As monitors flash updates on the security situation at Avatars LLC Headquarters, and security personnel can be occasionally seen and heard rushing about outside the laboratory, Cadena trots back in after checking on Jason. He tries to wriggle his way back into the heavy boomhound armor (since it had to be removed for him to get his head into the neuro-induction helmet earlier).
Although Cadena's "polydactyl" paws grant him rudimentary "fingers" to get more done than a true dog could manage, it's still far faster to have a human assist with the snaps and buckles. He apologetically noses Tracy for assistance.
Tracy turns away from the holo display to help secure Cadena's harness buckles. "So.. House Manjari was it?" she asks.
Cadena tenses. "Er ... House Manjari?" He pauses, then nods. "Ah, yes. Brother Cadena served House Manjari ... in the Diadem."
"So you're aware of what Brother Cadena does, but Brother Cadena doesn't always remember being you?" the girl asks, as she goes back to trying to get the schematics for the satellite uplink room and it's long corridor.
"For Brother Cadena, the in-character persona," Cadena seems slightly uncomfortable as he tries to explain, "I don't exist. The Real World doesn't exist to Brother Cadena, since the Diadem is the Real World for him. Or was. Now, I suppose, the worlds of the Gloaming have become part of his existence, hence the need to give his previous world a label - 'The Diadem' - to differentiate it. These other worlds are just as real to him as the Diadem, however."
"Except for this one?" Tracy asks. "You know, I find the split-personality thing more disturbing than the idea that you were created in VR and then stepped through one of these conversion portals. I'm kinda trying to not think too much about those."
"They aren't true split personalities," Cadena says. "They're roles. I just ... get disoriented easily when it looks like it's time for me to be playing a new role. I don't know how to better describe it. I ... I wonder how Lady Tracer of House Trudeau thinks of these things? She has actually been to the Real World, and she should know that there's a distinction, and yet she still resides in the Diadem, or some version of it."
Cadena looks expectantly to Tracy. "Do you ... keep in contact with her?"
"I don't," Tracy says with some bitterness. "She's the reason I left the Diadem." She finally gets the schematics she wants, and sighs with relief that it's not a straight corridor.
Cadena looks taken aback. "Did something happen? Did it by any chance have something to do with her role as Champion of the Light?"
Computer monitors flicker with an updated view of the Q-Core network as HEL struggles to rein in BLACK, depicted as schematics where blue lines streak outward, trying to form enclosures while red lines gather here and there, then smash through barriers. The BLACK is currently holding tenaciously onto the Satellite Link and the Q-Link; without those, it could be hypothetically restricted into part of the Q-Core facility, where just maybe, it could be purged.
"Of course it had something to do with that!" Tracy says. "She.. took my life! Everything I'd built up since I started playing - she took it all, even my friends! She became better than me."
"She made me obsolete," Tracy concludes, much more quietly. She enlarges the satellite control room and the adjacent bathroom and supply room.
Cadena sinks down a bit, tail and ears drooping. "I'm terribly sorry. I didn't think it ... ah ... I mean, I just didn't think. I was actually hoping you might ... er...." He blinks a few times. "I ... that ... sounds familiar." He shakes his head. "I don't think she's the Champion of Light anymore. I'm worried about that. I was worried. I ... don't know what I was thinking when I got that idea. I was conflating her with you. I was worried about you." He closes his eyes and shakes his head. "Sorry, I was getting it mixed up again. Virtual reality confuses me that way."
"It's not so virtual anymore anyway, is it?" Tracy asks rhetorically. "Not when you physically walk to it. Even if we stop the Empire, it's still sort of the end. I mean, if you're rich enough, you can have a magical door in your mansion now that will give you anything or anyone you want, and you can walk through it and become anyone you want. Ten years younger? No problem. Why bother inventing anything new when you've got a magic wishing door?"
"Nothing comes without a price," Cadena says, "I know that much, and I don't think anyone in a position to do so has really considered the implications. There are so many things that the WHITE could have done, or the BLACK, or any other artificial entity controlling the Diadem while your mother and her friends were in it, except that, as AIs, they were still bound by certain constraints. Without those constraints - and eventually I think someone will try to remove them - I fear that the world could become like the chaotic rift that Blake stood at. This is my fear. This is my nightmare." He looks to Tracy. "I ... I think Tracer might be in trouble. It's nothing more than a hunch at this point. I want to find out more, but there are so many things going on, and I hardly know where to start."
