A little while after the "Afterwards"
Resistance Prison Psych Ward
Near the Passages
One week later
Jon checked his chrono. He had two hours before the restaurant started serving dinner, and he could check it out before he actually brought Jennifer, find the perfect table to sit at. He'd already spoken to the maitre'd and found out what type of fare was available… who would have thought that so much diversity was still available? Could he call the dinner 'a date' or just a thank-you? And if it was a date, then what ... enough. He wanted to take the woman he cared about out to dinner. Stop analyzing everything, Jon, he told himself. Get dinner, spend time with Jennifer and forget about the war for an hour.
He walked quickly down the corridors, letting his mind focus on the current task at hand. He liked to think he was a good judge of people, but the truth was that he got fooled.
That meant Dread had developed a new type of spy to use against them. They'd have to be on their guard more than ever.
Jon didn't know why he wanted to talk to Larabee. Interrogate and question? Absolutely. Talk? Why did he want to 'talk' to her? She was a diehard Machine believer. She was a Dread soldier, through and through. He wanted to talk to her alone though. He didn't want her anywhere near Jennifer, not given all the bad memories Larabee would bring up for her.
The conversation between Jennifer and Larabee the others told him about prompted his curiosity. For the first time, Jennifer had not tried to tell a Dread soldier about the lies. His Jennifer? Not trying to save a soldier? That was out of character for her, but what she displayed was anger and contempt and it was all utterly justified.
He felt the exact same way.
Yet, for the first time in his career, he had absolutely no interest in being the interrogator. He just wanted to have his say and leave.
He stopped in front of a guard and showed him his identification.
"Captain Power," the guard said his name. "I was expecting you. Rules are simple. Stand against the wall. Don't go near the bars. Don't accept anything she tries to give you. Don't hand her anything. If we could put her behind glass walls, we would but we don't have any. Got it?"
"Got it," Jon answered as the guard motioned for his weapon.
Unarmed, Jon walked through the door and then heard the guard close it behind him.
In the cell sat Christine Larabee. Plastic chair, table and bed. No sheets on the thin mattress. Facilities for basic bodily functions. Nothing more. This was their version of a suicide watch? Jon leaned against the wall opposite the cell and stared at her.
Larabee sat on the thin mattress, glaring at Jon. "Barbaric organics," she muttered. "To treat their superiors like this."
Superiors? Right. The Dread soldiers thought they were superior to everything and everyone save Dread, Overmind and The Machine. Still, it gave him ammunition to use against her. "Dread soldiers are raised without any small comforts. A small billet, a cot, a spare uniform and not much else. You're trained to do without anything other than basic necessities because luxuries are for the weak, and the weak are not of The Machine. You complain about having more room and a more comfortable place to sleep than you had in Volcania? Aren't complaints proof that you're weak, not of The Machine? Wouldn't that make you a poor example of Dread's New Order?"
"Capture by the enemy, an inferior one -"
"You're an overunit doing infiltrations," Jon interrupted. "That's a little out of the ordinary, isn't it? Or was this a test to see if you could handle a promotion to commander?"
Larabee stood up and approached the bars.
"I'm a loyal soldier to the Will of the Machine. I follow the orders of Lord Dread."
Jon waved his hand dismissively. "Yeah, I've heard all that before. You're not the first overunit we've met."
"I'm the first that fooled the infamous Captain Power," she reminded him smugly.
"Infamous?" Jon repeated. "Well-known? That's a good description. Somewhat famous? Maybe. But infamous? That's Dread, not me. I'm one of the good guys."
Christine scoffed and walked the few steps back to her bed. "You are a threat to the glory of the New Order. Lord Dread will stop you."
"He's tried more than once," Jon said. "He fails each and every time. Although I have to admit that he did get more creative this time. I didn't think he had any imagination in him."
Christine laughed. "Lord Dread is all-knowing and all-powerful. His will -"
"In all the years I've had to deal with Dread Youth, I've never understood this almost panicked need you have to repeat the litanies no matter the situation. You more than any of the others in the Wastelands have to know how ridiculous they sound. Dread isn't even human anymore. He's a bolted-together walking disaster that's lost all touch with reality, and you're making him out to be some kind of god and not an insane murderer."
Jon stopped. He realized what he'd just said. A god? Why hadn't Jon seen that before? Yes, there was the religion of the Machine, the belief in the Machine, but why hadn't Jon ever considered Dread's status within the religion? He wasn't just the architect or a believer or a dictator. He'd set himself up as a deity with his own soldiers! Talk about arrogance and ego!
And an exploitable weakness.
