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buywithme[Video clicks on. Prefect's sitting beside his comatose inmate in the infirmary, and looking... well... looking tired. He pressed one hand across his eyes, rubbing them, before glancing towards the camera again.]
When Eddie Russet left, he said he was going to try and change things in his world. To go... start a revolution, or join one. To try and change his world, even if he died in the process. Sonmi was the same. I don't know if anyone here got a chance to know her, really, but she was my inmate, before Barron. She was a worker. Born and bred and destined to be a worker, and she fought them. Like my workers fought me.
[He smiles, his gaze dropping from the Camera to stare out into space a little.]
I couldn't help her. I still don't fully understand why she was an inmate here, when she was a much better person than I was. She deserved... I don't know, he deserved to win. And when I think about that, I think, my workers? The people who killed me? They deserve to win too. They deserve a life outside the Factory. [He brings a hand up to scratch at his eyes, frowning now.] But-- but they won't get one, because the Factory is vast. It's vast, and it's powerful and it's omniscient, and it doesn't really need them. And it won't die in it's sleep. So they all lose, and none of them get that other life that they deserve, only I do. It's only me. [He drops his hand down again, staring into space, his expression desolate.]
Sonmi, and then Eddie, and now O'Brien. I guess Beatty too, eventually. I don't know if... if it's about atonement or suicide. Sometimes I think... eventually, I'll go back too. I'll have too, because if I don't actually try to change it, if I don't actually go out there and do something to fix what I did to all those people, then nothing that I've done here actually has any meaning. Nothing that I believe about justice, or freedom, really means anything.
[He finally glances back towards the Camera again.] I hate it though. I hate that they choose that. They just-- what kind of god complex do you have to have to think that your death, that your going back and fighting the good fight and dying will be the thing that changes anything? I'm sorry, Comrades, but Newsflash: This is not actually the end of history! The Factory is not infinite, eventually your totalitarian regime will fall with or without your intervention, and you have been lied too!
[His voice has sped up towards the end of this little speech, and his tone has hardened and he's openly agitated. As he finishes, however, Barron shifts slightly in his coma. It's really just a twitching muscle, but none the less, Prefect's attention is abruptly redirected to fawning over his unconscious form.]
When Eddie Russet left, he said he was going to try and change things in his world. To go... start a revolution, or join one. To try and change his world, even if he died in the process. Sonmi was the same. I don't know if anyone here got a chance to know her, really, but she was my inmate, before Barron. She was a worker. Born and bred and destined to be a worker, and she fought them. Like my workers fought me.
[He smiles, his gaze dropping from the Camera to stare out into space a little.]
I couldn't help her. I still don't fully understand why she was an inmate here, when she was a much better person than I was. She deserved... I don't know, he deserved to win. And when I think about that, I think, my workers? The people who killed me? They deserve to win too. They deserve a life outside the Factory. [He brings a hand up to scratch at his eyes, frowning now.] But-- but they won't get one, because the Factory is vast. It's vast, and it's powerful and it's omniscient, and it doesn't really need them. And it won't die in it's sleep. So they all lose, and none of them get that other life that they deserve, only I do. It's only me. [He drops his hand down again, staring into space, his expression desolate.]
Sonmi, and then Eddie, and now O'Brien. I guess Beatty too, eventually. I don't know if... if it's about atonement or suicide. Sometimes I think... eventually, I'll go back too. I'll have too, because if I don't actually try to change it, if I don't actually go out there and do something to fix what I did to all those people, then nothing that I've done here actually has any meaning. Nothing that I believe about justice, or freedom, really means anything.
[He finally glances back towards the Camera again.] I hate it though. I hate that they choose that. They just-- what kind of god complex do you have to have to think that your death, that your going back and fighting the good fight and dying will be the thing that changes anything? I'm sorry, Comrades, but Newsflash: This is not actually the end of history! The Factory is not infinite, eventually your totalitarian regime will fall with or without your intervention, and you have been lied too!
[His voice has sped up towards the end of this little speech, and his tone has hardened and he's openly agitated. As he finishes, however, Barron shifts slightly in his coma. It's really just a twitching muscle, but none the less, Prefect's attention is abruptly redirected to fawning over his unconscious form.]
You are precisely when needed <3
Date: 2012-01-06 04:57 pm (UTC)I know that. I just-- I just wasn't ready for him to leave. After everything he's done here, after everything he had to go through to get here... why would he do this to himself?
