etrayalogs | December Library Catch-All [ OPEN ]

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December Library Catch-All [ OPEN ]

WHO: John, Harold, and anyone who might find themselves at the Library
WHEN: December
WHERE: The Library!
WHAT: The Library is here and open to all! Come borrow books, find a comfy chair to relax in, or snoop around.
NOTES\WARNINGS: Will be added as they come up

The Library is a five-story neoclassical building of terra cotta, brick, and stone. And the inside is, in fact, a library! And rather clean and organized too. There's no dust, no muddy footprints (apart from your own), and all the shelves are organized by Dewey Decimal, subject, and author. All literature is something you might find in a 2010 New York City library: various forms of fiction, children's and teens' sections, history, science, cooking, gardening, the list goes on. There's even small sections of audiobooks on compact disks and of DVDs ranging from old classics to history shows. The first floor has a reading/study room, a comfortable space with deep armchairs and tables with chairs; the fifth floor has some smaller tables clustered under a skylight. Part of the second floor is abruptly closed off by a door with a biometric scanner that denies entry to anyone who isn't John Reese or Harold Finch; the walls surrounding this section are soundproofed, so even a keen listener won't hear anything from inside. Otherwise, it's a perfectly normal library!

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[If Accelerator had been yanked away from his home even a few months earlier he doubts he'd be acting this mature about the whole situation. It wasn't that long ago that he wasn't thinking about long term consequences and the benefits of actually being considerate towards other people. Assuming saving their universes is true and that they're ultimately all competing with each other, it's to his advantage to work with other people rather than just do what he wants.

........................... Plus, he likes John and Harold. It's a bit more than strategic to stay civil with them. Of course, even taking that into account he can't help letting out a bark of laughter when Harold says what he does.

Well, it isn't so much a bark. It's too squeaky, too cracked to be called a bark. But it's definitely laughter. Forthcoming?]

Nah, not really. There's loads of awful shit about me I haven't told either of you. [They're in public now that they're heading out of the staff room and library itself, heading to the hospital, so he refrains from talking about either of them in case someone overhears. Himself, though? His own life is fair game, as far as he's concerned.] For one, I'm a convicted felon.

[It's perfectly normal to sabotage yourself out of self-loathing, right? Right.]

[ Accelerator's laughter is a bit startling to hear, though John doesn't so much as twitch. There's something just a bit... unhinged about it. As for his confession, it doesn't get a rise out of John. In fact, he doesn't actually even care. He's met plenty of people who have done terrible things, people he's been sent to kill. And he's stared in the eyes of people marked as "traitors" and seen none of it in them. In all his interactions with Accelerator, he's seen none of the former. The kid might be a convicted felon but John doesn't believe he's a bad person.

John does want to pry for more information, but that feels counterproductive somehow. Accelerator is a kid, and he has all sorts of juvenile ways of expressing himself. This is likely one of them. A dramatic confession meant to shock and appall. John doesn't feel like playing that game. ]

We all have our bad days.

[ Harold's almost a little annoyed at this attempt at eroding his opinion of Accelerator. Is that supposed to put him off? It does seem like a dramatic confession meant to shock them. He's been too honest with Harold prior to this for him to think that reveal means much, so while John's wondering what the story is, he feels more confident he has an inkling. ]

A convicted felon in a city-state of child-abusing despots? [ he asks pointedly, with maximum sarcasm. ] Maybe if you cackle some more I'll start to believe your nefarious plans exist.

[Wow, wow. This is some straight up Yomikawa reaction bullshit, right here. Every adult back home he encountered either hated him or was scared of him, with Yomikawa and Yoshikawa being the sole exceptions, and even then Yoshikawa still treated him like a guinea pig. Yomikawa was the only one who insisted on treating him like one of the kids at her school.

It's annoying. Mostly because he's spent a lot of time cultivating a specific kind of image, partly because he doesn't like being reminded of his (previous) legal guardian. It brings up a lot of feelings he isn't good at tackling. He especially doesn't want to do that in front of these two, it might make them sympathetic towards him or something. So while he doesn't let out another laugh, he does wave them off airily.]

It's not about what I'm gonna do, it's about what I did for years.

