middleofsomewhere | Enemy Unknown: Conclusion

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Enemy Unknown: Conclusion

The third night is as long and creepy as the others...

It might be that they found the engine room, solved the puzzles and found themselves in the hangar bay with no way out. It might be that they were still in the station hiding from the invisible monsters. Or it might be that they had been plucked from the mission and were waiting in their holding room.

Either way morning dawns on the fourth day...

ENEMY: UNKNOWN

DAY FOUR

the trapped. THOSE WHO SOLVED THE ENGINE ROOM SPENT THE NIGHT IN A LARGE HANGAR THAT DOES NOT SEEM TO HAVE ANY DOORS. Their SCA's are working, so they can still communicate with those in the station, perhaps talk them through the engine room puzzles or tell them to stay clear. As morning comes all the lights in the hangar come on. Brighter than any lights so far in the station, harsh white light after the eerie red of the rest of the mission.

Everyone still in the station wakes where they fell asleep - if they slept at all. It's not long after most people are up and about that they will hear a high-pitched beep from their SCA, and then a blue light will envelop them and those around them. It might be they spot their friends vanishing before they too disappear.

They arrive in the hangar, reunited with those who spent the night there. All their gear is with them at least, but that doesn't solve the problem of being in a hangar with no obvious way out. Nor are any of those who vanished during the last three days here, their SCA's still go unanswered.

the vanished. FOR THOSE IN THE HOLDING ROOM, THEIR NIGHT HAS PROCEEDED MUCH LIKE THE NIGHTS BEFORE. One of the screens showed the hangar, and those that had succeeded in completing the engine room task. The lights had dimmed for sleeping and turned on again bright in the morning. For those watching the screens they will see those in the station vanish in blue light and turn up in the hangar.

Around half an hour later a voice sounds in the room. "Please gather your belongings and prepare for release."

It's another ten minutes, allowing them to make sure they have all their things before their SCA's beep. They are then surrounded by a blue light, taking them from the room they had spent the last few days in.

REUNITED

reunion. AN HOUR PASSES AFTER FIRST ARRIVALS PASS IN THE HANGAR. Suddenly, there is another flash of blue light, and the missing eighteen Voidtreckers appear with the rest of their crew. They will find they had all their gear as well, including their missing weapons.

They are left to their own devices for a small while, a time for reuniting with friends, but not long enough to exchange stories before a voice rings out in the hangar:

"THANK YOU CREW OF THE VOIDTRECKER EXPRESS FOR YOUR COMPLIANCE. YOU MAY RETURN TO YOUR CRAFT."
There is a loud mass of beeping as everyone's SCA's flashes at the same time, holographic messages popping up too fast to be able to read them in their entirety.

Voidtreckers come in.

All Voidtreckers return to the Voidtrecker Express
Voidtreckers evacuate now

Voidtreckers do you read?

Layers of holographic messages pile on top of each other but a moment later everyone's SCA's glow gold and everyone vanishes from the hangar...

LUGGAGE CARRIAGE

return. EVERYONE ARRIVES INSIDE THE LUGGAGE CARRIAGE, PACKED LIKE SARDINES BETWEEN SUITCASES AND TRUNKS. There is no announcement, no warning of returning to the void; just a lurch that is likely to throw anyone on the train unaware of what has just happened off their feet, no matter the carriage they're in.

They return to the void at what feels like breakneck speed. Colours fly past the windows, and it is a good few hours before they seem to slow to their normal travel speed.

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Reunion

Freeza pops back into existence alongside many of the other vanished crewmembers, at first startled at the change in location but quickly receding back to nonplussed. He accounts for all equipment and belongings while there is a moment to.

Luggage

When they appear back in the luggage car, once again overcrowded, the alien once again simplifies matters by lifting himself into the air to make use of the space in the ceiling not being taken up by people, seeming even to stand there like the world reversed, quickly scanning for a way out.

