Update LXXV: Office Politics
JB LXXV: Office Politics
The ARC pilot who ran the overwatch mission introduces himself to Henriette as Lieutenant Shane Matthews, a blandly handsome man in his late 20s who once flew helicopters for the British Army with a superb record until a crash in a routine training exercise meant he couldn't fly again, having been paralyzed from the neck down. A member of the masses wouldn't be able to tell, though, with his precise movements and perfectly functioning legs. Henriette, though, can see the lack of the slight muscle tremors that purely baseline humans have, and her ocular prosthetic can see how his right leg is mostly lightweight plastics and the neural interface circuitry winding its way along his hands and up through his spine into his skull and ADEI. It reminds her. She probably should get another prosthetic for true binocular vision.
If she can convince Director Belltower that it's a good idea that Prime Energy they've been allotted can go a long way. At least it'd mean she could throw the eyepatch out and maybe look a little more normal. Henriette's come to realize that she'd been deliberately trying to isolate herself from others after 2014-and the eyepatch was another way she was doing it and-I'm becoming a NWO agent someone help me Henriette thinks.
Lieutenant Matthews insisted on dragging her, and Jamelia, into the briefing room for Assault Force Iota-54-Carmine-Ellipse, one of the many amalgams working out of the Hereford construct. "Look, I hear you're talking to our esteemed leader, and we'd all like some help. You're here since you want to know what's going on in Iteration X politics, right?"
Henriette nods.
"Well, what's going on is that we're being starved and dear old Ada in her ivory tower doesn't care." Matthews says angrily, as they walk towards the briefing room. "You have adequate resources to carry out your more limited combat scope. The increased casualties we suffer are acceptable losses. We will keep weapons development programs running on a limited, developmental-only basis to encourage the organization to go back to its roots. Beep boop I am an unfeeling bitch who does not care about dead soldiers. I don't hate boffins but lab accidents aren't that common. Out here-we're at risk of dying every day. There's always some stupid Rogue Council martyr who wants to fire a SAM at one of us or some stupid shapeshifters or goddamn vampires."
Henriette nods as they head into the briefing room, full of cyborgs and genemods of various types and obviousness, from people nearly indistinguishable from humans to a couple of Damage Control types wearing GT-Strain Symbiont Armor, the mechanical jump packs and hardened primium armor plates over slick living armor/muscle/life support. The commander of the amalgam looks identical to Arnold Schwarzenegger, which means he's a HITMark V. It also means he's a very old HITMark V, with over two decades of combat experience. Probably closer to 3, because he'd have to have broken the construct glass ceiling. Henriette does a discreet model scan. A late 70s heavy model built in 1985, which means that he's probably gotten several full overhauls in the meantime. Early synthflesh tended to rot after more than a few months of active duty, and that problem was only fixed in the later models. Henriette feels slightly fortunate Jamelia has found something else to do and isn't here, or else she'd probably suffer medical issues from rolling her eyes so hard they'd threaten to detach from her skull.
"Good evening, Pilot Langley." His voice, though, is devoid of the expected Austrian accent. It's surprisingly mellow for a HITMark, implying erudition and a lifetime spent in contemplation. Not a 150 kilogram titan of a man powered by a microfusion cell where his heart would be, made out of primium and hyperalloy and capable of surviving tank shells. It's clearly a voice chosen to project the right image when it comes time for promotions, to impress people who think that HITMark speech patterns are reflective of their intelligence rather than of the whims of their initial programmer (a surprisingly large number of very shallow people, Henriette reflects sadly), even though by virtue of being a heavy assault HITMark that has survived two decades of combat with a typical loss rate of over 30% per mission and a 'life' of constant war it automatically means that the cyborg is worthy of awe. "I was told that you were the one who dealt with this shapeshifter issue?"
She nods.
"Good. They've been a thorn in our sides for months now. Because of our relative resources, we haven't been able to get any level of approval for the gear we need-until now. Now that they've tried to kill two war heroes and failed miserably at it, we've been quietly given the Dimensional Science support we need to take their hive and neutralize their threat. Unfortunately, noncombat scans are a lot easier to run and a lot more common than combat support, so it's going to be a pretty risky op. The good news is that we have Constables Sykes, Cortez, Hawker, and Dunn here to help with this operation, thanks to our friends in the Progenitors."
There's a lot of grumbling in the room. "Why do we need the meat wagon to help us with our problems?"
"This is bullshit, we should be able to kick down a werewolf nest without external assistance."
"Quiet." the HITMark in command says. His name, Henriette notes, is William Kiet, a name he's chosen for himself. "We're going to have NWO assets assisting us here because they want a piece of the pie and the Syndicate merit funding. They'll be doing the approach and the exterminating of Kinfolk who have the phase space anomaly secured outside. That shouldn't be much of a threat-Statistician analysis shows that they probably don't have enough RPGs and miniguns to threaten even NWO Squishies. Our pilots and a couple of us will be backing them up if the shapeshifters decide to get involved instead of forting up in phase space. We'll be doing most of our job inside the gate itself. Now, most of you have already fought in these situations. For those of you who haven't, I'll give you the quick roundup."
Henriette notices the file upload to her ADEI, and she looks at it. It's a listing of standard anti-shapeshifter tactics. Their silver vulnerability, something that can be exploited by automatic shotguns loaded with special ammunition. A less intense vulnerability to incendiaries-that fur, although tough, seems to be flammable. Their standard tactics of large loosely-organized packs attacking in 'werewolf waves', with basic harassment tactics but relatively low morale, with a handful of veterans to provide actual coordination. Mostly melee attackers, and in a shapeshifter hive there's not much space to deploy ranged weaponry to its fullest extent. Werewolves are fast, numerous, and very good at pack hunting, but there's an interim solution for HITMarks and heavy enhanciles, a modified suit of 'armor' consisting of tiled high explosives and directional silver shrapnel. Its official, old Iteration X name is the Model 1998 Anti-Shapeshifter Defensive Explosive Projector.
Nobody uses that name anymore. All the soldiers have long since called it the 'Jawbreaker', and it's gotten to the point where even official documents refer to it as such.
And, of course, the report also mentions shapeshifter society, in the context of understanding their tactics and their environment. A society entirely dedicated to making pre-industrial warfare, to demolishing modernity and bringing with it a new age of man's subservience to beasts. Even so, Henriette can't quite accept the orders at face value. There will be no calls for surrender, no reeducation and rehabilitation for the kinfolk unfortunate enough to have been brainwashed by the ecoterrorist Reality Deviants. There will be no chance for the wolves that they use to breed their numbers to par for assault after assault on modern society to be freed or put in a zoo somewhere. No, this is a war of extermination. The objective is to burn every single werewolf sympathizer here to ash. The Damage Control constables are here under Applied Sciences' remit to eliminate Reality Deviant 'infestation'. Henriette certainly thinks that killing murderous Reality Deviants is a laudable goal, but-
"No prisoners of war?" Henriette asks. "Isn't that a bit harsh?"
