Work Text:
Takumi wasn't sure why he chose to come to the library today. It's not as if he liked reading—not in the way some of the others do anyway, although he doesn't hate it—and he didn't have any particular desire to read at the moment but...
Maybe it was the general malaise that chased days where nothing was happening, peace chafing against the battle-hardened parts of him. Maybe it was just that he got anxious and stressed out when he felt directionless and without some kind of purpose and goal. Who could say?
Takumi perused the myriad of disorganized shelves looking for something to kill time with when Eito politely cleared his throat, drawing his attention over to him. Sitting in one of the chairs in the corner of the library, legs folded so as to hold the giant weapons-grade doorstopper he was reading, Eito gave Takumi a gentle wave. "Looking for something?"
"A way to waste time, mostly." Even if it was essentially a book repository for just the SDU members, the ingrained social norms of a library kept Takumi's volume low, despite the vast distance between him and Eito.
"I thought you weren't a books guy."
Takumi frowned at his teasing. "I'm not. I usually just read manga. Whatever's popular at the time."
"Popular things are popular for a reason." Something in the way Eito's eyes squinted as he smiled made Takumi want to close the distance between them and drop a particularly heavy book on his head. "Still, would you like a suggestion? It's a little old but I think you'll like it a lot."
What an odd way to recommend a book. "Shoot."
"Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Phillip K. Dick." Name and author? Takumi looked over at the shelves and then back at Eito. Could his friend see his confusion? Was he suitably visibly lost? Or did he need to ask the embarrassing question aloud? "Use the computer there. It has a digital index and can tell you where specific books are kept."
"Thanks." Unwilling to address how much of a handout that just was, Takumi quickly looked up the book and grabbed it from the shelf it was sitting on. The spine of the book was well-worn, the pages a vanilla-scented memory of a time long past. It reminded him of some of the books Karua used to read.
Nostalgic longing twisted his throat into knots.
"What's it about?" He settled into a chair near where Eito was seated, content to simply exist in the same space as his friend.
"Read it and find out." Even as Takumi shot him a dirty look, Eito didn't budge, just going back to his dense book with faint amusement playing on his lips.
So Takumi did just that.
He wasn't lying when he told Eito that he wasn't someone who liked books or read them recreationally. He didn't really see the appeal in wasting time better suited for actually doing something on just sitting down and reading for minutes to hours on end. It just wasn't his style. But, in the throes of a calm period that was setting his teeth on edge, his brain was looking for any kind of activity to latch on to and designate a Task.
In the same way that homework was a Task, Eito's book recommendation was a Task that Takumi quickly made his everything for the scant few hours it took to finish the novel.
When he was done, he sat back and really thought about what he'd just read. It made him feel...
Well, how did he feel?
Takumi turned to ask Eito a question and paused, mouth agape. Somehow, in the time it took him to read one relatively small novel, Eito had already finished his enormous tome and gone on to find and devour half of another equally lethal brick of a book.
What could he even say to that? It was baffling to him.
"...why?"
"Why what?" Even if he didn't actually look at him, Takumi could tell he had Eito's full attention. The way he sat felt more aware, more upright, almost as if his entire focus was on Takumi.
"Why did you recommend that book to me?" It was a genuine question. Takumi couldn't even begin to fathom what Eito had seen in him that might indicate he'd like Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? in the slightest. "What was the point?"
"Did there need to be a point?" Eito seemed honestly confused. "It's actually considered a science-fiction staple. It has a movie adaptation from the mid-twentieth century and a sequel in the twenty-first century, in addition to several comic books and a radio play. I just thought you might enjoy this cultural touchstone. You mentioned you liked popular things and, age aside, this was popular for several decades."
That was...actually surprising. Not that Eito had taken the time to consider his likes before offering some kind of compromise between literature and his usual media tastes, but that Eito picked the version that would be most accessible and easily consumed in this moment. Actually...
"Why not recommend the movie?"
