Watching Jack eat her cookies was almost as good as listening to him speak and she felt the bit of sadness that had crept into her slip away to the recesses of her being where she pushed such unhappy thoughts. It wasn’t that she missed her family, she’d left them years ago and they had maintained a mutual minimal contact for years to everyone’s satisfaction. It was a hard thing to explain and she was glad that she didn’t have to. It wasn’t that she didn’t love her family, she did, reflexively, but it was hard to be a disappointment and she’d never been anything but. She had been the ugly duckling, to her sister’s Swans. The bit of quartz sitting off to the side behind the diamonds. While her parents had never said, directly that they were ashamed of her, it was a hard thing to keep out of their eyes and even harder to learn to live with.

So she’d left and not really looked back. But that didn’t change the fact that with every breath she took she was certain that she’d stolen something from her sisters. Taken an opportunity that might have been better spent on them. They were bright, they were irreplaceable, she was.

So instead she watched Jack’s mouth as it bit into her cookie, the best of the batch and watched him chew. The smile lines he displayed pleased her and when he grinned at her she grinned back, her dimple shyly flashing in the softness of her cheek. She shook her head at the offer of the cookie, she’d made them, she didn’t need one and honestly knew that watching him enjoy them was more pleasure than she’d ever get eating them.

She laughed at his summary of Midsummer’s night dream, she’d seen the play a time or two and would have liked to have seen it with him at her side. She could imagine she’d have laughed even harder with him there. The bleakness in her rose again when he spoke of his family. The love and the affection he felt for them was evident and it made her throat tighten. She squeezed his hand in turn, happy that he had someone waiting for him, even if they were asleep. He’d lost his home, the place he loved so much even though he’d left it before the change happened. But there was family for him still and he and the Pumphreys would make a new home for themselves. She liked to imagine that, a family of people with wonderful smiles, rolling accents setting up shop on New Canaan.

Then he was looking at her again, with that wonderfully intent attention that made her want to squirm and dip her head so that her hair would fall and cover her face to hide her flustered discomfiture. She caught movement out of the corner of her eye and used the excuse to watch the large shark with the broad mouth and cold dead eyes drift by. She shivered and felt in awe of the engineering that went into the building of this amazing ship that was humanities’ last hope.

There was a loud clang behind them and she looked up, eyes wide as a slender woman in a white lab coat and tangled dark curls stepped into the corridor with a confused look on her face. She looked up and then down and spotting Jack and Penny she narrowed her eyes

“Shit.” She said. “This isn’t Dr. Grayson’s office is it?”

At Penny’s shake of her head she turned and left without another word, the door clanging behind her with a loud finality.

___________________________________________________________________

Stella cursed again, annoyed beyond all measure. She knew that there was some way to make the hand-held thingy tell her where she needed to go but it wasn’t cooperating. She’d pushed lots of buttons but that hadn’t done much more than make the thing freeze up and no matter how hard she shook it, it wouldn’t un-stick. So she’d tried to remember the route the thing had briefly showed her but clearly she’d got something wrong along the way. The tanks told her she was in the general area she needed to be, but she couldn’t puzzle it out any further. She had some questions and needed some information from the head Marine biologist who was technically under her jurisdiction or however the whole thing was structured. She didn’t know. People made no sense to her, they never had. But something was wrong, she could see that, she could feel it. Looking at the numbers, at the unexplained dead creatures in her coolers she could see just the barest edges of a pattern forming. It felt like if she squinted hard enough she’d be able to pick it out and unravel it. But she needed information for that.

Giving her hand-held thingy one more shake she strode off through the corridor half her mind skittering over the part of the puzzle she had while the rest was focused on finding the man who might have part of the rest.

Devika simply let Hob's unrelenting tide of bitterness and resentment, unforgiving anger and deep hurt wash over her, her dark eyes never leaving Hob's face for a moment, all her attentions for him entirely as she absorbed each and every word he spoke. She stood to her feet with him as he did, no matter that now she had to crane her neck back just so, and take a couple steps backward to keep his face in sight.

"You seem a very honest man, Hob," Devika finally said, waiting until she was sure his tirade had finally ebbed, concluded with a despondent glance toward a beeping handheld device. A small, thoughtful smile never once fled her face, as she decided - without the least hint of irony - that this first meeting certainly could have gone far worse. At the very least he hadn't thrown a punch - something not outside her own personal experience, and the criteria by which all "really bad encounters" were ever after measured.

"I find that a rare and exceptional quality. Memorable even, worthy of note and not monstrous in the least."

"Up until two days ago, I never knew you existed - not you or Yuriko or Charlie or Singh or any of you - or even that there was such person as an 'NI-tech.' Even if someone had told me, I'd have laughed in his face and just assumed someone sprinkled the 'special 'shrooms' on his pizza slice, and then immersed himself in a bad trip with way too much Asimov or Heinlein."

"I cannot make a single thing right again for you Hob, not the way it was. What they did to you and all the other techs was... Is... Unconscionable." Devika sighed slowly through her nose, her mouth a thin tight line as her tiny frame shuddered. Some dark fury flitted across her face only to vanish entirely an instant later, as if it had never been. "What I will do, is never lie to you, or to any of the other neuro-techs. You all deserve far better than that."

'More than we can ever repay. Forgotten, Hob? If I had my way, there'd be a statue of you and yours in every town square ever built on New Canaan from now 'til the end of time. Humanity should never forget the heroes who sacrificed their entire lives to save them. It'd be a damned law... '

"So to answer your... Well, your question, I suppose? I'm in charge of the medical technicians and personnel who run and maintain the neural interface chambers. And no, I'm not in charge of you at all. My sole purpose is to ensure you stay healthy, that you have whatever you need, whatever makes your life easier, better, to do what it is you and your the other NI-techs do that keeps an ungrateful humanity alive in the vacuum of space. God above... " Devika chuckled to herself humorlessly. "How could I be in charge of you Hob, when I've the barest inkling of all you can do?"

"By this point though, I imagine words aren't worth the breath used to utter them. I don't expect you to believe me, much less give me even a little trust - but I'll earn it if you give me just half a chance." Devika pressed her fingertips to the door's access lock, the metal door sliding open easily with a soft hiss. Her dark eyes fell over the personnel who too-quickly stood up straight from the walls they'd been leaning leisurely against, a couple of them even having the decency to look a little guilty getting caught at slacking off.

"Lieutenant Harris, please take Jay and Isaiah to Yuriko's chamber, and make sure everything there is equipped. I'll be along shortly... Thank you... Ladies, please step out so Hob can have some privacy to change." Harris did not waste the opportunity to "surreptitiously" give Devika the stink eye as she passed with the two med techs, enroute to the another NI chamber with a cart load of supplies. Three other female med techs stepped outside the chamber to stand beside of the little woman with the larger than life presence, and looked expectantly to Hob.

That small, tentative smile returned as Devika looked up to the man with the scruffy beard and the untrusting eyes. "There will be changes - for the good, I pray, with the first order of business being more than four hours of sleep at a time. I'll do whatever I can, up to and including throttling a psych specialist or two with my bare hands. Oh, don't you laugh at me now - even little people can be scary in the right situations you know." The devilish little grin she flashed to Hob belied the large, gentle dark eyes she batted oh-so-innocently for a moment.

