cityship: (Default)
cityship ([personal profile] cityship) wrote in [community profile] trans_92010-04-01 07:04 pm

Snap, Crackle, and POP

[ooc: Newbie Helpers List | Instructions: Post your character with one post establishing them as being podpopped. Tag each other in groups of 2's, 3's, and 4's, to get some interaction to start with. If a thread doesn't already have 2 or 3 people tagged in, tag it with your character's podpop popping near the other people, rather than making a new subthread. If you would like to play out them talking to the AI, please send an email to the mods making the request--we do this only by request. Then move onto the big Newbie Meeting. Once your character has gotten the rundown from the old crew, you may start posting entrance posts and freely tagging.]


||Pod Release Protocols Initating|| Stacy's familiar voice sounds out to all the podmates through the ship.

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

There is condensation and mist spraying out from cracks in the pods, as the people inside slide out onto the floors, covered in slime.

--


There was nothing. You were going about your normal life, then there was a bright light, and then? Nothing.

Then the world lurches.

The chamber here is humid.

Actually, "chamber" isn't quite accurate. You're in a cavern, half-lit by an eerie greenish light, going on and on as far as the eye can see. The light is coming from what can only be described as pods, glistening, round greenish-yellow things, glowing with a pale inner light, outlining human -- and not quite human -- forms. Each is rooted to the floor, to the walls, with something black, twisted, and unidentifiable.

They line the walls of the cavern, go up in maddeningly high columns, curling and corkscrewing up into the darkness, until the light from them is like that of the stars, glowing pale and mournful in clusters in the darkness above. Twisted walkways and stairs crisscross, traverse the platforms in front of the pods, wending their way back and forth, up and down through the chamber.

You just came from one of those pods, broke free like a butterfly from a (slimy, nasty) chrysalis.

Now you stand alone but not quite alone, naked, not knowing how you got there, who took you, or why you were taken.

As your body heats up again, you realize the air is warm -- just a few degrees too warm to be comfortable -- and muggy; it smells acrid and organic, like freshly spilt blood and sweat. Your mouth tastes of salt.

The floors are pulsing under your feet, throbbing...

Wherever you are, this entire place...is alive.

Oh, and also you're naked and covered in alien snot.

When you call out, ask where you are, a voice speaks to you, in your head. She tells you:

||You are here.||


When you ask who she is, she tells you that her name is STA'C K'LTRRB'TXFT, but that you may call her Stacy. When she tells you who she is, there is a gush of emotion, love, maternal warmth. You are on a ship. She is that ship. Her name is Stacy and she loves you. Her voice is warm and motherly, even if these messages sound almost automated.

Glowing phosphorescenet lights appear in pustules along the floor. They lead you up a massive spiraling walkway that gives you a view of what are possibly millions in stasis. At the top is a room with moving vines that clean you and clothe you in a plant-like body-suit--soft, but durable. After that, the lights lead you to a great cavernous room with a clear floor that lets you see all the holes and tunnels in the walls of it. When you reach the center, the last thing she tells you before whisking you away to gather your belongings and meet the rest of the crew is this reassuring thought:

||You have been Chosen to accomplish a Great Purpose. You have been Chosen to help fight the Ohm, a race of insectoid beings that are the destroyers of worlds.||

||You have been Chosen as champions of life, as protectors of the worlds and peoples that are left. The others are waiting for you. They will explain everything.||


She will tell you nothing more. Your answers lie with these "others" she speaks of.

[identity profile] doc-pompous.livejournal.com 2010-04-02 03:41 am (UTC)(link)
Back to normal? What did he...oh.

Simon got a closer look just in time to watch Sam's hands begin to change shape. From the short conversation they'd been having, he didn't think the boy was going to hurt him, but this was still unexpected and unsettling. What was he?

"It's...it's all right. Here." He turned and gestured to the lights illuminating what seemed like a pathway. "I think it wants us to go this way."

[identity profile] needs-release.livejournal.com 2010-04-02 04:08 am (UTC)(link)
He nodded. "Right..." Somewhere in the back of his mind he could imagine Preston or Katarina teasing him about having a little more spine. But, he was here all alone. So he followed the other man, and his fangs and his hands soon resembled something human. "--Thank you, by the way," he added.

