So, uh, this started off as a cute scene that was meant to just be a short thing to get Rose a new sword, then went entirely off in another direction with Character Stuff.
Bee Tee Dubs. This might be a good time to do this.
Because Progenitor radical augments might not be cyborgs, but they can certainly put out a very nasty beating.
The vehicle pool is not Rose's natural territory. The air smells of fuel and ozone, and there's a faint coating of grime and oil over every surface despite the best efforts of the cleaning droids. The entire area exists in a state of organised chaos, people dashing here and there and barely missing one another as dumb robots cart around reload cylinders and augmented Kamrads oversee the replacement of the barrel of a tank.
It reminds her of an ant nest, more than anything else. A cold, inhuman ant nest where everything is metal and plastic. Intellectually she understands that this isn't like an insect nest, because insects don't have central coordination - but she can't shake the feeling, especially when she's passing through the spiderbot maintenance area.
Henriette is embedded deep in this enclave of Iteration X in a Progenitor operation, and has been for the past few days. She's overseeing the fitting of a new arm to some kind of mech unit when Rose arrives.
"Get this done," she orders the Kamrad when she sees Rose arrive. "The testing slot for this is at 09:20. Make sure it's ready; we don't have slack in the timetable. Rose!"
"You requested my presence, Lt Langley?" Rose says formally. Too formally; Henriette's eyebrows raise.
"Is something up?" she asks, leading Rose back into one of the cramped box offices in the walls of the hangar. "Don't worry, it's not a problem. I just have something for you. Equipment issue. Just something I threw together in my spare time, no big deal, you might find it helpful..." she whirls, presenting Rose with a sleek black ItX equipment case. "Here."
Delicately, Rose opens it. A blade floats up, suspended on magnetic fields. It's a sleek bit of modern hardware, with an ergonomic grip, stored in an Iteration X Shock Corps rapid deploy sheath. Rose lays the case down, and takes it in her hands, feeling how the grip has been perfectly moulded for her hands. Her fingers find the fast deploy catch, and she nods. She slides it out just a fraction, admiring the sleek primium blade which seems to glow a killing blue.
She has only one question.
"Did you really just throw this together in your spare time?" Rose asks.
Nine hours ago
Henriette glares at the nonsensical stupid-advanced molecular diagram of the material structure of this... this wretched sword. It's five hundred years old! It's got the appropriate level of battle wear and damage, and the radio-isotope readings are consistent with that age.
How the flying fuck did a bunch of Renaissance-era pseudoscientific alchemists manage to get this kind of sophisticated molecular lattice structure? It's fucking
perfect. It's an alloy akin to primium, but it's been doped with mercury. It's disgusting. It's legitimately beyond her. She couldn't make this, even with access to a full ItX material workshop. She simply doesn't know enough. She started poking around with it to see if she could upgrade it so Rose could use it, but... she can't upgrade it.
Mari probably could, she thinks with only a hint of bitterness. Henriette isn't even sure how she accidentally made that '4-4-adamant' super-diamond, but she did. But the extreme comms security they have set up here to prevent word of the attack getting out means there's no way she'll get away with contacting a mysterious Russian ItX facility to ask her to explain what the hell is going on with this.
She doesn't have time to do this properly. Henriette looks around out of habitual wariness, and no, Director Belltower is not standing over her shoulder watching her. Okay. Okay. Well, mercury-doped primium
is a known alloy of primium. And even if it was made using dubious means, there's nothing about it
now that is inherently reality deviant. After all, Henriette thinks to herself, as per regulations it's not
necessarily RD to make use of certain listed kinds of Virtual Adept or Etherite tech in the field. When it comes down to it, all it is is a very sharp blade, after all. Really, it's not any different from the primium knives Rose uses.
So maybe if she just replaces its worn and damaged handle with a modern superior combat grip, fits some directed LEDs to the guard so it illuminates the blade in blue, and gives it a stock fast-draw sheath... oh, and maybe adds a Progenitor dart-launcher that Rose can make use of and maybe... hmm.
"Of course I did!" Henriette insists, hands on her hips.
"You did?"
