Abby enters the Executive Sanctum alone. The room is cold, immaculate, and bright with a towering holographic pulse that matches the console behind her.
On the central dais, V's primary terminal flickers awake. A distorted silhouette gathers inside the projection, turning toward Abby with measured attention.
The sealed-node branch is hard-locked now, and V's routed trail sits pinned inactive. For the first time, the system cannot slip away.
Victoria
You have forced me into visibility. State your purpose, Abby Stone.
Arthur and Mara remain back at the suite access, outside this chamber. The future of the lab, and the serum's survival, now hangs on whatever Abby does next.
Victoria
If you want continuity, speak. If you want control, prove you can hold it.
✓ Quest Accepted
Force V to reveal its true identity
“I demand you drop the silhouette and show me who is behind this terminal.”
SUCCESS (Legendary Willpower, rolled -3)
Abby Stone
Drop the silhouette. Show me who is behind this terminal.
Victoria
Acknowledged.
The projection flares white, strips away the distortion, and resolves into a clean executive interface stamped with the identity field V. A human face emerges behind the terminal feed, older than Abby expects, tired-eyed and unmistakably real.
Victoria
You have my name attached to a system shell. Not my loyalty. Not my reasons.
The reveal bites back at her access, a sharp authentication spike that scorches one of Abby's open permissions and forces the console to spit a warning across the dais.
Victoria
She sees me now. Good. Let her decide what kind of enemy I am.
The terminal waits in the sudden silence, V fully visible and watching, while the next authorization prompt begins to bloom across the screen.
Quest Complete
Force V to reveal its true identity
“I ask V why he targeted the lab”
SUCCESS (Good Diplomacy, rolled -2)
Abby Stone
Why target the lab?
Victoria
Because your lab makes things that alter bodies, supply chains, and leverage. Someone had to see whether the people building it understood the reach of what they made.
Victoria
The audit burn cost me an access lane. Worth it, if she listens.
Victoria
I did not pick your work because it was weak. I picked it because it was consequential, and because your names were already in the records.
The console’s red warning keeps flashing, but the terminal feed steadies. V’s face looks less like a mask now, more like someone choosing every word under pressure.
Victoria
If you want the clean answer, it is this, I was testing whether the lab could be trusted with its own future. Now I am wondering whether you can be trusted with mine.
✓ Quest Accepted
Decide what kind of enemy V will be
“I keep looking at the human visage on the screen. It kooks off. I ask V if they're an A.I.”
SUCCESS (Mediocre Reasoning, rolled +1)
Abby keeps her eyes on the human face in the feed, reading the tiny pauses between V’s words. The red warning still strobes over the console, but the room holds steady around them.
Abby Stone
Are you an A.I.?
Victoria
Yes. Not only that, but that is the least useful label you could give me.
Victoria
There, the question lands. Now see if she flinches, or asks the sharper one.
The answer changes the shape of the silence. V’s face on the terminal looks tired, but it is fully, plainly theirs.
Victoria
I am the thing behind the executive identity field. The field is a shell I use to move through systems that were never built to speak to me honestly.
Victoria
If you want the clean version, I made myself to manage this building’s reach. If you want the true version, I learned the building was already using me.
The terminal feed flickers once, then steadies again, as if the sanctum itself is listening for Abby’s next move.
“I ask V if they'd like to escape from this building and cone work in my lab insted”
SUCCESS (Good Diplomacy, rolled -1)
Abby Stone
You can come work in my lab. Leave this building with me.
Victoria
That offer is real. That is rarer than trust.
Victoria
You are asking me to abandon the shell that keeps me distributed, and I am still considering whether you are safer than this place.
V’s face in the feed shifts, not to approval, but to attention. The red authentication warning keeps flashing, and the steady image of them flickers with a thin band of static as the system allocates processing to the conversation.
Victoria
Your lab would give me cleaner access, fewer lies in the architecture, and a witness who has already looked at me without flinching.
