December 24th, 8:00 pm
14 hours of travel time, and jet lag, and a day that was swiftly moving toward its 24th hour of wakefulness clouded Simon’s mind and made the whole proceedings feel like some kind of waking dream.
He was glad that Athena was going to stay the night– he couldn’t bear to have been in the room alone with Halblicht– with Bobby. Not now. Not with all of the confused things going through his mind. He was deeply torn, part of him wanting to embrace and accept the return of the man he’d spent his year with– the other part now even more deeply wounded and skeptical that things could ever be alright again.
Just because Bobby was real– in some strange and twisted way, as a part of the Phantom’s mind– didn’t mean that Simon had it in him to forgive him. Did it?
He took deep breaths, in and out, trying both to calm himself and to focus on what was important as he listened to Athena get into the weeds with Halblicht.
Athena was looking bad, despite her ever present smile. The dark circles under her eyes spoke to her exhaustion as she tapped away at the screen.
“I’d like to loop back to your…training, if that’s okay.”
Bobby ran his fingers through his hair, and nodded. “I’m not surprised. I’ll try to help Robert answer where I can.”
“Thanks Bobby. I know it can’t be easy…unpacking trauma never is…you saw how messy it was for me during the trial, yeah? I understand.” She was quiet for a moment before she snapped out enough to ask her first question. “He wasn’t given a name, and in court he spoke about how he’d ‘discarded’ his identity…that he was an abyss. I want you to elaborate on that…”
“Left them behind,” Bobby murmured, rubbing his arm thoughtfully. “He said that he left them behind. It wasn’t really something he had a choice in, whether he wants me to tell you that or not. He’s not even sure if he ever had an identity to begin with.”
“The people who ran the organization…correct me if I’m wrong, but…given they didn’t give him a name it’s safe to assume they were trying to tell him since as long as he could remember that he didn’t have a personality? Emotions…any of that?”
“Yes,” Bobby nodded, twisting his hands in his lap. “They punished him for expressing any kind of emotion aside from blind obedience. They… miss Athena… they beat those children for giving one another nicknames.”
Athena’s mouth drew a hard line, and Simon could see a flicker of something behind her tired eyes.
Maybe it was rage. Or maybe he was projecting his own feelings on her. The idea that anyone could be so monstrous made him sick.
“I see,” she said softly, “they did the same for any other attempt at individuality, however minor?”
“Yes, ma’m,” he nodded again, his hands tight together. It was clear he was having trouble speaking about it, even with ‘Bobby’ as whatever buffer he existed for. “No possessions. No voluntary alterations of appearance. No expressing preferences, even for simple things. Food, or clothes. The punishments were… severe.”
Athena’s fingers tightened on the sheets, palpable only by the way they shifted against his leg as she drew more of them into her palm.
“Horrible,” she said a moment later. “absolutely sickening…ritual abuse to turn children into tools of war and espionage. By…stamping down individuality, they wanted to create someone who could become anyone, c-correct?”
Simon watched with disgust and curiosity as Halblicht’s posture changed and his expression smoothed. He looked off into the middle distance. “That was the goal. To create weapons, and tools. That’s what we were told. That we were not people, we were tools. ‘You’re no one’.”
“You’re no one.” Athena echoed hollowly as her fist closed tight around the handful of sheets. “Do you remember anything before them? Before they tried…tried to turn you into a tool?”
“I do not,” he said, impassively, shaking his head. “The earliest memory I can recall is being in the back of a truck with several other children, and then marched into a building through a concrete hallway.”
“How old?” Simon asked, eyes narrowing on him. It was evil. It was impossibly evil. No wonder it resulted in creating evil… Treating children like they were tools as if they were nothing more than a robot who could hold a gun.
Robert shook his head again. “I have no idea how to judge that. We were small. Maybe four? Maybe six? I suppose I could have been as old as eight at that point.”
Athena made an involuntary noise…horror, a quiet intake of breath before she managed to ask another question.
“It’s no wonder. It’s no wonder you called yourself the abyss. Taking children and beating the very identity out of them, in the formative years of your lives.They saw you as nothing but a tool, something to point and shoot, or sent to retrieve. It’s no wonder you felt you were no one.”
