#tally's about 3 years old now. she should have plenty of life left to live.

[orcelito]

Tally's just a liiiiittle bit fed up with my clinginess today

Can't help it tho. She's my baby.

[crew-of-the-detz]

The Prolouge

So, I may have bitten off more than I can chew. I may or may not have started working on a short little novel since Im taking a break from the TTRPG game I’m making. I decided instead of writting from the perspective of the well known Detz personnel such as Capt. Kev, Klove, Peacock, Johannson, Herkendel, etc. Why not write from the perspective of a new “asset”? The story follows a woman who has lost almost everything, and attempts to rebuild her life which eventually leads her to the Detz. Below the break is the prolouge, enjoy!

Prologue: A Miserable Little Nobody

The truth was simple, Eliza Korlin was a nobody. A daughter of nobodies, raised by nobodies. The Human-Burso war didn’t care about the nobodies, those caught in the crossfire were just another number added to the tally of active casualties. A bomb hit Eliza’s domicile when she was 10, a Human bomb meant for a Burso warship that according to the report was off by only nine degrees. Nine degrees, just enough for the bomb to miss the hull of the warship and send it careening towards the asteroid they lived on. Evacuation was delayed, a Burso scrambler cutting communications. Eliza remembered crossing the threshold from her domicile to the docking bay, her parents close behind. The asteroid shuddered and Eliza was thrown to her feet. When she looked back for her parents a cold metal shutter blocked her view. A viewport along the ceiling showed her metal fragments and corpses vented into space. A body with her father’s rucksack caught her attention in particular. An older woman picked her up and rushed her to a shuttle, the shuttle left her home and family behind. A shuttle full of nobodies. Her father was a factory worker, her mother a nurse. Her father had black hair, her mother had blonde hair. 

She doesn't remember much more than that, aside from little stories her father told her to help her sleep. She used to know their faces, but now that she’s 27 she has trouble remembering much more than the color and length of hair. She remained a nobody even after leaving that place. She was put into a foster care system, bounced from home to home. She had become a juvenile delinquent when she hit the age of 15, a mean streak emerged when she developed a habit of getting in fights. She was first arrested at 18 for the theft of a vehicle from a state employee. She wasn’t a kid anymore, she went to prison for 3 years. She learned things in an orbital prison, mostly how to keep herself alive. She got jumped near the end of her sentence, ran her mouth off too much to the wrong person and was nearly beaten to death in the showers at the age of 20. The experience “scared her straight”, well, as straight as a traumatized young felon can be. She was released at the age of 21 and realized she was still a nobody, despite the clout she had earned in prison. For a while, she worked at a burger joint. Living off of a minimum wage paycheck and instant ramen. She was a nobody to everybody, just a face in a red hat that handed them greasy burgers. She had no family, no friends, everyone she met looked at her as if she was a blur. 

Eventually she got fired, her temper getting the best of her with a particularly abrasive customer. With no friends, no family, and little to no money she grew desperate. At the age of 25 she answered an ad requesting deep space scroungers. She got out of her apartment and left on a shuttle the following day. As she looked around she noticed a few faces like hers, rough, scarred, mottled, almost blurry. Nobodies. She arrived out on an orbital platform and was trained in a zero-G environment. Scrounging was dangerous, but it paid well. Perfect for a woman alone in the world, nobody to mourn her should an accident happen. Scroungers had multiple jobs; the easiest being drone control, the most dangerous being ship incursion and extraction. 

Drone control was like playing a video game, using drones to collect cargo that had spilled or ship chunks broken off of larger vessels. Incursion and extraction could be done one of two ways: a MMU suit or a Malenshar craft. The MMU was quick, an intricate set of thrusters attached to a space suit. MMU pilots could squeeze just about anywhere getting at valuables with their cutting tools before moving them back to the collection zone using a tether tool or a good old rope and clamp. The MMU unfortunately doesn’t protect against most occupational hazards.

