trans_9 | Foodplot: Parte Uno [Closed]

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Foodplot: Parte Uno [Closed]

After the 'bitching about Stacy' session finally reached a head, Sakura and Howard decided to actually do something about all the questions they had about their spacefaring fleshy home. Granted, they couldn't really find anything out about the Ohm on their own, and the Daligig were Right Out, so that left exploring the ship itself.

Time for them to find out what it is that they're putting in their bodies.

They drew on a few people they trust, or at least have figured out well enough to not distrust (more than they usually do), and now they're gathered at the mess hall at some awkward hour when no one is there to eat. They've brought Kanoe Zouichi (specialties: stuff going boom and wrangling Howard into being cooperative) and Ian Chesterton (specialties: hot cocoa, also science). And Ian's brought Barbara Wright (specialties: ??? and pissing Howard off).

Howard's tucking away at a tray of slop, figuring that if they're going to find anything that puts them off eating food forever, he might as well enjoy sweet, delicious ignorance now.

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Howard nods. "It looks like this is the place where they combine ingredients."

As much as the food is super interesting to him (and he wants to know what's in those droppers), he also wants to know what's at that computer. He walks over to and tries to turn it on. It starts booting up, but at a speed that wouldn't outpace a 1994 Macintosh knockoff. And when it does, it asks for a password and refuses to accept 'guest' and 'password' as answers.

"Man, you've got to be better at computers than I am," he says to Zouichi, wandering back over to Ian and the gel. "I'm betting this is edible. If I try it and die, can you make sure my corpse gets rinsed off before they bury me?"

>AAAAAA
>AAAAAC

Zouichi tried a few more passwords: blank password, 12345, Daligig, etc. Another area in which his partner might have been helpful. He wasn't used to this whole... keyboard interface thing.

"I guess at the very least," he said, frowning, "Maybe we could get Fuyu in here to jack into the machine, see if there's any useful data here. But with our luck, it'll just be a plain old monitoring system. Should we check the other tunnel?"

"I'd rather you didn't try it. What if it's made of dead cow?" This wouldn't be the best place to be ill, a long way from any medical help. "I don't want to carry your dead body out of here," he added, grinning.

But he turned away, so Howard could decide for himself whether he should try it or not. "We've run out of things to try here. Let's see if there's anything more useful down the other tunnel." The tentacle hadn't reappeared either. It was bound to come back just after they leave.

The tentacle emerges again, at that serendipitous moment. It takes a tray and lifts it back towards the chute they came in, then up through a little hole in the ceiling. It bobs as it goes, and some of the gel drips from the tray. A few moment later there's a splashing sound as the gel is dumped down the chute.

If they continue to follow the other tunnel, they'll find the pods shaped vaguely like humans, or like some other members of the crew (one appears to be shaped like a small dragon - another, like a cat).

"Beef is made of dead cow." Duh, Ian, he thought you knew that. They probably teach that at Science Teacher School. Howard swipes a finger over the gel and sticks it in his mouth, but doesn't push it further. "Tastes like...rat. It tastes like rat. Not that that's a bad thing, I mean, it's better than the slop."

He watches the tentacle take the tray he was experimenting on. "I bet this is the slop before Stacy doses it with foot powder or whatever to kill the taste and smell."

He nods at Zouichi. "Let's try the other tunnel."

Zouichi wasn't even going to ask how Howard knew what rat tasted like. Instead, he headed down the other passage -- though he stopped when he saw the human-shaped pods.

No way. It couldn't really be...

Ian decided against asking Howard how he knew it tasted like rat. It was probably just an expression where he came from. "I think you're right." It was a pity they couldn't get down the chute the tentacle had thrown the slop down.

"What...?" Ian said coming up behind Zouichi. They needed to know what was going on in there and if there was a human inside. But they couldn't just cut it open - what if that killed whatever was inside it? So Ian put a hand against the pod, trying to see if it felt alive.

Howard pauses. This looks entirely like a worst-case scenario to him. If the other pod held a cow, does this mean they're eating humans? It's not something that would stop him from partaking in the slop, but it is something that would Bother him with a capital B.

What Ian will feel is smooth and cold. It gives off less the semblance of life than of furniture. They may also notice that there's a latch on the side, as if it's a chest to be opened.

Welp. It was now or never. Zouichi unholstered his pistol, flipped the latch. Then, as though he were clearing a room, he quickly attempted to flip the lid open and aim his firearm at whatever was inside in one swift moment.

There is no person inside. In fact, for a moment it looks as if there's nothing inside. Then the inside of the pod shimmers into a holographic display of the human body, with various elements and organs labeled in an alien language.

The face looks familiar. In fact, the ghostly face over the skull is the exact likeness of Ian Chesterton.

