2022-11-21: The Glass Prison - I - Revelation
- Log: 2022-11-21: The Glass Prison - I - Revelation
- Cast: Teletha Testarossa
- Where: Tuatha de Dannan
- Date: U.C. 0096 11 21
- Summary: A commander doing her best to not crumble.
There it was again.
Deja vu. The vending machine. 200 yen. A coffee drink.
The passage of time. The sludge of life passing by. One moment. One minute. One hour. One day. The next. The next. Inside the walls of the Tuatha de Dannan, a Commander works. Rest? PTO? Enforced leave? Rare. Rarer still. Everyone in Mithril has their duty, and Tessa was, for lack of a better word, drowning herself in her work. Even if she had the authority to be in places, even if she could stay apart from those duties in Jindai and be the normal girl she could never be, there was still work. Churning through the reports, taking in Sergeant Sagara's reports one day at a time. Strange events. Strange times. Discounting her own conceptions of Things That Should Not Be, these times felt so, so far away from when she first accepted the position of captaining the vessel she designed herself.
Her mind flits back. A moment of clear lucidity. Kaname. ...She's Heart-2 (Acting). Why didn't it register? A Whispered like her, being in a high spot. Correspondences? Regular chatter? When? When did it all start flitting away? She can't dwell on this. King of Hearts. 4711. He's in a more active role. Perhaps he has advice.
Diamond-2. The glance towards the upper secured drawer. Filled with scribbles, with scribbles and answers to questions that no one had asked yet. Given enough time and effort, these rampaging thoughts of hers could coalesce into something workable. Something for the Tuatha de Dannan. Something for the world to benefit from, in time. Just like the Arm Slaves had come about. The eldritch pile of ink encouraged so much and endangered much more.
Deja vu. The vending machine. 200 yen. A coffee drink. A ten minute break to just allow this fugue state, to merely exist without worry for everything.
Eight hours for this current workload. Informally? Longer. One can't just turn their brain off when it concerns strategy. Even if one says to themselves that's enough, when a woman has been at their desk and dealing with TDD-1's formal movements, one can't shut their brain off and not think about the people under her command. Sousuke. Kurz. Mao. Lieutenant Commander Kalilin. Executive Officer Mardukas. The new recruits. Uruz 10. Uruz 12. One can't stop the thoughts. Formal employment? Full-time. The leader of a ship had to be in tip-top shape. Always. There must not be weakness shown. There can't be. Not for a person leading so many people in such a capacity. She can't afford to relax now.
They keep scratching at the back of her mind. The low drone. Indecipherable words. Answers to equations that still had to be positied.
...Ten hours. A glance up at the clock. She could've sworn it was seven hours earlier. The time. It keeps ticking. Shots of Tsutsujidai's kaiju spread across her desk. Information upon information, doubling upon itself. Didn't she read this earlier? She did, didn't she? Opening the folder of reports, reading things she swore she already read. Yet, the rational side of her screamed that this was the first time she read it. Yes, this report was dated today. An opening of a secured drawer and setting the contents inside.
Deja vu. The vending machine. 300 yen. A coffee drink, extra energy. A ten minute break to exist. An opening of a secured drawer and setting the contents inside.
The hand guiding this piece of paper detailing TDD-1's movements stop. Another moment of lucidity in Tessa's grey eyes, stopping in place. Think. Think. To remain lucid enough to plan everything, to remember everything, to keep everything on hand. Mardukas could lend advice on this. When to strike, when to fall back...How could she say that? Her actions always had a reason. Following the thoughts inside her brain was what led to victory, and she could always...nearly always explain the submarine's movements as naturally as her own body. Reports on the ARX-7 Arbalest, its repairs, its status, the multitudes of reports collated together into every chart imaginable. The Black Box. The very early stages of Project L. The box that she could only maintain and keep safe.
"...Bani..." The soft whisper and recollection of the designer as she closed that folder. An opening of a secured drawer and setting the contents inside. Sarah will continue your work. I just have to keep it steady until she finishes.
WAIT.
