voidtreckerexpress | A New Platform [Intro Post February]

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A New Platform [Intro Post February]

On the Train

Three days after the Voidtreckers return to the void after their adventures on the biosphere world, they are awoken by a familiar announcement.

"Good morning passengers, it is day Sixteen of the month of Jelly. Points have been updated on the system."

They have indeed, and everyone can spend the morning shopping. Those who have been on the train for a while will also be expecting the second announcement that comes a few hours later.

"Shortly arriving into a designated void platform. Exit from void in ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one." A lurch and a jolt and the windows fill with the fog that means they are at a platform. The fog seems thicker than usual and as they step out onto the platform they will find it is cold, very cold. Icy fog sticks to their clothing, makes it hard to see very far; the atmosphere is dark and gloomy.

As usual the first to leave the train notice nothing as they walk silently, rucksacks on their backs, towards the barriers: Alexis Rhodes, Elfnein, Itsuki Myoudouin, Ken Ichijouji, MT, Neku Sakuraba, Nike Lemercier, Noctis Lucis Caelum, Rainbow Dash, Rei Saotome, Taichi Yagami, Tsubomi Hanasaki, Yuri Tsukikage and Zechs Merquise all pass through the platform, not looking back before they disappear through the barriers and into the fog beyond.

But on the platform itself there are new faces. Wearing hoodies in all four colours, in various states of confusion.

For New Passengers

At first all they can see is steam, billowing around them as they come to their senses. As their eyes adjust, they will see they are on a platform, glass and dark stone rising in sturdy arches around them. Behind them is a set of barriers, and in front of them is a single track extending both ways into thick fog.

They are standing, in clothes that are not their own and a style they might not even recognise. They are carrying a rucksack on their back. For a moment it seems to just be them, alone in the white haze; then the steam begins to fade and they realise they aren’t alone.

The platform is not large with sixteen figures scattered around, all facing the tracks, all dressed in cargo trousers and hoodies. To both the left and right, tracks disappear into the mist. Then there is a roaring sound and out of the fog arrives a train. Jet black with gold writing on the side. The Voidtrecker Express. There is a hiss as the doors slide open and out step a strange assortment of people. Some are human, some are less so. Most are wearing the same hoodie in one of the four colours, red, orange, blue and purple, though some are sporting different clothes in a variety of styles.

The Train

After a short time, the doors hiss open again. Those from the train may encourage those on the platform to board. It’s not like there's anywhere else to go and even if there was, you feel a pull. A need to board, a feeling that staying on the platform would lead to something terrible. If that is not enough, there are plenty of people on the platform now, to encourage them onto the train.

Each ICP shows the same message and next to the screens there are stacks of leaflets written by those on the train, with further information (see
'Publications'). The store rooms have been restocked with fresh ingredients, including several crates of avocados, the ingredient of the month of Jelly, as well as all sundries.

For passengers that have bought items, these are also scattered around the luggage carriage in various suitcases and bags.

New passengers will find their ticket allows them into their cabins. They may need to negotiate for beds, especially if they want a top bunk!

Room is tight but there are storage cubbies at the head of each bed, beds fold up and the bottom bunks double as benches for the small table. There is storage under those benches full of spare blankets and pillows.

Departure

A second horn sounds to encourage any stragglers braving the freezing fog, and the doors slide shut. Veteran passengers know what will happen next, but they may wish to brief their new companions.

The train sets off, the fog obscuring the view again as it picks up speed.

"Welcome aboard, passengers of the Voidtrecker Express." A female-coded artificial sounding voice echoes throughout the train. "Please take the time to read the passenger information displayed on the Information and Communication points and familiarise yourself with the layout and emergency exits."

The train begins to tilt, leaving the ground and rising up into the fog-filled sky.

"Entrance into Voidspace imminent. New passengers are advised to remain seated. Entry into Voidspace in ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one."

A shudder, a jolt, a lurch to the left. A flash of light, colourful and blinding. As quick as it happens it is done. The train seems to steady itself. The fog from the windows is gone now, replaced with a kaleidoscope of ever-changing colours.

Welcome to the Void!

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She's never heard someone specify pronouns before. Mind you, she's never been in a situation where it was needed. Look, her own language has only started using "he" within her lifetime. She tilts her head slightly at it. An interesting custom, at any rate.

"Just Merwen is fine," she says. "Is it rude to ask why your custom is to state that you are a 'he'?"

"Not rude at all," he assures her. "You're not the first one on the train to be confused.

"Saying them out loud is actually pretty awkward to me, honestly," he continues. "Where I come from, you would just be able to check my public network tag with something like this." He touches the device he's wearing on his face. "Almost everyone lists their pronouns in their network tag. But here, no one's networked, so I have to just. Say them."

