2022-09-27: The use of a failure
- Log: The use of a failure
- Cast: Yuliana Dispersal, Liam 7-020
- Where: Nondescript Britannian Base
- Date: 2022-09-27
- Summary: Yuliana escorts Liam safely back to a base so he can lick his wounds. He gets to meet Yuliana face-to-face, and then with a different face entirely.
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Dispersal has posed.
As Minovsky's Woman assured the convoy, there were enough of them standing to escort them to a safe base in order to take stock of their losses and their wounds. She, at least, was still standing, and having an ace pilot at their back was... surely good for their continued safety.
Captain Yuliana Dispersal doesn't much enjoy Britannian Federation bases -- for much the same reason, surely, a Britannian wouldn't feel at home at one of the REA's Federation bases. Even so, when she pops the cockpit of her wanzer and vaults over to the catwalk, she remembers something from that fight...
Ah, yes! The boy who's seemed utterly terrified of her from the very start, despite the fact she's never once met him. It's quite curious. Yuliana doesn't remember giving the NERV children reason to be sullen or reticient. (Oh, except that one boy.) Well, hearing something like that, who could blame her for positioning herself as a perfectly reasonable authority figure around him?
And so, in service: Yuliana goes straight from her Tiandong 3 to the Long Dagger, in her green REA pilot's suit -- sans helmet and gloves, she ditched those as soon as she could. "Hoi, there," she lifts a hand, in a wave which is all too casual for the captain it's supposedly coming from. "Your legs are intact, I hope?"
<Pose Tracker> Liam 7-020 has posed.
Liam's machine had to be hauled to safety with him still in it. Luckily, while the Long Dagger has been thoroughly trashed, the cockpit access hatch was functional, sparing him the indignity of being cut out of his Mobile Suit.
The cyborg stands a safe distance away from the mangled machine. His shoulders bunch with tension as he watches the technicians debate how much of the machine can be salvaged. Liam is still wearing his flightsuit--stock NERV colors, tan with salmon highlights--and holds his helmet in one hand, while the other clenches into a loose fist.
'Hoi, there.'
Liam startles. His head snaps in Yuliana's direction, and his eyes go wide. For a moment, his gaze is downright piercing.
"Captain Dispersal," he says, and he stands up straighter. He salutes. "Uninjured."
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Dispersal has posed.
Yuliana --
smiles, warm and casual, as she approaches him. "Good, good!" She enthuses, as she ambles up. "At ease, son, you don't report to me. Though it's certainly lucky you listened to reason, back there..." Yuliana's head inclines, just so, to the devastation of Long Dagger.
Just so.
"Now, 'Seven-Dash-Zero-Two-Zero' -- I don't suppose you have a name that's a shade less a mouthful to get through, do you?" Her fingers fan through her teal bangs, and briefly, the other side of her face -- and the long scar running down her left side -- is visible. "I know NERV is terribly fond of their numbering schemes, but it hardly seems like an appropriate name to just call someone day to day."
Her manner is affable and warm, if, perhaps, far too casual for her rank, the way she doesn't quite stand straight and shifts her weight from hip to hip. The emptiness around her abjures any attempt to know for sure, of course, but... people with a normal amount of Awakening can't sense that at all.
(Yuliana isn't an Oldtype predator.)
<Pose Tracker> Liam 7-020 has posed.
Most of what Liam knows about Yuliana comes from deployments--she seems both vocal and theatric, and that feels genuine to him. The little slip in Tokyo--don't be too rough while others are watching--feels genuine, too. And then there's what Lucine told him about her relationship with Elisa Kafim. She seems to be a woman with both pride and connections. She puts him on edge.
Liam nods, quietly, his face the perfect mask of politeness. "Liam," he says. What else can he say? Should he apologize for not being able to stop the hijacking?
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Dispersal has posed.
