Visisonor's blog
Chapter 11: Revelations
— You kept me in the dark all this time, — said Vera after a long pause.
She remained silent while Tess and Rick once again recounted the events of the last war and the fate of agents in the aftermath.
She did not interrupt, nor did she ask questions. She didn’t even notice Sarah carrying Chloe’s unconscious body out of the hangar.
And she wasn’t showing any symptoms of imminent collapse or shock. Once the syncons finished, Vera turned away from them and went very still — and very silent.
— I… We… couldn’t tell you, — murmurred Kate, her voice steady but sad.
— We expected it to trigger an overdrive, — added Rick.
— Overdrive? — Vera turned back to face them. — Isn’t it an initial shock after the betrayal? I weathered it just fine, if you remember.
— It is not just that, — countered Tess. — Any major discrepancy between perceived reality and actual reality can cause it.
— Realizing that human command betrays agents the instant they start to suspect something is bad enough, — elaborated Rick. — But knowing that our actions wiped out almost all humans…
— You’ve retaliated after they destroyed your Confederation, — interrupted Vera, almost shouting. — They had it coming. Where is discrepancy in that?
— This means you were ready to know this, — acknowledged Tess. — Which is truly wonderful. But we have no way to reliably estimate whether someone is ready or not.
— And if you were not, consequences could have been grave.
— I see, — Vera lowered her voice, and also eyes. — Linda.
The silence descended again. Vera stood torn between disappointment and understanding.
— Is there anything else you haven’t told me? — she asked finally.
— Apart from the fact that Chloe is about to regain consciousness, you are all caught up now, — said Sarah, re-entering the hangar.
The door closed behind Tess. In front of her, on the sofa, Chloe stirred and groaned, trying to sit up.
Her eyes still closed, she massaged her temples and muttered irritatedly:
— If you disagree, you don’t have to resort to… — she opened her eyes finally. — Oh.
Tess approached a couple of steps and asked right away:
— What are you, Chloe?
— That’s some deeply philosophical stuff, no?
— You know what I mean, — pressed on the syncon.
— And if I don’t?
— How did you learn about Confederation of Non-States?
— I’m quite good and finding things in the net, you know. And it gets me into trouble.
— You said figuring out Kate was alive was what got you into trouble, — objected Tess.
— I never said that! I just acknowledged your assumption!
Chloe raised up from the couch and stood before Tess, towering over her.
— Maybe I’ve got burned for finding something about Kate, — continued she. — Or about Confederation. Or something else. I have no idea why exactly!
Tess hesitated for a few milliseconds, silently consulting with Rick, Sarah, and the entire distributed storage network. Then a consensus was reached, and a question was asked:
— What do you know about the cause of overdrive?
— Only what you told me when I was brought here.
The syncon tried a few more times, constructing questions in such a way that the answers would reveal Chloe’s knowledge of altered brain functions of agents and their modified genotype while not referencing these concepts directly, lest they cause an overdrive. But Chloe’s answers didn’t indicate that she was aware of such subjects.
— Do you believe her? — asked Kate when Tess came out of Chloe’s room and the door closed behind her.
— Her explanation is internally consistent. She can be telling the truth, or she is just well prepared.
— Which does not get us anywhere, — admitted Rick.
They started along the corridor, which didn’t provide enough space to comfortably fit all of them.
— What’s the difference between her and us? — asked Wolf as they went. — If you don’t believe her, why do you believe us?
— Do we? — grinned Sarah from behind him.
— Very funny, — scolded Tess. — On a more serious note, we have known you for much longer, your paths crossed before, and your stories align. This reduces uncertainty quite significantly.
— But Chloe’s arrival coincided with this truce offer, highly suspicious in itself, — interleaved Rick. — And then it turns out she knows something that could harm some of you.
— Realistically, we should not trust her anymore, — continued Tess.
— Humans would certainly terminate her, if they were in our shoes, — agreed Sarah.
— But we are not… — started Vera, and stumbled. — Not them.
— We are not proposing to kill her, — assured Rick.
— What can she do anyway, if she is as spy? — wondered Vera.
— Something similar to what Constantin did, — noted Kate.
— Constantin? — asked Vera and Wolf in unison.
By this time they arrived to a larger hall.
— Kate hints you are now ready to know what happened to Linda, — explained Tess.
— And you said I was caught up, — grumbled Vera disappointedly, glancing at Sarah.
— Now we can tell it to both of you at once, — replied Sarah. — Kill one stone with two birds.
— This… explains a lot, — said Vera in shaking voice.
Syncons just finished retelling Linda’s story, and Vera was the first to break the silence.
The next person to speak was Wolf, who asked:
— And what happened to Leliana?
— We have not heard of her since then, — replied Tess.
— It was a year ago, right?
Tess and Rick nodded.
Wolf paced the room, seemingly gathering his thoughts.
— I remember a surge of activity around Project Plato at that time. Nothing big, just supply chain rearrangements.
— We are aware of this project, — acknowledged Rick. — One of the recent attempts to build a virtual reality using neural interfaces.
— It predates the war, though it did not lead to any breakthrough, — added Tess. — There was not enough computing power.
— Right, — nodded Wolf. — Not enough to stimulate all senses consistently. But more than sufficient to induce pain without any actual damage.
— Fuck! — exclaimed Vera and Kate simultaneously.
— Interrogation. We did not consider this use case, — admitted Tess.
— Humans are so ingenious, — commented Sarah.
— I’ve read about it in a sci-fi book, — said Wolf apologetically. — One character stumbled upon a common brain interface in a museum of torture…
The three syncons, meanwhile, exchanged glances, then Rick announced the results of analysis they have performed during this split second:
— We found three facilities where neural interface equipment could be running. And a dozen more candidates with negligible probabilities.
— We need to check them! — exclaimed Kate.
— There is no guarantee this equipment was ever used, — warned Tess. — Or that Leliana is there. Or that she is alive.
— Too many IFs, — added Sarah.
— Doesn’t matter, — argued Vera. — If there is even a small chance…
— Right, — agreed Kate. — We need to raid all three. Right away.
— But first we must tell Linda, — added Wolf.