That earned him a little chuckle and an oddly thin smile. "It's not the same. They actually neutered one of the pivotal themes of the book when they adapted it for film and, while there are subtitled versions available, the film was an English-language movie and it doesn't quite work as well when dubbed over. I prefer the original novel, although the movie isn't half-bad, though it's a matter of personal taste in the end."
"They changed things?" Maybe it was opening a can of worms he couldn't close, but Takumi asked that with some measure of genuine curiosity. Eito's opinions were, to him, more interesting than the novel itself. It had, after all, been a centuries old translation of an old cyber-noir story about humans and robots. "Like what?"
That seemed to have been what Eito wanted him to ask because his face lit up. He even folded his book closed, finger holding his place as he leaned forward in his chair. "Well—"
In that instant, Takumi remembered that Eito had a rather bad habit of going off on long-winded speeches about this, that, or the other; impossible to stop once he's started and completely deaf to all protests.
Whoops. Too late for regrets.
"The novel is about the space where humanity and machine intersect, about what makes one human. One can say that Deckard is human but inhumane as he hunts down androids with little care for their lives and fears and wants because he doesn't see them as people. Meanwhile, in the case of Rachael, the androids can be more human than the corrupt monsters in power enabling that senseless slaughter."
That was something that Takumi had retained about the story. Deckard was a frustratingly corrupt person and, while he wasn't the most genre savvy, he was pretty certain that most noir or noir-adjacent piece of media usually flirted with that kind of moral ambiguity without leaning full-tilt into the thoughtless way Deckard pursued his own selfish goal.
What was the price of several lives worth? A goat? A living status symbol? The entire concept made him nauseous in a way he didn't think he could articulate, something close to home but far away in equal measure.
"In Blade Runner, the initial movie adaptation, the focus is shifted ever-so-slightly away from outright discussion regarding the vile way humans can and will justify atrocities to themselves and instead makes Deckard a more redeemable, if not still morally-grey, figure. The thesis still revolves around personhood and its ties to humanity and being humane, but the protagonist is a less reprehensible man." The vitriol Eito cheerily spat regarding Deckard and his perceived themes of Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? was almost startling compared to his usual placidity and cheer.
Takumi watched him closely as he spoke, confused but intrigued. What about this had upset him? What made him so passionate?
It wasn't unwelcome, that peek into more of who Eito is—for all he was relatively open about most things, there were moments when Takumi could see a steel shutter slam down over Eito's face, hiding his emotions and truth—but it was...something. Takumi wasn't sure what he was looking for in his expression but he continued to watch him carefully.
He didn't want to miss a thing, even if he didn't necessarily understand what was being said.
"Do you remember the Voight-Kampff test?"
Takumi startled at Eito's question. Shit, uh, fuck... "Vaguely." Eito's pitying smile made Takumi suck on his teeth in frustration. "Look, I said I wasn't—"
"I didn't mean to make you feel bad!" Eito cut him off. "I was just assessing how much of this I needed to explain. Sorry if I miscommunicated my intent."
"No," Takumi was quick to reassure his friend, "I shouldn't have snapped at you. Sorry..."
"I'm sorry."
"You were saying?" They couldn't do this for forever. There weren't enough hours in the day. "About the, uh, Voight-Kampff test?"
"Right." Oh, he got it right. Neat! "While the test is touted as a surefire way to determine if someone is an android or a human, it's actually less accurate than even the slim margin of error it shows in-universe. Because it's less about humanity or personhood and more about being empathetic and sympathetic, you see. The intent is emotional reaction instead of logical thought processes because, by their metric, a machine cannot feel."
That was something that had bothered him when he was reading. The questions used to try and sniff out the androids felt almost unfair and imbalanced. There was no correct answer and it was up to Deckard and the polygraph-like machine to determine if their reactions were 'human enough'. When the questions weren't about animal cruelty or assault, they were abstract questions regarding love and betrayal. All of those supposed scenarios were subjective and, even as he was reading it, Takumi had found it difficult to imagine answering them to any satisfactory degree.
Did that make him inhuman? Would that society assume he was an android?
