In one of the recovery rooms, Tracy has just finished up with the pharmacy-bot. Luckily her bruises were easily treatable with some nano-balm to speed recovery and a bit of concealer to prevent them turning black or green. Now it's just the soreness and other inconveniences of them to deal with. "Can you tell me the status of patient Michael Dexter?" she asks the robo-bug.
The doctor looks up as if consulting a directory, though in reality Tracy knows that it's just an emotive gesture to cover its lack of immediate response. "Michael Dexter is currently recovering in suite 6, miss," it says in a pleasant baritone. "Do you wish me to inquire if he would like a visitor?"
"He's awake then?" Tracy asks in surprise. "Not just yet, I need to.. rest a bit first, I guess. I'll ask again later."
A white-furred humanoid in what looks like a mish-mash of Avatars LLC security armor and robes (somewhat worse for the wear) dashes into the room. "Where is she?" Cadena asks hastily, and then his eyes settle upon Tracy. "Miss Trud-- Tracy!" He rushes over to her, eyes looking on the verge of tearing as he checks on her. "Are you quite all right? I heard you had been taken to the infirmary!"
"Aaugh!" Tracy yelps, digging her fingers into the side of the couch-cot. "Cadena?! How are you.." she stammers with wide-eyes. "WHY AREN'T YOU A DOG?"
The doctor-robot winks one of its optics at Tracy, then resumes its rounds. It sidles up to a different suite and opens the door, going in to greet the patient. "How are you doing, Mr. Patterson?..."
Cadena looks very taken aback at this, and pats his muzzle and nose with his hands, then regards them as well. "Ah ... yes. I seem to be stable in this form. The SPARK assures me that I can change back, if it is necessary. Perhaps this close to the Q-Cores, there wouldn't be any grave side effects, but I was afraid of testing this theory in the hover car. A mishap could have been ... messy."
"But.. you jumped out through a portal into a cryo-facility," Tracy says, slowly and clearly. "Is it because.. you were from the Diadem originally?"
"Look, I know you're tough. You're tougher than me! That doesn't mean you shouldn't get checked out after being shot repeatedly. Something could be broken, or you could have internal bleeding. The only thing I'm fairly sure you don't have is an alien infection," Jason's voice echoes from somewhere outside the medical bay. "... and I just gave myself a rather creepy mental image. I really need to quit watching old movies."
Cadena blinks and shakes his head. "I ... I'll try to explain as best I can, but I'm afraid that my knowledge on that matter is highly suspect, and likely to be littered with considerable speculation, since no one is capable of giving me a straight answer on it. Must ... must not get distracted. This is important. Trying to keep it quick. Sasha is in the building - in the custody of Avatars LLC security. She drove me here, but apparently - somehow - did not know who I was. She was seeking out the North Bend simulation data, and thought I could help her acquire it."
Inari's voice responds, "Let's just say I have a little phobia about doctors ever since a certain incident years ago. It was just supposed to be a full-body scan in some experimental holo-imaging setup... Stay with me, Jason?"
"WHERE IS SHE?!" Tracy demands, leaping forward to grab Cadena by the shoulders. "I... would like.. to talk to her," she adds through gritted teeth.
Cadena holds Tracy back gently. "Please! She is in custody, and she's being kept sedated until your mother can have a word with her first. Vice President Trudeau's wishes on that matter are very clear. Also, I met HECATE."
"Oh, uh, sure," Jason agrees as he comes through the door to the medical bay, "And you'll have to tell me what happened the last time ... sometime." Upon spotting Cadena, though, he stops mid-step and almost falls on his face. "They weren't kidding when they said vitamins help growing boys," he claims in an attempt to recover some dignity.
The doctor-robot pads back out of the suite. Like other ladybug-robots, it trundles around on four legs and has a look of utter harmlessness in its body and head design. Its manipulator arms are normally kept folded beneath the front part of its body, but when unfolded, it actually has two major arms and two tiny micromanipulator arms.
"Ah! Do you need any treatment, sir or madam?" says the doctor-robot, trotting up. Its optic camera-head swivels toward Jason, then Inari.
"That's.. the name of Sasha's AD, right?" Tracy says, forcing herself to calm down, even though it does just leave her shaking a bit. "You'd better tell me things from the start: what happened when you and your evil twin went through Atlas's portal?"
The golden vixen clings to Jason's arm, eying the doctor-bug suspiciously.
"She needs to be checked out. She was armored ... but taking several bullets could have damaged something," Jason tells the bot and thumbs towards Inari. "What's this about Sasha and her disturbing computer demon head?" he asks Tracy.
Inari watches the doctor approach uneasily. "I feel okay," she claims. "It's probably just a bruise or two. Nothing a day or two taking it easy won't fix."
"Except you never take it easy," Jason points out.
Cadena says, "I'm so sorry, Tracy. You're right." He takes a deep breath. "I didn't mean to abandon you. I was in a logical lapse, regressing to another role - Ranch Hand Cadena from Fantasy Rancher. When I talked of going 'home,' ATLAS somehow had enough information on me to interpret that I wished to see 'Miss Margie,' that that meant visiting her real-life corporeal form ... in a private cryogenic chamber hidden within the Arcadia residence. ATLAS also sent 'Dark Renard' with me - unit BLK-1138-R-005 (tag incomplete)." Cadena recites the partial tag (and the "tag incomplete" note) in a different tone of voice. "Upon passing through the portal, Renard's connection was severed, and the unit began to degrade, and shifted into idle-mode programming. I, however, remained stable, but the obvious paradigm shift allowed me to regain my sanity for the moment."
"No pain, no gain!" Inari rebuts.
"You actually were sane before?" Jason is compelled to ask Cadena.
Sitting down again, Tracy takes a deep breath to calm down (then winces from it). "Okay, so.. you were sane - I'll take your word for it. And Inari... grow up and let the doctor treat you! Sheesh! Please continue, Cadena."
The doctor chuckles. "Well, your armored jumpsuit may have stopped the bullets, Miss, but you'll put the sir's mind at ease if you allow me to examine you and verify that there are no worser complications. If you'll step into examination room 1 and disrobe, I'll be there in just a moment."
The golden vixen looks at Jason for help.
"You're going to make me go in the exam room with you, aren't you?" Jason asks Inari.
"... Or just wait outside and if I call for help, come in with a wrench and disassemble the wretched thing before it finishes assimilating me like that thing downstairs wanted to do with Chaz and his girlfriend?" Inari murmurs. She gives Tracy an annoyed look.
Cadena says, "Any assessment on my part of my own sanity is purely speculation, and, due to the lack of detachment from the matter, not to be taken as--" He blinks and shakes his head, snapping out of whatever mode he just fell into. "I digress. I was able to 'break out of character' enough to establish a truce of sorts with BLK-1138-R-005's localized AI - its physical form apparently actually carried enough of a developed brain to contain its own 'idle-mode' programming, so to speak, once detached from Renard - whether 'Renard' is indeed an in-game AI or player, I don't know. I persuaded it to cease hostilities, in exchange for promising to use my abilities to return it to its proper place."
"You did okay diagnosing my injuries, Jason," Tracy points out. "You can't do any less for your girlfriend." She shows an awful lot of teeth when she grins.
"Wait.. what did the brain look like?" Tracy asks Cadena.
The doctor winks. "I assure you, miss, I have no designs on your body beyond the purely medical. I was programmed by Asclepius Worldwide with a strict abidance by the Hippocratic Oath."
I hope you develop a severe case of irritable bowel syndrome from the food here, Tracy," Jason grumbles as he takes Inari's arm and guides her towards the first exam room. "And I also expect you to behave in here. No teasing!" he warns Inari.
"Apparently," Cadena says. "I didn't get a chance to do an examination on it. I was under quite a few pressures to act quickly. For one thing, I was in the chamber with Margie's corporeal form ... and it would seem that, for lack of a better term, I had received an overlay of her personality template somehow co-existing within my head. Or, as HECATE put it, I was carrying her 'Observer Soul,' which woke up when in close proximity to her physical form."
Cadena blinks, then rephrases that. "In other words, I could hear Margie inside my head, and it was very alarming."
"Was that the first time you heard her in your head though?" Tracy asks, thinking back to some of Cadena's odder moments.
