0003: NEW ARRIVALS

[crux_npcs]

Who: New Arrivals, Captain Jack Hollis, Science Captain Urist McEngineer, Graham Baker
Where: Briefing Room
When: Late afternoon
Warnings: None

When awakening, you'll find the area you're in to be very busy. The people in the medical ward are polite and understanding, but firmly refuse to answer questions until the briefing. The same goes for the robots in the hangars. Either given hospital outfits resembling very comfortable pajamas, drone bodies, or their own bodies, they are escorted by polite, unyielding people in red and black uniforms to the briefing room.

The room is large, but not quite large enough for some of the bigger Cybertronians. They've been given drone bodies at least, skinny little things with no real features beyond primitive masks made of paper plates. There's seats for everyone, at least, well-cushioned and comfortable, and the room is pleasantly lit.

A few Security personnel, dressed in their red and black uniforms, stand at ease in the rooms in strategic areas. Three men stand at the head. One is Graham Baker, a slightly nervous-seeming middle-aged man wearing a multi-layered business suit that seems rumpled and oversized. The other two men are dressed in military uniforms, one with the blue undershirt and piping of Command, while the other wears the gold of Science.

[Questions to the NPCs will go in the briefing thread. The rest of the post is there for people to mill about and do whatever with.]

Comments

[zouichi]

"Well, I'm actually looking for someone from the last batch of people that woke up here," said Zouichi, setting the bike back down and giving Chrono a quick smile. He was actually kind of used to staring; it happened a lot in the lab.

"Can I take it that's you?"

[overclocking]

Everything is pointing to this being a fresh wave of temporal displacements... it's all he can do to keep his eyebrows from knitting together. These people are confused and possibly alarmed; he knows the feeling well.

The last thing he needs to do is add to it, so Chrono offers a return smile, feeling a bit like he's gotten away with something.

"You can. I think it's been at least a week by now... maybe two."

He should really be keeping better track.

"This must be a little disorienting."

[zouichi]

"Not as much as you'd think," said Zouichi. "The last time this happened, I woke up covered in slime. So the medical bay this time was a major improvement."

Also improvements: no tentacles, no weird, breathing biosuits, no oppressive humidity.

"So they seemed pretty forthcoming at the meeting, but I was wondering how the people on the ship have been treating you so far."

[overclocking]

"Slime..."

'The last time this happened.' Slime. Where to even begin with all the questions...

He shakes his head, focusing on the actual question. It's a fair one, after all; 'prisoner' and 'guest' is a fine line, he's discovered the hard way. Polite handling doesn't necessarily mean it's the latter rather than the former.

"They've been great," thankfully, "and really helpful. They've done things to help us that they really didn't need to... they treat us like we're their own citizens."

[zouichi]

"Seriously?" asked Zouichi. This was good news to hear, actually, but the look on his face made it pretty clear that it was also completely unexpected. "If they're actually on the level, that'd be a switch."

There had to be some kind of catch here. "Are you sure they're not secretly running on the backs of clone labor or hiding a murderous AI or raising an army of space zombies or something?"

Because that had all happened.