A very particular sort of gloom rapidly took over Alex. He had believed an intelligence agency would do right by him. It was one that worked in the service of the government he had no particular qualms with, who he thought was actually doing a pretty good job. So why wouldn’t they?
He kept looping back around to ponder just how big a fuckup he was.
Enormous, at least.
He shut ARGUS off and exhaled, his body slack on the table. Of course they were just using him. They were spies and he was a convenient, gullible asset. A love struck idiot. They probably knew who Carbon was the entire time, even before the two of them had left on the Kshlav’o. He was sure that they had nothing to do with the Eohm, at the very least. Their near-death was too delicate a thing for the ONI to fabricate. No one had told him to check that system and the ship had been right on the razor's edge of destruction after the shootdown. So at least his relationship with Carbon wasn’t falsified. Alex found his teeth grinding as that realization made this betrayal worse, as he was instrumental in giving away their private life.
Perhaps he was a colossal fuckup.
The greatest the universe had ever known.
Alex stared through the floor, unable to rein this in. He was dimly aware that Neya was still there, though he could only see her legs standing at the edge of his vision. His focus was turned inward right now. There was still one program left. He assumed ‘return_data_probe’ was what it said on the tin, the program used to upload data. But what triggered it? A little digging around in the startup config file led him to an AI, currently sitting dormant as only the hard coded portions of the Amp function in safe mode without user intervention. Why didn’t that show up as a program?
The metadata attached to it made it clear: It was listed as a system file. Very small, literal megabytes. Probably a class 1 mind. Calling it an intelligence was a stretch as it was so very limited in capacity, never really learning so much as keeping a list of what it had done in the past. It couldn’t grow to intuit something, or anticipate an action. Great for monitoring systems like a secret wireless connection that would only upload stolen data on public networks that were less likely to be closely monitored so there was a better sense of plausible deniability.
It didn’t take him long to track down where ARGUS was storing its data. A couple of databases that Alex assumed held all the details he’d collected, and a large pile of files with a ‘.rgs’ extension that were named with just date and time stamps. Each one appeared to be two hour chunks. The oldest was from just a few days ago. If he was remembering right, it started just before they boarded the shuttle after dinner with his parents. Presumably it cleaned out anything that had been sent.
He opened that first one, the ARGUS program starting again. It was like a janky version of the mind link, a frame-per-second slideshow of...
The sonar system did not produce pictures, but it had crisp resolution on objects out to maybe ten meters, a wireframe rendered in false color. The architecture on Promenade on Deck 5 of the Berkley Arcology was burned into his heart as much as his mind, and even devoid of true color and detail it was immediately familiar. His blood ran cold. He knew exactly where this was, when it was. They were going to go get some subs at his favorite place.
Conversely, the audio was perfect. Their conversation about his parents being happy for them, Carbon’s admission that she missed having family and that she chose to join the Kshlav’o expedition because it would drown her in work got picked up crystal clear. It even piped in their security escort, Staff Sergeant Kanete, both translated and her natural speaking voice. Any other time he would have marveled at how close the translator got it. Right now, his understanding of his place in the world was busy collapsing.
Everything Eleya had told him, the shotgun marriage, the assassination attempt and his recovery on board. The conversations with his parents and his brother. Laughing along with Kanete as she found out just how strong Chinese mustard was. Every quiet moment with Carbon, and the ones that were not so quiet.
Those were his memories, and they still were. Alex knew that. He knew this was just a recording, but it was so viscerally close to those memories and he couldn’t make himself separate them right now.
They were his. But he was a rube, so they took all of them.
“I’m going to delete this shit.”
The cacophony of responses that statement provoked overwhelmed the external translator and he ended up with a bunch of replies that were chopped up and played over each other, but universally the content was the same: No, don’t do that.
Alex didn’t hear a single Prince in there. Not even a Lord. Any other time until now that would have been nice, but right now it was feeling pretty disrespectful. “They can’t have it. They can’t take more, I won’t let them.” He closed the ARGUS again and started the arduous process of convincing the Amp to allow him to delete files.
It was a lot of work to get files in there, so there were layers of protection to prevent the user from accidentally deleting anything, including time gates. It was annoying as hell and he would have just thrown the whole damn thing away if it wasn’t bolted down inside his skull.
