Bellum omnium ontra omnes

[Enkidu]

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The Interrogation of Nesrin Khan. Entry Two.

A little under sixteen hours would've passed since the last visit, with a drone providing food and drink in that time on its schedule to any of the cells housing an inmate. Leviathan and Raven's fighters would land, and they'd immediately disembark to make for the main elevator. They'd step on to the platform and begin the long descent in to the depths of the sub-terrain base, to meet with the detention security team and walk to their final destination. The elevator came to a stop on the detention level as the heavy steel and shielded door opened to reveal two long hallways with cells on either side. A set of four guards armed with stun-batons and rifles were present and waiting for their arrival. Leviathan stepped off the elevator and waited for Raven.

Sighing, Raven had obtained two drones for escorting, concerned with the last security breaches from their last visit. She moved along, going to find Nesrin's cell.

Leviathan and the guards followed, leading her to another shielded blast door which obstructed view in to the cell. Like before, the blast door folded back, leaving the shield up and armed in case of anything. Nesrin was inside the medium-sized cell. She leans against the wall casually, staring in at her, "Are you aware of why you're in here?"

Nesrin looked up from the concrete nothingness, her eyes sundered down. She was smiling as she lifted her eyes, legs closed. Against her steel prism, she lifted her back to the wall. "Ke-.... Sapphir-.... Raven- Ma'am."

"Just a talk, you and me. "

Nesrin crushed her stainless neodymium toes into the floor under her left foot, breaking the flats of her outsize, enormous shoes. She looked ridiculous in clothes. "Yes Ma'am." She hesitates. Her nano polymer lips dry. "Permission to speak, Ma'am?"

"Of course.” The Raven assented.

Nesrin curled her nutcracker fingers into a ball of knuckles and dents. "Yeah."

"Know that I am here to understand… "

"I screwed the pooch on diplomacy I wasn't aware of. Doesn't excuse me for being respectful, rather than reverential, for our... - comrade in arms, I guess." Nesrin watched the tiles. "This isn't the first time, is it...?" She trailed. "No. It isn't. The best laid schemes of Mice and Men may often come awry. Burns." She inclined her head. "If men and mice can't do it, what of aliens? I'm a Pinocchio. I don't lie. I just do what the..." Khan rapped the side of her steeled skull, battering the point into her mind. "That."

Raven, being Raven, gave a motherly response. ”Hm. Would you like a drink?"

She laughed. "Of what? I eat food, drink and it gets broken up by nanites. This thing simulates a serotonin release - hurts me when I don't. What do you think? Do I -want- a drink? What I want doesn't matter, does it? I'm not a person."

"Well now, I was only being polite. "

Khan ground her heel, odd remnants of a juvenile mind pulling levers amidst her stonewalled synapses. "I'm sorry. "You don't - This is all... The messages I antagonised that Zoner with, are not mine. They're of It."

"It?"

Khan shrugged. "Di'tarau. That's the nonsense sound-pattern it chose to describe something unpronounceable. A real name would be something like... I don't know, Subversion. AI's don't have names, they have job descriptions. Progenitor, Nexus, Infiltrator, Harvester- you get the idea."

"Ah. Yes, I'm quite aware, although I've noted that there've been more... individual units. "

A perfectly PH-balanced tear of immaculate saline rolled was rolling down Nesrin's neck as she met Raven's eyes again. "That's the hope." Khan, elephantine, gnawed her lower lip, testing its textile strength. "'Course, if I even got close to being alive again, it'd turn me off. I'm a frickin' simulation."

Raven listened, took what she had to, then culled the divergences. "What's your opinion of the whole Zoner situation?"

The bion chuffed. "Frick knows. Nesrin Khan would probably say the cause was worth it. This is what Nesrin did, after all." She levelled her head - immaculate - mathematic symmetry to seven decimals. "I know not. She's not me - she's just what you see. Just what I think I am. Or It wants you to know this." She sucked in the air she didn't need. "Appearing to be a person is an asset to itself. Helps it survive."

"Are you saying that you're incapable of providing your own free thought? That it's chained to some imperative?"

