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.

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Gwen made her way down the hallway carefully, glancing into a pod here and there, and forcing herself not too look to closely. She wondered if all these pods were filled with unsuspecting abductees like her. And if so, how long had they been there before they were freed?

How long had she been there?

The lights led to a room, and she sighed outside of it, only halfway hearing Stacy's orders. It sure didn't look like an average changing room.

She debated telling Miss Vague Disembodied voice where to shove it, but the goo on her arms was beginning to thicken and dry, and she felt crusty and disgusting. And if Stacy meant her harm, there were certainly less spectacular ways to go about doing it.

"I hope you have a washroom, too," she muttered, and barreled into the room before she could second guess herself.

And that's when the tentacles ATTACKED!

Only just to scoop her up and wipe the stasis fluid off her face and out of her hair as they wrapped her in a greenish-black jumpsuit that felt like rose petals.

And a bit like it was alive, what with the having-its-own-pulse thing. She'd feel a slight tickling sensation as the suit itself also began working to clean her.

The tentacles set her gently back down on the floor.

Gwen didn't have time to even yell - thought what she would be yelling for, since no one could hear her - when the (seriously?) tentacles dragged her up in the air.

She wriggled for only a moment, before she realized what exactly was happening. Cleaned and dressed (well, dressed was a loose word, but at least there was something covering her now) she stood back on the floor, fighting her legs as they swayed oddly beneath her.

She moved around. The suit, if strange, wasn't particularly uncomfortable in nature, but that didn't mean she felt good wearing it. It seemed to pulse against her skin, and she cringed a little, stepping quickly out of the room.

"Hell of a welcome you have set up here," she half-shouted at Stacy.

||Would you like to proceed to the Living Area to meet the rest of the crew or would you prefer to first visit the Weapons and Possessions Locker?|| Stacy asked in reply.

Gwen started for a minute. Weapons? Of course, she had her training and, actually, not having her gun in this kind of environment was a little unsettling. But it was certainly the first time she had ever been held captive and offered a weapon. This situation was getting stranger and stranger, but she wouldn't mind being armed before meeting any other people. As for possessions... she hoped that meant maybe some things weren't lost. She slid her hand over her left hand, and across her empty ring finger. Her heart ached a little.

"Yeah, take me to that locker," Gwen said sternly. "And who would I speak to about gettin' my wedding band back? Or did you chuck that out as well?"

The pustules on the floor lit up again, leading away from the Clothing Room.

||If your ring is here, it will also be in the Weapons and Possessions Locker.|| Stacy answered.

Gwen found herself speeding now, down the lit pathway and towards the locker, her heart jumping at the idea of getting her possessions back.

"I don't understand," she asked Stacy. "Why do you let us keep some of our belongings?"

||Some possessions, such as weapons, may prove useful at some future time,|| Stacy said. ||Other possessions represent something of importance in the crew member's life and it would be cruel to deprive the crew of those objects.||

See? Stacy cares.

Gwen wrinkled her nose. How bloody welcoming, Stacy, nevermind kidnapping and alien slime and tentacles. Not to mention creepy breathing ships.

"Seems a bit cruel to deprive them of being able to go home," Gwen muttered, tromping down the hallway. But pretty kind not binning a ring that cost her husband a few months worth of pay.

Gwen's thankful. A little.

The lights lead Gwen to large, apparently hollow tube.

||Please step inside.|| Stacy instructed. ||The Hub will take you where you want to go.||

Gwen raised her eyebrows, bracing for whatever the Hub had to offer, be it tentacles or something even stranger.

She stepped inside the tube, and cleared her throat. "Well, let's get to that weapons locker, then." First she'd find her ring and her gun. Then she'd find someone else and get some answers.

Talk About Timing...

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