2023-07-06: .and see my twisted genesiS
- Log: .and see my twisted genesiS
- Cast: Liam 7-020, Yuliana Kafim
- Where: A Burger Joint In The Orb Union
- Date: 2023-07-06
- Summary: Yuliana and Liam have a chance meeting as they both find themselves hungering for a burger. They have a pleasant conversation -- until Liam starts unveiling Yuliana's past. It's far more horrifying than he thought. (CW: Discussion of medical torture)
<Pose Tracker> Liam 7-020 has posed.
For once, Liam is both officially on leave and actually on leave. Even more remarkably, he isn't going out of his skull from the chronic need to feel useful, somehow. He's not sure what to make of it; maybe his brain reached a tipping point where exhaustion outweighed his fear of being discarded. Maybe... that fear of being discarded isn't as big and scary as it once was. Either way, he's become a vacationer. A tourist, even.
Liam's flight out of Tokyo arrived with no problems save less leg room than he would've liked. It was no worse than being in the back seat of the Dianthus, though, ahd once he was reunited with his luggage, he sought out something more substantial to eat than dried, spiced edamame and soda.
And that, more or less, is what he's doing in the line at one of two burger joints in the airport concourse. (Not the MacDaniels, though, the nicer one.) He's wearing a light, sleeveless hoodie, sandals, cargo shorts, and a backpack. His right hand grips the handle of his wheeled suitcase.
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
The nicest burger joint is, of course, Burger Fiend, but for some mysterious reason, Burger Fiend hasn't established their franchise in the Orb Union. It's a Britannian treat!
They deserve it.
Tragically, this means that Yuliana Kafim can't get a fiendish burger, today -- she has to settle for something nicer than MacDaniels. Dressed in a green windbreaker with a puffy midsection, a purple kerchief about her neck and sharp sunglasses over her eyes, she's relatively easy to overlook today. Her sunhat is cheery, and her slacks are cream-light.
It might mean that it's a little surprising, when what looked like a perfectly normal tourist turns to Liam, in the queue, and tilts her sunglasses down to reveal pupilless green eyes. "My, if it isn't Liam!" Yuliana exclaims, smiling. "Would you like to sit..? Ah --"
She's next up in the line, so her invitation will have to stand at that; she goes and buys her burger, and Liam may note that the teller is (pleasantly) surprised at the tip she leaves when she pays for it.
Yuliana goes and finds an empty booth, and slides her tray with all her snacks onto it. Whether Liam takes her up on her invitation, well... one way or another, borgor.
<Pose Tracker> Liam 7-020 has posed.
Yuliana blends in well, when she chooses to. Liam doesn't notice it's her until she addresses him; his eyes widen, his pulse quickens, he grips the handle of his suitcase a little tighter. "Yuliana," Liam says, his voice tight. He meets her eyes when she tilts her sunglasses. He thinks back--were her eyes always like that? No. No, they weren't.
Liam takes a moment to try and strategize. Obviously this is a potential danger, just by virtue of Yuliana being who she is, and Ra-Shalom did not do anything for his opinion of her wife. But... he knows, now, what she sees. He can't just brush her off.
"Of course," Liam says. He looks at the tip jar for a moment, after Yuliana leaves with her meal. She really is loaded, isn't she?
Liam joins her a few minutes later, his tray loaded with the biggest burger on the menu--three patties, transformed into a combo meal by the addition of an equally-large drink and fries. Liam has convinced himself he can have salt and fat and junk sometimes, as a treat. He sets the tray down, leaves his suitcase within easy reach, and... initiates conversation.
"How've you been?"
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
Here he comes! How wonderful. And oh, Yuliana is aware of Liam's crimes by Ra-Shalom, but really -- she expects people not to understand what they're trying to do. If she stopped talking to every person who got in their way, then...
Well, come to think of it, that might make her life much easier. And Elisa would probably worry less, too. But -- thoughts for later. For now, Yuliana smiles, as she grasps her own burger in hand. (It's a beef patty; she doesn't eat a lot of pork, generally speaking.)
"I'm quite well," she smiles, and it's true of right now, at least. Voidframe testing is strenuous; Elisa won't permit Yuliana to push herself too often, so she's back to one-hundred percent, taking care of her interests abroad like this. "Things have been quiet... but of course, it's good to focus on the small things, sometimes, too."