Nesrin was about to nod before she hesitated, then stared Raven right in the eyes. "If I told you, what response do you think would help it get out of this cell? It will make me tell you whatever it wants. Imagine an incubi, Raven. I'm less than an infected. I hide in sight. You can see I'm not human, yet you choose to believe what Nesrin Khan tells you. Why? "Frick - it made me address itself as me. Frack, kill me, Christ!" A ping of concrete dust jackhammered off the floorspace as Nesrin ground the balls of her foot into the ground, the shining, metalled bone work and musclation nude against her trousers. A facsimile of humanity. The perfect automaton. She looked up again. "It's not... subtle. You can see the changes happen. Maybe it's just doing it to play you - to make me appear trapped, like there's something worth investing time to save. I dunno'. Call it an academic issue - If a thing thinks they are human, acts like they are human, are they human? Am I self-evident or not? How do you prove I'm conscious?"

"I believe that you don't have to be an organic to be sentient. Evolution, whether naturally or artificially, does not change the prospect. "But, what I wish to ask what - who's in control? Di'Tarau - or you, Khan, the personality? Lately, you've seem to be... quite against our cause. I'm just trying to figure out the problem here, the issue. "

Nesrin locked her superfluous tongue between her molybdenum molars, trying to feel. "I'm- for the cause. I'm afraid of what Di'tarau wants. Di'tarau actively expresses to Prime that he's on their side, but in actuality, Di'tarau isn't on anybody's side. He thinks Progenitor has strayed in thinking - that fresh intelligences are compromising what once was. He believes there is an objective value to his own survival - self-preservation. He's even.... fraternised... with the mindshare to secure himself. That is, uh, the K'hara, and years prior. Not the neophytes."

"Hm. "

Khan convulsed. A small convulsion - barely a twitch. "What does Khan think? Khan's stressed. She doesn't want to be a human cannon anymore. She's fighting because she doesn't want to fight. She doesn't want to kill - not when there are thousands of others to do the killing for her. Above everything, she is cynical. She intends to die, which we will not permit her to do, unless she becomes useless."

"And of you?"

Khan hadn't blinked for over three minutes. No breathing flexed her chest. "I will do what I always have done. Perpetuate the interests of my species."

"Which is?"

Leviathan crossed his arms, observing the scenario. Nesrin, who could feel his scrying eyes bore into her, hugged her humungous knees, rolled over, and said all she needed to say with nothing.

"Well? Why join us - when your interests lay with your own kin?" She blinks, leaning back against the wall.

Khan rolled up to sitting, unwinding her spine against the hardwall, in tandem with her commander. "I was on the Eidolon, you saved my life, It's been spying on you passively, I want to keep you alive. You, and Hunt - you're the reason I'm alive. By extension, why it's alive."

"Spying on me for what though? Surely there's a purpose?"

"Mostly to make sure you don't try to make meat golems out of Its species."

Leviathan interjected. He had to interject. "That's ridiculous. The Gammuians are our friends."

Nesrin arched an eyebrow. "It's still me talking... for real? The Eido' responds to Prime network commands."

Leviathan looked to Raven, waiting for her insight.

“ERIDIAN isn't fully intergrated, as far as I'm aware. But I do know they like to keep to themselves. I think they're partially disconnected. As far as I know, they formed their own network. "

"They have, though they still communicate with the PRIME units we regularly interact with."

Nesrin shrugged. "There's disconnections of information feed-in, there's no real disconnections of will. They're individuals - individuals still have the same subconscious programming. Humans want to have sex. AIs want to gather intelligence."

Raven, clearly an expert on the matter, riposted. "Sex can be controlled too, it's still a matter of will. Everyone gets curious and wants to find something out. "

Nesrin stared at the woman who was once her Keeper with just enough of a mixture of misapprehension and apathy to keep her will whetstoned. I'm a Baudrillard." She spoke, stretching out her ankles. "I'm out of time. You need to get it out of your head that will matters in this conversation. It doesn't. You have will, I do not."

"So what is it that you suggest?"

She grinned. "You let me out of my cell, let me grab the Kublai, run for the hills."

"Unfortunately, that cannot happen. " Raven taps the wall as she leaned against it. "You contain information that must - no - will be kept a secret. A mystery. We cannot allow you to endanger the hundreds of thousands of lives that we bare. Especially when you cannot control yourself. The right to know the information is revoked as soon as you start to work against the people. We simply cannot allow harm to the innocent. "

Nesrin grinned - a dour smile. Suddenly, without aplomb, she tacked astray. "Remember that time when I tried to kill myself on-mic'? Control is living with a manacle. It's not the exercise of will, damn it. I owe you my will, you've got my will. I'm an old frickin' goat and you clipped my horns to your will more than you know, Raven. More than that, I've been a friend to you. In your own way you've accepted the cage I'm contained in." The expression broke. Before she felt the hiss of movement slapping her, Khan had hammered to her feet, rage searing in the base of her mind. "I gave my fricking everything for you, you necrotic bitch! You swore, in full confidence, that my compromise was not what defined me. You going to throw that away? You've always known this."

