Mindshard (ON HOLD)

Chapter 5: Truth

     Exhausted, Vaughn slumped into a chair.  The last five days had done what nothing had since Basic Training: drained her of every gram of strength in her body.  The Isivir evaluation team weren’t agents.  They were a trained group of sadists; pushing her through simulation after simulation, test after test, to see how far she would go before she broke.  In a galaxy far larger than what the Directorate offered, with multitudinous species and races scattered over the length and breadth of the galactic arm, there was much more trouble a Pax operative can get into than a Directorate Marine Corps officer normally could.

     And, thanks to the evaluation team, she had a taste of nearly every one of those trouble possibilities first hand.  Vaughn groaned and scrubbed at her face with both hands, trying to stay conscious long enough to grab something to eat.  One of the tests they had run on her was the ability to function with sleep depravation.  She had gone the last 50 hours with no sleep.  If the evaluation team was trying to break her, they nearly succeeded with the simulations they ran during her sleep-deprived period.

     But, in every situation, and in every test, Vaughn had managed to do what she needed, to see the task completed.  And, much to the dismay of not a few members of the evaluation team, Isivir Command reviewed the results and granted her active agent status.

     She lifted up the holo with the picture of her three children until she could see it, her hand trembling with fatigue.

  “I did it, kids.” She husked.  “They tried to break Mommy but they couldn’t do it.  Now I’m one of them.  And soon I’ll find the Crown of Oberon and be home in time to tuck you in at night.”

     A soft chime from the com link lattice sitting on the desk on the other side of the room drew Vaughn’s attention to it from across the shoebox-sized quarters the Isivir had assigned her during her evaluation.

  “Yes?”  She stifled a yawn to say.

  “Colonel Vaughn.”  A smooth, familiar voice greeted her and Vaughn couldn’t help the smile that made its way onto her lips.

  “Cienisar!  It’s good to hear from you.  To what do I owe the pleasure?”

  “Your agent status, of course, colonel.”  The Indurin’s AI replied.  “Congratulations on being granted active status and passing the evaluation.”

     Vaughn blinked in surprise, staring at the com lattice.  She had found out herself only an hour or so ago.  How could the AI, supposedly still hanging in Galus orbit, find out so fast?  It was Cienisar himself that provided the answer.

  “You look stunned, colonel.  Don’t be; as a ship frequently used to ferry Isivir personnel about the galaxy, I maintain contact with several Isivir AI’s throughout my travels.  Including Imurilain, the AI that maintains the Viper Island complex.  I asked her the day you arrived to keep me abreast of your progress.  As soon as you were cleared, she sent me a burst message with the news.  So again, congratulations.”

     Vaughn grinned.  She should’ve guessed.  On board the Indurin, there appeared to be very little the powerful AI couldn’t do.  And now she discovered part of his secret: an inter-AI communication network that allowed him to reach across the galaxy in his efforts to find what he was looking for.

  “Why, thank you, kind sir.  That’s most appreciated.  But why the interest?  Surely you’ve better things to do than watch a solitary human make her way into the Pax.”

  “Into the Pax, perhaps, but not of it.”  Cienisar quickly noted.  “You said it best yourself: a solitary human.  You are alone in the midst of an alien world.  Or you were, until you met me.”  Vaughn got the curious feeling that if the Indurin AI had a face, he would’ve smiled at that point.