Commons/Crew Quarters

Jag

Jag

Active Member
Nexus GM
IC area for action mainly occurring in the Commons/Crew Quarters pods of Triteia Station. All posts should begin with:

Character Name
Location in Station​
 
Commons​

Station Personnel began to rise at the beginning of the work day, told as much by alarm clocks and systems rather than the rising and setting of a sun unable to penetrate their depths. In the Commons, a handwritten reminder on a piece of paper was stuck to the large view screen in the rec area as an informal reminder in the familiar handwriting of Marcos Navarro.​

BACK WITH THE EGGHEADS AT 1100.​
 
Juno O’Sullivan
Commons/Crew Quarters​

Juno slammed her hand down on the beeping beast. She’d been aware and fully awake since the unholy hours, her books were sprawled out on the bed as she wrote notes, placing them along pages to be reminded later. Though she officially got up to put on her standard TLI Uniform, she kept taking the top off to show her bland undershirt and putting it back on over, to button it up and repeat the process over for twenty minutes before finally deciding to keep it on. Today was the big day when Marcos brought their lovely Researchers on board, and she was feeling more out of it than usual. In honesty, she’d been awaiting this day since the sea trials on the station had begun, which meant she was waiting for a little over six weeks now.

The Engineer fixed her fiery hair into a sleek, low bun, making sure no hair was out of line – not even her baby hairs. After letting out a long, deep breath, her nerves had all but settled and she steeled her façade. She wanted to look as serious as possible and reliable to the most important people coming aboard the station. In the evening prior, she was warned by Navarro that if any sea sick people were aboard then a game of dartboard was going to be played. In her time being deep beneath the surface, she’d grown accustomed to living in the darkness, and she remembered the first few days she was below the surface – she was sea sick too. Having living inland all her life, living within the ocean was an entirely new world and experience for her.

She was already in it to win it, there was a positive note in her that there’d be, at least, one person who’d be sea sick. And in her calculations of a bullseye hitting on the dartboard, she had a 0.078% chance of winning against the other two; Navarro and Andy. O’Sullivan already placed a bet against Andy being the one to clean up the bile, if there were any takers in that department. As she emerged from her single pod, she headed towards commons on the lower level of the station. Once there, she found a handwritten note by Navarro; “Back with the eggheads at 1100.”
 
Andy Sterling
Commons​
With Navarro off collecting the “eggheads” from their fancy resorts, Andy had taken the opportunity to take the SEER off on a surveying expedition out around some of the nearby volcanic vents. Of course, the expedition was little more than a joyride, but what was the point in being a trained rover pilot if Navarro was always at the wheel? The trip had gone without a hitch as he whipped the submersible through undersea caverns like his souped-up mustang through the streets of Honolulu, dodging around black smokers as he pushed the research vessel to its limit. The thing really could move if one knew how to run it and disregarded the 10-knot maximum speed regulations, he’d found. Besides, the safety regulations were for people who didn’t know what they were doing, designed to allow the rover’s automatic collision avoidance systems enough time to take action and ramming into a rock wall. Surely they weren’t meant for him, the two-time champion of the University of Hawaii’s underground street racing league! He would have taken the cup home for a third year, but an unfortunate encounter with a cow had ended his beloved car’s racing career.

Stepping back in through the airlock, he headed up to the commons to look for something to eat. The crash that always followed an adrenaline rush always made him hungry, and so far he’d been pleasantly surprised with the quality of the food here on the station. He’d expected Tritea Station’s fare to be bland and canned, but apparently TLI wanted to keep their employees happy. It was either that, or the fact that the company cook was just remarkably skilled. A little of both, probably.

“Jonesey!” he called, looking around for the station’s chef. “Where’s my favorite cook at? Any way I can snag an early lunch, huh? Before Navarro gets back with everyone else, I mean.”
 
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The commons were still wafting with the smells of breakfast from the hours prior: spiced sausages, eggs fried in butter, and steamed rice. Cooking for the station had proven a small challenge, but Imani made do with what she had. So close to Japan and the Philippines, certain ingredients came in much larger numbers than others. There were a lot of fish, but not in the shape of snapper and flounder like she was used to. There was plenty of tuna, more than she'd ever cooked before, and finding ways to cook it all was going to be her main priority in the coming weeks.

Luckily for her, someone had brought her attention to poke bowls. She didn't even have to cook the fish! It was an easy way to pass meals to her crew who wouldn't stop begging her every three seconds for a snack.

"Jonesey!"

Speaking of which.

