Chapter 7.25: Flipping perspective

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From Alba's diary

Knock knock! 

Alba: Lily, Helios, hello! What a surprise!
Lily: It's been a while since we spent some time all together, you know.

Even if we live very far away from each other and we're always very busy, I think that I and my sibling still have a very close relationship. I'm very happy they decided to show up, it had been a while since the last time we spent some time together all the three of us.

Helios: So, how are you? I heard that Olivier lost his job, how he's doing?
Alba: He's very sad about that, but I really don't know what to do to help him.

Even at that moment, Olivier was sitting at his piano, strumming over and over the same tune with an absent air. 

What happened to him is so unfair, but what could I do to help him at least a bit?

Lily had probably noticed my state of mind, and decided to change topic. So, she turned to Helios, to ask:

Lily: How are you doing instead, Helios? The last time I saw Iris she said she was assembling a sixamian spaceship as school homework, was she serious?

Helios: Very serious. Back in the days, kids in New Sixam could only work on old-school spaceships specifically meant for didactical purposes, but technology is advancing at a crazy rate in Tech Sixam. 

Lily: I see, I see... And what about you, instead? Did you manage to talk a bit with Kate, at the end?

Helios: (sighing) No, nada.

Alba: Actually, about that... She also asked to be replaced as Olivier's telepathic therapist, we haven't seen her for a couple of weeks either.

Helios: What? I didn't know it...

I suspect to have said the wrong thing, because Helios almost didn't say anything for whole minutes, and then found an excuse to say goodbye and go back to his house. Clearly, Kate is still a no-go topic for him.

Alba: Poor Helios, he really seems to care about her... But the one I really can't understand is Kate, after all that happened she really couldn't find any better solution than disappearing?

Lily: I hoped he would pass over this a bit quicker as well, that's why I asked. But probably we shouldn't stick our noses in this too much either, they're old enough to manage this by themselves at this point.

Alba: I think you're right, you know?

Lily: Well, did you have any doubts?

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In the days that followed, I think I received the first truly good news in a long time. My colleagues found a sea turtle nest, it looks like the eggs will hatch soon. So, until when the little ones are born, our priority is to ensure they can safely reach the sea.

I admit that my colleagues may have exaggerated a little with the setup, those huge flags only risk attracting a large crowd. Will it be good for baby turtles?

Well, they actually seemed to be doing quite well, after all.

They're really cute, don't you agree,  my dear diary?

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Rowan is spending more and more time with the scout group, and he also seems to be more and more serious about it.

Rowan: (serious) We have to finish our homework, if we always do it for a week straight we'll be given a new badge!

???: How boring, who cares!

Rowan: Ehy, we're not here just to play all the time!

Rowan: Hey, team leader, look, John refused to do his homework again. He's been making sandcastles all afternoon instead!

Scout Leader: C'mon, there's no need to be so strict, it was such a beautiful day today.

Rowan: And what are you doing here, Mr. Manu?

Manu: I was taking a walk, and I took the opportunity to update your team leader on the waste collection on the beaches of Mua Pel'am.

Scout leader: It looks like our help will be needed again next week.

Rowan: Oh, that's great! Finally we can do something useful again!

I don't know, sometimes Rowan seems too serious for his age. He says he's a "grown-up" by now, that he doesn't want to do child-like things anymore, and basically the only creature he still plays with is Nacho.

Rowan: Hey, are you hungry?

Olivier: I see you're having fun.

Rowan: Yes, Nacho really likes chasing this laser pointer! It's so funny!

It makes me think he might feel a little lonely, even if he's always spending so much time with the scout group I've never heard him call any other child friend. Or maybe we are the ones who are neglecting it a little, but with all the worries that always fill our heads we probably don't even realize it.

And maybe that's the case tonight too. Rowan insisted on attending yet another scout meeting, while Olivier and I decided to spend an evening out to try to forget about Olivier's firing and everything else at least for a few hours.

