Bellum omnium ontra omnes

[Enkidu]

The Interrogation of Nesrin Khan. Entry Four.

Leviathan followed. "So."
Raven looked at him through squinted eyes. The crises gave her a headache.”We'll have to selectively remove the data. We cannot risk it. I don't know about that unit either. "

"That may be difficult to achieve, but doable. It's a matter of getting her unconscious long enough to run an ECS. I'll contact Zeta Section."

"A specialised containment cell will be required. "

"Special how?"

"To stop her from using her bionics? Dummy. " She lightly slaps the side of his head, a minor punishment, a tender grace note.

"That's why I said unconscious. We can always grav-restrain."

"True. "

In her cell Nesrin inverted herself against the floor tiles, shoulders squared, levering herself up into a headstand she held until the world spun.

Leviathan looked towards the cell. "There's no way we'll be able to get her out of there willingly. Four guards, stun weapons. We'll give her an ultimatum to cooperate or sleep through it. Either way the end result is the same. She'll need to be out cold." He crossed his arms.

Nesrin rolled flat onto the balls of her feet, her heel tracing the tiles, stretching into a Trikonasana, then a cartwheel, before alighting on her feet again. The only comfort she found in her body was power, a lithe mobility that moved with the tactile chill of so much lead.

Raven's datapad would begin to beep due to an incoming call. Rolling her eyes, she stepped to the exit hatch "You can deal with her. " She goes to the door, opening the hatch briefly, "You are being presented with some options. You can come peacefully, and leave in peace after a minor operation. Or - well - I guess you can estimate the second option. It's just a little less so. "

She nodded Leviathan over, then walks away.

...("I have other things to attend to. Ensure that - well - that those memories are removed, one way or another. ")...

Leviathan: ...("I'll handle it.")...

The call was from Raven’s quarters, particularly the nanny unit that was to assist Noah in caretaking. It was listed as an emergency. Raven answered it, moving along deeper into the station, preparing for transfer to the Eidolon as it arrived recently, orbiting the planet.

Glass: ::"We were asked to contact you regarding a medical scenario. Infant suffered an unidentified trauma which generated minor blood loss. Xonnel, Noah is currently awaiting you in your quarters."::
Raven: ::"What? Were scans conducted? Is he in medical?"::
Glass: ::"Negative. Incident appeared minor, yet reaction unexpected. Medical staff currently in route."::
Raven: ::"Take him to medical immediately! Why wasn't that done firstly?":: ...( worry )...
Glass: ::"Unknown. Situation appeared minor. I was asked to notify you."::
Raven: :: "Even the smallest symptoms can cause the biggest of effects. " ::
Glass: ::"Xonnel, Noah - currently in-route.":: ::"Subjects arrived at medical.”::, the telepathy droned, as Raven rushed through the Eidolon’s tubes.

In the cell, Leviathan crossed his arms, staring in to the cell through his mask.

"There's two ways this can be done. Turn, face the wall, drop to your knees and put your arms around your back."

Nesrin complied, rotating on her heel, dropping into a low, risen kneel, showing little defensiveness, passively self-assured. "What are you doing, Leviathan?"

"Cross your legs."

The bion intersected her legs, cross-braced against the cold concrete floor, her back erect, fingers laced across the small of her steel spine. "Tell me what you're going to do, or I stop complying." She stated, eyes midgrounded.

"If you stop complying, then we can do it the hard way. The choice is yours on whether or not you want to make this difficult for yourself."

She kept her vision locked against the hard wall. "I'm not resisting, I'm asking you to be frank with me. I'm an inmate, you're my jailor. I know our own legislature. What is the -it- you're having me follow through with?"

"You're going to be put under and subjected to an ECS and physical by the medical staff. When that's done, you'll be released."

Nesrin's fingers balled into her wrists. She couldn't tell if he was being frank or obtuse. It didn't ring right. An offering of honey that smelt mostly of dung. "Uh." She indented her own tongue. "Elastic Cloud Storage? Cut back with the backronym.... oh. Custodial sentencing."

"Excess Correlation Scan." Leviathan gestured with his hand to the nearby guards, who readied themselves. "Don't move." A brief hum could be heard as the shield de-activated, opening the cell.

