week 4

[airlockedmods]

Week 4

[Four weeks in and almost half the Champions' original numbers are gone. Eight people in the span of a month and, even with the Overseers seeming increase in empathy for the remaining Champions, there is no end in sight for the Champion Excellence Program.

And again at 7 am on Sunday the mechanical woman's voice chimes to awaken the remaining champions on Sunday morning. After the initial wake-up call the message tacked on:]

Congratulations, Champions! By surviving your third trial, you have unlocked the fourth floor of the ship. A new mini map has been added to your P.I.P.! To access the fourth floor please stand on the teleporter and select the floor you wish to be teleported to.

[And again the Champions are awakened they have regained one new memory from the ones they've lost. Starting again on Sunday, as well, Jamie and Bolton will be back to their usual office hours in their usual locations.]

Sunday Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday


[ooc: welcome to week 4, everyone! Check-in has begun and don't forget to submit your memory regains!]

Comments

MONDAY

[airlockedmods]

[Monday night, after Jamie's office hours, the art room will be locked and closed for the night.]

cw: self-harm

[damnfourthemerald]

[Shadow's mood is...well, it's hard to say 'better', but he's not rage raging against the drying of the paint. He still doesn't show up for any of the hot meals, but he does show up in the kitchen. With a knife, arm over the sink, digging in--a shallow cut, first, into the back of his PIP-free arm, then a little deeper. So um...if you walk in on that, do with it what you will.

Later, with a bandaged arm (thanks, supply room!), he'll be in the holodeck meticulously recreating a lab-looking room with some kind of containment pod in the middle, and also himself. His holo-self is so eerily lifelike, but at least it only just stands there for now. With its arms crossed. As you do.

In the gym, he's working out, with weights, increasing the weight as he goes. Push-ups, pull-ups, a round with the punching bag where he seems to be determined to make it fly back as far as he can. At least he's taking his energy out on...not the poor art room this time.]

Kitchen

[imnotfat]

What the hell do you think you're doing?!

[Okay, there are many things that aren't okay and this is certainly in a high spot in that list. Togami rushes inside and tries to take the knife. It's more of an instinctual reaction than anything else, things are bad enough in this spaceship to add someone bleeding around gratuitously]

[damnfourthemerald]

[He thought someone might react harshly, in the back of his mind, but Togami? He didn't expect it of Togami. The surprise of the intrusion as well as the intruder means his grip on the knife tightens, so good luck getting it away from him unless there's some accidental cuts he wants to risk.]

Experimenting.

holo deck

[ratherdoweddings]

Hello, Shadow-kun! You... made yourself?

[damnfourthemerald]

[His ears flick in something akin to annoyance, but he doesn't send her away. Y'all we really do need some kind of 'occupied/unoccupied' indicator.]

A convincing facsimile. [He doesn't seem to pay it any mind, though, making adjustments to the pod in the middle of the room.]

[cyan_maid]

[It's a good thing, then, that Jane doesn't go to the art room at night. Nope - instead, she raids the art room in the morning, taking a set of paints and a set of colored pencils and a few more cyan pens. She doesn't linger long, the phantom image of Chitanda's knife-ridden body still appearing to her, always out of the corner of her eye, so she's taking enough to last her a little while, if she wants to do anything, and boy does she want to. Yesterday's...activities...have calmed her down a whole lot, it seems.

Jane spends most of the morning in front of her door with paints. Her art skills are far from the best, it's true, but she makes up for it with the sheer amount of color and stuff that she's putting on there - her name is in the center, surrounded by a cyan beast, a rabbit with ridiculous sunglasses, mustaches, cakes, and simplified portraits of some of the people who she's gotten to know. Chitanda is there, of course, along with Kurumi, Ricky, Yurika, Lightning, Xander...she tries to get everybody on there, even Togami, but there's only so much room. At the bottom of the door, however, it's worth noting that she's painted grass and trees...and a single red flower, which is the only bit of red she's used at all.

