The commander drew his gun.

Val stared placidly down the barrel, offering no resistance.

“Is that weapon equipped with disruptor ammunition, commander?” he asked.

“Yes,” said the commander. “I’m giving you five seconds to flash to a soulbox voluntarily. If you don’t, I’ll use my authority as team leader to force the transfer, and you’ll get to deal with the damage from that. Five.”

“You have sealed orders from Maxwell,” Val said immediately. “Board-level clearance.”

“Four.”

“If you promise me you’ll read them, I’ll flash immediately.”

“You are not in a position to make demands,” said the commander. “Three.”

Fucking hell. Was I really going to sit here and watch this happen?

My control of the exoskeleton was still jerky and awkward, but I lurched forward.

“Lilith, do not interfere,” said the commander at the same time Val said “Don’t.”

I ignored both of them, stumbling into the space between Val and the gun.

“You idiot,” Val murmured.

“Get out of the way,” said the commander. “Don’t complicate an already thorny situation, apprentice.”

I stared him down. “I guess today, I am the armor.”

“I’m taller than you,” Val noted. “He can shoot over your head. You’re just risking soul damage for no reason.”

“I’m not risking shit,” I said. “Aulof decides whether to pull that trigger or not.”

The commander looked me dead in the eyes. “Two.”

“Godfire,” said Val, then collapsed to the floor.

A moment passed. Then two. Aulof lowered the gun and pushed me aside, inspecting the body carefully. Shocked, I didn’t resist.

“I really hope he didn’t try to be clever,” Aulof said, then raised the pistol and shot Val twice through the head. One punched through his forehead and one popped his eye socket. Blood sprayed all over the lounge floor and pooled under the body’s punctured skull. Not a body anymore. A mound of cooling flesh. The commander wasn’t bluffing about the disruptor bullets.

“What the hell was that!?” I screamed.

“Decontamination,” he said matter-of-factly. “Shut up and get to med bay. We’ll debrief when everything settles. Markus, get over here stat.”

“On my way,” said Markus with a touch of solemnity.

“Did he fucking make it to the crypt?” I said, not moving.

“You have a compound fracture.” Frustration was leaking into Aulof’s voice. “You have multiple ruptured organs! The only reason you’re still conscious is the medical translator whose reserves you’re wasting just to keep pace with the internal bleeding! You’re a walking corpse, you stupid girl! Get to med bay.”

I stood my ground. “You said I was fine a minute ago.”

“I said whatever I needed to get Val under control,” Aulof said tiredly. “Please, Lilith. I did what I had to, but my best friend just stuck a knife in my heart. There was a price. I promise I’ll answer your questions, but I need you to go to med bay.”

“Did. Val. Make it. To. The crypt.”

Aulof closed his eyes. “Yes. Now will you listen to me?”

I wiped a tear away, accidentally smearing my face with blood instead. “Okay. Okay. Fine. I’ll stop bleeding on your floors.”

I turned to limp away, but not before catching the commander’s heavy glance at the body.

Then it was gone, the grief and exhaustion subsumed under proper Velean reserve, and he threw one of my arms over his shoulder to help me make it down the hall.

*

He was gone when I woke up. I wasn’t alone; Markus was sitting next to the bed, talking softly to the air.

“My gut says we need to pull out here,” he was saying. “The problem is, I’m not sure what happens when we get back.”

There was a pause. The commander or whoever was on the other end must have been speaking on a private channel.

“Of course it’s tempting to read all of this as a personality issue,” Markus said. “He’s a needler. His psychological need to poke people is all over his files. On the other hand, it played directly into whatever game Ops is playing here. They love pulling this crap.”

A beat, long enough for a sentence or two. I was dying to ask for more information, but I was worried that the conversation would end if they heard the team baby listening in.

“I couldn’t say. I’m not a moirologist. I guess that’s evidence in favor of the indoctrination hypothesis, right? She’d go after him first.” He pinched the bridge of his nose. “Mhm. Yeah, I think that’s reasonable. I mean, there’s not a lot we can do until we interrogate him. For what it’s worth, my money’s on all this being above-board. Or, you know, as above-board as Eifni black ops ever get. Val was never an ideologue; he was always here for the research angle.”

I really, really didn’t like how he was using the past tense to talk about Val.

“You’re going to have to open those orders, Aulof. I’m not seeing a way around it. Mhm. I know, I wouldn’t either in your place. We’re behind you to the end.”

