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Fixer-Uppers [all day]

Ben might have been finished with his classes, but he still had his job to do. After giving the shop a quick dusting, he sat down behind the counter with his favorite guilty pleasure: listening in on other people talking about Ender's life. The first conversation he clicked open seemed to be talking about Bean, and so yuck, and he fastforwarded past it, missing a few years of discussion in the process. The voices that came on sounded so urgent that Ben decided to stop here and listen, then go back to the other discussions later:

"General Pace, please sit down. I understand you have come to me about a matter of some urgency," Graff was saying and weeks of listening to the man let Ben detect the underlying tension in his voice despite his attempt to sound blase.

"Ordinarily, Colonel Graff, I would not presume to interfere in the internal workings of the Battle School," said a new voice. Ben was glad that Graff had identified him by name. He was growing tired of mentally tagging people as "that guy" and "that other guy."

"Your autonomy is guaranteed, and despite our difference in ranks I am quite aware that it is my authority only to advise, not to order, you to take action."

"Action?" Graff repeated.

"Do not be disingenuous with me, Colonel Graff," Pace replied. "Americans are quite apt at playing stupid when they choose to, but I am not to be deceived. You know why I am here."

"Ah. I guess this means Dap filed a report?" Ben made a note of that name as well. It might be handy when he went back to listen to the other stuff.

"He feels paternal toward the students here," Pace said. "He feels your neglect of a potentially lethal situation is more than negligence -- that it borders on conspiracy to cause the death or serious injury of one of the students here." Ben leaned forward, eyebrows drawing together. This had to be about Bonzo, unless there was another lethal situation Ender had danced around telling him. He didn't think that was likely.

"This is a school for children, General Pace," Graff said and Ben rolled his eyes. How stupid did he think Pace was? "Hardly a matter to bring the chief of IF military police here for."

"Colonel Graff, the name of Ender Wiggin has percolated through the high command. It has even reached my ears -- I have heard him described modestly as our only hope of victory in the upcoming invasion. When it is his life or health that is in danger, I do not think it untoward that the military police take some interest in preserving and protecting the boy. Do you?" Pace replied a little heatedly.

"Damn Dap and damn you too, sir, I know what I'm doing." Ben snorted at Graff's reply. "Kuso," he muttered.

"Do you?" Pace sounded far from convinced.

"Better than anyone else."

"Oh, that is obvious, since nobody else has the faintest idea what you're doing. You have known for eight days that there is a conspiracy among some of the more vicious of these 'children' to cause the beating of Ender Wiggin, if they can," Pace replied and Ben's grip on the counter grew dangerously tight.

"And that some members of this conspiracy, notably the boy named Bonito de Madrid, commonly called Bonzo, are quite likely to exhibit no self-restraint when this punishment takes place, so that Ender Wiggin, an inestimably important international resource, will be placed in serious danger of having his brains pasted on the walls of your simple orbiting schoolhouse. And you, fully warned of this danger, propose to do exactly--"

"Nothing." The counter creaked under the pressure Ben was putting on it.

"You can see how this excites our puzzlement," Pace concluded dryly.

"Ender Wiggin has been in this situation before. Bock on Earth, the day he lost his monitor, and again when a large group of older boys--" Graff began and Ben retorted back to his computer, fully realizing the futility of such a thing: "Oh, you disingenous kriffing bastard."

"I did not came here ignorant of the past. Ender Wiggin has provoked Bonzo Madrid beyond human endurance. And you have no military police standing by to break up disturbances," Pace shot back. "It is unconscionable."

"When Ender Wiggin holds our fleets in his control, when he must make the decisions that bring us victory or destruction, will there be military police to came save him if things get out of hand?" Graff replied blandly.

"Oh, fuck you, Graff," Ben yelled before remembering that being insane in a shop five years after the fact was completely useless.

"I fail to see the connection," Pace said finally.