"They've been killing our civilians and noncombatants for years now." Kiet says. "They also don't really have 'civilians' as such. Their society is entirely war-obsessed in a way which would make the total war footing of industrialized societies look like peacetime activity. If they had their way, they would make the Holocaust, Stalin's purges, and every other genocide or mass killing of Sleeper society look insignificant. They're an apocalyptic cult who happen to be Reality Deviants, and the wolves they keep in their hive are there solely to breed more soldiers, who they immediately send into war at their maturity. There are no innocents or noncombatants there." He looks at her expectantly. "I understand that Director Belltower has given us access to some of your noncombatants for finding exactly where this hive is. I'm here to offer you a chance to burn one down firsthand." He leans towards her, almost conspiratorially. "I've had many missions of every kind, but I think that shapeshifter hives are the most exciting. I still remember the first time I went hand to hand with a shapeshifter. It's a thrill you won't get anywhere else."
Henriette supposes that if you are, in fact, a war machine made out of exotic metal alloys and high-tensile composites, fighting shapeshifters would be considered exciting. For everyone else, it'd be considered suicidal. "I'm not a combat rated enhancile." Henriette tells him.
"That's not a problem. The hive's going to be big enough for you to deploy your machine for the most part-" Kiet waves his hand and a series of typical hive configurations appear, large sprawling caves with massive tunnels, huge open forests full of hostile animal-themed EDEs, and more. "-and if that's a problem, we can offer you a chance to remote-pilot a RICU." He waves his hand again, and a suit of armor appears there, except unlike the ones found in the powered armor section of the Union History Museum, this one is piloted by a ghost, nearly half of its mass ammunition for a complex series of deployable weapons. "And we need your help, because we're seriously understaffed here even with the help of the fuzz." It was a derogatory term for Damage Control, the Shock Corps considering the much smaller and less-funded Progenitor combat arm as glorified mall cops, but Kiet's tone is almost reverent here.
Henriette wants to say that Lovelace means well-she's certainly been happy to see medical exoskeletons and thought-controlled bionic arms making their way to the Masses, and the various black ops cyborg units in first world countries that have been discreetly built off of Iteration X technology several generations behind the norm, and she thinks that her mother would have been proud to see the Syndicate treating Iteration X more as another method to win the hearts and minds of mankind than a military shock team that happens to do R&D-but she can understand how being forced to make do with inferior technology feels.
Then again-the policy here seemed to be a recent one. The complaints about her policy were significantly more muted before the recontact operation on Autochthonia-the failed Autochthonia mission. Certainly the pilots and soldiers bitched about not getting the same level of equipment that they had pre-99 but that was to be expected in a Convention as gear-heavy as Iteration X.
"So." Kiet says again. "Are you and Director Belltower coming?"
Rose stares at the other woman, and then quickly glances around the museum. No, this corridor is empty. It's just as well that she came in the quiet hours. She wouldn't want to be talking to someone who isn't there when there was someone else around. With that confirmed, she returns to her scrutiny of her reflection in the glass..
Or, rather, the reflection which isn't quite her. And not in the normal way that Thorn isn't quite her. The mean malicious voice in her head looks like her. Just a dead, corpse-like, vampiric her, with features like a china doll in their unliving perfection, and a wicked gleam in the eyes.
Reina, by contrast, looks alive, flawed, human despite being the memory of a dead woman. She looks like the Reina in the painting Rose saw, the one where she looked about the same age as Rose in the timeless way that senior Technocrats tend to, rather than the grumpy old woman of her last years. She's shorter than Rose, her hair is dark brown rather than coal black, and there's color to her cheeks that Thorn - and Rose - never have. She even has the imperfection of a smattering of freckles on her cheeks and forehead - something the Progenitors wouldn't tolerate unless it was a deliberate design choice.
Also, there's the metal and red glass of her proto-HITMark photoreceptor, and the long scars down one side of her face, the signs of the claws which took her original eye. That's also a difference.
"Does a cat have your tongue?" Reina demands.
Rose shakes her head, and in case this wasn't enough proof, sticks it out as a demonstration.
Folding her arms, Reina glares at her. "That was a figure of speech."
"I'm not very good at figures of speech," Rose admits in a small voice. "Or metaphor. Or a lot of jokes." She pauses. "Mostly the ones about sex. Which seem to make up a disproportionate number of them."
In her reflection, Reina runs her hands through her short hair. "For goodness sake, you are acting willfully obtuse," she accuses. "Just do as I tell you! I recall that the last time I stirred to consciousness, that woman of the Levant said that the year was 2015. Is that the case?"
Rose nods.
"Well, I would have you tell me how the Union has fared in the century and more since my death," Reina says, crossing her arms. She tries to look down her nose at Rose, which is somewhat handicapped by the way that she has to look up.
"I'm sorry," Rose automatically apologizes. leaning back. If she gets the angle right, she can get the reflection of Reina's face on the helmet of the armor. It almost makes her look like she's wearing it.
"Don't waste time apologizing," Reina states, her artificial eye gleaming. "You are my… well, my homunculus-sister? Would that be an apt way of putting it?"
Rose perks up slightly. That is a nicer way of putting things. Homunculus-sister. It sounds a lot better than clone. There's something belittling about "clone", she feels. "It is," she says. Yes, she likes this. The weight is on 'sister'. Especially since she's not really a clone, because of the genetic modifications.
"Well, stand up for yourself more," Reina says flatly. "And stop delaying like a child doing something they do not wish to. You should have more discipline as someone of your age."
"I'm only five," Rose protests. She tilts her head. "Nearly six," she adds. "Six this summer."
"What." It's a single flat word.
"I was decanted… born in 2009," Rose confirms.
Reina narrows her eyes, looking momentarily confused, then aghast. "Do not tell me that there are those in the Union who have been dabbling once again in the fae-sin," she breathes.
"The what?"
Reina raises her eyebrows. "In the beginning of days, the Lord God declared that time should flow ever onwards, never once turning back on its course," she says. "There are wicked beings - the fae of course key among them - who try to change the flow of time. Often they will make hidden glades where the flow of time is altered, to run more slowly or quickly, but their aim is and always has been to turn it back on itself. And for that reason, God's judgement falls most heavily in those who would play with time itself. You are telling me that this was not done to you? Be honest!" she orders Rose.
"I was…" Rose thinks of how to express it, "grown. I was born looking this age. I was meant to have your memories. I was meant to be you. It's just things didn't go right, so I ended up as… as a newborn knowing things I never learned."
Reina looks relieved. "Thank goodness," she announces. "It took us many long years to wipe the fae and their hidden-within-flesh kin from the world, and I would hate to think that it had been wasted by the actions of some foolish men." She gestures towards the great window behind Rose. "Look out. Is this not the troglodytic city hidden beneath London?"
Looking out the window, Rose takes in the sight of the city stretching out in front of her. The closest buildings are of a similar antiquity to this former cathedral, but as one moves further and further away the buildings become newer and newer. In the distance, steel and glass glints above neon. "This is the London Geofront," she agreed.
