| Faceoff |
| Summary: | Things get a little heated when Cora and Sawyer meet with Tillman following his interrogation of the Eleven prisoner. |
| Date: | 12 July 2041 AE |
| Related Logs: | Civility |
| Players: |
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| Executive Officer's Quarters |
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| A decent-sized room for a personal quarters, the XO's cabin has few of the plush amenities of the Admiral's but still retains a few more touches than would normally be found elsewhere. There are bookshelves that are stacked neatly beside a line of lockers. The standard-sized bunk is built into the wall with a few cabinets overhead for storage. The desk is a standard issue piece of furniture and so is the chair that comes with it, but there is a plain blue couch against the wall near the door and a respectably-sized blue rug lain out in front of it. This room also has a personal bathroom that holds a cramped shower, toilet, and sink area that is separated by a thin wooden door painted to the same color as the walls. |
| Post-Holocaust Day: #136 |
Getting ready to go on Watch. Tillman's hatch is left ajar and its easy to tell the man is up and moving by the sound of things in there. Lockers opening and closing, storage racks rattling. He's only got his pants and a grey shirt on for the moment, trying to slide the belt through the loops on his holster. A whiskey bottle and an array of papers are sitting on his desk.
Sawyer is in one of her agitated states, where she's more animated than normal in a fidgety sort of way. As such, she moves a little too briskly down the hallway and slaps her hand into the door of the hatch to open it even further. "Well. That went well." She says crisply, immediately inserting her thumbnail between the top and bottom rows of her teeth and gnawing. Of course she's referring to the interrogation, which she was watching with bated breath. Without invitation or pause, she starts pacing around the confines of Tillman's room which still smell vaguely of fire-tinged metal were anyone to think on it too deeply.
Cora isn't far behind Sawyer, though she's far less fidgety, and takes time to actually provide a "Major," by way of greeting as she steps in after the reporter. Not that she isn't work up - she did come right over here nearly as fast as the other woman, and when she crosses her arms across her chest, hands tucked beneath biceps, it might be to prevent her from exactly those shows of agitation Sawyer's currently giving in to. Still, the effect is calmer, and her tone is dry, and slightly less crisp than usual, almost balancing things out as she says, "I assume we will get a crack at her shortly. Naturally, there are more questions."
Tillman looks up as the hatch opens and looks to Sawyer with a lofted brow. That the Gods she didn't walk in a few minutes ago… though that may not have even stopped her. The man looks between the two women, nodding to Cora on her entrance. He goes back to looping the holster on and cinching the belt. "I don't think the Sergeant nor myself are anywhere near done." The Major doesn't seem to go any further with getting dressed at the moment, though. A long breath taken, he looks back up to them and nods. "But as I promised, you will be in there shortly. I won't keep you guys from her while I'm processing my own information." A pause and he looks to Sawyer. "Jellybean?" Its an offer, not a name.
"Yeah, more questions like why the frak aren't your people taking the information provided to them about MolGen more seriously?" Okay, so Sawyer isn't just agitated, she's edging on downright pissed. "/Half/ of that information you could have gotten from just an analysis of those files, instead of walking in there and looking like a complete unprepared imbecile. No, I don't want your frakking candy. What I want is for you to stop screwing your LSO and start taking your job as XO of this damn ship /seriously/." At this point, if Sawyer and Cora were to go into the interrogation room, one guess as to who would carry the mantle as 'bad cop'.
Cora blinks and turns to look first at Sawyer, then at Tillman, brows shifting into a surprised frown as she says, "The data from MolGen was available to be analyzed? Why didn't—" 'anyone tell me' is clearly going to be the end of that sentence, but Sawyer has already continued on, and in such a fashion that the Intel Officer finds it wisest to stop speaking.
Tillman quirks a brow at Sawyer's initial outburst and slowly turns to face her. "Miss Averies, you're here working on this because I trust your judgment. If you feel that attacks on my personal life and my job are the best way to go about this, then you can pack your shit and consider yourself cut off." Tillman isn't exactly the picture of calm but he's not yelling yet. "So I'm assuming that you want me to go in there and give an enemy agent complete knowledge of everything we know, yeah? If she's not lying about resurrection, then she can just kill herself, take all that intel back, and then the Cylons know exactly where we stand and what we know? I'm going to guess that didn't occur to you." There's a glance to Cora then back to Sawyer. "You going to calm down or do you want to continue talking about this?"
"If it was an attack, I would have smeared your name over the ship, even if I had to do it in crayon scrawled on the gods-damned hulls. That was a merely just a prod. And you, my dear, didn't know about resurrection until the very precise moment I did, unless you're hiding something from your 'full disclosure' to me and your officer here, so how in Hades could that suddenly have been your tactic all along, Clive? So who are you bullshitting here? Me or the skinjob?" Seems Sawyer's going to keep talking about this. Calming down? Not yet.
Cora is, as ever, the third wheel in this relationship, and her goal just now (as it should be for any good, non-squeaky third wheel) is merely not to get in the way, or draw attention to herself. She remains unmoving, and silent, arms folded against her chest, watching the pair with an impassive expression.
