trans_9 | That wasn't me. Was it you? (open)

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That wasn't me. Was it you? (open)

Barbara left Marco with the omnicoms to see if she could find some other way to be useful. Something that didn't involve an advanced knowledge of technology created hundreds of years after she had been born. Clearly she'd have to pick up some new skills, which did not worry her but in the situation, locked in some unknown part of the ship, those skills would have come in handy.

As she walked down a corridor, her mind drifted to the various things she could learn about. The unfortunate thing was, Barbara hadn't found a role on the ship that even remotely related to that of an historian, so no matter what she decided to learn, it'd be from square one. But maybe she hadn't been looking hard enough, or she hadn't met the right people.

She stopped walking and looked around her. Just a moment ago, Barbara could have sworn she heard someone talking to her but she hadn't been listening. It could have been her imagination, she was alone in the corridor after all. Maybe there was someone in one of the crew's quarters just up ahead.

((OOC: This is time displacement/ghosts plot I was talking about here.))

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Sakura didn't seem to notice how tightly Barbara clung to her, not thinking before positioning herself protectively in front of the other woman (as much as she really could, given their stance) for the duration of whatever was happening.

It hit hard, seeing all of this, and recognizing what was going on in the minds of the people there. More-over, she knew that name. Not just one, but several.

Sakura had a running mental list of everyone currently on crew, as well as who she could figure out from previously. The lists were technically there, but not always so easy to work with, or so meaningful. Her nightmares had been full of them off and on, filling in the blanks with other names just because they were real details, the sort of thing to make a nightmare that much more unbearable.

Her face settled into a stone mask, processing, absorbing. The pain she might have shown however long ago when she arrived here was tampered down underneath trying to make sense of what they had seen. What they were seeing.

Trying to remember it all, all the details, to regurgitate later.

Her response to Barbara was delayed, emotion returning to her face in a breaking, cracking manner, a twitch of an eyebrow, a furrowing of her forehead, then the sad pull of her lips downward before they found a way to smile. She needed to be reassuring. "I'm fine," she said, "Shaken up. That was... a lot to take in. Are you okay? This really isn't the sort of welcome the ship usually gives to people so soon out of the pods."

"Yes, I'm alright." Barbara tried to smile but it was more of a flinch. She wasn't in the mood for smiling. "It's fine, really. I've seen worse." Partially true.

The corridor, now empty apart from the two of them, was silent and dark as though nothing had ever happened, no one had ever lived here, and no one had ever died here. The question was, what should they do now? Barbara wanted some time alone to digest what had happened, but she wanted to make sure that Sakura would be alright, too.

There was still one problem, however.

"I don't suppose you were coming to tell me that the tubes were working again?" Barbara asked, still unsure as to how they were going to get out of this dreadful place.

Sakura smiled, still distracted by -- all of what they'd experienced. "Unfortunately, no. I was going to give a status update on the omnicomms, according to Marco."

She turned her hands up, palms displayed, open and empty. "They're technically functional, but not broadcasting. That's about the sum of it. The tubes are still tied."

"I wonder why. We haven't done anything wrong to be punished, have we?" Barbara sighed a little and looked around their corridor again, half expecting something else to come jumping out at them, or die before them. "We should find the others and make sure they're alright, too."

"No," Sakura said, firm. "If we had, we'd know. The ship isn't subtle in its punishments."

Sentients on ship were different, but the ship itself? Sakura didn't bring up the possibility of this being linked to the Daligig, or extending out of the chaos of SHODAN.

"You're right," she said, nodding as she started to move. "We do. Another headcount wouldn't be out of place, and we can ask if anyone else has run into something... like that."

"Perhaps they've made progress since we've been gone, too." There was a hint of excitement in her tone. "And we'll be able to go back up to the main parts of the ship, or at least contact someone to look at the tubes so that we can get back." And then Barbara will have a cup of tea and read a book or try and find Ian, or spend some time in the Sensoriums.

"Let's find out," Sakura said, hoping that might actually be the case. "Start by looking over by the transport tubes?"

