Rome, Italy [Thursday morning]
The service was held in a small chapel on the outskirts of the city. Nothing fancy, nothing even all that official considering that the Agency itself wasn't involved in his particular event.
( Hilshire looked even more reserved than usual... )
( Hilshire looked even more reserved than usual... )
"I had been planning to write something for Triela," he began. He sounded conversational, not overly solemn, but not cheerful either. "Maybe to read it at the funeral, or maybe to spread it around. But timing keeps me from being there with you now, and I realise that Triela never had any interest in having her story known that way. But I decided I'd rather talk to you about her anyway - whether it be to offer some chance at closure, or just to take a moment to think about it all."
He did lean a little backwards now, but his eyes hadn't left the camera. "Triela didn't feel any of you really knew her. She didn't mean that badly; after all, you knew her well enough to care. And she liked that, the affection and the acceptance that you shared. She liked having friends, though I suspect you all snuck up on her, one by one. But that is getting ahead of ourselves."
"Triela was a student at Fandom High. She came to us as a freshman and got her diploma after rounding up her senior year. For several years, she helped run Gun Club, sharing her expertise with anyone who asked for it. She took classes, some sensible, some not. At dances, she was usually standing in some corner, uncomfortable, but trying. She went out shopping, even if she didn't know how it really worked. She kept teddy bears in her room. She left notes in our yearbooks, joked with her friends, tried to play sports with them. Most of you thought of her as a steady presence for years: not flashy enough to jump out, but familiar, comfortably eccentric."
"Triela was also a highly-trained operative. Together with her handler, Hilshire, she shot and killed many enemies over the years. She took pride in that: in her ability to work with her weapon, in her ability to achieve her objective. If anyone would ask her what she was, she would say she was a killer, and that was fine with her. She was a good one, and that's what mattered. She was a little less pleased when that job started to come with a different wardrobe, when her work demanded she stopped being a girl and started being a woman. Not because the distinction mattered, but because it wasn't the mold she had grown to fit to. She did it anyway, and applied herself to it as well as any other part of her job. Her work was her pride. To some, that pride made her quite cold, arrogant, but for her it was the rock on which she stood, and she hated it when anyone might try and move her."
"Out of all the children like her," Ender continued, after giving that a moment, "She was the oldest. The most mature. All the other girls looked up to her, and she responded as she always did, by slipping into the role given to her. She took care of them. Watched out for their interests. Gave them a safe place to just be, when the stress of the job got too big. They loved her for it, and she loved them. In this little space of what they were that nobody else could quite wrap their heads around, she was the hearth. A place to warm yourself in a rough winter."
"Hilshire had greater trouble with her. He didn't quite understand her, and she didn't quite understand him, but they had to work together no matter what. So Triela worked harder, so she wouldn't need him as much, and so she could show how good she was, how independent, how capable. He never knew quite how to respond - was she a child to be proud of? An instrument he should not feel affection towards? A little sister to encourage in her efforts? His indecision made her work even harder, and it made him even more confused, and they never quite settled it between them. Triela balked at that tension, was never quite comfortable with it. She worked the hardest then, trying to snip that cord."
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"He took her to the Agency, where they remade her, washed the past from her mind and put her to use. It was at heart an emotional decision. A human one, taken for the same reason why so many of you have spent the past few months working so hard to help Triela. To give her a chance. To give her time. To give hope, that maybe her life could be drawn out just a little longer. To wring the last drop of survival out of it all."
"There was a price to pay, of course. There always is. Her right to choose was taken from her. A different death was decided for her. A different life, too. Because he was human, he did as humans did, and chose survival over all else, risking everything up to and including personal happiness. He sacrificed not only her agency, but also years of his own life, to give her a chance."
Ender smiled briefly. "Much like all of you have done for her," he said, "For reasons both selfish and unselfish. Fighting to prolong her life, so you could have her longer. Dealing with her when she was cold and aloof, for the chance to have affection returned. Showing anger on her behalf, for the sake of dignities we all want to see accorded to ourselves. For Triela, a murderer who ripped many people away from their families, a friend who was staid and proud and always had an open door. She fought for a long time, but it's over now. Her life, her sacrifice, her pride, all of it is done, and there is nothing left to do now. "
He stopped talking, as if his end of the conversation was simply done with, and it was someone else's time to speak. A second later, the tape turned off, with no ceremony whatsoever.
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