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After months of investigating and compiling data, Tinaya and Lataran had to
put the inquiry on hold for a bit while the latter gave birth. She named her
daughter Sable, and obviously started to focus on her while Tinaya
continued. It was months more before she realized that she trusted the wrong
people, and a few months after that before anyone agreed to sit down with
her to explain the situation.
They’re in this meeting now, in the former mirror room, of all places. This
operation is clearly completely off the books, but it goes pretty high up
the food chain. Tinaya still doesn’t understand why. A representative from
the Bridger Section is here. She hasn’t ever met him, and doesn’t know what
his role is. Also present are Doctors Cernak and Gunnarsson, proving that
she was right to conscript a third party physician from Verdemus. The
current Consul, Head of Security, and some woman that Tinaya doesn’t know
either are all sitting opposite her, but still separate from the others.
They’re apparently waiting for someone else, and being very quiet while they
do.
Finally, Captain Jennings walks in. “Oceanus,” Tinaya exclaims, standing up.
“You’re in on this too.”
“Whatever this is,” Oceanus replies, “decidedly no. I’ve been told something
has been happening under my nose, and it has to do with you and Lataran, but
I do not yet know what it is. Explain, Darling.”
Consul Darling clears his throat. “It’s not my place. I was only recently
made aware of the project when it became clear that Admiral Leithe was
getting close to figuring it out on her own.”
“It’s not a project if no one knows about it,” Tinaya argues. “It would be
an operation. But I just call it a conspiracy.”
No one responds.
“Who is in charge here?” Oceanus demands to know.
The Bridger stands. “Please have a seat, Captain.”
Still seething, Oceanus sits down next to Tinaya. They take each other’s
hands. They’ve grown close over the course of the last year, having spoken
nearly every day as he’s gotten better at seeking her counsel. She didn’t
read him in on her side mission because she didn’t want him to be distracted
from running the ship.
The Bridger makes one step away from his seat. “As you all know, Bridgers
have access to future knowledge. We use this knowledge to guide Extremus on
its mission, protecting its mandate at all costs.”
“No,” Tinaya interrupts.
“No...what?” the Bridger asks.
“No, your job is not to protect the mission at all costs, but to a
reasonable and ethical degree. Your predecessors understood that. Why don’t
you?”
“I misspoke,” the Bridger claims.
“I don’t believe you. You’ve been violating people’s bodies on a repeated
basis. I don’t care what reason you think you had for this, it’s wrong.”
“You might not agree once you hear those reasons,” the Bridger claims.
“Well, get on with it, then,” Oceanus spits.
The Bridger sighs. He kind of looks like he wants to sit back down, but he
has the floor. “As I was saying, we are aware of future events. Sometimes we
can change them, sometimes we can’t, and sometimes we shouldn’t. This
particular issue is hopefully the former, but we’re still not sure. It’s
unclear how successful we’re being, if at all. We still don’t understand
what the source of the problem is, but the problem itself is totally
unambiguous. We have a population decline issue.”
“What?” Tinaya asks. “Population growth is a matter of public record. Our
numbers have been rising.”
“You’re right, they have,” the Bridger agrees, “but not at a fast enough
rate. One day soon, this number will plateau, and then it will start going
back down. Trust me, I’ve already seen it play out.”
“So you rape women?” Tinaya questions. That’s a serious accusation.
Dr. Cernak shoots out of his chair like it’s on fire. “That is not what
we’re doing! Don’t you ever frame it that way!”
“Doctor. Please,” the Bridger requests.
“Ah, so it’s a framing issue,” Tinaya sees. “You’re not denying breaking the
Synthetic Age Oath of Ethical Medical Practice. You just don’t want me to
talk about it. I get it.”
“No, you don’t get it,” Cernak insists. “We don’t even take the full
SAOEMP in its original form. We have to take a modified version of it since
we don’t accept certain forms of lifesaving procedures, like healing nanites
or consciousness transference.”
