Winter, ASC 170
The problem with illusions is that they're more troublesome than the truth.
Noatak leans against a crumbling wall by one of Ruyi's harbors, and struggles to think of a convincing way to kill himself.
There's the most obvious option: he could find a vagrant with a similar build and appearance, and he could dispose of him, and he could plant his belongings (such as they are; he's only carrying a few fake papers and some money) on the corpse. He could then let the body wash up somewhere, or burn it. He could try to make it look like the triads finally caught up with him.
But Tarrlok wouldn't really approve of that.
(The seagulls wheel overhead, screaming to themselves.)
Or he could come up with some grandiose scheme where he'd lure his enemies to a location and set a deadly trap that (somehow) only he would escape from, unbeknown to everyone else, but that sort of nonsense only ever really works in radio serials.
(Always end the episode with a cliffhanger.)
Or he could just steal a boat and find an island somewhere, and wait for everyone to forget that he's alive, and hope that Republic City will face some fresh new crisis that will distract people from the Equalists. There's always someone waiting in the wings.
But the prospect of living in isolation and being forgotten doesn't seem much different from a prison sentence.
Noatak closes his eyes, and waits for his brain to come up with a viable idea.
He scratches his back, just around the edges of his burns, then fidgets until he's relatively comfortable.
He tells himself that he's not going to move until he's come up with a sound plan.
The screaming of the seagulls grows faint.
The wall becomes very comfortable indeed.
Right after the encounter with the vagrant, Wei finds a wine shop and singles out a bottle of baijiu with the best price/alcohol content (this takes him a matter of minutes), then pays with what's left of his money, and marches back to the hotel room. Once he has some privacy (or as much privacy as a guy can have when there's a thing living in his head), he sits down on the floor and commits himself to getting hammered.
Jing seems to watch him.
Being watched from inside your own body is a uniquely shitty experience.
"Look..." Wei says to no one in particular, when he's a third of the way through the first bottle. He can't finish the sentence. He doesn't know what he wants to say. Part of him is still trying to come up with an excuse for his behavior.
The baijiu doesn't bring any relief. Wei swallows to get rid of the burning in his throat, then asks, "You're wondering what my problem is, right?"
Jing straightens his back and cants his head to one side, as if to hear better.
"To be honest, I'm not sure, either," Wei says, and resumes slugging back the contents of the bottle.
"How is alcohol meant to help?" Jing mutters. He's still sulking. Jing's sense of sulkiness is very distinct from Wei's: it's heavier, but it's got less nuance. It's like a cloud of black ink that's been painted on a wall by a bratty child. It's like a rock that's been thrown through a window.
"It changes your perspective on things."
"But it-"
"Shush. Let me drink. I'm exercising my freedom by deliberately doing something that's kind of stupid. You're gonna notice that I do this a lot." As it seems like a good time to bring it up, Wei asks, "How come you called me 'Wei' earlier on? I never told you my name."
"I called you Wei?" Jing pauses. The spirit's bad mood is swept aside by a sense of horror. "Oh. Would you believe me if I said that was an accident?"
Wei doesn't say anything. He swirls the baijiu around in his mouth.
"Is 'Wei' your real name?" Jing asks, tentatively.
Well, it's not the name he was born with, but it's a name that's as good as any. "You tell me."
Jing seems absent for a few seconds, as if he's wandered off to a quiet corner of Wei's mind for a bit of contemplation, and then he says, "You don't think of yourself as the Lieutenant anymore."
If Jing was sitting in front of Wei right now, Wei would be very inclined to smash the bottle over his head.
"So you can hear my thoughts," Wei says.
"Not on purpose."
"Right." Maybe Wei shouldn't be surprised by any of this. If his mind and body were buildings, they'd have revolving doors.
Jing bristles in irritation. "I have my own thoughts. I don't want to hear yours as well. Do you know how you picked up my perceptions earlier and they made you ill? Have you considered that maybe it could also go the other way? I don't need to know every nasty little thing that occurs to you." (And Wei thinks he catches the ghost of something unsaid: when you were unconscious for a month, you used to dream.)
Wei considers smashing the wine bottle over his own head just so Jing will feel it.
Jing's fingers - or Wei's fingers, whatever - tighten around the bottle's neck. "You're more dangerous than you realize... Which, incidentally, is one of the reasons why you're dangerous. You see yourself as something small and weak, but you're not like that at all."
Wei now has to think hard about whether this is meant to be a compliment.
"Your mind is all just..." Jing holds up his hands, at a loss for words, and then stares at the bottle as if seeing it in a new light. "You want to know something funny? Humans tell a lot of stories about spirits corrupting humans. But spirits tell a lot of stories about humans corrupting spirits."
"Can't say you're doing much for my self-esteem right now, Jingles," Wei mutters.
Jing sighs and looks at the ceiling. Everything about him - his anxiety, his frustration - seems earnest, and it's just a little fucked up, but Wei almost wants to sympathize with him. "You know how the oldest case of spirit possession is the Avatar, right? Well..."
Wei's anger gets shoved aside by curiosity. "What?"
"Wait, you've never heard that before?"
"No."
