SR XVII: Confessions of a Angel
The sky is filled with opalescent fire. They'll be heading towards the nexus. Snowflakes whirl around her, settling on her black command rig and melting on her heated visor. Serafina screws her hands open and shut. She has all sorts of things she
should do. She just wishes she had more time.
But Christos Barberis' words are sticking with her. She shouldn't listen to a man like him. He's an ancient, high-value target who's known to use plans which can reach out for decades. He actively recruits from the Technocracy - and he's good at it. A good girl wouldn't pay attention to a man like that.
But fuck that. She's conclusively proven over her life that she's not a good girl. Too lazy, too prone to rashness, unable to just settle down in work or to hold down stable relationships and with a quite fun array of vices which fill in the gaps in the mess she's made of her life. So screw whatever good girls should do, because she's never been one. She's going to call her parents. Maybe it's selfish - but she's got a good chance of dying in the next hour, and there won't be any revivals from a death like this. Not without having her brain altered again.
So, goddamnit, she's going to have the one honest conversation with her parents in her life. The knowledge of her own mortality sets her free, in its own way. Death is the end. Whatever consequences there are will stop for her personally if this EDE kills her.
Though not for everyone else. And for all her bravado about not being a bad girl, her own sense of self-awareness forces her to accept that there are things more important than her here. She's not being entirely selfish here. There's things that her parents - as senior Progenitors, not as the ones who had her made - need to see. Need to know. Need to make sure gets to the right people.
She wheels the motorcycle around from out back. She enlisted Najwa's services in emptying out the back of the X-PROG-311 and cleaning all evidence that Father Orisino - and her, too - were in there. She's already allocated VPR First Company to the Void Engineers, and on the last update she saw they were suppressing a landed alien UFO having taken out its engines with RPGs.
Patting the side of the 'cockpit' of the gunsquid, Serafina opens a communications channel to it. "Good girl," she tells it reassuringly. "You killed many enemies of the Union today. They were your prey."
"Hunt-seek-kill? New orders?" she gets back. It almost sounds hopeful.
She gives it its orders, sending it to support an encircled Void Engineer breakthrough force trying to capture one of the alien ships and now pinned in the wreckage. "Give them hell," she whispers, stepping back as the stealth systems reactivate and it takes off, vanishing into the night.
Looking over the others, she takes in their expressions. Barberis is blandly determined, and totally unreadable. Najwa is even more cryptic - there's something about that woman that she just can't read, and it concerns her. She's even more veiled than Director Belltower, and that's quite an accomplishment. Father Orisino is tense, nervous, fatalistic - and guilty - while Alice is trying to hide her feelings from her. She knows her well enough to catch just an edge of what she's feeling, though. And that's mostly 'preoccupation'. Probably thinking over the things about her construct nature.
"I need to make a call," she tells Barberis. "I've been thinking about what you said about regrets and words left unsaid. I'll follow behind on the Saviour for now." She looks him in the eye, even if he can't see her face through her opaque helmet. "This won't harm our agreement."
The man tilts his head. "Hmm," he says. "I believe you. Very well. But once we get to the epicentre, you'll need to get in. Your hypertech will need to be kept out of the storm."
Bastard. She's sure it's part of some plan of his, but right now she doesn't care. After all, maybe he just wants to make sure that the data she has on the aliens gets back to the Union.
The others set off, with her trailing behind on the motorbike. Its wheels are handling the snow well, even if the treads are somewhat degraded from accumulated damage.
She doesn't have time to delay. No time to hesitate. Communications will only get worse as they get towards the epicentre of the storm. She makes the call. It's quarter past eleven. That means it's quarter past six in the morning in Rome. Her parents might even be awake already. If they're there. She hopes they are.
The engine thrums between her legs and she slows down to match the speed of the minivan. The line buzzes and she hopes that her stacked layers of encryption and her top secret personal codes will be enough. If she's miscalculated, there'll probably be a Hellfire missile with her name on it headed her way soon.
[Verified] her helmet flashes in green.
"Mama. Papa," she says, not wasting any time. "It's Serafina."
"Serafina?" her father says, his voice tired and sleepy but with a rising note of alarm. "What's happening?"
"What is it?" her mother asks.
"I don't have much time," she says, as guns boom in the distance. "I'm in Mexico City, and it's currently under attack from a… the Void Engineers are calling them the Ka Luon. I have information that has to get to the Void Engineers. From inside their ships. I can't reinforce how important it is that they need to get this, and it needs to come from a reputable source. This is
incredibly valuable to them and you've always been on good terms with them, Mama." Serafina takes a breath. "You… you
have to make sure they get it and look at it properly. Get it to Research & Execution, no matter what. Are you ready to take this data squirt?"
