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They've always been something of the oddballs of the corporation, though Giovanni's willing to wager that he fits in much less than Michelle does. She's a little estranged due to how young she is, but she's pretty smart, and picks up on things quickly. He's not the "researcher" type, though--he's here because Carmen...
...was...
--here, and it's here that he remains. For her sake.
I guess I can contribute to science another way, he thinks morbidly, though he's much too tired to laugh. He's too tired for much of anything really. All the Cogito that Ayin's been injecting and extracting and otherwise screwing around with has left Giovanni uncertain some days if what he's seeing is even real. His dreams have become uncomfortably lucid and torturous, reflecting back to him his grief regarding Carmen's suicide in storms of gray and unfathomable pitch. Sometimes he thinks he's died in his sleep, only to jolt awake and realize he's not able to even properly close his eyes due to whatever it is Ayin's clamped over them. His head feels like it's being fried, short-circuiting wires frayed by chemicals and mistreatment.
"Giovanni," Michelle whispers, her eyes shining from barely suppressed tears. "You'll be okay, won't you?"
He's not going to lie to her. Michelle's naïve, not stupid. She wants reassurance, but he won't give her empty words. He's not Ayin.
"I don't know," he says, listening to the beeping of the machines at his bedside. It's not tracking his heart though. He's got no idea what it's monitoring, exactly.
Michelle's grown a little more into her lab coat, but the sleeves are still long, and her face still has those baby curves to it. She fumbles with her own fingers before deciding to take his hand in both of her own, squeezing in reassurance. "I...I'm sure you'll be fine...you have to be..."
She's seen a lot of death. Giovanni has too, but he's older, you know? He's a bit more used to it even with his sheltered upbringing. In Michelle's curved fingers, he sees reflections of the blood caking Elijah's nails when she clawed at the floor, convulsing and sobbing. In that mark on her lip from how hard she's been biting it to hold back tears, he sees Gabriel's pockmarked skin from constant rubbing and scratching. In the defeated slump of her shoulders, he doesn't see Carmen.
Carmen didn't even have the strength to pretend it would be all right.
He doesn't want to be another phantom haunting her, but Giovanni's not a liar.
"You should get out of here," he says, the words slurring slightly from God-knows-what is in his system right now. "Get Lisa and Daniel and leave before this place gets any worse than it already has."
No one had ever thought a shabby laboratory in the Outskirts could ever be so...homey. But the hearth light's burnt out, and the smoke's choking everyone inside.
"B-But...what about the other employees here...? And you? Giovanni, please don't talk like this."
They've always been a very strange pair of friends. He's going to miss her. He hopes Daniel will keep her and Lisa safe. He's good with the kids...so's Kali. But everyone's here on some twisted sunk-cost fallacy, unwilling to leave this place and all of its memories behind. He's one of them.
"Sorry. I'll stick around as long as I can."
It's not a lie. That's about all he can give her.
Michelle's quiet for a long time.
"Okay," she whispers.
- - - The monotonous drudgery of harvesting Enkephalin makes Netzach want to slice his own throat.
He doesn't have one, of course, but he thinks about it more and more with each passing day. Employees drop off like flies, to the point he's forgotten most of their names. The captain of his department's practically lobotomized by the Porccubus's toxins one day in an accident that is just too coincidental, forcing her friend to step up, and Netzach's not fighting her over it if she wants to be the new captain. Maybe she'll last longer than the last one. None of it is worth quarreling over, really. Nothing matters. It's a long slog without end, a constant cycle of death, despair, scorn, and apathy. He'd not even bother with maintenance of his own joints, if not for Yesod's incessant fussing that he take better care of himself.
(Buried deep, cracking beneath the weight of it all, Netzach's crumbling like a house's flawed foundation. He can't look the new captain in the eye. Not after the death of her friend.)
His employees run the department really...inmates ruling the asylum. Or maybe the monkeys taking over the circus.
Netzach's reluctantly made his way to Training so that he can pass Hod some paperwork. Malkuth's too busy to do it for him. He sees Hod scribbling away on a piece of paper before she passes it to another employee.
"Here you go, Tiffany. I hope that helps? Please let me know if you need anything else, okay?"
Tiffany smiles. "Thank you, Miss Hod. I'll be sure to."
"What's that for...?" Netzach asks once she's left. He knows it's not anything job related, because no employee would look that relieved to get another work order.
