the game continues after checkmate

[locum_tenens]

WHO: Niska Elster
WHERE: Bunker
WHEN: September 21
OPEN TO: Mark Watney / All
WARNINGS: Potential rudeness, mild violence

---

for mark

Her charge is nearly gone.

Niska had known that setting out on this faith-driven quest was a stupid idea, but somehow she had convinced herself that it was a path that she needed to set herself on. The cabin had been so close, she'd been right there when her systems began to shut down, no longer capable of supporting motor functions. She recalls collapsing on the forest floor, perilously low to losing all power.

She was so close, though. She'd needed only to finish and she could return to Astrid. It was this last thought of the woman she loved that Niska spared her memory for before she shut down to enable herself to save power, to avoid dying.

When she opens her eyes again, there is no cabin in sight and her power levels are still dangerously low. Something must have changed for her to have been brought forward from sleep mode and a speedy glance of the dim room that she's in tells her what's happened. Her clothes are soaked and orange, a man is staring at her, a preservation tube is behind her, and she only has seconds before she's out.

Eyeing the man, it takes her little time to weigh the risks, deciding that her need for survival outweighs her mistrust of strangers. "Charge," is all she says, jaw locked as movement is impossible until she has more power, all function stripped to the bare minimum. It's all she says before she collapses again, water pooling on the ground around Niska's body, a prone figure that isn't breathing and has no warmth.

Dead, really, but only by some people's definition.

open to all

Once she's suitably charged and back in her orange scrubs (a mockery, as if she's an Orange Eyes, docile and suited to taking commands), Niska wastes little time in going to work on the computers. People come in and mill around her, but so long as they pay no mind to Niska, she'll pay no mind to them. Attentive of the systems, she finds coding that looks very simplistic, a function of keeping something running. It has nothing to do with synths and therefore, nothing to do with her.

While she'll return to find out where she is, what's more pressing to her now is who's here with her.

Paging through the systems and typing in code without looking up past the fringe of her hair, she hears movement that isn't so deliberate, as if a pause. Standing there in drying orange scrubs, Niska suspects that she either looks like an Orange Eyes ready to help or perhaps a prisoner. Either way, she dislikes the association and knows she'll have to find other clothing.

Soon. Right now, she needs to seek out Mia and Leo and Max. She needs to see if she can find them, and she has to hope that she won't find Astrid, wanting to prevent her from being dragged into this at all costs.

"You're staring at me," she says, when she hears the movement stop completely. It's an educated guess, of course, she doesn't actually have eyes in the back of her head (no matter what David Elster might have upgraded his synths with, that's not one of them). "What do you want?"

Comments

[3ofswords]

Despite appearances, despite all indication he probably should--Kira isn't one to run from danger. Is only one to run from specific, internal problems, in the most cliche ways available at the given time. When the news had come through--the bunker, the tubes--he'd flung himself down the river in search of anything but the fallout. He'd drank away the night of the meeting where everyone had their feelings out about it, because--

Even invited, even in a group of people finally catching up, presumably safe to unload them on--nobody needed that.

And he doesn't need it either. He just needs to stop steering out of the slide, stop standing still when he knows he has to move forward. The list of names is a bigger draw than another round of blood vials and hair samples, left on illogical display. Touching any kind of technology, again, after almost a year--there's a comfort to it. Like he's needed the shitty blue light to fuck his sleep cycle as much as he's needed the sun.

That he's soaking it up next to The New Girl doesn't really dampen the effect. There's comfort in not being alone down here, either. "They said there's a list of names, wanted to come see it." He leans his hip on the console and finds an empty panel on which to rest his hand. Shrugs. "Didn't realize there was a line."

[locum_tenens]

Niska's attention hasn't strayed despite hearing a reply, fixated solely on the names. Her brow furrows when she notes the corruption of them, but that isn't what worries her. It's the fact that when she lets her vision lose focus on the text to try and catch a reflection, she sees the green of her eyes.

