JB CXLII: Think of it as Necessary Sacrifice
Jamelia's mind whirs, even as her face remains blandly neutral. She catches Harlan's eye, raising one eyebrow at him. She idly tucks a stray lock of hair back into her hijab.
Harlan massages his temples, looking for all the world like an old man who's glad to be on the ground again. He doesn't like flying much at the best of times - not after Indonesia in '82.
Jamelia feels the old familiar feather-touch of his mind against hers. They're old friends. They know each other very, very well. But a little bit of psychic contact makes everything much more secure. Also, he's now her tutor for her still-rather-weak psychic powers. And she found out that he married her MiB clone as part of the whole 'raising her daughter' thing - and was comfortable enough to stay married to the clone until she died of organ failure. A bit of her wonders what that kind of life would have been like, if she'd taken the offer of retirement and become a bitter old woman raising her daughter in isolation, who the Union would never trust again. She doesn't regret it. That's what she tells herself.
But she keeps those thoughts down deep, deeper than the shallow fleeting contact can read. He'd just be an ass about things if he knew. Or worse, it would complicate matters in a way neither of them need right now.
"So, have you got over your air sickness?" she asks calmly.
"
We're being Berlin'd," Jamelia thinks.
Harlan huffs. "I got over that years ago. Stop bringing it up."
"
I see. So those damn Nazi werewolves are back."
Jamelia wishes she could let her facial expression shift, so she could direct a proper glare at him. "
The other
kind of Berlin'd," she thinks, and then rephrases. "
The kind where they're fakes being put in place after we'd taken out the real ones for Processing. Or taken them out more terminally."
"
You should be more specific. We did a lot of things in the Berlins," Harlan sends. He adjusts his glasses, and stares at 'Serafina's' chest. Which is a cunning way of concealing what he's doing, entirely natural because she's wearing a too-tight top, and - Jamelia thinks - a sign her old friend needs a slap for being a dirty old man. And... that was a decidedly Jazmin-ish thought. A Jazmin-y, Illiyeen-ish thought.
"
Hmm. Good notice. Finally making good use of your psi, even if you're weak."
"
Kessler caught it," she admits.
"
The tinhead keeps on being smarter than he looks," he thinks grudgingly. "Not that it's hard to be smarter than he looks. Of course, he probably has the advantage that he's spent a lot longer around them. Flaws in their PCW emulation. No active superego function."
She sketches out her plan.
"
I'm taking them into the private room along with Kessler - to take bullets for me if they strike now - to 'brief' them and warn them about the Engineers," Jamelia concludes. "
Handle informing the others. You're an old treacherous bastard who remembers how we used to do things. Do what you do."
"
You flatterer, you," Harlan sends back drily. "
With such effusive praise from an old treacherous bitch, how can I do otherwise?"
***
It's easy to get 'Donald' and 'Serafina' through into the EROS suite, and Jamelia makes sure to have Kessler with her and positioned such that she can easily use him as a blast shield if either of them turn out to be suicide bombers.
And people make fun of her for her height.
"So, big guy," 'Donald' says playfully, slumping himself down on the bed. 'Serafina' hovers by the door, more obviously wary. "What happened to the hair?"
"All my skin and hair burned off again," Kessler says. He's not lying, after all. He shrugs. "Dragon," he adds, as if it explains everything.
"Man, you spend even more time with your private parts exposed than me," 'Donald' says effusively. He looks at Jamelia, eyes narrowing. "So, oh glorious leader, care to explain how on earth you're intact and not some creepy psychic projection thingie - or whatever explanation Harlan came up with that used the word 'psychic' way too much? Because last thing I knew, your body was right here. And got..." he massages his neck, "... uh, a little bit blown up."
Jamelia doesn't even blink. "The body here was a fake. I had contingency plans for this sort of event. Why do you think Director Aristide showed up?" All perfectly true. Entirely misleading, but true.
"People died here trying to protect it," 'Serafina' very nearly accuses. She sounds like she's barely holding herself together. Again.
"The New World Order can't allow the brain of a Senior Operative to be left where it's at risk to hostile action," Jamelia says flatly. "You know that, Dr Rosario."
'Serafina' winces, and swallows. "Sorry," she says in a little voice. "I've just been a bit... wobbly since... well, Rose and... and all the younger ones and..." she sighs. "I'll be fine."
