2022-12-05: I'm not a number, and other lies I'll tell myself to play on my insecurities
- Log: I'm not a number, and other lies I'll tell myself to play on my insecurities
- Cast: Zoltan Akkanen, Yuliana Kafim
- Where: Denver Colony, Side 6
- Date: 2022-12-05 (ICly somewhere in the 2022-12-15/2022-12-16 area)
- Summary: Zoltan scores a win, as two of the world's worst people make each other even worse.
<Pose Tracker> Zoltan Akkanen has posed.
The air reeked of death.
Not of the physical stench of death. Not of anything particularly noseturning, or even remotely disagreeable in this abandoned colony left for dead. No, this place hummed with death from the very depths of its soul, the air, the buildings, the very ground thrumming with the long-gone wails of people who weren't lucky enough to escape in time.
Sadness. Anger. Frustration. Pity. Understanding tempered by rage. Acceptance. Confusion. Begging. Bargaining. All emotions wiped over by the collapse of the colony.
Through one of those urban spots, Zoltan trekked on foot. His suit was stowed away; Hidden in some park, under some dredged up cover. Even with the power left in it, a wrecked hand and a broken shoulder meant it was rapidly unfit for fighting. Best to keep it as a measure for escaping, or for shelter, if worst comes to worst.
He kept himself relatively composed, walking along a sidewalk, gazing over at the buildings all around him. Half-idyllic, half-urbanized, how colonies usually were. The open-windowed ones, anyways.
"Che, they never made it simple, do they?" A question asked to himself, coming upon an aged, faded map station. YOU ARE HERE. At least this was legible enough for anyone to parse, current population notwithstanding.
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
The Flight Alto Yuliana came here in is in no shape to do anything, right now. It, too, is tucked away -- and its pilot has a plan.
She's a mechanic as well as a pilot, you see. If she can just find the critical parts she needs...
There's a bag slung over the shoulder of her normal suit to facilitate her graverobbing; large materials she can move the Alto to, but she doesn't want to make too many demands of the machine, in its current state.
The remnant horrors of Denver Colony do not reach her.
Nothing reaches her.
In that sphere of influence around Yuliana, as far as she can lunge and grasp -- yes, there is nothing at all. Her psychic isolation tank is constant and complete. In a place like this, it could even be called a shield.
At least the gravity is working, right now, she thinks -- with venom. As for where anything of use is in this miserable, failed excuse for human existence...
... well, maps are somewhat universal.
But in making for the waypoint herself, Yuliana spies another -- and she's briefed enough on Zeon's elite forces to recognise a face like Zoltan's. Her own eyes are obscured by a black veil, held to her by a tiara clasped tight to her forehead to allow her green helmet to close over it, though that helmet is open right now; Yuliana has no desire to waste oxygen, while there's still air thrumming in here.
Her own scar is still visible, though, peeking out from the bottom of that veil.
She considers reaching for her gun.
She calls out to him, instead, hand resting on her hip.
"Mr. Akkanen, I presume," and she doesn't have the benefit of her vocal distortion, now she's outside her cockpit -- though her accent has taken something of a walking tour of the globe, difficult to place, regardless. "... right now, I'm in a position where I can't be your enemy. Let's talk."
She is, of course, thinking of his own mobile suit, which would make excellent salvage to make her own combat-ready again.
But her intentions are a black hole within her; there's no emotion pouring from her at all.
<Pose Tracker> Zoltan Akkanen has posed.
A man walking about for answers to questions that he can't even properly postulate, the lightest click of his tongue on seeing the other figure. There was a small part of him that someone more...instantly combative would stumble upon him first. Eyes scanning over the figure, quickly noting...
...The actual absence, the actual void. Even if people didn't connect, they had something. Go through the people here, think about who'd be in place to quickly respond to the Denver Colony broadcasts, and...this. She had...Nothing. The obvious conclusion followed. "Ms. Kafim, is it? You can't hide your eyes when your own body gives it away, you know." Or one doesn't realize they're that famous. Che, probably not; Everyone on these high levels knows of each other, which only meant this was a fashion statement.
"So? What do you want? I didn't think the REA had any qualms just taking what other people had." He's still holding himself high, no worse for the wear. That eye gazing forth with an inner confidence born of just merely surviving, hand on his chin. The Psycommu lense said nothing, showed nothing, only marking the obvious weapon. "Talk. You're here for something, aren't you?"