In the afternoon, you'll find Jane in the cafeteria. She's commandeered a table with a small assortment of items she'd be happy to give away or trade, and if you come in, she'll be quick to call you over.]

Hey! Do you want any of this stuff I got from that dumbwaiter? I don't really need it...

[The gloves there, however, are specifically being held aside for someone with cold hands. You know you you are, come pick 'em up.]

door

[ratherdoweddings]

Wow, it's so cute! I've been thinking of doing something like that, too!

cafeteria

[curdle]

[ That facehugger plush... it's drawing her in... ]

Is't meant to look as a spider?

[ why does it have a face this is so uncomfortable ]

[tasteslikesurvival]

[Kurumi is just wandering over to the table and--] My gloves! Shit, I didn't think I'd think see them again!

[Oh hi, Jane.]

[ratherdoweddings]

[Yurika's jumped on the bedroom door-painting train, with a big yellow sun and lots of flowers. Most of them are spindly and pink, so the little red one is hidden. She's taking a lot of rest breaks to let layers dry, so you'll usually find her at her door right before the showers.

Still, there's more to do, like checking out the pool! Yurika will be testing out if her Champion uniform is waterproof and checking the water, and possibly just messing around with the floaties.

She'll also be in the arcade again, trying out all the games. She'll wave you over if you come in.]

Bedroom door

[imnotfat]

[The more people paint their doors so detailed, the more doubts Togami has about how well thought this whole thing is. Are you sure you know what you're doing, Temerity?

But it's too late to go back on this whole thing. That's why when he's passing by he stops, eyeing the door with some reluctance. Is this...subtle or not?]

Is this all really necessary?

[curdle]

[ She's been sitting on that fruit basket they gave her for a good week now, too perturbed by the apples to touch it, so when she brings it out with her to the kitchen they're not exactly the kind of fresh you'd want to sink your teeth into! For cooking, however, it works out just fine. She takes a paring knife and starts slicing them up, not really knowing what she's going to do with them when she's done. The oranges and grapefruit stay on the counter, and she'll offer them to all comers. She also has no idea what a grapefruit is. This orange is weird as hell. ]

Have we found any meal at all?

[ Grains. She means grains. ]

[ratherdoweddings]

You mean, like... cornmeal?

Meeting the Fourth

[kingshaming]

[One day Xander will die and no meetings will be held. Will the station stop turning without this bit of consistency? Who knows. But either way, like clockwork Xander has his whiteboard out.

It still has that cat from two weeks ago on it. In fact it doesn't seem smudged at all over time. Xander doesn't acknowledge it, instead:]

While this is still, as always, for us all to compare notes from the week, there's something else I would like to discuss while we are all here.

We were told from the start, that this is an experiment. Of course, myself and many others brushed that off as the ramblings of madmen- such a thing could at best be some form of torture or sick game. But as this goes on I am not so sure of that.

I am not a man of science but I do know this: an experiment is meant to prove or disprove a theory. If this is meant to discover something it might be in our best interest to hypothesize what we are here to prove. What is the goal?

Also:

[He takes one of his markers (the red one, in fact) and does a quick diagram of the basic shape of the station- the center, and the left wing.]

From what I have been reading (bless Griffin for that one important gift of knowledge) stations like this are often rounded. To create fake gravity and account for the greatest amount of space in the easiest to maintain form. So I suspect that we are missing more then more floors to this place.

[He adds another wing to the right side]

Which would also account for where Bolton and Jamie go when they are not antagonizing us- as well as all our supplies. I have no proof of this, but it might be worth investigating.

[He caps his marker and crosses his arms. The floor belongs to the group now]

[cyan_maid]

[No cakes at today's meeting - maybe Jane will make some tonight in anticipation for a not-evil motive tomorrow. For now, meeting time.]

