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SHIVERS – The sky over Le Caillou burns; painted with the fallout of chemical fire. Not from war or revolution, but a tinderbox of an unmaintained chemical plant finally igniting. The summer air, already thick and still, weighs heavy with a caustic haze.
JAMROCK PUBLIC LIBRARY – Sunlight unspools in thick ribbons through high-set windows of the library’s main reading room, angled harshly downward like searchlights in the fog. The areas between cast in cool shadows.
CONCEPTUALIZATION – Reminiscent of the eyes of Coalition aerostatics in their meandering orbit overhead.
INLAND EMPIRE – Featherlight swords of Damocles.
JAMROCK PUBLIC LIBRARY – Dust hangs in delicate stagnation in the spotlight of the beams, mirroring the fine ash falling outside. The world feels still, soft. Caught in a slow exhale.
Like most things in Revachol, the Jamrock Public Library is a hodgepodge of the old and the (somewhat) new. Ghosts of the wealth of the Suzerain still haunt the remnants of the chipped but intricate parquet floors, contrasting open ceilings held aloft by repurposed and uneven steel scaffolds.
The tables and chairs aren’t original, neither are most of the shelves. Or any of the windows. Or walls. The haphazardly spaced fluorescent lights dangling high above the stacks cast an unimpressive glow; currently being eclipsed by the orange-gold light spilling from the perpetually dust covered windows. Wood in the gaze of the windows is faded; made pale by the sun.
It is old, broken a dozen times and put back together maybe half as many, but it is loved.
SHIVERS - A library, a triage center, an aid distribution. A command center, a field morgue, and a library once more.
INLAND EMPIRE – After life, death — after death, life again.
YOU – You sit at the edge of a long but otherwise empty communal table, encircled by an overspilling mountain of folders and reference material.
PERCEPTION – Dull clicks of desk lamps being switched on reverberate from the darkening edges of the room.
ESPRIT DE CORPS – The same green-shaded lamps used at the precinct. The sound is familiar, comforting.
LOGIC – You and the lieutenant have been searching through the library’s records for hours, attempting to cross reference dates related to your current case. The process has been dry and monotonous.
He has just excused himself to speak to the long-suffering librarian for the next 3 months worth of files, insisting you remain behind to “save our spot”.
EMPATHY – He knows you don’t need to be watching the table; he just wanted to rescue the librarian from another interrogation about how lacking you find their selection of cryptozoology books.
PERCEPTION – The scarred wood of the table has been defaced with scratches and pen marks from years of use, graffitied with carved initials and rough, simple shapes.
INTERFACING – You work diligently to add your initials to the record.
VOLITION – Your impulse control without the lieutenant nearby is as always, abysmal.
ESPRIT DE CORPS – Please don’t vandalize public property while in uniform.
YOU – A languished exhale escapes your lungs. It’s been hours of slow, mind numbing work, and your brain is in desperate need of something new to sink its teeth into.
ENCYCLOPEDIA – How fortunate you are to be in a library then.
LOGIC – The records shelving is in the basement, of which navigation to takes time. The lieutenant won’t be back for a little while, giving you a chance to peruse the nearby shelves for something to keep your bee hive of a mind occupied.
YOU – I prefer to think of it as a peanut gallery.
LOGIC – Regardless, there are still some not-so-subtle gaps in your knowledge of the world, and this may be the perfect moment to try to remedy that.
YOU – Grumbling, you slide deeper into your creaking wooden seat, letting your head fall with a clunk over the chair back.
PAIN THRESHOLD – Ow.
PERCEPTION – You observe the row of spines arranged in the shelf behind you, though it is hard to make out exactly what they say when viewed upside down.
ENCYCLOPEDIA – When you’re not quite sure of what knowledge you’re missing, it's difficult to know where to start.
YOU – In that case, let’s have the universe decide for me.
SAVOIR FAIRE – Eyes tightly shut you dramatically raise your arm up and over the back of your head, tipping precariously backwards onto the hind legs of what you hope is a structurally sound chair, in order to reach the shelf situated behind you.
YOU – Your hand hovers across the stack, fingertips barely gracing the books. Waiting for some sign to tell you where to stop.
(…)
(…)
SHIVERS – There, a faint breeze brushes over the hairs on your knuckles as your fingers pass from one cover to the next. In the distance you hear the creaking of a window being hastily shut.
HAND EYE COORDINATION – Your hand makes purchase on the smooth plastic covering of a thick bound book. From your awkward and inverted position you delicately extract it from where it was nestled, and bring it forward to the table with a light thud.
YOU – Your eyes snap open and you are greeted with the image of Dolores Dei, bordered by intricately drawn vinework reminiscent of an illuminated manuscript. The title, “The Innocences of History” is written in a debossed gold script.
THE INNOCENCES OF HISTORY 3RD EDITION – From the angle you’ve slid down in the chair you can tell the bordering is lightly debossed in the same fashion, though it feels smooth to the touch behind the scratched plastic protector added by the library.
ENDURANCE – It took a long few months, but now you can confidently look at an image of Dolores Dei without risk of a brain aneurysm.
INLAND EMPIRE – But just.
VOLITION – “Confidently” may be an overstatement.
LOGIC – It means you can make it past the cover.
ENCYCLOPEDIA – The book is slightly outdated, printed sometime in the 20’s. However, since there hasn’t been an Innocence named for the last half century it’s as good as new until a new one is elected, or the Innocentic system is altered.
LOGIC – Considering the system of Innocentic rule has existed nearly unchanged for thousands of years, you don't have much to worry about.
YOU – You crack open the face to avoid having to ruminate on the cover for longer than necessary, and aimlessly begin turning through the pages.
