can has hyperlaw Technocrat IRS high-value collections tactical team
Panopticon: A Game of Posthumans, Perniciousness, Paranoia, Politics, and Plasmaguns
You'll just have to wait and see.
I wholeheartedly support this notion.
Ricardo Vega was just a normal man, a normal lawyer. He served his time in Boston's trenches, defending white collar criminals from fraud and corruption charges- at least, until he Awakened. Then he realized that fundamental truth: the Law is not merely a creation of men, of their society. The Law binds together the world, creating the very fabric of our reality as it does so. Now Ricardo Vega serves the Technocratic Union from the other side. The cost of civilization is high, thought the Technocratic Union will pay your share. But taxes are the price we pay for the Law, and Vega is here to collect from the Reality Deviants."
Aleph
Princess of Stabbity
- Location
- The sixth circle of Hell (second on weekends)
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Yeah, okay, I've been convinced. Much as I would love to see London By Night...
Switching my vote to [X] Union Command.
And +1 to the interns being boring but reliable and not holy shit explosive dark secrets or insanities.
Switching my vote to [X] Union Command.
And +1 to the interns being boring but reliable and not holy shit explosive dark secrets or insanities.
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- Pronouns
- He/Him
Oh fine.
[X] Union Command
It's got a better argument for it.
[X] Union Command
It's got a better argument for it.
FunkyEntropy
Occasionally insightful, possibly grumpy
- Location
- Los Angeles
[X] Union Command
[x] Interns
[x] Requisitions
Union Command promises further delving into dark, dank deceptions, thus allowing for London by Night to either serve as a noodle incident or as omake fodder. I actually feel a little sorry for that poor Bob - while she may think that she's Jamelia Belltower, she doesn't have Jamelia's Spheres or Enlightenment, and will thus be horribly confused as she's lost her edge.
[x] Interns
[x] Requisitions
Union Command promises further delving into dark, dank deceptions, thus allowing for London by Night to either serve as a noodle incident or as omake fodder. I actually feel a little sorry for that poor Bob - while she may think that she's Jamelia Belltower, she doesn't have Jamelia's Spheres or Enlightenment, and will thus be horribly confused as she's lost her edge.
[X] Union Command.
Because the last thing we need is for Panopticon to somehow screw up the Tribunal off-screen. Or, just as badly, prevent us from screwing them over - this is a good chance to get them some oversight, which they'll have to dodge in order to do anything as big as Moscow next time.
[x] Interns
[x] Requisitions
(Also, made some foreshadow-y edits to my Seeking, after collaboration on Henriette's character with ES.)
Because the last thing we need is for Panopticon to somehow screw up the Tribunal off-screen. Or, just as badly, prevent us from screwing them over - this is a good chance to get them some oversight, which they'll have to dodge in order to do anything as big as Moscow next time.
[x] Interns
[x] Requisitions
(Also, made some foreshadow-y edits to my Seeking, after collaboration on Henriette's character with ES.)
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Bursting Eagerness Soul
Threadwalking Rating Machine
- Location
- Wisconsin
I've been convinced.
[X] London By Night
[X] Union Command
Were my intern writeups too quirky/OP/main cast-ish?
There is also the possibility that London By Night would have been a flashback thing while Jamelia is in her medical coma.
[X] Union Command
Were my intern writeups too quirky/OP/main cast-ish?
There is also the possibility that London By Night would have been a flashback thing while Jamelia is in her medical coma.
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Aleph
Princess of Stabbity
- Location
- The sixth circle of Hell (second on weekends)
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Bursting Eagerness Soul
Threadwalking Rating Machine
- Location
- Wisconsin
Ooh! I had forgotten about that...
@MJ12 Commando, can we get a bit of clarification on what this choice is all about?
... Aw, dang it...
Union Command is the smart choice, but if that's what London by Night is that would be so much fun...
FunkyEntropy
Occasionally insightful, possibly grumpy
- Location
- Los Angeles
Since people seem to be confused and jumping to conclusions, allow me to remind everyone that the CIA and MI5 are, in fact, different organizations located in different parts of the world.
The biggest problem with it being a flashback is the potential for a time paradox. Since people are now supporting one of the missions I like most:
[X] Union Command
As for the interns, I'd prefer people who have the eventual potential to become full amalgam members, you know, like real life interns are supposed to be able to become employees. Here's my attempt at some interesting, but not to terrible choices.
From the Progenitors — Cornelia Gregor, a recently awakened six year old. She's been placed with the construct because of her habit of getting into places people don't want and her family is hoping this will get them some dirt on Dr. Rosario.
From Iteration X — Julian Walp, an old swiss clock maker who spends his free time talking about the war. Also, why does he seem to know John Kessler?
From the Void Engineers — Rui Belo, a Brazilian analyst-in-training who may or may not of blackmailed his instructors into giving him letters of recommendation for this construct. Some people also find it odd that he has already ordered next year's Progenitor Calendar.
From the Syndicate — Inoue Hana, an exceptionally straight-laced women who had been living off her own stock market earnings before she was recruited. Also, where did she learn to fire a gun in Japan?
[X] Union Command
As for the interns, I'd prefer people who have the eventual potential to become full amalgam members, you know, like real life interns are supposed to be able to become employees. Here's my attempt at some interesting, but not to terrible choices.
From the Progenitors — Cornelia Gregor, a recently awakened six year old. She's been placed with the construct because of her habit of getting into places people don't want and her family is hoping this will get them some dirt on Dr. Rosario.
From Iteration X — Julian Walp, an old swiss clock maker who spends his free time talking about the war. Also, why does he seem to know John Kessler?
From the Void Engineers — Rui Belo, a Brazilian analyst-in-training who may or may not of blackmailed his instructors into giving him letters of recommendation for this construct. Some people also find it odd that he has already ordered next year's Progenitor Calendar.
From the Syndicate — Inoue Hana, an exceptionally straight-laced women who had been living off her own stock market earnings before she was recruited. Also, where did she learn to fire a gun in Japan?
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See, the thing is, I would actually quite like London By Night. If, and only if, we could guarantee it would be pretty short, and that we wouldn't get fucked over in the metagame by picking it.
Because, seriously, mundane skills + Sphere 1 ratings would actually be pretty interesting from a paradigmatic PoV and as a palate cleaner - sort of like a much, much lower power version of Christos Interlude, which also helps people re-acclimatise to things like "we're not in a Construct and we don't have hundreds of units of Prime to spend to mitigate 'dox". And it might be fun for Jamelia Time (even if it isn't Jamelia) with all kinds of odd flashbacks and the like of past missions.
So if we can vote for things as an Interlude (like, maybe 10 shorter updates or so at most, rather than the 23 of the first one and the even moar of the second), rather than a full arc, I would totally vote for
[x] Interlude: London By Night
[x] Next Arc: Union Command
Because, seriously, mundane skills + Sphere 1 ratings would actually be pretty interesting from a paradigmatic PoV and as a palate cleaner - sort of like a much, much lower power version of Christos Interlude, which also helps people re-acclimatise to things like "we're not in a Construct and we don't have hundreds of units of Prime to spend to mitigate 'dox". And it might be fun for Jamelia Time (even if it isn't Jamelia) with all kinds of odd flashbacks and the like of past missions.
So if we can vote for things as an Interlude (like, maybe 10 shorter updates or so at most, rather than the 23 of the first one and the even moar of the second), rather than a full arc, I would totally vote for
[x] Interlude: London By Night
[x] Next Arc: Union Command
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Eukie
Powered by furious Canadian redheads
I'd also be interested in this, with the meta reservation ES mentioned.
Amorous Intent
Love the future
- Location
- Octavia, Venus
- Pronouns
- She/her
Oh, fine. I can accept London by Night as an interlude.
[X] Interlude: London by Night
[X] Union Command
[X] Interlude: London by Night
[X] Union Command
Bursting Eagerness Soul
Threadwalking Rating Machine
- Location
- Wisconsin
I am definitely interested in this.
