application ;; ataraxion round 002

[suddenlycaptain]

P L A Y E R   I N F O R M A T I O N
Your Name: Gadgets
OOC Journal: gadgetsandgears
Under 18? If yes, what is your age?: No.
Email + IM: felidae.tigris@gmail.com | gadgetsandgears on AIM & Plurk
Characters Played at Ataraxion: n/a

C H A R A C T E R   I N F O R M A T I O N
Name: Carolyn Fry
Canon: The Chronicles of Riddick: Pitch Black
Original or Alternate Universe: Canon, Ataraxion memories
Canon Point: Right after being speared in the back and being carried off.

Setting:

The universe of Riddick is one where humans have long discovered faster-than-light travel and colonised hundreds of planets. It is not a sleek and clean universe, however. Despite the obvious advancement, technology lingers at the same levels used in current times, with most operation and engineering done in a hands-on manner and computers limited to information and base controls. Faster-than-light travel is not instantaneous, and people implement a medical system known as 'cryosleep' to put themselves into an unconscious state during long trips.

Various human sub-species have evolved, adapting to the environments of some planets, though the majority of the universe's population are still Earth-standard human. Alien lifeforms have been encountered, but are usually limited to animal-level intelligence and form.

There is no mention of a central government or justice system, but there is a long-standing and corrupt industry of prisons and mercenaries/bounty hunters, with mention of law-keepers such as marshals and some planets holding their own laws and governments. There is rarely mentioned 'Company', known to employ something of a military force, as well as slaves and criminals to do jobs (for a price) and help maintain lucrative operations such as mining.

Things are generally very hand-to-mouth, with people scrabbling for any money possible, prospectors looking to try and claim what land they can, mercs taking jobs with little scruples. Corruption, slavery and general nastiness are rife and operate unchecked. Religion is widespread, with Islam being the most prominent faith remaining from Earth, with New Mecca as a large and prosperous city. Cults are a widespread occurrence, often fanatical with very strange belief systems and rituals, and have been the cause of many wars across the universe.

Taken from here with permission.

History:

A merchant vessel, the Hunter Gratzner, is hit by meteorites, waking everyone on-board up from cryosleep. The captain of the ship is dead and as the docking pilot, Carolyn Fry attempts to land the ship safely. In order to balance out the ship, Fry begins to purge everything, including the passengers. The navigator of the ship, Greg Owens, argues that they’re responsible for their lives. Fry says that she’s not going to die for them out of “sheer fucking nobility” and attempts to purge the rest, but Owens stops her. The Hunter Gratzner ends up crashing.

When Fry comes to, the passengers are helping each other out of their pods. One man, Johns, has been transporting a dangerous criminal known as Riddick on the ship. Riddick has briefly escaped but is recaptured by Johns; the rest of the survivors don't even notice. Riddick is then bound to a pole inside the wreckage of the ship. Fry discovers Owens impaled by some sort of metal instrument and begins apologizing to him when he suddenly jerks awake. She tries to pull him free but it’s too close to his heart, and Owens shouts at her not to touch that handle – the same thing he was shouting at her when she was trying to purge the passengers. There are no painkillers, all having ben in the back of the ship that tore off. Fry orders the other survivors away and she sits with Owens while he dies.

The passengers – two “prospector types” (Zeke and Shazza), an antiques dealer (Paris), a Muslim Imam and his three acolytes, a young boy (Jack), and Johns – look around, taking stock of their situation and looking at the rest of the wreckage. Fry comes out to join them and they thank her for saving their life. Fry doesn’t correct them.

Back inside the ship, Johns fills Fry in on Riddick. The survivors then salvage what they can and decide to search for water. Meanwhile, Riddick escapes again! Johns discovers that he’s missing and everyone arms themselves with what they can before they set out for water.

Johns leaves a gun behind for Zeke, Shazza, Paris, and Jack at the crash site, Riddick watching. Johns nearly ends up shooting Carolyn when she comes up behind him to ask if he’s seen Riddick, but they do see trees. Back at the crash site, Zeke is digging a grave for the dead near the pillars while Paris keeps watch. Jack is already seeming to hero-worship Riddick.

