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Psychologically, the reprimand was harsh, but given what had been implied, it was accompanied with a sort of soothing wind that softened the sharp edges of Siber's last few words and his overall demeanor. The researcher acted the way he did with Joe and Paul because he knew he could trust them to keep trying to stay connected with him.

Also because... it felt good, somewhere, to know that at least so far, he meant enough to them for them to keep coming back.

A soft smile played itself across Siber's lips and he chuckled once in kind. "I'm not alone, Joe. I have Keldan, I have my dæmons, and I have the knowledge that people like you and P- McCulloch - well, I mean, including you and him, too - are willing to stand with me." He paused a moment to let that sentence distill the venom that had come with the rest of what he'd said. "That doesn't change the fact that I'm not letting you in. I'm not 'joining you.' You have to know, based on how quickly I shifted from one side to the other... back then... that I am something that is to be hired. And I'm okay with that. Granted, it would take a hell of a lot to get me out of here, in addition to someone having to, you know, actually know I'm here in the first place - which is why it behooves you to... well, for the most part, pretend I don't exist." Also, Dreamshell likely 'enjoyed' Siber's closeness to the two most powerful men in the Coven, and besides, he knew fairly intimately that the other organizations couldn't or wouldn't offer him the safety he had where he was.

The doctor tilted his head a little as he played with a pen, considering Joe's apparent regret for the death he had caused, or at the least for which he held himself responsible. "You worry too much, General. Keep your focus on your goals, your responsibilities. I'll keep mine on mine, as I have. Things will get along just fine."

"I kill Tyrgani spies. Hell, I kill whole armies of whoever the hell I want to. Or I would, if anyone working out there right now were competent. Or if my dæmons would bother to learn molecular biology. Or if Paul would lift the ban on the supposed 'atrocity' of poisoning a metropolis's water supply. I swear, if he would change that and give me just a few test subjects..." Siber's eyes suddenly narrowed slightly. "... from the prisons, maybe? I requested these the first day he set me up on what he refuses to admit is a project for genocide; can I please, pleasepleasepleaseplease have more prisoners?" He caught himself. "That is... um... some to begin with? Ha, me having access to the rare spare prisoner. Ten or so only get - could only get, I mean - a few picograms of material, what a laugh." He laughed. Because it was laughable. Then he began again speaking rapidly and energetically.

"It's as close to impossible as it can get to have dæmons teleport them in and I swear they'll die deaths that at least seem painless to anyone observing. Joe, I don't think he understands that with the right resources, I could end any and all opposition from any given group, permanently. I thought that was what I was hired for; to fix this problem." His last sentences had become honestly entreating, offset only by the playful, eager glimmer in his eyes.

The scientist ceased his tambling, and at the snicker cocked his head slightly opened his eyes wide in as "You had better be sh*tting me" expression as he had ever known. This was ridiculous. He had been hired to be a tool manufacturing weapons. He had done what he had been asked and been given what he had asked. The only reason he stayed in the lab was because of the faceless "Ray Koga" whose name sat on the payroll and whose timecard was never filled out... and... admittedly, because after sacrificing his house, he only had one back-up laboratory and no funding to get it started again. He was stuck. Again. Doing what was necessary to get to the next step, and the next step, and the next, and he loathed it with about seventy-five percent of the iotas of his being. Because he had been free, when he had left this whole political hullabaloo. What kept him from going completely off the deep end was that Dreamshell liked him being there, and he felt that, in the time put aside for the Dreamshell, he really was accomplishing something. And his dæmons agreed that no matter how insane he was, it had been the rare demoniac in the history of time who would just let them... wander about, every now and then, instead of using them as partially-sentient tools.

So he had plenty of reasons to stay and to stay sane... -ish... but when Joe started talking out of his a** like this... Accommodate them? He hadn't exactly come asking for this. And higher standards? Higher standards than Legion meant only bombing orphanages now and then. "Don't tell me you can't authorize it," he said, a little more sharp, bitter spite in his voice than he had intended. He dropped it to an intense whisper, eyes wide open, and put his arms on the desk in front of him, leaning over it to get closer to Joe, something he had tried to avoid for twenty years. "Sorry. But listen. You're off the record. Right now. Tell me to end someone. Killing's easy; maybe you don't want me to kill, maybe you want me to, to, to, to, to paralyze, or sterilize, or something. That's a higher standard, right?" His tongue flipped through those sentences in a breeze Joe almost had to back up to hear completely. Siber flung a finger towards one of the refrigerators in the lab. "I have only enough of one particularly delicious prion to wipe out a five-thousand strong force of canid werebeasts in two days as long as I could get it in their drinking water and I could make more if I had the brain matter to get it from. All you need to do is say, 'Yes, Siber, do it,' accidentally leave one of the prisons unguarded for about twenty minutes, and I can pluck as many spiderweb strings as I have to to make enough for a proper test run. Then I use the new test subjects to get more and to figure out to apply to a wider range of targets and-" He sped on, and on, his hands spinning out as much of a story as his words, detailing how to let him get what and whom, how long it would take, how much involvement Joe would actually have (generally zero), and punctuated everything with what it would do to end the war; he kept rolling like a motorcycle down a mountain, having hit an avalanche of sharing information, until Keldan finally shouted at him loudly enough to make him shut up, completely and all at once.

