driftfleet

Who: Nami
Broadcast: Fleetwide
Action: Marsiva
When: Nnnow-ish

[This is not happening. Nope. There were happy endings, and sunshine, and portals home, and she damn well walked through one. Not only does this quiet, sterile place bear no resemblance to, y'know, a brigantine sloop or a crazy ocean, but she's turned up here alone.

She was pretty sure the animus were on the level with the whole going home thing. The fact the Adstringendum communicator is giving her nothing but static when she tries to use it is, uh. Not comforting, to say the least. She explores the accessible area in due haste, looking for anyone she recognises. Or anyone at all. And then she sits cross-legged in the middle of the one hallway and tries to get the communicator working by prying at it with fingernails, hitting random buttons, and eventually just hitting the wall with it a few times before tossing it away from her with a huff.

Not happy doesn't really cover it.

She finds the broadcast system, staring down at the controls suspiciously. She shouldn't know how to use this. But, well. In the absence of being able to do anything else-- ]

----

This turning up in mysterious new places thing was old the first time it happened. Where the hell is this, and what hoops do I have to jump through to get home? [Sweet, sweet sarcasm. But at least she's holding onto her temper.] And where's my staff?

And-- and who fixed my shirt?

[Serious question, that one.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[Oh, another new person. Nightingale turns on the video to reply, interest piqued by that mention of a staff.]

You're on the Marsiva, right now. Is this not your first interdimensional shithole, then?

[The Marsi-what. Nami blinks, and glances up at the surrounds for a moment. But it's the next part that really gets her attention.]

...no. I just came from one. I was meant to be going home.

[But come on, how many times can this happen? Maybe she's actually still in Adstringendum after all. ...really high above it. Yeah. What the hell.]

I'm guessing you're not responsible for me being here.

If I was, I'd be home myself. I'm not really the kidnapping type.

My name's Nightingale, and this is my second one, too. I wasn't even meant to be going home yet, but... Anyway, if you give it a minute, your implant should put the knowledge right in your head.

[Nami's eyes widen in alarm at that knowledge. An impla-- what kind of implant? But her fingers are already creeping up to the side of her head, feeling the tiniest little bump there.]

...you're kidding me.

[Nope. Um. Actually. She's right. It's a long time before she blinks, and shakes herself a little, giving a sickly smile.]

Nightingale, huh? Ah-- I'm Nami.

Believe me, I wish.

[Nightingale is notorious among her team for having an incredibly poor sense of humor, but even she can't be that bad.]

It's nice to meet you, even if it's in these circumstances.

What the implant isn't telling you is that the food on all the other ships is total shit. You should enjoy what the Marsiva lets you have while you can.

Yeah, I'd noticed the food. And the screens and the-- it's like it's a really nice prison cell or something.

[She still sounds distracted, because processing a whole bunch of equations she didn't really know before is not only disconcerting, it's fascinating to a navigator. Give her a second.]

So I have a bunch of knowledge I didn't before. And staying on the Marsiva is temporary. What happens next?

You get suddenly teleported to one of seventeen ships, where you hope you get along with the others there, and you stay there bored between planets.

[....]

That's it? No homicidal gods or anything like that?

[Doesn't seem kosher.]

Wait, homicidal gods? Were you at that kind of a place before, too?

Yeah, kind of. More homicidal spirits than gods, but...

Does the name Thalatte mean anything to you? Or Deireadh?

[Maybe this is the same place. In which case, Thalatte's a jerk.]

Not those names in specific, but... There were a bunch of places like that one.

Does the term 'color-coded amnesia shithole' mean anything to you?

[There's a faint snort of laughter.]

No, but it sounds like a wonderful place.

You have no idea.

Guess it makes sense, though. I've never heard of a good god.

Me either, really. The place I was just at had some pretty benign ones that were more playful than anything else, but most "gods" are kind of jackasses with massive delusions of grandeur.

So-- nobody obviously in charge here? Just a bunch of kidnappees floating around in space?

There's something called the "Atroma", but we don't know anything about them. They're the ones that brought us here, for the purpose of a reality show, or so they claim. But they've never shown themselves, whenever they contact us it's voice-only, and they've never given us proof for anything they claim.

Ah, right. So voices on high that could either be on the level or delusional, but either way they're jerks. Sounds great. What's a reality show?

[...is it exactly how it sounds.]

It's, uh...

[... how the fuck do you explain reality TV when you were only aware of it through other people.]

In the first place, does your world have TVs?

[They don't call them that at home, but she's had ample time hanging out with more modernised people in Adstring to work this one out. She blinks, chewing her lip.]

They're screens, right? You can catch events on camera and other people can watch them?

...there's a crowd watching us somewhere?

That's what we're told, but I personally don't buy it.

So there's been no proof at all, I take it. Do they ever mess with your lives in any other ways?

No proof at all. ... And, yeah, but you really, really won't like the answer.

I rarely do.

...hit me.

Sometimes, the augments- As in those devices hooked up into our brains- can glitch and malfunction. This is exactly as much fun as it sounds like. I've heard about mood swings coming from that at the least, if not more.

Also, there's a fleet of ships creepily similar to ours that show up and shoot at us sometimes.

[--you know, somehow she'd managed to gloss over the fact that all this new info meant she'd been tampered with on such an invasive level. If they can mess with her even more than that...? Her hand goes up to the side of her head again.]

Any way to get them out?

[It's nice suddenly knowing how to pilot a spaceship and all, but she wants to nope out of this fast if you don't mind.]

Not that I'm aware of. It seems like they're wired into our fear- Try to harm the implant and you start to panic.

[video]

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