001 - A Bad Day For Everyone

[chasingstars201.livejournal.com]

[Misaki Kirihara appears on the plane looking very, very pissed. Her Sig P230 is unholstered and leveled at…

…no one.]

Tch.

[She lowers the weapon, very slightly, taking in her surroundings. Or rather, the lack thereof.]

Contractor!

[She turns in a slow circle, tension wrapped around her like a creaking spring.]

Contractor! Show yourself. You’re being stupid. Using your power on a member of the NPA will get you killed. It isn’t worth the laugh.

[A pause. She’s starting to get angry again.]

Show yourself!

[She looks up, down, around at the stars, and a pained expression crosses her face. Barely audible, she mutters,]

You people… know how to be cruel.

Comments

[salvagestime.livejournal.com]

Mmm, could be, yeah. The problem is I don't know much about your world. Mind giving me a rundown? Try not to spare the important bits.

[chasingstars201.livejournal.com]

[She frowns, considering. Common knowledge seems to be the safest ground--there's enough there to last for a while. And this man does seem a valuable resource.]

I'm from... well, I'm from a planet called Earth.

[It is VERY VERY weird to say that, and she has to pause for a moment to get the ridiculous feeling of it off of her tongue before continuing.]

Eleven years ago, two abnormal spaces appeared--one in South America, one in Japan, where I live. The Gates. Heaven's Gate and Hell's Gate, we call them. At the time as their appearances, the stars vanished. The real stars, I mean. We still have them--imitations of them, that don't move at all. We tried sending rockets out, but everything that made it into the thermosphere just... disappeared. Completely. No signals back, nothing.

[She pauses again; editing time.]

Six years ago, the South American Gate--Heaven's Gate--disappeared as well. That is, the space for 1500 kilometers around it became impenetrable, and everything and everyone within that space... [She rubs her eyes.]

There were a few that managed to escape. Not many--and even fewer were willing to talk about what happened.

[salvagestime.livejournal.com]

[smiles for a moment] I'm quite familiar with Earth. One of my favourite planets. Your Earth, though...

[pauses, thinking over what she said; he puts his glasses on, too, to help him along] So, these 'gates' appear, somehow creating a field around the Earth that actually blocks out the sky and sets up a replacement. I'm assuming night and day still work the same; sun rises and sets and all that. The sun is a star, too, though... [rubs his neck] That southern gate sounds like it's generating it's own field now. Some sort of spatial shift, maybe. Maybe it just malfunctioned. But that doesn't explain the rockets, unless the energy is just that high but you should notice if they disintegrated. [stops rambling for a second]

What have the survivors said about that gate incident?

[chasingstars201.livejournal.com]

[She ponders for moment. He's treating this so casually, she's not sure what to say.]

They were scared. Very scared. And the Gate didn't malfunction. It was sealed purposefully. South America all but vanished, and everyone living there with it. Some people were thrown free of the catastrophe. That's how they put it, in any case. Things have been off-balance ever since, and the Hell's Gate has been much more active lately.

Days still function normally, for the most part. If you look, you can see the stars when the sun is up. And the moon has disappeared as well.

[She pauses, waiting to see what he has to say about all that before offering any more.]

[salvagestime.livejournal.com]

[nods thoughtfully to himself] So the moon's gone, too. Thought so. Sounds like the sun is breaking through a bit, maybe. Or just part of the projection. Oh, the tides. Are the ocean tides all right? Any different?

How do you know the gate didn't malfunction, though? Do you know where they came from? Or who created them?

[chasingstars201.livejournal.com]

[She rubs the back of her neck, coming to the border of what she's comfortable sharing.]

The tides seem to behave normally--though I'm no expert, so I couldn't tell you for sure if they've changed.

We don't know where they came from, who made them, or if anyone made them at all. As far as Heaven's Gate goes... There was a war. It was sabotage. A terrorist group. They sealed that Gate and tried to do the same to Tokyo. To all of Japan.

[salvagestime.livejournal.com]

[nods] The tides are controlled by the moon. 'Course, those gates could be controlling them now but that could also mean the moon is just fine and dandy beyond that illusion.

[but then he genuinely looks surprised and frowns] They sabotaged it? Some great big dangerous piece of technology they don't know about and they mucked it up just to use it against people? Japan's gate survived it?

[chasingstars201.livejournal.com]

[Gah. Things getting complicated now.]

