2018-01-23 - The First Rule of the Game

"And in the news, four more major crime bosses have been arrested. The trend of police effectiveness is an an all-time high, with a task force for anti-slavery taking in almost fifty children thought missing or dead. In other news, a tsunami warning has been issued.."

The library computer is making that noise in the background, while Tessa peruses through what appears to be an ancient microfilm file reader. She clicks through slides in the sealed machine at a rate of roughly one per second, making no comments, and apparently has a stack of uneaten food to one side.

Some things are appaently normal for all readers. Lack of proper food intake is on the list.

Emma slips into the library again, in her spiked look again, this time with no new injuries; just the bruised and cut chin from yesterday. She spots Tessa and freezes. One. Two. Three. Diamond Frost takes the stage.

"Good ..." Quick glance at the clock. "... morning, Tessa," she says quietly, walking over to the other, looking like a bad SF movie special effect. "I wasn't expecting you here."

"Frost," Tessa says. She doesn't look up from her slides, shuttling through them at a steady pace. "Help yourself, I left you something to eat. Assumed you'd be starving." On a closer look, it's a glass of Emma's favourite wine, and a delicately balanced salad with small toast on the side. She knew.

Tessa glances up for a moment, then asks, "Are you alright?" A loaded question if ever there was one.

"I don't eat in this form," Emma says. "It's possible, but people find the sight of food sliding down and hovering in distorted glass distasteful." A brief smile devoid of any actual feeling. "I try not to make people more uncomfortable than they deserve to be." That's a loaded answer right there...

"You said," Emma continues, cutting straight to the point, "that there was information I was missing. What is that information please?"

That shuts the projector off. Emma's question finally gets Tessa to look up and stop reviewing slides from world war one. What they could have on her brain is anyone's guess, though she lets the news keep running in the background. So she leans her bottom on the nearest table, hands at her sides for support, and looks at Emma.

In full defensive form, gone diamond. "You're clearly as ready as you're likely to become."

"Has Xavier told you yet how he met me?"

"No. He only just told me ... and as part of a loyalty test, I might add, which aggravated me at the time ... about you not being ... you. Or the you I thought you were." Emma blinks. "It is that last part that bothers me when I'm not in this form. Emma... I... did a lot of horrible things to you. Turned you into a monster in many ways worse than she... I... am. Without knowing who or what you really are, it's very difficult for Emma... me... to know how to react."

Head tilts and ice eyes gaze into Tessa's.

"Or what, if anything, to do with you."

The threat is out in the open now.

"I made a monster, you understand. I was one. But I ... am getting better. I think you can too. Or maybe you can't. Or maybe you don't have to. If it's the second one, though, I have to destroy you, you understand? Not for emotional reasons, but rational ones. So I need to know what's going on."

Tessa listens. She doesn't react to the speech, giving Emma the chance to get it all out, though she has urges to allow certain parts to show. The quiet listener, the ultimate secretary. She waits, then when Emma has gotten out the situation, she nods. Just that, a nod.

Then it begins.

"So we'll start at the beginning then, so you know what's actually going on. Because it's clear to me that you haven't a blessed clue, and I know how awful that can feel. If you want to know so you can make an educated decision on my life, I suppose that it is time for you to have the facts available."

She hitches her butt up onto the tabletop, then shuts off the news. "I was born in the Balkans, in Europe. You may not be aware of the area, but it's best known for the brutal wars..this might take a while, you might want to take a seat."

"I'm comfortable in this form," Emma says politely. "In almost any orientation or position. I'll stand out of respect for you."

She tilts her head again and regards Tessa with full attention. "I'm familiar with the Balkans. Frost Enterprises was looking at the possibility of subsidiaries in that part of the world. We declined after careful assessment."

Tessa inclines her head. "Likely a good choice, financially and morally. Outside forces have tried to assist with the situation but all have unilaterally made the situation worse. Without an in depth understanding of the internal politics, it is a recipe for wasted funds and dead troops."

She raises an eybrow, as if asking if she can continue. Then does so. "You wish to know who I am. I customarily ate insects and whatever birds I could catch, and occasionally was allowed to eat moss and half of a molded potato. I spent six years in a harem for someone in the war, avoiding gunfire and rape gangs in order to return to my safe house for slightly less brutal versions of the same. Then I reached puberty. I am a mutant."

