thisavrou_log | [ morgue break-in ]

[ morgue break-in ]

Who: Miles and Loki
When: 12/7 - 12/9
Where: the ship's morgue
What: Miles and Loki both have the same fantastic idea: let's break into the morgue to see what's inside.
Warnings: dead bodies, probably

Miles' tolerance for this cagey bullshit is really starting to wear thin. He's trying his honest best to at least cooperate with the captain, but he finds it difficult to instill trust in them when he knows so little of the situation, particularly with Thán's increasingly questionable command style.

It wasn't until after he died that the morgue pinged his radar. As far as the personnel records show, no one else had died besides him and Eggsy, and they'd both come back. Miles' and Eggsy's bodies had both been destroyed along with Caducus Primary, and new ones spat out by the Ingress in short order to be placed in cryo. So what the hell was the morgue for? There must be some who die and never come back, but that hasn't happened as far as Miles has been here. He's pretty damn sure the morgue hasn't gotten any use since that first wave fell in. But what really rang alarm bells in Miles' head was Thán's evasive answer, or rather the lack thereof. As far as he's concerned, that's confirmation that there's something they don't want him to know about the morgue. And whatever it is they don't want him to know, he definitely wants to know.

He'd scoped out the morgue earlier in the week, and he knows that Captain Cúrre has been in and out periodically. Out long enough, at least, for Miles to have a decent chance at getting a peek inside the morgue. He comes in on some ostensible medical concern, collecting a few extra painkillers for the osteo-inflammatory attacks, and idles patiently until Cúrre steps out. His fingers are itching by the time he gets to the security pad at the morgue door. It's the same as most of the locks on the ship, opened by a simple fingerprint scan, but it looks like this one requires a passcode as well. Miles is almost tempted to press his finger to the pad just to see what happens, but at the risk of triggering some alarm, he decides not to. He'd have to escalate that ticket a level. The higher tech end of infiltration isn't really Miles' personal forte, but he's had the covert ops training and the fingerprint scan tech here seems similar enough to the palm locks back home. Miles breaks out the little weapon maintenance toolkit, a set of tools conveniently handy also for dismantling certain security devices, and sets to work at prying the facing off the security pad. This is careful work, but he'd better work fast. No telling when Cúrre would be back.

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Loki's been waiting for Cúrre to leave too, but... less obviously. He's been waiting against one wall, out of the way, invisible to as many forms of detection as he knows how to make himself. It means he moves silently, the only potential indicator he's there a faint blurring in the air as he moves. The morgue has intrigued him since his first time poking in all the corners of the ship, the same as all the other locked doors, perhaps a little more so given the morbid nature of the room. And really- if no-one stays dead here either, the way Eggsy hasn't, he sees no reason for a room to store dead bodies that don't exist. He wants to know what the door hides, at least.

He is intrigued to see someone else with the same idea, he has to admit, and he creeps up behind Miles, still silent until he speaks.

"You do realise there's an easier way of doing that, don't you? A little less obvious to detect tampering if someone comes by whilst we're in there, too."

He offers it in an off-hand tone. Magic does tend to be less obvious, and a little faster too.

Miles manages to snap his teeth down on the startled curse that nearly jumps out of his mouth as he just about jumps. God damn it, he could've sworn the medbay was empty --

He recognizes Loki's voice before he jerks around to see him, unsure whether he ought to be relieved or more worried for his presence. But no, Miles catches that we, and it's Loki, after all; Miles has never pegged him much for the "run and tattle to the captains" type. He blows out his breath and tries to smooth the startled look for his features, raising his eyebrows up at Loki.

"Oh?" he says expectantly, his gaze sliding flatly to the half-open panel on the security pad. You could've swooped in about two minutes earlier and saved him the trouble, Loki.

He can't help it; he smirks as Miles gives away his surprise, because at heart Loki is always a trickster, even small petty tricks like that. He holds one hand up, glowing faintly green, reaches idly over Miles' shoulder to press a finger to the pad.

