[open] there's a place downtown where the medics hang around (hint: it's medbay)

[meat_mooks]

Medical Bay had a habit of being busy, and upon the return of some of its members (including the head of Medical Bay) from Galilee, things only got busier. Most the tech needed to be pieced out, but some of it was usable. Discussion of making those small technologies replicable and training people in Med Bay in how to use them was only one topic

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[i_sell_drugs]

All this technology and most of it's probably useless.

Howard's been quiet since getting back from Galilee. Bad enough to get raked over coals in front of others, although thankfully Med Bay coworkers had been kept to a minimum. Bad enough to nearly get shot getting all this stupid equipment that may have ended up useless. Bad enough to get used as pawns in someone else's war.

Given that his usual demeanor is sarcastic and critical, his coworkers may appreciate the dampened attitude.

He stays off to the side, poking one of the machines they stole.

"I'm pretty sure this is just a high-tech water cooler."

[8wings]

Anwei had noticed that Howard was quiet, and wasn't quite certain how to approach him. Considering how cut up some people had returned, he might have seen something that had topped his already-extensive catalog of horrors.

She comes over and peers at the machine. Not the most impressive trophy, to be honest. "It's got a lot of filter-feedback displays for a water cooler, unless the water is really bad. Anyway, even if it isn't medical, Engineering can use it for testing when it gets to be time to power things up. Better to burn this out than a regenerator."

While she talks, one eye darts for a second to peek at Howard's workspace. She definitely wants to see his face when he does go over there.

[i_sell_drugs]

"Yay. So we nearly died slapping stickers on a glorified Britta filter. Fricking awesome," he says. He is glad to see Anwei again, in that cautious, reserved sort of glad. It's comforting to know things haven't changed much in the few days they were gone. Besides, he has to tell her he liked the candy.

He doesn't have many physical injuries, just bruises and scrapes and skinned knees and a deep cut on his leg that he stitched up himself. If anything he's just exhausted. He shakes his head and starts to walk back to his desk.

He imagines Anwei may be one of the few to understand the weight of his words when he turns to her and says "so it turns out the Galileeans knew everything about us. Everything."

[8wings]

"Nearly died, Howard. That's the important thing, that you all came back. And that you're all the originals." At least, as far as anyone could tell. "I only wish there'd been something worth taking as a trophy."

Like, say, a few heads.

She drifts along after him, keeping enough distance between them that she doesn't intrude on his personal space. He kept that space hard around him, with the definite air of someone who would fight to hold the ground under his feet if he had to, at any moment. She respects that.

Her face freezes for a moment. "Did they take - no, someone would have said if they took copies of your memories." Her voice was sharper now. "Nothing quite like being slapped in the face with your own past. Especially when it's someone who has no business knowing it."

[i_sell_drugs]

"Yeah, and we all know what doesn't kill you makes you stronger," he says with sarcasm so thick it's nearly tangible. Brushes with death rot your soul. They leave you scared and shaken. They may make you smarter, but they also leave you petrified. He'd be fine having less of those.

At least he and Anwei have an easy rhythm now. He supposes that comes from being around someone long enough. They can respect how not to grind the other's nerves unless they want to.

Ah, so she got the subtext of his comment even a little better than he'd wanted it. "Pretty much. I have no idea how they got that information, though. They'd have to have taken it directly from me, and unless memories are genetics, they have some sort of spy network or communications from or something back on our homeworlds. They didn't explain it to us."

And he'd been a little too busy crying into Zouichi's shoulder to push the subject.

[8wings]

"Right. Like polio." Her own voice is too light, too joking. Laughing in the teeth of death, oh she knows that one.

She shrugs. "You've seen the Media Library. If you accept the multiverse theory, then everything in there is real, somewhere. Somewhere there's a real Hannibal Lector, and a real Hiro Protagonist, and a real Oz."

Her eyes go soft. "I would so much rather be on my way to Oz."

[i_sell_drugs]

He sighs. "Maybe. I hope that's not it. I hope that there aren't thousands of people out there that know everything about me, and honestly I hope stuff like the Star Wars Prequels is nothing but bad writing and not a real story."

He shakes his head. "I guess Oz would be alright. Better than home. Better than Galilee, that's for fucking sure. You couldn't pay me to go back there."

He stops as he reaches his desk. Pens. Pens of every stripe. Big pens, markers, ballpoints, gel. Sparkly, red, green, multi-colored, ink. Even the odd mechanical pencil. Unchewed pens just covering his desk.

He looks up at Anwei in confusion. "Did you do this?"

[8wings]

Only thousands? If only it was so few.

"It would be nice if the good stories were true, instead of just the bad ones." For that matter, if her story wasn't true, would anyone really be the worse off?

She blinks innocently at his confusion. "Well, you seemed so concerned that I might chew up all your pens. I thought I should find you some spares."

She's always been terrible at giving presents; childhood training died hard. She was barely able to accept presents with any grace.