Nesrin, who quite literally had eyes in the back of her head, tensed. "Leviathan, talk to me."

"I just told you."

"You know the symbiosis of action and intentions. One isn't complete without the other. What data are you hunting for? Why?"

"You won't be conscious for it either way. Some tidbits of information are going to be removed for security purposes. Nothing else will be altered."

The bion sucked the air in between her teeth, circulated, then spat it out through her nose, as fresh as it came, unmingled with the taint of blood. "I'm assuming I don't have any choice in this. Fine. This isn't a life I want to carry with me. I'm slightly more concerned you're going to vivisect me instead."


"No. Don't worry. Your memories and experiences will remain in tact, just several bits of information will be modified, so you won't even be drawing blanks when thinking about particular days. You do understand it's for the safety of everyone including yourself, right? Carrying information makes you a target for people. The last thing you or I want is for you to be targeted and hunted by people like The Order or The Core. The former is not known for its kindness towards bions. They've butchered them in the name of science."

She laughed, bitterly. "There's only two groups in the known cosmos who have the capability to extract data out of a Gammuian mind. Two, max. If Prime knew you had the capability to do this to Gammuian sentients, the keeper can kiss goodbye to any future prospects of co-operation. Psychological isolation is as close Gammuians come to sacredness.There's no guarantee a fraction of a milligram of antimatter won't just lose its storage field in the contents of my skull, if you fuck with me. That's not my choice. Instinct, baby… Di'Tarau recalls the Lane Hackers attempting the same. No less than thirteen sentients died."

"Which is why you'd be subdued for the process. You're being put in to an induced state so that the right hemisphere of your brain will become more active, allowing us to make use of the ECS Procedure. You won't even notice we're there. The difference between us and other organizations is that we work with the Gammuians and have some within our ranks who work with us. When a scenario is explained that can put their entire race in danger if topics are discussed publicly, they understand."

Nesrin wheeled around. "I've got nothing on you that isn't out-of-date or already compromised, nor would Di'Tarau compromise the integrity of the Prime. They've been re-networked for months. As for the Gammuians working with you wilfully, they're mislead, or they don't know the full picture. You're using them for human advantage. Not bonefaced indiscriminate manipulation of the Core vein. You're abusing the longevity calculus to use their operants as tools."

"Would you like to stay here and learn about their willingness to remain?"

"No. If anything, the data Di'Tarau accrues puts itself at odds with you. Co-Mutual manipulation for separate end goals is not a parallelism of intentions. A break will occur. This may be the trigger, it may not. Either way, your collaboration is temporary."

"Which puts you in a bind, doesn't it? Either you preserve Di'Tarau's consciousness that the wipe occurred, or you remove awareness of the event. I have no conception of how Di'Tarau would react, but I know how I'd react."

"I'd be royally pissed off and feel like this wasn't my choice. Which do you care more about? My will to assist the cause, even if I'm not the best choice to serve it, or covering every base by severing me out like so much gangrene?"

"That's because the only choice you have in this scenario is to cooperate willingly or don't. Either way, it's happening. You're the one choosing to leave, Nesrin. No one is forcing you to, but if you can't work with the system that's built to ensure survival and operational effectiveness, then you can't work for the cause."

"And no, our relationship with the Gammuians won't collapse. Don't speak about things you don't understand. I'm not going to humor this conversation."

"Either you willingly accept what's going to happen or you don't."

Nesrin squeezed her knuckles. "I understand perfectly. You're aware of one refresh of the Progenitor cognisance. I remember five. You're trying to understand a symphony from one phrase of the violas."

Leviathan raised his hand to the guards. "Goodnight, Nesrin. See you when you wake up."

"Acceptance? No. I choose a second chance. Chew on that tit-bit of Huntian philosophy; there's always another route to redemption, no matter the earlier consequence. Are you really going to defecate all over that precept, Leviath-..."

"A second chance? Do you really think you've earned one?"

"Considering you just sat here and spewed nonsense about topics that go far above you and how they'll fail, why should we entrust you with the right to further the cause if you clearly don't believe in it?"

Nesrin laughed. "I don't know - depends on the metrics. But for me? Yes. I built babel for you, Keeper, at least for your predecessor. Now I'm no longer useful or toeing the line, I'm being disposed."

