Name, Rank and Serial Number

[Will Stanton]

"Just...just go, Sam," Will sighed, rolling his eyes.

[Samantha McManus]

"Going, going," she sighs and starts walking out.

"I'm sorry!"

[Will Stanton]

Will just sighed, closed his eyes, and slumped down in the corner of his cell.

[Ashlie Minamida]

About half an hour later...

The sound of perfectly cadenced footsteps announces Ashlie's arrival. Usually her stride has the tiniest bit of randomization to it, but she hasn't had time to replace some of the components that got smashed yet. Thus her body-language comes across as a little more robotic than usual as she stops in front of Will's cell.

"Will. How are you doing?"

[Will Stanton]

"Headmistress. I'm stable," he said, coolly in response.

[Ashlie Minamida]

"That's not really what I asked, but it's good to know regardless." she says, reaching over to the control panel to disable the forcefield. "I'm sorry about having to lock you in here."

[Will Stanton]

Will stood up and walked out of the cell, standing eye to eye with Ashlie. "Are you?"

[Ashlie Minamida]

"Yes, though you don't seem to believe me."

[Will Stanton]

"You're right, I'm not sure I do. I don't believe you regret it at all."

[Ashlie Minamida]

"That's unfortunate, as were the circumstances that lead to this, but I can't blame you for being upset."

[Will Stanton]

"I'm a couple steps beyond 'upset', headmistress.

If you ever try to blackmail my friends into doing something for you again, I'm going to personally take you apart and repurpose your circuitry for toaster timing chips, do I make myself clear?"

[Ashlie Minamida]

"Blackmail? Miss McManus explained that something was amiss and a way to fix it. I merely informed her that as long as you were acting unhinged I couldn't let you out on account of being a threat. I'd assumed that when you made a lock that corresponds to a specific key that you intended it to be opened by said key. It's a data security measure as well as a fundamental evolutionary trick. Hibernation or sporification. Was I wrong?"

[Will Stanton]

"Right in principle, wrong in the key," Will said, coolly and calmly, but with an underling current of tension building as he continued.

"It's a trick She taught me, after the fourth or fifth time I had my mind violated. You see, that's something I've never been very good at. One day, when the epistemology of mutantkind is better understood, we'll probably refer to it as telepathic openness or something along those lines. My self-image is so extraordinarily flexible that it's ultra-malleable, even to people from the outside.

That's a problem for anyone, but especially the Champion of the Morrigan. She has enemies, I have enemies. I'm a target. This trick is something that I had to study long and hard--I seal up the bits of me that are important in a box in my mind, and await rescue. That way, I can hide away--whether I need to take on another personality for an assignment, or someone decides to use my head as their own personal romper room, the bit that makes me me is safe, and can eventually be restored.

And do you know what happens then?"

[Ashlie Minamida]

"When the circumstances are safe again 'you' are restored. In this case the qualifier would be the presence of Miss McManus. It's an impressive, if incredibly risky trick that requires a lot of trust, but Samantha isn't the correct key, is she?"

[Will Stanton]

"No.

What happens is the Morrigan and I embrace one another. We've known each other for nearly 20 years; we're practically family. I'd die for Her, She'd kill for me. She helps give my life meaning and purpose.

And then we go home where I can hug my wife and my daughter and we can celebrate that I'm alright once again. I go home is what happens next, Headmistress. I go back to where I belong.

But that's not what HAPPENED this time, because this Sam is not my Sam, and wishing won't make it so. And there is no home for me here, no wife, no daughter, no family. No hugs and no closure. My Morrigan hadn't come to pick me up yet, and it's up to Her to decide when to open the box, not you or me or anyone else," he said, balling his fists and gritting his teeth.

"To put it in words you might understand, you do not have admin rights on my head, and you should not go around running strange files unless you know exactly what they are going to do."

[Ashlie Minamida]

Ashlie nods faintly, though her ability to express herself is a little bit limited at the moment.

"I'm sorry that we aren't who you expected to see upon waking up. I truly am. But it is tremendously unlikely that you would have ever found your way back home without intervention. I don't presume to have any rights to your head but this, to me, seems like your plan had failed. I do apologize for making this decision over your head and violating your trust, but I only acted in what I believe to be your best interest, given the circumstances and the information I had. If that is incorrect then I am profoundly sorry."

[Will Stanton]

"Here's a thought.

If I was never to find my way home, maybe I didn't want to be woken up.

Maybe what consciousness had managed to form itself would have been happier here, not knowing what it was missing."

[Ashlie Minamida]

"What if there's a chance we can send you back to your family?"

[Will Stanton]

"With these ancient computers? It's like looking for a needle in a haystack. A haystack made entirely OF needles."

[Ashlie Minamida]

"I'm not saying it'd be easy." she says, ignoring the surely accidental insult. "But it's possible. This is only more reason for me to focus my research on dimensional physics."

[Will Stanton]

"They haven't cracked that code, and they won't, if past turns prologue.

I'll put my faith IN my faith. I've been rewarded before, and I'd wait until the heat death of the Universe if I had to."

[Ashlie Minamida]

"I won't presume to know what your faith can do if you'll extend me the same courtesy. Our computers won't stay ancient for long."

[Will Stanton]

"I know you're proud of your bits and your bytes, but you're not going to be able to compute your way out of this. You're going to have to live with the sin you have committed. I don't know how that calculates in your algorithms and circuits, but that's where it stands."

[Ashlie Minamida]

"I'm capable of living with my decisions without justifying them after the fact like humans like to do. I'm not offering to find you a way home to atone for my 'sin' but because I believe it's the right course of action. I don't need you to believe in that." she says with as honest a smile as she can manage with her bandaged and damaged face.

[Will Stanton]

"Just as you believed locking me up was the right course of action, or asking my friend to rewrite my head was the right course of action, or asking me to betray the trust in one of my friends was the right course of action.

Forgive me if I don't find your analysis of the correct course of action very comforting."

[Ashlie Minamida]

"I made decisions based on the information available at the time. All I can hope for is that in time you'll understand the choices I made, even if you disagree."

[Will Stanton]

"Spend more time gathering information and less time playing HAL."

[Ashlie Minamida]

"It's what I'm trying to do. Before this you wouldn't even entertain the idea of being from another universe."

[Will Stanton]

"And now I know what I've lost. Thanks, headmistress. Is there anything else you need from me today?"

[Ashlie Minamida]

"No. For what it's worth, I'm sorry for what you're going through." she says, stepping aside to let Will pass.

[Will Stanton]

Will nodded at that. "I'd believe that more if you were able to justify your decisions," he said, heading for the exit.

[Ashlie Minamida]

Ashlie looks after him with a mix of concern and an odd sense of sympathy. She's never lost anybody, aside from Perdita, but she understands the concept of waking up from a backup very well. She considers whether she should have shown him more of that sympathy, but he has friends better suited for that. It's better to let him have someone to blame.