Animals, Things and Elements possess a soul which man does not yet know.

[didnothing]

Who| Luna and friends, open
What| Luna's been reborn thanks to the Capitol, and now she's seeking out familiar faces.
Where| Detention Center
When| Backdated to after the D7 battles, before the power chip event
Warnings/Notes| Brainwashing/control talk.


Do not attempt escape. Do not cause trouble. Do not aid any rebels you see. Those few simple commands are enough to close the cage around what might be Luna's soul, if she even has one.

When she wakes up in the Capitol she knows her body and mind are different instinctively once again. It's not long before she's informed that the Capitol has deigned to return her original mechanical body to her, generously adapted to allow her to function independently on Earth. The catch, of course, is that they want loyalty in return. In fact, one of the extra modifications they've made to her design is the absolute rule that she must follow orders, to ensure that loyalty. Luna feels it: extra threads monitoring her decision-making processes, too clumsily integrated to be Sigma's work (although he surely must have been involved in the work on her body) but functional all the same. She's aware of the processes that govern her behavior but she can't change them, so the change is here to stay.

Detainment Center Infirmary
GAULEMs are good for many things in the Rhizome 9 facility, but in Panem without a larger system to interact with Luna isn't much more useful than she was with an organic body. Medical and technical capability remain her foremost skills in the Capitol's eyes, and so Luna's assigned to around-the-clock duty in the infirmary - less risky than allowing her increased access to tech, obedience or not. It's a count for the Capitol in a manner, because she's aware that they could very well order her to enter combat as a soldier and she'd do it for all she'd hate herself. Luna doesn't care if it's probably less mercy and more lack of bothering. At least she can still pretend that she can follow her own rules this way.

She's not the only one there, of course. Security takes issue with giving an offworlder, robotic or not, free reign of the place. There's always another doctor or nurse on hand to give her orders and make sure she doesn't go haywire and tear up the place (as if that were possible to begin with) but for mundane tasks and grunt work, Luna's free to attend to patients like any other staff on hand. Most of the time, that means greeting any ailing inhabitants of the detainment center with a soft voice and an attitude far too meek for any normal nurse.

Detainment Center Visiting Room
Once in a while when a staff member feels bad for her or (more likely) gets tired of her presence, Luna's let go to do as she wants for a few hours as long as she doesn't cause trouble. The time off work is a relief at first, but Luna quickly finds that as soon as the relief passes she doesn't really know what to do with herself. She's allowed to leave the detainment center but doesn't feel much like enjoying herself in the city, and even just sitting quietly gives her too much room to stew in her thoughts. She can't even take a little solace in her music box these days, having left it in District Thirteen before the battle that got her killed. She wonders if it will get thrown away anyway in her absence despite her efforts to keep it safe. She won't blame anybody if they do.

Free time more than anything leaves her feeling aimless and alien like the early days after her creation, and like those days the end result is a crushing sense of loneliness - the kind that creates a brittle, permeating ache that comes from no external stimulus. Eventually she starts visiting the detainment center, inquiring after every name she can think of save Sigma's (he wouldn't be here, of course). Some people aren't here, and whatever reasons behind each of their cases she's glad. Too many names still are, and she can't help but request an audience with them. She needs the company; maybe they will too.

Detainment Center Visiting Room; for Sansa Stark
Luna's surprised to hear that Sansa's living out in the Capitol rather than being detained, but she's glad. Sansa deserves more than this, and Luna had feared the worst for her when Sansa remained the only District Six Tribute unaccounted for during her time in Thirteen. She dithers for a little while on whether to contact her, not wanting to drag her down by association, but ultimately goes for it: Sansa would probably have wanted the same if their positions had been reversed. She asks for a message to be sent, and a meeting time is arranged. When the time comes Luna tries to look more presentable than she feels before she comes into the visiting room, so as not to worry Sansa too much.

Comments

[foundafamily]

“What exactly are you sayin’? You’re different so you don’t deserve the same things everybody else wants for themselves?” The question is decidedly rhetorical.

If anything, it's an oversimplification of what she's been saying; he's disheartened that she doesn't seem convinced, and he's looking for anything he can try to fashion into an argument. He realizes he’s getting into that mode where he turns an argument—or, in this case, something that should be more of a discussion between friends—into something of a dirty fight.

