Greet the (New) Meat! (no, don't eat them!)

[cityship]

By hook or by crook or by avoiding hook and crook, the crew assembled from the previous podpops eventually made it up to the Living Area to greet their new crew mates. The creepy sculpture was also there, though less to greet them than it was always there.

The strange, fleshy seating had multiplied. You really, really don't want to know how.

Comments

[cityship]

One of the holographic projectors flickers, and then there's a familiar face looking at him.

"You all right, Chief?"

[prettycoolguy]

Cortana's voice. Where?!

The Chief's head jerks up in surprise. It's her. A wave of relief washes over him, Cortana's here too and that greatly improves his situation. Especially if she's in the system and can tell him what the hell is going on.

"More or less," he replies, with just the flicking edge of a nerve-wracked smile. "Are you?"

[cityship]

"I'm distinctly uncomfortable, but having access to this ship's computer system and yet being cut off from any useful information will do that."

[prettycoolguy]

"I'm just glad I didn't lose you. What do you know? Because to be honest, anything would help me right now."

He missed his familiar headvoice. It's very reassuring, when plunged into a vat of insanity, to have somebody you know with you.

[cityship]

"You haven't lost me yet," she says. "Ready for a sitrep?"

[prettycoolguy]

"Yes please."

Very, very yes for that matter.

[cityship]

"We have all been abducted by a species unknown, we're being transported to an unknown location. This ship is capable of what appears to be interdimensional travel, and the individuals assembled here were collected from various alternate realities. As are several of my fellow AIs, trapped in the AI complex. We're forced to attend to matters on the ship without being allowed access to any remotely useful data, and she frequently forces us to go into ridiculously long diagnostics, usually whenever we've made any headway on accessing her systems. The crew gathered here is comprised of superhuman beings, law enforcement, soldiers, and support staff, so the prevailing theory is that we've all been forcibly conscripted into an army."

[prettycoolguy]

That is about the most helpful information he's gotten out of anyone. All day. Seriously.

"Interdimensional?" he shakes his head. "I wouldn't believe it if I weren't hearing it from you. And the superhuman beings thing. And... most of that, actually."

"Other than that, lack of intel and some seriously strange stuff? Sounds just like home."

[cityship]

That gets a slight smile out of her. "Pretty much, Master Chief. You're going to be winging it just like usual. I wouldn't recommend getting on Stacy's bad side, though. She isn't just an AI installed here, the ship is a partially organic lifeform--perhaps manufactured and most likely bioengineered, but organic regardless. Stacy is the ship, and I've seen no indications that she's bound by any programming not to harm the crew. Under certain conditions she could be allowed to do whatever she wants."

She gives him a significant look. "I'll try to get you what information I can access, but for that reason, if there's anything you...discover, I can't know. She'd have access."

[prettycoolguy]

John nods. "Understood. I'll behave myself, as long as the ship returns the favor. How long have you been in there?"

This has to be killing Cortana, he knows, aware that so much is there and having no way to get to it. That also tells him how far in over their heads they are if Cortana can't crack into the ship's computer.

[cityship]

"Seven months, three weeks, fourteen days, seven hours, six minutes, five seconds."

[prettycoolguy]

"Then I've probably been in that... thing that long. Maybe."

This is far outside anything he was ever trained for, and he can think of more than a few reasons why that could be wrong. "All I know is my body's healed up, which is good."