Investigating [OTA]

[dominie]

After Wheatfields' panic attack, the Doctor had become very much aware of the unusual energy gathering within the station. It was rather hard to not notice a raving Chigan. The tended to be on the loud side, especially when they were otherwise sulking. Perhaps that was a characteristic otherwise reserved to this one

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[charmed_bastard]

Pryce moved hesitantly through the ducting, climbing with two hands, the little scanner floating next to her face. She'd been surprised to see movement in the guts of the station-- what with Wheatfields actually in his quarters for once, sleeping off a good solid panic.

Maybe she shouldn't have gotten fifteen minutes and several layers into the station's guts before she asked herself 'what could panic Wheatfields?' The guy had served with her dad, after all. You needed a pretty strong gut to look at that face all day.

It would be just spiffy if lines from an old sci-fi flick weren't going through her head.

There's movement all over the place!

The fact that the scanner wasn't showing movement right now wasn't actually helping. There could be something waiting.

Right behind her.

She surged out into a walkway, trying not to give a paranoid glance at the maintenance tube she'd popped out of, and started to track the faint signal of another being. The glow of heat and life signs on her little display intensified; she was closer. She plucked the scanner out of the air, trying to look normal.

Maybe she should keep her hands free to fight. Maybe it would be all that stood between her and-

A Scottish man in a straw hat.

[dominie]

He turned, shining the light directly at the poor girl as she popped into view with all the enthusiasm of much younger Ace, more like she was when he first met her (not that she'd changed that much). That fighting grit, ready to break heads and take names. Then he swiveled the light back on the wall.

"Does that thing you have make recordings? I want to make a log of this. I need to translate it. Maybe I can convince that shady time agent I need to use his computer. That or my younger self. Hate asking my younger self for things. Makes me feel as though I've made no progress. Who are you again?"

Obviously a 'Scottish' man with an easy to follow train of thought.

[charmed_bastard]

"Picture and video," Pryce said automatically, and started scanning the wall.

The words to washed over her like the foam off of a freshly-popped bottle of soda. Some highly caffeinated soda. She digested about half of it; the rest had to be filed away for processing later. She'd sprain something in her head if she tried to follow it all.

"Corporal Halliwell. Station security." At least she could answer the questions that were directed at her.

[dominie]

"I'm the Doctor, I work in Ops." He at least explained that, which quite honestly was more than most people got. They pretty much caught words and had to hope for the best as Pryce had already learned she needed to do.

"There's a surge of energy. We're trying to figure out what the source is and what's causing it. It seems like... this is the best clue we've gotten."

He started to walk down the length of the wall, light trailing along those unusual symbols which he had no doubt was lettering. Simple, angular marks that were a fierce contradiction to Gallifreyan writing. Given enough time (and enough comparison) surely they could translate it.

"My kingdom for a Rosetta stone..." he muttered.

[charmed_bastard]

A surge of energy. Well. That was worrying. Extremely. Seeing how she was standing on a station that ran on energy. If it blew a fuse...

She scanned the strange markings herself, racking her brain; she did have the faint impression that if the strange man from Ops hadn't seen them before, she was SOL. Still, there was always the impulse, the innate human certainty that SHE could do it when others couldn't, if she just tried.

Despite said certainty, she was drawing a blank.

"Have you asked the computer?" she asked, flatly and without being worried that she was asking a stupid question.

[dominie]

"Ah, yes, the good old computer. Computer!" he said in a chipper voice, as if he had already spoken to it and wanted her to hear. "Explain to me the reasoning for this gathering of energy."

"Station is preparing for transit."

"Transitting what?"

"Multiple items."

"From what coordinates?"

"2-0-32 by 2-15 from Galactic Core, Entropy State 2.357. 5-56-2-5 by 2-3 from Galactic Core, Entr-"

"That's enough! What's the source of the energy."

"Engineering."

He looked to Pryce, motioning up into the air as if at the computer itself. "You would think with all the foes I've had that have given me riddles I would be acclimated to such behaviors, but then rarely do I receive such veiled language from something supposedly being helpful. I would suspect more mischief if it didn't need our opposable thumbs so badly."