“Don’t you?” Tinaya questions. She leaves it at that, because Consul Darling
may not know about The Question, and the Head of Security almost certainly
doesn’t.
Dr. Cernak huffs. “We didn’t impregnate anyone. We simply gave them the
option to procreate by hastening the degradation of the silencing enzyme.”
“Without our consent, nor our knowledge!” Tinaya shouts.
“Admiral Leithe,” Consul Darling scolds.
“No, I’m not going to calm down. You think what you did is okay because of
some future problem that almost no one knows about? I don’t care which
ethical oath you took, it’s either not enough, or you broke it! This is
unacceptable. It is a violation of our rights to identity and
self-determination. That’s why we switched from the Hippocratic Oath in the
first place, because it was woefully insufficient for the needs of a
population in a world where death is more of a question than an
inevitability. Yeah, Cernak, I actually do understand that you take a
variant of the standard ethical oath, but that involves
more restrictions on care, not less. Consent is everything, and you
should have known that. I swear to God, you two, despite my lack of power as
an admiral, I will see to it that you are both dismissed, delicensed, and
sent to hock.”
“You don’t have that power,” Consul Darling states the obvious. “Not even
the Captain can do that much.”
“I can.” It’s the mysterious woman who has been sitting quietly until now.
Everyone seems scared of her, even the Bridger. She stands and stares at him
to strongly suggest that he sit back down. “My name is Tiere Victorian, and
I serve as the Superintendent of the Bridger Section. My power lies in
personnel decisions, rather than policy, just like Superintendent Grieves. I
am the sole voice who decides when and if it is necessary to replace an
executive crewmember of the Extremus with a Bridger alternate. So I was not
made aware of this operation before, because it was not required to do my
job. But I have the authority to dismiss or discipline anyone on either ship
for any reason with impunity for myself. I could fire you, Dr. Cernak,
because I don’t like which side your hair is parted on. I suggest you start
being less defensive, and more contrite.”
He shrinks.
Tiere goes on, “I have reviewed the data that my colleagues have made
available to me regarding the population crisis, and again, I do not have
the power to end the program, but I can make one vital change that will most
likely end it anyway.”
They’re on the edge of their seats.
“I can place Admiral Leithe in charge of it,” she finishes. Yeah, that’ll do
it.
Tinaya can’t help but smirk. She’s going to shut this down, effective
immediately, and come clean—if not to the whole ship, then at least to all
aggrieved parties. “I’m going to need everything on this. I wanna know who
came up with it, who else was involved, and who was aware of it. I need to
know who on this ship was impacted by it, either directly or indirectly. I
need names and details, as well as any ancillary records, messages, and
notes.”
Dr. Cernak stands now. “I’m not giving you jack or shit unless I’m
guaranteed to hold my position as Chief Medical Officer until such time that
I retire.”
There’s a quick silence. “I’ll get you what you need,” the Bridger says to
Tinaya. She still doesn’t know his name. That’s probably by design.
“You don’t have the medical files,” Cernak reminds him. “Those are
confidential.”
“Doctor,” Tinaya begins, “when one crewmember leaves their post, and that
job is backfilled by another, what happens to the data that they collected
during their shift? Do you think they take it to the grave?” It’s a
rhetorical question, but she pauses a moment anyway. “When you’re officially
let go, you’ll lose all access, and your replacement will gain it. We don’t
need you anymore.” She looks over at the Head of Security. “What did you
know of this program?”
“Dasher Bruin, sir. Head of Security, Year Ninety-Six to Year One-Oh-Three,
sir. I was read into the situation on day one of my shift, sir, and was told
to not ask questions, sir. I did my job, protecting the interests of the
ship at the behest of my superiors, sir.”
“I am your superior,” Tinaya tells him.
“Yes, sir,” he agrees.
“Escort Misters Cernak and Gunnarsson to a holding cell in hock,
please.”
What little light was left in these former doctors’ eyes now fades. She does
not have the power to strip them of their medical licenses, but she’ll make
sure it happens. However long that takes, they’ve each seen their last
patient.
