(A bit of OOC! Jared's a new character that I enjoy writing for. In short, he's sending a broadcast out on a random frequency that'd be picked up by any sort of radio or other such device, so long as it happened to be near enough that frequency to grab the signal. If anyone feels like playing off of this post, by all means, here or IC. The fun's in the play!)
It's the tenth of May, so I guess that makes it a Saturday' You know, days of the week didn't ever really matter much up there, but now that I'm here, grounded, they seem to matter more. What day is the store open, when's that happening" Up there all that mattered was when you were going to jump next and that didn't care about a day, you know" It was just a matter of when. If not now, later. You've got to be ready for it all the time.
It wasn't an uncommon thing, really. It wasn't strange for a Hell Jumper, someone locked within the iron clad walls of compartmentalized thought, to do just what Jared was doing. Currently, he paced back and forth the small room he'd rented in some building near the spaceport. Names didn't even matter anymore" Why name something you're going to lose" Bar girl two point oh. It'd been funny, right' A lame joke, a reason to laugh. No. It'd been a natural defense to the fact that a name implied a memory, an attachment, a relationship. There's a reason his brand of soldiers wore numbers and rank, not patches with names on them.
But yeah, you're probably not from where I'm from, so if anyone's hearing this, you're probably really, really confused why a transmission with a class five encryption code is showing up on some random frequency and there's this guy talking about some random crap, right' Well, back home we used to do this from time to time. We'd, you know, just talk into an open frequency and leave it open for a little while, maybe a few days if we weren't busy. So long as we didn't say where we were or what our names were the top brass didn't really mind. It's good for the morale, but really it keeps you sane. Just knowing that maybe someone can hear you is a big lift, I guess. Being able to talk about anything. You don't know me, I'll never know you, so I can say anything. Maybe someone will respond, I don't know. They normally don't, but sometimes they would. Normally girls, girls still in college or whatever. I guess they thought it was romantic talking to some soldier in deep space. And then they'd get bored and go back to what is is they were doing and, well, we'd stay up here doing what it is we were doing. By the way, that didn't include a lot of porn. We didn't take our armor off enough for that to really be worth the time. Gotta be ready to jump into some random place at any time, you know" Could be here, there. Today, tomorrow. Two weeks from now, twice in one day if you're unlucky.
The voice broke off. Had he ever called Earth home, maybe he'd have had the soft mix of French and Indian that had formed in the basin of the mighty river. He'd just taken a shower with real water. Strange, the way the water beaded up on his skin and didn't just fall off in puddles every where. Real gravity takes some getting used to. His body, clad in gym shorts and running shoes, was a web of ink, a soldier's disguise, that didn't quite cover or hide enough of the circular scars and jagged flesh that could only have been wounds sustained in combat.
Really though, we'd get lonely up there. It's not that easy, I guess, to sit around and just wait. What else can you do, though' This, I guess. Yeah, it'd get lonely. It'd get hard, you know" We wear the visors for a reason. Spartans get gold, Marines don't get any. We get black, it's harder to see through. We wear it so when we're pulling people out of burning buildings, they can't see how hard it is. All they see is someone in black armor with a black helmet and a black visor that comes, in the middle of the shit, to try and pull what?s left out. And then, when the Marines come and get 'em, all they can see is the back of a blank suit of armor. Maybe, I guess this is a weird hope, I think that some might realize that it's harder than it looks. Not physically, we're trained for that. But it's hard, every day, to pick up the pieces, pick 'em out of the ashes, and then pretend like it's alright. Pretend like you're fine to do it again. It's not, man. It's not easy. But it's got to look easy. That's why, really, the visors. We can't ever let anyone see us scared or hurt. That's what it boils down to. You can cry, you can be afraid and you can feel like quitting. I can too, I guess. I just can't let you know that. I can hear, though. I guess this frequency is just another black visor, right"
There was laughter there, soft laughter that hinted at something else. Another current, a second path in the dark waters that threatened, all the time, to consume men and women like him. There was also the sound of a fist hitting what must have been a wall. Over and over again, time and time again. Liquid swished in a bottle, a wet cough spilled over the helmet's recording devices. Sent to a random person, some stranger he'd likely never see, the walls came down for a short second.
Yeah. It's not that easy. Why' So maybe someone else, someone like you, can go be a doctor. Go cure cancer or something. We'll try to give you the time and protection to do it. That's what kept me going. Maybe one of those kids we got out alive would go and do something great, and maybe he'd remember that an unknown Hell Jumper fought and some Hell Jumpers died to give him that chance.
Silence. Moments worth of silence. Even the methodical steps seemed to grow silent and vacant. Time passed, minutes died. Composure was found, the outburst was over.
Anyways. The beer's nice here, some of the girls are pretty and the liquor's cheap. How's the sports scene" I doubt you guys play much baseball, do you? That'd be pretty cool, actually playing baseball on real grass and dirt. Anyways, I'm out. If you recognize my voice at a bar, I'll probably buy you a drink, but I'll deny it, too.
