Twelfth Test: Cycle Four, Month 1, Day 6 - We'll Never Sleep, though god knows we try

[poison_dango]

[You don't really need the thought bubble above Anko's head to let everyone know she's unhappy as she tosses and turns in her little alcove of a bed. She's not asleep. Being asleep would be preferrable at this point but, after crashing hard for a couple of days to sleep off the weirdness of the hallucinations and the fact that they'd reset again,

Comments

[saltsweet]

Was the black hole supposed to take our memories?

[She's now imagining... a complicated-looking device that probably resembles a toilet-plunger attached to someone's head, arising out of a black hole.]

[poison_dango]

[Anko's own bubbles goes to a question mark.]

Uh, yeah. Something like that. It's just every single other time this has happened, we've woken up not knowing what happened the night before. Now we do, and it's still really fucking confusing.

[saltsweet]

Ah... that's right.

[There's a brief flash of a chain splitting into a thousand slender chains before Orihime's thoughts focus on the black hole again, yawning deep.]

The captain's last words before everything... He said that there was a way to explain it all, didn't he? Maybe the answer's still on the ship somewhere.

[poison_dango]

Maybe.

[Anko's own bubble image is a curious one--the holodeck maybe? Or where one programs for the holodeck, anyway, but this too spins out to a black hole]

Every other time, the ship itself reset as well. Belongings, data, everything. But things are different this time. Maybe there is something left this time.

The trouble is...what?

[saltsweet]

Well, if we find a way to speak to the captain, he might be able to tell us more!

[The captain's head pops out of the black hole, shortly followed by the rest of him. The effect is a little off-putting, though, sort of Ceiling Captain Is Watching You.

Orihime doesn't notice - she's busy thinking.]

If only we could get through to him somehow...

[poison_dango]

[Whoa, weird. That is a little bit odd. The black hole turns into Crucible from the outside--and then into a little representation of the sphere]

Maybe. But he hasn't been answering any messages at all. The Doctor's tried so many times...I don't think trying for the thousand and first time is going to be any different.

I suppose the only real way to do it...is to find him in person.

[saltsweet]

[She claps her hands together. Her thought bubble reflects a giant smiley face -- with a mustache, for some reason.]

That's a good idea! Do you know where he might be?

[poison_dango]

Bridge, maybe? Impossible to get to. Everything's closed off between here and there, always is. Until the...last month or so.

[She shrugs--and her thought bubble is back on a swirly, swirly black hole.]

Right before we get eaten up by that damn hole again.

[saltsweet]

But there's no use thinking like that! We'll just have to get to the bridge before then!

[Enter thinking 'Hime mode, complete with a hand on her chin.]

Hmm... Maybe a giant bulldozer will help!

[poison_dango]

You're welcome to it then, sweetheart. But even if you get a...giant bulldozer--which, where would you?--you still have to contend with locked doors, impenetrable walls and ship security thwarting us at every turn.

Good luck with that.

[saltsweet]

Ehe... you're probably right. Still, there has to be some way. Otherwise there wouldn't be a path there in the first place, right?

[poison_dango]

Maybe. But the bastard's not even answering his voice mail box on this thing anymore, who knows what's happened to him.

Maybe. Maybe this time we'll find a path there before we get swallowed by the black hole again. Unlikely.