Voice; UN: Oracle

[codeoracle]

[Oracle is on your airwaves, using a voice distortion to make a call on all imPorts.]

Seeing the posts here, we have all received some form of message. A cipher. I want to decode it. We need to.

What message have you received?

[OOC EDIT: Per the recent OOC Mod Post, and a response to my question to them on plurk, the thread that previously held the solution and discussion about it has been deleted. I apologize to those that had commented in these threads, but this post's aim is to begin the IC discussion process. I look forward to future posts that will reflect the solution in game!]

Comments

[hatestrashcans]

He was our leader, yes.

He's also my best friend. And he's done enough and has earned the right to be left alone.

[privatepurchases]

Is it because you care about him?

[He really wants to know because honestly God would fall into that category. She deserves her peace, she made him and everyone else but he is so angry that she left-

Staring at his phone he frowns.]

He saved your life? Helped you make plans? You love him?

[hatestrashcans]

Yes.

We saved each other's lives. Yes.


[ He pauses before answering the last question, but...]

Yes. All I want is for him to be alright.

[privatepurchases]

...If he's your commander he led you into all the terrible things you did. Why would you still care.

He knew things you didn't. You've made calls boy and I respect you for it, I just don't-

Understand.

[His head hurts]

You chose to do all the things you described to me when you first met? For him and the greater good?

[hatestrashcans]


He led us because we needed somebody to lead. We put that on him. Every single decision he's made weighs on him every minute of every day and it's eating him from the inside out.

Jake didn't know any more. Or at least not much. He just ended up making the call. Because somebody had to.

I did. Honestly, most of the things I did, I did for Jake more than the greater good, but don't get me wrong I'm a huge fan of not being enslaved.

I've known Jake since we were both babies. He's stuck with me my whole life. Like hell am I abandoning him after everything he's been through.

[privatepurchases]

I don't understand.

[He pauses]

No. I I think I might. Maybe. I'm not sure. I have only a very small frame of reference for this. Please bear with me. I need to understand this. Please.

You were friends. You have known each other for years, and in a moment where he needed you you were there...and he was there for you. Right?

Have you ever thought he made a mistake?

[hatestrashcans]

[ Okay, Marco's starting to think he broke the angel. Which is amusing and concerning all at the same time. ]

Yes. We've always been there for each other. Even when things were terrible. Which was quite a lot of the time.

Of course Jake's made mistakes. Hell, half of my job was pointing out mistakes before they got worse.

[ What a weird question, Gaby.]

[privatepurchases]

...so.

You used your own judgement. To help make his judgement better. Because you had more experience?

[Broken? No. It just hit a cord. A big one. He has free will. He thought his actions were hers and therefore righteous but the truth was - he made those decisions himself. So. Did he help her? Hinder her will?

His love for her is eternal but she...lied to him. Free will was supposed to be bad. But he had it.He had been an idiot. Okay sure, but how was he supposed to go back and still want to obey after that? Even if he wanted to?]

[hatestrashcans]


Yeah. In some things, anyway. I was better at planning and figuring out angles on things. Strategizing. But I'm too cautious. I'm not good at doing things when they need to be done. I never have enough information. So he had to be the one who got me out of that.

We worked together even though he was the leader. He's the only other person I trust.

[ Well, his mother, but she's not really relevant here. ]

[privatepurchases]

That's the kind of relationship I have with my team, but not with a commander. You make it sound like you care about him.

I need to know if human beings care about people in power. Even if they betray you. Or just keep things from you.

If Jake did not give you a piece of essential information that would have made things easier to judge how to handle a situation you wouldn't just - leave him?

[hatestrashcans]

I do.

It's a bit more complicated with us since we were friends before Jake was our leader, but yes, we care. That isn't a given for all human beings, however. It's dependent on the human and their relationship.

[ Then it's his turn to sit and stare at the phone. Seriously? Gabriel has to ask that? Now Marco knows how people feel about his questions, sometimes. ]

Never.

I might yell at him later, in private, as his best friend, but of course I wouldn't leave. I'd want to know why he did it, mostly. It'd probably be out of some stupid desire to protect me.

[privatepurchases]

[It might have been out of some stupid desire to protect me. He wants to cry. Of course. Of course. She wouldn't have said anything because she'd want to wait until she was ready to tell him. Because he had to prove himself. Or perhaps This was her telling him that he had to learn this new thing.

She was loving, but to love was to be merciless upon occasion. To teach a wayward child. As to yelling in private...well. He could cross that bridge when he came to it - but even then. How could he claim to know what her plan was? He is a child to her will. She tests what she loves the most.

She just - she just -]

That I can understand. Or at least I think I do.

I probably don't. I have only the barest reference for human things but I do know what it is to care about someone who often does things out of a "stupid desire to protect people."

[There is a very small light of hope in his chest. It glows. So it wasn't out of malice. Human beings did everything first, even though he was the oldest.]

I would assume that out of such a flood of information you might have questions about why I am asking about it. However I know that you dislike me, so I will instead offer to tell it to you and if you do not wish to hear it then I shall keep it to myself.

