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[thievingrumors]

Kasumi was most certainly bored, as was illustrated by her hanging off the sofa at an awkward angle in the recreational room. Her sock-clad feet were hanging over the back of one of the chairs and her head was dipping close to the floor. The woman’s eyes were firmly locked on the hand held mobile device in her hand.

Her eyes scanned the screen. She was looking for anything in the database that would be remotely helpful. Thus far she was coming up empty and her attempts to hack into the system were being met with mostly frustration. Every time she would get through one firewall, four more would pop up and then eventually she would be booted off the server and have to start all over again. It was almost as if the system was evolving to her attacks.

She sighed heavily as she flicked to another page in the cortex. She was definitely going to have to resort to stealing things again. Clearly there was nothing better to do on the ship and the largest source of her amusement thus far. That was sad.

“Well, I think it’s settled. I’m officially in hell,” this said as she tossed her communicator onto the coffee table.

Comments

[thievingrumors]

“He was a good man,” her gaze goes a little distant. It’s probably the only fully honest thing she’s going to say to Gaius. She shakes the thought from her head and continues, “I’m sorry to hear you lost someone as well.” She was quite sure they weren’t similar situations but appreciated the sympathy.

“I’m sure it would be more interesting if you had more tools to work with. A microscope and some slides aren’t much,” on a scale of one to generous it was actually pretty damn frugal.

His question on the observation deck seems sudden, “Briefly but I didn’t stay long.” That was an outright lie. She had a conversation with that Katniss girl there. “Is there something particularly fascinating about the Observation Deck?”

[nomoremrnicegaius]

"You're probably right," he says. "I suppose things would be easier if we had the proper tools at our disposal. We'd probably have some idea what we were injected with and then maybe have some clue as to why we were brought onboard this station and our captors wouldn't want that, now would they? It would probably ruin their big plans."

There's irritation there. Clearly, he's not happy about the limited resources at his disposal himself. In fact, he's quite frustrated. Even Galactica had more for him to work with than this.

Mentioning Caprica probably didn't much to improve his mood, either.

He leads the way out of the Science Labs and towards the Observation Deck. "It's the only place on the station that feels anything like home," he says. "Or what's left of it, anyway." He didn't frequently get out of the labs at Galactica, but occasionally he'd make it out to the observation deck. It was at strange hours because most of his work aboard the ship was done at strange hours and really, strange hours were the only hours he could avoid the couples kissing in the seating area.

The same could be said for Proserpina. Minus the couples anyway. He had his doubts anyone here would ever get romantically involved. They were all holding out hope that someday they'd be returned home, probably. No use getting involved in a relationship that would unceremoniously end without warning one day.

[thievingrumors]

Genuine concern touched Kasumi’s features, “I don’t exactly like the thought that we’ve been injected by anything.” Her hand instinctively went to the back of her neck. The thought of something just floating around in her blood didn’t exactly make her feel warm and or fuzzy about the place they’d been trapped in.

She fell into walking beside him on the way to the Observation Deck, “My quarters were actually in the Port observation deck on the Normandy.” It was actually a pretty nice gig if you ignored everyone coming in to get drunk. She kind of felt her room was meant to be a poker den that they’d just plopped a bed into because they had to put her somewhere. Funny that’s exactly what the alliance turned it into after they’d taken the ship.

That’s fine, she’d taken all of her books and a few of Shep’s toys before the ship had been commandeered. At least the Alliance had let them all get their belongings before evicting them all.

Thanks for saving the universe, now get the hell out.

“I don’t think anyone from a non-spacefaring home can say the same.” The whole space thing seemed to unnerve a fair number of people.

[nomoremrnicegaius]

Gaius turns his head to face Kasumi, his expression serious. "Neither do I. Finding out what exactly they do is my goal for the time being; discovering some way to deactivate or destroy the nanites is what I plan to research afterwards." If the nanites do prove to be useful in some way, it may be worthwhile to allow them to continue to swim in his bloodstream. In particular, there were certain people aboard the Proserpina who he suspects are better off without their powers at full strength.

His thoughts immediately flicker to Erik.

