nexus_crossings | Blinded (with Science?)

Blinded (with Science?)

Furious, flustered and frightened, Isamu didn’t stop running until he’d reached the plaza. Out of breath, he sunk down behind one of the larger walls.

“Of all the… it is preposterous. That is what it is…” he huffed to himself, trying to gather his thoughts. “If I were actually collecting data without consent, or in direct violation of consent, that would be one thing… but a meta-analysis? A review of pre-existing literature? How can anyone object to that on ethical grounds?!”

Someone had, though. And that someone happened to be his brother’s girlfriend. Of course, it was not a question of if Minoru would find out about an argument heated enough to make the Anthean’s eyes glow. Just a question of when.

But at the moment, Isamu wasn’t even thinking about that.

“Is curiosity, in and of itself, a crime? If learning something new is satisfying or even pleasurable, does that automatically make it as reprehensible as getting high?” He pondered loud enough for any passersby to hear him. “Is science, simply because it requires empirical evidence, ideologically unethical? Where, between theory and practice, is that line drawn and who, if anyone, has the right to decide when it is crossed?!”

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“What on earth is in that book?” Minoru exclaimed, feeling just about as much confusion as Ziggy was.

Isamu couldn’t even answer the question. Or any of them, really. After all, he pulled his paper out of review and resubmitted it without an appendix because it was the best way he could think of to keep information about the singer’s alien anatomy hidden on this world. It was the best he could do to prove that he wasn’t the selfish, unethical addict and tyrant that Ziggy claimed. And now, Ziggy was just handing him what appeared to be an Anthean medical journal, that he owned, and he was supposed to believe that this was somehow NOT a test?

Minoru finally reached around his brother to snatch the notebook and flip through the pages.

“Minoru, what are you doing?!”

“Trying to understand what all the fuss is about.” There were a lot of notes. He kept flipping quickly until he finally came upon one of the few illustrations in the book, “Oh, hey, is that what you looked like as a kid?”

“Minoru!”

“Bro, you gave him a copy of your paper because you wanted him to trust you, right?” The younger twin didn't wait for an answer before adding. “Would he show you something this personal if he didn’t?”

“To test…”

“He said it wasn’t a test, Bro. He’s telling the truth.” Minoru insisted.

“How do you know?”

“I can feel it.”

“I can’t!”

Ziggy watched the twins, feeling them, but not interfering at first. His demeanor was calm, in fact he managed himself to make sure his body language projected that as well.

"Do you believe I would lie to you?" The question is posed but more rhetorical to get Isamu to think because he doesn't leave space for an answer. Coming over he spreads his hand over the pages of the notebook.

"There are two handwritten books like this on my world." He explains. "One by my father and one by the doctor who vivisected Thomas. I know your mind, like anyone, will choose one of those answers as soon as you hear the options. You will make assumptions."

His voice is even, without judgement. "If we assume this is the book my father wrote, a man who respected my people enough to love one of them, how you view it, how my people will be viewed and how anyone uses this information would be tainted by that view.. for the good."

He glanced between the twins. "However, if we assume that this is the doctor's book, a man who believed my people were no more than test subjects for exploration that felt nothing, and who tortured his subject despite strict protocols in place for the treatment of research subjects, even animals..... How you view it, how my people would be viewed, and how this information would be used would be vastly different. Harmful, dangerous to us."

Ziggy pulled his hand away. "Anyone looking at this would form their own opinions regardless of which is the truth."

He's trying to help Isamu walk through what Ziggy felt without using emotions at all, difficult for the Anthean but not impossible. The question eventually comes, gentle and caring. "Do you understand more now?"

Isamu gulped. “It would be highly unlikely that you, or any of your trusted confidants, would be in a place to acquire the second book. Doing so would put them, and you, at risk of being discovered. And if the vitrol you spat so wrathfully at me originated from a place of fear, I doubt you would have accepted such an acquisition. Let alone keep it…”

He started to calm down as Ziggy encouraged him to rationalize it.

