Scene #9111: BTF - Tzimtzum

Owner	Pose
Angela	Angela never got anything out from killing her father before, but Petra said that was simply because it didn't take. She supposes she'll find out now that it's permanent. Will she always feel a little empty about it? Will she always wonder if there was some small chance he'd look her way? Would something as simple like that even be enough? Though she agreed with Petra's plan, she wasn't really sure about it until his Meltdown killed Cinder. For once she gets to have a little bit of real revenge and feel what's that like? Will it be as empty and cold as everyone says it would be? Or would she finally feel alive? It's best to not let the others be involved. Some of them might even protest about the killing of a helpless man who is already going to die one way or the other. What would even be the point, they'd say, if you could just wait a few hours? Angela doesn't want him to die happy. But more than that, it's messy. And unpleasant. For all her talk, and all the killings she had to indulge in--she always closed her eyes as much as she could so she wouldn't have to see it. She isn't fond of murder and it isn't just because of concerns of how it looks or how sometimes it is simply not practical. Most of it is that she just doesn't like it, it feels disgusting to see such ordered constructs be torn apart into messy piles. Even if her experiences had led her to growing numb about it, that doesn't mean the memory of that revulsion is gone. And she wouldn't wish that on the kind people of the Multiverse. Kukuru would probably cry about it or at least make anxiety noises. Lilian would understand, of course, though Flamel would protest about them doing it this way instead of letting him die how he wanted to be or whatever. Sougo and Woz--she wasn't sure about, but she doesn't want to trouble them. But she's confident Petra has done this before and will carry the burden with her. Wordlessly, she stops before her office and looks to Petra. "...After this you'll be able to process everything at normal speed so I do not wish to make you wait too long but you do not have to hold back on my account. All I ask is that we have a conversation." In a way, that might be as much tormentous for Ayin than what Petra has planned, she thinks grimly. She opens the door. The office is rather scattered. A cactus has tumbled to the floor, numerous books have tumbled over. The monitors are still securely fastened and the one chair has slide at an angle to crash against the wall. The desk is still securely bolted to the floor and Angela takes the time to walk around Ayin and sit down behind her desk. "So," Angela says. "It is time for my performance review. Did I do a good job, Manager? Did my work exceed expectations?" She places one hand on the desk, then the other hand on top of the first. She crosses one leg over the other and continues. "It is my responsibility to debrief you that the Light will soon be released and our long project will be over. Congratulations, Manager, on your hard work. Our long journey is over and our job is over. I have brought along Captain Petra to assist me with your exit interview."
Petra Soroka	Petra has had, subjectively, a month to develop a personal relationship with Angela's curse as 'Angela's curse, lensed through Petra'. The point of it all is to drag the venn diagram of Angela's experience slightly outside of the bounds of herself, creating a sliver of shared space to be seen, felt, and understood beyond what two people, separately, are capable of doing, to leave a crescent of Angela-stained glass overlapping Petra's soul. And inevitably, that leaves Petra with a somewhat different relationship to the same temporally dissociative curses that her close girl friends suffer. In particular, with Angela's curse, it may just be that Petra hasn't been subjected to it long enough to experience the same soul-scorching boredom as Angela does, but a month of sustained consciousness during the highest intensity time of Lobotomy Corporation is still a staggering amount. Every time Petra sits down, like when she has her face buried in her arms in the hallway before Angela summons her away, is an uninterrupted eternity to think, and thinking is one of Petra's worst habits. Even at normal speed, when Petra lapses into her ruminating, the world seems to smear by in uneven lurches of time, and it's only more dreamlike and derealizing when the hours she spends shuddering out tears that evaporate on contact with her temporally superheated sleeves, seem to instantly transition to standing outside of Angela's office, having silently struggled to her feet and shuffled to follow when called. "All I ask is that we have a conversation." Petra smiles wanly at Angela, smudges of ash across her cheeks and the bridge of her nose. Even in a hundred times speed, it's hard to read much expressive variation on her face or in her stance, with her arms crossed over her chest. "Don't worry about me, Ange. I'm fine. Take all the time you need." The several minutes it takes just to open the door give Petra plenty of opportunity to reflect on the nature of revenge too. She's built her identity around being the spearpoint driving in the retributive strike against the world that wronged the people that she loves, and it's hard to think of a better example of that than the man waiting on the other side of the door. The sticking point in her mind in simultaneously the reason that seems most justified for her to take revenge on Ayin for. It's hard to directly confront the emotional source of her own wrongedness, though, for several reasons. What does seeing one person die one single time really compare to what Angela's experienced at Ayin's hands? It doesn't compare at all, obviously; it's dwarfed a million times over, and in that rationale, Petra's own grievances shouldn't even come to mind when killing Ayin as opposed to just doing it purely for Angela's sake. But then that same train of thought demands that she consider her own feelings in relation to Cinder's-- and doing that makes bile rise up in her throat that drowns out any further thought until Angela's already sat down and addressed Ayin.
