sunday_reveries: There's no chance for us, it's all decided for us...
sunday_reveries : "Isn't death the boundary we need? Doesn't it give a precious texture to life, a sense of definition? You have to ask yourself whether anything you do in this life would have beauty and meaning without the knowledge you carry of a final line, a border or limit."
-Don DeLillo
DeWitt made her call and like a good soldier, Topher supported it. He yanked the wedge out of the machine and waited until Victor's handler had escorted him out before running the usual post-wipe diagnostics like nothing had changed, like Mr. Ambrose wasn't just waiting to bring the hammer down on them and bring the place crashing down around their ears.
They had a good run. A longer run would have been better, but Topher wasn't one to cry about megalomaniacs. He still had a job to do, for as long as there was reason to do it, and he would continue doing it to the best of his ability.
Hah. Best. That word is ruined now.
"He hasn't won yet," DeWitt murmured, unexpectedly, from the doorway. Topher jumped, making an utterly undignified noise in the process.
"Don't... Do that. Please. The sneaking. Thing. It..." He flailed his hands absently and went back to his work, flipping switches and typing commands into his computer.
DeWitt, as per usual, saw no reason to apologize and just leaned on the doorframe, staring absently at nothing. "He hasn't."
"I heard you the first time," Topher replied in a halfhearted attempt to sound vaguely consoling. "He will have to pry this house out of your cold, dead fingers and to get to you, he'll have to go through all of us." He finished typing with a flourish and went to fiddle with something else for a little while.
DeWitt eyed him, quirking an eyebrow. "Would you really throw yourself at Mr. Ambrose's mercy, Mr. Brink?"
Topher was glad his back was to her so she didn't have to see him flinch. He rotated, practically on one a heel, and said with more levity than the statement actually required, "No, but I would stand up here and cheer for everyone else and be really, really sad when they all got killed." And back to the fiddling- half of this wasn't even necessary anymore. He was just doing it to keep himself busy so he didn't have to sit in the unbearable realization that they were probably all very, very doomed. Rossum wasn't to be trifled with- it was a lesson he'd learned several times over since he came to work here. They were an angry parent company that didn't believe in sparing the rod, and the Los Angeles Dollhouse had proven itself to be a naughty child, indeed.
"I suppose I'll consider that a sweet gesture," DeWitt shrugged and went back to staring at nothing at all. The silence weighed heavily on them before she finally had to speak again, "I just can't imagine anyone wanting that."
That got his attention, if only because it made no friggin' sense. He looked up at her from his keyboard and blinked a few times to get the full weight of his confusion across, "Huh?"
"Eternal life," DeWitt shrugged. "It just seems like the world would be a pathetically lifeless place if there wasn't death to give it meaning." When he deigned not to respond to that, because he didn't know how to, she asked, "Would you take the opportunity, if you were given it?"
"Would I... Willingly take someone else's life to continue my own?" Topher asked, quirking his head like a dog listening to a far away sound. "I can't say I would. That's the funny thing about Ambrose's plan- it's not the complete elimination of death... It's stealing life, because, you know, the whole circle of life stuff still lives on." He flailed his wrists in vague circular motions and then moved back to the shelf where he kept all the original imprints of all the current Actives, half to prove a point and half just to give him something else to do. "Someone always has to die."
He glanced at DeWitt over his shoulder, "Even if it wasn't a bad, evil, sick, and very, very wrong thing to do to a person... I, honestly, wouldn't want that responsibility."
"What responsibility would that be?"
He almost smiled. Almost. "Who lives and who dies."
-Don DeLillo
DeWitt made her call and like a good soldier, Topher supported it. He yanked the wedge out of the machine and waited until Victor's handler had escorted him out before running the usual post-wipe diagnostics like nothing had changed, like Mr. Ambrose wasn't just waiting to bring the hammer down on them and bring the place crashing down around their ears.
They had a good run. A longer run would have been better, but Topher wasn't one to cry about megalomaniacs. He still had a job to do, for as long as there was reason to do it, and he would continue doing it to the best of his ability.
Hah. Best. That word is ruined now.
"He hasn't won yet," DeWitt murmured, unexpectedly, from the doorway. Topher jumped, making an utterly undignified noise in the process.
"Don't... Do that. Please. The sneaking. Thing. It..." He flailed his hands absently and went back to his work, flipping switches and typing commands into his computer.
DeWitt, as per usual, saw no reason to apologize and just leaned on the doorframe, staring absently at nothing. "He hasn't."
"I heard you the first time," Topher replied in a halfhearted attempt to sound vaguely consoling. "He will have to pry this house out of your cold, dead fingers and to get to you, he'll have to go through all of us." He finished typing with a flourish and went to fiddle with something else for a little while.
DeWitt eyed him, quirking an eyebrow. "Would you really throw yourself at Mr. Ambrose's mercy, Mr. Brink?"
Topher was glad his back was to her so she didn't have to see him flinch. He rotated, practically on one a heel, and said with more levity than the statement actually required, "No, but I would stand up here and cheer for everyone else and be really, really sad when they all got killed." And back to the fiddling- half of this wasn't even necessary anymore. He was just doing it to keep himself busy so he didn't have to sit in the unbearable realization that they were probably all very, very doomed. Rossum wasn't to be trifled with- it was a lesson he'd learned several times over since he came to work here. They were an angry parent company that didn't believe in sparing the rod, and the Los Angeles Dollhouse had proven itself to be a naughty child, indeed.
"I suppose I'll consider that a sweet gesture," DeWitt shrugged and went back to staring at nothing at all. The silence weighed heavily on them before she finally had to speak again, "I just can't imagine anyone wanting that."
That got his attention, if only because it made no friggin' sense. He looked up at her from his keyboard and blinked a few times to get the full weight of his confusion across, "Huh?"
"Eternal life," DeWitt shrugged. "It just seems like the world would be a pathetically lifeless place if there wasn't death to give it meaning." When he deigned not to respond to that, because he didn't know how to, she asked, "Would you take the opportunity, if you were given it?"
"Would I... Willingly take someone else's life to continue my own?" Topher asked, quirking his head like a dog listening to a far away sound. "I can't say I would. That's the funny thing about Ambrose's plan- it's not the complete elimination of death... It's stealing life, because, you know, the whole circle of life stuff still lives on." He flailed his wrists in vague circular motions and then moved back to the shelf where he kept all the original imprints of all the current Actives, half to prove a point and half just to give him something else to do. "Someone always has to die."
He glanced at DeWitt over his shoulder, "Even if it wasn't a bad, evil, sick, and very, very wrong thing to do to a person... I, honestly, wouldn't want that responsibility."
"What responsibility would that be?"
He almost smiled. Almost. "Who lives and who dies."