Cadena pauses, pondering. "I cannot answer that with absolute certainty, but this felt ... more authentic. Now then, I had a hostile, slowly melting giant fox-thing. I had been suffering from the delusion that this was a Black Cadejo form - that is, Black Cadena - but apparently the portal shift allowed me to see it for what it really was - just a very large demonic fox form. About that time, Miss Penny Arcadia, a security bot, and Ms. Sasha Knightley appeared in response to the in-home security alarms going off. Sasha Knightley was wearing what I took was a prison jumpsuit, and I suspect she wasn't properly out on bail. BLK-1138-R-005 reacted with hostility toward her, claiming she was an agent of the WHITE, but did not attack, as per our truce."
The golden vixen allows Jason to escort her to the examination room. She gets up on the medical bed, noting the embedded scanning display underneath.
"The WHITE.. but not the Spark?" Tracy asks, then shakes her head. "So, Penny Arcadia really was involved with Face Reality, I guess? Or you're probably getting to that. Anyway, sounds like Black Cadena was another minion or splinter of the BLACK.. Oh, we beat him, I think. I.. haven't really looked to see what the fallout has been yet."
Above the examination room's bed is a multi-function arm which currently supports a lamp and some small medical scanners of various designs. Fortunately for those made nervous by medicine, none of the scanners resemble a knife or drill.
"I don't think BLK-1138-R-005 was really Black Cadena in any sense," Cadena adds. "He was just a 'monstrous' form for Renard, and when I suffered the delusion that he was Black Cadena, Renard tried to play along - badly. In any case, SPARK didn't vouch for Sasha. As for Ms. Penny Arcadia's involvement ... I have quite considerable difficulty in believing that she could sanction the actions of Face Reality. I refuse to give her anything less than the benefit of a doubt, though I must confess that it does not look good at all at this point. It didn't look any better when she called upon and summoned a manifestation of HECATE - who appeared as a triune being akin to the three Fates, reminiscent of the mother, crone, and maiden ... though, to be honest, I didn't get a close look at them, and my attention was very divided at this point."
"Manifestation ... I should be more clear. Hologram," Cadena quickly adds. "Not in the flesh."
The doctor-bug trundles into the examination room. "All ready for your examination, Miss Inari?" he asks, his voice audible from outside. "Ah-- of course, Mr. Edwards is assisting you with disrobing. Thank you for your assistance, sir. Now if you'll just relax and lie down on the bed, I'll run a few simple diagnostics. Don't worry, this won't hurt a bit."
"Okay, what did you learn from HECATE, if anything?" Tracy asks. "I still want to know who is behind all that.. and why I was targeted!"
"Time to get you out of your clothes," Jason remarks to Inari just before he takes on the task that has scared every generation of teenagers since time immemorial; undressing a girl. A moment later Jason is heard to blurt, "Ow, claws!"
A second later, Tracy smacks herself in the forehead, and then turns on the recorder function of her bracer.
"But to get to the point, HECATE claimed that I had Margaret's 'observer soul' within me," Cadena adds, nodding. "Ms. Penny Arcadia recognized me, and made it clear that her intention was to get the data from the North Bend simulation - presumably the one that Ms. Summers had been imprisoned in - in order to get a copy of her genetic data from before the time she was exposed to the Robespierre's Revenge bioweapon. With this data, the degenerative disease that had been causing Margaret's body to deteriorate could perhaps be purged. However, Avatars LLC had prohibited access to it. HECATE claimed that my arrival with this soul indicated that the 'end' was 'near.' And, yes, that sounded rather ominous to me. Sasha offered to help get me to the Avatars LLC headquarters so that I could consult Vice President Burgundy to get access to the data. I didn't mention anything about his current predicament, as I was trying at this point to probe whether or not Sasha was involved in it."
"Not to sound like the ever pessimist," Jason says with masked pain in his voice, "But if Sasha is about and ... did I hear she was in custody? I know this is perhaps a bit paranoid ... but did you also put Moonbeam in custody? Because, if I were Sasha ... I would have expected to get caught coming here and planned for it by having Moonbeam shadow ... and orchestrate my escape and thus having full access to the building..."
"But.. wasn't that data stolen from Avatars back when Ms. Arcadia made the request?" Tracy asks. "They went to get it, and it was gone!"
"I'm afraid I don't really know much about that," Cadena says, shaking his head. "Well, HECATE created a portal to send BLK-1138-R-005 back to the Gloaming. As soon as he got back, Renard reconnected, and was not grateful, and insisted that I was doing a bad thing by trusting 'her' - though he didn't specify which one, and could have just as easily referred to 'them.' Sasha drove me over to Avatars LLC headquarters in Margaret's favorite aircar, employing the AI chauffeur. I was sure that Sasha was using me, but attempted to ferret out of her just what game she was up to. I mistakenly believed that she, like Ms. Arcadia, knew who I was. When it finally clicked that I was 'your dog,' she pulled a gun on me."
"Fortunately, I knew the vehicle very well," Cadena adds. "I had used an encoded transmission to inform Avatars security that I was compromised and that I and anyone with me should be subdued upon arrival. I also hit the 'panic button' to cause the vehicle to move erratically, and throw off Sasha's aim. I ... was under a lot of stress, and was under the delusion at one point that I was turning into Black Cadena. Fortunately, Avatars security subdued both of us before I could act out any further under that delusion."
"I don't suppose she mentioned why she's got this need to ruin my life or kill me or whatever?" Tracy asks. "I mean.. did she want to use my body to bring back Margaret?"
After some due struggling, the golden vixen has finally been calmed down enough to lie down properly. The doctor-robot hmms as the scanner-bed whines. "Well. You seem to have been fairly fortunate, Miss Inari," he says. "I'm picking up some major bone breakage, and muscle tears, which seem to have healed remarkably well despite no prior note of medical treatment other than your last checkup four years ago. The bruises will go away in a day or two. However..."
"Renard appeared to be aware that 'she' was the one to put the bounty on your head," Cadena says, "but, again, he didn't say which 'she' - HECATE, Ms. Knightley ... or, for that matter, Ms. Arcadia."
"I don't think that Sasha's intention in finding the North Bend simulation was fully in keeping with Ms. Arcadia's," Cadena says. "I couldn't fish out if her just what it was. I was not being very rational by that point, and I've never been good at such 'mind games' anyway."
"You're going to have to explain those injuries to me later," Jason mutters.
"Oh great, so HECATE could be Artemis then instead of Sasha?" Tracy asks, a bit rhetorically. "If it was Ms. Arcadia.. uh, I don't want to think it was out of revenge because she thinks Avatars was responsible for her daughter's death. She wasn't mad at you was she? As for Sasha's personal reason, that's obvious: if the simulation had Margaret's DNA and other simulation data, then Sasha could reasonably assume it had the same for her - maybe a copy of her original memories before Blake messed around with them? Hell.. maybe Akiko's data can be recovered too.."
"I honestly believe that Ms. Arcadia bore no hostility at all toward me," Cadena says. "If she bore any hostility toward Avatars, it would be only because of frustration at their resistance to providing her with the data from the North Bend simulation. I do not think she was helping her own case by failing to explain why she wanted access to the data. She was keeping the matter of Margaret Arcadia's survival a secret - for fear, I suppose, that the engineers of 'Robespierre's Revenge' might try to finish the job, since the perpetrators were never caught." He ponders further.
The robot continues, "As you may know, persons of your condition-- that is to say, having been in a simulated universe, then emerging-- are fairly rare, and as such, the medical corpus of knowledge is still being built up. I'm seeing an unusual variation in telomere length between your cells. Unfortunately the only way to be sure if this represents a trend of some kind is if you return for a checkup after some amount of time-- say, every six motnhs or possibly once a year." From the look on Inari's face, she has no desire to do so.
"As for memories ... I don't think the North Bend simulation can help with that ... not in any useful way," Cadena offers. "However, this is outside of my training. Based on the data I received from RIU, it does not appear that Blake had the capability of simply 'reprogramming' memories of his test subjects. Rather, he subjected them to mind-games, brainwashing techniques ... repeatedly changing their experiences and their anchors of reality, so that they would question any old memories that did not seem to fit the same reality. I ... I'm very familiar with that concept, at least."