[i_sell_drugs]

"Happy endings. Everything's It's a Small World and Snow White forever." He shakes his head. "Disney's so full of crap."

From what he's heard of Anwei's world, it's about as much as a net good to the multiverse as the FAYZ is - which is to say, not at all, nuke it from orbit, kill it with fire.

He guesses they've all got to be refugees from something.

If Anwei's terrible at giving presents, he's almost as bad at receiving them. He's not sure how to respond, staring at her, then the pens, then back at her, and finally at his shoes, as is the tops of his sneakers have the code for how to react and what it means inscribed on them. He bites his lip. "How long did it take you to find all of these?"

[8wings]

She cocks her head, thinking of the demon from Fantasia (she'd only seen the film because Bela Lugosi was the animator's model). "I suspect that most people get fed enough crap, they need a little extra sugar to balance it out."

She thinks about it, eyes lolling out and then back. "Oh, a little while, here and there. They're from the City, not from other departments." She looks down at the desk. "If anyone on board was a pen collector, they'd probably be very miffed at you getting them. 'That was the last bubblegum-smelling rainbow-inked Double Tosser Collectible Gel-Pen in the multiverse, and you're chewing on it!'"

[i_sell_drugs]

"Oh, good, so they're not contraband pens." He takes one in hand, turning it over his finger before tapping it against his teeth and finally, biting down on it. "If I didn't know you better, I'd think you'd just figured out the perfect way to poison me."

But Anwei wouldn't do that, would she?

"...Thanks. Really." He hadn't been expecting this when he came back, and it's a surprise that actually does lift his dour mood, just a little. "How's Med Bay been without us professional thieves?"

[8wings]

"Really? Because I thought the perfect way to poison you would be...oh, never mind. I've said too much already." And a wink, to show she was kidding.

Of course she wouldn't poison you, Howard. Your corpse might not be edible afterwards. And that would be terrible. Poisoning is for people you don't dare attack, or emergency scorched-earth tactics.

"Med Bay's been quiet, fortunately. There was a pod pop while you were away, and we had at least one new medically-trained person stop by, a Martha Jones. Once Doctor Henderson has gotten some rest, he can probably reach out and schedule some interviews."

[i_sell_drugs]

He shakes his head at her, but rolls his eyes and smiles a bit. "The candy helped, by the way. It helped a lot. The mission was pretty nerve-wracking from the start."

He isn't sure if he should hand her back the empty tin or not, so he pulls it from his pocket and looks at it as if he's expecting her to answer a question about it.

"No Orc?" No Horanckk? He guesses they'll both stay one half of a duo still. Although funny, it doesn't get to him as much as it used to. Somehow, he doubts it's the same for Anwei.

"Great, new coworkers to take up our space. I'm thrilled."

[8wings]

"That's what the candy was for. Glad it worked." Hard candy kept Anwei from thinking about nibbling on other things.

She looks at the tin as well. "You can keep it, if you want. Wait a few years and you can put a little shaving kit in it, maybe, with the mirrored back and all."

"No, sorry. There was a red fellow with a stone hand that I saw in passing," because she had retreated as soon as she saw the person on fire with him, "had sort of stumps on his forehead? Like goggles? But no tall gray pebbly people. Although - was Orc his birth-name? There's all this thing with people being taken from different times; they might grab him from before he was called Orc." Before the FAYZ, before he and Howard became allies? Now that would be an uncomfortable meeting.

"There's plenty of space," she pointed out. "If you put them in the back, you'd barely be able to hear them. I'd much rather have too many doctors, rather than too few."

[i_sell_drugs]

He laughs. "Yeah, if I live that long. I'm thinking if I grow a villainous goatee, people might start taking me seriously."

He shakes his head. "That wouldn't be him. He's Charles, though, Charles Merriman. I guess he started liking that name more recently. I don't know." He shrugs. "Horanckk just go by Horanckk? Maybe there should be some sort of check-in at the pods, rather than just a free for all."

He pouts, knowing he's being unreasonable but wanting to whine anyway. "Yeah, but we were doing fine as we were. Now we have to learn to work with new guys."

He all but finishes with 'and I don't wanna'.

[8wings]

"I never really understood that," she admits, scratching at her own upper lip. "Why a goatee? A mustache maybe, but a goatee? What's villainous about that?"

"No Charles that I met." She looks thoughtful for a moment. "Horanckk - well, he wouldn't go under a different name unless it was really, really important that no one know he was here." Which could be the case, for all she knew. "And I suspect the check-in would last just until one high-powered person decided they didn't need to wait in line, and started a brawl."

Actually, that seemed to happen anyway. More likely it was a case of 'if it isn't broken, don't fix it.'

Her eyes become narrow blue slits. "So teach the new guys (and gals, and others for all I know) to do the work you don't want to. We get enough new people here, and we'll be able to give them all the icky jobs." Like trying to clean the bed tentacles. They wiggled.