"Inventing the Future"
"Chapter 4: The Game Is Up"
Dr. Jaming's mind danced from thought to thought as his heart raced within his chest. 'He knows. He'll tell everyone else. I'll have to leave. She'll hate me now...I'll lose my only real friend..."
"Don't you have anything to say?" demanded Pau.
Meredith finally recovered from the shock of Pau's outburst, and she turned to Jaming for confirmation. "Is it true?"
Jaming felt sick to his stomach. This wouldn't be the first time he had been forced to leave a town, but this would be the first time he actually deserved it. His adam's apple bobbed once as he swallowed hard, and he kept his face carefully blank. "It is."
Meredith looked from Jaming to Pau, and then back again. Her expression was unreadable, but her silence felt ominous. And Dr. Jaming couldn't take it. He turned without a word and sprinted for the solitude of his garage. He had packing to do, and he couldn't face her.
"Jaming!" Meredith called after him, but he just kept running. This had been shaping up to be such a good day!
Hours later, when the blanket of night had settled over Veniccio, there was a knock at the door of Dr. Jaming's garage. He looked up from what he was doing. Most of his tools were put away by now, and he was going down a checklist to see what he could stand to leave behind. He considered ignoring the knock...well, knocks; whoever was out there hadn't left, and was knocking again.
Jaming finally set down his clipboard and shuffled to the door to answer it, deciding that he might as well take what was coming to him. He felt an almost physical stab of emotional pain when he saw Meredith standing there with a cooler in her arms, and no trace of anger or hatred on her face. "Meredith...What are you doing here?"
She raised an eyebrow and quipped, "Hello to you, too. You forgot something."
"Huh?" He looked at the cooler once more, and then it clicked. The fish. And, that quickly, he was dangerously close to tears. "You should not be here."
"Maybe not," she conceded, lowering her eyes. She seemed to be choosing her words carefully now. "I'd like to talk to you, but I don't think we should discuss it out here. And this cooler is pretty heavy. May I come in?"
He scraped his lower lip with his teeth, blinked a few times, then stepped aside to let her pass. "Very well. But I know what you're going to say."
"That you're a horrible person, and that you don't belong here. Right?"
Jaming flinched, visibly wounded, but he nodded once.
"No, that's not what I was going to say. What I was going to say was, I've heard Pau's side of the story, and now I would like to hear yours."
His eyes widened and he shook his head, uncomprehending. "But...why?"
Meredith set down the cooler and folded her arms, looking him dead in the face. "Because there are two sides to every story, and it would be nice to know that the guy I've been killing time with isn't the monster Pau says he is."
Monster.
Freak.
Creature.
"Pau's word, not mine. Just tell me how it happened...Please."
Dr. Jaming sat down heavily on his work bench and took a moment or two to gather his thoughts. "When I tell you this...you will think I'm a monster. And you would be right."
Meredith sat down on the cooler across from him and simply waited for him to continue.
And, unable to look her in the eye, he did just that. It took him more than an hour to tell her about the mind-control devices, his battle with Max and Monica, and his involvement with Emperor Griffon. He worked back from the ending to the beginning, and finished with his explanation of how his progress with Aeroharmonics had ground to a halt, and how he had lost all sense of self-worth when he thought that he had failed.
"And that was when Gaspard found me. He told me that my services were needed, and that one day the world would know my 'true worth'."
Meredith had leaned forward, resting her chin on her fist as she listened with growing interest and understanding, but she wasn't delusional. He had committed crimes that left her feeling ill. However, his remorse seemed genuine, and she found herself being moved to sympathy. What kind of life had this man had before Gaspard had found him? She shook her head. "And you believed him."
"I believed him..." He was not wearing his monocle now, and he felt naked without it. Dark sunglasses would have been even better concealment, because he was having a harder and harder time fighting off the urge to break down. "I won't pretend that I didn't know what I was doing...but by then, I was in no position to say no. I'm still surprised Griffon didn't have me destroyed when I lost to those two. I've done...so many terrible things."
Meredith saw his eyes fill with tears, and she knew then that the word 'monster' did not apply to him. 'Misguided' and 'mistreated' fit much better, and though he had done monstrous things, she could see that he dearly regretted it.
"I put that Shigura child in danger, and I did the same to his brethren. I fired upon the Lighthouse to destroy the Moon Crystal...and not only did I fail to destroy it, I...I killed an innocent and righteous man. I did those things. And I'm sorry." Jaming's breath hitched in his throat, and he buried his face in his hands. "I'm so sorry..."
Meredith got up off the cooler and sat down on the bench beside him. She hesitated a moment, then rested a gentle hand on his shuddering back as he sobbed quietly. "I know you are..."
Jaming fought to bring his breathing under control and mumbled, "I have to leave. I can't stay here."
"Where will you go?"
"I d-don't know...Who cares?" he said miserably.
"Well, I do." Meredith replied, her tone indicating that this should have been obvious. "I don't know about you, but I believe in second chances."
He finally brought himself under control for the most part, and fished around in his pockets for a handkerchief, still sniffling and avoiding her eyes. "You are only one person. Pau feels differently. And so will the others when the story gets out."
"I've already talked to Pau, and he promised to keep quiet about it for now. Do you know why most of us came to Veniccio in the first place, Jaming?"
He shook his head without looking at her, painfully embarrassed now that he was calmer.
"To start over."
Finally he turned to face her, wary and heart-breakingly hopeful. "Some can..."
"You can. You want to leave that old life behind you, right?"
Dr. Jaming drew a shuddering breath, but his crying had passed. "Yes."
She nodded, smiling softly. "Then you've got some work ahead of you, don't you?"
He scoffed quietly, but he felt the corners of his mouth twitching into an uncertain half-smile of his own. Whether she was correct or not, he actually felt a little better. "Do you really think I can start over? After all that?"
"Well...that's up to you. But you won't be on your own. I'm still your friend, you know."
He shook his head, wonderingly. "I don't deserve it..."
This was getting a bit too mushy for Meredith's liking, and she lightly nudged his arm with her elbow. "Maybe not, but you're stuck with me anyway. Too bad, so sad!"
Dr. Jaming gave a watery laugh and got to his feet, giving his face one last wipe with his handkerchief. "We had better get that fish into the freezer before it spoils. And you're taking some home with you whether you like it or not."
"Yes, sir."