kore_logs | this city is killing me

She sends him a short message through the device on her wrist: "the beach is warm enough"; warm enough for this meeting, warm enough to tolerate the tide coming in against the back of her legs as she stands ankle deep in sand, hands thrust into the pockets of the oversized sweatshirt she's wearing on top of the summer dress.

It might be strange, to stand facing away from the sea, but she'd missed the sounds of living thinking souls echoing forever and ever (amen) in the empty chambers of her own head; as much as she found comfort in the quiet constant existence of being something as old as a tree, something as slowly reactive and fundamentally unchanging, she is still what she is:

→ assassin, child, dancer, genius, mutant, telepath, unquantifiable

She is what she is and her own orbit is shifting greatly with loss and new planetary formations. Erik is gone and she can't quite assure herself that he will return or that he won't; patience is not her strong suit, it never has been, and thus waiting is not something she feels very well versed in. If Erik returns it will be good, and possibly terrible depending on where he'd gone or what had been done; if he doesn't then Charles will continue to spin round a gravity well until he rights himself or doesn't and either way she'll be there.

That is what family means, and that is what she's decided. Erik, Charles, Ned - they are family, and by extension the ones they care and love as well. Raven with her fear of blue despite being the best and brightest blue River had ever known, and now Daneel who seems a contradiction in hope that River is concerned she will upend and unbalance with her sudden acceptance of this new side of the coin. The moment she told Meyer she had and would kill for those she cared about she'd swallowed that seed and allowed it to take root; a new balance for a new cadence in song. She can do this. She can protect, and she can comfort, and her hands can hold and strangle, and that's okay.

Now she just has to convince Daneel of this. Somehow. Because she does want to be his friend.

The beach is appropriate enough, and even if Daneel can no longer smell the salt and seaweed in he air in the same way, he remembers it vividly. He can hardly be said to be a sentimental creature, but the beach is a place of good things.

It's simple enough to find River, this human who has summoned him and who surprises him in her knowledge of things, and when he comes near he's already trying to listen to her, to make sense of her.

"My name is Daneel Olivaw." He hasn't ever introduced himself, so perhaps he should do this now. "I'm not sure how I should address you."

"Hello, Daneel Olivaw." River smiles a bit at the formality, but perhaps it can be understood; she doesn't mind it, either way. "River, River Tam, hey you. Perhaps if you think very loudly in my direction, but uncertainty lies amongst the silicon and little bits of metal there." Erik would find this man fascinating, River realizes, and then there's a pang of loss that gets easily swept up in the noise of so many others in her mind, coping with their own losses and gains and realities in the wake of such upheaval. The mental sensation of buried emotions, for her, is not unlike the waves that keep crashing against her legs.

It could be worse, she knows. She could be consumed by the noise instead of just feeling like a reef. She could be something not herself entirely, an assemblage of grief and anger and displacement instead of fighting, kicking, struggling to keep her head above water and be what others need someone to be. She could not be someone at all.

And here she is. "A shame she couldn't hold on to knowing, could have met and told you the difference between one state and another." That's what anyone would want to know, isn't it? Anyone like Daneel or herself, anyway, would find themselves incredibly curious. Does the mind remain as they know it to be when everything else changes, or is the mind still just the reflection more so of choices and situation than of biology and applied structure?

For a moment, Daneel can only take it in, trying to interpret the sudden flood of information. She knows him for what he is -- either she recognises him as robotic or she has heard elsewhere -- knows of his recent change, and her mind. Unlike any mind he's encountered before, certainly human but different in a way that alarms him.

Damaged, perhaps, in a way that horrifies him, a way that would have made him angry when he was human. And there is something else, that reminds him a little of Charles, of the way Charles's mind had reverberated when Daneel listened.

"You are a telepath, as I am," he says, only half a question. He strongly suspects this to be the case, although a different sort than himself, too. "If you could have told me the difference in my mind when I was human, it would have answered a great many of my questions now."

