Between Mirrors and Masks

This article, Between Mirrors and Masks, was written by GazpachoSoupreme. Please do not edit this fiction without the writer's permission.

<<< We Were Strangers, Once

Seventh Circle Paradiso [♫]

>>> To Grow is To Thrive

It is possible to commit no mistakes and still lose.

The sterile glow of the overhead lights casts sharp shadows across everything in the briefing room. The man - the asset, the operative, the Spartan known elsewhere as Lyzander-G276 - sits rigidly in his metal chair. His overalls are slightly too small, the cuffs barely grazing his wrists, the fabric pulling taut across his shoulders. The chair, too, is subtly uncomfortable, as is everything else here. He notices. He notices everything, but his posture remains perfectly upright. The door slides open with a soft hiss, and an entirely nondescript man steps inside. His hair is slightly greying, his chin flecked with stubble, but the rest of him - bar the pyramid-eye insignia on the left breast of his overalls - is entirely forgettable. Deliberately forgettable, even. He is not Lyzander's transfer handler, but instead, one he has been told is a temporary stand-in, one he has been told to wait here for. The man is late. Forty-one minutes late. "Ah, Infrared White/Gold." A hand is extended across the sparse metal table. "Apologies for the delay in your transfer. Logistics, bureaucracy, you know how it is." The hand is clasped; the officer's firm grip is noted. Lyzander remains seated. "Well, for what it's worth, I know the feeling. The armistice has seen a lot of us being reshuffled and a lot of hats swapped-" The officer only refers to the end of the war as a ceasefire, he notices. "-and I've been assigned to what you might call a cold case." "It's no issue, sir," he replies evenly. "Oh, please, no need for all the formality. I just go by HARBOUR, most of the time." HARBOUR smiles, though it doesn't reach his eyes. He gestures vaguely towards the door. "Can I get you anything? Water? Something to eat?" "I'm fine, thank you, sir." "Of course, of course." HARBOUR settles into his chair, reaching into the folio he brought with him and withdrawing a short sheaf of papers. Not a datapad. Paper. Sheets of wood pulp with inlaid microprojectors. So, this little chit-chat is important. Or perhaps his observantness was planned for, and this is simply a prop to give the impression of it being important. Or perhaps this second-guessing was predicted, and it was expected that he would dismiss it as mere theatrics, but the debriefing really is that important. Perhaps. "Well, you see, this cold case is one I inherited from a certain Codename THORN. Perhaps you know the name?" There is a pause, just long enough to make it clear that the question was not rhetorical. "Not particularly, sir." "Well, maybe you know her as Lieutenant Coney. I'm told she was familiar with your Spartan company." "Yes, I-" No pause, not this time. "Between friends, I'll say that the investigation was, let's say... work to trace a particular person of interest. One related to your particular Spartan-III cohort." Between friends. Friends. Like the maybe-former-friend, maybe-runaway-teammate, probably-nothing aboard the ship he took to get here. This is about her, isn't it. "I just wanted to go over a few things-" About the Arianne-who-might-be-Hari. "-and then we can get you on your way." Might be is enough for them to want her, regardless of the layers of impossibility between that pimply-faced spacer and the kid he knew her as on Onyx. Regardless of the fact that Hari-G055 already exists, alive and well, back on Earth. It's enough for them to hunt her. It was enough for them to have sent Coney to hunt for her. And might be is more than enough that he won't let them have her. "Of course." Of course. HARBOUR leans forward. There's a TACPAD at his wrist; it wasn't there before. He taps a finger on the display; retrieves an egg-shapped device from the folio and hands it to Lyzander to cup in his hand. Silently, a bar appears on the TACPAD display. He looks up, with a veneer of apologetic-ness on his face that would almost be plausible if it wasn't so papery. "You know how it goes. Standard Hansen/Hwa eidogram assay. Your first answer to every question, your first reaction to every statement." The room is uncomfortably warm again. The lights are slightly too bright again. "Just a formality", HARBOUR says. He smiles again; it doesn't reach his eyes again. He clears his throat. And now the dance. "Time you boarded the SV Last Sun-King?" "2117 hours." "Responsible person for your intake?" "Ship's crew chief, L. Reyes." "Armour and equipment?" "Securely stowed by Office personnel." "Why does a Jackal's shield shimmer before it fails?" "Cumulative damage destabilises the energy field." "Were you left idle during the journey?" "Assigned to assist in work-up and maintenance." "Name the others in your detail." "Deck Pilot M. Nylander. Junior ETO D. Sturmey. Motorman S. Callisto. Motorman R. Mandai. Able Shipman A. Doppler." "You are holding a rotting apple, but in your dreams it tastes of gold. Do you take a bite?" "No." "Nylander, Sturmey, Callisto, Mandai, Doppler." "Yes." "You know their first names." "No." "What does regret taste like?" "There's no such taste." "We've pulled