"Obviously," Graff replied, and Ben was beginning to see where the Battle Schoolers' arrogance about always being right and smarter than everyone else in the room might have stemmed from. "But the connection is there Ender Wiggin must believe that no matter what happens, no adult will ever, ever step in to help him in any way. He must believe, to the core of his soul, that he can only do what he and the other children work out for themselves. If he does not believe that, then he will never reach the peak of his abilities."

"And then be ruined for the rest of his life, you heartless asshole," Ben growled, "but let's not worry about that part."

"He will also not reach the peak of his abilities if he is dead or permanently crippled," Pace pointed out.

"He won't be," Graff replied and in the back of Ben's head, he could hear his father quoting Master Yoda. So certain are you...

"Why don't you simply graduate Bonzo?" Pace asked. "He's old enough."

"Because Ender knows that Bonzo plans to kill him. If we transfer Bonzo ahead of schedule, he'll know that we saved him. Heaven knows Bonzo isn't a good enough commander to be promoted on merit."

"What about the other children?" Pace asked. "Getting them to help him?"

"We'll see what happens. That is my first, final, and only decision," Graff said firmly.

"God help you if you're wrong," Pace said.

"God help us all if I'm wrong," Graff said and Ben's hands made the counter creak again. "You aren't a kriffing deity, Graff," he snarled, "even if you were playing one right here."

"I'll have you before a capital court martial. I'll have your name disgraced throughout the world if you're wrong," Pace threatened.

"Fair enough. But do remember if I happen to be right to make sure I get a few dozen medals," Graff said and Ben rolled his eyes yet again.

"For what?" Pace demanded, showing at least a portion of the irritation Ben was feeling in his voice.

"For keeping you from meddling," Graff replied, and Ben had to get up and find something to hit to stop him from calling up Portalocity in order to do something extremely stupid.

Fifteen minutes later Ben's hair was a bit damp from sweat, there were a few scraps of metal out back that would never be the same, and he was ready to here the next part of the official conversation of how a principal had left a student in mortal peril to deliver some kind of life lesson.

"This boy's death was not necessary." Chamrajnagar's voice, and Ben was almost happy to hear him.

"This boy's death was not foreseen," Graff replied, and Ben had to slam the laptop shut and hit things for another ten minutes to get his temper under control.

He finally came back to listen, glancing occassionally at the clock to judge how much time he had before Ender arrived. The Force help them both if he was caught listening to this.

"But it was foreseeable," Chamrajnagar insisted.

"You can always foresee things that already happened. These are children, after all. We did not anticipate this level of violence," Graff said and Ben snarled, "The fuck you didn't."

"I don't believe you. I believe that this is precisely the level of violence you anticipated," Chamrajnagar said icily. "This is what you set up. You think that the experiment succeeded." Ben had never liked Chamrajnagar so much in his entire life.

"I can't control your opinions," Graff said blandly. "I can merely disagree with them. Ender Wiggin is ready to move on to Command School. That is my report."

"I have a separate report from Dap, the teacher assigned to watch him most closely," Chamrajnagar said. "And that report -- for which there are to be no sanctions against Captain Dap -- tells me that Andrew Wiggin is 'psychologically unfit for duty.'"

"If he is, which I doubt, it is only temporary," Graff declared, and Ben had to run through a Jedi calming technique three times before he could continue listening to the conversation.

"How much time do you think we have? No, Colonel Graff, for the time being we have to regard your course of action regarding Wiggin as a failure, and the boy as ruined not only for our purposes but quite possibly for any other as well," Chamrajnagar said, his tone the slightly disappointed one of someone discovering his tool is broken. "So, if it can be done without further killings, I want the other one pushed forward. I want him here in Command School as close to immediately as possible."

"Very well, sir. Though I must tell you that I regard Bean as unreliable," Graff added.

"Why, because you haven't turned him into a killer yet?"

"Score one for Chamrajnagar," Ben muttered.

"Because he is not human, sir." Graff's replied was barely audible over Ben's, "Oh for kriff's sake!"

"The genetic difference is well within the range of ordinary variation--" Chamrajnagar began, but Ben was already fastforwarding. "--Bean's behavior throughout this set of events has been exemplary."

