“Well you are in a prisoner transport, or what you said was a prisoner transport, so it follows that you are or prisoner, or a guard.”
“Well I am not really either of these,” Drick responded, “and I think it would make better use of your time to work out your own issues. You are being recorded, you understand that don’t you? And monitored?” Drick watched Marsh look around at the camera they had already mentioned. “Yes that’s a pretty standard camera unit able to see across a broad spectrum with a sensitive microphone. But the arresting officers implanted a monitor as well.”
“What the hell do you mean by implanted?” the voice was raised and again Drick noted that mostly it was fear based anger response. The biological readings all verified this assessment.
“Try to remain calm, this display will not help and if you become agitated there will be automatic countermeasures, it is built into the monitoring system. There are a number of issues that I would like to raise with you and to get more clarification on, this will likely help you.”
“Who are you?” Eyes narrowed again and a suspicious look to the face.
“My name is Drick, I told you that already.”
“But that doesn’t tell me who you are? What you do? Why you are here?”
“None of that matters at this exact moment. Let us return to your memory and what you remember. You will be asked to give an account of yourself and if you don’t have a clear understanding then they will pull the information from you.”
“How exactly are they going to do that?”
“There are a number of techniques for extraction, some of them passive, some not quite so.”
“I don’t understand why this is happening to me. This doesn’t seem right. Everything is wrong and I don’t recognise any of the things around me or what you say. Like the tattoos that can move and give information, or being in a craft that you say was in space, well why wasn’t I floating?”
“Well they are both easy to answer. They are not really tattoos, they are surface implants that have display capabilities. You can get auto-pigmentation implants but these use photon emitters. The gravity is because these vessels are fitted with artificial gravity and inertia compensators.”
“But that’s not possible, how is that possible? That’s all sci-fi bullshit isn’t it?”
Drick bit thoughtfully at the inside of a cheek. “Tell me Marsh, what year were you born?”
Marsh stared for a long moment, “twenty thirty-eight, in Kendal, Cumbria.”
Drick frowned hard, “well that explains a couple of things if it is true, Marsh.”
“Of course it is true, why wouldn’t it be true?”
“Well mostly because the twenty first century ended hundreds of years ago.”
