[ It's not often that Cecil keeps correspondences brief like this, but the phones have not been working properly, and saying more than a few words hasn't been going so great.
[ Pyramid Head. It's strange, Cecil thinks, that all the other monsters in Haven's tunnels are twisting themselves into spirals, but not him.
Time is running out, either way. And trying to find Haven South failed, and what they found instead only raised more questions. But there is only so much any one person or large group of people can do. ...Keeping distracted, helps, in the meantime. ]
That's fine. I'll meet you there soon.
[ He disconnects again, staring at his phone and the pictures in it briefly before pocketing it again and heading over to the store. They can talk more there, and if Mako isn't there when Cecil arrives, he'll wait. There is always a lot to do, always a lot of reasons to be afraid... But fear and willingness can only take a person so far. Time moves the way it wants to, faster and slower, no matter what the people experiencing it do. ]
[It's much more brief-- somehow, he was expecting more. But now that he had a chance to meet this guy, he seemed like the safest person to talk to.
And... Mako figured he probably would be better off seeming interested, than revealing any subterfuge he was planning. While Korra seemed to think Cecil was okay, Mako didn't know him and his initial impression was 'strange.' And he knew nothing about how this worked.
Still, he didn't delay in getting there-- he's probably only a few minutes behind Cecil]
Thanks for getting back to me. I heard that you're one of the employees for Yao Corp?
Hello, Mako. I am one of the contracted employees, yes. [ Sorry, Mako. Now that Cecil has you in person and without the barrier of an unreliable and highly monitored phone network between, all that brevity of his is in the past. ]
I have signed away my free will, the safety of my loved ones and the trust of my friends for menial gains, but I am still and always have been one of the guàiwù like you are, like all of us kept here caged within the barrier that surrounds Haven West on all sides.
The people outside of the barrier consider us monsters. Doctor Kite considers us specimens. Matilda King considers us a source of entertainment. Even having signed a contract voluntarily to become an employee, we contracted employees are still beneath the crushing weight of a terrible and powerful all-encompassing them.
Contracted. Right, my mistake. No one has bothered to draw that sort of distinction before. [and the rest of it was interesting too-- if he were trying to act normally, he would have pursued asking who the people outside were, but he could ask Korra later. First, he needed to at least seem interested.
Genuinely interested.]
But you still get something out of it, in the end.
[ Cecil is used to being asked about contracts, about employment. He is used to it from people who are interested, who see the corporation as a means towards personal ends. He is used to offering these people connections, guiding them to sign their own contracts, knowing it will only help his reputation with the corporation, knowing it will only end in tears for those selfish enough to join. Knowing he is better off for knowing who is signing contracts in that pink room.
He is not used to being asked for contracts by friends of Korra's. So, he doesn't think anything of these kind of questions other than idle information gathering by a curious person. He would be saying different things, if this were someone like Warren, or Break. He would be highlighting the appealing side of things, and not the painfully obvious flaws. ]
I do, yes! When contracted employees are killed, we're revived in one day instead of five. That is convenient, because employees are killed a lot.
The corporation knows what you want. They know everything about you. They know who you loved and who you hated in your life before Haven, in your home universe and time. They know what your heart desires most. They know what you would like to have for a reward.
After my first mission was completed, after I cracked open the skull of a young girl and took the chip she kept hidden in the delicate folds of her brain (and after doing something afterwards that I am not allowed to talk about), I was rewarded with the ability to speak through the radio. Which you heard yesterday. They knew it was important to me, knew without asking that it was something I wanted.
They gave me a lab coat also, one time, for manipulating and dragging the prone but living bodies of innocents to the good and terrible doctor to perform unspeakable scientific acts on. But that reward was more of a joke kind of thing.
They reward the contracted employees who do what they are told. The greater the cooperation, the greater the reward.
[As he listens, he knows he's supposed to keep a straight face, but what Cecil described, gets a physical reaction out of him, even if it's limited to the barest tightening of his knuckles, and a vague look of barely contained horror on his face, muted because he was trying to seem interested.
