That was an omake and not, shall we say, 100% canon.
Mostly because keeping Kessler in jail would be very very hard. He still had issues finding a payphone though.
Panopticon: A Game of Posthumans, Perniciousness, Paranoia, Politics, and Plasmaguns
That was an omake and not, shall we say, 100% canon.
Mostly because keeping Kessler in jail would be very very hard. He still had issues finding a payphone though.
- Location
- National Capital Region, USA
And at this point unless someone actually called his attention to it, he really doesn't notice being attacked by ninjas anymore.
So, logic first. These are feeder sites. They're providing technology and materials. That means that these sites are contractors providing limited elements towards the work that Gregor is doing. They won't know everything that he's up to, but that doesn't matter. Because in truth, I don't want access to these places for what they might give us knowledge about what he's doing. I want them because those places are feeder sites for the main project. They're designing technology for them and sourcing materials - and that means they need a way to get those resources transferred into the secure facilities where the main project is happening. That's something we might be able to use.
This might be an electronic way in, via Henriette (who is our techno haxxor). It might involve Rose going in as some of the biological materials (no Rose stop pretending to be blood and hiding in jars). It might involve Donald reconstructing the past of objects that the side site is disposing of, using Time and maybe a little bit of Spirit to get inside their info loop in a way that no one on their side would see coming - as even DSci can't ask spirits things.
And if we have access to that site, when it comes to the final battle Donald can say "Ah ha! I planned ahead! I had Rose dope some of the materials!" and then troll lol lol Entropy focus.
Plus, you know, if the Avatar timer gets too high, we can destroy one of these helper labs to lower it.
[X] The facilities Aino mentioned might give you some more leads. There's a lot of Progenitor and ItX facilities that are feeding tech and materials to this place. And they're low priority enough that they're probably minimally guarded against the infiltration you're doing, which is basically "walking in the front door with legitimate credentials looking like you belong."
Running her hands through her hair, Major Clarent settles herself. Her expression takes on a neutral cast. She raises her hand to knock at the door.
"Enter," Dr Gregor says from within.
At least for once he's not playing Go again. Still, he's lurking in this dimly lit room. He says that some of his current set of augmentations make him photosensitive. And he's got that Serafina Rosario duplicate with him again; dark-haired, sultry, and very nearly as clever as the original.
"Clarent," Gregor says. "Oh, excuse me." He snaps his fingers, and the Rosario duplicate freezes up. Its face shifts into something neutral, becoming bland and anonymous. "Watch this, if you will."
"I am watching," she says politely.
"Subject, devote torso biomass to cognitive emulation of threats to this installation. Project logical behaviour paths."
"Yes, doctor," the construct says. In her augmented vision, Major Clarent can see the waste heat and hear the churning of a reconfigured cardiovascular system. Whatever the doctor has done to this construct, it's making as much heat as a high end computer. It pauses, exhaling water vapour. "Alexander Cross is a threat. Enemies of the Union will try to contact him. They will consider him the easiest route to obstruct us."
"Very good. Resume active simulation." The bland-faced doll becomes Serafina Rosario again and it cools down, its heart no longer beating like a drum. "Well, you heard her," Gregor says lazily. "Stake out Cross. He's a tool Li could use if we end up at odds."
Major Clarent stares at this pronouncement. "You believe Operative Li to be a threat?" Something about this rings true. Someone with that much EDE implanted in them might be compromised by hostile aliens. "I know I reported that I have not been able to track her at all times, but she is an Operative. There's only so much that-"
"No," Gregor says, a tic of annoyance in his eyes. "I know everything about her. She's quite safe - she's crammed full of overrides that can be used if any of her implants become unsafe. No, I'm talking about that wasteful ideologue who's clawed his way to the Chair of the Administration."
"Ah," Major Clarent mouths. Progenitor internal politics. So catty.
"So monitor Cross."
"With all due respects, doctor," she says calmly, "he's a professional. We cannot simply 'monitor' him without him noticing. I can task Pilot Clarent with full spectrum surveillance, but that'll be purely passive and I can't guarantee that he won't notice. Ethical Compliance is very good."
"So just be better than him," Dr Gregor says casually. "If Pilot Clarent needs assistance to outwit him, just tell me and I'll outfit her for it. Is there anything else? Because Serafina, I need you to check on the incubation chambers. And bring me a black coffee."
"Of course," the construct says, brushing past the other woman as she leaves.
For her part, Jane Clarent personally believes that while her superior is an expert on the human mind, he's not so good at little things like military strategy. And her gut tells her that it's a mistake to believe that one's models can control for every variable or every fluke chance. The security of this facility is her responsibility and while she can't quite follow all the logical deductions of a man like this, she prefers things less vulnerable to the fog of war.
So, certainly, she'll have Alexander Cross monitored - and that kind of obsessive minutiae is something a later Clarent like Ling is good at. But Jane has learned and grown beyond that. And maybe she's too much a solider, but she thinks it's a mistake to assume that the only threat to this facility is a political one. They're vulnerable through their supply lines. They need vast amounts of refined primal energy, they need feeder vats, they even need other sites to dispose of their waste. All of those are weaknesses and she suspects they're far more pressing - and if Dr Gregor is wrong, that's where they'll be blindsided.
She'll order the defences stepped up, and make sure Ling conducts randomised datawar sweeps of them.
There's something else she has concluded, and that's that Dr Gregor believes Serafina Rosario to be a threat to this project. His obsessive focus on her, the way he keeps a psuedo-alpha level simulation of her around him at all times, the idea that some mysterious enemy would go for the man who just happens to be her lover? Suspicious. And that's very interesting indeed.
But of course, she will hold her tongue and wait. And watch.
"Here is your coffee, Gregor," the fake Serafina says, putting down a black espresso before him.
"Thank you," he says, face impassive as he sits back at his desk, feet up. "So, she thinks she now knows that I think that you're my enemy."
"She's not a fool," Serafina agrees. "She was going to put it together."
"She's going to go snooping," he says, almost happily. "No need to order her to hunt your sister-self down when she can talk herself into doing it. And you colonised her dermal layer."
"Yes. I did. I infected her skin layer," Serafina says, inspecting the back of her hand. It shifts for a moment, taking on the appearance of Major Clarent's hand. She smiles wickedly. "It's very nice skin. And a very nice body. It tasted-"
Dr Gregor waves his hand. "Enough."
Serafina shuts up.
"We can do without that, thank you very much." Gregor massages his temples. "This is always why you let yourself down. You're brilliant when you focus, but then you feel the need to... to indulge in these base things. Next thing you'll volunteer to 'interrogate' Alexander Cross."
"Can I?" the Serafina says with ingénue glee.
"No." Gregor smiles coldly. "And I know you're being subtly uncooperative. I know all your tells, remember? I know what you're thinking better than you do."
The Serafina pouts. "You know, it's very unfair," she says playfully. "I'm just a beta upgraded with pseudo-alpha functionality. I don't stand a chance against you."
"No," Gregor says. "You don't. You never did."
This might be an electronic way in, via Henriette (who is our techno haxxor). It might involve Rose going in as some of the biological materials (no Rose stop pretending to be blood and hiding in jars). It might involve Donald reconstructing the past of objects that the side site is disposing of, using Time and maybe a little bit of Spirit to get inside their info loop in a way that no one on their side would see coming - as even DSci can't ask spirits things.
And if we have access to that site, when it comes to the final battle Donald can say "Ah ha! I planned ahead! I had Rose dope some of the materials!" and then troll lol lol Entropy focus.
Plus, you know, if the Avatar timer gets too high, we can destroy one of these helper labs to lower it.
[X] The facilities Aino mentioned might give you some more leads. There's a lot of Progenitor and ItX facilities that are feeding tech and materials to this place. And they're low priority enough that they're probably minimally guarded against the infiltration you're doing, which is basically "walking in the front door with legitimate credentials looking like you belong."
Running her hands through her hair, Major Clarent settles herself. Her expression takes on a neutral cast. She raises her hand to knock at the door.
"Enter," Dr Gregor says from within.
At least for once he's not playing Go again. Still, he's lurking in this dimly lit room. He says that some of his current set of augmentations make him photosensitive. And he's got that Serafina Rosario duplicate with him again; dark-haired, sultry, and very nearly as clever as the original.
"Clarent," Gregor says. "Oh, excuse me." He snaps his fingers, and the Rosario duplicate freezes up. Its face shifts into something neutral, becoming bland and anonymous. "Watch this, if you will."
"I am watching," she says politely.
"Subject, devote torso biomass to cognitive emulation of threats to this installation. Project logical behaviour paths."
"Yes, doctor," the construct says. In her augmented vision, Major Clarent can see the waste heat and hear the churning of a reconfigured cardiovascular system. Whatever the doctor has done to this construct, it's making as much heat as a high end computer. It pauses, exhaling water vapour. "Alexander Cross is a threat. Enemies of the Union will try to contact him. They will consider him the easiest route to obstruct us."
"Very good. Resume active simulation." The bland-faced doll becomes Serafina Rosario again and it cools down, its heart no longer beating like a drum. "Well, you heard her," Gregor says lazily. "Stake out Cross. He's a tool Li could use if we end up at odds."
Major Clarent stares at this pronouncement. "You believe Operative Li to be a threat?" Something about this rings true. Someone with that much EDE implanted in them might be compromised by hostile aliens. "I know I reported that I have not been able to track her at all times, but she is an Operative. There's only so much that-"
"No," Gregor says, a tic of annoyance in his eyes. "I know everything about her. She's quite safe - she's crammed full of overrides that can be used if any of her implants become unsafe. No, I'm talking about that wasteful ideologue who's clawed his way to the Chair of the Administration."
"Ah," Major Clarent mouths. Progenitor internal politics. So catty.
"So monitor Cross."
"With all due respects, doctor," she says calmly, "he's a professional. We cannot simply 'monitor' him without him noticing. I can task Pilot Clarent with full spectrum surveillance, but that'll be purely passive and I can't guarantee that he won't notice. Ethical Compliance is very good."
"So just be better than him," Dr Gregor says casually. "If Pilot Clarent needs assistance to outwit him, just tell me and I'll outfit her for it. Is there anything else? Because Serafina, I need you to check on the incubation chambers. And bring me a black coffee."
"Of course," the construct says, brushing past the other woman as she leaves.
For her part, Jane Clarent personally believes that while her superior is an expert on the human mind, he's not so good at little things like military strategy. And her gut tells her that it's a mistake to believe that one's models can control for every variable or every fluke chance. The security of this facility is her responsibility and while she can't quite follow all the logical deductions of a man like this, she prefers things less vulnerable to the fog of war.
So, certainly, she'll have Alexander Cross monitored - and that kind of obsessive minutiae is something a later Clarent like Ling is good at. But Jane has learned and grown beyond that. And maybe she's too much a solider, but she thinks it's a mistake to assume that the only threat to this facility is a political one. They're vulnerable through their supply lines. They need vast amounts of refined primal energy, they need feeder vats, they even need other sites to dispose of their waste. All of those are weaknesses and she suspects they're far more pressing - and if Dr Gregor is wrong, that's where they'll be blindsided.
She'll order the defences stepped up, and make sure Ling conducts randomised datawar sweeps of them.
