Logs:The Eyes of the Mask: Interviewing The Creator

From From Dusk till Jawn
Jump to navigation Jump to search
Content Warning

Depersonalization, kidnapping, murder, loss of control

Cast

Parhelion, Revontulet, and DadHoc as The Creator/ST

Setting
Log

The Gaol is functional, rather like a mid-class hotel. The security is provided by devices, spells, and constant supervision. They don't see the need to denigrate prisoners with substandard housing. Sure, there's no privacy. But there's comfort, pillows, clean clothes, and the like.

When The Creator is brought out, they definitely look the part. They are tall-- that extra little bit tall that lets you know it was on purpose. Their body leans to the feminine side of androgynous, in that there are swells where swells ought be, but it all has the feel of a dolphin. Humanoid but not human. They trip the uncanny valley, with a face designed to make statements, not please the eyes. Speaking of the eyes, they're large. Almost alien. The ears are pronounced, as well. Nostrils are narrow and the nose slight, though their neck is surprisingly thick.

They're dressed in a simple circular gray robe with a neck hole and slits for the arms. It's tied with a loose cord about the waist for everyone else's modesty, because the side slits make it clear they have none. Their hands, feet, and neck are shackled with magical devices that are likely suppressing their potentia and inhibiting their ability to work their will. They are not heavy and odious, but they also are what they are.

Once seated by Gardener, they shift their robe into comfortable position and set their shackled wrists on the table, watching the pair of children of the tree with curiosity. Maybe that face is incapable of expressing human emotions like resentment, anger, or fear. Maybe. But it seems fully capable of looking curious. (edited)

Mei hasn't done anything to try to make herself seem more important or more official for this particular meeting, just come as she is. She isn't there to try to impress anyone, and she's really not a particularly formal person except when the situation dictates that she must be, so there's Mei, in black jeans and a leather jacket over a shirt with a multi-hued and many-winged wheel of eyes that says "BE NOT AFRAID" above it, and "BE PROUD" beneath it.

She's seated on one of the room's chairs, which has been turned backward so that she can lean forward against it's back, which is what she's doing, and her eyes watch the Creator as they're brought in and shackled to the table. Her expression isn't impassive, just curious as well. "I'm Parhelion. How are you doing?" she asks, with a tone that suggests she's asking because she wants to know the answer, not just because that's what you do.

Fox doesn't look like she's done a lot of prep work; the runes for the spells she's carrying are hidden underneath her tank top. It's a ratty black thing with hot pink text across her chest reading KILLER QUEEN. For once, all of her spells are hidden with Prime, and she doesn't sit on her chair, but crouch on it. Damn bisexuals, they just can't operate chairs properly. "Revontulet," she introduces herself, letting Mei lead. Her thumb absently turns the siderite ring on her left ring finger, its bronze, gold and silver text hidden inside the ring, against her skin. Her head tips to the side, clear gold eyes fixed on the Creator.

"The circumstances of my captivity notwithstanding, I am well Parhelion. I am Creator." That voice. That voice! It's not a voice, it's a dozen or more voices all at once, as though they're speaking with numerous voices out of one throat. If they're aware it's a bit much to come out of one mouth, they don't let on. Fox's introduction is answered with a small nod in answer. They already gave their name the once.

They glance between the pair once more, still curious. Still patiently waiting. Creator is a whole other animal from Detective Trenchcoat, that much is clear.

"I'm glad to hear that," Mei responds, with only a slight quirk of her brows in answer to the oddity of the voice. She turns into an angel with multiple faces and extraneous wings, so it's not like she's unfamiliar with people doing weird things with their physical appearances. "Before we start asking our own questions and things, is there anything you want to talk to us about? Anything you'd like to tell us?"

She rubs her face with one hand, watching the Creator with a curious expression. Fox has never been sure, exactly, where to start with these things. This is what she has people like Vasya and Zoya for, after all. But Vasya is sorting himself out, right?

A grunt from the Thyrsus as Mei opens the conversation. "Mm."

"I intend to make the case that my work must be allowed to continue. Preferably unimpeded. But if under your supervision, so be it." Creator doesn't seem particularly worried at the moment. Not at their predicament, anyway. "I imagine the best way for me to do that is to answer your every concern about my work as honestly as I may."