Machines are stupid, and Loki- Loki is a master of lies. Even when that lie is "this finger is totally authorised to open this door, and by the way there are now two access codes for this panel, including the code I'm about to type in". Changing the code would be too suspicious if someone tries to get in, but a back-door second code is perfectly within Loki's skills.

"Oh, indeed," he says, all self-assured confidence and raised eyebrow. "Magic has its uses, and getting in and out of places I'm not supposed to be is a speciality. This is easy, compared to the dungeons of Asgard."

It's that smirk that rubs Miles the wrong way, but he's self-aware enough to acknowledge that it's the same sort of look he'd be giving to someone he got the drop on. Does he really come off that arrogant? Better not think about it right now.

"Magic. Right," Miles says, one eyebrow cocking a little higher up at Loki. With fingers stiff from the cold, he replaces the panel, gathers up his toolkit and tucks it away, and gets to his feet, straightening out his uniform front. Inwardly, he's a little relieved Loki has at least spared him the difficulty of trying to fiddle with the lock when it's so damned cold. He jerks his chin up at Loki and then slips inside the morgue. The chill is even worse in here. "I suppose that's polite talk for 'I won't show you how it works', then."

He's a god, arrogance is expected- and really, he has so few things to be confident about these days, it might be he's over-compensating on the things he can afford to be arrogant about.

He shrugs again, arms folded loosely across his chest as he follows Miles into the morgue, looking around curiously. The cold isn't bothering him nearly as much as it seems to be bothering Miles; he was born for colder temperatures than this, after all.

"It's not that I won't, it's that I can't unless you're capable of the same thing already. And believe me, were you capable of wishing the universe into knots, you'd know it," he replies, a little absently, drifting to the morgue's drawers. From what he's seen of Miles, he's pretty sure it's not lack of willpower stopping him from twisting the universe as he goes. "Think of it as a lie I'm telling the universe. For a moment, I can do the impossible, because the universe believes I can do it- as long as the lies I tell it are sufficiently believable. Rituals and spellbooks make it much easier, but I didn't have time for drawing circles and reciting spells."

Miles tries not to shiver in the icy air of the morgue, feeling along the wall to hit the lights as the door swings shut behind Loki with a heavy clilck and a beep. He glances over his shoulder at the door, but getting out is usually easier than getting in, and with the way Loki waltzed right in here, Miles is pretty sure it isn't going to be a problem.

"And this is all part of that godly power set, right?" Miles' voice is more bemused curiosity than skepticism by now. He's past the "is this guy really a god or is he just a lunatic" bit, because whatever Loki is, it's obviously something superhuman, and if he is a lunatic (jury's still out), it's incidental. And after seeing what Clark could do, back on Caducus Primary, Miles' horizons of credulity have broadened considerably. "That's too bad. It'd make some parts of my job a hell of a lot easier. All I've got are telling lies the old-fashioned way."

And he's not too bad at it, bullshitting on the fly. Miles hugs his arms as he walks around the perimeter of the room, rubbing his arms to generate a little extra worth. He's wearing about three layers' worth of clothing, with his thermals and his work uniform under his Barrayaran uniform jacket. It's a decently-sized morgue, about proportional to the ship and the medbay as one might expect, but the examination table is empty, the instruments put away. But it doesn't look as though it's been in total disuse, either. Miles doesn't like the feeling he's getting here, and he glances over at Loki.

"Anything your bag of tricks that gives you a read on this place?"

"Seidr and godly powers are usually rather different, actually. Asgard's rather more about heroics and physical strength and hitting things very hard, and very few people appreciate the elegance of a good spell." Magic is rather looked down on in Asgard, actually, but it's something Loki was born with, is good at, and it balances out his weaknesses; he's strong, yes, can fight his brother for a short time if he has to, but he'll always lose in contests of physical strength. "But as much as I'd like to wave a hand and know everything, if I could do that, I'd have done it the other side of the door. Sometimes, the only way to know things is to physically check them out."

