Yes. The day they died, I was adopted. My needs were met, and my foster father encouraged my studies. He was a brilliant man who never disparaged my personality. There was no trauma in my childhood.
It's the truth. Whether or not you're convinced is none of my concern. My past has no impact on my ability to watch over all of you in the capacity of a doctor and an agent of the Foundation, either.
[He sounds perfectly calm, not bitter or irritated at her prying. He has no reason to be unsettled, after all, she's focused on his childhood and not that: the incident she'd only know if she'd seen his "source canon." She certainly won't ever hear it from his lips.]
Your concern for me is... appreciated, but unnecessary.
We can't make that judgement until we know the full nature of the SCP. Part of our duty is to maintain professional distance from our experiences, to more effectively evaluate them. Even if those emotions were genuine, they weren't ours, so we have to find out their origin.
[He remembers the tears on his face, too much like the ones he shed in that cell in Resurgam, the ones pulled from him by Holden's blunt words and his own shame. Something feels unpleasantly tight in his chest, another thing to compartmentalize and leave for a much later time.]
I... don’t think it’s wrong, though. We’re trying to protect people from dangers they can’t understand.
[When someone strangles their gut feelings to the point where they ignore them automatically, maybe they buy into other people’s rhetoric with blind faith....]
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I'd normally think that's what it was, but then I thought back to the conversation we had on day 1. And I'm not sure that's it alone.
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[She doesn’t know. She can’t.]
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[she's at least being honest.]
I just wanted to say... if you ever did feel like talking about it, I'd listen.
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[He sounds perfectly calm, not bitter or irritated at her prying. He has no reason to be unsettled, after all, she's focused on his childhood and not that: the incident she'd only know if she'd seen his "source canon." She certainly won't ever hear it from his lips.]
Your concern for me is... appreciated, but unnecessary.
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[she shakes her head, and wraps a stand of hair around her finger, twirling lightly.]
Unnecessary, I mean.
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[Doubly artificial, since artificial minds were experiencing them. None of them are real. They're fiction.
He's dissociating again. He doesn't even blink as he shoves it down, forces himself back into the here and now.]
My only concern is keeping all of you safe. I won't fail again.
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Nothing about how I felt was fake. Maybe it wasn't my emotions, but they were very real.
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[He remembers the tears on his face, too much like the ones he shed in that cell in Resurgam, the ones pulled from him by Holden's blunt words and his own shame. Something feels unpleasantly tight in his chest, another thing to compartmentalize and leave for a much later time.]
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I've... felt that way before. It was dark and scary, and it felt miserable to be back there again.
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[Even if he can't offer advice on emotional issues, some people just need a sounding board.]
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[she smiles, though it's very distant and subdued for her.]
You don't have to. In a weird way, I got my revenge for it, so it's just... a memory of a dark time.
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I may look young and a little airheaded, but I've lived a complicated life too, you know?
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Well... I want to help. I don't agree with their methods, but for the truly dangerous stuff, sure.
But there has to be a better way, rather than kidnapping people.
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Or would they terminate him, since he isn't actually real?]
... regardless of how they acquired me, I gladly accepted their offer. They barely had to ask.
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[she pauses.]
... What good is being useful if it's all wrong?
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[When someone strangles their gut feelings to the point where they ignore them automatically, maybe they buy into other people’s rhetoric with blind faith....]