voidtreckerexpress | A New Platform [Intro Post March]

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A New Platform [Intro Post March]

On the Train

Once again passengers are awoken by the morning announcement.

"Good morning passengers, it is day One of the month of Kazoo. 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 is thick, the air is warm and humid and there are rumbles of thunder, the air heavy with the promise of rain.

As usual the first to leave the train notice nothing as they walk silently, rucksacks on their backs, towards the barriers: Alfredo Martini, Daia, Enna Alchiba, Lord El-Melloi II, Natsuno Yuuki, Nita Callahan, Saku Gyousou, Sakura, V and Wen Qing

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, and seems smaller with twenty-seven 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.

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'). Those not new to the train will note the addition of an eighth sleeper carriage. The store rooms have been restocked with fresh ingredients, it seems the month of Kazoo is defined by the tomato and there are plenty of them.

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 as thunder rumbles further and the storm threatens to break. 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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A breathed laugh. "Humans. They're everywhere. If this were CIV there would be a definite cultural win in the outing. Could be that this is specifically designed for humans but I doubt that. Not if no one has ever seen them. Could be human, though, you're right. Could have somehow shifted into another dimensional plane. Or evolved past the need of a physical form. Extraterrestrial experimentation?" None of it makes much sense.

"Or maybe it's just the train itself. Maybe it's sapient. That would make a lot of sense-- especially if it was built by someone with nostalgia or even a revival-- Billy Joel in 4057? Something to see. It would make sense for a machine left on its own trying to regulate human patterns because it doesn't have anyone to tell it what to do.

Is that what we're here waiting on?"

She's not Terran, huh? Well that might be a question for later.

"Train kicked us all off. Y'know. For train stuff. And I guess to pick y'all up 'cause it don't give us the rundown. The people who were here before gotta do it. They say it thinks but it's not it in a way where it can better communicate. It's also got a pretty good mix of random people, but a good chunk of 'em are some variety of enhanced Terran." Magic. Cybernetic. Genetic. Whatever.

He gestures towards the ramp at the luggage carriage. "Come on, I'll show ya where those sleepin' cars are at." When someone showed him, they took him through the full run of the train. "Figure you'd wanna drop off your helpful new handbag they give ya."

"That happens. I'm not surprised." She didn't know what it was about them but you just couldn't keep them out of the universe for long. It was nice though in a way. Comforting. To know that some things never changed.

"Sure! I'm game. Though some stuff I should take with me." She tries to jam the journal in the front pocket of her hoodie and clicks her tongue. "I need to get a spare dimension at some point." Pockets that are the same size on the inside as they were on the outside were just a pain. She never could get used to them.

"What's the day to day like here?"

"Some people got those around here." He says without surprise. "Some people can make stuff out of nothin', too. There's a Spider person that'll make you clothes if you pay her in sweet stuff."

He heads onto the train, waiting for her to follow. He takes her into the luggage carriage end, and describes as he goes. "Luggage here. Triage is in the next one. There's sorta odds and ends of emergency medical supplies in there, but medical is way up further." He passes through, right into the slightly creepy dressing carriage, complete with its spider webs.

As he passes by cabin 1:B he taps on the name 'Yondu Udonta' on the door. "Thatun's mine. What's your ticket say your room number is?"

"Good to know." The luggage, the triage, the spider woman who has a good scheme going on. The Doctor is definitely not going to spend an unknowable amount of time in a hoody.

"Sleeper 8, Cabin A." She takes note of his door as well, just in case she wants to visit him later.

"You must give tours like this often."

"Nah, your my first. But don't get too cocky about it.... Wait, 8? There were just seven when I got off the train."

Now he's a little quicker about moving through, curious as he moves from car to car to car, all the way up to 8. Where he turns and looks around and, yup, that sure is an extra car that happened in the whole microsecond they were off the train.

"I guess it don't like us lookin' at it when it changes."

But hey, there's her cabin. "Look, I'm plannin' on gettin' food. It is on the other end of the train. If'n' you want wanna come with I'll stick around a bit. If you wanna fool around in here for a while I can just mosey off."

"Don't worry, I'll be gentle." Cocky is her middle name and, in any case, who can resist an opening like that?

"Interesting. So it adds on. Beautiful thing." She pats the door and then, never one to forego company.

"I'll come with! What's good?"

"I didn't say ya had to go easy on me," okay, he might have a little bit of a shit-eating grin after that comeback, and he waves it off after a chuckle.

"Ahh, they got a few recipes in there. I ain't the best but I figured out how to follow 'em when half the crew turned to kids about a week ago. I got stuck as one of the responsible adults. Lucky me."

Actually, he didn't mind it all that much while it was happening. It let him be the type of man he wanted to be when his crew's ferocity wouldn't let him before. But afterwards he had to take a good hard look at all his baggage and go get drunk.

He leans against the wall outside the door, waiting on her while she takes care of her personal business, but where he can still talk at her.

