[ One eyebrow lifts, but he doesn't comment. That sounds like ethics and contracts, instead of supernatural compulsion. Something to get into another time, perhaps. Shepard's notes are more pertinent. ]
I don't understand all of her shorthand. [ But, ] She strongly believed it to be an artificial intelligence.
[ Severus sits back, elbows perched on the edge of the island, twists his fingers in the air like spinning a ball, some construct of air. A neatly stacked selection of papers appears between his hands, and he takes it, flips through, then slides it over to Erik.
A reproduction, loose-leafed, unbound. He doesn't pass around the real one. ]
[ Snape creates papers from thin air, and Erik can’t help but eye him with trace suspicion before he reaches to take them.
‘Magic.’
He reads in silence after forking the last bite off his plate into his mouth, brow hooded low, then lower. He turns all the way to the fifth page only to go back to the first. ]
This is barely coherent, [ he observes, helpfully. ]
‘Adopt cat,’ [ Erik reads, eventually, and the way he says it makes it sound a lot like fuck. The way he turns the stack of papers back over to the start again sounds a bit like fuck also. It definitely sounds like humans, at the very least.
He picks up his wine glass and sips with more restraint than he feels capable of. Still, his fingers are light on the stem, around the bell. ]
Have we done any testing on the survivors who went through the door.
[ Severus just tilts his head. Maybe it's a look of 'Why is that the part you zeroed in on' or maybe it's 'One of my co-workers is regularly a cat'. Who knows.
'We' meanwhile. Mmhm. ]
It's an ongoing project. Fortunately one of the field operatives was training to be a doctor at home, he's overseeing it. As far as I'm aware there's been no results of note.
It's difficult to detect anomalies without a baseline.
[ And there’s certainly nothing of medical examination in Shepard’s notes at a glance. Erik is more interested in making short work of his chardonnay than he is pouring through it a second time. ]
How do you think your friends would feel about being medically examined before we leave.
[ Severus thinks of medical examinations sort of like a middle-class preacher's wife must think of witchcraft: weird and wrong and possibly fatal. It's not something he would have noticed a lack of - obviously. ]
You'd have to ask them. [ Lily, muggleborn, might. It's Claire he wonders about-- but he's already made her swear up and down not to go anywhere near that bloody door. ] I expect it's all coming up as 'non existent', like the manticore blood samples.
[ Erik will also have another glass, wrist rolled off at a fancier pour than is really necessary for eating at a kitchen island with a wizard on level 10 of a terrible spaceship. ]
[ He shrugs. ] I prefer it to starving. Do you want me to put the encryption on your communicator?
[ Severus watched Nathan do this, then Shepard, so he already had an idea when it was finally properly taught to him. He's got the drag and drop file share method down pat. ]
[ He exchanges bottle for comms device, thumbing through his messages (none of which are new) before reaching to push it across the island and looking expectantly to Severus, like a german shepherd pushing a food bowl. Put encryption on it. ]
[ Severus has to send a ping from his device to Erik's, containing the Scoutlock encryption.thingy.exe.whatever, after which he opens it on Erik's and pokes the install button (or whatever). It beeps. Done. He slides it back and turns it around, pointing at the little options tickybox. ]
[ Erik drinks while he watches, each step in the process observed with prying eyes from afar. He has the gist of it before the device is turned back around before him, tickyboxes taken in with a glance that lingers just long enough to brand the image into the back of his brain.
He won’t have to be shown again. ]
Handy, [ he says, and leaves the screen to time out and blink dark on its own. ]
Annoying. [ How does Severus hate technology, let him count the ways. ] Petrelli explained how it worked. Communications can monitor everything, even if they can't see it all if the encryption is strong enough. Though now that he's gone, I'm not sure if anyone is dedicated enough to go through it all.
What would they do if they were? [ Erik asks, fueled increasingly by chardonnay. There’s dull humor in the way he looks sideways to Severus, a roll of his eyes conveyed without the roll itself. He drains his glass. ] Report us to security?
I have no time for meddling children. [ No, Severus isn't worried about Getting In Trouble, but arguing about this shit is an enormous waste of time. He can't put them all in detention and it's super irritating. ] I don't want to hear it from any of them.
[ Annoying technology. Meddling children. Erik starts to grin before he can steel himself back out into seriousness against crotchety wizard speak, brow furrowed hard into exaggerated focus on pushing his darkened comms device back down into his pocket. The wine isn’t helping. ]
My predecessor was in security, [ he says, in darker humor. ] Twice.
[ His lack of respect is so ingrained that it comes out casual - he underestimates all these other factors; perhaps it's an oversight, but when it gets down to it, he has no reason to regard any of it as anything besides annoying. ]
no Severus genuinely doesn't give a shit. Possibly a topic that should be handled with more narrative seriousness, but who is even reading this far into this thread. He's only barely touched his own wine. ]
What's worse, security on principle or security protecting muggles? [ a beat. ] 'Humans.'