He pokes a drawer, idly, has to unlock it to get in it, but it's unsurprisingly empty. "Nothing wrong with the occasional old-fashioned lie, either. Sometimes the simplest solution is the best." He looks down at Miles- very down, unfortunately, given the height disparity. "I'll check the top row, if you check the bottom?"

"Seidr, huh?" Miles repeats the unfamiliar word, turning it over in his mouth. "So if that's not a god thing, where does the magic come from then?"

He's half-ready for Loki to make some bad short joke, but he doesn't, and it's an otherwise totally reasonable suggestion. Miles bends slightly to check the drawers in descending order along the wall, some of them locked but seemingly empty, others unlocked and definitely empty, until he comes to one marked #003. Miles gives it a tug, finding it locked, but he frowns and jostles it again. No, there's resistance this time, weight behind it. He waves a hand at Loki.

"Let's crack this one open. I think there might actually be something inside."

He busies himself opening the drawers, all empty. Damn. And here he thought he'd found something. He can't seem to stop slipping into teacher mode, though, shades of training Billy showing through. And it's nice to be able to show off a little, too.

"Depends on the magician, more often than not. You can learn it by rote, even if you were born free of inherent magic, if you know the right rituals and spells. You can find it, sometimes, in artefacts. You can call upon certain beings for it, if you know how to approach them. Some people contract it, unwillingly. Or- you can be born with it, in my case. A freak of nature, essentially." He sounds a little ironic, because few people here know the myths, know exactly how much of a freak Loki is back home. Magic isn't common among frost giants, either- and magic on Loki's scale, the ability to bend the universe in interesting ways nearly on command, is rarer still anywhere in Loki's universe.

Still, he looks up at the mention of a locked drawer, head cocked in interest. "Ah, now we're talking. Let me see... a purely mechanical lock, is it?" He adds a word in another language that even the translator can't seem to catch, one that hangs oddly in the air, and the lock clunks open. He bows slightly in Miles' direction. "After you?"

For what it's worth, now that he's over the bulk of skepticism, Miles makes an avid student -- or at least an interested one, even if he doubts this sort of thing is in his wheelhouse. He cocks his head as Loki rattles on, nodding along. He snorts at the words freak of nature, though not derisively.

Miles rubs his hands to warm them as Loki clicks the lock open. "Bet you'd be a treat to have on an infiltration job," he remarks with a half-grin, reaching to tug open the cabinet. The grin slips off his face.

He'd more or less expected to see a body -- it's a morgue, after all -- but not one this badly...damaged. It's certainly a unique-looking corpse, the damage not quite like anything Miles has seen before, although it looks almost electrical. Miles swears softly under his breath, covering his nose and mouth with one shirtsleeve. The body doesn't look totally fresh, but that doesn't mean it doesn't give off a rather mortal odor. He tilts his head to try and get a better look at the body as he pulls out the drawer all the way -- definitely a woman's. All right, so there's a body -- now Miles' head is flooded with the question of whose.

Miles nods up at Loki, pulling his shirtsleeves over his hands and breathing through his mouth instead. "Help me turn her over?"

"There's very few locks that can keep me out, at least." He can't help sounding just a little smug. This is very nearly his speciality, breaking and entering, and he's allowed a little pride sometimes surely.

The corpse isn't entirely unexpected, and Loki reaches over to run a finger over the markings, apparently unconcerned by smell or the weirdness of touching a dead body. It's only a corpse, after all. Loki's seen a few in his time- and caused more than he likes to think about. And is currently sort of wearing one, in some ways, a thought that has him flinching from the brief burst of conscience, one he covers for by pulling his hand away, trying to sound off-hand as always. "Looks rather like someone got struck by lightning. You see it rather a lot when your brother is the god of thunder."