There's something else she has concluded, and that's that Dr Gregor believes Serafina Rosario to be a threat to this project. His obsessive focus on her, the way he keeps a psuedo-alpha level simulation of her around him at all times, the idea that some mysterious enemy would go for the man who just happens to be her lover? Suspicious. And that's very interesting indeed.
But of course, she will hold her tongue and wait. And watch.
***
"Here is your coffee, Gregor," the fake Serafina says, putting down a black espresso before him.
"Thank you," he says, face impassive as he sits back at his desk, feet up. "So, she thinks she now knows that I think that you're my enemy."
"She's not a fool," Serafina agrees. "She was going to put it together."
"She's going to go snooping," he says, almost happily. "No need to order her to hunt your sister-self down when she can talk herself into doing it. And you colonised her dermal layer."
"Yes. I did. I infected her skin layer," Serafina says, inspecting the back of her hand. It shifts for a moment, taking on the appearance of Major Clarent's hand. She smiles wickedly. "It's very nice skin. And a very nice body. It tasted-"
Dr Gregor waves his hand. "Enough."
Serafina shuts up.
"We can do without that, thank you very much." Gregor massages his temples. "This is always why you let yourself down. You're brilliant when you focus, but then you feel the need to... to indulge in these base things. Next thing you'll volunteer to 'interrogate' Alexander Cross."
"Can I?" the Serafina says with ingénue glee.
"No." Gregor smiles coldly. "And I know you're being subtly uncooperative. I know all your tells, remember? I know what you're thinking better than you do."
The Serafina pouts. "You know, it's very unfair," she says playfully. "I'm just a beta upgraded with pseudo-alpha functionality. I don't stand a chance against you."
"No," Gregor says. "You don't. You never did."
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GhostStalker
Jeopardy! contestant
- Location
- NYC
I think you mixed up Major Clarent and Operative Li a couple times in that write-in, ES. Our Major expy is the one in the room speaking to Dr. Leon and his Serafina clone, but you have it seem like Yinzheng is there at times in the dialogue. And not just when the Major is mixing up the Operative and the Professor.
Damn, I thought I caught all of them. Yes, that was the first concept, but then I saw how it flowed better with Clarent there (and also how Yinzheng is elsewhere, when I checked previous chapters).
Yes, but after the balance patch you can't just ride the Avatar timer endlessly to grind up resources for the fight against Threat Null
VCOM's leadership is very very peeved at this.
Also, this is a suggestion that people vote, and if they don't like the current plan or have things they also want to have happen in it, they should suggest them.
Sarpedon
Knight Errant
- Pronouns
- He/Him
[X] The facilities Aino mentioned might give you some more leads. There's a lot of Progenitor and ItX facilities that are feeding tech and materials to this place. And they're low priority enough that they're probably minimally guarded against the infiltration you're doing, which is basically "walking in the front door with legitimate credentials looking like you belong."
Well, then, I know I've provided a write-in, but let's talk about what we're trying to do here. And yes, other people actually should contribute. At the very least, if you get your discussion in before I get to writing something up, I'll often steal ideas or go with the flow and even when I don't I'll make use of things. You can still sway me without producing a write-in.
My write-in has the purpose of trying to get us to find info, but in addition it's trying to set up a possible infiltration route by getting into the facility via the supply lines or something.
It's also there to stick an obstacle in our way for MJ to use if he feels like it, because Major Clarent is poking her nose into things - but her synthskin is infected by Gregor's stuff (via his pet Serafaker, who is basically a lovely high end focus for him as a perfectly loyal minion). Someone who "wants to help" while being a proxy for an enemy can be in some ways even more dangerous than an enemy. If you don't want that, you might want to speak up against it.
(and finally it's there to flesh out Gregor and his pet Serafina more. It's a lot of fun writing Gregor. He is exactly as good as he thinks he is - but he has a habit of overestimating how good his data is. He is very much, I feel, an example of a Static Progenitor compared to Serafina who's much more Dynamic - he fundamentally assumes that he can know and model everything. Serafina claims that's possible as an ideological principle, but in practice she doesn't think it'll really be done in her lifetime and thus she leaves a lot more room for things like 'things going wrong' and 'budgeting time for overruns/her slacking off because she's feeling bored".)
(His pet Serafina is, incidentally, a way to subject "being like Rose" on Serafina - or at least a fork of her. He's making a mistake, because he had to make her very nearly as good as real Serafina in her common mode of operation to ensure the data he got from her was useful and that means that, despite the fact that she genuinely wants to do the best she can to help him, she's still telling him what he wants to hear with Serafina's "Manipulation 6 (Nice)". The Conditioning makes her loyal to him beyond reason, and that means that in subtle, subconscious ways she's giving false data because she thinks in a subtly different way from Serafina)
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FunkyEntropy
Occasionally insightful, possibly grumpy
- Location
- Los Angeles
The one thing that's kind of bothering me is how Clarent is being shown the Sera clone. My understanding was that making clones of Union personell (particularly senior Progenitors) is a huge nono, which means Gregor wouldn't make that reveal unless Clarent is solidly in his camp. This paints Clarent as an antagonist when I thought that she was fairly solidly on our side after all the work we did with the werewolf cairn.
- Location
- Southern Virginia
We did send the last Sera-clone running to Cross, too. One would think there'd be a bit of an uproar in Progenitor circles about that. Mind that could be fuelling Gregor if people think Li was responsible.
I'd add to that that we've arranged for the LA Serafaker to reveal itself to Damage Control. That isn't going to be a loud scandal while the senior Rosarios don't want it to be but I'd expect word to get around in senior security circles. Another clone Serafina in particular is going to ring alarm bells right now.
Gregor may be taking refuge in audacity - if there was anything dodgy about him having the clone he wouldn't be so ready to wave her in Clarent's face sort of thing - rather risking trying to hide her from his head of security. He must have an awful lot of confidence in his control of Clarent nonetheless.
Hmm, true.
... I wonder if, with some changes to the scene, he might be passing it off as the real Serafina. After all, the previous Serafaker was good enough to fool everyone - and Gregor is setting himself up in opposition to Li. Which means, if she needed a place to hide and Li was going after her?
Well, you know, a project using EXEMPLAR knowledge would be just the sort of place where she might trade her services for safety. And that means Gregor gets to use her as a face for Progenitors who he brings into the project, since she's set up with Sera's full social skills and is... well, much more likeable than Gregor. Even when he uses his super-Int as Manipulation or Charisma, it's still much less spontaneous or flexible than actual investment in the skills.
Sirrocco
Pedantic
That does set him up for a pretty damaging political takedown when the actual Serafina reveals herself. Also, fake-Sera can't play Progenitor social games nearly as well as Real-Sera. (...okay, if he dopes her up with Augs and The Good Drugs every time, she can get closer, but she's still missing a bunch of things like telepathy-equivalents that other upper-level Progenitors might start to notice.)
Wouldn't count on that. ES's writein mentioned a "pseudo-alpha upgrade" or some such, and anyway missing those effects would make her pretty useless as a "what would she do?" Mind focus. At a guess, mechanically she can use his Spheres or something.
Most Technocrats use a fairly predictable and limited range of procedures that you can replace with a selection of Enhancements and integrated Devices. You won't have the same flexibility if you're faking it with a lot of gadgets and tools, but most Technocrats aren't exactly totally freeform casters.
Janice XV: "The Thing About Revolutions..."
Janice XV: "The Thing About Revolutions..."
Janice sighs. "Warren Roth is the problem," she says softly. "He's the one who'll turn this spark into a pyre for witches." She wonders if he too saw that once, long ago, he was the witch and she was the witchhunter who burned then-her to death. It might just strengthen his hate. "He's the one who'll turn this from domestic terrorism into a war on terror."
She needs to remove the threat he poses. He might still be alive at the end, but she might not. Not all things can be solved by violence. But some can.
"And it's my fate to face him," she says, feeling numb. Her words feel like prophecy. She isn't sure, but it's leaden - like a heavy door slamming down. "I don't want to - but one way or another, as long as he is what he is right now, he'll never stop. He'll never give up. Because he knows his cause is right. Because his will is pure. Because he doesn't doubt."
She knows him. She knows him all too well. Their souls touched when their minds does. He saw enough of her to pull out a New York-wide manhunt for her. And she? She knows they must meet again. She knows they're less different than either of them would like.
Janice doesn't avoid war because she thinks its wrong, after all. She avoids it because she's sure she's willing the peace and war would risk everything. He thinks the same, which is why he wants war. She'd do the same in his place, she knows.
"You think he needs to die," Francesco says.
"I think he needs to be stopped," she contradicts him. "Killing him might work - but the Technocracy might just drag him back from the lands of the dead. Changing his mind might work - but the Technocracy might just brainwash him again. But if I can't stop him lighting this fuse here and now…"
"The Disciples have gone beyond what can be tolerated," the white-robed Chalice member says. Their hand falls on one of their sheathed blades. "They have betrayed a major Verbena enclave and wish their destruction. Before, they were tolerated as a dog on a leash, but now they've proved themselves to harm the greater body of the Nine Traditions. This cannot stand."
"Friend," Francesco says, "that is for later." He glances at Janice. "You know to hold your tongue."
"Yes," she agrees. She knows that the Chalice will be turning their attention now to the Traditions of New York and find how many are willing to betray supposed-allies. She reminds herself that she knows that Francesco is in contact with Selene and she's even willing to secretly come to New York with him even though she hates the place.
She wonders how many things to help the Traditions Selene does that she doesn't know about. How many Chris-like people have been through that quiet town and been given some time away from the world and shown a place where the Technocracy isn't utterly dominant?
Well, if that's the case, the old man might be perhaps even a little - dare she say - vindictive in whatever the Chalice does to the Disciples. She hopes so, at least. None of this would be necessary if they weren't a bunch of maniacs who were preparing to douse everything in gasoline when they know there's men like Roth holding a match.
"So, what will you do now, Ms Moullin?"
She wants to massage her temples. "There's someone I need to contact," she says, keeping things vague. This might kill her, going up against Roth - and the edge of a Technocratic killer might be something she needs. Or maybe she just wants to get her life's affairs in order. This has haunted her for a long, long time. "They might know something I can use against him."
"An ally?"
"Of sorts. They're dead."
"A ghost?" one of the masked Euthanatoi says, and Janice detects disdain there.
"No. A memory."
Francesco looks her up and down. "We need to talk, privately," he says. "As do my organisation. Come with me."
They leave the others. She can feel their stares as she departs.
Francesco leads her up into a cramped office above a taxi lot. She smiles internally, knowing that her guess was right. He hangs up his robes and once again he's the taxi driver in the slightly shabby suit that picked her up.
"So. Talk to me," he says. "What are you going to try to contact?"
She sighs. "I saw things while in astral space, trying to track down Liam," she says softly. "I've put things together about my past life. They have skills that I think I'll need if I'm up against someone like Roth."
Reaching into his desk, Francesco pulls out a pair of black dice. He toys with them. "A great karmic debt tied up in you - and now your past life makes itself known. That's not a coincidence," he says solemnly.
She shakes her head. "I don't think it is," she agrees. "It feels too… heavy."
"You could have perhaps slipped that noose, but now you've embraced it too much." He sighs. "Well, perhaps it might be for the best for me, but until you're free of those shackles, I don't think there'll be much of a happy ending for you."
"I'll make it work," she says.
