The mirror flood, or BookFort 2.0

[mrs_persson]

Who: Una Persson, O'Brien, and semi-open (see Notes).
What: In which Una tries to keep O'Brien safe, tries not to get killed, and probably tries to keep other people from getting killed.
Where: Una's cabin and elsewhere.
When: Throughout the mirrorverse flood.
Warnings: For Una and O'Brien's threads, much bitching. For the others, probable dark

Comments

Elsewhere...

[mrs_persson]

Una was trying to keep up appearances for the affected individuals, and at the same time trying to make contact with the unaffected people, to try and keep them safe. Unfortunately this involved occasionally leaving her room, generally at mealtimes, but also to put in general appearances around and about to ensure that it didn't actually look like she was hiding.

Sometime on the first day?

[hopeless_hacker]

Toshiko hadn't taken long to realise what had happened to the ship, either - a flood so violent had only happened once before in her time there. After checking her journal for confirmation and battling down the urge to burst into tears of sheer relief that she wasn't that woman again, she prioritised. Rinzler first. A little research to find out where her counterpart was up to with her 'friends'. Then try to establish who else was unaffected.

She managed to run into Una on her very first attempt to leave her cabin. Bollocks. She should have done her background reading first. Nothing was ever more important than research; why was she ignoring that fact now? What had her relationship been with Una?
She settled for a curt nod, keeping her face blank. "Persson."

[OOC: If Una has had the sense to do some focused backreading, she'll have noticed that M!Tosh is a good deal, uh, 'friendlier' than this towards Una.]

Sometime on the first day

[mrs_persson]

There was one flaw in the "keep O'Brien locked in my room" plan-food. They had to eat, so eventually she left him to carp to himself and headed out to the dining hall.

And there was Toshiko. She'd read back far enough to realise that 1) her counterpart was practically the Barge bicycle, albeit at least with enough wicked cunning to be sure to get something (quite a lot, it seemed) out of it every time, and 2) Toshiko had very likely taken a ride at some point. So the blankness and curtness ... Una would have expected something friendlier. Maybe Tosh was unaffected. Please, she thought, let it be so.

"Just Persson? I thought we were on better terms than that," she drawled, carefully searching Toshiko's expression for anything that might hint that she was all right.

[hopeless_hacker]

Fuck. She'd forgotten that her other self was quite so personable along that one specific axis.

"Even your novelty wears off eventually, Una," she said crisply, playing to role even as her nerves were rapidly fraying. Could she be unaffected - could she be that lucky? If Toshiko had to pick a list of people to have on side at a time like this then Una would have easily made the top five.

[mrs_persson]

"What, so soon after last night? You wound me," Una replied. In fact, there was no "last night"; if Toshiko tried to play along, that would be a sign, she thought, that her friend was actually unaffected after all. Of course, if she was affected ... well, cross that bridge when needed. She'd plead a memory lapse or something.

[hopeless_hacker]

That definitely put a different complexion on things - Toshiko had taken a long enough look at her computer to appreciate that her counterpart had been working almost solidly, almost all night. Unless they had been unrealistically quick about it, there was no chance 'last night' had actually happened.

So Una was either trying to show her hand or set a trap. Gaining an ally this early in proceedings outweighed the risks of garnering suspicion, surely?

"Last night? I vaguely remember you visiting, but really? It's as if it never happened."

[mrs_persson]

All right, time for a massive calculated risk. If it all went really south, well ... the faithful Smith & Wesson .45 was right there in its shoulder holster. Una glanced around quickly; they were alone. She put her hand on Toshiko's shoulder and leaned in close; if anyone was looking, it might look like she was getting a little extra-friendly, perhaps.

"You're not affected, are you?" she whispered into Toshiko's ear.

[hopeless_hacker]

If she said no, Una was either going to shoot her or God knows what else, or come the rest of the way. And at least it would be nigh-impossible for an affected person to pretend they weren't - but either way, the way her shoulders and neck went solid with tension answered the question before she even opened her mouth.

"No."

[mrs_persson]

Una didn't even bother to conceal her relieved sigh.

"Me either," she whispered. "And if we weren't standing out here in the hallway I might start crying with relief." She pulled back and looked around again. "We really ought to continue this conversation somewhere else," she said. "I'd ask you back to my room, but I've got a recalcitrant inmate in there."

[hopeless_hacker]

"Mine is just full of untested alien technology and weapons. And it's closer," she whispered back, nudging her head briefly towards the first-floor hallway.

[mrs_persson]

Una nodded and followed in silence until they were safely inside Toshiko's room. Once there, she slumped against the wall and groaned.

"There are not enough words for how relieved I am to know that you're all right."

[hopeless_hacker]

Toshiko laughed, more out of stress than humour. "You too. I can't even..."

She sat down on the nearest chair. Her mirror-self's cabin had been torn wholesale from a corner of the Torchwood Hub: bare brick walls, metal surfaces, spartan and industrial. There was a futon tucked away at the back of the room, and a couple of steel storage lockers that had been deputised as wardrobes.

"This bloody flood again. If there was one thing the Admiral might have steered us away from..." She was unravelling a bit - this whole room was full of the memory of what she'd done to Harper, and the device she'd used to do it was within arm's reach on a nearby worksurface - but after a moment she swallowed hard and pushed her hands through her hair. "Sorry. Is O'Brien affected?"

[mrs_persson]

Una shook her head. "Not this time. Which is probably just as well, because given how poorly things have been going for him for the last fortnight, being affected and coming out on the other side with those memories just might break him for good." Wryly: "So instead he'll just carp his way through this whole thing, being his usual cheerful self."

She rubbed her forehead. "Thank god the Sexbys have gone; that's all I can say. Any idea who else might be unaffected, or have you only just started looking around?"

[hopeless_hacker]

"I've only just started looking - I need to check on Rinzler." She gave her laptop a slightly despairing look. "It'd take me a few hours to crack open her progress files and find out what she's been doing to him, so...it'll be faster to go looking for myself." Not that she was looking forward to what she'd find.

[mrs_persson]

Una nodded. "Right. I won't get in your way for long, then." She shoved her hands in the pockets of her jacket. "I don't think fomenting an outright rebellion is the right way to go, not this time. Better to put our energies to making sure people are safe-our unaffected fellows and I suppose the inmates of this world, if possible. But I'll keep my ears open, and let you know who's safe as I figure it out."

[hopeless_hacker]

She nodded. "I'll do the same, but you're right. We want to avoid another riot if at all possible." Toshiko got to her feet, slightly energised by knowing there was at least one other person to turn to. "If there's anything you end up needing, any trouble you're in..."