Section 99: Preservation Through Detatchment

And welcome back to Van's end of things, where our severely chipped and scarred hero is dealing with the unbearable part of being an operative: waiting for someone to show themselves, waiting for something to happen. In what could be a moment of spiralling madness, he gets a little help from an unexpected friend.

Preservation Through Detachment

One of deepest slights that stuck in Van Parker’s psyche, one of the deepest and preserved grudges he bore, was borne of the time he read a bulletpoint on his profile over the arm of one of the sadists that built him: “food motivated.” He hated it, because it reduced him to an animal.

He hated it, because it was also accurate.

It was an aspect of his personality that tormented him, especially given his cybernetically augmented senses. When his stomach was bottoming out, and his want to eat a meal fit for four men was punching at his insides like the ache of a healing sternum shot, it was not hyperbole to say he could smell food cooking from kilometers away. One time, he swore he pinged a barbecue lighting in Downtown Alameka Grove, all the way through the soundproofing surrounding the Sendra Clan’s Scarlet Garden compound. So when he was certain he heard the sound of a grill sparking within the confines of the garden, the first thought that crossed his mind was oh you motherfucker, you are taking a mortal risk right now, and The Canine that lived in his brain growled like a backing chorus.

Fruitless days had been driving Van deeper and deeper into a low key madness, to the point that even he was willing to admit he had a problem. It was only that he hadn’t yet arrived at the understanding that his problem was neither named Mother Terminal nor Aldous Hargrave, two people on his list that needed to be crossed off it yesterday. While he was willing to accept that it was a matter of his opinion, he’d only concede that by adding that his opinion was the correct one, then probably shouldering the person who challenged him on it aside to go try and dig up more intel on the Death Cult Apocalypse Nun and the Dickhead Slaver With Too Many Starships.

In some things, Van would admit that he knew nothing, and in others, Van would admit he had a greater worth, that his time left alive was more valuable than how he was wasting it. But when he was convinced he was doing exactly what he needed to be doing, he was like dug-in infantry: bullets alone wouldn’t dislodge him, it was going to take artillery, air support, disease, or hunger. Of those things, hunger was the only one he hadn’t figured out a functional workaround for.

So he found his feet moving almost involuntarily, feeling like a cartoon dog that caught a whiff of improbably large meat roasting on a comically small spit. He was somewhat surprised to see how late in the day it was, he was certain it was only a few minutes past 2 the last he looked.

At the clock, on his HUD, projected directly onto his vision.

As things stood, the light of Samoud’s slightly distant but slightly stronger star was beginning to hang low in the sky, hues of orange and violets beginning to assert against the pale blue of daytime. Six o’clock, how bout that, oh well- who was cooking, what was that smell? Whatever it was, it was something being done correctly. It was enough to shut out the vibrance of the gardens themselves, the brightness of the reds, oranges and greens looking like flames exploding out of stems and climbing vines. He couldn’t smell how fresh the air was, how clear he could smell the coast on the wind, because all he was focusing on was the smell of meat over char, seasoned just right.

Carne Sadrak? Van said to himself, figuring it was a terran means of cooking a local game animal. The Canine made a sound of consideration, measuring olfactory data against known scent profiles: Clonebeef, it said, and a good batch, too. Van nodded to himself.

You got a preference? He asked the other half of his head. Its response was a bestial noise that was all the No Van needed.

A pair of yearling agents, just barely out of their trainee stages, came up the path toward the armoury, the novelty of their shrouded, Sendra-red field masks and hooded armour not yet worn off, holding loaded weapons at ease. As they saw Van coming, they parted, knowing that even if they felt like ultimate badasses in their new station in life, they also needed to not get in the way of the Clan’s heavy armoured unit when he was hungry. Van barely noticed them, even though he idly swatted one of their rhidling tails out of his way like it was a branch in the wilderness.

He found the source of the scent, and was surprised to find it was Bleak, standing sentry over a grill, almost comically stoic with a donned apron and spatula. His expression was flat, but his eyes were focused and engaged.

“Simon?” Van said out loud. Seriously? He left on the inside.

Bleak made a noise of acknowledgement, but didn’t move his eyes off the grill. A series of perfectly-shaped burgers sizzled and spat over coal embers, their temperature controlled by vents and fans- low tech and high tech in one piece of backyard kit. Van knew what that look meant, he’d just never seen it focused in that direction before. It was his learning face, what he looked like when he was working out and internalizing how to be someone else through observation.

