Sime~Gen Roleplaying on IRC: Snake River Dam Scenario
Episode #147: Displeased Doesn't Cover It (4/2/01)
see note 1
Arat paces back and forth in the narrow confines of the Si-- of his office.
Nick watches with ~~ concern ~~
Arat has been thoroughly furious since the call that morning informing him of the incident with Sylma, Sedel and Plum, and the seizing of Plum and then the examination.
Nick intends to get rid of the concern before the two miscreants can zlin it, of course.
Arat in fact had to be wrangled by Jeniard, in private, for a full two hours before it was decided (jointly by Jeniard and Nick) that it was safe to turn him loose on Sylma and Sedel.
Nick still isn't sure that it is safe, but some response is necessary, and soon.
Arat is so angry at so much of the world in day to day life that it is difficult to imagine him truly enraged at someone or something on an individual basis, but it is indeed possible as has now been demonstrated.
Nick doesn't think that further waiting will to anything to blunt Arat's anger.
Arat says nothing as he continues to pace, awaiting the arrival of his two egregiously errant employees.
Sylma approaches the Controller's... office... with considerable ~~ trepidation ~~
Sylma has been trying to discover the current condition of their erstwhile client, but has been denied all access and information.
Sylma doesn't think that's a good sign.
Sedel holds a protective field around his sister... er, channel.
Sylma doesn't find that quite as comforting as it should be.
Sedel has never had much to do with the Controller and isn't as worried as Sylma obviously is.
Sylma looks up at her brother.
Sylma: What do you think he'll do with us?
Sylma has been trying to figure the possibilities, and they don't zlin good.
Sedel gives her a brotherly squeeze and lets go. It will be all right.
Sedel: No idea, sis.
Sedel: Whatever it is, we deal with it and go on. He can't kill either of us.
Sylma: Well, he is disjunct. Murder, however, is another matter. We've made him look very bad, and I hear he's not the type to forget that.
Sylma has been contemplating the tortures of, say, not being permitted to work at the Dam site again.
Sedel: Considering the way the whole Plum deal has been handled I wouldn't think this would make much difference.
Sedel shrugs. Of course he could be wrong. No one is perfect.
Sylma: Maybe not, but he went catatonic on our watch, not Rifan's.
Sedel: It was a long steady set of events that led up to it. We just happened to catch the tail end of it.
Sylma: I just don't understand why he withdrew like that. He's donated before, without that sort of reaction. And if he'd been the least afraid of me, I wouldn't have tried what I did.
Sedel has fallen into a protect mode that has its roots set deep in his years as big brother.
Sylma isn't very optimistic that such excuses as "I didn't expect it to work out that way" will fly with the Controller.
Sedel: You made him a promise and you kept it. He wasn't sane. He should never have been declared sane. But then there was a bit of rear covering going on there too.
Sylma: I expect you're right, but that won't help our situation any.
Sylma leans hard on Sedel for comfort as they stop before the door of the Sime Shack, then pulls her nager together and ~~ signals ~~
Arat whips around to face the door.
Nick projects ~~ soothing calm ~~
Nick gets out of his chair and walks over to put a hand on Arat's arm, to reinforce the effect.
Arat takes a moment to compose himself, then nods to Thureal to let them in.
Nick is glad that Arat chose not to send him away, even as far as the door.
Nick delicately adjusts his nager to zlin perfectly, icily controlled to a Second, but with ~~ warm comfort ~~ at a level that Arat can zlin.
Arat is clearly in an uncharacteristically agitated state. He is sweating slightly, and though his nager has been forced to show nothing, he is nearly trembling with suppressed fury. He leans hard on Nick's nageric support.
Sylma looks at the guard as the door opens, and squares her (broader than average) shoulders.
Sylma: Hajene Sylma and Sosu Sedel to see the Controller.
Sedel: ~~protection~~ ~~calm~~
Arat waits with predatory (and very temporary) patience as the bodyguard stands aside to let them in.
Sylma enters, resisting the urge to hide behind Sedel.
Sedel supports his channel/sister quietly and eyes the Controller.
Sylma: Controller Farris.
Sedel: Controller.
Arat's eyes and laterals consume Sylma and Sedel with an intensity unequaled even by his usual examination of visitors.
Sylma has been trained in threat assessment from a young age, and rates her current situation as somewhere between facing a band of Raiders and facing a battalion of the Gen Army. Or maybe both.
Arat has been asking one question for the last hours: how could two employees with such impeccable records and who had come so highly recommended do something like what they'd done? There is no evidence in their faces or nagers.
