The Star 18

Having made up his mind, Sonny whispered, "Uno, because I believe you are a good person underneath the role you found yourself in, I'll give you a chance. Report what happened here to Alliance authorities before people outside of this world have a chance to do it."

She looked at him with a gaping mouth and then laughed bitterly. "I would be scrubbed and shipped to who knows where for who knows what. Nothing would change for you. I'd only be adding myself to the body count for no good reason. You'll be fine."

He said, "I didn't tell you that because it's a risk I want you to take for me. I told you that so it's a consequence you can avoid. I went deep into The Weird and made... friends there. Those friends aren't under the thumb of these outlier members of Eclipse. If you don't report it, these people's fates is the body count list you'll be added to."

Uno looked uncertain. And with the doctor making his way back over, his window was growing small.

"Blue Zone, Enigma Field... Union Space Station Andraste... How about Terra Ninkasi? Is there much reason for me to know about those places? At least one of those places isn't on anything listed in any information here, I bet. And there's no one who would think of or have any reason whatsoever to tell me about it.

"I'm not asking you to do the right thing for my sake. I'm asking you to do it for yours. The leak can't be contained."

The doctor, who had gotten near enough to hear the last part asked, "What leak?"

"I have to pee. I was queasy when I came out and spent what time I had emptying my stomach before I got here. My bladder is still full. Since you guys filter and reuse this fluid, maybe I could have a bathroom break... like soon?" Sonny said with a hopeful, child-like expression.

The doctor frowned. "Alright. No need to diminish the tank fluid's longevity when you've taken the effort to warn me."

As a waste collecting unit was extended to him through the tank's apparatus attachment wall, Uno and the doctor turned to give him the illusion of privacy. He made quick work of making his not-so-much a lie, real. While doing so, he sent a bullet of intent towards Grant that only contained a feeling of relief and temporary contentment. The last thing he needed was for his friend to lose cool under a potentially hostile situation and escalate things to a lethal level before it became necessary.

He felt that it was intercepted by two other sensitives on its path but they felt that particular unshielded projection multiple times a day. Dealing with mostly children and each other on a daily basis had a lulling effect on their vigilance. Much like his greater self, he was developing an enjoyment on being constantly underestimated.

As Uno excused herself, he caught a brief glance of the crack in her chipper disposition. If it had been any other person in the facility who had tried to get her to blow security with a handful of flimsy words, she would have dismissed it out of hand. Unfortunately for Eclipse's territory assets division, she was all too aware of how many times Sonny didn't bluff, 100% to date. At least, that's the way it appeared.

In all honesty, he didn't know if the small handful of people who had been in deep VR with him had autonomy, much less the ability to whistle blow, but his chances weren't bad. The greatest deceptions would always be the ones that were undeniably true on the surface. And in this case, he was more than happy to even deceive himself because he could make it true if he really had to. He just wasn't ready to expose his ability, resources or another's existence to that degree.

Despite how undesirable his and Grant's current position appeared, it wasn't even remotely approaching hopeless. The person he was the most worried about was Cole. Up to the moment he went under induction, the feline man's soul had been with him.

Wherever Cole was, he could potentially be a two day conceived baby or a randomly spawned 'off the grid' person on whatever world his soul was about to find reincarnation on. Although slim, it might even be in another reality entirely. There were even more, less likely but still possible, outcomes. Very few of which were desirable.

While his mind flipped through through different options and nagged over a multitude of concerns, the unit captain made an appearance. "Is there a single step of this process you won't turn into a cluster f*** disaster!?"

Sonny shot back, "Is there a single step of this process that isn't already one? I hope you don't expect me to apologize for successfully surviving a body hopping monster trying to turn me into a meat puppet."

She looked at him with a coldness that surpassed fury. "No but allow me to explain what happens next. Eclipse cuts its losses, liquidates its assets on this planet and sells it to the highest bidder. The current group of inductees and compromised staff will be memory scrubbed.

"Any evidence that can't be erased will need a scapegoat... It's not going to be me. Care to volunteer? If you do, your family and the two boys you saved will still have a chance to survive. It's the last kindness I'm willing to extend."

Sonny sneered. "It's a shame you couldn't come up with a better offer. I don't know if you could have cleaned up this mess when you were promoted into it but accepting the status quo is no longer an option. Trying to cover it up is also no longer an option."

