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trans_92011-07-29 01:59 am
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Back in black
The young woman who had looked after Zouichi and his siblings had taken it upon herself to instruct them in quite a few areas that were not strictly part of their curriculum -- areas regarded by many of the personnel at Toha Heavy Industries as impractical, even pointless.
Better that they should be taught one more way to kill an opponent without a sound, or log additional hours in test simulations.
But because it would have been disruptive and costly to switch instructors halfway, and because she was the daughter of a scientist of some importance to the project, she was allowed to continue with her eccentricities.
Some of the most peculiar of the lessons she insisted upon centered around an old Earth instrument, one that by the 31st century had become more of an amusing anachronism than anything else. Something you saw in old movies or read about in books, not something you kept in your house or paid to go listen to. It wasn't something he had time to practice, once he was released, but there seemed to be nothing but time here.
So Zouichi had found himself visiting the Sensoriums more often, not to destroy imaginary enemies in ever more creative ways, but to play -- mostly when he could reasonably be sure everyone else would be asleep, and therefore unlikely to come look for him. Today, however, he wasn't in the mood to bother waiting for people to turn in. There was one other oddity -- a bandage wrapped neatly about his forehead, half-covered by his bangs.
He shed his customary gloves, placing them on the surface of the polished black wood. Then he closed his eyes, placed his hands over the cool ivory keys, and began to play. Satie's Gymnopédie No. 1, a slow-paced, melancholy piece. He didn't know why, but playing it always made him remember the ocean. Or at least the simulated version of it; he'd never seen the real thing. The quiet ebb and flow of the tide, the breaking of each wave into sea foam upon the shore. The sea at early evening, perhaps, when all its visitors had gone home and the sun cast everything in long shadow.
Then, on a whim, he focused on summoning up an orchestral accompaniment: a crowd of black-clad musicians in which he might more easily blend in. Or maybe hide, if such a thing were possible on an open stage with a stern-faced conductor watching over all of them. For a moment, the musicians were still. Then, together, they began the first movement of Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No. 2 In C Minor, Op. 18. It was easy, once they began playing, to simply lose himself in the swells of sound. The dreamlike ebb and flow of the violins, the rich, deep murmur of the cellos, the brassy reports of the trumpets, the clear, concise flurry of the flutes. Fascinating, the way the sounds of so many different individuals could come together to create a coherent narrative.
It was too bad he'd never get a chance to play with the real thing.
Better that they should be taught one more way to kill an opponent without a sound, or log additional hours in test simulations.
But because it would have been disruptive and costly to switch instructors halfway, and because she was the daughter of a scientist of some importance to the project, she was allowed to continue with her eccentricities.
Some of the most peculiar of the lessons she insisted upon centered around an old Earth instrument, one that by the 31st century had become more of an amusing anachronism than anything else. Something you saw in old movies or read about in books, not something you kept in your house or paid to go listen to. It wasn't something he had time to practice, once he was released, but there seemed to be nothing but time here.
So Zouichi had found himself visiting the Sensoriums more often, not to destroy imaginary enemies in ever more creative ways, but to play -- mostly when he could reasonably be sure everyone else would be asleep, and therefore unlikely to come look for him. Today, however, he wasn't in the mood to bother waiting for people to turn in. There was one other oddity -- a bandage wrapped neatly about his forehead, half-covered by his bangs.
He shed his customary gloves, placing them on the surface of the polished black wood. Then he closed his eyes, placed his hands over the cool ivory keys, and began to play. Satie's Gymnopédie No. 1, a slow-paced, melancholy piece. He didn't know why, but playing it always made him remember the ocean. Or at least the simulated version of it; he'd never seen the real thing. The quiet ebb and flow of the tide, the breaking of each wave into sea foam upon the shore. The sea at early evening, perhaps, when all its visitors had gone home and the sun cast everything in long shadow.
