voidtreckerexpress | A New Platform [Intro Post December]

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A New Platform [Intro Post December]

On the Train

It's only been a couple of days since the Voidtrecker Express took to the void once more, and many of the passengers are still recovering and recuperating after a very hectic end to their latest mission. Nevertheless, they are awoken by a familiar message.

"Good morning passengers, it is day sixteen of the month of Imagination. 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 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. It is warm outside with a pleasant breeze that flows down the platform, rustling the light spread of leaves that litter the floor.

As usual the first to leave the train notice nothing, walking silently, rucksacks on their backs, towards the barriers. Akemi Homura, Alfred the Poisoner, Donatello Versus, Chie Satonaka, Joscelin Fitzthomas, Ronan Lynch, Rose Tyler, Tangle the Lemur, Trowa Barton, Wester Mazaki and Whisper the Wolf 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. The second thing they will notice is the swirling leaves at their feet, moving in flurries and rattling against each other softly. As their eyes adjust, they will see they are on a platform, cement and packed earth forming a very practical, plain-looking shelter. 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 but then the steam begins to fade and they realise they aren’t alone.

The platform is not large and it holds eight figures all facing the tracks, all dressed in cargo trousers and hoodies. Both left and right the 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 into the gloom step a selection 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

The doors hiss open. 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 more jars of honey, the ingredient of the month of Imagination, as well as sundries.

A new carriage has been added right next to the luggage carriage. It is a second medical carriage, or triage carriage. Downstairs is more open with beds and chairs, upstairs are two surgical bays for those that need immediate attention.

For those intrigued by the claim of a parcel for every passenger they will find several large boxes filled with small blue bags. Inside each bag is ten dark blue coins imprinted on each side with a silver snowflake. Each bag has a small label with a passengers name. On the other side of the label it reads: Keep these safe for now.

Of course for any passengers that have bought items, these are also scattered around the luggage carriage as well.

New passengers will find their tickets allow 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 and you will hopefully find a pillow for your bed if it has not been nabbed by a roommate, there are also spare blankets for if it gets cold.

Departure

A second horn sounds to encourage any stragglers taking advantage of the pleasant weather 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. 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

There's a mastery to Devero's movements that Eight cannot deny. Not only that but there was some indication to technology that reminded her of back home. Some kind of neural interface? Another interesting idea. She wonders if the Octarian higher command would use something like that.

She shrugs at the assessment. He wasn't wrong. "You'll find that when it comes to many things here, you have to make do with what is on hand." Her guard is lowering ever so slightly. She simply enjoys watching a mechanic work. Especially if he is better with her.

The question wasn't rude. She was the only one on the ship after all. "I'm an Octarian Octoling." Well, it was a name, for what it was worth. He didn't exactly ask for her to explain everything about Octolings.

He grimaces. "I was hoping you wouldn't say that." His kingdom for a machine shop-- and he hasn't even been here for a day!

He looks over at her again, a little more openly, and hazards a guess: "...Like octopus?"

After one or two extensions under pressure, the joint seizes up, just like she'd said it would. Huh. "I actually think your issue is somewhere up here." He taps at the control end of the apparatus. "I bet you've got an air leak. Maybe at both of these attachment points, actually." He straightens up and glances around. "Is there a rag or cloth I can use? Clean, preferably."

"Yeah, we evolved from octopuses." But that was the least important point, to her. She was all but ready to hand off the oil and magenta-stained rag that she was using until he mentioned the clean part. Crud.

"I don't have a clean one, but the spa cart should have a wash cloth we can 'borrow.'" Whether or not the spa car would want it back afterwards is another issue entirely.

That assertion is so bonkers he has to repeat it. "You evolved from octopuses." He gives her a look as he says it, somewhere between baffled and disbelieving. But she moves past it and he's willing to follow her lead. It's much easier on his tired brain to focus on something familiar, at least right now.

He blows out a breath. "Spa car," he murmurs. He sets the joint down delicately, freeing up both hands to pull up the crude map of the train he's been assembling. (Right now it's just a stack of photos he snapped with his Interface's camera, in the correct order.) He scrolls down the stack with a motion of his fingers and makes an annoyed noise. "That's almost all the way back to the sleeper carriages, isn't it?"

Quite a lot of where she came from didn't make much sense. As another example, allegedly her species evolved from octopuses a mere 1,000 years after the extinction of humanity, rather than the billions of years it would normally take for that level of advancement. There are a few theories, but most of the Inklings and Octolings don't really care too highly of their origins. They exist and that is that.

Truth be told she was ready to go and fetch one for him, but the idea of leaving the leg with him didn't strike her as particularly appealing. Not yet, at least. Instead she raised up to him a previously white cloth that has been splotched heavily with magenta and black stains. "This is the only one I have on hand." If that was good enough, fine, otherwise she was going to let him fetch a fresh towel that would be his.