THE INNOCENCES OF HISTORY 3RD EDITION – Dense paragraphs of text and footnotes greet you, paired with intricate artistic depictions of each Innocentic Age and their contributions to the world, going back to the first Innocence nearly 8000 years ago.
While the earlier chapters contain mostly theory, the underlying foundations of the Innocentic system, and the role of the Founding Party, the latter chapters delve into rich detail of each modern Innocence and what best they’re known for. Words such as “divine” and “untouchable” are thrown around with great enthusiasm.
YOU – Hmmm this may be a bust, I’m feeling a bit out of my depth.
ENCYCLOPEDIA – Your grasp on the concept of Innocences is still tenuous at best. This is somewhat akin to handing a toddler a journal on modern entroponetics.
VOLITION – Combined with your aversion to certain religious iconography until quite recently, you have actively avoided this particular “stereo-investigation” until now.
YOU – Yeah, yeah, I get it. Start simple: what is an Innocence?
THE INNOCENCES OF HISTORY 3RD EDITION – Pure embodiments of the world spirit; an Innocence is to history as is the sun to life. Nurturing, resplendent, unknowable, untouchable.
HALF LIGHT – And if you look too close, blinding.
YOU – Excellent, getting high-concept right off the bat. Love it. Still explains nothing.
THE INNOCENCES OF HISTORY 3RD EDITION – An Innocence is an individual who carries with them the knowledge of centuries, by their guidance the wheels of history accelerate beyond the capabilities of man alone.
ELECTROCHEMISTRY – Like a shot of pure adrenaline to the human condition.
YOU – Again, that doesn’t really clear up anything. How do they do that? The whole Innocence thing? Are they perhaps…supra-natural in origin?
INLAND EMPIRE – Yes!
LOGIC – No.
INLAND EMPIRE – An Innocence is not wholly human, but egregore. Created fully formed out of the collective consciousness of man. Their existence beholden to our will.
LOGIC – By all historical accounts they are, were, real people. There are even detailed records of the most recent Innocence’s life prior to her election.
It is, however, widely accepted that these individuals each held some sort of ability that allowed for foresight beyond what could be explained, amongst other attributes.
YOU – Such as?
THE INNOCENCES OF HISTORY 3RD EDITION – Preternatural magnetism, insight into matters that they could never have known of, aptitudes in concepts and ideals beyond measure. An unnatural, piercing gaze; as if they could see straight into and through individuals, ideas, reality itself.
INLAND EMPIRE – A gaze sharp enough to pierce beyond; farther than Elysium, farther than what was once the great western plain, into the threads of reality itself.
A hand, stretching forwards to grasp at the loose strands in the dark.
COMPOSURE – You pause.
YOU – Hm.
INLAND EMPIRE – Hm.
CONCEPTUALIZATION – Hm.
SUGGESTION – Hm.
AUTHORITY – Hm.
PHYSICAL INSTRUMENT – Unconsciously, you have found yourself leaning in over the book.
DRAMA – As if the contents have suddenly become a great and terrible secret.
INLAND EMPIRE – As if a million eyes have turned their gaze upon you.
SHIVERS – Outside, ash falls.
YOU – These sound…uncomfortably familiar.
ESPRIT DE CORPS – “Bewitched by the shitkid”, though snarled with malice by your ex-partner, was still said in genuine fascination of your apparent magnetism.
SUGGESTION – In spite of your…less redeeming qualities.
RHETORIC – Hold on, you aren’t actually considering that you could be the same as an Innocence?
YOU – …I’m not, not saying that.
DRAMA – Innocences are the world spirit distilled: flawless and holy. A magnifying prism to the world’s will. What they are NOT…
RHETORIC – Are burnt out cops from a city the world is content to let fade to history.
LOGIC – Please consider that this book is not an official checklist for Innocences by any means; it’s nonfiction with a heavy propaganda skew.
AUTHORITY – Ignore his words, you need to rise and stake your claim! It is your place by divine right of kings.
SAVOIR FAIRE – Yes! Leap atop this table and declare yourself the 7th Innocence right here and now!
VOLITION – Not if you want the lieutenant to believe he can’t leave you to your own devices for more than 5 minutes.
LOGIC – Besides, you would still need to be elected to the position.
YOU – Wait hold on, they have to be elected? Innocences aren’t just Innocences?
THE INNOCENCES OF HISTORY 3RD EDITION – From the time of the Perikarnassian, the Ecclesiastes, or more modernly known as The Founding Party, has tasked itself with finding and electing each Innocence to power.
YOU – Isn’t that a bit like electing a king? What happens if you aren’t Innocence-y enough?
RHETORIC – Requirements for an Innocence are not set in stone; how can one define divinity?
INLAND EMPIRE – There’s more here…a shadow of something larger just below the waves.
CONCEPTUALIZATION – But it slides out of view before you can take in the shape.
THOUGHT GAINED: INNOCENCE UNTIL PROVEN GUILTY
Problem: The Innocence Franconegro attempted to build a unified society, in which every man has a place and a mission, but at the same time may rise to nobility provided on the strength of his virtue. You have abilities analogous to those of Innocences; what’s preventing you from becoming one?
VOLITION – The more important question you should be asking is would you even want to be an Innocence?
YOU – Of course I would! Imagine everything I could do for Revachol, if there was someone from here in the proverbial driver’s seat maybe we’d have an actual chance of change.
DRAMA – Half truths…
LOGIC – The last time you were in the actual driver’s seat you crashed a motor carriage into the sea.
PHYSICAL INSTRUMENT – Hit rock bottom and kept on digging. Like a champ.
VOLITION – Don’t say that with pride.
INLAND EMPIRE – A mangled cenotaph to the demise of Tequila Sunset. Nearly a cold-metal mausoleum.
