Harold is plenty deceptive -- he'll lie overtly and subtly, including by omission -- and he certainly has a plan here. Multiple plans, ones he's considering quickly, mind working fast as he closes his eyes and consciously stops trying to predict when or if he'll be hurt. Bracing himself only makes the pain worse, and falling on his back... could be very bad.
Hearing he's wanted alive makes an echoing leaden dread take shape in his stomach.
"It's quite ruined already," he points out in a murmur, because he might as well have a personality for as long as he's able to in this sordid process, before it's scrubbed out by desperation and blind pain. "The security measures require me to be present to disable them. As I said, telling you where they are won't help you."
"That's better," Carver says, in that same conversational tone. He holds Egret there, hovering in the air. Possibilities abound. It hurts to fall when you can't brace yourself, can't do a thing to stop it. Not entirely unlike drowning.
Some things you just take. God decides you're due and then it happens.
"But you can be more specific. What security measures?"
God doesn't decide; the flesh and blood man standing above him holding the chair decides. Harold is very clear about that. God is an excuse to avoid culpability, which he's never allowed himself and won't allow others. He opens his eyes, staring at the ceiling as fear and anticipation of pain bleed into well-contained, suppressed anger. He's just never been very good at giving up even when he should.
Bluntly: "Biometric scanners that require me to be alive and willing. I'm not an idiot."
He's not an idiot, and he has a private solar grid hidden away. Actual electricity. Harold really had made preparations, and the preparations of a legally dead paranoid billionaire were considerable.
So he's got electricity. A generator at the least. Carver tilts his head, considering that. They've heard rumors about some larger communities to the north with solar panels. Guns. Pope will probably have them angle that way after a season or two, find a new front in their war. So it goes.
There's always something to fight. Something to take.
Carver watches Egret for a long moment, listening to the chair strain and scrape against the floor. "And you are going to be willing, aren't you?" Carver asks softly. "I suggest you convince me."
It won't be that simple. A man like Egret will have countermeasures, too. But then, Pope always drove them after challenging targets.
"Am I? Am I supposed to believe you don't know how torture works? The threat is far more compelling than the act. Hurt me too much and I'll tell you anything to make it stop. The information is worthless."
The held threat is making him frustrated and impatient, and Harold hates the game Carver is trying to play. He does have countermeasures, and even hinting at them is a strategic mistake; withheld information is one of the only cards he has to play, but it's a strong card, and he's not about to give it up.
"You're an accomplished interrogator, Mr. Carver, which means if you hurt me that much it will be for your own satisfaction."
Carver just smiles at that. And then he lets go of Egret's hair just as abruptly as he grabbed him in the first place. Down, down, down he goes. It's a hard blow but this is part of the rhythm.
Sometimes, he wishes he could wear his gloves for this shit. That there could be some barrier between him and the things that happen in rooms like this. But that's a weakness. It cannot be allowed.
"Oh, I'm not gonna kill you," Carver explains, conversationally. He crouches down so they're almost on the same level. An intimacy. "The commander said not to. But you don't need ten fingers, Egret. You don't need two hands. Your face doesn't need to stay that shape. And the thing is, I don't believe you yet. See how that's a problem?"
It's stunning for a long moment. It takes time for the shock to fade and the agony to start rippling up and down his spine, burning through his cervical vertebrae like acid. But it's also clarifying in a certain way. Harold has been silently turning over a moral dilemma: isn't sharing food an unequivocal good, no matter with who? Should he really be so difficult when that's what they're asking for? It's a slippery slope, of course, but where's he putting that line?
Even people like this deserve food. Yet Harold doesn't have to give it to them. It's his decision, and Carver is trying to convince him that he should make it, but he doesn't have to.
"Pain is not a very effective threat for me, I'm afraid," Harold says to the ceiling, tone blank, an emotionless piece of advice. "I would rather live as your absurd grotesque trophy than give you the tools to hurt others."
That's his decision, too, and he doesn't relish it. But it's the one he's making.
Egret takes it quiet, almost stoic. There’s something admirable in that, though it won’t last. It never does. Carver tilts his head, watching the wheels turn. “We got time,” Carver points out softly. “You’re the only one on my dance card right now.”