"Oh, Lord Dread knows all, Captain," Larabee taunted. "He knows all about you. He knows emotions are a weakness and he uses them. Do you think he was unaware of your attraction to the pilot? Of how strong your feelings for her are? He saw it. I was to be an older version of her, one you could consider more of an equal and not a subordinate officer."
Jon shook his head. "An equal? To her? This is definitely a situation where I can say she's so far out of your league, you two aren't even in the same ballpark. Dread thought someone like you could get my attention because he thought I have an attraction for her?"
"He did," she told him. "He's seen the two of you together. He knows. I'm not... unaware... of the effect I have on male organics. I know you were interested."
"Curious," he argued, "about Freedom One. Christine Larabee doesn't interest me at all. Overunit Larabee? That's another subject altogether, but still one I despise."
"You didn't despise what you saw at the outpost. If we had had more time alone together, I have no doubt you'd have told your team to take their time returning."
"Don't confuse curiosity with interest," he warned. Why was she telling him all this? Was this part of Dread's plans? It was disturbing enough to hear that Dread 'had seen' proof of his feelings for Jennifer - where such proof had been gathered, he had no idea - but to think that Larabee was willingly giving up valuable Intel? Or maybe she didn't know its worth? He kept the conversation going.
"It was more than mere interest, Captain. Lord Dread knows where your weakness is. You are vulnerable."
"Why did Dread think that getting all the major Resistance leaders together in one place would stop the Resistance? He can't be that short-sighted."
"Short-sighted? Getting rid of the enemy is the wise move," Christine countered. "Cut off the head, the rest of the snake dies."
Wait, the head? That was it! Dread honestly thought that he really could kill the leaders to stop the Resistance. He didn't understand that the Resistance would continue to fight even if there were no leaders to lead them. He didn't understand the guerilla unit method of battle.
Again, another exploitable weakness.
"You really think Dread's going to win this war, don't you?"
"I know we'll win. The Machine will not be defeated. How you can believe you will persevere... I was right. You are such an innocent."
Maybe the word 'innocent' meant something different to the Dreadies than to everyone else? He kept talking. "Not quite," Jon answered. "Idealistic? Maybe. Hopeful? Definitely. Innocent? Like I told you before, that term hasn't referred to me in a very long time."
"Naive then," she continued.
Naive? Jon was beginning to wonder more and more about what his reputation was with the Dread Youth.
"I'd say Dread was naive if he thought this plan to destroy the leadership was going to work. He keeps failing to stop us. At some point, his soldiers will have to stop believing the lies and accept the reality that Dread has destroyed their lives, and it's all been for nothing."
"Nothing? We will be immortal minds in metalloid bodies. Immortality will be ours. We will -"
"I heard about what Jennifer said to you," Jon interrupted her. "How minds can't be moved over. She's right. It's not the person. It's brain cells and engrams that they're moving over. Some part of the personality survives, but most is destroyed during the transference process. You've been told that there are biomechs with human minds, but that's not true. Even Blastarr doesn't have actual minds inside its memory core. The brain cells and engrams in a positronic brain give it additional processing capabilities, but that's all. There's no immortality for humans in the Machine Empire. Dread's failed in that."
Christine stood up and walked over to the bars again. She gave Jon the impression of a caged animal moving around in circles to work off her frustration at being locked up. "Lord Dread has never failed. He has stopped you at every turn. You have never defeated him."
So she was standing there, actually proclaiming that Dread had never been defeated? Dread' propaganda machine must have been working full time to hide that news. So how was the Resistance viewed? As annoyances? Still...
"You've been out in the Wastelands long enough to have learned the truth. You know we keep beating Dread. You've even made transmissions about our victories, so you can't deny they happened." Jon knew that questioning her wouldn't work, not even with the interrogators. Maybe he could lead her down the proverbial garden path?
"A few battles won't win a war," she backpedaled.
"You're contradicting yourself," Jon taunted her. "First you say he's never failed, then you say we've won some battles."
"I did not say that," she said angrily. "I said -"
"You said we won. That means Dread lost. That means he failed. And this mission of yours? You failed."
Christine chuckled lowly as she walked back to her cot and sat down again. "No, Captain. I didn't fail. I made you doubt yourself."
Ah. There was another part of her mission Jon hadn't guessed at. Undermine whatever confidence he had. "You think we wouldn't have found out that you were an overunit at some point?" He paused a moment, then said, "You see, I did notice certain aspects of you and your behavior that reminded me of Jennifer long ago. I saw the discipline in your movements. That's ingrained in anyone who was a Dread soldier. You weren't as infallible as you think you were. It might have taken a little time, but we would have known soon enough. Dread soldiers cannot behave like ordinary people for long lengths of time."
