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The Doctor by now had started to work on exploring the rest of the ship, which...wasn't as easy as it sounded. It was becoming more and more obvious it was far bigger than he'd guessed at first and he might have gotten lost a few times. Not that mattered. He got lost occasionally in his own TARDIS. Take a door, end up in the study instead of the bedroom. Come out accidentally back in the console room. Things like that. From his experience, getting lost was sometimes just as good as getting to exactly where you wanted to be going in the first place. All sorts of interesting stuff tended to happen when you got lost

In other words...the Doctor was lost again when he wandered into the room. A girl was organizing a collection of disks as the Doctor came through the door.

"That is a really good question," the Doctor said cheerfully, not thinking that maybe he should have knocked. Although knocking on a fleshy wall might not work as well as one thought it would, but... "Secretive girl, this Stacy. Secretive, grumpy, and gorgeous. I don't think I missed anything, did I?"

Vivio couldn't help but jump at the Doctor's sudden answer. The reaction was less of someone answering the question and more of his sudden arrival. Recovering, she shook her head.

"No, I don't think you did. Though I know some of the crew might think otherwise." she said, chuckling. Secretive, yes. Grumpy, definitely. Gorgeous? Eh, she's still a kid. She'll get back to you on that. "There's a lot about her we don't know. And usually when we find out, we don't like it at all."

"Sounds about right for an ex-prison ship," the Doctor came further into the room, looking around with interest. He headed over toward one of the walls to look at the collection, running his hands over his hair. "Very nice. And how long have these all been here?"

The Doctor clasped his hands behind his back, throwing a look over his shoulder at the young girl. Librarian? She looked young for a librarian but she wasn't in the universe's largest library either. The Doctor continued to make his way around the room, looking at each of the titles in turn with his head tilted to the side. Incidentally, the path took him back to the little librarian, the Doctor now peering at the pad in her hand with the same amount of interest. What he'd seen -- and hadn't seen -- in the collection was telling him quite a bit, and that was before even using the discs.

"May I?"

Edited 2011-01-11 13:07 (UTC)

"How long? I'd... say that they'd been here longer than I have. Two, maybe more years?" Vivio said. It was a bit confusing to say how long they had been there. Even more when a lot of the stuff disappears and reappears from time to time.

When she noticed that the Doctor was taking interest in the disk she held in her hands, she flinched just a bit. She knew what it was - Punishment - but her protective side didn't want her to have the Doctor see it. But, that would go against what she was, wouldn't it?

Reluctantly, she nodded and handed it to him.

The Doctor took the disc in his hands, handling it surprisingly gently as he examined it. Punishment. He assumed it was Stacy Punishment and not something extremely vague, because really, "punishment" could mean a lot of things in the universe. Running long fingers over the disc, the Doctor glanced up over it at his little librarian, just in time to catch her slight reaction to it. Ah. She didn't seem to like it, did she? Nasty thing, this Punishment. From what Billy told him, it was beyond excessively cruel. Had the librarian been here for it?

For now, the disc seemed to remain dormant. He would probably have to take a look sometime, once he figured out exactly how things worked here, but he was already bracing himself for it. The Doctor continued to look at every inch of the disc's surface, turning it over and over (and over, three was a good number) in his hands.

"Impressive collection for only two years," the Doctor nods to the big Thing in the center. It's got a huge crystal array on it and little tubes going every which way. The Doctor steps toward it, "Is this the sorter? No, can't be, that would be you, and a good job you're doing too."

"Aha... th-thanks!" Vivio said, blushing a bit at his compliment. "But, that... I think that's the thing that allows all of us to speak to one another without trying to figure it out ourselves." A worried look did appear on her face. "I don't think you should touch it, though..."

"Really? One of the lights went out," the Doctor reached out and tapped the edge of one of the tubes with his thumb, "See?"