"Ah, a new name." Rose twists and notices the slight expression of disgust on Reina's face. "How inelegant. But once this was a city fae-town hidden beyond the fields of London. I led the cleansing of this wretched place, and lost decades as we fought through veiled time. But we slew them all. Every last mewling hobgoblin and wretched elf-lord. We burnt their unholy glades and hammered iron nails into their living roads, beneath their tainted mockery of a sun. And we took it for the Order of Reason. It was a sign of our triumph over such soul-eating dream monsters."
Rose clears her throat. This is awkward. "Uh," she begins.
Reina gives her a level stare.
"They started appearing again in the seventies and eighties," Rose says in a tiny voice. "But the fae are not very dangerous. They're usually just in the bodies of children and young people, and medical treatment can help cure them."
Reina squares her jaw. "To think that people have got so lax… well! I will need to explain some facts on the ground to you. Those soul-eating things are merely dormant, and will latch onto and subsume the unborn children of later generations! But later, I think. I still do not know the context I require." She rubs her hands together. "Over there," she says, pointing at a case containing Valiant MkIV combat armor, built for the trenches of the First World War. "What is that?"
"Um." Rose turns to face the grey-green armor. The paint is peeling, and she can see the shining metal and crimson which the armor was decorated in. That quickly changed in Flanders fields, where it was worn by hemophage-hunting units going after the bloodsuckers who had migrated to the trenches, breeding and feeding out of control. The lion-mask had been replaced with something which could pass for a soldier's gas mask, and bandoliers and pouches broke up the clean lines. "That's… um, Valiant Mark Four armor. From the First World War."
"A World War? Against which world?" Reina squares her jaw. "Don't tell me the damned Martians came back." She shakes her head. "I thought the Progenitor bioweapon got them all."
"Um. No. It… it was just this world," Rose says. Reina… she seems oddly innocent to think such things. The idea that a world war would be fought against another world? How… naive, almost. "Well. Um. Well, it lasted from 1914 to 1918 and millions died because… well, the European powers went to war and defensive weapons had advanced after than offensive or strategy so it ended up as a stalemate. In the end, uh, the Allied powers won - that was Britain, France and the US, because Russia had already had a Communist revolution and left the war - and Austria-Hungary broke apart and Germany was defeated. And… uh, the Treaty of Versailles was quite mean and that sort of led to the Second World War. Which was. Um. Worse."
Rose watches each hesitant word hit Reina, and her mood turn from surprise to confusion to anger. "What in God's name was the Union doing?" Reina snaps. "What incompetents let that happen? What was the Invisible College doing?"
"The… oh, was that what Control was called in your time? Yes, I think I remember that," Rose says. "Uh, well, things were a bit confused because I think Control had just moved off world and everything was chaotic because… um, well, after you died, the Electrodyne Engineers left the Union because their theory of ether was discredited by relativity and there was a reformation and the Ivory Tower merged with the Operatives to become the New World Order… or was that earlier? I'm not sure. Anyway, the Electrodyne Engineers joined the Traditions and started calling themselves the 'Sons of Ether' so I… um, think the Union was distracted by that."
"The Electrodyne Engineers did what?" Reina explodes.
"They joined the Traditions." Rose says. "They disagreed with the discrediting of a scientific theory and so that happened."
"Explain. In detail." Reina demands angrily.
The next half hour was enlightening. Enlightening and depressing. Enlightening, depressing, and involving a lot of Rose trying not to look like she was crazy and talking to herself, which left her feeling in dire need of sugar.
"And… um, so… well, a combination of some pre-existing grudges, some mid-ranking people being idiots and killing Alan Turing, and the entire mess after World War Two… well, that led the Virtual Adepts to defect and join the Traditions. Um. They're still… not very Reality Deviant-y, and… and a lot of their disagreement is on political grounds, rather than them wanting to be crazy reality breaking wizards. And… um, after all of that, some of the things I've read give the impression that the Union became more hardline. Certainly, that's when the Pogrom stepped up into full force."
"You know," Reina says, her lips a thin line, "we managed to go hundreds of years since the last major defection, which was a lot of the Ixoi joining the Order of Hermes. I spent quite a long time trying to kill the weasel who led them. And you're telling me the Union lost two Conventions in fifty years?"
"Longer than fifty years!" Rose protests. "It was fifty seven!" It's not a very good protestation, and she shrinks back down, wary of how loud she was being.
"Quite," Reina says. "All this, and we're only up 1961? And from the look on your face, it doesn't get any better." She shakes her head. "Things really went to slack without me around to keep an eye on the lower ranks and shout at the rest of the Invisible College, I can tell!"
"It's not all bad." Rose says. "We've done great things." She walks away from the macabre celebration of the Ascension War and to the things she's most proud of. Bringing sanitation to the masses. Telling them that disease was not a function of evil spirits that hateful neighbors could curse them with, but rather a biological process that could be mitigated. A mostly peaceful world order. "60 years of peace and counting, with no major wars." she adds brightly. "Except for all the brushfire wars and the internal conflicts in the Technocracy. And maybe North Korea's going to cause another major war." she says, the dark mood descending again.
"Internal conflicts?" Reina asked. "I know of the almost-daily politicking that happened despite everyone agreeing on our goals, as to funding and relative importance-but this sounds like more than that."
"S-Serafina mentioned that in Moscow, she kept on running into the aftermath of… of how the Western and Russian Union spent half a century at the height of the Ascension War almost at each other's throats and how the NWO spook in charge there had been fighting against Director Belltower in the 80s in Afghanistan!" Rose clears her throat. "But at least that's all over now and the Union is unified again!" she adds. "Well, unified-ish," she clarifies. "Mostly. Sort of. Largely."
"And by that you mean?" Reina asks in a weary voice. Rose is getting the impression that the collection of memories in her head is getting annoyed at her.
"The New World Order and the Syndicate-I guess you'd have known them as the Ivory Tower and the Operatives and the High Guild-are always at each other's throats in every meeting. The Order wants to impose the Technocracy's worldviews on a top-down process using societies and governments and schools, while the Syndicate wants to sell them products that slowly move the Time Tables up. And then there's Iteration X, which is maybe coming apart because they want to go back to the old ways of shooting everyone who disagrees instead of making nice things for people, and then there's the Void Engineers who everyone is suspicious of because they keep saying they're fighting a mysterious threat in the stars and give no details, and then there's Control, who are gone now and have been since 1999."
"What happened in 1999?" Reina asks, her one remaining eye sharp.
Rose winces. There's a feeling in her head. A feeling that there's something that she doesn't know. Something that she should know. It's not deja vu, because deja vu feels different. But it's the feeling of having felt like this before. It's… it's almost deja vu of deja vu. Now, when has she felt like this before? She can't remember. She shakes her head, and tries to banish these thoughts. "Something very bad," she breathes. "No one knows. But a very old vampire, what the hemophages call an 'antediluvian' woke…"
"No," Reina hisses. "Not one of those abominations!"
"And we killed it."
