Open Log

[timesbureaucrat]

Who: Narvin and OPEN
What: Narvin at work and off work (Also, Gallifreyan food is mostly terrible.)
When: Month 11, Day 14
Where: Museum Laboratory and Xyma's House Restaurant
Notes & Warnings:



The lab was different with Dr. Bishop gone. (Quieter and tidier for one thing.) But he'd been hoping to exchange notes with his colleague on the spawner technology. Now that was impossible. So he was on his own with the spawner. He'd borrowed one of the original spawners from the museum collections--an ancient relic excavated from the ruined city, not one of the new commercial spawners created by reverse engineering the old alien tech--and was carefully hooking up a Gallifreyan interface screen to a few of the spawner's diodes.

So far, people have just mimicked the technology. But Narvin wanted to know how it works, and know it well enough to start making significant alterations of his own to the tech.





Xyma’s House didn't have the homey restaurant atmosphere of F'nayalip and Joe's All Day Eats, but Narvin didn't care about homey. What Xmya's House had that brought Narvin there was an extensive menu off off-world cuisine, including Gallifreyan nutritional disks: tasteless round bites with the texture of styrofoam coated in plastic. The colourful shells made them appear almost interesting, but it was all a lie. The colours were coding to indicate what assortment of minerals and nutrients were in which disk.

It was a little taste of home, and Narvin came at least once a week. The server didn't bother to give him a menu any more, just placed the order as soon as Narvin sat down. They didn't take any preparation, so a plate of colourful disks reminiscent of oversized skittles was placed in front of him. He delicately stabbed a green one with a fork and contemplated it before sticking it in his mouth.

Comments

[timesbureaucrat]

"It proceeds. Some aspects of it better than others."

His work in the museum laboratory analyzing alien technological artifacts, was slow but steady. His private project, however, of trying to regain his regenerations, was stalled.

"And what about yours? Settling in with security?"

[givessweetness]

"I'm sorry," he shrugged. "I suppose I can't help."

Well, he doesn't have much more in the sciences than were necessary to pass, so being of assistance where Narvin was lacking was exceedingly unlikely.

"Yes, I haven't encountered any difficulties. We still haven't established our culprit."

Of course, he was never worried about settling in. As a whole, it was a bit of a worry, on account of the alien nature of pretty much everyone but the security force in particular wasn't.

Wynter, like most Time Lords, worked well in established structures of relationships. The boss and the colleagues. Very simple. And Wynter's general personality lent itself to being approachable.

Finding their culprit was a little more challenging, with his handicap of not knowing who was who.

[timesbureaucrat]

"Unless you've suddenly become a technical specialist as well as a security specialist, no. You can't help."

He chose to change the subject.

"Are you continuing your security training? It was rather...cut short on Gallifrey."

Under circumstances they both knew and Narvin didn't think proper to say directly. But...thinking upon it, and his own predicament, a question came to him. A very important question that he should have thought of sooner.

"The regenerative virus... You never regenerated. You died and never regenerated. The Dogma Virus in the flask you drank, is it inert in your body now? Cured? Or will it assert itself if you regenerate here?"

[givessweetness]

"I'm doing well," he assured him, wincing slightly at the addition. It was easier to talk to people who didn't tenderfoot their way around it. In their case, it was mostly out of ignorance, but being sensitive acknowledges how awful it was, and Wynter didn't want reminding.

He took a few breaths to quench the panic threatening when he remembered coming to the Barge and finding Iris there. "No, I… don't have the virus. I… checked. Thoroughly."

[timesbureaucrat]

"Good." He breathed out a sigh of relief. "Good." For Narvin to finally someday regain his regenerations only to become infected with the Dogma Virus and lose all sense of identity the first time he regenerated would be more tragic irony than he wants in his life.

But he gave Wynter a different explanation.

"We already have walking skeletons and giant spiders on our hands. I'd hate to see a zombie inflicted on this town as well, if you were to regenerate."

[givessweetness]

Wynter didn't respond immediately.

"Zombies?" he asked. "How do you mean?"

He also suspected that Narvin's relief was more personal than that. But if he was to be a victim, then of course it would be.

[timesbureaucrat]

"Leela's word for it. Or was it Romana's? I can't remember which. Not entirely accurate in any case. But the Dogma Virus doesn't just hijack regeneration, it stalls it. Upon dying, instead of regenerating the body remains as it is, brain functions become minimal, and the afflicted mutter "Free Time" and shuffle about, and once triggered by some unknown signal, become hostile."

[givessweetness]

"You never found the signal?" That was a little alarming. Whoever might have sent it might still be a concern. Or at least, still at large.

[timesbureaucrat]

"I was kidnapped by Braxiatel just as the 'zombies' began to become hostile and unwillingly dragged off to various unpleasant alternate universes for the next year, so investigating what happened became ever so slightly difficult."

He leaned back in his chair and laced his fingers together.

"But Arkadian was present in the Capitol when it happened so I'll let you make your inferences from that. You have read the files on Mr. Mephistopheles Arkadian, I trust?"

[givessweetness]

It was still something of an important gap, but that wasn't Narvin's fault, he supposed. What if it wasn't as obvious as that?

"Yes. I take it he's still at large?" If he wasn't, surely Narvin wouldn't have to rely on implications.

[timesbureaucrat]

"No idea. Last anyone saw him he was flying off with an unregistered TARDIS full of temporal weapons and a "zombiefied" Surgeon Master. Whether he survived the encounter, I couldn't say. I looked into the matter once I returned to Gallifrey proper, and as far as I can tell, no one has seen or heard from him. Of course, Arkadian being the kind of person whom he is, that doesn't mean much. He could just be in hiding. Or, he could be dead and his stolen TARDIS tumbling, lost, through the Vortex forever. Frankly, at the moment Gallifrey has bigger things to worry about."

Bigger things than a known temporal crook with a massive stash of temporal weapons. That was how bad things have gotten.

[givessweetness]

Narvin seemed to have failed to realise that it's less his manners being questionable that is driving his coversation partners away (whoever they may be) but his relentless (at least so it seemed to Wynter) knack for making them depressed about life.

"Reassuring."

[timesbureaucrat]

Narvin's pessimism was as strong as ever. And only validated further by recent events on Gallifrey.

"If you want only good news, you got into the wrong line of work."

[givessweetness]

"That doesn't mean I should expect to be starved of it," he pointed out. "If you were to say, on a similar level to Arkadian, I'd be rather more satisfied."