"Liam! There! That's much better," Yuliana assures him, smiling still. "Two syllables, four words, easy to exclaim in the heat of the moment! Suits you much better, I'd say." Well, it doesn't take a genius to posit that the numbering is a function of NERV's own Medical branch, or wherever this kid's come from.
It costs her nothing to affirm his humanity.
"Of course, if you'd prefer, I'll keep to your number designation on the field," she assures him, waving a hand. "I'm sure you have a good reason, after all. In any case, you'll not make the mechanics work any faster hanging about here -- why don't we go to the lounge?"
The pilot's lounge, of course. Any decent shelter has one.
<Pose Tracker> Liam 7-020 has posed.
Liam nods again. "Agreeable," he says. Once again, it's speech chipped down to the bare minimum, calm and polite but also... lacking so much. "Also agreeable." He pauses a beat. Yuliana seems more talkative, or at least more tolerant of talk. "Have the terrorists been identified?"
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Dispersal has posed.
He's really dedicated to not giving her much to work with, isn't he? Yuliana notes this away, and it doesn't register on her face. "Very good! Come, come," she gestures, to him, as she starts to walk them to the lounge.
"Juno-1 identified Celestial Being in the attackers," she asides, over her shoulder, casually. "As for your assailant... well, you tell me, Liam! From what I heard, everyone was just terribly upset over their original living conditions." Which is one way to describe a lab, certainly.
There's no one else in the hall, right now. Yuliana, walking ahead of Liam, can be seen to be doing something with her hands -- a little shake of something in plastic -- her head tilts back. It's done in a moment.
<Pose Tracker> Liam 7-020 has posed.
Liam follows Yuliana, careful not to stray too far behind. He might not look like it, but he's watching her body language closely, monitoring her for any signs of danger. He'd almost certainly do it anyway if he weren't suspicious of her; she has power over him, and people in that position have, historically, been cruel.
"Celestial Being," Liam says, his lips curling in a thoughtful frown. "One of their Gundams?" He can recognize a Gundam, at least! And it's not like he didn't have time to go over the footage while being hauled here. The others...
"Conditioned, engineered soldiers." Liam cuts right to the heart of it. He glances down towards that thing in plastic. "The terrorist cell were escapees. Aurum-1 had standing orders to recapture them."
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Dispersal has posed.
Yuliana pockets the little plastic pill-bottle almost as soon as it comes out.
"Yep!" She confirms, brightly, to the Celestial Being Gundam. "That was definitely a Gundam. Not my choice of machine, personally -- I prefer more manual control -- but they're hard to miss." She doesn't mention this Gundam's particular tricks -- if Lina wants to report on them specifically, well, Yuliana can't stop her, but she was clearly distracted at the time.
Clearly.
She smiles -- sympathetically -- to the idea of conditioned soldiers. "They sounded awfully young for that," she says, with regret, as she steps into the lounge and heads straight for the requisite vending machine. Yuliana sighs. "It's really too bad... war would be better if we were all capable of getting through our youth before deciding to fight."
(It's not even entirely a feint. Yuliana does find child soldiers distasteful.)
"What's your preference?" She asks, looking through the options. "I'll get you something."
<Pose Tracker> Liam 7-020 has posed.
"Sensors detected anomalous radiation in its proximity," Liam says. "Can you confirm?" His gaze doesn't linger on Yuliana's little sleight of hand trick, but he definitely saw a medicine bottle. He finds his shoulders stiffening again.
"...They were. G-Hound presumed as original handler organization; Aurum-1 reports to them." Liam takes a breath, tries to recenter himself. War. 'Better'. Now there's a laugh, if Liam could ever laugh again. "I... agree."
And then, a paralyzing question. He saw that bottle. Some of the researchers snuck drugs into food or drink, especially with the subjects who'd refuse to take them. And on top of that, what to choose? Liam stares into space, trying to think of something quickly, while he debates which drinks would be imposing the least burden on Yuliana, or be the hardest to use as a vector. "Lemonade," he decides. He picked it because he picked that at random out of vending machine options, when Lucine asked him the same question.
