3..2...1...CONTACT!

[goneawaymod]

Who: The New Hires
What: Sudden Memory Share
Where: Their Memory Palaces
When: After "Don't Touch That Dial"
Warnings/Notes: Possible in every memory, warn in subject lines.

Contact.

It's during a pause in their day. A nap. An idle moment looking across the Top Deck. Taking a slow breath between reps in the training room.

The New Hires are connected. Mental pathways locking together, they're forced into one another's innermost beings. Thrust into one another's memory palaces where the mind collects and stores everything that makes them who they are. The core of their beings are only a few steps away and no one can help the violation.

To make matters worse, it comes with no explanation or no ability to pull out and stop. Once they're through the first memory, perhaps they can find a way out, but they're already witnessing some event from their host's past. And, if they left, who knows whether or not they'd end up accidentally invading another memory palace?

And if they were there, who was in theirs?

[[So, how this works: the memories can either be viewed in spectator mode or the guest can be experiencing everything themselves. The person whose memories are being shown, the host, can watch as their current self or take the form they had of their past self. They can talk about the memory with the "guest" that's visiting.

They cannot control the first memory shown, the player decides that, but they can control any other memories they'd like to show people after. Of course, there's also always the option of an extreme emotional reaction bringing up other memories unbidden.]]

Comments

[drladysounds]

"So you can change forms...!" She sounds rather amazed. Almost wants to ask if the form he has right now is the base form, or if it's one he takes because he likes it. How do you ask such thing? She really should figure out a way to ask it without sounding very rude.

Shelley looks around with a lot of interest, walking on the dome as if she feared disturbing the being inside, her eyes sparkle with curiosity, mingling with the obvious horror the thought of something taking over your mind and body brings.

"That's horrible! Why would they do such a thing? Is it for survival or do they just...do that for fun?"

Depends on how sapient Yeerks are, she thinks. Sure sound like parasites, one way or another. Parasites who almost caused the deaths of a family. Her thoughts are very unkind about them already -- something about the possibility of being under someone's control hits a sore spot in her.

[takenalive]

<Yes, I can morph. It's a technology my people, the Andalites, developed. Unfortunately, I was given the ability before I was infested, and so -> Alloran gestures. There's only a foot or so of air left in the dome, which descends faster as it loses buoyancy, and the djabala is clearly focused on the hatch the water is pouring through.

One of the reptilian aliens, seven feet tall and very spiky, has shed her flotation device and sinks rapidly, bubbles clinging to her head and snake neck. She lands on the dome and nearly slides off, managing to dig in her ankle blades and claw her way to the opening. When the djabala can finally swim free, she grabs it and pushes off, kicking ineffectually for the surface. It seems like she can't swim.

<Throw me,> the djabala says, in Alloran's voice but colder, more intent tones. The Hork-Bajir does so like the smaller alien is a basketball to pass, and can then move her arms and try to claw through the water. They're just too deep now.

<Some of both. They survive in murky ponds and crave our senses and hands. Oh, they're people, like anyone else, they have the whole spectrum of morality happening that you see in anyone, but mostly the better ones don't take hosts. Of course I was taken by one of the worst. Look at him. One of his people sacrificed her life, and her host's, for him and doesn't even care.> The morphed animal swims towards the surface, tail rippling. Alloran and Shelley also rise to match, standing on nothing in particular, and get to share a certain feeling of tightness, though there's not any actual problem with breathing.

[drladysounds]

Shelley tenses when the tightness comes -- it's not a sensation you want to feel when you're underwater, even if it's just someone's memory! It really catches her offguard, for a brief moment thinking the realism had gone up a notch, but thankfully she soon relaxes. These memories brought by the Stuff...she really hadn't experienced something like this ever before.

"That's so cold..."

And cruel. That was such a casual way of leaving someone else behind! She turns her head at Alloran, inquisitive.

"But you're fine now, aren't you? So he must have left you at some point, and now you're yourself again. Right?"

She can't help it, she gets her guard up a little, as if Alloran would just casually reply the opposite and reveal that no, he still has a controlling form of life in him. Even if that were the case there's no way he'd admit it like that, she supposes.

[takenalive]

<That's Esplin. When we first, hah, 'met' he had a twin and a great many friends, but he holds his own status, not to mention his life, more dear.>

The eye-slug circles the djabala and starts darting its eyelash tentacles in and out, stinging the swimming animal. Memory-Alloran and the Yeerk controlling him have a conversation about it, about venom and whether animals usually attack strange aliens. Somehow, neither voice sounds quite like the present version. The Alloran of memory 'sounds' like he's talking from the bottom of a well, or the other side of a wall, and yet his voice is full of anger and frustration. He's not tired in the same way.

<It took twenty-four years. I don't think I'll ever be who I was again, really, and 'fine' probably isn't the right word, but I am free. And I do have humans to thank for it, so as aggravating as the situation with Jorgumand is...> He turns a seven-fingered hand palm up, a version of a shrug.