Forums » Sci-Fi Roleplay » It all begins somewhere.(OPEN)

Both Mary-Sue and Fred had been watching Cody go through his first check up. Mary looked at Fred, who nodded, and chuckled. "He handled that quite a bit better than you did."

"I was nine!" She protested back, grumpily.

Fred then responded to Cody. "Well what are you more interested in son? Getting to know your area around here, such as your living quarters, where and how to get food, what anywhere outside of this room looks like...you know. Or would you like to jump headlong into a job? I can do both for you, though many tend to prefer the former over the latter straight away."


Mary-Sue sighed. It always sounded like he was talking in riddles.

Hesitantly, as though not quite believing his luck, Cody grinned.

"Definitely the former first." He could use a meal and...his grin faded as he realized he didn't have his duffel bag with him.

"Um, I left some stuff...behind when I came here. Could I go back to get it?" If he knew how to use the cloth, he could do it quickly--and he wondered if it would be possible to bring his motorcycle through as well. But really his duffel bag was more important.

"Well that would go into the category of a mission first I would think."
Fred stated, both eyebrows raising into his receding hairline. "We don't generally make it a practice of letting people return where former members of the Group have died."

"Hang on a minute,"

Mary interrupted, "He needs to get stuff right?" She looked between Cody and Fred. "Do you have anything over there that's semi valuable? If you've got something that's the right price, your stuff can be considered a recovery mission, with something in the bag being payment."

She gave Fred a hard look. "Right?"

The middle aged man heaved a great sign and nodded. "Yes, if you really must continue bending the rules."

She grinned. "Great! So whaddaya say Cody?"

Cody glanced from Mary to Fred and back. "Uh, well, clothes are in the duffel bag and I was hoping to bring my motorcycle through as well..." But if not he could always put the items from his saddlebags into his duffel.

"As for not returning to a place where someone died--how do you retrieve the cloth? Couldn't someone stumble across it and wind up here? Like I did?" It was probably a miracle that something like this hadn't happened sooner. Although it obviously had happened before.

"Well, normally the cloth is suppose to be disposed of in the case of a member dying. Sometimes, as you have seen, it does not happen as we plan." Fred shrugged lightly. "But that honestly isn't our concern or responsibility. If someone stumbles onto this plane, we either admit them into the group..." Fred grinned, "Or end them. Simple as that."

Mary sighed, "It isn't that black and white Cody, promise." She grinned. "Now...you mentioned...a motorcycle? That's an interesting item."

Cody flinched at Fred's callousness. "I, ah, appreciate the fact you didn't," he said humbly--recalling that he'd given them more than enough reason to end him.

"And well the motorcycle is interesting, I suppose." What was in the saddlebags was what he particularly wanted. "It would only take a few minutes--if that." Assuming the Agents knocking down the doors were gone. "I would prefer to have my revolvers back, though, if we go."

Fred nodded towards Amatha. "The weapons please? Also, you and Mary will accompany him on his first mission."

Mary-Sue blanched, her face turning white. "Taking...why would we have to take a healer with us?!" She demanded, her fists clenching and her voice firm. "Just because we lost someone doesn't mean I'm going down."

"That isn't the point Mary." Fred's eyes were kind, but set. She glared at him. "What if Amatha doesn't want to go? She hates leaving the Base!" Mary turned to the elf maiden.

"Tell him, tell him you don't want to go!" She demanded.

Amatha had sat quietly playing with the dog during the whole exchange, listening intently to what was being said. When Fred asked, she got up and went to the other room to get everyone's weapons. She sets them on the table in front of Fred and smiles. "If there isn't anything else, I think I want some dinner. Anyone care to join me for food before leaving on the mission?" She was confused as to why she was asked to go along, but didn't question the boss.

Cody glanced at Mary, confused to her adamant refusal of letting the medic accompany them. If anyone should have been complaining, it should have been him. After all, he figured it wouldn't be that hard to lose them back on his home world. Heck, if the Agents were even still around, they'd more than likely take care of his hangers-on.

But, he shook his head, he wasn't planning on ditching them. And he definitely didn't want them to get possessed or anything. "Ah, no disrespect intended, sir," he addressed Fred, "but it might be a bit, er, hostile. I had some excitement when I, er, arrived here. As for food--" his stomach growled.

"Sorry son like it or not one of our own died out there. We arn't sending another one out by themselves." Fred's tone was stern, and when Mary opened her mouth again to protest, one look from him closed it.

"Yes sir." She grumbled irritably. "If we are going then we should go. There will be plenty of time later for food." She snapped.

And again she was reprimanded. "Food...sounds like a good idea." Fred said, more kindly this time, and began to lead the way into a dinning area. Due to many members of The Group returning from missions in near starvation, a kitten and dinning room had been placed just outside of where they currently stood. It was only a matter of walking into that room and sitting down at a table.

Mary sunk into her seat with a glare in Cody's direction. "I thought you were in a hurry" she growled.

Cody intercepted the look with a shrug. "It's hard to shoot straight when you're hungry. Besides, food is a necessary to keeping up your strength." If he sounded like a soldier, it was only because his mind had fallen back to the current situation on his world. "There's not always a second chance."