The captain said, "Three lives sacrificed to corruption against the weight of an entire world filled with life. I don't blame an ignorant child with too much intelligence but no wisdom for fighting back but I do want you to know the cost of that fight. And in the end, the only thing that's changed for you is more suffering... First Station CPU, initiate Operation Tabula Rasa."

"Unable to comply. Asset and resource authorization denied," a crisp mechanical voice responded.

She shook her head and squeezed something in her hand. A spike of intuitive dread washed over the young adept as he reflexively drew on a wild fling of disjointed energy around himself. Individually, the chain reaction of wet pops were muffled and almost impossible to hear unless a person was right next to it. But when hundreds all over the station happened at the same time, it sounded like collection of distant firecrackers going off in a split second chain reaction.

On a spiritual level, a thin blanket of negative energy instantly covered the facility. That was only the beginning. As Sonny activated his suit and reached out to make sure Grant was alright, muffled explosions were going off in different areas. He looked at the woman in horror.

That gaze was met with a slam of raw but condensed psionic energy. It passed through the disbursing cloud of disjunction magic like a bullet through a foam practice target. The power was lowered from instantly lethal to merely life threatening as the remaining force pierced through his helmet and assaulted his physical mind. He didn't even have a chance to be surprised before darkness claimed him.

Mere seconds later, he snapped to with a screaming headache and a weight slumped over him. There were surrounding soldiers pointing weapons at him as well. In his had was a device he intuited was the one she had used to unleash death and destruction. The weight was her.

As the soldiers started shouting a huge number of discordant but similar in purpose phrases meant to disorient and force fearful compliance, Sonny prepared to defend himself. A voice cut through the chaos and paused his defensive action. Despite not speaking it loudly, it cut through all other noise sharp and clear.

"Stand down," Glenn said.

The ring of armed soldiers cleared a path for his approach. "The situation looks a lot worse than it is. Shove that sack of waste off of you and take a walk with me."

Assessing alternatives and being far more prepared for supernatural combat, Sonny grudgingly agreed. The captain was still alive and nearly unharmed. She had passed out from her own effort to scramble his brains. Her last action seemed to have been to place the offending evidence into his own hand. Shoving her off of himself was a task he gladly accepted.

Seeing Sonny's high tension guard, Glenn frowned but said nothing as he gestured for him to follow. They didn't walk that far before he saw the scene of a seven year old Grant floating in a medical tank. In his blown open and exposed chest cavity, beat a metallic but flexible looking heart as his flesh and bone mended at a speed that was almost visible.

Sonny reached out to insure that his soul and consciousness were intact before turning to the dull eyed man. "Give me a reason."

Glenn said, "A tall order without some clarity on what you actually want but I'll try. Lives is a good place to start. There are still a few of those that you care about. That wasn't a threat, by the way. It's an offer of assistance."

The young adept tried to piece together what happened and what might happen in an effort to make sense of what he knew and only thought he knew of the body snatcher. For his part, Glenn patiently waited for Sonny's eyes to clear.

"Knowing that the situation had spiraled out of her ability to control or contain, she activated all the self-destruct capable control devices and set off some explosives. She intended to kill me with a psionic blast intended to make my mind and lingering consciousness unreadable, then blame it all on me?" the young adept speculated.

Glenn gave his characteristically disturbing smile and said, "Right in one go."

Sonny asked, "Anything about yourself that you are willing to share because I trust you less than I'd trust her if she was still a threat in front of me. A selfish person under the delusion that she serves the 'greater good' is understandable, at least."

The dull eyed man said, "A workable read but not particularly accurate... Sorry, my current host was an instructor... Initially, I wasn't interested in you. It was Cole that I saw the potential in to be my protegee.

"That didn't last long. I realized fairly quickly that his existence was being maintained by you. The more I discovered about your potential, the more invested I became. Little did I know that my efforts to keep you alive in the face of your growing threat to our dear captain, would inevitably lead to my exposure."

Sonny said, "Trying to slave collar my brain stem is what lead to your exposure... Where is Cole?"

Glenn sighed dramatically. "How else was I supposed to smuggle you off the planet? It would have also served as a convenient way to get some valuable training in for you without burdening your psyche with the more practical side of that training. You see, I don't dislike your inherently good nature and reasonably modest idealism.