He sighs and drops his head. “…I guess it’s not really right for me to tell you what to think.” Isn’t that the kind of thing he hates? He’s about as bad as Szilard if he presumes to boss around people like Luna and Ennis.

But then there are some things that are just facts--he smiles, a bit of self-consciousness and a bit of ruefulness in it. “…Because you’re just as human as the rest of us. I still don't think it matters how you're made, what you're made of, or what you were made for.”

[didnothing]

It's strange, it's really strange. Nobody's ever suggested that Luna is human before. Even Sigma's younger self, the one who comforted her and railed against her circumstances in the Nonary Game, had never tried to say she was. Everyone she's told in Panem hasn't cared about what she is and that in itself is new and unfamiliar, but Firo arguing that she's on the same level as a human is almost alien. Luna finds herself at a loss, unsure of how to respond. "Firo..."

It's touching, in a way, but the sentiment is bittersweet. She doesn't believe it; she's not really human. Sixteen years of belief is hard to challenge. Luna understands that it means Firo cares, though, so she can hardly hold it against him. "Thank you. Nobody's ever said that to me before. It's...nice." She smiles at him, gentle but reserved.

[foundafamily]

He half-smiles, slightly saddened by her response. The words are faultlessly polite and kind, and he wouldn't expect any different, but he thinks he can read between the lines to see what a certain absence means. "'Nice', but not enough to convince you?"

For now. He has no idea how much time the turmoil of war will give them, but he means to work on this with whatever time they do have left.

[didnothing]

"I'm sorry. I really am." And Luna means it, because she knows Firo believes every word he says. She wishes she could too. "To be honest, I wish it were true. But I am what I am. I'm just a--a machine. I...they can't be the same thing."

There's disbelief and denial mixed together in her words, but the end result is that Luna can't accept what he's saying. Truthfully she sometimes fantasizes about being human, with all the freedom it affords - like the ability to love others and have that loved returned, and a destiny beyond the walls of a single facility. It's her longest and deepest fantasy, but one she's afraid to admit for what it is. It's just fantasy, after all. It could never be real no matter what either she or Firo want to believe.

[foundafamily]

He wrinkles his nose. It may bother him more than he'd like to admit, but, ultimately, he's not the one being hurt by this kind of thinking. "Don't apologize to me."

"Who says they can't be the same?" Probably a poor wording on that rhetorical question, he realizes. "If that's what you want, then you can make it the same."

For Firo, the logical reaction to being told you can't do something is to do it. In this case, that only makes further sense to him considering she says it's something she wants.

[didnothing]

Luna's stunned by the question for how impossible it seems, and she shakes her head mutely for a moment before finding her voice. "I can't. I can't make myself human any more than you can make yourself a robot. They're just not the same." She struggles to find the words, but how does anyone explain something so fundamental? "The people I took my orders from, the books I've read...none of them have ever even considered the idea. I've lived with humans my entire life. I know I can't be one of them."

It's shaky logic, relying on others' beliefs, and she's aware of it. Her hesitance shows in the way her voice becomes softer, less sure of herself, but still convinced enough. The difference between herself and other humans is the foundation upon which her understanding of herself is based, and Luna's not yet ready to consider what it means if that foundation isn't as steady as she thinks.

[foundafamily]

He raises an eyebrow, "You'd listen to a book?" Books are for stories and stories are for kids. Firo can't see the value in paying much attention to one of those things for anything, much less shaping your identity.

"And the people you take orders from--didn't you ever think that maybe they've got a reason to want you to think that way? It's a pretty sweet deal for them--they get to do whatever the hell they want to you and you don't even argue."

He shrugs. "I've lived with humans my whole life too. They're always out to use people, and they'll say whatever they have to to get you."

[didnothing]

"Well..." Luna falters again, unsure of how to argue against it. It's true that Firo must know humans better than Luna does, and it's true that Luna's superiors prefer her to be obedient without question. Or at least, Akane did. Kyle had assumed that of her to start, but hadn't cared enough about her to try and use her. She's been back and forth with her own thoughts as to where Sigma falls in this matter, given how he's been towards her in Panem.

