the mock mingle

[airlockedmods]

[An hour ago you woke up in a bed that wasn't yours, awakened by a chirpy, feminine voice coming from the device on your non-dominant arm. The voice cheerfully requests that you exit your sleeping quarters and to please make your way to the the main deck of the ship for a debriefing on your circumstances.

It was around this time you might have noticed the clothes you last remember wearing are gone and replaced with this little number. If you take a moment to check out the Personal Identification Program on your arm, you'll find a touch screen with a few icons that lead to a series of 21 profiles and a series of apps that lead to note-taking functions and a number of customization appearance screens. The profiles all contain a photo of each Champion, their name and title, their age, species and world of origin.

As you stumbled out of your chrome-y quarters (into an equally chrome-y hallway), with every step the floor lights up under your feet, illuminating the dark ship a little at a time. On one side of the hallway are a series of mechanical doors with screen pads embedded on the walls next to them. A quick flash of your PIP will open them for you without hassle. On the opposite side of the hallway are a long string of windows showing nothing but vast amounts of stars and the deep, dark blackness of deep space. Once you reach the end of the hallway you'll find a large central living space with 20 other people, the same people from the profiles, either there already or filing in along with you. Floating well above everyone's heads in the middle of the room is a large computer screen. Once everyone piled in, the screen blinked to life and the same voice from your PIPs greeted you in the same peppy tone from before.

The voice introduced herself as the Champion Excellence Control Environment or C.E.C.E. before welcoming you to the Deep Space Champion Excellence Program, explaining that you were selected for this program based on being the best in your particular field in your particular world, hence the title of "Champion". In this program you will be expected to live communally together here on the ship for as long as possible. The ship is fully-functional and fully-stocked for an extended stay.

Oh? You don't want to stay and participate in the program? That's alright, there's an easy fix to that! All you have to do is kill one of your fellow Champions and not get caught. That is easy enough, right? Right.

When the debriefing is complete, the screen dims but doesn't turn off completely. If need be C.E.C.E. is available to answer any more questions you have throughout the week. For now, you're free to explore the ship as you like. There's the communal dining hall, a zero gravity room, a kitchen, a holo deck, the central living area and the personal quarters everyone woke up in.

Go make some friends, dears, you may be here a while.]

Comments

it's ok /pats

[strikemonster]

Kerurumin has been dehydrated and pressed into bars for your convenience. [She sounds like she's repeating something from a commercial.] Unfortunately, that doesn't improve the taste.

[voltrounds]

Kerurumin sounds like a medication.

[That's probably how it tastes, too. Ricky picks up the "food" and moves it toward her mouth, slowly at first, then... slower... and comes entirely to a stop halfway up. Instead of actually opening her mouth, she's frowning. She's hungry, but... can she really will herself to eat this...]

[strikemonster]

You don't necessarily have to eat this. There's hot food at certain times of day.

[She doesn't know when, because she doesn't care, but some people are into that. Like Momo. Momo liked non-Kerurumin food.]

[voltrounds]

[But Ricky is hungry now. Also, she already opened it, and wasting food is bad.

She forces herself to take a bite. It...

Well, the nicest thing Ricky can say about this stuff is it doesn't taste as much like soap as it looks.]

[strikemonster]

It might taste better if you rehydrate it. [Mai points to the water dispenser.] But sometimes that makes it worse.

[voltrounds]

[Ricky's not sure how this could taste worse. With some effort, she manages to swallow what's in her mouth.] I'll try it.

[strikemonster]

Just look on the bright side: at least you didn't mix it with spaghetti.

[Is she joking? Is she serious? It is a mystery.]

[voltrounds]

[Even if she's joking, it's true.

Ricky adds water to the unappealing brick. It produces suds. It becomes an unappealing sludge.]

There has to be a better way to do this.

[strikemonster]

I've eaten this my whole life and can safely tell you there isn't.

[She really wasn't kidding when she said it all tastes bad.]

[voltrounds]

Preserving food, I mean.

[She is the Champion of Suspended Animation. You can't tell her it's harder to keep an apple fresh than a human.

The gross sludge turns out to taste a lot like it looks, but after a moment Ricky makes a thoughtful face. She can almost detect a vaguely fruity idea in there somewhere.]

[strikemonster]

It depends on if your chief concern is space or taste. I doubt this is a luxury spacecraft, so it makes sense they went for the space-saving option.

[Like, you could preserve food in its original state. But that requires refrigeration and other equipment and equipment takes up space. It's easiest to just throw an entire trip's worth of Kerurumin into the cabinets and call it a day.]

[voltrounds]

You're probably right.

[Siiiigh. Just yesterday she was eating real food...]

Do you have to eat this stuff a lot?

[strikemonster]

Potential candidates for the Tournament of Zones are required to eat Kerurumin in Zone 25 to ensure we're eating nutritionally balanced diets.

[In other words: yes. It's all she eats.]

[voltrounds]

...I see.

[She... sort of understood that? She got the gist.]

What kind of tournament is that? [If it isn't a murder tournament, a kidnapping tournament, or a freeze-dried-food-eating tournament, then this will automatically become be the best conversation she's had today.]

[strikemonster]

A yearly bowling tournament designed to determine which zone will be exempt from the Sweep. [So. We're still talking about murder, basically.] It's run by the Usha.

[Who are invading aliens. That kidnapped her. So really we're only not talking about freeze-dried food.]

[voltrounds]

[Ricky doesn't know what either of those proper nouns actually means, but both of them sound ominous. This conversation was a mistake.

...at least they aren't talking about the food anymore?]

Why is it a bowling tournament?

[strikemonster]

It's similar to an intergalactic sport of dominance the Usha are familiar with. [SHRUG] When they invaded the Earth and took over Japan, they decided bowling was the best way to determine which Zone was strongest.

[voltrounds]

So, you play in bowling tournaments for aliens.

[Ricky, you were recently in a desert that is inside a tree.]

[strikemonster]

Played. I won, it's why I'm Champion Bowler.

[She doesn't seem particularly happy about that, somehow. Actually, there's a hint of sadness in the way she says it.]

[voltrounds]

...right, of course.

[...huh.]

Which means... all the others lost. Right?

[strikemonster]

. . . Yes. The participants are [Mai pauses for a moment.] spared, but all the zones except mine will undergo the Sweep.

[You know what LET'S NOT TALK ABOUT YUUTA.]

What's your planet like?

[voltrounds]

[...yeah this definitely sounds like ABANDON SUBJECT.]

Oh! It's sort of... almost medieval, I guess. Not much technology anymore. It's really pretty, though.

[strikemonster]

Do you have trees?

[This is the most excited she's sounded about anything.]

[voltrounds]

[Ricky almost laughs at that.]

You could say that.

[strikemonster]

There haven't been trees in Zone 25 for a hundred years at least. [Read: Tokyo got weird in The Future™.] What do they look like?