"Who did you betray?"
She frowns. "Betray?"
"There are few things that can tie one's future incarnation up in so much debt - and none of them are pleasant. You don't walk the path of Descension - and believe me, I have kept an eye on you for a while because I once had some worries about that."
"You did?" It's like a punch in the gut. Her skin feels cold.
"Your nightmares - well, they rang some alarm bells. They resembled a Caul."
She swallows. "I… I think it was one," she says hoarsely. "That's where they died - trying to kill everything in a warren of Nephandi. Willing to accept their own death if it meant they could kill everything in there."
"I hope for your sake that the karmic debt was just some dying oath to kill the ones who escaped them, then," the man says, eyes dark.
She shudders at that. Such a dark thing, that indeed that would be preferable to some of the things she's fretted over.
"Now," he says, "there's a bit of me that doesn't want to let someone like you anywhere near Roth. I fear we'd just be handing him another ATLAS. With such a karmic debt… I wish I could say it was only that which swayed me. But you're right. Both Roth and the Disciples want bloody war. Both must be disarmed."
He doesn't want to admit it. He's a proud man. "You don't think you can do it..." alone, she doesn't say, "... in the way you'd prefer."
"No," he admits. "The Disciples are Ascension Warriors of the old school. And we are." He pauses. "Spread thin," he admits.
Maybe he's lying to her, but her thumbs aren't pricking. "I should be on my way soon," she says. "I want to get this over and done with."
"Keep it secret," he says, warning her. "We cast some auguries and we have at least a day, but if the secret escapes they may well move their schedule ahead. We need time to get more people to New York."
"You don't think you can deal with it now?" she asks skeptically.
His shoulders slump. "No," he admits. "Right now, we do not." He spreads his hands and gestures out towards the window. "We are most powerful when we are not seen, when we could be anywhere. Now, though, we must make a show of force and that is… complicated." He sighs. "I might even have to call in that favour from Westin," he muses.
"Hmm?"
"Time is a cruel master," he says. She gets the distinct feeling he's strongly hinting that she should leave. "Now, I have something for you." He digs through his desk and pulls out a phone. "Take this. It's a way for me to contact you when it's time."
She feels it, brushes it, notes the feeling of death about it. "This is one of these Technocratic covert weapons, isn't it?" she asks.
He smiles. "Donated to the cause, yes. One weapon for you. And you can ask me for another one - a weapon to use against Roth."
She thinks. She names it.
He nods. "I'll see what I can do."
"One last thing," she says. "Do you have a pen and some paper? I need to send a paper aeroplane."
Three hours later at a forgettable street corner, Chris finds her. She's got the message in her gloved hands. Snow drifts down from a pale grey sky, settling on the black and grey coats all around.
"It nearly hit me in the eye, you know," are the first words out of her lips.
"Sorry."
Chris falls in beside her, huddled up for warmth in her multiple layers and her bobble hat. "So what happened? I was gonna come 'round to yours, yeah?"
Janice winces. "Things got complicated."
"Crap. How complicated?"
"I'm not going home for the next few days. Too much risk of a 'Cracy trap. Let's get to your place. It's really, really complicated. And I need some calming tea. It's been one hell of a night."
Chris' current residence is one of her many hide-outs hidden in forgotten places in New York. This one is a room in a mid-price hotel where the door's been plastered over and it's accessed via an elevator which isn't on the hotel's records. Janice is a bit jealous. Chris got a place in Manhattan itself and doesn't pay rent.
Admittedly that's because she dusted the vampire who'd made this place and that means it's somewhat lacking in amenities like 'windows', but Chris has made it homey. Well, fine, under the candlelight it looks like a rather tasteless dragon has made its collection here. Her friend is a born hoarder, and tends to clean out the lairs of any vampire she kills. Unfortunately that means that while she does pick up valuables, she picks up rather more random things the vampire had lying around. One wall is stacked high with CDs that Chris doesn't even like, while the kitchen has three espresso machines and four microwaves.
Apparently vampires do buy home applicables. Maybe hot water helps them get the bloodstains out of clothes. Or maybe they're for their ghoul.
Janice slumps down on the couch and tries not to set off a trash-slide, while Chris makes them both herbal tea. She sips hers with relief.
"So. Spill it," Chris says, pulling off her layers of outer clothing until she's just lazing around in a white sleeveless tank top. The self-inflicted scars and enchanted tattoos that cover her arms are so thick it looks like she's wearing a shirt underneath. "What the fuck did you set off?"
"Uh…"
Chris' head sinks into her hands. "Oh crap. That sounds like my kind of 'uh'."
"Um…"
"Was it my kind of 'uh'?"
Janice considers the answer. "Yes," she decides. "Yes, it was."
"Crap."
"I might have pissed off a major Syndic executive by snooping around astrally for Liam."
"... double-crap."
"And I might have had some past life… uh. Issues."
"Triple-crap."
"Mmm."
"... what the fuck did you do?" Chris has slept at her place often enough to know about the nightmares.
"Not much that I know, but… uh. I might have sort of forgotten who I was for a bit."
Chris looks at her untouched tea. She rises, and pulled a bottle of vodka from among the clutter, adding a good measure of the alcohol to her tea. "Sorry. I can't face this sober," she says, after taking a slug straight from the bottle.
"It's not even midday yet," Janice says disapprovingly.
"Don't care. You've managed to fuck up as good as I ever have. What the fuck, Jan? There was a nice simple plan. Find out what happened to Liam. Make Selene tolerate you. Stop the loony wing from going for you with knives. All nice and simple. Now you're pissing off the Crats?"
"I didn't mean to! I was just trying to find Liam and stumbled across something else," Janice protests. She's going to listen to Francesco and not mention anything about what's really going on - not yet, at least. She'd trust Chris with her life, but trusting her to keep quiet about the fact that someone she knows is a traitor and that Selene might be in danger is another thing. If she rushes out to try to save her girlfriend, she might call down the doom Janice is trying to prevent.
And Chris might try to come along when Janice goes for Roth and… well. There's no way that's ending peacefully, because one's a Syndic exec and the other is a homeless, tattooed former blood doll. And Chris hunts vampires who don't see her coming, not Technocrats in the centre of high security locations.
She takes a breath. "I need your help," she says.
"Oooh. Who we gotta kill?" Chris asks wickedly.
That's exactly what she doesn't want. "No, not that," Janice says. She takes a breath. "I've tried to avoid the nightmares for too long. Some of the things I saw… I think I have pieces of a puzzle I've been looking for."
"What did you see?"
"I'm sorry, Chris. It's private."
"Oh. I see." And Chris does see. She understands not wanting to talk about one's past life. For Chris, that past life might be her own childhood and what happened when she was a blood doll, but it's all in the past. "Okay. I'll help."
"Thank you."
Chris grins. "Oh, come on. You've always been there for me when I fuck up. I get the chance to help you for once - and gloat a little."
Despite her worry, Janice smiles. The smile turns into a frown. "Oh, and Chris?"
"Mmm?"
Janice shifts awkwardly. "If I wind up being possessed by some kind of malevolent past-life, uh…"
"Don't worry," Chris says brusquely. "You're strong. You're gonna be fine."
"But if I'm n-"
"If you're not, I've got enough painkillers around the place to lay out an elephant."
Oh. That was a relief.
There's a little bit of Janice which is happy to be doing this at Chris' place. Chris was properly trained, unlike her. For all that she dresses herself from rummage shops and is a scarred former blood-doll who only has cash when she steals from vampires, Chris doesn't skimp on her ritual ingredients. She's got inks. She's got herbs. She's got drugs. And she's got enough solid Verbena knowledge that she can help out, even if that means that Janice has to somewhat restrict herself in the sources she drags in.
Maybe this time, for once, she's going to do things properly. Properly-ish. Well, as properly as one can ever do things when one's building a ritual from a mixture of Verbena, Ecstatic, Akashic and Hermetic lore.
"Hold still," Chris says brightly as she sinks the syringe into the vein in Janice's left arm. Slowly she extracts a measure of blood, and then adds the blood to the inks she's making up. She's been admiring the symbols that Janice has drawn for her that she's going to be painting on her chakras "Where did you even learn all this?"
"These symbols? I learned them from a Mexican witch," Janice says. "Back when I was living down in San Diego. He'd come over the border to hunt down a death spirit that was going over to Tijuana to hunt for victims." She shudders. "Horrible thing. It possessed people and made them into movie serial killers. I think it was born in Hollywood."
"It looks more Hermetic than anything I'm used to," Chris says, tracing out the glyphs on the paper. "I'd be interested in learning more about this."
Janice nods. "The European traditions of witchcraft aren't everything, you know." She can't resist adding, "And Selene has a very European heritage for her school. I've seen things she hasn't."
Chris pokes her in the ribs. "Then you should tell her about them. If you actually went to her and talked about making sure they were recorded properly, maybe the two of you could actually find something to talk about that wasn't just trying to annoy each other."
"Hmmph."
"Argh. You two are just so… so… argh." Chris shakes her head. "Arms out, top off. I'm going to start with the back pattern."
"Sure," Janice says, glancing over at the phone. She's trying to put the thought that she might get a sudden call from the Chalice out of mind, but it's still nagging at her.
But there's not a phone call - not while Chris paints the symbols and not while Janice meditates, settling her mind and centring herself. Together the two women put together a place of power, from the junk in here. It's not hard. There's a lot of meaning in the scrap and refuse that Chris collects.
The other woman retreats to the back, wrapping herself up with a bottle of vodka and a syringe full of sedatives close to hand.
Janice adjusts the TV, tuning it to an empty station. The TV_OUT in the upper corner is the only thing breaking the blackness. Settling down, she places one glass in front of the TV and one in front of her, pouring out a measure of rum for both of them. She likes it, so maybe her past life does.
Reaching out, she takes the knife from the ground and nicks her forefinger, swirling it around in both drinks. It stings like hell - more than it should. Janice takes a sip of her metallic-tasting rum, and clears her throat.
"North, south, east, west," she says, pointing her knife at each cardinal point in term. "This circle surrounds me. Let no man nor god nor spirit intrude on this place. This place is for me and me alone. Spring, summer, fall, winter. There is a place to be born and a place to die. Life is a great wheel, and we all have passed around it before. But I," and here she speaks her real name, not the one she uses, "am a sister of the Verbena, an adept of the mind. I have lived before. I have died before. Fall of my last life, come and present yourself."
The lights die. The TV fills with static. It moans, whispering noise filling the air.
NO say the green letters in the upper left.
"You will present yourself," Janice says, her voice level. "I am you. You are me. I am the spring born from the silence of your winter." She takes up a ritual knife, and presses down, tracing along the symbol Chris painted on her chest. Her mind is calm, but she still wants to flinch. "I offer this blood to who I once was. Let the forgetfulness of death leave with the pain."
I_DIED the TV says.
"You did. You lived. You died. I live. I will die," Janice whispers. "When my mother gave birth to me, you chose this body. You became me. Now, show yourself!"
The static on the television clears. It's now a mirror. No, not quite. It reflects the room almost as it is. Almost. But rather than where Janice sits, there's another woman. One who wears her clothes - that even now are staining with blood. She's maimed and mutilated. Blood drips from an empty eye socket, and a tracery of black veins paint her deathly pale countenance. Her skull has been shattered repeatedly. Her skin is peeling away, revealing metal wires threaded through bare flesh. In other places, it looks reptilian. Her throat has been torn out.
