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Emotions Legend
[quote][b]Dr. Litong (Aug 27, 2001 04:42 p.m.):[/b] Dr. Litong frowned at his watch, and then frowned at the letter that he'd read over at least twelve times during the two month trip to the IF Command Post. It wasn't really necessary anymore; he'd had it memorized after the fourth reading, but as always before, he felt like he was [i]missing[/i] something. What was missing from the letter was obvious. Dominic and Donovan had requested a private audience - purely within the rules of protocol for the Creche - but had neglected to give him a specific reason, and that made him worry. He swiveled the chair to face away from the small desk in his quarters on the transport and stood. It was a conditioned response, and he knew it. Evan Litong didn't like to worry, and worry was caused by stressful situations, and he preferred to deal with stressful situations directly. He preferred to [i]act[/i], and that usually involved movement. This understanding did not keep him from pacing the small length of the room, but it did keep him moving slowly instead of tearing about as he might have done under less control. What were they trying to tell him? He should have been able to figure it out. As it was, he was only able to discern that it was something they did not trust the system to tell him, and that meant it was something serious. Donovan and Dominic had been his wards since they were six years old. When he was still in school, he had helped to supervise their design, making improvements on older plans and solving problems the older projects had run into. As a result, he had been first in line to receive Caretaker status when their training began, and he had jumped to take it. He wasn't sure what he had expected when he met them for the first time. He had pictures of them, of course, and DNA maps and blood types and EKG records, but those told him only facts. Those facts had just confirmed what he knew when he made them. Evan Litong had designed them to be phenomenal, superior to the normal human in every way, and everything the machines were telling him agreed. The first ten minutes of live observation showed him immediately how wrong - or rather, how [i]inaccurate[/i] - his conclusions had proven to be. They were remarkable, extremely so. His machines hadn't been incorrect, merely incomplete. They were phenomenal, superior, but unquestionably human. At that age, they were given nearly constant instruction, and he wasn't allowed to interrupt until the end of the session. It gave him time to watch them interact. They had already completed an extensive series of mathematics, and it became clear to him after a minute or so that they were toying with the computerized instructor. The instructor presented them with a sample problem and explained how to solve it, and then offered them a similar problem and asked them for a solution. Don and Dom were writing the answer - but each wrote only half. Dom would work the problem out halfway, and then Donovan would complete it on his own desk (or vice versa), and they each wrote the correct answer at the bottom. The instructor was suffering some noticeable lag time as it attempted to make sense of the method used to acquire the answer as a possible alternative to the method suggested, but it wasn't programmed well enough to put the contents of the two desks together. The amusing part was that they never looked at each other's desks, never made a verbal or visual agreement to stop one place or start another. They were only writing the problems out for show. The problems, whatever they were, had been completed in their heads, and they had invented a game to help them pass the time. Their synchronized smiles when the instructor finally gave up and shut itself down for the afternoon added to the effect. He hadn't designed their sense of humor; that developed on its own, like their self-mimicry. All he had done was lay the field in order; now it was his job to cultivate what would grow. Evan Litong had always been reserved around his colleagues and peers. His few close friends he kept entirely separate, and never discussed his work with them. He was, according to most accounts, a quiet and focused individual, and he enjoyed that image. He was disturbed to realize that only a few weeks into his new assignment he was growing attached to them. That disturbance changed to a deep-seated fear, and gradually to reluctant acceptance. It wasn't healthy to get attached to the Creche children. They were property, and while he was consulted and allowed to make suggestions concerning their placement, if someone chose to purchase them that would be entirely out of his hands. He resigned himself to the fact that not all emotional decisions could be made by conscious human logic, just as the mysteries of the human body could not be left to conscious human logic to function. His heart took the step his mind was incapable of, and Evan Litong gradually accepted his attachment to the twins as an unchangeable fact, and did his best not to think too hard about what would happen if they were sold. When they were sold. The Creche was a research center, without doubt, but it was a business, like any other. They provided a very specialized and very, very expensive commodity to the highest bidder. Donovan and Dominic were the best of the very best the Creche had to offer, and more than a few prospective buyers had already been turned away. Not only were they trained in combat and gifted with the same interchangeable personalities that all the twin pairs were, they had Command School training as well. Paramilitary outfits had made several very generous offers through quiet companies for them and just as courteously been rejected, but it was getting more difficult. Litong didn't want them working for the Wolves. Litong wanted the IF to buy them. If that happened, there was an excellent chance their Creche bonds could be removed, and that meant freedom, of a sort. They would still be stuck in IF service, but no more than the other people who contracted to serve in the IF. They wouldn't be sold. They wouldn't be separated. They would be safe. He couldn't guarantee them happiness or wealth or companionship, but he wanted to keep them safe. Soldiers weren't always safe, but at least they wouldn't be assassins. Everything was relative. The arrival announcement was followed by the quick familiar shudder-click of the docking mechanism, and he began to pace again quietly to pass the hour left to him before customs was done and they allowed the passengers to leave the vessel. After a few minutes he stopped and sat at his desk long enough to type out a brief message to Dominic, since that was the brother who had sent him the message in the first place, informing him of his arrival and telling him to meet him for dinner with Donovan. He began to pace again afterwards, and when they finally let them disembark, he wasted no time in dropping his bag into the little room they assigned to him and heading for the restaurant that catered to civilians to get a table. They seated him immediately, and Dr. Litong drummed his fingers and forced himself to wait.[/quote]
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