PHD #072: Idle Hands
Idle Hands
Summary: The MolGen group idles and plans while information is gleaned off the computer systems.
Date: 09 May 2041 AE
Related Logs: All those regarding Leonis. Especially The Promise of Science.
Players:
Sawyer Haeleah Cappella Oberlin Corinna Evandreus Stavrian 
Testing Range
Behind the blast door is a massive room, home to rows upon semicircular rows of incredibly high-tech computer stations. The sheer scope of it is breathtaking — a wheatfield of technology with computers instead of rolling stalks, the sun's warm glow replaced by cold, sterile fluorescent light. All these rows face one direction, a huge glass screen at the front of the room. Behind that clear blast shield, machinery sits idle around gleaming platforms all fed by crowns of wires and tubes. Gauges and meters are set into the wall, meant to be read from a distance as well as feed into the computer terminals. Looming at the back of the room is a main control station, elevated about ten feet above the main floor. Guarded by a deceptively glasslike shield that arcs from ceiling to floor, its contents aren't easily visible by someone standing on ground level. The smell is the first thing that hits. Something charred, burnt, the stink of some kind of oil. Then the sight fills in where the smell left off — the computer terminals are strangely burnt with the starlike patterns of some kind of explosion. Many have melted holes in the backs, keys fused and screens caved in from the heat. It takes a slightly closer look to notice the metal shards buried in buckled parts of the terminals and the walls, metal that didn't come from this room.
Post-Holocaust Day: #72

They've been sleeping in shifts, it seems, keeping watch while they regroup and re-energize. The downtime has given them time to sit around and worry but also work. Seems the Journalist has some skills other then taking pictures and recording notes, and she's been working in tandem with Haeleah to crack open some of these computers and see what juicy bits of information are lurking within. It's long work though, bent over keyboards that smell like fried electronics, and now that's where Sawyer sits. With permission from Oberlin, she's clacking away, squinting at a screen of scrolling green text.

Cappella comes in with a thermos of something the smells like coffee. He has a half dozen small cups, not the tea cups from the other room for the record. He walks over and pours some for the busy computer team.

Haeleah sits at another computer, also click-click-clicking away. In many ways, this is programmer porn the likes of which she had never dreamed. Even the finest Battlestar cubits can build doesn't give you free reign to play with /this/ kind of technology. She might even be having fun. Was its previous user not a possessed old model Cylon, stuck at the end of a frak-ton creepy building filled with killer traps on an irradiated planet. So…not so much fun. Though they have been making more headway on accessing the system since she quietly disconnected the Centurion from it. "Damn, woman," she murmurs as she looks up over her shoulder at Sawyer. Even after all this hours, the reporter's skills are still something of a surprise. "You miss your calling in comp sci?" She sniffs the air. Coffee? Maybe she's dreaming. Not that she'll say no to it.

Evandreus is somewhere between studying maps and sleeping, back braced against a wall with one leg lifted to plant foot against a bolted-down leg of a computer station, some maps propped up on a clipboard on his knee as he marks intersections and H stops nearest to the ICTC depots in between letting his head droop back against the wall, mouth drifting open as eyes drift shut.

It's hard to trust /anything/ that came from this Compound, but it seems the need for caffeine outweighs caution. Sawyer leans over the steaming coffee cup as it's set down, giving it an exploratory sniff that is the extent of her wariness. "Thanks." She flickers Cappella a brief smile, though it doesn't linger long. Her gaze strays to Haeleah at the veiled compliment, a sudden laugh sounding hoarse in her throat. "It, uh, became a skill of necessity. You see, journalism has this nice grey area…" Her sentence drifts off as she becomes distracted by a change on the screen, the ghostly light from it casting odd shadows on her face. How long have they been at this?

Corinna sits on a flat surface somewhere. Her outer shirt is off and her long hair, still tied in a ponytail, reaches to just below her shoulder blades. on the floor in front of her is her rifle, disassembled but kept in perfect order as the marine takes a rag to each part, cleaning. Everyone needs something to focus on, to keep the boredom away. Once cleaned and oiled, she begins to reassemble the piece. One loud snap followed by a click and so on..

