oedipusrat | TLV PSL ASAP (for wetware)

TLV PSL ASAP (for wetware)

[several months after this initial interaction]

Rachette doesn't kick in the door. She's not a barbarian. But the door is definitely opened in a manner that is heavier and harder than strictly necessary. Being The Warden was pain enough; being a warden is...irritating.

"He talks too much."

That's a possibly very petty thing to complain to the mage (who has explained to her that he is not a mage, but she remains not entirely convinced of this) about his...companion? Compatriot? Person from his same world. But talking to her inmate, a man who seems to prefer the name Silva to any of the other potential names he could be going by, is as frustrating as talking to Sten sometimes. Roundabout. Never to the point. Why does nobody ever just say what they mean?

The dwarf huffs and blows a few strands of silver hair from her face. "He uses too many words in strange ways. Would it kill him to just talk like a normal person instead of blathering on? Before I kill him."

She won't. That's not what she's here for, and he hasn't given enough reason to make her want to. But by the Stone and all of the Ancestors, he makes her job so difficult. Fighting a mob of darkspawn sometimes seems preferable.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

It seems to really be giving Q some trouble. He scowls and takes off his glasses, folding them up and tucking them away in a pocket.

"I don't think so? Perhaps that's the problem. It's trying to pass on information in a way that is fundamentally incapable with us, our systems." He sways in place, and almost puts his hand out against the wall to stop himself, but withdraws at the last minute. Right where he had planned to touch, there was a sudden, almost fungal bloom of that green-grey light.

"...Silva. I think, perhaps, we should just turn it off. Tinker with it later."

"Give--give me a moment."

This is a former top tier agent of MI6. Have you ever known them to be anything but staggeringly reckless with themselves? Too smart, too curious for his own good. That had always been the case.

It almost hurts to look at, not for the glow, but for the information that is trying to get passed on. It may not be a jamming signal at all, just broadcasting something that wasn't compatible. The glow forming on the wall is new, though. Concerning. Maybe it is a virus of some sort, but one that's, what, physically infecting the ship? Reacts to, hm, proximity? Or to the presence of technology?

"If I can connect to it, I can figure something out. Shut it down from the inside, at the very least. Even alien code is still code. Like music is mathematics, there are things with order."

There's a cable in his hand, not unlike plugging ones phone into a USB port. The static is almost singing. Maybe he can make out the words.

"And if it's viral? What then?" The glowing spot on the wall has faded. Or has it? There seems to be a greenish shimmer creeping along the floor, through conduits and cracks in the roof.

"I do not want to have to ...what if it rewrites you?" He moves closer to Silva's side and while he doesn't touch, there's a zinging, humming burst of static between them. "It hurts, like biting on tinfoil, and I don't think it will be any less painful from the inside."

"You want an off switch?" Silva snaps, more due to the static sizzle than Q's concern. "Then fetch me a hammer."

Oh, there's probably an easier way than that, but Silva reaches out, picks up the device, and the glow brightens, cascades down his skin. "I am no stranger to pain, and I am the only one who rewrites myself." It's static but it's humming, and his HUD is glyphs and letters.

He attaches one end of the cable to his mechanical eye, the other into the device. For a brief moment, everything is green-grey and bright and shining and discordant song, pitching higher and louder, data swirling and somehow this, too, is loud, and he wants to reach out, reaches a hand to tap tap tap, to wrangle something in and make order, there is order, there must be order, and he can taste the color on his tongue, smell oh it's something sharp as ozone but sweeter, pull it out, pull a thread, pull it apart, pull him apart too bright too loud too much--

The next moment is black and nothingness.

It's always the Double0s, isn't it? Past, present, or whatever half-mad future this is, it's always the Double0s that are going to give him cause for a screaming breakdown.

