Here they were, a man and a woman, alone in a room, doing what adults did when they were alone. She gazed into his eyes loving—eh, murderously—and continued to threaten him with casual bodily dismemberment.
Her ability, Teeth, glinted in the light every time she smiled.
"So?"
"I don't remember much of anything," he said, carefully positioning himself as far away from her as physically possible without cutting off the circulation in his left arm.
"Obviously. Otherwise, you'd remember where the base was."
There was no need to protect against the sun, so Wizah was wearing loose pants and an unsleeved turtleneck instead of robes. Several straps tightened around her waist and thighs, and for the first time, he noticed the bright yellow eyes that Io also possessed, trained on him unsettlingly.
Uari mulled over his answer, unable to turn away from her but unable to face her either. His hand was still in his pocket, and he was working on slowly pulling the laser out. Io could return at any time, and there was no time to spare. If he engaged her in an interesting conversation, it might hold off the procedure as well.
"I woke up one day," Uari began lowly, still wondering which parts of her he should tell, "and felt that something was off.
"Plants and wood and shit like that are all restricted. You know that." He continued to surreptitiously twist his wrist to pull the laser out. "But there was a lot of that in my house. Why?"
Wizah seemed surprised but understanding. "Uari liked plants but yes, that would have raised some red flags."
"Do you know who decorated the place or why they did it?"
"No. Only you and Ghost knew the specific details of the mission. Some of us knew more than others, so I knew that you wouldn't remember us."
The laser was backwards in his hand now, pointed at the restraint on his right wrist. He pressed the button discreetly and, without looking, waited for the laser to do its job. Wizah seemed deep in thought.
"You were supposed to infiltrate...somewhere. I know it was an important institution, and they would have scanned you for your intentions. It made sense to wipe you for the mission."
"Yes, but why put the plants in my apartment? Why go so far to put so much wood in?"
Wizah's jaw moved. "The thing is that the Gravts don't have access to even that much wood. The restrictions on agriculture are shit, but there's nothing to it otherwise, so we don't care that much."
A thought struck Uari. "How long have I been on the mission?"
"Roughly six months."
He hummed. "Whose memories are these?"
"Some Searcher we found in the slums. We implanted the maximum possible amount of memories into you: six months. Your brain made up the rest. Memories are fickle like that."
Uari didn't say anything, but remembered the file in the thumbdrive he had found in his apartment was dated. He'd have to go back and check. There was an inconsistency here nagging at him about the timing, somehow, but he wasn't quite grasping it.
He and Ghost—supposedly—were the only ones who knew anything about the mission, but someone had planted...well, plants, as well as the thumb drive that led him to Gaunt Man.
"Is there anyone who might have wanted to sabotage this mission?"
Wizah looked troubled, electric eyes still trained on his unmoving face. "I don't know. The Gravts don't really have enemies in the traditional sense of the word. We don't commit crimes or anything; we're legitimately just trying to get home."
"Io mentioned that before." The restraint on his right wrist loosened as the laser completed his job. He turned it the other way and focused the sharp pinch of the laser at the ties on his legs; fortunately enough, he was sitting up on the exam chair instead of lying down, and so was able to roughly gauge the laser's position out of the periphery of his eyes.
Uari deliberately did not turn his pupils away from where they were directed at the front of the room.
"...you're saying someone is trying to sabotage the mission?"
"...well, I'm saying somebody made me feel things I wasn't supposed to feel."
If Wizah's eyes could roll any further, he would be forced to classify it as a new ability.
"Why would anyone do that?"
"How would I know? I don't remember a damn thing." He left unspoken the suspicion that it could have been Ghost, or it could have been him.
He realised the issue that had been bugging him earlier: how did Hykel 'know' about the plant in his toilet? The one that he didn't even remember himself?
That meant Hykel had visited the Searcher's home at least once, enough to know how many precious plants he had and enough to know that he had even hidden one in his toilet.
That also meant that Old Uari had known about the plants in the apartment before his memories had been replaced with that of the Searcher substitute.
...he needed to speak with Ghost. It was one of the last pieces of the puzzle he needed, to understand what he was supposed to be doing during the mission.
Was this all just an accident? Perhaps Old Uari had just been careless with the thumbdrive, but from what he sensed of his older counterpart—sly, effortlessly cunning—it didn't seem so.
He needed to either get out quickly or find a way to continue delaying this conversation; either way, he didn't want to be around to find out why Io was taking so long, or to have a third person in the room to deal with.
"You asked me earlier who I bullied to figure out where base was."
"Yeah, who's the sucker?"
"It was you."
Wizah scoffed. "I've been at base for three months. The last time I saw you was when I did your memory wipe and replacement."
"Then why is there an extra 50 million Geeglecoins in your bank account from a little over a week ago?"
"Wha—no there isn't!"
"Check," he commanded quietly, as the restraint on his right foot slipped. "No reason for me to lie."
She did pull up her portable Interface to check. "What the f—"
"I paid you to bring me here. When we got here, they knocked you out. I don't know if you consented to a memory wipe, but frankly, I don't think you did if they had to knock you out."
Her fist clenched around her Interface, and he watched her jaw grind. "You can doubt me if you want, but I think you've already accepted what I've said. Sounds like you've been suspecting something similar, even. Now, last question."
Uari began to openly use the laser on his left wrist's restraints, and Wizah made no move to stop him. "Who else is capable of doing a memory wipe in the Gravts other than you?"
Her teeth clenched even further, and the rage settled in her electric-golden eyes. "Io."