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

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

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.

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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.

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?"

"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."

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."

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.

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?”

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.

“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.

That's another strange thought, and Luna looks appropriately confused. "Everything has a reason, or it did in the facility I come from. Everything my administrators did was for a single project, since long before I was created. I wouldn't have been made if not for a purpose. It's just that I couldn't fulfill the one I was given. Being made for something, and finding out you can't do it, is...hard."

She sounds resigned then, with a brittle sort of regret. Luna's come to terms with what happened with Kyle a long time ago, but harsh lessons leave their mark.

More stuff he doesn’t really understand. …Though if he thinks of his duties to his Family, maybe he does get that much.

“What’re you supposed to do?” It might just sound like nosiness—partially, it is—but he has a more important reason, and he bobs his head once as he offers it. “You’re smart—if it’s that important to you, maybe we can figure out a way you could still do it sometime.”

“Not that I really think you need to stick your neck out for those guys, but if you really want to…” He shrugs. It’s her funeral; he can only try to help out his friend.

Luna smiles, but it's very much bittersweet. "I appreciate you saying that, and I wish I could. But it's too late, even if it could ever work. My mission was...it was to be a mother to my creator's son. That was sixteen years ago."

In the time since Luna's convinced herself as Kyle had that it was the logical outcome when she could never fill the role of a mother. It's not that hard when these days Kyle is only a few years younger than Luna appears, but back then those had been dark times. No longer, at least. "Later on I was assigned to different duties. And there are other complications that are hard to talk about right now." Diana, mainly, but now really is not the time to be going down that path.

“Er—what?” He blinks and only after he’s reacted realizes that his confusion probably isn’t the reaction she needs to that. He runs his fingers back through his hair. “I don’t mean anything about you by it. You’d probably be good at that.” She’s a nice, caring person; he can easily imagine her being good with kids.

No, it’s everything else that’s weird to him, mainly her creator’s actions.

“How old was this kid, huh? Dependin’ on what his life was like, your creator just set you up for failure. And they shouldn’t go around doin’ stuff like that anyway. Who the hell creates somebody to live for somebody else? That’s just selfish.”

It puts people like Luna in a bad spot. Nobody should ever be stuck being that reliant on another person.

Firo's faith in Luna's children skills is greater than her own, but it's a nice sentiment even if she doesn't have confidence in it. "Thank you, but I don't think it's any fault of my creator or his son, that my mission wasn't successful. It's just what I am." Luna knows Firo won't agree, but at the same time it's what she believes. She's never known any other possibility.

And to be fair, it's not really fair to blame Sigma for this particular issue. He couldn't have known what would happen. "Actually, my creator was as surprised as I was when things didn't go as planned. It was his son who made the final decisions, though. He was six years old then, old enough to know what he wanted out of a mother. And that...wasn't me."

As predicted, Firo most certainly does not agree with her assessment there. His scowl is probably proof enough of that, and it doesn't fade when she provides more information.

“What, did your creator not even ask him about it before? He sounds like a dumbass." Rushing in without a plan or information... actually, that's something Firo would do. But he wouldn't do it when creating an entire life and human being was at stake.

"Anyway, you just said it yourself. The kid decided if you failed or not, not you. And it's just dumb to base it all off of one kid--I bet there's plenty out there who'd be happy to have you as a mom."

Luna's flattered again by Firo's assessment, but it comes years too late. The image of herself as a mother doesn't quite catch after years of telling herself it wouldn't have worked anyway. "I wouldn't know about that," she says, more out of uncertainty as much as contradiction. "We only had one child to take care of, and he was looking for a mother who was more human. I was reassigned to other work when it became clear that things wouldn't work out, so I don't have much experience even pretending to be a mother."

Would she want to do it again? Luna isn't completely sure, it's been so long. She's seen the Rhizome's human inhabitants form a family, though, and that adds a hint of wistfulness to her words. "From what I've seen, being human is a very valuable part of making a family. I don't think my creator understood that when he made me, but I've seen it."

