"Aldrip," she replies, getting up from where she was leaning on the wall where the edge of town meets the docks, starting to walk over in his direction so he doesn't have to strain himself further to talk to her.
Though she leaves her answer at that single word at first, Ange is fully aware that it's likely not a very helpful answer to someone who has arrived as recently as Jim has. Ange didn't know what that name meant at first either when she arrived, after all.
"I know this might sound ridiculous," she then adds. Granted, how ridiculous it exactly sounds kind of depends on what Jim is used to, but Ange knows that most people aren't exactly used to suddenly being transported across different worlds entirely. "But this isn't the world you were in a few moments ago anymore."
She's still pretty convinced he, in fact, isn't okay, but she won't call him out on that one just yet. Maybe if he looks a little bit more like he's about to pass out.
"Right, Aldrin. Of course." The last bit is muttered more to himself than to Ange; he doesn't mean it sarcastically at her so much as of course it is, why wouldn't my life be this weird? The girl approaches as Jim finally catches his breath, straightening out of his half-crouch, half-wheeze.
"...what do you mean by that, exactly?" Jim says slowly, absorbing the sentence and the way Ange chose to phrase it. He's not standing where he was a moment ago (where was he? The bridge? His quarters? It's a nagging sense of wrongness that he can't quite recall) - but it wouldn't be the first time he's passed out on the transporter pad. Still, she chose the word world, which is far more nebulous and thus, far more of a red flag.
Even though the girl could still hear enough of that muttering to catch onto it, she doesn't look offended at all. In fact, her facial expression doesn't change whatsoever. It's still pretty much a poker face, like she either gets why he's being a little sarcastic at the world at large right now or she just doesn't care much to begin with.
"I mean multidimensional travel," she instead says, not missing a beat.
Clearly a very normal concept, right.
".. I really don't mind explaining it a little bit more to you, but you really should sit down, you know. You kind of seem like you might pass out if you keep standing and walking around like this." Okay, maybe it's not that bad, but it's not difficult for her to notice there's at least something going on with Jim. And thinking too hard about the situation he's gotten caught up in likely won't make that condition much better, she figures.
The girl's expression gives nothing away, and Jim eyes her surreptitiously. The next sentence offers no further clarity except, perhaps, that he's on some kind of warp-capable planet - at the very least, though interdimensional travel wasn't something the Federation had control over, per say, but rather something that seemed to be more of an occupational hazard.
"I'm fine, thank you." Jim shakes his head, smoothing his hands on his uniform to shake out any creases. He does, however, gesture back to where she had been perched against the wall, an after you motion. Pretend everything's under control? Check. The uniform helps, a bit. "Just a little - misunderstanding."
There's another glance from her, but then the teen just hums.
It sounds entirely unconvinced by what he just said, though Ange doesn't further protest against it. Instead she seems to be following the gesture he made, starting to head back in the direction she came from, glancing over her shoulder to see if he's still following, rather than collapsing on the pier.
There's an implied care in the glance - that she cares whether or not he's bothering to come along to sit down at all, anyway - that doesn't quite match her tone, which still sounds pretty detached when she speaks on while walking. "Anyway, it seems that we were kidnapped to this world by a bunch of beings. We don't know who or what they are, but they seem to have spun some story about how we're all criminals who need to repent."
Hey, as long as Jim convinces himself that he's okay, he eventually will be. That's how that works, right? Whatever helps him get through the day, honestly.
Jim follows her, briefly considering and then discarding the notion that he could have been caught up in a trap - not an unreasonable thought, given the circumstances, but he doubts he'd be in this position if it had any credence. She seems...very apathetic, based on her tone of voice, but the way she checks back for him and looks around says differently.
"Beings? Have you seen them?" Jim's already fully prepared to run down the Rolodex of Federation species, tilting his head at her. "Alien justice, huh? You'd think planetary law would have sorted this by now."
.. probably? Honestly, for all of Ange's experience with interdimensional travel, it's never really been a space thing for her. But she's pretty sure that this place here falls outside of all possible jurisdictions anyway..
But that dry remark aside, she shakes her head when she actually moves on to the other part.
"But to answer your question-- No, I haven't seen them. No one has. But I remember hearing them before I first showed up here." Not that she remembers all that much of it, considering she's almost been here for a year at this point..
The girl does remember hearing them for sure, despite how fuzzy the rest of her memory got.
It's part of why she looks over at him, asking: "Didn't you hear them?"
