|
Post by Linyü on Apr 8, 2020 19:08:20 GMT -6
“Yes,” said San. The word felt heavy on his tongue, even as he spoke it.
“And she still isn’t speaking?” The trainer leaned forward slightly, bending down as if trying to see Rei’s face. Rei didn't lift her head, but neither did she move away.
“No,” said San.
He knew this didn’t reflect well on them, but there were no excuses he could offer. In a different organization, under different circumstances, perhaps, he might have explained: that she had started nearly catatonic, that she had come a long way, that she was communicating with him now in little gestures. But here, in the warrens of the Watchful Ones, in the face of a trainer from the same program that worked school-age children to terrified exhaustion until the terror was replaced by habit, San could say nothing else. No reason was any less than an excuse, and no excuse was any use in tempering the facts.
|
|
|
Post by Linyü on Apr 8, 2020 19:09:20 GMT -6
For a moment, he was eleven again, standing rigid and shaken as a trainer paced before him. Something would be found inadequate; something would be insufficient. The litany of his thoughts back then echoed in his mind: Please don’t take her away.
For the space of several breaths, the only sound in the room was the scratching of a pen on parchment. San felt the ghost of his youth weighing him down, cold with unspoken dread.
And then, the trainer said, “Very well. It isn’t much, but it was more than we’d expected.”
At first, San thought he couldn’t possibly have heard correctly. It was the desired outcome; and Rei had done well, he knew this; and yet he hadn’t dared to allow himself to hope. But then he registered her words, and had to school himself to impassiveness. A relief beyond his expectations flooded through him.
|
|
|
Post by Linyü on Apr 8, 2020 19:09:38 GMT -6
“She’ll be joining the unit properly then?” said Hachi. It was fortunate that he was there; San didn’t quite trust himself to speak just yet.
The trainer was already packing up, the parchment rolled up and put away. “This is one of the faerie things they caught at the border, isn’t it?” she said. She glanced at San for a moment, the corners of her mouth tightening with something like a grimace. “No one else has been able to get anything out of that lot. If you think she’s worth the effort, you can do as you like, as long as she doesn’t become a liability.”
She spoke in the same dry, dismissive tone with which she had questioned San earlier, but the words made San pause. That lot, she’d said. There were others. He hadn’t known--- it hadn’t been in her file.
|
|
|
Post by Linyü on Apr 8, 2020 19:10:13 GMT -6
But then, his sense caught up with him; of course it hadn’t. There was no need for them to know. He doubted that she had intended to inform them of it, even now.
The thought of their fates made his blood run cold, but he reminded himself that they were not known to him, that there was nothing he could do. Rei had been approved; that was enough. It had to be enough.
The trainer took one last look between Rei and San, and San had the distinct impression that there was another assessment being made here. But whatever it was, she didn’t choose to share it. “Here,” she said, pressing a vial of liquid into Hachi’s hands. Hachi took it and tucked it away. “This is for the fae. You have some work left before she’ll be of any real use, but I’ll leave that to you.”
|
|
|
Post by Linyü on Apr 9, 2020 23:47:53 GMT -6
Having said her piece, the woman strode briskly past them and out of the room, presumably to her next assignment. Hachi waited until the door was closed behind her before he whistled, long and low. “Wow,” he said, a slight sardonic tone in his voice. “That much freedom. Sounds like they’ve decided to cut their losses already.”
San looked up at his words. Hachi caught his gaze, and for a moment San could feel Hachi evaluating him, weighing something against some measure in his mind. “I’m not saying they’re going to retire her,” he said. The words by themselves might have been comforting, but the way he spoke them marked them more as a warning. “You did good work. She wouldn’t have taken the trouble to say all that if they were going to let her go. And free lease to do what we want is pretty convenient.”
|
|
|
Post by Linyü on Apr 9, 2020 23:48:05 GMT -6
San said nothing, but the tension in his shoulders eased slightly. It was the kind of tell he should have been aware of--- was aware of. But Hachi was safe, surely, at a moment like this.
Moreover, there was the matter of Rei herself. As far as he could tell, she had little to no grasp of Xin even now, and they had been conversing in it all this time. San glanced at her, only to find that she was still in the same position that she had been when the woman had been examining her. Now that he was looking, his gaze unclouded by the buzz of nerves and unpleasant memories, he could see that her shoulders were slightly hunched, as if to ward off a blow.
“-It’s over now,-” he said. “-You did well.-” When she looked up at him, San gave her a smile. She seemed to take some comfort in it, her posture easing.
|
|
|
Post by Linyü on Apr 9, 2020 23:48:21 GMT -6
He must have seemed more convincing than he had been when he had first spoken to her about the examination.
“She trusts you,” said Hachi. San looked back at him, and found that Hachi was looking from him to Rei with a similar expression to the one that the trainer had worn just before, near the end of the session.
“What is it?” he said.
“Nothing. Well, she listens to me when I tell her what to do, so that’s good enough.” San frowned slightly at Hachi’s response; he had the feeling that there was more to it, but there was no way to force Hachi to share. He tried to convince himself that he didn’t need to know if Hachi didn’t want to tell him. After all, he trusted Hachi too. They were a unit, and Hachi was a man of good judgement. San knew this to be true.
|
|
|
Post by Linyü on Apr 9, 2020 23:48:34 GMT -6
Nevertheless, some of that unease crept back into his heart as Hachi walked away.
He hadn’t forgotten the vial either, for all that Hachi hadn’t mentioned it again. It could have been medicine, but still---
A movement at the periphery of his vision snapped him back to attention, and for a moment he tensed, preparing to… do gods knew what, but he checked himself before he could. It was only Rei. He had lost track of his surroundings. Inwardly, he chastised himself for his carelessness, even as he forced himself to relax.
