2023-07-16: A Means to an End
- Log: A Means to an End
- Cast: Loren Voss, Leah Sadalbari
- Where: Etrenank
- Date: July 16, 2023
- Summary: Leah requests a meeting with her brother-in-law. There is one purpose to it: to tell him the truth, and see whether it breaks him.
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
All things come to an end.
This is fortunate, as far as Loren is concerned -- he has no wish to stay in Etrenank, whatever his parents might argue for otherwise. It's not that he despises his country, whatever he might privately think about their aims being askew and hope desperately (wish foolishly) that the tide might turn. It's more that there's no place for him here -- not as a civilian. He can't see a future here for himself that isn't some sick joke or parody.
At least, below, he can do his duty and hope that something in the world (or something in him) might change.
Routine would have seen him boarding a shuttle by midday tomorrow, returning to his duties at last below. Routine would have seen him packing his bags now, and ensuring he has everything he wants or needs since there won't be a second chance.
Routine has been altered: Leah had sent him a request to meet her. The location was strange: towards the base level of Etrenank's Second Class region and far from any shops or restaurants. He had read the message over a half-dozen times before sending his response.
This wasn't just a courtesy call, he was certain. No -- he knew it wasn't. She was...
He had realized what was happening to her. The fact that she hadn't gone in for treatment, or retired from service, or anything at all to mitigate what was happening to her suggested that she was intent upon this course.
No doubt, this is when she was going to tell him what he already knew.
He has dressed nicely enough. Not even remotely like he had at their wedding, so long ago, but he has taken some effort into wearing something nicer than his usual. There is no helping his haircut, though.
He waits at the appointed spot at the appointed time, dreading every second that takes him closer to the truth.
<Pose Tracker> Leah Sadalbari has posed.
All things end. Change is inevitable.
Leah Sadalbari spends little time in Eternank herself, though it is not obvious that this is so. And Loren appears to have realized, eventually, why that's changed in recent history. Or at least... a possible reason. Regardless, she has interrupted routine. It is not a courtesy call.
He will not hear her coming, as he stands here waiting.
There is no familiar step-STEP, step-STEP, as a blonde woman with long hair walks from the alley behind, almost seeming to materialize out of nowhere. Almost.
"Loren," Leah says, and her voice is as it ever is... if harder-edged. She is dressed in the robes of the Interior Ministry, a uniform that will set many people in this place to fear immediately. It is flowing, and drapes, but her clothes are not the most notable part of her apearance.
The two blue eyes there in her face are far more notable.
"Dressed appropriately, I see." She pauses. "That's for the best. Follow me."
She starts onward, and she does ot offer the explanations he might ask for, as she takes off towards the direction of--
Those are the Third Class dormitories.
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
He doesn't hear her coming.
This is a problem, because she calls out to him, and he didn't hear her coming. The reason for this may be apparent the moment that he turns to face her.
Leah Sadalbari is... whole.
Loren's expression will tell the story of precisely what he's thinking. He has never been a good liar, and this remains so even now, even as he stares at her wide-eyed, his jaw slack in shock. He doesn't say a word; he instead looks her over for the second time as if trying to make sure this is really her, that this isn't some prank, that this is...
But this is her. This is certainly her.
She moves past him after telling him he's dressed appropriately. That it's for the best. All he can do is stare after her, all his unasked questions clear as day on his face.
She is heading straight for the security checkpoint. Afer that, that path will take her directly...
...to the Third Class dormitories.
"...Hey," he says at last, his voice sounding strange even to him as he speaks. "What's...?"
She does not stop for him. He is forced to follow after.
Passing the checkpoint will be no problem for either of them. They are the elect: it is written into the very structure of their DNA.
<Pose Tracker> Leah Sadalbari has posed.
Rarely does Leah wear this kind of uniform; always she dresses in clothes more suited to a warrior, be it a uniform (her uniform, the faceless mask of the Watcher) or Drifter-style attire. Today, she is dressed for a different kind of battle.
And she is whole.
"There are lessons I haven't yet taught you," Leah says. "Things you may or may not understand."
"But they are vital." She pauses. "You have questions."
Ordinarily more laconic than this, Leah speaks with a certain intensity. Maybe it has to do with the fact that she's not on her painkillers anymore. Maybe it's something different entirely.
