Audience - Viktor

[holyspirits]

Comments

[hextech]

[Well, he has seen Lailah, so he is less surprised by the unshroudening than he is at being given a lil dude. Being in the zone is fine; Kiraman may not have recognized Viktor for a second anyway if noticed. Because he's old(er). Whiskered. Looking sadder and wetter. I have no old man Viktor icons because we see him for, like, two minutes, so pretend.] Always working.

[uploader]

[ why is he an old man right now. anyway, he hears someone and even kiraman isn't enough of a workaholic to ignore people who actually speak to him. not when he's in charge of this area.

so he looks up at this sad, wet man and blinks slowly. ]

Should I not be?

[hextech]

Not necessarily. Though you may miss enjoying what's around you. [The way he looks at the comic shop this time is different. Reserved, but much more a person and less an alien hungrily searching over what's interesting.] Is our ability to see you your doing?

[uploader]

[ kiraman looks around the comic shop himself, though more with an idle eye than really seeing what's around him. ]

Maybe. But I think you would know better than any of them what it means to have a job you're meant to do. [ an inventor's mind and all. ]

Your eyes adjusted and finally caught up with what your brain's been projecting. We have always looked like this, but your bodies took time to settle and align with your minds and souls. So, your sight finally loaded a clear picture.

[hextech]

I do. [A tale as old as time.] I see. [He turns his eyes to Kiraman to look the other over. It isn't really appraisal so much as simply acknowledging Kiraman is able to be seen now.] I feel rather old looking at most of you. [Babies...] You wanted to know about the Hexcore.

[uploader]

[ he lets himself be assessed like he's used to being studied. it doesn't bother him anymore. ]

I don't even know how old I am anymore. [ a note. but he looks at viktor with another note of curiosity. ] Will you still tell me now that you know?

[ do you trust this knowledge to some fucked up teenager, viktor. ]

[hextech]

Looks are deceiving. [An agreement.] Of course. I know what it's like to not be taken seriously based on superficial qualities. [There is the barest hints of a wry smile. The emotions don't seem to be negated in him so much as he merely seems... tired. A loneliness has settled into the crevices of his face and the gold of his eyes. All gold like the gold Kiraman had seen inside the arcanic void.] As long as my trajectory can be avoided, that's all that matters.

[uploader]

[ there's a bit of quiet, because... well, yeah. he's used to people not taking him seriously. a lot of the people brought in to the facility in norway didn't take him seriously, citing that he was just a young kid. like he wasn't going to be the one to save everyone.

but... it's been a while. he doesn't need to think about that. he continues to watch viktor though because he can see the differences and wonders how hollowed this man can become. ]

Tell me your trajectory. In your words. [ "and not theirs." ]

[hextech]

The pursuit was noble, but the end is nothing except solitary nonexistence. It isn't the Hexcore's fault. The arcane doesn't understand individuality, ethics. There was a problem, and it found the simplistic solution. [He glances idly around the shop, shifting through a few of the comics.] Their minds are secure, but the world is vacant. I misjudged.

[uploader]

[ yeah, this feels familiar. kind of how safesurf would have deleted all uis without differentiation. a problem found with a simplistic solution. ]

It values uniformity. [ hm... ] What... would you have done differently then?

[hextech]

There is safety in uniformity. It's true, the violence was gone. The suffering, the sorrow. But so was everything else. Uniformity means no humanity. [Love mistakes. Love making mistakes out of nobility.] It was... missing something. A piece of the puzzle. Through every timeline, I give Jayce one as a boy: a crystal with a glyph. Failure. But in one, Jayce will succeed. That probability is there. One glyph will work. You were right. There is no way to bypass humanity.

[uploader]

[ oh he loves old man viktor for finally getting his point, actually. ]

... it took my partner 117,649 years to get it right. A world where everything was perfect. The probability was low, but it wasn't zero. And as long as it isn't zero, it has to happen.

[ all because of humanity. ]

Greatness is other people. It's a fact that can't be changed.

