cool motive, still murder

[niffin]

Who: Alice Quinn (niffin), Alan Bradley (alan_1), and you
When: 17th - 22nd-ish.
Where: The Hold, where you hold stuff. 
What: Post-trial. Alice is hanging out in the hold, because apparently convincing minors to arm disastrous deadly traps is frowned upon outside of Jumanji. 
Warnings: Probable discussion of character death and violence

[ If you'd like a specific starter, just let me know OOC. ]

Comments

a.

[a_shadow]

Tex left the education department to Alice last month, spending most of her time helping to slaughter whales until the scraplets became an issue. So it's only been in the last few days they've been working together to discuss what to do about truancy and planning lessons. This is easy enough, since they're roommates.

And then this happens. Rinzler isn't Tex's favorite person but she knows he's a computer component himself, something akin to an AI, and being an AI herself, Tex views any assault on him as a sign of danger. She isn't really forthcoming with the fact that she's an AI, but there are people who know, and it seems to her that just because the program has gone rampant or whatever is wrong with him, it doesn't mean people should be taking these matters into their own hands.

So after the trials are through, Tex comes down to see her, coming to her cell and standing outside it, arms crossed. When she sees Alice's reaction to her arrival she raises an eyebrow. "What kind of updates are you expecting?"

[niffin]

It's not that they've rubbed along entirely happily.

Alice has been adamantly against any truancy measures — thinks it’s unfair to ask, counter-productive. Like Tex’s other plans (the currency system, the whale slaughter, whatever is going on with that Church guy) it just feels short-sighted. On those points she's kept quiet. She’s been diplomatic. These aren’t her decisions to make, and Tex is, after all, still mildly terrifying.

But she has a feeling that they’re about to suffer a communication breakdown.

“News. Out of medbay.”

Or the Morgue. She can’t bring herself to voice that last bit aloud. It wouldn’t be right; the other guy’s a mystery, and she hardly knows J. Knew.

“You don’t have any.” Her voice is quiet, dull. She’d turn and leave, but that would take more effort than she cares to expend. And it's not like there's far to go. “Why are you here, Tex?"

[a_shadow]

"No, I don't have any. I figured someone would deliver that to you when there was something you should know."

It's obvious, then, that she's here for other reasons. Which Alice picked up on right away, of course. They might be in each other's spaces a lot but that hasn't meant they're always on the same page. Tex tilts her head, just slightly.

"Honestly? I was wanting to see what the trial didn't show me. Motive, objective. Why this particular victim. You obviously knew you were guilty." Otherwise there wouldn't have been a reason to volunteer for the trial—these trials weren't to find guilt, they were merely to deliver a sentence. Guilt was presumed.

[niffin]

Alice throws her a dead stare at victim.

Of course, it's correct. But there's correct, and there's right, and as painfully aware as she is of her failures here, she still can't find it in herself to feel any sympathy for Rinzler's plight.

She knows that's wrong, but it doesn't change a thing — and she can't lie to Tex about that. Doesn't have the reserves to. Not right now, with her nerves stripped down like copper wire. Her words stay hoarse and low.

"The very first conversation I had on the MIDs? Was about Rinzler attacking him." It takes a moment for her to find Tex’s eyes, but when she does, she doesn’t blink. "It escalated. It kept escalating. And it was a matter of time before it was going to end with a dead kid."

At that, Alice finally looks away. J wasn't much older.

"I couldn't — can't let that happen."

There's an uncharacteristic slip there, a hesitation that belies details undelivered. She's not about to betray Peter's secrets, inevitable as it is that they'll come out.

"You weren't this invested in the other trials." It's not probing, just a statement of fact. Tex's interests so far have seemed nothing if not inwardly-focused. Alice can't begin to guess her stake here, but doubts it comes down to a few shared assignments.

[a_shadow]

Tex doesn't flinch from Alice's gaze. She's obviously invested in what happened, and feels passionately about it. Tex doesn't think she went about things the right way, but there's at least something to admire in that.

"There were factors to this that made me sit up and pay attention," Tex says when Alice finishes speaking. "It bothered me the way he was being targeted. And yeah, I've dealt with Rinzler in the past. I know he's no Boy Scout."

She hadn't been attacked, herself, but she and Rinzler had both had their hackles up and it ended as amicably as it could have, considering who was involved.

"But he's not an animal," she continues. "He isn't human, and I think that bothers some people. It makes me wonder how much of that factors into the history of what's happened."

[niffin]

That's an oddity, something to make note of. Tex cares about space racism — or at least she does this time. It's a puzzle that she'll pick at later, when her brain stops spinning in circles, chewing on the spiny tail of its own anxious thoughts.

"Targeted for multiple homicide. But you're right." It's tired. Alice leans heavily against the glass, tries to organize the ideas that pool and teem just out of her reach. "He's a person. And it bothers people."

She falls silent, chews at her lip before continuing. It's a good point, it's absolutely one to question, and that's itself another uneasy reminder that she's been underestimating Tex. Alice doesn't want to have to engage with this right now, doesn't want to drag herself back in to think or to feel. The numb, white heat in her chest wants to snarl, has already filed this encounter away as useless.

"Maybe it made it easier for them. Or for Peter." She's glancing down now, watching her hand absently, as the fingers flex and curl. "I don't know."

If she was quiet before, this is nearly a whisper.

"But I would have done it either way."

She doesn't know if it's true. Substrata was different. Seeing people through that lens — seeing humans — that had been different. But she thinks about Peter's voice, asking for a weapon, worrying over Wanda. She thinks of his expression, of his fractured ribs, and she's not sure that here and now it would have been any different at all. She thinks of watching Chara, of what she's been prepared to do.

Maybe it's lucky that it was Rinzler. Maybe it's lucky that she doesn't have to know.

[a_shadow]

They would have targeted him even if he had been human himself—well. Isn't that nice to know. The thing is that here, murder and death don't seem to mean much. Tex is aware there have been permanent deaths, but no one knows what causes one to be permanent and another not, so that uncertainty is definitely a factor in all this. She tilts her head to one side slightly when Alice finishes talking and eyes her. It's contradictory, but if she'd been contracted to take Rinzler out she would have done it. That seems a lot smarter and less dirty than laying a trap out in the halls.

There's just that whole thing where death isn't permanent...

Anyway. She crosses a hand over to rub her opposite arm.

"All right. Fair enough." She almost huffs. "Anyway, the reality is this doesn't end up changing much. They're still going to be at odds." They'd be released at the ends of their sentences and they would still have the option of going after one another again. She wasn't sure what to think about that.

[niffin]

"Yeah." It didn't change a thing, not really. Just escalated tensions, warned Rinzler about a useful tactic, and got too many people hurt. She feels it, knows it keenly: The price of failure. "They will be. And I don't know how that changes."

She clenches a fist. Success brought the chance of permanent settlement, would have at least put Rinzler on his ass long enough to regroup — or so she'd hoped.

"This system doesn't manage it. And it won't deter it further. So you either change the people, or you change the system."

A glance to Tex.

"I know which I'd prefer."

She has a feeling it's what Tex would, as well.

[a_shadow]

"The system," Tex says firmly. This whole idea of reprogramming Rinzler leaves her cold. "The system, as it stands? Is a mess."

How to fix that is beyond Tex's ken.

She finishes folding her arms, looks to one side. "That's all I had to say," she says. "I guess I'll see you when you get out."