taxonomites | 操作: [ location: Taxon Zoo ]

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操作: [ location: Taxon Zoo ]

Most animals, it turns out, are simple for all the complexities of a multitiered food chain (and the occasional group with fully formed temporal lobes). Many souls that see a great fake sky and don't know any better but to remember what they are. The simplicity of productive thought, a routine unvaried and safely housed, is refreshing when saddled between the choices of 'too much' and 'not enough.'

Eat, sleep, and eat.

That's more than can be said for the Extras who, for reasons only Hamsters might possibly understand, accepted her application for employment and gave her an officious khaki vest with her schedule folded neatly in the right pocket. It's almost as if they're conspiring to remind her of Simon, and she alternates between hating it completely and wearing it with wrinkled pride.

The work relationship itself is mutually beneficial: River gets to come in for free and has access to all the zoo's more entertaining hidden areas, and the zoo gets...

Well, in theory they get a nice young woman who stands at a kiosk and admits people to the butterfly room.

In reality, they get a nice young woman standing happily on one leg in the middle of the flock of flamingos as she bends down at the waist and, apparently, engages one of them in a staring contest.

"You're extinct," she informs it gently. The flamingo squawks at her but doesn't otherwise seem to care.

Hopefully no one is desperate to see the butterflies today.

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He's never seen a Firefly class ship before, of course. But even just glancing at the panels his previous suspicions of its woeful primitiveness, its childlike simplicity, are confirmed.

Not that simplicity is all bad. He's already fairly sure he could pilot this thing, and he hasn't even flicked a lever yet.

But the Master knows how to play dumb. He runs his hands tentatively over the controls, manufacturing an expression of keen interest, and 'accidentally' manages to activate first the navigational radar and then the ship logs.

"Oh dear," he murmurs, taking a startled step back with his hands up as the beeping begins. But surreptitiously he's gleaning what he can from the output readings. "I do apologize. I didn't mean to..."

Edited 2010-10-17 06:21 (UTC)

She's got her quirks, though, Serenity. Specialized adjustments that the crew's made for better running that aren't exactly apparent. Systems that have been rewired for efficiency. A personality all her own, this ship.

"S'alright," Kaylee says, pausing halfway to the controls. She's almost tempted to let it run, poor boat hasn't been anywhere in a long while. But, with practiced movements, she does shut it down again.

Maybe later.

"More controls down there," she sighs, pointing down the ladder between the two stations. "Got a lot to her, even for a smaller ship. You'd be surprised to see all the nooks and crannies on this boat. Don't think I've even found 'em all yet."

The Master watches her work, observing her movements closely even as he utters a laugh. "Certainly she's more complex than I gave her credit for." Again, there's a potential double-meaning to his words, if Kaylee happens to pick up on it.

And then he tilts his head. The ship may seem simple to him, but he's a centuries-old Time Lord. And she's human. A human girl. And young, by the look of it.

"How long had you been a member of her crew before..." The Master gestures out the cockpit window at Taxon. She may have told his impostor much more, but since his own arrival they've not actually gotten the chance to 'catch up', as it were.

The mechanic shrugs, eyes focused on the lights as they disappear from the panel. "She's pretty simple, compared to some of the Alliance cruisers, but they also got the money for it. Still, she's got her own preferred way of doin' things, her own sequence."

Her eyes leave the panel long enough to glance at the city outside.

"Nearin' three and a half years, I think it was. Met the Cap'n when I was seventeen, and he offered the job on the spot. I went up with 'em the same day."

The Master's eyebrows rise. "Something of a natural then, are you?" Either that, or the captain was in a great deal of trouble. Still he has to wonder what she'd make of a TARDIS. The way Kaylee describes the ship's 'uniqueness' almost echoes the Doctor's embarrassing affection for his own.

"Well..." Kaylee beams proudly, and gives him a little nod. "What my daddy called it, yeah. Natural talent." She lays an affectionate hand on Serenity's steering. "Machines...they just talk to me, y'know? Not in any actual words or nothin', but they do, in their own way."

"Do they?" the Master smiles back. "How fascinating." Inwardly he cringes a little. It's quite the sentimental frame she's chosen for the concept. He's well aware there are some machines that do, in fact, talk back, but he's avoided that all too human pitfall of becoming attached to one. His own TARDISes are all long gone.

He lays his own hand calculatingly close to Kaylee's, not quite touching.

"And what do they tell you?"

Kaylee's eyes dart to the Master's hand and back to his face quickly. She files it as nothing and shrugs.

