Project Moongate

Garrit chuckles slightly to himself. It was a nervous laugh, as he'd have to work with others when they got to the station, and... that's not really his thing.

There's a rumble as the shuttle enters the stations gravity, slowing down.

Thomas puts a small smile on his face as they dock, a little thrill of electricity going down his spine as he considers all of the challenges ahead of him as an engineer out upon the floating rock of the moon. As he ponders this, and lets his excitement overwhelm his original purpose for coming to this place, and electric charge goes up the hand in his pocket, and he grits his teeth, forcing back a yelp of surprise and pain. The metal orb in his pocket brought him sharply back to the reality of the situation. With a sigh, Thomas brought his expectations back to the place they should be, gearing himself to disappoint the other scientists at the base. He knew he was going to have to lower his standards and his external intelligence by a good bit. It killed him inside. He hated giving less than his all, but he needed to be cautious. To show his resources at this juncture without knowing if he could trust all the players would be the height of stupidity. So he had no choice but to sit back and wait. So he did. He leaned back, watching and waiting, preparing for the opportune moment to show his hand.

Garrit distracts himself by looking at the ship, ensuring that they would survive the turbulence, observing the week points in the ship. He then cranes his neck to look out one of the porthole windows, trying to see the structure of the station.

Alex immediately begins testing to ensure that all of his gravtech continues to function. Observers will notice a dozen lines of colorful power coming from his hands and ear covers.

Elain is watching him worriedly.

The roof of the station opens, and the shuttle lands with a shudder inside.

"It works! Ahaha! It all works!" he yells, then looks around, smiling widely.

Thomas glances at the crazy man, contemplating the fact that they would probably work together. Oh, it wasn't that he wasn't brilliant. Thomas just had no desire to work with the unstable anymore. To be honest, Thomas didn't want to work with anyone anymore. He was tired, and he was burnt out. He enjoyed challenges, but it seemed to him that every one he completed for someone meant three more someone else would demand. Thomas was a problem solver, and he accepted that fact willingly, but even he needed a break sometimes. While the trip here had helped, it had also made him realize that he needed to be doing something, not just sitting around, looking at the people around him. He sighed for what must have been the hundredth time about the catch twenty-two he was in, both excited and nervous for his first day on the rock.

Elain leads/drags him over to a bench. "Sit! You're being crazy again."

"But it works! It all works! Even my bio generators!" Alex looks very happy, at least.

"Sit!" Elain says, forcefully.

Alex sits.

"Anytime you want to let me get out of here, just let me know," Thomas mutters sarcastically, not wanting to spend any more time with the crazy sycophants around him than he had to. Tesla, he thought, I may end up regretting taking this posting, particularly if I have to spend much time with the insane gravity specialist. "Specialists," he grumbles. "Are they all insane?"

"Well, ~I'm~ fairly normal. At least, I think I am." Kasey smiles as she climbs out of the shuttle, stretching.

Elain and Alex exit the shuttle. James immediately looks around for a control panel to fiddle with. He wanted to make some slight adjustments to the gravity, already having noted that it is .163 percent lighter than it should be.

One of the guards notices him looking around. "There's a control panel in the computer room."

Alex looks at the vague building schematics he has in his notebook and makes his way to the control panel. Elain follows, looking around. Alex isn't really looking around the building. He doesn't care, cause he's got to fine tune the gravity.

The building is very sleek, if bare. Several cork-boards are attached to the wall, with thumb-tacks in little bags next to them in case the residents wish to decorate.

Using his gravity device, he absentmindedly leaves a trail of hyper-advanced gravity theory notes stuck to the cork-boards behind him.

Elain is unimpressed, and makes sure they are nice and straight.

Thomas wanders out, looking for the guard in charge. Bubbles, with a mechanical screech giggle, has escaped again, scuttling along the walls, watching all the fancy people and looking for a good place to hack the station's O2 levels if he needed to. His wicked little mind knew that one day, the fleshies would go too far, and he'd have to space them.
"Bubbles. You know you do not have permission to kill us all," Thomas calls out, having seen the furtive glances of his mechanical monkey. He sighed. No matter what programming he tried to give Bubbles, he somehow always had a mischievous mind, and his love of hacking was a source of great disturbance to Thomas, and the research facilities he had been to before. Bubbles, meanwhile, cursed whatever fate had caused his creator to read Asimov.

Surprisingly, the space station seems empty. It's rather large, so it's not much of a cause for concern- perhaps they're all in a different part of the station- but there's an unnerving quiet to the building.

"Well... this all seems pretty... horrible... I suppose all I can do is to find my quarters, unload my possessions, and get ready for work. Should be fun. If I can find my bunk." Thomas says all of this out in the open, looking around for some kind of sign pointing the way. Bubbles scrambles down, alighting quickly upon his arm. Bubbles glances at the minor annoyances of the guards, thinking of what could happen if he ever managed to change the absolutes of the programming that forced him to obey Asimov's Principles, baring his teeth at the thought.
((For the record, Bubbles looks like a cross between a chimpanzee and a capuchin.))

Alex arrives at the control panel. "Let's see... If we raise this, lower this, alter the output here, yes, this will work." He mutters to himself as he starts fiddling with it.

There are indeed signs, and when he finds the room set aside for the men, he'd notice that there are strange red patterns on the sheets.

"Who was messing with this thing!?" Alex yells angrily. "I specifically requested that the gravity controls not be touched! Rage! Now I've got to shut off gravity, where's the speaker function..." Alex starts searching the panel for some kind of speaker button, as to warn everyone before he resets the gravity.

The speaker button is... Broken. What's left is painted with something... Red.

Thomas gives the strange patterned sheets a long look before shrugging. Beginning to put his things away, he hears the announcement, and races to turn the artificial gravity on for certain highly sensitive projects. Checking that the stasis environment is correct, he puts a wooden box upon the nightstand, almost like a little shrine. Glancing around to make sure no one is watching, he flops the lid of the box, and quickly puts a medium sized metal orb into the recess in the middle, which had been clearly made for it, but was well worn from years of use. The box itself was very old, but had been lovingly cared for, the antique look of the box giving the "shrine" a vintage look. Hurriedly, he slips the box closed, and seals it with a special lock, before easing off his shoes and laying on the bed, staring off into space as he contemplated the ceiling.

Alex sighs, and presses a few buttons. Gravity turns off and Elain sighs. Alex then fiddles with the controls some more.