FunkyEntropy
Occasionally insightful, possibly grumpy
- Location
- Los Angeles
Well, a riding crop is a natural accessory for someone that wears jackboots.
Panopticon: A Game of Posthumans, Perniciousness, Paranoia, Politics, and Plasmaguns
Well, a riding crop is a natural accessory for someone that wears jackboots.
(continued from before)
Soundtrack
"I gotcha, sir."
Kessler slurs something in response, which Jessica assumes means "Cool, I'mma go sleep now." She's fluent in the language of Drunk, a language commonly spoken by US Marines on Friday nights, and this isn't the first wasted buddy she's hauled home after a long night spent partying. Then again, most of her former buddies didn't weigh over 400 pounds.
Even now, six months out from the Iteration X chop-shops, she isn't used to her new body. It isn't the changes in her features, or the looks she gets from bystanders - she's used to being one of the few available hunks of female-shaped flesh surrounded by a hundred testosterone-fueled young men, after all. Compared to that kind of pressure, the occasional sidelong glance doesn't faze her. (and knowing that you could crush an unreinforced skull with your pinky does wonders for one's self-confidence)
No, it's the little things that keep her on edge. Things like, say, the fact that she's easily shouldering the weight of a four-hundred pound cyborg over one shoulder as she walks back to the amalgam's shared quarters. Some part of her, the same part which had gotten her into exercise to pass the time out in Afghanistan, still screams that what she's doing is flat-out impossible. It's things like crushing a table when she stumbles, ripping a ring to shreds just by flexing her fingers, the constant sensor input that she keeps muted most of the time to avoid overwhelming her. She'll get used to it all in time, the Biomechanics say. Sometimes she believes them.
"Arright, arright," John slurs, carefully pushing himself off her shoulder. Shaking his head, Jessica lets the old exojock straighten himself up, brushing dirt off his back from the alley where he'd first stumbled. She was terrified when she'd first learned that she'd been assigned to an amalgam under investigation by a grand tribunal, and even more so to find that she'd be the backup team for John Motherfucking Kessler, of all people. All she'd done was to stand up and fight once by accident, yet here she was expected to head the bail-out team in case SSgt Kessler ran into something he couldn't beat?
Then again, just like what she'd thought of Afghanistan and the Marines before she'd gotten there, imagination and legends had a tendency to run afoul of reality. It's hard to keep that same kind of wide-eyed awe of someone when you're helping them out of the dumpster they've accidently broken, after all. She wonders about Kessler as the exojock in question slowly falls back to reality, about what made him accept augmentations a couple times more obvious than hers. She could pass for a professional volleyball player in a pinch, but anyone who looked at John and didn't think "Terminator!" obviously needed to catch up on their movie references - that, or get their eyes checked.
"Hey, Hughes," Kessler says quietly, dragging Jessica from her thoughts, "Thanks fer everything. Sorry fer draggin' ya out here this long."
"It's not a problem, sir," she answers honestly. "HITMarks aren't good conversationalists, unfortunately, and I don't really know anyone else in the Geofront."
Kessler nods, sighing. "Ta tell you the truth, Hughes, me neither. 'S a helluva shock seeing Mai like that; girl used to be as tall as me, and now she barely comes up to my waist. Betcha she can barely even bench-press her own weight now!"
Jessica stares at the hulking exojock for a moment, before the absurdity of the situation truly kicks in, and she bursts out laughing. Kessler joins in a moment later, and the two of them slowly collapse to the sidewalk on the busy street; the security HITMarks barely even paying attention as the two cyborgs recover their wits. (she'd had plenty to drink too, after all - a Marine, even a former one, just didn't turn down free beer) The feeling of intoxication was an artificial one in beings that didn't have biological guts, something that they could both turn off if they wanted, but neither cyborg really cared to sober up.
"Hey, Hughes. Been meanin' ta ask, but couldn't find the words for it," Kessler begins uncertainly, and Jessica glances over to meet the exojock's artificial eyes. "Yer time in Afghanistan; I'm guessin' you weren't front-line infantry, right? Did something happen ta Enlighten ya out there?"
Jessica sighs as the memories she'd tried to suppress with booze bubble back to the surface. "Yeah. I got deployed to Afghanistan to drive trucks, sir. 'S kinda funny saying that, what with your combat record and all, but I've seen combat exactly once my whole life." (and I never want to see it again, a traitorous mental voice whispers) She looks over at Kessler, expecting to see contempt at her being a noncombatant, but there's nothing but admiration in his eyes.
"Convoy duty? In Afghanistan?" Kessler says, whistling. "The whole damn country's a prime ambush site. I'm surprised you didn't all get shot ta bits by the Commies - 'scuse me, the terrorists."
"Heh, it wasn't that bad most of the time," the former Marine says with a laugh, pulling a holdout knife from her pocket and twirling it on her finger. "We were usually pretty bored, driving from Point A to Point B or sitting around on our asses in the FOB, and it only got scary a couple times. Then, well..." she trails off, her concentration slipping, and the knife falls to gash her knuckle.
"Bad dreams?" John asks, with eyes that've clearly seen more than a few themselves.
"Yeah," Jessica chokes out past the lump in her throat. "Don't get me wrong, sir, I'm combat-ready here. During the day, it's nothing I can't handle. It's just...sir, we got ambushed in the evening. We held 'em off four hours, with air support running enough sorties to turn the nearby mountains to pebbles, but they just kept coming." She swallows, her throat suddenly dry. "And then the night came, and the choppers got ordered away, and then they showed up. The official story has it that I got hit with an RPG, but truth is, I tried to hug a grenade. Those things, what they were doing to us, well - when you see your buddy turned into a goddamn meat-puppet, death doesn't seem so scary at that point."
Kessler nods somberly, and Jessica knows instinctively that he's felt that same kind of pain. "Hey, Hughes?" he says softly. "Ya gotta believe in yerself, darlin'. You think yer beat-up after somethin' like that, ya think yer green and new ta all this - well, that might be true. But truth is, yer still here. Ya saw stuff that'd break most people, the kinda thing that'd get yer average type livin' in a padded room, but here you are, ready fer Round 2. Way I see it, that's the only kinda strength that really matters."
Jessica nods choppily. "Thanks, sir. That means a lot."
Kessler shrugs. "Hey, I'm just the beat-up old fogie over here. Don't take me too seriously," he says with a grin.
"Wouldn't dream of it, sir," she answers, and the two Technocratic cyborgs struggle to their feet together. Slowly padding towards the amalgam's temporary home, Jessica looks up at the stars above. They're artificial, she knows - even if they weren't underground, London was far too polluted and naturally cloudy to catch much a glimpse of the night sky - but she can still enjoy the view. "Sir, what do you do on a night like tonight?"
"When I can't sleep?" Kessler responds, correctly guessing what she was meaning. "Used ta sit around wit' my guns, poking 'em at every rock what looked scary. Other times, would turn up some music on internal speakers and would blast it 'till I couldn't hear myself think." He laughs quietly at himself. "Wouldn't recommend that, though."