Unfortunately, the trees are actually the bones of some large creatures. The party walks through the boneyard, unaware that Riddick is there as well. Fry pauses near what appears to be a massive ribcage and Johns approaches. He says that she probably should have stayed at the ship and Fry says she wanted to get away, only for Johns to say he’s never seen a captain so ready to leave her ship. Fry attempts to deflect, saying she think they should keep moving, and Johns asks what Owens meant about not touching the handle. Johns says it’s just between the two of them and Carolyn admits that she’s not the captain and that she tried to purge the passengers and Owens stopped her. Behind her, Riddick cuts off a chunk of Fry’s hair and smells it before blowing it in the wind. Johns sets his baseball cap on Fry’s head and they continue on.

When they continue, they find an abandoned settlement and discover that there was water there. Carolyn finds a solar-powered observatory while the Imam, his acolytes, and Johns find the source of the water. Fry notices something else: an emergency ship that they can use to get off the planet, without power. Then they hear gunshots.

Dragging another body to the mass grave, Zeke notices that there’s a new hole in the side of it. Riddick is watching him, but something grabs Zeke from the inside of the hole and drags him in. Riddick attempts to leave only for Johns to arrive. They fight and Johns pulls off Riddick’s goggles, exposing his eyes to the light. Shazza gets in on it as well, though Carolyn attempts to hold her back, and Riddick is knocked out.

Fry attempts to interrogate Riddick. He doesn’t say anything and Fry informs him that there’s a debate as to whether or not they should leave him on the planet. Riddick begins to speak, an attempt to intimidate with no information. Fry doesn’t have any patience for it and asks if he’s going to shock her with the truth now, and Riddick says that he’s not the one they have to worry about. Fry gets Riddick to show her his eyes and Jack pops up. Carolyn yells at Jack to leave, and Riddick says Jack’s a cute kid before continuing, saying he didn’t kill Zeke. Riddick tells her to look deeper in the hole.

Fry goes to the hole, Johns telling her that he thinks Riddick is just trying to spook them all and asking if she's trying to prove something. She heads into the hole with a flashlight and a rope and finds herself inside a cave. Fry also finds Zeke’s foot and hears something moving through the cave – probably whatever killed Zeke. She heads up through one of the stone pillars to try and escape when her light is knocked away from her, the creatures in between her and the tunnel she came in through. She starts shouting and Jack is the one to hear her, the survivors breaking through to pull her out. Carolyn's clearly upset and reveals whatever's there killed Zeke and almost her – just in time for something to grab onto her rope and yank it back. She’s nearly pulled back inside, saved by Johns and the Imam grabbing her and Johns cutting the rope.

Johns goes to talk to Riddick, who makes him a deal. Riddick is unhappy but takes the deal and takes his goggles before heading out.

The survivors collect one power cell and other supplies and head for the settlement. At the ship they’ve found, Fry works on adapting the electrical while Riddick points out that they can take the ship to the shipping lanes and wait to be picked up. Johns sends him away from the skiff and off to look around for something they can use to patch up the wings, and Fry reveals they need more power cells to power the sihp. Riddick finds the Coring Room but can’t get inside, and Johns calls him back. One of the Imam’s acolytes, however, finds a way in through the side.

The survivors, minus the acolyte in the Coring Room, go to drink some water and discover that the settlement likely belonged to geologists who are now probably dead. The question is what killed them and Zeke, and in the Coring Room, the acolyte finds the answer. They go to find him but they’re too late, finding the smaller creatures that attacked him and his mangled body.

After the acolyte is buried, they rest of the survivors look down into the pit of the coring room and discover more, older bodies and hypothesize on what happened. Johns points out that the creatures seem to stick to darkness and that they should be okay if they stick to daylight, but Fry discovers the last dated sample – twenty-two years ago that month. She heads back to the observatory and discovers that there was an eclipse, blocking all light from the planet.

Later, Johns tells Fry how Riddick escaped during an argument. It turns out Riddick can pilot and hijacked a prison transport, Johns insisting that the only way they’re safe is if Riddick believes he’s home free; Johns still intends to turn him in. He says they'll bring the power cells back at the last moment and then leaves, only to pause, apparently having a headache and shaking. Riddick is sitting outside the skiff, shaving his head and saying shaking that way is a bad sign.