"Not as ...finessed as Charles." Normally she'd say strong but she's having issues with that term plus what happened to Ned, so there it is. Her thoughts almost center on her friend, but it's more like listening for a particular sound in a thousand piece orchestra based on the specific tuning of the one instrument and the way it is played by one member of the procession. "You see that too, the missing parts. Even changing her didn't change that."

She makes a face towards the sand. "She, I, we - the use of terms of self to distance self from the things she herself does not want to remember or take or accept but here I am, asking you to be my friend for friendship's sake. For Ned's sake. For my own." Wrinkling her nose slightly. "For yours, though the pacifistic telepaths brimming with faith in their fellow man have her won out two to one, a concession of a sort."

Which isn't the same as saying she won't hurt anyone who hurts you Daneel, so don't get too confused by that. "But they took the sound of knowing so I wouldn't have been able to tell you the truth of the matter anyway. Maybe it will happen again and we'll be ready."

"Then someone has done this to you." This is horrific to Daneel, that anyone would do this an innocent, telepath or not. Brains, whether organic or positronic, are complex and delicate things. To cut, to alter, to harm like this is so very wrong, goes against everything Daneel accepts. Because she is a telepath, because she listens? In his own time and place, the knowledge of what he can do would only lead him to be dismantled, his brain under scrutiny to see what had gone wrong to allow. Is it the same here, perhaps? A young girl with unusual abilities, subject to a surprisingly cold scientific scrutiny? It galls him.

But a friend he will take gladly, and even if it isn't faith in humanity that he has so much as just a need to protect everyone, even if they wish him harm, he'll accept a compromise, a concession, if that's what he can take.

"I could not hear minds either, while this happened." He offers a hand, if she'll take it, palm up in an expression of acceptance. "I am glad of friends, what few I've had. I would be pleased to count you among them, particularly if you are a friend of Ned."

"Could tell you the whole story, short and sordid, but initial meetings aren't supposed to be filled with unpleasantries and confirmation that powers are absolutely corrupt when the decisions over others become currency, become doctrine, become a matter of course for everyone. Like here, only a different scale and a new name. The Academy, Cape Kore. It means the same: stay and be changed."

She shakes her head and looks distant briefly before coming back to the moment again, grasping his hand firmly and shaking it.

"Kin through choice; more than centuries separate the chance for shared genetics beyond a certain level, but we are both mutated, and thus there is a name. Trying to show him the useful purpose of others and support and non-isolation but it's hard when the things that make a hollow sound in the soul know their old targets. He thinks kindness is his mask, but it's more a striation."

Her words are like riddles, and he has to pick them apart in his rapid, methodical fashion as she says them. Riddles are difficult for him, but they're nothing more than mysteries, but he can force his way through those. Partner Elijah taught him that much.

"You mean Ned," he concludes after a moment. Their differences, their mutations, kin because of that. "I agree that Ned is very kind. He should not be alone, no more than anyone should. But I feel emotions, not true thoughts, and I did not realise he thought such a thing about himself."

"He is the topic of the day." Hello, Daneel, how did you miss that? "You're taking it in with pieces too small. She's easier to understand as a whole concept and picture, everything else is fractions, figments and fractures. See? Apply non-literal concepts to the words you hear; when she's being literal it's so much clearer than the rest."

River takes a step forward and leans in. "You're thinking too much. See? Literal."

But the literal is harder for her, takes a bit more force and causes things in her mind to run up against one another. It takes effort, and when she's as upset as she is (and Daneel can definitely sense that, like a sharp undercurrent that moves beneath the rock that is the responsibility she's placed on herself, to care for the people she wasn't able to protect) it requires more energy than she can afford to give it.

"Ah. The echo exists and Charles is the only other she'd ever met; not sure if her brother back home applies or not." Debatable, and not a debate she can really engage in without Simon being present, which River sincerely hopes never ever happens. "But it's a different echo, I can hear it now, and yes. Ned thinks ...he is an awful person, or cursed, and has built the walls and painted them in bright, shining colors.

