Delete File?

[morituramfides]

Characters: Jin Shirato and OPEN
Setting: Floor 43, any day after the Ruana network post
Format: starting in prose, but I can switch to action if you're prefer!
Summary: After speaking with Ruana, Jin has to cool down and creates a daily ritual for himself.
Warnings: Science trauma and Jin being Jin.

Jin was perfectly well aware that nothing he could do to the building was permanent; significant damage would also just bestow punishment for his efforts. But there's of course a point when you stop caring about whatever the Tower can dish out, and after it transform you into a rabid and horrifying facsimile of a jungle cat, you've passed that point. Besides, Sayaka was right; he'd needed to get away from the computer long before he had actually gotten away from it.

His head was still spinning, and he felt a bit sick (the same sort of ill that had come at the end of the summer he'd wager), but here he stood on the 43rd floor, standing outside one specific jail cell; one with a number plate that read "037." For a long time it just seemed like he was staring vacantly at it, even though his mind was racing.

And then eventually Jin snapped out of his own reverie, took out a screwdriver from his pocket, jammed it under the plate and pried the numbered plate off the wall after quite a bit of effort. The physically strongest he wasn't, but he kept pushing until it finally popped off.

Of course, it would come back the next day, and again Jin'd be on the 43rd floor, rather prying the plate off or carving into it to scrape off the number and make it illegible. It almost became a ritual every day, stopping down there on the way down to find something to do, and it'd be easy to find him idling about in front of the jail cell with a screwdriver in hand.

He had no idea what his own opinion was on her anymore, but he still felt like doing this much.

Comments

[morituramfides]

"Last month, and the time before that, and the time before that." His eyes narrowed at Enoch a bit as he spoke with emphasis. Oh no, he wasn't going to let anyone forget about what happened before, no sirree. Though it was just as much telling Enoch as much as Jin was reminding himself.

He finally stopped tossing the screwdriver, catching it firmly in his hand. "What do you wanna do then? Go easy on her?"

[warriorscribe]

"The others weren't her doing." Enoch sighed and closed his eyes, lowering his head. "I want to teach her. She doesn't know what a friend is, and if her entire life was spent somewhere like this, it's obvious why."

[morituramfides]

"You kidding me? Maybe she didn't do everything, but she's put me and my best friend through hell at least once before, if not twice. Fuck, that Halloween costume fiasco was probably her pulling more bullshit!"

His tone was rising pretty quickly up to anger, and he was making a few broad and sweeping gestures as he spoke. "Her definition of 'fun' is screwing with us. Trust me, you can't un-teach someone that screwed up."

[warriorscribe]

"Last month was hers, as was...that game. But we know she leaves the others to their own work, or she wouldn't tolerate Jason."

Enoch is unfazed by Jin's anger, trying to cool it with calmness of his own. "One is never too old to learn."

[morituramfides]

Jin's temper wasn't being cooled down in the least, unfortunately; the mention of the 'game' just seemed to make him even more irritable, though it was more...an uncomfortable notion than another fit of seering rage.

"Honestly? She probably just thinks of Jason, Dax and Riki as pets instead of toys, it's hardly better. She actually called Jason a dog." Not necessarily an assessment he disagreed with, but he still didn't like either of them.

"Keep up with your safe little bout of optimism, but speaking from experience, I beg to differ."

[warriorscribe]

"It doesn't matter how she thinks of them; Jason's experiments are proof that she doesn't have a hand in what they do to us. If she did, she would not allow them."

He doesn't respond to the latter. His own experience isn't at all in the same vein, but if a man more than three centuries old, pious enough to be called to live among angels, could accept that the same God did not create all worlds, then certainly an abused girl, over a thousand, could come to change her own way of thought.

[morituramfides]

"Please! They're afraid of her! Even those freaks can feel basic human fear, she can fuck up Jason worse than he can fuck up any of us! Why wouldn't she be in charge? Who's to say she doesn't let Jason do what he does because she thinks it's hilarious?"

Unfortunately, Jin was a bit biased towards his perception that a group of teenagers turned into insane hit-men would never have any chance of returning to basic human decency, much less someone as old as Ruana was.

[warriorscribe]

"Exactly - but it is Jason's decision to do these things, not Ruana's. If it were Ruana's decision, Jason would do nothing - she would not inflict 'experiments' on us."

Enoch flexes his fingers a little. "And she did say he was 'bad', didn't she? I didn't say she wasn't in charge, only that she doesn't deserve the blame for what the others do, since it's clear she leaves them to do as they wish."

