there’s something so autistic about the riddler as a character. the frustration of having no one really see you, the need to prove yourself smarter and cleverer than all of them to make up for the fact that you could never fit in with them, the compulsive joy of forcing others to play by your rules, the obsession with truth and answers, the comfort of having your own space where you’re in control, the fear of inadequacy, the isolation and loneliness, the need to be acknowledged in your reality to be satisfied but never able to reach that satisfaction.

Devil's in the Details | Nemesis | Re: Doctor, Setsuna, Shinobu, Elliott, Mina ATTN: Everyone

As much as he isn't his friend's keeper, Nemesis knows a dead end when he sees one. "Médica, it's never going to be satisfying." He murmurs, hoping this can somehow get across everything - that she's right to be furious, that they'd made the wrong choice, but also that she was wasting her breath. They would never fully admit it. They couldn't. They were long past that point. There was only dissonance here. Her worldview demanded pure moral objectivity, and theirs was almost entirely subjective - Setsuna was a perfect example of that, saying that she believes and trusts in a man who has spent the last however many minutes explaining how he's lied to and manipulated all of them specifically to break them. There's something heartbreaking about her simple, willful lack of comprehension, and about her statement: I'm tired. I want to go home.

God, don't they all.

But home doesn't exist anymore. Not hers, not his. They're all a hundred years or more away from their homes, their families, their lives. The future he'd wanted for himself was lived by someone else, and now what does he have? Only the people in this room, only what's on this airship. 

If he went back to Silicon now, would he even recognize it? A hundred years was more than a lifetime for most people. It encompassed generations. And of course Titan had apparently been working diligently to undo all the good work that had been done, fostering hostility and isolation, repressing advancement so they could maintain the status quo that kept them in power. The Summit was a joke, anyone with sense would know that people who had no idea what year it actually was, let alone any knowledge about the current geopolitical landscape, couldn't possibly govern effectively. Titan would have been tailoring and inventing policy for decades if not the entire century. 

Shinobu's presence and his side and their hand on his back are welcome anchors. After a few minutes, contemplating in silence and listening to their words - they're good at saying what's important, what's needed, at reasonable questions and effective statements - Nemesis shifts just enough to take their hand, holding it quietly, a reciprocation of support. 

He listens, and he thinks, and... Elliott mentioning the hostages briefly throws his train of thought off its tracks. The wave of nausea is abrupt and intense enough to make him breath out sharply, almost a gasp, as if he'd been hit in the chest. It certainly feels that way. 

[TW: Unreality, Identity Crisis/Dissociation, Objectification, Dehumanization] 

What the hell is he going to do? He doesn't want to see the copy of Marisol, some facsimile built from his memories of her, a living, breathing, real person made just to be used against him. 

"How could you...?" He doesn't mean to, he doesn't want to keep talking in circles, keep the feedback loop going, he already knows there aren't going to be satisfying responses and he doesn't want to keep hearing about how hurting them all was the best choice that could be made. But he can't possibly ignore this anymore, can't possibly hold it in any longer, not now that it's been brought up again. And so it slips out, his voice is shaking, his expression blanched - not angry this time, he's too horrified for the moment for the anger to keep its grip. "How could you? After what Titan did to us, to you too, how could you... how could you do it to others? How could you do it to them? Mitsu is right, there were a - a hundred, a thousand ways you could torture us, you didn't... you didn't need to do that. You made people. Those aren't our loved ones. You brought those people to life, you created them just to use against us. Do you even understand what that means? You created life. You made them. Those are your children. You brought them into existence just to use them, like weapons, like instruments of torture. Those are people and you just- you just made them, on an impulse, with no sense of responsibility, no - nothing, just, to treat them like... And they're not safe, how could they possibly be safe? They don't even know what's happening, Titan is out there wanting to kill us all, and the lives they had and the people they knew are a hundred years gone. Did you actually think about any of this? Did you ever consider what it meant when you created them? What you'd be putting them through?" 

There's a girl in the engine room who looks like the dead sister of the dead man whose memories he carries. There's a girl who will look at him and think he's her brother, even though they were both made in pods, even though she'll be lacking so much of what made Marisol who she was, because the only memories she has are the ones he could share with her - and what about the rest? Had the gaps been randomly generated? Was there some program made specifically to interpret the data of memories and manufacture more to fit in the spaces between when he'd seen her and talked to her and asked how her day went? Who is that girl? He doesn't know her, but he feels obligated to her, because she wears the face of someone he remembers loving, someone he never even met.

