Sylvana stood from where she and Emily were in the middle of watching the beginning of their Gundam Wing marathon. She patted the girl's shoulder, "I'll be right back, Emi', I wanted to talk to the Major right quick."
"I'm not going to pause Duo shooting Heero for you, so don't be too long," Emily grinned.
"Will do." Sylvana made her way forward to where Sci was still seated at the ship's controls.
It looked as though he had his nose deeply buried in a book, so, not wanting to disturb him, Sylvana turned to leave the way she had come.
"What's on your mind?" Sci asked as she began to turn away.
Sylvana looked over her shoulder to see that he was looking up from his book for her answer. She laughed, putting her right hand up to rub at the back of her neck. "Nothing important, Sir, just a couple of dumb questions. Sorry for bothering you."
"The only dumb question is a question left unasked," he told her as he put a bookmark in to save his place, and set the book down on the console. At the same time, he kicked the Navagation chair around in a silent invitation for her to sit down and speak her mind. "You don't have to call me 'Sir' though, 'Sci' is fine, I told you that already."
He didn't speak sternly, as she had thought he might - rather, his voice held a friendly tone she couldn't help but allow to put her at ease. Bringing her hand back down, she moved to take the offered place. "Well, that's kind of part of my first question. . ." her voice trailed off as the absurdity of her inquiry hit her again.
"Shoot."
"Bang," she replied automatically, quickly bearing an embarrassed smile. "Uhm, okay. I guess my first question is, do you have a name? I mean, everyone has a name," she quickly clarified. "And Scifantasy must be a moniker of some sort."
"Of course I have a name," he started before he was cut off.
"What is it?" she asked eagerly.
"It's classified. Security reasons, and all that."
"Oh," Sylvana seemed slightly disappointed. Then she looked back up with a huge grin, "I get it! Your name's really 'Rumplestiltskin', and if anyone says your name three times, you'll be sent to a land called 'Honolee' where you'll have to spend the rest of your days playing Candyland with Puff the magic dragon!"
Sci just looked at her for a moment, before he started laughing. Sylvana readily joined in. After a few moments, she calmed down. "I do respect that, though. I won't ask again."
"You said you had a couple of questions, what were the others?"
Sylvana was silent a moment before she spoke. "Who was the other Eleven, and what happened to them? I know there was someone else first, otherwise you wouldn't have Emi' at Twelve."
A shadow passed across the young Major's features, but had disappeared almost as quickly as it had arrived. "I'm sorry to say that information is also classified," he raised a hand to stay her next, most obvious, comment, "and I ask that you don't ask Emily about it, either."
"But . . . why?"
"Just trust me on this one, okay?"
Sylvana sighed as she stood. "Okay. I guess they were really dumb questions after all," she laughed as she rubbed at the back of her neck again.
"Not dumb questions, Sylvana - just ones that cannot be answered."
She grinned, "Thanks for not answering my questions, 'Zed'." She gave him a flourishing bow, followed by a jaunty salute, and left the control cabin.
"...obvious to me that you're the bad guy here," Duo's voice came from the screen.
"Good," Sylvana sat back down beside Emily, "I didn't miss all of it."