trans_9 | Bad Handwriting and Everything [Open]

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Bad Handwriting and Everything [Open]

The upside to using paper and pen instead of data pads for taking notes on patients is that it's intuitive and you can fiddle with things. The downside is that, at the end of a shift, a lot of the notes have to be shredded for privacy reasons, and the details have to be entered into the data pads anyway. Despite his usual devotion to efficiency, Howard doesn't mind this. It's a nice way to review the day and cement anything he might have learned.

The Quarantine's mostly empty now, which is a definite plus. All those kids were getting Howard crankier and antsier than usual. He brought in a box of toys from the Warehouse, though he didn't bother to check the age ranges for them, so he hopes someone who cares a bit more will take out all the choking hazards before any of the children regress to toddlerhood. He doesn't want anything to do with children; he had enough of that back in that dystopian nightmare he called home. All they do is cry and scream and demand things and kill each other and eat all the food and lie and burn down buildings and generally make life unpleasant. Not that adults are always better, but at least someone's around to enforce order here.

He hums a snippet of Cliffs of Dover to himself, chewing on the end of a Tinker Toy, and starts typing in his notes.

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"With her, I'm not quite sure what will happen. All I know is that in my world she was plenty dangerous, and vicious when it came to getting what she wanted, and that was her sane. Insane, I just don't know. These council people better know what they're doing."

She shook her head. "Well, that's what works for me, anyway. With you, I'm guessing you'll have to find your own way of dealing. Obviously not everyone is a prize, but there are alwys at least a handful you can trust."

Kaya laughed. "Fair enough. I don't know, you seem like a pretty interesting guy. I'll take my chances."

She looked over at his notes. "What are you doing there?"

"Oh, great. I just love vicious people who go off the rails." He shakes his head. "I'm going to be going out of my way to avoid her, but that's never an ideal solution. At least I don't know her."

He actually laughs at that. Trust is not something that comes easily to him - or at all. The closest he comes to trusting anyone on the ship is Zouichi, and that's mostly because he's got Zouichi figured as someone who would put the safety of others before himself. "Whatever you say, Bubbles."

He doesn't repay the compliment, feeling a little awkward. Normally tensions are so high in the FAYZ - and before that he had so much trouble making friends in school - that he tends to grind people's nerves relatively quickly. He's used to antagonism; being a friendly acquaintance of someone is a relatively new experience.

"Deaging stuff. Filling out more interview info in case it turns out we screwed up and this has nothing to do with the clock. Backup plan." He's not an optimistic person.

"Well, its my first time seeing it, to be honest," Kaya confessed, looking apprehensive. "Chances are though, she won't get to know you either. You're a little dark skinned like me, so she'll probably think you're a peasant or something, like you;re part of my tribe."

Bubbles? Was that a term of endearment, or just another joke? It was hard to tell.

"I guess it is good to think ahead, although I really am hoping its the clock. I have a few friends of mine that are already being affected by this clock thing."

Howard snorts. "Oh, yeah. I forgot all brown people look alike. So she's crazy and racist."

Don't dwell too much on it, Kaya - just about everyone gets nicknames from Howard. He just happened to think your speech about friendship would have fit in a Powerpuff Girls episode.

"It would be pretty nice if this whole thing worked out and we weren't surrounded by kids for longer than we have to be. Not to mention it'd look good for us at Medical."

Kaya snickered. "I've heard of this 'racist' thing in my readings in the library, and its not quite the same, actually. In the region where I live, dark skinned people populate the poles, the lighter skinned in the middle regions. She's not looking at your skin and thinking...well, actually, you might be right, now that I think of it. Of course, she's also crazy laong with having a superiority complex."

If Kaya saw the Powerpuff girls she would love it, especially Blossom.

"I know what you mean. Getting people just to come here is like pulling teeth. How long have you been doing it so far?"

"So instead of 'go back to Africa' it's 'go back to the pole'? Between the war and the crazy people, your place sounds fantastic. I'll book my tickets there in a heartbeat."

He counts back - it's hard to keep track of things on Stacy. "Almost three months. You?"

