dualislogs | joy beats oppression but oppression will make you pay

Hank had checked at the bar the next day. Nick hadn't been there. The next day. Nor the next day. Nor the next. He was nigh on ready to report her missing, except that would bring unwanted attention and connections he didn't want to happen.

His smile when he comes in isn't so friendly at the start. And his look is suspicious.

"Where have you been?"

Hank's bruises from his fight have healed, but he's still on edge and looking sidelong at everyone here.

She’s more or less prepared for this. Nick knew she was taking a risk in revealing herself to Hank at the warehouse, and in turn revealing the fact that she hadn’t been entirely honest with him when they first met. But he’s not arresting her on the spot or cussing her out (yet), so maybe that’s a good sign, all things considered.

“Would you believe me if I said I was laid up in bed with the worst case of the flu I’ve had since I was twelve?” Worth a shot.

"Not a chance."

He leans forward on the bar, still scrutinizing. It seems to take him a good ten, twenty seconds before he decides she's some fashion of legitimate.

"How many people in this city do you think are doubles? How many of your people ended up replaced?" He asks it quietly, bluntly, trying to work something out.

There’s a momentary crack in her facade where her smile falters and her gaze drops to the floor. This is a threshold into the next stage, and crossing it is as terrifying as it is necessary. Nick takes a deep breath and looks back up at hank, mouth pressed into a thin line, and nods.

“I knew you’d figure it out. I told them - “ She cuts herself off with a huff of breath and approaches the counter to search out a pen and napkin. She scratches out two words and slides it across the bar to Hank:

IT’S EVERYONE.

“Do you wanna go talk downstairs? it’s quieter there.” Safer, she means.

So he was right. Hell of a time for being right. Maybe Loki was right too, the blackout let loose the clones before they were done. Or maybe the Head is fuckin' going the AI version of senile. Something seems broke. Or maybe it's all of those things.

"Right."

He leans back, and since he knows the way he heads down the stairs, into the basement. His face automatically set to pissed off. Right now, at a whole bucket of things. But he's gonna wait until he gets down there to ask anything more.

She's silent all the way down the hallways and stairs, presses her palm to the lock plates where needed to grant them access, follows through the same routine as before with the passphrase (a different one, this time), the scan of the invisible tattoo on her wrist, leaving her phone with the doorman. Rick's nowhere to be seen this time, and the shop's deserted except for the same counter clerk who was working there last time, who pays Nick no notice as she heads into the back room behind the counter and motions for Hank to follow her off the shop floor.

The store room itself isn't remarkable; it's long and narrow, made even more claustrophobic by tall shelves on both sides stacked with boxes and crates and random pieces of merchandise, the smell of dust and old paper hanging in the air. There's a heavy wooden writing desk at the back of the room, half covered with stacks of papers, old invoices and shipment manifests, which is where Nick heads, leaning back against it with her fingers wrapped tightly around the ledge to steady herself for the storm she can sense is about to arrive. She closes her eyes and takes a deep breath.

"You wanna go first, or should I?"

He passes by the clerk, but as he goes he catches sight of a fresh sim card he can use. He detours only to grab it, waves it at the clerk, and adds a quick, "I'll pay for this on my way out."

Something he can put his videos on and hide them as necessary.

Ones he's in there, he presses his back against some of the boxes and crosses his arms.

"You first. Keeping in mind that like, fuckin' half of us had prior experience with duplicates. So you don't need to get past any shock or anything."

“Shock at what? That you survived?” Nick huffs out a breath and shakes her head. “Hank, we knew you would. Why do you think we made that blackout happen? People at that meeting kept demanding proof. Pretty hard to argue against a robot with your face tryin’ to kill you.”

She rakes a hand through her hair, agitated, and continues, because she can guess what the next question will be - how: “The machines ... they’ve got files on all of us. Our histories, our memories, our personalities - fuck if I know how they do it, algorithms I guess? Brainscans before we wake up here the first time? I’m not the tech guy. Our tech guy’s one of the people we lost. Travis.” Nick drops her hand out of her hair and settles for folding her arms over her chest to keep from fidgeting nervously.

“He set up a - a back door? - into their files. Untraceable, too, which apparently is real fuckin’ hard to do in a place like this. I think he could’ve shut the damn machines down by now if they hadn’t taken him out.” Her mouth purses tightly as she pauses, overtaken by an unpleasant memory, but she shakes it off a moment later.

“So yeah, we knew you could handle fighting ‘em all off. You wanted proof, and we gave it to you. This city is almost entirely populated with machines, and they are gonna kill us all. It’s just a matter of time.”

"When people were asking for proof, they were asking for words, not for you to fucking get them attacked. You could have fucking said, 'they're making doubles of you' and most of us would have believed you. God fucking dammit. We didn't want proof this city was bullshit, we knew that! We wanted proof that you weren't gonna fuck us over, that we weren't fucking cannon fodder."

He bites hard, furious, even at her in that moment. And in his mind he has the right to be. But he keeps talking for now, and it's only by the biggest of miracles that he doesn't yell it.

