Right now I’m stuck on a sense-bed in medical, while they run more scans on me. They want me to go to sleep later so they can scan me while I’m having a dream, but I’m seriously not keen on that because what if I dream about Ruuel?
I hope I was right about him not caring about the show. He’ll probably be annoyed because it will upset his squad, but would surely shrug off anything else. I’m so glad I’d watched the mission log, and knew immediately that he hadn’t said that. I find it difficult to imagine him actually saying something gratuitous and insulting, whether he thought it or not.
I was really grubby, after all. Just thinking about it makes me want a hot bath and lots of scented soap.
Monday, May 19
Careful what you say
Nothing useful from all the scanning and testing. My temperature went down, and though I was tired I found it hard to fall asleep. They eventually gave me a mild sedative and I’m not sure I dreamed at all. They had me come back today as well and this time I could fall asleep naturally. My sleep schedule is completely messed up. I dreamed about being lost in a shopping mall, I think – it was a bit of a jumble. They’ve cleared me to go back to what I was doing, anyway, and my scheduled testing with the remaining squads is on again (though Thirteenth has been pushed to the end instead of the beginning).
I think the sleep tests were skewed for failure. First because I didn’t want to have any intense dreams and was consciously or subconsciously trying not to. And second, I wasn’t really upset any more, and I mostly have the worst nightmares when I’m upset or stressed out. That’s the reason people usually have bad nightmares, anyway.
Mori came and visited me this afternoon – Fourth Squad is back on duty tomorrow. She’s still really pissed off, and was worked up about an interview with the actor who is playing fake Ruuel. In the interview he talked about the incredible schedule they’d been keeping to produce the show so quickly, and how much he enjoyed the role, and that one of the reasons The Hidden War was so powerful was because it refused to show the Setari as bland, one-sided heroes without any faults. That even out-and-out villains can risk their lives protecting others.
I thought this terribly funny, but tried not to show it too much because Mori was genuinely upset on Ruuel’s behalf. I’m willing to bet Ruuel’s the least upset in Fourth right now. The main reason the squad’s so worked up is that it’s so similar to what happened, and certainly within KOTIS everyone knows it was Fourth Squad who found me. Plus, the kittenish actress is playing Caszandra Devlin. In the interview with her she said that the producers had decided it would be foolish to rename such a major historical figure. And The Hidden War has portrayed the people who found me as being severe pricks. I can only hope that they’re just playing up villain aspects for drama, and will tone it down later. After all, Ruuel did save my life when I wandered off into the spaces.
After Mori left, Maze and Zee dropped in to tell me the results of the investigation. Apparently one of KOTIS' publicity officers, a woman named Intena Jun, decided to use me to build her career. Part of her duties was the release of information about the Setari and lately about me and the developments on Muina. That includes giving technical advice to shows like The Hidden War when they ask for it. And it seems she fancies herself a bit of a scriptwriter, and just happened to have resigned the day before the episode featuring me was broadcast – and then bobs up in a press release as a former KOTIS member joining the scriptwriting team.
That was a far from ideal situation, but still shouldn’t have meant that my conversation with Lohn and Mara ended up forming the basis of anything: you can’t join KOTIS without signing an inch-thick nondisclosure agreement, and publicity officers certainly don’t have access to anyone’s evaluation file, or even the mission reports. But it turns out that Jun is using the completely transparent excuse that it’s all fiction based around the publicly-released information about me, and that her family in the past has been known to produce minor Sight Sight talents, and she was simply intuiting very well. Of course, since the press release there’s been tons of rumours about just how much of the script is fiction, which is exactly what the producers wanted. The episode was a wild success, and the discussion groups are filled with anticipation of a season they hope will reveal details of real Setari.
The episode was a critical success, too, with lots of admiration for the actress (a newcomer named Se-Ahn Surat, who did after all carry a kasse-long program as the nearly sole character, practically never speaking). Almost all the reviews rave about the night scene, the way something as simple as an animal breathing brought home the peril and horror this valiant child suffered through.
It took KOTIS an extra day to figure out how Jun had accessed the files. Maze stayed vague about the details, but it boiled down to some very senior and high-up bluesuit who did have access to just about everything, also having an inappropriate relationship with Jun. So lots of nasty consequences for him for the breach of security, and less clear-cut consequences for Jun. Although the legal system here isn’t as insane as Earth’s, KOTIS is merely a body of government, not all-powerful. They can, and probably will, prosecute and try and get Jun punished (fines, loss of all but the most basic interface function, or possibly confinement). Tare doesn’t have capital punishment, but in extreme circumstances they can do particularly awful things to you using the interface. Stealing my file isn’t nearly extreme enough a circumstance.
It sounds like Jun is ambitious enough to consider a few years of freedom or privileges or even citizenship a price worth paying for highly lucrative employment.
"Our ability to control media access to KOTIS and the Setari is waning," Maze said, rubbing his eyes. He’s looking tired again. "Previously, we succeeded in retaining our anonymity because to a degree outside KOTIS we were all the same. A uniform and a talent set: there was no need to release anything about our personal lives. Which means programs such as this one would be freely provided with details of how we balance squad make up, the limitations of talent sets, and information about the rotations and the Ionoth, but names and our lives off-duty and the minutiae of actual missions: we simply allowed nothing at all out, so into these situations they would place invented characters. Even the squads in these fictions are named for colours, so that a character in Green Squad cannot be taken as a member of Fourth, or Eighth or Tenth. Occasionally someone’s family would grant interviews, and most of our names are in public domain, but they cannot match the names to squads, faces or events. Only in death are we known." He glanced at me, nothing on his face showing whether he was thinking about his wife.
"But now, because of the opening of Muina, the ground is shifting," Zee added. "Our efforts in the Ena lessened deaths on Tare, but we had made no substantial progress toward a solution. There were no critical events to attach to us as individuals. Until Fourth Squad found you. Something so significant that this show’s producers chose to upset the established rules, obtain actual information about the squad, and introduce characters based on Fourth. Worse, a distortion of Fourth. Even if they used already-established characters, those characters would become associated with the squads who have worked with you."