He only just showed up, after all. He'd likely know better than her because of it, she figures.
"How - what do you mean?" Jim starts and stops, confused. There was no way they were in the Neutral Zone or worse, past the Federation-Klingon border...right? "Are we outside of Federation territory?"
Didn't you hear them? Jim wants to say no, he didn't, but even as he opens his mouth to do so, he frowns, realizing it would be false. He does remember...what does he remember? A flash of white, too bright for him to do anything but squint over his blinding headache, voices too quiet and muffled to hear...
"...I did." He admits, frowning, trying to turn over the experience in his brain. "But it feels like a dream. That was real?"
Which is a more and more nebulous statement by the day, really - but the last thing she needs to do is confuse him even further by bringing that up too. It can be a next level explanation for later, or some other time. Right now Jim doesn't even seem to grasp the full idea of the situation he's suddenly found himself in, after all.
"This is.." The girl's voice trails off for a moment, unsure of what word to use here. Usually she'd say magic, but he doesn't really seem like the sort of guy who's used to it, so who knows if he'd even understand. "It's something supernatural. Outside the laws of nature-- that sort of thing, you know? Some weird superhuman being grabbed you out of the world you were in a few moments ago and instead pulled you here. I don't know what you're used to where you come from, so I really don't know how else to explain it."
So it might all just only sound more confusing. Sorry, Jim, she is genuinely trying over here.
"Supernatural." Things are only getting more mysterious, but it's alright - Jim can work with that. He reassesses, wondering if this girl has heard of the Federation before - possibly not. He's not unused to civilizations that still believe in magic and the otherworldly, though he himself simply believes that magic is science they don't yet understand. He's seen enough of the universe, however, to acknowledge that there are things outside of his understanding that are just as real as what he does know. "You haven't seen it - them - since your arrival, have you?"
So they were stuck here, placed here for an unknown reason by unknown forces. Jim kind of wishes his job weren't always so interesting, jeez.
"I'm Jim, by the way," Jim adds belatedly, offering his hand. "Jim Kirk."
"Ange Ushiromiya," she says, before moving her hand to grab a hold of his own. Her handshake is fairly brief, kind of business-like, but at least she isn't ignoring the gesture altogether.
She might have, quite a while ago, but at this point she understands the importance of at least somewhat getting along in this place, since it's so hard to make it on your own. Not to mention that Jim certainly doesn't seem like an unreasonable guy so far. Maybe he's one of the few people they have here who will actually be willing to think things through. Someone potentially useful towards getting out of here.
"And-- no, I haven't. Whoever or whatever brought us here is really good at keeping themselves hidden. Purposefully so, I imagine, since most of us wouldn't have many good things to say to them about kidnapping us or the dumb stuff they put us through here if we could ever speak to them directly."
Ange's handshake is firm, and Jim returns it before releasing her, folding his own hands behind his back at parade rest. It's his go-to when he's stressed and trying not to show it, and it's not so surprising that this situation is engendering that kind of response. "Ange. Nice to meet you, though I'm sure we both wish it was under better circumstances."
"What they've put you through?" Jim inclines his head in question, catching on to the more alarming part of her sentence. Kidnapping by unknown persons with unknown motives, that he could work with, but what else was going on in this place? Jim's gaze scans the area again before settling back on Ange; there's nothing out of sorts, out of place, insofar as he can tell.
She definitely notices the way he looks around. And even though the girl doesn't stop him from doing so, she can't help but comment: "You don't have to worry about some monster storming at you, you know. I haven't seen one around here today."
.. maybe that's not as reassuring as she thinks it is, considering she had to add that last part.. On the other hand, the girl does sound relatively confident and calm about it, so maybe it's not that big of a threat?
Either that, or she just has a really good poker face.
"But that is a thing here. Monsters. Usually they stay out of town, but sometimes they end up here, and it's a huge pain. Not to mention that the people who took us here claim we all committed some sort of crime, so sometimes they'll randomly hand out punishment to us over it." She still sounds calm, but there's definitely a hint of 'annoyed teen' in her tone - especially when she talks about that last part. She wasn't kidding a moment ago when she summarized her opinion of this place as 'dumb.' The opinion seeps through so heavily in her tone right now.
"...I'm sorry, did you say monster?" Definitely not what he was worried about, but he certainly is now. Jim's eyebrows rise despite himself, and he's not terribly reassured by her calm countenance. The further her explanation goes, the higher his eyebrows do, and Jim has to consciously relax his expression, taking a deep breath to steady himself. "What kinds of monsters?"
