“So, what, is he just gonna sit and sulk out in the rain?”
“Yeah.. He said to leave him alone..”
“Eh.. He’s just being melodramatic..”
“Tch… He’s always been like that, ever since I met him..”
The copter falls into an awkward silence for a time, punctuated by the howling winds and drumming of rain on the metal exterior. Data pushes his glasses up further on his face, and declares pointedly –
“Hey, you guys should take into account that his friend just died..
And, from what I can see, he’s blaming himself.”
“But it’s not his fault that she turned out to be crazy..”
“Yeah, but we’re all crazy in one way or another, blondie. Maybe her kind of crazy was what made her his friend?”
“Friend?! Hah! Honestly, I don’t understand him! He can kill off nine billion people without blinking an eye, but as soon as one of his friends dies, he completely cuts himself off from everyone!”
Trace shifts nervously in his seat, fiddling lightly with his blanket, and says quietly –
“Well, he was never taught how to deal with losing a loved one properly..”
“Well, that’s no excuse for him to be a reckless idiot!”
“Whoa, whoa.. That’s a little harsh.. Look, I didn’t like that Sakura girl much either, but she must’ve had some reason to be his friend, right?”
“She wasn’t his friend, Trace! He just needed these!”
Elena sticks her MFIs in Trace’s face, and he quickly smacks them away.
“I think you got him wrong, girl.”
“I’ve known him longer than you have!”
“Oh really? You think so? How long you known him?”
“Three years!”
“Oh, applause applause. I’ve known him for fifteen.”
Elena grips her blanket defensively, her hair still dripping from the tempest, and shouts frantically –
“Well, I.. I know it’s his birthday today!”
“Oooo, real impressive, blondie. What’s next, you know his blood type?”
Suddenly, Data throws a can of rations at the copter wall with a loud, metallic bang, effectively breaking up Trace and Elena’s argument.
“Will you two shut up? I’m gonna go talk to him..”
“Huh? What part of ‘leave me alone’ do you not understand?”
“Just trust me.”
Data leaves the helicopter, and steps out into the downpour, becoming drenched within seconds. He approaches Seymour slowly from behind, comes up level to him, and takes off his cracked glasses, wiping the fog off of the lenses. Seymour glares at him, but Data continues to stare forward at the distant shadow of the bridge, absently cleaning his glasses until Seymour says impatiently –
“What do you want, Data? I asked to be left alone.”
“Yeah, I know..”
“Well? What part of that don’t you get?”
“Well, for one thing, Elena told me it’s your birthday, so I just wanted to wish you a happy birthday.”
Seymour folds his soaked arms dubiously, and says skeptically, his voice nearly lost in a sudden gust of wind –
“… Heh, right.. I doubt you’re that stupid.. That’s not why you came out here, is it?”
“Well, no.. I just wanted to know why you’re standing out here in the rain, when we’re sitting in the warm helicopter waiting for you.”
“I just don’t want to talk to anybody right now..”
“I see...”
Despite Seymour’s words, Data doesn’t leave. He doesn’t even move.
He simply continues staring out at the raging waves through the rain, his eyes alight with contemplation.
“… So? Why aren’t you leaving?”
“I wanna know more about this girl.. Sakura..”
“Why?”
“Well.. What do you think went through her mind before she killed herself?”
“How should I know?”
“Just think..”
Thinking hard, Seymour can’t understand why Data is asking him this question, and at a time like this, but nonetheless, answers with a quiet, slightly irritated voice.
“Well, I guess.. she was feeling sad.. and angry.. Look, why does this matter?”
“It matters a lot. Just by saying that, you’ve answered my question.”
“What?”
Data eyes once again light up with deep thought, and shadow a desire to say something, but he can’t quite find the words. He takes a deep, calming breath, still staring out to sea, and starts on a mournful tirade.
