Intro: action/video

[tothefly]

Who: Natasha
Broadcast: Fleetwide
Action: Marsiva
When: pre-Shuffle (4/18)


[Audio/Video]
[The beginnings of this broadcast are nothing but a black screen, a soft rustling, the sound of regular breathing. After a few seconds the breathing stops. Dead silence follows, then more rustling as the screen goes from blackness to a brilliant white, then a spinning blur that finally resolves with a clattering noise into the lovely white ceilings of the Marsiva. After another moment of silence, a head of bright red hair creeps into the image as the comm is picked up, eventually revealing the face and shoulders of a woman in her twenties who is clearly Not Amused. While her expression is more or less schooled, there's definitely a sense of things being repressed, emotions hidden, and words carefully chosen.]

If this is your idea of a joke, Stark, there is nowhere you can run that I won't find you.

[The threat is obvious.]



[Action, early:]
The bump on the back of her neck was obvious and irritating. Invasive. It was the first thing she'd noticed, taking stock of her own body, the loss of her weapons which galled her almost as much as letting herself be rendered unconscious. That implant seems to be the source of all the knowledge she's finding herself with as she strides down the halls, some foreign part of her mind supplying helpful names and details as she takes in her surroundings. None if it is immediately useful, so she continues to file it away in her own mind--

Until she hits the viewing bay, and even Natasha looks shocked by the view. Enough so that she barely notices the other bodies in the room as she stares, lips parted and eyes wide.

"Bozhe moi..."


[Action, later:]
They can put her in space, put things in her brain, but they can't make Natasha anything but what she is, and what she is is resourceful. Anyone visiting what passes for a gym and hoping to exercise will instead be greeted by a partially disassembled piece of equipment, and Natasha herself busily invested in the practice of trying to remove a panel from the wall by one of the entertainment console using a piece of metal presumably from said equipment, as her comm beeps at her insistently.

Comments

[mysterzie]

Nah, that ship's special. It's fuckin' huge. Like it's the continent and we're all the islands or something.

These ships are smaller but they're still pretty full. Ours can fit six, but you can make them bigger, so...

[ He makes it sound like he's got the number and Natasha has the number so neither of them needs to vocalize the number. It just covers up for the fact that Aaron has no mathematical or even reading skills to figure it out without sitting down and making visual aids. The joys of only having a first-grade education and no drive to improve it on his own. ]

[tothefly]

[Six people. She can't imagine being trapped that close to that many people for long. Hasn't been for years, at least not without options. Looks like she may have to, though.]

Personal modifications? Or are the smaller ships as automated as this place? [She stops a moment, correcting herself mentally. She'd used info from the augment automatically, almost without thinking about it. It's an insidious thing. Who knows what lies could be planted inside it? She can't afford to get complacent.]

I'm assuming anyone else I run into here is in the same situation I am.

[mysterzie]

Automated, I guess. Pay for an upgrade, go sleep at the end of the month, wake up with your shiny new shit.

[ He says it like it doesn't bug him. It bugs the everloving fuck out of him, but there's literally no escape. His range isn't far enough to stay on a planet or a waystation and the Marsiva is impenetrable. Not having a choice is an unfamiliar and frustrating feeling. ]

Haven't met anyone who hasn't woken up on the Marsiva and ended up on one of the smaller ships, so yeah. Cowards with Atroma haven't shown their faces yet.

[tothefly]

[Her hand lifts to her neck as he speaks, fiddles with the little bump behind her ear. It's going to become a tell, if she isn't careful.]

Must be sedatives in the implant. Drug you under, haul you in and retrofit. That seems a little undignified.

Do any of you have any proof that isn't the implants that Atroma is even real?

[mysterzie]

They make broadcasts on the network every week so it's something.

[ He sees her motion and briefly—he's on the Starstruck trying to sew up a wound that won't stop bleeding and yelling at an idiot who won't stop trying to use a brain that obviously doesn't work. He flinches, more of a shift in his demeanor than a motion. ]

Don't mess with it too much. It messes back.

