Freeport 10's Research Deck: Commonwealth Research and Development Wing.

[The_Normal_Anomaly]

"Yes, yes . . . make sure that nobody can have thing things you can't have. Why should they get it? Because they worked for it? Because they built it? Because they have a right to it? What about your rights? You have the potential to make such better use of it all . . . isn't that worth something? Worth more?"

He lifts his datapad in the air, going over information regarding a potential radiation fallout scenario on a space station. Its not fatal fast enough at present projections however to really be a threat. Its just a way to make sure that anyone who would care to return would face some very significant issues, the first among which would be an almost impossible to deal with level of radiation. However, the particular schematics he found are quite dated, ancient even in the new, bizarre sense the word has taken in Sirius.

"This thing might kill me . . . must take risks. You always play it safe, sissy. You are getting old. You might as well die if you can't make just this one station recognize the truth. Power takes the risk that the weak wont. They. Are. Weak." he internally assures himself, feeling a vigor in the idea that he might finally see the rapid ascent to success that he has so long been denied.

He lets out a long, almost suffering kind of sigh. Idly he starts to count the wires and pieces of debris across his workspace. He smiles gently, remembering his time at the university. His classmates, the way he could almost always show up anyone of his nearest competitors. He is taken by nostalgia for such a better time in his life, before he had gotten the chance to try, to fail.

"I'll have to be willing to kill people . . . which is bad. Is it really worth it? To go through with it, I'll hurt so many people . . ." he thinks, mouthing syllables from the last sentence, running a sort of moral calculus in his head, trying to find an answer.

"They would hurt you. They hurt themselves. You could solve all of it for them. You need to take your place. If they don't die . . . I die . . ." his calculations are cut short by this thought. It is almost as though he will obtain success or death, and neither are unacceptable conclusions.

The mental calculus continues "He will recognize you are his superior. They all will, and so will he. And I do want recognition . . . more than anything You have nothing, you could gain everything."

He looks up at the door, almost as though he was afraid someone might be reading his thoughts from right outside the door. He looks around, to double check that he was alone. The answer he found simultaneously caused him the joy of security and a certain kind of sadness.

He was alone.