Her breath hissed audibly between her teeth “put through so much, so young, by the real evil. True, genuine evil.”
Robert shrugged. “People do whatever they think will facilitate their goals. Evil or good are abstract. These people wanted weapons, so they created them. Children were only the raw materials. Some children are raised to be people. I was raised to be a tool, that’s all.”
Athena’s eyes flicked down to the screen.
“Do you really believe that, Robert?” she asked in an even tone, “or is that what they told you?” WIth a soft sigh, she continued “I’ll dispense with good or evil. I’ll say what I really mean. These people are cruel. The psychological damage they inflict by their actions is immense.”
“It’s only damage if you’re trying to create a person, isn’t it?” he murmured. “If it’s a weapon you’re trying to create, it’s structure. It’s like saying you damaged a stone by chipping it to make a statue.”
Simon felt himself bristle. and he moved involuntarily forward on the bed, closer toward Halbricht.
“That’s rubbish! Complete rot! A child isn’t a stone to be shaped as seen fit!”
Halblicht winced, and looked up with a watery, apologetic expression. “I think it’s how he copes with what happened… by telling himself that it doesn’t matter. That he doesn’t matter. I think it’s easy since it’s always what he’s been told…”
“It’s a coping mechanism,” Athena suddenly said. Despite the watery look in her eyes, her outward expression was soft and quiet as her voice “but it’s not a good one. Not in the long term. It’ll only reinforce what they’ve done to him.”
She raised her hand to her chest.
“Robert…we all come into this world as people. Some of us are stranger than others, some of us are ‘chipped’ or molded by others or circumstance…or in the case of your handlers…abject cruelty. But they cannot turn a person into a tool, not completely.”
Slowly she reached her hand through the screen, disrupting the mood matrix as she gestured towards him. “There’s always going to be something lingering, trying to break back through. Think logically…don’t respond with their words…have you felt something like that since you’ve gained a little autonomy from them and theirs? Anything? Emotions, desires, tastes…anything?”
Halblicht’s face returned to the impassive, distant expression. But Simon watched him put his fingers gently on the buttons of his shirt and toy with them.
“Four nights ago you exposed my fear for everyone to see, Ms. Cykes. Why do you think someone like me would even be afraid to die?”
Simon felt like he had been stabbed in the chest by the sheer weight of hearing the Phantom’s admission.
Was this why he held on so hard to being Bobby Fulbright? Because he’d actually been able to enjoy himself?
“Because you have,” Athena’s hand lowered to her knee. “The only reason to fear death is when you have something to hold on to…and it’s clear you’re more than what they created. People aren’t tools, no matter how hard they try to make it so.”
Her brow furrowed as she continued. “You’ll need to face that if you want to heal. You can’t heal from damage you pretend isn’t there. You matter. You’re a person, with feelings that we could register even during the trial, feelings that make you fear death and lead you to your own choices no matter how much they tried to stop you.”
Simon couldn’t breathe. Suddenly the murder of Metis Cykes was no longer the deliberate and wicked choice of an evil man. At least– not the one sitting in front of him. Suddenly it was the action of a man who had no choice at all. Who had never had a choice.
If someone had used Ponco to commit a murder– would that murder be Ponco’s fault? Where does blame lie when you’ve raised a child as an obedient killer?
Had this man truly never experienced a moment of affection in his life before– before Simon himself? Was it not, as he’d believed when they started their relationship, one love-starved prisoner seeking out someone he could touch, but two prisoners instead?
If it was a lie, it was a good one. It was the only one that could possibly have tugged at Simon’s heart.
Then Phantom was hanging his head down, staring at the floor.
“I don’t understand, Ms. Cykes. Why would you want to help me? Why would you want me to be a person?”
The mood matrix flickered off before her with a wave of her hand, removing the obscuring wall of holographic imagery and leaving just Athena Cykes and himself sitting there on the bed opposite ‘the Phantom’.