She takes a bite, chomp, chomp, swallow, and sips at her own soda through her straw. (She keeps it to the left side of her mouth; when she talks, a fang flashes, on her right.) "And you, Liam? How have you fared, of late?" It's perfectly pleasant conversation -- interested, but not overly invested, either. Catching up with an acquaintance.
<Pose Tracker> Liam 7-020 has posed.
Liam tucks into his fries, first. He's taken both ketchup and vinegar. He looks much, much more animate than every other time Yuliana's seen him in person, to say nothing of what happened at Metis. He listens, attentively. Yuliana's words are vague, but conversationally so--appropriate for two acquaintances who happened to meet.
"...I'm glad," Liam says, a small, genuine smile on his face. (But were her teeth always that sharp?) "I'm on leave. It's... nice, for once, to not feel bad about not doing anything. Just caring for myself, and my loved one. I wish it were under better circumstances. That last Angel..."
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
Oh, to be sure: Eight hadn't punched her tooth out, the last time they spoke face-to-face. It was some time ago! The REA's idea of a prosthetic, a little exposure to the healing rays of 000, and -- here we are. She has a fang on her right side, now, all clustered up against the normal canine.
One too many teeth.
"Ah, yes -- you are involved in responding to them, aren't you?" Yuliana recalls, when Liam talks about the Angel. "I'm sure it's difficult business. I'm pleased to hear you've gotten a break from it all... and that you're relying on your team, as well."
A light pause, as she takes another bite, before she asks: "Stop me if it's classified, of course -- but did something particular happen with the latest Angel you're apprehending?" It's a polite enough invitation; she's curious, but she's not prying.
<Pose Tracker> Liam 7-020 has posed.
The last time Liam saw Yuliana in person, she was climbing out of the wreckage of the Annihilation, and into Alma's machine. He hasn't forgotten that sight. Yuliana looked like she'd been through hell--her head shaved and lined with raw, fresh sutures, her face pale and daubed with dried vomit. The way her eyes looked, as the conditioning did its horrible work.
Are the little changes to her eyes and teeth somehow worse than all that? It's a different sort of unsettling, but it's less... personal, to Liam, who has also been shaved and scarred and drugged and conditioned. He takes a breath, letting that moment of fear and disgust breathe as well. He's a bit less energetic when he starts eating again.
"STORAGE and 3G are good people," Liam says. "So's the team at the PPL. It makes it much easier." The Angel, though--that's open to a bit more interpretation. But it's true that Duma isn't the latest Angel. "The whole Orbital Ring was evacuated," Liam says. "But it didn't touch that. It dropped itself on Tokyo-3. Dead now, but if it hit..."
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
Yuliana, of course, is not the sort of violator who can pluck Liam's feelings from his skull; all she can see are the emotions on his face, the breath he takes. She has no context.
She thinks it must be the Angel. And so, "... yes, I did hear about that," Yuliana nods, thinking back to Tokyo-3. "I shudder to think of Angels utilising colony drops -- how fortunate you and the Evangelions were there." Yuliana takes another sip of soda, before she goes on: "Though, I'd suggest you not belabour yourself with 'ifs'. If this, if that -- there's an infinite number of tragedies which exist in theory. Spend too long on them, and you'll have no energy for the ones which really happened."
Chomp, chomp. It's good borgor. "And what are you up to, now you're on leave?" She's directing his attention away from the tragedies, of course. "I should hope you've something pleasant planned."
<Pose Tracker> Liam 7-020 has posed.
"Everyone who could respond was there," Liam says. "One of the Evas... caught it, held it back long enough for the rest of us rupture the Core." He's not comfortable mentioning Shinji by name, to Yuliana. He looks down at his tray, and through it. "You're right," he says. Tragedies did happen. They happened to him.
"Birthday party," Liam says, once he's swallowed another bite of his burger. "Not mine, someone else's. Lucine and I were both invited." A dangerous testing of the waters.
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
"Their pilots are terribly brave, aren't they?" Yuliana smiles. "I do wonder how Asuka is doing... it's a shame that girls of that age have to fight so fiercely, but I suppose if there were any other way, they'd not have insisted on putting such young children in there." Well, that's the perspective of an adult, perhaps -- not that Asuka is cruel, but that Asuka's situation is cruel.
She is, after all, only fourteen years old.