He licked his lips, breathed shallowly, and waited. It wasn't that he was bloodthirsty. It wasn't that he wanted the war to end. It wasn't that he was even particularly fond of this line of research; he would far rather use the wide variety of werebeasts as living subjects to study their anatomy and capabilities, how they might have evolved, why they couldn't use mana like everyone else, how the transformation process worked, any number of things. It was that he knew he was right. And he could prove it. Given the chance.

Finally breathing normally again after his erratic spewing of information, Siber took a moment to consider Joe's question after it finally registered. He really was... considering it? No way... That meant Siber actually had to think. Before, he hadn't honestly considered that Joe could possibly convinced, so he hadn't actually weighed the other man's options.

But, Siber thought to himself, the demoniac was nothing if not efficient. The image of his house exploding flashed in front of his eyes again at Keldan's bidding. So perhaps efficiency was not his greatest aspect. But practicality was. Again at Keldan's bidding, the genetic experiments a few rooms over became prominent in his mind. he asked witheringly to the dead man in his head.



"I have..."



"I have a scapegoat for you. If you trust me to use that scapegoat. Because I... understand... I guess... what your position is." Each few words was dragged out of his mouth. Siber really, honestly, in even the darkest, deepest regions of his mind, did not understand what it meant to be in the limelight. In all his decades, it was a thing that had happened for very brief moments, in dimly lit convention halls and in classrooms. He knew what it meant to work around an ethical system to get what he wanted, but he honestly could not understand what it meant for Joe to have this thing, this... public duty. What he could understand, though, was that Joe wasn't willing to sacrifice it; he could understand that losing that would cast the entire war in a far darker light than it was already, for everyone involved.

"I... Look, you already know my answer. Kill them all. End it. I know you know there are plenty of people who think the same I do about it. If you set me and a team of them on this project in earnest, the only threat is spies. I can fabricate a person or people to blame; a faceless name who 'accidentally authorized a project' or who 'snuck Cabal prisoners to testing facilities' or who 'replaced normal missile rounds with bioterrorist weaponry the horror of which has not been seen since sarin was used on the Kurds' or who 'slipped liquid ethnic cleansing into the water systems of every major Cabal city,' or whatever it is that needs to be done. I should... be able to... anyway. It's... none of what I've learned to do thus far is pretty." Animal screams echoed through his memory. Grown men weeping and begging for death. Teenagers, too. "But I can do it." If the right espionage artists were used. If the science worked the way he thought it should. If he wasn't ratted out by his own researchers. If the Dreamshell approved. If he wasn't taken away from the project by a dozen potential factors. If the Cabal didn't even get a sniff of what was happening to their prisoners. If the Tyrgani weren't watching the Coven's prisons. If a Tyrgani didn't end up getting hired by accident to work with him. If, if, if. And if it worked, he'd bring Legion storming after him. It would be pretty obvious who among Legion's former soldiers had the gall and the scientific know-how to wipe out the Cabal's armies that way. But... Siber was pretty sure he knew which bridges to burn, when it all came crashing down. And it would be worth it. Probably.

"Isn't that right?" smug b*****d didn't understand in over his head or how to keep from drowning when it happened or breathing apparatuses or even how to swim with the current when it drags you under or how to suck the air from someone else's metaphorical lungs-



<...sorry.>

The firestorm of pride that flickered through Siber's mind was quickly doused by his personal psychotherapist. It was replaced by an electrical storm of legitimate consideration, of how many directions this could really go, of how it could be effected in the best way possible. If Joe was willing to consider it, Siber had already formed threads of plans and had a list of contacts that was stacking up and being reorganized as he spoke. "Ask Paul," he almost spat. It wasn't an angry suggestion; it was just quick, almost like a reflex. "I already have ideas. I'll have details next time you come by. You know I don't rush. I plan. It's what. Thaumaturges. Do. Mr. Evoker." He gave a small, half-playful smirk at the end. "But yeah, if I can't find the right people to trust, it's a dead end. You think you and Paul could give me some lists of people?" The last sentences kind of stumbled and stuttered out of him. Trust was almost an obscene word for Siber, and the idea of trusting someone else's judgement? It nearly made him shudder in his seat.

Joe shrugged, putting his hands up in mock apology. "Oh, I know you're a great planner. I just want to make sure you don't go into this without all the planning it'll need."

He knew Siber was playing it close to the vest; that was fine. Joe wasn't even sure if he would be able to go forward with this, truth be told. He still needed to talk to Paul, and Roland, and Iblis. Joe wasn't ready to sacrifice who he had been for the last 20 years before he heard absolutely everything that could be said.

"I...still need to talk to Paul. And I might not be able to do this for you, so don't put too much stock into it just yet."