PHD #389: Red Tape
Red Tape
Summary: It binds hands, it covers mouths.
Date: 22 Mar 2042 AE
Related Logs: The Man Behind The Curtain (Sawyer's tour of Areion) Cost of Business (Precisely what Kincaid can't tell Sawyer)
Players:
Kincaid Sawyer 
Laundry Room - Deck 3 - Battlestar Cerberus
Condition Level: 3 - All Clear
Industrial washers and dryers line each side of this elongated room, which typically has personnel moving in and out all day and night. These front-loading systems are designed to withstand the rigors of a military beating and still function as expected. A sturdy set of counters run the length of the room for crewmembers to fold their own laundry and dress and pins or patches before and after the process.
Post-Holocaust Day: #389

It's Condition 3! Time to stand down! Time to party! Time to be able to drink and go to Pete's and — do your laundry. Yeah, Danny Kincaid is in his off-duties and is shifting clothes from one of the industrial to washers to one of the industrial dryers. Does the fun ever stop? It does in about fifty minutes.

Condition Two versus Condition Three isn't much different for a Civilian. The only thing that changes is accessibility to the other ships, and even then there is some wiggle room if you know the right people who can pull the right strings. The reporter, however, has been keeping surprisingly to herself which means she's either working on something big or not working at all. Thus she's not out among the masses, celebrating the current lull in Cylon activity, it's just business as usual. And usual means laundry, much the same as Danny is doing only she wasn't babysitting the spin cycle like Kincaid. There's a click of her heels as she enters, nose stuck in a notebook, and she damn near runs into him on her way to a dormat machine. "Oh. Hi."

Kincaid turns his head at the sound. "Oh? Hi? Really? Don't see me for weeks and all I get is 'oh. hi.'?" Danny sounds half-put-out, half-teasing with it. It's hard to say what side he truly is on. Indeed, he seems generally lost in thought, unusually pensive the former reporter is. "Need some help moving your stuff?" Despite his slightly-peeved nature, he cannot help but spring to Sawyer's aid.

Sawyer shakes off her daze with a little toss of her head and press of her fingers to her nose. "Danny. Sorry, sorry, I was…" her hand drops away and she gives a whoosh of air. "Walking around with my head up my ass, is what I was doing. Sorry, let's try that again." Sawyer plants her hands on his shoulders to keep him put for a minute so she can kiss him on the cheek. "Danny, it's good to see you. I've missed everyone, you especially."

There is something about this woman that just makes Danny a sucker for her. His hardness melts and he returns the kiss to her cheek, more than happy to stay put for the exchange of affection. "I've missed you, too. How have you been holding up? Not going stir-crazy with the constant Condition Two, I hope." He doesn't explain his own previous distractedness.

"Gods." Sawyer rocks back off her tiptoes, releasing her grip on Danny to turn and attend to her laundry herself instead of making him do the change over. "I'm fairly certain that the month since the one year anniversary of war day would have been a complete and utter frak of a disaster had it not been for Kepner sneaking me over for a tour of his Super Ship." With a handful of damp clothes, she makes her way over to stuff them in the dryer next to the one Kincaid is using. "I've decided, by the way, not to publish that article about Magnus until your investigation is complete. Threats from the mysterious photographer or no."

Well, that piques Kincaid's interest. "Tour of the super-ship?" echoes the reporter. Er. Marine. "What did you see? What did he show you?" It's like he wants to reach into his breast pocket and pull out his pad. Good thing he's not wearing the shirt that usually has the pad in it; the pad is in his pocket, of course. "As for the article, do what you want. It should be wrapping up soon, especially now that we're back in Condition 3. I should have the two attackers' names just as soon as I can get back over to Elpis. I'll let you know when I've got something though. Promise. You'll get the big splashy story of my bust."

"Of course I do. Who else is going to run it?" Sawyer grins at Kincaid over her shoulder as she goes in for another wad of wet clothing. "There are advantages to being the self-proclaimed editor in chief." The second portion of clothing joins the first and she closes up the dryer and sets it on high. "I couldn't get close to The Gun, but I was able to view it from safety. And I got a history of the ship. Do you know anything about an Admiral Hauck?"

