Conversation Space IV.

[powersthatbe]

The small room is painted a dark beige, with stained wood paneling on the lower half, and lush burgundy carpeting. The ceiling, however, is cracked and bowed, sagging alarmingly, occasionally shedding chips of plaster. Wrought-iron lamp-posts in the corners suspend pale, wan globes of light, and between them along the walls run rows of painted sunflowers, all turned towards the center of the room as if listening attentively. A jutting spire of granite rises from the floor on a diagonal, its flattened top sporting a cracked wineglass from which the wine (a white) slowly spatters teardrops across the plinth. And there is no chair, but a therapist’s couch, blue with gold trim, and ornate scrollwork on the legs, beside which the fluted horn of a phonograph player pipes music into the room, quiet enough to just be background ambience.

Comments

[powersthatare]

"NOR Do we."

[what_do_you_see]

"Then you know why I don't make the choice to ally with you, even if we want the same things. Even if we both want to see this edifice of lies reduced to fetid, moldering rubble. Choose me, mark me, or throw me away, whatever you do, I do not accept it. I am mine."

Roraschach is not a stupid man. He knows he has no real power here. He knows his words likely will impact nothing Tower does here, that they are, in every practical sense, meaningless. But words are important to him. They are all he has - he is a walking dead man, the memory of someone who once was, preserved in amber. If he is not true to that, to his own will, then he is nothing.

[powersthatare]

"THEN CHANGE The game," the figure howls, the voice giving off a tangible force, a hot wind that shudders over Rorschach as the cadaverous form draws itself up taller.

[what_do_you_see]

Behind his mask, Rorschach closes his eyes in the face of the wind, though he stays squared off against Tower.

"Can we break this? Is it possible?"

[powersthatare]

"POSSIBLE? IT is necessary."

[what_do_you_see]

"How?"

[powersthatare]

"HOWEVER You can."

[what_do_you_see]

"No insight to offer?" Rorschach asks dryly, though he hadn't been expecting any real help. Nor does he expect an answer to the next question, but he asks it anyway. "How do we kill you?"

[powersthatare]

"A PIECE At a time," the figure says, then adds

"ALL At once."

[what_do_you_see]

"If we bring down this game, will you die, too?"

[powersthatare]

"Unknown."