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

[markwatney]

"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."

[locum_tenens]

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.

[markwatney]

"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."

[locum_tenens]

"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.

[markwatney]

"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."

[locum_tenens]

"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.