Episode Eighteen: Conversations
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Threat of torture; fantastic racism.

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“Good morning, private.”

The soldier looked up from the comic book he’d been reading. “Oh, good morning lieutenant! Here to pick up Doctor Winters’ notes?”

I nodded. “Yeah, sorry about that. I had a busy day yesterday, and when I came back I was so tired I completely forgot I’d left them with you.”

“I don’t blame you,” he replied with a smile. “Fighting those things must be really difficult. Thank you for your service.” He paused. “I’ll get the documents for you.”

In short order he was back with the sheaf of papers I’d briefly held onto the previous day, and handed them to me. “As always, I have to remind you: no copies, and no taking this material outside the base.”

I nodded, and saluted. “Thank you, private. Have a nice day.”

He saluted back. “You too, ma’am.”

I turned around and, papers in hand, walked back to my room to do some reading.

 

 

Five hours later, I’d made some headway in trying to figure out what exactly was going on.

Doctor Winters’ research notes were heavily redacted, of course; most pages had several lines blacked out, and some were even completely censored, not a single letter or punctuation mark showing. Of course that included everything about how exactly the morphers worked, but I managed to figure out one thing, specifically: according to Winters, the Elerium cores which powered the morphers hadn’t originally been built for that purpose, but rather as energy sources for high-power weapons, employed by the Repulsoids on the battlefield during their first offensive, the one which had ended with the Battle of Indianapolis.

After that, the cores were salvaged from the rubble, and the doctor managed to reverse-engineer their technology, and use it as a base upon which to build the Defender suits. That took eight full years of intensive research on Winters’ part. (Why she didn’t just use them to build simpler weapons instead was something I didn’t understand; it was probably explained by some of the redacted text.)

On the other hand, the first Repulsoid Leaders showed up barely a year after the Defenders’ first appearance on the battlefield, and that was very worrying. Again, the doctor’s thoughts as written down in her notes were heavily redacted, but one thing was clear: she didn’t think it was possible for the aliens to develop suits much like the Defenders’ in such a short period of time.

The implication being that someone on the humans’ side had passed critical information to the Repulsoids, about how the morphers and the suits worked, allowing them to develop their own.

It was almost ironic. The Defenders’ equipment had been developed by reverse-engineering alien technology, and the Leaders’ in turn had been made based on the Defenders’.

But it meant something even more critical: since all research had been done on-site at Defender Base, and no documents or data had ever left the premises, clearly there was a spy in the base. And it had to be someone high up in the hierarchy, too: someone who had at least partial access to the research done by Doctor Winters. That was the only logical conclusion.

The thought of it made me extremely worried. I kept thinking about what other information they might leak out to the Repulsoids: what if, for example, they gave them information about the Defenders’ families? My aunts would be in danger – I didn’t know if the aliens would stoop so low as to try to do something to them to get at me, but I couldn’t rule it out.

I needed to gather more information, but besides a (heavily redacted) list of the capabilities of the morphers, there was nothing else to be found in Doctor Winters’ notes. No clue as to who was responsible for leaking information to the Repulsoids; no clue as to what information, exactly, was passed; no clue as to who had received that information on the Repulsoids’ side.

Well. Regarding that last part, at least, I knew exactly who to ask.

 

 

“Good afternoon, corporal,” I said, walking up to the desk.

The soldier looked up at me. “Lieutenant Kennedy? May I help you?”

I nodded. “Yes, I think you can. I would like a word with the prisoner. Could you point me towards where Sapphire Beetle is held?” I replied, gesturing to a metal door set into the wall; I knew that behind it was a corridor, which was lined with holding cells, each closed with its own set of steel bars.

The corporal exchanged a glance with the private who was standing beside the desk, armed with an assault rifle. “You want to talk to Beetle? What for?”

“Oh, just to see if I can perhaps extract some information from him.”

