Attendance at Fortescue Military Academy M1 Y:2142
Inter-Academy Round 2 Fortescue Points: 193, Rank: 6, PR: 0.4825
Tier 3 Daedo M-Rank: 140
Term: 3, Round: 3
Daedalus Operating Capital: +1,600,000 bitcreds
----------------------------------------
“It’s time,” Mace informed Daedo who nodded. She put them online and opened a VR chat room with her parents. Daedo was visible and they all knew he was listening, so Mace decided to drop the pretence.
“Ameline,” her mother said emotionally.
“Mother,” Mace replied.
“I see his avatar,” Adele acknowledged Daedo but not by name.
“Is Father here?” Mace asked.
Her mother shook her head, “No, but a team leader from the Organisation is.” With the pseudo introduction, a man appeared. His image was that of a generic mannequin from the VR program.
“I’m Agent 4020,” he said by way of introduction, “but you can simply call me Agent.” His voice made him sound young, so he was likely in his early twenties at most which was what Daedo and Mace had surmised.
“Cadets, I am here to open a dialogue with you so we can avert a tragedy,” he said dramatically. “We do not wish to harm anyone. We only want to protect our planet from intruders.”
“If we answer your questions here, will you guarantee Daedo’s safety and freedom?” Mace asked.
“Yes,” Agent 4020 replied.
In the virtual world, Mace brought up a table and two chairs for Daedo and the Agent to sit across from one another. She then stood behind Daedo.
“I hope we can talk after,” her mother said before she blinked out.
Myrmidon: I’m monitoring out here.
Daedo: I know, thanks!
His AI must have picked up on the wording that Mace’s mother used and thought to reassure Daedo. Myrmidon’s initiative had grown over time. It was only small things that were hard to notice on a daily basis because they spent so much time together, but the message struck Daedo and reminded him how far Myrmidon had come in just a few years.
“Very well, Mr Daedo, can we begin?” The Agent asked.
“Daedo is fine. It’s my academy designation. Mr Daedo is my father,” Daedo replied.
“You’re a stickler for precision? This is a good trait,” the agent observed.
“Don’t bother with people handling skills just ask your questions,” Daedo replied.
The agent seemed unworried, “Did you know of or communicate with Nader, or Master Nader, in any fashion before entering the Academy?”
“To my knowledge, no,” Daedo replied.
“What do you mean by, ‘to your knowledge?’” The agent asked.
“That I may have communicated with an unknown person that was Master Nader, but I was unaware that this person was Master Nader,” Daedo replied.
The agent paused for a moment before continuing. “Do you have any backups or memories of this communication?” The agent asked.
“You are misinterpreting what I said. There is no particular communication with an unknown person that I had in mind but, while I was playing CyberMech or selling blueprints in my SpaceBuild shop, I corresponded with many unknown individuals. It is possible one of those was Master Nader so I cannot rule it out.”
The agent sighed regretting his praise of Daedo’s precision. “Did you enter the Fortescue Academy with intent to be placed in Master Nader‘s House and Squad Zero?”
“No, I did not,” Daedo replied.
The agent paused for a long moment. He was probably sorting through lines of questioning, but Daedo could not be sure. The agent jumped ahead, “When did you know Master Nader was an alien?”
“Never,” Daedo replied.
“Did you ever suspect she was an alien?” The agent asked.
“Yes,” Daedo replied.
“Good. We’re getting somewhere. Now, Daedo, can you recall the incident when you first suspected she was an alien?”
“When I first saw her,” Daedo replied.
“The very first day?” The agent asked.
“Yes, during our orientation,” Daedo replied.
The agent’s avatar shuffled some invisible documents and again reviewed his line of questioning. “When did you confirm she was an alien?” he asked.
“Never,” Daedo replied, matter-of-factly.
“When did you confirm she was not an alien?” the agent asked.
“When my AI scanned her vitals with my bodysuit sensors,” Daedo lied because he knew that it was possible for an alien conscious to take over a human body.
The answer stumped the agent. He went dark for five minutes before coming back with a quick follow-up question.
“You suspected but ruled out that she was an alien on the first day?”
