2024-03-07: A Villain in Recovery
- Log: A Villain in Recovery
- Cast: Yuliana Kafim, Sayla Mass
- Where: The Photon Power Labs
- Date: 2024-03-07 (ICly October 0098)
- Summary: Yuliana encounters Sayla at the Photon Power Labs, and Sayla's uneasiness around Yuliana gradually becomes more genuine as she hears more from the disturbed woman. Yuliana is worried about her Silent Calling, and preoccupied with being left without options; she accidentally updates Sayla on the fate of Celestial Being and Chris in the process.
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
OST: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AYtZ7GFV9ys Brian David Gilbert - It's Nesting Season
It's mid-October, and Yuliana is -- secretly -- back at the Photon Power Labs for more treatment. Her Photonic Neuromodulation Therapy is going well; while they still haven't managed to entirely iron out the manic side-effects spurred from heating her blood, Yuliana has reported a reduction in Newtype reactivity. (It's not that they aren't still possessed of all that missing information around them, but it's easier for Yuliana to ignore the torn edges, apparently.) Dr. Kimura and the others are hopeful that if they continue encouraging the human parts of Yuliana's brain over the alien, they'll be able to further desensitise her to the presence of the Awakened -- a thing which seems inherently linked to her sensitivity to the Void.
And, of course, she's still engaging in more conventional therapy. They're trying to teach her distress tolerance, which of course involves identifying her emotions in the first place. She's engaging... reasonably well with it all; she does still get frustrated and throw things sometimes, but she's also trying to regulate herself when she loses her temper.
(She does still ring her wife multiple times a day, a thing which the Labs are quietly keeping track of; wisely, no one has confronted her on her codependence directly, aside from those times Leina's addressed it. And Leina has been addressing Yuliana -- since she's the one who brought her here, she does check in on her progress.)
She's in a cream tank top and grey slacks, today, with a classic purple scarf; the temperatures might be cooling, now October's rolling around, but it's still positively balmy compared to home. Her frills are folded up behind her ears -- she does try to be polite to any Newtypes who might be under Sayaka's employ -- but her tentacles snake out from underneath her tank top, visible to anyone who might care to look. One of them holds a bottle of orange juice in its horrible claws-slash-jaws, as she walks through the hall.
Because, you see, her hands are occupied with her phone. After one of her therapy sessions went south, she obviously had to ring her wife for reassurance after fleeing the scene. (No, she didn't kill anyone. She just has a habit of panicking when she's left in a room with a doctor and her vulnerabilities. That's why she always has a clear shot to the door.) She sounds much steadier now, though. "Mmhm!" Yuliana chirps, cheerfully. "Then, it's fine! Dosvedanya, zhenushka~ mwah!" Yes, obviously complete with kissy noise as she hangs up the call. It's disgustingly affectionate.
"It's fine, it's fine~," she lilts, as she tucks her phone away into her pocket, and folds her hands behind her head, strolling down the hall.
<Pose Tracker> Sayla Mass has posed.
On the one hand, Sayla doesn't have a lot of reason to visit the PPL as much anymore. On the other, she now has a lot more free time.
This wasn't totally a social call- with Triple Zero gone, the new regulations on psychoframe and nowhere to hangar her, Sayla has come to a decision: She's having the Hi-Nu put into storage in the PPL, given it has more photon tech than psychoframe. Running through the last few checks before it's mothballed took a little time, but now everything was down the techs. Her role as pilot was done- possibly for good.
She steps out of the hangar in one of her more casual brown ensembles, dressed more for comfort than appearances.
Appearances are still significant though, most of it is designer.
It's on her way back to the main offices that she happens on this hallway, of all the hallways of the PPL. She hears someone coming off a phonecall as she rounds the corner-
And finds herself face to face- if comfortably outside the newtype pain zone- of Yuliana Kafim.
She knew this was happening, on some level. She just didn't expect it.
"Mrs Kafim, how are you?"
No reason to be impolite while Yuliana's trying. If they're lucky, Sayla will have been well and truly wrong about her.
One can but hope.