Jamelia leans forwards, and lets some kindness enter her voice. "You know last time we talked, I did suggest that it would be useful if you started considering antidepressants or other chemical means for dealing with the stress of Moscow. This can't have helped. Have you at least been taking some mood stabilisers?"
She nods. "A low dosage," she admits. "I have some bad reactions to some of the more common types, so I need to be careful with them."
That sets Jamelia's mind whirring. Now, that's not in Serafina's file. Is that something she's been keeping secret, something that's a flaw in the clone, or something that the clone is deliberately letting out to try to get Jamelia to feed it mood stabilizers so she'll give away that she knows that it's not Serafina because Jamelia Belltower is not, by and large, usually inclined to murder most of her subordinates.
Well, she's going to act like it's the last option anyway.
"I didn't bring you through to catch up," she says tersely. "I think you've noticed we've picked up some new guests."
Kessler nods. "Wasn't expecting them to have to come in handy so early," he says. "We're going to need their mooks for construct defense until we get the place fortified again."
"Which leaves us in a problematic situation," she points out. "The Void Engineers seem to have stepped up their mistrust of us. They've decided to take advantage of my public complaints about the lack of support they give to assign us some watchers. Rosario, I know you liked Naryskin back in Moscow, but she's a Void Engineer now and I haven't been able to determine what her orders are yet. Sykes?"
"Yes?"
"They've been controlling my access to information about the new one, Guo. I'm going to need you to... make inquiries through less obvious channels to see what his deal is. Naryskin is obviously combat ready, but... he doesn't seem very heavily augmented and seems altogether too normal for someone they'd hand me."
'Donald' raises his eyebrows. "Yeah, I can see how someone normal being assigned to this madhouse amalgam is suspicious. A Russian ex-Adept lesbian cyborg ninja is pretty much what we expect, but they slipped up when they put a professional, sane guy with us. Gave us reason to doubt them."
"Donald..." 'Serafina' says wearily.
He gives Jamelia a lazy salute. "Yes, yes, my captain general major lady," he drawls.
Jamelia finds, to her shock, that she's feeling... betrayed. This really is a very good mimic. Most FACADE clones can't stand up to her prompting and poking. But she gets the gut feeling that he really does believe everything he says and he's showing all the little cues she'd expect of him. She hates that she can't see through this herself and has to rely on others. On one hand, it's a sign that they really are serious about this. But on the other hand, it's a sign that she's getting soft and that she might have worked through some of her issues about Starling, which isn't really what she needs right now. Yes, yes, the Senex had said that Cemal's bane was that he couldn't trust - but she's up against the dark reflection of the NWO. And also, you know, however much of the actual NWO who's working for them. Too much trust is more immediately dangerous than too little.
Well, usually. She's also taken advantage of engineered mistrust among her enemies plenty of times. Though in those cases, their great failing was failing to be properly discerning in their lack of trust. And also going up against her. But that goes without saying.
***
Harlan waits for them to close the door, and works out his neck. He looks between Langley, Naryskin and Guo, calculating PCW synchronization factors and how much primium they've got in them. Langley's surprisingly sensitive for an Iterator, and knows he's psychic. Guo looks like he's a normal human, but he's going to have to be careful. And Naryskin, joy of joys, has a head with primium in it.
And given what they're going to be walking into, he
really can't afford to tire himself out. So he does it carefully, and very, very slowly, teasing out tendrils of psionic energy towards the others in the car. He needs to be as subtle as possible.
"
Do not look at me. Do not respond to what I am saying," he says, coldly and precisely. "
Do not react in any way, shape or form. Keep your emotions under control. Maintain your normal conversations, or if you cannot parallel process with your levels of intellect, sigh and look out the window. Our lives may well depend on it. Those of you who can hear me, please think your names."
"
Henriette." She's clear and loud. Who knew Iterators could be so sensitive when you didn't make their brains out of metal?
"
Wufan. Look, what's going on w-"
"
That is not only thinking your name, Mr Guo," Harlan thinks, rather enjoying this. "
And now we wait for the cyborg."
He waits.
"
Fine. Miss Langley, if you would please catch Miss Naryskin's attention, you should hopefully be able to open up blink communications with the laser implanted in your eye," he says after a decent pause. "
If she is going to display Iterator-levels of psychic sensitivity, you might as well treat her as if she's an Iterator. Relay her into the conversation if you would, Miss Langley."
He doesn't look.
