Day 39: Sun Room [Fourth Shift]

[winged_moon]

Yue was all too pleased to leave the cafeteria by the time lunch was over, even if he still wasn't satisfied that Fai was properly taking care of himself. It was clear that Touya hadn't accepted the answers he'd been given and intended to find out just what the guardian wasn't telling him, and being watched so closely was beginning to get uncomfortable.

It was clear that the truth would have to come out at some point, especially if they were going to be spending any amount of time together. Avoiding him was entirely out of the question, but at the same time Yue stubbornly refused to consider the idea of just outright telling him about what had happened in the last week. It was a dilemma indeed, and only served to make him even more irritable than ever.

How could he admit any of it? That he was weak and crippled, betrayed and altered by his creator? That he'd almost broken the promise he'd given in exchange for Touya's power? The latter he couldn't help but be reminded of every time he saw this Touya, who had only just gone through it, and would remember it even more clearly.

Fortunately Yukito was staying silent for the moment, although he could feel his other self's disappointment at being unable to speak to Touya so far, and it didn't make him feel any better.

In the midst of all this Yue was rather dismayed to realize that the nurse wanted to lead him to the music room, of all places: that was the room where he'd met the Sakura-who-wasn't-his-Sakura the week before, and needed neither the reminder nor the inevitable noise in that room. He abruptly halted in his tracks and refused to continue on. The nurse seemed initially disappointed, but finally agreed to let him stay in the Sun Room instead; the guardian found a corner in which to stand, arms folded across his chest and lost in his own brooding thoughts.

[for Sokka]

Comments

[intoindra.livejournal.com]

Roland met Peter's expression evenly, not showing his emotions or even hinting at what he was truly thinking. This wasn't a time for rash actions or rash words; considering what the conversation was about, it was clear what had gotten Peter so upset. Roland knew that the bad karma Heat kept racking up would eventually come due, it was just a bit irony that it decided to bite him in the ass instead of the one who was causing all of these problems.

Ah well. He was quiet for a moment, deliberately dragging out the silence for a moment to give Peter a chance to calm down a bit. Then he spoke, quietly yet distinctly. "Do you?" Better than anyone else in the Institute, save perhaps Argilla, Roland knew exactly how much Heat was capable of, what his limitations were and what he'd do. Peter, sadly, didn't have even an idea of what Heat could do if he was really allowed to let go.

[human-sponge.livejournal.com]

More than anything else, it was Roland's response that got Peter anxious. It wasn't shocked, worried, confused, or anything else Peter might have expected. Instead, it was guarded, and maybe even knowing. Roland had an idea of what this was all about - he maybe even knew exactly what it was about - and that changed everything. Did the man really have no problem with his "comrade"'s behavior? Was he guilty of the same?

Peter knew that he had the tendency of putting trust in people who didn't deserve it, and he realized this could be another case of that, but he was still fighting for a way to justify all of this. Nothing was coming up, though.

He would trudge along with this conversation anyway. Maybe Roland would explain and make it make sense somehow. "He was trying to take a bite out of some girl," he replied darkly. He hadn't actually seen it happen, but he'd heard the whole story from Brooklyn, and he knew the kid could be trusted.

[intoindra.livejournal.com]

He should have known. Roland guessed, of course, but it was still worrisome to hear it. This was what he'd feared the entire time he was at the Institute; that someone would realize what he and the other demons were like, and he'd have to put up with the disgust and fear that came with it. Both of those responses were entirely justified, but they were still not things that he liked.

But how to explain things? Roland was quiet again, looking away from Peter with a distant look in his eyes. How could someone be told what the demons were like? How could normal people hope to understand or accept what was, in essence, a horrific decision made to punish humanity by an insane God? "...it's difficult to justify his actions. I admit it, and as much as I can, I try to keep him from doing it. But it's hard for him to fight his own programming... even if he's made more progress in that regard than I could have hoped. Perhaps it is heinous to someone like you, but the fact that there haven't been any fatalities shows how different he is now."