He thinks that means what's beyond them can't possibly be bright or shine too."

The problem is that literal thought is the only type that Daneel is good at. Metaphors are strange things he can only understand intellectually, but he can't take to them naturally. To him, they're a type of riddle all on their own.

An echo, though: he knows what that is, and understands what she means, and it's a good way to describe the sensation he had when he met Charles, and what he feels now. His own abilities seem very small now, but he'd had nothing to compare them with before.

"I only hear what others are feeling at that moment. I do not have the depth you seem to sense." And he takes her at her word, has to. "I did not realise he felt that way about himself, but I agree that he is very... bright, if I understand your metaphor correctly. He believes his own kindness is false, but it is kindness in truth?"

"Falling or drowning, a well of light and gravity that pulls everything in. She can take it or she can't, it's all sort of..." She waves her arms a bit. Depth is a good, terrifying word for it, what she can do.

But Daneel gets it (finally) so River gives a nod. "He has reasons. Valid and true but self-reflection gets muddled and crossed with concepts of good and evil, bad things happen to bad people and good things are stolen away. He thinks this because death and desertion; he thinks this because it hasn't been fair. He thinks this because the people he cares about most are snatched off."

She peers at him. This is going to be problematic, she can tell; Daneel is a good person, and interested in upholding that self-same structure that means protecting people from the worst of themselves, but who protects Daneel? Not Ned, at least not right now, which leaves ...her. And Daneel doesn't want bad things to happen to anyone as a reaction of anything that happens to him.

Well. So be it. That can be the goal, but goals are meant to be meant, shattered, or discarded as necessary. "He is your friend and more, your well-being carries weight for his own. Is that compatible or should it be my concern?"

He's uncertain; this veers into things he has never been able to plainly decide. That he should be so important to anyone that his well-being should be weighed into consideration -- it's a terrible confusion of the First and Third Laws.

"The First Law states that a robot may not harm a human being, nor through inaction allow a human to come to harm." Even then, it's only words, only approximating a mathemetical construct in his brain. There is no arguing with math. Things are concrete and simple; this is not, and it involves some confusing potentials. "I have no wish to cease functioning, nor to cause Ned any distress by my absence, but serious harm to a human to protect me is problematic by my programming."

Daneel doesn't know how to sort it out. Not yet.

River frowns at this. "To give rules, to allow unbending; did they think they wouldn't evolve as well?" It angers her in a way, that someone somewhere would work to create consciousness and limit it in such a way that it cannot even fight for its own survival. It flies in the face of all sense of natural growth, which she can only imagine was at least half the point.

So this is her problem now and she can't even ask Daneel to keep track of risks to his own person. So be it; River can handle it. There is only a certain sort of person who would see needle reason to harm someone like Daneel outside of any philosophical disagreements besides.

"What is Ned to you? Where does he fit in that?"

Edited 2013-04-25 21:24 (UTC)

The implications of this question pass over Daneel's head, and he's only left beng very confused by it. He isn't supposed to have friends, though he has and he does. Ned is certainly a friend, and it's a rare enough thing for positronic potentials to shift around a person in the way they have with Ned.

"Ned is," he begins, slowly, "my friend. I wish him to be well, and to be safe, and to be happy. I wish him to realise how kind he has been to me."

His voice is soft. Friend itself is a heavy word for him. He can think of no stronger term to hang on an important person.

"There is very little I would not attempt for his sake."

"Good." He might not understand the implications but that doesn't mean his intentions aren't any less clear; Daneel says friend the way people speak of strong faiths and stronger loves and River doesn't care about semantics in this. Meaning is much more important.

"Old things, undying things, are patient. Broken things are patient. Ned needs patience. He was happy and now he's not; it won't be fixed in a day, a week. Happiness will have to be a slow infection. It will take time."

Is he old? Perhaps by some standards. Undying? Again, perhaps, if nothing unfortunate should occur. He's certainly nothing if not patient, and to make Ned happy would be... such a very small thing, but so valuable, so important.

