Sime~Gen Roleplaying: District Controller's Office Scenario
Episode #139: Half a Person (1/22/00)
see note 1
Pylor watches Arat and Snake, the coward's instinct to run fighting with his long-standing desire for vindication.
Arat's stare holds for a certain amount of time, but then his body language becomes less certain. As offensive as it is to be pushed around by them, he is sensitive to the difficulties engendered in somebody reporting that he failed to cooperate in an actual genuine attempt by Pylor to explain what his problem is. If it is a genuine attempt.
Arat probably could have handled this better if he had been approached in a very different way, but that was not how it was done, and here they are.
Pylor has indeed given a true account of the onset of his Arat-grudge, although every interaction they have had since has added a new layer to it.
Arat turns a sharp, thoughtful, displeased look upon Pylor.
Pylor looks at Arat defensively, wondering how long it will take for the forced confession to be used against him.
Pylor really can't see Arat doing anything else with the information.
Arat doesn't like what he zlins.
Arat: What do you hope to accomplish by this? [to Pylor]
Pylor: Me? This was your shenned daughter's idea.
Pylor was gratified that Arat at least recalled the incident in question, although that won't make up for the consequences.
Pylor gives a bitter and somewhat wild laugh.
Arat's expression shifts into contempt, not without a certain element of disappointment.
Pylor: And now you know the whole petty story, and can go away and use it.
Pylor can't really imagine Arat doing anything else with the information.
Pylor: I suppose it will be enough to get Neptude off your neck.
Pylor can't face the sort of penalties the Tecton exacts for pursuit of childhood grudges that disrupt Tecton business with equanimity.
Pylor is a bit surprised at himself to find that a small piece of him doesn't completely resent the chance that Arat will be able to exact some self-rehabilitation of his reputation with the information.
Pylor was more shaken by Arat's collapse under his care than he can admit, even to himself.
Arat is, of course, not missing the details in Pylor's nager.
Arat's expression becomes a bit more intense and less emotional as he probes for the subtler nuances.
Arat has never been particularly good about not zlinning people deeply during conversations. Except when he was a kid, of course.
Arat comes out of it looking wary and thoughtful.
Nick notes the change in Arat's demeanor with interest, although he keeps his nager stringently neutral.
Arat ignores the part about using the story against Pylor with Neptude, of course. Not only does Arat think the story so meaningless as to be without value, but he would never stoop to covering up a failure on his part by trying to make others look bad.
Arat: [not even if the person looks truly terrible on their own; it's the principle of the thing]
Nick is curious to see if Arat can use Pylor's forced openness to salvage him as a Donor.
Nick puts the feat, difficulty-wise, right up there with Snake's turning Linn into a Donor.
Pylor looks at Arat, waiting for the ax to fall.
Arat: Even if it was not your idea, you must have hoped to accomplish something.
Arat: Otherwise you would not have spoken.
Pylor is, perhaps, being given more credit for long-range planning skills than is strictly justified.
Arat: Was it simply that you have waited twenty years to accuse me of stealing your childish prize, or was there more to it than that?
Arat's use of the term "childish prize" is simply descriptive, not contemptuous.
Pylor finds Arat's lack of contempt so unnerving and unexpected that he accidentally answers the question with total honesty.
Pylor: I suppose I remember that contest so well because it was the first time I really tried to make something of myself... and you came along and proved the whole effort was worthless, in the scheme of things.
Pylor: Every time we met, since then, you've been proving that the best I can do and be is nothing at all, compared to what you have just be being Arat Audnes.
Pylor might not have found the experience so devastating, if he didn't suffer quite so badly from fears of inadequacy.
Pylor's problems have not been helped, of course, by those fears being completely justified.
Arat: And you thought I did this to you intentionally?
Arat has a difficult time believing this, mainly because he would never have had such a thought himself.
Arat tries to understand what Pylor is saying.
Pylor has, unfortunately, just enough genuine belief in the democratization brought by the Tecton, to discount certain genetic realities, abilities-wise--particularly when those realities seem to support the old order.
Pylor: If you had done it intentionally, I think I could have accepted it. But you didn't even notice.
Pylor understands enemy action; it's not being important enough to be recognized as anything at all that he can't handle.
Pylor finds that such a response arouses his secret suspicion that he actually isn't anything at all.
Arat honestly cannot answer that. He doesn't remember Pylor from the class, and probably really hadn't noticed him in it at the time. Arat's childhood had been spent locked in the middle of a struggle between his parents and the Tecton's various employees. His parents had forbidden him to associate with children whose parents did not support them, and his entire concentration in school had been for the teachers, to win their approval.
