2010-04-10 - Game Theory

QUATTRO BAJEENA'S SPACE VOICE MAIL

SOME TIME AGO

"--aptain Char... mmn, Captain Char, I need you, I need you, I need... Quattro... Char... Captain..." And it just went on like that for about three minutes. No name given, but no name necessary, really. She did at least have the courtesy to transmit the message through encrypted frequencies, and at the end, a brief shortwave data burst -- encryption within encryption -- contained the address of an upscale hotel in Neo Switzerland, the kind of hotel where you can stand out on the balcony and have an astonishing view of the few snow-capped mountains that they haven't turned into ski resorts yet.

NEO SWITZERLAND

NOW

Haman Karn, Regent of Axis, has never been much for playing games like 'putting on disguises.' Her pink hair is still a sore thumb if there ever was one, with its distinctive crescent shape and all. She has at least opted for enough subtlety to avoid wearing her crown, and instead of her typical black, she has chosen to garb herself mostly in a deep red. Her dress is typically ornate, providing a modest level of coverage through the way it wraps over and over itself, like an especially elegant puzzle. Sunglasses cover her eyes, large ones that never quite go out of style if one has enough money. Still, though, for all of her couture kicks, Haman Karn doesn't apply the same fashion and poise to her posture.

The Regent sits in one of the chairs in the lobby, the furniture plush and overstuffed and threatening to envelop passersby. Haman is hunched forward, one hand pressed to her temples with thumb and forefinger, as if trying to ward off not only a migraine, but some sort of imminent collapse of the structural integrity of her skull. To a sensitive enough Newtype, it's like sitting in a room with a fire alarm going off.

Quattro Bajeena is a busy man. He controls a vast space armada that conceptually never leaves enemy territory. The Anti Earth-Union Group plays a dangerous game of courting allies where it can to keep alive, one step ahead of the giant waiting to squash it underfoot. Neo Zeon is, or was, one of these allies.

Quattro is also an experienced leader. He keeps his machine working well even when he is not there. His organizational experience is one of the unsung heroes of the war effort. There is time to travel to meet with Haman Karn, partly because of this, and partly because it is meeting that must be undertaken for resolution in regard to the treaty in the greater context of Katharon.

He is feeling mean. Quattro walks through the lobby in a dark blue suit, single breasted, with a white shirt and a black tie. It's the kind of understated, new-money working man ensemble that blends in. His shaggy hair and sunglasses stand out, making him look like he's either trying to impersonate an AEUG senator or hide his identity while meeting someone for a tryst.

The pressure has been with him for some time. Quattro is not a great newtype, but that was not a requirement for being terrorized by great newtypes. He is crushed underneath Haman's distress before he walks into the lobby. The struggle forward is deliberate and the easiest way for the Regent of Zeon to detect him; his conflict against her, rather than him. His presence is magnetic in an oldtype way, unlike many of his disciples on the Argama.

They obey him. Not her. They listen to him. They fight for him. He's not even using them right.

"What are you doing here?" Quattro asks. He is close enough to that he can speak in a neutral tone and be heard simply. Anything more near is too difficult.

The color and tone of the psychic noise that Haman Karn outputs changes dramatically when Quattro approaches, the real turn coming when he speaks. It's as if a room with noxious yellow walls suddenly became a serene, endorphin-pumping blue. Haman is suddenly much more at ease -- or, at least, if not quite at ease, then not so /anxious/ that she's blasting mental feedback everywhere. "Captain...!" she whispers, her head shooting up to face the blonde man.

And then Haman moves so quickly that it's like she skipped the 'getting up and taking steps' portion of 'existing in three-dimensional space' and just kind of /manifests/ in front of Quattro, throwing her arms around the taller man's shoulders, pressing her face into his neck, her cheek as warm as the space-age plastic of her sunglasses is cool. "Oh, Captain," she groans, pressing herself uncomfortably close.

Haman is not shy or self-conscious in this very public display. Luckily, this is a respectable hotel, so much so that bellboys know when to look the other way, and other patrons' business is just that. "I just -- needed to see you," Haman whispers, her voice husky, words hitching a ride on warm breath rather than projecting.

This isn't the Regent of Axis, the leader of Neo Zeon, the cold and capable woman who has on more than one occasion ordered men to eject their closest friends out of airlocks. This is more like a ponytailed girl who used to skip wearing normal suits in her simulator because the Red Comet never did, and that validated it. Haman seems to have -- regressed, really, is the best word for it. And worse yet, it's as if she's oblivious to it, or so far gone that she hasn't yet caught herself.

