Declined to be helpful
Posted on Fri May 16th, 2025 @ 9:32am by Owen Mathieson & Teresa Forrest
Edited on on Fri May 16th, 2025 @ 10:25am
Mission:
Shackles
Timeline: Not too long after Orions blow up
4137 words - 8.3 OF Standard Post Measure
There were many ways in which the universe didn't make sense. Some would say, for instance, that a tenacity for piecing together old scriptures ought to have gifted a man basic problem-solving; certainly enough to avoid a constant litany of failed appliances and a seeming magical aptitude for shorting out electrical circuitry just by looking at it. If there was any order to the chaos, which was debatable but certainly theorised by countless civilisations, multiple exposure to such calamity ought to have at least improved said man's capacity to fix the issues he caused himself without having to bother an already over-stretched maintenance department. (This was especially relevant when there was at least some possibility that their workload had increased tenfold because of his arrival.) Owen didn't really understand why it seemed to happen so often, all he could currently state with any certainty was that the replicator in his quarters was dripping coffee everywhere.
Well, dripping was probably the wrong word. Maybe more a dribble, or a trickle.
Drizzling.
So far, he'd managed to catch most of it in a mug and, with some application of haste, had been able to empty it several times with only minimal accumulation of mess. He'd also tried to wipe that up but there was an undeniable stain forming on the carpet just beneath and, though he understood the lack of priority, it was hard to concentrate on the work he had intended to do when the compulsion was to stand there staring at the problem with his hand gripping the back of his neck. As far as Owen could tell, leaking didn't seem to be an issue one should expect from a device whose entire function was to fabricate specific orders. Where was the coffee coming from?
It was coffee, right?
Taking a break and getting a snack in the lounge had done Tree some good, but anyone could see that the whole event with the space battle and being instrumental in the death of a crew of hundreds still weighed heavily on her mind. She at least felt good enough (ish) to get back to work doing tickets. There was so many tickets. The list was never ending. Enough work to drown herself in, if needed. Next on the docket was ... Another personal replicator malfunction. These were low priority tickets, but it being next on the list meant that this person - ah, Owen Mathieson - had been waiting for quite some time to have his replicator fixed.
With that in mind Teresa found her way to Owen's quarters. She'd seen the man around - one would hope so on a ship of this size - but she hadn't interacted with him much. If at all, really. Once at his door she rang the chime, straightening her outfit a bit as she did.
There was no need for an expected arrival to cause any sort of over-reactive crisis. Judging by the muffled thuds and curses that immediately followed the door chime's announcement, nobody had thought to tell Owen this. He emerged eventually, more than a little bemused and holding a partially-full mug, the previous contents of which were currently dripping off the end of his pinky finger. "Hello. Hi. Yes. Hi." Amidst the fluster, a very smart man's brain seemed to try again. "Replicator repairs?" He held the mug out from his body, having just noticed he was leaving a trail of coffee stains, and tried to move aside without making more mess. "Come in."
Tree had always liked Owen. Well, as much as one can 'like' someone one hasn't really truly interacted with, but seen around from time to time and said 'hi' to on occasion. he seemed honest and to the point, and the general flustered appearance just now was, in some way, endearing. She quirked a brow, amused, and smiled - something she hadn't really seen much reason to since - well, a few hours, now. "Well, I can do a lot more than that, but - yes, replicator service." Beat. "Although 'replicator repair' has better alliteration. Thanks," a nod as she stepped inside, following the trail of coffee stains towards the offending piece of machinery.
The need to deposit the mug, and its contents, somewhere a little less likely to ruin his shoes bought just enough time to leave initial analysis up to the expert. Just as every well-meaning soul before him whose only desire was to be helpful and thus likely to end up on a path that lead immediately away from that eventuality, Owen grabbed a towel and moved into hovering range. "It's been a while since I tried to use it," he said, trying to remove the stain from between his thumb and index finger through the application of excessive scrubbing. "I went down planetside for a while, ate in the mess last night, so probably..." He squinted in a winced attempt to make an approximation. "Lunchtime yesterday?"
"Mmhm," Tree was only half listening. That was a drawback of the kind of person she was; when something had fully grabbed her attention - like the almost-something-out-of-a-horror-movie like the display before her - there wasn't much brainwidth left for anything else. "Well, there's your problem," she helpfully intoned, motioning to the dripping, leaking replicator. "It's not supposed to do that," Honestly she was just saying things, while her mind raced trying to figure out what could cause a malfunction like this. Most that came to mind was 'it's borken' borken being one step further than just 'broken'.
Scrunching her nose in that 'well, let's just get to it' motion she stepped forward and started undoing the faceplate of the replicator unit to get to the guts underneath, hoping those made more sense than the 'coffee' drip.
