Keeping Occupied

[mapquest-titan.livejournal.com]

Cale stood in the media library in one of the pod-rooms, the broken pod-room, to be exact. His brow was creased and his nose scrunched up as he concentrated on the bizarre-looking terminal on the wall. He pressed one of the buttons and got a low ‘beep’ in reply, but the screen remained blank. He tried another. Another beep, still blank. He frowned but he wasn’t giving up. With practically nothing to do on this ship—what with the medbay taken over by the crabby green guy and this being the only other area left on the ship (the sensoriums were almost in constant use by other crew members) with any kind of identifiable technological aspect to it, Cale was determined to at least keep himself busy. And busy meant trying to TURN THAT DAMN SONG OFF!

Over and over the thing had repeated. Never stopping. Never giving even a moment’s break, and with the door wide open and it playing full volume, it was impossible to concentrate anywhere else in the media library—which is what he’d been trying to do earlier. Now, he was determined to fix what was broken…or at least drive himself crazy trying.

Beep. Beep-beep. Beep. Beep-beep-beep. Beep-beep. Beep. Beep.

There! Right there! He’d had it. It went away but he’d still had it, if only for an instant. The screen flashed for just a moment and then went black again. He was making progress, getting closer. It was just a matter of time before that painstakingly awful song was gone for good.

“Yeah, and you thought I couldn’t do it, didn’t you,” Cale said aloud, apparently speaking to the troublesome terminal. “Well, I’ve got news for you buddy, I am about to own you.”

Comments

[mapquest-titan.livejournal.com]

He quirked an eyebrow at her, staring at her with a bit of suspicion. "You want to be my friend?" he asked. "Why?"

[nothawkingbird.livejournal.com]

"I just said why. We're shipmates, and we all need to work together. And since it's close quarters, being nice to each other is a lot better than biting each other's heads off."

Kate sighed, "Plus you're not the only one here who feels isolated from their world. Some people got their friends or enemies here. A lot of us don't and I'm one of them. Gets really lonely around here if you don't start trusting some of us at least. Especially when we could get attacked again at any time."

[mapquest-titan.livejournal.com]

"You're lonely and so you just figured that, since I don't know anyone here, that I had to be, too?" Cale asked as he looked her up and down. After a moment of what appeared to be deep thought, he nodded.

"All right, fine. Sure. We're friends."

[nothawkingbird.livejournal.com]

"Ok cool," Kate replied to that, and walked around the room. Looking for something to watch again.

She then added, "Anyway I sort of have or had a boyfriend...it's complicated."

[mapquest-titan.livejournal.com]

Cale was just a little taken aback by Kate's sudden confession. It wasn't the fact that she had a boyfriend that surprised him--she was kind of pretty, after all--but rather the fact that she felt the need to tell him that caught him off-guard.

"Um...ok. Huge leap!" he said. "Why are you telling me this?"

[nothawkingbird.livejournal.com]

Kate shrugged, "So you don't have to worry about me trying to hit on you? Which I totally wasn't."

Mostly.

[mapquest-titan.livejournal.com]

"Right...uh...thanks. I'll keep that in mind."

Cale went back to working on the damaged control panel. He was determined to get this thing working again so he could shut the damn music off once and for all. Too bad he was doomed to fail.

"So. What's his name?"

[nothawkingbird.livejournal.com]

"Paco." She just said, checking for movies again.

[mapquest-titan.livejournal.com]

"Paco? Paco, Paco, Paco... You mean that guy who's on the ship with us? That Paco?"

[nothawkingbird.livejournal.com]

"Yeah we met here a while back. Sort of hooked up." And dating, least till the Yeerks started up sneaking in to cause problems.

[mapquest-titan.livejournal.com]

"What happened?" Cale asked. Whoa? Is he actually interested in someone else? "His mom didn't like you?" Ok...maybe not.

[nothawkingbird.livejournal.com]

Kate fixed him a look.

"Please, she's not even here for one, and nothing like that."

She then added, "More like the Yeerks showed up."

[mapquest-titan.livejournal.com]

"What do they have to do with anything?"

He pressed a sequence of buttons, listening closely to the different tones that each one emitted.

[nothawkingbird.livejournal.com]

"He was infested with one. Later got me infested."

Hence the complications.

[mapquest-titan.livejournal.com]

"And..."

He's not following.

[nothawkingbird.livejournal.com]

"We both were trying to take over the ship and kill some of the crew while we were possessed by them?"

Never a good situation.

[mapquest-titan.livejournal.com]

"And you broke up because..." Cale said, leaving the question hanging for her to finish.

[nothawkingbird.livejournal.com]

"I did mention the part where he got me infested by them? And I don't know if we broke up, it's more we went through hell along with a lot of other infested people. And now we're not sure what we are."

[mapquest-titan.livejournal.com]

Cale nodded. He may be brilliant with machines, but when it came to human interaction--especially when that interaction was with girls, Cale kinda sucked.

"Hmmm...Sucks to be him."

[nothawkingbird.livejournal.com]

"Gee, thanks for that blog." Kate rolled her eyes. "That's all you can say huh?"

[mapquest-titan.livejournal.com]

"What do you want me to say?" he asked, scowling--there he goes again.

"Guy had a cute girlfriend, got taken over by a slug, tried to kill half the ship, then woke up without a girlfriend. I'd say that's some pretty shitty luck."

[nothawkingbird.livejournal.com]

"I didn't say wake up without... Look, we working things out. The whole thing sucked."

Kate then smirked at him, "...Did you just call me cute?"

[mapquest-titan.livejournal.com]

"No."

[nothawkingbird.livejournal.com]

"Liar."