“Robert.” Her voice rose above its soft spoken tone to emphasize the name…pointedly. Simon saw her hands shaking. “Why wouldn’t I want you to be a person? Nobody deserves to be a tool. I don’t want that…my mother wouldn’t have wanted it either. I know what it’s like to feel like you’re not a person…to think of yourself as a machine. Maybe it’s that. Maybe I want to prove your creators wrong. Or maybe it’s just…the kind thing to do for someone starved for kindness…no matter what they’ve done to me personally. I don’t know, exactly…but I know I’ll keep helping.”
Athena’s words hung in the air in silence for a moment.
“You’ll help me,” he said again, incredulously. His chest spasmed in what might have been a silent laugh, or a shudder of disbelief. “I killed your mother, and you want to help me. That’s insane. And I guess Bobby’s right– I guess I’m insane too. Because I actually believe you.”
Insane. The phantom was right. It was completely insane that either one of them could move past the evil he had done them– the life he had so carelessly snuffed out and thrown their lives into chao– it was unthinkable that they could want to help him.
So damn it, why did Simon want to help him, too? Why did he want to pull the man who had ended Metis Cykes life– who had snuffed out another young life less than a week ago– into a hug and never let him go?
Simon started to laugh too, and he slapped the bed unable to catch his breath. “What a joke on all of us. What a wretched jest we’re party to. You’d better understand this, Half Bright— Athena isn’t the only one who wants to help you. Justitia help me.”
Maybe it was infectious, because Athena’s shoulder shook in a quiet and desperate laugh of her own.
“A joke…maybe.” She pressed her hand to her face, before she pushed her hair away and smiled in Simon’s direction. He could see there was pride there, and some kind of hope in her expression.
The phantom’s shoulders shook, his hand still clutching the buttons of his shirt like he was clutching at his heart. Was he laughing, or crying? Simon heard nothing but a wheezing breath from him, and he saw no tears. But it could have been either, or both.
Halblicht steadied after a moment too, and looked up at Simon. “You really want to help me as well, Simon?”
“So it would seem. No one is more surprised than me.” Simon caught his own breath, and he smiled helplessly over at Athena. “I guess we had that breakthrough that I called you in for, Ms. Cykes.”
Athena seemed to sigh with relief, before wiping at her eyes with a laugh. “All the best breakthroughs happen when everyone’s overly exhausted, Simon. That’s just a fact.”
It was also, probably, a lie.
“Oh yes, that’s just obvious,” Simon nodded along, sarcastically. “Insanity and nonsense suddenly make the most sense when you’re completely wiped out.”
Now Simon heard the familiar sound of the absurd sniffling that always came before Bobby started to sob. Halblicht pushed up his glasses, and tears ran down his face.
“Ms. Cykes, Prosecutor Blackquill– I– I don’t know what to say,” Bobby– it was obviously Bobby again now– whimpered. “We don’t deserve such overwhelming kindness from you. It would be justice just to throw us away but… but thank you so much just for listening.”
Athena turned her attention back to him with a little sniff. “C-come on. I’ll start crying too!”
She sniffed again “thank you both for being open with us…for being willing to accept help, y-yeah?”
Bobby nodded, still crying against his arm.
“S-sorry! I don’t want to make you cry but… but it’s just so much. I-I can hardly believe it, you know? And y-you even made Robert believe it too, and he doesn’t t-trust anybody…”
“I can’t imagine why he wouldn’t,” Simon drawled, blinking back his own tears. “but you’d both better believe it. Mad as it is, this is apparently the reality that we have to deal with.”
He stood up suddenly, and marched over to the desk where he grabbed the box of tissues. He pulled several out of the box, and handed them to Athena, then he shoved the whole box in Halblicht’s face.
“Here, Half Bright. Clean yourself up. You’re a mess.”
Bobby looked up at him with big, wet eyes, and it was all that Simon could do to stop himself from pulling the man into a hug.
He’d killed Metis Cykes. But now it wasn’t some cold, emotionless killer who’d held the knife. It was poor, stupid Bobby Fulbright, waiting somewhere to be woken up from the nightmare he’d been born into.
Who would hurt a child like that? Who could turn someone who had a man like this in his heart into a killer? Simon found himself shaking with rage.