[spooky music]

Ian gave a gasp and stepped backwards. But the labelling and the feel of the pod told him this wasn't a real person, it just looked like him. He reached up to touch it, but his hand passed through it. "Perhaps it's a teaching tool," he said, trying to calm his racing heartbeat. "All those words must mean something."

"It looks like something out of an anatomy textbook." Howard can breathe again now that he knows it's just a hologram. He waves his hand through too, passing it through the hologram of Ian's liver. "Wonder if our translator chips aren't working on it because it's computer code or something."

Also in the room is another computer console. It sparks to life. The pod with 'Ian' in it lifts up and moves forward by its living root at the ceiling, allowing another human-shaped pod to take its place. This pod is, likewise, the size of an adult male.

The computer display pulls up an image of Jake Berenson, including more typing in the alien language. It then beeps a few times.

"So I guess it's pretty clear the ship's keeping detailed notes on everyone," Zouichi said dryly.

His manner was nonchalant, but this was not something he liked. At all. His inner structure, the materials that made him up, everything was an industry secret. And as the mission on Galilee had proved, people were not above trying to use those secrets to create more perfect tools of destruction.

But it was an odd thing to have near to where the food was, Ian thought, before he realised why that might be. "So she knows what we can eat. If the notes are only about anatomy and digestion, it won't be much different for people who're the same species." Ian couldn't see much to worry about.

"It probably includes allergies and intolerances and stuff too." Howard opens this pod and, as expected, is greeted with a hologram of Jake Berenson. He reaches his hand in and out of it - when he passes over a vital organ, the organ lights up, and the text glows. He pulls his hand back.

"Okay, I'm not paranoid or anything," lies, "but this looks like a teaching tool to me. Like, I don't know, one of those dinosaur toys you take apart to see their insides. Like they're studying us like lab rats."

Zouichi folded his arms, staring down at the hologram. "Lab rats you want to keep alive? Or lab rats you want to dissect later, to measure how they've changed?"

Cheery thoughts!

Ian was thinking about teaching in a completely different way. "That's very clever. Imagine teaching biology with one of these." He walked around the pod, inspecting it. "Is there a way to take it back with us?"

"I'm betting the latter." Howard and Zouichi are clearly professionals in jumping to the worst possible conclusion about the ship. "I mean, we know from the channels that they experimented on some kid, right? Who's saying they aren't testing stuff out on us?"

He looks over at Ian. "Maybe we could cut one down. We should probably take one that people don't rely on. Maybe we can find Zou's in here, since he doesn't eat. Lucky."

Howard's also suggesting that because he's pretty sure Zou's about as happy as a clam to have a 'teaching tool' on his anatomy floating around here. A clam that has been washed ashore and eaten by gulls, that is.

"If we find mine here," Zouichi said, looking grim, "I'd prefer to destroy it." Whether they took his holographic dummy or not, chances were that the information would still be in the ship's systems. The difference was that Medical or whoever else got the dummy would then have information on how Zouichi worked.

And there were, of course, some unsavory people on the ship. He'd rather not risk it.

"That's assuming there is one for everyone. There might just be a random selection." Although one for everyone would suggest that Zouichi and Howard are right about them being for experimentation.

"If Zouichi doesn't eat and there's one for him, then that will tell us these aren't just for working out what we eat." And then maybe they could just take Ian's back, he was willing to take that risk.

He started working through the pods, unlatching the ones that looked to be the right shape.

"Stacy gives Zouichi water, so there might just be one of him around here that says 'H2O goes here'." He shakes his head. "And I don't think it's random selection. There are thousands of people in the pods, hundreds awake. What honestly are the odds that we run into your hologram the first time around?"

He looks up. The high arched ceiling is covered with pods, and tunnels allow for tentacles to bring even more in. The one with Ian, cover still hanging open, is being lifted up into a line about twenty feet above their head.

Howard points at one two pods in front of Ian's. "I bet that's yours, Zou. I bet it senses who was near the chutes last and pulls up the holograms that correlate."

In response to the pointing, Zouichi unlatched one of the two pods -- the larger one, and therefore the most likely to be his. He had his gun still in hand. If ~~this pod was made for him~~, he was going to destroy it without regrets.

"I agree it's unlikely, but that doesn't make it impossible." But if it was to show what they ate, it would make sense that whoever was closest most recently would be at the front.

Ian looked into the pod Zouchi unlatched. "If we know one of these words is water," he said, "perhaps it'll help us translate the rest of the language." After all, they all needed water, they just needed to compare the pods. Which would have been easier had the one with his hologram still been close enough to read.

The pod is indeed Zouichi's pod, just as detailed as the rest.

There's a chamber off from this one with more computers and metal counters, tall enough for the long-legged Daligig. Tentacles descend from the ceiling and tamper with some science-like apparatuses on the counters.

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