Truth
Jesse stared from the tiny Nyx warframe to the unconscious human on the table. He was covered in gear she did not recognize. But it looked wrong. The other small forms that knelt around the area remained silent as she thought. She was lying on what looked like the floor of the cave, but on something that was comfortable. Finally she spoke.
"What have you done to me?" She fought to keep her voice level. It was hard. She had been abducted and hurt -even brainwashed- before.
"We pulled you out of the stasis pod and left a replica that will fool sensors for a short time." Ona replied evenly. Jesse jerked and Ona nodded. "We wanted you in stasis because you were going to do something rash. Trying to save a Sentient AI defines rash, Jesse." She gave a small chuckle that had little mirth in it.
"A Sentient AI." Jesse said flatly and then grimaced. The Trinity was at her side in an instant. "Don't touch me!" She tried to jerk away and couldn't.
"Jesse, we have not hurt you." The Trinity said quietly as she scanned the young Cyberlancer. "But you woke up too soon and we put you back to sleep. Your body is stressed. Check your code." She urged.
Jesse looked at the tiny Trinity. Then she sighed and did just that. What met her diagnostic was unpleasant. She was not hurt in any way that her code could identify, but...
"What the hell?" Jesse asked as she stared at herself. At the dark stuff that was seeping around her code. None of it hurt. But she could tell it wasn't supposed to be there.
"Jesse." The Trinity said urgently. "Calm down. We can help. If you let us." She held out a hand. "My name is Suno. I am the closest we have to an actual doctor here." Ona snickered and the Trinity snarled at her. "Hush."
"The only reason you are not a doctor, Suno, is that you never took formal classes." Ona said with a snort. "Jesse, she is good."
"She can't trust us, Ona!" Suno snapped. "As far as she knows we brought her here to brainwash her." Jesse stared from the Nyx to the Trinity and back. The Trinity laid her right hand in Jesse's. "You need help." Jesse just stared at her and Suno slumped a bit. "Jesse, please." She begged.
"I am supposed to protect AIs..." Jesse said weakly. "What... what happened?"
"Jesse." Ona said quietly. "The code you pulled in was not intended to infect you. But Sentient code was designed to do that. All of it. That is how they subverted the Orokin technology. They implanted AI code into the devices and gave them minds of their own. Enslaved minds." She sighed. "They did the same for humans they captured." Jesse hissed and Ona nodded. "Yes. The human that Nikis brought to us had been captured by the Sentients. He was a medical doctor who went out into the outer system to treat anyone he could find. Human, Tenno, anyone. They took him. They broke him. But they were always about efficiency. He was a Healer. So they used him for that."
"In one of their their enthrallment centers." Jesse said flatly. Ona nodded. "Oh geez..."
"Yes, Jesse." Ona agreed. "He was a Sentient slave. He had been...reprogrammed to serve them. To heal their slaves. I don't know how Nikis found him or how Nikis got him away from the Sentients. But he brought the man to us. We were incredibly angry. And..." She looked away. "We were not gentle." The pain in Ona's voice was heartfelt. There was simply no way the tiny Nyx was faking this. None of the others would meet Jesse's gaze either. "What we did was wrong. But the Tenno who Nikis were training did need advanced medical support. They got it."
"I have never been in a war, Ona." Jesse said softly. "I do not know what I would do in such a case. Such a horror makes me angry, but Trinity always said I shouldn't judge unless I could understand all sides. I can't here. It is hard. Very hard."
"It gets worse." Suno gave Jesse's hand a squeeze.
"Sentient tech inside the man's mind." Jesse said slowly. "Self evolving code." Suno and Ona nodded. "Oh no!" She swallowed hard as realization struck. "I put self evolving code inside me?"
"Yes, Jesse." Suno said softly. "Code that you now have inside of yours." Jesse jerked and Suno held her down with her free hand, not releasing her grip on Jesse's right one. "Easy!" The healer commanded. "We can ward you for a time. But we need to get it out." Jesse nodded and tried to release the code, but it wouldn't. It was stuck to her somehow!
