Kummer/Sweet Reason pt1
From Unofficial Handbook of the Virtue Universe
“You only hafta be brave, like, four minute,” the leopard-woman coaxed. She probably thought the tone of her guttural, scar-laden voice was gentle, mild, perhaps even conciliatory: it came out harsh as fine-grade sandpaper, kind only in comparison to her more casual rasp.
Kummer looked at her dubiously.
“No pretend. Four minute. Prolly less.” Habitually, she paused in her persuasive efforts to glance around the Port Oakes alley, to make sure no enemy -- sentient or otherwise -- might be approaching. “Juss, important, make sure other Alpha see you do it. B’sides Timi.”
“Why?” Kummer asked suspiciously.
“Because then no is you say and he say,” Fehral said exasperatedly. “Is he say and ev’body know. You maybe not see yet, all Alpha yammer some.”
“I see,” Kummer replied. “They talk too much.”
“Sometime. Some time is juss a people thing. We used be people, we still yammer ’bout what happen, who do, what maybe gonna be. Harder it is for one Alpha talk like people, more want to talk. Maybe not Stranj but biggest yammer sometimes is other Bat Alphas. Half gesture code is now for yammer.”
A few steps away, the black-clad Delta had nothing to say on that topic.
The young wolf Alpha sighed, then shook his head. “No. Why me? I no like tiger. Nobody like tiger. Plan on punch in nose first chance have. Why me do this?”
Fehral made the helpless-beg-for-mercy gesture, perhaps simply as shorthand for the concept, seriously, look at me. “Fehral no can. Tiger not take. Waste of lot of hard work. Kummer do! Before punch. Lot before punch. Maybe not even have to punch!”
“Punch feel better,” Kummer grumbled.
Fehral chortled rather evilly, and even the Killing Dance might have been smiling under his mask. “Ohhhh, no,” the leopard said, “trust. Give Cheetos gonna feel much better, less’n half day go by.”
“No like sound of this. Why trust?” Kummer asked suspiciously again. “Mess up tiger and other Alpha see, have deal with Employee. Bad plan. No thank.”
“Listen, dumbass,” she scolded, pretending to swipe at his ears. “Not gonna make him sick. No poison.” Her right hand came up to make a “hole” against her right temple with the thumb and index finger, then came down to draw a lightning bolt on her left arm with the first three fingers of her right hand: Stupid tiger, “gonna do himself. No harm. Juss ... not gonna be ’rrrange this time.” For emphasis, she pointed at one of the three bags in Killing Dance’s grasp. “From J’pan. Sstraw berry,” she struggled a bit to say. “On top of normal Cheetos. Like cookie.”
Instinctively, when she pretended to swipe at his ears, his shoulders hunched and he let out a sharp panther-like hiss. Immediately, he punched the wall, pulling his injured hand back shaking it.
“No swipe, make me hiss. Hate that. Almost like hairball.” Kummer eyed the bags carefully, weighing his options. “How you know he take from me?”
Fehral huffed. “’Cause he think you try bribe him be nice a while. ’Cause he --” She turned to her right, to her partner in mischief. “Dance! You ’splain. Delta s’posed to be better with words. Stupid dense Wolf not get difference when Fehral crazy, be scared, and when Fehral crazy, this gonna be great.”
“I tell difference,” Kummer said tersely. “No stupid. Also no toy be used. Is rude.” He looked at the bags again. “Fine. Give. I’ll make him eat, if shove down big mouth.”
“No!”
For a moment, Fehral vibrated with the effort to repress and contain her visceral reaction. Once her frustration had vanished again, she started over, back to the ‘reasonable’ tone. “Listen, dumbass. You unnerstand ‘prank’?”
“I know ‘prank’,” he retorted. “You think. He done with Cheetos, where you think he fingers go next!”
“S’not his fingers, you dumbass, is his mouth!” Again Fehral made herself pull in her body language, be small, be soft in tone. “You give Cheetos, you walk away. Go other room, you want. Go exercise, go bath. Yes, go bath, scrub good. Take long time brush all pretty fur clean. First Wolf like use tar shampoo, make first cats sneeze for two hour. You not do. You no have mange. Anyway, you give all nice polite big harmless pretty eyes, you go ’way. All done but what tiger do to self. Get?”
Kummer’s mouth set in a thin line for a moment. “Fine. I give tiger.”
Her turn to look at him suspiciously. “Not pretend?”
“No,” he replied. “I give tiger. Let him be fool.”