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
Sayla may, indeed, note the presence of a strange (if not, this late in the year, new) stealth shuttle in the hangar -- the Ghost, operating outside of the Shandor to escort Yuliana into enemy territory without alerting too many suspicions.
Apparently, it's a PPL ship, at least as far as official documents go.
But Yuliana isn't trying to hide herself now she's inside the Labs. Leina and Sayaka assure her these people are trustworthy; she's doing them the bare courtesy of trusting them. She isn't slinking around, like she isn't supposed to be here.
And rounding the corner, another doctor--!!
Not one of hers, though. "Dr. Mass," Yuliana greets her with that same remove of respect, anyway. She smiles, spreading a free hand and a free tentacle. (She definitely wasn't showing those off so blatantly the last time they met.) "I'm fine now, I'm fine! I just got spooked, is all -- don't worry about it." Does she just... assume Sayla knows what's going on with her?
"I haven't seen you around so much," she adds, "but you've heard the news from Leyasha, I suppose?" Why she's here, presumably. She did break the world a little, just last year.
<Pose Tracker> Sayla Mass has posed.
The tentacle is definitely new, and honestly more than a bit of a surprise. Sayla has the decorum not to stare much- but she does stare a little, even if she pushes herself to return to looking at Yuliana's face first.
"It's good to hear you're doing well." Sayla's own smile is a careful, polite. She doesn't press the being spooked thing right now.
"I don't have a lot of business in Fujinomiya, honestly. Today coincided with something I had to deal with for work, and I had to return something to Koji." Technically true!
"She told me the broadest strokes, but not the details. Just that you were working on things." Also accurate. "A patient's privacy is important, and Leina respects that. It's up to you what gets shared."
The benefit of the doubt can be a big thing to give, sometimes. Arguably, she's given bigger.
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
Does Yuliana notice how carefully polite Sayla is? She might -- she's used the trick enough, herself -- but if she does, she doesn't comment.
Something about the benefits of doubt.
"Oh, is that so?" She asks, grabbing her bottle of orange juice from her... other hand...?... and cracking it open. "I think Koji's working arounnnnd thattaway right now," her now-free tentacles gesture in a vaguely helpful direction, "you should go say 'hi'!" And it all seems quite friendly, from her end. She's even giving her an out.
She does add, though: "Ah, does she? She's a good girl," Yuliana smiles. "But that's right. I'm afraid that the Empress doesn't particularly... understand human limitations, and... well, both her and Judyan helped me realise I didn't wish to die, I suppose," she says, thoughtfully. (Sayla also gets to hear Judau's nickname too, because in Yuliana's eyes Sayla is, by an order of a remove, also Judau's family. She's not violating any decorum by demonstrating closeness to the mother.) She looks up, at the hall lights. "But there was a lot of pressure on me... so I'm just trying to get a little space to breathe. It's not that I don't love my Wife, I just... well, since I'm mortal, it's hard on me. Of course, my Elisa supports me completely," she adds, looking back down to Sayla, still smiling. "Actually, it's thanks to her support I don't run away, sometimes... it's not that anyone has done wrong by me, but it can still be quite frightening here."
And then her gaze drops down to one of those tentacles, as if following Sayla's glances. "I don't bite," she adds, aside, with a touch of dry humour.
<Pose Tracker> Sayla Mass has posed.
Sayla could take that out she's so politely been given. Perhaps she should.
But perhaps she wants to see if she can see what Leina and Judau see in Yuliana. Understand why they fought so hard to save her, when Sayla was ready to let her die.
"She is," Sayla agrees perhaps too readily. A high opinion of Leina is one of the things the women share, however. And you know, common ground is a starting point.
"That must be... deeply difficult to deal with." She's still choosing her words, but that's a hard habit to break, especially given she still often needs it.
"I understand that's one of their strengths," Sayla says, a touch morosely. "Still, it's for the best that you recognized it." Is it for the best for Yuliana, or for the best for everyone else? Sayla's not saying.
"That's a worthwhile goal, I think. It's better to give yourself the opportunity to... relieve some of the pressure, after all."
She's silent for a few seconds at the comment of Elisa's support. "It's good to have that sort of support." Says woman who has not had a relationship last for longer than six months in more than a decade.
