[FIN] Ultimatum

[Suudonym]

It took a few hours, and a few beers, but eventually Lucas finished writing up his report on the grunt whom Faleen had spoken to him about. It felt like dirty work, like writing the world's most cold and standoffish eulogy, but he continued to hope for the best. Hell, he had never even met Izaya; maybe the guy would completely surprise him.

Best not to get his expectations too high, though. Going into this with any kind of predetermined impression would just impact his impartiality.

With everything prepared (and his office cleaned up a little bit better), Lucas took his 'dex in hand and sent a brief message to Izaya requesting the grunt's presence as soon as possible.  

[lZAYA ORlHARA]

An unexpected message from an unfamiliar elite agent. Well, that couldn't mean anything good. If Nakura remembered right, Elite Agent Lucas was...in the Tech department? But it didn't take an info broker to guess this had something to do with his last conversation with Agent Faleen.

Sighing heavily, the grunt snapped his dex shut, donned his grunt cap, straightened his uniform, and headed toward said elite's office. Once there, he knocked firmly on the door to announce his presence.  

[Suudonym]

It was only a moment's wait before the door opened, revealing the somewhat scruffy-looking elite standing beyond. He wore a practiced smile as he stepped back and gestured into his office, "You must be Izaya, right? I don't believe we've properly met before - my name's Lucas Bristow; I'm one of the elites in charge of the tech labs, which makes me Agent Faleen's supervisor. Come in; have a seat."  

[lZAYA ORlHARA]

Ah; so that explained it. The black-haired man nodded solemnly and gave a stiff bow at the waist. "Elite Agent Lucas," he acknowledged. The man seemed reasonable enough. Of course, that was ignoring all the rumors the grunt had heard going around about Lucas being an ex-galactic and very close to Elite Agent Claire, not to mention something about a split-personality disorder. Supposedly that was all in the past, though, so Nakura didn't comment on it. He did as he was told and entered the room to take a seat, his features blank without so much as a hint of a smile.  

[Suudonym]

Lucas's first impression was of a man who had a pretty good idea that he was in some hot water. The elite moved to take a seat on the other side of the desk, typing a few keystrokes on his black laptop to wake it and turning it so the screen faced Izaya; with the distance of the desk between them, it looked like little more than an ordinary assortment of paragraphs.

"What I have here," he explained, "is a report based on a conversation I had with Faleen earlier today. At the end it says that you're no longer viable for regular duty and can be considered treasonous. If I send this report to human resources, that's it. Game over. Do not pass go, do not collect $200." He shut the laptop, and its hard drive quietly whirred to sleep, "Now fortunately, I really hate this whole 'playing god' thing - deciding whether or not someone lives or dies. It is really not my style. This report is currently my own personal file in my own private storage; if I were to delete it, no one but you and me would know that it ever existed. However, as an elite, I'm sort of obligated to do what's best for Team Rocket, and that generally extends to identifying and eliminating individuals who are a hazard to themselves, to others, and to the organization at large.

"I asked you here to convince me that it would be okay to delete this file. Does that sound like something you would be interested in?"  

[lZAYA ORlHARA]

Throughout the elite's explanation, the grunt gave his full attention to Lucas and his screen. Despite the game references, he knew this was no humorous situation. The mention of 'playing god' almost made him smile at the irony in spite of himself, but luckily he had enough willpower to refrain from doing so.

When the elite agent asked him a question, Nakura actually took a moment to think before opening his mouth to speak. "Yes, sir," he said simply.

'Convincing' people, particularly with words, was one of his favorite games. But no, he had to remember, this wasn't a game. Whether or not it had ever been, or if it had stopped being a game when Aila had gave up her life to save his, he couldn't even pretend it was anymore. If this really ended in 'game over', not only would Faleen's time, efforts, belief in him, and trust have been put to waste, but Aila's sacrifice as well.

"May I ask what I should do to go about attempting that?"  

[Suudonym]

So far so good then. Lucas nodded his approval. "Well, I don't have any particular procedure in mind," he said with a habitual shrug of his shoulders. "I figure we can just talk, I can ask some things I'm curious about, and we can gradually work on figuring this out. I'm sure this goes without saying, but I would really appreciate your complete honesty. Even if you lie your way into my good graces and out of this situation, there won't be any more chances, and there won't be any more mercy."

Lucas waved a hand as if to clear the air, "That all sounds really ominous, though, so let's put it aside for now. To start with, I have a question that might be kind of silly: Are you comfortable being in Team Rocket - any problems with being labeled a criminal and a terrorist and whatever else people are calling us these days?"  

