lieutenantantichrist | [17] [Text/Action for Mahogany] - "Whenever You Get Involved, Someone Gets Hurt."

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[17] [Text/Action for Mahogany] - "Whenever You Get Involved, Someone Gets Hurt."

[ACTION]

[In a low-rent corner of Mahogany, there's a real gym. No mazes, no boss trying to fight you in exchange for something they call a badge, no lackeys, just weight machines and a floor covered with rubber mats, the way it should be. Open twenty-four hours, and this late there's no human in this room but Blake. He's in a sweatsuit, gray in contrast to the brown of the Hitmonlee holding pads for him in its upraised paws. The only sound is his harsh breaths and the thump of his fists on the canvas. His shoulders are hunched like a boxer's. His eyes look straight ahead. Judging from the sweat darkening the back of his shirt, he's been here a while.

On the other side of the room, a Snubbull is sitting on the floor, looking at a Gear that's resting on the mats. A Musharna floats beside her. Fifteen minutes of frustration proved that claws are no good for texting with, but she wants to talk to someone. She really wants to.

She snubs softly, so as not to make her trainer angry. The Musharna's eyes show no reaction, but the buttons on the Gear depress. The text that Steve watches appear seems to be accurate, more or less. The transcription might come strange through the dreaming creature. It's close enough for what she needs.]

[TEXT]

Hello lo low hello

Please talk to me.
I want to talk.
I will tell you my favorite story.
He told it to me when I couldn't sleep. His eyes were closed for some of it but I shook his knee and got to hear the end. Without the end it isn't a story.

Once
upon a time there was a girl. She was poor and alone because her parents were dead, and child services didn't exist then, so she had to go to live with her wicked stepmother and do work for her. Hard work, the kind that nearly killed her, but in time she got used to it.

Then one day she heard the prince was giving a big ball. She asked to go, but her stepmother wouldn't let her. So she tried to run off and get a ride to the castle from a knight, but her wicked stepmother had tailled her, and she found her and dragged her off the horse. While she was going, the wicked stepmother threw the knight a gold coin. He held onto it, and he kept looking at it all the time. He kept thinking about the girl.
He wanted to help her, but he couldn't.

The knight went to the ball, and he was going to kill the prince, but there were too many guards around watching him, so he ran away.

Then the knight went to find the girl and save her. The wicked stepmother grazed him in the neck with an evil spell, but he killed her and all the other guys too, even though he got hurt bad. At first the girl was scared, but then she was free and she was okay. She got to go back home to her real parents. The knight was a hero. All the papers said so.

And everyone lived happily ever after.

..........
..........
..........

Tell me your favorite story.
Voice or video if you can.
The words alone are lonely.

Tell me please.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Money and being embarassed aren't a good reason to let people die. That's a waste.

How did anyone live?

Not everyone fell sick, and some who did were first healthy for fourty, fifty years. So by that time they had plenty of children. ...Children that watched their friends and loved ones grow ill and die, and started hating the people that remained on their original planet for not suffering like they did.

Oh...Of course they had to be angry. Did they ever find a cure?

[All effects and sicknesses have some way to fix them. Steve knows that.

She's listening hard for Ash's answer, and doesn't hear that the gym has fallen silent.]

They didn't.

[Medicine to hide symptoms would never be as good as a true cure, just a way of pretending things could get better.]

But they did find something else, while exploring space. A database of long lost weapons, all of them powerful enough to defeat any army.

...All of them powerful enough to destroy those who had left them there.

Oh.

[Steve is a bright enough dog (who'd been around a cynical enough person for the last year) to see where this is going.]

They fought and took the old home back, didn't they.

Is home worth that?

They tried. They tried very, very hard. But the people of their original planet found themselves a savior, to lead the war effort and crush the invaders.

[His tone gets a little strange, when he says the word savior. There might be some disdain there, some anger, a lot of fondness, and perhaps a touch of regret.]