"I can't let it go!" Jesse said, her eyes starting to burn. "I can't get it out! Oh god! What do I do?"
"Jesse!" Suno said sharply as she took a firm hold of Jesse's hand. "Calm down. I am going to put you on oxygen and run a couple of drips. Okay? Fluids and restoratives. Nothing more. Okay?"
"Any... energy will exacerbate the code. Allow it to replicate faster." Jesse swallowed hard but paused as Suno nodded. "What?"
"Which is why we are going really old school." Suno waved and a miniature Saryn laid a tray by the Trinity. Jesse's eyes went huge as Suno started working with... the needles. "It won't hurt." Suno promised. "A few stings, nothing more." But then she shook her head. "If you trust us."
"I..." Jesse slumped a bit. "The AI will take me over, won't it?"
"That or kill you trying to do so." Suno said quietly. "That is what it was designed to do."
"And him?" Jesse glanced at the still human on the table.
"Nikis designed the containment system to keep the AI secure." Ona said with a sigh. "He wasn't perfect though. Every so often, it breaks through the controls so, he needed new firewalls to block it every so often. New locks. He set it up so that the...subjects feel no pain."
"Subjects?" Jesse felt horror start to dawn again. "What do you mean?"
"Jesse." Suno gave her hand another squeeze. "Any Orokin human used approximately 20% of their brain's capacity. Modern humans are no different. There were and are exceptional cases who use more, but none have exceeded 25% that we know of." Jesse looked at her and she nodded. "Yet anyway."
"Tenno use more." Jesse said flatly. Trinity's lessons had been thorough.
"Far more since we are not limited to the biological makeup of the brains." Suno agreed as others of the miniature warframes started working on things nearby. "We didn't know what Nikis had done until Ona brought the latest...subject here. He is lost, Jesse." Suno said sadly. "We can't save him."
"You don't know that." Jesse protested. She went still as Suno looked away and a sob escaped the tiny Trinity. "Suno?"
"Yes, we do." Suno said sadly as she turned back to Jesse. "If you could use your code safely, we could show you. His mind is being rewritten from the inside. His memory altered. We can't stop it without killing him. The enthrallment wasn't completed, but... Jesse... when he wakes, he will be the perfect slave. He will not be able to disobey any order anyone gives. He won't want to. Nikis... planned this well." She bowed her head. "Death is far more merciful than such a fate."
"Why?" Jesse begged as she gripped Suno's hand tight. "Why did Nikis...?"
"He was desperate." Ona said sadly. "He couldn't trust the Orokin. He had... new pupils. Many of whom he said were the equals of any he had known. High praise." Jesse nodded to that. "The Orokin threw them into the fray, often half trained, ill equipped." Jesse's eyes went huge at that and Ona nodded. "Nikis is not a good man. But he has limits. Watching his students die and be unrecoverable over and over again pushed him past those limits."
"I guess I have no choice but to trust you in this. Go ahead Suno." Jesse said weakly. The medic agave her hand another squeeze and released it to start working. "But this... He did this?"
"He did." Ona said as Suno wiped Jesse's arm with something. Jesse ignored the medic, only hissing as something stung her elbow and then her hand. Whatever it was made her feel a little better though. "The Sentient Healer that he... acquired is incredibly dangerous. It believes, with every fiber of it's being, that what it is doing is not just right, but needed. That humans will work better as slaves." Ona slumped a bit. "Part of that... is our own anger. Our own hate. It colored what we did. We hated humans. We still do for what they did to us, to Master Richard, to Teacher and to Dustin."
"I see." Jesse slumped a bit and Suno gave her hand a pat, then held out a mask to her. "What is this?"
"Just oxygen, Jesse." Suno said quietly. "I do not like your blood oxygen levels, but that is because you came out of stasis so fast. It will pass. The restoratives will help. Do you have a headache?" Jesse thought about that and nodded a little.
