trans_9 | Queries and Quibbles--mind your Q's

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Queries and Quibbles--mind your Q's

[ooc: Read this bit.]

Something happens outside the ship. There's a concussive noise like something docking, and then the doors to Obs open again, to reveal a mostly intact, but somewhat bedraggled away team. One of them is injured, and part of the group works to get her down to MedBay, some of the others look stoic and a touch upset with what they've learned.

Some look pissed off that their various morphers and power suits have been stolen away from them again by Stacy's tentacles or dampened.

Something happens INSIDE the ship. A handful of individuals are released from their pods after quite some time of running imaginary mazes.

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Cybil puts a comforting hand on Kurt's shoulder at the visible panic.

"Who are you? What did you do to him? What do you mean you suppressed our memories?"

"I am GLaDOS (Genetic Lifeform and Disk Operating System), one of the resident AIs. I am responsible for Psychological Studies and Computer-aided Enrichment of the Crew. When a crewmate is taken for studies, the rest of the crew's memories of them are suppressed to prevent distress. Distress is a mess."

"What is 'computer-aided enrichment'? What did you do?"

Yeah, she's pissed. The ship took crew members and did who knew what to them and made the crew FORGET them--they didn't even know to look for them.

Alright, so the physical wasn't too bad. Too bad there was nobody really around that might actually respond favorably to a quip. The comment about being in good shape was wasted. The green kid didn't look like he had much of a sense of humor.

Kurt was fine, and that was the important thing. Cybil had touched his shoulder, and she could probably feel his back muscles go slack with relief.

"I, uh, think there were hoops. And there was supposed to cake. I never got any." For a moment honest frustration was on his face. "I thought I was having a really stupid dream."

Her arm sweeps into a more comforting, protective half-hug around his shoulders. She has a thing. About kids getting hurt.

In this case, this was one that she had been responsible for--she had been captain at that time.

"How many others have you taken like this? Has anyone else gone missing?"

GLaDOS says, "None that I'm willing to talk about!" and blips away.

Well, you know, he was pretty much an adult. One that had seen world-changing events, had participated in battles with ridiculously powerful mutants, and had even let Kitty drive him to school once. Danger was nothing new to him.

This was just weird on a whole new level, and you know what? Screw it. He'd take a protective hug from a very angry policewoman. It still calmed his panic.

"You're pretty good at this comforting-people thing." He had actually whispered to her from behind one hand, a brief grin on his face, before the AI had refused to talk and.. vanished.

"Guess that means we find out the hard way."

Okay, Kurt, you can have a full-on hug. Brief, but shit, the kid looks spooked.

"I'm a cop. Half my job is calming people down. It just gets a little more complicated when they're drunk and have shotguns."

Oh, the joys of small-town policework.

"And I guess we will have to find out the hard way--who knows if we've been made to forget other people were here."

"I bet." That was all Kurt could really say. Yes, things got complicated, but he was more used to the small-minded lashing out at them. Or lasers. Stuff like that.

"I have a question, then. Do you remember how long I was gone? Do I even want to know how long?" Now that GLaDOS was no longer trying to talk to him, he was feeling a little less wired up. "Or.. could that happen again? Have they been taking people all along?"

Yes, he did expect Cybil to know everything. Just because.

"Almost a month, kid. I remember it NOW, at least. I stopped seeing you--it got all fuzzy around the business with the Yeerks. As far as we know, they haven't taken anyone else, but that's as far as we know. We need to find out if any others have gone missing," she says. "And we will. You can be damn sure we will."

".. a month." Kurt couldn't help but squeak slightly on the last word, his tone going up in pitch. Nope, he wasn't going to panic again. He was a big boy. He could handle the stress.

There were more questions, but there were no answers. Like, why had he been abducted -after- he'd already been abducted? What did the tests prove? Why had he been let go? The only source for that was some crazed, vague AI.

"My life is awesome." He declared to himself. Now what?

"Someone else is missing."

Listening to that conversation, it was like Leon suddenly remembered that there was something he forgot. He was struggling to remember it now.

"It was... goddammit!"

He couldn't remember. He couldn't remember at all.

"...Are you sure?"

She pauses.

Weren't there more faces in general? Other people? They don't have as many as she thought.

She checks her old datapad, the roster there, before she transferred it to the omnicoms--but there's nothing unusual there. Then again, it could've been hacked. She moves to the omnicom.

"I had names. I had everyone's names."

She's seeing if there are any names of people they've not seen for a while.

Leon growled a bit as he strained to remember, but still came up empty. He checked his PDA to see if he had made any notes of it.

He should have. He would have. He...

"Shit! They've tampered with my files."

He did make notes, but those have either been deleted in whole or in part, leaving him with nothing to go on.

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Queries and Quibbles--mind your Q's

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