( open ) made you a prisoner inside your own secrecy

[gevurah]

Date & Time: nov. 7th – 14th
Location: various locations
Characters: kate & you
Summary: kate (sort of, but not really) doing things and having feelings around the base and people maybe interrupting her.
Warnings: tba.


➊ bathroom / showers ( closed to the first person who gets it anne boleyn )

[ Is she up earlier these days? Kate has to wonder this to herself as she exits the individual shower unit. Time is funny up in space; when days begin and end begin to blur together, but the implemented Earth hours seem to help a little. Whatever the time is now, it’s a good time to grab a quick shower despite the water never rising above lukewarm.

Wrapping herself in a snug towel that she had lifted off the hotel in Basel, she moves toward one of the mirrors and begins to dry herself off before she slips into clean undergarments, shorts, and an A-shirt. The USMA sweater (that she’s also lifted from her previous mission with a heavy heart) is tucked into the duffel bag along with her other belongings. She digs through it, extracting scissors and a small, fine comb. Once she’s combed through red locks that she’s allowed to grow far too long, she parts it and leans in the mirror to quickly examine its condition.

She uses the comb to separate a thick portion of it and she begins to snip away, shortening the length bit by bit. ]


➋ cafeteria

[ The coffee brewed from the stolen machine is shit compared to what Gil had brewed her a while back. She tells herself to consider asking him for some of it in exchange for whatever she can afford to trade.

But beggars can’t be choosers. While she picks up some of the freeze dried fruits like banana slices, strawberries, and apples, Kate’s lived on far less – and worse – in the past. She’ll take jarred pickles that may have been sitting around too long over snake... although she sorely misses sushi.

She’ll think of it as Washington Hall; a really cheap and sadly lacking Washington Hall.

After she picks out some vegetable canned soup and heats it up, she makes her way down the floor to an empty table and seats herself. Her hair no longer spills over her shoulders and hangs before her line of vision: it’s neat and short once more, and it feels like a tiny, trivial weight off her shoulders. ]


➌ virtual simulation room

[ She returns to the Academy.

Not the Academy in the 2200s, that’s not hers – not really. Neither is this one, though AI does a magnificent job with the little details in her memory. The room converts itself into one of the familiar grounds Kate once used to trek up and down in her cadet days. The buildings towering above with such historic beauty, the grass a lively and perfect green, and the memorials frighteningly committed to being as accurate as they can to her memory. The text glints in the false, bright rays of the sun above, displaying the words she’s engraved in her mind long ago:


THE CADET HONOR CODE
A CADET WILL NOT LIE, CHEAT, STEAL,
OR TOLERATE THOSE WHO DO.

The grass “crunches” softly beneath her feet as she hikes closer to the honour memorial. She grips the strap of her bag and pulls it forward, unzipping it, and pulling out the sweater she’s been meaning to wear proudly once again, but finding difficulty in scraping up any pride to do so. It may be a silly thing to wrestle with morally, though questionable morals is something she’s found herself facing more often in the past several months. ]


➍ observatory

[ Without any bags to punch or weights to lift, Kate hasn’t had much of a workout since the necromorphs outbreak. She’s restless by the implemented time of nightfall. The observatory doesn’t comfort her much, however; space is supposed to be some incredible frontier filled with endless possibilities countries have raced each other to get to first, but under the glimmer of the stars she can finally see so clearly, she wonders what’s so great about a dark, empty place like this.

She positions herself against a wall and stares upward, lost in thought. At some point, she’s sitting on the floor with her tablet, reading through the information the AI’s decrypted a while back once more. ]

Comments

[mallarkey]

Um. Yeah. Apparently.

[ He stirs -- or pokes at -- whatever is on his place but postpones tasting it, going for his coffee first. His nose wrinkles in vague distaste before he swallows and puts it aside. ]

I mean unfortunately. You been here a while?

[gevurah]

A little over a year now.

[ She opens up the packet of dried strawberries. They don't smell particularly fresh, but she pops one into her mouth anyway. She needs the nutrients somehow.

A light snort. ]

The coffee's crap, I know.

[mallarkey]

Shit. That's rough.

[ His tone is blunt and sincere as can be, because there's no other real response to that, is there? Well, shit. He restlessly stirs at his plate again. He is hungry, so taste doesn't really matter. ]

I've tasted worse -- at least there is coffee. If crappy coffee's the worst you get after the world explodes I won't complain too much.

[gevurah]

The world hasn't exploded yet.

[ A short, airy laugh follows. It's only the city, but then she doesn't fell too good about her brief amusement in the first place. ]

The instant noodles aren't so bad. Avoid the freeze-dried eggs, though.

