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02 ☢ hits you so much harder than you thought
spam } snafu
[He doesn't know whether to be grateful or worried that he got paired up so quickly. It's something to distract him from Simon, at least - Simon being here and being Simon all over everyone. It isn't that he's not happy to see him, it's just that - well. Politics make things complicated, and Simon wears politics like one of his bulky sweaters.]
[Snafu, he thinks, is not much for politics. Snafu, he thinks, is very simple while being very complicated all at one time. Snafu is going to be trouble.]
[This was something he knew already, but reading the file makes it certain. Never mind the fact that on reading it he feels a little dirty, as if he's become privy to someone's worst, darkest secrets. Which is more or less the case. Made worse by the fact that he doesn't think Snafu will care that he knows.]
[In the end, after a few hours of lying in bed thinking about too many things all at once, he decides to just get it over with. Sits in the mirror and carefully removes the mousse, because there's nothing worse than being caught in an in-between state. His anxiety is at an all-time high, his heart would be palpitating if it could, and now he's walking to Snafu's door. He can feel how pale he is, see the white of his eyes as other people can see them. But he doesn't stop until he's knocking.]
voice } gene
Hiya. I have to ask you something.
[It's not a nice something, exactly, but it's. He just has to ask it, all right.]
spam } enclosure
[After meeting with Snaf - a mixed bag, as he expects these meetings might be for a while - he wants to walk. To be alone, or as alone as he can be in a place like this, but to be outside, too - as outside as you can be indoors. The obvious solution to this is programming a wide, empty field with sparse treeline in the distance into the Enclosure and go for a long walk.]
[His gait is still not quite steady, his skin deathly pale, eyes dead white. But he's smiling in the face of the wind, even if this place isn't natural and he knows it.]
text } admiral
[He doesn't know whether to be grateful or worried that he got paired up so quickly. It's something to distract him from Simon, at least - Simon being here and being Simon all over everyone. It isn't that he's not happy to see him, it's just that - well. Politics make things complicated, and Simon wears politics like one of his bulky sweaters.]
[Snafu, he thinks, is not much for politics. Snafu, he thinks, is very simple while being very complicated all at one time. Snafu is going to be trouble.]
[This was something he knew already, but reading the file makes it certain. Never mind the fact that on reading it he feels a little dirty, as if he's become privy to someone's worst, darkest secrets. Which is more or less the case. Made worse by the fact that he doesn't think Snafu will care that he knows.]
[In the end, after a few hours of lying in bed thinking about too many things all at once, he decides to just get it over with. Sits in the mirror and carefully removes the mousse, because there's nothing worse than being caught in an in-between state. His anxiety is at an all-time high, his heart would be palpitating if it could, and now he's walking to Snafu's door. He can feel how pale he is, see the white of his eyes as other people can see them. But he doesn't stop until he's knocking.]
voice } gene
Hiya. I have to ask you something.
[It's not a nice something, exactly, but it's. He just has to ask it, all right.]
spam } enclosure
[After meeting with Snaf - a mixed bag, as he expects these meetings might be for a while - he wants to walk. To be alone, or as alone as he can be in a place like this, but to be outside, too - as outside as you can be indoors. The obvious solution to this is programming a wide, empty field with sparse treeline in the distance into the Enclosure and go for a long walk.]
[His gait is still not quite steady, his skin deathly pale, eyes dead white. But he's smiling in the face of the wind, even if this place isn't natural and he knows it.]
text } admiral
Dear Admiral,
You could've just asked.
For Steve, charcoal pencils of different softness. Pastels, in case he likes them.
For Eugene, foods he's used to. Some little figurine landmarks of Mobile, Alabama. A picture of what it looks like now.
For Snafu, his favorite cigarettes. Foods he's used to. Hand sanitizer.
For T'Pol, something to do with her hands. A stress ball? Sweaters.
For Philip, that board game we made.
For Chromie, book repair equipment. A nice sweater that fits well, plain with bulky knit. Forest green.
For Simon, two Bibles, one antique one, a nice one, gilt and all, one to mark up. I'll make the other part of his gift myself.
[Spam]
Merriell Shelton?
[Spam]
He goes by Snafu. [His words are positively drenched with irony.]
[Spam]
Have you met him?
[Spam]
[Distasteful, he'd say, but sticks with just making a face rather than being explicitly, totally rude. For now.]
[Spam]
That bad?
[Spam]
[A hapless sort of shrug.]
I don't know how to explain it. You'd have to meet him. It's - he's -
[What is the word.]
When someone just doesn't care anymore. [He moves his hand like he's picking through the air for the words.]
[Spam]
Not like you and me.
