2021-02-14: Natural to be Curious
- Log: Natural to be Curious
- Cast: Josephine Lovelace, Antenora
- Where: Akasha Surface Station
- Date: February 14, 2021
- Summary: Josie and Antenora have a talk within the Akasha Surface Station, as the system nears coming online in full.
<Pose Tracker> Josephine Lovelace has posed.
"So, you think you lot've got it figured out, huh?"
Within the heart of the facility, the researchers are busier than ever. It must have been a coup for Vinsfeld, getting these guys on his side, Josie muses, watching them as they work on the ancient consoles. But then again, she's had new appreciation for his words in Elru of late.
"Yes, ma'am," says one of the researchers, who doesn't even look up from her screen. "We think we've overcome the major hurdles. It might be operable in a few weeks, if that. It's just a matter of telling the rest of the system to 'wake up'!"
Josie goes so far as to arch a pale eyebrow. Sadly, one of these killjoys made her put out her cigarette ('no smoking in the command center!'). She's found since her return that she's largely superfluous, at that -- not that there's all that much she has to offer them in regards to help.
It's not like any of the keys to the door, so to speak, had any kind of manual with them. They were just... parts.
Her role in this business is just about done -- if it isn't already -- and yet...
"And then what?" she asks, a question that prompts the researcher to pause mid keystroke.
<Pose Tracker> Antenora has posed.
Hard at work, naturally. For the new world.
Antenora has been busy, naturally. She has a lot to keep up with, a lot to do, not to mention her information gathering... But she makes time to be around the research at times, too. For a few reasons. One of them is currently not-smoking in the command center.
Antenora's heels click along the tiles as she walks from the entrance of the room further in, rather more audible than she had been before, when she first stepped in.
"I suppose it's natural to be curious," she comments as she comes to a stop at the other side of the researcher, looking down at the screen thoughtfully and back at Josie again.
Nothing unusual here.
<Pose Tracker> Josephine Lovelace has posed.
She -- the researcher -- never does need to answer.
Josie turns towards the sound.
"Huh," she breathes after a moment. "Wasn't expecting to see you here. Vinsfeld send you to check up on this business?" she asks, gesturing vaguely towards the array of consoles and keyboards. "To hear this lot tell it, they're about on the brink of workin' it all out." Her lips split in a lopsided grin. "So, what's the plan?"
She pauses a moment before approaching Antenora.
"I figure this one's my baby, near enough, and here I am, cut out of the loop. Eh?" She punctuates the remark with another flash of a grin, as if to somehow slightly disarm the comment.
<Pose Tracker> Antenora has posed.
"Part of the job," Antenora answers simply, without actually answering the question of whether Vinsfeld specifically sent her to check this out. She does a lot of not answering in her line of work, in fact. she's about to do some more of it. Indeed, she looks over the technician and nods, after a moment, and then returns her attention to Josie, approaching. A grin--to disarm it. Of course. But Antenora does not look terribly disarmed. Instead...
"Remind me," says the member of Cocytus. "Did you have any particular theories as to the device's function?"
<Pose Tracker> Josephine Lovelace has posed.
Certain rumors spread fast -- Josie of course knows exactly what Antenora and Vinsfeld are to one another. If she's here, without question it means the situation with the device is...
She regards the Cocytus information master anew.
Closer than she thought, huh.
The technician for her part looks a little uneasy, glancing at the two of them the once, before turning away. It becomes suddenly very easy for her to bury herself in her work at the console.
"Theories? Hah, it ain't like the Zeboim left a manual, right?" she remarks, waving her left hand through the air as if to dismiss the very notion of it.
"But I've a few thoughts. All this business down here..." she gestures generally at the consoles and humming machines, "the deal with the keys... hell, even where some of 'em were found."
She turns her attention away from the machinery in here and back at Antenora.
"It's a weapon, ain't it."
<Pose Tracker> Antenora has posed.
Information master is right--as is Josie's thought that she wouldn't be here for no particular reason. She stays busy, has duties that take up a lot of time... and one assumes she spends a good amount of time with Vinsfeld, considering. But the technician glancing away is for the best. Antenora nods her way and then focuses again on Josephine. 'Josephine', notably. Not 'Josie.'
"I suppose they didn't," Antenora answers, noting it. "But thoughts... Yes, I thought you had some."
The consoles, the machines--Antenora waits for Josephine to note her idea. And what she says...
"It can be," Antenora answers. She doesn't have to say that it probably will be. "Used the right way. Originally, it appears to have been a weather management system."
<Pose Tracker> Josephine Lovelace has posed.
Just a touch, Josie arches an eyebrow.
"Weather control...?" She rubs at her chin thoughtfully, as if to take it in. "Huh. No, I think I get it. They didn't build it as a weapon." She glances over at the console, where the researcher types away furiously.
"But it ain't hard to think of how it could be..."
Her attention returns to Antenora. "Or even used as intended, eh? Maybe when all this business is done." Loosely, she folds her arms over her chest, her expression for the moment distant, perhaps, as if she were thinking.
"Sounds like these lot're getting close to getting it running," she remarks, absently, before glancing at Antenora sidelong.
<Pose Tracker> Antenora has posed.
Antenora notes this. The thoughtful way she considers it wouldn't be unusual--but something has caught Antenora's interest. "Like you suggested before. Though after what you've seen I can't blame you changing your mind. Especially how it's likely to be used."
