[001 - There's always a party on funeral row. | Video]

[owenbeatsdeath]

[Many moments ago, Owen Harper had sacrificed his un-life to save the people of Cardiff. He’d died his second death and watched as his numb, dead body slowly decomposed into nothing. Only moments ago he was trapped in the silent dark nothing of an afterlife for what seemed like an eternity. Then he'd been contacted by the mysterious Admiral. He

Comments

[timesbureaucrat]

Second level.

And no, it's not like this all the time. Sometimes we're busy being killed, tortured, and maimed.

[And he cocks his head curiously, because even through the communicator he has the impression that there's something odd about Owen.]

[owenbeatsdeath]

Thanks. [Have for what passes as a friendly Owen smile.]

That's a relief. I happen to be very good at all that. [Is it sarcasm or isn't it. :|]

[timesbureaucrat]

Well, you'll keep in practice here.

[Still something not quite right, but he can't put his finger on it...]

Are you human? [Narvin fails at tact.]

I <3 his tact.

[owenbeatsdeath]

[Okay, what. Owen is a little taken off guard by that. What does he know? He pauses, blinking in a single rapid flurry.

Notice how he's just a little bit too still? How the air he is using to speak with sounds like it's coming from a place a little too shallow? :|]

Just how many species are on board?

[timesbureaucrat]

People come and go, so the exact number varies. Humans are the majority... [Hint of xenophobic bitterness there] ...but there's usually a good dozen or more other species as well. At the moment we've got Gallifreyans, Dwarfs, various artificial intelligences, a Vulcan, a Klingon, vampires, a few so-called gods, and a wide variety of human subspecies and mutants.

[owenbeatsdeath]

[He noticed that. But he doesn't really care because.. His mind was just blown.]

You're shitting me.

[timesbureaucrat]

No, I'm not.

Contrary to popular belief, humans aren't the only intelligent life in the universe. [After that reaction, Narvin's back to assuming that Owen is human. The sort of human for whom alien life is the stuff of sci-fi.]

[owenbeatsdeath]

Obviously. [Long, shallow sigh.] Not the aliens, mate. Well, aside from the ones that are from Star Trek, which last I checked was not based on real events.

[timesbureaucrat]

Star Trek?

The gods are most likely just entities with the ability to manipulate physical reality. It's fairly common for entities like that to set up shop on primitive planets as gods. [Narvin is an atheist forever, no matter what happens on the Barge.]

[owenbeatsdeath]

It's a television program.

[Owen has long been an Atheist, and had his suspicions confirmed for himself by experiencing the "afterlife" twice. Nothing. There's nothing.] Makes sense. How do you explain the vampires? We're sure they're not just aliens? Were they actually human before?

[Blink.] Why did you ask if I was human?

[timesbureaucrat]

In my universe, all vampires descend from the race of Great Vampires, who seemed to appear out of nowhere during the Dark Times. Their bite is highly infectious and was transmitted to a variety of other species--including some humans--before the Great Vampires were wiped out. I can't say whether the origin of vampires is the same or similar in every universe, but all the vampires who have been here so far were once human before they were contaminated by those leeches.

There's something...wrong about you. [Narvin thinks back to what he observed try to find what his instincts noticed first.] Your breathing pattern isn't like a human's. I'd think respiratory bypass, but I know you're not Gallifreyan.

[owenbeatsdeath]

[...] I see. So, vampires in your universe are technically descendant from aliens. [The Barge is so weird.] All right, then.

[Wrong, huh. You're not wrong. He just says it bluntly with no explanation.] Yeah, I'm dead.

[timesbureaucrat]

And the Admiral didn't give you a semblance of life for the duration of your stay? Well, I can't say I'm surprised at yet another example of his incompetence. [Narvin assumes that Owen died right before coming to the Barge, like the inmates and a few of the other wardens, and the Admiral made a clerical error in not wholly reviving him.]