"So even if one of your guys arranged the black-out- which is what I'm gonna assume from your people's high school way of stage-performance -the way this went down this still looks like you're trying to drag us around by the fuckin' dick." And considering how the Head and mayor doubled down on wanting to bring them in? He's guessing that suddenly they went from being an average threat that needed to never be discussed to a major threat that needed removing.

"Look, I need to know now whether you consider the people in this city people and want to get the 'truth' out there to them, or if you consider them expendable because of being duplicates." Either way, that bombing was a fucking waste of time and resources. If the truth was meant for just them? This could have been a hell of a lot quicker.

She keeps quiet until he’s finished saying his piece, jaw taut, fingers curling tighter around her biceps. He’s not wrong - not entirely. But she doesn’t appreciate being talked to like she’s the dumb kid her mother always said she was, either.

“I dunno if you noticed this,” she says, and it takes all of her resolve to keep from erupting into a fit of rage, “but I’m not the one running this show. I’m not the brains of the operation, and we’re not exactly running a democratic mini-society, OK? That’s not how this shit works - you’re either in or you’re out. If you’re in, you do what the people who are the brains tell you to do, ‘cause if you’re out? You end up just as dead as all the other shit-for-lucks who got kidnapped and dragged here and never saw it coming.”

Nick pauses to inhale a shaking breath, staring Hank down through narrowed eyes. She feels like there’s a bomb like the one set off in the park months ago rattling around inside of her rib cage, waiting for the right moment to explode and tear her to pieces from the inside.

“Christ, Hank - you really think I wanna be doing any of this? I ain’t a hero. But I don’t want to die.” She halts again, but this time, she seems shocked by her own words, and she is. This is the first time in more years than she can remember that she’s admitted as much, even to herself. It’s the first time in those many years that this statement has been the truth.

“I don’t wanna die,” she repeats, softer. “So yeah, I’m taking my chances with these melodramatic assholes, because it’s a hell of a lot smarter than trying to fend for myself. Oh, and for the record, that guy who caused the blackout? That was me, and I sure fuckin’ paid for it. I wasn’t kidding when I said I’d been sick for the last couple weeks - just wasn’t the flu that knocked me on my ass. Thanks for your fucking concern, by the way.”

Whatever. She knows better than to believe that anyone really gives a shit about what happens to her. She let herself get lulled into forgetting that fundamental fact of her life over the past few years, with the shitshow she’s been through and the friends she’s made, but that seed was planted at a young age and left to grow wild and tangled and full of thorns for most of her life. Maybe she really is as stupid and useless as her mother always claimed. She exhales sharply, disgusted with herself, and shakes her head.

“Those ‘people’ you’re so concerned about?” And yes, she does actual a companying finger quotes. “They’re not like Connor. They don’t have empathy or a soul or whatever you wanna call it. They’re machines. They’re programmed to kill us as soon as the Head decides we’re - what’s the word? Obsolete. Those things you saw during the blackout were the toddler versions. The grown-up versions will fuck your shit up worse than you can imagine, so yeah, I’m OK with taking a few of ‘em out as collateral damage. This ain’t even my first time fighting robots. You wanna arrest me for that? Fuckin’ try it.”

"I'm not here to arrest you! I've been in here every fucking day looking for you! I came in here the night of the black-out looking for you. It's this group! They're handling this all wrong."

All of this feels, suddenly, like a waste of time. In a hard part of the back of his mind, one he doesn't want Connor to know about but he knows he'll figure out anyway, he feels hope being shredded again. His faith that he can change things being stripped away. And there's a nasty, nasty part of his head that wants to put a gun under his chin right there. Maybe a finished replacement would be better to Connor.

But he keeps talking, even if that nasty voice is telling him to go, and it's time to give up.

"You should have said so. I mean the plural you. You should have said so. You shouldn't have gone around bombing fucking train stations, or bombing the mayor. You shouldn't have wasted your resources looking cryptic and throwing your weight around. And to be honest, I still don't wanna side with those guys because I really don't think they're going to accomplish anything doing what they do.

"Think of how they looked down on me? But I figured out you and Marie were the heart long before you told me. I figured out that it'd be a lot easier to kill us than to send us home. I figured out every damn bomb ingredient you guys used. Now if your people think we're so damn stupid, then they got a big fuckin' storm comin' when someone else puts their mind to it.

"They're still not gonna side with 'em, you know that, right? But I guess there's a difference between us. I do wanna die. I gotta fight it every goddamn day.

"So." He spreads his hands. "We've found bodies recently. Meaty. Not being brought back. I suspect the person behind it is probably still fucking human and a psychopath. I'm thinking maybe the head might be a little broken because some of these people had no reason that I can think of to stay dead. The Head isn't getting memories right and I don't know, it's just fuckin' old."

There's a sick feeling he can't shake in the pit of his stomach. If there's not a single person out there to save? Then what's the use. Maybe some part of him wanted 'wake up' to be more than some shitty catch phrase.