"You were made to find out where the WHITE went wrong, right?" Tracy asks, looking at ventilation and cable conduits. "He didn't ask, that's where he went wrong. That's the only mistake I can think of. If he'd come out made the offer to run the world and give everyone what they wanted... well, there'd have been a war probably between those who wanted it and those who didn't. How high can you jump?" she asks.
"Er ... I'm not sure. Especially not in the boomhound armor," Cadena admits. "I suppose there's one way to find out...."
The white dog hops. It's not impressive.
Before he can dwell on his lackluster leaping performance, Cadena switches back. "I was tasked with finding out where the WHITE went wrong, but in a manner of speaking, I am not certain I was specifically 'made' for the task - at least, in terms of my physical form. I believe that my form came about either due to a side effect of a certain custom process that was introduced into the system in violation of normal protocols by someone who had circumvented the security ... or else because of an AI invocation of the same process."
"I was ... actually asking Jason a bit about that process, incidentally, just now," Cadena says, pacing around, moving some of the furniture around that he'd displaced earlier, and clearing a space in the middle of the floor.
"Hmmm," the girl goes at the less than high leap. She sticks her finger into the holo display, pointing out the supply room. "We need to enter here, where the security camera can't see us. Then get across to the bathroom - it looks like it might be a false ceiling, but if not we can cut through. From the bathroom we have to do the same to get into the link room. I don't know if there'll be robot guard in there or people. Jason is making some EMP grenades that would zap the systems in there, but that's a last resort: we need to take the link without alerting the enemy, so that we can extract the tracking data and see which satellite or space platform they're using to relay the signal. I think we'll have at least a half-a-second before they can react."
Cadena nods, then braces himself and takes a running dash across the room. This time, despite the weight of the armor, when he finally kicks off and leaps into the air, he manages to leap high enough that he could have leaped over Tracy's mother, without even touching her hair. If he'd tried the same feat with Tracy, however, the end result would have been catastrophic.
The armored white dog crashes into a couch. He'd evidently been too focused on the task of jumping high, and not enough on landing.
"That's better, but I don't know if we'll have room for a running start," Tracy notes. "I'll just have to boost you up if needed."
The white dog rolls over, picking himself up off the floor, and making sure he hasn't broken anything important. "Aha. Well ... I'll try my very best." He trots back over to Tracy. "Er ... you mentioned my personalities before, and that they concerned you. Would it help any if I were to give you an inventory, as it were, of them? I don't think it would be relevant to the task at hand, however, since this does not involve plunging into virtual reality."
"You mean there's more than just you and Brother Cadena?" Tracy asks in surprise, turning away from the display to stare at Cadena.
A security guard - human, and not evidently one of the 'duplicates' - looks in, having heard the noise. "Everything okay in here?" he asks.
"Oh, yeah, just testing how easy it is to move in armor," Tracy tells the guard.
"Oh," Cadena says, looking embarrassed. "Sorry! I'll get the furniture put back to the way it was." He promptly shuffles around and starts nosing the displaced couch back into position by the door.
The guard looks surprised as Cadena speaks. "I guess you're testing one of our prototype Avatar companion bots, huh? He looks pretty darn real to me! I wonder how much those babies'll cost when they get 'em into production."
"Probably less than you'd think," Tracy comments, thinking about how 'magical door' technology would affect assembly lines.
Cadena bows to the guard. "AVA-808-X024, White Cadena type. I was field-testing boomhound armor today, rather than the standard issue Avatars LLC companion protective gear."
The guard salutes. "Jake Cortlynn, security. I guess a top of the line model like you'll be out of my range for a bit, but hey, if you ever have puppies, keep me in mind, eh?" He winks and continues on his round.
Tracy turns back to the display, trying to isolate the section of the dish feed that would be between the true ceiling of the room and the false ceiling.. along with how big that gap might be.
Cadena just blinks embarrassedly, never coming up with a proper response to the guard. He trots back to Tracy. "I'll try to be more careful next time. Ah ... right. Other personalities. Yes, there are a few. Three or five to my knowledge, depending on how they're counted."
The girl twitches at that. "Three or five.. all different roles for specific environments?" she asks. "Let's hear them."
"The reason for my uncertainty," Cadena says, "is that there is a considerable amount of overlap, and very unclear division between them. I'm actually surprised that I didn't end up with a new one in the Gloaming - an alternate Brother Cadena, at the very least - but it seems that.... Ah. I digress. Yes, Real World Cadena is my primary, out-of-character personality. Brother Cadena came into being during my last assignment, as a mentor for a younger player, but combining elements of my Real-World appearance."