Jessica thinks back, past the pills and the hypnotherapy sessions that never stopped the nightmares, back to Afghanistan before That Day and everything that'd happened since. "I can think of a better way to pass the time, sir."
-----
"Yep."
"Hmm?" It's a struggle for Jessica to open her eyes, but she slowly wakes up enough to look around at the darkened common room. (she still hasn't gotten the hang of the low-light vision settings) The two cyborgs are stretched across different reinforced couches, a table between them piled high with several pizza boxes, and a 3-D television showing Terminator 2 off to the side.
"Yer right," Kessler drawls as he reclines on the couch, dangling a slice of pizza above his mouth. "This beats psychotherapy any goddamn day."
Jessica grins and throws him a thumbs-up, before digging her head into the carbon-nanoweave pillow. She didn't mind an empty bed, but she hated an empty room. She'd gotten used to the constant murmur of a base of Marines, of the tromp of boots in and out, of arguments about whose celebrities' tits were better leading to full-on wrestling matches in the middle of the floor. It was chaos, pure and undiluted, and for her it meant safety, because she knew and trusted the same idiots currently tussling over who got the pudding they'd smuggled from the base's mess hall. She missed having comrades, a family, to live and work and struggle with; HITMarks didn't even come close.
Jessica Hughes falls asleep to the sound of John Kessler noisily eating pizza and watching Terminator 2.
For once, she sleeps through the night.
Soundtrack
"I gotcha, sir."
Kessler slurs something in response, which Jessica assumes means "Cool, I'mma go sleep now." She's fluent in the language of Drunk, a language commonly spoken by US Marines on Friday nights, and this isn't the first wasted buddy she's hauled home after a long night spent partying. Then again, most of her former buddies didn't weigh over 400 pounds.
Even now, six months out from the Iteration X chop-shops, she isn't used to her new body. It isn't the changes in her features, or the looks she gets from bystanders - she's used to being one of the few available hunks of female-shaped flesh surrounded by a hundred testosterone-fueled young men, after all. Compared to that kind of pressure, the occasional sidelong glance doesn't faze her. (and knowing that you could crush an unreinforced skull with your pinky does wonders for one's self-confidence)
No, it's the little things that keep her on edge. Things like, say, the fact that she's easily shouldering the weight of a four-hundred pound cyborg over one shoulder as she walks back to the amalgam's shared quarters. Some part of her, the same part which had gotten her into exercise to pass the time out in Afghanistan, still screams that what she's doing is flat-out impossible. It's things like crushing a table when she stumbles, ripping a ring to shreds just by flexing her fingers, the constant sensor input that she keeps muted most of the time to avoid overwhelming her. She'll get used to it all in time, the Biomechanics say. Sometimes she believes them.
"Arright, arright," John slurs, carefully pushing himself off her shoulder. Shaking his head, Jessica lets the old exojock straighten himself up, brushing dirt off his back from the alley where he'd first stumbled. She was terrified when she'd first learned that she'd been assigned to an amalgam under investigation by a grand tribunal, and even more so to find that she'd be the backup team for John Motherfucking Kessler, of all people. All she'd done was to stand up and fight once by accident, yet here she was expected to head the bail-out team in case SSgt Kessler ran into something he couldn't beat?
Then again, just like what she'd thought of Afghanistan and the Marines before she'd gotten there, imagination and legends had a tendency to run afoul of reality. It's hard to keep that same kind of wide-eyed awe of someone when you're helping them out of the dumpster they've accidently broken, after all. She wonders about Kessler as the exojock in question slowly falls back to reality, about what made him accept augmentations a couple times more obvious than hers. She could pass for a professional volleyball player in a pinch, but anyone who looked at John and didn't think "Terminator!" obviously needed to catch up on their movie references - that, or get their eyes checked.
"Hey, Hughes," Kessler says quietly, dragging Jessica from her thoughts, "Thanks fer everything. Sorry fer draggin' ya out here this long."
"It's not a problem, sir," she answers honestly. "HITMarks aren't good conversationalists, unfortunately, and I don't really know anyone else in the Geofront."
Kessler nods, sighing. "Ta tell you the truth, Hughes, me neither. 'S a helluva shock seeing Mai like that; girl used to be as tall as me, and now she barely comes up to my waist. Betcha she can barely even bench-press her own weight now!"
Jessica stares at the hulking exojock for a moment, before the absurdity of the situation truly kicks in, and she bursts out laughing. Kessler joins in a moment later, and the two of them slowly collapse to the sidewalk on the busy street; the security HITMarks barely even paying attention as the two cyborgs recover their wits. (she'd had plenty to drink too, after all - a Marine, even a former one, just didn't turn down free beer) The feeling of intoxication was an artificial one in beings that didn't have biological guts, something that they could both turn off if they wanted, but neither cyborg really cared to sober up.
"Hey, Hughes. Been meanin' ta ask, but couldn't find the words for it," Kessler begins uncertainly, and Jessica glances over to meet the exojock's artificial eyes. "Yer time in Afghanistan; I'm guessin' you weren't front-line infantry, right? Did something happen ta Enlighten ya out there?"
Jessica sighs as the memories she'd tried to suppress with booze bubble back to the surface. "Yeah. I got deployed to Afghanistan to drive trucks, sir. 'S kinda funny saying that, what with your combat record and all, but I've seen combat exactly once my whole life." (and I never want to see it again, a traitorous mental voice whispers) She looks over at Kessler, expecting to see contempt at her being a noncombatant, but there's nothing but admiration in his eyes.
"Convoy duty? In Afghanistan?" Kessler says, whistling. "The whole damn country's a prime ambush site. I'm surprised you didn't all get shot ta bits by the Commies - 'scuse me, the terrorists."
"Heh, it wasn't that bad most of the time," the former Marine says with a laugh, pulling a holdout knife from her pocket and twirling it on her finger. "We were usually pretty bored, driving from Point A to Point B or sitting around on our asses in the FOB, and it only got scary a couple times. Then, well..." she trails off, her concentration slipping, and the knife falls to gash her knuckle.
"Bad dreams?" John asks, with eyes that've clearly seen more than a few themselves.
"Yeah," Jessica chokes out past the lump in her throat. "Don't get me wrong, sir, I'm combat-ready here. During the day, it's nothing I can't handle. It's just...sir, we got ambushed in the evening. We held 'em off four hours, with air support running enough sorties to turn the nearby mountains to pebbles, but they just kept coming." She swallows, her throat suddenly dry. "And then the night came, and the choppers got ordered away, and then they showed up. The official story has it that I got hit with an RPG, but truth is, I tried to hug a grenade. Those things, what they were doing to us, well - when you see your buddy turned into a goddamn meat-puppet, death doesn't seem so scary at that point."
