Hangs Upon Air [2430-1-4 Mon 12:30pm]

[Blu]

The beautiful thing about the Echo was how everything was automated. Blu had not really known that his state of mind would always of an altered variety when he began building it, but he had planned for worse case scenarios of all kinds, and more than that, for convenience. The ship auto-adjusted itself as it came close to the docking ports located at the base of the Umbrella's 'handle'. Blu barely monitored it, knowing the shuttle would adjust itself.

The rockets on the base shut off as the ship flipped and smaller rockets helped it glide into place, locking tightly to the base and opening up the airlock. Before stepping through, Blu accessed the computer and shut down the gravity. Everything started floating, and Blu laughed a little, opening up the ship's door and floating into the main hall of the umbrella, black space surrounding him on all side. Below him, he could see Corus, a large blue ball in a sea of stars.

Air canisters hung from the airlock walls, though 'hung' wasn't the right word. If gravity was on, they would have hung, but as it was, they floated, tethered by strings to keep them from wandering off. He had to flip in the air a few times to get the momentum he needed to reach them, but Blu was an expert at this by now. Every move you made in zero-gravity translated into momentum, which translated into a direction if you knew how to use it right. With the large corridors, both long and wide, you did need to know how to use it, but luckily it came easily. It was kinda like swimming, only not at all because the water had a natural friction that air didn't, and water was wet, and water pushed you up or pulled you down instead of just letting you be. Blu hadn't thought about it, but he supposed a mermaid's actions in the water might translate well into this environment, assuming they didn't move too hard and accidentally smack themselves into the clear walls.

Blu untied two canisters, one for him, and one for Sonya. "Welcome to the Echo!" He told her, handing her a canister when she came out of the ship. "Just point in the opposite direction you want to go in and pull the trigger!"

[Sonya]

Space was big. Space was really big. Space was really, really, really big. Sonya had always thought she’d have more sophisticated reaction the first time left her planet, but all her higher brain functions seemed to have been shut down by pure awe. She had been reduced to simply staring open-mouthed at the things around her. Looking down, she could see all of Corus spread out before her, a great blue orb simply hanging, suspended in the infinity that was space. She had an unusual sense of pride at seeing how beautiful her home planet was. Then the shuttle made contact with Blu’s ship.

Sonya started and looked up. Some would have called it oddly shaped, but she thought it was beautiful, majestic even. Blu opened the door and she peered forward eagerly. Everything was floating. How strange. Sonya stepped forward. Now she too was floating. It was a wonderful feeling, much like being in water in fact. Except that the weight, that awful weight that had always pressed down on her under water, was completely gone. She was floating, free. Blu handed her a canister, and explained how to use it. Sonya looked at the thing, turning it over and over in her hands. She pulled the trigger.

Suddenly she shot backwards, banging into the wall behind her. She dropped the can in surprise, or as much as one can drop anything in zero gravity. For a moment Sonya just hung there, blinking her wide eyes at Blu. Then she started to laugh. She was in space. She was hanging weightless inside a spaceship. She was off at last on her long awaited adventure, and it was going to involve lots of floating objects, eggs, and conversations on the nature of the universe.

[Blu]

Blu laughed like a loon. Oh yeah, he'd done that before. It didn't hurt so much as it just scared the crap out of you. He aimed away from her own can and let out a short puff of air. It didn't rocket him around the way it had with Sonya and her wide-open trigger. Instead it just pushed him in one direction. He got close enough to the stray can, reached out, and grabbed it.

Then he puffed back up to Sonya, handing her the can on the way by. "Start with the slow puffs!" He showed her what he was doing, the quick short pulls that kept taking him away from her. Blu bumped into the clear walls. But from there it was easy to get his feet under him and push back off into space. With a few quick puffs, he slowed his momentum down and ended up mostly hanging in one place.

He checked behind him to make sure he was pointed in the right direction, and promptly disobeyed his own advice, cutting loose with a blast that propelled him straight down the corridor, toward the junction, laughing all the way down.

[Sonya]

Following Blu’s instructions, Sonya found that she could use the canister to move along the corridor at whatever speed she wished. She also found by her own experiment that moving through weightlessness was even more akin to being underwater than she’d thought. She could swim through the air much as she had through the ocean. A part of Sonya somewhere inside reminded her that this was one of those unwelcome similarities between her new life and her old, but she simply dismissed the thought. There was too much to think about at the moment to let something like that ruin her happiness.