“Well.. I hate to sound like a self-help program, but.. When I thought Elena was dead, I blamed myself, because I didn’t stop her from leaving home when Adrian drove her away. It wasn’t something I could control, yet somehow, I made it about me. I felt like there was something I could’ve done to save her, if I had been more responsible, or more caring.
I neglected her feelings her entire life, because I assumed she would always be there, so they were insignificant.. And then, after the diffusion, when I couldn’t find her, I assumed she was dead. I was overcome with guilt and anger, because I had nothing else to go on; no other acknowledgeable or known feeling of hers to feed off of met my mind… She was beyond my help, or so I thought. It was too much to bear.. My whole life, I’d thought that death would never happen to someone I was close to. But when I saw the truth, I acted like her death was an anomaly.. That I was betrayed by someone or something, whatever let her die..”
Seymour watches Data as he speaks curiously, wondering if he has ever spoken of this to anyone, and instead of retorting, he continues to listen raptly through the rain.
“After I returned to Santuc, and after I lost my arm, I joined the Kunai Rebels as a way to distract me from my feelings.. But, it was insufficient, and I left as soon as I was able. A while later, when Adrian found me, I found a better vessel to feed all my guilt and anger into. After all, it was he who drove Elena away when she told us that she was secretly meeting with you, so he was a good target, since he was directly related to her death, or so I thought. Not to mention, it was his fault I lost my arm..”
“Hm.. He always seems to be the cause of everyone’s problems..”
“Yes, well.. He was my best friend, but to defend myself from having those feelings I’d finally managed to rid myself of return, I told him that he wasn’t, and that he never was. I said all I needed was my solitude to be happy, but that was a lie. My guilt was driving me crazy. I was so afraid of facing all the pent-up sadness and rage that I just.. shut myself off from it.”
As Data explicates his thoughts, a clap of lightning flashes blindingly bright overhead, and the subsequent rumbling thunder makes the grounded ship’s deck tremble dangerously. However, Seymour’s concentration has given way completely to quiet contemplation, while he ponders over Data’s exclamation in silence.
“… Interesting.. What you say.. I’ve forgotten that that was the whole reason I started controlling people.. Because I was afraid.. I was afraid of letting the people I needed feel anything, since they would all be betrayed.. or angry.. So as long as they remained emotionless and obedient, I wouldn’t have to feel any guilt in controlling them. But when I saw how hurt Sakura was by what we’d done… It’s been a long time since I’ve had to bear someone else’s sadness like that. I’ve forgotten how to deal with it.”
Feeling the corners of his eyes burning with suppressed tears, Seymour quickly composes himself, claps Data on the shoulder, and says with a slight smile –
“Hm.. Thanks, Data.. You’re right about everything. … I can see why Adrian is your friend.”
“Mm.. I suppose..”
Data unconsciously rubs the stump where his arm used to be, and Seymour watches him inquisitively.
“So.. How did you lose your arm?”
Startled somewhat by Seymour’s question, Data scratches the back of his drenched head for a moment before admitting shyly –
“It was stupid.. I caught the SIN infection through a cut on my hand from Adrian while I was trying to save him. It spread so fast.. I had only one choice. Lose the limb, or lose my life.”
“Oh…”
“Yeah.. But that’s all in the past. Whatever future is coming, I’m with Elena, and with you, Seymour. You can trust me.”
With a note of finality, Data stands, dripping from head to toe under the cascade of frigid rain, gives Seymour one last fleeting nod, and retreats to the helicopter. Seymour, however, continues to stare out at the raging sea, thinking hard over Data’s sobering logic. He tentatively pulls up his sodden sleeves, and looks to his stygian brands, his mind fraught with uncertainty.
|He is right about everything.. But he doesn’t know about what happens after death.. About Paradox..|
Are you certain of that?
Flinching as though he is hit by an electric shock, Seymour whirls around, searching for the source of the voice he heard through the downpour. However, he is the only one still out on the deck.
“W-who said that?
I did.
“A-and.. where are you?”