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
"Tch," it's Yuliana, clicking her tongue now, with a slightly different speed to Zoltan; a slight shift backward, one leg shifting back. Perhaps she didn't expect him to recognise her so quickly. She should be flattered the enemy knows her so well, but her first biting response is: "It's Mrs. Kafim, thank you."
But this was always going to be the hazard in doing some terrorism on the side.
There's only one person like her, and that means it's very, very hard to maintain a masquerade.
She shakes her head, lifting a hand to free her crown from her head and reveal her face -- one point to Zoltan. Those green eyes narrow, as she looks to him, slipping it away. "Putting aside your unkind and uncharitable evaluation of the Republic," she sniffs, as if he hadn't just hit the nail on the head, "we're both stuck here, Zeon rat. Now, I'm something of an engineer myself, so I might be able to solve the issue of the machine I came here in being somewhat annihilated," she didn't come here in the Annihilation, but apparently it's just a quality of Yuliana's mobile suits, "but in order to do so I am going to need materials."
She could just kill him, she thinks. (But if she damages her normal suit, and the oxygen goes out again in here...)
Instead, she says: "So why don't you be a good little boy and help me locate a scrapyard, hm? If you're useful, I might even consider solving your problem... let's just say I have my own reasons for supporting a pilot fighting Lancaster." And there's no emotion coming from her, but the distaste in her eyes, at least, is visible enough to see.
<Pose Tracker> Zoltan Akkanen has posed.
"Mrs? Ah, right, right, the entire wedding debacle. Congratulations." He had no wedding gift, merely the formal preamble of recognize a change in a person's marital status. She found someone to be with, good for her. His gaze remains on the famed REA pilot, only half-glancing at the map every so often.
The map itself wasn't anything out of the ordinary; If anything, one could mistake it for a regular mall directory save for the location and actual contents of the map. Laid out in a grid, marked with the major points (comprehension pending).
Clad in his usual off-white pilot suit, the Cyber-Newtype did little but to shrug. He couldn't read her; But that was the normal price to pay when all your superiors were literal miles away, only feeding in information from beyond, no? Everyone under his direct command hated him, the ones above barely cared. Read or no read, words alone had to carry something.
"Materials, huh?" ...Mmh, there was no real reason to say no. But, this was a world of survival, isn't it? Best to keep quiet about his own suit's condition. "You have your own beef with Rena? Small world. Who's to say I won't bite it as soon as you have your answer, ah?" A small upturn of the lips. He's smiling.
Little boy? That set expectations accordingly. "As it so turns out, I also need a scrapyard for my mobile suit. Nothing too severe, only a few armor plates." A truth? A lie? It was a truth, if only for what he needed. Partially. "So long as I hold my end of the bargain, I'll hold you to the repairs."
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
"Thank you," Yuliana recognises his acknowledgement, mildly. It's courtesy. That much should be observed, even in the presence of Zeon.
Yes. Words carry everything.
"Hmh," Yuliana smiles, as she steps forward -- a little cruelty, perhaps, the way she closes into his space to clap a hand onto his shoulder. There's a sickening drop-off feeling as she approaches, and if he lets her into her space, all the regret and horror of Denver Colony will suddenly -- just -- STOP. "I'm sure it's very superficial," she says, looking to him sidelong, and the smirk which pulls her lips back exposes that one sharp fang on the right side of her face. Her mouth, too, is lopsided. "So it won't be much trouble for me at all..."
Her gaze turns, to the map. "... as for your safety, I'll offer you my personal assurance that you won't 'bite it' by my hands while we're here. Besides that, the life support systems are still erratic -- it would be suicidal to risk damaging my suit right now, even to get rid of the likes of you." Not that the berserker ace Yuliana is any stranger to suicidal assaults, but... she at least seems to be thinking logically, right now.
And Yuliana, whose accent has gone on a walking tour of the globe, happens to be someone who is very good at reading maps from all that travelling. She takes in the faded features, YOU ARE HERE, and her voice is as silent as her existence for a few agonising moments.
Then: "This way," she says, and curls her finger in a beckoning gesture, before she sets them off down the street. "It will be something of a walk... I'm sure you're capable."
<Pose Tracker> Zoltan Akkanen has posed.
Professional courtesy was courtesy, the kind that did not drag people closer together. Indeed, words were used just as much to keep distance as to push people closer.