"Is, uh, that not common knowledge over here? Your Amon never mentioned anything like that? What were you told?"
Wei snorts. He's been told lots of things. "Story was that the Avatar is a bender who stole three more elements from the spirits, then later made a truce with them and was allowed to keep their powers so long as they acted like a mediator between the two worlds." Or that's the accepted version, at least.
"That's... Not too far off, actually. But did anyone ever explain how the Avatar was able to use four elements in the first place?"
"Energybending or whatever." 'Energybending or whatever' is a pretty convenient explanation for a lot of things. How did the Avatar take Fire Lord Ozai's bending? Energybending. How come the Avatar survived 100 years stuck in an iceberg? Energybending. How does Amon do his thing? Enerybending. How do spirits work? Energybending. What makes Flameo's Noodles extra noodley? Why do men get morning wood? How come Wei makes such poor life choices? What is the first law of thermodynamics? Well. Even if 'energybending' isn't a plausible answer, you could probably twist stuff so that it seemed like one, if you just got real creative about it.
"Energybending? Oh, you mean... Ah." Jing takes a swig of alcohol. "Alright, so the human you call the Avatar is actually host to a very old spirit named Raava. The spirit does most of the grunt work - like carrying the four elements - while the human, uh... Does human things. But how many times in your life have you heard of Raava? And how many times in your life have you heard of the Avatar? Who do you think is calling the shots?"
"Where are you going with this?"
"Do you see why I have to work with you, and why I ask for your permission to do stuff? This is a two-way street. Human-spirit relationships are always at risk of becoming skewed in one entity's favor, and this could go just as badly for me as for you. You bleed into me. And you're kind of scary."
Wei. Scary. Actually, he's been told that before. People tend to be a little intimidated by him right until they conclude that he's an idiot. Wei almost laughs.
"And why the fuck should I believe you're telling me the truth about anything?" Wei asks.
"You don't have to. I can't demand your trust."
"You got control over me. Maybe you could make me trust you."
"But you DON'T trust me! That's the thing!" Jing slugs back more of the baijiu. "If I'm trying to get you to trust me, I'm doing a super terrible job of it! I don't think you'll trust me ever. You're just working with me because you're taking a calculated risk."
"It wasn't a calculated risk, it was a last resort. You just turned up and offered me a solution when I was completely isolated and at my lowest point. You smelled weakness and you went for it. And..." Wait a minute. "...How did you even know where I was?
Jing winces. "It's not as sinister as you think. Like I said, I know where everybody is. And everything. Usually."
"You know where everything is?"
"Yes. Most of the time."
"Everything?"
"Yes!"
"Everything?"
"Well, almost everything. It depends on some stuff. It's complicated."
"I'm..." Wei pauses to think it over. "...Kinda offended that you expect me to believe that."
"It's true."
"Fuck off," says Wei.
Jing holds up his hands in exasperation and looks at the ceiling as if he's trying to find some patience up there.
"Right. Okay," Wei says. "Let's suppose that, somehow, you're not completely full of bullshit. Let's say that you do know where everything is, whatever the fuck that means. So, if you know where everything is, then uh... how precise are you?"
"What?"
"How much do you know? What level do you, like, know about? Do you know where people are? What about organisms under a certain size? Molecules? Atoms? What? I want some specifics."
Jing starts to speak, then pauses with his mouth agape for a long moment. Then he chugs back wine. "Wait. An atom is a human unit of... stuff, isn't it?"
"Yes."
"You need to stop seeing things as units all the time," Jing mutters. "It'll make your life difficult."
"Yeah, you're full of shit. Thought as much."
Jing slams down the wine bottle. "You're asking me about levels and units but a lot of things work in a way where there AREN'T any levels and units, or, I don't know, there ARE levels and units but they're lots of different levels and units all at the same time!"
Wei takes a certain delight in the spirit's displeasure. "Hey, you know what, hang on, I just thought of something else," he says. "You just said you knew where everything is. If you know where everything is, can you tell where everything is going?"
"...What?"
Wei thinks of the patterns that he saw while tripping balls. The past was unchangeable, and the past determined the present. "If you know all the parts of a system are, then you should be able to predict how that system behaves."
"Wha..." Jing takes a moment to figure out the implications. "Wait. No. The universe doesn't work like that!"
Wei speaks as if he's addressing a five year old: "If you have a machine, and you know how all the little cogs in that machine fit together, you know how the machine works."
"The universe is not a machine. That's just silly."
"Yeah? Prove it."
"I don't know how to!" Jing says, and the whine in his voice gives Wei the impression that he's just hit a nerve. Wei wonders if he can make the spirit cry. He wonders if he should make the spirit cry. "I'm not here to get in an argument about the nature of reality with you! I'm just here because I wanted to eat a mind."
Maybe you should mind what you eat. "Yeah, sure. If you're so powerful and all-knowing, then what's so special about that guy's brain?"
Jing crosses his arms. "Why do you keep asking me questions when you don't believe anything I say anyway?"
"Humor me."