 A scrounger always had to worry about fire from gas lines, shock from live electrical systems, a cracked visor, or the most fatal of all: Depressurization. Depressurization was the worst thing a scrounger could deal with. Make a cut into a room with pressure you would have the whole steel wall and everything inside flying at you at several dozen meters a second. The Malenshar craft was a small orb-like craft with a gripping arm and a tool arm. It was your best defense against depressurization, able to take a beating and still keep going. However the malenshar is large, suitable only for large craft. It was also slow and required large amounts of fuel that would come out of the scroungers paycheck. You run out of fuel, you’re dead in the water with limited oxygen. Plenty a scrounger died in a spherical coffin, waiting for another scrounger to pick apart their dead Malenshar for parts. Eliza had signed on with a scrounging company working out in the belt of her local star system. Plenty of small crafts got lost in the belt as well as the occasional freighter or cruiser left for scroungers by the war or some other tragedy. Eliza had become quite skilled with the MMU suit, able to slip into ships and get their entire worth out to the collection zone for the barge to pick up. A smelter barge would come by after the collection barge to melt down the hull and bulkheads of the ship. 

Her first year on the job, she saw more money then she’d seen in her entire life. She even began to make friends, for the first time in her life she felt seen. Blurred faces brought into focus by the time spent together, the things they went through together. People took time to be around her and people paid attention to her comings and goings for once. Her second year on the job, she experienced her first loss. A good friend of hers named Jason cut a room that was pressurized. The wall blew out into thousands of shards and launched a databank through his skull, there wasn’t a body left to collect. The scroungers got together that night and poured one out for the dead man. Management let them have the night, but early next morning they had to make up for the lost time. Eliza was assigned to the ship Jason was working on. Somebody had to finish the job. Working that ship felt wrong, she always felt that she was being watched. The natural entropy of space carried bits of Jason through the ship, bits of MMU scattered about which added even more to haunted ambiance. But it was a job that needed doing, putting nerves aside Eliza did what needed to be done, even salvaging the thrusters of Jason’s MMU for a little pay boost. She didn’t feel good about it, but it felt even worse just leaving credits free floating in space. 

The job had made her a different person. She no longer felt unseen, the violent spark in her chest had died down, and she woke up every day with a purpose. However, where the anger once was greed had taken residence. She had been contracted for 5 years, and she wanted to leave with every credit she could. Not many scroungers completed their contracts, but those that did often lived the rest of their lives comfortably. Some settled down, others used the funds to reintegrate into society. Greed drove her, made her mean in some regards. The anger flared up occasionally when other scroungers tried to take contracts that she wanted, but she mostly played nice. 

The job had changed her physically too. One needed to be in good shape to work an MMU efficiently. Her height put her at a natural disadvantage; smaller MMU pilots were able to thrust easier, brake easier, and get around obstacles easier without cutting. Most of her down time was spent exercising, the scroungers had a gym that was free to use at any time. Over time, her body morphed from soft around the edges from her time in the city to a hard springy muscle bound machine. Yoga was her go to to ensure she remained limber and flexible. Every little thing about her body had to be considered since she started working as a scrounger. She kept her hair short, oftentimes buzzed completely, to keep it from getting in her face and to free up space in her helmet. She also had the piercings and metal based tattoos removed from her body, less metal means less materials that can build a charge or be affected by electro-magnets inside the ships. 

So Eliza works as a scrounger, cutting apart leviathan carcasses of ships to earn a living that she might never get to live. She is into the third year of her contract, and things are working out well for her. Too well, the universe is a grand scale with a balance to be maintained. An equalizer is heading to the belt, and Eliza has no idea what’s coming.

[lottes-ocs]

one chapter (first chapter maybe? def towards the beginning though) of my story. i turned it in for a workshop in class (capped at 12 pages double spaced). a note from my workshop document:

“Since this is going to be a longer work, I will likely expand upon Adam’s personal and inner life towards the beginning, so that the breakdown and the subsequent conversation with Ezra don’t feel as sudden. I will definitely add more documents like the emails, maybe therapist’s notes or text messages, and I might play around with POV in some later chapters, however, my plan is for Adam to be the primary narrator throughout.”

also lmk if i get anything egregiously wrong. i do have ptsd myself, but i also consulted 2 of my schizophrenic friends to make sure i didn’t include any details that would conflict with that and also to get details about antipsychotics correct

tw for suicide mentions, mental illness, unreality, some graphic imagery.

