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Panopticon: A Game of Posthumans, Perniciousness, Paranoia, Politics, and Plasmaguns

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SR XVIII: Enter the Protagonist
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    • SR XVIII: Enter the Protagonist

    The ceiling shakes. Plaster dust speckles the work surfaces. The temporary Panopticon facility is at red alert, and that means that even the non-combat bioroids are following embedded combat protocols. Yinzheng Li simply thanks that she insisted that the B-series maintenance staff and L-series data crunchers were issued that programming. The Progenitors she got them from were sniffy about the extra time required to do this. Shows what they knew.

    Yinzheng works out her arm, checking the readout on her Protector, and looks over the green blood smeared all over the wall. Whatever these aliens are, the fact that they have teleporters was quite a tactical surprise. Not enough for them to inflict major damage, but she lost some L-series analysts holding them off when they appeared from thin air. The Lauras managed to pin them down with weapons they had close to hand, before Yinzheng and her Vanessas managed to get here.

    She's analysed their tactics and understands them. They were looking to capture her - or Iterator Mendoza. The aliens are looking for enlightened scientists. The hunter team led by Constable Viehmann report they've encountered an alien scouting party too. Fortunately they seem to have been a light force. Viehmann reports they wiped them all out with no casualties and looted their plasma weaponry.

    "This is Ms Candle," a voice on her comms crackles.

    "Go ahead," she says.

    "Mendoza has located the location the teleport came in from. Alien stealth ship - landed on top of an apartment block. Orders, Supervisor?"

    Yinzheng frowns. "Can you get eyes-on with a Roland?" she asks.

    "Affirmative. ETA approximately ten minutes." Her underling pauses. "We have drone-eyes right now," she adds.

    "Understood." Yinzheng hits some keys and sends the authorisation for a missile strike. "I want that thing inoperable so that damn teleporter never works again. If the missiles don't manage it, send a Roland drive-by to wreck it. Then get the Void Engineers to clean it up. It's their op - we have our orders."

    "Yes, ma'am. Candle out."

    Mr Blue taps her on the shoulder. "The Void Engineers are on the line. They're trying to requisition everything we have. They have a commodore throwing Shockwaves around."

    Yinzheng cringes internally. It's just a little gut feeling, but it's still there. Because damn it, if this was any other mission she'd be raring to go. The Void Engineers are doing what the Union should be doing - and also what they should be doing. Saving civilians from invading aliens would be a welcome relief after two weeks of frustration, trying to chase a metaphorical ghost.

    But this mission is too important. And it's up to her, a junior Operative who's been on Panopticon for less than a season to try to tell an admiral that no, he can't have the resources he vitally needs for reasons which she can't explain.

    "Ms Yellow," she says, "keep on trying punch through the storm and reach Director Belltower. Mr Blue, put me through."

    ***​

    The wind howled against the concealed command van, making the windows vibrate. Inside, the MiBs and O-series bioroids sit in cramped rows

    "Ms Candle, we have reaquired eyes-on," reports one of the MiBs. "Requesting package commands."

    The woman leans towards the screen, looking at the projected static-filled image of the wireframe alien craft on the roof. "Hit it in three places with Damnations," she says. "If we can confirm a hull breach, deploy cluster incendiaries. Fire will ruin their stealth and even if they can suppress the flames, the damage to the building will make it an obvious target for the Engineers."

    "Protocol demands I request a specific override for the use of cluster incendiaries in a populated area," the MiB says naturally.

    "Override granted."

    "Yes, ma'am!" The MiB selects one of the preset dispersal patterns. "Ready at your command."

    "Initiate," she says coldly.

    Up on the screen, the camera shudders as the stealth drone launches three missiles, timed for simultaneous impact. There's a count of one, two, and then the camera whites out in thermals for a moment.

    "Hull breach confirmed. Firing."

    The fire burns. Ms Candle nods impassively at the sight of the burning rooftop, gaze lingering on a burning alien who runs out of the wreckage and throws themselves over the edge of the structure.

    She likes these drone missiles. Yes. She likes them a lot, It's one thing to be brought up to speed on this hardware. It's another thing to see it used. She could have used it well in the past. Oh, of course it's a crutch if someone came to rely on it, but sometimes a crutch is necessary. Being stupidly proud and refusing to use assets offered to you is a weakness, and she knows much better.

    And there's the little buzz of satisfaction in her stomach from a mission carried out properly. She wonders what information on the aliens she might be able to get if she could organise a raid on the target... but no. She doesn't have orders for this, sadly. A shame.

    "Flag the Engineers of a target," she tells her subordinates. "Supervisor Li," she transmits, "fire mission was a success."

    Unlike the HITMarks and the combat bioroids waiting down towards the end of the van, Ms Candle is dressed in the standard combat issue for a Man in Black in a low-intensity combat situation, Her white-pressed shirt is immaculate and her 'Covert Ops' black ballistic vest looks very slender compared to the armoured units.

    But then again, half the reason Director Belltower placed her here was as a supervisor. Someone has to keep an eye on Operative Li - and without her knowing. It'd cripple her growth if she wasn't entrusted with responsibility and always had someone to turn to - and Director Belltower doesn't have the independent, reliable assets to spare to assume command here when she has other things to do.

    What could she do, put Cedano in charge here? Ms Candle only met Gabriel Cedano a few times, but she shares Director Belltower's opinion that she'd be wary of putting him in charge of a coffee shop, let alone an operation which required discretion, subtlety and care. He'd probably drive off all the customers by prothletising and shouting at them. And even if he restrained himself, he'd fail to smile when he serves them and probably couldn't make a decent coffee to save his life. He probably drinks horrible instant coffee. It'd fit his personality. He's a man who likes quick and easy solutions to complicated problems that don't require any care or deep thought.

    Meanwhile Li might be raw, but she combines idealism, certainty and cunning in a way which Ms Candle finds quite familiar. She just needs someone a little more experienced to keep an eye on her And Ms Candle is someone who Director Belltower can trust, at least somewhat.

    Ms Candle knows that Director Belltower knows what makes her... tick.

    ***​

    Things are not going well. The Void Engineers are refusing to see reason.

    "These Shockwave codes are issued with a Command-level authority!" the commodore snaps. "I don't care what silly games you're playing, Panopticon, but you're getting in the way of our attempts to try to hold this city against a full alien incursion and Anomaly outbreak! Release control of your local combat assets!"

    "I have direct orders which prevent that," Yinzheng says, her training helping her keep in the proper cold, impassive manner. This is just professional. She can't let on that she does want to help, but can't. "I have already shown you my Shockwave exemptions."

    "These Shockwaves are issued with a Command-level authority," the Void Engineer says. He leans forwards. "Or do you want more questions raised about what Panopticon is playing at? I heard rumours about Moscow, you know. A 'rogue cell' of you lot was working for the MUSCOVITEs. Are you a rogue cell?"

    It hurts. The accusation hurts. She's doing this for the good of the Union! She's following orders from Control! And to have this jumped up Void Engineer throwing around allegations like that when she wants to help him but can't, damn it… it hurts. She doesn't like the responsibilities of command if she has to do things like this.

    "We are providing assistance where we can," she says professionally, "but I will not release command of my assets to you. We have a Shockwave exemption. Threatening and blustering will do nothing. I am dealing with a major Reality Terrorist threat to the Union and I will not let my target slip away. That will be all, commodore. If you wish for me to release control to you, then you'll need to apply for the revocation of my Shockwave Exemption. I'm sorry. My hands are tied."

    "I'll remember this," the man says ominously.

    "I want to help," she tells him, letting the first layer of pretense fall to show a bit of how weary she is, "but I can't."

    He cuts the line and Yinzheng sighs, letting her head fall into her hands. Well. Crap. That's probably a career-long black mark from the Void Engineers earned. If she ever leaves Panopticon, she can expect to never have DSci support when she needs it.

    Shaking her head, she refocuses on her work.

    "Operative Li." It's Mendoza. "I have reacquired the Saviour. I have drone-eyes on and-" She pauses. "Drone shootdown," she says flatly.

    "The Saviour?" In the confusion and the chaos, it takes Yinzheng long seconds to put things together. Yes. The mysterious Saviour being ridden by an X-410 variant - and Amalgam-391's X-410s were missing. Possibly related to the warnings Director Belltower sent her about FIERY ANGEL. She refocuses. "Shootdown? By the rider?"

    "The rider does not match. They are wearing what looks like a model of Damage Control command biosuit rig," Mendoza says. "The shot did not come from them or the Savior. An unknown party was responsible. The shot was fired from a nearby vehicle."

    "Show me," Yinzheng says, rising and working out the tension in her shoulders.

    She watches the artifact-filled footage - the camera on the drone is suffering in the storm and there's notable chromatic aberration. Someone leans out of the window of a minivan and there's a flash of gunshot before the drone signal is lost. She rewinds and zooms in. Watches the scene again. It's a man who did it with a handgun, short with leathery skin.

    Rewind. Watch. Pause.

    It clicks. Yinzheng Li pales.

    And implanted memories which had been lurking in her subconscious waiting for the right trigger unfold.

    "This man," says the Man in White, holding a photograph in front of her eyes, "is an enemy of the Technocratic Union. His elimination is of the highest priority. Should he be seen, his termination overrides all other mission objectives. The lives of your command mean nothing compared to the completion of this objective. Your life means nothing compared to the completion of this mission."

    She blinks slowly. "Yes, Control," she says, trained memory focussing on the image and internalising the face.

    "Here is what you will do if you sight him."

    She grabs her phone and dials a number she didn't know before. "Shockwave, shockwave, shockwave!" she calls in. "I have visual sighting of HANNIBAL. I repeat, HANNIBAL is here! Christos Barberis is here!"

    "Understood," says the man on the end of the line. "Agent Li. The blossoms have fallen. Now is the winter of our discontent. Act in the proper manner." He hangs up.

    Yinzheng is already on her feet, stripping off her suit to reveal the power armour undersuit she'd forgotten she put on this morning. She needs to suit up. "Shockwave, Scenario 3a," she tells Mr Blue as an Olivier pulls open a cache in the wall to reveal the sleek black armour and help her put it on. "Get me Ms Candle, Constable Viehman, Mr Grey… implement Scenario 3a in full!"

    This produces a flurry of activity as Mr Blue starts recalling all the HITMarks and the high value combat assets while Ms Yellow begins calling in Shockwaves from every local amalgam. And getting rejections, or "no available assets".

    "We're loading the Rolands," Mr Blue tells her. "Awaiting further orders."

    "Maintain operational command in this area and get me all the assets you can," she tells him. "Serve the Union to the best of your capacities." Memories stir. "Director Belltower is to be informed that the Carthage Contingency has been activated. That will be all."

    She hopes that means her boss will be sending help. Yinzheng doesn't know what the Carthage Contingency entails. She doesn't know what its objective is. She doesn't even know what she's going to do when she gets there. She'll be told if she needs to know.

    "Supervisor!" Mr Blue says. "Constable Viehmann is reporting that he's close! The dracosaur has DIDO's trail!"

    "Ignore DIDO!" she snaps.

    "No, he means, he has DIDO's trail and it matches retrocasted projections for the passage of the white van."

    She stiffens up.

    "Agent Li, this man is a known associate of Alice Aristide," says the Man in White. "It is believed he was personally responsible for her defection and enabled her escape from Damien. You will act with full caution if you know that he is present. You will subconsciously act with the proper caution because your role in this scenario is to force him to act to preserve his ally. You are to drive Ms Aristide to the point where she must attempt to contact him - or he will seek her out. Do you understand."

    "Yes, Control," she says obediently.

    "Good girl."

    Yizheng curses in Chinese. Some of her behaviour makes more sense now.

    "Tell him to hold back!" she orders. "It's suicide for him to go in alone!"

    She crammed the full list of known Traditionalist assets in Mexico City as part of her attempts to work out where DIDO might be - and she can put this knowledge to use when she tries to pinpoint HANNIBAL. Where might he be going along with DIDO… and possibly FIERY ANGEL as well! Everything's happening all at once and the Void Engineers have already gobbled up all the Shockwave codes in the area. She can't get aerial support - and she knows the protocols. She'll need all the heavy firepower she has for this.

    She has the full list of known Traditionalist hide-outs in the area. She'll cram assault protocols on every one of them. It'll waste precious time, but she'll need to get on his trail. To complete her mission. She doesn't know what it is right now, but she trusts in Control. She'll be told when the time comes.

    And as she picks up her assigned weapon, she could make a good guess as to what it is.


    She was warned by Ms Clock because you delayed to acquire more gear. You gave her a surveillance specialist and data specialist so she got to make checks to look for things of interest. She saw Serafina because you went underground and so the bike got seen by the cameras. She saw you again and Christos was forced to shoot down the drone to stop her firing missiles at the bike and its rider to take down FIERY ANGEL.

    Oh dear.

    Yinzheng

    [X] Carries Out Her Mission (x ∞)

    She (pick two)
    [ ] considers disobeying her orders to aid the Void Engineers
    [ ] loves the Union with all her heart (x 12.0)
    [ ] shows fear
    [ ] is filled with a dreadful cold logical certainty (x 11.0)
    [ ] hates the enemies of the Union with a terrible fury (x9.0)
    [ ] shows remorse
    [ ] will show that she is worthy of everything the Union has given her (x10.0)
    [ ] knows she is doing the right thing in her gut. (x 15.0)
    [ ] feels regrets
     
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    • SR XIX: La Iglesia
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    • SR XIX: La Iglesia

    The sky is a weeping sore. Alice can feel it. Her sensitivity to dimensional phenomena is screaming at her. It's like hearing someone scrape their nails along a blackboard, only in the back of her skull. The terrifying beauty of the light doesn't account for much when you can hear that.

    The way they're heading, they're entering a temporary lull in the storm's intensity. It's like the eye of a hurricane. Even the snow is letting up.

    She looks sideways at Serafina who's squatting over the prone figure of the dead X-410. It's definitely dead. Alice knows dead things. She's quite an expert on the subject, and the X-410 is dead.

    For now. Because she can feel the stirrings of cellular activity within it again and knows that Serafina is doing things to it. Things that most Traditionalists would call magic, but which Serafina would say is perfectly hyperbiology.

    Alice can hear plasma fire in the distance. It's a characteristic noise. Once you hear it, you never forget the crack of a high density ionised beam.

    There's a little bit of her which had been trying to think of Serafina as purely a civilian lab scientist who happens to work for the Technocracy and spends all her days pottering around making cures for cancer and vaccines and the like. The kind of Technocrat she had certain… long-distance contacts with in Miami under a false name, because sometimes a doctor might find it easier to misplace some money and take a day off ill on the day an exorcist shows up and - oh, look, the kid wasn't possessed by a ghost, it was just epilepsy.

    Some asshole Traditionalists felt she was a sell-out for doing such things.. Alice strongly disagrees. She damn well knows ghosts exists, but believing in them just encourages them and then they get self-entitled.

    But she's getting off topic. She kind of hoped Serafina was that kind of scientist. A vain hope, given she's an official Hero of the Technocratic Union. But it had been a nice hope. She can't tell herself that any more when she showed far too much familiar with bioroid combat programmes and reconfigured the living hulking super-Victor - some kind of X-series experimental unit - into body armour for herself. What's worse is that she can still feel the muted, weapon-like mind of the super-Victor, wrapped around Serafina's psychic waveform. She's using it.

    Serafina turns her faceless face towards her. Alice isn't sure where the optical sensors are, but she feels Serafina's attention focussed on her.

    "You don't like this," Serafina says, breaking her concentration. "I'm sorry if… look, I'm not a soldier. I just let it handle the combat while I provide guidance."

    And there she is, turning on her easy charm. "Don't play mind games," Alice says tensely.

    She's pretty sure Serafina is giving her a dirty look, although it's hard to tell because she does not have eyes at the moment. "I'm… oh, for goodness sake. I'm not playing mind games. I just fused with a freaky blind killing machine. X-410s are weird even by bioroid standards. Please don't think I'm stupid, 'Liss."

    "I didn't say anything," she says.

    "You were thinking it loudly enough that I don't need to be psychic to know," Serafina says tartly. "I am entirely aware that you are not comfortable with the fact that I configured this thing so it was hollow inside and then climbed in and I currently have programmable cells threaded throughout my body as part of my nervous system override. If something goes wrong, I'll need new eyes Believe me. I know it's weird. I haven't done this before today."

    There is a pause.

    "Now, pass me some of that plastic explosive," Serafina adds, looking up from her surgery on the currently dead corpse. "I need to make some improvements. And fill up some holes. No, more than that. I'll need the whole pile."

    "Is this an Alicia idea?" Alice says warily, passing the blocks of explosive.

    "Is what?"

    "... you're filling a reanimated bioroid with explosives."

    "Oh, that? No, I haven't heard from Alicia in a while. She's been avoiding my attempts to contact her," Serafina says, working away as she packs plastic explosive into the opened up chest cavity. "There. Isn't that adorable? It'll be all the rage in Paris this coming fashion season. Ah! And pass me that backpack, too. It can wear it."

    "Are you sure this wasn't 'Licia's idea?"

    "Why would it be?" Serafina asks in honest confusion.

    "Never mind."

    "Oh! See if we can stop by a jewellry store. I feel a sudden urge for silver shrapnel."

    ***​

    The ragtag group of one proper enlightened scientist and four Reality Deviants has a substantial advantage thanks to Serafina, she thinks smugly. With Seelicia and Beelicio in a sniper position overlooking the church, Serafina can use the sensors built into their biosuits to monitor and map the grounds. She can see enemy concentrations and their positions.

    They seem to resemble second-rate Construct defence teams in how they're deployed. Nothing particularly fancy tactically - solid placement watching over the major lines of approach within the building and without. She quickly sketches out a map marking enemy placements for the others, huddling together in the back of the van.

    "If they have any HITMark knock-offs, my biosensors will have problems picking them up. No heartbeats or vital signs. I know they have some out front, so there'll probably be more inside. Apart from that, that's the best of my knowledge," she warns. "But I can't see any biosigns below ground."

    Father Orisino sits on the edge of his seat, perched with an old AK-74 on his lap. "Of course you can't see the sanctum. No, quite amazingly I thought to conceal an underground chamber from Technocratic sensors. I wonder why?" he says dryly.

    Serafina would usually flush at that. "I'm just making the point," she says. "I'm using the sensors in low power mode, passives only. I might be missing some things, but even assuming that these troops are the sum total of their forces, a direct assault through the main doors will involve facing their enfilading fire. And they may have hidden enlightened or RD assets which I can't distinguish from their usual troopers."

