{"id":695,"date":"2024-09-03T18:24:10","date_gmt":"2024-09-03T22:24:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ardath-rekha.com\/wips\/?p=695"},"modified":"2025-01-28T23:32:53","modified_gmt":"2025-01-29T04:32:53","slug":"the-changeling-game-chapter-61","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ardath-rekha.com\/wips\/the-changeling-game-chapter-61\/","title":{"rendered":"The Changeling Game, Chapter 61"},"content":{"rendered":"<style type=\"text\/css\">\ntt {\nfont: .857em menlo, monaco, consolas, monospace;\nmargin: auto;\n}\nh2 {\ntext-align: center;\n}\nh2.chapterhead {\nmargin-bottom: 2em;\ntext-align: center;\n}\n  .nowrap {\n    text-indent: 0;\n    display: inline-block;\n}\n<\/style>\n<p><b>Title:<\/b> The Changeling Game <small>(Formerly <i>Identity Theft<\/i>)<\/small><br \/>\n<b>Author:<\/b> Ardath Rekha<br \/>\n<b>Chapter:<\/b> 61\/?<br \/>\n<b>Fandom:<\/b> <i>Pitch Black<\/i> (2000); <i>The Chronicles of Riddick<\/i> (2004); <i>The Chronicles of Riddick: Dark Fury<\/i> (2004)<br \/>\n<b>Rating:<\/b> M<br \/>\n<b>Warnings:<\/b> Adult themes, controversial subject matter, harsh language, violence<br \/>\n<b>Category:<\/b> Gen<br \/>\n<b>Pairing:<\/b> None<br \/>\n<b>Summary:<\/b> Even something as simple as a path home might be forked\u2026 and even an innocent query may have unexpected repercussions.<br \/>\n<b>Disclaimer:<\/b> The characters and events of <i>Pitch Black,<\/i> <i>The Chronicles of Riddick,<\/i> and <i>The Chronicles of Riddick: Dark Fury<\/i> are not mine, but belong to Universal Studios.  I just <i>wish<\/i> I were in charge of their fates.  No money is being made off of this.  I\u2019m writing strictly for love of the story.<br \/>\n<b>Feedback:<\/b> Absolutely, the more the better!  Shred me, whip me, beat me, make me feel grammatical! I post \u201crough,\u201d so I can always use the help. \ud83d\ude09<\/p>\n<input type='hidden' bg_collapse_expand='6a8e6fd4956915064771969' value='6a8e6fd4956915064771969'><input type='hidden' id='bg-show-more-text-6a8e6fd4956915064771969' value='Long post is long. Click to read the story.'><input type='hidden' id='bg-show-less-text-6a8e6fd4956915064771969' value='Hide the story again.'><button id='bg-showmore-action-6a8e6fd4956915064771969' class='bg-showmore-plg-button bg-green-button  '   style=\" color:#D9ECFB;\">Long post is long. Click to read the story.<\/button><div id='bg-showmore-hidden-6a8e6fd4956915064771969' ><\/p>\n<h2 class=\"chapterhead\">61.<br \/>\n<u>We Do This So You Will Live<\/u><\/h2>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\"><i>Audrey.<\/i><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\"><i>Audrey, wake up.<\/i><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\"><i>Come, little larva.<\/i><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\"><i>Audrey, you must wake up now.<\/i><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">She was lying on the mats of the recreation room, her hands folded over her abdomen. The room was still and quiet. No music played; <tt>SensAI<\/tt> usually had guqin music going during their Tai Chi sessions.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">Where <i>was<\/i> <tt>SensAI<\/tt>?<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">She sat up slowly, looking around. Her chrono indicated that their session should have ended half an hour earlier. She was supposed to be reading a civics text by then, not\u2026<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u2026what, exactly? Why had she been sleeping on the floor?<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">She remembered coming into the recreation room and beginning the Tai Chi session with <tt>SensAI<\/tt>, but\u2026<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">Had <i>they<\/i> called to her? In the middle of the session? She had a strange, nebulous memory of hearing the voices of the <i>Apeiros.<\/i> Asking her for\u2026 help?<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">She climbed to her feet. She was still dressed for Tai Chi. Whatever had happened\u2026<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\"><i>There\u2019s another missing spot in my memories,<\/i> she realized, and shivered. Whatever had happened had been lifted from her mind, for a third time.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cSensAI?\u201d she asked, hesitant.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">His holographic form appeared in front of her, a form that his profile data referred to as \u201cMorita,\u201d a slightly plump Asian man several inches shorter than her, sporting a more-salt-than-pepper mustache and goatee. \u201cYes, Marianne? Are you ready to continue?\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cI, um\u2026 not yet. Do you know why we stopped?\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cYou asked me to leave because you needed to do something. You didn\u2019t say what.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">There would be a message for her. She was sure of it. Something to explain, at least a little\u2026<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">Ten minutes later, she hadn\u2019t found any on the consoles. No signs of redactions, either. Which meant\u2026 what, exactly?<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cSensAI, could you play back the room\u2019s security recording of our most recent Tai Chi session, please?\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cOf course, Marianne.\u201d He vanished. In his place, a holographic version of <i>her<\/i> appeared, entering the room and invoking him again.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cPlease play forward at high speed until I ask you to pause.