Jenifer Maesroe
An old Ally, worthy still of admiration, despite the rising indifference brought about by chronic absence.
United by the Medical Union and split apart by forces beyond it, as is the case for most allies, I find. The old triumvirate of that small clinic in Twenty-four is long gone now. In another time, perhaps we may have remained close, but distance is a literal prospect in this age and I see your idealized visage far more often than I do the real thing - the actual you.
An ally once more. Limited, no doubt. Still draped in suits unbefitting her, but that's the life she chose.
Like Walker, I cant help but imagine there is more business involved in this aid than revived friendship. It could be that the pessimism I protract to you has overtaken me. But, without a way to know, to truly know, I don't feel those old day's in Geneva will ever come back.
After all this time, the muck of high society finally sunk deep. Unreliable sell-soul.
After becoming your scapegoat for your political failures, I never expected to find much solace in your person. You were long since changed but little did I know you were rather altered entirely. Even in City Eight, it was her that came to wall and never you. Hiding behind your false soldiers and false face. I wish you'd never arrived. I hope our dealings are finished.
Trust isn't so easy to win back. What is fixed is still once broken. AI never expected you to show remorse for what you had done. Remorse isn't enough. It could be you meant it. Could be. But I don't forget what they told me, how you enjoyed what the freaks imparted onto me. Haven't' forgotten for a second.
But its not impossible to win back, slowly.
If its an act, this kindness, its a well paced one. Bordering on the genuinely psychotic. Every time I trusted you, reached out a hand, I ended up regretting it. At this point though, I am reduced to nothing. The easiest assault would simply do nothing and look on. I suppose I'll reach out one more time - I never was a good student of life.
Eleanor Marchand
I cannot help but detect a reflection of myself in you, all the better then that I quite like you.
You never know when you meet your next friend, I suppose. Problems with Civil Protection, a hardened exterior, medical professional and even bandages to match? Girl, we may have just been destined to meet. Closest thing I probably have to a true friend and entirely by accident. Maybe that's how this stuff is supposed to work - I dont really know. Thanks for putting my brain back in straight. Could do without the vision trouble, but it'll make it far easier to ignore management going forward.
I can't be sure if that reflection is growing or fading, but until the mirror breaks, you're still a good friend.
For as much as I like you, its become at least partially clear that there is a streak of selfishness that would override even your deepest attachments. It's a harsh reality of today, whereas mortal peril scarcely intervened in friendship before, now nothing impacts it more. I won't abandon you, but just as you wouldn't die for me, I cannot sit idle waiting for you to get me killed.
We both suck, we both are underwater in the world. So lets swim this current together.
We'll have fallouts, probably many more to come. But I think its clear we can always, always come to our senses in the long run. You wanted a sister, well you basically have one. I'll trust you for as far as I can.
My friend. My sister. My fading little light. I'm not so stupid to recognize how you see me. There's resentment there. Impatience. I suppose I can understand that. I am a mess, I am miserable. I just have the unreasonable wish you'd love me at my worst. Being my best self is getting harder every day. I don't know if you'll stick around until the end. I understand, but won't accept.
My friend. My sister. His fading little light.
I don't suspect I will ever stop loving you, now more than ever as I have realized more what it means to love. Perhaps it is the nature of a 'sister' to be problematic. I never truly had one, outside of you. Yet, you listen to nobody but yourself. Stubbornly stupid at times. More than anything, what you did to him, someone who loved you as much as I do...what would you be willing to do to me?
Stephanie Roberts
The friend of my friend is my friend.
Seems nice enough. Eleanor's very, very good friend. Perhaps even illegally so. Certainly not my concern. Fixed my hair so I look significantly less like an escaped inmate, post surgery. Wouldn't you then know it, shortly after she's a doctor herself. Pretty sure I've seen her freaking out before, mental instability affair, but as long as I don't mention it, it doesn't exist.
Drawn together by circumstance, stood together by choice.
I know you well now, and miss you when you aren't around. A fate the world seems to be conspiring daily to see realized. But, been conspiring for years to kill me, never has. You'll be no different, if I have anything to say about it. If. Our little enforcer issue needs solved sooner rather than later, its getting worse. You'll wake up and we'll find our own means to right the wrong.
I miss the better times with you. Jealousy and spite. An obsession with twisting all things to be about yourself. Even in the terminal you continued to spiral away from us, with these strange stunts. Now, as a director, your approach to power is like most others. Greedy and envious. Theres still a decent girl in there, for now. But I just don't have the energy to find her anymore.
Healed, I believe. Hopefully not regretted.
I cannot know why you did what you did. Perhaps its better not known to me. Drudging up your incensed hatred of, what looked to you, success - it brings us nothing. You have aided me since though, and even after my fall, horrible and absolute it was, you've neither gloated nor appeared satisfied. It's...better this way.
Micheal Yards
Though he'll never make me laugh, he doesn't make me cry either.
So far, something of a fool. Yet, an endearing fool, the kind that makes you smile through the harvest of bad jokes and mistimed comments. Though, nothing funny to say about what we've wadded through lately. Stuck by me. Pretty sure he's working his way to catching feelings though. Which, I mean, I don't dislike.
Where lies the difference between sweetness and helpless naivete?
It was, in retrospect, incredibly stupid of me to play around with emotions like that. Sure, the thought is well enough but where are we? Where are we going? Battered and bruised all the way, wherever that is. There's no time for any of it. No place for it. How could there be? Should there be?
What am I going to do with you?
On one hand, absolutely stupid. Acts like those people in bad horror films, not that I ever watched them. Constantly running into danger. Impulsive on the other. Doesn't always think before speaking, doesn't always seem to even know which way to go. Then, one some yet unknown third hand...I kind of really like you. More fool me, or not? I don't know.
