N04h: So, you wanted to talk to me one last time?
BlackLikeBurns; Yes, sit down.
(In the abandoned building, there is a table set up with two chairs, and a vidscreen. I take a seat, a man begins approaching from the shadows. He looks rather unremarkable, aside from his legs, which are clearly robotic.)
B: Surprised?
N: I just assumed I would have seen you somewhere before.
B: Of course not. (He sits down) the thing you don't understand is that I am only here for one reason, to create a moment.
N: Look, howabout you just explain what you want to.
B: (laughs) Got it, well, first off I've never been important. I'm just a man who worked for the Heirophant. I was shot in the legs by Electric Mayhem after I was already down, and they left me to die.
N: So you're the one (deleted) mentioned in his interview?
B: Yes.
N: So that's why you want to kill them?
B: (laughs) so what is being alive?
N: ...What?
B: What separates you from a lump of flesh? From a piece of metal? From a squirrel?
N: The ability to think.
B: Schocho can think, and it is a piece of metal, plastic, wire, silicon.
N: Empathy?
B: You can program a robot to respond when you experience pain or emotional discomfort. That's nearly empathy if not it.
N: Then what?
B: Something else. Something that ties living things together in a way that can't be quantified. A life spark.
N: A soul?
B: Ha, well I am not going to be that presumptuous... Soul has certain implications that I don't want to go into. But think about it- science has proved that we are all tied together as individual spirits that span humanity. No person without one, all sharing something that brings us higher then the beings around us. Humanity, more then flesh and blood. As sparks. Light. Something that matters, something that isn't just blood and bile and bone, something beyond us killing each other. We are special, we are lights in the universe like stars, shining in our own bodies. So why do we let the darkness within us burn each other, burn ourselves?
N: Why?
B: Because we focus. And now you know why I have done what I have done.
N: .... No I don't.
B: I never wanted to kill Electric Mayhem. I never wanted them to die. A friend of mine they killed always used to say that we can only judge each other by what we've done, but if we did wrong for the right reasons, maybe we deserve another chance to do right for right. And though they killed my friends, and took my legs. I didn't want them to die. I wanted to defeat the thing that they couldn't shake from themselves, the thing destroying them from within, that I saw from the moment that man shot my legs to prevent me from crawling: their laser-blindness. Their focus on their actions, rather than the actions they took to do those actions. Forgetting that the path they take to get there is just as important as the destination, if you scorch the fields and salt them, and then settle down to live there, you’re going to starve. And that’s the path they have been taking.
N: So you’ve been trying to set them on the right path?
B: No. Mr. N04h, how do you defeat a focused laser?
N: With a mirror.
B: Exactly. I just showed them who they were. I wasn’t mean. I just talked to him, angered them a bit, convinced them I was crazy, until they wanted to do interviews and tell their story. I anonymously forwarded (deleted) your name, and he came in at just the right point- after they have focused the laser, show them the mirror. Show them how they are seen by other eyes, the bloodstains, the dirt, the shit. Show them their failures they shove under the carpet.
N: To torment them?
B: To better them! There is something unique about us as humans as I said, a spark. If we fall to the biting level of animals, or the hubris of Shi, we won’t create a better world for anyone in the end. We’ll just burn and burn and kill and enslave and someone will win and sit on a throne of skulls. But it won’t even matter, because the man with the most blood on his hands will still die, and then the cycle will start all over again. Electric Mayhem destroyed my body, my friends, but if they are the best hope for humanity, then let them be human. Let them light up their own bodies like suns, and fight not like dogs or Gods, but humans. Who love. Who care.
N: So… What now?
B: I vanish. If they can learn a single thing from their pasts, then I’ve done my work. If they can question one order they shouldn’t have followed, action they shouldn’t have taken… That’s all I’ve ever wanted. The best of humanity, to be humanity at its best.
I’ll be going now, but I left you a video, watch it if you like.
(Video attached)
BlackLikeBurns; Yes, sit down.
(In the abandoned building, there is a table set up with two chairs, and a vidscreen. I take a seat, a man begins approaching from the shadows. He looks rather unremarkable, aside from his legs, which are clearly robotic.)
B: Surprised?
N: I just assumed I would have seen you somewhere before.
B: Of course not. (He sits down) the thing you don't understand is that I am only here for one reason, to create a moment.
N: Look, howabout you just explain what you want to.
B: (laughs) Got it, well, first off I've never been important. I'm just a man who worked for the Heirophant. I was shot in the legs by Electric Mayhem after I was already down, and they left me to die.
N: So you're the one (deleted) mentioned in his interview?
B: Yes.
N: So that's why you want to kill them?
B: (laughs) so what is being alive?
N: ...What?
B: What separates you from a lump of flesh? From a piece of metal? From a squirrel?
N: The ability to think.
B: Schocho can think, and it is a piece of metal, plastic, wire, silicon.
N: Empathy?
B: You can program a robot to respond when you experience pain or emotional discomfort. That's nearly empathy if not it.
N: Then what?
B: Something else. Something that ties living things together in a way that can't be quantified. A life spark.
N: A soul?
B: Ha, well I am not going to be that presumptuous... Soul has certain implications that I don't want to go into. But think about it- science has proved that we are all tied together as individual spirits that span humanity. No person without one, all sharing something that brings us higher then the beings around us. Humanity, more then flesh and blood. As sparks. Light. Something that matters, something that isn't just blood and bile and bone, something beyond us killing each other. We are special, we are lights in the universe like stars, shining in our own bodies. So why do we let the darkness within us burn each other, burn ourselves?
N: Why?
B: Because we focus. And now you know why I have done what I have done.
N: .... No I don't.
B: I never wanted to kill Electric Mayhem. I never wanted them to die. A friend of mine they killed always used to say that we can only judge each other by what we've done, but if we did wrong for the right reasons, maybe we deserve another chance to do right for right. And though they killed my friends, and took my legs. I didn't want them to die. I wanted to defeat the thing that they couldn't shake from themselves, the thing destroying them from within, that I saw from the moment that man shot my legs to prevent me from crawling: their laser-blindness. Their focus on their actions, rather than the actions they took to do those actions. Forgetting that the path they take to get there is just as important as the destination, if you scorch the fields and salt them, and then settle down to live there, you’re going to starve. And that’s the path they have been taking.
N: So you’ve been trying to set them on the right path?
B: No. Mr. N04h, how do you defeat a focused laser?
N: With a mirror.
B: Exactly. I just showed them who they were. I wasn’t mean. I just talked to him, angered them a bit, convinced them I was crazy, until they wanted to do interviews and tell their story. I anonymously forwarded (deleted) your name, and he came in at just the right point- after they have focused the laser, show them the mirror. Show them how they are seen by other eyes, the bloodstains, the dirt, the shit. Show them their failures they shove under the carpet.
N: To torment them?
B: To better them! There is something unique about us as humans as I said, a spark. If we fall to the biting level of animals, or the hubris of Shi, we won’t create a better world for anyone in the end. We’ll just burn and burn and kill and enslave and someone will win and sit on a throne of skulls. But it won’t even matter, because the man with the most blood on his hands will still die, and then the cycle will start all over again. Electric Mayhem destroyed my body, my friends, but if they are the best hope for humanity, then let them be human. Let them light up their own bodies like suns, and fight not like dogs or Gods, but humans. Who love. Who care.
N: So… What now?
B: I vanish. If they can learn a single thing from their pasts, then I’ve done my work. If they can question one order they shouldn’t have followed, action they shouldn’t have taken… That’s all I’ve ever wanted. The best of humanity, to be humanity at its best.
I’ll be going now, but I left you a video, watch it if you like.
(Video attached)