"Under what circumstances would you break an oath like that. Would you keep it if I said something that meant I was in danger? That other people were in danger?"

"The oath—and the laws—for psychiatrists for parahumans are not the same, I am not supposed to break confidentiality in any cases short of serious risks of mass loss of lives and destruction of property."

"People could claim that anything to do with me is a serious risk of mass loss of lives, since I could make a black hole if I wanted to."

"And the person who has to determine whether the risk is serious enough is me, and I don't think you want to nor will you want to under any circumstances."

"Does confidentiality cover it if I introduce you to another person who also doesn't present any risk of hurting lots of people."

"...I believe so, yes—but perhaps the rest of this conversation should wait until we're in private."

The driver doesn't give any signs of paying attention to them.

"Okay."

On they drive.

He checks his mail and listens to music.

And then they arrive at the HQ! It's lunchtime but almost no one is there.

He eats lunch.

And after that if he wants to talk to Doctor Ximenes she's available.

Sure he'll do that.

And the room they're in has no cameras or microphones or bugs of any kind. "Hello again, Epic. Did you enjoy lunch?"

"It was okay."

"Would you like to continue our conversation?"

"I want to watch the tapes with you. The ones that the kidnappers said the Brazilian government made and sent to them, of their people being tortured."

"...are you sure? Whatever their content, it's probably, ah, disturbing."

"I know. But it's kind of important whether the government is torturing people and I don't know how else to check."

"Even if the tapes contain torture they could have been faked. You're right that their existence is... disturbing, however."

"I can do other things to check for fakes. Conjuring only for authentic unedited recordings, that kind of thing."

"How do you define 'authentic'?"

"As recorded in the moment, not as they'd appear with any subsequent editing. Doesn't rule out that the tortured people are actors but that we can check separately."

"Or that they've been tortured but the people in the video aren't resistance and the torturers aren't with the government."

"I can check that too. Conjuring for the birth certificates and so on of the people on the video."