[OOC] Memories for Bubbles

[bland_blond]

What it says on the tin.

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The results of Cordelia's "shopping trip." (B, Chip)

[bland_blond]

The memory is astoundingly clear, even more so than the memory bubbles normally allow. Every shadow, every flicker, even the soft rustle of people moving, or talking in the background is recorded here, not just the main focus. It's as if Simon were filming inside his own head, with the results perfectly preserved. Only for audio-visual, however; the feelings (both emotional and physical) are present, but muted, distant, subsumed.

Simon Illyan was in a highly secured conference chamber that is underground somewhere; he stood to one side of a stocky man, dark haired with gray at his temples, currently in the midst of tense negotiation with a set of men - traitors - sat across from him. (The memory has every word, every name, every detail, regardless of whether they're written down in the description or not.) a lethally armed squad stood ramrod-guard outside a double blast door at the far end of the chamber; a man (Koudelka) wafted them himself and a gorgeous roan-haired woman past. (Cordelia Vorkosigan, supplies Simon's inner monologue.) The doors slid aside, and closed again behind the two guests.

Cordelia took in the tableau that paused to look back up at her from around the polished table. Aral was in the center, of course. Illyan and Count Piotr flanked him on either side. Prime Minister Vortala was there, and Kanzian, and some other senior staffers all in formal dress greens. The two double-traitors sat across, with their aides. Clouds of witnesses.

Aral’s eyes locked to Cordelia's in silent agony. His lips curled in an utterly ironic smile. That was all.

Count Piotr’s hand slapped down hard upon the table. “Good God, woman, where have you been?” he cried furiously.

A morbid lunacy overtook her. She smiled fiercely at him, and held up the bag. “Shopping.”

For a second, the old man nearly believed her; conflicting expressions whiplashed over his face, astonishment, disbelief, then anger as it penetrated he was being mocked.

“Want to see what I bought?” Cordelia continued, still floating. She yanked open the bag’s top and rolled Vordarian’s head out across the table. Fortunately, it had ceased leaking some hours back. It stopped face-up before him, lips grinning, drying eyes staring.

Piotr’s mouth fell open. Kanzian jumped, the staffers swore, and one of Vordarian’s traitors actually fell out of his chair, recoiling. Vortala pursed his lips and raised his brows. Koudelka, grimly proud of his key role in stage-managing this historic moment in one-upsmanship, laid the swordstick on the table as further evidence. Illyan puffed, and grinned triumphantly through his shock. (Shocked, but not surprised - the chip helpfully pulls up a picture-in-picture of Cordelia in a different setting, on a spaceship, covered in blood and looking equally feral - )

Aral was perfect. His eyes widened only briefly, then he rested his chin on his hands and gazed past his father’s shoulder with an expression of cool interest. “But of course,” he breathed. “Every Vor lady goes to the capital to shop.”

A research session. (HC, Chip)

[bland_blond]

This memory is also astoundingly clear, just like all of Simon's other memories. He is taking a lift tube down to the lower level of a pathologically blocky building (ImpSec HQ, noted on a placard), a data chit in one hand and stack of flimsies stuck under one arm. He emerges in small room full of equally boxy cubicles, each equipped with a desk and a comconsole.

The desks nearest the lift tube are taken (a quick inset image flickers inside the main memory: all four desks full, six out of the seven times he was last here, and the seventh time he'd sat at the desk only to find the comconsole in disrepair), so he circles to the back, where there'd been an empty spot 100% of the time. A mental image of the desk, empty, superimposes over the reality of the desk, empty, before Simon sits.

He gets to work. Starts with the data chit, which he inserts into the console; it pulls up a whole set of visual and text files, which he flips through one at a time. He's not reading them, though; instead, he looks at each page for a split second before going onto the next. And the next. Flick flick flick. He pauses on one that catches his interest - a map of a new alien world, fresh from a survey expedition - before tabbing through the next fifty pages.

Meanwhile, in the background, equally clear even without his focus, the voices of the other analysts rise and fall. Reedy and faintly musical, that's Lieutenant Vorbretten, chatting with the much more stolid Corporal Vortaine. Such idle talk is technically forbidden, per Captain Negri's paranoid siloing of his Imperial Security teams, but here, in the analysts' bunker? Eh. Negri would have better luck keeping cats out of cream. Or Prince Serg out of the war.