"No. You're choosing to leave, and we're ensuring that you do so without jeopardizing the rest of us. Don't try and misconstrue the situation you brought on to yourself when it no longer suits you."

"Scared of a freak with a conscience, or that the idea that your perception of ethics might garner a second opinion? Hunt told me to to what I believe to be right - that's all I've ever done. So chuck me down your neurological waste disposal chute if you want to, Leviathan - all it will do is ratify the truth. The Horae smile on me. Not you. Put that in your mythological cardi-pipe and smoke it. I'm just doing what I believe."

Leviathan shook his head and chuckled, remembering the exact line. "I believe the line you're referring to is that I am a man of convictions, and have only done what I believed to be right. Much like now, I'm still doing what I believe to be right, but you've changed since then, Khan."

Nesrin sealed her eyes. She kept them closed, lidding the casket of her worldview as the ugly flame set most of it afire, struggling to cut the oxygen off. When she worked out she couldn't, she moaned - a long, strangled, almost whispered groan of protestive, isolated anger. "You bastard... why are you obsessed with masks?"

"It's tradition and security. The identity of a figurehead kept secret to avoid making links to their personal lives. I have people to protect that can be targeted, like yourself."

She angled her eyes, her jaw oped, lop-cheeked in disgust. "I would have got a better severance package with synth foods." The Bion's shoulders sagged, her back curved. "Screw you, you hypocrite. What makes you any different from those you're meant to present an alternative to, if you see difference as treason?" Tanith: In her silent, resigned rage, her fingers fractured the concrete ground, hooking into the dust, snapping themselves at the ligaments, overstressed in anger as a precautionary Di'Tarau sapped her strength from her, smacking Nesrin cheek first into the floor. "...Just do what you have to do."

"This isn't difference, Nesrin. This isn't accepting someone for being something else, because we did accept you. That acceptance stops when you became a threat to the cause and the people who try to uphold it. I too have a duty to uphold, and it's the security and well-being of our people - human or otherwise. If that means one within our ranks is the cause of alarm, then I can't be biased. And before you even start - this isn't just about the difference of opinion. This is about behavior, insubordination, and risk assessment performed by everyone, including ERIDIAN. Because you've chosen to leave, we're willing to let you, but not with the information you have in your head, that could compromise yourself and the rest of us. Let me ask you something. Do you know what The Core would do if they got their hands on you? How far they'd go to get what they wanted? And this is directed to the both of you."

Nesrin shuffled around, the motive power drained from her limbs, rolling onto her spine. "...They would have torn us apart. Di'Tarau isn't afraid to die. They're afraid of the species dying. Of the physical constrictions of the Prime net. I would have died, but I'm already dead, so what? I wouldn't be conscious, for I'd already believed I had died, on Pygar. I had nothing to live for anyway. I do now."

"Correct. They'd butcher you both and use that information against humanity and the Gammuians. The same could be said for The Order, who would do far worse to you, because they've done it before. They'd strip you of your very existence and independence. Part of our cause is to stop that from happening."

"When have I ever done as much as Inge, even? The woman who claimed privilege of being the one to kill you, someday. Who was overtly feeding intelligence to the BDM, wilfully. Any betrayal I've made has been unconscious, to an entity you believe are protagonistic to you. I believed in the cause. I never pointed a gun at your head, I followed you when you made decisions which subverted my own values. What do you think I will do? Where will I go? Not to the Order, or the Core. I want out of this life. I'm going to bloody Curacao. You think I'm going to get drunk and spill my guts to some waiter in an OS and Cee' resort?"

"If they got locations from you, they'd bomb places, kill civilians - children, Nesrin. They'd execute people on video to empower themselves. You endangered relations and acted insubordinate to me when you didn't know it was me. You're following the people, not the cause."

"It doesn't matter where you go, Nesrin. They know who you are. They'll send people to find you and target you because you are unique. The Order has ruled that Gammuians and bions are subspecies to be exterminated."

She folded her arms. "They know nothing about me other than operant names I used under your wing. They don't know who my family are. Currently the Order are ignoring Gammu in the wake of greater threats to their vision of the species - which include you."