It's the tenth of May, so I guess that makes it a Saturday' You know, days of the week didn't ever really matter much up there, but now that I'm here, grounded, they seem to matter more. What day is the store open, when's that happening" Up there all that mattered was when you were going to jump next and that didn't care about a day, you know" It was just a matter of when. If not now, later. You've got to be ready for it all the time.
It wasn't an uncommon thing, really. It wasn't strange for a Hell Jumper, someone locked within the iron clad walls of compartmentalized thought, to do just what Jared was doing. Currently, he paced back and forth the small room he'd rented in some building near the spaceport. Names didn't even matter anymore" Why name something you're going to lose" Bar girl two point oh. It'd been funny, right' A lame joke, a reason to laugh. No. It'd been a natural defense to the fact that a name implied a memory, an attachment, a relationship. There's a reason his brand of soldiers wore numbers and rank, not patches with names on them.
But yeah, you're probably not from where I'm from, so if anyone's hearing this, you're probably really, really confused why a transmission with a class five encryption code is showing up on some random frequency and there's this guy talking about some random crap, right' Well, back home we used to do this from time to time. We'd, you know, just talk into an open frequency and leave it open for a little while, maybe a few days if we weren't busy. So long as we didn't say where we were or what our names were the top brass didn't really mind. It's good for the morale, but really it keeps you sane. Just knowing that maybe someone can hear you is a big lift, I guess. Being able to talk about anything. You don't know me, I'll never know you, so I can say anything. Maybe someone will respond, I don't know. They normally don't, but sometimes they would. Normally girls, girls still in college or whatever. I guess they thought it was romantic talking to some soldier in deep space. And then they'd get bored and go back to what is is they were doing and, well, we'd stay up here doing what it is we were doing. By the way, that didn't include a lot of porn. We didn't take our armor off enough for that to really be worth the time. Gotta be ready to jump into some random place at any time, you know" Could be here, there. Today, tomorrow. Two weeks from now, twice in one day if you're unlucky.
The voice broke off. Had he ever called Earth home, maybe he'd have had the soft mix of French and Indian that had formed in the basin of the mighty river. He'd just taken a shower with real water. Strange, the way the water beaded up on his skin and didn't just fall off in puddles every where. Real gravity takes some getting used to. His body, clad in gym shorts and running shoes, was a web of ink, a soldier's disguise, that didn't quite cover or hide enough of the circular scars and jagged flesh that could only have been wounds sustained in combat.
Really though, we'd get lonely up there. It's not that easy, I guess, to sit around and just wait. What else can you do, though' This, I guess. Yeah, it'd get lonely. It'd get hard, you know" We wear the visors for a reason. Spartans get gold, Marines don't get any. We get black, it's harder to see through. We wear it so when we're pulling people out of burning buildings, they can't see how hard it is. All they see is someone in black armor with a black helmet and a black visor that comes, in the middle of the shit, to try and pull what?s left out. And then, when the Marines come and get 'em, all they can see is the back of a blank suit of armor. Maybe, I guess this is a weird hope, I think that some might realize that it's harder than it looks. Not physically, we're trained for that. But it's hard, every day, to pick up the pieces, pick 'em out of the ashes, and then pretend like it's alright. Pretend like you're fine to do it again. It's not, man. It's not easy. But it's got to look easy. That's why, really, the visors. We can't ever let anyone see us scared or hurt. That's what it boils down to. You can cry, you can be afraid and you can feel like quitting. I can too, I guess. I just can't let you know that. I can hear, though. I guess this frequency is just another black visor, right"
There was laughter there, soft laughter that hinted at something else. Another current, a second path in the dark waters that threatened, all the time, to consume men and women like him. There was also the sound of a fist hitting what must have been a wall. Over and over again, time and time again. Liquid swished in a bottle, a wet cough spilled over the helmet's recording devices. Sent to a random person, some stranger he'd likely never see, the walls came down for a short second.
Yeah. It's not that easy. Why' So maybe someone else, someone like you, can go be a doctor. Go cure cancer or something. We'll try to give you the time and protection to do it. That's what kept me going. Maybe one of those kids we got out alive would go and do something great, and maybe he'd remember that an unknown Hell Jumper fought and some Hell Jumpers died to give him that chance.
Silence. Moments worth of silence. Even the methodical steps seemed to grow silent and vacant. Time passed, minutes died. Composure was found, the outburst was over.
Anyways. The beer's nice here, some of the girls are pretty and the liquor's cheap. How's the sports scene" I doubt you guys play much baseball, do you? That'd be pretty cool, actually playing baseball on real grass and dirt. Anyways, I'm out. If you recognize my voice at a bar, I'll probably buy you a drink, but I'll deny it, too.