Raf took a deep breath. This was it. The Experience. The life his whole life had been in preparation for. The colonization of the third planet of Gliese 581, Cleo. He stood before the virtual pool that represented the edge of the Program, and the beginning of human consciousness.
Numbers and estimates of his survival flashed through his mind. The past few week's free time, severely limited by prep programs for the upcoming integration with his body, was spent studying the experiments with the biostasis plants. According to the hypothetical models, 93% of all the crew would take, the other 7% would either be vegetated, or die as their brains fail to assume their previous roles in their vassals, considered inferior to a spoiled mind. Of course that wasn't the conservative estimate, which was much more bleak. Due to cellular deconstruction and unpredictable complications that could happen over the long years of stasis, even with the computer caretakers was dramatically reduced to a less than 33% survival rate.
Oh, screw it! He thought, using the old 21st century slang that he would have been scolded for by the computer, sometimes literally. He took the plunge...
The feeling was like the minuscule brushing of hundreds of pins along the surface of his skin. It was difficult to imagine that he'd truly felt nothing his entire life until this moment. It was painful at first, as if his whole body was an eardrum, screaming at an intense ringing sound coming from everywhere at once. But gradually the pain subsided, as his mind numbed it as a form of self-defense. As the pain ebbed, he tried to move, sending resounding shocks of feeling down his arm. It no longer hurt but was merely unsettling. It made him sick.
He opened his eyes and a swath of color overwhelmed him, but not as much as the feeling had, his brain was learning to compensate beforehand the rushes of his previously barred senses. He was in a room tinted red by an enveloping liquid. He tried to reach out with his right arm, but it felt like lead and would not rise. He tried his left, and like a machine badly adjusted and creaky with rust, it rose, before striking unexpectedly against the glass with real pain this time.
After clenching his teeth and uttering a few unspeakable curses, he remembered himself. Rafaelle reached up to his right, and after a few fumbling twinges of pain with his left hand managed to find the draining switch by touch. He twisted it, and accordingly the capsule drained, and the door unlatched itself. He pushed it open with his foot after pulling out the many plugs and needles nestled in his skin, surprised that in some cases, about two out of three, his skin had molded to it, making it a tedious process to remove them. Especially since his right hand seemed unresponsive to even the strongest of urges. If he hadn't been told to do so repeatedly in the Training program for waking, he would have forgotten to put on his clothes--warm, loose fitting cotton clothing in contrast to the cold, ridged, and synthetic interior of the ship--but he did so absent-mindedly, taking in his surroundings.
The console next to his chamber was blank, and a dark, black stain ran from it to the floor. He guessed it had broken in a sudden change of temperature or pressure, spilling the liquid crystal across the electronics. The console had been on his right side. Now in overwhelming privacy away from the computer he was a bit paranoid. He glanced over his shoulder before inspecting his limp hand. All feeling seemed to be muffled about halfway down his forearm and his entire hand would not move. It was mysterious, but the mystery had to wait, he had to make sure the captain, the one before him, had awakened properly. Unfortunately that was across the entire ship from him (to minimize the chances of the crew being without a leader), and he would have to walk the entire way. Sighing, he started his long walk...
OOC: Wow, that was long, even for a first post. I don't expect any of you to write that much, just so you know. Anyways, so each chamber is separate, at least for the officers and scientists, and have privacy until you enter the hallway. The computer was supposed to wake up everyone in a certain order, but failed for some reason and some of you can be already walking the hallways or, for those of you who haven't joined yet, can be inexplicably late. I can meet you all on the way on to the cap'n or later if you don't join by that time and walk in on what's happening. I'd better be quiet now, even my explanations are overbearing that's the last time I consume that much coffee in one sitting....
_________________ Anything is Possible... And Yet, Nothing is Probable.
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