The look on Reina's face is a mixture of shock, glee and pride. "In truth?" she asked. "One of those wretched fiends is finally dead, to face its eternal judgement?" She smiles. "Even if the Union has fallen somewhat from what it should be… something like this makes it all worthwhile."
Rose shakes her head. "Its death… did something. Something started, a spatial… change we call the Dimensional Anomaly, and they lost all contact with the offworld colonies and most of the contact with other dimensions. They lost contact with Control."
Rose swallows. "That was why they made me and the others," she admits. "After five or so years when there was no contact and the Union was trying to piece itself back together after losing almost everything which wasn't on earth. It was a project to make enhanced clones of great heroes of the Union, publicly. Except… except I think now that it was a project to clone the people who founded Control. So they could have their leaders back. EXEMPLAR III. There were ten of us."
"Ten," Reina says. She nods, solidly. "So Control is what the Invisible College renamed itself, yes? Presumably after my death. And if there were ten… aha. Yes, the ten chairs of the Invisible College. I was the chair of Generals, and the domain of forces was mine. So there are homunculus-siblings of the others running around too?" She sighs, running her hand through her hair. "Some might have thought one Blake was enough," she says, mostly to herself.
Rose massages her temples, staring at the window and her half-seen reflection. "It failed," she said wearily. "I was a failure. The memories didn't integrate properly. I was the lucky one. The other nine... seven of them decided to stage some sort of coup attempt, and only two didn't. They took over the Construct and the people inside-and we had to get a Void Engineer warship to bombard the place at great cost before sending in assault teams with anti-subversion programing. So I was the lucky one." She says bitterly.
"Maybe it's a sign, a test from God." Reina says with determination. "Maybe you should embrace the future instead of looking to the past as justification. After all, this is what we all swore to do. Create a better future. And maybe you live to show that the best use of history is when the old is used to create something new and wonderful, rather than justifying decisions simply because 'that's the way it's always been'."
"Maybe." Rose says. It's a nice thing to say, but she's not sure if she can believe it. "I'm sorry for taking up so much of your time rambling."
"I demand you make it up for me. There was once this fantastic little place with decadent desserts, and I'd like to eat there again. I'm sure the Queen of Tarts still exists, if only because of the lewd pun."
"Really?" Rose asks, surprised. "That's it? No grand quest to put your affairs in order or something?" Rose has read a lot of trashy fantasy novels and knows what these requests typically entail. Serafina's collection of them is exceptionally large, even if she insists that most of the trashy fantasy romances are things she reads ironically.
"Sweet things are my vice," Reina admits, turning slightly pink. "At least it's better than those vile cigars some of my compatriots used to smoke. Wretched things always left me choking. I don't know why the High Guild decided that selling them was such a good idea."
"I tried smoking once." Rose says. "It tasted awful and it didn't feel satisfying at all. My blood decided that the nicotine in it was a poison and filtered it out."
"The sciences of the day must be incredibly advanced, to create blood smarter than the average banker." Reina says. "Or perhaps the High Guild always had a large proportion of idiots."
"Hey! Donald's nice and isn't stupid at all and he's a member of the Syndicate!" Rose complains as she sets off towards the old restaurant. It's still there, still with the same name and pun.
"He is a banker. He may covet you, but I do not think that they are capable of love in the way normal men are." Reina warns, stopping her speech as the dessert arrive to attack its reflection with the same gusto the old knight used to attack vampires. Rose stares at the not-her reflection digging into the reflection of her dessert. She checks quickly that her own one is not disappearing in mysterious bites, which would make her quite angry-ish. Fortunately, it is not.
"Thish ish mgood," Reina says through her full mouth. She wipes an errant blob of cream off her nose. "Serioushly."
Rose takes a mouthful while trying not to think how the collection of memories from her gene source manifesting as her reflection can get cream on her nose when pretend-eating. Or whatever is happening in her head. But even her good friend, sugar, can't wash away her irritation. Sugar is her friend. It's never mean or horrible, and always makes her feel good. Usually. Not now. "Excuse me... but can I ask you for help?" Rose asks.
"For goodness' sake, child, I am part of your memories and part of you. Be more assertive!"
"Okay, fine." Rose says. "I had a very loud and mean row with Serafina," Rose says unhappily. "Well. Another one. It's... it's the third one since that really big one when I got back from having my heart torn out."
"I see the study of the body and healing arts has improved somewhat, if that is a survivable injury," Reina observed drily. "Even in my latter years, the loss of one's heart was a fatal injury. Well, unless a very skilled doctor was in hand with all the right equipment. Or if the Lord God chose to intervene, though hoping for such typically was a longshot."
Rose sighed. "I have two hearts. They only destroyed one," she said, unconsciously touching her chest above where each one sat. "And... well, one of the rows was because she dropped a milk bottle and then didn't clean it up properly. We wouldn't argue about that normally, but..." she sighed again. "We just keep on making each other miserable," she said, balling her hands into fists. "And I'm angry and... and..." she feels her weaponized nails dig into armored skin. "I don't know," she concluded in a whisper.
So, subplots and optional missions ahoy! Note that the Serafina/Rose ones are largely to resolve personal subplots, while Henriette/Jamelia may actually determine what you're doing until your next hearing. Also, I reserve the rights to largely ignore them and maybe mention a sentence or two if I can't figure out how to work them into interesting posts or plots.
Be Henriette:
The HITMark just asked you whether or not you wanted to get some revengeance for the werewolf attack. Henriette's answer is...
[ ] (1.2x) "Yes."
[ ] "No, but give me a seat on a command vehicle and I'll provide you help."
[ ] (0.8x) "Sorry, we're really busy with the Tribunal."
[ ] Write-in.
Be Jamelia:
What exactly has Jamelia been doing while Henriette's been dealing with Iteration X soldierboys?
[ ] Project TYRANT has its conversion facilities here. Might as well check on them and see if they've figured out something you haven't, or figured out something you have-either way, it'd be a good idea to bring them in on the conspiracy.
[ ] Jamelia's pretty sure that there's going to be an attack on the shapeshifter hive, and hives generally have several murders of werewolves (like crows, werewolves come in murders) in them. So she's going to be running her requisitions to get some gear to prepare for that.
[ ] Henriette's got the respect needed, but not quite the skills. Start digging into personnel details here because your endgoal here is still trying to ensure that Iteration X doesn't go axe-crazy in the near future.
[ ] Examine the shapeshifters more closely for any possible relations to Threat Null. It seems suspicious that you just happened to be the ones attacked.
Be Reina:
Give your homunculus-sister... well, okay, more like homunculus-daughter... well okay it's complicated some advice.
[ ] Get back in contact with her mother.
[ ] Grow up and stop worrying so much.
[ ] Go kill some vampires to make yourself feel better. It works. Really.
[ ] Write-in.
Be Serafina:
Serafina has been...
[ ] Working a lot to keep her mind off of things. With the Void Engineers.
[ ] Pretending to work but mostly been spying on them.
[ ] "Working late at the lab".