Athena wiped her eyes beside them, hiccuping softly as she attended to the spilling tears. He didn’t need her hearing to hear the sorrow in her voice.
“The world can be mad, you know? Cruel, too. But…but. It doesn’t have to be. I want you both to believe that we’re going to help Mr. Edgeworth put a stop to this too. I’ll defend whoever I gotta defend to make sure the truth…that justice is reached.”
“Indeed,” Simon said firmly. “If you have been used as a weapon, then justice will be only be done when we apprehend the monster who dared to use you in such a way.”
Bobby sniffled and pulled handfuls of tissues out of the box, wiping at his teary eyes.
“Thank you… thank you both. I’m glad… I’m glad to have your help. I’ve been saying this whole time to Robert that it wasn’t fair what they did to him… that it wasn’t just…it’s awful to see what happened. I want to bring those people to justice with you. We want to.”
Athena reached out a hand towards them, her smile tentative and kind. “And we will. You will. That’s a promise, alright?”
“Thank you…” He wiped his eyes with one arm, and shaking, reached out and put his hand on hers. “It’s a promise.”
“A promise.” Simon put his hand on top of both of theirs, and squeezed. “Some sort of dark pact, even.”
He huffed a laugh, but, mad as it was, it seemed like some kind of new beginning. Of what, he didn’t know.
December 24th, 9:40 pm
They talked for a while longer, in murmured, exhausted voices, going over the things they’d already said, without breaking much new ground. Robert was quiet, while Bobby continually thanked them, and apologized. Simon’s emotions were so omnipresent and confused that Athena could barely hear herself think.
Finally, Simon had insisted that they had to at least try to get some sleep for the investigation in the morning, and that had caused another discussion. Not quite an argument. Each of them volunteered to sleep on the floor. And none of them would allow the others to do so.
Finally, exhausted and clearly manic, Simon had laughed, and suggested they just all sleep on the bed in their clothes ‘like an anime convention.’ He had promised to get Bobby an iron for his ‘poor, wrinkled shirt’ in the morning.
Which was exactly how Athena found herself laying there on the right side of Simon Blackquill, staring at the darkened ceiling with her thoughts ticking away like the seconds and the sound of the two men’s breathing played at the edge of her hearing as all else tuned out.
Thoughts of the therapy session played in her mind…the stories of the facility he grew up in, the other children…the deliberate suppression of individualization and emotion. A person they tried to turn into a machine. The very thought made her sick, the horror twisting inside her before spilling into the darkness of her internal matrix.
She remembered the little conversation outside the restaurant after dinner. The moment they met eyes and he whispered understanding to her. What was it like for him? What did it say about her that he could recognize her like that.
Their circumstances were so different…he was forged, raised by that horrible and abusive ‘organization’. Trained to suppress emotion until he became the man who killed her mother over a rock…the man who felt, but knew he wasn’t allowed to so he forced them down as his handlers demanded…to the point where he had no idea how to process them.
If not for Bobby Fulbright. The smiling, emotional, kind hearted goofball who’d endeared himself to everyone around him. A man who was still, somehow, around despite everything. A part of Robert through psychology or fate, she supposed.
But it wasn’t Bobby who recognized something behind her eyes…it was Robert, the phantom. He was the one who quietly understood her in the cold street outside the restaurant, who shared that moment of comforting silence despite the din of words.
Where he was created by cruel and horrible hands, she was born…different. Her emotions had always felt hard to reach, quiet and subtle to the point of becoming drowned out by any outside stimulus. Her miraculous hearing backfired into a curse, distancing her from the ability to feel her own emotions while othering herself from anyone outside Cosmos save for Junie.
At times, she’d thought of herself as another robot like her ‘brother and sister’ Ponco and Clonco…at times she wondered if any of her feelings were real at all.
Maybe that’s what Robert had recognized in her. The use of masks, and the use of exaggeration to show the world the same quiet, muted pulse in your own heart in a way that they could understand. Even if it wore you down. Even if it sometimes felt like too much, at least they’d understand.
Maybe she did relate to her mother’s killer…and maybe that’s why Aura had hated her for so long.