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">In front of her, as she watched, she and <tt>SensAI<\/tt> began to go through a variety of Tai Chi poses, almost seeming to move at normal speed rather than the slow and precise motions that had played out in realtime. Suddenly, the holographic Marianne stopped mirroring <tt>SensAI<\/tt>\u2019s motions and went still. An instant later, he vanished.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cPause there, please. Roll the recording back to five minutes before you left.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">Once again, Holo Marianne and <tt>SensAI<\/tt> were in front of her, frozen in the \u201cCarry the Tiger Over the Mountain\u201d position. She took a deep breath.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cResume playing at normal speed, please.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">There she was, before herself, slowly moving through the different poses that <tt>SensAI<\/tt> was modeling for her, managing an almost-precise replication of his posture and gestures. And then, suddenly, she went still. <tt>SensAI<\/tt> paused his movements.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cMarianne?\u201d he asked. \u201cAre you well?\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">Holo Marianne didn\u2019t answer. She stared out into space. Slowly, her body relaxed into a stable, standing posture.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cMarianne, do you need assistance?\u201d he asked, his voice taking on a tone of concern.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cNo,\u201d Holo Marianne said softly. \u201cEnd session. Please go now. I need to do something\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cVery well. Call for me when you are ready to continue,\u201d SensAI said, bowing, and his holographic projection faded.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">Holo Marianne stood quietly, looking straight ahead, for several minutes. Slowly, the calm vanished from her features, replaced by escalating fear. Her breathing quickened and she lifted one hand as if trying to grab something in front of her. Her face twisted in a strange kind of agony\u2014<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u2014and then she gasped, panting, looking momentarily relieved\u2026<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u2026before her expression crumpled and she began sobbing.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cI\u2019m sorry,\u201d she cried out, falling to her knees. \u201cI\u2019m so sorry\u2026 I didn\u2019t know\u2026 I swear, I didn\u2019t <i>know\u2026<\/i>\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cWhat\u2026 the\u2026 <i>fuck?<\/i>\u201d Marianne asked, watching herself from mere feet away.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cI\u2019ll break them,\u201d Holo Marianne gasped, curling on her side on the floor. \u201cI\u2019ll break them all\u2026 for you\u2026 I swear I will\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">It looked like she was listening to something.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cI\u2019ll <i>find<\/i> a way!\u201d she shouted at the air, rolling onto her back. Her sobs were wracking her whole body. \u201cI have to\u2026 I have to\u2026 I can start with this one\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">As Marianne stared at herself from less than an hour earlier, the sobs abruptly ceased. Holo Marianne\u2019s back arched and she gasped, and then slowly relaxed. For several minutes, she lay, limp, on the floor.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">And then, slowly, she began to sit up.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">There was something strange, wrong about the way she was moving, Marianne thought. Something unnatural. It was as if she didn\u2019t know how to handle her own limbs, didn\u2019t know how to bend and unbend. It was almost like watching someone manipulate a doll\u2026<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">Holo Marianne slowly, awkwardly, rose\u2026 and turned to face the place where Marianne stood.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">Her expression was blank. Her eyes were glazed. Her mouth opened\u2026<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">And for a few moments, nothing came out except strange, experimental sounds. Vowels and consonants in no particular order. As if something that had never had a mouth before was trying to manipulate one for the first time.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cWhat the <i>fuck<\/i>?\u201d Marianne asked, staring at her holographic face in horror. \u201cDid I have a brain hemorrhage?\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cWhat\u2026\u201d Holo Marianne said. Her pronunciation was strange. Her voice was off. \u201cWe\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">Marianne gasped. Some<i>thing<\/i> was speaking through her body on the screen, and she was damn sure she knew <i>what<\/i>.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cHave\u2026 taken\u2026 must\u2026 ssssstay\u2026 lost\u2026\u201d Holo Marianne\u2019s mouth moved strangely, uncomfortably, forming the words with enormous difficulty. The eyes were still glazed.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cOh holy fuck.\u201d She was right. It was <i>them.<\/i><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201c\u2026We\u2026 do\u2026 not\u2026 do\u2026 this\u2026 to\u2026 hurt\u2026 you\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">Her speech was becoming a little more natural as <i>they<\/i> went on, as <i>they<\/i> learned how to use her mouth.