driftfleet | Chapter Twelve [Video]

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Chapter Twelve [Video]

Who: Richard Castle and you
Broadcast: Fleetwide
Action: Windrose, if desired
When: February 11th

[When Castle flicks on the video, he's projecting a veneer of calm... very badly, because one can hear an edge of panic in his voice.]

Ha, ha, ha! I don't mean to alarm anybody, but I bought myself one of those spiffy augment upgrades. I picked fire, because who doesn't want to be red hot, am I right? But, enhh... [He holds up his left palm, which has a small but persistent flame on the center.] I can't seem to turn it off. Does anybody here have experience with fire powers? And should it really be this powerful when I've only bought the first level...?

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[a sigh]

Ridiculous. No offense to you, of course.

[she purses her lips in thought]

Focus on the power in your hand and command it to stop. No matter where the poewr came from, it is yours. It will listen to you.

[Castle does so, staring intently at his burning palm, his tongue sticking out slightly.]

Off. Off! [But nothing happens.] ... it doesn't hurt, at least.

[she wants so badly to roll her eyes. But she knows it isn't his fault, per say]

That is a good thing, I suppose. Though yelling at it to turn off like a lightswitch will not work, as it is not a lightswitch.

Point taken. [And then, as soon as he stops focusing, the flame poofs out.] ... well, shoot. So I guess I just had to stop paying attention to it and it went out.

But that . . . makes no sense.

[why are augments so weird???]

"That makes no sense" really ought to be the Fleet's motto at this point. Of course, maybe they offered these upgrades hoping some schmuck like me would take the bait.

It seems a bit unfair to you, especially if they are offering it with no explanation as to how to use it.

[...]

What is a schmuck?

"Schmuck" pretty much means a stupid person. Gullible may be a better term. [He sighed.] That's par for the course for Atroma, though. Drop you someplace and leave you to fend for yourself.

So, a fool? [why do modern folk have so many different words for things geez] Are you surprised, though? They are horrible.

Fool, idiot, moron, schmuck, take your pick. [He shook his head.] By this point, I really shouldn't be surprised. Hope springs eternal, I suppose, and I assumed that if they were offering these upgrades, it wouldn't be that likely to cause bodily harm.

I imagine that is the point of offering them, but they are not above causing a bit of trouble with it either, as you have seen.

A lot of people have been having bad luck with augments this month, it seems. I mean, I'm assuming that's why I've seen some hyperactive people on the network.

Hyperactive . . . ?

I'm afraid I don't know what that means.

Lots of energy. Like, way more than normal. An inability to stay still for very long.

Ah. I have seen that . . .

And it's definitely not a normal state of being. So maybe we're just having a lot of augment glitches happening at once. I'm hoping this doesn't lead to more recalibrations if so.

I apologize for so many questions, but - what are recalibrations?

Were you here when Atroma took all of us back to the Marsiva at once? It was a little more than a year ago.

[she shakes her head]

I have not been here that long, no.

Well, we were having some augment glitches back then, so Atroma beamed us back to the Marsiva, I suppose to try and fix them. We all woke up in the morning in our own individual rooms, and when a countdown clock on the wall reached zero, we all fell asleep. That lasted for around a month before we were allowed back onto our ships.

And . . . that was supposed to fix it? By keeping people to a bedtime?

Suppose so. I assume they worked on us as we slept, which begs the question of why they didn't just knock us out and do it all at once. During the day, we had a common room with all of the books and music and games we could want to keep us entertained, and a kitchen and exercise room and all. Every night on the dot we'd all be knocked out. Atroma never goes out of their way to do things that make sense.

I am not surprised in the least. What an annoyance.

Yeah. We were stuck there for a month, too. I guess it could've been worse, but everyone was starting to get cabin fever by the end of it- where you want to leave a place, but can't, and it starts making everyone irritable.

[she can't help but shudder a little at the thought]

I can imagine. Hopefully that won't be happening again.

Chapter Twelve [Video]

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