- IC CONTACT POST FOR MASKORMENACE -

[slightlyoffchilt]

"Hello.

You've reached the direct line of Doctor Frederick Chilton. As I am not available at the moment, you might assume I'm quite busy with something pressing. State your name and business, and I will return your call."

Comments

[askedtobe]

My well being? It's not like harboring a criminal would change anything i'm not already doing. I don't have 'nightly company.' I work. The only thing he'll interfere with is that triple shift they keep telling me I shouldn't pick up. [ No one can tell Peter that working 36 hours straight is bad for your health!!! ]

After that, it doesn't matter.

[slightlyoffchilt]

You're more than dedicated. Noted. But humor me for a moment: what happens when all that stress and work and sentinel duty grinds away at you? Surely it's a risk. Depression. Anxiety. Surely it's fair to take your health into consideration, given how on point you must be when undertaking this responsibility.

I think it must matter a little, in that regard. At least.

[askedtobe]

When did fair come into this conversation?

[slightlyoffchilt]

Fair is that abstract concept that our sense of morality, and thus our sense of self to some degree, must adapt around. I won't dispute that there's little unadulterated fairness to be found in the natural world.

But good diverting question, Peter.

[askedtobe]

Legitimate question.

Worth it to see what other people's idea of fair is when they want to know what you're putting first in the grand scheme of things. Because isn't it all about perspective? You're gonna think i'm self deprecating. Someone else might call it sanctimonious. I just think there's other things to worry about.

[slightlyoffchilt]

I won't argue the point.

I wouldn't call you sanctimonious, for sure, and if accusations of self-deprecating come into play, they would be forged only out of concern. In all realistic applications of this challenge, of subduing Sylar, I question the relevance of "fair" beyond the shallow use I've indicated. Ultimately, the end must justify the means.

And a world made safer from Sylar surely is.

[askedtobe]

Except now I kind of want to know why you haven't told me I should join up with Superman. Or anyone else around here. Out of "concern."

[slightlyoffchilt]

You know as well as I do that they wouldn't agree with our point of view. They'd be impediments.

[askedtobe]

The point of view where I remove half of Sylar's brain. Right. Because there's always some way that's more humane. It's not like murder feels any better, and he'll still exist, right?

Some guys just don't deserve to live in a cage. Can't be stopped. Need to be put down. [ Peter stop before it gets any more obvious that you've murdered people. ]

[slightlyoffchilt]

My career in Baltimore was made on the criminally insane. I assure you that yes, there are certain people who will not ever find redemption.

There's something different about killers, even the ones you can help.

[Killers, broadly speaking. He chose that on purpose.]

[askedtobe]

[ And that? That would be the first time he's ever had the word killer attributed to himself. ]

So if you're used to working with people in the prison system, why focus on anyone in the general public?

[slightlyoffchilt]

I can't afford that luxury of choice in this world. The government Registration advocates were highly insistent that I focus on imPorts.

So here I am.

[askedtobe]

Too bad there's no one around here all that screwed up.

[slightlyoffchilt]

I tend to see the fractures. Excluding people like Lucifer, or Lunatic from those months ago, we have a rather subtle grouping.

[askedtobe]

Make do with what you've got.

[slightlyoffchilt]

It's better this way. My former work did not allow for dramatic self-improvement of patients, they were already incarcerated for life.

ImPorts have that grace of becoming better, and making this world better.

[askedtobe]

And you'd rather do that than talking to people for some sort of purely academic reason?

[slightlyoffchilt]

I think our presence here demands something more than the academic and abstract, don't you? We're imbued with a sort of power. There seems to be an expectation that comes with it.

[askedtobe]

To be heroes. Right. That always works so well.

[slightlyoffchilt]

Heroes, perhaps. I might suggest innovators, as a euphemism.

After all, are we not remaking this world, little by little?

[askedtobe]

Sure, but isn't that what we all do anyway? Humans remake every world. And not everyone appreciates it.

Just like here. We coexist, and not always happily.

[slightlyoffchilt]

Humans without the benefit of what we have remade with greater and greater impact over time, over millennia. Imagine how better we could be, given our acceleration.

Unless, of course, you ultimately believe that humanity is mostly a negative impact?

[askedtobe]

Our "acceleration." Great, give people abilities, tell them to save the world, and instead watch them destroy it. Abuse it. Do anything but actually find a way to help other people. And that's only if they manage to make it through with any of their sanity in check.

But I don't think all of humanity is a negative impact, no.

[slightlyoffchilt]

But you just recited a fairly pessimistic view, wouldn't you say? Even if you believe that some of humanity can be positive.

Perhaps, then, those who are up for the betterment of mankind should be given the power? The rest, the destroyers, they ought to surrender their own fate. What you plan to do with Sylar can demonstrate a solution to the grander scheme.

[askedtobe]

Fine. Sure. I'm more pessimistic than I used to be.

But that makes it sound like I have higher expectations of what people are supposed to be. Good people. People who better mankind. I mean, I get it, the criterias pretty important, but there's expecting good and then there's just being good.