{"id":715,"date":"2024-09-10T19:13:02","date_gmt":"2024-09-10T23:13:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ardath-rekha.com\/wips\/?p=715"},"modified":"2025-01-28T23:32:27","modified_gmt":"2025-01-29T04:32:27","slug":"the-changeling-game-chapter-64","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ardath-rekha.com\/wips\/the-changeling-game-chapter-64\/","title":{"rendered":"The Changeling Game, Chapter 64"},"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> 64\/?<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> As her return to her home world draws ever closer, Audrey prepares to adopt the role of an ordinary child who never left her world at all, and struggles to cut ties with a persona that still haunts her.<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='6a8e7a47513332006493575' value='6a8e7a47513332006493575'><input type='hidden' id='bg-show-more-text-6a8e7a47513332006493575' value='Long post is long. Click to read the story.'><input type='hidden' id='bg-show-less-text-6a8e7a47513332006493575' value='Hide the story again.'><button id='bg-showmore-action-6a8e7a47513332006493575' 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-6a8e7a47513332006493575' ><\/p>\n<h2 class=\"chapterhead\">64.<br \/>\n<u>The Camouflage of Ordinary Things<\/u><\/h2>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cHow\u2019s your arm?\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cSore,\u201d Audrey sighed. \u201cJust a little, though. You\u2019re sure nobody\u2019s gonna detect it?\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cNobody will have the opportunity to,\u201d <tt>MilitAIre<\/tt> told her. \u201cThe moment your biometrics get collected to access your medical records, flags will go up and the medical staff will be informed, in no uncertain terms, that the only kind of care they\u2019re allowed to provide is emergency triage care. No exams, no elective procedures\u2026 except the ones you and your handler have agreed to and your handler has pre-authorized. The penalty for medical staff disobeying a Federacy block is having their licenses to practice struck off, so they <i>won\u2019t<\/i> feel inquisitive.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cSo\u2026 where will I get checkups? And shots, and things?\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cThat\u2019s being arranged.\u201d <tt>MilitAIre<\/tt> sounded amused. \u201cBut it\u2019d be very difficult to sell the idea that you\u2019ve been on Deckard\u2019s World the whole time if someone notices that you\u2019ve received immunizations never offered there and have been baby-proofed until you\u2019re nearly twenty-four.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">True. Those things weren\u2019t generally available to girls on Deckard\u2019s World, even if she personally thought they should be. It hadn\u2019t taken all that much to convince him to let her get them done, either.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">She\u2019d begun reading the book that Izil had given her\u2014one that, it turned out, had been co-authored by Takama herself\u2014and it had been an epiphany. <i>The Biology, Psychology, and Sociology of Human Sexuality<\/i> had answered a lot of questions she hadn\u2019t even known she had\u2026 and its evaluation of the sociopolitical norms of Deckard\u2019s World were scathing enough that she was no longer surprised that the book would be impossible to find there. She found herself missing Takama more than ever and wishing they could discuss the text.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">Izil had given it to her because it discussed issues of gender and biology that, thanks to her time masquerading as a boy, had confounded her. She wondered if he\u2019d have given it to her at all if he\u2019d known she was <i>from<\/i> Deckard\u2019s world, given just how critical it was about the planet of her birth. Less than three chapters in, she\u2019d discovered that, in addition to her home world imposing several centuries-out-of-date gender \u201cnorms\u201d upon its populace, it had also cut people off from fundamental health resources. Such as immunizations that would protect against virtually every sexually transmitted disease a person might be exposed to\u2026 and regulators that could prevent pregnancies for years or even decades. The simple <i>existence<\/i> of such things had come as a shock; even her aunt, the <i>nurse<\/i>, hadn\u2019t mentioned them.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">Takama had argued, in one chapter, that the rationale behind blocking access to such treatments was tied to a disturbing philosophy that sexuality was sinful and should have negative consequences for anyone who enjoyed it. But it wasn\u2019t the consequences of her <i>own<\/i> actions that Audrey had been worried about, which was what she\u2019d told <tt>MilitAIre<\/tt> when she\u2019d argued that she should receive all of the shots and an implant. If she and Kyra hadn\u2019t managed to escape from Pritchard\u2014assuming they\u2019d <i>survived<\/i> what he and possibly Makarov would have done to them next\u2014the consequences of <i>his<\/i> actions could have followed her through the rest of her life in any number of awful ways. And he might not be the last sexual predator whose path she crossed.