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!

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"Yes, there are medical facilities present."

It's.. a rather casual answer, considering everything about the guy. Most people would be surprised to be approached by someone who's communicating in such a way, especially since it's not exactly the standard on the train.

But considering all the odd things Alice has seen even before boarding this train? It's nothing all that odd to her. Instead she just calmly stares at the other.

"Why?" She asks, her voice turning a tad drier as she continues: "Planning on injuring someone already?"

"I sure hope not," he replies easily. "But I'd rather know about them now than have to try and figure it out in a panic if something does happen."

He's just. Taking appropriate precautions. Always know where your medical facilities are at is a lesson you don't need to learn twice, because you either get the message the first time or you bleed out doing something stupid.

"Or build them myself, which is not really something I'm qualified to do."

Honestly, his answer isn't all that weird, Alice thinks. Knowing where the medical carriage is would be a good idea in a pinch - but then again, most people don't exactly arrive here expecting some sort of pinch to happen. Maybe he's just the kind of person who over-prepares, she figures.

Especially when he adds that last part.

"Yes, let's please not have any sort of construction mishaps here on the train." Please, she can already imagine it. There's enough ridiculous stuff that happens here on a day to day basis without adding that to it.. "The train is much too cramped for that sort of thing."

"Oh, I meant more that I'm not familiar enough with chemistry to produce the kinds of advanced medications it would need - " Because that's the problem, clearly. " - O-chem isn't really my specialty. Most I can make is kind of shoddy aspirin."

He absolutely is the kind of person who expects that kind of thing to happen regularly, actually. It kind of does, when you're dealing with herding scientists around an apocalypse. "But I'll keep the construction thing in mind."

...

Hold on.

"You were thinking about making medicine yourself?" That sure isn't where her own thoughts were going when he was talking a moment ago. And honestly, Alice is pretty sure it isn't where most people's thoughts would go. After all, how many people out there exist who can actually make medicine of any kind? Even just 'shoddy aspirin'? It makes the girl look kind of baffled.

Yes, this is much weirder than the whole text-to-speech thing that's going on.

"What kind of work were you doing back home?"

"Technically, post-apocalyptic search and rescue," that's one way of describing what he does, anyway, and less likely to raise eyebrows than the full details of the circumstances. "But neuroscience and xenobiology, by education, with some engineering on the side."

"That sounds like.. quite a lot."

And Alice doesn't recognize half of it. Xenobiology? Sure, she knows what biology is, but what does adding that 'xeno' part to it mean? And neuroscience is something with.. ack, what was it again?

This is just way going over her Victorian head.

"Let's say you were kind of like a scientist. Is that accurate enough?"

Her response gets a small snort. "That's kind of an understatement, really." Considering the number of things Morgan has dabbled in... "Anyway, good to hear we have facilities and at least some basics."

Alice lets out a huff in turn.

"Please, we're all just people who stupidly got pulled into this train's dumb scheme. Who cares what kind of specific titles you have?" Let alone someone like Alice, who has grown up with a heavy dislike for any kind of authority or people who insist on having a certain status, considering the society she grew up in.

"If you manage to do something useful for all of us here, then people may decide to acknowledge your capabilities. But as long as they're purely theoretic, it hardly matters."

That's a sudden shift, considering she was confusedly admiring his abilities in relatively basic (to him) chemistry a moment ago. Ghost considers her, folding his arms.

"And who says I'm doing it for acknowledgement?"

He lets the question hang in the air for a moment, with the easy of confidence of someone who knows that they have worth and ability. Who doesn't feel like he has something to prove, not to a complete stranger.

"You're right. We're all just people. And people have survived as long as they have by helping each other. That's the reason behind what I find worth doing."

Welcome to the difference between admiring capabilities and hating any sign of potential ego that comes along with it - and those signs are a lot more easily assumed to be there than they actually might be when someone like Alice is biased to begin with. She's seen way too many men going around tooting their own horns to not believe that was exactly what was about to follow here.

.. Though it doesn't seem to be the destination this road was leading down to after all. Yet, anyway. Alice - as ever - is still a little sceptical of that fact.

"You would be surprised how many people do it just for acknowledgement," she instead says. "In fact, many people claim to be capable of all sorts of things when they actually aren't."

Which is what she saw all the time, back home in London. It's already a sign of how much she's grown on the train that she was at least able to believe his expertises when they were first thrown around.

"Hence why it's usually a good thing to be wary of anyone who attaches too much value to a title, rather than the skill behind it."

