Grin_Reaper
Shadow Cabal Space Pirate
- Location
- Space Battleship Pennsylvania
Quoting this again:
I believe they're called "nanoaugs" because they are injecting you with nanomachines to build the augmentation.
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Panopticon: A Game of Posthumans, Perniciousness, Paranoia, Politics, and Plasmaguns
I believe they're called "nanoaugs" because they are injecting you with nanomachines to build the augmentation.
Matter 1. Or Life 1. Or Prime 1. And possibly Forces 1. Certainly, when something will make you instantly notable to at least a third of the spheres, it's not covert. Not at a proper level.
...
I'd also like to point out that a lot of the situations we wound up in Moscow were decidedly atypical, or we weren't exactly running in in a kevlar vest anyway. Note that, for example, the Construct Assault was done while wearing stealth power armour, accompanied by Kessler and Cross. Jamelia is a perfectly acceptable medium-intensity fighter when properly geared up, and that's all we need from her. The assault on the Labyrinth? Yeah, she didn't go in there. Because she's not a heavy assault specialist and that is totally okay. The Museum infiltration showed what she can do that no one else can which "I show up to basic scans" would have ruined, and she was never meant to be more than support in the Museum Fakeout. It's just, if you remember, first Achilles got hacked, and then Panopticon caused friendly fire.
I am not prepared to sacrifice her capacity to run around indistinguishably from a baseline human, and walk into non-Technocratic-paradigm places and operate at full capacity [1] just so we can force our generalist team lead whose real speciality is in social engineering and soft skills into a heavy assault role and actively harm her function to do things only she can. We have heavy assault characters. They're called Kessler and Rose (and Henriette when she has her mech around).
And that's even before the fact that I object to having character concept derailed just for stat boosts, especially when those stat boosts should come with a notable 'dox cost. We didn't even choose Augmented Agent; we chose Veteran Spy and then cross-classed into some minor augumentations.
[1] Yeah, those boosts aren't free. Using superhuman attributes (when not using the "mundane" Legendary way of getting them) risks Paradox. Having cybernetics in you in a non-Techno-friendly paradigm risks Paradox and enhancement failure. Shouting "nanotech enhancements" doesn't make you any less prone to 'dox than any other Enhancement - indeed, it makes you rather more prone, because frankly you're going to have the issue that this level of enhancement is out-of-Consensus in modern labs and other places which damn well know we don't have nanotech which can do that yet and that hyperdense skeletons are not a thing.
...
Hong Kong, we fucked up because of a badly timed botch, and we also had Rose the murder machine with us. We didn't go into the Nephandic Labyrinth; we sent our assault specialists in. We carried out a raid on a Construct to steal their gear, operating in medium stealth power armour, and we were alongside Kessler and Cross. The raid just turned into a capture due to a moment of opportunity; the original plan was to get in, grab stuff, and get out.
And don't even try to pretend that the escalation bit of Moscow was anywhere near normal. And even then, Jamelia only got actually really hurt when trying to talk down Siddharth who was wearing high end Threat Null power armour, and armed with a Fuck You No Soak For You blade.
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Sarpedon
Knight Errant
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Jamelia isnt getting visible augs though,also the nanoaugs are a terrible idea for Jamelia as they do nothing to, you know, alleviate her cognitive degeneration issues. The Augs that she is getting are ones Serafina is cooking up, which are some form of OUTCOME/BLACKBRIAR equivalent which basically turn her into Aaron Cross/Desh and have none of the problems you are talking about ES. The Nanoaugs have some utility if we want SUPER INTERN but beyond that they don't really serve much purpose.
Oh, no, I'm talking about the nanoaugs here, which is what drake_azathoth brought up. I just separated my response to you from the more general point by an ellipse, which probably wasn't clear enough.
Yeah, something spliced together from a mix of NWO psychological conditioning and tweaking and Serafina's Progenitor stuff is probably fine. As long as it's fairly low key stuff and Jamelia is there with a knife to threaten Serafina if she tries to make her taller or increase her bust.
Spectrum
Tell me a secret~
- Location
- Behind you~
With rolls like hers, more like moe machine am i rite
*whistles*
Grin_Reaper
Shadow Cabal Space Pirate
- Location
- Space Battleship Pennsylvania
Murder Moechine
Whiskey Golf
Being of Editing & Technical Assistance
- Location
- Chained to my desk
Moeder Moechine. I had to go there and get it outta my system.
Oddly enough that second one is something Serafina could easily spin in terms of legitimate disguise purposes if she made them adjustable breast implants that Jamelia could expand or contract by adjusting the amount of saline in them. Which is perfectly in ConsensusAs long as it's fairly low key stuff and Jamelia is there with a knife to threaten Serafina if she tries to make her taller or increase her bust.
Hmmmm... The Ixoi assassin flashback also establishes a few things as themes (beyond a mention of old, old Union history and secrets).
*Mentions corruption in the higher-ups and inter-Order/Union squabbling, backbiting, and politics -- the people who gave the orders and set things in motion (i.e. the High Guild against the Craftmason) might not be all that innocent
*Trust, conspiracy, betrayal and inter-Conventional problems and secrets
*Infernalism and demons is a thing, apparently
That could foreshadow and 'prime' Jamelia to start seeing and remembering similar connections later on. A bit of narrative symmetry between the past and the present, perhaps?
Trust and secrets, what with having to run a conspiracy for the good of the Union while ferreting out more information about what's going on. Purges and evil intent could sort of be connected to the final fate of Control and Threat Null and what they're doing now.
And of course, Infernalism and demons can transition to EDEs and the whole clusterfuck in Moscow.
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It's almost like I was deliberately drawing parallels between the Craftmasons covering up their internal issues trying to avoid looking weak in front of the other Orders and giving them time to fix them on their onw, and what the Void Engineers are doing now.
And of course;
"I... I almost feel sorry for you, old friend," says the dying man. "I shall go to God with a c-c-clean conscience, free of sin. I have always done what I could. But you? Your hands are red with my blood, and the blood of my brothers. What... what will you d-do to clean them, C-Cemal? How long must... must you w-work to... to wash away your d-deeds this... day..."
I got that.
... Er. I don't think I actually got this one, though. Is it the "how long to wash away deeds" thing, implying a connection with the future -- that Cemal had tried to repent for a long while, and Jamelia might just be the latest in that long line of atonement?
That bit I can understand... I'm just not sure about blood-stained hands bit though? Thus far through our playthrough, Jamelia hasn't had a "Oh you done fucked up and murdered exactly the wrong person" sort of deal.
... Or is it a reference to Siddharth's death? If so, I didn't immediately get it because the Craftmason was actually innocent whereas Siddharth was compelled.
It could be a sort of mirror, though. That last time a man loyal to the Order of Reason had died, and died innocent and free of sin. This time when a man loyal to the Technocratic Union died, he had been full of hate and had for a while turned against the Union, against his brothers -- but in the end he did the right thing and could probably die with a more clear conscience.
Also, both revealed more about who was actually the real enemy. Corrupt High Guild versus Threat Null/Control.
Hmm, put like that, yeah, I can see a link.
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The purge of the Craftmasons was one of those pivotal deeds which laid the groundwork for the Order of Reason to become the Technocracy. The Craftmasons were the ideological "counterweight" to the High Guild (who eventually become the Syndicate) - traces of their ideology can be seen leftover in both the NWO and Iteration X.
But then again, that's another paradigmic and ideological question. Do you believe that guilt and sin can be carried between incarnations? The Union, which denies reincarnation, says "No" - a man's choices and sins are his own. Except, of course, the Progenitors then go "But was it really his choice? Look at his genes. He was always going to have a tendency towards anger issues.", and the New World Order goes "Was it really his choice? Or was he just a product of society and so society shaped him into who he was?". Ideologically, Jamelia would deny any guilt for the actions of some long-dead man, but what she personally feels when she has his memories and his example to compare to... well, that's something else.
(Don't go and label the Craftmasons as the "good guys" (even if the line has a tendency to do so), though. Remember; as a group, they were the earliest Ascension Warriors. They were the ones who kicked things off by attacking Mistridge, and in the early years they were one of the most ideological proponents of reshaping the world. Their purge really brought down the intensity of the conflict between the Order and the early Traditions, which would only amp up again with the reformation of the Order into the Union in the mid-1800s, and then go into full overdrive with the Pogrom starting post WW2 when the Technocracy went, in essence, "Never again; we must destroy all enemies so the Nephandi cannot get so close to winning again". [1])
[1] Note that this is from more... ah, sophisticated Revised-era background, where the one-two punch of WW2 followed by the defection of the Virtual Adepts leaves the Union going a bit crazy and extremist and paranoid about enemies internal and external - in a historically abnormal way, too. Throughout most of history, the post 1999 "low intensity conflict with lots of messy compromise" was actually much more typical. This can be contrasted to some earlier stuff, which is much more "Pulp Etherites punching Nazi Technocrats in the face", which is... ah, darkly amusing considering how many conspiracy theories about the forces of global Jewery and their control of the world financial system are recycled to produce the Syndicate.
Some interesting lessons and mirrored situations from the past.
Though, who's to say that Cemal didn't eventually make up for things in the end? Jamelia's own situation, after all, seems like she's a little bit ahead of things with how it went down at the Museum; you could say that in her position, she handled things a bit more justly and accurately than Cemal did.
Could be the memory will be like a lesson to remember - or something to compare to - rather than something to feel guilt over. After Moscow, Jamelia would be starting her search for truth from a better position.
...
