෴Raz෴

෴Ingrid Lochee෴

෴Leon Braithwaite෴

෴Reginald Martine෴

෴Candace Remington෴

෴෴෴ ෴෴෴ ෴෴෴

Malicious Compliance

෴෴෴ ෴෴෴ ෴෴෴

{{Transcript from Ms. Ingrid Lochee, final debrief interview.}}

{{IN: I caught up with Ms. Lochee in the days following The Arcstorm Event. During this interview, she abruptly requested a break to compose herself. This is the portion of the interview following that recess. She is a difficult person to interview. In the initial part of the interview, after we explained the purpose of the interview, she chose to answer ‘in character’, rather than simply speaking the facts. I’m no psychologist, but my read is that she’s desperate to distance herself from her past actions.}}

{{Recording resumes}}

That’s better. Thanks, I needed to stretch my legs and get my head on right. What was I talking about? Oh wait, it was how he dragged me from one stinky camp full of sick people to another. I had sand in places you should never have sand! Of course, he doesn’t let me get involved, just leaves me at the jeep thing and goes in to start playing some kind of bullshit white savior to the poor displaced or whatever.

{{IN: At this point, Ms. Lochee became overwrought and choked up. She tried to continue several times, then abruptly broke down sobbing. My mother would have called it ‘ugly crying’. She cried uncontrollably, unselfconsciously, the way a child or someone in real agony would cry. At the time, I assumed it was a ploy, but as my role is to get the interview, I didn’t attempt to call her on it.}}

{{IN: Events since then have told another story.}}

I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I can’t do it. I thought I could do it. It’s just so horrible. I can’t put myself in the same headspace as the horrible backstabbing bitch I was. Is it ok if I just tell you what happened without digging into what I was thinking then? It’s just too fresh. I didn’t even know I was a monster.

{{IN: At this point I suggested a second recess. She accepted eagerly, and came back somewhat more composed.}}

Ok, let me try this again. If you don’t mind me sticking more to the facts, I think I can get through it. Like, just the facts are bad enough, but if I have to put myself back there, I’m sorry, I just can't. I don’t know exactly when it started, or how it happened. But ever since we left that outpost, it’s like I’ve been slowly waking from a nightmare. The kind of nightmare where you don’t know that you’re dreaming, or even that you were asleep. It’s hard to pin down when it started. I’ve been working on my abilities with Leon and a few other people in the Martine Industries hierarchy for a few years now. I don’t know how or when, but somewhere along the way, doing terrible things stopped seeming very terrible. Eventually, it just felt normal. Waking up from that left me with memories I’m not ready to face. I feel like I don’t dare even think about them until I’m ready to get some therapy.

So, I don’t know if I mentioned it, but my first ability, the one I’m the best with, is what they generally call Technopathy. Some technopaths are better at interacting with software, and a few are like wizard-level inventors. Me, I’m good at sensing and interacting with low-level hardware. Operating systems on a chip, or firmware, any kind of ASIC, PLC, or integrated circuit is my jam. I can interact with software, and sometimes I even get brief flashes of inspiration that must be what the inventors feel, but for me, the world is alive with tiny points of light flowing through tiny logic trees at the speed of light.

Don’t worry if you don’t get it. I barely get what other technopaths can do, and I can kind of do it! An ASIC, or PLC is a—Never mind. You can search up those terms yourself later. They’re integrated circuits of varying complexity is all you really need to know.

So, like, what I’m leading up to, is that the minute I was healed up, and not distracted by a fuc—damn bullet hole in my belly, I noticed it.

The what’s-it-called–. Uh, the JLTV, it had tons of built in electronics. Those things are just jam-packed with sensors and devices. I ended up getting really familiar with that truck, since I spent most of my time in or around it. Anyway, what I noticed was an active GPS tracker. I followed the wires, and it was obviously built in.

Maybe I could have avoided the whole thing. I’ll never know now. All I can say for sure is that it was already sending its location when I found it. It used some kind of super low frequency channel through a long coiled up redundant antenna array throughout the chassis.

I know. I should have said something, or at least disabled it. I wimped out. I was more scared of getting chipped than I was of getting killed by one of those sword-bugs. When we stopped at the nomad camp, something changed, and the GPS started broadcasting much more frequent regular updates. Like someone had turned on a tracking feature.