"It's cruel." He didn't even realize he had spoken aloud until Eito replied.
"It's human to think that certain traits not all humans share are indicative of personhood." All of his normal cheer was gone, flattened into a strange icy chill. Eito's smile was the same, his eyes were just as focused on Takumi, but his voice was... "But that's the point."
"Is it?"
"Phillip K. Dick is an author whose body of work often discuss socio-political problems that were at the forefront of his mind at the time. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? is both a meta-commentary on noir as a genre—and the way it glorifies the corruption within the law enforcement system—and also is likely a response to some of the technological advancements of the time." That didn't answer Takumi's question but Eito seemed so into his speech, so delighted to be able to talk about something he loved with him, that Takumi couldn't bring himself to stop him from yammering on.
Besides...the way Eito talked about the themes of the book made more sense than him trying to parse them himself.
"The question isn't 'Can machines be human?' because 'human' isn't a quantifiable state of being. The question instead is 'Can something man-made become more than its creators?'. Empathy and emotions are considered a hallmark of the human experience and yet there are quite a fair amount of humans who struggle with both. Does this make them robotic? Inhuman?" Eito leaned forward in his chair, eyes glittering with a type of passion that sparked a hemoanima-bright fire in Takumi's chest in response. "And if it does, then is that a bad thing? Is being Other, being different wrong?"
It was a heavy question but Takumi gave it some measure of consideration.
Other—not 'other' as in just the word, but 'Other' as in proper noun indicative of 'Someone Who Is Not Like Me'—is a state of being separated from oneself. Could he actually quantify being Other without excluding what made him him? And if he could, is the concept of being Other worse than being himself?
It made his head spin.
Eito just laughed harder the longer that Takumi silently turned the thought around and around in his head. Eventually he granted him a merciful end to his pathetic rumination. "Sorry if that was too much, it's just that old genre cornerstones like that are fascinating to me on a cultural and psychological level."
"Psychological?" Another can of worms crumpled open beneath his prying fingernails but Takumi didn't care. Burgeoning headache aside, it was a good distraction from his unease and he was actually...it felt good, in a way that traditional learning at school didn't always, to learn and think critically about these things.
Or maybe he was putting too much weight on the discussion of the Self and the Other with regards to the invaders and themselves. Who could say?
"Well," Eito seemed delighted that he wanted to continue their discussion, as one-sided as it had been, "it's not like Phillip K. Dick only ever wrote this one groundbreaking and well-regarded science-fiction novel. He's actually an accomplished author of his time, with multiple adaptations of his works in his portfolio. But, while Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? and its movie adaptation Blade Runner are both rather well-known, there's another adapted work of his I find as interesting and as complex as that one, even moreso. And it proves my point regarding how books—especially old ones —can contain fascinating looks into the psychology of mankind from ages-past."
Maybe Takumi wasn't smart enough for this—scratch that, he was definitely not smart enough for this—but he was unsure how pressing Eito on what about old books interested him on a psychological level lead to him discussing another one of the author's works.
Not that he was going to stop him from talking now. The ball was rolling fast enough it might kill him on impact.
"Have you ever heard of Minority Report?" Takumi stared at him, blank expression all the answer Eito was looking for. He was, after all, not like Karua—who devoured old books like they actually sustained her on a physical level—and knew nothing about anything that wasn't 'in' at the time. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? was centuries old, so it was likely Minority Report was as well. "Ah well," Eito just sighed in amusement and shook his head as he soldiered on, "the long and short of it is that it's another one of Phillip K. Dick's seminal works with a large following and a film adaptation. Unlike Blade Runner, however, I'm of the mind that Minority Report's film adaptation is slightly more faithful, even if the author himself gave Blade Runner the go-ahead."