Jing knocks back more baijiu, then wipes his mouth on the back of his wrist. He heaves another sigh. "Your bloodbender identified the bit in humans' heads which allows them to, um, manipulate certain things in certain ways. Like... bending. Humans currently bend in a way that involves, um, treating the world as if it's divided into four elements, because that makes it easier. But, very soon, the gulf between the physical world and the spirit world will wane, and then a lot of humans are going to realize that you don't have to divide things into four elements, and when they figure that out, we're..." Jing pauses. "...Probably fucked. And look at me. Now I'm using profanity."
Wei takes the baijiu bottle from Jing so he can have some, then realizes that all he's done is pass the bottle from his right hand to his left. "Sure. Right. You think that humans are gonna, what, invade the spirit world or something?"
"It is a possibility, but I don't want it to get to that point." Jing flops backwards and lies down on the floor. "All you ever do is fight and consume and learn and adapt, and your meat components are constantly decaying, so you're always devouring things in order to live. You try to bend the universe around you. If you can get your hands on something, you exploit it. All you ever do is chew things up and spit them out."
"Yeah. We do that." Wei suddenly sympathizes with Jing's desire to lie on the floor like a useless fat sack of woe. "You think humans could ever stop being giant assholes?"
"You're the human. You tell me."
You'd have to change the way we all think so's we'd stop fighting each other. But if someone changed the way I thought so's I didn't want to fight no more, I'd think that was fucked up, though I'm probably the wrong person to ask about this shit because I don't know who I'd be if I wasn't angry all the time, BUT if you made humans lose the will to fight, then you'd kinda be turning them into livestock. You'd need to let them choose to stop fighting instead. Though choice is usually an illusion because in the end we just do what we're compelled to do anyhow because there's a limited number of actions we can take so's we just take the one that we thinks optimal based on the info we got available to us, and I swear I had a conversation with Amon about this sometime, so turning people into lifestock might not be that big a deal since we're basically just big dumb animals anyway, like maybe you can't stop people from being controlled, but you can try to pick who controls them, and shit like this is why I drink, Wei thinks.
"Fucked if I know," Wei says.
Jing manages to drink more wine without spilling too much of it on his face. (Wei's face. Not Jing's face. Wei's.) "If you could choose to be something other than human, would you?"
Yes. Though the definition of 'human' has always been pretty negotiable anyway. Some people get to be more human than others.
"If you could choose to be something other than a spirit, would you?" Wei asks.
"I ate a mind. I have human memories mixed in with my own. Some people would say that I'm not a proper spirit anymore anyway."
Because they are now officially drinking buddies, Wei asks, "How'd you end up eating some guy's memories in the first place?"
"I'm meant to seek information. And then all of a sudden, it was like, 'oh no Jing, sometimes you can seek the wrong kind of information, blah blah blah you can't repay a transgression with another transgression, if you gain too much human knowledge you'll become like them and you'll try to rise above your station, get out of my library you insolent reprobate' and I was like, 'fine, stay in your horrible bureaucracy forever.'"
"Library?"
"It was an awful library. All of the information was out of date. I mean sure, if you asked people why the information was out of date, they'd say, 'Jing, this isn't obsolete data, this is a historical archive' and you know what, I don't want to talk about it, it makes me angry."
Huh.
"There's all that stuff there and nothing is ever done with it," Jing adds, "because spirits are too dull and boring and they just want things to stay the same forever, because not many of them know what it's like to be made of meat. And the physical world is changing but they're not changing with it, and... I hate people who just sit around and wait for death, because they think they know everything but maybe they don't know what death means.. And you. You're meant to be human, but you're just as bad. You know the world is a mess, but you're just sitting here drinking. You're complicit in the system."
'Complicit in the system.' This sounds like the sort of shit Wei used to yell at people when he was younger and didn't know any better. Jing might've made a good Equalist. They could've got him to hand out pamphlets and guilt-trip people into joining their cause.
"Fuck off, I'm old and tired and I've done my bit, and look where it got me," Wei mutters.
"No, you're just being a self-pitying alcoholic who enjoys victimhood."
Wei sits bolt upright so fast that it makes his head spin. "Excuse me?"
"OH, WHAT, YOU WANT TO FIGHT ME NOW?" Jing yells. "HERE'S AN IDEA: WHY DON'T YOU FIGHT THE GUYS WHO PUT YOU IN THIS SITUATION IN THE FIRST PLACE."
Wei almost gets to his feet, but hesitates. "...Jing. Stop shouting."
"OR WHAT? YOU'LL DRINK MORE CHEAP BOOZE AND CRY?
"Jing."
Jing puts the back of his wrist against his forehead. "OH NO, MY LIFE IS SO TERRIBLE, I HATE EVERYONE AND I'M SCARED OF EVERYTHING ALL THE TIME, INCLUDING MAKING CHOICES. QUICK, I NEED AN AUTHORITY FIGURE WHO CAN ORDER ME AROUND. PREFERABLY A MALE ONE. WITH WASHBOARD ABS. AND AN IMPRESSIVE-"
Wei punches himself in the face. Not hard enough to do real damage, just hard enough to make a point.
"Ow," says Jing.
Wei just rubs the side of his face and closes his eyes.
"I was going to say 'ideology'," Jing mutters. "An impressive ideology."
