this is the part where prison is more or less dave and busters

[saklas]

Passengers: Everyone who wants to come see what the weird vending machine is about for the first time it is open to them! This is an open mingle/party style log.
Location: "a corner," the location of the Commissary
Date: February 1 - 7 on year one of our cool and sexy journey
Summary: 14 space idiots squint at the ATM that can supposedly make elk meat and clown shoes for them
Warnings: Will add as needed! I'm 90% sure someone's going to ask for drugs or blades, just as a weather forecast

Comments

[expectaspectre]

Grace just got here a couple days ago, so she doesn't have anything to redeem, but it seems like A New Thing Being There is unusual, at least for now. Worth investigating, she thinks, if only to get an idea of the sorts of goings-on that will be happening for the foreseeable who-knows-how-long.

So she finds a moment that the hallways seem empty to slip out of her room and down to the strange chunky machine that kind of reminds her of those little photo booths they have at the mall, just way more beat up and janky-looking. Which is saying something, because those photo booths have been there since at LEAST the nineties.

Anyway. Nobody appears to be around, at least for now, so Grace takes a tentative peek at the list of items. Brain lubricant. That's a thing, apparently?

For right now, at least, she's so absorbed in the list that she stops paying attention to whether or not she's alone in the room anymore...

[nineteenfortyfive]

Well, this is new.

Claire clears her throat on approach, not wanting to cause a startle.

"Anything of interest in there?"

[expectaspectre]

Whoops: Grace jumps as if someone had prodded her with a fireplace poker, spinning around to see... oh. A very pleasant-looking woman. She's gonna go ahead and guess this is Claire, as she hasn't actually met.... really, any other women thus far.

(About now is when poor Claire ought to begin to feel the hair on the back of her neck stand up, and get a very unpleasant feeling of being watched, and its accompanying physical discomfort. Grace really can't help it.)

"Interesting to somebody, maybe..." She tries a little upward twitch at the corner of her mouth which on someone else might read as a smile, but just looks nervous on Grace's pale face. "...Wanna bejazzle your gun?"

[nineteenfortyfive]

Given the number of people on board, she can assume this might be Grace. Maybe? Claire crosses her arms over her middle, attributing the not-so-great feeling to the machine and its contents.

"Sorry, I didn't mean to frighten you," she apologizes with a quick smile. Skittish, this one. "I can't name a single thing I would want to bejazzle, least of all that. I was hoping for a can of Coca-Cola or something... normal."

[expectaspectre]

"I don't think they do normal here," Grace replies, peering around her at the hallway of the honest-to-goodness spaceship they all happen to be standing in, as if that's a normal thing to do. "It has clothes and snacks, so... maybe you can still get your Coke? But I wouldn't be surprised if it's some kind of weird space-Coke for aliens, or something."

Another nervous smile. Slightly less nervous-- Claire seems a calm sort, and not yet perturbed by Grace's presence, so she's just gonna ride this wave until it crashes, and be thankful.

[nineteenfortyfive]

"Space-Coke," she echoes with a scrunch of her nose. She can't imagine it. Luckily, Claire has yet to experience Coke changing it's formula.

"Grace, isn't it?" Claire offers a more reassuring smile, stepping closer to the machine to inspect it. She's almost worried she'll shoot off like a startled deer.

[expectaspectre]

Almost at the exact same time that Claire steps forward, Grace steps back, maintaining the amount of distance between them. It's a subtle thing, and seemingly very practiced. As if there's a danger in a possible point of contact.

"Claire?" A little smile flits over Grace's face. "Not a lot of ladies around, so..."

[nineteenfortyfive]

"That's me," she confirms with a nod. "Too many men in this place, you mean."

Look, she's just being honest.

[expectaspectre]

"I'm not complaining..." Not starting any battle-of-the-sexes nonsense before her first week is up would be a good goal. "Just... used to a little more balance, I guess? And less... you know. Conflict. In that guy way."

Grace does not elaborate. There is no way on earth, she assumes, Claire doesn't know what she means.

[nineteenfortyfive]

"That's a much nicer way of putting it," she says with a little laugh. "I'm hoping no one's been too much for you thus far."

James worried.

[expectaspectre]

"Most people have been super nice! More than I'm used to, really. I keep waiting for the shoe to drop..."