"You know a lot about this kind of thing." He knew, of course, that Eito had spent a lot of his life in a hospital and that he spent time reading, but the sheer scope of his ravenous consumption of books had never been made truly clear to Takumi until now. To not only know about an author so intimately that he could form strong opinions about centuries-old adaptations of their works to film, but to also have enjoyed their body of work so thoroughly as to have extensive opinions about individual stories was actually admirable. Sad, in a way, because that meant Eito had been alone for a lot of that time, but admirable. He was driven in a way that was interesting, his desire to know something foreign to Takumi, who had been content to drift through life like an origami boat down a storm drain.
The smile Eito gave him felt guarded in a way. Distant or maybe sad; it was hard to tell sometimes. "I had a lot of time to learn."
Takumi nodded, once. "It's cool."
That seemed to surprise Eito. His eyebrows disappeared behind his hair, eyes widening in an uncharacteristically off-balance way, like he'd been caught off-guard by Takumi's blunt compliment. "Thank you."
"Sorry for interrupting."
"Don't worry about it." Eito leaned back again, crossed one leg over the other, and smiled at him. "May I?"
It wasn't really a genuine question. Even an idiot could tell he was just poking fun at him, chiding him for interrupting, even though he'd said it was fine. Takumi nodded.
"Minority Report is about a future where crime is stopped before it happens thanks to the development of a subdivision of the justice system known as 'Precrime'. Using the visions of three people known as 'precogs' who can see the future, all criminals are arrested before the crime can be committed, leading to an authoritarian pseudo-utopia of a sort—assuming you believe that a high crime rate makes a dystopia what it is." His wry aside told Takumi exactly what Eito personally thought about that specific hypothetical. "The man who helped found Precrime discovers that he is going to murder a man he's never met and rushes against time and fate and everything he's built to not do that. But then he learns that there's a prediction he won't kill him, disproving Precrime and destabilizing the criminal justice system built around preemptive arrests. The third of three so-called minority reports—that is to say, when there are dissenting precognitions about a crime—actually is what happens. The man kills his victim to preserve the sanctity of Precrime, which calls into question free will among other things."
A...heady story to say the least, although Takumi could understand why Eito liked it. He seemed to delight in puzzling out the 'why' of people, trying to understand any social cues and clues he might have missed on first blush. Of course a story about fatalistic determinism would appeal to him.
"That's the kind of psychological thing you were on about?"
Eito smiled at him. "Of course! The thought of free will versus fate, of whether or not one's path is predetermined and how much of one's own choices truly matter, all of that is an interesting thought experiment isn't it?"
"Is it?"
"Do you think free will exists?" Eito grinned at Takumi with his teeth and, unlike before when it had felt almost razor-sharp, this grin felt sincere and warm. Open. He was extending his hand outward to Takumi, inviting him to dialogue with him.
"Do I—?" Did he think free will existed? Some days it didn't feel like it did, but surely he was making good decisions and if free will wasn't real then were his decisions good in the first place or were they simply What Had To Be? "Yes?"
"You sound unsure." Eito tilted his head, un-crossed and re-crossed his legs, and pursed his lips in worry. "I get it though. You don't have to have a definitive answer! It's not an easy question by any means but it's something I like pondering over when I get the time."
"For fun?"
"It's fun for me." The idea was incomprehensible but to each their own, apparently. "I like to wonder if precrime is even a thing and, if it were, would someone stop me one day?"
"Stop you from what?"
Eito shrugged. "Whatever crime I might commit. Precrime in the short story isn't necessarily restricted to violent crimes like murder. Anything, from petty larceny to assault is worthy of being precrime. It's how the government kept its citizens compliant."
If everyone was afraid of being a criminal, nobody would be willing to plot against them or try and upset the status-quo.
"But is it right?"
"Huh?"
Takumi repeated his question again, stressing the thought behind it. "Is it right? Judging someone for a crime they might possibly commit if left to their own devices?"
Eito didn't answer for a moment. He just sat there, one leg crossed over the other, leaning back in the library chair, and hummed to himself in thought. When he spoke up again, his words broke the silence like a gunshot. "What are you defining as 'right' here?"
