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Sentille Tereth dropped out of reframe speeds and opened the main viewports.
There it was, her destination. It didn’t look like much from here, but what
counted was on the inside. She twisted her helmet on and waited. She drew
closer and closer until she reached the threshold. All of the Dritewing’s
systems shut down. The asshole didn’t even ask after her business. He just
took them out. He was probably trying to murder her right now, but it wasn’t
going to work. There was a reason she volunteered for this mission. She was
not susceptible to his ability. She still needed this suit, though, or he
could kill her the old fashioned way. He still might try.
As her now dead battleship continued drifting on its own momentum, Sentille
stepped into the custom escape pod, and launched. It was freezing cold and a
rough ride, but this was what she trained for. They had been trying to make
contact with the Aerie for decades, but every time they sent someone, the
envoy never returned. They finally figured out why, but the number of people
capable of surviving Falstead’s attacks was decreasing. Sentille
deliberately kept herself vulnerable. Intentional obsolescence, her
father would call it. He understood more than anyone. He stayed organic for
a long time after everyone else upgraded. He had to give in eventually,
though, or he likely wouldn’t be alive today, and Sentille wouldn’t exist at
all.
She latched the pod onto the back of the shuttle, slid her own hatch open,
and simply knocked on the door. If she had to, she would be able to break
in, but she wanted to start on the right foot. Maybe all he needed was the
right friend to talk with him, person to person. It seemed like he never
gave anyone a chance, but they didn’t really know what went down during
those earlier missions. She looked through his rear viewport. Something
moved around the corner, but she couldn’t see what it was.
A face appeared—well, part of one anyway. Was that him? Was that the
infamous Falstead Granperson? Such a funny name. Like she should talk, going
around as Sentille Tereth. He looked nervous and mousey from here, but it
was hard to tell since she couldn’t see a full facial expression. He was so
used to attacking remotely, he probably didn’t have any experience getting
his hands dirty. If he wanted to kill her, though, he was going to have to
do it himself, and he was going to have to accept the fact that it would be
permanent in her case.
She knocked on the glass again.
This startled him even though he was looking right at her. He reached out
and waved her away. He didn’t want a confrontation. That was good, she could
use that.
The door was the weakest part of the shuttle, and she had detailed
specifications for the whole thing, straight from the designer’s plans. It
sounded like Falstead had modified it since then, but he probably didn’t
bother with the hull since he could neutralize any threat before it could
get near him. Until today.
Sentille unhooked the blowtorch from her PRU and showed it to him.
Falstead’s one visible eye widened. He finally stepped out from his
protective barrier, and held up his hands defensively, begging her with hand
gestures to not use it.
Sentille reached up with her free hand and pointed in the general direction
of the door control. She couldn’t see it from this angle, but she knew
exactly where it was. She studied the designs hard. She had to in order to
prove herself worthy of this job.
Falstead used gestures to concede. He cautiously walked towards her. He
inched his hand towards the control at first before suddenly shooting it
forward, and opening the door. As quickly as he could, he raced back to the
safety of his corner.
Sentille stepped inside, closed the door back up behind her, and removed her
helmet. She then made contact with Falstead’s eye. “If you don’t hurt me, I
won’t hurt you, but we’re gonna have a conversation. Do you know how those
work? Have you ever had one before?”
“Have I ever talked to people before?” Falstead questioned. “Of course I
have, I’m not feral.”
“Good,” Sentille replied. “That’s a good start.” She held out her hand, even
assuming he wouldn’t take it. My name is Sentille Tereth of Castlebourne,
daughter of Dreychan Glarieda and Yunil Tereth. Don’t try to shut
down my suit. It’s mostly mechanical. If you have been trying to upload my
consciousness to your server, don’t waste your energy. I’m baseline organic.
I can’t be uploaded.”
“That doesn’t make any sense,” Falstead contended. “Everyone is digitized.”
“Not me,” Sentille insisted. “We are aware of the afterlife simulation. They
specifically designed me to be cut off from it. I am as I would be if we
lived in the twenty-thousand years ago. I came here to ask you what the hell
you’re doing. I was specifically chosen for this because you keep kidnapping
everyone else.”
“I’ve not kidnapped anyone, they’re fine,” Falstead claimed.
“We know what you’re doing,” Sentille began. “We’ve done our research. You
have the power to transfer digitized minds across substrates and systems.
You can do this without consent, and most people are vulnerable to your
power. I’m not. If you want to put me in your simulation, you’re going to
have to shove a needle in my brain. Are you comfortable with that?”
He was silent for a moment. “Just leave me alone. I don’t know if you
noticed, but we are in the Outer Sphere. I am not subject to your laws. I
only upload those who would do me harm, or who would harm you!” He
spoke calmly until those last few words. “Most of my prisoners are prisoners
of war. They were on their way to destroy Castlebourne and enslave any
survivors. I am doing this to protect you. I’m carrying on my parents
legacy. You can’t stop me, and you shouldn’t want to.”
“We are not questioning your motives, or even your methods...only your
right. My progenitors were prepared to handle the armada as appropriate, and
according to their values. They did not ask you, or your parents, to
intervene. Where are they, by the way? In one of your simulations too? Are
they POWs too?”
Falstead was already frowning, but now he frowned more. “They didn’t
understand either. They tried to negotiate. You can’t negotiate with an
Exin. They’re fanatics. They can’t help it. They were indoctrinated from
birth.”
“My parents are from the Goldilocks Corridor. They grew up under the
Empire. My father lived on a luxury planet. He had no reason to leave, but
he did, because even he could see that what they were doing was wrong.
People can see the truth. They can change. But you have to trust them first.