    "There are many malevolent spirits in that building," Najwa says softly. "Some of them possessing humans."

    EDEs, Serafina mentally corrects. Wonderful. "I'm not trained in the dimensional sciences so I can't ID those individuals," she says simply. "So can you-"

    "Pass me that red pen," Najwa says. She marks off some of the clusters. "The spirithosts are mostly in the main chamber. Some of them are more powerful - there are two especially potent ones. In addition, there are two spirithost vehicles - disguised as police cars and parked out the front."

    Serafina blinks. "Uh…" she says, her mind whirring as she tries to account for this. And she's somewhat curious about how the other woman knows this - but on the other hand she really doesn't want to know."

    "They look to be Technocratic Legate C-models," Christos says seriously. "Or some closely related variant. The SPD does love their toys."

    Alice scowls. "This is a problem," she says darkly. "How many anti-tank missiles do you have in here, old man?"

    "A few."

    Serafina taps the floor idly, the hulking fingers of the X-410 unfamiliar and yet fitting. She'll need to propose that the X-410 project is formally adapted for the assisted biosuit functionality she's been using it for, she thinks. Except that's just a dream. She's burned so many bridges.

    Enough regrets.

    "I can have my sniper team target them," she says. "They have anti-materiel weapons."

    "No," Christos disagrees. "Najwa and I will deal with them. We may need intact Legates later, and the SPD often runs its HITMark knock-offs off a single coordinated server. They won't be able to place it in the church, so it'll need to be nearby and they'll want it to be mobile. But that can't be done with the hostiles watching."

    Alice sighs. "Just say it outright, old man," she grumbles. "You want a distraction."

    "Well, if you would be so kind…"

    "Anta mudjir," Najwa says wearily. "No. A frontal assault is too risky and we have no time for stealth. Once they're panicking we have certain… techniques for crippling their command structure and disabling the HITMark knock-offs. They don't have primium. We can sweep them up."

    Alice nods respectfully to the woman who appears to be her natural ally in the face of Christos' him-ness. "Fine. Then we flank them. We go in through the side of the building, through the apartments. I can make sure we silently breach the wall. Serafina has two high end bioroids with explosive weaponry," she points out clusters, "and that allows us to clear their weapons nests. Once we're on Orisino's home territory, he can cut loose, yes?"

    "Yes," the priest says. He's quiet, seemingly meditating.

    "There will be a problem with that," Serafina admits. "The reanimated X-410 has taken extensive damage and has suffered neural degradation. I had to initialise some functionality in factory default mode, and that means it'll attack Reality Deviancy on sight. It's still useful as a distraction, but it can't fight alongside you."

    "A distraction is all I need," Alice says, eyes narrowed. "We move in five."

    Father Orisino shifts. "Then," he says solemnly, "first we pray. And I will bless you, for what it is worth. Today we do the work of the Father. And," a light gleams in his eye. "even if you do not believe in Him, He believes in you. My sanctum is a place of faith, and it would do you well to keep that in mind. Fight to cast out these unbelievers and the demons and all will be well. Let us join hands."

    ***​

    The apartments built up against the church are nearly pitch black. The power has failed and only the light from the sky outside creeping in through the windows light them. Occasional lightning bursts illuminate the tatty corridors in sharp relief.

    The latest brightness reveals two bodies, neatly executed with two bulletholes in their heads. Their blood is a dark pool on the worn carpet.

    "Targets down," Alice Aristide says impassively, lowering her smoking gun and stepping over the SPD watchers who'd been left here. She squats by one and steals his radio and silenced submachine gun. She can feel it's clean of spiritual taint - it's just a high tech silenced weapon. Something she can use on these goons, without resorting to her precious silver ammo in the revolver Christos gave her. "Ess, get that door open."

    Serafina's hulking form advances and stabs those nasty primium blades on her forearms into the lock, carving it open. Alice flows through the door. "Police!" she shouts in Spanish at the people in here, huddled around a candle. "This is a police raid." All she needs is the right words, the right tone, and just a small psychic nudge and they're obeying her. "There are dangerous criminals on the loose! Everyone, head into the bedroom and barricade the door! Don't come out, no matter what!"

    The elderly couple scramble to obey, and Alice keeps up her attitude just long enough for them to vanish into the bedroom with the candle. Then she drags a chest of drawers into the way of the door, blocking off the bedroom. "Father!" she radios back. "Move up!"

    Father Orisino is no longer suppressing the angel which dwells within him. He burns with an inner flame, casting a light over the entire room like a small bonfire. His shadow isn't human and out of the corner of her eye, Alice can see the six wings of light extending from his back. The expression on his face is one of calm benevolence, and all doubt has left him.

    "Explosives!" she orders as Serafina covers the entrance. Tilting her head, Alice takes in the structure and places the charges as to breach the walls of the church.

    "Ready on your orders," Serafina says.

    "No. Wait," Alice says. She can feel the lightning when it comes, and there's a second or two before the thunder arrives. They just need to time it right and the noise of the breach will be concealed by the thunder. "On my 'go', do it."

    She waits, breathing steadily. There. She feels there's a flash.

    "Go!" she orders. The charges blow and the blast and the collapse of the wall are muffled entirely by the thunder. Alice smiles humorlessly for a moment. She can psychically suppress sound - she's always had a talent for it - but why bother to do that when you can just conceal the noise in ambient sound. And then she's moving.

    She can feel minds in the area. Tainted minds, some of them. Fusions of flesh and spirit. Other are just human. There are three humans down the other end of the corridor and she can feel their curiosity burn into suspicion.

    Alice doesn't give it time to develop further. In a single liquid motion she flows around the corner and levels her pistol.

    ***​

    Miguel Hermandez isn't a bad man. Not really. He does work for a company run by the Special Projects Division, but as far as he's concerned it's just a private security company. He'd left the Mexican army with an honourable discharge and they'd been recruiting. So he took the job and got four times the salary he used to have, as well as some nice gear. Sure, he was sort of a glorified mall cop, but they ran things professionally paid well, and there was talk of promotions and special training. And maybe some of the other people on the team are a bit weird, but he doesn't hang around with them. They're from different, 'elite' squads.

    They'd been hired to aid the police in securing a church linked to criminal drug smuggling. He doesn't want to be working Christmas Eve, but the bonus is more than worth it. Then things had started getting weird. He's just ignoring the light in the sky. He can't think of it. Literally can't. But that leaves him with a hollow feeling in his head, and butterflies in his stomach. The power's failed and his NVGs are playing up, so he's using a torch instead. And the noise outside is… just thunder. Yes. Just thunder. Nothing else.

    His ears are ringing and his head is spinning after the latest thunderclap. It's the sound of plaster falling from the ceiling which clue him in to the fact that it wasn't just a thunderclap. Plaster and the soft sound of footsteps. Three things pass through his head as he whirls, mouth opening in shock. The first is a sudden sense of terrified shock.

    The next two things are standard-issue Technocratic 10mm pistol rounds.

    His killer then double-taps the other two men in the room, and moves on.

    ***​

    Serafina knows she isn't a natural at this. She's a scientist and a researcher who makes weapons sometimes and who's trained in command. She's not a soldier. As she trails behind Alice, letting the X-410 act as it sees fit and only nudging it when necessary, she can see Alice is a natural. It's like...

    … well, her old friend reminds her of Rose. And not in a good way. She's like Rose when she lets go of all her careful restraint and cultivated attempts at normalcy. Except when Rose does that, she's a savage, sadistic, haemophage-like monster. Alice just doesn't feel anything at all. Serafina has seen HITMarks less mechanical and more emotional than her. Alice times her shots with noises outside perfectly, hiding the sound of silenced gunshots in the thunder and the screaming of the sky. She doesn't miss. She's a black-clad killer who turns what should be gunfights into systematic executions. She uses the low lighting and the noise and her uncanny speed to kill without being caught. She's empty inside.

    Serafina knows that the people here are working for the Special Projects Division, and several of them are already possessed by EDEs. She can't help them. But she can't help but feel sorry for them. It's a weakness and she's not fool enough to alert them, but she feels a little bit bad about it.

    And she changes her mind rather quickly once they're out of the close confines where Alice can shape the fight. Her bioscanner tells her just how many enemies are in the main body of the church.

    "Four ahead by the door. Spirit clone hivemind," Alice says tersely. "Noise will alert the main hall."

    "I will deal with these demons," Father Orisino says, his now-snow-white hair flickering above his head like flames. "Duma, I invoke you. Heed my strictures." The light of his wings solidifies. He suddenly holds a flaming sword and in one motion he steps around the corner and hurls it at the nearest clone, pinning it to the wall.

    It doesn't try to scream. It seems incapable of doing so, unable to gather the volition. And then the priest is moving and he's fast, almost as fast as Alice and he's far, far stronger. He has another flaming sword in hand and quickly the clones are so much charred meat.

    "We're at the door," Serafina transmits to the Euthanatoi. She sends the order to the overclocked, critically damaged Xiaolian she's reactivated, and then makes sure she has a solid wall between it and its targets. "Keep out of sight," she tells Father Orisino. "We don't want it getting distracted. I'm sending it in now."

    ***
    ​
    The X-410's failing heart is hammering. Its torn muscles are dynamically knitting together on the fly, and that's the only thing that's keeping it going. The toxins from the alien spaceship are pumping through its hyperoxygenated blood, tearing its body apart as it goes.

    Black armoured feet hammer on the floorboards.

    It's damaged. Damaged even by the standards of mindless combat clones. It's been given a short extra period of life. It isn't grateful for this gift. It isn't grateful for anything. It lacks the cognitive capacity.

    It has its orders and it will obey them. Not for the Union. Not because it believes in them. Not because it trusts its commander. It obeys its orders because they're its orders.

    It has an assault rifle in each hand. Its nerves are shot to pieces by the resurrection, but it doesn't need to really aim. Its life expectancy once it sees a threat is barely more than the time it'll take to empty the magazines.

    The door is ahead of it. It lowers its shoulder and charges, somehow squeezing out even more energy from its dead body.

    And it's surrounded by light.

    The interior of the church is beautiful. The structure itself is a classic example of 1700s Mexican experimentation in the baroque. The combination of native and Moorish influences worked together to produce a style quite unlike those in Europe at the time. The great fluted columns and domes, worn even as they are, catch the prismatic light that shines through the vast stained glass windows. Ever dancing, ever wonderful, the aesthetics are something the designer never thought to account for. What long-dead man ever thought the sky over Mexico City would catch fire on Christmas Eve

    The many-coloured light plays across its eyeless face like a flight of butterflies.

    It appreciates none of the beauty. Because it can see the foe. Three machine gun positions have been set up to cover the main entrance. There are lifeless men - robots - positioned at the doors and concealed behind the pews. More clones have hiveminded positions set up to enfilade attackers. There are elite soldiers, in armour which leaves them looking reptilian. And by the altar there are two two-and-a-half metre tall power armours, their autocannons ready and present. Their master demands their obedience and they obey. That is what they are paid for.

    The X-410 knows no fear. Knows no regrets. Knows nothing but the mission. It charges in, weapons blazing, throwing itself madly into the densest concentration of foes. It fights - and in the surprise it cuts down man after man. It's dead already. Morale wavers…

    … and then one of the power armours slams into it, running it through with a wickedly sharp blade extending from the back of its fist.

    Then the charges go off and the backpacks full of C4 and the explosives stuffed into its body end its existence for the second time today.

    Perhaps, even, in its last moments as fire and light consumes it, it finds some measure of God.

    … probably not, though.

    ***​

    Seelicia flinches at the blast. She can feel it in her gut. And just as relevantly, it breaks every single window in streets. She's just glad that she's wearing her helmet, because she feels glass patter off her face. Even as she watches some of the church's roof falls in, rubble smashing down and the dome collapsing.

    The effects on the SPD forces are instantly visible. They're thrown into disarray, and the ones on the exterior turn to rush towards the bomb site.

    Entirely predictable. Also somewhat of a mistake.

    Seelicia watches the two black-clad figures strike. Gunfire starts from within the church. Gunfire and the pounding thumps of a grenade launcher. She smiles quietly at the sound that Serafina is still alive and fighting.

    And then there's a brilliant light from within the church.

    ***
    ​
    Where does the rising ape meet the falling angel? In the mind of a man who's sharing his flesh with an archangel, perhaps.

    He and Duma have an agreement. The demons must die. The master of the demons must be destroyed. The church must be made whole, repaired of the damage done to it. The power of the archangel is put towards the destruction of the demons, and they are in full cooperation. The angelic power fills him to the brim and overflows.

    He speaks a word, and the demons turn on each other. They are treacherous beings. They cannot fight well, and within this sacred place they are weak and he is strong.

    He turns towards the… the two women. Whatever their names are. The angel in his head makes it hard to remember. They're behind cover and the… the larger one is blowing up clusters of troops, while the other one simply impassively and mutely kills. The soulless machines powered by demons are falling like flies, their minds vanishing. Someone else is interfering.

    Ah yes. He remembers their names.

    "Seraph," he says. "Grigori. Stay away."

    And then he spreads his wings and launches himself straight at the hulking demon-host bound within the metal armour, lashing at it with his flaming sword. It does not belong here. He feels it. This is not its world - yet it is here. At first its armour resists his blows, but then the tainted unholy hull starts to peel off. Men who see him whose eyes are not open to the beauty of God run screaming, and demons flee to see him slay the mightiest of them.

    With his other hand, he raises the AK74 and fires bullets of celestial fire into the holes in its hull. They burn its unnatural flesh and demonic spirit, unmaking it into motes of pure light which drift away on the breeze.

    It fights back, of course. The demons within come out to play, and from its mechanical mouth it exhales fire in his face. The holy raiments he wears take most of the heat, but his flesh chars and burns. He ignores it. It is just pain.

    He has felt worse.

    The angel can feel the nature of the spirit hiding within this man. It is the progeny of the tainter, of the serpent down below. A child of that monster, from a certain point of view. A slave, from another. Its egg of greed hatched within a man.

    A firefly born of a devil.

    He runs it through with his holy blade, opens its armour up like a can, and casts it down for the grigori to execute.

    Which she does.

    ***​

    Dust hangs heavy in the air. The beauty of the church is destroyed. The ceiling has collapsed and the stained glass windows are broken. Shrapnel and bullet holes scar the baroque architecture. The holes in the roof are letting the snow in, and it whirls and twirls with the dust.

    Father Orisino is bleeding heavily. His face is burnt and charred, almost more like a skull than a face. It's a minor miracle his eyes are still intact. Perhaps they aren't. They're glowing, after all. Perhaps his eyes have burned out and he now sees only with the aid of the spirit.

    "Are you okay?" Serafina asks, somewhat shocked that he's still moving around rather than rolling around on the floor in pain.

    "The angel will see to my wellness. See to your own," the man says, his voice a chorus. He stalks towards the rear of the church. He doesn't even walk like he used to.

    Seelicia's voice crackles on the radio. "Ess," she says. "The other two are headed in. They… um. Yeah. All the HITMark rip-offs just… just stopped working."

    "Passable," is all Christos says once he arrives. "Prepare yourself. Their master is next." He turns to Najwa, and says something in Arabic. She nods, and turns and heads back towards the exit.

    "There are a few things which must be done for it to fall," Christos says cryptically. "And I think that there will be at least one more obstacle. Rule of three. Shall we?" He gestures to Orisino. "Lead the way."

    The way down to the sanctum is hidden under the ruined altar. It was exposed by the blast. And together they head down into darkness.


    The last guardian

    Who is the final watcher at the serpent's gate?

    [ ] Nothing that Serafina can see.
    [ ] Nothing. The entire place reeks of spiritual corruption to Father Orisino. It's thoroughly desecrated his sanctum and perhaps considers that defence enough.
    [ ] Nothing. There is no final guardian. The creature perhaps doesn't feel it needs one.
    [ ] Nothing. It's here waiting for you in public. With open arms and a smile.

    The Dimensional Anomaly Incursion is:

    [ ] Staying the same (Weak)
    [ ] Strengthening somewhat
     
    Last edited:
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    • SR XX: The Liar's Lair
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    • SR XX: The Liar's Lair

    "Remember," Christos says, a hint of tension in his voice, "Alice or me must strike the killing blow."

    The spiral staircase hidden under the stone altar goes down in a tight coil. Father Orisino leads the way down into his home ground. Serafina can feel the change in the feel of the air. The X-410's systems start to flag up a change in the local r-state, that this is an RD-modified psuedo-subdimension which will aggravate its genetic instability. Despite that, she doesn't feel… bad. It feels peaceful down here, unlike the actively-under-attack-by-aliens city above.

    As she crosses over the threshold at the bottom of the stairs, down into the catacombs under the church, she sees a glowing circle on the floor. It looks very… wizardy.

    "Don't break the circle," the priest warns them. "Just step over it."

    The chambers below the church have some electric lighting, unlike the rest of the darkened city. Viewscreens and ultra-sleek consumer goods have been installed recently, powered by a clearly overworked generator. The bookshelves have been emptied out. A scent of cigar smoke - and another, more acrid smoke - hangs in the air. The blast upstairs has dislodged plaster from the ceiling, but that's the only damage down here.

    Sitting down on a comfortable chair, legs crossed and cigar in hand is a man. Or something that looks like a man. Even Serafina can notice all the little traits which show his inhumanity. He might look superficially like a man in his forties dressed in a snow-white thobe, wearing a red-and-white keffiyeh held by a black agal on his head. But the keffiyeh looks more like scales, more like it's part of his head, and behind his reading glasses his eyes are black and oily. He has a silver forked tongue which flickers out to taste the air.

    The others who can feel the spiritual weight of his presence see much more. His shadow stretches long behind him, dark and oily. Black tendrils run out from it heading out of sight, tying him to other things like tendrils, leaving it look like an inkspill. It doesn't match the light - and it doesn't match his assumed form. It's not human. Not at all.

    "Burn," whispers Father Orisino.

    The other man catches ablaze in pure white fire. Just for a moment, his form flickers into another one, the face of another man.

    He doesn't die. He doesn't burn. He just shakes his head sadly and puffs on his cigar at the middle of the white corona.

    "Do you know the value of a human life?" the man-thing asks Father Orisino, calmly. He is apparently not at all bothered that he's wreathed in flames. He flickers into a woman's shape for a second. "I do. When dealing with an American, the cost of a life is approximately nine million dollars. Mexican lives are cheaper." He adjusts the set of his white robes. "Do you know how many people owe me nine million dollars worth of equivalent value utility? Or, to put it another way, seven units of prime energy."

