The gym at the B.S.A.A. North American HQ was empty as it always was when Chris called it into existence, all except for the sound of gloves hitting the heavy bag. The creaky old equipment swayed back and forth on its stand, and Chris slammed his fists into it in combo after combo, though never quite releasing any of the anger he felt.

Reavers on the ship. Psychotic, mutant flesh-eating humanoids, concealed where nobody was supposed to find them. Fed and kept alive for some twisted purpose.

It was hard enough not to imagine what other kinds of horrors could be hidden in the twists and turns of Stacy without actually stumbling upon one of them in advance. He couldn't stop picturing what would happen if they got loose. Claire already said they'd had an outbreak or two, different viruses no less.

Chris couldn't stand the thought that they were all pawns in something nobody could understand yet. He'd spent far too much time for his liking being a pawn so far-- to Umbrella as a member of S.T.A.R.S., to Excella as a member of the B.S.A.A.. Was it so much to ask he take on one stint as a soldier without having to wonder who he was really working for?

He stopped long enough to wipe the sweat from his forehead, then went right back to mercilessly punching the heavy bag. As long as he was busy being physical, he wasn't thinking too hard... and thinking too hard was the last thing he wanted to do right now.

Just off the bazaar was a large cantina, built to keep out the heat from outside. The bar circled all the way around the oblong building and in the center of the room a group of musicians played fast-paced music with a heavy beat. XaXingian dancers wearing colorful veils whirled like the metaphorical dervish, swaying and moving to the beat.

Chris was starting to feel like he was in the middle of an old movie. Though the place had a good brew that they served up when he asked for a beer, so he was happy. He wasn't positive it was beer, since when he asked for clarification Stacy's translation engines turned the bartender's explanation into something about curtains, but it tasted good enough and he'd already had two and he wasn't lying dead on the ground yet. All in all, not bad.

And god, was it nice to get off of that ship for a while. He may have been an old Air Force man, but Chris liked flying in things that had an atmosphere around them.

It was hot as hell and brought back memories of Africa, but somehow XaXing seemed cooler than the inside of the ship. Not to mention a chance to buy some supplies, his first since the day he woke up out of the pods. And that meant clothes, and supplies for his gun, a couple new knives (including a beautiful machete), a few bags of candy, fresh fruit, and cigarettes.

He lit up a cigarette and took a long drag. Ah... thank god for shore leave.


[OOC: Feel free to set your own threads in this bar if you'd like! The bar serves a wide variety of drinks, some familiar, some alien, some kind of upsetting, and also does alien bar food of the same varieties. You could dance, too, if you like kind of Bollywood-style music and alien bellydancers. Just make it obvious if your character is talking to Chris or not so I'll know if I should respond. Have fun!]

She'd gone looking for him in all the regular places. First, to the cafeteria, where he would've been sure to stuffing his face. Then, down into the hanger, where he often hid from her and the terrors of book learning. She wasn't supposed to be down here, exactly, not with people actively working on things, but the Fury was there, so it stood to reason that Vega would be, too.

But it wasn't.

So he wasn't.

"You didn't let him say goodbye," she murmured. "You didn't let Roxie say goodbye, or Yuri, and you didn't let Vega say goodbye, either." Sherry sat down heavily on the floor and rested her chin on her knees, curling herself up into as small a package as possible. She didn't want to cry, but it was tempting.

Instead, there was a familiar kind of numbness, which spread out from the back of her head and down into the rest of her. The same kind of feeling after all of her classmates had gone off to be eaten by monsters, and she was alone. Only, the difference was she hadn't really even liked her classmates. Vega had been her best friend aboard. But she would just have to get used to not seeing him, or yelling at him about studying, wouldn't she?

She didn't want to. A sniffle escaped, and Sherry worked hard to keep her face straight, her cheeks blotchy and red. It was embarrassing; Vega would definitely have made fun of her for crying. It wasn't like he was dead! Just sleeping. And maybe someday, he'd come back.

"It's okay. I'll wait for you," she mumbled. Sherry sniffle-hicced again and stood up, slowly scrubbing her hand over her face until she was sure any suspicious tears had been mopped up inexpertly. There was homework to do, and she'd have to teach him all this stuff if he ever returned. "Stupid." The little girl turned and began her long, miserable trudge to the Hub.

