Quoted By:
>No u
You remain silent for a good while, pushing your swollen tongue around your mouth. The obvious retort here is too obvious, it feels. Or maybe just obvious enough. Throughout your various (unwilling) encounters, Dib has displayed a tendency toward the myopic. "Including the torture chambers?"
"<span class="mu-i">Excuse</span> me?"
"The torture chambers are for the good of humanity?"
"The Wind Court," Dib says (a little huffily), "does not possess 'torture chambers.' As a crucial aspect of our mission, we have spent a hundred years building, with our own hands, state-of-the-art <span class="mu-i">containment rooms</span> for violent criminals and offenders of the natural order. If you mean to ask whether the containment rooms are for the good of humanity, the answer is patently 'yes'."
The steam curls around you. If you so chose, you could proceed to have a conversation with Dib about the specifications of 'torture' vs. 'containment,' which one was appropriate to subject on a nonviolent offender, how stringing up a man spreadeagle in a pair of briefs was likely not appropriate, and so on. It could even be productive, in the sense that anything distracting Dib from turning up the heat would be productive. But he says 'containment rooms' like he's saying what he had for lunch: without doubt, guilt, or indeed thought. And certainly without irony. A wall would be a better conversationalist.
And yet you try. "That's well and good, but given the circumstances I find myself in— not to mention the way the Court treats a great <span class="mu-i">deal</span> of humanity—"
"The Wind Court accepts with open arms any individual who's willing to renounce or be treated for their abnormalities, Mr. Graves. We reject those who, like yourself, revel in the unnatural."
Maybe you should speak at the wall and see how long it takes for Dib to notice. "We all know containment rooms are often found in nature."
"You are well aware that containment rooms abide by the <span class="mu-i">laws</span> of nature, so I won't dignify that with a response. Mr. Graves." Dib slides two things from his belt: a leather pouch, and an espantoon. "We've wasted enough time on idle chitchat. Would you like to do this the easy way or the difficult way?"
You aren't usually so voluble. You weren't with the earlier visitors. It's probably the pain. "I don't know. Which is for the good of humanity?"
Dib twirls the espantoon by its strap. "I'm hearing 'difficult way.'"
"I imagine the Court wants the Second Crown for the good of humanity?"
"Of course. Now—"
No doubt, guilt, or irony. No thought. Dib Blaine, ever the loyal soldier. "That's why I was arrested? Because the plans for the Crown were too upstanding to be released to the public."
"I will assume you're not feigning idiocy this once, Mr. Graves, and I will point out to you that you presume <span class="mu-i">your</span> flagrant offenses to be morally just. And yet you skulk around society like a mangy dog. What are we to make of that?"
You maintain a silence.
(1/2)
