rickitikitarr | 1. video

Entry tags:

1. video

[Ricki Tarr, latest inmate arrival, is still getting his feet under him. He's been on board for a little while now, but let's face it, he's a field agent from the 1970s, getting used to graphical user interfaces of his messenger has put up a bit of a roadblock in terms of his making contact.

By the time he's confident enough with the flimsy, cheeping little device to make a video post, his stomach is growling, so the very first message is a simple video shot.

It's poorly framed, he has no real idea of how to centre himself in the lens, and the light in his room is dark and low and terrible for any sort of filming. But from the dark, what's visible of his half-in-the-frame expression is still and steady;]

The first living creature to orbit the earth was a little Russian mongrel named Laika. She was a pretty thing, with a clever cast to her eyes and pricked up, pointed ears. On the fourtieth anniversary of the Bolshevik revolution they flung the little thing into the sky.

In fact, the Russians had been launching dogs into suborbital flights for a few years before, but none attained the notoriety or captured the imaginations of the world like little Laika. I was rather young when she was sent to space, but recall thinking the entire proceedings terribly inhumane.

The Soviets say that she was euthanized before her oxygen ran out. The British and Americans question whether that is true. The Russians question whether that questioning is deliberately spread propaganda meant to make them seem monstrous. In the time since, I think both sides have lost track of the original truth of the matter. But the question of her ultimate cause of death aside, I wondered whether she might be hungry, thirsty or afraid, uncomprehending of how it was possible to see stars all around her... I actually can't recall reading whether Sputnik 2 was like this ship, with windows or not. Laika may not have seen stars spinning in the sky, but I'm sure the sounds and sudden lack of gravity must have been rather frightening for such a little dog.

[His voice is low and steady, the pictures his paints are matter-of-fact and vivid. He accent is an odd, old one, London tempered by a childhood racing through Penang streets and other colonial holds. He takes his time with the story before concluding;]

Which is all to say, given the apparent flexibility of space and time on this vessel, if we see her while we're out here, I must simply insist that we make a stop.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

You really wanna stop for a dead dog?

Nonsense, dear, I'd like to go back and snatch her from the jaws of death. No one would need know we'd rescued her.

Oh.

[That could... actually work, probably. From what Tiffany's heard, the Barge does weird things with time.]

You know, if you want a dog, you could probably get one. You a warden?

[For a hairbrained second, Ricki wonders if he should say 'yes,' but someone would probably call him on it and no sense rocking the boat quite yet. So he goes with a more honest;]

I'm afraid not. A new inmate, actually. Are you a warden?

[Better ask than assume.]

Nope.

You seemed like a warden to me, all authoritative and shit.

[He chuckles, and sinks back a little bit, shrugging, a tiny bit more at ease.]

I've been out for a long time. I'm sure the art of doing time will come back to me soon.

I'm Tarr.

Tiffany. You were in prison before? Where?

Changi- it's in Singapore. You?

[It's easy, strangely, slipping back into this terse kind of communication. Most people he knows on the outside want details, adjectives, stories. Prison was all hard fact- part of that was obviously the language barrier, but he remembers it, hears it in how she talks now too, all questions, no preliminaries.]

Singapore? Ain't that in China or something? You don't look Chinese.

Closer to Malaysia, but back when I was a kid it was a British colony.

[Sort of an oversimplification, but if she thinks that a) Singapore is in China and b) he don't look Chinese, then honestly, he's not going to dive into the finer historical nuances of the conflict in the area.]

I ended up in the wrong place at the wrong time, as they say.

[She doesn't know where Malaysia is either, but she won't mention that.]

What'd you do?

People ask that here; it's normal. It was real rude where I come from.

Prisoner of war, that time, but I've had a spot of trouble since with some guns. What about you, if you don't mind my asking?

[She makes a finger gun and "shoots" it, mouthing pow.]

Same thing, with the guns.

[She's found that she feels less uncomfortable about talking about it when she doesn't go into detail.]

Happens.

[Is his sanguine, good-natured verdict. She's not going to find judgement from him, not on something like that.]

So what's it like here in comparison?

[She snorts.]

This place, compared to federal prison? It's fucking great, is what it is. Now, I was in minimum, but it still don't compare to the Barge. Here all the wardens are nice to you, the food's good, you get a nice room if you ask for one... there's a bar, and a pool, and a place you can change to make look like whatever you want it to.

Edited 2015-03-08 19:05 (UTC)

[Ricki is honest to god so confused about this place. It has the most fucked up priorities of anywhere he's ever been, and he's been some weird, weird places.]

A place you can change to... you're pulling my leg.

Don't believe me? Ask a warden to let you in the Enclosure. Mine made it look like the woods.

Really? That's incredible.

[This whole place is. Originally he'd considered the possibility that someone was doing this to him. He's been at Sarrat and seen Russian men 'released' to their own hospitals, their own commanders, spoken to with convincing brusque care and debriefed by their own. However, the scale of this doesn't make sense. Ricki isn't important enough to construct this level of a set for- and anyways, the Russians aren't this god damn imaginative, in his professional opinion.]

How do I go about finding the mess?

Just ask someone in the hallway. It's on level one.

One is up, eight is down, right?

If I climb, I should find it?

Yup. Open doors, you'll find it eventually. Or ask, like I said. Only don't ask someone who looks like an inmate because inmates are fuckers.

...aren't you and I both-?

There are some good inmates. Don't know about you yet.

But overall I like the wardens a lot better.

Well, I suppose that does make sense, if they're handpicked to be nurturing and... guide-y, if you will.

[Can't really fault her for that one.]

A couple of them really aren't. Like Chris-- he acts like an inmate, but he ain't a dick to me.

[Someday, she'll come to the realization that the reason Chris isn't a dick to her but some of the other inmates are is that she isn't a dick to Chris, but is to those other inmates. But that day is not today.]

[video]

[video]

[video]

[video]

[video]

[video]

[video]

[video]

[video]

[video]

[video]

[video]

[video]

[video]

[video]

[video]

[video]

[video]

[video]

[video]

[video]

[video]

[video]

[video]

[video]