Using the can of air to get started, Sonya swam down the hallway after Blu’s fading laughter. She soon caught up, coasting to a stop beside him. Her smile stretched wide with joy and excitement. “This is fun!” She observed, though she knew it was a silly and obvious thing to say. “I hope it’s not like this in the kitchen though, I’m not sure if I can cook floating food.” She put on a worried face, wondering whether or not Blu would believe her feigned apprehension.

[Blu]

He laughed again, shaking his head, "Everybody has their own gravity! You don't want to accidentally mess anybody up by turning it on or off at the worst time!" Man, was that ever the truth. The engine might throw a fit when something gets out of sorts, and the fruit in the gardens would end up floating everywhere, and the people in the kitchen could burn themselves, and if you were sleeping in the air (as Blu occasionally did) it was a hell of a rough drop back to the ground when that gravity came back on. That bit couldn't be helped seeing as each central location either did or did not have gravity, which mean when people were on board, they usually had gravity.

Even though everything was marked rather clearly (it was a passenger ship, that stuff was basically required or something) he still pointed out the directions anyway. "Guest quarters, the Gardens and the water recycler, crew quarters, kitchen-slash-lounge-slash-med-bay-slash-storage." He pointed straight up, past the pair of ladders on either side of the tunnel and to circular metal door above them, "Engine room. Gravity is usually off in here, but on everywhere else, unless you don't want it to be. Then we all vote on it 'cause democracies are the cornerstone of civilization and we are totally civilized people."

[Sonya]

Blu’s words weren’t what Sonya would have called a straight answer to her question, but she could tell that he’d understood the joke. As usual, Sonya felt a mixture of happiness at the fact that he’d gotten it and disappointment that he hadn’t been fooled. But she was to enthralled by everything around her to keep thinking about that for long. She listened with rapt attention as Blu pointed out the different parts of the ship. He also answered her earlier question. So there was gravity in the kitchen. That was a very good thing. As much as Sonya liked to joke, she doubted she could have cooked anything in zero gravity.

“ Well, I’ve never been anywhere without gravity before, but I would prefer that the gravity in the kitchen remain on. Although, it could be an interesting thing to try once in a while, and maybe if I got good at it would make an interesting conversation piece, “Hey look, I can cook in O.G!” She had aimed to impress with that phrase, having no idea that by now all the human slang she’d picked up from Paul was completely outdated, and no one called zero gravity, ‘O.G.’ anymore. She pulled gently on the canister of compressed air, drifting toward the door labeled, ‘Crew Quarters.’ Sonya put her hand on the handle and felt a tingling sensation run up her arm. She turned to Blu. “Do you mind if I…?”

[Blu]

Blu cracked up, thinking about floating fried eggs and milk-bubbles (which was totally tasty but left the hugest mess if they hit the walls while you were trying to drink 'em). He usually didn't cook in zero-g, just ate ready-made foods and tried not to let them end up clogging up the vents, but it could be an adventure with someone ready to try it. "Yeah! Oh man, that would be awesome. You think the eggs would be fluffier than usual?"

It took him a moment to realize what Sonya was asking. He floated over as well, making a go-ahead gesture. "yeah! me-cupa-see-cupa!" He promptly mangled that expression as well, though he wasn't completely aware he had. "What is mine is yours! Except for my paintings, I love my paintings too much to give up. They are so awesome. And my sneakers! My sneakers are mine!" He almost grabbed onto his feet, which would have rotated him upside down, which was a bad idea because the moment she opened that door, gravity would kick back in on this arm of the ship and they'd end up standing on the floor and dude, standing on his head was such a bad idea unless gravity was already on when you tried it because it hurt so bad.

[Sonya]

Once she heard go, Sonya quickly opened the door. She didn’t know what she expected to see, but at first she didn’t see anything. Her knees crashed painfully onto the floor before she fell completely, sprawled on her stomach. It wasn’t until then that she saw anything, and she could safely say it wasn’t what she’d expected to see. The floor was cold, gray, and rather rough. It was also much less interesting than what she’d been envisioning. For a moment Sonya just lay there, trying to figure out what had happened. “Oh.” She grunted finally, “Right. Gravity.”

She heaved herself to her feet, cheeks flushed with embarrassment. “I wasn’t expecting that.” She muttered, knowing how stupid the excuse sounded. She had fallen because she hadn’t been prepared, yes, but also because she wasn’t as perfect at using legs as she wanted to be. Having gravity come back on with legs was something like jumping, which she’d always been terrible at. She rubbed her knees, knowing they would be sore in a few hours. Her limbs felt slow and weighed down, and as she took a step forward, she would have described herself as lumbering rather than simply walking. “Wow.” Sonya muttered, more to herself than to Blu, “Gravity feels so weird all of the sudden.”