After a moment, he reaches over, turns the body over easily. It's stiff, and Loki is always stronger than he looks. "Ah- admittedly, I saw her only briefly, and the memory is a little hazy, but does this look like one of our erstwhile Captains to you?"

Miles watches Loki withdraw his hand -- was that a flinch? If it was, Loki certainly passed it off well. Hm. Well, Miles wouldn't be keen on touching a dead body himself, although he does lean closer to study the marks. Electrical after all. Miles raises an eyebrow up at Loki. "And what are you the god of?"

He leans in closer to look at the lightning -- or something -- damage. He's more familiar with plasma burns and the much more subtle marks of a nerve disruptor, but he could buy this as lightning. The discoloration is a bit...grotesque, though, isn't it? He's just about to open his mouth to say something when Loki turns over the body, revealing the face, and his stomach does a neat flip.

"Oh, shit," Miles breathes, tilting his head as he stares at the dead -- very, very dead -- woman's face. Unthinkingly, he reaches a hand to brush a stiff, dry piece of hair from her face, then recoils at the touch of her skin. "Yeah, that's Típota, alright. Shit."

"Mischief, what else?" he asks dryly. "Every pantheon has its very own trickster god, and I happen to be the one for my particular godly assortment. The best one in any pantheon, of course, in my humble opinion." But not evil, not any more, and for that he's more glad than he can ever admit.

He leans in closer, checks the dead woman's eyes, fingers light on dead skin. He's still seen worse than this; at least this one is relatively whole. And, as far as Loki's limited knowledge can tell, formerly alive and formerly relatively close to human. "Well, now, isn't that interesting? At least we know they can die, yes?" He looks up at Miles, eyebrow raised. He doesn't mean to sound callous, just pragmatic, and after all he'd barely known her.

After a moment, he steps back again, head tilted towards the door. "Time to close this up and go, perhaps? I doubt this room holds any other secrets."

"I never doubted they could die," Miles mutters. Only that they'd stay dead. Thán had told Miles about his ability to reach out and pull the dead back through the Ingress. He was the one responsible for Miles' and Eggsy's resurgence. So why not Típota? Why is her body still here, and a living one nowhere to be seen? The captains are an elusive bunch sometimes, to be sure, but even so...

"I think it's about time we made our exit," Miles agrees fervently. "Let's get her turned back over first. Can you lock this up again the way we found it?"

"Mmm, let's just say this isn't my first time in a situation like this. The last one was... actually far less pleasant, even if the ship is almost as cold as a frost giant's heart." Loki looks away for a moment, one hand idly going up to touch at the scar under one eye. "Our hostess there was very much less vulnerable, so I wondered."

But still, it is interesting to know why she's in the drawer... "Still, I know master Unwin came back from the dead recently, so why not her?"

He flips the captain back over, carefully, pushing the drawer closed easily. Locking things isn't much harder than unlocking them, a small change in the state of the story easily told. The main door is... more of an issue.

"Ah... you recall that when we came in, there was a box on the wall you were attempting to disassemble, yes?"

...Because there's no such box this side of the door, or a handle either.

"I did too," Miles mutters, dismayed, and he straightens with a slight wince. He's already been feeling on the stiff side, and the cold isn't doing him any favors. "And I came back, too, so double's the question."

He's rubbing his cold hands on the front of his trousers to try and warm them when Loki calls to him. He gives up on that and tries rubbing his hands together as he looks over, and...his mouth flattens, brows drawing down into a look of helpless exasperation.

"Of course." Scowling, Miles treads over to the morgue door -- the only way out -- and sure enough, there's nothing but the smooth, metallic plane of the door. Miles runs a hand over the cold metal as if to check what he's seeing, then withdraws his hand with a grunt at the cold. They shouldn't have let it close all the way behind them. Of all things --

"Captain Cúrre must have a remote control for the door. Probably through her MID." Miles glances at Loki and waves at the door. "You can't fix this? You know, put a handle on the door, or...?"

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[ morgue break-in ]

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