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FROM: captain.falcon@cdc.org
Must have missed that memo.
Must have missed that memo.
Like nothing can hurt you.
[ Amber mimics the words as if knowing how to pronounce the syllables would help her understand the sentiment better. It doesn't, because here as in every place, there's always something capable and likely to hurt her and hers. Temporary and conditional safety she can understand, but not unconditional security. The unconditional love of a mother.
She notes with some disappointment that she has run out of makeshift leek to chop, that she no longer has anything with which to keep her hands busy and buy her time to respond. ]
No. Do you? Now.
[ Now that she has regained what she paid to have the power to manipulate space itself. ]
[ Amber mimics the words as if knowing how to pronounce the syllables would help her understand the sentiment better. It doesn't, because here as in every place, there's always something capable and likely to hurt her and hers. Temporary and conditional safety she can understand, but not unconditional security. The unconditional love of a mother.
She notes with some disappointment that she has run out of makeshift leek to chop, that she no longer has anything with which to keep her hands busy and buy her time to respond. ]
No. Do you? Now.
[ Now that she has regained what she paid to have the power to manipulate space itself. ]
[It's something a Contractor could never truly feel- Havoc knew that. Nothing was every one hundred percent- whether it was safety or trust or anything else. But that's what it felt like to her.
Like nothing could hurt you. Nothing like Macha, or the CDC.
Silently, Havoc slid over some of the meat she was slicing. She knew about keeping busy, too.]
Yes and no.
[There had been advantages and disadvantages to never belonging fully to one government, one group, like many Contractors did. Less chance to go through the ME wringer had left her with a better grasp of her own past- before Regression, at any rate.
She could remember it now. Those memories simply didn't come with much in the way of love.]
Like nothing could hurt you. Nothing like Macha, or the CDC.
Silently, Havoc slid over some of the meat she was slicing. She knew about keeping busy, too.]
Yes and no.
[There had been advantages and disadvantages to never belonging fully to one government, one group, like many Contractors did. Less chance to go through the ME wringer had left her with a better grasp of her own past- before Regression, at any rate.
She could remember it now. Those memories simply didn't come with much in the way of love.]
FROM: captain.falcon@cdc.org
Punishment for the ones that failed and an example for the rest of us.
Punishment for the ones that failed and an example for the rest of us.
FROM: captain.falcon@cdc.org
Enough. Make your point.
Enough. Make your point.
[ They may be keeping up a conversation, the bare bones of it at least, but the real exchange happens wordlessly. The way each of them works quietly, slowly and intently to keep the time passing. Any moment now, Hei or November or Misaki could suddenly find Macha's air toxic to breathe. Any moment now the punishment could hit them and neither Amber nor Havoc would know anything.
She thinks it's better this way, this keeping their attention on helping them recover no matter how useless a soup may be in helping failing organs, because there's nothing to be done to stop their cuffs being turned off.
The slice of meat is taken with a grateful nod, and Amber carries on working. ]
Yes how?
She thinks it's better this way, this keeping their attention on helping them recover no matter how useless a soup may be in helping failing organs, because there's nothing to be done to stop their cuffs being turned off.
The slice of meat is taken with a grateful nod, and Amber carries on working. ]
Yes how?
FROM: morir.carla@cdc.org
I know what they do to failures.
FROM: morir.carla@cdc.org
What did you make of the party?
[Carla has priorities.}
I know what they do to failures.
FROM: morir.carla@cdc.org
What did you make of the party?
[Carla has priorities.}
[Thats the point, isn't it. There's nothing they can do to prevent it. They've been assured it won't end in death, only pain. Pain, Havoc fears in a deep, rooted part of her, is very similar to the pain all of her victims went through. The sudden realization that the air around you rejected you, left you clawing with nothing to breathe, pressing in on you, crushing-
She'd stopped chopping, gaze hyperfocused momentsrily on nothing until Foxtrot nipped at her heel, snapping her out of the spiraling thought. Blinked, the line of her lips thinning, before she used her knife to flick a piece of meat off the counter, sending the little creature scampering off across the floor of the rover after it.]
Mother, father, grandparents, two younger brothers.
[Listed off, the members of a family she remembered like a distant dream. Each loss and return of memories or feeling felt like starting all over again... So she'd died how many times now? Left all that behind years ago, once the Gate called her name, back when she'd gone by the one given by a mother, like a proper human being. But still...]
Once. I think.
[Unable to even fully trust that. Could she have gone under the ME after all? We're they something implanted for a job that just never got taken out? She supposed there was no way to know for sure- not anymore.]
She'd stopped chopping, gaze hyperfocused momentsrily on nothing until Foxtrot nipped at her heel, snapping her out of the spiraling thought. Blinked, the line of her lips thinning, before she used her knife to flick a piece of meat off the counter, sending the little creature scampering off across the floor of the rover after it.]
Mother, father, grandparents, two younger brothers.
[Listed off, the members of a family she remembered like a distant dream. Each loss and return of memories or feeling felt like starting all over again... So she'd died how many times now? Left all that behind years ago, once the Gate called her name, back when she'd gone by the one given by a mother, like a proper human being. But still...]
Once. I think.
[Unable to even fully trust that. Could she have gone under the ME after all? We're they something implanted for a job that just never got taken out? She supposed there was no way to know for sure- not anymore.]
FROM: dagger@cdc.org
Thank you for your cooperation.
FROM: dagger@cdc.org
Thank you for your cooperation.
FROM: captain.falcon@cdc.org
Is that what you're feeling?
Is that what you're feeling?
FROM: captain.falcon@cdc.org
Fair enough. You know what I meant.
Fair enough. You know what I meant.
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