4. Chapter 4
Chapter 4
Zoric wanted answers. His walk through the flat, gray landscape that was her subconscious had been as sudden as the interruption that pulled him from it.
Instead, he was sitting in an office with Ae-cha, Colonel Schuh, and a couple doctors. It was too small for the number of people, with too few chairs. Zoric and Ae-cha were sitting, as were Colonel Schuh and the woman who had been interrogating Angela when he'd arrived. Another doctor was standing, leaning against the door frame, and there were two guards outside.
The chairs were not particularly comfortable for someone with a tail and Zoric had trouble keeping his from lifting his kilt higher than was appropriate. He almost envied Ae-cha her long robes but he was determined to dress as like a human as he could.
"She does not appear to have any new damage from the incident," one of the doctors, the one who was standing, was saying. "But if you're going to let someone trigger that again, I'd appreciate being able to monitor her brain as it happens."
"You won't find anything," Ae-cha said. "Human machines are far too primitive to see what truly happens in the human mind."
"If your people managed to resurrect the lost technologies," Zoric drawled. "You would be out of a job. And human women would be safer."
Ae-cha turned and hissed at him. "We have more of it than your pathetic band of psychos."
"I don't pretend to be saving anyone. We know who and what we are."
That was a lie but Ae-cha didn't need to know that. He knew what his people had been for the last five generations but he also knew there was more to their history.
"Which means you have no right to be here."
The fight had been going on since his people had agreed to help the humans. Ae-cha's people had been partnered with various human groups over the years and believed themselves to be righteous. He could dispute this but he had a bigger concern.
Before he could continue the argument, Colonel Schuh broke in.
"I will not be allowing it to happen again," he said. "It shouldn't have happened this time. I'd like an explanation for that, Doctor."
The woman who had been running the interrogation squirmed slightly in her seat.
"I don't think that's an appropriate discussion to have here," she protested. "They're not cleared-"
"For this specific case, they are," Colonel Schuh said, silencing her protests. "In fact, they're here to find answers you can't, so start talking Doctor Phillips."
She sent a deeply unhappy glare at Zoric, then started talking.
"This was not my first session with the prisoner," she said. "And I had been briefed about the kinds of phrases that were likely to set her off. While I find it difficult to credit that she could have a self-destruct sequence programmed into her brain, I was instructed to avoid triggering it while I attempted to get more information from her."
"What kind of information?" Zoric asked.
"Since she has already confessed to treason in front of multiple witnesses, I wasn't looking for confession. But since several of those witnesses are potential allies, and they insisted that she was likely the victim of some kind of psychological programming, I have been attempting to assess how complete that programming is."
"You sound like you don't believe the programming exists," Ae-cha said, her frown matching Zoric's.
"I've seen people who have been subjected to psychological manipulation and so-called programming. Private McBride does not show any of the behaviors I would expect from someone who had been convinced to kill herself in the event she was discovered," Doctor Phillips explained.
"I would submit that it's unlikely you've ever encountered someone like this for the simple fact that, if you did, they would be dead," Ae-cha said. "It was only because she was very, very lucky that Private McBride survived to be interrogated at all."
"Angela was not commanded to kill herself, her brain was programmed to stop breathing," Zoric said. "A command to take her own life would have been kinder."
Doctor Phillips stared at him, shock plain on her face. "How could you possibly say that?"
"She knew she was dying, knew what was happening, could feel everything, and do nothing. If she'd been commanded to kill herself, she might have been able to fight it, or had a choice in what happened," Zoric told her.
"Despite their occasional faulty wiring, humans will fight to stay alive," Ae-cha added. "What was done triggered the fight to stay alive, but made sure it was futile. It was torture."
Colonel Schuh nodded. "We've been told how to stop it once the command is triggered but I had hoped our advisors could help us find a way to remove it entirely. Doctor Phillips, you were supposed to get information from the prisoner to assist them. Is that going to be possible?"
The doctor started to respond but Ae-cha cut her off. "Obviously, she's too clumsy to be effective. And I can't really blame her when she can't see what she's working on. At this point, I think her assistance is doing more harm than good."
"That's why I was hoping to have her set up to monitor her brain for any further sessions," the first doctor said. He'd been quiet for the discussion and Zoric couldn't read his name from where he sat.