"Honestly, I'd like to sit down and talk with you and all the other NI techs at length, to hear what you have to say, what you'd like to see done - or undone even. But I know you have to relieve Port Watch here imminently." She nodded toward the opened doorway.

"I'll knock before I come back in."

She... accepted it?

A single, tense moment at the first words she spoke, drawn out interminably in the silence that followed. Her small smile was unreadable to his eyes, the niggling concern growing within the back of his mind... until that small breath of a laugh.

It was small, but to Antoine it signaled a welcome change. Ms. Weber seemed... softer now, calmer, back to how she had been moments before asking that question. He felt his own worries fading in light of the change, draining swiftly away as her reaction wrought them suddenly absurd. There was no reason to feel guilty about being a cryo-tech, not around her, that was obvious enough now... He couldn't help but chuckle himself at the thought.

A chuckle that heralded the return of his wide, friendly grin in the wake of her next questions. It was something he had no worries talking about at all.

"How many? That's... A surprisingly hard question to answer." The hand that had been running fingers behind his ear changed to tap them upon his temple now. As if the motion helped further settle the piled thoughts of his mind, he repeated the action as he pondered how to best respond.

"I was fluent in... four I think, by the time I ended up in the mountain, and knew a smattering of words from this or that language I came across during my service. That was all my 'knack', but after I joined the medical division in the mountain... well..." Another series of taps on the temple, to make sure things stayed settled, and then that hand moved to point at the back of his head. "I volunteered for a surgery focused on enhancing the parts of my brain tied to perception, language acquisition, memory... it made my 'knack' better, to be brief."

He chuckled at his own words, not sure how well-versed Ms. Weber was in the subject of neurosurgery or the experiments preformed to enhance an individual's skill in one mental proficiency or another. Probably best not to take the time and risk losing her... besides, that wasn't the fun part.

"After that, well, I kinda went around chatting up everyone I could meet, learning what languages I could come across... Did you ever happen to meet a Diego Beltran? Brilliant linguist, that one, knew more languages than I did at first, though I 'might' have pulled ahead now. He was at what... twelve? Fifteen? Somewhere around there... Oh!"

Woops, a slight touch of color graced Antoine's cheeks as he caught himself rambling on anyways, a quick shake of his head bringing his thoughts back in line. His grin shrank to a more modest, bashful smile, offering a shrug as he had no real excuse.

"Sorry, got carried away. I'm probably fluent in twelve-to-sixteen languages by now, it's just hard to think back and try to count them. Navajo was one of the later ones I learned, so I suppose you could still say you don't know anyone who speaks it as their second or third language, couldn't you?"

Pauline listened intently to all Antoine said, and noted a great deal more that he did not. Her head tilted just so where she knelt, all the proper Catholic school propriety telling her to continue to keep her own eyes on Antoine's - but honestly, she doubted even the sainted Sister Mary-Agnes would have been able to stop herself from following those curious, ever-tapping fingers. So this... This was not a "tell" then, so much as a... A nervous habit? Not of course that Pauline had ever, in all her life, made anyone the least nervous - well, not that she knew at least. No, this was more than that. This rhythmic tapping, it seemed more... More a tic perhaps? A repetitive movement that seemed to soothe him - rather like, say, the way some people counted sidewalk cracks or fence posts as they walked, or check a door was locked behind them three times, no more and no more less.

She had a hope though, that Antoine would not be offended by her all-too-obvious curious scrutiny - well, if that wide, unfeigned grin and the child-like delight with which he described his spectacular linguistic skill were anything to judge by? The breakneck clip with which he spoke left Pauline both stunned and amused - but as her brain caught up and processed all he actually revealed, she found the scales tipped far more toward stunned.

"Oh, I... Well yes you're right, I still could, couldn't I?" Pauline laughed, and then shook her head swiftly, letting loose of the long, slow breath in her lungs she'd held all this time in unconscious sympathy with this singular young man's breakneck pace.

"But... Antoine, I mean, if this is simply not my business do say so, but... What 'service' were you in? What did you do, where knowing four languages would not be enough? Four languages? Honestly that is such an amazing accomplishment all on its own!"

"Please, please don't get me wrong - your ability is simply... Well it's matchless, isn't it? Although... Beltran, you said? Diego Beltran?" Pauline's brow furrowed in concentration, knowing full well the name was familiar to her somehow, in full or part she simply could not recall. It was frustrating for a moment, that little whisper of a whisper that said she really should know this name, somehow, but simply could not place it...

No matter, she would remember eventually - most likely of course when Antoine was nowhere near, or when she was in the middle of something that had exactly not a single pertinent thing to do with this conversation. Wasn't that always the way things worked?

That name though, was hardly the first order of wonder that left Pauline reeling. She could only pray that she reined in the too-curious gaze toward the visible curves of his skull, to see if she might catch a scar of the like somewhere in his hairline. "No, I never met Diego Beltran, but did he have the same surgery you did? That same brain surgery you volunteered for, Antoine? Brain surgery!? All to 'perfect' your already brilliant knack? Why? Why would you ever volunteer for something like that?"

Pauline pulled herself up swiftly though, realizing far too late that her tongue had likely carried her much too far, well past "curious," straight into "intrusive" and, in all likelihood, kicked in the door on "insulting."

"I... Oh.. Oh no, I am so sorry Antoine, that was just... Yeah, that was so rude of me." Her pale blue eyes fell to the floor, to her feet, to Mowzer as she took a deep breath. It was her turn now, to color with embarrassment for blurting out such rank idiocy. She had no defense for what she said beyond genuine concern, a true and anxious fear for the well-being of someone she was genuinely learning to like, even in these precious few minutes. Even his odd little "quirks" were endearing, coming as they did alongside a man who seemed not to have the least notion of artifice.

"But weren't you afraid?" she asked finally, her voice barely rising above a tentative whisper as she dared to glance back up into Antoine's face, "Even a little? To let anyone experiment on your brain like that?"

Gavin laughed lightly a Park’s comment about cats and knitting. The man had an easy sense of humor that Gavin appreciated, and though he did not often work with Dr. Park, he always enjoyed their run-ins.

“Yes, even when humanity is on its last legs, some people still don’t like us.” Gavin said, slipping the comment in after the introductions between Abby and Park.

He felt Abby squeeze his shoulder, and he looked up in time to see the wink and the smile she offered. His blood pressure, which had risen markedly during the brief exchange with Hobs, was rapidly subsiding beneath the blue-eyed attention of the sergeant. He was disappointed that he wasn’t going to get to pass the lunch hour with Abby alone, but even so he was happy to simply have the pleasant company. Gavin let out a contented sigh, and offered a sideways grin of his own.

“I’m famished,” he said, slapping at his knees before standing. “We’ll join you, Abby. I’m not quite sure what I’m hungry for yet though, and there’s certainly no sense in wasting an opportunity to raid the pantry, am I right Park?”

Gesturing for Abby to lead the way, Gavin fell into step between his two companions. As they made their way towards the kitchen area, Gavin took on a thoughtful expression, and his hand rose to his lips in a gesture of contemplation.

