Nowhere.
Questions where asked and statements were made one after another and simultaneously as the nu-duece and the older officer spoke soundlessly. There was an oddity of perspective when one, like carina, attempted to gleam their words through lip-reading or concentrating only to find it nearly impossible to focus on either of them as if the eyes merely slid on past and refused to focus.
And then Carinas outburst and actions called an end to all that. The Nu-Duece looked surprisingly unalloyed and rather contemplative as to whatever she had learned and ignored Carina. But Locust, for her part, moved to dart out and pull Carina back with a shout as Carina approached the desk and slammed a hand down.
For the first time, the Rear Admiral turned her head instead of just simply side-eying anyone in the group and looked past the aggravated party in front of her and towards the grayscaled operator. The distant yet still audible tone of strung notes seemed to intensify momentarily as a new distant note plucked once and then faded back to the fore.
And then Locust froze in place, arm extended and almost brushing Carina's shoulder, her words somehow forgotten as they were cut off with a momentary echo.
And then, just as quickly as she had settled the interruption the woman turned back to look forwards; Directly at Carina. There was the clear impresion that she was looking through the girl instead of at her. And for the first time she acknowledged everyone's existence as each and everyone seated suddenly found that the womans eyes had flicked exclusively to themselves alone.
And then without any sensation or even notice each and every member of the group was separated in an instant as the void around them seemed to kaleidoscope as the desk and woman separated into a half-dozen partitions of herself; Each back to back with a member of the team facing one of them and now separated from each other. There was a sense of claustrophobia as if there were walls all around them and all sounds cut off beyond them as if in a room all their own despite the fact that they could see each other.
With the slightest twitch of a smile the older woman began to speak to the querries before her...
Lupin
"I'm glad to see at least some of the youth still have manners these days." The woman spoke casually in a voice that was a familiar yet unidentifiable sultry tone edged with the distant raspiness often found in those old warhorses used to yelling commands.
There was a sense of ease, familiarity, and comfort emanating from the old admiral that was now matched with a soft and reassuring demenor as the deadpan shifted to a more comfortable and casual expression that now matched her posture as she visibly relaxed and slackened her posture.
"To answer your question, however, little prince" She chimed, her voice now recognizable as the one in Lupins head to the best he could recall. "I will tell you the tragic tale of just another faceless corpse of war; A girl so far out of her depth with the responsibility she bore and ran away from without ever knowing she had it."
And so she spoke. She told Lupin the story of a simple soldier now so distant in the old Nepleslian Star Army and her unremarkable past in the burgeoning foster system.
She had died, unknown and unloved. Just one of many in a growing pile of dead in the wars against the elysians that the Nepleslians partook in for their overlords. The story had very little if any relevance to his question until she then circled back and began to speak again.
Classified experiments, abductions of DNA samples from hanyan royalty, black-book cloning, and eugenics programs to improve and stabilize deteriorating Nepleslian DNA. All leading to a spattering of abandoned clones into the foster system when the program collapsed. All leading to this girl and her death.
"And it was from her that we made you, Little Prince."
Quilly
"Rather a waste of the opportunity, dont you think?" Was the answer to Quillys' question as she was segregated like everyone else. Before she could answer, however, there was a pressure on her head and everything came rushing back.
The repressed, or perhaps blocked memories flashed by at incomprehensible speeds but still she could see them.
It wasnt always the roof. Different places, different times, different scenarios. She saw them all from a point of view she knew was her own. Sometimes she was alone, sometimes she was with the team here now or with just a few of them.
Lupin, younger and now older. Molotra and her quirky if blunt remarks about her Elysian parentage and people as she occasionally tried to pluck a feather from her wings, Otto the ever serious, Tobias usually uncaring but always vigilant, Carina and Locust and their strange flip-flopping between outright murdering each other to uneasy ceasefires.
There were others, barely remembered. Sometimes they died and she never saw them again, sometimes they died and she did see them again in another loop.
And with that the memories ended with the same scene every time.
This same woman, this same situation, the same scenario, the same questions.
Except for this time everyone chose something different...
Molotra
"Actually there are nine." The woman corrected Molotra's statement about the number of parties that could be involved but then smiled.
"But ill give you that one for free." She offered with a jaunty wave.
