[hatch log] into the garbage chute, flyboy(s)

[onemind]

CHARACTERS: All
WHERE: The Station + Concordia
WHEN: DAY :43 - :44
SUMMARY: New hosts hatch on the Station; their arrival on Concordia is bumpier and smellier than usual.
WARNINGS: Will update as necessary.

YOU WAKE UP and nothing will ever be the same again. A moment ago you were somewhere familiar - or familiar enough; now you're lying in a small faintly hexagonal chamber lit by a gentle white light emanating from the surrounding walls. You can't shake the sensation that you've been asleep for a long, long time.

The sluggishness of coming out of a deep, dreamless sleep persists all the way until you disconnect the tube running from the compartment's rear wall to the base of your neck. Then 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. Somewhere, someone else is feeding their thoughts and emotions into your mind. On the plus side, it's easy to follow that digging, familiar sensation to each other. After all, you're part of the same brood. You belong together.

Welcome to Station 72. Sirius and Kavinsky will have one day aboard the Station to acclimate to their new reality before they're whisked away to Concordia to join the rest of the young hosts. Get to know one another, ask some burning questions; in a day's time you'll be boarding a shuttle and going somewhere far, far away.

MEANWHILE IN CONCORDIA, the host's espionage efforts are coming to a head. Preparations for infiltrating Public Security HQ are in full swing, a handful of hosts are planning to get in close with Representative Goram Saffit himself and there's currently a semi-functional android taking up one of the beds of the Bearings apartment block. Honestly, there's more than enough on everyone's plate without piling new hosts on top of it all. But that doesn't stop Nirad from disappearing when he's called to return to the Station. Presumably, this means everyone better get ready to debrief some new arrivals soon...

     ON THE STATION, there's a hum in the air - or the mind, rather. Follow the buzz and it'll lead to the Hangar Deck where a slick brick-shaped black transport is waiting. The source of the mental hum seems to be a young man: Nirad has come to collect you. He'll answer any questions; in fact, he seems happy to talk and length about absolutely anything. The boy's apparently the rambling type with little to no filter between his brain and his mouth. The combination of talking and mental hum can be disorienting. Once safely aboard the transport, the ship’s landing platform descends through the floor of the hangar. It snaps into place in the airlock. For a moment there’s a beat of perfect stillness, a shiver of anticipation. Then the transport is flung through the shaft and 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.

     A BUMPY LANDING
The stealth ship slices down toward the planet until it fills the entire viewscreen. "All right, everyone out," Nirad announces, unbuckling his harness and jumping to his feet. Uh. What?

He leads to the port side of the transport ship where there's a small series of circular ports. They're roughly shoulder width. At a touch of a button, the ports open out to a series of escape pods. There's only enough room for one and it looks like you'll be lying on your back the whole trip. "Hop in. I'll launch you and then follow you down in my own. The pod's stealth tech should keep you invisible to the locals until someone comes to find it, but don't forget to scrap the pod when you're out of it. We can't risk someone finding it laying around." A pause. "Sorry, by the way. Usually we'd just land the ship but it's getting kind of obvious."

Hopefully you weren't expecting a nice, easy trip down to the planet because this is dark and joyless. The escape pod has no windows. It launches from the transport ship and rockets downward at the behest of the planet's gravity. Everything shakes. It's desperately cold, then violently hot and then-- something gives. The sound of something whistling. A jerk. The escape pod trembles as the anti-grav jets at the base deploy. It's a last attempt to soften the landing, then the pod drives down into a mountain of debris like a tent stake into muddy earth.

Congratulations, you've landed more or less safely in Concordia's only open air landfill.

     SEARCH & RESCUE
It's three in the morning and maybe you're asleep in Bearings or maybe you're burning the midnight oil; either way, Carata is in your mind telling you to get up and get ready. "The new hosts have landed. Let's go pick them up, shall we? If I were were, I'd wear some clothes you don't really care for."

Time to go digging through the city's biggest dumpster transfer facility!

The escape pods will have to be unearthed and opened from the outside to rescue their inhabitants. Once free, be sure to dismantle pods and scatter them through the piles of debris. Eventually all of this will be recycled, but we don't want anyone finding mysterious alien technology in one piece now do we?

---

((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

[100mitsubishis]

[The catwalk allows for a long, long drop. Fall over the edge and there's no coming back from being rendered a human pancake; mushy flesh with jabbing splinters of bone. Kavinsky's not interested in an end like that, so he sticks to the middle of the catwalk, like a model but for the high fashion and the precision. The white PJs were fun for a while, but he switched back to his own clothes. His sunglasses got perched on his nose, white framed, hiding drooping eyelids, but not the smeared smile on his lips.

