A New Platform [Intro Post May]

[voidtreckermods]

On the Train

Like clockwork, the Voidtreckers are awoken by a familiar message this morning.

"Good morning Voidtreckers, it is day one of the month of Llama. Points have been updated on the system."

With points updated, everyone can spend the morning shopping. Most people will 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 air is sticky and warm, the windows almost immediately dewing over with the humidity outside.

As usual the first to leave the train notice nothing, walking silently, rucksacks on their backs, towards the barriers. Azula, Prisoner, Amery Vallet, Dyme Graydon, Grimmjow Jaegerjaquez, Yoite, Piccolo, Bulla Brief, Xie Lian, Kurosaki Ichigo, Hua Cheng, Renee Corbin, and Ran Mouri; 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 find themselves on a platform, rich wood and pale stone forming a natural, tree-like structure overhead. Behind them is a set of barriers, and in front of them is a single set of tracks extending both ways into thick fog. The air is rainforest-hot, and the sound of frogsong can be faintly heard over the drip of the artificial canopy.

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 fog begins to fade and they realise they aren’t alone.

The platform isn't large, and seems smaller with twenty-eight figures scattered around, all facing the tracks, all dressed in cargo trousers and hoodies. 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 pours a strange assortment of people, over a hundred at least. 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.

Behind them, the doors close, and the train is cloaked in the same fog that hides the world beyond the platform.

The Train

After a short time, the fog clears and 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 nori, the ingredient of the month of Llama, as well as all sundries.

For passengers that have bought items, these are also scattered around the luggage carriage in various suitcases and bags. For each member of Purple Team, a small silver box with their name on it contains a glittery cupcake.

New passengers will find their ticket allows them into their cabins. They may need to negotiate for beds, but at least they won't be alone in their confusion - since the sleeper carriages are now double-decker, and experience isn't going to avail the passengers in finding their rooms.

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.

The new double carriage's transfer ICP is active, allowing people to move to a double room should they meet the requirements with another person, though they'll have to move their belongings themselves.

Departure

A second horn sounds to encourage any stragglers taking advantage of the fresh air, 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!

Comments

[irrationally]

There's just a small raise of Alice's eyebrows, a small gesture to imply 'yup, you nor any of us really have a choice about this' without voicing that part out loud.

Instead she glances at the crowd of people in multi-coloured hoodies before looking back at Rui.

"Are there non-humans in your world?" Sure, there have to be if the other said she met them, but-- "As a regular sort of thing, I mean."

Because whereas non-humans were normal to Alice too before coming here, she wouldn't say that opinion was generally shared in her own world.

[partofthecrowd]

"Aliens, mainly." Rui commented. "I've met a few, and part of what the Gatchaman do is look over them so that things don't get out of hand."

She considered that. "There are a few aliens on the team. I guess you could call them a regular occurance. People know about them."

[irrationally]

"Aliens.. Those are beings from outer space, right?"

Look, Alice is from a time where they became a huge part of pop culture. But she's picked up on a thing or two. And the fact that there are aliens here on the train makes it a little easier to grasp the concept.

In fact, she figures she should inform the other of as much, while she's at that thought anyway.

"There are some here as well, so I suppose it may not feel very different from home for you in that sense." Even if it will in a lot of other ways, no doubt. Alice doesn't think anyone actually regularly lives the way they all do on the train.

[partofthecrowd]

"Correct." Rui confirms with a bit of a nod.

"Oh, are there?" She bites her thumb nail a moment. It was a horrible, nervous habit.

"Well. Hopefully they're not as troublesome as the ones I'm aware of." Rui concluded after a moment. She could say a lot about them, but she found the ones she knew to be rather frustrating at times. "Looking at this place, I don't think it's anything at all like what I'm used to."

[irrationally]

There's a moment of silence on Alice's part, but then she raises her shoulders up into a shrug at the thought of whether or not said aliens are troublesome. Honestly, Alice is well aware that her own definition of troublesome stretches a little bit beyond what any average person would call troublesome, so it's probably something Rui will have to determine for herself.

"Oh, have you never seen a.. spaceship before?" That's what the things aliens use are called, right? Alice.. thinks? She was assuming those must exist in Rui's world too, if there are casually aliens around. "This train is slightly like that. It's just a lot more recognizable than a spaceship."

[partofthecrowd]

"I have, but I've never been on board one. That's not really the kind of thing that we do." Rui commented.

"I presume there's some kind of living space, if we're forced to be on board?"

[irrationally]

.. huh.

What a strange world. One where aliens wander around, but no one has ever been on a spaceship? Of course Alice - with her.. odd ways of thinking - imagines that's the first thing one would want to do upon meeting an alien.

Maybe Rui's world is just full of boring people, she thinks, though is apparently tactful enough today to not mention out loud. Instead she glances back at the train before turning her head back to Rui.

"We have cabins to sleep in, but I would not get your hopes up too much." In fact, don't get them up at all. Alice hates those things. "We all have to share them with three other people, and they are impossibly small."

Look at all this good news.

[partofthecrowd]

"You mean we have to share?" That was the true tragedy. Rui made a face.

"Is there no way to petition for a solitary room?" She asked, first of all. "Just how many people are on this train?"

She hadn't ever had to share a room with people before and this was why she had a huge penthouse all to herself.

[irrationally]

"Trust me. If we were allowed to have rooms to ourselves, I would never leave mine."

Perhaps it's said with a touch of deadpan to her tone as she speaks, but Alice very much means that. She'd be more than happy to never have to socialize, especially with certain people on this train, thanks.

But she already knows the train doesn't care about them enough to actually provide them comfortable rooms. It's very much like the asylum in that sense.