That position being "spent a few weeks in a rejuv vat, then went all Jason Bourne with amnesia, dodging further Threat Null bullshit". So I guess that's not really the easiest start either. Oh well.
Anyway! We'll see what the future brings for us.
Though, who's to say that Cemal didn't eventually make up for things in the end? Jamelia's own situation, after all, seems like she's a little bit ahead of things with how it went down at the Museum; you could say that in her position, she handled things a bit more justly and accurately than Cemal did.
Could be the memory will be like a lesson to remember - or something to compare to - rather than something to feel guilt over. After Moscow, Jamelia would be starting her search for truth from a better position.
...
That position being "spent a few weeks in a rejuv vat, then went all Jason Bourne with amnesia, dodging further Threat Null bullshit". So I guess that's not really the easiest start either. Oh well.
Anyway! We'll see what the future brings for us.
Update LXI: A Poisoned Chalice
JB LXI: A Poisoned Chalice
There's no red in the streets of London, Jamelia Belltower thinks to herself as she watches the world from the night bus. The sodium streetlights wash it away. She's on the N97, and it'll be taking her east, back closer into central London. She swiped someone's wallet, and got an Oyster card out of it, along with some petty change. It's too late for the Tube to be running, but there are always buses.
She knows this and doesn't know how she knows this. She also doesn't know how she knows how to slip past the position of the cameras on the bus so they just catch a hooded figure, how to keep behind the person boarding in front of her, and that if she sits right up against the window here, she's not visible to the driver or the camera. And come to mention it, she doesn't know where she learned to steal wallets, either.
The weather is humid. It feels like it's going to rain. She needs to find somewhere safe she can get to where she can grab some rest. Or failing that, somewhere which does black coffee. She suspects it's going to be black coffee.
Sleep is an inconvenience. She doesn't know why she thinks this, but this is an opinion she's sure she holds strongly.
The headache is getting worse. That's probably a bad sign. But she can't let it get in her way. She'll just have to see if she can find a 24-hour shop which sells paracetamol. She can't go back to a hospital. Maybe if she gets to another city, she can fake being in a car crash, and get seen to by doctors.
It's probably worrying that this is her first reaction, but she knows it's the right one. Hospitals aren't safe. They - whoever they are - will find her again if she goes to them with the same symptoms, even if she leaves London.
The pain spikes. Her hands lock into claws on the edge of the seat. She takes sharp breaths, trying not to look like anything's wrong. The last thing she needs is for some well-intended person to phone 999. Apathy and drunken inattention are her best friend here.
And then the memories come.
Cemal swings his legs off his horse, and leaps off. The ostler in the yard is already bowing to him with respect. He recognizes him.
"Is Master Lionel home?" Cemal asks, as if he does not already know.
"Cemal! Old friend," comes a booming voice from behind him. The master is an elderly man, a decade into his second century, but thanks to his study of the alchemical arts his body remains strong even if his hair is as white as snow and his skin is wrinkled like old leather. "And what brings you to my house at this late hour."
"Lionel," Cemal says warmly. "I bring news from a Convocation in Venice. Gather the best of your students. This is news you all must know."
"A Convocation?" Lionel says, frowning. "Why was I not told of this?"
"That is one of the things you must know," Cemal says. "It is not good news."
It does not take long for the tousled acolytes to be roused from their beds. Cemal notes that two of them seem rather more mussed and awake than the others, and draws his own conclusions - one confirmed by a sniff. The meeting room is deep within the townhouse, and is lit by alchemical lights, casting a warm glow almost akin to sunlight.
"Wine?" Lionel asks, offering him the jug, before shaking his head. "Oh, my head must be going strange in my old age. I forget that you do not drink, old friend."
"It is late," Cemal says easily, pouring a glass for his friend, and handing it to him. Lionel salutes him in thanks and drinks. "And since it is late, I should convey my news now, so that you might go on to your rest. A Convention was called in Venice. Evidence was judged and accounted for. It is controversial, yes, but the facts seem irrefutable." He pauses, takes a breath, considers how to say the next bit. "The Order has judged against you and the Craftmasons," Cemal says. "There has been an accounting of your sins and...
He shifts in his seat, throwing knives dropping down from his wrist holsters. In one smooth motion he spreads his arms out wide. Blades find the throats of his old friend's acolytes, and the venom that tips them, distilled from the gall-bladder of black goats, has doomed them even if they survive their wounds.
"... you are a dead man already," Cemal says sadly, "old friend. Your wine is poisoned. You cannot save yourself."
Four men and two women are down on the floor, twitching or already dead. And Cemal is back in his seat.
"Treachery," Lionel gasps.
"Yes. Your treachery," Cemal says. There are tears on his face as he continues, "You are not the only one, old friend," he says sadly. "This is a black night indeed. Why did you Craftmasons force us to act? Why did you bring this on yourself?"
"Force you?" Lionel asks. He is sweating, and his face is pale. Already, his muscles will be weakening, his nerves numbing. Cemal chose this poison because it allows its victims to keep on talking until their chest seizes up and they black out from lack of air - and perish shortly after. "We were friends, God damn you! I don't know which viper whispered in your ear, but..."
"I have seen the evidence! How could you let yourself indulge in vanity and sorcerous ways? You were protecting the sorcerers of Toulouse, who hid among our ranks! They had Infernalists among their ranks, those who consorted with Hell itself! And I have seen your vanity, though I did not wish to believe it. But a convocation brought the full depths of your sorcery to our attention. I did not believe it myself until Master Vanderborough showed me. Your adepts in Toulouse were binding demons into cannons, in the name of 'progress'. And there were papers! Documents." He throws one down in front of his dying friend. "This is your seal, ordering the blood-sacrificing witches of the English forests to be left alone! Those hags prey on children!"
The dying man laughs, a weak hacking cough. "Vanderborough. Of course. Those vipers of the High Guild. Cemal, you poor fool. You've brought your doom upon yourself. Remember? I read it for you. 'Trust shall be your downfall'. And..." he coughs and wheezes, "... you thought I was the one you should not trust. Perhaps... perhaps that is my punishment for the hubris of trying to divine the will of God, and advising you on how to avert it. That is my seal, yes, but I never gave those orders. Master Belltower was preparing a force to wipe those vile heathen witches from the world.
He pauses, gasping for breath.
"Cemal, I knew the idiots in Toulouse were dabbling in things they should not. I... I was investigating them. Trying to separate the guilty from the innocent, before your blades reaped them all. Covering up our sins so we did not look weak, so we could deal with them quietly. The Guild... the Guild took this as an excuse. They have been hunting us. There are Infernalists among their ranks too, but... but I fear it is the lure of lucre which has brought their ire against us. Toulouse has given them the excuse they have long desired. Profit, for them, numbs the feeling. Mammon owns their souls; metaphorically if not literally. God only knows what shall happen now to the Order, with those vipers running loose."
Cemal tries to control the shake in his hands. "But... the evidence..."
"I... I almost feel sorry for you, old friend," says the dying man. "I shall go to God with a c-c-clean conscience, free of sin. I have always done what I could. But you? Your hands are red with my blood, and the blood of my brothers. What... what will you d-do to clean them, C-Cemal? How long must... must you w-work to... to wash away your d-deeds this... day..."
She sees another convocation, decades later. She is the previous man, but older now, more dignified.
"The Inner Circle of the Order of Reason has become corrupt." Cemal says. "They have retreated to their own Umbral Chantries and their own underground alchemical labs, afraid of mortality. Afraid to play by the rules they said they would play by. They have deceived us into doing their dirty work, solely because of lust for temporal power. We cannot let this stand."
Another voice responds. She knows that she should remember who they are, that her dream persona would know these men and women (but mostly men) by name-but something has erased them from existence. She talks to figures that, if she concentrates, resemble people she knows could not be there. "I understand that you have lost much due to the machinations of the High Guild, but-"
"But nothing. The Order of Reason is irreparably corrupt."
"So we are to abandon them again, Master Cemal? Are we becoming reliable traitors? First the magi, then the Order-are we to be forever alone?"
"The path of the righteous is never easy." But is this course of action really righteous? Cemal seeks to wash away blood with more blood.
"This proposal- by joining the magi, the Hermetics, do we not become what we strove to fight against? The Ixoi-we have always existed to kill those who suffer from hubris, the god-kings who labor under the delusions that simply having more power than the common man makes them better than they are. The bulk of us have already decided that the Hermetics and their other magi are irreparably corrupt. If we join them, if they win, we undo even the small amount of good they have accomplished."
"That is why," Cermal shouts, "we do not win, nor do we help them win. No. We cannot let anyone gain power. Neither the Order of Reason, nor the Magi, nor the vampires or the werebeasts. We become a check on both sides' power. We ensure the Ascension War lasts forever. It has to be this way." Cemal concludes. "We have seen what happens when the magi have absolute power-we have seen what happens when the Order has it. Neither is good for the masses. They must be empowered, they must be given the opportunity to choose-and to do so, both sides must be weak enough that they cannot exploit the Masses-both sides must not be able to enforce their view of the world."
"If anyone finds out, we will be killed. No, worse than killed. We will be Gilguled."
"We have been killing so-called god-kings for millenia, my friend. We have not been destroyed then, and even if we take on this responsibility, we will not be destroyed. All that must be done is that everyone here, and everyone who agrees, must be sworn to die before their secrets are told. A last, grand effect. We will erase this history from our very souls, ensure that our ghosts do not remember."
She considers the memories. No. They're not memories. For one, she's not a man. For two, that wasn't the normal world.
Jamelia stares out the window, out at the night. Those weren't her memories. But she's sure they were memories.