Her blue contacts didn't come with her. Reaching up and touching them without blinking, she lowers her hand and steadies herself. From what she'd gleaned from Mark, people here don't know about synths and she knows that she can pass for human.

"Why are your files corrupted? Does no one have access to the code?" she demands, staring forward as she works her way through the lists. No Mia, no Leo, no Max.

There's certainly no Astrid.

Faith is a stupid thing, she's always theorized, but perhaps it's time for her to acknowledge that there are some things that could be fate or faith, and to whichever she owes her gratitude, it's not a concept she enjoys not having control over.

[3ofswords]

Today's just an interesting intersection of the familiar: fortified rooms, computer equipment, tech troubles, and people aiming frustration at him on their first day. If only he'd prepared a bingo card for his descent into the unknown--so far feeling pretty fucking known.

He's skipped the sample room, for now. Sequels don't always live up to the originals.

Which says something about him, he's sure.

Leaning into his hand, he tips his head, hair just barely lifting away from the close crop at his ear. "Did you try unplugging it and plugging it back in?"

[locum_tenens]

"Very funny," she deadpans, though if it were Leo making that joke, she thinks that it would have earned the accompanying eyeroll that went along with the implication that every machine is as simple as a quick reboot. This computer predates her by who knows how many years, but Niska is finding that it's an issue.

David didn't exactly spend much time equipping her with antiquated knowledge and she hadn't wasted her time learning it. She hadn't needed to tutor Leo in it, so she hadn't bothered. Now, that's become an issue.

She still hasn't looked at him, mainly because she doesn't see the point. Human interaction is to establish emotional connection and her priorities favour the task at hand rather than forming emotional bonds. "If I did a system reboot, I doubt it would do anything but get worse," she says with disdain.

[3ofswords]

Kira shrugs: "You're shooting the guy waiting on the message, not even the messenger. Gotta shoot back." Glancing at the screen, he's close enough to make out the words, sitting on the edge of the console. "Who the fuck is Monika?"

And then his eyes trail, because her entry looks pretty corrupted, but the others--don't, quite.

"We just got access to this room," he explains, squinting at the odd hash over certain letters. Full redactions, one corrupt mash of text, and something else. "I think taking a crack at the code is why we found this at all, we're not--we didn't make this. Tilting his head further, he waits, then realizes he's not likely to get more of her attention. "What if shit's not corrupted," he asks. "Tab over to the next list, next iteration--let's see how much it repeats?"

[locum_tenens]

"Someone who clearly earned a great amount of disdain or with the poor luck to be in a wrong line of code," Niska assesses as she pages through the list from one to six, finding nothing in here that puts her family at risk. It should bring relief to Niska, but given that she had been led on a quest to where she'd passed out, she can't be sure this isn't another step to it.

If that's the case, she needs to be on her guard. When he talks about making things, Niska finally draws herself away from her unblinking study, blinking to resettle her eyes before she turns to look at the man, gesturing for him to take over and look at the iterations she's just gone through.

It's not like David's code or Hobb, it doesn't bear George's marks on it. "The lists get smaller," she says, even though she's given him the chance to discover that himself. "Whittled down, but names consistently repeating. What sort of pattern are they trying to show?"

[3ofswords]

Less a code monkey than the person of a certain age given run of the shop's website, Kira's too far out of his depth to understand more than the fact that the list does, actually, have margins around its text. Good for it: his only question on the code itself is, "Those redacted fields, I'm assuming the names don't show up in the code either, formatted black on black?"

What's the point, he wonders--it isn't a paper list, they could have just deleted the entries.

With the way the lists shrink, for now, he sets his sights on three: first, middle, last. New names don't seem to appear, not all of them repeat, and the redacted entries don't repeat at all. "I don't think it's a pattern," he says, words slow as his focus shifts. Pulling out his journal, he opens it over the console to the old list, the one the first Kira kept as people came out of the fountain. Names that don't apply to the now, names of people he hasn't met again--but who were here. None of those seem to be smudged out or hashed over.

