Fables and Threats (Holoworld Backpost)

Posted on Fri Apr 8th, 2022 @ 4:25pm by Delaney O'Callaghan & Curtis Vaan
Edited on on Fri Apr 8th, 2022 @ 4:35pm

Mission: Mission 14: Holoworld
Location: SS Mary Rose
Timeline: MD-06 0830
1802 words - 3.6 OF Standard Post Measure

ON:

Curtis was sprawled more than sat on the floor of the computer core. Between two tall interface towers he had a stack of datapads and a couple of his own tools scattered untidily around him as he waited for some code to compile and run. He sighed as the progress marker ticked very slowly onwards. This was the boring part: the waiting.

"Hey, there you are."

Forever the bolt out of the proverbial blue, Delaney had managed a fairly silent entry whilst, at the same time, completely squandering the advantage within seconds to call out across the room. Long hair pulled back into a ponytail, black close-fitting pants tucked into tall boots that followed the line upwards to a black tank under one of her many jackets, the redhead exuded the air of someone in the process of leaving. Her strides carried a similar purpose and she slipped under a railing to drop down beside him, landing on both feet like a cat.

"You coming? Captain's investigation team is due to leave, Lei' said you were getting dragged along too." Laney's eyes lifted to scan the exterior of the core briefly, the usual jumble of her thoughts plucking random points of reference to pepper her conversation with multiple entry points. "Something wrong with the core?"

"Yeah, I'm coming," he sighed, looking at the mess he'd left. "I'm just parsing code. Making sure our computer wasn't affected by anything over there, you know? Would hate for us all to die horrifically." Like Robertson. He awkwardly stumble-lifted himself into a standing position, his muscles aching from the unnatural sitting he had been doing.

The redhead winced, her grimace the usual brand of expressive honesty that meant Delaney took virtually no pains to limit her own empathetic shudder. "Lei' told me enough to make me believe we're probably insane for going back," she agreed, reaching out a hand to brush debris from his shoulder. "But hey," she flashed him a grin, not without sympathy but veering towards the upbeat optimism Laney typically preferred, "When has a healthy dose of insanity ever stopped us, right?"

"Hey, I'm not insane. I just don't have a stick up my ass like most people. I'm free spirited. Living the rebel life..." he let himself become more 'himself' as they walked. "They call me the Fonzy of the SS Mary Rose, don't you know?"

A sideways deadpan nevertheless conveyed amusement. "I think you call yourself the self-appointed Fonz. Probably best not to think about what others call you." Delaney winked, more or less confident that Curtis could tell when someone was yanking his chain, or at the very least, she didn't spare a thought for him actually taking her seriously. Slipping through the doors slightly ahead, Laney then turned around to take the next few steps backwards as she studied her friend's face. "So you were over there, right? When things went all..." Rather than finish the sentence, she drew her finger across her throat.

"Wow, buzzkill..." he sighed, having just pulled his head out of that place. "Sorry. That's me just trying to forget about it all. Tried to stay away from all the punchy-shooty things my whole life." His face screwed up a little as he tried to push the memory of it out of his mind. Especially the sound; the sound was the worst part. "Best part about computers is they don't scream when you..." he waved a hand to mimic her throat-cutting gesture.

Nobody had ever accused Delaney of being subtle. She had the grace to look faintly apologetic, however; for once, her intent hadn't been to be overly nosy. "I asked," she started, "because I wasn't sure. I kind of seem to have slept through all the really bad stuff." That still baffled her. She had pulled almost 48 hours at the time with nothing more than a couple of short naps, but still. "And now we're headed back over..." And the Tactless Award goes to... There was inherent kindness to her tone, though, and as with almost everything that came out of her mouth, Laney's heart was in the right place. "I just wanted to make sure you're okay with that. I don't know that I'll be more use than you over there," she admitted, finding no shame in second place in this instance, "but it can still be my turn if you'd rather stay back here." This Laney declared with the absolute confidence that she was the one calling the shots, which she probably wasn't but that hadn't stopped her yet.

"Nah, I need to face it. Captain pays me to do one job: look after the computer systems. If I don't do that, I'm dead weight..." he cringed. "Ugh. Bad choice of words." He kept walking, reflecting silently that every time he heard any words related to death and killing that it was going to trigger some sort of PTSD. Now there was a lifelong problem he wasn't looking forward to dealing with. "And why should I be afraid when I've got you covering my back, right?" he grinned more deliberately, giving her a little shoulder nudge.