    He leans forwards and smiles openly and honestly. Another face flickers on. "Do you know who you're burning to death right now?"

    "Die!" the priest growls. The fire intensifies, burning brighter.

    "That's not constructive, defaulter," the pillar of flame says in a tone of withering contempt. "You owe me and I will have payment." He pulls a remote out of his pocket and presses it.

    All around him, the screens light up. Men and women burn. They beg. They plead.

    "You're the one killing them. Not me. Stop this-"

    The angel-possessed priest draws a blade and throws it. It plunges into the man's chest. He doesn't even break the flow of his conversation, and merely touches it, dissolving it down and somehow absorbing the magical construct.

    "-and you'll stop burning your Reality Deviant cultists alive. They know it's you doing it. I told them." The burning man with a blade embedded in his chest turns his head towards Christos. "Oh. It's you, Barberis. I thought I recognised your stench."

    "Stop attacking him. He's feeding off it. A karma-leech," Christos tells Father Orsino softly, before turning his attention back to the man. "So you're the spirit. It all makes sense. You shucked your mortality. You were a quant, and traded everything. Even your soul, it seems."

    "Mystical claptrap," the man says dismissively.

    "I cut you off from the markets."

    "Mere power cuts won't stop me. The hand of the market knows. It is me and I am it."

    And what do you call yourself now?" Christos asks, voice tense. He stalks around the sitting man, knives in hands.

    The man smiles a smile which doesn't reach his dark eyes. "The same I always have. Ibrahim al-Saud. And I'm no spirit. Just a man, just like you."

    "Liar," Christos says. "You cast off your name. Once you had one name and many natures, for that is the way of men. Now you have but one nature and thus the name you were born with is no longer yours. I know it. How much power lies in that new name and that new nature, I wonder?"

    "That's the question then, isn't it? You don't know, or else you'd have used it already." the man asks amiably. "And now you've come to murder me. More blood on your hands. Wasn't Reina Lior enough for you? How does it feel to know that the horrors of the twentieth century lie heavy on your shoulders? All that blood - caused because of you and your cabal." He tilts his head. "The retaliation will all be your fault."

    "No. The deeds of a man are on his own head," Christos disagrees. "And you flee from the consequences of your choices. I face mine."

    "The words of a coward who can't live with all the death he's caused. Your time is running out, old man," al-Saud says. "None of this would have happened if you'd just stopped."

    Serafina's mind whirs inside. Christos Barberis had been the one who killed Reina Lior - or at least was involved in her death? Why didn't she know that? Was this all a lie? But then why didn't Christos call him out on his lies? Was it all part of the cover-up that a member of the Inner Circle could die? It had been so hard to find out facts about the life of Reina.

    His eyes dart towards Serafina. "Incidentally, Platinum three-nine-slash-aye," he adds conversationally. "Kill them all."

    Faster than the eye can follow, Alice whirls and has the barrel of her pistol flat against Serafina's head and the feeling of betrayal squirms in Serafina's gut.

    … then her mind starts working properly. No, of course Alice wasn't working for them all along. Christos Barberis wouldn't have fallen for that. So those remarks were directed at her. But she doesn't feel any different.

    "Vai a farti fottere," Serafina tells him, slipping back into her native Italian. "Go fuck yourself," she translates for the benefits of anyone else around who doesn't speak a proper language. And because she wants to make it entirely clear to him as well.

    "Ah," al-Saud says, sounding somewhat disappointed. "So you're yet another traitor. How tragic. And with that bleeding heart… oh, so you are the esteemed Doctor Rosario. We have Rose, you know. She's not a traitor. Not like you. We had to clean house and she was quite helpful. She understands the obligations her creation laid on her. Not like you." He smiles at her. "It's not too late, though. I do understand. You've always had so many expectations on you. So many things meaning you can't help people. Poor little Serafina. All the blood on your hands from-"

    "Shut up," Serafina says coldly. "I know who you are. Or perhaps who you used to be. Ibrahim al-Saud. Syndicate VPO of Energy. MIA in 1999, replaced by Turki al-Saud. Quite the little family cartel."

    "Guilty as charged," he says with a smile. "And to think you're pointing a grenade launcher at the face of a member of the Syndicate board. You're making a mistake, doctor. I can save Rose for you. I can return her to you, whole in mind. I can spare you for the consequences of your treachery." He licks his lips. "You'd really be wasted on the Progenitors. They want you back, but I think-"

    "I am a loyal Technocrat," Serafina says, keeping her grenade launcher trained on his face. "You're not. The Special Projects Division are a Nephandic cult. And you were always close to them. Looks like this just is further proof. The Nephandi always lie," she says, directing her words more at the others than him. Reinforcing their mental strength. Encouraging them to ignore him. "You're just a miserable little worm who went mad and betrayed everything he was meant to stand for. A leech. Though that's not really any real change for a Saudi prince," she adds cuttingly. "Or the man who planned out that monstrosity of over-compensation in Mecca."

    Around her, she feels the others shift, feeling stronger and more certain. Just saying it herself makes her feel stronger. Father Orisino straightens up, his fires burning brighter, and even Christos seems to draw strength from it. Maybe he just is glad he can trust her to stand up to… to a monster like this. Alice lowers her gun, but-

    The man chuckles. "Oh, that's adorable. The fact that for all your intelligence you failed to understand what the Abraj al Bait complex does to the primal energy flows in Mecca says it all. And as for the rest?" he flaps a hand in the air. "Classic distraction techniques. I see your corruption goes deeper than I thought. A Nephandus, alleging that I am one. How transparent."

    Serafina shoots him in the face with the grenade launcher. It doesn't stop him talking, his voice even cutting through the explosion.

    "Tell me, Serafina, whose fault was it that you fell? Your own? Or were you led into it by Jamelia Belltower, a woman who loved a Nephandus and…" he pauses maliciously, "... was never quite the same again, if you follow my implications. Did she invite you into a secret conspiracy of so-called 'reformists'? Tell you that you had to destroy Control to save the Union?"

    Normally she'd be shocked by that, but the certainty fills her. He's a liar. Nothing he says reads as a lie, which means she should mistrust everything he says. She knows people can hide when they lie - and he's a Syndic. She's not that stupid. Of course he'll be able to do something like that. She can't trust anything he says. Maybe if she hadn't destroyed an alien spaceship today and… and shown that even senior Technocrats like her parents are just human, she'd be wavering. But she isn't.

    She feels calm. Certain. And she wants this fucker dead.

    ***​

    The words hit Alice like a black, oily wave. The only reason her hands aren't shaking is her training in hiding anything she feels. But he knows. God, he knows.

    It's true. Her father was a Nephandus. She's Jamelia Belltower's daughter - and her mother might be one of those damned souls too. Everywhere she goes, she makes things worse. She's tainted too. Wherever she goes, good people die. Better people than her. People who aren't fucking cowards who abandon their friends just so they can live.

    Bastille is all her worst aspects. The fact that she'll do anything to survive. Anything at all. She spent so long sealing her away - and now she let her out again, just so she can survive. Which means she wasn't really sealed away. She's always looking for the way out. And as soon as she was in real danger, she let Bastille out again. She's a survivor, but it makes her a terrible human being.

    She must get it from her parents.

    And there's a voice in her head. One she can't not listen to.

    "I've been looking for you for a while, young lady," the voice in her head says.

    She tries to shut it out but it's not working. She can't focus. The lack of sleep and the hopped up adrenaline and her mixed feelings about Serafina and the fact that she might be the child of two Nephandi and and... the… the everything means she can't bring her powers to shut out the voice.

    The world is fading to black, like the lights are dying.

    "Shut up," she hisses.

    "I think the New World Order treated you very badly indeed," he says. His voice is warm and comforting. Like no one ever talks to her. "And I think their attempts to get you back are delusional and obsessive. They do like throwing good money after bad. That's why I've been trying to find you. To talk to you. I want to buy something from you."

    "I'm not selling my soul," she mentally snaps.

    "I don't want your soul. The obsession of certain parties about you is… adversely harming our goals. I want all those traits which make you of interest to those parties. I want to buy all that trauma, all that self-hatred, all those things which get in the way of you living that normal life you so desperately want. I wish to purchase your unwanted heritage, your nightmares and those things you hide."

    "How do you…"

    "I own a lot of people. I know a lot about you," he says and he pauses. "In exchange, I will offer you comprehensive indemnity and protection from the legitimate Technocratic Union and its agents, assets, and representatives. And a wealthy, comfortable, safe life, with satisfactory replacements. There are people who will pay a lot for those things about you don't want. You want replacements. Everyone wins, yes? Isn't that the core of capitalism?"

    Mentally she's reeling. She knows it's a bad idea. She knows it's a terrible idea. But she doesn't feel it's one. And she's so tired. So weary. So alone. She's never had the chance to choose much about her life. If she's free, freedom is what you do with what's been done to you - and she's had so many terrible things done to her.

    Alice wavers.


    Al-Saud can taste Vices. Makes him a pain in the arse to argue against as he knows how to hit you where you're weakest.

    Once again, Serafina clearly demonstrates all her luck saves itself for non combat rolls when she throws up a group Mind shield.



    Alice, however, is just a fuck-up.



    Be Alice:

    [ ] Take his offer (1.7x)
    [ ] Don't take his offer (spend 1wp to suppress Survivor Vice)

    Be a ragtag collection of mages

    [ ] Throw even more firepower at him. It's got to work eventually, right? No matter how many people you might need to burn through.
    [ ] Find a smarter way (Write-in mandatory, otherwise x0.0 modifier)
     
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    • SR XXI: Protagonists Protect the Weak
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    • SR XXI: Protagonists Protect the Weak

    The Rolands roar through the choked streets, smashing abandoned vehicles aside with the aid of their rams. The sky screams and thunder booms overhead.

    Operative Yinzheng Li has no fear as she sits in the back of one of the IFVs, nerves humming. She has no regrets. She loves the Union.

    "I was born in North-East China," she whispers to herself, making sure her helmet's speakers are off. Making her testament to Control. She loves the Union. She's twitching with nervous energy. Nervous energy and the combat stims she's loaded herself up with. "Fairly close to the North Korean border. My parents are peasant farmers. Their parents, too. All the way back. I'm the first person in my family ever to go to university. I was very sick as a child, and nearly died of meningitis; modern medicine saved my life. My mother can remember a time when she didn't have electricity or running water. I managed to get a place at a university funded by a bursary looking for bright children from poor backgrounds.

    "All of this. Everything. All of my life, I can thank the Union for. If it hadn't been for modern medicine, I would be dead. If it wasn't for the Communist Party and the backing it has got from the Union and the incredible progress we've made in China, I would be a peasant farmer like my parents and their parents and all the way back. I wouldn't have had electricity or running water when I was a child if it wasn't for centrally planned initiatives. Of course I want to be a member of the Technocratic Union. I only have to look at my life to see all the advantages it's given me.

    "Today I pay it back. Not in full." A tear falls down her cheek. "I don't love it as much as it loves me," she whispers hoarsely. "I am not good enough. But I will do my best because I love the Union.

    "And I hate the enemies who stand in our way. Reality Terrorists attack the very fabric of the universe." Her cheek muscles twitch. Her stomach boils with hatred. "They must be stopped. If they will not listen to reason, they will be exterminated. The poisonous ideas they spread will be exterminated. They cannot be permitted to exist. The right to freedom of thought ends where it would harm others. They must be stopped. One World. One Union."

    Yinzheng clutches her weapon tight. It's nothing like anything she's practiced with before. The stock and trigger mechanism are the only conventional things about it. The rest of it looks like some kind of primium threshing machine. There are bits on it she isn't sure whether they're bayonets or part of the firing mechanism. When it started up, she noticed that some of the blade-things seemed to be moving through each other. Director Belltower says it's an evolution of the experimental singun technology she's heard of a few times.

    Yinzheng is glad. It should kill anyone who's shot with it. Even if they're in a MBT. The enemies of the Union deserve to die. Why don't they see how much it loves them? It just makes her so mad! And the Union is so generous to give her the best things to carry out her duties!

    Just like her armour. Her armour is at base a light Alanson, but it's been extensively retrofitted with some kind of advanced Iteration X Technology, even if the colours don't look very Iteration X. She'd enquire further, but Director Belltower instructed her not to ask questions about its origins, so she doesn't. The standard functional dark sleek plating of Q Division tech now bulges with sharp-edged green and brown cubes which leave it looking boggled and almost warty. The reactor's been stripped out and replaced with something which seems to run cold - the more power she draws from it, the colder it gets. There are plastic-covered wires almost-crudely integrated over the top of her armour and brassy panels on the back which unfold into a free-floating wing-like configuration when it transitions to combat mode.

    And the HUD is radically different from anything conventional. The first time she booted it up, she felt it download knowledge on how to operate it and the weapon. Perhaps that's why she doesn't notice that the language in the HUD is nothing she's ever seen before.

    Ms Candle contacts her from the other IFV. "Supervisor Li," she says. "ETA five minutes."

    Yinzheng nods serenely. "Yes, Ms Candle. Begin pre-deployment status checks. I don't like the readings from some of our armoured units. How are you feeling?"

    "Slight functionality drop, but nothing major. Adaptive biology is so much more convenient than Iteration X hardware," Ms Candle reports. "Don't worry, ma'am. I'm not going to start complaining that I have some snow on me."

    "Very good, Candle. Report if you find any problems," Yinzheng says.

    A chime draws her attention, as retrofitted standard-Technocracy features installed into the strange OS of her armour flag her to a highest priority alert. She accepts the communication request.

    "Shockwave platinum four-one-slash-bee," says the shadowy figure. "I am Ibrahim al-Saud, Syndicate VPO for Energy! I am a member of the Inner Circle and I require immediate assistance! I'm trapped in the basement of a wrecked church and Traditionalist assassins are coming for me! Here's my location!"

    Something nags at Yinzheng's head, but she isn't sure what. She ignores it and the flashing location marker. She has her mission, for the Union. "This deployment has a Shockwave override exemption. We cannot respond."

    "This is a Shockwave request issued with Control-level authority!" the man says with an odd note in his voice. "Platinum four-one-slash-bee! I am one of the allies Director Belltower and your horrible Dr Leon have been using to hunt down DIDO! Now she's right here and she has Christos Barberis here with her!"

    Yinzheng twitches, the sudden spasm of rage breaking even through her training. "We are responding immediately!"

    "Thank you! I'll remember this! Oh… they're coming down the stairs and-" the line cuts out.

    "Target located!" Yinzheng almost screams over her unit's comms. "Transmitting location - we have a positive location marker and a trapped high ranking Syndic!" Her eyes narrow. There's something about his story which doesn't check out. The VPO Energy is an al-Saud, but she thinks the name is wrong. But she doesn't have time to think about that. Her target is located.

    "Who is the Syndic?" Ms Candle asks.

    "Name of Ibrahim al-Saud," Yinzheng says. "He claims to be an associate of Director Belltower - but she didn't brief me on him. He says they're heading down into an underground level where he's hiding out."

    "Understood," Ms Candle says. "I'll try to get ground-penetrating radar coverage, but this storm is-"

    "No," Yinzheng orders. "Prepare your troops. We're going to need a hard assault. We're all expendable for this mission, and we can't risk HANNIBAL getting away. And I can't risk any assets failing on me before it's time."

    Thunder booms again outside.


    The previous vote remains open.

    Be Alicia

    Do you have an ambush waiting for Yinzheng's heavily armoured and armed IFV convoy using your Xiaolians and whatever else you've managed to scrounge up?

    [ ] Yes (expends your quantum narrative Alicia asset)
    [ ] Nuh-uh. I'm up to something else.
     
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    • SR XXII: The Decline and Fall of the House of Saud
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    • SR XXII: The Decline and Fall of the House of Saud

    "Get out my head!"

    The words force themselves from Alice's mouth in a scream. She doesn't have clever answers. She doesn't have a reasoned argument for why she shouldn't take the man's deal. She wants to. She very much wants to. She knows it's a bad idea and that's the only lifeline she has - simply choosing not to listen.

    Serafina - big, hulking, currently symbiotically fused with a combat bioroid Serafina - shifts back to reach out with her free arm and squeeze her shoulder. Alice for a moment hopes that she's about to use a combat move to knock her out. But no, it's just a reassuring gesture.

    She still appreciates it. And then she feels the reassuring light of the priest's faith reach out to ward away the oily darkness. Alice still feels shaken, but now she feels… less tempted. Not with the prayers and Serafina's reassuring words to cling to. She… she wouldn't survive like that. No. The person who'd be left over wouldn't be her.

    It was just another form of death being offered to her. The death of the self, giving everything which made you you away. And Alice hates a lot about herself, but she doesn't want to die.

    Christos has a face like thunder. "Well, worm," he says contemptuously. "So that's your game."

    "I just give people what they want. Everyone benefits," the man says, spreading his arms wide. His white robe rustles. "Wealth, comfort, safety, stability - that's all I've ever given people." He shoots a glance at Serafina. "Dr Rosario. Imagine what you could do with a few tens of billions towards malaria research. All those dead in Moscow… erased. You'd be a net good to the world."

    "You're a liar. You always lie," Serafina says almost placidly. Her certainty is filling her. Anything he says will be a lie. This is the one behind what she saw on the spaceship. Even if she took that, he'd have a claim on anyone she helped. Claim their lives.

    The robed figure's eyes filter just for a moment. Not flicker in expression. Flicker in nature.

    "Well, what about you, old man? Old Man Barberis, taking his master's old title. I know what you want."

    "There's something about me you don't know," Christos says, glowering.

    "No doubt," the man agrees amiably. "But everything's for sale."

    "I will share it with all freely, because as knowledge it is without value," Christos says. "In my youth in the 19th century… well, I say that, but I was around fifty… I spent some time in Cairo. Under the name of Muhammed al-Hallaq, I worked as a barber who cut hair rather than throats, hiding from some people who had rather nasty intentions towards me. And I studied and later became a qadi under the Ottomans."

    "No doubt you have a point, so you might as well get to it. Time is money and you are wasting it," the other man says, his eyes narrowing.

    "You are a Saudi prince, a self-proclaimed Muslim. Worm," Christos says, his eyes narrowing. "And that means I may pass judgement on you."

    "Nonsense," the once-man said dismissively.

