Coeus?

“

[679:89307]: Drazi fleet detected in sensor grid 23-45-25. Endangered planets on their route: Forlorn colony Jehen [91001], Forlorn colony Sargas [86228], Sol [0]

”

-Galactic History

***Sol, Aether***

***Gideon***

“I don't feel any different.” Once more I try to explore my inner feelings, but there is no change as far as I am concerned. At least nothing noticeable.

~It's fine. I checked myself and they did exactly what they promised to do.~ Cyla's voice echoes through my mind and I try to relax. There is just one problem. I am not good with facial expressions, but Raina and her team look like they are troubled.

I get up from the bed next to Sadina's where I had to lie down for the procedure. “You, you don't look like you are happy about what you've done to me. What went wrong!?”

Raina raises an eyebrow and forces a smile onto her face, as do her four companions. “No- Nothing! We did exactly as you wished and now you will pass the psych evaluation. The fact that you don't feel different is perfectly fine. It means that our intervention went without incident.”

“But?” I ask.

“Your mind is most disconcerting!” A man out of Raina's team answers. “Yes! Please come back for further treatment once you are done with Sanguin.” One of the women interjects. The remaining two team members, a man and a woman nod in unison.

These guys give me the shivers. They are acting like that Binary whom I met on Gathering-Station.

“Gideon is fine as he is.” Cyla closes her arms around my head and hugs me. “I wouldn't want him to be any other way.”

Raina starts gesturing with her hands. “But how can you say that! His mind is a total mess! You have to know as his partner. You must have been in there! It's like walking a fine line between madness and being a computer!”

“It's not a mess, it's just... sorted out. Yes, that's the right way to put it! He simply sorted it out and neatly separated his feelings from his logical thinking. He has already proven that someone like that can function normally.” Cyla rebukes them.

“If you say so. The experience of connecting to such a mind was very uncomfortable.” The mind-medic who spoke up reaches for his head. He did that a lot since he was nosing through my mind. A migraine?

Raina nods. “Yes. Now I understand why all the Drazi whose minds he read turned into nothing more than vegetables.”

“Hold a moment, you were involved with the Drazi prisoners? What do you think about them?” I ask. It's the perfect opportunity to get a second opinion.

“Instinct driven animals.” Raina answers without hesitation. “I don't understand how they can have a functioning society. Interrogating them was no fun at all. But then again... we aren't paid for understanding the information we got out of them.”

I purse my lips, imagining what the SDF is doing to the Drazi prisoners. My way of interrogation may leave them as vegetables, but given their nature they might be better dead than caught in a cell.

“Back to topic. What should we do about her?” Raina points at the sleeping Sadina. “I would hardly call her sane at this moment and since I have no lawyer here I would at least want to separate the two personalities from each other and treat the remaining one. Just to prevent further harm. Her legal relatives have to decide.”

Melan reaches for her forehead. “I don't know. As you said it is complicated and I thought my daughter was lost since long ago.”

Hedeon shakes head. “To me the decision is clear. Get the twisted version out of her head and try to save the other one. No matter what you may say, the personality who acted as Sadina for the past thirty years isn't our daughter. You may say that it is her, but to me it is a strange construct which has no place in my daughter's head. It's Sanguin's creation. Restore the imprisoned one as much as you can.”

Ed nods enthusiastically. “Yes. I actually need it to be solved like that. It's the only way.”

Hedeon turns to Ed and squints his eyes. “What are you talking about?”

“You don't have to know. Just make it fast. My superior is already on his way.” Ed gestures for the mind-medics to begin their work.

“Then we will try to do our best. It was the only sensible path anyway.” Raina pulls a hand-held quantum computer out of one of her pockets and places it on Sadina's forehead. Then she and one of her colleagues touch Sadina's temples while the rest lines up behind them, touching their temples in turn.

I already learned from watching their performance earlier that this process can take a while. They are working very slowly and subtly with a lot of patience. Something I never considered. Maybe I shattered the Drazi minds and the mind of that blood-mage because I worked too fast? That's actually a good theory. It may be the same as with Exo's CPU? I have to do it slowly in my next attempt.