He seemed to hesitate, but then nodded. “Of course. Though I don’t know if you’ll be able to get him to talk; the best people we have on base, including General Ryder, have been interrogating him since he got here, but so far he hasn’t said anything.” He paused. “Well, no, he said a lot, actually, just… Nothing useful, apparently. The general was absolutely furious. He said that as soon as Beetle’s healed from the wounds he got during the fight, he’s calling in some experts.”

I frowned at the weird inflection he’d put on the final word. “What do you mean?”

“Someone from the CIA, or the DIA, or the FBI, or the NSA, or whatever. One of those three-letter agencies, who knows how to enhance an interrogation.” He gave me a significant look, and I understood what he meant; I felt a shiver run down my spine, but I managed not to show my distaste.

“Well, hopefully I’ll manage to get the information we need, so there won’t be any need for that,” I said.

The guard nodded. He got up from his desk, unlocked the door, and swung it open. “Third cell on the left.”

I nodded back. “Thank you, corporal.”

I walked along the corridor, hearing the door slam shut behind me, and looked inside the holding cells as I passed them. There wasn’t much to them: just a simple bed fastened to the wall and a toilet, nothing else. Not even a chair to sit on, though there were a couple along the corridor. When I reached the third cell, I saw Sapphire Beetle lying on the bed, eyes wide open, staring at the ceiling. The wounds he’d suffered during the battle with Defender Silver had been bandaged, and he seemed no worse for wear – apparently General Ryder and the other people who’d interrogated him hadn’t touched him, probably for fear of making his injuries worse, or killing him outright. Small blessings; I made a mental note of bringing up with the general that enhanced interrogation was immoral, besides being illegal, the next time I would see him.

I stood in front of the cell for a few minutes, but it seemed that Sapphire Beetle hadn’t noticed my presence. Or, if he had, he was ignoring me.

I cleared my throat.

He glanced at me. “What do you want?” he asked.

“To talk,” I replied. I reached over, grabbed a chair, pulled it up in front of the cell, and sat down.

“We have nothing to talk about,” he said. “I have nothing to tell you humans that I haven’t said already.” He resumed staring at the ceiling.

“Oh, don’t be so cold. I’m sure we have lots in common.”

He snorted a barely-suppressed laugh. “Such as?”

“Well, for starters, none of the people who talked to you could morph, while I can.” I flashed him my best smile. “I’m Stephanie Kennedy. Steph. You know me as Defender Red.”

Beetle raised his head and looked at me in curiosity. “Defender Red?” he asked. “Seriously?”

I nodded. “Seriously.”

He pulled himself up to a seated position, looking at me all the while. “I have to say, you don’t look like much without your suit.”

“You don’t, either,” I shot back. “So what should I call you? Me and the rest of my team have been calling you by a codename, Sapphire Beetle. But I’m guessing that’s not your name, isn’t it?”

He blinked. “What is a sapphire, and what is a beetle?”

“Ah… A sapphire is a gemstone, a blue gemstone,” I said. “To go with your armour’s colour. While a beetle is a kind of insect. A bug.”

The alien pierced me with a stare. “You named me after an insect? After such a lowly life-form? Who is the idiot responsible for this?”

I smirked. “One of my friends, actually. Though I don’t know who first came up with the naming convention: every one of you is named after a gemstone and an insect, since we don’t know what your real names are.”

He crossed his arms and looked away from me.

“So what’s your name?” I asked again. “So I don’t keep calling you Beetle.”

There was a long pause, before he finally answered: “…Amet.”

“Well!” I exclaimed. “Nice to make your acquaintance, Amet. Like I said, my name is Steph.”

He didn’t reply; we sat in silence for a while, me looking at him, him staring at the wall.

“Since you’re not going to say anything, let me ask you the question I came here to ask,” I said. I leaned forward in my chair. “Where did you get your morpher?”

He turned his head to look at me again, but didn’t speak.

“Because, you know…” I lowered my voice. “I have discovered that the technology you use was stolen from us humans. I wanted to know who was responsible for it.”

