trans_9 | Podpop!

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Podpop!

[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 phosphorescent 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.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

There were several things very, very wrong with her current situation. First of all - she's completely naked, and she's fairly certain that this is not where she was a...

Few minutes ago? An hour ago? Ugh - she's groggy and feeling a little nauseated and she's on her hands and knees after unceremoniously sliding out of a pod, and...

What is that disgusting mess covering her?

Furthermore -

"Why am I naked-!" Horrified and suitably bedraggled, she staggers to her feet, trying in vain to cover herself. Not working so well.

"Chosen to - ugh this is disgusting - an Ohm? Wait a second, Stacy, what others-! You could at least leave me a towel!"

There was a human here, or what looked like a human, and she was apparently trying to hide her entire body behind her hands.

"You heard Stacy too?" Anwei asked, standing at ease with her own hands at her sides. She was having to work pretty hard to keep that ease, though. "Are you from Earth?"

"Yes, whoever she is." Roxanne's voice is a little more high pitched than she would have liked, but it's at least relatively steady this time.

Well, for the most part, anyway. All things considered, Roxanne is definitely not panicking. Nope, not at all.

"Of course I'm from Earth." Her blue eyes stay very firmly on the woman's face, and she clears her throat, and decides to mimic the other woman in her ease. "You aren't?"

"I was on a long-term work assignment on Earth, but no, I'm not." Anwei smiled to try and put the other woman at ease; unfortunately she smiled a little too wide, the corners of her mouth almost touching her ears in a jack-o'-lantern expression. Her teeth were white and chisel-shaped and looked very sharp.
"And I'm sorry, I don't have a towel for you," she added.

"Oh. Right, of course." The smile causes Roxanne's eyes to widen just a fraction, but she doesn't back up or otherwise look panicked - or more than she already is, at least. She returns one though - if anything, Roxanne is a woman who can plaster on a smile when the situation called for it. Another perk of being a reporter, she guessed.

"That's too bad," she says dryly, looking down at herself with an expression of both disgust and anger. A towel, a shower - her own bed would be nice.

"Any idea's of who those 'others' are she was talking about?"

"Probably not these," she said, gesturing to the other people moving around them. "They all seem as confused as we are."

"We could try following the lights, I guess."

"And naked." Pointing out the obvious, Roxanne looks past her current conversation partner, towards said lights.

"Seems like as good of an idea as any, at this point. Standing here in alien goo isn't going to get me clothed any faster, I guess."

"These look like some sort of life support system," Anwei said, gesturing to the pods that clung in thick clusters to the fleshy pillars around them. "Maybe it was just - some sort of accident. Maybe it isn't Earth that's gone, just - some of it."

She smiled, a little more sanely this time. "Of course, maybe the clothes they give you are alien goo. Goo might be in fashion this season."

"Mhm, they do." She gestures. "They look like something out of a movie I saw, once." What the name of it is, she can't remember. Not like it matters.

"If it is, then I really ought to be rocking the runway."

"Life support implies that we are important enough to be saved, for whatever reason."

She made a sharp barking noise that was almost a laugh. "I once owned a dress that went opaque only where someone else looked at it. And only right where they looked - everywhere else it was these long translucent tendrils. So you'd walk around at a party and there would be these spots all over you, where people were looking, and guys would try to peek out of the corner of their eyes and," she rolled her own eyes, "it made for a very amusing evening, shall we say."

She nods, still having a little bit of trouble accepting all of this whole being saved and world ending business.

"That sounds like a dynamite outfit," she says, voice tinged with genuine admiration.

"And you have to believe that you are worth saving, you know. Think of how much effort this implies, how many people are here," pointing to the pods. "It really could be that we're here to save the world." She grinned, that horrible wide grin again.

She glanced at Roxanne. "It actually was part biotech, which is what this ship appears to be. Maybe they can make you one. But not in grey-green, we hope. Care to see what clothes we're really going to get?" She pointed to the strip of lights along the ground with one foot.

"Wouldn't that be something." She muses, carefully looking off to the side as she studies one of the pods instead of that wide, sharp smile.

"I prefer red," she murmurs, thinking that if anything an outfit like that would have definitely snagged her a couple interviews back home. "Sounds good. I know I'm tired of being naked and covered in goop."

(no subject)

8wings.livejournal.com - 2011-01-02 13:41 (UTC) - Expand

"Are you all right?" asked Zouichi, hoping that the woman was not further unnerved by the sight of him. He was, after all, equally naked.

Oh, of course it's a man. Of course.

"No," she answers absently, hugging herself just a fraction as she looks a little frantically for a place to hide, duck behind - something to cover her, for God's sake.

"I'm definitely not all right - I am the very opposite of all right."

Zouichi averts his eyes politely. "I'm sorry if my presence makes you uncomfortable. If it helps, I am a Synthetic Human, and technically not a human being.

May I ask what you were doing before you arrived here?"

"I'm not sure if that helps at all," she admits, but she does visibly ease up a little. It seemed everyone was in as much the same situation as she, so there was that, too.

"Walking home. In the rain." Her voice takes on a mildly harsher tone, and she has to pause and compose herself. The initial panic of the situation had distracted her enough to take her mind off what had been happening before she'd suddenly appeared in what resembled something he would come up with.

This was a bad dream. It had to be.

"That sounds very uncomfortable," said Zouichi, nodding. She looked like she was remembering something unpleasant as she said so, but he wasn't sure whether it was appropriate for him to ask about it. "Are you also from Earth? Are any of your family members or friends here?"

"Mmm. That's putting it nicely." She rubs her arms, then shrugs her shoulders.

"Earth, yes. As far as anyone else I know being here? I haven't seen anyone." Her eyes harden just a little - there's one person she better not see here, but...judging by the various yelps and the distinct lack of anyone completely blue thus far is a mildly comforting observance.

"Say," and now Zouichi is really unsure whether he should be mentioning this, "Did you mention your name?"

He had seen a skinny blue fellow wandering around not long ago, who had muttered something about "Roxanne" under his breath, and somehow... well, the chances were almost astronomical.

"I didn't." Roxanne shakes her head. "Sorry - little distracted." By things like slipping out of a pod and landing in a heap on the floor only to discover that not only is she absolutely nude and covered in something suspiciously resembling mucus, she's also not alone in this.

She shifts uncomfortably, and puts out a hand, very pointedly keeping her eyes on his face.

"Roxanne Ritchie. You are...?"

Edited 2011-01-02 00:57 (UTC)

Zouichi extends his own hand, although the gesture is somewhat unfamiliar to him. It is a very gooey handshake.

"Kanoe Zouichi. I... believe I may have seen an acquaintance of yours. A skinny blue man, who was headed up those stairs."

It's a relatively gross handshake that Roxanne braves with courageous gusto, and she's just getting ready to go through with the routine 'nice to meet you' when she's cut short, her hand drops and her face moves from hesitant smile to a scowl.

"What makes you think he knows me?" It couldn't be him. Life was not that cruel.

"Well, it's just a feeling, but... he was talking about a 'Roxanne'."

At the look on her face, Zouichi adds, "He might have been talking about someone else, though."

"I'm sure it was about someone else," she says firmly, though she doesn't sound as if she quite believes it. "I can't be the only person named Roxanne here. Wherever here really is."

Edited 2011-01-02 01:31 (UTC)