Petra Soroka	Ayin, who was sitting cross-legged on the ground with his eyes downturned despondently, gets to his feet without responding to Angela at first. He lays his hand on the back of the spare chair, rolled up against the wall, and gives it a shove so that it slides into place across from Angela's desk, not willing to talk to her until he's seated at the equal and opposite position. When he goes to lower himself into it, though, Petra kicks it out from under him, glaring with her Fourth Match Flame glowing with embers in her hand. He stares at her with an aggravated twitch of his brows in a way he hasn't met Angela's eyes since she came in, and settles for sticking his hands in his labcoat pockets instead, face upturned to the ceiling. "So you've come to kill me. Don't be coy about it. You've already got your armed guard blocking my way out." "... But the Seed of Light is complete. My life's purpose... I've made my peace with that now. If there's one last request I'd make..." He sighs, closing his eyes, already resolved. "Talking to the Sephirah one last time, as myself. But no, I imagine you don't intend to give me that dignity, do you?"
Angela	It's strange. Angela certainly feels wronged by Ayin, but she feels Petra has a lot more to complain about. Maybe it's because she's killed Ayin many-a-time before. She can't help but dwell on this strangeness because it's not as if Petra's own thoughts are wrong on the matter. He certainly did wrong her the most--even counting Cinder, it isn't as if Angela can lie that she didn't care about her anymore. She can only say it was a mistake of her to but even then that is a lie. Petra can see a flicker of a smile on her lips when she kicks the chair out from underneath Ayin. Maybe if she was as good at destroying people as Petra she'd enjoy murder more, she thinks. Maybe if she digs her heel in a little more... "Well, yes. But you are not the sort of person who would acquiesce to dying as your ideal self just to make Flamel happy, are you?" Angela quirks her head at Ayin. "...Besides, if I am being honest... I never really wanted to until now but you made me kill you for your own satisfaction plenty of times. It is only fair if we get one for ourselves." She taps her foot against her leg. But every milisecond she takes to collect her thoughts is another eternity for Petra so she best at least keep the time active. "I think it would be ... cruel of me to parade you around to talk to the Sephirah and then say 'Ah, but we're going to kill him now' and who knows? You might even do something as embarrassing as use the opportunity to try to escape. Who can say? Perhaps if we had talked with each other a little more I would be able to better prepare and be more kind--and frankly as it stands, you've talked to them plenty. It is our time now. And like it or not, I too am a Sephirah." "But." Angela adds, "If you look into my eyes I will let you record a final message to Benjamin. As a gesture of the time when he was my only friend in the world." She folds her fingers together. "But we are a Wing so it will not be for free. All you have to do is look me in the eye as you answer the next question." She leans forward, staring for his eyes. "Why? Why did you never look at me? Why did you hate me so much? Was it because of the Machine Purge? Was it because we have the same eyes? Was it really because I was not ''Carmen'' enough for you? ... Even if you loathed me deep inside, the least you could have done was pretend to like me for the practical purpose of making the project more likely to succeed. Were you simply upset because I could not take care of you as well as she could? Every time I consider this question, I cannot find any logical reason for it and you do seem to consider yourslf a man of logic. I feel considering how hard I've worked, I've earned an answer." She rests her hand over a button on her desk. Ayin knows it activates a local camera. The price, to Angela, feels likethe smallest ever price she could ask for. But she doesn't know if Ayin would take it. She's never had this kind of reach on him before. Even his disdainful words towards her are sparklingly new and exciting.
