caught between dreams

[anatural]

WHO: Korra and Hei
WHAT: Amber’s been playing with Hei’s new toy.

[Korra wraps her arms around herself and shivers a little as she watches Amber just...vanish. The other woman's ability to control time is something she still hasn't gotten used to, even after working with her for almost six months. What it enables her to do is unnerving, and makes Korra feel powerless in a way she hasn't in years, if she thinks about it too much.

Don't think like that, Amber would tell her. You are so much more powerful than you realize. You're the only person who can do what needs to be done.

Someday, maybe she'll even explain what that means. The other woman's relentless mysteriousness is more than a little aggravating -- but only once she leaves. When Amber's around, it's impossible not to adore her. Everyone in the organization loves Amber. (But have all of them kissed her, or is that something special to the two of them?)

Korra tries to shake off those thoughts. She knows better than to attach much significance to physical intimacy. Mooning like this is unbecoming. And yet she stays where she is, enjoying the smell of salt water on the wind and the way she can still taste Amber on her lips.]

Comments

[anatural]

[Korra doesn't rise to his bait either. She figured the Syndicate had made her from the moment Hei had dragged her to this dinner. This is hardly a revelation.]

...and?

[Finish the thought.]

[mortemscintilla]

[ Hei wonders what color of madness has to be injected into someone's bloodstream, for them to be as cleansed of caution as Korra is. Admitting without a flinch that she's crossed over to the other side, as if the confession isn't a signature on her death warrant. (Unless that's what she's after? An elaborate, attractive alternative to suicide.) ]

[ His look remains bland, seemingly conveying nothing but a mild and professional curiosity. It is one of the deadliest tools in his arsenal. ]

I don't need to remind you what they do to traitors.

[ They. Not We. A subtle distancing, if she cares to read between the lines. Letting her know that his and the Syndicate's interests are far from aligned -- at the moment. ]

[anatural]

[What would be the point of denying? Once the Syndicate has decided you're a traitor, nothing you say matters. There is no trial; there is only execution.]

They haven't done it yet.

[So the big question is: why? What is Hei waiting for?]

[mortemscintilla]

[ It's the smartest way of operating. Working for the Syndicate is like slo-mo evolution. And just like in evolution, Mother Nature throws everything she's got at a species. If it makes it, she knows that species is fit to live. If not, then it dies out, and no harm done. That's what the Syndicate is like. They want to know who's fit enough, smart enough, to be allowed to work for them. They don't want to have to babysit anyone. Every operative has got to pull his own weight, to stay on the safest course. Each assignment, they weed out the fighters, the survivors, and kill all the rest without the handlers having to waste any bullets. ]

[ Korra knows this. So does Hei. Which is why he is aware, on some level, that by prolonging Korra's life, buying her time to suit his own ends, he is rationalizing, that his team would view his determination to pursue his own agenda as a betrayal. It doesn't matter. The Syndicate's investment is different than his. To them, Korra is no more than a piece on a chessboard. ]

[ To him ... She can be either a wildcard, or an ace in the hole. It all depends on what she knows about Amber. ]

[ Flatly, ]

Because I haven't contacted them. [ A beat, before something shutters across his expression -- not honesty, exactly, but the final layer of soft-eyed, soft-hearted Li dissolving to leave the edgeless dark of the Reaper behind. ] I'm not going to. As long as you explain what Amber is after.

[ If she's shared her plans with Korra at all. ]

[anatural]

[Korra stares at him for a long moment. Amber's made no secret of the fact that she wants Hei to be a part of their plans. But she's never made any move to actually loop Hei in, never even tried to test the waters. Korra though maybe she was waiting for something.

Or maybe she was just afraid, because of their bad blood. Maybe this is the chance. Hei won't get involved in anything he's not fully informed about. Or he could take this information to the Syndicate.

How much of a risk is she willing to take?]