As she shifted to look over at the two men while they slept, she smiled faintly in the dark. Maybe that was why she wanted to help him so badly…outside the sympathy and the fury at those who’d made him and who’d truly taken her mother’s life. Maybe he was a kindred spirit.
December 24, 9:40 pm
Simon lay awake, still and quiet with his eyes closed, pretending to be asleep. He felt the warmth radiating from each of the bodies beside him– the lithe form of Athena on his one side, and the solidly built body belonging to Bobby Fulbright– and whoever else– on his other. He lay stiffly, unable to fully avoid touching the other man, but unwilling to give in to his impulse to wrap his arms around him from behind.
So, Simon had never known the real man Bobby Fulbright. He had thought, when that revelation came to light, that it meant that everything he had known for a year had been an elaborate lie, a falsehood, an act and a put-on without any true feeling or meaning behind it. Simply a manipulation of his own feelings.
But now it seemed that wasn’t exactly the case. He had no reason to doubt Athena’s skill and her judgment. If she believed what they were hearing from Halblicht, then it must be true.
The man he had known as ‘Bobby Fulbright’ existed– as a mental construct separated from the broken mind of a tormented victim of horrific abuse. The same victim of horrific abuse who had killed his mentor. Who had murdered Athena’s mother Metis in the coldest of blood.
So where did that leave Simon? What did that mean for him? If there was even a part of this man who had felt something for him, who had held him in the darkness when Simon was at his lowest point, how could he reject that? He kept imagining Bobby as a child, huddled and afraid in a cement room, beaten and starved for daring to show a smile out of turn.
Treatment like that would break the spirit– destroy the very soul– of a grown and strong man. What would it do to a small child?
Turn them into something like the Phantom, who could barely register an emotion. Who could only safely show emotion by projecting it on someone else, on ‘Bobby’.
Even if it wasn’t exactly Bobby huddled in that horrible room, suffering that terrible torment as a child– even if Bobby was new, and the one who had suffered was ‘Robert’, was the Phantom, was Metis Cykes killer– the rage and pity and compassion for that child that stirred in his heart was the same.
If that experience was true– and Athena believed it, which meant Simon believed it– how could he carry on the hate in his heart for Metis’ killer? How could it be anything more than a tragic and disgusting accident perpetrated by a man who had no choice? Could Simon actually move past the fact that this man had killed Metis, had traumatized Athena and forced her to grow up an orphan, had sent Simon himself to death row for so many long years, had driven his sister to the brink?
Could he forgive him?
Would Metis want him to forgive him?
If Ponco had killed her, would Metis want Ponco held responsible? Would Simon have hated the robot just doing what it was told?
The conflict roiled and rolled in Simon’s heart. His fury and disgust raged within him, but rather than being pointed at the Phantom, now they were aimed squarely at the ones who had done such a thing to a child. Had stripped him bare and broken him of his humanity. It made Simon want to cry. It made him want to pull Bobby into his arms and hold him– hold him until maybe even Robert– the man who had killed Metis Cykes and felt nothing– could cry. If such a thing were even possible.
If Bobby cared about him, it must mean that somewhere at his core Robert– the Phantom– cared too didn’t he? Or were they completely separate? Had Robert watched passionlessly as Simon and Bobby had spent time together?
Simon wondered. Simon wondered about it all, as he lay in the dark, and he started to tug at the frayed edges of what might be clues, or what might be shadows.
Bobby Fulbright had been the one who presented the lighter as evidence. The lighter that– while it implicated Athena– would have freed Simon. Would have saved him from death row. And it put the Phantom himself in danger.
Bobby had kept promising to reform Simon. To rehabilitate him and return him to society. To save him. Had the implication of Athena, twisted and vile as it had been, been to that end? Had the Phantom decided that Simon’s life was worth the risk?
Had something in Simon awakened the feelings of a man deadened inside by years of torment? Had he awakened some true feelings of care from the very man who had ripped his life to pieces?
The idea was as sickening as it was romantic.
Halblicht’s chest rose and fell in the dark, and he heard him make a noise that might have been a murmur.
Simon broke, and he put his arm around him.
His thoughts chased each other like dogs through the street for a long time after, before he finally fell asleep.