"Sure." Danny was, after all, Senior Defense Correspondent for the Libran Post before he was a cop. "She ran ARPROD. Real hush-hush black ops stuff that no one would ever think would come to fruition. Vaporware for high-budget defense contracts. She was the great mind behind the Parnassus Anchorage that apparently managed to do enough to scare the bajeezus out of the Cylons, as we all found out after the fact." He stops his litany and then glances at Sawyer. "I miss anything?"

"You have." Sawyer tells him simply, hoisting herself up on one of the quiet machines. Her feet flex, shoes slipping off her heels and only hanging on by virtue of her toes. Ah, so much better. Why the woman insists on wearing the torture devices around a Battlestar is anyone's guess. No one would fault her for switching to her marine issued boots, would they? "The Admiral was of course responsible for the Areion. And…" Wait for it. Wait for it. "Our good friends at MolGen."

Kincaid hoists himself up onto the machine next to her. He's interested. Yes, he's quite interested indeed. "What did she have to do with MolGen?" asks the Marine, the cogs in his brain going into overdrive. That's the thinking that's going on there. "Was it a big defense contractor in ARPROD or something?" He takes a guess at the obvious possibilities.

Sawyer turns partially sideways on the washer for ease of conversation, hand lifting to tuck hair behind her ear in a hurried movement of excitement. "MolGen was apparently the lowest bidder on the research which was a part of project Ananke. In turn, yes, part of Advanced Research and Product that was Admiral Hauck's brain child. The shit they were developing? My guess was practically confirmed by Kepner that the technology is now sitting pretty just a short Raptor ride away from here. The gun focuses specialized radiation which disrupts the neural function of Cylons. Now how do you like them apples?"

If Sawyer is expecting shock and surprise at the revelation that the radiation disrupts the neural function of Cylons, well, she'll be disappointed. Kincaid just nods. "Yeah. Those are some apples." And then he seems torn; it's like he wants to stay more and is checking himself. Checking himself? Danny? Well, that's odd.

Sawyer reaches over to needle him in the side with her index finger. "What? This is big Danny. Really big. Problem is, I don't know what to really do with this information. Truth be told, Kepner kind of gives me the heebie jeebies."

Kincaid swats at the hand, but his heart isn't in it. He seems to be considering how just to word this. "Well," he says finally. "If the Gun's radiation screws with the neural functions of Cylons, I mean — that would give Command the ability to try to do a dragnet of suspected Cylons. The radiation is a sort of screwed up Cylon detector: Stick folds near it and see if they go nuts. If so, Cylon." He just lets that hang there.

"Man. Now you're even /sounding/ like Kepner. His wet-dream sounded like marching every man, woman and child in front of The Gun, to see how many of them dropped. I suggested that was unethical, but he didn't seem to share that sentiment." Sawyer pauses, her brown eyes narrowing just a hint. "I didn't say anything about them going crazy…"

"Who said that I was in favor of it, Sawyer?" Danny comes very close to snapping at her; it might even be said to be snapping at her, as much as Danny snaps. "Look. I'm in a tough spot, Sawyer. Everyone wants to find out where the Cylon infiltrators are; even you and I do. Or we should. I mean, who the frak knows how they keep finding us. But —" He lets out a heavy sigh of air. "It's a frakking hard place, okay, Sawyer, and you're my best friend, and I can't talk to you about it, and that's tearing me to pieces and it just frakking sucks." And that's when his dryer BUZZes. He hops off the machine. "Okay?"

The way her forehead crinkles suddenly, it's almost as if Sawyer just winced. "Yeah. Yeah, okay Danny, sure." She turns her head, finding distraction in pulling her notebook back into her lap and flipping it back open. She's not precisely sure what happened there, but she must respect him enough not to neddle. "Just forget I said anything."

Kincaid takes his clothes out of the dryer and tosses them into his basket unceremoniously, not even bothering to try to fold them. He'll work it out later. And then he stops in front of Sawyer and kisses her cheek. "I'm sorry. Just this one really is secret enough that I could get in trouble for telling you." He closes his eyes. "You take care, Sawyer. I — " Love you. "— I'll see you soon."

"Sure." Is the only response from the blonde, who doesn't even dare look up after that kiss on the cheek. She just lets him part, because it's easier for them both that way.

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