She lets out a faint gasp which escapes the speakers, a hollow-death rattle.
Closing her eyes, Janice touches the blood oozing from the shallow cuts on her chest, and wipes it on the screen. "Taste our shared life," she says quietly. She opens her eyes again as the blood sinks into the screen and her barely-alive ghost-echo-reflection takes more strength.
Time rewinds and the wounds reverse themselves. Mostly. Enough for Janice to get a good look at who she was. She's shorter than her, and looks East Asian. Her jet black hair is cropped into a professional cut, and the implants and the changes the technosorcery the Technocracy wrought are concealed behind veils of magic.
"Ahhhhhh." It's a slow, rattling exhalation. "What. Is. This. I wasn't meant to be revived."
Janice exhales. "You weren't," she says softly. "Who are you?"
"Constable Ami Shirai," the dead woman says. "What is this? And for that case, who are you?"
Janice has contact with who she once was. What does she tell her? What does she say? How does she try to get this long-dead Technocratic assassin on-side?
What line of approach does Janice use here?
[ ] Write-in (fairly important)
In addition, earlier in the scene, she asked for something from the Chalice. Note that this is just a request - when asking for a "weapon" to use against Roth, the Chalice has its own limits.
What weapon did she ask for from the Chalice?
[ ] Something magical that kills
[ ] Knowledge about Roth
[ ] Write-in
They're fans of hold-out weapons and consider you naked if you don't have at least one. They insisted she take this. Really. Among other things, it gives them a secure way of contacting her that doesn't involve hoping a New York pigeon can track her down.
[X] XS10 - A variant of the venerable Technocracy X10 Protector, often issued to Technocracy infiltration units.
Janice sighs. "Warren Roth is the problem," she says softly. "He's the one who'll turn this spark into a pyre for witches." She wonders if he too saw that once, long ago, he was the witch and she was the witchhunter who burned then-her to death. It might just strengthen his hate. "He's the one who'll turn this from domestic terrorism into a war on terror."
She needs to remove the threat he poses. He might still be alive at the end, but she might not. Not all things can be solved by violence. But some can.
"And it's my fate to face him," she says, feeling numb. Her words feel like prophecy. She isn't sure, but it's leaden - like a heavy door slamming down. "I don't want to - but one way or another, as long as he is what he is right now, he'll never stop. He'll never give up. Because he knows his cause is right. Because his will is pure. Because he doesn't doubt."
She knows him. She knows him all too well. Their souls touched when their minds does. He saw enough of her to pull out a New York-wide manhunt for her. And she? She knows they must meet again. She knows they're less different than either of them would like.
Janice doesn't avoid war because she thinks its wrong, after all. She avoids it because she's sure she's willing the peace and war would risk everything. He thinks the same, which is why he wants war. She'd do the same in his place, she knows.
"You think he needs to die," Francesco says.
"I think he needs to be stopped," she contradicts him. "Killing him might work - but the Technocracy might just drag him back from the lands of the dead. Changing his mind might work - but the Technocracy might just brainwash him again. But if I can't stop him lighting this fuse here and now…"
"The Disciples have gone beyond what can be tolerated," the white-robed Chalice member says. Their hand falls on one of their sheathed blades. "They have betrayed a major Verbena enclave and wish their destruction. Before, they were tolerated as a dog on a leash, but now they've proved themselves to harm the greater body of the Nine Traditions. This cannot stand."
"Friend," Francesco says, "that is for later." He glances at Janice. "You know to hold your tongue."
"Yes," she agrees. She knows that the Chalice will be turning their attention now to the Traditions of New York and find how many are willing to betray supposed-allies. She reminds herself that she knows that Francesco is in contact with Selene and she's even willing to secretly come to New York with him even though she hates the place.
She wonders how many things to help the Traditions Selene does that she doesn't know about. How many Chris-like people have been through that quiet town and been given some time away from the world and shown a place where the Technocracy isn't utterly dominant?
Well, if that's the case, the old man might be perhaps even a little - dare she say - vindictive in whatever the Chalice does to the Disciples. She hopes so, at least. None of this would be necessary if they weren't a bunch of maniacs who were preparing to douse everything in gasoline when they know there's men like Roth holding a match.
"So, what will you do now, Ms Moullin?"
She wants to massage her temples. "There's someone I need to contact," she says, keeping things vague. This might kill her, going up against Roth - and the edge of a Technocratic killer might be something she needs. Or maybe she just wants to get her life's affairs in order. This has haunted her for a long, long time. "They might know something I can use against him."
"An ally?"
"Of sorts. They're dead."
"A ghost?" one of the masked Euthanatoi says, and Janice detects disdain there.
"No. A memory."
Francesco looks her up and down. "We need to talk, privately," he says. "As do my organisation. Come with me."
They leave the others. She can feel their stares as she departs.
Francesco leads her up into a cramped office above a taxi lot. She smiles internally, knowing that her guess was right. He hangs up his robes and once again he's the taxi driver in the slightly shabby suit that picked her up.
"So. Talk to me," he says. "What are you going to try to contact?"
She sighs. "I saw things while in astral space, trying to track down Liam," she says softly. "I've put things together about my past life. They have skills that I think I'll need if I'm up against someone like Roth."
Reaching into his desk, Francesco pulls out a pair of black dice. He toys with them. "A great karmic debt tied up in you - and now your past life makes itself known. That's not a coincidence," he says solemnly.
She shakes her head. "I don't think it is," she agrees. "It feels too… heavy."
"You could have perhaps slipped that noose, but now you've embraced it too much." He sighs. "Well, perhaps it might be for the best for me, but until you're free of those shackles, I don't think there'll be much of a happy ending for you."
"I'll make it work," she says.
"Who did you betray?"
She frowns. "Betray?"
"There are few things that can tie one's future incarnation up in so much debt - and none of them are pleasant. You don't walk the path of Descension - and believe me, I have kept an eye on you for a while because I once had some worries about that."
"You did?" It's like a punch in the gut. Her skin feels cold.
"Your nightmares - well, they rang some alarm bells. They resembled a Caul."
She swallows. "I… I think it was one," she says hoarsely. "That's where they died - trying to kill everything in a warren of Nephandi. Willing to accept their own death if it meant they could kill everything in there."
"I hope for your sake that the karmic debt was just some dying oath to kill the ones who escaped them, then," the man says, eyes dark.
She shudders at that. Such a dark thing, that indeed that would be preferable to some of the things she's fretted over.
"Now," he says, "there's a bit of me that doesn't want to let someone like you anywhere near Roth. I fear we'd just be handing him another ATLAS. With such a karmic debt… I wish I could say it was only that which swayed me. But you're right. Both Roth and the Disciples want bloody war. Both must be disarmed."
He doesn't want to admit it. He's a proud man. "You don't think you can do it..." alone, she doesn't say, "... in the way you'd prefer."
"No," he admits. "The Disciples are Ascension Warriors of the old school. And we are." He pauses. "Spread thin," he admits.
Maybe he's lying to her, but her thumbs aren't pricking. "I should be on my way soon," she says. "I want to get this over and done with."
"Keep it secret," he says, warning her. "We cast some auguries and we have at least a day, but if the secret escapes they may well move their schedule ahead. We need time to get more people to New York."
"You don't think you can deal with it now?" she asks skeptically.
His shoulders slump. "No," he admits. "Right now, we do not." He spreads his hands and gestures out towards the window. "We are most powerful when we are not seen, when we could be anywhere. Now, though, we must make a show of force and that is… complicated." He sighs. "I might even have to call in that favour from Westin," he muses.
"Hmm?"
"Time is a cruel master," he says. She gets the distinct feeling he's strongly hinting that she should leave. "Now, I have something for you." He digs through his desk and pulls out a phone. "Take this. It's a way for me to contact you when it's time."
She feels it, brushes it, notes the feeling of death about it. "This is one of these Technocratic covert weapons, isn't it?" she asks.
He smiles. "Donated to the cause, yes. One weapon for you. And you can ask me for another one - a weapon to use against Roth."
She thinks. She names it.
He nods. "I'll see what I can do."
"One last thing," she says. "Do you have a pen and some paper? I need to send a paper aeroplane."
***
Three hours later at a forgettable street corner, Chris finds her. She's got the message in her gloved hands. Snow drifts down from a pale grey sky, settling on the black and grey coats all around.
"It nearly hit me in the eye, you know," are the first words out of her lips.
"Sorry."
Chris falls in beside her, huddled up for warmth in her multiple layers and her bobble hat. "So what happened? I was gonna come 'round to yours, yeah?"
Janice winces. "Things got complicated."
"Crap. How complicated?"
"I'm not going home for the next few days. Too much risk of a 'Cracy trap. Let's get to your place. It's really, really complicated. And I need some calming tea. It's been one hell of a night."
Chris' current residence is one of her many hide-outs hidden in forgotten places in New York. This one is a room in a mid-price hotel where the door's been plastered over and it's accessed via an elevator which isn't on the hotel's records. Janice is a bit jealous. Chris got a place in Manhattan itself and doesn't pay rent.
Admittedly that's because she dusted the vampire who'd made this place and that means it's somewhat lacking in amenities like 'windows', but Chris has made it homey. Well, fine, under the candlelight it looks like a rather tasteless dragon has made its collection here. Her friend is a born hoarder, and tends to clean out the lairs of any vampire she kills. Unfortunately that means that while she does pick up valuables, she picks up rather more random things the vampire had lying around. One wall is stacked high with CDs that Chris doesn't even like, while the kitchen has three espresso machines and four microwaves.
Apparently vampires do buy home applicables. Maybe hot water helps them get the bloodstains out of clothes. Or maybe they're for their ghoul.
Janice slumps down on the couch and tries not to set off a trash-slide, while Chris makes them both herbal tea. She sips hers with relief.
"So. Spill it," Chris says, pulling off her layers of outer clothing until she's just lazing around in a white sleeveless tank top. The self-inflicted scars and enchanted tattoos that cover her arms are so thick it looks like she's wearing a shirt underneath. "What the fuck did you set off?"
"Uh…"
Chris' head sinks into her hands. "Oh crap. That sounds like my kind of 'uh'."
"Um…"
"Was it my kind of 'uh'?"
Janice considers the answer. "Yes," she decides. "Yes, it was."
"Crap."
"I might have pissed off a major Syndic executive by snooping around astrally for Liam."
"... double-crap."
"And I might have had some past life… uh. Issues."
"Triple-crap."
"Mmm."
"... what the fuck did you do?" Chris has slept at her place often enough to know about the nightmares.
"Not much that I know, but… uh. I might have sort of forgotten who I was for a bit."
Chris looks at her untouched tea. She rises, and pulled a bottle of vodka from among the clutter, adding a good measure of the alcohol to her tea. "Sorry. I can't face this sober," she says, after taking a slug straight from the bottle.
"It's not even midday yet," Janice says disapprovingly.
"Don't care. You've managed to fuck up as good as I ever have. What the fuck, Jan? There was a nice simple plan. Find out what happened to Liam. Make Selene tolerate you. Stop the loony wing from going for you with knives. All nice and simple. Now you're pissing off the Crats?"
