middleofsomewhere | The Endless River

The Endless River

On the morning of day twenty one of the month of Kazoo there is a message on the ICP screens around the train. Their SCA's will light up the colour of the Void and show the following information.

World #398050 is a void nexus known locally as Tshering. As a void nexus this world has strong links with the void and the connection through worlds. World #398050 is home to the Endless River. Legends speak of this river being powerful enough to send thoughts from one heart to another across any distance. All that is needed is for you to know who it is you wish to reach.

On-board

The dressing carriage is open, filled with clothing best suited to a pleasant spring day. Light, airy and in a rainbow of joyful colours and florals. One closet is entirely filled with wide-brimmed hats bedecked with ribbons, feathers and ornaments. A stack of picnic baskets and containers filled with an alarming variety of passenger-suitable foodstuffs and flasked drinks sits in one corner, next to rolls of thick, weatherproof blankets in the four team colours.

The large box marked Do Not Use Yet, filled with small, empty jute bags, is hopefully still sat in the Luggage carriage, ready for passengers to grab handfuls of its contents as directed by the announcement.

Upon landing (after an appropriate countdown), the train remains on the surface, its carriages partially curved to form a gathering site for the day. Welcome to Tshering, the eighth void nexus!

A Day for Picnics

Tshering, system #398050, is a strange place, only habitable by grace of the passengers' SCAs. The sky is shot through with colours, a cascade of sunsets, and through it, the void shimmering through it in seams like a child's painting of the milky way. Still, there's a beauty to the chaotic mash of colours that soaks through its landscape, and in the shelter of the forests of towering funghi that dot its surface, the Void can go unseen by its visitors.

The temperature seems mild, suitable for the provided clothing, and if there are weather patterns around the world they've taken the day off. The funghi are sturdy enough that what air flow there is doesn't disturb their stalks, and carved grooves and holds in some of the larger examples indicate that climbing them to sit atop their glowing crowns is eminently possible, and, in fact, encouraged.

the Endless River

The Endless River is a font of pure chaos, flowing from a multitude of small rivulets across the area to a central reservoir, from which it pours directly upwards, away from Tshering's surface and out of sight, beyond the world's atmosphere.

Anything bagged and placed within the Endless River will also flow upwards and soon be out of sight, passing, presumably, into the Void. Scattered across the surface of Tshering are small, glittering pebbles, as described in the announcement.

The stones are pleasantly cool to the touch, and all passengers need to do is feel. Messages can be in any form that the Voidtreckers wish. Perhaps words, perhaps feelings, perhaps an image from their mind into the stone. Perhaps a mixture. Once they begin their message the stone will glow slightly and continue to glow as they secure it in the bag and cast it into the river. They will feel, almost instinctively, that they need to focus as they do so, thinking of the person they wish to reach all the while.

There are plenty of bags and many more stones; passengers will not be limited in their sendings.

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"You are a fucking saint." He proclaims as he takes the stash box. "Yeah, I can roll. Seriously, the last joint I had was grown in a greenhouse full of undead. This is unimaginable to me at the moment."

And it smells good? What the hell?!

He takes what he needs to roll one. "The name's Murphy." Which is the least he can give after he gives the box back. He smells it once it's all rolled up, before he even lights it. Doc would be so jealous if he knew about this.

Devero sits up-- too fast, the psychedelic color-scape spinning dizzily around him for a hot second. He covers his eyes with one hand, knocking his Interface askew as he does, and only peeks through parted fingers to watch his new friend roll one up.

"Devero," he says, taking the box back without uncovering his eyes. "Says something different on the train roster, you c'n ignore that. Just an ID number."

He drops his hand, blinking until he's sure the sky's not whirling anymore, then (makes an attempt to) focus on Murphy. "...You can't drop a line about a greenhouse full of undead on me when I'm like this, that's not fair," he says plaintively. "Details!"

"Yeeeeeaaahh... I come from a zombie apocalypse. Whole world is trashed. Everything on this train is a goldmine."

He lights up. Oh, thank god. He can already feel his hyperactive brain settling down. Using his abilities close to the river was killing him.