It's sad, but, well, Asuka's not the only child soldier she's tolerated seeing. Yuliana was a ranking officer in the REA, even if it was a farce. And here's Liam, as well; he was a child when he began, too, wasn't he? It's not quite the same, she knows -- he is an adult, now -- but much like how she feels looking at Milly or Leina, it's similar enough. No wonder she tries to call him to nicer thoughts.
"How lovely," she smiles, around her own burger. "I can't say I know them, but I do hope you both have a wonderful time."
<Pose Tracker> Liam 7-020 has posed.
"She's doing much better," Liam says, and he means it. "I--don't think anyone likes what they have to do," with the exception of Mari, and if Yuliana is ever in the right place to meet Mari, she deserves the full Mari Surprise Experience. "How old were you, when you first joined? You said--something about fighting the Mycenae?"
"Yeah. Nice to do something normal. Low-stress." Liam even bought and wrapped his present well ahead of time, making sure to pack it so it wouldn't get damaged in transit.
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
"That's good to hear," Yuliana says, and it doesn't sound like a lie. She does quite like Asuka -- and Asuka's less complicated than Kaworu, in her mind, to boot. "That she's doing better, that is." She's making sure to make her intent known, with Liam. She's a nice lady!
Probably. Well, she seems nice enough right now, at least. Chomp.
Having polished off her burger, she tilts her head up, and thinks. "Me? I enlisted when I turned eighteen -- I was fighting the Mycenae three years later. Towards the end of the war," she adds, explanatory. One may note, here, that three years is quite the gap between enlistment and active duty; Yuliana leaves the details to implication.
"It's very important to manage one's stress levels," she agrees, aside, as she plucks a chip from her packet to chomp instead. Hers are drenched in chicken salt, OCU style.
<Pose Tracker> Liam 7-020 has posed.
They're in agreement, then. Liam nods, and finishes the last of his fries. This conversation isn't unpleasant--the opposite--but his instincts are still reminding him, intermittently, that Yuliana is dangerous. She's killed people. Her wife hurt Lucine, deeply. That pilot, Alma, is still their captive. In a way, it would've been far less complex to process, emotionally, if she'd greeted him by gloating about how her power had grown since Ra-Shalom, and then threatened to take Lucine as her newest brainwashed Newtype slave.
A normal-sounding start to a normal-sounding military record is... well. He can deal with that. "Were you noncombat, to start with?" A guess, but that service record does seem to indicate that.
"I got a present," Liam continues. "Picked it out, wrapped it." It's something low-stakes that he can genuinely be proud of. It's a guess, given he doesn't know the recipient super well, but he does know that she prefers... practical things.
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
"That's right," Yuliana nods. "They started me out as a mechanic -- I worked in the scrapfields for a year, did some mechanical support for the third Gundam Fight... to be honest, I stole that Tendus and ran off to fight the Mycenae against standing orders." She's still leaving two whole years unaddressed, in that timeline. Anyway. "They figured out I was together enough to fight when I got back alive, though... conveniently for them, I suppose."
After the Mycenae War, after all, was civil war -- the Federation eating itself.
She adds, between chips: "Well done," on the topic of his present. She has no reason to undermine his pride, right now. It's a normal thing he mustn't have had access to, for a while.
<Pose Tracker> Liam 7-020 has posed.
"The third Gundam Fight...?" Liam's brow furrows, and the scar there folds and puckers. Yuliana can likely tell that it's one of the newer ones--newer, even, than the zipper-scar down his spine. "That was..." It's been long enough since the assassinations--since the work he was supposed to do--that there's a bit of a disconnect. Like it happened to someone else. "Anyway, you stole a Tendus? And made it back? Against the Warrior Beasts?" Liam's eyes widen. That was the very first model they started him on, and, notably, they let him have something with a solid cockpit for his first actual combat training.
But once he's done offering Yuliana that bit of praise, Liam turns back to the topic he picked up, stared at, and then dropped like hot metal. "The Fight's... complicated, for me," Liam says. "I don't like it. Glad it's gone. Just wish it had been under better circumstances."
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
Yuliana laughs, lightly, her fingers veiling her mouth. (It's a typical Indonesian display of modesty.) "If you think that's shocking, I'd best not tell you how I'd climb out in the middle of a fight to put it back together on the fly," she chuckles, amused.