As Silva plugs the damned box into his eye, the room bursts with grey-green light and coding drips off the walls. It runs up and over everything in there, trying to find a way inside, and Q is not having any of that nonsense. He grabs hold of the other man's shoulder and mentally shoves unwelcome data away. No, whatever this box is, it can't have either of them.

Green light and a softer, gentle pale blue go to war and...well, it's not a hammer, but Q does prefer to wear good, sturdy shoes. On one level he can try to disentangle them from some alien computing nonsense and on a more physical one, he can do his best to stomp the bloody hell out of a nasty box.

Silva's body sways, somehow conscious and unconscious at the same time. The pained features had faded to slack, and slowly, slowly his sense of being comes back to himself. Reboot. His head pounds. His mouth is dry and his skin is clammy.

And there is blue.

A beautiful, soft, light blue.

There's the sickly green as well, when his mechanical eye goes through its own little startup process and buzzes back to awareness. He may not be attached to it any longer, but it lingers nevertheless. Not as harsh, not so utterly overwhelming. But the static remains. It's not singing, at least.

But the blue hums something soft and enchanting. He's not sure if it's real. His senses are all out of whack, tingling, buzzing.

It's blue and it's Q.

The box flickers, squeals, flickers again under the assault, and then the green light abruptly ceases. And the glow around the room vanishes with it. Maybe it's broken, but at the very least it's off now.

It lingers in his mind's eye. In his mechanical eye. But it's not pulling singing screaming spiraling. The blue lingers, too. His HUD is a wash of colors, small alerts about his own systems, heart rate, blood pressure, but the "jamming signal" is gone.

He stares at Q, cable dangling out of an eye, the other wide, Unfocused and yet seeing him, or seeing beyond him, or seeing him. Sways again. Doesn't feel his legs give out, barely feels the floor coming up to meet him. He's still awake. He's still here. 'Here' just seems to be a variable term.

The light isn't just in the coding, but glowing in thin straight lines up his neck, the blue is visible through the thin skin. His eyes have gone entirely black with only the faintest pin-prick of colour gleaming at the center.

There's a final, angry snarl as he kicks the damned box once again for good measure before moving whip-quick to catch the other man before he falls. "Silva, come on. Let's regroup."

Does he need to drag him? He will.

Oh. Oh.

"Look at you," he manages, breathless and light. He is awed.

Q is also holding him, and he's not an insignificant amount of man, so that is also quite impressive. He'll be impressed by this later. For all he knows, he's floating.

Some of his nerves finally kick in, and he jerks a hand to his eye, likewise jerks the cable from hit. Breathes in deeper and huffs out long and hard. One leg kicks out, seemingly at random, nerves firing, but he grunts and makes it do what he needs it to do. Get a foot under him. Support some weight. The other leg is being uncooperative. Give him a moment.

"A hammer," he repeats with a laugh, finally starting to sound like himself in some fashion, internally struggling with his own systems until each part runs green (figuratively). Gets himself back on his feet. He looks worn. But he's here.

"A beautiful hammer."

"I'd rather you didn't look." A long pause as he shifts Silva to better support his weight. Anywhere they're touching, that same buzzing static zips between their bodies. It's not painful, or rather, it doesn't hurt in a bad way. They need to get out of here, if only so he can get some gloves. Heavy gloves and lots of space between them.

"I can't carry you, not far." This close he can almost hear the way data sings through Silva. That's what's beautiful.

"Impossible not to. You ask the impossible of me." Not look at one of the most beautiful sights he's ever seen? Absolutely not.

He doesn't really want to pull away. Would prefer not to. This static isn't the same kind of static, something more vibrating, something like live wire but pleasant. But he is a grown man who can't allow some bit of tech to get the better of him, and he moves. Moves so that he can get. the hell. up.

Better. That's much better.

"I will spare you that indignity."

But oh, touching would be even better, wouldn't it? He reaches out a hand to take Q by the arm. The passing between them. Does he feel that, or is that still aftereffects, nerve endings firing and misfiring?

