ataraxionlogs | thirty-first jump;

CHARACTERS: Any and all.
LOCATION: Gravity Couches and beyond.
WARNINGS: Maybe some swearing, or even some violence, and more than likely some implied (and possibly explicit) nakedness.
SUMMARY: Another month, another jump, another round of new faces.
NOTES: There is something very easy about waking from the gravcouches this month. The sensation of being watched is absent, and so is much of the sickness - even for those characters who entered Engineering in February. Instead the jump feels comfortable, the stasis fluid warm on your skin, the medbay lights not too harsh as you emerge amongst your fellow passengers. The sensation may be unnerving in its strangeness, but there will be a deep feeling of being well-rested, calm and content, that will not be completely lost no matter how much you question it.

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You wake up in darkness.

There's a breathing tube jammed down your trachea, and you're suspended in a tube of clear blue fluid. Upon registering your level of consciousness, the gravity couch drains the fluid surrounding you and retracts the breathing apparatus; the doors in front of you open, and you're deposited on the floor of a stark, sterile medical bay.

You are not alone.
There are others who have come before you, others who are awakening beside you. Some may be familiar to you, perhaps even friends. Others have much less amiable plans. Some are merely alien and inexplicable, but there are always those who might mean you harm.

After you catch your breath and your vision returns, you notice a number on the inside of your forearm. Maybe it's a familiar number. Maybe it means something. Maybe it's just a number. But the number—completely unique to you—is a tattoo, and it does not come off.

If you enter the room adjacent to the medbay, you will find a small locker with your number on it, surrounded by rows upon rows of identical lockers. Inside, you will find a few of your personal items, a communications device, and a ship's uniform in your exact size. The comms device is fully powered and connects directly to the ship's network; it's your only means of communication beyond physical conversation. Upon turning the device on, a neutral, automated voice will say, "Please take the blue lift to the passenger quarters." Any other attempts at communicating with the rest of the network are met only with static.

This is your welcome party.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[ It helps. Peeta doesn't even get so far as deciding whether or not it's good news, just that it's solid, something he doesn't have to question. The tension doesn't completely give way, but it does relax into more of a quiet weariness rather than what'd it been before, bordering on hostility.

He thinks, briefly, that he should have the handcuffs. They were real, too. There's a long stretch of silence while he processes the information Edgeworth's offered, and the answer is vaguely distracted. ] Thank you.

[ Another beat of silence. He's too lost in his thoughts to meet Edgeworth's gaze, and the impression is altogether as though he's forgotten Edgeworth is even there. So much so, in fact, that he'll likely walk away if he's not interrupted. ]

[But Edgeworth will, of course, interrupt. He's never about to let something like that go unquestioned - because even when beset with nerves, even when jumpy and eager to withdraw from human contact, Edgeworth is driven before all else by curiosity. And so he asks:]

What happened? What do you remember from your time off the ship?

[Because it's hardly ambiguous that there's a great deal that happened. Peeta - The young man hardly even resembles who he was before.]

[ Peeta knows what the others have told him, what he's heard from the doctors and at the camp— tracker jackers, conditioning. Some of it lines up with what he actually remembers, the injections and the confusion. That doesn't make it any easier to accept at face value. His answer's direct, a wry repetition of the insults that've been tossed his way. ]

I don't know what I remember. That's the entire point of hijacking, right? Making me unstable? Turning me into a mutt?

[ He meets Edgeworth's gaze as he says it, expression neutral save for the slightest hint of a smile. Not a good one— there's a malicious edge to it, though it's hard to say whether it's aimed at the words he's repeating or at Edgeworth himself. ]

I - I suspect we might be working off different definitions of the word "hijacking."

[Though Edgeworth is perhaps starting to have some small understanding of what's going on. The Capitol, as Edgeworth understood it, was a crushing dictatorship, and crushing dictatorships had a certain set of tools at their disposal. Making me unstable means mentally unstable; if this hijacking was to blame for that, then it was clear what that was.

Still; he isn't about to assume. He must ask.]

My understanding of it is that hijacking is to take over a vehicle, such as a ship, and to hold it hostage. What is your definition?

[ He considers Edgeworth for a quiet second before letting his gaze wander, and the gesture's more unsure than distracted. Embarrassed, maybe. ]

Tracker jackers. [ That's the source of the name, in theory, though it's not much of an explanation. He remembers a moment later that the term probably doesn't mean much to Edgeworth, meeting his gaze again before continuing. ] Their venom causes hallucinations.

[ The information's simple, objective, and it's a welcome change of pace from more complicated questions. ]

I see.

[He doesn't meet Peeta's eyes; he looks down at the ground, instead, tucks a bit of hair behind his ear. It must have been the application of this venom, then, as some sort of brainwashing technique - something to confuse him, something to make him unsteady and unsure. Something to cause a split from Ms. Everdeen as well, though? Could venom bring about such a dramatic and terrible effect?]

And your definition of "mutt"?

[ The questions aren't difficult, but they're still strange. This is familiar, having to recite basic facts back to the other passengers, only this time it feels more like the facts are being drawn out of him; before, he'd offered them up intentionally.

The thought's enough to merit a short pause, just slightly hesitant. ]

Mutts. Muttations— they're animals, or they used to be. They were made to fight wars.

[ Not all of them, maybe. The tracker jackers are a relic, though, left over from the Dark Days. The rest have been made for the Games, so it's close enough. ]

[And Edgeworth hesitates in turn. He doesn't want to upset Peeta. He's really trying not to. So his voice is quite nearly gentle when he asks:]

Then how could you have been turned into one?

[ That gentle tone is more frustrating than it is comforting. It's the kind of tone you use with someone who's messed up, fragile— someone who's unstable. Everything they'd told him he was, and he knows it's true, but there's knowing and then there's accepting.

The sharp edge is back in his voice, though it's faint, emotions warring to tip the scales on the objective response. ]

Mutts are made in labs.

[ It's an indirect answer. Labs, cells. Experimentation, torture. The definitions blur regardless of how much Peeta wants to keep them separate— Katniss is the mutt, not him. The agitation is building again, causes him to tighten his hands into fists in a brief, restless motion as he diverts his gaze towards the showers. ]

I should go.

[ The comment ends up sounding more like a request than a suggestion. He doesn't trust himself to continue the conversation, but just walking away mid-sentence isn't normal. He can at least pretend to be normal, right? ]

[Edgeworth opens his mouth to protest - but he hears that edge of pleading, that element of asking to go. If Peeta were simply declaring that he should leave, then Edgeworth would naturally prevent him from doing so; after all, this is crucial information to understanding Peeta's state of mind. But with him instead asking...]

Of course.

[His bow is abbreviated and awkward, constrained again by his injuries. His voice, when he speaks, is uncertain, but genuine. Because - Because he rather wants to see that Peeta gets the care he needs. Not out of any personal reason, or sentimental reason, but just because - Well. Edgeworth understands not knowing the truth, understands torture, now, understands being afraid and not knowing -

No. It's not a personal investment. He doesn't have such personal investments. And he's not so stupid as to overidentify with Peeta, just because he himself went through stupidity a few weeks ago.]

Please do contact me if you need anything.

thirty-first jump;

cheese rolls. also sorry about these stellar conversational skills

CHEESE ROLLS oh my god yes please

buries you in cheese rolls

eats nineteen thousand of them

exactly nineteen thousand eh

precisely that many

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