[ THISAVROU: INBOX ] MID messages & IC mail

[forwardmomentum]

I N B O X

IC Voice Mail "Personnel Officer Miles here. If this is a personal matter, leave a message; if it's ship business-related, may I direct you to the Personnel Office's suggestion box. Sending me a barrage of texts will not make me respond to you any faster, so don't, Ivan." Mun Contact PLURK:   runawayballista

Comments

[forwardmomentum]

He didn't say anything about alternate realities! And the odds of that seemed astronomical, I just assumed he knew!

It was just the other day. It was about your -- well, the other Jane's birthday. I'm sorry, Jane, if I'd known it was a secret I wouldn't have said a thing. [ and the more he talks about it the more he realizes it was a really, really stupid assumption. oh, god. ] I can talk to Nihlus, if you like.

[petridish]

It's Commander Shepard, not Jane, especially from you. [It's stupid and petty but it is very strange being called Jane, especially by someone who knows she's not really.

[And it was her birthday, if only "a year of life" and not the actual date (she doesn't know the actual date), but she's not explaining that on top of everything else.]

Talk to him days after you said it and tell him what, it was all just a huge joke or a misunderstanding?!

[forwardmomentum]

[ oh. ow. he really shouldn't have used that first name -- what the hell was he thinking? it's not like mark ever relished being called miles. he kicks himself again and again in a fit of mild panic. only mild. for now. ]

No, I was going to impress on him that he is in possession of some sensitive information and take measures to ensure that it doesn't leak any further. Trying to dismiss that sort of thing as a joke is the quickest way to let it spread like wildfire. Believe me, I know.

[ hoo boy does he ever. he hesitates before typing the next part, but miles never did know when to quit. ]

Do you have a name you prefer? One of your own? Not that I'm going to call you by it. Commander.

[petridish]

Like that wouldn't make him even more suspicious?! Nihlus is Special Tactics and Reconaissance, he was going to be Shepard's mentor so he knew her files even if they only spoke for ten minutes before this stupid ship, he already knows something's wrong!

[She sends just that at first, because the last paragraph throws her off. You're your own person, he'd said at the party where she'd opened her big mouth, and if he's asking for a name of her own, it seems he really believes that.

[But she's in too deep to even consider another name, and Miles has already proven he couldn't be trusted with it if she had one.]

No.

[forwardmomentum]

[ special tactics and reconnaissance sounds an awful lot like spy to miles. yeah, that sounds about right. ]

If Nihlus is so familiar with your progenitor, then it was only a matter of time before your cover was blown anyway, right? So best contain it and be honest with him than rouse even more suspicion. Trying to give a spy the runaround isn't always the best option.

You didn't mean to hide under the cover of the original Shepard's identity forever, did you? You must know this couldn't have been sustainable. So...why?

[petridish]

If you're warming up for more "you're your own person" varrenshit, you can save yourself the keystrokes.

[forwardmomentum]

No, I'm really asking. Were you planning to pretend to be her indefinitely, or did you have some other kind of exit strategy?

[ assuming miles's identity permanently was the original plan for mark, but miles knows there's nothing he'd rather do less now. he'd assumed that to be the case with shepard's clone, but... ]

Or do you just not want one?

[petridish]

That was always the plan back in our galaxy. When it didn't work and I took an exit, I just ended up here.

I didn't know what else to do. And until now, it was working.

[forwardmomentum]

But is it what you wanted?

[petridish]

I didn't want anything.

[forwardmomentum]

What about now?

[petridish]

I just want to stay alive without coming back from the dead, keep getting by on the Moira without being constantly scrutinized and distrusted by the entire ship, and continue not being thought of as disposable.

[forwardmomentum]

Pretending to be someone you're not isn't exactly the best way to earn the trust of the masses. Unless you're really damned good at it -- and in my experience, if you are that good at it, it stops being pretending after a point. Who says you're disposable, anyway?

[petridish]

["Hypocrite" is now in her mental dossier on him.]

Everyone who knew what I am.

[forwardmomentum]

[ it's uncanny, how he seems to keep having conversations that remind him of mark. ]

Well, that's the problem right there. They're only paying attention to the what, and not the who. You don't consider yourself disposable, do you?

[petridish]

How I consider myself won't matter if more people find out.

[It doesn't even matter now.]

[forwardmomentum]

You're wrong about that. It's what matters the most. When more people find out you're not the original Commander Shepard, they're going to want to know more. If you only consider yourself a disposable copy, why would they have any reason to think otherwise?

[petridish]

Shepard's all I was made for, all I was raised to be, all I know how to be.

Give me one good reason I'm anything but a copy.

[forwardmomentum]

When they made you, when they conditioned you to fool even those closest to her into thinking you were the original, did they give you her memories? Her experiences, her feelings? Do you know her thoughts?

Does she know yours?

Shepard doesn't know what it's like to be a clone. She doesn't know what you're feeling now, couldn't possibly know. Those experiences, those feelings -- that's what makes you unique, above all else. You may look like her, share her DNA and made to replace her, but the truth is, there's no one else in the world like you.

You are what you do. Choose again, and change.

[ advice he'd tried, verbatim, to impress on his own clone brother. in the end, he thinks, it did penetrate, on some level -- even if mark had chosen to leave miles behind him. ]

[petridish]

[He's wrong on some of the details: They'd tried to kill those closest to Shepard, knowing fooling them wouldn't work without her memories. She was made to replace parts; it was only her rescuer who raised her to replace Shepard. But she's not about to correct that, to give him more information he'll let slip.]

I'm choosing to be treated as the Daughter of Mindoir, the Butcher of Torfan, the first human Spectre, the Savior of the Citadel, and I've already changed how I'm getting that. My uniqueness won't protect me, it'd just place a target on my back.

[forwardmomentum]

[ the butcher of torfan? yikes. miles will have to look into that one. being the son of the butcher of komarr, he knows that you don't earn a title like that lightly.

but there's not much more he can do here, he senses. it makes his chest ache a little, but -- stop that. she's not yours to save. she hardly knows you, and she sure as hell doesn't trust you. don't be a fool, boy. ]

Your uniqueness is a weapon in itself, should you choose to wield it instead of wearing it. But the path is yours to choose. You own that, if nothing else.

[petridish]

It's a weapon that hurts the user, and a path I never asked for.

Why the hell do you care, anyway? What's in this for you?

[forwardmomentum]

I never said it wasn't a double-edged sword.

Nothing, I guess. But I know someone a lot like you. My brother, in fact.

[petridish]

What, your brother's a clone?

[forwardmomentum]

Oh, yes. We only met just in the last year, in fact. While he was in the middle of a plot to assassinate and replace me, granted, but it wasn't really his idea, and we've moved past that.

[ he's pretty sure, anyway. if mark really wanted to kill him, he could've done it a thousand times over by now. ]