Which was all the more disquieting as the REA pilot closed the distance, that smile of his bristling as hand clasped against shoulder. Indeed, the smattering of documentation about Yuliana's abilities weren't wrong. Just another one to add to the pile of what was known, what he had already know, something he had felt once, barely, as a child.
That feeling of nothing inside your head but yourself. The sensation that hadn't been born from the forceful mutilation, warping, and "encouragment" of people with hopes, people with dreams, people who decided that someone else had to endure the burden for their own self-serving goals.
It takes a moment for Zoltan to freeze up, to comprehend as his face turns first into shock, then understanding. Even so, the hand that rested on his shoulder took a few moments to properly shove off; Instinct followed more than the actual thought of doing so. Disgusting woman. In that moment, he could feel nothing but understanding.
Understanding of the opiate that so attracted others to her. It was...disconcerting at worst, truly mind-shattering if he was forced to endure that for longer. "You have yourself a deal. How about we tack on the part where you don't touch someone when you can't read body language?" Slightly strained yet composed, wrapping all that reason up into one nice, shiny bow.
Fucker. Even if the REA pilot was a void of existence, he could understand the innately warped chains that brought others under her. With no other option and the "forced" conscription of both wanting something out of their similar deals, he followed along, trudging alongside. The general pathway was this way, after all.
"If a pilot can't walk a few miles on command, can you call them that?" Brushing off the barbs, quite keenly aware. "Surely, the REA has basic military training." A quip to lash back while slowly chipping away at the distance, passing by an academy. A large, fenced off (so it was meant, what with the decay) facility with a nondescript building in the middle. No nameplate, only a faded sign saying some Gifted Facility and the logo of Anaheim.
He stopped for a moment in front of the entrance. Gazing down the dirt road, the dead grass, the ruins of something long gone. "...There's always going to be more."
A spit on the ground. "Damn facilities. They're everywhere."
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
Yuliana laughs, lightly, as Zoltan finally gets his wits about him enough to push her hand away. "Hahaha..!" She's amused -- happy to have disturbed him.
'Mind-shattering' is certainly a description which can be applied to the existence which surrounds Yuliana Kafim.
How do you step away from yourself?
"How warped a fellow you must be," she smiles, all knives, "not to be able to enjoy a simple moment of human comfort... but of course, as you wish." She wasn't offering him comfort. She doesn't even bother putting much effort into the lie.
She's at least courteous enough to stand a few feet away from him, after that.
"The REA has very much which your Zeon is bereft of," Yuliana comments, all too lightly, "including the meals to sustain such a journey." She might have kept walking, except -- she does notice, when he starts muttering about something other than her.
She turns back, and queries: "Hmm?" And then she looks up, and -- for just a moment, the smile falls off of her face, replaced by a strained grimace. "Ah. A momentary change of plans, rat," she says, fixing her smile back to her face, as she brushes dangerously close to him for a moment -- in order to step into the facility.
"I need to check in here first. Come along, if you like."
Maintaining a masquerade was always going to be difficult -- but now Puru Two has felt the truth of her, Yuliana needs another sword to dangle over their heads in order to preserve her own base existence. A place like this...
She's bound to find something they'll hate.
The door might have been operated by keycard, at one point, in the manner of all the best shady facilities -- but the keys have long been lost, and the door left too long. She leans back, and summarily PLANTS her foot at the place where the locking mechanism ought to be, with a horrific rattle -- kicking the door open, summarily.
The REA must have basic training, then.
But force like that...
... it's more the sort of thing you see in Cyber-Newtypes.
The cloud of dust which rises up is, let's say, a little corpsey -- not everyone escaped, from this place. Yuliana grimaces, lips twisting, and pushes inside. "There won't be anything out here," she says, of something like a foyer, as if she knows. She moves down the hall -- forces another half-open door open to a more comfortable degree -- and glances, from room to room.
She stops, at a treatment room, hand resting on the doorway; in her suit, her fingers tighten against the doorframe, looking at the hospital bed with its four-point restraints, at the abandoned needles and equipment lining the wall. Her expression tightens like a screw, and she has no vicious comment to offer.
<Pose Tracker> Zoltan Akkanen has posed.
The barbs barely leave a scratch on Zoltan's own mood; This was the regular sort of dealings he had with his higher ups. Failure. Rat. How nice of you to have this, to be able to be here after your results! It all reeked of hypocrisy, of people who'd love nothing more than to dump him outside without notice and without any pushback.