Who is she? She wants to find herself, and she needs to hide. She doesn't trust Senex, and something in her gut says that it's for good reason. She thinks about places that might hide her, where government agents would be turned away or given the absolute minimum help. She settles on a location.
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It's been a while since Jamelia's been in a Masjid. She doesn't know why she knows this (She's not totally sure she's muslim, but something pings right when she thinks about it, so presumably it's not wrong? Or at least is close), but it's no more worrying than her utter lack of understanding of most other things involving her memory. For now, a Masjid's a good place to hide while waiting for the heat to die down, somewhere they, and the mysterious voice on the phone, won't expect her.
She slips in, hoodie up as a makeshift Hijab, just another person trying to make the Isha prayer. There's a local in the lobby. A desi kid in a football jersey and jeans, headphones in his ears, listening to something absurdly loud. It takes a minute to get his attention, but she manages to receive directions to the prayer hall and bathroom without much issue.
She does Wudhu, rather quickly, slips into the women's section, joins the line, and as the imam finishes the Iqama Jamelia Belltower does something she hasn't done in a long, long while.
She prays. When she's done, her phone rings again.
"Jamelia Belltower." Senex says. "You are not supposed to be here."
"And why, exactly, is that?" Jamelia asks.
"What do you think about religious music? Choruses, perhaps?"
Another memory. A large man, heavy with muscle, wielding a wicked-looking meathook that glowed white-hot. Despite holding it in bare hands, he is not burned, nor does he seem to notice the heat. She is chained, vulnerable. She doesn't let him know. He starts to talk. "My apologies for the temporal pain, but the One's forgiveness requires a sacrifice. You must understand, I do not actually enjoy the torture, but-"
"Self-justifying lies from a monster who remembers the Dark Ages and the Inquisition fondly." Jamelia remembers herself saying, with bravado she didn't actually feel then. That was before-that was before she was changed, before she was different. "Just get it over with."'
"I don't much like religious music." Jamelia admits. "Although now-maybe I could get used to it."
"Why do you still identify as Muslim despite this being the first time you've prayed in decades, Jamelia Belltower?" Senex asks. "Is it because of that experience back in Angola? Is it because it's the last thing that holds you to your past life? Are you afraid of losing yourself to the machine, and so this is part of your tightrope act? Keep considering yourself a Muslim, because the idea of finally letting go of your entire previous life scares you?"
"How do you know so much about me?" she hisses.
Thankfully, Senex doesn't note that there isn't a denial in the statement. "Keep your friends close, your enemies closer. I know so much about you because you were a potential thorn in my side. I admit that I know more about you now that you have something of mine with you." Jamelia glances at the bracelet. "I crafted it, long ago. In it is some of my essence, some of my very existence." Jamelia considers throwing it away. "Discard it if you wish. This is your journey, not mine. But it might be helpful while you recover your- your faculties."
"I don't appreciate being given strange psychic artifacts without being told what they are." Jamelia says as she leaves the Masjid. Something about his statements seems right. She really isn't safe there. She wonders why she went there-she wonders who she is again. A Muslim-but maybe not? Fighting religious extremists in... Angola? Choruses? Choristers? Choirs? And the Order of Reason? "And I wonder what kind of person you were, to be an enemy of a counterterrorist agent."
There is a faint chuckle from the phone. "Do you still believe the world in front of you is all that exists? My dear young girl, you are not a government agent. I suppose while I was a man, you would have called me a 'Reality Terrorist' and sought my destruction. But now-now that war is over. You won, or maybe you didn't. What do you call it when your victory is the precursor of a new war, one where you must war against your own sins?"
Another memory. A woman, wearing a floral garland and clothes of woven hemp. "Why are you doing this to us? We just wanted to help these children your reality said would die from incurable diseases. We haven't attacked you or sheltered anyone who might do that. We just want-we just want to make the world a better place. Why can't that happen?"
Jamelia raises her gun. It's a weapon of blued steel, primitive yet advanced. "You've been undermining legitimate medical authorities with your 'herbal treatments'. You've been acting in a way which undermines actual science and medicine for primitivist beliefs that only work when you're there to use your psychic powers to make it work. What happens when you're not here?" Jamelia asks, and she doesn't let them answer as she fires.
'Shamans' exposed as frauds, dozens of children dead, the news article says. Fraudsters missing, presumed at large... a good day's work.
"I don't think your hands are clean either." Jamelia manages.
"They are not. But power-power makes it easier to do right, and easier to do wrong. For most, the difference between the two is merely perspective. I once tried to redeem someone who thought reality was so broken that to burn it all to ash and cast it into Oblivion screaming was the best thing to do. That was the 'right thing'. You are now facing your own sins."
"And you want me to what? You want me to defect?"
"No, that would be pointless. What I want, dear girl, is for you to forgive yourself. And perhaps, for you to remember who you were, who you could be, and who you are. Your enemy is in denial and does not understand. But it has resources and power and intellect. Your only advantage is self-understanding. And to understand yourself, you must be able to live with yourself."
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Donald Sykes is going to die. That's one thing he's sure of. He's doomed. Doomed doomed doomity doomed.
He has no idea how he was talked into this. Oh. he understands the logically sound reasons. Rose was very persuasive when she laid them out. He's a public figure, a known playboy, and London is a world capital for the hyper-rich from across the globe. If he's known to be here, he can call on his assets and ties. Meanwhile, Rose is somewhat known among the enemies to the Union, so she needs to cover up her identity. And there are things she can do which allow her to reconfigure her biology somewhat.
Next to him, a handsome young man with pale skin, shoulder-length coal-black hair, and sensitive features reads an economics textbook on his kindle. The young man strokes his chin, and turns the page.
"I wish I had a beard," Rose says wistfully, looking sideways at Donald. "I think it'd feel right if I could stroke my beard while reading."
He has it down on paper that this was all Rose's - well, Ash Rosencrantz's - idea and he's still doomed. He has to remember to think of Rose... of Rosencrantz as a 'he' for now. Questions will be raised if he slips and talks about 'her' in public. Man, he's even out of practice with his alt-gender pronouns. The Technocracy doesn't go for casual self-transformation. Okay, that's a lie. It does. But it doesn't do it for the same reasons as the Ecstatics. This is always awkward. But more awkward is that he can still see most of her features in the mix and this is exactly what Rose's sexy (male) twin would have looked like and a rebellious part of his mind is considering the number of possibilities enabled by a romance with a woman who can look like anyone.
"Also," Rosencrantz adds, gesturing, "I've been thinking. You know, Director Belltower is sort of in a state like me. I mean, kind of. I mean, the Director Belltower we know is the Reina to the Jamelia who's currently running around with amnesia and a bunch of implanted memories - which are her own memories, but she doesn't know that. If you see what I mean." He frowns. "Also, wow, I hope nothing makes Reina come out because," he giggles, "... well, she'll be a little surprised by this."
Donald perks his head up. "Rose...ncratz," he says, "focus." The things Rose is saying makes... surprising amounts of sense. "Okay. So you've been in this kind of amnesiac position. Hmm."
"What are you thinking?" Rosencrantz asks.
"I don't know," Donald admits. "I'm sort of working towards something." He shakes his head. "We just don't know enough about her to know what she might know," he says to himself. "And her files are incredibly classified. And probably packed full of lies, because New World Order. I don't think I can begin to put together a psych profile which would allow us to make educated guesses about what she might do with her skills, but without most of her memories."
"Well," Rosencrantz points out, "we know that she worked with that man. What's his name? The one who visited her when we were looking for someone to replace Lt Rajesh."
"Winston Kinglsey," Donald says darkly. Yes. Director Belltower had been a little... sharp with him when he'd tried to warn her that Kingsley was a sociopathic babykilling extralegal Syndic, and had told him to stop taking shallow readings of someone he didn't even know. Which said nasty things about what Director Belltower had got up to in the past, honestly.
"Him, yes!" Rosencrantz says brightly. "Henriette made a joke about how Director Belltower still owed her that story about fighting EDE giant robots in South Africa to try to cover up how worried she was about her when she was still in the coma, so that's something else. We know she's very pragmatic about working with RDs and accepting of things like psychic powers... and I think that makes sense, because she's old and Serafina said that the NWO used to use a lot of psychic powers. She's obsessive about getting information, but runs on gut instinct when she winds up being surprised, like when Panopticon showed up in Hong Kong. She throws herself into her work. We know she's an idealist who spends a lot of time pretending to be a jaded manipulative cynic..."
"Uh," says Donald.
"... and we know that she tends to push herself beyond her limits. Like, all the time. I sleep more than her and I need it less." Rosencrantz nods. "So she's almost certainly going to ignore the fact that she has a splitting headache and probably throw herself into working out who she is," he says.
"Yes, that's certainly true," Donald says. "I'm just not entirely sure how to use this. But thank you, Rose... ncrantz. That's something we're going to have to keep in mind." He shakes his head. "Could you call Serafina and ask her to put together a model of how much knowledge Belltower is likely to have access to?"
"Give me a minute to call Henriette and Serafina." Rosencrantz says, craning his head slightly in thought. "I think there might be something resembling a solution here."
The Executive Supersonic Transport's holoconference room lights up, and Henriette and Serafina are there, real enough to touch. Kinetic field projectors and haptic feedback systems mean such a statement is quite literal-anything you could do in person you could do via a holopresence room. Henriette speaks up first.
"Who's tall, dark, and handsome here? Your friend?"
