[He'd lashed out at Ruby, who just hadn't wanted to believe what she knew. He'd struck Clancy, because there had been a chance he might have survived. It doesn't help anything. It can't be made up for, life just goes on, with more reasons for keeping quiet.
But it's not a particularly subtle thought experiment.]
It's been longer for you, now, but it's the same as before. None of what you did was... unexpected.
[Lark had been right, it had been Nico's fault. If he feels embarrassed by what looks like a lack of self-control once he's out of his cage, well, he'll probably be more controlled now.]
[Lark hadn't struck him as the 'reassurance' apology type. But then, he hadn't struck him as someone who'd put Nico on the list of people to apologies to in the first place, patterns can change over the years.]
I'm sure you wouldn't do it again. You're a different person.
[He can't manage the 'accepting smile' part of this script, but he knows these words too.]
[This is more Lark's speed: the other person testing the ice, watching him to see where to go.
But he moves and the jacket he's wearing--Alec's leather motorcycle jacket--squeaks and draws him back to what he's really here to do.]
Nico, you're going to keep telling me there's nothing to forgive, and I'm going to keep trying to find a way to get you to forgive me and we're not getting anywhere. Can I suggest something else?
[Nico's confusion is one of the more honest emotions he's shown so far, beyond the normal honesty of his fear.]
...I thought we had one.
[Maybe it is better to sometimes show the steps in problem solving.]
There's nothing for you to gain in hurting me. As a warden, it could be detrimental to your long term goals, and you presumably have more options for stress relief than you did as an inmate.
[If that wasn't what the apology was supposed to signal, he's running low on ideas of what it was for.]
That is all true, [slowly, as he reviews what Nico has finally told him] except we never had a truce. What we had was you being forced to skulk around me. What we had was me refusing to pull myself together.
[The rest though, as he said, is true. And it's sound logic. He has no reason to hurt Nico now; they can agree on that.]
I want you to be able to wander around the Barge as easily as I do.
[True, and Lark follows the logic that means a bit more honesty might help.]
I'll never wander around the Barge as easily as you do.
You have reasons to dislike me, but were those more a force behind your actions than the circumstances you were in and I was there with easy excuses for you if you'd felt like making them? Even without the threats, I would've done my best to avoid getting in your way. In a sense, it's as little or as much about you as what you did was about me.
[Flat, but only because he considers it simple fact. It's not that feelings weren't involved, it's just that they only matter so much.]
You didn't make me what I am, you can't change it.
That makes sense. For the record it was a mix, but it was mostly the circumstances, that I'd been here so long with no way out. That I had no idea what you would do to use an inmate for your deal.
[Fear. A driving force in everyone, but Lark is normally very good at directing and managing his own.]
I'm not here to change you. I am here because I don't want to be pulled around by fear and impulses like I was when you met me. I am here because I really do think you deserved to see a better side of me. I wanted to offer amends instead of just my absence.
[Nico has made a life study of how people are driven by fear, not a study he would've chosen, but he's never had many choices. He'd always been able to understand Lark's actions. He hadn't expected anything else. Even after time on the barge had shown him people who tried to do better.]
No one deserves to be part of the system on my world. I was locked up for ten years by people who were afraid of what I represented but had nothing to fear from me. To save millions of children from that, I would use what I could from an inmate to achieve my deal. Doing something bad to them wouldn't make much sense, but there are some paths to graduation that do involve more negative experiences than others so it's not the most illogical assumption that the scale could be dangerous to the inmate.
[Lark included. But that's not the point now; the reasons he was afraid of Nico then have little to do with why he's here now.]
I'm still figuring out what it means. I've never done it before. I thought--I hoped--it would be as easy as 'eye for an eye' with you. Now I don't know what to think.
[he's quiet for a moment, his mind sifting.]
Clancy told me once that you're good with probabilities?
[Lark had clearly been braced for a 'no' or a stall. He's not completely naive, he knows he deserves as much. The kid just made a joke about the time Lark stabbed him, for God's sake.
Everything he said before was sincere; this is sincerity with the sort of relief that takes your knees out from under you:]
[This is something Lark cares about, Nico understands the relief that comes with the hope of making progress. Whatever else he thinks of himself, he has a rock solid confidence in his own abilities.]
