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You mean...like, from real animals?

Once a farmboy, always a farmboy, apparently. Jedao and his geese and his sheep. Kujen is pretty sure he wouldn't understand the appeal even if he did still have a heart.

"Yeah, exactly. We've got a couple of 'em on deck, some goats and crap. Nothing that actually makes wool but there's probably someone upstairs who can actually tell you more about what they're actually good for? I am not a farm boy, my interest in 'em starts and ends at the dinner table."

It's some good quality rambling, filled with lots of interesting nothingness, which gives him time to use his hands to pull his communicator out instead, typing with both hands to write up a quick message to Hakkai.

hey ive got someone who knows ur man riding shotgun in my head atm 1 to 10 what panic station i should be at

Damn. Apparently he overshot it. Oh well.

Eiffel's hands delete the message before it can be sent.

No, you won't be doing that.

The starstruck saccharine edge is gone. Kujen doesn't sound angry, now, just bored.

What hey no he didn't do that--

The panic slams in like a jackhammer at the sudden realisation he has no idea what anyone from Jedao's world is capable of except for the part where involuntary mind surgery is very very real.

"Gloves are off, huh?" His voice is surprisingly steady, even to himself. "Sounds like you don't want Hakkai finding out. Didn't do so hot in round one?"

I can control your body without having to feel its pain Kujen informs him mildly. He doesn't actually force Eiffel to stop talking, though. It's useful, for instance, to know the name of the man Jedao lives with.

Well that sucks. So Eiffel just laughs, a bit pitch from fear but a genuine attempt at scorn.

"Yeah, so what? You think I haven't? What the hell do you think you can do to try and kill me that won't just make me stronger? Jedao isn't even here for you to screw with, you half-rate earworm!"

I could kill you very easily, in fact.

He's never actually had an anchor who was anything other than human, and he isn't connected to the body enough to realize it. He also doesn't know about the toll; he left to find new hands before it happened to Mahar.

Jedao's unfortunate choices aside, I do actually have other priorities. Tell me more about this place.

He starts moving around Eiffel's cabin - comfortable in the low gravity - gathering bits of mechanical flotsam.

The sensation of his body moving outside of his control is more than a bit distressing, and he's trying to fight it as hard as he fucking can.

"Yeah? Two thirteen-year-olds nearly beat you to it, jackass." His teeth are gritted with what is mostly psychosomatic effort. "And then you have to find another body, right? I guarantee you've found the easiest target right now."

"Have I?" He says out loud, in Eiffel's voice, although his tone is remote, bored. His hands flip through Eiffel's communicator. He reads messages from Jedao and Hakkai, as well as explanations from good samaritans to other visitors, and then new arrivals before them, scrolling through it all at a pace that suggests prodigious but not strictly superhuman speed-reading.

"How convenient."

H-HEY-?!

Well that's a new phobia unlocked, apparently. Or perhaps an old one reinforced - either way Kujen gets to feel his new body gag as Eiffel tries to scream through the control forced on him.

Alright, this stopped being funny like, ten minutes ago! Who the hell are you?!

Oh, can't you guess? Is it that Jedao doesn't confide in you, or that you don't listen?

There's only one ghost in his life, after all.

It takes almost a minute of scrolling back to find the Admiral's announcement of Jedao's pairing with Shen Wei. Kujen files that away.

Perhaps he'd just been hoping for the possibility of it being literally anyone else.

Because the conclusion he comes to makes his blood run cold.

Kujen...?

Eiffel is not a man of particularly defensive mental faculties. He's only human, after all. But now he's throwing every bit of effort he can find into shoving against the parts of himself he can feel out of his control, trying to claim something back.

Don't you even think about touching a hair on Shen Wei's goddamn head or I swear-!!

Kujen has a thousand years of experience. And he has constructed the math to favor him. When he chooses to exert it, control over the body is his. He pockets the communicator and begins rifling around the room.

If you prove useful, I won't need to bother anyone else.

What the hell does useful even mean? All I do is fiddle with radios and Jedao's cock! No-one takes me seriously and my inmate's a doll!

The only real point of interest in Eiffel's room, now that Kujen's seen the bedroom and bathroom, is the rec-room-cum-lounge. He's still got a box of scraps in the corner, that are positively medieval by Kujen's standards, with a few half-shaped pieces here and there; rough walkie-talkies, dismantled CD players and power cables - and a particularly homemade cattle prod, only half dismantled because he got distracted partway, but still relatively intact.

You've already proven you can do whatever you want to me and I can't even touch you, how much more useful do you freaking want?!

I want to live, of course.