She was staring at his face, a slight crease between her brows. It was as much of an expression as he was used to seeing from her, barely present unless you knew what to look for. But even this much spoke of the magnitude of it, and to see it directed at him brought San no comfort indeed.
|
|
|
Post by Linyü on Apr 9, 2020 23:48:59 GMT -6
“-It’s nothing,-” he said. “-I’m fine. Did you want to go now? We can go back.-”
He expected her to nod, but instead, Rei hesitated. He gave her a questioning look, which she responded to by casting her gaze at the chair where the woman had sat, and then back at him.
Ah.
“-You passed,-” he explained, “-so you’ll start working with the rest of the unit soon. But it won’t be today. We have to prepare. And you’ll have to get to know them a little better, I think.-” Privately he wasn’t looking forward to reintroducing her to Nana, but there was no avoiding that. It was still the lesser evil compared to anything else that could have come of this.
“-There’s still more training to do. We can start on it tomorrow,-” he said. He would explain to her then, a little, what he had to desensitize her to, and why.
|
|
|
Post by Linyü on Apr 10, 2020 0:10:26 GMT -6
He wouldn't do it all at once, but now that she had been approved, there was no more sense in hiding the truth of it from her. Still, the day had been a success, even if it didn’t really feel like one for San. He thought that Rei, at least, deserved to enjoy it as much as she could, if she could. “-Let’s go,-” he said, and this time she accepted his invitation, letting him carry her away when he offered her his hand. ----- The next day came. The training session didn’t. Instead, San cornered Hachi in an alley on the surface, once the day’s work had been completed. “What did you do?” he said. “Calm yourself,” said Hachi. His voice was hard, his gaze unyielding as he stared San down. Normally San would have backed off, but normally San wouldn’t have considered confronting Hachi in the first place.
|
|
|
Post by Linyü on Apr 10, 2020 0:10:37 GMT -6
Hachi was a man of good sense, a good leader. Hachi looked out for them. San had genuinely believed it until this morning. Maybe he still believed it even now. But something had happened to Rei, and even if Hachi wasn’t the one responsible, San was sure he knew who was.
Hachi was taller, heavier, more experienced. He wasn’t old, but he wasn’t in the prime of his youth anymore either. San’s odds of subduing him if they came to blows wasn’t high, but if he was careful, if luck was on his side…
… No. The consequences for anything resembling mutiny were too dire. Even this much might have been considered grounds for insubordination. San knew all this, And yet, he couldn’t stay idle; the questions, the anger had eaten away at him for the better part of the night, and if he didn’t get answers soon, he didn’t know what else he might do.
|
|
|
Post by Linyü on Apr 10, 2020 0:10:54 GMT -6
“Stand down, San,” said Hachi. The rebuke ran clear in his words now, and he took a step forward. “Or do you mean to do this every time someone breathes on a girl in your presence?”
San flinched at that, despite himself. Incrementally, he saw Hachi’s expression soften, as though he were sorry to have said it. But Hachi didn’t apologize, nor did he take back his words. “If you want answers, this isn’t the way to get them. I shouldn’t need to tell you that an agent doesn’t let his emotions get the better of him.”
Especially after what happened with your sister, Hachi didn’t say. But San felt the weight of it all the same. It was Hachi’s particular sort of kindness to leave out the most uncomfortable part of what he had to say, to let San work it out for himself.
|
|
|
Post by Linyü on Apr 10, 2020 0:13:56 GMT -6
Two years ago, he had thought of it as Hachi’s way of acknowledging his intelligence. Now, there were times when it felt like mockery instead. Now he thought he might almost prefer to have the words laid bare, rather than this dance to spare his feelings.
“What did she give you?” he said. “The trainer. The vial.”
“Medicine,” Hachi replied. His tone was flat, an echo of San’s own, not at all his usual easy manner of speaking. When San narrowed his eyes, Hachi said, “Whatever it was they tried on her first, it didn’t work. After that, they decided to medicate her, to make her easier to handle. Now that we’ve shown them we can handle her, they’re weaning her off. Apparently there were some side effects to the original medication that made her less effective.” Hachi shrugged. "That's as much of it as I know."
|
|
|
Post by Linyü on Apr 11, 2020 17:21:41 GMT -6
San pushed through the first wave of dread and disgust at Hachi’s words--- medicated--- and reminded himself that this kind of high-handed treatment was common here. He’d been drugged too, on occasion. It rang hollow in the face of what he had seen, between the way Rei had been when San first met her, and the uncontrollable convulsing he had seen in her earlier, but dwelling on it threatened any measure of calm he had managed to gain.
‘Less effective’, Hachi had said. They were taking her off the medication to make her more useful. That was only the official statement issued to Hachi, and the reality might be less--- the medication might have been an expensive liability--- but it was true that they had no real incentive to kill her. If that had been the intent, they wouldn’t have gone to the trouble of allowing the evaluation to proceed.
|
|
|
Post by Linyü on Apr 11, 2020 17:21:57 GMT -6
But they had no motivation to make the detox process any easier on Rei, if it wouldn’t be fatal. “You’ll ruin your gloves like that,” Hachi said. There was still something of his earlier terseness, but softened somewhat, yielding a little to his usual nonchalance. San realized that he had been clenching his hands into fists; if not for his gloves, his nails might have broken skin. Slowly, deliberately, he forced himself to relax. “Look,” said Hachi, “I’ve been an agent for a long time. You didn’t ask for my advice, but here it is: you want to help someone, you need to remember that you’re more useful to them alive than dead.” He walked forward, resting his hand on San’s shoulder for a moment before brushing past him. “Think about that, the next time something gets to you.” By the time San turned to follow in his wake, Hachi was already long gone. -----
|
|