"That's not entirely true," she says at last, as both admission and defense. "If they really wanted control over me, there were other ways to do that. If my personality had been written differently, or if I'd been programmed to follow orders without question, there would have been no need to control what I do. There's a difference." And it's a difference she feels heavily right now, knowing what the Capitol has done to her.

[foundafamily]

"So they're not as terrible as they coulda' been?" He shakes his head. He'd be angry that she doesn't seem to think that she deserves any better if he didn't simply feel bad for her. As it is, he has plenty of anger to direct at these unknown creators. "Sorry, but I'm not gonna give 'em a pat on the back for that."

Ennis and the other homunculi had eventually developed free will, after all. Szilard not creating some measure to prevent that or remove it from them doesn't make him a saint.

Firo reflects that Szilard was probably limited in what he could do--thank goodness--but Luna makes it sound as if making her completely different were possible. He bites his cheek, wondering about that. "Why didn't they?"

[didnothing]

Why indeed. It's a question Luna's never considered directly, assuming the procedure for handling disobedient GAULEMs was enough before she'd learned the truth about why Sigma had made her. That relates more to what she means to him, and their relationship...but in the end being programmed to love someone isn't all that different from being programmed to obey, is it? She still only has Sigma's word about his motives, but she trusts what he told her that night at the crowning. She does.

"I'm...special to my creator, in a number of ways. And he's special to me, too." There's a beat before Luna realizes the potential implications of that statement and then she waves her hands in embarrassment, backpedaling frantically. "N-not like that! What I mean is...when he was making me, he wanted me to be myself. To, um, choose what felt right for me." And if there's any contradiction between that statement and the rest of what Luna's said, it's lost on her right now.

[foundafamily]

At Luna's first words about her relationship with her creator, Ennis's words about her own relationship with Szilard come rushing back: I'm the closest thing he has to a daughter. A chill runs down his spine, but it's soon forgotten as Luna moves on.

It takes him a moment to catch up to what she's saying their relationship isn't. He's nearly as embarrassed, blushing slightly. "I-I wasn't gonna think that!" Geez, Luna, way to make it awkward.

He glances off to the side to recover. "What's he actually done to let you do that? The way you talk, it doesn't sound like he's helped you much."

Firo supposes he's not so great himself for pushing her so much, but surely a responsible friend to Luna--creator or not, but especially a creator--wouldn't let her ideas about her humanity go unchallenged.

[didnothing]

Luna's still a little flustered because truthfully it is a little like she implied, except it's never going to happen and frankly never should. But that thought actually ties into what Firo's asking, because she'd had to wrestle with these questions right before the war for the same reason her love life is a lost cause. "He's helped me a great deal, actually." She smiles sadly, and just barely remembers that she can't look to her lost pendant for comfort. "He's done things that hurt me as well. But in the end...well, it's something very personal, to both him and me. It shouldn't be only my decision to tell you." She means it, too. Diana isn't her story to tell right now.

"What matters is that I know the worst that could have happened. This wasn't it. And he...looking back, I did have to choose when it mattered the most." Luna's very certain about her first point, thanks to the Capitol's modifications, but when talking about her need to choose she sounds almost surprised by that thought. She knows full well what happened, but the juxtaposition with her current situation is striking right now. "I had my orders...but there was always a choice, even when I didn't realize it."

[foundafamily]

He nods, a touch hasty. It sounds like it’d be better to just shove this specific uncomfortable topic. “Right.” He doesn’t want to press too much on that. Not if it’s tangled up in totally-not-but-maybe-romance things. It’s none of his business.

None of this is his business, but he ignores that fact when it comes to the rest of it.

He rests his chin on his palm and watches as she continues talking. Again, he can’t stop his mind from drawing the parallels to Ennis, parallels that only make his concern for Luna’s situation worse.

Ennis had a choice. She nearly wound up dead on the ground for making it, but she still had a choice. Suffer by killing her only friends or suffer by dying bit by bit due to her creator’s power. Some choice.

So he’s still skeptical. “Uh-huh. Come on, ‘not the worst’ doesn’t mean he’s anything special either." With the life he's lived, Firo's usually grateful for good enough. When it comes to his friend's important people, though? No way. That's the kind of thing that needs only the best. "So what if he let you have a choice? That's yours to begin with. If a guy steals something from you and gives it back, you're not gonna thank him. You're gonna cut his hand off.”