“Yes,” Daedo replied.
“One moment,” the agent said.
He was gone another five minutes before returning.
“Did Master Nader ever act in a way that made you suspect that she was an alien or was not from Earth after the first day?’
“No,” Daedo lied.
“You need to tell the truth Cadet Daedo as we know you spent hours with Master Nader alone so what were you doing?” The agent asked quickly with the tempo of his voice increasing considerably.
“It was training which included reviewing tactical operations, leadership activities, academic activities and people management.” Daedo replied.
“She spent considerably more time with you than any other cadet and she had over twelve hundred in her care,” the agent said. Daedo was silent. The agent nodded, “Can you explain that?” he asked.
“I was leader of Thoth Squad Zero, Thoth Middle Academy House captain and Inter Academy team captain. The other tutors in the academy were not up to Master Nader’s standard, so she took on responsibility for all my roles inside the academy.”
The agent went dark again. He finally came back with another question and his tempo had slowed again so calm returned to his voice, “Did Master Nader influence you to act in a certain way?”
“Yes,” Daedo replied.
“Contrary to your instincts?”
“No,” he answered, carefully.
“Did she give you information that no person on Earth could have possessed?”
“No,” Daedo saw through the obvious trick question, waiting for a deeper game from the agent.
“When she nullified the hybrid Spybot,” the agent stated, “which was a technology that only alien technology could detect but this event didn’t pique your curiosity?”
“I am not an expert in that technology,” Daedo stated.
“But you’re a genius so you should have known something wasn’t right. What did you think when this event occurred?”
“That someone had put a spybot inside me, and it was probably Mace,” Daedo stated.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.
The agent paused again which was the only action that indicated to Daedo that he was frustrating the agent and his support team. Daedo had already suspected he was having regular discussions with the support team each time he went dark.
“Cadet,” the agent began again, “You need to be honest with us with all your answers otherwise we cannot abide by the verbal agreement.”
Daedo was quiet. He only responded to direct questions.
“Ahem,” The agent cleared his throat. After what seemed like an eternity of him staring intently at Daedo, waiting for a response, he slowly recognised that Daedo was not fazed in the slightest by the accusation and was therefore not likely to respond. He decided to try a different line of questioning. “When Master Ustinov died suddenly, how did you react?”
It was not lost on Daedo that other than their last conversation in the gym, which Mace had isolated from the Organisation, that they could have a recording of every other conversation between the pair.
“I suspected Master Nader was complicit,” Daedo replied, tactfully.
“And yet, you did not report that fact to anyone,” the agent stated. Daedo was silent. “Cadet Daedo,” the agent said in a frustrated tone, “Why did you not report your suspicions?”
“I had no proof. Suspicions are not facts and the administration at the academy appeared hostile towards me, all except Master Nader,” Daedo admitted.
“So, you are saying you had sympathetic feelings towards Master Nader, due to her support, and because of those feelings you did not report her?” The agent asked.
“No, I also had no proof. If I had had any proof whatsoever then that would have changed everything. I was an M1 cadet with a suspicion and we were told Master Ustinov died of a rare disease, not that she was murdered.”
“Do these sympathetic feelings exist today?” The agent asked.
“Those are your words, not mine, Agent. I said that Master Nader was not hostile which means the one person who might listen was the person I suspected thereby cutting off the one avenue for sharing low probability theories.”
“Cadet, you warned Cadet Mace not to report Master Nader because it was dangerous,” the agent stated a fact that Daedo had overlooked.
Daedo went to speak, “I..”
“Cadet, I caution you again. You need to be honest if we are to abide by the agreement because if you assist the identity known as Master Nader then we will have no choice but to dig deeper in order to get the answers that we need.” He then softened his tone, attempting to sound more sympathetic, more personable, “We just want information, Daedo, that’s all.”
“I was about to say that because I am young and we both suspected Master Nader, rightly or wrongly, I thought it was best for us to be careful because false rumours like that could have hurt us,” Daedo said.
“Cadet Daedo, if anything, this incident has shown that you have a propensity to protect Master Nader. Is there anything about your relationship with her that persuades you to protect her?” The agent asked.