Arat also had not been in the Tecton's children school for all of his childhood; the spottiness of his attendance (driven by his parents' level of control of his custody) made it even more difficult to retain student associations.
Arat: And what would you have me do?
Arat hasn't failed to notice that Pylor blames his entire downfall upon Arat, not just one childhood 2nd-prize.
Pylor sees that Arat is still drawing a complete blank on their interactions as children and afterwards, at least until Pylor's upset at that fact starting causing Arat major problems.
Pylor wonders how one should phrase a request to be seen as a human being, instead of a piece of furniture.
Pylor has seen enough of the way Arat interacts with others, recently, to doubt that Arat is at all capable of the exercise.
Pylor has had a great deal of experience, lately, with being forced into exercises for which aptitude is totally lacking, and the attendant difficulties.
Pylor finds the concept that Arat might not be able to do something perfectly the first time very strange, and a bit unsettling.
Pylor starts to think about the situation with his adult, Donor skills: As a problem of channel-management.
Pylor is aware that one has to start off with simple exercises, in such cases.
Pylor concentrates on keeping his voice and nager as close to "normal conversation" standards as he can.
Pylor: Tell me, can you name three things Jeniard does strictly for his own enjoyment? Outside of looking after you, I mean.
Arat blinks at the, to him, radical change of subject.
Arat: Jeniard?
Wise Snake looks on in amusement.
Pylor: Yes. You've lived with the man for twenty years; surely you know his tastes?
Arat: Jeniard is not a man of many hobbies.
Arat: What has this do to with....
Pylor waits patiently for a real answer.
Pylor has done more than enough evading himself to recognize the techniques.
Arat in fact is not trying to evade the answer, he neither knows what Jeniard's private interests are or particularly cares. Jeniard's private time is his own, otherwise it would not be private.
Arat's eyes narrow as Pylor does not explain.
Arat: It is neither my concern nor yours.
Pylor: You don't know, do you?
Arat: Why should I?
Arat: Shouldn't he have interests that do not involve me?
Arat is starting to get upset, as he thinks this is private business that Pylor should not be probing into.
Arat in fact would prefer it if Jeniard had no interests at all, and it is Jeniard who insists upon having a certain amount of time to do things that Arat isn't allowed to question him mercilessly about. Arat does not like it at all, and they occasionally fight about it.
Pylor: The man has saved your life regularly for twenty years now. Don't you think you really ought to know what makes him happy? If only so you can make sure that he's not accidentally deprived of it?
Arat's anger reignites among the tinder that Pylor is so enthusiastically throwing down.
Nick raises a thoughtful eyebrow at Pylor's approach.
Arat stares at Pylor coldly, unwilling to answer what he considers to be a disrespectful and irrelevant question.
Pylor sees that he at least hit a nerve, and hopes that it doesn't backfire too badly on him.
Wise Snake wonders what destination Pylor is aiming at, in machete-ing this brave new path through a rather dangerous jungle.
Wise Snake will find it entertaining to watch and see.
Pylor: What about your children? Do you know what sort of toys they enjoy playing with? Or what they fear most?
Arat: They live with their mothers.
Pylor dismisses this as the excuse that it is.
Arat in fact knows very little about them, other than their personalities, since he only sees them during brief visits.
Arat for some reason is not the sort of person the mothers want to spend a lot of their spare time with; they mainly wanted him for the Farris child, which he understands and can deal with.
Arat: [that, and the money of course]
Pylor: Sosu Nick has been living right here, off and on, for almost a year. Do you know what his favorite meal is?
Arat: I wouldn't know. [stiffly]
Arat spends as little time thinking about food as he possibly can, Nick's or otherwise.
Pylor: Do you know one thing about any human being, that isn't directly related to what they can do for you, personally?
Pylor really wants to know.
Arat's dark eyes spark with a growing rage, but his voice and nager are tightly controlled.
Arat: Of course.
Pylor waits for a demonstration.
Arat doesn't know what Pylor is waiting for, since he feels he has nothing to prove.
Arat: Is there some point to this?
Arat: [icily]
Pylor shakes his head in amazement.
Pylor: You still don't get it, do you?
Pylor finds this obtuseness genuinely ~~ surprising ~~
Arat's patience is not being helped by this.
Pylor has, after all, believed for some 25 years that Arat was smart enough to grasp and solve any problem before Pylor understood that said problem even existed.
Arat: I do not have time for this.
Arat: Whatever you are after, it will have to wait until you can simply ask for it.
