Void Missions (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
voidmissions) wrote2021-09-30 06:48 pm
voidmissions) wrote2021-09-30 06:48 pm
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[M15] ENEMY: UNKNOWN - THE INTERVIEW
On opening their eyes, Voidtreckers will feel a sense of disorientation, a dizziness to their vision and inside their head. Both clear quickly, letting them remember where they came from: in the midst of a mission, some unknown entity jumping them, and then —
They stand in an empty room. The lighting of the room stings their eyes after how dark the rest of the station has been. The walls, ceiling and floor are all bright white, tiles. There is no visible door, no windows.
After the disorientation comes fear. The hairs on the back of their neck stand up. For those with danger sense, these senses are going haywire, even though any other abilities are still not working. The feeling can be pushed down, it is similar to the air of expectation at the start of a horror film, the anticipation of fear rather than being in a truly dangerous situation. It might be that they have been on the train long enough to have felt it before.
Heavy footsteps sound, it is almost impossible to tell where they are coming from as the echo through the empty space. The feeling of dread grows until part of the far wall slides open with a mechanical hiss.
Filling the doorway are two huge figures, around seven foot tall and bulky. They are in large metal suits, almost like power armour, black with highlights of gold. They wear a mask that covers their whole face. It is impossible to see the figure inside at all. Their breathing comes through heavy and raspy and when they walk their footsteps are heavy. The door closes behind them and their presence makes the room feel smaller. One of them scans a green light over the voidtrecker.
"Do not be alarmed. Under sections ninety six of Inter-dimensional law and on behalf of the Void Ministry we have intercepted Voidcraft designation Voidtrecker Express as part of ongoing investigations. You have been taking part in a simulated excercise to gauge your skill and strength. No harm shall come to you or your crew, you are protected by inter dimensional law. You have been chosen for questioning and we ask that you comply. You have the right to refuse our interview but we have the right to hold you until our investigation is complete or one week in standard void time has passed, whichever is longest. Complying with us will ensure our investigation is more efficient."
The inspector talking pauses here, as if giving the voidtrecker time to take in that information.
ENEMY: UNKNOWN
no subject
But he is right, he thinks to himself. They dismissed everything before as rumours. Tales. Lies spun at firesides, if anyone who traveled the Void had much use still for firesides.
The Voidtrecker Express is different, and he doesn't know why, specifically. He's heard it was in legends, he's read those accounts of memories in the library, he's seen the recordings. Those three things didn't add up to the same thing, but he wonders, dourly, if having a proper report and investigation will be more than a footnote in the story being written even now. He has to hope it will. Yi and Er at least appear to be listening, and that's more than they might have done otherwise.
"I don't believe the Voidtrecker Express will willingly harm us beyond its whole abduction nonsense. No way it's otherwise acted has shown that. I've been abducted before, and you technically did it again right now. You feel the difference when someone doesn't care about you living or dying."
Usually one was also literally bound up and knew in his personal experience, but that was neither here nor there.
"If your seniors on this committee end up wanting there to be signed contracts, whatever, paperwork is paperwork. Ask us if we want to stay on or leave. Even if that's not a fair choice for everyone."
Too many conflicting truths for the people he knows, and he doesn't even know everyone. Over a hundred people, how could he?
"Though... okay, none of us came from our systems to board the train. With the way the Void works, can the train visit our systems right after we're taken away? Since we never, I don't know, we never had a time we were already there on the train." It's the avoidance of the conflict the original crew seemed to have, in his limited understanding. He holds up his hands, forming a rough sphere between the span of his fingers and his palms. "And the ones of us who aren't living still back home, can we secure their life away from the Voidtrecker Express?"
Silence to stretch for a moment. It's an awkward balance for him, as part of a clan who largely engages in laying spirits to rest, in ensuring the dead move on into reincarnation when they can, and that they simply cease causing harm if not. Tidus isn't that way; nothing about him is malevolent. Xue Yang is something else, but he can't be unbiased there, not learning what he has, and not knowing what he's already known. As for others, people dead in their worlds but alive here, isn't it the same conundrum? Should he wish for their rest? Should he wish for their second, unexpected lives to be supported until those wind down too, not on whim of a train or a tethering, but some other aspect of the larger universes?
His hands fall away from each other again, and he sighs. Even his tail dips down, brow furrowing.
