| Classified |
| Summary: | Sawyer and Tisiphone continue their conversation outside the Viper Berths. |
| Date: | 2041.04.15 |
| Related Logs: | Casserole Night in the Galley. |
| Players: |
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| Deck 4 — Naval Deck — Battlestar Cerberus |
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| Post Holocaust Day: #48 |
| The floor plating along the corridors of the Cerberus is standard military. Their forged steel plates are welded seamlessly together to run nearly the entire length of each hallway. The hallways themselves are the typical load-bearing structural design of the angled quadrilateral. Oxygen scrubbers and lighting recesses are found at nearly perfect intervals throughout the passageways. |
| Condition Level: 2 — Danger Close |
Sawyer pauses just outside the hatch, stepping to the side of the hallway and leaning against the bulkhead. "You'll forgive me, but I've lost my taste to try and even pretend this is a social call. So I'll just say my piece, ask my questions, then shuffle off to my hole. Robin. When she visits you or the others. Has she said why, yet?"
The hatch to Chez Viper is wrestled awkwardly shut before Tisiphone steps out and around Sawyer, settling on the woman's other side, shoulder and hip leaned into the bulkhead. She starts to light her cigarette as she listens to the other woman's words, then snaps the lighter back shut and asks, "Smoke?" The question sounds more weary than evasive.
"I, uh. Yeah. Yeah, a smoke would be great." See, Sawyer's pretty great at putting up the cool and collected reporter image up, but the woman is undoubtedly frazzled. "But I saw her again. And it just doesn't make sense. Like you said, she was just a news story to me. Why is she bothering to…bother me."
Tisiphone nods mutely and digs her rumpled pack out again, tapping out a second cigarette. She lights them both with a thick puff of lighter-fluid-scented smoke, then hands one of them across. "I'm not trying to piss you off," she begins. "I wasn't trying to. I'm just- tired. Scared. Tired of being scared. Whatever." She pauses there, dragging harshly on her smoke, exhaling toward the ceiling. "At first, it sounded like…" She trails off, thinking. "Like she didn't know why she was here, either. Like she'd figured out some trick to coming back, and was- killing time, really." A humourless smirk at that. "Some could see her. Some couldn't. I don't- understand it any better than you. I really don't. The spook-pushing my family did wasn't anything like this. She- say anything to you that stood out?"
Sawyer gives a little shake of her head as she plucks the cigarette from Tisiphones fingers. "I just don't like my business out in the open like that. I'm having enough issue questioning my sanity, I don't need others doing it too. So they're dreams, just dreams. And in them it seems like she just wants company. Said she wasn't ready to cross over, because what's waiting for her there, isn't appealing. She also said she's…tinkering with the ship. I can't say that gives me the warm and fuzzies."
"She doesn't have a frakking /clue/ what she's talking about, sometimes," Tisiphone mutters, her eyes narrowing for a moment with mingled exasperation and resentment. "Not looking forward to Elysium? Seriously? Cry me the frakking River Styx itself. What a bunch of-" She reins herself in, looking away to the corridor as she settles herself back down. "Tinkering with the ship? The Cerberus? What do you- what /kind/ of tinkering?" This seems to be news to her, and not the warm-and-fuzzy kind, either.
Sawyer actually has a lighter in the pocket of those pink pajamas, which marks the beginning of the end of Sawyer being able to deny she's a smoker. Damn War Day. Her eyes drop for a moment as she lights her cigarette, taking a deep drag before she pulls it away. "Last I saw her, she was covered in grease. Said she's been crawling the entrails of the Cerberus, looking for any flaws. I said if she can do that, she should try preventing other disasters. Like Sarkis."
"Mmn." Tisiphone studies Sawyer for a few seconds before turning her eyes down to her boots. They're still stained a dull reddish-brown from the assault on Sickbay. "I saw her a couple days ago," she says. "She had a message she needed passed along to Engineering. Maybe she… didn't have a purpose for being here, and now she does. She made it sound like the message was coming down from the Lords and Ladies. Maybe they're- maybe she's, like, a tool for them."
Sawyer turns her face enough so that when she exhales, the smoke doesn't get streamlined right back into Tisiphone's face. "A message? That's new. If she had to pass on a message, it means she can't… well of course she can't, but…" Frustrated, the fidgeting journalist takes another toke. "What was the message?"
"It's classified," Tisiphone says. There's a bit of a bland look that accompanies the statement — like she's well-aware /she/ shouldn't be privy to the information, either. After a glance away to ash her cigarette on the floor, she continues. "Some sort of data recovered from the Anchorage's computers. We're- missing something in it, apparently. Some…" A tired, bewildered shrug. "Crucial bit of information. Frakked if I know. Something about Ananke. Metaphorical, religious, practical, some kinda divine joke… your guess is as good as mine. I'm just the messenger." Another bitter twist of mouth.
Classified information, that Tisiphone pretty much shares anyways. The wry twist to Sawyer's lips gets obfuscated by another quick puff on the filter. "How can it be classified, if the source is technically dead and a spatial and physical anomaly?"
"The information they've pulled off the Anchorage is classified," Tisiphone says, sounding somewhat pointedly patient. "And then she asked /me/, who should know precisely sweet frak-all about said information, to go to the people keeping it close to their chests. 'Hey, you know that secret stuff? The stuff I shouldn't know about? Yeah, can you look at it again for me?'" By the end, her voice is a little tight, and a lot frustrated — to which she gestures with her cigarette, sighs, and says, "Sorry. It's just- man, I don't understand any of it, either."
"In hindsight, I'm surprised you weren't thrown in the brig as a security leak. Do they do that?" Says the Civilian who's on her first military assignment. Hell, last assignment. "So why did she want them to take a look at the information? Any indication as to /what/ they were missing?" Sawyer asks, digging around a little bit as if she's trying to complete a puzzle.
"Who'd brig me, precisely? And for what?" Tisiphone shrugs the idea off. "The snipe I told has already seen Robin, herself. The first person who knows who shouldn't, aside from /me/, is you." One pale brow lifts slightly, then drags down again with her frustrated shrug. "Robin thinks they're missing something in the information they've got. It's apparently crucial, but not so crucial she can just, y'know, come out and say it. I haven't seen the information. I don't /want/ to. I'd be happy as a pig in straw if I never hear about it again."
Sawyer pushes off her lean on the wall, "Here here. Right now, I don't know if she's helping or just harming by appearing to all of us. It certainly isn't good for our sanity, or trust issues, or any host of other psychobabble terms you could label this with. Why be vague? If she can actually touch things, why not appear and help us against…ya know…being boarded." There's a sigh and a shake of her head. "Let me know if anything new comes up, and I'll do the same. I'm hoping it won't, but if it does…well. Maybe we can help each other understand. I think I'm going to go baracade myself in the Dark Room. Get some work done." Yes. In her pajamas.
"I know," Tisiphone says, partway through Sawyer's words. And again, a little further in: "I know. I'll- yeah. Okay. Whatever I… hear. Whatever I'm told. I'll let you know." She seems about to say more, then slips her cigarette back into her mouth, instead, and bids the other woman farewell with a mute nod.