Before she even reached the counter, Imani reached into the fridge and grabbed one of the aforementioned bowls of tuna. It wasn't much bigger than the size of her hand, but everyone knew better than to complain to her. Lunch was coming eventually, and she would not have them turning their nose up to it because of an oversized snack.

"Gotcha, Sterling," she said with a smile, sliding it across the counter to the hungry beast. Green onions dotted the top, and the smell of soy sauce and sesame oil was prominent. "Don't finish it all in one go. Even sweeting me up as you do isn't going to get you seconds until noon!" She pointed at him and gave him those warning eyebrows: the ones that went way up while she stared at him from the top of her eyelids. "I'll curse you out so bad you'll get PTSD when you come near my kitchen."
 
Andy caught the bowl and popped the lid off, digging in eagerly with a pair of steel chopsticks he’d snagged from a drawer. He was no stranger to poke bowls, and had been pleasantly surprised that so much of his favorite Hawaiian cuisine the station’s chef could make. Of course, raw fish was a bit of an acquired taste, and he wondered briefly how O’Sullivan the midwesterner was faring. However, he quickly decided that the opinions of people who called soda “pop” didn’t really matter and went back to his snack. Half of it was gone before Imani even finished with her warning, scarfed down in two bites. Chuckling, Andy winked at her.

“Aw, Jonsey, don’t be like that,” he said. “You know I’m your favorite. Besides, no amount of PTSD could keep me away from your cooking.”

He popped another cube of fish into his mouth, leaning over the counter and lowering his voice to a conspiratory whisper.

“I’ll tell you what,” he said, “how about a trade? I’ll take you for a ride in the SEER for another one of these. I found a neat route through a canyon that’ll make you feel like you’re in Star Wars.”
He grinned at her, waving the little bowl of fish in the air.

“Before Navarro gets back,” he added.
 
Imani watched him eat the carefully prepared snack like a bear with a can of sardines. It was always something her grandmother would say: prepare a meal for two days, watch it go in two seconds. At least he liked it, even if he was ambling for more.

"Mhm, you say that until I'm chasing you out with my big spoon, Sterling. You're going to thank me one of these days when you realize you don't have an inch of beer belly sticking out over your pants that I can pinch." She rolled her eyes but gave him a listen as he continued. Those eyes narrowed.

There wasn't much to do around Triteia station. She busied herself with running and reading and meal planning, but otherwise... it was quiet. Very, very quiet. The ride was extremely enticing.

Imani stared at him, and without turning, walked back to the fridge, opened it up, took out another poke bowl, and slapped it down in front of him.

"You better not be shitting me, Sterling." She dragged the bowl back to her as he reached for it. "I thought Navarro was already going to be back soon."
 
Andy chuckled as the little bowl of fish was pulled just out of his reach, eyeing the delicious pink cubes inside. A bowl like that would cost eight dollars back home. Eight! Their employers must be spending a fortune on food, he figured...but, then again, it was likely a drop in the bucket compared to the operation costs of this facility. Hell, just running this place for a day probably cost more than he was paid in a year.

“Me?” he asked, hand raised to his chest in mock horror. “Shitting you? I’m hurt, Jonsey! Why would I lie to you about something as serious as taking a 42 million dollar piece of crucial scientific equipment for a joyride in exchange for a snack? I would never do that, especially not to my favorite person on the station.”

Leaning forward over the counter, he snatched the bowl from Imani’s hand and scarfed it down in seconds. As long as it was free, he was perfectly content to enjoy as much of this delicious fish as he could.

“Meet me at the airlock in ten minutes,” he said. “Navarro’s coming back soon alright, and he’ll be awfully mad if we’re not back by then.”
 
The woman crossed her arms and tapped her foot in thought. There was a choice to be made here, but Sterling had already eaten the entire second bowl!

After several seconds of deliberating, the woman threw her hands up and rolled her eyes. "Fine, Sterling. You win. But if Navarro catches us, you're taking the fall! I wasn't shipped out in the middle of the goddamn ocean god knows how many leagues under the sea only to get my ass kicked back up to the surface!"

She pointed at her eyes with two fingers, then at him. "Ten minutes, kiddo. On the dot!"
______

Imani was always on time, and thus, she was there in exactly ten minutes, chef apron folded neatly in the kitchen and exchanged for a bright orange jacket with a high collar. She tied her hair up in a spotted blue headscarf, pushing it up so it took a very muffintop shape. Like before, her arms were folded, foot tapping. Had she even moved?
 