[It was less one bad day and more one thousand, eight hundred and twenty-five bad days. As they enter the hospital he pauses, then adds:]

... I mean, unless Aurora is telling us the truth about how Echo can only save a limited number of universes, but that's a whole other kettle of fish. I'm not talking about hypotheticals.

[ John knows about doing something for years. About having a past to make up for. No matter how he tries to justify his own actions he comes up short. He hates that a child thinks he fits in those same shoes. ]

It's not about what you did before, it's about what you're doing now.

[ Difficult advice to follow. There's plenty of days when John doesn't buy it himself. With the numbers as a distraction, as a purpose, it's easier to convince himself he's doing good, he's making a difference. It's been harder in Etraya without that purpose. He has too much time to get lost in the swirl of his own thoughts, to think back on those darker days. ]

We've all made mistakes. I really don't think I'm going to find anyone blameless, here or in any universe. Mr. Reese is correct that it's about what we do going forward.

[ He includes himself in that statement, obviously. Harold limps along steadily, reaching some equanimity again, thankfully, as he feels like he's regaining his footing with Accelerator. It was possible he could've shown a drastically different face than he has so far, but he hadn't. ]

In any case, it would be the height of hypocrisy for me to blame someone else for breaking into private files.

[ He can make this joke now that Accelerator knows the basics of his backstory. His lips quirk slightly. ]

[Those are the kinds of words you expect to hear from responsible adults with a lot of life experience, which means none of it are things Accelerator has heard much in his life. He wouldn’t even disagree with them if they were talking to some other kid.

But he’s an entirely different monster, so in his own mind they’re wrong, and they both get a sharp glare in turn.]

You two are way too nice.

[He isn’t sure if that’s something they’ve heard often and if it isn’t, then they just have to deal with it. Heading to the elevator, once they’re in he hits the button for the basement.]

The files are in some language I don’t think exists back home, but I doubt it’s that hard to whip some code that’ll translate it.

[ They've heard some variation of that before and it doesn't bother John. Of course, he privately disagrees, but he knows who he is. ]

You understood it well enough to read it?

[ Too nice? Maybe. Or as Harold thinks of it, too self-aware to indulge in such hypocrisy as judging a young man for actions he clearly already regrets. He doesn't know what Accelerator's done but in Harold's mind it can't possibly matter. Lives lost due to his own actions must outweigh both of John's and Accelerator's combined, by now. It's hard to imagine otherwise, knowing what the U.S. government would do with the Machine, even with its limitations.

It's too serious a conversation to get into here. Harold just mildly follows John's line of thought. ]

Yes, how did you understand it yourself? [ he asks, openly curious. ]

[He isn't sure if they actually agree with the sentiment or if they just don't want to argue, but either way he'll take it. Once the elevator reaches the basement he'll lead them down the hall to the room the terminal is in.]

Since I had a general idea of what I was looking at I just brute-forced it using logistic regression. Even with the brain injury my processing power's still on par with a supercomputer so it wasn't that hard, and unlike a supercomputer since I can actually consider what I'm processing I could check for errors and adjust as I went.

[The room the terminal is in isn't anything special, and once they reach it Accelerator steps aside so the other two can have a look.]

[ Brain injury? His brain is on par with a supercomputer? That's important information for John to file away for later, but this isn't his expertise so he'll leave it for Harold to comment on. He'll know what "logistic regression" is and John can ask for an explanation later; he doesn't exactly care what it means from a knowledge standpoint, but he wants to understand what Accelerator is capable of. ]

Excuse me, [ he says politely, pitch rising, ] what?

[ He stops short outside the door to stare at Accelerator in mute demand for answers. Harold absolutely knows what logistic regression is and has no idea what Accelerator is talking about in regards to him having processing power as a human being. Knowing he has vaguely ambiguously powerful abilities with vectors does not translate that far to him. ]

Just how abstractly are we taking the term "vector" here?

.............................................................................................................................

[Accelerator instinctively glances over at the shift in Harold's voice and oh boy, is that a mistake. It's one thing to explain how esper powers work in general, it's something else to answer Harold's question.

He purses his lips, looking away before answering.]

Pretty abstract when you get into magic. I had to come up with a new mathematical model using imaginary numbers to be able to manipulate that stuff properly. Esper power is based on quantum physics so it's all kind of abstract anyways, since we're ignoring the Uncertainty Principle in order to override normal reality.

[He waves a hand at the terminal.]