Those heading to the sensorium after Commander Rahk's announcement would find themselves inside a rather technologically advanced looking base, a number of armored soldiers bustling about.

Rahk himself was there, standing in front of a command station with a large screen overlooking the waiting battlefield outside, which appeared to be the ruins of some advanced city. By the serious look on his face, he was certainly ready to get this test underway.

[ooc: tagging's open! get going!]

[ooc2: sorry for the confusion, the other sections are open for tagging too.]

Come to think of it, Chris wasn't even sure that a workout in the sensoriums even counted as a workout.

Sure, his muscles had the burn of exhaustion coming on and he was sweating, but the heavy bag he was punching was just an illusion created by the ship. And so were his workout clothes and gloves. And so were the weights back there, and the trees outside the window, and so was this gym. Though it looked just like the one at the B.S.A.A. North America HQ, down to the emblem on the wall and the agents' lockers down the hall. And sure enough, C. REDFIELD's locker had a few sets of clothes, a few packs of cigarettes, an ancient can of V8 from a long-ago lunch meeting, a bag of Jolly Ranchers and taped to the door, a picture of Chris and Claire.

It was kind of creepy when you thought about it.

Still, it was the attempt to not think about things that brought Chris into the sensoriums today. Things seemed to have settled down (temporarily... always, always temporarily) but there was still an uneasy feeling in his gut and he couldn't help but feel worried. So just like always, he retreated to the solace of physical activity to clear his mind. It was an old habit of Chris', and one that went a long way towards explaining his current physical stature.

He was sitting on a bench having a rest and a drink of water at the moment. Except the water wasn't real either, was it...

Man. That was really creepy.

After everything had been sorted out with Steve, there had been a small matter of Claire's injuries. Which turned out to not be so small, when the possibility that she could be infected since she'd been burned by Steve's blood cropped up. So she'd been cleaned up, patched up, poked, and then stuck in a bubble in Contagion for observation.

She hated being down here, but it was an entirely different experience when you were stuck on the other side of the bubble. At least it gave her a lot of time to think about what had happened, and quietly guilt herself about all the people injured and the few that had been potentially infected, like her.

Not to say that she wouldn't talk to anyone else, were they to show up and talk to her.

[ooc: obvs open to anyone who got locked up in contagion too, or visitors, or if people want to visit other lab rats detainees and ignore claire, that's cool too, just leave a note so i know what's up :Db]

Chris hadn't had a good beer in what felt like a million years. In the aftermath of Kijuju, he'd been too busy worrying and seeing to Jill's condition to focus much on the partying, though the two of them had a raincheck to catch up with one another as soon as she was cleared by the medics.

Since she wasn't here, though, he knew she wouldn't have begrudged him for seeking out a little liquid refreshment in the meantime. Besides, Chris felt like he'd earned it with how quickly he'd been able to roll with all these bizarre circumstances.

So tonight, there was a big guy drinking at the Drunken Dragon.

"I feel like I'm sitting in Lord of the Rings," he muttered, mostly to himself, "But the beer makes it feel more like heaven." He glanced at the person drinking next to him at that, smirking a bit.

Sherry's legs hurt. A kind of dull, irritating, throbbing ache that made her want to do a lot of nothing. She watched Boon jump around spastically in her room from her seat at the base of her bed. Every once in a while, the alien dog would run up with a toy of some sort (his current favorite toy was a wad of knotted rags from some of the clothing Sherry'd grown out of), she would throw it, and the dog would try to eat her book.

At least Boon was nothing if not predictable. "No..! Boon! No! Books aren't snacks!" Sherry held the book over her head, the dog licked her face eagerly, "Get the toy! The toy! Not my---auuugh! That's my face! What've you been eating, your breath is horrib---ewww!"

Leon had a first-time visitor to his office this afternoon, a visitor who knocked three times before making his way through the door, looking not quite apprehensive. "Suspicious" wasn't the word either. "Wary" came a little closer.

In any case, Chris had promised to give Leon a chance and had rehearsed the least inflammatory way of letting him know that by possessing Claire Redfield's heart, he had also come into possession of the world's scariest protective older brother-in-law.

As gently as possible, of course.

"Afternoon, Captain Kennedy."