[mallarkey]

Could've fooled me. Whatever -- I don't get it. Might not for a while yet.

[ Half true, half not. He's getting it, it's just quite a bit to both take in and process. He forces down another sip of shitty coffee. ]

Do people ever actually cook around here? Not cookies, food. [ He pauses, then amends the question to: ] What does anyone really do around here?

[gevurah]

There's the greeters that bake the cookies.

[ And that's the extent of "cooking" as far as she knows. She just dines on whatever sad, stale thing she can at the cafeteria. ]

Right now there's a lot of mission runs to supply the base and generate enough power to keep it operational.

[mallarkey]

Right. Right, I heard about those. Nothing else then, huh? I mean... good that everyone's staying focused.

[ Another sip, another wince, but less of one. He's too caught up in thought. ]

No one knows what's gonna happen, do they?

[gevurah]

[ The crinkling of the package of fruits she's digging into ceases.

It's difficult to not worry about the consequences of returning to Earth. The rescue alone was both a success and mass failure with the Exiles paying for it with their own lives. ]

No.

[ She can only trust that they'll carry on however they can. ]

But staying up here would be a mistake.

[mallarkey]

[ It isn't reassuring, but what could be? ]

Well, yeah. Not even astronauts can stay up in space forever. Or on the moon. We're not supposed to live up here.

[gevurah]

[ Can she call it "living"? It's scraping by. It's barely surviving. ]

How much did the Greeters tell you?

[mallarkey]

Same they tell everyone, I guess. Enough and not enough, but I don't expect anyone to be able to explain everything.

[ Especially when it doesn't make much sense, not to him anyway. He sips some more of his coffee. ]

[gevurah]

Hard to know where to start.

[ She plucks another dried strawberry and chews on it. ]

I'm Kate.

[mallarkey]

Probably doesn't matter anyway. What else can we even do?

[ He keeps the cup to his mouth for another moment, then lowers it. ]

Uh... Doug. Nice to meet you.

[gevurah]

[ Kate, Rush, and Alucard did manage to increase power output for the base on their own mission. Small changes. They need to pick up the pace, but it's better than none at all. ]

People are working on it.

[ The only pro to being on the moon is people actually seem more focused. ]

Same to you. Where you from?

[mallarkey]

[ He just nods a little mutely, knowing what he wants to say and determining it's better just to leave it. They all want to get their feet back on the ground. ]

Louisiana. We only moved out there a few months ago -- hard to say if it's really home or not yet. What about you?

[gevurah]

Ah, job related?

[ Her question is indicative of her own experience with moving; it was never easy to figure out if she could call their new locations "home" when they were uprooted often. ]

Jersey.

[mallarkey]

... Yeah. Job.

[ It's too complicated to get into. Way too complicated. ]

Nice enough place, but you know... when it's traveling you're used to... sometimes when you stop you can feel things growing on you. What's that they say -- a rolling stone gathers no moss?

[ A pause. ]

Never been to Jersey. I don't even think I've ever been further north than Tennessee. What's it like up there?

[gevurah]

I always preferred settling roots in.

[ It does tend to cause heartache in a young girl, moving from city to city despite having her family.

She pauses to find the word for Jersey, although she mostly thinks of Gotham as she replies. ]

Energetic. Lots of places to see. Lots of busybodies.

[mallarkey]

I'd like to eventually. Just don't know where.

[ Which is true enough. Maybe. But he knows it's going to be different no matter what; Travellers move, buffers stay still. ]

Sounds like Louisiana, then. Except for "energetic." [ He waves his hand. ] Probably the heat.

[gevurah]

What is it you do?

[ He doesn't look like the Army type, but lots of businesses require their employees to migrate place to place to conduct work. ]

Jersey's cold in the winter, hot in the summer. The way it's supposed to be.

[mallarkey]

Uh, I'm a lawyer.

[ Which is a simple answer, hopefully sufficient enough. His expression takes on a look of faux-confusion. ]

Wait, winter's supposed to be cold?

[gevurah]

[ Before she can ask about the lawyer business, amusement returns to her face. ]

Can be. We get the whole package: snow, ice, the occasional freezing nights.

[mallarkey]

[ Just as keikaku. ]

We get... rain. Doesn't usually get so cold that it snows. [ He's thinking about Alabama, though, in the RV; they weren't in Louisiana long enough to celebrate the holidays yet. ] Plenty of colder nights, though.

[gevurah]

Lot of rain?

[ Although she doubts it's anything like Exsilium itself. ]

Before we wound up here, there wasn't a day the rain cleared up in Exsilium.

[mallarkey]

[ He raises his eyebrows. ]

Not that much rain. Usually it's just kinda soggy, warm or cold.

What's that place like? ... Well, was.