Protocol Two

[Eluna Thals]

"Are we ready here?"

"Ready on one."

"Ready on two."

"Begin recording."

"Command clearance. Phoenix-Aurek-Esk-Four-Eight-Dorn. Initiate Protocol Two."

"Base routines active. Positronic network shows green."

"Wake up."



"Eunh..."

I take a breath like it's the first time in my life. My eyes open. I squint against the light.

"Aerobic metabolic cycle engaged. Oxygen bio-fuel mixture nominal."

"Iris stimulation checks out. Response good."

"Eluna? Eluna, can you hear me?"

"Yes."

My world is white. White light. White walls. People dressed in white.

"Identity cognition and response. Good."

"Ask it..."

"...her. Ask her."

"Ask her...what she remembers."

I've been dreaming again. Missing days in my memory.

"Pulse is rising."

"Is something wrong?"

"Colonel, she's reacting to stimuli. That's normal. If you don't mind, let me take the questions at her pace."

"Don't take all day, Doctor."

"Eluna?"

The bright white bleeds away. I see a face. I know him. Young. Handsome. I feel safe.

"Doctor Toben."

"Look, she smiled."

"Pulse returning to normal."

"Eluna, how do you feel?"

I hear the dragon stirring in it's sleep. It whispers to me in a foreign language. Tongues I don't know until I'm repeating them.

"System diagnostic reports 41.63 percent integrity. I am..."

"Eluna, I'm asking you."

Doctor Toben leans close. I can smell his aftershave.

"How are you?"

"I'm fine."

I can hear my voice quaver. I'm naked and defenseless and alone. The dragon can't hide me from these people. I'm all by myself on stage.

"Is that a tear?"

"Lacrimal stimulus. Fascinating."

"Shh."

"I'm scared."

I don't want to die. I don't want to sleep. I don't want to blink and not remember. I don't want to wake up and be someone else and not even see where the page turned. I'm so scared.

I can feel the tear hit my cheek, hot with emotion. Doctor Toben brushes it away with a thumb.

"Eluna, it's going to be okay. It's going to be okay. Relax. Focus on me. Just try to remember as much as you can, okay?"

I know they want to know about the mission, but I can't remember. That terrifies me, but not nearly as much as what I might forget if I fail. I'm Eluna Thals. I have a life.

"Begin the procedure. Set laser scalpel to point seven three and align for incision."

I can't see the laser, but I can hear it. I can smell it as it cuts a hairline incision through my cloned flesh and synthetic skull. I can feel them pulling me apart.

"Stand by for positronic brain mapping."

"Eluna, think back to two days ago..."

[Eluna Thals]

Direct link detected. Pathway access to Protocol 17 set to manual. Authorized user has assumed control.

My world drips away like wet paint on a canvas. I reach out to Doctor Toben as he becomes nothing, the phantom presence of a hand missing from it's body touches a face no longer there.

My reality is clay. I have only the illusion of control. I don't know whether I want the truth or the comfortable lie any longer. After all, I have no way to tell one from the other.

One blink. Dream ends. Waking begins. Or is it the other way around?




* * *

Christophsis
Three days ago



Eluna blinked. She took a furtive glance to her left and to her right on the tram platform. Had she been daydreaming again? Alone in her thoughts, with a long enough leash to wander the runtimes of her background processes. Thinking about Ben, and around which star Alderaan must be circling at this moment.

The moment of crisis came and went in a nanosecond - all in her head. No one else at the platform gave her a second glance, save for the lecherous held gaze of an oily-looking man with a Nar Shaddaan accent.

Disengage contact. Dialogue options:
1. "Go away."
2. "Leave me alone."
3. "Why don't you take a holo, it'll last longer?"
4. "Fuck you, asshole."

The Girl in digispace pushed her nosy Dragon away. Always quick to offer help, but this was the Girl's area of expertise.

"Get lost."

The words came from her mouth without bidding, but clearly what she would have said. Had Dragon taken control? No. That wasn't it. She was watching the past. Play by play, in vivid recollection.

The man's leering expression turned vitriolic. He moved on, but not without a sneer and parting words.

"Stuck up bitch."

The crowd pushed toward the platform, heedless of this one of hundreds of conversations. Eluna's eyes drifted above the terminal. It wasn't difficult to find signs of exactly where she was. The ever-present Galactic Gear hung from alternating crystalline supports. The drab of black and grey imagery obscured the prismatic beauty of the crystal world like a cancer taking hold.