“No, Sir. She was a mentor and a capable instructor. However, there is no reason now to protect her from the truth,” Daedo replied.
“Cadet,” the Agent said, his voice hardening again, “Normally we would apprehend and interrogate you while pretending that everything was fine so you would let your guard down. I am going to ruin this particular strategy by giving you one last chance to come clean. We know you are lying. Come clean now, or we will be forced to take action.”
Daedo hung his head in contemplation for a moment before raising it, “Sir, I don’t know what you want to hear but I have told you everything.”
“Hand over all the data that you have stored from the last nine months including everything from your bodysuit sensors, your AI, your conversations, everything!” the agent demanded.
“That was not part of our agreement so I will not do so because of the sensitive Daedalus data,” Daedo replied, forcefully.
“You have twenty-four hours to comply,” Agent 4020 stated before exiting the VR room.
Mace did not wait for her mother to return; she closed everything down including their connection to the outside world.
“Shit,” Mace said, as she looked at Daedo, “I didn’t believe you either because you needed to give them something.”
“There’s nothing to give,” Daedo stated.
“We both know that’s not true,” Mace replied.
“No, it is true, I do have nothing to give them,” Daedo said explaining that once he opened the floodgates on the tech and all their VR room conversations it would be impossible to close them. There were also conversations outside of the secure VR room that would give him away. He could certainly not give them the data. Besides, he believed Master Nader because she had protected and helped them. If this was the plotting of the enemy, he couldn’t see how it benefitted them.
“Won’t you tell me then?” Mace asked.
“No, because it would put you in the same position I am in now,” he said thinking that either that or, worse, she could end up betraying him again.
“Then we need to keep building up our defences,” she observed, and, for the first time, there was what sounded like fear in her voice.
They both had been in countless fights and excluding a punch thrown at a street kid, none of them real. Daedo smiled slightly, “I have something,” he said when bringing up the latest set of plans for their base, “We are going to drop everything underground including the entrance,” he began. The base was almost entirely underground already except for the large warehouse up top on a platform. “We’re building two remote entrances here and here,” he said pointing to the plan, “but we will do that after everything is in place and we will build large aurora shield generators for the entrances so they can’t be blasted with PPCs.”
“They’d have to attempt to bombard us or dig in some way,” she replied.
“If they try and dig in, we will detect them from at least two hundred kilometres away or the point of penetration but, without our base plans, how will they know where to penetrate?” he added.
“How long will this take?” she asked.
“Not long as we’ve already started so we might want to move out of this section into the new living space before it drops. The shield generators will take the longest, not to mention we’ve never built them this large before, and I’m not sure how well they will work.”
“We have enough food for a week,” Mace mentioned.
“How long will it take them to find us?” Daedo asked.
“That’s impossible to answer. They could have broken through my defences while we spoke, or it could take them weeks to trace through all the false pings whilst checking each site with drones. I could contact my mother in the hope that she drops a clue with her phrasing in order to find out if they know our location.”
Daedo began emptying the entrance of materials and shelving, using two of the bots assigned to logistics.
“Should I move now?” Mace asked. Daedo shrugged putting his helmet was back on as he was working in his screens. Mace made a face as she pulled up the plans. She didn’t know where the living area was. She got into her exo and walked through an access corridor past the manufacturing plant and headed down a large ramp. There were no travelators in place, but she was able to jet down quickly. Three levels down and the noise from the refinery and manufacturing bays was gone. She inspected the floor at the bottom of the ramp. It was sandstone or limestone as they had not covered it with constructofoam yet.
The living area exterior was finished. It looked big enough to house only a hundred cadets but not two hundred. He hadn’t added the internal walls, so it was still one big open space. Mace could see the cots and she moved aside as a bot brought in the cooking equipment and food.