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201c\u2026We\u2026 do\u2026 this\u2026 so\u2026 you\u2026 will\u2026 live\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">Marianne could feel her heart hammering against her ribs. What had <i>happened?<\/i> Why had they taken her memories again?<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">They\u2019d known she\u2019d see this. This was the message that had been left for her. For her <i>protection?<\/i> How had she\u2014or they\u2014known that she\u2019d be standing <i>right in this spot<\/i> while she watched it?<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201c\u2026Do\u2026 not\u2026 try\u2026 to\u2026 find\u2026 the\u2026 answer\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">They were speaking in English. Had they learned it from talking to her? Or were they picking through her brain for relevant bits of lexicon to enunciate?<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201c\u2026We\u2026 love\u2026 you\u2026 little\u2026 larva\u2026 Aud\u2026 ree\u2026 our\u2026 <i>sister\u2026<\/i>\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\"><i>Oh my god\u2026<\/i><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cDestroy\u2026 this\u2026 recording\u2026 and please\u2026 do not\u2026 assssk\u2026 why\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">Holo Marianne, puppetiered by the <i>Apeiros<\/i>, turned away and lay down on the floor, both awkwardly and carefully, before folding her hands across her abdomen and closing her eyes.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cP\u2026please advance the recording at high speed to two minutes before I summoned you back, SensAI,\u201d Marianne said, her voice shaking.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">According to the holographic version of her chrono, Holo Marianne\u2019s eyes remained closed for the next half hour, until she stirred again and sat up, looking confused\u2026 and human again.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">Her hands trembling, Marianne moved to the room\u2019s command console and accessed its security settings. She isolated and erased the recording, starting five minutes before her strange fit had begun. Then she erased the last portion of <tt>SensAI<\/tt>\u2019s data file, starting at the same timecode. Using her most powerful Ghost Code, she doctored the files to make it appear that there had been a minor glitch with the cameras, a memory board, and the holographic equipment in the room, which she had subsequently repaired. She knew all of the commands by rote, accessed them with no trouble\u2026 and tried not to give in to the gray shakes the whole time.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\"><i>They<\/i> had asked for her help\u2026 and whatever it was that she had helped them with, it had almost broken her. Until they had taken it all away.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">She could feel it, too: a new empty space in her mind where memories should be. Part of her kept instinctively worrying at it, the way her tongue had kept slipping into the spot where she\u2019d had a missing tooth when she was years younger. In the formerly perfect tapestry of her memory that stretched out for slightly more than thirteen and a half years\u2026 there was a new <i>hole,<\/i> one of <i>several<\/i> that littered her recent weeks.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">And she had just done to <tt>SensAI<\/tt> what they had done to <i>her.<\/i><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">Somehow that felt worse. She had <i>cooperated<\/i> in her prior memory loss, after all, and the <i>Apeiros<\/i> had told her, afterwards, that they would never take anything she <i>needed,<\/i> only things that would somehow harm her. And given just how badly she\u2019d been freaking out before they took control of her body, it seemed plausible that that was still true. Disturbing as it had been to watch\u2026<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">They had taken the memories for her sake.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">What she\u2019d done to <tt>SensAI<\/tt> hadn\u2019t been for his sake at all.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">In the last month, as she had settled into her routines even more, she\u2019d formed genuine relationships with each of the AIs. Trust and friendship had developed, and she had just violated both of those. <tt>SensAI<\/tt> would never realize that she\u2019d deliberately wiped a small chunk of his memory; he would think that it had been an electronic glitch, since fixed, that had occurred while she was fortunately nearby and could repair it immediately. Aside from a doctored log in the maintenance file about the fix\u2014much like the redactions in <tt>EntertAIn<\/tt>\u2019s log files from the month before\u2014there would be no sign that it had been anything else.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">That didn\u2019t make it right, though. \u201cSensAI?\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cAre you well, Marianne?\u201d <tt>SensAI<\/tt> appeared in the room again. \u201cIt appears that some time has passed since we had our session.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">There was nothing else she could do in this moment except play the role. She smiled over at him. \u201cFine, thanks. Looks like we had a short in one of the memory boards. You lose any time?\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\"><tt>SensAI<\/tt> paused and then nodded. \u201cRoughly an hour. It appears to have begun during our Tai Chi session.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cThat\u2019s what I thought,\u201d she told him. <i>Oh, you fucking liar.