Tracy rubs at her temples, trying to find a reason behind it all. "I wonder.. could it have been Sasha who orchestrated Margaret's condition all along?" she says. "I mean.. if she wanted the simulation data herself, she's have to have someone else get it for her. But, from what Jason was able to recover, it was also being used for prototyping the Zeus system. And I don't know who's behind that either. I want to talk to Sasha."
"Hold up there. Is she at any medical risk? I don't like the implications your diagnosis is making," Jason says to the bot. "I know vaguely that telomeres has to do with aging and some pursuit of immortality. Is there something wrong with her? Straight answers, extrapolating on known data and the possible tread."
"There's a matter of chronology here. Margaret was born with Robespierre's Revenge," Cadena explains to Tracy. "The bioweapon is something that infected Ms. Penny Arcadia and a great number of people with the misfortune of being in any of the release points - but the immediate victims suffered no ill effect. However, it rewrote their genetic code, so that their progeny would be genetically flawed - born with a ticking time bomb that would go off as their bodies developed, roughly in the 'tween' years."
"But even then.. I just don't know," Tracy admits. "None of that explains why Sasha hates me so much. I mean, I have legitimate reason to hate her. But it doesn't sound like recovering the DNA from before the symptoms showed up would make a difference then. It'd still be damaged, unless Margaret was constantly 'reset' to an age before the retrovirus activated."
The doctor-bot shakes its head. "There's no immediate risk, sir. It's statistically unusal for telomere length to vary between cells to such an extent. Has she been exposed to some unusual radiation or environments?"
"Unusual rad--" Inari laughs.
"Other than the quantum instability of recent events, not that I know of. But then again I also don't quite know everything she has been up to in the past four years, either," Jason notes from behind the door. "Would it be worthwhile comparing structure to someone who also went through the unstable zones? Such as well, me?"
Cadena shakes his head. "I'm sorry. Margaret's DNA is not in that simulation. Somehow, whoever built that simulation was able to obtain a genetic model of Penny Arcadia from a time before her infection. Presumably, it was drawn from yet another source, but presumably one that no longer exists, or one which is unknown, or else Ms. Arcadia surely would have gone for that instead."
The medical robot focuses on Jason. "Indeed, sir! Ah-- I don't seem to have your medical files on record, Mr. Edwards." It seems a touch suspicious of this fact. "If you'll be kind enough to return Miss Inari's jumpsuit to her, then to disrobe and lay on the bed, I'll begin the scan immediately."
"No one has my medical files except me," Jason points out to the robot. "No claws!" Jason can be heard to remark a few moments later after some suspicious rustling.
"Oh.. that makes more sense, I guess," Tracy says. "After all, her own DNA could be used to replace the broken parts of her daughter's.. potentially. But you don't know what Sasha's involvement was or when it started?"
The bed hums again as it scans Jason from head to toe. Even though it's purely psychosomatic, he can feel a warmth pass through his body.
Also, since she can't help but eavesdrop, Tracy says, "I bet it's the fox cells that are showing as being 'younger' than the Akiko cells for Inari, or something."
"Exactly," Cadena says, nodding approvingly. "And, no, I still do not know how Sasha got involved. Really, I could theoretically 'heal' Margie ... but my healing only creates unstable matter. She would need to be kept in the Diadem or the Gloaming, and only through a prolonged effort to replace her body with stable matter by a controlled environment and importing of Real World food, water, and air, over a period of many years...." He trails off. "What was this about Akiko and Inari?" He blinks at Tracy.
"It wouldn't take years! Remember that I was able to get several people out, those who were mostly unstable matter!" Jason calls out from behind the door! "Hey! Watch it with the cold robot fingers."
Cadena shudders. "Yes, I remember."
"My apologies! Warming my fingers now," says the doctor.
"Jason Zero came up with a process that just takes a few hours, apparently," Tracy notes. "That's how the Empire of Stars was able to infiltrate Avatars. But Inari was made from Akiko Summers, sort of. Jason separated them and upgraded their resolution or whatever so they'd be made of real matter.. but Inari would only have been a few years old, while Akiko was in her twenties.."
"And I need to ask this, Cadena: now that you have hands, does it feel the same if you scratch yourself behind your own ears as it does when someone else does it?" Tracy asks.
"Didn't we already discuss Inari's creation?" Cadena asks of Tracy, looking a bit confused and unsteady. "I must be misremembering. Sasha said that she didn't see the resemblance with Akiko at all, so even though that should be naturally understandable, given the complete lack of outward physical appearance, I suspect I should take that as a negation of that particular line of inquiry. The implications are disturbing." He snaps out of it and reaches back with a hand to tentatively try scratching behind an ear.
"Check Tracy for head injuries!" Jason calls through the door.
"Your telomeres appear normal for a thirty year old human, and do not share the unusual variation between cells that Miss Inari's do." the doctor observes. "It's puzzling, but I don't wish to alarm you by conjecturing needlessly, Miss Inari. Perhaps quantum instability has a more significant impact on your bodily systems than they would on others."
"Hey! You've got your own dog-with-hands and you never wondered?" Tracy calls back at the examination room.
"What is the risk to her?" Jason asks. "And no, I haven't," he shouts through the door. "I worry about important things."
The golden vixen rolls her eyes at the conversation in progress. "Having someone else scratch your ears is much, much better, four legs or not!"
"I'm ... not quite sure what I'm looking for," Cadena says, pulling his hand away and looking at it. "Sorry. I confuse imagination with ... theorizing sometimes. I'm so eager to find an answer, at times I just make one up and wish it were true. Perhaps it comes from spending so much time in a virtual environment where reality is largely subject to the whims of an 8-to-10-year-old, and if you all agree on it, well then, it must be true...."
Inari adds, "Now I'm worried. See, this is why I don't like doctors," she tells Jason.
"They can hear everything I'm saying, can't they?" Cadena asks of Tracy.
"Wait, you said Inari healed from some serious wounds before, right?" Tracy asks.. and absently reaches over and scratches Cadena's ears. "Wouldn't rapid regeneration cause the cells doing the healing to age faster, telomere-wise?"
"I'm starting to not care for them either," Jason mutters.
The doctor-bot hems and haws a bit. "Understand, this is patient-confidential." It lowers its voice.
"Well, they could hear, but I don't know if they were listening," Tracy tells Cadena. "That's why I'm recording everything."
"Now," Tracy says, focusing on Cadena again. "Is Margaret still in your head? Did HECATE try to 'extract' her or anything?"
"I know every inch of Inari," Jason points out in a lower and lower voice. "Spill it."
The doctor-robot activates a privacy screen briefly.
From this side of the screen, pleasant music can be heard.
"Margaret 'fell asleep' as we went further away from the Arcadia residence," Cadena says, seeking out a nearby chair and settling in it, suddenly looking weary. "HECATE made no attempt to 'extract' her from me. The general attitude seemed to be that doing so would be pointless until Margaret's body could be stabilized. It seems that, somehow, part of my brain is actually capable of holding Margaret's neural network. I cannot explain it. The only way I can imagine it were possible would be if I were made for such a purpose. Minds just ... don't work like that."
"Yeah, but.. well, aren't you from the Diadem in the same way Inari is?" Tracy asks Cadena. "Were you really grown in a lab, Cadena, or were just 'born' in VR, then made into a physical being?"
Cadena closes his eyes, concentrating. "The idea that I was manufactured in the Real World by Avatars corporation was a fabrication - or a stretching of the truth at best. I appeared in the Real World at the time of the failed Convergence, and I have no real memories before that point. What 'memories' I have are associations that I believe were artificially used in the construction of my neural framework, borrowed from one or more other living beings, and not gained through actual experience. Thus, I was able to speak, and didn't have to go through the stages of development that would be expected were I an infant."
"And you've shown to have multiple virtual personalities, all seemingly independent," Tracy notes. "So.. why couldn't one of them be Margaret? It just sounds like she's dormant unless you're physically in her presence."
"I don't have experiences of living in the Diadem before my existence as an 'artificial being' with Avatars LLC," Cadena says. "I only have knowledge of what I expect the Diadem to be like. I can neither confirm nor deny your theory regarding Margaret. I can say that I believe it to be actually Margaret, but I must also confess that I have every reason to want to believe it, which calls my objectivity into question."
