Motivational dialogue

Who: Cassandra
Where: STCP Headquarters

When: Now?

Ishani deactivated that smegging neural effector of hers as soon as we had made the jump, but by then, whatever fight there may have been in me had long since vanished - My skull felt like it had been split with an axe, and even now, hours later, my head still throbs with each and every beat of my heart

The arrival zone was chaos
Gun toting Enforcers backed up by swarms of HK drones immediately surrounded us, and Ishani, still shouting her desperate apologies to me over the orders being bellowed at her, was pulled roughly away
As for myself, I was only able to lay on the cold, hard floor, sobbing with the pain and curled into a foetal position, my arms coiled tightly around my head
Someone snapped something cold against my neck, apparently dosing me up with drugs of some sort, and as my consciousness gratefully departed, I was hauled bodily up from the floor and dragged away to... here

I only awoke about ten minutes ago, so there's not much to tell
The room I'm in is all decaying concrete and cold, musty damp; it's maybe three metres square and lit from below with floor level strip lighting, the ceiling above lost in an impenetrable gloom that no doubt conceals any number of monitoring devices
There's a single very thick, stained and rusting door set in one wall, a concrete slab, which I awoke on, that apparently serves as a bed, and absolutely nothing else

I don't know when or where I am, or why I'm here
Ishani mentioned something about preventing a paradox, but I'm buggered if I know or even care what the smeg that's all about
My head hurts even worse than those times I got beaten up in London

I feel terrible

I wonder if anyone on the 'Dwarf has noticed that I'm gone yet?
Maybe, maybe not - I could theoretically get back there seconds after I had left, and yet years could have passed for me

I wonder how long I'm going to be here?

Is this how the STCP recruit you?

This room's cold

Smeg
I feel grim

. . . . . .

I must have drifted off again, because I awoke to the dull thump of security bolts sliding back into their housings and the groan of the door, grating back into the wall to admit a couple of HK's as I groggily scrambled upright, shivering with cold and still feeling like shit
A third drone floated in to hover a metre or so in front of me
"One of our Directors will see you now" it hissed, before floating upwards out of the way, it's weapons tracking me as it moved
"Who...?" I frowned up at it, but that was all I managed before the 'Director' walked in, shocking me into silence

Even swathed against the cold in her long hooded coat, I recognised her at once; her hair was shorter, but the figure, the eyes, everything else was much the same
"Hello Cass" she smiled, pulling her hood back to shake out her hair
I eyed her suspiciously
"Hello Cass" I replied slowly "What a pleasant surprise seeing me here"
"Isn't it just?" she smirked, strolling across the room to swing herself down and sit beside me on the concrete bed, turning to regard me
"You look like shit" she archly observed, fishing a comm unit out of her pocket "C'mon, let's go somewhen"

She summoned a time vortex with the device which quickly expanded to engulf us, and for the second time in my life, I travelled though both time and space, materialising on a wide balcony bathed in early morning sunlight, overlooking a placid lake, stalked by cranes in its misty shallows

The building behind us was unmistakably oriental in design, as was the tea service which was set on the low table, around which we were seated on an array of floor cushions
"Fifteenth century China" Cassandra said in answer to my quizzical look as she dug into her pockets again to extract a small silver device of uncertain function, which she passed across the table to me
"What's this?" I asked suspiciously
"It's a diagnostic applicator; just jam it up against your neck and hit the button - should have you feeling a little better in seconds"
"How can I trust you?"
Cassandra sighed and favoured me with something of a nostalgic smile
"You can't really hon. With technology as advanced as ours there's no way you can bank on anything. We can do what we want, so we do whatever it takes; but suffice to say: I am you - some centuries older, but you nonetheless"

You know how weird it sounds, hearing your own voice played back when it has been recorded?
It sounds even weirder when you get to watch and listen to yourself live

I toyed with the applicator for a moment before finally accepting the logic of her argument and with a shrug, triggered the thing up against the side of my neck to be rewarded with a warm, shiny feeling settling in on me and smoothing out the worst of my pain
"Better?" Cass asked, flashing me a brilliant smile as she leaned forward to pour the tea

Nodding mutely, I settled back into the cushions with a sigh, watching her simple movements and feeling grimy and dishevelled in comparison with this beautiful, well groomed, future version of me
"Is that a wedding ring!?" I asked suddenly, frowning with surprise as I realised the black band she was wearing on her ring finger was on her left hand
Cass smiled coyly, and held her hand up for my inspection
"I've been married ages"
"I had no idea I was the marrying type" I shrugged, inwardly happy that I might be after all "Who's the lucky guy? Is it..."
She let her hand fall, her smile widening into a grin
"I won't spoil the surprise for you"
"Kids?" I asked incredulous
ly
"Not telling"
"There's going to be a lot of that sort of evasiveness in this conversation isn't there?" I sighed
Cass threw her head back and laughed at this - It's a nice sound; I should do more of it
"You'll understand why, when you're here in my position" she grinned

Closing my eyes, I massaged my forehead
"You know, I can still feel that headache" I muttered "Why the hell did Ishani have to do that to me when you've drugs as good as you've got? - I'd have been out cold in seconds!"
"Don't be too hard on her" Cass replied quietly "She was only following orders"
"Yeah, they said that in smegging Nuremberg" I scowled "That smegging hurt - Why do it? "
"The idea of the attack was to completely smeg your interface, so now you won't die when when less friendly antagonists try the same in future"
"Thank heavens for small mercies" I sneered sarcastically "How about the Archivers that died on the cathedral ship? Were they all killed under orders as well?"
Cassandra regarded me for a moment in pensive silence
"The weave and weft of the wryd is sometimes hard to comprehend" she started "I don't know why, but those that died, had to die"
"You what!?" I spat, feeling an ugly twist of incredulous anger
"Yeah, I know” Cass shrugged “I'm as uncomfortable at having ordered it as you are at having heard that I was responsible for it - And don't get me started on all the other shit we had to implement after Jay left!"