0400. The same day. The same night.
The door creaks open; The speed of which is hurried, yet controlled. She couldn't allow anyone else to see her in her pajamas so late, so early. The frenzied breathing of someone who's had less than fruitful sleep lately.
A closed door. A gentle flick of the lights, entering in. The drawer. The drawer. Scooting around to her desk, putting in the combination, the key, practiced motions again and again and againas complete second nature.
Unlock. The folder pulled out, the Commander of the Tuatha de Dannan, a woman managing millions of dollar in property and people staring at a blank folder with a simple mark in blocks.
WHISPERED
Opening. Looking. Four known. One. Dead. Suicide. Bani, you tried so hard. I won't let it go to waste. Two. Alive. Diamond-2. Commander and designer of the Tuatha de Dannan. R&D Head of the Shuffles. All technological advances are to be made known to the best of one's ability. Three. Alive. Acting Heart-2. Technically above her, though Mithril warns about the usual civilian wariness about what they do. Four. The fourth one. The page under Kaname's, the one that takes literal minutes as her mind races and stops, doing its best to compartmentalize, to work through what one already knows but refuses to see. Name. Name. Name. This is normal. This is expected. This is who she was. A pull of that same paper.
NAME: MIRA KUDAN
AG- No, she didn't have to read the rest. Those eyes scanned over the rest. It's all the same. Deja vu. No, it wasn't Sarah. Not here, anyways. Elsewhere, somewhere far, far away from here, away from all this.
"...She's so lucky..." Sarah was absurdly lucky. Mira was not. Away from all this? It was a blessing in disguise, she so loathed to admit. It was just a mixup of her own mind, but it was something disturbing, nonetheless. How could she get those two mixed up? One so close, one an unfathomable distance away.
Breathe. Mira Kudan was the one here, but the rest of the universe was the same. Project L would continue on. The timelines, the universes, nothing was crashing together, no nothing at all. Her own mind just confused the Whispers. Breathe. Everything was still stable.
Who am I? Teletha Testarossa. What is your job? Captain of the Tuatha de Danaan. To secure a spot for Whispered and to snuff out war where others try to ignite it. Are you happy with it? ...Yes.
A shuttering of the drawer. Lock, key. Off. Just a slip, nothing more. Just some confusion.
Lucky, lucky Sarah. Away from the hell that Whispered were burdened with.
Back to JOSH-A. A firmly packed package pulled out once more, thread unspooled and papers pulled out. Wilbur Garland. The hairs on her neck prickled as she read them. Again? Yes, this was the second time she pulled the packet out. Manage it. Manage the mental inconsistencies that you were born with. Another man to keep watch of, Mithril's own recommendation to see that his connections fail to come to fruition. Staring at the aged man in the picture, sounding out the word that linked the two.
Commander.
Deja vu. An opening of a secured drawer and setting the contents inside. The vending machine. 200 yen. A coffee drink, extra energy. A ten minute break to exist.
A blink. 2200. Another day. Another day? A blink. Was today Monday? Tuesday? Wednesday? Mail was a day ago. That means today was...Why did she think it was Friday? Saturday? A pause.
She's holding a piece of paper again. ARX-7. No, no, she put that one away. Breathe, Teletha, breathe. You can't do anything if you falter. The Tuatha de Dannan can't function without you. XO Mardukas can pilot it. Lieutenant Kalilin can set about with the daily, weekly, monthly schedules, the skirmishes, the movements, the continual, neverending tracking of anything and everything, but you, you...! You have a burden of your own. Everyone else is on a Need To Know basis.
Steady. Keep the Whispering in check. Yes, deja vu. No, deja vu. Manage it like you always have, keep yourself steady for the sake of others. You can only relax when you're on-shore, and even then. Christmas is coming. A time for celebration. She can surely bolster herself with the holiday spirit. Now is the time for work.
The recycling bin beside her desk clatters with the second coffee can of the entire day. The fifth set of folders properly secure themselves inside the drawer.
Teletha Testarossa would not stop working until 0100.