Talk About Timing...

[cityship]

While chaos was going on in the city, a level below the Living Areas, the rest of the ship was functioning normally. Stacy, apparently oblivious to goings on in the city, likely do to her malfunctioning sensors there, carried on with ship business.

||Pod Release Protocols Initating,|| Stacy's familiar voice sounded out to the upper levels, though no one was there to hear her. They were all downstairs, fighting for their lives against giant cockroaches.

In the Pod Caverns, there were the sounds of: Pop. Pop pop pop. Poppuhpoppoppop. KASCHUNKhiiiiiiiissssss.

The usual condensation and mist sprayed out from cracks in the pods, they ripped open and the people inside slid out onto the floors, covered in slime. One of them, due to his mechanical nature, slid out covered in a sort of oil mixture, in a smaller body than he'd once had.

Pop. Poppop. KASCHUNKhiiiiiissss.

There was no one already freed from the ship to greet them, only Stacy herself, and the empty silence of a ship caught in the middle of a crisis.

Comments

[stalkersuperman.livejournal.com]

...

!!

...

!?

!!!

...

In a high tone of voice that suggests a boy at his wits' end: "Okay, fine!"

He even throws up his hands. That's how endy his wits are. See what you did, Stacy, you and your needles and your alien abductions?

[cityship]

Pustules on the floor at West's feet glowed to life, leading off through the caverns.

||Please follow the lights.||

[stalkersuperman.livejournal.com]

West backs away a step or two, and then cautiously walks in the direction indicated, for a lack of anywhere else to go. He's really, really careful not to tread on the... pustules.

Because they might pop.

All over his feet.

And that would be terrible.

[cityship]

The lights lead him up through the caverns, until they ended at what appeared to be an empty tube.

||The Hub will transport you where you wish to go.|| Stacy said.

He hadn't asked for clothing yet. Perhaps he was unconcerned with it.

[stalkersuperman.livejournal.com]

Transport tubes. There are transport tubes?

"That's very sci-fi of you, Disembodied Voice," he remarks. "Who do I thank for the service?"

Oh, if he's asking questions, then the edge must be coming off his terror, if only because nothing stays sharp forever. If you're really lucky he may ask about an end to the nakedness yet.

[cityship]

||Thanks is not necessary.|| the voice answered. ||Your podmates are also assembled in the Living Area when you are finished using the facilities.||

[stalkersuperman.livejournal.com]

"Are they freaked out and naked as well?"

Ah, there it is.

[cityship]

||Many of them are recovering from battling an infestation of Judas roaches.|| Stacy said. ||Several have been recently released from stasis. All but one are clothed.||

[stalkersuperman.livejournal.com]

Should he ask about the roaches or would the answer just freak him out more? He wants to ask about the roaches. But the answer would just freak him out more, wouldn't it. The answer would freak him out more if he asked about the roaches, right?







"Where are my clothes?"

[cityship]

||They were disposed of.||

Pause.

||Would you care for some clothing?||

[stalkersuperman.livejournal.com]

"You can't just chuck away my clothes!"

...actually, it occurs to him after he speaks that he has bigger problems.

"You got some kind of... freaky... GutWorld hostage uniform for me?"

[cityship]

She could chuck his clothes. She had chucked his clothes. They were not appropriate clothing.

||You are not on 'GutWorld'.|| she answered. ||Nor are you a hostage. Would you care for some clothing?||

[stalkersuperman.livejournal.com]

They were appropriate for him!

"Then where am I?" he demands (at last), adding lamely: "Yes." In case he doesn't get another chance at asking for clothes.

[cityship]

||You are in the Pod Caverns, near the Hub.||

What? No one had promised helpful answers.

The pustules on the floor lit up again, leading off in a different direction from the one West had come. ||Please follow the lights.||

[stalkersuperman.livejournal.com]

"You couldn't point those out on some kind of handy world map, could you?"

Oh god, he has to follow the freaky blisters again. It's okay, West. One step at a time. God.

[cityship]

||There is no handy world map.||

Did that mean that there was no world map handy, or that there was no world map at all?

The pustules lead West to a nearby cylindrical room with only one door. The room was white, and empty except for some tentacles hanging from the ceiling in the middle of the room.

||Step into the room. You will be clothed.||

[stalkersuperman.livejournal.com]

Most of the Heroes cast, when presented with an eerie-looking room which they should probably enter with extreme caution if at all, will stroll willingly inside without a second thought. West is no exception to this rule.

"I don't see a wardrobe."

[cityship]

There is no wardrobe to been seen, only a TENTACLE ATTACK!

The tentacles reach out and loop themselves gently but firmly around his limbs and torso, picking him up off the ground to wrap him in a strange sort of jumpsuit. It's dark green, and feels like rose petals.

Oh yeah, it also feels like it has a pulse.

[stalkersuperman.livejournal.com]

NOOO! NOT THE TENTACLES!

West is far too manly to shriek when badtouched by horrible tendrils, so he would be grateful for the fact that he did just that to not be spread around, thanks.

When he's back on the floor, he tugs at the suit with a look of unrestrained disgust. "These aren't clothes! They're a plant fetishist's wet dream!"

HOW COULD HIS DAY GET ANY WORSE DON'T ANSWER THAT.

[cityship]

||They are the standard uniform for the podmates.|| Stacy answers, unperturbed. ||Would you like to go to the Weapons and Possessions Locker now, or would you like to meet your podmates?||

[stalkersuperman.livejournal.com]

"Oh, did you not want to chuck my stuff away along with my real clothes?"

He's still wearing the plantsuit uncomfortably, arms held stiffly away from his sides, and he probably will be for a good while yet.

[cityship]

||Your clothing would have interfered with the stasis fluid transporting nutrients to you and transporting your waste products away.|| Stacy explained. Sort of.

West might notice that, in addition to the pulse, it feels like there might be tiny things hoovering on his skin. That's the plant suit, cleaning up the remaining goo. The tentacles had already gotten it out of his hair and off of his face.

[stalkersuperman.livejournal.com]

West doesn't like the plantsuit one single bit. It takes him a fair amount of deliberation before he decides that it's marginably preferable to going entirely naked.

"Why was I in stasis?"

Ah, it seems we've gotten to the good old Q&A.

"And-- lockers. Stuff. Yeah. Light the way, Voice."

[cityship]

||Because you were Chosen.||

Can you hear the capital 'C', West? Doesn't it make you proud?

The pustules glow again, leading back towards the Hub.

||Please follow the lights.||

[stalkersuperman.livejournal.com]

"...Chosen," he repeats, slightly less hysterically. Yeah, that description does appeal to him.

"...okay, but you're still not explaining anything!"

He follows the little glowing pustules yet again, feeling rather like an airplane endlessly taxiing back and forth as it waits for the sky to be clear.