He'd been a kid on the streets, so he's used to doing whatever it took to survive. But being revived in one day instead of five wasn't his idea of a reward-- and he didn't want any sort of gain from killing people.
He knew better than to assume they'd give him the keys to the kingdom, so to speak, but he wasn't quite expecting what Cecil had said.]
Sounds... [horrible?] ... Anyway, they give you things for doing that. But what's in the contract?
yeah they... don't tell you that when you sign up ahaha
[ That's all it is. That's all it ever is. Cecil thought he would be used for his voice, to broadcast messages and information, to gather it, to trade secrets. Maybe get coffee or risk his own life investigating the dangerous and unknown. You know, intern stuff. He did not know he would be told to kill and capture friends and young girls. He did not know his boyfriend he assumed was safe at home in Night Vale would be brought to Haven and threatened when he failed.
Don't do it, Mako. ]
I have no idea. It is written in Chinese, which I could not speak or read at the time. I'm working on it.
But even so, I signed it, anyway. I did not ask, because questions are not allowed. The employee I met with to sign my contract was Su Geming at the time, and while every employee is eager to tell you, "You are beneath me, you should not ask, and you do not need to know," Su Geming was especially tight-lipped, while he was still around.
There are two languages in the library. Somehow-- I can read both. One looks like it's from home, and the other is weird. [he was trying to figure out if the one that looked like something that could have come from a newspaper back home was what he was calling 'Chinese.' But if the contract was in that language... he could read it.
But also, why would you sign a contract you can't read, Cecil. Seriously.]
[ Because Night Vale. You do what you're told, including bleeding to get out of the station where you work and signing your soul to less than reputable corporations, sometimes. ]
The corporation uses English and Chinese almost exclusively, so that is probably what you're able to read. Other languages are forbidden, though I have met more than one employee of theirs from the other side of the barrier who has managed a phrase in their native tongue here or there.
[ That last bit makes him pause and look at Mako though, a little more critically than before. ]
You... are not considering signing a contract, are you? You said that you were a friend of Korra's.
[ Was that a lie or does Korra just have some really shift friends these days? ]
[ Cecil has a sudden but slow sinking sense of dread filling him up, like drowning, like blood pooling in his throat. This is like Aoi. Like Aoi, and Masaomi. Like Dean. This is like Aoi all over again. ]
Then you are a friend of Korra's. [ He assumes by omission, will assume until he's told otherwise. ] But... is Korra a friend of yours?
What do you mean? Of course she is, but this has nothing to do with her. [he was lying to himself. But he was good at that-- but mostly he was trying to keep cool. Keep calm, and not get defensive. Though his posture gives him away, even if it's only a subtle change.
That's what I believed, also. When I had just been brought to Haven, when I was alone here and did not know anyone else, I believed that signing a contract was something I would do for myself, and for everyone. That it would have nothing to do with my loved ones who were still at home in Night Vale. That it would have nothing to do with the friends I had not yet made.
I believed that when I signed my name to that page and agreed to do whatever I was told against the weight of my existence. I continued to believe that until a secret of theirs was stolen from me, and broadcasted across the monitored cell phone network. I believed it until they brought my Carlos here for three days... and then took him away again.
They will use your loved ones from home. They will ask you to betray your friends, and if you do, what will Korra say? And if you do not, what will the corporation do?
Someone I love told me once, "We are nothing to them but a means to an end, toys to be played with until we're broken. Whatever you think they can give to you, whatever you think they can do for you, they will not." He told me that, but the advice came too late for me to take. I didn't listen to him, anyway.
Be very careful, Mako. Be very careful of what you decide, and be very sure that you'll be able to live with the results of your decision. It isn't your life that you are giving them when you sign your name to that page.
[he immediately thinks of Bolin, but if there's anything that says his argument is swaying Mako, it's hard to tell. His face is carefully neutral, if a bit disapproving. He knows this is a risky, if not even outright stupid, idea. But it's something that nags at him anyway, that if there's a way to get into somewhere you don't belong... it's to become an infiltrator.
