Where do they get all those wonderful toys?

[cityship]

The Hub spat the newly-clothed crew members out into the Weapons and Possessions Locker one by one. The place looked like a warehouse, and not a particularly well-organized one. Things were everywhere -- on the floor, stacked on top of each other, hanging off of things...

Either someone had ransacked the place, or Stacy had hired a tornado to do her filing and sorting.

Comments

[ravaged-rose.livejournal.com]

Rose taps him firmly on the shoulder, putting on an expression that is somehow a mixture of amiable and threatening. The threatening is sort of her default setting these days and the 'amiable' sits on top of it like an ill-fitting mask.

"Hey. You got any idea where the hell we are?"

'Hi, how are you?','I'm Rose, this is Cassie.', and 'What's your name?' get skipped without a second thought.

[halfgoddess.livejournal.com]

"Rose," Cassie says, frowning. "You could try a bit of diplomacy."

She offers Cale a tense smile.

[mapquest-titan.livejournal.com]

Cale frowns as he turns around to find himself confronted by two girls. Scratch that, one girl and a chick with an eye-patch.

"Yeah, actually, I do," he answered. He then traced an invisible circle around his body. "See that? That's my personal space...and you're in it."

[ravaged-rose.livejournal.com]

Rose barely holds back a snarl, crossing her arms over her chest and planting her feet.

"Well there's a good five feet of empty floor behind you so if I'm too close maybe you should take a step back before you push today any higher on my list of worst days ever. If you make the top five I'm gonna have to stab somebody to keep the status quo."

[halfgoddess.livejournal.com]

Cassie is exhausted and drained, but she is quick to play mediator. She reaches to take Rose's arm, to urge her to step back, her voice taking on a warning tone.

"Rose, don't. We're all in the same predicament here, let's not pick fights."

She glances at Cale.

"Sorry. Look, you've spoken with Stacy too, right? What have you found out from her?"

[mapquest-titan.livejournal.com]

"Nothing," Cale answered, tossing the box that had contained his ring over his shoulder and sending it landing on a random pile of containers. "All I know is I woke up naked and slimy, got stuffed into--" He tugged at the suit again. "--this. And apparently everything is 'classified.'"

[ravaged-rose.livejournal.com]

Rose raises a brow.

"Stacy? Is that what that head-voice that tried to sedate me is called?"

[halfgoddess.livejournal.com]

"Same here, more or less," Cassie nods, and then glances at Rose. "Her actual name is really complicated. Stacy is what most people call her. I'm guessing Stacy is the ship we're on."

She folds her arms.

"Or so she said."

[mapquest-titan.livejournal.com]

"Yeah, well, if she's lying, I have no intention of sticking around long enough to find out," Cale answered with a rather determined look on his face. Or maybe he was just trying to be macho in front of the scary one-eyed chick and her cute friend.

[ravaged-rose.livejournal.com]

Rose huffs.

"This THING just ripped us off of Earth from separate places and TIMES and you think you're just gonna jump ship and get away?"

She jerks a thumb at her companion.

"Cassie's here is like a year behind me on our shared history. For all I know she got kidnapped and replaced with a poorly programmed robot and then it came back for me in a year. We might have been on this damn thing and in those pods for months or years and never known."

She thinks about drawing a parallel to the Matrix for a minute, then reminds herself that that's the kind of stupid thing Eddie would say.

[halfgoddess.livejournal.com]

Cassie nods.

"I don't intend on sticking around, if we can get away... but you're right. It won't be easy. Did either of you get the here-for-a-great-purpose, Chosen-One line?"

But she lifts an eyebrow at Rose at the robot comment. "Poorly-programmed robot? What's that supposed to mean?"

[mapquest-titan.livejournal.com]

"Earth?!" Cale repeated. Everything else either of them said was lost in a sea of 'blah-blah-blah' the minute the word exited one-eyed girl's lips.

"You're from Earth?"

[ravaged-rose.livejournal.com]

"...You're NOT?"

Rose looks at him like he's grown a second head.

"Oh Jesus, are you one of those shape shifting aliens that looks human but if I set you on fire you bring the terrifying like Freddy Kruger in a sleep lab? Cause I am so going to find my ass some matches if you are."

[halfgoddess.livejournal.com]

Cassie sighs.

"Rose."

[ravaged-rose.livejournal.com]

"Don't sigh at me like that! You haven't met the martian yet. I swear to god if she's not shapeshifted she looks like she eats kittens as a cereal!"

[mapquest-titan.livejournal.com]

"Uh...whaa?" Cale voices, staring wide-eyed at the all sorts of crazy that is tumbling out of one-eyed's mouth. Shape-shifting aliens? Who the heck was Freddy Kruger?

"Uh...No, I'm human. I was born on Earth."

[halfgoddess.livejournal.com]

Cassie isn't sure if she wants to know what Rose is talking about. There's a time-stream to be considered.

"Then that settles it. He's human, no shapeshifting," she says. "Did either of you get anything else out of this Stacy?"

[ravaged-rose.livejournal.com]

Rose is SO going to try to set him on fire later. Just to be sure.

Being kidnapped to alien spaceships makes her paranoid.

"She was about the least helpful thing EVER frankly. Yes or no answers. I asked her where I was? 'Pod Caverns.' What's a Pod Cavern? 'THIS is a Pod Cavern.' Downright cheeky."

[mapquest-titan.livejournal.com]

"No," Cale answered bluntly. His mind was still focused on the fact that these two girls were claiming to not only be from Earth but also talked about it like they remembered it.

"What do you mean you were taken from Earth?" he asked, diverting back to the abandoned discussion. "That's impossible."

[halfgoddess.livejournal.com]

"Hm."

She glances at Cale.

"You might be from a different universe, or from a different time. Don't worry about it."

As if it's really that easy.

[ravaged-rose.livejournal.com]

Rose looks thoughtful now.

"Mmmm, I didn't think about alternate realities..."

[mapquest-titan.livejournal.com]

Cale's eyes dart back and forth between the pair. Suddenly he's starting to get the impression that Cute-Girl might just as crazy as One-Eye.

"Alternate..." he begins to say but can't bring himself to repeat the crazy. "Earth is gone. The Drej destroyed it fifteen years ago."

[ravaged-rose.livejournal.com]

"I've never heard of the Drej and I was jogging in California less than an hour ago by my internal clock so I'd say that's a point toward the Alternate Realities theory."

[halfgoddess.livejournal.com]

"Or you might be far in our future," she replies, "But either way, I'm sorry to hear that... I'd just rather not think about the world ending."

Kon crosses her mind. She gives a funny expression for a moment, melancholy, before she forces herself to pull up seriousness again.

"But we need to find out what we're going to –– or supposed to –– do now."

[mapquest-titan.livejournal.com]

Ok. All this talk about time-travel and 'alternate universes' was starting to make Cale's brain hurt. Shaking his head, he finally shrugged off the conversation as Cute-Girl switched back to trying to come up with a plan.

"Don't know about you, but I'm headed to the bridge to figure out where the heck we are," Cale replied.