“Ed! What is this maniacal report about a first class violation of government responsibilities?”

Two men enter the room. One is a faceless, but his mask sports three golden stripes on his forehead. I'll simply call him Stripes. Apparently he is much higher ranked than Ed. Otherwise I doubt that he would speak like that.

The other one is Zibil, or Gandalf as I like to call him. I've no other words for it. One of my childhood heroes just turned into reality. Okay, he doesn't have a staff and his robes are much more shiny than in the movies. “Gandalf!”

“I am not Gandalf, Kid!” The old man barks. “Compared to me Gandalf is a street wizard. All he ever did in the movies was waving a stick and blinding people with a little shiny light. I am Zibil Firestorm! If I want to I can conjure up a nuclear fire which eats this whole colony in no time!”

Okay. I turn to Ed. “What is an elder doing here?” I turn back to Zibil. “And how do you know Lord of the Rings?”

Zibil clears his throat. “My little niece, twelve generations removed, is a big fan. I had to watch all the movies with her, remakes included. But enough of that. Why am I here? It doesn't happen every day that I am called out of my office at Mars and have to take an emergency teleport. I wasn't even given a reason.”

I like that man! Much more than Sanguin who forcefully enlisted me into the SDF and turned my mother into a mental wreck. On the other hand I wouldn't exist without him and he practically dropped Cyla into my lap. Does that make us even?

~Don't get distracted! This situation is dangerous!~ Cyla's mindvoice returns my attention to the situation at hand.

Ed's superior points at Sadina. “Who is that?”

Ed gets to his feet. He was resting on a chair close to Sadina. “Actually that's Sadina's body.”

“What?” Zibil calls out.

My father holds up his hands. “Wait. I can explain everything. And the reason why you are here is that you are the only elder whom I am certain of not having any dealings with Sanguin.”

Zibil visibly forces himself not to spit on the ground. “I hate that guy. His silver tongue is much too smooth and somehow he knows of some illegal activities before they occur. If he hadn't control over Sol's mainframe I would have pulled out the carpet from under his feet long ago.

And now that I mention it, I don't like you either. Whenever there is a problem which you need an elder for the first one whom you call is Sanguin.”

“That's just because he gets things done much faster than when I have to grovel in front of the other elders. But that's not important. There are new developments regarding Sadina.” And so Ed starts informing the two of the entire story in a slightly edited version in which I am not that central to the events. Only then it occurs to me that Ed is lying to an elder with a whole bunch of people around him who know the full truth.

Well, he isn't really lying, but twisting the truth nonetheless! My eyes wander around but the mind-medic are caught in their trance and everyone else doesn't want to risk interfering.

It takes a long time to retell the entire story. Unfortunately I can't see the expressions of Ed's superior, but Zibil's face changes through the full spectrum. From white to blue and then even red.

In the end Zibil stands there, stroking his beard, left eye twitching uncontrollably. “We can't get that bastard on a memory report alone. But if Gideon really challenges Sanguin's qualifications my party can assist that claim to get it through.”

I shake my head. “I am still hoping that there is another way. What do we do if I lose against him?”

Zibil snorts. “Don't make me laugh, Kid. I saw you in the news when you messed up that blood-mage. Sanguin may be smart and skilled, but if you are half as smart as you have skill, then you can best him. I saw your VR evaluation, just use your speed until Sanguin can't keep up.

And Ed is right when he says that getting him out of his office before we accuse him is better. Even if you lose we can still go with the accusation. Of course it will be much harder to make it stick if we can't investigate Sanguin's memories.”

“What about the virus?” Ed's superior asks. “We have to do something about it!”

“And what exactly do you propose?” Zibil snorts. “If we make it public we will alert Sanguin.”

“Blast the planet in question to pieces?” Melan asks.

I shake my head. “And how exactly would that not alert Sanguin? Not to mention that we would betray ourselves to the aliens in case that the virus already spread beyond the planet. It would be very suspicious if we blast the point of origin of the virus a few hours after it started spreading from there. Everyone would ask how we knew!”