[Prefect kind of only has about two or three years of being socially developed enough to be attached to people and feel compassion for them, as such, he still... really doesn't handle loss well at all.]
no subject
Date: 2012-01-06 05:04 pm (UTC)[Stildyne has about the same amount of time under his belt of taking responsibility and manifesting a moral center. He is a bit sympathetic of O'Brien.
~Best Warden Ever~.]
[Private]
It's-- It doesn't have to be so dramatic. That he's got a thing needs done is understandable. But it doesn't have to be dramatic. It might kill him, but it won't necessarily.
[Wait that's not helpful.]
He said he wasn't a revolutionary. He'll risk death, but he's not courting it. You know he's bright, he'll probably do well.
I went through something similar before I came to the barge. If it helps. I wasn't in so much danger as he is, but there's some. It was just a thing I had to do, because I recognized the responsibility. I didn't go into it intending to die; was going to do everything feasible to make sure I didn't.
Private
Date: 2012-01-06 05:50 pm (UTC)What was it you went through, before you came here?
[Annnnnd the million dollar question:]
Did you die?
Private
Date: 2012-01-06 05:57 pm (UTC)Only he couldn't see to all the details, so I took care of some of them for him.
[He pauses, and decides to out and say it. He's come to trust, to a very minor extent, the separation of the barge from Jurisdiction and related territories.]
He set his government-assigned slaves free. So they couldn't be murdered as punishment against him. But they'd been under Bond a long time, most of them, weren't ready to be cut loose outside Fleet infrastructure. So I went along with them, as their chief warrant officer still, keep them safe until they'd shaken off their conditioning.
When they're done remembering they're free men there's a decent chance they'll remember I wasn't the kindest warrant officer they could have had, as bonds. Even odds they'll kick shit out of me then.
I haven't died yet. I mean. I accept that I might. But I'm certainly not hastening the process. I don't want to. I can do more alive. I think he can too, and he knows it.
private
Date: 2012-01-06 07:06 pm (UTC)No. No, they won't hurt you.
[They totally might, but... all of that stuff about helping people to get past their conditioning struck a nerve with Prefect, and he isn't even prepared to consider the possibility of it being repaid with anything but gratitude.]
Comrade, that-- what you're doing for them, that's the best thing you can ever do! It's the most important thing that can ever happen to someone. Comrade-- You can't-- There's no possible way that you could do that for someone and they wouldn't be grateful to you for it.
[He... is going to temporarily think about this and you, and not about possibly dead O'Brien, so he's just going to set aside those other things and focus on Wat You Dun.]
Private
Date: 2012-01-06 07:21 pm (UTC)Oh, I'm sure they'll be grateful for my help.
[He's sure they won't, but he can tell a conversational lie with the best of them. A necessary skill in Fleet.]
But once we're all out of Fleet and the baggage thereof, it'll be down to personal history. And we'll... work it out.
[They'll kick the shit out of him, and then they might strand him somewhere, or just take off for parts unknown without him, but he'll probably be all right. He's at peace with this.]
But really I'm not the one who started breaking their conditioning in the first place. That was our young revolutionary friend. I'm just tying up his loose ends so that he can go make grand gestures. You need both things, for change to last. O'Brien strikes me as an end-tier, not a grand-gesturer. It's less glorious but it's still necessary.
I like to think, anyway. It's less likely to get you killed, certainly.
Private
Date: 2012-01-06 07:43 pm (UTC)I... perhaps you're right, Comrade. I mean, I don't really know how the planning, and preparation, and assistance to these things work. I only really ever encountered the grand gestures.
[He pauses, briefly, then looks down, a little guiltily.]
Thank you. For saying all that.
Private
Date: 2012-01-06 08:27 pm (UTC)[Don't look at him like that, you remind him he's becoming a soft touch and he'll be mocked mercilessly for it if ever it comes out back home.]
Private
Date: 2012-01-06 08:53 pm (UTC)Would you mind going for a drink with me?
[Aka: I want to get so drunk that I can't stand up, and it'd be awkward to do it here, by myself, next to my coma inmate.]
Private
Date: 2012-01-06 08:57 pm (UTC)I never mind a drink. Meet you at the pub?
Private - Assume? Or Spam? Although spam may just be Prefect just getting sloppy drunk and weeping
Date: 2012-01-06 09:20 pm (UTC)Yes. I'll see you soon, Comrade.
Assume now but I must have delicious spam another time?
Date: 2012-01-06 09:36 pm (UTC)It shall be a fine feast some other time <3
Date: 2012-01-06 10:59 pm (UTC)