Video

[stretchy_girl]

Who: Gemini & Open!
Broadcast: Fleetwide
Action: Marsiva
When: 23/9

[The Marsiva's Hospitality Deck is cool and sterile as this feed clicks into life, the cameras zooming in on the biobed in the centre of the room. Normally there would be a recognisable humanoid lying there, but today there is a strange puddle of dark blue goop, glossy and rubbery in texture, held in place by a special cradle to stop the material slopping all over the spotless floor. There's only one clue that this is a person; an Augment suspended neatly in the middle of the blob. For a good long moment nothing happens, but then slowly the goo starts to move, twitching at first and then beginning to churn in increased agitation.

It had been a long time since Gemini last experienced unconsciousness and she was extremely disorientated. One moment she'd been closing in for a kill, about to finish her mission and the next she's waking up in an entirely different place having unwillingly reverted to her base form. That fact alone making her very unhappy.

Tentacles erupt from the rubbery mass, seeking to do damage to whoever had captured her, the forest of angry coils knocking the cameras askew, filling the room in a writhing mass as information from her Augment starts to trickle in. The information was unwelcome, the sensation of having a thing attached to her not something Gemini wanted and she immediately tried to detach her cells from it.

It's a good thing she doesn't have a mouth to scream. The tentacles twitch and start to melt, pulling back to the cradle, the whole gooey mass flopping to the floor out of sight, obviously in terrible pain. It's nearly a minute later when one of the cameras is wrenched back around, and now there's a black haired young woman staring into the camera, visibly seething.]

What the hell is this place? Is this some kind of fucking joke?

Comments

Re: [video]

[stretchy_girl]

So we're here for the entertainment of whoever is watching? [If she had blood it would be boiling at that thought. Luckily she knows how to act and that might help if she was going to prosper here.]

Is there any particular reason you think they chose you?

[video]

[hot4engines]

's what everybody tells me, anyway. I got no reason to think they ain't telling the truth so far. [Kaylee then smiled.] I know how to keep a spaceship in good shape. Seems like a simple enough reason to me.

Re: [video]

[stretchy_girl]

I see. You're a mechanic then? [She did see why a mechanic would be useful on board a space ship, but it wasn't as if the fleet needed a spy/assassin.]

[video]

[hot4engines]

Yep, I been one all my life. Just got a natural thing for fixin' problems, and my daddy always let me help him out, so I grew up around ships.

Re: [video]

[stretchy_girl]

Living on spaceships is a normal part of your life then? I can see why these Atroma took you. I have no idea why they'd want me.

[hot4engines]

Mhmmm. I'm havin' a hard time imagining people who AIN'T used to space travel like I am. Seems a shame...

Maybe you'll get a chance to ask.

[stretchy_girl]

Space is dangerous. I can't see why anyone would want to live in it. I hope I do get that chance. [She already has some ideas about what she'd like to say and do to them.]

[hot4engines]

Well, it can be dangerous I guess, but it's also fun! Nobody but you and your crew and your ship, going where you please...

[stretchy_girl]

Surrounded by cold empty space filled with radiation and micro-meteorites. If I had a choice I would pass.

[hot4engines]

Well... and there are Reavers, too, to be fair... so it ain't all peaceful.

[stretchy_girl]

Reavers? As in pirates?

[hot4engines]

Nah. Reavers as I know 'em... they're... well, they're men who saw somethin' that drove them mad. They go around raiding and killing people and all. [And eating them, but that's not the sort of casual conversation Kaylee would have with a stranger.]

[stretchy_girl]

Sounds a lot like pirates to me. [Being a space pirate would actually be quite fun it seems to Gemini, although she doesn't say that out loud either.]

[hot4engines]

Reavers is real nasty, though. They ain't so much concerned with stealing things as they are with the killing part.

[stretchy_girl]

[How interesting, they seem like her kind of people.]

There are worse things in this world...universe.

[hot4engines]

Not so far as I've seen. But then, that's just my home, I suppose.

[stretchy_girl]

Then you haven't seen much. There are all kinds of monsters out there. [Are her teeth suddenly sharper, more like vicious needles? It only lasts for a second before Gemini's smiling innocently, completely normal.]

[hot4engines]

[Kaylee definitely squints at that, wondering if she's seen what she thinks she's seen... then mentally shrugs. Maybe it was just bad video?]

Well, humans left Earth behind a long time ago and we ain't never seen anything that's NOT human. I mean, nothing that's smart like a human and all.

[stretchy_girl]

[When someone doesn't want to see something they'll ignore it, so Gemini isn't particularly surprised Kaylee does. It's nice to talk to another girl though, even if she is only human.]

What do you think of all the non-humans around here then?

[hot4engines]

Wouldn'ta believed it if I hadn't seen 'em with my own eyes, honestly. I mean, there's a talkin' pink pony and everything.

[stretchy_girl]

[Talking pink ponies...great, just when she thought this couldn't get any worse.]

Wonderful. [You can hear the sarcasm.] People around here are used to that?

[hot4engines]

Yeah. We got all kinds here, from what I've seen. I'm still getting used to it, but it's kinda fun, you know?

[stretchy_girl]

If you say so. I didn't catch your name by the way?

[hot4engines]

I'm Kaylee! And you?

[stretchy_girl]

[For a moment she considers lying, giving a fake name so that she can't be identified. But what's the point in that here?]

I'm Gemini. I guess I'll be seeing you around Kaylee.