“That's not an option. Only all the elders together can decide to use the teleportation nodes as weapons.” Zibil's eyes wander to Sadina. “But what to do about the problem which is in reach? All those crimes allow only one judgement, no matter her reasons. In a way it was still her.”

“Of course! Sadina will be judged for her actions.” Ed answers without hesitation and I turn towards him, doubting my ears.

Melan wants to say something when she is interrupted by the five mind-medics who end Sadina's treatment. Raina reaches for the hand-held computer on Sadina's forehead and picks it up, holding it very carefully. “We are done. That's-”

“Perfect!” Ed runs forward and snatches the hand-held out of Raina's hands. “That's the twisted Sadina?” He doesn't even wait for Raina's approval and returns to his superior. “Here, Sadina. Neatly packaged for transport.”

Stripes takes the device slowly and carefully, then his eyes wander back to Sadina. “Ed. You know that this is-”

“What you have there is the twisted Sadina.” Ed points at Sadina. “The personality that remains inside that body did nothing more than committing dangerous research on campus grounds. We aren't even sure if she can be held responsible for the explosion. And even if, she already suffered a thirty year sentence in her very own prison. Punishing her a second time would be just wrong.”

Stripes tilts his head in thought, then he speaks with a warning voice. “You have one of those days of twisted logic again, Ed.”

“I'll owe you a favour.” Ed answers with a grave voice.

“I can already feed a fusion reactor with your favours, Ed. Free access to the database, Orbit One, Lunar Space Station. Do you remember? Or even better! The Revelation Wing base! All favours you will have a hard time to pay back!” Then Stripes pockets the device and crosses his arms in front of his chest. “But I guess the hero who took down the Revelation Wing deserves a favour here and there.”

That was me! I cleaned up that asteroid base! Now I want to strangle Ed!

~Don't say a word. Let Ed have the glory if it helps him to protect Sadina.~ Cyla interrupts my thoughts.

~Yes. Yes, I know! But it still bugs me.~ I answer, grinding my teeth.

“Ahem. If that's all of the bad news I'll go and prepare the other elders. I suppose you will file your complaint right away, Gideon?” Zibil addresses me.

I nod and activate my VR for a short moment. Then I take my time to file a nice and long complaint about Sanguin and the inadequacies of having an old, senile politician as an elder. In addition I point out that he is already with one foot in his grave and that he handled the Oibras incident very badly despite having access to the mainframe. When I am done I forward the document to the government network. “Done.”

Zibil turns around and leaves the room. “Fucking techno-mages. Cheaters altogether! I wish I could write a report in the blink of an eye!”

“Right he is.” Stripes mumbles and follows Zibil. “Don't forget that you owe me, Ed!”

“He is just jealous!” Raina crosses her arms in front of her chest. “Now, do you want to know the status of the patient or are government affairs more important?” When nobody answers she simply continues speaking. “We removed the manipulated personality and freed the caged one. Then we tried to stabilize her by suppressing the memories of her imprisonment. She will slowly remember bit by bit as she learns to deal with her experiences. That's why initially she won't know anything about Gideon, Saden, Galia or Cyla. To her she lost consciousness soon after being caged inside her mind prison.”

“She will still have to deal with the shit that happened to her once she starts remembering, but I think she is at least not likely to commit suicide if the memories return while she can interact with people. Though I assume that she will have a mental breakdown once the more mortifying memories return. I suggest for her parents to take care of her and that she sees nobody else until she gets to terms with herself. We also would like to have one or two more sessions with her to check our work.”

Melan returns to Sadina's side and strokes her head. “I'll be there when she wakes up.”

“How do you feel about that.” Cyla whispers from my side.

I shrug my shoulders. “Indifferent. I didn't care much about Sadina until she became dangerous. And whoever that other personality may be, she isn't my mother. I know her even less than the manipulated version. To me Melan is my mother and that will never change.”

My eyes wander to the door and I realize that a certain someone probably just vanished out of my life for good. Will I ever miss the psychological discussions with Sadina while she was posing as my school's counsellor?

.