your first sunlight reaching down

[wronganswer]

It meant almost nothing in Mega-City One at first.

Anderson had long since realized she'd been naïve to think that she knew the limits of her system, that laws would hold, that she was the law. The laws themselves could be unfair, unjust, and even merciless, but they were clear text, words on a screen she could read and reread and wrestle with. There was no wrestling with the Empire. It was a slow, creeping realization like dread running across her nerves, almost like she was in an unceasing dream, where she knew something was after her but couldn't locate what. Just knew, with a certainty, that it would eventually get her.

For months, she just did her job, same as always. Slowly, the Empire seemed to realize that the United Mega-Cities had a small contingent of well-trained Force-using operatives, and the fact that she was a Judge - that she'd bled, killed, violated people for that privilege - began to stop mattering. The Megs tended to stomp out any psychic that didn't join the Hall of Justice with great prejudice, so it wasn't as if they were about to pose a threat to the Empire. Even the whole concept of 'the Force' was alien and strange to Anderson, who tended to think of that as a religious belief, unnecessary cultural layering on top of innate abilities. She'd had to learn the way the Empire saw her and the other Psi-Judges: highly competent militaristic Force-users with a narrow focus on psychic interrogations, who were above all already slavishly devoted to enforcing fascist rule.

Maybe most of the other Psi-Judges didn't know, or care, that their role was changing. There weren't many of them to start with, and she'd never had friends within the ranks. Maybe Anderson was being singled out because of her ability; she'd always rated top of her class on her interrogations, the sole reason they'd kept her around on the force. She didn't know, because she was being singled out, sent out of the Megs more and more often on special assignments to interrogate difficult prisoners. There was an advantage to sending Anderson, after all - unlike what she'd learned were considered 'dark' Force-users like the Inquisitors, she left their minds wholly intact afterward, not a whisper of damage. She was a scalpel where they were sledgehammers. Anderson could interrogate the same person multiple times, indefinitely.

This is how she found herself stalking down the corridor of another Imperial detention center, not even on the same planet as her city, expression tense with forced apathy. Every day, it felt more and more like a trap was closing in on her, like she was suffocating with the inability to do anything, change anything. But what was she going to change? So she just kept following orders, as best she could without losing herself.

Anderson nods at the guards who promptly salute her at the door, says nothing more, and steps inside. She still has her badge, for whatever it's worth; still has her Lawgiver. Sometimes she feels that's about all she has left of the identity she'd clawed toward her whole life.

"CT-7567," she says with a professional briskness as she enters the cell and the door is locked behind her. "I'm here to question you."

Comments

[wronganswer]

Having never been in the position of being so sensitive and attuned to the Force that she automatically picks up on those around her, it doesn't occur to Anderson to think that might be the reason he'd learned. Typically, she has to concentrate to get anything meaningful, and she's stopped trying with Rex now that they're removed from active threats.

But she's still good at reading people in general, can see something of the effect. She really wasn't looking for accolades, but the truth is, she's spent her whole life sacrificing for others with very little recognition, and she's transparently flustered to have it addressed so directly, needlessly tucking some hair behind an ear. It's such an innocuous question about her background, who she is, but there's something in her that's been waiting years to speak, the words spilling out in an unchecked stream.

"We predate the Empire. I'm from a metropolis the size of most planets' continents called Mega-City One. Judges are taken in as kids, usually orphans, and we spend our entire lives learning to become the law in the city."

Anderson stands as she talks and starts taking her gear off, both physically uncomfortable and feeling like she needs a physical manifestation of her departure. "We're literally judges, not just law enforcement. I sentence perpetrators as I see them. There's so much violent crime in the Megs, we barely touch it; Judges only take on the worst cases. We live communally, we don't have families--"

She's pulling out an almost absurd array of high-tech weaponry that she's depositing on a nearby console. Extra ammo, grenades, smoke bombs, a short vibroblade...

"--We have nothing to lose, and we have absolute authority. For most people, we're boogeymen, but we're also the only protection they have." Anderson pauses, glancing over at him again. In a tighter voice, "When the Empire came in, probably most Judges didn't even notice. There's not a lot of psychics, and we're the only ones they were interested in using. But I noticed. Because before, I had complete discretion over how I use my abilities, and what the sentences were."

She sets down her Lawgiver, a comically large and weighty handgun, with a final thunk on top of the rest, and then she detaches her badge and adds it to the pile with a muted intensity of emotion she can't begin to pick apart.

