driftfleet | video ♟ first complaint

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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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[ She just ... grimaces. Murphy, you are gross. ]

It's not like that ...! Ugh!

[Thank you, he tries really hard.

[He smirks at first, like he's now achieved- something. Maybe not something substantial. His eyes practically roll out of his skull, but he does eventually try a different approach:]

So give me a scenario that I can actually prepare for without all the wang in-your-endo. [Because it was clearly not Murphy who was perpetuating that nor would he ever continue now.] I'm only 17, my fragile child ears shouldn't even be hearing this.

[ Oh my god. ]

Yeah, real fragile.

[ Clearly. Still, she'll try to answer as best as she can, since it's a pretty disorienting situation regardless ]

The type of situations you end up in depend on what you decide to do with your time. There's a lot of free time. You'll have a job on your ship, whatever one you get assigned to.

[So, free time. Gen pop and not a cell: that meant behaving. More of that conforming junk he hadn't quite got the hand of. Keeping his head down? What did productive members of whatever even do?

[Who was his example supposed to be here? Everyone he knows is a criminal. Murphy presses past that annoying little piece of hysteria by thumbing at his wrinkled nose.]

Assigned? I, uh - better not be gettin' shoved into some lame subquad with my thumb up my ass and a mop in a bucket.

No. Generally the jobs are important to the ship's functionality in some way. Pilot, engineer, cook, so on and so forth. If you don't know how to do it already, they'll have implanted memories and knowledge in your brain about how to.

[ Ah, right -- this would be a good time to warn him. ]

There's a chip on the back of your head that's got all of that in it. Don't try and take it out, people have tried, and it just hurts like a bitch and knocks you unconscious. We haven't quite figured out a way to get rid of them yet.

['Don't try to take it out', she says.]

What the hell -

[Murphy's muttering to himself, clearly not heeding the rest of her warning as he starts frantically rubbing his fingers at the back of his head. He finds a small plastic plate embedded as advertised, but simply catching his nails at the edge and scratching makes him feel about as happy as he did being dragged into a whooping grounder camp with his hands lashed. His stomach turns like he'll be sick on the floor and he flattens his palm flush against it after that. Holds his grey matter in for a bit. He'd speak right at that second but he also thinks it's a good idea to wait until the vom recedes.

[So that's an awful feeling he never wants to repeat. Why didnt you warn him or something ino jeez what a friend]

Hey. Streamlined everything. Even act-outs. [Murphy's mouth flattens into a line that's trying to be a cool smirk? and looks more like he swallowed a bug.] Only took us 'til 2149. What else is left?

[ she watches all of that go on with a very unimpressed look on her face ]

What, did you think I was joking? I said don't try to mess with it.

[ She sighs. ]

Are you alright?

So say it earlier next time if it's so important.

[Which was also her fault and not his. Yeah. ...Yeah.

[He stops fiddling at once but not before one last hateful tap at the plate. Whatever that's going to amount to. Maybe he'd fiddle later when he wasn't broadcasting on a screen.]

I'm - fantastic. [He doesn't sound convinced, so he adds:] Hey, other than getting skull-fucked by a console, this week's hard to rival.

[That part IS honest.]

[ a huff ]

Or maybe you can try this thing called "listening" before you do something.

[ but that comment makes her slow her roll, a little bit ... ]

I take it that means conditions weren't great where you're from.

["Listening", she's hilarious.]

Who the hell's is? [He wants to know.] Come on, what do you want me to do, cry about it? I only got the one life; don't exactly have much else to compare it to.

I was just asking. There are plenty of people who want to go back to where they came from.

And the "point" of the show is to win so you can go back, apparently.

[That was the point? That was the big prize? What a joke.

[Murphy laughs to himself (at the least, there was honest chuckling), considering as he plays with the cuff of his ear.]

Now, let's see. That's like having to choose betwee-en... death by - being set on fire... [He raises his hand up and down, literally weighing the options.] Or death by... being stabbed in the head. Like, if you had to.

[Hang on, he's thinking now.] I feel like there's a lot of effort? In being set on fire? So long. Takes so long. You have to wave around like an idiot, there's that. Plus, at the end of it, the barbecue smell would be the last thing you'd ever smell.

Stabbed in the head is fast. [He rubs two fingers against his augment again.] Getting stabbed in the head is pretty easy, right? Just one chkk, and. Yeah. Think I'm gonna have to go with stabbed in the head.

[He smiles wide, without teeth.]

Call me a coaster.

[ she is very worried about your mental health, Murphy. ]

I wouldn't call this place as bad as being stabbed in the head. Or anywhere, really. It's more like a mild annoyance than anything.

I'll let you in on a little secret - so is getting stabbed in the head.

[What? why]

Probably. I can only guess.

As someone who's been stabbed multiple times, and has been here for almost a year, I can tell you being stabbed is significantly worse.

Than being set on fire? Because I've been stabbed. Don't know - what kind of person you think I am. [Definitely offended.] I specifically said in the head. Seeing as how you're still standing here.

[A whole year, huh? He gives her a glance over, best as he can tell over a video feed.]

But I guess the real question is: How much do you make?

No, I'd say being set on fire is worse.

[ but this argument is dumb, and she's so confused why he's offended ]

You shouldn't assume that would kill everyone, though. And how much I make depends a lot on what's happening in my life every week.

[It's more of a fake offense, like insinuating he'd shoot a unicorn in the face or something. If you haven't gotten stabbed at least once on the ground, you're probably doing something wrong.]

Never mind. Holy crap. You have killed the comparison. The joke is dead. How have you made it this far in life being so literal? [She really is like Clarke.] Like a fun suck.

It wasn't a good joke.

[ but she sighs ]

Since you're new and all, is there anything else you wanted to know?

[A million. And no idea where to start.]

Nope. Just send me directly to the selling my body for money and entertainment portion of my life, by all means.

How about a name, you got one or are we stickin' with 'princess'?

[ Good lord. This boy is double dunked in the sarcasm sauce. ]

Ino. Captain of the SS Three Twins.

And you?

[Wait, what? Was that here? Already pissing off members of the guard, he was off to a great start. The question was whether he would pick it up here or not.]

Murphy. [He pauses.] Commander Jonathan Murphy of the surviving ground unit of the Ark, actually, and here, uh - live in studio.

[Whatever, she wouldn't know the difference. Nobody else had shown up, for some reason. And he definitely wasn't getting his start as a freaking criminal again.] Pleasure's all mine, captain.

... Huh.

[ She looks a little surprised when he says "Commander", but lucky for him, they promote people pretty early in her world, so it's not entirely unbelievable. So she doesn't question that part of it, at least. ]

The Ark? What is that?

[Good sign at least, she didn't even know what it was. People really weren't from this world, huh? Well, tree people breathing radiation deep and living off bugs and sweat weren't believable a few months back either.]

Mankind's last-ditch effort to, I don't know, matter? "Long ago when the Earth was on fire, twelve stations floated through space all alone. One day -" Some crap happened and everyone was happy smiles for a hundred years in one big ship until something about follies and we crash down on Earth. Less happy smiles.

Really doesn't ring any bells?

[ Well, that sounds ... bizarre. ]

Uh, no.

But you should know that there's, like, a thousand different versions of Earth. Alternate universes and all that. The place where I come from hasn't invented any kind of space travel yet. In fact, I think you're probably one of the few people out of everyone here who's ever been on a spaceship before getting brought here.

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