Leah breezes past the checkpoint without bothering to slow much. She knows that she will be able to go through it.
"...I hadn't planned to meet with you again," Leah says, as she comes to a stop on an overlook that sees Third Class Citizens milling about below. Most of them haven't seen them yet, one way or another; Loren may notice that there is one-sided glass concealing them from the masses, for now.
"I thought I had done enough. That, one way or another, you would find your destiny, now. But it would seem I am obligated to force the issue."
"...You have questions," she repeats. "I have answers. But you will have to ask your questions to get them. And you will have to understand what you ask."
"I want you, first, to look at these citizens. Consider their dreary lives. Consider the nature of the worker bee. It is a 'necessary' thing. But to ask the Elect, it is not even a necessary evil--it simply is. It is th nature of these people to work, and to be exploited. It is the nature of our society to require such an underclass to function."
"But they deserve it, for their savage nature. If not channeled in this way, they will only war with one another. Isn't that true?"
"Is that what you have learned, on the surface?"
Leah extends her hand. A crackle of lightning dances in her palm. Cameras in their immediate environs cease function.
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
There are things he hasn't learned yet. At once his mind flies towards his courses at Jugend -- how they had prepared and not prepared him for the realities of the path his life had taken him upon. How there are still so many things he doesn't understand about the world.
Take for example, Lan's 'slumber parties'.
But he doesn't think Leah is talking about anything as simple as that. She, of course, is privy to matters more private and secret than most within Solaris, a society that is riddled with secrets. There are things that as a First Class citizen, he knows he is chosing not to see simply because the consequences of seeing them are that dire.
Was that a question? "Well... yes," Loren answers, on the matter of whether he has questions. "How..."
She has already passed the checkpoint. He hesitates even knowing he will pass through safely and only then, follows.
Someone with Gebler clearance can pass through. Someone of First Class rank can pass through. And of course, someone with higher clearance -- like Leah, or others of her kind -- can pass through. Anyone else will be annihilated on the spot. Unauthorized contact between anyone else and the Third Class is forbidden.
The last time he'd been down there, he had been in school, pre-Jugend. They had taken his class down to tell them how much they owed to the 'Worker Bees'...
He's quiet initially, gazing at the Third Class citizens below. Somewhere down there... didn't Mirza have a kid, once? Does she even get to visit?
He doesn't like the answer his heart gives him.
"...What do you mean?" he asks Leah then, turning his gaze from the tableau below and towards her. "What do you mean-- 'my destiny'? ...What happened to you, Leah?"
She states that again: he has questions. She has the answers. He closes his mouth without another word and, as directed, turns his gaze again to the people below. The nature of their lives--
To work. To toil. It's for the good of everyone that it's so. That's what they were told growing up. He never really thought about it, not until...
"...That's what we were told," he echoes, not looking at her. He can't look at her. "This is... the only way for the Lambs to attain salvation. Without guidance, they will destroy... everything," he finishes, exhaling a weighty breath and closing his eyes.
And what did he learn?
He can hear the crackle of electricity about him and something within him shudders. Whatever happens now will not leave this place.
"..."
Loren's answer does not come immediately. At his sides, his hands curl into fists.
"I don't know... why it has to be like this," he tells her, his face turned from her and his eyes still closed. "I used to understand it, but now I don't. The people of the surface..."
They're just people. They're not all good, and they're not all bad. They do stupid, destructive things. They do wonderful, thoughtful things. They hurt other people. They lend even strangers a hand up. They're just people: however he looks at it, they're just like the people up here. Isn't that why he knows there's no place for--
Loren finally turns towards Leah, his eyes open. Everything that's been on his mind -- everything he's seen, read, found. Everything has come towards this tipping point.
"--What are we doing? Why does it have to be this way?"
<Pose Tracker> Leah Sadalbari has posed.
'How?' he wonders. That is a question. It will do. Does he understand the depth of its meaning yet, though? Regardless, she said that he would have his answers.
"The destiny for which I have prepared you. The destiny that will fulfill your desire for greatness--that will show that you are ready to be more than anyone ever expected you to be. That you are more than the brother of a 'failure'." She says it almost without bitterness--but only almost. All the sour nature of that phrase is tied up in that single word instead, a sneer on Leah's face unseen as she delivers it.