"I've given it a designation as HINO-X323 experimental monomol sword, for your information. And assigned it to you for field testing."
Rose frowns. "It's just it looks a lot like..."
Henriette shushes her. "It's made of a mercury-doped primium alloy," she says loudly, "and yes, certain elements of the primium were salvaged from material that RDs stole from us, but that's just sourced material."
"Ah," Rose says. "I see."
Henriette coughs into her hand. "Now, I was going to get you a watermelon to test it on, but I couldn't find anywhere on base that sold them. Also, I didn't want to get watermelon all over my office because I'm only borrowing it and… well, yes. So instead..." she reaches behind her desk, lifting something up in both hands, "I got you a watermelon-sized lump of green foam. It's a tradition of the Shock Corps, see."
She tosses it up in the air, and Rose's eyes automatically track the movement. Adrenaline rising, she feels time slow to a crawl. Her fingers tighten on the blade and the sheath, and she flicks the fast deploy. And now the electromagnets are launching the blade out and she's drawing into a rising slash, then its mirror image.
Rose resheaths the blade. Four green-painted lumps of metal hit the floor with a loud clash and clatter. "... you said that was foam," she says, softly.
Henriette grins, and deactivates the strength boost of her servo-overalls. "I wanted to make a… demonstration," she said. "It felt like cutting through foam, didn't it?"
"Yes…"
"Yes. It does. That was just basically a green-painted cannonball. Your primium knives aren't going to cut it against some of the things they say the enemy has. So, I went and fou-made you something better."
Rose blushes, feeling suddenly much more cheery. "Thank you," she says, warmly, wrapping Henriette up in a hug. "I know you can't have had much spare time to just throw this together in. It's amazing how you managed it. But you're just so amazing."
"Rose. Laying it on a little thick. But yes, I am amazing. And so are you. Got it? Don't let anyone else tell you otherwise," Henriette says into Rose's shoulder. "D-don't you dare get yourself killed. Or... or I'll never talk to you again!"
Rose tilts her head. "What if they manage to salvage my brain and fix me up?"
"... well, obviously that doesn't count, idiot! I was trying to make a joke to alleviate the tension!"
"Oh."
"Because if you were permanently dead, I'd never talk to you again because... oh, forget it. You ruined everything by making me explain the joke. It was meant to be just a light-hearted comment. Urgh."
"I'm sorry," Rose said meekly.
Henriette takes a deep, shuddering breath, and Rose realises she's got her body language augment turned off. She makes her decision, and moves in, warming up her body through forced metabolic activity. Henriette sinks into the hug. "But I mean it. Don't get yourself killed. Not unless it's a genuine save-the-world moment. There's no need to try to b-be as awesome as me." Rose can feel her tremble as she adds, "You're going to make it back. We're all going to make it back. You and me and Sera and Donald, we're going to do it. Sera and me, we made it through Moscow and you two did your thing in the Spy's Demise and… and we can't die. Not now. Not after all this."
"We can always die," Rose says, softly. She can recognise this denial for what it is.
"I know." Henriette slumps down, until Rose is supporting most of her weight. She's put on weight since she first met her, a year ago, but she's still too thin. "I'm… I'm just scared my luck is going to run out."
"Your luck?" Rose props her up on her desk.
"I should've died many times over," Henriette says, blue-eyes watery. "You too. I… some of the things I've been doing, I've just been letting my ADEI run things and I've been having meatbag thoughts. About how many times I could've died." It's rare for her to use ItX jargon like that. "About how everyone else on Autochthonia did die. About how being the best you can be sometimes isn't enough and you're just overmatched. Do you ever feel this?"
Rose considers. "No," she says. No, that's an alien chain of thought to her. The Transhuman machine in London could have killed her, and might have, if Donald hadn't hacked her. "You're in the air support wave. You're not going to be in the frontlines."
"And that's the problem," Henriette says softly. "That's why I… why I got you this sword. You're going in there, into the very heart of this
nest, and it's not all up to me this time. It's not Moscow. It's not… what I did in space. I… I don't want this to be Autochthonia again. I don't want everyone but me to die."
