| Two For One Interviews |
| Summary: | Kincaid interviews Magnus not only about the attack in the Elpis common room, but also about why he wants to join the Fleet. |
| Date: | 7 Feb 2042 AE |
| Related Logs: | Gravity. |
| Players: |
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| Recovery Room — Sickbay — Deck 10 — Battestar Cerberus |
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| A much more quiet area of Medical, this elongated room is also lined with beds. Each is similarly outfitted with privacy curtains as necessary and even the paint on the walls has been lightened in an attempt to help lift spirits. Chairs are readily available all over the place so that visitors can pull one up to talk to the patients during their recovery. Near the entrance, visiting hours are posted with a very conspicuous 'No Smoking' sign. |
| Post-Holocaust Day: #346 |
So, it's been about, eight days days since Magnus was rushed inside Cerberus' sickbay. Now, after a lot of stitches he is in the Recovery Room, trying to get better while also waiting to be released from there. He has been a little nervous since he found out about the fact that Van Sholty is staying in the same room. Right now, the man has his eyes closed and is laying on his bed. Both hands rest on his sides, one of them being completely bandaged with visible metal sticks at finger level while the other remains untouched. He also has bandages around his upper torso, a collar around his neck and he shows a wide variety of bruises and cuts on his face. His eyes are not as swollen as yesterday but they still look pretty bad. He has stitches over his right eyebrow, left temple, left-ish forehead, some on his cheek. Yeah, it's not pretty but he'll live.
A flashed set of credentials manages to get Kincaid past the orderlies at the door and into the recovery room where the prisoner and the victim lie — well — together, more or less. "Mister Dekker? You awake?" His voice is somewhat soft, just in case he IS unconscious or asleep, but also firm. Just in case he's awake. "I'm Lance Corporal Kincaid. I'm with the military police."
Magnus is indeed, awake. He slowly opens his eyes and when he does, Kincaid will be able to notice that they are bloodshot red around the blue of his eyes, at least a big part of them since he has been recovering a bit. "Yes" comes as the answer, his voice sounding coarse and hurt due to the attack on his neck. He tries to take a deep breath but winces a little, coughing after that. "You are here for questioning, Lance Corporal Kincaid?" asks the man now, studying Kincaid now that he can focus better.
Kincaid takes one of the visitor's chairs from here and goes to pull it up alongside the bed, so that he's closer to the patient-slash-interviewee. "Well, Mister Dekker. You're getting a two-for-one special. I'm here to talk to you about the attack that happened in Elpis the other day. But I've also been assigned to do your background check for Officer Candidacy School."
Magnus follows Kincaid with his gaze as he pulls a chair closer to where he is. When the man announces the why he is here, he nods. Or at least, he semi nods given the collar he is wearing. "Yes, yes. My application for OCS." He clears his throat and winces again, and it keeps sounding, rather awful. "I apologize for not being able to speak more…clearly" He looks at the man again and adds "Ask away, Lance Corporal Kincaid."
Kincaid shakes his head. "Not at all, Mister Dekker. You're doing just fine. I'll just apologize in advance if I'm not able to hear more clearly." He takes out his notebook and a clicky ballpoint pen — much better than usual issue. "So let's talk about what happened on Elpis first. What I want you to do is just close your eyes and think back to what happened, try to put it all in your head. And then just tell me the whole story as you remember it, start to finish. If I have questions, I'll jump in. Okay?"
Magnus tries to nod at Kincaid but again, due to the collar, he fails miserably. "You want me to close my eyes?" asks the man with a coarse tone of voice. Odd request but…the man does indeed, close his eyes, trying to remember. "I remember we were all sitting at a table, the civilians and that Marine. We were having a nice conversation and enjoying some snacks before bed time." He goes silent again, trying to remember "There was a redhead, really pretty girl. She wasn't there at first but she appeared and joined our group." He takes a deep breath and coughs "I think she was a cleaner? I'm not sure. All the guys started to make conversation and all, because..well…like I said, the woman was pretty beautiful." He coughs again "But I remember she kept looking at me and then, she said 'Hey aren't you that famous scientist, Magnus Dekker?' And then she got this face of disgust I guess and said 'You gave that speech on Artificial Intelligence, didn't you?!' " He coughs again and moves his hand to his chest "She started pointing fingers at me, asking me if I wasn't ashamed of what I done or how /could/ I have done something like that." He tries to take a deep breath "The other guys had these weird look on their faces and she told everything I did…that angered them I guess. Things got pretty heated up there, at that point it wasn't just her making accusations, it was all of them and I tried to explain, I tried to explain why I gave that lecture, why I thought the field of Artificial Intelligence had a lot of future. They didn't like it and…and one of the guys threw the first punch and then the others followed…I didn't see the redhead after that, I just started to run away."
The only sound that Kincaid makes when Magnus speaks is the scribbling of his pen across his pad, a short, clipped, short-hand. "Tell me about the Marine and the men. Did they know one another before you all sat together, did it seem?" His question is short and to the point.
Magnus looks at how Kincaid writes everything down and after he asks, he stays in silence for a couple moments, trying to remember details. "I….I don't know. I don't think so? I know there are Marines there all the time doing rounds and all but, I wouldn't know if those four knew each-other" He rubs his chest with one hand and coughs again "We were just talking about whatever, you know?"
"Yes. She wasn't there at first, she sorta walked in. I think she was a cleaner or something." says Magnus "She joined us and while she was talking to us about whatever, she kept looking at me and then mentioned the Artificial Intelligence subject" adds the man, trying to sit up a little but finally stopping those efforts due to pain.
