ataraxion | NINE: video

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NINE: video

[The room Taylor's sat in is dark, unidentifiable from the wall behind her, but soft, blue-tinged light from another source washes over her face intermittently. It highlights how drawn she looks, pale, tired. She's a mess, really. Even by Tranquility standards.]

It's January, right? Been counting on the jumps since I got here. [She isn't slurring as she speaks, but the lack of focus in her expression and sluggishness to her movements makes it clear she's inebriated to anyone who knows what to look for.] Guess it doesn't matter though. Just start calling them by numbers. I was meant to turn twenty in December. Be an instructor back at the Academy. [She frowns for a moment, taking a drink out of an unlabelled bottle.] Or maybe they'd have terminated me.

[Another pause, and she shifts off to the side for a moment, putting the bottle down. When she comes back into view she’s holding something else – a mask. Her mask, an mongrel canine face, beaten, bruised and bloody. She holds it up, hanging off the fingers of one hand.]

Turns out these show you ghosts. Hallucinations. Whatever. If that isn't fucked up enough to get you thinking don't touch them, you're a fucking idiot. [Very evidently angry, suddenly, half a snarl on her mouth. She looks at the mask again, then drops it to one side.] Didn't want to see my old man the little he was around, sure as fuck didn't want to see him here. Thing I've been thinking, though - what do you see, you wear someone else's?

[She doesn't hold the second mask up for the camera, but it's there in her hands, looks like a modern military gas mask. She's quiet for a long while, like she maybe forgot she even had the comms running, all of the anger and energy drained out of her again.]

Tommy's gone. Gone last jump. Told him he would, cause everyone goes. [A thin smile, strained, sad, and then gone again.] Guess I didn't wanna be right.

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[Well. There's a lot he could respond to here - he could withdraw within himself, get defensive over her saying that people who used the masks to see those ghosts are idiots; he could get angry at her lack of professionalism; he could tell her to get off the network until she's sober.

He doesn't. Instead, he speaks with a voice that's almost...gentle.]

You're...probably tired, Tyke. Perhaps there's something I can do for you.

Edited 2013-01-09 22:33 (UTC)

[He's right. She is tired. Tired and a lot of other things. She shakes her head, but it's not a denial.]

It's fucking stupid, you know? Can't sleep right on my own anymore.

[I've not been sleeping either is his uncharitable thought; he doesn't voice it.]

It might well be illness, then. It might be best if you reported down to medical.

Edited (because I tagged this with my phone and then looked at it on the computer and hated the phraseology) 2013-01-10 00:24 (UTC)

[She's not ill. She knows she's not ill, and she knows he probably knows it too. But instead she just says,]

Don't like doctors.

Well, ours are highly competent.

[And then, just a little bit too firmly:]

And you can talk to Jenna while you wait. She has her offices in that area, after all.

Doesn't matter how competent they are. They poke and prod you and cut you up, never find out why.

[It's almost sulky, the way she says it. Because she knows the medical staff on the Tranquility are better than that, she's learnt as much, but here she is, falling back on the opinion she'd learnt from Doc Toxin's practices at the Academy. At the mention of Jenna, though, she looks away from the camera.]

And I don't want to see Jenna.

[More that she doesn't want Jenna to see her like this, even if that's skipping over the fact everything here is completely open.]

Of course you do. Jenna's your friend.

[And then he winces, because that really sounded just...awful, absolutely awful, like he was condescending to a little child. Compounding how awful that is is the fact that he's not able to disengage his brain - that he's just filing away everything she's saying mentally, even though she's in this state, and it just feels wrong and exploitative to do so -

So he struggles to encrypt it.]

Look, Tyke, I just...made this private. Let's talk openly.

[She skips over the first part, because thinking about friends right now was half the problem. Friends that were gone. Friends that were still here that would go, eventually. Everyone left, always.

She doesn't bump his encryption. Just leaves it as is, shrugs.]

Openly. Right.

[Like she wasn't already talking openly.]

Right.

[He takes a breath, trying to steady himself.]

Look. You know that public perception of our department is important, do you not? And you know that you are the most public, most trusted and respected member of said department.

[Even with the alcohol in her system, she can tell where this is going. Because she knows it already. But where normally maybe she'd close off, her defences come on in a different way. She shakes her head.]

Guess it looks like everyone got it wrong.

[But his response is firm:]

I don't want to hear any more self-pity, Tyke. You've had a hard time of it, and your friend is gone; for that, I am sorry. But you're the head of security. "Everyone else" didn't get it wrong; you positioned yourself as the person to trust, and you must follow through on it.

It's duty. Are you the sort to renege on duty?

What's the point of that duty? Everyone's gonna leave. That's what happens. They leave and I--

[She cuts herself off, grabbing the bottle again, drinking a good mouthful before she levels another glare at the camera.]

Is it still self-pity if it's the fucking truth, huh?

[Firmly:]

Yes.

[There's a slight pause, and then - ]

I've been thinking about this. Do you know what sets security apart from all the other teams?

[She's quiet for a moment, looking like she's really intensely internally debating continuing with this, letting him lead her along in this conversation. But eventually some part of her curiosity wins out.]

No.

[He nods once.]

All the other departments - they do what they want to. They play around, experiment, get into fights, go out drinking. Completely at their own volition, at their own pace; they decide what they want to do, when they want to do it. Communications - and I will say this to your face, whoever amongst you is listening in on this - just play about, trying to come up with some new technology. Gunnery crew just practices. Flight crew tinkers with their machines.

We're different on Security. We don't do what we want to do; we do what we have to do.

[She listens without much reaction, but at the end looks away again.]

It's all just names on a list. [A shrug.] Don't have to sign up.

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when I said video up there I meant voice, and switching to private with like 10% encryption

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