. It's cold, impersonal, somehow no cleaner for it. And not so far from home, in other ways — he'd read the briefings. It was just beings versus beasts, or wizards versus muggles. Semantics, but all the same concept. ]

Then you've only been to the one planet?

[ Speaking of words: that isn't one he's used to using. It sounds like a silly question, and feels it, but it's probably less silly in the context of having woken up on a space station. ]