"Your back? So you're going in first then?" The tease was light-hearted, and despite the fact that there was absolutely no intended disregard or insensitivity about it, Laney's general demeanour was far more chipper than it perhaps had any right to be considering the circumstances. It wasn't a lack of nerves, more a typical annoyance with them and the subsequent decision to ignore them as best she could. "I was nearly done programming a fencing duel before all my holodecks got blasted offline, I can absolutely guarantee full protection against honorable foes that advance along a set line." To prove the point, Delaney danced and twirled her next few steps in full fencer's poise.

Curtis laughed, a little comforting giggle amid the dour note of all the 'bad'. "Fencing, huh? Think you're Mrs Erroll Flynn now all of a sudden?" He mirrored her for a moment in a faux pose himself. "Or perhaps you are ze mighty and mysterious Zorro!" His extended hand waved in a vaguely 'Z' shape in between them. Although fencing - or really fighting of any kind - wasn't his jam, he wasn't opposed to the odd swashbuckling adventure. Especially when it came to creating holonovels.

"Oh, please." Never one to back down from even a make-believe challenge, Laney twirled into position, facing off whilst also continuing the backwards momentum that allowed them to continue along the corridor. "I'm at least all three of the musketeers rolled into one." Swishing her imaginary foil at him, she added, "My protagonist was moments away from rescuing her hapless beau from an angry pirate hoard. I'm not complaining because, well, you know...things kind of got out of hand, I get it." Delaney lunged forward and spun out of the way at the last moment to boop her index finger into Curtis' upper arm and then fall easily into step beside him again. "But I was so close to being finished."

Once again, there was no intention on the redheaded author's part to be callous and disregard the suffering that had brought a swift end to her creative process. If she'd been the one with the red button in her hand, she'd have pressed it too; she understood the necessity. But Curtis, at least, could be trusted to understand just how difficult it was to fixate and obsess and come so close to finally realising a narrative, only to be plunged back into the abyss of having no frequent access to holographic technology.

"Yarr." He said it with melancholy. Eventually he shrugged, sharing her creative wanderlust. "I can pull some of the files, if you want? Should still be some of the backups in the system somewhere. I mean, I guess they'd be safe enough if we check and quarantine them first. We could finish it up together?"

"I mean, I've got backups of every session except the last because I couldn't get the files to transfer. I put it in the too-hard basket because I was literally shattered at that point. Hadn't slept for, like, two days." Delaney laughed, an easy acceptance of her own questionable priorities. "I put it down to me not being able to function properly but maybe it was just part of this whole..." Several steps of hesitation didn't offer up any obvious way to explain their current situation other than, "shit-show."

"C'mon, two days without sleep is nothing. Couple of raktajinos and you'll be fine," he said, patting her on the shoulder. "And what better way to forget this whole crapfest than making something better. Escaping into a story. Making new ones. Oh - you need a giant squid. Every pirate adventure needs a battle with a giant squid!"

"What I need," Delaney mused, "is to pin down Leiddem and get this storyboard worked out for his first starring role." Having finally found a willing sacrifice for her desire to switch out protagonists and create an entirely new series, the programmer found fresh frustration in having no capacity to maintain the momentum now that their access to suitable technology was severed. "Ugh! I had so many plans! Now I'm going to have to go back to dealing with real people." She jostled him playfully, a shoulder tap against his upper arm.

"Ugh, real people," he winced, mimicking the way she had said it. "After we get back from this excursion, show me what you've got. I promise I won't break it. Much."

"You do and I'll gaffer tape you to a wall."

It sounded like a silly threat, until you got to know Laney. Then, it seemed like a silly threat with definitely potential to be a ridiculous actuality.

"So, what exactly are we headed into over there?," she continued, stepping into a turbolift and then turning to face the doors as Curtis followed. "I realised whilst I was changing that Lei' didn't really explain anything, not the whole thing. What went wrong?"

"I dunno. Probably something bad. Scary. Almost certain doom. Y'know, the sort of thing people like me actively try to avoid." He sighed. "Remind me why I signed on with this boat again?"

Linking an arm through his, Delaney gave a dramatic swish of her hair and declared, "To meet exotic and interesting people, obviously. And to prevent me from going insane on a ship without holodecks. You're very altruistic like that," she added, patting his hand and grinning. "Come on, the sooner we get over there, the sooner we can not die and spend the next month paying Lei' out for dragging us along."