[ she should probably buck up and make this a video post, she knows that. but it's easier to just talk into the microphone, not worry about her expression, just the tone of her voice. ]

For those that knew him, Charles Xavier is gone. The one that arrived in the seventh jump, um, oh-oh-seven, one-four-seven. I've been trying to get in contact with him for a little while now, over the past few weeks, but today the messages started bouncing back, saying the number doesn't exist. That means that's it, right?

[ there's too many possibilities, too many things could have happened, and none of them are any better or less terrifying than the last. she figured he was busy in the labs all this time, needed time alone after Erik left, but who knows? maybe he'd been lost. and she didn't do anything, she didn't look. not beyond the 'safe' parts of the ship. he could be dead, lost his communicator along the way. the weight of the things she doesn't know is making her chest feel tight all over again. ]

We should-

I just know, I know Charles wouldn't have gone wandering around the off-limit parts of the ship, especially by himself. He's smarter than that. So I guess what I'm trying to say is that we might need to look for a body. Not! Not that I think someone hurt him, I just- something must have happened, some kind of accident. Or- I dunno.

I have no idea where to look. Or who should even be looking, I don't want to put that responsibility on anyone, I'm not expecting anyone to or anything. I'm just trying to figure out how to handle this. [ she's starting to sound detached, nothing like her usual tone. her eyes blur. ]

If somebody could just come with me for one more look around the ship, I'd appreciate it a lot.

[Cameron doesn't appear distressed at all. She considered that she should, but it's too late to fix it now, the device is on. Even though people take distress more seriously if you're injured, she doesn't want to cut up her face just to get a quick answer.

Her voice isn't monotone, but it's abnormally mellow considering what she has to say.]

Hello. I'm looking for my brother. I think he came through here, and I need to find him. He could be in very grave danger.

His name is John. He is five feet, ten inches tall, and he has short brown hair. [A pause, while she considers the likelihood that Sarah is here, too. If she is, she'll be the one people will have noticed; she's louder.] My mother may be with him. Her name is Sarah.

We knew it. [It's a rough, angry rasp, and one might hear the sound of something sharp being dragged against the walls.] We knew it was trap! He just couldn't settle for being wrong, could he? Couldn’t handle the fact that he needed us…

[One might note that the voice is... peculiarly double-edged, half human, and half, sibilant hiss.] Your little prisons have never stopped us before, Spider, and they won’t stop us now! How many innocents must fall at your hands this time?!

[They pause to gulp down a few, ragged breaths, pausing to grasp at their face. They feel disorientated, maybe a little sick. The Other, however, steadies them again, and they bare twisted fangs at the screen.] We’ll rip you limb from limb.

[ it's been a rough couple months for everyone, and the mystic fall contingent no less so. still, when jenna opens the feed she looks more alert and cheerful-- not to mention: less inebriated-- than she has in a while. the locker full of things both useful and frivolously, uselessly cheerful made a few conversations come back in stark relief, and with new light.

she waves a little, shoving her hair out of her face impatiently after. ]

Hey. Okay, so. If you're new, hi, I'm Jenna. Everyone else-- yes, this is what I look like without a bottle in my hand.

[ she rolls her eyes a little, ducking her chin. ]

Bad joke, but that's part of my point. I've been here since jump one, and it really doesn't take a genius-- [ sup, tony. ] to see that the stress has been getting to me. And while my method of coping ended up being attached to a few too many embarrassing in retrospect public posts, I know I'm not the only one. Whether we've been here almost ten months or a little over a week, this is a stressful situation and I hate to be that person, but it's not getting less stressful.

The point is, nobody wants to be Steve Buscemi in the asteroid movie. Not the Morgan Freeman one, the less intellectual... disaster movie. Anyway. [ she exhales, waves a hand. ] Sorry. The actual point is high pressure situations lead to people breaking down, and we've already started down that way. We need to pull back on that, keep ourselves as healthy and happy as we can be.

[ or we'll end up like gallagher, is what she doesn't say, but for the well-informed the subtext is clear. ]

I have a list. Of suggestions, pretty much. I'm not nominating myself leader for change, I'm really not, but if they help... [ she trails off, then taps a few keys. ] It's not very long, just a few basics.

( ( IC TEXT ATTACHMENT | CUT TO SAVE FLISTS ) )

And I had one more idea, but this one is a little more personal. Godric and now that guy with all the meat got me thinking-- yes, okay, we're all in space and no one can remember signing the kidnapping permission slip. But we're from a million different worlds and times, and-- maybe some kind of organized story swap? Like a culture exchange. [ she's more animated now, moving her hands as she talks. ] Like, okay, for example. I'm someone's bannerwoman, but until Alayne explained the reference to me I didn't get why the word 'banner' came into it at all. And forget knowing what Jersey Shore is, there are plenty of us who have never even seen a tv.

Even just vocabulary is so different in places, seeing us all mix together would be a cultural anthropologist's dream. [ oh right, not just babbling. clearing her throat, jenna shrugs. ] Anyway. I don't have a framework, but before I try that is anyone interested? I thought a place where talking about home is the whole point might be helpful for some people, too.

...I never know how to end these things. Over and out? I guess.

[Leoben has been letting most of his encryptions on the network, when he bothers to use them, hover at around an 70-80% effectiveness, and basing them off the work of others so as not to tip his hand too much. It's still early in the game, and he hasn't had any pressing reason to break out his real talents.

This post, though. It's sent to everyone, original crew included, but anyone trying to figure out what number it came from is going to be dealing with an absolute bastard of a coded encryption, full of traps and false backdoors, created by someone who's not only an AI himself but a specialist among AIs in coding, network jamming, and sabotage.

Of course, there are probably one or two people onboard who will guess immediately who it came from, but oh well. Leoben's annoyed.]

Being ejected out the airlock of a spaceship isn't all that fun a way to die. Take it from someone who knows.

If we're going to be talking about instituting a death penalty for crimes committed onboard, fine, although I'd rather restrict such a thing to crimes actually already committed, and committed here on this ship, rather than those that're just potentially maybe possible if we don't act now and preemptively murder them. But either way there are more humane - if you'll excuse the expression - ways to do it.

And if you've been making jokes about it because airlocking doesn't seem like a real threat to you, or you assumed it was some kind of clean and painless space death, please keep in mind that in some of our realities it was the customary method of execution without trial for political prisoners. If you're going to be funny, maybe you should mix in a few references to firing squads and mass graves just to keep it evenhanded.

You throw garbage out an airlock. That's what's being implied when you kill someone that way. And aside from everything else, it hurts.

[ There are a great deal of fumbling noises coming from this broadcast, followed by a low mutter of "Pigeon crap!" This continues for about a minute before Shale realizes the device is on, and then there's silence until she flips it toward her.

Hi, Tranquility. ]

I'm to use this to communicate, am I? They ought to have made its buttons larger, but I suppose it will do, strange as it is. Some sort of magic, perhaps? But so fragile. Likely the work of humans; they're rather fragile themselves.

[ There's a pause here for a quick laugh before the golem behind the camera continues. ]

This is not Ferelden, that much is certain. It is not the Deep Roads either. In fact, I have been told we are on a ship in the Void. Bah! No darkspawn to crush, and yet there are still birds. They will keep their feathered fiends away from me, if they want them to live.

If the Warden or its companions are here, they should speak. I have already spoken to the Warden they call Bethany, but I mean the Warden. And if none are here, I would like to know where I might be able to squash some things.