[lZAYA ORlHARA]

'Just talk', huh?

"I can do that," Nakura agreeably answered. "I may have caused some trouble in the past, Elite, but even I know when the stakes are too high to risk losing, no matter how skilled one might be - or think they are." He folded his hands in his lap. "If there's one thing anyone can depend on with a coward like me, it's that he'll put his life above all else."

At Lucas' question, the corner of the grunt's mouth twitched slightly and his eyes glittered with unspoken amusement, yet he still dared not smile. "It isn't anything about labels that bothers me, sir," he replied. "Even before joining, I was called any number of unpleasant things. If I've been uncomfortable about being a part of this organization, it would have to do with answering to a higher authority. Or, more precisely put, blindly trusting my fate to a group of strangers supposedly considered to be more intelligent than I and more concerned with what's best for the team."

"Like I said, I value my life above all else," he stated. "And while those such as Agent Faleen may have no problem dying for the sake of the Team, I've struggled with the concept of being nothing more than cannon fodder. Perhaps that's due to my low rank, but it's my understanding that only through the acceptance of of being nothing more than disposable soldiers can one be promoted."

He hesitated. "I hope you'll forgive my frankness, but that system makes no sense to me because as a result, all you end up with are a bunch of puppets who will senselessly obey any order given to them without a thought to their own well-being. I find something very wrong with that to the point that I might call it going against human nature."

"However," Nakura said, sitting a little straighter in his seat, "Back when I first joined, the individual who recruited me did something I can never repay. Though she was young and what I would have called little more than a puppet herself, she put herself in harm's way for my sake. She ended up dying for a mistake that I made in a moment of personal conflict against a higher authority." His crimson eyes locked on to Lucas' sky blue ones. "I realized she wasn't just a puppet then, because not only did she go against her own innate instincts to save herself over me, but she went against the practical value of an agent over a mere grunt. All because she considered that grunt to be a friend."

Heaving a deep sigh, the talkative speaker finally allowed himself a weak sliver of a smile. "I can't begin to try to make up for all that I put her through right to the end, but I've been doing my best by sticking with Agent Faleen. I'm not ready to die yet because I've been hard at work learning all I can about how to better integrate myself within Team Rocket and how to be a part of a team - for the late Agent Aila's sake, if nothing else. I want to fulfill whatever potential she must have seen in me as a Rocket and to become one she can be proud to have recruited, let alone died for. It's the least I can do for both her and the team that she held in such high regard."

His mouth reverted to a straight line. "I hope I'm not speaking out of rank, but if I'm being completely honest, I don't believe Agent Faleen realizes how far I've come from how I used to be. A lot of it is thanks to her, though I can hardly blame her for not recognizing the change because I've been very careful to conceal my motives." Nakura's brows furrowed. "While I understand she's my partner, I don't fancy the idea of anyone using my weaknesses against me. I also fear that, even if I were to explain said motives, she wouldn't completely understand, especially because of the act I've been putting on for so long and the impression of me she must have derived from that. They wouldn't match up."

"But to die now, because of such a small mistake in the midst of my gradual-but-steady progress over the years, would undermine everything I've learned from her and everyone else in this organization so far," the grunt said, dead serious. "It would render Agent Aila's sacrifice and Agent Faleen's efforts, among other things, completely meaningless. Even now, I imagine my partner already believes that to be true, but I hope to have the chance to prove to her that she's wrong. I made a mistake, but it was human error; not the act of a traitor.

"My partner may have thought I was 'reverting' to my previous mindset, but that mindset hasn't existed since a life was traded for mine. She only has the impression that it does due to the fault of my pride as a human being." He chuckled a little without mirth. "But I guess pride has often been the folly of humans in the past, and history has been known to repeat itself."  

[Suudonym]

"You know," Lucas said, his eyebrows raised just slightly but the rest of his expression casually neutral, "they say that when a person answers a question with a bunch of unasked details that means they're hiding something, but I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that you were just worried we wouldn't get to everything you wanted to say." He joined his hands atop his desk, tenting his thumbs against one another as he considered how to proceed. Eventually, he spoke.

"I'm going to tell you what Faleen told me about your most recent excursion into town, and then I'm going to ask a few questions about it," he said. "My understanding is that it went something like this: After being put on a three-strike system, you exhibited visible and notable improvements in your overall behavior, and so Faleen agreed to let you go into town on the stipulation that she went along with you. Allegedly, your purpose was to visit a client. Upon arriving at your destination, you unexpectedly said that it was actually a recruitment opportunity, then hoisted the recruitment aspect onto Faleen to go to the bathroom. At that point you had a Zoroark disguise itself as you - which Faleen has told you in the past not to do - so you could escape her supervision and go somewhere else."

