2023-03-04: .chimerae and churning human flesH
- Log: .chimerae and churning human flesH
- Cast: Yuliana Kafim, Koji Kabuto
- Where: A video call received in the Silent Castle
- Date: 2023-03-04
- Summary: Koji calls Yuliana to ask about Alma, the recent attack on his people, and the Mycenae Empire. Yuliana, habitually, hides just how relevant it is.
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
The Institute for Continuing Study was destroyed a month ago. The last public appearance Yuliana made was when she leapt from Annihilation into the open hatch of a Nu Gundam, head shaved and behaviour manic.
Even so, surely Koji heard about what happened about a week later -- when Sayaka and the others tried to track down the remaining members of the Nega Force to save them from the REA's attempts to throw them under the bus. That fight didn't end with Parminder taking a job, because it ended with the Savage II falling back into one of Elisa's characteristic fell portals, instead.
And there have been... a few people who have spoken to her, since then. Leina, Banagher, Kaworu. The residents of the Silent Castle, of course. Most importantly and most frequently: Elisa.
Which is to say: there can't be any sort of high degree of certainty she's dead. The confidence level may well be all the way at 80%! Far too low to meet the burden of proof for any decent scientist. And as it happens, with a little detective work, there's an easy way to test it --
> Mrs. Kafim. I'd like to speak with you, when you're available.
A text message, flashing over her phone.
Yuliana excuses herself from her conversation with Wen -- they're talking more often and more deeply than they did, since she's come to their Castle -- and sits herself down in one of the sitting rooms dotted about the fortress. She looks down at her phone, for a moment. A smile tugs at the corners of her lips; there's that extra fang, doubled up and sharper on the right side of her jaw, one too many for comfort. She remembers to tuck her fins in behind her ears, just as Kaworu suggested. There -- she's normal again.
> That's fine. I'm available mow.
Her autocorrect picks up 'tbat', but doesn't realise she meant 'now'. More's the pity.
When Koji calls, she answers with both visual and audio connection. She is dressed in a black halter top which doesn't obscure the dark green crystals of her necklace; what the rest of her looks like is difficult to tell, from the angle. She has hair, again, though it's shorter than it was -- still growing in. She's taken care to hide the writhing wings behind her ears; there's no hint which can easily be seen, though a little screen like this. She does have gold hoops in, though. An understated boast.
Strangely, her hands are both free -- there's a lovely violet bracelet on her right wrist that's new, though the wedding bands on that hand are rich as they've ever been -- but the camera still sways back and forth a little, as if she's holding the phone up.
She looks... well, if a little muted and understated, compared to how she's sometimes presented herself. Better than she was, at least, on the media footage. There's colour in her face. Too MUCH colour, perhaps, in her eyes. Where have her pupils gone..? It makes it harder to tell just where she's looking, but surely her attention is directed to her phone.
"Koji!" She exclaims, smiling. She sounds pleased to hear him, certainly, wriggling her fingers. "How lovely to hear from you. I heard that your comrade made a valiant attempt to aid Lettu and Letda... it's fortunate I have a chance to express my gratitude to you for that. I trust it will get to her?" Yuliana asks, tilting her head, raptoresque.
She gestures out with a palm, and goes on: "But I pre-empt you, I'm sure. Why did you want to talk? I've time to listen."
<Pose Tracker> Koji Kabuto has posed.
When the line comes through to Koji's end, he looks... different, too, to how Yuliana has seen him previously. His characteristically-wild hair is slightly wilted, and bags under his eyes tell a story all their own. Nevertheless, when Yuliana greets him he does manage a genuine, if muted smile. "Mrs. Kafim. I am pleased," (is he? yes he is, actually!) "to see you doing better. Nobody should have to go through what you and the others did, and I'm glad that place is a smouldering wreck now."
The first of many, if the Photon Power Lab has its way.
"I wanted to ask about Lieutenant Stirner." A sentence that reveals much, even though he clarifies that "Miss Ashta is a close friend of the Research Institute, so we're more-or-less apprised of her current situation. How is she doing, lately?"
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
A rough night, perhaps. Or several! Yuliana isn't entirely unsympathetic. She's had several of her own.
And they weren't all prophetic, even.
"Ah," she sighs, growing a little quieter; her head shifts to the side, just so, for a moment, before she orients on the phone's screen again. With a shadow of shame in her voice: "So everyone knows now, I suppose."
