ic contact

[14thcommander]

It's Hange, Hange, Hange! Were you looking for me? I'll get back to you posthaste. Or when it's convenient.

[ communicator & actionspam it's all good ]

Comments

[14thcommander]

"Enmeshed in it how?"

It sounds like an evasion and it sorta is but seriously, also, what does that mean?

[dog_eat_dog]

"Do you believe this is the real Barge?" she clarifies. "Lots of the wardens are real pissed about the rooms being fixed, but you're actually helping."

[14thcommander]

Hange shoves her rags around the corners, making them squeaky clean, and when she turns to Tess her eye is bright with interest.

"How can you be sure this barge isn't real?"

[dog_eat_dog]

"Because we're changing it?" she replies, like this should be obvious. "Because over the past few days, people have started acting differently?"

She supposes that on the other side, it might look like the start of something rather than what is ideally the end of it, but...

Tess shakes her head, scrubbing into the grooves of some gear.

[14thcommander]

"So? This place changes regularly. It changes during every flood. People behave differently when we experience breaches. None of that is outstanding for the barge."

[dog_eat_dog]

"Sure, but I have an idea of what you're actually like," she replies. "But you don't have any idea who I am."

Tess is pretty sure she'll go through a whole roll of this paper towel by the end of it.

[14thcommander]

"What am I actually like?"

Hange seems kind of amused, but she often does. She's going along with it though.

[dog_eat_dog]

Tess laughs a little.

"You're a hell of a lot more enthusiastic than this," she says. "Louder. Chattier. Passionate."

[14thcommander]

Hange remembers being that person - someone who's in the past now. An old self.

"What I know of you is you're the shiny idealist type. Not exactly popular with the warden crew here. Invested in your beliefs."

[dog_eat_dog]

"Fucking annoying, isn't it?" she remarks. "Fortunately for you all... I don't actually believe in anything but surviving."

[14thcommander]

"I respected her drive."

Hange shrugs. The goo is almost wiped away now. "How are you sure the person you are now isn't the construct?"

[dog_eat_dog]

Tess throws a used wad of paper towel onto a workbench.

"I guess there's no way of proving it," she says, "but I've managed to convince other people, so that has to count for something."

[14thcommander]

"I'm fixing the rooms because the changes fixing them makes are a lot better than what we've got. Even if it is just a flood, well, it's worth fighting it, right?"

[dog_eat_dog]

"True," she replies, and then she snorts: "I guess you can all still torture without the house of horrors decor."

[14thcommander]

"I guess we can."

The panel looks nice and clean now.

"Maybe there'll be something more to it, and this life is just an illusion after all."

[dog_eat_dog]

"Well, if it's real, I'm going to kill someone tomorrow and do this place as a warden," she remarks. It's supposed to be a joke, but it doesn't end up feeling that way.

Tess picks the panel up and gives it one last inspection, and then she fits it back in place.

[14thcommander]

The change rush over the room like a wave. Pitted, dirty metal reshapes itself to be clean and regular. The parts that were scattered over worktables and floors like chicken feed are neatly sorted and stored. Oil puddles and sticky patches of grease and suspicious stains that might have come from locking a prosthetic onto a struggling subject vanish. The cybernetics lab is now a place where it is not creepy and uncomfortable to be.

Hange looks around with satisfaction, and then turns to Tess, her eye bright. Tess won't recognize it - it's the precipitous brightness that used to animate her in the days when her commanding officer and squad, her closest friends, were still alive. It's a brightness that she doesn't even show in the barge proper.

Hange likes this 👍

"Want to do another one?"

[dog_eat_dog]

Tess cracks a smile as the lab has its Cinderella moment, and even if it looked a little closer to home before, it's a relief to be back in a space that isn't full of chaos and destruction. Tess runs a hand across a stainless steel worktable idly, and she meets Hange's gaze with a little nod.

Fixing things is supposed to be the other Tess's thing, but it feels good to her just the same.

"Yeah," she says, feeling a little competitive. Two rooms is good, a third might feel great. "Where to next?"

[14thcommander]

"I fixed the pool already, and now this is doing okay... I don't know all of what's been done. Did you change another place already?"

[dog_eat_dog]

"Just the deck," she replies. "Let's check the map."