Sedel feels the running tingle that lets him know he is being zlinned rather deeply. He increases his protective support accordingly.
Sylma instinctive shoots a glance at Nick, but sees no help there.
Arat: Sit. [points at the two chairs waiting for them]
Sylma does so, automatically weighing the strategic problem of lessened mobility vs. the potential of the chair as a barrier or missile.
Sedel sits next to Sylma never missing a beat in his support..
Sylma is not in the habit of destroying Controllers' offices, of course, but she can't help reacting to a threat -- and Arat looks threatening.
Thureal and Gashnom are already looking on with great interest, and note Sylma's seeming readiness for a struggle. They are always alert to potential danger to their client, of course.
Arat begins to pace again, casting one or two dark evaluative glances at the channel/Donor pair. The first few words he utters will be critical, and must be chosen well.
Arat's thin frame is tense with an unaccustomed energy; he is augmenting slightly without realizing it.
Nick increases the ~~ support ~~ he is offering, even if that does make it zlinnable to the miscreants.
Arat stops suddenly, staring hard at Sylma, then Sedel.
Arat: What were you thinking? [he demands at last]
Arat's stress is evident in his voice, which is somewhat hoarse (due to his tirade in his quarters, which occurred while dragging Jeniard bodily behind him for the most part).
Sedel: Thinking, Controller?
Arat: Surely you had some intention, some plan, when you did this?
Arat may be an unimaginative tight ass, but he knows a plan when he sees one. Store rooms do not get emptied out, covered floor to ceiling in mattresses, and attended by guards by pure coincidence.
Sedel: Only to help him feel less vulnerable. He asked not to be sedated. The padding was to prevent him from injuring himself.
Sylma: I was trying to act in accord with Plum's repeatedly stated wishes, regarding his donations.
Sylma is not going to pretend that things worked out the way she expected.
Arat: Did Minister Plum ask to be chased around a room until he collapsed?
Arat knows, of course, that Minister Plum did not.
Arat does not even wait for an answer to that.
Arat: What you did was a cruel and unconscionable act.
Arat: It was blatant malpractice of the highest order.
Arat: Give me one reason why I should not remove you both from service immediately and permanently!
Arat is clearly upset by what happened, both on an administrative and a personal level.
Nick's efforts to calm Arat are hindered somewhat by their continually moving target.
Sylma: I won't try to pretend that Plum's condition isn't serious, or that I didn't make it worse with my approach.
Sylma: However, when Sedel and I talked with Minister Plum two weeks ago, he seemed stable enough, if genuine upset at the prospect of being forced to donate.
Sylma: He repeatedly expressed two wishes: to not be drugged, so that he would be aware of what was happening to him, and to be allowed to carry out a religious obligation to resist donating to the extent he was physically able.
Sedel: He asked for his dignity. We made an effort to give him that.
Arat is quite familiar with dignity and its requirements, and he knows for a fact that crawling backward on a stinking mattress trying to escape being grabbed by the enemy is not dignity.
Sylma: We had no reason to suspect that his mental state was as fragile as his physical condition.
Sedel understood the request Plum made. It is better to face your enemy "standing" than in a drugged stupor.
Arat: Your "effort", as you call it, was carried out without his consent or his knowing input. You reduced a Gen human being to the position of an animal to be baited. It is as far from the tenets of the Tecton, or of your Householding, as any such "treatment" could possibly be.
Arat: Your rationalizations are weak and founded in misunderstanding and denial.
Arat: He was your patient, not a toy to be played with in a padded room.
Arat: Do you understand me?
Arat: You have made a serious mistake and endangered, if not permanently destroyed, a man's sanity.
Sedel refuses to loose his temper. ~~calm~~
Sedel: Controller, we were acting in good faith upon the assessment of higher order channels that Minister Plum was sane. Does not a sane person have the right to request the conditions of his donation?
Sylma: I explained to him what I intended, and gave him the option of choosing sedation at any time. He chose not to accept it.
Arat's nageric control slips for a moment, revealing a hint of the outrage, disappointment and disgust he is doing his best to contain.
Arat: Do not play games with me. If you think to hide behind a defense of ignorance, you will find it provides no cover at all.
Sedel: Controller, was he sane?
Arat: You know well what Minister Plum's state was, he was emotionally unstable to a dangerous degree and sane only by a physical technicality.
Arat: Any Sime could zlin as much.
