She woke up early, to her own surprise. She felt Mentuc's heavy, comforting weight softly pressing down on her and knew he was awake. She didn't need the light of day to know that. The only times when he was asleep while she was awake were the times he was stuck in a nightmare as his past came back to haunt him. Still, him being awake didn't mean he would react. She knew him to be perfectly content to just lay in bed with her. He had long grown out of his habits to jump up whenever she tossed and turned.

She struggled a bit in order to get out from underneath him. She liked to think that her husband hadn't moved, that she'd gotten out on her own strengths, but she knew intimately well how heavy he was and knew she was lying to herself. Still, she enjoyed the much lighter touch of his arm across her chest. It just laid there, not in a possessive way, but comfortably on top of her, his eyes still closed as he luxuriated in her closeness. She smiled at the sight. At times like this it became difficult to associate him with the brutal Genesis soldier he had been long ago. A being she had only caught glimpses of in the present, even if she knew that the footage she had seen was nothing compared to the real deal. There were so many things that a screen could not transmit.

She chuckled softly. Her beloved subject, psychology, still baffled her at times. Despite countless studies it was still seen as a largely unexplored field. She had never truly understood that until she had met Mentuc and learned of his past. How emotional dissonance lead to a lack of morals the way humanity at large saw it. A trait her husband shared with psychopaths, to an extent. Mentuc had some emotions and they had hounded him. Unable to comprehend them or place them, he had simply bottled them up and got on with the task at hand, even as his own brethren had shunned him for being different. And yet those hurdles had made him grow. Humans needed problems, they thrived on adversity and without it they became complacent, lazy and created problems. Hard work and struggling to survive kept people honest, together and united. The price of that was the concept of equality in the sexes, ironically enough. Even if guns mad for great equalisers, men were naturally predispositioned to be physically tougher and, sexist or not, basic biology didn't let itself be denied so easily.

Space colonisation had reset things greatly and opened up new avenues for psychologists to study. Newly colonised planets, seeded long ago by an ancient project, usually shared the general ecology that had once been found on Earth, but typically had a few quirks to it that made it more aggressive. As such the new settlers usually had to be wary in order to tame the uncolonized planets. Even now, on Litash, there were still plenty of unexplored areas with new settlers slowly but steadily pushing the frontier back. There were a few major cities, sure, each with their own spaceport, but all in all the planet was largely uninhabited and the villagers that lived on the edge of civilisation tended to be well armed. All of that had made for very interesting studies, as the difference between people living in the city and working purely administrative jobs, the mechanics and other hands-on operators in the industrial complexes and the folk living in small villages that occupied themselves with farming made for very differing psych profiles.

She reminisced, a smile on her face. Those had been fun classes back in the day, when she dickered with Jane endlessly as they compared their subjects. It would be fun to talk about it again, but this time with Mentuc, hell, even with Nightmare, in the mix. It would be fun, provided everyone would remain civil. She had a sneaking suspicion that Nightmare would actually enjoy pestering Jane, given how the AI was starved for contact. Though it would no doubt be an incredibly infuriating experience for the humans, given Nightmare's proclivity for teasing. Then there was the minor issue of Mentuc being, well, who he was. Who he had been. What he had been.

Technically speaking she should view Mentuc as a monster. He hadn't made a difference between whom he killed. If it came in between him and his target, it died. Alien and human. Soldier and civilians. Men, women… Children. Yet she still loved him despite what he had been. What he still was. A flash of anger ran hot through her head as she recalled how he had thrown her opinion aside when he had singlehandedly decided she was not to be left alone. Amusement flickered back on her face when she realised he was pursuing an emotional goal with rational means. He loved her and would see her protected at any cost. It was simultaneously endearing but also so very, very infuriating. She did not appreciate him manhandling her like that, his intentions be damned. That he had an actual point only made it worse. A human should be free to chase after their own goals, even if they were stupid, as long as they didn't endanger anyone else.

She looked over at her husband. That's the thing though, she thought with a sudden flash of realisation. She was endangering others. Jane had been injured. Cassy still had the scars from her short battle with the river. Mentuc had nearly died getting her out. That time her sister nearly froze to death. All was well in the end, but how long could she keep going until her long string of successive fuck-ups would end in disaster.

She shook her head violently, shoving those thoughts away. She'd deal with those later, she had other concerns now. She hopped out of bed and smiled when Mentuc's eyes flashed open, tracking her carefully as she began pacing around the room. She had to somehow regain an objective state of mind to deal with Jane. She decided to forego the fake scars and just go with the old normalcy. No mention of the brainwashing, or how both of them weren't showing any scars, at least not at first. For now it would be interesting to see Jane react to it all. Onoelle promised to herself that she wouldn't tell a single lie to her friend. Nightmare would still keep her game up of educating the Historian with a first person perspective of what Genesis actually did. Mentuc, in all likelihood, was going to be a not so innocent bystander. The signs were subtle and hard to spot, but thanks to the AI she had known what to look for. Mentuc was disturbed and was, in his own, hard to read way, worried sick over her wellbeing. He was also hiding a volcano's worth of red hot rage that was aimed at whoever was behind the brainwashing and had caused her to be hurt.