They look about the room, seeking out something more noteworthy than its occupants, their chairs, and the table between them. There are no such objects. So their focus returns to the pair again. "Are you able to remember all I relate to you, or shall I ask you to acquire a recording apparatus?"

"If there's one thing that we will workers rarely lack, it's audacity," Mei says with a faint smile. "I'll be able to remember everything you say, don't worry. Memory is one thing I've always excelled at, even prior to my Awakening." She waves a hand, brushing the concern away. "Why is it that you think your work must continue?"

"Neither one of us will forget what you say," Fox agrees, and her eyebrows rise slightly as she watches the Creator. Rather opposite to the alien Seer, her expressions play across her face without being held back. "And what would your work continuing entail?" Her fingers absently wiggle in the air, an idle stimming gesture.

"If I may set aside my present predicament and deign to speak with you as an equal, Parhelion, I might suggest a better question for where you should start. Which is 'what is your work exactly'. Once you understand that, you will either see the sense of it or you won't. And if I explain to you the sense I see in it without you understanding it, you will simply reject it out of hand. But to show i am not being evasive, simply helpful, here is my answer to the question you posed. Answered as a prisoner in chains."

They lean back from the table and set their wrists onto their lap. "If it ends here, now, all of my children will be left without trained oversight, management, and treatment. Not all of them are ready for Mark V or Mark VI. I didn't think it was possible until I saw Balm attempt. I am very close to resolving the inconsistent tetrad and removing the sting of mind and body duality-- the absolute control that duality affords...." They do not speak. Their eyes merely roll upwards indicatively. "I am close to delivering absolute freedom. Freedom from the body, through the mind. True liberty for tortured souls."

"All of which sounds like so much nattering madness because you don't know what my work is, you see. As to what it will entail? Access to Marsbase Hermes. Access to my laboratory, my research, my tools. Access to my children, of course. I quite understand you will need to ensure the ethical foundations of my continued work, and i am eager to demonstrate it to you when we are able to do so."

"Once I have put that all in place, shown you everything, explained it all. Then I will put that in the context of how this program was created. So you can hear of monstrousness only after you know of my mitigations to it." At least they know what they did was monstrous. At least that.

Mei answers all of this with a gesture urging Creator to go on. "I came here prepared to listen to you say what you felt like needed to be said. To listen with an open mind. Please, start where you think it would be good to start, and I'll let you know if I have any questions or need any clarifications." Mei does want to understand, even if she isn't likely to agree, and it's that kind of empathy, the ability to see things from someone else's perspective whether she finds their perspective correct or reprehensible, that made her such a good investigator. Also, she knows that if there's one thing that's usually true of people, it's that given someone willing to really listen, most people are happy to talk.

And if there's one thing that Fox is good at, it's making big eyes at people and paying attention to them. The two of them are quite the powerful pair in that sense. The Creator has a -- well. It's not the audience that's captive, anyway. She makes a small gesture that mirrors Mei's, perhaps a reflection of the telepathic connection that the Obrimos maintains. Mind-body duality is a pernicious lie, the Orphan grumbles to Mei mentally. The concept of being free from one's body clearly (to Mei, at least, since she's the only one with access to Fox's thoughts) makes her uncomfortable; to her, it's a little like being freed from thinking at all. The body is part of the self!

"Very well, Parhelion." Creator takes her at her word. Their throat begins to narrow, and it's a single voice that begins answering. Its accent is German, the voice decidedly feminine.

"I cannot summon sufficient superlatives to explain to you how little you, or I, or this conversation matter to the Exarchs. It is nothing to them to absolutely annihilate a human psyche, a human body, a human soul. I am aware that you, in a functional sense, are aware that the Exarchs kill. And that they control. But their utter disregard for anything other than their own will is a force in the universe. It is tangible."

"You have seen, I believe, what they can do with a human and some bandages? Did you know that they produce human vessels. Just. Take and hollow out people so that they can be made to be and do ... anything at all?"