Nick edges closer to Arat, worried that Jeniard's efforts will prove not to be sufficient.
Arat: And as for his consent, you might as well ask any criminal, wild animal or prisoner to accept sedation. Your argument that he condoned your stalking by refusing sedation is ludicrous.
Sedel: If he was sane by a physical technicality, then by virtue of that same physical technicality he had the right to choose.
Arat rounds on Sedel.
Arat: He was your patient! Do not argue technicalities with me. You failed him, and you failed me.
Sedel sits his ground.
Sedel: Which is more important to you, Controller?
Arat: Do you have any idea of the magnitude of your transgression and the backlash it will generate in the coming weeks?
Nick gives up on appearances, and projects ~~ CALM ~~
Sedel: More than the events that put him in jail in the first place?
Arat points at his own chest.
Arat: I had nothing to do with those events.
Arat: I have had my hands tied with regards to Plum for weeks.
Sylma gestures at Sedel to "hush".
Sedel thinks, typical.
Arat: And then, you, Sylma and Sedel, have brought it to this!
Sylma: We do not pretend that what we did was appropriate, given Plum's actual mental condition -- only that our approach was consistent with the records in his file, and with our preliminary interview with him.
Arat slams his palm down on his desk.
Arat: Just what file were you reading? [icily]
Arat: The man was mentally and emotionally unstable. He had attempted suicide multiple times. He was starving himself.
Arat: Rifan recommended sedation as did the channel before him.
Arat: And if that wasn't enough, the shortest of conversations would reveal that Plum had no notion of the real world whatsoever, but lived in some fantasy land of garbled theology and confused impulses.
Arat: You are both experienced channels and Donors.
Arat: You have impeccable records.
Arat: What in your experience told you that this was the correct course of action, and that I and the law would condone it?
Arat: This would be condemned if it was done to a dog, much less a human being!
Arat: I did not assign you to him because you were raw, idealistic First Years with no common sense.
Arat: I did so because I thought you were a reputable, honest team capable of handling a difficult, but fundamentally simple assignment.
Arat: And now I find myself faced with the difficult task of deciding what to do with two Seconds who really can't be spared from the rotation, but who I can no longer trust to ensure the safety of their patients!
Sedel: I'm not happy with the outcome either, Controller. Have you never in your entire career had a situation go horribly wrong?
Arat's eyes narrow as Sedel commits the unforgivable sin of comparing himself to Arat.
Sedel: I'm not a Farris so I don't know what infallibility is like.
Sylma: Sedel!
Sylma appreciates her brother's attempts to defend her, but doesn't think that baiting the Controller is going to help either of them much.
Arat: Then perhaps an explanation will clarify the matter for you. [coldly]
Arat: The post that I hold here is one of diplomatic significance. I was placed here because of the Gen Territory Government's confidence in me.
Arat: Actions such as yours place me in an indefensible position.
Arat: It does not matter how skilled I am as a channel if I cannot depend upon those in my service to uphold the beliefs and qualities that the Tecton holds forth as its aim.
Sedel: I would never intentionally put my patients at risk. But I can make a mistake. Human beings do that. I apologize for making you look bad.
Nick is starting to wonder whether Sedel and Sylma have just as much of a death wish as Plum himself.
Arat closes his eyes for a moment as a murderous rage threatens to take him.
Nick puts a hand on Arat's arm.
Arat's tirade's object is, of course, not that Sedel and Sylma "made him look bad".
Nick: Arat.
Sedel stares unblinkingly at Arat. He is coming to feel contempt for the channel and has no doubt that he can zlin it easily. How do these cripples manage to always end up in positions of authority? Probably because no one in their right mind would take the job.
Sylma: Controller, we made a serious misjudgment on the state of our patient, to his great detriment. That is not something that any channel or Donor could take lightly, and we do not.
Sylma is, indeed, genuinely ~~ distressed ~~ at Plum's condition.
Arat opens his eyes and looks at Sylma. He is ignoring Sedel. Sedel's contempt means nothing to him, except that the man is not worth talking to any further.
Sedel is equally unhappy about Plum's deterioration but is not willing to be used as a scapegoat. ~~protection~~
Sedel has a feeling that Arat is trying to lock the barn door after the horses have gotten out.
Arat: Go on.
Arat feels that Sylma has made the first step in the right direction.
Sedel leaves his sister to placate Arat Sime-to-Sime. He never has had much talent for that sort of thing.
Sylma: I mistook Plum's mental instability for rigid adherence to an alien religious doctrine -- one which inspires acts which are judged criminal and insane on this side of the border, but not in his normal environment.