Wei keeps his eyes shut. He sighs. He hates himself. He hates his life. He does not know how he ended up in this ridiculous situation. Then he says, "To be honest, his ideology wasn't all that great. In retrospect, it kinda leaned a little too far to the right, if you ask me."
Jing doesn't reply to that.
"Though, in its defense, it was pretty, uh, easy to grasp," Wei adds. "Its accessibility was a large part of its appeal, though it still had enough, what do you call it, mystique to arouse people's curiosity. I got asked a lot of questions about it. People would be like, 'Lieutenant, do you have any great insights about Amon's ideology that you can share with us?', and I'd say, 'well, you can start off by trying to take a hands-on approach, because it can be a lot to take in at first, though eventually you just gotta sit down and think on it until you're comfortable with-..." He trails off there, and lets out a convulsive laugh. "I don't know why I'm trying to make dick jokes about this. He threw me away."
Jing still remains silent.
"I'm going to kill him," Wei says.
The room swims a little, so he looks at the bottle. (He's been sober for, what, how long until now?) "I'm going to kill him," he repeats.
Jing's silence lasts for a few more seconds, and then he asks, "You okay?"
"No, but that suits you just fine, you manipulative little shit." Wei hauls himself up. He considers pouring the rest of the baijiu away, then decides to just set it down on the bedside table instead. "You gonna stop yelling at me now?"
"Uh, yeah. Maybe I shouldn't have done that," Jing mutters.
"You know that if someone ever sees me shouting like that again, they're going to have me arrested, right?"
"Sorry," says Jing.
"And if I tell people, 'oh, it's not me who's yelling, it's Mr. Jingles my magical talking dog,' they'll lock me up and throw away the key," Wei adds.
"Sorry. I... feel kind of weird."
"Yeah. We're drunk. My alcohol tolerance isn't what it used to be." Apparently planning an insurgency does wonders for your ability to stay on the wagon. Wei suddenly feels sad for absolutely no reason whatsoever, so he straightens his shoulders and says, "Anyway. So. Amon."
"Right," Jing murmurs.
Where were they? What was the last productive thing that went through Wei's mind before he was waylaid by misery? "You know, uh, you know when I asked you about tranq darts and you said they contained shirshu venom..." Wei says, and tries to find a train of thought that he can hitch a ride on. "...I just remembered something: you said you thought you smelled a shirshu in town earlier?"
"Yes." Jing sighs, but seems grateful for the change in topic. "I'm so glad you're asking about that. Don't humans use shirshu for finding people? I've always found that really, um, interesting, by the way, how you obtain control of other species and get them to work-"
Wei cuts him off. "A while back, I told the other Equalists that we could use a shirshu tracker to find Amon. Kind of a coincidence."
Jing says nothing.
"I mean, it wasn't, like, all that much of an original idea," Wei adds, "but..."
Jing waits.
"I, uh, had an old shirt with Amon's scent on it. And I told them this. And, thank fuck, they were too polite or creeped out to ask why I had one of Amon's shirts. Y'know, I probably didn't even specify that it was a shirt, I probably just said I had some of Amon's old clothes. They probably assumed I'd been keeping his unwashed underpants or something, which, uh... Anyway, I have no idea where that shirt would be right now. Think I might've left it on an airship."
"You... didn't think to tell me any of this earlier?" Jing says, sounding a little strained.
"Look, I been busy trying to adjust to the fact that I got someone else living in my body at the moment," Wei says. "You know, I think I want more credit for not screaming and hollering about that."
"Right," says Jing, through clinched teeth. "Okay. Thank you for this information. I think we should find the shirtshu. Uh. Find the shirshu, rather."
"Okay. Yeah." The cogs in Wei's head turn away. Fuck. Fuck. How many other things has he missed? What has he forgotten? What other questions is he neglecting to ask?
And does this mean that the vagrant they saw earlier really was Amon?
"Well?" Jing asks.
"What?"
"Can I try picking up a scent again?" Jing asks. "Just to make up for lost time." Not that the lost time is your fault or anything, Wei.
"Uh, sure," Wei says. What. Is. He. Missing?
Jing holds his arms above his head and stretches, then waves his right hand in front of his face. "Nngh. You could've picked a better day to start drinking again. Alright, I'm going to knock you out for a moment, just so you don't violently eject the contents of your stomach out the wrong end of your body like you did the last time. Is that okay?"
"You can knock me out for a minute. No longer." Uncertainty makes him lenient.
"That's all I need. I'll count down: I'll put you under in three... two..."
Wei waits.
He's sitting on the stage now, holding the radio that he repaired earlier. He switches the radio on to test it. Human voices seeps out of its speakers. He can almost make out words. Short, sharp words, truancated by grunts of pain. It takes him a moment to realize who the voices belong to. Then he concludes that they're definitely not in pain, though this somehow makes things worse. He switches the radio off, and nearly throws it away from him to smash it (if he had an audience, they might think he was performing some sort of very sad experimental theater), yet something stops him.
He looks at the pillars holding up the stage's ceiling. The carvings move. They form words, but not in any language he's seen before.
He can't translate the words exactly, yet he knows their meaning.
You don't have to smash a radio to make it stop being a radio.