"We are stuck with these four person rooms, regardless of how much we like it or not."

[partofthecrowd]

"That would be tempting. I don't leave the house very much. Just when I need to, typically. You can order so many things online these days." Rui commented with a bit of a hum.

She'd been out a bit more with her work with the Gatchaman, but really she was feeling disheartened about that at the moment. She was feeling the urge to just curl up in bed and not get up ever.

"Where is my room?"

[irrationally]

Alice slowly stares.

First at Rui, then at the train, and then back to Rui.

"I could show you." Especially since it might be a bit of a walk. ".. As long as you explain to me what this.. 'ordering things online' thing means while we head over there."

It's not like anything Alice has ever heard of, and it's just enough to make her natural curiosity kick in.

[partofthecrowd]

"Oh." Rui blinked behind he glasses. "Sure." She nodded a little agreeably and followed Alice on board the train.

"Are you familiar with the internet?" She had a sneaking suspicion this young woman may not be, which as a baseline, she'd need to know that it existed.

[irrationally]

"No."

A simple answer, perhaps a tad blunt, but it's just the truth. Alice has never heard of the term before. She recalls someone else rambling on about networks when they first arrived on the train, and she had thought they meant the network on the train, only for it to be about some entirely different concept of networks that she didn't understand, no matter how much it was being explained to her.

She takes a few more steps before continuing. "But I feel like it might be something complicated."

[partofthecrowd]

"It isn't, really." Rui said, shaking her head as they walked.

"The internet is like a big worldwide encyclopedia, on a screen instead of a book. You can get all kinds of knowledge from there, and some people use it like the classifieds in a newspaper." She continued. "And they sell goods through advertising the product on one of the webpages."

She smiled a little. "If you order something from someone online, usually it gets delivered to your home so you don't have to go out at all."

[irrationally]

That's still more complicated than she's used to, really. After all, screens weren't really a thing in her world - and though she's seen them on the train a lot, courtesy of the ICP terminals, they still feel so odd to her. Screens with moving images behind them.

.. and, apparently, there's also screens with.. encyclopedias behind them? And salespeople?

"How do they manage to fit all of that in one screen?" That idea is just baffling to Alice. Even after everything she's seen in Wonderland. Somehow that made more sense than this still, no matter how ridiculous it was.

[partofthecrowd]

"Just like a book, you can go to different pages. It's just like a very compact book. You would touch or use a mouse to select a page and it would open the page. It's a lot of wires and stuff." She said, although hardware wasn't her expertise. "It's really a complicated system, but all the person using it needs to know is how to open the pages. And you can look for just about anything and all kinds of information will show up."

[irrationally]

"That sounds like magic, more than anything else."

Even with the technology she's seen on the train, it's hard for Alice's head to wrap itself around the fact that this is just normal in some worlds. In fact, it feels easier to think of it as magic. As something whimsical one may find in Wonderland. That's so much more understandable.

"Besides, I'm not sure if mice would enjoy being used for that. They tend to be very touchy about those sorts of things." Or so the talking mouse she met was, anyway.

[partofthecrowd]

"It's not magic, unfortunately. It's a lot of work really." She quirks a little smile and then blinked at the mouse comment.

"Oh, no I didn't mean mouse like the animal. I can understand the confusion. A mouse is an electronic thing you can use to make things move on the screen." Rui explained. "Most people don't have the kind of computer where they can just touch the screen to make things happen."

[irrationally]

Touching.. screens.

Mice.

What a world.

"Why would anyone call it a mouse then?" After all, it's not an actual mouse! Why cause that confusion in the first place? You might as well think up a whole new word for it, Alice thinks. It'd be easier.

[partofthecrowd]

She chuckles. "You know, I don't know. It's been like that since I was a kid, everyone had these things. I couldn't tell you who called it that."

Rui's knowledge was fairly specialized.

"But ultimately I click on the mouse, I pick what I want and it gets delivered to my apartment and I don't have to go out."

[irrationally]

"You may enjoy the train shop then."

Not that Alice knows much about it. She hasn't used it too often herself, especially since she hardly knows how to use the terminals to talk, let alone figure out how to use the train shop more than just very occassionally. But it seems like it's a lot like this thing Rui is talking about here.

Granted, it's like they're all stuck in a big apartment they can't leave here on the train in the first place. But in the worst possible way.

"It works a little like that, even though there are no.. mice." (Still weird.) "Though you may need to get points to spend here first."

[partofthecrowd]

"That's good to know." Rui said with a nod. "I might, it might be the same idea. You order what you want and it gets delivered then?"

She couldn't help but ask about that, but she wasn't too sure what she could get, or how to get points. "Can I buy points?"

[irrationally]

Alice nods in response to the initial question, but it's the second question that gets her to really look at the other. There's something in Alice's gaze, though it's hard to place. A little curious, perhaps, or a little puzzled.

"Do you have money on you right now?"

[partofthecrowd]

"Well...I don't know." Rui admitted. "I'm assuming somewhere in my pack I'll be able to find my wallet." She blinked at Alice.

"...Was I robbed on top of everything else?"

[irrationally]

There's a slight pause, but it's mostly one that's necessary for Alice's expression to shift. First looking a bit surprised, but then looking almost - but not quite fully - amused as she looks away from Rui.

"Is it not common for someone to be stripped of their possessions when they are kidnapped where you come from?" If anything, Alice figures that getting money or items is usually the whole purpose of kidnapping in the first place, at least back in London.

Even though this train doesn't seem to have much of a use for them, compared to the way petty criminals would have back there.

"Of course it didn't let us keep anything. There should only be one thing from home in the bag it gave you. The rest is just more of these clothes for the most part."