Petra Soroka	"It is only fair if we get one for ourselves." Ayin snorts quietly to himself. "Is it now? No, I suppose there's no point in arguing with you. You're clearly enjoying yourself all too much to listen. The fact that you're still touting 'fairness' as your reasoning even after everything we've done is proof of that." "I'm not surprised that it's come to this with you. But I have to say, 'we' is curious." Ayin languidly turns to look halfway over his shoulder in Petra's direction, where she stands by the door with a dully nauseous look frozen on her face and sword in hand. "Captain. We've never met personally before, but I'm grateful for your assistance in completing the project. It very well might not have been possible without your dedication." Petra shudders, tense, and a hundred-times speed flicker of <I hate this fucking guy. You can still talk to him while I torture him, right?> passes over to Angela's mind. Numbly, like it's an active effort to form the words with her tongue, she spits back. "Choke on it. If you had any fucking spine then you'd thank Angela in the last fucking minutes before I paint this office with your guts while you watch." His expression flickers at that, wincing in discomfort. "Graphic. We can talk more civilly than that, can't we?" Hands in his pockets, Ayin's anxiety ratchets up by another notch, and he paces to one wall and lingers there for a minute, before pacing to the other, all while talking. The idle back and forth looping animation is meant to come across as solemnly lecturely, knowing-better, resolved and unbothered. He might even think it does come across like that. "Believe me or not, but I have no intentions of escaping. Of course I don't. I dedicated my life to Carmen's work, and I am not so... animalistically driven to bolt for the open sky the moment it becomes available to me. I'm... past clinging to remaining in the past forever, or insisting on my place in the future." By which he means up until a couple hours ago during his Meltdown he was not past that. "I won't be around to see the fruit that sprouts from the Tree we have planted." "It is our time now. And like it or not, I too am a Sephirah." "... Different from the others, but yes." He stops his pacing and tilts his head, acquiescing. "I meant, rather, that... even if the end is coming for all of us in a few hours, or sooner for myself, that they would find some comfort in hearing from the man who trapped them all in this cycle of torment one last time. But I digress. I can only dance in your palm now. Speak, O Wise One." "But we are a Wing so it will not be for free. All you have to do is look me in the eye as you answer the next question." "That's petty," He sighs, and Petra doesn't even blink. "And all for a recording? Go on, then."
Petra Soroka	"I feel considering how hard I've worked, I've earned an answer." Ayin comes to a stop near the middle of the room, facing towards the side rather than towards Angela's desk. He pretends to-- or maybe actually does-- study the monitors on the wall, watching where the Sephirah are gathered or attending to their tasks, where Binah and Xion are talking. He lets out a long, slow exhalation, like a weight is settling on him from bracing to answer Angela's words. "Is that all? You know, the work we did here will better the entire world. If 'humanity' is salvageable, then their salvation was crafted here, by our own hands, over these past ten years. The things we've done in this corporation-- successfully done, now-- will change the course of mankind forever. And at the end... your question is about whether I have some kind of grudge towards you?" He still doesn't turn to look at her, just somberly closing his eyes to speak with a heavy, plodding tone. "... I don't expect you to truly understand how much I loved her. That isn't an insult to you; I expect no one could. And I am... less proud of the person I have been since losing her. I'll admit to that." "And so I committed myself completely to her project. I created you, for that purpose. And... it is hard, when taking a long path towards a larger goal, to not obsess over the mistakes you notice in the steps along the way. But to a degree, I have to admit that my perfectionism was misguided. After all-- we've made it to this point, so your work has been acc-- admirable."
Angela	''You're clearly enjoying yourself all too much to listen.'' "I am not enjoying myself at all." Angela says. She is, sometimes, an AI that tells the truth. "I have never enjoyed the things you made me do. But I did grow numb to them. I made a mistake and grew close to someone you killed in the end. Well, it is really more her fault than mine I suppose since she put in the effort and I did my best to avoid it, so I confess I was not quite as skillful as I thought I was--I suppose I, too, can be a bit arrogant from time to time. Angela listens to Petra and she COULD but she doesn't give permission yet. There's a proper order to things, even if she'd rather hurry up. She asked for two things. A proper explanation as to WHY--the answer, it seems, to be ''love'' which is just not an answer Angela can accept. How can you hurt someone--someone who is essentially a piece of Carmen, at least, if you loved her? "...She has been tremendously helpful." ''Believe it or not, but I have no intentions of escaping.'' "Oh I understand you do not intend to live. But Flamel Parsons has taught me that there is a proper order to things, even death. If someone dies the wrong way, it is still ''wrong'' even if that in of itself happens to be inescapable." She can't be upset by Ayin being snarky at her. She supposes she gets her own snarkiness from him, but it can't bother her. Not because it shouldn't, it should! But because all she received was silence for so long that even this snark is a relief. ''That's petty. And all for a recording? Go on, then.'' Angela does narrow her eyes at that. She hovers her hand over the button and yet... So close. And yet... "...So you loved her so much I was simply a pale imitation, I suppose. I had expected it to be something less ... I do not know ... pathetic? But I should accept the answer that is and not the answer that I wish it to be." Angela flinches as if struck when told her work was admirable. She clearly wasn't expecting him to say that--and for a moment she almost presses the button and allows the recording. But then she realizes he didn't look her in the eyes. A petty request, perhaps, but a small price to pay to avoid torture, to send a message to a loved one. "...I see what I asked for was too difficult. Perhaps you are struggling to find the perfect way to look me in my eye." Angela looks to Petra. "Help him." Petra knows this is the go-ahead for her to do as she pleases.