[hextech]

As long as it isn't zero, it's possible. It may take Jayce a similar amount of time. Who knows? The me who finally doesn't meet him ever again perhaps. [If time works that way at all, in every chaotic twist of it. Then he'll know.] Greatness is the life you experience with other people.

[uploader]

The you twisted up in the arcane doesn't seem to agree. So the question is, where is that life where you accomplish creating Hextech without giving up that piece of yourself?

[hextech]

A battle between who I am and the linear path the Hexcore needs to follow. It's why getting rid of my emotions was an acceptable process. You understand better than anyone, I'm sure. What being a machine means in terms of solving problems with straightforward solutions. [He glances up.] That life doesn't exist. At least, only exists for a short while. [He doesn't know about Sprace Viktor.] Without the Hexcore, I succumb to my illness in every timeline. There is no cure for us for a failing body outside of darker, riskier science. Unless Jayce finally succeeds, then perhaps I have a life all my own again past my illness.

[uploader]

I do. [ of course he does. of course he understands what a machine can do, but at the same time... ] But even straightforward answers need a bit of humanity attached to them. Other people have an impact no matter how much you think otherwise. There are some things you can't achieve without them, even if you're skilled.

[ kiraman, thinking of his girlfriend beating it into his skull that other people actually matter. ]

There has to be an answer that doesn't involve the merge. [ the answer is jayce in this instance, and it all goes back to other people. ] ...in every timeline except that one? Then... isn't the answer finding a timeline to set Jayce on an earlier path?

[hextech]

[He does not disagree. Now, that is. Before too, probably, when he was just a man.] It is a delicate process. Dimensional time. You see, Jayce needs me as much as I need him. His dream of magic wouldn't exist without me showing him its wonders. This is a simplification; we are not accounting for the weave of everyone else, those "other people" you mentioned. They have their own timelines, and any minute divergence of them can vibrate the web. All I can do as I am is go back and offer Jayce another rune to use in the grand puzzle of our design, to give him a warning later about its dangers. Perhaps he will, perhaps he has held the correct rune to create a perfect world with our Hextech dream. I won't ever see it, but a version of me will. Just like the version of me you've met here has reached the end of the path. Jayce has stopped him.

[uploader]

A self-contained loop. [ this feels familiar in ways he isn't entirely on the up and up about, but enough that he can grasp the concept. a universe where the actions were foreseen and the potential was seen, but actions were taken to push the other actions into fruition. ]

You're talking about chaos theory. Even with minute changes, there are patterns interwoven to each universe where the outcome will always, eventually, end the same way. Until you break the pattern. In that case, then what will this version of you do next? What if this wasn't really the end of the path?

[hextech]

[Caspian just squinting into the mirror with Viktor.] That is up to him. So long as he does not make the same mistakes I did. It was always up to Jayce to show me that. He will have to see it, hear it from himself.

[uploader]

[ squinting so hard it shrank. ]

Isn't there a way to send back some sort of message to make sure those mistakes aren't made? If Jayce is that influenced, maybe he'd listen.

[hextech]

[His smile is small and wry.] I already have. He has visited me in the world I destroyed. The rest is in Jayce's hands now.

[uploader]

[ and here, kiraman goes quiet and seems to be thinking. things have worked out enough for him, but this is now just his own curiosity driving the questions. ]

Does that scare you? Leaving your work up to someone else in the end.

[hextech]

Does it scare you? [Spider-man pointing meme.] Perhaps it would have before, if I was a younger man. There is nothing left except myself and mechanical skeletons. I am more afraid of the understanding I will exist in lonely solitude. I trust that Jayce can do it in at least one timeline.

[uploader]

[ don't turn this around on him, old man. ]

I didn't have another option. [ this does not answer if he was scared or not. ] A lonely existence shouldn't be a dead end. But for now, trust is all you have. For now.

[ kiraman going "what if upload but slightly left?" ]

[hextech]

[No, he's turning it around because they are the same person.] Neither did I. [Kiraman was probably scared. He doesn't hold it against the guy.] Your plans are to interfere. What are you going to try, to help a dead and controlled man?