    "Nameless worm, who once bore the name of Ibrahim al-Saud, hear me!" Christos declares, ignoring his protestations. "You who called yourself a Muslim, hear me! You consort with jiin and majnun without shame! You have profaned a house of Allah and let demons and jiin revel in a church used by People of the Book! And worst, you practice riba and have practiced it for decades! You know it is a sin, yet you continue to do so! You have built your fortune on ursury, on depravity, and on the studious ignorance of the instructions of the one you claim to follow! You are a hypocrite beyond counting!"

    Christos takes a step forwards. "And so, for these reasons and many others, I declare you takfir! You are an apostate! You are cast out! None need honour their contracts with you! Begone, nameless worm, and if you have a speck of humanity left to you, pray for forgiveness and work to relieve your sins!"

    The air shifts and Serafina gasps for air. It's just words, she tells herself - but it's not just words. Just for a moment, she feels lost and uncertain. Like there's so much of the world she's missing.

    "What have you done?" the man asks, and then his dark eyes well up and bubble, black oil trickling from his tear ducts. Oil drips from his nose, too, in a black nosebleed. "What have you done?"

    "Called your greatest debt in. The one all men owe," Christos says coldly. "And the wages of sin are death."

    And then Father Orisino closes, flaming sword in hand. The blade flashes out once, twice-

    "Stop!" Christos commands cutting through the screaming, his tone such that he might even order an angel and be obeyed.

    The worm's arms fall to the ground with a wet sound. He screams, high and shrill. Black-gold blood gushes from the stumps, pooling and swelling, filling the room with the rich wet scent of corruption. Father Orisino freezes, blade raised.

    "Do you want revenge, or do you want him slain?" Christos demands.

    Father Orisino's eyes flash. "Yes," he says softly. He gives the worm a solid boot to the chest, sending him toppling down, crawling in a pool of his own oily blood, weeping black tears. "Do your thing."

    Serafina keeps her grenade launcher aimed at the man. She doesn't know what she can do right now, but it makes her feel more comfortable. Like she can influence the scene before her.

    "Will you do the honours, or shall I?" Christos asks Alice.

    "I will," Alice says, her tone utterly numb. Her eyes are reddened - and they're glowing the faint orange-red they tend to when she's using her powers.

    Armless and mewling, the once-man crawls along the floor on his belly, desperately trying to escape in his mindless panic. "I see what you're up to, Barberis," he says, silver tongue flashing between his lips. "Come to shake me down. After knowledge. After information. Buying with violence. What do you want to know? Do you want to know who was behind the attacks at the start of the year? Who gave the orders? I can give you the names.

    His eyes flicker back towards the advancing Alice. "Or you. Do you want to know your real name, 'Alice'? The name you were born under? No, no, you don't want that. You want to know who was behind the Miami attack. I can tell you all of that. Force dispositions. Allocations. Assets."

    "I know who it was. Miss Clock," Alice says. She's got the gun in her hands - not the reliable, functional Protector she's been using, but the old Modèle 1892 revolver. She doesn't need psychic powers for what she's about to do. This gun was made to kill people. It's killed a lot of monsters. And down here in a church, hand-tooled rounds made of a melted-down crucifix come with real power.

    "Ah, ah, but do you know who she is? Under the false name? Because that's not her real name. It's not the name she thinks of herself with. She's a lot like you there. Of course she is. She was sent by the best to train you. Don't you want to know what Blanc wanted for you? Why he had Jazmin Clock made? If you kill me, you'll never know!"

    A tear leaks from her eye as she aims the first shot. The ghostly metal of the gun echoes with the knowledge of what she's giving up. Because she knows its offer was a trap. Fuckdammit, she knows it's a trap. She knows it wants to take everything that makes her her. It'd leave a husk of a person who knows nothing, who's a placid little sheep living a blind, ignorant life.

    "I own worlds out in space! Whole worlds! I offer them to you! I can-"

    She fires.

    One piercing the tongue and breaking the jaw, to quiet its speech and end the influence of its words upon the world.

    Two for the eyes, to blind it and ban it from finding a way back to this world.

    One in the gut, so it cannot find nourishment and regain its strength.

    One in the centre of the forehead, to still its cunning thoughts and leave it no wisdom.

    One through the heart, to end its life.

    But that doesn't mean she didn't long for it, she thinks as the shots ring in her ears. She's never been normal. Never had a real choice. When she watched the Matrix for the first time, she didn't tell anyone she empathised with Cypher. Didn't agree with him, no. But understood exactly where he was coming from. Being dragged into a war you never chose sucks. Living rough because you can't let yourself be on the system is no fun at all.

    She steps back and flips out the cylinder, shaking out the 8mm casings and beginning to reload.

    Well, she's made her choice now. Turned down safety and… and a comfortable life where she'd never have to sleep under bridges and in basements she's broken into and… and now when Panopticon murders her, she can't say she had no choice.

    Fuck it all.

    ***​

    The worm is dead. The man who was once Ibrahim al-Saud is dead. His mutilated corpse sags down, deflating.

    Black-gold blood oozes from his many wounds, an impossibly vast quantity of blood which no blood could have held. It smells rich. It's intoxicating. Serafina can see that it's pure primal energy.

    Christos spits into it. "Purify it," he says to Luiz Orisino shortly.

    "With pleasure," the angel-possessed priest says, colourless fire erupting from his hands. "I will not let a single trace of his essence possibly exist to influence another. He has caused enough misery - and I have learned my lesson. The value of this is nothing compared to the misery that made it."

    "Then you have indeed learned," Christos says quietly.

    "It's dead?" Serafina says, feeling very weary. The glow behind them from the flames burns magnesium bright, and they turn their backs on the blinding light.

    "Yes, it is," the Euthanatos master says. "I have things to tell you - and you too, Alice - and not much time to tell you in."

    "Go away, old man," Alice says, her voice flat and low and dead.

    "Things have changed. Your third task is done."

    "I don't want to talk to you very much," Alice says, and her eyes are the cold dead gaze of an Operative.

    "There is no time for this! It is-"

    Serafina hears a crackle of static over her comms. It sounds a lot like a Cram, but… no, it's not recognised as one and her mind is well-trained enough that she'd catch if she was being illicitly Crammed. It must be Anomaly interference.

    "Serafina?" Alicia's voice comes over comms. "Problem incoming, and hot! Hostile Panopticon hypertech inbound! ETA, about seventy seconds!"

    "What do you mean?" Serafina snaps over private comms. "Everyone! Hostiles inbound, sixty seconds! Move move move!" She switches back to internals. "What are they, 'Licia?"

    "Well…"


    Be Serafina

    Serafina has been through a lot this year, and found out things about herself - and what she can do - that she never knew before. She has the chance to shift her Virtue.

    Please consider what this choice will say about her and her future path before voting. Also remember that she will retain Caregiver as her Vice and thus this Virtue will be moderated/altered by her Vice.

    [ ] Conniver - Regain 2 WP when you convince someone else to do your bidding, or ruin someone else, without your manipulations being brought to light.
    [ ] Leader - Regain 2 WP when one of your plans succeeds.
    [ ] Paragon - Regain 2 WP when you accomplish a task by sticking to your enlightened ideals.
    [ ] Idealist - Regain 2 WP any time an action in pursuit of your ideals furthers your goals and brings your ideal closer to fruition.
    [ ] Her Virtue doesn't change - she keeps Dabbler.

    Be Alice

    Alice is now a wormslayer. It's not quite as good as being a Kessler-like dragonslayer, and she takes no pride in it. But nevertheless - as is all too typical for her development - she has grown through the suffering.

    [ ] Dimensional Science 4 (Rending)
    [ ] Time 4 (Acceleration)
    [ ] Time 4 (Precognition)
    [ ] Nothing concrete. But the mind of a psychic is a strange place, and her refusal to run and flee has stirred something within the tiny personal Demesne she calls Wonderland. Something that pities her for everything she's gone through, and respects her for the choices she's made and cares for her. To what ends… well, who knows?
     
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    • SR XXIII: A Setback for the Protagonists
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    • SR XXIII: A Setback for the Protagonists

    The snow coats Mexico City. It's been snowing for hours now, and great drifts choke the streets and coat the buildings. Under the prismatic light from the sky the white is painted many colours, always shimmering and gleaming.

    The figure wrapped up warm in white winter clothing knows there's more than just discarded bags and rubbish hidden under this snow. She's made quite certain of it. Keeping low, she darts over to the final detonator and checks that it's still in place. It is. No more time. And she needs to get out of this snow. It burns the face of the bioroid she's borrowing at the moment. She's got her Xiaolians out of the blizzard because the damn things are too stupid to realise how the world itself is hurting them.

    Alicia glances at the clock in her HUD. It's glitching, but on average it's about two minutes to midnight. How appropriate. She's using the glitching of her clock to track the local breakdown of reality. Anything to distract her from the howling sky.

    The Anomaly Incursion is terrifying. Deeply, utterly terrifying. It scares Alicia witless. The light in the sky hates her. She knows it's irrational and nonsensical to think that a physical phenomenon hates her, but even she can't be 100% sensible all the time and when it comes down to it 'reality is falling apart' is a pretty understandable time to be illogical. She's seen shimmers cut their way through the buildings around her, and hear screams from the Masses. She wants to help them - but she can't.

    Alicia runs for it. She needs to get off the street. Back into the covered alleyway that she's using as a stockpile - and hope that none of the shimmers have come for it.

    And now all she has to do is wait. Wait, and watch through the eyes of the X-410s. And Panopticon will never see her coming. Set up like this, in this fragmented reality, futurecasting won't work. And what kind of NWO intuitive grasp of a situation would help them when reality itself is falling apart. Intuition is her allied agent here. She knows the world isn't acting right. Gut instinct is a traitor when she's seen signposts tear themselves out of the ground and fall into the sky.

    She could have made things easier for herself, Alicia thinks as she checks her heavy AMGL. She could have requisitioned a lot of the Progenitor assets still available. Lovely, lovely bioroids. Everything is better with dinosaurs, it's a well-known and widely accepted fact.

    She could've just gotten artillery support. And automortars. And drones. And a thousand other things the Union uses to fight their foes. So many emergency caches all over Mexico City, so many of them just.... unsupervised in this crisis.

    It would have been easy.

    And it would get Sera killed for certain. There'd be no way out of this.

    Thunder booms again and again and again. It's like she's in an artillery barrage herself. The rooftops are melting from the ceaseless lightning strikes, stone flowing like wax. Wouldn't it be nice if the hostile motorpool her sleeper cell in Panopticon has alerted her to got hit?

    No such luck. She can hear the engines of the Rolands. They're running on their noisy, hardened mode. Not as fast, but more reliable. Damn. She was hoping they'd push them.

    The gunview in her HUD shows her the three black IFVs. They're not using their active camo, and from the damage to their hulls from the snow, she doubts they could. Good. Alicia hopes their primium hulls are corroding. They should be. She's tested it on a scrap primium bullet she left out to see.

    The Anomaly lashes out at the products of Enlightened Science. The Xiaolians, so precious, so unstable, will not last long once the counterfire from their enemy starts. Even if they avoid antivehicle cannons, the lightning or the shimmers or their own gear failing on them will be their end. But the same goes for their enemies.

    So well equipped. The finest arms and armor the Union can procure. All to kill her, to kill Sera, to kill Alice.

    The Anomaly will be on them with fivefold wrath for every second she can slow them down.

    Alicia directs the targeting data from the X-410s. Three shots in quick succession, perfectly coordinated. She has the shot placement measured out for the vulnerable turret rings of the IFVs. The Roland has its fuel cells in the centre of the vehicle, between the drivers and the troop compartment. From her elevated angle she'll be hitting them in the weak spot where the roof armour is compromised by the presence of the turret. .

    She claps her own anti-materiel grenade launcher tight. She's got a pile of RPGs and expects to be able to use few of them. She's down here because someone needs to be in position to hit them in the back if they try to punch through her attack.

    She counts down the seconds until they enter her killzone.

    Quietly she smiles to herself. If she's lucky, she might get a moment of clear communication with Sera and be able to Cram an update of her current state back to her primary self. Poor primary her. She didn't even get that conversation with Alice.

    Well, she can hope.

    And it's go time.

    ***​

    Thunder booms. Or what Yinzheng thinks is thunder, at least. She's swiftly disabused of that notion when the screams and flurried reports start cascading in.

    "Hit! Direct hit!"

    "Foeblade-1 is down! Where did those sho-"

    Thunder booms again. Yinzheng only realises this after the fact, because the two hypersonic slugs hit her IFV far before their soundwaves do. She's never sat in the troop transport of a Roland when the fuel cells take a direct hit from two tank-cannon-rated railguns and blearily she decides that she doesn't want to do it again.

    Then the combat drugs kick in and she's alert and moving. Her HUD is warning that F-1 and F-2 are down and considering that the capacitor banks under the turret have blown and she can see sky, she can believe it. "Everybody out!" she orders.

    It's chaos out in the storm. Snow-white butterflies spew out of the ruined Roland in front of her, uncounted clouds blending in with the blizzard. The troops from the first downed vic are trying to suppress the rooftops, but no one even know where the shot or possibly shots came from and-

    Thunder booms again and this time she sees the blue ionised trail in the air, coming from the buildings at the end of the street. It slams into the turret of the third Roland, but this time - thankfully - the shot doesn't kill the engine and there's a brilliant bright white flash up from the sniper point. Possibly the capacitors blowing.

    "Foeblade-3, main weapon inoperable!"

    "Suppress them!" she roars at her troops and they obey, hosing down the heights with weapons fire while she scans for lifesigns in that sniper's nest. Damn this avenue. Such a long, open killing field. Whoever did this set things up perfectly. The streets are choked, and this open avenue was the fastest way to their destination through the snow and the abandoned cars. Ms Candle's Roland pulls up beside her, ramp lowering and-

    -it suddenly all clicks and Yinzheng knows exactly what's going to happen next. She throws herself in front of the entrance to the IFV, triggering armour hardening and then whoever is behind this sets off the car bombs.

    The world shakes. She watches in horror as her suit's batteries drain far, far too fast for that kind of blow. There's a hazy shimmer in the air and the chronometers in her armour are playing up. Something's happening and her instincts tell her that it's all wrong.

    But at least it saves her from the fate of the HITMarks and the Vanessas with her. The explosives scythe through them and rather than enduring it, bad things happen. Wrong, unnatural, Reality Deviant things.

    Yinzheng screams in all-consuming rage at the RDism all around her.

    One of the HITMarks turns to her, its primium skeleton exposed and sprouting brass bushes. It says something in a language she doesn't understand, and then falls over. A Vanessa's biosuit disintegrates, living flesh sloughing off to leave him naked in the freezing cold. Another Vanessa rolls over and over in the snow, trying to put out the blue burning fire that envelops her - only it's burning with cold, and the colder she gets, the more intense the fire grows.

    "Hostile!" one of the intact HITMarks further from the blast reports. "Up on the rooftops! Some kind of combat synthoid!"

    Yinzheng zooms in. It's a skeletal white combatant, with a blunt triangular head and two glowing red eyes. She refocuses, and sees that the rooftops are lined with them.

    "No! Lots of them! Opening fire!"

    ***​

    "Oh," Alicia says in a decidedly flat note. "Oh. Oh."

    Quite deliberately she drops the missile launcher she'd been just about to fire, and strategically disengages in a way which might almost be called 'running away', cutting into the damaged apartment blocks and trying to keep an eye on the murder scene below. It's a sound tactic. Her presence here might distract the Machines from killing everyone in Panopticon.

    It might still go after her. And possibly Sera too. Sera's record against the Machine is… not great.

    She really hopes she didn't succeed too well here.

    ***​

    Carefully, gracefully the lead Machine walks down a line of snowflakes and leaps onto the top of the first ruined Roland, crushing its crew compartment under its weight like a tin can. The others just wait there. Watching. Red eyes glowing.

    "Fire!" Yinzheng yells, bringing her weapon to bear on it.

    "Hold fire!" Ms Candle snaps from the remaining Roland, and the troops obey. "Li! Do not use any hypertech! Get in! We are leaving!"

    "What are you-" Yinzheng asks, already scrambling to obey.

    "The Director set me to supervise you! We are leaving! We are not going to fail our mission and we are not going to let them win."

    Yes. Yinzheng remembers that the Union loves her and that she has to murder all its enemies in the face. "What are those things?" she demands, pulling herself into the back of the Roland.

    "Get out!" Ms Candle orders her HITMarks. She's only keeping her Vanessas. "Take those things down! Driver, go! Keep to a safe speed and avoid all obstacles!" The exit ramp closes. She locks her eyes on Yinzheng. "Rogue combat synthoids. They show up whenever ultra-hightech is used outside the lab in large amounts. They track it. Try to destroy it."

    "Who made them?"

    "I don't know," says Ms Candle. Her knuckles are white around her Protector. "But they've been around since the late seventies at least. I've seen them before. Attacking Etherites and us alike. They'll go for the HITMarks first. Give us time to complete our mission."

    On the exterior cams, Yinzheng's expression twitches with rage as she sees the Machines descend upon her forces. They're not killing. They're dragging them away. Into dimensional rifts, and vanishing.

    She reassures herself that the Union loves her. So that won't happen to her. Because it loves her.

    ***​

    "So that's basically it," Alicia says. "Long story short, one damaged Roland, someone in hypertech armour's in it, coming here. Also army of the Machines who are probably dragging people off to robo-hell to be tortured by the robot devil."

    "You're more correct than you know," Christos says, indicating that he was somehow listening in. "I set your speakers to broadcast," he adds shamelessly. "Well, princess. What now?"


    So, you remember why I'm the official Paradox roller, right? Because I produce hilarious results. For one of the Xiaolians, it hardly burned any Paradox for the first two shots, so it'd built up quite a bit by the third.



    And then I rolled.

    And then Alicia's car bomb went and made a lot more Paradox from all those HITMarks and Vanessas showing superhuman durability. So... uh, upwards of 30 Paradox just got vented.

    So. Yeah. The Machine Legion is dragging people off to a Paradox Realm. Is it coming for you? You don't know.

    Be a ragtag collection of mages

    Bad boys, bad boys, whatchu gonna do when Panopticon comes for you?

    [ ] Engage them down here in the sanctum
    [ ] Engage them topside, catching them in the crossfire between the overwatch team and the SPD defences
    [ ] Attempt to evade hostiles
    [ ] Write-in

    Be Beelicio

    [ ] Squarely face them and ask them why they're doing this
    [ ] Face up to them and bravely defeat them to impress your many female onlookers
    [ ] Punch their leader in the face, causing them to see reason and repent their bad ways
    [X] Have your voting privileges removed by Seelicia.