“This may be a strange time to ask,” Gavin said, looking over to Dr. Park, “but it just came to me. The man who perpetrated the crimes during Second Shift, did he have anything highlighted in his file that I missed?”

Gavin opened his hands, offering that he was truly extending the question to both Abby and Park. “I mean, it is hard to believe that a man willing to commit such heinous acts wouldn’t have something noteworthy in his history. I looked through his medical file this morning, and I couldn’t find anything I would say could be counted as a red flag.”

Gavin shrugged. “Sorry, I don’t mean to start off a meal on such grim conversation, but it just seemed odd to me. Did you have him as a patient, Park? Ever speak to him at all?”

Finished with his grooming for the moment, Mowzer looked back up towards his human and the nice one as they conversed. The two had been talking for some time already, about boring subjects that didn't seem to involve him. But as he took the time to observe these two, a sudden thought occurred. He had run, he had bathed, and now, two very nice, well-trained humans were kneeling just nearby. They obviously had nowhere better to be right now, which meant there would be no problem if Mowzer decided to...

~-~

Antoine chuckled, shaking his head as he raised a hand in response to Ms. Weber's apology.

"No need to be sorry at all. If you can enjoy listening to me talk about myself, I can certainly enjoy it as well." He chuckled some more, grin widening yet again at how simply nice this whole conversation had been so far. To think it started with the most unlikely of people tumbling over his threshold after playing tag with Mowzer!

"Let's see though... fear never really came into it, though maybe that was military bravado left over from before?" Antoine shrugged, then blinked, realizing he was going about answering her questions the wrong way. "That was the 'service' I was in before the mountain... proud medic of the French army, who traveled across Europe and Africa before coming to the Mountain."

As was proper, he puffed out his chest and lowered his voice, adopting a fair approximation of the gruff-and-proud soldier. He would have saluted too, maybe rose to stand at attention to really get into the act again, but was cut short when... well...

When Mowzer decided to interject with a sudden, sharp meow, before trotting up to sit on Antoine's legs.

"Oh-! So you've forgiven me then?" Act fading into more chuckling, Antoine paused to give Mowzer the proper scritching behind his ear, rewarded for his efforts by a deep, growing purr.

"Anyways," Still petting his cat, the medtech looked back up to Ms. Weber. "I always liked language, so I took courses in English and German while in school. That proved helpful on it's own when I first joined the military, so when I was stationed in Cairo just before the Change really started to be a problem, I picked up Egyptian Arabic to help with my work there."

More helpful than he had ever anticipated, once the Change began to spread in earnest. Too many people panicking, too many orders that needed to be given out, and too few foreign servicemen who could do anything to help. Antoine probably would have been pulled back to France had he not learned the Egyptian Dialect, ordered to join the rest of his squad who had left him back in Egypt... who he had never found again...

But thoughts like that wouldn't do much to entertain Ms. Weber, let alone himself. He cleared them away with a shake of his head, recalling it was still a few hours from when he could take his medication.

"Maybe it's a military thing, or just from running around trying to combat the Change, but I got used to doing what I could to help. In the Mountain there was less of that for a soldier to do, but plenty for medics and the like. My tour was just about up, so I switched paths, talking to the scientists and surgeons hard at work in those caves, and learning what I could. That's where I heard about the project to improve mental abilities through surgery, and the sales pitch was brilliant."

Still petting Mowzer, Antoine used his free hand to make the necessary gestures to accompany his following words.

"Learn any language faster than before! Think of the possibilities! What better skill to have, in the event of a 'first-contact' scenario!" He grinned all the wider, chuckling along with the words. "It was a grade-A recruitment pitch, and they had pretty strict regulations on allowing surgery like that on humans. Benefits outweighing harms and such, I certainly can't complain now, it's been great for me."

He really couldn't. Though his memory right around the surgery was blurry, it had been expected and hardly bothered him now. There was too much good that had come from it all- his days were so great, now! What reason would he have had, to have been afraid back then?

"But I think that's most of it, did I answer your question?" Mowzer purred a little louder, curling into a tight ball on Antoine's lap as he spoke. He seemed quite content as well, now, what fun had he gotten up to, after leaving Antoine with Ms. Albright before?

Park said nothing for a moment, allowing Hob's unfortunate, though perhaps not unwarranted departure to wash over him. It was something he did almost naturally now, his first and and most hard-earned skill, and either the reason or a perhaps an early side effect of his eventual profession. He had been young, very young, just three years old in fact, when he'd learned he was especially sensitive to the emotions of others. His older sister, Sun-Hi, had burned herself serving him his traditional bowl of word or seaweed soup. The burn had not been serious, but their overbearing mother had been concerned, and, within minutes, Park had found himself too distraught to eat. He was not upset, nor angry at the slight disruption in the festivities. It seemed only that he could not bear to step away too long from his sister or mother, had in fact spent most of the day in their arms, just watching, as if waiting for something worse to happen.

As he grew older, he was more able to temper his odd reactions to the more volatile expressions of emotion around him, but it wasn't until he was in his early teens that he learned how to process these feelings, how to quietly recall that was not his anger, not his affection or depression. Slowly, he began to reacclimatize to his friends without being all but forced to take on the timbre of any room he walked into. And once he mastered that, he began to master the art of teaching others the same. He craved it, he realized, and it seem to help as much as it hurt, the wild and boundless diversity of human emotion. And all at once, he could not imagine himself to be without it.

Forty years ago, Hob's disappearance might have left a sour taste in his mouth, but whatever remained in the NI-tech's absence was quickly soothed by the brief but bright moment passing between Abby and Gavin. Park watched, quietly removed, as was his tendency in moments like these, and let himself remember that while his family, his home, his livelihood had been left behind...there was still beauty to be found, often in the shadow of the ugliness before it.

So, there was simply no way to reject Abby's offer, however selfish it might have been to stay. Park chuckled quietly at Gavin's words, then fell instep alongside the doctor and their First Sergeant. And when Gavin asked his question, while Park's smile faded ever so slightly, the quiet agony that would have swept over him in his childhood years seemed content to rumble a low warning at the back of his mind.

"Nothing more than what I'm sure you've already seen," Park answered evenly, with a quick glance at Abby. "Adriana -- Dr. Collini -- left some notes on him, but I don't think I've ever met the man personally." Then he paused, scratched his chin, and reconsidered. "On second thought, I suppose that's not entirely true. I did meet Mr. Adams once, just for a few moments, back in the Mountain." Park cleared his throat as he tried to think whether he should speak more on the topic at all, whether anything could be gained by it or not. The devil was in the details, or so they said. But perhaps that wasn't such a bad thing when one was on the hunt to preempt the devil in the first place.

"I wouldn't have known him if I hadn't seen the photo in Dr. Collini's notes. Everything she'd written -- and granted, there was much at all -- said there was nothing at all out of the ordinary, hardly so much as a scar. No remarkable medical history, mental or otherwise. No psychological red flags, not even a particularly outstanding personality, in fact, she said, quite the opposite." To hear her tell it, Sylas Adams had been the epitome of unassuming in every way. Quiet, perhaps a little withdrawn, but in no way anyone found especially concerning. Or at least not until too late.