There’s always room for escalation.
“You ever been hungry, Egret? I mean really fucking hungry. Most people have by this point. It just happens. But maybe not you, if you’ve been holed up real good.”
"Torture me if you wish, but spare me the theatrics. Your name is Brandon Carver. You were born in rural Colorado to a teenage mother who left you behind to serve in the Army, and you followed in her footsteps later. Despite trying for Sergeant, you were never promoted beyond Specialist."
Harold does, in fact, have a spectacular memory. He can't roll his head to the side, especially not with the fire radiating down his spine, but he tries to make eye contact from where he is, implacable.
"I know all that about you, but you know nearly nothing about me. Even the name you're using, Egret, is a lie. You have no idea," he breathes out, "what lengths I am willing to go to or endure."
He won't always be stoic about it; it won't be graceful or pretty. It won't be heroic. But here at the end of the world is not when Harold will falter, not for so stupid a reason as pain. The U.S. government never got unfettered access to the Machine and the Reapers are not getting unfettered access to his resources. It's such a similar conundrum, really, and sacrificing himself has always been the simple part. Although he's not looking for it, will try to escape if he can, there's still something like relief in reducing the spectrum of his existence down to this in the end if that's what happens. No more planning, no more grief. Just waiting for a chance at death.
Good fucking memory indeed. Those are the sorts of details a stranger shouldn’t be able to recall after more than a decade, but people are capable of all sorts of miracles when they’re tested. Carver works his jaw, biting back the anger, because apparently the mom thing is the line Egret or whatever the fuck his name is has decided to hammer.
It wasn’t a secret. Not really. But it’s a sore point even after all these years. Your own mother didn’t want you, so why the fuck should we?
Textbook shit. Walk it off, son, the commander would say.
“You forgot the part where my dad was a good for nothing drunk,” Carver points out softly. That part wasn’t in his file; there’s no father listed on his birth certificate at all. But this is the script now. The back and forth. “Gotta hit all the angles, right?”
Good memory indeed. But then, getting tied to a chair in a place like this is all kinds of motivating.
Carver hums. And then he rights the chair, sitting his prisoner back up. He’s not angry yet. Hasn’t gotten loud. He has a feeling that won’t be an effective tactic against this man.
“You got a point, though: we don’t know each other well. Think we should change that?”
They’ll break this man down. They’re skilled at that.
It wasn't an intentional hit on his maternal abandonment, just Harold rattling off facts as a personal narrative the way he can do instinctively as breathing. And he didn't know about his father, of course, beyond that he wasn't listed. Carver's response gives him a clue that he is hitting home but maybe not in the way he needs to. He's still treating him like he's hostile, an enemy combatant.
But Harold has never been an enemy combatant to anyone in his life.
He's levered upright, and it's disorienting, and he has to breathe through the disequilibrium and the pain for a few long moments before he can reply. When he does, there's a kind of challenge to it in the softness of his words.
"I do. You won't get what you want from me by force. But that doesn't mean I'm unwilling to help you."
He hasn't settled his internal moral dilemma yet; doesn't ever let it totally settle, really, leaves questions like that eternally open to revision. To do otherwise is inhumane. Maybe he'll deliberately help the Reapers in some measure and maybe he won't, and that answer can shift and change at any time.
The Reapers always do, in the end. And if they don’t, then they die. This is the simplest, most brutal truth of their world. He pats Egret on the shoulder just to prove he can, then reaches forward to straighten his glasses again.
Accepting unpleasant immutable truths about the world has never been Harold's strong suit, either. He tends to want to dismantle them.
"I really should just show you," he answers, "don't you think? You'll need me to grant access, anyway. Or you can carry on with all this and you'll never be able to trust what I tell you at all."
He's forcing the point: which does he want more, to follow his script or to get the supplies?
“Aww, we’re just getting to know each other. Why so rushed?”
There’s time. They have enough food to sustain themselves for a time, though not forever, and Carver’s always aware of how fast things can turn. And he’s also aware of how goddamn stupid it is to rush anything with a prisoner. People lie. People are selfish, evil things out for themselves.
Carver smiles. He wonders if the security measure, or perhaps just some of them, are on timers. Maybe.