“Promise,” she demanded as she reached for the three snack-sized bags. “Spent lotta favors to get these.”
“Promise,” he agreed.
The Killing Dance let Fehral hand over one of the bags, and gave the other two to Kummer himself. “Good,” he said softly, and whether he was praising Kummer’s cooperation or his caution was not for Fehral to say.
Kummer took the bags carefully, then spared a brief glance at Killing Dance and Fehral. “When give? Today after tiger back?”
Fehral shrugged, from her shoulders to the tip of her tail. “You find right time. ’Member about have witness. You gonna be big damn hero.”
The wolf Alpha looked at the bags dubiously. “No ‘hero’. Is ‘patsy’. Use right word. Me no stupid. Do anyway. Tiger due.” Kummer sighed heavily. “Fine, sorry. Look, have bad day. Will give tiger today. He jerk off Tuesdays.”
In an abrupt, lightning-fast move that some buried part of Kummer recognized, Fehral caught both his ears at the base, one in each hand, and pulled his head down so she could look him directly in both eyes. This time, her voice really was different. “I been Alpha long time, poor Wolf. Some victims come out monsters. Some victims come out of transform and self-destruct, maybe you one of them. Some victims come out and they need some nudge before they can have a real chance to survive, to help each other survive, to get along. I seen too many people die that didn’t have to. I take the rough ones, that ones that might self-destruct and take some others with them, and I nudge them when the Empl’ees don’ look. Somebody told me once I ruin him. But I saved him, too, maybe. You gonna help me try save the stupid tiger, nudge him a little more toward get along with others and not be a bully, nudge him a little more toward be able to think of other Alphas like peers and not aliens. Only other way he can go is to nudge him toward his Delta, and that gonna get him destroyed. Tried to save her. She tried to kill me for it. So, yeah, Fehral say this gonna make you hero, shut up. Seen before. Gonna see again, Owner doesn’t get tired of me first. Everybody know always trouble around Fehral. Nobody know victims function better after Fehral nudge a little. Nobody gonna know, either, ’cause they won’t believe it.” She let go his ears and stepped well back in the same motion, as if she expected the bags to be dropped and a return swipe of paws.
“‘Sides. White tiger, pink Cheetos, people gonna cry juss from that part alone,” she finished almost gaily.
Stress, agitation, and too much of a fist fight with Vahzilok zombies an hour ago started to show. He staggered back a step, frowning deeply while his voice took on a decidedly deeper tone. “Lay offa my ears! I say I do. I no self-destructive! No now! No again! No more stupid self-pity! Wind up like hyena or worse. You want know? I out fighting Vahzilok! Stop meat doctor from chop up kids they take! Make sure kids safe. Protect others cause is right thing. No care about be hero.” He rubbed his ears furiously then hissed, shaking his bruised hand.
“Damn! Stupid panther blood!” Irritated and obviously frustrated, he rubbed his sore hand. “Look, Fehral. I no stupid. I appreciate what you say. I do listen. I also see pattern in Company. All over. I use. Employee overlook cause ‘poor stupid, sad Kummer’. Is fine they think this, Kummer try and keep that way. Help me stay not seen. I go out, help others.” He straightened up slightly, “So I get what you say. You want play dumb prank on tiger, fine. You think me dumbass, fine.” He rubbed his ears again, “Give … two hours. Tiger have Cheetos then and everyone laugh when he use.”
They both stared at him in silence, as if they had just realized they saw a complete stranger wearing Kummer’s hide.
At last, Killing Dance adjusted his weight slightly on his feet. “Then you have this,” his almost always remote-seeming voice came coolly from under his mask. “You don’t need us.” Without further comment, he turned to walk silently out of the alley. Fehral, still wordless, studied Kummer for one more head-cocked second before she whirled to follow her Delta.
Kummer’s resolve, finally exhausted, melted away. “Wait …” he said exhausted. “I … don’t have … need … someone. So stupid. Posturing. I am dumbass.” Back to the wall, he slid down slowly, trying quietly not to cry.
Killing Dance stopped. He looked over and down at his Alpha. “What do you think?”
Her ears and whiskers and tail said something complicated along the general lines of that boy bewilders the hell out of me, but aloud all she said was, “No get.”
Reversing his path, the Dance went back to where he could look down at Kummer from a few feet away. Again that cool voice came, untinged by scorn or accusation or anything except maybe a hint of genuine curiosity. “What do you think you need somebody for?”