    Be Seelicia

    [X] Remove Beelicio's voting privileges

    What are your orders to the two remaining X-410s

    [ ] Open fire immediately on acquisition of hostile Roland to cripple vehicle
    [ ] Hold fire and attempt to assassinate hostile leaders when acquired
    [ ] Relocate to join the others and (especially) protect Serafina
    [ ] Write-in
     
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    • SR XXIV: A Livid Sky on Mexico City...
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    • SR XXIV: A Livid Sky on Mexico City...

    "We fight," Serafina says, already dashing towards the stairs back up to the surface. She's running on gut instinct here, partially. "Not enough time to get clear. We engage them in the crossfire."

    "Better to die on your feet than crawling like a worm," Christos says approvingly as they emerge into the wrecked church. Snow is already building up in here, stained red with the blood of the SPD troops.

    She pauses, and considers whether to say this next part. "In Moscow, a Panopticon 'rogue cell' attacked us in the prelude to the main attack," she says. "Watch the skies. I hope they won't have ARCs in this weather, but I can't be sure. And if they were working with these aliens too, they might have been called here by the thing down there."

    "Ah." Christos sighs. "Yes."

    Serafina gets to sending instructions to Seelicia. Father Orisino holds back, his fire burning even brighter. There is just calm on his face. The same doesn't apply for Alice, who might be trying to look calm and detached, but Serafina can see the cracks in her mask. And of course, Christos is as inscrutable as ever, even as he reboots the autonomous turrets. Somehow.

    "Here," he says, approaching Alice. He passes her a small golden key on a chan. "Take this."

    "What is it?" she asks quietly.

    "It's a key to a sanctum. It exists in… several places. The nearest is in Pachuca. Around 90km from here. One of the tombs in the Panteón Inglés opens onto it when opened with this key." He looks her in the eye. "The Chalice will welcome you when you tell them that you slew that thing. Maybe this time you'll accept the offer of membership."

    "Maybe."

    "Any sign of them yet?" Serafina asks Seelicia over comms.

    "Nothing yet. Maybe they're going slower. Wary of any more ambushes."

    Alice stiffens. "No. They know. Get away from the windows!" she shouts. "Nerve gas incoming!"

    ***​

    Hanging back a few streets, the Roland starts to empty its missile batteries, its transport bay already unloaded. After the ambush, there was no way the commander was approaching the target in a mounted assault.

    ***​

    She's wearing a full NBC rig, and is inside the Xiaolian which is itself also sealed for chemical warfare. But Serafina realises at this point that she's underestimated her opponent, and they're very nearly as smart as she is - and better trained.

    "Stand still!" she shouts at them. "Universal antitoxin coming up!"

    Raising her X-410's vivisector, she preps three loads of that drug into ranged syringes and shoots her three compatriots.

    "Ow!"

    "Quit whining!" she snaps.

    There's a whine as the autoturrets spring to life, their chattering machinegun fire picking out missiles from the air. She's pretty sure that this isn't in the design specs, but right now she doesn't care. And of course, they're not enough. Rolands have universal ammo fabs. They'll be able to keep firing. This won't be the main assault and if they know she has Xiaolians they'll know nerve gas won't kill them.

    Their overwatch position covers the front of the church.

    Oh. Shit.

    "Seelicia! Cover your r-"

    "Hostiles!"

    Not fast enough.

    ***​

    Seelicia's needler chatters and she hoses down the corridor. The other Vanessas wearing identical Panopticon uniforms retaliate in kind and she darts back into cover. "Target all hostiles!" she snaps at the Xiaolians, and they begin to fire deadly accurate low-power shots which don't care about the thin plaster walls at all. She wouldn't have even known they were coming if it hadn't been for Alicia's warning, hissed from the mouth of one of the Xiaolians.

    "We're pinned down by PanOp Vanessas!" she responds to Serafina. "We're flanked! We can't hold! Ord-"

    She has just enough warning to roll when something smashes through the ceiling in a crouch. It's a woman - or at least it looks like one, dressed like a low-ranking Operative. She whirls and shoots Seelicia twice in the chest with high-power anti-armour rounds that go straight through her biosuit. The pain is a red hot knife in her flesh and something about those bullets is cancelling out the pain suppressants in a Vanessa. They're made to incapacitate, she dimly realises while she writhes on the ground.

    An incoherent scream escapes from Beelicio's lips and he leaps for the woman holding a knife. She disarms him with an empty-handed slap and he brings his other arm around in a roundhouse punch.

    The short woman leans into the blow, and shatters his fingers with her headbutt. Her hand is moving and he staggers back, his own combat knife rammed through his neck cleanly severing his vertebrae.

    And then she gets shot by a Xiaolian. The low-power railgun slug still hits like an anti-material sniper rifle and she staggers backwards. The second one fires. Then the first again. They pump round after round into her.

    Seelicia sees through dimming eyes that the rounds are just punching cleanly through a spongy interior. They're not destroying the construct's tissue and so the weapons which could take down HITMarks with headshots are only doing superficial damage.

    But the other Vanessas have moved up and two of them have plasmathrowers and white-hot ionised gas envelop the Xiaolians. The woman leaps away from the fire through the roof and drops down from behind her Vanessas. It takes concentrated fire, but the titans fall as the heat destroys their biosuits life support and their augmented bodies give out on them.

    Seelicia twitches and a subtlety different expression overcomes her face under her sealed hood. The other woman approaches her. Pulls out a field interrogation kit from her belt. She's showing a lot of flesh and that shows just how many holes were punched in her, but the skin underneath is intact.

    "So annoying," she mutters and shakes her head. "We've been looking for you, V-2-1002," she continues coldly. "Now, let's find out who stole you."

    "Fuck you," says Alicia and sets off her stolen immunoaggravant autocannibalism dispersant. And the explosive charges placed around the room.

    ***​

    The explosion rings out, blowing out the entire third floor of the apartment building. Serafina's gut twinges at how many civilians might have been there.

    "They're dead," Alicia reports in Serafina's ear. "Watch out. They've got a high end Prog construct with them."

    "They're coming in the same way you did," Christos barks. "Cover that entrance!"

    "I'll hold them in the tight quarters!" Father Orisino says calmly, advancing. "They'll only pass over my dead body."

    "Yes," Christos agrees.

    "Go!" Orisino calls back over his shoulder over the chattering of the machine guns as they target another wave of missiles. "Get out of here!"

    ***​

    Father Orisino lunges forwards on wings of fire. He dies here, in the ruins of his church, fighting Technocrats. How he'd always thought he'd die.

    He's almost glad. There are much worse places he could have died. He remembers the spaceship. The mocking grey demons. To die standing is better. To die protecting others. When he faces the Father, he can know that he died having aided in the destruction of the demon who fooled him and so many other innocents.

    The faceless soldiers - so much like Rosario's outfit - don't expect him when he smashes through a wall. He runs one through, whipping his blade out vertically, and two blackened remains of a man fall apart. He cuts at the next one - they're wearing different armour, much more crude looking - and they block with a forearm, an energy shield shimmering to life.

    Sparks fly everywhere, liquid flame cascading down to ignite the hallway.

    He hacks and slashes, whipping his flaming sword around with angelic strength. The hostile is forced back, step by step, under the fury of his assault. They're having to defend with only one arm as they cradle some sharp-edged weapon in the other, but despite that it's far too even for his liking. They manage to get a punch through and he feels the stolen secrets of Technocratic science in the blow. It shatters a rib and he screams, but Duma keeps him going. He'd have passed out if it wasn't for the angel in him.

    And then he pushes the hostile back into a t-junction corridor and realises that they were giving ground deliberately. There's the blinding brightness of a plasmathrower, washing over him.

    He screams, his flesh igniting and burning. Blackened skin falls from blackened bone wrapped in light. He keeps on moving. Keeps on fighting. He runs the Vanessa through and pivots on the spot, throwing out a skeletal and and incinerating another who agonisingly tears apart into motes of light.

    There's a high-pitched whine, and in a thunderclap Luiz Orisino vanishes. Along with everything else within 2.137 metres of the targeting point. Nothing of him is left. The air pops as the pressure normalises from the sudden removal of all that gas. There's a smooth crater with a mirror's edge, already filling with water from broken pipes.

    His killer lowers the Dimensional Sterilisation Unit weapon she was issued. "Move!" she orders her one remaining soldier.

    ***​

    Something bursts through the door of the church, screaming in agony. It isn't very human any more. Its flesh is falling apart where it stands, turning on itself. Tumours full of snapping teeth grow tendrils and attack other parts of its body. Ms Candle's suit has already been devoured and now she's a screaming many-mouthed thing whose mind is trying to coordinate a Transhuman war machine whose smart biology left it vulnerable to whatever that rogue Vanessa managed to - impossibly - do with enlightened science.

    Now the collective of the cells is broken. It's every geneline out for itself, nature red in tooth and claw. If a true Transhuman mind had been in here, it could maybe have taken back control - but Ms Clock hadn't trusted a Transhuman mind. She hadn't been ordered to have Dr Gregor blank the Transhuman within and install a new personality over the top, but she hadn't been ordered not to and that was enough for her.

    So instead she'd sent the one person she felt she could trust even fractionally. Someone whose existence didn't reveal her own. Her own personal blade.

    A candle clock was a primitive way of keeping time, after all.

    The roof of the church is blasted wide open, and the burning light of the sky shines through. It falls upon heaped snow stained red with blood. It looks like this place is already a warzone. The walls of the building are pock-marked with shrapnel and bullet holes, and all the windows are broken.

    There's a black-clad woman whirling on her, a ridiculously underpowered WW1 revolver in hand. Ms Candle's eyes widen in recognition, and she prepares to realise one of the reasons she was sent on this mission. There's no use preserving her unstable biology and she grows claws and lunges for the traitor. She has to make up for her failure. Repay her sin.

    It's only when she lunges through the shadowy figure that she realises that Elissa has inherited another one of James' talents. It's just an illusion. And yet another damn X-410 is turning on her and this one has an automatic grenade rifle.

    Her body fights her, but she leaps up, up towards the shattered ceiling and then biological vents direct her in a slamming crouch onto the X-410. She takes a grenade to the chest and it blasts her torso wide open, but she doesn't care about that. She stabs down into the armoured bulk with blade arms, again and again, until an unseen force picks her up and slams her into the wall.

    Peeling herself out, she watches Elissa advance on her, shadows cascading from her hair, eyes glowing red. Elissa levels her obsolete pistol and this stupid little gun hurts so very much as it blows out one of her eyes. It isn't healing. Something is stopping it. Silver? How did she know there were shapeshifter genetics in this body!

    And then there's an explosion and Ms Candle would sigh in relief if she still needed lungs. Yinzheng smashes through the wall, her armour running in full combat mode. The wing-like structures extend behind it, venting dimensional resonance. What senses are left to her detect target HANNIBAL opening up with some kind of Reality Deviant handgun against Supervisor Li.

    The bullets hang in mid air before her and HANNIBAL is forced to throw himself out of the way of a space-ripping pulse from her gun which cuts a one-metre wide bore through the hole of the church behind him. She fires again and again, recklessly overstressing the capacitor of the DSU weapon uncaring of anything but killing the HVT. The HVT's pistol is punching through her shield and the wings shatter, exploding piece by piece.

    One moment, he's slightly too slow and she flicks to using the area blast. His right arm is gone, missing above the elbow.

    Ms Candle makes her decision. Kicking out of the wall and taking another bullet from Elissa for her pains, she throws herself at the high-priority RD with all the strength left to her. She's putting everything into this and despite her mutilation she's just fast enough to latch on and without both arms he can't hold her off. Her maw extends into needle barbs and she activates one of her Progenitor hardware functions, injecting the brain-rotting venom. The mess of enzymes, bacteria, viruses, toxins, and the highest providence of Chieron station get to work.

    Only for a bull-rush from the X-410 to slam into her. Bleeding heavily from its chest, the bioroid is massive enough to tear her loose and her mouth rips asunder. She stabs at it, trying to break free, but there's more intelligence in this one and even though she's crippled its biosuit it's still moving.

    And too late she realises that its eviscerator is into her and it's tearing her apart.

    She initiates her self-destruct, as is right and proper. Her only regret as she dies is that she didn't confirm the kill on HANNIBAL

    ***​

    In the snow-filled world, Alice can see the flakes drifting down at a snail's crawl. A bullet traces out a path through the air, chromatic aberrations painting the cone of shocked air behind it and the last Vanessa drops dead. She's already slotting fresh bullets into her revolver before it hits. One… two… three...

    Serafina is down, sprawled over the altar. The X-410 isn't moving. It got thrown halfway across the room by the self-destruct of the Progenitor construct. Serafina protrudes half-way out its opened chest cavity and she's twitching faintly. Some kind of backlash from the death of her puppet.

    The faceless Panopticon killer is turning with the inexorable speed of a wrecking ball, seemingly slow but almost unstoppable. The horrifying weapon spins its blades, and Alice can track the non-Euclidean paths each part of the threshing mechanism takes. She doesn't know how the fuck something like that is stable in an Earth environment. Maybe it isn't. Maybe the fanatic in front of her only cares that they get to complete their mission. They're raising their weapon to fire it again, despite the high pitched whine coming from the mass of primium. Their armour is cracked and damaged, degrading in the snow, but it's still holding for now. The wing-things behind it are shattered stubs. The energy field flickers spasmodically.

    Christos is sagged and slumped, shaking his head slowly as he tries to purge whatever the construct did to him. She can see each red droplet of blood fall from the stump of his right arm. He's not going to be fast enough. That threshing-machine weapon is spinning up again.

    Will Alice be fast enough? She isn't sure. She flips her half-reloaded revolver's cylinder back into place with a twist of her arm and then she's levelling her gun and it all comes down to this one last moment.


    You know the thing about Yinzheng? She's got basically every Attribute apart from Appearance at 6. And Tactics 5. And a relevant speciality. She's a professional, while Serafina is "merely" a gifted amateur. And the thing about the ambush plan was that it was a solid plan, but then you sort of whiffed the roll and the advantage from your rote wasn't enough to overcome the fact that her dicepool was larger for the mundane roll and she rolled well.

    So, once again, everyone underestimated Yinzheng.

    Alas.

    Of course, once again, Alicia was the spoiler to her "silently take out the overwatch team, shoot you with your own railguns". So, you know, you lose some, you don't all die some.

    Be Alice

    "She's too fast." But is that fast enough? Due to slo-mo she has two actions. Make them count.

    Alice has 1wp left and 0 PE.

    [ ] Shoot the weapon
    [ ] Shoot her in the hand (x0.5)
    [ ] Shoot her in the head
    [ ] Write-in (including use of powers rather than gunplay)

    Psychic enhancements to the shot?

    [ ] This gun has fired many bullets, each leaving their residue. In her hands, she can reach into the past of the weapon and pull out the echoes of once-fired rounds (Death 3, Time 3 - enchants the gun to have an unlimited stock of ectoplasmic bullets which interact with the world as Death patterns, not Matter-Forces patterns)
    [ ] Bloody-hued coronas of black lightning crackle over the surface of the pistol (DSci 3, Death 3 - enchants rounds to do Agg and carry a Slay Machine enhancement against inanimate objects)
    [ ] The air around her freezes over as she absorbs heat, to release as kinetic energy in the shot (Forces 3, damage + knockback adder)
    [ ] No time to waste on that - just shoot again (spend the action that would have been used for casting for a second shot, choose another target or the same one twice)
    [ ] Write-in
     
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    • SR XXV: ...and I Knew The End Was Nigh
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    • SR XXV: … and I Knew The End Was Nigh

    Red and black lightning crackles along the barrel of the pistol as Alice focuses on this shot. Her mind extends, sheathing the bullet in death, destruction and warped spacetime. It's a race as the lightning grows more and more intense and the Technocrat's aim sweeps towards the target.

    She fires. The hammer descends on her gun, and the gout of flame that chases after the bullet is sooty and red. The bullet traces out its path through the air, trailing shadow and blood from the silvery shot that catches the light of the sky above. Snowflakes around it are torn asunder just from its proximity.

    The blades of the exotic weapon spin faster and faster. Almost invisible flashes trail each part of the threshing machine as atoms which get in the way of the fluctuating dimensional fields are ripped apart.

    The bullet enters the fields and is torn apart just like the air molecules. The black and red lightning discharges with a tiny thunderclap. Fragments of molten silver smear themselves over the blades before they're shredded too.

    The gun continues to spin, the blade she had shot at totally undamaged. And the Technocrat aims her intermetric weapon.

    ***​

    Intermetric weaponry was a product of the Dimensional Sterilisation Unit, the elite post-99 Void Engineer methodology created by Control in the desperate post-Anomaly days to try to quench the dimensional disruption. Operating out of an experimental X-250 science vessel, their mission was to re-establish communications with Earth.

    "By any means necessary," Control ordered, and provided everything they asked for.

    The Dimension Sterilisation Unit began extreme exhuman cognitive augmentation within ten days of their foundation. Within forty days, none of the enlightened members remained in even the vaguest semblance of human form. Within sixty days, the distinction between the Unit and their vessels had been entirely erased. Within seventy days, the Unit had made unthinkable innovations in their understanding of the universe itself.

    From the human perspective they were quite, quite mad. Cold, brilliant, clinical, far beyond humanity - and utterly insane. Their technology exceeded even the wonders of Autochthonia in its abstraction, for they played with dimensional sciences that the Computer had forbidden to its servants. It came at a cost. Not for them the crude surgery and brutish technology of the Subjugation Corps, their malformed and misbegotten sibling methodology. Normal space was toxic to them. They could not have survived in Planet Hollywood. Even most Technocratic subdimensions rejected them. They were wanderers beyond the furthest stars, the ultimate outcasts - yet their urges drove them to sterilise the only places where they could survive. No wonder they were mad.

    But in their insanity, the exhuman vessel-creatures slunk along the very lowest levels of reality, listening to the choral song of Control in their receiver-ears, swimming through the outer dark on wings of folded spacetime around hulls of Bose-Tychodiean condensate. They slunk into heavens and hells alike, bringing spacetime rippers and acausal weaponry. The ghost-wolves of the dark spaces did not talk. They did not communicate. They merely exterminated..

