Change of Direction

Standing outside on the balcony of his father’s Fortess, Tel Aviv, Jayce Falco allowed his vision and his mind to trail over the city that now stood under the control of the Order of Demai.  Unlike most of his father’s other followers, Jayce neither respected nor believed in Rayad Demar as a leader, and unlike the few other members of the field team, he had no intension of using his position as a soldier to the Order to further any kind of personal goals.  In fact for young Jayce Falco, being a member of the Demai was just... a thing, something which he had always done and which he would probably always do.

Jayce thought back now, remembering the beginning, when he still had some innocence.  A scoff came to him now as he attempted to process the thought with his new found clarity.  It had only been weeks since he and Puck had finished the treatment designed to ‘fix’ the young Operative, curing him of his involuntary instability and bestowing on him the full responsibility for his actions.  Since then, Jayce realised that he spent a lot more time engaging in these kinds of moments; spending hours upon hours on self analysis as he reflected on the 18 years that he served his would-be father.

For as long as he could remember, from the first time that he even began to channel, he had been an agent of death, a tool of punishment for Rayad Demar and an instrument in furthering his father’s dark goals.  He had taken countless lives in the process, the lives of all types of persons, from corrupt politicians to the would-be innocents that Demar considered to be collateral casualties in their mission.  For a moment he paused in his self analysis, going over his thoughts so far, and realising, oddly enough that he still had no opinion on what he had done.  Thoughts of right or wrong, good or evil had never once ventured into his mind, and even the contemplation of whether or not he actually liked what he did led him to no definite conclusions.  This was simply a job to him... it was what he did... it was what gave his otherwise meaningless life purpose.

Jayce shrugged mentally as he continued to ponder.  There were other things that he could do to give his life meaning when he thought about it realistically, but it would be such a task to actually pursue something else.  After all, he had spent so much of his life doing just this, and if he wasn’t the best of the lot of channelers within his level tier, he was damn near close to it.  His shrug now turned to a physical one as he focused back on the land that stretched out before him; an entire geological square not just run by, but owned by the faction that he was a part of.  It was Jayce, and people like Jayce, that made these things a reality; his ability to take lives... the lives and Terrans and Oyans alike that allowed his father me lay claim to these treasures, and write his name in the history books.

It was a pretty big deal, he thought, thinking still that it was rather sad that he just didn’t care about those kinds of things.  Money, power, women, obedience, things that his father seemed to value highly, and hoard selfishly; these things meant nothing to the Young Demai operative.  In fact, few things meant anything to the young man now that he thought about it.  He had a handful of friends; Kaili Smith and the agent known as Puck being the only two for whom he reciprocated any feelings of affection, while his acquaintance with his siblings, Tiana and Rule, as well as those with his rivals, such as Roun, Ryuu and Xavier, were the next closest things to actual relationships in his life.

Still few of them had any kind of real meaning to him, he really couldn’t see himself killing simply to protect Tiana, further more Rule or one of his Rivals... Puck or Kaili maybe... but even that would depend on the situation...  and any kind of material goals was even further from his mind than these relationships.  Another mental shrug would denote Jayce’s eternal stance of indifference when it came to these things; they simply didn’t hold enough of a meaning to him to actually warrant any proactive exhibitions.  His life was as it always has been, that of an aimless tool, there simply to be used by those who were more powerful than he was.

“And that is the way it will stay unless you do something about it.”  A voice now interrupted his thought process, replying to his last though chain and drawing a look of displeasure from the young Manipulator as he looked up to the source of the voice.

 “What is it that you want?”  Jayce inquired now, not particularly concerned by the motive of the speaker, but simply attempting to discern what could be deemed important enough to interrupt his thoughts.

“I want to have a word with you.”  The women replied, much to Jayce’s disdain.  “I have come to plead with you, to implore you to stop this foolishness and turn your life away from the reckless path that you are currently pursuing.”  She continued, fueling Jayce’s disdain.

“I’m not pursuing anything...”  Jayce replied matter-of-factly.  “If there is some kind of preordained path set out in front of me, you and my father were the ones who put it there... I’m just walking.”  Jayce replied with his usual indifference.

“Regardless of that, this path will lead to your personal destruction; you need to change your direction.”  She replied, continuing along the analogy.

“And what if I don’t feel like... what will happen then, mother?”  Jayce inquired now, actually becoming slightly amused by the level of concern that she was showing.

“Then as your mother, I will have to change your direction for you.”  Claea now replied, but already Jayce’s amusement had dissipated.

“Whatever.”  He replied, raising his hand to emphasize the fact that he simply did not care.  “It may have taken a while, but after two decades it looks like I’ve found out what it is that actually has an impact on my life... these are the only things that I am concerned with right now... nothing else.”  Jayce enlightened the psychic.

“What, this handful of people, half of whom can just as easily be considered you enemy as they can be your friend?”  Claea inquired which a great deal of annoyance.

“Friends and enemies are useless concepts like good and evil, and are determined by foreign powers like you and my father... if I was assigned to kill Puck tomorrow, he’d be my enemy and right now he’s one of my only... friends.”  Jayce uttered with some discomfort, the word being extremely foreign, though oddly accurate in this case.  “The intimacy of a relationship is the only thing that determines its importance.  Specific emotions are just vectors that exist in definable dimensions, much like the energy that all channelers command.”  Jayce reasoned, drawing an interesting analogy, one which Claea was rather intrigued by given her son’s usual, less than profound nature.  “The direction of a vector is the easiest thing to change, but its magnitude is the truest property that it possesses.”   Jayce reasoned.  “Love and hate, happiness and sorrow are all really the same thing, interchangeable psychic energy flowing in one direction or another.  It’s not the direction of the flow, but the potency of this energy that creates the impact.”  Jayce explained.

“What are you saying?”  Claea inquired now, attempting to discern his reasoning.  “Would you say then that an enemy that you hate is more important to you than a teammate that you don’t?”  Claea continued.

“Yes.  Why would someone that fails to make even the slightest impact in my life be more important to me than someone who can draw rage out of me and make me want to destroy them?  If this teammate is that insignificant, do you really think that I should let some... loyalties... to them inhibit my exhibition of my hatred for my enemy?”  Jayce inquired.  “No... only an equal and opposite force should be able to quell that hatred.”

Claea raised an eyebrow at the disturbly logical argument, looking now at the monster that years of psychological instability had bread.  No longer was Jayce simply aimlessly obvlious of his surroundings, but instead profoundly aware of its assigned insignificants.  As she scanned his mind, less than ten names stood out among the millions of other thoughts which he had deemed to be unimportant, the millions of things that would simply be the objects of his indifference.  Amidst these millions, both she and Rayad hovered; it was at this point that Claea realised that if she planned to have any impact on her son’s decisions, she would need to evoke some kind of emotional response from him, or manipulate someone who did.  Realising that there was simply nothing more that she could do at this point, she just sighed and vanished, leaving Jayce to his thoughts once again.

Fortunately for the youngster however, the conversation had cleared up many things, and he would not need to think much further for the day.  With his mind growing ever clearer and the facts that he had collected over the years slowly being pieced together in his head, he was slowly defining the things around him, and as such, slowly defining himself.  For now, he would leave the balcony and venture back into Tel Aviv before heading out into the city, today had been a productive day.