- Location
- The end of all things
I have to agree with ES here. London By Night seems like it could be pretty fun, but I can see why it makes some people hesitate.
[x] Interlude: London By Night
[x] Next Arc: Union Command
[x] Interlude: London By Night
[x] Next Arc: Union Command
Serafina's Enlightenment 5 Seeking, Part 2
SEEKING FUCK YEAH 2: ELECTRIC BOOGALOO: PART 2
Serafina has a nice hot bath, which feels so good. She even manages to distract Rose from watching her like a hawk to prevent her accidentally drowning. She sends the girl to fetch her a hot chocolate, and even successfully manages to not drown in the minutes it takes her to do that.
In a very, very fluffy dressing gown she makes her way back to her bedroom. It's been her bedroom since she was about three, and since she moved out it hasn't really been redecorated. There are still bluetac marks on the walls, and a twenty-year old album poster for the release of All Apologies stuck to the back of the door. The paper is cracked and yellowing.
Serafina shakes her head. When she says she 'moved out', it wasn't like she'd ever really been 'moved in'. She'd been at boarding school since the age of four, which meant she only was here for a little bit of the year, and usually during the holidays she was being dragged to the other side of the world for some reason or another. Sometimes family holidays. More often scientific conferences, which meant for a lot of the day she'd be left with the constructs who would be pulling double duty as bodyguards and nannies.
The end product of this is that her room was once very pink, but now it's just faded to somewhat-pink. There are various layers of detritus from extended holidays at hope, which she could use to reconstruct her tastes at the time. The Nirvana poster was from the last time she was really home, back in 1994.
Urgh. 1994. Henriette wasn't even born then. That was the year Kessler wound up lost in space. Now she feels old.
"I love it!" Rose declares loudly.
"Rose," Serafina says, making shooing motions with her hands. "Guest room. I'm just going to collapse right now and sleep for," she checks her watch, and notices it's only 4pm at the moment, "fifteen hours or so. Or as I now call it, more sleep than I got last week."
And with that said, Serafina collapses face first onto the bed, and only vaguely manages to wriggle under the sheets before she passes out.
It is therefore a rather unpleasant surprise for Serafina when she wakes at around 3am with a cool presence snuggled up against her back. She twists and comes face to face with a fanged mouth and breath that smells like sweet things.
"Oh, Rose," Serafina mutters to her adopted daughter. She had been getting better about the whole 'sneaking into people's beds' thing. Serafina had almost hoped she might be able to start bringing men home again,
But then again, the girl had probably been driving herself into a frenzy of worry about Serafina. She'd probably calm down a bit when she had a while of realising that, no, she wasn't about to vanish on her.
She really hopes so, at least.
Now, why is she awake?
… ah yes. She needs the toilet. Hair mussed, Serafina shambles off to relieve herself. After finishing her business, she stares at herself in the harsh light of the bathroom mirror while she washes her hands. She's pale, there are just the faintest hints of bags under her eyes, and her hair looks like she's been dragged through a hedge backwards. Well, the last point comes from sleeping on it when it was wet, and couldn't really be helped. The rest? Well, only time will help resolve it. She bets that a lot of the people in Moscow didn't realise how exhausted she was by the end. That's what you get when you naturally look like a model who's just had a team of tens working to produce a perfectly sculpted beauty.
She shakes her head. Enough of that. She can go back to bed for another six hours. It won't get rid of the guilt about dropping that fusion bomb and it won't stop her questioning if she could have done something differently, but at least she'll be catching up on her sleep.
Heading back into her room, she notices her phone is flashing. Well, maybe she'll check her emails first and get some work done. It might be important. She almost wants to be called back to Moscow, because that way she'll have something to do.
Let's see. Boring, boring, trivial, boring, boring and trivial, a personal reminder from herself to look over Almacia's papers when she has time, boring, trivial, oh! She frowns. A redacted name in the header.
Sitting down, listening to Rose's soft breathing and snuffles, Serafina opens the email.
**********************************************************************************
FROM: "Alicia ███████", AR007.DC.Prog.TU
TO: "Serafina Rosario", SR69.FACADE.PROG.TU
CC: None
Limited CC: None
SUBJECT: Where to look for UBER COOL SECRET REVELATIONS!!!
Hi Sera!
OMG I've missed you so much! I almost thought we'd never talk again! We used to be best buddies and now we're not and you never told me why.
Anyway! That's totally not the reason for this email (oh yeah I love the autocorrect software this stuff has cause it goes and fixes all these stupid capital letters and all that). Ive been sorta following your career – naughty, naughty, I know – and I realised omg! Sera totally needs my help now! And she's having all kinds of fun and exciting missions rather than being all boring and being stuck in the lab! PS damage control is so awesome, you should transition back to it, you could hang around with Alex more – isn't he dreamy? Totally is! - and oh yeah where was I? Yeah! I totally found something which'll help you with the whole case of stuff you stumbled over in Moscow.
(I know, right? I'm not even meant to know some of the things you were searching lolololol. Don't worry, no one else is tracking you in the same way. Bet you're freaking out right now!)
If you go to the Da Vinci lab in Rome, right now (you can totes borrow your Dad's motorbike omg that thing is awesome, I love motorcycles which is just as well cause I'm a super-special Damage Control badass) you'll be able to get into the archives with no problems.
Look up the Rosario-Rosario Process, polyvariable hyperinhibition of neural prions and 23-AR DNA methylation. It's linked to some of the stuff you stumbled on. Like with what Mai Do (boo! She's a bitch!) did to Henriette.
c u thar
Alicia
Xoxoxoxo
**********************************************************************************
Serafina tilts her head, and tries not to hyperventilate. Yes, she is freaking out. More than a little bit. Not only does this woman know things she shouldn't know - things that Serafina has never committed to email! How does she know about what the Void Engineers did to Henriette? - but Serafina doesn't remember an Alicia from school. Alice, yes, but Alice ran away when she was fourteen and she'd heard from LessBe… from Elsa that it seemed she'd joined the Traditions. She certainly wasn't a Damage Control agent.
A friend from school she doesn't remember. It's either a set-up, or...
Serafina blanches. Did she remove her memory of a friend after a really bad argument? Oh God, not again. It was bad enough when she'd realised she'd removed her memory of an ex. Although he'd been a real jerk, according to a data cache she'd left herself. And then she'd tried dating him again, because what if she hadn't actually written the cache… and yes, it turned out that there was a really good reason she dumped him and tried to purge all memory that she'd ever had such bad taste. She'd stopped herself from removing him again, though, because she'd realised that if she did that, she'd probably go date him again and that would be stupid.
But what if she'd discarded a friend and then… never realised it? Oh God, she was feeling so mortified. Well, if they'd been a school friend, she'd… she'd just have to say she didn't remember them and act all embarrassed about it. And certainly not admit that she might have done memory alteration on herself.
She needs to see to this. She needs to check it out. And she can't wake Rose because she's certainly not going to tell her daughter about some of the things which happened in Moscow. For all her virtues - and she certainly has them, because she's loving, nice, and very moral - Serafina is not going to trust Rose with sensitive information. She'll break if someone threatens her, because she's acutely aware how easy it would be for people to have her removed.
So she'll have to go alone. Into a possible trap.
If this ends in her being held hostage by vampires, she won't be happy. Not one bit. So she'll just sneak out and...
"Miss Serafina?" Mario is waiting on her outside her door, arms folded. He doesn't need to sleep. "It is three in the morning."
Amusingly enough, she knows how to handle this. "I need to go to the Da Vinci," she tells the butler. "I just woke up with an idea, but I need to check it out and see if it'll work."
Mario has been the butler of the Rosarios for many years, and therefore the sight of a family member wearing only a dressing gown insisting they need to go to the lab to check something is a perfectly mundane sight. "I see. Shall I call a car, Miss Serafina? I will fetch you some clothes."
"No need," Serafina says, shaking her head. "I'll just borrow one of Dad's bikes. And I'll take one of the dogs for a walk while I'm at it. Some fresh air might help clear my head." The dogs are combat homunculus killers incorporating shapeshifter biology, so that'll be defence just in case it is a trap.
