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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

[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?

[becomebetter]

Yes. It doesn't work like that. It has to be the kind of memory that can't be misconstrued. If you tell me you grew up in the states and that's it, they could learn that and elaborate however they want. I would never know.

[ He didn't know as much about the alien as he wanted but he had enough to prepare for. ]

What you haven't told anyone else.

[privateeyed]

[he can't help but snort, leaning back in his chair to cross his arms. But his look isn't dismissive, it's more considering than before]

There's plenty of stuff I haven't told anyone. Do I seem like the kind of guy who spills his life story to everyone?

[he sounds vaguely amused at the thought] Give me an example, then. I'll see if I can't think of something specific enough.

[becomebetter]

No, you don't.

[ And Shun wasn't sure if that helped or hurt the situation. The more people that knew the truth the harder it would be for the alien to lie. But. Maybe that would only supply the fuel they needed to fabricate a story. He'd go with facts Ben would tell him and only him. For now. A better solution might come up. ]

What's the first birthday you remember?

[privateeyed]

[his answer is immediate, despite the grumpy, sour face he makes]

Date-wise? November 16th. It's not mine.

If you mean like, event-wise . . . uh, my family didn't really do the whole birthday thing, my ex surprised me with, uh, birthday crap after I got out of the hospital, once. I was still in there when my birthday came around and like, he wanted to do something nice once I was out and shit.

[becomebetter]

No, not a date. Those are easy to guess and easier to find.

[ But the rest of the story isn't. That wouldn't be on paperwork. It's something that Shun could ask Ben to see if he was still himself. ]

What was unique about it? Something that sets it apart from every other birthday.

[ Was it the ex-boyfriend? The birthday crap? Something else? ]

[privateeyed]

[this is a terrible conversation, even if it doesn't seem like it is]

It was the first time we celebrated it together. [he should have ordered a drink] And I didn't have my arm yet. Or my eye, if I remember right. So it was pretty, uh, unique.