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Mauve Magic Bringer
d49498
1- As she soldiered forth into the empty room to do a closer inspection, her battered protective suit began to shred off of her. Little pieces of punished impact foil falling from the burst quilting like confetti, and the heavy quilted sections themselves fell away, taking the rest of the bluish foil with them piece by piece.
Unknown: 'This room almost looks like some of the derelict city blocks back home... but this air circulation system isn't big enough, it looks like it's more dedicated to climate control than forcing breathable air around the building. The piping on the roof, only a few thin ones and that big fat one, I'm used to banging my head on the cables and pipes back home. There's no way this building was made to hold the same packed crowds I'm used to. There's very little here, as far as spooky concrete rooms go this is pretty poorly furnished.'
'A big rolling shutter to my back, no obvious way to open it, there's a locked box right next to it with cables leading down inside. A small open door with a few ventilation fans around it to my right, it looks like it leads to a stairway. A huge mechanical thing to my left, it looks like it opens but there's no control for this one either, just a little window in the front... I can't see anything back there. No light. Dark and smelly machine oil leaks out from under the huge metal gate too. The wall to the front of me is covered in thick condensation, this isn't normal liquid, it's almost like it's sweating some kind of thin, clear grease from this big globe in the cement, weird.'
'Whatever was running away has already escaped through the right hand door, I can't even hear it anymore. Just a whiff of vermin from the doorway, and a... hint of antiseptic and exhaust fumes drifting up the stairs?'
'The garbage around the room is... inconsistent? All of it's worn and obviously very old, a lot of the paper has been reduced down to blank and brittle patches stuck to the floor. This can has been opened more recently though, there's still a sticky fruity smell coming from it, even though the label is just a colourful smudge now. It hasn't been leaking out, the tab has been pulled open like normal, the inside is still shiny.'
'I don't know if it's the excitement or... oh! My... uh...'
2- Suddenly stopping to peel off the last shreds of foil from herself, revealing a simple and not terribly flattering under suit, she unslung the satchel and quickly glanced over the inventory. Immediately disappointed to see there wasn't another set of clothes, she'd have to shake the busted foil out of the under suit and make do.
The shoulder bag was made to last, it was still sturdy unlike the suit, though the foil in the quilting felt clearly depleted.
1x Bottle of water. 'Still sealed with a little piece of metallic tape. It's a large enough bottle, I'm sure I'll find more before I run out.'
2x Ration packs, each enough food for one day. 'Beef stew, or beef curry. These look pretty small, I don't think I could stretch them out longer than intended. Luckily I kept my lunch down, so I should be alright for today.'
1x Telecrash Emergency Medical instructions. 'Required for all teleportation survival packs, in the event of a suit failure on arrival. The pages are made of rubbery plastics that self-illuminate for an hour when they feel the landing shock... it looks like I don't have any of the symptoms. Perfect health. I can probably get rid of this.'
10x Kipple. 'Hey, they took all the little bits from my pockets and stuffed them in one of the sections here. Some stationery, little widgets I was carrying around. I guess I could find use for some of this stuff... you never know.'
1x Survival Computer, repackaged. 'I've heard of these before, but never used one. It's like some kind of basic smart device made of flexible stuff. The power never runs out somehow. This one was partially pre-programmed for me, it's got expanded software, and when I look through there are info tags for the items in my satchel already. Voice control only, bring light function, heads up display. The help manual just repeats the three main features in a couple different languages. And they left the lanyard in the box. I don't know what the extra info it's showing me means, it's all in shorthand.
This doesn't need to take up a whole section in the bag, I'll throw away the packaging and carry it.'
0x Bone. 'No bones, it'd be unlikely the beef in the rations even came from a real animal.'
'Oh, and...'
3- Opening the small front zipper and rolling down the thinner suit, she retrieves one final item.
1x Broken vibrator. 'Damn, it looks like regular batteries really don't survive the teleporter, at least they didn't explode or something. The rest is still in one piece. My favourite style, reminds me of that time I was in the dorm full of... huh, I guess I'll never get another Christmas card from them again.'
Suddenly the Survival Computer flashed on the floor, it couldn't really vibrate, but managed a buzzing noise through simple speakers.
4- When she lifted the clear sheet to her face it flashed once, brightly. An unflattering snapshot of her face appeared in a little box on the screen. Images and windows on the clear pane appeared like pieces of tracing paper suspended in acrylic, the plastic shell could illuminate but the display only coagulated images inside, it didn't project them.
'Oh no, I don't even know how to change that, at least there's nobody around to see it. This kind of looks like a profile, there's a section for a title, a uh... picture, a section for notes. Also some of those numbers from before, but two have changed.'
'I could fill it in, but does any of that really matter anymore? My old designated alphanumeric code, my old job in supervision. Where I watched different screens in different rooms day by day, waiting for the crush of workers to break something, slack off, or trample each other to death. I barely had a minute to be myself. Not enough room to be special there.'
'I could be a whole new person now, tabula rasa, almost.'
'But who am I now. Should I even bother to fill it out, who would ever read it.'
She stands, holding the bright little screen in the dark, with her thin suit half rolled back up to her chest. Left to her thoughts as a little cold began to creep through to her skin...
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