Unfortunately, he was still useful. He still gave results, willingly or not. And so he stayed alive.
The absence of a smile did not fail to escape his notice. A silent quirk of the eyebrow, keeping quiet. As that faint training of the Red Comet always spoke...Never let the enemy know when they're screwing up. Following along, more spectator than anything. Ah, the memories. The hell. The bile at the back of his throat, the unpleasentness of knowing what was inside these facilities.
"Hoh..." There was something here. Something about that strength. Zeon's own training was of a similar sort; Kick the doorframe. Kick the lock. You never know when you had to break in or out, or when a mobile suit had nothing but their limbs. Sure, there were the obvious places to learn about such things; Firefighting, special ops, anywhere where you needed to learn how to break a door.
But this? Out here? And this facility...Ah, it reeked. The rot had seeped into the walls themselves, a permanent mark of the damned. Granted, time and temperatures had dulled the effect, but there was still that unmistakable rot, the kind that bristled against human sensibilities.
But still. Quiet. The final thread had to be taken, walking in. Eyes scanning over the foyer, the yellowed pamphlets, the dry, cold rot that had settled into everything. Dust, decay, rot, not a living thing.
Another room for the damned.
The placard at the side had a smiling face on it. TREATMENT ROOM. All dressed up so kids wouldn't know what went on here. The door itself reinforced, the distinct core of soundproofing sandwiched between two metal plates.
He walked up. He made no secret of it as he stood alongside Yuliana, gazing down at the bed. It was a different location. It was a different place. The names on the wall, the lack of clipboards, the absence of those chemicals, the discarded needles.
Yet, the intent was the same. A hardened face as he glanced over, unable to surpress a grin. Knowledge.
"You're one of them, aren't you?" A tight breath. "Experiment 204!" A random number. Dredged from the memories, gouging his own traumas out. "30 milligrams of something or other, attempt 5, day 23. Something like that, always, right!?"
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
It's nice to be able to give results. In Yuliana's perspective, after all, one is either using others or being used up. So long as she's using other people...
(she won't be discarded.)
There's a reasonable enough explanation for Yuliana to have that training, of course -- she is special ops, and a Captain of her own squad, besides. The REA hinges on deniability; Yuliana always has an excuse.
She should have thought of an excuse for this, too -- her reaction to seeing that bed.
Perhaps she should have never taken off her veil. She's been too honest, ever since.
Because Zoltan makes those sharp-breathed accusations, and Yuliana tightens, beneath her normal suit. "As if I'd be a number!" She snarls, gaze snapping to him, but the wound in her eyes is plain.
"I'm -- not like you," she insists, contents under pressure. "Don't insult me with such a disgusting comparison! I --"
She should think better of it. She should lie.
She wheels on him, instead, and violates his wish for personal space, as she steps up into his face. The emptiness about her cannot be said to be furious, because it cannot be said to be anything, but certainly her expression is angry. "I was never intended," she hisses, low and dangerous. "But I wasn't about to be destroyed as another one of their failures! I survived! Compare me to one of these freaks again, and I will bring your world down about your EARS, little man!"
<Pose Tracker> Zoltan Akkanen has posed.
There are ways to make people say such bold-faced lies and still maintain respectability. Facing away from someone. Excuses. Wrapping the lie in a kernel of truth to smooth over the instinctual tics one gives. Or, for instance, wearing something to obscure the eyes, and having enough mental capacity to not bare the extra emotions on your body.
The reaction alone is enough to make the Cyber-Newtype grin, watching that twisted scowl with amusement. Toying with something far greater, something he knows that could probably destroy him if given the incentive.
But, he couldn't see this woman as anything other than a self-denying hypocrite. It's hilarious, hilarious! "You aren't? Oh, but this looks so familiar, isn't it? You didn't have to say anything, but you're just like me, huh? You had some needles stabbed in your head, you were tossed about, and then they threw you away, right? Is that right!?"
Failures. Failures? Failures!? "And what do you know about failures, ah? Were you also tossed away? Look at you. You have a wife. You have power. You have things handed to you as a failure."
He doesn't look away. A failure should look at another failure in kind. "Someone else made it and you didn't, right? Is that it? One day, someone walked into the room, and said that they didn't need any of us, right?" Ah, he could feel it clear as day. The day the experiment all ended. The void of disappointment, the transition of that hell.