Whether it had always been like that, was supposed to be like that, or he just had that effect on alien light bulbs remained to be seen. The Doctor hitched up the knees of his plantsuit (a bit of a useless gesture, they didn't seem to want to be hitched) and stooped over, half-crouched as he examined the translator. Always a necessity, those. Especially when you had to take in consideration people from all sorts of planets, times and even dimensions. The scale of it was dizzying! Despite the size and blinking lights, save for the one, it looked well-taken care of to him. The Doctor, still hunched over with the Punishment Disc in the crook of his elbow, turned toward the little librarian.

"I could fix it for you, quick as you like."

He smiled at her. Well, after he got a reading from it on the sonic...otherwise using it blindly on an unknown form of translator could either send it into overload, make it translate everything into an interesting shade of the color blah(it'd happened to him) or just go for boring and break it. Still, the offer stood.

Now Vivio was worried. On one hand, the Doctor DID look like he could be trusted with this sort of thing. Certainly looked like the kind to do so. However, there was also the risk of him hitting the wrong thing and screwing up everything because of it.

"Well... if you're careful, then I don't mind. Just... don't hit anything that looks important."

The Doctor pulled out his sonic screwdriver, holding it up and thumbing through some settings lightning quick before he started scanning the translator. From the way he waved it around, it almost looked borderline half-hazard, as if he was trying to swat at an invisible fly that was far too skilled for its own good. A loud buzzing filled the room as the sonic glowed a startlingly bright green. With a deft flick of his wrist, he snapped the sonic's prongs shut and studied the reading it fed him.

"Ah!" he shot his little librarian a grin. "I can promise you now it won't turn a shade of blah, if that helps. Now let's see about this light."

He walked around the translator again and after changing it to a different setting, fiddling with the handle, and tapping the sonic's head on his chin, figuring out his plan of attack as he stared at the translator, the Doctor seemed to be ready. The sonic glowed green again as he waved it around the length of the tube light.

After a moment, the light sputtered and then came on. It didn't even overload. Not even a tiny bit.

The Doctor closed his sonic, starting to pocket it. "See, what did I tell you?" He stepped to the side to allow the librarian to have a look if she wanted.

Edited 2011-01-13 16:22 (UTC)

Vivio stepped up to where the Doctor had been and noticed that, yes, he did fix it, much to her surprise.

"Y-You did it! Wow, I'm... I'm sorry I doubted you!" she said, bowing slightly in apology.

"What is it?" Sakura stopped where she was, having asked the immediate question that came to mind when she'd half heard the girl's question of why.

Sakura had entered the Media Library today after mulling over the necessity of learning as much as she could about Stacy, the Ohm, and everything else about this strange reality. She had half a mind to ask around for this Vivio friend of Negi's; a brief glance around the Library told Sakura that there was more to knowing how to use this place than met the eye.

Yet another thing outside of her experience range, soon to become part of it. Very soon.

Vivio couldn't help but jump in surprise at Sakura's comment. She needed to stop focusing on her tasks and thoughts and make sure she noticed others. She shook her head a bit, recovering, as she smiled a bit at Sakura.

"This? Well..." Vivio said, trailing off. "...it's of something horrible that happened here awhile back. Punishment." She looked at the girl, a worried look on her face. "I don't know if you want to look at it..."

Punishment -- between the worry on this girl's face, and Matt's quiet comments on the subject, Sakura had a feeling this meant the punishment. The result of too many violations against Stacy's protocols.

"I wouldn't say I exactly want to," she said, looking straight at the other girl. "So much as I might need to." Outside of the implications behind Stacy wanting this to be seen, time and again, Sakura had her own standards against willing ignorance and blindness to her situation. She'd grown up with blinders on, not realizing they were there.

Knowing exactly how brutal a construct she was dealing with, that they all were dealing with, felt important.

Vivio looked at the disk before looking at Sakura. She seemed willing to watch it and part of her was certain that she was going to go for it no matter what.

"Well... if you want to... here." Vivio said, hesitantly, handing it to Sakura. She quickly tried to change the subject, though. "I don't think I've met you before. My name's Vivio."