[charmed_bastard]

Well, that was certainly typical for the computer. Damn computer.

Pryce nodded respectfully. "I meant, though... Computer, do you recognize the language on this wall?"

[dominie]

"Yes. Language is identified."

"Then what does it say?"

"Information is of a non-essential historical nature and is deemed classified. Translation unavailable."

The Doctor's mouth pursed up and he started along the wall again, pushing his hat back so it was a slanted on his headful of curly dark hair. "I suppose I don't need to translate it if it doesn't say so. But by Rassilon's foot I'm going to, rest assured of that."

[charmed_bastard]

Pryce's narrow eyes lidded to slits, a grim, satisfied smile stretching her mouth.

"You know what?" she said, with a healthy heaping of gallows optimism, "At least that was a straight answer. It had to admit it wasn't telling. Every time I get it to admit that it's doing this on purpose, I feel like I've won something."

She helpfully started scanning the wall again-- though not without wondering if K was going to growl at her for playing secretary to someone outside of her chain of command. She should come up with a good excuse. Something besides 'I don't know he was weirdly charismatic and it seemed like a fun puzzle.'

[dominie]

"We take every little bit that we can. I actually think it answers according to personality types that people prefer to deal with. I noted that it's a lot less disagreeable when speaking with the other artificial intelligences. I don't know what that says about me, though."

He found a duct in the floor, stomped on it to note that beneath it was hollow, and kept going. He might have to have that oversized man check in there later for anything interesting.

"It could be a memorial wall, I suppose. I don't doubt that there's still something significant here."

[charmed_bastard]

"Especially if the memorial says 'to all those lost when the twenty-year space fungus bloomed on the station'," Pryce muttered. "But why would they put a memorial way down here? There's ont much foot traffic."

"

[dominie]

"Yes... but if you notice the people aboard the station don't seem to pay much attention to anyone but themselves and each other. They ignore those of us that came on, so the people that might have come through here would have mostly been people like us. I presume anyway, since there wasn't much in the way of facilities management when we came.... Though memorial does seem a stretch, doesn't it?"

He reached the end of the writing anyway (though it wasn't the end of the wall), and a panel with a lever. Above it, more lettering he couldn't identify, below as well.

He rubbed his chin. There was a lever. He didn't know what it did. It could, for all he knew, blow the station up. He looked to Pryce, just to see if she was thinking similarly to him. That was the good thing about Doctors. They liked to keep people around for second opinions.

[charmed_bastard]

Pryce looked at him, and at the lever. She held up a finger, moving in to examine it. Glare at it. Try to see what it was connected to. Look for any suspicious bloodstains or signs of use.

Once she had given her uninformed, uniformed inspection (it was Security's job to glare at things, she felt in her bones; if she didn't pretend to know what she was doing she'd be doing it wrong) she stepped back brusquely, unholstered her weapon, and nodded to him.

[dominie]

He nodded as Pryce completed her man-zamination of the lever, and he gripped it firmly with a look of determination on his face.

And he threw it.

There was the sound of conduits powering up. A buzz of energy flowing through circuits and little machines ticking on. Then, with all the glory of creation.... the lights came on.

The Doctor switched off his torch. "Well, we've learned the words of 'on' and 'off'. I suppose that's a start."

[charmed_bastard]

"Do you want me to try to find any more instances of them in the wall?" Pryce offered, trying to make herself useful (even if the vague impression of K's glowering face was getting clearer in her head.)

She didn't have a brain for puzzles. She had a brain for security, tactics, fighting. Glaring at things. But this was the first real clue about anything on the station, anyone who might have come before--

Maybe a clue that would get her home to her mom.

[dominie]

"No, though there are androids that might be better at it than even me aboard the station. See if you can go get me one of them. I think any one will do." He made a vague motion at Pryce.

He wanted to get back as much as her, maybe because he knew he had something important waiting on him. Though he really wasn't done living. He wasn't tired of it yet.