"Now you're my favorite L-T, sir," Haeleah says, flashing Cappella a grin as her curly head pops up to snag some coffee. The grin is forced, and she doesn't try for anymore lightness just now. She looks pretty worn herself. She did any and all sleeping she could in this room with the computers. Not just out of workaholism. She's staying as far away from those dead bodies in the quarters as she can. A chuckle at Sawyer. "Gray area between typing and hacking into where you don't belong?" Not that she's complaining about it right now. Sip sip coffee. "Honestly…I expected the encryption on this to be a lot tighter. The system's been opened up *for* us. I'd guess by that…" Cylon-possessed-by-woman? She doesn't know what to call it, so just settles on. "…thing. Makes me wonder what all it *wants* us to find…" A look over at Evandreus as she takes her coffee mini-break.

Cappella nods, "And what it is hiding in plain sight by directing you toward the information it is offering you?

People are talking, now, and Evan's neck shifts, bonking the back of his head against the wall and then grimacing as he pulls it straight up again, eyes squeezing shut a further moment before he squints them open toward those conversing above him. "How's it going?" up toward his co-pilot, voice rough.

Sawyer follows Haeleah's gaze to Evandreus. "He's kinda cute like that: catching flies." Her voice sounding fond with those words. An experimental sip is given to her coffee, and she doesn't keel over immediately, so there's a small shrug of acceptance. "Yeah, something like that. I prefer not to think of it as hacking, but more like…fact checking." She makes a few keystrokes with one hand idly as she tries to navigate through the junk to get to the meat. "Well, if that were the case, she…it…whatever could have at least had the courtesy to clean up the files first. All this cyber junk is giving me a headache." A glance is given to the marine off to the side, cleaning her rifle. "You want some coffee? I'll share."

Sawyer smirks as Evandreus rouses. "Oh. You know. The usual. Figuring out what the frak happened to man-kind."

"I can see why they call him Bunny," Haeleah says to Sawyer. She leans against the computer terminal she's chosen as her spot of hacking, shrugging. "Well, we're in. That part was easy. The door was wide open." Again, this clearly creeps her out as much as relieves her. "There's just a frak-ton of garbage to dig through to find the pretties." Back to typing, though she does ask Evan, "Any idea what happened to Trask and the others?"

Corinna shakes her head at the offered coffee. "No thanks. I'm good." She stows the rifle for now, while she checks her pistol… "And was for what happened to humanity?" She smirks with a dark chuckle… "We did… We built those… things… so we could get more lazy.. More complacent…. It bit us in the ass, and now we're crying foul." She looks to Evan as he's asked about the status of the other group.

Evandreus clears his throat of its phlegmatic hoarseness with a few short half-coughs, and lifts a fist to his eye to twistrub the eyeboogers away. "G'hm… well… don't tell me how it ends," he warns his co-pilot, still half-groggy, even if his other half is veering jocular, "I'm waiting 'til the movie comes out." He wets his lower lip with his tongue, then, more seriously, "Jugs and Boots jumped out under pursuit after getting the RTB order. Hopefully they all made the rendezvous back with Cerberus."

"Any word on the team sent after the Viper cache?" Sawyer flicks her gaze over to Evandreus but she's trying not to sound too vested in the answer. She camouflages her expression of concern with another sluuuuurp of her coffee. "Suit yourself, Corporal. Don't suppose you want to do mine next?" She asks, of the guns. Sawyer's own assigned rifle is waaaaaaaaaaaay over there in the corner. Where it belongs. At least she still has her sidearm strapped uncomfortably to her.

Haeleah frowns as she listens to Corinna, nodding short in agreement. "I guess my grandma was right. Idle hands really will get you killed. I always wonder what the jokers who invented those overgrown chrome toasters would say if they could see what their work had done…?" She just kind of asks the question to the universe rather than any of them in particular. A nod to Evandreus, then back to clicking. "Hopefully. Wouldn't mind joining them pretty soon." She listens for the answer about the folks on the Vipers as she clicks.

