pain_train | SANCTUM INBOX

"No, he's not mad. Once he heard you and I were becoming friends he was all for meeting you too. I think he didn't have much choice about shooting anyone, considering the mess that it was up there. No one knew who was on whose side. It was chaos." Utter chaos. York's arrival probably seemed to her like he had called some backup. It certainly would look that way to someone who didn't know their motivations.

"Focus is good," he says. "It is. It's just good to relax and have fun sometimes too. I'll do what I can to help you remember that, certainly. I like...talking to you." That wasn't too much to say, right, after being friends for only one day? But he did, he really enjoyed it. It kept him from thinking about other bad things, like his own visit to the compliance office and the disappearance of his sister. The way his friendship with Delta is slightly strained. The way he could get injured fighting, no matter how food he is.

He takes her expression to mean that she's planning the best way to kick his ass and he can't help a wry smile. "You do like to fight dirty, huh? Just don't bring any grenades with you and I can handle it." Surely she wasn't that dirty, not like Maine and Wyoming when they'd managed to blow up York's eye. If she was...well, that was grounds for him to rethink this friendship. But surely nothing like that would happen.

"It was a good fight. It'd be kind of dumb to hold a grudge when we all made it out alive, right?"

Definitely not too much to say. He receives another of those smiles that could nearly light up a room. "I'm really glad you do. I know...I mean I know sometimes I don't make sense but I'm glad you still want to talk. I really like you, too." Oh, she probably shouldn't be so forward. She tends to throw herself into everything, and maybe that's bad at times like this when actual people are involved, she can't remember how this is supposed to work. Maybe he's kind of shy. She quickly adds: "Talking to you, I mean."

Frown. "Why would I bring a grenade to a sparring match? That wouldn't be fun. Someone could get hurt really bad and then they wouldn't be able to play any more."

"Well, when you don't make sense, that's when you need someone to help you figure things out. Right?" He hoped that's what he'd been doing.

He shakes his head. "It's complicated, but I'm referring to something that happened back in Freelancer. York, the guy who I mentioned to you, the one you threw your sword at? He lost an eye. Because they brought a grenade in. It was to try to beat Tex, actually. It didn't work, they just caught their teammate in the crossfire."

First: oh good he didn't take that in a bad way and think she was weird.

Second: she's so lucky.

"Yeah." Her smile might be a little sad for a moment, and the hell of it is, she's not even really sure why. "Thank you for listening." And believing. And not calling the compliance officer. And being sweet and holding her hand. There's a lot she could thank him for; it's a lot to her, at least.

"Okay, his name is York..." She frowns. "Was that some kind of training exercise? That can't be right." And he lost an eye? Eyes aren't that hard to replace, but still. Losing one isn't fun. "That's like hurting sometime in your family. That's not okay."

He looks over her bed, to the wall, remembering. "It was Tex's first sparring session with any of us. The Director knew she was tough so he pitted three agents against her. He also told them they could use any means necessary to defeat her— well, he told the other two guys that, not York. That was a mistake in itself. Anyway, York thought it was unfair and he broke ranks to help Tex and...he got hurt."

She frowns, brows drawing together. "Why would you do that? I mean... a scenario where you have multiple opponents is fine. I do those all the time. But any means necessary? That doesn't make sense. That's not how training works."

People can get hurt in training, sure. But they're not supposed to. It's not supposed to be at that level.

"I'm sorry that York got hurt. It shouldn't be like that."

"I could talk all day about what was wrong with the Project and why but I'm not sure you want to hear all of that. Some of it is...disturbing."

He pauses, glancing up above the doorway before looking at her again. "There are a few good things that came out of it. I met one of my best friends there. I haven't told you about him, but I'm going to bring him to meet you, if that's okay. He's called Theta."

"I don't mind listening. I mean, I like listening to you." And he's listened to her, so it seems fair. It's not like every portion of this conversation has been sunshine and kittens.