The snap of fingers, immediately followed by the pointed revelation of an index finger, saw Owen match the energy as a good sport. "See, that was my first thought. Dripping's against regulations." Both hands found his hips, a gesture that entirely misplaced the towel he'd been holding, which ended up settling on his foot without Owen even noticing. The half-grin plastered on his face outstayed its welcome by a few awkward seconds, just about enough time for him to realise he had no idea what to say next. "Uh." Reaching up, he rubbed the end of his nose with a knuckle. "Anything I can help with?"
His comment made her smile a bit through all the stormy thoughts in her mind regarding the past few hours. "Yes, actually. Here, hold this," she replied to his question as she handed him the cumbersome and unwieldy replicator faceplate. "Or - set it down somewhere we won't trip over it. That'll do as well," she added, almost as if to make sure he wouldn't be just standing there with that thing in his hands. She'd seen it happen. She still wasn't entirely sure it had been a joke on the other person's part. Reaching in to the guts of the replicator unit she pulled the main power connector, shutting the entire unit down.
Even despite reassurances, there was a moment of hesitation. Standing there holding something not currently essential to any kind of efficient progress might have seemed a little pointless, but it allowed Owen to appear occupied. The only other option was to pretend he had the slightest idea what the assembly of circuitry was meant to look like when functional. He wasn't exactly ashamed of his ignorance, not specifically, but it did occur to him that it might not be unreasonable for the engineer to expect him to have at least a working vocabulary to follow along with any diagnosis. Owen had fixed things in the past, to a certain definition of fixed at least, but never without reference material and an obsessive amount of cross-checking as he went. Painstaking attention to detail was part of his job description, which was fortunate because it definitely played to his strengths.
His nose twitched again. In what he imagined to be a surreptitious display of stealth, he used the edge of the faceplate to scratch it and then looked around for somewhere to set the piece of metal down.
"Since we're in the middle of something that's probably a bit resource-heavy," he started, referencing the current mission, "don't fret too much if you've only got time to switch it off. I can wander to the mess if need be."
"I'm here to fix replicators and chew bubblegum. And I'm all out of gum," Tree murmured as she started undoing the main circuit board, to remove it as well. "I'd replicate some, but - " she motioned vaguely in the direction of the half disassembled replicator she was working on, shooting Owen a smirk, amused at her own 'wit'.
"First things first, gotta clean the inside of the casing. That's fluid, and that can short the electrickery. After that - well, I'm pondering whether it'd be more efficient to clean off this board and see what's wrong with it - if anything - or hop down to the materials replicator and recycle this and get a new one," She added, meaning the larger scale replicator down in engineering, used for materials. Hence the name.
Gratitude was a strange sensation in the middle of a maintenance lecture but Owen had been right on the cusp of absent-mindedly taking the gum remark at face-value. He chewed a lot of it himself, the displacement of energy helped him focus, though there was usually the inevitable point at which the complete absence of taste became a mild distraction. There were several packets in the drawer of his desk, he'd been a fraction of a second away from declaring as much, and now stood sheepishly, without obvious context for the awkward kneading of the back of his neck.
"Cleaning sounds like something I can do?," he once again offered.
Tree considered for a brief moment. She always made a face when she did similar, a thoughtful look with furrowed brows and the tip of her tongue just barely peeking out. "That works. Guess that means I'll go recycle the circuit board, because that sounds easier than cleaning and troubleshooting it," she added with a nod, freeing the board from its confines. "Be right back," as she headed for the door, with a bit of a wave.
The slow crumple of deflation saw Owen stare at the door once it closed, eyes blinking in a languid attempt to process his next steps. The swing of his gaze towards the offending casing produced a similar deadpan, one that gradually relented under the emergence of an increasingly furrowed brow. Cleaning was all well and good, but he hadn't asked any of the finer details, such as what he was supposed to clean it with and whether there were any...well, fiddly bits. Bits that should probably not, for instance, be too vigorously handled. He pulled a face.
As he fetched a cloth and a small amount of water, Owen approached the gaping hole in the wall with a nose scrunched in indecisive scrutiny. Start with the obvious bits, he decided, easing himself into the ground in a tangle of legs and a freshly-rediscovered towel that decided to hook around his shoe. Freeing himself, he chucked it to the side and then immediately regretted it, left only with a slightly damp cloth to try and tackle a small puddle of brown goop currently starting to drizzle down the wall. He dabbed, inspected, and then dabbed again. At the very least, it wasn't any more delicate than manuscript restoration.
Teresa returned about 10 minutes later, fresh board in hand. If she had a credit for every replicator she'd fixed since coming onboard she'd have two credits which wasn't that impressive, just notable that it had happened twice. Part of her was idly wondering whether there was something in the EPS power grid that was frying replicators. With that thought in mind she stepped back into the quarters, humming a tune. "Honey, I'm home!"
"Dinner...might be a little late."