But despite his high thoughts of his own capabilities, he's still a teenager. And he's definitely not much of a killer.]
I appreciate the word of caution, but I haven't made any sort of decision yet.
[a long pause, he almost considers ending their conversation there, but then it's worth stating]
Can we keep this conversation between us? I don't want Korra getting... Well, worried. Over something I haven't decided to do.
[ Whatever he decides is up to him. He is a person with free will, for better or worse. Cecil cannot make decisions for anyone but himself. He can only offer them the truth, and his opinions, and let them decide their own way. ]
Alright. [ He agrees. He won't tell Korra. Not yet. She is a friend of his, also, and he wouldn't want to worry her needlessly, either. He will only worry her once there comes to be a need. ]
But I'd like to ask you... If you do decide to sign that contract anyway... If you meet with Matilda King, or someone else of theirs... I'd like you to talk to me after, if you are willing to, and able. I'd like to know what she is doing, what she says. I'd like to know the fine print of that contract I signed, if you are able to read it. If there is anything about why contracted employees exist, what our purpose within the company is.
It would be useful to know, if you're going to be making that sort of bad decision, anyway.
If you couldn't read it... Why did you sign it? What drove you to make a bad decision? [he tilted his head-- he had his own reasons for considering signing a contract. While he didn't mind getting his hands dirty, he knew already that this was going to put him at odds with people he hadn't even met.
And maybe Cecil was right. There was getting your hands dirty, and then there was covering them in blood, and that was enough to give him pause.]
[ It's a question he's been asked before. It's a question he's answering differently this time, all those months since the last time someone asked, now with the threat of something spiral-shaped and coming on the horizon. ]
I thought that I could help. Help myself, help all of us. That is what I actually believed.
I have helped people, by working for them. But... I am not sure what little I have done to help has been worth the gravity of the ways I have hurt those friends and strangers closest to me.
And now you're trapped by a contract you can't understand.
[mako had a feeling offering to sign a contract and backing out would end badly. And yet-- here was someone who had joined for the exact same reason he was considering.
Even if he was made to do some horrible things, and Mako had only come in with the vague notion that he was weird and possibly psychotic... It was an answer he was both hoping to receive, and wasn't quite expecting, at the same time.]
[ Working on learning Chinese to understand the contract (among other things), he means. Also working on not being trapped by the contract, by the barriers of the corporation. ]
Either way. Think about it! We have some time, before whatever terrible thing that is coming finally arrives. Limited time, but... Limited time is still plenty of time to think here in Haven, when we're are all individually and collectively struggling to survive.
[ Oh Mako. If only you were around to offer eight months ago, when Cecil needed it. ]
I have a boyfriend who is a super villain, and a scientist. He's very smart, and he knows a lot of languages. I am teaching him Modified Sumerian, though, because somehow that was not one of them. Thank you, anyway.
If you want to do something to help me... You could help me to keep an eye on Korra. I have trouble keeping track of her these days, the way she keeps running around. I am not much help to her, anymore. And she could use all the help she can get, I think.
[well, while he fully intended on keeping track of Korra, it was a rather strange request. And it was hard not to read more into it, but he nodded for the moment, a somewhat puzzled look coming over his face.]
Alright...
... And a super villain? [that... earned an eyebrow raise. Cecil, why are you dating a super villain.]
[ Why are you focusing on the super villain part when that is not even remotely important compared to the scientist part? Really, Mako. Get your priorities straight. ]
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
browbeater) wrote2014-07-21 06:39 pm
[ audio ] ooc date 8/3/14 ...whoops wrong place
[ It's not often that Cecil keeps correspondences brief like this, but the phones have not been working properly, and saying more than a few words hasn't been going so great.
This is your lucky day, basically. ]
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Over by the convenience store. Just... not close enough that the monster will attack me.
[... just in case.]
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Time is running out, either way. And trying to find Haven South failed, and what they found instead only raised more questions. But there is only so much any one person or large group of people can do. ...Keeping distracted, helps, in the meantime. ]
That's fine. I'll meet you there soon.