“Yes, sir.” Dasher lifts his watch to his mouth, and whispers, likely for a
security team to come assistant him in his task. He takes two packs of
dynamic EM tethers out of his pocket, and tries to fit Cernak and Gunnarsson
with them. They can hold their wrists between fifteen and twenty-five
centimeters apart, but if they try to pull them beyond that range, the
attractive magnets will activate, and if the try to push them too close,
they will switch to a repulsive force. They come in specific pairs, but
Dasher accidentally mixes them up, which leaves the prisoners tethered to
each other. They look like lovers, their four hands hanging together like
that. “Oh my God, sorry.”
“Officer Bruin, are you nervous?” Tinaya asks.
“I just don’t know if...if this is it for me. Should I put a couple of these
on myself too?” Dasher asks.
Tinaya considers it. She makes a decision quickly. “You’ll be turned over to
a new Head when one can be found and appointed. You’ll face no criminal
charges, though. You can tell people that you wanted to spend time with your
family, or start a family. I can’t say the same for everyone else.”
She looks around at the people in the room.
Dasher is clearly relieved. He deftly swaps the cuffs out so they’re back in
their right pairs, and starts to leave. The cuffs also have a feature where
the detainee can’t stray more than four meters from their escort, or can’t
get closer than two meters. So they start being dragged behind him.
“I think I’ll see if I can’t start a family,” Dasher says as he’s exiting.
“If the ship needs more kids, I’ll give it more kids.”
Dasher is not alone in his line of thinking. As it turns out, honesty is the
best policy. Tinaya’s new temporary job as Head of Population Sustainability
not only involves ending the unethical program, but finding a suitable
replacement. She’s still an admiral, but she has all these other
responsibilities too. Shutting down the program isn’t as easy as flipping a
switch. Thousands of aging women were injected with the intentionally
defective silencing enzymes, and all of them need medical appointments to
correct that. But before that can happen, new professionals need to be hired
to actually perform these procedures, and that’s complicated, because Cernak
and Gunnarsson were certainly not the only ones on the medical team who were
a part of the conspiracy. To fill the ranks, a few doctors and nurses are
recruited straight out of medical school for positions that were just a tad
bit above their qualifications. As a precautionary measure, they will always
have oversight, and their teachers expressed confidence in their abilities
to perform admirably, and more importantly than ever, ethically.
As the proverbial swamp is drained, and replacements are selected, murmurs
of what’s going on begin to echo throughout the ship. Some learn the truth
outright, at least from the perspective of those who had to be told
something ahead of the shipwide announcement. Others just notice that the
crew shift changes are out of sync with the schedule, and very fishy.
There’s a lot of confusion, though, and things need to be cleared up. Once
all the prep work is done, Tinaya stands on stage, and makes her broadcast
speech. She reveals the truth to everyone, in disgusting and uncomfortable
detail. She explains that she herself was the victim of this morally
bankrupt operation, as was Admiral Keen. The reaction is angry and visceral,
and not at all unexpected. People are pissed about being lied to, and about
the deep breach of ethics that these people committed.
There’s no violence, though, and once the fury subsides, the outcome starts
to emerge. Dasher fathers three children with three different women within
one year, with plans to conceive even more in the future, though he will
hopefully slow down as there is a limit to how many younglings that a
parent can responsibly raise at the same time. Others end up feeling the
same sentiment, and begin to conceive more children than they were
apparently planning. It’s not this big, advertised movement. People are just
independently inspired to aid the cause. Tinaya doesn’t have insight into
any changes they might be having on the future. Tiere is executing her own
disciplinary action in house, and isn’t being any more transparent than the
Bridgers have ever been. But it seems to be working. They have to hire more
medical staff than ever to care for the baby boomers. For a hot minute,
everything seems okay. Then they encounter at least one unfavorable
consequence. Twenty-year-old Waldemar is just as inspired to support the
population growth efforts as so many others. He ends up getting a now
fifteen-year-old Audrey pregnant, and it is not immediately evident if it
was consensual or not.