"Serafina?" her mother says. "What's going-"
"I'm ready," her father interrupts.
Serafina hits the upload command, and sighs in relief. Everything she got from the Xiaolians and the X-PROG-311's approach from the inside is going. She's attached what analysis she could do in her free time on the flight to the bar, but they'll have the raw data. And she suspects her parents and the Progenitors will contribute their own.
"Thank you," she says, letting the full relief in her voice out. "I… I can't emphasise how important this is. It's from inside one of their ships. I don't know if anyone has ever seen inside one of their… it was some kind of carrier. It was horrifying."
"Serafina," her mother says, already sounding more awake. "I'm checking the feeds and… and what are you doing there? You need to get out of there! I can't access anything. There's a full Void Engineer operation and…"
"Just… just please, listen," Serafina begs. "I don't have much time. I… I don't know if I'll get to talk to you again." She gulps down a breath. "I have to make this count," she says, acutely aware of the progress of the upload bar. She can't allow herself any more time than it takes to upload the file. "There's a powerful EDE out there and I've managed to rally a strike team of whoever I could find and… and… I don't know if I'm coming back. Mama. Papa. I'm… I'm not a hero."
"What do you-"
"No, not like that. I mean… I was the one who led Moscow, but that doesn't make me a hero. And every time people called me a Hero of the Technocratic Union, it… it made me feel like a liar." All the words are coming out right now, all the words she's been holding in. "I… I killed so many people when I ordered that fusion bomb used. I wasn't a hero. Everything went wrong and it
shouldn't have been needed and… and I couldn't help them! And all those innocent people died and it doesn't matter that everyone says it was needed and it doesn't matter that it
was needed because it was my orders that had it happen! Don't… don't you see? I'm not a Hero of the Technocratic Union. I… I just have too much blood on my hands."
There's a silence. It's probably only a few seconds, but it seems like an era to her. "I… suspected you were having problems," Daniel says delicately. "Some of the things I'd heard were concerning, and I know you."
"You've always been so caring and sensitive," Pia adds. "Your father said you… you seemed to be holding up better than he expected and… and he was worried that you were just hiding how you felt. So I was worried too."
"... why didn't you say anything?" Sera whispers. It's like a punch to the gut. It's like standing on a step which wasn't there.
"You were faking it so well that… I didn't know for certain," her father says. "And there are people who are looking for things they can use to discredit you."
"You sounded better when I talked to you recently," her mother says. "Poor Sera. You can't seem to keep out of trouble and-"
Her hands feel cold. "Stop! Just... " she tries to bite back any harsh words. "Mama, please, you have to understand. That wasn't me," she says.
"What?!"
"What happened in LA was a decapitation strike. Kill me and replace me," she says numbly. "I've been avoiding contact since then. I don't know who was pretending to me - a beta fork or an infiltrator or some kind of EDE or… it just wasn't me! What it said wasn't me!"
She quickly explains some of how she'd been hit with a suicide memeplex - and just how dangerous it is. "There's a… friend in Damage Control who's helping me," she says carefully. "It's not anyone you know. They unpicked it. I've attached their notes on it to the file I'm sending you. This is why you have to keep this quiet and be very, very careful. I don't want to make you a target! Because the memeplex uses Progenitor tricks as well as NWO tricks, and there are hardly any of us who could design one this well! They might go after you as well and you need to watch out and… and you have some of the same augs as me and they went after my brain and…" her words spill out.
"Serafina," her mother says, calm and commanding. "You're babbling. And if you're out of contact, what are you doing in Mexico City?"
That's an awkward question. One she was prepared for. "Trying to follow a lead on who might have tried to kill me," she says, getting a grip on herself. "And staying hidden. You'll understand why when you see how short the list of people who could have designed that memeplex is. Papa can probably guess. I wouldn't have risked trying to contact you if… if this didn't need to get to the Void Engineers. It's more important than me. I've been hiding out here and there. Fake IDs. Falsified records. Self-genengineering to pass as a low-functioning construct," she admits. "I can't be found. Do you understand?"
"I… don't think this is a good idea," her father says, his voice cracking, "but I can't think of anything better. If you can get to-"
"No, Dad," Serafina says sadly. He's going to offer evac. "Not now. I can't let you get involved. There are more important things for you to do." The progress bar is ticking. She's running low on time. She takes a breath. And another one. "Papa. Mama. I… I when the suicide memeplex hit, I… I remembered things. Bits of things you… you locked away. A few bits of the… the process."
