Sime~Gen Roleplaying: Two Roads Diverged Scenario
Episode #62: It Can't Hurt to Ask (8/15/98)
Wise Snake is crouched over the sleeping Nick, ransacking his pockets.
Linn brings a pillowcase of clean laundry into the hotel room.
Linn does a doubletake.
Wise Snake's concentration is entirely focused upon Nick and how asleep he is going to stay for the next few moments.
Linn: Snake, what are you doing?
Linn: ~~ astonishment ~~
Wise Snake jumps violently.
Wise Snake: Holy shen!
Wise Snake: Linn, you nearly gave me a heart attack.
Wise Snake backs hastily, if belatedly, off the bed.
Linn: I didn't think it was possible to sneak up on a Sime.
Wise Snake clutches her heart, tentacles waving with indignity.
Wise Snake: I was concentrating.
Linn: On Nick? Is he ill?
Wise Snake: No, fortunately.
Linn: ~~ concern ~~
Wise Snake sees the pillowcase.
Wise Snake: Oh... clean laundry. Great.
Linn: Yes. The mud did come out of your dress, eventually.
Wise Snake hopes Linn will notice Snake's grubby outfit and go off on a cleanliness lecture instead of asking more questions about Nick.
Linn takes it out to show Snake.
Wise Snake: I see.
Wise Snake nods, though in truth she probably wouldn't have noticed if the mud was still on it.
Wise Snake tends to have a blind spot for mud, grease and cockroaches.
Linn decides that with Nick asleep, this is a good time to have a heart-to-heart with Snake.
Linn: Snake, I had a chat with Bum Bum yesterday.
Wise Snake: Oh... really?
Wise Snake finds this subject much more interesting than either of the other possibilities.
Linn: Yes. He's not terribly optimistic.
Wise Snake: He isn't? [surprised]
Wise Snake frowns to herself; usually Bum Bum becomes wildly optimistic with each new acquisition of a potential partner.
Wise Snake wonders if Bum Bum is finally learning something after all these years.
Wise Snake has never had much respect for Bum Bum.
Linn: He was quite distressed when I told him that I've never found pleasure at the sensation of selyn movement.
Wise Snake's eyes widen.
Wise Snake: You told him that?
Wise Snake: Good grief, Linn.
Wise Snake: That's like telling your boyfriend on the first date that you aren't fond of penetration.
Linn: Well, I felt it prudent to be honest about it.
Wise Snake scratches her head, unsure how to handle this.
Linn: Because if I understand how transfer works, it's likely to be a major problem.
Wise Snake: Well yes Linn, but making Bum Bum more nervous and depressed certainly isn't going to help anything.
Wise Snake isn't, on the whole, against making Bum Bum more nervous and depressed, per se. She just thinks it will make things more difficult for Linn.
Linn: Well, I don't see that ignoring the issue will make it go away.
Wise Snake briefly holds her head, then gestures to Linn to sit.
Linn hangs Snake's one good dress in the closet so it doesn't get wrinkled, and then sits on the couch.
Linn: At least, not if there's something that can be done about it.
Linn: Is there?
Wise Snake: Of course there is.
Wise Snake seats herself on the opposite end of the couch.
Wise Snake: [actually, over most of the couch, in a sprawl]
Linn reflects that six months ago, this would have sent her screaming from the room.
Wise Snake: The first thing that you must realize is that the discomfort you feel is not the cause of your apprehension about selyn movement, it's a symptom of it.
Linn tries to decipher that statement.
Wise Snake thinks this is familiar territory with Linn, or at least it should be.
Wise Snake: Apprehension is simply a little brother to fear. Therefore, the effects of apprehension are like a little version of the effects of fear.
Linn: But it was just as bad the first time I felt it, and I wasn't expecting it then.
Wise Snake: So take your transfer equations and work them with a small... rather than zero... fear factor.
Wise Snake: So long as you remain anxious about it, there will always be that resistance.
Wise Snake: My aim is to reduce that anxiousness during our practice sessions.
Linn does the calculations.
Linn: Wait a moment. If you put the resistance that low, you end up taking the square root of a negative number.
Wise Snake waves her hand.
Wise Snake: Whatever.
Wise Snake: Anyway, the part about your sensations being roughly the same over the months can easily be explained.
Linn hadn't realized that taking the square root of a negative number resulted in a queasy, sickening draining sensation.
Linn had formerly associated the phenomenon with incorrect algebra.