[January 21st, 2019 // 9:00 AM] Since I got discharged from the hospital last month, I’ve been grateful to live alone. Granted, it makes the paranoia worse, but I’m the only one who needs to know how often I’ve tried to talk to shadows or woken up yelling at the void. And I’m the only one who needs to know that I, a 30-year-old man, have been sleeping with a nightlight. But look, when my room is completely dark, mirages of my father and Dr. Wronski appear in the corner with their faces peeled off like in an autopsy and they won’t stop apologizing. I tell them I forgive them and they double down, I offer them solace and they weep with guilt, I articulate my own guilt and they articulate what it feels like to die. Only the nightlight makes them go away. Does that all sound stupid? Sure it does, but it feels a lot less stupid when I just need some sleep after another day trying to balance crushing grief with debilitating mental illness with my normal-person job, teaching abnormal psychology. Classes have been back in session since last week, so for a week, I’ve felt like a fish teaching marine biology. Or something out of Mariana’s trench. Ezra walks into my office, looking just a little too put-together for the workday (as usual), perfectly-tailored pants, perfectly ironed shirt, and perfectly styled curls, and snaps me out of my self-pitying daze by setting down a large stack of papers on his desk next to mine. “The anxiety essays,” he says with an imperious sigh. “Was I this dumb in undergrad?” “Probably not,” I say. “You were a little older than them.” “And I actually had anxiety.” He’s made a point of bringing up his own issues since I got back. I think he’s doing it so I don’t feel embarrassed or isolated, but he does love to talk about himself regardless, and besides, the support of one grad student doesn’t outweigh the nastiness of some of the higher-ups. “Do you have any new bits, Ezra?” I try to change the subject to his comedy (he does standup on the side, and I hear he’s not bad). “Eh, nothing good. You look tired.” He brushes me off with forced nonchalance. “I’ve had plenty of work to catch up on.” There’s actually no reason that he should know why I was gone, it’s my business, but he definitely does. Everyone does. I work in the psych department, so the people here know what it means when someone’s witnessed the death of their mentor and is subsequently out for a month with no further explanation than “illness.” “Have you, uh…” he clicks his tongue in thought. “Did you drink coffee this morning?” I nod with an exasperated smile. “Well, y’know, the Keurig’s in the lounge if you need it. And I’m in 522 most of today if you need help. Catching up on work, or whatever.” He drums casually on the doorframe, shoots me finger-guns, and heads down the hall. I like Ezra. He’s my TA now, but we were both in grad school working towards our doctorates together, up until last spring, when I received mine. We’re the same age, and he’s definitely smarter than me (as he is most people), he just started college late. I think it’s very sweet of him not to be a condescending dick to me (I seem to be a popular target for condescending dicks lately) especially because Ezra can muster up a dangerous amount of condescending dickishness when he feels the need. However, I process absolutely none of what he said. I was listening, I was trying to listen anyway, but my head’s not working right, not right now. I really didn’t get enough sleep. It’s a vicious cycle. The hallucinations and intrusive thoughts keep me up, the lack of sleep worsens the severity of the hallucinations and intrusive thoughts. In fact, since I arrived at work forty-five minutes ago, I have kept a mental tally: Sudden and overwhelming urge to stab myself: 3 instances. Sudden and overwhelming urge to stab Dr. Carlisle for looking at me weird: 2 instances (fuck off, it’s not like I’m going to act on it). Sudden and overwhelming urge to break down crying: 45 instances. Rats underneath my desk: Yeah, I don’t know, I called maintenance and they told me they’re fake, so I guess they’re fake, even though I can see them. Hanging woman in the back corner of my office: Don’t mind her, she’ll be gone within the hour. I’ll be sorry to see her go, though. A sense of unreality is creeping in. I try to keep Dr. Beauchamp’s voice in my head, “if there shouldn’t be any real dead people in the room, there are almost definitely no real dead people in the room.” Well, there was that one time, you asshole. No, fuck it, there are almost definitely no real dead people in the room. I reach into my briefcase, desperate for the pill bottle, because I know my thoughts are going to turn into alphabet soup if I don’t do something soon. I split a Clozaril tablet in half and swallow it hastily. I am not supposed to split it in half, and I am not supposed to take more than one dose in a span of 24 hours, and I have a Ph.D. in psychology, obviously I know I’m lowering the efficacy in the long term and increasing my risk of side effects. But at this point, let me die of agranulocytosis if that’s what I’ve got coming. I’ll be out of a job and wasting eleven years of higher education if this shit doesn’t stop. Maybe that isn’t true. It feels true. Maybe it isn’t.

[January 21st, 2019 // 1:30 PM] FROM: Dr. Raymond Carlisle TO: Dr. Adam Collins SUBJECT: Checking in.