Still.

...You have given me a powerful favor.

Wait. no. That's not right. Gift right? I owe you a favor.

[hatestrashcans]

[ Yeah, Marco has no idea what's going on. He's so glad this is a text-only conversation, seriously. ]

It's fairly common with humans. The 'doing stupid things out of a desire to protect each other' part.

I don't dislike you, dude. I think you're a little unhinged, but if that's all it took for me to not like someone I couldn't be friends with any of the other Animorphs. Hell, I'm a little unhinged. I think you're a little weird, but you're not human. We all have to seem plenty weird to you.

I am sort of curious, though, yeah.

[ Since he obviously wants to talk. Marco does the same thing. Admit HE wants something? Never. Twist it into something he could do for someone else? Sure. And he is curious, it's not a lie.]

[privatepurchases]

[he stares at the phone for a good five seconds before.]

I am an angel. One of the big ones. The kind that ends up in churches and gets painted by Renaissance masters. The kind that gets named in the bible. I'm in Christmas plays and kids play me and I

I am not a nice being. I've killed people. A lot of humans. I threw my own family out of heaven at the word of our ...at the word of God. She is merciful and loving. I do not like a lot about humanity. Once I would have told you I did not like anything about humanity. I was required to however.

For a long time she has not been the most...forthcoming with what we're supposed to be doing. I don't think human beings understand that I - well. I thought I didn't get a choice. And it was arrogant but I thought that I was - an extension of her. That what I had done was her will and not mine.

I arrive here and I find myself significantly depowered and lost and one of the people from my world says "I have free will". angels don't. Your ancestors, -

The humans in my world. Their ancestors. Adam and Eve were cast out of the garden for free will. Except now I believe that the beings from my world are correct. I have free will as well.

I have been angry with her over this. She is our mother, all of our mothers so the only way I can describe it is to say that I have been very angry with my mother because if she had taught us that we had free will I would have at least considered my actions. Angels are not nice beings. We're not the cute creatures that humans painted on walls but to speak against her is to be thrown out of heaven.

Except she says I have free will and if this is how humans use it - you have provided a means for me to ...not understand her, but to...heal how I feel about it. At least a piece of it. and for that i am grateful.

I owe you a gift for this.

[hatestrashcans]

I'm not nice either. You can be a good person without being nice. I know you probably know that, but I wanted to say it anyway. And you don't have to like humanity, either. There are lots of parts about us that suck: We're violent and short-sighted, for one. Also we invented pizza and then ruined it by putting pineapple on it.

[ Look, humor is Marco's coping mechanism, so he interjects it at random moments. Also it gives him some more time to consider what he's being told. ]

Your situation sucks, and I'm not even going to pretend to understand the magnitude of it. But I am glad I could help. And if she's your mother, and she's a good one, then she loves you no matter how angry you are and while she'd like it if you weren't, she wouldn't want you to pretend not to be. If that makes sense. It's like how being good doesn't require being nice. Loving someone doesn't mean never being angry at them. I guess.

[ Thank God (lol) Marco is one of the people here with a good relationship with his mother! ]

[privatepurchases]

[After everything. After everything. The apocanot. Crowley. Aziraphale. The two of them standing for that stupid little insignificant planet...

Had they been right? Was there something worth saving? It hand't been about saving, it was business, but the human project they were just - there to prep the groundwork for the final fight-

His chest hurts like something is trying to get out of it. This being is lying. This boy. he's just a human. sitting alone in his room with his jackalope by his side he thinks about Anathema and how she had lived under a clock her whole life and this boy who apparently ruined pizza (whatever that was.) telling him...

Being. Kind. first things first.]

I do not know what pizza is but rest assured you did not ruin it in any capacity unless you mean to humans personally. In my world she was very insistent that humans be allowed to consume what they want however they want. I can only assume it must be the same for yours and if it is not, then you should...do it anyway because that is very wrong. Food, plants, all of that were made to sustain human beings and we worked really hard on them and it would be rude if you did not use them.

Unless pineapple on pizza is somehow awful in which case just say Satan did it and if anybody asks-

Well. Fuck um. That's one of your better inventions. I like that word. I won't issue damnation orders but Fuck is a great word.

[The rest of it. all those things. His fingers tangle in the jackalope's fur.]

...Loving someone doesn't mean never being angry at them. I like that. It's easier then just blindly overlooking people's faults. Otherwise how would anybody survive?

thank you.

[hatestrashcans]

Pineapple on pizza is awful, but I'm always for blaming that on someone else, so Satan's fault it is. Also, if you can eat and taste, you should try pizza.

[ And Marco is being good. He's not asking about the things that kill you or that make you hallucinate, as much fun as it would be to say 'oooh so the drugs were on purpose?' ]

Fuck is an amazing word. You can use it in almost any context. Or you can make almost a whole sentence out of variations of the word 'fuck': Those fucking fuckers fucked it up, the fucking fucks! Etc.

You're welcome.

Good luck.