"These forces make what was done to our people in World War Two seem humane in comparison. But you must understand. For some of us, for a period of time, all there was was violence and stigma and more violence. Oppression after oppression. Endless suffering. In lying bodies, in camps, in asylums. And when the definition of human narrowed further, it became expedient for humans to cast one another off as garbage. If they were somehow the wrong sort of person. The sort you can unperson at the snap of your fingers."

"In a world at war, in a world gone mad, in a world where human life had lost all value in some locations while being a treasure in others? In that world, they took me. They offered me survival, and they told me they had work for me. For a scientist with my... vision. I will spare you the sob store of my origins. You can imagine them well enough. Just know that I went into this knowing how depraved humanity could be. I had no illusions. What I was hoping for was a way to survive. And to maybe do some good."

"If I had not interceded, my children would be husks. Empty, hollowed out people liined up against the wall, waiting to be filled with purpose. Or gibbering writhing half-alive slaves, wrapped in gauze, worse than dead. I offered a third option. I proposed that we might improve upon this thoroughly destructive practice. And in the hollowing out, don't destroy. Preserve. Save what they were throwing away, and relieving them from the constraints they had lived under prior. The Exarchs love to prey upon the weak and the vulnerable. People on the edges of society. People the world forgets. Our people. And where they were leaving absence and ruin, I gave those people a second life. A life without constraints. Free from racial bigotry, sexual prejucide. In a body that matched their mental picture. Surrounded by people who respected and understood them for who they truly were. For some of them, the first family they had ever known."

"Was I complicit in the attrocity? Of course. But I saved each and every one of their lives. And gave what happened to them meaning and purpose. Had I refused to involve myself, they wouldn't be here to tell you what they think of me themelves. They'd be decades dead. All of them."

"I'm aware of how badly people can treat one another," Mei says with a solemn tone, matched with a solemn nod. "I'm Jewish, transgender, and a Hong Konger. I know the kinds of things that were done to all three of those groups during the second world war. I've also worked on cases that involved people who would do heinous things to others without any hesitation, taking joy in the pain and misery they inflicted. I have some understanding of the perspective that you're talking about, and more first hand experience with it than I would wish for anyone else to have." There's sympathy in her tone through all of this, a continued interest in understanding.

"It seems like you're saying that you recognize what was done was evil, but it was a lesser evil than what would have been done otherwise?"

"I am saying Oscar Schindler was a Nazi," Creator answers quite evocatively.

She pulls in a slow breath as they talk, and as Mei answers. "What do you mean by 'continue your work'?" Fox queries. "I follow the Hans Asperger metaphor here, or the Oskar Schindler one, as you like." She shifts her weight from foot to foot, crouched as she is, and frowns mildly, turning her head to the side to look at Gardener directly. Watching her expression, her reaction. After all, this is the justification for what was done to her, too.

"This has been a project done in phases. Mark I was, of course, proof of concept. Can a mind and soul in an external jar control and operate a machine body, and receive useful input back. I understand you have met the only model from Mark I, and that he used his free will to escape from his lab and join you all. Had it never occurred to you why I never botheed coming to collect him?" Their head tilts to the side. It's not an accusation, or an assumption of inferiority on their part, more a speculation if there was ever a moment where they considered that maybe. Just maybe. They were happy for him.

"I neglected him, and he didn't accept it. He went with you because you were kind to him and treated him with respect. He has community here. And before you're wondering how I knew, you knew he was receiving and transmitting periodically. And I can only assume you allowed it to continue because you realized it wasn't malicious." Their alien face does acquire an obvious smile. They're pleased with him.

"Mark II was to show the Exarchs and the investors that there was a future for this in global security. Unfortunately, it does involve subsuming the emotions and personality of the mind involved in the process. But that is temporary, and when the brain case is removed, the inhibitors remain with the Mark II. But it got me what I needed. Which was more money and some breathing room. Mark IIIs are... You have seen the Mark IVs. The Mark IIIs are like the IVs, but... They're autonomous residual self image projectors. Each Mark IV is eqipped with a Mark III projector, of course. But the projector allows a brain case to broadcast a self image into the astral. With the very real consequence that Marsbase Hermes is staffed by people living lives believing they're astronauts." There's a bit of a brittle smile, here.