Lucas raised a finger, "I'm going to repeat that in its most basic form because I'm really having trouble processing it. You were doing really well, so Faleen decided to reward you by giving you permission to go into town - with her accompaniment because, you know, you kind of have a history. In response to this expression of good faith, you lied to her about your intentions and tricked her to get out of the condition of her being with you, and part of that trick involved you breaking an explicit order.

"Question: At the time that this happened, would you maintain that the behavior was a big improvement from what you would have done in the past under the same circumstances? What would you consider the best way for things to have played out that day, from start to finish? And finally, why specifically did you not want to tell Faleen your real intentions?"  

[lZAYA ORlHARA]

The thin smile reappeared at Lucas' response. That was a fair point. "I just thought I'd take the initiative," he said. "Though I've also been told I don't know when to keep my mouth shut. I rather enjoy talking."

Bracing himself for Faleen's version of things, the grunt held his tongue and listened. His features remained unreadable for the extent of the elite's words. Even when Lucas was finished, Nakura's lips parted slightly, but he didn't choose to speak at once. His gaze absently scanned the elite's desk top as if his mind were elsewhere.

Finally, he said, "I know what I did wasn't anywhere near the expected behavior of a grateful subordinate. That didn't mean I wasn't grateful. I just couldn't see any other way to go about things with the goal I had in mind." He looked back up at the elite agent.

"I wanted to check on someone important to me in the city. It had been over three months since I had been in jail and I had no idea how that person was faring. I had mentioned this person to Agent Faleen prior, but I don't think she fully understood what he meant to me because I don't quite understand it myself. For now, I liken him to a naive child who I feel responsible for because he doesn't quite seem to understand the entirety of the danger surrounding my circumstances. I had intended to go check up on him and be back at my partner's side before the end of the day."

"I didn't tell Agent Faleen about my true intentions to check up on him that day because I doubted she would understand. Even later when I tried to explain, just as I predicted, she didn't seem to believe me." He glanced away. "I'm not sure she's felt such concern for anyone in the same way. I'd imagine the closest she's come would be me, but even then, I don't feel she's ever really trusted me. It seems she's just been my partner out of obligation and her devotion as a puppet to this organization more than anything else. And how can I trust her when she showed more remorse for the death of a pokemon than a fellow human she had known and also been responsible for?"

Realizing his voice was steadily rising, Nakura took a moment to recompose himself. "I was embarrassed, Elite. I didn't want Agent Faleen to know that I cared for another individual other than myself, no matter how little or for what reason. To me, concern for another person is a weakness and I didn't want her knowing of mine. I'm doubtful said agent would have let me have any private time with this person regardless of his relation to me, but that was what I required in the presence of that individual because, as I said, he doesn't understand how he might compromise me."

"Agent Faleen and I don't trust each other, I think, because we don't understand each other. We have very different ideals and that makes it difficult to properly communicate."  

[Suudonym]

"You doubted she would understand," Lucas repeated. "To rephrase that, you didn't trust her to understand. Were you surprised that she didn't believe you after you had made a big to-do out of lying and tricking her? How can you expect her to trust you if you don't trust her?

"You didn't want her to know you had a friend you cared about because that would be revealing your weakness - okay, I get it. But who cares if she knows your weakness? You're partners. It's not like she's going to use that weakness against you. What's worse: being embarrassed that someone knows you're not the friendless lone wolf you want them to think you are, or completely destroying every last shred of someone's faith in you for the sake of your own pride?

"You say you don't understand each other, but then you say that you don't communicate properly. It sounds to me that it's less that you don't understand each other and more that you don't understand her. She wouldn't have spent these past years trying to help you if she didn't care about you. She's not compassionless, regardless of whether or not she meets your standards for how much a person should emote. How do you think she felt to come in here and say that she was giving up on you? I may not know Faleen very well, but I've spent long enough working with people to know when someone's disappointed, frustrated, and betrayed. She really wants you to succeed, probably just as much as the agent who died to give you the chance to do so, and regardless of what you're thinking and what you believe, all you're showing her is that you don't want to be her partner."

He wagged his finger slowly, indicative that he wasn't finished speaking but needed a moment to compose his thoughts. "You talk about a difference in ideals," he said at length, "about mindless puppets and disposable soldiers. I'm guessing you get this from spending a lot of time with Faleen, who's basically a perfect, ideal Rocket. But let me tell you this: When I think back to when I was a trainee, I can't remember a single one of my seven roommates ever saying that they joined Team Rocket because they wanted to be one of the organization's loyal soldiers working towards glory or world domination or whatever."

