ataraxion | [voice] - "People must either be caressed or else destroyed."

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[voice] - "People must either be caressed or else destroyed."

[The voice is young, male, and low, and the speaker's British accent is more pronounced than usual. The hints that he might be from somewhere around Southampton are also more apparent to people who can pinpoint that kind of thing. He doesn't sound as awake as he might: he's on strong medication for pain, and it lends a vague, languorous quality to his discourse.]

There's something that's been bothering me. Regardless of what we've been told... of what anyone was told... what if the jump drive works exactly as it was intended to? Or what if it malfunctions, but not in the way we've been led to believe that it malfunctions? What if someone always intended for us to be here?

Then...

[A shifting noise, the scrape of fabric near the communicator's microphone; he's not comfortable in his bed in medbay —]

Two other questions come to mind.

There are fifty-one levels of passenger quarters. The new arrivals, last jump... you were numbered 32...? I'm sure someone will correct me if I don't remember.

What happens after the fifty-first? I suppose the layout could change, it changes in other places, but it hasn't so far in the passenger areas — which could suggest a timeline, or it could suggest that we'll be doubling up at some point, or filling in areas that no one has used in a while — but—

[He's been speaking quickly, trying to get those words out in a rush of breath, and now he pauses for a few breaths. He doesn't bother to finish that thought; he thinks the implication that they may be running out of time is clear. He continues, more measured,]

Alternately, what happens to us if van Rijn catches up with us?

[The subtext: Exactly how screwed are we?]

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Who or what is van rijn?

[No one would really want a text message from him right now, nor would he want to write one... which is not to say that he might not try later, if he gets tired of talking.]

The Prime Minister of... this system? Apparently ultimately responsible for building this ship. What interests me is that it was at least 40 years ago, and he's still PM.

[ Kate's a big fan of text lately but impatient enough to just roll her eyes and swap when he goes for voice. Her tone is curious, even but with a faint undercurrent of intensity reined in. ] How do you know that?

The same way we know anything else. It's what we've been told, one way or another.

It was Joe. The Man From Pernambuco. [It rolls trippingly off the tongue when you're a little bit out of it.] Haven't seen him around lately. He was... nineteenth jump.

Or was it the raiders? It might have been the raiders.

Raiders like the pirates? I've heard about a pirate attack. I've never heard of Joe from Pernambuco. Or the prime minister. Is there info about this written down somewhere?

Pirates, yes. Joe is... he came in on the nineteenth jump. [He said that already, didn't he? It causes him to pause for a momentary recalibration.] No one else did. It wasn't the only way he was unique. His network comments are archived. The question has always been whether or not he was planted, and if so, how, and by who, and how complicit he might have been.

As far as what's written down, I was unconscious when Jones addressed the network the other day, but I have the impression that he passed his guide around.

Hold on -- I'll send something around --

[And he sends along a link to this to get her started. Finding it took a few minutes. This was a bit easier. His own work is kept on his laptop, which is in his cabin, and the documents he keeps there are neither accessible to him for the moment, nor for public consumption.]

Edited 2014-07-06 23:34 (UTC)

Yeah, I've been reading the guide. I haven't gotten to anything yet about why the prime minister would be chasing us? [ But there's a lot of stuff in there to be processing on very little sleep. (And I OOCly got bogged down in the timeline and forgot it said van Rijn's name right there in the basic stuff! Good start!) ] Is that seriously a thing that's happening that no one has mentioned until now?

Apparently, he wants the ship back.

[This is said dryly; the Tranquility seems like an expensive thing to lose.]

How hot the pursuit is, though, I couldn't say. We've been told that we're a ghost story.

[That's not in the least bit uncomfortable after recent events. Ghost stories within ghost stories. The person who had come for him had been alive when he last heard, but Matine had seen someone who had been dead for years.]

You're aware that we aren't sure how much time passes when we're unconscious during jumps, correct?

[OOC: True confessions: when Joe was new, I did the same thing. Was completely unaware that van Rijn's name was right up front and center in the information because it had been a while since I'd looked at it! Haha, oh well.]

Edited 2014-07-07 01:15 (UTC)

I just read the bit where a woman turned into a bug and said it took a month. Are we just assuming it could vary or is there some other evidence I haven't gotten to?