Thank god for pants.

Chris had a look around the room where his sister had been sleeping for the past year, getting the feeling he'd never quite get used to the whole "alien organs" motif this place had going for it. It seemed nice enough, though, and he was curious to know who all the things on one side of the room belonged to.

"So, I guess it'd be an understatement to say I missed a lot," he said, giving Boon a belly rub on the bed next to him.

The rest of the crew assembled on the Observation Deck to meet the latest editions to their numbers. After the revelation that their worlds are gone, many of them are even more eager to see people they knew from home.

Several people are set up near the doors to provide the new people with omnicoms and comm rings. New crew-mates might see a tall man in green armor and snake girl among their number. There are also several authoritative-looking figures ready to introduce themselves.

There's a lot to tell the new people. It's going to be a lot to take in.

[ooc: Only new characters and Command Staff can start new threads for introductions, to limit the number of threads. Everyone else, just tag in and have your guys greet the newbies.]

[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... )

Yes, Leon did occasionally take a day off. They were few and far between, but even he had had no intention of working 24/7. Since there was, for the moment at least, no impending crisis hanging over their heads, he could afford to take off an extra day or two here and there.

At the moment, he was at the bar in the Drunken Dragon, having a beer. He hadn't had much time to come before, but he figured he'd check the place out.

Given that he's not busy, and beer puts him in a less linefacey mood, now might be a good time to approach him if you want to have a word.

The rest of the crew assembled on the Observation Deck to meet the latest editions to their numbers. After the revelation that their worlds are gone, many of them are even more eager to see people they knew from home.

Several people are set up near the doors to provide the new people with omnicoms and comm rings. New crew-mates might see a green-skinned alien and snake girl among their number. There are also several authoritative-looking figures ready to introduce themselves.

There's a lot to tell the new people. It's going to be a lot to take in.

[ooc: Only new characters and Command Staff can start new threads for introductions, to limit the number of threads. Everyone else, just tag in and have your guys greet the newbies.]

Leon had called for a full staff meeting for the Security team, though it was also open to whoever else wanted to attend. He had gone easy on his group since the Bridge mission, mostly giving them time to rest, recover, and deal with the things they've all been told. But now it was time to start moving forward again.

The meeting was being held in the Precinct, in one of the larger conference rooms. He gave time for people to file in and sit down where they would. Once everyone was settled, he addressed the group.

"First of all, thank you all for coming. For those of you who don't know me, I'm Special Agent Leon S. Kennedy, from the United States Strategic Command, and current Chief of Security here about Transmigration 9.

"A couple of weeks ago, we all learned some startling information. That our worlds were gone, destroyed by the Ohm, and we're all that remains. That we've been chosen to travel across the multiverse to fight the Ohm, save what remains, and possibly restore what was lost.

"All of that may or may not be true, and we have people working to verify that one way or another. The only thing we know for sure is that, unfortunately, we're all stuck here for a while.

"Because of that, there'll be a few changes around here, most of which you'll hear straight from the Captain and the Commanding Officers in the coming days. As for this department in specific...

"Security was formed with the intent to be the first line of defense for this crew; to protect them from any threats on this ship, and sometimes to protect them from each other. That hasn't changed, and never will. How we operate is going to change, however.

"For the most part, we've taken a defensive posture, waiting for something to go wrong before we deal with it. But a Fix on Fail strategy isn't going to work anymore. Now, before you get started, no, we are not going to start hunting down and locking up crew members who may be a problem someday maybe." He wanted to be clear on that point, particularly with a crew as prone to kneejerk reactions as this one. "But, acid spitting roaches, one of which was crossbred with an Ohm; a variety of class 4 viral and biological weapons, all gathered in a failed experiment to create a biological weapon to annihilate the Ohm; the Nightmare King trapped in Escherville; HAL 9000; the Yeerks... these are all threats that originated on board. Things that were left behind when the previous crew abandoned ship.

"We need to find out what else they left behind; what other experiments they had going that have been left unattended for God knows how long. To that end, we need to root through every section of this ship, search it from stem to stern to locate and deal with these problems. We'll also be working with Engineering and Neuropathy to locate threats and malicious programs in the computer systems.