"Some clothing might still be advisable, ma'am. I shall leave it in the garage."
Serafina loves motorbikes. It's possibly genetic. So does her father. She learned to ride from him during the holidays when she was about ten, which had just begun as a way of spending time with him, but she'd found it was actually fun. That wasn't legal, but that hadn't bothered him. And her mother's protests that 'it wasn't safe' had been countered with 'actually, it is' along with full safety documentation for the Union-designed gear.
And her father's collection is very nice, she thinks, looking around the underground garage. Not only does it cover all the classics of the Masses, but he has an extensive range of Union models. Henriette would probably kill to get in here, she thinks smugly. There's an ancient Victorian-era autobike, some vintage models from WW1 and WW2, and then a solid array of vehicles from the sixties onwards.
Her fingers twitch at the sight of his fusion-powered ultra-modern Zandachi, made by Japanese Iterators. That thing has performance characteristics more commonly associated with anti-tank missiles. And its own array of anti-tank missiles. Unfortunately, it also has a repairs: operation ratio greater than one, and 'borrowing' it for an illicit night joyride is probably something he won't shrug off.
She paces up and down, working out which one provides the best fun: trouble ratio. Eventually she settles on the sleek black Saviour, which is a New World Order superbike which is nice and reliable and has the added bonus of coming with emergency crash fields and auto-targeting guns, just in case this turns out to be a trap. And 0-80kmph in 3 seconds. That's good too.
Five minutes later, a woman in tight black leathers riding a machine which looks like it should be breaking the speed limit even when stationary carefully manoeuvres out through the Rome night, and then hits the accelerator as soon as she's free of traffic. A small dog has its head sticking out of a bag, yapping at passing cars.
The Da Vinci Institute is formally attached to a university, and its cover as an advanced biomedical research institute devoted to human advancement is perfectly true. Serafina's Progenitor ID gets her in past security with no problem, and the Vanessa at the door has a biscuit for her parents' dog.
"He knows me," the Vanessa says, with a grin. "Who's a good boy, then? Who's a good boy? Oh, Dr Rosario, where'll you be headed?"
"I need to check something in the archives. I had an idea and I need to see if it'll work out," Serafina says.
"Oh, right you are, then," the Vanessa says. "I'll go get you a security key for your clearance grades. It's a quiet night in there. Only a few junior researchers."
"Thank you," Serafina says.
The security lift takes her down below the hills of Rome, into the medium security Construct hidden down here. It's much more pleasant than the Molotek building. That place was corporate. Institutionally, this is a place of academia. The labs are - of course - all sterile surfaces and white light, but the archives are rich with subterranean plants and cultured bioluminscent fungi. Serafina vaguely recalls that the Progenitors built this place over a captured node which had formerly been early Christian catacombs, and there remained something slightly… primal about it.
She lets herself into the archives, and looks around, hands on her hips. "Rosario-Rosario Process, polyvariable hyperinhibition of neural prions and 23-AR DNA methylation"; that was what the email had mentioned. She's probably safe in here, given there's no way that RDs could easily break into a secure Progenitor facility and…
… ah. Oh yes. She also has to worry about Panopticon and other people in theory on her own side, doesn't she? Wow. She really should not have forgotten that. Force of habit, she supposes. That and the tiredness.
She also doesn't hear the soft tread behind her, but whirls just in time to be caught by a ballistic hug.
"Ohmigod Sera!" the other woman says, catching her in an almost-Roseian embrace. "It's me, 'Licia! It's been so long! Look at you! How's life treating you?"
"Alicia?"
"Yep! You came! I'm so happy!"
Alicia is… familiar. That's the only way Serafina can describe her. She checks that her brain isn't being tampered with right now, and confirms it's not some hyperpsych trick. No, she recognises her, but she can't pin down from where. The other woman is her height, with the manufactured beauty characteristic of Progenitors. One clue they're about the same age is that they're a similar 'style'; Alicia is more of a 'siren' while Serafina is a 'femme fatale', but the Progenitors were going through a neo-noir fashion when they were conceived. Her long blonde hair is held in two braids which reaches down to the small of her back, and she's wearing a black and gold skintight Damage Control combat biosuit.
Serafina decides to tell the truth. It will stop embarrassment later. "I… I don't remember you," she admits. "From school. You're familiar, but…" she frowns, "... yes. I… I think I knew you at Damian's." The face is familiar. She's sure of it. Even if the other woman is older. "You… you were friends. With Alice and me."
The other woman lets go, pouting somewhat. "Well, that's a lovely welcome," she says tartly, before grinning again. "Ah, well. Yeah, we were at Damian's together. God, remember Professor Li?"
"Which one?" Serafina replies.
Alicia rolls her eyes. "Oh, you know the one. Baldy Li. 'Fwaff fwaff fwaff I'm a boring stupid NWO lecturer who goes on and on and on about how the Masses can't be trusted with certain advances.' Yuck. Science is like the bestest best thing ever, and everything I've seen since were were at school just makes me sure that there's a bunch of boring old Syndics and Agents who don't appreciate it! Oh, it'll be too disruptive. Oh, it's too expensive. Boooooooring."
Serafina smiles, running her hand over a wooden bookcase. "That old windbag. And how did you make it into Damage Control?" she asks. "That's not the kind of attitude you should have."
"I lied a lot," Alicia retorts. "That, and I don't care I'm going to stay in the field. Who needs promotions when you're doing what you love. I'm not suited for authority at all. But I love applied biology! And combat homunculi! God! I always make sure to read up on the latest refinements."
"I can tell that," Serafina says, shaking her head in an amused manner. "Heh. Me too. You would have liked a young Void Engineer - well, I call her a Void Engineer, but she really seems like she'd be more at home with us - I met a few weeks ago. She'd built a new line of polymorphic amorphous combat construct which… I looked over the specs, and they look like any kind of small cute animal right until they turn into a stem-cell murderball. And try to eat their target's face."
"Ohmigod that's brilliant!" Alicia declares loudly. "Yes! You should totally get one! They'd be all 'oh no, not the eyes! Not the eyes!' but that wouldn't help them at all! See if you can get that line approved! Damage Control would love them and you could keep one yourself!"
"Shh! Keep it down a bit," Serafina tells her, looking around the archives nervously. "Anyway. Much as I'd like to talk about my school days, you said you'd found something. And for that matter, how did you even find out some of those things?"
"Oh, I have my ways. And yeah, yeah, I already got the files out with my clearance," Alicia says, bouncing up and down on her toes. "We can go over them together."
"Let me just get out some books on…" Serafina thinks about what would be an acceptable cover story, "... haemophage biology and mobile dissection, and I'll be right through."
With her 'official' reason for being here in place, Serafina retreats to the study room Alicia has secured. The other woman has stacked up books and laptops and notepads. It looks like she's been hard at work here.
"Rosario-Rosario Process, polyvariable hyperinhibition of neural prions and 23-AR DNA methylation," Alicia says. "That's what I told you."
"I'm not sure what the former does, but the middle is to do with programmable memory and… yes, so is the last one," Serafina says. She purses her lips. "So you think this is related to what the Void Engineers did to Iterator Langley? I thought at the time it was just a misapplication of mindtape."
"Nice to see you're still smarter than me. And kinda," Alicia says with a grin. "Okay! So! I got a case study here you need to look at." She passes the document to Serafina. "Sorry 'bout all the redaction here. Some of the vital data is beyond my clearance."
"Subject SIGMA is a pubescent female, and displays vivid, regular and consistent hallucinations," Serafina reads. "Neural intercepts have confirmed that they genuinely believe this phenomenon to be real and they show no control over when they perceive it. Use of contra-deviancy jamming appears to have no effect on the hallucinations, indicating that these hallucinations are not the product of RD influence. Examination by experts in Dimensional Science have displayed no extranormal parasites influencing SIGMA, even when the subject was observed through direct neural intercept to be suffering from an altered sense of the real." Serafina coughs. "How is this related to Henriette?" she asks.