Because of, you know, that slightly nauseous instinct that Grace causes that whispers directly into your ancient lizard brain that someone is hunting you, run, run.

"Some of the inmates are, um. Acquired tastes." To put it mildly, which she does.

[nineteenfortyfive]

"You're so sweet. I can't imagine anyone being unkind to you unless they were wrong in the head." She says it easily. "The inmates can be rough, but none I've met are... abhorrent, I suppose."

She's had a worse time with fellow wardens, really.

[expectaspectre]

Aw jeez. Grace can feel herself starting to blush, which never looks great on her-- an obvious wash of color on her unusually pale face. People here really are too nice. This can't be something Grace lets herself get used to.

"That's a good sign. The ones I've met in person, you can at least have a conversation with. No homicidal maniacs." Yet. Probably.

[lessandmorethanhuman]

She's there long enough that she's attracted attention. "You must have a way more interesting set of options than the rest of us, for that thing." Alex has his hood up, and hands in his pockets, not quite looming behind her.

[expectaspectre]

Grace straightens like someone poked her in the back with something awfully sharp and immediately side-steps away from the monitor.

"Sorry," she automatically apologizes, like it happens a lot. She peers cautiously at Alex, like she's trying to figure out whether she needs to run. "Didn't mean to take too long!"

[lessandmorethanhuman]

Her response actually brings a small chuckle from Alex, and a half-smirk. "Relax, I'm not going to eat you." Even if he could, he probably wouldn't without a good reason. "Seriously, find anything interesting for you to be that absorbed?"

[expectaspectre]

Her stare slides back to the screen of the vending machine.

"Why would anyone want a Roomba with a knife taped to it?" Valid question.

[lessandmorethanhuman]

Well, that hadn't been on the list of options he'd been given. Guessing she was a warden. Unless there was a third category besides 'wardens' and 'inmates'.

"Reprogram it and you'd have a form of security? Or you could just take the knife and then you have both a weapon and an appliance." That latter is what Alex would do.

[expectaspectre]

That stare turns back to Alex, wide-eyed.

"Why... would you need a weapon?"

Grace briefly considers the distance between herself and the nearest exit.

[lessandmorethanhuman]

Okay, that brought a full out chuckle-laugh, and Alex smiled. "Relax. I'm not going to hurt you. I don't have a reason to, we're out in the open, and you're a warden. I'm smart enough to know that it would be a stupid-ass thing to do, whether I have a weapon or not." Trying to be reassuring...sort of.

"Having a weapon for self-defense would be very useful, just in case. This is, technically, a prison in some ways." Stated entirely reasonably.

[expectaspectre]

Ah. Well. Still, it raises further questions.

"Everyone seems so ready to be attacked all the time. I thought..." We all know what YOU thought, Grace, it was all over the network and a ton of people made fun of you for it. "Anyway. Nobody should be attacking anybody else, if we do our jobs right."

And she takes that seriously, at least.

[lessandmorethanhuman]

"Maybe in a perfect world, nobody will. But you've gotta be prepared for the reality. And the practical. Some people react to trauma or triggers with violence. Some like it just for fun. Some it's used as a coping mechanism."

Alex looked her over, assessing and studying. Clinical, dispassionate but not dehumanizing. "Gotta name?" A pause. "I'm Alex."

[expectaspectre]

"I'm Grace," and an awkward pause where an ordinary person would shake hands, but that's not a thing Grace does.

Here is about when he would feel it-- that nausea-inducing feeling of wrongness that rolls off of her in waves. The fight-or-flight instinct, bone-deep, screaming run as fast as you can, something is hunting you. She can't help it. She doesn't get a choice. But there it is.

"Coping is fine, but... we have to focus on what's productive, if we're going to get anyone back home." She looks perfectly ordinary. Nervous, too-thin on her frame, but ordinary. "And it's what we're here for, to get all of you back home."

[lessandmorethanhuman]

Fear is...something he hasn't felt in a while. So he blinks, maybe stands up a little straighter. Trying to figure out the source, before blue eyes land back on her. Huh--was she really the cause of that? Why?

"Again, you'll have to find people who actually want the help."

[expectaspectre]

"You'd think more people would be doing whatever they could to get home," she mumbles, hugging her arms. "I get the instinct to question everything, but why's it so hard to just try?"

Nothing about her has changed at all, but that feeling keeps building. Like someone is watching.