"Oh, you know..." Obviously he doesn't, she thinks, if he's asking. "How they're feelin', where they're needin' help, how to fix 'em or put 'em together. Hell, I'd never even been in a Firefly 'fore I repaired Serenity here for the Cap'n, but she showed me what was wrong, and where..."

He doesn't miss the dart of Kaylee's eyes, but beyond a slight widening of his smile, he doesn't acknowledge it.

"How very fortunate for him that you came along," the Master practically purrs. An engineer operating on intuition-- oh, his other self definitely did something right by forming a friendship with her. And then a thought occurs to him.

"I don't suppose you've gotten any such... indications from the City itself?" It's far more advanced, of course, than a ship like this, but surely there are some mechanisms at work here to keep them imprisoned and maintain the facade.

"Would've happened eventually," she laughed. "Mechanic they had before me had 'em lookin' at the wrong problem from the start." Not that she minded their extra time there at all, seeing as Bester was a hell of a screw, and she did end up getting a job she might not have otherwise.

There's a pause as she tries to think up anything the city might have given her, but answers with a shake of her head. "Other than a bit of work on the tram? Not a thing. It don't give off much at all." Good at hiding things, these hamsters.

The Master wasn't expecting much-- of course she wouldn't be able to sense anything he couldn't, being a mere human after all-- but the answer still disappoints him, just a little. He hides it as best he can. And as he doesn't particularly want to hear all the ways the tram might be improved at the moment, he decides it might be time to move them along on the tour.

"I suppose it was worth a try," is all he says on that score, next straightening up abruptly and clapping his hands together softly.

"Well. Where to next?"

"Never hurts to try," Kaylee agrees.

Ah, but there are better things to focus on right now, aren't there? Kaylee bounces back toward the door and motions for him to follow her down the hallway.

"Mess is next," she says, sliding open the door. The large wooden table in the middle of the room, surrounded by mismatched chairs and flower-painted walls, she reveals to be the dining (http://www.labarc.com/Black/DiningRoom.jpg) room. To their left is the kitchen (http://www.labarc.com/Black/Stove.jpg), where she immediately heads to pour water into a pitcher for the flowers. On the other side of the kitchen are several chairs and couches, most with harnesses or seat belts attached, is a circular lounge area.

"Spend a lot of time in here with everybody," she continues, placing the filled pitcher and its flowers up on the counter. Perfect. "Table's always a place for good story sharin'."

'Mess' is something of an appropriate term, he finds. At least aesthetically so. The area has a certain folksy charm that perhaps someone else would find tolerable. Someone like the Doctor. Still, the Master smiles politely.

"They look good there," he nods at the flower pitcher. "What sort of stories?"

"They do, don't they? Give the place a little life that ain't so much metal."

That's what a home should be, after all. Life, and warmth, and a whole lot of love. She spends a moment arranging the flowers before giving an approving nod and stepping back around the counter.

"Any sort, really. What we did 'fore we came on the ship, what happened to everybody on the last mission out when we were all separated, that sorta thing. Adventures 'n jokes 'n ideas 'n everythin' you could imagine."

The scenario sounds dreadful, quite honestly. A bunch of grease-smeared, noisy apes jabbering around the dinner table. Something, perhaps, akin to his Malcassairo days. Although one thing does catch his attention.

"Missions? That would be your cargo deliveries, correct?" the Master asks, really only half-paying attention as he continues to survey the room. He couldn't imagine how much of an adventure something like that would be, personally, but then he isn't human.

"That'd be them, yep!" Given that the jobs they did weren't always exactly legal, there were plenty of adventures to be had. The make-up of the crew just added to that little adventure. You never knew what was going to happen next, which could be both part of the fun and part of the I Never Want To Do This Again. All depends on the day.

Kaylee points to the opening opposite the one they came through, and heads into the hallway beyond. "Engine room next..."

It isn't the engine room, not just the engine room.

There were ripples, little echos of disturbance (and wasn't that just like him to not leave well enough alone) when she got home. All of them piling on top of foreign words and a flamingo bite until she was running through the dull ache of it up the steps behind the infirmary.

Bare feet make a very distinct plat plat plat sound against metal, she finds, but the realization is gone again when she sees them.

"You don't belong here."

Paranoia bubbles over so easily around him, and it's the Master she's looking at.

The Master's dutifully trotted behind Kaylee into the hallway leading to the engine room, his head turned toward that distinctive sound. Someone running. It's something of a surprise when it turns out to be a small, barefoot girl, but he's more irritated by the interruption than anything else.

He stares back at her like an animal in a territorial standoff, but he keeps his tone pleasant if pointed. "I was under the impression none of us belonged here. Have we met?"

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操作: [ location: Taxon Zoo ]

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