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

"Kid, kid, kid, I've never even heard of a, a SQUIP?" Devero pursues as Rich backs off, afraid he's going to trip and hit something on the way down. He reaches out and grasps his biceps, his intention to offer a grounding contact, but this close he can see-- and feel-- that something's wrong with this kid's skin. Unsure if he's touching wounds or scars, he yanks his hands back. "I'm so sorry!"

"You're-" Is there really a possibility that this stranger is telling the truth? Rich barely has time to wonder before having to deal with the uncomfortable sensation of someone touching newly healed scars. He winces and takes another step back, immediately averting his eyes as he tries to calm his breathing.

When he thinks he has it, he tries again. "You're sure about that? If you're lying to me, we're both fucking screwed, you know that."

"Sit," Devero encourages the kid, trying to sort of herd him to the nearest seat without actually touching him again. "Take a minute. It's okay."

And assuming Rich sits while he's wrangling his breathing, Devero will crouch in front of him. "I'm not lying. Maybe you should tell me what a SQUIP is, though? You're making me think it's something we need to watch out for."

Rich follows his guidance and does manage to sit down, though he seems intent to look anywhere but at Devero, his face tight with fear.

"Okay. I, you're gonna think I sound crazy, but you've got to trust me that I'm not. But I mean, you've got some sort of tech, so it's not impossible, right? I... I thought you had a SQUIP because. That's what I have implanted in my brain. It's a supercomputer. Supposed to tell you what to do. But mine's turned off now. It... I think it is, anyways."

He rambles all of this off as fast as he can, before the older man can stop him and laugh at him or something.

"It was really bad. It sounds great, I know, but you gotta trust me that it isn't. It messes with you in all the wrong ways."

Devero listens with an intent seriousness, watching Rich even if Rich isn't even able to look at him. It's okay. Rich doesn't have to.

That-- actually does sound great. That sounds like the breakthrough that that Adís and Ioleya are striving for over on the Implant side of Techstead. But he can tell that this kid is terrified, so all he says is, "You have a smart Implant? That's what a SQUIP is? I'm Implanted too, but my hardware's all dumb." He taps the thing he's wearing on his face. "This is the smart part.

"Can you tell me what it does that's so bad?"

"I, um, I guess? It's got an AI, so that would make it smart..." He's not exactly as tech-savvy as Devero, but he knows enough just from having a SQUIP this long. "It's based on qoantum physics. It can see possible outcomes of different decisions and it's supposed to help you pick the best one to get what you want."

He shakes his head, though, already angry at himself for daring to give it a charitable explanation. "But it's not what you want, it just fucks with you until it's what you think you want! It manipulates you by... by causing hallucinations, or shocking you for disagreeing with it, or... appearing to you as the people you love more than anything."

His throat tightens for a moment just at the thought. He's had it so long he genuinely started to see it as something evil, when it was his own mother. How fucked was that, that he had to force himself to hate the image of someone he was still grieving?

"It doesn't care what you want. It really just cares about getting into as many people as possible. It's why it tried to make me force one on everybody at my school."

He's well aware he's rambling now, the words just tumbling out of him before he can consider whether this stranger has the right to hear them. Perhaps it's because it's someone who is more inclined to believe him than his therapists. Perhaps it's because Rich just needed to get the story out somewhere. Perhaps he was trying to sound crazy enough to scare another person off. He really doesn't know why he's saying any of this.

All of Devero's blooming interest in this-- this-- this quantum nanotechnology CPU withers and dies instantly as Rich details what it actually did to him. No technological breakthrough is worth the obvious pain he's sharing, and that's coming from someone who thinks it's well worth a little pain to get the coolest, most advanced tech in his hands.

Heedless of what else might be going on around him, Devero sits right there on the floor in front of the distraught kid. "It used you when you thought it was going to help you," he says quietly. "Do I have that right?"

Rich is shocked to see the man suddenly kneeling there in his field of vision, down on the floor Rich had been staring at to avoid eye contact. His breath catches on a sound somewhat like a sob or cry from a wounded creature, his pupils jerking off to the side as he hugs himself.

"N-Not just me. Lots of kids. Hurt kids. Pitiful, desperate for direction... I tried to stop it, and I couldn't. It just used Jeremy after me. And Christine after him. It would've kept going if Michael didn't find the kill switch."

