voidtreckerexpress | A New Platform [Intro Post April]

A New Platform [Intro Post April]

On the Train

Once again passengers are awoken by the morning announcement.

"Good morning passengers, it is day Sixteen 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 after lunch. A lunch that may be a bit sparse: between the big eaters and the stress bakers, the stores have been stretched thin the last two weeks.

"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 steam is thin, with blue skies seen above. The sun shines brightly down, warm light pooling on the platform.

As usual the first to leave the train notice nothing as they walk silently, rucksacks on their backs, towards the barriers: Cassie Lang, Glorfindel, Jessie Custer, Olivia, Paddra Nsu-Yeul, S’reee, Thea Queen, Wei Wuxian.

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, open, with a vine-covered wall stretching high either side of the barrier. 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 eighteen 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 doors close behind them.

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 plenty more tomatoes.

For passengers that have bought items, these are also scattered around the luggage carriage in various suitcases and bags. There is a suitcase stocked with spare wash kit items, for those who are running low as well as a box labelled Do Not Use Yet that is full of small 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 who are making the most of the sunshine. 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!

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

... Huh. Pocket dimension or something else? Ghost files that away for later investigation.

"Never hurts to get a second opinion," he says. Never trust just one source isn't so much beaten into his head as burned there, the scars healed up but legible still. He's not going to forget it so easily. "Tell me what you've got."

"Well, there's the pamphlets... those helped me out at first. But I can give it a shot." He rolls his shoulders a little and smiles. "So this place is called the Voidtrecker Express. The 'void' in question is a world between worlds, so to speak. We're all from different worlds - barring the people who come from the same place, obviously."

And him and Q'uila, but that's something to explain later. "There's all sorts of species here, including people who look human but aren't." He raises his hand slightly, before putting it back down. "So if you don't know something, just... ask, as long as you're not a dick about it. There's people with all sorts of powers - magic exists in some worlds, some worlds have higher tech levels than others, so it's hard to just assume what people know or can do."

"The answer for 'why am I here?', other than the existential answer, is supposedly 'to help worlds that we go to for missions'. We just came off of a really rough one, so people are extra wiped right now. In actuality... supposedly this train is a fugitive of sorts, so who knows? Not us, apparently, because gods fucking forbid we ever get any information that's clear cut..." Grumble, grumble.

"There's a few people here who were in similar situations before, myself included. Q'uila and I were in another world between worlds, though no train. She's got cat ears and a tail - er. Purple hair. There's another with red hair. Related to her, actually. Neither are from my world. I can help a little if you have issues with settling in or something... oh!" He snaps his fingers. "There's a guy named Roland you'll want to look around for. You're on purple team with me, and he's team leader. ... That doesn't mean a ton other than 'guy who organizes stuff and makes sure we have supplies'."

Granted, purple team is more organized than some of the other teams he's seen, but considering one of the teams is 'team fight everything' he's not suprised.

Casper might catch that there's a half-second where Ghost wants to laugh at 'people who look human but aren't,' if the fact that he's talking exclusively via technopathy isn't enough of a clue that there's something weird going on. He definitely wouldn't know anything about that, nope. And he'll be keeping his eyes out for those pamphlets.

"I'll keep an eye out," he says. "And I'm not going to knock logistics people, I'd rather have one of those for leadership than someone who is all about the glory of combat or something."

Not that he can't handle combat (though it's not in a way that would meet approval from the glory-seeking type), but logistics people tend to be sensible and he'll take that any day.

"What's the deal with the teams, then?" he asks. "Other than the colors."

A technopath can be a human. Probably.

"Ugh. Gods, I know those types. A lot of my extended family is those types." Vikings. "No one seems a hundred percent sure... there's exceptions to the rules but I know red gets sent on the most combat stuff, orange seems to have the highest percentage of science types... purple seems to be pretty broad. I have no idea about blue, honestly. Sorry."

"So we're team everything else. Got it." There's half a laugh in the tone, which really shouldn't be possible on a voice synth. "If it makes you feel any better, my 'extended family' - " He actually holds his hands up and does finger quotes. " - is hellscape capitalists, so nobody in this conversation comes out ahead on that front."

Still, sounds like orange team is the ones with the brains to pick about all this, with maybe some of purple. That's good information to have.

