Ciarente
Gallente
White Rose Society
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Posted - 2009.01.05 00:45:00 -
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For previous entries see here
Duripant was a wash. Oh, Evarion Yates's ship was there - but he wasn't.
In fact, I found out later he was in the Last Gate at around the same time I was searching the dockside and the station bars for him in Duripant. Getting himself kicked out by Verone, apparently, for hassling the staff and the customers. That's nothing like the man I knew.
But I suppose that's the point, isn't it? He's not the man I knew.
Now I know he was never the man I knew.
Silver Night managed to decode some of the datachip I found in my hanger. A lot of it was too badly damaged, but he said that enough data remained to indicate that Papa was not a freerunner the way I always thought.
He was a long way from a freerunner.
He worked for the FIO.
Jorion Roth, my father, was an undercover agent for the FIO, infiltrating the Angel Cartel.
Even when I say it out loud, it doesn't seem real. Jorion Roth, undercover agent.
There was an indication in the data that the FIO arranged for a full-backup clone for Papa at the University of Caille in Eletta. And one other thing - the words "'Yates' continues to be active. Agent may have taken own initiative to go deep-cover, although behaviour indicates otherwise."
'Agent'. Is the 'agent' in question my father? Is his amnesia genuine, or did he deliberately decide that there was too much danger in living two lives? Deliberately decide to become Evarion Yates for good and all?
I've come back to Eletta and made contact with an agent at the University of Caille. I'm not a trusted pilot on their roster yet, and I can't get access to the cloning facility any deeper than podders usually go, but I am determined to win their trust, run all the missions the University wants, get the status to get access. My father's full-copy clone might still be there. If it is, I'll contact Dr Tenebrae again. If she could reanimate it - well. At the very least, it would be someone I could ask questions of. And I guess there's a way in which that clone really is my father. My father before all of this happened, my father as I remember him.
Except of course now I know that my father was never as I remember him.
I have one other lead, a lead I'm in two minds about pursuing.
Istvaan Shogaatsu.
I don't like saying that name out loud, even in the privacy of my own room, even with no-one to hear me but the computer. Istvaan Shogaatsu, of the Guiding Hand Social Club. A quick GalNet search was enough to tell me how dangerous he is - and if that wasn't enough, every pilot I've met knows his name, and every one of them warned me to steer clear.
But he says he knows what happened to Papa, and why. And he says he'll tell me ... if I do something for him.
Something illegal, of course. He wants me to smuggle 10 units each of Crash, Exile, Drop and Blue Pill to Tuurianias, and hand them over. Then, he says, he'll tell me what he knows.
From what I hear, it's entirely possible he doesn't know anything - he's just stringing me along. But can I take that chance?
I told him it would take me a little time. I don't have the connections to get my hands on illegal commodities right now - that's true. And if I get caught, I'll lose security status - so I want to get in CONCORD's good books a little more before I try it. Plus, I can't do something like this while I'm still attached to White Rose - I don't want Vikarion's reputation to suffer. But Shogaatsu says he can wait.
The question is, can I wait?
Can Papa?
Computer, save secure file. End recording.
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