[April 17. Time: Nighttimeish.] [It's dark, but that's usally the case at night and, anyway, Keiko's used to it by now. Tomorrow she'll finaly be let out of her room with her physical body but for tonight she has standing orders to watch the dreams of her teammates, so leaving her body behind she goes fora walk between Jamie's ears.] (Eyes dicesuke's choice for tonights dream... Right.) (Hmm how's Keiko going to perceive this? Through her own senses or through an interpritation of Jamie's?) (It's all mental.) (She has her own 'senses'.) (Right but if Jamie's doing something in Keika-vision...) (Then Keiko would be aware of it all, just not like Jamie is.) (Right) [It's crowded and hot, and above all loud. Jamie is being jostled and distracted by a panicking crowd. Somewhere Rose is shouting orders, but they can't quite be made out. Far above the crowd Jamie's helecopters circle looking for their targets, men dressed in dark camo with riffles who are firing both at the people and some other target.] [Every time Jamie finds one of them and fires, they suddenly turn into normal people as the fall over and Rose yells something incomprehensable and disapointed sounding.] [And begin] * Keiko floats in the crowd, kinda visible from Jamie's PoV but kinda not. She recognizes it kinda, and says loudly, "Hey, Jamie! Let me in!" * Jamie doesn't seem to have heard Keiko, and instead lines up another difficult shot, only to have it frustratingly turn into the wrong target _again_ . She can almost taste Rose's growing disapointment. * Keiko ghosts her way through the crowd, up into Jamie's normal vision. "Let me in, please, Jamie?" * Jamie shouts at Keiko and then nearly gets pushed to the ground. "In where? I have to protect Rose only I can't find the right targets! I can't I can't I can't I can't!" * Keiko replies, "Inside your mind! I can help. I can't do anything like this." * Jamie doesn't even pause to think about that, or even why she'd have a defence against Keiko unless Rose had ordered it. Rose wanted the black dressed people dead and the crowd alive and was not going to be happy with Jamie for constantly killing people who turned out to be part of the crowd. * Jamie , if it wasn't clear from that last sentance, lets Keiko in. * Keiko pops into solidity, and grits her teeth as the crowd changes, making only one target and holding him real. "There, found them." * Jamie shoots him with both the helecopter and the tank, which didn't even exist untill she needed it to. * Keiko keeps it from shifting away from being the target, giving Jamie a conceptual success... and lets the rest of the dream form around that. * Jamie continues to search for more targets and the crowed starts to ebb and Rose's voice comes closer. Eventually ,while Jamie is unable to find any more targets of her own, her helecopters do find Rose reaching for a black-clad man that Jamie had somehow missed, and calmly putting a gun to his head in true Rose fasion. After that the crowd fades and the scenery changes to Rose's office. * Keiko lets the dream go, although she floats over to Jamie and puts her hand on her shoulder, saying quietly, "See? I can be helpful." * Jamie starts and looks up at Keiko, but doesn't uncurl from her knees under chin position on one of Rose's less comfortable chairs. Rose herself sits on the far side of her desk and glares disaprovingly at both of the wards, yet remains oddly silent. * Keiko 'thinks' to her, ~I'm just watching, Jamie. What's wrong?~ * Jamie gives Keiko a pleading look. "~ I I think I messed up, but Roseli won't punish me, or even tell me how. I don't... I don't know how to fix it.~ * Keiko thinks back, ~Why do you think that?~ ~ Roseli. She went away, and now... I must have done something wrong! ~ * Keiko is silent a moment, then thinks, ~I... don't think she's been around much all week. I... don't think it's you.~ * Keiko mutters, ~Of course, it's hard to tell since I can't leave my ROOM...~ * Jamie pleads. ~ Tell me what I have to do to fix this. ~ * Keiko is silent a moment, then replies, ~Has she ever not told you when she's been unhappy with you before?~ ~ I I.... I don't know. Should I know? Is that why? ~ * Keiko frowns, then smiles weakly. ~Of course you don't know.~ She puts her hand to her shoulder again. ~Jamie, she... I couldn't see it, but they were... talking about her son.~ A moment, then she says, a bit awkwardly, ~It might be that. Or it might be meeting people she knew before...~ ~She sounded like she was in a bad mood about that guy that got burned... it wasn't you.~ (I have to keep remembering I couldn't SEE things.) * Jamie has a sudden fare up of envy and then stamps it down. ~ I didn't know. ~ * Keiko thinks back, ~I know. But it's not your fault.~ A moment, then, ~You should spend more time with Luana. She wants to spend time with you.~ * Jamie blinks at Keiko. ~But I, I thought Luana liked ..." She trails off but the surge of regret, desire, and absolute helplessness in the face of orders that realy can only refer to one entity. * Keiko laughs and says quietly, ~Luana... does like me. We're friends. But she wants to be your friend too.~ A small smile. ~I would like to be your friend too.~ * Jamie replies with confusion and a near total lack of comprehension. ~ I... okay? ~ * Keiko tries to get her to sit up. ~What's wrong?~ * Jamie offers no resistance to Keikos attempts to move her. ~ Why? ~ * Keiko replies, after a moment, ~Why... friend?~ A weak smile. ~I kinda wonder that myself. I mean... why would anyone be my friend.~ She floats around in front of Jamie as Rose fades away. * Jamie watches Keiko float, while a small part of her finaly realizes that this was a dream, the rest of her waits for something she recognises as an order or a question. * Keiko looks at her a moment, then replies, ~Is that what you were asking?~ * Jamie wills the counting into existance here and relaxes slightly with its white noise to reassure her. ~ I, yes.~ * Keiko tilts her head a moment at the counting, then says, ~Luana... is a nice girl. You're her roommate. She wants to know you. Learn about you. Help you.