My shock at what she had just said must have shown, because she stopped and held up her hands
"Alright, I think we strayed away from the small-talk there - You've questions, so shoot..."
"You... You're a Director of the STCP? - A bunch of complete goits, as far as I'm aware - What the smeg do you think you're doing?" I demanded angrily
"Ok, the STCP exists for two reasons" Cass soothed "The organisations primary objective is to prevent reality as we know it from being destroyed in some paradoxical smeg-up; but it's secondary, and perhaps, from our point of view, most important function, is to keep Brittany in power, and humanity as the dominant species in this galaxy"
"Brittany!?"
"Yeah, sure; the STCP was up at her behest millennia ago - I should know because I was one of the ones that facilitated it; which is why I'm one of the Directors!"
"The impression I got from Jay and the others was that working for the STCP was more or less forced labour" I frowned "If you're involved with it, why inflict that on him? On anyone?"
Cass gave me a half-smile and reached for her cup, pausing to purse her lips and blow across the top of it to cool the tea before taking a sip
"The big stuff comes from Brittany; it was her decision to recruit Jay ...and for conditions to deteriorate as badly as they did when he left"
"But, just setting aside the fact that she's pulling the strings for a moment, why would she do that?"
"I don't know" Cass admitted "I struggle to even comprehend the outline of her multifarious schemes, but as I understand it: Jay's departure was the catalyst for an inordinate number of events - Enforcers had to be die, and attitudes had to be hardened; thereby affecting the outcome of hundreds, if not thousands of STCP missions - I don’t know why, but it had to happen that way!"
"And Katrina?” I asked “What went on there? She hates Jay!"
"Nothing good" Cass muttered darkly "I still feel bad for what we did to the woman; but again, it was Brittany's decision to both recruit her and to take her son away from her when he was only three"
"What!?" I snapped, aghast "What the hell did you to to him?"
"Kept him in stasis for seventy-odd years?"
"That's..." I groped for the words that would adequately express my revulsion
"Brutal?" Cass nodded grimly "Yeah, I know"
I shook my head in disbelief
"I'm no angel, but even I'd baulk at something like that"
"Just wait until you know all that I know, and you're faced with those choices" Cass sighed "We're all just tiny facets in a multitude of plans and schemes - it had to happen this way!"
"Bollocks!"
"Listen: I've long since given up trying to understand why Brittany does what she does" Cass explained tersely "Or how any of it makes sense; but Max isn't important, neither are you or Jay, Ishani or Kay, or anyone! – What we're talking about here is the temporal survival of our species!"
"How do you figure that?" I asked slowly, already guessing much of what she was about to say
"There are any number of highly creative, expansionist races of a similar bent to ours" Cass explained "We were lucky in that we got there first; but it's entirely possible that another species with similarly advanced technology could travel back in time and prevent life from ever evolving on Earth"
"Ah" I murmured quietly
"Now you see!?" Cass triumphantly drained her tea and set the cup back down on the table "That's what the STCP is for! - They're Brittany's first line of defence against both her usurpation, and the end of our domination of the galaxy"
I blew out a breath
"Smeg"
"Yeah, that's right"
"So, tell me about Brittany!" I demanded "Where is she? What's she doing?"
"And here we get to the crux of this conversation” Cass smiled at me as she relaxed back into the cushions “I'm here to tell you to go and find her!"
"What!? That's it!?"
"Yeah, pretty much - When you meet her, she'll explain everything; or rather: You'll realise that more of what I'm on about makes sense"
"And if I refuse to go along with this charade?"
"It won't make one whit of difference Cass; you can even try to create a paradox by getting yourself killed, or by not doing anything, but we'll smooth things out and this meeting will still happen one way or another, the STCP will still be set up in due course, and Brittany's rule will continue unabated"
"So much for free will" I scowled
"That's a... complicated topic" Cass sighed "We all exist in a free will framework, and yet time shifts and coalesces around significant events and occurrences, giving the impression of a deterministic environment"
"Whatever" I muttered, drawing my knees up under my chin
"How come Jay hasn't mentioned you or any of the other Directors?" I asked "Or is that all part of some plan or other as well?"
"We keep a low profile in the organisation; several of us were actively serving Enforcers in the past, others aren't even human..."
"However" Cass continued "That's not really important; I've told you what you need to know, and as much fun as this has been, it's time I got you back to the 'Dwarf"
I took a deep breath
"What happens with me and Jay?" I blurted, hating myself for even asking
"That's between you and him" Cass smiled, her fingers moving over the comms unit "Come on, your tea's gone cold; let's make a move"
"How do I even start looking for Brittany? It's a big universe out there!"
Cass glanced up at me and smirked
"You'll find her at the centre of everything"
She hit engage and we were engulfed by another time vortex, returning me alone to the 'Dwarf
"Cryptic shit" I spat in disgust as I looked around, finding myself back in the Foundries

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