A radio is just a collection of components arranged in a specific configuration in order to perform a specific function. If you change the configuration, you change the function.
Wei smacks his forehead.
Then he's back in the hotel room.
"The shirshu is at the south docks, while the bloodbender is just a short distance away from it," Jing says, as if he's woefully unsurprised by this. He makes a sudden lurching movement to grab the case that contains the bow, then takes a moment to steady himself before making a beeline to the door. But just as he reaches for the handle, he pauses.
There's that metallic taste in his mouth again.
Wei sniffs, then licks the back of his wrist. His tongue leaves a small smear of watery blood behind. Nothing dramatic. He's bled more from accidentally biting the inside of his mouth before.
"What the fuck are you doing to me?" Wei asks.
Jing rests his palm on the door handle and looks down at the floor. "I'm trying to keep you alive. I'm still learning how to be good for you." There's a pleading note to his voice. "I think I'm getting better."
"I'm some kind of experiment to you, huh," Wei says, but can't muster any strong emotions about this.
Jing smiles tentatively. "I just want to know how you work, Wei. Maybe I'll even be able to figure out a way to repair you if you ever get hurt."
Wei grits his teeth, and opens the door so he can step out into the corridor.
Noatak opens his eyes when he hears screaming, then realizes that it's just the seagulls again. He's still sitting by the harbor. But someone else is present.
There's a young woman sitting next to him. (She's not the Avatar. His instincts quickly rule that one out.)
It's almost a relief to know that there's a real flesh and blood person nearby, regardless of the threat they pose. Anything is better than the sense of being watched from afar.
The young woman looks vaguely familiar; pretty in a nondescript way, with patient eyes. The breeze has teased a few dark wisps of hair free of her bun, and her clothes are plain and formal; she looks like an office worker who's just come out to the harbor for some fresh air during her lunch break.
The surrounding area is quiet. A short distance away, the members of a fishing crew shout at each other, and the clatter of construction work can be heard over the wind, and of course there's the screech of the birds. But nothing seems amiss. Noatak just narrows his eyes against the daylight and takes no pleasure in the warmth of the winter sun on his face.
The young woman is looking at him.
"You need medical attention, sir," she says, almost apologetic.
Noatak doesn't know if he should reply. He has nothing clever or charming to say.
"You don't have to be in pain, you know," the woman adds. "It's not solving anything."
Then Noatak's brain drags its sorry self out of the fog and into the cold light of clarity, and he recognizes her.
For one horrible moment, he thinks she's Biyu, one of his chi blockers. She has the same build and bearing. But no, she's definitely not Biyu. She's...
(Many, many years ago, before the Equalists had the aid of Hiroshi Sato, they'd obtained funding from various other sources, and one of their patrons had been a very successful shipping magnate who'd asked them to sabotage the operations of some triads. Just a minor thing, in retrospect. A small commitment. A favor, almost. A gentleman's agreement. Not a task that had any major effect on the Equalist's long-term plans.
And the Equalists had honored this request, and they'd received a small donation in return, and that had been that, or so it had seemed, and nothing else had come of it... And since then, Noatak always had smirked to himself whenever he'd seen the photographs of the shipping magnate in newspapers.
And the magnate was, of course, always photographed with his secretary.)
Noatak's is caught by a jolt of horror and shame. She knows who he is.
Zhu Li's posture changes subtly, as if his realization has started her somehow. She knows she now has his full attention. He must be utterly transparent to her. He wonders what he looks like, then decides that he doesn't want to know.
"We don't mean you any harm," she says quickly.
Judging by her heartbeat, she's not bluffing.
Noatak looks around, but he can't see anything unusual, even though she wouldn't have come to him without some sort of backup. The only thing he can identify as an obvious threat is a watchtower that looks out across the harbor; someone could easily get a good shot at him from there.
Noatak is meant to be more aware of his surroundings than this. This isn't good enough.
He looks at Zhu Li. He opens his mouth to speak. He isn't sure why he doesn't just grab her and use her as a shield.
"Seriously, sir," Zhu Li says, gentler now. "We don't mean you any harm."
Everything about her body language indicates that she's utterly sincere.
"I'm actually here to offer you a job," Zhu Li adds.
A job.
Noatak takes too long to find his voice. "What?" he says, although it barely sounds like a real word.
"You'd have your own lab," Zhu Li says." A generous income. New paperwork. Interesting research. Five year contract. And once the contract is up, you'll be free to do whatever you want."
"That, I, uh..." Noatak needs to check that this conversation is actually happening. "...What?"
"Are you following what I'm saying?" Zhu Li asks, very slowly.
Noatak stops himself from saying 'what?' again. "I'm not-" He screws his eyes shut for a moment. "Why?"
Zhu Li looks at him in the manner of a woman who's dangling a piece of steak in front of a dangerous animal. She continues to speak slowly, although not insultingly so; "If your methods could be replicated, then it'd revolutionize the penal system. Consider the costs incurred in order to imprison a metalbender. Compare that to the costs of imprisoning a nonbender."
This almost sounds reasonable, although Noatak isn't sure what his definition of 'reasonable' is at the moment.