"That's not the only thing," Alicia says, patting Serafina on the shoulder. "Listen to this. 'Under cross examination aided by neural probing, SIGMA confessed to having been suffering these full-sensory hallucinations since the age of approximately nine or ten. They are currently fourteen years old, and have managed to apparently keep this secret from monitoring. With this evidence, it has been correlated with a previously recorded marked decrease in the subject's respect for authority, capacity to delay gratification, and willingness to obey orders. These may also be linked to SIGMA's deliberate incitement of their peers to incorrect action and thought. These are undesirable traits, and therefore it has been concluded that they must be excised.' That's from a memo from P. Rosario, BTW."
"Mother?" Serafina breathes. That's all she needs to dig.
And oh boy, does she not like what she finds. There are so many case studies being brought in, so many projects being checked for cross-applicability to this current case. And they're not just Progenitor projects, either. There's NWO psychological conditioning - she shivers at the multiple times that Series-P is considered for 'usable features' - and Iteration X brainchipping. And her parents keep on writing summary reports and literature reviews on all these… these things.
God. As a FACADE Engineer, Serafina hasn't even heard of some of these projects. Poor Henriette. Serafina had no idea that there were other things underneath the mindtape. She hadn't caught any of that.
"Is this related to…" she begins, and stops herself.
"Her sister?" Alicia completes. "Well, see for yourself. 'SIGMA admits under questioning that they have considered that the most prominent of their full-sensory hallucinations may be their deceased or unborn sister, though they have no proof of it.' That's from Interview 23. I think I tucked it under the blue folder."
Serafina narrows her eyes. "How do you know about that?" she asks.
Alicia shrugs, an impish grin. "I've talked to Iterator Langley when I was looking into the case," she says. "Now," she adds, "this is 'bout all I could get with my clearance. But I do happen to know where the full details are. Of course, you're not meant to read them either. You don't have access rights. Buuuuuuut," and she elongates the word, "… it's encoded in an obsolete BASALISK format."
She pauses.
"One you could break easily," she hints, after Serafina doesn't say anything.
Serafina narrows her eyes. "You're not going to talk me into that," she tells Alicia firmly. "Why would I do something that stupid?"
"Oh, no, no," Alicia says, grinning. "I'd understand if you're too chicken."
"I'm too what?"
"I'm not saying you're a cowardly mother-clucker," the blonde continues. "Not one bit."
"Look, that's not going to work on me."
"Sure it isn't. Let's just go cluck these files back in and cluck away. You can go cluck to your parents, or you can actually cluck into finding out the clucking truth." She pauses. "Chicken."
Serafina twitches. "… you're really immature," she tells Alicia, pulling out a slimline emergency medical case from her pocket. "Fine. What encryption is it?"
"BSA-23n-bw9-ajw," Alicia says, smirking.
More than anything else, this supports Serafina's gut feeling that she really did know this woman from school. "If I fry my brain doing this, I'll blame you," she tells her, as she sets the smart micropipette to work setting up a buffering drug which'll give her fifteen minutes of access to something she's not cleared for.
"Nah. You won't be able to conceptualise a thought that complex if you're not good enough to break it," the Damage Control agent tells her arrogantly. "Better get good quick, am I right?"
Serafina injects the short-term unauthorised 'authorisation' which will protect her from the BASALISK, and takes a breath. "Let's see it," she says.
These files are, if anything, even worse. They detail failed proposals. Rejected proposals. Reserve proposals. It's a cornucopia of the fine art of pre-1999 Progenitor neuromanipulation, and no few of these plans come with the seal of the Administration and notes like 'good work'.
It's almost beautiful, in a sick way. Serafina could almost abstractly appreciate the amazing things her parents seemed to have devised. But instead she's just locked into reading bland passive-voice reports about the high-end reaches of biological research, beyond even what she saw as a research assistant on EXEMPLAR III.
"... upon consultation with experts in Administration, it has been confirmed that use of (GL)^2 PURGE neuroalteration would alleviate all symptoms from SIGMA. However, the side effects would include a statically high chance of lifelong depression, increased aggression, a significantly increased chance of suicide and a complete termination of the subject's expressed capacity for enlightened science. This is undesirable. This emergency treatment is therefore reserved in case symptoms significantly worsen, or all other attempted cures fail."
She lets her hands fall to her side. Before now, she's only seen passing references to (GL)^2 PURGE, but the entire treatment is… well, it makes her feel ill thinking about it. There are cases where it has been used, but in almost all instances it's then followed by immediate euthanisation of the subject. And in most cases, it's noted that the subject requested that course.
"What's the point of this?" she asks Alicia, who's leaning against the wall, playing on her phone.
The blonde looks up. "Oh, come on," she says. "I did check your searches and some papers you requested – and scrambled your checks, by the way. You're welcome," she adds, with a cheeky grin. "I know you've been doing something with Conditioning."
Serafina's face does not go blank. No, she knows she's looking genuinely confused, puzzled, and a little outraged. She's been practicing this expression specifically in case someone starts throwing around accusations. Someone who might be Director Belltower, because she's not going to tell the other woman about the existence of Mari Langley until the Tribunal is over at the very earliest.
Alicia laughs. "Man, we spent so long practicing that kind of expression when we were younger," she says cheerfully. "We used to get in so much trouble."
"I… I stopped getting in so much trouble after I made a really bad mistake," Serafina says quietly.
"Yeah, and that's why you stopped talking to me," Alicia counters, squaring her jaw. "You went and tattletaled on me for suggesting it and everything." She shakes her head. "I've got to get back," she says. "I only had a little while to get this help to you. Maybe we can catch up again sometime later." There is a sad smile on her face. "Like old times. I've missed you so badly. Well, there are a few more bits for you to go over. I hope this helps and we can see each other again like we used to. This was really hard for me to arrange."
Serafina catches her in a hug. "You didn't need to show up," she tells her. "And…" she swallows, "hell, I tried to pass a message of apology to Alice for however I mistreated her back then. I didn't even know how she felt about me. So… I'm sorry, Alicia. Even if I don't remember, I…" she forces herself to swallow, "… well, I've never really got the grasp of making close friends."
Alicia snorts. "Me neither," she says, picking up most of the books with the aid of her biosuit. "I'll go put these things back, make things easier on you. Make sure you don't get caught," she adds, as she pushes open the door.
"I'll try," Serafina says, essaying a small wave. There are just a few things left anyway. She pulls out some headphones, and connects them up to the audio device. It's apparently a recording of Interview 16 with SIGMA.
"I… I… I was nine," a teenager's voice says on the recording. "I was l-lonely. I was always lonely. I didn't have any friends because… because everyone else seemed stupid. And it was the school holidays and I was at home again on my own apart from the constructs because me… me and Papa and Mama were meant to be going on holiday together and I'd been looking forwards to it, but something had happened at their work and I… I was just at home again. And the constructs were all 'yes ma'am' and 'no, you can't do that, ma'am' and… and I hated it. I hated them. I just wanted a real friend. Then-"
Serafina yanks the headphones off, tears suddenly welling up. No. That doesn't make sense. No sense. None. It's impossible!
Except it's not. It's very possible. Because it's her own voice.
She's SIGMA.
All those things her parents were talking about. All those planned procedures. All those consequences. (GL)^2 PURGE. They were considering doing to her.
She barely manages to get to the wastepaper bin in time before she throws up. Thank goodness these rooms are soundproof, she thinks piteously, as she curls up into a ball on her seat and cries. She wouldn't want someone else hearing her. Not that she ever wants people hearing her when she cries.
Fourteen. Godfuckingdammit. Fourteen. The embarrassing joke in her past she never gets to live down. It's now so fucking hilarious. She can't even trust her own memories of the version of events now, but as far as she remembers – and that's probably worthless now – she was a lonely, hothoused sexually frustrated teenager who just wanted someone who… who'd love her like people in stories did. And who then did something stupid which was enough to shock her back into line.