Olivier is working hard to find a job, but here in Sulani the work market isn't very merciful. This is mainly a tourist location, there is not much demand for professional figures like Olivier's. And this archipelago is also small enough for news to circulate in the blink of an eye, by now all the companies in the area know about what happened and no one seems to want to trust us again.

So Olivier started to look for odd jobs, just to put together some money. He has helped people assemble televisions, he has acted as a judge for a sandcastle competition, he has even accompanied tourists on excursions. And every evening he returns home exhausted and demoralized, I don't think he can really go on like this for much longer.

Alba: (cautiously) Good morning.

Olivier: Good morning…

Maybe there is an alternative after all. What I have in mind isn't as a good job as the one he used to have, but it certainly can't be worse than this.

Alba: (cautiously) Maybe I know a place where they could hire you, at least for a while.

Olivier: Really? And what would this place be?

Alba: Well... Our agency recently received some new state funding from the Sulani Environment Ministry, they want us to investigate that glowing water. However, now we're quite, ehm... submerged in paperwork. My colleagues spent all yesterday afternoon trying to understand it, but we just can't figure it out… So we're seriously starting to think we need some extra help.

Olivier: Do you mean that…

Alba: I know it's not great as a job, but I think you would be very good at it, and it would really help us a lot too. And then I think that, since I'm now a team manager, the others will listen to me if I try to suggest your name, right?

Olivier didn't manage to say anything for a while, he probably had too many thoughts in his mind to decide what to say. After I don't know how long, he only managed to answer:

Olivier: Thank you, really.

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So the weeks pass, and the atmosphere in the Miller house lightens a little. It's incredible how getting a job can restore a lot of self-esteem in people, Olivier almost seems to have returned to the way he was before having been unfairly fired. And he is also helping us a lot to manage the finances of our small agency (which, I would admit, is probably a quite frustrating task, since no one had ever seriously liked to work with it before, and so we ended up cumulating a quite disordered pile of documents in our office).

But the happiest person at home remains Rowan, you should see how satisfied he is every time he brings home an A+ on his report card or a new scout badge.

Who knows how he will do in high school... You may be wondering why I'm posing this kind of question so soon, my dear diary, but if this is the case I would suggest you take a better look at the calendar. Time really flies sometimes, and his birthday is just around the corner.

Lily: This makes me feel old, I didn't think Rowan's birthday was so soon. It seems like yesterday that he was just a newborn!

Alba: Don't tell me, who knows how he'll do in high school...

Lily: He'll get all straight A also in there, I really don't think you have to worry about about this.

He is now taller than me, I can hardly believe it. He's growing up so quickly...

River: Are you sure you want to play chess with her? I warn you, she likes cheating.

Iris: Hey, that's not true!

Rowan: I don't care, look at this move!

Iris: Yes, but…

Iris: Hey, is that a koala?
Rowan: Ah... what?

Rowan: Koalas don't even live in this continent! And then, that piece wasn't on the other side of the chessboard a moment ago?

River: I told you she would have tried to cheat.

Rowan slowly shook his head with annoyance, he really dislikes it when people don't follow the rules. And losing, too.

Rowan: (displeased) Rather, there was another thing I wanted to ask you. Why did Mrs. Kate come again today? Are you talking to each other again?

The other three stared at him with a surprised expression for a few seconds, before bursting into laughter. They almost seemed to say: “C'mon, you can't sort this out?”

However, even the rest of us were quite puzzled for all the rest of the evening. After all, neither Helios nor Kate gave us any explanation other than that "they were talking to each other again", despite almost all of us having asked for a more detailed clarification. They seemed to want to leave everything up to our interpretation.

I don't know what do you think about this, my dear diary, but I admit that I was extremely curious to find out more about what happened to those too. I wanted more details. 

So, once the party was over, I did the only sensible thing I could do: I called Techna. They are an excellent observer and their AI has above-average analytical skills, if something happened at Helios' house I can be sure that they know about it. And here's what they told me:

From Techna's report

Kate showed up at our house on Thursday evening at 5.18pm, without notifying any of us in advance. She asked to speak to Helios alone while taking a walk, so to keep listening to them I had to raise the reception range of my microphones to 63.54 m. If I had to repeat the content of my recording, I would say that...

