itstopped | Re-Entry 07: Video/Spam

[Public]

[Felix's video is on, but he's not actually very visible; just the edge of his shoulder at the corner of the screen, moving as he does... something with his communicator. It's stationary on the table in his room, but it jostles very slightly every few seconds as he fiddles with it. Most of the view is of his extremely generic-looking if surprisingly rumpled bed.]

I'm sure I'm just repeating some of the chatter that's already gone out over the warden filter, but... has anyone else noticed that our communicators are starting to pick up radio waves? Has anyone gotten a signal? [He pauses, with another slight twitch of the screen.] And I don't suppose anyone has a spare I could borrow?

[Whatever he's doing, he's too absorbed to switch filters, and this isn't secret enough to make private, so he just continues from there:] Narvin, I'm going to try this out in the CES. I might be able to club together a rudimentary DRADIS, maybe even a motion detector... [He pulls back a little bit now, just enough to get one eye on the screen. He's not smiling any more than usual, but he looks oddly excited.] Dean? I'll see you up there at the usual time. Uh, bring the Colt.

[Backdated Spam for Racetrack]

[It's a while before he makes it to the pub. He really does go to work for a bit, but mostly that's because he needs the time to pull himself together. He's feeling manic and angry at the same time, disjointed, at loose ends with himself in a way he hasn't been in a long time. In the end, he pays a visit to Dean to settle himself and has a cigarette on the deck first, and then makes his way to the pub, knocking on the door.]

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[What the frak, Earth? seems like a decent start.] It might still be. I have a friend here from pre-technological Earth. She's never even flown before. [Racetrack, you'll love Morgana. She's the best and craziest all at the same time.]

Mal probably hasn't flown either...

Gotta say, my favorite so far has to be the pie.

[He sits down a little heavily, taking back half the rest of his drink at a go. Because things don't have to be awkward, really.] I noticed that. [He gives her a slightly wry smile.] Marriage proposals already? No wonder you're working here. The food alone... [He shrugs.] I'll give it credit for that much. It's a lot frakking better than algae mash and rotgut.

I'm about to blow your mind.

The stuff we got on the Galactica? Way better than the Astral Queen.

[ She basically hasn't eaten much for the last few months. ]

And there are worse reasons to marry someone than pies.

Well, no one was asking you to go tag Cylons from your cell. [He shrugs, toying with his glass.] We always knew we were getting better than most of the Fleet. It was the same on New Caprica. [Which she was on the wrong side of, to some people's minds... but then again, so was he.

He brushes that memory off quickly and leans back, smirking.] Then again, I guess they wouldn't have been asking you to tag Cylons, even if you'd been flying CAP. [Which is another thing they're not supposed to be arguing about.] Uh, my only point is, your standards have got to be pretty low by now.

[ She snorts. A lot of her amusement is at his discomfiture. ]

Really frakking low. In which case, you can hardly blame me for proposing marriage.

[Look, it's hard to know how to be friends again when there are two giant elephants in the room, and when he's gotten used to the freedom of speaking his mind. He tries to settle into the banter.]

Honestly, I think you could do better.

Yeah? You got anyone in particular in mind?

[ Those elephants are gonna come up sooner or later. B| ]

You just got here. Give me a minute before I start setting you up. [Not like he has many friends to set her up with, anyway. Who's he going to throw her at? Barbara?

...Hmm.]

Pardon me for being curious.

So... how is it, here? You make a lot of friends?

[And, see, this is the problem. He hates it here; he's never made any kind of secret of that, not even to his closest friends. The only thing he's kept quiet is how many times he's tried to find ways to leave, with full knowledge of what it is he'd be leaving to. But... there's the elephant.

He clears his throat, frowning down at his drink, then takes the rest in one shot and refills his glass.] Well, the amenities are nice, I suppose. It's like having Cloud Nine back. And some of the people are all right... my superiors-- my bosses are all, you know, acceptable. I've got a few friends around. You, uh, met Dean...

[He snorts.] And then there's everyone else. Superpowers are a common theme. Aliens, time travelers, so-called superior beings. Lots of twins around. Don't shoot any of them. [He may have shot one of them.] It's some kind of... multiuniversal coincidence, supposedly. Even Dean has one. {Who he may have shot.] And the humans are... [Once upon a time, he might have thought of them with some kind of hope, some kind of belief. Now he thinks of Chris d'Amico threatening to kick his leg out from under him in the locker room.] ...human.

To be honest, I don't expect much from humans. And even less from - [ she airquotes here ] "superior beings".

[ It's true. She's always had a cynical outlook on humanity, too. But she also believes, to a certain extent, that it doesn't matter. Humanity is her side. Frak everyone else. ]

...what do you mean by 'acceptable'?

They're fine. [He's thinking of Narvin when he says it, tempering his praise because he's more all right with working for the Time Lord than he used to be, but still not overly fond of the man. On the other hand, there's Barbara, and again: hmm.]

Well-- so I've got three jobs right now. The research lab with a Time Lord named Narvin; um, Maintenance with Dean... [Oops?] and the engine room in the afternoons. The other warden down there is a frakking nightmare, but Barbara, she's one of the better ones. You'd like her. She's one of the few wardens around here that doesn't make me think of Adama and Roslin more often than not.

Yeah?

[ Note to self: make friends with Barbara. ]

So why's the other one a nightmare?

[ Their friendship was originally based on bitching about things, right? They should get back to the basics. ]

[That's a fair point, Racetrack. Still, he raises a brow.] Are you sure you want to hear me disparage your fellow wardens? So soon?

I didn't get a personality transplant with the warden badge, you know.

[Also a fair point. He hesitates only for another second, then leans in, dropping his voice a little bit.] Frankly, he reminds me a little of Baltar, if he'd been some giant-headed blue alien instead of... what he was. [If he's honest with himself, he has to admit that some of the things that drew him to Gaius are a lot less attractive in a body that is, itself, much less attractive.] Grandiose, selfish, self-aggrandizing, completely incapable of understanding things like consequences or basic frakking causality. His girlfriend took over the ship and he spent most of the aftermath berating the rest of us for wanting justice and not wanting him to be the one to take over her job. He's clueless, not to mention dangerous.

[He laughs suddenly.] Well, really, all I need to tell you is that he calls himself Megamind. Even Gaius never went that far.

...and he's a warden?

[ Wow she's actually a little bit appalled. ]

He's a graduate. Something happened during the takeover, gods know what.

[ Guess who looks like she took a full-on bite into a lemon.

Which she's done, more than once, usually on a dare. ]

I guess frakking someone can make people do weird things.

It's not just him that's like that. He's just the most... visible. There's not much unity among the inmates, but there's even less among the wardens.

That...

[ kind of surprises her, but ]

...actually makes sense. People who've been kidnapped have more of a common cause.

Re-Entry 07: Video/Spam

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