Well, that's worthless. No wonder she was better behaved for the rest of school, if even a hundredth of the things in here were done to her. What a good little girl. No longer a troublemaker. Scared straight.
She feels so… so violated. So hollow. She laughs bitterly. Well, that makes all her 'I have a flexible view of the self' spiel to Director Belltower ring hollow, doesn't it? She has a flexible view of the self right until it's done to her without her consent. And it doesn't matter that the notes say that 'Subject SIGMA' requested the treatment, because… fucking hell, she was fourteen and the memories she was left with tell her she was scared out of her mind
Ha. Ha. Ha fucking ha. She always wondered why she'd got off quite so lightly for misusing that bioengineering gear. She thought it had been because her parents had protected her, keeping just enough of a threat to scare her into behaving. Now she finds out that… that…
… that she had apparently been having full-sensory hallucinations from the age of nine to fourteen, and had managed to keep it quiet until it came out in the aftermath of the Boyfriend Incident. Fuck. She wipes her eyes. Oh, she knows all too well what can happen to mentally unstable people in the Union. She's fixed some of them from time to time. Rose… Rose even has her augmentation side-effect from the haemophage biology in her, which gives her an imaginary… hah, no, not an imaginary friend. Far from it.
Serafina sniffs. God. She'd be a hypocrite if she got angry at her parents for doing that, considering she does exactly the same to other people. And she certainly knows she's massively enhanced. Looking at the basic recombinant permutations likely from her parents' basic genomes – something they'd shown her so she knew how lucky she was – if they hadn't cleaned her up, she'd have been within one standard deviation of normal.
Maybe she'd just had augmentation issues as she started to hit the really early stages of puberty, and it took her parents a lot of effort to fix her.
But no. They wouldn't have been considering (GL)^2 PURGE if it was just that. And that scares Serafina a lot. Really a lot. She… she doesn't know what she'd do without her enlightened science. There were some people at Damian's who never managed to master enlightened science. They ended up in… in meaningless makework. Well-paid, meaningless makework where they did some role in a company owned by the Union and died fat and superficially important in the eyes of the Masses at age eighty or so. As failures. As disappointments.
That's her idea of hell. If she didn't have new puzzles to solve, new bits of hyperbiology to examine and research, new… newness, she'd go crazy. It had been something which she'd had in common with her parents. As soon as she had it, she'd been able to go to the conferences with them, introduced to all sorts of people as their prodigy-daughter.
If that had been real. If those memories hadn't been inserted. God. Who is she, if those memories aren't real? What else in her life is a lie?
Serafina Rosario settles her jaw. Well, she knows who she is a bit. She's Rose's mother. She's one of the heroes of Moscow. If she hadn't been there, Rose would be dead or so thoroughly reprocessed that there would be nothing left of the sweet, innocent young woman she loves. If she hadn't been there, the CODE RAGNAROK would have won, or the nukes would have really fallen on Moscow, in a way which couldn't be covered up. World War Three, at best.
But there must have been something really wrong with her. Or at least they must have thought so.
Serafina swallows. Her thoughts are a blur, jumping from topic to topic. She doesn't know who to trust. She can't trust herself. She can't trust her parents. She can't trust the Progenitors. Not until she works out what was done to her, and why it was done. Because they wouldn't have been looking at solutions this extreme if it was just some disobedient or maladapted personality. If it really just was that she was a troubled teenager, they would have just prescribed her drugs to fix it. And she can't let her parents know that she's looking.
And there's one last thing. She's going to have to unpick whatever they did to her. She's going to have to confront whatever problems she was having, even if she has to put the neuromodifications back in herself. Even if she has mental health problems without these changes, she'll need to fix them herself.
Because most of these treatments have the seal of the Administration. And the Administration, just like all the other leaderships of the Conventions, were lost in the Anomaly. There might be all kinds of killswitches hidden in her. And they might be in the hands of their enemies.
Serafina wipes her eyes on her sleeve and laughs weakly. Engineered genetics. Rewritten memories. Hallucinations. She really is Rose's mother, isn't she? If this is how Rose feels all the time, it's amazing she copes so well.
Fuck it. She'll need to see if she can wrangle a trip to some nice place out of this. Some nice place with lots of ice cream. She needs it too.
Serafina has a nice hot bath, which feels so good. She even manages to distract Rose from watching her like a hawk to prevent her accidentally drowning. She sends the girl to fetch her a hot chocolate, and even successfully manages to not drown in the minutes it takes her to do that.
In a very, very fluffy dressing gown she makes her way back to her bedroom. It's been her bedroom since she was about three, and since she moved out it hasn't really been redecorated. There are still bluetac marks on the walls, and a twenty-year old album poster for the release of All Apologies stuck to the back of the door. The paper is cracked and yellowing.
Serafina shakes her head. When she says she 'moved out', it wasn't like she'd ever really been 'moved in'. She'd been at boarding school since the age of four, which meant she only was here for a little bit of the year, and usually during the holidays she was being dragged to the other side of the world for some reason or another. Sometimes family holidays. More often scientific conferences, which meant for a lot of the day she'd be left with the constructs who would be pulling double duty as bodyguards and nannies.
The end product of this is that her room was once very pink, but now it's just faded to somewhat-pink. There are various layers of detritus from extended holidays at hope, which she could use to reconstruct her tastes at the time. The Nirvana poster was from the last time she was really home, back in 1994.
Urgh. 1994. Henriette wasn't even born then. That was the year Kessler wound up lost in space. Now she feels old.
"I love it!" Rose declares loudly.
"Rose," Serafina says, making shooing motions with her hands. "Guest room. I'm just going to collapse right now and sleep for," she checks her watch, and notices it's only 4pm at the moment, "fifteen hours or so. Or as I now call it, more sleep than I got last week."
And with that said, Serafina collapses face first onto the bed, and only vaguely manages to wriggle under the sheets before she passes out.
...
It is therefore a rather unpleasant surprise for Serafina when she wakes at around 3am with a cool presence snuggled up against her back. She twists and comes face to face with a fanged mouth and breath that smells like sweet things.
"Oh, Rose," Serafina mutters to her adopted daughter. She had been getting better about the whole 'sneaking into people's beds' thing. Serafina had almost hoped she might be able to start bringing men home again,
But then again, the girl had probably been driving herself into a frenzy of worry about Serafina. She'd probably calm down a bit when she had a while of realising that, no, she wasn't about to vanish on her.
She really hopes so, at least.
Now, why is she awake?
… ah yes. She needs the toilet. Hair mussed, Serafina shambles off to relieve herself. After finishing her business, she stares at herself in the harsh light of the bathroom mirror while she washes her hands. She's pale, there are just the faintest hints of bags under her eyes, and her hair looks like she's been dragged through a hedge backwards. Well, the last point comes from sleeping on it when it was wet, and couldn't really be helped. The rest? Well, only time will help resolve it. She bets that a lot of the people in Moscow didn't realise how exhausted she was by the end. That's what you get when you naturally look like a model who's just had a team of tens working to produce a perfectly sculpted beauty.
She shakes her head. Enough of that. She can go back to bed for another six hours. It won't get rid of the guilt about dropping that fusion bomb and it won't stop her questioning if she could have done something differently, but at least she'll be catching up on her sleep.
Heading back into her room, she notices her phone is flashing. Well, maybe she'll check her emails first and get some work done. It might be important. She almost wants to be called back to Moscow, because that way she'll have something to do.
Let's see. Boring, boring, trivial, boring, boring and trivial, a personal reminder from herself to look over Almacia's papers when she has time, boring, trivial, oh! She frowns. A redacted name in the header.
Sitting down, listening to Rose's soft breathing and snuffles, Serafina opens the email.
**********************************************************************************
FROM: "Alicia ███████", AR007.DC.Prog.TU
TO: "Serafina Rosario", SR69.FACADE.PROG.TU
CC: None
Limited CC: None
SUBJECT: Where to look for UBER COOL SECRET REVELATIONS!!!
Hi Sera!