The Machine only understood fear as a concept. But the Girl? What could you know about fear if you didn't feel it? A vestigial emotion more suited for flesh and blood, but the Girl knew that even the Machine depended on her fear.

For now, it was locked in the menagerie. But not forgotten.

Eluna? It's Doctor Toben. Can you hear me?

The Dragon spoke with an unfamiliar voice. A sudden realization hit the Girl, and she understood. Sometimes the Dragon also dreams.

I'm here.

Where are you?

The Girl looked around in digispace briefly, then glimpsed out her two windows.

Christophsis. Capital Central station.

In the distance, a tram began to decelerate on approach, gliding frictionlessly along a luminescent rail of energy. As Eluna's eyes tracked the rail back to the station, she saw the ever-present white armor of Imperial Stormtroopers occupying the security cordon just beyond the platform. The troopers were moving, spread wide in a slow and deliberate walk. Prowling.

I don't see the contact here. But the Empire is searching. I have to find them first.

Lucid dreaming. Eluna had heard of it before in another life. Experiencing it through the purgatory of a living machine brought a deep ambivalence, pulling the Girl between emotion and fact.

There.

The Dragon stilled the sight in Eluna's eyes, zooming and enhancing the world with artificial clarity. A face that was clear for a moment and gone the next behind a passing pedestrian.

Eluna began to move through the crowd.

[Wei Wu Wei]

Wei Wu Wei skulked along the platform. Dirt smeared his face. An overlarge coat, frayed at the all the ends and cuffs, engulfed his hunched figure. Every once in a while, he would poke his head up from the tall collar. His pants were grimy thanks to the mechanics that maintained the starships at the Ossus spaceport. His shoes showed his toes. A paper bag in his hand held the shape of a bottle. It held a sweet brown soft drink, but the stumbling, staggering step helped people come to the wrong conclusion.

He was invisible because people wanted to ignore him. He was a stain on the spotless platform. A scrap of scratched sheet metal said, FARE'S FAIR! FOOD IS GOOD! ANYTHING HELPS!

A strange symbol in the lower corner would help tip off his contact as to what the smelly pile of fabric was when he finally found a corner to crumple into. Without a lightsaber or some other tone, he couldn't connect to the Force. He had to rely on wits, and a lot of experience as a bum. The stormtroopers were behind him. Did they know who he was? Or were they going to arrest a drunk?

Wei made his choice. He would meet them face-on, and hopefully just get thrown to the ground and kicked in the fork, then laughed at and left. He really hoped these guys were scum, and not the razor-edged, by-the-book, implacable, unbending ultra-patriots Stormtroopers were supposed to be.

He hid the bottle behind his back (but not too much), held the sign in front of his chest and kept his head down and cast to one side. He wobbled and waited with his legs far enough apart for a well-placed boot. He shut his eyes. Any second now...

[Eluna Thals]

She was in motion, but so were the troopers. A few more pedestrians passed, giving Eluna an unfettered view of the supposed beggar and the sign he held. What appeared to be something forgettable scribbled on the scrap metal soon grew in her view, superimposed at four times magnification.

Hold frame.

Eluna's world stuck in a moment.

What's that?

The Girl opened her mouth in reply.

EE//3R]]J#AAA831+K;;

What? I...

It's redacted, Doctor. You don't have clearance. Continue playback.

The world continued on. Eluna closed distance. The troopers were drawing into a half circle, pushing aside rubberneckers. It had gone from a wide net patrol to a slipknot in a moment.

"Hey!"

Eluna stepped past the threshold. To them, she appeared as a woman in civilian clothes with a shock of dyed blue hair. She approached the stormtroopers and the vagrant, with a concerned look on her face.

"It's okay, he's with me. I was just taking him back to the shelter."

The stormtroopers didn't train their weapons, but they were hardly deterred.

"Vagrancy is against regulation. Let's see some identification."

The trooper on point approached Eluna, who reluctantly pulled an ident slip from her back pocket. While the trooper ran it, she fixed the vagrant with a glance quick enough to not linger - and the faintest of nods.

[Wei Wu Wei]

Wei lurched forward. "Hey!" he slurred. "I know...I know you..." he put an arm around Eluna's shoulders and leaned heavily. His head wiggled back and forth like a bobblehead. "You're the biscuit girl. With...the biscuits!"

He waggled a hand at the Stormtroopers. "An' you..." The carbonated drink sloshed in his stomach, releasing the pent up gasses into a long, loud belch. "I am not vagrant! I wash regular! I smell like a mountain spring! Wanna smell me?"

