video-

[sweetmotherofgod]

[The feed clicks on and there's a beat or two of Heather just sitting cross-legged on her bed before she starts to speak. The pause isn't nearly as dramatic as some others this jump, though; more like she's decided she needs to say something without quite deciding what it is she wants to say. Sure, by now there must be more people on board who never knew Hotspur than people who did, but he should be more than a cautionary tale about what happens if you don't get into a grav couch in time. He died trying to help everyone out of this mess, and that should be remembered.

When she does speak it's calm enough, although in a way that people who know her well will probably realize takes a little effort.]

Are we going to talk about what we heard before the jump? I know there's a lot to take in right now, but... something takes that much effort to say and it gets said anyway? We ought to be listening.

Comments

[yardbird]

[Hell, Murphy didn't even know Hotspur, but he remembers the screams on the network, and was around to witness that cautionary tale firsthand. Hooray.]

Well, it'd be a lot easier to talk about if I knew what to make of it. Unless you got any ideas in mind...

["Do you believe in ghosts?" springs in his head, but Murphy has a feeling that saying something along those lines would only be in poor taste, especially to Heather. He can't really settle on anything else, though. Other than maybe they have a dead guy on board, or it was just an ominous recording -- or something else completely.

[...This is a weird jump.]

[sweetmotherofgod]

[As it turns out, she does. She believes in this one a little, anyway - thought she saw him way back when she'd been lost in hallways. A hallucination, she'd reasoned. After all, she'd been through something terrifying and then followed it up with sustained lack of sleep, no food, and mild hypothermia. She saw a lot of things that weren't real.

After this, though? Just about the only thing keeping her from genuinely thinking Hotspur is haunting the ship is a stubborn refusal to accept that a man so good would be refused whatever version of Heaven he believed in.]

Got a couple. Don't like any of them. I don't know how much we can really figure out without knowing what it was he'd been trying to tell us.

[yardbird]

Hate to say it, but it wasn't really all that helpful. [Assuming that the message was supposed to be helpful in the first place, and not just to psyche everyone out. If it's the latter option, then it's done a fantastic job, because that just confirms what Murphy was already concerned about.]

...Think I'd rather hear your theories instead...

video;

[chromosomes]

Do we know what happened to his communicator?

voice;

[handelaar]

No.

[And yet here you are, Nederland. Getting grump and skepticism all over in just one syllable.]

voice + recording

[cargojet]

[ Nathan doesn't reply, but it's sent from his device, the quality of recorded sound, the background noise trimmed out of it. Hotspur had been screaming, and there was a mechanical noise, a screech of distortion, enough to put your teeth on edge and make your head feel like it might explode. There hadn't been time before they jumped, but he'd gone straight back to Comms still covered with goo to produce this, using instinct and experience drawn from the communications problems they'd had just before the genetics lab had been discovered.

Hotspur's voice, then, strained and frightened: ]

They said he went mad - Gallagher, the old captain. They said he killed the civilian command staff and it was all because of the jumps but--

[ One message blurs into another, but it's the same message, really. Hotspur is dead, Nathan is sure about that, though there will be theories about ghosts, about him somehow surviving. In Nathan's reading, Hotspur only recorded one message, it just hasn't stopped echoing yet, and this is the only reading of it that makes sense. That doesn't mean that he's right, but he will defend it to the end. ]

But it's just the beginning.

[ The audio clicks off, then there's Nathan's voice. ]

What's there to discuss? "In space, nobody can hear you scream."

[sweetmotherofgod]

[S i g h. It would have been helpful if he hadn't been shut up, that's kind of the point. But between a jump everybody seems to have sat out and what happened to Jaye (hey, she doesn't like the chick, but that doesn't mean she can't be worried) and that transmission, everything feels wrong enough right now without her getting into it with Murphy on top of things. She's sure as hell not going to mention any of the woo-stuff that's bothering her over it, though.]

Why are we only hearing this now? Why'd it get cut off like that? Either we would have heard it as part of the first message except something stopped it until now, or we wouldn't have heard it anyway and something... I don't know, boosted it. Sent it back. Hell, those aren't even really theories. Just room for more questions. If something stopped it the first time, are we hearing it now because whatever was doing it failed, or because something wanted us to? If we wouldn't have heard it, what changed? And why'd it take so long?

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[sweetmotherofgod]

The people who went for him picked it up, I think. Don't know about after that. Thing is, it doesn't look like that message came from it. But I'm not great with this stuff, I could just be fucking it up.

video; (your cat emote here)

[sweetmotherofgod]

[Decision to go on the network instead of just showing up at his door and asking his opinion: validated.]

