TEST DRIVE #10 - Cetacean Pool and Ten Forward

[tenforward_m]

#1

Option 001. Cetacean Pool/Aquatics Lab: Of all the places in the world, you open your eyes and you find yourself in a medium-sized aquatics laboratory, filled with various living specimens along with various science officers bustling about trying to maintain order. There's much to explore here (and hopefully, in the crew's opinion, not break), but the main attraction is the large pool at the far end of the lab; enormous but tanklike in appearance, it contains several dolphins happily swimming about, seemingly without a care in the world.


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Option 002. Aboard the Enterprise, Ten Forward: You have no idea what just happened. One minute you were home, and now you're on a spaceship, in the middle of a crowded room. It looks like a bar. There are people eating and drinking, some in uniform, others not. Some are clearly aliens.

You've managed to land in Ten Forward a long bar with barstools and a bartender, tables sprinkled throughout, and the far wall is nothing but windows out to space. It looks like a nice lounge, low conversation making the room hum.

Better ask some questions and find out where you are, or just tap the closest person on the shoulder and try to make friends. The bar is open.

Comments

Re: Artemis Fowl II | Artemis Fowl Book Series

[kaylinneya]

Kaylin was still getting used to the concept of free and readily available food. She still wanted money, mainly for gambling purposes, but having a place of her own, having food when she wanted it, and not having to wear a ****** dress all greatly improved her mood. Being able to wake up naturally also helped.

So Kaylin was in a good mood. Something people who knew her rarely saw when she was at work. Her hair was pulled back sloppily with a hair stick, but that was just typical.

She wore her beat outfit, even though she could make her own clothes if she needed to, now. It was so odd, not needing money. Still, she was a Hawk at heart, so she continued to wear he Hawk over her heart. So she was in leather pants, though she did remove the padding, so they were a bit loose around the legs. She wore a linen shirt under leather armor which was under a chain-mail shirt, which itself was under a tabard with a flying hawk picked out in small gold beads.

She also wore a dagger on either hip, where she tended to rest her palms, a very expensive looking antique old gold bracelet encrusted with gems, heavy combat boots, a tattoo of a flower on one cheek, a familiar that looked like a dragon wrapped around her shoulders like a living shawl... and - for once - a smile.

She stopped, her steps faltering when she saw the kid. Saw the furtive way he was clearly trying to avoid attention. If an adult was acting that way, she'd be finding out how she was to go about making an arrest here. But a kid?

Protectiveness swept over her. Yes, it was likely he had swiped something, but she remembered being 13 and being on the streets, she remembered when Severn was 15 and they were on the streets. She didn't want to remember these things but... they were why she wouldn't blame him for a theft the way she would an adult. He was almost an adult himself, but not yet.

And she meant to see to it that he got to be.

She rested her palms on the cool metal pommels of her hilts, and strode over to him. "Need some help?" she asked in a firm and authoritative voice.

[eternallyhazel]

Artemis had registered the woman walking in his direction before she spoke, so he was ready for the interception. He really needed to get better at these non mental activities. Perhaps this was why he was here? And then he could go back and make that high jump?

But the woman was speaking now and he had to quickly formulate a response. Despite his recent changes of heart, the new environment brought back some of his old cockiness and he scoffed. "Do I look like I need help?"

[kaylinneya]

"Yes," she said with total blunt honesty. There wasn't even a trace of hesitation.

"Look, I've been where you've been," more or less. "if you stole something or did something wrong, I'll help you make it right. And there is food here," she said, knowing what food meant when you were young and starving. *****s she knew what it meant to her now.

"We can get you some food, fix whatever you did, and get you settled. You're more or less safe here, as safe here as anywhere," she said. She had learned the hard way that crossing the river did not guarantee safety.

"There are people here who protect, it's their job to protect. And there is food."

Yes, she did repeat the bit about the food.

[eternallyhazel]

Artemis scoffed again. "No one has been where I have been, least of all you." He straightened his suit jacket, or what was left of it and tried to look more dignified. Like the Fowl heir should look. "I have not stolen anything." Recently. "And what is your obsession with giving me food?" He knew he was thin, Holly always told him about his pale face and figure but really, mentioning food three times in as many minutes was going a bit overboard.

He was tempted to scoff for a third time when mentioning safety. But he didn't. His mind had drifted back to looking at Holly's own mismatched eyes and Butler's face. So he said nothing else and waited for his answers.

[kaylinneya]

Rude. A defense mechanism, or proof that he was more adult than kid? If he had been an adult, she probably would have smacked him by now.

"What is your damage that you don't want food?" she finally asked, after discarding a half dozen things she would have said if he were an adult.

Yes, ladies and germs, a Kaylin first. She thought before she spoke.

She made a face, imagining the mockery back home. Didn't help that the kid was taller than she was. For a moment... just a moment... she wished Severn was with her, that he could deal with this kid...

