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[Individual messages addressed to Damon, Costigan, Bela, ~~and Ana~~, all with minute variations on the following text. Some may have more gratuitous f-bombs than others. Ana's message is deleted during her conversation with Malcolm.]

Right. I've got a list of all the new arrivals who have come on board in the last week; verify and let me know if I've missed anyone. [Pretend it's attached here.]

So what's fit to fucking print, then? Obviously the Undead Party Conference and the resulting fallout, and I see we got some scuffles—Judas and Rex. I'd be really fucking interested to know if there was some dirt about how the wardens handled that one. And it looks like we got some people who've picked up some fucking superpowers, yeah? Any leads on that?

Anything else?

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I died.

Infirmary
- No one returned zombie

Powers:
- Man with metal head.
- Healing blood - Judas.
- Electric O'Brien
- Sneeze magic.

Misc.
- People have gone, dead in port? Possible?
- WHERE REX IS INVOLVED TRUST NOTHING [underlined, like, five times]

Fucking hell, son. Zombie got you?

Edited 2010-06-25 16:50 (UTC)

Could say that.

[ooc: ignore the bit about Judas, pending confirmation from D which I forgot to get before hand because I am fail >_<]

Sorry to hear it.

Don't suppose you've got a name for the sod with the metal head?

[OOC: Consider it ignored.]

No. Can ask about.

Ta. Rest up, son.

So not your son.

What is it with people and—oh, never fucking mind.

What are you, the Barge's news network?

That was the fucking idea, yeah? Thanks for the list, by the way. Very helpful.

Any time.

I don't have shit on the "superpowers" you're talking about.

Never said you did, son.

Right. I just mean.. normally I would know something. Can you tell me what you've got?

Lots of warden upfuckery mostly. Plus some unlucky sods that never came back from that last port.

Who didn't come back from port?

Snape for one. Got to check my notes for the rest.

Enough to be concerned about?

Three or four, I think?

Any disappeared since then that you know of?

Working on it. You hear anything else, let me know, yeah?

Sure thing.

Considering Uhura is reading all her private messages, Ana just shows up and knocks on Malcolm's door quickly. She's annoyed that he might have endangered things, but considering her week, she decided that she should head this off as soon as possible. It is, after all, hard to pretend that you're not a spy when people are offering you up spy things. After another knock, Ana's arms cross behind her back, and she looked up and down the hall quickly, hoping to avoid being spotted. One good thing about the leather; people tended not to notice her anymore when she wore it.

Malcolm wasn't expecting visitors, so he just sort of blinked in confusion at the sight of Ana when he opened the door.

"Bringing the news personally, are we?"

"Yes. Are you going to invite me in, darling?" Ana spoke quickly and with a little smirk, looking up and down the corridor again. She didn't want to have to explain this to Uhura; everyone else wouldn't matter.

Malcolm stepped aside to let Ana in, the movement a slight parody of chivalry, and closed the door quickly behind her.

"What's going on then, love?"

As soon as they were inside, Ana's polite smile hardened a bit. "Don't contact me over the journals; my warden reads everything I write and I don't think any of us want to suddenly find everything we've done falling apart. If you need to get in touch with me, urgently, send a message to James McCullen, otherwise we'll set up a time and I'll bring news to you in person." Ana smirked a bit.

"The wardens have been handling everything incredibly badly this week, don't you think?"

"Oh fucking hell." Malcolm glared for a second at Ana, almost as if he blamed her for his not realising this before, but reminded himself: not someone to be alienated or fucked with without ample ammunition. He rubbed his hand over his face and looked almost repentant. "Reckon she can read that, or should I take you off the fucking list?"

He went over to his journal to pull up the entry and edit it, continuing to talk as he did so. "They're all a fucking mess, best as I can tell. Reckon a lot of shit's flying around where we can't see it."

"I'd take me off the list. Of course, I'm interested in who else is on the list as well." All and all? Ana suspected that it would be her people. Well, the MARS/Cobra people. "The infirmary is about to self-destruct, I think, given everything that's going on."So there is that. It's funny, really. All of this started happening when people were in the infirmary after the death toll. Gotta wonder about that, I think."

