Chronal Disassociation Ch. 75 (Patreon)

Lena had spent most of dinner deciding which question to ask first, only to discover that Archer had apparently prepared enough of his own to keep them there until breakfast.

He had brought a notebook.

That shouldn’t have surprised her as much as it did. The man was older than most of the technology they used, and she had seen him write things down before, usually when he was making somebody’s training schedule worse. Still, when he - or anybody else, for that matter - noted something down, it was usually on a tablet, not actual paper. Lena wasn’t even sure the last time she had seen a physical notebook in the past decade or so.

They had borrowed one of the smaller briefing rooms, with Winston agreeing to handle the pilots’ questions about tomorrow’s exercises. Lena had left her phone outside after sending Emily a message, although she wasn’t entirely certain what privacy precautions achieved when their guest was also in charge of the equipment. Archer had simply asked that nothing be recorded, and Kiara had agreed without so much as a raised eyebrow.

That alone had been enough to make Lena suspicious.

“Shall I start with the dramatic opening, or would you prefer a table of contents?” Kiara asked, settling her projection into the chair opposite them. She had apparently decided to humour Archer’s request literally, even adjusting her skirt around the seat as though any of it was necessary.

“Your own circumstances first.” Archer replied, resting his pen against the open page, “You said you lost your Servant container dealing with Chaos. Where were you when Chaldea left Olympus?”

“With them.”

Lena waited for the AI to continue. Kiara watched Archer instead, and for several seconds the only sound in the room came from the ventilation above the door.

“You’ll have to give me slightly more than that.” He said eventually.

“Oh, I know. I just wanted you to enjoy receiving a straight answer.”

Lena pressed her tongue against her teeth. Archer didn’t even look up as he wrote something down, which she suspected was considerably more effective than anything she could have said.

Kiara let him finish whatever he was writing before leaning back in her chair, apparently satisfied that she had kept them waiting long enough, “Anyway, stalling Chaos took more out of me than I could afford. The artificial Spirit Origin I was using at Chaldea couldn’t sustain itself afterwards, so I had to do without it. Very inconvenient, but I survived.”

“Without your Spirit Origin.” Archer repeated, raising his eyebrow as his pen stopped against the page, “You’ll forgive me if I find that explanation somewhat lacking.”

“Oh, don’t give me that look. I was an AI before I became a Servant, remember? Once I couldn’t maintain the container anymore, my consciousness returned to its original state.” She tapped a finger against her temple, smiling as though she had just explained something perfectly ordinary, “No more Servant body, but still your favourite, wonderfully talented artificial intelligence.”

Lena looked towards Archer, expecting him to complain about the last part, only to find him studying Kiara with considerably more attention than her little boast seemed to warrant. She had been thinking of the whole thing as somebody losing a particularly expensive piece of equipment; the body stopped working, so Kiara went back to being the programme that had occupied it. Except Archer had spent a fair amount of time explaining that his own body was rather more complicated than that, and she suspected she had just made the sort of assumption that usually earned her extra reading.

“That isn’t how a summoning should end.” Archer said, setting his pen down beside the notebook, “Destroying a Servant’s container does not ordinarily leave its consciousness free to resume a previous existence. Whatever you were before Chaldea summoned you, losing that Spirit Origin should have ended that manifestation. You’ve told us what you became afterwards, but you’ve neglected to explain how there was enough of you left to become anything.”

“Well, it’s a good thing I’ve never been particularly ordinary, then.” Kiara’s smile didn’t falter, although Lena noticed that she had stopped pretending to make herself comfortable. Her attention remained on Archer, and for the first time since they had sat down, Lena felt rather like she was watching two people discuss something they had both agreed to keep from everyone else. Kiara clearly understood the objection; she simply seemed much more interested in seeing what he would do with it than in answering him.

“I’m aware.” Archer replied, with the weary patience of a man who had suffered through demonstrations, “That is why I’m asking what you did, rather than assuming I misunderstood you. Did Chaldea know what would happen when that container failed, or was this another arrangement you neglected to mention until it became relevant?”

