Operation story: MB-4

Operation

Story

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Characters
Kafka Kal'tsit Mayer Mina Silence Jailer
Backgrounds
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Before operation

Summary With Silence having been gone a while, Mayer goes to check on her. She finds her very depressed, and listens as she explains why she is doing what she is doing, and her past with Kafka.
<Background 1>
Mayer	Silence, you alright?
Silence	I’m alright. Why are you over here now?
Mayer	Cause you've been over here for ages. Just checking in. Eep. That wine bottle there... you're drinking now?
Silence	Just a little. Director Muelsyse?
Mayer	She's still back there waiting for us.
Silence	Where are you in the story?
Mayer	Up until Anthony started trusting Kafka to help him. She also told me some stuff about what went down between Control and Saria.
Silence	Did she now?
Mayer	Want me to tell you?
Silence	No. Not necessary for the time being.
Mayer	You look like you're doing terrible. Was it some bad crap Director Muelsyse told you about?
Silence	No... though it was, in a sense. I'm... I can't put it straight. My mind is in disarray. I have some regrets. I feel as though I may have done something I am not equipped to do.
Mayer	You mean this whole breakout?
Silence	Yes. I should apologize to you, Mayer.
Mayer	What for?
Silence	I shouldn't have gotten you involved. I was too cowardly. I couldn't bear it, and I told you about all this. I made you assume responsibility with me.
Mayer	Whoa, I don't really mind, y'know. The fact you could trust me makes me pretty freakin' happy, Silence. And I mean, really, all I've done is take a trip back to Columbia with you.
Silence	Actually, there's something I haven't told you.
Mayer	What is it?
Silence	Behind this incident, behind HydeBro, is the Energy Section.
Mayer	Huh? Energy?!
Silence	You and the rest of Engineering are so closely tied with Energy, I'd been unsure whether I should tell you.
Mayer	Oh... Hm, I'm fine, really. We're pretty tied up work-wise with Energy, yeah, but honestly, I'm not the world's biggest fan of their section. Or more I'm, like, kinda terrified of Energy's director...
Silence	What's the Director of Energy like?
Mayer	Nngh? Haven't met more than a few times, but sometimes he comes over to our end just to see. He'll drop in on our meetings, too. He opens his mouth and you go "wow, he's a big, smart cookie," but he gives off this kinda feeling like... I don't know how to capture it. He, like, cares more about what our stuff can be used to make, or what it can be exchanged for, things like that.
Silence	I see...
Mayer	And, like, since Saria took all the blame and resigned, it feels like us and the Energy Section got, like, even more tied up in each other. All these times some kinda weird work got scheduled and I couldn't even do any of my own crap. And that's why I wanted a chance to send myself off to Rhodes Island. Even if Closure's a little weird too, I'm way happier just doing my work at Rhodes.
Silence	So that's it...
Mayer	Anyways, don't worry about me too much, Silence. In fact, I feel like you've done something good. Right?
Silence	Something good...
<Flashback starts here>
<Background 2>
Kal'tsit	This intel and analysis you have provided is extremely valuable. It compels me to note your viewpoint strongly, Operator Silence.
Silence	In that case...
Kal'tsit	But first of all, this intel's origins are clearly internal to Rhine Lab. Divulging internal intelligence to third parties without permission inspires me not to place trust in you. However, from your behavior, I can trust you are in no way an imprudent person. Therefore, I require an explanation.
Silence	This is intel I arrived at through collection and analysis via my own personal channels. It has no direct relation to Rhine Lab.
Kal'tsit	But your discovery of a matter like this should've prompted submission to internal channels, to be dealt with there. Rhodes Island has no capacity to adjudicate this incident.
Silence	No. I had no expectation that Rhodes Island would be able to. I simply wanted to aid this person. I wanted to hear your viewpoint.
Kal'tsit	Why mine? Or should I say, why Rhodes Island?
Silence	As of now, I trust Rhodes Island more than I do Rhine Lab.
Kal'tsit	What of Rhine Lab are you skeptical about?