Riddick heads into the ship where Fry is testing the systems, saying it looks like they’re a few shy of the power cells. He points out that it’s strange that they’re not doing a test with all the power and Fry confirms that she got the “quick and the clear version” of Riddick’s escape. He asks what Fry thinks and Fry tells him that he scares her. “That’s what you want to hear, isn’t it?” She attempts to go back to work but Riddick says he’s been meaning to catch up with her alone. He proceeds to tell her that Johns is a mercenary, not a cop, and that’s why he’s keeping Riddick alive – because he’s worth twice as much. Fry ends up snapping, telling Riddick not to waste her time, and Riddick tells her that they’re all going to tear each other apart when the dying starts. He also tells her to ask Johns why he shakes so much – and to ask why Owens had to scream so painfully before he died. Then he leaves.

Fry does as Riddick told her, going to find Johns and confront him; he's getting high on his own stash of morphone. Fry asks who Johns really is, and he confirms that he’s not a cop. Johns says his drug addiction isn't a problem, and Carolyn screams at him. Johns grabs her by the arm, making her feel the piece of shiv that Riddick left in his back. Fry leaves, Johns throwing the fact that she looked after herself first right back at her. Unfortunately, the esclipse is starting.

The survivors get in a solar-powered vehicle and head back to the crash site. Everyone but Shazza and Paris head to get the power cells, but they run out of time. Out of the earth come the small, juvenile creatures. Everyone runs for the ship, with Riddick and Shazza taking up the rear. They hit the ground and the creatures pass over them, and Shazza then makes a run for it. The creatures grab her and rip her into pieces in front of them all, carrying her off. Riddick makes it to the ship and they lock themselves inside as the adult creatures emerge.

Inside the crashed ship, they take stock of their situation. They have a few sources of light and the creatures know where they are, breaching the hull. They go deeper, apparently just in time, because a spike goes through the wall just behind the Imam. Riddick has found a torch and opens up a hole into another spot and everyone else follows, blocking the hole off as Riddick starts to move through the ship. There are creatures in there with him, and they end up grabbing another one of the acolytes. Riddick flees back to the others, momentarily blinded by the flashlight and falling. Johns shoots the creature behind him. They realize that light actually physically hurts the creatures, and they find another spot in the ship.

Fry says that they stick to the plan: get the cells back to the skiff and leave. Johns doesn’t think the eclipse will last, but the Imam says it is a “lasting darkness”. Johns still wants to wait for the sun to come up, and Fry says she’s sure someone else said that while they were locked in the Coring Room. Johns says they need to think about everyone and attempts to use Jack as a smokescreen for his fear. He and Fry begin to argue and she ends up calling him 79 kilos of gutless white meat. Johns moves as if to attack her and Riddick gets in the way, a clear threat. The Imam then speaks up and they agree to move back to the skiff – with Riddick leading the way. The power cells and glowing tubes are collected from the ship and put onto a makeshift sled to be dragged.

Fry tells everyone that all they have to do to live through this is stay together and keep the light burning. She then goes and finds Johns, asking if he’s ready. He says that Riddick is going to leave them all out there to die, and Carolyn asks what’s so valuable in Johns’s life that he’s worried about losing. Riddick overhears them. Then they head out. The light keeps the creatures at bay, but one of the flashlights falls. Jack slips free to get it and one of the monsters dives for him. Paris panics and crawls away, breaking the setup of glowing tubes, and is killed by the creatures.

They keep moving only to realize that they’ve crossed over their own tracks. Riddick explains that he circled to buy himself time to think. Riddick makes them listen – they creatures are up ahead in the canyon. He then reveals something else: Jack is actually a girl, and she’s menstruating, drawing the creatures to them with the scent of her blood. Carolyn comforts her before saying they’re going to have to go back. Johns then says he’s staying outside and reveals that Fry nearly killed all the passengers. She tries to hit him but Johns easily overpowers herr and they move on. He and Riddick speak up ahead of everyone else, and Carolyn has the other passengers hang back. Johns wants Riddick to kill someone to use them as bait and suggests using Jack, saying he’ll keep the others off Riddick’s back. Riddick doesn’t like that idea and the two men fight, the creatures killing Johns.

Riddick catches up to the other four and reveals that Johns is dead. Riddick figures out that the creatures likely have a blind spot and, as they move into the canyon, tells them all to keep Jack between them and that he’ll take the cells. This concerns Carolyn but there’s not much of a choice, and despite how heavy the cells are, Riddick drags them all.