"And if you had done that you could consider yourself living on the Starboard Hangar Deck with the rest of the civilians and completely cut off from any access to any information ever again. And probably escorted by MPs for the rest of your life. That's assuming that it wasn't actually malicious and incendiary, in which case it would have probably been reason to bring charges." Tillman's patience is running low, apparently not enjoying being yelled at by her. "Nobody shows their whole hand in interrogations, miss Averies. Ever. For precisely this reason. So if you don't think that this is something you're capable of handling or understanding, I can have the Lieutenant, here, handle your end of the interviews. So you either calm the frak down or get the hell out." No, the Major doesn't look like he's bluffing.
Sawyer stops in her pacing, the air no longer ringing with the crisp sound of her heels for one blissful moment. Her voice is even, never having really been raised despite her agitated movements, "One, think about who you're threatening. Sorry…" She holds up a hand in capitulation. "Not threatening. Trying to lay down the law to. Second, if you don't think I know a damn thing about interrogations, I sure as hell should stop calling myself an Investigative Journalist. Third, I'm pissed the frak off that /we/ are responsible for this war…" And by 'we' it sounds as if Sawyer means on a greater scale than just the three in this room. "…and your crack team of experts seems to be sitting around with their heads up their asses. /I've/ made more progress on my lonesome than they have. Which is laughable at best." She makes a move towards his desk, helping herself quickly to a glass of his whiskey which she shoots in one smooth shot. A grimace, then, "You've termed all this information unclassified, so consider it freedom of the press. You'll have something on your desk shortly." With that, she's headed towards the exit unless stopped.
Cora does move, finally, but… it's just to lift a hand from beneath her arm and press thumb and forefinger, one on each side, to the base of her nose, eyes perhaps not quite closed, but nearly, so far to the floor is her gaze angled.
"Miss Averies, there is a big difference between a military interrogator and an investigative journalist. This isn't a scooped story that will sink politicians. The wrong information being passed will get people killed." Tillman watches her turn to go. "You can consider it unclassified and publishable. But anything which endangers this fleet? That's on your head. Keep that in mind because you will answer for it. You'll also miss information being passed pre-interrogation which will leave you at a disadvantage. All because you're pissed off." The Major still doesn't look happy but he isn't shouting either. Finally, he looks to Cora and motions for the chair. "Take a seat. We need to discuss what we just saw."
Sawyer simply raises a hand over her shoulder and gives a single flick of her wrist in a wave.
Sawyer has left.
Cora looks up as Sawyer exits, fingers only slowly leaving the bridge of her nose, arms dropping back to her sides. As Tillman indicates a chair, she moves towards it and takes a seat. "That was more what I came here hoping to do, yes," she comments.
Tillman shrugs as the woman heads out and looks to Cora. "Yeah. No shit," he gruffs. A long breath and he settles back into the chair. "Well, looks like you're doing this interrogation on your own since Miss Averies doesn't seem to think a debrief is important," the Major deadpans. "I'm considering her off this interrogation until she can be briefed beforehand. I'm going to assume you know the value of discussing what you've just seen before acting on it in situations like this." A turn back to his locker and he opens it. "So, speak your mind Lieutenant." He reaches in and takes out his tanktop to slide it on.
Cora doesn't comment on Sawyer at all, just sort of pretends that none of that happened, or is being spoken of now, and moves right on to the matter of the interrogation just passed. "I thought of the entire conversation, her answer when shown the photo of Admiral Abbott was the most interesting," she says, "What she said didn't make sense, and up until that point while she had said some odd things, naturally, she hadn't said anything that appeared to be an attempt to deflect the question, or a joke, or anything that might explain the meaning of her reference to thirteen and being able to speak freely. I'm not sure what to make of it, but it stood out as significantly strange. In general," she goes on, "I think it worthwhile, as I'm sure you agree, to try to probe the question of the other unidentified humanoid models from as many angles as possible. I think the statement that there are only 12 kinds of people may prove useful — I'd like to ask her to describe those 12 kinds of people, for instance. If we can identify personality traits, interests, focuses, genders, it will make ultimate detection easier."
Tillman nods a few times, listening while he puts on his blues. "Personally, given what I saw from her in there, I think she was joking about Abbott. The control question for that would be to have her describe the thirteen. But the problem is whether or not she is telling the truth about that programming block about identification of her so-called brothers and sisters. But she is trying to help, apparently. Given what she is saying, and how she is describing events, it all tracks. Its either a very elaborate set of lies or a lot of truth." He finishes buttoning up the tunic and straightens it in a mirror at the rear of his locker. "I'm in complete agreement about the number twelve. There is probably some significance there. I'll be going about it with my own questioning later in almost the same manner. The Sergeant will have his own mind on this, most likely, but I think the best course of action with this model is to hold discussions. Rather than gruff questions and answers, she seems to respond the best with positive reinforcement. The religious comment was interesting as well. The one at the end? About blessing me?" He grunts and finally turns back to face her.