"I hope you remember what kind of relationship we have," Quattro says. It is not encouraging. It is reminding. In another circumstance this would all be different; now, her affection is sickly sweet and from a time where people died. It helps his purpose in coming here.

The squirming feeling in his stomach is something he has learned to identify but it still makes him anxious in another way. He quietly accepts her embrace and uses it to hook an arm around her waist, turning her forcefully toward the elevators. The captain walks and compels her to walk with him. "We should go somewhere private." His voice is flat. His face is guarded by practiced neutrality and trademark sunglasses. They're similar to what Haman wears. They look like a couple.

There is no one in the elevator. The hotel has thankfully decided to skip the charm of elevator attendants. Quattro is still silent as if there were an audience.

Haman Karn continues to debase herself with her wanton closeness, closing her eyes behind those dark glasses when the elevator doors shut. She, too, is silent, but for the sound of her breathing -- her heart rate is going up, her skin is becoming warmer, and her body responds to her beloved Captain Char on a primal level that supercedes any intelligence or control.

About halfway up the way to their given floor, though, Haman finally answers Quattro: "I know exactly what kind of relationship we have," she murmurs, sounding distant and dazed despite the way she forces her body into intimate closeness with the Red Comet's.

The elevator dings, and the doors slide open. Haman Karn stays pressed against Quattro for a moment, as if to block his exit. Before she allows him passage, she finishes her thought: "The only kind that people like us can have." People like us, not 'like me' or 'like you.' Us. Haman then slithers to one side, ready to lead Char Aznable -- or to be led.

"What do you mean, people like us?"

There is a definite difference in his mood. Haman is familiar with this. A critical person would say that Quattro is a broken person who drinks to ease the flow of emotion but is otherwise too angry and spiteful to operate on anything but a professional level. This is the latter.

Quattro does not know where the room is, just that it was procured. He allows Haman to show him the way. His suit smells familiar; it smells of the recycled air of spaceship-grade carbon dioxide scrubbers rather than the sweet chemically treated fragrance of the colony.

"You know the treaty is off. Katharon didn't like it in the first place."

Haman doesn't reply to Quattro's first question, and conspicuously so. She clutches the older man's hand, which turns into gripping his arm, wrapping herself around it like a snake around a bough of the Tree of Knowledge. The walk is fairly short, but the room is worth every step -- even the /door/ is unbelievably fancy. On Axis' dime, apparently. Haman Karn, like most royalty, knows how to be selfish with the treasury.

Clicking the door open and leading Quattro in, Haman can't help but chuckle dryly at the second point. The lights are dim. The suite is enormous. There's a sitting room, and doorways leading to a bedroom and a bathroom that likely contains a jacuzzi, if not an olympic swimming pool. For a moment, she sounds more like the woman that Quattro has had occasion to see her grow into -- the one who's not so much a woman as a malevolent void into which power is funneled. "So it goes," Haman says, untangling herself from Quattro and stepping behind him, fingers tracing along the shoulder of his suit with one hand. "...with fairweather friends."

After that, Haman completes her circle, moving around to face Char again, and fairly /lunging/ at him, hands snaking up to clutch his jaw and try to pull him into a needful, desperate, thoroughly unromantic kiss.

Quattro is used to this. He expects this. He was royalty in a way that the Zabis strive to emulate now. Haman is familiar. She is cloying and challenging in a way that many would misinterpret. There were a lot of people like her in Zeon, where disorganization rallied into a cause gave way to promotions based on cunning rather than merit.

He stands in the doorway and when Haman comes at him he does not move. Haman tries to drink him in but Quattro hates himself too much to do anything but let her try. The captain pushes her back roughly into the couch behind her, reaching up to loosen his tie.

"I guess it does. What are you going to do when you're done with me?" Quattro hisses. He turns the deadbolt on the door, stepping down into the living room proper. "People like Camille and Judau-- they wouldn't be here like I am. I'm not wise enough to handle this nicely."

Quattro tosses his glasses onto the sitting area's table. His eyes are darkened by lack of sleep. "What's your goal, Haman? Is it just power with no purpose?"

Haman lets herself be pushed back -- easier just to roll with it and collapse onto the couch. Her own glasses stay on, and a cruel smile crosses her face. "Judau... he came to Axis the other day, you know. It taught me much... much, much, much." Haman taps her chin in mock thought, before that smile returns, like an animal baring its fangs.

"But before that, I sortied against this -- mmm, this Gundam the likes of which I've never seen before." Haman stretches out on the couch, lifting her legs up recline horizontally, propping herself up on one arm to watch Quattro loosen his tie and tend to the door. "Piloted by this little green-haired man -- don't ask how I know his hair color, I just /do/ -- who... the entitlement and ego and /power/ that rolled out of his thoughts... it was like looking into a mirror, but at the time, I couldn't even realize it. But now, I know. There are so many people like me, Captain Char. Like us. So much power spread around. So few purposes."