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\"><tt>MilitAIre<\/tt> had let her plead her case, and then had spent a few minutes dissecting her arguments and suggesting how she could improve them, before informing her that he\u2019d agreed with her from the beginning and that <tt>First-AId<\/tt> would have her implant configured for her in one day\u2019s time. He\u2019d then showed her the full schedule of vaccines\u2014including several, for non-sexually-transmitted diseases, that she\u2019d never heard of\u2014that she would need to receive in the coming weeks. Deckard\u2019s World, it turned out, had some perplexingly backwater ideas about disease and immunology that conflated getting sick at all with moral failings, and Audrey had been lucky that most of the people she\u2019d encountered on her run hadn\u2019t shared those views.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">The funny thing was that <tt>MilitAIre<\/tt> didn\u2019t particularly care about the philosophies behind any of the stances favoring or opposing vaccines; he simply considered it his job to ensure that Audrey was protected from all potential threats, including those on a microbial level. <\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">His pragmatism about such things, she\u2019d found, made him a very restful companion.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">He didn\u2019t judge; at least, not in any kind of moral sense. He <i>did<\/i> critique her constantly, but in a way that somehow made her feel <i>better<\/i> about whatever goals she\u2019d missed as he analyzed just how she might reach them on her next attempt. There were still a whole lot of things she couldn\u2019t bring herself to face\u2014or discuss\u2014yet, but it was growing easier and easier to talk about some of them. And he had insisted on knowing <i>everything<\/i> about her time on the run.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">The rest of the AIs still had no idea who she really was, but they had accepted <tt>MilitAIre<\/tt>\u2019s new position of authority over her. Even <tt>CaptAIn<\/tt> deferred to him where she was concerned, although he rarely had to.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cYou have now succeeded twice in conforming your brain waves to baseline readings,\u201d <tt>MilitAIre<\/tt> told her, rousing her from her musings. \u201cLater this week, we\u2019re going to run our first \u2018surprise Quantification\u2019 drill to see how close you can bring them without advance preparation. Advance warning is never given for such tests, after all.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cDo you think I\u2019m <i>ready<\/i> for that?\u201d she asked, feeling doubtful.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cIt\u2019s unlikely at this stage, but we need to see just how far away from normative your readings will be in such a scenario.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cSo we\u2019re doing a \u2018fire drill.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cEssentially.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">Audrey nodded. She <i>liked<\/i> the way he tested her, in truth. She liked being able to make mistakes and learn from them instead of being scared that she wouldn\u2019t get everything right the first time. She liked <i>not<\/i> having to figure out what she was doing wrong, or just wasn\u2019t doing right, completely on her own. He had told her, when she asked, that her strongest learning style was \u201cinteractive,\u201d which had both made perfect sense to her and come as a disturbing revelation, given how many of her teachers had stressed \u201cindependent learning.\u201d But without <tt>MilitAIre<\/tt>, she might have still been in a tailspin about how to get her gamma-delta wave synch-up\u2014apparently a telltale for espers\u2014to un-synch.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">The <i>Apeiros<\/i> disliked the exercises; they couldn\u2019t \u201chear\u201d her during them. She often felt like her senses were muffled, too; her awareness of the other \u2019verses became distant and tenuous. Once she relaxed, everything flowed back to her and she felt like herself again, but\u2026<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">It worried her. She suspected it worried them <i>both<\/i>. She didn\u2019t think she could live in a \u201cbaseline\u201d for very long. It was further and further away from who she <i>was.<\/i><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cIn the meantime,\u201d <tt>MilitAIre<\/tt> said after a moment, \u201cnow that you have completed your mathematics, science, and social science modules, you aren\u2019t going to be able to put off your literary assignments anymore.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">Audrey had to restrain the urge to huff. \u201cOkay\u2026 I think I can manage them\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">The hardest one would probably be <i>The Crystal Cave,<\/i> she thought. She\u2019d been reading it when she\u2019d spotted Makarov on the train, and every time she\u2019d tried to pick it up since, she started thinking about the standoff that had followed. For the first two months on the <i>Nephrite Undine,<\/i> though, <i>every<\/i> work of fiction she\u2019d tried to get into had somehow become all about those terrible events. That had finally begun to recede.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cI\u2019ll try reading <i>The Crystal Cave<\/i> again, <i>last,\u201d<\/i> she told <tt>MilitAIre<\/tt>.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cUnderstandable. What other titles will you be reading?