4 - standing by, locked message + spam

[exnihilo]

[Filtered away from all the residents of the barge, but open to any random fourth-wall people who might bother her.]

If you have any instructions for me, I'm here.


[Later, spam]

[She's just. Walking, when it hits her, descending the stairs to her room after another substitute kitchen shift. She wants to scream and bleed and set things on fire, and she barely understands why. She just - she did what she was supposed to do, she did, she didn't hide, and they - we love you, Mira, no one else will ever - they didn't -

She sits down in the middle of the stairwell, back to the wall, and draws her knees up tight so she can hide her face against them.]

Comments

[ Filter ]

[exnihilo]

People tell me I have been.

[She isn't sure if she believes it yet. She wanted to get out, and it ended in disaster, and now - she doesn't hate where she is now, but she's still waiting for the curtain to drop. They had her, and she doesn't know what it would mean if they let her go again, or what she wants it to mean.]

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[kissthatgoodbye]

[It's a little unnerving, because Alec can pretend all he likes, but he's seen all manner of reactions to reaching adulthood in an environment like the one Manticore set up: hyper-intelligent, hyper-competent sentient beings, under pressure to perform and without the freedom to express themselves as individuals, to speak up for the things they want or believe. Forbidden even to name themselves.

He's one of the fortunate ones, and he knows he's fucked up beyond repair. Others...]

Can you be helped?

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[exnihilo]

[The terrible thing about Mira is that she didn't reach adulthood - she simply faded into being, a fully formed assassin in medias res. She was made, at least, with a measure of independence and enough fake personality make her way smoothly through every level of Expansion society. She fears her overlords, yes, but she has not felt as pressured as transgenics, because she has always been what she is, always ready, always successful. If all the world's a stage, and men and women merely players, then Mira is, perhaps, the static snapshot on the poster. She is not - was not - explicitly forbidden to express her individuality. She was simply made without any, and what she has is a ragtag mess of cheap and stolen things that bite her palms as often as not.

Things that were removed, again and again, whenever they reached sufficient mass to sway her; she never needed to know this.]

I tried to go. Once. It was a mistake.

[A little stricken, that, but quietly, keenly factual all the same. Reporting. Darling's betrayal hurt her worse than the reprimand she got for falling for it, because it was the ultimate confirmation. She wasn't fit for anything else.]

And now - this.

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[kissthatgoodbye]

[It's the differences beyond, in spite of, through the similarities that are throwing Alec. And her account, however sparse, and her tone, however careful, strikes a chord in him that vibrates where there is no room for movement of any kind. Not without pain. He straps it all down tight again, shaking his head as if to clear it, and does what he always does: pushes forward more determined than ever.

He does not think about a girl he loved, a girl who died because he loved her. Because he tried to go, once, and it was a mistake, and he has spent the rest of his life paying for it - and for hers.]

Is there someone you can trust, there?

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[exnihilo]

...maybe.

[There's someone who seems it. Maybe two or three someones. But it hasn't been long, and she trusts less easily this time.]

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[kissthatgoodbye]

[Alec trusts no one. He has learned to fake it, and has even begun to see why he would want to, but actual trust?

No. Which is why he sighs, then shakes his head.]

You didn't ask for my advice, but what can I say? I just start talking and it all comes out.

Tell them. [Whatever it is, tell them.] But don't say it. Tell them until they hear it.

If they can be trusted, they will. Eventually.

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[exnihilo]

[She isn't sure how. But she nods.]

It's good advice.

[She thinks. Which doesn't mean she'll take it, exactly. But she'll think about it. It's a better plan than she has so far.]

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[kissthatgoodbye]

[He can't tell her how, or he would; it varies from case to case. Similar enough perhaps, but not enough that what worked for him with Max, with Manticore, will work for her and this Barge he's come to know so much about by complete accident.

His voice and his eyes, both steady, are uncharacteristically earnest when he says the only other thing he knows to say.]

Good luck.