Wise Snake realizes that Linn is not actually paying attention to her words.
Wise Snake: Linn, listen to me.
Linn's attention returns to Snake.
Wise Snake: I have handled your donation differently each month, dependent upon your progress.
Wise Snake: You may have felt similar sensations, but the speed and depth of the draw has been increasing.
Wise Snake recalls one recent donation where she coddled Linn, but considers that the exception that proves the rule.
Wise Snake: When I qualified you as a GN-1, I drew so slowly it seemed to take forever. Now it takes no longer than a regular transfer. That improvement was all in your handling of selyn flow.
Linn's forehead wrinkles in confusion.
Linn: But it was the same those months I donated at the Sime Center.
Wise Snake: Well, again, there was a difference in styles.
Wise Snake: I'm willing to bet that the Sime Center channel both used a much slower draw speed and drew from much shallower levels, but had nowhere near my sensitivity or finesse.
Wise Snake is not aware that she just sounded really conceited.
Linn: Well, that's certain. At least, it came on faster, and sort of... wobbled.
Linn isn't quite sure how to describe the sensation.
Linn: Sort of like being seasick, in a way.
Wise Snake: One of the advantages of settling down with one channel is that the two of you will eventually become accustomed to one another. You wouldn't have to deal with the surprises of style changes.
Wise Snake: Also, you would no longer be pushed... Bum Bum probably has very little development to do, capacity-wise.
Wise Snake thinks there is always a chance, though Bum Bum seems to lack all ambition in that area.
Linn is struck by a thought.
Linn: What is Bum Bum's style like?
Wise Snake: Ah... well, let's see here.
Wise Snake looks around for a piece of paper.
Wise Snake sees none.
Linn offers her notebook.
Wise Snake: Thanks.
Wise Snake scribbles out a few small graphs.
Wise Snake: Bum Bum seems to have two basic patterns. Most of the time he starts out very slowly, and then experiences a sudden acceleration and peak towards the middle, with a lingering end.
Wise Snake: However, on a bad day, he'll try to grab it all at once and peak at the beginning, like a junct.
Wise Snake: Well, he is a junct.
Wise Snake: But you know what I mean.
Wise Snake: Fortunately, it's pretty easy to predict what kind of month it's going to be, and we can arrange things so that I'm handling the bad months as they come along, until the two of you are more confident together.
Linn: Well, not really. The textbooks Nick was borrowing from the Sime Center didn't really cover the subject.
Wise Snake thinks that certain details are best glossed over, such as specifically why some months are different than others.
Wise Snake looks surprised.
Wise Snake: The Sime Center's books didn't cover junctedness??????
Wise Snake: Well I know I have bought Nick and Eliza several books on junctedness.
Linn: Not in the basic Donor manuals.
Wise Snake: I see.
Wise Snake: Well, a Donor doesn't necessarily have direct contact with juncts, at least not on a daily basis.
Wise Snake: [concedes]
Linn: I suppose the Tecton assumes that its Donors won't be serving junct channels on a regular basis.
Wise Snake: Well, I meant renSimes, but that also.
Wise Snake: Briel is very unusual in having been trained for duty despite having been junct.
Linn: Nick never borrowed texts on junctedness and disjunction. I suppose he felt it wasn't really relevant.
Wise Snake too late wonders if Linn had had any idea Briel is disjunct.
Wise Snake looks annoyed.
Wise Snake: Linn, Nick knows full well it's important. I dealt with them on the streets all the time.
Linn: Briel is junct?
Wise Snake: And I bought him books on the subject.
Wise Snake: If you failed to read them, it's no blot on... oh. Yes, Briel was junct, she succeeded in disjuncting during her First Year.
Linn remembers several truly horrendous encounters with Briel, in her first visits to Bender Cove.
Wise Snake: That would have been before either of us met her.
Linn has no way to know that Nick deliberately kept those books to himself, only asking Linn about the math, without explaining the purpose of the equations.
Linn: Was that why she...?
Wise Snake waits for the end of Linn's question.
Wise Snake reaches into a pocket and inspects some of the loot from Nick's pockets.
Linn: Do you remember that confusion, when they thought I had signed up for Simephobe therapy?
Wise Snake was actually ransacking his person because he'd done the same to her a few hours before, and she was hoping to recover at least some of the losses.
Wise Snake looks up.
Wise Snake: Yes.
Linn wonders why Snake is playing with a pocketknife, handkerchief, and ball of lint.
