Oh boy.

Samus has had an excellent start to her new job. She was a little wary to take on the responsibility of security. After all, she always considered herself better as a free agent rather than part of the organized system. She always seemed to need to bend the rules in order to get things done. Leon understood this, though, and still offered her the position. Maybe it would even give her a bit more freedom in her methods, having to answer to less superiors. Maybe this would be a good thing.

Except for the fact that it now gave her adopted bird son even more unsupervised freetime around this very dangerous ship, which is exactly why the new Chief of Security was sitting with her head in one hand next to the passed out Komali in the Med Bay instead of in her new office in the precinct. Oh the joys of being a single parent.

Samus has decreed that Grif exercise and hopefully, through some act of god, become less of a slob than he currently is. Part of this is getting him to do something besides laying around on the Obs Deck whining about everything under the sun and several things that aren't.

The sensoriums are set up like a gym, a not uncommon thing considering some members of the crew. One of the treadmills is running, but there's nobody on it. Grif is sitting on a bench off to one side, playing what might be some sort of species of gameboy with the sound muted. He listens in case of approaching footsteps as he waits on the distance to rack up.

What? He's not running a couple miles. Not in this or any universe!

Grif is in the brig.

He's not a happy guy right now, but then again he's in the brig. The cot isn't comfortable but he's lying out on it on principle, boots up on the wall because the space is a tad narrow for him. Grif still has his armor, but he's been disarmed and his omnicomm has been confiscated. His comm ring is on one of the fingers on his right hand (he finds it creepy how it adjusted over his gauntlet) and honestly he feels pretty lucky. Nobody tried to superglue it to his forehead.

So for now, Grif is about as bored as he is physically capable of being and in fairly grumpy spirits as he lies on his back, hands folded on his chest, and tries to decide what the ceiling is made out of.

Several buildings in the City had been completely destroyed during Aang's rampage, but a few had survived relatively unscathed. It had only taken Kang two days to repair the Drunken Dragon; he'd done so by himself, not even waiting for his leg to heal up a bit first.

Usually, he didn't bother lighting any candles or using the fireplace in the tavern unless it was a period when the artificial sun had set. He could see perfectly fine in the dim light. For the celebration, though, he'd thrown the windows open wide, scrounged up every candle he could find, and started up a fire, knowing that human vision wasn't as good as his own. The tables surrounding the stage had been cleaned, as well as the tankards, and the door was propped open. The bozak had even wrestled two of the 60-gallon barrels from the back room into a corner of the main room for easier access, one of cactus juice and one of ale. If more was needed, he was sure he could get someone to help bring out another.

Tess had commandeered the kitchen to make her food, bringing in her own equipment. Kang had been slightly afraid at first that she was going to burn the place down, but nothing had happened yet. She seemed to know what she was doing, even if she'd given him a few scares.

The sunlight glistened on the old sword blade teeth and dinnerplate eyes of the comical-looking wooden dragon grinning above the entrance. Come in, relax, have a drink and a bite to eat!

[OOC note: Both drinks are alcoholic, and the cactus juice has twice the kick of the ale. :D;]

Nightmare becomes reality....

_{[roster: Leader - Caelestine, Fletcher, Sherry, Vega, Doc, Asuka]}

Something...odd is happening on the ship. Plant-like protrusions are occasionally sprouting in places throughout the ship.

They look like mistletoe, but this is purely coincidental. It's not like it's the holidays on the ship, right? It might be for some people, back home (if they still had a home), but others were grabbed from different times. No, it's just coincidence that these little devices look vaguely like mistletoe, and coincidence what they're being used for.

For you see, when this "mistletoe" is overhead, a crew member will be trapped in an invisible forcefield, and won't be able to escape until someone has kissed them or otherwise showed them some equivalent of affection. (Cheek kisses and sloppy puppy kisses from the canine crew members count). The "mistletoe" spring itself is shielded itself and can't be destroyed, the only way out is a kiss.

Why is this all happening? GLaDoS is performing whacky behavioral experiments, that's why. Each time, it happens, she intones messages like the following.

"Please express affection for your fellow crewmate to free them."

"This is of the utmost importance, and part of ongoing Crew Coherency and Cooperation Studies."

"Please do not attempt to leave the vicinity until you have participated."

"Participation is required. Why wouldn't you want to participate?"

"The Transmigration9 AI Complex thanks you for your participation in important research. Unless you don't want to participate, but not participating would make me disappointed. I suppose you just want to disappoint me."

And of course, sometimes she even outright lies.

"There will be cake."

Stacy jerks and shudders to a sudden stop, likely upsetting more than a few things already upset because the comms have stopped working. And deep down inside Stacy, on the first level, a little section thoughtfully titled "Contagion Containment and Quarantine" spilled open.

Hal 9000 had opened it up. And the things that had been kept there were still alive.

Or at least, they were moving...

Their groans echoed through the lower level as they spilled out of Quarantine 1, shambling and shuffling toward the Hub. The Hub would take them where they wanted to go. And what they wanted to do first was make some new friends.

So they went to the Pod Caverns. Then, after that, the zombies started heading up to the City...

[[OOC: Holy $#%&, Team Left Behind, ZOMBIES. Going to set up some subthreads, please wait until I do! INFO HERE, FIRST SUB-THREAD GO GO GO!]]

The sensorium appears deserted. It's taken on the appearance of a box canyon, the ground mostly orange and dusty with some particularly stubborn grass eking out an existance. The hills are steep enough to cut off your view of anything distant, and the sky above is a blazingly clear blue. It's also very hot here. Very hot. The sun does not love this canyon.

Though there's no one around, a soft whirring becomes audible. Then it turns into the full engine-whine of a warthog jeep as one comes flying up one of the hills, catching air off the top. There's a man in orange armor at the wheel, yelling.

"WHOO! YEAH!"

And what happens to Frank 'Doc' DuFresne when he is left to his own devices? He decides that searching for the Medical Bay before he tries to get Grif and Tex to get along mostly, so he doesn't have to patch the resulting injuries that will eventually happen. It didn't take long for Doc to find it.

Hopefully whoever's there, doesn't mind the interruption.

For the newbies, there are people waiting for them in the Obs Deck. A whole gaggle of people. Behind them is the nasty statue, and the beautiful sight through the windows of the stars streaming past and the swirling vortex of collars that was interdimensional travel.

There are more questions than answers, but the crew is willing to help, especially the Command Staff and greeters.

[ooc: Newbie Helpers List | Instructions: Post your character with one post establishing them as being podpopped. 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... )