Accepting the disk, Sakura found herself struck more by good fortune in that moment than anything else. "Vivio Takamachi? I'm Sakura Haruno -- Negi-san told me you're a friend of his who knows a lot about the Media Library. I was looking for you, actually!"

Holding the disk up, she felt a little sheepish. "Mostly to figure out how to use the Media Library in the first place." She'd unwittingly stumbled into her first information source; maybe now she could willingly walk into knowing how to access it and any others along the way.

"Oh...! Haha, w-well, you've came to the right person!" Vivio said, blushing at the fact that Negi had mentioned her like that. "I'd be glad to show you how these work and, well, just about anything else you need around here!"

She couldn't help but smile widely - not everyday people came by, asking for her help.

Sakura smiled in return, nodding her head back toward the entrance. "If you're sure don't mind helping someone completely new to all this.. I really appreciate it. Is there an index of the records in here?"

"Oh, I don't mind at all!" Vivio said, shaking her head. "There's nothing to worry about...!"

At her question over an index, Vivio took a thoughtful pose. "An index... I think so... Kris?" A moment later, a small, white rabbit plush floated over to the two, carrying a small pad with the listing already brought up.

Sakura found hereslf staring at the floating white rabbit, disconcerted. The fact she could accept that people flew, but had trouble with something like this either attested to her experience back home or her still lacking experience with things around here.

She blinked, making herself focus. She almost succeeded. "Is that a rabbit?"

Vivio took the pad from Kris as she heard Sakura's question. She grinned sheepishly as she did.

"This is Kris. He's actually my Device, a magical object I use!" Vivio said. "Say hi, Kris!" With that, that plush waved at Sakura.

Sakura awkwardly waved back, unsure of how she was supposed to respond. Her smile snuck back on her face, a kind of first defense against having to absorb all the strange realities that kept introducing themselves. "Nice to meet him," she said weakly, wondering how many such magical objects could be around Stacy. And how many of them am I going to know about?

The last depended on her own actions, she suspected. "Are things like him common on this ship?"

"There are a few of us that have these sort of Devices, but mine's the only one that's like it is. A lot of them are just pendants." Vivio said, taking a hold of Kris. "They're pretty much what we use to use our magicks."

She tilted her head a bit, a little curious. "I... take it you don't have something like that where you came from?"

"No, not really. The closest I can think of would be a summons, but those are other creatures, and they're only bound to a person by contract. Contracts aren't unbreakable... and summons aren't a means to performing jutsu."

Sakura realized that jutsu might not make much sense, and shrugged. "By that, I mean any of the techniques people are trained in back home. They're not based on magic, either, so that might be part of it."

Vivio nodded as she heard Sakura's explanation. She understood it from a certain standpoint from what she learned at home and from what she saw here, so at least it didn't go over her head.

"Perhaps you could show me some of that sometime, hm?" she offered.

"If you'd like," she said. Sakura smiled. "In the sensoriums, at least, if you're interested in summons. Even if I had a summons myself, without the world... I don't think they'd be able to be summoned."

Getting close to thinking about things she'd rather not, yet again. She looked back toward the rest of the library, and then waved the disk she had in hand around. "But for now, about the index...?"

Even though free food, no matter how bad everyone tells him it is, is the most exciting thing about the meatship, nothing's cheered him up quite as much as the media library. "I've been deprived," he tells himself, looking at Star Wars and browsing through all the other movies.

"Hey, they have Star Wars in here!" he yells over to another girl in the library. Seeing her hiding a book, he darts over. "What's that?"

Vivio couldn't help but smile at what Howard had found. At least he found something he liked. However, it got a little worrying when he took notice of what she had.

"This? It's... it's nothing... nothing you want to see." she said, hoping he'd get the hint. It seemed a bit unlikely.

"See, that's funny, I was looking to check out 'nothing you want to see'," he says, trying to peek around her.

"No, no, really, you don't want to see this...!" Vivio protested. This was probably one thing no one should see and she was going to make sure of it.