Wise Snake squeezes the ball of lint and a bright blue-and-orange striped capsule extrudes out of it.
Wise Snake's face lights up.
Linn: The times it was with Briel she seemed to... enjoy... it much more than Hajene Veraik.
Wise Snake: Ah.
Wise Snake pops the pill in her mouth and gets up to go back over to Nick.
Linn looks at the capsule.
Linn: What's that?
Wise Snake: Well, in theory Briel should have thoroughly forgotten her junct desires when she disjuncted.
Wise Snake: What's what?
Wise Snake carefully takes hold of Nick's field and eases back onto the bed.
Linn: That thing you just ate.
Wise Snake stuffs the handkerchief and the knife back in his pockets.
Wise Snake: Oh... that.
Wise Snake backs carefully off the bed and releases Nick's field, walking casually back over to the couch.
Linn: And why were you keeping it wrapped in lint?
Wise Snake: Look, I am responsible for a lot of things Nick does, but not how he housekeeps his pockets.
Wise Snake is pretty sure Linn would have no idea Nick had originally stolen the lint from Snake's own pocket.
Wise Snake realizes the lint ball is still in her hands and self-consciously throws it in a waste basket before flinging herself back onto the couch again.
Linn: It was Nick's pill?
Wise Snake: No no, he was just holding it for me.
Wise Snake edges closer to Linn.
Linn thinks there is something very fishy about all of this.
Linn looks at Snake.
Wise Snake: So, in answer to your original question, I am aware of your problem regarding selyn movement, and I am confident that we can work it out in our sessions together.
Wise Snake lays down on the couch with her head in Linn's lap.
Wise Snake looks pretty mellow.
Wise Snake looks like she's pretty confident that just about everything can be worked out.
Linn's nager reflexively reflects (say that 10 times quickly) the attitude of a teacher who knows darned well that her students are getting into something they shouldn't.
Wise Snake fortunately is in no condition to be discomfited by said nager, at least not emotionally.
Linn automatically reaches down and pushes Snake's greasy locks out of her face.
Wise Snake looks up at Linn, and smiles a little.
Wise Snake's eyes are ummm... a touch altered.
Wise Snake all in all is behaving like a contented kitty.
Linn: Snake, you said that Briel's... junct desires... should have been forgotten. However, Bum Bum is still junct, isn't he?
Wise Snake: Yes, of course. He is.
Linn: What sort of... unnatural urges... is he going to throw at me?
Linn: And expect me to cope with?
Wise Snake: Ah... well, you needn't worry much outside of transfer. So long as I have known him, which is ever since we were both children, Bum Bum has been a nonviolent sort, not given to perverse tortures and the like. He was, after all, raised in a nonjunct society.
Wise Snake: During transfer, he is for the most part the model of a controlled channel.
Wise Snake is touching on a subject she had successfully skirted earlier (the bit about why some months will be handled differently than others) but has sort of failed to skirt it this time.
Linn: Except when he isn't.
Wise Snake: There will always be a tiny part of Bum Bum that cannot be satisfied by a transfer that doesn't include Gen pain and fear and, ultimately, death.
Wise Snake: When too many months have passed, perhaps a year of transfers, the need for a kill will become so powerful that he will be unable to carry through with a normal transfer, and will abort.
Wise Snake: And die, unless he gets what he needs.
Linn: Unless he kills someone, you mean.
Wise Snake would probably, under other circumstances, wait a little bit longer to break this kind of information to Linn, but for some reason it doesn't seem like a big deal at the moment.
Wise Snake: Yes.
Wise Snake: Now of course the Tecton has a setup for this, but we will have to improvise.
Wise Snake: Because he's unregistered, we can hardly go claim him a Tecton kill.
Linn: A Tecton kill?
Wise Snake: Well, you know, a kill from the secret pens.
Linn: I thought that the Tecton doesn't allow Simes to kill anymore?
Wise Snake: No no, just the juncts, and only once a year.
Wise Snake: There aren't that many of them left, and the whole pens system can finally be put to rest in, oh, maybe a decade or two.
Wise Snake: But this is of little value to us at the moment.
Linn: ~~ dawning horror ~~
Linn: I thought the Secret Pens were a myth!
Wise Snake blinks lazily, as if trying to clear some sort of haziness from her sight.
Wise Snake: No... not really. I mean, they're real.
Linn: Something to frighten naughty children with!
Linn: "Be good, or they'll take you away and throw you in the Secret Pens to be killed."