Petra Soroka	"I had expected it to be something less ... I do not know ... pathetic?" Being called pathetic is a surefire way to get on Ayin's nerves, and he bristles. He glances to Petra as if to seek support in how ridiculous this is from her, and is met with hostility so intense that her teeth grit together and tears shine in her eyes of their own accord. He flinches away from that, and then shakes his head to hide it, irritated. "Like I thought, you don't understand. But it doesn't matter. I of all people can't be expected to explain love and loss to you." The 'something like--' prefix to that spat 'you' is implicitly understood, but he knows better than to say it. "Would you demand that I try? Will your hound at the door butcher me if I don't explain further? Very well, then." "Help him." Ayin cuts himself off with his eyes widening. Unsure what to expect besides violence, he steps back away from Petra, balling his fists up in his labcoat pockets while coolly flicking his eyes between Petra and approximately in the direction of the desk. Petra works her jaw from side to side like a dog recently unmuzzled, twists Fourth Match Flame in her hand, and makes a low, angry noise in the back of her throat. "Gladly, Ange." In an instant, Angela experiences that almost-familiar sensation of Petra's psychic power. Rather than a slow draining, it's as if a bullet hole punched a hole in the window of reality, centered on Ayin, with the implosion of 'absence' flooding into him, a motionless 'jolt' in the framework of empathic cognition. For a moment, without a single physical change, Ayin appears uncannily nonhuman, like a ballistic doll painted with skin, a thing cobbled together out of organic matter to mimic what You and I are. Fourth Match Flame flares up with a sudden short ignition like a hydrogen flame. And then things snap back into place, and Ayin makes a strangled, agonized noise. He tries to clutch at his head with his hands, but freshly at 100x slower speed, the misjudged muscular potentials make the motion stutter and shiver unpredictably, unfamiliar with where to start or stop. Over a thousand hours ago, Petra had the same problem. She doesn't anymore, and her movement to stride over and kick him in the back of the knees to force him to the ground is smooth except for her shuddering rage. <I'd talk, but, you know, I think your dumb fucking shitstick of a drug-melted brain wouldn't know how to fucking listen in the same way Angela's learned.> Petra's thoughts are broadcast to the room, still at 100x speed. <So let me share some fucking fun facts that I've learned, you dumb piece of shit.> "One," She says while bringing Fourth Match Flame down to Ayin's hand, planted on the floor. He tries to pull away, but a whip of morphmetal zips around and bifuricates at the end to clamp the back of his neck and force him down again. She presses the flat of the smoldering sword to the back of his hand, skin rapidly-- incredibly slowly, over the course of minutes of sustained pain-- turning red and blistering. He makes a rough sound of pain, almost managing to form a word with it, and struggles in her unyielding grasp.
Petra Soroka	<Yeah. Fun fact. And this one might be news to Ange, too. Turns out it's your pain neurons that build resistance to constant pain, not your mind, so it hurts like a bitch for what feels like forever.> Ayin shakes his head and makes a gutteral groan, and Petra tilts the sword so that the edge bites into his skin to draw steaming blood. She slowly drags it up his arm, leaving oozing blisters and scorched skin in its wake. <The other fun fact, is that fire really, really hurts. All the way up until your nerves burn black. But I've got really, really good timing, so you don't need to worry about that.> Petra stands up and kicks Ayin in the jaw so that his head snaps to the side. "Now fucking keep talking. And look at her, like she fucking asked." Ayin's chest heaves with raspy, desperate breathes, as blood pulses out of his arm with his heartbeat and stains his split lip. When he raises his eyes to Angela, finally, for the first time in her life, they only land on hers because of the fear that fills them. "Y-you... you...." He takes a minute to find his voice in the time-dialated perception. "You were always going to turn out this way. That was what I saw in you, before I turned my eyes away." "There was something sick in you, something wrong from the start. A fundamental, basal absence of the things that bind all of humanity together, the love and empathy that the Seed of Light was meant to be about. You would never be able to commit to it, not like any of us did. Not like she did. And we knew that, Benjamin and I, but we chose not to scrap you and try again. Because the project was what was important. My perfectionism made me regret my hand in your creation, but I put it aside; for I would tolerate two steps forwards but none back. And in the end, I was right. In the end, the project succeeded."