[didnothing]

"Um..." Luna gives Firo a wary look - does he go around cutting off the hands of everyone who steals from him? Is that something that happens often? - but she opts not to comment on it in the end. She doesn't really want to go there. There's more important matters at hand anyway, like the fact that she's trying very hard to convince Firo (and maybe herself) that things aren't so bad as he claims. Luna feels like she's defending Sigma's honor as well as her own, and while Sigma is hardly a saint she's not going to blame him for things he doesn't deserve. "He didn't take anything away from me. He..." Luna has to pause, to find the words. Explain things the right way. Maybe then Firo will understand.

She settles on a slight tangent. "That was never something I had until he made his own choice. You've used before machines before, haven't you? A car, or an elevator at least. They don't get a choice in what they do. In the end, the only difference between them and me is what I look like, and that I was given the ability to decide."

[foundafamily]

Firo's fists clench at that analogy, the knuckles turning white. Damn, he really wants to hit someone now. Not Luna, of course, but someone. One of the people she lived with or one of the people who wrote those bullshit books she said she read. It takes effort not to yell, too, but he manages to keep his voice low and even. "No. You're wrong about that."

But what does he have to back that up besides his conviction? That's a little harder, but he just keeps his mouth moving and hopes his brain catches up. "You... You want things--you said so yourself. You talk to people, you make friends. That makes you completely different from something like that."

[didnothing]

Luna doesn't have a response for that at first. He's right, she does do those things. And she feels something from it all, at least in terms of whatever kind of feelings a robot has. But it's not the same thing as being human, is it? Surely someone would have had to see it if so. Kyle had seen her as a pale imitation of a mother, or an extension of his father's will; Akane and Phi and the Capitol see her as a thing to carry out orders. Sigma knows her better than anyone, and if he sees her as human he's never mentioned it.

"It's not like that." She sounds less sure of herself this time, but that's the answer she sees. Luna can't seem to find the words to explain it, though; it feels like she's been going in circles this whole conversation, and she only halfway knows what to make of things anymore. She's made to follow orders, but she believes Sigma when he says he gave her a choice. Now she doesn't have a choice at all. None of that makes her human, but she can't figure out how to connect all the points for Firo now. "It's...not as different as you think."

[foundafamily]

He shakes his head. “You keep sayin’ that, but it doesn't mean anything. Convince me if you really believe it."

But he doesn't pause to listen to her evidence, because he has another idea. Maybe if he dips into a bit of where he's coming from she'll understand better.

"I know somebody back home who was just created to be a tool. Drive her creator around, do his dirty work, all that stuff. What do you think of her, huh? Is she not human either?"

[didnothing]

Somebody else who was created. Luna's able to connect those dots, remembering Firo's earlier reference to someone he knew. But in her mind's eye she sees someone like Kyle, born in a laboratory but otherwise no different in makeup than an ordinary human. There's a world's difference between her and Kyle, or so she thinks.

"Is that the homunculus you mentioned?" She asks mainly for confirmation, and continues with her thoughts. "A manmade human, right? I knew somebody like that, too. But he was still his own person. He had his own thoughts and feelings, developed without anyone telling him to. It wasn't right that your friend had to do those things...but I'm different from that." And it's true in her eyes, but even she hears the repetition in what she's saying.

[foundafamily]

It seems like she already knows the answer, but he nods anyway.

Of course she refutes it--the little bit of hope he had deflates. He sighs, "Can you even hear yourself? 'His own thoughts and feelings'? How's that not exactly what you did? Shouldn't matter if someone told you to or not--sometimes people need a kick in the pants to get 'em started."

Not to imply that Luna's lazy, not at all. Just that she maybe needed to be prodded along to the opportunity. ...Much like Ennis did, he suddenly realizes. The memory makes him sick and he almost blocks it out before he realizes it could be helpful. Firo sees it not from his own perspective but from Szilard's, and those memories are always unpleasant. Like they have the smell of rot attached to the them.

But still, maybe it'll help.

He straightens, his tone calming. "She didn't get her feelings all by herself, not really. She--well, it's hard to explain, but she killed a guy and got all his memories. That's how she learned about this stuff. So, in a way, somebody did tell her to. Or he showed her, at least. How's that fit in now, huh?"