[ Ghost stories. Prime ministerial pursuits. It's a lot to process, even in a place that's sort of always been a lot to process. Kate's a bit at sea, having flung herself abruptly in to this investigation with no real knowledge or direction. ]

(OOC: Hahaha that makes me feel better! It's definitely easy to miss the trees for the forest sometimes in all of this.)

You haven't gotten to -- [he catches himself, then adds, contemplatively,] -- no, it's possible that we still need to update it.

At another point, after another jump... I believe it was the same one where Joe arrived... she told us it had been a year. She wasn't in good shape herself, and she'd had a pet cow which hadn't made it into the pods... the condition of its remains was consistent with that kind of passage of time. Or at least as much as it's possible to establish those things.

[Exact time of death becomes harder to establish with the decay of remains, with the departure of insects... it doesn't really occur to him that he's letting on a bit more than he usually would about his real profession on the network.]

A year. [ Don't worry, Kate is far more focused on the rest of that to think much of his apparent forensic expertise. She's silent a moment, turning that bit of info over in her mind. ] So for all we know, we could have been on the ship for decades and van Rijn could be dead.

And/or this whole thing is a giant experiment in progress. I assume that possibility's been considered before, right? That it's not an experiment gone bad, just one that's still going?

Considering everything, I wouldn't say no to shooting him.

Van Rijn?

Hm. I'm not sure the opportunity would ever present itself.

[Plus, Carolyn, you can't assassinate people! Not even dictators. Well, maybe dictators. Maybe you can assassinate Hitler. He might not argue against that. But van Rijn might have more information on their situation, and as such, extracting it is more desirable than shooting him.

Pipe dreams.]

Does every jump bring us closer, or take us further away? Or is it at all productive to think in those terms?

[ She didn't say shoot to kill. ]

He'd probably be fine. Augments and everything.

[ Sad day. ]

No. We have no way of knowing, it's only going to make you mad.

We don't know enough about what they do, or what he's capable of, or how he guards against assassination. Or -- do we even know of anyone having seen him in the recent past? He's as much of a bogeyman as Red.

Augments didn't save Moira da Costa, but we can't be sure how hers would compare to his.

[Not that he knows how she died, or if she died, but feeding the Prime Minister to the manticores could be an option. The idea suits L's current mood. Their current situation may not be wholly van Rijn's fault, but it's enough so to bring up palpable resentment and annoyance.]

So what's more productive?

[That's curiosity -- asking for Carolyn's opinion -- rather than a challenge.]

No one's seen him here. Joe said he was still in charge, but we don't know of anyone with enough pull to have seen him. Gallagher, maybe, but we don't know enough about him either.

A scientist versus a government official? [ She snorts. ] No contest.

[ A scientist wouldn't be expecting manticores. An official would be expecting attempts on his life. ]

Working with the evidence we do have, what we think we know. The ship doesn't want us to know where we are; there are no star charts, no accessible navigational systems. Until it wants us to know, we won't be able to follow that line of thought. So we work with what it's given us, what it's let us discover.

Gallagher may have seen him then, but that's not what I'm getting at. If a lot of time has passed, how often is he seen now? By people who live within a reasonable physical proximity, or even the citizens?

[He lets the question hang in the air before continuing in a more resigned tone.]

Working with the evidence we have -- and trying to acquire more as we can -- is all we can do. I'd prefer to take calculated risks. [Unlike the one he had taken and was currently paying for, say.] But it said... we'd have to move faster. Is pushing us further away from any pursuit what it meant?

["It," in this context, is Smiley, but he's slightly too drugged to avoid the assumption that Carolyn knows what he's talking about.]

More questions that you can't get the answers to here. You have to narrow your focus.

[ Carolyn shifts a little, the sound of fabric rustling picked up by the comm. ]

What's out there -- and I don't doubt that it's fucked up -- doesn't matter right now. Our immediate problem is here. Focus on it -- on surviving.

[ Because the alternate is death, she has no doubt about that. ]

It's hard to know. Sometimes it seems like there are two forces at work here. Other times... well. It's hard to know.

he may be the only person we know of in a position to know what's going on. we should torture him first.

we can shoot him without killing him

well there's something to be said for your enthusiasm

I'm not fond of what he's done here, even without the ship pulling us in

admittedly I'm not fond of most politicians in general

[ Nathan is the exception, and they still butt heads a great deal. ]

and your taste

flattery?

He's not likely to come personally. If he did, it would be with a fleet. I really don't think the opportunity would come up.