Maybe it's a species he'll recognize? Perhaps not. Either way, it doesn't sound good.
"A crime? So this is...some kind of jail?" He's seen worse jail cells in his time, to be sure. But it must be, if they're wandering around freely - one big cell, designed to look like it isn't one. The thought, like most he's had so far today, is not a comforting one.
And Ange is looking her age, fitting the part of the irritated teenager well - it's been a while since Jim's been around a teen other than Chekov, who finally celebrated his turn into adulthood on their last supply run - but he knows the type well. "What kind of punishment?"
It feels like every new piece of information spurs more questions, but Jim's shooting in the complete dark here.
Ange shrugs, giving the initial kind of unhelpful answer of: "All kinds of monsters."
Look, it's just.. true though. There's so many different kinds of monsters that Ange doesn't even really know how to summarize it in any other way. It's clear the other does have an idea of what monsters in general are, so Ange also kind of imagines Jim can just.. try to imagine for himself what she might mean by that..
.. or, you know, he might just run into them sooner or later. That'd also work. She has clearer answers for his other question though, so she focuses on that.
"And the punishments seems to vary from person to person. One of my.." ... her voice suddenly trails off.
It's hard to tell why, but after a brief shake of her head the girl adds: "One of my acquaintances suddenly wasn't able to lie anymore. At all. He had to be upfront about absolutely everything all the time. It seemed like a real pain." And that's definitely still an understatement, really.
"Does this place have defenses against them?" Well, they haven't been besieged by any in the short time since Jim's been awake, so he's going to go with a 'probably'?
His hand absently brushes the phaser on his hip, as if just a subtle check that it's still there. It is, holstered neatly, and part of him absently notes to figure out whether it should be set to stun, or something higher.
"That's - unique." Jim blinks, opening a new can of questions. "Why would they want to punish someone with something like that? And not...community service or jail time?"
He's been around this block before, himself, with his rapsheet a mile long and some of it even sealed by the courts, to boot; punishment for transgressions usually fell into two camps: rehabilitation, and exploitation. Sometimes they masqueraded as each other. Jim eyes Ange thoughtfully for a moment; a teenager caught up in something like this was definitely odd; what could they want from her? "Can I ask you what they've accused you of, or is that considered too personal around here?"
The girl does have to think about it for a moment. Her listed crime does have a rather personal angle to it, but.. she figures that as long as she doesn't have to get into the circumstances of it all, it's fine.
So Ange shrugs slightly, and a moment later she's already putting her hands into the bag she's carrying with her, pulling out a piece of parchment. She unfolds it so she can show it to him. Her name is listed at the top - 'Ange Ushiromiya' - and aside from the text that's the same as on every other parchment, it reads that she's charged with 'amicide.'
"You shouldn't take what's listed so seriously though," she says. Not necessarily referring to her personal crime by itself, more just in general, but hey, if it means he has less questions about that, all the better.
"Some people have told me they had a crime listed that they never even committed in the first place. I think they're just using this as some sort of excuse for keeping us here."
Jim's not 100% sure what he should be expecting, but an actual, physical piece of parchment is not on his bingo card. It's something of a novelty in his time anyway - paper anything, let alone official documents - but Jim inclines his head to read the proffered missive.
His immediate judgment is tamped down on, save an evaluating flicker in clear blue eyes, but Jim wisely keeps any thoughts about the accusation to himself. He knows as well as anyone that people can be capable of a lot more than one might imagine based on preconceived notions - and that reasoning was often far from cut and dry. The fact that Ange makes no pass at explaining away the crime explicitly doesn't go unnoticed, but Jim can certainly respect the choice of no obfuscation.
"A coercion tactic." A decently effective one, at that. He gestures vaguely to the paper, brow furrowing. "And once people have paid their prescribed sentence? What happened to your friend?"
"It's just a front. Even people who go through some sort of punishment are still just as stuck in this place as the rest of us. And I've been here for a year without even the slightest sign of release." The girl shrugs as she says it, but a part of her clearly looks annoyed. Not with Jim, obviously, but with this entire situation. It'd be one thing if their captors were at least bothering to be honest, but every single time she runs into this place's odd punishment theming, she just finds it a very annoying lie.
"Sometimes people do seem to randomly disappear from this place, but it's seriously without any real rhyme or reason to it."
