sixthiterationlogs | the game continues after checkmate

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the game continues after checkmate

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?"

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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.

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?"

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?"

"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?"

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?"

"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."

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.

I falter, but only a tick, only with a mild blink. "Not if you would rather I didn't."

To a point, I understand: If she's coming from a place where she'd be unfairly judged based on being synthetic, hesitation in revealing that here is natural. Plus, she's only just arrived, is still wet from the damn tube. Even if she's a robot, if her AI is meant to process her surroundings like a human would, this has got to be a doozy.

"I think you might find over time that you're more comfortable with people knowing. We have a lot of different kinds of people here. But I can keep it a secret as long as you want me to." Brow creasing, I motion her way. "The eyes will probably get some questions, though. They're hard to miss. And we'll need to set up a way for you to discreetly charge. The village isn't set up for anything like that, but we do have electrical infrastructure. I can help you with it."

"Nothing good will come of the truth," Niska says with cold certainty, having seen what happens when humans know of the synths amongst them. She passes well, always has, and perhaps a part of her doesn't identify with either side. It's safer for her if no one knows.

It's safer for them, too, because there's less of a chance that Niska will have to take matters into her own hands. "I'll wear the hat," she assures, until she can find some colour contact solution or sunglasses that will do the trick. "Charge privately overnight."

Even if there's no current solution, she gestures to the area around them. "We clearly have power. I'll find a solution, even if it's batteries."

"We do. Down here all the time so far, and in several buildings topside," I confirm with a nod.

"Look, if you're not wanting anyone to know you're..." I trail off with a lift of my hand Niska's way. "I'm sorry, I don't know what word you prefer. In any case, it's not unusual for us to have non-human residents. If you don't mind stretching the truth a little, you could just tell people you're not human if they ask about the eyes. They probably won't think of robot, or synthetic—" My face goes slightly pinched. I don't want to insult her with the wrong vernacular. "The first thought would probably be that you're another species, from a different planet maybe."

The idea of hiding her identity behind a lie like aliens is preposterous, despite Niska's belief that there likely is extraterrestial life out there in the universe somewhere. "Where I come from, you would call me a sentient synth," she says. Tilting her head to the side to study him, she follows this up quickly.

"Or my name," she says, archly. "Niska. That's what people call me."

"If they ask about my eyes, I'll tell them I have pigmentary glaucoma," she says, as if bored and annoyed at the idea of lying about being inhuman or alien. "Loose pigment around the iris changes the colour. When I find an opportunity to have contacts again, then I'll also have an explanation why it cleared. Or are you very attached to people pretending to be aliens?" It's a light jest, not meant to be cruel, but Niska does occasionally leave out the warmth from her tone.

"Yes, you're right," I agree of her name. She'd opened the discussion of her differences, but she's right.

"And no," I add with a soft chuckle. "We've just had some aliens in the past, so it was top of mind. But no, that's perfect. I don't think anyone would ever question something like that. We've got a guy with eyes like a cat; you're practically staid next to him."

"Lucky for me," is Niska's dry reply. She shouldn't be conversing if she wants to recharge, but she also doesn't want to be left alone. Eyeing Mark and trying to decide how much she trusts him, she thinks that if he were going to betray her, he'd either have done it or he's plotting to do it later.

"I need to turn off my primary functions to properly charge," she tells him. "I don't want anyone else walking in while I do. Will you guard me?" she asks, and it feels like a big leap to ask. Maybe she's only asking because at this point in her journey, she feels she can, but it is more than she would usually offer.

"Yeah, of course," I reply with a quick nod. I glance to my watch; it's awhile yet before anyone else is due to take over, and most of the other people who end up down here have another destination in mind: The vending machine, usually, or to pore over the list of names that apparently means we're clones.

"I've got a few hours left on my shift, will that be long enough? Otherwise, we'll need a Plan B."

"Two hours without interruption will suit," Niska estimates, thinking that she can return to charge in the dead of night or when she takes a shift herself. "I don't want other people knowing about what I am," she says, hoping that she's already made that very clear and yet understanding that she can't say it enough.

"Thank you," she also says, grudgingly, because she recalls, even now, that humans like to hear those words. She supposes she even means it, a little.

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the game continues after checkmate

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