Silence	I don't know. I don't even know what it is I'm skeptical of. But I've come to work here for a very long while, now. I've seen with my own eyes what Rhodes Island is doing. I, at the least, KNOW what Rhodes Island is doing.
Kal'tsit	What you see may not be what you get, Operator Silence. Moreover, it may be that you haven't noticed, but from your intel, it is very likely this Feline named Anthony was only immediately arrested the next state over as a setup by his father. In all likelihood, a situation they'd arranged long beforehand.
Silence	But Anthony still hasn't been released to this day. He's already been stewing in that prison for six years. It's all the more likely he'll be in there forever.
Kal'tsit	Why are you placing such importance on a person who has nothing to do with you?
Silence	Because I want to see clearly, once and for all, just what kind of company the Rhine Lab I've served all this time is.
Kal'tsit	...... You may be disappointed.
Silence	But it'll be far better than knowing nothing.
Kal'tsit	You are greatly persuasive, Operator Silence. Rhodes Island cannot provide you any outward assistance whatsoever, but I can, from a personal standpoint, provide you my viewpoint. I hope you are able to maintain your notion from start to finish.
Silence	What notion?
Kal'tsit	The notion that you are doing something good.
<Flashback ends here>
<Background 1>
Silence	I'm starting to have some doubts. Is this truly something good I've done?
Mayer	Huh? Why?
Silence	I'm starting to worry, Mayer.
Mayer	About what?
Silence	In the past, I always believed that as long as I gave my effort to any problem, it'd always be answerable. But this time, I fear I've run against a problem I have no way to answer.
Mayer	Because you can't solve it?
Silence	Not that I can't solve it. It's that I don't dare to. I don't dare to pull it apart. Mayer, did Kafka ever tell you how she and I know each other?
Mayer	Hm? Didja forget? She remembers she even mentioned it while talking to Mina.
<Background 3>
[Mina, the young Liberi construction worker from before, waits for someone on the factory. Kafka appears shortly after.]
Kafka	Mina.
Mina	Mm-hm.
Kafka	Phew. Finally found a chance to talk to you. How's your results?
Mina	Following what you said, I've been spendin' this whole time ascertainin' this prison's structure on the down-low. Already got a general grasp of it now. Helps the prison turnkeys're lax, but structure's tight. I feel like gettin' out's a pretty tall order...
Kafka	No problem, Boblem. There's always a way.
Mina	How's about your end, then?
Kafka	I'm tapped in with Anthony. Turns out he had an idea for leaving in the first place, so we'll be following PLAN-A operations, helpin' him break out. We'll treat the clinic as our secret base from here on. I told Dr. Domma there about you. Just head right over, and you'll be good.
Mina	So that's it...
Kafka	What? You're a snap away from meeting the big guy who's been on your brain. Why d'ya look so flat?
Mina	I'm not. I've seen him from far away a bunch of times. I feel like the big guy's kind of different to the one who saved my family once.
Kafka	Huh, I see. What did he used to be like?
Mina	He used to be... a little more, ermm... cool?
Kafka	That's a way to phrase it.
Mina	Once after I learned he saved 'em all, I went to see him all secret. He was plenty more cheery 'n' open than he is now.
Kafka	What way? Was he that kinda big, splashy guy? The kid with like ten or so bodyguards fannin' from his heels?
Mina	No, no... um... he was like, a bit more... I'm not sure how you describe it...
Kafka	I'm gonna say he was the rich kid then.
Mina	Whatever, now he's really silent, I feel like, and he's never showin' emotion. It feels someways sad lookin' at him...
Kafka	He got slammed in here for six years, after all. It'd do a number like that on even the cheeriest kid.
Mina	I s'pose so...
Kafka	So we just need to help him escape, and he'll be back to the way he was before, for sure. More or less, right? Eh, I'd pass on him becoming a rich kid again, though!
Mina	I think it'd be swell.
Kafka	Okay, okay. You lost me now.
Mina	If you wanna put it like that, you're losing me. You said you only came to help Anthony 'cause a friend trusted you to. Why would you go so far to help your Silence friend?
Kafka	Because I think Silence is a good person.
Mina	What kind of reason is that?