"Some of them mutate, though. These phytos will grow all sorts of shit out of them. Including pot! So. You know. You can still find it, which is great. But you gotta be brave." Maybe they wouldn't have mutated so damn much if blah blah blah escaping the CDC blah blah blah nuclear weapons happened. But that's not a weed story that's a different kind of story.

"Rust 'n ruin," Devero swears. He takes a drag and lets the smoke trickle out slow as he listens.

"Ours was viral," he offers. "Apocalypse, I mean. It was before my time, hundreds of years ago. Almost everyone died. No zombies, though, just lots and lots of unburied dead." He kind of says that like it should be capitalized.

Another drag. "Do your weird plant-zombies grow anything else? Herb is nice n' all, but like. Rice?"

"Ours was viral, too. So, you missed the 'good' parts huh? Lucky."

He will have to save like, half of this or something if he can get away with it. It's too good to waste at once.

"Probably? But not worth it for grains of rice. There are still some functioning wheat fields in Canada. What used to be Canada. That's a whole complicated... Ugh." He rolls his eyes like he's sick of the whole 'Newmerica' drama which is a stupid name for a stupid country.

This is the first time anyone's used the word 'lucky' to describe any part of the Apocalypse Plague, but given that zombies are involved, maybe it's valid. Devero certainly doesn't object.

Instead he flops back on the surface of the mushroom. "Then forget about it," he suggests, his buzz dampening his usual altruistic nosiness. "You're real far away from your 'whole complicated ugh' right now."

"Right? Nice to be away from a shithole world." He holds a breath, eyes widening and oh so briefly the mottling in his irises actually seems to move, before he lets the smoke out in a dragon's exhale.

"Now the kidnapping part, that I don't like. But the food thing, whatever this shit is because- it's good, it really is-" he remarks on the joint. "The adults are damn hot. Actually sleeping somewhat safely at night? And reliable hot water? Magnificent. Four stars out of five stars on the 'creepy kidnappings' chart."

Devero starts to snicker at the 'damn hot' comment and is full-on laughing by the time his new friend finishes, a deep rolling belly-laugh. "Best kidnapping I've ever experience, that's for sure," he remarks, before his sparkling wit sets him off again.

He does manage to rein himself in soon enough, taking a couple of gasping breaths to settle himself down before he says, "If the train had just asked, this whole thing would be incredible. I get why it can't, but--" He huffs, and then sits up to hit his joint again. "Sure casts a pall on the space humanitarian adventure ride when the whole crew's conscripts."

"The best one let me join a country club! That one. A+ until everyone started eating each other. It was in Hawaii. Ever been? Beautiful place. Probably even better when you go willingly."

He would argue he's pretty good at golf. He's not. He's aggressively mediocre. He can play it, though, which is more than most people. He likes feeling distinguished but having that little bit of caveman gratification of carrying a scary stick.

"I feel like I got called in as the train's 'back up plan'. Whenever everything that can go wrong has gone wrong? There's Murphy." He takes another hard inhale. And that doesn't sound disparaging, honestly. He sounds like he's proud of being the 'back-up plan', whatever that means. But also, there's also the tricky question over whether Murphy can decide to be useful.

Much easier to convince him if he can showboat a little.

Devero's not sure what a country club is, but he at least recognizes the name Hawaii. "That's that island chain in the Pacific, right? Mostly memorials and nature preserves out there where I'm from. How many times have you been kidnapped, anyway?"

Devero knocks some ash off the end his cigarette and snorts smoke out his nose. "You might be surprised. Thought I knew what the train wanted me for an' it turned out I was totally wrong."

Murphy lays flat back to look up at the stars, but he's still listening, and thinking.

"Okay, if we count when I was in prison and used for experiments? That's one. I was in for mail fraud, by the way. I get that for fucking bad business." He's... forever bitter.

"Then there's the time I was taken to a zombie-infested pharmaceutical storage facility and people tried to use me to get the drugs. Then there's the time a billion bounty hunters were after me. Then there was the crazy man that wanted to put me in his own personal museum. And then there was Hawaii- wanted to do more experiments but I schmoozed my way into VIP treatment while they were at it. Then there was the time they made us clear out a warehouse full of zombies and they did the enforced rest thing? We'd always wake up in storage boxes.... Oh! And then the schoolbusses. That was a really throwaway kidnapping."