Corinna nods and stands, making her way over to Sawyer's rifle. "Yeah.. I wouldn't want my life to depend on it and have the damn thing jam up. That goes for anyone else who doesn't know how, nor want to maintain them. Let me know and I'll do it, at least until we get off this rock and back onto the Cerberus." She's sees her reflection in a nearby mirror… "Frak… now I'm *really* regretting not getting that haircut before we left… next thing I know, I'll be wearing a damned dress…"

"They were the ones who issued the RTB order. They came under attack; last I heard they were in full retreat and heading to meet up with Cerberus," Evan gives his report, leaving it on that optimistic note, since he obviously has no idea if they made it or not. He'll assume they did, for the time being. GAH," he adds, lowering his foot to the floor from where it was propping him in the cramped space between the computer console and the wall. Stiff. "We'll be going after them just as soon as we catch a ride," he adds with a dry-throated chuckle.

Cappella nods slowly "So as far as we know, everyone else got out, which leaves us as the only ones left on the planet?"

At some point in time, another figure drifts in from the laboratory outside. Lieutenant Oberlin's eyes narrow as he clutches a rad counter, waving it through the air. This is approximately the fortieth sweep he has made with the device. Bonus points for being thorough. "It's coming from inside here. Exactly."

"I didn't actually mean…" Sawyer starts to protest Corinna cleaning her gun, but hey. Why look a gift horse in the mouth. There's another little shrug and she goes back to her coffee and her one handed typing. It takes longer this way, but she's being slow so she can be careful what she's tiptoeing around in here. "I hope they made it back then. The Major said something about a rendezvous point for that team at the forty-eight hour mark. I wonder if we could make it? Get picked up there?" She cranes around to look at Oberlin as he enters. "What's coming from in here?" She asks, the apprehension clear in her voice. Is something else going to jump up and bite them in the ass?

Haeleah is hunched by a computer terminal, with that coffee so helpfully provided by Cappella. She's been working over the system with Sawyer for…well, anything they can dig up, really. "Picking up anything interesting, sir? Our gauges jumped off the damn charts last night after that…thing was done with its…thing." She can neither sum up the Cylon-Woman nor what it said in a neat descriptor.

"That's -my- little plan," Evan tells Sawyer, finagling his dratted gun out of its holster for taking by Corinna, if she wants it. Lords know he doesn't. "But it might take us a while to get across town to the depot. And then if the depots have been blown, it might take a little bit of creative scrounging to get us something airworthy," he warns. "But I'm still holding out hope we can make it. We've just got to head out sooner than later," he notes. Cappella gets a slothful look and a pressing of the pilot's lips together before a non-committal, "Yup," is uttered in his direction, the Leontinian pilot briefly unnerved by the notion of everyone else on the planet being dead, a nausea working its way up into his gullet. "I, uh," this, to Oberlin, but wavering in strength of tone, "I made a few marks of places we should check out if the depots come up empty," he tells the guy, "And the best above-ground and H-tunnel routes to get there."

"Well, I don't think anything is going to /eat/ us." Oberlin states flatly as he stows the rad counter. "But in terms of /interesting,/ I'd say yes." He inclines his head a little bit to Haeleah now to address her question. "Radiation readings. Fluctuating. Fluctuating but on a vastly higher scale than Parnassus. But it's the same damn radiation, other than that. Fundamentally. So what do you think? Connections?" He shakes his head a little. "Oh, right. Getting home."

Cappella frowns a little, "Well we never did figure out if the Parnasis radiation was cylon in origin or something the Colonials there did right?"

"Soooo…" Sawyer drags out the word as she spins on the axis of her desk chair, the thing squeaking in protest as she revolves. "You're saying we're sitting on a big ball of radiation? Literally. Sitting /right/ on top of it? Yeah, I'm definitely going to have to vote with the 'get the frak out' side. I think we can pick these computers clean in another few hours - if we have it - and then skeedattle. I hope none of us ever wanted to have children." Ah, her poor frying ovaries. Hopefully anti-rads are keeping them safe. "Maybe the radiation is a warning: STAY AWAY."

Corinna takes any offered weapons and brings them over to a small table she's commandeered. She looks up to Oberlin.. "Sir… not to sound dumb here, but have we achieved our primary objective here, first? Is there something we still need to do before we even head back?" She nods to Sawyer, surmising that perhaps that was their objective. She looks between Evandreus and Oberlin. "Any idea as to when we need to be ready to head out?"