Serafina glares at Donald. "What exactly, Mr. Sykes, have you convinced Rose to do now? I believe the implications of my statements were clear? And now you're going around convincing her to- I don't know what fetish of yours she's indulging but I'll have none of it."
"Wait." Henriette sputters. "That's- that's ROSE?"
"Serafina." Rosencrantz says smoothly. "It was my idea to do this in the first place. It'd make discovering our presence in Moscow harder, and a mysterious man is going to trip fewer flags than a R-grade combat construct. Donald here has been known to be around handsome young men all the time, so it makes sense."
"Why do you keep doing this to me, Rose?" Henriette says, sighing.
"Doing what?" Rosencrantz responds innocently. "It's just a simple trick of mutable biology. A lot of infiltration constructs have it, because you don't always know what kind of person someone'll respond to best."
"Anyone who'd actually get fooled by that disguise probably wouldn't have access to any information about your existence, and anyone who has information about you wouldn't be fooled." Serafina manages weakly. "Please don't tell me this is your teenage rebellion stage." she mutters under her breath. "If you wanted a disguise you could have told me, I could have gotten you a retroviral upgrade with a fully working biosculpt instead of your hacking your own regeneration to do it."
"You could, but that'd stop you from asking about Jamelia's braintapes." Rose says. "I know they exist, she's a senior operative and they had braintapes for everyone in EXEMPLAR 3. I know you still have access to a lot of them between Maribel and your own influence. And that's why I want Henriette here as well."
Donald understands. "Because as the 'savior of Moscow', she can get something to install it requisitioned? So what you want to do is to get Jamelia's braintape and upload it to someone."
"Yes! Exactly." Rosencrantz grins. "It'd have to be a fresh Vanessa or a HITMark, though. It's really hard to braintape over someone who's already conscious, but both of those were designed to accept tape."
Donald notices Henriette shudder slightly at the mention of 'braintape'.
"I don't know how to do a braintape upload, though." Serafina says. "Even if you can get the rest of your plan to work."
"I'm sure you can figure it out before we land." Rosencrantz says reasonably. "You're really good at improvising, Serafina, and I really want to find Director Belltower."
And because you want to be something more than a broken shell for a dead woman created by a group of wicked old men who treat you like a common whore to be used and then discarded. Thorn says. She's smiling, which is often a sign that something very bad or disappointing is about to happen to Rose. Sadly, your priorities are still out of order, but baby steps.
Rose doesn't know whether Thorn wants her to abandon the chase or if she's actually approving.
"I suppose it can't be that hard, can it?" Serafina concedes. "Just give me a few hours to hypercram the knowledge and get access. I'll be done around when you get to London."
"Fine." Henriette humphs. "But just because I want to help Director Belltower."
Rosencrantz looks slightly confused. What other reasons might Henriette have for listening to her- his suggestions?
***************************************************************************
Donald and Rose- ncrantz are met at the airport by a short woman who looks suspiciously similar to Jamelia Belltower. No, not suspiciously similar. Identical to Jamelia Belltower, down to the way she walks. Rosencrantz sniffs at the air slightly. "She doesn't smell right. For a moment I thought-"
Donald repeats something he's never needed to use before. "Standard U-S-R." Unit Status Report. He's never had to ask for a HITMark's status to confirm, because normally they don't act like people. This one, though?
"I am a Hyper Intelligence Technologies Mark V, Unit Code Lambada-552-Epsilon-5, requisitioned by Financier Donald Sykes as an escort. I am currently running a beta-level psyche simulation of NWO Operative Jamelia Belltower. This simulation is at 98% stability and is of indefinite duration."
"Ah Serafina." Donald sighs. "This isn't my fault why are you doing this to me?" Now he's going to have to justify to Disbursements why, exactly, he wanted a HITMark that looked like his boss to visit London, and the truth was absolutely unacceptable. "I really wanted to sleep with my boss but this would get awkward so I got a HITMark who looked like her" was only marginally more acceptable.
"Is Doctor Rosario abusing Union resources for personal vendettas?" the HITMark asks. "Remind the real me to talk to her about this."
"I don't think that'll be necessary." Donald manages. "It's... of a somewhat senstive nature."
"You can talk about its sensitive nature when this is over. Right now I need to find... myself. My real self." the HITMark says. "First steps first, we need to get access to GCHQ."
"She's- you're not going to be showing up on the grid. You're too good for that." Donald says. "All we know is that a hospital admitted a patient under your name complaining of headaches, and a few hours later was attacked by commando types. Serafina says that you'd probably have memory damage because of the INVISIBLE BEAR unraveling. She explained it to Henriette with the analogy of trying to use a program to read a saved file of a newer format."
"Yes, the briefing mentioned that most Union surveillance assets couldn't find me. That means I'm going to be acting in a fashion intended to reduce visibility, if I remember how to. If I was attacked- I'd have tried to confuse C3 as much as possible, taken out the minimum number of assailants, and then escaped. I need to know what I said, and then we need to pay the hospital a visit. My courses of action would be limited-I'd have taken the least bad one, which I need to know about now. Do we have transport?"
Donald smiles. "You know the Moscow limo?"
"Yes?"
"I had it shipped right to London. We're driving in style."
Jamelia's beta-level sighs. "Couldn't we have gotten a less visible vehicle?"
"Look, until Rose...ncrantz suggested using your braintape backups to find you, I was here under the guise of this being a pleasure trip. I suppose we could rent something more discreet."
___________________________________________________________________________
Things Serafina has bought with XP: Mind 5. I'm going to need to edit the first page descriptions sooner or later, but Mind 5 allows her to basically create minds out of thin air, or, in this case, edit memories. I was going to make you guys roll for it, but this was more interesting. (I am totally willing to offer Serafina bonus XP if you guys manage Intern Stunts to make her Mind 5 uploading easier, though).
Jamelia Mark II is a HITMark V with her memories, personality, and Abilities, although none of her Enlightened Science (thus, beta level). She inherits Jamelia's Mental and Social traits, but uses the HITMark V's physicals. She is not a very good replacement for Jamelia.
Be Jamelia:
[ ] (2.0x) He's talking nonsense. Break into an official government building and see if you can't find proof you're a government agent.
[ ] (1.5x) Listen to Senex and go to that abandoned place.
[ ] (1.25x) Grill Senex about who you were.
[ ] (1x) Find a motel, try to remember more.
[ ] Write-in.
Be The Terminator Currently Known As Jamelia:
[ ] (1.5x) Provoke the enemy. Find out who you're up against and who ordered the hit.
[ ] (1.25x) Continue with poking into GCHQ and tapping comms.
[ ] (+.25x) Do it quietly and sneaky-like.
[ ] (-.25x) Claim to have official government sanction.
[ ] (-1.0x) Oh, just barge through the front door guns blazing. Wait wait that's the HITMark base programming talking.
[ ] Visit the hospital and figure out what exactly's gone on.
[ ] Write-in.
Your Intern Team
[ ] Write-in something for them to do.
Pimpmobiles? Pimpmobiles.
[ ] (2.0x) People don't need pimpmobiles. Hell, they don't even want pimpmobiles. (Keep it in the garage)
[ ] (0.8x) Oh what the hell, keep the pimpmobile around. Blaring your presence here is the best way to be Totally Not A Spy, after all. (Drive it around).
___________________________________________________________________________
New Game Concept: Legendary Attributes/Abilities
Some characters have Legendary Attributes or Abilities. You've met a few so far. These expressions of legendary prowess grant automatic successes on relevant rolls, and furthermore provide additional benefits. For example, Cross had Legendary Firearms which granted him an automatic success on Firearms rolls and let him ignore almost all difficulty penalties related to shooting guns.
Jamelia now has Legendary Dexterity 1, providing an automatic success on all Dexterity-related rolls, and allowing her to count 10s as 2 successes on Dexterity-related rolls (so if she rolls Dexterity, she rolls Yd10x7 instead of Yd10e7). "Hey MJ12, this sounds just like Mega-Dexterity in Aberrant 2.0". Ding ding ding we have a winner. Legendary Attributes are "static" magic of a sort, and do not provoke Paradox. They can, however, be extremely obvious, which may not create Paradox but may cause people to take notice. Jamelia's Legendary Dexterity Enhancement is Freeflow. She jumps extremely high, takes no damage from falls, and can easily scale vertical surfaces by running straight up.
There's no red in the streets of London, Jamelia Belltower thinks to herself as she watches the world from the night bus. The sodium streetlights wash it away. She's on the N97, and it'll be taking her east, back closer into central London. She swiped someone's wallet, and got an Oyster card out of it, along with some petty change. It's too late for the Tube to be running, but there are always buses.
She knows this and doesn't know how she knows this. She also doesn't know how she knows how to slip past the position of the cameras on the bus so they just catch a hooded figure, how to keep behind the person boarding in front of her, and that if she sits right up against the window here, she's not visible to the driver or the camera. And come to mention it, she doesn't know where she learned to steal wallets, either.
The weather is humid. It feels like it's going to rain. She needs to find somewhere safe she can get to where she can grab some rest. Or failing that, somewhere which does black coffee. She suspects it's going to be black coffee.
Sleep is an inconvenience. She doesn't know why she thinks this, but this is an opinion she's sure she holds strongly.
The headache is getting worse. That's probably a bad sign. But she can't let it get in her way. She'll just have to see if she can find a 24-hour shop which sells paracetamol. She can't go back to a hospital. Maybe if she gets to another city, she can fake being in a car crash, and get seen to by doctors.
It's probably worrying that this is her first reaction, but she knows it's the right one. Hospitals aren't safe. They - whoever they are - will find her again if she goes to them with the same symptoms, even if she leaves London.