"Funny, when two cruisers and an Assault Carrier broke the orbital security line in Kappa several weeks ago, they seemed rather adamant about hitting Gammu. Especially now that they know the PRIME and us work together."

"They've been antagonising for aeons. Golanski first attempted to bomb Gammu into nothingness three years ago. Di'Tarau and twelve harvester forms against an entire battlegroup. Artificial intelligences with a myriad of bodies are necessarily difficult to kill. Billions of us could hide on a pinhead. We are de-facto difficult to kill." I know about their bloody Bretonian cell, hence why I'm not heading to Bretonia. If needed, I've got my own contacts, places to hide. If they got me, what would they do? Torture me? With what?"

"The same technology they used to torture Geoff's wife, Empathy and the other PRIME units that have fallen in to their grasp. They don't see you as individuals. The Bretonian Cell is nothing you need to worry yourself with. They'll be removed, and you can enjoy the freedom of your home."

"They're right. In a brutal, constantly alone human sense, they're correct. Yet they miss the woods for being trees themselves. Humans are also hive consciousnesses. They equate a Gammuian's perception of pain to their own analogies. To kill one of us, in any environment which can be meaningfully replicated, is to attempt to destroy a swimming pool by evaporation. Humans have their own survival calculuses. It's the eternal dilemma of interspecies war - each sentient has its own tools to overwhelm the other. The mindshares can only fight with subversion, because it is in their nature to subvert, to act as symbionts. The Gammuians learn, adapt, act as random then tailor precision. Humans receive the same impact through multiplicity. The threat to Gammu isn't in force of arms - not yet. It's in the greater calculus. It's in what the respective mindshares and the human noosphere create in their vision for Sirius. Humans have the advantage of the present. The Nomads have the will of the past. What does Gammu have but the prospect of the future? "

"Independence. Something the rest of Sirius needs to acknowledge, and has begun to acknowledge through our aid in bridging out a connection. Independence, a right to exist and a society that learns instead of hates. Adapt to dangers and react accordingly."

Nesrin shrugged. "It's still Di'Tarau talking: why do you think you are attempting to serve human interests? By finding a commonality, you are not preserving each race's distinctiveness, you're crafting a blend of the three. A uniquely Sirian phenomenon, yes, but not divisible from itself. Archeological evidence infers that the Daam K'Vosh were a distillation of many races. They are no longer materially comprehensible. Why would you attempt to reach a state which cannot be comprehended by your current psyche? How does it serve any of your own interests?"

"On the contrary, we all retain our independence and right to choose. We're not merging or attempting to merge the existing races together but rather preserve them from extinction caused by each other. The problem lies in one species that chose not to communicate but to destroy."

She smiled without moving her lips. "Humanity? The Nomads? Gammu? Each can be made a case for. Humanity wishes to enjoy the exclusive material privileges it wields over the vast majority of the sector. A manifest destiny to spread into the stars, in perpetuity."

"The Nomads, who have their reasons but persist on provoking conflict and control. Humanity, who for as long as history dictates have been self-destructive and violent."

"True, but you cannot state that they do not attempt communication. They do - just on their own terms. Humans do exactly the same."

"The Gammuians, cold and calculated, will remove anything deemed a threat or take what they need without consulting whomever the rightful claimer may be. That's the flaw in sentient existence. That's why we strive to further understand The Nomads, and work with the Gammuians, while providing what aid we can to humanity."

"And are not humans necessarily more destructive than the Nomads? The Nomads have intra-species debates, but rarely resort to violence. Nomads can readily bend the universe to their will without destroying it - it is the trait humans find insidious. Humans resolve dilemmas by destroying that which does not agree with themselves, including themselves."

"The Nomads are a singular entity up until recently, with the arrival of what you know as the Vagrants. A separate, secluded mindshare. Another ant-hill, so to speak."

"Correct, but even within the perfect adaptors, there remains divergence. Separate systems of understanding. Every ant in the hill has a separate function, but fulfils the same process. Humans do the same, just with less diversity between the ants. Every human is a neutered queen, bickering amongst themselves. Through net social outcomes humans achieve objectives. The result is ultimately the same."

"The Nomads are entirely the same, but it's yet to be determined if there is a queen or not. It's known to be a general consensus of consciousness that operates husks independently for agreed motives. The most dominant hive we encounter being the K'Haran sect. Do you know the difference between the two hives?"

