Chapter 8 - Answers

Alteran date: year 6, month 5, day 2, time 05:30

'one down, two to go,' She thought heading over to Ianas' cell, "Ianas, sorry for the wait I need to know why your command codes accessed certain important systems in the past month."

"I have no idea why, I shouldn't even have permission to access anything outside of my section of the research database. Do you have the times those access events occurred?"

Lal nodded affirmation before handing over a tablet that had been carefully modified to remove any possibility of being used to access the cities systems remotely.

He scrolled through the list looking at the latest dates first then the earliest. "Curious the latest and most frequent occurrences happened after my privileges were revoked, making it impossible for me to have been able to get to those parts of the systems. The earliest ones happened right after," he trailed off, looking up. "Do you know the real reason my research was suspended Lal?"

"No, but I get the feeling you're planning to tell me regardless."

"And you would be right; it was the attempt to clone Arwen that partially succeeded. Three years after entering the void I had used a few memory samples from High Councilor Tyrien and a tissue sample from researcher phoebe who I believed to be a close match to some of Arwen's readings before he left. I had successfully reprogrammed the cells with Arwen's DNA and the process was going smoothly right until he left the chamber. At which point he became agitated and started to damage himself and the equipment. After that Tyrien banned the project. Though I believed some contaminant in the sample or a fault in the memory selection process had caused the incident, which could have been resolved with more study, Tyrien refused to consider it. Something he'd seen or heard the clone scream in those minutes before made him very upset that he made the computer erase the memory scan and had the tissue samples from Phoebe destroyed."

"That still doesn't explain much about your access codes being used."

"I think Tyrien may have decided to try and use my codes to frame me. Though uncharacteristic of him I had noticed he has been acting rather more obstructionist than usual."

"You may be right, would you submit willingly to this, she opened her other hand revealing the deconditioning device prototype which had led up to the ark of truth."

"Is that Amelius' work?"

"Yes"

"Carry on, I trust him to create something like that."

For the second time that day Lal triggered the device. It made her mind feel odd and open. She hoped long term exposure to the intense field the device was emitting wouldn't harm her. When the field finally dissipated and the device returned to its inactive state. She blinked a few times before her vision cleared and she could see Amelius staring at it.

"Interesting," he said slowly. "I seem to have recovered a few memories."

She looked at him impatiently, "and?"

"You'll note that I didn't use the Pheobe's samples in Arwen's new clone, nor Tyrien's memories from the event. For some reason I have a discovered that a memory was locked away in my skull of Phoebe trying to condition me into creating a clone of her."

Lal was surprised. "Arwen." She'd had a crush on him when she was younger. "Ianas, thank you for your cooperation, I may have a few more questions for you in a while, but right now I have one more person to see to."

Lal looked at phoebe eyes narrowed. The deprogramming device hadn't changed her expression of contempt. Despite her earlier cooperation, when the high councilor had been deprogrammed her behavior had changed to that of a caged and very dangerous animal. She had attempted to use the prototype Amelius had made to deprogram her but apparently there was nothing to deprogram.

"You look surprised." She spat out.

"We were under the impression you were a true Alteran who had been compromised, now I see that may have been to early a judgment."

"The path is there for any to follow, whether that path is more or less true than any other matters not to me, I have chosen this one."

"I see. Phoebe Filiacet you are accused of sabotage of this city, interference with a member of the high council and tampering with the memories of a fellow citizen. You are hereby restricted to this cell until a hearing of the council can be scheduled to determine your fate." Lal looked away sadly allowing the cell door to seal shut behind her.

Tyrien sat in his cell contemplating his decisions since for the last eight years. He knew now why he'd delayed and obstructed many of the projects that had been working on the construction of the city. He'd almost succeeded in preventing its launch. Thankfully Fenri, Tria, and a few others had been circumventing him even without all the resources they needed to finish the city completely they had managed to fast track the engines, reactors, and hull enough that when it came time for them to leave the ship had been able to do so successfully.