Anyway, there it is.

[ John has fully lost track of what they're talking about, but based on his limited knowledge it sounds like Accelerator is really, really smart. And powerful. That's John's takeaway. He'll have to get a better explanation from Harold later, but it's a bit chilling to think of. On the other hand, Accelerator is just some kid he was teasing about "social interaction" not that long ago. People are complicated. He'll leave this to Harold again. Both topics at hand are his expertise. ]

[ He does not move to approach the terminal yet. Harold is not a physicist, theoretical or otherwise. That being said, he has far more than the average understanding of mathematics and subsequent theoretical physics.

In a strained voice, ] You can't ignore the uncertainty principle --

[ Okay. Maybe he can. Harold is standing on an alien planet with proven capabilities to transcend time and space. But it somehow feels different to have their mysterious captors implicated in that than the teenager standing in front of him.

This does imply Accelerator has, as he'd said, literally reality-altering powers, but that fact alone immediately raises more questions. ]

If it's all that abstract, [ he says sharply, ] why are you still here? Your injury is limiting your capabilities?

[Sheesh, no one else has had this much of a reaction when he's explained what esper powers are. But then, he's pretty sure the majority of people don't fully understand the intricacies of just how badly those powers break fundamental laws.....

Accelerator claps a hand to his head, looking exasperated.]

Well, yeah, but even if it didn't I'm not a fucking god. There's loads of shit I still don't know, and every esper ability is limited by that. You can't calculate for something if you don't understand it.

[Knowledge is power, literally.]

[ What John is gathering from this exchange is that Accelerator is far more powerful than he anticipated, but also in a theoretical sense. He's in some way limited by his own knowledge. ]

[ You can always count on Harold to promptly grasp the long-term ramifications of something and then fret over it.

This response actually gets him to relax just a little, because requiring understanding is a sensible limitation that distinguishes it from literal, actual magic. ] For god's sake, [ he mutters to himself, one hand reaching up to shift his glasses aside so he can rub at his eyes for a moment in an expression of pure exasperation. ]

Fine. I have one more question before we get to the point of why we're actually here. [ He is itching to get his hands on that terminal... ]

When you referred to yourself as having processing power, was that a turn of phrase? You're biologically human, aren't you?

[Fortunately (unfortunately?), not knowing something hasn't stopped Accelerator in the past.]

I was born a normal human. [Normal human parents and everything, as far as he know! It's a valid question, one that gets tricky when you bring people like the clones into the equation. But Harold is asking about him, not artificial espers in general, so he sticks to that.]

Artificial espers don't alter reality just by willing it. In order to make those changes on a quantum scale we need to be able to calculate specific mathematical formulas in our heads, and we need to be able to do it correctly. [He sighs a little.] I know human and esper brains aren't exactly analogous to a computer. We can still do stuff a supercomputer can't, like run calculations subconsciously. but since what we do it similar enough we use terms like 'processing power' and 'calculation speed.'

[Is it dehumanizing, reducing your thoughts down like that? He isn't sure.]

[ The way Accelerator says "I was born" makes John wonder what happened for him to end up as an "artificial esper", but that seems like a very personal question. He certainly doesn't want people prying into his own past. Having a brain that functions on the level of a super computer seems powerful. And even if Accelerator is limited by knowledge it seems like he knows enough. John is curious what sorts of weaknesses that leaves him with, but that's an urge he has to fight against. He doesn't want to be in a position of needing to hurt or take out Accelerator. He and Harold haven't discussed their differences in philosophy in some time, but John is always trying to balance it; Harold's belief that they should be working together vs John's belief that the day might come where that's not possible. Would he kill Accelerator to save his own world? That's not a question he can answer right now, but he'll have to think about it given the newly discovered potential complications of needing to do so. ]

[ John has and always will be Harold's balance in that regard. John evaluates the threats on a personal level while Harold maintains steadfast dedication to his ideals. He would have to be very hard pressed indeed to abandon his perspective that they're better off working together than coming into conflict; even if they were pitted against one another, self-defense is not the same thing as participating. As it is, he's completely engaged in the intellectual puzzle of what Accelerator's saying.

