02: Video

[itstopped]

[Felix is sitting for this one, his lower body hidden, but the sharp-eyed might notice that his crutch is nowhere in sight. His uniform is also gone for good (for now). He's at the long metal table in his barracks, and the surface is absolutely covered with wires, cables, microchips... It looks like he's dismantled an entire fleet's worth of communicators.

He seems a little annoyed about it.]

Does anyone have a spare computer they could lend me? Or even just a motherboard and a serial port connector cable.

[Private to Dr. McCoy]

I think I'm starting to get the hang of it now, Doc. I... thank you, really. It's a big improvement.

[Private to Sarah Connor]

You said you're Gaius's Warden, didn't you? We should talk sometime.

Comments

[truth_is_cold]

There's not much you can accomplish with the system here anyway. The rooms change frequently with the coming and going of residents. I wouldn't be surprised if each single journal is produced according to our individual expectations.

[itstopped]

Probably, yes. The rooms obviously are, unless I missed a memo and everyone else is also sleeping in Galactica racks. [He hasn't actually been in anyone else's room, but he's assuming not!]

[truth_is_cold]

[He turns on the view on his journal so that Felix can get a look at his room. There's some funerary statues and weapons and it's dark.] There were others that were aboard my ship here, but I don't know if they also had rooms from her. But this isn't the home I shared with my family, it's the one I had aboard the ship.

[itstopped]

Mine, too, as you can probably tell. But I haven't been home in eight years, and... [And it's not like he has a home to go to. Even this, living on Galactica, it's sort of farcical at best, given that he got the most dishonorable discharge he could have.]

...Do you know if there's a way to change it, actually? Would they do that for me?

[truth_is_cold]

When you get a warden they can put in a request on your behalf. I don't know if they would honor the requests of other wardens toward an inmate that's not their own, but if the warden has requested temporary representation they may.

In any case, the answer is probably yes. I requested that much of my possessions be returned when I graduated.

[itstopped]

Incentive to get a warden, then. [This is mostly said to himself, and he looks a little distracted by the idea. The more he can shed military life, like an old skin -- albeit one that was ripped away from him -- the better, right?]

I don't... necessarily have an alternative, though. I'd just like out of here.

[truth_is_cold]

Understandable. The moments of mockery make the nature of this place a phenomenal cosmic joke. I'm planning on leaving eventually when the conditions are appropriate.

The Admiral will eventually see to obtaining you a warden, though they're not necessary to graduate. They can be helpful.

[itstopped]

Well, yeah, that too. I mostly just meant these quarters, for now. I don't... belong here.

You're a warden? I thought you were all given incentives to stay.

[truth_is_cold]

My incentive are my close associates here I made while an inmate. The deal is mostly there in the event I do aid my inmate in her graduation.

You don't belong in those quarters or aboard this ship?

[itstopped]

I don't think anyone belongs on this ship, but I'm told my opinion on that doesn't count for much. So for now, I mean these quarters.

You're staying for your friends? [He says it skeptically, but as soon as he does, he realizes how silly that is. Wouldn't he feel better about being here if Dee or Louis were here, or... frak, just about anyone but Gaius?] Fair enough.

[truth_is_cold]

Generally, I'm in agreement. But I do like being alive and having a choice over my destination.

...Closer than friends. But yes. [It's a little easier when you don't have a life to go back to.] Your accommodations will be limited and you won't have a bathroom. But what would you prefer your room to look like?

[itstopped]

[This just earns a weary shrug from Felix.] Life for basic freedoms. Sure. Why not?

[He almost laughs. Limited accommodations, no bathroom... he hardly knows anyone who hasn't been in that position for the last four years.] That's fine. I don't give a frak what it looks like, just... not here.

/handwaved after asking the mods

[truth_is_cold]

[And after a brief moment.]

I attempted to put through the request but received no response. Unsurprisingly. [He may live here, but he doesn't have a lot of faith in the Admiral and it shows in his tone.] When you receive a personal warden they'll have more authority.

Aw :D

[itstopped]

[He looks pretty surprised that Rhade would even ask... although considerably less that he didn't get an answer.]

Excellent.

I... thank you for trying, though. I didn't think...

[truth_is_cold]

[He could write it off as that it was no expenditure of his time. But really? He's nowhere near the person that used to openly resent empathy. It's a necessity of survival, and he remembers what being an inmate was like.]

It's a difficult ship and you had no choice in being brought here.

[itstopped]

[Well, it's not like he doesn't agree, but this is the first time anyone's agreed with him.]

No. No, I didn't.

You don't really seem like the other Wardens.

[truth_is_cold]

I'll take that as a compliment.

It may be only that I was an inmate for longer than I've been a warden. And my "redemption" came at the hands of an inmate as well.

[itstopped]

Really. Do tell. [No, seriously: this is the most interested he's been in anything a warden's had to say since he got here.]

[truth_is_cold]

She decided to take hostages, determined that we all had parasites in our brains. Most of what she was saying when she was holding a gun to my head were things that I said myself at one time.

I experienced a moment of inspired introspection. I didn't even realized I'd graduated as I had no warden at the time to inform me.

[itstopped]

[There's a lot of information packed into a few terse sentences, and Felix takes a quiet moment to process. It all still sounds like so much hokum, but he's at least slightly inclined to take it more seriously, coming from a previous inmate.]

And... how long were you here before that happened?

[truth_is_cold]

Months. From February to October. And it was terrible. [He's not going to lie.]

If I had more choices to go or people to return to, I would have left when I graduated.

[itstopped]

They told me when I got here that I could go to another world...? [He frowns, because, wow, he also has absolutely nowhere to go if that's not the case.]

I'm not especially spoiled for choices, either. [The implication in his voice being that there is no way he's going to follow in Rhade's footsteps, if he graduates.]

[truth_is_cold]

You can. Several have.

[He doesn't blame him. Rhade just happened to have people he was hung up on, on Nietzscheans are strange individualists that despise being alone.] I considered some myself. But there were regulations against genetic engineering in many that would deprive me of rights in many of those universes.

[itstopped]

Genetic engineering.

[Why does every person he meets here that seems to be halfway decent and intelligent wind up being some kind of nightmare alien creature?

It may have something to do with the fact that nonhuman = nightmare alien creature in his mind, of course.]

[truth_is_cold]

My ancestors were, yes. Most of the human subspecies in my universe are products of it.

[Boat is full of nightmare alien creatures, sadly.]