“But if I am on par with the people you fear, if I really am an addict driven by curiosity, then it would not matter which of those scenarios was real. Should I react at all favorably to being permitted to see this book’s contents, then I have proven to you everything horrible that you accused me of. The fact that I opened it at all can be used against me. And the fact that I do very much want to read it… means that… that you have all the proof you need to tell your entire species to never collaborate with ours again. In the same breath that you swear there will be no judgement…”

“Ziggy…” Minoru interrupted before he could answer. “I don’t know exactly what you said to my brother, but whatever it was, he took it to heart. And it hurt bad enough that he tried to outdrink Joe just so he didn’t have to think about it.”

Ziggy would know that feeling personally. And be well aware of the concern Minoru felt, and was feeling.

“I get that you’re trying to show Isamu that you’re not mad. That you do trust him.” Minoru looked over at his brother. “But I don’t think he knows what words of yours to believe.”

"There's a lot you don't know." Ziggy points out in regards to the book and what it might be.

He was patient, listened without response or scolding. This was a moment to take in everything, to filter it slowly and wipe away the emotional response so natural to him sometimes. He lets out a breath and shakes his head.

"You have missed the point and I believe the same one you originally missed." He considers and keeps his judgement at bay and out of his tone. "I am trying to help you past the human ideals of now, seeing I before we, of centering perspective on self.. your embracing of my intention being harmful trickery rather than honesty or empathy."

Ziggy pauses to collect words. "You won't understand why I was upset if I can't help you get to a place where your perspective of things is from mine. Trust, futures, long spans of time, of people before self." Ziggy sighs and his eyes are on the book in their hands. "I was trying to get you to think past yourself. A research paper, that book. Assumptions about the origins taint how my people will be treated regardless of the truth of how or who wrote them."

Ziggy sighed again. "If the book you hold is the doctor and it is mistaken for my father's then my people benefit but it does not change what happened to write it. However, if that is my father's book and someone believes it to be the doctor's then it is a detriment to my people even if it was written with love and respect. I may or may not be there to set the record straight but the consequences will still be mine, and worse my sister, my whole species may suffer if it is seen the wrong way." He's being as polite, understanding and gentle as he can be on the subject. "The risks to my species are too great to allow either of the books to remain with humans. That is not a reflection of either of you, or the humans that share my private life, but as a species. Do I worry about you mistreating us, no, not purposefully, but I do fear it from anyone who would read your writing. Protocols for humane treatment have not protected us in the past from the human species even if individuals disagreed with what happened to us."

“The same point?” Isamu was shaking now. “The same point?! If it is human ideals that cause me to identify your intention as harmful or manipulative, then I fail to see how you can claim a higher motive when you clearly saw my very existence in the exact same light. Why do you get to ruin my livelihood, even my life, and still remain morally superi…”

“Woah! Woah! Hold it! Stop, stop!” Minoru literally stood between them, hands out. It wasn’t like words couldn’t go right around a physical barrier, but the intention was clear. “Everybody. Just stop. Just breathe. In. Out.”

Ziggy could probably feel Minoru’s thoughts racing - this whole thing sounded just like one of Isamu’s thought exercises. But Isamu loved thought exercises! Isamu was literally doing a thought exercise when things went south last time - along with feelings of being way out of his comfort zone.

He turned over his shoulder, sympathetically looking at his brother.

“Remember how I told you that Ziggy was probably angry because he was scared?” Which was true. That was what this thought experiment seemed to be about, from Minoru’s perspective. “You’re acting the same way.”

He cautiously moved toward Isamu, hands out, taking him by the shoulders and steadying him. Isamu flinched, but he didn’t try to fight or flee. He literally just froze. Minoru hadn’t seen that look in Isamu’s eyes since they were in Hunger City last December.

“Bro… you… you ARE scared. You’re terrified…” he glanced back at Ziggy, just as sympathetically, and then turned his full attention to Isamu. His voice was softer now. “Why? What’s wrong?”

“I… I don’t know…” His words slurred into a contraction. Which only happened when he was drunk or completely overwhelmed. Isamu clutched the notebook tightly, almost protectively, in his arms.