...Millions died on both sides of the conflict, over nearly seventy years, before both sides decided to try working differently. Is anything worth that much blood?

Did the savior save anybody?

Seventy years...that's so long to fight. Did they live so long, or was it their children, too?

[Steve pulls her knees up. She doesn't notice that the room has gotten quieter.]

I don't know. Fighting is fun. I'm good at it! But from how people talk, and what he says, and what you say, it's different other places. The loser doesn't get up again. He told me that.

And he said sometimes it's better that way. There's people who the world is better off without.

[Sunk in thought, she doesn't notice the shadow looming behind her.]

He saved many people. He killed many people. Because he chose to become the savior for one side only, no matter what would happen to the other. And some did live that long, naturally or not; but that did not stop their children and grandchildren from joining in.

[Still, he can tell himself that his own future grandchildren will probably not have to take part in it, if nothing else. Considering the circumstances, that's something.]

...He's right when he says that it works like that for other worlds. He's also right when he says it's sometimes for the best. But ideally-

[Uh. That is most definitely a not very Snubbull-like shadow.]

My trainer says sometimes you have to hurt people to help people.

But that's sad, for all of them. They were still all people, weren't they? Just living in different places. How different could they be-

[She's in mid-snub when a hand reaches down and picks up the Gear. There's just enough time to see her jump and try to shrink into the mat before the Gear is lifted up and the only thing visible is Blake's drawn face and dark, deep-set eyes.

He doesn't yell or raise his voice. His words are low and cold.]

What the fuck are you telling my dog?

[Well, someone certainly looks unhappy today. It's even enough to make Ash switch to video. The glass that's now visible in his hand might explain a lot about his choice of subject, too.]

A story.

[Ah, but that's not quite true, is it? And Blake doesn't seem in a mood to hear lies at the moment.]

A little alternate history lesson, really, but calling it a story makes it sound less painful. She's a very good audience, too, asks all the right questions.

There's questions that shouldn't get asked.

[There's no expression on his face. Not even the usual anger.]

You were telling her about some guy who killed a lot of people.

What happened to him?

...He finally, finally realized that destroying a civilian enemy colony would not avenge his lost loved ones, or keep those that remain to him safe. Good thing, too, because he was one trigger away from launching a missile at it.

[He's speaking of a barely averted atrocity, but his voice holds an undeniable fondness, a touch of pride, a drop of sadness.]

Fifty years of hatred, only to realize it wasn't helping anyone, least of all himself. Fifty years spent pretending he couldn't empathize with his enemy, only to fight to save them in the end. I wonder if that hurt? Realizing that he'd wasted so much time?

Well. Isn't that nice for him. Not blowing up a planet. Gotta get you some karma, something like that.

Doesn't bring back anybody he killed before, though.

Whatever happened to that guy? Everybody he killed, all the shit he did. Did he pay for it?

How would I know? It only happened half an hour before I ended up with a fire-breathing hellhound and a crazy woman calling herself my mom.

[Any and all softness in his voice is replaced with... defensiveness, perhaps?]

...He's a popular high-ranking army commander, most of his casualties were enemy soldiers killed in battle, and he has the support of the current government and the rest of the military leadership. He'll probably be fine. If they wanted to punish him they have to shoot everyone in both armies to be fair, anyway.

That lately? You made it sound like ancient history.

Yeah, there's kinds of people you're allowed to kill. The ones trying to kill you first, to start with. Or the ones who the whole damn world is better off without. Nobody's gonna cry for some drug-dealing scumbag.

It's all in killing the right guy.

[Blake's aware, distantly, that he's not making a whole lot of sense. Something in his eyes isn't all there.]

The events that started it all are ancient history, and what I lived through might be ancient history byt the time it all ends. Hatred and resentment do not fade away so easily.

[But the rest of that is starting to sound a little alarming.]