Then, on a whim, he focused on summoning up an orchestral accompaniment: a crowd of black-clad musicians in which he might more easily blend in. Or maybe hide, if such a thing were possible on an open stage with a stern-faced conductor watching over all of them. For a moment, the musicians were still. Then, together, they began the first movement of Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No. 2 In C Minor, Op. 18. It was easy, once they began playing, to simply lose himself in the swells of sound. The dreamlike ebb and flow of the violins, the rich, deep murmur of the cellos, the brassy reports of the trumpets, the clear, concise flurry of the flutes. Fascinating, the way the sounds of so many different individuals could come together to create a coherent narrative.
It was too bad he'd never get a chance to play with the real thing.
no subject
Eva emerges as the last strains end, having been listening quietly since she stumbled on the occupied Sensorium near the beginning of he piece. It's been another relatively sleepless night at Cassie's house, and she normally uses those as excuses to slip out and drink wine and read in the Media Library, or re-enact classic movies with the hologram technology. She'd been intending to do the latter when she saw Zouichi.
It seemed a shame to interrupt him in the middle of the piece, so instead she waited until it was over.
"You're just full of surprises, aren't you?"
She motions to the bandage around his head, silently questioning if he's alright.
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His hand went up to his forehead almost involuntarily, mirroring her own gesture.
"Oh. That. Technically, it wasn't necessary, I guess. But..." He hesitated a little. "Somehow it felt a little more final than just having a medic remove it. You know?"
He thought if anyone could understand the feeling of wanting to scrub away a memory, it might be Eva.
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She nods, a bit solemn. "It's nice to be able to do those things yourself." You get to assert your own volition that way. "You're otherwise alright? Rachmaninoff isn't the Kanoe Zouichi equivalent of sleepwalking?"
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Zouichi nodded slowly. "I'm... a lot of things happened, I guess. But I'm still here." He hasn't quite begun decompressing, figuring out what the mission changed and what it didn't. "Did you hear about what happened during the mission yet? I always forget how extensive your nefarious spy network is."
Then he smiled slightly. "I'd need to sleep to sleepwalk. I might ask you something similar, though -- are you usually up this late?"
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She shakes her head. "I didn't think my teenage son needed to see his mother drinking at three in the morning. Or whenever this is. Honestly, with as many psychological issues abounding on this ship as there are, we should just scrap the beer tree and plant one that dispenses Ambien."
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"I guess you already know the basics. Shortly after we got there, the Council took aside several of the crew members -- those they'd deemed 'clones' -- and branded them. Apparently, the government treated clones as a kind of worker underclass, shortening their lifespans and programming them only to perform certain tasks. So that was us.
Then it turned out what the Council wanted was our help putting down a rebellion put together by those mistreated clones. And we had endless rounds of talking about whether or not we should help them or not." His expression told her what he thought about that.
"There was a lot of talk about how it wasn't our problem, while the medical technology we wanted was. Stuff about how the technology could 'change the course of the war'." Zouichi waved a hand at that idea, dismissively.
"Anyway, then a bunch of us got kidnapped by the resistance forces. And long story short, we ended up setting up a deal with the resistance to steal a bunch of tech and help with one of their operations in return. And then came the clone army, and then the Councilors were five thousand years old and you needed to take the hay and the wolf across the river or the sheep would get eaten."
Seriously, the last few moments had been an utter clusterfuck.
He raised an eyebrow. "You let him stay up till three? I'm surprised."
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She's quiet for a few moments, processing that. Tools. They'd been told they were less than persons, then used as tools in a game between larger forces. Not altogether different than how Stacy treats and uses them. Their own lives, agendas, interests, have little matter in the grand scheme of things, where powers on high have entire armies to smash against each other like children with toy cars.
Typical. She should stop being surprised at this.
"You must have a lot of faith in me to think I can tell Marco what to do."
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He sighed. "I don't know. I guess at first I was angry; I couldn't understand why anyone would treat their own people like that, force an entire group of people into servitude." He believed it could happen, of course; it had happened. But that didn't mean he understood it.
"But honestly, I didn't really care for how the resistance treated us either. And it turned out at least one of them had... plans for us. Like I said, kind of a long story."
Zouichi shrugged. "That's why I came here. Thought it might help to take my mind off of things."