"As for your question; Yes." She stated without even attempting to lie or divert the truth. For any conclusion Molotra might have drawn from the logic path however was muddied as the information still didn't seem to be base. The thing before her; For she somehow knew it wasnt Nepleslian, wasnt one of the free folk. It was too perverse in a way she couldn't place, and the way it domineered every single node and possible connection...
On the polysentience, in its vast and bottomless depths, giants dwelled. Cinereal, Relay moon, Arsenal, etc. The great old and powerful super-AI stayed static as great suns in the poly. They were bright and violent in the data they consumed and recycled and it wasn't uncommon for more distant or excentric ghosts, programs, or knowledge seekers to watch from a distance and try to glean some knowledge or path from the hyper-processing bleed-off of any of the great super constructs and their inconceivable projects and calculations.
The thing before Molotra felt like one of those old ghosts that sometimes spent decades just watching. How it would either drive them insane and cause them to deteriorate and lash out and turbulent the Polysentience for a time in their wake, or come to some sort of epiphany which usually saw the formation or rise of some new sect or group within the free folk.
This thing was similar to one of these ghosts. But was also foreign enough to clearly not be a relic of the free folk. It was a young (by spacer standards) entity likely less than a century old. And it was somehow linked to the greens in some way. Or had always been so...
It was with this revelation that the strange choards around her suddenly made sense as the rivers of data passing through and around them in the chosen media of the being before her and even started to correlate with Molotra in a way she could distinctly connect to. She knew that if she thought her mind could survive the encounter she could pull the veil away in the same manner that even the smallest of pins could still burst a balloon.
Otto
There was no hesitation, no consolatory tone, not even a frown as the woman simply shattered Ottos world.
"Your lover and child are dead. Murdered."
There was a silence at the revelation that there was more than just her. A crushing weight settled in Otto's chest and seemed to press down to the point it became hard to even breathe. But there was a small light at the end of the proverbial tunnel.
That too was dashed when she continued.
"Her backup in the Motoyoshi family vault was corrupted beyond retrieval. Rare as it is for her kind it is the final death."
A million thoughts surged through Ottos' mind. How? Why? Who? He knew he needed these answers, to know who did this and why. He needed to-
The woman looked on in an impassive tone and shook her head almost imperceptibly side to side as an answer.
He only had the one question...
Tobias
"Doing to you? Nothing." The rear admiral stated casually her hands unclasping to reach ever so forwards and pick up the old picture frame and offer it back-first to Tobias.
The photo was old and was an actual developed photo in some old format her didn't recognize of a large class-photo style picture of just over two dozen people lined up in four rows of six with the tallest likely standing over the others on some platform in the back while the front row knelt.
The twenty-four were flanked by three individuals, two of which women.
One of which was the older woman before him.
What drew the eye however was not that, but the strange familiar sensation Tobias got when he studied any of the group. They stood in their two lines in black fatigues without insignia or identification, each of with a serious look on their faces as they stood at attention towards the photograher.
There was Duece in the back row, fourth from the left. Despite the fact she looked somewhere in between the age where Tobias had seen her last and this newcomer she had the slightest pull at her lips of her trademark hidden grin.
There was Dreamy Steve in the row beneath her, lacking his mustache but still the most pole-thin compared to the group.
Locust was in the same row as Steve, looking oddly timid but clearly older than the rest; Despite a boy in the row beneath her blocking off his view Tobias somehow knew Locust was secretly holding hands with a young boy on her right with the pudgy fat of youth still on his face. He looked more confident than Locust and was clearly her moral support and not the way around despite clearly being younger.
Each and every face told a tale of hidden personality that Tobias could almost capture if he looked at them hard enough. Names eluded him but he knew they were just at the very edge of his mind, waiting to come forth if he could only remember.
And then, in the bottom-most row he saw it. Just as the Admiral spoke again he saw a face he knew shouldn't be there but the longer he looked knew somehow it seemed less and less of a lie despite somehow needing it to be.
"You are not, and never were, in the IPG" She stated casually as Tobias looked at his own face on one of the people in the picture.
Carina
The admiral didn't answer carina right away and instead simply leaned back in her chair and really appraised her. The separation from the others was instantaneous but still left enough time for her to process that it was disorienting and left a rare moment of silence between the two.