"Yes, yes I do. And the more you tell me I don't the more I want to."

Instinct and a bit of panicking played a bit in Vivio's next move: hovering in the air, keeping the item, yet not her, out of his reach.

"I-I know that, but I'm doing this for your own good...!" Vivio said.

Please make with the easy outsmarting.

She probably could have achieved the same goal if she'd just raised it manually - Howard's fairly short. "What, are you going to tell me to eat my vegetables next?"

Anwei had slipped into the Media Library because she didn't quite trust what her omnicom told her. She wanted to confirm, as well as she could from outside the system, that the people here really did not know who she was.

She was cautious; she didn't use any really obvious search terms at first - terms that would make it obvious what she was looking for. 'Anwei Ayles + Genetic' brought up nothing. 'Anwei + Blasph*' also drew a blank. 'Anwei + Murder' - nothing. Finally she looked for everything, even 'Anwei Ayles the Abomination' and - nothing. Nothing.

She was free. Really free! She was -

Her own selfishness smacked her upside the head. Trillions dead, untold species and cultures blasted to dust, entire worlds of art and music gone forever - and all she cared about was her past reputation?

Well - maybe it was not all gone. She entered Ninth Empire - and got Planetfall.

Oh God. She stared at the entry, a little sick. Planetfall. Four hundred and eleven days, twenty-seven hours per day, over three thousand storylines running from start to end - this? They saved this grotesquerie? This shame to the species that created it?

She was vaguely aware that someone was moving around the room near her. She turned and asked without really seeing, "Excuse me, how do you append information to these files?"

Vivio blinked, hearing what she said. She wanted to append information? Why?

"Append information? Is there a reason why?" Vivio asked, a little confused.

Anwei swallowed. "This recording here, this...it's from my culture, you see. And as I am the last remaining member of that culture that I know of, I would like to - to warn people about the contents.

"I wouldn't be deleting anything," she hastened to add. "But maybe just a text scroll at the beginning? I'd sign it, it wouldn't be anonymous vandalism."

"Well..." Vivio said, trailing off. Hearing her say that brought her back to the disks she had. Plenty of copies of the Punishment video she had hidden away, scared of others seeing it. It has hard for many to see it then, it would be hard to see it now.

"...I'd guess so, but... wouldn't that temptation be hard to handle if you have the ability to do so?"

"This story, it - it is not what it seems, you see. And people might watch it and enjoy it, thinking it was fiction. And it's really sort of a documentary. So I just want to label it with what it really is."

"What, the temptation to label things? Or the temptation to delete them?" She paused and thought, and when she spoke again her words came slower.

"This recording is a terrible thing. But it also may be the only recording of a planet and its people, the only thing of them that is left. And while - while the circumstances are horrible, many of those people are very noble. So no, I wouldn't delete it. But I don't want people looking at it with ignorant eyes."

"Well..." Vivio stammered, listening to Anwei's reasoning. "I... guess it would be okay, then. At least to let others know."

Vivio still had a bit of doubt, though, and it did make sense. It might be possible that Stacy would replace it if something destroyed but, what guarantee would there be?

Anwei took out her omnicom and typed busily on it for a few minutes. Then she handed it to Vivio. "Here, see how this sounds as a first draft."

THE EVENTS DEPICTED IN THIS SERIES ARE REAL. THIS IS NOT A WORK OF FICTION.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION WHICH MAY INCLUDE DETAILS OF THE PLOT, SEE (HERE).

(HERE) = This series covers one year on the planet Revens, during which the planet becomes unstable in its orbit and eventually falls into the sun. All events shown are real. The series was created by seeding Revens with self-concealing cameras and then firing an anti-interial projector at the planet. Revens' sentient inhabitants were Level Four technology and did not have spaceflight capabilities or knowledge of other planets. They never discovered what caused their planet to fall. All sequels to this series were created with the same methods.

(ADVANCE TO THE SERIES)

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