"I didn't sign up to play the Emperor's puppet," she finishes with palpable disgust. Without pride, fingers curled and knuckles clenched: "I'm the most powerful psychic they've ever seen on the force. I knew there was going to be a day when I couldn't let them use me anymore. That day just happened to be today.

"Lucky you."

[ct_7567]

There is a part of Rex that had never been there before that's always on guard for artifice. He has to, these days, in his line of work. It's a radical swing; the idea that he cannot trust people just because they're should be trustworthy had been a lesson hard learned, and sometimes he feels himself moving too far in the other direction because of it. He still fancies himself a good judge of character when he trusts his gut, though, which is why when Anderson speaks of her capabilities, he feels he ought to believe her instead of thinking she's merely inflating her own ego. To say that she's the best is a bold claim, but it's matter-of-fact, especially now that it doesn't mean anything.

The rest will take time to digest. Rex knows that as she speaks, he's conjuring up an image in his head that can't possibly be accurate. The life she's speaking of is different from anything else he'd ever heard of, somehow even more remote and lonely than the life of a Jedi, even if the basics of it don't sound dissimilar.

"Lucky me," he echoes, watching her kit pile up on the table. It's a good collection. He's terribly jealous. His eyes flick back to her. "You don't have families, but you live with other Judges."

That must make them family, of a sort. Rex can't imagine it any other way.

"Did any of them feel the way you do?"

[wronganswer]

Now that she has that out of her system, Anderson feels the rush of post-confession nerves. And she's eyeing her pile of gear herself, thinking about how she's not going to be able to just walk down to the armory and requisition more. She's going to need to make what she has count. She'll have to find someone who can make ammo for her Lawgiver. She'll... well. It's overwhelming, and too much to deal with right now.

Anderson unzips and shrugs off her upper armor, leaving her in a black tank top and practical black sports bra, as she answers. "Who knows?" she asks, almost flippant. "I don't mind-read other Judges unless I have reason to think they're corrupt, and no one likes mutants. I creep them out."

She doesn't exactly like most other Judges either, so there isn't a trace of regret or self-pity in that comment.

Finally she sits back down again with a sigh, having shed all of the traces of the Hall of Justice, looking very much like an edgy spacer. "What I'm saying is I didn't leave anything behind. Or anyone. I don't regret leaving, but I don't know what I'm going to do. I don't know how to be anything else."

[ct_7567]

"So you're unique even among them," Rex translates, the barest hint of surprise on the tip of his tongue. No wonder it had been so easy for her to leave. Rex wishes that he'd had her courage, that he left the GAR before Order 66 to properly examine the chip conspiracy, to rescue as many brothers as were willing to be rescued. But the very thing that brought him strength is what cast him down. There are no clean breaks for a clone.

Perhaps it was easier for Anderson, but it seems a desperately lonely way to live. He gets up to shed the last of the stolen armour, unlatching a storage container above his head to take out an extra set of clothing, plain and dark and worn, and slips it on. They look better to sleep in than to fight in. He then piles the stolen armour neatly, one on top of the other, with quick, practiced movements. It'll come in handy for undercover work at some point.

"I know a thing or two about that," he admits. "I don't know anything other than soldiering. But I wasn't about to soldier for that."

He looks her over. She's smaller than him, naturally, but she's got a decent physique. It's good to note that she's more than just a walking armoury. Less likely to get the both of them killed.

"Even with the galaxy the way it is, you've got options. There are plenty of towns for you to lay low in. Figure out a new line of work. You may be able to get an apprenticeship underneath some sort of tradesperson, or go into farming. No matter who's in charge, there's always a need for that."

Rex had considered it and had dismissed the idea just as quickly. But he needs to at least offer it as an idea.

"Me, I pick up mercenary work and odd jobs at the ports here and there. Enough to keep fuel in the tank and food in the larders." He eyes Anderson curiously. "Do you know what you'd want to do?"

[wronganswer]

There's other Psi-Judges, but none so constantly in danger of failing out, so she is unique in a certain sense. Certainly, she's isolated; Anderson just wouldn't have been less lonely if she hadn't joined up, not after her parents died. By this point in her life, it's hard to fathom seeing herself learning a trade, and farming is an abstract concept she barely understands. Her reality seems like a distant one right now.

Automatically, she wants to treat this more like a case, a long-term one she's still assigned to. What she's going to do with herself is impossible to know, but what she wants to do?

"What I want is to abduct one of your brothers and see if I can turn the chip off," she answers, forthright and without hesitation, meeting his gaze evenly. Her chin propped on her hand, elbow on the copilot's armrest, Anderson looks speculative, like she's really considering it. "I don't know if it's possible, and I haven't been through advanced psi training yet, so it might be a waste of time."

