[ti]Ep 3[/ti] Wake Up, Dead Man [Patch, Ratchet, Carbine]
Dec 1, 2019 0:38:22 GMT -5
Post by Thundercloud on Dec 1, 2019 0:38:22 GMT -5
Episode 3 | Week One | Day 1
The way Thundercloud figured, medically-induced stasis was basically just going to sleep for a stupid-long time and not being able to wake up on your own. The first part was cool, the second kinda horrifying the longer he thought about it, which is why he had made the executive decision to just not do that and go ahead with the whole procedure without giving it due consideration. He had the idea, it felt like the right thing to do, and he wasn't about to psych himself out and talk himself out of following through with it by considering all the ways things could go wrong. Thinking things through all the way was for people who were too chicken-shit to handle things like 'consequences' and 'completely avoidable situations' and Thunder didn't have time for that shit. Those things were problems for Future Him, and he had faith that guy could roll with whatever punches came his way, so there was nothing to get all bent out of shape over.
Besides, Future Him was probably gonna be as much of a dick as he was, so he probably deserved whatever he had coming to him.
Including the possibility that he might have some serious slag wrong with him when he woke up from his strategic nap – the odds were good that he'd be fine, it wasn't like he was undergoing an invasive surgery or anything serious like that. From what he understood, it was mostly code-work and basic system maintenance type shit. (There might have been more too it but he had kind of spaced out once people started using words with more than two syllables, but as far as he knew it was a safe procedure.) Only real concern was that after being under for so long, he might have some temporary grogginess, confusion, slower reflexes – a condition he was sure had a fancy name, but preferred to call Sleepy-Bitch Disease.
He had known all this going in, and he was fine with it. What he hadn't known (but was probably told at some point) was that it'd feel like he had only offlined his optics for a second, then abruptly lurched forward in time when he onlined them again. It was surreal – one minute his chronometer is telling him it's the middle of the month, the next it's telling him the little dirtball planet's almost made a full revolution around its sun. Either the fuel crises lasted a hell of a lot longer than anticipated, or somebody dun goofed.
Deciding he had better wake up properly and figure out which it was, Thundercloud tried to online his optics and found them slow to respond. He was getting images, a mess of colors and motion blurs, but the lag was too bad to really distinguish anything right away.
“...Aw, dude,” He said to the world at large, “what the fu--”
The curse trailed off into an unintelligible mumble as Thundercloud tried to sit up on his elbows, which required far more concentration than it had any right to. He shook his head, like that might somehow help his processor bring itself back up to speed after being out of commission for so long – it didn't, but it made him feel like he was doing something constructive, so he did it again just in case a good noggin joggin really was the cure for Sleepy-Bitch Disease.
(Spoiler alert: it wasn't, isn't, and never has been or will be.)
A moment later, when his optics were finally starting to find their focus, Thundercloud became aware that he was not alone in the room. He felt the person's field before he saw their face, and for a moment he was a little confused as to why neither face nor field were the ones he was expecting – the ones that were always there, just an arms-length away, no matter what.
Something small and cold and heavy settled over Thundercloud's fog-addled mind, and he found himself speaking before he even fully realized who it was he was speaking to.
“....Where's Patches?”