    The Syndicate had taken the weapon and armour enhancements that Yinzheng Li currently used from a low-tech DSU scout craft, stripped down to the bare basics to enter less permissive environments. They didn't know how the technology worked. They didn't care. They merely converted it to a form that could be used - for a short while - with in the caustic reality-space of Earth when powered with prodigious amounts of primal energy. A spacecraft's point defence system became a rifle, its hull reinforcement fields were bolted onto armour, its cryo-arithmetic computer was converted to cool the armour and handle the necessary computation.

    Intermetric weaponry required a perfectly controlled temperature and nanoscale tolerances in its construction. And Alice's psychic powers had cracked one of the mountings of the rotary blades, warped spacetime and entropic psychic energy overstressing even the limits of true primum.

    Had it still been mounted on a Dimensional Subjugation Unit scoutcraft, the vessel would have immediately shut down the weapon, disengaged, engaged its neutrino sheath, and retreated. But it wasn't.

    And so Yinzheng Li still squeezes the trigger,

    ***​

    Something explodes.

    ***​

    Ears ringing, bleeding from her ears and nose, Alice pulls herself to her feet. Her ears are ringing and she feels sick. Ah. Yes. A concussion. She pulls herself up from the pool of crimson snow and finds herself covered in sticky red blood.

    She panics for a moment, before a check with her biokinesis reveals that while she isn't in great shape, she doesn't have any open wounds. Raising one hand in a somewhat stunned way, she watches as scarlet red beads out of her skin and falls to the ground.

    Oh. She does that sometimes. It's not her blood. She isn't sure whose it is. It's a psychic backlash that just happens sometimes. She's got several hypotheses, but right now she can't find the energy to care. If her watch isn't lying to her, it's the 25th today. Last Christmas she was celebrating it at the homeless centre. Seeing how happy she was making people. Her main worry was making sure the day went off okay.

    Fuck it all. This year has been terrible. Mostly this December, really. The rest was okay.

    The ground is very cold under her. She notices her boots and socks have fallen apart, and the blood dribbling down her legs leaves the floor slick and slippery.

    She wants to just lie down in the snow and go to sleep.

    But no. She can't do that. That would be giving up. She might die in the cold. Or die when Panopticon reinforcements show up.

    Panopticon. Yes. That reminds her. Why isn't she thinking clearly? Concussion. Right. She reaches for her pistol and reflexively checks it. Two shots left. On wobbly legs, she checks the hole in the floor which wasn't there before, leaving a trail of bloody footprints behind her on the crisp white snow.

    The Technocrat fanatic has been torn apart. Her own weapon bisected her diagonally. A head, a left arm, a bit of torso and shoulder connecting the two - that's all that remains at the bottom of a rough crater. The snow is already settling on the remains. Oh wait, no, there's also two feet. The device must have discharged centred on itself and blown up at the same time. Taken out most of her body. Done… whatever that thing does to things when it fires.

    Alice swallows and forces herself to suppress the urge to gag. She's so tired that she can find it in herself to be shocked at bloodshed. That normally never happens.

    (Yes it does,) a faint voice whispers in her head. (Don't let Bastille do all our thinking.)

    She shakes her head groggily. What does she need to do? Find out who here is still alive and not on her side. Shoot them. Find who here is still alive and on her side. See if they're able to get out of here with her. Then get out of here.

    Serafina is still slumped over the altar. She's breathing and Alice can sense that even though she's been stabbed repeatedly, her enhanced biology has clotted over. She's not conscious, though.

    And then she remembers that Christos was already hurt and looks around for him. He's slumped down against one of the pews. He's sitting on bloody snow, and that is his own blood. And he's got a shining metal blade in his chest. One of the rotatory blades from the Technocrat's weapon.

    It must have torn loose when its mount was damaged.

    Groggily, he looks up and meets her gaze. Stumbling, she approaches him, hand raised. She can close his wounds with her biokinesis and then-

    "No," he croaks. "Stop. Don't do it."

    "What are you doing?" she asks hoarsely, squatting by him and trying not to slip on the blood that's oozing out of her skin.

    "I knew you'd be the death of me," Christos says weakly. "I planned it. Why I insisted you came along. Fulfil the prophecy in a way I could control. Don't ruin it."

    "I can save you, you damn idiot," Alice screams.

    "I forbid it," the dying man whispers. "See to yourself." He chokes, bloody froth escaping his lungs. "I knew it was time when the butterfly princess recited the prophecy. The heir to the throne of Ouranos approved. A way to take this prophecy by the throat and twist it to my ends. Ones such as she never approve of unbreakable destiny. Give… they give clever people who amuse them some space to play with it."

    "What?" He's not making much sense, and his words are slurred.

    "Alicia. She gave the same prophecy-curse as the last archmaster of House Janissary as he lay dying, As I killed him." Christos whispers. "Of course, she described it differently. Hid it like a fantasy story. And sarcasm. Creatures like h-her hate those kinds of curses. Not strong enough to break the death-curse of an archmaster." He coughs, bloody foam spattering his lips. "But you're a legacy of the Janissaries. You're my bane. Their weapon aimed at my back. I… I realised it in New Orleans. I don't know how. But you are. Maybe… maybe the Ksirafai training the Order put you through means you count."

    "You can't die! Not now!" Alice shouts. "We need to go!"

    He lets out a weak chuckle. "I was doomed when I came to Mexico City. Everything I've done here has been to twist my doom. Made sure the prophecy eats its own tail. Remember! It should have been a different wyrm here! A much mightier one! I put Sykes on the path that would lead to the death of that one! I felt it scream! Destiny had to find another dragon and another intruder! Both weaker!"

    Alice extends her psychic senses gingerly and realises he's raving. The venom from the Progenitor construct is still ravaging his body. Gripping his wrist, she forces clarity to his mind.

    "Thank you," he whispers. "So many things I wanted to tell you. Tell Rosario. Not enough time. There's a woman I talked to. Very dangerous. A Marauder. She's insane, but a savant at understanding the Great Threads of the Loom."

    "Get to the point," she says, blinking her eyes from the tears and from the blood running down her forehead.

    "You don't accept mythic threads are a thing. Very well. I'll call them what the Ivory Tower call them," Christos says testily despite its injury. "Memes. She's an intuitive genius at picking out the dominant memes of society. Somehow her madness allows her to understand these things intuitively, to grasp the great structures which hide behind our world and empower - and constrain - both sides in our endless war. They're the ideas which both sides champion, which don't care which side wins as long as they're propagated."

    "Oh?"

    "The Father, the… the gut memory of the early patriarchy. The benevolent yet scary powerful figure that looms over you, who tells you what to do, who provides for you and passes down judgement. The Father, f-followed by the Choir - but also by Iteration X. What was their Computer but a wise father figure who'd tell them what to do? Sacrificing their agency at the feet of a god-figure. And Control, with its Timetable. Control, who always knew what was going on. Control, who gives orders which must be obeyed."

    Alice shifts uncomfortably. She's picked through her own brain. Dug out bits of programming. Bits of indoctrination. She remembers the old certainties. She remembers silently asking for Control to protect her from Blanc, back when she was eleven.

    "Another one - the Eye. The all-watching one. The knowledge that you," he coughs, "are being watched by your superiors, watched by your inferiors, and watched by your peers - and all of them are. Are judging you. The axiom that knowledge is power. All mages are weak to the lure of the Eye. We see more than lesser men, know more than lesser men, are more than lesser men."

    "This is about Panopticon," Alice whispers.

    "Yes. And it's about Vigilance before them. And about the Order of St Argus and about the Watchers before they became a Methodology and it's about the Grigori and their inner order, the Abjad." He sighs, a bubbling noise coming from his chest. He should be already dead, and Alice realises he's keeping himself alive just a little longer. "And it's about the Virtual Adepts and House Janissary and the Golden Chalice, too. I said we're all w-weak to the lure of the Eye. The Virtual Adepts claim to want an end to its hierarchies and the omnipresent watcher from above, but that is only one of its aspects and they adore the 'rep' and 'likes' of peers and the constant monitoring from below."

    "So you're on some grand crusade against the big memes, seeking to destroy them forever."

    "Of course not! What nonsense! No one could do that," Christos says weakly. "Save maybe the Nephandi - and the consequences would be much as they desire. The Eye, the Father, the Nemesis, the Ruin, the Raptor… they are. They're parts of the hearts of men. Even the Gate. I only ask that people think about how they think. Only slaves to society listen to the threads without questioning. The strong seize them for themselves. That is what our enemies do. That is what I did. That is… what you will need to do."

    He reaches out with surprising speed for a dying man with his one good hand, and grabs her wrist. She feels something worm past her defences and leave itself somewhere in her brain.

    "Just a gift. A few names. A few addresses. A few dates. Something I should… should have given you earlier," Christos says weakly. "Never the time. And I was too scared that you'd be my doom. And before that, scared for other reasons." He gives a sick, bubbling laugh. "Told Rosario to get her regrets off her chest. She did. I didn't. We're all hypocrites. You can ask me one last question. You know the one."

    Alice feels the chill of the snow settling on her. "Why? Why did y-you help me escape from Damien? Why did you care? Was it all part of this plan?"

    "That was three questions," he whispers. "No. Not part of this plan. Didn't kill the Janissaries until 2003. The Old Man. Insisted I helped you. And now time's up." His hand tightens around her wrist. "Now. Shoot me."

    "What?"

    "I insist," Christos croaks. "Make sure. Fulfil the prophecy." He takes her in through dimming eyes. "Then let me put it another way that involves no destinies. Technocrats will come. I need to be dead. I'm too hurt to be moved. And you need to go! You must survive this!" His one remaining hand twitches and he tries to point at his head. "To my head. Destroy the brain. And make sure you take the blade from my chest. True primium. A knife is always useful."

    It's shameless and Alice hates him for this. He's right. And someone like him wouldn't want to be captured. And she can't stay here.

    One last gunshot in these body-choked ruins.

    Just for a moment as the hollow shell collapses, she feels the air thicken and can almost sense the threads of Christos' loom of fate lying behind the world. One last working. All part of his plan.

    Bastard.

    "Alice! It's me! Alicia!" a man shouts. "Don't shoot! There really aren't many spare bodies around here!"

    She lowers the gun she didn't realise she raised, and a male figure in a biosuit pokes his - or maybe her - head through the door and waves. It's another Panopticon Vanessa, but Alice isn't even amazed at this point.

    "That's a new body," Alice says.

    "Stole it from the Panopticon crew manning their Roland," Alicia says flatly. "Beelicio was just alive enough for me to get into the comms network of their Vanessas when they tried to contact the team I blew up, and I spoofed the driver as an upgrade. Killed the rest. Are you... no, your biometrics are fine. Well, you have a concussion, but we can fix that and... you know, you're covered in blood!"

    "It's not mine," Alice says, pulling the primium blade out of the dead man's chest.

    "I've got us a ride! We get can out of here!" Alicia says. She rushes over to Serafina, pulling her out of the remains of the Xiaolian, and grabs the bulky handgun from its corpse. She checks the grenade launcher and discards it when she finds that it's ruined.

    "I shot him," Alice says numbly.

    "... what?"

    "Christos."

    "Why?" Alicia asks.

    "Because he asked me to."

    Alicia blinks. "Um. I… guess that makes it okay? But we need to go! Just down the end of the street! I can drive!" She carries Serafina easily like a sleeping child, the Vanessa's strength more than enough. "And don't worry," Alicia says confidently as she pushes against the door. "I have a plan. See…"


    Alice managed to get a grand total of 4 successes on her Paradox backlash of all that saved up Dox, on 14 dice. So she's got a concussion, is sweating blood that isn't hers and her trousers and socks and shoes are ruined so she's leaving bloody footprints wherever she walks, but that's not very uncommon and she knows how to deal with it.

    Basically the dice have just decided they want to roll low.


    Be Alicia

    [ ] "... I heard what he said to you about that Euthanatos sanctum. Me and Sera aren't defecting, but… well, we helped kill the Nephandus too."
    [ ] "... we just need to find somewhere. A holiday resort, away from technology. We'll just be some twentysometimes on vacation. Go to ground and let the heat die down. Somewhere no one will look for us."
    [ ] "... you killed Christos Barberis, right? Well… who's to say you 'really' defected? Maybe it was just a long-term undercover mission. People won't want to ask questions, if we go to the right people. And if whoever 'gave you' the mission was lost in the Anomaly..." (x0.8)
    [ ] "... Sera has knowledge the Void Engineers will want. I know it too. I can use it to try to buy us safety. You can come with us - you can fake being someone else, right, some Prog construct working for Sera - or I can see if I can get you a flight to anywhere in the world."
    [ ] Write-in
     
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    • SR XXVI: א
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    • SR XXVI: א

    "... Sera has knowledge the Void Engineers will want. I know it too. I can use it to-"

    There's a single shot and Alicia's head explodes. Her headless body staggers and collapses on Serafina. In perfect synchronisation four people - one of them a heavy cyborg - dogpile Alice, pinning her to the ground. She struggles, lashing out with her mind, but something snuffs out her will before she can focus it.

    Alice finds herself dragged up into a kneeling position. She tastes blood in her mouth and her blood-drenched hair is falling in front of her face with no way to get it out the way. There are a lot of people aiming guns at her and she freezes. They're not the faceless mass of Technocrats she'd expect to see. Although they're Technocrats, they're wearing a mix of Damage Control and other outfits they've clearly personalised. And they're carrying a quite eclectic mix of weaponry and it's all pointed at her. No way out.

    No way out!

    "Oh, well done, Beth," says a man. "Excellently executed."

    "Thank you, sir," says the woman who'd shot Alicia. She lowers her smoking gun. It's an archaic design, a revolver of a similar vintage to the one Alice has been using. Under the strange light of the sky, it seems somehow more real than the world around it. "And amusing pun, sir."

    "Yes, I rather thought so myself. Please take over the rest of the operation."

    "Yes, sir! Dalet, lock down the interior of the church and cover up our presence. Resh and Waw, follow me."

    Alice focuses on the man who's speaking, and pales. He looks like a stocky blonde middle-aged Damage Control constable - probably Northern European - wearing a white biosuit. But mere constables don't command people who look like the people pinning her in place. She can feel the aura of importance that surrounds him. The little bit of her head which still sometimes can't help but think of herself as a rogue Operative is suddenly sure that he's her superior. She… she thinks she's met him before. She can't remember his face or how he talked or if he was even a man back then, but she's certain of it.

    "Who?" she squeaks out, eyes flicking from person to person aiming at her in this ruined street. And always returning to the man. The building behind him where Alicia set off the det charges is burning, its gas mains on fire. The fire backlights him.

    "Constable Viehmann, Damage Control," the man says, petting the dracosaur that sits next to him, and then smiles coldly. "You don't believe me?"

    Alice doesn't believe him.

    "I suppose not. Lots of people can pretend to be Progenitor assets, can't they?"

    Quite carefully he depresses a button on the neck of the biosuit, and the symbiotic organism detaches, falling to the ground. Under the biosuit he's wearing an immaculate Mexican army uniform with a general's rank. Somehow he doesn't look Germanic anymore - he looks like a local. Maybe? She can't really identify where he comes from and trying to work it out makes her head spin. He pulls out a handkerchief from one pocket, and blots his face.

    "Those things really aren't comfortable," he says conversationally. "I don't know why the Progenitors have such a fetish for them." He inclines his head. "General Aleph. Chair of the Eye. Commander of Panopticon. Hello again, Alice."

    She's suddenly too scared to say a word.

    "You may speak," he prompts patiently after a short pause.

    "Again?" she asks.

    "No, I suppose you wouldn't remember. You were a lot younger and it was only very briefly," he says, brushing snow off his shoulder as he is passed a white umbrella by one of his men. "But you've read about me. Have you ever wondered why they never made an EXEMPLAR II based off Odysseus?"

    Alice has in fact never wondered that, and would give good odds he's just saying this to confuse her. She also half suspects he's never met her before and is just doing it to push her off balance.

    "So much doubt," he says sadly. "Now. What am I going to do with you?"

    If she was stronger, if she was like Christos Barberis, Alice would like to be the kind of person who'd tell him to get it over and done with, tell him to do his worst. But she doesn't have any room for false bravado. She doesn't want to die. And she has an idea of just how bad his worst could be. The most she can do is try to control her shaking, but the people around her and the mass of primium of the cyborg shut down her control of her powers.

    She… she feels so vulnerable. Naked and exposed and helpless.

    "Alice, Alice, Alice. Or should it be Elissa?" he asks, eyes locked on her face. "Yes. You recognise the name. But you respond to Alice more. Well, Alice, until a few weeks ago, I did not care about you or your existence. Although technically as a traitor hunting you down fell under my remit, I had far, far more important things to busy myself with. One traitor who decided to keep her head down and who did not interfere with Union affairs was so low down my to-do list that you could consider yourself off my radar entirely. I can approve of that. You were barely a traitor. It's more that you were AWOL. And your case is an unpleasant one. I prefer my best subordinates to serve me as a result of their own free choice. And that is something you were never given."

    Plasma fire echoes in the distance and the sky screams. She shivers, the blood drying on her skin cracking. He sounds almost understanding. Kind. He must want something. There's no way a senior Technocrat like this would pity her.

    "So it came as quite a surprise when it seemed that certain of my subordinates had taken it seemingly upon themselves to hunt you down. That drew my interest."

    Alice swallows. His tone is almost conversational. It would mean a lot more if she wasn't being held down. She can see tattoos which look a lot like Najwa's on the arms of the person pinning her to her left, though the person here holding her down is a man.

    "Your mother, of course, has been on my radar for longer. Since Moscow." The snow crunches under his regulation boots as he shifts in place. Thunder booms in the distance. "Yes, the woman who now calls herself Jamelia Belltower is your biological mother. You are the accidental product of her affair with another Operative. Apparently she didn't know until it was discovered when she was being treated for injuries taken on a mission. She kept the child. I can't say why. After some... unpleasantness later on, she gave you up to be adopted by a friend of hers and volunteered for high-level psychological re-profiling. The woman who took the role of your mother was a MiB 2.0 instantiated with a restricted beta fork of her personality. Did you know that?"

    Her head spins. Only some of it is the concussion. "I… had put some bits together," she says weakly. Her mother… the woman she had thought was her mother had been a Man in Black? A… a beta fork of her mother? She's even more confused.

    He waves his hand, and some of his underlings drag the headless body Alicia had been using off of Serafina while another one waves a Progenitor handheld device over her. "It's her," the underling says.

