Doctor doctor, gimme the news

[cabbage-butt.livejournal.com]

After the meeting, and after some bickering with the Emergency Medical Hologram, down at the bottom of the Hub, Brainy is arranging the MedBay to his liking and familiarizing himself with the medical equipment and its functions.

Right now, for instance, as anyone walks in the door, he's wearing some sort of scanning goggles and a rather sinister-looking surgical glove with micro-scalpels, little lasers and surgical saws on the fingertips.

This makes him look like a green-faced Freddy Krueger with mad scientist goggles. For anyone that walks in like he instructed him to at the meeting, this is the first thing they see.

"Hmmmm."

Comments

[prettycoolguy]

The Chief does as instructed.

He exhales. "I am what I need to be." Cryptic, yes, but it's about as much as Brainy's going to get out of him. He's closing the discussion.

"You understand why this is confidential?"

[cabbage-butt.livejournal.com]

"Some of us must be."

It's not hard to put it all together. He'd said there was a war, he said he'd chosen, and even if he'd chosen young, the young sometimes know where they're needed, why they're needed, and why that overrides all else.

He's likely not catching that 'change the subject' cue very well, but he doesn't take any social cues very well.

"I would imagine this was the result of some sort of confidential governmental project, so yes, I do understand. Knowledge of these augmentations can't be allowed to be exploited by anyone else--especially if one of your enemies is in stasis. The nature of your augmentations and the age that you received them would likely also generate controversy if the knowledge of it somehow reached your home universe, as most civilized planets firmly condemn the exploitation of children."

He takes his sample.

That last line likely sounds like a condemnation of Chief's Earth for creating the Spartans. He doesn't mean for it to. He's condemning something else.

[prettycoolguy]

The Spartan tenses just a little, almost imperceptibly, but it has nothing to do with the sample. It's just the discomfort of it. John hates questionable ethics, they make it harder to rest easy than any battle ever has.

Stealing children is wrong. He knows that, but it is almost an insult to the memory of the others to call it exploitation. Sam died on their first mission against the Covenant, not long after the augmentation. To even insinuate that he had fought just because a bunch of adults had conditioned him as a child to do it cheapens his courage, and all the Spartans' courage, and everything they had given of themselves for the sake of the rest of humanity. Even if it's true. It just brings down sympathy or pity or one of their cousins on him, and it's something he does not want or need.

"Permission to end discussion?" He takes refuge in formality, and hopes this will be enough to kill the spoken speculation.

[cabbage-butt.livejournal.com]

The barest of glances over, and there is a nearly imperceptible shift in Brainy's demeanor. It grows a little colder again, closed off, as it'd been before the conversation started.

"In my universe, the galactic age of consent is fourteen, and the Legion, my team, often faces deadly peril to protect the United Planets, even though it's our choice." He goes on, "You have my apologies. I didn't intend for what I said to sound like a criticism of your home culture. It's just that when a world is such that certain situations must be hidden, or the result would be controversy, I find it--I suppose the word is 'novel.' My homeworld is different. Certain...situations are publicly known and widely supported, rather than condemned or needing to be clandestine."

Even if they're to be ignored back home when they harp on the ages of the Legion, it's nice that they care enough to do it, and it's usually the Earthers that do it the most. Colu could typically care less.

He adds, "In situations such as the one we're in right now, one often looks for...commonalities between oneself and others. That was all I was trying to do."

And that's all he'll say. It's a pretty wordy response to "can we end this discussion?" but then he can't ever do anything without talking too much first, not even stop talking.

[prettycoolguy]

Well, maybe he was a little harsh. That explains a lot there, but he really has to wonder what kind of universe it is where such things can be spoken about openly.

"No harm done," he says. "Unless there's anything else you need, I'll leave you to your work. Some of the others were talking about running some kind of practice in the Sensoriums."

[cabbage-butt.livejournal.com]

Not the universe. The planet. Colu = planet of the dicks. There's a reason he's an exile.

"All information will be deleted after I memorize the results and the blood sample will be destroyed. I'll only disclose information to another if I have your express permission, and the only instance I'd ask would be in the unlikely chance I needed to consult another doctor."

His word is his vow. Despite the mad scientist tendencies, he's going to do exactly as promised.

[prettycoolguy]

But the Chief doesn't know that. And he'd feel hypocritical asking about it.

"Thankyou. Again, I appreciate this." He gets up and starts on his way out, though he pauses half way. "And, er, good luck."

And with that, off he goes to totally go fight robots.