un: Dankovsky | video

[thantagonist]

[Daniil posts live from a café near the museum. He has no patience for typing responses, and his own visage should explain why. His nose has recently been broken and reset. He looks exhausted and irritated, but he has a duty.]

I need a couple people to come down to the café near that absurd museum with the sewn up fruit exhibits. Bring a stretcher, we have a patient who could use some more urgent treatment.

[From somewhere offscreen, a voice that is distinctly not Daniil’s states:] This Etrayan shot me in an attempt to get information I did not possess. I would appreciate his removal from my presence.

Now- That’s not true at all. That is not the reason you were stopped. [Daniil now regrets making a video, but what’s done is done. ]

Comments

[badlydisarmed]

Depends on who you ask.

[ Cid would probably call him a friend. Robert would call Joss Sweden a friend, but only to annoy him.

Jayce is something like a friend? All in all, he's probably better liked in Etraya than he ever has been before, which is weird. ]

[thantagonist]

[That’s right. It’s almost like some mysterious person somewhere had sanded off his most poorly aged tv moments.]

Well, I’m asking you. I have my fair share of friends, though they’re all new, of course. It’s always difficult in the beginning, while getting to know others, I think. I’m not always the easiest person to get along with.

[badlydisarmed]

[ Sometimes there's a fun guy somewhere beyond the dismissed (but truthful) sexual harassment complaint! ]

[ Robert has to try very hard not to laugh at Daniil's last sentence. Like he didn't just shoot some guy for stonewalling him. ]

I don't know, Dankovsky, I think I'd need you to define "friend" first. Are we friends?

[thantagonist]

Are we not friends? We talk outside of work. We help each other out. We live and work near one another and work towards similar goals. Do you set the bar for friends very high, then?

[He’s already moved past shooting someone. That guy was barely someone. Its fine. ]

[badlydisarmed]

I don't think I have a bar for friendship at all. I'm having a little crisis about it, actually.

[ He doesn't sound like he's having a crisis, but he's thinking about it. Has he ever had friends? Maybe Lizzie. She'd tried to be, in any case. If he had to bet, he'd put money on her having been the only one to mourn him. ]

[thantagonist]

What are you talking about, Romano? No bar for friendship, so it’s just me you’re questioning? Have I really been so objectionable?

[He didn’t understand what Romano was on about at all. ]

[badlydisarmed]

No, I'm saying I don't think I had considered "friends" as a possible category for people I meet. I had patients, colleagues, students and hook-ups. I didn't have friends.

I had acquaintances, but half of the time I didn't even learn their names.

[ Someone could be two of those sometimes, but not often. Dankovsky is a colleague and a patient, though he would object to the latter. ]

[thantagonist]

Did you at least have friends in university?

[Daniil cannot believe Romano is worse off than he is.]

[badlydisarmed]

... maybe? I had... roommates and teammates and people I partied with.

[ Surely some of those were friends. ]

[thantagonist]

Would any of them remember you and greet you as a friend if you saw them now? Maybe that’s unfair, you’re quite a bit older than me. Say, ten years later, would you still have a drink with them?

[badlydisarmed]

Only if they wanted something.

[ It's an unkind assessment but it's true. Meanwhile Robert would never reach out because he doesn't like people. ]

[thantagonist]

Huh. I’m a regular social butterfly compared to you.

[Gears turning-]

Am I your only friend? Or do you know people and just refuse to call them friends?

[badlydisarmed]

The latter. Don't be so smug.

[ He has friends! Joss Sweden is a friend. ]

[thantagonist]

[Joss Sweden is not a friend.]

Ah, but friends are good things to have, Robert. You never know when you need one.

[He couldn’t not be smug. That’s a load bearing part of his personality.]

[badlydisarmed]

I don't need friends, I need altruistic introverts who are good at things.

[ And he knows several of those. Plus, Joss Sweden, his new bestie. ]

[thantagonist]

Fine. I’ll take being needed either way. Call it how you want but I know the truth.

[badlydisarmed]

As long as you never shoot me, we can be BFFs.

[thantagonist]

I mainly only shoot people who deserve it. And that is a very hard thing to be in my book.

Though he’s not quite people, is he? Just looks like one and talks like one. But his callous disregard for the people here has led to absolutely incomprehensible amounts of death. Not just those we see, but their entire worlds possibly damned, too. I admit, my blood boiled when we spoke.

[badlydisarmed]

It's his fault? I thought he was just incompetent upper management. Maybe you should've shot him more times.

[thantagonist]

I did not say he was solely to blame. But sufficient incompetence may as well be malice. Neglect is a crime in my country, I’m not sure if it is one in yours. He was to set up the Polluxians for success. Instead, he built a madman’s nightmare for an apartment block and housed himself in a museum to human creation. The very same humans he would claim no ownership over and discard into rotting mountains of flesh.

Perhaps it was all a mistake. But mistakes are single moments. Miscalculations. Ignorance. When presented with the error of his ways, he sought not to rectify his egregious crimes of neglect against his people.

And still, while he walks around in corpus humanum, I detest the violence. I could never shoot to kill him, and certainly not more than once. And still, the pain he experienced, if he experienced any at all, was a fraction of the suffering that has occurred in this wretched city.

[badlydisarmed]

The AI in Solmara was useless too, but I never thought to blame it for it. You put someone incapable of handling the pressure in charge and they blow up, it's on you for picking wrong.

I blame Echo, the AIs are unprepared children. But I spent years at a teaching hospital, you learn to weed out the ones that don't have it in them to save lives.

[thantagonist]

I sympathize with Echo. You can give everyone their tasks with detailed instructions and they’ll still find a way to screw it up out of the gate. It’s not about picking, it’s about those on the ground stepping up. I think people are capable of self-improvement. They cannot be coddled forever. If you cannot do a job, you must set your mind to it until you can.

And he’s holding it all together, how can we begrudge him in his situation? It’s impossible.

[badlydisarmed]

I disagree. There's no stepping up, when you find yourself in an impossible situation, you sink to the level of your training.

[ His training is what's kept him somewhat sane the whole time he's been here. ]

Echo's putting inexperienced, untrained AIs in charge of these cities, of course they're failing. Etraya is lucky.

[thantagonist]

Hard to argue with that. It’s the whole purpose of training, after all. Still, [He rubs his forehead] there must be some accountability somewhere. It’s not like Echo was given an instruction manual either.

Maybe it’s all just unfortunate.

[badlydisarmed]

It does seem to be, yeah.

I'm not death yet though, so I'm happy to work with whatever's thrown at us.