driftfleet | quack quack

[His nose wrinkles a little at that.]

Distant facsimile it is. A hella tragic one. [He looks suspiciously at the blocks on his plate, before sighing and working out how to wrangle them with a fork.]

Who is the audience, anyway. I heard about Atroma and them being a mysterious hands-off organization, but not who they're broadcasting to.

It is. When we make stops at waystations and the like, there will usually be restaurants and places you can buy real food. Sometimes a sponsor will send you a crate of stuff, too. Until then...

[She smiled quietly.]

Our audience is another mystery, unfortunately. I've always assumed they were humans, but then again, that's probably because I am one. For all we know they could be a species we've never heard of. We know they're there, though- sometimes they'll send money or gifts to their favorite Fleet members.

Maybe that'd all sound more ideal to me if they didn't snatch us up without permission.

[He looks up at her, head slanted with curiosity.]

But there's really no other reason for guessing they're humans besides being one?

[It's not that he's inclined to disagree—he's skipped between calling the fleet "futuristic" and "alien" (sometimes in the same conversation), depending how he's feeling at the moment—but it still seems very specific to him. He's new enough he hasn't seen anything to indicate the showrunners are one thing more than any other, after all.]

Yeah, I understand. The perks don't really make up for the whole "kidnapped to be a reality TV star" thing.

[Jennifer looked thoughtful at his question.]

I think it's because I don't recognize the area of space we're in at all- and while we've met other humans, there are non-humans around, too, even on the Fleet itself. So while I assume the audience is human, it's also quite possible they aren't.

So I'm guessing you've been doing the space travel thing for a while, then, huh.

[The phrasing of it makes it sound more like it was part of her life before she wound up with the fleet. Belatedly, however, he remembers—]

Oh, yeah, and I'm Davesprite. [Not that there's anyway to audibly tell it's one word as opposed to two.]

Glad to meet you, Dave- I'm Dr. Keller. I'm the medical officer here on the Wonderduck, so... I'll try my best to help if you ever get sick or injured.

[She then switched gears to space.]

A little bit- I actually lived in another galaxy for a while before I was brought here. By "another galaxy" I mean "one that's not the Milky Way", if that means anything to you.

Oh, yeah. We didn't have space travel, though, on the iteration of Earth I'm from. At least nothing that went past landing on the moon.

[He finally gets around to eating some of his protein block and makes a face.]

Ew. [It tastes like chicken, but the texture is decidedly not chicken.]

Oh, good- I mean, that you know what I'm talking about. Explaining space travel to someone who has no context for it is harder than it sounds. Of course, intergalactic travel was still a secret back home to most of the populace- I only talk about it frankly here because it's not like I have to worry about non-disclosure agreements.

[She smiles sympathetically.]

Yeah, pretty much.

[He pokes half-heartedly at the peanut butter gel. Why did he get peanut butter with chicken, of all things? The world may never know.]

Why was it a secret?

[Movie tropes point towards military secrets, probably, he thinks. Or. Something.]

I worked for the military. They didn't want civilians knowing about this technology... mostly because we were still learning about it, and because the people we found at our destinations weren't always friendly.

Called it. Well, partially. Didn't call the alien part. I've met aliens before, but they were never from the same universe as me.

So this universe-hopping thing is old hat, huh? I'm still pretty new to it- I've heard plenty of stories from my friends who have been in the Stargate program for a long time, though. Hostile aliens sounds like such a cliche, but it's been proven true.

Probably better than the aliens that barreled ass-first into trolling me and my friends. They were pretty lame. And murderous, but mostly lame. [God does Davesprite hate trolls.]

But yeah, I was part of a kidnapping program before this. Only we were supposed to save the multiverse instead of starring in a reality TV show.

I don't know what would be worse, honestly- annoying ones or outright hostile ones. At least the hostile ones give you a good reason to fight back.

[She nods.]

Wow, the multiverse... no pressure, huh?

Right.

[He shrugs.]

After we got everything wrapped up there, the gods were supposed to send us back to our own universes if we decided not to stick around. Only I guess something went wrong and I ended up here with one of my friends.

That sounds awful. Not only did you not get to go home, but you got sent to a place complete with protein cubes and a drama-hungry audience.

[He laughs, just a short snort of amusement, when she puts it like that.]

Yeah, which is a unique lameness in of itself. I at least want to see the assholes in charge of my ratings. Get a feel for their favoritism, you know.

Oh, you'll get to hear from Atroma soon enough. They never answer back, but they make their presence known. Yelling at them never does any good, but sometimes I send angry thoughts at them anyway. It makes me feel better.

Has someone at least found out if they put cameras in the bathrooms. 'Cause creepy, if so.

I don't get that "someone's watching me" feeling, so I'm going to say no. I'd hope that wouldn't go THAT far.

Well, how about now. I haven't had any remarkable "they're watching you fuck up right now" vibes yet, but considering the confetti welcome I got, seems like they gotta have that shit floating around somewhere.

[Seriously, how do these cameras even work.]

The kitchen seems more reasonable- plenty of conversations take place there, after all. And they can just edit out the boring parts, so... everyone wins.

Ugh.

[He ends up making a face. Very mature, really.]

No, I'm definitely not the one winning there, so I hereby revoke all listening rights to the shit I say. You hear that, Big Brother? [Announced to the most accessible wall.] You can send me the fuck home now. This is valuable copyrighted material. Your ass is about to get sued.

[Jennifer covers her mouth to try and stifle a laugh at that.]

Wouldn't that be nice? Being able to just go home... get voted off the proverbial island if we were the worst-rated or something. I definitely wouldn't be sorry to leave.

Can we instate this as a real policy. Even if outer space comes off as less democracy and more dictatorship. I bet they're communists, too.

[He'll have you know he is ALL ABOUT capitalism, aight.]

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