Edited 2019-11-12 05:22 (UTC)

Again, Nick listens quietly to Hank, the anger in her frowning expression slowly fading to something more on the side of sad, maybe a little worried. By the time he finishes speaking, the tension’s drained from her shoulders and her next words sound tired.

“I know you do, Hank. I didn’t need to read your file to know that - seein’ you at the bar was like lookin’ in a mirror.” Maybe it’s a sideways admission, but an admission all the same of her own long-running desire for death, a tangled knot in her heart that has existed since her father died. It’s only recently that she’s been able to begin unwinding and discarding that desire. She chews her bottom lip for a moment, deciding how much more to say, and on the other side of that moment, she decides on being entirely open - not something she’s used to doing, and for this topic specifically, something she’s never done. But knowing you’re not alone in feeling a specific kind of fucked up can help, sometimes. So she continues:

“You think the booze’ll help,” she says, softly, no judgment present. “You think it’ll numb you from the inside out, make it so you can’t think about how much just living hurts. Maybe you think if you keep at it long enough, you’ll make a stupid mistake and finish yourself off. You think if you drink enough to black out, maybe one of these times you won’t have to wake up again.”

Nick halts to inhale a deep breath, steady the quaver that’s appeared in her voice. This is so hard for her to talk about, and she’s spent so many years trying to pretend she didn’t feel anything, that if she was a hard, cold bitch, then nothing else would ever be able to hurt her again.

“I never tried anything directly. Never had the guts for it. All those assholes who say suicide’s selfish and a coward’s way out don’t know what the fuck they’re talking about. I didn’t really wanna keep living, but I was too scared to do anything about it. So I went with the indirect methods - got shitfaced more nights than not, chainsmoked so my lungs’d get all fucked up, went home with strangers who could’ve easily slit my throat while I was asleep. I didn’t think I’d live to be twenty-five, and now I’m gonna live basically forever, as long as I can manage to not get killed by a bunch of robots.”

But enough about Nick - she’s not what’s important. Not right now.

“We need your help, Hank. I need your help. I’m not a leader, and yeah, everything’s real fucked up - we fucked up - but we can still try to fix this. It’s too late to do anything for most of the people who’ve ended up here over God only knows how many years, but there’s a good couple hundred we can still save right now. I just don’t know how to do it, and you’re right, these things we’ve been trying don’t fucking work. That’s why I wanted to bring you in when Marie said it was too soon - you are smart, and you’ve got experience, and you’ve got a good heart. I may not know a whole lot about most of this bullshit, but I do know that something’s gotta change. And I know we can’t do it alone.”

"It helped for what I needed it to do." The booze, that is. And honestly, the booze is gonna fuckin' happen. He's going to leave here with a bottle of whiskey. There's a lot in there, too. What he's tried, what he's not. But for Connor, mostly for Connor and the sense of hope he gave him, he has to cling to those threads of hope, too.

"They might be doubles but I haven't seen any evidence that they're not people yet. Not when they're finished. Psychics, strong fuckin' psychics that are only a little limited, they can't tell the difference. They've had families. There are people here that are second generation. The doubles they're full of memories that if we just fuckin' throw those away- they still feel based on those memories. They live through those experiences. These aren't invasion of the body snatchers plant people. These are guys that tease you when they call you out on your crush at work. Kids that whine over hurt legs. People that get bitchy over parking tickets.

"We've got good hackers here. We've got people with experience breaking programming. The Head- he made people, he just has to let them go."

There's something there. Small somethings, but they're something. And he has to believe that or he'll give up on everything again. Yeah, sure, there's the hope of going home still. But if he left a city burning and filled with either broken or mechanical corpses with heads full of what's not theirs, he couldn't handle that.

So he grabs onto it, holding fast for Connor's sake.

"I'd wanna figure out a way to save them, too. And I trust your fuckin' leaders even less now. They shouldn't make someone fear for their life if they don't stick strictly to 'em, and they fucking played us for fools to fluff themselves up."

And that infuriates him. That they'd think a bunch of people with clone experience that ended up in some bullshit magic scifi city wouldn't believe them? No. What that was was an exercise in manipulation. You listen to us alone or you die. He figures they're either gonna live in fear or die without them, and they knew it. So they rigged it to make everyone feel inadequate without them.

"Some people might help 'em, but they shouldn't trust them. A lot probably won't."

Then, tiredly. "I have evidence now. The clone that came after me had my blood. I had it analyzed before the vaccination and after, and the clone's was the same. I also have videos of the clones- hell, Connor's fuckin' face is a recording device, and he watched the whole thing." Even if it traumatized him.

He does, however, have to sit down. And by sitting down, one means sinking to the floor with his back against the shelf, propping his feet against a box, and tucking himself in so he can tear that chip out of its packaging.

Nick can feel an argument rising up in her throat like bile and just as bitter: that Hank hasn’t seen the full extent of what the robotic clones can really do; that no matter how much he wants to believe otherwise, they’re not people; that he is emphatically not in Detroit anymore. But she’s also well acquainted with stubbornness, and she desperately wants to not push him any farther away than she likely already has.