"I will explain."
But first: that's what they were told. Without guidance...
But what did he learn?
It's fine, that he doesn't answer immediately. The curling of his fists answers. Leah feels it in her own; she feels blood pumping through fingers, skin wrapped around bone, a sympathetic twinge in muscle as she sees an action she could also physically perform.
"You don't know. That is what you have learned."
Her expression is unreadable, until he turns towards her. It is unreadable, until he reaches that tipping point, his eyes open, and it could be anything, blank entirely. Until the next moment.
The Watcher smiles, and it is not a pleasant expression.
"You understand," she says. "And thus, you are ready for the truth."
"...The truth, that there is no moral difference between the classes. The surfacers are just as worthy of safety, security, love, and life as the purest blood of the First Class. There is only one reason that we treat them in this way."
"...So that men and women like you and me view them as subhuman. So that we can look upon them, uncaring of their suffering, and do what our masters require of us. It is done for the benefit and the molding of the First Class, itself a project centuries in the making. In order to maintain control of this world, we must ensure that the masses of Etrenank believe in what we are doing. In order to maintain control of this world..."
"But that, too, is a means to an end, Loren. The deeper truth is that even the First Class is sculpted to serve a purpose."
"Do you then see? Why I hate them? Why I hate all of them? It is not only Engil. It is the knowledge that their decadent society is itself only a means to an end. That they are given everything, appreciate nothing... and don't even deserve it in the first place."
"This is the true nature of Solaris. This is the nation you serve. A hollow thing, a fantasy, a stage-play whose players do not understand that they are acting."
"The true masters of this world reside in our palaces. And their plans continue apace."
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
She tells him about the destiny she's prepared for him.
A chance to be free from the past. A chance to be great, to be a hero. To be looked up to -- to be admired. To be anything but the sort of person he's become, leading the sort of life he lives.
His shoulders tense. He tenses, as if nearly to recoil from what she's offering him. No -- it's not that a part of him doesn't still want that. Who wouldn't want that chance? To be someone. To be truly great and admirable. Once, he would have lept at such a chance. But--
It's what she says. 'More than the brother of a failure'. It's how she says it. It's how she knows what had/still lingers in the depths of his heart and how she pulls such a faded forgotten dream out to dangle before him like a prize.
It's all the more reason for him to respond how he does. To reflect on what he has actually learned and seen. To speak at last the question that has slowly germinated within him for years now that it has finally born its fruit.
Leah smiles at him and something within him shudders at the expression on the woman who has become to him as family. Something in the pit of his stomach, even know, makes him feel as if he should turn and run. That it's not too late.
The moment passes, though, and then it is too late. She tells him the thing that in, retrospect he will consider, much later, he had already realized. There is no difference.
The question on his face must have been obvious, for Leah does not hesitate a moment. There is one reason why it is like this.
"So there... has to be someone below us to... unite us?" Loren is young and foolish in many respects. He is inexperienced in many things, still. But he is not stupid. "But why? Why do we need..."
She comes to that point herself, without so much as missing a beat. There is a reason for even that. There is even a reason for the First Class to be as it is.
Loren is silent in this moment, his gaze unfocused as he gazes straight at her. If only the walls and floor were to fall away, if only he could now plummet into the void! But treacherously, everything about him remains still and stable, a mockery of stability as his entire world comes to pieces. Everything. She's saying that everything that he ever learned or experienced here was planned for. That every struggle he'd been through was meaningless. That everything in their society was structured to be just so.
That every moment of suffering and loneliness, that had all been to uphold a fantasy--
This has to be a lie. It has to be a lie! But he looks at her without looking at her and he knows, he knows this isn't a lie. His whole world, then? His whole world. It's all been a hollow dream from the start! Does he want to laugh? Or cry? Or...
It's hard to breathe. He hunches his shoulders, he clasps a hand to his chest. Not now. Not now! The walls feel like they're closing in and he can't breathe and NOT NOW
Loren buckles, dropping to his knees.
<Pose Tracker> Leah Sadalbari has posed.
This--this is the moment.
Leah has prepared all. She has prepared him, or will see if she has, now that he has asked the question. It is far too late to run, now. This path has been prepared for him.