Some of them definitely weren't people who seemed like they truly repented for some crime, for one..
"They're trying to keep us from asking questions by doing all this weird stuff. There's clearly a lot more going on here than meets the eye." There's a slight pause, and then Ange aims her full attention at Jim again as she asks him: "Are you interested in finding out?"
A comfort, it is not, but Jim's used to the universe smacking him in the face by now. That Ange has been trapped here for that length of time with no apparent end goal in mind is...a lot more worrying. Motivations for actions taken usually boiled down to money, power, emotion, or some mix of the three - but to take a guess at what this was? The closest he had was entertainment, and that - no, that's definitely not a comforting thought.
"And there's no indication as to where they might go." It's not a question, but a statement posed with a frown as he mulls over the information. Curiouser and curiouser. "Or be taken to, I guess that's the better phrasing."
"I'll say. Why not keep us in jail cells, if the true purpose was their so-called punishment?" Obvious though it may be, Jim feels it's a question worth voicing. He meets her gaze with a decisive nod. "Even if it's the last thing I do."
After he says that last thing, the girl goes quiet for a moment. She is, however, still definitely directly looking at Jim. If anything, something in her gaze almost makes it seem like she's scrutinizing him. Like she's looking for something, and who knows if she's finding it in him.
"You don't seem so bad," she then finally says, like she was silently evaluating him in her head the entire time.
At least she doesn't just mysteriously leave it at that. After pulling her shoulders up into a shrug, the teen continues with: "Some people seem so happy-go-lucky in this place, even though it's a weird and annoying place that's got us trapped. I've been hoping that more people would arrive who are actually interested in finding out what's going on here and how we can escape from it."
And apparently Jim has matched her standards of 'not too horrible an arrival' by being someone who's willing to do that.
Jim stares back, his clear blue gaze even and steady. He's reasonably sure this is some kind of test by her estimations - what he's not sure of is whether or not he passes, until she seemingly makes her determination and continues on. Regardless - Jim's used to the odds being against him. It's still never managed to make him believe in no-win scenarios.
"I guess there could be worse places," Jim allows, surreptitiously glancing around again. At least it wasn't some kind of desolated, wild planet in need of taming - trust him, those weren't fun to be marooned on. "But I'm not looking to spend the rest of my life here."
"Where there's a will, there's a way." He nods, straightening his uniform absently. He still has a phaser and a can-do attitude; raising a little hell was always an option. "Is there a communications array anywhere nearby?"
There's another pause. This one is shorter though, and Ange's gaze much less scrutinizing. Instead the girl frowns as she asks: "Is that a thing from your world?"
Sure, she can kind of imagine what it is just going by the name. But it sounds specific enough that she figures he might be looking for some very specific thing, which makes it more likely that it just straight up doesn't exist here.
"We can't contact anything outside of this place, but you can communicate with everyone else who's stuck here with those tablets they gave us. You have one too, right? You can send messages using that thing."
"Yes, but there should be something similar here." If this place was as advanced as it should be, based on what Jim could glean from their surroundings on the time period. "Any kind of wireless communication center, I mean? Or wired, if that's what we've got to work with."
Jim wisely doesn't mention his technical prowess - he'd only embarrass himself when Ange's words proved true, no matter how good he was with a computer terminal. He glances down at himself, freeing the tablet from his utility belt when he notices it. It's about the same size and shape as his PADD is, so he'd glanced over it entirely. "Ah. I thought this was - nevermind. This must be connected with a wireless network originating from somewhere."
He certainly is a technological guy, Ange figures. Her vision is coloured a little by the fact that she doesn't know all that much about technology at all. So rather than her seeing through Jim trying to downplay matters a little, it's more just that she knows so little that any small admission on his part feels like he's speaking like an expert already..
And to avoid saying anything she doesn't fully understand, Ange just admits: "I don't know much about that stuff."
She doesn't like admitting it, but it's still preferable to the alternative. Maybe it's a good way to see if Jim is one of those people who will make fun of her for it, she figures. Ange kind of assumes anyone would.
"So you might have to ask someone else. Or look around. Most stuff here seems more like magic than technology to me." Since that is something Ange actually does know a few things about - making it easier for the girl to assume it's got more to do with that.
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expiationlogs2024-04-14 10:44 pm
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Though she leaves her answer at that single word at first, Ange is fully aware that it's likely not a very helpful answer to someone who has arrived as recently as Jim has. Ange didn't know what that name meant at first either when she arrived, after all.