[Because if it did, he knows some effective interrogation methods.]

in keeping with your own notes the technology that moves the tranquility through time and space is unique and unknown to the general public. it stands to reason that the only ship capable of catching us is the solitude.

as for van Rijn there are men who prefer to take matters into their own hands

If any, but space and time are an issue. If there's any motivating fac... ow.... factor actively controlling the autopilot [(he refers to Smiley, or T, or another possible unknown)], then we don't know at what point it may decide to confront him, or bait him. Most of us don't know where we are after a jump, or when we are. When our factor feels the time is right, it could easily turn us around in that direction. In the meantime, technology could be catching up. There was a time when the Solitude was the only ship capable of catching us, but how long that will remain true, it's hard to say.

[He shifts the communicator around a little before continuing; his arm is tired.]

Specific methods are probably best discussed in person. We've seen that the technology has advanced enough that this method of communication isn't secure in relation to anyone on the outside.

[But it's not a matter of fear -- van Rijn will do to them what he will do to them if he gets his hands on them -- it's a matter of tipping their collective hand. There are also people to get through, but that's negligible.

A memory of the barracks comes to mind. He wonders if he or one of the other passengers has fought and killed the one who wrote on the wall. Gallagher must have known about the conversions, human prisoners converted to inhuman creatures, if he had placed an enormous bribe to help Resnik. Yet she had still been considered a "number" -- ]

Edited (Added manticore tip-off in the meta, for clarification. :) ) 2014-07-08 05:19 (UTC)

That's right. Thirty-two.

[Benny's own thick Cajun accent is a sharp contrast to L's, and it only gets thicker when he's anxious or thoughtful -- a lot like now.]

'fraid I've still got some learning to do when it comes to this place. Not sure what help I can be, but you're askin' all the right questions, far as I'm concerned.

Who's van Rijn? If you don't mind my asking.

The information that Ianto Jones has been sending around is a good place to start.

van Rijn is the Prime Minister of this system. Ultimately responsible for building this ship, at least forty years ago.

[Several political implications there.]

I'll take a look.

[There's been a lot of info from various sources to sift through, but he'll make it a priority.]

Good to know. [He snorts lightly. Forty years. That's a long time for someone to hold office, if he's been Prime Minister all that time. Almost as long as he'd been in Purgatory.] He been Prime Minister all that time, too, or that a recent development? He's gotta have one hell of a PR team, if so. So when you say 'catches up to us' -- he's lookin' to get the ship back.

[Great. Just great.]

All that time, and the ship... incredibly expensive, presumably an embarrassment at the time, probably a lot of potential for further embarrassment if some of its true purposes were ever revealed. I'd be surprised if nobody had their suspicions about some of this, though... I'm not sure that it's so much that he has a hell of a PR team as that he's functionally a dictator. Propaganda apparatus, maybe.

Your accent... where are you from?

[As if it's not strongly implied.]

Sounds like a real winner. There any tellin' how close he is or isn't to catchin' up and handlin' things his way?

[How much of a lead have they got on this guy, anyway?

Benny pauses, just for a beat.]

Louisiana. Carencro, near Lafayette.

[As if the actual city makes a difference.]

None that I know of. I'm not even sure we can establish that he's really still alive, only that he's rumored to be and that he's still technically in power, at least in name. However... last we heard, there's a standing order to scan signals for signs of The Tranquility. That implies that he's an active force.

[On the other topic, Louisiana is at least a place that he's heard of, which is more than he can say for some other passengers' points of origin; it also means that the accent corresponds to his own knowledge, and isn't an accent that happens to sound like an American from Louisiana when it's actually that of a distant galaxy, centuries in his own future. That means that there will probably be at least some common assumptions and common points of reference in this conversation, which is easier.]

What year was it for you, before you came here?

More than implies, I'd say.

[But he gets it. That's not something any of them want.]

2013, I think. [He lost track, after all that time in Purgatory, but he'd caught up quick once he was back topside.] But I'm a little behind the times.

51 thats like two years from now right

Eighteen months, give or take. Maybe less, in productive time, if we sleep through another jump.

If it's a ticking clock, it's not as much time as I'd like.

hahaha i feel like this is one of those things like 2012 yknow THE WORLDS GONNA END AGAIN except were stuck in a ship goin nowhere and i guess we cant just go nowhere forever i dont wanna die though

We could go nowhere until we die, I suppose.