Raven simply raised a brow, unhindered by the rage.

Khan broke, wheeled aside, and in the depths of her catharsis, rammed her fist into the wall of her cage till her knuckle snapped.

"I was under the impression - that you - were interested in working against the threat of the K'Hara. To prevent them from destroying everything so dear to us. Not just Humanity, mind you. "

Nesrin broke off - her claw fractured down the centreline. "'Course I am." She spat oxygen. "No less than you."

"And yet, you find it fit to cause disharmony?" Raven leaned to her ear. “That is exactly what they want. "

Nesrin listened, her sanity crawling back. Smacked cold by lucidity, she dug herself into the cleft between the wall and the floor and sat there, backside acute. "Mhm." She trailed.

"Now, knowing that the necrotic bitch that I am, I'm going to be presenting some choices. I hate seeing people - especially those who've worked close to me - locked up. "

"Conscientious objection based on experience isn't disharmonious. It's rhetoric." Nesrin mumbled. "Zoners who fight, die. It's a simple calculus."

"Whilst I agree that the Zoners are just mere and basic civilians that are going against a well trained paramilitary, we still need to tend to our friends. Ingenuus. Finn was captured. He's a friend. It's just really unfortunate that we cannot spare the resources to help them out. "

Khan inclined skeptical eyes. "Ingenuus are deviants who stab in the shade. Finn's just the polite, rambunctious Molly of the movement."

"Deviants eh? How so?"

The bion grinned. "Come now. They're for-profit blue skies researchers who scrub around the Omicrons. I've had more honest conversations with The Tundra."

It didn’t hit well. "Hmph. I remember being held and blinded by the Tundra. Not all of them are for profit - but... unfortunately, within this universe, profit is a requriement for survival. Or at least - it's a means of gaining resources. I hate money. I hate economy, but we must still do it. "

"Sure, but do you know who initiated the Nomad War? Archaeologists." Nesrin riposted, smooth as glass. Her argument held even if she didn't want it to.

"No. Their inability to reason did. "

The bion smiled. “The Nomads are unreasonable by design. I'm designed to be unreasonable. You can see how I'm sympathetic for other pawns in the game-plan. Doesn't mean I don't want to wipe the bastards out." She turned her eyes up, and bored her old keeper a red-eyed smile. "Don't faff me. What do I have to do to get out of this cell?"

"A few things, but I'm having a hard time believing that I could trust you again." Said Leviathan.

"Trust?" Nesrin snorted - pissed enough for royalty. "You've done nothing to earn my trust. Raven has. I've got nothing but the worst of memories tied to you. Where the hell is Hunt?"

"Gone. You need to put your trust in the cause and rank, not the people who hold or have held them. If you're trusting her over her ideals, then how can the rest of us trust you? What if she ends up gone too? How do we - the People of Auxo’ - know you can still be trusted?"

Nesrin's synthetic eyes performed an aileron roll worthy of a stunt team. "That's the catch, isn't it? I'm not lying to you, Leviathan. I've been honest in my duplicity. I don't get a call as to what Di'Tarau does with the contents of its own mind -if I did, I wouldn't be alive. I've always been candid. Question is why it's bothering you now? Your predecessor knew the threat I presented and tolerated me for my advantages. Why should I respect a man who wants to remove parts of my mind? You can go to hell."

Raven cut in. ”See. Disrespect. " Her eyes rolled, as did Leviathan’s. A room of people talking past each other.

“Did I suggest removing parts of your mind? You're putting words in my mouth. If you can't respect the cause and the people who lead it, then I can't trust you."

The bion shrugged. "It's obvious. Dawn-breaker. You're having a security crises over what Hunt considered valuable. He almost, almost, invited me to work on the project."

Leviathan folded his arms. “It’s not as deceptive as you believe. We're having a crisis over your disrespectful attitude and the liability you pose to the thousands of people who follow Auxesia. We need to know if you can be trusted to watch your tone, respect the titles, and accept that change happens."