"I know this might sound ridiculous," she then adds. Granted, how ridiculous it exactly sounds kind of depends on what Jim is used to, but Ange knows that most people aren't exactly used to suddenly being transported across different worlds entirely. "But this isn't the world you were in a few moments ago anymore."
She's still pretty convinced he, in fact, isn't okay, but she won't call him out on that one just yet. Maybe if he looks a little bit more like he's about to pass out.
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"...what do you mean by that, exactly?" Jim says slowly, absorbing the sentence and the way Ange chose to phrase it. He's not standing where he was a moment ago (where was he? The bridge? His quarters? It's a nagging sense of wrongness that he can't quite recall) - but it wouldn't be the first time he's passed out on the transporter pad. Still, she chose the word world, which is far more nebulous and thus, far more of a red flag.
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"I mean multidimensional travel," she instead says, not missing a beat.
Clearly a very normal concept, right.
".. I really don't mind explaining it a little bit more to you, but you really should sit down, you know. You kind of seem like you might pass out if you keep standing and walking around like this." Okay, maybe it's not that bad, but it's not difficult for her to notice there's at least something going on with Jim. And thinking too hard about the situation he's gotten caught up in likely won't make that condition much better, she figures.
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"I'm fine, thank you." Jim shakes his head, smoothing his hands on his uniform to shake out any creases. He does, however, gesture back to where she had been perched against the wall, an after you motion. Pretend everything's under control? Check. The uniform helps, a bit. "Just a little - misunderstanding."
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There's another glance from her, but then the teen just hums.
It sounds entirely unconvinced by what he just said, though Ange doesn't further protest against it. Instead she seems to be following the gesture he made, starting to head back in the direction she came from, glancing over her shoulder to see if he's still following, rather than collapsing on the pier.
There's an implied care in the glance - that she cares whether or not he's bothering to come along to sit down at all, anyway - that doesn't quite match her tone, which still sounds pretty detached when she speaks on while walking. "Anyway, it seems that we were kidnapped to this world by a bunch of beings. We don't know who or what they are, but they seem to have spun some story about how we're all criminals who need to repent."
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Jim follows her, briefly considering and then discarding the notion that he could have been caught up in a trap - not an unreasonable thought, given the circumstances, but he doubts he'd be in this position if it had any credence. She seems...very apathetic, based on her tone of voice, but the way she checks back for him and looks around says differently.
"Beings? Have you seen them?" Jim's already fully prepared to run down the Rolodex of Federation species, tilting his head at her. "Alien justice, huh? You'd think planetary law would have sorted this by now."
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.. probably? Honestly, for all of Ange's experience with interdimensional travel, it's never really been a space thing for her. But she's pretty sure that this place here falls outside of all possible jurisdictions anyway..
But that dry remark aside, she shakes her head when she actually moves on to the other part.
"But to answer your question-- No, I haven't seen them. No one has. But I remember hearing them before I first showed up here." Not that she remembers all that much of it, considering she's almost been here for a year at this point..
The girl does remember hearing them for sure, despite how fuzzy the rest of her memory got.
It's part of why she looks over at him, asking: "Didn't you hear them?"
He only just showed up, after all. He'd likely know better than her because of it, she figures.
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Didn't you hear them? Jim wants to say no, he didn't, but even as he opens his mouth to do so, he frowns, realizing it would be false. He does remember...what does he remember? A flash of white, too bright for him to do anything but squint over his blinding headache, voices too quiet and muffled to hear...
"...I did." He admits, frowning, trying to turn over the experience in his brain. "But it feels like a dream. That was real?"
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"As real as anything here."
Which is a more and more nebulous statement by the day, really - but the last thing she needs to do is confuse him even further by bringing that up too. It can be a next level explanation for later, or some other time. Right now Jim doesn't even seem to grasp the full idea of the situation he's suddenly found himself in, after all.
"This is.." The girl's voice trails off for a moment, unsure of what word to use here. Usually she'd say magic, but he doesn't really seem like the sort of guy who's used to it, so who knows if he'd even understand. "It's something supernatural. Outside the laws of nature-- that sort of thing, you know? Some weird superhuman being grabbed you out of the world you were in a few moments ago and instead pulled you here. I don't know what you're used to where you come from, so I really don't know how else to explain it."
So it might all just only sound more confusing. Sorry, Jim, she is genuinely trying over here.