I should have stopped it. I should have at least told Fidel. I should have done something. I have no defense. I was a horrible monster of a person. Worse, somehow I convinced myself I was the victim in all of it. Looking back at it, it’s like my brain was like this hamster on a wheel wearing blinders, running as fast as it could to avoid seeing the truth all around me.

So long story short, instead of doing the right thing, or even just the smart thing, I let the GPS keep broadcasting our location.

At the time, I thought the people in that first village didn’t like me. I used it to feed my bullshit narrative that I was the oh-so-put-upon victim. Looking back at it with clearer eyes, I think they just reflected what I put out. As much of a whiny bitch as I was, I’m lucky they even fed me. They probably only did because I was with him.

So yeah, I was like, a scared and selfish little girl, and as soon as we got somewhere with a radio, I got to it first, used it to send a coded message, and then slagged the whole thing. I started a fire to cover the evidence it was me.

I’m pretty sure he suspected it was me, but he didn’t say anything about it. I was already having second thoughts about calling in, but I knew if they found me, and I hadn’t called in at the earliest opportunity, I’d have been chipped and put in a corner somewhere as a party favor as soon as they found me.

Leon had some special tool for tracking that SUV–the JLTV when he got there, so I knew I’d made a good call. I’m not defending it now, just saying, that's how I felt at the time.

Being surrounded by two men that seemed to have no interest in me was messing with my head. I don’t know if I was lashing out in anger, fear, or some unholy stew of them plus frustration and a feeling of rejection. I’m not used to that. Again, I’m not defending what I did. There isn't a defense for it.

I’d rather skip the next part. It hurts me to think about it. Long story short, Leon didn’t trust me, and as soon as he had me in a controlled environment, he locked me up to test his new technopath-proof implant.

I’m not sure why he stuck me in the room with Raz. Maybe he thought we’d boned, and my being there would keep him from doing anything too drastic. Of course, no matter what I’d told him, Leon just didn’t want to accept that I wasn’t really one of Raz’s favorite people at that point.

And then I was trapped in a small room, with a naked man. A naked man who seemed to know exactly how much I enjoyed looking at him. A naked man who very much didn’t like me. I’m not used to men not liking me. If you can grant me one pun, being locked up with him was a shocking experience in more ways than one.

෴෴෴ ෴෴෴ ෴෴෴

Raz kept his breathing slow and steady. Letting the procedural chains handle incoming energy and holding the inner portal to White Fire open. With each breath, he did his best to relax into the pain and let the door open a little wider.

That's it, just like leaning into a hard stretch. You got this.

He’d passed the threshold of protection offered by Friendly Fire a while ago. At that level, Ingrid shrunk away from him in fear, then stiffened up until he applied a second Friendly Fire marker on both of them. That let him open a still bigger energy channel.

He kept the energy all in a single color. He’d learned in his experimentation that in his electrosense, blue represented a negative charge, or energy flowing toward him, and red represented energy flowing away from him. When the two colors met, the result could be highly reactive. Right now, Raz was channelling more of the blue negative energy than he’d ever imagined was possible.

This level of output was only possible once he’d applied a third and then fourth Friendly Fire chevron to Ingrid. He could not add even a third chevron to himself. With Friendly Fire and his own Insulation, and whatever general durability Might was providing, the energy flow was at the edge of his tolerance. The blazing, wild force flowed in from what seemed to be nowhere, then fell away into the skin-tight highly-conductive chains.

It’s working. It has to be working. Nothing can stand up to this much power forever.

He could feel it was doing something. Where before he was blind to what lay beyond the copper and silver lined room, now his electrosense was sketching out the shape of a very tall square structure. As though the energy had begun to saturate the structure as a whole.

Once he’d been at it for a while, something changed. The energy carried away so instantly at first, slowed down. By now, the grounding effect had become almost sluggish. The need to mark Ingrid showed him how much of a standing charge he was building up. Somewhere below, a negative charge of apocalyptic force was accruing.

Raz forced his gaze off the curves of her body.

I hate that even knowing what I know, she’s still so damn sexy. I gotta get out of here and go home to my harem.

