versusnurture | first ♢ voice

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first ♢ voice

[Abigail's voice quavers, as though she's uncertain of the connection, like someone making their first long-distance call. She starts out firm and then peters out into uncertainty, the tail end of her first sentence almost a question.]

My name is Abigail . . . Hobbs.

I'm not sure how I got here, but I'm here now. [A pause; who to ask for?] I'm looking for Dr. Alana Bloom. She's tall with dark hair. She was supposed to check in with me this morning, but instead I'm here.

Are there - [And here she inserts a little more tremor than necessary into her voice, because she doesn't know what else to do right now - ] Are there letters home? That kind of thing? How does this work? Because I need to talk to my dad.

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Where would I have run?

[He's about to point out that the reasons for not running are every bit as obvious as why a fear of flight and darkness and space would be unfortunate when he realizes he's not sure which time she's asking about, not certain why he's like her. He hesitates.]

When?

When you graduated. Why didn't you run then?

I kept running even though they kept putting me back in. I didn't want to be stuck anywhere.

[She's been stuck enough. She wanted to fly.]

I don't have anywhere else to go.

I would rather be brought back here, than where I was before.

[Her lips form a soft 'oh'. She understands this, too, and wonders if she might feel like she should be brought back anywhere specific, someday.]

Why were you locked up?

[She isn't afraid. She just wants to know.]

Because they didn't want us to know they didn't own us.

They only wanted us to know what they taught us. So they created us, and then they kept us.

[Ben is still working that out for himself. He's becoming, slowly, attached to people but not yet places; slowly because he remembers that had been his mistake, before.]

You?

I was locked up because my father killed a lot of girls who looked just like me, so he wouldn't have to kill me. They thought it would cause problems.

They thought maybe I helped.

[She did.]

They wanted to keep me safe and sane and ask me questions.

Did you?

[Overall, Ben doesn't have much of a reaction to this. He doesn't understand the connection between fathers and daughters, though Anya is teaching him. He also doesn't understand, on the gut-level that any human is supposed to, the discomfort with death, with being an instrument or an excuse for it. Oh, he understands that it's wrong as well as the next person, but he doesn't have the kneejerk horror reaction that others do.

If anything is strange to him, it's that someone wanted to keep her safe and sane enough to lock her up; but Ben has learned about that, too, thanks to Alex.]

[There is a bizarre temptation to tell him. To say yes. I did. I was kind to them. I was their friend, with the knowledge that they'd die soon. Quickly, but painfully. I knew what would happen after.]

[She wonders what would happen. If he would make that same non-expression upon hearing what she's done. If he would have too many questions, or none at all. If he would feel fear, revulsion, an urge to distance himself. Or if he would be curious, like Hannibal was - would help her, like he had.]

[Instead, she dons offense like a mask, lip curling. She looks like she's been smacked.]

No.

[Ben reacts to that, not overly so, but all the more pronounced for his lack of reaction to most of the rest. He swings a bit wider as they round the current landing in the stairwell, pulling away ever so slightly in a way that has little to do with his physical proximity, eyes cutting to her, steps slowing.

He's cautious, but it's difficult to tell why.]

I'm sorry.

[She chooses to believe that it's worked. If it hasn't, and he's angry with her and chooses to retaliate, she's got no hope. And maybe hope is something she still wants to cling to a little bit.]

[Shaking her head, she follows him, keeping the space between them as he's defined it.]

It's all right. That's what everyone else thought, too.

[Ben gives no hints as to what he's thinking; he continues to lead the way up the last two flights of stairs, though he does glance back long enough to protest - however mildly - her words.]

I didn't think anything. I was asking.

[But he's already insulted her and it had not been his intention; he doesn't linger.]

Did it work? Were you safe?

Most people, when they ask a question like that, it's because they think they already know the answer.

[She doesn't believe he's any different, no matter how strange he seems. He's still human, to her mind. He still does what human beings do.]

No. I wasn't safe. I died, didn't I?

I don't understand what differentiates a question such as I asked from any other question I have asked.

[He doesn't look at her strangely for the followup question. He doesn't show anything, now.]

I meant did it keep you safe from what they intended to keep you safe from. How did you die?

It's just different.

[She looks at him curiously. It's an interesting question, she thinks. Hard to answer, at least the first part.]

Well, they wanted to keep me sane, but I don't know . . . how can you tell from inside your own head if you're insane? How would you know?

[A brief pause, and then--]

My throat was cut. [By whom, is the obvious follow-up.] By a friend of mine. [Family.]

That is not a sound explanation.

[He's just pointing it out. There's no followup expectation for a better attempt.

Similarly, he doesn't much hesitate over her counter-inquiry.]

It depends on whether an individual is entirely insane or only partially insane. If the answer is partially insane, one becomes aware of it once one has passed out of the state. If the answer is entirely, then no, it would be impossible to tell as the state of being would be considered by the individual to be normal.

