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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[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?

[ That's not what John was going for. Of course he'd kill someone in Etraya. Just because he tries not to doesn't mean he's stopped killing people. He just doesn't do it as much. He just does it for a good reason, or as good as he can manage. Killing people is never straightforward, even if he has a lot of experience with it, even if he's learned to live with it; to go to bed with it, to close his eyes and sleep at the end of the day even when there's blood on his hands.

His tone goes serious again. ]

I don't like killing people.

[ And Harold asks him not to. It's nice working for an employer who doesn't ask him to cut himself to pieces. ]

[ That's too far. Others can prod at his weak spots all they like -- Harold has more than earned that -- but no one's allowed to needle John while he's standing right there. He does ask John not to kill anyone, but if he ever does, even here in Etraya, he's not going to read him the riot act over it. John doesn't need that from him. Harold isn't superior, isn't educating him somehow. If John kills someone it's a decision he made and all Harold can do is try to make it possible that he doesn't need to again. He believes fully that if John kills now, it was a failure of the circumstances, and not an indictment on him. ]

What reason could there be? [ Harold asks sharply, twisting awkwardly to the side to narrow his eyes at Accelerator in disapproval. ] Death is impermanent. It beggars belief that we'd be accomplishing anything but making an enemy.

[ He calms himself enough to turn back to the terminal, saying more levelly, ] In any case, Mr. Reese has exceptional judgment. He wouldn't use lethal force unless absolutely necessary.

[Not liking killing people isn't the same as being willing to do it. He's sure John knows that, just like he's sure both of them have thought about the possibility of committing murder here in Etraya.

He isn't expecting Harold to jump back into the conversation, he had seemed more focused on the terminal. Blinking, he pauses for a second.

A part of him wants to keep arguing, say something childish like there are people here who don't care about it being impermanent. Which is true, but it's straying from the point and he'd only be saying it to pick a fight. Maybe if he wasn't talking to John and Harold, maybe if this conversation was happening with two people he doesn't actually respect.

As it is, he knows doing that would just be immature of him. He refrains, deciding to back off with a faint shrug instead.]

... You two are really good at backing each other up.

[ John isn't sure what to say to that. He has nothing to say. Instead he suddenly thinks of Harold insisting they should be partners here. He feels like that's what Accelerator is saying here. He's seeing that between them. John had shied away from that definition because of the implications and he feels them playing out in front of him. He doesn't like it, being seen in this way. This is more than just having his file read. He needs to get out of this conversation. ]

We work together.

[ A simple explanation. Easy, well defined, practical. Well trodden ground. ]

[ Point made and taken, he's turned back to his work. Harold is starting to get into a mood from how little progress he's making with the terminal. The decryption is going fine, it's chugging along, but nothing is editable. As a result, he just barely manages to refrain from snarking back, Is that what we're calling it now?

They're so clearly beyond work colleagues at this point. Harold doesn't talk about it but that doesn't mean he doesn't know it. Honestly. John is so oddly gun-shy about admitting to others how much they mean to one another even in the most oblique abstract. Harold obviously understands being paranoid, but there's paranoid and then there's making bizarre social signals for themselves, which attracts more attention. Hiding in plain sight is the best way to hide. ]

I thought you read our files. Though at this point I take it not too deeply.

[ That's becoming apparent from what Accelerator is and isn't saying, which is something of a relief. ]

[John's total non-answer isn't missed by Accelerator, and the expression on his face is totally unimpressed. He raises an eyebrow, very much a "Work together, huh?" kind of look without saying it out loud.

Yeah, there's way more going on here than just working together. If anything, Harold's smarm is just confirming it in his head.]

I read through them, but the files don't have everything on us.

[Like his own name, things like relationships....]

[ No one else might have been satisfied with John's answer, but what else could he say? It's not as if he could put a real name to the relationship he has with Harold, the way he thinks about Harold. No, that's something even he shouldn't look at too carefully, even if he can't help it when his thoughts churn in the night and keep him from sleeping. It's better to keep things from going too far. Harold must know it's not as simple as John has stated, even if he'll never understand what John will never say. And John feels no need to explain something so personal to Accelerator. ]

What do they have?

[ He can tell him what they have in a moment as soon as the decryption program finishes running, but Harold does want to know what Accelerator personally had read, so he doesn't contest this.

He just offers a grumpy, ] If they have my birth name I will be very put out.

[ The only record that remains of his birth name on his world is that treason charge, which is infuriatingly on paper. Physical media supremacy is still uncontested. Harold uses it to his benefit regularly so it's only fair it's also to his disadvantage, but it does annoy him like a thorn in his side whenever he remembers it.

For his part, Harold doesn't think he and John need a name or label to their relationship. He picked the word partners for its ambiguity. No one else needs to know or understand because what matters is the understanding between the two of them. Which to Harold seems solid. They've repeatedly refused to abandon one another even when they were directly asked to. Actions speak loudly; why do they need words? ]

[Adults, man. If they aren't being irresponsible, then they're being fucking complicated. It's a pain in the ass and one of the reasons why Accelerator finds dealing with them difficult.]

None of that. I don't know if Echo doesn't have access to real names or just doesn't care, because mine isn't in there either, and the only place it's stored back home is deep in the Academy City databanks.

[So hey, that's one thing neither of them need to worry about! Small victories, right?

Accelerator is over here rolling his eyes, look at how much he cares about his private information being public.]

[ A small victory indeed. And even more than that, John is thankful Harold won't have to go through that. He doesn't really care about his own name anymore, but it would feel wrong to have Harold's privacy violated in that way. It's bad enough that they'll be known this much, which Accelerator didn't actually elaborate on. ]

So what does Echo have access to?

[ The responsible ones arguably tend to be most complicated adults, too. That's definitely the case for Harold. It feels like his birth name is one of the few things he has left that he hasn't had to give up yet...

He's curious how Accelerator will answer John's question so he doesn't cut in, and in fact, he's starting to get fully absorbed with his task.

It doesn't seem to be going well; his frown is gradually deepening. ]

[Accelerator absently leans against the wall so he can give his crutch arm a break, letting go of it and rubbing his forearm.]

Stuff you've find in a physical. Height, blood type, that kind of thing. Then your work history, including shit you'd normally keep off the books like your black ops stuff. There's other crap too, like the hacking Finch did that got him indicted for treason, or all of my convictions.

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