[ He disconnects again, staring at his phone and the pictures in it briefly before pocketing it again and heading over to the store. They can talk more there, and if Mako isn't there when Cecil arrives, he'll wait. There is always a lot to do, always a lot of reasons to be afraid... But fear and willingness can only take a person so far. Time moves the way it wants to, faster and slower, no matter what the people experiencing it do. ]
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And... Mako figured he probably would be better off seeming interested, than revealing any subterfuge he was planning. While Korra seemed to think Cecil was okay, Mako didn't know him and his initial impression was 'strange.' And he knew nothing about how this worked.
Still, he didn't delay in getting there-- he's probably only a few minutes behind Cecil]
Thanks for getting back to me. I heard that you're one of the employees for Yao Corp?
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I have signed away my free will, the safety of my loved ones and the trust of my friends for menial gains, but I am still and always have been one of the guàiwù like you are, like all of us kept here caged within the barrier that surrounds Haven West on all sides.
The people outside of the barrier consider us monsters. Doctor Kite considers us specimens. Matilda King considers us a source of entertainment. Even having signed a contract voluntarily to become an employee, we contracted employees are still beneath the crushing weight of a terrible and powerful all-encompassing them.
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Contracted. Right, my mistake. No one has bothered to draw that sort of distinction before. [and the rest of it was interesting too-- if he were trying to act normally, he would have pursued asking who the people outside were, but he could ask Korra later. First, he needed to at least seem interested.
Genuinely interested.]
But you still get something out of it, in the end.
CW: welcome to haven (graphic gore oops)
He is not used to being asked for contracts by friends of Korra's. So, he doesn't think anything of these kind of questions other than idle information gathering by a curious person. He would be saying different things, if this were someone like Warren, or Break. He would be highlighting the appealing side of things, and not the painfully obvious flaws. ]
I do, yes! When contracted employees are killed, we're revived in one day instead of five. That is convenient, because employees are killed a lot.
The corporation knows what you want. They know everything about you. They know who you loved and who you hated in your life before Haven, in your home universe and time. They know what your heart desires most. They know what you would like to have for a reward.
After my first mission was completed, after I cracked open the skull of a young girl and took the chip she kept hidden in the delicate folds of her brain (and after doing something afterwards that I am not allowed to talk about), I was rewarded with the ability to speak through the radio. Which you heard yesterday. They knew it was important to me, knew without asking that it was something I wanted.
They gave me a lab coat also, one time, for manipulating and dragging the prone but living bodies of innocents to the good and terrible doctor to perform unspeakable scientific acts on. But that reward was more of a joke kind of thing.
They reward the contracted employees who do what they are told. The greater the cooperation, the greater the reward.
annnnd mako is like. oh dude.
He'd been a kid on the streets, so he's used to doing whatever it took to survive. But being revived in one day instead of five wasn't his idea of a reward-- and he didn't want any sort of gain from killing people.
He knew better than to assume they'd give him the keys to the kingdom, so to speak, but he wasn't quite expecting what Cecil had said.]
Sounds... [horrible?] ... Anyway, they give you things for doing that. But what's in the contract?
yeah they... don't tell you that when you sign up ahaha
Don't do it, Mako. ]
I have no idea. It is written in Chinese, which I could not speak or read at the time. I'm working on it.
But even so, I signed it, anyway. I did not ask, because questions are not allowed. The employee I met with to sign my contract was Su Geming at the time, and while every employee is eager to tell you, "You are beneath me, you should not ask, and you do not need to know," Su Geming was especially tight-lipped, while he was still around.
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But also, why would you sign a contract you can't read, Cecil. Seriously.]
... But don't ask questions.
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The corporation uses English and Chinese almost exclusively, so that is probably what you're able to read. Other languages are forbidden, though I have met more than one employee of theirs from the other side of the barrier who has managed a phrase in their native tongue here or there.
[ That last bit makes him pause and look at Mako though, a little more critically than before. ]
You... are not considering signing a contract, are you? You said that you were a friend of Korra's.