"
I'm in contact with her," Henriette thinks. She didn't like that comment about Iterators. Iterators aren't very good at dealing with the truth, though. Too religious in their inclinations. Too obsessed with their personal journey to the 'godhood' of having a toaster implanted in your chest. Not able to see the world as it really is.
"
Excellent," Harlan thinks. "
Now, ladies and gentlemen, now that you are calm - and stay calm - I am afraid I must rather ruin your days and warn you that we are currently walking into a trap. These two 'fine' individuals are imposters - and anyone who has the assets to make imposters of this quality has the assets to take down a light construct and reconfigure it as a trap for the returning heroes."
Harlan senses a sudden pulse of panic and worry from Wufan - and it's not just directed at the idea of a trap. It's directed at him personally. Then it's gone, clamped down on with New World Order-like mental training. He would smile if he didn't have the same training. Well, better training as a veteran of Vigilance. Sometimes it's what people don't say which is very helpful, and that guilty-clamp down reinforces some of the things Jamelia spoke to him about.
"
We will now discuss how we will not, in fact, all be killed by this trap," he adds.
***
The LX-4 pulls into the garage under the amalgam in a dead silence. The vehicle pool has been expanded somewhat, and there's a lot of military units there. Henriette can recognize them all. There's guards, which look like HITMarks with their unchanging expressions and stiff postures, and they've installed some visible hardware in the ceiling-autocannon turrets and electrolaser emitters. It's a death trap.
Which is why their survival is dependent on everything in this garage not working. They've talked through it. The only way to get out is if "Donald," "Serafina," and the entire garage are taken out of play immediately, and that was before they learned about exactly how much hardware was in the garage. It's set up for a war, a far cry from what it looked like before she left. There's tank drones and other remote vehicles that can turn them into mincemeat if they step outside. She has to disable them all. Fortunately neither Donald nor Serafina seem to be particularly technically adept. They're still meeting with Jamelia and Kessler, oblivious to her infiltration of the fusion engine's software. She's going to overload it, turn it into an electromagnetic pulse weapon. There's only a very, very small problem with that. She'll have to have communications open at the moment it goes off. It's not going to be pretty for her.
But, Henriette thinks, she's done more suicidal things. She's faced down her sister in Moscow, and again in the Void. She's launched in a primitive Etherite titan to fight some horrible parody of Iteration X technology. She's won those. It gives her strength. The LX-4 stops. The doors start to open.
An alarm starts to blare. "We are under attack. I repeat. We are under attack." Henriette gives it no heed. She crash-fires the LX-4's fusion engine. Her vision blanks. Her head aches. For a moment, the full-body pain, like the worst sunburn ever, keeps her from panicking from just how much she's lost, how much of her brain function she's trusted to her ADEI. And then the panic sets in for a moment before the pain and brain damage render her unconscious.
She doesn't notice Elsa grabbing her as they get out of the limousine. She doesn't notice Kessler, bloodied and scarred, walk out of the EROS Suite covered in the byproducts of a combat homunculus self-destruct. She doesn't notice the walls of reality thin and break.
***
"We're being Berlin'd." Ms. Clock says, from the control room. There's constructs working tirelessly to collate all the information she's been getting, Enlightened support personnel managing them and the complex quantum computers, and readouts on everything. Her success percentages have dropped significantly from this intrusion-one that, she notes, was shielded from future forecasting. So someone deliberately intended it to throw a wrench in the affair.
"Nazi werewolves?" Her ATLAS unit asks. It has been in many of the situations she has. Or its former life was. That shared experience makes it a useful aid. All of the strengths-and none of the remaining weaknesses.
"Just so." Ms. Clock responds. "Perfect timing for the enemy. I believe we can modify the plan. Let the Exalt know. Give it control over the remaining HITMarks. Pilot Clarent needs to take control of all of the piloted combat materiel in the construct and eliminate the threat." She's almost impressed. Whoever sent these-they couldn't have been in contact with Jamelia. Yet they managed to create the distraction at the right time merely via guessing. She could use someone like this. Unfortunately she doesn't have anyone like this. Not that she could use. "Tell Doctor Leon as well. He might have some solutions that could be used."
"Affirmative. Messages sent."