But she's often able to do things that don't seem quite possible - the strongest psychic they've ever seen wasn't an idle title - and it's been an itch since the first time she encountered one of them. There's an injustice right in front of her, something she would easily classify as a crime five different ways back in Mega-City One, and without her badge she's free to act solely on her own conscience and acceptable risk levels. There's a freedom to her new status she's never experienced before; Anderson is just starting to feel out her lack of limits, and the instinct to stretch into it is strong.

"It's definitely not going to pay the bills," she thinks to add, wry. Moral crusades are well and good, but her first nine years of abject poverty linger like a spill of ink in water. She never wants to go back to that.

[ct_7567]

Rex's eyes widen as Anderson continues to talk. He had assumed that she would find the life of a farmer unfamiliar, if not distasteful, and would seek greater work -- people like her generally do. Rex isn't sure if he would if he didn't have a personal stake in the matter. But there's an entire Empire to topple, from the wicked leaders and politicians eyeing the destruction from a comfortable distance to the grunts on the ground, exerting their power over people simply because they can. She knows what is happening to them is unjust, but many things are unjust these days, and he's certain she's had a front row seat for some of them. As assets, his brothers aren't powerful; their lifespans are short, their psyches damaged, their experiences with anything other than war paltry. Even before the rise of the Empire, that had been a questioning lingering over their heads. Some of the more outspoken galactic representatives hadn't minced words. They would be an expensive drain on the system.

He and Anderson wouldn't be able to save enough for that to even be an issue but it is how natborns viewed them by and large. They don't have much in the way of a life to save these days. Anderson's efforts, some may argue, would be better spent on the people who are still young and under the thumb of the Empire, their whole lives ahead of them.

"That was my plan. Without the Force - psi - stuff. Grab a brother, get him to a medical droid, get the chip burned out of there for good. It would be much lower risk not to have to find a trustworthy source. I've found one or two, but the galaxy is a vast place."

And his brothers are violent. The trip to a med droid would be very, very long with trained men on his ship who would like nothing better than to kill him -- and to kill Anderson as well, now that she's an enemy of the Empire. He looks Anderson over, trying to imagine what it is to be her, to feel what others are feeling, to be able to make the decision to up and leave everything she'd ever known and her next course of action, all in the same day.

"I'd be grateful for the help," he admits. "Why do you want to do this?"

[wronganswer]

There's a moment's pause before Anderson lets out a quiet breath, straightens in her seat, and runs a hand through her hair as she looks away. She's not ashamed of her past, but Judges are hardly encouraged to distinguish themselves as individuals, and given she's already feeling raw and off-balance, it takes a second to gather the truth.

"I grew up in a slum on the edge of the Cursed Earth," she admits. "The irradiated wasteland that covers most of our continent. And I'm a mutant -- a Force user, whatever. I saw how bad things get for the people that the system wants to pretend don't exist. It's the reason I became a Judge. I can't change the system itself, I can't fix the galaxy, but I can make a difference for the people in front of me who thought there was no one out there who cared."

She finally turns back to meet his eyes again. More briskly, she says, "No one's going to if we don't, right? It's been killing me to not do anything since the first time I felt it. It's like hearing someone screaming for help and walking by." She's learned how to do that in order to keep her head down and away from scrutiny, but it's still the hardest thing she ever has to do as part of her job.

Anderson shakes her head. "I can't run off and be a farmer, knowing I didn't even try."

[ct_7567]

For all that Rex has seen the galaxy, he doesn't understand much of how people live. Sure, he's seen it. He's guarded the rich, gorging on twelve-course meals on their ships, fully decked out in luxuries save for the guards' quarters, and he's gone through war-torn cities where people lived day by day, and he's even seen the underbelly of Coruscant, which mustn't be unlike what Anderson is talking about now. But he doesn't know the realities of living in it, or what it does to a person, how it shapes them into who they are. It's just as much of an abstraction as Senator Amidala's life was.

It isn't that the admission means nothing -- just that Rex doesn't have the context to sort out where to put this large, confounding, Anderson-sized piece of the puzzle in with everything else he's learned about her thus far. Regardless, he can understand the sentiment. It's just one he's used to hearing be said out loud, but mean less than nothing. Everyone wants to say they look out for the little guy. Putting it into practice seems like a much more difficult task.

The corner of Rex's lip tugs upward. "I tried the farming life for a couple of weeks. Didn't like it much." It's as good a rationale as he could possibly ask for. And, frankly, he doesn't feel like dissuading Anderson. Even if she changes her mind at some point, he could do with the help -- and, though he's loath to admit it, he could do with some company that isn't a tinny voice burbling out of a vocoder. The droid is all well and good, but he was born and raised surrounded by people. At a certain point, you start to miss organic company.