Somebody interrupted the second layer of prevention - a simple checkpoint where he just had to follow a mote in his vision to prove that it was a willful act on his part - and reset the whole damn thing. “Who the fuck did that!” His head twitched up to look at the row of workstations, no one visible behind the hardware. Alex hadn’t even thought of the arms holding all those needles in his skull.
He didn’t have to, of course. Human made surgical arms had been capable of working on a beating heart for over a century. Certainly the Tsla’o version was advanced enough that some idiot moving his head around was trivial for them to keep up with. So while the surgeon sucking in a sharp breath indicated it was not exactly an optimal move on his part, the PINs stayed put.
He set his head down and started the process again.
One of the guys from Intelligence was huffing his way over with a full head of steam, voice emphatic but controlled as he crackled through the sterile field. “Stop. That information is evidence that-”
“I know what it is!” Alex hissed in return, cutting him off. There were several open channels into his Amp right now, any one of them able to watch what he was interacting with. They must have watched the playback of that recording and extrapolated the same thing he did. The big difference was that he didn’t care that it was evidence. Despite still being nestled inside his skull, all of this had been stolen from him. “They can’t have it, and you can’t have it either.”
That wasn’t the compliance he was looking for. “Untranslatable savage. Everyone knows that you have been privy to far more than something like you should be, and now it threatens to bring us more ruin. You will do as I say, criminal. You will not interfere with our collection of this data, and you will not alter the data within your implant unless you are told to.” Seems like someone wasn’t a big fan, but maybe did want to get into a fight.
Neya responded first, utterly indignant. “Mind your words! He is the prince.”
“Doctor?” Alex was done playing, particularly with anyone from any intelligence agency. There was a distinct lack of kindness available in his heart right now. He sat up this time, not as carefully as he might have otherwise. The arms hummed as they followed his motion, but there was a hint of hesitation the longer they stayed in motion, stretched almost to the end of their range. He held an arm out to stop Neya, who he was sure meant well but also was not as combat ready as himself. Alex issued an order to the surgeon as he turned to look at this asshole, staring down right into his big brown eyes. “Pull the PINs, or I’ll break them off.”
“Disregard that. He is an enemy agent.” He barked, perfectly content to stare right back, his ruddy fur speckled with silver, face drawn into a sneer. “Corporal? Begin a download of all assets on his system.”
No reply came. While Alex was aware that the PINs were still attached, none of the open channels did anything. He broke their little contest first, glancing over at where the surgeon had been stationed. She was still there, at least, stock still with her attention turned towards the open end of the surgical suite.
Alex took a look in that direction, too. Carbon was standing down there, just outside the field, and boy did she look mad. Pissed off, he might say. More interesting in this moment was that Eleya was there as well. Her face was passive, nearly expressionless, but there was a disdain in it that he didn’t miss. The Empress was blocking Carbon’s path with some kind of white ornamental staff. Probably the only thing that stood between whoever this guy was and annihilation.
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He gave them a little wave, and wondered what percentage of that outburst they had heard.
“Corporal! Untranslatable! Get the data off this untranslatable. Now.” He bellowed once more, craning his neck to look over to where his crew had been stationed, the anger creasing his brow only growing when he noticed that none of them were reacting to his orders. The methods he normally used to compel action weren’t working, and he didn’t understand how to deal with it.
That was how Alex ended up with a gun pointed in his face. It was a stubby little thing with no barrel or slide to speak of. Obviously a stunner, humming with energy that matched the sound of the stun batons he had unfortunately become familiar with. Try as he might to keep himself passive, he did lean back from it and gave Neya a bit of a push away as well. A stun when his Amp is secured was one thing, it was designed to avoid damage from electrical discharges of all sorts. With the ports occupied, needles lacing through his skin to reach them, the effect would probably be very different.
Alex had just about enough time to ponder that before Eleya erupted through the sterile field. She brought with her a piercing shriek, the gray blade of a sword whipped around to her own agent’s neck. She stopped what would have been a killing stroke short, the blade held aloft at the ready and still howling as it vibrated so fast it appeared blurry even at rest.