“Okay, yeah, I get it. That’s the most terrifying thing in the world. But what don’t you know?” Isamu averted his eyes, staring down at said notebook. “…what do you want to know?”

Isamu was silent, but his eyes started to water. His body was shaking.

“Isamu…” Minoru whispered. “Isamu, breathe with me… in… out… Please, I can’t read your mind…”

Minoru wasn’t even sure if Ziggy could, at the moment. Misunderstandings were happening in both directions, again. And Isamu was basically on the verge of melting down completely. Hell, Minoru had no idea what he could say or even do.

But then Isamu whispered, “I… I want to know… why my mind is broken…”

Normalizing the paranormal, his fascination with Anthean empathy, his desire to learn about Ziggy’s physiology and how the Anthean mind works, why Ziggy’s threats to prevent humans from studying anything about them meant so much, why Ziggy’s criticisms dug as deeply as Isamu’s curiosity ran, why he made Zayda fall asleep, why he couldn’t understand Ziggy’s perspective, answers that just might be in that book that was now getting tear stains on the cover…

Ziggy rarely understood Thomas' exasperation with humans but as he watched this tide turning he felt it. Burying his hands in his face and breathing deeply, he listened, felt but would never do something so invasive as read their minds. Not without permission and certainly not now when understanding and language were so important.

Though, when Isamu said he was broken Ziggy moved, walking over to the twins and looking between them, the book and then to the one clutching it. A deep breath and he attempts to put his arms around Isamu in a warm hug. Maybe he couldn't feel or know the emotions but perhaps the action would make more sense.

"Shhh..." Ziggy voice is gentle and if Isamu didn't pull away from his hug the touch, even more so. "There is something that maybe you don't know, or haven't put together yet because Thomas and I don't mention it often. Antheans, we killed two humanoid species. We tested on them and treated a whole species the way humans have treated us. We know what the slope looks like, not because of you, but because of ourselves."

He hopes this helps, because he is at a loss really. "We came here, Thomas and especially myself, to save humanity. Not because you are broken now but because we can see that you are on the verge of going down our road into destruction or you can still make the choice we didn't. We are here trying to keep you, your species, this planet from breaking.. even when the odds are stacked against us, even in the face of violence."

He paused glancing at Minoru and then at his twin. "There's more at stake than you and me, Isamu, even if you are from an Earth different than mine, even if there are no Antheans in your universe. It took me a long time to accept my role in... well knowing that I am unlikely to survive saving Earth, but choosing to be here anyway, to try even if it costs my life. My life, my wants, my goals are worth protecting another species from living with the horrors that haunt my species."

Isamu didn’t pull away. He flinched, but he didn’t move. He slowly, between breaths, repeated what he’d heard to clarify it. “You… your people once did to us, well… species similar to us… what… what we did to Thomas?”

He wasn’t as afraid of that revelation as perhaps he should have been. Part of him was, but another part of him was just as Ziggy initially feared (something that he honestly just couldn’t help). A part of him was calm and intensely curious. Because if humans experimented on Thomas because he was an outsider, then it would stand to reason that humanoids whose minds worked differently than the others would be the perfect experiments. Would they know why his mind was broken? Did those notes exist? Could he see them? Would he even be able to understand them if he was able to read them? Would Ziggy be willing to translate?

It was probably a good thing nobody was reading anybody’s mind.

“Ziggy…” Minoru, meanwhile, looked up. He felt things that Isamu didn’t, and maybe never would. One of those things, especially right now, was the weight of the burden Ziggy carried.

“You’ll survive…” he whispered. “I know you can see the future. But the future can change. Every single thing we do, it can change something… This conversation right here! Maybe it’s changing something right now! You just don’t know it yet!”

"No." Ziggy says simply. "We did it to a species like us. One with empathy, like us. Another species on our own planet." Which in many ways, in the mind of Antheans, made their actions worse. When an empathetic species preyed on another empathetic species no one could claim ignorance. "I guess there are parallels though, since I exist. Our species are very different but we were closer in the very distant past. However, we learned from our mistakes and what we did to others. We are not sure humans will given your history but someone has to remain optimistic."

