thisavrou | [voice]

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[voice]

[Ryuuzaki's low voice is accented in a way that people from places other than the U.K. might think of as "generically English," and when the message begins, his tones are pleasant and measured without being effusive.]

Hello, everyone.

The Ingress has brought us to the Moira from any number of places. When I meet someone, I can't say whether our similarities will outweigh our differences, or vice-versa... when you're this far from home, even small commonalities can seem important. It's led me to be curious about the broad strokes of everyone's backgrounds.

[A pause, as he approaches his real question.]

What can you tell me about the government in the place you came from before this? Both the form of government and, if possible, specific names of leaders.

If it wasn't your original home, I'd be interested in hearing about that, too, even down to what year it was for you.

If you'd prefer to answer privately, that's all right with me. I can promise you my discretion.

Thank you.

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It's been a while since there's been any form of government, where I'm from. I don't even remember the name of our last leader.

[There's a pause, and she sounds a little unsure as she gets out the next part.]

Why do you want to know?

It's a way of establishing commonalities without asking anything that will necessarily be personal, and it may show some general patterns in everyone's backgrounds and expectations.

[This is only the secondary reason why he's asking, but it already seems like someone mentioning van Rijn is a remote possibility... which is for the best.]

Was there some sort of crisis to cause the breakdown in governance?

There was uh -

[There's a split second decision on her part to be bluntly honest with him. Whether he thinks she's lying or joking is on him.]

Zombies.

[Yeah, that's getting awkward to say to people here. No one thinks she's serious, which now has her discussing home with a flatness that's detached.]

I'm still not sure where it originally started, but everything fell apart about four years ago. There hasn't been anyone in charge since. What about where you're from? What are things like there?

I understand.

[His tone is a little more serious for that, a little less businesslike; there might be a touch of sympathy in it if someone is looking to hear it.

A few years earlier he would not have believed her... it's possible that he would even have been mildly derisive, at least internally. But now she's not the first person he's been around whose world has experienced that kind of crisis.]

No zombies where I'm from. I suppose it's tempting for everyone to say "normal," because it's normal to them. But there are some broad strokes: the United Nations exists, the Soviet Union broke apart, America is still a superpower, the U.K., France, Germany, and Japan maintain influence, China appears to be rising, and so on.

[He elects, for the moment, not to mention Kira. You never know who's going to come in through the Ingress, and there are about 10,000 people he'd rather not see on the Moira. Several thousand of them could even be genuine problems.]

I didn't pay attention to things before everything changed. I was young, and I guess it wasn't important to me then.

[Not that it's particularly important to her now, but remembering that the world had some kind of order to it is nice in a painfully nostalgic sort of way.]

What mattered before I ended up here was who was leader of your group. If you had someone strong, you were more likely to survive. It's probably going to be like that here, too. There's people in a position of power, maybe, but it's the small groups that people make together that are going to influence things in the long run.

That's an astute observation. It's certainly been my experience in the past.

Do you think that's ideal, or merely inevitable?

I don't think anything here is ideal. It's captivity disguised as an adventure. Any groups that form and start to influence things will have power. That's inevitable, no matter where you are.

Possibly. Do you think that kind of thing should be allowed?

I think that saying it isn't allowed would only lead to trouble. People are naturally going to form groups. It's part of being human.

All right, I'll put it another way: do you think it would be best for us to pursue a balance of power, if this situation arises? If there were only two factions, they might become extremely polarized, and there might be a lot of pressure to declare loyalty to one or another. Three or more might be more viable.

[He's not sure that the Captains deserve his loyalty or anyone else's, or that they might not break into factions themselves at some point, but it does seem to him like that's one way to preserve a degree of neutrality... unless a powerful enough group forms to challenge the ship's existing authority.]

There's more than one Captain here, right?

[She's not about to come right out and say she suspects they'll branch off and all try to do their own thing eventually where they could potentially hear, but she's clearly implying it without saying it directly.]

There's always going to be pressure and conflict when you get this many people together and shove them in one place. I'm not sure there's any way to avoid it, or regulate an actual balance. Whatever happens, you just have to react and hope your choice doesn't mean you die or end up at the bottom of the food chain.

Yes. There are three, to my knowledge.

[Which could be a balance of its own, but it's hard to say until things begin to shake out, if they ever do. And from what he's seen so far, events in that direction might involve ambitious crew members against an alliance of the captains... in his experience, it's typical for people in the crew's position, pulled from their lives without their consent and essentially conscripted into service, to resent people like the captains, regardless of whether or not they're benevolent.]

I think you're correct... however, I also think you've experienced an extreme situation. It's possible that life here will never be that difficult -- or only rarely and intermittently. I've seen tenuous order maintained in situations much more strained than this one.

How long did it take for things to fall apart, after the zombies became a factor?

[Grateful for the fact he's taking her seriously, she's much less hesitant when she answers his question now.]

Days. A week, at most. It was fast.

[She understands that she experienced an extreme situation, and that things here aren't anything like that. But it's because of the extremes that she experienced that she assumes the worst will eventually happen. ]

Life here is easier. I don't think I've had something to eat and an actual bed to sleep in every night in years.

Sometimes things like that are fast.

[What she's said also means that whatever caused the zombies in her world happened both quickly and on a massive scale.

