IC Inbox III

[ukan]

This is Lark, leave a message.

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[citizendetective]

[She huffs, crossing her arms and pouting a little.]

I injected fentanyl into a box of chocolates in front of her, told her all this information I'd found out about her dad online - like the address of his retirement home and the name of one of his nurses - and told her that if she didn't tell me what I wanted to know, I'd send it to him. With her name on the return address label.

But hey, if you want me to use those methods on suspects in Zero...

[ukan]

Have you tried any other methods? How do I know you'd be able to do anything softer than that?

[citizendetective]

I could softball it. I could, um, take the good cop approach. Or-- ooh! I could pretend to be a sympathetic fellow inmate who's infiltrating Zero to screw over the Admiral. None of the Zero wardens could do that.

[ukan]

Here's what I want from you.

When something happens, I interrogate both sides. Because I'm a warden and because I have a reputation, sometimes I get enough information and sometimes I don't. I want you to do follow-ups, see what you can learn that I don't.

[citizendetective]

What's your reputation?

[ukan]

That I'm an asshole. [He is. He doesn't particularly care.]

[citizendetective]

You don't seem like that big of an asshole...

[ukan]

I try not to be. But some things have to get done, and some people don't want them done or don't like how I do them, so... [A shrug.]

I think you and I could make a good team.

[citizendetective]

Do you want me to use the softball method?

... I'm not saying I can't! I'm just checking.

[ukan]

As opposed to you threatening to kill their friends? Misty.

[citizendetective]

I just wanted to make sure.

... You asked what I thought about death here.

[ukan]

I did. And you haven't told me yet.

[citizendetective]

Well, I think it's really silly to act like it's the same as, you know, real death, but...

[Automatically, one hand starts to drift over to her stomach. She forces it back down to her side, then turns to keep walking through the trees.]

That doesn't mean it's not horrifying. You talk about it like it's nothing, but you're wrong.

[ukan]

No, I hate how people treat death like it doesn't matter here. It matters in completely different ways than at home, sure; but nothing fucked me up worse than having to relearn why I shouldn't kill people at home once I graduated.

[citizendetective]

Well, that's silly, too.

[She says bluntly, shrugging.]

No offense! But home is so different from here. I'm assuming yours is, too.

[ukan]

[Dry] People die permanently from fentanyl overdoses in my world, too.

[citizendetective]

Right! Right. So if things are so different at home, you shouldn't have had to learn that killing people there wouldn't be exactly the same as killing people here.

[ukan]

I wasn't a person who needed to stop thinking of death as important, permanent or not. But I did after a few years here; it was downhill from there.

[citizendetective]

But you graduated anyway, right?

For the record, I don't think death isn't important.

[ukan]

Is that because death is a handy tool? [Honest question. He just admitted he's killed people, so there's no hint of judgment either.]

[citizendetective]

It can be! It can be a solution, or...

[Another shrug.]

But it's still a big step. That woman who I kidnapped? I killed her, and I didn't do it because it was nothing or because it was fun. I did it because she might have hurt Nat, Shauna, and Tai, and anything was worth stopping that from happening.

[And, of course, she could have - probably would have - blown the whistle on what Misty had done to her, too. That had also been a part of her motive. But it's not the part of her motive that makes her heart swell with pride and satisfaction.]

[ukan]

I need you to be more creative here. We don't torture, we don't kill, we don't leverage with threats. We want the facts and we need them to be untainted by pressure.

[citizendetective]

I can do that. I can do that! I mean, the stakes are lower.

[ukan]

They're not.

We're on a ship full of people with magical, mystical powers and no moral compasses. Our stakes involve not making them worse than they already are.

[citizendetective]

No, I meant--

[Hmmmmm. Maybe she shouldn't say what she meant; that might not help her case.]

-- Okay. Sure.