trans_9 | There are worse things out tonight than vampires

"I am probably underestimating how tightly the crew has bonded with each other, and with the people who may or may not be waiting for them in the pods" she admitted. "I am used to an environment with people constantly shuttling on and off."

"He's a department head, so far as I know he's standard human stock, and he's managed to survive and remain sane on this ship while carrying an incredible workload," she replied dryly. She had definitely noticed how often Billy was in Engineering, and how little he seemed to sleep. "He doesn't need my recommendation."

"I think the explosions may be a cinematic addition. While a biological analysis suggests that a vampire needs to absorb energy with incredible efficiency - they are depicted as being able to live very extended lifetimes on a rather minimal diet - I don't think they would really release it all at once like that. But on a movie set, if the vampires were not exploding and turning into ash, the hero would soon be waist-deep in dead vampires. Which would rather inhibit his movements. Hopefully if there actually are exploding vampires on board, Security has non-lethal tools to subdue them."

Some of them may also be staying aboard out of a sense of responsibility, said Zouichi. Or perhaps they simply had nowhere else to go, as in his case, and staying aboard the ship seemed like the most likely way to one day return to their own worlds.

Human... stock? He'd never heard that particular expression before. Many human professions require extraordinary workloads. But it is true that those careers don't usually involve fighting interdimensional aliens.

If I were waist-deep in dead adversaries, I would move, said Zouichi, blinking. Anyway, it would take a veritable mosh pit of them to pile up that high. Usually they only reached knee-high, at best.

"I have...thought about that. Thought about my responsibilities and my duties...for the moment I don't see any great contradiction between what I am doing here, and what I would be doing back with the Fleet."

Stock was a slaver's term of course; it had just slipped out. "Humans are one of those species that seems to blend with others very easily, it's even in their media," she said, gesturing to the half-human on the screen as he fought, leather coat flaring around him like a cape. "I can only hope that the humans here have been chosen not just for their talents, but for their endurance as well."

Anwei put both elbows down on the back of the couch, resting her wide chin on her hands. "Yes, but it's part of the film - part of its design - that the half-human hero is standing still at the center of the screen while his enemies come to him. It happens again and again. Or he moves and they are struck down in his path. The smoothness of motion, that is a part of the movie. It wouldn't be quite as graceful if the actor was constantly hopping over dead bodies."

He nodded. Yes. For now, it is an extension of my usual mission.

Zouichi followed Anwei's motion back to the screen. Blend...? he asked, blinking in confusion. A beat.

Ah! Now he appeared visibly embarrassed, looking away from the screen and Anwei both. After a moment, he began typing again. I wouldn't really know. However, I believe that in this case, no... blending was involved.

Do you think so? he asked. He had to step over dead bodies all the time, but he'd never really considered whether it would be more or less graceful to do otherwise.

"I feel much the same," she said, thinking of a certain oath she had taken.

"Yes, if I recall his mother is bitten, just before he is born? I imagine that if that worked in reality - or the reality I know at least - people would be hunting down vampires to take their saliva and dose pregnant people with it. This character seems to have been considerably enhanced by the exposure, with very few negative side effects."

She laughed. "Maybe. Or maybe the actor had sore feet and refused to hop. I spent several thousand hours studying Earth media before I went there; it rather ingrained their film techniques into my memory. I'm looking forward to exploring the Library in more depth, once I have more free time." With a half-smile, she asked, "Are you enjoying the films so far?"

That sounds extremely likely, he typed, with a wry look on his face. After all, wasn't that basically what they'd done back on Earth? Perhaps the process was not very stable, and it was tried on other humans offscreen.

I'm not sure, he said. Watching some of these films, I get the distinct impression that some old Earth countries operated with an ingrained distrust of technology or created beings, like myself. In fact, the fictional characters that most closely resemble those like me are often portrayed as the most threatening.

Like, say, the Terminator.

"Without more information on the vampire virus itself, we can't predict how well it would work on other subjects. It's entirely possible that this character's mother had some rare bloodtype or Rh factor that meant success. Without a broad enough experimental subject base, that might never be rediscovered."

She considered. "It's a cultural bias, I think. Certainly there are other species, the Penn'ae for example, where the synthetic character or AI always ends up saving the day, after the Penn'ae people around them are struck down by disease or dehydration or excessive emotion. Maybe films from later in Earth's history, when more people have met and accepted synthetic sentients, would be more realistic."

Zouichi inclined his head in agreement, but there was a slight trace of bitterness in his smile. If the virus in the movie were real, he was sure there would be scientists chomping at the bit to recreate the exact process that had produced those superhuman abilities.

Perhaps, he agreed, Although films from more current periods of time seem few and far between, at least here. Another curiosity.

Anwei was a bit ambivalent about medical testing on sentients: on the one hand it was a gross abuse of their rights, but if breaking down one vampire into his or her individual cells meant finding a cure for cancer...

"That must be what you mentioned before - that films that might show our futures are taken out." She sighed. "I'm sorry if you are getting a negative impression of how humans feel about synthetics from these records, Zouichi. They are the product of a less enlightened time."

And of course, without extensive testing on organics, it would have been impossible to create someone like Zouichi in the first place. It still wasn't a very pleasant thought.

He shook his head. No, even in my time, there are those who treat Synthetics with suspicion and distrust. Particularly those from rival corporations. That isn't the only thing, though. There appear to be many elements my world has in common with these films.

And without dissection of a fair number of living sentient brains, the perfection of the AI might never have been reached. So in Anwei's mind at least, the price was worth paying.

"Do you think that these films were made in offshoots from your dimension, or vice versa? Or that your story, or Threads or whatever you want to call it, has influenced them?"