The commander’s response, whatever it was, was short. And apparently unpleasant, judging by the look on Markus’s face.

“We’re gonna get through this,” he said. “Yeah, she’s been awake for the past few minutes. I’ll patch her in.”

Dammit. Being sneaky was my literal job, why did I have to be so bad at it?

“How are you feeling?” Aulof asked.

“Not much of anything,” I said. “That’s… that’s not a bad sign, right?”

“If I turned your pain receptors back on right now, you’d be screaming and puking,” Markus said.

“Oh,” I said.

“We’ve stopped the internal bleeding and you probably won’t experience any necrosis on your organs,” Aulof said. “Your legs should be able to take your weight now, too, but don’t test that yet.”

“Thanks,” I said sheepishly.

“You did good getting out,” Aulof said. “Normally, the esoskeleton’s supposed to take input indirectly, so seizing control of it like that was a feat of focus—particularly under the circumstances. And your intervention as a suspicious third party might have shaken things up enough that the Trade Fleet can get the medicine and supplies they need. I came down on you for your mistakes, but you also need to hear what you did well.”

“What are we going to do about Val?” I asked.

“On paper, I have the final decision,” said the commander. “Practically speaking, a commander in my position doesn’t make a move without a recommendation from the team’s social officer backing them up. I’m sure both of us would appreciate your perspective in making our respective decisions.”

That was Velean for “you don’t have real power here, but you have soft power, so make it count.”

And in the context of Val apparently trying to suborn me over the past few months, it either meant the commander was testing me or asking me to find a reason to trust Val.

“Okay,” I said. “I can do that. Markus said something about an interrogation?”

“I’m going to take the soulbox out of stasis mode,” the commander said. “He’ll be able to talk to us, but he won’t be able to form long-term memories. I’ve also disabled the mechanisms corresponding to deception. That absolutely does not mean you can trust what he says. There are ways to bypass this security measure, and Val knows all of them.”

“The hell does it accomplish, then?” I asked.

“He can’t tell lies,” the commander said. “He can still mislead us, but without a long-term memory, we’ll be able to see if his attempted deceptions go in different directions. It’ll have to suffice.”

“Okay,” I said. “I’m ready.”

*

The soulbox was a device of gray metal about the size of a large briefcase. It had a handle on one end, completing the image, and a small physical readout on the largest side that displayed basic information about its status and function. More detailed information was available via comm contact, which I had declined. With how seriously Markus and the commander were taking this, it felt like connecting with the status panel ran the risk of letting Val out.

“Protocol says that for this first assessment phase,” the commander explained, “we’re going to examine his personality by itself. I’m not expecting to find anything; you’ll see personality shifts in advanced cases, but if Val’s indoctrinated, it’ll be subtle. Still, protocol is protocol.”

After setting the soulbox on a table he pulled out from the wall, the commander finished the last of his preparations and switched the soulbox out of stasis mode. There was a tense silence as it conducted some internal functionality checks before finally connecting to the comm network.

“Welcome back, Val.” Aulof looked so incredibly done with all of this.

“How many iterations has it been?” Val replied.

Aulof chuckled exhaustedly. “Let’s pretend it’s the first time, shall we?”

“Of course,” Val said. “I see you’ve blocked my episodic memory. I don’t seem to be able to lie, either. Full decontamination protocol, then?”

“You’re suspected of indoctrination,” said the commander.

“Why do you need to lie?” I asked.

“An operative should always know the tools available to them,” Val said. “Somewhat more pressingly, if I’m suspected of indoctrination, then the transcript of this conversation will end up in my file. I have certain professional obligations as well as personal secrets which I would prefer remain off the record.”

“We can redact it,” the commander said.

“We both know that means nothing to the sort of people I need to hide my secrets from,” Val said. “Now, my sense is that I trust you three, but you could easily have faked that. What evidence do I have that I am actually the one suspected of indoctrination, rather than the reverse?”

The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

Huh. That was actually a bit of a problem.

“What’s your goal in asking that question?” the commander asked in a bored tone.

“To regain access to my episodic memory and increase my ability to navigate this situation,” Val said immediately.

“Shocker,” Markus said.

“Surely you can’t begrudge me that, given the ostensible consequences if I fail here.”

“I think it would be more helpful if you stopped reproducing the exact pattern of behavior that landed us here,” the commander said.