Right here.
Panicking slightly from hearing voices in his head, Seymour tentatively starts back towards the helicopter, slides the door open with difficulty, and is greeted by a blast of warmth. He climbs inside the craft, rubbing the back of his head shyly as Trace and the others observe his return impassively. He opens his mouth to explain, but Trace cuts him off suddenly by wrapping the last blanket around his shoulders, and says with a yellow-toothed smirk –
“Just shut it, kid. Tonight, just let it all go. We’ve all got your back.”
Still situated on the sloping deck of the grounded military vessel, being pummeled by torrents of rain and raging winds, Seymour spends most of the night finishing Data’s MFI by installing the CMCI units they had given so much to obtain, but the others, left with nothing else to do, throw him a little birthday party within the cramped confines of the copter. They present him with a small tin of steak rations with an emergency candle stuck in the middle. Despite their dreary surroundings and seemingly hopeless situation, Seymour and the others share a laugh over this, and for the first time in years, even if just for the moment, he feels like he can trust his companions. Overnight, the storm gradually dies down, and is replaced with thick, soupy fog as the chilly dawn slowly approaches unseen behind the clouds. In the cockpit, once the sea around them is lit with the light of day, Data starts the copter, and takes off back towards the Atlantic Union, though the profuse fog makes visibility dangerously low. As they travel alongside the bridge’s massive crimson arch for hours, and as dawn cedes to afternoon, the fog soon gives way to another deluge of frigid rains and pounding winds, whose intensity far outstrips the previous storm’s, throwing streaks of bright white lightning down to the earth from ominous black clouds, and shaking the helicopter with roaring thunder. As Data is unable to control the helicopter with his one hand, Seymour swiftly seizes the cyclic from him, and tries desperately to bring the aircraft under control, when Elena points out a strange-looking, lopsided building down on the bridge’s roadway below, her voice almost lost in the din of the storm.
“What’s that?!”
“That’s the stronghold! Quick! Get us lower!”
“Fuck! I don’t know if this thing can handle it!”
“Hey, look! Isn’t that-”
Trace points to three small figures moving quickly along the roadway beneath the copter.
“That must be them! We have to stop them from getting into the stronghold!”
Just then, a bolt of lightning illuminates the sky, and crackles perilously close to the helicopter, carving a smoking streak in the copter’s armor. Seymour wrenches the cyclic left, and away from the bridge, bucking through the tumult.
“Holy shit, that was close!”
“Come on! We only have one chance to get them!”
Seymour carefully hands the cyclic back to Data, who unsteadily brings the helicopter back towards the bridge. Seymour anxiously tells Trace and Elena to buckle themselves in, who do so swiftly, then he wrenches the helicopter door open, throwing copious amounts of rain and wind into the craft. Tightly gripping the handbar above his head, as the black clouds overhead light up with more flashes of lightning, he grabs the SPEAR-28 launcher, takes aim through the raging tempest, and fires another five balls of cerulean electromagnetic energy at the stronghold, which destroy it instantly, scattering flaming debris all around. Everyone but Seymour stares dumbstruck as blazing wreckage rains down as hard as the storm around them.
“… Shit, kid! Overkill much?!”
“It’s the only way to be sure.. Come on, Data! Land on the bridge! I’ll get ‘em quickly, then we’ll get out of here!”
“S-sure..”
Data steers the craft onto the blacktop, and Seymour jumps out into the frigid, raging squall, approaches the blurred entities on the bridge, and tentatively pulls out his revolver. One figure is leaning over the edge of a smashed open gap in the road, their long, braided black hair flying every which way in the fierce winds, while the other is sitting unconscious against the arch. However, he is not Adrian. He is a brown-skinned man, with long, black dreadlocks flying haphazardly in the wind. Seymour kicks the leaning person onto their back, and finds the terrified face of his sister Sam staring back.
“S-Seymour? No..”
“Sam! Where is Adrian?”