[ ] Trying to work up the courage to apologize to Rose.
The ARC pilot who ran the overwatch mission introduces himself to Henriette as Lieutenant Shane Matthews, a blandly handsome man in his late 20s who once flew helicopters for the British Army with a superb record until a crash in a routine training exercise meant he couldn't fly again, having been paralyzed from the neck down. A member of the masses wouldn't be able to tell, though, with his precise movements and perfectly functioning legs. Henriette, though, can see the lack of the slight muscle tremors that purely baseline humans have, and her ocular prosthetic can see how his right leg is mostly lightweight plastics and the neural interface circuitry winding its way along his hands and up through his spine into his skull and ADEI. It reminds her. She probably should get another prosthetic for true binocular vision.
If she can convince Director Belltower that it's a good idea that Prime Energy they've been allotted can go a long way. At least it'd mean she could throw the eyepatch out and maybe look a little more normal. Henriette's come to realize that she'd been deliberately trying to isolate herself from others after 2014-and the eyepatch was another way she was doing it and-I'm becoming a NWO agent someone help me Henriette thinks.
Lieutenant Matthews insisted on dragging her, and Jamelia, into the briefing room for Assault Force Iota-54-Carmine-Ellipse, one of the many amalgams working out of the Hereford construct. "Look, I hear you're talking to our esteemed leader, and we'd all like some help. You're here since you want to know what's going on in Iteration X politics, right?"
Henriette nods.
"Well, what's going on is that we're being starved and dear old Ada in her ivory tower doesn't care." Matthews says angrily, as they walk towards the briefing room. "You have adequate resources to carry out your more limited combat scope. The increased casualties we suffer are acceptable losses. We will keep weapons development programs running on a limited, developmental-only basis to encourage the organization to go back to its roots. Beep boop I am an unfeeling bitch who does not care about dead soldiers. I don't hate boffins but lab accidents aren't that common. Out here-we're at risk of dying every day. There's always some stupid Rogue Council martyr who wants to fire a SAM at one of us or some stupid shapeshifters or goddamn vampires."
Henriette nods as they head into the briefing room, full of cyborgs and genemods of various types and obviousness, from people nearly indistinguishable from humans to a couple of Damage Control types wearing GT-Strain Symbiont Armor, the mechanical jump packs and hardened primium armor plates over slick living armor/muscle/life support. The commander of the amalgam looks identical to Arnold Schwarzenegger, which means he's a HITMark V. It also means he's a very old HITMark V, with over two decades of combat experience. Probably closer to 3, because he'd have to have broken the construct glass ceiling. Henriette does a discreet model scan. A late 70s heavy model built in 1985, which means that he's probably gotten several full overhauls in the meantime. Early synthflesh tended to rot after more than a few months of active duty, and that problem was only fixed in the later models. Henriette feels slightly fortunate Jamelia has found something else to do and isn't here, or else she'd probably suffer medical issues from rolling her eyes so hard they'd threaten to detach from her skull.
"Good evening, Pilot Langley." His voice, though, is devoid of the expected Austrian accent. It's surprisingly mellow for a HITMark, implying erudition and a lifetime spent in contemplation. Not a 150 kilogram titan of a man powered by a microfusion cell where his heart would be, made out of primium and hyperalloy and capable of surviving tank shells. It's clearly a voice chosen to project the right image when it comes time for promotions, to impress people who think that HITMark speech patterns are reflective of their intelligence rather than of the whims of their initial programmer (a surprisingly large number of very shallow people, Henriette reflects sadly), even though by virtue of being a heavy assault HITMark that has survived two decades of combat with a typical loss rate of over 30% per mission and a 'life' of constant war it automatically means that the cyborg is worthy of awe. "I was told that you were the one who dealt with this shapeshifter issue?"
She nods.
"Good. They've been a thorn in our sides for months now. Because of our relative resources, we haven't been able to get any level of approval for the gear we need-until now. Now that they've tried to kill two war heroes and failed miserably at it, we've been quietly given the Dimensional Science support we need to take their hive and neutralize their threat. Unfortunately, noncombat scans are a lot easier to run and a lot more common than combat support, so it's going to be a pretty risky op. The good news is that we have Constables Sykes, Cortez, Hawker, and Dunn here to help with this operation, thanks to our friends in the Progenitors."
There's a lot of grumbling in the room. "Why do we need the meat wagon to help us with our problems?"
"This is bullshit, we should be able to kick down a werewolf nest without external assistance."
"Quiet." the HITMark in command says. His name, Henriette notes, is William Kiet, a name he's chosen for himself. "We're going to have NWO assets assisting us here because they want a piece of the pie and the Syndicate merit funding. They'll be doing the approach and the exterminating of Kinfolk who have the phase space anomaly secured outside. That shouldn't be much of a threat-Statistician analysis shows that they probably don't have enough RPGs and miniguns to threaten even NWO Squishies. Our pilots and a couple of us will be backing them up if the shapeshifters decide to get involved instead of forting up in phase space. We'll be doing most of our job inside the gate itself. Now, most of you have already fought in these situations. For those of you who haven't, I'll give you the quick roundup."
Henriette notices the file upload to her ADEI, and she looks at it. It's a listing of standard anti-shapeshifter tactics. Their silver vulnerability, something that can be exploited by automatic shotguns loaded with special ammunition. A less intense vulnerability to incendiaries-that fur, although tough, seems to be flammable. Their standard tactics of large loosely-organized packs attacking in 'werewolf waves', with basic harassment tactics but relatively low morale, with a handful of veterans to provide actual coordination. Mostly melee attackers, and in a shapeshifter hive there's not much space to deploy ranged weaponry to its fullest extent. Werewolves are fast, numerous, and very good at pack hunting, but there's an interim solution for HITMarks and heavy enhanciles, a modified suit of 'armor' consisting of tiled high explosives and directional silver shrapnel. Its official, old Iteration X name is the Model 1998 Anti-Shapeshifter Defensive Explosive Projector.
Nobody uses that name anymore. All the soldiers have long since called it the 'Jawbreaker', and it's gotten to the point where even official documents refer to it as such.
And, of course, the report also mentions shapeshifter society, in the context of understanding their tactics and their environment. A society entirely dedicated to making pre-industrial warfare, to demolishing modernity and bringing with it a new age of man's subservience to beasts. Even so, Henriette can't quite accept the orders at face value. There will be no calls for surrender, no reeducation and rehabilitation for the kinfolk unfortunate enough to have been brainwashed by the ecoterrorist Reality Deviants. There will be no chance for the wolves that they use to breed their numbers to par for assault after assault on modern society to be freed or put in a zoo somewhere. No, this is a war of extermination. The objective is to burn every single werewolf sympathizer here to ash. The Damage Control constables are here under Applied Sciences' remit to eliminate Reality Deviant 'infestation'. Henriette certainly thinks that killing murderous Reality Deviants is a laudable goal, but-
"No prisoners of war?" Henriette asks. "Isn't that a bit harsh?"
