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[abrightboy]

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[deuceoftears]

So, sloppy analytics, Jedao thinks, but isn't rude enough to say. What he says instead is,

"I have the procedural memory of a professional assassin. My hands always know how to kill. When things get - messy. I'm always fighting not to."

[abrightboy]

“Your victims would tell us a lot about you,” Malcolm tells him. He picks up a stone and whips it, sending it for three skips.

[deuceoftears]

Jedao snorts.

"No, they wouldn't. Professionals don't choose their own targets." He stands and throws too, getting no skips at all, but a dramatic spray of foam as he hits an inch below the crest of one of the waves.

"Even here, it would only tell you who'd gotten in my way."

[abrightboy]

“I’ve arrested hired killers for professional hits. Everything anyone does says something about them,” Malcolm tells him.

[deuceoftears]

"Malcolm, you guess shit wrong about people you've actually met all the time," Jedao points out.

Yes, it's possible to observe people closely and make inferences from almost anything - the more eyes the better, and all that - but you don't get a Rahal to do it. You get a Shuos.

[abrightboy]

"And yet you're sharp enough to suggest I'm bad at my job without even really understanding what it entails," Malcolm replies crisply. "What a study in contrasts we are."

His job at home and being not only good at it but one of the best is very tied up in his identity still.

"You should be a career coach. Save people like me from devoting their lives to the wrong thing."

[deuceoftears]

Jedao laughs, one short sharp bark, before he drags a hand over his face.

"Oh, I basically do." The only people who hate him more than the cadets he fails are probably the cadets he passes, at this point. But they hate him because he's right about them.

"But you're right, your job doesn't make any sense to me at all."

[abrightboy]

Malcolm shrugs and moves a couple of steps past Jedao, ostensibly looking for another stone.

"It takes, like, ten years to become one, so making it make sense is a time consuming endeavour," he says, bending to pick up a stone and turning to throw it. Four bounces. Not the worst.

[deuceoftears]

"No, like - that whole context. In that breach with the Fantasyland tours, there were those, what was the word, farriers. People whose whole job was horseshoes and hoof care. Because that world had tons of horses and donkeys and mules. You keep talking about hunting killers like that's a thing. And I know it is, because I remember other breaches. But it's weird to me."

[abrightboy]

"...You don't have murderers in your world?" Malcolm clarifies.

[deuceoftears]

"Not, like. Freelance."

Shuos Infantry and Andan Infantry and Vidona Deathtouch Summary Executions and Kel bombers, yes. Random civilian killers -

"I mean, it's thousands of planets, I'm sure it has to happen sometime. But not many, and they aren't hard to catch. 'Law Enforcement' is about heresy and tax evasion and dumb kids doing joyrides, not murder."

[abrightboy]

"Well. ...If heresy were a crime in my world, the police would be too busy to investigate murders, too," he jokes lightly. "And don't get me started on tax evasion."