velocette | [video]

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[Not much bothers him, and he doesn't seem distraught now either...but some of the "amused behind the glass" aspect has vanished.]

Bleu is in a coma. I don't know if she has any friends. Or enemies, or anyone else who'd care, on board--but if she does, you have a right to know.

If she does have enemies, well, she's not being left unguarded, so no one do anything heroic or stupid.

[Private to Harvey]

Where are you?

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

What? Why? It isn't his, there was a flood, he should cough them up.

Yeah and if he gives you guff I'll see if there's a Warden clause I can use to make him.

I just have this picture in my head, like a contest or a challenge, of thinking circles around someone with a gun. Making them bend without raising a hand. I've never had to try it and you've probably done something like it before, so... [a shrug; it'd be no sweat for Harvey to outsmart someone that way]

It's been thug haven around here too long.

It's a prison ship, not a corporate cruise, Boy.

That's sort of how it-- rolls. Floats. [ He's not up on the slang, so sue him. ]

[He is, as always, a little amused.]

It's not like the prisons I've been to, though. Compared to County it is more like a cruise, isn't it? Anyway, just because everyone comes from rough circumstances doesn't mean we all have to keep running in the same circles.

Hrumph.

I'll see what I can do.

Thanks. I know it takes you out of your way, but a radioactive firefly like him isn't worth the hassle if people just refuse to see things your way. We've got bigger battles.

If you say so.

Hey. [One of his many topic changes; rather than having a direct point, he seems relaxed now, more philosophical. More 'him', so to speak.]

What do you get up for nowadays?

Daily grind. You need routine in this place, or you go mad.

More mad.

Are you going to keep up a routine when you go home?

No. I'm not going home.

What's your plan?

Do I look like a man with a plan?

You look like a man afraid to plan, but you still made a decision. [Even if it is just a decision not to go home, not to even try to get home.] That's the most crucial part of anything.

Our choice is no choice. There's no choice. We can't go back, we have no where to go.

[ Death, however, is not as great an option as it used to be. ]

Life is a series of natural and spontaneous changes. Don't resist them - that only creates sorrow. Let reality be reality.

Heroes are a dangerous ideal, worse when the people idolized are more than just ink on paper. But you do remind me of Lao Tzu.

Why's that?

[ This is a twist he did not expect ]

Because you already seem to know a lot of his theories--as if you've lived them, used them, even if you only put them to use in very small areas of your life.

But unlike him, I think you faced more setbacks and more defeats than you would have if you were from some other time or some other world. I think that you're too smart to keep living by theories that only brought you loss, so you abandoned them with a lot of other ideals. [A lot. Not all.]

And I don't think you've had any compelling reason to replace them--so it's left you stuck here.

I'm fine with being stuck here.

[ For a reasonable level of 'fine' anyway. ]

Here is not a terrible place. There have been worse places.

[He considers that, and then shrugs. It's not like he has any large ambitions for himself, and it's not like he's banking on a wish for the Admiral to grant. In many ways he's got the same feelings about the Barge that Harvey is sharing.]

Well, I like having you around. I wondered if we'd get along long-term, if I'd be able to help get you graduated, but I think this is a better way to handle life here. And if you do graduate along the way, if the Admiral grants it to spite you, you can still stay on here.

[ Glad to have him? Harvey snorts softly. ]

I won't stay on. I graduate, won't be a warden. They don't let you not warden on this ship if you're not an inmate. Next thing I know I'm upholding the system.

Not interested.

[In the long run this means that Harvey will probably have to actively work at being an inmate.]

Why?

[He genuinely doesn't care if Harvey stays as a prisoner, graduates and leaves, graduates and stays, or is kicked off--things will happen and he's got very little control over the circumstances. It's not his job to even try to control them, frankly, so he'll take things moment by moment.

But he's always been curious about motives.]

I won't perpetuate an unjust system. This place isn't fair to either wardens or inmates.

I won't be a part of this.

...When did you get the idea that anything was ever going to be fair?

Man makes his own fairness. I won't be a part of something that is so grossly skewed against everyone in it. This is a rigged game. I won't play it.

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