Summer looks up from her book and freezes. “You … aren’t Flyte.” To that self-evident remark, eyebrows high on her face, she adds, “Who are you?”
At this point Summer just kind of gapes at him. “No wonder Tony walked away from you. You really are a bag of cats. Mad cats. With fleas.” She has to laugh because otherwise she might cry, or scream, or — she doesn’t even know what; he’s an unsolvable rubik’s cube. “You would never have been able to rule humanity.”
“Ah, he did tell you about that then. One should count it as an achievement if they manage to get him to leave his tower.” He rolls his eyes at that reference. “I’m still being refere-… I don’t actually blame them for using that.” The girl seems to switch from one mood to another, cleverly hiding what she would rather do behind false actions from what he sees.”What makes you say that? Humanity craves to be ruled, in the end everyone kneels. Besides, if I must I can wait. I have the time.”
“Jarvis told me.” Actually, nobody had told her; she’d noticed him getting irritated, then him leaving, and figured out the rest herself. But Raven didn’t need to know that. She sits forward, elbows on knees, and regards him a little more seriously. Maybe — just maybe, nobody ever bothered to explain it to him.
Yeah, right.
But it’s worth a try, she supposes. “Have you looked at our history? Even just the recent history, the last hundred years or so. The harder people try to impose their will on others, the more those others fight back. You don’t even have to look back more than a few /months/ to see it — and you, proclaiming yourself as a god, would stir that backlash even faster. Sure, maybe humanity does crave to be ruled. But what each individual craves to be ruled by is different, and they — we — will fight each other to the death over those differences, no matter how minute they might be.”
She can see it so terribly clearly in her own mind, even without her empathy. She’s just not sure she can shape it in words that will carry that sense to anyone else, far less someone whose whole culture is so wildly different.