Ana considered for a moment. "The Rex and Judas scuffle was caused by wardens, which is why it's rather... delicate at the moment." There was a little smile. "I think I need to come up with a drop system for a my communication in general."

"That'd be telling. Thought you'd appreciate the value of a certain amount of decentralisation, yeah?" Malcolm typed as he talked, and soon the message to Ana was deleted from the system.*

"Drop system I can do," he said. "Reckon the infirmary meltdown's the result of all those fuckers cooped up in there at once? After getting fucking ... chewed on and all? Can't have helped." He looked up at her, curious. "How 'delicate' we talking here, anyway?"

*[Up to y'all if you want anything to have been seen in the interim.]

"This is true. I do value decentralization; and of course, discretion." Ana was the sole of it, but it didn't mean that she wasn't going to work to find out who the hell the other people were. She wanted them controlling the flow of information, and it had better be just them that he was getting it from.

"The infirmary accused Rex of something baselessly, suspended him and Judas got involved. I think he was defending someone's honor. He did something stupid, hence the scuff up. No one caught him in time to make sure he didn't do something stupid. The wardens definitely should have handled it better." And they should have; Ana was imagining that even they were thinking so at this point.

"Nothing like a good fucking baseless accusation to stir shit up," Malcolm replied, almost cheerfully. "What was it, if you know?"

"It was, in fact, entirely baseless and I know that because I'm the one who did it, and I confessed to it nearly immediately after seeing what had happened." Ana looked down, her entire posture appearing contrite. "And the good wardens merely used one of the few good relationships that anyone on the barge has as proof of his guilt, because they thought that I was covering for him."

Ana paused, and her features hardened. "Then, the doctors in the infirmary accused McCullen of lying. All of this, zombies, burns, bites and death tolled and then he got abused by the doctors who are meant to be overseeing our care."

Malcolm was slowly starting to develop his own suspicions, not the least of which was that just possibly he was being played; Damon's advice to not trust anything as far as Rex was concerned had made an impact. (Why he felt he could trust Damon at all was another story—it would be more accurate, perhaps, to say that at this juncture his instinct told him to distrust Damon less.)

Not that he was going to give any of these thoughts away to Ana. He merely listened with an appropriately sympathetic expression and tsked a bit when she'd finished. "What a fucking mess, eh? What exactly did you do, if you don't mind my asking?" Pause. "Strictly off the record, that is."

Edited 2010-06-29 14:07 (UTC)

She thought that he didn't believe her, and that was fine. "Strictly off the record?" She asked the question softly, and then she stood up and touched her chest. Ana didn't have claws or anything like that, but her nails were well tended, and she scratched a straight line across her chest. Her voice was soft when she started to bleed.

"Watch it." There was a quick movement to wipe the blood away, and it wasn't instantaneous by any means, but the wound healed rather quickly. "I've got this stuff in my blood that heals me and I thought it would help James." Her voice dropped a bit, and she did look incredibly remorseful. "I had no idea that injecting him with my blood would cause this."

Jesus fucking Christ, what was it with women in this place and fucked-up regenerative healing powers? At least Claire hadn't seen fit to fucking demonstrate.

And damned if she didn't look really fucking sorry. Either she was a world-class actress (which he had by no means ruled out) or she was telling the truth really did feel bad about the whole fuckup. "You did what you thought was fucking right, I reckon," he replied, still slightly discombobulated by the demonstration. "Now since this is all a pretty fucking delicate situation, I have to ask how much you feel about keeping the record straight, yeah? What's the need-to-know for people?"

[In flowing, curly script: Julius Caesar, Shakespeare. 1911, Mifflin.

FOLLOW THE NOTE TO THE LIBRARY, MALCOLM. SEEK AND YE SHALL FIND.]

[Oh for fuck's sake. Malcolm sighs and trudges off to the library, managing to look casual as he takes out the named volume along with a few other Shakespeare plays for camouflage.]

[Bela is slightly further along in the stacks, examining a set of plays by someone she's never heard of. When Malcolm appears, she drifts toward him, running her fingers along the titles until she's within speaking distance.]

'Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears; I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him.' Don't look so put out, sweetie. The trip will be worth your time.

Edited 2010-06-25 21:27 (UTC)

[Malcolm gives her a sort of "oh, it's you" look and sits down at the nearest table with his handful, opening the Caesar at random.]