Dr. Collins, I sincerely hope all is well. I received word that you cancelled a lecture today. I need hardly tell you that you just had a month off for Winter Break, and two weeks before that for the beginning of your hospitalization. I hardly think an even further extended reprieve from your work is fair, and if you genuinely do, that’s a conversation we need to have. To be frank, Dr. Herrmann and I feel it is irresponsible to allow someone in your condition to continue to work, in the field of psychology no less. Though I do not at all doubt the competence of our colleagues at the medical center, nor your mental facilities, I feel compelled to let you know that if your psychological state continues to cause issues with your work the department might require you to take a leave of absence. While I hope your treatment plan begins to work to its full effect soon, your own safety and the integrity of this department are top priority.

Best wishes, truly,

Dr. Raymond Carlisle Head Professor, Psychology (555) 555-5555

My hands tremble with anger (and hopefully not tardive dyskinesia) as I type my reply.

FROM: Dr. Adam Collins TO: Dr. Raymond Carlisle SUBJECT: Re: Checking In

Dr. Carlisle, all is as well as it possibly can be needs to be. I don’t respect you as a colleague and I believe your total comfort in your new position, which I need hardly remind you is Dr. Wronski’s old position, is quite frankly borderline disrespectful.  If it’s irresponsible for someone in “my condition” to continue to work then why do you give a shit if I cancel my lectures? Leave me the fuck alone or I’ll mention you by name in my suicide note.   At the moment, it is difficult for me walk by Dr. Wronski’s old office, which I have to do to get to 525 (where that lecture is held). Could I request a change of   I was having a panic attack you absolute dick how are YOU allowed to continue to work in the field of psychology when you have NO compassion My new medication has occasionally been making me sick. That issue should be resolved either way after I meet with my psychiatrist next week.