HALF LIGHT – Who’s to say you won’t take everyone else down with you next time around.
YOU – I think I deserve a little bit more credit than that.
CONCEPTUALIZATION – To be anointed Innocence is to have your flaws forcibly sanded away. The second that crown is placed on your head is the moment you cease to be human, and are remade as a glorious image, unblemished and pure.
LOGIC – Just look at how they describe the Innocences in the book.
THE INNOCENCES OF HISTORY 3RD EDITION – Sacred, holy, miraculous, infallible, ineffable. Any criticism is bent and twisted into an ultimate source of good.
SUGGESTION – Violent means to justify divine ends.
ENCYCLOPEDIA – No mention of the multiple atrocities consciously committed by the Dolorian court – Dolores Dei herself saw people as little more than pawns in her wargames. Those who denied her rule were ruthlessly suppressed by her ‘Army of Humanity’.
LOGIC – Resettlement and reeducation programs shattered cultures and forcibly reshaped nations.
VOLITION – As Innocence, there was no one to deny her.
EMPATHY – Is it just, for a single person to hold that much power?
RHETORIC – These acts of cold, detached ruthlessness are exactly what helped stoke the idea that she was not entirely human.
SUGGESTION – What drove one of her protectors to feel the need to protect us from her.
LOGIC – But the unfortunate truth is her casual cruelty was too mundane to be anything other than human.
CONCEPTUALIZATION – When placed atop a pedestal you have no choice but to look down on those who put you there.
YOU – That doesn’t mean I would be like that…
LOGIC – Maybe not purposefully.
RHETORIC – But they will no longer speak of you as a man; you become an ideal. Your words and actions a vessel of a greater whole.
INLAND EMPIRE – Your choices, inevitabilities.
VOLITION – That kind of environment is not one conducive to recovery. Especially not from a situation exasperated, in part, by ignoring the damage you caused because of the results you provided.
LOGIC – You wouldn’t be freed of error. Worse: you’d be absolved of the responsibility for them.
HALF LIGHT – Stagnation. Decay. Decomposition.
SUGGESTION – When there’s no one to tell you no, when they hang on your every word…
CONCEPTUALIZATION – Gold, pouring from the lips of the Perikarnassian.
INLAND EMPIRE – It’s easy to lose yourself; to drown in divinity.
VOLITION – Or the bottle.
HALF LIFE – Or the sea.
YOU – A lump forms in your throat. Your brow furrows.
LOGIC – And don’t go believing you are somehow immune to this fallacy.
VOLITION – You do have a propensity to deify those you care about.
EMPATHY – Those you love.
You – …
INLAND EMPIRE – You’re haunted by them. By the simulacrums you create.
ELECTROCHEMISTRY – Intersection of Main and Lys, 7th Ave canal foot bypass, the corner store 5 blocks southwest of here…
YOU – What are you doing?
ELECTROCHEMISTRY – Oh just getting our ducks in a row for when the spiral really kicks off and you’re ready to have some fun again. Trust me, I know what standing on the edge of a cliff looks like.
ELECTROCHEMISTRY – And by ducks I mean amphetamines.
ELECTROCHEMISTRY – And by fun I also mean amphe-
YOU – I get it.
VOLITION – You’ve come so far — would you really want to erase your hard won progress in favor of the lie that you had always been as you are now?
YOU – Maybe it would be better if other people forgot my past, not just me, you know? Maybe I’m tired of having to hear how horrible I was; maybe I could be remembered as someone who did something important. Who was important.
LOGIC – You know that’s not how it works.
RHETORIC – History may remember you that way.
EMPATHY – But what worth are the thoughts of strangers, when weighed against those who care for you?
YOU – I…don’t think there’s many people like that left. Old me did a great job of, uh, clearing house before trying to shut off the lights.
EMPATHY – You may not remember the moments before your resurrection; but you still see the reflection of who you were before in the faces of those around you. Who knew of the person, in the before.
ESPRIT DE CORPS – Sideways glances, hushed whispers from voices you struggle to place; officers you fail to recall. “Captain Sober”. Nervous shifting when you raise your voice a bit too loud a bit too suddenly. Each holds up an unwitting mirror. A glimpse to your past.
In these fragments, you see the man you were reflected back.
VOLITION – They care about you. They’ve just been hurt, rather severely, before. You can’t blame them for their over-caution — even if the results are a bit impersonal.
ESPRIT DE CORPS – Have you ever wondered why your first instinct upon meeting Officer Minot at the Whirling-In-Rags was to call her “the horse-faced woman?” It’s because for her first month in the Major Crimes Unit, half the time you had known her, you didn’t bother to learn her name.
Why would you? You drove away so many good officers, good people, that the unit had become just a revolving door of names and faces. Why bother getting attached, when they would inevitably decide that they couldn’t stand you and be gone soon anyway?
At the very least you never called her that to her face, the one scrap of dignity you could spare.
SUGGESTION – Is it worse to know that you were capable of providing those shreds of dignity, but still chose to meter them out so paltrily?
EMPATHY – She’s one of your most staunch defenders, due to or in spite of how short a time you had known her, before. You have yet to determine which.
VOLITION – Her faith in you grows every day you show up fresh faced and sober. Proving that her support was not misplaced, even when you stumble. The same can’t be said for those who already left, when you were at your worst.
ESPRIT DE CORPS – Actions speak louder than words. By that metric your last conversation with Guillaume Bevy was an oration for the ages. An explosive shattering of a heavy ceramic mug against the doorframe, inches from his head, as he stormed out of the C-Wing for the last time. Driven away by you.
If he woke tomorrow, and heard through the radio that you had been anointed as the next Innocence, what do you think his first reaction would be?
