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sense for Alan to ask them advice on how to continue the rehabilitation process of their peers, as well as encourage them to keep their eyes and ears open. Gossip was often the best source of information. People liked to talk.
    Stepping into the lab where Tait’s rehabilitation had taken place the night before, Alan found all of the technicians hovering over a computer.
    â€œWhat’s going on?” Alan asked.
    One of the techs, Sir Poland, gazed at him with raised eyebrows. “I don’t understand.”
    Alan sighed. The more time he spent with the Earth teens, the more he started to speak like them. Unfortunately, the rest of his ship didn’t know as much of the lingo. Not everyone was put in charge of teenagers, and not all of them took the time to understand the finer nuances of the planet.
    â€œWhat are you doing?” he asked instead.
    â€œWe are watching the memories of the subject,” Sir Poland explained.
    â€œI’m not sure that is ethical,” Alan muttered.
    â€œWe cannot retrieve information from her memories without watching them. The Ilotus extracts a great deal of information and stores it on its hard drive. Part of the device is a program that organizes each individual memory and its link to other information. We could be watching a memory of her brushing her hair, and five more threads of information and memories could be created. We’ve been overwhelmed with information from just her alone and haven’t started on the boy. The computer has been able to transcribe a few memories for us without us having to actually view what is happening, but without manual guidance, the data isn’t quite as precise.”
    Alan folded his arms in front of him. “This is a lot more dangerous and complicated than I thought it would be.”
    â€œYes. For ancient technology, I’m impressed by the Ilotus’s sophistication and complexity of use. But the more we use it, the more we learn about it. And we’ve gathered a lot of useful things without taking too much from the personal moments. Most of the events are strongly tied to her emotions. She is a lot more invested into the war than we imagined. It’s frightening, because we had assumed the charges from the other tribes were either forced into submission or brainwashed into doing their job. They were not supposed to have actual interest in the war.” The tech created a spot for Alan to look at the computer if he wished.
    Alan didn’t want to watch with the others. The image on the screen of Tait looking at Orlando, from her perspective, was unnerving. A lot of symbols and numbers were on the edge of the screen as well. Still, he couldn’t not look. Orlando was his charge, and the entire process was fascinating.
    He pointed to the screen. “What does all of this mean?”
    The tech pointed to a black number on the right side. “This is the amount of memory threads connected to this particular moment. The red number underneath is how many we do not have access to. The green number is how many tie together with the memories we have flagged. We can tell the Ilotus what we want information on, put a flag on it, and the machine will sort and calculate the connections between memories for us. The blue number is how many memories related to the flagged item that we do not have access to. This particular memory, we have access to all the necessary threads. However, that doesn’t mean anything essential is happening. It could simply be a thought passing through her mind. This boy, for example, she wants to be a part of her team. That’s all the useful things we’ve collected from this memory. Some of the connected threads are moments we’ve already viewed.” He pointed to the left side of the screen. “The colors and symbols over here are emotions and physical changes. If she’s sick, and so on. It can even detect if she’s lying.”
    â€œFascinating. Is