trans_9 | An Unexploded Shell Inside a Cell [Open]

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An Unexploded Shell Inside a Cell [Open]

She thought her life would be different by now, but she's a prisoner again. Voluntary, she guesses, which makes it a little bit different than the first time. At least she can blink on her own this time. Not that she's using her body to do much good.

Ironically, she almost always looked better when she was a more total prisoner. Without her makeup and hair clips and changes of clothes to arrange herself into some approximation of health, without even a mirror to confirm her suspicions, she looks a wreck. Dark circles line her reddened eyes; her hair is unbrushed and falls in tangled clumps over her face; chapped, bloodied lips and fingernails bitten down to the flesh speak to her uneasy transition back into captivity.

Eva's given up all attempts to look 'okay'. She ripped a man's face open with her bare fingers. She's been a long road away from 'okay' for a while now, but she spent too long mistaking her anger and stubbornness for strength and resilience to recognize it. She's wised up now.

She really wants a drink right now. Instead she has some books - selected poems by Pablo Neruda and an anthology of poetry by women poets in the Andes - and a pillow and blanket. She's curled up on the cot with the former book in her hand, but drifting in and out of sleep. Her breath comes lazy and heavy as she alternately reads, dreams, and watches the door to the brig with heavy-lidded eyes, looking for nothing.

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Not what he'd meant, but in any case, he gave her a disbelieving look. "Really? The only reason you're here is because you want to follow proper procedure? You should know better than anyone else that the punishment a crew member receives here can vary wildly depending on their personal connections."

"And you just got done telling me you didn't trust yourself as a tactical officer. Sounds a lot like a precautionary measure to me."

She snorts. "Oh, believe me, if I had my way Iniss would be in here instead. But yes, procedure. And I want to make a good example of taking responsibility for your actions to my son. Since I've sort of made a bad example for anger management."

She shakes her head. "The resignation's precautionary. The brig time isn't."

"Good luck with that, I guess. Has he ever seen the inside of a brig cell? Because he seems much more likely to have run afoul of the law than Allenby."

He frowned a little. "Speaking of your son, apparently the rumor mill has already been set into motion about your incarceration here, and I believe quite a few people have misconceptions about it. As per usual."

"Probably not as part of a sentence, no. But as you know, I could spend a great many hours ranting about how they treat Yeerks on this ship."

"Oh, joy. The rumors aren't scandalous, are they? I'm not responsible for Councilman Superman's death, am I?" 'Councilman Superman'. That's a clunky moniker.

He raised an eyebrow. "Do people spend time in the brig when it's not part of a sentence?"

"Oh, you are. And you're having an illicit affair with Kang. Also, you stole forty cakes. And that's terrible."

"Sure they do. Prior to sentencing, if they might be a danger or commit more crimes."

Eva stares for a minute, then bursts out laughing. "You're being serious right now?"

He waved a hand. "You know what I mean. Although the Council appears to be fairly invested in not holding any past actions against someone." In his opinion, a little too invested. Especially if that individual had gone on to create a crime on the ship.

"I honestly don't think I could make something like that up. My imagination isn't quite that awe-inspiring."

"People think I'm sleeping with Kang. Has Marco's head exploded into confetti yet?" She hopes he's not too worried, although perhaps 'I'm not really sleeping with Kang' could be a nice way to soften the blow of 'also I'm a violent lunatic'.

"It could be worse. They could think you're sleeping with..."

Nope. Coming up empty.

"Anyway, Marco seemed a little on edge." Which was a bit of an understatement. The last he'd checked, Eva's son had been upgraded a few notches up from 'slightly screamy'.

"Given the friends I keep on this ship, I'm surprised the rumors didn't start sooner. I thought women weren't allowed to have friends with men. For all they know, I'm robbing the cradle with you. Or flying high with Wash. Or hitting the books with Goliath."

She twists her lower lip up under her teeth. "I was hoping against that. He hasn't threatened to hurt anyone, has he?"

Somehow, Zouichi suddenly found himself choking on nothing at all. After he recovered from a brief bout of coughing, he gave her a mildly reproachful look. Because he couldn't give it to the rumor-mongers. "I would hope that wasn't the case. I try not to get myself into sordid entanglements with married women. You know."

He looked slightly askance. "...well. I'm sure he didn't mean it."

She chuckles at his flabbergasted coughing spell - she didn't think that Zouichi needed air enough to facilitate a coughing spell, but lo and behold, here she is pushing the limits of science. Or something.

"Besides, that would make for your second botched date with Alastirra, if that gossip were flying around."

She heaves a grumpy sigh. "As long as he doesn't get put in here, I guess. You'd think he'd know better by now."