It's very easy to think of how to use it as a weapon--Antenora doesn't have to go into the details. She just sets a hand on the back of the technician's chair. "Yes," she says, "You can see how useful it would be in peacetime, too. ...But then, it is 'your baby.'"
She pats the chair back. "And they've done very good work on it. ...I'll let you know when it's ready for use."
Not 'you get to decide how it's used', but still something.
<Pose Tracker> Josephine Lovelace has posed.
For just a second, Josie pauses.
Then grins. "Right. I think I did say something like that. Almost forgot, really." She glances over at Antenora, lips curved in what can only be called a sort of 'good cheer'. "But it's been some time, yeah? And I've learned a good bit since."
She turns, glancing at the screens and their assorted readouts. Code, interspersed with Zeboim characters, runs at speed across them, the evidence of the work that the researchers have managed.
"Yeah..."
She smiles, lopsidedly.
"No one likes seein' their kid go to war or none," she remarks, quietly.
Turning, the archaeologist unfolds her arms. "Yeah. Keep me posted, right? ...Even if it's for war, I'd like to see it."
<Pose Tracker> Antenora has posed.
Just a second. Nothing particularly notable.
"Right. Things change." It's definitely a kind of good cheer. Definitely something like that anyway. "And you have. We all have."
Antenora does not glance at the screen at the moment; she continues to watch Josephine for right now, down to that lopsided smile. "...That's true," Antenora says, and seems if anything a little distant for a moment when Josephine makes that remark about kids going to war. She shakes her head, and instead nods.
"Yes. Your expertise might be useful again." And even if it isn't... Well. Antenora is 'nice' enough to let her know. Maybe that's it.
<Pose Tracker> Josephine Lovelace has posed.
Josie even has the scars to prove it.
Change rarely comes gently, after all.
"Heh... I suppose I'll have to earn my keep or such again, eh?" she quips, speaking nearly as if they were old friends. "Sure enough. I'll see what I can do when the time comes. Right now... I figure I'm just getting in their way, right?" One hand props on her hip. "So, any news or what from elsewhere? I've been out of the loop and all since the Guild Galad operation."
<Pose Tracker> Antenora has posed.
She does, at that.
"Mm-hm." Antenora remains calm, taking her hand back off of the chair again and leaving the poor technician to her own devices. But she did give her approval? Maybe it balancess out.
Nearly like old friends. "For now yes," Antenora says. "It's not a problem to check in now and then... But you're better off just waiting unless you learn the language." Since she did say she'd tell her. But news for elsewhere...?
"Lay low in Spira. Other than that, nothing in the immediate future that you need to worry about. Stay ready, though--there might be an opportunity to act we haven't seen yet."
"...And be careful."
<Pose Tracker> Josephine Lovelace has posed.
If the poor technician has just had her hearrate accelerate dangerously or is sweating due to Antenora's proximity -- and the extra focus that comes with such attention -- she doesn't show it. She keeps typing away, working diligently.
Antenora's attention is of course not as dangerous as the attention of certain others of Cocytus might be. But to be under the watchful eye of one of Vinsfeld's inner circle can hardly be calming, regardless of such things.
Josie, by contrast, appears to act naturally around Antenora. Then again, this is hardly their first encounter with one another.
"No chance of that at my age," Josie laments with a sigh, her shoulders rising and falling with the remark. "Especially not with my track record, lately. I hear tell Guild Galad or summat's put a price on my head. Pity, would've been lovely to have a walk again around their shops. But beggars and choosers... or something like that?"
It's not quite the right metaphor (not in the slightest) but it'll have to do.
"Spira, eh? I heard it was heating up again. They having it out? ...Don't have to tell me twice." She smiles, disarmingly. "Seems like it's right enough time to get acquainted with things local-like... where they ain't offering hard cash for my head, right."
Careful, Antenora says.
Josie's response is a helpless smile.
<Pose Tracker> Antenora has posed.
Some might say there are always more technicians. ...Antenora isn't one of them; she isn't the one likely to harm them for some perceived inadequacy... though she wouldn't be shy about replacing an operative who didn't seem to do their job. Still dangerous.
"I guess not." No chance at her age, with her track record. "Something like that," she agrees, without commenting too much on the misplaced metaphor or the price for that matter.
"It is," Antenora agrees, willing enough to warn Josephine about that. She is not particularly disarmed, but then, she never really is.
She's a different kind of danger.
"I'm sure you will."
And then, that smile... Well. Antenora shakes her head. "All right."
She already gave her farewell, so she turns to go.
<Pose Tracker> Josephine Lovelace has posed.
Someone like Antenora can't afford to be disarmed, at any point. Even among their own ranks, there are likely those who would prefer to see her gone. And for those for who Odessa stands in opposition to, well.
But the sort of danger that Antenora presents is far different from the sort of danger her fellows among Vinsfeld's inner circle form.
"Don't worry. I'll keep my head down," Josie promises Antenora, though even here that glimmer in her eye -- one that promises some variety of trouble -- is hardly dimmed.
"You watch yourself, too, right," she says to Antenora as she turns to leave this part of the Akasha base, turning to watch the younger woman before Josie's attention shifts ultimately back to the scroll of code across so very many displays.
It may be to the technician's relief that she doesn't say anything more, her presence a quiet one within this room for a time more.