Week 51: Ace gets a visit.

Ace wasn't even trying to hide anything now. He was wide eyed and openly scared of the raging Agent in front of him. In a corner of his mind a small voice was calmly protesting to the situation, but Ace wasn't listening. With a brief moment of concentration he expanded his senses, ready to pick up the slight clues that would signal Han turning his rage on Ace, ready to give him the moments warning he needed to react.

"Are you finished?"

Han inhaled sharply, fighting the urge to punch his best friend hard enough to knock him to the floor, the instinct trained into him over years of indoctrination and abuse to slam the offending party in front of him into the ground and make him eat his words through a straw.

He forced down the voices in his head which broke Ace down into a series of pressure points, hit zones and joints to be struck, focusing on the breathing exercises he had been learning since Xu's death. Slowly, his heartbeat gradually returned to normal.

"That depends on whether or not you understand why I'm so goddamn furious, Ace."

Calming Han was good. Han as an out of control close combat specialist was terrifiing, but this was better.

"I think I do Han."

He took a moment to collect his thoughts as the rational part of his brain took back over from the lizard brain.

"I killed a large group of criminals that you personally identify with because of your childhood. Thinking about it has caused you to remember a painful period in your life, which in turn has raised feelings of anger and helplessness partially from now but mostly remembered feelings. You feal that the criminals tha died may have had stories similar to your own. You are also angry at the Ai Jinn because they created a world where people like those criminals and yourself as a child would grow up, but also because they took you away from it. You are angry because the Ai Jinn saved you from a world they created themselves and now you are able to run a company of your own from your own office, rather than dying in the streets because you were lucky enough to get out."

Ace's still weary eyes focussed on Han.

"You are angry because you can be. Because no-one else is."

"I'm angry because the person I consider my best friend pretty much insinuated that people I knew, people I grew up with, the kind of person I could so easily have become, deserve to die because of our situation. I'm angry because you went and massacred 200 people. The UIG can call them depersonalised all they like, but they're still people, they're still human."

Han paused. "Answer me this. Did you tell Darya about this? Did you ask her about it beforehand? And if not, why not?"

Han gave Ace a knowing look.

which he didn't take well. Ace's gaze fell from Han's face to the desk, and his voice took on a more sombre tone as he replied "No," to the questions, "I haven’t spoken to her since..." he trailed off.

"That's what I thought." Han shook his head. "Do you think she'd have agreed with you? Or is that why you kept it from her? You thought maybe she'd dissuade you from your...what, your vanity project?"

Han looked at Ace, genuinely curious. "Why did you choose to something like this? Why now? I think I know, but I want to hear you say it."

"I didn't keep it from her. I just.. haven’t spoken to her. yet." It seemed as though Ace was growing increasingly uncomfortable with this discussion, although the fear at Han's outburst had faded.

He looked up at Han, not looking at the table, but not quite meeting his eyes. "Why? Pain, anguish. Sorrow. RAge and fury. I needed to get it out of my system. I've not done anything wrong, Han, even if you seam to think so. If anything I've made the world a slightly better place, for the moment anyway."

"Have you? Because that's not the result of situations I've seen." He shook his head. "You can't just wipe out crime by killing a bunch of gang members. You're not stopping the cause, just treating a symptom, cutting out tumours rather then removing the uranium lodged in their chest."

Han paused for a moment, considering the bizarre image of the metaphor.

"All you've managed to do is wipe out one gang who had a relatively stable grip on an avenue of crime. You know what happens now, in a region where the UIG aren't willing to intervene and take order, and the local authority are funding the criminals? You get turf wars, rival gangs going up against each other and killing anyone in between. You've not just killed 200 people directly Ace. You're also responsible for every innocent life that gets taken in the ensuing blood bath. Did you not think your actions might have had consequences?"

"If you can't stop the uranium then removing the tumors will let the patient live long enough to find a cure. Besides the terriatory in question is a road that is in need of repairs. Given I raised their clubhouse to the ground I don't think anyone will be musseling in any time soon." Aces expression hardened one again as he met Han's accusetory glare. "The consequences of my actions are that innocent people don't have to fear for their lives and livelyhoods when transversing that highway."

"You think these people live in a vacuum, devoid of any contact outside of the people they rob? They might have had a hide out there, but I guarantee you they moved through the towns and cities along that highway.

Lets ignore the fact that every gang that had a grudge against them, that was kept in check because they couldn't challenge the bigger players...all of a sudden, theres a whole highway that nobody is in charge of. That highway is going to become a battleground. More collateral damage, more, lower scale ambushes across the whole highway until eventually, one gang manages to win out.

It's not that you're not removing the uranium, it's that you're cutting the arteries by accident while you do it.

If you wanted to help people, you could have hired enough mercenaries to guard convoys, or funded a school to help kids out of gangs or a million things. But none of those things have the same immediate benefit, do they? They don't satisfy your bloodlust, don't let you stroke your ego by singlehandely slaying all the evil people alone."

"No. They don't." A hint of rang entered Ace's voice. A hint of the anger bubbling within.

"If these gangs are going to spring up and cause problems then they will have to die too. I won't let any of these criminal skum harm innocents if its in my power to stop them. These vultures can't be allowed to get away with it because they are 'just a symptom'. That's not right.

Ace shut his eyes as a strange contorted grin spread across his features. "I didn't think we would pull it off. Standing there with the lights oncoming. I thaught it woukd be to much. The sound of gunfire. The smell of the air ionised by plasma fire. The deal of impacting shots and screams of the dieing." His eyes opened, full of fire and.. tears? "It was Hell."

"And who made you judge of who should live and die? These law enforcement licenses? They're a fucking joke. The UIG hand them out freely to agents, who have committed and gotten away with more heinous acts and caused more deaths then any depersonalised person in one of these gangs. That includes me. It also includes you."

Han looked away from Ace, disgusted. "Do you know what it takes to get depersonalised in the Eastern Bank if you're a rank zero citizen with maybe 5 rank points? Get caught shoplifting twice, or get caught taking drugs you were hooked on by some scum of a street pusher. That's all it takes. you use depersonalised as if it meant they had committed some ultimate crime. Normally, it just means poor and unlucky."

Han looked Ace up and down as he recounted the story of the incident itself, and softened slightly. "Ace...you're way off mode. I...look, I get that I'm clearly not getting through to you. I was never good at the talking anyway. It's not what I do. But you need to talk to someone. You need to get your damn head on straight and work through what's going on. Until you do...I don't think I can follow you in the field Ace. You're not rational like this, and it's going to get someone killed. Maybe not you, but someone."

Ace shook his head. "No. Han. I've never used the word 'depersonalised' to mean that. And I, for one, am trying to live up to the Licence that I have been given. There is a world of difference between stealing and violent crime. I know." Anguished was the word that best described how he appeared at this moment, yet there was almost a disconnect between how he sounded and the words he was saying. "I'm okay for missions. Really I am. The focus is good for me." One more look away from his friend. "This is why I've been avoiding people. I.. I said I didn't want to talk. I think you should.. go."