She is, alas, caught staring. "My apologies," she says. "That was rude of me." Change the subject, perhaps. "I hope things are going well for the Calling. I imagine you've got people you can rely on there too by now."
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
Being fair, Sayla wasn't the only one. Her bounty, from many agencies, is dead or alive.
She's managed to evade those consequences, thus far.
And she listens to wha Sayla has to say, but of course she interjects -- "It is very good," when Elisa comes up. Of course she can't stop herself from interrupting when she's praising her wife!
But those things which aren't snakes seem to stare right back, and Yuliana waves her free hand, smiling. "Don't worry, don't worry," she assures her. "It's shocking, isn't it? That's why I hid them for so long... but Koji convinced me to be myself. Isn't he a dear?" She sounds fond of him!
And she puts a hand to her hip, as she gestures with her bottle, instead. "Unfortunately, my people have been having a hard time," Yuliana sighs. "It isn't televised, these days, but I suppose you'll know the situation on Earth isn't quite as harmonious as they'd have you think... and to make matters worse, NUNE keeps trying to get at Elisa and I through our Callers. Even though they're innocent, they still--!"
The plastic of her bottle cracks, and Yuliana blinks, staring at it as if it were some foreign agent and not her own doing. "Um --" she says, reaching her other hand up to hold it in both of them, in a more ginger grip. "Excuse me," she mutters, glancing away.
And then she just chugs the whole bottle before it starts leaking everywhere.
<Pose Tracker> Sayla Mass has posed.
"That sounds like Koji," Sayla agrees. "He's come a long way from that brash kid with a motorbike he was when I met him." The talk about the Calling, however, is concerning. "It isn't. I haven't seen media control like this since the 80s." She frowns, too, as Yuliana talks about the innocent callers.
Sayla doesn't disagree on that front, either. Most of the people Yuliana has brought into her midst likely are.
When the crack of the bottle comes, Sayla pauses and... gives Yuliana time to finish her drink, and doesn't comment on it. "Of course." Once that's done, though... "It's... low of them, to put those people in danger because of their issues with you." Most of the callers seemed to be people who needed help and found a form that they could accept. It's not on them that the person who they accepted help from came from someone who, well, is on NUNE's most wanted list.
It's maybe a little on people who joined after she got there, though.
"I can't imagine you wouldn't be doing your best to protect them, of course."
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
"Blackouts like these are what covered me up," Yuliana grouses, darkly. (The experiments, presumably. She underwent her program in '85.)
Yuliana, of course, would claim that her people are all as innocent as she is. She's still struggling with not blaming someone else for the things she's done -- really, she's still struggling with her empowerment in general.
Chug, chug, chug.
Yuliana glances down the hall, sights a bin at twenty paces, and lobs her bottle that way with a flick of her wrist. Shockingly -- or not -- it actually lands inside. "It's awful!" She bemoans, gesturing expansively once her hands are free.
"But of course I'm making sure they're equipped -- you know, I was black ops for nine years, I'd hope I've learned a thing or two about counterprogramming regimes. I have people out there teaching them the basics, you know -- first aid, how to talk to authorities, how to hide from those authorities... unfortunately, even if they disavow me, NUNE refuses to let it go." She sighs, folding her arms, fingers drumming against the muscles in one. "There are too many of us to simply bring everyone back to the Castle -- all we can do is send someone if things get bad. Haa, but we can't act too brazenly, either, or they'll use it as an excuse to crack down even more again..."
<Pose Tracker> Sayla Mass has posed.
Sayla simply nods. Would she have acted, back then, had she known the full extent of Yuliana's treatment by the REA? Perhaps. But there's no point overthinking a possibility that didn't come to pass, is there? "It's... a very good cause to be concerned about what's to come." She doubts Yuliana will ever be imprisoned such again- but so many people aren't married to a fragment of an otherworldy god creature. And now Sayla is powerless to help them. That bridge was burned.
Sayla does watch the perfect shot, but her eyes turn back to Yuliana when she speaks again. Training her people with black ops methods is...
Not exactly encouraging.
"...they would, wouldn't they? One perceived misstep and it becomes targeting a few to targeting everyone. Teaching them to hide was an excellent choice. Skills like that are much harder to use against them." There's risks in hiding and secrecy too, of course...