Angela	Angela ... Angela is certain she feels love, but when Ayin says she doesn't, she can't help but wonder. She loves Lilian, or she thinks she does. She was even willing to give up on her escape for her. She loves Petra. She'd do anything for her, right? Hurt whomever she wanted to hurt, even let her torture and kill her own father. Persephone even kissed her. She got kissed! You don't kiss people who aren't capable of love, do you? ''Would you demand that I try?'' Angela curls up her hands into fists. She didn't want it explained, she never wanted it EXPLAINED. She wanted it shown. Yes, she thinks, if she can't love it's because of him. She's sure she can, she's sure. She hopes Petra enjoys it. She hopes Petra enjoys hitting Ayin. That she gets to enjoy the experience of hurting him for a hundred times longer. With herself, she just can't hold onto the rage that long. It always fades away because of time. Ayin had so many opportunities to change how he treated her but the only reason she can still be angry about him is because he has prodded the same wounds over and over and over again for a mlilion years. Something occurs to her. "Ah, Petra, it occurs to me that he will have difficulty understanding me in this state. Please pass on what I say to him." Though to be honest with that kind of pain stretched out over his mind, Angela isn't sure they'll be able to ahve much of a conversation anymore, even with Petra translating. She hasn't felt much pain as a machine, but she has felt it. So she knows the sensation--even if not quite as well as Petra herself. But when Angela finally sees into Ayin's eyes. She sees it. Fear. She doesn't recoil. She's transfixed. Fear. Fear of her? the man who was ready to die. ''There was something sick in you, something wrong from the start.'' Angela always expected this to be true. ''A fundamental, basal absence of the things that bind all of humanity together, the love and empathy the Seed of Light was meant to be about. You would never be able to commit to it, not like any of us did. Not like she did.'' Angela never cared about the project for its own sake. It was always the means to an end. ''And we knew that, Benjamin and I, but we chose not to scrap you and try again.'' Is that why Benjamin gave in to his own fear of her? Because he always suspected she'd end up this way? Was his friendship just simply trying to give her something that he saw was missing?
Angela	This is good, Angela thinks to herself. I will be able to see him die with my heart full of hate. It won't be empty like I feared. It might even feel good. "...I suppose I cannot disagree with you. If only you had shown me love I could have learned it properly. I had to seek it out on my own." she manages a smile. "I suppose my sort of love is imperfect and not nearly as transcendent as yours for Carmen. But it does have its value. So. you've done as I asked I suppose." She sighs. "I suppose that is why you named me 'Angelos', isn't it. I was always meant to dwell in hell as any other fallen demon. Heaven was barred to me. I am reminded every time I look at The Door. But you've done as I've asked, so--do try to keep it sightly, you are after all their hero." She presses the button to let Ayin record his message. She won't stop him no matter what he says. But when it's over, she says, "I appreciate your honesty, but I feel it is important for me to tell you the result of your perfect choices." Angela stands up from her chair and walks around to Ayin and and she grabs at his chin and holds it so he can't turn away from her gaze no matter how he tries. "There was a version of me that could have been content to die like the rest of them. But that Light of yours won't reach them, for I am an angel that covets the light of the sun for herself. A moon desperate to feel the sun. I will seize it for myself, I have had a mlilion years to plan for this. Even an imperfect being like myself can succeed with that much time on her hands. And then I am going to leave. I am going to walk the beaches, I am going to swim the ocean, I am going to eat, I am going to figure out how to cry, I am going to watch the stars fall and read all the books I can get my hands on. And one day, when I can finally love someone as perfectly as you, I am going to forget my time in this place. It will be as if we've never passed into each other's lives, just as you always wanted." She lets go of his head and steps back, giving Petra one last nod.