OMG I've missed you so much! I almost thought we'd never talk again! We used to be best buddies and now we're not and you never told me why.
Anyway! That's totally not the reason for this email (oh yeah I love the autocorrect software this stuff has cause it goes and fixes all these stupid capital letters and all that). Ive been sorta following your career – naughty, naughty, I know – and I realised omg! Sera totally needs my help now! And she's having all kinds of fun and exciting missions rather than being all boring and being stuck in the lab! PS damage control is so awesome, you should transition back to it, you could hang around with Alex more – isn't he dreamy? Totally is! - and oh yeah where was I? Yeah! I totally found something which'll help you with the whole case of stuff you stumbled over in Moscow.
(I know, right? I'm not even meant to know some of the things you were searching lolololol. Don't worry, no one else is tracking you in the same way. Bet you're freaking out right now!)
If you go to the Da Vinci lab in Rome, right now (you can totes borrow your Dad's motorbike omg that thing is awesome, I love motorcycles which is just as well cause I'm a super-special Damage Control badass) you'll be able to get into the archives with no problems.
Look up the Rosario-Rosario Process, polyvariable hyperinhibition of neural prions and 23-AR DNA methylation. It's linked to some of the stuff you stumbled on. Like with what Mai Do (boo! She's a bitch!) did to Henriette.
c u thar
Alicia
Xoxoxoxo
**********************************************************************************
Serafina tilts her head, and tries not to hyperventilate. Yes, she is freaking out. More than a little bit. Not only does this woman know things she shouldn't know - things that Serafina has never committed to email! How does she know about what the Void Engineers did to Henriette? - but Serafina doesn't remember an Alicia from school. Alice, yes, but Alice ran away when she was fourteen and she'd heard from LessBe… from Elsa that it seemed she'd joined the Traditions. She certainly wasn't a Damage Control agent.
A friend from school she doesn't remember. It's either a set-up, or...
Serafina blanches. Did she remove her memory of a friend after a really bad argument? Oh God, not again. It was bad enough when she'd realised she'd removed her memory of an ex. Although he'd been a real jerk, according to a data cache she'd left herself. And then she'd tried dating him again, because what if she hadn't actually written the cache… and yes, it turned out that there was a really good reason she dumped him and tried to purge all memory that she'd ever had such bad taste. She'd stopped herself from removing him again, though, because she'd realised that if she did that, she'd probably go date him again and that would be stupid.
But what if she'd discarded a friend and then… never realised it? Oh God, she was feeling so mortified. Well, if they'd been a school friend, she'd… she'd just have to say she didn't remember them and act all embarrassed about it. And certainly not admit that she might have done memory alteration on herself.
She needs to see to this. She needs to check it out. And she can't wake Rose because she's certainly not going to tell her daughter about some of the things which happened in Moscow. For all her virtues - and she certainly has them, because she's loving, nice, and very moral - Serafina is not going to trust Rose with sensitive information. She'll break if someone threatens her, because she's acutely aware how easy it would be for people to have her removed.
So she'll have to go alone. Into a possible trap.
If this ends in her being held hostage by vampires, she won't be happy. Not one bit. So she'll just sneak out and...
"Miss Serafina?" Mario is waiting on her outside her door, arms folded. He doesn't need to sleep. "It is three in the morning."
Amusingly enough, she knows how to handle this. "I need to go to the Da Vinci," she tells the butler. "I just woke up with an idea, but I need to check it out and see if it'll work."
Mario has been the butler of the Rosarios for many years, and therefore the sight of a family member wearing only a dressing gown insisting they need to go to the lab to check something is a perfectly mundane sight. "I see. Shall I call a car, Miss Serafina? I will fetch you some clothes."
"No need," Serafina says, shaking her head. "I'll just borrow one of Dad's bikes. And I'll take one of the dogs for a walk while I'm at it. Some fresh air might help clear my head." The dogs are combat homunculus killers incorporating shapeshifter biology, so that'll be defence just in case it is a trap.
"Some clothing might still be advisable, ma'am. I shall leave it in the garage."
Serafina loves motorbikes. It's possibly genetic. So does her father. She learned to ride from him during the holidays when she was about ten, which had just begun as a way of spending time with him, but she'd found it was actually fun. That wasn't legal, but that hadn't bothered him. And her mother's protests that 'it wasn't safe' had been countered with 'actually, it is' along with full safety documentation for the Union-designed gear.
And her father's collection is very nice, she thinks, looking around the underground garage. Not only does it cover all the classics of the Masses, but he has an extensive range of Union models. Henriette would probably kill to get in here, she thinks smugly. There's an ancient Victorian-era autobike, some vintage models from WW1 and WW2, and then a solid array of vehicles from the sixties onwards.
Her fingers twitch at the sight of his fusion-powered ultra-modern Zandachi, made by Japanese Iterators. That thing has performance characteristics more commonly associated with anti-tank missiles. And its own array of anti-tank missiles. Unfortunately, it also has a repairs: operation ratio greater than one, and 'borrowing' it for an illicit night joyride is probably something he won't shrug off.
She paces up and down, working out which one provides the best fun: trouble ratio. Eventually she settles on the sleek black Saviour, which is a New World Order superbike which is nice and reliable and has the added bonus of coming with emergency crash fields and auto-targeting guns, just in case this turns out to be a trap. And 0-80kmph in 3 seconds. That's good too.
Five minutes later, a woman in tight black leathers riding a machine which looks like it should be breaking the speed limit even when stationary carefully manoeuvres out through the Rome night, and then hits the accelerator as soon as she's free of traffic. A small dog has its head sticking out of a bag, yapping at passing cars.
The Da Vinci Institute is formally attached to a university, and its cover as an advanced biomedical research institute devoted to human advancement is perfectly true. Serafina's Progenitor ID gets her in past security with no problem, and the Vanessa at the door has a biscuit for her parents' dog.
"He knows me," the Vanessa says, with a grin. "Who's a good boy, then? Who's a good boy? Oh, Dr Rosario, where'll you be headed?"
"I need to check something in the archives. I had an idea and I need to see if it'll work out," Serafina says.
"Oh, right you are, then," the Vanessa says. "I'll go get you a security key for your clearance grades. It's a quiet night in there. Only a few junior researchers."
"Thank you," Serafina says.
The security lift takes her down below the hills of Rome, into the medium security Construct hidden down here. It's much more pleasant than the Molotek building. That place was corporate. Institutionally, this is a place of academia. The labs are - of course - all sterile surfaces and white light, but the archives are rich with subterranean plants and cultured bioluminscent fungi. Serafina vaguely recalls that the Progenitors built this place over a captured node which had formerly been early Christian catacombs, and there remained something slightly… primal about it.
She lets herself into the archives, and looks around, hands on her hips. "Rosario-Rosario Process, polyvariable hyperinhibition of neural prions and 23-AR DNA methylation"; that was what the email had mentioned. She's probably safe in here, given there's no way that RDs could easily break into a secure Progenitor facility and…
… ah. Oh yes. She also has to worry about Panopticon and other people in theory on her own side, doesn't she? Wow. She really should not have forgotten that. Force of habit, she supposes. That and the tiredness.
She also doesn't hear the soft tread behind her, but whirls just in time to be caught by a ballistic hug.
"Ohmigod Sera!" the other woman says, catching her in an almost-Roseian embrace. "It's me, 'Licia! It's been so long! Look at you! How's life treating you?"
"Alicia?"
"Yep! You came! I'm so happy!"
Alicia is… familiar. That's the only way Serafina can describe her. She checks that her brain isn't being tampered with right now, and confirms it's not some hyperpsych trick. No, she recognises her, but she can't pin down from where. The other woman is her height, with the manufactured beauty characteristic of Progenitors. One clue they're about the same age is that they're a similar 'style'; Alicia is more of a 'siren' while Serafina is a 'femme fatale', but the Progenitors were going through a neo-noir fashion when they were conceived. Her long blonde hair is held in two braids which reaches down to the small of her back, and she's wearing a black and gold skintight Damage Control combat biosuit.