His eyes automatically swept the corners of the room as he sat down in one of the chairs at the table.

Amatha swept out of the room smiling, going to get her food out of the kitchen, then walking back to the room and sitting down beside Mary. She smiles as she starts to eat. Her gaze sweeping over to Cody a number of times.

"You guys should go and get your food. You may not have time to eat later" Amatha says lightly.

"Umm...umm...miss Amatha...we don't...you have too..." A short girl with frizzy brown hair kept back in as tight a bun as she could manage came stuttering out of the kitchen, a flushed look on her face. She was wearing a black dress with a white apron, and plastic gloves. Her pale face turned bright red when she realized others were in the dinning area, and she flushed into a soft bow. "I'm sorry! I wasn't expecting.."

She cleared her throat, coughed, then slowly straightened. "Welcome to the dinning area. I am Karen, it will be up to me to feed all of you tonight. But please...umm...well in this area we serve the Members when they return from a mission so..." She glanced at Amatha, and the food she had received. "Well it isn't always finished when it's in the kitchen. I am here to make sure you get what you wish."

Mary-sue laughed away the girl's embarrassment. "Calm down Karen! Anywhere else on base you'd get an arrow to the knee if you even thought about not getting food for yourself. First come first serve!" She grinned. "I prefer it that was actually. But yeah, yeah," She waved away the on coming storm of stuttering apologies from the girl, "I understand you like to do it differently here. What's on the menu for tonight? Got any meat?"

Mary was still frustrated with the current turn of events, but had settled into herself once she entered the room and could smell cooking food.

"Yes miss Sue, a beef broth actually." Mary flinched at the second half of her name, almost no one ever used it, "Fine I'll have that, and those tiny bits of bread you like to make too!"

She nodded, and turned to Fred, who also looked uncomfortable now. He gestured to the food Amatha had received. "I'll have what she's having, it looks amazing."

Again Karen nodded, and turned towards Cody.

"And you uh....sir....mister...." She gasped and looked towards the others. "Is he new? I don't know his name!" This seemed to further distress the girl, who prided herself on two things - her cooking, and her ability to remember names.

Cody had tensed when one of the well, cooks he supposed, came from the kitchen in a tizzy. He looked at her sharply, studying her intently for a moment to assess whether she might pose a threat. Instead, when she listed off food, he relaxed a little. He was still a little unused to giving out his name so much; so it took a moment for him to register that he should.

"Ah, I am new," he replied somewhat reluctantly. "The name's Cody. And I'll have what Mary's having if you don't mind."

Amatha stood up and walked to the girl and lead her out of the room to talk to her, calm her down. She smiled and talked to her calmly and softly. The girl calmed down and Amatha smiled as she walked back into the room.

"I just wanted to make sure she wasn't too distressed," she said to Fred as she walked back over to her food. "Also, the food is delicious."

She continues to eat her delicious vegetable pasta.

The food had been both brought out and prepared now, and Karen had hustled back into the kitchen. Her talk with Amatha had indeed calmed her down, but the girl was never calm for too long. Too many things to do, so many possibilities that each individual thing could go wrong. The world was a mess and the only was to clean it was to cook. At least, that was how Karen viewed things.

Mary-Sue finished her food quickly, and with satisfaction, glancing over at Cody as she did so. "Why is getting this stuff so important to you, and what makes you think it's still there to begin with? We're in a different time period you know, if you think the wrong thought while teleporting...you could find yourself a few hours, even a few years before or after you even found the cloth."

Fred coughed, choking a bit on his own food. "Yes well, Mary, that's one reason you're going with him. You have a memory of how the area looked like when you were there before." He looked at Cody reassuringly. "The most inconvenient happenstance would arriving on the same day as our original agent and having the wait the time out. It was a relatively new mission, so a few weeks at the absolute worst."

Cody had finished his meal, but he paused with fork in hand to regard Mary and Fred with surprise.

"Wait, so you mean time travel...is possible. Why didn't you go back to save your man if he ended up dead. And if I ended up in the future..." Cody trailed off and his eyes brightened. His voice was an awed whisper. "I would know whether we were successful or not."

Fred arched an eyebrow, waiting until Cody calmed down before responding. "If that level of time alteration were possible, do you think any of us would even be here today? You can't interfere, literally. There is no 'you could possibly mess up the fabrics of time' hulabalu nonsense. You simply are not able. For example, if you were to go back in time and meet yourself back then, you'd have a memory of it now. Time is a set path."

"Like that Joan of Arc chick a while back." Mary interjected. "She claimed to hear voices and see things right? She didn't actually die at the stake, she became a time traveler and went back in time to tell herself what to do."

Cody blinked at the mention of Joan of Arc. "So it really messes with you..." he shuddered at the voices part and his gaze flickered around the corners of the room again. The Legion's absence was beginning to irk him.

"Alright, fine. I'll try not to meddle with anything." He had enough of voices outside his head to want to add even his own. "When do we leave?"

(This makes the most sense to me, if you can think of anything more creative let me know and I'll add it!)


Mary laughed. "I don't think you understand. It isn't that you will or will not mess with anything so much as you can't mess with anything. We might very well interfere, and then realize something we've known all along, but if we are going to react to anything in the past...well..we've already done so. Time is fixed."