"It's good to have you aboard, Anderson. But like you said -- doing good doesn't pay the bills. I hope you're ready to take on some other jobs to keep us going until we can get to one of the vode."

He fishes in one of the compartments, takes out a ration bar, and tosses it Anderson's way. He's got some real food too (for a given value of real), but that'll take some rustling together, and it's been a long day for them both.

"Come on. I'll show you around the ship. If you want a change of clothes to sleep in, you can use mine. They'll be too big, but at least they're clean."

[wronganswer]

Words certainly are cheap. Anderson knows that better than anyone, especially since she can often feel how peoples' words don't even match what they're thinking. Maybe that's part of the reason she jumps so quickly to the next real thing she can do, automatically pressing forward. She gravitates so instinctively to helping those that the galaxy has the least reason to help. Without that direction, Anderson just doesn't know what the point is to her life.

Practical considerations are a welcome relief, and she echoes back a wry smile at Rex's admission that farming didn't suit him. She doesn't think it'd suit her, either. Anderson can barely conceptualize plants outside of desert scrub as a general rule, or as a frivolous pursuit for the extremely rich.

She grabs the ration bar out of the air and gets back to her feet at the invitation, the tiredness hitting her all at once, the pressure gone out of her system. "I'm not about to complain." Either about the ration bar, or the too-big clothes, or anything else; maybe at some point she'll get comfortable enough to tease, but not yet. She wants to say something about how she hadn't at all expected this level of welcome, but it's hard for her to even think how to say it without embarrassing them both.

Sticking to the practical instead, she spares a few thoughts as she follows Rex for what she actually would be good at.

"There must be bounties on some real scum. As long as you're willing to trust my judgment on who I kill and who I let go, that's what I'd be best at."

[ct_7567]

Luckily for them, even a small ship like this was originally meant for a small crew, not a single person and his horrible little droid. They'll have the luxury of separate quarters which Rex privately thinks they both need; he's most comfortable when sleeping close to other people, but they're still relative strangers, and they'll both need some privacy while they get used to being around someone else again. "I suspect we'll be on the same page, but we can discuss what dictates being killed and what dictates being let go," he says. "But otherwise, I'm willing to trust your judgment. I usually take on protection gigs, transportation, that sort of thing. Can't trust anyone to be honest about who they want to kill or why, and I'm a soldier, not a murderer." He grabs one of his shirts and passes it to her. She'll swim in it, which will make it perfect for sleeping in. He doesn't bother letting her borrow his trousers, which would just look comical on her.

"Not that I haven't taken bounty jobs, but it'll get a lot easier when I have someone else around to help judge the situation. Last thing I want is to kill an innocent just because some sleemo wants him dead." As he slides open the door leading to the rest of the ship, a little astromech zips out, shrieking indignantly.

"Settle down, Rhoda!" He says sternly, tapping the side of her body with his foot. She shrieks even louder, buzzing at Anderson, an arm slowly coming out of one of her slots, as though to taze her. "She's an ally. Stop that. You really think that you could fight her off if I couldn't?"

She makes a sound that seems to suggest yes, she rather thinks so but retracts her arm anyway. A little embarrassed, he clears his throat and turns to Anderson. "This is, uh, R0-D4. Don't mind her. She'll warm up to you. Eventually."

[wronganswer]

Anderson is not used to sharing sleeping space, and although like she said, she isn't about to complain, she'll be silently hugely grateful for the private quarters. Sleep is one of the few times she fully shuts out all other minds and leaves the quiet to herself. In an ironic sense, her nightmares are one of the few things that are entirely her own.

She thinks better of him for wanting to negotiate their moral lines ahead of time, and feels a belated, fierce satisfaction in her decision to save him. Anderson is almost never wrong about someone, but she rarely gets to stick around and see how much she was right.

Right after accepting the sleep shirt, she jerks back in alarm at the shrieking astromech. Of course, she can't feel inorganic minds, so droids can really take her off-guard. Anderson lets out a long breath as she waits for her heartbeat to slow down again.

"Right," she says suspiciously, eyeing the astromech with palpable wariness. "If you say so. Look, I went through a lot to get here -- I'm not going to throw it away now," she adds, in case R0-D4 needs to hear it from her directly. Who knows how droids work? To Anderson, they're an irritating mystery.

To Rex again, she says, "Let's get some rest and talk business tomorrow. I think we both know money's not going to be our only motive."