“Hey, what’s your name these days, anyway? I can just keep calling you Egret but that seems cold. We’re getting to know each other, right?”
A new tactic. Singsong familiarity. Sometimes that works, sometimes it doesn’t. He can always use a knife later, if that fails to produce results. Either way, it’s pretty clear this man wants them at a secondary location. Best not to make it too easy.
The script it is, then. It's like having a conversation with a wall. The one thing that had broken that wall may be too dangerous to risk based on his earlier reaction, except Harold can see this is only going to go one way, otherwise. Prepared to become an absurd grotesque trophy or not, he'd really rather avoid it.
He stares silently at Carver for a long series of moments, weighing his options, completely ignoring the questions he'd just asked.
"I did back up all of my personal files." Because of course he did; and he had hired them at one point, so information about their unit was within what Harold considered personal. "That includes your mother's military record. You needn't take my word for it."
Does he even want that, or has he totally abandoned humanity? It's a test in its own right. Harold has no power in this room, but he has plenty of power elsewhere, and he's giving a chance to prove there's something left there worth saving in Carver. Saving everyone is a privilege he doesn't have anymore.
In another time, another world, Carver thinks he might have gone for it. There’s a part of him even now that’s hungry for his ghosts, for some way to understand the dead and all the echoes they left behind. He enlisted when he was eighteen and thought, okay, she has to talk to me now. We’re the same.
Those were childish thoughts. He has responsibilities now. And selfishness is a sin. You cannot place yourself above the group, above the orders that shape the world.
He tilts his head. And then, quite matter of factly, he draws the knife he wears at his hip.
“Stay on track,” Carver chides. His voice is cooler now. “We’re talking about security measures, remember?”
His mother is gone. What Carver feels about that is irrelevant to the task at hand.
"I thought we were getting to know one another," Harold responds evenly, eyeing the knife with trepidation but refusing to capitulate.
It's not an exceptional sort of enticement, he would admit. She's dead and gone and it won't change anything now to learn more about her. But it does hit, it hits somewhere, which makes him curious. There is still something in there worth saving, he thinks.
"I expect you know that I've done nothing since the fall other than help those who've asked for it, and the security measures are for that purpose. I don't understand why you think I'll treat you differently."
"We've heard about that," Carver agrees. "Thing is, I just don't trust you."
The world's full of liars and weak men. It's a sin to forget the cost of that. They need food, yes, they're always going to need food. But not if it gets them cornered, not if it gets them torn to pieces by the dead or the machinations of men. So it goes.
Carver presses his thumb against the tip of the knife, watching Egret. A false name, sure, but they'll get to that later. "I'm gonna get a map," he says after a moment. "And you're gonna mark a location so my brothers can go scout it out. Better hope they come back in one piece."
Harold thinks about saying that he hasn't killed anyone, ever, not directly -- his deaths are all indirect, and he has plenty of those; but he has never purposefully by his own hand killed someone -- and then thinks about how unbelievable that will be to this man.
"When they do," he says instead, "will you reconsider my offer?" He doesn't specify which one, purposefully.
With utter seriousness, almost comical given that he's tied hand and foot to a chair and his head is ringing and he is believably contemplating a possible future in which he loses a hand: "I will not harm your brothers."
It would be churlish in the extreme to refuse to use the word Carver has himself used for them, so he does.
Carver grins at him. It's not a very nice expression. But what else is there to do except pull mask after mask?
Next time, Carver thinks, he's going to have to try getting loud. This isn't working the way he thought and he worries about Pope's reaction. Interrogations take time, but this -
There's a level of strangeness here that worries Carver.
"We'll cross that bridge when we get to it," Carver says instead. He stands up abruptly, tossing the knife from hand to hand with the careless ease of long practice. Then he whistles, loud and piercing. One of their codes. Come assist, no weapons needed.
A brother whistles in response. On the way.
"Stay tight. Out of curiosity, what's your dominant hand?"
Carver already knows. He pays attention. But that's not really the point of asking in a moment like this.
Physically intimidating Harold is a feat many have accomplished before, and although he never actually became sanguine with violence, he did over time have to become accustomed to the idea that it could be applied to him. He wouldn't have hermited himself so assiduously for so long if he didn't believe there was a real threat behind it.
