Chương 81: 81-Inquiry

Tanya is very familiar with formal inquiries, both in military and civilian life she's had to deal with what feels like every variant of questionnaire to assess every topic there can be. But as she remains behind, watching Amelia walk into the back rooms at the request of the two representatives, she's slightly anxious that the governing body they belong to might be… unsympathetic to what she suspects they're here to ask about.

As much as it goes against her values, the 'mon is suddenly struck with a sharp regret that they never formed any kind of cohesive narrative for what happened. Thankfully Amelia would struggle to incriminate herself for Tanya's actions, the only people who actually know what happened up on that mountain as far as she's aware are the Magma members.

The 'mon squints into the middle distance, remembering that in the chaos immediately after being taken down the mountain by people in military garb, she'd fallen back to military protocol and began writing up a detailed after action report. But now that the dust has settled somewhat, a few of the things she wrote in there… could have been rephrased. Hopefully they didn't get their hands on that unfinished report, for however much that will help her considering the more physical evidence left behind.

She's drawn from her thoughts by the sound of a pen clicking several times, looking over the sound coming from the Head Nurse, holding a pen and pad with a serious expression on her face.

"Again, what did you two do?" She asks, appearing momentarily confused as Tanya steps forward and grabs the writing implements manually.

"I assume you were involved with the clutchel of chansey ending up on Chimney, but how involved? The only way I'll be able to convincingly claim that I ordered it to happen is if I know what you did–" She's cut off by the pad of paper being handed back, and as she picks it up Tanya repeats what she'd written to add tone as context.

"Yes, I was involved. But I'm not comfortable discussing any more details until the inquiry is done." She says in a slightly exasperated voice. As much as she disagrees with the potential consequences of her choices, she does not regret those choices, and trying to hide by sharing blame with someone unaffiliated is a bridge too far, particularly if it runs the risk of confusing the facts.

Softening language is one thing, outright lying on a formal inquiry, especially for something this important, is just unacceptable. The message has the Head Nurse double take, open her mouth, then close it again with a grimace. A few seconds later she rips the page off the pad and drops it into the paper shredder, she then looks to the front as if Tanya's not there.

She does an admirable job at ignoring the only other living thing in the room, minutes ticking by and not so much as a twitch or glance indicating she's anything other than a statue. For her part, Tanya finds herself struggling to find something to occupy herself. Without the efficiency of telekinesis she's reduced to things she can do with her stubby little limbs. Limbs that cannot even touch the top of her head, insofar as she has one.

The 'mon looks down at those limbs, moving them around as she struggles to imagine how other members of her line get anything done without telekinesis. Thankfully she's not forced to be idle long, perhaps ten minutes after being taken to the back, the door opens again and out steps Amelia with an expression on her face suggesting she'd also thought the questioning would take longer. Stepping shortly behind is one of the representatives, who looks to Tanya and gestures for her to follow.

"You next please." She instructs, stepping back through the door but leaving it open as Tanya approaches, a frown appearing on her lips as she looks from the top of the doorframe to the 'mon.

"... Hm. Perhaps we should– Oh." The Joy takes an abrupt step back as Tanya bodily shoves herself into the narrow gap, using carefully measured fractions of power to compress her bulk, adjusting her size and shape such that the transition is as smooth as possible. Popping through the other side, Tanya takes a deep breath and feels her head brush against the ceiling before leaning down a bit on the exhale in preparation to follow the representative to wherever they're going.

The Joy hesitates, glances at where Tanya's bulk is lightly pressing against both walls, then gives a professional nod and continues down the hall. She leads them to what Tanya knows to be an unused room, as every pokecenter follows a near identical construction template, several rooms are built with the intention of being able to be configured to whatever the specific location needs.

She doesn't remember precisely who told her about this, but whoever it was said that it was intended for things like hostel housing, or medium term medical observation rooms, even something as advanced as a small field research lab was planned for. From her experience, it seems they're mostly used either for storage or hiding a mess and pretending it's storage, but the idea is sound.