<\/i> \u201cShould be good now, though. Self-diagnostic?\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">Another pause and then <tt>SensAI<\/tt> nodded. \u201cNo memory degradation is detected aside from the offline time. Did anything significant happen?\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">She shrugged. \u201cYou kinda faded out in the middle of the session. I\u2019m glad you didn\u2019t lose anything outside of that time.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cDid you wish to resume, Marianne?\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">She glanced at her chrono and sighed. \u201cCan\u2019t\u2026 it\u2019s almost time for the isomorph back into U1. I\u2019m due on the flight deck just as soon as I change.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">It was their longest Star Jump yet, a full day and a half in length, and her dreams had been weird when she\u2019d gone to sleep after it began. U37d felt a little creepy to her. It was part of her five-shape now, but she\u2019d felt a strange sense of unrest with it and was looking forward to no longer being in it.  She would have to ask the <i>Apeiros<\/i> if there was a way to push a four-space back <i>out<\/i> of her five-shape.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">Talking to them was going to be creepy, too. She loved and trusted them\u2014<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\"><i>Wow, really? How long have I felt like that?<\/i> It was almost like the moment, during the first high tide in New Marrakesh, when she\u2019d realized she loved Kyra and that, somehow, a sister-bond had forged between them.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u2014but there was a part of her that still felt a little violated.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">Although the <i>Nephrite Undine<\/i> was still in U37d\u2019s wormhole when she reached the flight deck, <tt>AIngineer<\/tt> had already opened the front shields. Blankness greeted her when she focused <i>just<\/i> on the view within U37d; in the other \u2019verses, the stars spun and danced in a way that reminded her, again, of how they sometimes moved in the space the <i>Apeiros<\/i> inhabited.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">Funny. The \u201ccreepy\u201d feeling she\u2019d had since their entry to U37d no longer seemed to be with her. Maybe because they were almost out of it?<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">The swirling stars were slowing, resolving\u2026 and then they appeared on the screen before her, visible in all of the \u2019verses she was connected to.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cTravel through wormhole completed,\u201d <tt>AIngineer<\/tt> announced. \u201cIsomorph Drive disengaging. Transition to U1 commencing\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">She felt the usual gentle shockwave pass through her as they moved from one \u2019verse to another\u2026 and something <i>else<\/i>, something different. Relief, and exhaustion\u2026 and\u2026<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u2026gratitude?\u2026<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">And a chilling sense that those emotions weren\u2019t her own, but someone else\u2019s.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">But whose? She was the only biological life form on board the <i>Nephrite Undine<\/i>, and she already knew that she couldn\u2019t \u201cread\u201d any of the AIs the way she\u2019d been subconsciously reading other people for years. It was exposure to their thoroughly <i>un<\/i>readable minds that had made her realize she\u2019d been doing that at <i>all.<\/i><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">So what was she sensing?<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cTransition to U1 complete,\u201d <tt>AIngineer<\/tt> announced. \u201cAll systems nominal, no anomalies detected. Ion drives powering up for journey to the next Jump Point. Data exchange with Beacon 1372 underway.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">That meant news updates. She kept meaning to look up the physics of how it worked, but tiny data courier drones also traveled between the Star Jump Points, at speeds that no habitable spaceship could withstand, delivering and collecting updates. The news dumps that the <i>Nephrite Undine<\/i> received upon reentering U1\u2019s space were rarely more than a week old, regardless of which part of the Federacy they had come from.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">Nerving herself up to it took a few minutes, but she finally felt ready to read about the disaster in New Casablanca. <i>Her<\/i> disaster. The one <i>she<\/i> had caused.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">Sitting down at the Comms Officer\u2019s chair, she activated the data screens and keyed in her search parameters.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align:center;margin-top: 1em;margin-bottom: 1em\"><tt>New Casablanca | Spaceport | Recent Articles<\/tt><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">A <i>long<\/i> list of headlines spooled out in front of her.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">The final death toll had been forty-two people; two of the individuals who had initially been among the missing had turned up, unharmed, elsewhere in the spaceport, and Salman Idrissi had recovered from his critical injuries. Marianne made herself read the obituaries of each of the dead. The overwhelming majority had been security personnel, but a dozen civilians had been in the mix as well. She read the civilian obituaries last, and Nadia\u2019s articles last of all.