Man, why was everyone on his back about Alastirra? Whom he hadn't actually seen much of lately; he was beginning to think she was avoiding him. Which... actually, would be rather understandable.

"Put in here for threatening people? The way some crew members throw promises of bodily harm around, the brig should be brimming with them by now."

Because it amuses them, Zouichi.

"Well, if anyone thinks he might actually follow through on it, then he might end up here. For the safety of whomever he's threatening. Although they might just end up here, if they're smart. I'm a prisoner but at the very least I'm incredibly safe."

"I suppose. But as far as I know, no one's thrown him in a cell yet. So let's hope that continues." Mostly because he'd rather not deal with having to keep guard over Eva's son.

"Oh, well. Next time the ship is under attack, I'll remember to run to your location if I need cover."

"Just spread the word that anyone who touches my friends gets a home-cooked round of cosmetic surgery, courtesy of me. That should scare them all off. I'm a scary lady."

Actually, maybe that warning was a little too late for Iniss, who'd already undergone some impromptu cosmetic surgery. Zouichi touched the bars with one hand, almost absently.

"Eva, I know we've only met just recently, but... when I was on Earth, I had to hurt people. A lot." He hesitated for a moment before continuing. "Not always for the best of reasons. If you ever need anyone to talk to..."

She frowns a bit. It's hard to know what to share and what not to, what she wants to keep to herself and what she truly doesn't mind certain others knowing. She spent a very long time unable to keep secrets of her own.

"When you say not only for the best reasons...do you think that's something I'd relate to?"

"You tell me." He paused for a long moment, gathering his thoughts. "I told you what I did back on Earth, didn't I? I fought and killed a lot of... I guess maybe you'd call them terrorists. Except by that time, there weren't really enough national governments left to mount any sort of resistance against them. So they were more like a new administration than anything else. I was operating under orders from my own organization, but I abandoned those when I heard they'd mounted an attack on headquarters. By the time I got there, it was too late. Everyone at HQ was already dead, and they were just mopping up the bodies."

It's hard for him to revisit that past, but it's harder to tell someone else about it. The words come out blunt and harsh. "So I killed everyone inside."

Another pause.

"You might argue that that's what I do all the time, kill people who don't really have a way to fight back. But I didn't do it because I had to protect someone or complete an objective. I did it because I wanted to get back at them. I could have stopped, but I didn't want to. I didn't even bother trying."

It was true that the DRF did terrible things. They followed a power-mad autocrat, executed people in the streets, killed billions in their thirst for power and the promise of rebirth and immortality. But it didn't mean everyone in its ranks was evil, and in his actions, he'd revealed himself not as a guardian, but as a killer. Like them.

She listens quietly, but he doesn't need to elaborate after "I killed everyone inside". Kin recognizes kin. She knows why he did it.

"Yes, I think maybe we have more in common than I originally surmised." She gives him a grim smile. "I risked Marco's life for revenge, once. And getting it made me feel no different. Did it help you?"

She doubts it did. It's easy to trick yourself into thinking violence is what you want when all you really want is some way to turn back time.

He looked almost sad. "Well. Most people don't like to hear how their last hope for survival effects that survival."

"It..." he began, then stopped. "It didn't help afterward. But while I was doing it..."

While he was in the thick of it, snapping bone and incinerating enemy combatants with their own incendiaries, it had been so tempting to just stop thinking and never, ever start again. He wasn't sure if it was something his creators had instilled in him, or some essential flaw in himself. Maybe both.

She nods. It's hard to think about anything other than the sheer violence of a situation when you're in it. Philosophy and worth and value all get washed over by the sounds of bones breaking and blood dripping, people gurgling for breath. If it doesn't elicit horror, it invokes something else - apathy, almost. Detachment. And when your mind's stormy enough, apathy's pretty tempting.

Her head's been stormy for twelve years now. That's a lot of time to crave peace.

"Were you alone? Or was Fuyu with you?" She asks it quietly, so he knows that if he doesn't want to answer he doesn't have to. She's the one in prison, after all.

"She was with me, but she was also trying to see if she could save anyone inside. She was all right."

The AIs, with their added level of detachment from the real world and their personality biases toward levelheadedness and calm, served as a means of support. They were more likely to feel sorrow than anger.

"I dragged someone else into it. I don't know if Dr. Jackson's alright, but I know he's not alright with it." She stares at her hands again. "I almost want to say I did it so quickly, like I didn't have a chance to stop myself, but that's a lie. I had plenty of moments where I knew what I was doing and pressed on."

"If you keep letting yourself do it," Zouichi said quietly, "One day you're not going to be able to stop..."

He didn't sound like he was entirely talking about Eva.

An Unexploded Shell Inside a Cell [Open]

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