\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">She knew he could look them up easily; he had access to everything she\u2019d stored on the ship\u2019s data mainframes, but he wanted her to talk to him about them. He\u2019d explained his rationale for this to her a week earlier: aside from his observations about her preferred learning style, the way she interacted with and handled the texts, and discussed them with others, would be markedly different if she\u2019d done all of it on her own, and that might raise suspicions. Her teachers and classmates needed to be under the impression that she had simply been enrolled somewhere else for two school-years; those who thought they were in the know had to believe that her handler had tutored her during her isolation. The truth, that she had spent nearly half a year separated by countless light-years from any other human being, was something that no one must ever suspect.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cUm\u2026 my eighth grade curriculum included <i>The Crystal Cave<\/i> by Mary Stewart, <i>Lord of the Flies<\/i> by William Golding, <i>Animal Farm<\/i> by George Orwell, <i>The Outsiders<\/i> by S.E. Hinton, <i>Over Sea, Under Stone<\/i> by Susan Cooper, and <i>Fahrenheit 451<\/i> by Ray Bradbury.\u201d And a bunch of short stories, but she wasn\u2019t going to rattle all of them off.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cInteresting. Those are all twentieth century works, all mid-century, written in English by either British or American authors. That\u2019s a narrow spectrum.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">Audrey shrugged. \u201cTakama said in her book that Deckard\u2019s World is <i>mired<\/i> in mid-twentieth century Anglo-America.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cDo you know what characterizes that milieu?\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\"><i>Oh.<\/i> Now <tt>MilitAIre<\/tt>\u2019s motive was coming clear. He\u2019d added a few sociology readings of his own choosing to her list last week, after all.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cYeah. Post-World War II America was attempting to assert a \u2018traditional\u2019 way of life that had never really existed before then, right? A \u2018nuclear\u2019 family in which only one parent worked outside of the home\u2026 people did act like my mom was nuts for going back to work when I started school. And an \u2018American Way\u2019 that was all about \u2018equality\u2019 and \u2018freedom,\u2019 but only if you met certain criteria. Women could vote but usually couldn\u2019t have their own bank accounts or credit lines\u2026 birth control was rudimentary as shit\u2026 racial segregation was commonplace\u2026 and more than half of the rights in the Federacy Human Rights Charter were routinely withheld from people.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cAnd?\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cAnd the Cold War kept people from fighting as hard for those rights and against those limitations as they might have, because a shadowy enemy on a whole \u2019nother continent could blow everybody up, and they were told that was a higher priority.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cWell stated. Have you seen signs of anything similar on Deckard\u2019s World?\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cThe Cold War part doesn\u2019t seem to apply, but everybody\u2019s still jumpy about the New Taliban trying to invade and it\u2019s been more than two <i>centuries<\/i> since that happened. So maybe they\u2019re our \u2018Soviet Union.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cA completely external common enemy to keep the populace\u2019s watchfulness focused outward, yes. What else? What is attention being focused away from?\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">Audrey grimaced. Her father had been right about Deckard\u2019s World, and obviously <tt>MilitAIre<\/tt> wanted to make sure she was aware of it before she found herself surrounded by it again. \u201cClass divisions are along racial lines. Xenophobia is high and includes almost all members of other ethnic and religious groups. There\u2019s a big emphasis on \u2018traditional\u2019 gender roles and most of those are the \u2018traditions\u2019 of mid-twentieth-century America, so if you\u2019re not heterosexual and monogamous, and want to do or have things that \u2018belong\u2019 to the other sex, like a \u2018man\u2019s job\u2019 or \u2018men\u2019s clothing,\u2019 you may have the right under Federacy law, but almost nobody\u2019s going to support your choices.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cYou disguised yourself as a boy for a while,\u201d <tt>MilitAIre<\/tt> said. \u201cWhat was it like, being seen and treated as a boy rather than as a girl?\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cPeople didn\u2019t talk down to me nearly as much,\u201d she reflected. She\u2019d been thinking about it a lot, because her experiences of passing as a boy had left her questioning <i>many<\/i> of the gender divides on Deckard\u2019s World. \u201cThey acted like I might just have a brain in my head and they didn\u2019t spend as much time trying to prove anything I said wrong. I still got a few creepy looks on Vasenji Station, but\u2026 nobody was trying to \u2018accidentally\u2019 grope me or rub up against me anymore. And all the \u2018guy stuff\u2019 I\u2019d been told I probably wouldn\u2019t be able to figure out\u2014with maybe the exception of how to pee into a urinal standing up\u2014wasn\u2019t so hard as all that.