[identity profile] doc-pompous.livejournal.com 2010-04-02 05:04 am (UTC)(link)
Hopefully wherever they were headed would lead them to answers. These "others" that Stacy told them about...did they come out of the pods too?

Trying to ignore the fact that they were both very slimy and very naked, he followed the lights on the ground, speaking to reassure himself just as much as he was trying to reassure Sam. "It's nothing." He said. "I just hope we'll be able to get answers."

[identity profile] needs-release.livejournal.com 2010-04-02 05:13 am (UTC)(link)
Now that he had calmed some, he began to realize just how ridiculously he'd been behaving. He grumbled to himself. "'m a doctor. I should keep my head on straight better..." He again slicked his hair back out of his face.

[identity profile] doc-pompous.livejournal.com 2010-04-02 05:22 am (UTC)(link)
That got his attention. Sam seemed a little too young to hold such a profession, but then again, Simon had just been effectively hatched out of some kind of alien pod full of snot. It would not be the most unbelievable event of the day.

"...You're a doctor?"

[identity profile] needs-release.livejournal.com 2010-04-02 05:29 am (UTC)(link)
He glanced up to Simon. "...I'm older than I look," he said tiredly. He did get that a lot. "I'm a trauma surgeon in the ER of Loyola Medical Center in Chicago. This is embarrassing." He scrubbed some of the mucus off of his face.

[identity profile] doc-pompous.livejournal.com 2010-04-02 06:53 pm (UTC)(link)
He was a bit more surprised to find that he was in the company of a fellow doctor than he was to know that Sam was older than he looked. Maybe the fact that they were both doctors--and even more specifically, surgeons, had something to do with why they were brought here, or why their pods had been so close to each other.

"I'm...also a trauma surgeon, if you want to believe that, though I've most recently been doing work on a spaceship."

[identity profile] needs-release.livejournal.com 2010-04-03 06:15 am (UTC)(link)
"So you're used to this spaceship thing, then." Incredible the kinds of things Sam was willing to believe right now. But talking about this was nice. "We --that is-- humankind hasn't really left Earth yet. Although there's a small group of extremely radical vampires that wants to relocate to the Moon." He seemed to have have a slight edge of hysteria in his voice.

[identity profile] doc-pompous.livejournal.com 2010-04-04 02:04 am (UTC)(link)
"Not a spaceship like this."

If this was even a spaceship at all.

There were two things in Sam's next words that piqued Simon's interest very much, and really only confused him more. The first was the mention of vampires, of all things, but the second was much more pressing.

"Earth?" Just Earth. Not Earth-That-Was. "There's still Earth where you're from?"

[identity profile] needs-release.livejournal.com 2010-04-04 04:53 am (UTC)(link)
Spaceship only seemed reasonable because where else would one drop out of a pod like this buck naked and delirious? "So far. Something's supposed to happen to it?" That it was such a thing of the past for this man hadn't occurred to him.

[identity profile] doc-pompous.livejournal.com 2010-04-04 06:41 am (UTC)(link)
Simon hadn't considered the possibility that he and Sam were from two different points in time until now, but suddenly it seemed obvious. There were perhaps thousands of these pods--who knew where the people had come from? Different times, different places, different dimensions entirely. It seemed so impossible, but here was Sam, talking about Earth, and how people were still living on it.

"It gets...used up." He said, trying to find the best way to describe it. "Where I'm from, we've long since moved to different planets. Terraformed them."

[identity profile] needs-release.livejournal.com 2010-04-04 06:56 am (UTC)(link)
"There is a lot of talk about global warming right now..." he mused quietly. "I'll have to ask you about that later. Maybe when we're not both naked and slimy." It was a disjointed sort of sense of humor, but it was what he needed to cope right now.

[identity profile] doc-pompous.livejournal.com 2010-04-06 03:09 am (UTC)(link)
"Of course."

Assuming that wherever they were headed would get them not naked and slimy. As ill-timed as the quip was, Simon couldn't help but appreciate the attempt to lighten the mood.

"I could use something to wear." He agreed with an awkward laugh that sounded more like a cough.