"I had an idea to join him for lunch at the cafeteria back in the Mountain," Park mused quietly, his brow furrowed. "It was going on days before launch, and everyone was...well, you know. Somewhere between anxious and reverent. Everything was spoken in whispers, more gestures and touches than actual words. And in all that fatalistic loving, I looked and saw this man sitting against a wall, so close it seemed he'd almost moved his chair back to keep it against something solid. The only thing that seemed strange at the time was that his plate was nearly empty, but he didn't seem to be eating anything. I didn't think much of it, I suppose. There was an empty seat next to him, so I sat down. I hadn't even gotten to really speak to him beyond a, 'Is this seat taken?' before he was leaving again."

Park trailed off for the moment, caught in the memory. Then he shook himself. "Mind you, it probably isn't anything. There was days in the Mountain I'd felt inclined to take meals by myself. But it did seem...odd somehow." Or rather he had. But Park didn't add that part. He was more than used to not being able to explain his hunches, his phantasmic glimpses of intuition, let alone regarding something so ominous.

Still. What might have happened if he had elected to sit beside the new world's first condemned man?

Park shrugged and ran a hand through his hair, once more turning a charming grin to his two companions.

"But that hardly seems the topic to settle an empty stomach, does it. Where do we stand on sandwich fixin's?"

Abigail Larson

Abby poked her head from about the doorway to the enormous pantry with a grin. "Better than we could have ever thought, Park!" she called, and then dropped her voice conspiratorially as she winked to the two men in the kitchen proper. "Well, so long as Josie doesn't make his way back here before we clean this place out. Have you guys seen our Shift head chef?" Abby took a step into the doorway, standing to her tiptoes with her arms high overhead, then spread wide as she nodded toward them both.

"Oh yes, that big! Former football player if I'm not mistaken - watch my back gentlemen! Even I couldn't talk my way out of this, and I really don't want to get broken in half over an industrial-sized jar of mustard and a loaf of wheat bread!"

Abby disappeared back into the pantry, her laughter bright and lilting, belying the darkness that wanted to take root in heart as the psychiatrist spoke. A great deal of what he said concerning Dr. Collini's report she already knew, though she did not say as much. The psychological report of the Second Shift psychiatrist had been a part of the investigative report. Though she was not a medical profession as Dr. Park was, the findings - however slim - only lent to the colossus of unease she carried with her these past days -

For the moment though, it was simply a relief to carry all she purloined from the kitchen pantry. Extra-large bottles of mustard and mayonnaise formed the base of the precarious pyramid in her hands, topped with another bottle of ketchup, smaller glass jars of dill pickles and sweet pickle relish, salt and pepper shakers, a jar of barbecue sauce and that loaf of wheat bread tucked all the way up under her chin. The edge of a package of plain potato chips dangled from between the fingers of one hand, and another package of cheese curls from the other. Slowly she crossed the kitchen floor, carefully, to the nearest countertop.

"A little help here gentlemen? Condiments here - and I think I'm going to leave hunting down our meat to the men folk of our little tribe," she quipped with a helpless grin over top the bread, a smile that slowly faded as she waddled her way toward Gavin and Park and relative safety.

"But you know... Seriously, the one thing that always bothered me... About Sylas Adams? The guy is just so... Ordinary. Socially awkward... Yes... He's the one the victim... Identified, fended 'im off too... With extreme prejudice I read. But he's just... Yes, just so damned ordinary."

Pauline Weber

It was simple enough really, for Pauline to see that Antoine was being completely sincere as he spoke. She had thought as much before, and his actions only confirmed all she suspected: Antoine really was incapable of telling untruths. If she hadn't realized this, she honestly would have thought the guy was having a go at her, seeing just how gullible she really was.

But he wasn't, and she wasn't, and Pauline could not help but marvel at Antoine's words. Something was... Off. Really badly off about the young man's explanation. She did not know what, she did not know how, and worst of all, she did not know enough to wonder what it was she did not know, but listening to Antoine's tale of his surgical enhancements left her with the most uneasy feeling. Not that Antoine himself made her the least ill at ease or nervous - far from it, actually. If anything, his explanation that he'd once been a soldier only raised his personal estimation in her eyes, after all she'd known and witnessed and suffered. Soldiers were safety, surety in Pauline's eyes, and would remain so for all the days of her life.

But that did not change the fact Antoine's blithe enthusiasm for what had been done to him, for the experimental surgery for which he apparently volunteered, was simply... Stunning. What kind of recruiting pitch, however "grade-A," could possibly explain a man letting people experiment on his brain? Of course the idea of a 'first-contact' scenario was exciting, to communicate with the alient, but hadn't the human race already had its first contact experience - and had only just barely survived it? And even this brief moment of "survival" was not even close to assured...

Pauline said none of this though, choosing instead to let the light of a genuine smile cover a multitude of doubts, and worries and even fears for the young man who might yet be her newest of friends one day. "Yes, that certainly does answer my question - and then some!" she said with a small, incredulous laugh, reaching over to scratch Mowzer's head where he lay on Antoine's lap.

"Sleepy guy, isn't he?" she asked, looking up to Antoine with a sudden realization. Rumpled clothes, rumpled hair, something warm and fuzzy and a bit drowsy even as a strange woman managed to tumble gracelessly into his darkened room. "But Mowzer's not the only one, is he?"

Jack blinked in surprise at the woman's arrival and sudden departure. They both stood there upon the catwalk, stunned for a moment before Jack chuckled. "See der, Penny," he laughed openly, "All dem smarts in der heads, an' dey still gets all back forwards like de rest of us! Don't know her head from her hole, dat one. Wonder who pissed in her cornflakes."

He cocked his head back down to look at her. With quick fingers, he deftly and innocently brushed a stray lock of hair away from Penny's face to better see her in the glow of the vast aquarium. "Hope you're havin' a time, Duck," he admitted bashfully. "Here I sees you an' I likes what I sees, an' I hear you an' I like what you says and how you says it. An' blow me over if you don't know yer way 'round the kitchen!" Jack held up the small package of cookies both as evidence and in pride, and then lowered his hand again. The other hand, still holding hers, gave a light squeeze.

"Folks like me an' you? New world's gonna need us more dan it needs all dem chuckleheads in der lab coats, b'y. Guaranteed, b'y! How long you t'ink all der fancy chummies an' thing-ma-bobs gonna work? Nar replacements t' be had, I'm t'inking. Arse'll fall right out of 'er! An' back in the deep freezers, how many folks we got were lawyers an' consultants an' advertisers an' the like, huh? Never done an honest day's work, I bet! But me an' you, Penny? We don't need no fancy gear to do our jobs, no sir-ee! Human race gonna stay in for the lang haul? It's good cooks an' craftsmen what'll win the day. Hard work, honest work, doin' what we loves!"