Fear. How scared he would be that you are now in a position to hurt so many more people. He and countless others only ever knew, and only ever will know, the old you. They certainly aren’t interested in crossing paths with you again. They would not think greater of you for your position; they would think of what you did to them and fear what new torment you would inflict on the world.
YOU – Stop. Please. I don’t want to think about this anymore.
EMPATHY – Harry, I’m sorry. You don’t have a choice. This is how your mind has always been. You can’t stop it now, you have to follow to the end of the line.
HALF LIGHT – Imagine the scale of pain you could cause when you have total control.
SUGGESTION – They would just be envious of your power. What did someone like him do to deserve a gift like that? What is he innocent of?
AUTHORITY – If you can’t have their love, you’ll at least have their fear.
INLAND EMPIRE – Maybe you really are an Innocence; when you turn your gaze on someone it’s akin to a condemnation.
VOLITION – You will need to learn to live with the knowledge that there are going to be people who hate you for actions you can’t remember.
EMPATHY – Many still hope for your recovery. Those who stayed. They’ve seen your progress and root for you, quietly.
SUGGESTION – Some hope for you to fail, if only to prove a hollow point to themselves.
YOU – You can just say Jean.
ESPRIT DE CORPS – Satellite Officer Vicquemare paces outside the precinct 41 motor pool, chain smoking and stealing sideways glances to the burning skies — as if the tar coating his lungs will offer some defense from the toxic air. Ash falls from his cigarette; indistinguishable from the ash on the wind.
He, and the city, are on edge. The fires have dredged up uncomfortable memories of Revachol’s past, his past, and are stoking fears for the future.
Do the Coalition airships regret that they weren’t the cause of this, he wonders. Or are they quietly taking inspiration for when it’s their turn?
In moments like these, when you both were still partners, you’d volley ideas back and forth to ground each other. Even when things were at their worst. Now that anxiety festers and putrefies inside his gut. He’s convinced himself that he would prefer to suffer alone, that it’s better for the unit. You made him into this beast of burden; after all, what’s one more load to bear?
He crumples the spent pack and lights the last cigarette. He continues pacing.
LOGIC – Your partnership was far from healthy; but it wouldn't have lasted as long as it did if it was built on hate.
ESPRIT DE CORPS – This, all of this, would be easier if he hated you, he thinks. Often.
EMPATHY – The grief of burying his friend, his partner, long before what remained of your mind was swallowed in an acrid sink of self destruction. When your flirtations with oblivion were becoming less and less intangible; and harder to ward away.
INLAND EMPIRE – And when the amnesia scraped clean the last of your memories of him, of your partnership, it was the final nail in the coffin. Suddenly the sacrifices he had made, the pain he had endured, were meaningless. You got a way out, and he got left behind.
VOLITION – His grief has nowhere to go — so it calcifies into anger.
EMPATHY – The rage, bitterness, incredulity, he bites it back when he has the energy to do so — but he mourns. Your penance, your apologies, your self flagellation, all mean nothing to him. Because the man he wants to hear them from is dead; he was murdered in Martinaise. You put him out of his misery.
LOGIC – Ultimately he wants to see you better. Be better. But in the face of his own ghosts, callousness wins out more than not. He can only be let down so many times.
EMPATHY – Forgiveness, like trust, is earned slowly. Day by day. Action by action.
VOLITION – There is no clean way to rectify the damage you caused. But that doesn’t give you an excuse not to try.
INLAND EMPIRE – The wounds are deep, bone deep. Briefly recovered only to be clawed raw again, time after time. Scar tissue atop scar tissue. They can no longer heal cleanly, that opportunity is too far gone. But the longer they go without being reopened, the stronger they become.
But the scar will always be there. A reminder. A warning.
PAIN THRESHOLD – The scar on your hip throbs.
LOGIC – The only way out is through.
VOLITION – You’ve already reached as close to it as you’ll ever get to an absolution, the rest is your responsibility to earn. Whatever you think Innocence means, it will not carry you there any quicker. There’s no more running.
THOUGHT COMPLETE: INNOCENCE UNTIL PROVEN GUILTY
Solution: The answer was shockingly simple all along. You could never be an Innocence, because you’re guilty. Guilty of being born in the wrong place. At the wrong time. To the wrong people. The society Franconegro strove for is long past; did it ever exist at all?
YOU – Wait, what?
RHETORIC – Did you believe for one second that you could ever truly be innocent of anything?
INLAND EMPIRE – Guilt clings to you like a heavy-lead oil slick. You reek of it. It chokes your throat and pools in your stomach; soaks your brain when you lie awake in the night, body trying desperately to sweat it out. As much a part of you as your own blood.
ENCYCLOPEDIA – The reality is that despite what historians and theologians claim, ability alone is often not what precludes the rise of an Innocence. Every Innocence in recorded history was not only blessed with extraordinary insight and ability – their stations in life placed them all in positions where they could take advantage of it.
LOGIC – Would Dolores Dei have been recognized for her aptitudes if not stood abreast to one of the most powerful individuals of her age?
RHETORIC – Or held the correct perspective – born of her upbringing – in the eyes of the Founding Party?
THE INNOCENCES OF HISTORY 3RD EDITION – Dolores Dei’s position in the court of Irene The Navigator, Franconegro’s impressive military background. It has even been theorized that the Perikarnassian themself were of noble birth, allowing them the reach to spread their teachings and will throughout the Super-Isola.
ENCYCLOPEDIA – This fact has not gone wholly unnoticed – though remains a less than popular analysis amongst scholars. Many papers have been written in the modern age critical of the Innocentic system as rewarding those already in positions of incredible wealth and power.
