ataraxion | first trial

[ the transmission comes on to reveal a teenager with blonde hair, leaning forward a little too close into the video before he pulls back, muttering a low-- ] Bloody hell. [ before he actually goes to address the network at large. ]

Sorry bout being a proper greenie bout this, but--my name's Newt. Would rather go by a name than a number. [ even if it's not his real name, but. newt at least sounds friendly, if a little exasperated by his entire situation--then again, what else is new? he still offers the camera a little bit of a smile, brown eyes twinkling. ] I just jumped through a flat trans and ended up in bloody space. I guess this place ain't WICKED--nobody seems to know a shucking thing about it, 'sides me, so I guess I just had a question for you. Two, actually.

First off-- [ newt holds up a finger ] Do any of you live anything like this back home? And I don't mean in a bloody spaceship, I mean like--like life's some kinda trial, buncha different things gettin thrown at you for you to try and live through. [ his lips purse for a second, a little resigned. ] I was so sure this piece-of-klunk situation was just another bloody WICKED experiment... I'm still not sure if it isn't.

[ the second of his points is a little less dark, and he puts up two fingers before dropping them, making a little bit of a face; one eye squints up, almost like he's exasperated, if affectionately so. ] Second, for the love of everything good and shucky, have you seen my friend Tommy? Goes by Thomas, I guess. Brown hair, 'bout yay high, [ he gestures at his shoulder ] probably runnin around askin a lot of questions and stickin his nose into things he shouldn't be.

Thanks proper. [ he waves, then there's a little fidgeting before the feed finally goes out. ]

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[ brad snorts. as far as introducting himself goes, that's setting the tone right, too, but he's not really introducing himself. ] Kid lives next to me.

[ because that's where brad moved to keep an eye on him. and william. don't mind him. ]

Seriously? [ newt instantly looks relieved, some of the tension bleeding out of his shoulders. thank you sir you are a gift. ] I've been looking for that shank everywhere. Figured he'd gone out and gotten himself killed or something 'fore I even got to say hello.

[ he pauses for a second--might be good to actually make the connection. ] Sorry--I'm a friend of his from home. Newt, like I said.

[ yeah, brad colbert is a gift all right. for a given definition of "gift", at any rate. ]

Yeah. Not that he's always there, but he's around. [ brad doesn't know much about their world, but what he knows doesn't exactly make him think highly of it. his sympathy doesn't show on his face, though. ] Brad Colbert. Welcome to the Tranquility. [ the last is said with obvious sarcasm. ]

[well actually yes but first things first]

Hey, I've seen your friend too. He's cute. Little bit... jumpy. Do people really call him Tommy?

Thanks--and nice to meetcha. [ he smiles, a little grimly. ] I've had some weird shucking stuff happen to me, but showin' up naked as the day I was born with a tube down my throat's a new one. I'm still getting used to everything proper--it's a lot different than home.

[ but also not because the hallways are like a damned maze and newt feels just as trapped here as he did in the maze. two steps forward, one step back, and then a bloody leap even further than that. ] Can I ask you--if you're neighbors, Tommy's alright, yeah? He's been alright since he got here? [ and how long has he been here and newt just worries about his new leader/favorite greenie. a lot. ]

That sounds about right, yeah. [ newt smiles on his end, affectionate--though it's definitely jarring to hear a girl's voice at first.

...do people call thomas tommy? ] I do. [ newt just. nicknames people. it's become a thing, from alby (albert) to tommy (thomas). ] Always have, either Tommy or greenie since the day I met him. 's that weird?

Welcome aboard.

What do you mean by wicked?

Lots of people ask a lot of questions. [She's smiling, teasing. After a moment, she sobers.] Home's a lot different. I mean, there's things happening now and again, but for the most part, I lived a pretty quiet life.

Not at all.

[Also going to call him 'Tommy', that's all.]

He tried to call me greenie once. It didn't go too well for him--I don't really do nicknames, myself.

[ newt snorts, and rolls his eyes a little on his side of things. ] He called you greenie? Tommy's the shuckiest shuck face greenie we ever had in the Glade, you shouldn't let him call you that. Might be a leader nowadays, but he's still a greenie.

You got another name, then? [ his tone's all friendly--a friend of thomas's is a friend of newt's. ]

's an organization, a right terrible one. Fits the name, but it stands for somethin'--World in Catastrophe Killzone Education Department, or sommat. They ran a lot of things like this, just. Never in bloody space.

It's some kinda deja vu, for sure. [ newt feels like a greenie fresh out of the box here--it's hard to really get reoriented. but his voice takes on a little bit of quiet concern as he listens to the girl speak. ] Yeah? What's it like?

I get the feeling that this ship's got a bad name.

[ tranquility--it does sound like a WICKED sort of joke. ]

Oh, I can tell, and I don't even know half of what you just said.

[Meanwhile, her sharp smug sarcastic could maybe be taken for a kind of friendliness here. She's feeling charitable.]

And don't worry. He figured out wrong he was pretty quickly. I don't let anyone call me anything I don't want to be called. You can call me Johanna. And what do I call you?

[ holy shit. thomas' face is literally pressed up into the screen. ]

Newt?

Tommy. [ newt sounds relieved, and the crooked smile on his face seems to agree with that--he's never been more glad to see thomas in his life. ] Thought WICKED mighta snatched you up for good. You alright?

Home's pretty quiet, really. I go to school. And... I go to school. Sometimes, I unwillingly end up going to Paris. [It happened once. But it was still unwilling and still not so great.]

Yeah, this ship's got a bit of a reputation.

— Did you really wave?

[ what a child thinks the much littler human. ]

Name's Newt. [ and most certainly not greenie. ] Nice to meetcha, Johanna.

[ thomas made friends with a girl? newt can only imagine how minho might react to hearing that--the jeering in the glade would never end. (it was even like that with teresa, at first. tom and his little girlfriend. up until she punched jeff right where it hurt and caused the whole glade to melt down, which is a story for another day.) ] You're a friend of his, yeah? Has he been keeping alright? 'sides calling girls names he shouldn't be calling them.

Sounds proper nice. [ it really, really does. newt's heart aches a little for the idea of "school" and "home"; things he must have had once in his life, but things he'll never remember, or have again. ]

Someone told me somethin' bout a disease. [ newt's nose wrinkles. ] Not called the Flare or anything like that, is it?

What's wrong with being friendly, huh? Where I'm from, waving means nothing less than saying goodbye. [ that voice sounds familiar, and newt responds mildly, even smiling a little. sounds like someone's over that nausea issue.] Are you feeling better, then?

Edited 2014-10-16 20:17 (UTC)

What's a killzone, in this scenario?

[ brad doesn't smile back, at least not immediately. his lips to quirk up in the end, though it is no more a happy gesture than newt's smile had been. ] You'll get used to the tube.

As alright as any of us are. [ brad's not going to spill about the fallout from the recon mission they'd been on together, even if this guy says he's thomas' friend and sounds like he really is. ]

Yeah, it is.

[Nice to meet her, that is.]

I don't know if he'd call us friends. I think we're friends. The last time I saw him, he was running weirdly, but maybe that's just how he runs. He looks like he'd be stronger than that. And faster.

Anyways, I think he's kept fine. Should he not have?

No, I've never heard it called that. The nanites in us kinda went crazy, apparently.

[ simply, ] For now.

It's a stupid thing to do over video, [ she continues, ] when people can just message you back. Especially when you're asking people to message you.

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