[Oh, that's cheerful. Still, on this ship, it seems to be a matter of what will kill you first.]

Or we could be heading somewhere, we just wouldn't know where.

Arima... did you go, and then want to come back to the ship? It might be possible to stay somewhere like that, sometime in the future. I'm not sure how many people would take it, it would mean... it would mean... [he pauses; there's audible shifting as he tries to get more comfortable (a losing battle)]... it might mean giving up any chance of going home.

idk youd have to really hate where youre from to just stay somewhere else somewhere that you dont even know how far it is from where u come from also theres the matter of time everybody here is from a different year

Or really hate this ship, and have lost any hope that it would send you home. Or... some people might hate their homes that much. I can imagine that the ones who think they should be dead at home might choose to make a new life somewhere.

Still, I'm not sure I follow you. [It would be a miracle if he was following everything -- the medication makes him feel sleepy and disconnected, although it does dull the pain to some extent.] What do our points of origin have to do with it?

[He sounds curious, not confrontational.]

well we're all living here at the same time even though were from different years so if we actually go somewhere like Earth who's to say it's going to be the same time we came from we'd just be going to a different place anyway, not home

[He sounds like he's considering this.]

Not like a yoyo, in your theory.

[A sigh, and then he comes to a sort of conclusion, one which might have more to do with the medication than anything else. His speech is a little bit more laborious than usual.]

I think we may be talking about two different things. Do you mean, if the ship finds its way to Earth? I've never been completely clear on what's supposed to have happened, but I don't think Earth exists anymore. Or... do you mean if someone seems to have been able to return to where they started during a jump?

[He really doesn't like the theory that people who disappear during jumps disappear in a meaningful sense, as if they've been erased from existence.]

I was just thinking... Earth. Why doesn't it exist anymore?

Considering how the lower floors are nearly empty, people could start getting reassigned to living quarters there. Or, alternatively, we're all gone, and they start from level one all over again.

Yes, but the latter still leaves us with time running down.

The former... [a long, inhaled sniff, then a very soft grunt -- inhaling like that hurt a little]... it makes me wonder how it would be accomplished. Maybe they wouldn't be assigned so much as left to their own devices to find something.

[That could be a problem: rooms whose occupants have gone are routinely looted for their contents, down to the bedding. People would be welcoming, for a while, and it's possible that the population would never be large enough to truly cause much scarcity of resources, but if there was such a scarcity, the infighting might get vicious.]

[ Dick can tell the difference in the sound, and the complication in breathing. He frowns. ]

You want company in medical?

And, well, by the sound of it, time is running down, either way. And there are a lot of free rooms even on my floor, I'm sure the ship can fit in a lot more people than are arriving. I'm going to guess that the questions that raises haven't been answered, yet?

[ Such as why the number of expected arrivals is bigger than the number of actual ones. Why people who are clearly together, and even arrive together, may be assigned different rooms. All sorts of questions. ]

If you feel like it.

[He almost never wants company, but he's very bored... and Robin wants less from L than almost any other kid of his acquaintance who is around the same age. Close to nothing at all, in fact.]

I wonder if there's any way we can learn anything about the pace. Jaye isn't here anymore; that makes it harder to establish how much time might be passing during any given jump. But knowing that a month or a year passed still doesn't give us any information about where we've been, where we're going, how likely it is that anyone in particular might catch up with us. Although I have the impression that the ship is on the run.

To be honest, it's hard to understand why it was built like this at all, except that the large number of passenger cabins might have been camouflage. As to who's pulled in, the numbers... that would argue against the idea that the jump drive was built for that purpose. But maybe it's only ever had the capacity to displace a few dozen people at a time, at most, and maybe it's variable.

[He rests in a narrow bed in medbay. Most of his treatment was accomplished with the automated functions; some required human attention. He's been stitched up and bandaged, and there's a blanket tucked high on his chest. But he looks even paler and more drained than usual, and his left cheek is slightly abraded just on the cheekbone under his eye.]

On my way.

[ He thinks about it all on his way to medbay. Which isn't direct - he stops by the nearest kitchen, grabbing a packet of cookies. If Ryuuzaki's not allowed them, yet, he probably will be, at some point. ]

Hey.

[ Easy and simple, the eyes behind the shades taking in the damage, the general state, and his lips press in a thin line. ]

Brought you these. Also, how much painkillers are you on? Not that the thoughts aren't valid, but it seems like it might be a variable in the discussion...

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