Jack stepped around in front of her and smiled softly. "Now, to make a lang stary shart, dis here is what's I'm driving at. Hopin' here that I don't make myself out to be an angishore, but I'd like to see you again and soon. If you're of a mind, dat is. 'Cause here I'm t'inkin' we're in the same boat an' only so much to do but I can't t'ink of anyone I'd rather do it wit'. An' being a gentleman, or least ways much of one as me mudder raised me up to be, I won't ask for what ain't offered."

"Only der's dis kiss what's been hanging' from yer lips since I first seen you, an' I keeps looking' at it an' wondering' if you knows it's der, an' if'n you'd let me have it to sweeten these here cookies all the more?"

Hob did not smile or show any emotion at all as the nurse explained her stance. She was like a small, dark whirlwind, asserting herself as though there was no question as to either her authority or how things were going to be. He didn't quite know what to make of that. Settling into a cynical but silent neutrality seemed the best way to handle things at the moment, though his eyes followed her shrewdly as she exited graciously. For a heartbeat, he watched the door as though daring it to be anything but a door. Then he turned to prepare himself for the stripping down and wiring up.

Only he was alone. This... was strange. No sign of medicos and engineers rushing forth to remove his jumpsuit and lace with him wires and sensors and (shudder) catheters like a pit crew servicing a race car mid-race. In fact, there were not catheters in sight at all! Pausing to quickly relieve himself in the connected bathroom suite, he finished removing the rest of his overalls but dared to leave his boxers on. No one shouted at him or cursed at him to finished undressing. Rubbing at his face, he looked back towards the door in careful disbelief. The rust colored suit was tossed into the locker along with the handheld.

Had the nurse really meant what she said? Hope was too much to bear, but it certainly seemed true! Then again, Hob recalled the training sessions he and the others had gone through that were meant to help them distinguish physical sensation from virtual. While the current scenario didn't seem reminiscent of any of those grueling mind-fucks, his imagination could easily make the jumps to see the connections. Possible then... but not likely. If she had been serious, how long could it last? Everyone from the scientists involved in their 'creation' to the mysterious men in black who had found them to their handlers and officers like Harris had made it clear that the NI-techs lot in life was not going to be a happy one. In fact, they actively seemed to work to make it so! Harris had taken her orders from someone else before this Devika person, and that person had orders from higher up... How long could such largesse last?

These thoughts still bothered him as he laid himself out upon the memory foam mattress of the sliding bed. It was the sole luxury of being 'installed'. Glancing to one side, he saw the oxygen mask waiting for him as well as all the wires that the techs would soon be placing across his body. A glance upwards revealed the dark interior of the tube itself. Once his bed was slid into place, he would be locked in that tube to wait the mercy of being uploaded and mentally away from the claustrophobia that always threatened. The straps were still there, too, restraints they would place about his chest, head, and limbs to keep him still. There was too much of a chance of seizures occurring. Were an NI-tech to flail about, they could hurt themselves... not to mention the equipment. The damned respirator mask was even fitted with a mouth bit.

Still... no catheter...

Hob closed his eyes and looked back towards the door to see what weirdness was going to come next.

"...there's be a statue of you and yours in every town square..."

No doubt her words had been meant to be kind. That or she was a manipulator par excellence. Only Hob knew history, or at least enough of it to see the downfalls in such a thing. Raising statues and praising the NI-tech's sacrifices to future generations would do nothing but glorify what they had endured. For Hob, there was no glory in any of this. And knowing the minds, quite literally, of his fellow NI-techs he felt confident in saying that none of them saw anything laudable in any of it either. The pain, the discomfort, the abuse... it would all be minimized and maybe even forgotten over time. No one wanted to look back on their ancestors and think bad of them, after all. The words of one of his favorite authors of the turn of the 21st Century came back to him: 'How dare you! At this time! In this place! They did the job they didn't have to do, and they died doing it, and you can't give them anything. Do you understand? They fought for those who'd been abandoned, they fought for one another, and they were betrayed. Men like them always are. What good would a statue be? It'd just inspire new fools to believe they're going to be heroes. They wouldn't want that. Just let them be. Forever.'

Out of nowhere, Hob wondered if Devika Wilkes-Lane ever read any Terry Pratchett. And whether she liked tea.

Devika peered at the pad in her hands, noting the minutes that passed and, when she judged enough had passed for Hob, she rapped against the door, exactly as she'd promised. Hearing no protest, she pressed her hand firmly against the entry pad, waving to the three young women who accompanied her to follow as she walked back into the NI chamber.

"Hey there Hob," she said as she walked up to the man laying on the memory foam of his tube, laying her hand lightly on his arm. Devika smiled down to him, not minding in the least if all she saw was that same cautious wariness as he studied her, and measured her words thoughtfully against her deeds. She would likely be judged so by him for some time yet to come, and Devi knew that was really only fair.

"I don't know if you caught their names before, but this is Iliana, Nicole and Ernestine." She nodded to each of the medical technicians in turn. "And they're in training, as of today, to learn what I expect them to monitor while you and your team members are in your chambers." Only the most observant of people might see that hint of a strain in Devika's smile as she spoke that last word, unable to bring herself to use the word "tube," much less look toward that far-too-tiny sliver of blackness where there would be no room to turn, every side pressing in all around. How could there ever be enough air in there? How could anyone escape... !?

She let a slow breath from her lips, the smile slipping only a little as she forced her mind back to the here and now, and to the man that needed his nurse to be a lot less neurotic. Devika chuckled nervously, just under her breath, at the memory of the merry chase she'd led the beleaguered cryotechs all over the Copernicus when they wanted to get her into one of the beds. God knew she'd made up every last excuse known to man to avoid her own airless, narrow confinement, up to and including embedding herself [completely unofficially] with the medical teams that were assisting anyone not First Shift into cryosleep.

Admittedly, in the end there was a shocking amount of tranquilizers required to still someone of such a slight body weight.

Devika sighed, forcing that grin a little wider as she shook off the memory. "Anyway, I'll admit I'm not a fan of relying solely on machines to monitor our NI personnel," she said, glancing up toward the med techs to ensure she had their attention. Devika reached into her cargo pants to pull out her stethoscope, hanging it by the earpieces about her neck as she looked back down to Hob, smiling warmly into his deep brown eyes.

"Quick translation: I'm just going to listen to your heart, your lungs, and get a 'baseline' reading before you go in. It's really just something we want as a comparison of 'normal' while you're inside on the machines, and when you come out. Listening can also tell me if your lungs are filled with yuck, if there's a heart murmur we need to look into - a lot of things electronic monitoring won't normally tell me."

She rubbed the stethoscope diaphragm swiftly against her coat, a quick lift of one dark eyebrow and a shrug of her shoulders. "Cold stethoscopes are awful, I wouldn't do that to you," she chuckled, and then put the ear pieces in to continue with her exam. Two of her fingers slid down his arm to lay across his wrist as she looked to her old fashioned wrist watch, counting off the seconds.