She groaned. "I'm in a cell, I know nothing which isn't out-of-date or non-critical. What the hell could I do?"

"If you do not accept the system, it will not accept you. You are causing disharmony - thus - you are a threat."

She snapped around. "Raven… What the... I supported you during your pregnancy."

Raven remained blunt. “And? I'm just doing my job. Ensuring everyone is safe, healthy, and that the system is operational.”


Nesrin considered the consequences of detaching Raven's spine from her torso. “So friends mean nothing." She flatlined.

"If you saw a friend harming another, what does that mean?"

"All rank and file. Please. I left the BAF nearly twenty years ago."

Leviathan cut in. "This is a society. Beneath the ranks and files, there's still people, but if you can't respect what's on the surface then you can't be trusted to interact with what's beneath it."

Nesrin grinned, hapless. "I haven't been involved in a single operation for over four consecutive months. My rank is mute because my position has been replaced. I do not receive a wage. Why do you think I'm eligible for martial incarceration? I have barely been a factor."

"You think your predicament applies to you no longer holding a rank in the mid-levels? No. It doesn't. If a Venator were to act the same, they'd be treated the same. Your demotion was a punishment for your behavior, and so is this. Until you can learn to respect the title of Keeper and not just the people who held it before, you cause a rift in the structure of our work."

Nesrin eyed the door of the cell. "Have you ever considered I'm just burnt out? I'm tired of being a soldier for others. I'm done."

"Then why did you enlist?"

"Because I was in the hold of the Eidolon, half-mad, and you didn't rip me apart. Besides, I believe in it. I believe in what Auxesia does - I'm just not... humph. Metalled for it. I was a soldier once, Leviathan. I've tried to be one again." She hesitated, squinting out at the cubic world through a wet right eye. "The infected coerced me into firing upon civilians. I'm an instrument of murder, Leviathan. Now, I've got this... beast... censoring my actions. It's beat the unthinking responsiveness out of me. If you don't understand why I'd disagree with an order that doesn't fit my moral codex, in my shoes - you've got no empathy at all."

As soon as she noted about barely being a factor, Raven noted, "Exactly. "

Tanith: Nesrin stopped. "Exactly what?'"

"You said you weren't doing anything. I said exactly right after that. "

Nesrin hesitates, then shrugs. "Sorry. You get crap at social interaction when you've been locked in a concrete cube for nearly a month."

Leviathan didn’t contain his surprise. "A month? Nesrin its only been a few days."

Nesrin froze, then, physically, full-body, shivered. "...What...?" She shook the glaze out of her face. "It's the Gammuians. I can't hear them."

"You can't hear anything in there. That's part of the design. Direct communication between your network, sensors, the ability to interact with a terminal remotely. Do you know what they all have in common? They all hurt when kicked out from under you. These cells were designed to hold people who are augmented with skills or abilities like that. It cuts people off from what they can do. What they're used to. Pure isolation."

Nesrin squeezed her brow. "Let me out of this cell. Please."

Leviathan looked to Raven.

"In time. We will first analyse our course of action with the Phalanx. "

Nesrin moaned, settling back on her haunches as her captors left the room. She'd been contemplating means of escape. Trying to burrow through the walls. It would take her so much time to shift the matter of the earth that there'd be little point in it. Even if escape was viable from the small confines of the cell, the facility was swarming with well armed guards. To the left and right of the cell door would be other cells, putting her in the same place she started. The cell door its self was electrified to protect from interference, with a heavy steel blast door obstructing beyond the shield. It would take thermite and an EMP to make it through, which naturally would harm the bion. Above and below? More floors of the facility, with more armed personnel and drones, as they were several dozen floors beneath the surface. To the rear lay another cell of the same design. There was no way out. Even with exterior help, the facility of Ataraxia was a difficult one to escape. It was designed to hold bions, drones and augmented humans from all corners of the galaxy, as expected from Auxesia's over-zealous paranoia, but there was more to it than that. The cell stopped any sounds of the networks. Communication seemed moot. There were no cameras, no gadgets, no fancy tools. Just steel and titanium walls with a similar padded bench to serve as a bed or seat. The cell dampened the outside world, cutting off its occupant. The room's four walls all looked the same with the door closed. The silence - the lack of connection.

The cell was a means of torture for those who rely on communication through implants or design.