That was one of the triggers of that fear. He saw someone close to him step into that place Antheans feared, why the elders wanted nothing to do with Earth. It was the idea humans would not change and would even act against those closest to them. Ziggy tried to avoid those stereotypes even when it felt hard to do. It let him forgive where other Antheans wouldn't.

Minoru though Ziggy shook his head. "I do know. It's the cost of seeing the past and future. I know exactly what will happen if I fail and if I succeed." Ziggy turned his attention back to Isamu though because this struggle was important and no sense in starting a second. "One of the major paths to what we did was value can we over should we; of science over consideration; personal desires over universal benefit. Thomas may be a better person to talk to than I am. He was victimized by humans but he was also victimized by other Antheans in terrifyingly similar ways. He has seen both of our species fall into the darkness."

Ziggy touched the book Isamu still had in his hands. "I forgive you for not understanding but I still need you to understand." That was the honest part, an apology of sorts. Ziggy could forgive, in this case for more reasons than one. His eyes turned down to the pages of the notebook and he shook his head. "How do you feel about this notebook?"

Indeed, Ziggy and Minoru had been through that line of thought before, and likely would again. But this was not the time, nor the place. Minoru was here, at this precise moment, for Isamu, not for Ziggy or for himself.

He went quiet, and let Ziggy speak as they all pulled out of the long hug.

Isamu was quiet too, save for choppy breaths and ongoing sniffling. It took a couple of long minutes before he managed to think through a response.

“Do you need me to… to understand? Or to agree with you?” He asked softly, flinching as though this too would be the wrong answer. “It is… not possible for me to understand. Not… not well enough to satisfy your need. You said that yourself. And you are right. Before coming to the Nexus, I… I was a genius. I had everything figured out. I had my pick of the most prestigious Ph.D. programs in the country, and then this… here is this opportunity to propel my research ten thousand times farther than I ever thought possible… There are worlds, infinite numbers of worlds beyond mine… so… so much that I… I do not know… about any of it. To someone in my world, my mind is brilliant. To an Anthean, my mind is broken. You… you need me to understand the trajectory of an entire civilization from the perspective of a seemingly immortal species. Ziggy… I… I’m sorry… I… I do not know if even understand myself anymore.”

Not even Minoru knew what to say to that.

He hugged the notebook to his chest as though the answers could be found through osmosis. They couldn’t, of course. Antheans had some degree of psychometry. Humans did not.

“Scientific inquiry, research, analysis… it’s all I have.” Tears fell down his cheeks. “I don’t know how I am supposed to feel about it. Or if I feel anything in particular at all. But if I… I tell you I want to read it… you will take it away. You will berate me for my brokenness, and I will be no closer to figuring out why than I was yesterday. Except now, at least you know that the published paper has no mention of you or any of your data. I… I am sorry that is not enough.”

Ziggy was patient, infinitely patient, as were most Antheans. Thomas had wondered during his interactions with humans if it was a weakness of his people. Ziggy had gone back and forth between the ideas himself.

"I believe you are a good enough person that if you truly understood enough of my perspective we would agree more than we are right now, more than we had before." It was an honest answer. He didn't need full agreement but he did believe that Isamu was a good person.

"You believe it is impossible to understand but I think you can. We are coming into conflict, maybe, because I have more faith in your abilities in this moment than you do?" It's a gentle question, and sort of a statement. Ziggy isn't really sure which it is. "I have not said you are broken. Those are your beliefs even when I have spoken about you contrary to the point you still seem to believe. Why do you insist I think you are broken?"

That question came of curiosity, worry, confusion. While the worry might be hidden to Isamu the confusion is clear on his expression. He let out a long breath and considered.

"Whether or not you want to read it is not the point." Ziggy finally offers. "Whether or not you care about where it came from is?" He's speaking slowly, thinking his way through the emotions he has. "More importantly, perhaps, you need to consider why you continue to assume I think you are broken and remain upset with you even after I have said you are not broken and that I have forgiven you for our misunderstandings."

