Status Check and Dream Review! [OTA]

[unfavorableinstigation]

Video (Several hours after everyone's awake again.)
From: Cabin 4-B
To: Everywhere

---

[Despite having turned one of the cabin's ICP units on, Nita is still writing in her own Manual in plain view of the camera.]

Anxiety dreams - what were those creatures anyway? They looked like they were made of wings-

[While from this angle the writing isn't clear, and given it's in the Speech it's a gamble if your character can make sense of individual syllables at all, it's obvious Nita is grouping details into lists.

Nita looks up, brown hair fuzzed from sleep as if the past day had been normal, like she'd just slept through the night instead of a whole day.]

Hey, all. I wanted to check with you - does anyone else remember that falling dream? Not the ones with flying, though there were a lot of those - but where you're lying back on something, just watching the sky, and then there's-

[Nita breaks off, shaking her head.]

It's not clear now, but it was like everything shattering. Like a dark version of the Big Bang, if I had to use an analogy, with everyone going everywhere. Then there was screaming, and I woke up.

Did anyone else get that?

[Nita pauses, considering.]

Oh, and if anyone was in the game car when the breach happened, mind telling me what it looked like? Or if anything like this has happened before, with the Void. That'd be good to know, too.

[Nita scratches down a few more lines.]

So, just in case we haven't met yet, I'm Nita Callahan, I'm in Cabin 4-B, and I'd really appreciate some kind of context for this!

Comments

[unfavorableinstigation]

... Stupid how, exactly?

[Since for Nita, implying something stupid usually also carries the implication that it's not worth caring about. The dreams may be a pain, disturbing, and more than occasionally vague, but that's not what she defines as stupid.

Granted, that's her perspective; Buttercup may just have her own definition.]

Wait, what? So we are still in space, in a way?

[Hyperspace, maybe, not that Nita knows if Buttercup knows that word.]

That does suck, yeah. How long were you all stuck there?

[knifewithnoname]

Just stupid.

[She shrugged. And then frowned.] No. We do be being in the void. We did be... I think we did be crashing? It did be being shakey and then we did be being in space and the void engines had failed but I do no really be knowing what they do be being so you should be asking mister Stark or maybe Peter but he will be using too many words.

[She shrugged again. She can't remember really. Probably no longer than a day. She can't remember sleeping.]

[unfavorableinstigation]

[Nita sucks on her teeth; she does not like the sound of that.]

Did it ever sound like you'd hit something?

[She pauses, thinking, then shakes her head.]

They might know how a void engine could work, but I don't think they're secretly working for whoever designed these engines.

[She'd still be interested in the theory, of course, but theory isn't the same thing as answers.]

[knifewithnoname]

[Another shrug. She wouldn't know what that would sound like. Loud she guessed. Maybe? She can't remember much, it had been very sudden.]

Who do they be being?

[Because Nita seemed to know something, and she wanted to know it too.]

[unfavorableinstigation]

That's the question.

[And Nita sighs.]

If what they said on the leaflet's any indication, no one knows or has any record of them. But if it's beyond even spaceflight, it's bound to be specialized technology, the sort of thing people keep secret.

[knifewithnoname]

"You do be thinking so?" She tilted her head, "But all worlds do be being different. In my world we do no be having trains or cars but in Peter's world they do be going into space. So maybe this do be being from... Another place."

That's what she had believed. But now Nita was saying. This could be a secret Void train. Interesting.

It might explain why they had been kidnapped.

[unfavorableinstigation]

[Nita nods; that lines up with what she's experienced before, both in Nautilus and even before then back home.]

I mean, if there are worlds who know about this whole thing as.. I don't know, an industry, some volunteer organization, then they sure are news to me!

[Nita sounds more than a little annoyed, mostly because the idea sounds very familiar to her; being out of the loop is only nice until you know there's a loop to be in!]

[knifewithnoname]

They do be being news to me too. [She nodded.]

Though there did be being a man who used to be being here. Trains like this did be existing where he did be being from. He did be working on one.

He did be leaving though.

[unfavorableinstigation]

What, really?