He's been crouching on the floor this whole time but now he rocks back against the wall. "On my world, we share pronouns so that no one has to worry about getting misgendered. Apparently, that's a very unusual custom across the breadth of the multiverse." He sighs a little as he says it.

"Misgendered."

Oh, she's lost. She's very lost. "Is it so difficult on your world? Do you have many pronouns? On Shora we only ever had 'she' and 'it,' until the Valans came, and that was when I was a child. Then we needed to use 'he,' because the Valan males took offense. Do you have other sexes? Are they not always apparent?"

Well, obviously, they're not apparent if everyone has to wear clothing. Still, Merwen is more... honestly curious than upset about this.

And he's never going to turn down an honest question, especially not about something that he knows has been An Issue in his past-- and is still An Issue in, unfortunately, many other realities.

"We have mostly males and females for sex," he says, "but we also know that your sex does not define your gender. Doesn't matter what I'm packing inside my shorts; if I say I'm a he, I'm a he. And I'd sure get annoyed if someone referred to me as a she, or a they or a xe or an it, or anything else, because that's not who I am."

His lips twist wryly. "So I can't say I blame these Valan men of yours for getting offended."

"We had never seen human males before. I recall the sisters not even being sure they were human. On Shora, there are only females. Except only Spinel, perhaps, but he was born on Valedon and became one of us."

Ah, Spinel, she misses him already. But she takes what he's saying, and she thinks hard, pausing for a moment while she fidgets with her hands, snapping the webbing between her fingers. This is a very, very new concept for her. "You see sex as different from gender," Merwen says, attempting to clarify. "And if one who is born female says they are male, then your people accept that, and refer to him as such? Presumably the reverse, as well?"

She lifts her head to look at him, and shakes her head, very slightly. "I don't understand this at all," she admits. "I've never heard of such a thing. What is gender if not the sex of the body? Is it a matter of mind, or the soul?"

"I don't know much about souls," Devero says with a shrug, "but of the mind? Yes." He taps his temple, on the opposite side of the electronic device perched against his left ear. "It's the wiring up here that matters, not the meat down below.

"It's all right if you don't get it right away," he adds gently. "It took the people on my world a long time to get their heads on straight about the diversity of gender and sexuality in the human spectrum." A long time, and an apocalypse.

"So is Shora the name of the place you come from?"

"The name of our planet," Merwen confirms, with a small nod. "Shora is all ocean. There are both males and females on Valedon, our sister world, so perhaps they have similar attitudes towards gender. I truly don't know. Neither Spinel nor Nisi ever mentioned such an idea to me. I had no idea it could be so complicated."

He's been good. He's been really, really good and has kept his curiosity to himself but it breaks out of him now, he can't help it with such a natural opening. "Does everyone on Shora look the way you do?"

She's purple! And from another planet! That's wild.

"It doesn't have to be complicated," he continues. "All you need to do is address someone the way they ask to be addressed, and respect the authenticity of who they say they are."

For a moment Merwen looks startled, then she grins.

"Broadly, yes. We all share the breathmicrobes that tint our skin, and our webbed fingers and toes, and we all lack your," she gestures to her bald head, "head plumage. We are also all female. People such as yourself, male and female, live on Valedon, our sister world, but we had no contact with them until, oh, thirty-five years ago, give or take."

"Breathmicrobes," he repeats wonderingly. "Do you breathe through your skin?" That's got to be what that means, hasn't it?

He touches his head plumage with a laugh. "We call it hair," he says. He's helpful!

His enthusiastic questions continue. "If you had no contact with Valedon, what makes it your sister world? If everyone on Shora is female, how do you reproduce? --You're not born out of eggs that grow on trees, are you?"

Merwen laughs, delighted. "Do you want to learnshare everything at once, then?"

She files away the word "hair" in her brain, intent on remembering that. It seems like a useful word to know. Ticking his questions off on her fingers, she attempts to address them one at a time. "I do not breathe through my skin, but my breathmicrobes do, and they share with me. My breathmicrobes live in symbiosis with me, and can hold oxygen in addition to what is in my lungs. I can dive for long with their help." That's one.

"Valedon is our moon, but they say that we are their moon. The two worlds are close, and all know the sight of the other in the sky, even if none of us knew that humans lived there." Two.

"We are not born of eggs or trees," she gives a short laugh, "but the lifeshaper fuses two ova together from a mother and a mother-sister and places it in a mother's womb to grow in the usual way. I presume your people also grow this way. Nothing would share surprise with me now." Three. Merwen stops to think, still faintly grinning. "Was that all your questions?"

If she didn't sound so delighted, he probably would have been embarrassed. And he still is, a little, but he is also unrepentant. "Sorry," he says. "Sharing-- all kinds of sharing-- is a big thing where I come from. If I ever get too intrusive, just tell me to bugger off."