"I will be patient with him," Daneel promises. "I cannot... I would not hurt him, not for anything, but I have never wanted to try to hard to make someone happy. This is a strange situation for me. I am... I am lost."

He is very lost. He is stepping into things he should not do, cannot do, but perhaps might try regardless. It might destroy him, it might not, but he's passing a point that being human for a time accelerated, brought him to far quicker than he was prepared for.

"Everyone is. It is the nature of being. If you aren't lost, then you're more lost than you know." Which is true, as far as River can people. People who believe they have their shit together? Don't, as a rule. It's only those who know their flaws well that seem to manage without stumbling as far.

But something in the way Daneel states it gives her pause. "But why are lost? You're a good person." Don't good people believe themselves capable of love above all else?

"I am a robot," Daneel says, as though this explains everything. To him, it does. There is a very clear line drawn around what a robot must do and what a robot is, and stepping outside that is strange and uncomfortable.

More explanation is necessary. He knows that. "I was human for a time, and we shared something." She must know this, he reasons, if she hears so much. "It was a valuable experience, but I'm not sure if I am capable of what Ned might need to be happy. If I am not, it may be wrong for me to try."

River rolls her eyes a bit. So he's a robot. So she's a telepath. So Ned can revive or kill people with a touch. So. What. Of it?

"You think, you feel, you concern yourself with others, you are alive by the definition of many. What does that mean? Does that mean you're not supposed to share 'somethings' with people?" Because if not, why is he even capable? "What do you think he might need? What you think might not be the truth."

"I am... not sure what he needs."

Someone who can understand what he feels rather than simply know. Someone who can return a sentiment in the same way rather than in his own, peculiar, robotic analogue. Someone who can support him and help him grow, rather than merely protect him and hold him back. He doesn't know if a robot can fill that role. He thinks of friend Jander, who once faced this. Friend Jander is no longer functioning.

But then, friend Jander never had the many years of experience Daneel has by now. That might make a difference.

"Would it harm him more for me to try and fail, or to fail to try at all?"

"The path a person is on climbs and clambers away; things that force new paths or returns to one long forgotten are sometimes purposeful but often not. The question, better: is the current path upward or down? Nothing is predictable, you know this. History is shaped by the reactions to other actions that are in turn reactions of their own."

So it's impossible to say if it would do more damage not to try or to try and fail, at least not in River's mind. That would mean knowing the definition of that failure or knowing what Ned himself would rather have. Impossible, considering River doubts Ned could answer that now. Or tomorrow. "Do you think he is harmed without? Do you think he would continue to be so?"

She sighs a little. "These are common questions and you're in a unique position to ask to evaluate to decide. To put the needs of another before yourself." As much as River thinks Daneel could learn to take care of himself as well. "But you decide."

River spins in a circle slowly. "But my opinion, flawed and imperfect and selfish, yes, not trying causes more harm. Doing nothing causes more harm."

Edited 2013-04-26 20:18 (UTC)

"Your opinion may be imperfect, but I value it nontheless."

And he does, very much. River hears so much more than he does, and she has the benefit of already being human, so she must understand these things deeper than he can. Even broken as she is, this must be so.

It's much to think about. It's too much to decide. Daneel gives a little sigh, an entirely communicative gesture. "I will... think on this, what you have told me."

River ...would argue that, and so would probably several other people, but none of them are here so Daneel doesn't have to worry about it. "Luck, then, if luck can be applied statistically to your situation."

She'll give him a hug, too, for good measure.

He'll accept the hug. He's not sure if luck is appropriate, if it's a quantifiable thing that should be hoped for, but he recognises the sentiment for what it is.

"Thank you. You have been helpful, Miss Tam."

"You'll learn. Children hate being called Miss. River, just River, hey you hey. That's enough."

She smiles and touches Daneel's arm in a gesture of soft understanding before turning and making her way back towards the houses and away from the ocean.

this city is killing me

for Daneel, @ the beach, early afternoon

Re: for Daneel, @ the beach, early afternoon

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