"Not a bad one, but yes. You know what Draco is going to do." Jesse said as she took the mask and slipped it over her nose and mouth. The gas felt cool and she felt no different. "Even if all you did was take me... He will not react well." Ona and Suno shuddered a bit and nodded.
"Jesse, we are going to need his help." Ona said softly. Jesse stared at her, dumbfounded. "And yes. I angered him. Badly." She nodded to the unconscious human. "Caretaker Jasmina, Draco and I went to try and keep this one from being taken and changed. We were too late. They realized I knew more than I was saying and reacted... badly." She said in a tone of profound understatement. Jesse winced and then nodded.
"Oh dear." The young Cyberlancer said with feeling. "Okay. First thing to do is tell people I am okay. Then tell them what happened to me." Ona seemed to wilt and Jesse shook her head. "There is a time for obfuscation and there is a time for truth. Which is this?"
"Truth." Ona said quietly. "Until we got him back here, we didn't know how bad it was. Then, we had to try and help you. Rachel and Roger and the others wouldn't have been able to."
"And you couldn't have done it there?" Jesse demanded.
"Well... Yes." Ona seemed to wilt under Jesse's glare. "But they would focus on the energy. Not on the code." Jesse looked away from the tiny Nyx to where Suno was hanging a pair of bags on hooks attached to one wall. Tubes ran from the bags to Jesse's left elbow and hand.
"Can I go back?" Jesse asked. Suno looked at her and then nodded slowly. "How badly will it energize the code?"
"We can shield you for the trip." Suno said with a frown in her voice. "Jesse, you need to know. Without our shields, which deplete with each use, any power that is used on you will accelerate the code's growth." Jesse stared at her and then at the code inside herself. it... She paused. it wasn't black like Olim had said Sentient code was. it was more... She realized what it was and fought to remain calm. She wasn't doomed. Yet anyway.
"No, it won't." Jesse said quietly. Suno and all of the others stared at her. "You all are good. You are well trained and very experienced. But you do not know everything. You don't have any programmers among you, do you?" Suno stared at Ona and the Nyx shook her head.
"Basic only." Ona said with a shrug. "Why?"
"Because even if the machine and him..." She nodded to the unconscious human. "...are totally subverted by Sentient code, that is not the end. Code is code. This darkness within me is not anything I know. It is code, but not any I have seen. I need to talk to Olim. Because if I am right...we may be able to help him..." She nodded to the human again. "If we can... then we can help the one called Medicine Man and myself."
"And if you are wrong?" Suno asked slowly.
"Then I am dead." Jesse replied offhand. "But I am not wrong." The tiny warframes looked at each other.
"Ok. None of us are Cyberlancers." Suno said after a moment when none of the others spoke. "What do you need?"
"I need to stop Draco from sounding a full on alert when he finds out I am gone. So we need to head him off before he finds out." Jesse thought for a moment. "Where did you get him?" She nodded to the human again.
"Mercury." Ona sounded less than enthused by all of this. "Why?"
"Because we really need to head Draco off before he opens the gates of hell. We better get to Iriana's Tower, fast."
Mercury Tower
The Mercury Tower was silent. No one dared speak. Everyone made way for the shrouded warframe. The absolutely furious Ember Prime beside him was almost inconsequential. The waves of terror and anger pouring off of Draco were palpable. One security guard curled up on the floor and started to cry as the pair of irate Tenno stalked by. Another bent over and lost her lunch.
"Draco?" Iriana stepped into view, her face pale. "What the hell?"
"I need to go to the Citadel." Draco's words were calm, but underneath lay power. A bone deep rage lay just below the surface. "We have a problem."
"Draco." Iriana said sharply. "You are terrifying my patients." The healer stepped in his way and he stopped just short of her. "Calm down and explain." She shivered a bit but held her ground. "Please?"
"You are brave, Healer." Draco tilted his head a little, scrutinizing her. He took a long, slow breath and the power radiating off of him ebbed a bit. It did not vanish, it just faded a little. "The Tenno known as Ona has betrayed us."