“Lies!” Amet shouted, springing to his feet. “Lies and slander! It was not stolen!”

I leaned back in my chair. “Are you sure? Because--”

“I am more than sure,” he cut me off. “I am certain. The Emperor would not stoop so low as to steal from humans! He made the morphing devices himself!”

I blinked in surprise. “The Emperor?”

The alien stared at me. “You have no idea what that means, do you? The Emperor is the source of all power for us! To be bestowed such an honour…”

He stood up as straight as he could. “We are the Emperor’s chosen, Defender Red! Empowered directly by his hands, tasked with defeating the meagre resistance you humans have been putting up!”

“You’re not doing a good job at that,” I commented snidely.

Amet glared fiercely at me for a few seconds, but then looked away. “It is true, I admit it. You have performed admirably, much better than we could have anticipated. And sometimes… Sometimes I wonder what the Emperor is thinking. Sometimes his orders don’t seem to make sense…”

“On that point, we agree,” I said. “We’ve noticed it, too. Your attacks are uncoordinated, they seem to lack an overall strategy, to have no point beyond doing damage and making us react to them.” I paused. “At least Ipsum tried to do something different than just attacking us outright.”

“Lot of good that did to him,” Amet said. “He got killed by you for his trouble.”

“About that… I didn’t kill him.”

He looked up at me, a doubting look in his eyes. “What are you saying? Of course you did. He set up a trap for you, but that didn’t work, and he died after duelling with you. Lorem said as much, in her report to the Emperor.” He paused. “Lorem is--”

“The woman in the green armour. The one we call Emerald Scarab. I know,” I replied, earning a look of surprise from the Repulsoid. “And that’s not true at all. Ipsum was severely injured, but he was still alive when Lorem teleported the both of them away.”

Amet’s eyes narrowed.

“Maybe he died of his wounds later, that’s a possibility,” I added. “But his injuries didn’t seem life-threatening. And Lorem, the last time I saw her, outright told me that she omitted… Certain things in her report.”

“Certain things…?”

I nodded in response; I wasn’t about to tell him about Defender Black, though, so I changed the subject. “Oh, by the way, she’s working with Defender Silver,” I casually said.

“She’s what?” Amet said.

“Oh yeah,” I replied, nodding again. “After Silver defeated you, I met them both once again a short time later. They duelled, then they talked, and in the end they left together, for parts unknown.”

The Leader stared at me. “But Silver is a Defender. She’s one of you.”

“No, she’s not. She does call herself Defender Silver, that much is true, but we have no idea who she is, or where she came from. Or what her plans are, for that matter.”

Amet kept staring for a few moments, then said, “I have two questions for you, Stephanie Kennedy. First, why are you telling me all this? And second, do you expect me to believe you?”

I shrugged. “I see no reason why I shouldn’t tell you; none of this is classified information. And it helps when everyone in a conversation is on the same page to begin with. As for whether you should believe me…” I paused, and smiled. “You decide that. But it’s almost funny, really.”

“What is?”

“Lorem said the same thing, when I told her about how you’d been defeated by Defender Silver. Her words were, as I recall,” I shifted my voice and tried to do my best impression of Emerald Scarab, “your story is so far-fetched I actually admire you for having the guts to tell it.”

For the first time since we’d begun our conversation, Amet smiled, and chuckled a bit. “That does sound like her, yes.”

“In any case,” I continued, standing up from my chair, “You have given me a few things to think about. I enjoyed this conversation. Thank you.”

The alien nodded his head in acknowledgement. “Thank you too, Stephanie Kennedy,” he replied.

I blinked in surprise. “Thank me? What for?”

“You’re the first person who has treated me with respect ever since I was captured. Everyone else had barely disguised their contempt for me, but not you. You’ve actually talked with me, instead of at me.”

“…You’re welcome,” I replied. “I’ll try to make some time to talk again.”

He nodded. “I would like that.”

I nodded back at him, pulled the chair back to its place along the corridor’s wall, and left the cell block.