"Well, wanting to believe it may be important to maintaining it," Tracy notes. "As for what can be done with it.. I mean.. is there any reason it couldn't be transferred into an entirely virtual body that would then be.. uh.. Margaret Zero? It happened with Jason, sort of. I've no idea how or when his mind was copied, but.. it happened."
"Perhaps it could be," Cadena says, "but I don't think we've perfectly settled the matter of just what makes an individual ... an individual. I have a line of inquiry to follow. The North Bend simulation may hold clues that can help not only to restore Margaret Arcadia's body, but also to find a way to help others suffering from Robespierre's Revenge. There are unknown others out there who still have that 'ticking time bomb' within. It usually manifests at a particular age, but by its nature, it's unpredictable. If there's some way to compare the genetic data, before and after exposure, that could be the key to find a cure."
Cadena runs his hands over his face. "Ah ... a slight digression, but do you happen to know what Ms. Akiko Summers's area of expertise was when she entered employment at Avatars LLC as an intern? I'm not certain about what she was trained in."
"I.. don't know," Tracy remarks. "I think she had a neural computer interface though, originally."
Cadena nods. "Sorry for the shift there. I have my own selfish and perhaps pointless reasons to be interested in the North Bend simulation. They came up during my brief 'discussion' with Ms. Knightley, and even though her reactions indicated they are likely total dead ends, I can't totally discount them quite yet. After all, she's ... not exactly all that trustworthy, and the situation wasn't conducive to clear, rational discussion. I.e., she was trying to kill me, and I'm not sure what BC was up to."
"Something isn't adding up," Tracy notes, looking out at the holo-window. "We know the North Bend simulation data was all but stripped from Blake's Q-Core - it was only through holographic recovery that Jason managed to get a sense of what it was. But Sasha, HECATE and Ms. Arcadia are acting as if they don't believe this, and that the data is still here somewhere. So.. who took it?"
"Also, Sasha is not aligned with the BLACK, who was involved with the Zeus system.. I think," Tracy continues, fidgeting with her hair now. "So, it would make sense for the BLACK to try and get rid of the data since it had references to the Zeus stuff - and maybe was where the BLACK was developing it in the first place. So.. if there's a backup it should be with whoever built Zeus, right?"
Cadena shakes his head. "Renard didn't seem to want me going along with them, but it's also possible he was just being a scheming troublemaker who, deprived of a chance to turn around and rip us to shreds, got pleasure out of 'planting seeds of distrust' or just did so as a matter of habit. Sasha might KNOW that the data is not actually accessible, but was merely playing me and Ms. Arcadia to try to get access to the building for other purposes; that's one reason why I was anxious to make sure she was subdued and sedated, and I'd really rather she wasn't on the premises at all. Alas, my 'finding' ability does not function in the Real World."
"That's another thing: HECATE can open portals," Tracy points out. "So, if Sasha was wearing a prisoner jumpsuit, then HECATE may have portaled her out of jail in California to the Arcadia residence.. like, just a minute before. I don't know how portals really work though... but there must either be a reason HECATE can't open one to the Avatars buildings or else maybe HECATE doesn't follow Sasha's orders."
"In any case," Cadena says, "just to put it all on the table, wild speculation and all, I was entertaining the idea that my neural template might have been based in part upon Ms. Summers, as a side effect of Mr. Edwards's special routine, and some other mental template. How much from one or the other, I don't know, but I think you'll agree that my personality is nothing like Akiko, so any relationship there is largely ... ah ... 'spiritual' at best."
"You aren't secretly attracted to Jason though, are you?" Tracy asks the anthro-dog, with one eyebrow raised. "Because Akiko is totally attracted to him."
"Hmm." Cadena pauses a moment, pondering. "No, I don't think I am. I'd probably take a bullet for him, but the same can be said for a great many people. That's a good line of inquiry, though."
"And that was classified? I could have ... oh nevermind. Thank you Holly. I mean that," Jason says as he finishes adjusting his attire. "And never underestimate someone because of their size, eh? If you need anything, just let me know. And Inari, we had better get out of here before the other two start speculating on what is going on in here."
"In any case," Cadena says, "that process basically served to copy a portion of a human mind, and create a body, combined with a process to make it stable. This was not a destructive process. The neural pattern was copied, not moved."
"If you have some of Akiko's neural template, it may not be an emotional part," Tracy says. "And I have no idea what any of that even means - I didn't study AI development. Or I haven't. Not yet. But I think I need to look into an internship here after all, to try and develop the 'convergence system' into a usable medical procedure."
"I think that if that process was still left in the system," Cadena continues, "one of the ADs might have decided to employ it. It was, after all, a process that existed outside of normal protocols, and therefore could have allowed an AD to indirectly take action that was otherwise not part of its normal programming, thus bypassing more than a few safeguards. And I think that process was employed a few times when the Convergence happened. That's why there were a few creatures such as myself left over that didn't dissolve once the intrusion zone retreated."
The privacy screen lowers, allowing the sound of Jason turning the doorknob to penetrate.
"In any case, I'd need to inquire of Ms. Summ--" Cadena cuts off.
"And I don't know what happened to the AI Blake had running his simulation," Tracy says. "I'm pretty sure there was one, since.. well, that's kinda necessary. I have a suspicion that Dantech has what we need, data-wise. And may also be infiltrated by virtual people."
"Inquire what? She doesn't need a dog," Jason quips as he comes out of the exam room. "And what's this about Dantech? Well, besides the fact I'm pretty sure they're behind everything going on."
Cadena nods. "That sounds reasonable. But, again, please note that everything I'm offering here falls under the 'wild speculation' category. I haven't a shred of evidence to back any of it all." He turns to Jason. "I was just sharing with Tracy some of the wild speculation that I ran by you earlier, before we ran into that unfortunate incident near the Q-Cores."
"Just.. speculating," Tracy says, and explains about Cadena's encounter with Penny Arcadia, HECATE and Sasha and the questions it raised.
"So, how's Inari?" Tracy then asks. "And you? I didn't get scanned, so if there's something to worry about from being digitized.."
The golden vixen looks quite intact but visibly worried, judging from the paleness of her inside ears. Once again clad in her armored jumpsuit, she goes out with Jason, arm in arm.
Cadena adds in a few more details (such as the incomplete tag for unit BLK-1138-R-005, just in case that's ever useful for communicating with the entity in the future), but leaves out that business about "templates" and his own origins and such.
"Oh, I can tell you who probably has the simulation data. I do. Well, my clone I mean. Holly accused me of hacking the system earlier before it crashed, which I hadn't. But ... I wouldn't be surprised if my counterpart did, which means Andrei wanted it for some reason," Jason remarks after hearing all the wild theories he missed while he was sequestered with Inari.
"Is Dantech the company providing the technology for the Zeus Weather Control system?" Tracy asks, casting a worried look at Inari.
"And that is the only route of where it could have gone that hasn't been closed off yet," Jason adds as further evidence. "As for if they are? I can find that out pretty quickly, probably and taps the side of his head. "Let me see what Kimon can dig up on contract records for the project."
Cadena rises from his chair and bows his head to Inari and Jason. "I'm glad to see that you're both all right, by the way. I sincerely regret my 'episode' back at the top of the tower. I didn't mean to abandon you all like that."
"How about you, Inari? Are you just in shock from seeing Jason in good light or is it something serious?" Tracy asks the vixen.
Inari laughs. "No, no, it's nothing. I just have a bruise, it will heal in a day or so."
Jason shrugs slightly at that apology. "Accepted, but not unexpected that you did that. Your actions thus far have shown you are operating on some subconscious agenda that does not factor in the safety of everyone else. It's hardly your fault, though. It's hard to over-ride built in ... oop, hold on, message from Randall," he babbles.
"I hope he's okay, and it's not some issue with the old convergence site," Tracy says quietly. "No telling what effect the recent one would have had on it.."
Cadena does not argue with Jason. Instead, while Jason seems to be busy with an incoming call, he turns to Inari. "Please pardon me, Ms. Inari, but I have a quick and probably pointless question - but it might help me squash another ... wild theory. By any chance, as I am now, or perhaps if you imagined that I had a different fur color - say, black - do I look at all familiar to you? Say, from some iteration of North Bend? Perhaps if I were holding a musical instrument?"
