We're Not In Kansas Anymore...

[meat_mooks]

They might have been trying to get to the City, or another level, or anywhere else in the explored parts of Stacy. But when some crewmembers stepped into the transport tubes, they were going to find that where they ended up was not where they were trying to go.

The first sign that something was wrong was the strange electric jolt they get just after stepping into the tubes. The second sign was the unusually long time it took for them to get to their destination. And the third and final sign was the fact that when they arrived, it was in a place they would have never seen before.

To all appearances, it looked like a smaller replica of the crew quarters. If they ventured out a little further, they would find smaller versions of the mess hall, sleeping halls, and bathrooms as well. But there was one important difference.

They were completely and utterly empty.

And with any attempt to go back into the transport tubes failing, they appeared to be stuck here. What were they going to do?

[ooc: ICly this post happens over the course of a day, so not everyone arrives at the same time. If you tag into the post later, you can just assume that your character arrived later in the day. Also, your characters will not find that their omnicomms and communication rings don't work!

If you have a question about anything, you can ask on this ooc post.

Oh, and for this post threadjacking is welcome :P]

Comments

[first_of_steel]

"I hear you."

Well, it sounded like a reasonably human and American voice, albeit one processed through a radio or a filter or something like that. Nothing all that unusual for anyone who'd ever ordered at a restaurant's drive-up window. Probably just Mark's luck that when the speaker came into sight somewhere down the corridor, he happened to be wearing more armor than your average Star Wars extra and carrying a ridiculously boxy rifle. "Hey there," he said with a wave of one hand. "You got lost too, huh?"

[lillylivered]

"Yes, uh..." Mark held up one finger, as if telling the man to wait a moment while he processed this (which he probably was).

"So... what's with the- you know, I'm not even gonna ask. Did you just wake up too?"

[first_of_steel]

"Standard War Department issue gear back home, twenty years ago," Roger said; he figured that was probably as close as he could come to being reassuring under the circumstances. "I've been awake a while now. Got lost trying to find the hydroponics area. My name's Roger Maxson."

[lillylivered]

"The hydro what?" Oh right, he should probably be polite and introduce himself. "I'm Mark Lilly and I am- really confused right now."

[first_of_steel]

"Hydroponics. Natural area, with trees and animals and things. Sounded like it'd make a nice change from all the rest of the ship."

Considering what the part of the ship they were standing in looked like, Mark could probably understand an impulse like that.

"This isn't any part of the ship that I've been able to find on the maps. I can try to help you find people, but I'm as lost as you are. Fair warning."

[lillylivered]

"Wait, wait, wait." Mark said, holding up both hands. "Back up. Did you say we're on a ship?"

[first_of_steel]

"Mmmyep," said Roger. "Let me guess, your pod popped with nobody around to provide an orientation?"

He reached over his shoulder to put his rifle away; he'd need both hands in a minute, most likely.

[lillylivered]

"I did wake up from a pod and it would appear that I've missed out on an explanation, yes."

Mark was still confused but now that the man put away his rifle, he was more at ease. Not that that was saying much.

[first_of_steel]

"Just a minute."

People back home were all used to speaking to, and through, power helmets. People here, not so much. Roger figured that for the moment, they were safe enough for him to pop the catches holding his helmet's seals shut and take the thing off.

"Okay, that's better," he said as he stashed the helmet under his arm. "Yeah. We're on a ship that I've been told is about the size of a moon. Can't verify that myself, but it's sure as hell bigger than any vehicle I've ever heard of."

[lillylivered]

"So this is a spaceship." Mark said dryly. That would at least explain the weird armor suit thing. "And I have been what? Kidnapped by aliens?"

Now he was wondering if Randall had slipped some drugs into his orange juice at dinner.

[first_of_steel]

"All of us have," Roger said. "I'm told there's some kind of a universe-spanning war going on, and somehow we've all been grabbed for it. Don't know how true that necessarily is, but I'm playing along until I find out otherwise."

[lillylivered]

"Universe spanning war." Mark repeated.

