Nobody Wants to Hurt You (And No One Can Save You Now)
07 Jul 2022Aurora Bael
Alright... I'm far enough out of the Bubble now I can safely record this. I'm going to do my best to relay all of this accurately, but it's been over a week since it happened, so of course the details might get a little fuzzy and scattered. That's how it is. It was more important for me to list this log in particular publicly, and fuck what the rest of Imperial Governance has to say about it.Someone or something has been messing with my head for months. Using me to play spy assassin and making me forget the whole thing afterward. I'm sure some of you saw the news out of Chilton Terminal a month ago when I was up for attempted murder. They didn't press charges because I wasn't in control of my faculties when it happened. Some asshole was pulling my strings like a puppet. And they were using my ocular implants to do it. After a bit of sleuthing and shaking hands with the right people, I found out how. The implant was sending a coherent, high power carrier brainwave that had fine grain control over my thoughts, memories and motivations. Wouldn't you know it, it's from a Black-Box Imperial project called "Wayfinder", operating out of Yarrite on a plain-sight protocol from Kobayashi Munitions Encampment.
So I decided to pop in for a bit of a visit.
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Logbook Console v 2.44.0
Insert > Unwinnable03.hp8
//Begin Playback
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EXTERIOR, SETTLEMENT, NIGHT. Light can be seen in far distance falling from the sky like a meteor before rapidly slowing to a stop on the surface and going dark. In frame for no more than two seconds before disappearing.
JUMP CUT > EXTERIOR, SETTLEMENT NIGHT. A shadow darts rapidly between buildings. From just beyond light around a nearby door, a hand passes in front of a sensor by the airlock door and it opens. The shadow - Woman, all black, face concealed, steps inside.
JUMP CUT > INTERIOR, ADMINISTRATION. Hallway is empty as the woman steps into frame and checks a readout on a holodisplay on her wrist. Quickly she moves out of frame into a side door before moving out more confidently, back out of frame.
JUMP CUT > EXTERIOR, COURTYARD, NIGHT. An Imperial guard stands at their post before a spark ignites behind him and he collapses wordlessly. A shadow, presumably the same woman from before crosses the courtyard with a laser pistol gripped in both hands, keeping to the shadows as much as possible.
JUMP CUT > INTERIOR, RESIDENTIAL, NIGHT. An Imperial soldier, COMMODORE BAVIS PIKE is having a drink from a small rocks glass while looking out the window into the dark starlit landscape beyond. He is broad, round, gray hair, with a thick, bushy brow. Turning around, he jumps and drops his glass.
PIKE: drawing a pistol "Who are you?! How did you get in here?"
UNKNOWN[Voice Distorted]: "How much did it cost you to build a puppet army? Or are you up on charges because you started turning a personal profit?"
PIKE: hitting a 'silent alarm' under his desk quietly "I don't know what you're talking about, but if you don't leave right now -"
UNKNOWN: "Security isn't coming. No one is coming. It's just you and me. And you know exactly what I'm talking about."
PIKE: "Now you listen to me, whoever you are. I don't know what kind of game you think you're playing but I am a Commodore of the Imperial Navy and I will be damned if I let some punk criminal like you -"
Two suppressed gunshots are heard. Red blossoms on the Commodore's shirt. He puts his hand to his chest and pulls it away bloody. PIKE falls backward into a chair, dropping his gun.
PIKE: "Whu...Who...?"
UNKNOWN: stepping into frame, she removes her helmet revealing herself to be RORY BAEL.
RORY: "Never gloat, Bavis. Rookie mistake. If you'd ever actually seen a firefight before, you'd know that."
PIKE: "Oh, god... You-!"
RORY shoots PIKE twice more in the head, then turns off the small desk lamp, leaving the room in darkness.
RORY: "Yeah... Me."
JUMP CUT > INTERIOR, LABORATORY. DR. ELIZA DALTON sits at a computer terminal, working on a report late into the night. She is short, thin, bespectacled, with long auburn hair in a bun. From just out of frame, RORY, with helmet on, enters with weapon drawn and raises it to the back of ELIZA'S head.
ELIZA: stops typing "Are you here to kill me?"
RORY: "Maybe. The night is young."
ELIZA: sighing, turns around to face RORY "...You're the one we lost, aren't you? Ms. Morris."
RORY: "I don't see how that's relevant."
ELIZA: "Did you get it out? The implant. Did you get it removed or are you still plugged in?"
RORY: falters briefly, then raises the pistol again "Don't be cute. You know damn well I got it out."
ELIZA: closing her eyes and breathing out in deep relief "Thank god. Listen, I know how this looks. I really did have the best of intentions but... politics being what they are I had to follow the funding and... Well... I don't blame you. If I was in your position I'd probably want to kill me, too. But I'm glad you made it to ground." She takes off her glasses. Her eyes are filling with tears, but she remains still. "Okay... I'm ready."
RORY: Her pistol shakes in her hand. She raises the pistol twice more before giving up and letting it fall to her side. Removing her helmet. "Prove to me you are who I think you are right now."