The library might be best.
I have a lot of information on my slate, but I might see something in the data that could use more material than I'd have instantly to hand.
[The fear isn't gone, he's still the boy waiting expectantly for the next blow the world will provide that he always is, but he's also has a separate calm that comes when he's focused on a problem, mind running through the next steps.]
It doesn't take an hour to get everything gathered. He has it all stored on the same laptop that had been gifted to him on the Barge all those years ago, which he has upgraded over the years.
And he brings the Skittles Alec had stashed in a jacket pocket, because he hasn't eaten today and candy has become something he associates with research.
He picks a table that's in easy line of sight of the door and the office, figuring that can't hurt.
Nico notices the location of the table, the way he notices everything. It's better than a table in a dark corner, though the difference wouldn't be large enough to be easily spotted. The Children's League had given him some training in the months he'd been with them, but when it comes down to it, he doesn't have the reflexes of someone who fights, or even of someone who looks for escapes. The world is a mess of flashing threats, and there's nothing he can do but try not to fall into the stream.
He nods at Lark, because you acknowledge someone when you meet them. It's what you should do. He holds on to those sorts of patterns, the more meaningless the better at times.
"A lot. Alec put it together over the past three years." He turns it so Nico can dig through the files. There are no identifying marks for who the people are, but there are plenty of statistics on who lived or died, and when, and how. "Did he tell you anything about the transgenics?"
"Good." He can put a certain amount of trust in the pattern of Alec's mind on a problem like this. He starts digging through the files, scanning them with a speed that someone who knows Alec knows doesn't mean he's not taking in all the information. He inputs numbers on his slate as he goes, pulling up shifting graphs with one hand. "He told me some. More... social than medical."
"They're getting sick. It seems random which ones do, but I don't think it is. If we can predict who's going to get sick maybe we can treat it before it kills them."
But there's a lot there, and some of it is incomplete.
"We don't have Manticore's research, which is why this stalled out where it did. But I think with this much to go by there might be a pattern to pick at anyway."
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
timeasmymeasure
private
Date: 2019-12-10 07:08 pm (UTC)[He agrees with this gently because that's his point.
On with the thought experiment.]
If you ever had, though, what would you have done to...make up for it?
private
Date: 2019-12-10 07:18 pm (UTC)[He'd lashed out at Ruby, who just hadn't wanted to believe what she knew. He'd struck Clancy, because there had been a chance he might have survived. It doesn't help anything. It can't be made up for, life just goes on, with more reasons for keeping quiet.
But it's not a particularly subtle thought experiment.]
It's been longer for you, now, but it's the same as before. None of what you did was... unexpected.
[Lark had been right, it had been Nico's fault. If he feels embarrassed by what looks like a lack of self-control once he's out of his cage, well, he'll probably be more controlled now.]
private
Date: 2019-12-10 07:31 pm (UTC)I remember what it was like before. It was bullshit, Nico.
private
Date: 2019-12-10 07:38 pm (UTC)I'm sure you wouldn't do it again. You're a different person.
[He can't manage the 'accepting smile' part of this script, but he knows these words too.]
private
Date: 2019-12-10 07:40 pm (UTC)[He knows what you're doing, and knock it off.]
Are you?
Re: private
Date: 2019-12-10 07:58 pm (UTC)It hasn't been very long for me. The barge puts us in a lot of extreme situations, but 'real' worlds provide testing situations too.
[Maybe if Lark gave more of a hint to want he wants, it could go more easily.]
private
Date: 2019-12-10 08:03 pm (UTC)But he moves and the jacket he's wearing--Alec's leather motorcycle jacket--squeaks and draws him back to what he's really here to do.]
Nico, you're going to keep telling me there's nothing to forgive, and I'm going to keep trying to find a way to get you to forgive me and we're not getting anywhere. Can I suggest something else?
A truce.
Re: private
Date: 2019-12-10 08:13 pm (UTC)...I thought we had one.
[Maybe it is better to sometimes show the steps in problem solving.]
There's nothing for you to gain in hurting me. As a warden, it could be detrimental to your long term goals, and you presumably have more options for stress relief than you did as an inmate.
