The dormant clinic relay accepts the administrator handshake, and a concealed door irises open. Aurora, Revenant, and Vesper enter a quiet diagnostic suite washed in surgical white.
Glass displays resolve Vesper’s compliance records into personal memory fragments: Harumi’s voice, a club corridor, missing weeks reduced to clipped sensory timestamps and control instructions.
Vesper
Those are mine. I remember the edges, but not the commands between them.
A red surgical-grade warning overlays the records. Disconnecting the remote administrator may preserve Vesper’s memories, but could erase the only evidence identifying who altered her.
Revenant
Keep your safeguards engaged. We do not sever anything until Aurora knows which layer carries the proof.
The administrator path branches through the watcher’s information chain, touching the clinic relay, the archive contract, and a masked external account. Each branch pulses beside a sterilized control interface.
Vesper
If I disconnect, I may lose the person who did this. If I leave it open, they can keep reaching me.
✓ Quest Accepted
Preserve Vesper’s memory trail pointing toward the watcher
✓ Quest Accepted
Identify who altered Vesper’s memories
“Revenant, It think you know who did this. If not you can find it before we disconnect her.”
SUCCESS (Fair Persuasion, rolled +1)
Aurora Vane
Revenant, you think you know who did this. If not, find them before we disconnect her.
Revenant turns from the branching administrator path. Aurora routes the masked account through the clinic relay, stripping away its concealment without touching Vesper’s memory records.
Revenant
I know the architecture. The account belongs to the Kyoto biotech subsidiary that built Toritoma’s succession system.
The masked account resolves into a corporate authorization chain, then a quarantined Inagawa-kai research division. Its administrator key is still active and linked to Vesper’s altered records.
Revenant
They altered her memories to preserve a controllable witness. The proof is here, and the administrator is still listening through this relay.
Vesper
Then copy everything before you cut me loose. I want the names, the access trail, and whatever proves they used me.
Aurora’s extraction locks the corporate chain, research division seal, and active administrator key into an isolated evidence package. Vesper’s memory layer remains untouched, ready for disconnect.
Quest Complete
Preserve Vesper’s memory trail pointing toward the watcher
Skill Upgrade: Persuasion Fair→Good
Quest Complete
Identify who altered Vesper’s memories
Skill Upgrade: Persuasion Good→Great