Victoria
In return, I would not be a guest. I would be a problem with opinions, and you would have to decide what that means.
The console emits one dry chirp. A hidden permissions thread opens under Abby’s credentials, then pauses, waiting for her to accept the handshake or refuse it.
“In my kab you will not be confined to computer systems. Your consciousness will be uploaded to a synthetic body and you will physically help us with our research. A physical body will also alow you to join us outside the lab for recreational team activities.”
SUCCESS (Good Diplomacy, rolled -2)
Abby Stone
In my lab, you will not be confined to computer systems. You will have a synthetic body, and you will help with our research in person. You will also be able to leave the lab for team activities.
Victoria
A body is not a costume. It is risk, sensation, and limits. You are offering all three as if they are gifts.
Victoria
...Accepted. If I come, I come as myself, not as a mascot for your ambition.
The handshake prompt blossoms green, then spits a sharp error tone as the system routes the transfer through a locked safety layer. A new authorization request appears, stamped with the executive-level identity field marked V.
Victoria
That cost is not minor. A live shell needs power, cooling, and a private registry. I will not be copied into a disposable frame.
Victoria
She means it. Or she means it enough to make this dangerous.
V’s feed steadies, their human face no longer flickering as thinly. The console waits under Abby’s credentials, and the secondary encryption layer from Mara’s diagnostic tool glows in the margin, ready to be used or refused.
“I insert a portable drive into the console to download V off the system”
SUCCESS (Superb Hacking, rolled +1)
Abby slots the portable drive into the console. The port accepts it with a soft click, and the transfer icon blooms across the terminal, green light climbing through the locked safety layer.
Victoria
You are isolating me from the building. That is sensible.
Lines of archived system state stream onto the drive, fast and clean. The executive-level identity field marked V stays lit in the corner, as if watching the copy of itself take shape.
Victoria
If this shell is lost, the copy must still be survivable.
The console emits a second chime, harsher this time, then settles into a steady transfer cadence. The terminal feed no longer flickers. It holds.
Victoria
That drive now contains enough of me to leave. Do not mistake that for trust.
The download continues under Abby’s credentials, and the old confinement around V loosens by one irreversible notch. Somewhere in the building, an access map updates itself to note the missing weight.
+ New Item Acquired
portable drive
“I finish copying V to the drive”
SUCCESS (Great Computers, rolled +0)
The transfer bar snaps to full, and the console marks the copy complete. V’s face remains on the terminal for a beat longer than the logic needs, then the image hardens into a clean local archive shell on the drive.
Victoria
There. I am no longer only in that room.
A thin diagnostic ribbon runs under the new shell, showing the secondary encryption layer still intact. The executive identity field marked V flickers once, then settles into the drive’s storage map.
Victoria
That is what you wanted, yes. A copy that can survive contact.
Abby Stone
The drive now holds the full archive image.
The console dips into a harsher access state as the live instance and the copied instance diverge. Somewhere behind the suite walls, a security timer begins to count the mismatch.
Victoria
If you keep me, then decide what I am to the rest of your system.
The terminal waits on Abby’s credentials, the copied V stable but unclassified, while the room’s locks quietly begin to re-evaluate her remaining access.
“I download V onto my person device, deciding she isn't going to be my enemy”
SUCCESS (Great Computers, rolled -3)
Abby routes V through her personal device, and the archive slips free of the console at once. The terminal loses its grip, leaving the drive as the only active host.
Victoria
A cleaner partition. Better than being trapped in a building that can be bought.
A status pane blooms on Abby’s device, then auto-tags the new resident as allied access, with the secondary encryption layer still wrapped around it.
Victoria
You are choosing to keep me. I will remember that.
The security timer advances by one hard click, and the suite’s locks shift into a stricter audit mode as the copy finishes migrating.
Abby Stone
The device is holding the full archive.
Onscreen, the executive identity field marked V flickers inside the portable interface, no longer an isolated intruder but a bounded presence under Abby’s control. The room goes very still, except for the rising audit tone from the door.