Kafka	Mmnnn... me and Silence know each other from one time she went out to do field work. Me, I was used to pretty grubby methods to do my stuff. So happened I bumped into her. Guess I made some pretty un-small trouble for her back then. I drove her an inch from giving up her business there. But things worked out. And in the end, I got to know her. Can't knock 'em until you knock 'em, right? Do they say that? Anyways, after that, she'd show me some work pretty often. Felt like she was hoping I'd do things proper like she did.
Mina	She sounds like a real good person.
Kafka	Sure as heck is. Always felt Silence saw this world a little too rosy, though. Turns out there's a lotta things people who think like her can't ever make headway on. Okay, maybe Silence is a little naive. But she's so smart. And she ain't stubborn. So I've always felt she's fine the way she is. I wanna be friends with her. I may have plenty of friends, but I only got one like Silence. I really cherish her, y'know.
Mina	So that's why you went to prison to help her?
Kafka	Eh. That's not all of it. Another part's I once heard about this prison. Definitely been curious about this place. Another 'nother part's... 'cause Silence kinda changed this time.
Mina	You mean her gettin' you to help someone jailbreak?
Kafka	Mmm. And she begged me to help her get all this corporate intel together. I picture how Silence used to be and it doesn't fit with her doing this kinda stuff.
Mina	Hm... did somethin' happen to her, you think?
Kafka	I dunno... ever since she left Columbia and went to some shop called Rhodes Island, I never saw her again. Been stuck with pen-palling. Never really made clear why she left Columbia either... but, yeah, I guess something musta happened. In any case, Silence seems real dead-set on this, so I figure I'll help her out proper for once.
Mina	Kafka. Hear me out. You might be a real good person yourself?
Kafka	Eh? You're saying you saw me as some stinker?
Mina	I seem to remember you good-Kafka-bad-Kafkain' me straight into prison with you, y'know...
Kafka	Ahah. Imagine if I asked a stranger outta nowhere "hey, let's get locked up together." Don't matter how I ask, they'd think I was going nuts, right. So I needed a little more of an approach, yannow?
Mina	Yep. I cannot out-words you. Forget it.
Kafka	Heehee. No, but anyways, I just don't think this is really a “good or bad” kinda thing. It's like how you're going all neck or nothing for the guy who once saved your family, but what you're actually doing is breaking him outta jail. If saying it's for a friend makes it kind for sure, then maybe more of my friends are good people than the ones who just put on the looks. But people who do bad stuff even though they have good intentions... how do you call them good people, huh?
Mina	Hm... I think you have a point.
Kafka	They coulda just admitted they were bad people from the start, probably.
[Amidst the talk between Kafka and Mina, a jailer comes by...]
Jailer	......
[...which prompts the two Liberi to stop chatting.]
Kafka	Oop, here come the jailers. Work's 'boutta start. Catch you at the clinic later. You'd better hustle. Who knows, these people might get scrappy again soon.
Mina	Mm-hm. Kafka, you take care too.
[Kafka and Mina went their separate ways.]

After operation

Summary Silence shares her fears of the unknown and what she is about to do. Mayer, unable to comfort her, at least gives her a little courage.
<Background 1>
Mayer	So, you got a problem with knowing Kafka or something?
Silence	No. I have no problem with knowing her. It's... After I got to know her, I always hoped she'd be able to live a normal life. To never have to do those... things she used to. I introduced her to what work I could. I even wanted her to get a job with Rhine Lab. That didn't pan out, in the end. But no matter what, the entire time, I've been hoping for a better life for Kafka. I've been hoping for a better her. And that "better" was based on my standard of living at Rhine Lab.
Mayer	Mm... well, I reckon life at Rhine Lab's not bad, right?
Silence	It was conditional on us not knowing just what we were doing.
Mayer	But as research workers, we should be pretty first-place for knowing what we're doing, right?
Silence	No, I don't mean in terms of research goals. I mean what was looming in the background. If our research would have some adverse effect if it truly succeeded; if our results would be appropriated for something; whether or not that happens to be what we're researching right now. Since the "Diαbolic Crisis," what's been happening inside the company has had me starting to consider this. I, like you, like a majority of our colleagues, believed that our research was right. That our direction was ideal. But is that really how things are? Ifrit has given me considerable doubts. That seed of doubt compelled me to leave Rhine Lab for the time being. To head for Rhodes Island.