[eternallyhazel]

That was an interesting turn of phrase. "Perhaps..." He started, in a voice he might use with his younger brother, Beckett, "I'm just not hungry."

It was strange to be taller than someone other than his brothers. He realised he was taller than Holly but that had been gradual and this not as alarming. He wondered if this was how Butler felt and dismissed the thought. He had to keep his mind on the present. The here and now. Not then.

[kaylinneya]

Not hungry. Those were words Kaylin would never understand, and that showed clearly in her face. What.. must it be like to be so confidant that there will always be food coming that you didn't grab every opportunity to eat?

Even here, where it was so plentiful and readily available, she ate every opportunity she got, because she never knew when it would go away. She also kept longer lasting things in her basket, in case the food ever became scarce.

"Fine then," she said, because she had no other response.

[eternallyhazel]

As with most adults, the intellect of Artemis Fowl had them stumped. It was good to know that he still held his advantage mentally. He had nothing else. Though, now he thought on it, he wasn't sure when his last meal had been. Mulch had eaten most of what they had. But for a change, he hadn't lied. Those gave him an ache in the pit of his stomach these days depending on who he was lying to.

He pondered bating the woman or walking away but he decided against either. He would wait and see what she did next before deciding his own next move. This was not a situation in which he had all the constants let alone all the variables.

[kaylinneya]

She wanted to turn and walk away. She so nearly did. If he had been an adult, she wouldn't have stayed this long. But... he was still a kid. Sort of.

She grit her teeth. "Is there anything you do need, then?" she got out shortly.

[eternallyhazel]

"I suppose you could tell me whereabouts I am. I appear to have arrived here without my..." He stopped, the word he wanted to use fighting with the word he usually used. So he started again. Most unlike him but this situation warranted it. "I appear to have arrived alone." Information would be accepted and even helpful. But saying that to her would be like admitting defeat on his initial point.

[kaylinneya]

The small familiar around her neck moved for the first time. It made an odd chirruping noise that somehow managed to sound smug, as it lifted it's head. The rest of it was translucent, but the eyes were solid dark orbs flecked here and there with color as it shifted and moved.

"Most people seem to. You're on what they call a Starship. You'll have to get medically cleared and then they'll assign you a room."

She kept her tone crisp and professional, realizing that she was now talking to him in the way she would talk to Margot, or any of the other shysters on Elani Street. She spoke in a professional "It's not worth my job to smack you or call you an idiot but I'll be *****ed if I'm going to smile at you" sort of way. Not QUITE how she spoke to Mallory, but then... he was one of the few humans she hated even more than Margot.

[eternallyhazel]

"What do you mean by most?" He could figure out what a starship meant. It was in the name after all. Medically cleared sounded logical enough having come from a different environment but being assigned a room assumed he was staying.

"Am I a prisoner here? I did not choose to be on this ship. And..." Again he stopped, the words dying in his throat. His plans had not anticipated this. But at least everyone else was safe.

[kaylinneya]

"None of us chose it," she said, fighting to keep a sneer from her voice. "And yet, here we are. And by most..." she scratched the small dragon under its chin, "I most certainly did not come alone."

Usually she resented the small familiar, but for small moments of spite? She was big enough to admit she was small enough to take some measure of smug satisfaction from this.

[eternallyhazel]

"And yet you are here. Something else is obviously at work." But what? As far as Artemis knew, this wasn't possible. Did he have some sort of enemy he hadn't know about? Someone much more powerful and technologically advanced than even the People? No, that made no sense. Especially with the way everything was when he'd left and arrived here.

He needed more information and he doubted this woman would give it to her.

[kaylinneya]

"Or maybe I didn't come here the same way you did," she said a bit smugly. Yes, Kaylin could be childish at times. And yes, she was not above being so now.

[eternallyhazel]

"Oh? How did you arrive then?" He asked, almost innocently. If she was going to raise the stakes then he would most certainly call her bluff.

[kaylinneya]

"I fell off the world," she said, and she almost seemed proud of it. "That happens to me." She smirked.

[eternallyhazel]

Artemis seemed to ponder that statement for a while before answering, though his answer had instantly popped into his head.

"Well, it seems we may have something in common after all."

He seemed almost impressed and yet still spiteful and smirking at the same time.

[kaylinneya]

"Am supposed to be overjoyed?" she asked dryly. "Impressed? Pleased? Honored?"

There was a reason she was not allowed near the moneyed people of her city.

[eternallyhazel]

"Whichever one suits you best." Which was an answer without it actually be an answer.

[kaylinneya]

"None of those, then," she said with a smirk. She crossed her arms. She didn't say the words but her posture all but screamed "are we done here?"

[eternallyhazel]

Artemis held his own posture, replying without words in a "well you approached me" fashion.

[kaylinneya]

Kaylin could be blunt, if she had to. "Is that all you need? Are we done here?"

He officially, in her mind, was not a kid.