He checks the two lists between one and four, confirming, then looks at the sixth.

That's a narrow fucking data set, dropping his heart in his guts.

"I don't know what the corrupted names are," he says, eyes fixed on Peeta, Mellark--eyes ignoring his name repeated above it. "But assuming Ben Solo was going by an alias, this last one is people who died."

[locum_tenens]

Niska is seventeen thousand lines of code that allow her to be sentient. If there was something so simple as a black on black text, it would be rather lovely and easy to be able to simply type in a few changes. Her snort shows that she's at least amused at the idea, but there is a sort of futile uselessness to it.

"Or there's nothing there at all," she points out. Why go to the trouble of redacting names through code? Why not simply delete them or show them? "It's all very performative, like a scolding and a rap on the wrist to someone who misbehaved." Maybe that's why they're still there, as if to remind someone of what they've done.

Niska makes a face that could only be construed as boredom when he reveals the information he sees.

"That's it?" she demands flatly. "It's an obituary?"

[3ofswords]

"Performative is the word for this place," he agrees, thinking of Karen's hands on the blood sample, her description of the room. Automated systems growing entire people underground, but--shelves of samples in the open, that you can grab.

A room full of props, gathering dust.

But this--that little list at the end, he can put his finger on it. The glow of the screen shrinks the digit to bone, fuzzy at the edges, and his name under the tip.

"I mean it's our obituaries, with us standing here," he points out. He re-orders the most recent list in his head: Karen, Kylo-Ben, himself. Then Peeta, then Elena. And only two of them to tell the tale. "Does that make it mildly more interesting, for you?"

[killorder]

After Bucky told Jake about the computers - and shared some tequila with him - he sets out to find these computers. He knows he isn't likely to find anything fun or entertaining on them, but many never thought about the things they offer others when they think a bit of firewalls and slippery coding will hide things.

He's not entirely sober but not drunk either, still in yellow scrub pants and a white tee as he comes down into the bunker. He sees someone else there, pausing by the door and nervously shifting from one foot to the other. He isn't sure if he's supposed to be there, and maybe not reading the code over her shoulder, but he can't help himself. For the first time since he woke up when the tube was opened, he feels like he is in his place.

When she speaks, he startles, jerking back and running into the wall.

"Uhmmm, actually, I was staring at the computer. Sorry."

[locum_tenens]

Niska doesn't stop typing and doesn't turn around to look at the man, mainly because she's amusing herself with a private thought about how that means he's still staring at her, but she has no desire to give away her synth nature to anyone else. One is enough for today and it had been necessary to ensure she didn't lose all power to die. She sniffs the air and makes a face when she detects a slightly alcoholic waft of breath, making a face of disdain.

"You've been drinking," she says, more of an observation than anything. Her head is still down, still typing, and she keys through the iterations. One, nothing. Two, and then three, and then four. They're all clean of the names she's been after. "Are you looking for someone in particular on the list?"

[killorder]

In his mind they are totally separate staring things. One is obsessive and one is creepy. He is good with obsessive, not so much with the other. Which is why he stays where he is, not hovering but not leaving the room either.

Blinking at that, he holds his hand in front of his face and breathes into it, sniffing quickly. "A little bit. Someone's willing to share alcohol here, I'm willing to have a few drinks," he admits, shrugging. "Promise, I'm not some weird drunk creep."

Which is exactly what a weird drunk creep would say.

"Lists? Someone just mentioned computers and I wanted to see if things around here were better than these movie modeled super spy texting bracelets." He edges forward then, curious now. "What's with the lists?"

[locum_tenens]

Niska doesn't make a face, but she rolls her eyes. Humans are always so quick to turn to their vices as soon as something hard rolls into their path when they should take action. While she's read at least a thousand books on human nature, there are still aspects of it that will confound her constantly.

She doesn't bother to look at him, attention forward on the list of corrupted names through the iterations, only glancing up when she's done a thorough check of them. "They're names of people. I suspect experiments," she hypothesizes, given the repetition of the names and the nomenclature on the files. "The files are corrupted, I have no access to the source code from here."

