Suuolo ...
What sort of world do I occupy, that I should be so grateful to be flying with you once again?
Twice you've betrayed me: first for Nemesor, then for Ethan Verone and the Guristas.
The first wasn't so bad-- an impossible situation, really, a classic love triangle. We both loved him, I know. And I'm not surprised ... that you didn't tell me about you and him. The blame there falls on him, who chose between us only in the end and without ever telling me I was competing with you or with anyone.
But the second, leaving me alone to face the Cartel, knowing what I faced, what I hoped to accomplish, knowing that you and I had been a conspiracy from the beginning, and that between the two of us, you were the loyal one?
You must have known that an investigation would follow your departure, that the Dominations would want to know what had led to your defection, and how much of a security crisis they had on their hands. You must have guessed what they would find. Or were you too blind with love, yet again, to see the inevitable consequences of your actions?
They found me out, of course. If they suspected before, now they know for certain. They've never said anything of it, never showed their hand so blantantly; they haven't needed to, because my own investigation revealed what they had learned-- that, and the Dark Angels watching over my clones.
Twice it's been now ... so what is it that I am setting myself up for, now that I have no choice but to serve the Cartel body and soul? If the pattern of escalation continues, the next act should involve turning me over to IzzyChan, all anaesthetized and prepped for surgery.
But it's not as though you've ever acted out of malice. Your every treachery has been from a single motive, and I suppose I should never be surprised when love proves stronger than friendship. And you could have done far worse to me, had you chosen to do so.
What is there that we will not do for love.... Is there a choice you've made that I would not have made in your place?
If I have any real reason to hate you, it's for being so much more fortunate than I. The fool's dream I came here to chase, visions of Jovian artifacts dancing in my head, is gone. The laboratories are closed to me and mine. I've not been able to confirm the existence of even a single artifact. Not one! Despite the hundreds, the thousands, that must exist.
The Exodus Project is all but dead, along with the hopes I had for it. The Sleepers' arrival has changed so much: changed, perhaps forever, the relative place of the capsuleer in this society, perhaps even eliminating the problem I hoped the Project would resolve. It's brought fullerene technologies, a flood of artifacts-- and the Sleepers field self-sustaining, unmanned ships, suuolo!
The necessities of Exodus, all wrapped in a single boggling windfall of opportunity, death, and chaos.
Everything I hoped for, every gift I was hunting for in the Cartel, is right there on the other side of a wormhole, and I am trapped in a web that it turns out I never needed to enter. I had no way of knowing, of course, no way of predicting.
So, I suppose, do the gods keep themselves amused.
You lie, safe and warm, in the arms of a man who adores you. I lie my head off to PRETA about the endless meetings I have to attend-- meetings held not with the Dominations, but with my pathetic little circle of agents, learning in ever more intimate detail how thoroughly the Cartel has hemmed us in.
You enjoy gifts only a multibillionaire pirate prince can grant. The Cartel's iron collar snaps into place around my neck.
You are made a queen; I, a slave.
But ... I have missed talking, and flying, with you.
You've always been a friend. A good friend.
... for which reason, I write these thoughts in a journal no one will read while I still live, excepting perhaps my Dominations masters; I no longer care what they know. Some messages are better left unsent.
It's so very good to be back in your company, suuolo.
Yours,
Aria
Sunday, May 10, 2009
Saturday, May 9, 2009
Shadow Puppets
It's been some time since been able to muster the will to write here.
My cousin has left the world of the living to become a shadow puppet, like the rest of us, an image of his past life reflected in an artificial body that dances on Jovian strings. I tried to make it as painful as I was able-- slashed his innards to ribbons, made a mess of his intestinal tract. I hoped he would take the hint.
Why did I ever think that was wise? He didn't listen. I knew from the outset that he wasn't going to listen, wasn't going to go home-- wasn't going to rejoin the human world if I would not. All the pain I inflicted on him came to pointless cruelty.
It's enough. I'm done trying to match my soul to a body that will never be properly mine, full of hand-me-down parts and artifice. The crescents are back in storage. I don't know that I'll bring them out again, however long my existence is, now. They've done all the damage they're entitled to.
