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Isabella cannot reconcile it.
Timid, respectful, obedient, harmless Nathaniel.
And a monster who'd capture Shell off the street and force her home with him and destroy her.
She can't fathom it. She is not a perfect copy of the other Bells. She thinks - they agree, for that matter - that she's turned out gentler and softer than they. Certainly she did not have as fine an education, except perhaps compared to Shell Bell, except in music. But they are still undeniably, essentially versions of her.
She has to know what happened to Voice, to make him Voice and not timid, respectful, obedient, harmless Nathaniel.
So she tells Micaiah where she will be going, and asks Jane to take her there, and she seeks out Voice.
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jovahs_heiress
jovahs_heiress
She sighs and adds another pentagon to muffle everything, the way Shell Bell's Downside memories are muffled.
The screaming continues unabated.
jovahs_heiress
She undoes the perfect recall altogether and drops her head into her hands.
The screaming trails off after a few more seconds, but he doesn't uncurl, or speak.
He shivers. Which at least suggests he heard and understood her.
jovahs_heiress
"If you have a better idea for how I could understand what happened," Angela says, "I am listening."
The little cloak-swaddled ball of Voice shakes its hooded head.
"please don't do that again."
"please don't do that again."
He doesn't seem to have an answer to that.
jovahs_heiress
"I didn't know it would trouble you. I have the same modification myself. I ought to have inquired." She sighs. "And I know Shell asked you to stop, asked you to let her go, asked you not to hurt her - and asked you not to hurt her again - and I know you didn't listen to her and it wasn't an innocent mistake. I need to know why, I can't just declare your template inherently evil, not when Nathaniel is ten and harmless and my brother-in-law and I have any hope of steering him into a decent adulthood."
"I don't like it when people do things to me," Voice whines. "I don't like it when they look at me or touch me or notice me at all. But I hate being alone all the time."
jovahs_heiress
"You could have kidnapped Shell and kept her in your basement and not tortured her," says Angela in a low voice. "I would still want to know why you did that, but it would not have been so pointlessly cruel."
"...you can't quit," he says. "Being a torturer. You couldn't quit, until we were all fired. I was—I didn't understand that, once."
He lapses into silence.
He lapses into silence.
"I had a sentence to carry out, and I - I didn't," he says. "And they punished me for it. They said - if I neglected my duties again - it would be worse. So. I didn't neglect them."
"I had to keep in practice," he said. "I was afraid - everyone else would practice sometimes - I didn't get sentences that often - I didn't want to lose my touch."
"So I could make sure no one looked at me," he whimpers.
"I do," he says. "I am. Since the - changes."
The little ball of Voice shrinks back a little in his chair.
jovahs_heiress
"I'm nearly done. Do you know how long you have been afraid of being seen?" Angela asks.