Her answers answer his follow-up questions; they must be united. Why? Because they are a means, too. But Loren is silent, and has gaze unfocuses. yes, his world is collapsing; she can see it. She has performed this maneuver on others, before, though never him. Never quite him.
"It is the truth," Leah says. "Solaris must be united, for the purposes of her masters."
As he starts to fall, Leah kneels down. Then, she reaches for his collar, and picks him up bodily. She no longer has her heavy cybernetic limbs; she does not appear to have lost any of her might. Instead, Leah moves to stare into Loren's eyes with both of her own. The walls are closing in...
"At your feet is the hard tile of the Worker Bees' hive. Before you I stand, holding you up. The sound you hear is the blood rushing in your ears, for there is nothing else here but the milling of the Third Class far below."
"This is truth," Leah's voice hisses.
"This is the nature of Solaris. Now, will you let it break you? Or will you hear the purpose behind the purpose? The reason for the lie?"
"The reason I still fight for this blasted nation which I hate?"
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
This is the truth.
His knees scarcely touch the floor before she has him. He has no choice but to stand lest he choke at her hands. Reaching up, Loren grasps her wrist; by the strength of it, it's more like he's holding on for dear life rather than to try and wrest her hand away. The plea in his eyes is plain.
His vision swims. He struggles to breathe. It isn't because of her grip on him.
This is all real. This is the truth. Everything he'd wanted, hoped for, cried about -- that was the illusion.
"Did..." he gasps, his grip on her tightening.
"Did... he know this... too?"
Even in this, was Engil ahead of him--?
<Pose Tracker> Leah Sadalbari has posed.
There's a plea in his eyes, but she is pitiless in this moment. She waits--she does not have time for an attack of panic, for indulging the dark emotions that come of such a thing. She must know his answer. She must see the result. And then, as he tightens his grip, he asks a question...
"..."
She lightens her grip, then, not enough that he will fall, but enough that he can support himself, if he chooses. The strength in it does not abate; it is not shock that stops her, not yet.
"...No," Leah answers, with a shake of her head, and she is the Watcher and Leah both in this moment, rather than leaning on one or the other. The blonde woman with such terrible strength looks into Loren's eyes for another moment--before looking through, in memory, rathre than into or at.
"...If he knew, perhaps something would've changed for us. But he didn't, and I didn't. I learned only after I sought a chance to be more than a ruined soldier. After I took up with the Interior Ministry, and began to understand the nature of this world in full."
"...I knew there were lies, of course. My family, as you might recall, was in media." This is self-explanatory, she seems to indicate.
"Do you think he'd have gone along as he did, if he had?"
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
He's able to stand properly again, after a fashion, though he still holds onto one of her wrists as if it were a lifeline -- as if it were the only thing that keeps him from collapsing again in this moment.
'No', she tells him, and in that moment, he knows that she doesn't know what he does.
That Engil never told her what had been on his mind. That he'd taken it to the grave.
Because he'd died, he'd never had the chance. She'd never had the chance. Maybe, in another lifetime, they would have-- found something else, perhaps--
He looks through her rather than at her. Is he even listening to what Leah is telling him, now?
"He... he wasn't," Loren gasps, finally divulging the secret that has been gnawing at him for weeks at this point. "He was-- he'd made contact with... a Shevite agent... he was telling them everything he knew--"
<Pose Tracker> Leah Sadalbari has posed.
She can support him, seemingly without difficulty. She hasn't let go, merely adjusted her grip. And she continues to watch--until his eyes seem to unfocus. Is he listening? She is not sure. Maybe that's it, after all. Maybe this is Loren's limit.
And then, he surprises her.
Leah pauses, as Loren tells her something she had not known about her husband, one of the few things that could stop her in this very moment. A secret he'd held onto...
The reason he'd wanted to know more about him. Was he asking to see if she knew, that time?
"You.."
The Watcher smiles, and it is incredulous. "...Hahahaha," she starts.
'Ah, hahahaha!"
She doesn't let go. But her shoulders shake with it.
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
"Wha..."
He tells her that. He tells her the thing that he'd kept secret from everyone, even her, and her response is to laugh.
He knows it's not that sort of laughter. He knows that! He can tell the difference! But still, to hear her laugh after he spills his guts like this-- and now, of all times...