"You have a watcher, don't you? Even a subordinate who you know's got a gun, don't you? Someone that's waiting for an order to just kill you, right?" The needles pricking into the brain. He could feel the phantoms sticking their spinal taps down, barely any anesthesia. None at all.
What sort of person needed to humanely prepare a test subject? Not the scientists working on him, no! Pain was part of it!
"You don't think anyone wanted to be destroyed, right!?"
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
Yuliana was almost killed at her own wedding, you know.
It tends to make one... a little unbalanced.
A little vengeful.
('A little.')
Her wince is a thing carried in the grit of her teeth and the narrowing of her eyes, as Zoltan invokes those needles in her head. "Shut up, why don't you?! The needles went in my spine! You seem to comprehend, on some level, so get it through your head! I'm BETTER than you!" She yells, voice climbing higher in this echoing tomb, as she jabs a finger into the front of his suit. "I'm a Captain, damn it--"
'Y--you can't just treat me this way. I'm a Captain, damn it...'
'We've allowed you good standing and a long leash in order to pursue the Republic's interests with the proper veneer of legitimacy, but I hope you won't mistake your situation. You are an instrument of the Republic. No... the way you are now, the world will no longer accept you as a woman.'
"I'm a fucking QUEEN!" Yuliana yells her denial, in denial, all tension, all rage.
Her teeth grit; her nostrils flare. She can instantly think of someone who fits that description. (She made sure of that with her own hatred.) The reason why they keep assigning Cyber-Newtypes so close to her venomous jaws --
"So what?!" She yells, when Zoltan supposes they didn't want to be destroyed -- she pushes at him, and still she closes the space. "So what, so what, SO WHAT?! Nguyen's dead! Vindograv's dead! Zhao's dead, Begam's dead, Jeong's dead! Who cares?! WHO CARES?! They were weak! They broke! Lost under the Titan's veils! Not like me! They're not like me! YOU'RE NOT LIKE ME!"
She doesn't quite realise she's crying.
<Pose Tracker> Zoltan Akkanen has posed.
The satisfaction of someone understanding tempered, no, invoked by the assertation of someone better. He could taste the blood in his mouth. The way his eyes flowed with tears in those memories, the way his voice went hoarse, the days that ticked by, waiting for the merciful grasp of death. The aura of this place was not something that had settled in with the collapse.
Death here was common. Invoked. Upheld. An experimental failure meant one of two things. Dumpstered into an orphange. The unlucky ones. The lucky ones died, however painfully, slowly, deliberately, or accidentally. The stench that Zoltan could smell was from everything. The psyches screaming for someone to save them.
In Yuliana's case? No, just the regular stench.
"Better than me?" A resolute wince, keeping his ground. So this was what she was. Like everyone else. Flailing. Trying to find their own shit and not gargle on it like everyone else that flunked out and survived.
A queen. Someone high up must've taken special interest. A void inside. Yeah, yeah, yeah! So that's why she's so high up, because of this...what this has! Ah, it's making sense! "You're kidding me, right?" A queen. It all clicked so rapidly. He heard so many screams in the facility.
I'm supposed to be useful.
Please, won't you make me better?
I'm going to be one to defeat Amuro!
I'm going to be the one to beat the Red Comet!
You can't just say it's over!
Why!? Why wasn't I chosen!?
...You mean someone else made it?
Failure.
He hears nothing. The mind is empty. The hollow, yawning void of nothing, the conscious mind taking note that it only smells of death, not wading through death. And yet. And yet. The barely restrained breathrattles of someone holding in their own mold by everyone else's suppositions refuses to step back.
After all.
Char wouldn't step back.
"You're hilarious, you know." A low voice. "The comedy of the year." It was so easy to see. "A queen shouldn't be so afraid of her own subjects unless she knows what she's worth."
Deep breaths. Deep breaths. Deep breaths. Just slowly, deliberately, take that step back to feel the psyche drown. The overwhelming wave of Everything. "You are just like me. Two peas in a pod, isn't that right? I wouldn't say to know the specifics, but there's a gun pointed at your head, and someone just has to say something, and..." The traditional hand for a fingergun. Two digits out. Right under the chin, taking care to not touch.
"Bang. Just like that, right? I know."
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
The regular stench? How unkind. It's not like she's found a shower to wash the blood out of her suit.