"Previous assignment?" Tracy asks, then shakes her head. "I'll ask about that later - go on with the personality stuff."
"White Cadena is largely unused," Cadena says, "consisting of my image of what a 'White Cadena' should behave like. This was at some point going to be my shell personality for interaction in the Real World, should my owner wish for me to behave as if I was a real Avatar transplanted into this reality."
"You use that when you're just pretending to be a dog, right?" Tracy asks. "Or is that just you acting?"
Cadena shakes his head. "I haven't actually developed a personality for 'pretending to be a dog.' That one is not terribly well worked out."
The dog looks disconcerted for a moment, then shakes his head and continues, "Black Cadena is a little harder to classify. It's not used for roleplay. It's a sort of internal adversary, devil's advocate, sounding board, personal critic, and threat model. It's become a bit confused lately, I think as a result of some peculiar dreams I had for a while. Black Cadena, for all its bravado in my head, however, would be a coward in the Real World, probably. Possibly annoying, unlikely to have much to say that's insightful."
"I guess it's like having an internal scenario simulator," Tracy says. "I've got an internal critic too. Everyone does."
Cadena nods. "It's been a bit more complicated because Black Cadena often takes on the role of play-acting as my former master, or a more cynical version thereof. Even as I say that, I know that makes no sense whatsoever, but very little of what goes on purely inside my head makes any sense whatsoever out of context. ... And then there's White Knight, an incomplete personality, closely related to White Cadena. White Knight is a sort of abortive development, left over from when I and my previous master were discussing what sort of role I might play in the Diadem."
"So you haven't begun developing a new personality because or your association with me yet, right?" Tracy asks, squinting into the holo display. "Who was your former master? Can you even tell me?"
Cadena says, "Well, we've been together only ... uhm ... two days? Or has it been three? That's not very much time to develop much of anything. If you had created a new character for me in the Gloaming, I would have certainly had a new one. I still am not sure why I ended up as Brother Cadena. I know that things are amiss, but that doesn't mean I understand why."
"Are you gonna tell me about your previous master?" Tracy asks, as she expands the view of the satellite dish feed, trying to find where the downstream cable can be cut before it reaches any sort of computer.
Cadena looks toward a random display, and says, "In the Diadem, she was Lady Pearl of House Manjari, bearer of the Rainbow Blade. Brother Cadena was her tutor, and frequent patcher-up of scrapes and scratches."
"Is that all you can tell me?" Tracy asks, and decides to search for the motor-control lines as well.
"In the Real World, she was a little girl named Margaret - or Margie, as she preferred to be called," Cadena says. "She was 6 years old when I was assigned to her. She was 8 years old when she died."
Tracy blinks and tries to process that. "How'd she die?" she asks softly.
Views come up, displaying the satellite comm cable - a hefty-looking bundle of wires that would take some cutting, given the military-look of the thickly shielded line - and the motor control lines. Both views are rendered in schematics; apparently while Jason restored control of the majority of the Vanirheim building, not all of it is yet back in HEL's control.
Cadena's voice wavers. "She was doomed from the start. Neither I nor Brother Cadena could have saved her. It was a relic of the 2050s. In a manner of speaking, she was born with a genetic timebomb. It was punishment because her family was of a class too privileged, too wealthy to understand the suffering of those ... less privileged. Less privileged, but still capable of creating nanotech capable of messing with one's genetic code so that one's offspring would be doomed to a short lifespan, that is."
"It.. wasn't Penny Arcadia's daughter, was it?" Tracy asks, feeling depressed about both the story and toughness of the satellite cable. She starts looking for the power feed to the dish instead.
The feed runs through a large box with a prominent red knife switch, behind a locked glass panel.
"Of course it was," Cadena says, claws digging into the floor. He twitches. "I'm sorry! Sorry. Black Cadena is ... Black Cadena is the one who keeps urging me to drop everything, to hunt down those responsible for this ... who keeps coming up with such imaginative ways to make them pay for what they did, not only to her, but others. And I fear what I would do - because it would be me, no matter what personality I claim is in charge, who is responsible for what I do - who would behave ... dishonorably, if I had the chance to exact vengeance."
"Maybe they were all caught before it ever happened," Tracy suggests. "Tell me, Cadena; do you think the BLACK is paranoid? Enough that it would embed a routine in the satellite dish computers to erase any important data when the downlink signal stopped?"