"They're fine. Mara, Randall, and Akiko made it and are going to the Avatars base near the original convergence point. She should be fine in a day or so," Jason tells the other. His gaze then goes distant; probably because he's sending a reply.
Meanwhile, Tracy has to shake the vision of an all were-canine rock band from her mind. "Would they solve mysteries with their goofy human pet?" she wonders.
The golden vixen eyes Cadena curiously. "Hmmm..." She looks about the room, then finds a first-aid box and uses gauze to tape a long medical stand to it, then holds it out for Cadena to hold like a guitar.
Cadena plays along, holding the faux-guitar, arranging his fingers on imaginary frets to form a chord, and clutching an imaginary pick.
Jason reaches up and oddly hugs his own shoulders awkwardly. "Eh, what's this about looking familiar? Did you once belong to a witch?" he jokes once he's actually paying attention to the room again.
Inari shakes her head. "Nope! Doesn't ring a bell." She grins toothily.
"You look even more stranger than usual," Jason adds to that, "But not any more familiar."
"Then why'd you make a fake guitar instead of.. an oboe or something?" Tracy asks, although her voice has become a bit more deferential. Now that Inari seems to be livening back up, the girl is reverting more to her shy, submissive persona.
Cadena fiddles with the imaginary guitar for a bit, then snaps out of it, ears blushing. He starts to put things back into their proper places. "Well, that's one possibility squashed. Thank you, Ms. Inari."
"Silly, oboes don't go with rock and roll!" Inari points out.
"Oh," Tracy says.. but doesn't remember Cadena mentioning a particular kind of music.
"So, I heard Sasha was here? Anyone know what room? And that she's on sedatives? Anyone got the id code of the administration system keeping her under? It would be just horrible if an overdose happened because of improper maintenance," Jason remarks as he paces back and forth a bit.
Cadena walks over to Tracy, and whispers in her ear, "It's nothing. I got from RIU's data that during one of the 'iterations' of North Bend, Inari was an arch-villainess who had her own rock band comprised of monsters. In one of Black Cadena's ... er ... roles ... he played bass guitar in Metal Galaxy Epic. My crazy theory was that my neural pattern could have been an echo of something created in the North Bend simulation."
The doc-bot pads out of the examination, having finished straightening everything up. "Sasha Knightley? She is in the security wing's infirmary," it says cheerily. "I believe that one of GANGLOT's medical subprocesses is handling her case."
"We can't kill Sasha," Tracy says. "I need to talk to her." Now she looks at Cadena, and tries to picture him in studded leather with neon tubing and rainbow glam-hair..
"Ahah, well, thank you," Jason tells the bot as he rubs his hands together, "And who said anything about killing her? I'm worried about accidents." Cadena then gets a rather peculiar look from Jason as he says, "Eh? You would make a terrible rocker. You apologize too much."
"However, that would be a confusion of cause and effect," Cadena continues in a low mutter. "Black Cadena was drafted as a bass guitarist simply because Margaret's friend Daphne thought my 'White Knight' rocker didn't have enough swagger to be a real rocker. It would be too amazing of a coincidence, since Daphne had nothing to do with North Bend. If there had been a connection, I would have had more to worry about, honestly."
Inari mutters, "Speak for yourself" at the mention of 'not killing Sasha'.
"I need to know why she set the Wild Hunt on me," Tracy notes. "I really need to know, okay? She won't talk if you guys are threatening to kill her. Besides, I already called dibs on beating her up."
"And sorry to harp on a point, but where is Moonbeam?" Jason reminds the rest of the group. "Sasha isn't an idiot. She would have planned for the contingency of getting caught. Also, was she scanned for implants?"
"If you see her, I would like to accompany you, Tracy," Cadena says. "If it will make her feel any better, I'll even let her hit me a few times to vent her frustrations."
"In any case," Cadena notes, "nobody is seeing Sasha until Vice President Trudeau has questioned her."
"I should also point out Inari and I have a greater claim on her than you do, Tracy. She tried to kill us. You she just tried to kidnap," Jason points out.
"Sasha isn't allowed to vent her frustrations," Tracy says. "You can come to keep me calm though. But I have precedent over everyone else here: Sasha messed with my life first, before she was turned into one of Blake's toys and messed with you, Inari."
"And she did it all on her own, no brainwashing or excuses," Tracy points out.
"Sorry, Tracy, you aren't in charge here," Jason points out.
"No, you're right," Tracy admits. "My mom is."
"And she tasked me with keeping you safe," Jason points out. "I rather doubt she wants you anywhere near Sasha."
The doc-bot looks up as if consulting medical records. "When she was brought in, we did run a quick scan. There appeared to be no neurological issues caused by electrically stunning her. She is a healthy woman in the age 18-20 or so. We did detect a subcutaneous implant behind her left ear, such as would be used for a subvocal communicator; however, the security wing is contained within a Faraday cage and as such, will not permit any communications from her implant to be relayed outside of the immediate vicinity."
Inari rolls her eyes. "Why are you all arguing about who gets to deal with Sasha first?" she asks. "Why don't we all beat her up together?"
"And as I've noted and people seem to keep missing, there is a bloodthirsty panther somewhere we should be worrying about," Jason adds, exasperated.
"No panther has been scanned recently on our medical records," the doc-bot offers helpfully.
Jason resists kicking the medical robot.
RIU eeps? looking up at this. It looks around as if expecting a panther to be closing in on them at this very moment.
"I don't have to be in the same room to talk to her," Tracy points out. "It doesn't even to be in the physical world. But I do deserve the chance."
Cadena says, "For what little it is worth, I did not encounter any manifestation of 'Moonbeam' at any point during my foray into the Real World, and there was precious little room in the hover car for such a creature. Any such manifestation would require ... well, the sort of flaw in reality that could be used to get into this place despite all our security measures whether or not Ms. Knightley were on the premises."
The mini-dragon relaxes and goes back to sleep on Jason, its head perched on his as if he were a comfy chin-rest. Apparently controlling a big robot kind of drained its resources for a bit!
"The likelyhood of a direct infiltration of Avatar's by flying a car here is beyond silly. Sasha had to know that. If I were her, I would have planned on getting caught and worked from that angle. Meaning she's now inside and past all external security. What remains is getting out of confines, through either her won, or external assistance, and tada, she has access to all of Avatar's," Jason adds as he resumes pacing.
"Do you think my mom's an idiot?" Tracy asks Jason calmly.
Inari drapes herself over one of the infirmary's waiting room chairs. "Well, it sounds like the most logical thing to do is to go and check on Sasha ourselves, don't you think?" she asks.
This sounds normal enough... Apart from Inari sprouting claws on her hand and lightly scoring the faux leather of the chair.
"The best hacks are almost always social engineering ones," Jason remarks to Tracy. "Not technology, but playing on the flaws of people. I've, more than once, gotten companies to simply hand me all the access information I've needed. It has nothing to do with your mother being an idiot, Tracy. She can't be everywhere at once and we've already seen Avatar's own screening process is very flawed given the recent infiltration. It's the secretary being an idiot for a moment, or a guard falling for some trick, such as a distracting sound, and so on."
"Don't fall victim to feeling that everything is secured and flawless, basically. I expect Sasha is up to something and I'm working from that angle. Don't believe for an instant she's harmless," Jason adds.
"I just want to talk to her before you all get your claws into her, is that so much to ask?" Tracy asks, already slouching now and hiding behind her hair like.. a mopey teenager, probably.
"Ms. Trudeau, if it will help, I know the general direction in which we should go," Cadena says, offering his arm to Tracy.
"Thanks, Cadena," Tracy says, getting up and taking the arm. "There must be a medical monitor at least that I can talk to her through. I've killed enough people today so Sasha is safe from me, at least. For now."
"She doesn't go alone. And frankly, given your own mental instability, I have a hard time considering you a 'good enough' guard. You could turn into Slappy McWhackenpuff without warning and hand her over to Sasha, HECATE, or some other group,," Jason says a bit bluntly. "I am sorry if that hurts your feelings, but I think you get my concern."