[It's a question, phrased like a statement -- because Simon certainly knows what it is to stop caring about anything, and he knows there was at least one point at which Kieren did, too.]
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Not like us, no.
[And maybe from that, Simon can understand - how does he help someone to care again when he really doesn't know how it happened for him? He remembers not caring, and he knows he cares now, but the time in between was chaos and pain and aching loneliness and a few moments of perfect happiness, increasing in pitch and frequency as time moved forward into the now. He cares, now. But if he can bring someone else into caring, that's the real, terrifying question.]
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[He's teasing, but there's an apology behind it: he can't answer this for Kieren, as much as he'd like to. It was different for him, sharper and more easily defined. He knows exactly when he started caring again. John and Victor had made certain of that whether they'd intended to or not.]
[Spam]
Not an option here, no way. Though I s'pose you could give him a speech if you wanted.
[He closes his eyes and tilts his head up to the sun, which he knows is false and which he couldn't quite feel anyway.]
You're not worried at all, are you.
[Spam]
Worried about what? You and your Snafu?
[Spam]
[He shrugs, glances out at the moors again.]
You and your . . . someone. Sometime.
[Spam]
[He nudges Kieren's shoulder lightly, the corner of his mouth twitching back up a bit.]
What happens if Gaz shows up?
[Spam]
Chuck him over the side?
[Spam]
[Except now this has him thinking of who his inmate might wind up being, and that reminds him of the disturbing stories he's been starting to hear from some of them. He frowns, the humor fading from his expression.]
Kieren?
[It's tough. Everything he's heard so far is based on hearsay of other hearsay. No one seems to have proof of anything. But if Kieren says it, if Kieren says he believes it, Simon knows he will, too.]
Is it true what they say about this place? That all the inmates are...
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[Looking back at him now, Kieren worries his lip, knowing the answer, uncertain if it'll help in the least.]
I met one person, she said she didn't remember dying. That she would remember. But everyone else I've met.
Yeah. They've all died.
[Spam]
[Because Simon knows as well if not better than anyone else that information can be a powerful, powerful thing, and the way it's handled so powerful as to be deadly in the wrong hands. They'd been reminded of that the hard way with Amy, but it's something he's been fighting with since his second life began: who is saying what, and why, and how does anyone know it's true?
And this isn't exactly where his faith in Kieren falters, but he knows he might need a bit of a push. Kieren, who believed the Give Back scheme would only last six months, who thought going back to the treatment center wouldn't be so bad. If Kieren really believes it, Simon will too, but he needs to be sure. The stakes on this are far too high, to him, not to be sure.]
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[But he remembers what Snafu said, the callous way he said it, the hollow way he regarded his own death. It's hard to forget, even if he wanted to.]
I've spoken to some people who know they died. The one who knows she didn't. Everyone else, you'd have to ask them yourself.
[Spam]
Enough people for it to be true, Kieren. That all the prisoners here -- most of the prisoners here -- they're living dead.
[Which is not the same as undead, and if it is true, he doesn't know what to do about it. He just doesn't. If they're like him, then that wasn't what he'd signed on for, playing prison guard to his own kind. If they're not... then what does that mean?]
[Spam]
[So Kieren goes quiet and just regards him for a moment, receptive, but giving nothing back. He knows this is important, he does. To Simon. To Kieren . . . it doesn't really change a thing.]
You think you've been lied to.
[Spam]
[He draws in a breath and lets it out slowly, a sound of honest distress, and suddenly his intense focus goes a bit scattered.]
I need to be sure. The first one who told me -- he said the only reason he knew was that the others told him. He had a scar, but... he was alive, Kieren. Eating, drinking, heart beating. All of it.
[Spam]
[It matters to Simon. So, all of a sudden, it matters to him, too, this thing he'd barely thought about before.]
They're almost all alive like that. I think, anyway. At some point it . . . gets hard, I think, to know what's true and what someone told you. But the ones who remember dying - will they be more reliable, do you think, their stories?
[He hesitates, remembering something else.]
Did you get one of the pamphlets? With the death toll on it?
[Spam]
Death toll?
[Spam]
[He's been carrying the pamphlet around with him every day, just in case he forgets something, a neurotic habit, a safety blanket he just can't shake. He pulls the crumpled paper out of his back pocket, unfolds it, and hands it to Simon, then folds his hands at his side, suddenly nervous.]
[Spam]
And Kieren, of course, has already hit the nail on the head on exactly which part he finds most unsettling. Oh, he's not sure he likes the idea of going through any further alterations just yet, even temporary ones, but--]
Since the Barge is an afterlife, a state of permanent death is not possible.
[He rereads that line aloud, his brow creasing with distress. He looks up at Kieren after a moment.]
He didn't tell me. Did he tell you? When you came aboard?
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