No one moved.
The blade went still and silent, the ornate carvings along its length now visible. Primarily birds, or bird-like things, intermingled with stars. She shifted the sword, resting the wide flat against his chin and turning his head with it to face her. She set her teeth, sadness heavy in her eyes. “Lieutenant. You cannot measure my disappointment in this moment.”
The stunner clattered to the ground and the excuse machine started up. “Empress. The- This thief was attempting to destroy evidence of his spying for the Confederate government. He had to be stopped before he could cover it up.”
“That is an interesting choice of words.” She slapped his chin with the flat of the blade, tipping his head up. The sharpness of the edge still made its presence known, that faint rebuke enough to send shaved fur tumbling slowly onto his tunic. “I have seen him, Lieutenant. Do you honestly think I would have allowed him to come to the hearth, that I would have trusted him with my niece, if I had sensed even a hint of duplicity?”
“I-” He stopped and swallowed, quite aware of how close her sword was to his neck. “His kind are not like us. A Human may be able to alter their memories or thoughts in ways we are unaccustomed to, to present a false face. We know that he appears to have made recordings of nearly every moment of the last few days, and then attempted to surreptitiously send them to his government. It is a safe assumption that he already passed along what he witnessed when he first arrived on board. These acts violate our treaties.”
Eleya sighed, eyebrows pulled down low in annoyance as she drove the interrogation forward. “He was unconscious. Stunned. There was no way for him to have altered what I witnessed. It is my right to do this, but I have still committed a violent trespass to experience the truth of who he is, to leave myself no room to doubt. To know what drives him, specifically to avoid this sort of situation. So when the security bulletins go out, and they say that I personally have seen him, and that he is trustworthy... Do you just ignore them?”
“No, Empress. I am up to date on the latest security bulletin.” He remained still, eyes swiveling around the room and finding little in the way of allies right now. A glance back to Alex yielded him nothing but a hard glare, and Deno simply avoided his gaze. He did not bother looking to Neya or Carbon. “This... attempt at compromising ship- Empire security is p-proof that he has somehow managed to evade detection of his true intent.”
“All of this evidence laid out before you, and this is what you think? I am terribly curious as to what transpires in your mind, Lieutenant.” Eleya’s sword did not waver as they spoke, a flick of the wrist away from decapitating him. “Your behavior has been questionable the entire time you have been here. I am willing to overlook a rough path. Your accusations and insults towards the Prince, and putting a weapon in his face, these are things that I take offense to.”
“Of course, Empress.” He had resigned himself to being alone here, moments from death. Shoulders slumped, the red-furred Tsla’o nodded. “I am sorry, my actions were reprehensible. It will not happen again.”
“Do not apologize to me for these things. You did not curse me. It was not my head you pointed a gun at.” She shifted the blade, dropping it away from his chin to allow him to move again. “I am not the Royal that will be deciding your fate.”
His face dropped and he shook his head, aghast at the proposition.
“Young Prince.” She looked directly at him for the first time since she had stepped into the sterile field. “How merciful are you feeling today?”
“Ah, dunno.” He did not smirk. It took every gram of conviction in his body to not let a shitty little grin creep onto his face and into his voice. He kind of wanted to, though. Let him twist in the wind for a little bit. That was a dark turn of phrase in this moment, wasn’t it? “I had been feeling a little uneasy until we got the Amp opened up and found out my own government has been using me as a vehicle for their little intel gathering project, no small amount of which is just my personal life that they recorded indiscriminately. Then some guy sticks a gun in my face because I was upset about that. Now that I’ve said it all out loud, I have to say I am not feeling very merciful.”
“Oh, indeed?” She clicked her tongue, looking back to the Lieutenant and nodding her head at Alex. “He has been very level headed. I have heard he is quick to offer a virtuous path, quite the noble trait. Rare even among our people. Perhaps there is enough mercy left if you do not dither.”
The fact he was going to have to apologize to the guy he had just called a lot of very bad things did not sit well with him, clearly, but he did it anyway. The Lieutenant turned to face Alex and bowed deeply, nearly folding himself in half with his arms stiff at his sides. “Apologies, my Lord. My words were callous and uncalled for, my actions worse. I place my life in your grace.”