But no one to date has managed to mentally intimidate Harold Finch.
Rather than masks, he emphasizes different shades of himself, or at most he withdraws. It's an effort to ignore the racing and throbbing of his heart, too-loud in his throat, but the physical is not the same as the mental and he would rather die than be such a coward. The alternative is many others dying instead.
"I write with my right hand, but if you're asking which to threaten me with, either will be effective. I type with both and would be devastated to lose either."
It's absolutely true in every measure, and Harold lays it out plainly, without challenge or expectation. He's starting to make a bet and he's putting the first two cards down, waiting to see what Carver does with it.
"My name really is Harold, by the way," he goes on, laying down another. "But I would prefer if you call me Finch, if you wouldn't mind."
The strangest part of this is he doesn't think this man is lying. Not entirely, at least, not the way that Carver's been trained to see. Which means that this one, Harold Finch or Egret or whoever the fuck he really is, this man is good. This man is fucking dangerous.
Pope will find this one interesting.
Carver narrows his eyes, giving Finch a long look. "You seem to think this is something you can talk your way out of. Why is that?"
"It's worth a try," he says prosaically, looking back at him tiredly, slumping into his restraints. Harold isn't convinced he has a way out of this at all, but he's decided already who he is and what he's willing to do, so in that sense his path is set for him.
"I'm certainly not going to fight my way out."
He's not physically capable of it, but something about the way he says it implies he isn't regretful of that fact in the slightest.
Someone bangs on the door. Carver gives Finch another narrow look, then steps away to order his brother to find a map. There aren't many. This is a precious commodity.
But worth risking, Carver thinks. They're always hunting for food, for medicine. For fuel.
"Hold onto that optimism. You made it this long."
Carver leans back against the wall, sheathing the knife.
It would be extremely impertinent, and therefore unwise, to continue his deliberate prodding in front of others of his group, so Harold refrains. Visibly, his exhausted irritability gets packed away, leaving just exhaustion. He is tired and ludicrously thirsty and sitting for so long in one position is hell on his back to begin with, never mind what else has happened. He's quite certain he couldn't stand up and walk right now even if he wanted to, so it's not a difficult face to put on.
There's no possible way he could fall asleep surrounded by threats like this, which makes him wish sorely and futilely for a safehouse. Any of them. Eventually he'll pass out, but until then...
"You put the knife away, so I'm feeling extraordinarily optimistic," Harold mutters, covertly watching the door for when it opens again and they have company once more.
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Hearing he's wanted alive makes an echoing leaden dread take shape in his stomach.
"It's quite ruined already," he points out in a murmur, because he might as well have a personality for as long as he's able to in this sordid process, before it's scrubbed out by desperation and blind pain. "The security measures require me to be present to disable them. As I said, telling you where they are won't help you."
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Some things you just take. God decides you're due and then it happens.
"But you can be more specific. What security measures?"
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Bluntly: "Biometric scanners that require me to be alive and willing. I'm not an idiot."
He's not an idiot, and he has a private solar grid hidden away. Actual electricity. Harold really had made preparations, and the preparations of a legally dead paranoid billionaire were considerable.
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There's always something to fight. Something to take.
Carver watches Egret for a long moment, listening to the chair strain and scrape against the floor. "And you are going to be willing, aren't you?" Carver asks softly. "I suggest you convince me."
It won't be that simple. A man like Egret will have countermeasures, too. But then, Pope always drove them after challenging targets.
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The held threat is making him frustrated and impatient, and Harold hates the game Carver is trying to play. He does have countermeasures, and even hinting at them is a strategic mistake; withheld information is one of the only cards he has to play, but it's a strong card, and he's not about to give it up.
"You're an accomplished interrogator, Mr. Carver, which means if you hurt me that much it will be for your own satisfaction."
Because he knows it won't further the objective.
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Sometimes, he wishes he could wear his gloves for this shit. That there could be some barrier between him and the things that happen in rooms like this. But that's a weakness. It cannot be allowed.
