No Touchy!

<snip>
"First..." he said menacingly "Promise me you're not gonna go around trying to touch up Cass all the time"

before adding

"....or Phi."
</snip>

"I wo- I won't." Said Justin, not especially convincingly.
"Oh give it to him."
White Wolf did his stuff and Justin buzzed back to life - well, a close approximation - this time as a hard light hologram. Alex noted an odd glimmer in his eyes.

Jay's words echoed in Phi's mind and she screwed up her nose at the thought of the hologram touching her. Not without a shower at least. He looked like he needed a shower. Could holograms take showers?
Her thoughts were interrupted as Alex shoved past and actually did touch her. It took her a moment to register.
"Don't touch me!" She protested.
"And don't flatter yourself." Alex retorted. "Narrow squeeze, that's all."
Phi straightened her glasses and tucked a strand of her hair neatly behind her ear. "Right. Sorry."
He glanced at her, one eyebrow briefly raised, but carried on over to Jay who raised his own eyebrows at Solvay's expression- it wasn't like Alex to look so concerned.
"Listen, Jay. I remember this guy from before the..." he stared through the other man as he searched for an appropriate word. "... 'incident'" he decided. "And he wasn't a bag of fun. Caused a few problems, if you know what I mean."
"Yes." Said Jay, flatly. "I do."
"Ah, good. Well I hope, as Captain, you'll make sure he's kept under strict watch, he doesn't look right to me. Looks even more unhinged than before."
Jay looked at him "I'm not Captain, yet."
"You will be."
Jay gave him a half smile and an almost imperceptible nod. So he had Solvay's vote. And he was right about the hologram, there was something unsettling in the way he was holding himself.
Alex said no more, just tramped back past Phi, hands sarcastically in the air to demonstrate how much he wasn't touching her. She gave him a look. He could be so rude. He thought about how nice it would be if he could touch her and dug in his pocket for a precious fag.

"What's the hold up, are we nearly there?" Seymour whinged from the rear. The party began trudging supply-wards again, bringing the strange newly hard hologram with them.
"Do you ever shut up?" Cass hissed. She was peeved because Niples had been whittering throughout Phil and Jay's conversation and she'd been especially INTERESTED in Phil and Jay's conversation.

"Oh!" Phi's voice chimed. "I think we're nearly there." She turned to the others and smiled warmly. "Perhaps we can start getting things organised now-"

"EVERBODY DOWN!" Davie's voice boomed...
Everyone obeyed except Phi. "What?"
A millisecond later a large, damp tentacle wrapped around her waist...

<What is the beastie? A despair squid perhaps? Or a relation. Maybe they'll become trapped in a bizarre group hallucination for a while. Or maybe it's one of the fish things' family.>