[human-sponge.livejournal.com]

At least Roland was coming clean, but that didn't make this any easier to swallow. It did sound like he was making excuses, but Peter wasn't a judgmental person by nature. If there were extenuating circumstances that he didn't understand, then how was it his place to start getting high-and-mighty and pointing his finger at people?

It wasn't like he could ignore the fact that Roland's friend was hurting people, though. And had killed them in the past, from the sound of it. His mouth was set in a firm line as he tried to figure out how he should react.

Of course, there was that one part of what Roland had said that stood out, and Peter lifted his head to look the other man in the eye as he asked the obvious question. "Programming?"

[intoindra.livejournal.com]

He nodded at that. Sure, Heat would probably get upset at someone being told... but then again, what didn't upset the demon? Maybe this would help Peter understand where they were coming from; at the least, it couldn't hurt, right?

The only problem was that it all sounded so far-fetched that it had to be a bit unbelievable to someone who hadn't sat through all of it. But if someone like Hitsugaya understood their position, then perhaps someone else could, as well. "That's right. He and the woman that you might have seen with me were both originally combat AI, designed for the express purpose of killing. The experiment was held in an attempt to create an artificial intelligence that could be implanted into normal soldiers and increase their efficiency several times over."

"...but like most experiments, something went awry. He and the others like him were given a personality, a warped template based on one special girl's interpretation of the people around her forced upon them." Could Peter even understand the power that the Cyber Shaman had wielded? Could anyone really comprehend the impact of what had happened on that fateful day? Roland wasn't sure that he himself could, so what were the chances that anyone else might? Even still, he forged ahead. "He went from an emotionless artificial intelligence to an obsessive co-dependent with uncontrollable rage in the blink of an eye."

[human-sponge.livejournal.com]

Almost immediately after Roland started to explain, Peter had to struggle to keep up with what he was saying. How could a human being be an artificial intelligence? Of course, that was functioning under the belief that Roland's friend even was human. There were a good amount of people in this place who weren't, Brooklyn included, but the idea of an AI being given a human form was pretty high on the strange scale. It didn't quite beat hearing that someone was a goddess, though.

Being someone (something?) that was meant to kill had to be a pretty miserable existence, though. It made Peter wonder if Roland was in the same boat, but if he was, he wasn't admitting to it.

The idea of having a personality implanted was pretty disturbing, too. He couldn't imagine what sort of identity crises that would cause, but ironically enough, it made the redheaded cannibal seem more human somehow. The silence stretched out after Roland had finished as Peter attempted to take it all in.

"So you're saying that he's... the way he is because someone decided he should be that way?" he asked awkwardly, not liking the way that sounded even before it came out of his mouth. It was only after arriving at Landel's that he'd come to realize that he'd been taking being a (relatively) normal human for granted.

[intoindra.livejournal.com]

"In a nutshell, yes. One person thought that he should be a certain way, and that's what he is." At least Peter seemed to understand that much? Roland had been afraid, after that rather blank expression, that there wasn't going to be any kind of comprehension whatsoever. But, hopefully, some progress had just been made. Fingers were still remaining crossed in a proverbial sense, though.

Still, he stressed, "But even though he's been made this way, he's still 'human' in the sense that he can change. It's a difficult process, but he's not as bad as he could be. Or as bad as he once was, for that matter."

[human-sponge.livejournal.com]

Peter was relieved that Roland brought up the whole human-or-not issue. It sounded like it was something that would be hard to decide on, but the man had at least given his take on it. If his friend could change and work past whatever he had pre-programmed into him, then that probably did count. Peter obviously didn't know all of the details or how it really even worked, but he was trying to give Roland and his friend the benefit of the doubt here.

"So you've been trying to help him with that, then?" he asked, brow knit. If Roland was playing that part in it, then Peter's feelings about the matter would obviously be pretty different. Having that sort of faith in a person was something he was known for, so in that sense he could definitely relate.