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cThe study guides you\u2019ll be working with don\u2019t bring such issues up, but I want you to think about them as well, as you\u2019re reading. You\u2019ve now been exposed to a larger cross-section of humanity than  you knew on Deckard\u2019s World. Think about whose stories are being told, and who\u2019s being left out of the narratives altogether. And why your school, or your world, might not want to include those who don\u2019t appear, or even have people think about them. Also, think about why Arthurian legend would be important enough to your world\u2019s culture that <i>two<\/i> of the novels on your reading list feature it.\u201d A note of humor entered <tt>MilitAIre<\/tt>\u2019s voice. \u201cI can\u2019t help you with the issue of using a urinal, but First-AId might have some ideas, if you wish.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cNah,\u201d Audrey laughed. \u201cThat\u2019s not necessary.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cAnd your ninth grade reading list?\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201c<i>The Grapes of Wrath<\/i> by John Steinbeck, <i>Murder on the Orient Express<\/i> by Agatha Christie, <i>The Martian Chronicles<\/i> by Ray Bradbury, <i>The Hobbit<\/i> by J.R.R. Tolkien, <i>A Separate Peace<\/i> by John Knowles, and <i>A Tree Grows in Brooklyn<\/i> by Betty Smith. Should I be watching for the same things with them?\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cYes. Your reading lists have been curated to match, and reinforce, prevailing ideologies of a time and place more than half a millennium in the past. While some of them are critical of that time and place, there are limits they don\u2019t push past and attitudes they never challenge. I\u2019ll be interested to see what conclusions you end up drawing about that.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cAm I making a mistake?\u201d Audrey blurted.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cBy?\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cGoing back to Deckard\u2019s World.\u201d She was going to be spending at least four years surrounded by many of those backsliding beliefs, a lot of them possibly coming out of the mouths of people she <i>loved and admired<\/i>.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cNo,\u201d <tt>MilitAIre<\/tt> told her in a calm tone. \u201cAll worlds have their flaws. But it would be much harder to establish a plausible and safe identity for you on any other world. When Audrey MacNamera ceases to be a missing person, especially when it becomes evident that she never left Deckard\u2019s World at all, most of the potential loose threads from your run will be wiped away. Your name, image, and biometrics will be deleted from all of the Missing Persons databases throughout the Federacy, making it all the more unlikely that anyone will ever connect you to your appearances, under a variety of aliases, on three separate planets, one space station, and six Star Jumpers. Everything will seem to be back in its place. This wouldn\u2019t be true for any other identity you took on, on any other world. Once you are legally eighteen, even if not yet biologically so, you can elect to leave Deckard\u2019s World again\u2014in the custody of your handler\u2014and as far as the rest of the universe will know, it\u2019ll be your first time going offworld.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cBest and easiest way to break my trail. Got it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cAnd your family will know you\u2019re alive and unharmed, and they won\u2019t feel betrayed by your disappearance because they\u2019ll believe you had no choice in the matter.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">Ouch. She\u2019d very <i>much<\/i> had a choice, and she\u2019d chosen to run out on them. She felt worst about running out on her cats, though, and <i>they<\/i> couldn\u2019t be told a placatory lie about WitSec disappearing her for nearly two years.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cI\u2019m sorry, Audrey. That wasn\u2019t intended to upset you.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cI know. I just\u2026 I was really thoughtless. About how they\u2019d feel when I just disappeared. They\u2019ve been worried about me for a year and a half now.\u201d She wiped at her eyes. \u201cThey don\u2019t know if I\u2019m alive or dead\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cThey will soon. They\u2019ll know that you have returned to them unharmed.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cI don\u2019t know about <i>unharmed,<\/i>\u201d she disagreed. \u201cToo much shit went down.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cComparatively speaking, then.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">She supposed that, on a missing-kid scale of Huckleberry Finn to Luljeta Kamberi, she was a lot closer to Huck than to Luljeta.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cOkay. They\u2019ll be able to stop worrying, at least,\u201d Audrey reluctantly agreed. \u201cBut\u2026 are they really <i>not<\/i> going to ask questions once they\u2019re told I\u2019ve been in WitSec?\u201d She had her doubts. Her mother was a corporate lawyer, and Alvin the Asshole was an assistant D.A.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cThat\u2019s highly unlikely at first. Human curiosity shows little regard for what\u2019s been declared off-limits. They\u2019ll have a lot of questions, and they won\u2019t be happy about not getting answers.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cSo what do we do?\u201d Her mom was formidable, after all, and Alvin\u2026 well, she really didn\u2019t know. He was an asshole, but she hadn\u2019t stuck around to find out how <i>much<\/i> of an asshole he might be.