Nicholas Rush (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
lottawork) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
applesaucedream2014-12-13 07:57 pm
lottawork) wrote in applesaucedream2014-12-13 07:57 pm
Entry tags:
starships were meant to fly [open to multiple]
The shuttle's base plating is proving particularly difficult. Rush redoubles his efforts to pry it loose and throws all his weight on the crowbar, or the Ancient equivalent of a crowbar, until with a satisfying, groaning metallic clunk, it disengages. He levers it off, tosses it aside, and within seconds is elbow-deep in the innards of the shuttle. Assorted chunks of aged machinery come clanging out as Rush removes piece after piece of the shuttle's internal architecture, regards each with distaste, and flings them over his shoulder to join their fellows.
Destiny is falling apart. When isn't it? But now life support isn't responding, and the rest of the ship isn't responding, it's pitch-dark and dropping in temperature and oxygen levels and the steady creep of hypoxic terror has begun to settle around his ears and in the delicate parts of his chest cavity, but the shuttles run on an auxiliary system that operates separately from Destiny's central network so Rush can cannibalize the shuttles and interface their systems with Destiny's and grit his teeth and hope that will be enough of a stopgap measure until he can rig something better. An inelegant solution to an inelegant problem. As flawed as the fucking Dirac sea Destiny theoretically floats in.
Rush emerges triumphant, desired machinery part in hand, and cuts an unsteady path out of the shuttle and into the unfriendly darkness of the ship itself, shadows steel-edged and sharply cut into graceful swell and curves of its walls. His own destination (at this he smirks transparently, an uninspired pun fed into a neurologically empty space without enthusiasm) is the control interface room, the aphotic nucleus of the ship's function, where he may optimistically begin repairs. Optimistically. Realistically, Rush expects he will die here. One man, even an exceptionally brilliant cryptographer slash scientist, cannot hope to perform the work required of ten, but Rush isn't about to let the discovery of a fucking lifetime wink out of a painfully long existence simply by virtue of not having the right parts. The injustice to that is fucking absurd.
The central column of the interface room is dead when he reaches it, an acharacteristically dim pillar that, last Rush saw it, had been lit in a spectrum of whites and blues. The striae comprising its wired core are cool and lifeless when he rests one palm against them.
He gives his head a small, firm shake in an effort to dislodge the mental detritus of protracted wakefulness. It has been hours, or it feels like hours. Finite resources have not been kind to him; he's been operating without stimulant unless one counts adrenaline, which Rush does not because running on adrenaline is practically his baseline.
The dull ring of footsteps successfully derails any irrelevant trains of thought. Rush half-turns before deciding whichever unlucky crewmember has been sent to ask useless things of him isn't worth devoting the neural space to. They never are.
[ooc: Welcome to Manhattan, Rush. This is his first night so the Rift has decided to pitch him in head first. He's going to be dashing around trying to fix Destiny, the super-cool old ship he's been stranded on for the past four to five years. Feel free to run into him!]
Destiny is falling apart. When isn't it? But now life support isn't responding, and the rest of the ship isn't responding, it's pitch-dark and dropping in temperature and oxygen levels and the steady creep of hypoxic terror has begun to settle around his ears and in the delicate parts of his chest cavity, but the shuttles run on an auxiliary system that operates separately from Destiny's central network so Rush can cannibalize the shuttles and interface their systems with Destiny's and grit his teeth and hope that will be enough of a stopgap measure until he can rig something better. An inelegant solution to an inelegant problem. As flawed as the fucking Dirac sea Destiny theoretically floats in.
Rush emerges triumphant, desired machinery part in hand, and cuts an unsteady path out of the shuttle and into the unfriendly darkness of the ship itself, shadows steel-edged and sharply cut into graceful swell and curves of its walls. His own destination (at this he smirks transparently, an uninspired pun fed into a neurologically empty space without enthusiasm) is the control interface room, the aphotic nucleus of the ship's function, where he may optimistically begin repairs. Optimistically. Realistically, Rush expects he will die here. One man, even an exceptionally brilliant cryptographer slash scientist, cannot hope to perform the work required of ten, but Rush isn't about to let the discovery of a fucking lifetime wink out of a painfully long existence simply by virtue of not having the right parts. The injustice to that is fucking absurd.
The central column of the interface room is dead when he reaches it, an acharacteristically dim pillar that, last Rush saw it, had been lit in a spectrum of whites and blues. The striae comprising its wired core are cool and lifeless when he rests one palm against them.
He gives his head a small, firm shake in an effort to dislodge the mental detritus of protracted wakefulness. It has been hours, or it feels like hours. Finite resources have not been kind to him; he's been operating without stimulant unless one counts adrenaline, which Rush does not because running on adrenaline is practically his baseline.
The dull ring of footsteps successfully derails any irrelevant trains of thought. Rush half-turns before deciding whichever unlucky crewmember has been sent to ask useless things of him isn't worth devoting the neural space to. They never are.
[ooc: Welcome to Manhattan, Rush. This is his first night so the Rift has decided to pitch him in head first. He's going to be dashing around trying to fix Destiny, the super-cool old ship he's been stranded on for the past four to five years. Feel free to run into him!]
no subject
"Um. Would you like me to prove it?" he offers, since he guesses that was the purpose of what the guy was trying to do. And, well, that's hardly difficult. Or, either it's a dream, or Topher has ridiculous illusionary powers. Which he sadly doesn't.
no subject
"Impossible, apparently," he answers lightly, and the words sound faint to him. He has achieved a distance, possibly from himself. The ship appears to be working again, the engines engaging in their hollow drones of efficiency, but that hardly matters. It can't. It doesn't.
Did it ever?
He presses his thumb into the disappointingly shallow cut, grits his teeth to the resultant piercing nervous response. Pain is not a theoretical concept. How can it exist in a theoretical space? The two concepts are not veridically aligned.
no subject
no subject
He will need to, first, define 'real'.
"How," whispers Rush, his own subtly shaking frame disrupting the cadence of his speech, "is one meant to differentiate between strata?"
no subject
"Don't worry, you can train yourself to," he answers reassuringly. "There's a certain... feeling, like an instinct, but it can take a while to recognise it."
Although this is probably moot if this guy isn't actually in Manhattan. If you're close to the Rift, you end up in these all the time, but if you're dragged in from who knows where, it's a bit more rare. Well, as far as he can tell. It's not like Topher could contact anyone again to ask if they're not people who've come through the Rift.
"Anyway. I'm Topher. Um. I don't suppose you've recently fallen through a rift in space and time and ended up in Manhattan?" he asks, making a face. Very weird question to ask if he hasn't, but it needs to be established for Topher to explain further. Or determine if he NEEDS to explain further, really.
no subject
Because if this, if this is not real, how is he meant to accept all subsequent self-proclaimed realities henceforth? How is he meant to develop an instinct when all previous methods of differentiation have fractured, spun away, become inoperable.