Kummer, his eyes closed, shook his head. “No sure,” he said in a small voice. “Panther instincts say a thing, Wolf instincts say different, Comp’ny brainwash say third thing, human hurt try make sense of all. I get you try help tiger. I get you try help me and make me look hero.” Slowly he rapped the back of his head against the brick wall. “Sorry. After hyena die. After Grigaere talk. Thought work some thing out. Was wrong. Should just accept help when given.” He hit his head a little harder then stopped. “Jus’ sorry. Know you busy. I promise convince tiger like you want.”
Because his eyes had been closed, Kummer had not seen the last third of Fehral’s tail abruptly fluff out to double its normal diameter. The fur laid back down gradually, starting almost as soon as it raised up; but the reaction she didn’t erase was to lean heavily on Killing Dance’s right side, even clinging with her right hand to his belt and laying the side of her head against his ribs. She gave the impression that her balance was suddenly off, that she might fall down, but the truth was more simply that she needed the warmth and pressure of contact, even through that leather armor, or she was going to have a panic fit.
Once Kummer’s words seemed done, Killing Dance crouched down in front of him, maneuvering around the weight on his side to do so. He put one fist on the ground between his knees to give a third point of stability. “Look,” he told Kummer frankly. “These are the facts. Even the Killing Dance does not survive the Corporation alone. There is no cause to be sorry about the hyenas dying. You were not their first victim. If they had not been stopped, you would not have been their last. They have attacked me more than once, in fact what got them terminated this time was when Security saw that Corocotta took advantage of me trying to help her. She attacked me and tried to kill me while I was treating her wounds. I still have the scars to prove it. The thing to remember is, they got what they earned. The hyenas only relied on each other, and made enemies of everyone else. We all make alliances. There’s no dishonor in that.”
Kummer nodded slowly, not opening his eyes. He let go a slow deep breath. “I … learn that now. Hard to know what trust. Instincts scream diff’rent things. Can tell some brainwash. Feel odd urge ‘friend’, ‘unit’ with stranger. I know wrong. Panther instinct scream ‘screw world’. Wolf feel back in corner, except … when talk to rats.” He sighed again. “Emotions ... want back. Hard to tell what real.”
Fehral muttered something into Killing Dance’s shoulder on the heels of the ‘screw world’ line, and it sounded to sensitive ears very much like, “Yeh, s’David,” followed almost immediately by, “s’John, oh hell.” Seemingly of its own volition, Killing Dance’s free arm came up to stroke her hair, which calmed her breathing a little if it did nothing else. Meanwhile, Killing Dance continued the conversation with Kummer.
“I hope you do learn. Unless you're Ceylon Spinel, the 'I walk alone' attitude will get you killed. Fehral keeps saying that you will be a 'hero'. What she means is that other Alphas will be nudged in how they think of you, more likely to be open to making alliances with you. More likely to help if you are in trouble. More likely to be interested even when you are not in trouble. With the brainwashing, the most you can do with it might be to identify it and then just ignore it as best you can, work around it and plan for it when you have to. You have to know what is you and keep that separate from the pieces you’ve been given.”
“S’just like solving puzzles in training drills,” Fehral’s muffled voice added. “Only in y’head.”
Kummer let out a very tiny, short laugh. “Like when make diagnosis. When I had patient. Only me patient.” He let out another tiny, almost breathy laugh. “‘Doctor heal self’.” Opening his eyes he stared up at the sky. In a small voice he said almost to anyone, or perhaps no one. “I … know me. I am not animal. Not just. I am man, too. No plaything. No toy. I am Jack.” He closed his eyes again. “I take and give to tiger. Make good come out of puzzle. See where path go then. Try not be dumbass any more. Me ‘pologize for being dumbass … moment ago.”
“Not say you ‘Jack’ when Empl’ee maybe hear,” Fehral warned. “Is human template name. No more s’posed exist. You get redesign, they think you still try to be ‘Jack’. Dance is Dance. I Fehral.”
Killing Dance started to stand back up, Fehral moved aside enough to let him move freely again. “It’s okay, I’ve been called ‘dumbass’ more than once since I arrived here. Just don’t be stupid.” He put his hand on Fehral’s shoulder. “Come see me when you need me, you know where to find me.”
Kummer closed his eyes and nodded slowly. “Right. Me get. Make sense. No say real name near Employee. No panic and be stupid. I remember. Me thank.”
This time, when Killing Dance and the still-troubled Fehral vanished down the neck of the alley, it did not have the air of abandoning Kummer to his own designs.