Her hands clasp at his shoulders, close to his neck, though they don't yet tighten; she still gave him his word, it still means something. No: it's a threat. A threat not carried by the gasp of her breath, the tears soaking down her cheeks, catching on that old scar, dampening the protective neck of her normal suit.
He suggests what she's worth, and her fingers loosen, and she doesn't hold him in her grasp.
No: she's grasping herself, as he describes just what could happen, staggering back to press herself against the doorframe of the treatment room. Her hands tighten, about her arms, hugging herself to herself, as if she might shatter and spill out across the universe.
And she just might. Yes: someone's taken interest.
She's Mrs. Kafim, now.
Dian. Dispersal. And --
Yuliana sobs, openly wretched; it's entirely contrary to the stories told of her on the battlefield, of a vengeful and vicious woman who hates, and hates, and hates. "No!" She insists, eyes scrunched shut, chin close to her chest. "No, the Major wouldn't... I'm too important to be disposed of like some medical trash! There's no one like me in the universe! I'll get out of this, I get out of everything! I... I...!"
Her teal lashes open enough for those tears not to blind her so much, but looking aside, she just sees that bed, again. "Oh, God," she whimpers, voice cracking in its quiet, "I don't want to die..."
Some part of her thinks, distantly: now I must kill him. He cannot know this.
More of her realises just how strained her body is, under this stress, and the shame of being seen is outweighed by the gravity of her situation -- she plunges a shaking hand into her bag, but she doesn't pull out a gun.
Rather: a bottle of pills, which she shakes into her hand and swallows, desperate and dry.
<Pose Tracker> Zoltan Akkanen has posed.
It's a strange thing, knowing that someone else could be such a void yet so, so, so similar as to invoke the worst thing. It felt like a mirror. A warped, broken mirror that barely had anything intersect, but the obvious was true.
He still stiffens up, his own eyes clouding over with self-inflicted memories to wound, to assault another mentally. Yes, the threat that Yuliana posed was true. But she's also...So, so, so....
Relatable.
His jaw sets as he barely makes a move to refute or to comfort. After all, it reminded him of himself. There's no one like me, right? There's someone out there who can help me, right?
...A soft mutter. "I wonder if you'll know that you won't." That was his own conclusion. They said the same things in the labs. There's no one like you. There's no one like you. You'll do it. You'll be able to get there and do what we want you to do.
And then there wasn't.
There wasn't any move to shove Yuliana away from those pills. Merely a man standing, sighing to himself about how twisted this situation had become. Anaheim had been experimenting for Cyber-Newtypes. Obvious. Did they find anything?
...Best to wait until after she swallowed those pills. "You don't want to die? Then fight." The obvious answer, a ghost of the past carrying on its legacy. You want to resist? What else can you do?
The spirit carries on.
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
"Of course I know there's no escape," Yuliana insists, bitterly, even as the raw, soul-destroying panic is crushed under a pharmaceutical layer. (A leash.) She carefully replaces the pill bottle inside her bag, before her shaking fingers can drop it. "But I can survive... I can live a good life... even if I've occupied myself with something inconvenient, I'll get away with it, damn it..."
The REA wasn't at that battle back there, were they?
Just Celestial Being, and some non-bloc forces from the Federation.
She hiccoughs, and scrubs at her face, straightening up. "... as if I wouldn't," she insists, finally, frowning to Zoltan. "I never stopped fighting... I'll never stop fighting." She swallows, again; the feeling of taking pills without water is a constant reminder of something stuck in her throat, even though she knows nothing's there.
"I cannot put into words how much I loathe that you have any shred of comprehension on this," she issues Zoltan, lips curled in open disgust. "Breathe a word of it, and I'll end you!" By 'fight', did Zoltan mean 'fight him'?
But the combativeness of Yuliana's tone fades, as she looks away, arms folding tightly across her chest. "... but... I... I do see you went through something which could be... mistaken for my experience. I... recognise what you're saying." It's a disgusting statement; she's disgusted. (It's the best she can do.)
"Since it seems like you're trying to warn me -- about your own situation, I'll -- forgive your base transgressions, for now," she chokes out, shaking her head, fingers tightening around her arms. "Let's just investigate the facility." Please, she won't debase herself by saying.
She starts walking, and doesn't stop until she finds a terminal. A few clicks, and she orients herself to the system -- she's good at this, too, given her saboteur nature. Not nearly as good at Parminder, but good enough to open up a file which discusses the way the Cyber-Newtypes here were assigned to test Psychoframe.