For a moment she considers another suggestion- considers, and then discards. She suspects the suggestion might go down poorly.
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
"They tell me to be optimistic," Yuliana scowls, "but how can I trust them? What happened once will happen again. At least it's more difficult for NUNE to take down our private communications... my people can still share information with each other this way." A light pause: "Oh, not that they don't try," she adds, bitterly. "but mailing lists are an old enough system that it's difficult to keep dead, with our security team keeping things operational. We've provided everyone with secure accounts so they can't shut things down on their end, at least."
(But if they're keeping them secure from NUNE, who's keeping them secure from Parminder? ... and if they're reliant on the Calling's emails to speak freely, what does that say about how free they are to leave?)
"But you're right, of course," Yuliana's frown remains quite deep, her fingers drumming on her arm. "Not that I haven't made sure to teach our Speakers a thing or two about self-defence to pass along, but in all likelihood, NUNE won't come in the night." Like she did. "No -- if they came in force, it would be open. Civilians can't protect themselves against that."
She still doesn't think of herself as one, evidently.
"Right now... right now it's legislative. Bureaucratic. Everyone's getting questions about their charity operations. You'd think it was innocent, except..." Her eyes shut, and she takes a few deliberate, deep breaths. (Rain's doom timer, one assumes, subsequently resets upon Yuliana utilising a coping skill.) "We have lawyers to help with it, obviously. But then, people get detained for questioning, and --"
Her teeth grit. "They want me," she says, and she's miserable. "But if I gave myself up to them, I'd just be validating another authoritarian state. It would be right for them to harangue us and -- you know, they're all but holding my people hostage! And this is just what they're doing to us, not the towns people live in! People can't visit their families any more, you know?! They don't have the papers!" She's clearly upset about it.
<Pose Tracker> Sayla Mass has posed.
The thread that can be drawn from that suggestion is not a good one. There's no good, clean outcome there. "...I'm glad your team is keeping their ability to communicate secure." Sayla eventually settles on. "That's something."
"...You're right, they can't," Sayla affirms quietly. Still, Sayla frowns. "Organizations that operate across bloc lines are receiving extra suspicion." And the Silent Calling does operate Earth wide... "But that level of scrutiny is... extreme."
There's no clean solution, is there? Handing a victim back to those who hurt her is unacceptable, surely? And if the therapy works, then maybe Yuliana stops being a danger...
But the people who are hunted are still hunted. There's collateral happening, no matter what.
"...It's an awful situation. I hope they're given reason to stop, even if that's cold comfort." She crosses her arms, looking away. "Until then, you can only do what you can, and hope it's enough. Sometimes that's all anyone can do."
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
"We're being targeted," Yuliana pouts. "They really are out to get us." She's gotten a lot of lectures about how people aren't always out to get her, but NUNE really IS out to get her! And when they get her, they're going to throw her right back in a lab, and--!!
Well, some of that is Yuliana making assumptions based on prior experience, but it's hard to say she has no need to worry. ... even with Leina's work in Cathedra. Would the REA really reform themselves that easily?
"It's not enough," Yuliana sulks, kicking at the floor with the toe of her boot. "They're hurting us, and I'm just sitting here doing -- doing nothing, pleasant as you please!" She's not doing nothing; she's trying to fix herself. Perhaps it says something that she thinks so little of her own recovery. "I should do something, shouldn't I?! I have to do something!"
<Pose Tracker> Sayla Mass has posed.
It's perhaps too late that Sayla realizes what she's done. She's kicked off a spiral here with her attempts to minimize the severity of Yuliana's reactions. Sayla's own means of providing herself security have made things worse.
She was a pediatrician, not a psych. Her expertise here is limited. "No, you don't. Not right now." How to frame this, how to arrest things. "...You were black ops. You know the strategy, right? Put the target off balance, draw them out, make them vulnerable?" She feels dangerously close to causing a major backslide. "What you're doing here is preparing yourself, right? So you can make your counter tactic from the sturdiest place you can, so your people are safe? It's like..."