Serafina decides to tell the truth. It will stop embarrassment later. "I… I don't remember you," she admits. "From school. You're familiar, but…" she frowns, "... yes. I… I think I knew you at Damian's." The face is familiar. She's sure of it. Even if the other woman is older. "You… you were friends. With Alice and me."
The other woman lets go, pouting somewhat. "Well, that's a lovely welcome," she says tartly, before grinning again. "Ah, well. Yeah, we were at Damian's together. God, remember Professor Li?"
"Which one?" Serafina replies.
Alicia rolls her eyes. "Oh, you know the one. Baldy Li. 'Fwaff fwaff fwaff I'm a boring stupid NWO lecturer who goes on and on and on about how the Masses can't be trusted with certain advances.' Yuck. Science is like the bestest best thing ever, and everything I've seen since were were at school just makes me sure that there's a bunch of boring old Syndics and Agents who don't appreciate it! Oh, it'll be too disruptive. Oh, it's too expensive. Boooooooring."
Serafina smiles, running her hand over a wooden bookcase. "That old windbag. And how did you make it into Damage Control?" she asks. "That's not the kind of attitude you should have."
"I lied a lot," Alicia retorts. "That, and I don't care I'm going to stay in the field. Who needs promotions when you're doing what you love. I'm not suited for authority at all. But I love applied biology! And combat homunculi! God! I always make sure to read up on the latest refinements."
"I can tell that," Serafina says, shaking her head in an amused manner. "Heh. Me too. You would have liked a young Void Engineer - well, I call her a Void Engineer, but she really seems like she'd be more at home with us - I met a few weeks ago. She'd built a new line of polymorphic amorphous combat construct which… I looked over the specs, and they look like any kind of small cute animal right until they turn into a stem-cell murderball. And try to eat their target's face."
"Ohmigod that's brilliant!" Alicia declares loudly. "Yes! You should totally get one! They'd be all 'oh no, not the eyes! Not the eyes!' but that wouldn't help them at all! See if you can get that line approved! Damage Control would love them and you could keep one yourself!"
"Shh! Keep it down a bit," Serafina tells her, looking around the archives nervously. "Anyway. Much as I'd like to talk about my school days, you said you'd found something. And for that matter, how did you even find out some of those things?"
"Oh, I have my ways. And yeah, yeah, I already got the files out with my clearance," Alicia says, bouncing up and down on her toes. "We can go over them together."
"Let me just get out some books on…" Serafina thinks about what would be an acceptable cover story, "... haemophage biology and mobile dissection, and I'll be right through."
With her 'official' reason for being here in place, Serafina retreats to the study room Alicia has secured. The other woman has stacked up books and laptops and notepads. It looks like she's been hard at work here.
"Rosario-Rosario Process, polyvariable hyperinhibition of neural prions and 23-AR DNA methylation," Alicia says. "That's what I told you."
"I'm not sure what the former does, but the middle is to do with programmable memory and… yes, so is the last one," Serafina says. She purses her lips. "So you think this is related to what the Void Engineers did to Iterator Langley? I thought at the time it was just a misapplication of mindtape."
"Nice to see you're still smarter than me. And kinda," Alicia says with a grin. "Okay! So! I got a case study here you need to look at." She passes the document to Serafina. "Sorry 'bout all the redaction here. Some of the vital data is beyond my clearance."
"Subject SIGMA is a pubescent female, and displays vivid, regular and consistent hallucinations," Serafina reads. "Neural intercepts have confirmed that they genuinely believe this phenomenon to be real and they show no control over when they perceive it. Use of contra-deviancy jamming appears to have no effect on the hallucinations, indicating that these hallucinations are not the product of RD influence. Examination by experts in Dimensional Science have displayed no extranormal parasites influencing SIGMA, even when the subject was observed through direct neural intercept to be suffering from an altered sense of the real." Serafina coughs. "How is this related to Henriette?" she asks.
"That's not the only thing," Alicia says, patting Serafina on the shoulder. "Listen to this. 'Under cross examination aided by neural probing, SIGMA confessed to having been suffering these full-sensory hallucinations since the age of approximately nine or ten. They are currently fourteen years old, and have managed to apparently keep this secret from monitoring. With this evidence, it has been correlated with a previously recorded marked decrease in the subject's respect for authority, capacity to delay gratification, and willingness to obey orders. These may also be linked to SIGMA's deliberate incitement of their peers to incorrect action and thought. These are undesirable traits, and therefore it has been concluded that they must be excised.' That's from a memo from P. Rosario, BTW."
"Mother?" Serafina breathes. That's all she needs to dig.
And oh boy, does she not like what she finds. There are so many case studies being brought in, so many projects being checked for cross-applicability to this current case. And they're not just Progenitor projects, either. There's NWO psychological conditioning - she shivers at the multiple times that Series-P is considered for 'usable features' - and Iteration X brainchipping. And her parents keep on writing summary reports and literature reviews on all these… these things.
God. As a FACADE Engineer, Serafina hasn't even heard of some of these projects. Poor Henriette. Serafina had no idea that there were other things underneath the mindtape. She hadn't caught any of that.
"Is this related to…" she begins, and stops herself.
"Her sister?" Alicia completes. "Well, see for yourself. 'SIGMA admits under questioning that they have considered that the most prominent of their full-sensory hallucinations may be their deceased or unborn sister, though they have no proof of it.' That's from Interview 23. I think I tucked it under the blue folder."
Serafina narrows her eyes. "How do you know about that?" she asks.
Alicia shrugs, an impish grin. "I've talked to Iterator Langley when I was looking into the case," she says. "Now," she adds, "this is 'bout all I could get with my clearance. But I do happen to know where the full details are. Of course, you're not meant to read them either. You don't have access rights. Buuuuuuut," and she elongates the word, "… it's encoded in an obsolete BASALISK format."
She pauses.
"One you could break easily," she hints, after Serafina doesn't say anything.
Serafina narrows her eyes. "You're not going to talk me into that," she tells Alicia firmly. "Why would I do something that stupid?"
"Oh, no, no," Alicia says, grinning. "I'd understand if you're too chicken."
"I'm too what?"
"I'm not saying you're a cowardly mother-clucker," the blonde continues. "Not one bit."
"Look, that's not going to work on me."
"Sure it isn't. Let's just go cluck these files back in and cluck away. You can go cluck to your parents, or you can actually cluck into finding out the clucking truth." She pauses. "Chicken."
Serafina twitches. "… you're really immature," she tells Alicia, pulling out a slimline emergency medical case from her pocket. "Fine. What encryption is it?"
"BSA-23n-bw9-ajw," Alicia says, smirking.
More than anything else, this supports Serafina's gut feeling that she really did know this woman from school. "If I fry my brain doing this, I'll blame you," she tells her, as she sets the smart micropipette to work setting up a buffering drug which'll give her fifteen minutes of access to something she's not cleared for.
"Nah. You won't be able to conceptualise a thought that complex if you're not good enough to break it," the Damage Control agent tells her arrogantly. "Better get good quick, am I right?"
Serafina injects the short-term unauthorised 'authorisation' which will protect her from the BASALISK, and takes a breath. "Let's see it," she says.
These files are, if anything, even worse. They detail failed proposals. Rejected proposals. Reserve proposals. It's a cornucopia of the fine art of pre-1999 Progenitor neuromanipulation, and no few of these plans come with the seal of the Administration and notes like 'good work'.
It's almost beautiful, in a sick way. Serafina could almost abstractly appreciate the amazing things her parents seemed to have devised. But instead she's just locked into reading bland passive-voice reports about the high-end reaches of biological research, beyond even what she saw as a research assistant on EXEMPLAR III.
"... upon consultation with experts in Administration, it has been confirmed that use of (GL)^2 PURGE neuroalteration would alleviate all symptoms from SIGMA. However, the side effects would include a statically high chance of lifelong depression, increased aggression, a significantly increased chance of suicide and a complete termination of the subject's expressed capacity for enlightened science. This is undesirable. This emergency treatment is therefore reserved in case symptoms significantly worsen, or all other attempted cures fail."