Wise Snake: That would be a rather clever arrangement, actually.
Wise Snake: Not for children, of course, but for rapists, murderers, and so forth....
Wise Snake's tentacles are playing with each other in an uncoordinated curling game.
Wise Snake: Anyway, we may have to choose a similar method for Bum Bum's kills.
Wise Snake: I mean, we're talking a year in advance, here, but it's worth taking into consideration early on.
Linn looks at the writhing tentacles, seeing them as murder weapons for the first time in... well, in days.
Wise Snake's murder weapons are probably not good for much serious action at the moment (nor is Snake for that matter)
Linn: You're going to go pick out someone for Bum Bum to kill?
Wise Snake: Shen, yes, would you rather he grabbed somebody who didn't deserve it?
Wise Snake: At the very least it should be somebody who's suicidal, although that presents its own problems of course.
Linn: He's more likely to grab me. Or Griff.
Linn isn't completely sure that Griff falls into the category of "those who don't deserve it", but that's beside the point.
Wise Snake: Oh, he has a reasonable amount of self-control. He is a channel, after all. And we'd procure the kill a few days in advance so he'd have a chance to get a fix on him.
Wise Snake: But enough of that depressing topic.
Wise Snake reaches up to play with a lock of Linn's hair.
Linn is still speechless from Snake's callous attitude towards cold-blooded, very much premeditated murder of a victim of convenience.
Wise Snake, who is obviously in a drug-altered state, seems oblivious to Linn's reaction.
Wise Snake 's fingers curl around Linn's hair while a tentacle or two caress her face.
Linn's eyes cross as she follows the movement of the tentacles.
Linn remembers more of the conversation with Bum Bum.
Linn: Snake, if channels are so good at control, particularly you....
Linn: Why did you burn B'cal and Nick so badly?
Linn: You should have been able to feel their pain and stop.
Wise Snake's expression flickers.
Wise Snake pauses a suspicious length of time before saying, "Well, Linn,"
Wise Snake seems to be having difficulty in coming up with a reasonable answer.
Linn: Yes?
Wise Snake: That was a very complicated situation we were in, then, with a number of different factors to consider. [she says at last]
Linn: Oh?
Linn: What factors were those?
Wise Snake thinks it wasn't fair of Linn to give such a short answer and just wait again.
Wise Snake's tentacles weave about drunkenly.
Wise Snake: With B'cal, there was the fact that I outrated her badly. And with Nick, it wasn't quite as much of a difference but he was still not entirely suitable for serving me.
Wise Snake thinks those are fairly non-incriminating statements.
Wise Snake is wondering why she doesn't just shut up instead of trying to explain.
Linn: And the other factors?
Wise Snake: It's not as if I had much of a choice, though. Donors who can handle me aren't a dime a dozen, you know.
Wise Snake wishes Linn had dwelt on the first bit a little bit longer so she didn't have to confess to the other part.
Wise Snake: Well, and, there was a certain element of intention, involved, to some extent anyway, at least in the case of Nick.
Wise Snake doesn't think that came out too well.
Linn: Intention?
Wise Snake lets her hand fall back.
Linn: Did you intended to burn him?
Wise Snake: I intended to... I guess I had to. He knew it would happen, in advance.
Linn hadn't expected Bum Bum's revelation to be anything but sheer pre-veraison Vitis vinifera fruit.
Wise Snake finds that a Farris sans eloquence is a pitiful beast indeed.
Linn: He KNEW??? But....why?
Wise Snake: Oh, Linn. Do you really want to know that?
Wise Snake looks tired now.
Linn: Yes.
Wise Snake looks disheartened by Linn's affirmative.
Wise Snake: I see.
Wise Snake: Well, I imagine you don't know the circumstances of my first transfer?
Linn: I think that I'd better learn about this kind of thing if I'm going to be working with a junct channel.
Linn: No, I don't.
Wise Snake: I was never junct. [suddenly, sharply]
Linn: Then why did you deliberately burn Nick?
Wise Snake: First of all, it is important for you to know that a Sime's First Transfer forever imprints upon him a rule by which all other transfers are measured.
Wise Snake: And all subsequent transfers are, either consciously or unconsciously, attempts to live up to the unattainable standard set by that first, transcendent experience.
Wise Snake: My first transfer did not go well.
Linn: What went wrong?
Wise Snake: The Donor was chosen by my mentor, Tramila, based upon information which later turned out to be inaccurate. He was a match for me physically, but my draw speed triggered a psychological trauma in him, left over from something that had happened to him some months before.