They reach a part of the canyon that has caved in, bones blocking the way after being knocked down by the Sand Cat earlier. The last remaining acolyte is injured as they try to get through. Jack tries to follow Riddick only for a monster to try and attack her, and she ends up beneath a large bone as the creature tries to break through it. Carolyn tries to get the creature away from her using light, but it keeps trying to break through, Carolyn’s flashlight eventually broken. Riddick turns back and attacks it and manages to kill it. The five of them continue, only for the injured acolyte to collapse – and then it starts to rain. With their only light source being fire, save for a small light on Riddick’s back, it looks like they’re going to die.

Carolyn asks if they’re close and Riddick says they can’t make it. The acolyte is suddenly dragged off by one of the creatures, leaving the four of them. There’s a crevice nearby and Riddick has Carolyn, Jack, and the Imam hide inside as he continues on with the cells to get to the ship. The three of them pool the alcohol into one bottle to keep it burning, but they don’t think Riddick is coming back. As the light burns out, several glowing organisms appear on the ceiling. They quickly collect them into bottles and Carolyn goes after Riddick. Sure enough, he’s inside the ship, but he opens up the back for her upon seeing her through the viewscreen, saying that she has a strong survival instinct and that he admires that in a woman. Carolyn says that she promised the Imam and Jack that they’d come back with more light and asks if Riddick is afraid. He laughs. Carolyn tries to convince him to come back with her and when that doesn’t work, tells him to give her more light for them and she’ll go back by herself. He doesn’t give her much, just the small light that had been on his back.

Riddick says he has a better idea than going with Carolyn – that she should come with him. He tells her that he will leave her there and she starts to sob, saying she can’t. Riddick outstretches his hand and says no one will blame her for saving herself. He ends up helping her up off the ground and urges her up the ramp into the ship. She’s up at the top of the ramp when she pauses, thinking back to the way she tried to purge the passengers, and ends up tackling Riddick and shouting that she is the captain of this ship and that she’s not leaving anyone behind. Riddick flips her over and puts his shiv to her throat, telling her to shut up before asking if she would die for them. She says she’d try for them and he says she didn’t answer him, and she says yes, she would die for them. His answer to this is to pull back and take his goggles off, saying it’s interesting.

Carolyn and Riddick come back to the cave. The four make their way to the ship, following Riddick, who helps them over the ledge to get to the ship... but he gets left behind without any light. Jack and the Imam get on the ship but Carolyn waits. Riddick has a face-off with one of the creatures, staying in its blind spot, but another appears and he has to draw his shiv. He’s injured in the fight that follows which slows him down. Despite the urging from the Imam, Carolyn goes to find him with her bottle of glowing light and helps him up, trying to get him back to the ship. She tells him that she said she would die for the others, not for him – and then a creature impales her from behind and drags her away from Riddick’s arms into the darkness, leaving Riddick behind shouting “Not for me!”

Personality:

From the very start of the movie, Fry’s main characteristic is her strong survival instinct. She’s the first one out of the cryochambers and she tries to purge the passengers in order to keep herself and Owens alive. She leads the search for water and she asks those who have more experience with things for their opinion instead of trying to do it all herself; for example, when dealing with Riddick, she listens to Johns and when dealing with Johns, she listens to Riddick. It’s her plan to leave the wreckage of the ship and use what light they have to get to the skiff and leave the planet. She also leaves Jack and the Imam behind in the crevice to go after Riddick with her bottle of bioslugs, even though they were working on filling up another bottle. She didn’t want to take the chance of Riddick leaving them, and it actually prompts him to say that she has a strong survival instinct.

Despite this survival instinct, Carolyn is protective and nurturing towards those she’s close to. She obviously respected Owens, saying that he was at his best during the crash when things were at their worse, and despite his stopping her from purging the passengers, she sits with him while he dies. The painful way he died leads to her anger when she discovers that Johns has morphine with him that he’s been taking to feed his addiction. When it’s revealed Jack is a girl, she’s initially angry but, when Jack is obviously upset and scared, quickly switches to wrapping an arm around her and trying to soothe her. After Riddick attempts to get her to leave the planet with him, leaving Jack and the Imam behind, Carolyn reveals that she would die for them. Despite how dangerous Riddick is, despite how he nearly left them there, Carolyn ends up going back for him after hearing his shouts. This leads to her dying for him, as well.