Kessler nods somberly, and Jessica knows instinctively that he's felt that same kind of pain. "Hey, Hughes?" he says softly. "Ya gotta believe in yerself, darlin'. You think yer beat-up after somethin' like that, ya think yer green and new ta all this - well, that might be true. But truth is, yer still here. Ya saw stuff that'd break most people, the kinda thing that'd get yer average type livin' in a padded room, but here you are, ready fer Round 2. Way I see it, that's the only kinda strength that really matters."
Jessica nods choppily. "Thanks, sir. That means a lot."
Kessler shrugs. "Hey, I'm just the beat-up old fogie over here. Don't take me too seriously," he says with a grin.
"Wouldn't dream of it, sir," she answers, and the two Technocratic cyborgs struggle to their feet together. Slowly padding towards the amalgam's temporary home, Jessica looks up at the stars above. They're artificial, she knows - even if they weren't underground, London was far too polluted and naturally cloudy to catch much a glimpse of the night sky - but she can still enjoy the view. "Sir, what do you do on a night like tonight?"
"When I can't sleep?" Kessler responds, correctly guessing what she was meaning. "Used ta sit around wit' my guns, poking 'em at every rock what looked scary. Other times, would turn up some music on internal speakers and would blast it 'till I couldn't hear myself think." He laughs quietly at himself. "Wouldn't recommend that, though."
Jessica thinks back, past the pills and the hypnotherapy sessions that never stopped the nightmares, back to Afghanistan before That Day and everything that'd happened since. "I can think of a better way to pass the time, sir."
-----
"Yep."
"Hmm?" It's a struggle for Jessica to open her eyes, but she slowly wakes up enough to look around at the darkened common room. (she still hasn't gotten the hang of the low-light vision settings) The two cyborgs are stretched across different reinforced couches, a table between them piled high with several pizza boxes, and a 3-D television showing Terminator 2 off to the side.
"Yer right," Kessler drawls as he reclines on the couch, dangling a slice of pizza above his mouth. "This beats psychotherapy any goddamn day."
Jessica grins and throws him a thumbs-up, before digging her head into the carbon-nanoweave pillow. She didn't mind an empty bed, but she hated an empty room. She'd gotten used to the constant murmur of a base of Marines, of the tromp of boots in and out, of arguments about whose celebrities' tits were better leading to full-on wrestling matches in the middle of the floor. It was chaos, pure and undiluted, and for her it meant safety, because she knew and trusted the same idiots currently tussling over who got the pudding they'd smuggled from the base's mess hall. She missed having comrades, a family, to live and work and struggle with; HITMarks didn't even come close.
Jessica Hughes falls asleep to the sound of John Kessler noisily eating pizza and watching Terminator 2.
For once, she sleeps through the night.
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Mai-be.
(totally not planned if it was; I just did things like google "vietnamese female given name," lol)
That bit there.
Correction: the new harem leader might actually be John Kessler, we'll have to see how this develops.
Sirrocco
Pedantic
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Yeah - but John would be an Oblivious Harem Protagonist, while Donald makes such a good Panicky Harem Protagonist.
Just point of order - as per his dossier, Kessler was 2IC and recruiter for Assault Team K65. He wasn't the fresh-faced recruit there; he was the veteran badass sergeant picking out a team of badasses for the most hardcore missions. Possibly chewing on an unlit cigar as he did so, because Iteration X took a long time to accept the Progenitors going "No, really, cigar smoke is bad for you, even if you have synthetic lungs".
Yeah, I disagree there. For one, my suspension of disbelief is called into question by that. It's also too pat. There are other Iteration X modes of operation, and they don't need a pre-existing connection.
John: "Well, we didn't exactly move in the same circles. We were really more acquaintances than friends, though we did deploy once together in 'bout 91 or so when a bunch of VA terrorists attacked a facility starting with the lobby and working their way upwards to try to rescue their leader... I think his name was Orpheus. But yeah. I was a hard assault sort, did a lot of cooperation with the Void Engineers. He was a doorkicker, operated a lot more in urban areas when I knew him. Much more compact full body stuff. The kinda guy who was the heavy support in cross Convention teams, rather than hard-kill. For him to be on Autocthonia, he must have been promoted since I went missing."
Henriette: "Full body? I... I don't remember that."
John: "Well, like I said, more compact stuff. Still he was barely more organic than me last time I saw him. He did mention he'd met someone, actually. Heh. I think we all ribbed him 'bout whether he'd got a 'special enhancement' with a vibrate function. Then he smirked and said he had."
Henriette: "... I did not need to know that. I really did not need to know that."
John: "Wait. Don't tell me the Union's stopped helping out poor guys who've given their bodies for the cause in that manner? If they have... that's horrible! You're not telling me you've run into full body guys without 'special enhancements'?"
Henriette: "I am not talking about this! And... and pilots aren't full body and so at least... no, and did I mention I'm not talking about this? Because I'm not!"
After much thought on this topic, I'm pretty sure that the harem lead was actually seadart. (The defection was entirely from lack of harem hijinks, not political disagreements, right?) Given who replaced him, that means having a new lead is either Serafina's or John's job. From what we know of the two, it's clear that Serafina should grow a boyfriend 'better' than Donald for Rose. Given her previous experiences in this field, Alicia assure us that nothing could possibly go wrong.
It's Jamelia. Not only does she has the steady relationships of Jamelia/Job, and Jamelia/Meddling In People's Lives, but there's also Jamelia/Making Very Disruptive Phone Calls, and now she's started up an affair on the side with Jamelia/The Conspiracy.
Oh, and some crack shippers also put up Jamelia/Donald, Jamelia/Serafina, and Jamelia/The General.
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A handsome young Cyborg named Ace,
Wooed women at every base,
But once ladies glanced at
His special enhancement
They vanished with nary a trace.
—Barracks Graffiti, Sparta Command
I didn't want to reference it explicitly, but I was totally thinking of it.
Sol Zagato
senseless brute
OTP! OTP! The chemistry between these two is awesome (in the original sense, like leaving us trembling with fear). And the best thing about the pairing is they can remain enemies.
"Starborn" was a name MJ12 made up, "Injun" was a reference to a prior snippet I wrote explaining how Kessler got in touch with Dreamspeakers in the first place, and "Ramirez" was because of course Assault Team Juggernaut had RAMIREZ! in it.
Thanks. Wrote that up using the Hemingway method, so I'll have to go back and fix stuff when I have the time. (maaaybe later this week if I'm lucky)
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Kerrus
Fractal Insanity
And he had the coolest boat.
Just that all that with Mai, made it seem Dresden filesy."Starborn" was a name MJ12 made up, "Injun" was a reference to a prior snippet I wrote explaining how Kessler got in touch with Dreamspeakers in the first place, and "Ramirez" was because of course Assault Team Juggernaut had RAMIREZ! in it.
Cornuthaum
Be kind to each other.
- Location
- Austria
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Not Even In Death Does Duty End
Jamelia watches the false sunrise of the London Geofront, sitting as she does on one of the cast-iron benches (authentic cast-iron, Victorian, to boot) and looks at the cemetery on the other side of the street.