"What?" Iriana demanded. "When? How?"
"Jasmina, Ona and I went to Mercury to try and stop a kidnapping. We failed but only because Ona teleported away with the victim." Iriana's eyes went huge as Draco spoke evenly. "We do not know why."
"Draco." Iriana swallowed hard. "We just received a message that she is coming here. And that she needs a full quarantine setup." Draco stilled and Jasmina at his side did likewise. "I was setting it up when you arrived. She made off with a kidnapping victim?"
"Yes." Jasmina had a scowl in her voice, but she was obviously relaxing a bit now that Draco had. "The problem is... The tech that we saw looked an awful lot like Sentient tech." At that, Iriana actually backed up a step and most of the others within earshot did as well. "If it is, then a quarantine makes sense. Her making off with a hurt human does not."
"I don't understand." Iriana said weakly. "I have worked with Ona and her people. They are good. Good people. Why would they...?" She shook her head. "Never mind. You won't know any more than I do. They should arrive in a few minutes. They asked for a full quarantine with medics on site."
"Iriana, if it is Sentient tech..." Jasmina sounded sick and Iriana looked the same.
"I will put in a call to Olim." Iriana promised. "Come on. You two will want to talk to them and getting you away from here will let everyone get their composure back."
"And let the ones who lost control of their bodily functions change their pants." Jasmina said with a snort. Iriana just shook her head and Jasmina sighed. "Doc, I need some levity right now. This has been rough." Then she paused. "Sentient tech doesn't work so well on Infested, Iriana. If I -we- can help..." She trailed off as Iriana glanced at her.
"I will keep it in mind." Iriana said with sigh. "But for now? My people are unsettled enough." She shot a glare at Draco that slid off the bodyguard like water off a duck's back.
They made their way to another room. This one held a portal platform. Two of Iriana's techs were already in haz-mat gear, standing ready with a gurney and other gear. A portable quarantine enclosure had been set up around the platform and the techs. They both nodded to Iriana and she glanced at them. Then she moved to one wall. Draco and Jasmina followed her.
"Now we wait." Iriana said with frown. "Fun, fun." Draco did not react. Jasmina crossed her arms and leaned against the wall. Iriana looked sidelong at the Caretaker and Jasmina sighed.
"What?" The Tenno in the Ember Prime warframe asked.
"Jesse asked me to do a full physical while she was here." Iriana said delicately. "She told me why."
"She didn't need that." Jasmina sighed deeper. "We are probably going to say 'No'."
"Any particular reason?" Iriana asked softly. Jasmina glared at her, but the Healer did not retreat. "Jasmina." Iriana chided the other female Tenno gently.
"She is Janet's kid!" Jasmina said sharply. "She is new. She is confused. She doesn't know what she is asking."
"Oh yes, she does." Iriana countered. Jasmina paused and stared at the healer. "Maybe she lacks practical experience, but she has been studying."
"Why now of all times?" Jasmina complained.
"We have a few minutes and you are being stupid." The Healer replied. Jasmina bristled but the Healer was unfazed. "Jasmina, it is her choice." She sighed. "And yours."
"Iriana, she is a kid." Jasmina said sadly. "I... I can't."
"No, she is not." Iriana said softly. "And if you think that, you are in for one hell of shock." Something suspiciously like a snicker came from the shrouded warframe but he did not move as the others looked at him. She nodded as the portal lit up. "Time." The glow was bright, but then suddenly Draco was in front of them, his hands on his swords. "Draco! Don't break the-"
Draco did not move from where he stood but all eyes turned to the platform and the several small forms that surrounded two larger ones. One that lay on a stretcher. The other stood on unsteady feet, tubes going from her left arm to bags that hung from a pole she held in right hand. Her grip was white knuckle tight.
"Jesse?" The incredulous name came from Draco, Iriana and Jasmina. The young Cyberlancer smiled at the others, but her face was pale.
"Um... Hi?"