"I didn't mean to! I was just trying to find Liam and stumbled across something else," Janice protests. She's going to listen to Francesco and not mention anything about what's really going on - not yet, at least. She'd trust Chris with her life, but trusting her to keep quiet about the fact that someone she knows is a traitor and that Selene might be in danger is another thing. If she rushes out to try to save her girlfriend, she might call down the doom Janice is trying to prevent.
And Chris might try to come along when Janice goes for Roth and… well. There's no way that's ending peacefully, because one's a Syndic exec and the other is a homeless, tattooed former blood doll. And Chris hunts vampires who don't see her coming, not Technocrats in the centre of high security locations.
She takes a breath. "I need your help," she says.
"Oooh. Who we gotta kill?" Chris asks wickedly.
That's exactly what she doesn't want. "No, not that," Janice says. She takes a breath. "I've tried to avoid the nightmares for too long. Some of the things I saw… I think I have pieces of a puzzle I've been looking for."
"What did you see?"
"I'm sorry, Chris. It's private."
"Oh. I see." And Chris does see. She understands not wanting to talk about one's past life. For Chris, that past life might be her own childhood and what happened when she was a blood doll, but it's all in the past. "Okay. I'll help."
"Thank you."
Chris grins. "Oh, come on. You've always been there for me when I fuck up. I get the chance to help you for once - and gloat a little."
Despite her worry, Janice smiles. The smile turns into a frown. "Oh, and Chris?"
"Mmm?"
Janice shifts awkwardly. "If I wind up being possessed by some kind of malevolent past-life, uh…"
"Don't worry," Chris says brusquely. "You're strong. You're gonna be fine."
"But if I'm n-"
"If you're not, I've got enough painkillers around the place to lay out an elephant."
Oh. That was a relief.
***
There's a little bit of Janice which is happy to be doing this at Chris' place. Chris was properly trained, unlike her. For all that she dresses herself from rummage shops and is a scarred former blood-doll who only has cash when she steals from vampires, Chris doesn't skimp on her ritual ingredients. She's got inks. She's got herbs. She's got drugs. And she's got enough solid Verbena knowledge that she can help out, even if that means that Janice has to somewhat restrict herself in the sources she drags in.
Maybe this time, for once, she's going to do things properly. Properly-ish. Well, as properly as one can ever do things when one's building a ritual from a mixture of Verbena, Ecstatic, Akashic and Hermetic lore.
"Hold still," Chris says brightly as she sinks the syringe into the vein in Janice's left arm. Slowly she extracts a measure of blood, and then adds the blood to the inks she's making up. She's been admiring the symbols that Janice has drawn for her that she's going to be painting on her chakras "Where did you even learn all this?"
"These symbols? I learned them from a Mexican witch," Janice says. "Back when I was living down in San Diego. He'd come over the border to hunt down a death spirit that was going over to Tijuana to hunt for victims." She shudders. "Horrible thing. It possessed people and made them into movie serial killers. I think it was born in Hollywood."
"It looks more Hermetic than anything I'm used to," Chris says, tracing out the glyphs on the paper. "I'd be interested in learning more about this."
Janice nods. "The European traditions of witchcraft aren't everything, you know." She can't resist adding, "And Selene has a very European heritage for her school. I've seen things she hasn't."
Chris pokes her in the ribs. "Then you should tell her about them. If you actually went to her and talked about making sure they were recorded properly, maybe the two of you could actually find something to talk about that wasn't just trying to annoy each other."
"Hmmph."
"Argh. You two are just so… so… argh." Chris shakes her head. "Arms out, top off. I'm going to start with the back pattern."
"Sure," Janice says, glancing over at the phone. She's trying to put the thought that she might get a sudden call from the Chalice out of mind, but it's still nagging at her.
But there's not a phone call - not while Chris paints the symbols and not while Janice meditates, settling her mind and centring herself. Together the two women put together a place of power, from the junk in here. It's not hard. There's a lot of meaning in the scrap and refuse that Chris collects.
The other woman retreats to the back, wrapping herself up with a bottle of vodka and a syringe full of sedatives close to hand.
Janice adjusts the TV, tuning it to an empty station. The TV_OUT in the upper corner is the only thing breaking the blackness. Settling down, she places one glass in front of the TV and one in front of her, pouring out a measure of rum for both of them. She likes it, so maybe her past life does.
Reaching out, she takes the knife from the ground and nicks her forefinger, swirling it around in both drinks. It stings like hell - more than it should. Janice takes a sip of her metallic-tasting rum, and clears her throat.
"North, south, east, west," she says, pointing her knife at each cardinal point in term. "This circle surrounds me. Let no man nor god nor spirit intrude on this place. This place is for me and me alone. Spring, summer, fall, winter. There is a place to be born and a place to die. Life is a great wheel, and we all have passed around it before. But I," and here she speaks her real name, not the one she uses, "am a sister of the Verbena, an adept of the mind. I have lived before. I have died before. Fall of my last life, come and present yourself."
The lights die. The TV fills with static. It moans, whispering noise filling the air.
NO say the green letters in the upper left.
"You will present yourself," Janice says, her voice level. "I am you. You are me. I am the spring born from the silence of your winter." She takes up a ritual knife, and presses down, tracing along the symbol Chris painted on her chest. Her mind is calm, but she still wants to flinch. "I offer this blood to who I once was. Let the forgetfulness of death leave with the pain."
I_DIED the TV says.
"You did. You lived. You died. I live. I will die," Janice whispers. "When my mother gave birth to me, you chose this body. You became me. Now, show yourself!"
The static on the television clears. It's now a mirror. No, not quite. It reflects the room almost as it is. Almost. But rather than where Janice sits, there's another woman. One who wears her clothes - that even now are staining with blood. She's maimed and mutilated. Blood drips from an empty eye socket, and a tracery of black veins paint her deathly pale countenance. Her skull has been shattered repeatedly. Her skin is peeling away, revealing metal wires threaded through bare flesh. In other places, it looks reptilian. Her throat has been torn out.
She lets out a faint gasp which escapes the speakers, a hollow-death rattle.
Closing her eyes, Janice touches the blood oozing from the shallow cuts on her chest, and wipes it on the screen. "Taste our shared life," she says quietly. She opens her eyes again as the blood sinks into the screen and her barely-alive ghost-echo-reflection takes more strength.
Time rewinds and the wounds reverse themselves. Mostly. Enough for Janice to get a good look at who she was. She's shorter than her, and looks East Asian. Her jet black hair is cropped into a professional cut, and the implants and the changes the technosorcery the Technocracy wrought are concealed behind veils of magic.
"Ahhhhhh." It's a slow, rattling exhalation. "What. Is. This. I wasn't meant to be revived."
Janice exhales. "You weren't," she says softly. "Who are you?"
"Constable Ami Shirai," the dead woman says. "What is this? And for that case, who are you?"
Janice has contact with who she once was. What does she tell her? What does she say? How does she try to get this long-dead Technocratic assassin on-side?
What line of approach does Janice use here?
[ ] Write-in (fairly important)
In addition, earlier in the scene, she asked for something from the Chalice. Note that this is just a request - when asking for a "weapon" to use against Roth, the Chalice has its own limits.
What weapon did she ask for from the Chalice?
[ ] Something magical that kills
[ ] Knowledge about Roth
[ ] Write-in
They're fans of hold-out weapons and consider you naked if you don't have at least one. They insisted she take this. Really. Among other things, it gives them a secure way of contacting her that doesn't involve hoping a New York pigeon can track her down.
[X] XS10 - A variant of the venerable Technocracy X10 Protector, often issued to Technocracy infiltration units.
The XS10 has an integral silencer and has a covert carry mode disguised as a compact phone. This reduces its magazine to 7 rounds and complicates the reloading process - untrained or unenlightened operators cannot reload it in the field. The Golden Chalice appear to have got their hands on one, possibly after the words 'over my dead body' were said by its previous owner. They've stripped out all the Union safeguards and remote deactivation features and installed a new OS on the phone (which is how they can contact her), but otherwise left it mostly the same.
Last edited:
- Location
- National Capital Region, USA
[X] Knowledge about Roth
We're not going to overpower Roth. But he's wound tighter than a Swiss clock. Knowledge about him, knowing where to apply psychological pressure... that we can use.
Thinking about a write-in.
We're not going to overpower Roth. But he's wound tighter than a Swiss clock. Knowledge about him, knowing where to apply psychological pressure... that we can use.
Thinking about a write-in.
- Location
- The sixth circle of Hell (second on weekends)
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Okay, let's see. What does Janice know about Ami? She knows that she was a Technocracy killer. She knows that she was... basically the Predator. She's pretty sure that she died in a Caul on a deliberate suicide run, and she knows that Ami left a karmic debt on her soul that was passed down to Janice.
This would not seem to be a lot of useful information. One option is to go the mortal route and carefully-but-quickly sound Ami out on the topic of the Ascension War. If she was a hardliner, after all, she'll likely take Roth's side. If not, Janice can lead with the pragmatic "I need to stop a war between the Technocracy and the Traditions from going hot. Please help me." Then it's down to haggling over price. This is risky, though - Ami may not have the patience for a quick and dirty ethics discussion.
Hmm. But Janice knows one more thing. Ami didn't want to be revived. It's possible Janice might instead be able to start with that, if she has the Spheres. A way to stop her from ever being revived again, in return for her aid in stopping a war. A promise to let her rest peacefully - and perhaps to resolve what disturbs her spirit.
As for the weapon, yeah, Janice is not a fighter and turning this into a fight does not suit her, thematically or narratively. The Chalice are the ones who kill. Janice is a socialite.
[X] Knowledge about Roth
This would not seem to be a lot of useful information. One option is to go the mortal route and carefully-but-quickly sound Ami out on the topic of the Ascension War. If she was a hardliner, after all, she'll likely take Roth's side. If not, Janice can lead with the pragmatic "I need to stop a war between the Technocracy and the Traditions from going hot. Please help me." Then it's down to haggling over price. This is risky, though - Ami may not have the patience for a quick and dirty ethics discussion.
Hmm. But Janice knows one more thing. Ami didn't want to be revived. It's possible Janice might instead be able to start with that, if she has the Spheres. A way to stop her from ever being revived again, in return for her aid in stopping a war. A promise to let her rest peacefully - and perhaps to resolve what disturbs her spirit.
As for the weapon, yeah, Janice is not a fighter and turning this into a fight does not suit her, thematically or narratively. The Chalice are the ones who kill. Janice is a socialite.
[X] Knowledge about Roth
Wooooords that killlll~
The main choice here I think is between knowledge and a write-in. As a Traditions mage, Janice technically has access to certain sorts of tools which might allow for more... esoteric forms of attack. Spiritual ones, for example, or astral projection. The main question here is how Janice expects to get to Roth. I mean, he's basically Batman. He'll probably have some
I think it's more useful to know what Janice knows about Roth right now before looking for information, especially because it'll let her target her queries better-and if it's unnecessary she can look for a way to get access.
The fact that this may lead to his TradWiki page being written is totally not a reason I suggest this. Not at all. (Actually it is).
Update CXCIII: Unplanned Complications
JB CXCIII: Unplanned Complications
Running her hands through her hair, Major Clarent settles herself. Her expression takes on a neutral cast. She raises her hand to knock at the door.
