“So how do we get your yellow system magic to activate? Since that’s the point of all of this.” Hailey asks, seemingly having gotten past—or at least buried—much of her resentment toward me.
“Get them to commit a statement of fact regarding their truthfulness. ‘Why would I lie to you?’ is not enough. Or, get them to sign something that says they agree to tell the truth as far as they know it. They’re employees, so it should be easier than a criminal interrogation.”
We sit behind a desk in a room in the Warram Casino building, wearing a nice suit with no tie, and Hailey looks like a fucking Mercenary in light body armor strapped with weapons. I have my Merc Arms .38 Hyper-velo in a shoulder holster, a pulse pistol in the same caliber on the other side, and a thigh band full of knives.
The room we are led to for our ‘interviews’ has multiple cameras with which the officers in another room can watch without the obvious double mirror installed into the wall. It has the benefit of also creating an illusory expectation of isolation as the cameras are hidden save the one very obvious one in the corner of the ceiling.
Prakesh and one of his cronies are there to meet us and wait for us to inspect the space before telling us more.
“There have been many rumors of people trying to subvert Warram’s criminal enterprises, using our resources and personnel to branch out on their own. We are not focused on in-depth information gathering on these questions. We are more interested in who’s lying and who they might be lying for.” A man named Barnes explains.
“Since we are using miss Novaro’s Talent in a way not tested, I would like to test it now, between me and miss Novarro.” I nod. It makes sense. “Then I wish to ask a few questions about your offsite business. Would you agree to that?”
Nice phrasing, he’s obviously thought about this. “As long as you’re straight with me, sure.”
“That’s not what I postulated miss . . .” A flash of gold and a roll of paper appears in my hand. He sighs heavily. “Fine. Hand it over.”
I shake my head. “Just open it up in your contracts tab. We need all the data we can get after all. Miss Martin will be looking at my scroll with me. If she records it, you can watch it after.” I watch him consider refusing, but realizes that’s all he really needs and leaves it alone.
“Alright then. Miss Novarro, is Nova Chem a subsidiary of Warram Criminal Enterprises?”
“It is not, it is a company associated with the Camp Elsewhere Settlement. Why does that matter?”
“Merely trying to get a baseline and assess what kind of recompense you may owe.” He brushes off the question. Where I get a cornucopia of information.
The statement is printed on my scroll and each section is color coded. The assessment of what I may owe is absolutely true with no colors what so ever. ‘Merely’ is bright red, and baseline is an orangey color. Maybe true but the background is missing a lot of info? Baseline is a bullshit word in this context, so that makes sense. I wonder what I’d be getting if I had used this talent more. Then again, I don’t have an associated skill since I’ve never tried to use it for a truth-telling device before. I wiggle in my seat a little as I like new applications of things.
“Alright, Have you always been forthwith and straightforward with Warram and it’s employees?”
I snort at that. “Warram is a criminal organization. I doubt I’ve been less straightforward than most of the employees I’ve dealt with. So no, with most of my slantiness and info shielding with Parker and that douche who was supposed to oversee and develop my drug operation but decided to try and fleece me instead. Speaking of Parker, why is that slimy, security risk still an Officer?”
“Kimber, your crass ‘candor’ is more than is needed for this test. Mr. Parker’s employment details are not your concern.”
“Lieutenant Prakesh, if you think the people we question won’t be belligerent or uncooperative during the interview, then you’re not thinking things through. Unless this is my interview?”
“I’m not interested in what you think in this matter. This is your interview, so please cooperate.”
“This was not part of the agreed test, nor the terms of my employment today. As far as I’m concerned, this test has concluded.” A little green lettered ‘Complete’ appears at the end of the scroll.
I’d caught the orange of the word ‘test’ in his previous statement and decided to see where it went. Highlighted by an omission of the intent behind the truth stated. Good to know. Everything he said about Parker was also orange.
“I’ve been instructed to put you through the interview, and we will finish it.” His features are very well trained and his tone is level and metered. Damn, he must be impossible to do a vibe check on without magic.
“I understand.” I try to meet his tone.
“How much business have you hidden from Warram using Warram resources?”
