The Two Stooges

Posted on Sat Mar 12th, 2022 @ 5:21am by Leiddem Kea (*) & Delaney O'Callaghan

Mission: Mission 14: Holoworld
Location: Mess Hall
Timeline: MD06 08:00
3493 words - 7 OF Standard Post Measure

"Okay, so what the actual hell happened?"

The clatter of a meal tray on the table spared no real consideration for whatever the sole occupant's current thought process involved. The slip of a lithe figure into one of the vacant seats showed a similar lack of concern, though the split-second revelation regarding who it was at least made the imposition immediately predictable. Large blue eyes, overtly expressive for what was essentially 'first thing in the morning', pinned their target in place. Delaney, as far as any evidence thus far suggested, had a tendency to just insert herself with an expectation that she was welcome. Certainly, asking if Leiddem minded her company hadn't taken precedence over seeking him out as her best bet of updated information.

"I swear, I went to sleep and woke up and the entire ship's gone mad."

She unloaded her breakfast; cereal, fruit and yoghurt, and two types of juice and coffee blacker than sin, in a furtive hurry, keen to ditch the tray to the floor so that she could settle in and satiate her hunger as well as her curiosity. The food was unceremoniously dumped into one bowl, topped with half a glass of the apple juice because Delaney's food preferences were often as quirky as she was, and the red-head managed to chew a mouthful before continuing her bombardment.

"Everyone at the gym this morning was saying we blew up the Holoworld."

The Betazoid waited for her to stop talking and for him to stop drinking a mouthful of his lukewarm coffee before he raised an eyebrow at all the things she had asked. It was easier to just let her get all of the questions out before starting to answer them.

“Well, people on this ship are no madder than they were last night but to answer your questions the ship went homicidal towards everyone apart from the passengers so Burnie blew up the computer core.” The man explained with a shrug.

Partway through her own mouthful of coffee, Laney bounced her head from side to side in a gesture that mostly expressed a lack of surprise at that detail at least.

“But we no longer have a boss.” He said throwing out that they no longer had a department head. It was not well known to people yet but it would not be long until that was part of the ship rumour mill.

This time, the mouthful was almost choked down. "Wait, what?" Her eyes were wide again, and Delaney gawped at her friend, mind racing. He was far too casual for it to be the Captain, though that had been her immediate assumption. Leiddem could be thick-skulled, in her estimation anyway; cute, but thick-skulled, but the redhead didn't think he'd be quite so matter-of-fact about his own brother-in-law's demise. If not Gregnol, then... "You mean Robinson? What happened?"

"Robertson but yeah. Jeasaho won't say just that it was gruesome and that we are on our own and Ford is looking after us until something more stable can be decided." The man admitted trying to not think about how gruesome it could be. He could only imagine seeing what other people had said and that there was no body.

Up until that point, Delaney hadn't really appreciated the magnitude of the situation. Whilst it seemed utterly ridiculous that she'd managed to sleep through most of it, closer scrutiny of her choices over the past few days made it hardly surprising that she'd crashed hard when she'd finally decided to go to bed. Months on a ship without a working holodeck had made the Holoworld seem like an absolute godsend, and it had been hard not to spend all her off-duty time over there making use of the facilities. Crafting stories, refining character designs, not getting murdered by holograms...

She pushed aside her bowl as her appetite vanished.

"Is everyone else okay?" The subdued lilt of her brogue was reassurance enough that the gravity of the news wasn't lost on her. Laney might sometimes get swept up in the dramatics of things but people dying gruesomely wasn't entertaining. It was terrifying.

Leddiem nodded at the woman reassuring her quickly that for the most part, everyone else was okay. Psychologically it would take a while for some people to bounce back. "Two deaths and a few people in sickbay ranging from super hurt to shook up." The man said, wishing he could go and check on everyone but he was planning to head back to the ship to keep an eye on the people who were going to look into what was going on. Not that he thought the holograms would be able to get online after Burnie's work on the computer core.