He doesn't stop when he sees the woman; like a traincar, he only slows before coming to a brake right before her. The tablet looks neat, but it's not what catches his eye.]

Nice chains.

[He hooks a finger around his own. Singular, gold. A necklace, though so much more gangster. Like dear ol' dad.]

[polyphonos]

[The chains in question are very slim, fine enough to be purely aesthetic. They're wound elaborately from her shoulders to her elbows and wrists; they loop through the folds of her wrap dress and gently rasp with every small movement of her hand. An assortment of charms hand from the chains in intervals - geometric shapes, small strange animals and metal renditions of odd alien plants; they are silver and gold, platinum and bronze, and each one is different.

They chime pleasantly as she raises her attention to him and shifts the line of her leg down from the bench. The woman looks to him as if she knows him and is unsurprised to find him here.]

Thank you.

[100mitsubishis]

[Kavinsky is used to people knowing him, more as a symbol than as a person, so her recognition in and itself causes no upset. He regards the chains, noting that they're delicate and slender compared to the chunky version wrapped around his neck. The starting line loses its power to irritate when the woman treats it as a proper way to greet a stranger. Not a stranger. Someone known but not organically, the way the process was meant to be unwrapped.

It's like starting from the inside of the greeting card and working backward. Printed in comic sans: But I just got you this card! and then I thought I should get you something special for your birthday! on the cover and then pastel-blue envelop and then To: J. K. on the back of it.

Just kidding.

The bench is big enough for two so he conquers the space leftover with spread legs and his elbows settling down on his knees.]

Were you hoping for me or the other guy?

[polyphonos]

[Sprawled as they both are, they're very near to touching - her knee to his thigh, maybe - but she makes no effort to lengthen the distance. His physical proximity, much like the rest of his theatrics, apparently have no disturbance over her comfort her.]

We have no preference, but it might be better for the other newly hatched host to wander before we speak to him. Sometimes it's easier to have a conversation once a person understands the scope of this place better.

[She's mild, unconcerned. Eventually everyone either evens out or they wreck themselves; very little she says or does can change their chosen trajectory.]

Now-- [She smiles and that too is gentle, easy like a warm breath of air through an open window.] How are you?

[100mitsubishis]

[Funny how it's the older man that needs to work on figuring out scope; Kavinsky's always recognized the world as a small place. He's only felt large, overwhelming, godly when he's asleep, and he can sleep anywhere. On Earth, in a space station, on whatever planet they jettison him off to. Kavinsky remains Kavinsky in all spaces, and the things he misses are as replaceable as dead goldfish, as broken cars, as dead disappointments.]

I'm great.

[He's sober. He's far from perfect, and he scratches his nails against the inside of his wrist. In his fidgeting, he closes the physical gap between them in some, shaky pulses as his leg bounces.]

When do we get something to do?

[polyphonos]

[He's knife sharp and trembling, isn't he? As jittery as the set of his knee. He feels like something getting ready to burn very hot. --But that isn't surprising. It's a tang as familiar to her senses as the taste of jet fuel on the air.

In turn she offers him the patience of a void: the deep, dark vacuum space where fire doesn't burn. Cathaway smiles. It's empty and understanding.]

Soon a ship will arrive to take you and your broodmate to join the others in the city Concordia. We believe they're nearing the end of their work there, but there should be plenty left for you to do once you get there.

[She turns the device in her hands then and offers it to him. It's not so different from a tablet, though surprisingly thin and seemingly a single piece. The screen section seems to seamlessly fit with the body.] All your mission data is on that, if you care to look at it.

[100mitsubishis]

[There is a demon under Joseph Kavinsky's skin that wants to escape. The boy that used to be housed by the body died around the first or second time things went rotten with his then living father. From ruination, a new being was birthed, and this one doesn't rail against fate, safe in the knowledge he could create a new one. That makes him a god, perhaps. At the same time, human, fragile. There are safeguards he doesn't have by virtue of such an easily torn asunder shape. The immortal soul, if that was to be believed in, is a liquid fire that deserves a better torch to burn upon.]

Thanks.

[He might mean it. The tablet fits well in his hands and at first he's merely stroking the glossy surface. He tests the usual gestures, seeing if he can scroll with two fingers or one-- if tapping twice will pull up any useful menus.

Part of him is impressed, and that same part wants to break the tablet because of how expensive it might be to replace. But he is on good behavior and he doesn't want the lady to shy away from him just yet.

If he does break it out of impulse, he'll dream her a new one. That's the private deal he makes with himself.]

