Remove ads

Panopticon: A Game of Posthumans, Perniciousness, Paranoia, Politics, and Plasmaguns

View content
Remove ads
Update CXCI: Closing The Deal
  • View content
    • JB CXCI: Closing The Deal

    Henriette's been working for nearly a day on getting access to a semi-legitimate cover. Well, "working," Donald thinks. She spent a bit of time making a few hacks to websites and spent most of the rest of the time talking to her friends on IM programs, occasionally checking back to see who's taken the bait. Donald is sure that Jamelia Belltower would criticize her for it, but he really doesn't have any room to complain. And Rose would probably pout at him if he tried to make Henriette take her job more seriously, which isn't something he looks forward to. She's pretty good at the kinds of sad pouts which make people want to do what she says. She could be very very scary if she was just a little more manipulative.

    "And... we're in." Henriette hunches over the computer, fingers skittering across the keyboard. "Despite the fact I'm having to do everything manually, I might add. I've got user-level access, but that should be all that I need."

    "Great," Rose says brightly, leaning over her. "Uh. What does that mean?"

    "Well, I'm using a password I stole from a Syndicate human resources officer," Henriette says cockily. "They fell for my fishing scam - of course, it helps being able to create a perfectly authentic frontpage for my redirect and disguised URL. That's what you get when you outsource IT security to the lowest bidder, rather than ItX. We'd have caught such a trick. But that does mean I have to log in without using my ADEI - oh, and don't worry, I'm routing this through New York. I set up some helpful little things in a few places last time we were there."

    "Well done," Rose says, still looking somewhat blank. "Hasn't she done well, Donald?"

    A regular little Virtual Adept, Donald doesn't say. Even though he really wants to. He wonders if this is how things used to be, when the Virtual Adepts were part of the Technocracy and every amalgam could have their own arrogant tech expert without having to ask Iteration X to borrow one. "Yes," he instead comments. "So you've got HR access?"

    "Didn't I just say that?"

    "Well, do you have access to the records for Marion Inc?"

    "One moment... yes. I do. Full access to payroll, assignments, you name it. You want me to insert you two there? It... hmm. It looks like a pretty normal front company specializing in funding start-ups and the like. Looking at its financial records, it's pretty clean. Lots of tech start-ups and IT."

    "Yes," Donald says, sticking his hands in his pockets. "That's why I picked it. Just check that they've got on-books records of investment in Kaze Biochemicals."

    Henriette clicked away. "Yep," she said after a few moments, bringing the files up onto the projector.

    Rose and Donald scan over them. "That all matches my memories of the cram," Donald says, sounding a little relieved. "Okay, Henriette. Stick our covers in there. How long do you think it's going to take you?"

    Henriette looks up, frowning. "Give me six hours and I'll make sure things are as watertight as I can get them. I'll need to insert you into a bunch of US state records too, and you've specified enough foreign travel that I'm going to have to change international records if things are going to hold together."

    Donald shrugs. "Good enough. Message me when you're done, at least. Stick to those profiles, because Rose is going to be cutting me up to match that passport picture and it'd be really embarrassing if she has to do it again."

    "On it." Henriette gets to work.

    Rose and Donald are going to be taking the role of unenlightened Syndicate auditors attached to a Syndic team lead by a Damien 'failure' - an extraordinary citizen with a rich daddy who gets low risk Syndicate missions and plenty of authority to wave around. Mr George Claxton - son of CFO (Aerospace) Neil Claxton - is here to ensure that the Syndicate's investments in the Progenitors aren't wasted. And he always gets plenty of assets to assist him, so two more extraordinary citizens aren't going to raise any eyebrows if they're in his retinue.

    "You know, that posture is bad for your spine and your wrists," Rose points out.

    "I'm crammed full of healing nanotech. Don't care," is the response she gets.

    ***​

    "What I don't understand is why Henriette responds to the world being mean by being mean back," Rose says to Donald sadly. She looks Japanese at the moment, and is dressed up as a doctor. The two of them are in a private hospital owned by a Progenitor front, using the access protocols that the Rosarios gave to them. "She just increases the mean levels of mean in the world."

    "That's just how she copes," he says.

    "But she can be much less mean," Rose protests, unsealing the cooled box she wheeled in with her. "She's actually all... all soft when we're talking. She's a good friend, at least in private. I think she's like a hedgehog."