She kept the secret for a long time. She finished talking to Koji, and went right back to the Institute. Even when people tried to infer the obvious, she denied it. (In the worst ways possible, almost to a rule.)
A light frown crosses her features, as Koji goes on. Her lips press together, pursing, as she listens to his questions. "She's doing well," she responds, a little more cool. "According to what she's told me, Medical didn't act too grievously towards her. It doesn't seem they had the time or attention free to process her for re-education." Which is a very nice way to refer to indoctrination and brainwashing, really.
Judging by the long blink afterwards, pinching her eyelids and the teeth of her jaw shut for a moment, Yuliana hears it too.
"Anyway." She says, looking to the screen again. "She's still in good spirits. She even baked another cake, recently."
<Pose Tracker> Koji Kabuto has posed.
"Well - Sayaka was there at the raid," he says, and that might just explain everything - as might the following sentence, almost needless given his lack of honorific referring to somebody who is his professional superior. "We are... more than just comrades, after all. I'm sorry if I embarrassed you bringing it up."
He nods attentively as Yuliana explains. "I'm glad she missed the worst of it." Then he brightens - again authentically - as Yuliana directs the topic to something he would much prefer to discuss on any other day. "Oh, she bakes? Huh, I didn't know that. I'll have to swap recipes with her."
Buoyed in a small way, he continues, "so, she's been staying with you and your wife? She hasn't gone out on any piloting missions in the last two weeks?" It's an... odd question, perhaps.
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
"Oh." The word drops like a stone, and it would be difficult to feign the emotion on her face, if only for how complicated it is. Something like surprise -- and discomfort -- and regret. A shade mumbling, she explains: "My memory of the time's a little unreliable... but I suppose I owe her gratitude twice, then."
How terrible that Sayaka saw what it was like with her own eyes.
How terrible to be caught unawares.
How terrible, having all these debts.
"She's quite the baker," Yuliana agrees, when the subject turns to Alma, and doesn't mention her constant drive to improve. (It's a little painful.) She pauses, for a moment; she takes a breath, fingers drumming on her bare, scarred shoulder. "She has shelter with us, yes. But why do you ask?" A question answered with a question, and a slight narrowing of the endless green of her eyes. "Did something happen, Koji?"
<Pose Tracker> Koji Kabuto has posed.
"I'll be sure to pass it along." He attempts a kind smile.
Yuliana hones in on things, and Koji's own expression grows more serious in kind. "The Photon Power Lab was attacked last Sunday by a task force owned by the Vist Foundation. One of the units they used was Alma's old mobile suit, the Amabilis... and the other was the Banshee, but with a different pilot to Lilith Aiden. We'd just taken in Banagher Links and his girlfriend Audrey Burne, and they showed up 24 hours - on the dot - later." (he's using Mineva's pseudonym out of respect for her identity, he doesn't know that Yuliana knows it.)
"I didn't think Alma was involved, given her transfer to your unit and everything that followed, but I needed to ask, to be certain."
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
"Last Sunday..."
There's a pause far longer than it ought to be, Yuliana's brow knitting as she tries to knit together days in her mind. (This far North, the dawn is eternally grey. The light of the room is by fireplace and candelabra.) She looks bothered, as well, by the mention of the Banshee -- fingers tightening in the fabric looping about her neck.
"Tch," she clicks her tongue to her teeth, settling back against the crushed velvet of the couch. The phone remains angled in place to see her, even as she sinks down, propping an arm on the armrest and resting her cheek against her knuckles.
The fingers of her other hand can be heard -- if not seen -- drumming on the armrest. "She's not absolutely a prisoner, you know," Yuliana says, with a note of chiding. "She's quite free to come and go in her own time. All things considered, I'll tell you she was gone that weekend... but we don't have the Amabilis docked here. In fact, Alma's between mobile suits, at the moment." A light pause, and she adds, "I hope you don't mean to implicate us in that attack. Neither I nor my dearest Elisa would have anything to do with that Banshee after the crimes committed against us with that suit."
<Pose Tracker> Koji Kabuto has posed.
"As I said," Koji replies patiently as Yuliana gets defensive, "I have no reason to suspect her, or your or your wife's involvement, I'm just chasing up every loose end I can think of. Alma not having access to the Amabilis while she's staying with you is the answer I expected; thank you, that means it was acquired and redistributed along with the other assets of the Gwennangorn."