Not... exactly. They weren't able to complete the process in Japan. And they knew more than we did. Well. Than I did, at that point. They knew as much as the people who mattered, the people who controlled the Gate.

[salvagestime.livejournal.com]

[notices her hesitation growing]

Misaki, I know this is probably all very classified and it's your job to protect it but I think I can help if you tell me about it.

[chasingstars201.livejournal.com]

[She's starting to feel very, very fatigued and gives him a smile that shows it.]

You do this sort of thing often? Sweeping in to worlds you've never been to and trying to put things right?

[salvagestime.livejournal.com]

[smiles back and sounds quite happy about his work]

All the time. Not always worlds I've never been to, although those are fun and new. But can't tell you how many times I've saved Earth now. Not to brag or anything. [even if he is a bit. then he pauses, looking over her] A friend of mine sleeps here sometimes. Says it's quite comfortable.

[chasingstars201.livejournal.com]

[She snorts.] I'm that obvious?

What's your friend like?

[salvagestime.livejournal.com]

[laughs] I'm just very good.

Ah, Sam! He's sort of funny. I wonder if he's read Existential philosophy sometimes. But he's a good man. Dedicated to his job, a little high on his morals sometimes but it happens to all of us. Also apparently likes musicals, so I can't dislike him.

[chasingstars201.livejournal.com]

[She likes this man. This alien? He's weird, but it's a charming sort of weird. In some ways he reminds her of Li.]

Of course you are.

Sam--DI Sam Tyler?

[salvagestime.livejournal.com]

[the Doctor is quite enjoying Misaki as well. Especially to have told her as much as he did]

Yep! That's the one. Met him already, I assume?

[chasingstars201.livejournal.com]

Yes. He-- [And suddenly, Realization!]

He mentioned you.

[And then just as suddenly, Confusion.]

He said something about multiples of you. I've met Co-- people capable of projecting low-level psychic mirrors of themselves. Simulacra, for lack of a better word. They're only capable of basic interaction, though. I've never heard of someone who can inhabit three bodies at once.

[And the caution returns, ever so slightly.]

[salvagestime.livejournal.com]

[shakes his head slightly]

Nah, it's not like that. It's something we - my people - can do to cheat death. I regenerate every single cell in my body. It means I change everything completely. Hair, teeth, face, height, voice, bits of personality...but I'm still me. Let's see...my fifth is around, he's in a black cricket outfit. And my ninth, too. He'd be the short haired gent in the leather coat.

[chasingstars201.livejournal.com]

So... which "regeneration" are you? If you don't mind. And how old does that make you, exactly?

[She gives him a headtilt, considering.]

[salvagestime.livejournal.com]

Ah! Right, sorry. I'm the, erm, tenth. So right after leather jacket. And oooh, I dunno. I always say 900ish but I was thinking about it and the Rani and I were over 900 back in my...seventh. So I suppose I'm getting up there. [headscratches in slight embarrassment]

[chasingstars201.livejournal.com]

[The fact that this man is almost one thousand years old doesn't register as quickly as "the tenth". She files the age away into her brain-break-for-a-later-date file.]

You're... Do you travel with a man called the Master?

[salvagestime.livejournal.com]

Uhm, yeah, about that. [rubs his eye a bit in a way that says 'uncomfortable'] You seem smart enough, so just...if you talk to him, keep your guard up. The Master can be rather dangerous. Oh and right. He looks more or less like Sam in a black suit. He feels completely different to me but that's a good way of putting it.

[chasingstars201.livejournal.com]

I've heard about him. Them. A little bit, at least. [Predatory Kirihara is predatory.]

You don't have to answer if you don't wish to, but why would you travel with someone like him?

[She checks herself and backs off.]

My apologies. You've been courteous. That was rude.

[salvagestime.livejournal.com]

[looks down a bit, suddenly seeming more tired than he was before]

That's...a long story.

[chasingstars201.livejournal.com]

[She suddenly feels like an incredible ass.]

One you don't have to tell. We all have our reasons for... strange companions.

[salvagestime.livejournal.com]

[looks back up, smiling slightly at her]

Well if you're going to be nice about it...We're the last two of our species. That's it. There was a war and my people lost. [glances around at the stars] Thanks to this place, we did find another survivor, though. A friend of mine, Romana. But that's it, besides the other versions. It gets quite complicated but there you have it.