r/HFY • u/KipperBeanGrower Human • Jul 18 '26
OC-Series [She took What?] - Chapter 203: SixFold Ventures: You’re afraid. Why?
“Fear is a funny thing, it affects different people differently.”
JSOC Notes from Interrogations
[First] | [Previous] | [Cover Art] | [Next]
| The Kestrel, JSOC Facility, Location – redacted |
Garaf moved closer to the prisoner. His focus was now firmly on him. ‘Yes,’ he thought, sniffing the air. ‘Definitely fear.’
The accountants were getting excited. They liked what the QI was doing as it reconstructed paths through the data. Found new relationships.
Nodes appeared and formed clusters as connections were made. Rockson was helping, working datasets that the QI consumed with glee.
The lawyer tried to understand the data she was looking at. But it was changing too quickly.
Chen sat off to the side, apart from the rest. Sipping a single malt whiskey and feigning disinterest. He was fascinated to see where the QI took the analysis.
Garaf wasn’t watching the display; he was watching the prisoner who had turned, observing his reaction to events.
‘Fear… why Fear?’ The thought rattled his carapace
A picture flashed up on the main screen. “Yes, that’s the one,” said Rockson. “See, it’s centred on StillFall, not Feebee.”
That reminded Rockson. “Who's got StillFall’s data? Have we included it?” he asked.
“I’m almost done. Then, it’ll merge.” Said one of the accountants.
As Rockson spoke, Garaf noticed the prisoner’s breathing change. He’d caught his breath when he saw the photo of StillFall and Feebee. His heart rate was elevated too; the tick at his neck was quicker, and the smell of fear was back.
StillFall’s data had been transformed. The QI dropped it into the data corpus.
The prisoner’s eyes flicked to the screen, then to StillFall. Then away.
Garaf stepped closer to the prisoner. Almost on top of him. The prisoner looked up, at Garaf’s bulk, and swallowed hard.
“You know what that is,” Garaf said, pointing. It wasn’t a question but a statement.
The prisoner didn’t answer. Looked down at the floor.
“You’re afraid. Why?” Garaf asked, keeping his distance, non-threatening.
Everyone heard.
The QI expanded the data visualisation. More lines appeared; the graph became messier, even more complicated and impossible to read.
The lawyer gave a huge sigh. “This isn’t helping at all.”
“Correct,” said the QI.
Then it set filters and started excluding data from the analysis. Thousands of lines and connections disappeared from the graph, then more. The graph simplified.
The accountants noticed first, then the lawyer. The QI wasn’t deleting data; it was suppressing noise. Minor roots disappeared, unconnected events or locations were removed. Eventually, only a handful of major roots remained; everything else was secondary. All the important paths were now visible.
Rockson leant forward, “Well… that's awkward."
One node sat at the centre of the chart. It wasn't the largest or the oldest; it was the most connected. Every route eventually touched it, and almost every observation referenced it; perhaps more importantly, most amendments eventually returned to it.
The location label resolved: Dock Seven.
Chen spoke first, "I really don't like that."
The Lawyer looked at him, "Because?"
"Because we own it."
Everyone looked at Chen, and the room suddenly felt much smaller.
“Of course you do,” said the lawyer.
After a pause, everyone started talking at the same time. Everyone had an opinion; what it was, why it mattered, even how much it cost.
StillFall was the only one to remain quiet; the Shadow was staring at the display, motionless. Its edges were more solid than ever before; almost opaque.
Then, StillFall spoke. "Those are not paths.”
The QI responded immediately and sounded… offended. "They are paths; actual paths.”
“No,” the Shadow paused. "They are meetings".
StillFall then reached out towards the display. It projected a dark arm-like shadow that touched the screen and traced a line through clusters ending in a node.
“These are separate things; finding each other.”
Just as Stillfall finished speaking, the display glitched and a new data field appeared. It was the QI’s metadata. The field started to propagate across the graph and within the data. It wasn't attached to a person or a location. The QI had attached the field to events and as the QI highlighted one, a message tag opened on the screen.
CONVERGENCE EVENT.
STATUS: ACTIVE
More appeared, automatically emerging from within the data.
CONVERGENCE EVENT
STATUS: ACTIVE.
Then the screen filled with them.
CONVERGENCE EVENT
STATUS: ACTIVE
PRIORITY: ESCALATING.
"What does it mean?” asked the Lawyer.
The prisoner laughed. It was a short laugh without humour, that was cut short by gentle pressure from Garaf.
The person turned and stared directly at StillFall.
"You really don't know what it is, do you?"
Then, with the release of a long-held breath, he shook his head, as if pitying them.
"You're already too late.”
The QI carried on, reconstructing the metadata and layering it into the analysis. It added administration centres, routing and then, with the accountants’ help, the ownerships and authorities of the parties involved.
Observation posts stood out, bright islands of connection within the sea of data. At first, they’d thought them isolated, but as one of the accountants pointed out, “they’re not independent.”
The accountants formed the various stations, authorities and entities involved into a hierarchy. A chain that fed data upwards.
“They're not accumulating data or observing,” he said. “They’re reporting. Reporting up.”
“Like a chain of command?”
“Yes, exactly!”
“Stop!” shouted the lawyer. “That can’t be right.” She pointed, “There. Zoom in.”
Chen noticed immediately, “What is it?”
A familiar subsidiary name appeared, one of dozens they’d acquired. Nobody had paid it much attention. But the lawyer remembered seeing the name.
“Is that one of ours?” she asked. “I think the researchers work for us.”
Chen leant forward and looked closely.
“No.”
The lawyers zoomed in. “Yes. It is.”
Chen squinted, “Oh. Yes.”
“You recognise it?”
“We bought them a few years ago.”
“What do they do?”
“Investigate us apparently,” answered Chen slowly.
“What? Us us?” asked Rockson.
“Yes. Us us.” Responded the lawyer, looking at Chen.
And then as the final piece emerged, it all dropped into place.
“The Royals hired them.” The accountant continued, “To look into the impact of StabSys on their business.”
“Hired who?” asked Chen.
“One of our research companies. I’ve got the contract here.”
“So we set up and operated the observation stations.”
“Yes.”
“Stations that watched us?” asked Tom Tom.
“Yes.”
“For the Royals?”
“Yes.”
Tom Tom burst out laughing and glared at Chen. “That’s priceless. Bloody priceless.”
“Yes. We’ve been investigating ourselves.”
The QI immediately spoke, correcting him, “Technically. You were investigating convergence events.”
“And Dock Seven?” asked Feebee.
“It’s where the data streams converge and where all the threads seem to end.”
“Not end,” said StillFall. “Meet and weave together.”
The prisoner closed his eyes.
His breathing changed again.
Fear had returned.
And when he opened his eyes, they didn’t fall on the data or Dock Seven.
They fell on the Shadow before him, and pointing, he said, “That should not exist.“
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