“Episodic memory,” Val reminded him. “In the absence of context, I’m afraid my behavior will tend towards normative. But I won’t belabor the point.”

“Of course not,” said the commander. “Do you consider yourself loyal to the Eifni Organization and its causes and interests?”

“Yes,” said Val.

“What do you mean by that?”

“My continued diligent and professional service to Eifni Org is an effective road to the power I need to accomplish certain personal objectives back on Veles. I suppose I should specify that those personal objectives do not, in any capacity, involve importing divine influence past Secular Quarantine.”

“That’s…” I said. “That’s fine, right? Like, maybe not my personal definition of loyalty, but that was a good answer?”

“It’s best if Val doesn’t get feedback on his answers at this stage,” Markus said, but privately pinged me in the affirmative.

“Hm,” Val said. “This is the first iteration.”

“You’d be terrifying if you weren’t such a showoff,” Markus said with a laugh. “Val, can you give me the product of two thousand fifteen times three hundred and five thousand, six hundred eighty nine? Out loud, please.”

“Of course. It would be too much to expect to get out of this with my dignity intact. Five times nine—”

“This is to clear his working memory,” the commander subvocalized to me privately.

Halfway through the equation, he shut Val down. Then he spun him up again.

“Welcome back, Val,” he said.

“How many iterations has it been?” Val said in exactly the same tone as before.

“Let’s pretend it’s the first time, shall we?”

*

We moved to the second phase soon after.

“Thank you, Val,” the commander said. “I regret that we have to subject you to this process, but the necessities are what they are.”

“I am certain you think so.” Val’s voice was empty of emotion.

It could have been professionalism; it could have been depression. That is, it could have been—if the soulbox had the circuitry to simulate emotions. It was recognizably Val, but without some core feature. Not a person—the many interlocking patterns that built one but could not, on their own, be one. We were talking to the idea of Val, a timeless, contextless simulacrum. An object of study, dissected by protocol and the impersonal hand of Eifni security doctrine.

Even Val could be reduced to grist in the machine.

“Social officer?” the commander asked. “Please state your assessment for the record.”

“It is my judgment at this time that the subject exhibits no personality-borne symptoms of indoctrination,” Markus said.

“Thank you,” the commander said. “I concur. Val, we’re going to move to phase two. I am going unlock specific sectors of your episodic memory and ask you questions about them. We’re going to try to do this as painlessly as possible. Let’s start with our most recent interaction.”

There was no visual change, but Val spoke after a pause.

“Oh for—commander, have you still not read those sealed orders?”

The commander’s face hardened. “You are attempting to expose me to information that alters our mission parameters in the middle of an indoctrination investigation. I have to proceed assuming that this is at Kives’s instigation—”

“The Extraordinary Circumstances provision does not apply here, Aulof. Kives did not write those orders. The Eifni board did. They are etherically signed, so you can verify that their contents remain intact.”

I shifted. “I feel like we should take a look at those orders just so we have more information—”

“I do not advise it,” Val said. “I don’t know what the commander’s orders will say, but I was ordered to keep the board’s orders secret by any means necessarily, up to and including the soul death of anyone who discovers them.”

“Let’s stay on topic,” the commander said with a tone of finality. “Val, why did you stake your life on those orders instead of complying with my directive to flash?”

“I hoped that I could avoid the unpleasantness of moving to a new body, not to mention this interrogation,” he said. “I didn’t account for your emotional reactivity, and then Lilith complicated the situation.”

“I know you know the hydra technique,” the commander said. “Give me all of your salient reasons, please.”

“Very well. My other reasons are somewhat personal, but since you asked: I was curious how Lilith would react in that situation. I also wanted revenge on Markus.”

“Wait,” said Markus. “Is this over that little play fight we had?”

“Lilith is crippled,” Val said. “The commander will have a large amount of paperwork after this. Additionally, the ship will have a hard time tagging my previous body as something to be removed if the commander shot it with disruptor ammunition. It wasn’t a guarantee that he would do that, but my sense was that the likelihood improved the more I resisted him. All told, the end result is that there is a corpse in the ship’s lounge, it will need to be cleaned up manually, and no one is available to do it but you.”

“That,” I said, “is incredibly petty.”

Emotionless laughter echoed from the soulbox. Moments later, Markus started laughing too.

“You sick dog,” he gasped between laughs. “I don’t know how I’m going to top this.”

“Ideally, you won’t.”

“Watch your back,” Markus said with a grin.