Pylor: You wanted to know what has caused the trouble between us, and what you could do about it.
Pylor: It was this... this inability of yours to notice other people, except as you can use them, that has been at the root of the problem.
Pylor is, of course, describing the problem from his own perspective.
Arat: And you claim, in your hatred of my family and of my identity, to care whether I notice you or not?
Arat clearly thinks Pylor is a hypocrite.
Arat: Spare me your theories.
Arat: You over step your bounds.
Arat turns and walks out of the room, not bothering to look at Nick.
Pylor has spent most of his life wanting to be noticed by Arat and his family, deep down where he barely has to admit that it's there, and finds this complete rejection ~~ devastating ~~.
Wise Snake stares after Arat, rubbing her chin thoughtfully.
Wise Snake: Interesting.
Nick looks at the door, and Pylor, and cocks an eyebrow at Snake.
Wise Snake: It's not all fear.
Wise Snake: He really is genuinely arrogant.
Wise Snake hadn't had that many opportunities to see and zlin Arat interacting with somebody besides herself, and it has been enlightening.
Nick: Well, he is your father, after all.
Nick gets up and follows Arat.
Pylor is shaking with reaction, and his nager is a muddle of conflicting emotions.
Pylor is mentally berating himself for being fool enough to try once more to settle things with Arat.
Wise Snake looks at Pylor speculatively.
Pylor thinks that after 20+ years, he should know better.
Wise Snake: You aren't pleased?
Pylor turns his head slowly to look at Snake.
Pylor: Why do I keep thinking there has to be a human being under there, somewhere?
Pylor: I've never seen it; not in all the time I've known him.
Wise Snake: I think you saw it for a moment there. Until you got mad again.
Pylor wishes he didn't care; it would be so much less painful that way.
Wise Snake had been zlinning, of course.
Wise Snake: When he told you his half of your story.
Pylor shrugs.
Wise Snake gets tired of waiting for an answer. She's never been good at dealing with people who would rather shrug than communicate.
Wise Snake looks at him pointedly, expecting an explanation.
Pylor: That's because it was his half of the story.
Pylor: I don't think he actually remembers that there were other students in that class, except by inference.
Wise Snake: So?
Wise Snake: Doesn't that make any difference to you?
Wise Snake: It's not personal and it never was.
Pylor: I'd hoped that the problem was just between the two of us--that might be fixable.
Wise Snake: It is fixable. Between the two of you.
Wise Snake: To say anything else is a copout.
Wise Snake has already set a pretty firm precedent of not letting Pylor cop out of stuff.
Pylor: How? If he's never noticed anything about anyone, not even Jeniard, who's kept him alive for so long, why should he start with me?
Wise Snake: OK, what do you want him to notice about you?
Wise Snake: Let's work on that.
Pylor considers.
Pylor: We were kids together. I'd like him to notice that we share a past--that we're both part of New Othwol.
Pylor isn't terribly optimistic about the prospects of pulling this off.
Wise Snake: And how would you want him to demonstrate that?
Wise Snake believes that anything is possible, given a concise enough goal and low enough respect for the rules.
Pylor ponders; the whole concept of actually getting acknowledgement of his existence out of Arat has been frustrated so thoroughly for so long that it seems alien.
Pylor: How does anyone share a past?
Wise Snake would be interested to know, since she doesn't share a past with anybody at the moment.
Pylor: We lived in the same town, went to the same school, experienced the same upheavals as the Audnes tried to undo what the Tecton was building.
Pylor: We were both there when Mayor Hoil's carriage horses bolted, and he ended up in the fountain.
Wise Snake smiles.
Pylor: And when the principal accidentally left the public address system on when he was telling old Gindel exactly what he thought about the Faith Day music program.
Wise Snake: Have you ever tried to bring up one of these memories, when talking to Arat?
Pylor: I started to, once.
Pylor: The first time we were assigned together. About five years after I Established, and Arat managed to get himself rehabilitated as a Tecton channel.
Pylor: He looked at me as if I had grown a second nager, and asked me what my name was.
Wise Snake laughs.
Wise Snake: And what did you say?
Pylor does not find anything amusing about the incident.
Pylor: I told him. He'd read my file at least, I'll give him that much credit.
Wise Snake: Look, you shouldn't be so sensitive about it. It's easy for famous people to fall behind on people's names. We only have to memorize one of them, and they're expected to know all of us. You can't claim to know the name of everybody in your school, can you?
Pylor does not share Arat's problems with name-recollection.