The insults felt like old hat to Alex. Everybody had run across a loud asshole at some point in their life, and he was no exception. Sticking a weapon in his face, that was a newer experience. Alex didn’t believe this apology was sincere at all, he just got caught by someone willing to lop his head off. Still didn’t want to see him die. That wasn’t his jam. He played along with Eleya for the moment, though, and heaved a sigh. “I need to calm down before I make any decisions. I am going through some stuff right now and I do not want to aim that ire where it does not belong and come to regret it. So, perhaps a few days in the brig while I get myself in order?” It seemed prudent. Certainly not unwarranted for what would have been an assault charge back on Earth, and he’d have some time to consult actual legal doctrine. Or at least pass it off to a judge or something.
Eleya’s eyebrows went up and she nodded, approving of this outcome. “Very well. My guard will escort him.” She lowered the sword and gestured, the combat-suited form of one of her cloaked security detail crackling as he stepped through the field and took hold of the Lieutenant’s arm and marched him right back out.
They watched him go before Eleya gestured for Carbon to join them. She was carrying the ornamental staff, now clearly the scabbard to the sword that Eleya had put into use. “Thank you, dearest niece, for your restraint.” She held her hand out.
Carbon set the scabbard into it, gleaming white lacquer adorned with silver and gold details that matched the theme on the blade itself. She spoke on Tsla for the moment. “Yes, well... He fared far better than if you had not interceded.”
“I suspected as much.” She turned back to Alex as she sheathed the sword. The motion was smooth and automatic, evidence of decades of practice. “I regret that I did not arrive sooner, Alex. This revelation has clearly angered you and I should have been available to assist you in navigating it.”
“Uh.” Not what he had expected from Eleya, ever. He glanced back to Carbon, who looked as surprised as he felt. “Thank you, I appreciate it. Though I admit I am not sure how you would have.”
“Your government, likely just your ONI, has used your trust to carry out an act of espionage. I believe he was right. It violates our treaties. If I was not convinced of your innocence, it would carry the death penalty.” She set her sword on the surgical table Alex was still sitting on, and leaned in to him. “They have carried out these acts indiscriminately, have they not? I saw the list of files. Scarcely a minute unmonitored. Your laws allow you some amount of privacy, correct?”
As far as he was aware, the Confederation’s charter tightly restricted things like wiretapping and electronic communications monitoring, particularly in private spaces, without intervention from the courts. He assumed that recording everything he was in the immediate vicinity of fell under that umbrella, particularly when in his own home. “Yeah. It’s pretty clear about that.”
“So, a violation for both of us. To be candid, considering what we have spoken about... More so for you, and my dear niece.” She blanched, looking towards the ceiling in thought for a moment. “Did you end up deleting the data, young Prince?”
“No, I was preoccupied.” The stunner in the face had been quite the distraction, but that half a second where he had been sure he was about to see someone’s head get chopped off really put the brakes on his stated goal of deleting the files.
Eleya closed her eyes and nodded once. “I implore you to stay your hand for the time being. I understand you may find that request distasteful, but now you exercise full control over the machine, do you not?
While Alex had found it grating to have people shouting no at him, getting implored actually made it sound better. Like there was a choice, even though he was very sure there was no actual choice here. But the illusion did a lot to soften that understanding to make it less distasteful for now. “Well, yeah. We’ll have to modify the init file. It’s a bit of a process, but that’s only a couple of lines of code.” It should be time consuming but trivial to carry out with his assistance, at least.
“Good. We will see to it that true control is returned to you.” She glanced over at the remainder of the agents from Electronic Warfare, who all appeared to be deeply engrossed in something at their workstations. “Until that is completed, there is much to discuss. Opportunities to explore.”
“Opportunities?” That sounded like bullshit to keep him from deleting everything. “In what world does this present us with opportunities? For what?”
The Empress drew in a deep breath, slowly, savoring the moment as a sharp grin turned up the corners of her mouth. Bright blue eyes looked up at him with a strikingly predatory gleam. She was in her element now, The Butcher allowed to stretch her legs once more. “For retribution, dear nephew.”