JB CXXVII: Cutting Ties
The two combatants circle each other. One of them is over two hundred meters tall, a god-thing created from the powerful soul of an angry teenage girl, the components of an Autochthonian mothership, and the dark curse of the vampires. Agonized screaming mouths protrude from alien flesh, and its movements are jerky as if its skeleton is incomplete, poorly-assembled. Henrietta may have had the soul of a perfectionist once, but now that has long been lost in favor of sheer all-encompassing rage. Tendrils and plates of shadow surround it, and the cloak of floating vitae, reprocessed from the biological components of the Autopolitan computers, impossibly multiplied in violation of conservation of mass, swathes it in gore.
The other combatant is an obsidian thing a fifth its size, a synthetic seraphim with the firepower and versatility to murder gods. Where Henrietta is ugly, this is streamlined. Where Henrietta is a slapdash construction of BioVARGs and hemophage flesh and divine seed, the Theological Dominance Platform Mark V is a single component, carefully constructed of complex, arcane machinery that would be unrecognizable to any Sleeper.
Henriette and Mari dance around the thing that was once what Mari thinks of as her primary self, arguing about the best way to finish the battle. "I think we should put it out of its misery." Mari insists. "This is what the Mark 5 was made to do." The thing that was once Henrietta unleashes ribbons of shadow and vitae and other stranger weapons at them, but the Mark V dodges everything it doesn't deflect, moving easily through space.
"It could be a trap." Henriette replies. "She might be planning something."
"What kind of a trap could she set that could cause
us problems?" Mari asks. "Just watch." The Core-Mk V dives down at Henrietta, arm extended to tear through flesh and machine.
"You're here to save me, not get us both killed!" Henriette complains. Closing in, Henrietta's defensive fire becomes more accurate, and the shroud of hemophage vitae swirls around her and batters at the Mark V. Epidermal ablation reports come in, and Henriette reconfigures the skin of the Mark V into a single macromolecular carapace via its molecular bonding fields, compensating for the flensing blood-blades that Henrietta has.
Henriette has to admit that it's hard to believe that her sister has fallen this far- "I'm your sister." Mari interrupts. "That's not me." -what was once her sister. Henriette has to admit she likes Mari a lot more. So far, Mari hasn't tried to kill her or threatened her with torture
once. That, in Henriette's eyes, puts her far above Henrietta.
Mari sends a general feeling of agreement in response. The Core Guardian rocks as black tendrils of shadow surround it and bind it. The god-monster opens its multi-fanged mouth, and Henriette sees the muzzle of an anti-warship plasma cannon jutting out of its throat. The Mark V struggles, but the shadow-tendrils don't budge. Mari struggles more furiously.
"Give me pilot control." Henriette insists. The plasma cannon starts to charge. "I need it."
"I'm here to save you!" Mari insists.
"Activate gestalt control. We can't win if we're fighting each other all the time. We need joint control." Henriette insists. The plasma cannon fires, and the burning bright light washes over the Mark V. An energy shield deploys in front of the Theological Dominance Platform, and the plasma flows off like a stream of liquid. Energy projection systems redirect the Mark V's immense reactor energies towards keeping it alive. The black armor becomes reflective silver to deal with the heat. The vitae cloud boils and hisses, moves away from the machine.
"No." Mari says petulantly.
"I can't owe you anything if we're both dead." Henriette says. "Look, sometimes you need to work with other people. Just like how you're using my mind to help run this thing-you need my skills to pilot it. We're sisters! We help each other!" Henriette says.
Mari reluctantly assents. And two sisters become one. Henriette feels the doubt and pain of her little sister, understands what she's gone through as if she'd suffered it herself.
I forgive you, Henriette thinks.
I forgive you for everything you've done. I forgive you for all the pain you've caused me, and all you've done when you didn't know better.
I forgive you, Mari thinks.
I forgive you for the pain and the mean words. It was because of you that I'm finally happy. It's because of you that I'm finally free to choose what I want to do.
