Night 50: M61-M70 Hallway
[M66]
Kirk went rummaging through his desk the moment Landel mentioned the "reward" in the drawer, but unless "Portal Ring" was some obtuse term for the metal circle which held the two keys which locked his drawer and the door to their room, there wasn't anything worth noting. (Although he had forgotten about the power packs in there, and quickly ( Read more... )
Kirk went rummaging through his desk the moment Landel mentioned the "reward" in the drawer, but unless "Portal Ring" was some obtuse term for the metal circle which held the two keys which locked his drawer and the door to their room, there wasn't anything worth noting. (Although he had forgotten about the power packs in there, and quickly ( Read more... )
Knock knock, hello Mr. Alien! Carter bounced eagerly on the balls of his feet, waiting to be admitted.
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ZEX got himself dressed as Kirk took his leave, and he spent a few moments just enjoying his uniform. It never ceased to soothe him at night - something real from his world, something permanent. It may have been altered to fit him, but it was still proof that he was who he thought he was. He'd take what he could get at this point.
A shame that his Captain hadn't contacted him after all... he'd been foolish to believe that he'd come back after all.
A knock at his door caught his attention, and he went to go open it. Perhaps his thoughts had called him back to him? But no, it was Carter, of course it was Carter. His Captain was dead, after all.
"Hello again," ZEX said, trying to smile.
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Carter set his radio and flashlight on the bed nearby so he could keep his hands free and not drop things all over the place like he'd been doing on the way here. He held up the book as if it was some important treasure he'd just found.
"Look at this!" he said eagerly, and waited expectantly for ZEX to respond.
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"Yes, this is my official uniform." ZEX ran his hands over his medals... they felt strange to his human fingers, but at least he knew them. "I may be retired, but I always feel more at home with it on." One of the few things here from the galaxy as he knew it, after all.
ZEX blinked, curious, as Carter held up the book. "What do you have there, human?"
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Carter, for his part, was loving that the alien didn't mind him pestering him with questions and attention. Most people would have told him to shove off by now but ZEX just kept laughing about it all. It was great.
Why did people say bad things about this place again?
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He was tempted to just snatch it right out of his hands, but he restrained and instead managed to just get as close to it as possible, practically salivating although he wouldn't have connected that to what he was seeing. "What a wonderful gift, human! I could scarcely ask for something more... useful to me. Xenobiology has long been a passion of mine..."
He was so enraptured by the book that he was scarcely paying any attention to Carter.
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"You want to look at it together?" he asked, nearly as excited as ZEX at the prospect. "I can explain to you what all of them are, I know plenty of animals." He pulled ZEX over to the bed and sat them both down, flicking to one of the first pages. The book was organized by continents, North America down to Antarctica, and in amazingly glossy color pictures that looked like they were about to come to life and roar at you. Even photos were better in the future, how great.
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He was also more than happy to sit beside Carter on the bed, as close to him as possible, partly to better look at the pictures of course, but also because such things tended to get him in a particular... mood, and Carter was available AND quite attractive. Perhaps there was a way this night could go even better, if he was careful.
He pointed at one of the pictures, resting his other hand on Carter's leg. "What is this here?" An odd black and white creature surrounded by white... while he could read the letters in the book, the way they were put together made no sense to him. PEN QIN?
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"Ack! Must have broken somethin' up there, they should get that looked at," he commented, staring to the ceiling as if to chastise Dr. Landel from here. The young sergeant took ZEX's odd mutterings to be some form of alien cursing, the way LeBeau reverted to French in times of stress, and cuddled up next to him to restart his reading.
"And this is a seal," he said, pointing to the slippery brown water creature. "They live in the water but they're not fish, they're mammals like me. A mammal is something that has fur and live young and milk. I guess you aliens don't do that, you're probably...reptiles or something." Since his English was flawless, he hadn't noted a thing happening.
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VUX translation technology was so advanced that it was able to translate languages that it hadn't even previously encountered before with a relatively small margin of error, something that had led to the unfortunate Insult incident. What that meant, however, was that ZEX had had little to no experience with unfiltered Human. When he'd spoken to them on those few brief occasions during the War (and when his Captain had visited him), their speech had always been translated. Even his few rare artifacts of Human culture acquired before the shield went up were mostly relegated to writing, and the few videos translated automatically through his computers.
So hearing Carter speak Human, raw Human, was a strange shock. ZEX was accustomed to understanding everyone, even before he came here. Not only on a spiritual level, but on a basic auditory level as well. Hearing Carter emit a strange series of bizarre sounds for no reason startled ZEX out of any comfortable mood he may have ( ... )
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LeBeau had a habit of regressing to French when he got annoyed and ZEX appeared to have done the same thing, but Landel hadn't even said anything bad. Confusing, yes, but that was normal. Carter patted ZEX's hand and gave him a comforting little smile, waiting for permission in English to continue rambling about arctic wildlife.
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But Carter could never stay irritated for more than a few moments and his anger quickly broke when ZEX touched his cheek. "Hey, are you hurt? You look sort of hurt." He quickly pulled ZEX's hand away and peered concernedly at his poor injured cheek. There was nothing there to do it, that couldn't be good. "What happened to you?"
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