However, as this particular door opens and Tanya slowly wedges her way through behind the Joy, it's clear that this room is actually fulfilling its function. Where there was once a room full of dust and age stained garbage, there are four clean walls with near empty mounting hooks aside from a camera hanging on the left of the far wall, and a folding metal table in the center. Already seated on the opposite side of the table is the other Joy, an espeon sitting beside her.

She's shortly joined by the first interrogator as she walks around the table and sits down. Sitting side by side, their eerily identical features stand out once again. Every other Joy Tanya has met there are small irregularities, differences that once attuned to she can detect and identify, but for these two there's nothing. As if by some invisible cue, both Joys place their forearms on the table and slowly steeple their fingers, the one on the left indicating a chair sat vacant opposite them.

"If you wouldn't mind coming a bit closer? And could you please close the door behind you?" She asks with a soft brightness to her tone. Tanya complies, stepping up to the chair, folding it, then placing it against the wall before standing in its place as the Joy on the left continues.

"To the right of me is Espeon, he has been trained in passive psychic reading such that he can detect lies without invading the privacy of the conscious or subconscious mind. It is my right as a representative of my clan for him to be here. You are not obligated to answer any question asked, Espeon will only report clear and unambiguous lies told, and you cannot request that Espeon be removed at any point during this process. Do you understand the situation as I have described it?"

Tanya hesitates, glancing at the 'mon then back to her interrogators. She's not pleased with the idea of someone reading her mind, even if she believes the restrictions the 'mon claims to be operating under. … But making a fuss about it would only serve to incriminate her, and from the moment she'd learned psychic mind reading is technically possible she'd looked into countermeasures.

From everything she'd read it seems attempts at psychic mind reading aren't subtle, and can be combatted by someone even without psychic potential. Which of course is exactly what someone wanting to keep subtle mind reading abilities hidden from the general public would say, but in this specific circumstance she'll have to work under the assumption that it's true. Because if it's false she'd already lost the moment she entered the same building as that 'mon.

"Yes." Tanya says with a deliberate nod, and as soon as she says it a pad of paper and pen is slid across the table. The moment she responds in the affirmative she can also feel… something. Something resembling a feeling of pressure on her head. The first two times she feels it the 'mon reflexively shoves it away, but realizing the source to most likely be Espeon, she allows it to remain at the edges with a careful eye.

"I will ask you a series of questions, you will answer them both verbally and in writing, your spoken and written responses must match each other. Do you understand?" Tanya clicks the pen with some difficulty, lacking a thumb.

"Yes." She says with an exaggerated nod for the humans, writing out the same in a slightly sloppy scrawl.

"Do you intend to comply with these instructions?"

"Yes." The Joy on the right nods and, a moment later, the one on the left continues.

"Please state your pokeball ID number."

"JCAP-65013-01""Please state the name of your partner."

"Amelia Roice Joy."

"What is the current date?"

"11-7-96."

"And when did you hatch?"

"10-4-95." At that statement Espeon's face twists into a perplexed grimace, and Tanya feels the gentle pressure build as if preparing to poke deeper, but in less than an instant the 'mon forces his expression back to placidity and the pressure remains constant.

"Please slide the paper over." If you encounter this story on Amazon, note that it's taken without permission from the author. Report it. Tanya complies, and her writing is spun around, scrutinized by both Joys, then shoved back in under five seconds.

"Good. Now do you remember creating any kind of partial written report about the incident yesterday?" Ah. They have that.

"Yes." The Joy on the right reaches down with the sound of a briefcase opening, then places Tanya's report on the table.

"Please look at this document and confirm it to be the one you wrote." She asks, but as she speaks that sense of wrongness is magnified tenfold. Something about how the Joy said those words was wrong, somehow too smooth yet dissonant. Tanya hesitates, glancing first at the anomalous Joy, then to the other for any other evidence. But at this stage she has no reason to do anything other than comply, sliding the report over and flipping through the papers.

It takes less than ten seconds to confirm it's her unaltered report, she'd gotten up to about halfway between her insertion and the destruction of the machine before she'd been stopped.

"... Yes. I wrote this."

"Would you say that it's accurate to the best of your ability?"