The guy had set up a spread of different buns. They also looked like he’d baked them himself…

“So,” Van found himself saying tentatively, as he approached a situation with the same trepidation as a man approaching a landed UFO. His friend, an individual who he knew suffered internally as brutally as he could make others suffer externally, a man who quite literally bodysnatched the people he was sent to assassinate, becoming them posthumously through his sophisticated android mechanisms to ruin them after he killed them… was grilling hamburgers, on a gazebo patio. “So is this dinner, or is this science?”

“Hmm?” Bleak said, uncharacteristically miles away. “Oh. I suppose it’s both, I’ll tell you when these are done.” Van had never quite seen him like this, at least not when he was wearing his ‘default’ face. His calm always had an edge of tension to it, but there was none here. It was a modicum of serenity, mixed with a tinge of legitimate confusion, like a man uncertain of this new feeling not wanting to break the throat of someone nearby.

“Something inspire this?”

“Granny did,” Bleak said. “We had a talk, after my…” A measure of stiffness came over his posture, made him look like his nominal self. It faded from him and he relaxed. “...my issues with Count Pheylan, and his entourage.”

Van blinked, and for a moment, Bleak wasn’t standing over a grill with a spatula in his hand, but a pile the burnt biological wreckage of Consortium nobles, with a heavy pulse laser rifle in his hand. PTSD was like a malignant corvid, picking up shiny baubles of trauma as it sees them, and adding to the collection. The only thing Van could do was assure himself how it didn’t bother him, so he could later tell a stranger on a helpline how much it bothered him, while trying not to describe the noises a war criminal’s body makes as it’s being overkilled into burning tallow by a laser machine gun.

“I don’t know if I ever apologized for that,” Simon’s voice was low over the sizzle of the meat, but it brought Van back into the present all the same. “For making you run down that scum. Count Sahn should have been a cleaner kill. Sorry about that.”

Van took a moment to assess his life: a polite apology from one hitman to another, doing a backyard barbecue in a fortressed garden guarded by ninjas with machine guns and watched over by drones. With that clear and correct in his mind, he said, “Don’t worry about it,” and added, “I’m gonna assume this isn’t some sort of demotion, given your last op.”

Bleak laughed, quietly, and it was like someone icepicked Van in his spine.

“No, this is me getting a hobby,” he said. “This is me unplugging myself. No, actually, no,” he paused himself. His eyes were still transfixed on the burgers, but Van knew the look of a process load when he saw one- that side-to-side minute little eye-twitch, he was enough of a synthetic to do it himself when he was having a deep thought. “This is me refocusing myself.”

A sudden and precise movement with Bleak’s spatula hand saw the six burgers on the grill lifted and flipped, a motion that took less than 8 seconds.

Bleak made a soft hmm to himself. “Grill marks are flawless. Outstanding.”

“Why hamburgers, if you mind me asking?”

“Simple food, but also with enough of a degree of difficulty to allow failure and show clear improvement. If I can cook a burger right, I can graduate and develop.”

He leaned over the grill, his mechanical biology unbothered by the rising heat, and breathed the scent in. The look he made was that of a man who was unclear on what happiness felt like when it wasn’t caused by harming someone deserving, begrudgingly deciding that no, this is good; this is just good, and I apologize to my principles. “That, or I could just keep making burgers…”

“If you can do a thing well, why not keep doing it, right?” said Van.

Bleak made another noise of acknowledgement. “That and people think that simplicity is worthy of disrespect, like a crowbar isn’t a means of opening a box that also can’t stove in a person’s hea-” he stopped himself. “Like a paperclip can’t also unlock handcuffs…” He said instead.

Van said nothing, because he wasn’t sure of what he was seeing. He just ‘uh-huh’ed in a friendly way, and nodded with a casual candour.

“The ConSorts, they make a thing, and they think: oh good, we can do this, so we can do this cheaper, make it for the plebs, sell them garbage shaped like luxury and take both their money and their dignity. Make ‘burger flipper’ a term of derision, like people who flip burgers aren’t making their lunch for them,” there was a strange, contemplative pain on his face, just for a second, but it was an eternity to The Canine, which was fascinated by this new behaviour it was seeing in a machine it had great respect and admiration for- was its friend talking about… art?

