Rescue Me! (from a journalist) OPEN

[splendid_roman]

Who| Ian and open
What| Ian wakes up after his death in the arena and is reminded of what he did there
Where| Training centre - central commons
When| During the last week of the arena
Warnings/Notes| None so far

Ian woke up, which was a surprise in itself. An assessment of his injuries revealed he had none, which was the second surprise. After lying in bed for a while, looking up at the ceiling, he could only conclude that he'd been taken out of the arena before he died from blood loss. Either the technology here was very good or he'd been kept asleep for a long time. He hoped it wasn't the latter and was curious about the former.

He ventured out, feeling tired, but not feeling any of his former injuries. The central commons, it turned out, wasn't the best place to choose. He'd barely got through the door when a journalist shoved a microphone and camera in his face and asked, "We loved your sword fighting. Can you tell us where you learned it?"

A screen nearby was showing one of Ian's fights. One where he killed someone. He'd fought before and he killed before, but for good reason - generally because his or someone else's life was in danger. But there were people he'd killed in the arena for no good reason. There had felt like one at the time, but now those reasons seemed petty.

He went pale and shook his head, looking around in the hopes of seeing someone who could rescue him from this interview.

Comments

[splendid_roman]

He blinked, worried for a moment what she'd seen him do on the televisions. Although he wouldn't have called him an idiot for that. "I was?"

[morethathityou]

"Yes," she said. "For trying to save me. You put yourself in harms way." She moved closer and put a hand on his arm. "Thank you," she added. She was grateful, but that didn't mean she wanted it to happen again.

[splendid_roman]

He smiled. That he definitely didn't count as being an idiot. "I couldn't just let you die."

[morethathityou]

She couldn't help but return the smile. Despite how much she didn't like people risking themselves for her, it meant that this man was her friend. "Fine," she said. "But you better expect me to return the favor sometime."

[splendid_roman]

"I'm counting on it," he said and laughed. "But if the people here have medicine this good, I'm not sure it matters much." He should probably try not to get beheaded, though, that might be beyond even their medicine.

[morethathityou]

"I'm not sure this is just medicine," Callista said thoughtfully.

[splendid_roman]

Ian frowned. "What do you mean?"

[morethathityou]

"Back home there was man who kept coming back from the dead. He was cloned."

[splendid_roman]

Ian shook his head. "Cloning doesn't work like that." He'd never seen cloning work in practice, or known of anyone who'd done it, but he knew the theory. "If you clone someone it would be nine months before they'd even be a baby. It would take as many years to get one to be fully grown as it takes any normal human. And the clone wouldn't have all the memories and experiences of the original."

[morethathityou]

Callista raised her eyebrows. "You accelerate their growth and use the Force to transfer their memories," she explained. "That's what happened with the Emperor in my reality."

[splendid_roman]

If they could bring people from their homes without their knowledge and permission, create an arena and bring people back from near death, the people here probably did have the knowledge to clone and perhaps accelerate growth, although Ian was sure that wasn't possible to that degree. And as for what the Force was...

"You think that's what's happened here?"

[morethathityou]

"It's a possibility," she said thoughtfully. "If there was another Jedi here I'd see if they could sense any differences or tampering."

[splendid_roman]

Of all the things he'd seen, a clone shouldn't be that much out of the ordinary. But he really disliked the idea of creating a person that way. If they could find out if that happened then that would be a useful thing to know.

"What's a Jedi?"

[morethathityou]

"I am," she answered, smiling a bit as if that should be obvious. The expression was meant to tease him a bit considering she knew how different their realities were. "They're protectors of the galaxy."

[splendid_roman]

"I see." He didn't understand what a police force had to do with cloning, though, unless it was illegal where she was from. "And it needs two of you to find a clone?"

[morethathityou]

"No. It would need one who has access to the Force." There was a pause, as she shoved away the pain and sense of loss. "The Force is what binds us together. It's all around us and inside of it. It's... It's what enables us to use a majority of our abilities. I lost access to it recently, but a Jedi who was still in touch with it would be able to tell an original body from a clone."

[splendid_roman]

What bound them together was an electromagnetic force. He'd have thought a culture that had space travel would have a better name for it than just 'the force'. "I don't see how that would help work out whether someone was a clone, but there should be something we can set up with the right equipment to reproduce the force."

[morethathityou]

"It's not something that can just be reproduced," she explained. "It's life. It's..." She paused then, uncertain. "I'm not explaining it correctly." Then a soft chuckle at her own expense. "That's why I'm not a Master."

[splendid_roman]

"If you say so." He didn't sound very sure because it sounded simple enough to him, but he had to take her word for it.

"If only there was a medical way to spot a clone." It hadn't, funnily enough, ever come up at university. "The Doctor would probably know," he mused.

[morethathityou]

"Who is The Doctor?" she asked, wondering if that was a title or if it was something else.

[splendid_roman]

He chuckled. "That's a good question." Although not as funny for her since she wasn't in on the joke. "He's a mysterious man with a spaceship, who seems to know a lot about everything." He wasn't going to mention the time travel yet.

[morethathityou]

"A spaceship?" she asked, smirking a bit. "So you have traveled through space?"

[splendid_roman]

"Not really. His ship didn't travel through anywhere, it just arrived, really." And it wasn't as if it'd had any windows to look out at what they were passing through. "I don't really understand it."

[morethathityou]

"But you knew that the universe had more life than just Earthians?"

[splendid_roman]

He nodded, but said, "Not until I met the Doctor. And none of them had spaceships."