"Mark V I was preparing to unveil. Putting a braincase back into a flesh and blood vessel created to purpose. Once that's doine, it would be theoretically possible for me to reintroduce my children to this world. Let them resume something like a normal life. It would be theoretically possible, of course, because barring the occasional escape from my lab, the Exarchs are naturally very frowny-frowny about me giving their toys free will." They lift their tethered wrists indicatively, straining the magical restraints with a sparkle of energy that causes Gardener to frown. That's the first expression she's really shown this whole time. She has Vasya's game face.

"And once I had done that, once I had nurtured a mind to believe in impossible things right under their noses, I thought we could escape. As a family. All of us. Into the Astral. Cast off our bodies, and simply be as we were intended to be. Balm did it. I do not know how yet, but I intend to find out. Their minds are ripe for it. Decades now of knowing only wonder and potential!" If only they knew about Amos and Mary.

Mei listens with all of the interest her earlier words promised, even if part way through she's sending a telepathic thought to Fox. A classic conundrum, this kind of thing. While I can see some potential in this research for great things, which could help plenty of people who genuinely need it, is there ever an ethical way to make use of research that was gained by unethical means? There was even a Deep Space Nine episode about that particular question, as I recall. "What about those that didn't manage it? Would you have left them behind?" she asks. "Surely you've considered the possibility that some or all of them wouldn't be able to make that transition, and that escape."

There's a flicker of annoyance and a small frown that passes across Fox's face. Clearly she didn't think there were any transmissions from Mark continuing at all. Her face goes back to placidity, though, and she listens to the Creator, examining their face with those sharp golden eyes of hers. She tips her head toward Mei. "I think what I need to understand as much as anything is whether your plans include adding more individuals to ... your experiments. And the level of cognizance and consent which was, and is, involved."

Here, they flinch and look down at their wrists. "Early on there were problems. Psyches rejecting the condition they found themselves in. Unravelling. Going mad. Using artificial intelligences worked for honing the process at first, but eventually you have to try the real thing. The ones that rejected..." They trail off. Their ends are obvious. They died a second time.

"That period was very brief. It lasted about three weeks in 1946. If you hang me for those three weeks, I admit it won't be an unjust sentence." They present the matter as though it is obvious to everyone there was no option to simply not. That not was never an option.

"Since that time I have succeeded in keeping most of my creations happy and content at Hermes base. Mark One did not have a removable brain case, could not be introduced into a Mark III, and arguably did not have the mental preparation necessary to make that transition. So. Regrettably, he was left with his development team. They had been working on his enrichment and team building behaviors. Which seems to have succeeded. With those exceptions, however, all my children have been taught to explore without fear, and to return to Hermes base if they are afraid. After our engagement over Mars, Revontulet, I believe you experienced that behavior first hand, did you not?"

"Unless the Exarchs begin turning up in my dreams ordering more human husks, I have no desire to provide them any. But if they somehow force me to obey them again, I would resume saving people when I can. Not because I want to, but because to do otherwise would be murder." Their shoulders shrug. "I have more children than I ever would have wanted, if that's your concern. I don't need to create anyone new. I am, in point of fact, quite happy to let them all become as free as the one you call Mark now. I would be thrilled, in fact, to let them experience that. Though I imagine they won't like this world much. It really is terrible here."

They lets out a small sigh as segue, "As to the agency? They had none, of course. The Exarchs care nothing for agency, and if I were to provide agency at that moment the Exarchs would know about it. They're the ones that allow the procedure to transpire in the first place, after all. No consent was sought. No consent was given. But, again, after the first three weeks no minds rejected the procedure. And they all seem quite happy at Hermes. I'd be happy to take you there, but." Once more they indicate their bindings.

"I can understand why you would make the choices that you did," Mei responds with a regretful smile. "Thank you for explaining what happened, and why you made those decisions. If you were allowed to continue you your work, what would that entail for you? What the sum of your goals for that work?"

The Orphan of Proteus slowly chews on their lower lip with those sharp little vulpine teeth. Mei asks the questions she might have wanted to ask, and so she just sort of watches the Creator. "Mmm," she answers the question the Creator asks. "I think so, yes. Though I'm not sure how trying to kill my mother advanced your cause. Or, for that matter, the torture and capture of Gardener and her fellows." A flick of her gaze toward the Guardian. Look, she can hate the Order while still having visceral screaming nightmares of the look on Gardener's face when time resumed.