"W-what..." Noatak begins. Shit. "I don't. Ah. Th. Tha-..." Ah, yes. Noatak. Always so clever. So articulate.
Noatak makes himself focus, and hammers out every word like a coffin nail. "And when you have what you want, then what?"
"You'd be free."
Noatak could go off on a very long rant about how no one in this world is ever free of anything.
He starts to shake his head, then stops because it's making his headache worse. "No. You wouldn't. Why?" He's still not sure why he's actually participating in this conversation instead of just grabbing her and twisting one of her arms off.
Zhu Li frowns in confusion.
Right. Noatak takes a moment to line up his words in mind, visualizing them as if he's writing the draft of a speech, then say: "Why would you let me go free once you're done with me? I could incriminate you. You've just offered to shelter a fugitive. You have no reason to let me live."
"Five years should provide you with plenty of time to convince us that you're worth more alive than dead," Zhu Li says, like it's just that simple.
Noatak glances to the watch tower again. "And what if I still refuse?"
"You can walk away," says Zhu Li. "Then you'd spend the rest of your life waiting for the next person to track you down."
Noatak is struck by a flash of rage, although he can't sustain it. She's right.
"Frankly, if we meant you any ill-will, then I wouldn't be sitting here talking to you," Zhu Li says. "I'm taking a huge risk just by being within your bending range. And if you accepted our offer, we'd have to... invest a lot of trust in you."
"That sounds a little like an attempt at flattery," Noatak murmurs.
Zhu Li gives him a look of mild indignation. "I'm not stupid, sir. We've all seen what you're capable of."
Noatak doesn't reply.
"Well," Zhu Li says, and moves as if she's about to stand up, "Maybe I should come back later when you're feeling more talkative. Any questions you want to ask before I leave? I could give you an update regarding your friend with the mustache."
It takes Noatak a moment to figure out what she means, and then he looks up. For just a few seconds, he's capable of experiencing genuine curiosity again.
"We made contact with him a while back, and then he disappeared," Zhu Li says.
Noatak shouldn't reply. Even if his (or rather, Amon's) Lieutenant was (is) still alive, then he's probably clutching a bottle of grain alcohol/paint thinner and lying face down in a puddle of his own bodily fluids by now. Probably. If he's still alive. If the police or the triads haven't got to him yet.
"Disappeared," Noatak repeats.
"We intercepted him some distance from the Yiwen coast. He killed one man and injured two others before escaping."
Noatak smiles. Something cold and primal takes control, and he's able to enunciate perfectly as he says, "If I ever have reason to believe that you are making a deliberate attempt to provoke a reaction from me, then I will make you bite your own tongue off."
Zhu Li's heart beats like that of a frightened rabbit. "Understood, sir."
Noatak's can't hold his smile. It requires too much effort. He doesn't actually want to make anyone bite their own tongue off today. "You're a very good liar," he says, just to give credit where it's due.
Zhu Li chooses her answer carefully before speaking again. "This is true. But I haven't lied to you at all, sir."
"You could also be lying about that."
"You're too smart for me, sir," Zhu Li says, utterly deadpan.
Noatak stares at her for a moment, then lets out a very loud and un-Amon-like snort. Zhu Li's heartbeat remains rapid, though she hides it well.
"Do you know where the others are?" Noatak asks.
"The others?"
"My former colleagues." Not an easy question to ask.
"Excuse my asking, but when was the last time you read a newspaper?" Zhu Li asks.
That would've been when he was still in Republic City.
When Noatak doesn't answer, Zhu Li just nods slowly. "You might want to read a newspaper. But quite a lot of your colleagues are still free, apparently.
Noatak almost says, 'have you contacted any of them?', but he can guess the answer to that already.
He looks out across the harbor. "Your offer sounds too good to be true."
Zhu Li offers an uncomfortable smile. "Not entirely, sir. You'll have very reduced freedom for five years. But at least you'll be protected."
Of course. Protection. Noatak wants to roll his eyes. But he also pauses, and takes a moment to ask himself: how scared am I? People are evidently capable of finding him. All they need to do is wait, and watch, and pick the right moment to attack.
"Say I accepted your offer. Where would I go?" he asks, though he's disgusted with himself. Things aren't meant to happen this way. He's meant to come up with his own solutions. Maybe he lost his sense of self-determination when he lost Amon. Inasmuch as he can lose Amon.
"We have a ship that's just a five minute walk away. We reasoned that you might want to stay close to the sea. The ship would take you to another vessel that's some way out. That would be where you'd work. We'd bring you anything you want."
Noatak nods slowly. His back itches. His throat is raw from the effort of speech.
"You people are insane," he says.
"We think outside of the box, sir."
"I don't-" Noatak says, and rubs his face.
Zhu Li just watches him.
"...I know that none of this will end well," Noatak says.
"If we were going to hurt you, we would've done something to you while you were asleep."
"You just want me to drop my guard."
Zhu Li frowns again. "You've already dropped your guard. You're ill."
"I just," Noatak says, "Need a rest." He puts his head in his hands and chuckles quietly. Maybe new ideas will come to him after he's had some decent sleep. Maybe he can buy some time until he thinks of something clever. "I'll go with you on one condition: you have to tell me how you found me."