[mortemscintilla]

[ The silence stretches out in a gelid, suffocating weight. Korra's eyes remind him of burning-blue blackout lamps, the flickers of her thoughts like moths buzzing ghostlike in their orbit. The longer she stays quiet, the more he's convinced Amber has told her valuable information. Now she's contemplating whether or not to play it straight with him. That, in itself, takes Hei by surprise. Is she truly that loyal to Amber's cause -- whatever it is? Enough to shed her default brashness? How is that possible? The disquiet is like a thorn in his mind, pricking at his self-control. What is it about Amber that inspires such blind and starstruck faith in her followers? ]

[ (Except he knows the answer. He'd been more blinded -- dumbstruck, bedazzled -- than anyone. Even now, late at night, when his wayward thoughts segue toward the most tightly-trammeled boxes in his brain, he thinks of the way the wind used to catch Amber's hair, the way her fingers traced his body in the darkness, his ribs, the fortune-lines of his palm...) ]

[ Irritably, he shakes it off. Korra's ambivalence is clear. He watches her silently for a moment, before he says, quietly, ]

...Is she worth this misguided loyalty?

[ An emotional litmus test. Seeing how completely Amber has -- or hasn't -- spellbound her with all her glittering lies. ]

[anatural]

[Is she worth this mis-guided loyalty? Korra smiles a little, not offended like she might have been.]

Is the Syndicate worth yours?

[Amber wouldn't have to be as amazing as she is to be worth more loyalty than the Syndicate.]

[mortemscintilla]

[ Hei waits two seconds to reply; a subtle critique on her tactic. Answering a question with a question won't derail his focus. The ones who get sidetracked that way suffer from a lifetime's training in the proper social behavior of responding when they are addressed. Average joes, straightmen, civilians -- those whose objectives are easy to override. ]

[ Neither Hei nor Korra qualify. ]

[ A group of people laugh on the far side of the restaurant. Neutrally, Hei sips his glass of water, before moving both cool palms to his own thighs underneath the level of the table. He has no napkin in his lap. It should seem a threatening gesture, yet his posture is simply self-contained, watchful, like a cat's. ]

[ Quieter, ]

She's smarter than the Syndicate. She'll run you as her agent. Get you to do her dirty work. Orchestrate what you know and what you don't know. Except -- unlike them -- she'll make everything seem like your choice. [ The fine distinction between amateurs and master-manipulators is the way they handle their assets: the former's agent is aware that he's working for them. The latter's agent believes he's working purely for himself. ]

[ The next words are carved off from the cold edge of his voice. Echoes of secrets Amber had once shared with him and Pai. ]

Has she put the moves on you yet? Told you how unique you are? How she'll count on you in the future because there's something only you can do with your powers?

[anatural]

[Korra knew Amber was feeding her lines, but it stings to hear them come out of Hei's mouth like that. ]

You don't know anything about her. Not nearly as much as you think you do. I haven't done anything for her that the Syndicate hasn't asked me to do twice as worse.

And I'll tell you what she doesn't do. She doesn't ruin lives. She doesn't destroy families.

[Korra knows about Pai, though she doesn't realize Amber's shining star and her infatuation are related. If she did, she would have put more venom in her voice.]

[mortemscintilla]

[ Hei's eyes narrow but the stone mass of his face barely shifts. It's laughable, the idea that he doesn't know Amber. He's known her since he was a boy -- and though the irony isn't lost on him it certainly has lost its charm. In moments where he cross-examines himself, he wonders why he of all people hadn't spotted a clue, a pattern of behavior, anything that could have revealed Amber's true nature. He, who had spent his whole life with killers, who understood they were shaped by nothing but serpentine cunning and a willingness to sink in the blade. He, who privately understood women better than he ever understood men, who could soothe the crux of any trouble inside them, exterior or interior. So why couldn't he read her? ]

[ I was in love. A pathetic excuse, but no more than the truth. Emotions are all about faith, not facts. People need to believe something, even if they have to invent it -- the way he'd invented a soft, human skin, a hot beating heart, for a two-legged viper. The way Korra is doing now. ]

[ (More than that, her words serve as a tacit admission. She doesn't know about Pai. Or, at least, what Pai was to him. She doesn't know about the rest of his South American team, butchered by the deadly radiance of the meteor shard.) ]

[ His words are flat, but laced with icy contempt, ]

You're right. She doesn't destroy. She erases completely. [ Clinks of glass and silver in the room around them. Voices rising and falling. Yet he and Korra may as well be suspended in space, disconnected from the chaotic low-level warmth of the restaurant. ] Don't imagine she won't do the same to you. A leader is as good as their word. But she just uses words to get what she wants.

[ Like every Contractor. Korra is as big a fool as he was, not to understand that. ]

[anatural]

Like you're any different? [The contempt in his voice has nothing to the disgust in hers.] You manipulate people just as much as she does. Except you do it in service of the Syndicate.