She lets her hands fall to her side. Before now, she's only seen passing references to (GL)^2 PURGE, but the entire treatment is… well, it makes her feel ill thinking about it. There are cases where it has been used, but in almost all instances it's then followed by immediate euthanisation of the subject. And in most cases, it's noted that the subject requested that course.
"What's the point of this?" she asks Alicia, who's leaning against the wall, playing on her phone.
The blonde looks up. "Oh, come on," she says. "I did check your searches and some papers you requested – and scrambled your checks, by the way. You're welcome," she adds, with a cheeky grin. "I know you've been doing something with Conditioning."
Serafina's face does not go blank. No, she knows she's looking genuinely confused, puzzled, and a little outraged. She's been practicing this expression specifically in case someone starts throwing around accusations. Someone who might be Director Belltower, because she's not going to tell the other woman about the existence of Mari Langley until the Tribunal is over at the very earliest.
Alicia laughs. "Man, we spent so long practicing that kind of expression when we were younger," she says cheerfully. "We used to get in so much trouble."
"I… I stopped getting in so much trouble after I made a really bad mistake," Serafina says quietly.
"Yeah, and that's why you stopped talking to me," Alicia counters, squaring her jaw. "You went and tattletaled on me for suggesting it and everything." She shakes her head. "I've got to get back," she says. "I only had a little while to get this help to you. Maybe we can catch up again sometime later." There is a sad smile on her face. "Like old times. I've missed you so badly. Well, there are a few more bits for you to go over. I hope this helps and we can see each other again like we used to. This was really hard for me to arrange."
Serafina catches her in a hug. "You didn't need to show up," she tells her. "And…" she swallows, "hell, I tried to pass a message of apology to Alice for however I mistreated her back then. I didn't even know how she felt about me. So… I'm sorry, Alicia. Even if I don't remember, I…" she forces herself to swallow, "… well, I've never really got the grasp of making close friends."
Alicia snorts. "Me neither," she says, picking up most of the books with the aid of her biosuit. "I'll go put these things back, make things easier on you. Make sure you don't get caught," she adds, as she pushes open the door.
"I'll try," Serafina says, essaying a small wave. There are just a few things left anyway. She pulls out some headphones, and connects them up to the audio device. It's apparently a recording of Interview 16 with SIGMA.
"I… I… I was nine," a teenager's voice says on the recording. "I was l-lonely. I was always lonely. I didn't have any friends because… because everyone else seemed stupid. And it was the school holidays and I was at home again on my own apart from the constructs because me… me and Papa and Mama were meant to be going on holiday together and I'd been looking forwards to it, but something had happened at their work and I… I was just at home again. And the constructs were all 'yes ma'am' and 'no, you can't do that, ma'am' and… and I hated it. I hated them. I just wanted a real friend. Then-"
Serafina yanks the headphones off, tears suddenly welling up. No. That doesn't make sense. No sense. None. It's impossible!
Except it's not. It's very possible. Because it's her own voice.
She's SIGMA.
All those things her parents were talking about. All those planned procedures. All those consequences. (GL)^2 PURGE. They were considering doing to her.
She barely manages to get to the wastepaper bin in time before she throws up. Thank goodness these rooms are soundproof, she thinks piteously, as she curls up into a ball on her seat and cries. She wouldn't want someone else hearing her. Not that she ever wants people hearing her when she cries.
Fourteen. Godfuckingdammit. Fourteen. The embarrassing joke in her past she never gets to live down. It's now so fucking hilarious. She can't even trust her own memories of the version of events now, but as far as she remembers – and that's probably worthless now – she was a lonely, hothoused sexually frustrated teenager who just wanted someone who… who'd love her like people in stories did. And who then did something stupid which was enough to shock her back into line.
Well, that's worthless. No wonder she was better behaved for the rest of school, if even a hundredth of the things in here were done to her. What a good little girl. No longer a troublemaker. Scared straight.
She feels so… so violated. So hollow. She laughs bitterly. Well, that makes all her 'I have a flexible view of the self' spiel to Director Belltower ring hollow, doesn't it? She has a flexible view of the self right until it's done to her without her consent. And it doesn't matter that the notes say that 'Subject SIGMA' requested the treatment, because… fucking hell, she was fourteen and the memories she was left with tell her she was scared out of her mind
Ha. Ha. Ha fucking ha. She always wondered why she'd got off quite so lightly for misusing that bioengineering gear. She thought it had been because her parents had protected her, keeping just enough of a threat to scare her into behaving. Now she finds out that… that…
… that she had apparently been having full-sensory hallucinations from the age of nine to fourteen, and had managed to keep it quiet until it came out in the aftermath of the Boyfriend Incident. Fuck. She wipes her eyes. Oh, she knows all too well what can happen to mentally unstable people in the Union. She's fixed some of them from time to time. Rose… Rose even has her augmentation side-effect from the haemophage biology in her, which gives her an imaginary… hah, no, not an imaginary friend. Far from it.
Serafina sniffs. God. She'd be a hypocrite if she got angry at her parents for doing that, considering she does exactly the same to other people. And she certainly knows she's massively enhanced. Looking at the basic recombinant permutations likely from her parents' basic genomes – something they'd shown her so she knew how lucky she was – if they hadn't cleaned her up, she'd have been within one standard deviation of normal.
Maybe she'd just had augmentation issues as she started to hit the really early stages of puberty, and it took her parents a lot of effort to fix her.
But no. They wouldn't have been considering (GL)^2 PURGE if it was just that. And that scares Serafina a lot. Really a lot. She… she doesn't know what she'd do without her enlightened science. There were some people at Damian's who never managed to master enlightened science. They ended up in… in meaningless makework. Well-paid, meaningless makework where they did some role in a company owned by the Union and died fat and superficially important in the eyes of the Masses at age eighty or so. As failures. As disappointments.
That's her idea of hell. If she didn't have new puzzles to solve, new bits of hyperbiology to examine and research, new… newness, she'd go crazy. It had been something which she'd had in common with her parents. As soon as she had it, she'd been able to go to the conferences with them, introduced to all sorts of people as their prodigy-daughter.
If that had been real. If those memories hadn't been inserted. God. Who is she, if those memories aren't real? What else in her life is a lie?
Serafina Rosario settles her jaw. Well, she knows who she is a bit. She's Rose's mother. She's one of the heroes of Moscow. If she hadn't been there, Rose would be dead or so thoroughly reprocessed that there would be nothing left of the sweet, innocent young woman she loves. If she hadn't been there, the CODE RAGNAROK would have won, or the nukes would have really fallen on Moscow, in a way which couldn't be covered up. World War Three, at best.
But there must have been something really wrong with her. Or at least they must have thought so.
Serafina swallows. Her thoughts are a blur, jumping from topic to topic. She doesn't know who to trust. She can't trust herself. She can't trust her parents. She can't trust the Progenitors. Not until she works out what was done to her, and why it was done. Because they wouldn't have been looking at solutions this extreme if it was just some disobedient or maladapted personality. If it really just was that she was a troubled teenager, they would have just prescribed her drugs to fix it. And she can't let her parents know that she's looking.
And there's one last thing. She's going to have to unpick whatever they did to her. She's going to have to confront whatever problems she was having, even if she has to put the neuromodifications back in herself. Even if she has mental health problems without these changes, she'll need to fix them herself.
Because most of these treatments have the seal of the Administration. And the Administration, just like all the other leaderships of the Conventions, were lost in the Anomaly. There might be all kinds of killswitches hidden in her. And they might be in the hands of their enemies.
Serafina wipes her eyes on her sleeve and laughs weakly. Engineered genetics. Rewritten memories. Hallucinations. She really is Rose's mother, isn't she? If this is how Rose feels all the time, it's amazing she copes so well.
Fuck it. She'll need to see if she can wrangle a trip to some nice place out of this. Some nice place with lots of ice cream. She needs it too.
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