“I have hidden zero credits worth of business. I started the gunpowder work in Warram labs using mostly equipment that Marcella bought me, and all of the specialized equipment for the gunpowder production I bought on loan or by myself.”
“Who was the loan from and how much was it for?”
“A weapons manufacturer and none of your business. It has been paid back.”
“Private enterprises that operate within Warram facilities are my business.”
“My contract disagrees with you.”
His composure finally breaks. “Contracts can be changed. And I’ll see to it that the Boss hears that you are attempting to hold the whole organization hostage over a contract.”
“I’m doing nothing of the sort. You are stating stipulations of apparent fact that are not present in any agreement I’ve made. I expect the lawyers or the Boss will get a hold of me to fix the misunderstanding, but until then, can we get back to what miss Martin and I were hired for today?”
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“Not yet. We will review why the contract did not review the last few statements you made and the results of the statements it did review.” Prakesh demands.
I nod at that, not trusting my mouth to respond without a direct question.
“Well? Why did it stop reporting?”
“When I considered the test ended, the System must have judged your intent as well. Since your reply was it was my interview, I guess that was enough to confirm the test was over.”
“Is your Talent that fickle? That would be of limited usefulness.”
“No, I led you into that. I could see when you talked about the test, you were being dishonest and I coaxed the system into a judgement. The contract stuff is a side benefit to what the Talent actually does, Lieutenant.”
“I will address that later. However, the version of the contract I saw only recorded if your statements were true or false. Yours must have been more detailed.”
Hailey speaks this time. “What I saw was degrees of truth per statement. In your case, each sentence had a code associated with how truthful it was.”
“And you?”
“I get colors instead of codes, so I probably have more . . . shades of truth than she can read, but I haven’t used this version of my Talent enough to know more than red, yellow, orange, green, or nothing.”
“What would the difference between green and nothing be?” He asks.
“No idea, LT. The colors between red and nothing threw me for a loop. Orange, I’m convinced, is context would make this false. Which is why I was needling you, sir. To ‘test’ a theory. Yellow might be some info gap that the person doesn’t know that might make it wrong? Any case, it would be hard to test, but today I should have more info for the group.”
The officer massages his temples before addressing me again. “Your comportment is troublesome. Let us hope that your talents are beneficial enough to grant you some clemency.” He stands up and leaves the room. I wait a few minutes and then go out to the lockers to get a snack and some juice.
Hailey follows me and then corners me?
“Look, Kimber. I don’t know what game you are playing, but can you wait until I’m not involved to play it.” She seems serious, but she’s not as intimidating as she used to be.
I snarl at her. “Fuck off, Martin. Besides Marcella, Warram brass have tried to take advantage of me at every turn. People in this company have tried to kill me at least three times, and even the Boss tried to omit a clause in my alchemist contract where they could remit me to a pleasure house when I wasn’t working on drugs.” I lean in close to her, “I don’t care what kind of operative you are, or what tier you’ve advanced to. I’m not going to let you tell me how to defend myself.”
I back up and stuff another bar in my mouth. “Now can we finally get to the job I was hired for?” I really need to save up for a dimensional storage device. Maybe I can ask Zia for her preference. I like that idea and send her off an email.
“You can move on? Just like that?” Hailey asks, looking down and voice soft.
“I think moving on is the wrong word. I have a job that I agreed to do. I want to get this over with. We have a longer conversation ahead of us, but I don’t think it’s a ‘here’ thing.”
She nods and walks off back to the interview room. I sigh and sit with my snacks and juice, lamenting the loss of a potential friend over some drama bullshit.
***
I am getting very tired of staring at this glowing, technicolor lie detector. I tap Hailey’s leg for another lie as this douche just can’t keep himself from vomiting every conceivable thought in his head.
“But then I says, Mack, what if, Mack what if eh? But then he says, Denny, don’t be a bitch. We’re just running a truck down to King’s Crossing, who’s gonna know? He says. A few days later I says the roof is melting ‘cause we did some mad drugs.”
My eyebrows rise at the nugget of truth in that ramble and tap Hailey for her attention.
“Denny, what else does Mack say?”
