...You read that whole textbook, right? About the Eden Network.
[ about paradise, about a world with no anxiety, with no pain.
lu bixing's quiet, looking up at the bed above him, tapping his fingertips gently on his chest. ]
People who can't access the network are called "vaccuocerebrals." For whatever reason, they're born with an inability to plug into a neural network. Those who can't access Eden had no point in society - think of standing on the outside of the glass while the rest of the world throws a party and you have to watch.
The Union itself more or less sends vaccuocerebrals, as well as those who can't afford or don't want to access Eden to the Eighth Galaxy. It became something of a dumping ground and rarely received any funding, protection, or access to supplies from the Union itself - even when the virus hit, support from the Union took too long to arrive. With no internal structure, gangs and pirates took over the majority of the planets, seeing it as a lawless land. It was just controlled enough to be a part of the Union, without ever receiving a single benefit. They would recruit soldiers, take our supplies, use us as a battleground, but never help the vaccuocerebrals, or a single other person of the Eighth Galaxy. Never once.
[ the way he's delivered this information is quiet and steady, much like that textbook voice itself, but at the end -- as he carries on, there's a flint like a match being struck against a book. ]
Seventeen years ago, I suggested that we secede from the Union and we did. We had long since built up a world where we didn't need to rely on Eden, or on the way the IUS could pour propaganda into it.
[Lavi listens, and commits to memory. The cadence of Bixing's voice could be the same as Bookman, someone shaping history into a few concise sentences, even though the length could never encapsulate what truly happened. Not without seeing it all with his own eyes.
He thinks he can see a bit of it now though. The Eighth Galaxy. And not even a town or a country -- but a galaxy of people left to fend for themselves for all the reasons that boil down to humanity once again being so very ugly. Lavi stirs at the end though, 'seventeen years' pricking at him the same way it did once before.]
...So that's what kept you going.
[during that long interval without Jingheng. but also, the way that reminds him of...]
every day. seventeen years of it - of unending grief, of battling his own demons, of zhanlu pulling on his metaphorical leash and only because lu bixing told him to. wasn't he tired? isn't he?
he laughs a little, reaching up to rub the good side of his face with his hand. lavi can't see him, at least. ]
I was tired of it all. [ lu bixing confirms, quietly. of the revolution, the fighting, the control, the life without lin and without monoeye that didn't feel like a life at all. there's a sort of ruefulness to the way he admits it, just in the quiet of this room with its glow in the dark stars. ] But that doesn't matter. The world doesn't stop just because you're tired, Lavi, and I couldn't just lay in the dirt and let it spin around me. The Eighth needed me, and I owed it to them to keep moving.
[For a moment, it's as if Bixing's voice is overlaid by someone else's. A smaller, younger someone. White hair, red scar, and that same weight on his shoulders. Something bobs in Lavi's throat, and he swallows it down, even as he lets himself feel. For once. Grief and mourning are not emotions encouraged in those of the Black Order, but Lavi's not in that world anymore.
He can feel grief here, lying on the floor while Bixing's just a few inches above. Both of them looking up at the ceiling. He can feel sadness, his own and Bixing's, without wondering if someone out there wants to manipulate it.]
...Gotta keep walking, right?
[He can mourn too -- on the fate of those the world depends on, even when they lose the person they love most.]
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no subject
[ about paradise, about a world with no anxiety, with no pain.
lu bixing's quiet, looking up at the bed above him, tapping his fingertips gently on his chest. ]
People who can't access the network are called "vaccuocerebrals." For whatever reason, they're born with an inability to plug into a neural network. Those who can't access Eden had no point in society - think of standing on the outside of the glass while the rest of the world throws a party and you have to watch.
The Union itself more or less sends vaccuocerebrals, as well as those who can't afford or don't want to access Eden to the Eighth Galaxy. It became something of a dumping ground and rarely received any funding, protection, or access to supplies from the Union itself - even when the virus hit, support from the Union took too long to arrive. With no internal structure, gangs and pirates took over the majority of the planets, seeing it as a lawless land. It was just controlled enough to be a part of the Union, without ever receiving a single benefit. They would recruit soldiers, take our supplies, use us as a battleground, but never help the vaccuocerebrals, or a single other person of the Eighth Galaxy. Never once.
[ the way he's delivered this information is quiet and steady, much like that textbook voice itself, but at the end -- as he carries on, there's a flint like a match being struck against a book. ]
Seventeen years ago, I suggested that we secede from the Union and we did. We had long since built up a world where we didn't need to rely on Eden, or on the way the IUS could pour propaganda into it.
no subject
He thinks he can see a bit of it now though. The Eighth Galaxy. And not even a town or a country -- but a galaxy of people left to fend for themselves for all the reasons that boil down to humanity once again being so very ugly. Lavi stirs at the end though, 'seventeen years' pricking at him the same way it did once before.]
...So that's what kept you going.
[during that long interval without Jingheng. but also, the way that reminds him of...]
Weren't you tired of it all by then?
no subject
god, wasn't he?
every day. seventeen years of it - of unending grief, of battling his own demons, of zhanlu pulling on his metaphorical leash and only because lu bixing told him to. wasn't he tired? isn't he?
he laughs a little, reaching up to rub the good side of his face with his hand. lavi can't see him, at least. ]
I was tired of it all. [ lu bixing confirms, quietly. of the revolution, the fighting, the control, the life without lin and without monoeye that didn't feel like a life at all. there's a sort of ruefulness to the way he admits it, just in the quiet of this room with its glow in the dark stars. ] But that doesn't matter. The world doesn't stop just because you're tired, Lavi, and I couldn't just lay in the dirt and let it spin around me. The Eighth needed me, and I owed it to them to keep moving.
no subject
He can feel grief here, lying on the floor while Bixing's just a few inches above. Both of them looking up at the ceiling. He can feel sadness, his own and Bixing's, without wondering if someone out there wants to manipulate it.]
...Gotta keep walking, right?
[He can mourn too -- on the fate of those the world depends on, even when they lose the person they love most.]
...How'd you die?