~ * Keiko smiles more as she describes Luana, then shakes her head and finishes quietly, out loud, "We're all on a team. It's... good for us to look out for eachother." * Jamie continued her worried incomprehension through the first statement, but latched onto meaning in the second. ~What should I do?~ * Keiko replies, "Well... when she asks you questions, try to answer them. Try to learn things about her..." she trails off, then asks, "Do you try to understand people, Jamie?" * Jamie shakes her head. * Keiko says, quietly, "You... should. Not just try to understand Roseli... but try to understand people we know. Like me and Luana. Learn things about us." * Keiko looks back to her and smiles weakly. "That way, you can know what you want. Whether you want us to be around you, or not. To help you do things... or not." * Jamie 's shocked. "But I can't! I'm not... I can't..." She struggles to renforce her partial sentances and denails with the comforting limits and boundries that Ten had set for her, but they, and the memories of Ten's voice are nowhere to be found. * Keiko winces, then says quietly, "She's not here. You are." * Keiko makes the heads of Jamie and Rose float around her own head. Weird. "We made sure you could want things, Jamie. Don't you want to know more about Roseli? Know if she's sad? Or Luana? And her computers?" (Deleates a line and starts over again) I... I'm... *she starts to curl in on herself again* Everything was simple. * Keiko replies, quietly, as the heads disappear, "Slavery is simple, Jamie." * Keiko looks down. "It's easy to have no choice. It's... dull. Just a pain that's dull enough to almost forget." * Jamie says softly. "Why can't I like dull?" * Keiko is silent a moment. "Dull is safe. But dull... do you think Roseli wants you dull?" I... * Jamie 's memories of chocolate and shopping trips surface, but they're clouded by Rose's recent distance. "Not before." * Keiko grabs some of the memories, peruses, then murmurs, "Jamie... why do you think Roseli let me help you?" A moment, then, "I... thought it was because she wanted you to become whole. Able to want, and... and feel, and get nice dresses and have friends and... and..." she looks down and seems to waver in space. * Jamie 's eyes widen. "I... I'm no- haven't been - don't know how." Her emotions are a swirly of understanding, regret, fear, and just a touch of hope as she sees a way that might bring Rose back to her. * Keiko closes her eyes and solidifies, saying quietly, "Sorry." A pause, then, "Roseli... would want you to be... strong. Able to do things. While she's gone. Then she can come back, and you'll be strong for her." * Keiko whispers, "I... I bet she'd be proud." * Jamie nods and focuses intently on on Keikos words. "What should I do first?" * Keiko is silent a long moment, then, "If Luana asks you to do things, you should. Try to learn things about her. Ask her things about being normal..." she trails off, then murmurs, "She's better at this than me." * Keiko then looks to her and says, "What kind of things has Rosali tried to teach you? Try to learn them on your own." * Jamie nods, her focus slipping as she starts to search her memories for all the things that Rose has asked of her, but that she never wondered the why of, only how she should react. * Keiko lets the focus slip as she lets her mind wander, then says quietly, "Jamie... I would like your help with something tomorrow." * Jamie refocuses on the present. "What do you want me to do?" * Keiko is silent a long moment, then replies slowly, "Do you... know how to move around without your eyes... or your machines? I can't just... keep my shield up and float around all the time so I don't hurt myself." * Jamie nods. "You have to make a map or a list, of everything in your head." She thinks of her own maps of the base. One measured by Hotaru's longer leg, and another more complete map paced out by Jamie's short ones. The widths of the halls and the sounds of each peice of machinery in the base, the soft cold air of the air condition ducts, the feal of each wall... How many steps, how many doorways from one place to the next. (Where'd that cut off?) (one place to the next.) * Keiko blinks at the depth of the map, poring over it, and then nods slowly, before half-smiling and commenting, "I can't quite hear the machines like you. With ears or mind. But... I guess I don't have a choice." * Jamie blinks. "Can't they just replace your eyes if they don't work?" * Keiko licks her lips and replies, "Heinrick... isn't around either." * Jamie points at her own. (*shifts Keiko's after*) Oh. * Keiko then adds, after looking down, "I don't know what is wrong with them. I'm not a chemist, or a biologist. I hope they do something before the next mission. It's hard, even with my mind." * Jamie nods, and then heasitantly offers up. "You... you. Could use somebody elses?" * Keiko looks at her a moment, then says, "I can... but not passively. People have to think their vision at me." Like a camera. * Jamie thinks about that for a moment and then has an idea. She creates one of her tiny buzzing helecopters and hovers it over Keiko's head, ordering it to follow her head movement. Her confidence fades as she becomes uncertain of the protocal for thinking video feed at people. * Keiko tilts her head a moment, then says slowly, "Are you... just think what you're seeing." * Jamie tries that and sends two images to Keiko, one of Keiko with a helecopter over her head and one of Jamie sitting in chair looking at something below lower. The colors and tones of the two images are subtly different. * Keiko is silent a moment, her eyes squnting, then murmurs, "Your vision... I'm seeing me and you in flashes. It's a little much." * Keiko then shakes her head. "It's different in dreams. We'll have to try it in real life. It might work." * Jamie stops sending them and nods. * Keiko is silent a moment, then says, "I have to go... but remember what we talked about, okay?" * Jamie nods. * Keiko puts her feet on the ground and touches Jamie's shoulder a moment, smiles slightly, says, "Night,"... and then turns into a giant blue plush duck. * Jamie blinks in confusion. [The duck does not respond.] (And I'm done!) * Jamie has no idea what to do with a dream about a gaint blue plush duck, other than have it. [And so she does. End]