Two deaths? "Wait, who was the other death?" It was this thoroughness, the attention to detail, the general lack of assumption that not only made Delaney a successful author, but proficient at her actual job. She was investigating now, probing and dissecting and making sure she had all the pieces she could get her hands on before she fronted up for work and was expected to play some part in what happened next.

"Anderson." The man said softly. It was not someone he knew well if he was honest other than knowing he was Cassie's husband. "Did not know him well I am afraid." He added hoping she did not want anymore details. "Cassie's husband."

"Oh wow."

Which was not, in any way, an expression of amazement though it came close to awe, if anything so horrific could qualify. For a brief moment, Leiddem had the uncommon privilege of leaving Delaney completely and utterly speechless. It wasn't that she was particularly close to either of the deceased; she'd met most people since joining a few months back because it was simply in her nature to walk up to unfamiliar faces and introduce herself, but her friendship group had developed into a relatively small rabble and she'd been content enough to leave it that way. She liked Cassie though, and had no reason to dislike her husband. Poor guy. "Is she okay?"

That was the million credit question at the moment. The Betazoid has no idea how the woman was, he had been thinking more about Dixoho's reaction when they finally found a way to save her and wake her up. "I do not know." He admitted feeling bad that his thoughts had been on a woman who could not wake up ever when there was someone needing support in the here and now.

"What a mess." She didn't quite slot in the way some of them did, those who had been here longer and formed the core group that appeared, at least from the outside, to be close enough to be family. The Irish had a strong sense of kinship and that feeling of connectiveness, of belonging, was something Delaney naturally craved. These losses didn't affect her personally but they represented fractures that she considered deep and painful, and it wasn't hard to feel pangs of sympathy for those who were legitimately mourning. Picking up her coffee, Laney sat back in her chair and huddled a moment over the warmth, blowing gently across the surface so that she could take a sip. Shuddering suddenly, chilled by her own contemplations, she rallied and regarded the Betazoid intently for a moment. "I guess we're leaving then if we haven't already."

The man jerked his attention back to the woman at her words and shook his head at her question, busying himself with the coffee that was now growing cold. "No, something has to be investigated about it all. Reu is not in the best mood at the moment so I did not question why I was going back over. Should go with them. Put you and Curtis both to work," He hinted with a small smile. He knew not many people knew her skills but it seemed like the perfect way for her to show off. "You and Curtis could crack this all in a hour together."

Several fluttered blinks later, and Delaney's mind finally caught up with the conversation, having taken a slight detour after the initial no and had then not regrouped at all once Leiddem mentioned going back over himself. She hadn't even properly reached the part where he was also volunteering her for this craziness, though she just added concern for her well-being to her pre-existing and expanding concern for his. "Back over there?" If Burnie had been given the job of destroying the core, then it was likely vaporised, but still... "People died gruesomely and we're going back? Oh, that's smart." She blew upwards, sending a strand of hair clear of her eyes whilst also conveying a sense of acceptance. The slight level of insanity around here was what made her fall in love with Rosie to begin with, after all. "What are we trying to find? Did Burnie take out the entire array or just the processing core?" Despite herself, Delaney was already speculating. Rendering the system incapable of activating holograms wasn't the same as destroying session logs, or archives, or any of the file storage that would sit in the buffers until flushed.

"I do not know what they are trying to find, I am going over to protect and serve, plus I love a good horror film. I want answers myself but more importantly, I want answers for the people too scared to go back. I am a lot braver than I look." He said with a shrug. Something about it all had Gregnol a lot more fired up than normal. The last time he had seen that wound up had been when he had been abducted and returned to the ship after being saved by himself, Ford, Burnie and Nollel. "Burnie vaporised anything that would make murderous holograms come after us."