Loren's grip on her wrist slackens, then falls away. In retrospect, he will think, her very reaction had been grounding. But he's certainly not thinking about it like that now, not when he's feeling as if the world hasn't stopped at letting the floor fall away (so to speak).
It's gone and tilted on its side as well.
"I..." he starts after a moment more. "He... I... there was a notebook..."
The thought that comes bubbling to the top is irrational and foolish. What if he suggested they run? Turn their backs on all of this? Walk away-- But it's as fleeting as it is foolish. He'd be abandoning his parents. Even if he tried to explain, would they listen? Would they think it was a lie? Or would the truth break them, too? More than him, their lives have been in service to what he knows now for certain is a lie. Everything they lost: time, effort, prestige. A son. It's all been for nothing. And anyway, if he turns and runs from Solaris... he knows what will happen.
Loren looks at Leah, actually looks at her now. Even if she didn't have him by the collar, he's not sure he could move. The gravity of this moment alone would have pinned him to the spot.
"...Why?" he asks her, and perhaps she might understand what he's asking after now.
'How' might be the better question: how can she still serve?
<Pose Tracker> Leah Sadalbari has posed.
"...Forgive me," Leah says, after she finally finishes laughing. Ater he actually looks at her in all this. He starts to explain. And indeed, she feels more grounded as well. The world has reasserted itself. There is... something different, in her demeanor now. Something that wasn't there before. But it's hard to put a finger on just waht it could be.
"A notebook," she says. "That he kept hidden, even from me... Yes. If he believed in something like that, it would make perfect sense that he would keep it to himself." Wryly, "...The wrong kind of sense."
It would've made her angry, to know that he'd kept it from her. Under any other circumstances than these.
But he had a question for her.
"...Because there is more to this world than that," she says, eventually. "You know it to be true. This world is dying. Physically and spiritually it is bankrupt. The 'Guardians' the surfacers follow have weakened; their churches are floundering, largely tools. The environment is worsening; even before the secrets of the Prophets, the wasteland was expanding."
"...Solaris is a means to an end. To the ultimate end. The First Class exists to gather power that we might have the strength to right this world. Ether. We are stronger than our ancestors, Loren. Perhaps now strong enough. ...No, we must be strong enough."
"The nations of this world are pitiful actors on a pitiful stage, attempting prosperity in a world with none left to give. The religions of this world aspire to virtue, not knowing that virtue is dead."
"...It would be nihilistic," she explains, "If not for one thing: there is a reason for this."
"In an ancient age, God fell, Loren. The true God, the wellspring of goodness and right, the means by which the world can be given harmony, order, justice."
"...You see? To fix it piecemeal, the world would only devour itself again, again and again, until it finally wasted away. We must address the root cause.
"...The work to curtail the First Class that I do is itself also a means to an end. They must be controlled, their power channeled. Our power channeled."
"I had thought to leave this work to others... But, it would seem, I have a part to play for longer than I had believed."
"...Why would the Interior Ministry put so much funding into a crippled soldier, Loren? For what reason would they have to be so interested in a former member of Gebler, her body destroyed? ...Krelian gave me an opportunity. He showed me something, the nature of this world, and how I could have a hand in changing it."
"...Of course, as it turned out, he could have done better than my prosthetics all along. But this 'gift' is not one for which I asked. All the same..."
"That is why. Perhaps, had Engil told me, things would've been different. But this is the world we are in, now."
"And I see no other way to heal this broken planet but to continue on my path."
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
Even in understanding the nature of their nation, Engil had gotten there first. He'd thought -- desperately, if he's to be honest -- that it had been the first real 'flaw' in the pedestal his brother had effortlessly ascended. The first, that is, other than making an error in piloting and getting himself and others killed. But no-- even before that. Even before that.
But again, he'd been wrong. In his own way, Engil had the right of it. It's just that it's a path that Loren knows... he cannot follow.
Leah makes it plain that the same is true for her. It's only that her reasons are different.
It's because this world -- the world above which they are suspended even now, the world to which Solaris would claim sole dominion -- is dying. Of course he knows that. There are no institutions in which to depend. Of course he knows that. Government, religion, Guardians, the very soil itself-- of course he knows that!