[tothefly]

[That look on his face is something new, even if it is a minor shift. Just a crank in that arrogant facade so much like the one whose face he's sharing maintains. She pauses, opts for honesty, just once.]

I don't like people messing around in my head.

[mysterzie]

[ There's a pause for consideration and he dips his head to the side. ]

Just don't go and do anything alone or something stupid. Some idiot nearly bled out because he thought operating on his own head was a good idea.

[tothefly]

[The thought is an interesting one. And what does he mean, it fights back? She doesn't like the way that sounds. Instead of asking, she huffs, making a sound suspiciously close to laughter.]

Is that an offer to play nurse?

[mysterzie]

[ That gets a grin and a quirked eyebrow. ]

I only play nurse when the care you need isn't actually life-threatening.

[tothefly]

I'll have to keep that in mind. [It's so, so unnerving seeing that face grinning like that. It gets her best skeptical face in return.]

It doesn't seem to like me ignoring it very much. What did you mean, don't mess with it? How does it mess back?

[mysterzie]

[ Whaaat? He's totally innocent! Seriously, hasn't even done anything. ]

Uh, well, turned the guy I saw into a pile of pathetic and pain for a while.

[tothefly]

[Even she can sense the 'yet' lurking in that face.]

I'm no stranger to pain. That it? Because if it is, this thing is coming out. Assuming I find someone a little less averse to the sight of blood.

[mysterzie]

Guy who tried it can't even feel pain and it knocked him around. Top that, then we'll see.

[tothefly]

I guess we'll have to. Seems like I've got the time to experiment, anyway.

What's your name?

[mysterzie]

If that's your deal, go for it. I'm not getting involved with it, myself. There's gotta be other ways to handle this.

It's Aaron. What's yours?

[tothefly]

[There's a brief pause as she debates giving him an alias. Not much point, here. She's used the other name with people already, and if it's really that small a group, false names are useless. And there's a part of her that wants to see if he reacts to the name.]

It's Natasha. Romanoff.

You really think there's such a thing as a good way to deal with a surgical implant on your brain stem?

[mysterzie]

[ He doesn't react. It's just another name, just another person. She's hot and smart and interesting to talk to, sure, but she's a stranger to him. ]

Believe it or not, implants in our brains is the smaller part of this bigger picture. Working on the other parts might lead us back around.

[tothefly]

[No reaction. Maybe he's just a doppelganger. Or maybe he's faking really, really well. Hard to tell without visual cues. She's willing to wait and see.]

Are you sure about that? Implants in your brain can do a lot of things. Trigger hallucinations, give you faulty intel, make you react in ways completely out of character. It's an easy way to control a large population. I could be a figment of your imagination.

[mysterzie]

[ It might take a while. For all that he loves talking and hanging out, learning things about him is nearly impossible. ]

If you start thinking like that, then you might as well just lay down and enjoy the ride. Whatever ride we've got, anyway. Most I've noticed is that I know a lot more about space than I used to.

[tothefly]

[That's her specialty. Learning the unlearnable. Especially when someone piques her curiosity, as that face can't help but to do.]

I'm a drive-myself kind of girl, if you get me.

You find that a lot of the info it gives you is reliable?

[mysterzie]

Thus wanting to cut the thing out of your head no matter how ill-advised. I got that.

[ There's an actual shrug. ] Everything I've gotten from it so far has panned out. Of course, most of that is how to work the super advanced microwaves and toilers. So.

[tothefly]

[That doesn't get dignified with a response. She's stubborn, not suicidal. If she does make the attempt to get the implant out, she'd probably stop at the excruciating pain. Probably.]

That's it? Yours gives you just enough knowledge to survive up here and maybe not have a psychotic break due to being suddenly in space?

[mysterzie]

Bingo.

Why, what's yours telling you?

[tothefly]

At the moment? Nothing special.

[Like she'd tell if it were giving her different info.]

That this is the Marsiva, this is reality television, I'm in space, apparently the usual, according to what you're telling me. What ship are you on, then?

[mysterzie]

It's called the Starstruck. The Marsiva is way better. You're about to hit a huge downgrade when they kick you off.