Cadena does not immediately respond to Jason, and instead makes his way toward the door with Tracy. In the hall, he whispers to her, "I will do my best to serve and protect you, no matter what."
"Come on, we had better keep an eye on things," Jason remarks to Inari and goes to follow them.
"I know, but it's the combination of those two things that gets to Jason, I think," Tracy replies. "I think he feels the 'serve' part compromises the 'protect' part."
Inari gets to her feet in a lithe sweep, tail fwoosh and up! "Lead the way," she says.
"If there is ever a conflict between the two," Cadena says to Tracy, "just remember that even if I were somehow Black Cadena, I would always obey you."
Eddie, or his brother, meets them at the lobby of the security wing. "Ah! You want to check on our latest guest? Just a moment." After checking, he adds, "Vice President Trudeau hasn't had time to question her yet, but if you wish, the prisoner can be revived for your questioning. The interview will have to be logged for Vice President Trudeau, I'm afraid."
"Then there are no directives that we would be contradicting by questioning her before Vice President Trudeau has had the chance?" Cadena asks of the robot.
"That's fine, I don't have a lot of questions," Tracy notes. "I'd rather not be in the same room with the prisoner though, if possible."
Cadena nods in agreement with Tracy.
"I would to monitor her, but it is not required," Jason notes from behind the other two. "And oh, Tracy, there is an eighty-five percent chance that almost all the major components of Zeus were furnished by Dantech. I also have records of their political contributions to the politicians that supported the project."
Eddie clicks, whirrs, buzzes. "In her exact words: 'If they've got time to worry about Sasha, let them! We're being DOSed to hell and back by people trying to get in the game, and we've got to bring up a new BLACK from initial seed and Dantech is beating on our doors wanting to know what happened to their precious Q-Cores they licensed to us and why their machines are reporting massive damage in violation of NDAs, and... Gah!"
"Well, that's.. refreshing," Tracy says. "Better to have all our enemies in one basket, right?" Turning to the security droid, she asks, "Is Ms. Knightly being sedated with amobarbital or similar tongue-loosening drugs?"
"End replay," Eddie says cheerfully. "I'll lead you up to an observation lounge where you can be linked to one of the interrogation booths. No, a simple sedative with no side effects. Use of truth drugs requires authorization from the security chief on duty, I'm afraid."
"Okay, wanted to be sure," Tracy says. "That means Sasha will be fully lucid if we wake her up."
"Well, as lucid as she ever was," Jason points out.
"We've still got voice stress analysis and other biometrics to tell if she's lying to us though," Tracy points out. "Okay Eddie, take us to the observation room."
Eddie leads the way through a weapon-scanning gateway and checkpoint to one of the elevators. "Would you like me to contact the security chief and request permission for the application of truth drugs?" it asks.
"I have a dragon and I'm not afraid to use it," Jason quips to the weapons checkpoint.
"They just make the subject babble more," Tracy says, waving her hand. "Just in a more relaxed way so the stress analysis may not be effective. Better to go with the biometrics instead."
"Acknowledged!" says the weapons checkpoint 'bot. "Just be careful what you shoot, sir."
Jason smirks at the weapons-bot. "Humor is still lacking in the simpler AIs," he comments.
The observation lounge is designed with a simple camera and screen so that only the interrogator is visible to the person being questioned, but a variety of people can be offscreen and comment at any time. Other monitors to the side allow additional information to be brought up as needed, or messages to be relayed invisibly to the prisoner, including as Tracy suggests, biometrics and a running textual log of the prisoner's statements.
"Here we are, sirs and madams," Eddie says. "Are you ready to question Sasha or would you like a few moments to plan your interrogation?"
"You're running the show, Tracy. Up to you," Jason says.
"I'm ready," Tracy says, after taking a deep breath. She still looks a bit shaky though.
"Sasha has been brought to the interrogation booth. The security robot is currently applying her restraints, madam," Eddie says. "Administering sedation neutralizers now." The monitor lights up to show a dark-haired in hospital blues. Letting her keep her original armored jumpsuit would have been an obvious failing in security, considering how many tricks could be hidden in a jumpsuit. She is currently secured to her chair by restraints on her wrists and ankles.
A side-menu shows options for lighting. Standard, Subdued, and Intimidation Red are some of the notable names.
"This reminds me of a video being shown at an old sci-fi convention Randall dragged me to years ago. We went into the wrong theater and well, this sort of thing that was playing. Evil aliens behind bars, or whatever it was. We didn't stay long," Jason remarks absently to the others.
Inari whispers back to Jason, "There needs to be an option for 'apply probe'."
Tracy selects subdued lighting for now, and is momentarily confused by the backdrop options. She goes for glittery red curtains and no audio or video distortion effects.
Cadena strolls over to the side, and comes back a moment later with a cold "Enervate!" energy drink, which he puts into a holder near Tracy's seat.
Jason snorts and just barely stops a laugh in time. "Behave," he mutters to Inari.
"Thanks Cadena," Tracy says, although her stomach is doing it's own gymnastics at the moment.
"What... Who... Where am I?" Sasha asks, coming blearily to alertness. Her eyes focus slowly on the Asian girl in front of her, and her hands and feet move against their bonds. There's a sudden heartrate spike as she recognizes Tracy.
Cadena quietly walks back to stand behind Inari and Jason, and leans in, whispering, "There are vending machines nearby, if you care for drinks, or snacks or sandwiches. They have all the standard replicator options, if you'd like me to fetch anything for you."
Inari's tummy rumbles. "I'm starving," she murmurs, and goes to look and see what the options are herself.
Watching the monitor, Tracy turns on the audio pickup and says, "You're safe, Sasha.. uh." She has to pause and lick her lips, a bit put off by Sasha's apparently being her own age. After all, Tracy was only 11 when her world seemed to crumble under the older woman's influence. "I.. want to ask you some questions, okay?"
"Ah, no thank you. I'm fine. Also, I'm not sure this is a good idea for either of them," Jason mutters back to Cadena. "Tracy is already at a disadvantage because she's probably going to be emotional ... and Sasha was good at manipulating that."
"You seem to have me at an advantage, Miss..." Sasha seems to be playing dumb for now, though her eyes are crafty. "What have I done wrong? Why am I being held?"
"You know who I am," Tracy notes with a hint of irritation. "I can see your biometrics. Are you also Artemis, leader of the Wild Hunt?"
Cadena only nods to Jason, then returns to stand beside Tracy - though carefully outside of the visual pickup range.
"No, I don't know who that is, I don't know what you mean by 'Wild Hunt'," Sasha claims. Lie.
"I am so tempted to have RIU stick his face up to the camera and blow a raspberry at Sasha," Jason remarks. He glances in the direction Inari went to, well, make sure she's still there.
Tracy closes her eyes for a moment, and tries not to show her frustration. "I just want to know why, dammit," she hisses. "What do you want me for? It just doesn't make any sense! You had every reason to stay as far out of my life as possible!"
The golden vixen appears to be looking over the options on the replicator. "'What Wild Hunt', my left paw," she mutters.
Sasha smirks, then tries to pull her face into a more neutral smile. "I'm sorry, but I was just driving someone's dog to Avatars to drop him off at a friend's request, and he suddenly attacked me, and the next thing I knew, I woke up here. Is there some kind of law against transporting dogs all of a sudden?"
"Oh you are such a terrible liar," Jason remarks, a bit louder so that perhaps the mic picks up his comment.
Eyes narrowed, Tracy asks, "Is it because of Tracer?" Now it's her to turn to smile a little. "Because she became the Champion when you utterly failed?"
Cadena tries to stay out of the way, taking a seat near Tracy, and familiarizing himself with the interrogator interface, while making a point of not interfering with the present session.
Sasha tilts her head. Perhaps she heard Jason's voice. Her expression shifts a little. "Let me ask you, what's my incentive for answering your questions, little girl? After all, if I just wait, Ms. Arcadia is going to get curious why I haven't reported in. So I don't see any reason to talk."
"Don't you want to know where Moonbeam is?" Tracy asks.
Cadena leans back in his chair, ears perked curiously as he flicks between regarding Tracy's expression and Sasha's response.
Jason actually smirks at that. "Ooo, well played," he thinks, impressed by Tracy's ploy.