Thank you for your concern, Dr. Adam Collins Department of Psychology

[January 22nd, 2019 // 10:30 AM] I think back to our last faculty meeting, at least my last faculty meeting, in November. It does feel like a while ago, and it’s hard to fathom that Dr. Wronski was still here then. It gets easier to fathom when Dr. Carlisle comes in and takes his seat at the head of the conference table, simply because of how wrong that is. I picture her there instead, how things are supposed to be, how it should have been. I think about how someone should have helped her when they still could have. I really picture her there instead for a moment, her image replacing Carlisle’s. I blink once and she’s gone, and he’s back. As he starts talking, though, I feel a tap on my shoulder and see her behind me for a split second, ephemeral and transparent like the dots in a grid illusion, then she walks away and disappears. My whole body is left feeling cold, sharp, and jolted, as if I fell on a blade without expecting to. I’m filled with dread as I realize Carlisle’s words are simultaneously turning to nonsense and growing louder in my ears, and a high, harsh noise like microphone feedback intertwines itself with his voice. Dr. Wronski reappears in his place again, but she is lifeless this time, blood pooling from her head like it was when I found her, circling her hair in a grim halo. Her eyes are clouded with even more film, her mouth is agape, and I can feel my breathing grow rapid. I squeeze my eyes shut. I know I am in the middle of a meeting; I will not fall apart like this in the middle of a meeting, not when my “mental facilities” are already being called into question. I pinch myself, internally repeating “there are no real dead people here, there are no real dead people here, there are no real dead people here—” “Dr. Collins, are you with us?” Dr. Hermann’s voice pierces through my mantra, entirely unfriendly, entirely accusatory, despite the faux-sweetness she is trying to summon. “Yes.” My voice sounds thin and weak, and blood rushes to my face. I shut my eyes again, since I feel tears prickling at the corners of them. Not fucking here, Jesus Christ, not fucking here, I think to myself. Then I think again about my last meeting, the old hierarchy, the time when I fell asleep at one of these in October after a particularly long night and Dr. Wronski just pulled me aside afterwards and asked if I was okay, and if there was anything she could do. And now the image of her corpse won’t leave my head. It overwhelms me. I don’t see her in the room anymore, but I might as well be back in her office when I first found her body, the first time in my life I had ever truly hoped that I was only seeing a figment of my imagination. The gun in her hand— I try to think of anything else. Anything to keep it at bay. I click my pen repeatedly (Carlisle asks me to stop), I scratch at my wrists and pull at my skin, anything to shift my focus to anything else. Nothing is working. The lump in my throat grows. My heartbeat gets faster, my chest starts to hurt, and suddenly I can smell the blood and rot that permeated the room that night, and I am helpless to stop it— Someone grabs me. I look up to see every eye in the room on me. I can’t breathe, I can’t speak, and I realize I’m in the middle of this meeting, crying and having a full-on panic attack, surrounded by people who already think I’m a headcase. I am sobbing and shaking and unable to steady my breathing and to them it seems completely unprompted at best, and at worst, it seems like it’s because Hermann and Carlisle snapped at me. And even in the midst of my abject humiliation, the image of Dr. Wronski lying in a pool of her own blood is still in my head, still absolutely fucking killing me, and I couldn’t calm down if I tried. I get up and walk out. That’s what fucking happens when I’m forced to try to power through episodes. I could care less what Carlisle does to me right now, I will not stay in there and continue to look like an emotionally unstable baby in front of my colleagues. I go to finish up my breakdown in the privacy of my office, catching a glimpse of myself in a window on the way and hating myself even more at the sight of my own disheveled hair and bright red, tear-streaked face. I sit down and hide underneath my desk, pop another half-a-Clozaril tablet that I try not to choke back up (I’m still hyperventilating so hard I could vomit), and bury my face in my arms. “Adam?” I look up. “Ezra.” I am barely composed, still hyperventilating, swiping at my eyes furiously and futilely. I look away, and I hope maybe he’ll think I’m just sick. I expect him to walk away, pretend that he never saw me like this and just silently let it color his perception of me. But he comes and sits down next to me underneath the desk. I don’t know what to say. “Do you want me to go?” he asks, after a moment. “You don’t have to.” I don’t want to admit it, but I don’t really want him to. Nobody else is this understanding with me anymore. I keep trying to collect myself, barely noticing at first when he puts his hand on my shoulder. “Do you need anything?” I shake my head, still not making eye contact. Theoretically, I’m getting the help I need, and maybe I do need the support of a friend right now too, but I don’t want to trouble him. Besides, I must look pathetic, cowering under a table and weeping, almost comically vulnerable. Hm. “Ezra,” I turn to him, finally, after a few more minutes of whimpering. I know my eyes look crazy, bloodshot to hell. “Can you take me to a mic?” “A mic?” “Yes. A standup mic. I want to see what it’s like.” “Really?” he smirks. “Yes, why not?” I can’t think of the last time I laughed, at least not genuinely. I can’t think of the last time I let myself. My self-loathing has become entirely unfunny, my psyche and my job both absolute nightmares, not to mention the actual nightmares—I need something light. Something just a little bit light. “You would… enjoy that?” “Yeah.” It makes me sad that he seems surprised, though I can’t blame him. I’ve been awfully serious, not even just for the past week or month, but probably since my dad died last spring. He reads my disappointment. “Sorry, Adam, I just… do you like comedy?” “I don’t know. My therapist laughs at my jokes sometimes.” He smiles at that, and I smile too, through dissipating tears. “Well, if you really want to, yeah. The next one is Thursday night.” I nod and take a deep breath. I realize Ezra hasn’t taken his hand off my shoulder, and he is absent-mindedly rubbing circles into my back. Maybe it’s stupid, but I stay as still as I can. I don’t want him to notice that he’s doing it and stop. “Is everyone there funny?” I ask, just to keep his focus. It’s a dumb question. I rephrase myself, “How funny is everyone?” He exhales a chuckle. “Honestly? About thirty people go up every night, sometimes more. They’re mostly shit. Don’t worry, though, there’s plenty to laugh at with the shitty ones.” He proceeds to tell me about the guys who show up high every time and just get up on stage and talk about nonsense (or weed itself) for 5 minutes, the wannabe Dangerfields and Seinfelds and Mulaneys who “never actually managed to glean what joke structure is” (though to be fair, It’s not like I have either), even the bigoted old men still trying with unflinching determination to resurrect “get back in the kitchen” jokes. I am losing myself in his stories, feeling at least marginally more relaxed, when Carlisle appears in my doorway. Ezra takes his hand off my back. Carlisle glances at us with confusion and disgust. “Dr. Collins, if you would please… get up and come see me in my office.” “We’re actually grading papers right now,” Ezra shoots back, in a tone of voice that says “yes, I think you’re stupid.” “Take a break, please,” Carlisle replies, glaring and exiting. I look hesitantly at Ezra, before getting up to follow him. “I do want to come,” I say. “To a mic.” “We’ll talk more later. I should still be here after you’re done facing the wrath of god.” I know I’m about to get chewed out to an extreme degree. Still, I can’t help but grin back at him.