Hoo boy, that's a doozy that will break his brain, especially since he comes from a world 600 years after the near-extinction of humanity. Then again, it's very likely that most of what he encounters as a passenger on this train is going to break his brain, at least until he develops some resiliency.

He glances at the cloth she offers him, then shakes his head. "Won't be able to see what I need on that. Thanks, though." He pushes up off his chair. "Mind if I go find something?"

What a strange question. He walked in, unannounced, and now he was politely asking to be excused? Maybe there was more to him than he first appeared.

Eight shrugged, giving him a scrutinizing stare. "You don't need my permission for that." She reached for a can of oil as her attention returned to her work. "I'll focus on tightening the bolts and lubricating the joints. If you're not back in a half-hour I'm going back to figuring things out on my own."

Frankly, she could use the break from fixing the part. She was trying to figure out how to fix the problem for the past hour. The rest is finishing touches, with a final spit and polish to wrap this job up.

"Fair enough," he says. He makes a gesture that causes the screen in front of his eye to flash and-- actually smiles a little? "Timer set."

He's actually back well within half an hour, and on his return he, uh. Walks right into the door. As focused as he'd been on the problem of the faulty hydraulics-- fixated, you could say-- he'd forgotten that the doors here are dumb. Back home, his Interface would have pinged the door control and it would have slid right open for him.

So as he shoves it open steps inside, he's glaring at that door and muttering something about 'luddite bullshit'. He pinches his nose with one hand, and in the other he holds a pristine white-- napkin from the dining car next door. No wonder he's back so quick.

Eight is startled again. Not only did she expect it to take him a while to come back, but the sudden loud bang of a body running into the door was something nobody would expect.

Her attention turning to Deveros as he comes in. Concern, rather than annoyance, on her face. "Are you alright?"

Apart from the obvious, she couldn't mask her concern if she wanted to.

He doesn't answer right away, instead tilting his head back and prodding gingerly under his nose. There's no blood on his fingers, so-- "Hn, I will be. Annoyed more than anything. Doors open where I come from." He directs a final scowl at said door, as if it was analogue on purpose just to inconvenience him, and then rejoins Eight at the table.

Eight stifles a laugh. "Yeah... the train is... dated." Old as hell, in other words. The hydraulics is waiting for Devero to work on. For her part, she'll return to the tightening, cleaning, and lubricating. Considering the maintenance she's done on her weapons, this is practiced and refined compared to the work on something required mechanical precision.

"You can say that again." He sits heavily, scrubbing a hand through his hair, and heaves a sigh. "I feel like I'm stuck in some surreal historical VR stream, and I can't log out of it."

He picks up the hydraulics apparatus and gets back to work. He puts the piston through its paces again: pressurizing it, running it until it seizes, then re-pressurizing it for another go around. After half a dozen cycles of that, he takes his napkin and wipes it around both attachment points for the hydraulic tubing. Then he adjusts his Interface, triggers the Eye's optical zoom, and peers at the cloth.

"Yep," he announces finally. "It's leaking. Both ends. Not a lot, but in a system this small you don't need much to muck up the PSI quick."

Eight takes note of that, and gets the impression that Devero was from a time far beyond the train. Perhaps even far beyond her own people's technology. It was enough for her want to have a long conversation with him.

Eight frowned at the analysis. The best solution would be to scrap the whole thing and make a new cylinder. Even if they had the parts to do that it would take time. "Cod dam it..."

In a fit of frustration she threw the rag against the table. All the lubrication in the world would mean for nothing if they can't get this part right.

Okay. Okay. What... else they can do... "A seal or a plug, maybe?"

Her little outburst makes him look over at her-- actually at her, instead of just at a person whose inhumanity his brain keeps shying away from. He sees frustration there, and he gets it.

"Been working on this for a while?" he asks quietly, setting aside the problem of the piston for just a moment.

She raises her hands to her head and groans. The day for the most part had been good, but this was important.

She groans, and makes a sound that even the train can't translate. The emotion is there: it's the deep frustrating sound of someone who is putting a bit too much pressure on herself and has hit a wall.

A sharp inhalation of breath later and she's mostly to her even-tempered self. She nods, fixing her gaze back to the device as though staring at it would reveal some unknown solution.

"There's a meeting among all the teams in a couple of days. I wanted to return this leg to its owner by tomorrow." She frowns. "At this rate, I don't think I'm going to meet the deadline." And, if her setting of time was right, the night cycle would be starting in about an hour...

Maybe she bit off too much than she could chew.

"Hey." Up until now he's been gruff and aggravated and intense, but there's a very palpable gentling to him as he turns on the chair to face Eight. He reaches out like he's going to squeeze her shoulder, but stops just before actually making contact.

"This isn't hard to fix, it's just a matter of having the right parts, yeah?" he says. His deep voice is still quiet and very sincere. "Why don't you show me what you've got for gaskets in here and we can see if we can find something that fits a bit better. Unless you don't have anything remotely appropriate, I bet we can get this functioning again by tomorrow."