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Dispersal has posed.
"Anomalous radiation? Hmm... could be, yeah," Yuliana approximates, with a light frown. "I was a little distracted, given the state the battle was going. Hmh... I'm aware of the prejudicial rumours about my people, but I would prefer that the pilots alongside me get out of their sorties alive."
(Those rumours, of course, are that the REA is quite happy to throw bodies at a problem until the problem goes away. These rumours are entirely founded in fact.)
The vending machine is kept behind glass; it would be very, very difficult for Yuliana to have snuck drugs into something there, especially given she put the pill bottle away before she got to the machine. "Sure thing," she agrees, amicably. "Actually, that sounds good. Let me just..." She plugs in the code, and one bottle rolls out, which she grabs for herself -- before she straightens up, inputs another code, swipes her card again, and steps away to let Liam fetch his bottle of lemonade.
Yuliana, for her part, cracks the soda, and takes a long drink. "Geez... G-Hound sure gets up to a lot, huh?" She says, aside, as she wanders over to take a seat at one of the benches. "Oh, well... I guess it's just too bad."
<Pose Tracker> Liam 7-020 has posed.
"A matter for the analysts," Liam says. His broad shoulders rise and fall in a shrug. He steps towards a nearby table--the closest to the vending machine--and sets his helmet down. The fear flickers in the back of his mind as Yuliana goes to get the drinks, but seeing the vending machine, and rationalizing all the steps she'd have to go through to use it as a delivery mechanism...
It's far too impractical. Everything else would require her to open the can in front of him. Liam lets out another breath, retireves his lemonade and helmet, and goes to sit next to Yuliana. "I don't know them well," he admits. "But... Ouka is a friend. She saved my life."
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Dispersal has posed.
"Those eggheads have to do something to justify those exorbitant salaries," Yuliana agrees, breezily.
She sips her lemonade. It is distinctly non-alcoholic, just like Liam's. The fact that she checked the label before she opened it up is one of those blink-and-you'll-miss-it aside facts which probalby don't mean anything.
"Saved your life, huh?" Yuliana asides, one leg folding over the other, ankle swaying back and forth a little, at motion even seated. "Ouka -- the one who identified herself as Aurum-1, right? I can't say I've run into her terribly much before now, but I'm happy to hear she dragged your ass out of the fire." She's speaking metaphorically, of course.
"On the battlefield, the only thing pilots can really rely on is each other... wouldn't you agree?"
<Pose Tracker> Liam 7-020 has posed.
Liam nods. Chienne's words are still fresh in his mind, and thinking of them is like picking at wounds that never really healed. If Yuliana won't press further, he doesn't have to. "Correct," he says. "She's seen action with NERV, as well." Bit by bit, Liam is opening up--cautiously, but opening up nevertheless.
"...I agree."
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Dispersal has posed.
"Ah, another of NERV's children," Yuliana frowns, briefly. "Well, NERV would know to deal with the demographic, I suppose," she allows, with flawless diplomacy.
Her fingers drum on her lemonade bottle, as she looks aside, and murmurs: "... though I wonder if they grow too comfortable with employing teenagers to solve their problems." It's loud enough to hear, but quiet enough that it's questionable whether she meant Liam to hear it.
(She did.)
Shaking her head, she clears her throat, looking back to Liam. "Sorry, lost in thought a moment -- what was I saying? Yes, yes, your comrades -- if she's been so helpful, it makes perfect sense you'd push yourself so far to keep her safe. Frankly, I'm a little alarmed considering what may have happened if I hadn't broken off my own sortie to support you!"
<Pose Tracker> Liam 7-020 has posed.
The lemonade tastes... acceptable. It is no less refreshing for having been purchased by someone he does not yet trust. Liam focuses on it for a moment, and nods. When Yuliana asks her quiet question, he feels his shoulders tensing again. "...I don't know why," he whispers. There's a faint sadness in his voice; he's been meaning to ask Kaworu why they're all so young, but it feels...