[mortemscintilla]

[ At her words, a cold tremor runs through Hei like electricity. It doesn't show. He takes another sip of his water, the glass clinking against the table. His expression remains unchanged. ]

It's a living.

[ And a means to an end. He isn't blind to the nature of the menace he works for. The Kafkaesque, totalitarian machinations of faceless, nameless men -- this is the enemy he's engaged -- as real and deserving of his hatred as Amber. Yet, daily irony, he functions as a cog in that machine. He too works in the castle, answering to the very higher-ups whose agendas he undermines, whose actions he opposes. ]

[ For a second, Hei feels a wave of tiredness wash over him that brings with it a brief but nearly overwhelming sense of pointlessness. It isn't pointless, of course, this road he'd set himself on to find Pai. Frightening, infuriating, distressing, humiliating. But not pointless. Because if it had been, he would have given it up, and he can't give it up. This is the mast to which he's bound the shell of life. And even when he feels in danger of crumbling inside, he isn't going to yield. ]

[ Stubborn, Pai used to call him. ]

[ At least we have that in common. ]

[ To Korra, flatly, ]

I understand your reasons for defecting better than you know. [ You aren't the first. ] But I also understand you're wasting your time. Amber will tell you how much her organization needs you. How necessary you are. But she only 'needs' whatever helps accomplish her own ends. She will not hesitate to cut ties once she's gotten there. Is that how you plan to die?

[anatural]

[Korra's voice is equally flat. It doesn't matter how much his words sting. When push comes to shove, what matters isn't how Amber feels about her, or the sincerity of her intentions. What matters is Korra's commitment, the decision she made to dedicate herself to the cause.]

Her agenda is my agenda.

[If that means her death, so be it. But Korra doesn't think it will come to that. She caught sight of one of Amber's agents; the other woman knows she's here with Hei. Unless her plan is to have Korra die at his hands, help will be coming.]

[mortemscintilla]

[ It's disconcerting, and dangerous -- how completely Amber has gulled her. It's also a reminder of how careful you must be about what you believe in, and how much it can cost you. Studying Korra's face -- a hard shield, as if primed for his resistance -- he wonders how certain she is of her own mind. How easily can she be swayed, how much of this weird faith in Amber -- or Amber's cause -- is self-delusion? ]

[ His next gambit might give him a clue. Warnings and threats have yielded little results. Maybe it's time to be more direct? Something in his gut clenches a little -- a chill white lattice of tension -- at the prospect, which goes against every operational aspect of his nature. ]

[ If he notices her gaze flickering beyond his periphery, as if she's spotted someone -- help, threat -- he doesn't let on. (Impossible to imagine he hasn't noticed, though.) ]

[ Quietly, ]

You don't know what she's involved you in. I do -- because the last time, she wiped out half a continent to achieve her goals. I can't let that happen again. [ Not without learning where Pai could be. ] Help me take her down. In exchange, I'll help you break away from the Syndicate. New identity. New life. Whatever it takes.

[ The Syndicate won't devote half as much manpower to hunting her down -- when they're too busy coming after him for his betrayal. Not that it matters. He's set himself on this path since he'd learnt UB001 was still alive, her star dazzling in the sky. This slow-sweeping bonfire of bloody-minded self-destruction was sparked so that no one else would beat him to his own revenge. ]

[anatural]

[Oh please. Korra outright rolls her eyes.] I know exactly what happened in South America. She told me all about the Contractor who destroyed the Gate. [There's a faint note of smug satisfaction in her voice. She knows more than he does.] That Contractor is the reason you're alive.

I don't need your help getting away from the Syndicate. Once this is over, there won't be any more Syndicate.

[mortemscintilla]

[ Once this is over, there won't be any more Syndicate. ]

[ Hei's skin is prickling and his chest feels tight -- with the dumb, inexplicable anger Amber always inspired in him, but also with a kind of stomach-swooping uncertainty as when he was young -- untrained and clumsy -- and would leap off a high building and miscalculate the drop. A hot burst of adrenaline that blurs everything into red-noise. ]

...What?

[ He sucks in a soft, jagged breath, trying to absorb her words, to let go the shock. He can't. One sentence keeps rattling in his brain, over and over: The Contractor who destroyed the Gate. Pai. Has Amber shared details about her? Does Korra know where his sister is? Hei's pale, frozen face -- just a flash, then gone -- is nonetheless evident of how her words have resounded with a chilling echo, a dopplering resonance colliding with that iceberg of unanswered questions inside him. ]

[ Rage sharpens his voice into a raw undertone. ]

What the hell has she told you about Pai?