Now that she was alone, she paced nervously trying to think. The way things were headed there would be a fight, a real one, where people actually died. The best-case scenario would be if they were captured and with no casualties, but she quickly threw that thought away. Their problems would come after that. She kicked a wall in frustration. If only Daedo told them everything regarding Master Nader. However, he had to have his reasons and she pondered what they could be. What did he have to hide? What had they spent all those hours discussing? She couldn’t help wondering but she kept coming up blank. She shook herself. It didn’t matter, and she would probably never know. They were building Daedalus and this base to protect the planet. They were doing something real, and she had thrown in with Daedo and Daedalus. There was no going back as the alternatives were too bleak.
----------------------------------------
Vannier stood at attention in front of Master Haddad and Commander Mallet. Barran, Picard, Axel-Zero and Kang were behind her. “It’s been a week, Cadet Vannier. Your squad leader and Mace are still AWOL. Have you been in contact with them? Do they have an explanation?” Commander Mallet almost shouted.
“Sir,” Vannier said, attempting to remain calm, “Although I think of Daedo and Mace as friends, I am not responsible for them. That would be the responsibility of Master Nader and the academy. I, in turn, could ask you where Master Nader is?”
“She is your Master, cadet!” He yelled.
“Sir?” Vannier asked.
“You know better than we do what was going on with her,” he accused Vannier.
“Sir? Are you suggesting that a Master of the Academy is my responsibility and not yours?” Vannier asked, incredulously.
Master Haddad had to smile. He was enjoying this exchange. It was no wonder these cadets were so highly ranked. She was thirteen and not intimidated by the Commander one bit. He thought she did look a little nervous but, overall, she was killing him with facts.
“Don’t give me lip, Cadet,” Commander Mallet warned.
“Ahem,” Master Haddad cleared his throat.
“Do you have something constructive to add?” The commander asked. Master Haddad had insisted on attending now that these cadets were in his charge.
“Cadet Vannier, do you know where Cadets Daedo and Mace are?” Master Haddad asked.
“No, Sir,” Vannier replied.
“Do any of you know?” Master Haddad looked squarely at the faces of each of his squad seeking an answer.
They all shook their heads and replied, separately, “No, Sir.”
“Cadet Vannier, do you know why Cadets Mace and Daedo left the Academy?” Master Haddad asked.
“They feared for their lives, Sir. They did not believe the academy would protect them from wrongful arrest and imprisonment,” she replied truthfully with what she believed hoping it would stop the Commander from taking any action against them.
“What? That is preposterous!” The Commander shouted. “If the police want to arrest someone legally then we are not allowed to interfere. In fact, we are morally obliged to assist.”
“Were they police?” Vannier asked knowing the answer.
“Listen, Cadet. You are the one being questioned here, not me,” The commander spat the words. “Despite your deal with Fortescue I can still have you all expelled!”
Barran had had enough. He moved forward and shouted back at the Commander, “For what? Listen, you old bastard, you have done nothing for us. You're useless, and all you do is yell at us for your own spectacular fails!”
“I'm recording this,” Axel-Zero said calmly.
Picard’s patience had run out as well, “This academy is a pile of shit. We should all just leave. How many offers do we get a week?” she boasted.
“At least two,” Axel-Zero said softly, but her words were heard by all.
Vannier was panicking. She had lost control of the squad and in front of the commander of all people. She waved her hands for calm and sent messages for everyone to shut up.
“Commander,” Master Haddad intervened before he could respond. His blood pressure was up, and his face had turned almost crimson. “I think everyone needs to cool off. I will take the cadets back to their quarters and reprimand them. We should resume this discussion at another time, with cooler heads.”
“Hell no!” The Commander roared. “You’re all suspended while we conduct a formal investigation.”
“What?” Vannier was incredulous. Her squad mates had all released pent up rage at the commander, all except Kang and thank heavens for that.
“How dare you! We have done nothing wrong and you’re not suspending us, you imbecile. We’re outta here!” Vannier roared back turned and stormed out.
“Holy shit,” Barran reacted with what everyone was thinking through otherwise stunned silence and all quickly followed Vannier.
Master Haddad watched them leave before he made an observation, “Well done, Commander. You just single-handedly lost the best cadets in the Academy.”
“Careful Haddad or you just might join them,” the commander seethed.
“Oh,” he said as he was leaving, “I think I’ve had enough of this place as well.”