She pauses, and takes a deep breath. "...It's like launching injured. You could- maybe you could save a few lives that way, even. But the odds of suffering worse injuries that end up killing you go through the roof. They're trying to make you launch injured. And if you do, your people lose you. Maybe it saves a few of them... but the hole it leaves is something that you don't recover from."
There's something... unusually personal from Sayla there. A realness not present in so much of what she's said to Yuliana today.
A pain she knows from experience.
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
Yuliana, give her credit, does listen to Sayla's reasoning.
But she also starts pacing, back and forth, like a goldfish trapped in a bowl.
"Holes, holes, who cares about holes?! What's wrong with holes! There's hole's everywhere! Right there!" Yuliana says, pointing, sharply, to a point slightly to Sayla's left. "I've been thinking this for ages! And then -- and then they completely crushed the Ptolemy, they came to get rid of us, they even sent the Wild Bear! We didn't even scare them off, they won, and who the hell knows where they went after they burned it all to the ground?! I don't even know if they sent another wave to clean up after... I just got Regina and Chris out of there."
But coming to escaping alive seems to bring her back to what Sayla said, at least, and Yuliana slows, leaning on the wall and grasping her opposite arm. "Mm..." She hums, looking away. "Yeah... I'm hurt... I guess. Damn it, psyops shouldn't get me this easy..." Doesn't she have pride as a saboteur?
Well, she isn't just a saboteur. She's a Cyber-Newtype saboteur, and '80s stock has never been particularly stable.
<Pose Tracker> Sayla Mass has posed.
Sayla glances over her shoulder, to try and see what Yuliana's talking about. But Yuliana keeps talking, and Sayla listens. Names that don't mean anything until-
Chris.
Sayla's heart pauses for a beat. "...Chris." She says, after a moment. It couldn't be. It's a common name. Really common, right? It could be anyone but...
But after that flight in the Tristan...
"Do you mean... Christina MacKenzie?" She can't stop herself asking, not after... not after what happened. It could be someone else. It could totally not matter. It could, but...
"...well, they didn't, this time. You were in the right place that it didn't. Proof you're on the right track, right?" She's not sure this is going to be convincing enough, but she should try.
Leina would, after all.
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
"Shit --" Yuliana's hand rises, but her fingers curl, and she rethinks whatever she was about to do. Her hand lowers, to her shoulder. "Oh... what does it matter?" Yuliana asks, sounding quite miserable, again. "Celestial Being is finished... they don't need us any more. And for all that effort... there'll be no place for us, now..."
She went back and reviewed the audio logs; her machine picked up what Corner had to say, even if she was too distracted to pay it much heed, at the time.
And her hand lifts, again, but just so she can bury her face in it. "Yes, yes, that Chris. We're the dastardly terrorists, you found us out... we believed in something, damn it."
Oh no. She sounds like she's going to start crying.
"I just feel so useless," she whines. "I can't be useless. Used up and thrown away a-and -- and then I'll have to go work with BioNet because no one else will even look at us and I can't ask Sayaka to protect me when everyone hates me so as soon as they know I'm here I'll have to go and I don't wanna go but I can't stand still!"
<Pose Tracker> Sayla Mass has posed.
There's a sharp intake of breath on Sayla's part. Confirmation, of many things. The Shuffle intelligence network fell apart before Celestial Being did. But hearing all this is...
"No, no, it's not that... I knew she was Celestial Being. She told me, I'm... I'm just glad she's alive. Thank you." It's earnest, maybe surprisingly so. "I was... I was worried she'd gone off to her death, the last time I saw her." Sayla shakes her head. "...I can't judge you for believing in something." ...Can she?
Sayla reaches into her coat, and pulls out a handkerchief before stepping forward, one step, two, three, into Yuliana's aura, offering it outstretched. "You don't have to work with BioNet. Not now, not ever. You're better than that." God she hopes Yuliana is better than that, as she does her best not to show the pain of stepping into Yuliana's void. "And do you really think Sayaka Yumi would have you here if she wasn't prepared to at least try? Right now they haven't found you. And I'm not telling anyone, that's for damn sure."