“At least they’re happy,” I said to Aulof.

Aulof didn’t smile. “I noticed you placed that after the one about Lilith. I haven’t forgotten.”

“Okay, yeah,” I said. “What’s your deal with me?”

“I’m trying to help,” Val said. “Genuinely, that is the extent of my motivation. You’re new to Veles; the more you can embody the Velean ideal, the more opportunities will be available to you.”

“What does that have to do with your advice to her that she attempt to pilot the remote exoskeleton instead of flashing?” the commander asked.

“I’m afraid I can’t say,” Val said. “You’ll need to unblock those memories.”

“Hm,” said the commander. “Fine. I’ll bite.”

The commander withdrew a tablet and a stylus from a slot in the wall, then tapped it a few times. His eyes returned expectantly to the soulbox.

“Commander, it is imperative that you read those sealed orders as soon as possible.”

“Your comments are noted, but that is not the purpose of this interrogation.” The commander twirled the stylus between his fingers. “Answer the previous question.”

There was a pause.

“Any answer I give here will be necessarily incomplete,” Val said. “And not, I think, in my favor.”

“Alas,” Aulof said, deadpan. “Answer anyway, or protocol demands I make adverse inferences.”

“In that case, I felt that if Lilith continued to intervene in the situation, it would improve her sense of agency and ultimately improve her effectiveness as an operative.”

“That’s one head of the hydra,” Aulof said. “The rest, if you please.”

“Let the record show that I am answering under protest. My other reasoning was that the more Lilith intervened in the situation, the more opportunities we would create for Kives to demonstrate that she’s cooperating with our truce. This is an immediate tactical concern, given previous ambiguity about—”

“That’s a justification,” Aulof interrupted him. “Give me your reasoning, and cut any extraneous commentary.”

“This is not extraneous commentary, it’s—”

“We don’t need to hear it. I understand you want your record to look clean. I do not have the liberty of caring right now. Yes or no: were you seeking to give Kives the opportunity to prove herself on orders from board members of the Eifni Organization?”

A pause. “I am not at liberty to say one way or the other.”

“Do your secret orders contravene our ultimate objective of conducting reconnaissance and eliminating any accessible divine targets?”

“Again, I am not at liberty to say.”

“Commander—” I started

“Shut up, Lilith. If you interrupt again, I will remove you from the interrogation. Last chance, Val. Can you provide any information that discriminates your behavior from the actions of an indoctrinated operative?”

“If I did possess such information, I would be restricted from disclosing it on the record.”

The commander sounded bored. “Then I am afraid I have no option but to find adversely against the subject. Val will be returned to stasis, and upon return to Veles, he’ll be remanded to an Eifni rehabilitation facility. Goodbye, Val.”

Markus shifted forward. “Commander, I—”

“Your feedback isn’t necessary, social officer.”

“Commander. Please. You must read the—”

The commander gestured. The soulbox fell silent. Then he stood.

“This concludes the interrogation.”

Markus and I stared at Aulof like he’d gone insane.

Aulof held up a hand, as if to say wait. He began to count down from five, curling in one finger at a time.

“Speaking on the record as commander of this team,” he said, lowering his fist. “I have received sealed orders from the Eifni Organization that alter the character of our mission and shed new light on heretofore suspicious behavior by the ship’s technical officer. Effective immediately, he is to be released from soulbox confinement and restored to his position. To prevent undeserved professional damages, I am forwarding a copy of this announcement directly to Eifni Organization—along with my recommendation for the Shield of Hesika, for valorous commitment to operational security.”

Markus rested his forehead in his hands. “You two had me going.”

“Well played, Aulof,” Val spoke up from the soulbox.

“Uh…” I said. Honestly, I had no idea where to start with any of this. “Okay, I thought we weren’t broadcasting anything back to Veles because of Kives.”

“It would seem the commander no longer sees Kives as a strategic threat,” Val said.

“What was the point of any of this!?” I yelled. “My fucking blood pressure is through the roof here!”

“I’ll let Val explain it,” Aulof said, walking to the door. “Full authorization. Flash when you’re done, you overdramatic spook.”

“Careful with that descriptor,” Val replied. “I haven’t shot any of my subordinates in the head. So. You might recall that I’m on the Theolytics org chart as well as Recon. My dueling responsibilities don’t normally come into conflict. This mission, however, is a rare exception. I have been assigned here to attempt to prove a hypothesis.”

