[24] - [Video]

[sharpememory]

[Philip leans in close to the camera. At the very bottom of the screen, you can see the horrible, ropey scar that runs along the bottom of his neck.]

I want to talk to whoever is in charge here. Fed, magic wizard sea captain, whatever. We're gonna make a deal, because if we don't, things are going to get a bit unpleasant for everyone else around here.

Comments

[buywithme]

It sounds like you're trying to misdirect this conversation because you don't actually have anything to actually say that might even suggest that I'm not right.

I don't have enemies that I've treated with such selfish disregard as you treat your brothers with.

[sharpememory]

This is what family is. It's not my fault if you don't get it. I did what I had to do for them. Barron knows that, even if Cassel probably doesn't.

[buywithme]

Name one thing that you've done for Barron recently? The law career that he's can't possibly actually have because of what you've helped him do to his memory doesn't count.

[sharpememory]

I'm not involving myself with this shit. You're a Fed whose trying to manipulate my brother by getting me to say shit that isn't true. No wonder he doesn't even like you that much. [Lies.]

[buywithme]

And you, Comrade, are a criminal who has been manipulating your brother for years! And-- Comrade, even if he hated me I would still do what was best for him, and not for myself, unlike you.

[sharpememory]

I have not been manipulating him! We work together. It's equal.

And that's not true. You help him because it's your job.

[buywithme]

Except that he loses his memories, you lose nothing, and you stand to gain a lot more from it in the long run. I thought you said earlier that you loved him, so he didn't need to be your equal.

And you are completely wrong, Comrade. The only reason I'm in this job now is because I want to help him, not the other way around. If I was reassigned, I'd just keep helping Barron, and my new inmate could go to hell, and if he leaves without graduating then I spend my deal going after him. I could give you that in writing, Comrade.

[Overinvestment, thy name is Prefect.]

[sharpememory]

[Pause.] You're in too deep, Fed. You ever step back and take a good long look at yourself?

[buywithme]

Comrade, just because you are incapable of caring at all about your little brother, doesn't mean that the rest of us don't.

[sharpememory]

I'm going to ask you a personal question. Are you in a relationship with my brother or what?

[buywithme]

He and I are just very, very good friends, and what befalls him is important to me! And, when he's thirty, or forty, I want him to remember what he was doing in his twenties! I want him to remember growing up with you and Cassell, and I want him to know why it is that he cares about you, instead of having to just check his journals for it!

[There's a short pause, then Prefect adds:]

I'm sorry. I understand that for you, he's just always been like this, so it must seem normal, but... for me, it seems unfair that he can't have those things.

[sharpememory]

It's not fair, but that's what working is. I don't want to have to feel like shit whenever I handle a problem, but I do. That's life.

[buywithme]

You could find a different way of handling your problems?

Besides, it's different. After a few days, or weeks, you stop feeling like that. Barron's memories don't just come back.

[sharpememory]

Yeah, as if.

They don't, but at least he's not losing fingers or anything.

[buywithme]

Comrade, that doesn't make it better, It doesn't make it all right for him to have to give up his mind.

[sharpememory]

He doesn't have a problem with it.

[buywithme]

Because he doesn't understand what he's losing. He doesn't remember enough to miss it.

[sharpememory]

Exactly, so it's not a problem.

[buywithme]

No, brother, it is a problem! It's like...

...It's like if someone was dying of some kind of terrible disease, and the cure had been posted to them by a kindly doctor, but then the cure was held by the post office for containing potential contaminants, and the person with the illness made their peace with death and passed away without even knowing that they only had to go to the post office, and they would have been fine!

[sharpememory]

Are you being serious right now? Or is that some sort of joke? Barron isn't dying. He's fine.

[buywithme]

Comrade, my point is that he's losing out on really important things, without even realising it. That still matters.

[sharpememory]

He's got everything important that he needs. It's only you that thinks that he doesn't.

[buywithme]

Comrade, do you really not care if one day, you have to remind him who you are? Or to know that he only knows you from a photograph with your name written next to it in a journal somewhere?

[sharpememory]

It's not gonna come to that. He'd have to use his power almost constantly to make that happen.

[buywithme]

He had to keep a note of his own name! And he did use his power almost constantly!