She shakes her head. "I couldn't look Leina or Chris in the eye if I did." Maybe Yuliana will take the motivation of disappointing one's loved ones as something solid enough to be truth. "...You haven't been found yet. Take advantage of it. Take the time to do all your maintenance for when you can launch again, just on you instead of a machine."
Sayla takes a deep breath. "Would you like another drink?"
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
"I don't know where she went off after..." Yuliana says, somewhere between sullen and apologetic. "But yeah, she's alive."
Well, at least Sayla's not judging her for that.
But Yuliana looks up, when that mass of holes gets closer, and -- no, it's Sayla, isn't it? Yuliana blinks, looking down at her handkerchief, and takes it and scuttles a few more steps away. "Mm," Yuliana hums, scrubbing at her eyes. "I guess... but Sayaka just got done with everyone putting her under scrutiny already. With Dr. Hell, and all... what if I'm too much effort? All it takes is someone deciding I'm not worth it, and -- and --"
Snif. Sniffle sniff, she scrubs at her face some more. "I don't want to," she insists, again. "I don't -- I mean -- those BioNet people, some of them are all right? Julia's lovely, really? But that Alexis, you know, I think he was laughing at me the whole time! He knew what I was going through, and he thought it was so funny I thought I could use people instead of being used! And -- and --" Yuliana hiccoughs, looking up from the handkerchief, clutching it in both hands. It's really unfair that she can look so wretched, when she's hurt so many people. "They look at me like I'm a subject," she says, all strangled. "If -- if my Elisa weren't protecting me -- any one of them would pay anything to put me under the knife."
She scrubs at her eyes, again. "But I guess I'm safe for now..." She allows that much, hesitantly, looking down at herself. Finally, she gets to Sayla's question, looking over to her again. "Y...yeah," Yuliana says, a touch hesitantly. "Yeah, I'd -- like that."
<Pose Tracker> Sayla Mass has posed.
"...Maybe. But I've never seen those kids decide anyone's too much effort. And I've known them since they were...13?" Sayla you are 5 years older than Sayaka and Koji. "They'll help you as long as they're able and then some, right?"
Sayla pauses again. "...Yeah. She didn't seem a fit for the rest of them." She definitely tried to steal from Spain's reactor but... she also made sure her apprentice got out and retreated when given the opportunity. "Alexis Kerib was a hateful bastard who enjoyed the suffering of others and seemingly nothing else. I for one am quite happy he's been put away where he can't laugh at anyone again."
Sayla's brow furrows briefly- but questioning Elisa's love for Yuliana has been warned as a no go zone. "But she is. And even if she weren't, you've shown you can make change off the battlefield. You wouldn't need BioNet. The Calling wasn't something you made accidentally. There are enough people who want to make sure you never have to put your hands in the people who would see you as a subject to ever need to go to BioNet. Trust me."
Sayla knows so many of them.
"You are," Sayla says, once again affirming Yuliana's thoughts. "Okay. Let's get something to drink, then."
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
"I guess..." Yuliana frowns, not quite able to meet Sayla's gaze, thinking of what Sayaka and Koji would do. She sounds terribly meek, as she works her way through why she's trying to justify them abandoning her. "... but... I don't think Elisa would like it if I needed them that much... for that long."
Ah.
Borrowed time.
"I thought we were friends," Yuliana scowls, on the subject of Alexis. "... but I guess not." Alexis does like to make friends out of vulnerable people, doesn't he?
She smiles, at least, when Sayla calls her attention back to the Silent Calling again. "Mm... I guess that's right," she says, a little more warmly. "I got enough of them out of the BioNet pipeline that they wouldn't wanna send me there... I guess even Leyasha would do what she could." Not that she can do too much, but that's perfectly excusable. She's a cop, and Yuliana is one of the most wanted reality criminals on Earth. Leina has an excuse not to expend all her effort on improving Yuliana's situation!
Thinking of that more pleasant thing, Yuliana will tell Sayla all about the Wanzer of the Month club Leina signed her up for at the cafeteria. The models have over a thousand pieces each. It is very precise work and she is very animated about discussing it.
... apparently, they take her a solid week to finish, and she can get terribly wrapped up in them.
Was Leina's distraction gambit a success...?!