He shook his head. I believe it's more of a case of similar worlds following similar lines of development. For example, most of the magic users I've met, despite coming from disparate dimensions, tend to activate their powers through a spoken spell or physical gesture, similar to the supposed "spells" in my world.

"I've been uncertain about the magicians here," she confessed. "On my world only priests and their gods worked magic, and it usually was not...nice magic. With the mercenaries there was the Swift Death, and Her clerics, but I never heard of a magician-mercenary. Although it certainly seems to be a valid skill, so maybe there just isn't as much magic where I come from."

"Have you considered learning if you can control your - stun-word power? It seems like a good thing for a member of Security to know."

The magicians I have met here have been nothing but courteous, he said. But I can certainly believe unscrupulous magic users also exist.

[Awk, I'm actually not sure how to deal with the stun thing now that its plot was ended, so MAKING STUFF UP LIKE WHOA]

He looked a little uncomfortable at the mention of the stun spell. Actually, after my conversation with Signum, the occurrence of those spells has dropped off precipitously. I cannot explain why, but I have experienced no additional effects in my conversations with Fuyu. I was considering a return to speaking on a trial basis.

And at least, since it had apparently been someone else behind the magical effects, it wasn't actually his fault what had happened. That helped.

"Of course, it's also possible that Stacy has only selected polite magicians to be here." Which would be a very intelligent thing to do. The crew was in enough of an uncertain situation, they didn't need people being rude as well.

She smiled. "That's good to hear, Zouichi. Maybe the spell cast on you just ran out of power? Because you aren't a magician, or some other reason." And hopefully that did not mean that somewhere some scientist-magician was taking down their last notes on Effects of Casting Random Magic Spells on People.

"I have no objection if you'd like to try talking now."

It was possible. Most of the people aboard seemed to be reasonable to work with, and not actively trying to destroy everyone else.

Well, it was probably safe to talk now, right? Right.

"I--" He cleared his throat, then began again. His voice sounded a little husky from disuse, but nothing exploded or disappeared or anything, which was good. "I don't know. If someone wanted to find out what effect such a spell would have on me, they might have just asked."

She actually wasn't all that threatened by the idea of being stunned right now; far better to be knocked down onto a nice, soft Stacy-floor, rather than onto the controls of a moving motorcycle.

"A polite magician certainly would ask first. Unless your not knowing what was going on was part of the test." A thought there, something about Stacy and talents...but it eluded her.

"I think a polite magician wouldn't perform experiments on an unknowing test subject in the first place," he said. Even if you didn't ask the subject directly, there were still ways of obtaining consent. "I would have been happy to assist."

Magic wasn't really his thing, anyway; technology was something you could trust, and scientific results could be reliably reproduced without... whatever it was that made magic run. Whatever it was, it seemed fickle at best.

She was distracted by the screen for a moment, where an arrangement of priceless manuscripts was being demolished in a fight between the half-vampire and a rather aggressive little girl.

"I agree; I've never seen you be other than generous with your time.

"Sometimes I think this entire ship and its crew is some sort of test: expose us all to each other, and see what happens. Who will thrive, who will fail, who will run experiments on their fellow sentients, who will fight to defend them. Who will fight to rebuild their world at any cost, and who will not."

"I have more time than most people to be generous with," he said, reflexively. Zouichi wasn't used to accepting compliments.

"It seems like an awfully elaborate and expensive test. I'm sure such an experiment could have been run with a few crew members and a ship a thousandth this size." Plus, he just wasn't keen on the idea of himself as a test subject. "But if it was -- what would be the point? To pass judgment on us? If so, it would make more sense to gather up people from a single world, or a wide variety of aliens."

"Still, your efforts should be appreciated." The way that people kept disappearing around here, he could end up head of Security if he just stuck around long enough.

"There's a phrase that you will hear among all sorts of sentients: conspiracy theory. The idea that there is some plan, some script," she gestured to the screen, "that we are all being led along. It can be very reassuring, to believe that there is a pattern to everything; that it all makes sense to someone, somewhere, even if that someone is a mystery."

"I hope you are receiving acknowledgment for your own, actually," he said. "Every time I speak with you, you seem to be working on a new project. Please be careful to look after your health as well as the others aboard the ship."

[Zouichi as Head of Security? Man, that's all sorts of bad idea :D]

"Well, I do believe conspiracy theories have more credence than the idea of 'fate'," he said. "At least the theorists attribute events to people with motives and agency, rather than some unproven abstract concept."

Not big on the whole destiny deal.

She looked very briefly offended. "Of course I'm taking care of myself. I have a schedule worked out." She pulled out her omnicomm and displayed an agenda, reminding her when she should sleep, eat, excrete, and relax. Then she looked at the agenda a little ruefully. "I have to actually, without someone else to remind me." Someone else being Horanckk, of course.

She shivered. "I really, really do not want to imagine that I am fated to be here. For one thing, that would run counter to the idea that we are somehow Thread Walkers, guiders of our own paths. If we can control our histories and futures, how could this be fate?"

She... worked out when to excrete?

Zouichi glanced at her Omnicomm courteously. "It's very... extensive."

"Or other people are destined to march towards an inevitable, planned fate, while only a few 'Thread Walkers' have the privilege of creating their own paths. Although I suppose it doesn't matter much either way in my case."

Imagine the results if she forgot.

"In the absence of other peoples' guidance, I do tend to overschedule myself. And some of my tasks tend to expand to fill all available time if I let them, like my data extraction project."

She looked at him with a quizzical expression. "Why would you say it doesn't matter? What applies to you should apply to all of us."

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