He took his arm from around Eluna and lurched towards the one in charge. He clumsily threw one arm around the trooper's next, the other around his waist...and slid down to the man's stomach. Wei grabbed the trooper's belt and hauled himself up. "See?" he said. "Springy!"

The stormtrooper shoved him away. "Assaulting an officer?"

"I never salted no officer!" Wei said. "Got a pepper packet here somewhere..." Wei slapped at his long jacket, stirring up dust and fanning his hobo-stink across the platform.

"I was just tryna get home, off...off...officer." He belched again. "Heh. I don't need your lock up to stay warm anymore!"

The lead trooper went red under his helmet. "I'll not be played a fool! You go back to that wretched shelter! Imperial lockdown is too good for guttertrash like you."

Wei returned to leaning on Eluna. "Wanna have a taste?" Wei asked, wiggling the bottle."

The troopers turned and left, and the young "volunteer" and her "vagrant" went their own way.

"But no, seriously," Wei asked, straightening out his posture and his speech when they were away from the station, "this soda is hand-made and excellent!"

He handed Eluna a passkey. "That man needs to keep the key in the belt pouches, not tucked just under the armor plating. Won't he be surprised later?"

"I hope you don't mind what I did. Thing is, if you're repulsive, they'll throw in jail and call it cleaning up the trash. But if you're repulsive and act like you're not, they'll throw you back on the street. Don't be homeless and put on airs of those properly scrubbed. It's reaching beyond your station."

[Eluna Thals]

She allowed a quick smile as a nod to her contact's dedication to method acting. As a token of looking the part, Eluna abstained from the offered drink.

"Temperance is a citizen's virtue. Remember the seven steps."

That was enough acting. Eluna quickly glanced at the key card before sliding it down the front pocket of her utility pants. Besh clearance. That would open more than a few doors in the capital, save for the command echelons. Of course, the clock was ticking before the stormtroopers discovered the little theft.

"I'm Vector."

An agreed-upon code name, insulating Eluna from the contact and vice versa. Necessary precautions, as they were playing a game that had been declared over some time ago.

"We should clear the platform. Walk with me."

The drunkard and the social worker pushed through the massing throng as the light tram arrived in station. Moving to the escalator that would carry them down level, Eluna braced against the rail, looking up at her bedraggled partner.

"Good work with the troopers. They said you had experience in occupied territory. You don't disappoint."

[Wei Wu Wei]

"You can call me Sunny Tzu," Wei replied. "On account of my cheerful demeanor."

Wei wasn't proud of his time as a hobo. Mainly he drank until he felt like he was going to die, and then waited in a gutter for some jackbooted thug to hopefully speed up the process. The other hobos he came into contact with called him Sunny because even not even the homeless had seen a man so broken down and ready to die. But the Force must have been with Sunny Tzu, because the hobos looked after him, kept him moving, until finally the Force could reach him in the form of Kit Fisto.

The past was behind him, but the street knowledge remained. He would put it to good use today.

"I understand this mission involves the Imperial Knights," Wei said after they had covered more ground. "I know I'm supporting you in Force Sensitive territory. Are you familiar with my, uh, condition?"

[Eluna Thals]

Eluna expected an alias, and she wasn't disappointed. Names were a liability. As long as they were each vetted by their peers, all that was required was an understanding. What Eluna actually knew about the man calling himself Sunny Tzu was itself compartmentalized and hidden even from her own awareness. Everything was need-to-know, even within her own positronic brain.

That didn't mean she was blind to pertinent details.

"Conditional force sensitivity."

She reached in the side pocket of her pants, pulling out a crumpled plastic bag.

"Psychosomatic sensory atrophy that responds to an auditory trigger."

Eluna shook the bag into a waiting palm as four jelly baby candies tumbled out. She paused to eat two, keeping a casual gait as they exited the station.

"In other words, you're locked. You require a key."

[Wei Wu Wei]

Wei nodded. "Usually clear pure tone, like a chime, or (oddly enough) a humming sound, like the one from a lightsaber. I can get the same effect out of large humming machines, larger spacecraft engines, and the like. Things that make high-pitched whines don't do it though."

Wei patted himself until he found he earpiece in his pocket. "I can use this to generate the tones I need. Problem is, it'll pretty much drown out anything else I might need to hear. It won't affect my ability to sense my surroundings, but if we get split up, communicating might be difficult."