Ms. Clock returns to considering Jamelia Belltower's escape. She's surprised by how quickly the Iterators acted. They had to have known ahead of time. How else would Kessler, a dumb exojock, have known to take out the combat homonculus holding Serafina's beta fork? How else would he have known to act before her adaptive biology could shed its frail human disguise like a chrysalis? How else would he have known to leave the moment she had been downed, to avoid the self-destruct that turned the LX-4 into a flaming wreck? It's unfortunate. Ms. Clock rather liked the modified beta fork of Dr. Rosario. She was useful.
Jamelia shooting the displacement-prepped clone of Financier Sykes was tragic but entirely expected. She doubted her sister of sorts would have let any form of relationship get in the way of that. Not after 1984. But she expected one of them would have gotten the element of surprise. Unfortunate. She's just going to have to send in some more assets.
"Ling." Jazmin Clock says. "Cedano. You're both up."
"Yes!" Gabriel Cedano says, and she can hear his grin. "Suited up and ready to deploy."The idiot wants to fight the bad guys for truth, justice, and the Technocratic way. She'll let him. There's a decent chance he'll win. And if he loses-he's expendable anyhow. A delay that might let her bring in the right assets.
***
The sound of screaming fills the room, and every electronic communications system. The walls warp. The screaming is loud enough to drown out gunfire. "Oh no. Oh no no no," Harlan mouths. They can't hear each other talk over the sound of the screaming, but they can lip read, even in this gloom.
"What?" Jamelia mouths back. "What are you doing?"
"It's not me. It's Langley." He keeps his weapon ready. "She's very psychically sensitive by Iterator standards. But that's with headware. How long has she had it?"
"Since decanting."
Harlan mouths a curse. "I think that's it. She's psychically sensitive, she's had lots of dimensional exposure, she's had brain trauma, and that EMP must have shut down her headware. Four trigger factors. For the first time in her life, her latent powers aren't being suppressed. That telepathic conversation must have primed her. She's much stronger than you, and she's flaring."
Jamelia finds the fact he felt it necessary to point out that Henriette is apparently a stronger latent psychic than she is vaguely annoying. "How do we stop it?" she mouths.
"Can't. Not without killing her or waking her up. If she wakes up I know some tricks to force her to focus, but they won't work when she's this injured. When someone flares, you need to isolate them and then try to talk them out of it in a calm, quiet environment where they don't feel in danger."
She stares at Harlan, then swears in Arabic. "Keep her with you, and keep moving," she orders. She counts the floors. They're on the second garage floor right now, and the fifth is where the connection to the subbasement is. She doesn't want to get into any elevators. They're deathtraps. So that means proceeding on foot, even as mechanical blast doors slam down in front and behind them, even as the world is a maelstrom of electromagnetic and auditory noise. One of the blast doors explodes. Something's chasing them. She signals to Kessler. "Breach the door."
He nods and brings out yet more explosives from his coat. Such a useful tool. The blast door explodes-and there is the distinctive blinding flash of a heavy plasma cannon, narrowly missing Kessler. Jamelia turns and sees an orange-haired teenage girl, carrying a plasma cannon that would have been oversized for Kessler. She looks again, and she's not a teenage girl. Her face is a porcelain mask, with no eyes. Her knees and elbows are exposed by the tatty yellow sundress she wears, and they have the ball joints of dolls. She looks like that thing from Moscow. Except this time, Jamelia doesn't have an ItX sniper rifle rated to kill tanks. She watches the doll as it starts shooting wildly at the screaming abominations that have suddenly appeared in the garage. She keeps watching even as she dodges through the gaping hole in the meter-thick armored door, watches it take out its frustrations on the world. So. Hostile to everything. Not a very good shot. Extremely dangerous. Avoid if possible.
Hopefully it'll be an obstacle to her erstwhile assassins. There's relative silence for a moment past the door, and Jamelia knows she won't have much time. The third floor has one of the Paladins they had shipped from Moscow, but there's a few new sleek units. There's the VGV-3 that Henriette loved so much, and there's a new vehicle, one she can't quite identify. It looks like the offspring of a threesome between a sportscar, a fighter jet, and a tank. Jamelia can see the subtle anti-radar shaping, the fairings and joints that allow the independently-powered wheels to give it maneuverability, and the subtle signs of hidden weapons. It looks like a weapon of war. Joining it are combat walkers curled up in the fetal position, TENNO variants. Low-end, relatively cheap designs. The only hypertech used is for cost-effective manufacturing of the artificial muscle and in the powerplant. The sleekness of their chests implies they won't be piloted.
