orderfromchaos | 12. Mea...culpa?

[Public, video]

[They're the kitchen of Dillon's parents' house: relentlessly suburban, a few southwestern touches, from the touristy Navajo-ish vase on the table to the sepia color palette, well-coordinated. There are floral magnets on the fridge, and one Hannibal Lecter humming as he makes what appears to be gourmet tomato soup and fresh-baked bread. He's wearing an open lab coat over his suit that he grabbed while attempting to join an infirmary shift, right before Dillon hurriedly hustled him out.]

I kind of...fixed him.

[Not like you fix a car; Hannibal wasn't broken, he was himself. Like you fix a dog.]

I thought it would wear off but it hasn't, and his room is the same so it doesn't count for graduation but I don't. Actually know how to undo it.

He's not faking, either.

[Voice pitched more deliberately across the room, though he hasn't been been whispering or anything; Hannibal could have heard him before if he was listening.

Hey, Hannibal, say sorry to the nice people.

[Hannibal pauses, sets down the wooden spoon and turns to the comm, contrite, shifting, a little uncertain.]

I'm terribly sorry for what I've done. It seems almost unreal, but I do not mean to belittle anyone's suffering. I apologize.

[Dillon waves him back to the soup.]

[Private to Jean]

I'm pretty sure what you do is more. Versatile, than mine. I know it's a lot to ask, but could you check and see if you can reverse it?

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

I know all about not choosing what you are.

That's why I'm angry. I know he's a monster. I'm still angry. I met a man like me who made me drink poison and he had his mind flayed down to the innocent empty center and I didn't like that either.

It's kinder to kill people.

He has not inspired kindness.

[A little husky, raspy. The crux of the matter. He knows death would have been kinder. He withheld it.]

How many of us have.

I murdered my lover and I turned on my friends when there was a chance I could get her back. I spent the last week days laughing at the fear and the horror everyone was feeling around me.

How bad would I have to be for you to come and 'fix' me? My species is bred for change, but maybe you being so strong it would stick this time!

[He's going vibrantly blue-purple, a panicky threat display.]

[He's quiet, but it's not stunned or shamed quiet, just - waiting. A few breathes of silence, a lull without reply to panic in.]

Almost everyone.

Almost everyone inspires kindness, C'Rizz. I see inside people, if I look at them long enough. What made them and why they do what they do and what they've lost and what they want. It's not a question of crimes. I killed more people than he did. I killed the girl I love too, though it was an accident for me.

But him - some people just - it's not that there's nothing worthwhile in him. But it's this little glimmer of skill and appreciation and - and Romanticism, but he uses all of it to twist and hurt and control people because that's the only thing he cares about.

[It doesn't excuse anything. But it's where the line is, for him, for kindness, in answer to the question C'Rizz asked.]

And if you were made into something like that, I wouldn't do this. I'd just - unmake that one change. Scoot you back along your path. But he didn't have any other better state to go to. He's only what he is.

And that's why it was terrible of me, in it's own way. We're going to undo it. But that's how it is.

Don't put him on viewscreen anymore. He'll have to remember this. He'll remember being something else.

That will be a punishment for him and that's not a punishment that--

No one person did that to Flood. It was the mind of a whole planet. You can't reason with that. You can't, you can't reason with an ocean either. But I would be angry if one person drowned someone.

Do you see.

I don't think there should be a line, good on that side, bad on this one. I've murdered for self defense too, but -- I don't know if I ever had the right. To say death on this side if you hurt me and on that side I'll maim you and above this line I'll try not to hurt you at all.

I won't. I won't put him on display anymore.

[He already promised Mal; if everything goes well, it will be over soon anyway. Quietly, and if there's sorrow this time, or shame - will, it's real, but it's not for Hannibal.]

We never have the right. That's - I think sometimes that's the worst thing about power. We never have the right, but we still have to decide.

C'rizz.

Do you want to go to the CES?

[ Do you want me to help you calm down.

He has sympathy for C'rizz. A little, burgeoning connection. ]

Yes.

Yes, I --

That's a good idea. Thank you, Zane.

[ It's then that Zane realizes the flaw in his plan. He's speaking from his room, where he's been hiding. Where he's stayed, quiet and alone, and untempted by the living people around him. Where he doesn't have to be paranoid or afraid.

He retreats here every time something like this happens, he knows. It's developing into a vicious pattern. And he always has to leave, eventually. ]

Do you want me to come get you, or meet you there?

[ Helping people helps. He clings to that. ]

I can meet -

[No. Maybe it would be better to not wander the halls angry.]

Maybe it would be better if we went together. You know where I am?

No - which one is your cabin?

Level 8, cabin two. Thank you.

[ He can do this. He can leave.

He stares at the door for a long moment, irrationally terrified of what is on the other side. Until he thinks - no, he's not terrified of that. He's terrified of what's on this side.

He can be calm about Dillon and about Hannibal, and he can try to be calm about himself.

Soon, he's there, tapping on the door. ]

[There's a green-haired heap sleeping on C'rizz's spartan bed, but C'rizz slips out without showing much of his room.

He's stopped his aggressive defiant display and gone into his more common I-am-scared-and-so-I-blend; his skin is the colour of the reddish sandstone instead, blobby and striated. And in the hall, it quickly starts to go metallic gray instead.]

So!

[He's forcing a stiff upper lip.]

Your world or mine today?

[ He still looks somewhat the worse for wear because of the death toll. Pale, a little shaky. He's flaring pewter to counteract the effects, but it doesn't actually seem to do that much.

But, honestly, it helps a little. He would rather walk out here for the first time too weak to really attack. He'll be more in control. ]

Mine.

[ He nods for them to go along the hallway. ]

It might be ugly. But I don't think so, not today.

Just one sun, is that right? As long as it's warm, I don't mind.

[ It isn't ugly.

The world shines, warm under the sun. Long, flat plains, and a lazy, wide river cutting through ahead of them.

Zane relaxes, as he steps in. He breathes. It smells right. ]

12. Mea...culpa?

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the actual latest I am the actual worst sorry

no I win