“So he’s still a dumbass.” Not planning ahead when a whole life is at stake? Stupid. Firo’s an idiot and he still gets that. He shakes his head as she finishes, “Yeah, okay, I have no idea what you mean by that.”

And he’s not just being obtuse, though he thinks making her explain could help them with this argument. Trying to make her feel guilty by pointing out that Ennis is just as much family as the rest of his friends probably isn’t going to work at this stage.

Luna wants to contest labeling Sigma as a dumbass, most of the time anyway but frankly she's not likely to get anywhere with that so she leaves it be. She doesn't mind explaining, in any case. "Kyle did eventually find a mother later on, when my other administrator arrived at our facility. I saw the differences then. She connected with Kyle and his father in a way I never could. It changed the both of them drastically."

The wistfulness is even more clear now: Luna envies what they had, but seeing the family come together has reinforced her understanding of the difference between herself and them. "They were comfortable with each other in a way they could never be with me. That's...that's what I saw as being human."

Firo frowns as she explains, his mouth falling open just a little at the end. Like so much else that she's said, it just sounds off to him. And sad.

"That happens with people all the time. Sometimes you just meet somebody and hate their guts." Something he experiences frequently, but it's probably not the best example to give Luna for her situation. Almost hesitant, definitely reverent, he adds, "And sometimes you meet somebody and you can't say why, but you respect 'em more than other people you've met."

In short: you click or you don't.

"Just 'cause they didn't let you into their family doesn't mean you're not human. It just means you've gotta look somewhere else for your family. Believe me, you might not find it on the first try. If that means you're not human, you're gonna have to tell a lotta people, because that means they're not either."

"That's different." Luna's convinced of her claim there, at first - what she's getting from Firo's argument isn't quite what she sees for herself. "What you're referring to is a matter of personality and values, isn't it? Isn't that what brings people together, or drives them apart?" She's firm in that question, but there's a clear layer of curiosity underneath it as well. Human relationships aren't exactly something she has personal experience with, as much thanks to the Rhizome's isolation as her own mechanical insides. "I was...different. Maybe if I were human, I would have gotten along with them just fine. I think I might have, with Kyle."

It's more of a hope, but it is what Luna believes - or believed. But now that she's saying it out loud, there's some doubt slowing down her words as she thinks of the people she's met since her days in the Rhizome. She's made friends and gotten along with them just fine in Panem, like with Firo or Sansa. They hadn't known she wasn't human at the time, but if not knowing what she was made the difference then what does that say?

He sighs to keep from screaming in frustration. "How can you say your 'differences' aren't the same as I was just sayin'? You haven't given me any proof yet, you know. You can't say that you can't be close to people just 'cause of one punk kid."

Firo, too, can't help but think of the friendships Luna's formed--at least, they seem like her friends from what he's seen. "You know, I haven't heard a single bad word about you while you were here. Most people's opinions don't matter, but Phil said good things about you too." And he's important; Firo trusts his judgement.

"You talked about me?" Luna isn't sure why she's surprised. She'd already known that Phil and Firo knew each other, probably for longer than she'd known either of them. Maybe she was surprised that Firo had apparently heard from multiple people, or maybe she'd thought she just hadn't been worth talking about. Either could be true.

The thought makes her feel strange, though, and not just because she's self-conscious. "Most people don't really know what I really am. Phil does, but until now he's been the only one." Firo's already said he doesn't care about what many others think, but to Luna the deception implicit in not telling others what she is feels wrong.

He laughs and leans his head to one side, curious. "Of course we did. Why, are you offended?"

"It shouldn't matter if they know or not. But you probably already know I think that." He can't deny that there are likely a lot of people out there who'd agree with Luna and think that she's different or less than other people. He'd like to tell them what they can go do with their opinions; predictably, it's violent and involves things that shouldn't be mentioned in polite company. "He didn't even say anything about that. Just talked about how you were one of the first people he mentored and a good person."

Does that hurt your argument at all, Luna? Is what he wants to ask. The grin on his face may say it well enough.

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

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