Thanks. I appreciate you taking the time out of your day to tell me that.

[sweetmotherofgod]

How about the middle and the end? Somehow I don't think he planned that to be a cliffhanger. And we did. We heard it. You telling me you're comfortable leaving it at that?

[cargojet]

Whatever he found out got him killed. By Ward and Resnik, by all accounts, who can move through the ship at will and kill us in our sleep if they feel like it.

Survival and getting home are more important to me. This ship can keep its secrets for all I care.

voice;

[20mentholkools]

Nothing to listen to.

[sweetmotherofgod]

So something we're all going through made this guy crazy enough to kill everyone, but you don't want to know more about it. I guess that's your right, but me? I'd rather risk being killed in my sleep than wake up one morning and find out I'd murdered everyone I care about.

[yardbird]

[Too bad cryptic messages have to be so damned cryptic, and anyone who seems to have some kind of idea as to what is going on, or even gets close to it, tends to lose their marbles.]

Here's another question -- who's to say that it's even the same guy at all? All we heard was a voice, but maybe it was somethin' else... [That's reaching, though not impossible. Silent Hill could do it when it made him see his son, and the Tranquility doesn't seem too far off at times.]

[cargojet]

If we happen to find out, great. But I'm not a doctor, so I can't tell you what the jumps are doing to us, and I have too many responsibilities to go rambling about the innards of the ship and come back with half my face clawed off. It isn't that I don't want to know, it's that living is more important.

Getting off this goddamn murdership is more important.

video >:c

[sweetmotherofgod]

[Seriously? Fuck all these voice-only motherfuckers and also their horses. But: yelling at people has not yielded the results she's after any time before now, so she just sighs.]

You actually think that, or are you just being cryptic?

nope still judgey voice;

[handelaar]

[Hmph.] Don't think it's smart.

[Blabbing about it all over the network, he means.]

[sweetmotherofgod]

Something pretending to be him?

[Murphy why would you say that, it's horrible. Of course it's also a really valid point, and one that hadn't occurred to her until now. It should have - for christ's sake, it was Murphy she first discussed all the doppelganger stuff with. That's enough to make her feel a little ashamed for not coming up with it on her own.]

Why, though? What's the point? If it's just trying to mess with us, why not say something really scary? I mean, that was awful, but it wasn't anything we didn't already suspect.

[sweetmotherofgod]

Didn't really plan on going rambling. Once was enough.

[She can't help a smile over murdership, and while it probably doesn't exactly show in her voice she's... maybe a little more polite than she'd otherwise be.]

I guess I just don't see people who'd kill us over curiosity letting us out of here alive if we all behave like good boys and girls. I still want to know. But if you don't, I can respect that.

Do you have kids?

[or are the responsibilities he's referring to "continuing to be a bossy jerk", basically.]

well then

[sweetmotherofgod]

What else am I gonna do, go door-knocking like a Jehovah's Witness or something? Ask people if they're happy with the state of the ship today?

[cargojet]

There's plenty of heroic adventurer types who can do that, then come tell me how it went. Probably better equipped for fighting those monster things, too. [ He's grateful for the change in topic. ]

I have two boys, Monty and Simon, and a grown up daughter, Claire. They're none of them here, at least not any more.

[ But he considers himself responsible for the kids in lots of ways, and he comforted Takeshi when he was lost. He still doesn't know that she counts as Heder.

And being a bossy jerk is important, hdu. ]

You?

[sweetmotherofgod]

[Nathan Petrelli, she could tell you monster-fighting stories that would curl your damn hair. Of course, "excuse you I killed God" doesn't always play well, so she just... lets it slide. Along with the "not any more", because ouch. Yeah yeah, safer at home, that doesn't mean you stop missing somebody.]

Monty? Great name.

[She's not even being sarcastic, that's really cute.]

I don't have any kids of my own. Unless you count unofficial space-adoptions, then I've got one who's way better than I deserve.

[handelaar]

Better than using these things.

[cargojet]

He's a great kid, too. Both of them are. Good boys. Their mom doesn't want me near them any more, but that's a whole different thing.

[ He says it bravely, but it clearly still stings, or so says the tone in his voice. Nathan was a drunkard, suffering from the loss of his brother; a down and our and an adulterer, and he'd gotten exactly what he deserved--it didn't mean he didn't miss them both. ]

Unofficial space adoptions, huh. Anyone I'd know?

[sweetmotherofgod]

[s i g h]

Well, it's done now.

[so get off her nuts ok]