You can’t just transfer them to hell, and expect the universe to get better
just because they’re gone.”
“They’re not in hell,” Falstead clarified. “They’re in a copy of our galaxy.
They think they won the war. Nothing changed for them. One second, they were
in base reality, and the next, they were in there, and everything felt the
same. To them, they conquered Castlebourne, and enslaved them. I wasn’t
lying about that, but what I did was protect real people from it. Their
slaves are only NPCs. Everyone’s happy. I did that, I made you happy. So
instead of trying to stop me, maybe I could get a thank you.”
Sentille breathed in, and then out. “Thank you.”
Falstead winced. He didn’t expect that response.
“Thank you for doing what you thought was right. I’m here to tell you, it
wasn’t, and I’m here to ask you to stop. Free them from their prison. Just
because they don’t know they’re in one, doesn’t mean they aren’t. It isn’t
just, but there’s still time to undo it. They deserve the truth, no matter
how dark their own desires. There’s a cliché that goes
two wrongs don’t make a right. I have been trained and ordered to commandeer this vessel if need be.
Need it be, Falstead?”
Falstead scoffed and shook his head. “You people do this all the time. You
dress it up in fancy wording like virtual quarantine, but it’s VR
prison. That’s what it is. The detainees can’t leave. And as I said, we’re
not in the stellar neighborhood, or even the charter cloud. I have declared
sovereignty over this region of space. There’s nothing here, so there’s
nothing to squabble over. In my capacity as the owner and ruler, I imprison
hostile forces at my discretion, just as they do on Varkas Reflex. Tell me
where the difference lies. Because I’m only one person? Last time I checked,
only one guy owns Castlebourne too, and I think I heard one woman owns YZ
Ceti.”
“I don’t care about your sovereignty,” Sentille explained. “Because you’re
correct, this is out of Castlebourne’s jurisdiction. Which is why I’m not
here to arrest you.” She removed a tactical baton from its holster and
flicked her wrist to extend it. “I’m just here to stop you, by whatever
means necessary. And since you reminded me of where we are, you must realize
that there’s no one to stop me.”
“Besides me,” Falstead pointed out.
“I read you quite clearly, Mr. Granperson,” Sentille laughed. “You’re not a
fighter. You never had to be. You rely too much on your special powers.”
Falstead laughed back. “You’re gonna have to kill me. If you take the POWs I
already have, I’ll just restart the program as soon as you leave. If you
force me to go with you, you’ll just end up taking me to a planet full of
people whose minds I can control.”
Sentille squeezed the trigger sending a surge of electricity throughout the
baton. “Who said we’re going to a populated world?” She approached her
target briskly and confidently, reaching up to drop him before he could
reach for his own weapon. He tried to retreat into the bathroom, but he
didn’t stand a chance. He struggled against her a little, but he was
unpracticed. The tip of the shock-stick made contact with his neck, and he
was out.
Around seven months later, Sentille turned off the anaesthesia, and
gradually woke Falstead back up. He groaned in confusion. As his thoughts
sharpened, his confusion did not abate. He still didn’t know where he was,
or what was going on. He was likely starting to feel the technology around
him, as well as Sentille.
He managed to crack a smirk. “Miss Tereth, you digitized. You think your job
is over, and you’re safe now?” He was slurring his words a little, but
improving. “You don’t understand. What I did to those soldiers was a mercy.
I put them in new worlds. I maintained their consciousnesses;
their...continuity. I can just as easily simply shut you down. You’ll just
be dead at that point.”
Sentille nodded. She wasn’t in her bulky suit anymore. She was wearing a
sexy little number now, to give him something to remember her by after they
parted ways forever. “I didn’t digitize my brain, Falstead. This is just a
surrogate substrate.” She picked up a kitchen knife and stabbed herself in
the chest. “I can’t feel anything. You can sure shut me down, but I’ll wake
up safe and sound on the Aerie. I promised to commandeer it from you, and
that’s exactly what I did.”
“Where are we?” he questioned. “I feel some tech, but not a lot.”
“You have everything you need to survive, including your own simulation
server, if that’s your thing. We have laws, we follow them. You’re entitled
to immortality. But you’re not entitled to anyone else’s life. Now
you’re alone. No one lives on this moon but you. Your habitat is
self-sufficient, but you’re not leaving. Ever.”
“You can’t do this,” he argued. “You’re establishment. You have rules...due
process.”
“I’m from the charter cloud, and we’re still not there. The extended bubble
may be closer to the heart of civilization, but it has no laws either.
Goodbye, Falstead. You did this to yourself.”
She was about to jump back to her own body, but he was evidently feeling
vindictive. He shut her surrogate down himself. She would never be able to
return now, and that was on him.
Sentille sat up, but didn’t climb out of the chair. She sat on the edge of
it and breathed deliberately.
“Was he mad?” Renata asked.
This was a serious situation, but Sentille couldn’t help but laugh. “Yes,
Madam Granger, he was mad.”
“Maybe we should have gone down there too,” Quidel suggested. “We might be
able to reason with him. We turned him into this. The least we could do is
try to help him change for the better.”
“I don’t know if this is your fault, Mr. Jesperson,” Sentille said, “but I
know going down there would not have helped. It would have made him hate
you. As it stands, I’m his number one enemy, and as far as he knows,
you had absolutely nothing to do with it. It might hurt, but this was the
only way.” She hopped out of the chair and headed towards the door. “Now,
I’m going to need you two to go back into the sim. You obviously can’t know
where he is. And every time you even think about breaking him out one
day, or even just visiting him, I won’t hesitate to give you the same
treatment again. This is happening people. Get used to it.”
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