Sylma: I should not have made that assumption, without knowing a great deal more about Plum's religion, and what constitutes normal behavior within it.
Arat thinks that what Sylma did was mistake genuine adherence to that doctrine for a game, and thought that Plum would be willing to work with her to find a way to "cheat" his beliefs.
Arat thinks that was her first blunder.
Arat then thinks that Sylma showed an appalling lack of sensitivity to his increased distress and the degradation of his response as the "treatment" progressed.
Arat thinks that overall, she made the quite serious mistake of failing to get a radical treatment plan approved by her superior before attempting it, particularly with a patient of such political importance.
Arat has already noted all of the above in his report on the matter.
Arat will append also her and Sedel's reports and his personal recommendation as to the disposal of the pair.
Arat has already decided what to do about Sedel, but has not yet decided what will be Sylma's fate.
Sylma: And I should have gotten a reassessment of his mental condition and the advisability of such treatment, by a First familiar with his case, before proceeding.
Arat zlins Sylma carefully.
Sylma is ~~ genuinely repentant ~~
Nick has lightened up a bit on his calming projection, as Arat's immediate, strangle-them-now rage becomes more controlled.
Arat: I zlin that you have seen the error of your actions. [somewhat more restrained than before]
Arat: However, due to the magnitude of the transgression and its results, I am forced to reassign you accordingly.
Sylma was expecting something of the sort.
Arat: For you, Sylma, I wish to impress upon you the importance of considering the consequences of your actions.
Arat: I know of no other way to do so than to allow you to experience those consequences personally and intimately and over a period of some time.
Arat: It is my hope that this will cause you to be more cautious, and more discerning, in the future.
Sylma nods her understanding.
Sedel waits for the axe to fall.
Arat: For a period of two months, you will not work as a channel, except as it may be necessary to safeguard your life.
Arat does not think it will come to that in only two months for a Second, although it certainly won't be pleasant.
Sylma gulps.
Sylma: Yes, Controller.
Sylma's voice quavers slightly.
Sedel ~~fierce protection~~
Arat: As you are trained in the skills of combat and protection, you will take your place among my bodyguard. You will closely observe all that I do, and all that crosses my desk, for the period of two months. You will attend me as I treat Minister Plum and as I work with each of the administrators, government officials and labor representatives that it is my duty to work with.
Sedel: ~~calm soothing~~
Arat: You will sleep as I sleep, and go where I go.
Arat knows no better way to impress upon her the consequences of her actions... or impress upon her just how much Arat depends upon reliable channels who do not cause him additional agonies.
Sylma nods.
Arat: As for you, Sedel, I can zlin no repentance in you.
Arat: You contain only anger and contempt.
Arat: Have you anything else to say for yourself?
Arat can zlin the calm soothing protectiveness, of course, but it is obviously intended only for Sylma.
Sedel: Do you know why I am angry? I'm certain that you don't care. But do you know why?
Nick wonders what having Sylma underfoot for two solid months is going to do to Arat.
Arat has had the "I'm certain that you don't care" thing flung in his face countless times, by angry people who refuse to hold themselves accountable for their actions and insist upon playing the victim. He looks at Sedel without response, waiting for the rest of it.
Sedel waits for the Controller to answer his question.
Nick hopes that Arat doesn't intend to keep Sedel around, as well; it would no doubt increase his respect for Farris channels, but the aggravation wouldn't be worth it.
Arat has already asked if Sedel wanted to say anything else for himself; after a considerable pause, he decides that he has waited long enough.
Arat: I am removing you from service here at the Dam, until such a time as you can be returned home to Dar.
Sylma's control of her ~~ shock ~~ is imperfect.
Sedel nods. He had expect no less of the person before him.
Arat: You have proven that you do not care to work with me or for me as your Controller, and there is no place for that here. The Dam is too dangerous an environment for it.
Arat: Unless either of you has anything else to say, you may both go now.
Sylma gets to her feet, without a trace of her usual bounce.
Sedel hugs Sylma, and walks out. He leaves her to the tender mercies of Arat.
Sylma follows, unsure which of them will prove to have gotten the worst of Arat's discipline.
Arat sags back against his desk, physically and emotionally wrung out.
Nick hovers, wondering if he should send one of the bodyguards for Jeniard.
Notes:
1) Chronologically this episode takes place within hours of SRD #144. [return]
Go on to Episode #148: Refuge for Refuse
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