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The original was posted on /r/hfy by /u/SSBAlienNation on 2024-10-29 06:20:44+00:00.
A Gift From the Shadows
8:00 P.M. EST
"The last I see of you, you're running to answer the door because 'someone's there'. So I wait a while, and then a while longer. Then I try to call you back, and you're not there. So obviously I think the worst, especially when Amilita's not taking my calls either. So I come over even though there's a good chance you're being interrogated already by the Interior or whatever. Except even your new bodyguard doesn't know where you are, and is begging me to not tell Amilita you're gone. I promise to keep quiet and bump into your dad at the front door, who says he saw you leaving but didn't think there was anything special about it." The shil'vati girl threw her hands in the air.
The day was far more eventful than the peaceful return to a full-time life as Elias I'd planned it to be when I'd woken up, and in the course of all that excitement I had almost entirely forgotten that coming home that I'd have to face the music.
Now 'the music' was standing against the side of her family car parked smack dab in the middle of the street, and had both her hands on her hips and was blue in the face from yelling. The sharp staccato notes flowed out endlessly as she tried to emphasize just how angry she was.
"Which is just perfect for getting me to worry. Tell me, did you only pull the disappearing act on your followers, or do you reserve that kind of treatment for the people who really know and care about you?"
Perhaps the middle of the street wasn't the most subtle place for us to meet and discuss this- but it was where I'd been cut off on my walk back from George's after helping him set his front door back into place until he could replace it. The sun had long since set, and if it was anyone else, I'd have been too tired to care and just pushed past them, my stomach rumbling in anger over neglecting it all day.
I held up my hands attempting something of a defense. "Natalie- sorry- please, it was important. I had to go."
"Oh yeah?" She asked, leaning in. "You went back to them, didn't you?"
"I did." There weren't any other words. Not even after all the time I'd had to think about my situation and its many nuances. I'd ultimately made the choices that had led me to where I was.
"That's what I thought. I knew you were like this, that you only wanted blood, this entire time. Ever since day one! You're addicted to it, to being him, to violence and power!"
I supposed she had a point. Diocletian had come to mind, and if they'd somehow contacted me a week later, I might have responded: If you could show the nebula that I saw with my own eyes to your [new] emperor, he definitely wouldn't dare suggest that I replace the peace and happiness of this place with the storms of a never-satisfied greed for blood.
But they'd caught me while I was still unsure, and I'd seen an opportunity there. The chance to do something 'right.' It appealed to my ego, this conceited sense that only I could steer things the correct and true way. Maybe that was a lust for power, and there was something to what she said. I'd built where others had failed. I'd steered us to where we were- there was validation in success, even a bloody one like the path I'd forged. People might complain and say 'oh, you could have done better,' but how many people had been more 'correct' and yet failed? It reminded me of my dad's advice when I'd learned to ride a bike:
There are graveyards filled with people who had the right-of-way. What did being 'right' matter if you were dead?
Even so, there was some part of me that did want to make everyone's sacrifices mean something. That was an opportunity I couldn't walk away from. Was it egotistical to insist that only I could steer things the 'right' way, when they'd come to me to help iron out the issues? I'd lasted a year, and Vaughn hadn't lasted a day- how was that not some form of validation as to where I belonged?
I'd gotten an adrenaline rush from stepping in and fixing things, then laying the foundation for a bright new future. I tried to imagine living several or more times long than I had already, never again knowing such a feeling. Knowing I'd 'peaked' in some sense, and that was almost incomprehensible. I instinctually denied it- and wanted to say that if I stepped away then somehow, I'd rise even higher as just being Elias, even without the need for the Interior to keep boosting my videos. And sure there was the remote possibility that was true, but I wasn't certain.
Was that what an addict experienced? I'd like to say 'I wouldn't know,' though there was the possibility that yes, Natalie was right. I was addicted to the power. Was that such a bad thing? I hadn't fought my way back in. I'd been ready to consider her offer, even if it meant stepping away from everything I knew and handing over control to her of almost every aspect of my life.
Realizing I'd now been silent for some time, and Natalie was doing her best impression of an imminently erupting volcano, I started. "I..."
What was it I'd said to the crowd before marching on Dover? My recollection went something like: 'Violence is not the answer. Violence is the question, and the answer is 'yes'!' Should I say that I had no choice at all, when I also joyfully said things like that?
Well, I'd been terrified, too. I'd spent a minute staring at myself in a bathroom mirror both before and after.
I stepped in a little closer, and she blinked and suddenly squirmed as I put my hands against the car on both sides of her, leaning in.
"It's not that I'm addicted to violence." I said slowly, trying to keep my voice down and checking on the windows behind her for any peeled back curtains. At least none of the houses along this stretch had their lights on, and there were no streetlights in the neighborhood, either. "We'd just finally chosen to embrace it. There wasn't actually much of a choice left to us."
Maybe it was about control, though. That was what had bothered me so much about going off with Natalie. I'd have been totally reliant on her. Just like how I was insistent we weren't going to answer to Sullivan and Gavin, or anyone else for that matter. Or it could have been pride- to see Vaughn throw everything away, toss my name into the dirt. My blood boiled at the sight of him tilting his head up.
You owe me.
Natalie looked around before tapping the car on the side. I didn't see any kind of control panel or other imperfections to denote what reacted when she pressed her fingers against the flat, perfectly unmarred surface, but the door unsealed and started to rise so I let her go. She hesitated for just a moment before stepping back and waving me to follow her in.
"Wasn't there?" Natalie hissed as I ducked low and the door sealed shut behind us. "What else was it then that brought you back? I thought you were being pushed into carrying out acts of violence, but I want to hear it from you. I want to hear you say you had 'no choice,' right after I offered you a way out, because now I don't believe it." Tears threatened the corners of her eyes. "Go on, tell me. Tell me that this whole time, it's been a choice, and I've just been stupid. Watching all those videos, listening to that propaganda for hours. I thought I was smart, I thought I'd seen a truth practically no one else did. I thought all you needed was someone to love and accept you. Then you run off on me to go and kill more people, the first chance you get. Now I think the reason no one else saw the truth I did was because I was the only one dumb enough to believe it!"
Everything had been a choice. But...what had the choice really been? My tired mind tried to come up with a fallacy, some kind of moral philosophical demonstration we might have gone over in the school library, but nothing jumped to mind.
"It was the only way," I reaffirmed sadly with a dry croak, no longer minding my tone. "Not violence toward you personally, or even to the Shil'vati exclusively. Just to..." I trailed off. "...everything. Everything that was happening. We couldn't effect any changes peacefully." How many others suffered like they had? Doubtless, their story was repeated a thousand times across the nation. They'd just found their way to me.
Natalie didn't look me in the eyes. She didn't seem able to.
"Don't you understand?" I asked softly. "People here tried talking. Tried being peaceful."
We gave peace a chance. It didn't work out.
Her hesitation told me she didn't have any particular ideas but still wanted to object anyway. "No, I don't understand. What about the videos you put out? They got through to me, eventually."
"Why'd you even watch them? Some guy in a skull mask says something in front of a camera they can't track down to make a story out of, so there's no story. A terrorist who just killed a Governess and dozens of shil'vati and collaborators puts one out, suddenly it's a sensation. Violence worked for getting our message out. Now it seems like the whole galaxy knows."
"So you attacked your own leaders for fame? For attention? That's c...
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