"In addition, we're also going to be expanding our duties to become a full blown Emergency Services Unit. We have to be able to deal with everything from heated arguments and hazmat spills to heart attacks and hull breaches. Some people here would be better suited for certain tasks than others, but everyone will crosstrained in a number of disciplines. I don't want to be caught short handed because we only had a few people trained to handle, say, hazmat spills, happened to be on an away mission, or were busy running through a maze, looking for cake.

"As for dealing with the crew themselves, Stacy has generally handled that, but we do have a bit more leeway now. We can interfere physically in conflicts between crew members without worrying about violations, provided you're not using excessive force. If you feel the behavior of a crew member has warranted something more than just a violation, you can haul them down to the brig where they can sit and cool off for a day or two, and any other additional penalties will be handed down by senior command, if necessary." Because that whole trial thing worked out ever so well last time.

"We have a lot of work to do, people. None of us want to be stuck here, but so long as we are, we need to make sure everyone stays as safe as possible."

((OOC: Beneath the two subthreads, people are free to talk to each other and free thread however they wish.))

It had been a busy day, or at least as busy as Chris could make it. Between his own regimen of physical therapy, talking with his sister, and contacting this Luke Skywalker guy that had been looking after Steve, Chris was actually struggling to find things to keep him from doing the one thing he didn't want to do too much of: thinking.

Now, though, he had worked himself as long as he could. His body was starting to give out on him, and it was only reluctantly that he headed back to the room he was sharing with Jill. He flopped down on the bottom bunk. Yea, that was supposed to be Jill's bed, but at the moment, he was too tired to climb up onto his bunk. He hadn't even noticed if Jill was in the room or not. But as soon as he hit the bed, his mind began to dwell on certain past events. The Kijuju incident, Raccoon City, and the news regarding the destruction of the various worlds. It began to sink in about the massive loss of life, and the ever compassionate Chris was having problems coping for the moment.

Claire Redfield isn't the type of person to sit quietly when she's got a lot on her mind, sorting all the thoughts out into a neat little row until they make sense to her. She wishes she were that organized, but even when she's filing reports her associates in TerraSave always complained about how chaotic her way of going about things seemed to be.

( 'Cause you're talking rock and roll )

The Kobayashi Maru test had been long and draining, but ultimately worth it, Picard believed. With preparations for forming a civilian system of government already underway, and the senior crew having little in the way of business requiring further discussion, Picard was finally able to get down to paperwork. He was beginning the creation of requisition forms for special weapons and devices from the various storage rooms. With luck and some semblance of order, it would help Leon and the security staff keep tabs on who had what weapon or what vehicle.

Still, paperwork couldn't possibly take up all his time, so he was also waiting for members of the crew to speak with him about problems aboard the ship. Perhaps there weren't problems at all the crew wished to discuss, just other matters they felt needed the captain's attention. Regardless, he would hear them all if he had to.

"Stacy, can you play some music?" Picard asked. "Something light, maybe some Latin? A mambo or tango."

It felt great to not feel any muscle in her stomach anymore. Well on her way to being completely recovered (even if she sometimes felt the need to poke her scar), Sherry had scurried into the sensoriums, right out from under the noses of her otherwise occupied parents. Call it habit, but she found herself again in the Raccoon City part, dressed in a blue shirt, denim coveralls and a red jacket, watching the red-and-gold colored leaves sway in the breeze. Her pink and white sneakers bore grass stains, just like the knees of her coveralls.

No ducks, this time, but a blue kite lay on the ground beside her. She had thought about flying it, but when she realized that she didn’t have the foggiest idea how, gave up and decided to lie on the ground, instead. After thinking for a while about nothing, her thoughts turned to heavier subject matter: If she had really been Claire and Leon’s daughter, Sherry wondered and chewed her thumbnail, would she have known how to fly a kite? Maybe not, they didn’t seem like kite-flying people. It was hard to pretend when a lot of things were still new experiences. Was she acting right? Would they tell her if she was?

“Well, of course they would,” Sherry told no one in particular. “They like making sense.” Usually. She sighed and looked at the kite. It was hard to get used to, really, this business of them showing affection and wanting to see her. Sometimes, she wanted to tell them to stop, but couldn't bring herself to. Sherry wasn’t used to it, but she’d do her best. She was doing her best…

She wanted them to want her, after all.