There's something here, I'm almost sure of that.
Despite my oh-so serene and positive nature, I suppose its strange I approach, well, 'love' so harshly. Its uncomfortable and pretty scary. Confusing too. Do I actually, or is this just an effect of time I can't even see? By the time love meant anything to me, the world was ending. Is it even the same anymore?
Though I love him, all I'll do now is cry.
Why did you do this to me?
A singular person I refuse to fail again. Despite and because of it all - the man I love.
So much time wasted on our flaws and grievances. Maybe it had to be this way, maybe not. Nothing will be perfect, but I can accept that. You're enough. More than enough. I understand myself now, in ways I never did before. My best efforts have not made my life any less cold and miserable. I couldn't hardly comprehend the warmth of love. Now I do, and its worth fighting for.
Cangaroo
Like the days of old, A Vortigaunt to call a friend. A name forgotten, a name renewed.
How long has it been? Doesn't matter now, the past is fickle and for all I understand of it, it hardly happened. I do remember him though, strolling around the clinic as he did. If there was ever a reason Vortigaunts should rise from their squalor, it would be him reminding us just how uplifting they can be. I only hope he doesn't fall prey to the ambitions of his kind, which has taken all others I once knew.
Like the days of old, A friend. Nothing more to ever say.
You've known me for some time, even if the day of our meeting is lost in the void of time that proceeds us. Still, I know you well, and despite how strange you can be, you're better than plenty of humans I know. One day, we'll find a way to help you. Even if it costs us something down the line.
The truest friend I'll ever know.
You were there since the start, and still are. I've relied on you for more than you may even know. I trust you more than myself. I'll save you. A true soul like yourself should never be extinguished.
Tzu
I've found I get along with most Vortigaunts, and it was an actual joy to hear of Gorgeous once more.
It's pure chance when the past rounds back at you. For me, almost always in a horrible, disastrous manner. However, it was nice being able to simply recollect on better times, times otherwise entirely forgotten if not for your magic stuff. You seem a good sort besides. Present and a pleasure to talk to. Even said Vortigaunts 'know me.' It's not that cool, but its pretty cool.
A true friend. One of the few I trust to both hold the light, and beat back the darkness.
Powerful, but mindful to others. Wise but not arrogant. Everyone could learn something from you, and its shame so few would ever listen. As for me, the training you've provided I can feel will be invaluable. The words of hope you spoke of, right ahead of the bridge reminded me that maybe, just maybe, theres a better end out there after all.
Uwe Shultz
Likeable fellow, not too dissimilar to a younger brother. Much younger.
Short. So short. Though he deeply got onto my nerves for a start, cant help but warm towards a gremlin. Never would say it, but the general antics and nonsense are an acceptable, if nothing else, distraction from a more dreary day.
An uncomfortable reminder I am not immune to change
Neither is he, of course. There's hardly anything of the more buoyant personality from Industrial 24. Now all he does is drink and fall ill. Constantly. I'm not entirely unconvinced he's simply a case of Munchausen, of the most twisted and desperate variety.
An uncomfortable reminder, others are not either.
Even with a gun to my head, you cheered on for my downfall. You swear you'd not do it again. Maybe we'll find out just how true that is soon.
I hope that I can trust you, genuinely.
I'm not one to learn my lessons. Jenifer had to betray me many times before I finally learned to never trust her truly. You've only done so once. Perhaps you really are reformed, or maybe once the pressure is applied you'll turn on me all over again. I choose to believe the former.
John Walker
Once a decent guy. Then a complete jerk. Now, barely in anyone's thoughts.
Up jumped suits are something of a plague in this world. You weren't the first nor the most prolific of them. If anything, its just sad thinking about how people can change without anyone ever really noticing. For the best, I suppose, that your name is rarely uttered around the clinic then. We've far greater worries than a irritable middle-manager these days. Maybe Randy is in charge of your coffee deliveries.
I can't pick and choose allies. Besides, Geneva feels like so long ago.
Maybe you changed, or help me somebody maybe I did. But, more so than the sycophants and bastards in this assembly, or in the higher chairs above, you seem willing to help me. That's rare. Impossibly so. I'm not blind to how limited this aid probably is...but in a world of nothing, something goes quite the distance.
Upon reconsideration, maybe I ought to.
A researcher with a hair fuse and a bad attitude. Selfish, in a word. Dangerous in another. I regret what happened to him, but that does not suddenly erase what he did. Or what he was unwilling to do. Yes, selfish. I can only imagine Jenifer gets along with you well still.
Wim Docht
Loyalist and an influential one at that who advertises virtue. It wont last.
I've never fit in with his type...or any type these days. But, if there is one lesson I've learned, loyalists dont tolerate that for long. Tribunal, demotion or some other imaginative fate awaits me. He won't miss me.
Idris (Rastaman)
Keen to switch sides. Cant trust you, not around her.
For a moment, thought I may come to appreciate you. Hard to deal with and caught me at a horrible time. But, you seemed harmless enough, too old to harm anyone and too wild-looking to plan to. Hell, I want to like you but you stood with them against me, and said you'd do so again. In that I believe you. I believe the others too.
Henry Blaire
Traded a suit for fatigues. Traded decency for a rifle.
The only thing to even distinguish a drone like you from any of the others is what you were before. A, partially, respected chairman of the diet. Now traded that fortune to abuse others in the one place not even CP's bother to tread. Didn't fall as much as you did trip yourself. But nobody changes that fast. This is you, and just like others you'll find no mourners in your final ditch.
Or not.
Introduced to someone I had no desire to ever see again. An entire planet, yet here you are. One of us is in the wrong place, and I don't think its you. |