When Devika finally stood back to her full [if admittedly diminutive] height, she turned to the three technicians. "Record heart rate, respirations, lung and heart sounds, pulse, blood pressure - yes, without a machine. And then you'll retake them all at the end of the NI personnel's shift as well. You'll also be doing a quick neuro assessment... "

Devika reached into her pocket, for the small penlight, giving it a quick click before she her attention, and her smile, returned to Hob. "Simple enough really - just going to do that annoying 'flick of my light in your eyeballs' thing, ask you to follow my finger, look at the ceiling, look at my pen light, give me a smile, give me a frown, puff up your cheeks like a blowfish... " Hob's examination took no more than a few minutes in Devika's more-than-competent hands, and she stepped back to look at her techs, contented these three at least were following her instruction, with heads nodding and actual comprehension in their eyes. That would simply have to be enough for the moment.

She sighed once more, a small, resigned smile on her lips now as she looked to Hob. "I'd offer you a blanket, but these ladies have to put the pads on now I'm afraid, and the material would interfere with the readings to no end - it just wouldn't be safe for you. As for the oxygen masks, I've removed the mouth pieces. If anything happens in there... " Devika's voice trailed off meaningfully. She knew very well, she did not have to detail the possibility of seizures to a man who lived daily with miles of wiring crammed into his brain.

"If anything happens, biting into something that can break off could choke you - and you, Hob, are irreplaceable. Also, your choice - do you want the restraints? I'm not a fan, honestly. You are just as likely to hurt yourself on them as not. There will be someone here the entire time you are inside, monitoring your vitals as well - but again, that is entirely your choice, if you feel like you prefer the security."

Her cheeks warmed a little when he tucked the bit of hair behind her ears and she immediately dropped her eyes but listened intently to his words. This was not what she’d been expecting when he’d asked her to step out, though in truth she hadn’t really known what to expect. But certainly not this warm melty feeling somewhere in the core of her, a warm-fluttery-melty feeling that was like the emotional version of hot-fudge made with just the right amount of cream to chocolate. Perfect and it was all from this wonderfully quirky stranger who with a few words she had to squint to truly follow (for all that it was getting easier to do so) managed to make her change her thinking about so many things.

She was nothing special, but he made her feel otherwise and while she didn’t really believe him, she wanted too. That was a change for her. Cooks and makers more important than movers and shakers? It went against everything she’d been taught at home, in her family. But when Jack said it she wanted nothing more than to believe him. She squeezed his hand back because she was completely lost for words. Though she did lift her eyes and they seemed to glow in the ambient light of the aquarium as she look at him. Was it hope and warmth in her eyes or just the reflection of the light?

But he wasn’t done speaking and she didn’t think she’d ever be done listening to him, no matter what he had to say. That what he said was so impossibly sweet and so impossibly charming made it all the better.

“Hoo-boy.” She muttered under her breath at his words.

She could count on one hand the number of times she’d been kissed and still have a finger or two left over. She’d never been asked so formally and there was something as endearing as it was rousing in the asking. The knowing that he wanted to kiss her made her tummy flip-flop and her toes curl in her shoes. The sweet anticipatory charge that would fill that period between giving her yes (because what else was she going to say) and the actual kiss was going to be epic. She licked her lips, her eyes dipping to his mouth in its bit of beard and wondered what that would be like, she’d never kissed a bearded man before.

“Yes,” she said simply, nodding and then taking a step closer to him, her heart hammering as she turned her round face up to him, ready for her kiss.

As they arrived at the pantry, and Dr. Park ruminated upon the question of Sylas Adams, Gavin took the opportunity to peek his head into one of the massive industrial refrigerators nearby. With his ears piqued to Park’s thoughts, Gavin rummaged through the sealed packages of sliced turkey, ham, pastrami, salami, and even pulled pork that filled the fridge shelves. He took them all, wrestling the packages of meat into his arms, and closing the fridge door with an impish smile curving his face.

Setting the fare upon one of the stainless kitchen preparation tables, Gavin leaned upon an elbow, and let out an audible “Hmmmm.”

That Dr. Park, along with Abby, had come to the same disturbing inclination as Gavin in regard to the seemingly simplistic Mr. Adams, was all the more unsettling. Though not a psychologist, psychiatrist, or criminologist, Gavin was a man that was accustomed to looking at the facts, and reaching conclusions based upon them. The hypothesis that continually appeared in Gavin’s mind was not a comforting one, and certainly one that had repercussions for all those aboard the Copernicus. Yet, there were still too many salient facts that spoke out against his notion, and so, for the moment, Gavin did not voice his misgivings.

Instead, he took Abby’s offered sandwich fixings, and set about the task of assembling a monstrous “kitchen sink” style meal. In short order, the slices of wheat bread upon his plate were filled to the brim with slices of nearly every variety of cold-cuts that Gavin had pulled from the fridge. Finished with provolone cheese, mustard, and Thousand Island dressing, Gavin appraised his culinary creation with a satisfied nod.

“Perhaps I should put the med-bay on alert,” Gavin joked with a snorted laugh.

Taking the monstrosity into his hands, he picked up the sandwich, and prepared to take a bite. With his teeth poised just above the bread, he suddenly stopped. Pulling the sandwich away from his mouth, Gavin looked to Abby. His face had taken on a serious, bemused expression.

“Abby, forgive me if this is a ridiculous question, but during shift change, are there any personnel that don’t rotate into stasis right away? Or at all, for that matter?”

Abby may have been a bit more circumspect than Gavin about the quantity of her lunch, but she was no slouch herself when it came to speed, already grazing her hungry way through some of the fixings long before she finished preparing her own sandwich. Gavin's question caught Abby with her mouth - quite literally - open as she leaned over a jar of dill pickle spears, just about ready to sink her teeth into the crispy vinegary goodness before she got back to the business of a turkey and Swiss sandwich on wheat.

For the first time, Abby didn't understand where Gavin was going with his question, but she never once thought anything that came across that brilliant mind could be considered "ridiculous." Abby's forehead scrunched up curiously, and she took a large bite of her pickle while she thought about what he asked. She also pushed the edges of the pickle between her teeth and lips, impishly tossing Gavin a big green cucumber-y grin before she sucked the pickle back into her mouth with a chuckle.

Classy... Heh, way to make sure he knows he dodged a real date bullet there...

Abby chewed her pickle half slowly, a soft 'hum' letting Gavin know she was considering his question, even as she struggled to open the enormous jar of mustard. But her hands were just a little too pickle-vinegar-wet to pry it open, and so she grabbed a nearby dishtowel and offered the whole to Dr. Park with a hopeful, apologetic look in her eye. Men opening stuck jars: it was a universal and quintessentially human trait that, apparently, would follow these last remnants to the far reaches of the universe.

"Well sure there are Gavin," she said when the first half of her pickle disappeared down her throat, "There are plenty of essential personnel who require more-or-less extensive debriefings before their predecessors have to go into cryo-sleep. Like say... well, cryotechs for one, who have to be over their own cryo-sickness before they wake up the next shift. I was woken a few days ago too, so Lee could brief me thoroughly about the God-awful mess Second Shift left behind."

Abby was shameless with the layering of the Swiss cheese between the turkey slices, a one-for-one proposition that made the turkey far more condiment than the cheese was intended to be. "Then there's a few medical personnel if remember right, and even some of the more tech-y folks, the engineers and the like who have to maintain the Copernicus' servers - particularly the NI servers. The overlap could be days, even upward of a week or two, depending."