They question whether these individuals were truly extraordinary, or simply those with the influence and resources to enact their will on the world. By extension, whether people with similar capabilities are far more common than we have yet to realize.
YOU – Why wasn’t any of that in this stupid book!
THE INNOCENCES OF HISTORY 3RD EDITION – The book answers your indignation with a paper cut.
PAIN THRESHOLD – OW.
YOU – MOTHERFUCKER!
SUGGESTION – It can be posited, then, that the vagueness of what truly qualifies someone to be an Innocence is more intentional than it first appeared to be.
LOGIC – In fact, the existence of false Innocences all but proves it.
YOU – I’m not in the mood for the back-and-forth anymore: what does this mean, really ?
SUGGESTION – Consider it like this: If an Innocence’s power is unquestionable, why would they need to be elected to power? If their foresight was as assured as we are led to believe, wouldn’t it be sacrilege to deny them their power?
RHETORIC – This vagueness places the power solely in the Founding Party to determine what a real Innocence is, versus a fake.
DRAMA – Tread careful my liege, in certain more zealous circles the idea that the preclude to Innocence could be anything but divinity is considered to be blasphemous.
SUGGESTION – Blasphemy is the least of your concerns now.
RHETORIC – Let’s not forget that the Moralintern was created by former members of the Founding Party; do you believe those ties no longer exist? That they would not align themselves with an individual who would uphold their power?
SUGGESTION – And you want to be the next Innocence? Don’t believe that the jailers would be so quick to elect one of their own prisoners to warden.
LOGIC – An Innocence by definition is against the very principles of Moralism; they are a single compressed event, an acceleration of change and progress. This does not meld with their doctrine of incremental change.
SUGGESTION – The last Innocence was the first to be chosen since the rise of the Moralintern. She refused to force her will unto humanity, and ultimately abdicated the role. It's hard to imagine that the Founding Party wasn’t aware of her hesitancy prior to her election.
PERCEPTION – The sunlight from the high windows has shifted with the setting sun; you no longer sit warmed by its trail.
COMPOSURE – Something in your chest tightens.
PAIN THRESHOLD – You begin to feel unwell.
HALF LIGHT – THE MORALINTERN ARE GOING TO MAKE YOU DISAPPEAR. THEY FEAR YOUR POWER. WE NEED TO GET OUT OF HERE NOW.
REACTION SPEED – A shot of panic crackles through your nervous system, but is grounded unceremoniously before you can be set in motion.
VOLITION – Get a hold of yourself. What will the lieutenant think if he comes back to find you gone?
EMPATHY – Curt replies, heavy sighs, eyes stopping just short of rolling. Symptoms of his disdain, expressed rather subtly to most, but to you they may as well be broadcast in flashing neon.
YOU – The thought of facing Kim’s disappointment anchors you to your seat. Your sweaty palms grip the sides of the chair like a life preserver on tumultuous seas.
VOLITION – When you fall into yourself, he pulls you back to the present. His existence and his trust hold you accountable.
EMPATHY – Within this trust is the acknowledgement that you are capable of getting better, and buried even deeper the promise that if he believes it’s possible then so can you. His faith in you bolsters your faith in yourself
LOGIC – Invaluable, when many still disregard you as a liability.
VOLITION – He has your back, now and always. You will not let him down. You refuse.
ESPRIT DE CORPS – In another lifetime this role was filled by Satellite-Officer Vicquemare; albeit to less success. Without clear boundaries the relationship collapsed rapidly into enabling when you first began to deteriorate.
When your penchant for pushing boundaries came up against his lowered defenses, he didn’t notice the warning signs until it was too late. A slow boil.
EMPATHY – Kim is different. He was introduced to you at rock bottom, navigating the aftermath of the swan song of Tequila Sunset. He presents himself with authority and knows how to stand his ground; his boundaries are not so easily eroded.
HALF LIGHT – Ditch your wallet in the Esperance and burn off your fingerprints, Raphaël Ambrosius Cousteau is getting the hell out of Revachol.
YOU – I can’t leave Kim.
EMPATHY – You won’t.
LOGIC – No one is going to ‘make you disappear’, the Moralintern has far more important things to deal with than a Jamrock cop with alleged Innocence potential.
SUGGESTION – Besides, they know you don’t have the power to do anything.
INLAND EMPIRE – It really is almost too cruel to imagine. The idea that individuals of Innocentic potential have labored their lives away in fields and sweatshops is one that has pointedly been ignored, in favor of reaffirming the once-in-centuries divinity of those who the Founding Party deems worthy.
How many have had their potential stolen, sold to the lowest bidder, too preoccupied with survival to strive for more?
CONCEPTUALIZATION – How many have lived and died in the dark? From them, what have we lost?
ENDURANCE – You slouch, slightly, like a phantom weight on your shoulders was just made more noticeable.
PERCEPTION – The world narrows.
INLAND EMPIRE – At the edges of your vision, fangs.
SUGGESTION – Struck a chord with that one, didn’t we.
YOU – So that’s it then? I can’t convince them? Best case I get ignored, worst case they just kill me?
LOGIC – You could try; struggle to convince any who would listen that you have potential. A voice worth their ear. A mind worth the matter.
HALF LIGHT – Tough sell, with matter in such dwindling supply.
LOGIC – But in reality, who would listen?
RHETORIC – When it would be so much easier to dismiss your cries as the neurotic ramblings of a spiraling addict —
EMPATHY – Recovering.
RHETORIC – — with a tenuous grasp of reality, from a place that the wider world only cares for because of what it can take from it.
INLAND EMPIRE – Don’t blame yourself. A mind electric, when ungrounded, is liable to short itself out.
INTERFACING – Tripped all the breakers on the way down last time, too.