"It's probably not surprising, but the closest thing I had to quarters aboard Galactica were the science labs there," he says. "I spent most of my time there even when I was vice-president, looking at blood samples. A friend of mine used to tell me often that all of this has happened before and that all of this would happen again. I never thought much of it at the time, but now I'm wondering if maybe I should have taken her a bit more seriously."

He stops in front of the door to the Observation Deck long enough for it to whir open, then steps inside. He doesn't stop until he's a good half-foot away from the windows.

"I come out here to look out for familiar star systems," he says, shifting his hands into his jacket pockets. "I studied astrometrics at the University of Caprica, along with computer programming and biology. I haven't seen anything familiar yet."

[thievingrumors]

Well, the nanites didn’t seem to be causing any major issues, right? Kasumi decided it was best to push the thought of tiny, electronic microorganisms living in her bloodstream from her mind. That was probably a better idea, particularly when her thoughts started to shift to what could be done with those nanites and how it wouldn’t be impossible to shut down, say, oh, one’s entire nervous system with them.

Because that wasn’t a chilling thought or anything.

“Huh,” it sounded like a cryptic prophecy about the Reapers and it was also a great distraction from the terrifying little nano-bugs floating through their bloodstream. “I can’t say I haven’t heard something similar,” Except no one ever believed things like that. No one wanted to admit that things were far from perfect in the universe and that alone was both amusing and frustrating.

Kasumi follows Gaius into the room, dropping the outfit from the wardrobe onto one of the benches. She moved over to the window to look outside, she wasn’t a navigator or a pilot so stars looked like stars to her. Looking at the stars was always somewhat relaxing, so quiet and vast.

“Stars aren't generally my thing and I never finished my degree in computer sciences,” surprisingly an honest statement. She had dropped out of college in her last year. The whole system was boring and she wasn’t actually learning anything. She was simply showing everyone else how brilliant she was and that wasn’t what she wanted. She learned more from Keiji than she ever had in university, granted, any school that was willing to teach how to bypass advanced security systems would probably lose their galactic accreditation.

[nomoremrnicegaius]

"Didn't think my degree in astrometrics would be of any use until I was asked to plot a course to Earth," Gaius says. "It was actually the first degree I earned. And until the Cylon attack, the most useless."

He folds his arms over his chest, eyes scanning the skies for something familiar. He finds nothing. No stars he remembers from staring up at the skies of Aerilon as a child. None that he remembers from looking at endless star charts aboard the Galactica. None of this is familiar to him, though if this galaxy is as endless as his own, it should be no surprise.

"There's very little I actually learned at the University of Caprica that I wouldn't have been able to learn independently," he says, and for once, it sounds like he's not bragging. "If it weren't for the diploma, I would have saved me the eight years and spent it doing something more useful."

[thievingrumors]

Kasumi smiles softly, “That is precisely why I didn’t finish my degree. Things I picked up on my own were far more useful than anything I ever picked up in a classroom.” And besides, she wasn’t going to be engineering a system, she needed to know how to take them apart and that wasn’t going to be something she really learned in software analysis 101.

The woman has to bite back a comment about teaching the damn class. “Degrees are just useless pieces of paper anyway,” she offered a small wave of her hand, “Or rather they’re expensive pieces of paper.”

Kasumi leaned forward, resting the palms of her hands on the lip of the window. “So, you were just a scientist before the Cylons attacked your homeworld?” She was assuming he was either a rich scientist or a rich playboy with time on his hands. No one ended up with 3 degrees and a doctorate without one or both of those options.

[nomoremrnicegaius]

"Degrees matter a great deal to those doing the hiring. There are plenty of people who will judge you based on your education, among other things." That was part of the reason why he collected degrees the way other people might collect rocks or model ships.

"Programmer, actually," he answers, still gazing out of the window. "I was lead defense systems developer working for the Colonial Ministry of Defense. I had finished programming the Command Navigation Program for the military shortly before the Cylon attack."

He turns to look at Kasumi. "And you? What did you do before coming here?"