"My mutation is perhaps unique. When Xavier met me, his legs had been crushed in a landslide. I took him to the nearest UN convoy, which was being slaughtered when we arrived. The bandits were taking their time with the remaining female. I stole a rifle and killed every one of them, shunting the emotions into one of my unused sections of my mind. He told me that I saw all, and forgot nothing. It was true."

"I am the most intelligent person on earth. I also have the ability to reprogram my own brain to become anything it needs to be, in order to survive. This is why I was a spy. You reprogrammed a simulation that I'd made in order to decieve you and the rest of the club, so that Xavier and I could manipulate all of them. For decades."

Emma listens quietly, then nods. "Interesting." That's all for a while as she processes what she's heard, her glass eyes shifting as if she's reading a book while replaying what she's been told. Then... "In some ways, but only some, you're worse than I am. You made a simulation that was self-aware. That was a person. Specifically to be abused. And to commit horrendous acts of abuse as well." She ponders briefly. "I will have to talk to Charles about this next time he tries to lecture me on my morals. What you two did is ... quite possibly the most disturbing thing I've heard of, and this is in a life that included me hand-molding sociopaths because I thought sociopathy was the best way for them to survive."

The ice wavers. Fades into flesh. Emma closes her eyes at the brief disorientation of transition and opens them again.

"You're not a threat," she decides. "You are a monster, but not one I made and not one that's likely going to be a threat to this Institute. I'm satisfied. Welcome to the Monster's Club. I'll make sure you get your pin."

Tessa smiles finally. "You didn't let me finish," she says. Then she reaches to her left and pulls her notepad, sliding it toward Emma. Where the news is playing. "I forget nothing, Ms Frost."

The news is repeating. Mob bosses being caught, now that someone has turned in evidence to their locations. Slavery rings being broken up, a wave of things being undone in the world. No glory for the hundreds of informants who must have turned in all of this information at once, but the police are scrambling to act on a deluge of crime information being turned in, more all the time.

And it looks like more will be saved every day, with the information being brought to light. "I wasn't able to make it look good, to save everyone while I was inside. But I never forgot a single person that we made hurt. We, because we both did this. And now, we both are making it better."

Finally, finally she smiles. She has emotions, oh yes.

"I'm sure," Emma says with a steely voice dripping acid, "that your victims will be comforted to know that others are being freed now. Charles and I will be having a bit of a pow-wow over this, in the near future." Her voice softens a bit. A bit. "But ... as I said ... I was given a second chance here, even as despised as I was and still am, so I will extend you the same courtesy. I think the official line runs something like 'forgive and remember'."

She eyes the wine and the salad. "You really do have a good memory," she says. "That would have been perfect for the Emma you knew." Tight smile. "For the Emma now it's still pretty damned good a choice."

She picks up the bowl and listens while stuffing leaves into her mouth to wash down with rotten grape juice.

Tessa nods. She says, "One can't undo everything," pulling her notepad back. Then types something else, sending a SWAT team to an unknown drug dealer's front door, almost idly. "In reality all I can do is remember." Every single one of their faces, in her mind. All the time. A memorial, if she wants it or not. And her own penance, one she doesn't share with Emma. Though she may catch a glimpse.

"I would wear the pin," she adds though, her voice shaking slightly. Because there is sometimes not enough room in her head for everyone screaming.

"I was joking ... sort of ... about the Monsters Club. I think I'll get the pins made. I'll need a lot to go around this place, though."

A rare moment of mercy from Emma as she reaches out and soothes Tessa's thoughts wordlessly. "I will try, Tessa. That's all I can promise. I will try to forget our shared history. And maybe in the process forgive myself what I did to you."

Tessa lets her. For once, though she's doing a million things, she needs a second's help to get it all under control. Years of being in that place, it has an effect even on the strongest of minds, and for a moment Tessa is unable to multitask.

She grabs ahold of her mind, grappling with it until it once again is the place she needs it to be. She knows Emma is helping, how could she not? The ripples in her mind are easier. And she can breathe.

She opens her eyes quietly. No thanks are offered; Emma wouldn't take them. But a moment of that level of weakness can't be feigned. And Tessa recovers from her equivalent of a complete mental breakdown in seconds, her eyes looking at the world from within her own fortress.

And the news marches on, announcing a shooting in some Canadian town. Caused by neither of them, and regardless of all of their efforts.

So Tessa reaches for her notepad. And for both of them, the work goes on.