[Not to make light of our situation, but I dare you to call Hex your harem to her face.]

Did I just dare myself? How does that even work?! Also, dare accepted. Also, very optimistic dare considering the circumstances.

[Not so optimistic. Things are going more or less the way you predicted. You're getting what you wanted. This plan of yours might even work.]

Your faith in me is truly underwhelming.

Even before the level of power channeled had rendered him speechless, he’d rejected every conversational overture from Ingrid. She’d explained about the GPS tracker, and he’d made a mental note about that, but nothing he’d heard was compelling enough to change his opinion. She’d soon resorted to begging.

“I’ll do anything. Whatever you need. Just take me with you. Those chips, they’re like walking death. Just let me come with you and I’ll join you. I’ll be yours, whatever that means to you. Just please don’t let them chip me.”

He gritted his teeth, the creeping ache building up an overwhelming force.

“No… Reason... to trust… you…” He managed to grunt out around the effort and controlled breathing.

She suddenly kicked off a boot, peeled off her sock and flung her bare foot over to where his own feet were locked up. Raz leaned into slow time just enough to place a final Friendly Fire chevron on her before she made contact with the side of his foot.

He’d worried that touching him would fry her. Instead, it seemed to reduce the load and discomfort on him. As far as he could tell, she didn’t even notice the change.

Some kind of change to surface area? Is it psychosomatic? I don't mind the help, but what's her angle? She can't think playing footsy is the answer.

By now, Bee was well aware of when questions were rhetorical, even if he sometimes chose to answer them anyway.

Raz found he was able to maintain the same vast energy channel with far less effort. Almost reflexively, he began to subtly analyze Ingrid through the tiny physical connection.

Elsewhere in the large building. This unusual electrical activity was not going unnoticed.

෴෴෴ ෴෴෴ ෴෴෴

“Yes sir. Of course sir. You did ask me to bring you the Antarctica retrieval and rescue report along with the latest communications with field ops.” Candace cowered away from Martine’s wrathful expression.

While he looked over the report detailing a total loss of the harvesting facility, all personnel, and the retrieval and rescue team, she subvocalized her personal mantras.

The second report could be summed up much more succinctly. With no warning or even a farewell, McAvoy had gone dark, no further information available.

From her mantras she drew strength, and a growing will to see Reginald Martine, and everything he’d created destroyed regardless of the cost. By now, she knew better, much better, than to allow those thoughts to pass through her mind without disguising them. Learning to think in code hadn’t been easy, but it had been worth it.

Martine reached the end of the report and flung it to the desk. “Got anything else I need to know? I’m late for my workout.”

She smiled. A particularly astute observer might have noticed a malicious, almost manic edge to the expression. “No sir. You have a good workout.”

She left without another word exchanged. In the hallway, her mantra grew in volume until she was whispering it aloud.

“I’ll use my best judgement when important things happen!”

“I’ll just do what I need to do.”

“I’ll stop telling you things you don’t want to hear!”

“I’ll give you a day without bad news!”

Her manic expression stretched wide into the grinning rictus of a madwoman.

She turned the corner just in time to see a man she recognized on sight, but without her ability, couldn’t come up with his name.

She barely managed to get her expression under control before he turned and spotted her. He smiled and let out a sigh of relief and a wave, before sprinting over to her.

“Ma’am, Ms. Remington. We have a problem!”

She started to smile before carefully schooling her expression into a passable frown. “That sounds bad. You’re—”

“Carl, Ma’am, Carl Schafer. I’m the chief building engineer.”

“Thank you Mr. Schafer. I didn’t realize we had a building engineer.” She said, hating how blind and stupid she felt without her ability to fill in all the information she could ever need at all times in the moment.

“Oh yes! Can’t have a building this size without lots of engineering.”

She nodded, without sending any signal that she wished to delve into that topic. “Of course. Well, what can I do for you, Chief Engineer Schafer?”

She kept walking toward the elevators, forcing the man to walk with her or be left behind.

“Well, ma’am, it’s about the email I sent earlier this afternoon. The electrical glitches all over the building are continuing. In fact, they’re getting worse.”