The sound of her mother's gasp-choke-sob is like a nailfile over a raw nerve and it's all she can do to keep speaking. She blinks furiously, trying to clear out the tears. She can't cry when she's driving.
"I… I understand w-why you did it," she chokes out. "I… I don't hate you. For that. Or… or for the way my augs leave me prone to mental illness. I know we haven't… been close, but… but there's a lot of reasons and it's not just that and some of it is me and… and I hated Damien, truly and deeply, but I didn't hate you. If I don't come back from what… I'm doing, I want to say that… that I know the truth and I love you."
"You should hate us," her father says quietly, a shake in his voice. "How much… how much do you remember?"
"I'm not sure," she says softly. "Enough. I had… problems."
"The A-A-Administration took a p-personal interest in your case," her mother stammers, her honey-soft voice quavering. She sounds incredibly familiar, and it takes a moment for Serafina to realise why. It sounds like her own voice. She hasn't ever quite realised how much she sounds like her mother. "What we did. What… what we had our teams do. W-we had to make a deal. We had to be the ones doing it. Or else… it w-was complicated and political and that
vile Blanc man… I could tell he hated you for how you'd accidentally ruined a project of his and… and I think if we hadn't been there, y-you would have vanished into labs and… and never come out. Except as a test subject. Or a D-Damage Control w-weapon."
"Very few people have ever quite had your symptoms," her father says, in the same shaky numb voice. "It's closely linked to the development of Genius. And you were so young and… and the hallucinations started pre-puberty right as you first enlightened and you didn't realise it and it was so well-integrated it was scary and… and there were people saying that you might be the ideal test subject for all kinds of things. The… the price of us being there, of being able to preserve your personality and give you a mostly normal life was… was unnecessary experimentation. Doing what we were ordered to. Following other people's notes. Interrogating your Alicia. Having to treat you as a test subject, not our… our sick little girl."
Serafina's knuckles whiten around the handles of her bike. The worst thing is she knows exactly how they feel. "I'm… I'm certainly your daughter," she says, with a weak, half-crazed giggle. "I know how you feel. I've done the same to R-Rose. Trying to pr-protect her and having to drug and hurt her to d-do so. And if… if you're like me, I know how much…" She takes a breath. "I know how much you hate yourself for doing so. D-don't hate yourselves. If… if you don't see me again, please. I forgive you."
The upload finished thirty seconds ago. Serafina is out of time. "And Mama and Papa," Serafina says, "Merry Christmas." And then she cuts the line.
The catharsis leaves her shaking. She feels drained - yet stronger. Her parents have been lessened in her eyes. They're no longer the distant figures who sent her to Damien aged four and never saw her and who only really paid attention to her once her Genius developed.
Maybe her parents never really knew what they were doing either. Never really knew how to handle a baby so fell back on doctrine, parenting manuals, and 'best practice'. After all, they got shipped off to boarding school young too. Damien and Unity fuck you up.
They're her. She is her mother's daughter. She is her father's daughter. They made the same mistakes as her. They felt the same guilt as her. The same churning shame looking at their daughter. She… she wishes she could have told them to look after Rose, but she doesn't know if her daughter is alive and if she is alive, whether she's a brainwashed killing machine working for Panopticon.
"I did it for the best," Serafina mouths to herself. It feels so hollow. So inadequate for what she did to Rose, for what her parents did to her. But what else can one do, but do things for the best? Better than not doing things for the best, right?
Is there a better way than doing things for the best?
The sound of a gunshot makes her jump. Christos leans back in from the window, and carefully loads another bullet into the snub-nosed revolver in his hand. "There was a drone in the air, watching our line of approach," he said calmly. "Now there isn't. Time for you to get in."
"You can't shoot down a drone with something like-" she begins.
Christos smirks at her. "I'm sorry, is shooting down lightly armoured drones with small arms some kind of 'reality deviancy'?" he says mockingly. "You should probably tell your own armed forces that."
Serafina winces, feeling remarkably like she was at school and being scolded by a teacher for saying something dumb. Kessler would probably snigger if she said something like that. Or, worse, go into a long and bragging tale about how he once shot down a dragon using only a spear and an improvised ballista made using some branches and dragonguts. And that story was only interesting the first time.
"Pull over, then," she says.
***
There's more space in the minivan than there should be. Either they're pulling out similar tricks to the LX-5, or they're all filthy reality deviants who've decided there should be a comfortable amount of space in the back of a minivan which should have been a tight fit - and several blatantly abnormal spaces which are the size of a small room. And can fit a motorbike.