Ziggy looked at the other paper where it was sitting on the counter and smiled faintly. "I think it is a good gesture that you have removed the data, meaningful to me, but I would like you to understand why it is important and meaningful to me. You may stand here and believe I see a horrible person but you are the twin of someone I love. In my culture you are my family, as much my brother as my own twin. It takes humans a long time to adjust to our culture, I know this. You say you want to know us, Antheans, and I would teach you. However, right now, it resonates like you want to know WHAT we are and not WHO we are. That does make my species uncomfortable, makes some humans uncomfortable too... for someone to see a WHAT instead of a WHO."

“I… I put your baby sister to sleep. I cannot hear your telepathy, or telepathic messages from a number of different species, actually. I cannot feel your empathy.” Isamu whispered sheepishly, despite the fact that this was common knowledge by now. “You confess that you are risking your life to prevent this Earth from following the same trajectory Anthea did. Your means to this end relies on the effect of your empathic abilities. I once thought Minoru was the outlier, but I have observed enough concerts to know this is how humans are meant to react. But I do not. It is only logical to conclude that, well… my mind… is broken.”

He bowed at the waist, low, and more formally. And stayed there.

Minoru’s jaw dropped. That was serious. That was offending Grandma Mikoto levels of serious.

“If it were not broken, there would be nothing to forgive. If… if it were not broken, I would not be so easily able to separate the data from its source and possible motivations behind it. If it were not broken… I would not be so desperately reliant on analyzing what people are to compensate for my massive shortcomings in relating to who people are. If… if it were not… not broken, I would not inherently be such a threat to your mission… or bring such dishonor to your family…”

Minoru looked up at Ziggy with a panicked expression.

Isamu was trying his best to understand. That much was evident in how much he’d actually changed since arriving here. A year ago, Isamu wouldn’t have even thought to strip Ziggy’s data from the paper. A year from now, Isamu might have had the foresight not to have collected it at all. But while he wasn’t making the same connections as Ziggy wanted him to, and definitely not in the same order, he was still trying. So much so that he was tearing himself apart for his failures.

"You know Mick puts her to sleep too by being too much of a dad." Ziggy tried to smile but just shook his head and motioned at the rest of the building with his hand, venting the frustrated feeling with the gesture. "No! It relies on me and every other person risking with me to save this planet. They're all your species. They aren't empaths, they aren't Antheans. They just know the cost of this world for themselves, for the people they love. Some of them may even be more broken than you imagine yourself to be."

Ziggy huffed out a breath at this display and Minoru would certainly feel the frustration building in the Anthean. "Did you just suggest Minoru is broken too because I've forgiven him for more than I've ever had to do with you. Minoru and I have had arguments that make our little disagreement look like a happy tea party."

Ziggy stopped and all of his presence went silent. "Isamu, I don't know what is going on in your head but... until you stop convincing yourself about me thinking you are broken we will get nowhere. I've tried to tell you I don't think you're broken but you've ignored me thus far. I never said you were a threat to my mission either. I don't understand why you keep saying things to me that I've not said to you."

Ziggy sighed and shook his head. Glancing around the room before meeting Minoru's panicked gaze with one of his own; at a loss for what to do for the moment. Slowly, Ziggy brought his attention back to Isamu.

"Humans fear the unknown. Humanity is taught to think of the dark, the silence, or an unanswered question as a terror as real as a demon under the bed. Fear demands you pluck at it until you know so it isn't scary any longer." He pulled completely away from anything that related to specific people to try and dispel the tension that seemed to be growing.

He's giving time for that to sink in while looking for the right words. "It is uncomfortable, I imagine, not knowing every molecule in us. Humans fear not knowing as a species. We fear what you might do to us in order to no longer feel afraid, to not so gently yank us from the unknown box to the comfortably understood and digested box, metaphorically."

Oh, Minoru could feel it and he cringed. This was not how he thought this would end up going when he nudged Isamu into facing Ziggy. Actually, this point, right here, was the exact opposite of how he thought it would go. He was starting to wonder if he should have just volunteered to deliver the papers himself when Isamu finally looked up from the most formal apologetic bow Minoru had ever seen him give.