"Ok, so we needed clearance for the compounds and network systems. Which building do we break into first? I have my 'generic maintenance worker' outfit on under this fetching garb. I have diguised my lightsaber as an over-sized hydrospanner. As long as no one asks me to use it, or to borrow it for a job, it'll be ok."

[Eluna Thals]

Mapping auditory stimulus threshold. Tonal mode construct with a variation of 0.25 pulse.

The world stood still.

What does that mean, Doctor Toben?

It's the machine mind, Director. It's a response to anticipated data.

I thought that function was allocated to Protocol Two.

No. She's designed to handle higher level intuitive response.

Higher level? Cut the technojargon bullshit, Doctor.

Let's just say, there's a difference between pure analytics and thought. Not every equation can be balanced.

Continue playback.

"If it comes to that, we'll have larger problems to deal with than communication."

Eluna finished her last two candies, sliding past a loitering Ishi Tib on the street corner as she tossed the crumpled bag into a nearby bin.

"18493 New Order Boulevard. The Imperial Bureau of Standards."

The ideal approach would have been via the light tram, as a stop five junctions from the station would have placed them within a block. However, Imperial security at the tram was too problematic to take the direct way.

"It's a black site. My sources show a higher level of comm traffic and security than a bureaucratic station would warrant. If the Knights are here, they would either be highly visible or operating in the shadow. My guess is that they're using this site to vet new potentials before moving them to Imperial Center."

They stopped at the corner of a street, where a speeder cab slid to a halt. The gull wing door at street side yawned open, and the pilot droid in the front of the speeder pod pivoted on it's fixed mount, waving a manipulator arm in pre-programmed greeting.

"Good morning, passengers! Destination?"

Eluna ignored the droid for now, turning to face her partner again.

"Take this."

She pressed a comm stick into his hands.

"It's pre-set with rotating encryption, hard-linked to my comm. Get in the cab. Let me know when you've changed."

In keeping with appearances, Eluna turned to the driver, feeding a credit chit into the input slot.

"My friend needs to go to the shelter at 18211 New Order."

"Yes ma'am! Climb aboard, sir!"

Eluna turned back again.

"We shouldn't be seen moving together. I'll let you know where to find me, once my cover is set."

[Wei Wu Wei]

Wei nodded, slid into the passenger seat, and started unwinding an overlong scarf.

"You got it."

The droid made all the usual pre-programmed banter as they moved along. On his honeymoon, Wei and his wife had enjoyed supplying these droids with non-sense answers to see how it would branch along its pre-determined conversation tree. This time, Wei didn't speak at all, except to say, "I'm not in the mood to talk."

The droid gave a jerky nod. Wei shrugged out of the coat and tore off the ragged pants. He wadded the stinking clothes into a large ball, then moved on to "make up." He cleaned his face of grime with a wet nap, then took out a tin of grease. He put a small bead of it on his finger, scratched at his nose like he was thinking, cupped his chin in the palm of his hand, then brushed his hair out of his face. He smeared the rest of it in his hands and then scratched under am armpit, the inside of his thigh, and last of all, wiped his hands down his sides. He checked himself in a mirror. He looked like he'd been working all day.

"18211 New Order," the droid declared. A chime in the cab signaled that the taxi was parked and safe to disembark.

Wei thanked the droid, then double checked his bag. The overlarge "hydrospanner" hung on his hip. His satchel of adhesives, illuminating strips, and paints hung on his belt on the other hip. A few other everyday tools hung from his belt. Easy to carry, easy to search. A tool box would be emptied, searched, and sorted. A datapad for work orders and collecting signatures, a few tools, and some other bits carried in pockets or pouches could be look at quickly, and he would be dismissed soon after. He couldn't waste time with an overzealous guard who decided he really needed to do his job well today.

"Oh, and the final part."

He pulled his identification card out of his breast pocket and clipped it on. Sun Dei Tzu. Imperial Maintenance Division. ID No: 45DBZ188.

"Ok, he whispered. "Let's go fix a problem."

[Eluna Thals]

"Vector here."

The comm stick crackled in Wei's hand with Eluna's familiar voice.

"I'm in position. Proceed southbound on New Order. There is a mobile security cordon, set up just beyond the second roundabout. Get in the queue for screening. I'll find you.

Vector out."




* * *



"Lieutenant Arjes, we're all set up at this Oh-Pee." Trooper KD-4313 squawked through his vox as he shifted with the weight of his blaster rifle behind the barricade.

"Good." Eluna squared her officer's cap over her tightly-drawn brunette hair. "I'm here to escort a technician through the facility. Screen him and process him when he arrives."