Upper Cabin 1E

Once back in his cabin, Freeza settles on the higher bunk he's been keeping tended and takes a moment to go through his pack, as though anything he kept stored back here on the train might have somehow been affected in his absence.

Around the Train

Back to attending his team chores or merely wandering, for whatever reason, Freeza seems especially intent on retracing the place, unsatisfied with the assumption that all was simply as it had been. He will at some point stop for a meal in the dining car, and working out in the evening at the training gym, now returning to a focus on ki-less maneuvers and forms.

"Oh, hello!"

Most people were not on Orisa's height by any means, so those who popped up over the crush and crowd caught her attention fairly easily. Especially when they did so through some apparent sort of power or magic!

Especially considering Orisa took up a lot of space. Even tucked up and tugged in as far as she possibly could.

"Are you able to help me at all? I am afraid I may be harming others."

He has the decency to look confused, even once he fully realizes he's the one being addressed. "...That entirely depends upon how much of you there is and how much collateral damage you care about doing."

Edited 2021-10-20 14:58 (UTC)

"There is a substantial amount. I wish to avoid any damage, which is why traveling above the crowd would help." Honestly, she didn't even dare take a step right now.

A simple gesture, and he moved rather effortlessly to pull her up. "Did you have additional steps in this plan?"

"I have not yet formulated a plan." This just wasn't in her database! "I am not meant for indoor usage!"

"...The train is entirely indoors." He says this like it was most people's choice to come here.

"And extremely enclosed. It has required substantial adaptations and I still remain a burden to many."

Which represented a failure on her part, and thus sadness, as her eyeshields swiveled to a downcast expression.

Why are all robots he meets like this? A visible sigh.

"If I put you down near the door, will you know what to do from there?"

"From there I will be able to exit into the hall safely! That would be very helpful."

In her defense, Orisa was very young indeed. And that kind of showed, in her bright eagerness.

Murphy is not attending to his team chores because he never attends to his team chores because he never asked to be here. But, however, he'll give people company (or annoyance) on their team chores as they're available.

He sees Freeza hard at work and ends up bringing him a glass of just plain old orange juice. Why? "So I heard that your captors forgot you had taste buds. Been there, done that. You want something harder I can mix it up later."

"Ah."

There was an initial glance of surprise, possibly scandal at that last bit. Blame it on the fact that he spent way too much time on a prison ship where it just became wiser to assume that metaphors and the like were meant to be double-entendres and be on your way.

Once he has gone through the internal rolodex of other meanings -- and remembering, as he was close with someone who liked working in bars, the look fades.

"Thank you."

"No problem." Murphy goes to find a chair that he can sit strangely in, one gangly leg dangled over the arm of it as he just plants himself in a prime position for conversation.

"So are they planning to kill us? From your personal judgment."

Because he needs to ask someone that wouldn't be watching through rose tinted glasses to ask that kind of thing to.

Freeza takes up the glass at last, casually leaning against the wall opposite him while he spares himself a moment to taste.

"Only if they kill by wasting time," he answers offhandedly.

"Well that sounds like it was super entertaining. Well, as long as they're not gonna kill us." He has a world that he needs to get back to.

Oh right, and there are other people. He'd rather them not die. (He's at least progressed in his emotional capacity that he cares about that.)

"So there's nothing more to be concerned about than inconvenience?"

"Best not to take my word for it."

The glass floats back to where it was sitting as Freeza returns to the task at hand. He has no trouble taking to his work smoothly while maintaining the conversation.

"Truth be told, I was not very interested in gathering intel, as that was not a job assigned me; I was more focused on being as irritatingly unhelpful as possible without hating myself in the process."

"I'm not so much interested in what they're doing so much as I am in not being used as a lab rat again."

He might have a little bit of trauma associated with that, even if he remains casually flippant about it.

"And who the hell knows what mysterious governments are going to do when presented with a bunch of unprecedented cases. Which I'm under the impression that's actually what we are."