The pain spikes. Her hands lock into claws on the edge of the seat. She takes sharp breaths, trying not to look like anything's wrong. The last thing she needs is for some well-intended person to phone 999. Apathy and drunken inattention are her best friend here.
And then the memories come.
Cemal swings his legs off his horse, and leaps off. The ostler in the yard is already bowing to him with respect. He recognizes him.
"Is Master Lionel home?" Cemal asks, as if he does not already know.
"Cemal! Old friend," comes a booming voice from behind him. The master is an elderly man, a decade into his second century, but thanks to his study of the alchemical arts his body remains strong even if his hair is as white as snow and his skin is wrinkled like old leather. "And what brings you to my house at this late hour."
"Lionel," Cemal says warmly. "I bring news from a Convocation in Venice. Gather the best of your students. This is news you all must know."
"A Convocation?" Lionel says, frowning. "Why was I not told of this?"
"That is one of the things you must know," Cemal says. "It is not good news."
It does not take long for the tousled acolytes to be roused from their beds. Cemal notes that two of them seem rather more mussed and awake than the others, and draws his own conclusions - one confirmed by a sniff. The meeting room is deep within the townhouse, and is lit by alchemical lights, casting a warm glow almost akin to sunlight.
"Wine?" Lionel asks, offering him the jug, before shaking his head. "Oh, my head must be going strange in my old age. I forget that you do not drink, old friend."
"It is late," Cemal says easily, pouring a glass for his friend, and handing it to him. Lionel salutes him in thanks and drinks. "And since it is late, I should convey my news now, so that you might go on to your rest. A Convention was called in Venice. Evidence was judged and accounted for. It is controversial, yes, but the facts seem irrefutable." He pauses, takes a breath, considers how to say the next bit. "The Order has judged against you and the Craftmasons," Cemal says. "There has been an accounting of your sins and...
He shifts in his seat, throwing knives dropping down from his wrist holsters. In one smooth motion he spreads his arms out wide. Blades find the throats of his old friend's acolytes, and the venom that tips them, distilled from the gall-bladder of black goats, has doomed them even if they survive their wounds.
"... you are a dead man already," Cemal says sadly, "old friend. Your wine is poisoned. You cannot save yourself."
Four men and two women are down on the floor, twitching or already dead. And Cemal is back in his seat.
"Treachery," Lionel gasps.
"Yes. Your treachery," Cemal says. There are tears on his face as he continues, "You are not the only one, old friend," he says sadly. "This is a black night indeed. Why did you Craftmasons force us to act? Why did you bring this on yourself?"
"Force you?" Lionel asks. He is sweating, and his face is pale. Already, his muscles will be weakening, his nerves numbing. Cemal chose this poison because it allows its victims to keep on talking until their chest seizes up and they black out from lack of air - and perish shortly after. "We were friends, God damn you! I don't know which viper whispered in your ear, but..."
"I have seen the evidence! How could you let yourself indulge in vanity and sorcerous ways? You were protecting the sorcerers of Toulouse, who hid among our ranks! They had Infernalists among their ranks, those who consorted with Hell itself! And I have seen your vanity, though I did not wish to believe it. But a convocation brought the full depths of your sorcery to our attention. I did not believe it myself until Master Vanderborough showed me. Your adepts in Toulouse were binding demons into cannons, in the name of 'progress'. And there were papers! Documents." He throws one down in front of his dying friend. "This is your seal, ordering the blood-sacrificing witches of the English forests to be left alone! Those hags prey on children!"
The dying man laughs, a weak hacking cough. "Vanderborough. Of course. Those vipers of the High Guild. Cemal, you poor fool. You've brought your doom upon yourself. Remember? I read it for you. 'Trust shall be your downfall'. And..." he coughs and wheezes, "... you thought I was the one you should not trust. Perhaps... perhaps that is my punishment for the hubris of trying to divine the will of God, and advising you on how to avert it. That is my seal, yes, but I never gave those orders. Master Belltower was preparing a force to wipe those vile heathen witches from the world.
He pauses, gasping for breath.
"Cemal, I knew the idiots in Toulouse were dabbling in things they should not. I... I was investigating them. Trying to separate the guilty from the innocent, before your blades reaped them all. Covering up our sins so we did not look weak, so we could deal with them quietly. The Guild... the Guild took this as an excuse. They have been hunting us. There are Infernalists among their ranks too, but... but I fear it is the lure of lucre which has brought their ire against us. Toulouse has given them the excuse they have long desired. Profit, for them, numbs the feeling. Mammon owns their souls; metaphorically if not literally. God only knows what shall happen now to the Order, with those vipers running loose."
Cemal tries to control the shake in his hands. "But... the evidence..."
"I... I almost feel sorry for you, old friend," says the dying man. "I shall go to God with a c-c-clean conscience, free of sin. I have always done what I could. But you? Your hands are red with my blood, and the blood of my brothers. What... what will you d-do to clean them, C-Cemal? How long must... must you w-work to... to wash away your d-deeds this... day..."
She sees another convocation, decades later. She is the previous man, but older now, more dignified.
"The Inner Circle of the Order of Reason has become corrupt." Cemal says. "They have retreated to their own Umbral Chantries and their own underground alchemical labs, afraid of mortality. Afraid to play by the rules they said they would play by. They have deceived us into doing their dirty work, solely because of lust for temporal power. We cannot let this stand."
Another voice responds. She knows that she should remember who they are, that her dream persona would know these men and women (but mostly men) by name-but something has erased them from existence. She talks to figures that, if she concentrates, resemble people she knows could not be there. "I understand that you have lost much due to the machinations of the High Guild, but-"
"But nothing. The Order of Reason is irreparably corrupt."
"So we are to abandon them again, Master Cemal? Are we becoming reliable traitors? First the magi, then the Order-are we to be forever alone?"
"The path of the righteous is never easy." But is this course of action really righteous? Cemal seeks to wash away blood with more blood.
"This proposal- by joining the magi, the Hermetics, do we not become what we strove to fight against? The Ixoi-we have always existed to kill those who suffer from hubris, the god-kings who labor under the delusions that simply having more power than the common man makes them better than they are. The bulk of us have already decided that the Hermetics and their other magi are irreparably corrupt. If we join them, if they win, we undo even the small amount of good they have accomplished."
"That is why," Cermal shouts, "we do not win, nor do we help them win. No. We cannot let anyone gain power. Neither the Order of Reason, nor the Magi, nor the vampires or the werebeasts. We become a check on both sides' power. We ensure the Ascension War lasts forever. It has to be this way." Cemal concludes. "We have seen what happens when the magi have absolute power-we have seen what happens when the Order has it. Neither is good for the masses. They must be empowered, they must be given the opportunity to choose-and to do so, both sides must be weak enough that they cannot exploit the Masses-both sides must not be able to enforce their view of the world."
"If anyone finds out, we will be killed. No, worse than killed. We will be Gilguled."
"We have been killing so-called god-kings for millenia, my friend. We have not been destroyed then, and even if we take on this responsibility, we will not be destroyed. All that must be done is that everyone here, and everyone who agrees, must be sworn to die before their secrets are told. A last, grand effect. We will erase this history from our very souls, ensure that our ghosts do not remember."
She considers the memories. No. They're not memories. For one, she's not a man. For two, that wasn't the normal world.
Jamelia stares out the window, out at the night. Those weren't her memories. But she's sure they were memories.
Who is she? She wants to find herself, and she needs to hide. She doesn't trust Senex, and something in her gut says that it's for good reason. She thinks about places that might hide her, where government agents would be turned away or given the absolute minimum help. She settles on a location.
***************************************************************************
It's been a while since Jamelia's been in a Masjid. She doesn't know why she knows this (She's not totally sure she's muslim, but something pings right when she thinks about it, so presumably it's not wrong? Or at least is close), but it's no more worrying than her utter lack of understanding of most other things involving her memory. For now, a Masjid's a good place to hide while waiting for the heat to die down, somewhere they, and the mysterious voice on the phone, won't expect her.
She slips in, hoodie up as a makeshift Hijab, just another person trying to make the Isha prayer. There's a local in the lobby. A desi kid in a football jersey and jeans, headphones in his ears, listening to something absurdly loud. It takes a minute to get his attention, but she manages to receive directions to the prayer hall and bathroom without much issue.
She does Wudhu, rather quickly, slips into the women's section, joins the line, and as the imam finishes the Iqama Jamelia Belltower does something she hasn't done in a long, long while.
She prays. When she's done, her phone rings again.
"Jamelia Belltower." Senex says. "You are not supposed to be here."
"And why, exactly, is that?" Jamelia asks.
"What do you think about religious music? Choruses, perhaps?"
Another memory. A large man, heavy with muscle, wielding a wicked-looking meathook that glowed white-hot. Despite holding it in bare hands, he is not burned, nor does he seem to notice the heat. She is chained, vulnerable. She doesn't let him know. He starts to talk. "My apologies for the temporal pain, but the One's forgiveness requires a sacrifice. You must understand, I do not actually enjoy the torture, but-"
"Self-justifying lies from a monster who remembers the Dark Ages and the Inquisition fondly." Jamelia remembers herself saying, with bravado she didn't actually feel then. That was before-that was before she was changed, before she was different. "Just get it over with."'
"I don't much like religious music." Jamelia admits. "Although now-maybe I could get used to it."
"Why do you still identify as Muslim despite this being the first time you've prayed in decades, Jamelia Belltower?" Senex asks. "Is it because of that experience back in Angola? Is it because it's the last thing that holds you to your past life? Are you afraid of losing yourself to the machine, and so this is part of your tightrope act? Keep considering yourself a Muslim, because the idea of finally letting go of your entire previous life scares you?"