[Nita is both impressed and disturbed. How much did this man know? Did he leave like any other passenger, like those people did at the station? Or had his departure been more mysterious?]

What was his name? And- did he mention void travel on trains specifically, or just through space?

[knifewithnoname]

Manabu Yuuki. He did no be mentioning specifically in the void travel, but his trains did be flying. Through space I do be thinking. [She frowned.]

He did be being an officer on a train though and he did be working hard to be figuring out what all of this did be being about.

[unfavorableinstigation]

[Nita asks this next question despite figuring she won't like the answer:]

Did he have any success, in figuring out what was going on?

[knifewithnoname]

No. He did be leaving. [A pause.] Or maybe he did be doing.He did be saying he would be sharing but maybe he did be escaping on his own.

[Maybe leaving them behind had been the easiest way.]

[unfavorableinstigation]

[Nita huffs.]

No way of knowing now, if that's the case.

[But boy, if he does come back...!]

Still, if he had to leave on his own, without getting to share anything with the rest of you, that's kind of unfair too, isn't it?

[knifewithnoname]

It do be being. [She nodded. Unfair if he hadn't shared. Unfair if he had wanted to and been made to leave.

It was just stupid. The whole thing.]

[unfavorableinstigation]

[This time she lets out a longer, softer sigh.]

Nothing to do but keep on keeping on, is there? Can't find any answers if we all just give up on it.

[Though, there IS the notion that you can only find something you're looking for when you stop looking...]

[knifewithnoname]

We do no be giving up. We do be knowing lots more now then we did be being. [It was still stupid. But that didn't mean she wasn't going to keep trying to figure things out.]

[unfavorableinstigation]

[Nita nods.]

Just what's available on the leaflets, or...?

[Or was it like the secret hiding places, where you had to discover them yourself?]

[knifewithnoname]

Yes [She nodded] When we did be coming here we did be knowing nothing. There did only be being ten of us and the train did be being empty and smaller then it do be being now.

[unfavorableinstigation]

That...

[Nita is genuinely surprised, and is annoyed about that because she feels she shouldn't be.]

That's a big change. Which cars did you have to start with?

[knifewithnoname]

We did be having one sleeping carriage, the store room and laundry, the kitchen, the one that do be having all the seats. The quiet coach and the gym. Also the luggage and the dressing room. We did no be having the games or the garden or the medical rooms."

Those had appeared later. It as strange, but it wasn't like she really knew how trains worked.

[unfavorableinstigation]

[Huh...]

Did it just pick up new cars at the stations, then? Like all the other supplies?

[Nita's puzzling over just how the train could order entire carriages... is there an entire list of Voidtrecker stock, somewhere?]

Though, that's another thing; why wasn't the medical car there to start with? Did anyone already know medicine or have healing abilities, when you first started out?

[knifewithnoname]

Yes. [She nodded.] We never do be seeing it. But when we do be getting back on from seeing the new people there do be being new carriages. Sometimes. [Not all the time. Not this time, nor the time before. The last new thing had been the garden.]

Priestess Lightning can be healing. She did be being with us from the beginning.

[unfavorableinstigation]

[Nita continues to be surprised about how this train runs itself.]

So everyone has to get off at each station? Even if it's just to meet the people we're picking up?

[Nita nods in response to the second answer; she's met Lightning on the Network, if not necessarily more in-person than at mealtimes by this point.]

At least there's always been something...

[She still doesn't look pleased by the minimal supplies, though.]

[knifewithnoname]

No. [She shook her head.] No one do be saying we should be getting off. I did no be getting off once, because rain do be being stupid.

[It had rained this time too, but she had gone out to meet people. But that other time had been just after the goblin world and she had been sick of rain.

She was always sick of rain. It was stupid.]

[unfavorableinstigation]

But nothing changes about the train if people stay on it?

[Nita's just trying to make sense of this, here. Even if it turns out it doesn't make sense.

She's just like that.]

Okay, yeah, I can imagine that getting old, if it's like that at every stop.

... Or just wet at all the stations, anyway.