xp_logs | Artie and Sooraya, Friday Afternoon (Reply)

With quick, easy movements Sooraya dried off the glasses in front of her. She could have run them through the dishwasher, but that always left ugly stains. So she had chosen to do them quickly by hand. She turned around when she heard someone enter the kitchen and turned around to greet him or her. When she recognized the young man before her, her eyes turned sad and searching his face, she only said: "Hello, Artie."

Artie blinked at her sad, sad face. "What's wrong?" he asked carefully, using his synthesizer.

"I was just wondering something..." Sooraya finished the class she was working on. "I was wondering where that young man disappeared to with whom I worked to survive in Genosha."

"Huh?" Artie blinked, confused. I don't understand, he thought, but he was vaguely sure he did.

"I was catching up on the journals from last week, from when I was on Muir... I didn't see that young man there. So I was wondering where he disappeared to." Sooraya explained.

"Oh. I guess I got angry? It's just, yeah. I get it. We're not safe. But saying that we have to check in at all times whenever we leave or, fuck, we're grounded is ridiculous. We're not safe here either. They've taken us here too. Just let us live our damn lives." The voice on the synthesizer phone far calmer than the expression on his face.

"I can understand why you were angry. And maybe it's a little overprotective. But I think they are also scared after what happened... feeling that they failed us... I think if I had remained here and everyone else would have been taken, I would have felt the same way."

"I don't care that they were scared. They either need to let us live our lives or train us properly so that we can really look after ourselves or just - preemptively do something before they hit us first."

"I don't think there is a simple solution to that problem. And I don't want to at the moment..." Sooraya paused for a few moments, turning a glass around in her hands without really realizing it. "I don't mean to preach at you, Artie... I just believe... That boy on the journals was not the man I saw on Genosha... Who worked hard to help us survive and keep us safe... I just wish for you to find him and be that man again...."

"What? The guy who stabbed people, lined them up to be shot and ran away leaving everyone else to die? Who wore a dead guy's face and cheated and lied and stole?" Artie asked incredulously.

Now anger flashed over Sooraya's face. "We all did things we are not proud of there, Artie. Things we would never do in normal circumstances and things we pray we never have to do again." With a deep breath, Sooraya attempted to push the anger back into place. "But you were a man who did fight to protect and take care of the people around there. I am not talking about the things you did there, I am talking about the spirit behind them." The 'you stubborn idiot' behind it went unsaid though...

Artie sighed. "I did really bad things there because I had to. We would have died. I killed people, for fucks sake. That doesn't make me a better person because I did it to keep myself alive and you and Jean Paul and everyone. It just means that I'm a person who killed people and I don't want to do it again, just like I don't want to leave people to die again, while I run and hide from a group of people that Jean called the Maraurders, who were like something out of my nightmares." He kept typing, even as the synthesizer continued speaking, remembering Bishop shooting the Magistrates as he lined them up, one by one, with targets on their foreheads, blurred outlines inside an unnatural sandstorm.

"But doing it to help someone else, that doesn't make it better, just like it's still a crime every time I feed money to one of the Morlocks. Doing bad things for a good reason doesn't make it okay. It's just something that I had to do and fuck, why does that mean I've suddenly got to be better than I was before just because I did it? Like, 'hey, this is Artie, saw his family get murdered, lies and steals, gets in fights, lived in the sewers, is a dick on the journals and Marie-Angie isn't that careful what she teaches him any more' but none of that counts now that I've done stuff that you think is okay? I wasn't a good guy before. I'm just me!" Even with the synthesizer, it was a long speech and it took the words, stilted and emotionless because Artie had never bothered with a version with decent voice rendering, a while to finish speaking.

"No, Artie..." Sooraya shook her head. "I am not saying you are suddenly a good person. Many of the things we did were not good. All I can do repent and pray that I will be forgiven. But also know what I did see there. The raw clay to become a man of whom you can be proud. Who does good things. Learn from what you have done in the past, Artie, and use it to become the man you want to be."

"Do you think that maybe I don't want to be proud of myself right now? I lined those guys up to be shot. Bishop couldn't even see them. I want to leave, I want to live my own life and I've got no goddamn idea what I'd do with myself when I go." Artie looked exhausted as he typed, letting the facade drop for once.

"No, Artie. I am not saying that you need to be proud of yourself right now. I understand why can't..." Sooraya's voice gentled, her face showing more tiredness. "But that doesn't mean you can be in the future. Leave the mansion if you wish, Artie, but then go like a man who is going to try to be someone to be proud of, with a purpose. Even if that purpose only is to find out how he can be someone to be proud of. Don't leave like a little boy throwing a tantrum."

"I'll think about it. Thanks, Sooraya."

"That is all I wanted you to do, Artie. Nothing more, nothing less." Sooraya took a seat. "Maybe you can look at it as way of showing up Mr. Summers and Mr. Sefton, if nothing else?" She suggested. "Maybe as an extra reason."

"I'll think about it, okay?"