Just the way he says it feels familiar, feels like an old, shared bruise somehow even if she can't remember how she got her own bruise. She thinks about the notes she's written to herself, the things she can recall in the clarity of cold rage that seem indistinct at other times. "People think we're disposable. We're not."

Maybe that will mean something to him.

Another of his friends? She already might get to meet York, and now he's talking about another one? It's amazing. "I'd really like that." More of North's friends, and maybe they'll like her too and she'll have friends again, real ones, like Envy and Avarice. (But only until you're back on duty, you have a duty, you don't need distractions.) "Is he nice? ... Well of course he's nice. Is he... did I cut off his leg or was that someone else?"

Edited (Swype errors) 2014-11-03 16:26 (UTC)

He swallows. "Yeah. That's the gist of it. We were commodities. Things to be used, variables in an experiment. That's all."

He frowns. "I suppose I ought to tell you about it, though. That way you'll understand who Theta is, and where he came from."

He has the urge to take her hand again, just to steel himself for reliving this again. He doesn't do it though. It's too intimate at a time like, when he'd be clinging to her like a lifeline. "The leader of the Project made a copy of his mind, an artificial intelligence. It was just as smart as he was, just like a person. The aim of the Project was supposed to be to make partnerships between human soldiers and AI units, so the AIs could help us in battle, help us be faster and stronger and, well, just better.

"At some point he decided he needed more AIs. It wasn't enough with just the one. So he realized, the AI has a mind like a human. Why can't we break it just like a human's? So they started to torture it. I don't know how they did it, what kind of methods they must have used, but fragments started to break off and he paired us up with them. York got Delta, and I got Theta."

He's gone now, staring off in the distance, and his pauses between sentences are growing longer. It's hard to know which bits to share and how many words to do it in.

"He was...he was timid, and he was fearful, and he relied on me to assure him that things were okay. He always needed my approval before he would trust someone, and he was anxious that something might happen to me.

"This was more than just knowing someone, though. The AIs were linked with our minds, so I could talk to him and feel him in my head, and he could talk to me that way, too. So I've felt his fear, I've felt his distrust. I've felt it when he was happy, when he was proud he'd done a good job, too. He helped me in battle, just like he was supposed to.

"When AIs are brought here, they're given their own bodies, so I don't have that with Theta anymore. It's...been hard on us. We managed to get some chips that connect us, but it's not quite the same thing. We can hear when we send direct messages or something purposely like a sensation, but it's not that full connection that we're used to."

His eyes drift over to her and focus again.

"Theta looks like a kid, but he's not a kid. He's more than that. And he's important to me. I hope you understand."

Well, that's all messed up and horrifying. And it makes cold dread creep up her spine, and make her so angry, and she doesn't know why quite, just that there is something in all those holes in her brain that says this smells the same.

And worse, she's stuck in bed and can't even touch him and he really, really looks like he could use a hug.

She lets him finish the story, mulls it over and tries to understand both the meaning and why it's affected her like it has. The first is easier, perhaps.

But first things first. "North," she says quietly. "Come here." Imperious finger wiggle. Come here so she can hold your hand, dumby.

Edited (Swype errors) 2014-11-03 16:56 (UTC)

He takes it, and looks her in the face before glancing away. It's too much, having those sympathetic eyes watching him, and he almost feels like he could tear up. He didn't even get into the part about South or about what Delta had said to him about her. That part...that was almost too painful to discuss, especially with her disappearance.

Maybe that would come up some other time.

After a minute of struggling to breathe calmly he sighs out with a hum and looks back at her. "I didn't mean to dump that all on you," he mutters.

She squeezes his fingers. As best she can, she takes her turn to stroke his knuckles with her thumb. It's soothing, right? "You're being dumb," she says, enough warmth and affection in her tone that it hopefully takes the sting out of the words. "Good thing you're still so cute when you're dumb."