When they touch, Q shivers and his all-black eyes flicker with colour before returning to an unnatural, oil slick smoothness. He turns towards the touch, like a sun-starved flower and ...

...and this is what he'd been trying to avoid. He looks around the room and notices that his scarf has fallen away. The top two of his ports - dark grey metal grafted into his neck - are visible, and he knows that's a conversation he won't be able to avoid.

"I appreciate it." The box remains quiet on the floor. A former boss of his called the technique a 'Russian screwdriver'; if you don't have the refined tool you need, sometimes you just need to hit it until the lights stop flashing.

Oh yes, he feels it, too.

And why not explore that? With the immediate danger passed. Beautiful blue Q and his codes, the datastream coursing through, Silva would swear he could almost taste it, ambrosia.

His hand tightens, tugs. Brings his other hand up to curl near reverently at Q's neck, pulse on his palm, fingers brushing around back, to so gently touch the metal there.

With that touch, his circuits flicker blue and Q makes a sound. To spare what's left of his dignity, I will not describe it.

He blinks once. Twice. And pulls all his code back. No more wireless broadcasting. No inhuman anything. Q can maintain some semblance of control and not let a hacker near his ports. (He has ports. This is his life now, ports. Christ.) Still, he doesn't force a physical distance between them.

When he looks back at Silva, his eyes are their usual, human colour; a pale blue-green that could almost match the glow of his circuits from just a moment ago. "It's broken. We should...when you're ready, we should head back."

Q lights like an angel and feels. He could dive in. Oh, he sorely wants to chase that sound down and follow the lights and explore something he, well, actually gets along with that isn't weird potentially malevolent alien tech.

And in the span of a few breaths, a retreat. The shock of music data code connectivity shutters away.

Silva swallows down the abrupt feeling of emptiness. Leaves a lingering trace along a port before reluctantly removing his hands. This has been a most interesting and exhausting day already.

"Somewhere safe."

"To my room then." And before Silva can get a word in edgewise, he continues, "I...I need to recharge and you'll have to forgive me, but I'd rather use the system I've built than experiment further."

"It's safe enough there." He stays close enough that if Silva needs to lean or rest, Q will support him. The walk back isn't too long, but it's even more apparent now that the lighting reacts to Q's preferences. Doors open before they get there, any lifts they need arrive and leave for their destination without any effort on his part.

The device is dead, offline, dormant. Quiet. He still gives it a wary eye as they go. All that effort, and for what?

Well, for seeing Q in brilliant and blazing glory. He decides that's a fair enough trade. Doesn't lean. Sometimes there's still pride left to consider. But he appreciates the closeness.

Recharge. That sounds good. He doesn't plug into anything, rests like normal, but Q has to recharge.

"Is there anything you don't control? Apart from me." With a lopsided grin.

It's a good thing Silva doesn't ask that until they're practically at Q's door. That answer isn't something he wants shared widely. "If it has programming, I can read it. If it's simple enough, I can affect it wirelessly, more complicated, and I need to touch or plug in."

Has Silva ever seen Q's quarters? Probably not. They're not large, but there's a bed, desk, a bookshelf overflowing with neat stacks of novels and texts, and a strange looking reclining chair that has a gap all along where a person's spine would be. Hanging on the wall beside it are a series of cables - some are for power, others appear to be information, and the spike on at least one of them is distressingly long.

"I admit, I am jealous. Look at me, I plug into my eye. What sort of setup is that, I ask you? It is like I come from old movies. Books! Ay, it's like it wants me to show my age, where you are this. With built-in wifi."

You bet he's taking the room in. Pretends for a moment not to be so interested in the plugs, because--this, too, will probably fade. The rest, though, this is Q, this is his space. Personal, personality.

"I made a mistake." You see? He can admit it. He glances over at Q, briefly, before continuing around the room. "I so wanted to learn about it, but--you saw, yes? It was so loud. It is a wonder I didn't start smoking out of my face. But." There's the rub. "This means the two of us, we are still the most qualified to examine it."

