- "So you do not remember anything? Well, that's...".
Doctor Kitagawa looked at the guards cautiously as if expecting something. One of the guard looked the CCTV camera and, having received instructions over the mic in his helmet, nodded at Kitagawa.
Usually upbeat Kitagawa now looked morose and pale. With a slightly trembling voice, the doctor continued:
- "I a-a-a-am sad, that you do not remember anything, S-sinon-san. You a-are an agent of the KOI, the intelligence of the House of Kusari. You do remember what Kusari is, right? You were on an important mission to Tohoku when you were ambushed b-by the Blood Dragons. Your ship was destroyed but you managed to escape pre-emptively in a pod. This encounter did not go unnoticed for your body, however: you have sustained concussion resulting in memory loss."
Kitagawa paused and looked at the guard again. He silently responded with a nod.
- "In fact, your name is not Yuki Sinon. That was your alias when you worked in the House of Liberty for the benefit of the KOI. Your actual name is Ohtani Momo. You are 24, you are from Kyushu. Your family was farmers employed by the Samura corporations. Unfortunately, they died in a GC terrorist attack when you were twelve. You were raised in an orphanage for talented children under the auspices of the Kusari Imperial Army. You graduated the school and subsequent military service with excellence and were recruited for your Libertarian language knowledge and excellent combat skills by the KOI. You have been working for them since then. Now you are undergoing treatment in one of their specialised wards in Hokkaido.
It was not the first time Kitagawa had to lie to the patients with amnesia about their new fake identities. Yet it was the first time she had to do it for the "Ganriki" project. The details of this new hush-hush project of the KOI were a mystery to her but apparently the Intelligence Office was looking for people with psionic potential. As far as Kitagawa knew, the project takes roots from the early days following the fall of Tekagi and the nomad war. Apparently, the KOI believe that her recent exposure to nomad's mind flaying could potentially amplify Yuki's, now Momo's, psionic abilities while the new alias could potentially make her more obedient to the KOI as her "bosses". Whether newly forged person will believe all of these lies was yet to be seen, however. Kitagawa was more afraid, however, that the experimental substance designed to awaken Yuki's psionic potential would suddenly kick in and that Yuki would unleash her psionic fury on everyone inside the room. Hence, Kitagawa had her thumb on a button administering a horse dose of tranquilisers to the patient in case the latter remembers and to "try again". It was inhumane but she had no saying in this.
As she was telling Yuki that she became Momo, Kitagawa could hear one of the guards whispering in the radio:
- "Contact Lord Speaker Shimamori. Tell him that Sinon has lost her mind after the experimental treatment she had personally agreed to and that she is transferred to a specialised restricted ward for mentally disabled after nomad encounters and that he can no longer visit her. Prepare CGI videos showing her in a mental ward as a proof. He is a politician, not a spy - he should buy it."
Kitagawa knew she could not count on investigation by the Lord Speaker, the KOI will weave a web of complicated lies to prevent him from doing this. Besides, he was a busy man in the top echelons of Kusarian politics. Sinon's father, however, used to be in the KOI himself and the KOI operatives mentioned briefly during the lunch that the old man can still be kicking. Can he possibly influence all of this? Could Sinon recognise her own father after all of these lies and manipulations? Or maybe her father is yet another Kusarian supremacist who would condone anything for the sake of an edge of the Empire over the others, even if his daughter's identity is at stake? There were so many questions and so many hypothetical solutions running through Kitagawa's mind, yet the doctor perfectly knew she was but a grain in this larger scheme of imperial ambitions of gaining psionic operatives. She shook her head, shrugging off the worrisome thoughts and continued:
- "So, Ohtani-san, how do you feel? We did our best to patch you up. Do you by chance feel differently, as if, say, feeling the emotions of the people present in this room? This was part of your training to do so, remember? If you are in a good shape, you will be soon sent back to Liberty to continue your intelligence operation. Your boss is currently watching you over CCTV but we do not want you to feel the pressure - if you need more time recovering, then you shall have it."
