Having discovered the
discrepancy of Dutch’s memories it’s time to see what that means. On utopia
there’s an unpleasant guy who can use technology to turn your memories into a
film (which he uses for all kinds of unscrupulous ways, of course) and they use
this to get transcribe Dutch’s weird Khlyen memories.
First step is to send
out images of the fake assassin to see who she is - though she doesn’t appear
on any database. Which is suspicious itself.
But it is picked up
by an Ominous Blond Guy. He also has a symbol on his neck which is also in
Dutch’s Khlyen-vision-dream. Lots of ominous.
On Lucy we have the
new Hullen child and Delle Sayah is leaving but not before she gives her son
some basic lessons on proper etiquette. Including using the proper utensils
(unlike his dad who uses hands) and a name: Ozzman Kit Rin, named after an
honoured member of the Nine known for their cunning, greed and never being
formally implicated in some terrible atrocity. Such is the accolades among the
Nine
Which is where she is
going now - the Nine are scared, confused and laying low. And cowards need a
leader. Ozzman hugs her goodbye and she reminds him that physical contact is
for the poor.
Delle Sayah - awful
in the most perfect ways
D’avin isn’t a huge
fan of the name since it lacks completely superfluous apostrophes but suggests
that Ozzman should pick his own name and make his own choices. Which somewhat
confuses Ozzman who rather thinks parents make the choices for kids and D’avin
flails a little when confronted by this 2 day old who looks 16. D’avin is
generally freaking out about what it means to be a dad and Johnny offers some
vague reassurance (their own dad being terrible, D’avin was a father figure for
Johnny but also kind of made some big fails there too).
Given what the kid is
facing, Dutch suggests he needs training - D’avin asks if she’s offering and she
says no, she’s insisting. So begins training with Dutch in weapons,
assassination, protection et al which doesn’t mean wearing leather pants but
does mean using the crowded Utopia station to teach Ozzman who to be aware of
his surroundings even in a crowd
Which is where
Ominous Blond Man catches up with them after killing the memory reader,
knocking out D’avin and hunting down Ozzman and Dutch. Luckily Ozzman has
Hullen woo-woo which alerts him to danger ahead of time letting him dodge some
shots and go on the run with Ozzman wanting food and them randomly running
through a sex worker’s session meaning Ozzman has lots of questions Dutch
really really really isn’t going to answer. But she does insist he has a family
with them
Ominous Blond lures
them into a trap and holds Ozzman hostage - but it’s apparent he’s not actually
there for him. And Dutch wants him alive to answer questions - especially since
she recognises the Ominous Symbol on his neck from her Khlyen dream. So when he
escapes Dutch then contacts him to invoke Ye Olde Assassin’s code. Which
basically means you can invoke a truce so you can talk about assassiny things
Ominous Guy honours
this and he and Dutch go alone to learn… very little beyond the fact he’s part
of an ancient and important secret society with a divine calling, they don’t
care about Ozzman but they do care that Dutch is looking for a woman who is
apparently a member and they prefer to keep very very secret so everyone now
needs a good stabbing. And when she mentions the Lady he forgets about that
whole white knife and gets with the stabbing. He and Dutch fight and Ozzman,
who followed illicitly, decides to join in and save/help Dutch so they capture
Ominous Blond
D’avin is freaked out
that his son was in danger and how he totally should never have been there.
Dutch is more impressed and pleased that Ozzman did good but does manage to
throw in a grudging naughty naughty you shouldn’t have followed - but she’s
clearly more happy than chiding. Which is the start of the conflict between
D’avin and Dutch
The real rift comes
when Dutch decides she needs to torture Ominous Blond for whatever information
he has and when Ozzman appears she decides to include him and show him how to
properly torture someone… but Ozzman can’t bring himself to do it. Dutch tries
to press him - and D’avin arrives and has a Grade 5 Oh Hell No to Dutch
teaching his two day old son how to torture people.
She is convinced this
is necessary, a war is coming, they can’t coddle him, he needs to be a weapon… which
is ominous in that Dutch is seeing a weapon here not a person or a child. She
also adds that Khlyen trained her like this and she was torturing people as a
pre-teen as well. D’avin is outraged, he’s a kid, torture is evil and yes,
Khlyen is an arsehole who abused Dutch. Dutch is outraged by this accusation -
and I can see her being so angry that someone else dictates what her childhood
was but equally… he’s not wrong? Even if Dutch declares that it was necessary,
it’s clear her vision of what a normal childhood looks like and what is
acceptable for children is vastly skewed
While they’re arguing
Ominous Blond dies because of suicide poison, of course
Ozzman turns to
D’avin worried Dutch is disappointed in him but D’avin gives him an excellent
speech on how he’s not responsible for the decisions and opinions of adults
around him… and Ozzman chooses the name Jaqobi instead: Jaq for short. Which is
all touching and a prelude to D’avin and Jaq leaving… seemingly without telling
Dutch
There’s also the
issue of Pip. Zeph is sure that something is wrong with him and he wouldn’t
just sell them out and kidnap Ozzman… Dutch and D’avin point out that selling
out is kinda what Pip does. Dutch urges Zeph to fix Pip if she can… but he
needs to be sedated until then and there’s an ominous undertone as to what will
happen if they don’t cure him… so Zeph sneaks him off the ship heading to the
Hullen armada hoping for a cure.
Because her
experiments along the way show she can’t kill the evil brain spider - even with
Pip pushing because he knows that no-one will be able to trust him if he can
still be possessed (and he really wants a relationship with Zeph - enough to
risk dying for). Killing the spider kills Pip. Even if the spider dies without
being killed it will kill Pip - and these spiders don’t have a long life
outside the Green.
Meanwhile Pree
arrives on Westlery looking for his husband and working with Fancy to find the
child kidnappers. He’s not in a good mood at all. But I’m unsure of his plan
which involves basically setting himself up to be kidnapped and sending
location information to Fancy and Turin… which works. The kids are being held
on the Hullen controlled Rac and things do Not Look Good
We’re now heading heavily
into the moral grey and it’s fascinating to see - and fascinating to see that
we have Dutch and her upbringing not coming out unscathed. Which is something
that I don’t think we’ve overly dwelled on - we’ve seen her sadness pain and
fear but not how it has fundamentally changed her, what she considers necessary
and what she considers acceptable. Her anger at D’avin and not even recognising
how terrible and abusive her own childhood was are powerful markers of that.
Even with that joky line about Dutch insisting on training Jaq is fraught
because though it’s fun and clearly D’avin wants her help there’s also an edge
that Dutch isn’t joking here. To fight the lady, Jaq will be trained… by her.
But we also see
another branch of moral worry - while D’avin is worried about what Dutch will
do to Ozzman/Jaq out of what she deems necessary and her own skewed idea of
what constitutes a normal childhood, we equally see them both turning coldly
ruthless eyes on Pip should he be a threat to the child. Jaq has a new family -
but that family is extremely dangerous to anyone around him if they think it’s
necessary to keep him safe. And while, obviously, Dutch's abusive upbringing doesn't in any way force her into abusive patterns herself, her entire life of abnormality without any real connection family or security until she met Johnny and that constant pressure of having to survive and being hunted has left their mark on what she considers normal and necessary.
The debate now is
going to be how far any of them will go - and will they be able to stick
together when they all have different ideas of where the limits lie. And this
is before they get Johnny involved who is a) super loyal and b) the least
willing to put up with torture, murder et al.
I’m going to call it
now - Ominous Blond’s organisation is not actually in service to the Lady but is
an ancient secret order dedicated to fighting her