“Oh yes, that email.” She did indeed remember it. Something about computers going haywire all over the building due to a massive ground fault in the wiring. It had been a great test of her ability to use her best judgement, and not tell Martine things wouldn’t want to hear. When those reasons wore thin in her mind, she leaned on the idea of ‘giving him a day without bad news’.

“Yes, I recall it. Is there an update?” Her cool tone hinting that she didn’t care either way.

“Well, uh, yes! Ma’am, I don’t want to overstep, but this is serious! If it wasn’t after business hours, I’d have to respectfully ask that you evacuate the building,” he stammered.

She thought about this for a moment. “Yes, I suppose that is a good idea. Handle that please. I’ll deal with alerting the people in the restricted areas.”

They arrived at the elevator. She reached out for the button. A loud snapping sound and a flash preceded the piercing, burning pain in her finger. The elevator door jerked open half way, releasing a thin plume of acrid smoke. The doors stopped, closed, and made a loud, low pitched honking sound that resembled the normal arrival ‘ding’ in the same way a semi-truck horn resembled a bicycle bell.

She looked at Carl. “I see. Perhaps I’ll take the stairs.”

He nodded, looking at the elevator he’d recently ridden in. “Yes, that seems like a good idea. Don’t touch the handrails.”

They walked over to the stairwell door. She noticed Carl was wearing thick, insulated gloves. He gingerly grasped the metal handle and opened the steel reinforced fire door. A wave of ozone filled the hall.

Hugging the wall, they made their way down the stairs. A few flights later, Candace spoke up.

“What’s causing all this?” Based on Braithwaite’s half-assed report, she had a pretty good idea, but wanted to hear Carl’s take on it.

The balding, middle-aged engineer wiped his forehead onto his sleeve. “Well ma’am, I’m not positive about cause or effect here, but we’ve got some pretty unprecedented things happening, and I’m not sure how to resolve them.”

She made a tiny dismissive sniffing sound. “Unprecedented how?”

Carl kept walking down the stairs for a moment, apparently lost in thought, until she spoke up sharply. “I asked you a question!” She snapped at him.

He nodded. “Of course ma’am. I’m just trying to think through how to explain it to you.”

She rolled her eyes. “Yes, yes, I’m sure you’re very smart. Just tell me like I’m a child then.”

“Er, yeah. That’s what I’m trying to do. Oh, right. So we connected a hertz sampling surge protected oscilloscope to the building’s superstructure. What looked like a constant low amperage, high voltage pressure to standard meters, turned out to be a very rapid pulsing. Not like alternating current, but—”

She shushed him. “Carl, I need you to cut to the chase. I’m not an electrician, or an engineer.”

He wiped his forehead again. “Uh, well, you know how we install lightning rods all over the top of the building, and have big thick grounding cables attached to the steel frame, all around the foundation?”

She shook her head. “I know nothing about that, but I think I have the gist of what you’re talking about. So what’s the problem?”

He took a deep breath and let it out explosively. “Well ma’am, the building is rated to handle up to one thousand lightning strikes a year, virtually indefinitely, with the possibility of needing to replace parts affected by electro-galvanic corrosion from time to time.”

She nodded. “Oh, I see. Are we overdue for replacement? Send me a budget request if you need funds to—”

He nervously cut her off, causing her to scowl, and him to shrink back from the expression. “No ma’am. That’s not it. We inspect those components twice a year, and the most recent inspection was only last month. The problem is that the building is rated for up to a thousand strikes a year, and we’re getting nearly fifteen hundred lightning strikes a minute.”

“You mean the building is getting struck by lightning 25 times a second?” She blurted out in surprise.

He nodded gravely. “Good math skills. I broke out a calculator for that. But yes, that's exactly what I’m saying.”

She reflexively glanced upward, as though she’d be able to see the sky within the concrete and steel emergency stairwell. “That sounds bad. Is there a bad storm passing by? Should we be passing a warning to the management of nearby buildings? Wait, I thought lightning always hits the tallest thing. We’re not even close to the tallest building around here.”

He licked his lips nervously. “You know, I hadn’t thought about that myself. The thing is, there is no storm. It’s a nice day outside. The lightning is only hitting our building.”

She thought about the capture report from Braithwaite she hadn’t shown Martine, then parsed through her mantra several times before she was able to continue the conversation. “Thank you Carl. You did the right thing by coming to me with it. Do let everyone know to carefully exit the building and head home. I’ll alert the restricted area, and then figure out if there’s anything we can do about it.”