The retort was applicable enough to suggest Owen had registered the announcement but there was nothing about his appearance to support anything other than pure distraction. Somewhere in that ten minutes, his sleeves had been rolled up, and the task had extended beyond the puddle of caffeinated goop to include the wall and, currently, the carpet. Any attempt to rid the floor of new stains was always destined to fail when the only available product was a cup of cold water, but once again, the universe had forgotten to remind Owen. Determination to be thorough had become its own preoccupation and, through process of elimination, he had managed to create a concoction from the bottles under the sink that was either going to budge the stubborn substance or burn right through the carpet and remove the problem permanently. It smelled very strongly of lemon, and rather perplexingly, a damp forest.
"Just...about..." The curl of his bottom lip saw it captured between his teeth as Owen squinted in concentration. "...got it."
"Looking good," Tree complimented Owen's work. She waited for him to finish up and move aside before stepping forward to slide the replacement control board into the cavity in the bulkhead. Making sure all the cables and feeds were hooked up properly and fully connected, the little retention clips giving a little 'click' as they settled. "Would be nice if something went my way today," she idly commented under her breath as she worked. "You know, works first try. That kind of thing."
It took being interrupted for Owen to fully acknowledge the extent to which he'd taken a fairly simple instruction. Never by halves his grandmother had often said of him, which not only included the extent to which he was prepared to indulge in his fixations, but also the size of the mess he often created in the process. In his very unique, highly-specified lane, Owen was an adept driver. In practically all other endeavours, he suffered from a moderate case of over-compensation.
He stood, scratching his nose once more with the back of a knuckle.
"That's a heck of a flock of flying pigs you're asking for." Long dead civilisations were an easy read. One living and breathing person right in front of him? Owen wasn't sure where to pitch a response to something he wasn't entirely sure had been directed at him in the first place.
"You would think so, wouldn't you," Teresa replied, her words measured as she was dedicating most of her concentration on the job at hand. The replacement control board in place and hooked up she powered on the unit and took a step back to observe its behaviour, a weather eye on the boot process. "Eh, don't mind me. Just - wallowing in self pity and having an existential crisis about mortality in general and my own specifically."
Clues helped. They didn't automatically provide answers but they at least established a rough direction to fling speculative darts in. For Owen, they were familiar territory, and earned the engineer a moment's thoughtful consideration before he nodded slowly and switched his own attention to watching the proverbial kettle boil. "If it helps," he eventually offered, with gentle humour meant as a kindness, "you definitely seem real." An easy half-smile followed. "Though the crazy bloke that translates gibberish for a living might not be your strongest authority."
"Ah, it's more about sudden and acute awareness of my own advancing age and the knowledge that one day I will end, than doubt about my own existence in this current point in spacetime," Tree mused quietly, still her eyes on the replicator unit. It bleeped triumphantly, showing that it had passed its own POST with flying colors and there were no substances leaking from the insides. "Try it now?" She motioned to the unit, stepping aside to make way.
Owen had been distracted enough by admiration to take some refuge in the practicalities of a simple test. It allowed him to cover for a complete inability to conjure up any kind of adequate response to Teresa's concerns, though he was genuine enough not to want to dismiss them outright. "Uh, coffee. Black." There was a split second pause, just enough time for recalculation in the name of saving face, before he added, "Two sugars." It was not, perhaps, an adequate confession of how much he might have asked for had he been alone but the situation didn't seem to warrant an examination of his sweet tooth. As the beverage appeared, Owen peered tentatively into the mug without picking it up and then nodded his approval. "So far, so good."
It wasn't until he'd taken a tentative sip that confirmed a passable approximation of his favourite indulgence that Owen felt a twinge of conscience in regards to the bigger picture. He smiled, offered a thumbs up, and cleared his throat before gesturing to the newly-repaired replicator. "Got time to test for yourself?" He waved in the general vicinity of the small table, currently used more to store a stack of books than for meals. "I have a strict no-dying-at-the-table policy, ought to buy us some time at least."
"Hmm," Teresa considered for a moment, before acknowledging with a nod. "Sure, I can spare the time. Not dying sounds like a baseline positive thing to busy oneself with," she offered with a smile. One hot coco ordered from the replicator, a cautious sniff of the beverage as if wanting to make sure the unit was properly functional again before taking her drink over to the table and sitting down. "That whole - ... Red alert thing has me pretty rattled to be honest," she admitted, her voice quiet.
Having found a spot for his mug, Owen turned a full circle with a pile of books in hand before finding a place on the floor next to the small sofa to set them down. "Ah...right." A dull thud prompted a brief tussle with the stack, which seemed intent on depositing individual titles in a scattered mess no matter how many times Owen tried to restack the precarious collection. A final push saw his hand hover for a moment in anticipation of another collapse, and when one didn't eventuate, he slowly rose and moved with deliberate care back to take the seat opposite his guest. "I did hear about that," he belatedly brought the conversation back on track. "I was, uh, waiting on the surface to hitch a ride back while you were...dealing with it."