So she bites her tongue and swallows down words that feel like glass shards slipping down the inside of her throat. Slowly, she moves to also sit on the floor, back against the cement wall, legs bent and knees pulled up to her chest. Not too close, not crowding him, but close enough to demonstrate she’s here.

“I dunno, Hank. Maybe you’re right - maybe you’re like, the Android Whisperer or whatever, and maybe you can get through to them. But I’ve seen them do real horrific shit before. I watched five of ‘em literally tear a guy to pieces. I don’t think you can get through to them and convince ‘em to ignore their programming. But I ain’t gonna stop you from trying, if you really think there’s a chance. I just don’t want anyone else to die.”

She falls silent, picking at a loose thread in the worn-through knee of her jeans. Hank should really know there’s more to the story.

“There’s a reason why the psychics can’t pick anything up, y’know.”

"I didn't say I wouldn't kill 'em if they tried to kill me." But if he gives up, it's over for him as well. He's gotta do something to save what was left of the people that were.

"Not everyone fought 'em off. There were some that got some people not in our building. Jesus fuck, those people are assholes. At least the shitty people outside are programmed to be fucks. The Heart used some creepy cultist 'face the hard real world and then realize we're your only safety' info-mongering on a bunch of fuckin' teenagers or close to it."

Then he tips his head back against the shelf. Yeah, he suspected they could be brutal. He did see people that didn't make it out that night; in fact, some of them couldn't make it out that night. There's so much information that's been hidden from him that they've been fucked.

"Let me guess. The same reason the teleporters can't jump more than two miles or ten blocks?" He remembers what Arkady said, too. But still, there's enough of something there that whatever shouldn't be is hidden.

"Was 'Travis' the guy that we remember that you didn't mention before? Would his double remember everything that he remembered? I know it's been downloading memories." Another idea bubbles up to the surface. Because they got tech people, they have high-quality duplicates that think like humans, and they've got interrogators.

Edited 2019-11-13 08:02 (UTC)

“Yeah,” she affirms softly, pushing both hands through her hair and back out again, then dropping her hands into her lap. Her head rolls back against the wall, full attention focused on Hank. “Anyone who could do something before and can’t now - it’s all the same reason. Same reason you all saw each other’s memories. The Head shoves a microchip into everyone’s brains when they first get here, before they wake up. It’s tiny, damn near impossible to find. Does all kinds of terrible shit, but mostly lets the machines keep tabs on where you are at all times, and gives them a way to see into your memories.” She sighs quietly. “It’s basically impossible to get out, too. Three of our people died trying, and one more ended up with permanent brain damage - the kind that leaves you a drooling vegetable. I’m the only one who’s gotten it out and survived, and I’m sure I would’ve died too if I didn’t -“

Nah. No sense mentioning that. But that’s the explanation for why she didn’t have a frame of reference for Hank’s questions about the man in the Head’s memories. And speaking of that mystery man - Nick shakes her head slowly.

“I honestly don’t know who that guy you saw was, but if he was killed, then yeah, his copy should have all of his memories up to the point the original went brain-dead. But that wasn’t Travis. You saw him, that first time I brought you down here - guy with the glasses talking with Marie.”

Edited 2019-11-13 19:16 (UTC)

"Right. Okay. So that one's Travis."

He glances over her when she says she had hers removed, and he's guessing there's some power about herself she's kept under her sleeve. Something personal. And, honestly, it'd make sense if there was since the Heart seems inclined to pursue 'useful' people.

"So. I guess if we do a motherfuckin' test run on trying to reprogram one of the doubles, Travis would be the guy to do it to. And maybe that other guy if we can find him. He's faced the Head face to face. He'd have to know something."

Hank settles his hands on his knees before drumming them lightly. Well, that answers the question as to whether or not the Head had a psychic or something else. He's just patched into them, and eventually he'll remember the things they remember. There are a fuck of a lot of loopholes.

"Are we doubles from the moment we get here or are we us? People come in fully healed, sounds like they'd have all their powers too if it weren't for the chip."

It’s not that Nick wants to keep this part of who she is a secret - not anymore, she already wasted too much time lying about who she was, rejecting a fundamental part of herself. She just doesn’t want the focus to be on her at the moment. There are bigger stakes involved in what she and Hank are discussing, and those deserve to take center stage. She’ll tell Hank about what she is - she’ll even show him. Just not right now.

“We’re still us when we show up here, far as anyone can tell. It’s like ... I dunno, it’s been a while since the last time I was in a science class, so I might not be sayin’ this right, but ... we’re an experiment. They want to watch us, get all their data from us. That’s why they keep us around for a year instead of killing us off right away - so they can watch us until they know enough to replace us.” Nick stretches out one long leg and sighs something that might be a laugh.