"Huh? Oh, it's a prescription for Enkephalin...Angela finally gave me permission to access the stores." Hod's little antennae waves as she turns to face him. Their box frames are not very good at looking at people sidelong.
"Enkephalin? How's that going to help?"
"It's been made into a pill form...it's supposed to help calm the nerves and reduce anxiety, though it can be dangerous if overdosed on."
Dangerous, huh.
Netzach just passes her the forms and thinks nothing of it for a while, but...well, that doesn't last.
"Hey, Hod..."
"Yes?" She's always so eager to please. He finds it a bit funny. Angela's never going to be impressed with her no matter what she does, something Malkuth still hasn't learned.
"Could you get me a prescription too?"
"Huh...? I don't know if it'd work on us the same way...we don't have organic bodies, so we can't take the pills..."
Their brains are organic, though. Netzach's aware of that much. He tells her that, and watches her struggle, wanting to be useful but also being a bit doubtful at the same time. It doesn't last long.
"Okay...I'll get you some."
"Thanks. Glad I can count on you."
She perks up a little, and Netzach feels like shit all over again.
He feels like worse than shit when Hod takes Enkephalin in its liquid form at his suggestion, too. Filtered straight to the brain through the machinery that's meant to help sustain the thing to begin with. She's tripping out, seeing hallucinations and phantoms and hearing things, and Netzach wishes he could go to sleep and never wake up.
- - - He reflects on this as he paints.
Slow strokes of the brush create something out of nothing. White's a "thing", sure, but there's nothing particularly interesting about a blank canvas until something's been done with it. Netzach's trying to paint his feelings out, creating hues in storms of color that all swirl into a maelstrom over a mechanical frame shattered by reaching branches. A few of the weird green things that hang around the Floor of Art are perched nearby, a curious audience to his ceaseless back and forth between brush and palette and canvas and brush and palette and canvas and brush...
"Hello, Netzach."
He glances over his shoulder and sees Hod standing in the entry to his favored alcove. She steps delicately over some empty beer cans, and Netzach supposes he should clear a space for her if she's come to talk. He brushes a can and two aborted canvases away from his side; she takes the invitation, sitting down in a way so polite and formal that it betrays her first life's roots from a Nest.
"What's up?"
His casual reply makes her smile. It's interesting to see her not faking positivity anymore.
"I just wanted to stop by and see how you were doing."
"Finally put up the books Roland brought me." He'd been able to actually look his captain in the eye when he did...and there'd been no hatred there. Or blame. He almost can't believe it. "Ended up thinking about a lot of things...so I'm painting it out."
Hod examines his work. "I think I understand."
"What do you see?"
She plays with her fingers, folded on her lap as they are, and it's a gesture he recognizes. "A lot of pent up feelings, bursting out after too long...but the way it gets brighter towards the top, maybe they feel lighter and warmer once they're able to fly away."
"...Huh."
"A-Am I completely off?" Hod looks sheepish.
"Nah. I just thought the colors looked better that way, but I like your interpretation. There's no wrong or right way to interpret art. People are going to see what they see, and I'll make what I make."
"I admire your authenticity, Netzach."
"Thanks? And I'm glad to be seeing it from you. Much prefer you this way, Hod." She's allowing herself to be something other than what she thinks everyone else wants her to be. He's glad. Sincerely. She can't be what someone needs for every person she meets.
Surprise crosses her face. "Was it really that obvious before?" Her chagrined smile makes him crack a smile of his own.
"Just a bit. Heard things are going good on your floor?"
"Mm. I think so. The book club meetings have gotten so popular, even other assistants come to visit."
"Yeah, I think you've got a few of my staff over there too. Good."
He continues to paint, and Hod sits with him in companionable silence.
"Want a drink?" he asks suddenly. What? She's not a kid anymore.
He almost laughs at how serious she looks as she considers it. "Not today, but maybe another time. Would you like to come to our next book club meeting?"
"Eh..." He swirls some orange and yellow together on his palette. "I've got enough books to read already." That doesn't sound like it'd be too awful though, so he offers a compromise. "You can read a book to me as I paint, if you want. Maybe it'll inspire me. You can take the piece with you to your meeting, or something..."
Hod's eyes light up. "That sounds wonderful, Netzach...!"
"Great...I'll finish this beer while I wait for you."
Yeah. He's had enough of letting Hod and his staff down. Netzach feels like he could actually face Carmen now if he were to meet her again.