"... tch," Yuliana's tongue clicks, against one too many teeth. "Dr. Devi would have a field day with this, if the screams are any indication..."
She pauses, and adds, a shade more haughty: "Never you mind that," and she ends the sentence before she calls him a Zeon rat, at least.
<Pose Tracker> Zoltan Akkanen has posed.
Pills. The recognition of what they did to a person was obvious on the Cyber-Newtype's face, watching on with a forcefully stoic glare as those pills set the Cyber-Newtype-In-Denial straight. There was nothing he could say against that; Best to keep her safe, "docile", and better the devil they want to show than the one that wants to kill you.
Well, both sides wanted to kill him, but the last thing he wanted was dealing with someone in a breakdown all the time. Just some of the time. "If you weren't fighting, you wouldn't be here. You don't have to tell me the obvious, you know." Jeez, he didn't even need to try and connect; All those emotions were laid bare.
Crossed arms and a gaze contrasting between the barest sense of pity for a Cyber-Newtype and sheer annoyance. "Yes, yes. Forgive all you like, just make sure my suit gets fixed. Better to have you alive and away before having your wife hear that someone else knows what you've been through." He's never going to stop needling about that.
No worse for the wear, he followed behind. The steps passing alongside the various rooms, the contrast between sterile walls and the rooms of captivity; Rooms of testing, rooms of ranges, rooms of outdated computers with yellowing plastic, and of cheerful rooms attempting to assuage children, paint long since flaking off into dull caricatures of what they once were.
What with Yuliana's own bullheadedness on finding things, he only watched from the side, the various states of bile creeping on his throat. "And? This is what you're looking for? Regular psychoframe stuff? Ask anyone in any facility, they'll be happy to say how much it takes for some kid to get back in after the first time."
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
Yuliana's tried to stop taking her pills, here and there, now and again. It's never pretty. She won't say she can't function without them, but...
(She doesn't have to say it.)
She doesn't have to be one of those wretched sensitive souls to communicate her distress here, either, apparently; she glowers, as Zoltan replies, still quite stiff. Those eyes widen, though, as he invokes Elisa, and her hand lifts to grasp her opposite arm. "There are no secrets between us," she insists, frowning. "And if you think you've claimed some secret through your awful chattering, you had best be silent on it, lest I fail to stay away."
So it IS a secret, and she DOESN'T want it known.
Be fair: Yuliana's having a really bad day.
"I don't know what I'm looking for," she snaps, in front of the terminal, glaring back to Zoltan. "Only that there must be something here worth knowing, if Renalle's appeared. And do you really think I have any scrap of knowledge or care about the experience? Do you really think someone like me can do anything at all with that damnable material?"
A Cyber-Newtype who can't comprehend the miracle of the human heart... yes, in terms of intuitive soldiers, she must be a failure.
(What happens, when a Cyber-Newtype's bloodthirst is placed in someone who can't sense her opponent's intent, incapable of summoning funnels, unable to reach psychoframe..?)
With a frustrated noise, Yuliana pushes back from the terminal, and takes a good few steps back -- enough to clear it from her radius. "Why don't you see if you can find anything more useful, then," she issues her challenge to him, sharp.
<Pose Tracker> Zoltan Akkanen has posed.
Strangely enough, the absence of any such readings made someone like her easier to read; For someone to get something across, there had to be connections. Understanding. For Newtypes, this had to be two-pronged: The mental and the words. For this? Merely words. And words for someone who couldn't withstand a jab back was some of the easiest to read and comprehend, something that was only becoming clear to Zoltan at this juncture. When in doubt, assume the opposite, since the deflections made it obvious.
"All the more reason for you to live, no? It'd be a problem for everyone if you keeled over because someone knew something they didn't." Secrets, secrets, what did it matter? At best, he had a moltov for the future. At worst, he'd die before the day was over.
...Having a moltov in the back did make surviving enticing, all the same.
"Of course not, but I had to hope for something, don't I? Just like one of these kids all over again, screaming without trying to know anything and just blathering." Che, as much as the relatibility had parted in, there was the obvious fact.
Zoltan did not like her. An incompatible existence.
"Fine. Let's see, if you're looking for psychoframes, then..." Branch out. Branch out from that. Look up...He tap-tapped at the terminal, poking along the results of various searches.