Haeleah nods to Oberlin, as to Sawyer's timeline for picking over the computers. "The newsie's got some talent, sir. Cut my hack time down by half on these damn things. I came across some references to radiation testing in the junk, actually. Still can't make a ton of sense of it…but it's coming together. By the way, Averies, if you're ever interested in a career change, consider Engineering. Change your name to Paras or something. We and Pen can be a triple-threat." As for the objective, she looks back at her computer screen. "Well, we found out what MolGen labs was hiding. Sort of. I'm hoping there's something in here that makes it make…sense."

"We need to find a ride before we can go anywhere," Evan tells Corinna. "Ours was thoughtfully incinerated by our kitchen-dwelling hosts. If we can secure a vehicle within the next thirty six hours we should be good to either make the rendezvous or get shot down trying," he lets her know. "And I don't think the radiation levels in here are that high," that's for Sawyer, though he looks to Oberlin for confirmation.

The travel pack that Oberlin had with him is wrestled with as he pulls out a small item — specifically, a portable data drive. "We should make multiple copies. Just in case." He reiterates, addressing the two women working on the computer array first and foremost before glancing back towards Evandreus and Corinna a moment. Something clicks in his head. "This radiation is odd. It's not man-made, this is like — " His head shakes. "I don't have a word for it. But we saw it at the last installation and we saw a stronger version of it here. Now, the Anchorage had those log entries which pointed — here. That poor rambling Engineer we picked up — pointed us here. That 'Cylon' thing outside, she told us there was something here." He cracks his knuckles. "Parres? Um, Ms. Averies? What kind of file security do we have on this thing?"

Corinna nods to Evan as Oberlin goes on with his tech-speak. "And what do you think our chances are of finding a transport that break atmo?" She asks the pilot. "From what you've said it sounds like the Eidolon is junk, so we have to find a way to get off planet… without any Cylon disguise… and make our way back to the Cerberus." She nods grimly. "I've seen worse odds."

Sawyer gives a little laugh to Haeleah, "Don't get your hopes up. I look wretched in a coveralls, and the whole saluting thing has always felt a little odd. I'll stick with what I know. But, uh, thanks. Unfortunately, my skills have limits. I'm good at breaking things down…not so much with the building them." Again, her chair creeks as she leans backwards in it, the backrest pivoting. "So far, Lieutenant Oberlin, it's like they left the front door wide open. I mean, there were some little hurdles to overcome, but nothing like there /should/ be. Right now, it's wading through the garbage files to see what's actually real and useful information."

"Not a frak of anything in terms of encryption on the system here, sir," Haeleah replies to Oberlin. "At least, none that wasn't broken for us. Access was wide open when we started poking at it. I'd guess the door was left open by that…thing." Yeah, still can't describe it. "There's just a lot of weird here. References to the Chimaera. Radiation test data. Lots of religious shit I can't make heads or tails of. We can save most of it on the thumb drives we brought along."

"Pretty good," Evan tells Corinna. "The place is largely undevastated, in comparison to other cities, and I used to fly in and out of here all the time in some of the off-brand companies' buses. We should be able to find something still space-worthy. But it won't have weapons or any ECM capabilities to speak of. So getting out of atmo and jumping away will be something of a coin toss as to whether we get shot back down."

Cappella looks up, "Push comes to shove…if we can just get off the ground, and spin up the FTL breaking atmo is less important. It's illegal to jump in atmo because it has a rather unpleasant effect on weather patterns on the planet your leaving. And it's a bad idea to jump INTO atmo as you could end up inside a mountain."

Sawyer snorts at Cappella. "Because I'm so sure we're concerned with legality right now…"

Corinna smirks in conjunction with Sawyer.. "Or with what's left of the bloody environment." She sighs as she click-clacks, disassembling and cleaning rifle parts, and putting them back together, one by one. "Well… we'll be ready whenever it is time to move out."