Haman rolls onto her back, staring up at the ceiling for a moment. "It's all headed toward a collapse, Captain Char. Can't you feel it? Like right around the corner is the day it all breaks down... and that's when Neo Zeon will rise. That's when /we/ will rise. But to rebuild... well, Captain Char, one has to /destroy/ first."

Haman Karn's speech is, frankly, insane, and that's generous. She delivers it in such a playful, even happy tone, with a grin that suggests she's about to break out into girlish giggles over the idea. "Imagine lifting the universe out of hell... shaping its melted, deformed mass into your own image. Captain Char... doesn't it just turn you on?"

Quattro stalks like he's caged. He crosses the table opposite of Haman's couch and finds a place to sit, away from her. He listens unflinchingly to what he assumes to be her explanation for her poor mental state several days ago and perhaps now as well. There is nothing in her words that contradicts what he is striving toward.

"You should leave Judau alone," he counsels. It is conversational rather than imperative. "He's not like us. These people of the younger generation, none of them are like us." Quattro hunches over, elbows resting on his knees, gaze tilted at the tabletop where his glasses sit. "There's purpose. I have a purpose. That man had a purpose. You have a purpose. They're not the right ones."

"Zeon Deikun is my purpose." Quattro lowers his head toward the floor. He presses the palms of his hands against his eyes. "That's my plan to lift the universe out of hell, Haman, with people like Camille. Are you high minded enough to have thought your own plan through?"

"Oh, Judau and I are through," Haman Karn sighs, as listlessly as if she were talking about a summer fling. "For now, anyway. I offered him everything his greedy little heart desired, everything I've been telling him he should want for months now, and... he threw a shoe at my face. It reminded me why... even when I was younger, I wasn't interested in boys, Captain Char."

Haman stands, slowly, languidly. Her dress slinks just right when she walks, and her step is measured to emphasize this effect. Quattro is looking down, but she still puts the effort in. She comes up behind the Red Comet, resting her hands on his shoulders, leaning down. "I've always preferred /men/," she whispers, teasingly.

Then Haman eases back, standing up, her hands rubbing through her idol's jacket, getting loose grips on his shoulders. It's a supportive, even caring gesture, poisoned by circumstance and her own words. "Your plan is going to fail, Captain Char. You can't rely on boys. On children... you can't even rely on Amuro Ray. You talk about the people like us... but you don't want to be like us. You don't want to be Char Aznable. You don't want to be Casval Rem Deikun. You want to be... /Quattro/. You want to be like /them/. You want to /believe in something/... maybe even anything."

Haman Karn's voice steadily decreases in volume until it's a gentle whisper, the kind of soft, precious tone that a mother might use to coo to a newborn baby with. "Stop filling your head with nonsense, Captain Char. You're just going to get those poor young things killed. We both know it. And then when they're dead... you move on to the next ones."

"I'm glad," Quattro says dispassionately to Haman's reassurance in regard to her designs on Judau. He is less responsive to her other assertions. His slumped shoulders and broken back crumble beneath Haman's touch. There is no resistance. Kai Shiden once said that Quattro was escaping from reality; despite the AEUG and Katharon cheering him as he took responsibility and led them to victory, that is still true. He is not here.

Quattro shrugs Haman off and stands. "Shut up. This is why we're still killing each other." His clean leather shoes click smartly on the hardwood floor as he moves to the extensive courtesy bar. He still walks like he's out of the Zeon Military Academy. "Do you want anything?" he says, making the routine offer despite who he's with. The last time he said that, he was talking to an enemy as well.

"Anavel Gato paid me a visit." Quattro slides a lowball glass onto the bar. He disappears briefly while he looks for ice in the minifridge. "He was telling me the same thing. Did you send him?"

Haman lets Quattro walk, and her hand rests on the back of the chair he occupied. She still hasn't removed her glasses, but no doubt the AEUG ace can feel her eyes tracking him carefully. Her tongue runs over her teeth behind her lips, considering the man's response. Pink eyebrows lift slightly, then droop, and Haman slinks over toward the bar, to lean on the other side of it, facing Quattro like a drunk facing a bartender.

"Just you," Haman replies, refusing to let things like 'the gravity of the situation' get in the way of her selfish desires. She reaches out, and brushes her fingertips on the back of Quattro's hand -- but leaves it at that for now, slowly pulling her arm back and propping her chin up on her fist.