My body, as well, so well-tuned, so able, after all the work I put into training it. I find myself looking forward to starving the ghastly thing.
Surpass all this-- let go of who I was-- that is what I must do: embrace the creature the Jove presented us their gifts in order to see. I'm tired of seeking unity with what I used to be, of echoing myself again and again, of touching what I used to be-- of destroying what I used to love. So tired.
What I was before, I cannot be again. This I must recognize, once and for all.
The answer dances past my fingertips as I browse the markets, buried in the dance of commerce: core structure, subsystems, millions upon millions of ISK in expenditures on bits and pieces, waiting for my means and my will to coincide.
None of the ships to which I'm accustomed to are, in the end, worthy of the technology the Jove gave to us. From ramshackle Matari vessels struggling by on ladar and archaic autocannon to even the most intricate Caldari systems-- there's not one of them that so much as approaches the full potential of the Jovian Wetgrave. In our childish hands these pods have never known anything like the technologies they were designed to interface with-- not until the Sleepers and their fullerenes.
The Tengu dances just out of reach, inferfacing on a level I never knew was even possible until I acquired the training softs, unity of such an absolute degree that forcible severance from the craft causes debilitating shock...!
What I wouldn't give to unite with such a vessel, to take one more step towards becoming what we were made to become, one more step towards escaping from this crysalis.
I know I must be patient. This is far from the final step, and there will be so much to be done and survived. Jude, at least, is here, a feature of my present, of this transitional state, not of the past, not of poor, dead Aria, but of this existence between worlds. That will help.
Strength and support, friendship and that strange, weighty loyalty he carries. And love, perhaps, in time. I can't assume anything; he has his own demons to face, but we can at the least aid one another.
That will help a great deal.
My cousin has left the world of the living to become a shadow puppet, like the rest of us, an image of his past life reflected in an artificial body that dances on Jovian strings. I tried to make it as painful as I was able-- slashed his innards to ribbons, made a mess of his intestinal tract. I hoped he would take the hint.
Why did I ever think that was wise? He didn't listen. I knew from the outset that he wasn't going to listen, wasn't going to go home-- wasn't going to rejoin the human world if I would not. All the pain I inflicted on him came to pointless cruelty.
It's enough. I'm done trying to match my soul to a body that will never be properly mine, full of hand-me-down parts and artifice. The crescents are back in storage. I don't know that I'll bring them out again, however long my existence is, now. They've done all the damage they're entitled to.
My body, as well, so well-tuned, so able, after all the work I put into training it. I find myself looking forward to starving the ghastly thing.
Surpass all this-- let go of who I was-- that is what I must do: embrace the creature the Jove presented us their gifts in order to see. I'm tired of seeking unity with what I used to be, of echoing myself again and again, of touching what I used to be-- of destroying what I used to love. So tired.
What I was before, I cannot be again. This I must recognize, once and for all.
The answer dances past my fingertips as I browse the markets, buried in the dance of commerce: core structure, subsystems, millions upon millions of ISK in expenditures on bits and pieces, waiting for my means and my will to coincide.
None of the ships to which I'm accustomed to are, in the end, worthy of the technology the Jove gave to us. From ramshackle Matari vessels struggling by on ladar and archaic autocannon to even the most intricate Caldari systems-- there's not one of them that so much as approaches the full potential of the Jovian Wetgrave. In our childish hands these pods have never known anything like the technologies they were designed to interface with-- not until the Sleepers and their fullerenes.
The Tengu dances just out of reach, inferfacing on a level I never knew was even possible until I acquired the training softs, unity of such an absolute degree that forcible severance from the craft causes debilitating shock...!
What I wouldn't give to unite with such a vessel, to take one more step towards becoming what we were made to become, one more step towards escaping from this crysalis.
I know I must be patient. This is far from the final step, and there will be so much to be done and survived. Jude, at least, is here, a feature of my present, of this transitional state, not of the past, not of poor, dead Aria, but of this existence between worlds. That will help.
Strength and support, friendship and that strange, weighty loyalty he carries. And love, perhaps, in time. I can't assume anything; he has his own demons to face, but we can at the least aid one another.
That will help a great deal.
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