He regretted not being himself then, If he had perhaps they would have been better prepared. But since they hadn't been, and the ship barely space worthy with incomplete life support systems and a half-finished computer network, they'd been forced to stop at the smaller satellite galaxy instead of going around it. If they had gone around it they would have been permanently behind the other two ships, and they would have never made their first contact with the Omeyecan.

At least from what had been intended to hinder they had instead used to make new friends. There was more that would weigh heavily on his conscience the city had been designed to carry many more than it was supporting, which in a way was another blessing, considering the state the life support systems had been in when they left. But again had he been himself perhaps they he would have authorized larger rescue missions to retrieve civilians caught behind enemy lines.

It was all distressing the only thing keeping him from breaking down completely was the meditation exercises he'd been taught when he was younger. They allowed him to distance himself from his memories, to take them and lock them away until he could deal with them one at a time, instead of being overpowered by them.

He had barely started to reevaluate his life and actions when an explosion ripped through the brig flinging Lal and the soldiers standing guard away from the cell at the end of the hall. Alarms sounded a second later.

Flashback - 2 years before leaving Celestas

"Enter," Tyrien commanded the young woman who had just returned from off world where he had been on a mission to gather intelligence about the enemy.

"High councilor" the young woman nodded before sitting.

"How did your mission go?" Tyrien asked as he sat down.

"I gathered the required information, unfortunately though my partner was discovered and killed." The young woman's eyes hardened.

"I'm sorry Phoebe, Tethys was a good man." The high councilor looked down for just a moment after saying this, so he didn't notice that Phoebe had stood up and quickly moved towards him placing her hands on his temples.

After a few moments of struggle from the surprised councilor his eyes rolled up into his head and he sagged into his seat. Phoebe moved her seat closer so she could take her time, her mission had been simple gather intelligence for the Ori leadership and if possible she was to condition someone in authority or otherwise sway them using the skills she had honed over the past four years in the convent.

She spent the next twenty minutes locked with her forehead touching his and her fingers on his temples. This would be very difficult and would likely burn out her abilities, he had a strong mind.

Phoebe smiled to herself as she watched Lal turn she wondered if enough of the compound remained in her veins after all this time. She had no intention of remaining to be tried before the Alterans' pitiful council. She carefully withdrew the amulet from around her neck pressed a catch on the back of it and then jammed the needle that appeared from the bottom edge of the golden amulet into her chest.

Her last thoughts defiance of the Alteran beliefs she'd forced herself to live with for the past 8 years.

Lal groaned trying to move, "What happened?" she managed to croak.

"The wicked witch of the west," Tav responded reaching for her hand between the bandages. "Luckily for you the suppression systems kicked in the moment the system detected the explosion limiting the damage to the one cell and some of the area outside. The force of the blast propelled you and several of the guards into the walls and gave you some nasty bruises and burns."

Lal was barely listening. She was just happy Tav was there holding her hand.

"Don't bother my patient to much Tav," Doctor Cellarius called from her office. She was lucky the city's fire suppression subroutines had been repaired when they had. Or she might have been killed. The doctor looked at the scans hopefully Lal was keeping up with her meditation; she found that patients who followed the meditations tended to require less treatment and usually recovered more quickly.

Notes: I hesitated about using that flashback at first, but now I think it fits really well. Originally I wrote it first and had it at the beginning of this chapter but after writing the segments with the interrogations and the gauntlet of truth (ha ha) or whatever you want to call it, it seemed to fit in better further down.

I'm not really fond of flashbacks though written work tends to make them work better as the writer can tell you that the segment is a flashback, I've always felt them overused and disruptive. But occasionally they can be a good tool to provide insight and I hope that is what I've managed to do here.

I really want to bring back the enigmatic meditation instructor but I haven't had reason or opportunity, and really haven't had a chance to think of how I'd do so. I'm going to have to let it simmer on the back burner so to speak. Maybe something will come up sooner or later.

I had every intention of saving phoebe, they have the technology to give her a cleanslate free from her past decisions a chance to be a real alteran but she blew herself up before that could happen. I swear the story just wrote itself at that part, all i could do was limit the damage.