Two minds and one body move. The Core-Mark V breaks apart into a thousand components, slipping through the gaps in the shadow-tendrils, reassembling itself kilometers away. [SUNBURST anti-hemophagic weapons active] the Mark V's combat computer sends, and they acknowledge it. The Mark V's skin turns from silver to gold, glows with the amplified light of the sun. A blade appears in its left hand, a solid golden construct of cleansing light. Henrietta shies away, screaming, as her shadow-tendrils and darkness-armor fade.
The shadows and vitae boil away, and a quick hyperspace jump has the Mark V dash into melee combat range, slashing downwards with its weapon held in both hands. Henrietta brings her hands up, and the flesh on them blackens and chars, floating away as ash, as she catches the Mark V's blade. She's still strong, damnably strong, and they're evenly matched. The mouths on her body open up, and weapons muzzles poke out, scarring the Mark V even as it deploys holographic armor around its skeletal form, bulking the artificial god up with layers and layers of fields as immaterial as light itself, but yet as impregnable as the toughest hyperalloy.
We have more options than that, sister. They think, and the Mark V's arms split, giving them two more. The clawed limbs deploy conversion beams, boiling away Henrietta's body mass as it converts into antimatter, then annihilates in bright flashes. Henrietta lets go in pain, and the Mark V's blade slices down and cuts her open.
We're sorry. Henriette and Mari think, as the Mark V's arms recombine. It plunges a clawed hand into the rapidly closing wound, ignoring the nanoattacks, burrowing deep into corrupt flesh, and grabs the life support pod that had held Henrietta's scarred, surgically mutilated body.
We're sorry for this. The Mark V crushes the pod like a grape, and a goddess dies.
[ALL THREATS TERMINATED. MARK FIVE THEOLOGICAL DOMINANCE PLATFORM RETURNING TO STANDBY MODE. PILOT GESTALT LINK OFFLINE.]
"You know..." Henriette admits, feeling the glow of the fading neural link. "You remind me of myself. In a good way."
"Of course I do!" Mari says proudly. "I'm like you, but better."
"You win
this round, maybe." Henriette says. "That doesn't mean you're better in
every way."
"Of course not. Me being better in every way is what makes me better in every way." Mari insists. "Now about what you owe me for saving your life... you still owe me big!" Mari says. "When you get back to Earth I'll tell you what I want! Maybe I'll want a trip to Disneyland! And some ice cream! And a home of my own! And I want to see all the sights like the Eiffel Tower and the Pyramids and the London Geofront. And there's so much more I'd like to see but it's been all destroyed by stupid terrorists! You earthside Technocrats are
so useless." Mari grouses. "But you're nicer, at least." She admits. "Even you, you... giant meanie."
"Love you too, sis." Henriette says, knowing full well this is probably the best she'll get.
***
The green exit sign hums. The black-suited woman stands there, hands by her side, her expression unreadable. She flexes her fingers. At the other end of the corridor, Elsa and Jazmin have their weapons raised. Jazmin is uncertain. Unsure. Because the thing in front of them looks like a woman. Looks like an Operative.
"Stand down," the Agent says calmly, "C-Five: Pac-"
Elsa opens fire, trying to drown the sound of the words out if nothing else. It doesn't help. Her voice cuts through the gunfire. The Agent flickers as she dodges the full-auto burst and the smartfire homing rounds. A few shots impact and are deflected off a ballistic vest worn under her shirt. Elsa swears in her head. One of the
special ones.
"-ification - Ludwig."
Jazmin goes tense, and then suddenly collapses to her knees, dropping her pistol with a clatter. She begins retching violently, scrambling to try to get the headscarf tied over her mouth out of the way before she is noisily sick.
Elsa's mag runs dry. Reflexively she slaps the feed switch button on the side, switching to phasic rounds rather than reloading, and in that moment, the Agent blurs forwards, heading straight towards Jazmin. Elsa's oracle hack predicted this response, and the Agent's fallen for the bluff. Her other hand is extending, fingers pointed spike-like at the Agent's throat.