"What, you're kidding, right? I thought you'd have some kind of secret technique or something. Don't all mothers have that?"
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How can she blame him? What better way to take your mind off of being controlled than something you control, the Sensoriums? The notes you hit on a piano? She almost feels bad for intruding now and drawing the topic to the forefront of his mind again, although she knows that even with all the distraction in the world at your fingertips, you never truly stop thinking about it until it's well and ready to unlatch from your mind on its own.
She shakes her head, furrowing her brow a bit. "I was gone a long time. I think that sort of vacation costs you some communication skills."
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He was silent for a long moment. "Never really thought of that." But it made sense. Any skill declined with lack of practice. "For what it's worth, though, you're one of the most articulate people I know."
"That I get along with," he added, almost as afterthought.
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She gestures again to the piano. "I didn't think that your world had much in the way of concert halls, or that you'd have much time for them in your line of work. Do you have to practice?"
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Zouichi considered her question. "I might get a little out of practice if I don't play occasionally. But I have been playing for the equivalent of several decades. It's not really something I'm likely to forget."
"You're right about the concert halls, though. Most of my lessons took place in virtual space. And not too many people where I come from still play old Earth instruments. Easier to use a synthesizer of some sort. Do you play?"
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"No," she says with a modest chuckle. "I'd never have the patience for it. You've seen how I treat my garden; how gentle do you think I could be with an instrument?"
A slow, genuine smile creeps over her face. "But I love to listen. Peter and I forsook a nice wedding dress or ring just so we could afford to have some of the music majors at the nearby college come play in a quartet and piano arrangement for us when we got married. Besides, it kept our families from pestering us to dance."
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He smiled in response. "Who says you have to be gentle? Especially in here, where the instruments aren't real. Maybe you can bang out some Bach."
"That was kind of you. I bet they were pretty thrilled to actually get paid for their playing, too. Worked out for everyone." He paused. "You don't like to dance?"
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She snorts. "After your impressive display? A minuet would look like child's play, and I'd still manage to mess it up. I could probably manage some amazing avant-garde music, though. All drones and smashing noises."
She laughs and takes a drink of wine. "It's not so much that I don't like to dance. It's more like I don't like to fall over myself and twist my ankles in some vague attempt at fluid motion."
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He shrugged. "You never know, with modern art. You could make millions as long as you can justify it with neo-Freudianism or something."
"Really? Well, what are you going to do if you're assigned an espionage mission? You can't just sit by the refreshments and eat canapés. According to spy movies, anyway."
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"If I record it on wax and give it a flashy title mentioning post-colonialism and Foucault, I'm sure I could get it in the Museum of Modern Art. I've seen some of the things they stock in there. It's baffling. Seriously, a tape recorder reciting days of the week?"
She shakes her head and drinks more wine. "Obviously I'm the mastermind behind the table steepling my fingers in the shadows."
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He started playing again (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JS7KfOyMEIY), more quietly this time. "Oh, so you're a villain? Where's your cat? Aren't you supposed to stroke a big fluffy cat ominously while you plot?"
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"That's, um..." She taps her temple, thinking. "Chopin, is it? I'm so rusty these days."
"...I really ought to get a cat. I'm not sure how I'd like being owned again, though, even by a pet."
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He nodded. "One of his etudes. I thought you were the one who owned your pet, not the other way around. Is that different for cats?"
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He smiled, recalling the time he'd played by one by the riverbank. "They're cute. You should get one. Anyway, how have things been on-ship? Pretty quiet?"
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"Mostly. Another podpop come and gone. Nobody who popped asked about you, so I'll assume you're staying a lone ranger in that regard. Some of Marco's friends arrived, and a relative of Kang."
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"Ah. Well, I don't think most of my allies would have made it. And most of my enemies aren't especially discreet." He paused. "More of those teammates he fought with? He must be happy."
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"Given how she plucks people from different parts of the timeline, for all we know your allies could have made it," she says, but regrets it. Why even bring it up if it may be false hope?
"It's...complicated. Yes, he's happy, and it's good to have them back, but you know that my son's just ribbons and sunshine on any given day."
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