"Enter," Dr Gregor Leon says from within.
At least for once he's not playing Go again. Still, he's lurking in this dimly lit room. He says that some of his current set of augmentations make him photosensitive. And he's got Serafina Rosario with him again; dark-haired, sultry, and very clever. Clarent wonders why she's here. Not why she's 'here' in the sense that she's hiding with Dr. Leon-given the rumors running around about how a senior Technocrat was apparently replaced by an infiltrator clone she clearly has enemies-but why she spends so much time with Dr. Leon. Clarent herself is an emotionally dampened cybersoldier and doesn't spend much time around him. The man is dangerously smart, intelligent in a way that's rare even among Technocrats. Enigmatic, self-confident, and very, very concerning.
"Clarent," Gregor says. "Oh, excuse me. I was just talking to Doctor Rosario about certain... concerns."
"I apologize for the interruption." she says politely. "You asked to see me?"
"I did." Gregor nods. "Doctor Rosario has been informing me of her enemies and what they might attempt to do. "Could you give Major Clarent your analysis?"
"Certainly." Serafina says. In her augmented vision, Major Clarent can see the waste heat and hear the churning of a reconfigured cardiovascular system. Whatever augs Serafina's taken on, they're generating as much heat as a high end computer. She pauses, sweating. "They'll try to go through Cross to get to me." Serafina says. "Whoever replaced me will know my relationships and start leaning on them. If you could make sure he stays safe... especially because Li can use him. He's not politically savvy in the right ways-which is probably why he was promoted recently. Li will try to use his position-and his concerns about any high-end biotech project, after EXEMPLAR and its... personal consequences... to delay this one, I think. And he'll have allies. Possibly ones outside the Convention."
"Well, you heard her," Gregor says lazily. "Stake out Cross. He's a tool Li could use if we end up at odds."
Major Clarent stares at this pronouncement. "Do you mean Professor Li? Or Operative Li?" Someone with that much EDE implanted in them might be compromised by hostile aliens-and someone with that much access to high-end technology is inherently suspicious. "I know I reported that I have not been able to track her at all times, but she is an Operative. There's only so much that-"
"No," Gregor says, a tic of annoyance in his eyes. "I know everything about her. She's quite safe - she's crammed full of overrides that can be used if any of her implants become unsafe. I'm talking about that wasteful ideologue who's clawed his way to the Chair of the Administration."
"Ah," Major Clarent nods. "My apologies." She's aware of the rumors. Of the cause of Dr. Rosario's 'replacement'-and how several parties have been very tightly clamping down on the actual information gathered. But nevertheless, rumors still manage to spread. And the stories have been... rather accusatory. There's quite a few old-guard Progenitors suggesting that Professor Li might have done it as a long game to discredit any opposition to him. There's other stories about nephandic infiltration, or Serafina herself covering up a suicide attempt-but those are less important.
"So monitor Cross."
"With all due respects, doctor," she says calmly, "he's a professional. We cannot simply 'monitor' him without him noticing. I can task Pilot Clarent with full spectrum surveillance, but purely passive surveillance has its limits and I can't guarantee that he won't notice. Ethical Compliance is very good."
"So just be better than him," Dr Gregor says casually. "If Pilot Clarent needs assistance to outwit him, just tell me and I'll outfit her for it. Is there anything else? Because Serafina, I need you to check on the incubation chambers. And bring me a black coffee."
"Of course," the woman says politely, brushing past the cyborg as she leaves.
For her part, Jane Clarent personally believes that while her superior is an expert on the human mind, he's not so good at military strategy. And it's a mistake to believe that one's models can control for every variable or every fluke chance. She's learned that from hard experience. If they wanted someone who couldn't follow fuzzy logic chains and would just do what was immediately logical, they should have gotten someone without decades of combat experience. A decade ago, she'd be like them. Trusting in enhanced intelligence and logical chains of thinking-but she knows how the fog of war turns everything into chaos. The security of this facility is her responsibility and while she can't quite follow all the logical deductions of a man like this, she prefers things less vulnerable to coincidence.
So, certainly, she'll have Alexander Cross monitored - and that kind of obsessive minutiae is something a later Clarent like Ling is good at. But Jane has learned and grown beyond that. And maybe she's too much a solider, but she thinks it's a mistake to assume that the only threat to this facility is a political one. They're vulnerable through their supply lines. They need vast amounts of refined primal energy, they need feeder vats, they even need other sites to dispose of their waste. All of those are weaknesses and she suspects they're far more pressing - and if Dr. Leon is wrong, that's where they'll be blindsided.
She'll order the defenses stepped up, and make sure Ling conducts randomized sweeps of them for infiltration or hacking.
There's something else she has concluded, and that's that Dr. Leon believes Serafina Rosario's colleagues to be a concern for this project. His obsessive focus on her, the way he spends so much time with her, the idea that some mysterious enemy would go for the man who just happens to be her lover? Suspicious. There's clearly no romantic interest-or even purely sexual interest-between them. Dr. Rosario's previous flings have effectively no similarities with Dr. Leon, and they've been politically opposed. Which doesn't make friendships impossible, just unlikely-but the way they act, which is much closer to the relationship between a superior officer and a subordinate, or even a commander and a HITMark-isn't how friends act.
That, in and of itself, is suspicious. Someone like Ling might not have noticed. Would not have noticed, she corrects herself. An emoneut like her 16 years ago or Ling now, even a partial, wouldn't have picked up on this. But their relationship isn't right. It doesn't seem like the relationship someone turning to a former opponent as a desperate ally would. And moreover, his concern about her allies and lovers is suspicious. Especially when Professor Li is taken into account. By all means, Professor Li might be a Progenitor academic, with all the dirty laundry and shady maneuvering that entails-but having a potential rival assassinated and replaced by a clone, as the rumors go, sounds unlikely. The man seems to limit his actions to blackmail and coercive influence-he hasn't had anyone shot for merely being politically inconvenient. Reassigned to unimportant roles and posts, marginalized, and denied reviews and promotions, certainly. Accused of harboring Traditionalist sympathies and having all their dirty laundry dragged out, of course. But assassination would be new.
No, she doesn't find the implications Gregor Leon are telling her particularly likely. So she'll monitor Cross. She'll do what they ask her. For reasons that are her own.
"Here is your coffee, Gregor," the fake Serafina says, putting down a black espresso before him.
"Thank you," he says, face impassive as he sits back at his desk, feet up. "So, she thinks she now knows that you're a concern of mine."
"She's not a fool," Serafina agrees. "She was going to put it together."
"She's going to go snooping," he says, almost happily. "No need to order her to hunt your sister-self down when she can talk herself into doing it. And you colonized her dermal layer."
"Yes. I did. I infected her skin layer," Serafina says, inspecting the back of her hand. It shifts for a moment, taking on the appearance of Major Clarent's hand. She smiles wickedly. "It's very nice skin. And a very nice body. It tasted-"
Dr Gregor waves his hand. "Enough."
Serafina shuts up.
"We can do without that, thank you very much." Gregor massages his temples. "This is always why you let yourself down. You're brilliant when you focus, but then you feel the need to... to indulge in these base things. Next thing you'll volunteer to 'interrogate' Alexander Cross."
"Can I?" the Serafina says with ingénue glee.
"No." Gregor smiles coldly. "And I know you're being subtly uncooperative. I know all your tells, remember? I know what you're thinking better than you do."
The Serafina pouts. "You know, it's very unfair," she says playfully. "I'm just a beta upgraded with pseudo-alpha functionality. I don't stand a chance against you."
"No," Gregor says. "You don't. You never did."
"How do we know that she didn't just get scared and hide?" Henriette asks, lounging on her bed. "It's completely reasonable."
"She might, I guess." Rose says, conceding. "But still, it's Japan."
"And why is that?" Henriette asks.
"Well, aren't you Japanese?"
"I was kind of five." Henriette says, before realizing who she's talking to. "Okay, fine, but most people don't have genetic memory or skill implants when they're five. So no, I'm not entirely up on my Japanese history. MIHT, remember."
"I suppose a normal five year old would have different priorities." Rose says sheepishly. "But Japan is a big Technocratic stronghold."
"Less so now." Donald interjects. "Syndicate internal warfare gets vicious and the Chinese are winning."
"Certainly, but..." Rose bites her lip a bit. "...that still makes it a lot more dangerous for someone being hunted by the Technocracy than many other places, right? There's a lot of cities where the Technocracy can't respond quickly and you can hide because they just have near-human agents rather than dedicated Shock Corps QRF and Damage Control teams."
"Right." Henriette decides to drop it. "Fine. Don't lecture me about it. So what exactly is she doing?"
"I don't know, but I'd like to." Rose says. "These labs are insecure. We can infiltrate in a multitude of ways. They're more concerned with physical security-Progenitors don't keep much in the way of vital data electronically."
"That doesn't seem like it's helpful."
"But that means there will be access. A lot of the personnel management and security will be done by automated systems. Those systems will be vulnerable to subversion." Rose says. "It's how things work here. And these labs haven't been attacked via information vectors so they should be vulnerable to a hacker who knows Technocratic security protocols."
"Like me." Henriette says proudly. "And after all those Digital Web incidents there probably won't be a lot of Virtual Adept activity."
"They'll have to pull people to mentor any new recruits now." Donald agrees. "Which is a two-edged sword, because it means that there's going to be a lot more investigators available."
"Then we'll just have to make sure no investigation happens, won't we?" Henriette says. "Are there any other ways to get in?"
"Probably not. These are low-level facilities-maybe one or two Enlightened personnel with teams of assistants and sympathizers. If we can spoof the standard security, we'll be able to get inside. They need a lot of initial components to do what they're doing in Kazan."
"An issue." Rose says, transitioning back into the almost-robotic tones she uses when elaborating on something she's programmed with. "Outside of sabotage, anything will be scanned. Kazan itself is high-security, and as they mentioned they have at least one Shock Corps team. Standard team composition includes at least one electronic warfare expert and one combat hacker."
"Is anything worth doing ever easy?" Donald sighs. "Nevertheless. What I want to know-and what I think we can find from these facilities-is records as to where and when these products are being transported. We can look up those constructs and see who's working for them. That shouldn't require infiltrating any high-security systems." He thinks that by doing so, he can figure out most of the web of intrigue he's looking at. Who's working for Kazan. Who isn't working for Kazan. But what's more, he wants access. Tools he can turn against whatever this is. Possibly people he can turn against the system. "Anyways, Rose. Tell me exactly what we should expect security-wise."
"Basic personnel management systems, of course." Rose repeats, almost by rote. "Vanessas or some intermediary Victor-upgrade.The old ones have largely been retired so they'll have human-normal intelligence at least. Standard automated security-sentry guns at chokepoints, blast doors. Progenitor lab, so assume some form of toxin dispersal system-the personnel there will be immunized to the low-level ones, of course. On the other hand," Rose repeats from (genetic) memory, "weapons will largely be Union-standard, with few or no hypertech devices. There won't be a Damage Control force on-site but there will be a QRF standing by, with a response time of maybe 10 to 15 minutes. If I have to," she concludes, "I can deal with it. Are we planning on some sabotage?"
