momslilassassin | FPE Compound, Manila, Philipines, Saturday Afternoon [ 27/5/2179 in the Enderverse ] (Reply)

Dink	All the other members of the Jeesh were starting to scatter, some to get to transports, some for refreshments, or restaurants in Manila, or whatever else. Dink hadn't really touched base with most of them, besides Shen and Carn, though he was fairly sure he could expect some messages from everyone else sooner rather than later. He had nowhere to be. His country had scheduled in two weeks off for him, and he was nothing if not dedicated to filling that quota, if not a few more he could scam together by being difficult at the EU secretary. Ender or not, the whole thing still smelled fishy to him. A few hours after the meeting found him leaning up against a wall near the conference chamber, staring holes at the door as he tried to put all the pieces together to form a coherent whole. He had most of them down phat, but some things - like Ender's location, and how much leverage Graff and Rackham thought they really had - still bothered him. Well. Getting asked to leave the planet by two authority figures he'd never trusted also bothered him, but that went without saying.
Ben	"Ho, Dink," Ben said with a tiny smile as he came down the hallway. "Am I interrupting?"
Dink	"Nothing important," Dink said, glancing his way. "I think this door needs a varnish." He took a breath, then smiled back. "Ben, right?"
Ben	"Right," Ben said, nodding. "There wasn't a lot of time for exploring everyone's background in that meeting."
Dink	He shrugged. "You came here backing up Ender," Dink said, "that's good for a lot in my book." Though he wouldn't mind if Ben went into his background just a little; Dink had slight big brother tendencies. Well. For some people.
Ben	Ben's mouth quirked up in a wry smile. "Ender needs people backing him up. Even he can't watch all of the angles all the time."
Dink	Dink snorted softly at that. There was a flicker of something as his memory dragged him back to somewhere else, at another time. "He does," he said, "But I'm not sure he'll find anyone who can manage it succesfully. I tried, back in Battle School. It just got one kid killed." Bitterness suited him well.
Ben	"Bonzo?" Ben checked. "Ender told me a little about that." Which, Ben knew, would give any properly trained Battle Schooler a host of insight into his relationship with his roommate.
Dink	Surprise, yes. Dink blinked at him once, processing that. Then: "I was there," he said. "I knew Bonzo was planning something. When things started going wrong, I followed. But I couldn't stop it." He glanced back at the door. "Ender usually gets more of the angles than you do," he said, "And if you think he doesn't, if you think he's playing with an open deck, you've already lost. Bonzo had to find that out the hard way." He rubbed at his forehead. It was clear he wished Bonzo hadn't.
Ben	"How many other people knew that the thing with Bonzo was coming to a head?" Ben asked quietly.
Dink	"Most of the students close to Ender," Dink said. "Bean. Most importantly, though--" and with that, he threw a truly vile look down the corridor, where Graff had vanished about thirty minutes ago, "The teachers knew."
Ben	Ben's jaw dropped. "And they let it happen?"
Dink	"I've been hacking into some of the IF databases," Dink said, flatly. "Just for 'funsies'. They knew. Graff ordered everyone not to do anything. But they don't want that getting on the news."
Ben	Ben ran through his mental exercise to remind himself that rage was unhelpful twice before he could form words again. "Did he explain his order?" he asked tightly.
Dink	"Because he wanted to know what Ender'd do. He said Ender could never be allowed to believe anyone would help him when it counted," Dink said, shaking his head. "That he'd be 'ruined' if he did. It's always nice to have it affirmed that we weren't anything but tools to them. And now we're supposed to kiss their ass and make nice and call him 'Hyrum'." That had been a big strike against Bean at their meeting today, yeah. "I can get you the files, if you want the non-abridged version."
Ben	"Well, Ender certainly learned the hell out of both lessons," Ben said. "I'd love a non-abridged version. Ender keeps telling me not to try to fix him, but..." He shook his head. "I supposed kicking Hyrum's ass across the compound would be counterproductive."
Dink	"Just get me your email," Dink said, and added, "And hey, say the word and I'd back you up. Counterproductive or not." Not exactly any love lost between him and Graff, to put it mildly.
Ben	Ben smiled. "I knew I'd like you," he said. "But it's a bad idea. Ender fights his own battles. But if you want to kick Graff's ass for what he did to you, I'll back you up."
Dink	"Graff probably did less to me than he did to the others," Dink said, reflectively. "I knew what he was doing. What they were all doing. So if I didn't like the orders, I refused. They tried to make me a commander twice before I accepted, you know. Wasn't going to let the duplicitious fucks get me until I was ready." It was nice to talk about this with someone who knew, and yet wasn't one of the other Battle Schoolers. Or at least someone who could use the information.
Ben	Ben leaned his back against the wall and smiled again. "How old were you when they tried the first time? And how old was Ender?"
