Dossier Three

[fireintothesky.livejournal.com]

[Henrietta is back, sans overcoat, stockings and shoes. She's up to her ankles in water at the Doctor's beach, hugging herself and looking out over the water to try and spot the constellations Hei taught her. Her violin case is nearby on a rock, well out of the water but not out of arm's reach.]

Cassiopeia? ...no. [She cranes around, frowns, drops from the plane and comes back with a rifle scope, which she uses to hunt through the constellations again.] Um. Oh! There's the Big Dipper! Rico would really like this place.

Comments

[contract_star]

[Slight frown.] Experiments? What kind of experiments?

[fireintothesky.livejournal.com]

Um, mostly to test our modifications. They use her when they make something new--she tries it first, and then they make it better before they give it to the rest of us.

[contract_star]

... [Reminds him far too much of the early days of PANDORA and the Contractors. And, heck, the current days :|]

I see.

[fireintothesky.livejournal.com]

[Fakldjaheow

She looks down.]

[contract_star]

Ah...it's alright. I understand. It's...it feels normal, doesn't it?

[fireintothesky.livejournal.com]

[Nods at her feet]

[contract_star]

Yeah...I know. [Pauses.] It may feel normal, but...it's not a good thing, Henrietta. It shouldn't be that way.

[fireintothesky.livejournal.com]

How... how should it be?

[contract_star]

Just...even if the people around you, or the whole world, sees you as nothing more than a weapon--you're more than that, aren't you? You're a person. You like stars, you play the violin. You deserve to be treated like a person, not as a weapon.

[fireintothesky.livejournal.com]

[....b-but, Conditioning says... B...but Signore Not!Jose says...] Th... that's...

[contract_star]

...Sorry. I probably just confused you.

[fireintothesky.livejournal.com]

N...no, it's... all right, signore. Other people have been... saying that... [BUT THEY WEREN'T NOT!JOSE @_@]

[contract_star]

Maybe I shouldn't have said anything. Sorry. It's...it's just been on my mind lately.

[fireintothesky.livejournal.com]

I'm... I'm... a cyborg... [Thank you captain obvious] Is that... It's not... the same as being a person. Even... even Signore Jose knows that. Even if he does.... I mean. He... He still knows that. So... So...

[contract_star]

You're different from other people--other humans--but that doesn't mean you're not a person. It's... [Pauses and looks away.] I think it's the same for Contractors.

[fireintothesky.livejournal.com]

Contractor? Is... is Signore Hei a Contractor? What are they?

[contract_star]

I am. They're people with abilities who are ruled entirely by logic. The people in my world uses them as weapons--hitmen and assassins and such. They're...considered to be nothing more than killing machines. But lately I've...wondered.

[fireintothesky.livejournal.com]

Do they have conditioning? Are they cyborgs?

[contract_star]

No. They're flesh and blood. And...sometimes, certain organizations will capture some Contractors and run experiments on them. Trying to figure out how they work--and how to control them.

[fireintothesky.livejournal.com]

...I'm flesh and blood too. Just some of it is artificial. Well, most of it is.

[contract_star]

Do you mind if I ask how that came to be?

[fireintothesky.livejournal.com]

Um. How do you mean?

[contract_star]

I just mean--were you born or created as a cyborg? Or did you have a life before that?

[fireintothesky.livejournal.com]

Well, I must have had a life before. But I don't remember it at all. Rico remembers hers, and Triela knows a little bit, but they must have thought I needed to be rewritten to work right.

[contract_star]

Rewritten...so they erased your memories.