truth_is_cold

[Private to Ben | Audio]

Ben, I need to know what happened today.

[Private to Zack | Audio]*

I need to know if you two have spoken. He's going to be held accountable for someone's murder [and Rhade is very perplexed by this, because Ben doesn't lie], and he's been concerned with how you were going to react when you spoke to him. Did he seem in control of himself?

[Private to Charles | Audio]

Would it be possible for you to examine and speak with Ben? Review him for outside influences? Fugue states? I don't believe he is lying to me when he says he was in his room, but considering this ship...

[Private to Dylan | Audio]

[All that awkward from before? Have to forget it.] I need your help.

[Warden Filter | Audio]

Who here is a competent detective or is experience with forensics, or alternately has an inmate you would trust to assist in an investigation? [He wants to be careful and not get Ben into more trouble.]

OOC: And I'll be adding a bunch more to this, and there will be a plotting post for detective types to investigate.
*Timed to after his conversation with Ben.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[He remembers the Nomlies. That prisoner they hunted down in the forest - he was one. Back when Zack believed. The part of him that still does clenches his fists.

The teeth, that's what gives it away, but Zack knows about frame-ups; he's done enough of them. What he can't figure out is who would want to target Ben. He hasn't spent enough time here to know who's friend or foe, so everyone is a foe.

Tersely:] He wasn't turned, if that's what you're asking.

"Turned"? How do you mean?

[Rhade is meaning that Ben might have acted without being himself.] As in Manticore? No. I don't think it was that. Recently there was a flood where he was successfully indoctrinated back into Manticore, and afterwards he panicked because he couldn't stand that way of thinking.

Between that, the reunion with a sibling, and the fact that someone he was fond of had her entire mindset altered I would be willing to consider he may have acted without remembering it. But if it's unlikely from what you've seen, then I'll have to keep investigating other avenues.

[Zack has no frame of reference for anything that happens on the Barge, so his instincts immediately return to his training. If somebody's been forcibly changed, it's PsyOps, and PsyOps means they've been turned. That's how he begins to grasp the concept.

He feels pride (I would rather die than go back there) and then an immense, overwhelming grief. It's only been a few months but the wound is raw, Tinga is the salt. Ben had chosen to die rather than go back. Zack would have seen it as quitting, not trying hard enough, but the truth was if he'd been in that situation, he would have chosen the same path.]

He's fine. Whatever they're saying, he didn't do it.

[Sharp, barely restrained anger. And fear too, that his brother will be taken from him if he's wrong. So he just won't be wrong.]

Then I need to find proof that he didn't, so that he won't be mistreated for a crime that he didn't commit.

I'm looking for proof, but I need help. The victim is my friend and Ben knew that. I don't know why he would have hurt him in spite of it, and there is even less of a chance he would lie about it.

[A hesitant pause. Nobody's ever treated them as people, with rights. Logan tried, and Zack's being forced to let Rhade in, just like with Logan. He doesn't want to, but this is Ben.]

I know how he pulls out the teeth. I can take a look.

[The genetic engineering and breeding on Rhade's part probably helps with that, though he wishes it were more of a conventional line of thinking.]

The infirmary has records. I can ask Mr. Vanshrike to give you permission to look.

When?

He says that you can come now.

[Instead of replying, he cuts the feed and heads directly to the infirmary.]

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