“Y’know, I’ve been here for a year. I know Marie’s doin’ this shit all wrong, but if she hadn’t brought me in, I’d be dead right now. You’d be ordering drinks from a Nickbot.”

"Yeah. I sorta figured he needed somethin' out of us. It didn't make sense sending people back. No one ever mentioned having left and came back, so that made me think, shit, it'd save a lotta energy on just saying you sent people home and then killed 'em off."

But if they're still them when they show up, maybe there is a chance of going home. If they can get it right.

"You know... I've saved a lotta people in my time. Part of my line of work. I started doin' it to help people live better lives, whether I was helpin' one or a bunch. But I also worked with a lotta shitty cops, and I never thought we deserved loyalty or obligation because we got one right every once in a while. Look, I get that she did somethin' great for you? And you can be grateful for that? But she fucked up, and you don't get to call back on past successes after a fuck up. You can only move ahead."

He scratches the back of his head.

"Alright. I'll try to, as discreetly as possible, figure out where the doubles of Travis and that other guy are so we can get the info out of 'em. What else should we know? With the full assumption that at least one of us has had experience with some similar fashion of weird goddamn bullshit and saying shit like 'you wouldn't believe me' doesn't really fly." Hell, those comprehensive files should have told them that.

Edited 2019-11-14 07:11 (UTC)

Nick gently bites into her bottom lip for a moment as she considers Hank’s words. He’s not wrong - the way the Heart’s done things has never sat entirely right with her, and Marie’s authority has often felt needlessly restrictive. But people who’ve fucked up deserve chances to do better, too.

“Y’know, I used to be a real shitbag. I liked being mean to people. I got accused of bein’ a bully more than once in my life, and almost everyone who knew me knew I was a huge bitch. Hell, I don’t even know why my ex dated me for as long as she did - she was always telling me I was being racist or homophobic or somethin’ like that. I’d always thought that if people were gonna think I was a monster, I’d fuckin’ give ‘em a monster, y’know? But I tried to be better when I was with Kennedy. She tried so hard to get me to pay attention to her, and I guess it was like - maybe she saw somethin’ in me that was good? Almost nobody’d ever believed in me before, and when we were together, I didn’t feel like I needed to hurt anyone else just to feel something besides bone-deep disgust at myself.”

She sighs deeply and shakes her head. “‘Course, that all went up in smoke when she ditched me. And I went right back to bein’ the world’s biggest bitch. Then I got sucked up by the Door and dropped in the middle of nowhere. I got buried alive and fought yetis and wendigos, and then I got my head broken and put back together, and believe it or not, that actually helped to get me to pull my head outta my ass.” She chuckles quietly. She really was a shitheel back then.

“And even when I was still bein’ a huge bitch to everyone, even when I still thought I was a monster, I made some new friends. And some of ‘em showed me that just because you’re a monster, it don’t mean you gotta be a bad person, too. You don’t need to hurt people just because you’re a monster - you get to make a choice. And my choice was that I didn’t wanna hurt people anymore. I got a second chance, even though I’d fucked up a lot - my whole life up until then. Maybe I’m still fucking up, but I’m tryin’ to do better. I wanna help people - keep ‘em alive. But if all anyone saw was the mean, bitchy fuckup who liked to hurt people and didn’t figure I was worth giving another chance to do better, I wouldn’t be here with you right now.”

She pauses, taps a finger over her knee while she formulates yet more words. She doesn’t usually talk this much at a stretch.

“I’ll try talking to Marie, OK? Try to get her to quit with the cryptic shock-and-scare bullshit. I dunno if it’ll work - she’s had a lot of shit to deal with where she’s from, and that ain’t an excuse, but I know why she’s the way she is. Maybe I can convince her there’s another way, a better way to work with you and the others here.” She shrugs. “May get myself kicked out, but I guess I can still stay under the radar. Maybe find another way to help people.”

Maybe they can all come out of this trainwreck for the better. Maybe this city doesn’t need to end in fire and blood.

“Only other thing I can think of is the underground tunnels. We use ‘em to get around sometimes, but I dunno if that’s gonna be useful for anyone else. I can show you if you want, though. And I can get you the address where Travis was living, ‘cept I don’t know if he’s still there. But there might be something you can use.” He’s a detective, after all.

“I, um ... I can give you my number, too, if you want. In case things go bad and I have to disappear suddenly.” If he’d still care about what happens to her, after everything. Nick kicks her other leg out straight and crosses her ankles. “I know you got no reason to trust me, Hank, but I hope you can at least believe me when I say that I wanna help, and I wanna make sure no one else dies.”

"That's not what I'm saying. I'm not condemning you or anybody. When I was really successful I kept all these clippings around my desk. All the news articles that said I was on the path to become commissioner of police and all this... fuckin'... hoity toity bullshit. I was proud of myself. But I stopped being responsible, started getting drunk, never was on time, turned down some major investigations. Lost a lot of my credibility. I didn't earn it back until I punched that fuckin' Fed in the face.

