Day 58: Lieutenant General Charles Berg's Office (Fourth Shift)
As his eyes combed over the latest mission reports, Berg let out a small breath in frustration. While mission #57-1 had been a success, the data delivered during #57-2 had mysteriously disappeared. There was no reason that should have happened -- the base radioed a messaged confirming the case's safe retrieval, but now it seemed like no one could
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So was Berg saying that this meeting really was just random, then? Utena didn't know if she bought that, but it sounded like Berg wasn't going to be changing his answer on that, so she let it be. Instead, she let her attention get drawn to the rest of what Berg had said. "Well here I am," she said, sweeping one arm in front of her quickly. "You got what you wanted - no file, just me. Shoot, then. What do you want to know that it can't tell you?"
By her tone and expression, the invitation to ask her questions wasn't entirely an open one. Whatever he asked, she mainly just wanted him to stop dancing around whatever the point of all this was already. If Berg had truly wanted to "understand her situation", she thought, he and his Institute friends wouldn't have spirited her away from Ohtori in the first place. Her teeth grit together faintly as she waited for his answer.
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Sometimes a person could learn more by simply listening, rather than trying to pry and dig. Of course, that didn't mean Berg wanted to do away with questions altogether, but he didn't want them to become the focus of their conversation, either.
"There is one thing I'd like to ask, but you're free to not answer," he added. "Mainly, I'm curious to hear what you may know about the man named Marc."
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She had almost been ready to believe that Berg really didn't mean anything else by this meeting. From his tone and mannerisms, he did seem to mean what he said, at least as far as Utena could tell. But no. This was about maybe getting a lead on one of the military's number one enemies. And now she had to wonder: did they know? Was that why she had been sent up here - because they somehow knew that she'd seen him? It was possible. Berg wasn't telling either way, though.
And there wasn't much point in answering him regardless of his motives, either. She wasn't going to give the military any info, even if they tried to force it out of her. So, she pointedly ignored the subject of Marc for the time being. It was probably safer to say nothing than to accidentally say the wrong thing. "So if I get to direct this, does that mean you'll answer questions if I have them?" she asked, raising a pink eyebrow. "Like what would you say if I asked you where a girl named Himemiya Anthy was right now?"
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"I'd say that she was outside the institute, alive, safe and healthy," Berg replied. "Unfortunately, I'm not at liberty to give you her personal information beyond that, but I can promise you she's not locked up or being held prisoner anywhere now." Given Ms. Tenjou's records, it wasn't so surprising that she'd ask after that particular subject, and so Berg had been prepared for it.
"In other words," he added as he reached for his mug, "I'll answer whatever questions you have to the best of my ability, but specific details may be too confidential to discuss. Rather than lying about anything, though, I'll just tell you if there's something I can't talk about."
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Still, despite her efforts, she couldn't tell a thing about what Berg may or may not have been thinking. He didn't seem to be lying, anyway. He wasn't showing much emotion, but he was polite enough; if he hadn't been wearing that uniform, he might even have come off as pleasant in certain moments. She might have suspected an act, but Berg hadn't slipped out of his persona even for a second. Either he really was that good, or he really was telling the truth. And as much as Utena hated to admit it, it was easier to believe that Berg was telling the truth over believing that anyone was that good an actor.
That didn't mean she had to like the truth, either way. "Well how about telling me what 'alive, safe and healthy' outside the Institute means, huh?" Utena let her arms go back to her sides as she took a step forward, fists balling up faintly. "You mean she's one of those visitors, don't you? She's wherever Akio and Nanami and all the other people who have their minds scrambled are." Doyleton, I bet, her mind supplied. It was the only place they could be if they were outside the Institute somewhere and not locked up. "You call that healthy? It's sick and wrong! How can you do that to people? I've felt what it's like to be the way those visitors are before, and I felt like I'd just surfaced from drowning or something when I came to my senses!
"And Himemiya's already been pushed around in a life that isn't her own enough before this!" she went on, feeling more incensed with every word. "It's one thing to be stuck here, but at least here she could make her own choices, not 'Delilah''s or whoever's!"