“I-I don’t k-know..”
“Don’t lie! Tell me where he is! You know where he is!”
“No, I don’t!”
“I don’t have time for this..”
As Seymour forcefully grabs Sam by the wrist, and drags her back to the helicopter, the unconscious man opens his eyes groggily, and, at the sight of Sam being dragged away, stands up unsteadily, and menacingly points a rifle straight at Seymour’s head.
“You jus’ let ‘er go, mon.”
“I’m taking her back to Santuc. But, if you want to help me, do you know where Adrian is?”
“You mean Gaunt, mon? I’ never tell!”
“Okay then.”
Seymour aims his revolver at the man’s chest, and pulls the trigger. Sam struggles against Seymour’s tight grip, and watches in shock as the bullet pierces her companion’s stomach, spraying blood amongst the rain-soaked debris.
“Leo!”
Without a word of parting, Seymour forcefully pushes Sam inside the helicopter, and signals Data to bring it up and away from the bridge.
Data, however, hesitates.
“Wait.. Where’s Adrian?”
“It doesn’t matter. If he’s alive, no doubt he’ll come looking for Sam.”
“H-how could you kill him?!”
“Shut up, Sam.”
“No! Let me go! I’m not going with you!”
“I beg to differ.”
Seymour raises his revolver and strikes her in the back of the head, effectively knocking her out. Seymour’s companions aboard the helicopter react with confused and horrified looks.
“What? Do you really think I’d let her be conscious in this storm?
She’d probably try to crash the copter.”
“Yeah, but..”
“Look, there’s no more time for screw-ups, detours, or any other bullshit!
We need to end this as soon as possible!”
“Yeah, but don’t you need Adrian?”
“I do. But I need to get him to join us on our terms, not his. Also, we can’t idle for long in a storm like this.. We’ll be torn apart. But don’t worry, guys.. I told that man outside where we’re heading. If Adrian is hiding somewhere from us and happens upon him, he’ll tell him where we’ve gone.”
“But, kid… You kinda shot him? Who says he’ll live long enough for Adrian to show his face?”
“It wasn’t an instantly lethal shot. He’ll probably need to bleed out to die. Hopefully, that’ll give him enough time to impart our location to Adrian.�
��
“Ah, I hope you’re right, kid.. That’s a lot of faith to put in a dying man..”
“Just trust me..”
Seymour once again takes the cyclic from Data, unsteadily raises the helicopter back into the air, and hastily takes off back the way they came, flying against the raging winds. Two days of constant flying later, with nary a word spoken throughout the tense excursion, Seymour spots the reddened glass shores of Georgia through the dull drizzle and heaves a great sigh of relief. Glancing back into the passenger area, he finds everyone asleep, save for Sam, who is sitting upright in her seat, stock-still, and gazing forward absently.
“So, you’re awake.”
“So you’ve noticed.”
“Well, there’s nothing going on. Why don’t you get some rest like the others?”
“I’ve been resting for two days straight, thanks to you.”
“Ah, yeah. Sorry ‘bout that. Just needed to make sure you weren’t gonna do something crazy.”
Sam gingerly touches the bruise on the back of her head, and says agitatedly –
“You know.. You didn’t have to knock me out. I wouldn’t have tried to stop you...”
“Oh, really?”
“… Yeah. I don’t really see a point in trying, as I’m thoroughly outnumbered by your allies in this craft. I see you’ve even got Data now.. I knew his loyalty to Adrian was weak..”
“Ah, that reminds me. I guess Adrian said no to killing you?”
She shifts anxiously in her seat, and, staring out the tiny window on the sliding door at the mundane drizzle speckling the plastic, exclaims in a low voice –
“I never asked him. You were right about what you said about him. He is absolutely obsessed with me..”
“Did he mention as to why?”
“No.. But he seems.. angry with me.. About what I did when we were kids.. I think… He never did say..”
Paradox: The Last Day - Seymour's Story Page 26