"But that quality, it wouldn't have survived years of practical experience. From the looks of things, a couple months of retained memories from deep VR shook it slightly. It's a sad truth that to spare lives, you have to be exceptionally proficient at taking them. Then, you have to get good at taking them apart exactly the way you want. All of that takes immersive and intense... application of skill.

"Did you know that emotional memory, academic knowledge and applied understanding that require the use of motor skills are recorded in different parts of the brain? With a coupler installed, you would have gained the second two without having to live with the burden of the first. A cold comfort to you perhaps but I would gladly exchange my personal experience for one like that."

Coughing to cover up slight embarrassment from lapsing into instructor mode again, he added, "Your spectral friend is... resting in a containment unit for entities capable of achieving incorporeal state. It also serves to keep him separated from you while providing a means of sustaining him. I planned on giving him the tools necessary to be self sufficient before returning him to you."

Sonny got the impression that Glenn had rushed back after stowing Cole away. The man already knew that things were going to go south quickly after the young adept woke up. Even in a rush, he had been a little too slow. Whether his presence was a good or bad thing was still very unclear.

He looked directly into to Glenn's lackluster brown eyes and said, "What's the end game?"

The man said, "At this point? The lawyers, collateral assessment and PR groups are brainstorming how to minimize loss and potentially turn a profit... You still need gainful employment with an organization capable of sponsoring citizenship. If you want to move and support your family from suffering the same sad story as everyone else in this territory, that will have to be fairly good gainful employment."

Sonny pretended to contemplate his choices as he walked over to Grant. Using the device attachment port on the tank, he carefully reached through the seal to touch the recovering man currently in child form. With an exercise of will and intent, he reached inward and overwrote the spiritual mark Glenn had placed over the older and faded mark that vaguely felt like it was his.

As the young adept aided his friend in an even faster recovery, he said, "Union citizenship only requires a little resources. Insisting on reparations would be suicidal but insisting on being released from contractual obligations doesn't seem like too tall an order."

The man was a little in awe at how easily his mark had been erased and speechless over the similarities that became obvious between the new and much older mark that had already been on Grant's soul.

Cogs turning, the man said, "Union citizenship is waste paper. Outside of its core governmental body, they are little better than pirates and frequently are or become classified as such when it suits Alliance officials."

"I know. But frankly, I don't care," Sonny said as he removed Grant from the tank.

After having been in them fully conscious a time or two and the building knowledge that was slowly seeping into the growing ridges of his mind, the mechanisms were relatively easy to figure out.

Frowning, Glenn said, "I understand that you have a great deal of personal power and potential but that doesn't matter much out there. Without support, everything you might have, including yourself, are a painted target for anyone to aim at."

Giving the body thief a saintly smile, he said, "Who says I don't?"

"As long as you are aware of how this will go after you refuse the job offer, I won't stop you. Expect a warrant within twenty-four hours and pirate status within a week. If you take your friends and family, they'll be labeled that way as well. If they stay or you leave them somewhere, they'll become capture bait for bounty hunters to lure you in," Dull Eyes said.

With a fake look of excitement, Sonny said, "Can you get them to issue a warrant within the next hour instead, maybe get them to rush order my status as a pirate? I'd like this to get as out of hand as possible. I'd say get them to kill me right now but then everybody dies."

Laughing with a twisted smile on his face, Glenn said, "That's the spirit! Let me have that one hour for the warrant as a head start to get away from you."

Turning to walk away, Glenn was stopped by a received communication.

"Uno, no. Why did you do that?" he muttered.

Sonny said, "I wanted her to be safe. She's not like the rest of you."

Spinning on his heels to face the young adept, twisted grin growing to nearly unnatural proportions, he said, "Oh? Do tell."

In a blaring cacophony of sound, a booming man's voice that was slightly distorted from speaker enhancement, came from the skies like a wrathful god. "This is Territory Affairs. All activities outside of those performed by 'essential under crisis', emergency management and medical field professionals are to cease immediately. All security and local law enforcement are to disarm and wait on standby. All others, return to your homes and wait for further instructions. I repeat..."

Sonny, nearly as surprised as everyone else said, "I would but someone beat me to it. Don't you just hate it when someone upstages you?"