"I was instrumental in killing several hundred Orion crew," Tree continued, almost as if she hadn't heard Owen's comments. Mostly she was set in a train of thought and needed to finish it. "Hence the sudden onset and subsequent questioning of an acute sense of mortality," A soft smirk as she glanced up from her thousand yard stare and locked eyes with him, seemingly setting aside the dour mood for the moment. "Don't worry, I'll be fine. Probably just gonna burn some energy on the holodeck or in the gym later," the engineer concluded, taking a sip of her coco. Mmmm, that hit the spot.
Of all the criticisms levelled at Owen over the years, none were more persistent than the constant reminder that being present for the life unfolding in front of you was at least sometimes more important than getting lost in the ethical quandaries of the past. He felt more comfortable analysing what had already occurred but that was hardly much of a revelation; the privilege of hindsight created quite a safety net. Still, it was instinct to dig into material he felt comfortable with, and only experience and a wearying amount of past mistakes caught his tongue before he launched into an intellectual comparison between their current situation and ancient philosophies. His expression remained sympathetic, at least, even if his decision to control his first impulse left him with a lot less in the adequate response department. "Not an easy victory to celebrate."
"Ain't that the truth," Tree harumphed, seemingly getting frustrated by her own brain and how it held on to the doubts and repercussions of what she'd witness, what she'd been a part of. "I might rather prefer the ones that are easier to celebrate but they're not easy to come by. At all," she added, taking another sip of her coco. Eyes closing, shoulders slumping before her entire body followed suit.
"I don't have coffee leaking down my wall anymore," Owen pointed out, quietly to avoid disturbing Teresa's pensiveness. "Might not be a huge triumph but I'm pretty sure it's okay to accumulate them until you reach quota. And, well..." He trailed off, no closer to knowing what to say than when he'd first started speaking. "Life has a way of dumping hard decisions on us. It might actually be a bigger problem if you weren't struggling to come to terms with it."
"You're the second one to say something to that effect. One is happenstance, two is the start of a pattern. Means you might be on to something there," she mused, opening her eyes again. A moment spent struggling to bring herself to sit upright again before taking a deep breath and steeling herself. "Alright, that's quite enough feeling sorry for myself. What's there to do for fun around here? I could go find the holodeck and beat up bots to work off some energy but I suppose I should at least try to put some effort in to socializing."
The gawp of an open mouth saw Owen stall for time. In many ways, he wasn't overly sure why he was still on board. Yes, it had made sense to offer his services in dealing with the collection in the Grotto, if by 'make sense' one could extrapolate 'ticked every box on his bucket list at once'. The rent was better than any office space he could have organised and occasionally pitching in on missions was a novelty he hadn't expected to enjoy. He wasn't really a part of any of it though, and as such, had kept to himself perhaps more than would inform an understanding of what the crew did for fun. It didn't take a great deal of intuition to guess Teresa wouldn't find the same sense of joy from the stack of manuscripts he was currently working on as he did. "Best of both worlds, beat up bots with friends," he suggested. "Slightly more popular than beating up friends anyway." He paused. "Depending on your friends."
"Sounds to me like you're fixing to get in on the bot bashing. We can make that happen," Tree smirked, her eyes twinkling with mischief. Another sip of her coco, savoring the taste before setting the mug down, folding her hands together on the small table and smiling sweetly. "Mind you, that involves dressing up in medieval style armor and getting attacked by holodeck bots wearing similar and wielding swords. Or axes. Maybe maces."
The impulse to reassure that he hadn't intended to invite himself stalled as Owen, in rapidly-occurring retrospect, saw a glimmer of intrigue in the notion of 'medieval armour.' None of it sounded remotely like what he had on his list of activities for the rest of the day and he wasn't sure if he was actually being invited, but something about Teresa's self-recrimination about the need to make more of an effort with people had struck a little too close to home. "Just a regular ol' walk in the park then."
"That depends on the skill level of the bots," Tree smirked, finishing her coco. "I should get back to work. See you tonight to beat up on some AI. Should be a nice distraction form all the malaise of existing in this cold, dark void," she added, heading towards the door.
It was only after he'd raised his coffee, both in acknowledgement and thanks for Teresa's original reason for visiting, and the doors closed behind the engineer, that Owen arrived at the realisation that he'd just signed up for an evening far different to the one he'd been expecting. He stayed put for a moment, eventually staring down at the teetering pile of books he'd shoved on the floor earlier, and then leaned his chair right back onto two legs to drag over the PADD he'd left on the bench.
"Computer, transfer all information on Terran pre-Renaissance warfare, Medieval-period specific." There was a pause. "Or at least a beginner's guide to not getting skewered by swords."