I can't say I can think of a proper goal to this place...maybe to see if people from different worlds with different skills can live together in peace despite temptation? But that seems really far-off to me. As for the maps...well, I can't say I know what space stations are like either, but gosh, I do suppose there has to be someplace they go to when they're not here. And wherever could the items in the dumbwaiters come from, too, if they hadn't been on our persons originally?

[imnotfat]

[Maybe surprisingly, Togami is in the meeting from the start. He's here to be kinda cooperative. Yay?]

This being an experiment of the social kind is not a farfetched thought. It could range from watching how people behave in a stress-filled situation, to trying to break the participants' wills until even the most reticent person is compelled to murder.

There's no way for us to do more than guess what the Overseers' intentions are.

[bylight]

The experiment is to crown a champion of champions. Bolton implied that himself when I discussed it with him on the first day. Back then he also gave us the answer to our current state. He knew we didn't have our memories. Motive, Means, and Opportunity. We've been playing into their hands since the first day.

[Each week this fact hits them harder and harder.] As a means to keep us from rioting, I think that each floor is like a 'gift' to keep us complacent after the trials. A change of scenery. [She snorts softly.] I thought the experiments back home were awful. This is much worse.

[curdle]

I suppose I would ask... if truly this be a test, how know we that we are the ones being tested?

The Overseers wear the very same collars as we. They hold authority over us, and say they have long watched us, but their sight is not without limit. [ And maybe it wasn't them doing the looking or choosing at all. Bolton mentioned her extended file... what does that mean? She'll hold that back for now. ] At times they act as though they regret this -- even Bolton. And each week they switch their tone. Whatever the goal, could it not be to prove the virtue of one of their methods?

[ratherdoweddings]

[Yurika raises her voice and turns slightly to be in full view of the nearest camera.]

All of this is really important, I'll agree. Another important thing, though, is to make sure to keep up morale so we don't keep losing people. To that end, most of us are already aware of the Space Station Beautification Project initiated this week! So I thought I'd take this time to talk about the designs we're putting on our doors, like my pink mountain flowers with the sun, and what else we're going to do to the rest of the station! All in favour of decorating the cafeteria?

[She winks at the more "serious" Champions.]

[voltrounds]

[Ricky might not know much about weird social experiments, but she knows a little bit about space!]

I don't know if gravity applies in this case--there's a room where gravity can be disabled, and you couldn't easily do that with just part of a space station. It seems more likely that they have a different method of doing that. But structurally, the two-sided design makes a lot more sense--the area we're restricted to seems weirdly unbalanced, otherwise.

Also--has anyone actually seen any evidence that the floors we have access to are connected?

[bylight]

[Yesterday had been a day. After making up with Xander and the memory she had, Lightning needs something to lighten her own mood. She doesn't care if others come up to her to yell or apologize. Today she was more focused on herself. So in the morning, bright and early, she's in the pool, swimming laps for quite a while. This is not a pool episode.

Before the meeting she paints a red rose on her door. Roses... are rather important to her. It seems appropriate.

In the late evening she will go to the bar. Light never had been the biggest drinker, but the occasional drink wasn't that bad for your health. If any of the younger than 21 crowd comes in, she will not let them touch a drop of alcohol. As for the adults? She wouldn't mind the company.]

Bar

[imnotfat]

You shouldn't be drinking in a place where you're in constant danger of being murdered.

bar, cw underage drinking (???)

[curdle]

[ TOO LATE SHE'S ALREADY HERE ]

Lightning? [ She's got a granola bar wrapper and a half-empty bottle of beer on the bar in front of her, unless you would rather not have that happen, in which case she's still trying to work out the pop cap! If it is half-empty, she adds, with great seriousness: ] I cannot recommend this ale.

Painting

[kingshaming]

Seems everyone is in a decorating mood as of late.

[He pauses to admire the flower. His own door is marked, though it looks more like he smeared paint while stumbling around in his hangover yesterday instead of an actual plant]