ELIZA: "It was on April the 10th of this year. You recorded a log on your way to Colonia. I corrupted the file to send you a message. It appears you got it."
RORY: Turning away and taking two steps to the door she holsters her weapon, then turns back. "Alright. You said that whoever made me kill for free was using the tech some other way than intended. What was it for? What don't I know?"
ELIZA: "Quite a lot, I'm afraid... Your M-O used to be you'd wipe surveillance before you left. Is that still your plan?"
RORY: "Of course that's my fucking plan."
ELIZA: "...Alright then. Have a seat." She gestures to a nearby chair. "This is going to take some time to explain. To start with? I knew your history going in. And I picked you because if I hadn't? They were going to execute you."
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//End Playback
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So... Out of respect for Dr. Dalton, I'm not going to include that portion of the recording here, but I can retell it from memory and leave out some of the more particular bits. She ended up confirming a lot of what I already knew about how the tech worked while filling in some of the specifics. The implants were designed with the purpose of replacing psychotherapy and psychopharmacology for treatment-resistant mental illnesses. People who had been deeply traumatized by ending up in the hands of the wrong slavers, the 'criminally insane' personality types like psychopaths, sociopaths, kleptomaniacs, that sort of thing. The whole idea was to keep people as sober and lucid as possible while still effectively preventing their disordered behaviors. But to get funding, she absolutely needed a government contract... and with that came military attention.
The idea was hatched to use the implants to turn prisoners or volunteer soldiers into sources of passive and active espionage. The subject would be given the implant, programmed with certain potential behaviors which could net good information for the Izzies - erm, IISS - and then cut loose back out into space. If that ended up working out, then the Project would move into stage 2: making better soldiers and sailors for the Empire. Commodore Pike used his connections to keep much of it under wraps until solid data could be gathered, which is why it took so long to catch him skimming off the top for his own personal gain. Which was good news for me, because the Empire's sunken cost into me was in excess of 3,000,000,000 Cr. The 500 mil to clone my ass after death (using the brain scan they had on file from right before the wreck smashed my skull to bits) felt like a justified expense. So in a way, I owe Dr. Dalton my life... twice.
But the idea worked. It worked really fucking well. So well that for the better part of the last year, I've been unwittingly sending copies of absolutely everything I do back to Kobayashi Settlement for analysis and redistribution. They knew about my double-agent gig with Hudson and the Feds (Yeah, you heard me. Fuck you Zack. Serves you right, you corrupt bastard.) and for a while I gave them a lot of good intel on his evolving situation. Then all of the sudden the intel stopped coming. Try as they might, they couldn't re-establish the uplink. The brief glimpses they did get made it clear they had lost control, and my poorly-kept flight log secrecy filled in much of the rest.
It is the opinion of both Dr. Dalton and myself that this use of technology to subvert the will of human beings, whether initiated voluntarily or through coercion, is a violation of the Imperial Code of Ethics and Human Rights, which forbids scientific experimentation on human beings, whether free, imprisoned, or enslaved. There is NO context of law which makes the current work of Project Wayfinder permissible which we could find in our searching. Together, we destroyed all project records, all uninstalled prototypes, and all monitoring equipment connected to Project Wayfinder. I can't confirm if the existing implants will be removed or not, but it's a damn sight better than what was happening before. In the end, I only had to kill one person at Kobayashi Munitions Encampment that night. The one man who unquestionably deserved it. Everyone else is hale and hearty... okay, perhaps there are a few minor brain injuries, but no one else had to die.
... The Empire isn't the boogeyman I've always thought it was. Truth be told, I think that its principles are fundamentally sound. There's something this culture gets about human decency, honor, and sacrifice that is sorely lacking elsewhere in the galaxy. They're FAR from perfect. And I don't ever think I'll be able to consider myself a loyalist to the Imperial Cause. But it is my home. These are my people. And through reclamation of my birthright citizenship, I found a peace I wasn't sure would ever exist inside me again. I've suffered a lot of loss and pain at the hands of a scant few people there... But those people are dead now. And if I find any others so abusive? I'll end them, too.
But seriously, fuck slavery. I get the impression I'm never going to stop buying and freeing human beings caught in that wretched system as long as I live. I always did enjoy making a nuisance of myself. Maybe the pathway to healing the rest of me lies in that kind of puckish delight. Vendetta is getting old. I don't find any need to keep harboring that kind of hate against five trillion people.
... However... It does leave me stuck at a bit of an impasse. If the Empire weren't the ones who sent me to kill a Marlinist Envoy, a Sirius Pact Dissenter, a Federal Arms Dealer, and a Deep Space Colony Director... Then who the fuck did?
Keep your eyes peeled out there, Commanders. Something nasty is happening in the bubble. And I don't just mean Azimuth's genocidal megalomania. I'll be gone a few months on the Eldritch Gate expedition. Maybe a little longer, until the heat is off and I can broker a deal with a few different authorities. But I will be back. And whoever did this to me? If they come after me, they better not miss.
Fly Dangerous. Fly Armed. Fly Sharp,
- Aurora Angelica Bael