text;

[alittlesweptup]

ATTENTION TRANSPORT COMMUNITY:

Hullo there from your neighborhood detainee! I realize a number of you may have forgotten about us in the past week, but we remain cheerfully under lock up in the West Wing where we've sat for going on eleven days awaiting you lot to get your shit together so we can get this nonsense sorted. Now some of you may be unaware under what terms we agreed entered holding. In the interest of full disclosure, I shall outline those here:

1. We were to be granted protection from the general transport population until justice could be served.

2. We were to receive a fair trial and face whatever sentencing the transport population deemed fit despite the overwhelming lack of civil structures to support fair sentencing.

Despite CI Small and the Transport Police Force's valiant efforts, these terms have not been met over the past eleven days. Members of our group, supposedly under the protection of the police force, have been assaulted. There has been very little communication to us about any forthcoming trial; we have been assigned a lawyer and promised that we won't rot, but all evidence (network postings and otherwise) points to the contrary.

Very few of you know me personally, but I can tell you right now that I'm not the most patient sort you'll ever meet. As of this moment, we are being held here entirely under good faith. But allow me to make this infinitely clear:

You have no code of conduct or system of law.
You have nothing to charge us with.
You have no jurisdiction to hold us now, much less indefinitely.

And as of right now, I'm feeling a lot more vulnerable in a small room than I am protected. The personal benefits of me waiting here while you sort out a system of rules that we can be grandfathered in to breaking are beginning to look very bare indeed.

So as of now you have one week from today to figure out how you plan to deliver us a fair trial (as I think none of us would be content to see this brushed under the rug). If December 6th comes and goes, I'll be petitioning CI Small to release any of us who agree to absolve her and the transport police force of any responsibility for bodily harm rendered to our persons that might occur when released into the general population (given that many of you are apparently eager for our blood, though none but our own was spilled over the course of the base's lock down). If you'd like to do something about this, I'd recommend putting your heads together and getting it sorted sooner rather than later. Holding us here like animals when we've technically broken no laws and done nothing to set back the war effort - made infinitely clear by the AI's latest transmissions - while you run round going on about betrayal and what-if's is irresponsible at worst and unethical at best.

Warmest Regards,
C.C.

Comments

[anklets]

[No more unexpected than the unwanted familiarity she finds in this: faceless people and prisoners taken.]

that isn't what i asked.
would you mind.

[alittlesweptup]

[Someone who actually wants his opinion; that's a new one.]

I wouldn't mind

text -> action

[anklets]

i'll be there, then.

[And so she shall, after several long minutes passed. Announces herself with the rap of knuckles on the wall outside.]

[alittlesweptup]

[The visitation room is much like any other housing unit on the base: a bunk bed to either side and not much in between. Charlie's sitting on one of the lower bunks, flicking through his tablet. He glances up when she's let in.]

It's Lenalee, right?

[anklets]

[This, at least, is far enough from the sort of constraint she knows and remembers that she can dredge up a weak smile for him.]

That's right. It's surprising that you remembered, with all this anarchy flying about.

[alittlesweptup]

[He shrugs, easy enough, and taps his temple with his forefinger.]

What can I say, I've a head for names.

[The natural question to follow - the 'What do you want?' - doesn't actually come, but it probably doesn't really need to be asked. Instead Charlie makes a vague motion to the opposite set of bunks as if she might possibly require an invitation before taking a seat.]

[anklets]

[She- doesn't move, actually, beyond the slightest shake of her head to decline. Wonders what it is about bedrooms that call for prisons to be made from them.]

Who was hurt during the lockdown?

[alittlesweptup]

[Oh look, the one thing about this whole catastrophe he'd rather not get much air time - not just to cover his own skin, but because it could ruin things on CI Small's end as well.

Charlie goes slightly sharp, mouth pinching. He lies (badly, as anyone with access to the network could probably tell):]

Nothing massive. Just a few bumps and bruises, you know.

[anklets]

[...

Her own mouth goes carefully, carefully soft.]

Mister Cutter.

[alittlesweptup]

Lenalee.