What's next after that? If we're almost done.

[Already settled into the 'we.']

[polyphonos]

[It's not strictly the same as what he might be used to - at first there's considerable lag to his touch, the device seems unresponsive and then... it gives. After a moment, it begins to respond in ways he might expect it to. Scrolling, zooming in, navigating forward and backwards. It adapts to his touch, his expectations. Or maybe something in his head is quietly telling him exactly how to vary the slide of his fingers to operate it. Either way, give it a moment and it'll seem perfectly straightforward to operate the tablet.]

After that, you and the other hosts will return here until you're needed elsewhere. We don't know how long you'll be here or where you'll go, but once you've returned we encourage you to become accustomed to this place and consider it your home. It's a good place to learn and grow the talents you'll need while you're away.

[She shrugs, sympathetic.]

We know it doesn't sound like a very exciting schedule, but these things have a habit of surprising us.

[100mitsubishis]

That works. Is there anyone like me?

[He expects her to know him. That innate instruction that slips into mind and latches on, adding on more mass to the organ until it bulges with others' thoughts. He understands the tablet, even if the flicks of his fingertips aren't quite the same as those he'd use on the tech back on earth. He doesn't even think of it as 'back home' as he should; home is adaptable. Like most things, it's more concept than fact, more theory than practice. Home could be the station, but home is usually when his eyes are shut, his breathing's steady, his hands close on the thing he needs when he wakes.

By like me he means with my power. Not like me as in also burning, burning, burning. That can be built.]

[polyphonos]

[She doesn't - know.

But if he thinks hard enough about it, she can sense it between them like the taste of ash and gunpowder residue floating in the still air. She might get a piece of his meaning, and that's usually close enough to trigger her own innate skills. It's easy to seem so sure, so certain in the right environment and with the right data at her fingertips.

Maybe it's easy because she is. How much does it take to go from seeming like she knows everything, to actually knowing it?]

As far as we're aware, no. But sometimes it take young hosts time to manifest their abilities. Perhaps one of them will have an ability much like the one you do now.

[100mitsubishis]

[Part of it could be that someone like Kavinsky wouldn't mind meeting an all-knowing seer if only to prove them wrong. The faculty at Aglionby were fond of forcing philosophy upon their students to the point even Kavinsky couldn't escape every related lesson taught. There were theories of a thousand possible futures or universes-- what if the coin you flipped had come up heads?

When he enters a dream, he may as well be doing that. Turning the coin himself. The future writhes in his grasp.

He scrolls back up, re-reading a part of the debriefing that he'd only skimmed the first time.]

Cool. Last question-- is this like lone wolf Noah's Ark or can we swing back by where I come from and get someone?

[Does he have to dream a whole new Prokopenko?

A whole new Lynch?

What if he didn't bother with either and just made new friends? He's already fond of Sirius.]

[polyphonos]

A last answer: it's possible, but likely lethal. If you want to return to your system, you must go alone and not expect to return. Opening this place up to your universe again could endanger the Station. It's very possible it'd be too dangerous to fetch you from it.

[The unspoken implication, the feeling that hums along the link between them, is that going back where he came from is tantamount to suicide. Something deadly had found him there once. If he goes back, it will probably find him again.]

[100mitsubishis]

[Once more, he's alone, and Kavinsky can easily compare it to leaving Jersey for Virginia. In that venture, he'd had his mom, but what good was she? Most days she was practically dead to the world, a combination effect of her own bad habits and Kavinsky easing her along to a nightly coma. The only reason he stayed with her was the ease of living out of a nice house instead of one of Aliongby's dorm rooms.

The station already has more going for it than Kavinsky's old life. He can't say he's leaving behind anything he'll miss to the point of tears or outside of the occasional, nostalgic pang.]

I'll stick it out here.

[polyphonos]

[There's a sensation of approval that touches the air like the scent of ozone preceding rain before she nods. Good.]

That's very practical of you.

[She motions to the tablet then, reaching as if to take it back.] May we? Just for a second.

[100mitsubishis]

[Kavinsky shrugs one shoulder in typical, teenage fashion. It's assent enough. He passes the tablet back over. If he wants his own, he'll make it. An excellent forger, he only has to see the object once. That's all its ever taken.]

[polyphonos]

[She takes it from him, then wastes no time before she folds the tablet up into a small credit card sized square. She pauses, then unfolds it back out again.]

For portability. While you're down on the planet, you absolutely must keep it offline. You can still use it to record data, but its designed to adapt to local technology. If it interfaces with the local network in Concordia, it might compromise your position and identity.

[Then she hands it back to him - a gift.]