"They've been killing our civilians and noncombatants for years now." Kiet says. "They also don't really have 'civilians' as such. Their society is entirely war-obsessed in a way which would make the total war footing of industrialized societies look like peacetime activity. If they had their way, they would make the Holocaust, Stalin's purges, and every other genocide or mass killing of Sleeper society look insignificant. They're an apocalyptic cult who happen to be Reality Deviants, and the wolves they keep in their hive are there solely to breed more soldiers, who they immediately send into war at their maturity. There are no innocents or noncombatants there." He looks at her expectantly. "I understand that Director Belltower has given us access to some of your noncombatants for finding exactly where this hive is. I'm here to offer you a chance to burn one down firsthand." He leans towards her, almost conspiratorially. "I've had many missions of every kind, but I think that shapeshifter hives are the most exciting. I still remember the first time I went hand to hand with a shapeshifter. It's a thrill you won't get anywhere else."
Henriette supposes that if you are, in fact, a war machine made out of exotic metal alloys and high-tensile composites, fighting shapeshifters would be considered exciting. For everyone else, it'd be considered suicidal. "I'm not a combat rated enhancile." Henriette tells him.
"That's not a problem. The hive's going to be big enough for you to deploy your machine for the most part-" Kiet waves his hand and a series of typical hive configurations appear, large sprawling caves with massive tunnels, huge open forests full of hostile animal-themed EDEs, and more. "-and if that's a problem, we can offer you a chance to remote-pilot a RICU." He waves his hand again, and a suit of armor appears there, except unlike the ones found in the powered armor section of the Union History Museum, this one is piloted by a ghost, nearly half of its mass ammunition for a complex series of deployable weapons. "And we need your help, because we're seriously understaffed here even with the help of the fuzz." It was a derogatory term for Damage Control, the Shock Corps considering the much smaller and less-funded Progenitor combat arm as glorified mall cops, but Kiet's tone is almost reverent here.
Henriette wants to say that Lovelace means well-she's certainly been happy to see medical exoskeletons and thought-controlled bionic arms making their way to the Masses, and the various black ops cyborg units in first world countries that have been discreetly built off of Iteration X technology several generations behind the norm, and she thinks that her mother would have been proud to see the Syndicate treating Iteration X more as another method to win the hearts and minds of mankind than a military shock team that happens to do R&D-but she can understand how being forced to make do with inferior technology feels.
Then again-the policy here seemed to be a recent one. The complaints about her policy were significantly more muted before the recontact operation on Autochthonia-the failed Autochthonia mission. Certainly the pilots and soldiers bitched about not getting the same level of equipment that they had pre-99 but that was to be expected in a Convention as gear-heavy as Iteration X.
"So." Kiet says again. "Are you and Director Belltower coming?"
***
Rose stares at the other woman, and then quickly glances around the museum. No, this corridor is empty. It's just as well that she came in the quiet hours. She wouldn't want to be talking to someone who isn't there when there was someone else around. With that confirmed, she returns to her scrutiny of her reflection in the glass..
Or, rather, the reflection which isn't quite her. And not in the normal way that Thorn isn't quite her. The mean malicious voice in her head looks like her. Just a dead, corpse-like, vampiric her, with features like a china doll in their unliving perfection, and a wicked gleam in the eyes.
Reina, by contrast, looks alive, flawed, human despite being the memory of a dead woman. She looks like the Reina in the painting Rose saw, the one where she looked about the same age as Rose in the timeless way that senior Technocrats tend to, rather than the grumpy old woman of her last years. She's shorter than Rose, her hair is dark brown rather than coal black, and there's color to her cheeks that Thorn - and Rose - never have. She even has the imperfection of a smattering of freckles on her cheeks and forehead - something the Progenitors wouldn't tolerate unless it was a deliberate design choice.
Also, there's the metal and red glass of her proto-HITMark photoreceptor, and the long scars down one side of her face, the signs of the claws which took her original eye. That's also a difference.
"Does a cat have your tongue?" Reina demands.
Rose shakes her head, and in case this wasn't enough proof, sticks it out as a demonstration.
Folding her arms, Reina glares at her. "That was a figure of speech."
"I'm not very good at figures of speech," Rose admits in a small voice. "Or metaphor. Or a lot of jokes." She pauses. "Mostly the ones about sex. Which seem to make up a disproportionate number of them."
In her reflection, Reina runs her hands through her short hair. "For goodness sake, you are acting willfully obtuse," she accuses. "Just do as I tell you! I recall that the last time I stirred to consciousness, that woman of the Levant said that the year was 2015. Is that the case?"
Rose nods.
"Well, I would have you tell me how the Union has fared in the century and more since my death," Reina says, crossing her arms. She tries to look down her nose at Rose, which is somewhat handicapped by the way that she has to look up.
"I'm sorry," Rose automatically apologizes. leaning back. If she gets the angle right, she can get the reflection of Reina's face on the helmet of the armor. It almost makes her look like she's wearing it.
"Don't waste time apologizing," Reina states, her artificial eye gleaming. "You are my… well, my homunculus-sister? Would that be an apt way of putting it?"
Rose perks up slightly. That is a nicer way of putting things. Homunculus-sister. It sounds a lot better than clone. There's something belittling about "clone", she feels. "It is," she says. Yes, she likes this. The weight is on 'sister'. Especially since she's not really a clone, because of the genetic modifications.
"Well, stand up for yourself more," Reina says flatly. "And stop delaying like a child doing something they do not wish to. You should have more discipline as someone of your age."
"I'm only five," Rose protests. She tilts her head. "Nearly six," she adds. "Six this summer."
"What." It's a single flat word.
"I was decanted… born in 2009," Rose confirms.
Reina narrows her eyes, looking momentarily confused, then aghast. "Do not tell me that there are those in the Union who have been dabbling once again in the fae-sin," she breathes.
"The what?"
Reina raises her eyebrows. "In the beginning of days, the Lord God declared that time should flow ever onwards, never once turning back on its course," she says. "There are wicked beings - the fae of course key among them - who try to change the flow of time. Often they will make hidden glades where the flow of time is altered, to run more slowly or quickly, but their aim is and always has been to turn it back on itself. And for that reason, God's judgement falls most heavily in those who would play with time itself. You are telling me that this was not done to you? Be honest!" she orders Rose.
"I was…" Rose thinks of how to express it, "grown. I was born looking this age. I was meant to have your memories. I was meant to be you. It's just things didn't go right, so I ended up as… as a newborn knowing things I never learned."
Reina looks relieved. "Thank goodness," she announces. "It took us many long years to wipe the fae and their hidden-within-flesh kin from the world, and I would hate to think that it had been wasted by the actions of some foolish men." She gestures towards the great window behind Rose. "Look out. Is this not the troglodytic city hidden beneath London?"
Looking out the window, Rose takes in the sight of the city stretching out in front of her. The closest buildings are of a similar antiquity to this former cathedral, but as one moves further and further away the buildings become newer and newer. In the distance, steel and glass glints above neon. "This is the London Geofront," she agreed.