Barbara nodded, "lead the way."

At least they had light down here. The area would be a lot harder to navigate if they didn't have lights.

"What was it that we saw, do you think?" She stared at her shoes as they walked, hands folded behind her back. The way shadows slowly became solid, and all the people shouting at one another hadn't taken any notice of them. It was all rather peculiar. "It's almost as if they were ghosts."

"I don't know. I can say what I think it might be, but I can't say what it is for sure." She kept walking, frowning as she looked away from Barbara.

"The past. A previous recording, some kind of holograph. Maybe real, maybe fictional. Maybe even ghosts, as you say." It made her skin crawl, imagining it could be something supernatural. She didn't like being faced with things she couldn't deal with directly, with the tools she had at her disposal.

She turned a gradual corner, winding them back toward the transport tubes.

She frowned and looked up at Sakura, "so that could have actually happened?"

Sakura offered her a reassuring smile. "Yes," she said. "It could have. If it did or not... that remains to be seen. We still need to let people know, one way or another. Maybe talk to the Council... definitely to the Captain."

She ran a hand through her hair, sighing inwardly.

Those poor people. Hopefully it was some kind of mad dream, and none of it was real for the past, present or future.

"How do we talk to the Captain? Do we have to request an audience?" Still new, Barbara was unsure of how these things worked or began working.

"Call him out on the omnicomm," she said. "Tracking him down is possible, but not always effective. If he's not monitoring the omnicomms, someone will be. They'll let him know."

Or she'd track him down herself.

"Why are the omnicoms monitored? That shouldn't be necessary, should it?" Barbara began to wonder if the authorities were suspicious of everyone's activity. She'd hate to live on a ship and have her every move monitored. It was bad enough when the Doctor felt like checking up on her because she'd been in the library for a while.

"Why wouldn't they be? You'd want to know if some important communication came up while you were otherwise in a meeting." Sakura saw no problem in constant vigilance to the point of invading some form of privacy. She was genuinely confused.

It was very MI5 in Barbara's mind. Tapping phone lines and keeping track of everyone's business. "You don't find it a little confronting that your privacy is compromised?"

"I find it familiar and confining as hell," Sakura said, not managing to sound entirely mild. "But outside of the time I need to spend thinking about it, until there's a way to change that in a greater sense, no. I don't trust these kinds of technologies. If they're watched in a public sense, how is that different from reading public notices posted on a board?"

"Just means we'll have to be more careful with private matters." Which seemed fairly simple to Barbara in theory.

"What did you mean by 'familiar'?" she asked the woman after they'd walked in contented silence for a little longer. "You're not used to having your every move being watched, are you?"

Sakura's lips twitched up at Barbara's comment. Simple enough theory. Difficult enough in practice.

"If needed, yes. Not how the ship does," she said, looking up as if that would present her with a face for Stacy. "Yet you know it's always possible in the village. Not usual, but possible. Sensing the difference between idle observation and pointed observation is the important part."

"What do you mean by needed? Why would someone need to observe and spy on others?" admittedly, there was probably a need for that during wartime, but unless Sakrua came from a worn torn time (which was possible), Barbara couldn't understand why someone would do that.

"Not everyone can be trusted. If you want me to boil down to the basic root. Other than that, it's practice and habit. We're often spies, and just as often our lives depend on how much attention we pay to detail. It's not too surprising, is it?"

"You're a spy?" Barbara gave a coy grin and a light chuckle. "What did you spy on?"

"Most the time? Other spies." She laughed. "Information games play out like that, watching the people who may have the information, or who may be watching for information that you don't want them to have. At least around home. I'm more of an action sort, personally. Hands on and everything."

"Sounds rather intense," Barbara smiled back as they turned a corner to the transportation tubes. "Are you finding the lack of spying on board Stacey a little restful or freeing?"

"I've got the ship to make up for it. Though honestly, I don't know how I feel. Other than homesick. I never expected to leave the village, you know? Not permanently."

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