He rotated his hand at his wrist briefly, and an ordinary ace of spades appeared between his fingers, "In my spare time, I learn magic tricks. I play guitar, I watch old movies, I browse the internet, I draw up plans for silly things like guns that shoot smaller guns and then show it to my colleagues so we can all have a laugh. There are Rockets like Faleen who are admirable and frightening in their passion and dedication for this team, and then there are the rest of us - people who do what we're told because that's what it takes for us to protect our everyday lives." He spun the card briefly on his fingertip before catching it and returning it to wherever he'd pulled it from in the first place. "In my opinion," he said, "the average individual probably isn't capable of discarding their sense of self-preservation. There's a reason we honor self-sacrifice so highly. Does this mean we're all perfect soldiers, blindly loyal and willing to die for the team if it comes to that? Absolutely not; we're just trying to maximize how much we can enjoy ourselves. I can't imagine Lucere would be happy to know that one of the reasons I'm doing all this stuff today is because there's a movie I really want to see this weekend and I need to guarantee that I'll have leave, but I'm getting it done so hey, who cares about the motivation, right?

"If you want to protect your ability to go out freely and check on your friends or whatever else you would do in your time off, you need to establish that you're also capable of protecting the team's interests. I don't mean pretending to be some throwaway toy soldier who blindly does whatever he's told, I just mean not going around acting like you wouldn't care if the entire organization went up in flames. If you don't know what that entails, just listen to Faleen; she's not going to lead you astray. You don't have to understand her or even trust her to know that she has a lot more experience than you do and probably has a pretty good idea of what's for the best."  

[lZAYA ORlHARA]

"...What is a partner to you, elite?" Nakura wanted to know. "Maybe I'm not understanding that right, because from what I know, anyone can use your weaknesses against you, partner or not. And I hope you'll forgive me if I fail to believe that a woman who destroyed the mind of someone who was once her friend and then watched him die without batting an eyelash wouldn't turn on me."

"I don't expect her to trust me, but I also don't know how anyone can expect me to trust her. How are you so sure she had any faith in me at all? That 'lone wolf' thing isn't solely about pride, it's about survival. To have stuck me with a random agent and then told me that my life hinged on our partnership...how does that benefit the organization at all, particularly if the one person assigned to me and I aren't compatible?"

The grunt's expression was stony. "Are you so certain, Elite, that the only reason she spent these past years trying to help me wasn't simply because she considered me some sort of project? A mechanism or device of hers that she was given and determined to fix to prove herself to Team Rocket as an agent, but failed to do so?"

Nakura flinched at the sudden movement of Lucas' wrist, startled by the gesture. The sight of the ace of spades puzzled him, though, and he closed his mouth to listen further. His eyes remained on the card until it was put away, still pondering over the elite agent's words.

Aila had been much like Faleen. She had seemed like 'the perfect soldier' for the longest time, except for moments like the brief one at the clothing section of the department store. And then, of course, when she had moved him aside to save him. Faleen...what did he want from her? Would it be like with Aila again where he had to watch her die in order to know what she really thought of him? Or, as things stood, to see her watch him die?

"She's already given up on me," Nakura said softly. "Just like she gave up on Lance. Even if I promised never to repeat anything like the mistake I made that day in the city, whether she actually trusted me or just got frustrated with me, I doubt she'll want to pick up her 'failed project' again. She's tired of trying. I don't know what else I can do." He cast Lucas a questioning look. "What would you do?"  

[Suudonym]

"A partner is someone who's supporting you, looking out for you, and working towards the same goals as you," Lucas replied, not missing a beat. "What reason does someone like that have to use your weaknesses against you? Partners are on the same page; they're working together. Using your partner's weakness against them is counterintuitive to that.

"Using Faleen's relationship with Lance as a gauge for her relationship with you is also counterintuitive. My understanding of the situation is entirely second-hand, but from how I heard it, Faleen was friends with Will, not Lance. Thing is, Will never actually existed; he was Lance, an enemy, all along. Lance wanted to destroy Team Rocket, something very important to Faleen. Who would still consider someone a friend at that point? I don't know what was going through her mind while she fulfilled her duty in eliminating a traitor, but I can sympathize."