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cYou\u2019ll stick to your story,\u201d <tt>MilitAIre<\/tt> said, \u201cwhich is simple enough. You saw something that you shouldn\u2019t have witnessed and can\u2019t talk about, you were taken into WitSec custody soon after, and you\u2019ve finally been allowed to come home as long as you stay silent about everything that happened. And when they try to force the issue\u2014which they undoubtedly will at first\u2014your handler starts throwing their weight around.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cThat\u2026 sounds\u2026\u201d She winced. \u201c\u2026bad?\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cOnly if they\u2019re too persistent,\u201d he told her. \u201cThey\u2019ll stop once they understand that your handler truly does have the power to take you away from them again if they keep fighting.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">Shit. \u201cDoes that ever happen?\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cVery rarely. But even if it becomes necessary, your trail will already be broken at that stage. Federacy records will indicate that Audrey MacNamera never left Deckard\u2019s World while she was a missing person, and that will still be true even if your return home ends up being brief. Your family will know you\u2019re alive and well <i>somewhere<\/i>. But the odds of that becoming necessary are extremely slim.\u201d <\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cSo if Deckard\u2019s World doesn\u2019t work out\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cYou can be relocated. But it shouldn\u2019t be necessary, and it\u2019s important for you to focus on trying to have as normal an adolescence as you can. Aside from two comprehensive topics you can never discuss\u2014your experiences during your missing time, and your unusual abilities\u2014you\u2019ll be able to live an ordinary life. Cultivating the <i>ordinary<\/i> is crucial to success in the WitSec program.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cYeah, ordinary\u2026\u201d Audrey tried to repress a frustrated sigh. \u201cBecause I\u2019m such a <i>normal<\/i> person\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cThe important thing is for everyone else to believe you are, no matter what the truth is,\u201d he told her in his most patient voice. \u201cWhich is why we\u2019re adding another module to your curriculum between now and your return.\u201d\n<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">Uh oh. \u201cAnd what module is that?\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cMethod acting.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">The main screen activated, the words <tt>Survey of Method Acting Techniques for \u201cNatural\u201d Performances<\/tt> emblazoned across its surface.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cYou\u2019ll be spending the next four years, minimum, portraying a role,\u201d he told her. \u201cWe\u2019ll explore and study the various techniques, particularly those used by film and vid actors for close-up performances, to find the approaches that allow you to play your part as naturally and convincingly as possible.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cAnd what <i>is<\/i> that role exactly?\u201d she asked. Obviously, it wouldn\u2019t be \u201cJack B. Badd.\u201d Jack was dead.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cA girl who, as a pre-teen, tried to run away from home after her mother suddenly announced she was marrying a man that the girl disliked and couldn\u2019t manage to get along with. She got lost after making it into the nearby city, and found herself in the proverbial \u2018wrong place at the wrong time,\u2019 where she witnessed the murder of a Federacy agent. She panicked and hid, and was later found by other Federacy agents investigating their colleague\u2019s death. When they realized just what she had seen, and whom she had witnessed committing the murder, they took her into protective custody.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">Audrey nodded. That was a whole lot more believable than what had actually happened, in truth\u2026<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u2026but not entirely dissimilar.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cBecause the perpetrator of the crime, and his employers, were unaware that there was a witness,\u201d <tt>MilitAIre<\/tt> continued, \u201cthe decision was made to conceal even the fact that she had been taken into custody from <i>everyone<\/i> until her testimony could be used. She was kept hidden for almost two years, with no human contact except her handlers, until the case abruptly fell apart when the perpetrator died in a firefight with Federacy agents, and any possibility of connecting his crimes to his employers came to an end. She was then told that she could return to her family as long as she never spoke of what she had seen or where she had been, because if his employers ever realized that she had witnessed the murder they had commissioned, they might have her preemptively killed just in case she knew enough to link them to the crime, herself.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">That made an absurd amount of sense, too. It was even, she realized, close to the truth. Pritchard and Makarov were both dead, and there had been nothing in the Merc Network files that she or General Toal could use to conclusively prove that the Quintessa Corporation had hired them to murder Colonel Tomlin. But she knew enough about that corporation\u2019s ruthlessness to know that, proof or no proof, if they ever realized she possessed such knowledge\u2014let alone that she had Threshold Syndrome\u2014they would want to wipe her off the board.