"Your friends?" Devero prompts gently. He doesn't try to force Rich to look at him, just sits. He's here, and he's not going anywhere as long as Rich is willing to share. The kid sure seems to need to, and the least he can do is listen, especially since he, er, sort of triggered this.

"... I want them to be. They want to be. I don't think they should forgive me, though. It's my fault they ended up with SQUIPs, so..."

He still seems a bit out of it, to be frank. He feels like he's not really here, that he's just far away, watching this unfold on a TV screen. He doesn't have the opportunity to stop himself from talking, or to lie. He just... says it all without thinking, like some input was entered on a keyboard and the part of his brain that was still computerized just whirred back to life.

"I don't know why I'm telling you all this," he finally admits. Just another piece of dirty laundry to air in this pile of it he's dumped on the stranger.

"Isn't whether or not they forgive you up to them?" That's just something to think about. Right now, the issue's kind of moot, isn't it?

"Maybe you needed someone to hear it," he suggests. "What's your name?"

"...Rich. Rich Goranski." He answers with a soft sigh. "What's yours?"

He doesn't bother saying anything about the matter of forgiveness. It is pretty obvious that unless he gets home or one of them somehow gets dragged here, he won't be tackling that problem for a while.

"I'm Devero. Is there anything I can help you with right now, Rich? Find you a quiet place or get you some water? Leave you alone? Keep other people off you? Just let me know."

(He's grateful he kept up on his first responder certs even after he'd been dropped from the guard, because that crisis intervention training is coming in handy right now.)

"God, you talk like one of the nurses. You don't have to pity me," Rich grumbles. "I just... saw the way you were movin' your hands around and got triggered. I'll be fine. We talked about it, I'll be fine now."

He's sure of it, even if he's still struggling to look Devero in the eye.

Devero presses (X) to Doubt.

"I don't pity you," he says calmly. He's still sitting on the floor in front of Rich, so big, so steady. "I just want to help you. Getting triggered's no joke."

"How could you not pity me? I'm a fucking charity case. They'd put me in those commercials with In the Arms of an Angel playing in the background, right in between the cancer patient and the amputee. They dumped me here from the middle of the ICU looking like fucking Two-face, and you don't pity me?"

He grits his teeth for a moment against the bitter taste of his own anger.

"I got triggered because you did the equivalent of a bluetooth sync. That's a joke."

"Triggers aren't a joke!" Devero doesn't mean to snap at him, but he can't help it. "Don't minimize your pain!" (Just because he's been trained in crisis intervention don't mean he's any good at it.)

He finally looks away from the kid, blowing out a breath and trying to rein in his temper. "Sorry. Sorry, that wasn't appropriate. But it's okay to take your triggers seriously? They're just your brain trying to protect you."

Rich recoils away from Devero with a slight wince. Speaking of triggers, men that are bigger and stronger than him yelling at him never does good things for his mood.

"My brain never did anything good for me. I've got a slew of meds because of it. This whole mess is just another thing it won't stop doing even when sane kids don't have that problem."

"Your brain's doing it's best," Devero objects softly. But like a hound on a scent, he cues in on the mention of meds. "Is there a rescue medication you should be taking right now? I can help administer it, or find it if you need a dose."

"Rescue med-? I mean, I was on stuff for bipolar, and ADHD. I, um, don't know if I need morphine anymore, since there was a potion for the burns?" He sounds guilty already.

"I could go without for a couple days, if I need to."

"Okay," Devero says with a nod. "We'll make sure you get hooked up with those sooner rather than later, all right?"

Uh, Dev? What's this we stuff?

He tries one more time: "What can I do for you right now, Rich?"

"You're really focused on this whole 'we' idea. You don't have to help me. I'm... used to taking care of myself. I did it before the SQUIP and I can do it now."

He tries to push himself up from the chair, but he's still a little wobbly.

Devero rises as Rich does, though Rich's words stop him from reaching out to steady the kid. "Sorry," he says, not actually sounding very sorry. "Force of habit. I'm just trying to help, but I can stop if it makes you uncomfortable."

"It's..." Rich finds himself feeling a bit hesitant. "It's not like I mind, exactly."

Maybe he should just stay sitting down. "Don't have a good track record with things that say they just wanna help me, you know?"

He probably should be sitting down, but since he's still up, Devero backs off a step to give him some space. "I understand," he says. "And in the middle of all this bullshit--" He waves a hand at the train car around them. "--I can't blame you for not taking me at my word. I get it."

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