A spidertank silently stomps past, and Jamelia looks back down at her handbag, at what's inside. She knows herself well enough to know she doesn't have to want to do this. But she does, anyways.
The spidertank passes by again - seven seconds earlier than her gut instinct told her it should have. Good. The counterprobabilistic patrol system is still working, then.
But, Jamelia berates herself in her mind, enough dilly-dallying. The Void Engineers don't have too large a presence on Earthside burial sites, even now with Memorial Hall lost to the ghosts of Cont- lost in the Dimensional Anomaly, but the Technocratic Union has the world's best psychologists on staff. They know the value of heroes, of inspiration. And so the Union makes an exception. The best and the brightest examples of those who hew to the Precepts of Damian to the final line are given their due here, at the heart of the Union.
Passing through the cemetery gates, she notes the trio of artificially blank-faced Iterators around one of the holographic displays of a woman in light exo-armor. Jamelia doesn't recognize the woman, but this close to the cemetery gate, she must have given her life to the Union decades ago.
Jamelia Belltower, Operative (New World Order), walks on smooth white gravel between carefully-maintained holo-plinths gleaming with bronze plaques. Operative Jan Benjaminzoon, Sydney 1977. No details. If you are here, you either know what those interred here did, or you are in the wrong place. Progenitor Ruth Rosenfeld, Berlin 1941. The silent holograms of some of the Union's most dedicated do not judge. Iterator Ian Kedikilwe, Gaborone 2007. They simply accept. Executive Miguel Carrera, Colombia 1994. Dead men and women, a symbol to the current-generation. It's one of the paradoxical sides of the Union, Jamelia knows. They're not supposed to indulge in these things. The dead are that, and that alone.
Lieutenant Siddharth Rajesh, Moscow 2015.
But the Technocratic Union is, at day's end, human. And humans, Jamelia knows, need symbols.
And what a symbol it is. The very image of a modern Space Marine, in his Immortal Warrior PA, NSN Plasma Caster in perfect parade rest. Something feels off about the hologram, though.
For a moment, Jamelia wishes she were elsewhere. But this is neceessary. All things end a small voice in her head tells her.
She looks at the hologram of Siddharth again and realizes what felt off. Siddharth looks... peaceful. None of the barely-subdued rage at the deviancy of the world. None of the weight from whatever incident that forced him Earthside.
Jamelia shifts on the gravel, searching for the right words. In a place like this, it wouldn't do to say the wrong thing. Above, a Mk IX Peacekeeper drone circles, eternally watchful against any who would attack the Geofront.
"Siddharth." Jamelia begins, haltingly. "I'm... sorry, really, I am, that it didn't work out between us." She puts on the same artificially-neutral look that the Iterators earlier wore.
"When you left us - left me - in Hong Kong I was so close, so damn close, to call you a bloody traitor and a thousand other things besides." Jamelia angrily swipes her hands at the plinth. "All over such a simple argument! But..." Jamelia halts again. "We wouldn't even have met if it hadn't been for your strategic inflexibility." She remembers the hollow feeling of betrayal when he told her about his expedited transfer request. How she felt like crying - legitimately crying - over it. How his betrayal stung so much. She hadn't felt like that since Silent Starling dragged her kicking and screaming into a nightmare-pit of broken drea- a Nephandic Labyrinth.
"Of course, if that'd been the last we saw of each other..." Jamelia shakes her head. It would have been nice if that had been the last of it. If Moscow didn't have to happen because of one man's fury. "Well, it's useless to speculate. I could hardly believe it when I heard that you had arrived in Moscow, plasma caster blazing, burning hemophages and their thralsl to ash and cinder. Even... even then, with them, you kept to what you were. Who you were." Jamelia buries her face in her hands for a moment. Oh yes, he did. The Void Engineers reacted too quickly, too decisively, for it to be mere chance. They knew. He knew that they would know.
Jamelia fiddles with her hijab, a rare moment of trying to find the right words. "And then things happened just so quickly. It hurt, you know, our argument in the Museum. But ... but, Siddhart, Lieutenant Rajesh, I like to think that despite what you slung at me on the way downstairs, you were still trying to do the right thing."
Oh yes, these words hurt. Irrefutable proof of the fall of Control. And, of course, the comfortable blanket of INVISIBLE BEAR being torn off her.
"But when that psychopathic murderer turned his back on you - on us - on humanity, all in the name of immortality, you gave me a clear shot. And I took it, because I had to, and you were right. These deviants just have to die." Not that killing bloody Extra-Dimensional Entities is easy for her.
"And then, at the end, when it was you and me and the end of the world, you... you did what I honestly didn't believe you were capable of any more." Her hand reaches out, to the plinth, fuzzing the hologram for a moment. "And you died, Siddharth."
Jamelia carefully molds her look of blank bereavement into a part sad, part happy smile. "You died the way you lived, Lieutenant Rajesh," she says, her voice full of the resolve that has seen her survive damn near everything so far. "You died as a loyal member of the Technocratic Union, with unshakeable faith in the Precepts of Damian and our mission to safeguard the Masses."
Reaching into her handbag, she comes up with a small tin can, black with a blood-red print of a heavily muscled strawberry. "And because of that sacrifice I'm here, today, Siddharth, to say goodbye. But... we drink for the living, and we drink to the dead." With a clack and a hiss, the can of RAWBERRY-flavoured Erg cola opens. "So here's to you, Siddharth. I won't wish you that you find in death the peace denied to you in life, because you'd call me a jelly-spined coward and then you'd promptly start to shoot RNEs for the crime of existing." The scent of platonic strawberry is thick in the air as she thinks back to the signature weapon trails of an NSN plasma caster tearing into Subjugation Corps marines. Upending the can in front of the plinth, the thick liquid easily runs through the gravel, and Jamelia can hear the soft tinkle of Erg Cola on metal collectors below.
The Technocratic Union, she realizes, is built on a great many paradoxes.
"Thank you, Lieutenant Rajesh, for everything I learned from you. And thank you for believing in our mission to the last."
As she leaves, Jamelia wonders what Siddharth would think of this. Probably 'Stop this traditionalist deviancy at once! If you have to give due to the dead, do it by setting Reality Deviants on fire!'. Or the traditional Void Engineer Marine method, 'Get a bucket of vodka and start drowning your sorrows instead!'
Jamelia watches the false sunrise of the London Geofront, sitting as she does on one of the cast-iron benches (authentic cast-iron, Victorian, to boot) and looks at the cemetery on the other side of the street.
A spidertank silently stomps past, and Jamelia looks back down at her handbag, at what's inside. She knows herself well enough to know she doesn't have to want to do this. But she does, anyways.
The spidertank passes by again - seven seconds earlier than her gut instinct told her it should have. Good. The counterprobabilistic patrol system is still working, then.