Her closeness with the survivors of the crash leads to guilt over trying to kill them to save herself in the first place, which may have been a contributing factor to how close and protective she became over them. There’s a great deal of conflict between Carolyn’s survival instinct and her more protective instincts throughout the film. It takes a lot of pushing from Riddick for Carolyn to realize and admit out loud that she would die for the passengers that are left – some of it literal pushing. Even then, she doesn’t say she would die for Riddick; in fact, she says the exact opposite, despite having gone back to help him in the first place and then dying for him. Carolyn actually shows more trust toward Riddick than any of the other characters, with the exception of Jack, whose faith in him is blind instead of cautious. It’s possible that her conflicting feelings about dying for Jack and the Imam vs. Riddick are a result of who needs her. Jack and the Imam need her to be a leader, while Riddick just needs some help getting to the ship – help he wouldn’t have needed if he hadn’t gone back with her in the first place.

Fry spends a great deal of the movie saying that she’s not the captain, that she’s not the one in charge. Eventually, however, she realizes that she is. She comes up with plans, she tries to do what’s best for all of the survivors, and when she tackles Riddick to the ground instead of leaving with him, she shouts that she is the captain of the ship and that she isn’t leaving anyone behind. She’s a reluctant leader, forced into the role by others and by their circumstances, but she does the job well. She rallies the others and when things are dangerous, such as when looking for Zeke’s body or going after Riddick to the skiff, she sends herself out instead of any of her people. In addition, she doesn’t like it when her orders are questioned or ignored without reason – she snaps at Johns for saying they should wait on getting the power cells until he explains the circumstances of Riddick’s escape. Even then, she tells him that he’s dancing on razor blades. The decision to wait is not one that she likes, but she lets Johns make it, thinking he knows best since he’s dealt with Riddick more than any of them.

Carolyn is by no means a fearless leader. She tells Riddick that he scares her, though she does then add that she thinks that’s what he wants to hear. Still, she shows obvious fear when encountering the creatures, and other times when Johns and Riddick intimidate her. Despite her fear, she pushes on. She’s brave instead of fearless, setting her fear to the side in search for answers – and Fry likes answers, even to tough questions. She gets close enough to Riddick to see his eyes, despite how dangerous he is. She discovers some of Riddick’s abilities by talking to Johns, and Riddick reveals the truth about Johns to her later, which she then goes to Johns to confirm. Despite the both of them being able to kill her, she stands up to them both – though she’s quickly knocked down when it gets physical, their size and strength differences don’t stop her or her quest for answers. Carolyn is also the one who notices the dates on the coring samples and connects it with the model of the system, as well as the person who found the skiff by noticing the light reflecting off of it. This combined with her pilot ability suggests that she’s detail-oriented and able to draw conclusions from small amounts of data.

In her search for answers, there’s one thing Fry won’t put up with, and that’s bullshit. If you’re being an idiot, Fry will call you out on it. If you’re being a coward or trying to scapegoat someone else, Fry will call you out on that, too. Her reaction to bullshit and stupidity tends to be anger, calling Johns a “79 kilos of gutless white meat”, yelling at Paris when he goes off and manages to get himself killed, and yelling at Jack for her deception. Carolyn has no patience for people who waste her time or who won’t own up to things, especially their own weaknesses. This is especially true if it interferes with her survival or the survival of the people she cares about.

Abilities, Weaknesses and Power Limitations:

+ PILOT. Carolyn has been trained as a spacecraft pilot and is able to fly and maintain them. In her previous time on the Tranquility, her familiarity extended to the shuttles and parts of the ship itself.
+ SELF-DEFENSE. In canon, Carolyn is not terribly great at fighting; she can't hold her own against Johns and definitely can't against Riddick. While on the Tranquility, her skill with both martial combat and firearms improved. She'll have to brush up on these skills, but she remembers the theory.
+ RELUCTANT LEADER. Carolyn's thrust into a leadership role in canon. She's actually fairly good at it. During her time on the Tranquility, she became the head of the Flight Crew and therefore had more experience as a leader to learn and grow with.
+ ONLY HUMAN. No superpowers or magic here! She's just as squishy as you and I.

