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[becomebetter]

Who: Shun Kenzaki
Broadcast: Fleetwide
Action: No
When: A few days after arrival

username: kenzaki

What's the point of all of this?
Not on a philosophical level.
We're told we're entertainment.

What purpose does this serve?
I don't believe in coincidence or fate.
People make choices and we're here because of that.

We were brought here.
I want to go home.
Is that going to happen?

[ Shun doesn't expect many answers but something, anything, would help. Give him a little bit here. ]

Comments

[privateeyed]

uh ok
joined the army like my dad right out of high school
got blown up in the middle of my second tour

few years later did the cop thing
didnt work out for reasons so i quit
now i do pi work

my story is incredibly exciting as you can see

[becomebetter]

It tells me more than you'd think.
Do you intend to continue your investigating work here?

[privateeyed]

if theres a reason sure
i keep track of some things
but pis arent exactly in demand here

[becomebetter]

I understand.
Could I ask you to do something for me?

If my captain can run a brain scan would you let him do it to you, too?

[privateeyed]

[........]

what
i guess??
depends on why you want me to get a brain scan
and hell who your captain is too
i dont let just anyone scan it its fragile and shit

[becomebetter]

To know that I can trust you.
My captain's name is Loki.

[privateeyed]

okay nevermind fuck no
im not letting loki anywhere near my brain

why does it have to be a brain scan though
cant we do trust exercises instead
those are safer for me

[becomebetter]

Why not?

Because the trust is gained from learning that you're you.
No passengers.

[privateeyed]

cuz hes loki
and i may have given him shit once or twice
and thats karma i dont need coming back at me

passengers??
is there another way i can prove it

[becomebetter]

What does that mean?
I have his word.

Not unless you cut your head open.
I just.
Need to be sure.

[privateeyed]

it means i was a dick to him
to be fair he was a dick to me too
and im a very paranoid person

ive had my head cut open before
are you worried somethings in there?

[becomebetter]

I'm worried something is in there, yes.
It was a problem where I came from.

I want to trust you and I don't know how to do that.

[privateeyed]

how about this
we meet for lunch or whatever the fuck were doing
and you give me more details in person
and i'll consider the scan

[becomebetter]

Fine.
It's not a pretty story.
But thank you for considering it.

[privateeyed]

figured
used to stories not being pretty
i might not like it but i get the whole paranoia thing
probably better than most

[becomebetter]

It'll make sense when you know.
That understanding will help.

[ ooc: i can switch us to action if you want? ]

[privateeyed]

yeah well we'll see


(ooc: sure!)

[becomebetter]

[ Shun arrives at the scheduled time and place. It's not hard to get where he's going, all things considered. He finds his way and settles into a seat to wait for Ben.

He's curious. More than that, he's worried that they can't get close.

Over those few days on the Origin he'd learned the value of friendships and intimate relationships. He hadn't had that in his life prior to boarding the space station and their circumstances had been worse than they were here. He already missed the way it felt to be counted on, needed. But trust was a problem.

He looks up. ]

Ben? I'm Shun.

[privateeyed]

[Ben is pretty sure this is the first time he's gone to lunch for someone and they've called it a lunch date. Maybe the second time, but he's never really paid much attention to labels or anything like that. Either way, it's weird to him, and that this is actually going to be a conversation filled with - paranoia and who knows what else?

Yeah, weird lunch date.

He lifts a hand in greeting and slides into the chair across from Shun]

Nice to meet you in person, Shun. Settle in all right? [for all that someone can settle into this place]

[becomebetter]

[ Shun doesn't care about what they call their meeting. He's met someone he might be able to trust and depend on, which he values. They're in space with unknown threats at every turn. He needs this. If they called it a date to go with their running joke then it would be a weird one. ]

Yes. [ He hasn't settled at all. ] I'll make it short.

[ Then maybe they could salvage the rest of their time together. ]

I signed up for a colonization mission to a planet called Thea. We boarded the Origin and were put in cryostasis. Instead of waking up on the planet to start our new lives, we woke alone on an empty spacecraft. There weren't many of us. An asteroid had hit the ship and allowed passengers on. The only way to know who they took as their host was to look inside their head.

One way is through a scan. The other, you have to be dead for.

[privateeyed]

[Ben's pretty used to being briefed right away and without warning - leftover from a lifetime in a military family and his own tenure as a soldier, but he still has to stare for a moment or two, blinking dumbly before it all registers]

Uh.

[no Ben you can't leave it at just that. His nose wrinkles, face scrunching up into a face that doesn't know whether it wants to be horrified, curious, or grumpy. So it's a mixture of all three, really]

Okay, so - okay, I get the paranoia about people having shit their in head. Especially if that's like, the last thing you dealt with before getting here.

. . . there's no other tells? Like, mannerisms, shit they do that, uh, they wouldn't normally do? [and now it's a grumpier face, though it's more directed at himself] I can guarantee anything that hopped into my head would hop right back out, not even I wanna deal with all the shit going on up there.

[becomebetter]

[ It was the last thing he'd dealt with. It was still too fresh to push the paranoia aside. He can't adjust that quickly to something as monumental as this. ]

That's the problem.

[ The other tells were complicated. It required having indisputable information about someone else and that was impossible here. ]

Memory loss. Slowly at first. That's the problem. You could only tell if you already know the person. You could make it up. [ He thinks of Lana. ] You could memorize enough data to pass yourself off.

[privateeyed]

Tricky. [he braces an elbow on the table so he can rest his chin on his hand. This sounded like something straight out of a movie, and unfortunately he avoided those types so he couldn't even come up with pop culture-related suggestions]

But like - okay, so I let Loki do this scan or whatever, as an example. Wouldn't you have to like, do that shit regularly? To make sure nothing sneaks in after? Hypothetically and all.

[becomebetter]

[ It was tricky. That was the problem. Shun needed to be able to trust another person or he'd end up spiraling again. ]

At first, maybe.

[ Shun leans in. ] But after we know each other it could stop. There are things that the alien would forget that you wouldn't. What you know I could know.

[privateeyed]

So - what, you want to know shit about me? I could ramble off a bunch of shit if you want. I dunno what kind of shit the alien would forget, though, like - little details? Stuff like that?

[look he's trying here, he wants to avoid karma getting his ass for as long as possible] What do you wanna know?