But, Jamelia berates herself in her mind, enough dilly-dallying. The Void Engineers don't have too large a presence on Earthside burial sites, even now with Memorial Hall lost to the ghosts of Cont- lost in the Dimensional Anomaly, but the Technocratic Union has the world's best psychologists on staff. They know the value of heroes, of inspiration. And so the Union makes an exception. The best and the brightest examples of those who hew to the Precepts of Damian to the final line are given their due here, at the heart of the Union.
Passing through the cemetery gates, she notes the trio of artificially blank-faced Iterators around one of the holographic displays of a woman in light exo-armor. Jamelia doesn't recognize the woman, but this close to the cemetery gate, she must have given her life to the Union decades ago.
Jamelia Belltower, Operative (New World Order), walks on smooth white gravel between carefully-maintained holo-plinths gleaming with bronze plaques. Operative Jan Benjaminzoon, Sydney 1977. No details. If you are here, you either know what those interred here did, or you are in the wrong place. Progenitor Ruth Rosenfeld, Berlin 1941. The silent holograms of some of the Union's most dedicated do not judge. Iterator Ian Kedikilwe, Gaborone 2007. They simply accept. Executive Miguel Carrera, Colombia 1994. Dead men and women, a symbol to the current-generation. It's one of the paradoxical sides of the Union, Jamelia knows. They're not supposed to indulge in these things. The dead are that, and that alone.
Lieutenant Siddharth Rajesh, Moscow 2015.
But the Technocratic Union is, at day's end, human. And humans, Jamelia knows, need symbols.
And what a symbol it is. The very image of a modern Space Marine, in his Immortal Warrior PA, NSN Plasma Caster in perfect parade rest. Something feels off about the hologram, though.
For a moment, Jamelia wishes she were elsewhere. But this is neceessary. All things end a small voice in her head tells her.
She looks at the hologram of Siddharth again and realizes what felt off. Siddharth looks... peaceful. None of the barely-subdued rage at the deviancy of the world. None of the weight from whatever incident that forced him Earthside.
Jamelia shifts on the gravel, searching for the right words. In a place like this, it wouldn't do to say the wrong thing. Above, a Mk IX Peacekeeper drone circles, eternally watchful against any who would attack the Geofront.
"Siddharth." Jamelia begins, haltingly. "I'm... sorry, really, I am, that it didn't work out between us." She puts on the same artificially-neutral look that the Iterators earlier wore.
"When you left us - left me - in Hong Kong I was so close, so damn close, to call you a bloody traitor and a thousand other things besides." Jamelia angrily swipes her hands at the plinth. "All over such a simple argument! But..." Jamelia halts again. "We wouldn't even have met if it hadn't been for your strategic inflexibility." She remembers the hollow feeling of betrayal when he told her about his expedited transfer request. How she felt like crying - legitimately crying - over it. How his betrayal stung so much. She hadn't felt like that since Silent Starling dragged her kicking and screaming into a nightmare-pit of broken drea- a Nephandic Labyrinth.
"Of course, if that'd been the last we saw of each other..." Jamelia shakes her head. It would have been nice if that had been the last of it. If Moscow didn't have to happen because of one man's fury. "Well, it's useless to speculate. I could hardly believe it when I heard that you had arrived in Moscow, plasma caster blazing, burning hemophages and their thralsl to ash and cinder. Even... even then, with them, you kept to what you were. Who you were." Jamelia buries her face in her hands for a moment. Oh yes, he did. The Void Engineers reacted too quickly, too decisively, for it to be mere chance. They knew. He knew that they would know.
Jamelia fiddles with her hijab, a rare moment of trying to find the right words. "And then things happened just so quickly. It hurt, you know, our argument in the Museum. But ... but, Siddhart, Lieutenant Rajesh, I like to think that despite what you slung at me on the way downstairs, you were still trying to do the right thing."
Oh yes, these words hurt. Irrefutable proof of the fall of Control. And, of course, the comfortable blanket of INVISIBLE BEAR being torn off her.
"But when that psychopathic murderer turned his back on you - on us - on humanity, all in the name of immortality, you gave me a clear shot. And I took it, because I had to, and you were right. These deviants just have to die." Not that killing bloody Extra-Dimensional Entities is easy for her.
"And then, at the end, when it was you and me and the end of the world, you... you did what I honestly didn't believe you were capable of any more." Her hand reaches out, to the plinth, fuzzing the hologram for a moment. "And you died, Siddharth."
Jamelia carefully molds her look of blank bereavement into a part sad, part happy smile. "You died the way you lived, Lieutenant Rajesh," she says, her voice full of the resolve that has seen her survive damn near everything so far. "You died as a loyal member of the Technocratic Union, with unshakeable faith in the Precepts of Damian and our mission to safeguard the Masses."
Reaching into her handbag, she comes up with a small tin can, black with a blood-red print of a heavily muscled strawberry. "And because of that sacrifice I'm here, today, Siddharth, to say goodbye. But... we drink for the living, and we drink to the dead." With a clack and a hiss, the can of RAWBERRY-flavoured Erg cola opens. "So here's to you, Siddharth. I won't wish you that you find in death the peace denied to you in life, because you'd call me a jelly-spined coward and then you'd promptly start to shoot RNEs for the crime of existing." The scent of platonic strawberry is thick in the air as she thinks back to the signature weapon trails of an NSN plasma caster tearing into Subjugation Corps marines. Upending the can in front of the plinth, the thick liquid easily runs through the gravel, and Jamelia can hear the soft tinkle of Erg Cola on metal collectors below.
The Technocratic Union, she realizes, is built on a great many paradoxes.
"Thank you, Lieutenant Rajesh, for everything I learned from you. And thank you for believing in our mission to the last."
As she leaves, Jamelia wonders what Siddharth would think of this. Probably 'Stop this traditionalist deviancy at once! If you have to give due to the dead, do it by setting Reality Deviants on fire!'. Or the traditional Void Engineer Marine method, 'Get a bucket of vodka and start drowning your sorrows instead!'
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My guess (and by that I mean probably canon unless someone has some amazing objections) is that they're acquaintances because Henriette's dad was an assault VTOL pilot. An ARC is a pretty sweet killing machine, what with being a giant hybrid gunship/transport the size of a V-22 armed with HVMs and a gatling railgun and minimissile pods and a couple of secondary miniguns. ARC IIs are even nastier. Henriette drew inspiration from his example when she decided "oh I'm going to go rescue my parents" and decided she'd like to be a pilot, which is why she's not a huge gay space marine or some more rarefied form of Iterator who does things like self-healing mesh networked attack drones. Calling Henriette any one of them (but especially a huge gay space marine) would be very inaccurate.
Serafina: "Well, she's not huge nor is she a space marine, but you can't say that's entirely inaccurate considering her behavior around me."
Sirrocco
Pedantic
- Pronouns
- He/Him
@Cornuthaum nice. I like how the things she says both are and are not true. She's Jamelia like that.
Rose: "I think it is inaccurate! Even if she spends a lot of time staring my chest and making comments about my appearance, that just makes her bisexual, not gay!"
Henriette: *incoherent spluttering*
Donald: "... like, is anyone here actually straight? I'm flexible, especially if I'm bored, same for Dr Rosario, Rose thinks she may be haemosexual..."