Thinking about it makes his heart tighten with anxiety. So does what Yuliana says next. "...I don't want to be a burden."
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Dispersal has posed.
"Hmmm...?" Yuliana asks, looking to Liam, sidelong, as he insists he doesn't want to be a burden.
Her head cants to the side; her bangs fan in the air, beside her face. "Did someone tell you you were, I wonder? You've always struck me as a terminally unobtrusive fellow. It's difficult to imagine you making unreasonable demands of anyone!" Given half of what he says in a fight is constrained comments which could have come right from a can, it's something of an extrapolation, but...
Well, Yuliana doesn't need magic to rip people's ribcages open and see what's beating in the middle.
She waves her bottle, dismissively, a moment later. "I'm a Captain, son. Now, I don't have terribly much jurisdiction here, I grant you -- but it's hardly out of my way to be keeping an eye on the status of a team mid-battle." It is out of her way, actually, but just because Yuliana has a particularly berserk style of engagement. She had to deliberately develop the skills to pay attention to what wasn't happening right in front of her. But this is not about that!
<Pose Tracker> Liam 7-020 has posed.
"...Yes," Liam says, after what feels, to him, like an eternity. He doesn't meet Yuliana's eyes when he says it, either. "Failure. Unreasonable expense." Something in his voice hollows out as he speaks, more closely approximating the clinical, detached, nigh-dissociative delivery he used mid-combat.
...Is she trying to care? Does she really have any reason to try and hurt him, or Lucine? Even if some of what she's said leaves a bad taste in his mouth, it...
Liam thinks back to what Kamille told him. The tension within him starts to build again.
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Dispersal has posed.
Yuliana's eyes, green as jealousy, lid halfway as Liam calls himself a failure. Her own expression dims, a shade melancholic.
"Is that so," she murmurs, finger playing about the lip of her lemonade.
She drinks, and closes her eyes. When they open again, lashes a teal veil, her expression is markedly more dour. "Oh, you're hardly the only failure on the field, Liam." The bitterness in her voice isn't for him -- not really.
That he reminded her of it is hardly a point in his favour, though.
"But I suppose you've learned how to justify your existence, mm?" She shrugs, tone distressingly light, and doesn't expound on the alternative to that. "Well done! I commend your survival." She does, at that.
<Pose Tracker> Liam 7-020 has posed.
Liam has heard Yuliana go from fist of Federation law to gossipy socialite to disciplinarian, and that was all in one battle. This change is nowhere near as dramatic, but it catches him by surprise, anyway. (It shouldn't.) "They said I was," Liam says, allowing just a touch of bitterness in his voice. "But--" He trails off. Who is she referring to? His mouth opens as Yuliana continues, and stays like that until he finds the words.
"...Maybe?" he says. "But I try. I try to be useful."
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Dispersal has posed.
Yuliana grins, more like a knife than an aunt. "People who are useful get used up, dear," she points out, acid dripping. Her grip on her bottle has tightened; the plastic crinkles. "Perhaps you ought to insist on your utility, mm?"
She's getting too excited, of course. She took the long-acting drugs, not the immediate-release. Perhaps she thought she'd have more time before...
"If they tell you you're a failure, it's up to you to tell them why you're an opportunity," the words drip from her rictus grin, teeth all clenched together. "Don't let them say a whit about you. You should be the one speaking." Her breath comes quicker; her eyes carve deeper.
She isn't shouting, at least, though there's a more sonorous tone to her, more full, more animate. "There are two types of people, Liam -- people whom the world acts on, and people who act on the world. And the world abhors a failure, so I do hope you're not like to continue allowing the world to act on you."
<Pose Tracker> Liam 7-020 has posed.
Liam freezes, lemonade halfway to his lips, as soon as he sees that smile. His eyes fix on Yuliana as trauma-driven alertness takes over. Insist. Tell them. Ice spreads down his spine as she gives him commands--advice, it's only advice--he does not know how to obey. Act upon?