"You want to see the changes in her brain when the self-destruct is tripped," Ae-cha said, her mouth curled into a sneer. "I want to remove it before it happens again. Trust me, these are very different scenarios."
"There may be damage we're not seeing," the first doctor protested.
"Trust a surgeon to resort to surgery," Ae-cha snapped.
"I never said that," he replied hotly.
"Enough," Colonel Schuh said, interrupting the fight. "Doctor Phillips, can you help them or not?"
"I would like to think my previous sessions with Private McBride haven't been wasted," Doctor Phillips said. "And I think, as long as we can avoid triggering the self-destruct, that continued sessions will be helpful, yes."
"What were you trying to do with your sessions, Doctor Phillips?" Zoric asked. He did not like the woman, did not like how she'd treated Angela, but he had to respect the Colonel's decision to use her for the process. From what he was learning, people did not end up in positions like Doctor Phillips without some proficiency.
"Her initial interrogations tried to get information about her co-conspirators. As those proved fruitless beyond proving there was more than one trigger for the self-destruct, my sessions were to find the rest of the triggers and gain more context for further interrogations. We are not trying to kill her."
That last statement was directed at Ae-cha who gave her a dubious look.
"What kind of context are you trying to get?" Zoric asked. "Is it something a more in depth background check could provide?"
It was a stupid question but he had to ask it. Everybody in the room seemed to have a better idea of how everything worked than he did.
Colonel Schuh was the one who answered him. "It would if there was anything to check. I've seen ghosts with more documentation than her. No social media, few friends and family, and nothing beyond a few official documents have been digitized. It took sending someone to her original home address from when she signed up to even verify that her home town existed."
"Did she wipe it deliberately?" Ae-cha asked.
"She grew up outside," Zoric said. "Hiding in the forests and caves of the mountains."
"I'm not sure her childhood home actually has power," Colonel Schuh added with a nod. "She graduated from a school that doesn't have a senior class every year and only exists because there's enough families willing to send their kids."
"Which tells me a lot about some things and almost nothing helpful in the immediate situation," Doctor Phillips said. "Any answers we're going to get have to come from her. And she has to want to give them."
"It will be safer to just let me remove the command," Ae-cha said.
"If there's only one," Zoric said. "And you can convince her to help you find it without torturing her."
The lizardwoman hissed at him and Colonel Schuh raised an eyebrow.
"I was going to suggest that, as a course of action," the Colonel said. "Are there complications I need to know about?"
"There are always complications," Ae-cha said. "Every brain is unique."
"If Angela- Private McBride, fights the process, there is a chance it could trigger the self-destruct command," Zoric explained. "And if she has any kind of bond with the person who placed it, she's likely to fight it. Since there is more than a single word or phrase for the trigger, it's likely that there is more than one command. Failure to remove all of them makes it more likely to trigger the ones that are left."
"It sounds like they created a minefield in her brain," Doctor Phillips said.
"Yes," Zoric said with a nod. "And every effort to remove it makes it more dangerous."
"There may only be one command with multiple triggers," Ae-cha argued. "I've seen that more often with some of the women we've rescued."
Zoric turned and hissed at her. "Those were not commands, those were bonds, and you did more damage removing them than if you'd left them."
"Put there against their will while they were traumatized," she hissed back.
"They were as traumatized by their supposed rescue as anything else." Zoric felt the scales along his neck and shoulders shift to stiff plates while his muscles tensed to leap.
"Enough," Colonel Schuh shouted before they could attack each other.
He waited until they'd settled down before he continued.
"Obviously, there is some history here that is going to be relevant to future attempts at interrogation," he said. "However, it is not relevant to this discussion right now. Before we go any further, I want a full report on how the procedure will work, any risks associated with it, and how to mitigate them as much as possible."
"I'd like to review that," the doctor still leaning in the doorway said.
Ae-cha bristled but nodded. "I have a preliminary report ready because my people anticipated that you'd want something like that. I'll expand it as necessary."
"And send it to Doctor Torres when it's completed," Colonel Schuh told her.
"If I can, I'd like to see Private McBride when she is up to receiving visitors," Zoric said.
"For what purpose?" the Colonel asked.
Zoric had to think about it. His own, selfish need to be near her didn't seem like it would be a good enough justification. "I'd like to make sure she's okay. I was the one who stopped her from suffocating and I feel responsible for her."