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So they were stuck here, placed here for an unknown reason by unknown forces. Jim kind of wishes his job weren't always so interesting, jeez.
"I'm Jim, by the way," Jim adds belatedly, offering his hand. "Jim Kirk."
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She might have, quite a while ago, but at this point she understands the importance of at least somewhat getting along in this place, since it's so hard to make it on your own. Not to mention that Jim certainly doesn't seem like an unreasonable guy so far. Maybe he's one of the few people they have here who will actually be willing to think things through. Someone potentially useful towards getting out of here.
"And-- no, I haven't. Whoever or whatever brought us here is really good at keeping themselves hidden. Purposefully so, I imagine, since most of us wouldn't have many good things to say to them about kidnapping us or the dumb stuff they put us through here if we could ever speak to them directly."
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"What they've put you through?" Jim inclines his head in question, catching on to the more alarming part of her sentence. Kidnapping by unknown persons with unknown motives, that he could work with, but what else was going on in this place? Jim's gaze scans the area again before settling back on Ange; there's nothing out of sorts, out of place, insofar as he can tell.
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.. maybe that's not as reassuring as she thinks it is, considering she had to add that last part.. On the other hand, the girl does sound relatively confident and calm about it, so maybe it's not that big of a threat?
Either that, or she just has a really good poker face.
"But that is a thing here. Monsters. Usually they stay out of town, but sometimes they end up here, and it's a huge pain. Not to mention that the people who took us here claim we all committed some sort of crime, so sometimes they'll randomly hand out punishment to us over it." She still sounds calm, but there's definitely a hint of 'annoyed teen' in her tone - especially when she talks about that last part. She wasn't kidding a moment ago when she summarized her opinion of this place as 'dumb.' The opinion seeps through so heavily in her tone right now.
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Maybe it's a species he'll recognize? Perhaps not. Either way, it doesn't sound good.
"A crime? So this is...some kind of jail?" He's seen worse jail cells in his time, to be sure. But it must be, if they're wandering around freely - one big cell, designed to look like it isn't one. The thought, like most he's had so far today, is not a comforting one.
And Ange is looking her age, fitting the part of the irritated teenager well - it's been a while since Jim's been around a teen other than Chekov, who finally celebrated his turn into adulthood on their last supply run - but he knows the type well. "What kind of punishment?"
It feels like every new piece of information spurs more questions, but Jim's shooting in the complete dark here.
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Look, it's just.. true though. There's so many different kinds of monsters that Ange doesn't even really know how to summarize it in any other way. It's clear the other does have an idea of what monsters in general are, so Ange also kind of imagines Jim can just.. try to imagine for himself what she might mean by that..
.. or, you know, he might just run into them sooner or later. That'd also work. She has clearer answers for his other question though, so she focuses on that.
"And the punishments seems to vary from person to person. One of my.." ... her voice suddenly trails off.
It's hard to tell why, but after a brief shake of her head the girl adds: "One of my acquaintances suddenly wasn't able to lie anymore. At all. He had to be upfront about absolutely everything all the time. It seemed like a real pain." And that's definitely still an understatement, really.
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His hand absently brushes the phaser on his hip, as if just a subtle check that it's still there. It is, holstered neatly, and part of him absently notes to figure out whether it should be set to stun, or something higher.
"That's - unique." Jim blinks, opening a new can of questions. "Why would they want to punish someone with something like that? And not...community service or jail time?"
He's been around this block before, himself, with his rapsheet a mile long and some of it even sealed by the courts, to boot; punishment for transgressions usually fell into two camps: rehabilitation, and exploitation. Sometimes they masqueraded as each other. Jim eyes Ange thoughtfully for a moment; a teenager caught up in something like this was definitely odd; what could they want from her? "Can I ask you what they've accused you of, or is that considered too personal around here?"
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So Ange shrugs slightly, and a moment later she's already putting her hands into the bag she's carrying with her, pulling out a piece of parchment. She unfolds it so she can show it to him. Her name is listed at the top - 'Ange Ushiromiya' - and aside from the text that's the same as on every other parchment, it reads that she's charged with 'amicide.'
"You shouldn't take what's listed so seriously though," she says. Not necessarily referring to her personal crime by itself, more just in general, but hey, if it means he has less questions about that, all the better.
"Some people have told me they had a crime listed that they never even committed in the first place. I think they're just using this as some sort of excuse for keeping us here."