"Then the report was incomplete. Didn't he inform you that it was Bean who may have pushed Bonzo over the edge to violence by breaking security and informing him that Ender's army was composed of exceptional students?"

"That was an act with unforeseeable consequences," Chamrajnagar replied.

"Bean was acting to save his own life, and in so doing he shunted the danger onto Ender Wiggin's shoulders," Graff said and Ben frowned. He didn't see how the evidence showed that at all. "That he later tried to ameliorate the danger does not change the fact that when Bean is under pressure, he turns traitor."

"Harsh language!" Chamrajnagar said, sounding taken aback, and Ben had to agree with him. As much as he disliked Bean, he wondered if Graff's guilt about what had happened with Ender and Bonzo was shaping his opinions here.

"This from the man who just called an obvious act of self-defense 'murder'?" Graff retorted.

"Enough of this! You are on leave of absence from your position as commander of Battle School for the duration of Ender Wiggin's so-called rest and recuperation," Chamrajnagar ordered. "If Wiggin recovers enough to come to Command School, you may come with him and continue to have influence over the education of the children we bring here. If he does not, you may await your court-martial on Earth."

"I am relieved effective when?" Graff replied, sounding unbothered.

"When you get on the shuttle with Wiggin. Major Anderson will stand in as acting commander," Chamrajnagar said.

"Very well, sir. Wiggin will return to training, sir," and Ben could hear the sarcasm dripping from those "sir"s.

"If we still want him," Chamrajnagar spat.

"When you are over the dismay we all feel at the unfortunate death of the Madrid boy, you will realize that I am right, and Ender is the only viable candidate, all the more now than before," Graff replied, and Ben was beginning to wonder if anything ever shook the man's smug self-confidence for very long.

"I allow you that Parthian shot," Chamrajnagar said. "And, if you are right, I wish you Godspeed on your work with the Wiggin boy. Dismissed."

Ben took a deep, shuddering breath and clicked onto the final conversation between Anderson and someone he called Major Imbu, talking about Ender and Graff going back to Earth in a shuttle with Bonzo in a body bag in the back, and a quick discussion about the relative "scariness" of Ben's best friend. He'd listen to that one again when he could process more information.

Right now, he rested his head on the counter and tried to breathe, shoving back the waves of fury that were threatening to crash over him. The last thing he needed right now was one of the telepaths, or worse yet, a relative or Tahiri, to tune into just how dangerously angry he was right now.

He finally sat up, shooed the teal deer away from the window and found a Bluetooth to poke around on. Keeping his hands occupied was a good first step to getting his brain to stop replaying Graff's replies in his head over and over again.

Fixer-Uppers was open. And fine. Really.

[OOC: Content of recordings is NFB. Content stolen with love from Orson Scott Card and with the permission of Ender-mun.]

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Ender had his own issues on his mind - and in a vastly different way than Ben - this afternoon, but that wasn't any different from most days recently. He was a little late, though, having gotten caught up in some new data sent to him from Shakespeare.

But here he was now, with two containers of pasta in a plastic bag. "Ho," he called, "I hope you haven't starved to death."

"Not yet," Ben said with a quick smile, "but it was a near thing. Get caught up in something?"

"Just more data coming out of Shakespeare," Ender said, putting the bag down on the counter. "It's taking a while to go through, but it's not that exciting so far."

"What are they learning?" Ben asked, more than happy to go down this particular path today. "And what did you bring me?"

"Nothing all that big. Just more exploration of the surrounding territory," Ender said, opening up the bag. "I got you some tagliatelle carbonara - thought I'd keep things mixed up."

"Sounds good to me," Ben said, "and I think the burger place will be able to manage without our money for the week."

Ender pulled out Ben's meal and put it down on the counter, along with some plastic utensils. "We'll see if you hold on to that opinion by the time you're done," he said. "I've never dared order anything but the marinara before."

"I'm willing to take the risk," Ben said. "Oooh, there's bacon! You can't mess up bacon."

"Famous last words?" Ender inquired, with a wry smile, and unpacked his own lunch.

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Oh so NFB now.