Their words are perfectly audible long before Simon focuses on them. Talk of their girlfriends, rumors of how a recent expedition to a new planet had gone (Simon mentally pulls up that map again even as his actual eyes continue to log pages of data), grousing that it's been nearly twenty years since the last solid war. "You'd probably see action if you got stuffed in with Vorkosigan's strays," says Vorbretten. (A glance up records him leaning against one of the cubicle walls, a cup of coffee in hand.) "Just too bad about your reputation after."

"S'worse things," comes Vortaine's reply. "You seen that spook rattling around down here this week? Walking tape recorder. Some whim of the emperor's. Or Negri's, same thing."

The flow of images on Simon's comconsole stop, abruptly, as his hand hovers over the keyboard.

"Don't," Vorbretten hisses. "You'll summon the little bastard. I swear, these new assignments look younger every year."

"That's the prole look for you, can't take 'em seriously." Vortaine sips his coffee, grimaces. "Maybe that's why, though. Expendable. Throw in a dozen, get one good one out, easy math."

The files flash again, faster, as Simon starts going through them as quickly as he can. Twenty-five more pages, and then the stack of flimsies, and then he can get the hell out of here. He can spend the whole shuttle ride with his eyes closed, reading his memories on the trip into orbit.

"Doesn't make him any less of a snitch." Vorbretten again. No matter how much Simon focuses on his visuals, he can't block out the audio. The chip mercilessly records every syllable. "Last week, Voreedi made some off-handed comment about Escobar, and Negri had him in his office the next day."

Because he was an idiot who said it right outside Negri's office, thinks Simon, teeth clenched. I had nothing to do with it. He struggles against temptation to correct them, to tell them that only Emperor Ezar has the right scanner to read Simon's memories, and is jealously protective of that little device, even from Negri.

A new voice joins the other two - Corporal Vorpatril, not one of the Vorpatrils by either Countship or Vorbarra family ties. "He's not that bad," he adds brightly, and Simon's opinion of the man instantly increases by a tick. He'd thought Vorpatril boorish and irritatingly handsome the last time they'd spoken. "Fantastic for trivia night down at the pub."

Trivia night? What trivia night? Simon scans through his recent memories frantically, but what few nights out he remembers are all from the perspective of the back corner, alone, with his brother officers either unaware of his presence or actively avoiding him -

Oh. Simon's cheeks flush at the same moment that the other two men laugh. "Yeah, and getting everyone in the bar court-martialed a week later," says Vorbretten.

"Feeling guilty?" Vorpatril practically chirps.

Simon tries to pull up more memories, to drown them out. Doing his best impression of furniture outside of Emperor Ezar's private chambers, Vorkosigan's tones rising to a traitorously angry pitch before falling again. Old Ezar himself, dour as he gestures for Simon to sit in his usual spot, to run through the last week at 100x speed, and slow at any timestamps Simon indicates. (Timestamps are better - random stops and starts will flatten him with a migraine for the next two hours - )

"No more than any other poor sod with half a decent social life." The chip records Vortaine's response anyway, merciless. "Speaking of, aren't you two done for the night yet?"

"Hour left in my shift yet," says Vorbretten. "Negri will have my head if I skive off early."

"Eh." Vorpatril shrugs with an audible rustle of fabric. "System only reviews badge outs if you're under six hours in the tank at a time. All this overtime has ballsed it up nicely."

Negri reviews all of them eventually, you Vor fucks, thinks Simon. Flashes up images of being across from the fearsome Head of Security in his office as the old man eyes Simon with cold precision, telling Simon to ask questions on the inside first before anything stupid comes out of his mouth. He's just distracted at the moment, and not in the mood for dealing with your parents.

"Your loss," continues Vorpatril. "Local place has got in the good Cetagandan brandy, the kind that makes you hallucinate colors for a solid hour."

"Contraband." Vorbretten's gleeful tones are practically musical. "I've had worse reasons for a court-martial."

Simon stands, abruptly, his metal chair screeching loudly in the otherwise soundproof room. Three heads turn towards him; Simon records the sudden pallor in their faces with grim satisfaction. He doesn't say a damn word. Only nods, as Vorbretten's mouth gapes open like a fish, and Vortaine's green eyes track Simon's path back to the tube lift. It closes around him with a soft, metallic swish.

"Shit," says Vorpatril, after the door is closed, but before the mechanism starts up. "Do you think he heard us?"

Whatever response the other two might have given is drowned out by the lift groaning upwards. Simon slumps against the opposite side, still clutching the flimsy stack in one hand. Dammit. He's going to have to go back in an hour anyway, to finish, and Negri absolutely pays attention to all of HIS badge ins and outs ...

(But with a curse like this in his head? He needs all the little joys he can get.)