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His immediate judgment is tamped down on, save an evaluating flicker in clear blue eyes, but Jim wisely keeps any thoughts about the accusation to himself. He knows as well as anyone that people can be capable of a lot more than one might imagine based on preconceived notions - and that reasoning was often far from cut and dry. The fact that Ange makes no pass at explaining away the crime explicitly doesn't go unnoticed, but Jim can certainly respect the choice of no obfuscation.
"A coercion tactic." A decently effective one, at that. He gestures vaguely to the paper, brow furrowing. "And once people have paid their prescribed sentence? What happened to your friend?"
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"It's just a front. Even people who go through some sort of punishment are still just as stuck in this place as the rest of us. And I've been here for a year without even the slightest sign of release." The girl shrugs as she says it, but a part of her clearly looks annoyed. Not with Jim, obviously, but with this entire situation. It'd be one thing if their captors were at least bothering to be honest, but every single time she runs into this place's odd punishment theming, she just finds it a very annoying lie.
"Sometimes people do seem to randomly disappear from this place, but it's seriously without any real rhyme or reason to it."
Some of them definitely weren't people who seemed like they truly repented for some crime, for one..
"They're trying to keep us from asking questions by doing all this weird stuff. There's clearly a lot more going on here than meets the eye." There's a slight pause, and then Ange aims her full attention at Jim again as she asks him: "Are you interested in finding out?"
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"And there's no indication as to where they might go." It's not a question, but a statement posed with a frown as he mulls over the information. Curiouser and curiouser. "Or be taken to, I guess that's the better phrasing."
"I'll say. Why not keep us in jail cells, if the true purpose was their so-called punishment?" Obvious though it may be, Jim feels it's a question worth voicing. He meets her gaze with a decisive nod. "Even if it's the last thing I do."
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After he says that last thing, the girl goes quiet for a moment. She is, however, still definitely directly looking at Jim. If anything, something in her gaze almost makes it seem like she's scrutinizing him. Like she's looking for something, and who knows if she's finding it in him.
"You don't seem so bad," she then finally says, like she was silently evaluating him in her head the entire time.
At least she doesn't just mysteriously leave it at that. After pulling her shoulders up into a shrug, the teen continues with: "Some people seem so happy-go-lucky in this place, even though it's a weird and annoying place that's got us trapped. I've been hoping that more people would arrive who are actually interested in finding out what's going on here and how we can escape from it."
And apparently Jim has matched her standards of 'not too horrible an arrival' by being someone who's willing to do that.
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"I guess there could be worse places," Jim allows, surreptitiously glancing around again. At least it wasn't some kind of desolated, wild planet in need of taming - trust him, those weren't fun to be marooned on. "But I'm not looking to spend the rest of my life here."
"Where there's a will, there's a way." He nods, straightening his uniform absently. He still has a phaser and a can-do attitude; raising a little hell was always an option. "Is there a communications array anywhere nearby?"
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Sure, she can kind of imagine what it is just going by the name. But it sounds specific enough that she figures he might be looking for some very specific thing, which makes it more likely that it just straight up doesn't exist here.
"We can't contact anything outside of this place, but you can communicate with everyone else who's stuck here with those tablets they gave us. You have one too, right? You can send messages using that thing."
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Jim wisely doesn't mention his technical prowess - he'd only embarrass himself when Ange's words proved true, no matter how good he was with a computer terminal. He glances down at himself, freeing the tablet from his utility belt when he notices it. It's about the same size and shape as his PADD is, so he'd glanced over it entirely. "Ah. I thought this was - nevermind. This must be connected with a wireless network originating from somewhere."
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He certainly is a technological guy, Ange figures. Her vision is coloured a little by the fact that she doesn't know all that much about technology at all. So rather than her seeing through Jim trying to downplay matters a little, it's more just that she knows so little that any small admission on his part feels like he's speaking like an expert already..
And to avoid saying anything she doesn't fully understand, Ange just admits: "I don't know much about that stuff."
She doesn't like admitting it, but it's still preferable to the alternative. Maybe it's a good way to see if Jim is one of those people who will make fun of her for it, she figures. Ange kind of assumes anyone would.
"So you might have to ask someone else. Or look around. Most stuff here seems more like magic than technology to me." Since that is something Ange actually does know a few things about - making it easier for the girl to assume it's got more to do with that.
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think we're about good to wrap there!
yes, this is the perfect point! thanks for the thread! <3