Drasport was a lovely city; despite the size, the millions of inhabitants, every block was split by a tiny park, and any sort of smog or inorganic waste was deliberately packaged and launched off into orbit if it wasn't useful. No smoke, no smog... she only even knew what those were from her time in the sims.
It followed the standard Alliance pattern. Apartments, homes, and businesses clustered up in the center, around the Starport, to make everything easily accessible; but even between two massive 100-story spires was still a nice open space. If an augmented dog that could survive here on Drasda wasn't so expensive, it'd likely be filled with people walking them. She took a deep breath, enjoying the crisp air as she approached the apartment block from the call; one of the ones for Alliance military, which meant that not just the former owner, but the brother who was watching the cat, were both soldiers of some description.
Could it be possible the brother had a security clearance? The possibilities ran through her mind as she reached the elevator, and tapped the button for the correct floor.
The elevator was familiar; the same style, the same camera system... if she were a criminal, the elevator would just lock in place and trap her here... She absently tapped her foot against the wall as it ascended... and when the box stopped, she glanced at the numbers beside the doors... evens right, odds left. Okay. So somewhere ahead on the... there we go.
She tapped the button beside the door, checking her wrist a moment; 2:59. She was exactly one minute early. As the door slid open, revealing... a tall, slim man, skin almost as dark as her own... not exactly athletic of build... too tall to be a pilot, not buff enough to be a marine... engineer, maybe? "Hi! I'm Seraph, called about the cat?"
He nodded. "Thanks. I'm Bryce, currently taking care of His Majesty... sort-of. Ben does most of the work on that score, amusingly enough. Come on in. Your majesty! You have a visitor."
Seraph chuckled as she stepped inside; and grimaced. Something just felt... wrong. Uncomfortable. As if her nerves were just.....
"Ahh, there's a sonic emitter on the door. If you keep a cat, they have to be on anything that can be opened to let the cat out... and you can't turn them off til he's in the carrier."
Even as he spoke, the cat turned the corner, looking at Bryce... a massive tabby, he studied first Bryce, then Seraph; and turned his nose up, looking away, proceeding to make a dainty path across the room and hop onto a bookshelf... settling into a wooden box, curling up into a ball... but one with a face pointed at her.
He was adorable. He was huge, she didn't think cats normally got that big. And she absolutely had to have him. Her hands had risen to her cheeks, and she was just staring, making a small noise she couldn't quite recognize, as Bryce shook his head.
"His name is Richard, but Ben called him 'His Majesty, Richard Lionheart' all the time, so he usually responds to Majesty. Ben should be along any second to explain." The man looked expectantly at one of the doors... and after a minute or so, frowned, starting to rise. "Okay, just a second. Let me..."
A drone floated into the room almost perfectly silently; it had tendrils at the four corners, and was covered with scratched-up, rubber-coated padding, but was clearly a fairly nice, expensive, hovering drone; a modified version of the sort some rich lady might take shopping with her to carry her purchases with her. A small holographic projection appeared over its head, showing a torso, arms, and head not too different from Bryce.
A surprisingly good projection; and one that the cat immediately turned and tilted his head, staring at. A bit lighter of skin-tone than Bryce, if it was accurate, but otherwise very similar.
~Hello there. Look. My brother is gonna be deployed soon, he’s going on one of the liberation campaigns. I can mostly take care of His Majesty just with the drone, I can feed him, clean his litter, so forth… but while he likes it when I brush him… he really needs a living, breathing, friend. He doesn’t like to sleep alone, and now that I’m in this, he considers me more a toy than a person. So either another cat, or a person. And another cat would eat up most of my savings.~
Seraph studied him for a moment, and gave a nod. “I can understand. But anything electronic I bring into my apartment has to be approved by Alliance intelligence. I come across classified intel all the time, and they do a review of my place once a month, make sure I’m who I say I am, that there aren’t any bugs, anything that could hack my implant in my sleep… and if they catch something I didn’t let them review, thats it. I can’t even bring home a boyfriend or a simulated intelligence like yourself unless he’s got at least a basic clearance.”
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~Oh! Well that’s just fine. I handled electronic intelligence-gathering in the field, controlling drones a bit more complicated than this one. I’ve actually got a security clearance. Huh. It’d be nice to have someone to talk about that with.~
Seraph blinked. “...On the one hand, it’d be a bit weird to have you in the apartment. On the other… if I’m allowed to just shut off the drone and let you go online so I can still have privacy, and you pass the clearance check… I’m down. You wanted 500 credits?”