[If that wasn't what the apology was supposed to signal, he's running low on ideas of what it was for.]
Re: private
Date: 2019-12-10 08:17 pm (UTC)[The rest though, as he said, is true. And it's sound logic. He has no reason to hurt Nico now; they can agree on that.]
I want you to be able to wander around the Barge as easily as I do.
Re: private
Date: 2019-12-10 08:31 pm (UTC)I'll never wander around the Barge as easily as you do.
You have reasons to dislike me, but were those more a force behind your actions than the circumstances you were in and I was there with easy excuses for you if you'd felt like making them? Even without the threats, I would've done my best to avoid getting in your way. In a sense, it's as little or as much about you as what you did was about me.
[Flat, but only because he considers it simple fact. It's not that feelings weren't involved, it's just that they only matter so much.]
You didn't make me what I am, you can't change it.
private
Date: 2019-12-10 08:42 pm (UTC)[Fear. A driving force in everyone, but Lark is normally very good at directing and managing his own.]
I'm not here to change you. I am here because I don't want to be pulled around by fear and impulses like I was when you met me. I am here because I really do think you deserved to see a better side of me. I wanted to offer amends instead of just my absence.
private
Date: 2019-12-10 08:59 pm (UTC)No one deserves to be part of the system on my world. I was locked up for ten years by people who were afraid of what I represented but had nothing to fear from me. To save millions of children from that, I would use what I could from an inmate to achieve my deal. Doing something bad to them wouldn't make much sense, but there are some paths to graduation that do involve more negative experiences than others so it's not the most illogical assumption that the scale could be dangerous to the inmate.
I don't know what you mean by amends.
Re: private
Date: 2019-12-10 09:05 pm (UTC)[Lark included. But that's not the point now; the reasons he was afraid of Nico then have little to do with why he's here now.]
I'm still figuring out what it means. I've never done it before. I thought--I hoped--it would be as easy as 'eye for an eye' with you. Now I don't know what to think.
[he's quiet for a moment, his mind sifting.]
Clancy told me once that you're good with probabilities?
Re: private
Date: 2019-12-10 09:10 pm (UTC)[Deadpan as ever. He does his best not to react at Clancy's name, but there's always something.]
I am.
Re: private
Date: 2019-12-10 09:36 pm (UTC)Could you help me? Help- the transgenics. I don't have the mathematical training or I'd do it myself.
private
Date: 2019-12-10 09:40 pm (UTC)[It's not even a question. It wouldn't have been one even if Alec wasn't a transgenic.]
private
Date: 2019-12-10 09:47 pm (UTC)Everything he said before was sincere; this is sincerity with the sort of relief that takes your knees out from under you:]
Thank you.
I have the data- where are you okay meeting...?
private
Date: 2019-12-10 09:59 pm (UTC)The library might be best.
I have a lot of information on my slate, but I might see something in the data that could use more material than I'd have instantly to hand.
[The fear isn't gone, he's still the boy waiting expectantly for the next blow the world will provide that he always is, but he's also has a separate calm that comes when he's focused on a problem, mind running through the next steps.]
private
Date: 2019-12-10 10:19 pm (UTC)Okay. I can be there in an hour.
[or anytime really, he doesn't have an inmate or a job here.]
Re: private
Date: 2019-12-10 10:25 pm (UTC)[Already looking over something on his slate, tapping to add a few notes. He doesn't use pen and paper very often.]
no subject
Date: 2019-12-10 10:33 pm (UTC)And he brings the Skittles Alec had stashed in a jacket pocket, because he hasn't eaten today and candy has become something he associates with research.
He picks a table that's in easy line of sight of the door and the office, figuring that can't hurt.
no subject
Date: 2019-12-10 10:45 pm (UTC)He nods at Lark, because you acknowledge someone when you meet them. It's what you should do. He holds on to those sorts of patterns, the more meaningless the better at times.
"How much do you have?"
no subject
Date: 2019-12-10 10:48 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-12-10 10:54 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-12-10 10:57 pm (UTC)But there's a lot there, and some of it is incomplete.
"We don't have Manticore's research, which is why this stalled out where it did. But I think with this much to go by there might be a pattern to pick at anyway."
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