"I do not yet grasp the BLACK's true motivations," Cadena says. "The rantings and actions of the BLACK and its followers are more akin to a manufactured villain, not of the one who challenges. The WHITE that was at the head of a push to rework the world into a new image ... is no more. The Spark is but a fragment of the WHITE. There is no danger that the world will be overwritten in cold order. No. The danger is a door opened into unending chaos. The danger is being granted every careless wish, before you even have time to consider it. The danger is a world where impulse becomes reality, and we obliterate ourselves and each other with a careless thought." Cadena shakes his head. "Melodrama. That's overkill." He breathes deeply. "Paranoia. Paranoia isn't a word I've yet had a chance to associate with the BLACK."
"I have come to believe that the AIs have an inborn aversion to deleting data and processes that might be of use later," Cadena finally answers. "However, I cannot say that holds true anymore with any certainty."
"Okay, then we just have to worry about a redundant power line having been installed," Tracy says, and points to the kill switch. "This is our target. Assuming communications are going through a geostationary communication satellite, we can cut the power and get the coordinates from the dish position. If it's really BLACK running things, then there shouldn't be any booby-traps in the computers rigged to go off when the signal is lost. Unless Jason Zero was in charge of the infiltration, in which case it'd be best to use an EMP at the same time as cutting power."
"To a large extent," Cadena says, "this depends upon whether we're really dealing with the BLACK - the challenger who always leaves a way to thwart its wicked plans - or whether NEMESIS has read one of those 'Evil Overlord Lists' and taken them to heart."
"If we zap the computers first, or trigger an alert, we'll have half a second before a signal can come back down through the dish - less if the local system is programmed to respond instead," Tracy figures. "If Jason Zero is involved, assume NEMESIS will be better prepared than just what BLACK can do."
Cadena nods, looking to be deep in thought. "I ... hmm. Would Jason Zero be capable of the same programming feats that Mr. Edwards performed while he was trapped in the Diadem?"
"I don't know," Tracy admits. "But he was involved with the replicant people coming through. He could have given them all the instructions they needed. Plus, if I knew the real Jason would opposing me, I'd go all out; I'd put a bomb in the satellite control room. So I don't think we can afford to let the systems in there stay active. EMP first, then cut power, then.. run!"
"That would depend upon what his objectives were here," Cadena says. "Going all out by bombing the satellite control room might be of little purpose if he actually intends for some reason to keep this place more-or-less intact. I'm presently leaning toward 'intact.' Rampant destruction is fairly easy to achieve, and could have been done by now. This complex has been largely obliterated before, after all."
"That's the BLACK's thinking, yes, but not Jason-type thinking," Tracy notes. "I'd rather not take a chance. The satellite dish is a way to back-track them by knowing which satellite they used, so taking it out if they lose control makes sense to me."
"So ... I wish I could keep track of this better. Jason Dragonhand, the BLACK, Sasha, General Irongrip ... they're all working together?" Cadena asks. "I can't help but feel as if there's something I'm missing here. It feels as if we're dealing with at least two opposing factions. There's obviously a lot of planning and coordination involved, but something seems ... off. Working at cross purposes. I can't quite put my ... er ... claw on it."
"I'm not convinced that Sasha is working with them yet," Tracy says. "The General.. I don't know yet. He was working to get these Imperial people in place, but then why quit his position here as Security Chief? See, that doesn't make any sense to me, unless he found out the real plan and decided he didn't want any part of it. But if he did have a change of heart, then why not turn in the infiltrators? He could just have left in order to build up an arsenal for eventual use by the forces of the BLACK.. but then.. aargh!" The girl throws her hands up in the air. "I don't know! They could all have their own agendas."
"That would be suitably chaotic," Cadena says, nodding.
"Which means we have to be chaoticier!" Tracy claims. "Unpredictable!"
"Er ... unpredictable, perhaps, but not misaimed," Cadena emphasizes, looking a little worried, as if he at least has no way of predicting where Tracy is going with this....
"The other problem is Jason himself," Tracy says. "He's going after the portal. If he actually closes it, then we can't send the infiltrators back through it.. and they'll be executed as human replicants."
"In any case, I have one theory in mind that ... hmm. It's flimsy, but I think it might suggest that either Jason Dragonhand does NOT have Mr. Edwards's capabilities, he is not in league with whomever sent the Wild Hunt through portals to get to you, or simply that he's holding back," Cadena adds. "So far, the creatures spilling through those portals have been unstable, low resolution, dissolving in this reality. I think Jason Dragonhand, if he's Mr. Edwards's technical equal, can do better than that."