Nylander and Sturmey's first names from the registries they're licenced with. Mikaere and Daniel. Any names for the others come to mind?" "No." "Seems difficult to believe. You sure?" "We were operating on a formal basis." "How about Samantha, maybe? Ramirez?" "Could be. Not sure. "Arianne?" "Could be. Not sure." "You look up in the field and the stars are in the wrong place. How do you fix them?" "You don't. You adapt or you fail." "Well, that last one. Doppler. How 'bout you spell that for me." "Delta, Oscar, Papa, Papa, Lima, Echo, Romeo." "Again." "Delta, Oscar, Papa, Papa, Lima, Echo, Romeo." "Would you leave a shadow behind if you died in the dark?" "Shadows require light." "Was Callisto or Doppler more curious about your background?" "Neither of them were." "Go ahead and spell the latter again." "Delta, Oscar, Papa, Papa, Lima, Echo, Romeo." "Was there any tension amongst the crew?" "Nothing more than reasonable for the circumstances." "Do you know where your former team lead is?" "Hari-G055 is on Earth." "There's a datapad full of your own handwriting, but you never wrote it. Do you read it?" "Yes. Carefully." "You mentioned circumstances." "End of the war. Sol system in ruins. High operational tempo for aid shipments." "Nobody pushed you about why you were there." "No." "What inconsistencies did you uncover in the crew's personal histories?" "None. I had no reason to investigate them." "And the ship's?" "I had no reason to investigate it." "What kind of shape is the Sun-King in?" "Heavy cosmetic disrepair, but integrity, internals, environmentals and drive are all sound." "The sky is the colour of dried blood. How long do you have to rest?" "There's no such time of day." "Your augmentations make you physically superior to any other person aboard. Did that have any useful contributions?" "Yes. I assisted with jobs that would otherwise require power loading. I was able to work longer shifts than the others." "And any negative repercussions?" "None serious." "Any at all, serious or not." "Overheard conversations. Nylander misses his partner. Callisto is nervous about the ceasefire. Doppler has forgotten how her home used to be." "What does regret taste like?" "I wouldn't know." "Your disembarkation from the Sun-King was uneventful." "Yes, it was." "A grunt sings an old human song. How does it know the words?" "Either it listened or it was told." "You don't think any of the crew were hiding anything from you specifically." "No." "A lit plasma grenade lands at your feet, but it doesn't detonate." "Go for cover. Threat until proven otherwise." "You don't think any of the crew had any background that would be of interest to this investigation." "No." "Your AI calls you over COM in a voice you don't recognise." "Either it's compromised or I am." "You don't think any of the crew took unusual interest in you?" "No." "What happens when you breathe in vapourised glass?" "The silica destroys your lungs from the inside." "If you had any other information that might help us track down this person-of-interest you would provide it at the earliest possible opportunity." "Yes." "What does regret taste like?" "I don't know." "Have you ever been inside an alien structure?" "No." "Imagine yourself in one. The doors close behind you, the walls are shifting. What is this place?" "A trap, a test, or a grave." HARBOUR pauses. He takes a breath, for the first time in what seems like an hour. "Thank you. Infrared White/Gold, you may leave." Lyzander, unsteadily at first, pushes himself to his feet, leaving the grip on the table where it lies. He looks cautious - cautious for sharp edges on the table as he passes, cautious for where he plants his feet as he exits the room. Cautious with hope that maybe, just maybe, he's done it. That maybe that girl - that bundle of mights and maybes shaped in the silhouette of Hari, of how she used to be - is home free. Maybe this time they win. The door closes. HARBOUR counts the paces until the asset should be out of augmented earshot, then a dozen or so more. He taps the pad on his wrist; a teardrop-shaped glow appears in the air an inch above it. "We're going to follow up on that ship." "Are you sure?" The voice from the pad is thin, tinny. "I didn't pick up anything. No deviation from physiological baseline, no facial microtells, nothing in his voice." "Remarkably calm, for someone whose last interaction with the Office was being dragged kicking and screaming away from oh-five-five's hospital bed. So to speak. So, he knew you were watching those." "You didn't tell him I was here." "I told him it was a Hansen/Hwa, it comes with the territory. He's practiced against them - and worse - during SERE training. He could certainly ace it if he chose to, with some effort." "Which he did. With, I suppose, some effort." The virtualized voice sounds almost bemused for a moment. "It's not a lot to go on, you know." "I know. I'm certainly not going to the Director with nothing but 'Gamma two-seven-six handled an interview so well he had to be intentionally concealing something' just yet, if that's what you're thinking." HARBOUR stands up, carefully tucks his chair under the table. The papers lie atop it, ignored. He will be armed not with records, but with more questions. "But don't you want to know why, Raine?"