voidtreckernet | Poi 05

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Poi 05 - Voice

...It's Rich.

[Might as well not bother with preamble, though that's certainly odd for him. Odder still that he has the video off, even if there's still the faint strumming of guitar suggesting that he's nervously plucking at strings as he often does.]

I'm 18 now, according to the roster. Guess I missed my birthday. I knew it was coming up, but I was kinda distracted with stuff.

[Like having a mental crisis for the better part of two months at least.]

Anyways, was just wondering like... what's the longest someone's been stuck here before they got to go back home? Maybe, uh, maybe it was wishful thinking? But I was kinda thinking with the whole Ministry investigation and how fucking useless I am on the missions that the train would boot me off by now.

[He's really trying to laugh, trying to make that sound like a joke.]

Just. Was thinking about it. At this point, my friends back home probably assume my dad stabbed me or shit... maybe they'll believe those messages we got to send at that river, but more likely they'll think I'm nuts.

[Just another certified Rich Goranski Comedy Routine. He'll be here all week, folks.]

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Well, if you don’t want to have a birthday party, that is entirely your decision in my opinion. Having done it myself, it is hard to sit through a party or event that you don’t want to have, even if it is for you.

[He had way too many family members who didn’t want to let him off the hook either]

I arrived in Llama so I guess it has been... four months now for me. I’m not sure either. I certainly hope that when I return home, my friends never realized I was gone, but of course, there is no way to know for sure.

[He couldn’t decide whether it was better in terms of friends or sisters. His friends were all potentially dangerous people who sometimes treated him like he was fragile. His sisters... there were a lot of them]

I'm not really used to celebrating it... and it just doesn't feel like a celebration when I'm stuck here, so. I guess those are my reasons for it.

[Maybe he shouldn't have bothered bringing it up, but when Devero had talked about it, maybe there was a small part of him that was excited about... having someone who remembered it again. Of course he was that desperate for attention, and it leaves a bad taste in his mouth.]

Yeah. I know there was that river where we could apparently leave messages for people back home, but I honestly don't know if they got through or if that was just some attempt to get us to stop worrying so much about it.

Understandable. If you ask me, it is up to you and you alone.

[Quatre wasn't going to be the one to convince him otherwise]

Yeah... I would like to believe that it was real and that our friends will get the messages, but I am suspicious of the train more than I would like to be.

I was suspicious since I got here. Part of that might be bias, but the first month I was here, the train offered to answer questions and then basically wouldn't tell me shit, so that soured my experience pretty quick.

[He snorts, a bitter laugh escaping him.]

Plus, not bothering to heal me when it kidnapped me out of the hospital was kind of a bad move.

Yeah, I know. It's hard to actually get answers out the train. It's almost painful to try.

[You can't see it because this is voice, but he is shocked! Utterly shocked about that last part]

That's terrible!

[He can hear some of the shock in his voice, and Rich has to laugh a bit. See? Anyone would think it'd be common sense to not kidnap someone out of the ICU, train.]

Yeah, isn't it? I was lucky people found me and healed my burns. I couldn't even walk on the train by myself.

Yeah, that seems to make sense. Why would you bring someone who is injured but not help them? I'm glad that others here were able to help you.

Yeah, I'm glad for that too. Sure, I guess it was technically medicine from the train, but it still feels weird they didn't plan ahead to make sure I'd be okay.

...Though I guess with how dangerous some missions are, they don't care too much about safety.

Yeah, I'd think they would have. Kind of tells me that the train is pulling people without paying attention to the situation going on their world.

[Which was disappointing actually]

Yeah, I agree. I've been on some pretty scary ones.

Yeah. Besides the river, they've never shown any concern about where we were taken from and what we were going through. I don't know if that means they think they can put us back in the right place like nothing happened, or if they just think that's justified.

...I know it's cynical of me to just believe the latter.

It's alright. I know you aren't the only one who is cynical about it. I'm wondering about it as well. There is peace in my world now, but it sounds like there are others where it is not so peaceful and those in control of the train just brings them here. I feel their efforts would be better put there... even if it is so they don't have to worry about their home.

It's not that my world isn't peaceful... or well, at least I'm not drafted into a war or anything, but I got pulled away right when I was going to have a chance to, to fix things, I guess? To figure things out for myself, turn over a new leaf, decide who I wanna be.

I can do a little self-improvement here, but I can't, you know, find myself a place to stay and a job, and I can't make it up to the people I hurt before I decided to change.

[He snorts bitterly.]

All I can do, apparently, is be a 'hero.'

[Quatre was quiet for a moment as he listened]

While that is not a time of crisis for your world, that is still a time of crisis for you. I can't imagine how difficult it is to have all of those plans taken away from you.

I guess there are somethings you can do here, but like you said, there's only so much.

...Yeah. And the longer I'm gone, the less chance I have to apologize to the people I hurt. If I show up six months later, they might have already moved on, and I wouldn't blame them.

[Most people are going to want to put that whole mess behind them. Pretend a house didn't burn down and the world didn't nearly become a hivemind. People dismiss what they can't comprehend pretty quickly, it seems.]

I'm sorry. Hopefully... when we go home, you will still have the chance to make things right with them. It's... it's hard when you never have the chance to say something to someone again.

[Like how he could never actually work things out with his father anymore. Not that he had particularly cared that much when he had been alive, but it was never an option now]

I hope so... Sorry, I know a lot of this is probably pretty heavy. I don't mean to get like this when I know people have plenty of other problems, besides this stuff I've been dealing with for months.

[Shouldn't he be helping others instead? There's a hesitance in the man's voice that makes Rich think he might have something on his mind, but he doesn't know how to ask about it.]

No, it's fine. I understand. Sometimes it helps to talk about things that are bothering you. This place doesn't make it easy if there something on at home.

[Quatre was lucky for the most part. His world was fairly stable at the moment and with his teammates at home and his sisters there, if they did notice he was gone, things wouldn't completely fall apart. But his own issues were something that could never be resolved now]

I know. It's just that a lot of people have problems going on at home. I'm definitely not the only one stuck here and being antsy about it.

[Though he probably is one of the few more likely to measure his problems against someone else's and deem them unimportant.]

[Quatre nodded] Yeah. I've talked to a lot of people who want to go home. I've looked into it as much as I can, but there is not much that I have been able to come up with. It seems most of the controls are not accessible.

Yeah, they're all kind of locked away, so until we can figure out a way to break open the metal that they seem to have covering the engine room, we're trapped. Talking to the computer running this thing definitely doesn't help.

[And the face he makes implies that he isn't very trusting of AI in general.]

[Quatre nodded]

I agree. Talking to the computer doesn't help and we don't seem to have many options for how to take control ourselves. I don't like it.

None of us really like it. I don't even think the ones who don't want to go home like it very much. It'd be a lot easier if we could just explain some of this...

[He nodded]

An explanation would be nice. I think at the very least, they owe us that. Since we have been living here for so long and deal withing all of this.

[He sighed]

I'd really just like to see my friends again. They were here but they have been gone for a while now.

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Poi 05 - Voice

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