Relaxation Ritual [1/x]

Posted on Sun May 3rd, 2026 @ 3:14pm by Captain Jaro & Petty Officer 1st Class Moana Thomas

931 words; about a 5 minute read

Mission: Episode 0: 48 Hours and Counting
Location: Holodeck
Timeline: T -20 hours

As far as holodeck programs went, it was not the most sophisticated. Confined to a single room, though expansive enough and cleverly divided into sections by the placement of its main attractions, the appeal relied heavily on flashing lights and a myriad of electronic sounds. They occasionally mimicked music but more often seemed intent on boosting the ego. Declarations of "Great Shot!" and "Bonus Stage!" rose above the trills of synthetic fanfares and the staccato chime of credits being won and lost in rapid succession.

The air carried its own brand of nostalgia: musty, with a faint overlay of processed cheese, and the occasional waft of tomato paste and pepperoni drifting in from the restaurant side. If one didn’t watch their step, there were plenty of sticky patches on the garish carpet to suggest how often the "No Food and Drink Past This Point" sign was ignored. The lingering stains were punctuated by the well-trodden residue of once-chewed gum and the occasional bulge where the wear and tear had been left to create tripping hazards.

Between the foot-sticking, defeat klaxons, and the ever-present scent of pizza dough, the sensory overload was so complete it became difficult to tell what hit you first. It was deeply reminiscent of an actual arcade pizzeria except for the distinct lack of people, particularly in the under-12 age group, and that might have been seemed strange at first unless you'd ever actually been to one of these places and experienced how intensely frustrating it was to try and secure the air hockey high score with toddlers screaming in your earhole. Everyone, at some point in their life, has dreamed about having a place like this to themselves.

Mo was playing herself.

It was not the same as playing by herself. That might have been a reasonable expectation given the clear intent of maintaining a monopoly on wait-times but as opportunistic as solitude would have been under the circumstances, it was a little difficult to claim any kind of triumph playing one-sided air hockey. In the absence of a real opponent, she'd done the next best thing and programmed a replica based on her proven track record. Some might have said it was cheating; this way, she could technically claim victory no matter the result. But Mo didn't work like that and her current level of frustration at being 3-points down was just about as palpable as the pervasive stench of grease baked into synthetic carpet fibres. A tiny amount of pettiness had seen her remove the other-Mo's capacity to talk a while back and so now, in the place of any kind of sporting banter, there was just the relentless clack, clack of a zooming puck and the inevitable barrage of expletives as the score stretched out by another point.

The doorway to Holodeck 2 slid open, but what sat on the other side thereof was anything but expected. Jaro stepped through, expecting the dry, whistling winds of the Tellarite Highlands and the smell of ancient lichen. Instead, he was slapped in the face by a wall of synthetic grease and a high-pitched digital scream that sounded suspiciously like a dying mass spectrometer.

Jaro froze. He was currently dressed in what he considered his "Edutainment" finest: a voluminous, multi-layered wrap of coarse, hand-woven fibers in ochre and slate, accessorized with a ceremonial bone-bead necklace and a rather tall, feathered head-piece that tended to tickle his own ears. He was prepared to participate in a 3D-reconstruction of the First Great Migration of the Tellarites, a cultural-historical simulation he’d spent three nights researching and calibrating.

He certainly hadn't calibrated... this.

It took him more than a few moments to adjust to the rapidly pulsing neon onslaught. He blinked, the feathers on his head-piece swaying as he took in the scene. To any other officer, this would have been a mess of obsolete tech and poor hygiene, but Jaro’s anthropological instincts sparked. He’d read about these "dens of digital ritual"—the Pre-Third-World-War communal entertainment hubs of Earth. He recognized the smell; it was 'pepperoni,' a primitive cured meat that apparently held a sacred status among the youth of the late 20th century.

He took a cautious step forward, his boots making a distinct schluck sound as they pulled away from a particularly stubborn patch of high fructose corn syrup laden residue. He peered through the gloom, past a row of blinking cabinets labeled 'Galaga' and 'Dig Dug,' toward the source of a repetitive, rhythmic thudding.

There, bathed in the flickering ultraviolet glow of an air hockey table, were two women. To Jaro’s eyes, they were identical—two versions of a medical Petty Officer. Both leaning over the table with predatory intensity. Curiously, though, the second figure seemed to be mimicking the first's vivacious body language; she was mouthing silent, exaggerated taunts and wearing a triumphant, toothy grin that mirrored the other’s expressiveness, yet no sound emerged from her throat. It was a bizarre display of mute banter.

Jaro straightened his feathered head-piece, feeling his academic curiosity outweighing his confusion over the scheduling conflict. He cleared his throat, though the sound was mostly drowned out by a nearby machine shouting "GAME OVER" in a gravelly, synthesized baritone.

"I must admit, Petty Officer, in all my studies of human recreational history, the literature never quite captured the sheer... olfactory weight of the experience. Though I do suspect my current attire might be slightly out of place?"

[TBC]

Captain Jaro
Captain
USS Amazônia

Petty Officer 1st Class Moana Thomas
Head Nurse
USS Amazônia

 

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