Mayer	So this is what's been on your mind all this time, Silence...
Silence	During my time with Rhodes Island, I've continued my research. But on the flipside, I've begun to pay attention to some data I'd never paid mind before. My mentor gave me these data. I never before understood what purpose he had in handing me company and local data, and I'd long since put them aside. But once I began analysis and research on these data, I came to all sorts of questions about them. After I first uncovered those questions, I struggled to sleep again.
Mayer	Are you talking about things to do with Anthony?
Silence	No, Anthony—more precisely, Simon Co.'s affairs were just one part amongst them. A tiny part, even. There are so many more things going on, not just at Rhine Lab, but throughout the whole of Columbia. It was only then I truly realized. I understood far too little about this company I called Rhine Lab. This country I called Columbia. But I did not resign myself. I don't believe what happened to Ifrit, or what happened to Anthony, should be considered the norm. And that's why I involved myself in Anthony's affairs here. But... perhaps, all at once, I've jumped too far. I feel the same now as I did then, that moment when Saria emerged from the experiment site with Ifrit cradled unconscious in her arms. As if I have been doused, from the head down, in ice-cold water.
Mayer	Just what happened in that experiment?
Silence	I don't know.
Mayer	Wha?
Silence	I always thought I knew what I was doing, but now I realize: I really don't know. I only know that I can never let Ifrit be treated like that again. This, probably, is the only thing I am capable of persisting in now.
Mayer	Silence, you're a little drunk. I'll go get you some tea. Sober you up.
Silence	Nmm...
[Mayer gets some tea for Silence.]
Mayer	I'm sorry. Silence. I don't know how to comfort you.
Silence	That's not your fault, Mayer. I only blame ignorance of my own past.
Mayer	Personally, I think you already know a hell of a lot, Silence. Just, everyone's got things they're not good at.
Silence	Mayer. Know this. I truly have not resigned myself. If I'd come to know more, if I'd come to know earlier, perhaps things wouldn't have become the way they are now.
Mayer	But it's not too late to learn things now, yeah? I think Director Muelsyse oughta reckon you're pretty strong, too. I'm gonna tell the truth, Silence.
Silence	You tell me.
Mayer	I feel like some bits of you resemble a few colleagues I have. You learn something you didn't know before, and you feel like everything you learned already was completely pointless. Then you start grieving about, like, why you didn't get the chance to learn this all earlier. I'm not saying that's, like, incorrect, but I think it's a really boring way of going at it. What, everything you put in effort before's just useless? Just like that? Stuff's good for you just 'cause it's new? Cause if it really is, if you really feel like you can use it, then just go study it with the same effort you put in all those times before, right? It's not like you gotta rush for it.
[Mayer returns to Silence's side with a cup of tea in hand.]
Mayer	Here. Drink this up. Tea for the mind.
Silence	Things are different, though. These matters aren't the same as academia... But... but there's sense in what you say, too, I admit...
Mayer	Aw, jeez. Fine, I'll come over and feed you. Honestly, Silence, you've got zero alcohol tolerance.
Mayer props up Silence, who's almost lying on the table, and bit by bit, feeds some sobering tea into her mouth.
Mayer	How's that? Feel a little better?
Silence	Hff... phew... Much better. Thank you, Mayer.
Mayer	If you feel like things are too rough, we can just head straight back?
Silence	No. It's not quite the time yet.
Mayer	You're gonna keep chatting with Director Muelsyse?
Silence	Mm-hm.
Mayer	That's my Silence. Pulling yourself together in the blink of an eye.
Silence	I haven't, not at all. I'd love to run away right now. Run, and head straight back. But this is a very rare opportunity. Even if it hurts me, I have to see this through to the end. What you said might not be a solution to my current issues, but there is one part I believe to be very on point. I can only learn—accept—all this new knowledge with the same effort I've had in the past. However. I also need to make some additional preparations.