"But of course there's also varying Shift lengths as well - there's always some overlap there too. Sure, most people are going to be awake for a year, for one Shift. But there's some specialties that are pretty scarce, and not everyone serves a one year Shift. You know that though Gavin - I think you have... What? A five year shift? A neuroscientist and a geneticist - not as common as you might think!" Abby laughed softly as she tore off a few pale green leaves of fresh butter lettuce.

"I think you have a similar Shift length too, don't you Dr.... Park. Park," she awkwardly corrected herself with a sheepish smile. "As the Copernican head of security, I'll be awake for three more years myself... But why do you ask? What are you thinking Gavin?"

Hob gritted his teeth through the examination. True, it was less invasive and impersonal than all his previous pre- and post- watch medical checks had been, and the person was trying to talk to him like a normal person. The three young women crowding over Devika's shoulders to watch the whole thing as he laid there in his boxers, however, was far more an uncomfortable a sensation. These were not tech that he was familiar with. Not that the pit crew who undressed him and wired him up like some sort of mannequin were any better, more just on the opposite end of the spectrum as far as these things went. He could only wonder whether or not Yuriko and Charlie were getting the same treatment at the moment. Not to mention what the other Watch would think when they came out of their tubes.

As the three ladies began to attach the pads and settle his head into the brackets connecting the machinery to the discs upon his temple, Hob glanced at the rubber air mask. He tried very hard not to think about the feel of their hands as they readied him. What was worse: the touch of people he didn't like or that he didn't know? "They told me that the mouthpieces were designed not to break off," he grumbled testily, "That the templates for their creation were based off of athletic mouthguards and dental bits used for electro-shock patients. Did they lie about that, too? I'm not surprised."

The gaze of the NI-tech then flickered to Devika, his expression flat and curious at the same time. "The restraints aren't for my safety, you do know that? They're to protect the gear inside the NI-Tube. If I start to convulse and flail around in there, my arms and legs are toast either way. I may not be replaceable, but as far as they're concerned the equipment isn't either. They know I don't need my arms and legs to do my job. Just a working brain and central nervous system."

"Do what you like," he finally muttered. "It doesn't matter. It takes 30-90 seconds to active an emergency log out, plenty of time for me to break my arms whether I'm strapped down or not. Just make sure that bracket is tight about my temple though. I disconnect prematurely, and it's bye-bye to my temporal lobes."

Hob closed his eyes and braced himself. Paradise was only a few minutes away now. There was work to be done, yes, but his imagination and visualization of the tasks made it less work and more fun. Once in the system, he would be free for awhile to be himself. At least until they yanked him out and back into the cold reality of his slavery.

"Let's just get this over with. Fucking four hour watches."

Connor cracked his neck as he stepped into the hangar, still trying to shake off the sense of unease his conversation with the NI-tech Hob left him. It was easier said than done and he could feel a headache starting to form behind his eyes. The first day of the shift, barely half way through with the day he was ready to have a panic attack. What the hell was wrong with him? He wasn't this freaked out about being pressured into the experiment when he was on Earth.

Then again, everyone had their minds focused on the Change. Out here it was just them and the strive to preserve the human race, small as those chances were.

It was stupid, he was being stupid. He shut his eyes and took in a deep breath through his nose, bringing his fingers up to rub his temples. He forced back his haywire emotions and tried to approach the situation like he would a math equation or machine schematics.

There was no logical reason to make him do anything other than his job. Did they think altering his mind would lead to some kind of giant break through? Unlikely. He was just an engineer, not a doctor, not a scientist, just someone that built and repaired machines. For god sake they were all living in the greatest technological achievement mankind had ever created! This life boat of humanity was the ultimate 'break through' in engineering and science. There was nothing Connor could create altered or not that would be as monumental or necessary as the Copernicus.

So why did they want him to have an MRI scan?

He didn't know everything about the cryo stasis process, maybe he was a high risk for some kind of side effect. It might explain why he was acting like a conspiracy nut. He hadn't been this paranoid before being frozen. There were a lot of people freaking out before launch about being put into the cryo-beds for years of endless sleep. He had been relatively calm about it so maybe no one told him because they thought he would have freaked out and gone off running.

The knot in his stomach started to unwind from his thought process and he felt like smacking himself for acting so irrational. He had probably freaked out Abby and that poor nurse Devika over absolutely nothing. He was such an idiot.

While the idea of going to get an MRI scan didn't fill him with warm fuzzies, if there was a serious medical reason behind it than he would suck it up and go. Last thing anyone needed was him collapsing if it could have been prevented.

Though after he got some serious work done.

Opening his eyes he rolled them at himself and headed back over to Loretta to finally get back to work on replacing the cable, his haywire nerves soothed.

His smile didn't falter, but the light in Jack's eyes showed his joy at Penny's consent. The same hand that had removed the curl from her face now caressed her cheek lightly, enjoying the softness of its round curves before he closed his eyes and leaned in close. Penny's face would feel the short bristles of his close cropped beard and mustache as inched closer to her slightly parted lips. His other hand found its way to the back of Penny's one hip to hold her close. Jack did not mash his body against her like some oversexed teenager, but he was close enough that she could smell the faint scent of WD-40, sawdust, and pumice orange soap that clung to his skin and for her to feel the warmth of his body so close to her own.

For all that his lips were somewhat chapped, the kiss was gentle and light. More importantly, there was an honesty to it, as though Jack could do nothing that was not sincerely in word and action! Somewhere along the line, his hand had slipped from her cheek down to her other hip as though to steady them both. The Newfoundlander savored the returned kiss as a gift she was giving to him. For several moments, there was nothing but the delightful presence and fragrance of Penny Raffin in his arms, and it was everything he had hoped it might be since the first time he saw her.

It wasn't love. Not by a long shot. But it was a start, and that was enough for Jack Pumphrey.

When they finally broke the kiss, it was with a certain rueful reluctance on his part. Resting his forehead against hers, he found himself ever so glad that they were of a similar height; he might have a few inches on her, but that was far better than a foot or more! He'd hate to think of how a crick in his neck from craning down to kiss her might have impacted that first kiss!

Eyes still closed, Jack sighed in contentment. He bestowed another kiss upon her forehead, a fleeting warmth only before resting his brow against hers once more.

"Best kind," he whispered to her with a light grin, "Oh, yes, b'y!"

"I suppose not." Antoine shrugged along with the words, honestly not feeling all that tired at the moment. Perhaps it had something to do with the sudden entrance of Ms. Weber, and the conversation that had followed until now. Quite an unexpected -and enjoyable- event that had all-but driven rest from his mind.

Though, then again, he had already been up long enough today. A full shift done just in time to attend the meeting, it felt closer to 'dinnertime' than 'lunchtime' in his mind. One of the interesting little things about life in space, maybe? No stable star to create a reliable day-night cycle... sure they did all they could to replicate it aboard the Copernicus. But in the end, there wasn't much that could stop someone from living different 'days' from someone else, so long as they were present for the work they needed to do.

It was a fun thought, like having his own, personal time zone, and it brought another chuckle escaping from his lips.