"Moonbeam? Probably it's not night yet and moonbeams only come out at night, you know," Sasha says innocently. She smirks.
"Well, if I looked like you or your little pet, I would only come out after dark too," Jason quips.
Next to the various menus for configuring the interrogation environment and the appearance of the interrogator, there's a button with a lock symbol over it. The tooltip on the button says, 'Advanced Questioning Techniques - Security Chief Approval Required.'
Bringing out her chip wallet, Tracy extracts one of the V-Chips and holds it up to the camera. "So you don't care if I erase this chip? And as for Ms. Arcadia.. well, you were overdue weeks ago, Sasha. You've been in.. holding.. for awhile. Would you be surprised to learn that you are on a chip like this one now?"
Sasha looks a bit doubtful... Then worried as Tracy continues. "You're bluffing," she says. "Moonlight says it hasn't--"
Sound of rending metals and crinkling ceramics from off the camera. Eddie looks up alertly. "Deploying additional robots to the area now," it says chirpily. "Her guard has been attacked."
Inari drops her loaded tray of half-eaten sandwiches, scattering crumbs on the floor. "Which way to her?!" she demands of Eddie, turning toward the exit.
"It's not hard, when you're dealing with a person who doesn't officially exist you know," Tracy points out. "Like you! I mean, Sasha Knightly would be pushing 30 now. There's no way you could prove your identity, and a DNA match from someone obviously much younger would only get you labeled a replicant - and you know what happens to them. But in here, you're safe from all of that. As safe as you were in Blake's North Bend. Oops. Looks like we have to shut you off for a bit. Maybe we'll talk again sometime.."
"I did try to warn you," Jason points out. "RIU, looks like we need to go deal with ... something," he thinks to the little dragon around his shoulders and heads towards the door himself.
Sasha struggles with her bonds. "Moonlight! Hurry up with the guard and get me out of here!" Then she bares her teeth at the monitor. "And for the record, Tracy Trudeau... You're just a hold on your mom, that's all you are to me. If we have you, then Holly has to do whatever we ask to get you back."
The guard yells, "Warning! Lethal force may be used from this point onward to subdue escaping prisoners and their accomplices. War--" Its voice cuts out, though there was a rather loud ZAP noise.
Cadena's eyes flash. "Lethal force may be used."
"Hey Sasha," Jason calls out, hoping the woman can hear him as he heads to intercept these two as well. "Thanks for calling her. I'll be sure to kill that cat this time."
Eddie leads the way, switching to a faster gait. "Down one level and to the left out of the elevator!" it says cheerfully, in exactly the same tone of voice as it would have used in greeting them. "But there's no need to worry, we have three robots coming up on the scene. I'm sure everything will be fine."
Tracy turns off the lights to the room. "Nothing personal then? Well, the Wild Hunt still owes me a boon for not getting captured you know," she claims, before cutting off the monitor in Sasha's room.
Cadena says, "I request that Sasha be immediately sedated, so as to hinder her ability to aid in her own escape."
"I doubt that was enough to have Penny Arcadia arrested," Tracy says as she slumps in her seat and shivers.
"Of course, sir! Er, once we have her restrained," Eddie says. The elevator, already called, opens its door and chimes.
"Yep, I'm sure it'll be as fine as it has been handled so far. I did try to warn you she would have contingency plans," Jason quips. "C'mon, lets go catch a panther by its tail," he says and disappears, presumably to head to the lower floor.
Tracy forces herself to get up and head after the others. "C'mon Cadena," she says. "I don't know if there was an implant to administer more sedative or not."
Downstairs, red alert klaxons are wailing and the blast doors are grinding shut. The robots have formed double lines on both sides of the corridor around the interrogation booth where Sasha was being held, and a team of humanoid robots have gone in to try to secure Moonlight and Sasha... But it looks as if the panther managed to free Sasha, and the two of them are holding off the robots. "Dammit, why doesn't this place have bigger ventilation shafts?!" yells Sasha in a fit of frustration.
Jason raises his hand and waves his fingers at Sasha as she and her cat fend off the robots. "Leaving so soon? We were just getting started," he quips. "RIU, cloak please and go high. I may need you to act as a prosimity relay for me ... or just blast the cat.."
"We're trying to get a line of sight on her," Eddie reports. "She and her cat have set themselves up by the door. They have destroyed the camera pickup so we don't have a good picture of where she is at this exact moment." It clicks. "GANGLOT would like to apologize for not realizing the presence of an invisible cat and taking appropriate measures against it."
The minidragon beeps! and zooms toward the cell.
As RIU flies, its scales slowly go glass-like, so it seems like a dragon-shaped shimmer in the air, and then the illusion refines itself so that it's completely invisible from all directions. The mini-dragon comes up to the entrance of the interrogation booth. There's a sort of airlock, but both doors are open at the moment and the cameras within the airlock itself have been busted by claw swipes. Gouged metal is evident everywhere.
Inari ignites her laser sword. She glances over at Jason and Tracy.
"She doesn't need her limbs to still be able to talk," Tracy notes to Inari.
Jason raises a finger. "Give me a moment," he tells the others and furrows his brow. "I'm going to give Sasha something to think about. Loudly."
The golden vixen grins toothily. "Or her cat?"
"I don't know what sort of psychic trauma killing a living Link would cause," Tracy says.
Inari frowns, but moves up so that she can see into the interrogation booth, her sword held forward in a guard position. She's clearly expecting them to make a break for it.
Suddenly there's a loud scream from inside the interrogation booth! "AAUGH! VOLUME DOWN VOLUME DOWN VOLUME DOWN QUIET SHUTDOWN STOP--" it appears that Sasha is yelling at someone unseen to turn off the noise in her head.
Moonlight yowls, bursting through the front line of robots, apparently looking for the source of distress to her Link!
Jason licks his finger and makes a 'tick' mark in the air. "I think she's a little distracted now," he tells the others. "So ... if the cat can be subdued..."
"Moonlight, I'm the one you want," Cadena says. "I'm the one who got your master into this mess."
The robots swivel, trying to track the fast-moving black cat! Eddie deploys one of its red-painted wings as a shield, and with a clack, raises a tesla cannon.
"Nothing up my sleeve," Jason quips as he actually pantomimes showing up his sleeve. "RIU, zap it."
The panther growls, turning its brightly burning eyes toward the white dog-man! It recognizes him, clearly.
From out of nowhere, a bright blue lightning bolt cracks, striking Moonlight! The cat staggers.
But the cat shakes off its distraction, then re-focuses with deadly intent on Cadena, as its master continues to scream at the imaginary voices to stop.
"I need to borrow this," Tracy tells one of the humanoid security bots, and grabs its Tesla rifle. "But if you want, please jump on the panther and try to slow it down?"
The robots unload fire! Brilliant blue light flies across the room, but the cat proves too agile for all but a grazing strike that raises sparks from its haunch. It snarls viciously!
The golden vixen readies her laser sword as the cat heads their way.
"Yes, master!" Cadena says, as if he were the one being addressed and not the robot. He makes a mad dash toward the panther once the barrage of tesla blasts clear.
The golden vixen growls as Cadena leaps past her! "Look out!" she yells. "I don't want to accidentally cut off your tail!" She holds back her strike, moving back to block its path to Jason.
Cadena dives onto the cat, staff held in one hand, and then he brings it underneath the panther's neck as part of his body-tackle. "Shoot! Shoot while I hold it still!"
Tracy points the Tesla rifle at Moonlight's head, sets it for a 3-round burst shot, and squeezes the trigger..
The blast strikes dead on just as Cadena is on the other side of the furball! The black panther is momentarily stilled, its fur smouldering from the heat of the micro-lightning strike. It is still grappled with the white dog, but much less coordinated than it should have been.
With a growl, Moonlight taps into some unknown reserve of power and struggles to burst free of Cadena!
The cat leaps away from the white dog's grasp, landing on its feet agilely and turned to face him.
And just that moment, Inari slices once, cleanly. FWOOM! Moonlight staggers, the corridor wall briefly visible through it... And then fades away.
"NOOooo!" yells Sasha. She falls upon her knees, the sound audible from here.
The robots bustle in to secure Sasha. In her dazed state, she puts up no resistance.