"Yeah, more direct branch of the family is less of the charge into battle types and more the sneaky bastard types. Or just monsters." He shrugs at it - it doesn't bother him anymore. "At least in terms of blood relations. Family of choice is a lot better."

Anyway. Leaving that topic swiftly behind. "A lot of us seem to be jacks of all trades - I'm really good in combat but if you need someone on a mission who can basically disappear in the shadows I'm very good at that, for example." He's no good at picking locks, though - Alcuin was showing him, but they kind of never got that far.

"Sounds about right. I can hold my own in a fight and probably keep up with almost anyone in the hard sciences, plus a few other tricks." The technopathy being a pretty obvious one. No, he's not going to reveal the rest to a total stranger, not at the moment. "Some first aid if we need it, but not that kind of doctor."

"Oh, you're definitely gonna want to talk to Senku. His world ended up basically getting a reset in terms of technology and he's been literally building it back up. The only hard science I'm good at is anatomy, and even then I'm a lousy medic without magic. Grew up in a funeral home, so..."

If you wanna know bones, he can help. Or where a person can get shot and survive. Or other things involving mangling and death. Doctor? Not so much.

"Nothing wrong with that," he's saying, even as his brain catches on with - "Sure, magic, that might as well be a thing." Yes, plenty of people would probably consider what he does magic, anyway, but that doesn't mean it is.

"Anatomy's useful anyway," he says. "You can take that with a grain of salt, considering that neuroscience is medical-adjacent, but knowing how your own body works is more useful to most people than complex chemistry or robotics."

"It is in mine, but it's... complicated. Gods and all that. Ones most people don't believe in." There's a few with active worship, the Hindu pantheon in particular, but not most. "Also vampires and mages. Kind of a weird mix."

Anyway. "I'm no good at neuroscience, or anything close to that. I'm sure if someone were to take a scan of my head it'd have some kind of damage." A raven sitting on a nearby shelf caws at him. Casper turns.

"No, I'm not being -" Squawk. "I'm just saying that I'm fucked u -" Chirp squawk. "... Yeah, I know." He sags a little bit, shaking his head. "Sorry if you somehow understand birds. He's got a foul mouth." Squawk. "No, not fowl mouth, you moron." Caw. "No, you."

There's no malice in his tone, at least. It's clear they've had this exchange before.

"I'd offer, but I don't exactly have the equipment at hand." A slight tilt of his head, this time directed at Bob.

"I don't, but I can tell he's smarter than he looks." And that's all he's going to say on the matter unless directly asked. "He's probably right, though. There's plenty of places for things to be not quite right without being damaged." There's a difference between 'my neurology sucks' and 'I got in a fight with a concussion and lost,' and he's known a couple of the latter.

A gesture with spread hands. "I mean, the language versus fine motor control parts of mine didn't get wired in correctly, but that's just. Experimental neurology problems."

"I think there's one of those... machines in medical? CAT or PET or something with three letters that I don't remember since I've never used it." He's never even gotten an x-ray done. "Experimental neurology, huh? ... That sucks." There's no other word for it.

"Eh... thought I read once that PTSD literally changes your brain. Then there's the 'looked too far into the abyss and got smacked in the brain by a Lovecraftian being' thing. No idea if that shows up physically."

"'Changes' and damage aren't the same thing," he says, and there's the feeling almost of someone gearing up to talk about the thing they know better than themselves. "Brains are changing all the time, especially at your age - the main part of your development doesn't finish until around twenty-five, and every time you learn something new, you're changing stuff around in there."

Even if it's just learning the traditional way, instead of the injecting alien bits programmed with other people's memories way. Neither trauma nor development was Morgan's specialty, but learning and memory sure as hell were. "Damage is something that can't be fixed or worked around. You can learn your way around trauma, teach your brain to do other shit with it. It's long and hard and it sucks, but it's not like getting a hit to the back of the head and having blurry vision the rest of your life."

He takes a deep breath, which is obviously for calming, considering breathing isn't how he speaks. "That's my opinion as someone who inherited a neuroscience degree, anyway. I'm not a psychology guy." A weak shrug, with one shoulder only. "The Lovecraftian bullshit is closer to being in my wheelhouse, honestly."

"I'm not sure if it's ever going to fully develop, then. My aging kind of got halted. Hal my body's also now technically not flesh, it's solidified ichor. No idea how to tell the difference."