"Look, treat the Voidtrecker Express as an ally and not an enemy, I think it'll work with you. If everyone I cared about was taken away from me all at once, I would do everything I could to find a way to get them back. Especially if the people around me tell me they never existed, that I shouldn't exist, and they're baffled that I do, and they want me to do what they say instead of listening to what I'm saying. If they offered to work with me, I'd consider it. You've got more resources than one train alone."
He doesn't like it, feels twisted about it in his stomach, but there are reasons he complains to the train near daily, broken up by missions alone. Jingyi doesn't skip out on telling people, trains or otherwise, exactly how he's feeling. As poor Yi and Er have been learning this whole interview.
"Which is why pretending I don't understand what can drive the train to be this kind of jackass would be lying. Pretending I'm happy about it would also be a lie. And I don't think I was on the train for whatever a Void storm thing is, by the way, that was before I got here? For whatever that's worth." Divorced from how he feels, there's a whole host of other concerns, which brings him back to the offer the two investigators had made.
"If Yi-qianbei and Er-qianbei can arrange for scanning the willing for our home system names or whatever, please. You have my gratitude." He cups his fingers around each other, offering them both a bow. "I want to know they're okay. If they're not..."
He pauses, shakes his head as he straightens.
"They'll be okay. Then we'll know what they're called. At least in terms of your numbers."
His brow furrows, and he holds up a hand, dark eyes fixing on the masks of the investigators once again. Something about numbers, and associations, and ways things can be read or marked.
"Wait, that system number or whatever it is. When a voidcraft is built, is there any signature of what system built it? Like an artist signing their work. Are they built in the systems they come from?"
no subject
"Most voidcrafts are built in their system unless outsourced to one nearby." It's Er who speaks. "Each craft has a registry number with the ministry."
"Attempts to obtain the registry number of the voidcraft Voidtrecker Express have failed," explains Yi. "It is believed to be masking its number, as attempts to establish communication with the craft have been ignored."
no subject
"Huh. Smart of it," he says in turn. Then he falls silent, like he's waiting.
no subject
"Many of your queries relies on answers we do not have. What the voidcraft can and cannot do is uncertain to us. Cooperation can only be achieved if both sides desire it. The voidcraft has not allowed so, as already stated."
"With that said," speaks up Yi. "Please confirm: That your belief of the aims of the Voidtrecker Express is to find its lost crew. That your aim is to help it find its lost crew, and to learn more of the disasters of systems disappearing."
no subject
no subject
"Forms can be handed over, if you would like time to think it over," adds Yi.
no subject
Thus he sighs.
"The time and forms are appreciated, thank you."
Other heads might have more relevant things to say, after all.
no subject
"We have created a space to accommodate you while our investigation continues. Your crew will eventually join you as they reach this section. For the time being, you may view their current progress to ensure their continued presence."
The door opens again, and another - or the same? - walks into the room with a wad of papers, fifty pages or so. They approach Jingyi and hold out the forms.
"You may take these and leave through the door." The one not holding the forms continues to speak, gesturing over to the doorway.
no subject
They've dealt with those, and while most his dealing was in the training at that one pseudo underwater world and then at Diagad, the point remains.
Then, the inspector returns, or who knows, maybe another identical inspector to the first two arrives, and they're holding papers. Enough papers to startle Jingyi into blinking, lifting his hands to accept the forms with a sort of baffled expression on his face.
"... Right. Okay, I'll do that." He glances down at the papers, then up to the inspector who handed them over, then to the one gesturing toward the door. "Do you have anything to write with? Ink? Brush? Whatever you use?"
He wants to leave, really, but practical concerns if this paper isn't enchanted to write when you speak to it or something!
no subject
But in the end, it was up to Jingyi to believe if the feeds were real or not. The one who handed the papers also holds out a pen as it's asked, metallic and simple in design. Enjoy your ballpoint.
no subject
"Thank you for the writing implement." Pen has evaded his memory in this particular moment, and so he says that instead. As far as belief in truth of monitor or illusion, Yi is correct. There's no way to say for sure. Until they're back with the rest of their people and comparing notes, they won't know.
So he bows, brief if polite, and turns to head through the door they've opened, into the holding cell where twelve and more others waited, as plucked out of this experiment as he only now had been. There are enough worries to swirl around in his head for now.