> search souls
> ERROR
> search Char
> ERROR
> search Char Aznable
> ERROR
> search Axis Shock
> ERROR
> search how to put people's souls into others
> ERROR
> search Full Frontal
> ERROR
> search how to expand errors [This one was marked by a punch against the terminal.]
> ERROR: To view expanded errors, use (v)erbose tag.
"Damn scientists never make anything easy."
> search -v souls
> 2314 results returned with word "souls".
"..."
> search -v Full Frontal && Char && Soul
> 23 results
> save
> ERROR
> save to disk
A disk popped out. Taking it, stuffing it in his suit.
> search Psycommu -v
It was coming back to him. The years of searching.
> ERROR
> search Psycommu && Yuliana && Results
> . . . S E A R C H I N G
"...It locked up." Another smack of that terminal, clicking his tongue. Damn things. Why can't everything just be psycommu, even if it meant some people couldn't use it? These damn scientists.
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
"As if I'd die," Yuliana shoots back, acidic.
If Yuliana died, then...
Yes: they're incompatible. Yuliana's telling herself that, again and again, because her hatred is a deeply comforting shroud in this place.
She narrows her eyes, and grumbles: "All the more reason not to experiment on children," and the distaste in her voice isn't feigned. "Of course they can't withstand the pressures. At least claim people with some motivation to endure." She was concerned for Edward's presence in that sortie, and it wasn't some hat trick to gain confidence. For all it's a necessary evil...
Well, it drives her a little mad.
(Many things do.)
She watches over Zoltan's shoulder -- at a barely-polite distance, because she'll at least give him enough space to let him exist as a Newtype -- as he struggles with the search engine. (A snerk, lips pulling up in a momentary sharp grin, as he complains about the scientists' methods.) She takes interest in his search terms, those other Zeon devils...
And then he tries searching for something which the computers would have stored on external storage, because Yuliana was never a project of space, for all scientists love sharing knowledge with each other. She steps forward, offering, cool: "Allow me."
She hits a combination on the keyboard, and pulls up its processes, and kills the one choking up all its memory. "Beatings motivate the living," she advises him, mildly, and doesn't mention that she knows this because of how many times she's been lectured on it. "Now, this will be an incomplete list of results -- but frankly, I don't see that you'll find anything of note..."
Yuliana looks back to the console, as if to prove her point. But the screen's made a liar of her ever since she looked back to Zoltan to chastise him:
> 13 results
She frowns.
> save to disk
Another disk pops out, and Yuliana pockets it.
"I'm sure it's not relevant," she insists, as she straightens up. "Don't expect me to thank you."
But at least, when they get out of the facility, and Yuliana exploits the panel-beater she's found to repair the Sinanju Stein...
... she does call him 'Zoltan', by the end of it, and not just some rat from Zeon.
<Pose Tracker> Zoltan Akkanen has posed.
"Surely, you of all people know why they'd choose children. You want to compare spinal taps? Fifth vertebrate, a favorite." Of course kids can't withstand the pressure. That's the entire point. Suffering to scar the flesh, to mutilate the soul, to grab at the flesh of their mind and grate it until it is forced to reach out. Nothing about Cyber-Newtypes was natural, and Zoltan, unfortunately, knew this.
He also knew that being able to recall it with this level of clarity without a PTSD flashback was abnormal enough. Stupid idiots, in their ivory chairs, trying to bring back what history tried to leave behind.
"Hoh..." The small surprise of results. 13 results? And she wanted them. Oh, this was interesting, this was more interesting than he thought. "Searching for why the way you are, aren't you?" The same sort of frustratingly inquisitve perception that Char had. Call it...What it was. The failed clone making headway, more than some last-resort assassin for the REA.
"If I expected thanks, I'd be buying a lotto ticket. Maybe some Tarabaman suit will be mine next week, considering that." Ah, he's just rubbing it in. They both got something, ZOltan had a sword, and Yuliana, well...Well...
Truth be told, Zoltan didn't really care. There was the faint thought at the back of his head for what exactly was the motivation, but nothing so deep that couldn't be discarded in a small spat of frustration while saying yes, of course that's my damn mobile suit, are you blind, it is exactly what I said it was.
Frustrating woman. He does call her Yuliana. Once. Near the end. Tons of venom in it before parting ways.
What's more frustrating is that even with the lack of connections, he knew the landscape well enough. Bar Denver Colony, he'd see her again.
Call it the instinct of a comet's orbit.