"Oh, I'm not gonna kill you," Carver explains, conversationally. He crouches down so they're almost on the same level. An intimacy. "The commander said not to. But you don't need ten fingers, Egret. You don't need two hands. Your face doesn't need to stay that shape. And the thing is, I don't believe you yet. See how that's a problem?"
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Even people like this deserve food. Yet Harold doesn't have to give it to them. It's his decision, and Carver is trying to convince him that he should make it, but he doesn't have to.
"Pain is not a very effective threat for me, I'm afraid," Harold says to the ceiling, tone blank, an emotionless piece of advice. "I would rather live as your absurd grotesque trophy than give you the tools to hurt others."
That's his decision, too, and he doesn't relish it. But it's the one he's making.
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There’s always room for escalation.
“You ever been hungry, Egret? I mean really fucking hungry. Most people have by this point. It just happens. But maybe not you, if you’ve been holed up real good.”
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Harold does, in fact, have a spectacular memory. He can't roll his head to the side, especially not with the fire radiating down his spine, but he tries to make eye contact from where he is, implacable.
"I know all that about you, but you know nearly nothing about me. Even the name you're using, Egret, is a lie. You have no idea," he breathes out, "what lengths I am willing to go to or endure."
He won't always be stoic about it; it won't be graceful or pretty. It won't be heroic. But here at the end of the world is not when Harold will falter, not for so stupid a reason as pain. The U.S. government never got unfettered access to the Machine and the Reapers are not getting unfettered access to his resources. It's such a similar conundrum, really, and sacrificing himself has always been the simple part. Although he's not looking for it, will try to escape if he can, there's still something like relief in reducing the spectrum of his existence down to this in the end if that's what happens. No more planning, no more grief. Just waiting for a chance at death.
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It wasn’t a secret. Not really. But it’s a sore point even after all these years. Your own mother didn’t want you, so why the fuck should we?
Textbook shit. Walk it off, son, the commander would say.
“You forgot the part where my dad was a good for nothing drunk,” Carver points out softly. That part wasn’t in his file; there’s no father listed on his birth certificate at all. But this is the script now. The back and forth. “Gotta hit all the angles, right?”
Good memory indeed. But then, getting tied to a chair in a place like this is all kinds of motivating.
Carver hums. And then he rights the chair, sitting his prisoner back up. He’s not angry yet. Hasn’t gotten loud. He has a feeling that won’t be an effective tactic against this man.
“You got a point, though: we don’t know each other well. Think we should change that?”
They’ll break this man down. They’re skilled at that.
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But Harold has never been an enemy combatant to anyone in his life.
He's levered upright, and it's disorienting, and he has to breathe through the disequilibrium and the pain for a few long moments before he can reply. When he does, there's a kind of challenge to it in the softness of his words.
"I do. You won't get what you want from me by force. But that doesn't mean I'm unwilling to help you."
He hasn't settled his internal moral dilemma yet; doesn't ever let it totally settle, really, leaves questions like that eternally open to revision. To do otherwise is inhumane. Maybe he'll deliberately help the Reapers in some measure and maybe he won't, and that answer can shift and change at any time.
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The Reapers always do, in the end. And if they don’t, then they die. This is the simplest, most brutal truth of their world. He pats Egret on the shoulder just to prove he can, then reaches forward to straighten his glasses again.
“Security measures. What else’ve you got?”
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"I really should just show you," he answers, "don't you think? You'll need me to grant access, anyway. Or you can carry on with all this and you'll never be able to trust what I tell you at all."
He's forcing the point: which does he want more, to follow his script or to get the supplies?
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There’s time. They have enough food to sustain themselves for a time, though not forever, and Carver’s always aware of how fast things can turn. And he’s also aware of how goddamn stupid it is to rush anything with a prisoner. People lie. People are selfish, evil things out for themselves.
Carver smiles. He wonders if the security measure, or perhaps just some of them, are on timers. Maybe.
“Hey, what’s your name these days, anyway? I can just keep calling you Egret but that seems cold. We’re getting to know each other, right?”
A new tactic. Singsong familiarity. Sometimes that works, sometimes it doesn’t. He can always use a knife later, if that fails to produce results. Either way, it’s pretty clear this man wants them at a secondary location. Best not to make it too easy.