"How do you know so much about me?" she hisses.
Thankfully, Senex doesn't note that there isn't a denial in the statement. "Keep your friends close, your enemies closer. I know so much about you because you were a potential thorn in my side. I admit that I know more about you now that you have something of mine with you." Jamelia glances at the bracelet. "I crafted it, long ago. In it is some of my essence, some of my very existence." Jamelia considers throwing it away. "Discard it if you wish. This is your journey, not mine. But it might be helpful while you recover your- your faculties."
"I don't appreciate being given strange psychic artifacts without being told what they are." Jamelia says as she leaves the Masjid. Something about his statements seems right. She really isn't safe there. She wonders why she went there-she wonders who she is again. A Muslim-but maybe not? Fighting religious extremists in... Angola? Choruses? Choristers? Choirs? And the Order of Reason? "And I wonder what kind of person you were, to be an enemy of a counterterrorist agent."
There is a faint chuckle from the phone. "Do you still believe the world in front of you is all that exists? My dear young girl, you are not a government agent. I suppose while I was a man, you would have called me a 'Reality Terrorist' and sought my destruction. But now-now that war is over. You won, or maybe you didn't. What do you call it when your victory is the precursor of a new war, one where you must war against your own sins?"
Another memory. A woman, wearing a floral garland and clothes of woven hemp. "Why are you doing this to us? We just wanted to help these children your reality said would die from incurable diseases. We haven't attacked you or sheltered anyone who might do that. We just want-we just want to make the world a better place. Why can't that happen?"
Jamelia raises her gun. It's a weapon of blued steel, primitive yet advanced. "You've been undermining legitimate medical authorities with your 'herbal treatments'. You've been acting in a way which undermines actual science and medicine for primitivist beliefs that only work when you're there to use your psychic powers to make it work. What happens when you're not here?" Jamelia asks, and she doesn't let them answer as she fires.
'Shamans' exposed as frauds, dozens of children dead, the news article says. Fraudsters missing, presumed at large... a good day's work.
"I don't think your hands are clean either." Jamelia manages.
"They are not. But power-power makes it easier to do right, and easier to do wrong. For most, the difference between the two is merely perspective. I once tried to redeem someone who thought reality was so broken that to burn it all to ash and cast it into Oblivion screaming was the best thing to do. That was the 'right thing'. You are now facing your own sins."
"And you want me to what? You want me to defect?"
"No, that would be pointless. What I want, dear girl, is for you to forgive yourself. And perhaps, for you to remember who you were, who you could be, and who you are. Your enemy is in denial and does not understand. But it has resources and power and intellect. Your only advantage is self-understanding. And to understand yourself, you must be able to live with yourself."
***************************************************************************
Donald Sykes is going to die. That's one thing he's sure of. He's doomed. Doomed doomed doomity doomed.
He has no idea how he was talked into this. Oh. he understands the logically sound reasons. Rose was very persuasive when she laid them out. He's a public figure, a known playboy, and London is a world capital for the hyper-rich from across the globe. If he's known to be here, he can call on his assets and ties. Meanwhile, Rose is somewhat known among the enemies to the Union, so she needs to cover up her identity. And there are things she can do which allow her to reconfigure her biology somewhat.
Next to him, a handsome young man with pale skin, shoulder-length coal-black hair, and sensitive features reads an economics textbook on his kindle. The young man strokes his chin, and turns the page.
"I wish I had a beard," Rose says wistfully, looking sideways at Donald. "I think it'd feel right if I could stroke my beard while reading."
He has it down on paper that this was all Rose's - well, Ash Rosencrantz's - idea and he's still doomed. He has to remember to think of Rose... of Rosencrantz as a 'he' for now. Questions will be raised if he slips and talks about 'her' in public. Man, he's even out of practice with his alt-gender pronouns. The Technocracy doesn't go for casual self-transformation. Okay, that's a lie. It does. But it doesn't do it for the same reasons as the Ecstatics. This is always awkward. But more awkward is that he can still see most of her features in the mix and this is exactly what Rose's sexy (male) twin would have looked like and a rebellious part of his mind is considering the number of possibilities enabled by a romance with a woman who can look like anyone.
"Also," Rosencrantz adds, gesturing, "I've been thinking. You know, Director Belltower is sort of in a state like me. I mean, kind of. I mean, the Director Belltower we know is the Reina to the Jamelia who's currently running around with amnesia and a bunch of implanted memories - which are her own memories, but she doesn't know that. If you see what I mean." He frowns. "Also, wow, I hope nothing makes Reina come out because," he giggles, "... well, she'll be a little surprised by this."
Donald perks his head up. "Rose...ncratz," he says, "focus." The things Rose is saying makes... surprising amounts of sense. "Okay. So you've been in this kind of amnesiac position. Hmm."
"What are you thinking?" Rosencrantz asks.
"I don't know," Donald admits. "I'm sort of working towards something." He shakes his head. "We just don't know enough about her to know what she might know," he says to himself. "And her files are incredibly classified. And probably packed full of lies, because New World Order. I don't think I can begin to put together a psych profile which would allow us to make educated guesses about what she might do with her skills, but without most of her memories."
"Well," Rosencrantz points out, "we know that she worked with that man. What's his name? The one who visited her when we were looking for someone to replace Lt Rajesh."
"Winston Kinglsey," Donald says darkly. Yes. Director Belltower had been a little... sharp with him when he'd tried to warn her that Kingsley was a sociopathic babykilling extralegal Syndic, and had told him to stop taking shallow readings of someone he didn't even know. Which said nasty things about what Director Belltower had got up to in the past, honestly.
"Him, yes!" Rosencrantz says brightly. "Henriette made a joke about how Director Belltower still owed her that story about fighting EDE giant robots in South Africa to try to cover up how worried she was about her when she was still in the coma, so that's something else. We know she's very pragmatic about working with RDs and accepting of things like psychic powers... and I think that makes sense, because she's old and Serafina said that the NWO used to use a lot of psychic powers. She's obsessive about getting information, but runs on gut instinct when she winds up being surprised, like when Panopticon showed up in Hong Kong. She throws herself into her work. We know she's an idealist who spends a lot of time pretending to be a jaded manipulative cynic..."
"Uh," says Donald.
"... and we know that she tends to push herself beyond her limits. Like, all the time. I sleep more than her and I need it less." Rosencrantz nods. "So she's almost certainly going to ignore the fact that she has a splitting headache and probably throw herself into working out who she is," he says.
"Yes, that's certainly true," Donald says. "I'm just not entirely sure how to use this. But thank you, Rose... ncrantz. That's something we're going to have to keep in mind." He shakes his head. "Could you call Serafina and ask her to put together a model of how much knowledge Belltower is likely to have access to?"
"Give me a minute to call Henriette and Serafina." Rosencrantz says, craning his head slightly in thought. "I think there might be something resembling a solution here."
The Executive Supersonic Transport's holoconference room lights up, and Henriette and Serafina are there, real enough to touch. Kinetic field projectors and haptic feedback systems mean such a statement is quite literal-anything you could do in person you could do via a holopresence room. Henriette speaks up first.
"Who's tall, dark, and handsome here? Your friend?"
Serafina glares at Donald. "What exactly, Mr. Sykes, have you convinced Rose to do now? I believe the implications of my statements were clear? And now you're going around convincing her to- I don't know what fetish of yours she's indulging but I'll have none of it."
"Wait." Henriette sputters. "That's- that's ROSE?"
"Serafina." Rosencrantz says smoothly. "It was my idea to do this in the first place. It'd make discovering our presence in Moscow harder, and a mysterious man is going to trip fewer flags than a R-grade combat construct. Donald here has been known to be around handsome young men all the time, so it makes sense."
"Why do you keep doing this to me, Rose?" Henriette says, sighing.
"Doing what?" Rosencrantz responds innocently. "It's just a simple trick of mutable biology. A lot of infiltration constructs have it, because you don't always know what kind of person someone'll respond to best."
"Anyone who'd actually get fooled by that disguise probably wouldn't have access to any information about your existence, and anyone who has information about you wouldn't be fooled." Serafina manages weakly. "Please don't tell me this is your teenage rebellion stage." she mutters under her breath. "If you wanted a disguise you could have told me, I could have gotten you a retroviral upgrade with a fully working biosculpt instead of your hacking your own regeneration to do it."
"You could, but that'd stop you from asking about Jamelia's braintapes." Rose says. "I know they exist, she's a senior operative and they had braintapes for everyone in EXEMPLAR 3. I know you still have access to a lot of them between Maribel and your own influence. And that's why I want Henriette here as well."
Donald understands. "Because as the 'savior of Moscow', she can get something to install it requisitioned? So what you want to do is to get Jamelia's braintape and upload it to someone."
"Yes! Exactly." Rosencrantz grins. "It'd have to be a fresh Vanessa or a HITMark, though. It's really hard to braintape over someone who's already conscious, but both of those were designed to accept tape."
Donald notices Henriette shudder slightly at the mention of 'braintape'.
"I don't know how to do a braintape upload, though." Serafina says. "Even if you can get the rest of your plan to work."
"I'm sure you can figure it out before we land." Rosencrantz says reasonably. "You're really good at improvising, Serafina, and I really want to find Director Belltower."
And because you want to be something more than a broken shell for a dead woman created by a group of wicked old men who treat you like a common whore to be used and then discarded. Thorn says. She's smiling, which is often a sign that something very bad or disappointing is about to happen to Rose. Sadly, your priorities are still out of order, but baby steps.
