driftfleet | ( 001 ) video & text

Who: Caitlin Snow + YOU
Broadcast: Fleetwide
Action: Hospitality Deck
When: Now!

VIDEO

[ The video starts suddenly, with Caitlin sitting straight up, eyes open and wide with fear.

More than what's warranted with waking up in a strange place.

Her head bows, her eyes going directly to her wrists. It seems she's checking both of them, rubbing absently at them, as if she expected to find something. (Shackles or handcuffs, that's what she's looking for.) If she's reassured there's nothing there, she certainly doesn't look it. When she looks back up, her gaze sweeping around the room, she's trying to place where she is, what's happened. This isn't Barry's lab at CCPD, it isn't STAR Labs, and it definitely isn't Zoom's lair.

It's a few minutes before she looks right into the camera, her head tilting with curiosity. ] Hello?

[ Then the feed cuts out. ]

TEXT

[ The text follows about ten minutes later. ]

This is going to sound odd, but: whoever or whatever brought me here, thank you. I need to get back to Central City, though.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[ She hmmphs softly in vague amusement. So she's traded one abduction for another. ]

I'm Caitlin. Are there — are there many of us?

Over a hundred, but the number is always shifting. They spread us out on 18 different ships. You're on the welcome slash holding ship now. In less than a week they'll have you shuffled off to one of the others. You'll have more freedom to move around then.

Freedom to move about that ship or ... ?

[ She trails off, hoping the rest of her question is understood. ]

Or between ships or off world when we dock. There are shuttles. You just can't actually get away from the fleet entirely.

That makes some sense. Why bring us all the way here if they're just going to let us run away?

Exactly. Big waste of resources.

I'll send you a document to your device with info on this place. I didn't write it and it's missing the current stop.

Thank you. For passing on the information. It'll probably save me from having to ask a lot of basic questions.

[ Cause she's still going to have questions. ]

Always best to use time on premium questions, right? Besides, it's kind of overwhelming your first day even if you're used to being overwhelmed. [Does that make it just whelming?] Nice to have something to reference again later when the initial bit is over.

Especially if you need a refresher when you wake up and aren't sure what's what, still.

Mmhmm. Was it a dream? Am I still in crazy reality TV space camp? Definitely helps. I was a couple months in before I got the actual run down. I just pieced together what I could from talking to people. Got to about the same place though.

A couple months? [ She's just going to stare in shock a moment, because wow. ] It can't believe no one gave you the whole story before then.

No one gave me the write up. I had the basic information. Just not as much of the background on where the fleet had visited. No one had mentioned the beach planet which is...kind of trivial to day-to-day life now.

How do you mean, trivial? Like, it doesn't matter much in regular life?

Right. I mean, it's good to watch for patterns and see if you can figure out where the Atroma's heads are at when picking places, but it's probably at least partially decided by the landscape of what's out here and what order it comes in too unless they are also creating our environment. But otherwise where we stopped a year ago is of little importance.

Not much circling back and revisiting previous locations, I take it?

We haven't yet that I know of, but who knows, maybe we're on a big loop. That would make all of this even more rewarding and not at all meaningless.

Just a little sarcasm there, right? I'd certainly prefer rewarding.

There's usually at least some when it comes to me, but I don't know how rewarding this place gets. Not to say it can't be enjoyable or worthwhile. [or maybe rewarding counts. She has Winn because of it. She's alive because of places like this. These are rewards in a way.]

There's always some silver lining, even in the worst situation. [ Granted, she's yet to really find one with the situation she's in at home. But shhhh. ]

You'll find those. [Sometimes you'll even be happy.]

So, Caitlin, where's home?

Central City, Missouri. Though apparently, not everyone is familiar with it? Which is odd because it's not a small city at all.

I haven't heard of it. Maybe worlds just developed differently. Maybe it's what we call St. Louis in my world. I'm from Chicago, Illinois.

No, we... we have St. Louis. We're on the opposite side of the side, on the border with Kansas? Right across from Keystone City. Together they're called the Gem Cities.

Are they full of diamonds in your world?

No, it's just a nickname. Like New York being the "Big Apple."

Video

passingthrough - 2016-06-29 12:56 (UTC) - Expand