Wise Snake: He shenned me.
Wise Snake: After resisting, and getting burned.
Wise Snake: I nearly died.
Wise Snake: When he saw what he had done, he thought that he had killed me, in violation of his pledge to Zeor.
Wise Snake: And he committed suicide.
Linn: Oh, how awful.
Wise Snake's eyes are closed.
Linn thinks about what that must have done to Snake. Without having a clue, really, of course.
Wise Snake: I was at Zeor for two more transfers after that, both extremely difficult. I wanted pain. I wanted to be shenned. I tried to hurt my Donors, or abort from normal transfers.
Wise Snake: If necessary, I would accept my own pain instead of theirs.
Wise Snake: It was a problem that crippled me for a long time.
Linn: Crippled? You mean it doesn't any longer?
Wise Snake: I believe we have worked our way past it, now.
Wise Snake: Nick has succeeded in serving me in normal transfers and my desires, though powerful, are now within my control.
Linn: Well, Nick hasn't appeared to be injured, at least not since that first time.
Wise Snake: I am not 100% satisfied, just as a junct cannot be 100% satisfied by anything but a kill. But, I at least can go into transfer knowing that I will not die halfway through it.
Wise Snake opens her eyes again [white, burning]
Wise Snake: Does that answer your question?
Linn nods, then tries to apply the new information to her own situation.
Linn: Can Bum Bum control his desires for pain and death? Will he even really try?
Wise Snake: Linn, he does try, extremely hard.
Wise Snake: Bum Bum has done an admirable job of restraining himself.
Wise Snake: The only thing he has failed in is in turning himself in instead of continuing to try.
Wise Snake: By all rights, he should be in the Tecton's hands, in one of their camps.
Wise Snake: Being served by a channel, and getting a pen kill a year, until his own death.
Wise Snake: And he knows that.
Wise Snake: And he knows that killing those people was wrong.
Wise Snake: He can control, but only to the extent that control is not snatched from him.
Wise Snake: He is not trained, and that combined with an untrained Gen can be fatal, and has been.
Linn: He doesn't seem to want to see them as people, though. He talks about them almost as if they were experiments that went wrong.
Wise Snake: I think, if you ask him, they were people first. Before they became his failures.
Linn: And... for all the hours we've spent together, he's never really asked a personal question.
Linn: It's as if he's afraid to get to know me until he's sure that he won't kill me as well.
Linn thinks that this attitude has done nothing to boost her confidence in Bum Bum, or herself.
Wise Snake rolls over and pushes herself off Linn, wilts against the opposite side of the couch.
Wise Snake: Have you mentioned that to him?
Wise Snake: Linn, remember, he is a little afraid himself.
Linn: I did tell him a little about how I came to be living in Bender Cove. That's when he got so upset.
Wise Snake doesn't understand.
Wise Snake: What's when he got so upset?
Linn: Well, that was when I told him about my... misgivings, and the reason for them.
Wise Snake: Ah.
Linn: He hasn't displayed any interest in me as a person since then, although he's certainly interested in my nager.
Wise Snake: Your nager is the signal that tells him whether he's going to live or die in a couple weeks from now. Can you blame him for paying attention to it?
Linn thinks it over.
Linn: I suppose I can't.
Wise Snake: I mean, you are the Gen, and he is the Sime. He's past turnover, and need is advancing upon him.
Linn feels a slight frission of alarm.
Linn: I thought we'd decided on a practice round this month?
Wise Snake: Although you will not be serving him this month, you have been identified as his Gen, as his partner, and he will depend on you for support both physical and psychological to sustain him until the time comes.
Linn: I hope that he can wait until I'm ready. It won't be easy for him, I know.
Linn: He was very upset to learn that he'd have to wait even one month. If it's more....
Wise Snake: So far as transfer goes, he has no choice.
Linn: ~~ deep concern ~~
Wise Snake: But you are obligated to offer him full support and everything else required of a Donor, regardless.
Wise Snake: And receiving such support should increase his confidence somewhat.
Wise Snake is pleased to note Linn's concern for her channel, a good step.
Wise Snake: Well, I'm glad we had this talk.
Linn notes that Snake's mellow mood seems to have departed.
Wise Snake gets up and veers out of the room before Linn can ask her about anything else she really shouldn't answer.
Linn looks after Snake's fleeing (and weaving) form, and shrugs.
Linn picks up her laundry bag, and start to put its contents away.