He shook his head, raising a palm as if to pause the thought process, "That's not the question you should be asking. She wants you to succeed, she cares about you succeeding, she cares about you. That's the necessary flow of things. Whether that caring is motivated by genuine altruism or personal satisfaction really doesn't matter. Whether you do your best to work for Team Rocket because you love the organization or because you want to keep living doesn't matter. If it bothers you that much, you could always ask her, but it doesn't sound to me like you'd want to take her at her word even if she laid her heart bare.

"That's right," he confirmed, "she's given up, but not because she's decided you're a failed project - if anything, I'd guess that she's blaming herself, because that's what people with strong senses of duty tend to do when things go awry. She's out of ideas. She doesn't know how to try to get through to you. I'm getting the impression that you don't want anyone to get through to you. My recommendation, given all the circumstances, would be this:

"First, you apologize, not just for taking advantage of her good faith but for not trusting her, not talking to her, and not treating her as a partner. You tell her, in your own words, everything you've done since your partnership began that was counterintuitive to that partnership. You explain every fear and insecurity that caused you to act how you have. You explain your motivations, desires, and ideals. You tell her the truth, every last shred of it, and you never lie to her again - not even by technicality or omission. If there are things you don't understand about her, you ask her to explain, and you believe what she says even if you can't imagine that it's true. You do whatever it takes to make yourself understand how your actions reflect on you and how they impact the opinion of both your partner and the organization that decides whether you live or die."

He paused to gesture with an open palm, "That is what I would recommend, if you return to Faleen's supervision. Before I can permit that, though, I need to know that it won't be a waste of everyone's time, and you saying things like you've never trusted her and that you're incompatible is understandably not giving me very high hopes."  

[lZAYA ORlHARA]

Nakura's line of a mouth twisted, clearly incredulous regarding Lucas' ideas of Faleen's wishes. In the end, though, the elite agent was still right. It didn't matter what one's reasons were as long as one did their best for the organization.

"I asked her, last time we talked," he said, taking off his hat as if it were stifling the thoughts to his brain. "She said she didn't know."

The grunt stared at the hat in his hands as he continued to listen, his gloved fingers fiddling with the fabric. He didn't like what he was hearing, not one bit, but what else was there to do? Provided he got out of this elite's office certain he wasn't being sentenced to death, of course.

Casting Lucas a wry grin, he said, "It doesn't seem like I really have any other choice but to change that, does it?" Grin fading, he added, "I didn't say I never trusted her. There was a time I did before. She's always had a mystery about her that's intrigued me and I thought I could get to the bottom of that, but I haven't managed to yet. I also told you that she's changed me a lot and improved me for the better. We may have trouble communicating, but there are advantages to our differences too, such as learning new things from one another."

The black-haired man shook his head. "I just find it a shame that she believed this one incident was a setback of all we've ever done together as partners. I know I certainly don't think so."  

[Suudonym]

"Well, I didn't witness that conversation, but I'd say there are probably two ways to interpret that." He counted them on his fingers, "One, she really didn't have an answer, or two, she didn't have an answer anymore. As of right now, which meaning she intended is moot and irrelevant. If we ask her to resume supervision of you, that's what she'll do, whether she has a good personal reason for it or not.

"People aren't puzzles for you to solve," he said. "If that's how you like to occupy your time, so be it, but don't base your trust in someone on how well you can solve them, and don't expect to be able to figure out something that changes and evolves so easily.

"It doesn't matter what you think," Lucas said, leaning on his desk and tapping a fingertip against his temple, "if it stays in your head. You think you've learned and improved. That may be true, but what you showed Faleen was that you don't respect her and you don't think her capable of understanding your point of view - an insult to her intelligence and to her overall character. If that's not the case, just telling her as much isn't going to convince her; she'll just think you're trying to appease her. You need to show her what you're thinking. A little direct communication certainly won't hurt, so long as you acknowledge that you're not expecting to fix everything up just from a little talking."

He raised a hand to his chin, shaking the other briefly in a dismissive gesture. "Of course I don't want you to think making nice with Faleen and earning her forgiveness will make everything all hunky-dory. She's a well-respected agent with a lot of seniority, but she doesn't encompass the entirety of Team Rocket's will. What's important to this organization is that, if you walk out of this room without a security escort, you'll be able to behave in a way that protects, benefits, and furthers the team. No raising suspicion of treason, no impeding or otherwise inhibiting people who are doing their work, no putting other Rockets or any kind of sensitive information at risk, etc., etc. Like I said, no one's asking you to magically transform into this perfect mindless drone of a Rocket, but we need to have confidence that if we were to send you on a mission, we wouldn't need to worry about you doing unnecessary and risky things. Now, what can I do to help you get to that point? Do you need a different partner, do you need a do-over on basic training, do you need some kind of therapy - what?"