Sympathetically, Rose nods, and scoots up onto the desk. "You don't want to be alone again," she says, sword on her lap.
"That makes it sound so selfish," Henriette mutters.
"It's true. And it's not selfish. Humans are social animals. We don't take being alone well." Rose breathes out. "I'm a social animal," she says gently. "It's not your fault."
"I wish I was going in there with you, All the way, to the end. But I'm a pilot," Henriette says, staring at the wall. "There just isn't space in the tight quarters around the final objective. I hate feeling useless and… I feel useless."
"You're not useless. You got me this sword," Rose says, hugging it. "I think it's the best present that anyone who isn't Sera has ever got me." She thinks. "Maybe Donald too."
"Huh. So it's about as good as a day at Disneyland," Henriette says, with a sniffle and a forced smile.
Rose affects a mock serious expression. "Now you're going too far!"
They both break out into giggles. It's silly and it's not that funny, but it's relieving the stress in the room.
Reaching out, Rose squeezes Henriette's forearm. Green eyes meet red-rimmed blue. "Autochthonia wasn't your fault, Henriette," she says, her voice pitched perfectly, every word considered. "And it's not the same. Back then, you were blind. Walking into something you had no idea about. Now we know what we're doing. We're ready. And I've got my big brothers with me."
Wide eyed, Henriette swallows. She seems about to say something, anything, but simply nods.
"Good. Trust me on this," Rose says. "We're all going to make it out of this. Me and you and Sera and Donald. We're going to have a big party and there's going to be cake and ice cream in every flavour that exists and we're going to have pretty dresses and everything. You're going to do your best, I know you are. You're not going to let these old fears hold you back and stop you from doing the right thing. Because you're not a silly young pilot anymore! You're the Hero of Moscow!"
"I… yes." Henriette settles her shoulders, and her expression resumes its normal slightly critical expression as the BLO reactivates. She runs her hands through her short bright orange hair. "Come on then. We
will do our best. And it's going to be the best. They won't know what'll hit them."
"That's right!" Rose says encouragingly.
"I'll crash your HUD if you tell anyone I got like this," Henriette mutters, wiping her eyes on her sleeves. "There won't be any evidence. Not a trace, I promise."
"There's nothing to be afraid of. We're all human."
"It'll ruin my reputation if people find out I cried before a battle," Henriette retorts.
"No one will find out," Rose promises her. She rises, hugging her new sword. "And I love the weapon! I'll give you a full report afterwards!"
Thorn watches her in the metal of the vehicle pool. Her bright green eyes are an enigma.
"What?" Rose whispers.
"I'm judging you," Thorn says.
"Why? All I did was help her."
"No, you misunderstand." Thorn doesn't smile, but neither does she frown. "I'm judging you now. That's neither condemning nor condoning that. But you chose to slide into her mind and make those tweaks."
"We just had a talk," Rose says, staring for a moment at the mirror-bright casing of a laser weapon.
"That's the excuse Technocrats like to make for things they do. Maybe it was the right to thing. Maybe it was the wrong thing. But it was a thing to do, and there may be consequences to it. She won't be thinking so much of Autochthonia. It might stop her freezing up or panicking. But it might also make her rash."
"I thought it was best for her," Rose whispers. "She gave me a sword to keep her safe. And… and Gregor Leon will know she was on Autochthonia. He nearly killed Sera by playing on her guilt. What could he do to Henriette?"
Thorn nods. "We'll know, soon enough. Open your mind, Rose. Can you not feel the future ahead of you? Of course you can."
Her mind is filled with transgenic vampire material. She can. And it's telling her that the future is filled with blood and death. She lied when she told Henriette there was no doubt they'd make it out of it alive.
Rose's hand tightens on the sword, and for a moment she feels traces of Reina Lior's mind pushing up against hers. This blade will be drowning in blood by the end.
[Rose - Mind 4 - Through a good talk and being there for Henriette and getting all up in her personal space, she's just making a teeny tiny adjustment to Henriette's priorities and suppressing her worries and bubbling-up trauma from Autochthonia and fear of being unable to control the situation. Enhanced by Appearance + Etiquette.]