[Wei Wu Wei]

Wei approached the security cordon on foot with the air of someone who would really rather just be home that day. His pace was relaxed, his arms swung freely, and he hummed a little to himself. He didn't whistle. No one ever whistled for any reason unless they were starring in a musical, starring in a comedy movie and trying very hard to be inconspicuous. You want to look like you're up to no good? Just whistle.

When he reached the MPs, he stifled a yawn and scratched at his nose. When one of the troopers gestured at his badge, he stretched the ID card out on its retractable lanyard and turned his face this way and that.

"Sun Dei Tzu?" The guard asked.

"My momma calls me Sunny," Wei said.

"So you're...Sunny Dei Tzu..."

"Yes. Because I'm always gots my smile on."

The idea was that you wanted to sound like a place someone had been somewhere once. Like, you know, that time you and your buddies, you went to that one dive bar on shore leave? Yeah, yeah! And there was that guy at the bar! You know, the guy at the bar. The big guy. Very loud. He sounded like he was from another planet, right? Or maybe that one backwater we were on.

Truthfully, Wei always shot for somewhere between Lower Coruscant and Stereotypical Agamar Yokel. Skilled, yes. Knowledgeable, yes. Supervisor material? No. Never. You definitely left him alone to do his job, because he'd start talking about politics, or something, like, "You know, there's one simple thing that could fix ALL of this that's going wrong in the galaxy!"

You just knew the next thing out of that guy's mouth was going to be dumber than bantha turds. So you left him alone so he could do his job, and then get out of there as soon as he was done.

"So...Which of you lucky humanoids gets to show this guy where the action is?"

[Eluna Thals]

"Technician?"

A bronze-skinned woman in an Imperial Army uniform spoke beyond the cordon in an upper-tier Coruscanti accent.

"Lieutenant Ree Arjes, Corps of Engineers contractor liaison. I'll be escorting you to the work site."

She paused, glancing to her right.

"Is everything in order with his security clearance?"

The stormtrooper handling the heavy lifting at the checkpoint sounded procedurally dull through his vox "It checks out"

And with that, Lieutenant Arjes took a half step out of Sunny's path, gesturing ahead with a gloved hand.

"This way, then."

[Wei Wu Wei]

Wei moved his head in a half-nod, half-bob. "Yah. Ok." Smile. Wave to guard. "Ok, bye! Remember Sunny Dei fixes your problems, make it a Sunny Day for you!"

He fell into step with the escort. "Lieutenant...Ree Arjes. Contractor Liason," he muttered. "I never Lias on anything when I'm supposed to be on the job. You don't get hired back if you're caught napping."

"So, what's the problem?"

[Eluna Thals]

"Apart from the folksy jokes, no problem at all, Sunny."

The 'Lieutenant' appeared glib, in a cool sort of way.

"Fortunately for us, Lieutenant Arjes was a good size fit."

She patted down the front of her jacket as she walked.

"This is the Cristophsis capital's green zone. Tier three security cordon, which we've just passed. Screens out weapons, illicit tech, and most explosive compounds and binaries. The Empire's attempt to throw a rope around their key assets, minus the fortresses and garrisons beyond the metropolitan area."

A pair of patrolling troopers passed by, and Eluna didn't break her appearance, striding while hawkishly aloof as the stormtroopers gave them both enough space. Once they were well clear, she spoke again.

"Neither the access you stole nor the Lieutenant's code cylinders will get us anywhere near the black site without the entire zone going on lockdown. So our first stop is there."

Eluna paused, turning her head in the direction of a thirty story building across the thoroughfare.

"It was a media broadcast station before the occupation. Still is, of course you can imagine the news that's reported. My sources say the Empire uses the existing data access to also route their priority comm and signal traffic. We go in. Disrupt the feed. Construct backdoor clearance access to the black site."

She frowned.

"From there, your guess is as good as mine."

[Wei Wu Wei]

Wei nodded. "I don't have background in slicing. Just the basics. I can find a terminal for you (something out of the way, overlooked and unprotected), can divert power, get in the way of people while you do what you have to. Typically, I inserted myself, took notes, got information, and then used my lightsaber to put a stop to the operation after. Usually I had an automated slicing package or a droid--usually an astromech-- to help me."

The Force Cripple smiled. "We can do this. Let's find a maintenance entrance, find terminal that no one will think to look at closely. A thermostat, maybe, or something that reports utility usage, like a water or electric meter. Slice that, pivot into the rest of the network and see what we can do from there."