Dink	"Eleven, maybe twelve, I think?" Dink gave it a shrug. He'd always been the oldest of the Jeesh, anyway. "I just stayed in my cabin until they moved me back. Ender was nine for his, I know that much for sure."
Ben	"No wonder the authorities are scared to death of you," Ben said. "You make the rest of them look like brain-damaged slackers."
Dink	Dink gave that a quick bark of a laugh. "I'm being bounced around between governments for a buck and some change," he said, "And now Graff wants to kick me off the planet because he's afraid I'll try to blow up all the other children."
Ben	"Have met some of the little children, I'd understand the impulse," Ben said.
Dink	"Yeah, face time with Bean will do that to a person," Dink said, pulling a face.
Ben	Ben made a similar face. "We're not close," he said, showing a flair for understatement.
Dink	"Then you and I are a part of the same club," Dink replied. He didn't quite stoop as low as to say 'Bean stole my girlfriend', but... "I can't stand the little jackal."
Ben	"He works for Peter," Ben said. "On purpose." No, Ben didn't care at all about what Bean had said in the meeting about being blackmailed.
Dink	"I can't blame the others - we were never allowed to be children, so competition is all we know. But Bean? He's just cold."
Ben	"Well, he's not fully human," Ben said, rolling his eyes. "Just ask him. Or stand nearby him for an hour."
Dink	Dink snickered. "Upwind or downwind?"
Ben	"And here I thought you Battle Schoolers were bright," Ben scolded. "Upwind, of course."
Dink	"Oh, good," he said, laughing. "There are some sacrifices I don't want to make." He sobered. "Keep watching Ender's back, all right? I've seen him blood-spattered and crying one too many times in my life. He deserves some peace."
Ben	"Strange as it sounds, count it a gift that he's let you see him vulnerable like that at all," Ben replied quietly. "Normally he's like a--" he was about to use a reference that would only make sense to someone from a different galaxy, then changed his mind "--those weird armored animals that can roll into a ball. Armadillo? Is that right?"
Dink	"Armadillo," Dink confirmed, and he sounded a little amused by it. "I don't think he was strictly aware of anyone at the time, but thanks for the vote of confidence anyway." A pause, and then: "Where is he living at anyway? Surprisingly," wow, that was a lot of sarcasm, "Nobody tells us anything."
Ben	Ben grinned. "He's finishing high school. Go ahead and laugh."
Dink	For a moment, Dink looked like he'd been struck dumb. Then, yes, he started laughing. It might have been slightly hysterical.
Ben	Ben waited for a few minutes before asking, "You okay?"
Dink	"Yeah, I'm fine," he said, waving a hand at Ben as he calmed down. "That's just-- at the end of the war, the League War, I mean, when we were all stuck on Eros - we were standing at Ender's hospital bed, after he'd done his big collapsing act, and he'd just woken up. And Alai says, 'So what do we do now?', and Petra replies, 'Oh, they'll make us go to high school. It's the law to go to high school 'till you're seventeen'." He hiccuped another fragment of a laugh.
Ben	"Well, they followed through with at least one of you," Ben said. "It's not a typical high school, but I'm pretty sure you figured that out already."
Dink	"They tried to follow through with Petra, too," Dink shared, "But getting kidnapped kind of put a damper on it. Is it back on Earth?" If there was any justice in this world, it was.
Ben	"Sort of?" Ben replied. "It's an Earth. One Peter very definitely doesn't run."
Dink	"Peter doesn't run this one yet, either," he said, "But you might want to go back and run that one past me again."
Ben	"Are you familiar with the concept of the multiverse?" Ben asked.
Dink	"What, like science fiction stuff?" Dink replied ~~unaware of the irony~~, "Or as in the actual theories about space-time?"
Ben	"Real theories," Ben said, nodding. "I'm not sure how the IF found out about the school, but it sits in a spot where it intersects multiple universes." He smiled. "I'm not exactly from England."
Dink	Dink gave Ben another quizzical look that implied that he wasn't so sure about all that. "If you're screwing with me..."
Ben	Ben shook his head. "I'm not going to give you detailed instructions on how to get there--" because while he trusted his instincts and he had a good feeling about Dink, he wasn't going to put Ender's location out there for anyone with a bug in the hallway to discover, "--but it's very real. And Ender's safe there." Barring invasions, random portal events, and tight-pant kidnappings.
Dink	It was probably a good thing that Ben was leaving out the tight-pant kidnappings, yeah, or Dink would wind up finding someone and yelling at them a lot, and generally making a nuisance of himself to authority figures in the way that Dink had mastered the way Mozart mastered the piano. "Fine," Dink muttered, "But I'm only believing you on the grounds that there isn't a way in hell the IF would do something kind like actually, I don't know, letting Ender come home."