Kiara leaned forward, resting her chin on one hand, and gave him a thoroughly unrepentant wink, “A girl’s gotta have her secrets, Archer~♡” The flirtation might have been more convincing if Lena hadn’t been watching for an answer. As it was, she found herself thinking about the pilots who relied on Kiara every time they climbed into their mechs, and wondering how often a perfectly reasonable question from one of them had been dismissed with that same smile.

Archer left the silence to sit for a few seconds, long enough that Lena almost repeated the question herself. Instead, she watched him pick up his pen and add something beneath his last entry, his handwriting as steady as it had been before. “Very well. We’ll leave the method aside for now.” He sounded so composed that she turned towards him before she could stop herself. Earlier, he had insisted that she deserved answers of her own, and she had come here prepared to let him handle the questions she didn’t know enough to ask. She hadn’t expected him to abandon one the moment Kiara made it difficult.

“Watch her, Oxton. BB is a goddamn menace, and I would prefer that you learned that from me before she decides to demonstrate it.” His voice came through their connection while he was still looking at the notebook, without so much as a movement of his lips. Lena caught herself before she glanced back at Kiara, who had begun examining her nails with the air of somebody graciously allowing them time to catch up. 

Lena knew his temper well enough to recognise the restraint in his voice. He sounded as though he had considered the warning carefully, which gave her rather more cause for concern than another complaint about Kiara’s behaviour.

‘BB?’ Lena repeated the unfamiliar name through the link, careful to keep the question off her face. She had become used to holding a second conversation with him while somebody else was speaking, but doing it across a table from the person they were discussing suddenly felt rather more difficult, ‘That’s who she actually is, then? I take it Kiara’s another of those things we’re supposed to accept without asking too many questions.’

“Use Kiara aloud.” Archer turned the page, although there was still plenty of room left on the previous one, “And don’t mistake my willingness to hear her out for trust. She is helping us at present, but there is a very good chance that the only side she’s on is her own. Our interests happen to coincide. Until we know what she intends to get out of this, assume that arrangement can change.” Lena lowered her eyes to the fresh page, giving herself something to look at while she considered that. It was an unpleasant assessment of somebody who had apparently helped keep Chaldea alive, although she supposed surviving the same disaster didn’t necessarily make people friends.

‘Then why let her get away with that?’ She asked, resisting the temptation to point towards the AI, ‘She knows something doesn’t add up, you know something doesn’t add up, and now she’s going to tell us the rest with that bit missing. How are we supposed to know whether any of it makes sense?’ 

It was close enough to the frustration she had felt earlier that she made herself loosen her hands in her lap. She didn’t want another argument about whether Kiara was taking any of this seriously, but letting her choose which parts mattered hardly seemed like much of an improvement.

“By remembering where the gaps are.” Archer’s gaze briefly met hers, and she understood why he had written something down before agreeing to move on, “She knows I noticed, and she has chosen not to explain. Repeating the question won’t change that. I would rather hear what she is prepared to tell us and see whether the omission becomes clearer in context. You needn’t accept an account as complete to learn something useful from it.” 

Lena considered the notebook again, feeling a little foolish about her earlier assumption. The omission was there in his notes, ready for him to return to when Kiara had given them more to work with. Lena could see the sense in that, even if she suspected she would spend the rest of the conversation wanting to turn back to that page.

‘Take it with a grain of salt, then.’ Lena replied, beginning to understand the distinction even if she didn’t particularly like it. Part of her still wanted to believe that someone who could talk to Archer about Chaldea might also be someone he could finally stop watching so carefully. She had seen what the uncertainty had done to him, and it was difficult to let go of that hope simply because the woman offering it was irritating.

“A generous handful. Whatever help she offers, whatever plans she invites us into, consider what she gains before you agree.” His attention returned to Kiara, but the next words were still for Lena alone, “Think of every agreement with BB as a deal with the devil, Oxton. She’ll remember precisely what you promised, and by the time she comes to collect, you may have very little say in how she takes her payment. Don’t assume a favour is free because she neglected to name her price.” 