Marcos Navarro
Commons​

Thunk. The dart stuck into the board as Marcos stepped back to admire his work. He wasn't the best player in the world, but with limited recreational activities aboard, one had to find the best they could. Truth be told he found the game to be a completely different animal when sober, compared to the drunken competitions through the smoke and the haze of bars during his Navy days.

"Look, all I'm saying is there's a lot of maintenance issues that come with gearing that thing up for an emergency evacuation," he spoke out to Sterling. "Juno's already up to her eyeballs in maintenance requests right now trying to keep it from being either freezing cold or like a sauna in Ops and the Crew Quarters right now, I don't need to get on a waiting list to be able to take our my sub."

His tone wasn't a lecturing one, but it was matter-of-fact.

"Jones, what did you think you were going to get up to out there? I get anyone else wanting to leave and pick up some fast food to get away from your cooking," he said with a teasing smirk."​
 
Andy sighed, lying back across the couch as he eyed the dart embedded firmly in the 25 ring. He supposed that he should be glad that they weren’t getting chewed out too much, but being chastised still stung. Besides, since when was the SEER Navarro’s sub? Andy hadn’t seen a name on the thing. Still, as much as he hated to admit it, it really was his fault that they’d been caught. He’d spent too long speeding through narrow canyons and side tunnels, losing track of time as he maneuvered the submersible through a series of increasingly daring stunts. It was a bad habit of his, but he couldn’t help but show off whenever he had a woman riding shotgun.

“Sorry boss,” he grumbled, picking at a loose thread at the collar of his shirt. “Won’t happen again. You’ll have the sub available whenever you need it. We just wanted to get out of the station for a little while, you know? Not everyone got to go to the surface and hang out at a tropical resort all morning.”

He glanced over at Imani, wondering if she was mad at him. He didn’t think she’d seemed particularly pleased when they’d gotten back only to find the entire crew waiting for them, but who could tell? Something told him that he probably wouldn’t be getting any more extra snacks for a while, though.
 
Juno O’Sullivan
Commons
​

Despite being in Ops for the past three-and-a-half days, O’Sullivan finally found some time to get away from it. The amount of maintenance requests she was happy to receive, it kept her busy, but at this point they were starting to rival Mount Everest in height. Juno was in commons, watching with mild interest to the boss giving a talking to Andy and the Chef. She couldn’t help but find it amusing that Imani was getting into trouble, she was hardly a troublemaker. She wouldn’t fault her for Andy coaxing her into the SEER. She sat at the table, eating some proper lunch instead of her smoothies she’s been having. Juno stabbed the salad, taking a bite of it. If anything, Imani and Andy looked like two children being scolded by their single father and that was funny in Juno’s mind. Instead, she opted to munch on her lunch, knowing she wouldn’t get any snacks if she were to comment on the Chef’s circumstance. All because of an Oceanographer who was an alien on board, really.
 
Imani Jones
Commons​

Imani had one hand on her head and the other on her hip, eyes elsewhere as Navarro gave them more than enough words to get his point across. She could have caved in Sterling's shin, she was so angry, but it wasn't as though she'd made any efforts to stop him while they were out there. Thankfully, they weren't in any real trouble, but the embarrassment was easy to swallow, especially with his last comment. Even as a tease, she felt a cold little jab at her gut.

"Ha-ha," she shot back. "I get it, Navarro, my mistake. Won't happen again, hear? I'll make sure of it."

Glancing over at O'Sullivan, Imani bit her lip. It was worse that someone else was there to witness it, of all things. She felt a big sigh built up in her lungs, big and dramatic, but let it out silently through the puff of her cheeks instead.
 
Marcos Navarro
Commons​

Pulling out the last dart and tossing them into the small bin beneath the target, Marcos rubbed his shoulder and wandered back over to the counter separating the main kitchen area from the rest of the Commons, saddling up next to Juno for a moment.

"You'll be happy to know that Mr. Serrin dropped off two more maintenance requests already today," he said with no effort to hide the disdain in his voice. "Apparently he's worried that the humidity in the Crew Quarters is too high and wants to know if we can arrange additional scrubbers from the showers to make sure there isn't a possibility of mold contamination." It was a ridiculous request, but they'd come to find that anything even slightly out of the ordinary was something that caught the thin man's eye. Every one of them had been subject to some comment about regulations and specifications and improvements that needed to be made, often minute and trivial. He'd even suggested that the storage of the food in Imani's freezer could be more efficiently stacked.​
 
Seeing that the lecture was finally over, Andy swung his legs down off the couch and got up. No sense in sticking around here any longer. Something told him that everyone would know about how he and Imani had gotten into trouble by dinnertime, a fact that he wasn’t particularly happy about. There was nothing to be done about it, though. It was a small station, and O’Sullivan looked like the gossipy type. Wasn’t that what midwesterners did all day? Sit around and gossip over their tater tot casseroles? Sighing, he shuffled out of the common area and towards the crew quarters to sulk.