[Blu]

Blu came after Sonya, landing on his feet and stumbling to the right, catching himself with the wall instead of the floor. He had mastered the art of not hurting himself on the floor when you shifted back into gravity, mostly by falling on his butt enough times to figure out how to not do it. He grimaced a little as Sonya got up. She had probably found it even worse with her legs since she usually didn't have legs, but a tail. Where did the legs go when she didn't have them? or for that matter, what about the tail? Was it like a lap where it was still there when you stood up, but it was also invisible too?

"I should have warned you more." Blu walked down the corridor, pausing to turn around. He pointed to the door on the far right, "That's where I am! All the other rooms are empty, so you could be over here-" He banged on the door beside him, then crossed over and banging on the door across from him- "Or here! Or across from me! Hey, I'll show you my room!" Blu headed down to his room, sticking his hand to the scanner and letting it read his prints. After a moment, it beeped and slid open.

He stepped into his room, kicking off his sneakers and leaving them sprawled on the carpet. The place was a mess, clothes and papers sprawled out across the floor, books haphazardly stacked on shelfs with a few statues and medals from his short-lived career alongside decorations purchased from an assortment of planets and vendors. On the walls were a number of paintings, all abstract and crude. His easel was lying overturned on the floor where it had fallen a few days ago.

Blu sat down on the couch, an old-fashioned thing with an afghan blanket sprawled over the top. His pack of cigarettes was sitting on the table cluttered with an antique CD player, a few half-empty glasses, a t-shirt, an ashtray full of butts, an interactive globe currently displaying Terra pre-Sprawl, and a stack of CDs. He went to light a cigarette, then realized maybe he should hold off while Sonya was around, just in case it turned out mermaids couldn't handle the smoke. Who knew how sensitive their lungs were. Corus was a clean planet, and anyway, she would have breathed water most of her life- could you even breathe water? Was that what you called it?

"Go ahead and look around." Blu told Sonya as he tucked the cigarette back into it's pack. "All the suites look like this. Well. Not like this exactly. You can decorate yours however you want. But they've all got the open room, and the floor-to-ceiling window, and the bedroom is over there, and the bathroom is inside it with the full tub and everything." He waved his arms around, not moving from his spot. The couch was so comfy.

[Sonya]

The feeling of gravity seemed much more natural now, and Sonya followed Blu down the hallway on legs that were steady once again, if a bit sore. She watched as Blu pointed out the different rooms, wondering which one she should choose. That was a big decision, a big deal. Everything was a big deal now. Her life had started. After seventeen years of void, of nothing, there was finally something. And when things started happening, they tended to happen fast.

She stepped into Blu’s room, happy for a chance to look around as well as a distraction that gave her more time to think. The first thing she noticed about the room was that it was a mess. Despite many other shortcomings in the area of patience, Sonya had always taken the time at home to meticulously organize all her possessions. But perhaps that was because she hadn’t found much else to interest her. After making note of the mess, however, she moved on to being fascinated by the individual things themselves which were making it up. Many of them had clearly been procured on planets other that Corus, which sent a sort of thrill through Sonya. “Wow. You have a lot of really cool stuff in here!” Soon she could put such things in her own room.

The rooms themselves, it seemed, all had the same layout, which made it easier to choose. Or maybe not. In a way it did, because if they were all the same than it didn’t really matter which one she chose. But that also meant she could choose any one of them, so she wasn’t any closer to making a decision. Sonya stared absently out of Blu’s window, biting her nail, and found herself staring at the blue sphere of Corus. She shook her head. She couldn’t deny that it was beautiful, but she’d seen so much of her home planet already. She turned to the open door, facing the room across from Blu’s. The window there would have a view of the stars, the far off places she wanted so badly to see, but more importantly, had never seen before. “Do you mind if I take the room across from you?”

[Blu]

"I like collecting things! I'm kind of a packrat!" Left to his own devices, Blu probably would have filled every square inch of space with clutter, but Vivian kept him more or less constrained to his room, and if there were too many objects, her programming would start protesting until Blu cleaned up and got rid of the ones that could be dangerous. As far as he was concerned, everybody should be a packrat, espeically if you travelled a lot. There were always new things to collect, new things to get, new presents and new trinkets and all sorts of other things.

She wanted the room across from him? "Yeah, go ahead!" Blu got to his feet, "We'll set it up with your handprint! Or else I'm going to forget and you're going to try go to sleep tonight and it'll be all 'I can't let you in here', and then I'll have to yell at Vivian for a bit and that'll suck because when I want to go to sleep, I want to go to sleep, not fight with the computer."