This pretty much tells Oberlin everything he needed to know. Visibly. His eyebrows raise in quick ars and then widen dramatically. "The Chimaera. And — Shit. It's all tied together somehow. I hope this wasn't some kind of gods-damned goose chase." Rounding a bit on Haeleah's work, he peeks over at the computer console. "This is unencrypted? Seriously?" He sounds almost — disappointed. "So whatever was going on here was probably twenty eight shades of illegal. Speaking of legality. Oh, Admiral Hauck." Shaking his head, he doesn't finish his sentence.

Continuing, Oberlin straightens as he dusts off his fatigues, he grimaces as he digests Corinna's statement and likewise questions Evandreus. "Um, bearing all that in mind, did you get anything from those recon maps?"

"Right. We won't have to get much altitude, but— the higher we get, the better. Speaking of legality," Evan echoes Oberlin, almost cheeky. Almost. "Yah," he goes on, "We're kind of awkwardly placed to get into the right H-tube, and seeing as I have no idea what the stations look like," he lifts a shoulder, shrugging it against the wall. "So it's up to you. We can go check them out, or just try to make it across town above ground. Above ground will have the best opportunities for scavenging, of course. Underground might be safer. Unless the Cylons make friends with the H."

Cappella says, "We might want to send recon teams to check out both routes, at least slightly before picking one.'"

"Oh, I think it's clear from last night there was *something* going on here, sir," Haeleah says, prepping a thumb drive and getting that download party started. Given the breadth of what they're dealing with, it'll take a couple minutes and a few disks to snag it all. "Whether we *want* the goose now that we've caught it might be more the question." She listens to talk to recon teams without contributing to that dialogue. She'll go where she'd bidden.

Technology not being his strong suit, Stavrian stuck close by as he poked through some areas of the lab, looking for things useable on his end of the concerns. As he returns to the testing range, he raises a dark brow at the engineers downloading things, hiking the strap of his medical strap up higher on his shoulder as he drifts towards Evandreus.

"So there's that." Oberlin says blankly towards Evandreus. "Let's find the nearest route to the tunnels. Just for safety's sake." Haeleah's comment on the other hand earns a sort of sardonic grin. "You just beat me with the 'obvious stick,' Parres." He states in the driest tone possible.

Evandreus pushes his feet hard against the floor, standing, one hand pushing on his knee as he slides up the wall, offering the collected maps out to Oberlin with his other hand, turning his head to look to Jess with a silent smile of groggy greeting. "Alright," is for Oberlin, a less militaristically-crisp version of a 'yes sir' or an 'aye sir,' up with which nonsense Evan's just a little too grogged out on anti-rads and half-naps to put, right now. Speaking of which, back to Jess, "Hey, Jess, did you get hold of those other two medkits Pickle and I brought from the Raptor? I'll show you where we stowed them if you haven't seen them, yet," he offers.

Corinna just quietly continues to check and clean the gear for everyone.

Cappella remains leaning against the wall, he little coffee pot next to him, "We are ready when you are sir."

"I didn't," Stavrian murmurs to Evan, shaking his head. "You've got two? That's good news, thanks." He gives Oberlin a polite nod, jaw tense. "Sir." His eyes flicker over the consoles and he mutters back to Evan, "Did they find anything?"

"You could say that. Lords O Lords O Lords." Oberlin dials down the dry as he addresses Stavrian, smiling weakly. "We'll figure out what it all /means/ when we have time." The thin smile flickers and fades before he turns back to Evandreus, stepping away from the toiling Haeleah. "So." He walks on over to inspect the map data. "All right, everyone. We're in far better shape than we could be, here. We're alive and breathing. And apparently the enemy has better things to do than storm in and kill us. Whatever the reasons. Let's look. Subway entrance."

"Yah. Two medkits, two survival packs, two toolkits," Evan offers the PA with a helpless sort of shrug. "Sadly the rest of the bird is… scrap, at this point. Here, I'll— oh," he steps forward as Oberlin begins to inspect the map. "See, we're kind of awkwardly stuck for H stops, prrrrobably because of all this underground nonsense we're standing in at present," he hazards a guess. "I marked the three that are closest to us, but it's going to be a crapshoot as to which if any of them are open. The one we need to get to is the one I circled, but, again, who knows whether the station's had a building collapsed in on it. Anything close to there would be better than going it on foot from here." And that's the sum of his input on the subject before he shuffles to the side, letting Oberlin look over the map and make The Big Decisions while he goes off to see about those kits for Jess, inviting him along with a glance.