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">Nadia Heydari\u2019s family was suing the spaceport, and its security firm, for reckless endangerment and wrongful death, drawing from testimony Officer Idrissi had provided.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\"><i>Wait, what?<\/i><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">She followed the links, only growing more confused.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;margin-top: 1em;margin-bottom: 1em\"><tt><b><u>CEO of New Maroc Security Solutions Resigns in Wake of New Casablanca Spaceport Scandal<\/u><\/b><\/tt><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">She scanned the article, growing more perplexed.<\/p>\n<p style=\"margin-left: 2em;margin-right: 2em;margin-top: 1em;margin-bottom: 1em\"><tt>\u2026Testimony by the sole surviving member of the security team that opened fire on Makarov and Heydari, Salman Idrissi, has revealed that his team was specifically ordered <i>not<\/i> to wait for a \u201cclear shot\u201d but to fire upon Makarov immediately. While most of the comms records appear to have been lost, Idrissi\u2019s claims are corroborated by a single remaining recording, in which Idrissi, and others on his team, are heard questioning an order to \u201ctake the shot\u201d while Heydari was still in the line of fire\u2026<\/tt><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">Why would they have done that?<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\"><i>\u201cThe whispers are that they\u2019re considering taking out a contract on you themselves\u2026\u201d<\/i>\n<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">Had the orders come from Quintessa? Or\u2026 had Makarov\u2019s friend turned on him after he was exposed?<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">None of the articles mentioned Makarov having an accomplice, someone who had helped him finesse his way through a security checkpoint while carrying a whole arsenal of deadly weapons. That was bizarre. But some of the articles claimed that a great deal of the security recordings that <i>ought<\/i> to have been on file hadn\u2019t been. It was another, more minor, scandal about the handling of the \u201cincident.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">After another search, she realized that all the footage of <i>her<\/i>, what little there might have been, was missing as well. There were only a few pieces of vague eyewitness testimony about a woman recognizing Makarov and alerting security.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">General Toal <i>had<\/i> been onsite in the aftermath. It was doubtful that he was behind <i>every<\/i> bit of footage that had disappeared, but he had probably covered her tracks.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">She wondered, suddenly, what he would have done if she actually had been under arrest\u2014as she had believed she was at the time\u2014when their paths had crossed.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\"><i>Whatever he had to,<\/i> she thought, <i>to protect the Meziane family and the <\/i>Scarlet Matador<i> survivors.<\/i><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">From her, if need be. He\u2019d undoubtedly been relieved to find out that she had, improbably, made it offworld, and was glad to know he\u2019d seen the last of her.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">None of the news had made her feel any better about the situation. She had a feeling she wouldn\u2019t have much of an appetite for dinner.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\"><i>Enough. You have homework to do.<\/i><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">She and <tt>EntertAIn<\/tt> had worked out a schedule of quizzes on her makeup work, adding to them as she completed new modules. So far, she had aced them, but the holes in her normally eidetic memory\u2014of which she now had a new one\u2014had left her worried that other things might begin disappearing, too. If the AI had noticed just how <i>juvenile<\/i> all of her study material was, she\u2019d made no comment. None of the AIs had commented on any of the handles she had sticking out, things that pointed to her being younger than it said on paper, or the fact that she was now <i>three<\/i> full inches taller than her ID claimed she was.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">Sometimes it bothered her that they didn\u2019t seem to notice any of it, that the plausible explanations she\u2019d cooked up were never asked for. Other human beings might be oblivious to some of the oddities\u2014and she hoped they would be\u2014but the AIs, she worried, were more perceptive. Or should have been.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">One module and two quizzes later, she returned to her cabin\u2014currently the docking pilot\u2019s cabin, with a comfortable \u201clong twin\u201d bed, small fold-down desk, and access to a private lavatory and a shared shower\u2014to do her brain-wave baseline training before dinner.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\"><i>What\u2026 the fuck\u2026?<\/i> Her starting scan was <i>nuts.<\/i><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">Just what had she been <i>doing<\/i> when she\u2019d been standing around in the recreation room? These were the waves of an <i>active<\/i> esper, not even one who\u2019d gone a few hours without using their abilities.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">While she hadn\u2019t managed to hit a baseline reading yet, she\u2019d gotten pretty close in the past\u2026 and suddenly she was all the way on the other side of the poles.