Interesting. The Doctor absorbs it all as she sorts her things out. Not much in terms of things, what she wants, what she wants to bin. Everyone turning into kids is fascinating and she wonders what must have occurred to make that happen-- if were physiological or otherwise.

"I would be careful about saying not take it easy on you. I bite." She clicked her teeth at him as she passed him by the door, then kept grinning as she went out into the corridor.

"Does changing into children happen often? You seem pretty blase about it so I'm assuming it's not something to sneeze at."

Here she is threatening to bite him before he can threaten to eat her, now how is that fair! It's not. "I'm gonna hold you to that," he jokes, before heading off on the long damn journey to the kitchen.

"It's more a case of I had a lotta strange stuff happenin' before I showed up than stuff happening here. The whole kid thing was weird but from the perspective of a man that was wagin' a jailbreak with a scientifically augmented intelligent racoon and a seedling tree monster and then had a real bad argument with a sentient planet who happened to also be an asshole, a few people turnin' into kids was nothin'. Some of the other people said it was rare that physical bodies get messed with."

So that's that, he guesses? Who the hell knows. The worst part is he knew it wrung some secrets out of people that ought not to be spread without cause to admit.

Most of this explanation happening as he leads her through the spa.

She laughs.

"That sounds brilliant! Oh I'd like to meet them. All of them. Raccoon. Tree. Planet. Maybe I should hitch a ride with you one of these days." She randomly picks up a warmed stone from a table and juggles it from hand to hand as she follows.

"I wonder why though? And where or when are we? It's so bizarre. And the void... it's not a vortex like I've ever seen. There's just nothing. Really gets you going doesn't it? All this mystery hanging in the air."

"The planet's gone. It was a pretty intense argument and he lost. Guy was a real jackass, though, with big plans that had to be shut down. The rat and the twig were alright. Wouldn't have minded gettin' to know them better."

He shrugs a little. "I dunno, I've just been rollin' with it. Feels a little differ'nt from a jumpdrive or a hyperdrive. Considerin' it's modeled after somethin' that follows a preordained path, I ain't sure if that means its route is planned or if it's just for looks. These platforms sure seem laid out beforehand, though, and we ain't the ones that do mission research. It gets dumped in our laps."

He travels through the armory to the surprisingly barren library as they're talking. The only books present being the ones that people donated.

"Mm." The planet being gone doesn't sit well with her. She gets it. She does. A sentient planet isn't the same as...other things. She can only hope it didn't take anyone with it. She tries not to think of a blasted landscape, cracked spires, arid skies.

Again.

She pushes it away and looks around at the library.

"Sad place this is." And so empty. "I wonder how long it's been going for. I wonder where it will end up." Questions that had no answers, she knew. "At least the company is good, and hopefully the food as well, but I'll withhold judgement until I've actually tasted it."

Oh, he's got some stories about Ego that might help those thoughts of grief. But he doesn't offer them up just yet, not without asking, 'cause they're a little heavy for someone might not be ready for 'em.

"The food's usually good if the former soldier with the metal arm makes it. I'm hit or miss."

He does stall in the library to look around. "Yeah, I think we're the ones that gotta fill it. Next one came with stuff, though."

He leads into the music carriage from there. "Most of what I come across is Terran music here, but there's a good supply of it. Instruments here an' there, not that a lotta people do much performin'."

Maybe, but her grief is...not easy to speak to. Not even to herself.

"You wouldn't want me in there. I used to be a good cook-- I think. No I'm sure I was at some point. The odds are with me." And more with her than she wants to think. "But I've lost the knack."

She smiles as they come to the music carriage, running her fingers over the keys of a keyboard. Another knack she's lost.

"Do you play?"

"Don't worry about it. I'm learnin' but I'd still probably not complain about your cookin' but I bet you just wanna see me slavin' behind a hot stove."

He watches her examine the keyboard. Seems almost wistful at a side-glance. What'd make her memory so fuzzy? At least that's what he's gatherin'. He could stop dickin' around and ask but this is a long-ass train and some things are good sit-down conversation.

"Who, me? Nah. I whistle. Don't play. I don't mind it here though 'cause it's somethin' to keep my mind busy."

He demonstrates for her, one of the songs he's picked up since being on the train. It comes naturally to him, moreso than the words spoken from his scratchy throat. But that's because the Centaurian language was mostly whistling. He might not remember as much as he'd like, the predisposition to speak to Kree literally beaten into him, but the casual ability is still there.

Edited 2021-03-03 03:32 (UTC)

"You might look good in an apron." She realizes faintly that she may come off as flirting. That is fine. Flirting helps distract from the truth of things and it's not really flirting. Is it? No. It's not. It's just teasing. That's it.

Obviously some of Jack rubbed off on her.

She listens and appreciates it. Even joins in on a little counter melody. Whistling was a skill that she never forgot--though at some times considered themself too posh to do, but you were never too posh for that.

When they're finished, she smiles.

"The Beatles. I saw them in concert once. It was a good time." And nothing terrible had happened aside from a slight Sontaran invasion but there was only one and he was lost and lactating so you had to take pity on the poor thing really.