He turned to look at her, shock written on his face. “Surely you aren’t suggesting I should go home as well?”

She nodded solemnly. “I am. We can’t risk valuable employees such as yourself in this electrical deathtrap. We’ll deal with it tonight, and either have it resolved, or close the building until it is. Hopefully, we can get this sorted before anyone is due to come in tomorrow.”

He looked askance at her. “You’re going to get some kind of weather or electrical anomaly sorted? Are you quite sure?”

She nodded, “Quite sure. We’ll deal with this with a specialist.”

He looked at the next stairwell landing with a groan, then nodded. “Ok, you’re the boss. I already got a call from my friend who lives a couple miles away. The lightning strikes apparently look like a thick, constant, blinding bolt of lightning coming down from the skies. The building can’t take that for long. No building can. The grounding cables will fail, and then who knows what’ll happen.”

As if to prove his point, when he opened the door, a bright arc accompanied by a loud snap greeted him.

She nodded farewell and kept descending toward the restricted area. A few minutes later, without having come up with any way to avoid it, she delivered the information to Leon Braithwaite.

He told her his idea. She rejected it out of hand, unwilling to perpetuate the evil she now lived under.

They argued for several minutes, before Braithwaite invoked her implant's backdoor authority and told her the plan she would be following.

෴෴෴ ෴෴෴ ෴෴෴

Ugh, I know I said I could do this all day, but I’m starting to think that was optimistic.

The physical and mental effort was beginning to tell on him. He’d already had to check himself with Diagnose several times, and repair minor burns. The prison he was in was failing, he could feel it. By now, the giant tower that confined him stood out like a glowing three-dimensional map above him. He could only see a few people moving around. With the double Ground Control chevrons, and the Ionized path chevron, he knew which figure was one of the Braithwaites. The other one was nowhere in his sensory range. He had a distinct feeling that with the target markers already applied, he could attack Braithwaite from here with no problem.

Except that then he’ll know one more thing about me, and killing a copy doesn’t accomplish anything.

Ingrid was still talking. More of the same. Begging for a chance, promising him anything if he’d just give her a chance to prove herself. Some of her more explicit and seductive offers required more effort to ignore than others. He was glad his ability with Somatic Restoration gave him control of his body, or she might have been able to see how interesting his hindbrain found those tempting offers.

A new figure approached Braithwaite. Probably a woman based on her frame. They stood close enough to be chatting for several minutes before they both donned a set of opaquely reflective long coveralls that looked very odd to his electrosense.

He noticed absently that the full analysis of Ingrid was long since complete, along with a map of her abilities, and capacity gains to his already full capacity meter. He noted the long list of errors and unsupported ability issues and shunted the information aside.

He carefully didn’t look at the door as Braithwaite, and the woman approached. Curious to see who the newcomer was, Raz allowed White Fire to subside, taking the moment to sweep his body for minor injuries and heal them. A lock of reddish brown hair fell in front of his face until he shook his head to dislodge the disobedient hair. Need to get a trimmer and just buzz all this long hair off.

[I don’t know. It’s a look that implies a sort of rakish charm. Now, if you only had some rakish charm to go with it.]

Really? You’re gonna roast me now?

When the door control squealed open, the door remained closed. After a series of sharp bangs the door broke free and slammed open.

“No, I don’t know. Look! See these little marks? It looks like some spontaneous spot welds were holding it shut.” Braithwaite said to the woman as they entered the room.

The odd-looking outfits looked strange to his eyes as well as his electrosense. A sort of silvery woven robe-like outfit thrown over his ubiquitous lab coat that rubbed along the ground, making a hiss like a chain softly rubbing on metal as they walked. The woman was pushing a small wooden food service cart laden with finger foods and bottles of water.

It’s some kind of grounding outfit. Cute. He actually thinks that will protect him.

I mean, it won't protect him, right?

[Oh, it will protect him. But protection isn’t prevention or immunity. We’ll just have to try a little harder to turn him into ash. It’ll be nothing compared to what we were just channeling.]