If Mark hadn't moved to Manhattan and adjusted to the exceedingly abnormal world he had lived in, his reaction might have been "well, my girlfriend is a succubus, my roommate is a zombie, and my coworker is a wizard. Aliens shouldn't be a surprise." However, Mark was quite used to those things and didn't consider them too strange. And so he felt that the likelihood that all of this was a bizarre dream, hallucination, or other manipulation, was far higher than the possibility that this was true.

"You know, I don't actually believe a word of that but I'm just going to go with it."

[first_of_steel]

"Fair enough," said Roger. "Next thing you probably ought to know is, you're going to meet a lot of people who don't seem to match up with what you expect the world to be like. Whatever you expect the world to be like."

If nothing else, the talking rainbow pegasus pony would probably do it.

[lillylivered]

Yeah, the talking unicorn just might do it.

"Thanks for the warning but as far as I'm concerned my roommate drugged me and I am hallucinating everything. So, I think I'm good."

In time he would have to eat those words, but not just yet.

"Since you're lost with me, do you mind if I tag along for a while?" It was nice to have company even in hallucinations. Unless said company was trying to rip you apart. He really hoped that wasn't going to happen.

[first_of_steel]

"If you've got that kind of roommate, I feel bad for you, son," said Roger. "You might as well come along in the meantime. I don't know where I'm going, but if there's anything hiding here, you'll have more of a chance that way. Ever handled a laser pistol?"

You know. Just in case.

[lillylivered]

Mark was about to protest that Randall wasn't all that bad when you got to know him but then Roger asked him about laser pistols.

"Not a laser pistol but I have held a gun- and missed horribly when firing." Which was for the best at the time. "You don't- think we'll have to use them, do you?" He swallowed nervously.

[first_of_steel]

"Don't know. I'd rather be prepared than caught off my guard," Roger said. "I was going to offer the loan of a sidearm if need be, but I'm thinking that might be more of a hazard to us than to anything we might run across. No offense."

[lillylivered]

"No, no. None taken." While Mark was pretty sure this was all a hallucination he would rather not risk shooting himself in the foot, or worse, if it turned out this was real. "I'll just uh, follow your lead."

And run screaming if they did run into danger.

[first_of_steel]

"Not a problem." Roger glanced up and down the hallway, just in case, but there hadn't been any further sound. "Where'd you come from originally, if you don't mind my asking?"

[lillylivered]

"I'm from Manhattan. I work in the Department of Integration as a social worker." True, Roger hadn't asked what he did but what was the harm in sharing? He was probably going to ask anyway. "What about you?"

[first_of_steel]

"Manhattan-" It took Roger a moment to remember. "Ah, right. That's either New York or Kansas, and you sure as hell don't sound like a Kansas boy. I'm from... used to be southern California. It's just wasteland now. Been in the service since high school."

One way or another.

[lillylivered]

Mark had to wonder where Roger was from that he had to remember where Manhattan was. He should have been wondering when.

"A wasteland? I didn't think medical marijuana laws were that much of a problem."

[first_of_steel]

Roger made a snorting noise that was probably originally a badly-suppressed laugh. "I can't remember the last time reefer was on anybody's mind," he says. "If the plant still exists somewhere it's probably mutated beyond all recognition. It was the year 2097 the last time I looked at a calendar, and it was twenty years after a world-wide nuclear war. That's why SoCal's a wasteland now."

[lillylivered]

"Oh, er. So you're a time traveler?" This was turning into an oddly complex hallucination.

[first_of_steel]

"Only in the same direction and same speed as everybody else," said Roger. "One second per second, into the future. I'm here because I got kidnapped by aliens, same as you. They just kidnapped us from different worlds, that's all."

He'd spent long enough reading old-school, poorly-explained pulp science fiction novels as a young man to accept certain explanations without poking them too closely. Then again, considering some of the things he'd seen in his own world and daily life, Burroughs or Verne could've very easily been at the helm of his world and it would've been hard to notice.