driftfleet | video ♟ first complaint

Who: Murphy and YOU
Broadcast: Open
Action: HS Marsiva
When: Early morning

[It's been a while since he's sent a wave on any kind of network like this, but it's not like it's hard to remember how.]

You know - being back on a spaceship, alright, fine.

[The face onscreen is of a wiry, annoyed teenager. He keeps carding his fingers through his dry, soft, clean hair; it's a feeling he's not used to and it's still novel. His eyes are rolled skyward as he considers the room, sketching around at the ceiling and searching for something before he regards the actual camera.]

Weird... cleansing rituals. Sewing my clothes. There was probably some feet stuff while I was out. Whatever. I guess I'm not here to judge your lame kinks as long as I get some grub out of it.

[He looks back up again, and ticks an irritated finger towards the roof above him.]

But if we're gonna keep playing this new age, virgin with denial and a saxophone jazz crap all day long? I'm gonna need a damn weapon back.

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That was the joke. The joke was that you need more than three words to make a poem.

[He is like 80% sure but he's never actually read a poem.]

Most of you mega-intense people who don't got much to say end up mega-intensely drawing out your feelings anyway. Probably because you miss the jokes.

I'm not much into jokes.

[ That much is obvious. Maybe because not many in his memory even bothered with them. But that's neither here nor there. ]

Is there anyone there with you?

You're kidding me. [His eyes roll skyward.]

There's- people, I guess. Going by the couple of waves I've seen. But it isn't like I'm trippin' across anyone on my way around here. Pretty empty.

There's the music, can't forget that. We definitely got that going. And the room with the windows that doesn't let you get mad about any of it, so. All the company you need's up on a screen, right?

There seem to be more, lately.

[ He would have to agree about the window of endless space. There was that sense of calm and insignificance- but it was never bad. At least not to him. ]

Get the silence while you can.

[The insignificance he definitely agreed with, but calm? Murphy found little calm in being another speck on a windshield. This place just felt like a bigger Sky Box. Back inside a ship, silence didn't seem as appealing.]

Why more? You guys not keeping things interesting enough? Or are they just figuring out now that people running around in circles - really aren't all that fun to watch?

Not sure. There was one other when I arrived. I don't know what criteria the Atroma have for who they bring.

[ The Atroma wasn't something he hasn't started to puzzle about just yet. He was still coming to terms with even being here, himself. ]

Set the bar really low and raffle off the bottom line?

[He's been expecting to see anyone else show up, operating by similar rules, but-]

All of these people can't be from Earth.

They're not.. Some of them can't be.

[ And that's about as descriptive as he's going to get. ]

There is a chance for people you know to end up here- or so I'm told.

["Can't be"? Discomforting. "People he knows"? Probably nastier.]

... Yeah, that sounds like something Gabby Friendsalot himself might be really sure about. Look, let's just- keep it at a chance and this place might be the actual promised land just yet.

It's nothing like that- but it could be worse.

[ It could always get worse. Hopefully this kid doesn't have enemies, right? ]

You'll have to decide the rest for yourself.

[Bucky's advice is so obscenely close to what hope Jaha had just been selling him a day prior, Murphy has to laugh. He doesn't know why this is suddenly the recurring theme everybody's trying to sell him. He knows less about how to apply it but it's not awful that it's implied he should actually get to decide.]

Ha - Funny, the last guy who sold me that might've changed his mind about deciding if he could've seen before- exactly how much sand would end up in his crevices.

Come on. Let's be real, it's a ship. How much choice can you actually get?

..I guess that's true.

[ While there wasn't a whole lot of choice, there still was some. And something was always better than nothing, wasn't it? ]

Maybe he was unlucky.

Could be.

- Then again, guy was supposed to die twice before he hitched a ride from space on a goddamn nuke. Maybe he wasn't the unlucky part.

[His mouth feels dry, but this is dumb and he's not pursuing whatever thought process that was. Because.]

But he's shitting in a hot sand hole somewhere and I've got electricity, so now who's the sucker?

From the sounds of it, you got the better deal.. But still as trapped as he is.

[ Wherever he's from sounds...ridiculous, if not a little complicated. ]

[His tone gets sharp.] Big whoop.

That's reality, at the end of the day. [Murphy shifts his shoulders in agitation, but he does dull his voice.] Crawling out of one hole so you can land on your ass in the next one.

[Bucky.... you were superpowered by defecting nazis with the same formula that turned a nipple-high nerd into an american flag colored adonis and also they gave you a robot arm, so that is actually a compliment.]