"I didn't send him at all," Haman says, which is the truth. "But if two people can independently come to the same conclusion... well, it's almost enough to make you wonder who else sees it, Captain Char." Haman smiles pleasantly, eyes still obscured from view. "You know, I could get used to this," she comments, her voice so pleased it's nearly a purr.

"Seeing the world as you do, I mean. Through this... haze of darkness. When the lights are low, you can only see the bright spots." Haman Karn's smile broadens into a grin. "Everything else just isn't a factor."

"I wore those because Mineva's relatives would have tried to kill me again if they knew I had blue eyes."

Quattro drops a few chunks of ice into the glass with a pair of tongs. They are not perfect. He's not paying for this. The whiskey is poured almost to the brim. The ice will melt before he's done. Quattro glares at Haman over the tip of the glass. "What bright spots do you see, Haman? A grown girl like you probably has her priorities in order."

He retreats, in a way, leaning onto the mirrored backdrop of the bar where all the glasses are prettily reflected in a beautiful presentation. That's always been the game. Even when he's caught, Char's never really there. "So why don't you tell me about this dazzling future?"

"Well, Captain Char, before it can /dazzle/..." Haman leans forward a bit more on the bar, still propping her chin up with a hand, using the other to trace lazy lines on the smooth surface. "First, it has to fall. This war... I've seen who's fighting it, Char. From the highest of the high to the lowest of the low. Power is in the hands of cunning men and of idiots, of geniuses and fools. And it can't sustain itself like that. It's all going to go wrong. History... will end."

Haman pushes herself off the bar and walks around it. She doesn't seem to intend to let Quattro get away /that/ easily. Taking a highball glass of her own, Haman drops two -- all of two -- ice cubes into it, before pouring in equal parts gin and tonic, filling the container maybe halfway. A lime goes in, and Haman smiles gently over at Quattro, as if to say 'look, I can drink too.' But then, in some regards she always was a follower.

"Zeon, as ever, will endure. Because we will be /prepared/. And when the universe is sick and dying and eating itself for want of the slightest shred of hope... Zeon will emerge." Haman Karn delivers her apocalyptic fantasy matter-of-factly, punctuating her sentence with a sip of her gin and tonic.

Haman smiles, now, clearly enjoying this next part of her little reading of the tea leaves. "And Zeon will say to this wretched, broken universe... 'We, too, were once nearly wiped out. But we endured. And more than that, we thrived. We prospered. And we will teach you how to do the same.' And we will. Zeon will scoop up the pieces of culture and civilization that remain, and make them... /Zeon/."

Haman sips her drink again, before moving closer to Char, intent on cornering him. "When no one will be able to see what's coming next through all the fallout choking their skies, they'll want men of /vision/." Haman presses her palm to Quattro's chest, completely violating his personal space. "Vision like ours, Captain Char. The vision of Newtypes." Haman smiles wickedly, and clinks her glass against the AEUG captain's. "Here's to us."

Quattro remains taciturn. He diligently attends to his drink while Haman attempts to copy him. She's still that same girl. Still needy, still self-centered, still stupid. He sneers behind his glass, pretending to take a sip. It always came down to using people like this.

"You're quite the countrywoman," he says. He neglects to compare her favorably to the more fanatic Anavel. It would ruin the mood. "I can see how you've held Axis together for so long." Quattro clinks his glass to hers, still a statue while she grinds against him.

It is difficult to sense him. His presence is weak. He is not a strong newtype. His mind is pervasive and desperate. It sinks in. There is something addictive about his cloying, insistant pressure. He is radiating it.

"We can't be officially allied. Leave the AEUG alone for now. Take off your clothes. That disguise doesn't suit you."

To be fair, Haman is no stranger to Quattro's addictive properties, so at this point it's as much a case of pure maintenance as anything else, when it comes to getting her fix. Her own Newtype power is like light and sound, but the point where the two begin to blur and become indistinguishable. Haman Karn's aura is like a dose of synaesthesia -- it sounds red, or tastes loud, or looks amelodic.

But it's everywhere around her, and right now Haman's Newtype might is not altogether unpleasant. Perhaps she's being doped by the presence of the man she once considered her impossible dream, and who now she merely considers impossible. Still, it doesn't require a hugely sensitive empath to realize what emotions are occupying most of her cranial space right now.

Slipping off the glasses, Haman drops them on the bartop, plastic clicking against the hard surface with a quiet clatter. She reaches behind herself and unzips, cooing, "If anyone else ordered me around like that, Captain Char... they'd be dead."