Kaya shrugged. "We're peasants to her, because she was raised as royalty. It's less about the color and more about how she feels she was raised to be better than those below her status. We could be colored lighter, but as log as she is royalty ad we aren't, that will be how she is."

She looked a little down trodden. "Almost three years, actually."

"You still got kingships? That's lame. We had some idiot tried to make himself king in the FAYZ, but that didn't turn out so well for him."

He's surprised. He hasn't run into anyone else who's been here so long. "Seriously?"

"Like I said, compared to most of the world's here, mine is pretty primitive by comparison. In the Fire Nation you have the Firelord, in the Earth Kingdom there is a king, and in my tribe there's the chief. I think the air nomads were the only ones that didn't have anything like that, but most of them are dead now, thanks to the war: you can ask Aang or Nima about that."

She nodded. "Yeah, its been that long, actually. There aren't a lot of people who have been with me as long: I mean, I know Billy has, and the Captain Leon has been here awhile, but I can remember quite a few of the events that's happened on the ship. Its sorta why this melting clock thing doesn't surprise me."

"I think I ran into Aang. Bald guy, arrow tattoos, way too peppy?"

He taps the Tinker Toy against his front teeth. "The only thing that's surprised me is how cliche the clock is. Stacy's almost normal compared to how crazy it was back home. I guess I'll get more used to the boring routine the longer I'm here. Not that I don't like boring routine."

"Yeah, that's Aang all right!" Kaya said, offering a smile that didn't quite reach her eyes. The awkwardness between her and the rest of the Avatar crew hadn't quite been dealt with yet, so it was still a bit of a sore subject.

"It doesn't stay boring for long, trust me. This is far from the worst thing that's happened on Stacy. If I were you, I wouldn't tempt face by saying that aloud. You might regret it."

Howard doesn't miss the almost sad smile, but decides not to pursue that conversation point just yet. "He gives me the creeps a bit. He's almost too nice."

He snickers and puts one of his shoes up on the desk. Despite many washings, it's still got bloodstains, and obvious holes in a tooth-mark pattern. "Are you kidding? I almost got eaten by dinosaurs already."

Kaya couldn't help but laughing aloud. "Too nice? I've never heard of anyone being too nice! Is that someone that's the opposite of being too mean? He's always been that way, although he's been through a lot for this ship, I'm surprised he can manage it."

The girl raised her eyebrow. "Ugh, don't get me started. There was this one time where we had to face this Nightmare King, and all of peoples dreams started to attack us. At one point we had to actually face what earth people call a Tyrannosaurus Rex, and I STILL think that was easier than when we had to go through these terminators."

"There's totally such a thing as being too nice. Usually someone's who's too nice either isn't actually that nice, is setting themselves up to get shafted, or drives themselves crazy." At least, all the examples in Howard's life pointed to that.

"My buddy Zouichi threw a T-Rex, actually. Like, literally picked it up and threw it in the air. It was pretty crazy." He laughs at the mention of Terminators. "'Ah'll be bahck' terminators? Seriously?"

Kaya shook her head. "Actually, its because he's an air nomad. Their kind are usually pretty fancy free, love everything, try to understand everyone's point of view, that kind of thing. He actually is naturally like that, believe it or not. But he's definitely not weak, oh no. He's one of those guys that has a lot of power, and all of the training and strength, and knows when he has to use it. I always admired that about him."

She raised an eyebrow. "Is that the same security Zouichi that you're talking about? Because if it is, how on earth did he find up fighting a dinosaur?"

Kaya looked surprised. "Um, that didn't say anything like that, but they were grey with red eyes and very, VERY hard to destroy, even with combined strengths. I never saw anything like them."

"Wow, so an entire race of people who're way too nice. It creeps me out, man." He fakes a shudder. "God, girl, how many guys you crushing on? Marco'll get jealous."

He kicks his shoe against the table-leg gently. "Same way I ended up getting chased by them. Stacy sent us on this absolute bullshit mission and we nearly all ended up dead infiltrating and fighting in a dinosaur gladiator ring. Fun times."