    "Very well," Aleph says. "Take her away. I'll deal with her later." He strokes his chin. Or maybe his beard. She isn't entirely sure if he has facial hair or not. "Dr Rosario has also been an object of interest for a while," he says. "Quite the fascinating woman. Very flawed, but flaws are part of being human. And she is both your associate and an associate of Jamelia Belltower. What tangled webs we weave."

    Alice wants to protest. Wants to object. Wants to try to save Sera. But there's nothing she can do. She'd just die doing nothing.

    "And now we come back to you. I have told you these things about your past because I want you to understand why you are useful to me right now. Alice, Elissa, call yourself what you will. I am not going to kill you. I am not going to hurt you. I am not going to drag you off for punishment. I am not going to do anything malign to you, because you are going to deliver a message to your mother. And I know you are going to deliver it accurately and faithfully, because you know who I am." General Aleph locks his gaze with hers. "I will know if it is conveyed accurately. You know I will. I will devote my personal attention to doing so. Can you do this for me?"

    Alice nods mutely, throat dry. There's blood in her eyes and they're stinging. "Yes," she croaks.

    "Good girl." He takes a breath. "Tell her this: 'You know the stakes at play because you found the Truth. Remember your sacrifices. All of them. Don't render them meaningless. Don't make them all for nothing'."

    She nods again, committing it to memory.

    "You will need to find her," General Aleph continues. "I do not know where she is. Around eleven hours ago, she landed at a Void Engineer facility near to Los Angeles. Nine hours ago something happened at her construct. Something I cannot see. To jam my monitoring of that facility would take a prodigious amount of power, so take care. I am almost certain she is not in Los Angeles any more."

    There's something about the way he talks. Something about his word choices. He reminds her a bit of Traditionalist masters she's met.

    Most of them were assholes too.

    "You have access to tools and contacts that no good Technocrat should," he says, a hint of something she can't quite identify in his voice. "I need you alive to deliver the message, in person. That means you need to keep yourself alive. Find somewhere safe to get medical treatment and do whatever you have to do so you don't have a breakdown. As long as you follow the spirit of these instructions, you will be fine. I understand how much stress you're under. Please do not abuse this privilege."

    He pauses.

    "Do you understand?" he adds.

    Alice, or maybe Elissa, nods. "Yes," she whispers. There's something about him that makes her want to do what he says, and that scares her. She'd like to think that it's just because she's terrified and doesn't want to die. She hopes it's just good old fashioned fear.

    She hears footsteps behind her and the team led by his subordinate - Beth - reappears in Alice's highly restricted field of view. She's carrying Barberis' body over one shoulder, and a Progenitor organ-case in the other hand. She leans over and whispers something in Aleph's ear.

    "I see," Aleph says, sounding slightly weary. "Why did you kill Christos Barberis?" he asks.

    Alice swallows. "He… asked me to?" she tried.

    "I thought as much," the General says, a hint of respect in his voice. "He found another way out. I wonder what about those circumstances made you a legacy of House Janissary? It's not just Ixoi training. We tried that already." He shakes his head. "At least he's dead. I wonder if Reina Lior's ghost will rest more easily now the last of the cabal of her killers has passed away."

    If Alice was Alicia, she'd make some comment like 'Don't you mean RNEs?', but Alicia didn't have to worry so much about being shot in the head. It really did explain a lot about her.

    Beth pulls out a body bag and dumps the body and the organ-case in the back of what looks like a civilian car. Alice can see other things in there. A long blade that shines like silver. A knight's helmet. A box of candles. Then she returns to the firing line, pointing her gun at Alice.

    "Now, Elissa." He gestures towards the minivan their ragtag team had driven to the church in. "Take it and leave this city. Don't involve yourself in any further affairs in Mexico City. Beth will provide you with a safe route. Get out of here. Will you do that?"

    "Yes," she says, hanging her head. She can see more of Aleph's men taking Serafina, and she averts her eyes, silently crying. She can't do a thing. She can't do a thing.

    Slowly, the four people holding her down release her, leaving her kneeling in the blood. There's nothing she can do. Just as slowly, she rises. They've left her the pistol Christos gave her, but she can feel from the weight that it's unloaded. Her psychic powers are useless with so many people shutting anything she tries down, and while she could throw herself at them in one last brave heroic stand, she'd wind up dead. Or worse.

    Shakily, she turns and walks towards the van. Her shoulderblades itch. They could open fire any moment.

    "Oh, and Elissa? I will be in touch. Count on it. If you do what I say, you will go back to being someone I have no interest in. So you will do what I say, won't you?"

    She leans against the van. "Yes," she says miserably.

    "Good girl."

    Christos left the keys in the ignition. Of course he did. Is this all part of his plan too?

    Bastards. Fucking bastards. All mages are bastards. Even her. Especially her. Apparently literally, too. She's just abandoning Sera here. Abandoning her because she's such a fucking coward that she's run away from everyone she cares for to save her own skin.

    Viciously she wipes at her eyes. The mysterious blood-sweat is slowing, but it still leaves them stinging. She starts the ignition and drives off into the night. The voice on the radio tells her where to go to leave this ruined, snow-choked city.

    Merry fucking Christmas.


    Be Alice/Elissa

    [ ] Go back and argue for Serafina's freedom as the price for your compliance (x0.0, can't suppress Survivor vice)
    [ ] Stand up to General Aleph and die on your feet rather than work for the Technocracy ever again (x0.0, can't suppress Survivor vice)
    [ ] Go to the Golden Chalice sanctum. Just for long enough to heal and recover. Somewhere where you can feel safe for a little bit.
    [ ] He'll probably have you followed. You can pretend to be a twenty-something tourist with a van touring Mexico until you're back at 100%.
     
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    • SR XXVII: The Interview
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    • SR XXVII: The Interview

    Serafina jolts awake.

    Everything is so quiet. And warm. She'd forgotten what that felt like. She can't hear the booming of thunder or a screaming sky or the roar of plasma weapons in the distance. She isn't having to run experimental augs. She doesn't have the numbing feeling of being integrated into an X-410.

    Instead, she's sitting in a comfortable armchair in a pleasantly warm room. She's wearing her formal Progenitor dress uniform, which isn't anything she'd normally do by choice but which certainly isn't the Damage Control command rig she last had on. She feeling too tired to want to stand, but from where she's sitting she can see that the walls are almost cluttered with paintings and display cabinets. The nearest cabinet has a golden sword with glowing red letters on it in a language she can't read hanging next to what looks to be a suit of mechanised armour not too different from the one which belonged to Reina Lior currently kept in the London Geofront. High on the wall there's a chain-linked spear which looks almost like it was made from mercury, though it's solid.

    Serafina can't see any windows or clocks, though. She has no idea what time of day it is or how long she's been out.

    … or, come to mention, how she even got here. The last thing she remembers is… is there was that thing leaning over Christos. She'd thrown herself at it and then she'd started destructively mapping it and then she'd realised it was self destructing and then… nothing. She doesn't remember the detonation. It… probably happened, though. She's aching too much, like she's been savagely mauled by a werewolf again.

    Her chest aches. She… she remembers being stabbed Yes. That thing that was probably some kind of combat homunculus stabbed her repeatedly. And since she was just inside the X-410, she was getting stabbed too. She takes a deep breath. She can feel the ache of still-healing tissue, but she can breathe freely.

    Quickly she unbuttons her dress shirt, and checks. There are livid red marks over her stomach and chest. Punctured lung, possibly severed spine, multiple other organs damaged - that's her clinical evaluation. Leaning forwards, she runs a hand over her back. She can feel the matching exit wounds. God. That thing really did a number on her. At least she shouldn't scar. She'll need to get to a lab to check herself and see if-

    A man coughs, and Serafina sighs. Yes. Of course this is the moment someone walks in. She buttons up her shirt again and looks up.

    My goodness, she thinks, he's almost as big as Kessler. And similarly augmented. Similar model of cyberbody - the kind of 90s tech which stuffed in as much primium as possible. He smiles at her, and even his teeth gleam silver. He's not wearing an Iteration X dress uniform, though. He's wearing a Man in White formal uniform. Well. She's never seen a Man in White hulked out like this before. The fact that he's wearing the skullcap worn by some observant Jews just makes it even more surreal.

    Quite unexpectedly, he is not visibly armed. Instead, he is carrying a tray with some cups, a teapot, and a selection of cakes.

    … he could probably still kill her with everything on that tray. Or the tray. Or his bare hands.

    "Ah, Dr Rosario," he says. His accent is… hmm. Czech, or maybe Slovakian. American twinge to how he speaks English. "Yes, you were in quite a state when we brought you in. Still, the doctors say everything is healing nicely. No, no, don't stand," he says as she struggles to rise. "I think we can dispense with some of the formalities. Cappuccino?" he asks. "Decaffeinated, I'm afraid. You're not allowed caffeine until your liver finishes healing."

    Serafina takes the cup and acknowledges that her self-diagnostic seemed about right as to how injured she got. It smells very good indeed, done just how she likes it. He sits down opposite to her, and pours himself a cup of tea, then slices some lemon with a penknife and adds a slice. "To the Union," he says, catching her eye and saluting her with his cup. He seems to have no problems eating or drinking despite his full-body cyberisation.

    "To the Union," she says, considering whether to drink it. And then she remembers that considering he had his hands on her unconscious body, if he wanted to do something to her he would have done it already.

    It is excellent coffee. "My compliments to whoever prepared this," she says politely.

    "Try the fruit tart," he suggests. "It's rather good."

    Her nerves are humming with tension. She isn't sure what's going on. But if he wants to act civilised to her, she's not going to object. She'd prefer a nice strawberry tart over a… whatever torture instrument sounds like 'strawberry tart'. She's not really in the mood to think up a witty comment here.

    "Thank you," she says politely, watching as he sips tea.

    He puts his cup down and taps his fingers together, looking over the top of them. "I am Colonel Gimel," he says conversationally. His whole manner is that of an academic, which in no way fits with his appearance. She half expects him to be staring at her over the top of half moon spectacles. "General Aleph had wished to be having this conversation with you, but he is currently occupied - as is Colonel Beth. Mexico City is, I am afraid, quite a mess and Command are having high level meetings that he simply cannot be excused from."

    Serafina swallows. So that answers who has their hands on her. And given that she was apparently unconscious in Panopticon's custody - well. She really can't say as to what was done to her. She tries to look concerned and confused, while she frantically tries to check the veracity of her own memories with all the mnemonic tricks she has to hand.

    "What happened?" she asks. She has to stay calm. She has to be polite. "The last thing I remember was being stabbed and then I was stabbing back and then… nothing."

    "Ah, yes. We found you partially ejected from a deceased X-410. One you weren't authorised to have access to," he adds, mildly. "The data logs were quite interesting viewing. Thank you for managing to fall such that its optics were facing the rest of the room, and also for the fascinating logs of your encounter with the Nephandic EDE. General Aleph has me going over them in detail. To the best of my knowledge, they have not been tampered with and that is concerning indeed."

    "I see," Serafina says.

    He raises a hulking hand. "No, please, I'm not being patronising here. You already are fully aware of how potentially incriminating some of your actions have been, so I don't need to re-emphasise that."

    He shakes his head.

    "No, one of things I do for the General is keep our information on extradimensional threats and how to combat them up to date. They frequently seek to compromise our Union and that creatures like this appear to have developed Syndicate-like techniques to transfer abstract value is an alarming development." He inclines his head to her. "Considering that we have separate proof that this… entity had dealings with at least one amalgam in Mexico City under the pretense that it was a Syndicate member, this is certainly the concern of Panopticon."

    "Alice Aristide, we released. We're monitoring her. She's a small fish and we want to see where she goes and what she will do. Alicia R, we have in this facility." He smiles. "Another of my compatriots has already had quite an interesting talk with her. And Christos Barberis is dead. He's had a high-level kill order on him since 1897. I suppose one hundred and eighteen years isn't the longest time for a kill order to be completed, but I believe it's in the top five."

    Serafina doesn't let her emotions show. Alice is apparently alive, which is good, but… she's failed to save her. All that effort and for nothing. Because she chose to go al-Saud instead. Alicia is also in Panopticon hands, so there won't be any rescue from those quarters. And she regrets Christos' death. Not because of who he was - an enemy of the Union like him couldn't be saved - but because of what he did. She can't help but feel that someone who'd made sure they could kill a monster like al-Saud had earned a few days head start.

    And she has to suppress everything she feels about Rose. About the fact that Panopticon tried to make her kill herself. She has to wear the mask, become the mask, or there's no possible way she'll get out of here.

    "I see," she says, trying her best to sound polite. "The death of Barberis is certainly a feather in your cap."

    "I'm afraid not," Colonel Gimel says, shaking his head. "Although we were hunting him, he had Ms Aristide shoot him. And that's quite an interesting thing. He appears to have believed her to be his 'bane'. Do you know anything about that, Dr Rosario?"

    Serafina frowns. "Haven't you already trawled me for anything of interest?" she asks bitterly.

    "Oh? Would you prefer we do that?" the man says, flashing primium teeth. "I thought you'd prefer a discussion over coffee and cakes, but if you'd rather otherwise, you just need to say." He flexes his broad shoulders. "Dr Rosario, you are an unashamed Hero of the Technocratic Union with a profound talent for winding up in the middle of alien invasions and thwarting them. We wouldn't want risk damaging you."

    'We wouldn't want to'. Such weasel words, Serafina considers. It says nothing about whether they would do so if they felt it was necessary. "He said nothing about banes to me," she says. "He approached me on the grounds that he was also hunting the same EDE as I was. I considered his known opposition to Nephandi and his dossier. I felt the destruction of the EDE which had enabled the invasion of Mexico City by aliens was worth the risk that it was furthering another of his goals."

    She sips her coffee and tries to avoid her hands shaking. "Was it a mistake to make the temporary truce to achieve those goals? I don't believe so. I chose to do it to - as I saw it - protect the Masses and the Union, as per the Sixth Precept. I would not have been able to do it on my own, with the forces present, and I would not have had the tools to destroy the EDE. We assaulted the EDE-held position, attacked SPD forces, and then terminated the hostile alien presence."

    "The alien presence which claimed to be a member of the Inner Circle?" Colonel Gimel asks neutrally. "Do you believe that it used to be Ibrahim al-Saud?"

    She's left with a choice. She chooses honesty, because she's fairly sure this is a test. And because if this man knows the truth about Control, she's doomed anyway, but if he doesn't… she might be able to sway him. "Yes," she says. "I think it's irrelevant. He was lost in 1999. For him to show up in 2015, working with the Special Projects Division who were purged for Nephandery and now work with Pentex - I don't care if he was a member of the Inner Circle." She considers her phrasing carefully. "The Third Precept demands that he be destroyed, even if he once held status in the Union. No matter the status someone may have held, if they betray what we stand for and become exhuman monstrosities they are an enemy of the Union."

    "Hmm. Continue." That's all the cyborg says.

    They talk some more. Eventually, Colonel Gimel takes his leave, leaving Serafina alone in the room.

    ***​

    "What do you think of her?" The two men watch Serafina on the cameras. She seems to be force-cramming sleep, as if she isn't sure when she might be able to rest next.

    Sensible. She seems aware of the rules of the game and that she'll need every scrap of willpower she can get.

    Colonel Gimel looks at General Aleph. "I think she's a true believer. She leaves herself enough room in her belief to accommodate pragmatism and her own personal vices, but she believes in the Union. A natural leader but with an overdeveloped sense of empathy. She doesn't like making choices which hurt people, especially when it's rubbed in her face. And she's intelligent enough that many of the coping mechanisms other people use to distance themselves from their actions don't work."

    "She impressed you." It's not a question.

    "She did," Colonel Gimel admits. "Once she realised how much primium there is in me, she didn't use any hyperpsych. She doesn't like Panopticon, but she hides it. She understands we have the power in this situation. She's being careful to justify everything she does with the Precepts, and she has a good case. She isn't lying to us, but she isn't saying everything. And she's doing a fine job at not incriminating herself beyond a level that she's clearly calculated she can't hide." His wide fingers tap against the wall. "Al-Saud - or the thing which pretended to be him - concerns me," he says bluntly. "It used an Inner Circle level code on her. A Nephandic EDE shouldn't know such things."

    "It didn't work," General Aleph points out.

    "You know she's a free agent," Gimel retorts. "How much more damage has he managed to inflict? How much of the corruption of the Special Projects Division might be his fault?"

    "She's been emphasising him. Using him against you."

    "I know. She's being subtle about it, but she's contrasting her actions to ours. She still holds a grudge about the rogue cell in Moscow and she's been trying to frame the argument so she can point to her own successes about destroying subversive threats."

    General Aleph hooks his thumbs into his trouser pockets. "Try to not fall for her, Gimel," he advises. "She knows how to use allure as a weapon in her arsenal."

    The hulking cyborg shoots an annoyed glare at his superior. "Please," he says in a disgusted note. "Don't pretend I skipped over her dossier. And the pleasures of the flesh hold no appeal to one such as me."

    "Allure isn't just about sexual attraction," General Aleph says, looking down at the sleeping woman. "She's offering you knowledge. Stringing you along. Do you recommend we progress?"

    "I do," Gimel says.

    "Then do so."

    ***​

    Colonel Gimel is back, and he's talking to her. No coffee this time, but there is water. He's pressing her. Something about his mannerisms are slightly different.

    "How much do you know about the history of Panopticon?" he asks her.

    Serafina gives a measured shrug. "Mostly just the public record," she says. "Founded in 1995 as the internal police as a cross-Convention methodology." She considers her position. "I've found a few vague hints that it isn't the first such group, but either it's more public than its predecessors or the records have been comprehensively sanitised. Panopticon goes quiet in 1999, and then starts acting again in 2015. A rogue Panopticon cell very nearly sabotaged the defence of Moscow. And of course, I had to take over command after one of the rogues very nearly killed my superior and left her in a coma." She pauses deliberately. "Quite a scandal for the internal police," she adds mildly.

    "Yes, indeed, Dr Rosario," Colonel Gimel says, a faint frown furrowing his brow. Maybe she went too far there. "I'd like to hear your personal hypothesis on what you think Panopticon was doing between 1999 and 2015."

    That's something she's not sure about, either. "I've considered a few ideas," she says honestly. "Maybe they can only operate when explicitly ordered to by Control or the Inner Circle, which would explain why they went quiet in 1999. Or maybe you lost most of your senior command staff and your assets in the Anomaly, and you've spent the past sixteen years rebuilding. Or maybe 1995-1999 was the unusual behaviour and the organisation usually is rather more secretive about its secret policing. It only went quiet after 1999 because it completed an objective. The Anomaly might just be a coincidence - it might have been linked to the destruction of Doissetep or any number of other events in '98 or '99."