Security on principal, [ Erik decides very easily, without thought. He’s still looking at his glass, relishing buzzy warmth and the temporary quiet afforded him to enjoy it. ]
We don’t have the numbers we need to maintain on this ship alone.
[ Silence. Erik studies the ivory film left at the bottom of his glass. ]
Those that would look at a human and see the ferocity of feeling in their eyes. They see themselves.
[ In the next moment, he has the bottle in hand again, glancing only once aside to Severus’ glass to mark that he’s hardly touched it. Not especially bothered, he drops bottle neck to his own glass, click, and lets another round tumble in over the rim. ]
Stupidity, denial, this ship. [ Severus shrugs. ] I wouldn't mind it were it not so poorly run and populated with the worst amongst us.
[ No one at home would ever call Severus Snape anti-authority. Here, he's already gotten hints of it off people who are aware he's not a fan of Tyke's shoddy regime. He finds it funny. ]
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I don't understand all of her shorthand. [ But, ] She strongly believed it to be an artificial intelligence.
[ Severus sits back, elbows perched on the edge of the island, twists his fingers in the air like spinning a ball, some construct of air. A neatly stacked selection of papers appears between his hands, and he takes it, flips through, then slides it over to Erik.
A reproduction, loose-leafed, unbound. He doesn't pass around the real one. ]
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‘Magic.’
He reads in silence after forking the last bite off his plate into his mouth, brow hooded low, then lower. He turns all the way to the fifth page only to go back to the first. ]
This is barely coherent, [ he observes, helpfully. ]
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I doubt she composed it with outside readers in mind.
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He picks up his wine glass and sips with more restraint than he feels capable of. Still, his fingers are light on the stem, around the bell. ]
Have we done any testing on the survivors who went through the door.
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'We' meanwhile. Mmhm. ]
It's an ongoing project. Fortunately one of the field operatives was training to be a doctor at home, he's overseeing it. As far as I'm aware there's been no results of note.
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[ And there’s certainly nothing of medical examination in Shepard’s notes at a glance. Erik is more interested in making short work of his chardonnay than he is pouring through it a second time. ]
How do you think your friends would feel about being medically examined before we leave.
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You'd have to ask them. [ Lily, muggleborn, might. It's Claire he wonders about-- but he's already made her swear up and down not to go anywhere near that bloody door. ] I expect it's all coming up as 'non existent', like the manticore blood samples.
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[ Erik will also have another glass, wrist rolled off at a fancier pour than is really necessary for eating at a kitchen island with a wizard on level 10 of a terrible spaceship. ]
Thank you for cooking.
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[ Severus watched Nathan do this, then Shepard, so he already had an idea when it was finally properly taught to him. He's got the drag and drop file share method down pat. ]
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[ He exchanges bottle for comms device, thumbing through his messages (none of which are new) before reaching to push it across the island and looking expectantly to Severus, like a german shepherd pushing a food bowl. Put encryption on it. ]
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That's how you use it.
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He won’t have to be shown again. ]
Handy, [ he says, and leaves the screen to time out and blink dark on its own. ]
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My predecessor was in security, [ he says, in darker humor. ] Twice.
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Mine was dead.
[ Severus doesn't sound concerned. ]
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But he doesn’t have the option. Just any empty wine glass, which he is considering refilling very seriously. ]
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no Severus genuinely doesn't give a shit. Possibly a topic that should be handled with more narrative seriousness, but who is even reading this far into this thread. He's only barely touched his own wine. ]
What's worse, security on principle or security protecting muggles? [ a beat. ] 'Humans.'
[ Airquotes audible. ]
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We don’t have the numbers we need to maintain on this ship alone.
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Not yet. [ Something he actively considers? Maybe. ] There is a tragic amount of people content to do nothing or to sell out their own people.
[ Black. Even Edgeworth, given what he knows now. Tyke, apparently. Most of SEC should just be airlocked. ]
*principle ok on principle
Those that would look at a human and see the ferocity of feeling in their eyes. They see themselves.
[ In the next moment, he has the bottle in hand again, glancing only once aside to Severus’ glass to mark that he’s hardly touched it. Not especially bothered, he drops bottle neck to his own glass, click, and lets another round tumble in over the rim. ]
They feel noble.
on principal skinner
[ His tone is understanding without empathy. All judgement without concession. ]
Of themselves. Being 'freaks', being outcasts. Afraid of what the rest of them might do to someone different.
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That’s probably true of most of them, [ he says, and on into his glass: ]
But I don’t think it’s what drove them into security.
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[ No one at home would ever call Severus Snape anti-authority. Here, he's already gotten hints of it off people who are aware he's not a fan of Tyke's shoddy regime. He finds it funny. ]
I suppose they want to be a hero.
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