Any time I get sent on a fucking scavenger hunt, I fucking well hope it is.

[She selects a play of her own, sitting down opposite him without looking at him. Any passerby who isn't right on top of them won't be able to hear her, carefully pitched as her voice is--anyone glancing their way would see her lips barely moving, maybe reading the play to herself.]

You wanted to know about the infirmary debacle, and Judas and Rex--they are, in fact, related.

Edited 2010-06-25 21:38 (UTC)

[Malcolm nods almost imperceptibly. He lowers his own voice to match hers.]

Both of 'em worked there, yeah?

They did. Though the triggering event was entirely unrelated to either one of them--well, no. I should say, it was peripherally related to Dr. Lewis--Rex.

[She turns a page of her play, keeping her eyes scanning over the words even though she isn't reading them.]

One James McCullen returned from port severely injured--heavy burns, from what I understand. In an attempt to ease his pain and speed his recovery, someone close to him administered a small dose of something unstable. Rather than the desired effect, it encased his head in what seems to be a metal mask. In his resulting delirium, McCullen pointed the finger at Rex, who, as you say, worked in the infirmary at the time.

[She turns another page, pausing to 'read' in silence, lips still moving, as someone passes by. She spares a glance at the person's back, confirming it's no one she knows before continuing.]

The result was predicable. Hysteria and knee-jerk overreactions. And even when the culprit came forward, the wardens--set as they were on Rex's responsibility despite the total lack of evidence to support the claim--banned Rex from the infirmary pending an investigation.

Edited 2010-06-25 22:05 (UTC)

[Malcolm nodded. He took a pen and notepad out of his jacket pocket and scratched down a few notes of what Bela said, eyes still on the book as if he was copying out a passage. It was interesting to see where Bela's version of the story dovetailed with Ana's, and also some of what he'd gotten from Damon.]

Hell of a lot of info you got there, love. Mind if I ask you if you got a dog in this fight, or you just a casual observer?

And we're only just getting to the interesting part. [She leans back in her chair.] You wanted information. I don't do a job if I don't do it well, and this particular task is one I'm familiar with. Though one thing is certain--I'm more than a little tired of the wardens declaring their neutrality and then playing favorites.

Fucking Tom Brown's Schooldays, yeah? Not that I went to fucking public school or anything like that.

[Which he hadn't.]

So what's the 'interesting part'?

Edited 2010-06-28 17:44 (UTC)

Rex resigned in protest. Rather than letting that stand, both the wardens investigating him and Judas, who really had no place doing so, attacked him for it. Judas, who, by the way, is now in charge of the infirmary's inmates, I hear. Despite Rex's overqualification for the post and his clean record of service, they put a track-record traitor who helped an alien take over a planet in charge. One whose medical experience ended before leaches were in vogue. [Bela turns another page.]

And the little weasel didn't stop pushing Rex's buttons until the good doctor snapped and went after him. So, to summarize; a friend of Rex's was accidentally... maimed, I suppose you'd say, someone else took the blame, Rex was still presumed guilty despite all evidence to the contrary and banned from the infirmary, and then derided for resigning. This, on top of just escaping a world full of zombies. Almost anyone would go for someone's blood after that.

His attack on Judas only served as confirmation of what the wardens thought they knew. They sat back, smug on their laurels, while one of the people they're supposed to be helping had a breakdown, and then demanded to know why Rex wasn't being punished for his breakdown when Harper released him from zero--despite the fact that Harper was disciplining him, but hadn't seen fit to share how.

[Well, isn't this a gorgeous kettle of bottom-feeders. Malcolm frowns. Bela's account seems more thorough and possibly more balanced than anything else he's gotten so far, but Damon's emphatic advisory to trust nothing so far as Rex is concerned hasn't left his mind. Not that he intends to mention that to Bela.]

Hmph. Well-upfucked, wardens, well-upfucked. Tell me, how d'you think a description of this fucking fiasco in the inmate population's going to go over? 'Cos I don't want, say, any wardens' pets to go running off to their masters and all, yeah? But it seems to me there's gotta be some kind of awareness that they're fighting amongst themselves and not fucking seeing eye to eye all the time.

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