"And I've been a pretty big asshole, too.... Not for punching the guy. That's been one of my better moments. But that's why I know you can't just keep reciting what you used to do. You gotta take the best of that and keep it."

To save one man's life, he threw away the tatters of that old glorious career. Because at the heart of it, his goal had always been to do the right thing. If his precinct was going to participate in a genocidal slaughter, he didn't want to be a part of that precinct anymore.

"She might be right that they can't be saved but she would be wrong that it's not worth fuckin' trying, you know? Right now she's bombed an event with a public figure which looks real bad to new people, and you guys could have just told us about the clones. Now you have a fuckin' manhunt after you. They're really pissed at you guys and your whole movement is in more danger than it ever was before. The truth would have been a lot safer than fuckin' showing off. It's gonna be infinitely worse than when they were denying you existed."

Tunnels, Travis's number. Right. He can work with that. Maybe there's some city schematics somewhere. He pulls his novel from the inside of his pocket, dislodges a pen from it, and offers it to her.

"Write it down. Better than it being on my phone if one of us gets caught. Figured the book I could burn if it came down to it."

Nick slides over a little closer to Hank to take the book and pen from him. “I know, Hank. That’s what I’m trying to say here - one of the things I’ve learned from the last few years is that people can change and do better. I always thought people were just shit, they weren’t capable of changing for the better, and that’s why I didn’t bother tryin’ - I just became the monster everyone expected me to be. But I’m not still that same girl, and I don’t believe that anymore.”

She flips the book open to the back cover and places it in her lap with a soft laugh. “Y’know what this reminds me of?” She glances up at Hank, grinning. “Signing yearbooks in high school.” She drops her gaze back to the book in her lap and writes Have a nice summer! on the inside of the back cover in a sloping scrawl that’s fairly easy to read, then adds her name, phone number, and network username underneath. Just below that, she scribbles an address, placing it on the page like it could be hers, but in reality it’s the one that belonged to Travis. Message complete, she closes up the paperback and hands book and pen back to Hank.

“You’re a good guy, Hank - and I don’t usually like cops. Shitty as it is getting dumped here, I think we’re pretty lucky to have you. I don’t think we’d have a good chance of surviving all this bullshit otherwise, y’know? Out of everyone at that meeting, you were prob’ly the most reasonable - you and Connor. He seems like a good guy, too - like he knows what he’s talking about, but he doesn’t need to be an asshole about it.” She laughs quietly. “Not many people could take Mello talkin’ to ‘em like that without just knocking his teeth in. Believe me, I’ve thought about doing it a few times m’self.”

Nick leans back against the wall, hands folded in her lap. Mentioning Connor reminds her of a much earlier conversation between them, one where Hank claimed that Connor had done more good for him than his wife. She wonders if that’s still true, if Connor’s still a good influence in Hank’s life, if having him around is a help or a hindrance.

“How’s that going, anyway? Connor bein’ here, I mean. He’s the same one you knew before you ended up here?”

"Yeah, I remember those. Somehow." He did a lot of signing, and a lot of girls signed his. He was one of those guys. He didn't have much tragedy in his background, not until the Big One. He had the stability and the nature to do what he felt was right. When someone who hasn't ever needed to ask for help suddenly finds themself in a position where they want to find help.

He takes the book back to look at it. Right. Just what he needs.

"Tell me. Can the robots get high or drunk? Caffeinated? Do they think they do or imitate it? And uh... thank you for saying that." It's obvious he doesn't hear things like that all that often. Well, not since his glory days ended. Those brief moments of appreciation are fine. And maybe it's not particularly him they need. Maybe they need one of those boisterous teens or superheroes. But it's still good to hear.

"It's good... well, was good. Until I fuckin' shot my double in the face and Connor registered it as me dying in his system. Like he knew better but it started this reaction and I just... He got so upset that he didn't have time to get more information out of it and was so fucked up by watching it happen it really got me thinking... I hate me but God, sort of got me thinkin' that maybe it'd be best to at least try to save them. To someone somewhere these copies are the face, the memories, and the blood of someone they loved.

"Bad thing is he found out about uh... some stuff... I don't know. We've not really discussed it since then. My fault." He's worried he'll handle it baldy. He already handles so much badly.

“I only say stuff like that if I mean it.” And she does appreciate Hank. The truth is, this city scares Nick, more than she would ever admit, and the fact that the resistance efforts she got involved with are headed by a pair of people who seem dangerously out of control scares her even more. Knowing that there are people like Hank in the city, people inclined toward more stable and sane methods of working toward the same end, makes her feel ... not necessarily safe, but certainly safer.

In answer to Hank’s question about the robots, Nick shakes her head. “I really don’t know. I’ve seen plenty of ‘em in various stages of drunk at the bar, but I don’t know if they’re really buzzed or just acting like it ‘cause they’re programmed to. Some of the brainy types think it’s for real, but it’s not like anyone’s cut one open or tested any of ‘em to know for sure. They’re best-guessing. But I guess ... look, I almost failed biology, so most of this shit doesn’t make any sense to me. But if these copies are supposed to replace us, they’d want to be as realistic as possible, right? If they can clone our DNA and our blood and shit, I don’t see why they couldn’t clone everything else, too. Fit all the squishy parts and the metal together like one of those patchwork blankets, y’know?”