"What?" Did that matter? Right was right was right! But Eito was asking him earnestly and, for all Takumi hadn't understood a lot of what had been said, he wanted to meet him on a level playing field as an intellectual equal. He needed to engage with the question presented to him and think critically. "Why are you asking?"
"If a central government decides what is and is not wrong—like in Minority Report—then their definition of right is what determines the law. The law then is the deciding factor as to whether or not precrime is both legal and morally actionable. So, with regards to your question: what are you defining as right?" Eito's voice was as sharp as his scythe, his eyes cold fire. He wasn't being unkind, just intense, and Takumi found himself pinned in place with no desire to retreat. He wanted to engage, wanted to keep pushing. "If you're going to judge precrime or the act of preemptively declaring someone a criminal as morally reprehensible or unjust, who is making the call regarding right and wrong?"
"Well—"
"Sorry, let me clarify—" Eito cut him off. "What gives you the right to declare something right or wrong? And is it any different from the actual practice of precrime?"
"What?!" Now Takumi was extremely confused.
"The whole point of the existence of precrime is to reduce the crime rate. In the film adaptation, precrime is only for murder, but the point remains that it is a deterrent." Eito watched Takumi like he was looking for something in his face. His brow was furrowed so hard Takumi worried he might give himself a headache. "It's a deterrent, same as a cop sitting on a street corner. The only difference is the act of self-policing. Precrime isn't a moral call, it's a legal one."
"Is it though?" That last statement had bothered Takumi enough that his words had a strangely bitter edge to them.
"You disagree?"
"The point of law is to hold someone accountable for their actions. Arresting someone under the pretense of preventing a crime, however accurate the information might be, is an act predicated on a moral choice." Takumi leaned forward in his seat now, their dynamic shifting as Eito settled back in surprise. "You're deciding someone will do something even though there's a non-zero possibility they won't do it. You're taking away their free will by assuming their moral stance before they get a chance to test their mettle."
"You're placing a lot of stock in the concept of free will." The teasing lilt to Eito's voice did very little to settle the energy racing beneath Takumi's skin.
"You're not placing enough." He wasn't sure why he was so upset but— "With a precog sample size of three, there's a huge margin of error. Three instances of this crime supposedly being committed isn't enough to say that, for sure, the crime will happen. It just means that, out of an infinite number of possibilities, at least three of them are this one instance."
"And free will factors in how?"
"The ability to choose is what makes those infinite possibilities real. When they choose—not before—the path they're on is chosen and the remainder of the possibilities are cut down and fall away."
"Do you not believe in multiple worlds theory? Or string theory?"
"We aren't talking about that."
Eito laughed, breathless. "We are though."
"You asked me how I was defining what right was and I'll say it now: I can't. But that's not the point of the whole precrime thing. I wasn't saying it was wrong on a moral level, but that it wasn't correct to simply assume that a crime will be committed when we have the ability to choose to be better, whatever that might mean."
"What if you're stopping a serial killer? What then?" Eito pushed back, delighted in a way Takumi had only seen from him on the battlefield. "If given the opportunity to kill someone now to save several others in the future, would you take it?"
Would he?
The burning blue edge of his Class Weapon reflected off of Eito's eyes as he stared up at him, wholly at his mercy. This was the monster who had killed Sirei, Hiruko, Eva, and the Undying Flame Boy. This was the harbinger of disaster, a demon in human skin, a monster who only saw humans as abhorrent beasts and wanted nothing more than to eradicate them. (This was his friend.)
He needed to die. (He hadn't done anything wrong yet.) He needed to die because if he didn't, he would ruin everything. (Who was Takumi to judge him on future-past mistakes? Didn't that make him a hypocrite?)
Takumi raised his sword, deaf to anyone's words, incapable of hearing anything but his own heartbeat. He needed to pick a course of action. He needed to determine what he was planning on doing with Eito. He needed to act.
("The ability to choose is what makes those infinite possibilities real. When they choose—not before—the path they're on is chosen and the remainder of the possibilities are cut down and fall away.")
He made a choice for them both and cut down any other possibility.