Jason blinks a few times. "Holy ... " he mutters, now wide-eyed. Still, he doesn't daer turn off Sasha's implant just yet, that woman is still dangerous. "Tell me when she's secure and I'll cut the noise," he calls out.
Eddie clicks. "Well! That was a very nice shot. One moment. Do you wish her re-sedated or kept awake for now? GANGLOT is still re-evaluating security protocol in light of this incident."
Cadena staggers to his feet, and looks over to Tracy.
"May I go see her?" Jason asks Eddie.
The golden vixen breathes hard as if she's finally achieved the wish of a lifetime... And then she lifts her laser sword in a salute and deactivates it. "Sayonara, Moonlight," she whispers.
"Of course, sir. She is being held by two robots in the interrogation room. They advise that she continues to be suffering some sort of audual trauma," Eddie responds.
Tracy is shaking and sweating, and happily hands over the rifle to the guard-bot. "HECATE," she says. "HECATE must have been projecting Moonlight, somehow, right?"
Jason slips by the guard bots to go and see Sasha up close. Once in the room, he heads over to her chair. He taps the side of his head, even though it's not really necessary, and cuts the horrific levels of sound he was pushing through her sub dermal communicator. "I don't play by the rules, either, Sasha," he remarks a bit dryly to the restrained woman. "You may have come here assuming that no real harm would befall you. Big mistake, that. I suggest you cooperate or ... well, next person Inari's blade will 'befriend' may be you."
Sasha breathes a little easier now that the incessant noise she was hearing has faded away. "You murdered..." she whispers. "All right, what is it you want?"
For now, Tracy just sits on the floor with her back to the wall next to Cadena. "You can really change back to normal?" she asks the altered canine. "How is that possible? Is it the same as with Moonlight? I mean, is there some AD altering reality just for your body?"
"No, you murdered. We acted in self defense," Jason says as he sits on the edge of a table in the interrogation room. "Just what is the obsession with the old simulation data? I'm fairly certain that you don't care about it because of Ms. Arcadia's daughter."
Cadena's eyes are closed, focusing. "Moonlight is not a creature of this world, and as such, not subject to the same rules," he says. He then opens his eyes, speaking in low tones to Tracy, unwilling to intrude upon the conversation with Sasha going on in the chamber. "I don't know how much we have in common, but I am reasonably certain that I am not the same as Moonlight. Moonlight may yet come back. If I am slain, I will not."
Sasha shakes her head. "I don't give a flying flip myself," she says. "But after the whole Convergence fiasco, when Blake stopped being such a good meal ticket to wealth and fame and power, I had to find another patron, you know? And when I encountered Ms. Arcadia, and mentioned it, she seemed all kinds of surprised... And then she had to have it. No questions asked. That's my kind of gig. I do 'no questions asked' things."
"Oddly, I actually think you're being honest there," Jason says and taps his fingers on the edge of the table. "But really, you ought to ask questions; it saves you from a lot of problems later. We don't have the simulation data. Someone else beat you to it."
Sasha stiffens. "You don't? Who does?"
"Ah, there leads to the realm of conjecture. What we do know is someone was using Blake's old core to run a new simulation," Jason remarks. "Someone, it seems, with grander plans than Blake ever had. Even I couldn't recover the original simulation data from the system, which is a bit of a feat."
"HECATE warned us that there was someone else out there with their own plans," Sasha says, distracted and looking into the distance, as if ignoring her restraining guards. "She called him or her Godslayer."
"Ask her who created HECATE!" Tracy yells down the hall.
"Yeah. That name sort of fits him," Jason remarks as he checks to see if Sasha is trying to connect to something with her implant. "And oh, yeah, Tracy wants to know who created HECATE and I would like to know why?"
Cadena puts his back to the corridor wall and slides down, landing with a "whump" on the floor beside Tracy.
"HECATE? I was there when they switched her own," Sasha rambles, her face leaden, dull, as if the emotional shock of losing Midnight has finally begun to soak in. "She was a new Q-Core, fresh out of the Dantech packing crate. By then, Ms. Arcadia had all the data I could remember, about how Blake did his thing, sending us into his sim at Programmable Matter, then at Avatars when they bought the company out... And how her daughter was sick, boo hoo, and she needed the DNA they'd recorded of her to splice back into her, so they could work out a cure. And then she told Hecate, 'I want my daughter back healthy and alive. Make it happen.'"
"I've never lost Midnight before," Sasha whispers. "Not since the early days, and she always came back because it was just a game. I wonder if she'll come back again?"
"How'd she come here in the first place?" Tracy calls.
"So, you don't care at all about what happened to her daughter?" Jason asks. "So, outside of money, what exactly did you want out of this?" the question makes Jason shrug a bit. "I don't honestly know. It is theoretically possible, but not knowing how she was here in the first place, well."
Listening to the conversation, Cadena, staring upward as his head leans back against the wall, whispers to Tracy, "I don't suppose it would be a good idea for me to get a chance to say a few things to Ms. Knightley once the interrogation is done with, would it?"
Sasha lifts her head at Tracy's voice. A bit of irritation creeps into her voice. "How does it usually happen? You call to your Avatar, you form a picture of her in your head, she seems so real that you can reach out and touch her... And there she is. Except when they've been badly hurt. Then you can feel their light so dim, so far away..."
"And do you still feel Moonlight?" Jason asks curiously.
"Yes... Maybe... I don't know," Sasha says. "Maybe I'm hearing a whisper of her. Maybe it's just my wishful thinking."
"Well, it probably all depends on how much you want her to return," Jason offers, then shrugs a bit. "But think on how you're feeling right now. This is how you made others feel when you had your clueless flunkies attack civilians and hurt or killed them. Now, I don't suppose you had any contact with my counterpart, hmm?"
"Your counterpart?" Sasha frowns, diverted from her reverie. "You mean that simulacrum of you? Is that thing around and still kicking?"
"Well, that answers that question. Tracy, Cadena, Inari, any of you have questions you want to ask?" Jason calls out.
"Is she willing to be a witness against Penny Arcadia?" Tracy asks.
Cadena reaches up and seems a bit surprised to realize that he's still wearing a VR collar. He has to fumble a bit with the controls, as they're aligned a little differently to accommodate his altered form, but he calls up an interface and scans through crime and fatality reports on news sites, related to the Face Reality incidents.
"I have a self-preservation instinct! It even works," Sasha says. "So no, I'm not testifying against someone with as much money as Ms. Arcadia."
Tracy gets and goes to the door to look in on Sasha. She just stares at her for a moment.
Cadena slowly gets back up onto his feet, using his staff as support, to accompany his master. He slowly walks over to the entrance to the chamber, standing next to Tracy.
The dark-haired woman looks back sullenly. "What? Have I got something on my face?"
The golden vixen lays her hand on Jason's and squeezes it gently, slipping her fingers through his. The laser sword is still holstered at her side.
"Was any of it worth it, in the end?" Tracy asks Sasha.
"You might want to reconsider that," Jason notes. He's about to say more, but Inari's squeeze seems to stop him and instead he gives Inari a questioning look.
"Is life ever worth it?" asks Sasha in return. "You gamble with high stakes, sometimes you win big... Sometimes you lose." Her eyes study Tracy. "You could be a gambler yourself, kid. But you aren't yet. You aren't willing to bet high enough."
Inari murmurs to Jason, "Now we've finally beaten her down, taken away her hole card. Why do I actually feel a bit of pity for her?"
"I can thank you for that," Tracy says. "You've been a shining, bad example to me for seven years now. Hurricane Sasha - lots of noise and damage, but no real impact on anything. Enjoy your nap." With that, Tracy turns and walks away.
Sasha's lips twist into a frown as she watches Tracy leave, but she says nothing.
"Probably because she's been trying to fill a hole within herself through all these attempts at 'winning', and never really filling that hole. What she thinks she wants isn't what she needs. And ... I think we've gotten all we can out of her," Jason says as he pushes himself off the table edge he had been leaning on and heads for the door. "bit of advice for you, Sasha," he adds as he and Inari leave, "It isn't about winning or losing. It's about the people in your life; they are what make it worth it."
Cadena stays at the doorway, glancing over to Eddie.