Haman slips her arms out of the dress and then just lets it fall. Underneath, she retains some degree of modesty -- an ornate basque, trailing garters that clip to her stockings, is her primary implement of coverage. "Is this how you prefer your allies to look, Captain Char? Denuded, defenseless... easy pickings?"

"We're both dangerous people," Char recites his usual line. Haman is like Kycilia Zabi in many ways. He remembers the look on her face when he killed her. It is the right mixture of fond and melancholy. "I'm sure if we put our minds to it, countless people would die, and maybe ourselves."

He has been getting worse. Once his presence was determined and steely; being near him was like being forced to stand erect and at attention. There was some sort of purpose. Then there was needless, floundering hopelessness. It was romantic in a way. Increasingly, Char's impression has grown. For someone overseeing active research into Newtypes, this is likely a personal affectation of the viewer. A person his age has already developed all the newtype capabilities he will ever have.

Char sets his glass aside. He does not immediately pour himself another. "Do you care? You seem like you're here to use me. I thought there should be some seduction to go along with it."

Haman Karn laughs quietly. "You're right," she replies, a slow smile unfurling across her lips like a predator rearing back to strike. "I am here to use you. But you didn't have to come. But you did. So I'm here to use you... and you're here to let yourself be used."

Haman steps forward again, taking Quattro's tie and beginning to undo it completely. "But isn't that how it works, Captain Char? People like us don't care. We don't love. None of that. It's just about... power. Who's willing to take control." Haman works on the buttons of her idol's shirt.

"And then finding the people willing to let you control them." Haman's eyes come up to meet Quattro's. "That's our game," she murmurs.

Char reaches up and takes Haman by the chin. His calloused fingers spread across her cheek. His expression is stern. "I guess I did. I guess we are. It's who we use for what that's the important thing."

He forcefully pushes away from the bar, knocking Haman aside, walking away with his hands shoved in his pockets. He makes his way toward the window and does not arrive. He shrugs his jacket off and tosses it toward the couch. "Keep stripping. I'm going to have a smoke. Help yourself, if you want."

The tie that Haman worked at comes off next, but there he stops. Char returns to the couch that his jacket is draped over, sitting down and rumaging through its interior pockets for a lighter and pack of cigarettes. He busies himself with that.

Haman bumps against the wall, but doesn't seem deterred. Pressing her back against it, she watches Quattro step to his jacket, her eyes fixing on him like a hawk that's about to try and have sex with some poor field mouse. Lace rustles -- garters unclip -- shoes get stepped out of.

The form that presses against Quattro's back by the time his cigarette is lit is undeniably very warm. Soft, too. Arms slide up under his own, the crooks of Haman's elbows meeting Quattro's armpits as her hand press flat to his chest. "Captain Char..." Haman whispers, voice partially muffled by the way her face rests at the base of his neck. "You always have to win. You play these games... and, Captain Char, you have to understand, they /are/ games."

Haman's face lifts, her voice becoming more audible, a warm noise sent toward the blonde's ear. "But they're games without frontiers," Haman says. "You don't see that like you should. You and I... /We/ can make up the rules as we go. Who's to say there can't be more than one winner?"

Haman stays where she is, although her hands wander, almost idly. Her cheek presses to the space between the Red Comet's shoulder blades. "Or who's to say the winner has to be a person? Why can't it be the one thing we both believe in...?"

SOME TIME AGO

This happened. Char breathes smoke. He puts out his cigarette on the bare table. He is tired.

NOW

Char stares at the ceiling. The covers are torn off and he is brooding. His hands meet clasped together behind his head. He is still tired.

"I'm going to keep playing these games." Char resurrects an old conversation. It has been on his mind. "If you want to play along, then you're welcome to. If you've had your fill, I guess you're still playing."

Haman Karn is face-down. One leg is straight out, and the other is bent at the knee and pulled up toward her slightly. Her forearms rest under a pillow, the other side of which being where one side of her face rests. Her eyes are closed. She, too, is tired, but content -- the feeling flows from her like the sound of waves crashing against a distant, idyllic shore. "I'm glad you're seeing things rationally," mumbles the woman who, earlier, was working herself up talking about the end of history. "Now start playing for keeps, like you did back then..."

"...and maybe we'll start getting somewhere."

"We'll definitely see, Haman. I still have a few things to try before I'm done. I'm sure you understand."

The bed shifts. Quattro is rolling off and moving. He has been awake for a lot longer. There is nothing obvious that says he is leaving. He could very well be making another drink. It's only when he doesn't come back that the situation becomes concrete.

Captain Quattro walks through the lobby with his coat hung over his shoulder and Haman's underwear shoved in his pocket. His car is waiting for him.