exnihilo | 10. reacclimate

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10. reacclimate

[Public video, but filtered away from Harvey, David, and Iris]

[It might not be immediately obvious, between the low light and the strange angle, but Mira is lying on top of the unadorned altar in the nondenominational chapel on deck, some of her hair hanging over the side, comm held above her.]

Do you ever feel like you aren't real?

[Private to David 8]

How long was I asleep?

[Text private to Cassel]

Thank you again for the journal. It helped.

[She doesn't say with what.]

[Private to Harvey]

How was death?

[Private to Helena]

Iris says you watched me.

[Spam for Iris]

[One of so many pieces of paper Iris left in Mira's room, is slipped back under her door. It was disorienting at first, the colors and obtrusive scatter of trinkets, the scalding proof that time lost her for a little while, changed around her. She thought, of course she thought, it was her own memory that had failed, that had lost its mess of contents at least, but the notes, pieced together, gradually righted her assumption, twisting it upside-down like a flipped kayak. The page she returns is a poem, one of many Iris left in between more informative updates and sentimental messages. Beneath the attribution, Mira has scrawled in rough, childlike handwriting - the mark of a post-penmanship age - This one is my favorite.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[She shakes her head. Not rejecting any of it, just - a little bewildered, processing.]

I'm not that important.

You are to us.

[You're irrational, she thinks, doesn't say, only smiles in a fond flicker. After all the literal machines in her life, it's one of the things she loves best about them.]

Don't tell me I was the only reason.

[That would be - weird.]

No. [ He can be honest. ] It's much more complicated than that.

But you were a factor.

I'd like to hear about it.

[She'd kind of like to try it. It's - extreme, and that always appeals. But something in her balks, and she doesn't know why. Perhaps because she's been dead once before, because it cost her so much.]

I'll-- we'll tell you.

But we have... very different feelings on it. [ Can imagine why. ]

Guess you'll have to take turns.

[You dorks.]

[ They relax a fraction. Laugh, softly. ]

We will, then.

I think I need out of my room for a little while.

Yours?

[Private, without needing to ask permission for the CES.]

Of course. The Dogs will be glad to see you.

[ That he will be goes without saying, right? ]

We'll all be glad to see you.

[ Or maybe he'll say it anyway. ]

Edited 2014-09-17 15:38 (UTC)

[She flashes a warm smile.]

Soon.

[Skip to spam?]

My door will be open

[ Because yes spam ]

[So she lets herself in, doesn't hug him, just stands very close, up on her tiptoes, and cups both sides of his face in her hands to pull him close enough, kisses him hard, like she's still trying to break through something, like part of her needs to prove she's awake.]

[ He needs it; Two-Face needs to prove something, to remind himself of heartbeat, of the sticky vagaries of biological life not frozen in glacial ice. They both need it -- they can share that need, without question, without judgment that they need answers to something in such a simple gesture. ]

[ Big hands on her hips, he steadies her, feels bone and meat under his palms, beneath clothing, and he feels that much better. She's real. He's real. ]

[ Real enough for the moment, anyway. ]

[Eventually, her calves start to twinge, and she resists for a few more seconds, clutching, resisting, before lowering her heels to the floor.]

Okay.

Okay. So talk to me.

..who first? [ The question is as much internal, as external; he leads her over to the bed, and the dogs flop at their feet as he sits down, thinks about it for a moment. They are deciding. Who gets it. Who does not. ]

I wanted it, so I should explain. Then, Two-Face gets his turn.

[ That's fair. ]

[She likes listening to them discuss things. It feels like - being near personhood, instead of just people's faces, at least to her. She curls up with her head on his shoulder, and waits.]

I don't want to graduate.

[ It comes out haltingly, slowly. Harvey's a good orator-- he speaks passionately and well. Today, stress and feeling take their toll, fear stealing his eloquence. ]

Or rather, I don't want to graduate to just die. I don't want to go anywhere but home, but I know... I know we've done this before. We've reformed, gotten back on the wagon, played nice, two minds behind one face... But it won't work. I can't trust him. I can't trust myself.

So we did something that would hurt us -- and knew would hurt others. But without having to bloody hands or create death. So I bargained with Two-Face, and got him to agree, and we let Arthas kill us and raise us. We did it three times -- four or five days per death, just like the toll. The second two times, we had to flip for it...

[ And then the goddamn pillow flood gave Two-Face a chance to anchor himself in the driver's seat. ]

What did it feel like?

[She feels a little guilt, interrupting before everyone's had their turn, but she wants to know badly. And perhaps it will serve as a segue.]

[ It's Two-Face who answers; Harvey will mute it, make it seem not so bad. Like it was simply being.... off. The words come out raw and chopped, like stew meat, to be ripped and torn with the teeth. ]

Raw cold. Like rubbing up against dry ice all the time, except it's what your guts were made of. Hungry, but you couldn't say what for. You couldn't-- feel your blood pump, the air in your lungs was just cold, there was only drawing breath to speak and stillness till you ached for something more.

Only the ache was vaguely warm and everything else was freezing cold, and it was hard to feel anything at all beyond it, and even it was so small... Like some homeless campfire dying in a Gotham winter.

I hated it.

I don't remember ever being that cold.

[Musing, meandering her way through what she can't relate to and what she can, piecemeal, seeking understanding. There was - she thinks there was an ice planet, once, a target lovingly tipped into a crevasse, but her clothing kept her internals neatly regulated.

The stillness, though. She'd hate that. Drifting was bad enough.]

It's nothing to be sought. But he did, again and again. But we're not going to do it anymore.

[ Right, Harvey? ]

[She would rather burn than freeze, she thinks, although fire has always been tempting. She might even rather drown again. It sounds like being entombed in himself, when he is already imprisoned.]

Why?

Because it's stupid and won't work and even if it did it'd be misery! [ And because it makes Two-Face insanely angry, and it's almost enough to push him into something feral and ugly just thinking about it, ready to kill to preserve his life. Worked up and pacing now, he just keeps going on. ] If the ship wants to be rid of us, it'll be rid of us. He can't stop it!

[She catches his hand as he stomps past, squeezes lightly for a moment.]

I meant why go back.

[Beyond simple stubbornness, though goodness knows they've both got plenty. That's how this works: she listens to both of them.]

10. reacclimate

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