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He stares silently at Carver for a long series of moments, weighing his options, completely ignoring the questions he'd just asked.
"I did back up all of my personal files." Because of course he did; and he had hired them at one point, so information about their unit was within what Harold considered personal. "That includes your mother's military record. You needn't take my word for it."
Does he even want that, or has he totally abandoned humanity? It's a test in its own right. Harold has no power in this room, but he has plenty of power elsewhere, and he's giving a chance to prove there's something left there worth saving in Carver. Saving everyone is a privilege he doesn't have anymore.
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Those were childish thoughts. He has responsibilities now. And selfishness is a sin. You cannot place yourself above the group, above the orders that shape the world.
He tilts his head. And then, quite matter of factly, he draws the knife he wears at his hip.
“Stay on track,” Carver chides. His voice is cooler now. “We’re talking about security measures, remember?”
His mother is gone. What Carver feels about that is irrelevant to the task at hand.
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It's not an exceptional sort of enticement, he would admit. She's dead and gone and it won't change anything now to learn more about her. But it does hit, it hits somewhere, which makes him curious. There is still something in there worth saving, he thinks.
"I expect you know that I've done nothing since the fall other than help those who've asked for it, and the security measures are for that purpose. I don't understand why you think I'll treat you differently."
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The world's full of liars and weak men. It's a sin to forget the cost of that. They need food, yes, they're always going to need food. But not if it gets them cornered, not if it gets them torn to pieces by the dead or the machinations of men. So it goes.
Carver presses his thumb against the tip of the knife, watching Egret. A false name, sure, but they'll get to that later. "I'm gonna get a map," he says after a moment. "And you're gonna mark a location so my brothers can go scout it out. Better hope they come back in one piece."
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"When they do," he says instead, "will you reconsider my offer?" He doesn't specify which one, purposefully.
With utter seriousness, almost comical given that he's tied hand and foot to a chair and his head is ringing and he is believably contemplating a possible future in which he loses a hand: "I will not harm your brothers."
It would be churlish in the extreme to refuse to use the word Carver has himself used for them, so he does.
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Next time, Carver thinks, he's going to have to try getting loud. This isn't working the way he thought and he worries about Pope's reaction. Interrogations take time, but this -
There's a level of strangeness here that worries Carver.
"We'll cross that bridge when we get to it," Carver says instead. He stands up abruptly, tossing the knife from hand to hand with the careless ease of long practice. Then he whistles, loud and piercing. One of their codes. Come assist, no weapons needed.
A brother whistles in response. On the way.
"Stay tight. Out of curiosity, what's your dominant hand?"
Carver already knows. He pays attention. But that's not really the point of asking in a moment like this.
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But no one to date has managed to mentally intimidate Harold Finch.
Rather than masks, he emphasizes different shades of himself, or at most he withdraws. It's an effort to ignore the racing and throbbing of his heart, too-loud in his throat, but the physical is not the same as the mental and he would rather die than be such a coward. The alternative is many others dying instead.
"I write with my right hand, but if you're asking which to threaten me with, either will be effective. I type with both and would be devastated to lose either."
It's absolutely true in every measure, and Harold lays it out plainly, without challenge or expectation. He's starting to make a bet and he's putting the first two cards down, waiting to see what Carver does with it.
"My name really is Harold, by the way," he goes on, laying down another. "But I would prefer if you call me Finch, if you wouldn't mind."
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Pope will find this one interesting.
Carver narrows his eyes, giving Finch a long look. "You seem to think this is something you can talk your way out of. Why is that?"
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"I'm certainly not going to fight my way out."
He's not physically capable of it, but something about the way he says it implies he isn't regretful of that fact in the slightest.
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But worth risking, Carver thinks. They're always hunting for food, for medicine. For fuel.
"Hold onto that optimism. You made it this long."
Carver leans back against the wall, sheathing the knife.
"Then again, so did we."
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There's no possible way he could fall asleep surrounded by threats like this, which makes him wish sorely and futilely for a safehouse. Any of them. Eventually he'll pass out, but until then...
"You put the knife away, so I'm feeling extraordinarily optimistic," Harold mutters, covertly watching the door for when it opens again and they have company once more.
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time skip perhaps?
Sure!
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