Pylor: I knew the names of the ones in my grade, and most of those a year ahead and behind.
Pylor: And a smattering of their older and younger siblings, of course.
Wise Snake: Wasn't Arat two grades behind you?
Pylor considered himself quite the school leader, at the time.
Pylor shrugs.
Pylor: His placement was difficult for the school.
Pylor: He was ahead of his grade in some things, and behind in others.
Wise Snake: Come on, admit it. You only knew who he was because he's famous.
Pylor shakes his head.
Pylor: I probably would have known him for that reason, even if our paths hadn't crossed so much.
Pylor: But as it was, we actually took classes together.
Wise Snake: OK. So you tried to bring up one of these memories, and when he didn't recognize you right away, you were offended and didn't want to talk about it any more.
Wise Snake: Did you ever try again?
Pylor: Well, about a week later, I asked for an afternoon off to visit my parents. He was every bit as bad then about giving his Donors time off as he is now, you understand.
Pylor: He--he asked me if they'd lived in New Othwol very long.
Pylor: My family had only been working for his for the past five generations!
Wise Snake suspects, just from the general tone of the rest of this explanation, that Pylor didn't simply say "yes" and accept the time off.
Wise Snake: OK, I think I can see what's going on here.
Pylor: You do?
Wise Snake: First off, you're going to have to accept that the guy just plain didn't remember.
Wise Snake: Whether that makes him worse than you or better than you, it doesn't matter - he didn't remember, and that's that.
Wise Snake: Now I think you may have something when you accuse him of not learning anything about anybody outside of the context of what they can do for him, but you kind of have to expect that from a guy who has no hobbies of his own.
Wise Snake: He quite literally works all of the time. He doesn't even know anybody who isn't either a connection through work, or some relative sponging money off him.
Wise Snake: Yeah, you shared a childhood together, but you didn't share the critical years of growing up.
Wise Snake: A bunch of heavy duty stuff happened to Arat around then that may have shook him up a little bit.
Wise Snake: It might be necessary to concede some of this to him, when trying to patch things up.
Pylor considers, then shakes his head thoughtfully.
Pylor: It was a bad few years for him--his file makes that clear, even if I didn't read the newspapers.
Pylor: But somehow, he seems to have come through it with his essential nature unchanged.
Wise Snake: Well, I think everybody tries to do that. It's called survival. It might not be pretty, but it's true.
Wise Snake: At least he's on the Tecton's side now, hey?
Pylor: It's more than that. If you asked anyone who knew him back then, what Arat Audnes would be like as an adult, they'd have described it pretty much exactly.
Pylor: Well, the part about being a Farris channel excepted, of course.
Pylor is aware that the Farris channel business, and the way it forced Arat to move away from his parents' politics, is not inconsiderable, as differences go.
Wise Snake: Huh.
Wise Snake: Well, I think if you're serious about sharing those memories with him, it's going to be up to you to make the first move.
Pylor: How can I, after... that?
Wise Snake: You'll need something to break the ice, obviously.
Wise Snake: A concession.
Pylor waves a hand to indicate the entire confrontation about the school contest business.
Pylor: I was hoping that he'd be able to understand what he's been doing to me, if only by analogy.
Wise Snake: What he's been doing to you?
Wise Snake: Listen, you're trying to make it more personal than it is.
Wise Snake: That's only going to complicate things.
Wise Snake: Are you sure you want to go there?
Wise Snake: I don't know about you, but I got the distinct impression he was offended by your pushing him on that.
Pylor: You see? He's the only person I've ever met who gets offended at the idea that he perhaps ought to know something personal about his closest associate.
Wise Snake: He's your boss, Pylor. [slightly amused exasperation]
Wise Snake: There's certain things you really shouldn't ask your Controller, whether you knew him as a kid or not.
Wise Snake: The same goes for certain kinds of advice.
Wise Snake: I mean, if you really do want to go there, it can be done, but it'll require a completely different tactic than what we talked about.
Pylor shrugs.
Pylor: If he wants to live his life as half a person, I suppose that's his decision.
Pylor: But I don't want him treating me as half a person. Or less.
Wise Snake: So we need to get him talking to you about your shared past, the way you said.
Wise Snake: Fine. What can you do to undo the bad part of what happened today, without undoing the good part?
Pylor: Every time I've gotten an idea about how to handle Arat, it's been wrong.
Pylor is therefore sure that the idea which just came to him will be an utter disaster.
see note 2
Notes:
1) This episode is a continuation of DCO #138. [return]
2) For what happened between Nick and Arat after they left, see the next episode. [return]