Cadena stops in mid-monologue, and blinks, as it took him a moment to register what Tracy was saying. "No. They can't. They ... no."
"Yeah, that's the reason I don't link Sasha to him yet," Tracy agrees. "I'm pretty sure she pulled off the trick of making her goons seem stable by using a constant healing spell to renew them moment by moment. That was used last time, by WHITE's champions."
Cadena nods, still looking disturbed. "Exactly."
"Think we can talk Jason into just securing the portal and not closing it off?" Tracy asks. "We need to find out how it can make virtual matter into real - or at least stable - matter."
"It would be worth trying," Cadena admits. "I regret that Brother Cadena would be far more capable of presenting a persuasive case than I can. And, alas, this is not a case where I can just decide to move over and let him take over the controls, as it were." He shudders. "Jason Dragonhand is bitter and angry, I believe, but not without purpose. I just don't know what that purpose is."
Cadena says, "I ... don't know if this is entirely relevant, but I have another theory I am working on. I am trying to reconstruct the events that led to my creation. I have been anxious to find out its implications, and whether or not this capability would be available to our enemies. I believe that the mechanism used to create myself and others like me may still be in place, but only usable under certain conditions that I have not yet ascertained."
"I'm sure he'll be open to the idea, once he realizes it'd mean sentencing all those people to death if the portal is destroyed," Tracy says.
"I hope there is a chance for some sort of compromise," Cadena says. "I can't abide by their deaths. These are people, not things. They are biologically human, stable, and mentally developed. I am horrified by the implications that fully-formed sapient entities can be created on demand ... but once created, it is no fault of their own that someone might have created them for their own ends. The sins of the father should not be visited upon the children."
"I know. And they can't be used as hostages either, because they're just NPCs to the BLACK," Tracy says. "They're made to be expendable."
Cadena nods sadly. "There's something seriously twisted in the world."
Looking the holo display some more, Tracy suggests, "We can keep some security droids here, around the corner of the supply room. That way we can use them as a distraction if need to get any others out of the control room."
"I'm sorry, but is Inari in any danger?" Cadena asks urgently. "Do you know what her status is? I mean, she doesn't pretend to appear to be human, per se, and Jason honestly doesn't appear to be concerned about her. He was almost ... flippant about the nature of her creation."
"I mean," Cadena quickly backpedals. "Of course he's concerned about her. Very much so. But he doesn't seem to be concerned about her being ... what she is ... from a legal point of view, I suppose. Or that anyone else should be. Or would be."
"As far as the authorities are concerned, she's a human that's had extensive bio-morph treatments to make her look the way she does," Tracy says. "Otherwise they'd have to explain her real origins, which is a whole new kettle of fish. She got into the public eye quickly, and is also a sort of liaison to the other Diademites that live at the old park site."
"She probably also has her rights as a corporate entity, through Voya," Tracy supposes.
"What about Miss Summers, then?" Cadena asks. "Genetically speaking, she's not quite human. Did they find a way of working around that? Is that why she has been keeping such a low profile?"
"What do you mean, she's not quite human?" Tracy asks.
Cadena blinks. "Er... Her genetic profile. She was modified. RIU has records of it. Mr. Edwards had created a biological/medical scanning subsystem in order to analyze her physiology before he enacted the 'summoning' modification. Actually, I was just speaking with Mr. Edwards to see if I could obtain a copy, and then perhaps see if Miss Summers could help me analyze the data, since she has far more expertise in that area, and I imagine she's quite conscious of the situation."
"I.. doubt that counts," Tracy says. "Akiko Summers was born human, to human parents, and was human for 20 years before Blake messed with her in VR. I don't think that once you are human, you can legally be considered not human later after contracting a genetic disorder or getting stem-cell therapy or something. Otherwise people who suffer genetic damage from radiation wouldn't be considered human - and that's like every astronaut ever! Nobody would move to a space colony if it meant they wouldn't be considered human anymore."
"That's a very good point," Cadena says, "and that was my original reasoning. It's just that Mr. Edwards's take on it seemed to equate Miss Summers's situation with Inari's and it all ... kind of forced me to reevaluate some of my admittedly shaky theories on the topic. I still need to verify a few things, after all. And, after all, the secondary genetic code is dormant. As long as it's just sitting there, it's really nothing more than garbage data. I'm just complicating things again." He furrows his brow, looking contemplative.
"You do tend to over-think things when you aren't busy," Tracy says. "I wonder if all dogs are mute philosophers now. Anyway, I'm leaning towards spider-bots as our backups. What do you think?"