Right Back After This

Season 2, Episode 7

Colian, unlike Ares, presumably does not have the ability to turn the cameras off. Through his lashes, Riz can see the red light in the corner of his room proving that. He's tossing up if he can afford to take Colian up on his offer. He's tossing up if he can afford not to.

How much leeway is he going to get? The margins are wide. On one hand, maybe the scandal of letting go a recent and extremely public victim will be too large that Riz can do almost anything without getting in trouble. On the other, maybe the only thing to do is burn him out, because the stain of his tragedy will never disappear.

It's all down to the public will. Is his trauma a victory that he's overcome, or is it a wound that will never heal?

Is it going to hide his real trauma even better, or will it expose just how hard he's been lying?

And how the fuck does he disentangle all of that to determine if it's safe to go for a fucking walk?

He sits up. He's evidently wide awake, and nothing he can do is going to hide that, at least. He doesn't look at the camera; just his hands. He feels like he's being studied, and he's desperate to prove any hypothesis wrong.

A human set of eyes and ears is just one single point of data in an infinite universe. He's being talked about: in sleek offices on goldworlds, in the gossip of bored house-spouses on silverworlds, in tabloids and internet news shows, in podcasts and on radio stations. There are news articles about him, defending him intensely and tearing him apart into as many little pieces as they can, and then tearing those pieces apart, too.

He's not sure who left him a piece of understanding on the ship, letting him see what's thought of him, but he's pretty sure it's company policy to filter what gets back to them as much as possible. One person can't handle a universe's weight. He got a forbidden glimpse, a hint, from whichever manager thought he needed it- and he appreciated it, because it helps him to act, to lie.

He's not concerned, generally, what people think of him- if they like him, or if they don't. He doesn't have that luxury- he's here, whether he wants to be or not. All he has to do is stay here, by any means necessary- it doesn't matter if he's loved or hated, as long as they feel something looking at him.

Is pity an exception to that?

He sees himself from the camera's view, looking down at this loser just sitting on his bed, staring at his hands- and the image makes him angry. Riz will do a lot of things, but he won't be paralysed by inaction. When the fuck has he ever sat back and picked the safe choice? What the fuck has happened to him?

He stands up with more rage than intended and bursts through the door. All the adrenaline in his body is all of a sudden sparking up at every nerve, and he ejects it by any means necessary. He imagines the premium viewers, the people who are so obsessed with him that they paid handsomely to crawl under his skin- the very people that are almost impossible to avoid. He imagines them an imp, some kind of little demon, crawled around his neck, breathing in his ear; and he begrudges them, but he can't remove them, not for long. And so he plays their game, feeds into their tricks.

"I'm sorry," he whispers to them, heavy footfalls echoing in the dead silence. "I want to get better. I want things to be okay. I'm going to be okay, it's just... it's not that simple."

On some goldworld, on many, there are probably spoiled teenagers listening in. At least, that's who Riz imagines these imps to be. He's not supposed to talk to them this directly. He doesn't think he ever has before. He ascends the stairs, lets his steps be clanking and loud. He's not sneaking around, not avoiding being seen. He's taking control.

"I need to think," he tells them, soft and out of breath. "I'm going to get better. I'm not going to let him win. I promise you that."

Maybe just this once, the parting of the veil will be a good thing. But if it isn't, if Riz is going to go down, he's already lost both engines- he may as well control his descent.