Things on the Tranquility... they were never quite as extreme as that, but there were any number of worrisome fluctuations that had led him to think more than once that they might be close to some kind of edge. And he'd always looked a little askance at people's pets, even Petrelli's dog Izzie, knowing that a day of hard choices was likely to come if they weren't all extremely lucky.

It hadn't happened yet, and now he's just relieved to be away from it. Three potentially unreliable captains are currently proving preferable to the leadership structure he'd left behind -- if two usurpers, and whatever Smiley was in relation to the ship's original captain, could be called that.]

That isn't all there is to want. What would you improve here?

[She's never been asked what she'd want to improve before. The question takes her off guard, and she finds she's really not sure how to answer.]

I'm not sure. I haven't been here long enough to know what needs to be improved.

[Being honest about that makes her feel stupid, but it's better for her to feel like an idiot than just ramble meaningless answers and blow smoke up this guy's ass.]

The job I've been assigned is Intelligence Operative. I'm guessing I can figure out things that need to be made better once I've been working long enough.

Intelligence operative. That must be a difficult job.

[It's also the one he's been assigned to, which he's reluctant to state outright, but a little less so than he is to tell people that he is, more than anything, a detective. It would erode any chance of effectiveness, he thinks, and endanger him in certain circumstances.]

However, I wasn't only talking about needs. What would you want?

It hasn't been difficult so far.

[Then again, she hasn't had the time to do much. She's been so busy adjusting to her new life here and going over to grab supplies off Del Pascia that she really hasn't had time to settle into a steady work routine. Once she does, it will likely be another story.

She'd rather think about that than what she wants, she realizes. The question makes her extremely uncomfortable, to the point she seems ready to crawl out of her skin. ]

I don't think about things I want, though. It's easier not to do it.

[There's less disappointment that way.]

I just want to be someplace safe.

Safety seems like the least we could hope for, but it seems hard to achieve sometimes.

[If that carries any implications about any of his most recent homes... well, he's not angling the conversation around them so much as right through them.

Is it hard to think about the future when the possibility of one has seemed unlikely for a while? He projects the likely outcome of events, but planning for a personal future has eluded him, has seemed moot in many senses. There's money set aside, or there was, but before his first abduction, there hadn't really been much consideration on his part about what he'd be doing in six months or a year, because it was certainly either "working" or "dead." Thinking about himself in the context of a personal life would probably have been a signal to retire.]

Still, this must be better than zombies. It's better than any number of things.

It is.

[She manages a slight smile, because this place is better than zombies. She's got a bed, and food, and running water. She's starting to gain weight and almost looks healthy, but she knows time is what will help with that. Just getting to eat and rest do wonders.]

I get to meet and talk with people like you. It's not bad at all.

[She just can't not think of it as being a captivity situation, no matter how hard she tries. Focusing on the good parts helps appease her anger at the fact she was pulled in against her will, but it doesn't blind her completely to the fact that she doesn't have any idea why she was really brought here. Being told something is great, but she can't stop being paranoid about the fact that isn't the truth.]

It could be worse.

"People like me," though... what sort of person am I?

[There's some vague amusement in that; usually the only description he looks for is "effective," but in the past, he's received any number of adjectives, many of them unflattering.]

[She's not expecting him to turn it on her and actually ask her to give a description. So she's a little bewildered at first and falls silent, trying to figure out how she honestly thinks of him. This is only their first conversation, but they've talked at length and has formed some kind of an idea.]

You don't treat me like I'm stupid, or just something that's nice to look at.

[Not being objectified is something she's only just now getting used to, and it's something she appreciates him doing. He talks to her like she's his equal, and she likes that.]

You're...respectful. And ask things other people here wouldn't think to. Is...is that enough?

[Please don't ask her to elaborate further.]

Yes, I think so.

[She is reasonably nice to look at, in the video feeds he's eavesdropped on, but that's largely irrelevant for their current purposes.]

To be honest, I can't even decide whether or not this is a predicament. It's a vast improvement for me on where I was before, but it isn't home.

There really isn't any reason for me to assume that the kind of place I spent most of my life in was standard, or normal, but it seems to be one of a range of common possibilities. No zombies, no alien invasions, no real magic; most of the danger coming from politics... criminals... accidents... and normal human mistakes.

[While the shinigami and their notebooks, a late discovery on his part, might count as magic, he elects not to bring them up on the network for the time being.]

It was like that for me, until four years ago. There must be so many different versions of Earth out there, all running parallel. Different things happen in each of them, but there's similarities, too. I'm twenty-two years old. Life was no zombies, magic, or aliens up until I was eighteen.

[Which means she still has hope for it to go back to the way things were back home.]

What year was it for you, before you came here?

2004. I was in my mid-twenties. Then a few years on the ship I was on prior to this one... I really can't tell you exactly how long, or when or where it was, except that it was in very deep space for the majority of the time that I was on it.

I may be... twenty-seven, twenty-eight? I can't say.

[If he could, he wouldn't; he's saying this much because there's no more specificity to offer.]

It was 2015, when I ended up here.

[Somehow, trading the information makes her feel better. More secure, because she knows they're relatively close in age and that he's managed to make it through space for a while now. He's a survivor too, even if their circumstances and backgrounds weren't the same.]

Age doesn't really matter though, you know. It's what you've been through and what your mind feels like that counts.

[She isn't sure why she adds that on, except to insist that even if he can't keep track of the time and doesn't know how old he really is, that it's only how old he feels that counts.]

I guess that makes me closer to fifty than twenty-five, but who's keeping track?

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