The main problem of living on the station, Andy decided, was that there wasn’t anywhere to go. Normally, when some facet of his life annoyed him, he’d go for a walk to clear his head. Down here at the bottom of the ocean, though, there was nowhere to wander off to. Lying in his room was boring, he couldn’t very well go back to the common area, and sitting around in the labs always felt weird. He decided to go find Imani, figuring that at least they had a shared experience in common. Perhaps she’d be open to gripe about how weirdly overprotective Navarro was about the sub.
 
Juno O’Sullivan
Commons​


While the little talking was amusing, Juno reserved most of her opinions to herself. She found it better to listen than to talk over another wanting to vent. She took a long drink of her water, washing the kale salad down. The two left, likely embarrassed that she was there to witness their show on display. She looked over to Marcos, taking another bite of the kale salad as he talked. Mr. Serrin, the late edition to the crew and researchers. Out of everyone on the station, he made the frequent requests.

Juno shrugs her shoulders, “He could be right.” She retorts, “But everything’s been within the green zone. He’s probably not used to living in close quarters with other people. Give him a few days, maybe weeks to get used to it.” She adds, “God knows I was almost the same my first time down here.” Which was true. It took a bit of talking to the Doc before she came to terms that these would be her living conditions as long as she worked there.
 
Imani Jones
Commons (Workout area)​

Imani skulked off to the small workout room, deciding that a full sprint on the treadmill would help her let off some steam. Her bright jacket had been discarded, hanging off one of the handles to reveal a dull tee and a pair of gym shorts. Her neon pink water bottle was plopped into the holder to the side and the treadmill was set to a good ten mile per hour run. Her new sneakers were already starting to show some wear and tear around the soles: she certainly would need another pair in the coming months with how hard she was working them.

A pair of earbuds were stuck in her ears and hooked up to a small device thrown into one of the cupholders, making her oblivious to the world. If someone was unwise enough to sneak up on her, it would be two people who would be surprised.
 
Unfortunately for him and Imani both, “unwise” was Andy’s middle name. At least, that’s what an ex-girlfriend had told him once. Unwise, foolhardy, dangerous, childish...the list had gone on. He’d simply written her off as a boring rule-follower, content to never speak to her again outside of sending drunken late-night highly emotional multi-paragraph texts that were seen but never replied to.

Andy’s search for Imani didn’t take long at all, and he soon found himself at the gym. Of course, it hadn’t been very difficult to find her. She hadn’t been in her room, nor in the kitchen, and she had little reason to be in any of the labs. He doubted she’d be back in the main common room for some time, and so the workout room was the only logical choice.

Look at that, he thought, stepping into the gym and seeing Imani on the treadmill. I’m a modern-day Sherlock Holmes. With better hair. And no dorky hat.

Walking up behind her, Andy took a moment to marvel at exactly how fast her legs were moving before speaking, giving her a bright, shiny grin.

“Hey, Jonsey!” he said. “I thought I’d find you here! You’re really moving there, huh? Guess you like going fast after all.”
 
Marcos Navarro
Commons​

Andy left quickly enough. Criticism wasn't something the man tended to handle well. Marcos was still adjusting to life outside the military and the fact that the teams brought together in civilian projects like this didn't have the same sort of common goal, common spirit, and common training that allowed them to focus. Or take criticism and move on as part of the job. The pilot shook his head and exhaled loudly before wandering behind the counter now that Imani was gone, leaning across from Juno for a moment with a ponder.

"Research boys and girls sure are keeping to themselves. Starting to feel like staff at a hotel more than, you know, the people who make sure the lights and air stays on and they have a one-way ticket to sunshine and safety if anything goes wrong. Probably think we wouldn't understand anything they said if they did talk to us, anyway," he muttered the last quietly.​
 
Imani Jones
Commons (Workout area)​

Imani cocked her head to the side briefly, knowing that she'd heard something even though she wasn't quite sure what it was. Her brows pinched together as she slowly turned her head around, eyes locked on to Andy the moment he moved into her vision. She let out a yelp and grabbed her jacket, flinging it at him at the speed of fright.
 
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