Harold actually isn't sure if he'd count the language use as dehumanizing either, given his very personal experiences with the emergent properties possible in computers. In any case, there's far more concerning things he's learned about Accelerator's backstory than that. A turn of phrase is benign in comparison. He's mostly just reassured that Accelerator had a normal birth and can be therefore thought of in comparable terms to normal people.

He huffs and approaches the terminal, vaguely annoyed by the impossibility of it all as he boots it up. Harold is more than capable of holding a conversation while poking about a foreign system, though he's sure he'll get preoccupied eventually... ]

I'm not sure if I'm jealous or horrified, [ he admits frankly. ] Horrified, I think. It is a significant burden to know what you can do but are choosing not to.

[ Just things Harold says when he starts to get distracted with a computer problem and isn't fully paying attention to what he's saying. He's already digging into his bag to pull out his laptop and consider his options for how to hook it up. "Preoccupied eventually" means immediately, because this is an alien system and it immediately kicks his brain into high gear. ]

Edited 2025-01-15 23:22 (UTC)

[It's probably to his own disadvantage that he's explaining as much of himself as he is. Despite his level of power, Accelerator doesn't think it's unreasonable to assume the two of them could take him out with some effort. At least one of them would likely end up dead in the process, but....

Anyways, competition for their universes is always hovering at the back of his mind, but since none of the missions have called for it it isn't really something he wants to seriously consider. He's responsible for nearly two million kids back home, after all. They come first.

He lets out a loud scoff at what Harold says. Seriously? Seriously?]

Tche, I could say the same thing about you.

[He's noticing Harold's attention towards the two of them quickly fading, and he levels his gaze at John as he continues.]

He's one of the scariest people here. Even scarier than you, with all that black ops shit you can pull.

[ John has seen Harold in action first hand. Has seen how quickly he can demolish his enemies when he sits down behind the keyboard. So it comes as no surprise that Accelerator holds Harold in high regard; now that he knows more about Accelerator he can see they're alike in capabilities, more similar to each other than to him. Accelerator understands himself, therefore he understands Harold better than John. It's not a competition, but John secretly believes that Accelerator missing a practicality component in the equation; not that he'll ever say, he'd much rather be underestimated.

Despite the serious turn of conversation John injects a bit of wounded innocence into his voice. ]

I'm reformed now. Saving lives one at a time. I've turned over a new leaf.

[ It's just that some habits are hard to break. ]

[ Given Harold's perpetual paranoia, he's still listening to their conversation, and he notably stills at Accelerator calling him 'one of the scariest people here'. Harold can't be offended; he knows it's true. He's been forced to reckon with how much damage he can cause no matter how good his intentions are, and their existence being at the mercy of the local A.I. means that's true here as well. A capacity for direct violence is limited in nature to the people physically in front of you; meanwhile, Harold can enable a whole government to enact targeted violence throughout the world to further its agenda.

But he doesn't like hearing it. Harold is horrified by and detests the scale of his power to harm others, worried endlessly while creating the Machine whether he was doing enough to safeguard it, to teach it the complexities of ethics, and to remove it from his authority. He had plans and contingency plans and he's needed every one of them to keep it independent. Having to take that final leap into letting it make its own decisions was terrifying in a different way, but it had to be done, and he's tried so hard ever since not to take advantage of any privilege the Machine might give him.

He built the Machine to protect and save others, not to give anyone power. Not to cause fear. What a precarious balance to strike.

Harold is stupidly hurt by hearing it acknowledged out loud, and immediately immensely grateful that John is playing it off with a joke, because it means he doesn't need to respond. He goes suddenly silent and stiff as he busies himself connecting his laptop to the terminal. ]

[The tone of John's voice is ridiculous, and Accelerator gets that it's deliberate. It still makes him want to laugh, and he only holds off because trying to reform is something he's been through himself. When you're trying to reform from being a mass murderer at the age of fifteen, it isn't exactly simple. It's a whole damn roller coaster.

He notices Harold going still out of the corner of his eye, which isn't something he expected. Either the guy doesn't have a good grasp on what he's capable of or he doesn't like hearing it. Given what's in his file the former seems laughable, so it must be the latter, and in Accelerator's opinion? That's weird. Better to recognize you're a monster than deny it.

His decidedly remains on John as he thinks all that, because if the guy wants to joke then he's going to be an asshole (or at least annoying) right back at him.]

So what, you wouldn't kill someone here, even if you had a good reason to?

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