Helios: Why did you disappear like that, without telling us anything?

Kate: (vague) You see, sometimes, people need to take a step back to put things in the right perspective.

Helios: So you took all this time to understand what you really wanted?

Kate: If you want to put it in these terms, yes.

Helios: But—

Kate: Let me finish, please. It's not easy for me either.

Helios: ...

Kate: I didn't decide to leave to make you feel worse, all the opposite. I think I made a lot of mistakes with you, I've clearly never been able to be sufficiently professional, that's it. 

Helios: Maybe from your point of view you may have thought that you "weren't professional enough", but you have no idea how much you have helped us, all of us. Really.

Kate: I see where you're coming from. Yet, I really think I messed up badly this time. (Hesitating a bit) You see, the job as a telepathic therapist can be very boring, and when I was assigned to your case I was so excited about it. I mean, that was the first time our institute was involved so closely with an investigation, and I was so proud to be put in the front line and work on it, you know?

Helios: ...

Kate: But I'm still just a telepathic therapist, not a detective. And I was totally unprepared to work on such an investigation. The moment I noticed I wasn't able to handle all that pressure, or when I understood I was becoming too personally attached to you to act objectively, I should have immediately dropped the case so that it could be reassigned to someone more suited than me. But I was an egoist, instead of thinking about what was best for you or for a quick resolution of the case, I just didn't want to give the merit of our investigation to anyone else. 

Helios: I see.

Helios: So, your solution is to just disappear, and even ask to be replaced as my sister's therapist?

Kate: Well... With my job it is very important to be impartial, to not be involved. And I wasn't able to keep pretending that was still the case any longer. 

Helios: I see. I guess. However, what I still don't get is why now that you totally cut your work relations with us, you still think it would be problematic to hang around with me and my relatives. What's the big deal?

Kate: Helios... I know you can understand this, but I also believe you don't want to see it because of the way you feel about me. Now that I'm not working with any of you any longer I guess it is fine for me to come here to explain what is going on. I guess. But—

Helios: Your work ethic is admirable, really. Anyway, have you ever considered you may be making this more complicated than it needs to be? I mean, if thinking back to all that you just told me, you've never said that you disliked being with us. Don't you miss spending some time together, as well?

Kate: Of course I miss you, during the investigations we were almost always together for years! Anyway, Helios... I read your mind so many times I lost count, I know a ridiculous amount of information about you. On the other hand, however, I also noticed very clearly that the idea you developed about me is largely idealised and distorted, you don't know almost anything about who I really am. To me, such a situation is just too unbalanced to be fair, that's it. 

Helios: I guess you also noticed I'm not an idiot, though. That's how it works with telepathy, those who can use it will always know more about others than others can about them. But isn't this just another good reason to spend some more time together? To balance out that reciprocal knowledge gap you were mentioning, you know.

Kate: (laughing) Don't worry, I know way too well you're not an idiot. 

Helios: ...

Kate: Okay, if you are really ready to rationally challenge your current biases, I guess we can give it a go. Let's see what happens. Just be aware you may have some surprises, I warn you!

This said, they left the bench and walked beyond the radius of reception of my microphones while discussing whether to have Indian or Chinese food for dinner. 

Thus, the long-range microphones were shut off after a recording of 743.23892 seconds. 

Next chapter -->

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§HermioneSims§ corner

Techna the gossip robot XD

Jokes aside,I did it again, I made a simple conversation explode to the point of occupying half a chapter. And this time it was for a side plot too. Ops!

All this side plot about Helios and Kate comes from the simple in-game interaction "Other sims/Hook Up With". This option has a quite low success rate, so I was curious to see how it would go. Up to this chapter I didn't know how it would have ended, but apparently those two actually decided to give it a go.