Nemesis wants to scream. He wants to curl into a ball and scream and scream and scream until someone just puts him out of his misery. He doesn't want to think about Not-Marisol, he doesn't want to think about the doppelganger he feels responsible for - if only because who else would be responsible for her? Who would support her, who would take care of her? She would have no one and nothing and he would be the only familiar face, even though he knows with a sickening certainty that every time he looked at hers, he would only be reminded of this fucking nightmare. Not only was his sister lost to him, stolen from him, but now she would be replaced, eclipsed by this stranger who looked and sounded like her.

It's too cruel. It's worse than anything he could ever have imagined and somehow it's reality. 

He wishes they were still lying. He wishes they would say those people never existed, that it was another trick, another simulation, or holograms or robots in costumes or fucking hypnotism, anything, anything but the ugly, painful, horrifying truth.

[End TW]

Feeling the telltale signs of heart palpitations and his breathing getting shallow, Nemesis closes his eyes and squeezes Shinobu's hand, trying to re-center himself. He can't do this, he can't do this, he can't fall apart right now. There's still too much to talk about, too much to do. Steady, focus, breathe. Breathe. 

Most of Izar's bizarre speech and uninvited physical displays go unseen, which is probably for the best, while Nemesis works on regulating his breathing and compartmentalizing until he no longer feels on the verge of another shattering panic attack.

This is exactly why he hadn't asked. 

There are tears sliding down his face, but he's breathing again, he feels like he's coming up for air after being trapped a hundred leagues underwater, but slowly his thoughts are reforming and he's steadily trying to make mental grabs for the topics they need to focus on now, the things he can actually do something about.

The strongest thought he can find, the one that offers the most solid ground to stand on, is simply: Someone has to pay. Someone has to pay for this. All of it. It cannot go unanswered.

And yet, he doesn't even glance at the sword on the ground. Instead he addresses the rest of the room, everyone in it, his fellow councilors, even their captors and tormentors.

"...We can't ignore Titan. We can't just release a bunch of destabilizing information to the public all at once. Titan has been building and entrenching their seat of power for a fucking century, if we end the Summit and release all the information now, at best we'll discredit them and leave the world without any system of governance, at worst we'll be giving up any leverage and power we have and leaving Titan a vulnerable, disaster-stricken world to put back together in whatever image they want."

Nemesis doesn't want this. He doesn't want to be a lifelong politician, he doesn't want to have to save the world. But goddamn, somebody has to. Somebody has to take some fucking responsibility - in the sense of cleaning up this goddamn mess, not taking the blame for or dying over it.

"Here's my proposal. We need more information. Mina's on the right track. We need to know everything, or as much as we can. And we need advisors - consultants, whatever. This isn't just about us, it isn't just about what's happened here. It's the whole world. We should try to make contact with various administrations in as many countries as possible. See if there's a way to get them to send representatives. We should contact... hospitals, transportation officials, emergency responders. If we're going to be risking riots then we need to make sure the infrastructure doesn't collapse. And we need to defang Titan. I want to know as much about them as possible - physical locations, employee rosters, boards of directors. That ship they sent after us came from somewhere. Do we know where their armories and bases are? Can we find out? Do they use a specific communications system or hub that we can disable? Give me full access to the computers on board and anything you have regarding modern operating systems and technology, and I should be able to launch a cyberattack. If we can orchestrate a media blackout in as many countries as possible until we're finished that would be ideal. Maybe we'll need the FURIES, maybe not, but we should be fucking smart about this. I don't want to start a war, I want to stage a coup. Once everything is stable, once we can establish new committees and alternate means of international relations, then we release the whole truth. Then we tell the world everything. If you don't want to be involved, you don't have to be. Does that make sense to everyone?"

Despite the fact that his face is still covered in tears and his hands are trembling, Nem's voice is firm, certain, the anger is back and it's been sharpened and polished to a razor edge. Clean, precise, practical. 

"Please. Help me if you want to, sit back and wait for the dust to settle if you don't, but vote with me now. Let me do this. I can do this."

It might be the only thing he can do, now.