She sighs, thinking of the Gundam Fight, and nibbles at another chip. "It meant a lot to me, you know. The State's demands affected my family, as well... and after the One Year War... the first Gundam Fight was a symbol of how one person could change the world, even if Britannia was playing dirty." Nibble, nibble. She sounds a little sad, a little nostalgic, but it was all a long time ago. "I didn't quite realise it, back then... I was still young. But when you've learned powerlessness so young, the thought that you could do something that mattered..."
Yuliana shakes her head, her hand lowering back down to her tray. Her fingers crinkle at the paper, there, as she worries it between her fingers. "It was... hope. I wanted to fight, too. Even after I learned how to view things like Operation Stardust, even after I understood that Britannia's rigged the game, I thought... if only I could beat them at their own game, I'd have the power to make things right. Funny, isn't it? Those riots were their excuse to found the Titans, to give people like Dr. Devi a home... but I couldn't have known, back then. I was still younger than you are now."
She's quiet, for a moment, before she adds: "... by the time I was supporting the third Fight, that dream was naught but ashes in my mouth."
<Pose Tracker> Liam 7-020 has posed.
Whatever else she became, Liam has decided that Yuliana--the one who sortied in that deathtrap of a wanzer--was someone he would liked to have met. Absolutely devoted, absolutely reckless, somehow capable of making it work anyway.
'But when you've learned powerlessness so young, the thought that you could do something that mattered...'
"It's... like that, isn't it?" There's sad sympathy in his voice, in his eyes. It only compounds as she mentions Dr. Devi, the Titans. "I'm sorry. I wish that... that there'd been more people to guide you. That you never had to go through with this." That maybe, in another world, there was a Yuliana that escaped the lab, and rescued him, and fought against the people who dehumanized her.
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
That Yuliana, as it happens, is this Yuliana.
She's sitting right in front of him.
If he needs to create a partition between then and now -- good and bad -- the gloating super villain and the innocent real victim -- that's not her business, nor much of interest to her.
"Don't talk about me as if I'm ruined goods," she comments, mildly -- a shade more cool. She takes another drink from her soda, but this time, the straw slips from her mouth a touch ragged at the edges. "I got out. And it's thanks to the skills I learned whilst I was in that I'm able to do the good I do, now." She doesn't bother telling him about the fighting she's done against dehumanising forces. She doesn't see the need to tell him about the way she infiltrated Garuda to save them all.
"My parents are good people," she adds. "My mother did her best to equip me to see the foibles of the Republic, God bless her. And my father would never have sponsored my entry if he'd known I would be swept up into some sick experiment the moment I aced basic training. When my Elisa finally helped me muster the courage to tell them what became of me -- they were furious, but not with me. Would you prefer if the people in my life were cruel, and guiding me to a life which would only hurt me?" Yuliana frowns, pursing her lips.
"It's not that simple. Don't you think you ought to think a little more maturely?"
<Pose Tracker> Liam 7-020 has posed.
Liam realizes he's made a mistake the moment Yuliana's tone changes. There's a change in him, too--a sudden stiffness in his posture, the way his fingers dig a little deeper into the bun as he holds his mostly-eaten burger.
'Don't talk about me as if I'm ruined goods.'
A flinch, which Liam instinctively corrects, recalling memories of people who hated it when he cowered. He's perfectly silent until Yuliana is done talking, and then a moment more. How could things have gone so wrong, so quickly? Is he the ruined goods here? He sucks in a breath.
"I'm sorry." The words tumble out. "I insulted your family. Didn't think. And no, I--I don't want people to do that to you." Which is why he's furious with Elisa, who fits approximately half that statement.
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
Yuliana can't know Liam's feelings towards Elisa -- so she's nice enough, hearing his apology. She's a gracious woman. She'll accept it. "That's all right," she assures him. "Now you've thought over it a little more, it seems you've realised the error. Well, we've all said things in haste which weren't strictly correct, I suppose." It's her! She's the one who does that. Constantly.
She's not about to point that out, though.
"If it's any consolation -- now I'm free of Medical, there's no one doing such wretched things to me, any more." She doesn't think Elisa is hurting her -- no, Elisa takes every effort to spare Yuliana pain; and certainly, Elisa could never be called cruel, at least not regarding her wife.
"Really," she sighs, and takes up another chip, "I ought to thank you properly, for aiding me, back then." Nibble, nibble. "I wasn't quite myself, so I suppose I was behaving quite awfully... but if you and the others hadn't assisted my Elisa in assaulting the facility, they may well have gotten away with it. You did me a kindness, back then. Whether it was for me or not... I'm appreciative."
