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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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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