Serafina decides quite firmly she's just going to turn a blind eye to this. And wipe the data records from her rig of seeing these things.
Right now, she's working on her two X-410s. She's given Seelicia a target location to get her two X-410s into position for overwatch fire, and firmly entrusted Beelicio the responsibility of keeping Seelicia safe. That may have been a mistake, but she fears she may well need sniper fire and he's the expendable one.
Which means she's going to have to be going in personally. This time she's going to do things better than last time, and not just jam into the VIP protection system on the fly. She's calibrating them properly to be worn, and that should prevent biofeedback.
"Have you read the
Summa Theologae?" Father Orisino asks quietly - almost so quietly that he is inaudible under the sound of the storm. He has been quiet since his talk with Barberis. He looks… off. There's a glow to his eyes and an odd choral note to his voice.
"No," Serafina says brusquely. She's considering input commands and functionality she can use, parallel processing her brain to handle her preparations. She can spare very little attention for what is about to happen.
"Your name is Serafina. A female name that invokes the seraphim, the highest choir of angels," he says.
"I suppose so," she says.
"Shall I tell you what Thomas Aquinas said about the seraphim?" he asks, not giving her time to say no. "He said that the their name did not merely come from charity alone, but from the excess of charity - expressed if you would by the word 'ardor' or 'fire'. They are therefore creatures of flame, containing an excess of flame - and charity, too. He drew three conclusions from that.
"The first, that just as fire ascends, so too are the seraphim drawn inexorably upwards towards God - it is in their nature to become closer to him. Secondly, that heat is not just fire, but it is also a process that cleanses and refreshes, excising that which is impure and leaving only ash, which is left to whirl onwards. Therefore the seraphim bring those under their dominion to an all-consuming passion, and leave them purified and cleansed. And that thirdly, in themselves these angels have the property of an inextinguishable light for fire possesses the quality of clarity and brightness. Hence, the seraphim are here to perfectly enlighten others."
Slightly peeved, Serafina turns her head to glare at him. "I'm sorry," she apologises, "but I don't understand what you mean. Is there a point to this?"
"Maybe. Maybe not," the priest says with a shrug. "I have spent a life looking for the hidden and unseen, and the Father has hidden secrets and mysteries in the world for those who have the eyes to look to find. His presence marks the world, and man partakes of the nature of God from the sacrifice of our Saviour. The hidden natures of men are just another secret - and are part of the path that leads to the entelechy of all things. When the Father stirred the world into motion and set the stars spinning, he set the Divine Plan into motion. We are all part of the Plan - and can all play our parts.
He tilted his head. "Ah, but you don't believe, do you?" he adds.
"I've never felt it necessary," Serafina says. The man is clearly trying to say something, and she can see the signs of guilt and shame in his expression. So she'll humour him for now. "And I think trying to… to interpret things from a name my parents picked out for me is
rather reaching."
"Well, that doesn't matter," Father Orisino says, crossing his arms. "I shall believe enough for both of us."
"You do that," she told him. "And I'll patch you back up with actually functional medical science."
"Fine."
"Fine."
"No one said one need know one's own nature,
seraphim," he whispered below his breath.
***
Keeping low, glad of her low-visibility biosuit, Seelicia crawls up to the window. Carefully she gets her back to the wall, and taking care not to twitch the curtains, she leans out with her binoculars. No sudden movements. They draw the eye.
The Church of Santiago is a blocky baroque structure from the 1700s. Its white stone is covered up by whiter snow. Only traces of the verdigris covering its roof can be seen. The cupola of the dome on top has been hit by the uncanny lightning of the opalescent sky, and is ruptured and broken, melted and twisted. Even before it was hit, though, it looks like it was degrading and slowly rotting. Lack of repairs, Seelicia guesses.
It stands at the corner where one street meets another, set back slightly from the road but built up to the aging apartment blocks which are what make up the fabric of this neighbourhood. Three to four story buildings built in the 1960s surround it, crude concrete unlike the careful ornamentation of the church.
It doesn't stand out. These kinds of churches aren't rare in this city, and she can't see any obvious Reality Deviant iconography. But there are police cars parked outside, and the entrance is sealed off with tickertape. When she looks at the police she can see in more detail, her eyes widen, and she slowly sinks back down.
"Is there a problem?" Beelicio asks.
"I need to call this in," she says, expression scrunched up in annoyance. But to who? Should she talk to Serafina, to the mysterious Liss who Serafina seems to know, or to Alicia?
She makes her choice.
"This is See," she says quietly. "Please respond."