Kessler: "Huh?"
Donald: "Attracted to things with blood. Anyway, yeah, Henriette spends all her time staring at Rose or Serafina's chest, you make passes at me and although I think you do it just to annoy me, I'm not sure, and Director Belltower is jobsexual."
Jamelia: "... will you give it a rest?"
Donald: "Would you or would you not sleep with anyone if the mission demanded it?"
Jamelia: "..."
Donald: "My point is proven."
Henriette: "Oh goddamnit would you people stop claiming I'm gay!"
Rose: "You're bisexual, not gay."
Henriette: "Shut up, Rose! I am not! I... I am jealous of how slutty Progenitors get everything easy because men think they're easy, okay!"
Donald: "Fine, fine, we'll stop. And once this Tribunal is over, I've booked tickets for us to go to Egypt."
Jamelia: "Does it aid the mission?"
Donald: "Well, we can rescue Henriette from the Nile. Zing! Donald away!"
*drops smoke bomb, exit, pursued by a
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Sirrocco
Pedantic
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Classic - especially since it's pretty much canon that she's occasionally considered sleeping with Donald, and that consideration has been largely in terms of team effectiveness and similar concerns.
FunkyEntropy
Occasionally insightful, possibly grumpy
- Location
- Los Angeles
Fair enough. You have a greater sense of narrative worth than I, and as such I will defer to your judgement about Kessler's uncle-hood status vis a vis Henriette. Although I stand by assessment of Kessler's character as him being, spiritually if not biologically or relationship...ally nor aimed at any particular individual, Best Uncle.
Serafina: OK, which one of you idiots keeps making smoke bombs for Donald?
Patel: Don't look at me, ma'am. I manufacture robo-arms, not explosives.
Park: Make drugs, not bombs!
Brakowski: I have flash-bangs, not smoke. Also, I'm tripping balls and you just turned into a pink dinosaur.
Serafina: *glares at Cpl Hughes*
Hughes: Hey, I'm from Iteration X! They aren't from my kit, unless Donald's smoke bombs had flesh-eating nanites or something like that.
Serafina: Does he buy the things himself?
Vega: That would involve actual work.
Serafina: So?
Vega: He's a Syndic.
Serafina: Good point.
A cloaked figure drops from above in a cloud of smoke.
Williams: Behold! Only I, Watcher Rachel Williams of the New World Order, could be behind such a villainous act!
Serafina: What's with the absurdly long title? And the whole "cloak and fake dagger" routine?
Williams: Look, us interns have to get attention somehow. Brakowski's got the bro act down well-
Brakowski, Serafina: Act?
Williams: OK, fine, he's Mr. Totally-Not-Jason-Brody and takes all the drugs, so he's a fan favorite. Hughes over there can do the whole "stoic warrior" thing, Park can be "stereotype Asian"-
Park: Hey! This is a conscious choice, not because I'm a stereotypical Chinese grad student!
Williams: Suuuure it is, buddy. Anyway, unless I want to end up like Mr. Nobody over there, *gestures at Arthur Patel* then I have to get a good routine going here.
Serafina: Look, just because you get less screen time than the main characters-
Williams: Oh? Then by all means, please point to any dialogue I've ever had.
Serafina: Well, you got featured in another Panopticon Abridged snippet...fleeing from Rose...I think you said maybe five words total...OK shutting up now.
Williams: See? I need to Make The News, or I'll suffer the dreaded fate of the Eternally Sidelined Sideliner!
Serafina: What does that even mean?
Williams: I have no idea! Williams away! *drops smoke bomb*
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Hughes: *vibrates*
Patel: "Huh?"
Hughes: "I have an implanted communicator. And... uh, I think I must have set it to silent mode when I was in the bar, which makes it vibrate. It's a text from Donald. He... ah, says he pays people to buy his smoke bombs for him."
Serafina: "... that's either an impressive commitment to the Syndicate paradigm, or sheer laziness. And I'm using 'or' as an operator here."
Hands stuffed in her pockets, hair mussed and with no makeup on, Serafina Rosario stomps through the streets of the Geofront with all the beauty, grace and style of a supermodel. She is having a decidedly bad day. Her daughter whined at her this morning and stormed out of the house, she's stressed, and oh yes she's on trial by the heads of the global conspiracy she belongs to.
She doesn't want to be in her assigned quarters. She doesn't want to be near her coworkers. She's just... just getting away from everything, so she doesn't say things she'll regret. She wants to find a way to relax. Blow off some steam.
She's certainly not running away from having to try to tell her five year old (sorta) daughter whose memory she's recently rewritten that her interest in the thirty-something year old playboy financier is totally inappropriate. Especially since Rose currently isn't too pleased with her, because of those implanted memories giving her reason to hate Serafina.
Serafina thinks she deserves this. It's almost easier in some ways. Rose is too forgiving, too nice and cheerful. Rose deserves a chance to resent Serafina. And it's almost easier on her, too. It might help her vent some of the guilt that's been hanging over her.
Now, hopefully Rose won't go out and try to sleep with Donald to spite her. Because that would be bad. Very bad. She did leave Donald a message threatening dire consequences, but she doesn't want to have to talk to him about that now either, because she'll say things she'll regret and things will be... unpleasant.
And then Director Belltower will find out. Serafina has no idea what her boss would say about this whole messy state of affairs, but she doesn't want to find out.
She would probably be... cold. And possibly terse.
So instead she's heading over to the Void Engineer section of the Geofront. Hah. Serafina can remember from intensely dull History of the Union lessons at school that the Geofront was meant to be a place where the Conventions would mingle without artificial delineations. That resolution appeared to have lasted six months at most, because the various offices and apartments assigned to the Conventions ended up clumped together. She could see the architecture change as she stomped between areas traditionally assigned to one Convention or another.
The Void Engineer buildings actually looked... a bit gone to seed, honestly. Like they weren't spending the funds they should have been on maintenance. No, it wasn't a lack of maintenance, she corrected herself, they were clean and not falling apart. It was just that there wasn't anything new. No renovations.
They were buildings from the Void Engineers she could remember, the vaguely subversive bunch of field scientists she'd... well, sort of wanted to join. The idea of going around in space, going to new planets, studying new lifeforms, away from the controls and rules of Earth... well, she could see why Mai Do had 'defected' to them.
But that wasn't the modern Void Engineers.
"Hey! Dr Rosario! Over here!" A young teenager waves wildly at her, sitting at a cafe with an oversized milkshake with two straws. A rainbow-coloured kitten was sitting on the table, drinking from one of the straws.
... that wasn't most modern Void Engineers. Serafina cannot help but smile slightly. "Hello, Almacia," she says. "And Fluffles, I see."
"Yes," Almacia says, nodding cheerfully. She's wearing the same too-large NASA hoodie again, although she does appear to have a grey dress on underneath it. She's apparently feeling cold despite the warmth down here, because she's added thick black tights to her ensemble. "This is Fluffles XXI."
