Of course, she'd been less and less reliable lately. Case in point. “And secondly?”
“Secondly,” Ali continued, unruffled by his hostile tone, “information on her real identity was not considered for my searches because she's recorded as dead in all Deconstructionist Movement archives.”
“And other captured people who become Dormants aren't?” Aiden demanded. “That seems like a really stupid thing to filter out of searches.”
“In fact no, Dormants are not usually “killed off”, since that would be a pretty major telltale,” the AI replied calmly. “Particularly since most Dormants take over the lives of whoever they'd been before being captured and brainwashed, so giving them an obituary would kind of raise red flags. The last reason is that HAE has managed to dig rather deeply into Movement Intelligence's databanks, and there wasn't even a hint of her in the black ops area of MI that creates most Dormants.”
Aiden simply glared at her, waiting for her to give him something besides excuses, until finally she sighed. “Her name, assuming I've correctly identified her, is Jaziri Irsham. A very skilled, very low profile hacker. One who'd been operating in this very galaxy before she was captured, in fact.”
The Caretaker pulled up information on her pad, showing him numerous images of Lana with various hair colors, styles, and facial tattoos and piercings, some so bizarre that he didn't even recognize her, aside from context. She was also wearing a variety of outfits that spanned almost every fashion style for the last thirty or so years.
Or at least, the more risque ones; seeing this stranger who looked like Lana, or at least some version of her, so brazenly flaunting her sexuality was utterly incongruous with the sweet, innocent young woman he knew. So much so that he felt a bit uncomfortable seeing her like this.
Along with the images came a surprising number of wanted notices and profile alerts from the Movement, various powerful corporations, and private entities. “Jaziri's full activity isn't known, since she covered her tracks very adeptly,” Ali continued. “But the crimes attributed to her include theft, fraud, extortion, blackmail, fomenting treason against the Movement in public allnet spaces, and the brokering of highly classified information. The act that ultimately set the Deeks after her, and got her captured, was a confidence scheme in which she seduced a highly placed Movement leader and then blackmailed him for the access codes to his agency's database.”
Aiden blinked. Even after seeing the way she'd dressed in her previous life, he had a hard time seeing innocent Lana as capable of that sort of cynical seduction. Not to mention that the idea of her screwing a Deek, even so she could then figuratively screw him, was more than a little repugnant.
The Caretaker didn't seem to notice his surprise. “She used the information taken from the database in further blackmail schemes and other illegal activities, sowing a surprising amount of chaos and profiting immensely from it. Which was enough to see her hunted down, captured, and supposedly executed.”
“But Deeks never throw away useful tools,” Aiden said grimly. “So instead they brainwashed her and sent her to worm her way onto my ship.”
“Yes,” Ali agreed, tone solemn. “I've analyzed what's left of our Fixes' memories, and discovered that she tampered with two of them. I've also thoroughly examined the ship's computer for signs of intrusion, to try to work out just what she's been up to all this time.”
Aiden grit his teeth; this wasn't going to be good news. “What did you find?”
The Caretaker hesitated. “First off, that we were very lucky.”
“You think? We barely came out of this fight alive after she sabotaged us.”
Ali shook her head. “Not this fight. My search revealed that the Dormant had a surprisingly deft touch with hacking, no surprise considering her background. Not enough to get past my defenses, but enough that I didn't spot her tampering until I looked for it specifically, rather than for a phantom virus as I originally assumed it was. That is my own failure, for which I apologize.”
Aiden waved that away irritably; if she hadn't been up to the task, no one would've been.
The disfigured woman continued, not seeming reassured by his unspoken forgiveness. “It appears that one of the Dormant's sabotage attempts was with the ship's controls. She wanted to take them over just long enough to fly the Last Stand into the nearest obstacle, at speeds swift enough to obliterate the ship. Failing that, she convinced you to teach her to fly in the hopes that she'd have a few seconds unsupervised to do it manually.”
He felt the blood drain from his face. “You're telling me she came within seconds of suiciding us into the nearest asteroid dozens of times in the last couple months?”
Ali grimaced, which didn't do anything for her appearance. “I believe so, my love. Fortunately, rookie pilots are watched almost as suspiciously as potential traitors, and you never gave her that opportunity.”
Aiden swore and slammed his fist into the bulkhead beside the window, ignoring the momentary flash of pain that jolted up his arm. “So she's been lying to me this entire time! Pretending to be my friend, even more, gaining my trust. Was she a Blank Slate at all?”
The Caretaker hesitated. “I think so. And I don't believe she was deceiving us, either. From what I can infer from the patterns of her spying and attempted sabotage, her brainwashing took effect infrequently, trying to accomplish its objectives. Usually late at night, when she was in deep REM sleep. But it always erased her memories of what she'd done while under its influence. I think that aside from those times, and of course when the Vindicator's signal triggered her, she really was a Blank Slate, acting mostly of her own volition and in good faith.”
“So whenever I was teaching her to fly, that's when she was acting