Kincaid nods slowly, making a few additional notations on his pad. "Is there anything else you can remember about what happened that you'd want me to know?" he asks. "Anything at all?"
"I don't think so" says Magnus "I remember that after the hit me right there, I tried to run for it but they caught up with me and kept hitting and then…I woke up here" Yeah, nothing much to say on that end. Beat up Magnus is beat up.
"Yeah. No kidding." Kincaid pauses. "So. What makes you want to join the Fleet? Is it something that you wanted to do before all of this, or what?"
"I don't want to go back to the Elpis, and I know that with a College education you can access the OCS" says Magnus with full honesty "I wasn't planning on joining the fleet. But then again, I wasn't planning on being hated by the Scientific Community, I wasn't planning for my company to close doors." He clears his throat again "There are a lot of things I really never planned for but, we make the best of things with what we have. Besides, I did work for the Colonial Fleet in the past, I figure it's a good thing to do to…do some more work for them"
Scribble, scribble goes the pen across the pad, the non-judgmental scribbling of a pen. "Sure," agrees Kincaid, readily. "So what did you think you'd do in the Fleet? Be an Engineering officer, working on computer systems?"
"I guess that would be potential choice. I mean, Computer Systems is where my strengths are. If Engineering is where I would use them the most, then that's the best option, yes." says Magnus agreeing with Kincaid. "I guess the other option would be…CIC but, I don't know, I'll go where they want me as long as they don't send me back to Elpis"
"So it's fair to say that you're looking to join the military just because you're worried about going to Elpis?" asks Kincaid, his pen pausing for a moment on his pad so that he can look over at the fellow in the bed in front of him.
"It's fair to say that it has a lot to do with that, yes. It's also fair to say that not only I want to join because of that, but because I think I could really help, with whatever you guys are doing here." says Magnus, lightly shrugging his shoulders at that. "All the Civilians that join the Military, why do they join? Everyone has their reasons but the one everyone shares is that they want to do something to help, or at least I hope it's that way. Do I want to join because I don't want to return to Elips, because I want to stay here? Yes. But that is not the only reason"
A pause. A nod. "So tell me about your work before the bombs came. What sort of work were you doing?" Kincaid brings his pen up again, looking to take down whatever the answer might be. "I know it was on A.I. But what about it?"
Magnus shakes his head at what Kincaid said "It wasn't on A.I." he clears his throat and explains "I have a Doctorate in Computer Science. I started a company called Smart Systems. We specialized ourselves in Security basically. Cryptography, Networked systems, High Security, High Performance Protocols. We did jobs for banks, Universities, the Colonial Fleet. We had even a suite of products thought for the common households." He says this with pride in his voice "I was also the Head of the Computer Science Department at Caprica University. I was a professor as well. I gave lectures on System Security, Networks and Cryptography all over the twelve Colonies. I was an authority in the Scientific Community, and considered one of the greatest minds of the Century along with Gaius Baltar" He clears his throat and winces "Do I say this to show off? No, but since you are trying to collect information, I might just provide it" He coughs "A.I. was something of a big interest for me, because I knew the potential it had. I also knew that it was a forbidden subject but that didn't stop me from doing my own research on it. I developed some small application that relayed on learning processes and reasoning, games if you will." His voice sounding a little worse "I made it into the Board of Directors at Caprica University and Smart Systems was one of the strongest companies in the field. Ad then, I decided that, in that position I could take the liberty of giving a lecture on A.I." He coughs again "That didn't went well"
"Yeah?" Kincaid arches an eyebrow. "What happened?"
"I was called a disgrace to the Scientific Community. I lost my job at the University and a lost a lot of clients, with Smart Systems. I received a lot of threats and I ended up in the hospital once after a group of people attacked me in Caprica. I closed Smart Systems and left Caprica. I went to Tauron and earned my way by fixing computers and doing…you know, small things."
Scribble. Scribble. Scribble. Scribble. "So. You know. Being in the military is a lot of responsibility. Hierarchy. Following orders. How do you think you'll deal with that after living a more — free — academic sort of life?"
"Considering that, the -free- academic sort of life you mention has been evaporated? I think I'll do well" offers the man with a dry voice but not ill intended. "Like I said, I've done a lot of work for the Military, I don't think following orders is going to be a problem if we are working to do something for…the ones that are still alive."
"What would you do if some of your military colleagues were less-than-happy with your background in Artificial Intelligence? Prejudiced folks aren't limited to the civilian population on Elpis. Heck, some of them would say that they really flourish here in the military." Kincaid has an ironic smile on his lips at that.
"If that be the case, I'll trust that not all the Military folks are going to be like that." says Magnus, shrugging at that. "What /can/ I do? I can't do shit, Mr. Kincaid, I'm not a warrior, so if someone decides to kill me and nobody stops them, it is more than likely that I'll die. But hopefully the Military has more…control"
Kincaid just nods at that. "What have your interactions with the military been like since you've come aboard? What sort of view do you have of them? Positive? Negative? How do you feel about a civilian-controlled government?"
"Close to none, aside from small conversations here and there… I would say positive, until the other day." says Magnus and clears his throat again "I'm not against a Civlian controlled government, it's what we had after all. But…as long as the ones in charge are doing things right, and not power hungry morons"
Magnus nods to Kincaid and offers "Thank you for stopping by, Mr. Kincaid. It's good to be able to talk with people from time to time. I used to be less that social but being a professor teaches you how to interact more with people. And lately I just see doctors." He nods again and offers "Ok, sounds like a plan"
And so with a smile and a final nod, Kincaid turns on his heel and departs the recovery room, letting Magnus get back to recuperating.