So who piloted it, then?
"The Banshee's pilot did not speak, but the commander of the operation against us broadcast an... activation command, like for a sleeper agent, to force her to fight. She called us 'the fertilizer' for the pilot's potential." He scoffs. "I somehow doubt you'd resort to such tactics yourself - that rank cowardice isn't in your nature." He permits a wry little grin.
"That their operation has access to conditioning tools like that... They have to be stopped."
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
"Very well," Yuliana cedes, after Koji explains she's not on trial, and the drumming of her fingers ceases.
She stays slouched, though.
Her lips twist together -- the motion of her throat speaking to the way she swallows, even if the phone's speakers might struggle to pick it up. She looks disgusted. "No." She insists, just a little too forcefully. "Not after... it doesn't matter," a little shake of her head, and it's obvious now when she looks aside, at least. (It's in the way her head turns, against her fist.) "It's not my style, is the point."
Yuliana takes a breath, and reminds herself of Elisa's worry. She's not like Alma. She can't just go running off.
"... but conditioning tools like that are widely implemented, you know," is how she says it, a shade petulant. "And live-fire trials, just the same. Am I to drop everything and come running to every awful facility on the planet? You think just because the boy's of interest to me --" Banagher, surely, though she cuts herself off and scowls.
Her other hand comes into view, again, as it grasps at her upper arm. "It's not that I disagree with any particular point," she says, quietly. "It's just..." Strangely, the expression in her strange eyes is best described with anxiety.
Fear of going back to a place like that?
Oh, that too.
<Pose Tracker> Koji Kabuto has posed.
"... God, I'm making a fine mess of this." Koji runs a hand down his face, gently slapping his cheek. "I didn't mean to sound as though I was trying to recruit you, I'm not going to ask you to fight on our behalf after everything you've been through - at most, I would value your... mm. Strategic insight, I suppose? That they came at us so quickly, and were able to ground the entire Third Company on a frankly flimsy pretext, despite our best efforts to keep our movements a secret, suggests that we were compromised even before we agreed to take Banagher and Audrey in. Would you agree with that assessment?"
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
Yuliana tells herself it was Koji trying to recruit her, and it does make her feel a little more at ease. Better him guilting her into doing the hero's dirty work, she thinks, than her own feelings being unable to abide those laboratories.
Yes -- she'll think of it that way.
Since it isn't any of her business what happens to them.
She sighs, and straightens -- again, something which doesn't displace her in the camera's view for long -- as she considers Koji's questions. "It does seem likely," she agrees, after a moment. "But it's not a forgone conclusion. The Vist Foundation is well known for its social engineering and trade acumen. Even if you take their interest in the arts at face value, that's still a population one needs to be adept at manuevering without being seen to move. High society, you see, is easily offended."
A light pause. "... though I'm sure I don't need to tell you that." Yuliana grins, briefly, and she's at least trying to cut the tension with some levity.
It doesn't last. "In any case, having pretext -- flimsy or no -- can be a powerful thing. If one were to be operating a secret human misery factory, would one not have plans in place to neuter one of the more publically anti-human-experimentation establishments around? Particularly if, say -- another of those labs had just been very publically levelled." Yuliana gestures, with a loose shrug. "I would expect the Yumi Foundation to have similar counterprogramming held in reserve, for example. If you know your enemy before you are known to your enemy, there's no limit to the preparations you can make."
<Pose Tracker> Koji Kabuto has posed.
He does grin back, at least. "Can't stand the dress code, feels like I'm being strangled. At least at work I can choose how tight a tie goes around my neck."
He listens carefully to Yuliana's answer, nodding. "I'll have to review things with our counterespionage team. I know they're going over the data with a fine-tooth comb, right now."
He's somber, for a moment, then changes the subject. "I recall you and Boss talking about fighting the Mycenaeans, Yuliana. How much did you ever learn about their materiel?"
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
"It is rather strange to wear a dress," Yuliana agrees, easily enough.
(Though... since she's not 'looking' any more, she hardly needs to advertise with a masculine dress code, does she? ... thoughts for later.)
