Renaissance Smith: 11/11/96 (10/30-31/96)

 (Beth Miller)

Events of Oct. 30-31, 1996

Dear Mr. Diary,

What ever happened to situations where right and wrong were easy to judge? We spent the day before Samhain arguing, yet again, over whet we should do with the weather machine after we got our hands on it. I didn't say much, except that I thought we should deliver it to Master Porthos. I didn't say anything about the maze of conflicting ideals and duties that I threaded to come to that conclusion.

The conflicting points are as follows:

1. I owe a year's service to Mr. Forteau, and he wants the weather machine.

2. I owe faith and trust to my mentor, who sent me to Mr. Forteau, so I should do as he says.

3. I owe loyalty to the Verbena. They are my sisters and brothers.

4. To get the weather machine, I will have to help steal it from other Verbena.

5. I do not believe the weather machine should exist.

6. I owe it to Gaia, to the Goddess, to act in her best interests, regardless of any other obligations I may have.

7. Giving the weather machine to Master Porthos will result in it's destruction.

8. That last point is a statement of belief, not fact. I may be wrong.

9. In making my decision, I am turning my back on the advice of my seniors, and heeding only my own belief, and my interpretation of a dream.

10. Do I have the right to make such a decision?

I didn't feel like there was much I could do. I would break at least one commitment no matter what I chose, so I decided that worrying about my own honor was pretty pointless. I could get on to what I believe should happen in the greater scheme of things. Perhaps I'm being foolish, trying to simplify things too much, but then again, maybe not. I read a sci fi book once; it's not really my favorite type of story, but one piece of wisdom from the book has stayed with me. One of the characters said, "The more complicated an argument gets, the easier it is to refute." So maybe simplifying it is a good idea, after all.

I decided it all came down to #5. The weather machine should not exist. So I'm going to follow the path that leads me in that direction. I'll deal with the fact that this course of action betrays practically everyone I owe anything to (except, I hope, the Goddess) after this is done.

Well, Mr. Diary, now that I'm done boring you with the details of my own soul-searching, I should say that someone else had it worse than me. I am, of course, referring to Reuben. He still believes that the weather machine should go to Mr. Forteau, and is facing the fact that he is outvoted in the group. (Only he and KC want to give it to Forteau.) Partly I think he's worried about what Mr. Forteau would do to him, if he agreed to giving the weather machine to Master Porthos, but I think mostly it's the bonds of duty that I've so neatly slipped out of. He was Mr. Forteau's student for a long time. He really owes him.

Really, I do understand what he's thinking. If this were Roxanne, I would be following my instructions to the letter. I trust her judgment implicitly. But she's not here. And she doesn't know everything that's happened. She may not even know Mr. Forteau sent me after the weather machine. She may just have been paying off a debt, without knowing all the details. And even if she did know, does it matter. I trust her judgment, yes. But must I therefore trust her judgment of Mr. Forteau's judgment of the best placement of the weather machine? My ability at blind faith doesn't stretch that far. I'd rather trust my own judgment in the matter. Is that what growing up is all about?

Y'know what, Mr. Diary? I just realized I was so caught up in describing my little moral dilemma, that I forgot to tell you what happened that night at the mall, before we got into the argument.

Where had I left off? Oh, yeah. Betsy didn't want to talk in the middle of the food court, so we all went down to their secret hideout in the basement of the mall. The way to it was hidden by a wall that wasn't there. I guess it was an illusion of some sort. Anyway, they had this hidden room next to the boiler, all done up in blacklights and beanbag chairs.

They had a plan for getting the weather machine out of there. Betsy would cloud the minds of all the people present to think the weather machine was missing even before we took it, and Ogre would carry it off. Our job would be to watch the perimeter and prevent interference from anyone else (like the men in black) who showed up with designs on the weather machine. It wasn't a bad plan; I had just one problem.

They also had a buyer. I wasn't sure we'd managed to convince them of the danger inherent in this thing falling into the wrong hands, and their buyer didn't sound much like the right hands to me. I don't know that he was the wolf-snake from Cab's dream, but I didn't want to take the chance. Because of this, I didn't really like the idea of their waltzing out with the weather machine and our meeting up with them later. Since no one else had any better ideas, we decided to go with it with a few minor improvements. For one, John would accompany Ogre when he took off with the weather machine. For another, I was going to try to develop a strain of bacteria that I could infect everyone with to help distract them, and make it easier for Betsy to make them see what she wanted them to.

After we decided on all this, and KC and Betsy talked about the guy who didn't have an aura (they didn't come to any real conclusion that I could see), I went back up into the mall to the Halloween Express to buy a black cape for my Halloween costume. Then we all went back to the Chantry and had the discussion I babbled on about at the beginning of this entry.

Eric called Master Porthos and arranged for someone to pick up the weather machine from us in the mall parking garage sometime after midnight the next night. Then we all went to bed. the next morning, I borrowed Eric's car (the only one we had left, remember?) to go to my apartment. I needed some of my textbooks and lab notes to help me with creating my distraction. I also wanted privacy to try on my Halloween costume, so no one else would see if it looked too ridiculous.

Tom Brady <tabrady@mindspring.com>

Last modified: Tues Dec 24 15:10:00 1996 by tabrady