[didnothing]

"What?" Luna has to take a moment just to absorb that. Somebody gaining memories and feelings by killing somebody is...definitely outside anything she's ever heard of. How does that happen? She believes Firo when he says it, of course, but that doesn't mean it's easy to understand.

She's quiet again as she ponders her answer, trying to imagine what it must be like and what that means for his argument. So his friend originally didn't have emotions, but was given them somehow. Is Luna herself the same as that? In her own eyes, in others' eyes, her nature as a programmed personality suggests that what she feels isn't her own like a human's experiences are. But she's hesitant to say the same about Firo's friend, even if she was given those feelings in a way. Does that make a difference?

Her confusion comes out more like a confession. "I don't know."

[foundafamily]

Is this promising? Firo's not sure, but he hopes that the fact she's not flat-out denying it is a plus. Or maybe she's just confused. But weird as Ennis's situation is, Firo sees a lot of similarities between her and Luna. Too bad Luna has no Isaac and Miria here to help her out.

He leans back in his chair, running a hand through his hair. "That's fine if you don't know. Just give yourself a chance, okay?

"You could spend all day tryin' to find reasons to say you're less or different than other people, but it's not doin' you any good." In his mind, it just gives others room to take advantage of her; he doesn't point that out right now because, oddly enough, she seems fine with that state of affairs. "If you get it from people or books, then screw 'em. If it's all stuff you thought up yourself... just cut yourself a goddamn break."

[didnothing]

The thought is strange, because to Luna she is nothing without those things. "Much of what I am comes from other people or books. Not just what I know about myself, but also the world." She closes her eyes and thinks back to her early days, when she'd still been crushed by Kyle's dedicated lack of acknowledgment. "When I was first created...I had all the time in the world, but nowhere to go. Nobody to talk to, most of the time. After some time, I discovered the library - and, well, that's how I knew just about anything about normal life. Can you say that everything you are isn't learned from other sources in the same way?"

Despite the bleakness, she sounds a little nostalgic about the library. The loneliness had been miserable, but Sigma's gift to her and the discovery of what the archives had to offer had changed her life for the better. And sure, romance novels and large volumes on advanced physics aren't the best portrait for normal human life but they were better at it than growing up in Rhizome Nine.

[foundafamily]

In a way, the loneliness sounds familiar, though Firo’s refuge hadn’t come from books. That’s yet another thing that strikes him as sad: the fact that someone would create her and just leave her alone.

“Maybe not everything…” He thinks of all the people who’ve changed him, not only back home but here too. He’d thought that the Martillos, Isaac and Miria, and Ennis had already finished softening him up, but that was before Phil, Roland, Eowyn, and, yes, Luna came into the picture.

He tilts his head, conceding, “But I’ve learned a lot from other people. Look at that, maybe we are similar.” Which, to him, is yet another way to pile up the evidence for her humanity.

Never one to let himself gracefully lose an argument—especially one this important—he adds, “I don’t think that hurts my point at all. Besides, if I did listen to what everybody said about me, I’d—well, I’d be pretty damn confused.”

“Why’d you listen to the books you did? Did you listen to ‘em all or did you just pick some?”

[didnothing]

Luna has to think back to answer that, because ever since she'd discovered the Three Laws she hadn't looked back much until now. "In the end, it was just a few things. I knew what I was, because of my own programming and the things I heard from others. I understood that, or I thought I did. But I didn't know what a robot ought to do, or ought to be be. Most books didn't talk about that. So when I found something that did, something that made sense, and my creator..."

Luna sighs, thinking of beautiful gardens and the sad song of a music box now lost to her. "I was searching back then, looking for any reason I should still be around. It was a few stories and a little kindness that helped me find it."

She doesn't realize the trap she's in, contenting herself with small bits of happiness in a small life. To her it's a matter of being lost and found again, and back in the Rhizome that genuinely was the most she could have ever hoped for.

[foundafamily]

“Why’d you need a reason? Plenty of people don’t have one at all, and they do just fine. Does everybody need a reason, or is it just you?”

That time of uncertainty, maybe, he can relate to, even if he doesn’t yet know much about her situation. There were quite a few years when he didn’t know anything except how to somehow scrape by each day. But needing a purpose… He can’t get that; he knew that, to anyone else, he was worthless. That’s just how people see others. Nobody needs some grand reason to exist.