[There's nothing in his tone - simple, flat. Gives her vey little.]

[anklets]

It isn't wise to mention things which you do not wish to be asked after.

[alittlesweptup]

[Which is fair, but--]

Look, it'll just cause more harm than good at this point.

[anklets]

[Assent, exhaled through pursed lips. There was never any good done by dangling carrots in front of the horse's mouth, whether for a good cause or a poor one. She wishes he hadn't tried to use the bloodshed as leverage.]

We may have come to the point where we've little else to do but bite through to the quick. With all the pushing at our backs.

[alittlesweptup]

[Yeah, he's beginning to wish that as well.]

I'll tell you, but you have to swear to me that you won't use the information until this nonsense has been sorted.

[anklets]

[Oh.

A dangling carrot.]

Why would you tell me?

[alittlesweptup]

[Because she asks questions no one else bothers with, maybe. Calls him on his shit in a way that he doesn't entirely mind (because it means she's sharp as opposed to just entitled).

Charlie shrugs, impassive.]

Keeping information to yourself here is a dangerous business.

[anklets]

[Bold words, and Lenalee wonders how much he keeps quiet versus how much he asks. Presses her shoulders back, into the doorframe. She has trained herself out of impassivity, but she does her best.

Settling on a slow:] I don't know them.

[ preempting ]

[alittlesweptup]

[He nods slowly. Good. After that he's candid enough:]

Seviilia Brightwing, one of the people with me, was killed by another transports trying to get to us in the transporter room. She was rezzed pretty much immediately, but-- [And he shrugs. That part's a little more noncommittal, like he doesn't quite buy the next thing out of mouth:] --She says it's not anything to worry about, but it did happen.

[anklets]

[The line of her mouth becomes more slash for an instant, like she'd tasted something very bitter.]

I see. [ what a stupid thing to die over, to kill over ] And she's been detained, too?

[alittlesweptup]

[That gets a curt nod, a moment of lips tight, jaw set.]

That's right. She defended herself and us, but it's some-- I don't know, barmy undead elf cultural thing, apparently. She doesn't want to press any kind of charges [as if that's even possible given their current non-existent set of laws], so here we are.

[anklets]

Where do you think you are, Mister Cutter?

[She thinks he'll consider her silly for asking he repeat himself, so preempting again:] Without your words having been tailored to the public.

[alittlesweptup]

[A muscle in his cheek jumps as he sets his jaw. Because that's the question, isn't it? And there's no reason to tell her anything like the truth, but then again what's the reason for any of this shit if it's not telling someone the long and the short of things.]

Fucked, mostly. People want our collective heads, but we can't use our one bargaining chip without causing more damage than it would be worth.

[Never mind the part where he's talking about someone's death like it's something of valuable, some hypothetical point in a grand argument. He may not like it, but the fact of the matter is that it is.]

If people knew someone had been killed outright, it'd do no one any favors - not us and not Small who's trying to keep as much of a lid on all this as she can - trying to keep this whole base from boiling over and venting whoever they like out the air locks.

[anklets]

[Holds her tongue with some effort until he's quietened, at which point Lenalee does, in fact, boil over, and the hot words seep from between tightly pursed lips:] You keep speaking of bargaining chips, but you've chosen to make them all out of the wrong things.

[That there's a lid at all to keep is a direct consequence of his actions and the actions of his ilk, and while she cannot wish entrapment on anyone, she nurses a frightful bitterness: these people set a spark to the tinder and now people marked (however shakily) as comrades have lifted their weapons to one another. Have died and killed.]

[alittlesweptup]

Look, I'm not saying it isn't shitty. [Even he's not so blind as all that.] But it's not wrong either.

[There was always a lid. It just seems like people weren't aware of it: like cooking frogs - put them in cold water and slowly heat it and they'll boil to death. Turn the heat up and suddenly they're aware that they're dying.

They'd just turned the heat up fast enough for people to notice.]

[anklets]

You're right. It isn't, [ here is Charlie's one easy victory, handed to him- with but one caveat: ] and yet you continue to need chips to bargain with.