"Ah, a new name." Rose twists and notices the slight expression of disgust on Reina's face. "How inelegant. But once this was a city fae-town hidden beyond the fields of London. I led the cleansing of this wretched place, and lost decades as we fought through veiled time. But we slew them all. Every last mewling hobgoblin and wretched elf-lord. We burnt their unholy glades and hammered iron nails into their living roads, beneath their tainted mockery of a sun. And we took it for the Order of Reason. It was a sign of our triumph over such soul-eating dream monsters."
Rose clears her throat. This is awkward. "Uh," she begins.
Reina gives her a level stare.
"They started appearing again in the seventies and eighties," Rose says in a tiny voice. "But the fae are not very dangerous. They're usually just in the bodies of children and young people, and medical treatment can help cure them."
Reina squares her jaw. "To think that people have got so lax… well! I will need to explain some facts on the ground to you. Those soul-eating things are merely dormant, and will latch onto and subsume the unborn children of later generations! But later, I think. I still do not know the context I require." She rubs her hands together. "Over there," she says, pointing at a case containing Valiant MkIV combat armor, built for the trenches of the First World War. "What is that?"
"Um." Rose turns to face the grey-green armor. The paint is peeling, and she can see the shining metal and crimson which the armor was decorated in. That quickly changed in Flanders fields, where it was worn by hemophage-hunting units going after the bloodsuckers who had migrated to the trenches, breeding and feeding out of control. The lion-mask had been replaced with something which could pass for a soldier's gas mask, and bandoliers and pouches broke up the clean lines. "That's… um, Valiant Mark Four armor. From the First World War."
"A World War? Against which world?" Reina squares her jaw. "Don't tell me the damned Martians came back." She shakes her head. "I thought the Progenitor bioweapon got them all."
"Um. No. It… it was just this world," Rose says. Reina… she seems oddly innocent to think such things. The idea that a world war would be fought against another world? How… naive, almost. "Well. Um. Well, it lasted from 1914 to 1918 and millions died because… well, the European powers went to war and defensive weapons had advanced after than offensive or strategy so it ended up as a stalemate. In the end, uh, the Allied powers won - that was Britain, France and the US, because Russia had already had a Communist revolution and left the war - and Austria-Hungary broke apart and Germany was defeated. And… uh, the Treaty of Versailles was quite mean and that sort of led to the Second World War. Which was. Um. Worse."
Rose watches each hesitant word hit Reina, and her mood turn from surprise to confusion to anger. "What in God's name was the Union doing?" Reina snaps. "What incompetents let that happen? What was the Invisible College doing?"
"The… oh, was that what Control was called in your time? Yes, I think I remember that," Rose says. "Uh, well, things were a bit confused because I think Control had just moved off world and everything was chaotic because… um, well, after you died, the Electrodyne Engineers left the Union because their theory of ether was discredited by relativity and there was a reformation and the Ivory Tower merged with the Operatives to become the New World Order… or was that earlier? I'm not sure. Anyway, the Electrodyne Engineers joined the Traditions and started calling themselves the 'Sons of Ether' so I… um, think the Union was distracted by that."
"The Electrodyne Engineers did what?" Reina explodes.
"They joined the Traditions." Rose says. "They disagreed with the discrediting of a scientific theory and so that happened."
"Explain. In detail." Reina demands angrily.
The next half hour was enlightening. Enlightening and depressing. Enlightening, depressing, and involving a lot of Rose trying not to look like she was crazy and talking to herself, which left her feeling in dire need of sugar.
"And… um, so… well, a combination of some pre-existing grudges, some mid-ranking people being idiots and killing Alan Turing, and the entire mess after World War Two… well, that led the Virtual Adepts to defect and join the Traditions. Um. They're still… not very Reality Deviant-y, and… and a lot of their disagreement is on political grounds, rather than them wanting to be crazy reality breaking wizards. And… um, after all of that, some of the things I've read give the impression that the Union became more hardline. Certainly, that's when the Pogrom stepped up into full force."
"You know," Reina says, her lips a thin line, "we managed to go hundreds of years since the last major defection, which was a lot of the Ixoi joining the Order of Hermes. I spent quite a long time trying to kill the weasel who led them. And you're telling me the Union lost two Conventions in fifty years?"
"Longer than fifty years!" Rose protests. "It was fifty seven!" It's not a very good protestation, and she shrinks back down, wary of how loud she was being.
"Quite," Reina says. "All this, and we're only up 1961? And from the look on your face, it doesn't get any better." She shakes her head. "Things really went to slack without me around to keep an eye on the lower ranks and shout at the rest of the Invisible College, I can tell!"
"It's not all bad." Rose says. "We've done great things." She walks away from the macabre celebration of the Ascension War and to the things she's most proud of. Bringing sanitation to the masses. Telling them that disease was not a function of evil spirits that hateful neighbors could curse them with, but rather a biological process that could be mitigated. A mostly peaceful world order. "60 years of peace and counting, with no major wars." she adds brightly. "Except for all the brushfire wars and the internal conflicts in the Technocracy. And maybe North Korea's going to cause another major war." she says, the dark mood descending again.
"Internal conflicts?" Reina asked. "I know of the almost-daily politicking that happened despite everyone agreeing on our goals, as to funding and relative importance-but this sounds like more than that."
"S-Serafina mentioned that in Moscow, she kept on running into the aftermath of… of how the Western and Russian Union spent half a century at the height of the Ascension War almost at each other's throats and how the NWO spook in charge there had been fighting against Director Belltower in the 80s in Afghanistan!" Rose clears her throat. "But at least that's all over now and the Union is unified again!" she adds. "Well, unified-ish," she clarifies. "Mostly. Sort of. Largely."
"And by that you mean?" Reina asks in a weary voice. Rose is getting the impression that the collection of memories in her head is getting annoyed at her.
"The New World Order and the Syndicate-I guess you'd have known them as the Ivory Tower and the Operatives and the High Guild-are always at each other's throats in every meeting. The Order wants to impose the Technocracy's worldviews on a top-down process using societies and governments and schools, while the Syndicate wants to sell them products that slowly move the Time Tables up. And then there's Iteration X, which is maybe coming apart because they want to go back to the old ways of shooting everyone who disagrees instead of making nice things for people, and then there's the Void Engineers who everyone is suspicious of because they keep saying they're fighting a mysterious threat in the stars and give no details, and then there's Control, who are gone now and have been since 1999."
"What happened in 1999?" Reina asks, her one remaining eye sharp.
Rose winces. There's a feeling in her head. A feeling that there's something that she doesn't know. Something that she should know. It's not deja vu, because deja vu feels different. But it's the feeling of having felt like this before. It's… it's almost deja vu of deja vu. Now, when has she felt like this before? She can't remember. She shakes her head, and tries to banish these thoughts. "Something very bad," she breathes. "No one knows. But a very old vampire, what the hemophages call an 'antediluvian' woke…"
"No," Reina hisses. "Not one of those abominations!"
"And we killed it."