An aggression had suffused even Bee’s normally calm and matter-of-fact communication. It reminded him of the messages right before he’d finally, desperately lashed out at Fidel.

Raz looked at the two, both standing at the door, looking over at him. She stood a little behind Braithwaite, hands demurely clasped in front of her. She looked unhappy to be there. Her gaze kept sliding over his naked body, then snapping away to look at anything else when she realized he was watching her watch him. He couldn't help but notice that she had an attractive, elegant and polished sort of appeal.

Damnit. Keep it in your pants, not that you have pants. She’s the enemy just as much as everyone else here.

Braithwaite, of course, looked delighted to be able to gaze upon his prisoner. He glanced at Ingrid, but his main focus remained on Raz. He didn’t say anything, just silently stood there looking at Raz, which turned out to be even more creepy than the things he liked to say.

Even with much of his sensoria closed, he could tell both of them were aroused to look at him, for very different reasons.

I need a way to filter that out. I know it can be useful, but I just don't want to know every single time someone finds something arousing. One more item for the filter to-do list.

The woman slid her gaze over his form once more before looking to Ingrid and crouching down to talk to her in a whisper he could easily hear.

“Are you alright? Can I get you anything?” She asked Ingrid in a warm, solicitous tone.

Ingrid cursed like a sailor, but eventually admitted she was thirsty. The woman helped her drink from a water bottle, then turned her attention to Raz.

She came over and crouched down next to him, on the opposite side from Braithwaite. She managed to look elegant and poised even crouching down, one hand enfolding the other in front of her almost as if she were praying.

“Good evening sir, can I interest you in some food or a drink?” She picked up a bottle of water from atop the cart. Cool beads of condensation on the skin of the bottle beckoned his dry mouth. He nodded. She held it out so that he could drink from it, then dropped to one knee to bring the bottle closer to him.

Raz flicked his gaze at her then back to Braithwaite.

“Sure. I’ll take a water,” Raz finally conceded, “If you can get him to adjust these cables so I can drink it myself.”

Braithwaite advanced on him, his face twisted into a mask of anger. “Do you have something to say to me boy?” Ripples of force surrounded his hands. Raz was reminded of the moment in the lab so long ago, when Braithwaite had used a single finger to flick Fidel across the room, killing the man in the other set of restraints. He didn’t let himself think about what would have happened if he’d been the one in the second restraint system.

The woman’s warm hand touched his bare shoulder. “I’m sorry about him,” she said to Raz, “Let me give you a drink of water, and then he and I will have a chat about proper treatment.”

Her warm soft fingers slid up his shoulder as he accepted a long drink of water from the bottle.

She tilted the bottle further, letting water spill out into his mouth faster. When he tilted his head back to keep the water from spilling all over him, she slid her fingers up to his neck, then he felt it. Something foreign, moving, sliding across his skin like something wet, slick, and cold. The thing in her hand wiggled and writhed, then a stabbing pain at his neck. The bottle spilled cold water down his chest as his hands reflexively reached for his neck, coming up short against cables far too short.

Feeling the implant cut its way under his skin, realizing he might only have seconds left to act, Raz glared at Braithwaite and dove into slow time as he unleashed the energy raging inside against his enemy.

“Die.”

Deep within the compressed perception of time, he saw it all happen. A hazy, glowing web of energy coalesced in the room. Countless tiny strands of translucent energy connected Braithwaite to the walls for an instant, before those strands further coalesced into thicker, higher-powered arcs. His hair burst into a red, smoky flame. Braithwaite gasped, then exhaled glowing ionized plasma and smoke composed of his flash burned lungs. The lab coat under the metal garment went up in a blaze of orange-blue flame. A final dazzling, jagged light leaped from Raz to Braithwaite. The violent energy release threw the woman crouched next to Raz against the wall off the cell, her body tightened into a bone cracking spasm.

For a bare fraction of a second, just after his eyes exploded, Braithwaite’s bones glowed hot enough to shine through his burning flesh. As the blinding light faded from the room, the corpse of Leon Braithwaite filled the room with the scent of smoldering polyester, burned hair, and fried bacon.

Raz barely had time to celebrate this victory before the implant did something, and the world slid away in slow motion. The last thing he was aware of was Ingrid’s toe pushing against his foot.