Laney huffed at him, but the twinkle in her eyes was amusement enough at his expense for it to only be partial impatience with his complete lack of technical eloquence. "There's not going to be a lot to find if he also blew out the entire array because part of that is responsible for recording and storing all recent holographic sequences." Reaching out, she picked up a piece of granola from her abandoned breakfast and flicked it across the table at him. "And you thought all your forbidden trysts were private. Give me ten minutes and I can pinpoint exactly what you were doing that afternoon we couldn't find you."

Leiddem said nothing other than smile brightly at her. "I am not ashamed." He said finally as if it was a completely normal conversation. "You'll have to talk to them. I have no idea about any of this stuff, I was a Marine. Jea is the Engineer and my sisters are all doctors. They got all the brains and grace whilst I got the brawn." He held up his arms, making body builder poses, not caring that it made people look at them.

A tilted head allowed Laney to regard him with a mixture of feigned bewilderment and simmering amusement. Fondness. It wasn't the first time the Betazoid had alluded to himself has somehow being the black sheep of his family and somehow lacking in cognitive capacity but Delaney didn't find him stupid. He was straight-forward and not easily flustered, which was so much a page out of her own book that she'd have been a hypocrite to see it as a reason to judge him harshly. As for his physique? She pursed her lips to control her grin. The goofiness was more attractive but the guns weren't too bad either. "Easy tiger, it's not dessert time yet."

"Spoilsport." He said sitting back down properly grinning totally oblivious to the people around them watching them. He could not care what everyone else's feelings were of him, this was his home more than anywhere else and he would act how he wanted. "How about coffee time? Want a refill?" He offered standing to fill up his coffee mug as he was still needing more coffee.

"Mhmn." Taking several gulps of the bitter first roast of the day, Laney winced and held the half-empty mug towards him. "Put some cream in it this time, this black muck tastes awful." It woke her up though, which was kind of necessary after days of burning the candle at both ends. Glancing up at him, the redhead considered her tone and then grinned as she added, in self-mockery, "Please."

"You can get anywhere with me with a simple please," he said taking the mug from her with a grin. He did not begrudge a forgotten please and thank you when someone was obviously knackered so he set about making a coffee in the replicator the way he knew his sisters like after one too many nights studying or just being awesome. It was something even he could drink after his own nights on the town. Returning to the table he put the coffee down and handed over a sugar container not knowing if she drunk it or not so had left it out. He would be more observant in the future. "Kea special coffee." He proclaimed proudly.

Two sugars, actually. Three, if the mug was big enough. Laney had the biggest sweet-tooth in her family and, having given up defending herself, now wore the badge with pride. Her fanatical love of chocolate, for instance, would have rivalled any Betazoid's, present company definitely included. She was still reeling from her first introduction to Betazoid nectar, actually, which reminded her to remind herself that he owed her a drink. Probably. She could invent a reason later. "Ugh, that's so good, I hate you."

The first sip had gone down well.

Well, that was a relief that the coffee has gone down well. "Of course you do." The man said with a smug grin. "But I now know your weakness other than me and my guns." He grinned sitting down properly adding his own sugar to the mug. He savoured his own first sip and felt that he was actually properly awake now after Gregnol practically shaking him out of his bed.

It couldn't be said that Delaney was easy to embarrass. Concepts like shyness or coyness seemed mostly lost on the human, who operated with a kind of honesty that didn't leave room for hiding too much. With that being said, she was still adjusting to the presence of telepaths, particularly this telepath who liked to throw out disarming observations once in a while. She pinned him with a look over the top of her next sip, a wry resignation for the fact that he'd caught her out. Looking good didn't stop him from being insufferably dense at times though, so there was that pretty fact, Leiddem.

"More of a distraction than a weakness," she retorted, opting for reshaping the facts rather than denying them outright. And because she was mostly pragmatic, but also not foolish, Delaney didn't linger on the topic because, to the best of her ability to read him, Leiddem's interests didn't include women as mediocre as red-headed Operations adjuncts. Not exotic enough. Not enough damsel in distress. The thought brought home another sudden realisation, and whilst it was the least important of all the things to have gone wrong, it still sat as an immediate disappointment. "I guess we'll have to hold off on turning you into a romantic protagonist. I mean, I have the coding work I already started with, I can draft some theoretical framework but we won't be able to test it until we can book some holodeck time. I guess Freecloud might have options next time we're that way."