"Oh, I've seen plenty of people try to pad their resumes out with bullshit, trust me." He knows - vaguely - that Morgan did interviewing a few times for TranStar before winding up on Talos himself, knows he liked to ask questions designed to spot people like that. Nobody expects their interviewer to be a terrifying polymath who knows their field.

Ghost does, however, note that this is someone to not tell his actual age to. If she's got that much issue accepting that he might know what he's talking about on the face of him, 'I'm twelve days old' isn't going to help his case. Sigh, cynical teenagers at the stage where they think they know everything is an experience he'd heard about but was glad to miss out on.

"But if that's your initial reaction, then there's not any point in trying to convince you with words, is there? You'll just have to wait and see."

"You're right about that."

Although, to some extent, she does appreciate the whole 'cutting out the bullshit' part. His assessment is very right - Alice may be at the end of her teen years, but she still very much has that rebellious teen streak, especially when it comes to the adults (or seeming adults) she encounters. But at least he isn't trying to convince her of anything in some patronizing way, so that's good from her point of view.

"Although you may have to do a whole lot to live up to everything you said." Please, Alice, you can't place this bar that high. "At this rate I'm expecting you to change the entire train."

"I'm not going to fix anything that isn't broken," he says, a little pointedly. If things are working - or, you know, mostly working - then it's not his job to just show up and change things for the sake of changing them. It's the places where things aren't working that are going to get his attention.

(~~You know, like y'all's mental health.~~)

"The thing about changes that affect everyone is that they affect everyone." He's the adult here, he has to present the responsible image of caring for the consequences of his actions.

To a point, Alice recognizes that he's being fair here. Obviously she isn't thinking of anything ridiculous being done to the train either that'd just make everything more of a headache for everyone on the train. She's more serious than her Hot Topic goth teen appearance would imply, with the hood of her hoodie up and her heavy eyeliner.

But even so--

"You think nothing about this situation is broken?" Granted, it's a slightly less literal - or perhaps slightly less small scale - kind of broken than he was most likely refering to. "We were all kidnapped by a train. Involuntarily brought here, kept away from our own worlds, unable to leave. I'd say that is a fairly broken situation."

There's a pause, and then he turns her a serious look, one that says there's a lot going on that he isn't saying -

"And that's a better state than the world I left behind."

His eyes are narrowed, but it's not a look of anger - just a tired one. "I get that you don't want to be here. I don't think anyone can blame you for that. But I just walked into this situation, I don't know shit about it, and asking me to pass judgement on it with little to no information isn't particularly fair. Putting it on me to fix it is definitely unfair."

(Fixing the unfixable is what he was made to do, and it wasn't fair then, either.)

"And I don't do living for other people's expectations. For better or worse."

Alice recognizes that look in his eyes. It's how a lot of people look back home, after all. The backstreets of London are absolutely filled with people like that - people who are just tired of it all.

Including Alice herself. But while that would usually give her sympathy, there's something about his words that doesn't sit well with her. It just comes across as a little too patronizing for her to not feel like a cat that's getting its fur stroked the wrong way.

"Then maybe you shouldn't go around acting as if you're all that, with your fancy titles."

Because otherwise she wouldn't have started about it either.

"Acting as if you're all that also isn't fair to the people around you. Or at the very least, it's an incredible pain in the rear end."

"You're the one who's taking confidence for arrogance."

He's... Actually, he's remarkably done with this, actually. It's one thing to be caught in a no-wins conversation with someone he knows has respect as a part of the group. But this girl is pushing on what he's willing to tolerate, and Ghost is rapidly discovering that there is a limit to that, actually, that can be hit by people who aren't Alex and the complicated history that isn't actually between them.

"And teenagers who think I don't know anything about social dynamics are a huge pain in the ass, too," he continues, the emphasis in the synthesized voice a little like the crackle of static. "I don't know what's happened in your life that you can't assume a certain baseline level of competence in people when you first meet them, but I'd appreciate it if you quit making it sound like it's my problem."

She stares at him for a moment.

But honestly, Alice is done with this too. It's obvious that this man is just going to keep pushing his own point, thinking whatever he already thinks of her. Isn't this the way all grown men are? So full of themselves, unable to take even the slightest bit of criticism without getting all annoyed about it. It doesn't matter if they have voice synthesizers or are completely average. All the same.

So after a moment, Alice just rolls her eyes, turns around and walks away. Whatever. She has much better ways of spending her time than talking to someone who's obviously just a patronizing ass.

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A New Platform [Intro Post April]

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i actually made aspirin myself in a college chem class -

you're a true doctor

medical miracle

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