NINE: video

[puppydogeyes]

[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.

Comments

private; voice

[goldshirt]

You're still here.

[and it has the weight of something like a secret.]

You're still here, so you can still show this thing up. What would they think if they found out you didn't give it the finger?

private; voice

[puppydogeyes]

That I gave up.

[That's what they'd think. She huffs something like a laugh, a bitter edge to it. She's never given up before in her life.]

private; voice

[goldshirt]

You're plenty of things, but you aren't a girl who gives up. If you were, you wouldn't've asked me for security.

private; voice

[puppydogeyes]

Don't remember asking.

[She more kind of took it. But that was part of it, wasn't it. Not the kind of girl that gave up.]

private; voice

[goldshirt]

Details.

[he says, and there's a hint of playfulness there, but whether she'd asked or not, she'd been there when the need came up.]