"Perhaps I should follow Mowzer's lead, he does always seem to know best." Grinning wide as ever, Antoine held Ms. Weber's gaze easily, extending one hand for her to shake. "It's been a pleasure, Ms. Weber, really it has. If you need to at all, feel free to stop by in the future. I'd be happy to help with anything that might come up, or just lend an ear."

He chuckled again at a sudden thought, other hand scritching a loudly-purring Mowzer behind the ear.

"Or if you're looking for a tag partner again, there's a good chance you'll find Mowzer around here."

"Nothing is unbreakable Hob," Devika said gently, adjusting the straps of the rubber breathing mask carefully until she was satisfied the fit would be as comfortable as she could make it. "I couldn't tell you if they were lying, or if they were just genuinely mistaken, but... This isn't... ECT... "

Hob caught her gaze, and held it, and Devika's voice trailed off to nothingness. No, she had not known the reason behind the straps but she had no reason at all to doubt Hob's words. Some small ember of her innate defiance, as much a part of the little woman as her DNA, tried to flare up in her gut, to spit out some retort about engineering and their damned equipment fetish, but she simply... Could not. Devika was suddenly so very tired, the full weight of her grief for these people - and for this man in particular - finally overwhelming and squelching her indignant rage like a heavy damp blanket to smother a fire.

Devika knew pain. She saw pain most every single day in her practice, had been trained to do what she could to ease that pain, to make it tolerable even if she could not erase it entirely. But this? This was more than pain. This was suffering; suffering deliberately inflicted on an unwilling handful and steadfastly maintained for the purported "good of all." And now? Now Devika's own hands had been shoved elbow-deep in this soul-defiling nightmare. She was helpless to do a goddamned thing to truly make this right for any of them, and all she really wanted to do was sit down and cry.

But of course, she did not. Would not. Devika's face was a veritable artist's study of composure, a visage maintained steadfastly through the killing fields of the Sino-Korean War, where she waded through the human wreckage of IEDs and bullets, grenade shrapnel and claymores and so many more hideous and infinitely-varied ways men imagined to kill one another. If Hob could bear to live this, then certainly she could bear to witness it all, and endure.

"If it's all the same to you, then I'll leave the restraints off," she said evenly, though she adjusted the bracket at his temple herself, deftly ensuring the tightest possible fit. For a brief moment Devika considered reminding Hob she promised she would go see the Psych personnel, to see about shifts designed to give all the NI techs at least eight hours of sleep, but decided against it almost as quickly. She could make no guarantees, and knew she ought to hold her tongue.

No matter. Hob had already closed his eyes, dismissing her out of hand and honestly? She could not blame him in the least. Devika's heart hammered in her throat as she bent to his ear, so close to the darkness of a space no larger than a coffin she had to use every last ounce of discipline she had not to recoil and bolt. A renegade tendril of ebony hair escaped her pony tail, brushing his cheek as her small fingers reached to take his gently. "I'm so sorry," she whispered, giving Hob's fingers a warm, quick squeeze before she stood back up, suppressing the shudder of genuine terror as she punched in the code that pulled Hob's still-living body into an airless black hole.

Devika took a stuttering breath, forcing it to become something far more regular before she turned to the three medical technicians who had accompanied her. These women were among the very best she could find of this Shift, all of them willing to learn, and willing to treat the NI-techs with the modicum of dignity every human being deserved. Several screens along the far wall suddenly lit up, the various scrolling graphs transcribing the internal workings of Robert S. Bach into waves and dips, peaks and valleys that would mean little to anyone but the handful of medical personnel and NI technicians aboard the Copernicus.

"Ernestine, Hob will be yours to monitor during this shift. I'll be taking Iliana and Nicole to see to Yuriko and Charlie, but I'll be back when we're done. Did you bring those manuals I gave you?"

The young woman held up her own tablet in a cinnamon-brown hand, nodding as she flashed Devika a grin. "Do you mean about three thousand condensed and downloaded pages of theory and practice and research spanning the combined centuries of nursing practice? Sure Major Lane, wouldn't leave home without it."

Devika smiled despite herself. "That's my girl. You know how to get hold of me - and call me if you have any question, or see anything you even suspect is concerning! Loud and clear, yes?"

"Yes ma'am." Ernestine and Iliana and Nicole had heard these words at least several dozen times or so, but that was really not a problem to these young women. Major Lane was a good boss, a really good boss who cared about her people, and the people she cared for as well. She was the kind of supervisor who never demanded of anyone what she would not expect of herself, and even before humanity was reduced from seven billion to around seven thousand, that was pretty damned rare.

That, and she dared to chew Lieutenant Harris a new one. Now that was kind of fun.

Devika hurried with her two charges in tow, down the narrow hallways of the Copernicus to the NI chamber of the next oncoming tech of the Starboard Watch. "Yuriko?" The little woman walked swiftly to the Asian woman in the rust-colored jumpsuit, offering her hand with a wide, genuine smile. "It's a real pleasure to meet you. I'm Major Devika Wilkes-Lane, the new chief medical officer for the NI program - though please feel free to call me Devi if you like."

"I was just woken with Third Shift, and if you have a moment? I'd like to talk with you for just a few minutes before you go in. There have been some changes made... "

"Mowzer is a good and wise creature, isn't he? You could do a lot worse than following his lead." Pauline took Antoine's hand in hers, her own palms not sweaty or nervous in the least - or at least not anymore. Antoine was a strange man, without the least doubt. But just as undoubtedly Pauline knew she could grow fond of the strange man beneath the handsome exterior, and his optimism - wherever it originated - could almost be infectious, even if she did not understand or trust its source.

She shook his hand and let him go, reaching only to scratch Mowzer one more time behind the ears. "He's a good tag partner - I hope we meet again, though he'll have to be at the top of his game if he's going to come play in Hangar Six again." Pauline laughed. "I don't think he made a friend in my new boss at least... "

She stood to her feet then, a little unsteadily after having crouched so long, a touch lightheaded but she got her bearings quickly enough. "It has been a pleasure Antoine, and I'm sure we'll run into each other again. It's a very small Shift after all."

And a very small lot of humanity left too... But she didn't say that thought aloud, only smiled sweetly to Antoine and his Mowzer as she waved farewell over her shoulder. Pauline pulled the tablet from the deep, knit front pocket of her sweater as she walked, and winced with a quick hiss of a breath when she realized just how long she'd been gone. This was no way to start proving to your boss that he hadn't just made an enormous mistake in hiring a complete unknown.

And only to add guilt on top fault, Pauline could see by the blinking light in the corner, she still hadn't responded to Dr. Park's gentle invitation to talk. She sighed, a big exhalation of air past her lips as she began to type.

Hello Dr. Park, it was good to hear from you. Of course that was a lie, but she figured a tiny white lie in the service of politeness didn't really hurt anything. Besides, there was a better than good chance that wouldn't be a lie in the future, so she minded that little untruth less and less as the seconds passed.

I could probably stop by a little later this afternoon, after I get off work. Does a walk in the gardens sound good to you? Talk to you soon, Pauline She sent the message with a tap of her finger, feeling just a little better about things as she slid the tablet back into the knit pocket, and then broke into a dead run back to Hangar Six.