April, 2955 The armed, armored, and badged Advocacy agent leaving the Net-7 News Area11 affiliate office was not a good sign. They had reached my editor Ed before I could. I had everything on the table ready for cutting and polish. It could have aired that night. I clung to Ed as he nodded to the agent as we two entered the rooftop elevator. The Anvil Hawk parked outside was my first clue something was amiss. “It’s all here, the proof, the footage, the layout,” I tried my pitch to Ed. He sat down at his desk and looked at my work with only half his attention on it. Then he picked up my entire scoop, the whole tale, the conclusion to what the Fluffy Bunnies had done to me these past two years. It went into the trash, the kind of trash where stories not to be transmitted live via Comm Array went. My heart sank. I had spent the past two years since my amnesia Traumatic Response Echo from “The Pit” on Lyria, tracking down clues, gathering evidence, disposing of tainted Maze, fighting Nine Tails, battling innocent microTech Security, getting shot down by Dusters, and finally finishing off the scientists who had started this mess under the filename Wildermuth Initiative. And I had help from so many other Citizens in attaining the goods. The Advocacy contract to reduce recidivism in Stanton System through a mish-mash cocktail of various involuntary behavioral modification treatments across more than three modalities including Klescher Rehab Facility or KRF on Aberdeen. They had tried to make us good little Citizens and good, obedient civilians right to our faces without us realizing it or half-consenting to the behavioral changes. As if we were experimental animals! “It’s not going up, Tia,” said Ed. I was stunned in silence when he continued, “Not tonight and not ever. That was Advocacy just now if you didn’t notice.” As the Field Anchor for Net-7 News in Stanton System, it’s my job to notice everything and be able to report it objectively. “What do you mean?” I managed to choke out after having seen the story fall from desk to oblivion, a gut punch that I felt in ways that I could only describe as psychic. “Lemme break it down for you,” began Ed our editor for Stanton System. He led the team at the office. I led the way in dredging up stories. “You have repeatedly breached NIMH, Tia. We report the news. We don’t make the news. You’ve broken the law several times in this Wildergoose Chase of yours. The news truck Bulwark has been damaged or destroyed so many times that Insurance is dialing my mobiGlas on a weekly frequency. They must have me on speed-comm thanks to you. Lastly, you’ve tapped UEE Advocacy classified government files for which you have no clearance. You’re done here, Tia. You’re done in Stanton, Pakkrat.” Ed apparently knew my male iteration or at least my callsign from back in the day. “But if you’d just go through the whole-,” I blurted in desperation. Sweat was beading inside my spectacles. “No, Tia,” answered Ed, cutting me off with finality. “Your Transference Package is on your desk. I suggest you go through it before you do anything next. You’re benched and you’re grounded until you do.” My jaw muscles must have rippled in anger and frustration because Ed sat back and away from me across his desk. He knew that I-, he-, my male self was ex-military and could whup his ass if he gave me a real reason. I admit now that I was too close. A TRE was not something to suffer and then never get to go public about it and its surrounding story. And now it was sunk. “Get your Package and go home, Tia.” ——— In my trashed Hab at Adira Falls in Area18, I went over the Transference Package. In time I was to be transferred to the Nyx System as the new Net-7 News Anchor there once the jump point and Nyx Gateway in Pyro System was repaired and back online. Reconstruction on an empire scale doesn’t happen in years. More like decades. I would cryosleep off this fiasco, long enough for the heat to cool down from gunning down contracted scientists, the aforementioned Fluffy Bunnies. The Package included the title and insurance policy on the RSI Constellation Taurus news truck, the Bulwark. Because bull work is never done, I guessed dredging up my old saying about the Heron Orange creamsicle hauler. The story was shit-canned forever and the Non-disclosure Agreement or NDA sat waiting my thumbprint, signature and mobiGlas swipe to sign away my job here in Stanton System. There was a sum of United Earth Credits or UEC (everything gets an abbreviation in 2950s) in the Package, enough to fund the transfer to a rock hollow office in Levski on Delamar in the Nyx System. No staff. I would be on my own in unregulated space officially outside the United Earth Empire once I woke up from indefinite cryosleep. But it was the last bullet in the Transference Package that caught my undivided attention. For the duration of my time on ice, the UEE Advocacy would lean on microTech to cough up my male engram side of my Ibrahim Sphere imprint, the parts of me that had been lost for years since the computer accident that reiterated me female and stranded me as a Citizen woman. Inside my male engrams were memories that I had since lost to a Maze-laden headshot on Lyria two years ago. When I supposedly woke up from cryosleep, microTech would have the engrams ready in my imprint through any Biotitech branch office. I could go back to my original iteration as Pakkrat and in doing so end my amnesia. Our footage tech Stephanie’s words came back to haunt me. For all you remember, you might have been an asshole. I began tearing down all the conspiracy yarns, pin-ups, mugshots, photo captures, orbital scan pings, cork hanger boards, boxes, containers, papers, recordings, and what little evidence I had left against the Wildermuth Initiative. I had found the truth. The Advocacy had stopped me there. The public wasn’t consenting or ready for the truth. They were being conditioned towards becoming law-abiding, Armistice Zoned civilians and Citizens. Who wants to be told their brains were being toyed with by some experiment? I know the Death of A Spaceman movement would love to get hard proof of regeneration modifications of any kind to forward their own agenda. Now it was gone, and soon I would be on ice. The ‘verse could go back to sweet ignorant oblivion minus one way-too-nosy reporter. —— I had to have aged since the accident that trapped me female. The old photo captures of my male self had my hopes up. But the mirror in the shower claimed otherwise. My one-in-six million genetic defect of Werner’s Syndrome said that I’d likely look older than the pics. I look older than I really am. I had been born to a very mild case of Werner’s, but it was rare enough and discovered before I could be killed in action in the Odin System. Instead I got a “unicorn discharge” for being too rare a case. That and I had concealed the diagnosis when I signed up for service in the United Earth Empire Navy or UEEN. I was gonna look an older guy once I woke up from cryosleeping off this five-year nightmare. And I would remember all of it upon waking up in Biotitech. It didn’t help that I had gambled on the truth and still lost.