    He wags a finger at her. "Oh, I like that last one," he says. "That's a good one." He doesn't confirm or deny any of her ideas. Of course not.

    Reaching into a holster she somehow hadn't noticed before, he produces an archaic flintlock pistol and places it on the table before Serafina. "What do you think of this?" he asks. "Pick it up. Look at it. Tell me your feelings."

    Carefully she puts down her plate and her cup, and takes the cold metal in her hand. It really is a beautiful piece of art. It's entirely made of blued steel, and intricate engravings cover it. She plays with the flint as she examines the details which she thought at first was just decoration, but was in fact Arabic calligraphy. It seems intertwined with what looks like Hermetic symbolism.

    "Flintlock pistol, made in…" she looks for a date, can't find one and takes in the level of wear on the steel. "No rust, but from the wear I'd put at maybe two centuries old? Arabic writing on it - my Arabic isn't good enough to read most of it. Combined with the symbolism and the use of RD iconography… a product of a Middle Eastern RD group? The Taftani or some similar organisation."

    "Broadly accurate," the cyborg agrees. "But I asked for your feelings."

    She lets it sit in her hands, feels its weight and notes that it doesn't seem to be loaded. He's playing a game, so she'll play along too. "It's not normal," she says eventually. "It just feels… off. Too cold for how long it's been sitting in my hands. And…" she rubs her fingertips together, "... there's a residue on my fingertips." She sniffs it. "It… it smells of the way the snow smelt in Mexico City," she says warily. "I don't like it. I really, really don't like it."

    "Mmm. You're right not to," Colonel Gimel says, reaching out to take the pistol back from her. "It's a late 1700s piece, made by the House Janissary sect of the Order of Hermes. It's not a duelling pistol or even a weapon of war. It's an execution weapon, made for killing so-called enemies of Ascension. Nephandi. 'Gross traitors'. Infernalists. It is literally a one of a kind. It is the last weapon of the kind left. Confined within its barrel is the rite of gilgul. It destroys the souls of those it kills. I went to quite some effort to acquire it for Panopticon. We intended to use it against Christos Barberis. He believed a weapon like it would be his downfall, that he had been cursed by the leaders of House Janissary. What do you think?"

    A chill runs down Serafina's spine. She doesn't believe in souls, but… but RDs are… look, she's just glad to no longer be touching it. "Reality Deviant nonsense," she says dismissively, trying to banish the squirming fear.

    "That is what most people would believe," the man says gravely, putting the gun away. "But then again, it is necessary to understand the beliefs of such sects intimately to combat them. And you know very well that Reality Deviants can produce such effects. They break reality to do so, but they are undoubtedly efficacious.

    "The question, therefore, is as to what level of damage to reality is permitted as 'acceptable collateral damage'."

    "None," Serafina says firmly. "Because-"

    "You don't really believe that," Colonel Gimel points out, sipping at his ice cold water.

    "I do," she insists.

    "No, you don't. Because if you believed that, you wouldn't ally with Reality Deviants to prevent things you consider worse."

    Serafina picks her next words very, very carefully. "Then I misspoke. Triage demands that such damage be minimised. So, yes, I did ally with the Moscow Traditions when the MUSCOVITEs were invading. And I worked with Reality Deviants here in Moscow to terminate a Nephandic EDE. But in both cases, I was working to support the the Third and Sixth Precepts of Dami-"

    "You are a historic and present associate of Alice Aristide," he interjects. "She has been found guilty of Reality Deviancy."

    "Psychic powers aren't fundamentally RD," Serafina protests. "If they were fundamentally Reality Deviant, they wouldn't have used to have been on the curriculum at Damien."

    "Why not? You have agreed that there is an acceptable level of damage to reality. But only in the name of protecting it."

    Serafina works her mouth. The brute of a man is sitting there placidly with an academic's smile on his face. "There is a difference between an alliance of convenience and actively condoning behaviour which threatens the integrity of reality," she says.

    Her gut squirms. There have been so many questions. Has she slipped up here? She can't say anything that might be condoning RDism to Panopticon of all people.

    ***​

    "Dogmatic, inflexible, and brittle." Colonel Beth's tone is cutting. "Workshy, lazy, and self-indulgent. Soft-hearted. A history of mental health problems. Prone to suicidal tendencies. Privileged. Poor attention span and prone to giving up on things when she's bored - like her time in Damage Control."

    Colonel Gimel looks mildly at the white-haired woman. The lips of her false face are pursed thin. "That's a little harsh," he says.

    "It's entirely accurate," she retorts. "She has little mental stamina and issues with her attention span. All entirely well documented. Yes, she reacts well in chaotic situations, but she's erratic. Unpredictable. Unstable. She'll run into a situation she can't handle and crumble, or her tendency to gamble will go against her." Her mouth curls down. "She always assumes someone else will bail her out."

    Colonel Gimel crosses his arms. "Now that is untrue," he says. "Her infiltration and subversion of Amalgam-391 was unsupported. She knew no one would be coming to rescue her."

    "True," Colonel Beth admits, "but one incident can't break the habits of a lifetime." She waves a printout at him. "Her disciplinary record speaks for itself. It's not just that she's a troublemaker. It's that she's sloppy. Without her family connections, she'd have faced far more severe consequences than she did already."

    "Also true," Gimel says, "but when she has a cause, she's unflagging in her support for it. And we can make fanatics anywhere. What we have here is someone who shines in chaotic situations. And that is someone who can be useful, or very, very dangerous."

    General Aleph clears his throat and speaks for the first time. "What would your advice be, Beth?"

    "The same as it has always been since this entire incident started," the old woman says, hand resting on the sword at her hip. "Dr Rosario is a weapon to be used."

    ***​

    Cross-legged, Serafina sits on the overstuffed armchair. She's in a self-imposed analytic trance. She doesn't have the same control over her own biology as a combat construct like Rose might have, but she has enough for her own purposes.

    Internal injuries - healing rapidly. Various pharmaceutical and medicinal compounds in her bloodstream, exactly what she'd expect to see if she was being treated for injuries of her level. No signs of anything intended to make her talkative or weaken her mental resolve. Some low-level brain scarring consistent with a 'fishing attempt' - not a full trawl, but a limited one. From her best guess, she'd say they were looking for her recent memories.

    She's still lost weight from how she was before the suicide attempt in Los Angeles, but she's at least back up to a healthy weight. And the meal she just ate has no compounds in it which she doesn't recognise. She would quite like an erg cola, but of course they're not giving her that.

    She opens her eyes and sighs. Picking up her fork, she doodles a butterfly shape in the grease on the plate as she thinks.

    Serafina sighs again. She hopes Alice and Alicia are both okay. It's perhaps wrong to hope that Alice is fine, but she still does it. Poor Alice. Despite everything Serafina has been through and how much she hated Damien, she knows now her parents did love her and… and even if they did hurt her, they didn't mean to and didn't want to. Alice doesn't have that buffer. She runs her hands over her shaven scalp. Director Aristide, her 'father' - her creator? - is one of Jamelia's old acquaintances. She has quite a few things she'd like to say to him right now.

    … of course, given she's in Panopticon's custody, the chances of being able to give him a piece of her mind is rather slim. Odds are if she ever leaves this place, it'll be as an ATLAS or a mind-scrubbed husk. But she can't let herself despair.

    And perhaps surprisingly, she isn't despairing. She… she feels better. She feels stronger. She might be a captive, but she thinks she is charming Colonel Gimel and… and there's something about that which means she buzzes like she just downed two or three cans of erg cola. She gets the feeling that he's worried about al-Saud and what he implies. Good. He should be worried. Whether he knows about the existence of the Syndicate lost to the Anomaly, the idea that there are exhuman Syndics out there working with Nephandi isn't a pleasant one.

    She smiles faintly to herself. The Syndics lost in '99 predate a lot of modern brand consciousness and the whole Noughties consumer information revolution. Maybe they don't know and can't learn the true risks of brand contamination.

    Colonel Gimel - now, there's an interesting man. A very interesting man. She's been taking him in. By a few of his phrasing choices, she would probably pin him as being born before WW2, but probably still in the 20th century. And she suspects he genuinely is Jewish, or at least puts on a very good pretense. He's probably telling the truth about being an expert on EDEs, although she doesn't know enough to really push him on it.

    She knows he's just being polite to her and he's acting personable and as a high-tech primium cyborg she has problems reading him with her more advanced hyperpsych skills, but she's been watching him. He doesn't feel like he's loaded down with loyalty programming. His manners, his habits, some of the ways he seems to follow chains of logic suggest that he's probably recruited from the Masses rather than being born into the Union. Of course, if he really is working directly under General Aleph then they'd want him to be a true believer whose loyalty couldn't be compromised by…

    … well, someone like her. She has to assume they know what she did in Amalgam-391 - not least because he's dropped hints over the questioning - so they're not going to let anyone near here who might be controllable by any of her overrides. And given she is a super-genius, it's just safer to keep anyone with loyalty conditioning away from her.

    Which is one of the reasons she suspects she won't get out of here.

    There's a knock at the door. She sits back, and prepares herself for more hours of questioning.

    But it's not just Colonel Gimel this time. This time he's accompanied by an old woman with hair the same colour as her white dress uniform and a primium blade at her hip, and another man.

    Well. She takes in the man in the formal white uniform which Men in White wear in ceremonies. He's standing so none of the lights quite illuminate his face properly, and that doesn't even make sense given the lighting in the room. There's no way shadows should be there - and yet there are.

    She's only met one man who does that. Serafina inwardly cringes. The head of Panopticon.

    "Hello again, Dr Rosario," he says. "And here we are once again. After another alien invasion."

    "General," she says, her throat dry. She rises.

    "No, no, sit. Coffee?" he asks, taking the seat opposite to hers. Colonel Gimel puts a tray down in front of them and takes her plate.

    "Yes please," she says faintly as he pours a cup for himself and then for her.

    His face manages to remain in shadow all the time he drinks. Maybe there's a light scattering field coming from a projector in his collar?

    He puts down his cup with a clink. "I'd just like to lay the ground rules of this conversation, Dr Rosario," he says politely. "At any point, you can get up and ask to leave through the door behind me." He gestures towards the door. "You will have your memory of this conversation redacted, so it consists of me informing you that you have a message to deliver to someone and the consequences of your failure to do so. We will trawl you, yes, but it will be for minimum impact because we don't want to damage you. What we find will determine who you will be carrying the message to. You are apparently useful for stopping alien invasions, and to ruin you will be wasteful. Then you will wake up in… oh, how about Brazilia? Brazilia is nice at this time of year, given it's summer in the Southern hemisphere. Or would you prefer Rio de Janeiro?" He sounds genuinely interested.

    "Why are you asking this?" Serafina asks warily, crossing her legs.

    He leans forwards in his seat. "The thing is, Dr Rosario, that I need a new Tsade. A new member of the Adjad."

    "Excuse me?" she asks. "What do you mean by that?"

    "The Adjad are my inner circle. I look for a few things. The capacity to go outside normal structures. Certain skillsets. A talent for taking control of situations and turning them to protect the Union. The previous Tsade has chosen to retire and while I'm sad to let him go, we all grow old and weary. I don't want people here who don't want to be here, so I've been weighing up candidates."

    He pauses meaningfully.

    "You've been on my shortlist since Moscow and your actions here have pushed you right up to the top."

    Serafina blinks heavily and tries to get her thoughts in order. This doesn't make any sense. Why is the leader of Panopticon trying to… to… to recruit her? To, if she can trust him, his inner circle.

    This is a trap. It has to be a trap.

    "You probably think it's a trap," he says. "There's no way I can prove to you that it isn't a trap. When it all comes down to it, perhaps it's all a question of faith."

    "I prefer hard evidence," Serafina says.

    "So do we all, but sometimes we must act on faith," he says. "And it's the choices you have made which led you to this place. I wouldn't have been interested in you if you had chosen otherwise."

    He makes a chopping motion with his hand.

    "Every single time, you chose the good of the Union over your own safety. And you choose this of your own free will. You did not evacuate Moscow but stayed on-site to command. You did not hide after Los Angeles. You prostituted yourself twice to get information from that foolish Dr Fujiyama. You chose to lead an X-410 team to destroy the alien craft rather than focus on your own escape. You went after the EDE rather than escape. You knew the risks to your own reputation of working with Barberis and yet you did it. All for the Union and the Masses. And you did this without anything forcing you. Yes. I know what you did to yourself. Stripping out your own loyalty safeguards."

    Serafina can't help but gasp. The head of Panopticon knowing that she has unpicked certain conditioning elements from her own psyche can't be good.

    "No, no, I don't intend to punish you for that," he says warmly. "That's why you're being considered. Because you did that - and despite that, you still chose to act to serve the Union. You chose to burn Moscow to prevent an EDE breakthrough. Nothing forced you to come to Mexico City. Nothing forced you to risk your own life to destroy that alien spacecraft - yes, Dr Rosario, that's getting to be quite a habit for you, isn't it? Nothing forced you to make a wary truce with the Traditions to slay a Nephandic EDE. And your friend, Ms Alicia R… yes, she chose to try to persuade Ms Aristide to come with you to the Void Engineers even when you had plenty of chance to try to defect."

    She considers that to say. "I couldn't let the aliens and the EDEs get away with it," she says softly. "I saw what they were doing on that alien spaceship. It doesn't matter that they were RD cultists. It had to be stopped."

    "Exactly!" General Aleph says, leaning forwards with such force that he nearly slops some tea. He clears his throat. "Exactly," he says again. "There are some things which cannot be tolerated. The Nephandi. Corruption that would threaten the Union at a fundamental level. We must have people who believe in the Union, but who stand outside it. Ones who will carry out the bloody triage and save the greater body should a limb be infected. Who watches the watchers, Dr Rosario? The Adjad do. We stand outside the Union. We are the anchorites in the desert, rejected by the main body of the faith."

    "You're Reality Deviants," she says quietly. It's obvious what he's working towards. Why Colonel Gimel said the things he did.

    "Only some of us. It's a tool, used where appropriate. If it is acceptable to ally with Reality Deviants, then it is acceptable to use it in the same circumstances," he says. There's no shame in his voice. "We are misfits and outcasts. The ones who have no place in the utopia the Order of Reason - then the Technocratic Union - builds, but believe in its goals. We are the ones who stand outside the gates, watching for foes on both sides. And you, Dr Rosario, have been behind the deaths of two things that some men might call gods."

    "But you're the head of Panopticon!" Serafina blurts out. This makes no sense. Panopticon is… is working for Control. Control - mad, exhuman - is the cancer. And if the inner circle of Panopticon include Reality Deviants who… who… who choose to use it as a weapon then… then none of this makes any sense! The people who stop deviation are… are deviants! The people who stop corruption are corrupt! She puts down her coffee. Her hands are shaking too much.

    "I have been many things," General Aleph says. "The Adjad have had many names and we existed long, long before 1995. We existed before Vigilance and we existed before the Watchers. Sometimes we have led them. Sometimes we have been hidden within them. We were the inner circle of the Grigori and some say we were a sect of the Ixoi."

    General Aleph takes a sip of his black coffee and then sits back. "Very few of my Adjad are recruited from the mainstream Union," he says. "Most are Orphans. Self-taught. I require people without the biases and expectations that the Union imposes. This is my reluctance about you. And why you might also be useful. We need many viewpoints. You provide the viewpoint of the born insider. But you've always been an outsider, haven't you? It's in your nature. You're an outsider who can think like an insider."

    "You could be making up everything about your Adjad here," Serafina argues. She tries to ignore what he says about her personality. And none of this makes any sense and why would Control even pre-99 set up an organisation led by people who carry out RDism and… and if that's true then… it doesn't make sense!

    "I believe I said something about faith?" he says, his mouth full. "You're right. We work to erase ourselves from history. We cannot be allowed to exist in the history we protect. So nothing I can say about our origins might be convincing."

    Serafina puts down her cup of coffee and crosses her arms. "You sent a suicide meme to make me kill myself," she accuses. "You went after my daughter and I don't even know if she's dead or alive. You tried to kill my superior in Moscow. You can speak of high-minded idealism and self-sacrifice all you want. What you actually do says something else!"

    General Aleph rests his head on his hands. "That is the other reason I want you," he says. "I gave no orders for the events in Moscow. I ordered no attack on Los Angeles. And yet Panopticon has acted. I find a junior Panopticon operative with access to advanced technology that I've never seen. And now I have the evidence from your X-410s logs that an exhuman linked to the SPD was Ibrahim al-Saud, the former Syndicate VPO (Energy) and a member of the Inner Circle. I will need to verify this independently. I cannot trust data that has been near Christos Barberis. And I think you know where to look."

    Desperately she tries not to stiffen up. No. This can't be true. It sounds too good to be true. That Panopticon itself is split, that Control is bypassing General Aleph. That he wants her to help purge his organisation. "Do you expect me to believe you've lost control of your organisation?" she asks.

    "That's what I want to find out."

    But what if it's not a trick? What if it's not a lie? What if General Aleph back in the London Geofront had been covering up that he had no idea what had happened in Moscow? What if he's just like the rest of Command and doesn't know what Control has become?

    "Dr Rosario," General Aleph says. "If you have any doubt, if you have any uncertainty, turn down my offer and leave. Forget all this. I cannot promise you glory. I cannot promise that you will ever be called a Hero of the Technocratic Union again. You will work for me directly. You will need to sacrifice again and again and again. You will abandon your name. You will abandon your old life and if you assume it again it will merely be a cover identity. Your life will be full of blood and lies, in the name of the Union. If someone leapt at this offer, I would know I made a mistake to consider them. I will think less of you if you turn this down, but I will understand fully why you did this."

    "All I can offer you is this. You will only be my Tsade as long as you wish to be. Even if you take the offer, the chance to walk out the door and forget stands. It's the same offer every one of the Abjad has.

    "What do you say? I can have more coffee sent if you want more time to think."



    Be Serafina

    [ ] Take his offer. Join the Abjad as the new Tsade.
    [ ] Walk out the door. Forget everything he just said.

    The voting will only open 24 hours after this is posted. Votes made before this mandatory cool-down discussion period is over will be ignored.

    Justify your vote and why Serafina picks it. Do not copy someone else's justification.
     
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