(Untitled)

[laws_of_nature]

Who: Count D; absolutely open!
Where: The deck, elsewhere
When: Today, mid-afternoon onwards
What: Gettin' acquainted with the Barge.
Note: Multiple threads encouraged! D's going to be wandering so feel free to bump into him in pretty much any of the public areas.

Comments

[buywithme]

Prefect had been in the kitchen for the last hour and a half going over the inventory. The repetitive, mechanical recording process was familiar enough to relax him somewhat without reminding him how far he still was from home. He was just tucking what he considered a reasonable payment for his work (three packets of instant chicken noodle soup) into his suit pocket, as he stepped out of the dining room and came face to face with D.

Prefect took a very quick step back, and cleared his throat, tucking the dried soup packets a little deeper into his pocket to conceal them.

"Excuse me, Miss."

[buywithme]

Prefect shrugged a little, "Maybe once or twice a month? Sometimes less frequently, they only last a few days each, but it's impossible to predict exactly when they're coming or what they'll do."

[laws_of_nature]

"I understand."

He looked at Prefect, his smile half-hidden behind one hand. "Do you always go to such pains to be so helpful? I would have imagined that after such a long time, you would be somewhat hardened to new arrivals."

[buywithme]

"I try to be helpful to everyone." Prefect replied cheerily, "I mean, everyone within reason. I guess when you've been here for a while you learn to be a little more careful about who you approach, but I try to help anyone I can."

[laws_of_nature]

"That's very good of you," D said. He wondered if it was worth asking about who specifically he should be careful of, but he didn't want to meet anyone on board with preconceptions lent to him by a human. So he focused back on current company instead.

"I have been given to believe that there are people here from all manner of different worlds. Have you come alone from your home, Prefect?"

[buywithme]

Prefect nodded in response to D's question, "I used to think that there was nothing else anywhere in the universe. That my home... the way we lived had extended to every corner of existence." He gave a slight shrug and a half smile, "No one here has ever heard of it before."

"I'm sorry, were you going to the kitchen? If you wanted to get something to eat or drink, it's right through there." Prefect inclined back in the way he'd come from.

[laws_of_nature]

"Thank you, but no, not specifically. I've just been trying to get my bearings." He would go back to his own cabin for tea, and pick over whatever the Barge's residents considered to be food later. "This place seems quite well-appointed, for a prison," he noted.

[buywithme]

"It's a strange sort of Prison." Prefect conceded, "Sometimes I think it's more like a hospital, or an asylum. Only instead of being crazy, people are just..." He trailed off, then conceded a little guiltily, "Well, maybe some of them are crazy."

"So why did you come here, Comrade?" He asked.

[laws_of_nature]

"Fulfilling my purpose at home had become...difficult," D said, choosing his words, not quite lying. He had possibly died - it couldn't get more difficult than that. "Almost impossible, in fact. The Admiral was kind enough to offer me a second chance to continue my work."

[buywithme]

"You said you... helped people reach their potential?" Prefect asked, curiously, "What area did you help them in? Were you a personal assistant or something?"

[laws_of_nature]

D smiled indulgently. "I was a salesperson, of a sort. My merchandise helped people to understand the truth about themselves...about the people around them. Unfortunately, circumstances were such that I was forced to close my shop."

He had wondered at where he might travel next...Europe, perhaps, where the people were quieter and the food was (as a rule) less revolting. Somewhere like Venice or Berlin would have been a holiday compared to Los Angeles. It was all academic now, though, he supposed.

"And yourself?"

[buywithme]

Prefect's polite smile turned into a large, genuine grin at the news that D had worked in a shop, "That is excellent, brother! I mean, not that you were forced to close, but selling things, I believe that systems of commerce are the finest institutions there can be."

"I was a Prefect." He added simply.

[laws_of_nature]

He was a little bemused by the concept that Prefect's job and title were one and the same, and that he thought he was elucidating anything with his answer. D understood 'prefect' to refer to a number of roles, spanning from the administration of ancient Rome to the affairs of the Catholic Church to the micromanagement of schools in the British Commonwealth.

"A Prefect of what?"

[buywithme]

"A Prefect of the central sales floor of the Factory, Division B." Prefect smiled warmly, then it occurred to him that since so far, literally no one in the entirety of the barge had ever heard of the Factory, it might be an idea to give a little more explanation than that. "I'm sorry, the Factory is... it's a little hard to explain. It's simultaneously, a location, a business, and a governing body. That's where I'm from, and I was a Prefect there."

[laws_of_nature]

"Mmm."

A location, a business, and a governing body...informing a way of life that extended to every corner of existence. D, who possessed a recollection of the Earth long before it had been so much as touched by human hands, couldn't help but imagine: a single conglomerate, a hungry juggernaut, consuming all else that lay before it, rolling across the plains and mountains until every corner of the globe had been violated...humanity at its ugliest and most undeserving.

"So there was nothing else in this world? Only your Factory?"

[buywithme]

Prefect hesitated for a second. He knew what he'd been taught to believe. That outside the factory there was nothing but a ruined earth. Acid seas, un-breathable air, and wasted soil. That the golden sands and vast blue oceans that they'd advertised to inspire the lower castes, did not exist. It was the only way he'd ever known the world. Just like the only way the workers had ever known the world was the way they'd shown it to them. Just like the people of O'Brien's Party had only ever known the world as a place filled with war and spies.

Prefect pushed the thoughts away and nodded quickly, "That's right, Brother. There was nothing else." He should smile. He should really smile. Prefect smiled.