Post #2557251 in A Garden for Sinners, a roleplay on RPG

“The pursuit of the truth is its own reward.”

“His real memories?” Ilyana was understandably surprised to learn that Dietrich had kept them, let alone that this stranger had gone looking for them for some reason. “I thought you replaced them completely, along with wiping the traces of his other emotions.” She stared at the Death card. Great change; transition. Crux had moved from something that was mostly human to something that was more machine than man, and they had made it so, by the orders of those above them. She would be lying to say she’d been comfortable with the idea of doing such a thing to a person, but…

“Mechanics never was my strong suit,” Dietrich replied, a subtle smile playing across his face. “Who is to say I made the transition a perfect one? Perhaps there are flaws left in him yet, though if so, they must be deeply buried. It never hurts to have a back-up drive, so to speak.” He flocked the corner of the image of the card, and it spun around in place on one of its corners. “Someone knows I cheated a little.”

“Deeply-buried, huh? What’s the guarantee he’ll ever find those flaws again, than?” The language was familiar to her—flaws in this biomechanical parlance had been used to describe Project Zero’s emotions, and her eventual ability to break away from Network control. Was Dietrich saying he’d done that for Crux, just as his brother had done for Darcia, only hidden it better?

Dietrich shrugged with false carelessness. “Who knows? Maybe not. But maybe, if the connection was strong enough…” She had a feeling he was more interested to find out than he let on, but the fact that he’d done this at all struck her as odd. It was something she would have expected from Solomon, whose heart had ever been as mighty as his mind, but… not Dietrich. Was it just some kind of experiment? Or was there more to it than that?

He didn’t seem to be inclined to give her time to contemplate the question, though, because he was already back to examining the cards. “We both know who the Devil must represent in this scenario, but what surprises me is that our hacker knows about her. The logical conclusion is that he is somehow affiliated with the Flowers.” That made sense—the affiliated traits of the Devil—selfishness, egocentrism—were definitely ones that Solla had. Given the grouping with Death, it just made even more sense. She hadn’t really let go of Crux since she’d obtained him, so to speak.

“Emperor, Empress and Heirophant… is that the Triumvirate?” It seemed a little off, especially since Dietrich wasn’t the best match for any of those. The Heirophant, maybe, but that card implied traditionalism as well as education, and that was far from accurate with respect to him.

Dietrich hummed. “No… I think I am the Chariot here.” There was a wry smile on his face, and she supposed she could understand it. The Chariot had a number of good qualities, but also was sometimes a bit immature, which was true of Dietrich insofar as he enjoyed playing the provocateur. “The Emperor floats above the other two—surely, that one must be the Prime Minister, leaving the beguiling Empress to be Helena and the stalwart Heirophant to represent the Supreme General.”

Ilyana whistled low under her breath. Someone had really thought long and hard on this—the associated traits were nearly perfect, and subtle in ways that she almost didn’t see until she really looked back over what she knew of those involved. Both the Emperor and the Empress, for instance, could seem to be faceless authority figures in some way, uncaring of those beneath them, but they in fact represented aspects of fatherhood and motherhood—which was, interpreted one way, a deep concern for others, and the knowledge of how to guide them even in the absence of presenting the full truth. Cast that way, it was easy to see how Teleus and Helena fit. Easy… but only to someone who understood their subtleties.

Glancing over at Dietrich, she noticed that he actually held a physical card in his hand, the face of which was blank. That was odd, but she assumed he’d explain when they got to it. But first… “What about these others? The Tower, Strength, Justice, and The Hermit?” She caught his sideways look, amused, and raised a brow.

“Strength appeared with the Chariot—it’s obviously meant to be you.” Ilyana frowned—she wasn’t sure she belonged among such capable company, but if he said so, then it was a decent hypothesis for now. “I believe Justice is our hacker himself, which would suggest that The Hermit is an affiliate of his. As for the Tower…” He studied the card for a moment. “A piece of artifice that undergoes a catastrophic change. Doesn’t that sound a little familiar to you?”

And it did.

“Darcia.” The government had assumed the android destroyed, for she had not surfaced for some time, and it was believed that she may have actually decommissioned herself. But if that wasn’t true, and she was still alive, well… who knew what she had become in the meantime? Especially if someone as technically skilled as this hacker had been in contact with her. “Dietrich, you don’t think—”

“Who else?”

“But what good is knowing if you are the only one?”

Stella relaxed slightly upon Uno’s entrance, rolling her eyes when he asked if it was his birthday. “Don’t be a jerk,” she groused at him. “She’s not just a thing to be given to people… is she?” The last was directed at Cass and the android herself, who certainly looked and seemed more human than any android Stella had ever soon. A very pretty human, unnaturally so, but still…

“Actually, that’s the thing,” Cass explained, glancing over and down at the android beside him. Her expression was smooth, impassive, but almost downcast. If Stella had to guess, she’d say the girl was depressed. But what could make a machine feel like that?

“Darcia here is fully self-actualized. Her will is free, and her computational systems completely Network-independent.” The announcement drew no reaction from Darcia herself, but it certainly got one out of Stella, her eyes widening, darting to focus on the girl’s face, as if to look for the feature that would give such a thing away.

Darcia was attired in some kind of assortment of spandex and leather, fitted closely to her form, with blue lines tracing the fabric that themselves seemed to glow. In the daylight, it was subtle, but Stella was willing to bet that she’d be visible at night, unless of course she had a cloaking mechanism or something. Her hair was pulled into a knot on her head, clear and out of the way save for the few strands that framed either side of her doll-like face. Despite what was probably a very high-tech suit, she seemed more vulnerable than Stella had ever seen her.

“So… what you’re saying is that she somehow got free will, and now she wants to what? Help us?” It was almost too much to believe.

Darcia looked up then, moving eyes the color of bruised wisteria—much duller than they had once been, back and forth between the other two just once. “This one wished to find the answer to a question. If it remains near you, then it is certain it will eventually discover this answer. In the meantime, it will protect you.” Stella was about to ask what the question was when something in Darcia’s hand flickered, and the android brought it up for all to see.

The familiar flame logo that represented Prometheus flashed along the screen first, followed by a set of schematics the purpose of which was not immediately clear to Stella, but the man himself spoke through the line next, explaining anyway.

“I have terrible timing, and feel free to scold me later—” that was obviously directed at Stella, who was really the only person who bothered to do that—“But my Network monitor indicates that you four have just been found… and not by any old GHOSTs this time. Be careful.”

Snippet #2557251

located in Earth || 3020, a part of A Garden for Sinners, one of the many universes on RPG.

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Characters Present

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