"Well, you're not wrong. I am pretty in one."

Oh, Yondu is absolutely flirting. But Yondu is flirting with the very realistic assumption that a cute archivist-looking woman, apparent ex-con or not, isn't going to be into a scarred and grizzled old space captain. Hell, he's not even tried with anyone in earnest for a decade, the occasional line being dispensed but other than that doing the oh-so classy activity of hiring himself some company.

At least he's feeling playful enough to banter after a couple of weeks of his own more miserable personality facets shining through.

"Nice voice you got," he says of her whistling. 'Voice' he calls it, like he doesn't just consider it whistling. And that's not flirting, that's just facts.

"Alright, uh... Gym this way. Gardens and greenhouse, too. There's a pretty goddess here- I'm talkin' literal goddess. Not even like Celestials. Those apparently happen in some universes and this train grabs 'em somehow. But she been taken real good care of the plants there."

Having been an scarred and grizzled old space sort of captain herself not too too long ago, he'd be surprised. She was tempted to comment on the apron comment but for once had the foresight to keep her foot well out of her mouth because she didn't want to step in what couldn't be easily stepped out of.

Not that she was completely uninterested.

But not a good thing for the first day -- besides which --

Other things that she doesn't want to think of.

"Thanks! You too. Great pitch." And she means it. "Oh... I'll have to go say hallo. I've met Satan before but not so much a goddess. At least not a real one." Perhaps real from a cultural perspective, but then again, what does she know?

"Not fond of the grabbing thing but...I assume she's gotten used to it."

Her crew was undoubtedly miles better than his. "I met another guy on here that met the devil." But that guy is actually a demon, and one who might end up with a face familiar to the Doctor since she's had one real similar.

"I ain't fond of them takin' people, either. I don't reckon anyone is, goddesses included, but it's the youngin's that chafes me. If I had the chance I'd try to at least get these littluns back to somewhere decent. Not a lot of 'em got places to go to, but they shouldn't be runnin' these missions."

He taught Peter to be a thief when he was a kid, but that was basic survival that he needed to have. How to fly, how to hide, how to lockpick, how to run. He'd teach any one of these kids the same, even wants to so that they make it out.

But they sure as shit shouldn't be on this train. "Mind me askin' what you are? I'm Centaurian."

Her crew is the best, always the best, so hard to beat.

"Really? Huh. Suppose he gets around." Which isn't surprising considering. She frowns a bit.

"Yeah... that's... a little questionable. I can understand us-- and being generous it may not mean to scoop up kids but that doesn't excuse the fact that they're here."

As to what she is... that's always a question she's afraid to answer, especially after everything. Even after Gallifrey had returned, the wounds of the Time War lingered. And now... now it feels even worse. She wonders what new legends will be born that she'll feel ashamed of, that she'll feel responsible for.

Still--

"Time Lord." A tight smile and there's a sorry just behind it while at the same time wondering why she still has to be.

For now, all the name does is invoke a nod. 'Time Lord' is a strange kinda name for a species. "I'm gonna take the incredibly rough leap here and assume that doesn't mean y'all just make clocks."

Why does she look like he might hold it against her, though?

"I won't bug ya or nothin' about it, your business is yours... despite the fact you've been strange enough that I'd love to know what the hell you been gettin' into. It just makes it homier when you're used to different types and there's not been a whole lot." There are a few, but he's been used to being surrounded by variety.

"So how about this one. You got a name? Or should I just make one up for ya for plausible deniability?" She gets another wry grin for that as they enter the games car.

"I don't really want to talk about it." Because there is too much and not enough and it's still a tender subject, a wound only just scabbed over except not so much anymore. "But I'm different, if it helps."

The last one again? Aside from the Master? Was she really? No, it wasn't the same. There had to be others out there. Refugees. Something. She is tired of seeing it. So damn tired.

That can be thought about later.

"The Doctor. That's what I go by. This looks like an interesting room." Said mostly just as filler. It was interesting but her thoughts are still a bit jumbled.

"I reckon. There are some card games I ain't all that familiar with. Video games. People like it." Filler conversation in the one car he doesn't do all that much in. But as he said, he doesn't pry.

He'd pointed out his name earlier, but still he says, "I'm Yondu." Then taps his chest twice with his right fist, gives her a slight bow in Ravager greeting, but those red eyes are a little concerned when he regards her.

"Since you're the Doctor and all that, next car might be up your alley. It's Medical. There's a pretty good mix of magic users an' regular folks doin' business in there. Since I had a rough time before I showed up, I came in to get my fin checked out. Had a decent expert to take a look."

"Love me some video games." And there may be some things she can cannibalize for parts, but she'll think of that later.

"Yondu." She grins. "I like that. What's that you just did?"

She wrinkles her nose.

"Not that kind of Doctor. I know some basics but-- I'm useless in a crises." Or at least that kind of crises.

A New Platform [Intro Post March]

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