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"She's healthy according to the definitions set by our society," he answered once he'd taken a small sip of his coffee. "Rather than being used as an object in some bizarre sword duel, she's living a normal, productive life in a peaceful place far from here. No monsters, no doctors, no experiments -- none of that."
It was never enough to have their friends away from the horrendous creatures, the syringes, the lab-coat-clad scientists -- happy lives didn't cut it so long as their previous identities were nothing but a faded memory. Berg supposed he could understand the sentiment, although these days he found those sorts of ideas impractical.
"In fact," he added as he rested his hands on top of his desk, "if she heard you speaking right now, I'd wager she'd disagree with what you were saying."
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Utena slammed her hands down on the desk. "Don't talk about her like you know what she'd want!" I don't even know what she'd want, and I'm her friend! a voice chimed inside Utena's mind, livid that Berg would even pretend to know. "It's not like I want her here or being the Rose Bride or something either, but that doesn't make stripping out everything else about her okay! How hard is that to see? Why can't she just be a normal girl called Himemiya Anthy for once in her life?!"
A sharp sense of deja vu pricked at the back of Utena's thoughts at that, but she ignored it in favour of righteous indignation.
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These sorts of youthful tirades were never pleasant -- not only because they rarely accomplished anything productive, but also because Berg knew he didn't have anything that would satisfy them. Naturally, that wasn't his problem, but he still didn't enjoy dealing with it. It reminded him too much of how he might have reacted many years ago if he'd known he'd eventually wind up helping command such a project.
But that was a long time ago, back when he was still naive: before the General had fully taken him under his wing, and before he'd personally come to realize what they needed to do.
"I can understand your feelings," Berg remarked after a moment, his expression carefully composed as he regarded the girl in front of him. "There's a lot about this world that isn't fair or right. Yet I'm still duty-bound to protect it, which is why I'm a soldier. What happens in this facility isn't meaningless or without a cause. Otherwise, we wouldn't spend so much energy and money maintaining it."
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Still, she could help but pause when the Lietenant General spoke of duty and protection. It didn't quell her rage entirely, but those were terms Utena understood a little bit better at least. She could understand what it meant to want to protect something or someone more than anything in the world. She still didn't understand how that could possibly justify what was going on, though. How could Berg possibly sleep at night with all this going on?
Her chest still quaked faintly as her fingers pressed down into the desk surface. "And what is so important that it means sacrificing that many people's senses of self? Or trapping people, telling them that they're crazy, forcing them to face these... these horrors night after night, and then not telling them what it's all for?"
Utena stared Berg right in the eyes. "What meaning or cause is there in that kind of duty?" she asked, daring him to give her an evasive answer with her fiery gaze.
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"Let me be clear about one thing: I didn't design this facility, this program, or anything that goes on here," he said after a moment. If he had, Berg suspected it would have been far different, but that wasn't a conversation for either here or now. "Of course, I'm not saying I play no part in this, either. Obviously, the fact someone else put this together doesn't diminish my involvement in it, or else we wouldn't be talking together today."
Bridging his fingers together, he sat up straighter in his seat. "But my duty as a soldier requires that I do whatever is asked of me in order to protect our people," he continued. "Tell me, Miss Tenjou: if you were given two choices -- oversee a program like this one, or leave your world and everyone in it to suffer a horrible fate -- would you be so quick to abandon those you were charged to defend?"
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That Berg admitted as much didn't do much for his position. What did, however, was the question that came next. Utena did waver some as the sadistic choice was presented to her. A horrible fate...? she thought, blue eyes blinking in uncertainty. Was she hearing that right?
Her first instinct was to ask what the hell Berg was talking about. What kind of "horrible fate" did he mean? Another emotion, however, surged over that one like a wave of lava bursting up from the depths, the girl prince's barely-contained indignation rearing its head once more. "I would find some other way," said Utena through grit teeth. She took in a deep, quaking breath, raising her voice as she went on: "There's no way there are only two options in that situation! A true and noble person never gives up on anyone, no matter what! Not on the people in their world, and not on the people stuck in limbo either!"
She didn't care how naive that might have sounded. She wasn't even thinking about that. All she was thinking was that however hard the military was trying - whatever they thought could save more people from suffering - they sure as hell weren't trying hard enough yet.
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