"Yeah?" Alicia says. "Little busy right now."
"I'm doing as Ess has ordered," Seelicia says. "We're now in a sniper point covering the church she's going to. I want an Enlightened opinion on what I'm seeing."
The people hanging around the church look like the police. Look like, but are not. Seelicia's helmet has thermals and a zoom, and she can see that the rubbery-skinned men and women are the same temperature as the outside. They're not Union, either, because no one uses that long-obsolete design of synthskin anymore, except on a few rear-line models of base defence unit used for protecting isolated facilities. They're too obvious.
She hears Alicia gulp. "Not Union," she says. "Biomarkers don't match. They're not our HITMarks - they're not HITMarks at all. I don't know what they're made of, but it's not primium. It's toxic. And…" she pauses. "See the people in the windows?" she says. "They're something based off a MiB 1.3, but they've got non-standard degradation and mutations."
"Rogues? Etherites?"
"I think they might be Nephandi," Alicia says, suppressed rage in her voice. "Tell Ess. Get her contacts to look at your feeds. Got to go. Busy."
***
"The Special Project Division," Alice says, contempt dripping from her voice.
"Are you sure?" Serafina asks. They've pulled over to discuss this message and look at the footage Serafina got sent by Seelicia. The sky screams, and the little clock in her helmet ticks closer and closer to midnight.
"Yes. I recognise the models and the genelines. They like psychics," Alice says quietly. "They went after some of my students. I got most of them back mostly intact. Then I killed everyone involved in the project. They deserved to die. They all deserved to die."
Christos nods approvingly. "Well done," he says. "But unfortunately they're bigger than just one project. Their cells are everywhere, and," he shoots a glance at Sera, "they are cancerous cells."
She doesn't smile. "They look like old tech," she says.
Najwa clears her throat. "By Technocracy standards, yes," she says in her soft voice. "Their baseline units are mostly 1970s retrogrades. Their HITMark knock-offs are more like a III or an early model V, and their clones are Men in Black quality. And they can't make primium. But they make widespread use of spirits. Nasty ones."
"I had heard rumours that this… being in this church was one of the patrons of the SPD," Christos says thoughtfully. "But then again, they are mercenary in the extreme. Their only loyalty is to profit. Perhaps the being had enough money to get one of their fake police units to secure it." He stares at Serafina. "As you are the only one here ignorant of the ways of spirits - or aliens, if you want it in your terms… listen to us on that topic."
"The ones at the front are likely to be a tripwire," Najwa says. "The SPD are more reliable than most First Teams, but many of their tactics are the same. If they have heavier assets, they'll keep them in reserve - though, of course, they won't like the sanctum." She narrows her eyes. "No, looking at that picture they haven't converted the node yet, but I think they've started preparing to claim it," she adds.
"They have profaned my church," Father Orisino says sadly. "They must die."
"So." Alice is twitching slightly. "Tactics?"
Serafina is preparing her super suit. Father Orisino has an angel in his head. Alice has gone Full Pointman (she hasn't unlocked her full potential, because that would involve going Super Psion).
In Your Holy Place
What line of approach will the team use?
[ ] Ghost - There are tunnels and underground passageways, because Father Orisino was prepared to flee if the Technocracy came. He doesn't think the alien should know about them. It'll be tight quarters in there, but as long the escape routes haven't been found it might let you get straight to the sanctum.
[ ] Panther - The church is built up against apartment buildings on two sides. Get into the apartments and break into the church through a wall (quietly). It should let you pick where you engage them and hit their chokepoints from behind.
[ ] Assault - They're not expecting an assault and you're a remarkable concentration of force. Hit them hard from the front and punch straight through their lines. (x.0.4 - would have been x2.5 if you'd brought VPR Company along)
[ ] Dynamic Assault: Alicia has acquired a tank. Somehow. She's brought it to the party, along with her X-410s. Knock knock. (expends your Quantum Narrative Alicia asset)
The Dimensional Anomaly Incursion in the area of the Church is
[ ] Worsening (cross-Gauntlet travel is near suicidal, Paradox is incredibly unpredictable in the forms it takes, it will sometimes strike Consensual effects, the powers of non-Awakened beings suffer Paradox)
[ ] Staying much the same (cross-Gauntlet travel is incredibly dangerous, Paradox is somewhat unpredictable in the forms it takes, it will rarely strike Consensual effects, the powers of non-Awakened beings are Improbable)
[ ] Lessening (cross-Gauntlet travel is very dangerous, Paradox is fairly reliable in its forms, it won't affect Consensual effects or non-Awakened beings)