Does that make them people? That’s a higher-level philosophical question about the nature of existence than Nick is prepared to tackle at the moment. But in mirror opposite of Hank’s belief that the copies are people until he sees evidence otherwise, Nick has only seen evidence to the contrary - that they are machines running on programming. And until she sees otherwise - an example like Connor - her view is unlikely to change.

And when Hank begins to speak of Connor, her expression softens. Despite the upsetting content of his words, there’s a current of context running underneath that is much warmer.

“If he loves you, it makes sense that he’d be upset about seeing you - even a fake you - die.” She smiles softly. “You said he’d only been around for a few months, right? So he’s still pretty new to all this having feelings bullshit. I dunno if it was like this for you, but when I was a kid? Everything made me feel like I was on fire, like I had too much in here - “ she taps two fingers against her chest, over her heart - “and it was only a matter of time before it all exploded and burned me down into a pile of ashes.” She glances down at her jeans and brushes a speck of dust off her leg. “Still feels like that sometimes, but it’s not all the time anymore. Guess I’m finally startin’ to chill out some as I get older.”

Nick looks up at Hank again and studies him intently for a moment, and she decides it’ll probably be OK to speak her speculation aloud: “You love him too, yeah?”

"Jesus, just when you were a kid? I had my honest to god worst emotional breakdown at fuckin' 50." It's a joke that sears across the tongue, though. He'd been a relatively well put together man up until the point he lost Cole. Everything in his life was stable enough that he felt like he could shoulder the weight of the world; and then he was alone with all that weight and it felt impossibly heavy.

As for the doubles, he's at least not going to take any foolish risks. Everyone's been friendly and personable with these things. The Heart has no history of working with any or having sympathizers (which could mean in a best case scenario that it's not been worth the risk to anyone, worst case scenario if one of them tried they were immediately disposed of or still couldn't escape their programming). But he has a lot of faith in the hackers he knows.

He'll try to find this Travis guy. He'll try to get what he can.

But he just nods, a bit morosely.

"Yeah, I do. Sucks to be him, huh? About the fuckin' worst first-relationship-run someone can ask for. I got more baggage than a fuckin' rich bitch on an international flight. I'm really lucky that he sees something there that I just don't see." But he's trying to live up to it, even if he shot his double in the head close enough to spatter blood in the poor guy's face.

Nick laughs good-naturedly at the joke - it’s obvious to her that it’s a joke, anyway. “Let’s see ... born in ‘83, so for 18 years after that, ‘til 2001?” She jokes back, but she understands what he’s really asking, and follows with a more serious answer: “My dad died when I was eight. He was really the only person who gave a shit about me, so I guess I quit bein’ a kid around then. Had to learn to fend for myself pretty fast, y’know?”

Which likely didn’t do her volatile emotions any favors, with no positive guiding force to temper them. But it’s in the past and there’s nothing she can do to change it, and she’s come to more or less accept that fact over the past few years. She may not have moved on entirely, but she’s better than she used to be.

“Hank ... we’ve all got baggage. Cut yourself a little slack, huh?” She quietly chuckles at herself. “Man, I almost can’t believe I’m sayin’ this. A few years ago I would’ve said love is all pointless bullshit. You know that Smiths song, ’Unloveable’?” She quietly sings a couple of bars: “I know I’m unloveable, you don’t have to tell me ... I used to say that was my theme song, ‘cause that’s what I really thought of myself. I never had any shortage of short-term boyfriends and friends with benefits, but I never kidded myself into thinking they loved me. They just liked getting laid.”

Not until she got involved with Kennedy did Nick begin to shake herself of that especially negative aspect of her self-image. She shakes her head at her past self. “Point is, I was an idiot. I’m not unloveable, and Connor loving you isn’t bad luck for him. Out of everyone in your world and this one, he chose you - that means you’re important to him. That ain’t something to just shrug off.”

She inhales a deep breath and slowly lets it out. Talking about this kind of stuff - feelings - it’s hard for her. She spent so many years repressing almost everything she felt that wasn’t anger; she doesn’t have the practice with other feelings that most people have at this point in their lives.

“I know you didn’t ask for my advice, but I’m gonna give it to you anyway, and you can take it or leave it, up to you.” She shrugs, but secretly hopes he’ll take it. “Talk to him. Whatever bad shit came up that you haven’t talked about yet - don’t put it off. Not talking about shit is where me and my ex went wrong. Hell, not talking is where me and my ex-best friend went wrong, too. Don’t be like me, Hank.”

He looks tired for every year then, really. It's strange to think there are people around older than him that somehow manage to wear all this emotional weight infinitely better, but it shows in ever crease and line of his grizzled expression.