Rose doesn't know whether Thorn wants her to abandon the chase or if she's actually approving.
"I suppose it can't be that hard, can it?" Serafina concedes. "Just give me a few hours to hypercram the knowledge and get access. I'll be done around when you get to London."
"Fine." Henriette humphs. "But just because I want to help Director Belltower."
Rosencrantz looks slightly confused. What other reasons might Henriette have for listening to her- his suggestions?
***************************************************************************
Donald and Rose- ncrantz are met at the airport by a short woman who looks suspiciously similar to Jamelia Belltower. No, not suspiciously similar. Identical to Jamelia Belltower, down to the way she walks. Rosencrantz sniffs at the air slightly. "She doesn't smell right. For a moment I thought-"
Donald repeats something he's never needed to use before. "Standard U-S-R." Unit Status Report. He's never had to ask for a HITMark's status to confirm, because normally they don't act like people. This one, though?
"I am a Hyper Intelligence Technologies Mark V, Unit Code Lambada-552-Epsilon-5, requisitioned by Financier Donald Sykes as an escort. I am currently running a beta-level psyche simulation of NWO Operative Jamelia Belltower. This simulation is at 98% stability and is of indefinite duration."
"Ah Serafina." Donald sighs. "This isn't my fault why are you doing this to me?" Now he's going to have to justify to Disbursements why, exactly, he wanted a HITMark that looked like his boss to visit London, and the truth was absolutely unacceptable. "I really wanted to sleep with my boss but this would get awkward so I got a HITMark who looked like her" was only marginally more acceptable.
"Is Doctor Rosario abusing Union resources for personal vendettas?" the HITMark asks. "Remind the real me to talk to her about this."
"I don't think that'll be necessary." Donald manages. "It's... of a somewhat senstive nature."
"You can talk about its sensitive nature when this is over. Right now I need to find... myself. My real self." the HITMark says. "First steps first, we need to get access to GCHQ."
"She's- you're not going to be showing up on the grid. You're too good for that." Donald says. "All we know is that a hospital admitted a patient under your name complaining of headaches, and a few hours later was attacked by commando types. Serafina says that you'd probably have memory damage because of the INVISIBLE BEAR unraveling. She explained it to Henriette with the analogy of trying to use a program to read a saved file of a newer format."
"Yes, the briefing mentioned that most Union surveillance assets couldn't find me. That means I'm going to be acting in a fashion intended to reduce visibility, if I remember how to. If I was attacked- I'd have tried to confuse C3 as much as possible, taken out the minimum number of assailants, and then escaped. I need to know what I said, and then we need to pay the hospital a visit. My courses of action would be limited-I'd have taken the least bad one, which I need to know about now. Do we have transport?"
Donald smiles. "You know the Moscow limo?"
"Yes?"
"I had it shipped right to London. We're driving in style."
Jamelia's beta-level sighs. "Couldn't we have gotten a less visible vehicle?"
"Look, until Rose...ncrantz suggested using your braintape backups to find you, I was here under the guise of this being a pleasure trip. I suppose we could rent something more discreet."
___________________________________________________________________________
Things Serafina has bought with XP: Mind 5. I'm going to need to edit the first page descriptions sooner or later, but Mind 5 allows her to basically create minds out of thin air, or, in this case, edit memories. I was going to make you guys roll for it, but this was more interesting. (I am totally willing to offer Serafina bonus XP if you guys manage Intern Stunts to make her Mind 5 uploading easier, though).
Jamelia Mark II is a HITMark V with her memories, personality, and Abilities, although none of her Enlightened Science (thus, beta level). She inherits Jamelia's Mental and Social traits, but uses the HITMark V's physicals. She is not a very good replacement for Jamelia.
Be Jamelia:
[ ] (2.0x) He's talking nonsense. Break into an official government building and see if you can't find proof you're a government agent.
[ ] (1.5x) Listen to Senex and go to that abandoned place.
[ ] (1.25x) Grill Senex about who you were.
[ ] (1x) Find a motel, try to remember more.
[ ] Write-in.
Be The Terminator Currently Known As Jamelia:
[ ] (1.5x) Provoke the enemy. Find out who you're up against and who ordered the hit.
[ ] (1.25x) Continue with poking into GCHQ and tapping comms.
[ ] (+.25x) Do it quietly and sneaky-like.
[ ] (-.25x) Claim to have official government sanction.
[ ] (-1.0x) Oh, just barge through the front door guns blazing. Wait wait that's the HITMark base programming talking.
[ ] Visit the hospital and figure out what exactly's gone on.
[ ] Write-in.
Your Intern Team
[ ] Write-in something for them to do.
Pimpmobiles? Pimpmobiles.
[ ] (2.0x) People don't need pimpmobiles. Hell, they don't even want pimpmobiles. (Keep it in the garage)
[ ] (0.8x) Oh what the hell, keep the pimpmobile around. Blaring your presence here is the best way to be Totally Not A Spy, after all. (Drive it around).
___________________________________________________________________________
New Game Concept: Legendary Attributes/Abilities
Some characters have Legendary Attributes or Abilities. You've met a few so far. These expressions of legendary prowess grant automatic successes on relevant rolls, and furthermore provide additional benefits. For example, Cross had Legendary Firearms which granted him an automatic success on Firearms rolls and let him ignore almost all difficulty penalties related to shooting guns.
Jamelia now has Legendary Dexterity 1, providing an automatic success on all Dexterity-related rolls, and allowing her to count 10s as 2 successes on Dexterity-related rolls (so if she rolls Dexterity, she rolls Yd10x7 instead of Yd10e7). "Hey MJ12, this sounds just like Mega-Dexterity in Aberrant 2.0". Ding ding ding we have a winner. Legendary Attributes are "static" magic of a sort, and do not provoke Paradox. They can, however, be extremely obvious, which may not create Paradox but may cause people to take notice. Jamelia's Legendary Dexterity Enhancement is Freeflow. She jumps extremely high, takes no damage from falls, and can easily scale vertical surfaces by running straight up.
Willpower: 9/9
Prime Energy: 5/5
Health Levels: -0/-0/-1/-1/-2/-2/-4/Incapacitated/Dying
Current Injuries: Splitting Headache (0 Bashing levels)
Current Effects: None
Special Abilities:
Freeflow: +1 automatic success to jumping rolls, ignores fall damage, can run straight up vertical surfaces
Paradox: 0
Soak: 2B/1L/0A (Stolen clothing, 0B/0L/0A)
Dodge DV: 11/11
Enlightenment: 3
Spheres: Entropy 1, Time 1, Forces 1, Mind 1
Prime Energy: 5/5
Health Levels: -0/-0/-1/-1/-2/-2/-4/Incapacitated/Dying
Current Injuries: Splitting Headache (0 Bashing levels)
Current Effects: None
Special Abilities:
Freeflow: +1 automatic success to jumping rolls, ignores fall damage, can run straight up vertical surfaces
Paradox: 0
Soak: 2B/1L/0A (Stolen clothing, 0B/0L/0A)
Dodge DV: 11/11
Enlightenment: 3
Spheres: Entropy 1, Time 1, Forces 1, Mind 1
Willpower: 9/9
Prime Energy: N/A
Health Levels: -0 x 6/-1 x 4/-2 x 4/-4 x 2/Incapacitated/Dying
System Integrity Monitor: No Damage
Special Abilities:
IX-22 Chain Gun [RETRACTED], [AMMUNITION: 20mm PRIMIUM x 50/20mm HVAP x 100/20mm HEAB x 50]
Monofilament Primium Talons [RETRACTED]
Stealth Shielding [ACTIVE], +2 difficulty for Life/Matter scans to detect HITMark
Paradox: 5 (5 permanent)
Soak: 10B/10L/4A, +3B/3L/3A against magical attack (Stylish black suit, 0B/0L/0A)
Dodge DV: 8/8
Enlightenment: None
Spheres: None
Prime Energy: N/A
Health Levels: -0 x 6/-1 x 4/-2 x 4/-4 x 2/Incapacitated/Dying
System Integrity Monitor: No Damage
Special Abilities:
IX-22 Chain Gun [RETRACTED], [AMMUNITION: 20mm PRIMIUM x 50/20mm HVAP x 100/20mm HEAB x 50]
Monofilament Primium Talons [RETRACTED]
Stealth Shielding [ACTIVE], +2 difficulty for Life/Matter scans to detect HITMark
Paradox: 5 (5 permanent)
Soak: 10B/10L/4A, +3B/3L/3A against magical attack (Stylish black suit, 0B/0L/0A)
Dodge DV: 8/8
Enlightenment: None
Spheres: None
Willpower: 8/8
Prime Energy: 3/3
Health Levels: -0x 4/-1 x 4/-2 x 4/-4 x 3/Incapacitated/Dying. Regenerates 1 Bashing/Lethal HL a round no matter what. Heals Aggravated damage at normal speed.
Current Damage: None
Vampire Heart: 10/10 Blood Points-Spend 1 Blood Point to gain an automatic success on Strength rolls, get an extra action for the turn, or heal 2 Bashing/1 Lethal health level instantly.
Undead Strength: 1 Aggravated HL to activate, adds up to its rating in automatic successes to Strength rolls for feats of strength and damage.
Predator's Pheromones: 6/6 Prime Energy. Activate to add +3 automatic successes on social rolls based off of sexuality, majesty, or simply dominating someone else's will.