[ Was that a lie or does Korra just have some really shift friends these days? ]
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who is willing to contract gangsters when everything goes wrong. And then is willing to bodily threaten them the next day.
He could pull of shifty-- but more than anything, he has a need to get to the bottom of things, and he couldn't rule out the contract.]
... I'm interested. I haven't decided yet.
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Then you are a friend of Korra's. [ He assumes by omission, will assume until he's told otherwise. ] But... is Korra a friend of yours?
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Korra was the only friend he really had there.]
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I believed that when I signed my name to that page and agreed to do whatever I was told against the weight of my existence. I continued to believe that until a secret of theirs was stolen from me, and broadcasted across the monitored cell phone network. I believed it until they brought my Carlos here for three days... and then took him away again.
They will use your loved ones from home. They will ask you to betray your friends, and if you do, what will Korra say? And if you do not, what will the corporation do?
Someone I love told me once, "We are nothing to them but a means to an end, toys to be played with until we're broken. Whatever you think they can give to you, whatever you think they can do for you, they will not." He told me that, but the advice came too late for me to take. I didn't listen to him, anyway.
Be very careful, Mako. Be very careful of what you decide, and be very sure that you'll be able to live with the results of your decision. It isn't your life that you are giving them when you sign your name to that page.
no subject
But despite his high thoughts of his own capabilities, he's still a teenager. And he's definitely not much of a killer.]
I appreciate the word of caution, but I haven't made any sort of decision yet.
[a long pause, he almost considers ending their conversation there, but then it's worth stating]
Can we keep this conversation between us? I don't want Korra getting... Well, worried. Over something I haven't decided to do.
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Alright. [ He agrees. He won't tell Korra. Not yet. She is a friend of his, also, and he wouldn't want to worry her needlessly, either. He will only worry her once there comes to be a need. ]
But I'd like to ask you... If you do decide to sign that contract anyway... If you meet with Matilda King, or someone else of theirs... I'd like you to talk to me after, if you are willing to, and able. I'd like to know what she is doing, what she says. I'd like to know the fine print of that contract I signed, if you are able to read it. If there is anything about why contracted employees exist, what our purpose within the company is.
It would be useful to know, if you're going to be making that sort of bad decision, anyway.
no subject
And maybe Cecil was right. There was getting your hands dirty, and then there was covering them in blood, and that was enough to give him pause.]
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I thought that I could help. Help myself, help all of us. That is what I actually believed.
I have helped people, by working for them. But... I am not sure what little I have done to help has been worth the gravity of the ways I have hurt those friends and strangers closest to me.
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And now you're trapped by a contract you can't understand.
[mako had a feeling offering to sign a contract and backing out would end badly. And yet-- here was someone who had joined for the exact same reason he was considering.
Even if he was made to do some horrible things, and Mako had only come in with the vague notion that he was weird and possibly psychotic... It was an answer he was both hoping to receive, and wasn't quite expecting, at the same time.]
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[ Working on learning Chinese to understand the contract (among other things), he means. Also working on not being trapped by the contract, by the barriers of the corporation. ]
Either way. Think about it! We have some time, before whatever terrible thing that is coming finally arrives. Limited time, but... Limited time is still plenty of time to think here in Haven, when we're are all individually and collectively struggling to survive.
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How are you learning? If it's the same stuff as in the library, I can help.
[he wanted to ask about the explosions-- but at the same time, he figured... Cecil would be there tomorrow, if he needed, right?]
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I have a boyfriend who is a super villain, and a scientist. He's very smart, and he knows a lot of languages. I am teaching him Modified Sumerian, though, because somehow that was not one of them. Thank you, anyway.
If you want to do something to help me... You could help me to keep an eye on Korra. I have trouble keeping track of her these days, the way she keeps running around. I am not much help to her, anymore. And she could use all the help she can get, I think.
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Alright...
... And a super villain? [that... earned an eyebrow raise. Cecil, why are you dating a super villain.]
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[ Why are you focusing on the super villain part when that is not even remotely important compared to the scientist part? Really, Mako. Get your priorities straight. ]
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