"Yes." She agrees with another exaggerated nod. The Joy on the left hesitates, turns a page in her own notepad, then looks up at her and speaks deliberately.

"... Was this report requested of you?"

"Yes. I was interviewed after the incident."

"Did you supply the information here without prompting from anyone else in the room at the time?" Tanya narrows her eyes at the deliberately confused phrasing.

"... It was requested that I inform the officers of what I did and saw during the incident." There's a pause, then the Joy on the right speaks up in her smooth yet wrong speech.

"Yes or no only for this portion please." The 'mon squints, eyes darting back and forth as now she's sure they're trying to get her to say something specific.

"... No. I was prompted." The Joy on the right jots something down and shows it to the one on the left, who then nods and looks back to the large 'mon.

"Would you say you were instructed at any point before or during the creation of this report?" She asks, a question that brings Tanya up short. Hold on… Are they trying to shield her? Tanya blinks as she processes the idea, finally realizing at least part of the purpose for this meeting. This is much too important for any obscuring of the actual facts… but softening the things pertaining to her seems acceptable. After all, she's not the threat here.

"... Yes." She says eventually, the two words definitionally identical, and the confirmation has both interrogators seem slightly pleased, the one on the right clicking her pen and jotting something down.

"Please continue where this previous document left off and, to the best of your ability, attempt to accurately describe the events that followed." Tanya acknowledges the instruction with a nod and, after taking a moment to organize her thoughts, launches into a coldly factual oratory of her actions atop the volcano. She's not interrupted often, only infrequent requests to see what she's written, followed by the occasional clarifying question or to confirm whether something is fact or supposition.

In her slightly modified report she even manages to skirt around her uses of lethal force, a behavior she could see being received… poorly by an organization devoted purely to healing. Even better for her case, aside from a few disturbed looks from Espeon when she described her attempts to 'disable' and 'neutralize' her enemies, he does not interrupt her explanation or seem to find anything she said outright false all the way through.

Though his disturbed expression gets especially intense when she describes her hunt for the highest ranking member she'd chased into the bunker, a person she'd been asked innumerable probing questions on his appearance. In the end, as she winds down her spoken report with the same methodical rigor she always tries to give them, Tanya concludes with the quiet satisfaction that she's still not lost her touch in the careful balance of objectivity and readability needed in a good AAR.

In the process of her report both Joys have let their posture slump somewhat, and now that it's concluded they each have a slightly perturbed expression. They each hesitate for a moment, seemingly confirming that Tanya is actually done, then the interrogator on the left glances at her notepad then hesitantly tilts her head.

"... Who taught you to– Nevermind." She interrupts herself as the slightly wrong Joy aggressively clicks her pen twice.

"Please slide your papers over." Tanya complies, taking the time to study the Joy on the right to figure out why something's off with her. It's not how she moves, or reacts, or the colors, it's not any single detail, or even that the two seem to be mirrored. It's… Tanya feels her eyes widen. It's the eyes. She can't figure out what exactly it is about them, but there's something wrong.

They react to light correctly, the colors match, they look where her attention seems directed, but it's like they lack depth, like they're somehow painted on. That's not a human, and as the pretender slides the papers back over and what is likely a true Joy opens her mouth Tanya cuts her off, forcing her strained body to be ready for a fight.

"Ma'am. Are you aware that the individual next to you is not a–""Aw… beans." The pretender curses, lightly slapping the table and, as if calling attention to the disguise broke some kind of spell, the impact ripples up her 'clothes' like gelatin with a wave of purple before returning to a human shape.

"It was the eyes again wasn't it? Pokemon never notice that I'm talking properly, but I just cant get the eyes ri–"" Ahem. Ditto, not the time." The Joy interrupts, glaring at Ditto out the corner of her eye before looking back at Tanya with a professional bow of the head.

"Yes Chansey, Ditto here is my partner, acting as translator in this meeting. But that is beyond the scope of this inquiry, I have a few more questions. Ready?" Tanya nods as she picks up the pen, feeling somewhat pleased with herself that she figured it out. She'd not been aware that ditto can disguise themselves that thoroughly, but now that she knows what she's looking for, such a disguise wouldn't fool her again. So the potential of a threat hasn't increased all that much.