CONCEPTUALIZATION – Because to be Innocent is to have the purity that comes of privilege; of undirtied hands, of pipes that don’t leach lead. Streets not suffused with industrial chemicals, clinging low to the gutters at dawn and turning the sunsets a caustic and sickly hue.
INLAND EMPIRE – To awake every day knowing you are somewhere that is, and not somewhere that was .
LOGIC – Innocences are meant to be figureheads, ideals. They are not born where people go to die. They are not born in Revachol.
They are not you.
PERCEPTION – The sudden THUD of overstuffed folders hitting the table jolts you from your thoughts.
HALF LIGHT – THEY’VE COME FOR US. DON’T LET THEM TAKE YOU ALIVE.
COMPOSURE: Pent up anxiety uncoils like a springtrap in your chest; fight-or-flight overriding the more reasonable parts of your brain and sending you careening into your seat back.
REACTION SPEED – Tipping backwards in your chair you scramble desperately to grab at the edge of the table, bringing the legs down in a SLAM that sends a shattering echo through the otherwise quiet space.
EMPATHY – You can feel the eyes of other library patrons boring into your skull.
YOU – Sheepishly, you pull your gaze upward.
KIM KITSURAGI – The lieutenant stands across the table from you, a smirk of amusement tugging at the corner of his tired features.
SAVOIR FAIRE – You try to play off your embarrassing display with a smile and wink, but through your beet red face it comes across more as an unfortunate grimace.
COMPOSURE – With one smooth, practiced motion the lieutenant swings out his chair and slides into the seat, retrieving his notebook from an inner jacket pocket and setting it on the table.
SAVOIR FAIRE – See that? How he makes sitting look cool? I can't compete with that. Why can't you be more like him?
KIM KITSURAGI – “Am I interrupting, detective?”
YOU – Freed from your momentary panic you lean in, whispering conspiratorially, “Kim I think I may be the next Innocence.”
KIM KITSURAGI – He barely acknowledges your non sequitur; it’s not even the oddest thing you’ve said this week.
EMPATHY – Doesn’t even break his top 5 if we’re being honest.
KIM KITSURAGI – He reaches across the table and scoops up the stack of folders. “Khm, well then have the Moralintern send the appropriate paperwork to the precinct. I’m sure Pryce will need to review it.”
He cards a gloved hand through the papers, grabbing a handful and dividing it between the two of you. “Until then you are not relieved of your duties as an officer of the RCM” His sentence punctuated with a dull slap of papers falling to the table. “Here are the last of the records for ‘50.”
YOU – “They won’t send any paperwork, there’s a conspiracy to keep people like us from gaining power!”
KIM KITSURAGI – At that he does pause.
ESPRIT DE CORPS – Is he getting into conspiracy theories now, he wonders.
EMPATHY – His eyes dart down to the book in front of you, connecting the dots and concluding this is just another mental tangent and nothing for him to be overly concerned about.
INTERFACING – If he noticed your earlier graffito project, he does not comment.
KIM KITSURAGI – “Ah, in that case we are still on a tight timeline to find the information we need, so best get to it.”
YOU – “I’m being serious, Kim!” You exclaim, hushed but frantic.
KIM KITSURAGI – “As am I.” He replies dryly.
YOU – Your hands drop to the table at his admonishment, shoulders deflating slightly.
DRAMA – He's not taking your musings seriously, my liege.
YOU – I gathered, thanks.
KIM KITSURAGI – Seemingly noticing your disappointment he ceases his sorting, and removes his glasses to clean.
EMPATHY – He’s doing a valiant effort at hiding it, but he’s feeling the strain of exhaustion just as much as you are.
KIM KITSURAGI – “I know it’s been a long day.” He places his glasses back on his face and meets your gaze, his eyes tired and soft. “We can take a break, get something to eat, after we finish this set.”
SUGGESTION – He thinks your ramblings on Innocences are a ploy to get out of your work.
AUTHORITY – His tone is placid but the message behind it is not one he's in the mood to argue. Best get to reading.
YOU – (Get to reading)
ENCYCLOPEDIA – Dates and names trickle by, row after row, page after page, but nothing seems to stick. Information washes over you like the tides, clawing back as much as it carries in.
In its wake you find your mind constantly wandering back to the subject of Innocences.
YOU – “Hey Kim, hypothetically if I were an Innocence would you be my security detail?”
ENCYCLOPEDIA – The personal guards of Innocences are called Therriers, a term coined during Dolores Dei’s reign 300 years ago. She was ultimately assassinated by one of these individuals.
KIM KITSURAGI – He doesn’t glance up from his notes. “Is this another one of your ‘mind projects’?”
YOU – “No I already finished one while you were gone, keep up.” You unload a quick-draw finger gun in his direction for good measure.
KIM KITSURAGI – He sighs and reaches a hand under his glasses, attempting to rub the tiredness from his eyes. Light refracts off the lenses as they shift from his movement. “I quite like my current position, detective, and I’m not too keen on being hired muscle. Even for an Innocence.”
ESPRIT DE CORPS – He worked himself to the bone to get here; there’s very little in this world that would make him walk away now. The sunk costs are not so easily ignored.
EMPATHY – Take his refusal with a grain of salt. Protecting an Innocence? He’s never considered a world where he of all people would be asked, where he would ever be a first choice.
YOU – “Well you’d be the only one I’d trust to keep me safe.” You reply plainly, like it’s the most obvious thing in the world.
KIM KITSURAGI – Though you see his hand stop writing, he does not immediately look up from his notes.
COMPOSURE – If you’re not mistaken, you think you catch a flush of pink creeping onto his ears.