Zhu Li replies without hesitation, as if she doesn't even need a moment to decide how honest she should be. "Your, uh, your friend had some of your clothing. He left it on one of the airships we intercepted. We were able to figure out your general location using that."
"You used a shirshu, didn't you?" Noatak mutters.
Zhu Li nods.
The Equalists had (and look, he's already using past tense for them) a shirshu tracker among their contacts. There are only so many shirshu trackers in the world. It's possible that Noatak was tracked by the same person.
"How many of my former colleagues are already on your payroll?" Noatak asks.
Zhu Li seems to steel herself before answering, "I can't disclose that. But, suffice to say, we'll ensure you don't run into each other."
"That's not good enough. They'll know you intended to contact me. They'll know."
"Well, if they're working for us, then that means we're keeping a close eye on them," Zhu Li says, confident despite her fear of him.
Noatak gives a laugh that threatens to turn into a coughing fit. "You think you can just buy everyone, don't you?"
"No," Zhu Li replies, and Noatak almost expects her to say, some people can't be brought. "Some people have no sense of self-preservation, and there's no point in trying to appeal to individuals like that. But a lot of your former colleagues recognized a good opportunity when they saw it. They're not st-"
Noatak cuts her off. "You honestly tracked me using some of my clothing?"
"Yes."
"What sort of clothes were they?"
"Just a shirt, sir."
"He kept one of my shirts," Noatak mutters to himself, oddly unsurprised by this.
"Sir?" says Zhu Li.
Noatak fixes Zhu Li with a hard stare. "And you say you don't know where he is?"
Zhu Li seems confused by the question, and then she realizes who he's referring to. "...No, sir. It's as I said. He disappeared. He was being escorting to a safe location the mainland, and he managed to crash the vehicle he was in, and then..." She shrugs. "His tracks led about a mile into a nearby forest, but we saw no trace of him beyond that."
It's likely that something ate him. That seems par for the course, given the Lieutenant's luck. But, even so...
"And you said I could have anything I wanted, didn't you?" Noatak asks.
"...Yes, sir?"
"I want confirmation that he's dead or imprisoned." Merely as a precaution. Though 'dead' and 'imprisoned' probably mean the same thing to that one, as the Lieutenant already knows what prison is like. It used to be Amon's job to sort him out whenever he'd have the occasional nightmare about it.
"Um," says Zhu Li. "Of course. If that's what you want."
Noatak scratches his nose, just so he can hide the way that his mouth keeps trying to twist into a smile. "You said he'd killed someone?"
"Yes."
"Are you sure he did it on purpose?" Noatak asks, because this is the Lieutenant they're talking about.
"It... Looked that way, sir."
Hmm.
Noatak keeps looking Zhu Li in the eye, and maintains a grave expression as he says, "That's interesting. May I offer a word of advice?"
Zhu Li leans away a little. "Uh. Sure."
"Never stick your dick in crazy," Noatak intones.
Zhu Li stares at him.
Noatak inwardly laughs at her reaction, and slowly stands up. His joints hurt. Everything feels like it's decaying. He's not human anymore; he's just a very lively corpse. He probably smells like one already. "Right," he says, "I will accept your offer on the basis that I have nothing better to do. Lead me to the ship."
Zhu Li allows herself to exhale.
The ship is a small freighter, an ugly Fire Nation contraption with two smoke stacks and a hull that sits high in the water. Noatak follows Zhu Li up the gangplank, though he pauses when he's halfway up so he can look back over the harbor. He doesn't know what he's doing.
He hesitates again when he reaches the top of the gangplank, when it becomes evident that Zhu Li intends to lead him further below decks.
"Oh," she says, and turns to look at him. "Would you prefer to stay on the main deck?"
"That would be better." Noatak doesn't know how he'll fare with being surrounded by metal. Maybe this is what prisons are like. Metal and heat. The day is cold, but the smell of burning coal still makes him think of furnaces.
"If you stay here, then I'll bring the medic to you," Zhu Li says.
Noatak waits, and finds a spot behind a lifeboat where he won't be visible to anyone observing the ship from the mainland. He focuses on the comforting weight of the sea, which is pliant and alive, though this just makes the poisonous bulk of the ship seem more distasteful in contrast.
Zhu Li soon reappears with the medic. The medic is a young Water Tribesman - probably Southern, judging by his features - who does a passable job at hiding his anxiety. He offers a polite bow, then gestures to the dirty bandages on the back of Noatak's neck. "Would you like those changed, sir?"
Noatak shrugs, and sits down on the deck. He starts to remove his shirt. The medic might as well change all of the bandages on his back while he's at it; some of them are probably stuck together anyway.
Noatak takes a perverse joy in seeing Zhu Li recoil, even as the cold air on his skin makes him nauseous.
"I swear that these burns aren't stage makeup," Noatak says, then laughs.
The medic kneels next to him. Noatak senses movement as the medic begins to unfasten the water flask on his belt, but then the young man pauses. "...Would you like some painkillers?" the medic mumbles. "I think you'd like some painkillers. I'm, uh, going to soak these bandages off."
"I'll manage," Noatak says.