"I didn't sign up with any governing body outside the confines of this ship," Freeza said offhandedly. Finishing the task he had been attending, he leaned back against the wall, calling the glass back to his hand to take another drink as he watched the man across from him. "I've my own to run once this is over."

"I don't think you gotta sign up with one to piss them off."

He reaches to dust off one of his shoes before resuming that lazy looking position. "I've gotta go home. I have to hope this thing puts me back there because if I don't go home, then my world has lost a cure for a virus that killed billions of people."

And he traveled across North America, mostly on foot, three times. He wants it to be worth it.

Tail-flick behind him. "I suspect that we all have matters that require our attention at home, do we not?" This is the closest he really comes to levelling with anyone. Home feels more and more like the wrong word, though. "And we shall not know for how long we will have been gone when we are sent back." Mutter. "At least the other place was clear in that regard..."

"Oh yeah? What are you planning when you get out of here? If you have a choice on where to go..."

Now, if Murphy has a choice? He... to be honest, he doesn't even know if he'd go back. He might, finally, decide to do the right thing. But if he could go somewhere else after, or just send the formula for the cure home and keep moving? He absolutely would.

He does have some urge to do the 'right' thing, but he's not stupid enough to commit himself to a lifetime of pain if he doesn't have to. The state he's in is already pretty uncomfortable, even if he's learned to live with it.

This had been a point that he pressed in some conversations with others before, alluding to the fact that he chose to come here, and then refused to go into any further detail. The truth was that as far as he was concerned, his departure was already arranged -- he just did not know precisely when it would be. Whether that remained true or not? Well, he wasn't going to let on.

"Oh, the choice is already made," he said conversationally, raising the glass before taking another sip. Murphy had been right -- it would be better with something stronger. "I've my empire and my army to return to. The sooner the better; they really are terrible without someone to guide them."

"Having an Empire would have been nice. I barely could gather up a few hundred. Too many people dead."

But he rebuilt civilization in one little place from scratch. And his people had meant a whole lot to him. Couldn't help it. It's how his brain worked, the connections built an empathy he'd lacked to some extent prior to the apocalypse and the experiments on him.

"But that's the fun part. Some people come from places barely habitable and some people are from massive space-faring worlds and got the cred for it."

Freeza did not bother to include that he had inherited a sizeable population to start with -- so much in recent years had been so focused on rebuilding what had been broken in his absence that it hardly mattered, anyhow.

He supposed he could see the -- utility in the man's perspective on this place, though. The emperor had been accustomed to a far more diverse group in his own territory, enough that the barge had thrown him somewhat. And the army had its places where it lacked, the rigors and requirements of uniformity being what it was. The differing level of experiences here with nothing to stuff them down or force disregard meant they were more apparent and more challenging to adjust to. And this was all something he apparently needed.

But "fun?"

He raised a brow with interest. "Any sort in particular that you prefer?"

"Something more established than what I had. They couldn't defend themselves without me. Zona came and decimated them after I was taken- I didn't know about that until I found their bodies." Murphy doesn't show a lot of genuine emotion, but he's bitter there. Those were his people.

"When I use my infection, besides making someone immune it also psychically connects them to me. I can do things like, oh, provide some mental stability against chemical imbalances or fix certain other neurological issues while I'm at it. I keep them immune from broader diseases. As long as they let me do it willingly, anyway-" He spreads his hands. He will fuck up someone unwilling psychologically, and honestly by the time he infects someone unwillingly he doesn't give a shit about how they feel. He just wants to shut them down.

"Not that I mind the chatter of the zombies, but I'd rather be surrounded by real thoughts again." As much as his serum-addled brain can handle.

"It'll never be big but at least if I go home, there's a chance of rebuilding something."

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hoardsrealestate - 2021-11-07 14:47 (UTC) - Expand

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zombiemessiah - 2021-11-07 19:47 (UTC) - Expand

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