EMPATHY – You caught him a bit off guard with your raw sincerity. He suppresses a smile before it can fully form.
YOU – “Besides, I’d absolutely be your bodyguard if you were an Innocence.” You wave your hand in broad gestures at each word. “Harrier the Therrier. Has a good ring to it”, you beam.
KIM KITSURAGI – “Gym teacher, detective, and bodyguard. Quite the resume you’re building.”
YOU – “Don’t forget world famous cryptozoologist.”
KIM KITSURAGI – “Hm, of course, how could I?” He trails off with a snort, turning over another page and making a mark in his notebook.
YOU – “Though now that you mention it, I may even be overqualified. You should promote me to your head of security.”
KIM KITSURAGI – He raises his pen to his lips, pretending to consider the proposition deeply. “Asking for a promotion before you’ve even been hired?” he muses, “It’s a bold move.”
YOU – “I’m nothing if not bold, Kim.”
KIM KITSURAGI – “Oh don’t worry, I came to that conclusion rather quickly after meeting you.” An unmistakable fondness nested shallow beneath the sarcasm.
HAND EYE COORDINATION – He spins the pen in his hand, weaving it deftly through his fingers before bringing the point back down to the page.
KIM KITSURAGI – “Promotion denied.” He states simply.
YOU – “WHAT!?”
PERCEPTION – A shrill “ shhhhhh ” rings out from an unseen source at your outburst.
ENCYCLOPEDIA – Try to remember you are in a library.
YOU – Don't sass me.
DRAMA – Like a true thespian of the stage, you make a show of clutching at your chest in feigned shock.
YOU – “You wound me!”
KIM KITSURAGI – He shrugs “if you were my head of security your time would be spent coordinating others. Securing locations, that sort of thing.” His eyes meet yours. “If it were my choice, I’d prefer to have you at my side.”
COMPOSURE – Is that smoke, pouring from your ears? Because your brain has just short circuited. You immediately flush an even more embarrassing shade of red than before.
CONCEPTUALIZATION – If what you said before was raw sincerity, I believe by the lieutenant’s standards that was positively blue.
KIM KITSURAGI – “But I am not an Innocence, and neither are you.” Unperturbed by your sudden shift in hue he casually returns to shuffling papers. “We’re almost done, detective. Just a few more folders.”
YOU – He quietly shifts his focus back to his notes. You turn your eyes towards your own papers, intent on sneaking glances at Kim between the pages.
PERCEPTION – The light from the windows has slowly meandered with the setting sun towards the lieutenant’s half of the table. He sits in the center of the harsh beam; the rest of the world darkening around the edges.
CONCEPTUALIZATION – A warm, soft bloom of color diffuses off of the waxed surface of his bomber; haloing his form in an orange-gold luminance.
When he moves the honeyed glow moves with him, as if he were the only source of light in a world bathed in shadow. The thick lenses of his glasses transformed into twin suns, perched delicately across the heavy bridge of his nose. Motes of dust dance around his head like a fragile circlet.
YOU – You still, fearing that a breath would shatter the scene built before you.
INLAND EMPIRE – Eyes turned down in focus, his features softened by the light. A moment quiet and almost holy, an air of solemn reverence.
CONCEPTUALIZATION – It recalls a rose window; a sunlit mosaic of which he sits at the heart.
INLAND EMPIRE – An angel on the painted glass.
VOLITION – Remember what we said before, about deifying those you love?
LOGIC – The lieutenant is man, not miracle.
RHETORIC – Do not dehumanize him by assigning him divinity. He is not infallible.
YOU – I’m not doing that!
DRAMA – You have nothing to gain by lying here.
EMPATHY – What would he think, to know you see him that way?
YOU – Isn’t it a good thing, to be compared to an Innocence?
VOLITION – He wouldn’t appreciate it; not the way you do it.
INLAND EMPIRE – He knows what you did to her image. To hallow is to hollow.
ENCYCLOPEDIA – Men who lead harsh lives often turn to Innocentic worship. Said to you by the same man who sits across the table.
RHETORIC – You take it a step farther.
LOGIC – Innocences are more symbol than person; it stands to reason that you see in the lieutenant something you wish to emulate. Your fixation is palpable.
YOU – You swallow, eyes flittering upwards; Kim’s face is turned away, still deep in focus.
YOU – Okay fine. Let’s say, hypothetically, I do. It’s not like I mean to, he’s just…
SAVOIR FAIRE – Cool under pressure?
VOLITION – Professional?
LOGIC – Competent?
YOU – Everything I’m not. Everything I wish I was.
VOLITION – Have you ever considered that could be a good thing?
YOU – Well obviously yeah, I’m a train wreck. I wouldn’t wish being me on anyone. Especially not him.
EMPATHY – It’s true that the lieutenant is patient, diligent, and empathetic. A grounding force. He saw you at your lowest and treated you with a kindness your hole-addled mind was so desperately starved for.
LOGIC – But he is not without flaws. He can also be cold, petty, and hypocritical. Dismissive of youths, prone to relishing in the power he holds over others. A sore loser and an even sorer winner.
DRAMA – When you take only the positive aspects of people and put them on a scale to weigh against your entire self, you will always be found wanting.
INLAND EMPIRE – Heart against feather.
EMPATHY – Do you think you aren’t worthy of kindness, of love, because you’re not a wholly good person?
YOU – Most people aren’t nearly as bad as me. I’m not a person, I’m closer to some weird, fucked up animal that’s tricked everyone into thinking I’m a person. Like some kind of shitty cryptid. Shitcryptid.
INLAND EMPIRE – Do you truly believe Innocence would free you from thinking of yourself that way?
VOLITION – When you accept that perfection does not prerequisite love, maybe then you can show yourself the kindness you need to feel human again.
