[VIDEO]

[dust_of_life]

[There's a new face on the network. A carefully crafted face. The girl can't be more than twenty, but she carries herself like an ancient queen. Everything about her is just-so, as if she wants to convey that she's someone who's seen far too much to ever be wide-eyed again. There's the thick makeup and the hollow curve of her cheeks. And the slightly gazed expression across her eyes. So, so jaded. So very blase. So...beyond emotion.

Well. Almost beyond emotion. Because while Fatima likes to keep her expression trained, there's no denying the creeping fear. It isn't so much waking up in a strange place. She'd sadly used to it.

It's more about the waking up with strange people.]

All right. What fresh hell is this?

[The accent is American. Slightly west coast, although it's difficult to discern with her imperious anger.]

What is COMPASS trying to pull here? And who in their right mind would ever make me a field medic? This is way more elaborate than anything they've done before.

[She sighs.]

And Sam? Morgana? Jefferson? Where the hell are you? I lost my pocketwatch and you're not in this...thing.

[Here's where the fear really shows. Because a part of Fatima already knows. They would have found her by now...]

What's going on?

Comments

video

[noitatnacni]

[And the reply she gets comes with all the cheerful teenage sarcasm that's merited by the situation.]

Welcome to the good ship Moira. You've been brought on as intergalactic slave labor. Once you stepped through the Ingress completely against your will, you got assigned a job that may or may not be totally outside your realm of experience, probably by the mysterious Captains who don't talk much except to give orders.

As for COMPASS, they probably aren't responsible, which is why there are so many more bells and whistles. You could have friends here though; sometimes it happens, even if they're unexplicably aged five years and think they're all hot stuff now because they're experienced.

[dust_of_life]

[As it happens, Fatima likes sarcasm. She understands sarcasm. Uses it. And recognizes it for the defense mechanism that it is.]

Is it a step up or a step down, going to slave labor from lab rat? I'm genuinely not sure right now.

[She bites the inside of her cheek, considering it.]

If what you're saying is true--and I'm not sold that this isn't some COMPASS scheme yet--it would indicate that I've been whooshed from one multiversal hub to another.

[noitatnacni]

Depends on if they decide to turn the slave labor into lab rats, I guess. [Although if the Captains make that kind of move? No way there's not a mutiny. Zatanna wouldn't be able to keep Conner from leading the charge even if she wanted to.]

So you're famliar with the whole multi-universal thing? Because most people really aren't. [Even Zatanna's experience has been limited to talk to theories and that one time where Klarion and his magical cohorts split the earth into two age-based dimensions.] That's pretty much what happened, yeah.

[dust_of_life]

I've had more experience with it than I would have liked.

[She digs her thumb into the pressure point in her left temple.]

Right. So. Name, rank, serial number.

Fatima Merali. Los Angeles. 2009. You?

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[yer_pretty_good]

Field medic? Sounds like you got a pretty good job.

[It's respectable and useful. Some people around here scrub toilets or something.]

[dust_of_life]

I'm sure it's a great job. But seeing how I have no medical training...

[She's never needed it. Cainites can heal themselves. And there are hospitals for the rest of the world.]

And this is ridiculous. Why would we do any work for people who kidnapped us?

[yer_pretty_good]

If you want to get home, you don't have much of a choice. None of us do... at the moment.

[Which seems to suggest he's always looking for alternative options to the current deal.]

I have skill as a field medic, and there's a good doctor aboard the ship. You could take up lessons, or you could trade it in for a different job. Sometimes job opportunities pop up.

[dust_of_life]

[This is definitely not the COMPASS rhetoric. Which doesn't mean it's not a COMPASS trick of some kind.

But on the off chance it isn't...]

Explain to me the part about going home.

[yer_pretty_good]

They make it sound simple enough. Stay on the ship. Do your part. When the ship gets to its final destination, there's a machine there, similar to the one that brought us here, that can send us home.

[He shrugs.]

Not sure it'll end up being that simple once we get there, but we'll find out if we ever do. Naturally, every time we stop anywhere to resupply everything goes wrong.

[dust_of_life]

Funny how that happens.

[It's COMPASS. Just a new flavor. Maybe they go by a new name.

Same torment.]

So what do they have you doing, Mister...?

[yer_pretty_good]

Ocelot.

[Clearly not a real name, but it's the one he goes by.]

I'm a hypnotherapist.

[Yes, he knows it sounds weird. What's even weirder he thinks is he actually has patients.]

[dust_of_life]

Hypno...therapist.

[Well, there's something you don't hear every day. Assuming it means what she thinks it means.]

Psychoanalysis with hypnosis?

Is there a...call for that?

[yer_pretty_good]

Not too much, though a couple of people have asked for some help working through a few things.

[He knows it sounds strange. Generally this technique is used to gather intel, not help people sort out their demons.]

[dust_of_life]

[Fatima's been sent to more than one therapist in her lifetime. She's gonna carefully back away from this as gracefully as possible.]

Is that at all related to what you did back home?

[yer_pretty_good]

Not really. I was a soldier.

[Mostly a soldier.]

But as your own experience here shows, we are not always put in the positions we should probably be in. I'm actually a fair field medic.

[dust_of_life]

That seems highly counter productive.

I'd offer to trade with you, but I think I'd do a lousy job as a shrink.

[Way too many issues.]

[yer_pretty_good]

Well, if you'd like some field medic training, maybe I could help you out.

[Seems like they're destined to do a lot of that here as part of the same crew.]

[dust_of_life]

I think I could probably use all the help I can get.

Assuming I'm going to play this game.

[yer_pretty_good]

We all play our parts. [Some more than post.] You got a name?

[dust_of_life]

[She'll refrain from commenting about any part she's expected to play. It's just not her style.]

Fatima. Fatima Merali.

I doubt it means much of anything here.

[yer_pretty_good]

Sorry, not many names do.

[dust_of_life]

That's fair.

Actually kind of comforting, really.