[He does, at least, pause at the explanation of her death. He's not made completely uncomfortable by discussion of it like most, but it doesn't mean he's immune to feeling empathy for the act. It's just much more commonplace than it perhaps should be.

Nonetheless it also answers his question: she wouldn't refer to her father as her friend. That much, Anya has taught him. Father is always Father, unless he is Enemy.]

I'm sorry. Fortunately, you are amongst a population that will understand, for the most part. Many of them have died to come here. Most did not find the experience to be pleasant or desirable.

Partially . . . like temporarily?

[She's never felt insane, not really. Out of control, yes, but that's not the same thing, is it? So logically, either she's completely insane or she's completely sane.]

[Not that it matters; sane and insane are legal terms. She's learned this, as events unfolded. She might have been charged as insane or sane in court, were she brought to trial, but that wouldn't define her. She has to define herself as sane/insane, just as she has to define herself as predator/victim.]

[She cants her head at him. He's sorry. She's not sure what she is, yet. Other than betrayed.]

I mostly found it surprising. [This is her version of a joke.]

Like temporarily, yes, or occasionally. Many small breaks as opposed to one constant state of being.

[Ben doesn't know what legal terms are, at least not in practice. He would find it odd that such definitions were paramount in any sense of the word, when they don't actually alter the state of one's disposition. It's not fairness that concerns him. It's reality.]

That happens, too. [He'd been hesitant to ask about it, not wanting to upset her again, not wanting her to look at him or raise her voice like that again. But if it was only surprising...] How so?

A fractured psyche.

[She's heard this term, too. It sounds kind of beautiful, in a way, like stained glass windows.]

[Her smile at his question is shy; she ducks her head so her hair falls in a curtain over her face.]

Well, he was a friend. I wasn't expecting him to kill me.

Yes. The sane parts are no less sane, the unstable parts no less unstable. It is merely that one has not overtaken the other as of yet. A constant state of flux, or a triggered state of disillusion, if you will.

[Ben reaches for the stairwell door, distracted from her for a moment while he scans the deck as he leads the way out onto it, hesitating just before stepping through the threshold. It's such a small hesitation, a mere slowing before he's stepping forward again, sidling out of her way so she can join him.]

Unless you needed it as a mercy in some way, he does not sound like much of a friend.

[She takes the space of a long blink to breathe in deep, letting his words consume her for long enough that she might attempt to understand them. They fit her snugly, like a warm jacket. There's no good reason she can put on this, how it feels intensely accurate. It just does.]

[One has not overtaken the other as of yet. All potential. Except for in those brief moments when one or the other part of her slips out, all talons and sharp beak, and rips into the world before receding.]

[She glances at him. He's looking out. He's protecting her. But is that just a ploy before betrayal?]

He was my friend. [He was more.] Now he's something else.

[Ben doesn't notice that he's said something she understands on a visceral level; he's clearing the deck, performing a mental headcount and coming to the conclusion that of the scattering of other people present, none of them are immediately dangerous. None will look twice at them.

He looks back to her.]

Unless your death served some greater purpose or, as I said, was some manner of necessary mercy, he was never your friend.

It probably served a purpose for him.

[But she has begun to resign herself to the fact that she will never understand Hannibal's design. She doesn't like it, but that's just how it is. He's smarter than she is.]

[He has a grand purpose, and her role in it was over.]

[She turns her head up to look at the stars.]

It's nice out here. [A pause.] . . . Big.

[The word, perhaps, is vast.]

Then as I said: he was not your friend.

[Ben knows what friends are, or at least he's learning. Rhade, Alex, Aya, Anya - they would never hurt him, not unless he made them, not unless he asked them. He's not sure what all else it means, perhaps, but he does know that much. On this, he is certain.

Then she's looking out at the sky and he does, too, after a moment. It is big. He remembers thinking the same thing, remembers that it would have been intimidating had he not already been well accustomed to being intimidated by the world around him. To not understanding.

He is silent for several long moments, letting the door fall shut behind them, before he begins moving forward again.]

This is the deck. The upper levels are off limits to inmates unless accompanied by a warden. There is also the CES - the Closed Ecological System, which a warden must open for you, and can replicate several landscapes from the planets of the passengers on board.

[She doesn't answer. She doesn't know if he's wrong or right. She doesn't know a lot of things. What she does know is that he was gentle to her while he killed her, and that probably means something. She just can't put her finger on what.]

[She falls into step next to him again easily.]

What's yours like? Your landscape.

[Ben is abruptly more interesting than this ship.]

[Ben would not be soothed to hear this, not after Alpha; Max had not been gentle. She had been merciful, but decisive. Alpha...

He's not, exactly, thinking about that as he crosses the deck. He's not not thinking about it either, though, keeping watch around them until she asks the question. Glancing sidelong at her, he clears his throat.]

Forests, mostly. Occasionally a river. I doubt it is anything you'd find spectacular.

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