Serafina blinks. "Wasn't it XVIII in Moscow?" she asks.
"Yep!" The girl shrugs. "I tried integrating a new feature. Did not help with average lifespan. Not one bit. But I'm almost sure he's not going to explode like Fluffles XX did. Not unless I tell him to, at least. It'd be a bit silly if he didn't blow up when I told him to!"
"Ah, pets," Serafina agrees, thinking of happier times. Maybe she should get Rose a pet. It would distract her from romance, and she could practice her experimental biology at the same time. "You look well," she says. "I did take a chance to look over your papers, by the way, and sent them back."
"I know," Almacia says happily, brushing a lock of hair back. "Oh, do you want to order something? It's great! I have expenses! For the first time ever! Captain Wynne told me that I could even go and have fancy food although I don't really see the point of that because it's not nice compared to fries and burgers. It doesn't make up for being stuck grounded, but blurrrrrrrgh Tribunal." Almacia collapses forwards, resting her head on the table, before straightening up again.
"Tell me about it," Serafina says, shaking her head. The girl sort of reminded her of someone. Someone whose name also started with Al-. And ended in -cia. "At least you're just just at the periphery, unlike me."
"I know! Poor you! Oh god, talk about boring interviews and 'why did you take this course of action' and 'do you know what this totally unfamiliar EDE was'," Almacia says, swinging her legs around. "Me and B and C are all grounded while we get asked lots and lots of questions about the whole jamming thing - okay, B's always grounded... well, not grounded-grounded like Dr Do grounded me after that incident with the spiders at Area 51 though of course I hadn't fixed up my legs at that point so I wasn't going anywhere anyway but she cut off my internet access for non-work purposes and that was horrible... where was I? - and trust me, FleetCom are not happy about losing me and C from active duty, even if it's just for a few weeks. Still, at least our ships can be off without us 'cause they don't need us. Technically."
Serafina blinks at the motor-mouthed barrage from the AI - God, she couldn't call her that, it just felt wrong when you'd dealt with Iteration X AIs - and processes it. "I'm sure they'll be fine without you for a few weeks," she says casually, throwing out the remark as an idle probe.
The girl's face loses its normal cheerful cast. "I hope so," she says darkly, taking a long slurp at the milkshake.
Serafina doesn't push it. "So, I basically have time to kill for now," she says. "I need lunch, but... oh yeah, I was wondering something. Why do you call Baptysme and Courtain 'B' and 'C'?"
"'Cause it annoys them. 'Snot like they're the names we were raised with. Plus, easier to say." A small smile creeps onto her lips. "Plus, it reminds them that I'm 'A'. I'm the one with the most real world experience. So I have seniority even if I'm bio-younger than them."
Serafina laughs. "Okay, I'd probably do that," she admits. "I think you said something about wanting to show me something in the lab?"
"Yeah." Almacia takes a breath. "Yeah," she repeats with forced cheer. "Uh... oh yeah. See, I was working on something and then I saw there was a gap in your schedule and I wanted to show it to you too and I went and got you an access pass and maybe we might get a paper out of it and..." Almacia frowns. "I hope Dr Do'll be fine with it," she says. "Oh, I'm sure she will be!"
Serafina is not so sure. "Wait, she's here?" she says.
"Yeah! It's great! I'm getting to spend lots of time with her! The most in ages! And we're working together and she says I'm really progressing and she's the most proud of me of any of me and my sisters!" Almacia proudly declares, hugging herself in glee. "And since you used to work together, I'm sure you'll love to catch up!"
Looking at the beaming face before her, Serafina just doesn't have the heart to tell the truth. Well, maybe they'll get along better now. Now that they've... uh, apparently both adopted cheerful constructs who are a little bit disgusting in how prodigious they are. Not that she's jealous. Maybe they can compare notes on parenting techniques.
"Oh yes!" Almacia says. "And I've thought about what you said, and I haven't seen a single urge in me to clone a boyfriend! Or a girlfriend, no matter what Elsa keeps on saying!"
Okay, no, bloody Dr Do isn't suffering the problems of hormonal amorous constructs. It's just not fair. Well, she'll get it soon. Hopefully.
Almacia pouts. "She's here too for the Tribunal," she adds. "Elsa, that is."
"I know," Serafina says. changing topics. "I'm meeting with her this evening."
"Well," the girl says, crossing her arms, "at least you'll be there to make sure she gets home!"
Serafina's food arrives, and she takes a bite. "I'm sorry?" she says.
"She's also answering lots of boring questions from the Tribunal stuff, though she's in all kinds of security thingies," Almacia explains. "Obviously she's not going anywhere near Command as a person who's only just changed sides. But we're sharing a room, because... well, people are all stupid and don't think I can look after myself, and Dr Do has her husband with her so doesn't have free space at her place. But Elsa keeps on going out to bars and then not coming back at night, or at least until... like, 5am. So I get to watch TV late."
"I... see," Serafina says. Well. Well, well, well. That does change her plans for tonight. Maybe she should book another room. Just in case. Because the risk of Rose sneaking through is too high if they wound up back at hers. "Thanks for the heads-up," Serafina says. "I'll make sure to keep a close eye on her."
"Good. She needs watching over," Almacia grumbles. "She's probably going drinking in cyborg bars with her shiny new body - only it's not literally shiny, except under the flesh - and getting so drunk she's forgotten where to come back to! Or she's gone off and... and is having sex with some stranger! Who'd do such a thing?"
"I have no idea," Serafina says blandly.
She doesn't want to be in her assigned quarters. She doesn't want to be near her coworkers. She's just... just getting away from everything, so she doesn't say things she'll regret. She wants to find a way to relax. Blow off some steam.
She's certainly not running away from having to try to tell her five year old (sorta) daughter whose memory she's recently rewritten that her interest in the thirty-something year old playboy financier is totally inappropriate. Especially since Rose currently isn't too pleased with her, because of those implanted memories giving her reason to hate Serafina.
Serafina thinks she deserves this. It's almost easier in some ways. Rose is too forgiving, too nice and cheerful. Rose deserves a chance to resent Serafina. And it's almost easier on her, too. It might help her vent some of the guilt that's been hanging over her.
Now, hopefully Rose won't go out and try to sleep with Donald to spite her. Because that would be bad. Very bad. She did leave Donald a message threatening dire consequences, but she doesn't want to have to talk to him about that now either, because she'll say things she'll regret and things will be... unpleasant.
And then Director Belltower will find out. Serafina has no idea what her boss would say about this whole messy state of affairs, but she doesn't want to find out.
She would probably be... cold. And possibly terse.
So instead she's heading over to the Void Engineer section of the Geofront. Hah. Serafina can remember from intensely dull History of the Union lessons at school that the Geofront was meant to be a place where the Conventions would mingle without artificial delineations. That resolution appeared to have lasted six months at most, because the various offices and apartments assigned to the Conventions ended up clumped together. She could see the architecture change as she stomped between areas traditionally assigned to one Convention or another.