"You clearly had no trouble differentiating between what and who when it applied to how you felt I saw you. Can you... can you apply it to me?" he asked, honestly. "But the other way around. The what... not the who."

Minoru cocked his head to the side.

"I... I do not know if this notebook contains answers as to why your empathic abilities work the way they do, what effect they have on particular neurotransmitters or the mediation of particular electrical impulses in specific regions of the brain. But if... if it did, I... I might be able to understand the source of the neurodivergence." he hugged the notebook and held it out again, looking at the cover. "But if I follow your fears to their logical conclusion, wh..what might bring me comfort and relief could potentially create the means by which an entire species could be dulled to your influence at the biochemical level, rendering your message mute to a world that needs to hear it the most. I am, therefore, a threat."

He bowed again, but this time, holding the book out toward Ziggy. His hands were shaking.

"I... I can give you back your answers, but... but I... I cannot stop myself from wanting to know them. I... I know that's probably not the right response. I don't know what is... But that... that is the truth..."

Minoru put his hands on Isamu's shoulders, and looked back up to the frustrated Anthean. Neither of them really knew what to do, but Minoru silently mouthed, 'Tell him it'll be okay.'

Ziggy sighed heavily and moved toward Isamu, glancing between the notebook and the person holding.

"The notebook doesn't have the answers you seek." He slid his hand over the notebook but didn't take it yet. "What and who are very important, Isamu, and the threat you mentioned isn't even one I had considered but you're right that it could."

He shakes his head and finally takes the notebook back. "I forgive you for all of this. I don't see someone broken or faulty, never have, even when I learned you couldn't feel me. I accepted that was who the twin of my partner was and I accept you even when we argue or disagree. In my culture, apologies and making right..." he paused to point at Isamu's paper. "... are more important and enduring than any argument."

He stepped in to offer another hug to Isamu, if he wanted it. "The other side of that is that you might have some answers if you asked the people instead of trying to devise experiments to figure it out alone." Ziggy tried to smile and wished Isamu could feel the forgiveness but knew he couldn't. "You're not alone here but, perhaps I should teach you some of our culture before you talk to the older Antheans?"

It's gentle, forgiveness, an offer to help, everything Ziggy can think of to tell Isamu it is ok. That this is ok. That they are ok as friends.

Minoru rubbed his brother’s back. “He’s right. Anthean culture is all about forgiveness.”

He spoke, as Ziggy alluded earlier, from experience. They’d certainly had some disagreements of their own, but they worked them out. They compromised where they could, and in time, accepted what could not be changed. It had made their relationship stronger.

Isamu might never believe that the notebook wasn’t a test, but his mind no longer disputed the sincerity of the person that owned it. A part of him was still petrified, but his tension relaxed when Ziggy wrapped him in a gentle hug. He let out a breath he wasn’t aware that he was holding.

It wasn’t Anthean empathy, but something got through.

“I… would like that.” He nodded hesitantly, bowing a little less this time.

The thought of asking older Antheans, of course, hadn’t crossed his mind. But he had a two entire notebooks dedicated to experiment design on the subject of Anthean empathy alone - a topic that was best left unsaid.

“Come on, Bro. Ziggy needs to finish getting ready for the show. I’m sure the crew could always use an extra set of hands. Do you want to stay and watch the concert?”

“No, not particularly. No… no offense…” he looked up at Ziggy. This had been a very intense afternoon, and he really didn’t feel like facing any of his other newfound friends in this uncomfortably vulnerable state.

“Okay. I think we’re in London. We could always go to a pub.”

“Can we just go home?” Isamu asked softly.

Minoru smiled equally softly. “Of course, Bro. Of course. Just a sec.”

He moved to hug his koibito, thank him for everything and put some positive energy back into the mix. Ziggy may have the gift (and the curse) of prophecy, but Minoru was equally determined to make that mysterious future better. He didn’t bring it up again directly. This still wasn’t the time or the place, and Ziggy had a job to do out there. Instead, he filled his thoughts with the most love and happiness he thought he could manage and embraced Ziggy until he’d shared it all.

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