Even worse: there is a part of him that can, a part that he has desperately tried to bury. A part of him that never could be that direct, because the doctors and handlers held all the power. But here...
Liam's eyes drift closed for a moment. He remembers the CRUNCH of the cockpit block bending inwards, the gleaming alloy of the drone wanzer's pile bunker less than three feet from his head. He remembers the rush of adrenaline, a blur, and the sounds of tearing metal. He is vaguely aware that he dismembered the drone with his arm slave's monomolecular cutter. He remembers the raw satisfaction he felt at something else breaking, even if it was only a machine.
"...I understand," Liam says, a glint in his eyes. He hates that he does.
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Dispersal has posed.
"Of course you do," Yuliana assures him, repeats, again: "of course you do! You're a sharp boy. You wouldn't let them throw you onto their pile of corpses and start the whole miserable thing over!"
There is a clatter, with her raising tones, as her bottle slips from her grip and falls to the floor. Plastic -- it doesn't shatter. Her fingers dig into her palm, suddenly bereft of a neck to wring.
damn it, She thinks, distantly. When she finally forces her hand to unflex, there are lines of red where her nails have gouged her own skin.
She admits defeat, and reveals to Liam just what the noise he heard was, as she reaches into her pocket with fingers which tremble slightly. "No," she dismisses one, as she shoves it back in, "no," again, as she pulls out another bottle which also apparently isn't right, and her tongue clicks against her teeth in frustration: "-- tch!"
Third time's the charm; she grabs the bottle, upends a series of pills into her hand -- different shapes, different colours -- and slaps her palm to her mouth, swallowing the lot of them dry, in just the manner of someone who is entirely too practiced in the process.
<Pose Tracker> Liam 7-020 has posed.
This is not merely Yuliana changing her approach to get him talking. Something is wrong. Liam's never heard her talk like this, and he watches, his face the very image of deferent concern as she drops her lemonade. "Captain?" he says. "Do you need medical attention? Can you stand?"
Liam's lip twitches as she swallows the medicine without so much as a sip of water. He's had to do that. He hated it. He waits for any sign of an answer.
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Dispersal has posed.
Yuliana sinks back -- more like sagging, really -- against the tabletop. Breath ragged, heart raging, she forcibly reminds herself the pills work. "I'm fine," she hisses, fingers all curled to fists as her elbows meet the table behind her. "I'm fine, I don't need a damn whitecoat, just, shut up a minute..."
Stupid. It's stupid to get so upset in public like this. And who upset her?
Oh, maybe it's not his fault. Why, she's upset on account of the mirror image, after all.
Really, it all depends on...
She draws in a breath to steady herself, and focuses, sidelong, on Liam. "How embarrassing... I got far too upset about your situation. Oh, what happened to you is certainly unfortunate, but... it's inappropriate, I'll grant you. Why don't we just... pretend this never happened, mm?"
<Pose Tracker> Liam 7-020 has posed.
Liam's pulse quickens. His optimized adrenal response spools up: pupils dilate, breathing deepens, brain shifts into a state of hyperawareness. He sees the twitching of Yuliana's muscles, shifts his weight subtly in case he has to restrain her. But her words--
'--just, shut up a minute...'
Liam goes completely silent, and stays there, on the edge of full alert, until Yuliana seems to regain control. His only answer is short and simple: "Understood."
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Dispersal has posed.
Yuliana is quiet, for some moments, while the roaring in her mind calms down. It's... painful, all turned in on itself. It's...
Fine. It's fine.
Finally she straightens from her slump, on the bench, one hand reaching over to grasp her opposite arm. "Good lad," she murmurs, with all the numbness of sedatives in her voice.
(There's more than one leash in the world.)
"Anyway... you did good work out there. Congratulations. I do hope they're able to salvage your unit." She goes on, as if it never happened, the only evidence in the way her tone is pharmacologically muted.