The First Class exists to gather... Ether? Is that the meaning of his existence? To--
And he's done a poor job of that by either account. He has neither demonstrated the mastery of Ether one would expect of his social 'rank' (not by Solaris' terms -- no matter what Lan might have said), nor has he successfully produced any descendants to come after and fill the role properly. Just look at van Houten -- look at anyone else in his generation -- all he has to show for his struggles are a string of losses.
"And... and with that... we could..."
Not just take over the world, she tells him. They can revive God.
He freezes where he stands, still in her grasp. "If we... revive God, then... everything would be put to rights?" The world would be fixed? The world could be fixed. There'd be no need for any of this artifice -- anything of Solaris. He could... he could even stop fighting. There'd be no need for any of this, anymore.
He knows it's not going to be that simple. He knows it's not going to be that clean. He knows, intuitively, that there is going to be some awful sacrifice in exchange for this: the world won't take their dominion lying down, whatever they intend by its coming.
But the fantasy, however absurd, of one day setting down all his burdens and going to live in a familiar little village on the edge of the wastes is... more alluring than he's willing to fully admit. All he needs to do is endure to the end.
"If this can save the world..." The look in his eyes might be enough.
Everyone needs a lie to tell themself.
<Pose Tracker> Leah Sadalbari has posed.
And yet, he never shared it with Leah. A 'flaw'...
A flaw that could have changed much.
"Everything," the Watcher says seriously. "All that is, and all that will be."
It's not simple; already, there are terrible sacrifices being made. Already, there are atrocities committed. How much more, before all is done? She does not say for now.
The look in his eyes...
Is it enough? For once, Leah does not know. Not after the secret he has told her. Not after the knowledge that he knew.
"It can," she says. "It is all that can save this world. No sacrifice is too great, save for the sacrifice of the very world itself. We must safeguard it from such threats, that our plan can come to fruition."
"This is the 'truth' for which you have waited, Loren. This is the nature of reality."
"...Remember that. it is not Solaris's good that we work for." She gestures, to the Worker Bees below. "It is not for the system that perpetuates these things that we labor."
"It is for the goal behind it. It is for the world itself."
Perhaps it's a lie, for Loren. She doesn't know.
...But it is too late to hold back, now.
"...Tell this to no one. Not those who would claim to be your superiors in Gebler. Not Lan. No one."
"All will be revealed in time."
<Pose Tracker> Loren Voss has posed.
His mouth feels dry. Everything. Everything could be possible. It's almost too much. It's almost too easy. One horrible lie has been peeled away to reveal...
Is it true, what she now tells him? He has no choice but to believe in it. To think otherwise would be to believe in nothing. To have nothing. To accept that he is caught in tides and currents over which he has no control.
Revive God, and everything will resolve itself. It's too easy.
But with that thought, it's possible to imagine a hundred thousand atrocities wiped away, the slate cleared away for the better future which was to come. And, to think otherwise, he... would be accepting again that he has and will amount to nothing. That his future is exactly as empty and listless as he had seen it to be that day, not weeks before, when he had stared at the ceiling and thought about what might come to pass.
No sacrifice is too great if it can save the world. Or if it can save him.
Loren swallows. "I... understand," he tells. He needs to sit down. He needs to think about this more. But none of these things are available to him. He has only her assurance that this the only way to save... everything. That this the one thing that is real and true. "I understand. It's for the world."
It's for him. It's for the small impossible future that seems just out of reach, however he tries.
"...I won't. I won't say anything." His hands are shaking; he curls his fingers in tight, towards his palms. He's... being trusted in this.
He'll say nothing.
Not if it could chase that impossible future out of reach for good.
<Pose Tracker> Leah Sadalbari has posed.
Is it true? Leah seems to believe it to be so.
Perhaps that will be enough.
"This is what has sustained me. This is what sustains me now that I have been given this 'gift'," she says. It does not sound altogether like a gift, the way she uses the word. "This mission. Now, you are part of it."
He may notice, however--a distance in her expression. No sacrifice is too great, she had said.
But what sacrifices has she made?
"Good," Leah says, as he mentions he won't say anything. "...That is all, for now."
"Go, and rest. I..."
She shakes her head. "I will continue my walk."
She starts down the corridor, still in the Third Class sector.