Learn your way around trauma, huh? "I got thrown into a mental dungeon twice in the last place I was at so my friends could basically bitchslap my issues and help drag me out of them a little bit. Like, there was a door and everything."

"...Well, at least you didn't get stuck at sixteen or something. You're most of the way there."

The rest of it gets a thoughtful look. "That doesn't seem like it would help a lot long-term," is what Ghost finally settles on. "Sounds more like a crisis intervention."

"Nope, seventeen. I'm twenty two. I think." Time gets wibbly between worlds.

"And yeah, it basically was? But it was what got me started on actually working on it and not like, pretending I was fine. I got throw into fighting monsters with no experience or real physical strength, I got killed, I had... other stuff... that contributed majorly to PTSD..." Not gonna go into that right now. "Never mind being dragged into a situation where I had to help rescue multiple worlds in crisis mode. I got affected by that and I got affected by the stuff before, but at least I wasn't ignoring the fact that I was hurting, too.

Hm... "Also I stopped hating myself for being gay. That helped a lot." Thanks, Dad.

"Well, you've got better self-reflection than I think teenagers are supposed to have, so maybe you got lucky and the ichor thing just means your brain runs differently now." Beat. "If you ever got it scanned I could probably at least give it a look. It's mostly frontal cortex development after puberty."

Not his specialty but sometimes you don't get to choose. He considers Casper for a minute, and then adds, "I'm not going to ask, but I'll tell you that telling someone helps."

"I think it's less any physical changes and more having to take responsibility for saving people and worlds. You do it for a while, you crack, keep doing it, you break, and you have people help you back up again." He frowns and shakes his head. "And I like Q'uila, she's my friend, but not one of my main support people."

He'd hoped someone would show up, but... no. No one. He can't even reach out on the Network. "... I appreciate it, though it's long and probably would set off like twelve different triggers." He's very proud of knowing that term, Thorne and Gil taught him. "And you just got here, you have enough to deal with today than my baggage. I have enough baggage already."

He opens up a tear in the air and tugs it apart just enough for Ghost to see... some kind of heavy crate. There's something peeking out of the top. Is that... a potato? He closes the rip.

... Yeah, he's still not going to question the portal to wherever. Unless a giant eldritch alien comes crashing out of it to eat him, that's a mystery he can put off till later.

Ghost gives Casper a shrug. He wants a snack, or something else to do with his hands. "I'm made of someone else's baggage. But I'm pretty sure the ideal way to gain maturity involves not breaking at all, no matter what kind of support you have."

"I mean... yeah. But given the situations we were put in... I don't think it's realistic to expect someone to not have some kind of nervous breakdown. It's at least a place where your friends end up seeing the things you hide... and I've never seen anyone ever get judged for what they saw."

He's quiet for a long moment before speaking up. "The repressed parts of me even showed one of my friends how I got killed. He wasn't going to, but Shiro asked..."

"The fact that that's how it happened doesn't mean it can't be fucked up," Ghost points out, in his 'I am being very reasonable' tone. "Or fuck you up, to have that shit dragged out of you."

"I mean, that's true. But it's better than the alternative."

He hesitates. "Basically all my mental health knowledge comes from my friends and just kind of... knowing it in general. I had to basically help calm down grieving families since I was really little. But it's not like I ever got put in therapy. My dad was abusive, but not physically. I got beat up but that was by other kids. So it never really got caught by anyone at school."

... Well, that's a lot to unpack.

"I'm starting to see why you collapsed under the weight of it," Ghost says, trying for cheerful because, well, what the hell else is he supposed to do? (He's not qualified for this. But also, there probably isn't anyone around who is, when someone's willing to open this far up to a stranger. Someone must.)

(Joke's on you, he trusts everyone almost instantly.)

"Yeah, pretty much. It was just a question of when." Anyway.

"I'd ask if you had any questions about the technology here, but you seem to have that covered." Not just the technopathy thing, but that's a type of phone that doesn't even exist where he's from. Or it does, but it's not widespread. "But I can try to answer any other questions."

(Not the point, Casper.)

"Technology I've got handled," Ghost agrees readily. "Magic... I'll figure it out." This kid's given him plenty to chew on for the time being.

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cw: abuse

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