“I remember,” I said. “You think we can indoctrinate Kives.”

“Yes,” said Val. “Obviously, the respective processes for human and divine indoctrination have a whole host of differences, but the basic idea—that of encountering an etheric pattern in impactful ways until it becomes assimilated and, eventually, appropriated—holds true in both cases. The hypothesis has only been tested on deities below pantheon level, but with enough success that I received permission to try it here. That is, in fact, why our team was assigned here.”

“Why?” I said. “Does that help us kill them?”

“That is one application,” Val said. “Perhaps Secularization teams could make some use of it, though I doubt it will be more efficient than the tools they already have available. No, the main use case is the mass-production of godseeds, which we can then deploy on recon missions.”

“No,” I said. “No fucking way are we going to do that.“

“We’re currently playing Varas and Horcutio against each other,” Val said. “You don’t have a problem with that.”

“We’re not making more of them!” I shouted.

“Secularization does it all the time,” said Val. “Where an entrenched god is too difficult to disrupt, they sometimes raise up a sub-pantheonic god or resurrect a previously slain god using one of their stray godseeds. It’s a long process—which is why you’ll probably never see it unless you transfer to Secularization—but it has a long track record of success.”

“So, so what, we’re just going to,” I flailed my arm articulately, “just make Eifni Org brand godseeds, export them to new worlds, and let them turn into actual fucking gods?”

“The theory is sound, at least up to biphase,” Val said. “Theolytics has successfully worldjumped dormant godseeds and then used them to produce fully-fledged pantheonic gods. Since gods have no self-preservation instincts, a god designed to siphon resources off a native pantheon and then self-destruct would be a powerful tool, vastly accelerating our rate of planet acquisition.”

“That’s,” I started, and didn’t finish.

“The selection of an oracle for the test was my personal contribution to the theory,” Val said. “Velean colonization has certain implications for society writ large, making it very attractive to certain kinds of deities.”

“That’s what you told her, the night we met Erid,” I realized.

“Yes,” said Val. “That encounter had a hidden meaning intended for me, I think. Our first encounter with Erid was my first inkling that Kives was willing to cooperate with us. I believe the selection of Erid for the encounter that night was meant to confirm those suspicions. There have also been other indications; for example, the myth of the Faceless, which provides an easy explanation for the technological capabilities of Eifni operatives while not giving any particular insight on our weaknesses.”

It all made sense. The logic of it was—it was sick, there was no getting around that. But it all had a horrifying sort of clarity to it.

“Val,” I said, and hesitated.

I didn’t want to know the answer. But I needed to ask anyway.

“Yes,” he said before I could say anything. “Potentially, another source of sustenance could be found if this project shows results. But in the mean time, the expectation is that Kives will continue to subsist on human souls. Mathematically speaking, the cost can be justified if we determine the effectiveness falls within certain parameters. But some argue that the results aren’t probable enough to justify the up-front cost. Knowing Aulof, that’s why he staged all this.”

“How much did he know?” Markus asked.

“Officially, he doesn’t possess the clearance to know most of this,” said Val. “Then again, neither do you. There are ways—or he just inferred enough to take action. What’s done is done. He’s produced a reason to send that transcript back to Veles. If it gets exposed, the Eifni Organization will suffer public outcry and might be forced to terminate the program. The commander will be blacklisted, of course. He made sure to paint himself as the unreasonable one and direct all the fallout on himself. Sentimental fool.”

“It occurs to me,” Aulof said over our comms, “that my real mistake in soulboxing you was that you used to need lungs to keep talking.”

“Well,” Val said. “We should let him rectify that. See you in a few moments. And—happy cleaning, Markus.”

The soulbox went quiet, and then a blue light on the status panel went dark as Val’s soul abandoned it.

I fell back into the mattress.

“Fuck,” I whispered.

“We’ll figure it out,” Markus said, rising from his chair. “I’m going to go help in the crypt. Do you need anything?”

“No,” I said, reaching into my pocket. My hand gripped my pulser. “Check back in a couple hours.”

I aimed it at my face and pulled the trigger.

“Your comm shield still stops the pulser even if you’re the one shooting,” Markus said sympathetically, patting me on the shoulder. “Why don’t you try meditating instead?”

I sighed, dropping the weapon on top of the covers. “I hate this.”

“We’ll get through this,” he said with a kind smile, then left.

I was alone.

I was alone, and this was really, really not what I signed up for.