...How can you be absolutely certain who the right guy is, unless you've got dozens of witnesses who saw him torture kittens or condemn random civilians to death?

[No. No, they don't.

Blake isn't looking at the screen. He's staring past his reflection in the window.]

You know if you got the wrong one.

His little kid'll tell you.

...Oh.

[That's. Well. What can anyone say to that?]

Conclusive evidence that turned out to be not so conclusive after all? Car chase or shootout gone wrong?

[Please let it be something accidental, or well-meant but incorrect.]

It should have been him.

[The sweat is turning cold on Blake's back.]

Everything pointed to him. Clear as day. Guy loses his kid, goes nuts, starts blacking out and waking up with little origami figures. Anybody would've thought the same thing. Nobody could've known.

[Jayden did]

I didn't kill him. He's not even dead. But his kid says he is. And I could've.

[The rain down the back of his neck. The two dark shapes emerging from the warehouse. Stand down and Fire, both in his mouth. Waiting. He'd said one, and somebody else said the other.

He shouldn't tell Ash this, Nobody should know the thing that follows him around, floating in the air. That hidden, ugly little secret.

He starts again.]

Point is, there's this guy. He was a fugitive, everybody thought he was nuts, but the whole time, he was a hero, doing everything he had to to save his kid.

If there's such thing as parallel universes, there's one where he's dead.

Cause of me.

Edited 2014-07-08 08:52 (UTC)

You say he isn't, his son says he is, and the difference between those two "worlds" would be something you did or didn't do.

[That sounds complicated, even by this world's crazy standards. But that also sounds important, for Blake and the kid if for no one else.]

Could there be other differences between what you've both lived through? Anything that could have made his guilt seems even more likely under certain conditions, or that would have obscured his true motives? If there's such a thing as parallel universes, there has to be a branching point. ...I mean, if the exact same you was faced with the exact same facts in the exact same circumstances, you should have made the same choices every time, right?

[Better to think about the theory behind parallel worlds than to think about how far against the law parents can go to protect their children.]

The way I remember it...

[The rain down his neck, the snipers arrayed around him, ready for his signal.]

We were all waiting, watching the door to see who came out. The killer had to be in there.

But when he came out, that damn journalist was with him. That meant something was weird. Made me stop for a minute, try to figure it out.

If he'd been alone and made a single false fuckin' move...

...It would have looked normal, exactly what you'd expect of a dangerous fugitive.

[Exactly what would convince a cop to shoot a man.]

But he wasn't, he didn't, so you realized there was something wrong with the situation. I'm... not sure you can be blamed for a decision you could have potentially made under slightly different circumstances, thinking you were dealing with a dangerous individual.

[Then again, the fact that it apparently did happen for the man's son complicates that, doesn't it...?]

[A spasm passes over Blake's face.] God, that would be fuckin' nice to believe.

[To keep telling himself something late at night a lot when he's staring at the ceiling, just replace it's not real with it wasn't your fault.

He'd be in good practice. He thinks that one a lot already, anyway.]

His kid blames me.

Somebody else must, too, or I wouldn't be here.

Of course he does. He's lost his dad in probably traumatic circumstances; it'll take years before he can look at the situation with anything that even resembles objectivity.

[If he ever can. If he ever should.]

...That can't be it. Otherwise, the 'you' that actually went through with it would have been brought here instead, if there's any justice in the world.

Hah. You sound like some kinda psychologist. [There's no bitter edge to it, for once.]

I thought he was hallucinating or something. It'd make sense. Half-drowned kid, left standing in water for fucking days by some psycho--

[In a sudden jerking motion, Blake slams his fist into one of the pads held by the Hitmonlee. Then he drops his hands and stares down at the mats on the floor. His hands stay in tight fists.

Ash's voice brings his head up, and he's struck with genuine surprise.

He has actually never thought of that.]

I...shit. You got a point, there.

[His brows draw down again. He can't get out that easy.]

But I'm the same guy. Just with different luck.

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