Re-Entry 08: Video/Spam
Help!
[The cry goes out while the video is still turning on. The picture, when it appears, is chaotic: Felix Gaeta, ashen grey and soaked with sweat and tears of panic, but only for a second before the shaking camera turns on what looks like an empty Western ghost town, caught from a high vantage point, shingles visible at the bottom of the screen.
Not empty. There are snarls and yowls and a terrifyingly organic sound coming from below.
Felix's voice cuts in again, tight with fear. He's not a hero. He's not a fighter. He's the one at the controls, and for all that he's usually good at staying calm in a crisis, it's a lot frakking easier when there's a console between him and it. He sounds a little hysterical.]
SOS! SOS! I'm pinned down in the-- oh, gods-- [There's another furious roar from below; his voice hitches, the camera shakes.] --the CES. Something attacked us. I think Dean is dead. I--
[There's a scream from underneath, unmistakeably human. The communicator drops against the shingles--] Dean? [--and cuts out.]
[Open Spam for Level Two/Infirmary, Later]
[After it's all over, after they've done what they can with Dean's corpse and patched up whatever needs to be on the survivors, Felix is set adrift into the aftermath. He should get cleaned up and then stay with Dean, he knows, or else he should get back to work and keep something like this from happening again. But he can't seem to make himself go to the latter just yet, not with Dean dead less than an hour, and the former...
He's always known that the death toll exists here, but he's never had to really confront it before, not in a way he couldn't brush off and ignore. The truth is that it scares him more than almost anything else about the Barge, even here, even now. It's not ignorance; it's not that he's never seen anything like it before. It's that he has.
The pull to sit by Dean's side and wait is powerful, but in the end, he winds up haunting the door to the infirmary, still red-eyed and disheveled, constantly peeking inside.]
((Right after/congruent with this, obviously.))
[The cry goes out while the video is still turning on. The picture, when it appears, is chaotic: Felix Gaeta, ashen grey and soaked with sweat and tears of panic, but only for a second before the shaking camera turns on what looks like an empty Western ghost town, caught from a high vantage point, shingles visible at the bottom of the screen.
Not empty. There are snarls and yowls and a terrifyingly organic sound coming from below.
Felix's voice cuts in again, tight with fear. He's not a hero. He's not a fighter. He's the one at the controls, and for all that he's usually good at staying calm in a crisis, it's a lot frakking easier when there's a console between him and it. He sounds a little hysterical.]
SOS! SOS! I'm pinned down in the-- oh, gods-- [There's another furious roar from below; his voice hitches, the camera shakes.] --the CES. Something attacked us. I think Dean is dead. I--
[There's a scream from underneath, unmistakeably human. The communicator drops against the shingles--] Dean? [--and cuts out.]
[Open Spam for Level Two/Infirmary, Later]
[After it's all over, after they've done what they can with Dean's corpse and patched up whatever needs to be on the survivors, Felix is set adrift into the aftermath. He should get cleaned up and then stay with Dean, he knows, or else he should get back to work and keep something like this from happening again. But he can't seem to make himself go to the latter just yet, not with Dean dead less than an hour, and the former...
He's always known that the death toll exists here, but he's never had to really confront it before, not in a way he couldn't brush off and ignore. The truth is that it scares him more than almost anything else about the Barge, even here, even now. It's not ignorance; it's not that he's never seen anything like it before. It's that he has.
The pull to sit by Dean's side and wait is powerful, but in the end, he winds up haunting the door to the infirmary, still red-eyed and disheveled, constantly peeking inside.]
((Right after/congruent with this, obviously.))
Spam
When she sees Felix her chest tightens, and it's a moment before she speaks, voice soft and concerned.]
Hey.
Spam
But she's still his boss, and he's made enough of a spectacle of himself today, so he takes a deep breath and flashes her a tight smile.] Hey.
Spam
You really don't have to do that.
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If it were just that, he might let go anyway, because the whole last year of his life has been about breaking those boundaries one way or another. If he admits, though, to what she's saying, if he lets the floodgates open on this one, he'd have to admit the same truth about the Colonies, and New Caprica, and that he can't do. That's something he gets around by thinking about as little as possible; even now, it swims past his thoughts and is immediately shoved away.
So he just gives her a brittle smile and gives her hand a quick squeeze before pulling back.]
Really, Barbara, I'm fine. I just... [He can admit to one truth, anyway; he exhales shakily, giving a glance to the door.] ...I can't stand this frakking death toll.
Spam
But she won't leave him alone, either.]
It freaks me out. [It's a quiet, solemn confession.] Resurrections - they've happened on my world, but they're not exactly an everyday occurrence. It's not natural, not for us.
[Her lips quirk.] But I guess that's kind of hypocritical, considering my deal is supposed to bring people back. I'm hoping it just - changes things so they never died.
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Were the Cylons based on humans?
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[Her voice goes quiet.] Especially when you're coexisting with people who can die.
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She's always accepted that she's going to die, probably on the job. Coming back, on the other hand...]
It probably helps that it's - we know it's not forever. Eventually, we go home. [After a moment, quietly.] Or we disappear.
Spam
So he stiffens a little at her addendum and glances away, pressing his lips tight together.]
That's not necessarily permanent, either. [He says it as neutrally as he can, tries not to sound as bitter as he feels about it.] Do you think that's the idea? To instill some... new paradigm of impermanence in us?
Spam
It might be another way to keep us off balance.
Spam