"I didn't notice any inclination towards humor at any other point during the interview," Cora replies, "So I would be inclined away from that interpretation, but it is admittedly also tempting to believe that there was some revealing slip in what she said there. We can perhaps test for humor in future instances." She listens as TIllman goes on, and shakes her head at the last. "I was not focused on the monotheism," she replies, "I know too little about that to hold a detailed interrogation on the subject, I assume you'll be bringing in Captain Karthasi for that. As for whether this is an elaborate set of lies or not, I would say it is at this point equally likely at best. We must remember that these are complex machines that succeeded in infiltrating our society so thoroughly that they were able to annihilate it without a fight. Making up a pack of twisting but convincingly coherent lies is probably not beyond them."
"I think the humor was an attempt at levity. Bring the conversation back to a more informal line. She said plainly that she loves conversation. I'll run with that and meet her there. But yes, the Sister is my next appointment. As for trust?" Tillman shakes his head. "I don't know. The problem is that so much of it fits. She's filling in gaps in what we know - which is telling within itself. See, this is what Sawyer doesn't understand: If we had fed her the truth about everything we knew? Then she could have constructed lies to mold and shape themselves around that. Some of what she is saying I already did know about. But, if we had told her what we knew?" The Major shakes his head and moves to sit back at the desk. "It not only would help her lie and feed us precisely the wrong information, but if she's telling the truth about resurrection? It would frak us royally if she killed herself and offloaded to the Home Office."
"That certainly would be the purpose of humor," Cora agrees, though she does not appear convinced that it was humor to begin with. She listens through the explanation of Sawyer's logic-related shortcomings and just nods, "Yes, I understand the concern, sir. On a related note, I would like to be provided with whatever information was recovered from the MolGen facilities so that I can review it before the interrogation. I have no intention of letting the prisoner become aware of how much I do and do not know, but I would prefer it if I did at least know as much as the others participating in the interrogations."
"Not even Sergeant Constin has this information yet. I've been trying to get a meeting with Colonel Pewter and Commander Laughlin to go over what we know. The information in the report from engineering is pretty raw and we need to go over what it means. Especially now that we have this source that is blindly confirming some of it." Tillman settles back in the chair. "Sawyer is pissed off because she thinks I'm keeping information from her? This is something she would want processed through Command first. Perspective is damned important here because it deals with the bigger picture. As for what's in it? It doesn't quite confirm everything so much as provide some clues. Wanna take a guess at what I already knew? You probably won't be far off."
"No, sir, I don't believe Miss Averies was angry that you were keeping information from her," Cora replies a shade more slowly, "She was angry that you didn't use the information in those files in the interrogation. Sergeant Constin may not have it yet, but it sounded very much as if she did."
Tillman snorts. "If that's her perspective then maybe I really should cut her out of all this completely. Last thing I need is someone who doesn't understand the value of information containment while talking to an enemy agent." He shakes his head and takes a long breath. "Well look, this information we have out of MolGen is…not quite confirming. But its draws interesting parallels. The files indicate that MolGen was indeed working on a weapon of some sort. It also indicates that there was an interest in finding Kobol from their own perspective. Beyond that, there are some smaller details. Like I said, most of this needs to be filtered through Command before I can give either one of you a full briefing on what it means in the larger sense. Sawyer lacks that."
"I'm not sure keeping information to herself is Miss Averies' problem," Cora replies dryly. Her tone doesn't quite veer into 'acid', but she does not, for a moment, hide her displeasure with the reporter. "Well, I will wait until Command deems it fit for distribution, or Miss Averies decides to share her copy, then. There is enough to ask the prisoner about in the meantime. But I would like a chance to review it as soon as possible. It is difficult enough to get a full picture of our intelligence situation as it is."
"Whatever it is, its a problem. She makes her problems, my problems? Then its my business to deal with. She'll either fall in line or she'll deal with the consequences. The only reason she is still sleeping in the pilot berthings and has the access she does is because I'm allowing it. She can go stay on the Corsair forever. If she feels entitled to something, that's not my problem." Tillman deadpans all of it. Apparently the man is serious about yanking the rug out from under her. "As for the information, I have a meeting with Pewter in a few minutes. We'll be going over the info. When I get clarification from him, I'll read you in. I highly doubt she's going to be able to tell you everything." He pauses. "Anything else jump out at you from the interrogation?"
Cora doesn't comment further on Sawyer's situation, apparently determined not to take a position on whether the reporter ought to get to keep her access or not. When he mentions the meeting with Pewter, she nods, and then considers the question for a moment. "I'm not sure anything else leapt out, exactly. She mentioned at one point that this station was 'cut off' at least somewhat. I'd like to clarify that."
Tillman nods, and rises from the chair. "Fair enough. But I have a theory about it being cut off. It ties into the Morgenfield investigation, actually. But c'mon." Tillman motions for her to rise. "Stand your butt up. I'll bring you with me to see Pewter. We'll talk some of this out." With that, the man moves off for the hatch.