Inventory:
1 baseball cap, blue
1 bottle full of bioslugs
2 bioraptor claws
1 utility belt
1 full Hunter-Gratzner pilot's uniform
1 oxygen tank & hose
Species/Race: Human
Appearance:

Carolyn Fry is played by Radha Mitchell. She is 5’ 5 ¾” and wiry with short, slightly wavy blonde hair and blue eyes.
Age: 25 physically, technically older due to time spent in cryosleep in canon

AU Clarification:

Carolyn will be arriving back in this universe with her memories of her previous stay on the Tranquility, though some will be fuzzy (partially due to her player's memory, as it's been over half a year, and partially because she's dead back home so it's not like her brain was working while she was away).

While previously in Ataraxion, Carolyn's focus once again was survival. This time there was a ship full of dozens of people to worry about and problems without a clear answer. Carolyn started up the Space Training program to help introduce new arrivals to the perils of space and how to keep themselves and everyone around them safe, implementing evacuation plans and teaching technology to characters who were unfamiliar with it. Still, she came to care for several on the Tranquility as much as she came to care for the survivors of the Hunter-Gratzner; notable cross-canon CR included Hikaru Sulu, Haymitch Abernathy, and John Casey. She and Riddick, who was also a passenger, became somewhat closer as well: Riddick kept a distant but careful eye on her and Carolyn grew to trust him to have her back, to the point that it became hard to sleep without him watching her (as strange as that is for anyone who functions well). She also had a pair of cats left behind by other passengers (Data and Ellen Ripley), and cared for them and their kittens a great deal.

While survival was her main focus, Carolyn quickly understood that to survive the Tranquility meant they had to solve its mysteries. She was one of several who became locked on the bridge and barely escaped to the medical bay before the jump and she didn't shy away from trying to unravel visions, dreams, or puzzles left by 'Smiley'. In her mind, it would have been just as foolish to ignore these or to do nothing -- it would be sitting and waiting to die instead of fighting to survive.

S A M P L E S
Log Sample:
[ At first, this is familiar. Not safe, never safe, but familiar. Cyrofluid, breathing tube, alarms, shapes beyond the glass -- it's another jump, or rather just after.

Then the gravity couch opens and Carolyn falls, slowly registers different -- wreckage, the ship on its side.

Not so familiar, that.

Something's gone wrong, they've crashed, had to have. She stands, glances at her nanites; jumbled, nothing clear on them. She can understand the people around her, though; they still work for that. The place where the bioraptor impaled her aches as if it's fresh, and when she reaches up to brush hair out of her face, she realizes: the scars she gained on the Tranquility are gone. ]

Wha-...?

[ How long has she been out? How long...?

It's possible, she realizes as she picks herself up off the ground, that it's not how long she's been out. It's how long she's been gone. There are no new memories of her universe, but there wouldn't be; she's dead there. Still, it wouldn't be the first time this has happened. It makes her feel faintly nauseated (also not unusual, with jumps), but she swallows it down.

If the ship crashed, then she has to move, figure out how stable it is or isn't. She can see the way out. She just has to climb up. Hand over hand, foot over foot, try not to think too hard about the hundreds of possibilities as to what happened, try not to think about the people (Nathan? Tyke? Wash? Riddick?). Focus. Breathe in, breathe out. Survive, then you can help others. ]

If this happened because someone was an idiot... [ she murmurs; a waste of breath, but this planet has more oxygen than the last one she was stranded on. More gravity, too. If there's anyone friendly outside, she'll just have to hope they're on the more intelligent end of the spectrum.

God, she hopes no one made the Tranquility crash because of something avoidable. ]

Comms Sample:
[ She remembers the communication devices on the Tranquility, how sleek they'd been designed, how you could encrypt things from other passengers but anyone from the universe itself didn't even seem to notice. Her old one is probably a ruined mess somewhere in the wreck of the ship, but there were enough salvaged components that a rudimentary radio system had been setup eventually.

Fry feels a little gun-shy, using it. So many things have changed, so many faces are missing or are entirely new. But there's one question that's been bothering her, as silly as she knows it seems, as much as she has a feeling Riddick will mock her for it from somewhere in the jungle. ]

This is Carolyn Fry, formerly CFO » 008 » 022. I've been gone for... a while.

[ Over half a year, she's told, not counting however much time was spent in jumps. ]

I'm looking to see if any of my cats survived. They were all orange tabbies.

[ And she almost sounds defensive, as if waiting for someone to judge her about asking after the cats. A sharp breath and, after a moment, she quickly adds just one more thing. ]

The large, quiet man with the shaved head and goggles is one of us. Don't shoot him.

[ Another pause and, more awkwardly: ] Thanks.