Really, he was such a simple man at times.

At least she knew he wouldn't go after her friend. No stupid, macho bravado. No threatening her just to prove a point. No murdering of Jane or shoving her into a stasis crate. He would make it clear to Jane that he was not happy to her and a small part of her mind was looking forward to it, partially out of professional interest, which she could live with, and partially because the primal part of her brain remembered the pain Jane had inflicted on her and wanted to see the woman suffer for it. She hated that part and mercilessly analysed it to pieces, hoping that if she dug down deep enough those emotions would go cold and very dead.

She sighed again. Then smiled. Laughed, even. It was amazing how these kind of events could basically knock out higher, educated thinking, at least the way 'civilised' folks saw it, and force you to live in the here and now. No wonder some of the mercenaries that wandered the planet were so strange. If you willingly walked into danger, risk death, then it affected your character. It required a certain detachment to the worth of self, she reasoned. Gallows' humour suddenly made a lot more sense to her. Either dwell on it until you go sick with worry or mock it until you stop caring. If you're going to die, may as well do so laughing. She turned to look at her husband. He lay still, unmoving but for his eyes who tracked her every step. He had that strange look on his face again, as if he was worried she'd disappear. She had first seen it more than three years ago, when they had first spent the night together as a couple. He didn't do gallows' humour much, although several centuries worth of hanging out with soldiers had left their mark on how he spoke. Dying didn't scare him. If his time came, he would willingly accept it, but he'd fight till his last breath. In typical Genesis fashion, as he had told her, the only thing they really feared was failure.

Really, she realised. Civilisation is nothing but a surprisingly thin layer we painted on top of our society. Equality, caring for everyone, social safety nets, all of that falls by the wayside ever so quickly the moment shit hits the fan. She recalled the dozens upon theories that stated that as soon as the number of people exceeded a certain size, the larger group would start fragmenting again. She had seen it in the university. She remembered the smug smiles her professor had worn when he had brought up some very pointed examples. Her class had lost several students after that embarrassing lesson, to the professor's delight. She remembered being confused about that. It had been her first year and she had known oh so little of the real world. Well over a thousand students had started the long, difficult course. Less than a hundred had reached the end. Ironically enough most people who wanted to study psychology only took on the subject because they had issues of their own. Few had the durability to withstand the raw and unpleasant journey of self discovery that the course took you on. She had encountered several aspects of herself that had made her doubt her choice over the years. There were some very ugly truths about the human psyche hidden in that field.

She wondered if that awareness was why she was able to look at Mentuc without seeing a monster. He didn't have that psyche. He had been built to be a tool. It didn't make it any less horrifying, neither what he had done or what had been done to him, but it put it into a broader context. As far as Nightmare had told her, the Empire didn't create them with the intent to commit atrocities either. They were simply trying to survive and didn't have the luxury of caring about morals in the face of an overwhelming threat, not that the Empire ever cared about the opinions of outsiders. Another harsh, but vital aspect of humanity. She still found it ironic that the word for horrible practises was 'inhuman'. Humans always found it easy to justify their behaviour and rarely believed they were doing wrong. Even now, after all her attempts, Mentuc didn't understand why it was wrong to indiscriminately slaughter anyone that he saw as a threat. He had stopped doing it, but his inhuman mind couldn't comprehend how a civilian wasn't an acceptable target, where an armed soldier was. To him both contributed to a nation and therefore both required eliminating. She had to admit, hate it as she might, that he did have a point. Somewhere. Somehow.

She felt her own interest piquing up. The more she thought about it, the more she realised that the Empire had adhered to some very brutal truths of just what the human psyche held and then kept it under control through very strict discipline. It wasn't ideal, it very doubtfully was healthy, it relied on fanaticism in the lower ranks and a zealous belief in the upper echelons and they cruelly kicked out anyone that didn't fit their system and indoctrinated any who came in, but it had resulted in a frighteningly effective and cohesive nation, minus the civilian aspect, as the civil war had pointed out. She felt questions bubble up and she realised she knew far too little of it. She walked over to the little black box and rolled it over in her hands, hesitating briefly before coming to a decision.

'Nightmare. Can you tell me about the Empire?'

The box lit up, blue light shining brightly from its sensors.

It would be my pleasure.