The medic mutters something, and gets to work, and then Noatak regrets what he's just said. It hurts when the medic applies the water. It hurts even more when the medic begins peeling at things. He suspects that the medic is skinning him. Noatak isn't good for very much these days, but perhaps someone could make a nice pair of boots. All leather, genuine bloodbender. Noatak clenches his fists and sets his jaw.
He doesn't endure the pain because he's making some sad attempt at penitence; he endures it because he has more pride than common sense.
He knows it's bad when he catches himself thinking, 'fuck this, I want to go home'.
"Um..." says Zhu Li.
"Actually, you know what, give me the painkillers," Noatak says.
The medic immediately stops trying to flay Noatak, and offers him a small vial of something. Noatak drinks it slowly as possible. Looking stoic was much easier when he wore a mask all the time.
Then he closes his eyes, and waits for the painkillers to kick in. He's dimly aware of the ship's engines thumping into life. He feels movement. The ship cleaves through the water, dragging itself out of the harbor. There's a gentle violence to it, but the sea doesn't care. The sea is capable of yielding and engulfing. That's what makes it dangerous. Noatak thinks of all the cliches about the sea being female and vindictive. Though maybe he shouldn't think of them as cliches. Maybe he shouldn't even be at sea in the first place.
The medic changes Noatak's bandages and cleans his wounds. It would be convenient if Noatak could shed his skin entirely. He only feels a vague sense of invasion throughout the process, though he takes a little interest in the medic's technique. The medic is good. The medic must have received very good training. The medic is a talented young man with a promising future. How nice for the medic.
When the worst of it is over, and the painkillers make the world seem like a relatively better place, the medic sidles off, and Noatak stands up. Zhu Li remains close by. Noatak starts to put his clothes back on. Zhu Li just clears her throat and says, "We could wash those for you, if you'd like?"
"That can wait," says Noatak. He leans against the railing of the ship, and tries not to think about how satisfying it would be if he scratched his back against the handrail.
Zhu Li stands next to him. He doesn't actually mind her presence (though the feeling clearly isn't mutual). She's unobtrusive, and unpretentiously intelligent. He can see why her boss likes her. He imagines throwing her into the sea, just to upset her employer, then tells himself to grow up.
"I think I'm struggling to believe that you think..." Noatak begins, then takes a deep breath and tries again; "I'm still struggling to believe that you genuinely think any of this is a good idea."
"Why is that, sir?" Zhu Li asks.
Noatak just turns to look at her and raises his eyebrows.
"We both know how dangerous bending is," Zhu Li says. "And you must know that there's great interest in finding ways to... permanently neutralize it. Furthermore, your knowledge could grant us greater insight into how it works."
Noatak taps his temples. "I don't do anything too special. It's just brain damage. You can switch off all sorts of things if you tinker with what's up here. Bending. Speech. Emotion. Reasoning. Memory. Temporal awareness."
Zhu Li looks like she doesn't know how to reply. She's probably too busy wondering just how far some of his experiments went. Anyone with half a brain would've figured out that Amon didn't get his powers from the spirits. Amon got his powers from Noatak's hard work. The spirits couldn't give a flying fuck about humans. (And who can blame them?)
"With the correct manipulation, you might be able to re-write someone's entire personality if you were so way inclined," Noatak continues. "I can think of plenty of people who might be interested in something like that." (He keeps himself from stage-whispering the 'BA SING SE' at her.)
Zhu Li removes her glasses so she can polish them. "There are already tried and true methods for that sort of thing."
"They're so long-winded though," Noatak says. "As far as I know, there's still a lot of room for refinement." Then he smiles. "Not that I have much to contribute in that field. Amon had to gain his followers the hard way.
Zhu Li just puts her glasses back on and leans against the railing.
"Bending's not really that important, is it?" Noatak mutters, almost to himself. It's not an easy thing to say. "It was never the thing that made me dangerous."
Zhu Li frows. "As a non-bender, I would say that bending isn't the sole determinant of a person's power... But I would say that bending helps, sir."
"Bending makes you an effective weapon, but it still depends on who's wielding you," Noatak says. He catches himself grimacing a little, and he almost makes an effort to adopt a more neutral expression, then decides that he can't be bothered. He'll let himself grimace if he wants to. "So you'll have me for five years, then. Perhaps you think that if I like the arrangement enough, I'll continue to work for you after those five years are up."
"We'll see," says Zhu Li.
The whole deal is cowardly at best and dangerous at worst. But Noatak wasn't lying when he told Tarrlok that he wanted a quiet life. If there's any chance of that happening, no matter how slim, then he'll take it.
"I think I'd like to be alone for a while so I can think this over," Noatak says, and pictures himself: a scarred, mysterious figure staring moodily at the sea. The mental image makes him want to laugh. Actually, it's doubtful that Zhu Li views him that way at all. If he looks half as rough as he feels, then it's probably a small wonder that she's willing to talk to him.
Zhu Li nods. "I'll be on the bridge, though if you want anything, you can inform any member of the crew."
"Noted," says Noatak, then stares at her until she makes a perfunctory bow and walks away.
Noatak finds an area of the deck where he won't be in anyone's way, sits down, and closes his eyes.