"The semantics of that question is much more complicated than I suspect you can comprehend." The admiral stated plainly, holding up her hand to forestall any outburst or remark from Carina.
"Lambda" She began, mirth sneaking into her tone as she leaned forwards enough to look Carina in the eyes. It was the first time Carina could recall actually, really looking deep into them and it was unsettling just how cold the womans gaze was to the point it extinguished some of the fire Carina had. "Has already asked i explain that all to you, So you'll get the answer regardless."
"Instead I think this time is better suited towards reflection on our actions and our manners, don't you think, Carina Gabrielle Sanroma?" Her tone suddenly turned icey cold as she drew out the word reflection. "We have some time to burn anyway."
Before any meaning could be interpreted Carina found herself sitting down again, her arms refusing to move from her sides as her gaze stayed locked onto the older woman. Unabated and unfettered; Scenes started playing before Carina from an onlooker's point of view from floating screens in front of her.
Scenes of intense violence and mayhem, savagery beyond normal human limits were committed.
All by Carina.
Time after time she watched herself wake, often in the morgue but sometimes in other places in the hospital. There was a terrifying savage glint and rage in her eyes unfamiliar to her that seemed to overtake her when time and time again she and Locust would play a game of Hide and Seek through the hospital with the winner being one or the other of them who would track their counterpart down and brutalize them into unlife first.
There were others. Lupin, Sebastian, Quilly, Tobias, Otto, Molotra, and some she didnt recognize as she would encounter upon waking up or in her desperate mission of seek and destroy. She would either leave them behind in the case of her teammates or savage them beyond what even she thought was capable in the case of random shadow-like people that got in her way when they got in her way. In latter encounters that seemed to blend together as scenarios repeated themselves she would avoid or use these third-party groups to her advantage as slowly she learned the routines and actions down to a science.
Eventually, after two-douzen encounters, Carina finally overcame Locust for the first time. The operator didnt even balk or flinch at her death.
Six encounters later Carina had learned Locusts methods and techniques enough and bested her again.
The encounter after was a controlled attempt to put practice into testing out her hunch and ended up with her getting the drop on the operator just like she expected and maiming her before she killed Carina.
Time and time again the encounters became one-sided as Carina seemed to adapt and overcome Locust with a surprising reservoir of strength and cunning. By the fourty-fifth encounter, it turned from the two of them hunting each other to Locust playing the defensive. By the fiftieth, It began to turn cruel as Carina exacted horrific fantasies upon the woman who actually begged and pleaded to her on deaf ears.
It wasn't long after before Locust's mask slipped and she started to make mistakes and even show visible fear. Not long after that the woman actually tried to broker peace to deaf ears.
By the eightieth scenario, the hardened operator had become the bawling mess Carina had encountered in the morgue. Eventually, even she became tired or pitied the operator and simply used her like a taskmaster to a slave to accomplish her objectives as she tried to dismantle The Con.
On the one hundred and thirty-fifth scenario Carina awoke in the same drawer of the same morgue as she had almost a half-hundred times. She and the rest of the team had been wiped of their encounters for one last scenario, but Locust and her Trauma had remembered everything and followed the path she knew from trauma and muscle memory to release her sadist of a master. And then it played out as she remembered; Locust begging and bawling, the scalpel, her knife, them killing each other and then the void.
"I had my doubts at first but you really did turn out better than expected." The woman commented, suddenly in a chair beside Carina and watching the macabre montage alongside her. "You'll make a fine addition to the family, I'll even separate you from the fodder you were with and pair you with Lambda since you are so fond of her."
With a blink, the screens were gone...
The Void
As quickly as they had been separated reality folded back and the team found themselves sitting together again silently while the answers they had just received sunk in. For some like Duece it seemed not to phase them, For others like Facet who still sat and appeared mind broken they likely hadn't even asked one. Locust, for her part, was sitting stock still and watching Carina with a side-eye and appeared all the world ready to bolt into the void itself from the way she began to hyperventilate.
Seeming oblivious to any of this the admiral shuffled some papers that hadn't been there before and cleared her throat.
"Now if that's all I think we can move along and get you all processed?"
