one . video

[misconceived]

WHO Chris Halliwell
BROADCAST Network unfiltered video.
ACTION The SS Huntress.
WHEN Shortly after the Shuffle.

Again?

[ This is a young man circling around as he's transported to his new ship, the SS Huntress. He's mostly talking to his new crewmates but there's that unknowing broadcast going out, too. ]

Moved around twice in twenty-four hours, and this one is not nearly as nice as the first one. We're supposed to stay here while we play this stupid game? [ Psht. ] Which, by the way, I didn't sign up for. Did anyone? Because I was in the middle of something, you know, important.

Comments

video.

[misconceived]

So we can go up, just not too far. How's that?

voice forever

[aberrant_type]

Far more accurate! Excellent job, the situation's bad enough, there's no need for excess pessimism. [Said with perfect cheer.]

video forever.

[misconceived]

[ He rolls his eyes. Oh, you'll see excess pessimism in the upcoming days. Of course, he'll call it realism but hey. ]

Yeah, right. How do people usually do that?

[aberrant_type]

[How typical. Sad, sad, but not surprising, alas.]

Be excessively pessimistic?

[misconceived]

Improve the circumstances. It doesn't look like there are a whole lot of options to me.

[aberrant_type]

Chip in for a ship upgrade! What ship are you on?

[misconceived]

Uh, good question. [ He glances about, brows furrowed, as if that will suddenly provide the answer. ] How do you usually tell?

[aberrant_type]

There are status screens just about everywhere. You should be able to pull up basic data about your ship there.

Failing that, your crewmates will probably be able to tell you if they've paid up for ship augments yet, or not. So check and see if anyone's around.

[misconceived]

[ Wordlessly, he pulls away and locates a status screen. He isn't any kind of tech genius but it doesn't take much to figure these out and soon he's got the basic ship information up. ]

The Huntress. And... I'm not really sure anyone else is here. They would have shown up by now, right?

[aberrant_type]

Hmm. You might be on a new ship. Unpopulated so far, I mean. They aren't very big, so if you have crewmates, they ought to turn up in short order or be easy to find.

But if your ship hasn't been used before, it won't be upgraded and you'll be starting from scratch. Bad news for you, I'm afraid!

[misconceived]

I'm sure we'll survive. How does chipping in for upgrades work? Just mess with these computers more, find the menu?

[aberrant_type]

Basically. It takes two people to upgrade one area of the ship. Personally, we've done the kitchen and the bathroom, makes it marginally more livable!

[misconceived]

Kitchen and the bathroom?

[ He gets a small look of dread on his face, looks behind him to the hallway where the rest of the ship presumably is. ]

They're that bad?

[aberrant_type]

Well... it's not that bad if you don't mind cold water and protein semisolid.

[misconceived]

I'm sorry, what?

[aberrant_type]

Oh, you don't know! Go find the kitchen and try it out, go ahead, I'll wait!

[misconceived]

[ He hesitates, looks uncertain, then turns and makes his way down the hall.

About fifteen minutes later,, he's back and looks... vaguely defeated. ]

That is gross. They expect us to eat that?

[aberrant_type]

Indeed they do! Look on the bright side: it's limitless. You can eat as much as you like.

There is food available for purchase at the waystations as well.

[misconceived]

Yeah, I'm sure that's a perk. [ No it's not. Limitless semisolid protein sounds terrible. ]

Like, regular food? Not more space food?

[aberrant_type]

Well, it's different food. Try the tallbird, it's delicious!

[misconceived]

Tallbird? You made that up.

[aberrant_type]

I did not! They're very tall birds. Delicious.

[misconceived]

I think I'll just stick with the less... weird food. Unless there's nothing else?

[aberrant_type]

Well, it's all a little strange, but the meat is really very good! Try it fried!

[misconceived]

Fried, huh?

[ SIGH. Looks like Chris won't get to be picky like he wants to be. ]

What's the worst that could happen?