"Diverting the conversation, Captain? I know what you're doing. You want to know how much Lord Dread knows about your technology. That's not a secret. He's well aware of the fact that you have some sort of teleportation capability," Larabee warned. "He may not know what it is or where it is, but your actions confirmed that they exist. There's no way you could have transported the Resistance leaders from all over the country back to the rendezvous site that quickly without it. It's only a matter of time before Lord Dread finds out where they are, and he will, Captain. Then he's going to make you pay for defying him."
So she didn't know that the Resistance leaders were all on the East Coast, but Dread's suspicions were worse. He knew they had to have teleportation devices. He just didn't know they were gates.
"He's made me pay for things that hadn't even happened yet. The way I figure it, he owes me. A lot." He paused for a moment, then said, "We can help you, Christine."
Christine sneered. "More diversions? Why not ask me the question you want to ask, Captain?"
"What question?"
"How much does Lord Dread know about you and your pilot? That's what you truly want to know. Do you think he would have orchestrated such an elaborate ruse if he didn't have detailed knowledge of your relationship?"
Was she speaking the truth or just baiting him? Trying to get a reaction from him?
"Dread knows exactly how I feel about my team. That's never been any secret," he countered. Dread had used an illusion of their deaths to try to break Jon when their minds were in the net at Tech City. But if Dread had learned how special Jennifer was to him, if he knew... Jon needed answers. Could he trip Christine up? Get her to admit something and not be aware that she did it?
"How many people who have been captured by Lord Dread know the two of you? How many of those have seen the two of you together? How many interrogated? How many digitized? How many recordings made of the two of you during battles?"
Had they behaved in a revealing way at any time? Had they given any indication of their relationship in a way they weren't aware of? If Dread truly knew...
"Yet he sent you to investigate while setting up a trap?" Jon countered. "That doesn't sound right if he already knew." He lowered his voice. "Which means he doesn't know anything. He sent you on what we call a fishing expedition."
Maybe she didn't understand the term, but Jon clearly saw the look in her eyes change. She understood the intent of his comment. Had he just made a dent in Christine's brain-washed belief system? Was that the small change in perception that Jennifer saw when she got through to a Dread Youth soldier?
He heard a knock at the door and saw the guard motioning him out. Behind him were several members of their psych team.
He stood up straight and walked out the door. After all, he had a dinner to get to and if there was one gentlemanly rule his dad taught him, it was to never leave a lady waiting.
~0~0~0~0~0~
Christine stared at Jon's back as he walked out. His remarks, his comments - was it possible that Lord Dread didn't know? How could it be possible?
Then there was Power himself. Had she rattled him? Had she made him doubt himself? After everything he'd said, she didn't think so.
She truly didn't understand Power. Why hadn't he responded to her the way he should have? She'd lived out in the Wastelands long enough to learn that organics cater to their desires. They yearned for 'luxuries' and the non-basics. She had made her intentions clear, hadn't she? She found she was the object of desire by countless men, men she had never met before, so why hadn't Power responded in the way he should have? In the way she expected?
There shouldn't have been any resistance to her charms. She was everything he could want, right? What more could he need?
Or was Dread wrong about that too?
Too? The word 'too' just crept into her thoughts! That meant she was thinking that Dread had been wrong before... She had to purge those thoughts. If The Machine thought she doubted in any way...
She began to recite the litanies, every single one she knew. She had to reaffirm her belief in The Machine, in Lord Dread. She was an overunit, soon to be a commander once she escaped and returned to Volcania with the intel she had collected. She was a faithful soldier, loyal to The Machine.
But if Dread didn't know -
For the first time in her life, the litanies gave her no comfort.
~0~0~0~0~0~
Passages Corridor
Jennifer paced through the landing bay slowly as she waited for Jon to return. She truly did not want to see or talk to Christine Larabee again. When she looked at Larabee, she could only see what she would have become if circumstances had been different. She had been the youngest youth leader, then she was the youngest overunit. Would she have become the youngest commander as well once she was transferred into a metalloid body? Would she have gone higher in rank?
Looking at Larabee was like looking in a time-traveling mirror. It had scared her, and it was a fear that shook her to the core. She didn't know if she could look past it to confront Christine again. It was better that Jon talked with her alone.
But if she could see herself in Christine, could Jon see the same thing in her?
She pushed the thought out of her mind and started walking toward the restaurant. Almost immediately, her communicator dinged for her attention. It was a message from Scout.
"This is Pilot."
"Jennifer," Scout's voice came over very clear and excited. "I'm sending you a file as soon as I get it decrypted. It'll take a while for you to run through the sims, but you won't believe what I found!"