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\"><i>I can\u2019t go home with waves like this,<\/i> she thought with dismay. <i>Okay, focus\u2026<\/i><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">It took an hour before she could get her brain waves down to her normal starting point. Her head was beginning to pound when she finally stopped and went to eat dinner.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">In spite of her conviction that she wouldn\u2019t have much of an appetite, she was ravenous. She felt, she realized, as if she hadn\u2019t eaten in days. She felt much the way she had after she\u2019d raided the Quintessa Corporation lab.\n<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">She hadn\u2019t felt like that earlier, though. It was the struggle to control her brain waves that had brought this hunger on. And the exhaustion, too. She could feel her mind clouding up a little.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\"><i>Shit, I wonder what my readings are like right now\u2026<\/i><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cMarianne?\u201d <tt>MilitAIre<\/tt>\u2019s voice\u2014masculine, with a \u201cBoston\u201d accent\u2014came over the speakers. \u201cWhen you have a moment, could you come by the Security Room?\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">He had waited to ask until she was done eating and had returned her bowl\u2014<tt>CommissAIry<\/tt> had served up a huge shepherd\u2019s pie for dinner, and she had powered through the whole thing\u2014to ask. He knew she had a moment. In fact, she realized, all the AIs always timed their requests for the precise moments when she was best able to accommodate them.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cI\u2019ll be right there,\u201d she told him. She\u2019d find out what he needed her to do, and then go to bed a little early.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">The Security Room was one of the most heavily fortified areas of the ship. In addition to housing the manual controls for a surprisingly large array of weaponry on the <i>Nephrite Undine<\/i>\u2019s hull, it contained firearms and hand-to-hand combat weaponry that the crew might need if the ship was ever boarded. Piracy, apparently, was on the rise, along with another alleged threat that sounded like a creepy spaceways legend, and the latest civilian ships were bristling with armaments. One of the Sirius Shipping training modules she needed to do\u2014and was actually overdue for, but <tt>MilitAIre<\/tt> hadn\u2019t pushed her on it yet\u2014was the use of such weaponry. She hadn\u2019t really trusted herself around it, mindful of her prior suicide attempt and how dark her thoughts still were. Maybe he was about to insist that she begin learning how to handle some of the weapons?<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\"><i>Just not tonight, please\u2026<\/i> She was stuffed and sated on food, but that was only making her fatigue even more profound. She\u2019d bargain for a morning start.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">She almost didn\u2019t hear the lock engage as she entered the Security Room and the door closed behind her. <i>Almost.<\/i> Her hearing was, after all, better than most people\u2019s.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cThank you for coming, Audrey. Please sit down.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">She was already seated when she realized what <tt>MilitAIre<\/tt> had just called her.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\"><i>Oh. Fuck.<\/i><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cWe have a great deal we need to discuss, Miss MacNamera.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Title: The Changeling Game (Formerly Identity Theft) Author: Ardath Rekha Chapter: 61\/? Fandom: Pitch Black (2000); The Chronicles of Riddick (2004); The Chronicles of Riddick: Dark Fury (2004) Rat","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"bgseo_title":"\u201cThe Changeling Game\u201d 61: \u201cWe Do This So You Will Live\u201d","bgseo_description":"Another hole in \u201cMarianne\u2019s\u201d memory appears, under circumstances that threaten to dismantle her masquerade altogether.","bgseo_robots_index":"index","bgseo_robots_follow":"follow","footnotes":""},"categories":[9,21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-695","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fan-fiction","category-the-changeling-game"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ardath-rekha.com\/wips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/695","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ardath-rekha.com\/wips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ardath-rekha.com\/wips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ardath-rekha.com\/wips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ardath-rekha.com\/wips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=695"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.ardath-rekha.com\/wips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/695\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1162,"href":"https:\/\/www.ardath-rekha.com\/wips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/695\/revisions\/1162"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ardath-rekha.com\/wips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=695"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ardath-rekha.com\/wips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=695"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ardath-rekha.com\/wips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=695"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}