The look on Reina's face is a mixture of shock, glee and pride. "In truth?" she asked. "One of those wretched fiends is finally dead, to face its eternal judgement?" She smiles. "Even if the Union has fallen somewhat from what it should be… something like this makes it all worthwhile."
Rose shakes her head. "Its death… did something. Something started, a spatial… change we call the Dimensional Anomaly, and they lost all contact with the offworld colonies and most of the contact with other dimensions. They lost contact with Control."
Rose swallows. "That was why they made me and the others," she admits. "After five or so years when there was no contact and the Union was trying to piece itself back together after losing almost everything which wasn't on earth. It was a project to make enhanced clones of great heroes of the Union, publicly. Except… except I think now that it was a project to clone the people who founded Control. So they could have their leaders back. EXEMPLAR III. There were ten of us."
"Ten," Reina says. She nods, solidly. "So Control is what the Invisible College renamed itself, yes? Presumably after my death. And if there were ten… aha. Yes, the ten chairs of the Invisible College. I was the chair of Generals, and the domain of forces was mine. So there are homunculus-siblings of the others running around too?" She sighs, running her hand through her hair. "Some might have thought one Blake was enough," she says, mostly to herself.
Rose massages her temples, staring at the window and her half-seen reflection. "It failed," she said wearily. "I was a failure. The memories didn't integrate properly. I was the lucky one. The other nine... seven of them decided to stage some sort of coup attempt, and only two didn't. They took over the Construct and the people inside-and we had to get a Void Engineer warship to bombard the place at great cost before sending in assault teams with anti-subversion programing. So I was the lucky one." She says bitterly.
"Maybe it's a sign, a test from God." Reina says with determination. "Maybe you should embrace the future instead of looking to the past as justification. After all, this is what we all swore to do. Create a better future. And maybe you live to show that the best use of history is when the old is used to create something new and wonderful, rather than justifying decisions simply because 'that's the way it's always been'."
"Maybe." Rose says. It's a nice thing to say, but she's not sure if she can believe it. "I'm sorry for taking up so much of your time rambling."
"I demand you make it up for me. There was once this fantastic little place with decadent desserts, and I'd like to eat there again. I'm sure the Queen of Tarts still exists, if only because of the lewd pun."
"Really?" Rose asks, surprised. "That's it? No grand quest to put your affairs in order or something?" Rose has read a lot of trashy fantasy novels and knows what these requests typically entail. Serafina's collection of them is exceptionally large, even if she insists that most of the trashy fantasy romances are things she reads ironically.
"Sweet things are my vice," Reina admits, turning slightly pink. "At least it's better than those vile cigars some of my compatriots used to smoke. Wretched things always left me choking. I don't know why the High Guild decided that selling them was such a good idea."
"I tried smoking once." Rose says. "It tasted awful and it didn't feel satisfying at all. My blood decided that the nicotine in it was a poison and filtered it out."
"The sciences of the day must be incredibly advanced, to create blood smarter than the average banker." Reina says. "Or perhaps the High Guild always had a large proportion of idiots."
"Hey! Donald's nice and isn't stupid at all and he's a member of the Syndicate!" Rose complains as she sets off towards the old restaurant. It's still there, still with the same name and pun.
"He is a banker. He may covet you, but I do not think that they are capable of love in the way normal men are." Reina warns, stopping her speech as the dessert arrive to attack its reflection with the same gusto the old knight used to attack vampires. Rose stares at the not-her reflection digging into the reflection of her dessert. She checks quickly that her own one is not disappearing in mysterious bites, which would make her quite angry-ish. Fortunately, it is not.
"Thish ish mgood," Reina says through her full mouth. She wipes an errant blob of cream off her nose. "Serioushly."
Rose takes a mouthful while trying not to think how the collection of memories from her gene source manifesting as her reflection can get cream on her nose when pretend-eating. Or whatever is happening in her head. But even her good friend, sugar, can't wash away her irritation. Sugar is her friend. It's never mean or horrible, and always makes her feel good. Usually. Not now. "Excuse me... but can I ask you for help?" Rose asks.
"For goodness' sake, child, I am part of your memories and part of you. Be more assertive!"
"Okay, fine." Rose says. "I had a very loud and mean row with Serafina," Rose says unhappily. "Well. Another one. It's... it's the third one since that really big one when I got back from having my heart torn out."
"I see the study of the body and healing arts has improved somewhat, if that is a survivable injury," Reina observed drily. "Even in my latter years, the loss of one's heart was a fatal injury. Well, unless a very skilled doctor was in hand with all the right equipment. Or if the Lord God chose to intervene, though hoping for such typically was a longshot."
Rose sighed. "I have two hearts. They only destroyed one," she said, unconsciously touching her chest above where each one sat. "And... well, one of the rows was because she dropped a milk bottle and then didn't clean it up properly. We wouldn't argue about that normally, but..." she sighed again. "We just keep on making each other miserable," she said, balling her hands into fists. "And I'm angry and... and..." she feels her weaponized nails dig into armored skin. "I don't know," she concluded in a whisper.
So, subplots and optional missions ahoy! Note that the Serafina/Rose ones are largely to resolve personal subplots, while Henriette/Jamelia may actually determine what you're doing until your next hearing. Also, I reserve the rights to largely ignore them and maybe mention a sentence or two if I can't figure out how to work them into interesting posts or plots.
Be Henriette:
The HITMark just asked you whether or not you wanted to get some revengeance for the werewolf attack. Henriette's answer is...
[ ] (1.2x) "Yes."
[ ] "No, but give me a seat on a command vehicle and I'll provide you help."
[ ] (0.8x) "Sorry, we're really busy with the Tribunal."
[ ] Write-in.
Be Jamelia:
What exactly has Jamelia been doing while Henriette's been dealing with Iteration X soldierboys?
[ ] Project TYRANT has its conversion facilities here. Might as well check on them and see if they've figured out something you haven't, or figured out something you have-either way, it'd be a good idea to bring them in on the conspiracy.
[ ] Jamelia's pretty sure that there's going to be an attack on the shapeshifter hive, and hives generally have several murders of werewolves (like crows, werewolves come in murders) in them. So she's going to be running her requisitions to get some gear to prepare for that.
[ ] Henriette's got the respect needed, but not quite the skills. Start digging into personnel details here because your endgoal here is still trying to ensure that Iteration X doesn't go axe-crazy in the near future.
[ ] Examine the shapeshifters more closely for any possible relations to Threat Null. It seems suspicious that you just happened to be the ones attacked.
Be Reina:
Give your homunculus-sister... well, okay, more like homunculus-daughter... well okay it's complicated some advice.
[ ] Get back in contact with her mother.
[ ] Grow up and stop worrying so much.
[ ] Go kill some vampires to make yourself feel better. It works. Really.
[ ] Write-in.
Be Serafina:
Serafina has been...
[ ] Working a lot to keep her mind off of things. With the Void Engineers.
[ ] Pretending to work but mostly been spying on them.
[ ] "Working late at the lab".
[ ] Trying to work up the courage to apologize to Rose.
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