"Yep, sounds like terminators. I better revise my plans for hiding under desks to include hiding behind metal cabinets."

"Former race of people, actually," Kaya clarified. "During the war, they were the first that were killed off. Aang just happened to be out of the way at the time."

At the mention of that, Kaya sucked her breath in. Marco being her boyfriend was just an irritating joke, but Aang: that was just bit of a sore subject she would refrain from getting into. "Ha ha," she said, trying to sound sarcastic about it as if it were just an annoying thing.

"A gladiator dinosaur ring?!" Kaya was beside herself. "Really, what is she thinking? My friend Billy was almost critically injured in that mission with the ships! Where is she getting her information?"

She shook her head. "Hopefully that won't happen again. Anyway, if it does, I'll protect you: I've never been the run and hide kind of girl."

"Cheerful," Howard says sarcastically. He notes the uncomfortable way she responds to his crack, tilts his head, and drops that subject too.

"Oh, I think she has plenty of information, she's just choosing to withhold it. She sent me, Zou and Anwei on that mission when she could have sent Zou and two people like you, people with serious firepower. The only reason we got out alive was dumb luck."

He smirks. "Yeah? If it ever comes down to it, I'm totally going to hold you to that."

"Well, no one likes thinking about something like that," Kaya said. "Aang is pretty amazing, with all he's gone through."

Kaya did look uneasy about this though. "I could understand Stacy maybe trying to get you to toughen up, but if they could have gotten people who would have been much better, why not do that? I don't understand half of what she does lately."

She smirked. "Maybe by then you'll know how to defend yourself, who knows?"

"Personally, I think her whole motherly love schtick is crap and she wouldn't lift a finger to stop any of us dying, if she isn't setting out to do it herself. She's screwing with us. Or, she's crazy and she thinks screwing with us is part of her motherly love plot."

He shakes his head. "Maybe, but I'm still going to hold you to saving me. Makes my life easier."

"I'd like to disagree," Kaya said, "But the truth is, I've been pulled apart and back together by the shenanigans of this ship, and no matter how idealistic I try to get, or how much I try to look on the bright side, a bad thing happens. A mother wouldn't do that, not one that was actually trying. She's more like that God Damion keeps talking about, that throws everything to chance and gets angry when disobeyed."

She raised an eyebrow. "You mean to say knowing we're in a war and you don't want to find a way to fight back? Why?"

"Yeah, that's what you get for idealism, I guess." He understands that feeling of Stacy as a god; in a way, that makes it worse, because Stacy's reified as yet another power beyond his scope that's playing with and threatening his life. And he hasn't even gotten his memories screwed up like Kaya.

"Who says I'm not learning to fight back? I'm in lessons. I just never want to have to use what I learn." Mostly because he sucks at it. A lot. It was only a few weeks ago that Zouichi pointed out to him how to make a proper fist that wouldn't break his thumb.

"It can only get you so far. The rest is usually taped together by the friends you make and the experiences you have. It's what makes sure that being here all this time, losing people, almost coming close to death, is not only just a hell someone made for me."

It was a blunt assessment, and one that Kaya would hardly ever use, but that was how she felt sometimes.

"Then what's the point of learning it then? You HAVE to use it, so you get better. That doesn't mean you have to go haul of and go fighting people or anything, but you will want to make sure you get good enough so that you're a formidable fighter, you know?"

"Nope. It's a hell someone made for all of us," he says, ramping up the cynicism to match Kaya's steadfast resilience. How nice, for her to have her friends to help her through this.

"No, I mean, I am getting better, I just never want to have to be in a position to be fighting for my life again. Why's that such a weird concept to you hero-types?"

"The Ohm," Kaya said. "No matter who much I hate how Stacy operates, or how little we get informed, it always boils down to the enemy that went and destroyed most of our planets."

Which was, of course, what led to her next answer. "I was born into war. It didn't matter that I was scared, or that they were intimidating: fact is, I either fought back or knuckled under, and the third option, running away, isn't one I can live with. It always comes down to a matter of time until you get targeted yourself. And since the Ohm target other planets, I want to help stop them."

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