"We spread our forces too thin we're going to be eating bullets. That 'let's split up' stuff works better if we have highly-trained fireteams with years of urban combat training." Oberlin says, ruefully as he peers down at the map. "We kind of don't have that."

Cappella nods,"So do we sit tight till we move out then sir?"

Stavrian smirks slightly at Oberlin. "Then we make do. Closest I have was riot control on Aerilon after the earthquake…counts as it counts." He shifts his rifle on his shoulder, scratching his chin as he looks down at what Evan's showing them. "Let's take one of those toolkits along. Good chance we'll be hitting rubble and other shit that wasn't meant to be in the way. If we have to dig or break through we'll want to be ready."

"Yah, we'll be taking them," Evan agrees readily with Jess. "The boats that the Cylons are most likely to have neglected to blow up are the old decrepit ones in the back depots. They might take a little elbow grease to get into the air at all."

"Then there's that whole 'diversion' thing." Oberlin states. "There's a good bet that if they went after Parnassus — I don't know. This place is 'safe' but I don't know for how long. Which means it's not safe at all. We'll need an ace to get past whatever defenses they have. Heh. Um, in-atmosphere jump. Talk about unsafe." He waves a hand as he goes on over to pick up his rifle, which has been neatly stowed against the wall, safety on. "Anyway, I'm thinking aloud. I'm ready to go when you are."

Stavrian nods slowly to Evan, thoughts turning in his head. He draws a breath in through his nose and lets it out slow and tense, blue eyes lifting to fix on Oberlin. "Aye, sir. Kit out and we'll be ready to go." He raps his knuckles gently against the table and straightens up, off to grab supplies for this trek through concrete razed jungle.

"Oh, it'll be great fun. Especially if we get our hands on a decommissioned naught-four ICTC airbus," Evan tells Oberlin. "Those things like to rattle in high atmo." Something like a smile, and he shoulders on back through into the former room. Corinna has his sidearm, and either he's forgotten or isn't all that eager for it back. "Jess," he calls, as the other heads out to get ready. "Those extra kits? They're over here," he points out, getting a survival pack up onto his back in case they get lost out there, and grabbing up one of the toolkits from the deceased Raptor.

Cappella nods, "My kit is ready in he room on the way out." He is in his armor already and has his rifle over his shoulder

"That's what I hear." Oberlin states towards Evandreus with the slight hesitation that indicates one thing - he's not fully convinced of the 'fun' aspect. Still, he's a good sport about the whole affair. Hefting the rifle, he checks his gear and adjusts a few straps. "This place is playing with my head. Time to go explore." He smiles thinly. Very thinly. Then to Stavrian. "Good deal. Let's leave this tomb for a bit and see if we can't find something a little more interesting."

For OOC reference, this is the information pulled off of the computers by Sawyer and Haeleah. Do not assume you know this knowledge without first talking to Polaris or Oberlin.

1) Data from what Chimaera was gathering from those anchorages: trying to manufacture artificially the radiation present at places like Ragnar and various other locations that Cylons avoid. There are YEARS of this stuff.

2) Test logs: they used their supercomputers to make brain patterns of volunteers, and then uploaded those patterns into various Centurion bodies to see what would happen after they were exposed to different types of manufactured radiation. Miranda's was one brain pattern out of many — the other fourteen also were scanned. Essentially, they were doing their best to kill different versions of themselves — or at least versions of themselves uploaded into a Cylon body with silica pathways for brains. WTF.

3) Security camera footage: the dark-haired woman in question (identified as a traitor) stepping into the weapons lab, mouthing something while looking at the camera, and then blowing herself up with bunches and bunches of BOMBS strapped to her person. That's probably what took the complex offline. Date on the video: 26 Feb 2041 AE.

4) Loads of religious files: analyses of the Prophecies of Pythia, the Prophecies of Pythia themselves (in digitized form), even bunches of different translations, all of which testify to the notion of Athena as a goddess who sacrificed her divine spark and DIED to save humanity. Speculation, conspiracy theories, all sorts of crazy stuff — including some crazy stuff focused on finding Kobol.

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