Eight looks over at Devero with a curious tilt. Was he... showing her kindness? How strange. She did not see it in him, but... well, it was a good quality to have on what seemed to be his first day here.

"We... if you are for eel, um..." She pointed to the edge of the work station, where a small shelf was stocked with a clutter of random metal bits and bobs. "This work station was once owned by a mechanic, I think. That was the last of what needed to be sorted. If there are any washers, it'd be in there."

"And um..." She paused, giving the man a good, honest look. "Thank you, even if we don't find any."

"Perfect," he says with a crooked smile. "Thanks, Eight."

He reaches out and pulls the little shelf over, starting to pick through the randoms to see if there's anything he can use. He doesn't really notice the way she's looking at him, but he does glance over at her words and blinks curiously. "Just doing what I can," he says, sounding-- a bit taken aback, honestly. "It's my pleasure."

He means it, too.

The bits and bobs are mostly metal, but he finds a few flexible rings mixed in and sorts all of them out into a little pile. That done, he picks up the apparatus and starts to carefully disassemble the connection points in question. "Does everyone have a number for a name where you come from?" he asks her as he does.

She should be working on finishing up the leg, but she was far too invested in watching Devero work. She can't help it. Octarians have a natural interesting in all things mechanical and technological, and in the short time watching him work it was apparent that he was very skilled.

Her attention returns to the man at the sight of the question. Ah... how to explain. "Mm... I lost my memory, once. Completely forgot everything, even my name. The person who found me gave me the name 'Agent 8," and I've since shortened it to Eight."

"I think I'm the only one that was given a name this way. Even though he had other Agents... I think those were more like... codenames? I guess he just wanted me to feel included."

...He is not expecting an explanation like that. If anything, he's expecting it to have something to do with an ID serial, like his EMID. (He's still really annoyed that his unique, private serial is printed across basically every item that he has to his name currently, not to mention openly available on the passenger roster.)

"I'm so sorry," he says quietly, his expression solemn as he looks up from his work for a moment. "Did you ever... regain your memories?"

So far, only one person knew her real name, even if it was plastered on the roster and posted on any luggage directed to her. She didn't mind. Though she didn't dismiss her real name, "Eight" always seemed to be the new name for the new her: the one that defected from the Octarian military to claim her freedom.

She looked up at him again at the question and tone. Perhaps he was a nicer guy than his first impression. "Yes. Well, most of them. I think? I reclaimed the ones that were taken from me, but it's hard to remember something that's been forgotten."

He snorts softly. "Okay, good point. I'm glad you were able to reclaim something, at least. Who we are is all we have, after all."

He lets his attention return to the now-disassembled mechanism. "Here we go," he says, and turns without really realizing he's doing so to show her what he's doing. He picks a hard black ring out of connector. "This is actually too small, and the wrong kind of rubber. You want one more like this..."

He talks his way through the rest of the adjustments as he makes it: finding rings the right size and softness from the pile, greasing them up real good, the force you need to wedge the damn things home since they have to fit so tight. He assembles the whole thing back together and offers it to Eight. "Give it a try. Let's see if we got it."

Devero will find in eight the perfect little audience. She's fascinated with each adjustment, and is being quiet the full time. She's making mental notes of each step along the way and is mentally going through the motions so she could do it herself should she ever need to. Which, if her conversation with Senku was any indication, she may have to since it's vegetable oil in there rather than filtered synthetic oil.

Her hands do come out from time to time, but mostly to feel the object that's about to be inserted in before it is. She's quick to return each piece before it's needed, as her sense of assembly is pretty good despite her inexperience.

When she's finally done there's a curious, almost bashful look in her eyes. She's ran this test at least a dozen times before Devero worked on it, but now she's as timid as a mechanic on her first day on the job.

Eventually she's over it and gives it a tug. And a push. And a tug. And a push. She stops, because this was the point where things fell apart. A tug.... a push... one ore tug... one ore push...

"...it's working."

Here's a spoiler about Devero: the man's a mentor. Even back where he comes from, he's in charge of taking raw recruits, most of them kids right out of creche, and teaching them how to pilot exos, and he's pretty good at it. He's definitely responded to her interest during his demonstration-- and he can't help but respond to her shyness as well, once he hands the piece back. "Go on," he encourages her softly.

And once it works? He whoops and pumps a fist. "Chihyoon herself couldn't have done it better!" Yeah, he's proud of himself. He takes a moment to explain: "My boss Chihyoon has an augment arm and leg both. She's had me help her out with minor maintenance when she doesn't want to bother our engineer or our cybersurgeon with it."

Eight whoops and does a little dance at the work station. "It works! It works!! Veemo! Va-veemo!!" It is the dance of someone who has taken way too long working on the same part and going nowhere.

Oh, she's so pleased she actually reaches for her octo cellphone. "Can I take a selfie with you? This totally deserves one."

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that PUN

she has MORE

EXCELLENT

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