The Void Engineer buildings actually looked... a bit gone to seed, honestly. Like they weren't spending the funds they should have been on maintenance. No, it wasn't a lack of maintenance, she corrected herself, they were clean and not falling apart. It was just that there wasn't anything new. No renovations.
They were buildings from the Void Engineers she could remember, the vaguely subversive bunch of field scientists she'd... well, sort of wanted to join. The idea of going around in space, going to new planets, studying new lifeforms, away from the controls and rules of Earth... well, she could see why Mai Do had 'defected' to them.
But that wasn't the modern Void Engineers.
"Hey! Dr Rosario! Over here!" A young teenager waves wildly at her, sitting at a cafe with an oversized milkshake with two straws. A rainbow-coloured kitten was sitting on the table, drinking from one of the straws.
... that wasn't most modern Void Engineers. Serafina cannot help but smile slightly. "Hello, Almacia," she says. "And Fluffles, I see."
"Yes," Almacia says, nodding cheerfully. She's wearing the same too-large NASA hoodie again, although she does appear to have a grey dress on underneath it. She's apparently feeling cold despite the warmth down here, because she's added thick black tights to her ensemble. "This is Fluffles XXI."
Serafina blinks. "Wasn't it XVIII in Moscow?" she asks.
"Yep!" The girl shrugs. "I tried integrating a new feature. Did not help with average lifespan. Not one bit. But I'm almost sure he's not going to explode like Fluffles XX did. Not unless I tell him to, at least. It'd be a bit silly if he didn't blow up when I told him to!"
"Ah, pets," Serafina agrees, thinking of happier times. Maybe she should get Rose a pet. It would distract her from romance, and she could practice her experimental biology at the same time. "You look well," she says. "I did take a chance to look over your papers, by the way, and sent them back."
"I know," Almacia says happily, brushing a lock of hair back. "Oh, do you want to order something? It's great! I have expenses! For the first time ever! Captain Wynne told me that I could even go and have fancy food although I don't really see the point of that because it's not nice compared to fries and burgers. It doesn't make up for being stuck grounded, but blurrrrrrrgh Tribunal." Almacia collapses forwards, resting her head on the table, before straightening up again.
"Tell me about it," Serafina says, shaking her head. The girl sort of reminded her of someone. Someone whose name also started with Al-. And ended in -cia. "At least you're just just at the periphery, unlike me."
"I know! Poor you! Oh god, talk about boring interviews and 'why did you take this course of action' and 'do you know what this totally unfamiliar EDE was'," Almacia says, swinging her legs around. "Me and B and C are all grounded while we get asked lots and lots of questions about the whole jamming thing - okay, B's always grounded... well, not grounded-grounded like Dr Do grounded me after that incident with the spiders at Area 51 though of course I hadn't fixed up my legs at that point so I wasn't going anywhere anyway but she cut off my internet access for non-work purposes and that was horrible... where was I? - and trust me, FleetCom are not happy about losing me and C from active duty, even if it's just for a few weeks. Still, at least our ships can be off without us 'cause they don't need us. Technically."
Serafina blinks at the motor-mouthed barrage from the AI - God, she couldn't call her that, it just felt wrong when you'd dealt with Iteration X AIs - and processes it. "I'm sure they'll be fine without you for a few weeks," she says casually, throwing out the remark as an idle probe.
The girl's face loses its normal cheerful cast. "I hope so," she says darkly, taking a long slurp at the milkshake.
Serafina doesn't push it. "So, I basically have time to kill for now," she says. "I need lunch, but... oh yeah, I was wondering something. Why do you call Baptysme and Courtain 'B' and 'C'?"
"'Cause it annoys them. 'Snot like they're the names we were raised with. Plus, easier to say." A small smile creeps onto her lips. "Plus, it reminds them that I'm 'A'. I'm the one with the most real world experience. So I have seniority even if I'm bio-younger than them."
Serafina laughs. "Okay, I'd probably do that," she admits. "I think you said something about wanting to show me something in the lab?"
"Yeah." Almacia takes a breath. "Yeah," she repeats with forced cheer. "Uh... oh yeah. See, I was working on something and then I saw there was a gap in your schedule and I wanted to show it to you too and I went and got you an access pass and maybe we might get a paper out of it and..." Almacia frowns. "I hope Dr Do'll be fine with it," she says. "Oh, I'm sure she will be!"
Serafina is not so sure. "Wait, she's here?" she says.
"Yeah! It's great! I'm getting to spend lots of time with her! The most in ages! And we're working together and she says I'm really progressing and she's the most proud of me of any of me and my sisters!" Almacia proudly declares, hugging herself in glee. "And since you used to work together, I'm sure you'll love to catch up!"
Looking at the beaming face before her, Serafina just doesn't have the heart to tell the truth. Well, maybe they'll get along better now. Now that they've... uh, apparently both adopted cheerful constructs who are a little bit disgusting in how prodigious they are. Not that she's jealous. Maybe they can compare notes on parenting techniques.
"Oh yes!" Almacia says. "And I've thought about what you said, and I haven't seen a single urge in me to clone a boyfriend! Or a girlfriend, no matter what Elsa keeps on saying!"
Okay, no, bloody Dr Do isn't suffering the problems of hormonal amorous constructs. It's just not fair. Well, she'll get it soon. Hopefully.
Almacia pouts. "She's here too for the Tribunal," she adds. "Elsa, that is."
"I know," Serafina says. changing topics. "I'm meeting with her this evening."
"Well," the girl says, crossing her arms, "at least you'll be there to make sure she gets home!"
Serafina's food arrives, and she takes a bite. "I'm sorry?" she says.
"She's also answering lots of boring questions from the Tribunal stuff, though she's in all kinds of security thingies," Almacia explains. "Obviously she's not going anywhere near Command as a person who's only just changed sides. But we're sharing a room, because... well, people are all stupid and don't think I can look after myself, and Dr Do has her husband with her so doesn't have free space at her place. But Elsa keeps on going out to bars and then not coming back at night, or at least until... like, 5am. So I get to watch TV late."
"I... see," Serafina says. Well. Well, well, well. That does change her plans for tonight. Maybe she should book another room. Just in case. Because the risk of Rose sneaking through is too high if they wound up back at hers. "Thanks for the heads-up," Serafina says. "I'll make sure to keep a close eye on her."
"Good. She needs watching over," Almacia grumbles. "She's probably going drinking in cyborg bars with her shiny new body - only it's not literally shiny, except under the flesh - and getting so drunk she's forgotten where to come back to! Or she's gone off and... and is having sex with some stranger! Who'd do such a thing?"
"I have no idea," Serafina says blandly.
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Good to see Almacia is doing well. Though I couldn't help but wince at the little reminders that yes, she's going to go right back out and be a warship fighting Threat Null.
sigh. Stupid Void Engineers, stop being paranoid so we can help you.
sigh. Stupid Void Engineers, stop being paranoid so we can help you.