Another puff and he looks over at Devero. "Soooo seven now? Eight?"

Devero is looking back at him with alarm. "Rust'n'ruin! What are you, a kidnapping magnet?" he blurts out. "--Actually, just, what are you? Sorry if that's rude, but folks don't come in red where I'm from, and you look pretty human otherwise." He squints, not exactly at Murphy. "Feel free'n correct me if I'm wrong though, there's weirder shit out there in the multiverse than technicolor humans."

Murphy outright cackles at that.

"Technicolor! I like that. That's what I wanna call myself from now on. Technicolor." The pot is kicking in, and he waves off the laughter and settles.

"I'm the product of unwanted scientific experimentation. I am now the only holder of the cure for the zombie plague. In here-" he drums on his chest with his free hand, to indicate his body and blood "-and in here." He taps his head.

"And some little twerp with access to global communications decided that it would be in humanity's best interests to get me back to more scientists to experiment on me... Among other drama... But every time I catch something new, my body decides to go on a grand adventure and take me along for the ride. I took a potent flesh-eating bacteria point blank, my body just totally rejected it, and now I'm red... But honestly I rock the Satan look so I'm just going with it."

"You met Merwen yet?" he asks, before nodding once, sagely. "She's a technicolor human too."

Virtues lift him, he is way too high for this. "Fuck, mate," he breathes. "I'm sorry. 'Bout the experimentation part. Are you from one of those 'we-don't-understand-what-consent-is-unless-it-suits-us' worlds?" Because there are a lot of those represented on the train.

"Wait, wait. You caught a flesh-eating bacteria and that's what turned you red?!"

"Pffft. Every world is like that. And if a world isn't like that, then the next world over from them probably is and is planning an invasion. Or it's all surface value niceness and its happening where people don't see."

Murphy sits up again, squinting out at the neon mushrooms.

"Nah. A canister of it exploded in my face. Turned out the government had a plan to cleanse the planet if they lost the cold war and buried it and called it Black Rainbow? Showed up to help stop it and fffffft-" he makes the hissing sound of spiteful aerosol "-right in my face. So I didn't so much catch it as I got soaked in it.

"Come on. You can't tell me that your government doesn't do a whole lot of 'we know what's best for people' but then ends up making a bunch of them miserable?"

"Vice and virtue!" Devero swears. "Good thing it was you, at least? Because your body was able to handle the infection, I mean, not to imply you deserved it or anything--" He's babbling.

He's also quick to defend his government, straightening up and squaring his shoulders. "Nah, Gov isn't like that. Gov takes care of us. All of us!"

"And you're 100% sure there's no one trying to sneak their way into positions of power?"

He looks down his own shirt, though, as if trying to remind himself he's red. "It burned a little and then I was fine." As fine as he ever is.

There is a distinct and palpably heavy silence that falls in response to that question, heavy enough that Devero doesn't even follow-up on Murphy's other comment. He stares sightlessly out across the mushrooms, trying not think about Valdana.

Failing not to think about Valdana.

He brings the stub of his joint to his lips and drags hard on it, as if he can smoke this turn of conversation right out of his brain like it's a swarm of unwanted bees.

Oooooh he can see where that went. He's right.

"If it's any consolation, usually those people are setting themselves up to be eaten alive, either figuratively or literally. They make a lot of enemies. Don't worry about it."

Murphy's not usually one for consolations. The world sucks and he knows it. But, you know, sometimes you just wanna hear someone you hate will probably suffer by the enemies they inevitably make.

"Probably not literally, back where I come from," he mutters, his voice kind of. Flat and hopeless. He was so blind to Valdana's evil that he assumes everyone else is too; the thought of her running rampant over other victims like she had over him is an oppressive one.

He can't help but worry about it, as if her behavior is his fault, as if he's the only one who will be able to bring her atrocious abuse of power to the authorities.

Ugh. He came up here with his weed to try to get away from this shit. He scrubs one hand over his eyes and says, kind of desperately, "Nothing I can do about it from here regardless, right? Just have to. To not dwell. Focus on train stuff."

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The Endless River

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