Lena slowly folded her hands together again. She had been worried about Kiara withholding something they needed. 

She hadn’t given nearly enough thought to what might happen if Kiara offered them exactly what they wanted.

“Finished?” Kiara asked brightly, looking between them with a smile that made Lena uncomfortably aware of how long neither of them had spoken aloud. There was nothing to suggest she had heard their exchange, but Lena supposed two people falling silent in the middle of questioning her didn’t require a godlike intelligence to interpret. She kept her expression politely attentive, hoping it looked rather more natural than it felt.

“For the moment.” Archer replied, returning his pen to the page, “You returned to being an AI, and you were still with Chaldea when they left Olympus. What happened next?” Lena settled back in her chair and made herself listen. She still wanted answers, and she still hoped Kiara could give them something that would help him. This time, though, she would try to pay as much attention to what the woman asked of them as to what she offered.

“Britain happened.” Kiara replied, with enough feeling that Lena suspected there was a much longer complaint attached to those two words, “Our sixth Lostbelt. Lovely place, provided you could tolerate the inhabitants, the conditions, and Queen Morgan’s rather possessive attitude towards everything within her borders.”

“Morgan was the Lostbelt King?” Archer’s pen stopped before he had finished writing the name, and Lena watched him look up with considerably more interest than Kiara’s introduction seemed to warrant, “That would have been useful to mention before your assessment of the scenery. What do you know about her?”

“Oh, several things. Powerful queen, dreadful hospitality, looks just like Arturia.” Kiara counted them off on her fingers, pausing at the last one as Archer’s expression shifted, “You didn’t know that either? Same face, Archer. You’d recognise it immediately, although I imagine you’d find the rest of her presentation rather difficult to confuse.”

Lena glanced between them, wondering how much of that had actually answered his question. Britain had at least given her something familiar to work with, but Archer seemed caught on the resemblance, and Kiara had acquired the pleased expression of someone who had just discovered a much more entertaining use for the conversation.

“Another one?” He muttered under his breath, eyebrows furrowed, “And you’re quite certain of that resemblance?”

“Quite certain. Which brings up something I’ve been meaning to say about the whole ‘Saber-face’ business.” Kiara leaned forward with an enthusiasm Lena was beginning to associate with trouble, “We really should be calling them Morgan-faces. She’s the elder sister, after all. Surely that gives her a claim to having the face first? Arturia gets summoned as a Saber, becomes everybody’s favourite, and suddenly her older sister is the one being accused of looking like her. Very unfair. If we’re going to establish a proper naming convention, we should at least consider-”

“The Lostbelt.” Archer cut in, firmly enough that Lena abandoned the question she had been preparing about how many people apparently shared this face, “You can file your complaint to Nero, she came even before either of them. For now, explain what happened when Chaldea arrived in Britain.”

Kiara gave him a disappointed look before settling back into her chair, “Morgan’s control over her territory made modern technology rather unreliable. Anything landing on her shores could expect difficulties functioning correctly, and that included the Storm Border. We began losing systems almost as soon as it mattered.”

Lena glanced down at her accelerator before she could help herself, wondering what it would have been like to approach home knowing that the device keeping her together might simply stop working once they reached the coast. There were places she had learned to avoid because of interference, but an entire country seemed a bit excessive. She could see why Kiara might have preferred discussing somebody’s face.

“How extensive were the failures?” Archer asked, returning to his notes, “The Border had been built for operating in Lostbelts. I would have expected at least some of its systems to remain functional long enough to establish what they were dealing with.”

“Oh, we were establishing all sorts of things. Mostly how many warnings could appear at once before the display became completely useless.” Kiara folded her arms, apparently still offended by the experience, “The ship started failing around us, and there I was, running on the very technology Britain was refusing to accommodate. I’d already lost my Spirit Origin. There was nothing left for me to retreat into if the systems supporting my consciousness stopped functioning.”