~Five hundred credits, and you pay for at least a one-terabyte internet connection.~
She chuckled. “I’ve got a five. I usually spend a couple hours in sims after work.”
The hologram frowned. ~...That’s good, and if its a couple hours thats fine, but…. He can be kinda a needy cat. If you’re in a sim, I want to be active so I can be with him.~
“Hmm. Sounds fair. If I ask them to, Intel can do their observe and verify thing early; they would probably check every day if they could, the once a month thing is… well, anyways. I can have them come by when I get off work tomorrow, and that’ll be another month before they come back. We can save them some time and bring you in while they’re checking the apartment; they’ll want to verify your ID.”
~..Okay. That’s fine. What time?~
“Five thirty tomorrow. They like to escort me home from work after these, or if I’m not working, meet me at the base and follow me. They do this silly thing and check my path home, make sure nobody’s watching me or anything.”
~Well then. Feed me the address, I’ll meet you there. Bryce, mind taking me?~
The living brother, quiet til now, shook his head at first... then sighed. "Yeah, yeah, fine. I'll miss the damned fluffball, even if he is a little terrorist when I try to sleep sometimes."
~Honestly, I should never have gotten a cat. I love him, but really, the only folks in the military who should have one are people like Seraph, here. Who have nice, stable jobs, stay here in Alliance space. Don't spend weeks or months out there, or risk getting killed.~
Seraph looked at the drone... and nodded. "Yeah... don't get me wrong, I'm extremely grateful for guys like you, doing what you can. I just don't know if I have it in me to risk my life like that. Some get lucky like you, their minds get recovered and brought home. Others... its permanent. No more you. Scary."
Bryce laughed. "Well, so long as we do our jobs, we'll be fine. There's always a risk, and the Alliance will always have enemies, but we're the last true bastion of humanity in the universe; we have to stand tall. Get the job done."
***
When she arrived at work the next day, it was with a touch of amusement. She was late, again, of course. The secretary was angry, and jealous, of course. Today, though, she’d actually have to leave on time; the spooks would be following her home. The last time they’d found out the time she went home varied randomly; from hours early to hours late; they were happy about it. It was strange, but apparently they’d prefer if all of their people had completely unpredictable schedules.
Less so that she always took the same route, and almost always stopped at the same bar, but she lived too close to home for much variance there.
As she settled in at her desk and checked her messages, her boss had sent her a note that more recovered minds had been added to her stack for when she was ready; but that she was still well ahead, no rush.
She reviewed the responses to the data requests she’d sent; and started going over recordings of surveillance on the plantation. The way the sun rose and set, the way people worked, the movements, the speech… simulating people was always risky. She had to run them herself, and it was possible she could miss a cue that someone familiar with the situation wouldn’t; but for the specific information she wanted, it had to be someone this ‘Victor’ would reveal it to.
The plantations were massive places; usually a single main building, with dozens of bunkhouses the slaves lived in; all genetically augmented folks with unusually large builds, generally bred for extreme levels of endurance as well as docility; but obviously, with Victor as an example, they were still people, and would rebel if given the chance.
They were watched at all times; a handful of drones would orbit the property, catching anything obvious; usually the slaves would wear shock collars, rather than bothering with massive fences, so that they could be triggered at any given moment, or as soon as they left their assigned work-place.
Usually, they were only used for certain specific kinds of labor; despite all the drone advancements, some kind of fruit still couldn't be reliably picked by machine; which meant that a trained laborer was the only option; and obviously no citizen would want to do such arduous, back-breaking work, hauling thousands of fruit every day so that they could be sold at the market or distributed.
She had videos inside the bunkhouses. Videos of the whole area. Of the orchards where the picking went on.
She could hear what they said to each other while they worked. See what they did. The idea that someone like Victor had ever managed to escape... it was just crazy. He absolutely had to have had outside help... which made the reason for the simulation she was building all the more obvious.
The setting needed to be perfect. The people could be just slightly off, so long as it was believably so; everyone was unique; but she also couldn’t use the exact people there, just in case Victor had met one while harvesting.
Still. She had options. She’d done this hundreds of times; she knew exactly what sort of manipulations it would take to get someone to reveal secret information, without ever knowing they’d revealed it. This Victor fellow would never know what hit him.