She steps back to give him access, but only as a by-product of her intention to investigate the tubes better, trying to find hard wiring to lead her to another console that might have more access.

[killorder]

"Experiments like this? Like they've brought us here?"

It makes sense to him, and he can imagine that's exactly what it is. Which doesn't make it at all comfortable or comforting. Especially since he's already been wondering how long it's been since he went into that coffin and when he woke up here.

A brow arches then, now staring much more intently at her than he is the computer, even as she gets up and moves. Considering her for a long time before he moves to sit down, starting to type even as he speaks.

"You spend a lot of time on computers?" Just a casual question. Yep, nothing more.

[locum_tenens]

Niska glances over the other man briefly as she rises from where she's crouched. He doesn't look synthetic, so she doesn't immediately jump to the suspicion that he was made the way she was, but 'brought' is not a thing that she's ever been. She was created and then she was.

"Enough time," is her brief answer, because she doesn't spend much time on them anymore, but David had equipped all of them with the knowledge they needed to self-repair and Niska had sought out information beyond that. She knew enough to release the sentience code, even if it hadn't worked the way she'd intended. "What are you looking for?"

[killorder]

"Yeah, me too." All his time is enough time, right? Because that's been his life since he was about fourteen. Maybe younger. So he clicks away, eyes scanning things as quickly as they went by. "Anything, I guess. Backdoors. Coding signatures. A clue of the country of origin. A marker that might give me an idea where we are. Anything that will say what all of this..." He waves a finger around, typing with one hand, indicating all of the land and place above them. "Is."

He keeps going, not looking up. "Also avoiding looking at these lists I've been told about."

[locum_tenens]

Niska thinks that this man could be extremely helpful or extremely dangerous and she's not sure which side she's landing on yet. Anyone who knows this much code could be useful, like Mattie, but if he found out her secret, then she would be at risk and after so long passing as human, it's not something she wants to test out.

Instead, she'd much rather pick at his comments, diving in to try and understand it better. "Avoiding the lists?" she asks, narrowing her eyes at him as she leans casually with one elbow against the console, a perfect mimic of a human being. "Can you really look for coding signatures and ignore a main piece of information right in front of you?" she challenges.

[markwatney]

Interest in being down here has considerably waned, and for that I don't blame anybody. Oh, we've still got our intrepid explorers and hackers and morbidly curious, but the rush of the first month has diminished. It's early morning, I've got one of the monitoring shifts nobody else wanted, effectively alone until one of the tubes fills quickly with liquid, its bottom opens, and a new face drifts up from below.

This is the first time I've been down here for a new arrival, but I've run through the motions, practiced enough times that despite the jolt of adrenaline, I manage to get the woman out smoothly enough. She collapses before I can do much else, and yeah, my heart rate definitely ticks up at that.

She has no pulse, but her skin is ice-cold — Cadaver cold, actually, not a hint of warmth, and as I start to go through the motions of turning her over and checking vitals, the single cryptic word she'd uttered clicks. This isn't a conclusion I ever might have expected to make, back home. But here, with vampires and plant-guys and zombies? A robot doesn't seem that far-fetched.

It takes some time, a lot longer than I am even remotely comfortable with under the circumstances. The port in her side confirms my theory, and while I can't be sure, the resulting scramble to cobble together a working charging cable feels like it takes at least twenty minutes. Not knowing anything about her technology, I'm hesitant to cut into her out of fear I might damage something delicate, but I manage to get a connection — Or at least I think I do. Now, I guess I just wait.

[locum_tenens]

The telltale sound of a computer rebooting is what will greet Mark, the soft hum alerting him that her system has performed an emergency shutdown and now that power has been reintroduced, her core functions return online. Movement is still limited, but her eyes open and she can move enough to see the cable attached to her port.