Blu got off the couch and walked out into the hall. "Hey Vivian! Can you set up the scanner?"

"Setting the scanner up now Blu." Vivian replied, her voice as calming and relaxing as ever. Blu was so glad he'd bought the upgrade package with her voice, or he would have been stuck listening to the default voice, and that guy always sounded like a dick. Like he was smug. Vivian was so calming. "Ready for input. Please press your right hand to the scanner."

Blu stepped back and gestured to the silver plate.

[Sonya]

Wondering what was so important about her hand, Sonya pressed it to the scanner. The feeling of her hand print being read was rather strange, as though an army of ants had just scurried across her palm. There were no ants on Corus of course, but Sonya knew what they were. For as long as she could remember she had been using her padd to learn as much as she could about off-world creatures. By age ten she’d already planned on leaving Corus, and when she did she didn’t want to seem ignorant. For this same reason, Sonya didn’t ask Blu what the hand print was for. She knew it must have something to do with security, but it seemed a bit paranoid to have security systems when it was just Blu and her on the ship.

The doors of the room opened and Sonya stepped inside. It looked nothing like Blu’s room, though Sonya supposed that this was mostly due to the bare walls and floor. The general shape did seem to be similar. She set her bag down next to her feet and wandered over to the window, gazing out at the happy, free stars. “They’re beautiful.” She murmured, not really knowing or caring if Blu had heard her.

[Blu]

"Thanks Vivian!" Blu told the VI as Sonya walked into the room. Vivian would do all the hard work, and now that Sonya's handprint was in the system, she would have access to the rest of the ship (or at least all the things she was supposed to have access to). Blu loved the VI since otherwise he'd have to program in her settings manually and who had time to do that when you could just tell the computer to split people into Crew and Guest profiles and just let the computer sort them depending on where their handprint went.

He followed Sonya inside, smiling as she looked around the room. Bare rooms kinda gave Blu the creeps, but he figures Sonya would fill it up soon enough. There were a few canvases on the walls that could be programed, and while the couch was a neutral thing, sorta a dark blue, enough throw pillows and assorted stuff would bring it to life too. Sonya didn't seem to be too focused on that though. Her eyes were on the stars.

"Worlds of ice and stars of diamond." Blu quoted, looking out into the stars with her. "A human said that you know? Even before we had ships that could go between planets, people were looking up at the stars and talking about all the wonderful things that we were going to find in them. And now we're here. We're in the stars!" He threw his arms out, wide grin taking over his face.

[Sonya]

Sonya grinned, caught up in Blu’s enthusiasm and her own fierce joy. A few tears fell down from the corners of her smiling eyes, but Sonya wiped them hurriedly away. She didn’t understand why she was crying. People were supposed to cry when they were sad. But then, she was fairly new to crying altogether. She’d probably cried underwater too, but it was hard to tell if there was water coming from your eyes when you were surrounded by water. It would be like air coming out of your eyes on land, which would have been beyond strange.

She threw up her arms and twirled around and around, finally stopping with her palms against the window. Her long, flowy skirt whispered still. Sonya’s eyes were on the stars. “They do look like diamonds.” She whispered. “They’re not of course, but… humans do have wonderful ways of describing things. I’m glad you discovered space travel though, or I wouldn’t be here. I’d still be bored out of my mind back home.”

[Blu]

Blu stuffed his hands in his pockets, leaning his left shoulder on the glass and looking out. Where would he be without space travel? Worse than bored out of his mind. Maybe still in that asylum. Maybe still eating food without knives and forks, and sleeping in an uncomfortable bed and listening to people cry at night (and sometimes those people had been Blu) and having his parents awkwardly show up every few months to look embarrassed and to all but demand he stay there forever. He didn't like to think about it. Didn't really like to think about any of the times before he was Blu, back when he was plain old Royce.

He didn't share these thoughts with Sonya. That was something he liked about non-humans. They didn't know who he'd been, only who he was, and he didn't want to change that. "Best invention, hands down! Better than sliced bread by a mile! I'm not really sure why sliced bread is the standard for human invention. What were things better than before sliced bread? It can't have been all that good if sliced bread showed up and everybody was all 'woah, that bread is already cut up'. I can think of a ton of things better than sliced bread. Velcro shoes are better! Electric blankets are better! Scrambled eggs are better!"

Blu nodded seriously, looking out at the vast star field before him. "Space ships are better to the nth degree."