Her answers start to paint a picture for him, and it's very cool. She has a symbiotic microbial colony on her skin that helps her breathe! "Fascinating," he breathes.

"Your world and Valedon must be a binary-planet system, like Pluto and Charon!" he says. The physics of orbiting bodies are a little more familiar to him that biosciences, but honestly, not much.

He laughs. "That's how we grow too, you're right," he says. "Although we would call the person implanting the egg a fertilization specialist. And plenty of folks are able to conceive without needing to involve a specialist, where I come from." P in V still makes a baby, no matter what gender the penis- and vagina-havers are. They've just developed other ways to start the process as well.

She spreads her hands in a sort of shrug. "We sisters of Shora call ourselves Sharers. We also share freely."

At least what she says makes sense to him, even if his own examples, the names of worlds she's never heard of, titles that are different than the ones she knows, are strange to her. Probably no more strange than he finds her, though. "'Fertilization specialist,'" Merwen repeats thoughtfully. "A literal enough phrase, but I think I prefer 'lifeshaper,' especially as they do more than begin pregnancies. They shape all sorts of life, for all sorts of reasons. But yes, we know of mating in races with males and females. We simply... don't. Perhaps it made things easier when our great-grandmothers lifeshaped themselves to be as you see me now."

"You do?" He smiles. "That's lovely."

He makes a thoughtful sound. "I'd love to know more about that-- about your lifeshapers, and what else it is they can do--"

He's interrupted by the sound of a throat clearing; another passenger has come up behind him and appears to want to traverse the hall without having to run their two-person obstacle course.

"--Maybe I should help you find that room first, though."

"Oh. Yes."

To the other passenger she gives a bashful smile and murmurs an apology before pressing against the wall to let them go by. She pauses to consult her ticket again. "Sleeper one, cabin C. I don't know what knowledge that is meant to share." Merwen clicks her tongue at the large insect resting on her rucksack; it tilts its head at her and then flies to her shoulder so she can pick up the bag and sling it over her shoulder.

If Devero had noticed the insect on her rucksack, he hadn't parsed it as a living thing, and he startles back a little as it alights on her shoulder. "What is that!"

Sorry, he's distracted. He'll get back to that ticket question in just a moment.

"It's only a clickfly."

Merwen puts a hand up to her shoulder, clicks her tongue at the creature, and it crawls onto her fingers. "We have many of them on the rafts. They're very useful creatures, who hold a great deal of knowledge in their chromosomes. This poor sister is far from her hive, as am I, I suppose. It would be best if I take care of her."

He watches with that uncertain wariness of someone who is not remotely familiar or comfortable with animals as she invites the creature onto her hand. He peers at it, and despite himself, he's interested. "What do you mean, it-- she holds knowledge in her chromosomes?"

Merwen is puzzled for a moment, because she's not quite sure how to put that more clearly. Slowly, she tries, "The lifeshapers have put the words of stories and history into the chromosomes of the clickflies, and when they breed, they pass it on to their children. If you know how to share speech with them, then you can ask one to share it with you, or you can ask one to record your words for you and then send it to share with a sister on another raft." She shrugs a little, at a loss. "It isn't the only place we keep our history, of course, but the clickflies are simple, even for a child learning to read."

And people on the train had thought his version of a book was weird. Because that's what she's describing, isn't it? "So they're sort of like a-- a biological book?" he says. "Or an organic-- word processor?"

"Some of what they can share are books, yes," Merwen confirms. "I'm not certain what a 'word processor' might be, though. Taken literally... yes, they can process words." She gives a small chuckle, amused, delighted at a new phrase. "They spin the words into their webs for us to read. Here, let me share with you."

She makes a series of clicking noises with her tongue; the clickfly puts its head up, mandibles working silently as it works out what it's being asked to do, and then flies to a nearby bare spot of wall. It circles once, then begins to rapidly spin a web of thick black silk. It's a safe assumption that Merwen's own alphabet is more equipped for this than the Latin alphabet, but nevertheless, it doesn't take long at all for it to have spelled out a sentence in its web:

The First Door is the Sun.

Devero watches, his eyes wide with the wonder of the naturally curious as the creature begins to spin out words against the wall. He steps forward, reaching up to touch the silk lightly with a fingertip once the creature has completed the task. Stepping back again, he snaps a picture with his Interface, then turns to face her.

"I can't say I understand what it wrote, but I can read it. How brilliant!"

The silk is light, and fairly strong, though it pulls apart with any real effort. Merwen clicks at the insect again, and it starts to unravel its web and dispose of it by eating it.

"We both share, and we both benefit," she says, as the clickfly finishes cleaning up and buzzes to sit on her shoulder again. "The clickflies have food and a safe place to build their hive in exchange for sharing work with us."

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A New Platform [Intro Post February]

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