[Hello network! Meet Murphy.

[Murphy does not sound happy, either. In fact, he's the very opposite of happy. Because at some point in his temporary freedom, he was pretty sure that he finally had things all sorted out. That was before he became an unwilling passenger aboard a spaceship seemingly headed to no determined destination. Out of the frying pan and into the furnace, as the saying goes. It's an idiom that couldn't be any more appropriate than it rings now.]

"Guess no one was kiddin' about all that crazy stuff that happens here, huh?"

[He tries to hide it in his voice, but Murphy is also sounding mildly alarmed when he speaks. Thus, he doesn't waste any more time:]

"Anyway, I actually wanted to, uh..." [Pause.] "Well, some birds just flew outta my locker, about an hour ago." [Wasn't expecting that. Scared the hell out of him, too... but he's not going to mention that part. He had spent most of that hour trying to look for them before he decided that MAYBE accessing his comm device would be more productive.] "They're just blue birds -- and they're small -- and I don't think they'll survive out here on their own."

[It was one thing when he set them free in a town. This place is different. He won't bother in asking how they even got here. After all the crazy shit he'd been through in Silent Hill and with the fear gas stuff that went down -- he's learned to just roll with it for now. Fortunately, he's well passed that stage of having another meltdown.]

"Just... If anyone finds 'em, uh... let me know?

"That's all."

[No, Murphy can't see himself caring for a pet. He's never even owned a goldfish at any point in his life. But the prospect of a little bird helplessly starving to death (or worse) in this place legitimately worries him. Yeah, he's a sap like that.]

( private ping to anne cunningham/and also spoilers? )

[THE FOLLOWING IS PUBLIC... But locked AGAINST Saunders, because really, the last thing he needs is her screeching about his lack of morals and being biased when he is... legitimately trying to help. :( And hack-proof, because DAMN THOSE HACKING SKILLS OF HERS. :|]

Okay. I've held off on this long enough. Five months is a long time for a genius to just sit on his butt and do nothing but Frankenstein bits of tech into nothing I can actually use, because I don't have the parts I need without taking apart something we might actually use one day- you're welcome, BTW.

We all just suffered a massive dose of some frakked up neurotoxin. It sent a signal to the brain to release an OD of Norepinephrine and good old, reliable Epinephrine that triggered an acute stress response, so everyone affected? Already scared out of their gourd. You've got elevated heartrate, constriction of blood vessels, the shakes, and a really intense desire to get out of Dodge. The brain is primed for fear responses, so when you add an hallucinogen to that little cocktail? You get exactly what your brains don't want to see.

And how do I know all of this? I'm a neurologist. Brains are my thing. I am very good at working out the kinkies in the human brain. So if we all want to put the kibosh in this kinda chaos before it gets out of hand when the inevitable next time rolls around? You need me in the med bay with... I guess explicit permission from our fearless leaders for me to futz with whatever short bus neuroplastic equipment happens to be there. [He sounds so unsure.] I bet this ship doesn't even have an MRI. Why would it even need one? [A long-suffering sigh] Good thing I'm a genius. I can work with anything- just say the word.

[ The really interesting thing about this video broadcast is the fact that it's not actually coming from inside the Tranquility. Hotspur's in the pilot seat of the first shuttle - the one he affectionately named Faith all those months ago back when they all first arrived. His face is lit by the soft glow of the avionic displays in front of him and he sits back from the controls, slack-handed and staring with thick pre-occupation out of the shuttle windows instead.

His comms device - propped up on the co-pilots seat beside him - offers a profile view of Hotspur's features... and beyond him, a bit of the outer hull of the Tranquility suspended against the backdrop of deep space.

Red-eyed, ashen-faced... Hotspur's clearly hasn't been sleeping very well. Being the robust, brick-outhouse sort of fellow that isn't prone to negativity it usually takes a hell of a lot to make him feel less than 100% of his usual awesomeness but here we are. His expression is pained and with one hand he absently fidgets with the loose-hanging metal dogtags that fall around his neck. He doesn't speak up immediately but when he does it's a distant murmur. ]

...Full of them. Even the bad ones.

[ It's an off-hand comment more to himself than the video feed running live beside him. But then, as if only just remembering that it was recording, he seems to pull himself together and turn his head to address the comms device directly. ]

Look, I know not everyone out here's got much time for talk about the Gods and religion and all that but for those folk that do...

[ He pauses and exhales a brief sigh; this little crisis of faith is turning out to be pretty damn painful and he briefly struggles to hunt down the right words to express what he wants to ask. ]

Well. I'm kind of strugglin' to see how this whole... adventure fits in with whatever it is the Gods have got in store for me. For us all. I mean, it's not that I don't have faith that They know what's best, I... I just --

[ He pauses again and his gaze travels wildly around the cockpit until it fixates on the massive hull of the Tranquility beyond the shuttle's screen. ]

I'm not really sure if demons and possessions and all that is just a really really effective test of faith or that maybe we're all just a little bit too far away for the Gods to help us.

[ Although she's not as bad as she's been the past few days, Wichita still looks pretty beat up and worn out. The fear gas kept her running most of the time, which meant crashing into things and falling down with the disorientation that came with it. She may or may not be hoping for some pathos points here, but it's an effortless attempt for it. She really does feel like shit. ]

I'm not even going to get into the what the hell was that factor of the past few days, but instead there's just one thing I've been wanting to ask, and haven't had a very good reason to until now:

-- If I say "zombie apocalypse", you say..?

Not trying to just stir the pot here, still just... trying to figure out why we're all here. What's their play. Whoever "they" is, I dunno. How many of us are from cookie-cutter happy worlds, and how many were dealing with ridiculous shit before they woke up in the tubes? Spill it.

... Oh, and um. [ sniff. ] If we've talked before? Let's do that again. Like, right now. [ check in with her you bastards. ]

[ ENCRYPTED 100% to NEAL CAFFREY ]
lxmwmaz, lxmwmaz. uayfo vm gnn, esawk. b'g d qnllxl fsa tjmcvx aho, kcjlg?
[ someone's using the program JARVIS hooked her up with~ the key is 'student' herderder. and here's that. ]

[Josias looks quite different to his first appearance. Paler, without his glasses, and there's blood smeared on his cheek. His speech is less stuttering and hesitant, but slower, as if sleepy.]

I appear to be in need of medical assistance. [He rubs a hand over his face, a little more blood left smeared on his forehead.] If someone could help me to the medbay, I'd appreciate it. My room is zero zero six, zero zero three. I've opened the door.

[[ooc: bones will be carting him to the medbay, but he'll be responding to others!]]

[Lawrence is currently applying a bandage to his chin. A little "present" given to him in the chaos of saving people.]

That gas was certainly a crazy batch of nonsense. I've been exposed to more than my fair share of chemical agents in my career, but that one certainly takes the cake. Do you have any idea how hard it is to pull off non-lethal take-downs on crazy people, while trying to shake off the ghost of a guy you killed years ago?

Still, I guess I didn't get hit as bad as some of the rest of you. At least I had the strength of mind to know my hallucinations were just that, and ignore of a lot of them. Glad I knew the layout well enough to close my eyes when the scenery started to weird out.

[With the bandage properly applied, he tosses the wrapper and washes his face.]

Do you guys have these kind of problems often? Who was responsible for all of it?

[OOC: Lawrence was playing hero for the sake of putting on a good impression, knocking out people who were going nuts. If one of the YJ crew wants to take credit for "accidentally" hitting him, go ahead. If you want to be one of the people he knocked out, feel free.]