“You make something out of meat, something has to die to provide it, even if in this case it’s just clone tissue borne out of plant protein, biomimetics and donor cells. It deserves respect for the sacrifice, meat deserves a butcher, as well as a proper cook.” Simon said it with conviction, his voice hitting emotional notes it didn’t when he spoke normally, a rise and fall that wasn’t in his normal cold monotone.

“And what about the buns, they deserve a baker?” Van asked.

“Of course they do,” Simon said, finally breaking his gaze on the grill, and meeting him with the faintest smile. “I’m actually impressed, they rose well for a first attempt.”

“Oh hey, look, we’ve got ourselves a miracle of technology, a synthetic that’s excited to eat grain instead of drink it,” said Van.

“Hmm, nourishment that isn’t single malt?” asked Simon. “Sounds fake.”

Van didn’t expect to laugh, and it came out hard enough to snort through his nose. Over his own laughter, he heard Simon mutter to himself “okay let’s try this one,” before slashing in with his spatula again, loosing the patties off the grill in an arc that he intercepted with a plate in his offhand.

“Yeah, these are done. Correctly,” Bleak said, satisfied with himself.

---

It was on bite three, that Van knew what he was eating: a completely qualified success of an early attempt, the product of someone who cared about what they were doing enough to want to improve. He wasn’t quite sure about the mix of the burger with the pretzel bun, but on the other hand, he was still eating it and getting something out of it, so maybe he just hadn’t made his mind up on it yet.

The two yearlings from earlier had approached cautiously, smelling the cooking they came back down the path. Graciously Bleak had offered them dinner, which they took with surprise. Their names were Eresh and Akani, and judging how they took their plates, they knew the stories about Codename: Blank- they thought it was just as odd that he was acting so friendly. They ate at a safe distance.

“To be real, though?” Van asked him between wolfed mouthfuls. “What brought this on?”

Whether it was through understanding that Van was a finely tuned lie detector fueled by an anxious mind, or just genuine honesty, Bleak answered: “I’m afraid of the man I am inside of my own head,” he began. It took him a second to continue: “I… had a moment of realization that I knew more about the people I Took Over, than I did about myself. Not because I wasn’t looking or searching, but because there wasn’t enough of Me to fill myself up.”

“I was afraid of growing into the idea that I was hollow,” he said, and it was almost a whisper. “That someone I respect, my… mother figure…”

Van couldn’t belief the look of grief that passed Bleak’s face. It didn’t last long before he reverted to a more relaxed pokerface, but it was one that used every bit of his facial simulation; nonfunctional veins became pronounced as his face drew tight around a cringe that made him swallow, and none of it looked like Bleak was in control of it. Not by the way he cleared it from his face with such speed.

“That I could fail her like that, that she would drive it home. That I could fail her because the anger and the hate and the violence I thought I was giving to her as a service, made her look at me like a monster. I thought to myself, why would she look at me like that?”

“Then I thought to myself, why wouldn’t she? I’ve got nothing else.”

It was impossible for Van to lose his appetite at that moment, but the realness doused the heat by a few degrees. “I can understand that feeling,” Van said. Cold comfort, but in Van’s experience, it’s how Bleak took his comfort.

“I’d imagine we all can, here,” he said, low, pointing to the yearlings with a microexpression of his eyes that he knew Van would see. They were 19 and 20, respectively; kids from the same neighbourhood on Rhishay, the rhidling homeworld, that collapsed inward on itself when a Consortium tunnelling operation that was supposed to improve infrastructure, instead caved in 4 blocks of megacity. Consortium want to do things for the cheapest price point possible, made them 2 out of 79 survivors, out of about the 16,000 people that lived stacked up on those blocks. They had Sought Blood in the aftermath, and realigned themselves with the Sendra Clan, the ash-matted dagger of the Blood Clans; angry teenagers who had already had everything taken from them but their rage, and found family in people who taught them how to focus it in a useful direction, while also teaching them how to feel other emotions again. But all the same: kids, where there shouldn’t be any, because they lived under the kind of evil that only understood War as a response to their cruelty.

In that moment, they were laughing to one another, trying to figure out what they thought of the terran food- “it’s like rhasamak, but with extra steps added,” Eresh said; “rhasamak, but not spicy, and with a wrapper you eat,” Akani added. It was about the most normal conversation Van had ever heard them have.