"Distraction," He chuckled, still happy he had gotten her to admit just that. He offered a wink before he nodded at her rationalising that they could not continue their holo program adventure without access to a holodeck to play with. "Yeah. Another time but I think we have gotten quite a lot of it correct. We should be going back to Freecloud after this but who knows. Might be off on another adventure but who knows. What part did you want to do next?" He ventured.

"Well, the character modelling still needs some tweaks. Then we can work on some slight variations until you're satisfied."

One piece of feedback the programmer had given her friend was that direct representations could be confronting. Delaney's entire career, if it could really be called that, as a holo-novelist had started as a way to connect with her boyfriend back home whilst she was at university. Once that relationship hadn't survived temptation and distance, there were several adventures out in the ether that gained traction before she could do anything about it. She'd veered into other stories for a while, with other protagonists, but demand eventually got the better of her. Of her entire library, those featuring herself represented less than a quarter of the titles but that hadn't stopped them gaining some popularity. It could be disconcerting meeting people who recognised you intimately.

Not that Leiddem would probably mind. Insufferable, ridiculous, mildly adorable jerk. That thought process was too fond to really stick as an insult.

"But we can go back over the story map without needing a holodeck. Just need some time when we're both free and not investigating creepy possessed ships."

"Yeah, maybe next month." he laughed. He was hopeful that he might get a month to work on his own projects and just be him instead of Captain's Brother in law. It was such a human term, he thought more on Gregnol as the brother he never had growing up. He had always wanted a brother and the man fitted what he thought he had wanted to a T, it was just a shame he liked his sister more than him. "You know something, this has been fun. I never considered anything like this before."

Regarding him for a moment over the top of her sinfully-good coffee, Delaney eventually lowered it to smile at him; a heartfelt, glowing smile that was different from her usual grin because of a vague softness around the eyes. "It's addictive," she confided, suffering a momentary pang of conscience for dragging him down the rabbit hole. "But it's interesting writing with someone else." Studying him for a moment longer, Laney added, "You and your crazy bonkers ideas actually make it a lot of fun."

The man shrugged at what she thought was addictive. He could not say he could see how but it was her opinion. "I try." He said brightly. "Just nice to use something other than my Marine or Medic skills." He admitted. He had always been creative but it had been on the back burner for a long time with all the chaos that had come into his life recently.

Creating stories, designing settings and characters, bringing it all to life with endless tweaks and modifications? Laney would give him one holo-adventure before her friend became thoroughly entranced with the idea of starting a new one right away, and that was fine with her. Without any working holodecks to actually work on the coding, the creation process was all she had and she'd actually found collaborating more fun than she'd expected. Between Curtis and Leiddem, Delaney was actually finding scope for digging up projects that had felt just too vast previously.

Reaching out, she pulled her breakfast closer and exhaled slowly as she forced herself to eat. It'd be a long stretch until lunchtime otherwise. "When do you head back over?," she asked softly between mouthfuls.

The man glanced to the chronometer and frowned. He was already late if he was honest but a few minutes would make no difference to what happened now. "Now." He admitted. "Are you wanting to come? I can wait a bit longer?" He offered as he made a start to pack away his track to tidy up his area.

Want? Did she want to go back over onto a death-trap that had already claimed two lives? Delaney's face screwed into a grimace that reflected the kind of genuine trepidation that should be present when dealing with the aftermath of 'gruesome' homicides. The only thing that made it remotely palatable was the reasonable confidence that Burnie never did things by halves. "Fine," she eventually relented, shovelling down several more mouthfuls of cereal before finishing the rest of her coffee in a single gulp. "But I swear to god, Lei, if I get butchered by anything over there, I am never going to stop haunting you."