[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

[doggo]

[His personal associations with driving are two-pronged, one familiar and the other distant, weirdly foreign but fascinating, sluggish interest that's not lately been needed.

Significantly, though: there aren't any cars or carts around.]

Are they invisible automobiles, or made from rubbish? Or made invisible by rubbish, I s'ppose.

[A fair possibility.]

[headinjuries]

[ Blink. ]

Are invisible cars a thing where you're from?

[doggo]

[Sirius shrugs, one shouldered. It reads weirdly on his gaunt frame.]

They're not, here.

[It lacks the inflection of a question because it's not a question, because the way the kid is looking at him suggests it's true. Is there a point in keeping the Statue if anyone can pick through his head and find the threads of magic stitched all throughout?

But also, he's tired. Doesn't want to talk about it. Leaving it vague, neither confirming or denying, is easier than making any firm statements.]

That can't be the strangest thing you've heard.

[headinjuries]

Well, no.

[ After a moment's consideration - ]

Not by far, actually.

[ He's still deciding what the strangest thing he's ever run into is, but he's pretty sure Rocket Raccoon is pretty high up on the list. ]

[doggo]

[He shrugs, like, there you are. Thin enough that even that looks like a bit of an effort and, in fact, is. Sirius uses the gesture as a momentum, inspiration to have another look around at their less than inspiring surroundings.

Kaivnsky. His gaze sharpens as the tug recurs; he looks back at the kid.]

There's another one of these. [The pod, he means. Communicated by a jerk of his chin.]

[headinjuries]

Just the two of you?

[ That ought to keep this pretty quick, at least. ]

[doggo]

Yeah.

[But even as he's saying it, Sirius feels-- something. This implacable feeling, unresolved, unexplained. Like a mass of threads that all end too soon, lopped off.

He touches his fingertips to the back of his neck. It's a gesture that's becoming nearly impulsive.]

There should be more.

[headinjuries]

[ Sam gets that, at least. The feeling that there should be more. ]

Yeah. It...was like that when I woke up, too. Like something's missing?

[ It must be easier to be last in your brood to hatch, when he thinks about it. You don't have that moment. You've got your people, and they can help you get used to - everything.

Sam came in the middle, but it must really suck to be first. ]

They'll come around sooner or later.

[doggo]

[Yeah. Sirius' silence is that agreement, with his fingers still pressed to the back of his neck. Tracking the unspooled threads with sharp cut ends. There's no camaraderie in knowing he isn't the only one that's felt this, but it does imply an end.]

Can't wait.

[--Or something. He drops his hand to his side again.]

No schedule to it, and no way to predict it. Just a load of waiting. And doing whatever it is we do here.

[headinjuries]

Right now, a lot of planning to break and enter in government offices.

[ Aren't they busy little bees.

Wait, maybe he should qualify that. ]

- in our defense, the government is covering something up.

[doggo]

[Breaking and entering isn't quite what he'd expected but nor is Sirius precisely a stranger to such activities. His eyebrows tick up in dry amusement.]

Covering what up?

[headinjuries]

There were a couple of bombings. Public Security says they're investigating, but they're not...investigating that hard.