YOU – …
LOGIC – Best return to your work, before the lieutenant catches you staring.
YOU – (Get to reading, again)
YOU – The thought floats in your mind while your eyes feign focus down to the records in front of you. It echos between your ears as you consider its shape, until the waters slowly still and it sinks quietly below the waves.
By the time you resurface from your subconscious something feels different, ever so slightly.
PERCEPTION – When you look back at Kim he no longer sits haloed by light; the setting sun now pushed low enough instead to bathe the whole room in a delicate veil of orange gossamer.
KIM KITSURAGI – In this light his features are no longer harshly blown out. You can make out the deep-cut lines of age on his face, the dark circles swimming below his eyes. Pockmarks and creases, scars and textures.
LOGIC – He looks human.
YOU – And you think you like him better this way.
KIM KITSURAGI – The lieutenant raises his arms above his head, fingers laced together in a deep, cat-like stretch. He exhales, dropping one arm and bringing the other to adjust his glasses with the base of his palm. “I think we’ve done enough for now. Dinner, detective?”
YOU – “Kim, I’d thought you’d never ask.”
KIM KITSURAGI – He rolls his eyes and collects the papers littering the table, filing them away to return to the front desk. “Did you want to check out that book before we go?” He pauses, quickly adding “I’m glad to see you branching out from cryptids.”
YOU – You glance down at the book in your hands, turning it over. The golden inlays shimmering slightly when they catch the light. “Actually, I think I’m okay.” You smile, tossing it gently onto the reshelving cart. “Think the book has it out for me now anyway, better not risk it.”
KIM KITSURAGI – “Of course.” He says with a half chuckle.
YOU – “Shall we?”
KIM KITSURAGI – He extends an arm. “After you.”
JAMROCK PUBLIC LIBRARY – You shoulder open the heavy front door, exchanging the dust of the library for the ash on the wind. The sky beyond is a canvas painted in a screaming vibrancy of pinks and oranges by thick, dry brushstrokes, crowning the low-settled marine haze.
INLAND EMPIRE – It’s unnatural, this sky. Filling your chest with awe and a lingering unease.
SHIVERS – The wind whistles a tune for your ears only; you answer with a hum from deep in your lungs. Falling ash settles onto your hair.
ENCYCLOPEDIA – Advesperascit; evening comes.
YOU – Stepping outside you are hit with the full force of the dense and unyielding air.
ENDURANCE – Best not to idle outside too long unless you have a death wish, especially with your bill of health. Get moving.
PAIN THRESHOLD – You should at least try to minimize the chemical inhalants.
YOU – Stopping at the top of the worn library steps, you reach into your pocket and produce a light green handkerchief printed with a loud paisley patterning.
INLAND EMPIRE – Disco.
PERCEPTION – Out of the corner of your eye you catch the lieutenant shuffling through his jacket pockets with a pinched expression on his face.
EMPATHY – Damnit, where is it?
LOGIC – He’s had the same thought, looking for some way to block out the smog. It appears he’s misplaced his own handkerchief.
KIM KITSURAGI – After a moment he stops searching, and in quiet resignation pulls the collar of his jacket up to cover his nose.
YOU – Without hesitation you lean in and nudge Kim with your elbow, holding out your green handkerchief for him.
DRAMA – An admirably chivalrous display, my liege.
EMPATHY – But he’s conflicted about taking it.
YOU – Realizing he won’t accept it if he believes it’s your only one, you reach your free hand into your blazer’s inner left pocket and produce another handkerchief, giving it a light wave to show him.
ENCYCLOPEDIA – Not just another handkerchief; the same one given to you by the Lieutenant your first morning in Martinaise.
INLAND EMPIRE – Your first morning on Elysium.
KIM KITSURAGI – His face softens in recognition, eyes sliding from the newly produced handkerchief to your face, and down to the one being held out to him.
COMPOSURE – He wasn’t expecting you to have held onto it. To have kept it on you.
INLAND EMPIRE – It was one of the first pieces of kindness offered to you when you were at your lowest. A wordless acknowledgement of humanity, of dignity, of understanding.
EMPATHY – He’s realizing that what he saw as a simple, polite gesture meant so much to you.
KIM KITSURAGI – He releases the hand holding his collar and gingerly takes the green handkerchief from you, pressing it to his face.
INLAND EMPIRE – A favor, to carry with him. You would not ask for it in return.
EMPATHY – And he’s not too keen to give it back.
CONCEPTUALIZATION – He likes the green. It goes with the orange.
YOU – Satisfied, you bring his handkerchief to your face. With a quick nod you begin down the library stairs.
KIM KITSURAGI – He follows a step behind you.
EMPATHY – Beneath the safety of the cloth, away from the prying eyes of the world, he smiles, freely.
SHIVERS – The dawn of the next Innocentic age is here. It arrived quietly, and without ceremony. A whisper on the wind carried the news through the dawn-lit avenues, through alleys and backstreets, singing of rebirth. Spring, ever impatient and longing for change, gifts her maybells in honor of the day.
Its herald lies sprawled, aching and hungover, on a hostel floor in a long forgotten corner of Elysium. The breeze carries soft petals and snow flurries through a shattered window; they come to rest on his head, a delicate crown.
He ceased to be what he was — the before, the man, is of no interest to the eyes of tomorrow. History will not mourn for him.
A harsh, shrill note pierces the air like the crack of a rifle. He wakes to greet the sunrise.
SHIVERS – The skies have burned, the skies are burning, the skies will burn. 22 years after your anointment, the bombs will fall. A bullet, piercing the golden lungs of Dolores Dei 22 years after her ascent. You can prevent this.
Only you can keep me on this earth. Long may you reign.