[morituramfides]

"No-- just more of her shitty little games, no doubt. Is one really better than the other?"

Jin's temper was started to chill a little bit, though it was certainly still there; just momentarily quelled given the topic at hand. "Frankly, I don't trust any of 'em; I don't know why any of you would. The only one that doesn't seem to totally spit in our faces is Zo. Maybe she doesn't get the blame for what they do, but I'd argue she's worse."

[warriorscribe]

"Dax. He seems to try to shield us from what limited room he has to work with - I believe Jason mentioned Dax has begged him to go light on the experiments before. But he's bound by fear of his own life, and obviously isn't the sort to move despite it.

"I don't think Ruana is right. Only that she is not incorrigible."

[morituramfides]

"Dax is a chicken that doesn't know how to stand up for something. If our well-being is so important to him, he'd do more than just weave some fancy words. Who knows if he's even telling the truth?"

As for the Ruana part though... he seemed less angry now, and ab bit more just fed-up or resigned.

"You just don't get it, do you? If you smash a plate into little pieces, you can't put it back together into the same plate. It's the same thing."

[warriorscribe]

"Does it mean you shouldn't try to reform it into as much of a plate as is possible? Or are you arguing it's better to leave it in dangerously sharp shards?"

But for anyone to get anything done, the hierarchy would have to be reformed. At the very least, Ruana had to be shown that being open to being questioned could, if done well, lead only to improvements. It would take some of the strain off her underlings, and, as such, trickle down into the tower's populace in some way.

He wanted to help. But that couldn't be done just yet.

[morituramfides]

"Of course! No one's gonna waste their time putting something back together when it's broken beyond repair; they're gonna clean it up, throw it in the trash, and get a new one that actually functions."

It was just logic and experience. No one was going to waste their time.

"It's the same with humans. You're an idiot if you think it's any different."

[warriorscribe]

"Not if there is no other plate, nor way to make one except from the existing one. That is why humans are indeed different, and why the analogy fails to hold the way you want it to in this one. We are not the ones in power here, and even then, to cast Ruana aside would be cruel.

And if you think it makes me a fool, then what does it say of you, that you would put humans on the same level as a lump of clay? I would rather be a fool."

[morituramfides]

"Hah! You think so?"

Well that's a very...sour tone of amusement he's got right there.

"I'll grant you we're not the ones in power," He says, gesturing at Enoch with his screwdriver. "But any one person is replaceable just like a common plate. Different designs, maybe some finer china. But we can still break and get thrown away if it's too much work to fix it. People throw other people away all the time. Humanity ain't nothin' special."

[warriorscribe]

"While I have seen those in power abuse it, while I have seen kings behave like monsters, I have also seen those in power use it for good. I have seen kings who rule in kindness. Humanity is capable of evil. But we are not, ourselves, evil. And it is only the evil that treat their fellow man like tools."

[morituramfides]

"'Evil' and 'good' are meaningless words that we make up to make us feel better about ourselves."

His demeanor goes a bit more dour, turning his attention back to the area where the nameplate had been and using the screwdriver to start idly scraping at it again for seemingly no other reason than for a distraction.

"They don't really exist. People get praised even if they treat other people like shit. Some people still get away with it in the end."

[warriorscribe]

What earns praise from other people is not in itself good, and what goes punished is not in itself evil. Good and evil are acted out by humanity, or by all thinking beings, but ultimately have their own definitions. I have seen many nations, and now, many people of many worlds. We have much the same concepts of "right" and "wrong". There is more to it than the way we treat someone's behavior.

[morituramfides]

Well, I don't.

[Said rather flatly, as he kept picking at the wall. He wasn't very good at the Good/Evil paradigm.]

She probably doesn't either. And as far as people care, that just makes us on the "wrong" side of the general consensus. Big whoop.

[warriorscribe]

*Yeah, he knows Jin isn't willing to keep this going. Time to reel in that sense of wanting to teach and move on. He stands up.*

Keep in mind that there is a difference between actions and what drives them. Someone who does some evil deeds may not themselves be evil, and someone who does some good deeds may not themselves be good. It is the whole of a person's experience and actions that determines this.

*And with that, he walks away, up the stairs.*

[morituramfides]

--?

[That...surprisingly caught him off guard. He stopped picking, and watched Enoch leave, but didn't say a word. And after another minute, he went back to picking at the wall.

"Someone who does evil wasn't evil"? He'd never thought of it like that.]