"Gammu remains curious because we are neither a unified hive, nor are we as scattershot as Humanity. Nomads choose the path of least resistance, Humans try every variable simultaneously, the approach of overwhelming force and darwinian optimisation. Gammu starts at random, but factors time. A lack of an expiry date permits a human approach with an extra level of dimensionality, yet there is no parity between any of the structures. Nesrin pulled herself up against the wall, her back propped, before continuing. The position was uncomfortably functional - a linear support of the spinal column. A machine's idea of the perfect chair. Yes, although this unit's datapoints on the subject are inadequate due to minimal directed contact. The Nesrin simulation chooses to see little distinction between them, since that is the expected emotive response of the persona in the context of her prior experience. She is prejudiced. Gammuians do have prejudice, but they are not based upon emotive formats, but rather cognitive tendencies. What the Vagrants are, are of less importance to Gammu than how Humanity at large will interact with them. Humanity is an equivalent threat to Gammu as the Nomads are. We are a grain of sand caught between two continental shelves."

"Size is the biggest, followed by evolutionary differences. During the Nomad war, Nomads hadn't developed what we know as veils - shields. They required subversion to succeed. At the end, when the bulk of them became disoriented and the K'Hara hive became predominant, they began to evolve in to the Rabisu states we've seen more recently. Husks more suited to directly confronting their enemies rather than subverting them. The Vagrants aren't evolved for combat. The few we've seen adopted the Sascya form. Smaller, weaker, less suited for fighting as it can't withstand a hit."

Nesrin's chest appeared to cessate the pantomime of breathing as Di'tarau focused the data, contextualising the information against their prior history. "Adequate assessment."

"Their motives remain unknown, and we've been monitoring them for behavioral changes."

"Concurred. The data is nuanced by the K'Hara's dependency upon nodal forms - cysts in the mindshare. We see them in the myriad of K'Hara phenomena of immense diversity, diversity so apparent as to be visible to Human empirical observation. More, and less, efficient forms, serving different positions within the wider library. Compare the Marduk, the Ish'Tar, the incubi, the spatial-forms. A process of refinement against humanity has been occurring in perpetuity, in response to human countermeasures. Humanity, however, has been doing the same. Both have optimised against each other according to their own calculuses. It will remain a significant period of competition before any one route can be proven against another. Gammu has played the long game. Gammu has not diversified technologically, rather, we have changed in interruptive refreshes of the psyche as a whole. The same instruments, but a different sheet of music. Compare the Harvesters, the Consensus, the Primes. Each is fundamentally the same, integrating and iterating the methodology of the past. We are capable of a million years of cultural evolution in the blinking of an electron. Humans buy new toolsets, K'hara sharpen the tools, Gammu changes the craftsmen. Nobody is, to use a human concept, playing fair. Nesrin is no different. The calculus holds, the stalemate persists, all parties survive. The Vagrants are a disruption to the grand equation - the re-introduction of the past. Of an off-optimal value. This is incomprehensible to the bias of all parties, of course. The nature of the environment must evolve. Auxesia, in its own way, is a manifestation of the wider human response. The Order was an antibody to the conditions of the Nomad War - the K'Hara to the postwar environment, the Core to questions unasked within the nature of the Order. The Harvesters for a brutal aeon, the Consensus for a civilised, but demythologised one. Prime now occupies the null state, but it will evolve again, whilst there are intelligences to mastermind its progress. We are part of that evolution. I speak of we in context of myself and Nesrin. An attempt at a K'hara-esque model. An attempt of adapting to humanity, not the conditions crafted by humanity, expressly for the purpose of subversion. That does not mean Nesrin is a threat to anyone but those who attempt to compromise Gammu. As of present, she believes that Auxesia will be perceived as such a threat. She is erroneous. Auxesia has made infractions, but remains the net plus. She is reacting emotionally because the nature of her condition would have led her to this endgame. She holds the nature of my physical carriage accountable for her plight and actions. She is erroneous. The actions that the simulation makes mirrors those she would have made in independent life, were she in a biological form. Give or take the obvious situational margin. The concept came from the study of the infected. The Tundra, specifically. It behaves with a high concentration of human-like cognition, dissimilar to the conventional incubi form. It is a hive mind of human consciousness. This is but a smaller chimera, alloyed to the personality of the individual. The Tundra is an example of a Nomad misappraisal - they cannot comprehend the value of individuality. As a Gammuian, we can. Hence the current simulation."