Current Effects:
Rosencrantz (and Guildernstern) is (are) Alive (Life 3 disguise)
DV: 14/14
Prime Energy: 3/3
Health Levels: -0x 4/-1 x 4/-2 x 4/-4 x 3/Incapacitated/Dying. Regenerates 1 Bashing/Lethal HL a round no matter what. Heals Aggravated damage at normal speed.
Current Damage: None
Vampire Heart: 10/10 Blood Points-Spend 1 Blood Point to gain an automatic success on Strength rolls, get an extra action for the turn, or heal 2 Bashing/1 Lethal health level instantly.
Undead Strength: 1 Aggravated HL to activate, adds up to its rating in automatic successes to Strength rolls for feats of strength and damage.
Predator's Pheromones: 6/6 Prime Energy. Activate to add +3 automatic successes on social rolls based off of sexuality, majesty, or simply dominating someone else's will.
Current Effects:
Rosencrantz (and Guildernstern) is (are) Alive (Life 3 disguise)
DV: 14/14
Willpower: 6/6
Prime Energy: 12/4 (may only spend up to 4/turn)
Health Levels: -0/-0/-1/-1/-2/-2/-4/Incapacitated/Dying
Current Damage: None
Current Effects:
Marked for Death (+Serafina Anger)
Current Paradox: None
Prime Energy: 12/4 (may only spend up to 4/turn)
Health Levels: -0/-0/-1/-1/-2/-2/-4/Incapacitated/Dying
Current Damage: None
Current Effects:
Marked for Death (+Serafina Anger)
Current Paradox: None
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... oh, Jamelia. The reincarnation of one of the founding members of House Janissary (and possibly the Golden Chalice as well)?
I'm... I'm not even surprised. The apple of Eris really didn't fall far from the tree, did it?
I'm... I'm not even surprised. The apple of Eris really didn't fall far from the tree, did it?
That Jamelia Bob. Can we use its mind as part of what will go into the conditioning tape into the HITMark. Maybe also the hospital records of brain activity while Jamelia was healing - if there are any such things.
[quote"The Inner Circle of the Order of Reason has become corrupt." Cemal says. "They have retreated to their own Umbral Chantries and their own underground alchemical labs, afraid of mortality. Afraid to play by the rules they said they would play by. They have deceived us into doing their dirty work, solely because of lust for temporal power. We cannot let this stand."[/quote]
Corruption up high? You don't say.
Could these guys have been the very ones who would found Control? The Craftmasons were purged in 1670. And the Inner Circle were apparently around for a bit even before this. Wow, they're old. These guys, if they lived till now, could be 400 or 500 years old.
No, wait, I derped. That was Cemal talking to the higher ups of the Ixoi. Control would have come from the Order of Reason dudes, not from the Ixoi leaders. In fact, they freaking say just a bit later about how they'll make a working to hide and make secret their own existence from history. Dunno what I was thinking. Guess I must have been real sleepy by that point or something.
Always vigilant.
NWO. We spy on you for our/your own good.
[quote"The Inner Circle of the Order of Reason has become corrupt." Cemal says. "They have retreated to their own Umbral Chantries and their own underground alchemical labs, afraid of mortality. Afraid to play by the rules they said they would play by. They have deceived us into doing their dirty work, solely because of lust for temporal power. We cannot let this stand."[/quote]
Corruption up high? You don't say.
No, wait, I derped. That was Cemal talking to the higher ups of the Ixoi. Control would have come from the Order of Reason dudes, not from the Ixoi leaders. In fact, they freaking say just a bit later about how they'll make a working to hide and make secret their own existence from history. Dunno what I was thinking. Guess I must have been real sleepy by that point or something.
Hmm.
Well that seems to be a repeating pattern. People winning, or progressing, but eventually they lose their way and they either have to recover... or somebody else has to fix things after them. Always having to fix, repair, rejuvenate and revive idealism. It's like the final, ultimate, victory where you finally Get Things Right just doesn't come.
Always vigilant.
That was a nice turn of phrase MJ12. And I think Senex cuts to the heart of the matter here -- with what Jamelia's struggle (of cynic or idealist) has been, or the problems she's had with herself. And of the sad state of Control.
Okay. Heh. Okay, this thing has sort of been totally obvious from page 1, of course. But I think at some point Serafina really is going to have to come to terms with Rose in some way.
Memo to self: Terminator-Jamelia should write a memo, email, or otherwise leave a note to actual-Jamelia about this. Because god knows Donald will probably have some weird hangup about passing this on this.
NWO. We spy on you for our/your own good.
Mind 5. Does that mean she got to Enlightenment 5? I think for oMage your Spheres are limited by your Arete/Enlightenment. Unless you're changing that.
So Jamelia is now an Assassin's Creed/Mirror's Edge protagonist. Aaaand along with "run straight up surfaces" thing which my mind can't think of a convenient and accurate game name for.
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Grin_Reaper
Shadow Cabal Space Pirate
- Location
- Space Battleship Pennsylvania
She's Jason Spiderbourne.
- Location
- National Capital Region, USA
[X] (1x) Find a motel, try to remember more.
We don't trust Semex. And memories have been trickling in themselves.... So bunkering down to work things out ourselves is appealing...but damn, Semex has already shown he can tell where we are easily, as long as we hold on to that bracelet. I knew its shininess was a trap! What Do?
[X] (1.25x) Continue with poking into GCHQ and tapping comms.
-->[X] (+.25x) Do it quietly and sneaky-like.
[X] Write-in something for them to do.
[X] (0.8x) Oh what the hell, keep the pimpmobile around. Blaring your presence here is the best way to be Totally Not A Spy, after all. (Drive it around).
Considering just how dang handy the Doshcar came in during Moscow? All the onboard useful facilities? Oh Hell yes, we're driving this. Double bonus: If Jamelia sees it, she might remember it, or something about its passengers!
We don't trust Semex. And memories have been trickling in themselves.... So bunkering down to work things out ourselves is appealing...but damn, Semex has already shown he can tell where we are easily, as long as we hold on to that bracelet. I knew its shininess was a trap! What Do?
[X] (1.25x) Continue with poking into GCHQ and tapping comms.
-->[X] (+.25x) Do it quietly and sneaky-like.
[X] Write-in something for them to do.
[X] (0.8x) Oh what the hell, keep the pimpmobile around. Blaring your presence here is the best way to be Totally Not A Spy, after all. (Drive it around).
Considering just how dang handy the Doshcar came in during Moscow? All the onboard useful facilities? Oh Hell yes, we're driving this. Double bonus: If Jamelia sees it, she might remember it, or something about its passengers!
Sleepyness and tiredness must be catching up with me, because this is really funny to me; Jamelia is Bourne again. Because death and reincarnation and... yeah, I think everybody got it. Ha. Ha. Ha.
This... could get us noticed. By our enemies and friends. Hm.
I lol'd.
Grin_Reaper
Shadow Cabal Space Pirate
- Location
- Space Battleship Pennsylvania
I can see it now. Her memory is jogged when she walks past a solid gold BTR pulled over by the cops.
"Sir, do you have a license for this... vehicle?"
Well, one possible way to do this, could be to act brain-damaged and confused and uncertain and see if anybody goes for the HITMark thinking it's Jamelia.
Basically -- we have bait in the form of a Jamelia body-double. If we want to do things that way.
The HITMark has Stealth Shielding which makes it a bit more difficult for it to be found out as a HITMark. Dunno if that'd be enough. On the other hand, we'd only need to accidentally show up to a few cameras and then see who moves or acts.
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- Location
- National Capital Region, USA
Which could give us the comedy gold of Donald leaning out the window and trying to 'pick up' Jamelia.
Donald: "Hey, pretty lady. You want to go for a ride in my sweet, sweet Doshcar?"
Jamelia: "I don't know why, but I have the urge to ask if you are high right now...."
Donald: "That's normal, and no."
Rose(ncrantz): "Hi Jamelia! I've got no boobs!"
Jamelia: "What."
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Poor Jamelia. She wants to live in a world where missions happen without a hitch and everyone is coolly professional and knows what they're doing.
Sadly, the global paradigm in Panopticon doesn't support that, and hence she ends up with a team where the most reliable member is either the permanently drugged up mildly corrupt corporate executive, or the somewhat distractible scientist with an interesting personal life and an imaginary friend she doesn't realise is imaginary. Kessler was disqualified from the "most reliable team member" competition because the invites were sent out by smartphone, and his just was stolen by ninjas from Hong Kong (and he couldn't use it anyway).
And whenever she tries to run a professional mission, the paradox backlash from such an out-of-Consensus mission means she winds up having to order her underlings to attack Russian vampires while dressed as Robot Stalin, or her party picks up a racist animate suit of power armour, or a family member of someone in the party shows up... and they're evil!
I'm a bit curious as to why she's not a very good replacement (other than at a personal level). Jamelia's mind and social skills are her most potent tools anyway. Sure she can't boost herself with Mind and things like that but that won't exactly stop her. And what she loses out in infiltration by being easier to detect, she gets back in Hitmark combat ability and replacability.
I mean, unless this pings her Series-P related phobia, I can see this simply being subsumed into Jamelia's workaholic nature as a way to do two things at once and be in two places at once. It might even be a good basis for a Hitmark line. I mean, can you imagine just how much shit would get done if you unleashed a thousand workaholic Jamelias upon the world? Oh sure, it'd be a disaster with Panopticon getting its hands on a fork of Jamelia's mind-state, but it's a nice dream.
-------------------------
Now that I think about it, wouldn't legendary social or mental have made more sense than legendary physical? Something we'll have to consider for later.
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