"That answer has changed since the Exarchs withdrew themselves from us. New things are possible in their absence that were not before. And things that were once assured are now in question. First and foremost I wish to ensure continuity for my children. I would rather that they not know they are pawns in a game of interstellar chess against their will. They quite simply don't need the headache. I need to make an appearance. And I'd like to make the first one alone so that I can ensure the stage is set to introduce new individuals to them. Namely you and whoever else you'd like to bring. They're not accustomed to there being new people to meet outside of a cockpit."

"At that point we can begin to introduce them to the real world again. Start giving them agency on which side they'd like to live in. Or maybe they'd like to live in both from time to time. We can make that possible, I've all the research seen to preliminarily. And once I am no longer needed to hollow out human beings and preserve what I take out, I will find the deepest, furthest part of the astral. And travel until I can no longer hear them in my dreams and be alone with myself for the first time in my life."

"I am not certain either, as I did neither of those things. I did attempt to destroy the Tree you all value. If anyone was harmed during that, it is only because they tried to stop that destruction. I don't believe I need to explain why that Tree is a valid target in a time of war? And why defending it makes one a legitimate target? But. Yes. Those were my spirits, so I suppose in a sense I did attempt to kill Balm. But, again, only because she tried to stop me from destroying the Tree." It's a technicality, but it matters to them it seems.

"And I didn't do anything to Gardener." They looka up at Gardener as they say it. "That was Strawman and Clive. Was it not?"

Gardener doesn't like that she has to admit, with a sigh and tone of voice that makes it clear this is the biggest fucking asterisk, "No. Creator was not in the room when Clive and Trenchcoat Shithead took us."

Creator looks back to Fox, vindicated. "There. You see? Scientist. Unwilling operative."

"It sounds to me from this conversation so far that you've long been aware of the atrocities of the ones you went to war for," Mei responds in an even tone, not angry or argumentative. Just calm. "And I'm sure that I don't need to explain to you the problems inherent in the idea of the 'I was just following orders' argument. Engagement in unjust attacks at the direction of unjust leadership in an unjust war doesn't give validity to an attack." She waves a hand through the air. "But that isn't what we're here to litigate at the moment, either."

In so many ways, the Creator is Fox's opposite, for all of the similarities Fox is loath to admit they share. And one of the ways they're so very different is the ways in which Fox just... exists in her body, with all of her feelings and emotions. Strawman, she mutters in her head. Light his fucking ass on fire. She rests her forearms on her knees, head tipped forward, and her eyes narrow, a flush climbing her pale, freckled cheeks.

"I think it falls under 'cool motive, still murder,'" Fox finally says, tipping her head to look aside at Mei, as though that will calm her. "But I meant during my mother's most recent travel, actually. Your Mark IVs attacked her."

"Balm died in her sleep. The tree still stands. If I remember my youth correctly, attrocities typically involve a great deal many more dead children." And here, now, Creator's voice gains some anger to it. "Shadow War was declared. By your own laws I am an enemy for this, and not a criminal. Was your murder of [name] not an atrocity? Does it stop being an atrocity when you put on a mask and make someone else do it for you, Parhelion? That's how you all moralize it, if I recall correctly, yes?"

They're looking between the pair now. "To return to the comparison: Oscar Schindler ran a munitions factory. A munitions factory. But next time the Exarchs order me to destroy the tree, I'll be sure to capture it first and have someone in a mask destroy it for me."

There's a rather lengthy pause before they choose to engage with Fox's accusation. "Is that what you remember?" (edited)

"I didn't say that the attack itself was an atrocity, only that by your own admission in this conversation thus far, you were already aware of some of the atrocities that can be laid at the feet of those you were serving by it," Mei responds. "And I think you have mistaken me for a member of the Diamond Orders, which I am not. The Interfector is not my agent of justice or injustice, whatever your perspective, and they don't act on my behalf, let alone at my request or command. To my knowledge, no prisoner of the Children of the Tree has been executed here in the time since I joined."