"Yeah, I know. I gotta be more decent with myself, at least. You're not wrong. Especially now." He actually was once a good leader. He motivated a task force. He needs that person again, or else it'll be a lot of dead kids. And they might be fucking magic or fucking superheroes but that bullshit doesn't matter. They're kids.

"Luckily he's real fuckin' cute in a goofy-ass dipshit way, so it's really easy to forget about how fucked up I am." He snorts a soft laugh to himself at that. Behind the scathing words there's more than fondness, there's admiration for someone that was able to give him faith in humanity again. A well put together mind and a heart whose sense of justice felt natural. Not just a token of the old activist age from a couple of decades before.

Heart. Thirium pump. Whatever that shit is called.

"But yeah. I know. I need to work on it. Not just for the relationship thing." Because right now a fuck of a lot of lives depend on him being able to keep his shit together.

"I believe in you, Hank. And you're a hell of a lot smarter than me, so I'm bettin' you can figure it all out without needing to get your brain broken into a billion bitty pieces."

She'll explain what that means someday, if Hank wants to know. But she's said a lot already today and there are much bigger stakes than her own history. Nick gently claps her hands against her legs and climbs to her feet, then leans over to offer Hank a hand up if he wants the help.

"I wanna hear all about Connor sometime, but right now I better get back to work. I won't be any good to anyone here if I get myself fired." She sobers for a moment, then adds: "I'm sorry I wasn't straight with you from the start, Hank. I'm not gonna keep secrets like that anymore. If there's something you wanna know, just ask, and if I know, I'll tell you. OK?"

Squall doesn't come by all that often. He checks in a few times a week though when it's obvious Nick didn't take a day off, he starts to poke his head daily near the tail end of the two weeks she's gone.

There's a tangible sense of relief when he sees her again back at the bar as he slides into his usual seat, elbows on the bartop.

"The usual." Some kind of soda because he doesn't quite like the taste of most of them yet, except the cocktails. THose are pretty good...

He tilts his head as he regards her. "You look like crap."

Well, she can't really argue with that, so she laughs quietly and nods. "I feel like crap, so at least there's a good reason for it." No offense taken, of course - she gets the feeling Squall isn't the best socialized person on the planet, and she gets that, because she used to be that way, too. In her case, though, it was intentional.

Nick busies herself with mixing up a Shirley Temple, slips a few extra cherries and a slim black straw into the drink, and slides the glass across the bar to Squall. "So ... how've you been? Gettin' to see anything interesting in the city?"

There's a flash of concern. Now he's really wondering what happened to her. He raises his eyebrows at the drink. That pink one again. What did she call it? It sounded like a woman's name. Shirley- something.

He plucks up a cherry and turns it between his fingers for a bit.

"Not really." He's had a lot more free time since he quit his job but it still feels like he's kept busy without making much headway. "What happened to you?"

Not one to waste words, is he? Nick smiles thinly and picks up a rag to wipe at the surface of the bar - which may or may not have anything on it that needs wiping.

“What happened to make me look and feel like shit, y’mean?” She shrugs. “Been sick.” For weeks ... sure. “Better now though. Not contagious. How’s the drink?”

He frowns. The word sick immediately draws his thoughts to the plague. But that one is gradually fatal... and contagious. She's also not leaking black ooze. He tentatively relaxes and takes a sip of his drink and blinks, surprised by the sweet taste again. Just the right kind of sweet he enjoys in fact. Another sip...

"It's good," he admits. He gives her a look. "Guess you didn't get to go home." It's been a year for her, if he remembers right.

He remembers exactly right. Nick opens her mouth, soundless for a moment, then laughs and shakes her head.

“Can’t put anything past you, huh? Nah, they ain’t come for me yet.” Squall can probably guess she doesn’t mean with an offer to send her elsewhere. Nick gives him a small, rueful smile. “Maybe they didn’t bother ‘cause they know I don’t really have a home to go back to.”

Squall tilts his head. "You don't?"

He wonders how many people are like that. No home... or no place to call home.

"Maybe we weren't supposed to go home at all," he's examining her again. "Did they make you sick?"

"Not really," she says, with a shake of her head. "This place here ain't my first rodeo - I've been gettin' kicked around different places back and forth for a few years now. First time I got shoved back to where I was from, it was seven years later than when I left. Kinda hard to fit back in, y'know? I didn't have any family or any real friends before I left, either. So if I'm gonna start all over again, it may as well be somewhere with better weather."

She shrugs and wipes down part of the counter with a damp rag. Sometimes it bothers her more than others, having no real place to belong, but she didn't feel terribly connected to Chicago by the time she left the city and ended up in Vancouver, either. Different city, different planet, different universe, but none of those make much difference to Nick.

"That's ... definitely a theory. And you wouldn't be the first one to say so." She finishes with the wipe-down and looks back up at Squall, shaking her head. "Nah, only person who made me sick was me. I tried to do too much and it bit me in the ass. Lesson learned, I guess."

joy beats oppression but oppression will make you pay

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CW: Suicide talk etc.

same cw, yay

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