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cSo, uh\u2026 most of the story is kinda true\u2026 just\u2026 happened a lot earlier into my run and\u2026 didn\u2019t involve crash landings, battles on a merc ship, or Threshold Syndrome.\u201d Or Riddick.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cExactly. The most convincing lies are the ones built around enough verifiable truth that the false parts are unlikely to be scrutinized.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cLike me witnessing a murder.\u201d In point of fact, she\u2019d witnessed several, and had even committed a few of her own.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">No. Jack B. Badd had done that.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\"><i>And Jack is dead.<\/i><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cExactly,\u201d <tt>MilitAIre<\/tt> agreed. \u201cEven if you never tell the story\u2014and you never should\u2014it should be something that you can treat as truthful. That makes all the difference. The current projected timeline for your return to your mother is mid-December. By then, we will have finalized all of the details of the story you can visualize, if not actually share, should someone start poking at your alibi.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cWhy December?\u201d she asked, startled. \u201cWe\u2019re scheduled to reach Deckard\u2019s World near the end of October.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cWe\u2019ll need time to configure the safe house you\u2019ll use to check in with your handler each week and make sure everything is solid,\u201d he told her. \u201cBut more importantly, the window in which you\u2019re both biologically and legally fourteen years old opens on December 4, and being able to truthfully say you\u2019re fourteen, if asked, will help sell the lie that you never spent any time in cryo. That said, I also have no intention of you suffering a second Christmas away from your family if it can be helped.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">It amazed her, sometimes, just how much he could see through her. And how much the things that mattered to her mattered to <i>him.<\/i> \u201cSo I\u2019m going to be doing weekly check-ins with my handler? How come?\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cLargely for <i>your<\/i> sake,\u201d he explained. \u201cYour family\u2019s probably going to be clingy and demanding at first once you return, and prone to <i>not<\/i> giving you space or privacy. So every week, for a few hours, you\u2019ll be able to get away from the scrutiny.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">That hadn\u2019t even occurred to her when she\u2019d been trying to come up with her own back-story and plans\u2026 but she could see it now. Her mom might be afraid to let her back out of her <i>sight.<\/i><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cYou can use the time,\u201d <tt>MilitAIre<\/tt> continued, \u201cto engage in any projects or inquiries that you can\u2019t do where they\u2019re watching\u2026 or just have a period of quiet. You\u2019ll also be able to address any complications where your alibis are concerned, should those occur. Think of it as a pressure valve. Some weeks, you may not especially need it or even want it, but having it as a set part of your routine will ensure that you always have it when you do.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cWhat kind of projects or inquiries?\u201d she found herself asking.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cYou have friends on other worlds that no one can know about. While you can\u2019t contact those friends, especially one of them, until you\u2019re eighteen, if you want to run searches related to any of them, you should only do so in the safe house. You\u2019ll also have access to materials that are censored on Deckard\u2019s World but considered customary and essential information throughout much of the rest of the Federacy. And, of course, it\u2019ll be a space where you can continue to develop both your abilities and the skills you need to keep them hidden.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cYeah, I\u2019ll need all of that stuff, won\u2019t I?\u201d It seemed so obvious once he said it.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cI think so,\u201d he told her. Sometimes the hints of humor in his voice made him seem like an actual human being to her. \u201cAnd knowing that you\u2019ll be able to access it on a regular basis will help make playing your designated role, the rest of the time, more manageable.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">Once again, Audrey found herself feeling relieved that she hadn\u2019t been stuck doing all of this on her own. Half of the things <tt>MilitAIre<\/tt> was describing hadn\u2019t even <i>occurred<\/i> to her. <i>I would have fucked this up, too, on my own.<\/i><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">She really didn\u2019t do \u201calone\u201d well at all.  Not like Riddick. She realized that, the whole time she\u2019d been with him\u2026 on the crash planet, in the skiff, on the <i>Kublai Khan<\/i> and the <i>Xanadu III<\/i>, and on the one and only day he\u2019d spent on Helion\u2014little more than a week, really, even less time than she\u2019d spent with Ewan\u2014she\u2019d felt him wishing to be alone, to <i>not<\/i> have to feel the contact of other minds on his, shying away from both Imam\u2019s judgments and her infatuation.