Later. Obviously.

The room isn't particularly special. He spends a lot of time there, so it's comfortable and feels lived in. A stray sock is on the floor where it fell from the rim of the laundry bin, a half-read book is on the nightstand, a lone glass rests beside a water pitcher on a table.

"I couldn't filter it out, and at this point, I don't really know where my limits are." How he hates having to admit such a weakness. He'll be honest, of course, because that's what needed, but it smarts. It might make him a trifle more defensive than usual. "And, you do realize that I'm in my mid-thirties?"

"With incredibly good genes," he points out with a wag of his finger, "when so many people think you much younger than that."

All of that to say they're ignoring the other elephant in the room. Maybe this shouldn't be the time to dance around.

"Later. This device, this is a puzzle for later. You need to recharge, hm, like a battery?" He motions to the setup. "You do this by yourself?"

"I do. Please, make yourself comfortable. I need to change out of this so I can reach all the ports." Rattled. That's the only explanation for how he was foolish enough to let Silva come back with him, to let him in so he can see what comes next.

Still, better to be ashamed than worry that some mad space-box overrode Silva's mind and was using him to do who knows what to the Barge and her systems. Q frowns and slips away, into the bathroom to change into a pair of drawstring sleep trousers. He can't wear a shirt if he wants to be comfortable and actually rest.

Without a shirt to cover his skin, the traceries of faintly glowing wires are far more visible. A mirrored pattern that runs under his skin, alike but not identical to his nervous system. There are eight ports that run down his spine and each of these is surrounded with a dense cluster of glowing wires.

Don't mind if he do. He supposes this is convenient for both of them, though it's curiously delightful that Q has allowed this. They have been only infrequently antagonistic to each other, mostly when Silva eggs him on deliberately to get a rise out of him, or at times when more sensitive subjects arise that they can agree to disagree on.

He is here to learn the error of his ways, to earn redemption. He can rewire himself. But this time, help is needed.

But it's a far step between 'not overly antagonistic' to 'invited to room and be shirtless'. Silva gives him an appreciative look. Because he does appreciate that form. And what has changed about that form.

"Would you like a hand?"

He would not, no. However, Q is nothing if not pragmatic and it would be beneficial to have a bit of assistance with the worst of it.

"I can manage the mainline, but if you would be kind enough to hand me the other cables, it would be appreciated." Right then. This is madness, but what isn't in this place? He takes a drink of water and then goes to sit on the modified chair.

The mainline is the thickest cable and the one with the wicked looking flexible spike at the end. Q leans forward, holding his hair out of the way and then slowly, with steady hands, begins the process of tying himself into a machine. It's not until it clicks home and he turns to lock it that he relaxes. In fact, it's probably the most at ease Silva has ever seen him.

That looks...uncomfortable. And yet, from the slump of shoulder, the line of his back, it must not be. It must be very comfortable.

He crosses the room, easy as anything. The hesitation isn't so much hesitation as it is examination, both the lines and the ports. What an angle. What a delight. Were he a far worse man, he might take advantage of such a position.

A cable in hand, he leans down to more easily pass it over to Q. Brushes against skin.

Leans farther down, his breath on Q's neck. He is not a far worse man, but when is he one to resist temptation? The barest touch of lips against a port.

"Why don't you want people to see how breathtaking you are?"

Q's eyes have returned to that smooth, oil-slick black, so that when he turns to look at Silva he's at his most inhuman. He doesn't speak, but doesn't push the other man away, either. For now, he merely takes the cable and slots it into the next plug.

There's a soft hum when it connects. Either Q made it, or the power cable did. Who can tell? He's certainly not about to give up his secrets. Well, not all of them. A modified Alexa sits on a nearby table and appears to power on and speak with Q's own voice: "Why should I? I'm not for their consumption."

TLV PSL ASAP (for wetware)

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