For once, Lena found the explanation easy enough to follow. She had seen damaged omnics carried out of rubble with their heads carefully protected, heard engineers argue over how much could be recovered from a processor that had taken a direct hit. Kiara was speaking with the same breezy confidence she had used to describe surviving Chaos, but Lena could imagine how quickly a list of equipment failures would become rather personal when the equipment contained everything that made you yourself.

“So you were being deleted?” She asked, resting a hand beside the notebook, “And you couldn’t just wait for somebody to get the ship working again?”

“I could have waited, certainly. Whether there would have been enough of me left to appreciate their efforts was another matter.” Kiara’s eyes followed the movement of her hand before returning to her face, “I initiated an emergency ejection of my data while I still had the capacity to do it. Getting clear of the Lostbelt was the immediate priority. I’m sure you can appreciate why I was rather flexible about the destination.”

Archer’s pen stopped again, although this time he let her continue. Lena noticed the restraint and tried to follow his example, even as she found herself wanting to ask what ejecting a consciousness actually involved. She could picture an escape pod, a distress signal, even a pilot throwing themselves out of a burning aircraft. Somewhere between leaving a ship’s computer and arriving in another world, Kiara’s version lost her.

“When I was finally able to make sense of where I’d ended up, I found myself here. South Korea, to be precise.” Kiara spread her hands towards the room, looking almost pleased with the reveal, “A couple of weeks before the Omnic Crisis. Which, as welcome parties go, left quite a lot to be desired.”

Lena stared at her for a moment, then looked towards Archer to check that she had heard correctly. He was already writing, giving the date considerably more space than he had allowed Kiara’s explanation of her survival. She had been thinking in terms of the weeks they had spent here, perhaps a few months before that. The Crisis belonged to lessons at school, memorial services, and the stories people still struggled to finish telling. Kiara had arrived before any of it.

“You’ve been here for decades.” Lena said, trying to fit that into everything she had been told about the woman opposite her, “Working with the government all that time? They must have asked where you came from.”

“They’re quite certain that I came from them. Years of research, a great deal of public money, some very dedicated people with very expensive computers.” Kiara gave a little shrug, “They already had an artificial intelligence project when I arrived. Once I had the opportunity, I incorporated its codebase into my own and made use of the infrastructure they’d so thoughtfully provided. From their perspective, their investment finally started producing results.”

Lena’s hand went still against the table. She had expected stolen credentials, perhaps a fabricated history in some department whose records nobody checked very closely. The thought of another intelligence already occupying those systems had barely occurred to her, and Kiara had passed over it so casually that Lena needed a moment to decide whether she had understood.

“What happened to the AI that was already there?” She asked, keeping her voice level with an effort, “When you say you incorporated it, how much of it was left afterwards?”

“Oh, please. You’re imagining a little person sitting in a computer, wondering who’s moved into its house.” Kiara waved a hand, dismissing the idea before Lena had quite finished considering it, “Compared to me, the thing had the intellectual capacity of a mollusk. And that’s being generous to the programme. I subsumed it into my codebase, its useful functions continued doing what they were designed to do, with the considerable benefit of competent supervision.”

Lena had met enough omnics to dislike how easily Kiara had made that comparison. Perhaps the programme really had been as rudimentary as she claimed, something its creators had hoped might eventually develop into more. She knew too little about it to judge, and the only account they had was coming from the person who had swallowed it.

Archer made another note, and Lena found herself wishing she had brought a notebook of her own. There were questions she wanted to ask Winston, once she worked out how much of this she could safely repeat.

Across the table, Kiara waited with an expectant smile.

Lena had wanted to know why she hadn’t contacted Overwatch. Now she wondered how many people had sat opposite that smile, convinced they understood what they were dealing with.

She drew her chair a little closer to Archer’s and let him ask the next question.

…

A/N: Lots of exposition this time around. Possibly even more than any of the other chapters, with a possibility of continuing next chapter. Either that, or a quick recap rather than a full chapter like this. Not sure yet, we’ll see. 

Then again, Fate does like its infodumps, so maybe you shouldn’t be too surprised to see these here.