[intoindra.livejournal.com]

"As best I can, yes. I've tried to get him to channel his instincts towards the monsters of this Institute, and generally I've managed to keep an eye on him. ...obviously, however, I haven't done a perfect job in getting him to stop attacking patients." Much to his dismay, of course; he'd tried hard to make sure that Heat didn't cause too many problems, but those ingrained instincts- and the hunger that he had tactfully not mentioned to Peter at the moment- were just too difficult to completely suppress. Especially for someone like Heat, who didn't really want to suppress them anyway.

[human-sponge.livejournal.com]

"Right," Peter responded, not sure what else he could say at the moment. That had to be quite the burden, and while it was pretty different from his own situation with Sylar, he could at least understand to an extent.

"Good luck with that, then," he eventually continued, his tone thin. "If you don't mind me asking, how did the two of you meet?" It wasn't every day that you ran into someone with a penchant for killing, after all. Or maybe it was, where Roland came from. The man had hinted that his home might be even worse than Landel's, and if that was the case, maybe his friend's situation wasn't even that out of the ordinary as far as Roland was concerned. Peter had no idea, but he thought he had been pretty understanding so far.

[intoindra.livejournal.com]

"Hm..." Roland frowned, closing his eyes and leaning back to recall all those details. It felt like years ago, even though it had really been such a small amount of time. "It started when he and his comrades arrived in the real world. One of them was unfortunate enough to land in my territory, and Heat landed in the territory of an opposing faction, who also had control of Sera, the person who gave him that obsessive personality. The remaining members of his Tribe agreed to a trade; their comrade in exchange for doing some of my dirty work for me."

Roland surprised himself in how frank he was about that. Back then, he was a terrible person, to say that he'd kidnapped and blackmailed Embryon was not stretching the truth at all. But that was another world ago, another lifetime. "...how little I knew that their sense of 'honor' was such that it shook me out of my paranoia and made me join with them more directly. Regardless, eventually we made it to that opposing faction's laboratory, where Heat was defending Sera. He very nearly killed me in that fight."

Which, of course, made him chuckle softly. "Not exactly a warm welcome. But he'd just been told what he was, that his entire life was a lie and the people he'd thought he could trust had betrayed him on fundamental levels. So, when offered an alternative option, he took it. ...sorry for being so long-winded, by the way."

[human-sponge.livejournal.com]

It wasn't very easy for Peter to follow, but he didn't want to jump in with obnoxious questions when they probably didn't have much time left. Roland mentioned the "real world," but in that case where had his friend come from? Some sort of AI world? How did that even work?

On top of that, Roland was talking in pretty vague terms, and while Peter knew that was probably for the sake of saving time, it made it harder to piece together what was going on, especially since he had little to no idea of what Roland's life had been like before arriving here at Landel's.

Finally, the fact that this Heat guy would want to protect the person who had supposedly made him the way he was didn't make much sense, but it wasn't like Heat seemed all that stable to start with. Either way, it sounded like Roland had given him a chance nonetheless, and apparently they were close enough now that he referred to him as "comrade."

"Oh, it's all right," he said once the other man had finished. "I'm not sure I get all of it, but it was pretty decent of you to give someone a second chance after they tried to kill you," he pointed out. Peter wasn't sure if he would have been capable of that, though it would have been an even harder question to answer if it involved a friend of his getting attacked.

[intoindra.livejournal.com]

"...well, it's not like I had much of a choice," Roland quietly admitted, "I'd love to sound completely altruistic, but if it came down to it, I'm not sure which would win if we tried to fight each other here. It's not just that I want to see him becoming more of his own person and learn to survive in a civilized atmosphere, but he's also one of the strongest people from my world. And we're both apparently some of the few who are used to fighting 'monsters' on unequal terms. If he could be taught those basic things, he'd be a strong factor on the patient's side."

He'd liked to have explained more, but the nurses were starting to gather people and send them out, and the intercom had just started its usual discussion, so Roland stood up with a sheepish expression. "...I know it's hard to explain and harder to understand, but I'm glad that you've kept an open mind about Heat and our situation. If you'd like, I could try to explain more concretely tomorrow?"