6. Open spam + Open video + private to Arthas

[exnihilo]

[Open Spam - hallways, deck, dining hall]

[Mira has finally read her file. And it's useless. Worse than useless. There's nothing about her past, her family, not even the name of the planet with the kites. The admiral is supposed to be omnisciennt, and she's still no one, from nowhere.

Worse - she's barely even no one coherently, they've broken her down and made her forget again and again. When you sharpen a knife, you have to scour away the layer of oxidation, the nicks and imperfections, all the little cumulative effects of time and life and use. They kept her very sharp.

She hurls her pot of sempervivum against the wall, hears the ceramic shatter brightly, watches the dark soil scatter across the pristine floor, the bulbous clutches of stiff leaves lolling askew in the mess. She throws her chair, and her lamp, and her notescreen, everything she can pick up that isn't extruded from the walls, but most of it isn't as breakable.

She snatches up the file and storms to the deck, cheeks hot and red, eyes wet, half blinded, flings the pages over the deck railing. She imagines jumping after them, but not seriously - she told Harvey the truth, she doesn't want to die. She wants to live, and she feels like she never, ever has. Not even the killing was hers, they didn't even let her keep the one thing that was always bright and real, the one thing they wanted her for. She wants to scream and hurt and break things, and there's nothing to break in the cold inverse-crush of space. She knows this from both of her lives.

She makes a strangled, frustrated animal noise in her throat, whirls, stalks toward the dining hall, which has plates and fruit bowls to smash and tables to flip over. She doesn't have a plan or a goal, just hurt and rage and viciousness.]


[Public, later]

[Her eyes are still a little red; she doesn't look like death warmed over but she doesn't look happy, either. Her tone is terse, not quite defiant. Challenging, maybe.]

If you knew, I mean really knew, that killing someone innocent would save millions of lives, improve more, would you do it?


[Private to Arthas]

What would you do if you couldn't remember who you were before?

[Who would be left?]

Comments

[gard]

Yes.

[exnihilo]

What if you just kind of knew.

[gard]

That's not something I'll put a percentage on. It's more complicated than one life and millions of lives. It matters how, what's happening, who that person is. The availability of time to consider alternate options. Because 'kind of knew' can be more than enough when you only have an instant to take that shot.

[routemistress]

I don't know. People can't be reduced that way. You can do the maths and make it sound like a right decision and maybe it is. But actually doing it meself?

[And then she breathes in sharply; her ribs still hurt and they hurt because she killed someone she loves for what she knows are right reasons, and she flicks the feed to private so only Mira can see the suddenly stricken look on her face, the incipient tears.]

Maybe I could. I don't know. Truth is you 'ave to decide every time over again. Right and wrong's really never that simple. What's up, sweetheart?

[As an afterthought, she sends Mira a story.]

[private]

[exnihilo]

I read my file.

[Terse, bitter. She doesn't know what she thinks about the story. She feels like the whole thing crushed down into one person, a fantasy of herself as citymind, a baby god. Blasphemous and frivolous.]

[to_dust]

How do you really know. Who told you?

[exnihilo]

Do you remember the worldminds, from that breach? The Rix Gods.

Like them.

[Public]

[keeps_a_cool_head]

Without a second of hesitation.

[Get out scorpius no one asked what you think]

[Public]

[exnihilo]

How many before you wouldn't.

Dining Hall

[with_my_teacup]

[Riddick isn't on shift, but he's nursing a rare cup of coffee and feeling his metabolism burn it up. He's had good comas and bad comas; this was a pretty good one, but it's left him quiet in an extended waking-up period.]

[exnihilo]

[She sees him, but she doesn't really mark him. She's too hazy and hurt and angry to think about what his presence means, whether she cares. She grabs a coffee cup and smashes it hard against the counter, feels the shards crunch in her hand, grabs a fruit bowl and flings it at the wall. It bounces instead of breaking, dull and unsatisfying, pears and oranges thudding dulling and rolling away in lopside paths.]

[voice]

[halftheman]

No. Justice does not require the death of an innocent.

[ He laughs, though, and the voice shifts ]

Except when it does, and when we would.

[voice]

[exnihilo]

They make no claims to justice. Only...efficiency.

[hearrrtofgold]

I think killing one person to save thousands of others is the lesser of two evils.

[exnihilo]

But would you do it?

[Beliefs and actions are not the same.]

[darknessb4me]

Yes.

[Private]

Before the Barge?

[private]

[exnihilo]

Before you died.

Before a year ago.

Either one. Both.

[Spam]

[youwill]

[He hovers not quite in the shadows, watching with no real reason to interrupt. She intrigues him on a level most do not, and watching her lose control is equally as fascinating. He watches the papers scatter and waft, and wonders if she will follow them. When she doesn't, when she makes that strangled noise and turns to head below again, he steps forward.

Not in her path. He's not so foolish as to get in her way.]

Don't hold it in.

[Spam] aw yisssss

[exnihilo]

[She rounds on him, shoves him, palms flat on his chest, makes the ragged sound again. She's a whole foot shorter than he is and she could probably still kill him with her teeth and a little creativity. But she isn't trying to, because this isn't about hurting him or even getting him away; it's just about impact, about thrashing against something and feeling resistance. If she's tangled in a net then she isn't in freefall. If she walks on broken pottery bloody footprints will show a trace of where she's been.]

I wasn't.

[logistical]

If ending their life would save others', they would not be innocent, would they?

[exnihilo]

Usually they had found, or were pursuing, dangerous information.

Private

[bodilesswarrior]

Yes. [Her voice is low and quiet.] I'd need to know for sure, I'd need to know there were no alternatives. But if it was the only way, then yes.

Private

[exnihilo]

There are no alternatives, but you can't know for sure. Or there are alternatives, but they're unreliable which in the long scale is flat out irresponsible.

[fireincarnate]

...I don't know.

[It burns away what doesn't work.]

I think it might be selfish not to.

[exnihilo]

[She likes Jean for this, she decides. For not knowing. For allowing herself not to know.]

Say someone else would do it if you didn't. Does it matter at all, then?