“Oh, Macks a right asshole, he is. Shits on the new guys. Washouts if I’m to believe, but they got the drive to do anything for a hit or a cred, you feel? Anys, Mack likes being in charge so he says a lot of things. Denny stays away most times, but Denny collects on the street, you know? So Mack talks once a week and makes sure Denny knows who’s boss. The Face is boss, not Mack, even fool Denny knows that.”
I pinch myself hard and then look at the scroll again. Empress’ bruised kneecaps, nobody notices this cat most of the time! I quickly text a request to Prakesh’s lackey to arrange another room for us and to get someone to just keep this tweaker talking.
Hailey offers to grab him some food or water and he readily asks for food, and fucking drugs. Much to my chagrin, I have a few sachets of coke on me. I prep a small line for the twitchy bastard and hand him a wrapper from my mood reinforcement candies.
“Oooh hoo hoo! This is some shit, lady! Much better than what I may or may not have sampled from our shipment to the Kings. YEAH!!! Do you need a street man, lady?” Oh gods, I have never seen someone take my product and this dude looks like I cut that coke with caffeine. I need to be elsewhere.
Hailey comes back with some snacks and another woman in a suit similar to mine. Oh, that’s clever, just hot swap women interviewers and hope he just doesn’t care. I give her the scroll and ask her to tell Denny that she’s standing in for us for a few minutes and to treat her just like us. Should keep the contract running if he nods or otherwise agrees.
I want lunch so I suggest we take a break to the Cantina and chew some things over.
“Are the both of you even allowed in the Cantina?” Lackey asks. “I have an aether dispensation, and I presume that Lieutenants can invite guests?”
“We can, and it’s not a terrible place for a meeting. Just know, that Novarro’s food is toxic to everyone but her.” He turns to me, “Just in case you were planning anything.”
I snort. “I actively discourage people from stealing my food. Arrogance and stupidity have defeated my attempts on multiple occasions. But yes, the aether in my food is not great for anyone else.”
The four of us come back to the table from our Kiosk visits and I by far have the most boxes. They are all looking at me funny.
“Hah, hah. Look at the girl with the big meal. Fontaine’s convinced that I’ll get more body shaping at tier 1, so I’m still on like 5k calories a day. The extra fish platter is because this contract thing is draining my aether as fast as my alchemy ever does.” I stuff some Elysium fish in my face and shudder in delight at the tingle of magic pulsing back into my body.
“So what had you so excited in there that you wanted more resources to keep that addict talking?”
“Kimber saw that his recount of ‘Mack’ and ‘Parker’ had green and no color elements. No context errors, and apparently his brain knows the difference between the drug interactions and reality even if his conscious mind doesn’t.” Hailey explains.
“I can back that. A part of him knows that Mack is a blusterer, but we can double check what others think of this Mack guy. His statement about Parker being the boss was no color. Period. I believe it’s an indication of abject truth in the context of what we’re asking.”
“So, green would be the truth as far as he knows it?”
“Not exactly. I think the System is adding flavor. I think yellow is the basis of truth as he knows it, with orange leading to lies and green leading to truth, but the System knows enough that it might be misleading. No color seems to be the System agreeing with the statement. Then again, since orange was a true statement with a full-story leading to a lie, perhaps yellow is an ‘as they know it’ truth that leads to a lie and green is the misleading info that is questionable? Yellow seems pretty iffy right now.”
“As you saw, I abandoned trying to ask questions based on my code interpretations. We had a touch code under the table to let me know what to delve into. Denny was the most confusing overall, but that was apparent.”
Prakesh finishes his bite and then talks to his minion, “find out more about Mack. Get him in our investigation room.”
“What about Parker. Denny Named him and it was the truth!”
Prakesh’s face screws up before he mechanically schools his features. “Parker is protected. Beating your head against that roadblock is unwise Miss Novarro.”
My face similarly screws up, and I am unsuccessful in my efforts to calm myself. “I appreciate the advice, sir.” I have nothing nice to say, only rants, so I leave them in my brain space and ask Tova to leave a flaming sack of poop in his bed.
The rest of our lunch devolves into discussion about previous interviews that were much less fruitful, but necessary to cover.