"Ready."

"Good. Would you describe the report you gave me accurate to the best of your ability?"

"Yes."

"Lie." Tanya twitches, glancing down at Espeon, who she's quite frankly forgotten was there, then back up to the interrogators who're watching her with none of the gentle comradery that was there an instant before.

"... Did you intentionally obscure something from this report with the intent to deceive?" With the question hanging in the air, Tanya turns it over in her mind, trying to figure out how she can salvage this. She did not consider that softening her motivations for what she did might trigger as a lie. She glances down at Espeon again and grits her teeth.

"Yes."

"State everything you intentionally obscured from the report." She could just not answer… but that would just cast doubt onto the rest of her accurate reporting.

"... I attempted to… soften the intent of my use of force when I attacked the Magma members." The Ditto squints at the answer, followed by their partner performing the exact same action as she reads whatever the 'mon scribbles onto their pad and shows to her.

"Define 'intent' in the context of how you just used it."

"My intended objective, I attempted to obscure the intended objective of my attacks in this report."

"... Oh." Both interrogators say one after the other, the Joy's eyes widening a small amount after she reads the offered paper. From there they sit silently for a moment before as one they turn to look towards each other, seemingly communicating in a series of minute facial expressions and eye movements that from an outside perspective are completely inscrutable. Ditto jots something down and holds it out, followed by the Joy taking the pad, writing something else, then handing it back.

A few more facial expressions follow, and eventually they both turn to face the front as if nothing happened, the Joy picking up her legal pad and pen again.

"Have you intentionally obscured anything else from this report?" Tanya thinks for a moment to ensure she's not going to embarrass herself again. She's not going to complain if they don't ask what specifically she meant when she said 'intended objective' and she's reasonably sure they don't want her to offer it.

"... No." The two nod.

"At the time, would you say you were afraid for your life?" Tanya opens her mouth to confirm that softball of a question, but as she thinks about it, she realizes she cannot, and grimaces.

"No." She wasn't afraid, there was some fear before, but in the moment… The answer catches her interrogators off guard. Ditto glancing at Espeon who looks just as surprised as them.

"... Alright then. In your first report you said you ordered your sibling to…

'transfer back to school then organize an evacuation of the rest of your sisters off of Hoenn.' This was to keep them safe, correct?"

"Yes."

"Would you say that the primary reason you attacked the members of Team Magma was because they still posed a threat to your siblings? And potentially others who could not evacuate in time?" Tanya grimaces once again at another softball question she's going to have to knock down. As much as she… as much as she… loves her siblings, she wasn't really thinking about them either. With the benefit of hindsight and a cool head she can recognise her reasoning to be the same as it always is.

Detonating a volcano on her, even if she chose to evacuate, would have dealt a catastrophic and disruptive blow to her life. And while the loss of Amelia would– Tired energy is ripped from its low ebb to combat readiness as her mind is reflexively thrown to be ready to fight. She's half standing before she manages to catch herself, eyes darting around the room in search of… something as her strained core yells in protest.

Tanya blinks in confusion, ignoring the alarmed looks from everyone else in the room as she releases hold of her aura and lowers herself back to a sitting position with a heavy sigh. … Odd. She does another scan for whatever threat had her react, but she can't find it. The 'mon glances down at the mind reading 'mon who's looking very frazzled all of a sudden and holding his probing touch to her mind so lightly she can barely feel it.

She fractionally narrows her eyes, keeping almost singular attention on that tendril of intruding psychic energy as she looks back up at the interrogators. But unfortunately it's probably not odd enough for them to forget their question. Reluctantly, she shakes her head.

"No. I wasn't thinking about–""Lie." What? Espeon flinches and pulls his psychic probe even further away, but he doesn't change his answer despite being wrong.

"Hm." Ditto says, seeming to relax into their seat, fake hair uncoiling from where Tanya now sees many strands had been melded together at the ends to form sharp points.

"I think we've almost gotten everything we need. Just a few more questions please." Tanya hesitates, glancing once again at the increasingly nervous Espeon before looking back to the pair.

"Of course."