Donald wonders. On one hand, it's tempting. Whatever Gregor Leon is up to, it's definitely no good. That he's absolutely sure of. On the other hand, doing so will put them on the radar. And he really doesn't want to be on the radar of someone as dangerous as Jane Clarent. Even if, assuming, he can somehow convince her of the most absurd story anybody, Traditions or Technocracy, will probably ever tell her in his life, even if she'll leave him alone then, he has to then outthink Gregor Leon. And he's read Gregor Leon's profile. Smart as hell, dedicated. Not much of a people person but with more computing power in his brain than ItX supercomputers would dream of. It's not something he looks forward to, which is why he wants to put off having to match wits with him as long as possible. "I'm not sure yet. Let's get in first, then see what we can find."
He's never been the kind of leader who makes long, complicated masterplans. It was never an option for him in the early days, and that habit's passed down. He's the kind of guy who gets into a chaotic situation and improvises. And that's good, because it's the one thing that has kept him alive through this year.
Right, sorry about this being a lot of filler but getting the players arranged and set up is necessary while we're moving into the actual conflict. Since breaching the security of the lower-priority facilities will largely be trivial, the question is largely what do you want to get out of it?
Is Gregor Leon aware of you yet?
Exactly the question. If Donald & co. keep it very, very quiet, they can probably keep him from noticing you for a while longer. But you're going to have to make a move that reveals yourself at some point.
[ ] Yes (pick 1 more option)
[ ] No
What progress have you made? And how?
Choose one, or two if you've decided to alert Gregor. Suggest how you've made this progress.
[ ] Pretty much figured out what the project is and why they're doing it.
[ ] Gotten support from old allies (which ones? Why?)
[ ] Gained a new ally in the process. (Who?)
[ ] Found some potential new friends who are in contact with Serafina.
[ ] Sowed doubt in one of Gregor's followers. (Which one?)
[ ] Write-In
Running her hands through her hair, Major Clarent settles herself. Her expression takes on a neutral cast. She raises her hand to knock at the door.
"Enter," Dr Gregor Leon says from within.
At least for once he's not playing Go again. Still, he's lurking in this dimly lit room. He says that some of his current set of augmentations make him photosensitive. And he's got Serafina Rosario with him again; dark-haired, sultry, and very clever. Clarent wonders why she's here. Not why she's 'here' in the sense that she's hiding with Dr. Leon-given the rumors running around about how a senior Technocrat was apparently replaced by an infiltrator clone she clearly has enemies-but why she spends so much time with Dr. Leon. Clarent herself is an emotionally dampened cybersoldier and doesn't spend much time around him. The man is dangerously smart, intelligent in a way that's rare even among Technocrats. Enigmatic, self-confident, and very, very concerning.
"Clarent," Gregor says. "Oh, excuse me. I was just talking to Doctor Rosario about certain... concerns."
"I apologize for the interruption." she says politely. "You asked to see me?"
"I did." Gregor nods. "Doctor Rosario has been informing me of her enemies and what they might attempt to do. "Could you give Major Clarent your analysis?"
"Certainly." Serafina says. In her augmented vision, Major Clarent can see the waste heat and hear the churning of a reconfigured cardiovascular system. Whatever augs Serafina's taken on, they're generating as much heat as a high end computer. She pauses, sweating. "They'll try to go through Cross to get to me." Serafina says. "Whoever replaced me will know my relationships and start leaning on them. If you could make sure he stays safe... especially because Li can use him. He's not politically savvy in the right ways-which is probably why he was promoted recently. Li will try to use his position-and his concerns about any high-end biotech project, after EXEMPLAR and its... personal consequences... to delay this one, I think. And he'll have allies. Possibly ones outside the Convention."
"Well, you heard her," Gregor says lazily. "Stake out Cross. He's a tool Li could use if we end up at odds."
Major Clarent stares at this pronouncement. "Do you mean Professor Li? Or Operative Li?" Someone with that much EDE implanted in them might be compromised by hostile aliens-and someone with that much access to high-end technology is inherently suspicious. "I know I reported that I have not been able to track her at all times, but she is an Operative. There's only so much that-"
"No," Gregor says, a tic of annoyance in his eyes. "I know everything about her. She's quite safe - she's crammed full of overrides that can be used if any of her implants become unsafe. I'm talking about that wasteful ideologue who's clawed his way to the Chair of the Administration."
"Ah," Major Clarent nods. "My apologies." She's aware of the rumors. Of the cause of Dr. Rosario's 'replacement'-and how several parties have been very tightly clamping down on the actual information gathered. But nevertheless, rumors still manage to spread. And the stories have been... rather accusatory. There's quite a few old-guard Progenitors suggesting that Professor Li might have done it as a long game to discredit any opposition to him. There's other stories about nephandic infiltration, or Serafina herself covering up a suicide attempt-but those are less important.
"So monitor Cross."
"With all due respects, doctor," she says calmly, "he's a professional. We cannot simply 'monitor' him without him noticing. I can task Pilot Clarent with full spectrum surveillance, but purely passive surveillance has its limits and I can't guarantee that he won't notice. Ethical Compliance is very good."
"So just be better than him," Dr Gregor says casually. "If Pilot Clarent needs assistance to outwit him, just tell me and I'll outfit her for it. Is there anything else? Because Serafina, I need you to check on the incubation chambers. And bring me a black coffee."
"Of course," the woman says politely, brushing past the cyborg as she leaves.
For her part, Jane Clarent personally believes that while her superior is an expert on the human mind, he's not so good at military strategy. And it's a mistake to believe that one's models can control for every variable or every fluke chance. She's learned that from hard experience. If they wanted someone who couldn't follow fuzzy logic chains and would just do what was immediately logical, they should have gotten someone without decades of combat experience. A decade ago, she'd be like them. Trusting in enhanced intelligence and logical chains of thinking-but she knows how the fog of war turns everything into chaos. The security of this facility is her responsibility and while she can't quite follow all the logical deductions of a man like this, she prefers things less vulnerable to coincidence.
So, certainly, she'll have Alexander Cross monitored - and that kind of obsessive minutiae is something a later Clarent like Ling is good at. But Jane has learned and grown beyond that. And maybe she's too much a solider, but she thinks it's a mistake to assume that the only threat to this facility is a political one. They're vulnerable through their supply lines. They need vast amounts of refined primal energy, they need feeder vats, they even need other sites to dispose of their waste. All of those are weaknesses and she suspects they're far more pressing - and if Dr. Leon is wrong, that's where they'll be blindsided.
She'll order the defenses stepped up, and make sure Ling conducts randomized sweeps of them for infiltration or hacking.
There's something else she has concluded, and that's that Dr. Leon believes Serafina Rosario's colleagues to be a concern for this project. His obsessive focus on her, the way he spends so much time with her, the idea that some mysterious enemy would go for the man who just happens to be her lover? Suspicious. There's clearly no romantic interest-or even purely sexual interest-between them. Dr. Rosario's previous flings have effectively no similarities with Dr. Leon, and they've been politically opposed. Which doesn't make friendships impossible, just unlikely-but the way they act, which is much closer to the relationship between a superior officer and a subordinate, or even a commander and a HITMark-isn't how friends act.
That, in and of itself, is suspicious. Someone like Ling might not have noticed. Would not have noticed, she corrects herself. An emoneut like her 16 years ago or Ling now, even a partial, wouldn't have picked up on this. But their relationship isn't right. It doesn't seem like the relationship someone turning to a former opponent as a desperate ally would. And moreover, his concern about her allies and lovers is suspicious. Especially when Professor Li is taken into account. By all means, Professor Li might be a Progenitor academic, with all the dirty laundry and shady maneuvering that entails-but having a potential rival assassinated and replaced by a clone, as the rumors go, sounds unlikely. The man seems to limit his actions to blackmail and coercive influence-he hasn't had anyone shot for merely being politically inconvenient. Reassigned to unimportant roles and posts, marginalized, and denied reviews and promotions, certainly. Accused of harboring Traditionalist sympathies and having all their dirty laundry dragged out, of course. But assassination would be new.
No, she doesn't find the implications Gregor Leon are telling her particularly likely. So she'll monitor Cross. She'll do what they ask her. For reasons that are her own.
***
"Here is your coffee, Gregor," the fake Serafina says, putting down a black espresso before him.
"Thank you," he says, face impassive as he sits back at his desk, feet up. "So, she thinks she now knows that you're a concern of mine."
"She's not a fool," Serafina agrees. "She was going to put it together."
"She's going to go snooping," he says, almost happily. "No need to order her to hunt your sister-self down when she can talk herself into doing it. And you colonized her dermal layer."
"Yes. I did. I infected her skin layer," Serafina says, inspecting the back of her hand. It shifts for a moment, taking on the appearance of Major Clarent's hand. She smiles wickedly. "It's very nice skin. And a very nice body. It tasted-"
Dr Gregor waves his hand. "Enough."
Serafina shuts up.
"We can do without that, thank you very much." Gregor massages his temples. "This is always why you let yourself down. You're brilliant when you focus, but then you feel the need to... to indulge in these base things. Next thing you'll volunteer to 'interrogate' Alexander Cross."
"Can I?" the Serafina says with ingénue glee.
"No." Gregor smiles coldly. "And I know you're being subtly uncooperative. I know all your tells, remember? I know what you're thinking better than you do."
The Serafina pouts. "You know, it's very unfair," she says playfully. "I'm just a beta upgraded with pseudo-alpha functionality. I don't stand a chance against you."
"No," Gregor says. "You don't. You never did."
***
Normally, Donald wouldn't give a second thought to holding a meeting in a hotel room swept for bugs. He's a financier who doesn't deal with the military side of things. That kind of assassination doesn't tend to happen to him-certainly not the kind of missile-through-windows that Iteration X has favored for decades before introducing to the masses. But now with ex-Operatives and ex-Iterators on his case, he can't shake the feeling that at any moment, he could be killed in a way he can't see coming. How many Traditions members died in the same way? Happy and complacent until they made one mistake-showed their face one time in a crowd that was ever so slightly too thin, or went off alone for a moment, or was only surrounded by sympathizers-and was just vanished off of the face of the earth by a hypersonic smart missile? He's had Rose check the air filters several times for contamination as well to make sure there's no Progenitor bio-attack incoming. She humored him-she always does, but he could get the sense that even she was considering him paranoid.
Henriette hasn't. "Jeeze." She sighs. "You're even worse than Belltower here. Both of them."
"That's because they're used to being targeted by assassination squads and everything." Donald snaps. "I'm not and now that we're back on the grid and I don't have to pretend it's stressful as fuck." He sighs, shoulders slumping, as he goes for the hotel microbar. "Fuck it. I need a drink."
Nobody denies that. Henriette nods. She's trying to make an effort to understand him. Maybe even sympathize. A shot of liquor and a few minutes to calm his nerves, he feels a bit more capable of continuing on. He tries to keep his tone formal-which is ruined slightly by how they're sitting in a hotel room without any props. Notes or other tools would be too dangerous, so right now the only knowledge any of them have of their plans is in their heads.
Henriette hasn't. "Jeeze." She sighs. "You're even worse than Belltower here. Both of them."
"That's because they're used to being targeted by assassination squads and everything." Donald snaps. "I'm not and now that we're back on the grid and I don't have to pretend it's stressful as fuck." He sighs, shoulders slumping, as he goes for the hotel microbar. "Fuck it. I need a drink."