As I walked towards the mess hall, I thought about the conversation I’d had with Amet. It had gone well; the most important thing I’d learned was where the Leaders’ powers, their morphers, came from: the Repulsoid Emperor himself.

That was certainly something to take into consideration. But, on the other hand, it didn’t mean the spy inside the base had passed on the information directly to the Emperor; they might have been in contact with someone lower in the hierarchy, who then had passed the information to the Emperor, allowing him to build the morphers.

Assuming, of course, he had built the morphers in the first place, and that there wasn’t someone else building them for him instead.

And where did Lorem and Defender Silver fit in all of this?

This was becoming all too complicated, with too many twists and turns and what ifs and whatnots. I sorely wished it was simpler, that there was a clearly identifiable villain, someone I could just punch in the face and be done with.

While I was lost in thought, I’d reached the lunch room; it was still late afternoon, not even early evening, so there weren’t many people around. I quickly picked up a tray and filled it up with food, taking care to pick all vegetarian options, then left the cafeteria and made my way to my room, locking the door behind me. I had somewhere to be.

 

 

The warehouse at Champaign appeared in front of me in a flash of red light; I reached down, and flicked the lever on my morpher, making my suit disappear.

“Hello? Are you still here?” I called, looking around. “Sorry I’m late. Unfortunately, I can’t just leave every time I want to.”

The room wasn’t well-lit, but as I glanced through the shadow I saw the Repulsoid soldier’s head peeking out from behind a concrete pillar.

“Hello there,” I smiled. “Glad to see you’re still here. I brought some more food.”

I placed the tray on the ground, walked away, and sat down on the ground. As they had the previous day, but less cautiously (though they were still eyeing me warily), they walked over and picked up the tray of food, carrying it away to a safe spot.

“Same as yesterday,” I commented. “Still cafeteria food. But it’s better than nothing I guess.”

I looked at them eating for a while, then stood up; they froze, and looked at me.

“No, don’t worry, I’m not going to do anything to you,” I said, spreading my arms in a peaceful gesture. “It’s just, I read something today, and I wanted to try it out.”

They tilted their head in curiosity, but didn’t make any attempt to run away as I took a few steps towards them. I grabbed my morpher, and tried to remember the sequence of buttons I’d read about in Doctor Winters’ notes that morning: most of the morphers’ capabilities had been redacted from the document, but there was something specifically that I thought might be useful for the current situation.

I pressed the switches a few times, and the morpher beeped in acknowledgement. “There, that should do it,” I said. I bent over and placed the morpher on the ground, then looked up at the soldier. “Try saying something.”

The Repulsoid grunted questioningly.

“what” came a neutral, electronic voice from the morpher.

The soldier blinked in surprise, then growled. “what is that” the morpher said.

I smiled. “Instant translator,” I said. “It was built into the device when it was made, but it seems no one ever used it. I discovered it existed by chance today while reading some stuff.”

I sat back down right beside the morpher. “This way, maybe, we can have a proper conversation. I’m Steph, what’s your name?”

The Repulsoid seemed to hesitate, then made a guttural sound; the morpher stayed silent.

“Not good with names, it seems,” I commented, shaking my head. “Ah well, I’ll try to find a name that suits you. How about…” I frowned. “Wait, are you a boy or a girl?” I asked. “This feels like something I should ask, before we talk about names.”

The soldier gave something that sounded like an amused chuckle, and then said something. “boy” the morpher said.

I nodded. “Good, that’s a start. So how do you feel about the name Robert?”

He made a face.

“Okay, then Desmond? Aidan? Kyle?”

“none of those are good” came the answer through the translator.

“Then how about…”

We went through about two dozen names before he settled on one that, according to him, was not terrible: Rog. Short for Rogelio.

“Alright, Rog,” I said. “Nice to make your acquaintance.”

I took a deep breath.

“What can you tell me about the Repulsoid Emperor?”

 

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