<Pose Tracker> Liam 7-020 has posed.
"Yeah," Liam says. "I'm... glad your parents were still there." He allows himself to breathe, now that it feels like he has more breathing space.
"All I knew going in was there was a 'terrorist attack' on a government facility in Columbo," the cyborg continues. "But--the moment I saw it was Rita, I knew something was wrong. She wouldn't do that without a damn good reason. Then I heard your voice, and knew what was happening. I had to get you out of there. And everybody else. Nobody deserves to go through that."
And then, a little hitch of breath. "And I... need to thank you for seeing through what I did to myself at Metis. I was sure I was going to die if I didn't do it."
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
"They are," Yuliana smiles, before the expression dims, for a moment. "Unfortunately, Voyevoda's since died... she taught me everything I needed to know about engineering, you know. I got an apprenticeship instead, after I couldn't handle entering another school... it was good work, gutting wanzers." She speaks warmly of her; she clearly misses her.
She doesn't dwell on it, though.
"Terrorists aren't always the villains, you see," she comments, oblique, gesturing with a chip. Not that she'd tell Liam about Celestial Being -- but a good word never hurt. "And... Rita had good reason to wish to bring them down, you know." She closes her eyes, and takes a breath, and eats a chip. "Good. Good," she repeats, again.
She looks to him, head tilting, just so. "I've seen it enough," she says. "It's not unfamiliar to me... unfortunately, I was led to a fight I'd rather have not fought, there, and it would have been a shame if you'd injured yourself unduly in the midst of it. I do hope they got you back safely?" It's light concern, but it sounds genuine enough. She actually is interested in whether they took care of him, after she gave them the opening to do so.
<Pose Tracker> Liam 7-020 has posed.
She was loved, and is loved. Little green sparks of jealousy flit about in Liam's heart, as wrong as it feels to feel jealous here. "Rita... broke me out of it, somehow. Everyone else got me back, and treated me. Lucine stayed by me." Talk about Rita, though...
"Rita's your friend, too." It's a statement, not a question. "Is it okay to ask how you met?" Liam has strong suspicions, but he doesn't want to say them without Yuliana's explicit permission, given how sensitive they are.
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
Yuliana, a green-eyed monster, would agree that his jealousy is wrong.
But only because it's all for her.
"Good," she smiles. "I'm pleased to know you got the, help you needed." She doesn't go so far as to call it 'treatment'; there's even a light pause as she grasps another word, instead.
She thinks she's being nice, you see.
Yuliana's gaze grows distant, though, when Liam moves from making statements to questions. Her fingers drum on the paper which separates her food from the tray. "I should think it was obvious," she says, after a moment's evaluation.
"I met her in Medical. A new acquisition... sorry enough that even my advice was something she welcomed. I was always... a little rough." It's an understatement. Anyway. "But given her power, she was the natural choice for Medical to use to teach me hatred... though I suppose the experiments we went through together gave them plenty of data, as well." The REA does so love making opportunities for itself.
"They never did break her," she says, vacantly, and leaves the implication unsaid. "And one day they sold her along to buy silence from the rest of the Federation, since I failed to cover up an assassination properly. Well, I blamed myself for a long time... Dr. Devi said I was at fault, you see. A wretched woman, who deserved her fate." Beat: "My Elisa killed them all, you see. Every one of them who scurried off to the Experimental Design Clinic, to try and start again, as they had so many times." And Yuliana relates it so warmly, as if it's the most noble thing her wife could have done.
<Pose Tracker> Liam 7-020 has posed.
"Didn't want to assume," Liam says. His tray is empty, now, except for what's left of his fountain drink. He's a very hungry young man, with different metabolic needs than most. "Especially if you didn't want to talk about it." But he listens as Yuliana confirms his theory, then elaborates. "Rita is a very special person," he says. "Sometimes in ways that help her, sometimes in ways that hurt her. I'm glad you two bonded, despite what the REA did."
Then, the subject turns back to Dr. Devi. Liam returns to listening, aware he's on delicate ground. "She killed them, and saved you. Were they trying to..." Liam's voice is tiny. "...Disappear you, after what happened at the Institute?"