"Aside from the combat data," she supposes, "you should really consider reviewing freedom of information requests, particularly any which seem purely scientific. I'd go back five years or so. Review your teams' correspondence with their colleagues within and without, as well. If they're..." A brief pause, where she can't entirely suppress her shudder. "... giving commands like that, they'll have a scientific team. Much can be learned from so-called innocent requests for collaboration and shared understanding."
She doesn't bother telling Koji to review everyone's social media usage; she's trying to tell him things he doesn't know.
Yuliana is quiet, as she murmurs: "... it was a discussion between scientists which showed me the truth, as well." And she's dour, thinking of that, lapsing into sullen silence.
Koji fills it. "Hmm?" Yuliana perks up, looking to her phone's screen again. "It was a marriage of steel and organic matter, generally speaking... I had to clean bits of them out of my Tendus frequently. The various fluids really did a number on its joints." Her nose wrinkles. "I wouldn't call it pleasant."
<Pose Tracker> Koji Kabuto has posed.
"Good ideas. Thank you, Yuliana." He smiles, a little wanly, and nods, before sombering up again as he thinks back to the war. "I keep thinking about one particular battle log from the Science Fortress Lab, about Warrior Beast Jerunicas. According to pilot testimony, it was created by fusing a friend of Jun Hono's, Shinichiro Ikuta, with the mechanical chassis, utilising his brain as the piloting apparatus. The Mycenae used him to approach Tetsuya and attempt to negotiate peace, unaware that they had installed a powerful explosive in Jerunicas's chassis, and his purpose was to be destroyed and take Great Mazinger with him."
He sighs. "Every so often I think about that battle and wonder - how many more innocents did the Mycenae churn into Warrior Beasts that way? And then I think about how this cruelty we still struggle with today goes back even to ancient history and horrible technologies we hardly understand."
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
"You're welcome," Yuliana offers him, at least.
She sighs, her arms folding, as she leans back into the couch. (Is... someone else holding her phone? It's not unthinkable.) "At the time, I wasn't terribly sympathetic," she scowls. "Even if there was a human face in there somewhere... I was always just thinking, you know, 'this is Sanjiazi, even if it's never been a big place, it's got all the history of Manchu... if their homes get destroyed, the old folks here won't want to be allocated housing somewhere else'. That sort of thing... the Warrior Beasts were the ones rampaging, so it's not like I'd extend them any mercy."
Her fingers drum, on her upper arms. (They're quite scarred. Some of the scars are even from battle.) "But I guess I didn't realise what the Republic ultimately intended for me, either," she says, discontent. "Or a lot of things... no," she shakes her head, "perhaps it was only too painful to see them."
History...
Privately, Yuliana wonders how ancient her own really is.
<Pose Tracker> Koji Kabuto has posed.
"Yeah, they needed to be stopped, especially protecting a historic site like that - only a handful of them even ever decided to not fight, and were promptly betrayed and destroyed by the Empire. It's just... ughhhhhh." It's an expression of frustration and anger. "It's almost no surprise how there's such an obsession with it, even if the people doing it today don't know about the Warrior Beasts."
"I'm probably just overtired if I'm getting hung up on this." He glances aside - at a clock, probably. "Yyyyyeah, I'm going to get my head down for a couple hours. Thanks for hearing me out and for your advice, Yuliana."
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
"It's difficult to believe this isn't the way of the world," is Yuliana's own dismal view on it, "as it's always been."
How is she to voice the sheer enormity of being made?
How is she to voice that same helplessness the elephant learns from heavy irons about its ankle when it's weak, all reminded with a string, even as it becomes strong enough to destroy anything?
How is she to voice her fear and her cynicism, catching up to her sense of injustice to tell her every reason why it's pointless to destroy all those engines of misery?
It takes more than a month to heal a decade.
She's quiet, then, as Koji wraps himself up in his weariness. "You should," she agrees, looking back to her own screen from where her gaze dropped down. "To be frank," she shifts from a seer's vocabulary to a soldier's, briefly, "you look like shit. Try to get some rest, all right? I'm... pleased I could help," she settles on, with a moment's delicate pause.
"Take care."
And with a moment's pause to let him get any final words he'd like in, she leans forward, to end the call...
... and pick her phone up, from where she'd been holding it in one of the claw-jaws of her tentacle, the proof of her marriage of humanity and something else.
"I wonder," she says, to herself, in the silence of the empty sitting room.
"How difficult I'll be to clean out."