Another gentle squeeze. "It's okay, North." Just, as a general statement. "I don't... quite understand some of what you told me yet, but that's okay. I don't have to understand. Theta must be be special and very important. And he sounds really sweet. I promise I'll look out for him."

As much as she can when she's sick in bed. Better later when she's out.

"I'm really sorry those things happened. And I'm really sorry that you and so many of your friends got hurt. It has to stop. I don't know why they hurt us when all we want to do is protect people and do our job but it has to stop."

Edited (Swype errors) 2014-11-03 17:23 (UTC)

"Yeah. I was going to stop him—he's here, you know. The Director. I was going to stop him but I stopped wanting to." He blinks for a moment. Oh, yes. "They made me not want to."

Oh no. It was probably too much to hope that he'd escaped. But North seems strong. He seems to remember things all right. It's just that she hates thinking about that happening to him, even if she doesn't know what exactly happens. She just knows it as a terrifying blank, a hole in her mind that makes her breathe out the taste of honey.

Wrath squeezes his hand again. "I'm sorry," she whispers.

But if they made him specifically not want to do that. "Is he working for them?" she shivers.

"Yes." He sighs. "They don't have AIs like we had them back home. They're just like dumb AIs here."

The words don't really mean anything to her. All it really means is that someone who hurt North and his friends is here, and working for Bifrons, and it fills her with dread. She's not even certain why; it's a formless feeling that lives in the same place as her anger, as everything that simply is even though she's lost the reason for it.

"Do you think he's going to hurt the soldiers here?"

Edited 2014-11-03 18:19 (UTC)

"I don't know," he says on a breath. That's all he can say. He doesn't know.

"Okay." She squeezes his hand. "It's okay, North." It's really not. But what else can she say. She's currently the most helpless person on the dome, and she still assumes that any minute a compliance adjunct will show up and then she won't even have time to write anything down. And she wants to remember this, desperately. She wants to remember North's fingers around hers.

(If you want something that much, it's going to crack your purpose and don't you want to be a good soldier, Wrath?)

But good soldiers have friends and hold hands, she's pretty sure about that.

(Maybe that's why you should see the Coho.)

Ultimately, all she can offer is another hand squeeze and a soft, "Zen hugs."

"Yeah," he says. "Zen hugs." A deep breath later, he gives a tilt of his head, and a little squeeze to her hand. "I guess that all hurts more than thought it did."

That gets a brief, tentative smile. She runs her thumb over his, finding the calluses already there.

"It always does." It always hurts more. Lack of pain is a lie they get told all the time.

(This won't hurt. You're tough.)

"Thank you for telling me." It's a big part of him. Painful or not, she wants to know.

He shakes his head slightly. "I burdened you with it. I just meant to tell you about Theta." But Theta's origins had so much to do with what he was, why he was important, what their connection was. How else could he have told it?

Wrath gives her head the little shake she can manage and whispers, like it's a secret shared between best friends: "You're being dumb again, North."

Squeezes his hand. "Burdens are gifts when they come from friends."

They give you something to carry.

That manages to draw a faint smile, and he presses his lips together before answering. "It's a good thing you're a friend, then."

She wishes she could do more. Maybe a real hug would help. But there's a little smoke at least.

And calling her a friend, that certainly gets a luminous smile in return. "I'm glad." Hand squeeze.

"I'm glad too." He lifts his hand away from hers, just enough to stroke her palm with his fingers. That's not too intimate, right? Too intimate would be to turn his hand over to thread his fingers between hers, and though he's looking at their hands he refuses to do it. Too forward, too invested.

Who's he kidding, he's already all in on this. Maybe York was right.

Day 151 | Afternoon | Action

Day 151 | Afternoon | Action

Day 151 | Afternoon | Action

Day 151 | Afternoon | Action

Day 151 | Afternoon | Action

Day 151 | Afternoon | Action

Day 151 | Afternoon | Action

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