The Agent grabs her wrist with both hands. "Ah," she says, seemingly not tired or even straining as she tries to force Elsa's hand away. Elsa knows, though, that even this is a mask. The Agents might not let you know it, but they still hurt, they still bleed, they still die. "You are going to protect the Adversary, renegade cyborg? If you wish to become party to her sins, then there is only one outcome. However, you can still be forgi-"
Elsa's other hand is still free, and still holding her gun, so she shoots the Agent in the leg. Or at least tries her level best. The Agent sags and twists, levering her hold on Elsa's arm to spin her into the wall in the narrow corridor, cracking the tiles.
Dazed, Elsa tries to pull herself out of the masonry, but the Agent doesn't let up. The Agent grabs Elsa by the throat, and slams her once, twice, three times into the wall. An expression of contempt twists across the suited woman's face. "Void Engineers," she hisses. "So annoying."
The pipes in the wall break, spraying water out through the cracks. The blonde pummels the Agent again and again in the gut at point-blank range, synthskin tearing as she punches a ballistic vest which feels more like carbon-composite plate. She's immune to suffocation, but the Agent is strong and she feels like she's trying to sever Elsa's spine. Worse, it feels like she might actually have a chance. Her HUD is flashing orange warnings about the forces applied.
She finally manages to reach the quick-release lever on her forearm, and out comes her marine knife. That's reinforced diamond with phasic resonators, and the black combat blade manages to get through the vest. Elsa grins through a smile which shows the black carbon and metal of her skull, and powers up the phasic ripper.
The Agent grunts as a fluctuating dimensional field along the edge of the knife does a pretty good impersonation of a very small chainsaw. Her hands let go, but the Agent doesn't even have the dignity to bleed. It's an illusion, she knows. They pretend they're invulnerable, unkillable, a psychological warfare tool to keep them from realizing.
Elsa kicks the Agent in the chest, overclocking her muscles to do that. The suited figure skids back, trips over Jazmin, and goes down.
And then Elsa is on her with her marine knife, and it's all over bar the stabbing.
Covered in blood, Elsa pulls herself up from the corpse of the Agent. Her corpse looks identical to how she looked in life, but she stays unnaturally still and statuelike. She keeps it covered- Void Engineer marine knives are made to help you ensure anything you stab to death
stays dead and doesn't get to try to phase out or get back up, but Agents are more than willing to play dead if it gets them an advantage. She wipes it off on the suit of the dead EDE out of habit, and puts it back in its holder, then picks up her weapon and checks it. Her left arm isn't working too well - damage to the servos, but it'll serve to stabilize it at least. Somewhat clumsily, she reloads. Only then does she go to see to Jazmin.
The younger woman, bless her, is trying to force herself to pick up her gun despite the fact that she seems barely able to look at it. Elsa approaches her cautiously, wary of what she's about to do with the gun. She just got hit with a Conditioning trigger. Elsa is prepared to both try to snatch it away from her if she looks like she's about to shoot herself, and to try to snatch it away from her if it looks like she's about to shoot her.
Queasily, Jazmin wipes her mouth. Her hands are shaking as she tries to pick up her pistol, and she tries to avoid looking at it. She's muttering to herself in Arabic, and notices Elsa's stare and her half-raised weapon. "I-I-I d-don't think," she spits, "um. I'll be... m-much use," she say weakly, trying to avoid looking at the fact that Elsa looks like a butcher. "I f-feel s-sick when I... I even th-think about my g-gun. I... I can barely touch it." To demonstrate, she finally manages to pick it up, trying to cradle it in both hands and barely managing to lift it. "Y-you should take it." She looks relieved when Elsa does so.
"Come on," Elsa says, offering her her hand and helping her up. She's relieved too. One which leaves her unable to fight back isn't
good, but - well, they must have been trying for capture. Or maybe they just didn't want the risk that the woman they thought was Jamelia would fight back. Jazmin is leaning heavily against her, which means her jacket and shirt are now decidedly red. "We need to go. Now. The exit will let me do a phase jump to our destination. But we need to go before any more arrive."