The screaming has started. She needs to say something now. "I'm going to bring Langley to her vehicle and start it up. Harlan. I'll need you to walk me through calming her down if she wakes up. We need to get to the subbasement and the Mat-Trans to exfil." Jamelia says. "Kessler. Naryshkin. Make sure Guo and Aristide don't get hit."
Kessler gives her a thumbs-up. "Say. That's a nice car. You drive?" He asks Harlan.
Harlan nods. "I should have traded in my old clunker anyways!" Harlan yells back.
Just then, the TENNO variants start getting up. Pacifiers. American-made, Jamelia identifies them. Someone's remoting them, and they're apparently EMP-shielded enough that this is working. The custom combat vehicle is also activating itself from remote, its hidden weapons deploying. Streams of tracerfire crater concrete as they take cover behind one of the Paladins. Its armored frame shudders from the fire. She knows it won't buy them much time.
Elsa throws a dazzler-some wonderful combination of EMP and flashbang, while Harlan brings up a telekinetic field to deflect shots and Kessler tosses a handful of smoke grenades. Harlan looks at Jamelia. "Grab Langley and go!"
Kessler dives out of cover, firing his X-14A. Its barrels blur as he empties an entire magazine of heavy armor-piercing ammunition into the nearest Pacifier, one trying to flank them and eliminate the group with a 40mm shotgun. Its shot goes wild and shatters a reinforced concrete pillar as it falls, its legs cut out from under it. The other Pacifiers target him. Elsa fires at one with an assault rifle, aiming to blind it with sensors shots, and she succeeds, although the controller is clearly skilled and uses the other units to target for the blinded one. Kessler dives away even as machine gun fire hammers into him, hiding behind a pillar to reload. The other Void Engineer, Guo, holds a bulky handgun out as its barrel reconfigures. Jamelia sees the weapon kick, sending him falling back into cover, and one of the Pacifiers loses an arm. So he's not harmless, Jamelia thinks.
Jamelia runs as they distract the Pacifiers, sprinting flat-out while the custom combat vehicle's guns track her. Her heart pounds at a rate that would be unsafe in a normal human as she dashes faster than an Olympic runner could, despite carrying an unconscious Henriette. She almost fumbles with the driver's seat door as she shoves Henriette's limp body into the passenger seat.
[WELCOME DIRECTOR BELLTOWER] the windshield flashes. The turret on top of the other vehicle starts tracking towards her.
[VDNI INTERFACE NOT DETECTED | HEADS-UP-DISPLAY ONLINE] the windshield tells her. [WARNING DNI IS REQUIRED FOR OPTIMAL VEHICLE PERFORMANCE.] Parts of the dashboard unfold into complex haptic displays-things that Henriette could take care of with a thought requires her to fumble with holographic display after holographic display. There's so much information she has to thank Serafina for her augmentations-otherwise it'd be hard to pay attention to everything important.
[INITIALIZING BOOTUP SEQUENCE]
[FUSION ENGINE STARTING]
The VGV-3, when unpowered, isn't very tough. She remembers this. She hopes it boots faster. The muzzle on the other Union vehicle's gun flashes, and the Interceptor shakes.
[PIEZOELECTRIC ARMOR ONLINE], Jamelia sees, and she's glad for it.
[MOBILITY ONLINE]
[WEAPONS ONLINE]
[VGV-3 ONLINE]
Henriette shudders in the passenger seat, but doesn't wake. She's going to have to deal with this problem herself.
Loot For The Loot God:
Do you want to try to hijack the Rothmobile?
[ ] (0.6x) Yes. (Requires some way to disable it without wrecking it, will probably make Roth very mad)
[ ] No. (Much easier, since it just requires lots of explosives.)
A Spy, A Supercar, A Doshmobile, A Fight:
Jamelia's sort of driving/walking the VGV-3 in lieu of Henriette being functional, mostly to keep Henriette away from things like 'shrapnel, bullets, and explosions.' She is facing down, with the party's aid, multiple mini-mecha and a militarized Doshmobile. Her plan is...
[ ] (0.8x) To drag the enemy into a wild goose chase outside while letting the party exfiltrate as planned.
[ ] (1.2x) To use the VGV-3 as a battering ram to fight through this ambush.
[ ] To try to keep the VGV-3 intact because it might be valuable later.
[ ] To try to cut remote control of the Pacifiers.
[ ] Write-In.