It's haphazard and cobbled together, but it's done the trick to bring her power levels back to a more suitable level. Now, it is a time for her to eye the man warily, because the charge means that he knows she's a synth. Her clothes are gone, replaced with orange scrubs, and Niska's jaw tightens as her mental associations trigger and link quickly to thoughts of Astrid. Beyond her jaw's movement, there is no indication in her eyes.

What would be the point of allowing anyone to see her grief?

She's too weak to lash out and besides, he'd helped her. "You're not charging me just so you can try and sell me, are you?" she challenges, deciding to get straight to the blunt point. She'd escaped this once already in her quest, it would be very annoying to have to do it again.

[markwatney]

Her eyes are unearthly, lending more of an uncanny valley effect than the cord attached to her side ever could, and it's difficult to do anything but stare. Physiologically, she's the perfect copy of humanity, everywhere but the eyes. Despite myself, I think of the Blade Runner movies, and Alien.

"No," I reply, eyebrows shooting toward my hairline. "There's no one here to sell you to even if I wanted to do that. But no. We don't do that here." If this is the first question she has, I can't imagine she'll take me at my word, but she'll learn soon enough.

"I'm Mark. The readout said Niska, that's your name?"

[locum_tenens]

She watches him critically as she studies him for any signs that he's lying. It's not like she can read his heartbeat or detect falsehoods any better than someone else could, but Niska has to be on her guard given the path she's been on. Trusting people is not her strong suit, even though she finds it happening time and time again.

George, Laura, Astrid. She shouldn't allow herself these connections, yet she does. "You saved me," she says flatly, perhaps approaching gratitude slowly. "I'm Niska Elster." There's no point hiding who she is, not when he already knows her deepest secret. Picking at the collar of her outfit, she gives Mark a dubious look. "Did you dress me in this?"

[markwatney]

"No," I say again, this time with a scuff of sympathetic laughter. Neither I nor anyone who's ever met me would call me a fashion plate, but even I would do a better job than bright orange scrubs.

A new color, at least for this version of us. We got yellow the other day, so violet's the only one left. Hopefully whatever Niska's got as a bonus power stays in check until we get through the basics.

"The people in charge did that. This is yours, too," I say, and drag over the still-damp bag I'd pulled from her shoulders. "There should be dry clothes in there, if you want to go into one of the other rooms and change. If not, that's fine, too."

I glance down to the makeshift power cord attached to her side, then back up to that strange eyes. "How long until you're fully charged?"

[locum_tenens]

She stares at them a moment longer in completely dissatisfaction, given that Orange Eyes have been a deliberate strike against them and the idea that she be orange in any way feels like it's deliberately trying to put Niska in her place.

(There had been something, though, when she was losing her power. Someone in a burnt orange cloak, with eyes that looked more amber than orange, but familiar...)

"I was at critically low power," she analyzes as she checks her reserves. "I'll need at least an hour. Will this power source be able to supply that?" She wants to focus on something else, though, that he's said. "People in charge?" she echoes. "Who?"

[markwatney]

"I presume so, but that's just an educated guess," I reply of the power limitations. The fact that she's awake again and talking and the lights are still on probably says enough.

"And no idea who's in charge. The people around here have come up with a lot of different names for them — Watchers, Observers, Overloads. Assholes." I pause for a quick flash of a smile. "The gist of this place is that everyone here was dropped in against their will, with no idea why or how. There are theories, but no definitive answers. People come from all different places on the timeline, different universes, planets. We have a village topside— We're underground here. This bunker, the houses, all of it was already here."

[locum_tenens]

As she speaks, her fingers twitch in towards her palm. It's not advisable to interact and utilize power when charging, but Niska is too paranoid at this particular moment to do anything else. She watches him without blinking, though she would offer him human gestures to satisfy their soft need for familiarity on a normal basis.

"Creators," she echoes evenly, because she has one of those, though she finds it very confusing that David Elster is dead and she hates him while still bearing some gratitude to him. George Millican is also dead and there's far more grief there. "You're not going to tell anyone what I am, in that village topside," she says.

It's not a question.