Ben	"So after unsuccessful attempts to be used as a pawn by who knows how many governments, family members and Graff, he could sit in a conference room and be told that for the good of the world he should be shot back into space?" Ben replied. "They didn't do you any favors bringing you back here."
Dink	"I got to come home to my family," Dink said, softly. "Everything else sucks, I'm not going to lie about it, but I'm not going to forget about that."
Ben	"Ender's family is...complicated," Ben said. "I saw him in the same room as his parents once. Neither side made a move to say even a word to the other."
Dink	"Then he would have had us," Dink argued, and then brought his fingers up to squeeze the bridge of his nose. "Sorry. But it's stupid. This whole mess is. And we never would've been in it in the first place if it wasn't for Graff and Rackham. Christ, what am I going to do on another planet? If they think they're giving me a governorship, they can blow it out their ass." That... had turned into a rant, there.
Ben	Ben snorted. "Please tell them that where I can hear it," he replied. "They did their job too well and now they're trying to make the mess go away. Classic bureaucratic ass-covering, regardless of how paternal Graff may feel about the Jeesh at any given moment. And conveniently forgetting that you're all people with feelings, attachments and motivations of your own."
Dink	"I already gave them the finger once," Dink said, thinking of their time in the conference room just now. "I can't see where doing it again would hurt anyone. Unless I do it somewhere uncomfortable." Merrily wishing violence on his former bosses? Oh, hell yes. "Also, forgetting would imply they ever knew in the first place."
Ben	"True," Ben admitted with a frown. "They got so used to thinking of you geniuses as pawns on a board that they forgot two majorly important things: one, that you are people and two, that you are way smarter than they are."
Dink	"You don't need to tell me that." No, seriously. "Christ, I used to read up on this stuff, you know? I'd spend hours in the Battle School library trying to figure out what normal kids were like. They didn't think of us like that, and we could feel it.""You don't need to tell me that." No, seriously. "Christ, I used to read up on this stuff, you know? I'd spend hours in the Battle School library trying to figure out what normal kids were like. They didn't think of us like that, and we could feel it."
Ben	"They only thought to the war," Ben agreed, "not past it when they would have hundreds of little geniuses to try to reintegrate."
Dink	Dink snorted. "Trying to figure out what to do with our lives now that we weren't soldiers anymore," he said. "Most of us kind of failed at that, me included."
Ben	"Well, when it's all you knew, it's unrealistic to expect you all to settle down and become librarians or hol--television stars or start families immediately," Ben replied.
Dink	"Graff's right about one thing, though," Dink said, philosophically, and leaned further into the wall. "Bean excluded, we're all still hungry. Well, and Ender excluded, I guess, but I won't for a moment believe he's had the hunger burned out of him for good. It's hard to stop. But it's not like there was ever a Battle School reintegration project. They didn't bother."
Ben	"But the rest of the Battle Schoolers went into the Fleet, right?" Ben replied. "Got shipped off to save humanity?"
Dink	Dink paused mid-contemplation to blink at him. "The last Fleet ships to any Formic planets left decades ago," he said. "Relativistic speeds, you know?"
Ben	Even after all of the years with Ender, Ben still thought like someone from his galaxy, where you could sprint from end to end in a couple of weeks, tops. "Then what happened to all of the other kids who didn't end up in the Jeesh?" Ben asked.
Dink	"The ones in Battle School with us at the time were released back onto Earth, and the same for anyone who was still studying in one of the post-grad schools," Dink said, shrugging. "Those who had already graduated those continued operating within the Earthside branch of the International Fleet, I figure."
Ben	Ben nodded, deciding not to mention the few Battle Schoolers he'd met on his last trip back. "Is Graff not as worried about them," Ben asked, "or is there another conference room with their name on it?"
Dink	"That's what he was trying to tell us back then," he said, glaring a new hole in the door in front of him. "As members of the Jeesh, we're the most valuable weapons around. So we're the dangerous ones."
Ben	Ben rolled his eyes. "Because you're all going to end up exactly like Alai and Han Tsu."
Dink	"Hot Soup wasn't planning to be where he was," Dink said, shrugging. "I can tell you that much. But that doesn't mean I don't think it's still a stupid fucking idea."
Ben	"Taking over the world or getting launched into space?" Ben checked.
Dink	"Both?" Dink offered.
Ben	Ben laughed. "What would you rather do?"
Dink	"Haven't had a clue so far," he admitted. "But anything is better than that. I'd like to be left alone, for starters."
Ben	"Then maybe another planet might not be such a bad idea," Ben mused. "Tell them to steer you away from swamps and deserts." This would make more sense to someone who knew about the Jedi hermit tradition.
Dink	Dink shot him a funny look, then snorted. "I can't," he said. "Because I won't let the bastards win. It's like it was back in Battle School - all our leaders are crooked and the game is rigged, but what a game it is..."