[thievingrumors]

“I disagree, “ Kasumi looked over her shoulder at Gaius, “Your skills will sell an employer on your ability to do a job.” No one had ever asked to see the woman’s educational background when hiring her. That would actually be a very awkward conversation and probably not one you would want to have with a thief. ‘Oh, excuse me Ms. Goto, I’d like you to steal the Mona Lisa. Wait, you don’t have a degree from the most prestigious of thieving and lying universities. Nevermind.’

Actually, that would have been hilarious. Who was she trying to kid?

Ah, and now she had to decide if she wanted to outright lie to the man or if she wanted to shroud her occupation in a series of cleverly veiled phrases. Both would probably be acceptable.

“I worked in infiltration and acquisitions for the military. My main focus was technology,” not entirely false and pointing to spy, not thief, “Before coming here I was working on a weapon to help stop the end of the universe.”

She looked out at the stars before continuing, “Kind of hoping that worked out in my favor.” If she was dead she was going to find a way to kill Shepard. Or seriously annoy her by moving all of her things with creepy ghost powers or something.

[nomoremrnicegaius]

"Well, your world must be entirely different from our collection of colonies," Gaius says. People judged -- they judged about everything. And that was exactly why he started practicing a posh Caprican accent as a boy on Aerilon.

Still, it's easy enough to see her as a spy. A shame, though, that her universe was coming to an end just as his was.

"If you don't mind me asking," he begins, "what was causing the end of your universe?"

[thievingrumors]

“Probably not,” she shrugged, “I’ve just never been asked for a piece of paper asking if I can do my job or not.” She gave him another sidelong glance over her shoulder, “It seems pretty silly to ask for that in my line of work.”

His next question gives her pause. How did one simply explain the Reapers? Giant world ending death machines didn’t quite get the point across in a specific manner.

“A synthetic race called the Reapers are bent on destroying all organic life in the galaxy to start some intergalactic, age-old extinction cycle over again,” she mentioned it with such a casual tone it almost sounded like she was joking. “They’re kind of the most terrifying thing I’ve ever encountered.”

The collector ship still gave her nightmares. All of it actually still gave her nightmares. The collectors, the Husks, the Harvesting… It all made her shudder. This was the precise reason she wouldn’t go with Shep on another suicide mission. She wasn’t a warrior, she was a thief.

[nomoremrnicegaius]

Gaius looks over at her for the first time in the past couple of minutes; sympathy draws lines across his face.

Then slowly, he turns his eyes back towards the stars because he doesn't think he can look someone in the eye and say this and still keep his composure.

"I don't think I was ever more terrified than the moment I watched the bombs rain down on Caprica," he says. "But what I realized then, with all these people around me dying, was that despite everything, I still wanted to live and I was willing to fight for it. So I let myself be scared. There was no fighting that. But I let that terror propel me forward. And I'm alive today because of it."

He turns to face her again.

"If there's anything I can do, let me know," he says. "I know it's probably little consolation, but whatever we learn here might prove useful in our own worlds when we return."

Gaius was hoping for that much.

[thievingrumors]

This was the best opportunity Kasumi was going to have to steal Gaius’ communicator. After the story he had just told her, she actually felt a little bad about it.

Obviously not bad enough to stop her from stealing from him, but that was beside the point.

She pushed herself away from the window and close enough to him to stand on her tiptoes and lay a very light kiss on his left cheek. This was of course, a misdirection, a distraction so he wouldn’t notice her fingers plucking the communicator from his back pocket. “Thank you,” a pause, “for your concern, I mean.”

A small smile lightly touched her lips as she started to walk away. The communicator was now nestled safely in her own front pocket, “I’m sorry about Caprica.” This said over her shoulder as she leaned against the door frame. Her form was silhouetted by the light pouring in from the hallway. “And thanks again for the tour. It was most enlightening.”

With that she started down the hall. The man had made stealing his communicator almost too easy. Kasumi just hoped he didn’t notice it missing for a few hours. Surely she could sneak it back into his room or the lab before he noticed it was gone. Her small smile turned into a smirk, signifying that she was most pleased with herself.

Now she just had to figure out what she and Shepard were going to be wearing.