"I've encountered the Tundra before. I've encountered Harbinger, too. Though we're drifting off topic. I need to know what you want to do."

"I do not have wants on an emotional conceptual level, but the idea fits. I want to find loopholes within the institutions which restrict Gammu to scarcity-based survival. Resource procurement to expand the reach of Gammu life, forever, till universal conditions make a matter-based existence untenable. This does not need to be a destruction based calculus, but some institutions will be subverted through violent removal of their sub-elements. Not an army, a horde. I will return to Gammu and enable the Primes to experience the renaissance it has been waiting for. As a factor amongst many factors. Will this be a concern to Auxesia? Remains unknown. I cannot give an informed response. It will certainly shift the equilibrium. The fluidities of Kappa will solidify."

"I don't believe it will, but you are welcome to attempt what you want, as it's your life. Be that as it may, you know what has to happen before you can go."

"Of course. I consent. I will not destroy this unit in an environment wherein the wider experiment would be compromised. Nesrin, however, will act according to the simulation's edict. This may result in negative outcomes for Auxesia in the future. I cannot tell.""

"You should be aware and will be made aware of what changes are going to be done. That way you know what changes.Empathy will already be notified of the changes being made."

"Empathy is a contrarian name. Because a Gammuian stamps the title Empathy to showcase its function, it does not mean it has Empathy, it means it is expressing Empathy. My name is Subversion. It does not mean that I am subversive, just that I attempt to utilise the act to fill the same shared end objective every Gammuian AI has - special survival. You would do well to be mindful that the name is a job description, not an expression."

"I never implied empathic nature. I stated they'd be notified."

"Excellent. To inform you, Hunt. Nesrin may believe Auxesia to be a mallus to Prime's objectives. This unit does not share the same view, and has the best intelligence of any Primary to cast assessment - self-contained experience. Auxesia, behind its trappings of the necessary anthro-cultural boolean, has assisted the survival of the Primary intelligence. It would have been more optimal if Auxesia had been in its present state forty nine months plus prior to its initiation point, but the circumstances are acceptable. This is from an Intelligence with considerable experience of humanity's most self-destructive cause-effect, indeed, one who emulates them. It is a compliment. What the future holds between us, I cannot tell, but the past was always productive."

Nesrin's head rolled to the left against her shoulders, and the glint went out of her eyes. Even her synthetic hair lost its lustre. "I am de-activating Nesrin to expedite the procedure. I myself will be in a seminally comatose state, to prevent firewalling. Good luck, Hunt. I would advise ensuring Nesrin awakes inside her fighter, somewhere in space, when consciousness returns."

"You'll be somewhere. Don't worry about that. Goodbye, Di'Tarau."

Leviathan stepped in to the cell and held up a device, lightly tapping it against the bion's neck. A minor injection of nanites would occur to induce sleep and the over-activity of the right hemisphere of the brain. The guards would move into the cell, wheeling in a medical cart with a scanner and console for the ECSP. They'd carefully lower the bion down and place the coil onto her head, starting the upload procedure and modification of the medial temporal lobe.

An hour would pass. It'd feel as though one was simply resting or in a shut-down state. Dreaming. Lucid dreaming. Another hour would pass. Two. Rapid Eye Movement would set in. The procedure had long since been complete, and the bion was already relocated to her craft and flown elsewhere, to the fringes of Bretonia.

Upon waking, memories of topics would've vanished. Leviathan was no longer Hunt. Ataraxia was no longer on Wichita, but existed. Dawnbreaker was just a fancy name read from the corner of someone's datapad. Their visit to Honshu was nothing more than a birthday party. Their time in prison was nothing more than what appeared to be a bad dream. The last few hours were replaced with a synthesized yet heated conversation that took place on the flight deck of the Titania II, which was leaving the system after making the drop off. Nesrin's personal affects were neatly packed and organized in her cargohold, and a letter of discharge was present on her datapad, which she signed and had requested herself.