Nobody denies that. Henriette nods. She's trying to make an effort to understand him. Maybe even sympathize. A shot of liquor and a few minutes to calm his nerves, he feels a bit more capable of continuing on. He tries to keep his tone formal-which is ruined slightly by how they're sitting in a hotel room without any props. Notes or other tools would be too dangerous, so right now the only knowledge any of them have of their plans is in their heads.
"Given what we've found on our last fishing trip, we probably can move on to better targets." Donald says, standing up straight. He half-expects Rose to make an innocent remark about how they didn't go fishing, but she doesn't. They've all changed-not always for the better. "There's a lot of labs working on whatever Kazan was, and a lot of them aren't very high-security. Not particularly important ones either-so lower security, but they need these facilities to function. This is a bad thing, because whatever Kazan is making it's probably not good for us, if Serafina decided to run off to Tokyo without any backup to deal with it.""How do we know that she didn't just get scared and hide?" Henriette asks, lounging on her bed. "It's completely reasonable."
"She might, I guess." Rose says, conceding. "But still, it's Japan."
"And why is that?" Henriette asks.
"Well, aren't you Japanese?"
"I was kind of five." Henriette says, before realizing who she's talking to. "Okay, fine, but most people don't have genetic memory or skill implants when they're five. So no, I'm not entirely up on my Japanese history. MIHT, remember."
"I suppose a normal five year old would have different priorities." Rose says sheepishly. "But Japan is a big Technocratic stronghold."
"Less so now." Donald interjects. "Syndicate internal warfare gets vicious and the Chinese are winning."
"Certainly, but..." Rose bites her lip a bit. "...that still makes it a lot more dangerous for someone being hunted by the Technocracy than many other places, right? There's a lot of cities where the Technocracy can't respond quickly and you can hide because they just have near-human agents rather than dedicated Shock Corps QRF and Damage Control teams."
"Right." Henriette decides to drop it. "Fine. Don't lecture me about it. So what exactly is she doing?"
"I don't know, but I'd like to." Rose says. "These labs are insecure. We can infiltrate in a multitude of ways. They're more concerned with physical security-Progenitors don't keep much in the way of vital data electronically."
"That doesn't seem like it's helpful."
"But that means there will be access. A lot of the personnel management and security will be done by automated systems. Those systems will be vulnerable to subversion." Rose says. "It's how things work here. And these labs haven't been attacked via information vectors so they should be vulnerable to a hacker who knows Technocratic security protocols."
"Like me." Henriette says proudly. "And after all those Digital Web incidents there probably won't be a lot of Virtual Adept activity."
"They'll have to pull people to mentor any new recruits now." Donald agrees. "Which is a two-edged sword, because it means that there's going to be a lot more investigators available."
"Then we'll just have to make sure no investigation happens, won't we?" Henriette says. "Are there any other ways to get in?"
"Probably not. These are low-level facilities-maybe one or two Enlightened personnel with teams of assistants and sympathizers. If we can spoof the standard security, we'll be able to get inside. They need a lot of initial components to do what they're doing in Kazan."
"An issue." Rose says, transitioning back into the almost-robotic tones she uses when elaborating on something she's programmed with. "Outside of sabotage, anything will be scanned. Kazan itself is high-security, and as they mentioned they have at least one Shock Corps team. Standard team composition includes at least one electronic warfare expert and one combat hacker."
"Is anything worth doing ever easy?" Donald sighs. "Nevertheless. What I want to know-and what I think we can find from these facilities-is records as to where and when these products are being transported. We can look up those constructs and see who's working for them. That shouldn't require infiltrating any high-security systems." He thinks that by doing so, he can figure out most of the web of intrigue he's looking at. Who's working for Kazan. Who isn't working for Kazan. But what's more, he wants access. Tools he can turn against whatever this is. Possibly people he can turn against the system. "Anyways, Rose. Tell me exactly what we should expect security-wise."
"Basic personnel management systems, of course." Rose repeats, almost by rote. "Vanessas or some intermediary Victor-upgrade.The old ones have largely been retired so they'll have human-normal intelligence at least. Standard automated security-sentry guns at chokepoints, blast doors. Progenitor lab, so assume some form of toxin dispersal system-the personnel there will be immunized to the low-level ones, of course. On the other hand," Rose repeats from (genetic) memory, "weapons will largely be Union-standard, with few or no hypertech devices. There won't be a Damage Control force on-site but there will be a QRF standing by, with a response time of maybe 10 to 15 minutes. If I have to," she concludes, "I can deal with it. Are we planning on some sabotage?"
Donald wonders. On one hand, it's tempting. Whatever Gregor Leon is up to, it's definitely no good. That he's absolutely sure of. On the other hand, doing so will put them on the radar. And he really doesn't want to be on the radar of someone as dangerous as Jane Clarent. Even if, assuming, he can somehow convince her of the most absurd story anybody, Traditions or Technocracy, will probably ever tell her in his life, even if she'll leave him alone then, he has to then outthink Gregor Leon. And he's read Gregor Leon's profile. Smart as hell, dedicated. Not much of a people person but with more computing power in his brain than ItX supercomputers would dream of. It's not something he looks forward to, which is why he wants to put off having to match wits with him as long as possible. "I'm not sure yet. Let's get in first, then see what we can find."
He's never been the kind of leader who makes long, complicated masterplans. It was never an option for him in the early days, and that habit's passed down. He's the kind of guy who gets into a chaotic situation and improvises. And that's good, because it's the one thing that has kept him alive through this year.
Right, sorry about this being a lot of filler but getting the players arranged and set up is necessary while we're moving into the actual conflict. Since breaching the security of the lower-priority facilities will largely be trivial, the question is largely what do you want to get out of it?
Is Gregor Leon aware of you yet?
Exactly the question. If Donald & co. keep it very, very quiet, they can probably keep him from noticing you for a while longer. But you're going to have to make a move that reveals yourself at some point.
[ ] Yes (pick 1 more option)
[ ] No
What progress have you made? And how?
Choose one, or two if you've decided to alert Gregor. Suggest how you've made this progress.
[ ] Pretty much figured out what the project is and why they're doing it.
[ ] Gotten support from old allies (which ones? Why?)
[ ] Gained a new ally in the process. (Who?)
[ ] Found some potential new friends who are in contact with Serafina.
[ ] Sowed doubt in one of Gregor's followers. (Which one?)
[ ] Write-In
- Location
- England
Anyhow, this is... sufficiently good for me to be happy with the progress. Let's see what we can do here. Analysis post away!
[] Yes (pick 1 more option)
As said, we have to do this at some point. I'm frankly not convinced on this point, but if we rush ahead we can minimize the risks and-
Hmm. Maybe not, because Gregor is too dangerous. Argh, this is difficult!
[ ] Pretty much figured out what the project is and why they're doing it.
Don't think we want this, actually. Unless there's something critical to knowing the exact nature of EXEMPLAR IV, then we may be better off making actual progress. Sure, it would give us a definite advantage in future planning, but as we know the rough plan of making a new Combat Construct type anyway...
[ ] Gotten support from old allies (which ones? Why?)
Depends on who we can think of. Probably Cross, as he's the first option that comes to mind.
[ ] Gained a new ally in the process. (Who?)
Again, usefulness heavily depends on who we can think of. Probably a Traditionalist, or otherwise a partially disillusioned Technocrat, at least those are the first options that come to mind.
[ ] Found some potential new friends who are in contact with Serafina.
This would be very useful, and get all of the people on our side organized in one group.
[ ] Sowed doubt in one of Gregor's followers. (Which one?)
Hallo thar Clarent.
[ ] Write-In
The main one that comes to mind is doing the thing EarthScorpion said at the top of his write-in and sabotaging some of the parts so we can trollcast to our heart's content when we face A WEAPON TO SURPASSMETAL GEAR BRASS COG EXEMPLAR III!
[] Yes (pick 1 more option)
As said, we have to do this at some point. I'm frankly not convinced on this point, but if we rush ahead we can minimize the risks and-
Hmm. Maybe not, because Gregor is too dangerous. Argh, this is difficult!
[ ] Pretty much figured out what the project is and why they're doing it.
Don't think we want this, actually. Unless there's something critical to knowing the exact nature of EXEMPLAR IV, then we may be better off making actual progress. Sure, it would give us a definite advantage in future planning, but as we know the rough plan of making a new Combat Construct type anyway...
[ ] Gotten support from old allies (which ones? Why?)
Depends on who we can think of. Probably Cross, as he's the first option that comes to mind.
[ ] Gained a new ally in the process. (Who?)
Again, usefulness heavily depends on who we can think of. Probably a Traditionalist, or otherwise a partially disillusioned Technocrat, at least those are the first options that come to mind.
[ ] Found some potential new friends who are in contact with Serafina.
This would be very useful, and get all of the people on our side organized in one group.
[ ] Sowed doubt in one of Gregor's followers. (Which one?)
Hallo thar Clarent.
[ ] Write-In
The main one that comes to mind is doing the thing EarthScorpion said at the top of his write-in and sabotaging some of the parts so we can trollcast to our heart's content when we face A WEAPON TO SURPASS
- Location
- Southern Virginia
I think we should very carefully consider our choices here, with the idea of shaping how this goes down. Not alerting Gregor means there's a little more time for a more subtle approach, like using sabotage to delay the project in ways he can't immediately trace back to the group. Ultimately that'd probably lead up to some kind of infiltration to deal with the project, maybe with the aim of making it look like enough of a disaster that Professor Li can just shut the thing down with the dread and unnatural powers of Bureaucracy.
Whereas alerting him, and gathering allies, probably means an accelerated and more overt confrontation that might escalate to open conflict. On the one hand finding out what he's doing and blowing his whole cover would be an expeditious means of shutting him down, and probably relatively safe, there's potential here to kick off a civil war in the Progenitors if not the Technocracy as a whole. And trying to take direct action runs into the problem that it depends on defeating Gregor Leon and his squad of heavy assets and that's not very safe at all.
Whereas alerting him, and gathering allies, probably means an accelerated and more overt confrontation that might escalate to open conflict. On the one hand finding out what he's doing and blowing his whole cover would be an expeditious means of shutting him down, and probably relatively safe, there's potential here to kick off a civil war in the Progenitors if not the Technocracy as a whole. And trying to take direct action runs into the problem that it depends on defeating Gregor Leon and his squad of heavy assets and that's not very safe at all.
- Location
- National Capital Region, USA
[X] No
Not just yet. But he's smart enough to expect and plan for it.
[X] Sowed doubt in one of Gregor's followers. (Which one?)
Major Clarent is tempting and obvious, but Gregor is already manipulating her and probably would both see her betrayal coming and have countermeasures already in place for such, be they hardware overrides or something more Progenitor. But then there's Sanjeet or Ling...
Not just yet. But he's smart enough to expect and plan for it.
[X] Sowed doubt in one of Gregor's followers. (Which one?)
Major Clarent is tempting and obvious, but Gregor is already manipulating her and probably would both see her betrayal coming and have countermeasures already in place for such, be they hardware overrides or something more Progenitor. But then there's Sanjeet or Ling...
- Location
- in the trash
The idea of sowing doubt in Sanjeet does appeal. Hmm. And probably it should be Henriette who does it. Though I question just how many overrides he has.
(May involve the Dummy Plug system)
(May involve the Dummy Plug system)
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