trans_9 | Talk About Timing...

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.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

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.

||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.||

"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.

||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.||

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."

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.

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~~.

||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?||

"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.

||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.

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."

||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.||

"...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.

||What would you like explained?||

The lights stop at the Hub, just as they did before.

||The Hub will take you where you want to go.||

How about a million and one things all at once?

He finally decides on: "What d'you-- what was I chosen for?"

||You were Chosen to do something Great.||

And doesn't that just feel all sorts of good on the ol' ego?

Not much of an answer, but hey! Ego-petting!

Oh hey, and it gets a capital G and everything. Sweet.

West pauses for a second to take that in, before he's driven on by the voice's continuing refusal to give him any solid details.

"Great how? I mean, what does a disembodied voice in a creepy green intestine think is Great?"

||Information classified.||

You're kidding.

"What d'you mean, classified?" he demands, stopping and glaring up at the ceiling for want of any more obvious place to look.

Nope. Not kidding.

||Classified - adjective. Withheld from general circulation for reasons of security.||

"You can't just tell me I've been chosen to do something and then refuse to tell me what it is!"

Well, technically she can. But it wouldn't be very community-spirited of her.

She can. She is. She will.

||Do you have any other questions, West Rosen?||

A noise of frustration.

He wants to have another stab at asking where the hell he it, but he gets the feeling that he's not going to get any kind of answer if he doesn't limit the possible replies to yes or no. "Am I in the US?"

||No.||

Damn.

"...Canada?"

(no subject)

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