“I realized that I either needed something to hold myself up from the inside, or else… risk becoming the… thing, I was maturing into.” Bleak’s words were in the present, but his eyes were elsewhere in time in space.

When he looked over at Van, he managed the faintest smile. “The way I look at it, I’ve got plenty of prior experience grinding meat, I might as well try it from a different angle.” Of course it’d be something morbid that’d make him smile, but there was something more genuine in it than normal, something that hinted at something Bleak was either nourishing something new, or engaging with something he kept buried deep in him, secret and secure beneath an armoured trapdoor.

Van smiled back. “Sorta self-preservation through detachment, huh?”

“There can’t be all there is to me,” Bleak said, looking away. “I try to defy the people that commissioned me, by killing people like them. Never occurred to me that I could defy them even harder, by being something completely different than what they intended…”

“Jeez, Simon, don’t make me think you’re thinking of retiring?”

Simon made a noise that was a blunt refusal. “No. Not even slightly. Not ready yet.” He took a moment to think further. “Galaxy’s not safe enough yet. Too many bastards…”

Deep in his psyche, Van heard the voice of the man in charge of the product that made him, Brian Charles Grafton. Official word in the Consortium was, he was MIA, presumed dead after his cabin yacht suffered displacement failure trying to escape the House naval vessels trying to cash his burn notice like a lottery ticket. To Van, that wasn’t nearly dead enough; the body wasn’t recovered, photographed, then cut into a thousand pieces and burned, that was dead enough.

“Agreed on that front,” Van said, and ripped a chunk out of his burger.

“I just need to be someone else when I’m not… being the Someone Else I usually am,” said Simon. “I figured that if I could cook, I’d at least be doing something outwardly useful.”

There were moments in Van’s life where he thought he was completely fearless, moments where he was being tricked by his own adrenaline and augmentations pressing the mortal weakness in him deep into an armoured vault and putting it to sleep. When those vulnerable parts of him were out and awake, he fully understood how terrified he was of the world. Bleak was a part of that terror, a man that was built with pure, ill intent to suppress people just fighting for their rights by infiltrating, taking one of them over, and then murdering them as a shapeshifting serial killer. Freed from servitude, his first and immediate choice was to turn the gun he was back on the people who made him- Van saw himself in Bleak, and respected him for having that same sort of spite.

The thing he never dare say out loud: Van thought he was a bad day away from becoming into Bleak. He saw, in Simon the Shapeshifter, the darker future for himself. He knew he was a friend. He knew that when he was at his best, he was stable and reliable. But at his worst? The difference between a sommelier and an alcoholic; the difference between someone who does their work professionally, and someone who forgets the part where you’re supposed to spit.

But Van still knew what hope felt like. It was just strange to feel it towards his frightening friend that was supposedly named Simon, but mostly went by his codename. Just at this moment? Simon was Simon, and Van could smile about that.

So he finished his burger. It was actually his second, and Van knew he was still going to have to hit a place in town to fully recharge his calories, but he didn’t want to be impolite- there were only six, anyway.

“Here, use this,” Simon handed him a napkin. It made Van momentarily self conscious, remembering that he sometimes wore his food as much as swallowed it when he was ravenous. But then he noticed the writing on it- practically professionally printed, only in freehand pen, the sign of a synthetic hand.

Intel. Hargrave’s got a hub set up in St. Joes, he’s the silent partner in a hardcrete plant in the debris field and the chief’s a crook with friends in the city council, Van read the details in brief. He dragged on a thought of holy fucking shit like it was a blunt.

He looked to Simon, who immediately intercepted it with, “I have my own inside sources. Never say I don’t share.”

When Van started to speak, Simon intercepted him again: “You needed a break.” The look he gave him held him at bay, but not through fear; through the mutual respect of someone who had a revelation about himself, that preserving what lived in you sometimes meant taking time away from the thing you do. That people had a right to Just Be; that the people that depended on them, had a right to have them at their best.

The tension ebbed out of Van’s shoulders. He understood.

“Thanks for that, Simon,” he said. “I mean that.” He got up from the patio bench, and headed toward the garden path.

“On it already?” Simon called after him.

“I need a bigger meal, first,” Van called back. “Thanks for the quality, time for the quantity,” he said, on his way to be his best self.

And to plan…