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cYou seem to be thinking about something sad,\u201d <tt>MilitAIre<\/tt> observed.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cYeah\u2026\u201d she sighed. \u201cRiddick. I keep trying to just\u2026 let go of everything that happened with him, but\u2026 sometimes I just\u2026 <i>miss<\/i> him.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">His desire to leave no longer stung, the more she thought about it. He <i>needed<\/i> to be a lone wolf, unencumbered by problematic attachments. He\u2019d probably have <i>thrived<\/i> in the isolation of the <i>Nephrite Undine<\/i>, whereas she, in spite of all of the companionable kindness the AIs were showing her, was counting down the days until she could immerse herself in the press of <i>humanity<\/i> again and feel other minds touching hers. The only part that still hurt, that she still had trouble understanding, was the way he\u2019d left her without even a word, without a goodbye. That had made it hard for her to believe that he\u2019d ever cared about her at all.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">And yet he\u2019d saved her life several times, risking his own in the process. Why, she wondered, had he been willing to throw himself into the path of bullets to keep her from falling to her death, but unwilling to tell her goodbye?<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">Why was it so damned hard to get <i>over<\/i> this? Every time she thought she had\u2026<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cThere have been no sightings of him in a while,\u201d <tt>MilitAIre<\/tt> said after a moment. \u201cThe last \u2018confirmed\u2019 sighting on record is the false video you commissioned. In the meantime, he\u2019s dropped from first to second on the list of the Federacy\u2019s Most Wanted, and is unlikely to move back up.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cWhy? Who\u2019s in first place?\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cDo you really need to ask?\u201d <tt>MilitAIre<\/tt> sounded amused again.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cDuke Pritchard?\u201d It made sense. Aside from a very small group of people who were sworn to secrecy, nobody knew that Pritchard was dead. But <i>everybody<\/i> knew the kinds of crimes he\u2019d been prone to\u2026 and might, as far as they knew, still be committing somewhere. He had become the bogeyman every parent with a missing daughter imagined\u2026 including, probably, both of hers.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cIt\u2019s likely that he will remain at the top of the Most Wanted list for years, or even decades,\u201d he said. \u201cNo proof of his death will ever appear, given the location and probable condition of his remains at this point. And while the Federacy may dislike having an \u201cUnleashed Esper\u201d running loose, even it must admit that none of Riddick\u2019s crimes have ever approached the monstrosity of Pritchard\u2019s. Quite the opposite.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cThe opposite?\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cYes,\u201d <tt>MilitAIre<\/tt> told her. \u201cBased on the part of his criminal record that remains classified, your Riddick might even be willing to break his cover to kill someone like Duke Pritchard.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cHe\u2019s not \u2018my\u2019 anything,\u201d Audrey grumbled before she could stop herself. <\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">She wondered why, after <i>everything<\/i>, that could still hurt so much.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\"><i>I need to let it go,<\/i> she scolded herself. <i>He isn\u2019t part of my life and he never was. He was part of Jack B. Badd\u2019s life.<\/i><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\"><i>And Jack. Is. Dead.<\/i><\/p>\n<p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Title: The Changeling Game (Formerly Identity Theft) Author: Ardath Rekha Chapter: 64\/? 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 64: \u201cThe Camouflage of Ordinary Things\u201d","bgseo_description":"As her return to her home world draws ever closer, Audrey prepares to adopt the role of an ordinary child who never left her world at all, and struggles to cut ties with a persona that still haunts her.","bgseo_robots_index":"index","bgseo_robots_follow":"follow","footnotes":""},"categories":[9,21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-715","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\/715","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=715"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.ardath-rekha.com\/wips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/715\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1157,"href":"https:\/\/www.ardath-rekha.com\/wips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/715\/revisions\/1157"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ardath-rekha.com\/wips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=715"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ardath-rekha.com\/wips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=715"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ardath-rekha.com\/wips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=715"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}