<USS Avalon> Talea's Worries

"Talea's Worries"
by
Talea Genot Erridim, Ops, /USS Avalon/-C

After the rather unsettling experiences in Security and the lounge,
followed by the much-needed exercise swim, which had gone well, Talea
retreated to her quarters and almost cried in relief at the blessed
psionic silence (thanks to the psionic shielding) that, despite her
disability, she could sense. Within several minutes, though, she moved
to the computer console in the main room and called up her log from
earlier. To her shock and dismay, it showed that the unit had recorded
every second of the attack and its aftermath, including both of them
hitting the decksole. On hearing the scream, which even filtered down,
she could tell had been incredibly loud, she thought 'Dear Havens, I
hope I didn't injure anyone seriously with that scream!'

Talea then put her head in her hands, rocking with her distress. The
last thing she'd expected was that her personal log would have that
horrible episode captured on it. Her blood suddenly ran cold as she
realized something else: Security didn't know the log existed. She felt
humiliated and dirty all over again as her memory replayed the attack,
although she'd not seen her attacker's face before she'd met him in
Security! The sight of that attack, the fact he'd been unclothed from
the waist down, making it abundantly clear what his intent had been, and
the flood of memories it brought back from her childhood all darkened
her mood. So dark was her mood that she could easily have succumbed to
the lure of suicide, because she honestly felt her life wasn't worth living.

After what seemed an eternity, but in reality was probably only a couple
of minutes, Talea calmed herself enough to switch the unit off, and walk
toward a papa-san recliner before collapsing into it, curling up and
beginning to cry. She was so achingly lonely, and now, even Walker
seemed to have turned his back on her. That ripped hard, and she
wondered if it was ever going to be safe to even inquire about reviving
her beloved animal companion. She knew he'd been in stasis for a long
time, and with her disability stretching out as it had so far, she
wondered if it were related to total time in stasis, or it was a fixed
time after revival before the stasis-lock dissolved. If the former, then
Blackstone was far better off to stay in stasis for the remainder of his
existence, in her opinion, even though it would hurt her to never see
him again.

Just as she had saved his life when he was a cub, he had defended her
against animals, both two and four-legged, and even once, a six-legged
hexa'cat. He had been in stasis, from her admittedly poor recall,
somewhere near four Regellian years now, and it shamed her to admit it.
Trembling, she walked back over to the computer and called up a fresh
screen, intending on journaling, but then she realized with a sick
feeling that any such journal could and likely would fall into the hands
of her superiors, and that entries in journals had, at one time in the
past, been used against officers who'd kept them, ruining more than one
career. She looked at the screen, her expression bleak now, then
switched off the journaling software, unaware that the journals made
with that software were close to impregnable without the permission of
the author, so didn't carry the same risks as a physical notebook.

After a little while, she began exploring the system's local storage,
and to her amazement, noticed several of her favorite games in the games
directory. She called up one of them and began playing it to try to
settle her nerves. Anyone watching the screen would have recognized that
the game was deceptively simple and literally impossible to play in real
life. The physics of the balls was accurate, insomuch as a collision
between two would cause both to deflect as if they were real, but
otherwise, the physics of the game were quite impossible except perhaps
in zero-gravity. After a time, she deliberately aimed one ball toward a
bright-gold grid and scored. Instantly, the game responded by stating
"Reaction!" and spitting out five golden balls. With the four she
already had in play, it necessitated her reabsorbing two of the normal
ones to keep the number manageable. She cleared the level and sat back,
trembling from reaction. Because she was too wired to continue playing,
although reluctant to stop, she tapped the proper command and exited the
game after it auto-saved her progress. (LOL Anyone recognize the game
from these clues? Real game . . . although the game's ball physics
/don't/ act as described, which is a bit of a pity.)

Switching to another game, she noticed it had the same name as the game
she liked, but this game was sufficiently different that she nearly got
eliminated in the first round, causing her to think, 'Note to self:
Never underestimate a new game and play through the tutorial, even if
you think you'll be bored to tears because of it!' Without her realizing
it, her mental outlook had lightened, and she was no longer in danger of
doing something foolish.

Meanwhile, she continued to be concerned about Walker's apparent
distance and whatever he was about to be (or had been, considering how
long she'd played games!) put through by his superior. After a time, she
simply let it go, got a hot shower (for which she thanked Doctor Cazook
all over again) and went to bed, emotionally and physically wiped out.

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