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
Yuliana laughs. It's more hollow, this time, less amused. She doesn't bother with any modest gestures.
"Hahaha... is that what it looked like?" She could leave it at that, she supposes; she's too entangled in this world, as it is. But, the truth is...
She's not keeping the REA's secrets, any more. "No. They planned to put me on indefinite mechanical life support. They cut me open to put the tools in, they pushed the tubes down my throat... and then they pushed a needle into my spine with the solution they'd come up with to mature the alien cells inside me." Yuliana pauses, lightly. "I was human," she says, past tense. "Even if I survived the initial hybridisation, there's no way I'd make it through this next stage intact... but they couldn't mass-produce the likes of me the way I was before. All their efforts failed. Until then, they were stuck with me, and unwilling to try such a drastic option to succeed."
She sighs.
"They'd say I forced their hand, I suppose -- though it was they who forced mine. Anyway, they expected total brain-death just from the heat of the building energy alone. They were fine with that, of course. They'd keep my body alive, harvest the cells from it, and make versions of me so much easier to control." The disgust in her voice, dissociated as it is, is palpable.
"... if my Elisa hadn't produced a counterserum, if she hadn't arrived in time to administer it, I would be nothing more than husk for salvage now. Again and again, she saves me... I could ask for no one more devoted than she." She tears up, a little, as her fingers come to rest on her ring; her love is real, and it drapes over her, even now.
<Pose Tracker> Liam 7-020 has posed.
Liam still can't bring himself to watch the footage from that raid. Asking Yuliana is risky, but she survived the Institute, and bears witness to the crimes committed against her, and her fellow captives. He listens.
And he's immediately unsure whether to be glad he's done eating, because his stomach does a flip at the phrase 'indefinite mechanical life support'. He'd just thought they would kill her, and maybe culture her cells for study, and maybe later use.
What Yuliana details is so, so much worse. He can picture parts of it. He shrinks down, even as he notices she's doing the same thing he does, sometimes. "All that to make more 'wetware'," he says, and there is quiet rage building in his voice, on top of his own disgust. "More people who wouldn't even have the chance to be people." He feels sick. "I don't... know what to say." His own, personal horror suddenly feels tiny compared to what Yuliana's endured.
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
The REA's enormity has made many monsters, on this Earth.
Yuliana is but one.
"They held it over my head, you know," she says, quietly. She is distant, now. "Even brought me in to see those abominations, the ones they'd tried to make before... they thought exposing me to the copies they hoped to replace me with would bring about some revelation for their research, I suppose. It was cruel... I knew already that disloyalty was a death sentence. I was loyal." A hint of anger creeps into her own voice, "I am loyal. Say what you will of me, but don't question that."
The REA, as it happened, loved to question that.
"I knew that as soon as they replicated me, I'd be too much trouble to keep. They hated that I found love. They hated that I had someone else to turn to. I wasn't even permitted to seek outside medical aid, did you know? I was a state secret. My biological information was privileged."
Yuliana closes her eyes, takes a breath, and squeezes her own hand. She calls herself back to herself, through the physical symbol of Elisa's love for her. "... but that's enough of the Federation's crimes, I suppose," she says, finally. "Not that I'm keeping their secrets, any more, but I do suppose it's miserable lunch conversation."
<Pose Tracker> Liam 7-020 has posed.
Liam nods. His drink sits neglected on his tray, and he grips his thighs with his hands to try and keep himself grounded. As grotesque as Yuliana's testimony is, he can't help but see the twisted logic behind it. It's no different from any other story in the history of weapons development--a new weapon emerges, and kicks off a race to develop countermeasures.
It's just that this time, the weapons are Newtypes--people--and the countermeasures are also people.
"...I think so, too," Liam says. "We've both got better places to be, right?" A brief pause. "Are you going to be okay from here, or do you need me to walk with you? There's a security escort station if you need it."
An echo of what he tried to do when Yuliana and he last talked, and she started going into withdrawal. He's well aware of how vulnerable this makes him, and how easily she could take advantage of it. In the moment, he doesn't care about that so much.
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
"No, I... I'll be all right," Yuliana says, shaking her head. "Though I appreciate the offer. I might just stay here a little longer... it's fine, the area's safe enough. I just..."
She pulls out her phone, and starts tapping away. "... excuse me," she says, as her attention disengages from Liam.
She's reaching out to her wife, of course.
Who else would she turn to?