As of now, he only has a week, at most. But Jedao has a key to the engine room. Kujen is certain he can figure it out. He collects a few mechanical odds and ends - including spending a minute re-calibrating the marshmallow prod - then heads out, walking the floors, searching for a door that matches the room he awoke in.

Nope! No no no no no no--

It reads more as the incessant insistence of a toddler not getting their way, than a panicked grown man trying desperately to fight against the being puppeteering his system, but the effect is the same - resistance, regardless, the best he can manage.

And hey, starting from the first floor and needing to go down to- shit no he can read Eiffel's thoughts it is pink elephants all the way down right now. No thinking about Jedao's room just keep him fucking busy.

You're not going to be able to live here, jackass! Once the week's over you're going back to your grave where you goddamn belong!! You won't get to keep anything!

The power exists here to sustain me. If it won't be used for my benefit, I simply need to take control of it.

He's blandly confident in his ability to do so. The barge is a machine that is alive that runs on resonances and temporal cycles and Vibes™, and that is, in fact, what he is most expert in.

Ah. That's a Shuos door, plainly. And it opens for Eiffel's face.

Kujen runs, awkwardly, very nearly faceplanting, ducking into the nearest empty cabin, which is 5-10. It has been a very long time since he had to run, longer since he had to actual control the body doing it.

Still, Eiffel will feel emotions bleeding through: a flare of nervousness - he does not particularly want Hakkai to catch him again - accompanied by a spike of smug happiness. He had hoped he wouldn't need to hack the door. It will save so much time.

And Kujen in turn gets an emotion that would almost surprise Eiffel, if he wasn't living it: anger. Outraged and fiercely protective.

Okay, sitrep real quick.

Cons: He can't move, he can't talk, all he can do is be a body until Kujen chooses to abandon him for his next prize - Shen Wei. If he doesn't try and hurt the whole damn Barge herself in getting there.

Pros: Right now he doesn't need to breathe. And his own thoughts can be very, very loud. (Plus, maybe there are psychics on board that might hear him.)

Pryce and Carter 838.: Avoid unnecessary interpersonal friction with strategic doses of humor, down-time, and behavioral modifications.

Time to work his magic.

HARRY TRUMAN DORIS DAY RED CHINA JOHNNIE RAY--

This really isn't necessary. If you're worried about Jedao, you needn't be.

He cracks the door slightly so that he'll hear whenever Hakkai leaves the room, and situates himself fully hidden it, toeing off Eiffel's shoes to sit in lotus position. He rolls up Eiffel's left sleeve.

Don't get him wrong, he's still trying to fight back against the physical control. But he's also focusing as hard as he can on the most stupid inconsequential bullshit to try and drown out any useful thoughts. Like, as a completely random example, the music video. If he had his voice he'd be screaming along.

Rosenbergs, H-bomb, Sugar Ray, Panmunjom! Brando, "The King and I", and "The Catcher in the Rye"!

Weren't you just saying you didn't want me to take Shen Wei in your place? As though moving on wasn't tempting enough already.

He doesn't even say it all that meanly - diffidently, dismissively.

He even gives his answer on beat to the chorus, not dropping a bar.

Then I can call my friends up! Once you're off my back, they're gonna pound your ass in!! We didn't start the fire--!!

Obviously I'd kill you on the way out.

He still doesn't know about the death toll. Not quite enough skimming. A Shuos would never have made that mistake, but he was bored of people talking.

He touches the makeshift cattle prod to the inside of Eiffel's forearm, sending a nasty jolt through the big nerves there. The body jerks and the air smells like burnt hair. Eiffel can't control the body, but he's the one that feels the pain.

Perhaps I'll leave you in several chunks for Jedao to find. He blames himself so easily.

When Eiffel's thoughts suddenly cut short, there's an almost visceral sensation to his thoughts of a glitch flickering. Purely psychosomatic, but neat.

But holy shit that hurt, and it gets Kujen a good few seconds of silence as Eiffel's body is forced to breathe through the pain.

And there's a flicker of determination, like a stubborn piece of grit that won't be scrubbed off the gears. You want hard ball, Kujen, you got it.

Four faces get plastered across the inside of Eiffel's eyes, so intensely it's nearly a hallucination.

IS THIS THE REAL LIFE? IS THIS JUST FANTASYYYYYY!!

Edited 2024-06-14 07:36 (UTC)

You're actually a better singer than Jedao, Kujen observes, dourly.

He runs the tip of the prod over the fresh burn, although he doesn't activate it, mentally calculating how much voltage will render the arm unusable in the short term.

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