"What it... it did. W-was that..." Jazmin struggles to force the words out, "... them? Or... or in me? All along." Jazmin bursts into tears. "I... I hate feeling weak," she manages. "L-like I d-don't matter. Bl-Bl-Blanc s-said I... I wouldn't have to f-feel like this ever... ever again."
"Come on," Elsa says, half-carrying Jazmin, who is clinging to her. "We need to go."
And hopefully there's somewhere to go to, she doesn't add. They step through the exit, and find themselves in a large hotel room on an asteroid habitat. The main station is still burning, venting oxygen from hull breaches that have yet to be patched, with a cloud of debris that were once Autopolitan or sci-fi warships and fighters and other vessels surrounding the station itself.
Nichols is there, looking at Jazmin sympathetically. "Are you there, Belltower?"
Jazmin looks at her with a lack of comprehension. "I'm not Director Belltower."
Nichols sighs. "Lieutenant. I need you to help lead the rest of the crew in hijacking travel back to Earth. Now." Technically, she has no room to order around Void Engineers, not anymore. Her voice, though, still carries the weight of authority it's gained over decades, and Elsa obeys. She locks the door, makes sure nobody else can come in. "Of all the people here, I wouldn't have expected you to be the one to abrogate."
Jazmin looks at her uncomprehendingly.
"I suppose you just wanted to retire, didn't you." Nichols says, sympathetically. "I know what's happened here. You don't
want to be back. It happens to a lot of people." She sits on the bed. "I'm sorry."
"For?" Jazmin says.
"For all the things you're going to do. For all the things you've done. For innocence and the loss thereof. Who told you you aren't Director Belltower?"
"Elsa, er... Lieutenant Naryshkin did." Jazmin answers, uncomprehending. She's used to strange queries that she doesn't quite understand. Every time it happens, it tells her that she needs to look up more information. She likes that part of her job, the learning. It's fun. She never imagined that in the right environment she could learn so much, and so quickly.
"So maybe it's not a NWOism." Nichols says. "She's right and she's wrong. You're not Director Belltower because you haven't suffered through 30 years of the Ascension War." Catherine Nichols explains. "You became Director Belltower. And she, out of sociopathy and sheer stubbornness, became instrumental in a lot of places and times. And she's instrumental in this fight. The one you just saw. Don't get me wrong. She's not a very nice person. But the world isn't neatly divided into heroes and villains." Nichols pauses. "On the other hand, she's one of us," the way Nichols says it tells Jazmin a lot about what she means-some level of Enlightenment she lacks, most likely, "and so if she wants to make this choice, I'll respect that."
"So I'm here to give you a choice. I have two pills, a red pill and a blue pill. If you take the red pill, I'm going to force Director Belltower back. It's not going to be pleasant. You, as you know yourself, are going to die. But it'll be for the best for mankind, for the Void Engineers, for your friend, and for the Union. If you take the blue pill, you never realize that I'm stealing this speech from a character in a movie, you wake up Jazmin Black and this war becomes significantly harder to win." Nichols says.
"It sounds like you want me to choose a certain way." Jazmin says carefully.
"I didn't say there was no pressure involved." Nichols mentions calmly. "I'm not going to lie to you. With the events here, I can handle not having Director Belltower around. It'll be
very inconvenient, but I can handle it. Now that you've taken out one of the chaotic elements, the enemy is going to be... a lot more predictable. Smarter, more measured, but also predictable. Incapable of understanding things it needs to. But that creates a noticeably increased risk of everyone dying. So, make your choice. No pressure. We still have time. Months, if necessary."
Jazmin's Sacrifice:
[ ] Jazmin kills herself so Director Jamelia Belltower may live.
[ ] (1.2x) Jazmin takes the choice, but says her goodbyes first.
[ ] (0.1x) Jazmin chooses to live.
Elsa's Dilemma:
So, Elsa has a minor problem. That problem is that she wants everyone here to live, but she knows the Void Engineers are going to make that problematic. How's she going to deal with that problem?
[ ] Write-In.
] Write-In:
