001

[mikangirl]

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.]

Comments

[huaaaaagh]

[He'll take her word for it for the moment, but he's definitely filing that one away for later.

After hearing all of that, he's a bit sheepish when he answers.]

Nothing special, I'm just a student right now.

[A student in a special SAO-survivor school, playing catch-up after being trapped for two years in a deadly video game, but nobody talks about that sort of thing.]

[mikangirl]

Nothing wrong with that. [She just finished being one, so.] What are you studying?

[huaaaaagh]

Mostly just the usual high school subjects- writing, math, science, English... what I'm most interested in right now is mechatronics, though. Heard of it?

[He's not sure just how advanced other-world pirates might be, so he doesn't want to make any assumptions.]

[mikangirl]

[Oh, standard schooling. Doesn't really exist on a lot of the islands, but it's always sounded fun.]

No. Is it kind of like-- robotics?

[She heard mecha and thought of Franky and his weird af inventions.]

[huaaaaagh]

Not exactly, but it's similar. The name is a combination of "mechanics" and "electronics" - literally mecha-tronics - but it actually encompasses multiple sub-fields of a dozen or so engineering specialities. The goal of the mechatronic theory is to create synergy between several different mechanical and electronic systems for optimization.

[Please stop him, he's very passionate.]

[mikangirl]

[...her eyes are glazing--]

That sounds pretty... far out of my league. I get the general idea, but...

[We have a cyborg on ship but he runs on cola and would probably befriend you so fast]

[huaaaaagh]

[...Ahaha. That was probably too much at once.]

Sorry, sorry. The short version is I'm learning how to make machines talk to each other. It's pretty cool.

[mikangirl]

That is pretty cool.

[...heh.]

Think you could make use of that kind of thing out here?

[huaaaaagh]

I'd like to try. I'm the engineer on my ship, so I'm off to a good start with these systems. Just need to find myself a project.

[mikangirl]

I'm pretty sure you could come up with something worthwhile. Maybe you could find evidence of how they're supposedly filming us.

[If it exists.]

[huaaaaagh]

...Right, right- if the computers could talk to each other, maybe I could hack the network somehow... they have to be connected to whoever's watching us, which means they're accessible through the system itself...!

[The gears in his head are turning now. Yes, this could totally work.]

[mikangirl]

[She believes in you, guy she just met!]

Worth a shot. If you try it, let me know how it goes.

[huaaaaagh]

[Thanks, buddy!]

Will do. I didn't catch your name, by the way.

[He can't really pass on any good news if he doesn't know who to call.]

[mikangirl]

Ah! It's Nami. Nice to meet you.

[huaaaaagh]

Same to you. I'm Kirito.

Welcome to the fleet, I guess.

[mikangirl]

Thanks. I guess. [But she grins anyway, even if a little wry.]

Maybe neither of us'll be here very long. That'd be nice.

[huaaaaagh]

I think I could deal with it for a few more weeks. I'm learning a lot about engineering tech, and space travel is kind of amazing.

I don't want to live here long term, though.

[mikangirl]

I think I'd be more patient if I hadn't just come from a place like this.

[Because honestly, knowing how to fly a space ship? That's kind of awesome.]

Home can wait, huh?

[huaaaaagh]

It's not ideal. I've got people waiting for me, after all. But this isn't the worst place I've ever been, so...

[Shrug. People aren't killing each other and no one's died yet. Already it's better than SAO.]

[mikangirl]

Yeah, I think this is a step up from the last place for me. I'd still prefer home, but at least this place has running water and food.

[Everything is better than SAO.]

[huaaaaagh]

How is it that so many people here came from some alternative kind of imprisonment? You must be the fifth or sixth I've talked to.

[Is it possibly something they all have in common? That at some point in their lives, they've been trapped by some terrible, unreachable entity?]

[mikangirl]

Yeah, I've spoken to a couple myself and I've only been here a few hours. [She's wondering much the same.]

I've only heard of Paradisa, and I came from a place called Adstringendum. Have you heard of any others?

[huaaaaagh]

I don't know the others. Paradisa's a pretty popular one. Maybe the Atroma group and whoever runs that place have some kind of trade agreement.

[mikangirl]

That's not a comforting thought. We were all meant to be leaving Adstringendum, too. Though I'm the only one that fetched up here. Maybe I'm just lucky.

[huaaaaagh]

The luckiest.

[Such sarcasm. ...Unless of course the place people came from was worse than this. Hell, this could be a small paradise.]

Make the most of it, I guess.