[video] stuck in the middle with you

[coldhardy]

[Today, Elsa wears a long blue gown with a pale, diaphanous overlayer. She wants to be as much herself as possible, after days with other people. She's addressing the network very seriously, but her words are initially uncertain. As she continues to speak, she sounds more confident.]

Hello, everyone.

About six months ago, I didn't wake up after the jump. I missed a whole month, and I know I wasn't the only one. I had dreams during this time, but no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't remember anything about them.

I've been starting to remember things since the last jump. Everything that has happened since then... the way that girl Seraphim died and the things she said... it makes me think that what I remember might be important, if it wasn't just a dream.

I talked to Emily about it recently, but there's more now.

The trouble is, I'm pretty good with math, but I don't understand the technology here very well. It's not like anything we had at home. That might be important, too.

My dream was about a woman with thick black hair and a ruddy complexion. She wore her hair pulled back. She left the pods after a jump, and the lights were red, and everyone was lined up in formation. I don't think I've ever seen anyone who looked like her here.

A lot of things that happened after that are still coming back in bits and pieces. The thing that I remember now is... after some time passed, she went to the jump drive. It's the thing that helps the ship move, isn't it? It wasn't easy for her to get in, but I still don't understand why yet: the important thing is that she made it. And it wasn't what she expected to see, it was... there were things that should have been moving that were... frozen. Not as if they were in ice, but they were just hanging there in the air, kind of like lightning that never moved or ended.

[Her expression has grown increasingly troubled through the course of this narrative.]

It scared her.

Did anyone else see this? Even if you didn't... do you know what it means?

Comments

[tadashiwashere]

[The intensity softens a little as he offers Elsa a lopsided smile -- it has been a while. And he's glad to see she's okay.]

I was hoping for maybe a code or an override sequence, but -- I guess it can't be that easy, right?

[His expression is rueful for a moment, but then he sighs and tries to push away the disappointment.]

How have you been holding up?

[coldhardy]

I'm all right, now that I'm not worried that any of us will miss the jump. Your brother is fine too, isn't he?

[Tadashi seems so nice!]

A code or an override sequence...? Something she'd have to say to get into the room. [She frowns, concentrating.] Why did she go into the room if she wasn't supposed to be there? Shouldn't her nanites have told the door to open?

[tadashiwashere]

[That's a complicated question to answer. Things are... different between them right now. There's an elephant in the room. Tadashi frowns thoughtfully, then tries for a wan smile.]

Yeah. Yeah, he's good. We made it through.

[He eagerly jumps back to the topic of the jump drive.]

From what I can gather, the jump drive requires a very particular clearance level. [And with good reason.] She could have noticed something was wrong and did what she had to to find the source.

[coldhardy]

That's good! That's him talking to me, isn't it?

[She's referring to some of the other responses to her initial message.]

It would make sense for her to have been looking for the source of something wrong, because she certainly seemed worried by what she saw. She said, "Gods help us all."

I don't understand why lightning would just freeze in the air. Have you ever seen anything like it?

[tadashiwashere]

[Huh. Yep. There's Hiro. Tadashi had replied to her message quickly earlier, then gone back to sorting through parts for anything that would suit the projects he was working on. It's not surprising that Hiro would be trying to find out more about the drive, too -- they both agreed on how important understanding it would be.]

Oh yeah. That's him.

[His smile is something of a mix between indulgent and proud. Then his expression flickers closer to concern as Elsa continues describing her dream.]

I haven't. I'm just a robotics major -- the tech we have still isn't anywhere close to what's here. If I had to guess, though? I would think there was a containment breach of some kind. It's hard to say without understanding more of how the drive operates and the science behind it all.

[coldhardy]

A containment breach...?

[This terminology means absolutely nothing to her, but it's not because she's not capable of understanding the concept so much as that she doesn't have the precise tools to do so.]

The things in the cylinder escaping from the cylinder? [Her eyes narrow as she concentrates: did it look like that? Was the glass broken? She doesn't recall the glass being broken, but memory can play tricks.] Or do you mean something else that should have been contained?

Even if that's what happened, why was it all stopped? It didn't look like it was leaking out anywhere... it was still confined to that room, I think.

[tadashiwashere]

[He's going to go completely out on a limb here and he holds his hands up, his expression clearly reading, now bear with me.]

I'm not even going to pretend to understand any of this. But the jump drive is the source of the singularities that allow us to move through space the way we do, from what I've heard. Whatever would allow it to create that singularity would have properties with various effects. Normally, something like that should probably be shielded. It shouldn't be functioning or releasing any particles while there are people in the room. It should be contained. If everything was frozen, and she was worried by what she saw... that says to me something went wrong with the containment. Even if nothing appears broken, it could be possible that even the smallest hairline fracture could release particles.

[He shrugs, unsure where to go from there without further research into exactly how the ship really did jumps.]

Like I said, I don't have any kind of actual idea. That's just what I would guess without any more information.

[coldhardy]

Is the singularity the tunnel that Rey is trying to explain?

[The camera angle shifts. Elsa can't remember details precisely, but she can recall the basics of how the machine looked, and she's recreated as much of it as she can in a very small model on top of her bed. It only looks right from the angle she's setting the camera at now, and her face is no longer visible.]

I don't know if seeing the machine will help, but this is what it looked like.

[OOC: The dream includes all the description I have of this machine: The behemoth of a machine is all sharp lines, clean edges, silver and sleek. A glass cylinder the size of a shuttle nestles in it like a fluorescent light bulb, and inside, some kind of blue plasma floats as if suspended without gravity in the middle of some stirring centrifuge. The moving parts up around the glass bulb are similarly frozen mid-action, like a still frame of a snowglobe. Arcs of bright blue and yellow energy crack out from the center of the drive, connecting with the walls around the room. Elsa's ice model does not include the plasma or the energy, just the machine itself, because she can't differentiate between colors when she makes something like this.]

[tadashiwashere]

It... maybe?

[Tadashi chews on the inside of his lip and glanced up like he's going to find an explanation written somewhere above him. He can understand and explain moving parts and robotics -- even some things in the medical field. But moving through space? That's all theoretical. A lot of what he's pulling from is science fiction, which might not even apply to the physic at play on board the Tranquility.]

I'll be honest -- I don't really know how the ship travels.

[Tadashi leans closer to the screen, narrowing his eyes as he observes the tiny sculpture of the machine. It's unlike anything he's ever seen before, and he's not even sure he could guess what all the moving parts are meant to facilitate.]

Huh. That's... really impressive. If nothing else, it tells us what to expect from the jump drive. If... that's what that is. Hey, would you mind showing me and Hiro that model up close sometime later this month? Maybe we can work out a model with moving parts -- get an idea of how it's supposed to look in motion.