The others woke slowly, it seemed, disoriented and groggy, gradually coming to in their pods. Not so the woman in the leftmost pod. She lay quiet, motionless, doing her best to remain hidden while the strange man gave his strange speech. Only once he was gone did the screaming start. She sat bolt upright, a mess of dark hair flying out behind her. Her words, at first, made no sense, like she was speaking an unfamiliar language; she abruptly switched to English, and whether she was any more comprehensible for it is a matter of opinion. "Every possible demon's unhallowed genitalia," she said, "
fucking ow!"
She had quite a striking appearance, this strange yelling woman. She was of some East Asian descent, with straight black hair and light brown skin. She could almost have been pretty, in another context; even the strange purple scars protruding from under her clothes to wind around her neck and left arm wouldn't have been a deal-breaker. But there was something about her eyes, a haggard, worried look as they moved between her newfound companions, scanning each in turn before moving on. She was thin - scrawny, even - with dark circles under her eyes. The intensity of her reaction couldn't be entirely explained by her surroundings.
Gradually - over what seemed to her to be a very long time, but was really only seconds - the strange woman brought herself back under control; she finally remembered to breathe. She looked down, busying herself with something in the pod. She found a pair of glasses, and returned them to their rightful place on her nose; she then took something else, which wasn't immediately visible. As she exited the pod, three things became clear. She was tiny, barely five feet tall, and her scarring wasn't just limited to her upper body; the thing she'd taken was a book, a thin paperback that had seen better days. For a moment, she was distracted by the barcode tattooed on her right shoulder; then she stepped forward.
"Uhm, hey," the strange woman said. "I- I'm sorry you, ah, I'm sorry you h- heard that. I..." Her voice was no more substantial than the rest of her, and soon trailed off. "It j- just really hurt, ah, b- because..."
She glanced down at her left hand, where her scars were at their worst; or, perhaps, at the book she was holding. She paused, then, to fuss with her hair, adjusting it so it covered her shoulders, the back of her neck, as much of the angry purple splotches as it could. She again became distracted by the barcode, but couldn't quite hide it, and soon gave up.
LO-314-A4A-11. Is that supposed to mean me?
"...it d- doesn't matter," she said, frowning and looking away. "Uhm, I- I don't think y- you know anything m- more than I do, right? S- so I guess we'll be working together. You can call me, ah..."
Lo? No, that didn't sound right.
Eleven? Even worse, and the other number was far too long. That left only one possibility, but in that there was some promise. The fourth letter of the alphabet, after all, was D.
"...Ada, i- if you want to."