Chapter Eighteen #2
“To protect legacy!” Einstein's undamaged tentacles curled in anger or misery or frustration or some other dark emotions that Max didn’t understand.
And he didn’t. Suicide made no sense, but he could not imagine another reason for locking himself in an incinerator.
He hoped that was his human bias shining through and Hidden ones had logical reasons for doing something so stupid.
“If you want to protect your legacy, come out of the incinerator and let's talk about it,” Max tried to channel the hostage negotiators he'd seen on television, but he was fairly sure that his voice had a note of panic.
Max half turned to the children. “Boys, why don't you head upstairs and see if the people who are coming are visible,” he suggested.
None of the children had a high opinion of their grandfather, but that still didn't mean they should watch the idiot burn to death.
Assuming that that's what he was doing. Maybe there was some sort of ritual defecation that took place in an incinerator.
The waste product would be left behind before you incinerated it as a symbolic protection of the legacy.
That made no sense, but at this point it also made no sense for Einstein to be standing in an incinerator.
“If you sign contract, I will claim your identity and protect legacy,” Rick bargained. Oh that was a brilliant move. Max was proud of his blackmailing husband.
“Danger too great,” Einstein bugled. Three of his tentacles were in tight curly fries, but the damaged ones were bent in awkwardly, like they had broken bones inside them.
“The danger of what?” Max asked. “Rick is giving you a good offer. Someone is coming here. This is someone you’re afraid of because you're afraid they'll discover your secret.
There's a simple solution. You sign a super restrictive contract that says you will release us, and Rick will impersonate you. We can all call him Einstein and everything.”
Xander poked Max in the kidney. “Einstein and Rick and Great Thinker all translate to linguistically equivalent term.”
Max ignored his son since linguistic equivalencies was the last thing he cared about right now.
“Danger too great,” Einstein said. “Legacy is more important than individual. Legacy is more important than maintaining social norms. Legacy is more important than freedom.”
“Not more important than freedom,” Rick trumpeted. “Individual will be individual.”
“No,” Einstein said. “Continuity requires sacrifice of individuality. The people need continuity. There can be no danger. There can be no shame. There can be no damage of legacy.”
“Then we won't damage the legacy,” Max promised. “All we want is the freedom to travel. We’ll be back. Rick will share his many, many brilliant inventions with your people. You will have a legacy.”
“Tainted knowledge is knowledge to be abandoned in depth of ocean. Tainted knowledge is to be exiled,” Einstein bugled. “She asks questions and does not accept logical answers.”
“Who is she?” Max asked as hope wiggled in his chest.
“She unbalances everything, and I must balance the equation.” Einstein bugled his distress.
Dee was coming. Max had never heard a Hidden one use the word unbalanced unless they were using the official name for humans.
“Out.” Max pushed his children towards the exit. “Out. All of you. Get out of this room. Go.”
Xander refused to be moved, and Max understood that he was still raw from their earlier conversations about not wanting to be parented anymore, but this was not the time to argue.
Kohei curled a tentacle around one of Xander's before yanking him towards the exit. Xander made an inarticulate bellow of objection, but Kohei strong-tentacled him out the door and James seemed eager enough to rush after them. Rick’s tentacles were so curled he was having trouble with the controls, his knotted tentacles hitting levers at random, not that it did anything.
Like everything in this house, the controls were locked against them.
“Rick, you should come.” Max raised a hand towards his husband, praying that he would take it and allow himself to be pulled away. This wasn't something they needed to be here for. But Rick didn't move. If anything, he slid an inch closer to the porthole window.
“You have freedom of choice. This choice is not logical.” Rick’s voice warbled.
“Protection of legacy is logical. The ocean overwhelms a fish. The universe overwhelms the planet. The legacy matters more than a broken individual.”
“Then build your legacy. Stay and create wondrous new locking mechanisms. Create new global defense strategy.” Rick curled miserable tentacles around the porthole window.
“You changed course of legacy. I cannot redirect flow. I told her I chose isolation. I told her I chose privacy. I requested time for privacy. I told others I vacillated on projects. But questions. Questions. Questions.” With each iteration of the word, Einstein's voice grew shriller and more brittle and louder. His truncated tentacles bobbed and jerked and Rick’s twitched as though they were both marionettes tugged by the strings that controlled both.
“We will find a solution together,” Max suggested. “We can tell whoever's in the car to give us an hour and we will come up with a solution we can all live with. We can all work on the legacy,” Max said.
“Agreement,” Rick bellowed. “We are unbalanced. Unbalanced is uncomfortable. Unbalanced one brings much unbalanced to me and I know discomfort of falling when unsure of gravity or buoyancy of water underneath,” Rick said, “but unbalanced is cycle of balanced and unbalanced we rebalance.”
“Rebalancing not possible. They ask questions. I give answers. They do not accept. Legacy in danger.”
“We will rebalance,” Rick said. “Unbalanced ones have strange locomotion, but method of locomotion is functional because of two walking limbs. Between us we have two walking limbs. We will rebalance. Abandon idiocy of plan.”
“Negative. Plan ensures legacy. I created you to carry forward my ideas because I could not.”
“Logical flaw. You can carry ideas.”
“Rebuttal. Damage is cumulative. Lifespan is shortened.”
“Rebuttal. Lifespan remains. I am individual. I am no longer you. If you destroy yourself, you are now unique. You now destroy uniqueness.”
“Negative. You are what I would have been without stupidity. You are my genetics and my learnings. You chose path I would have chosen if it had been open to me. You are legacy.”
“Negative. I am married to Unbalanced one. You detest unbalanced. We are individuals. You cannot destroy self without destroying individuality. Legacy requires individuality.” Rick spoke faster and faster, his words tumbling.
Max was mute in the face of this horror, and Rick's tentacles were tight spirals and several clung to the edges of the portal to keep him upright enough to maintain eye contact.
Otherwise he would have sunk to the floor.
“Legacy is what matters. Legacy always mattered. I never intended to deny you individuality. I only sought to set early path knowing the waters you swim will differ from the waters I swam. New waters require differentiation.”
“We may both swim waters,” Rick bellowed with such pain in his voice that it ripped at something visceral in Max's heart.
“Negative. Destruction of legacy would imply destruction of offspring and three offspring of my offspring. Offspring have not earned destruction and shame and exile. Offspring will not be shamed.” Einstein made an inarticulate cry and the machine bellowed.
A new alarm sounded, and Rick issued a great cry before sinking to the floor.
Max threw himself forward, wrapping his arms around his husband and holding tight as the machine cycled through whirrs and thumps until the alarm stopped and a series of green lights and clicks filled the silence.
Max didn't know if he was the one shaking or if it was Rick or if Hidden ones even shook in response to emotional trauma. They lay tangled on the floor as more and more lights in the room flipped to greens and blues. “We were individuals,” Rick said softly and miserably.
“Yes, you were,” Max said, but for the first time since he had met Einstein, he saw some of Rick’s kindness and love and sweetness and stupidity in his father-in-law. They were individuals, but they had had more in common than Max would have guessed even a few minutes earlier.