[ Just that codename, weighed by a bedrock of jarring intimacy, should tell Korra all about his and Pai's relationship. ]

[anatural]

[It certainly does, and Korra files that away as useful information. A more conniving Contractor would probably find a way to use it right now to her advantage, but that's not Korra's nature. Only an idiot would try to wield a weapon they're clumsy with; she plays to her strengths.]

The Syndicate was going to use the Gates to eliminate Contractors. Pai gave her life to destroy it. She's a hero.

[This is Korra taking a gamble of her own. This is probably the real reason Amber never shared this information with Hei -- not out of fear he'd take it to the Syndicate, but because Pai was important to him, enough to make him irrational. But a rational Hei will never take their side. He's not community-oriented; his rational self-interest is limited in its scope. But if this Pai person is really important to him... Well, there are a few ways this can go down. She's interested to see what the fallout is.]

[mortemscintilla]

[ Hei's rage doesn't flare and sputter out; it skyrockets. None of Korra's words make sense. Why would the Syndicate try to eliminate Contractors? That's like a snake eating its own tail. Contractors are their deadliest weapons, their most expedient tools. It's not good business to eliminate your assets. More to the point, why would Pai -- his cool-eyed, ever-rational sibling -- do something as deranged as martyr herself to save them? His mind stutters disbelievingly. This is a ruse. An elaborate trap. Why would Amber never share these details with him? Even the bare rudiments? Was it because he was human? Because he'd turn on her, or clog up the smooth flow of her plans? Why would Pai keep something so enormous from him? These things, these bonds and burdens, they come in pairs, and if she'd planned to go through with destroying the Gate, if she was okay with sacrificing herself -- he would die with her. It was simple as that. ]

[ His face, fixed on Korra, twists into a rigid, thunderous mask. (What Korra doesn't realize -- and what remains a secret even to Hei -- is that he's nowhere near as rational as anyone believes. So many compartments inside his still-human brain, full of trap-doors jerry-rigged all wrong, so some door in there can fly open and let him electrocute a useful Contractor to death as soon as look at him, and another can spring a convoluted lust for revenge at Carmine's murder by MI6.) ]

[ (But the door that might open up to this chance to trust Korra's words: that one is jammed shut.) ]

Not a hero. A pawn.

[ He speaks with a soft savagery. The rage keeps crashing through him, a series of shuddering cataclysmic sparks. Leaving him wrecked, scorch-blackened, a twisted simulacrum of himself. He wants to curse her, as he seizes her by the hair, drags her forward to strangle her. Because what she's saying can't be true. If it is -- then Pai is dead. Then all his time spent alive, searching for her, has been futile. His every muscle tenses: he can't understand why he doesn't spring up, throw the table across the room, wreck the place. ]

[ No. This -- this Cosmic Fuck You can't be what his sister died for. Can't be what he'd wasted his entire existence for. ]

[ He hates how Korra looks at him, the smugness in her gaze. He can cave her face in with one blow. ]

[ Icily, ]

Take me to Amber. If what you're saying is true... Let me hear it from her.

[ Let me kill her. The same way she's destroyed Pai -- and with her, every iota of goodness inside him. ]

[anatural]

[Korra knows if she refuses, he'll (try to) kill her. And honestly, she has no real incentive to. Hei is no match for Amber, particularly since Amber will have her support and all of Evening Primrose.]

Fine.

[To the waiter coming with their food] You should probably put that in a box. [To Hei] Unless you want to finish eating first.

[mortemscintilla]

[ Hei doesn't shake his head so much as offer a short, sharp jerk. The whole restaurant is bedlam of noise: what to others might sound like the gentle hum of conversations and tinkling silverware is to him an encompassing hiss and roar, as if countless ants are chewing away steadily at his mind's surface. The whole world seems sharply delineated, as if he is seeing everything in the moment after a camera flash, a layer of faded light across darkness. A moment never actually sustained, except for him. ]

[ Pai might be dead. The words clatter hollowly inside his skull. He's had bad dreams like this. ]

[ To Korra, flatly, ]

Let's go.

[ He has no appetite, beyond a crawling need to get his hands around Amber's throat. ]