    That statement confuses Donald. "She likes bread and milk?" he says.

    "Well, yes. But I meant that she uses her spikes to stop people getting close to her."

    "And then detaches them so they skewer you," he says, with a smile.

    "That's porcupines, not hedgehogs," Rose says sharply.

    "Is there a difference?"

    "Mr Sykes, you know very well there is a difference," Rose says, almost coquettishly. "You're incorrigible. You clearly need a good woman to make you into a better man. And so I have a proposition. Mr Sykes, may I have your hand?"

    "Uh..."

    She pulls a fast-grown limb out of the coolant box, and waves it around casually. "Don't worry, I have a new one for you. So just unfasten that cyborg thing and I can get to work attaching this thing to you."

    Donald wraps his hospital gown tighter around himself. This is an uncomfortable position to be in. Rose has been growing him a new arm in a little cooler filled with synthetic blood and stem cells. He's just a little freaked out right now, because last time he looked in the cooler, he was pretty sure the arm waved at him. Rose reassured him that it was just part of the necessary movements that a growing arm has to be put through to make sure its muscles develop properly and don't atrophy, but there's still a little bit of him that remembers the urban myths about evil transplant arms.

    Still, fumbling with his other hand, he undoes the interlocks one by one on his cybernetic arm and lays it down on the hospital bed. There's still the core brace that IBM installed there-Rose will have to remove that via surgery. He doesn't miss it. Objectively, he should-that arm was tough, strong, untiring, and still had all the sensation and precision of a flesh and blood one-but he's decided that he doesn't like its look and feel-the sleek black alien thing jutting out of his shoulder wasn't something he liked seeing in the mirror day after day. He's glad to see it gone, a reminder of those bad times.

    "You shouldn't play with my heart like that," he says, trying to get control of the conversation again.

    "Mr Sykes, I do declare that if I was playing with your heart, you'd know about it." Rose looks at him over the top of her unnecessary glasses. "Well, unless you were under general anesthesia. But you'd know about it once you woke up and found the incisions."

    Donald is a little concerned with what's happened to Rose's sense of humor. She seems to be taking a little too much pleasure playing with people's expectations. She winds up Henriette with mock innocence and too-naive comments, while she goes to the opposite extreme with Donald and does these false-flirting comments. For some reason, she wants Langley to see her as naive and childish, while she wants to be a woman to him. But he can see - and hear - Serafina's patterns in her innuendo. She's just copying the banter of her mother figure. She's acting like a mirror-projecting what she thinks people want her to be. He needs to find a tactful way to tell her that she's trying too hard. Preferably after she's grafted a new arm to his stump, because he doesn't want her to start having another breakdown while she's carrying out surgery on him.

    "This won't be permanent," she warns him. "This is just a substandard field-growth. It's got terminator genes in it..."

    "So I'll be back?"

    "... so it prevents the stem cells from going cancerous by killing the arm before that can happen," Rose says. "I don't have the time or the resources to get you a full organic arm replacement in the long run."

    Donald gives a lop-sided shrug. "Oh well. There's no risk of it just rotting and dropping off? That'd be pretty embarrassing."

    "Almost no risk at all," Rose says cheerfully.

    "And... uh, it won't become self aware and try to strangle me?"

    "That hardly ever happens."

    "Hardly ever?"

    "Well, obviously there are some risks to all kinds of surgery."

    The annoying thing about Rose's newfound sense of humor, Donald decides sadly, is that it's too hard to tell if she's joking sometimes. It's a tool she's using to cover up the trauma. He knows that, even if Henriette hasn't guessed it yet and keeps on getting wound up. But at least it's a human response - and a working sense of humour is something she's developed for herself since joining this amalgam. She does it at least in part so people think she's just joking around - but she also does seem to find it entertaining. And he's not going to stand in the way of that.

    He could show her some of the series he liked when he was a teenager, but he suspects that 90s teen comedies would just confuse her. And she'd probably get bemused at the idea that MTV used to actually show music.

    "So, anyway, once I attach that arm, I'm going to need to get my hands on the rest of your body, Mr Sykes," Rose says with a wide, fangs-exposing smile. "Don't worry. I'll need a lot less than seven days to make you a man."

    Donald swallows. "Did... did Henriette show you the Rocky Horror Picture Show?" he asks weakly.

    "It was really funny! I liked the songs a lot," Rose says brightly. "We had a sing-along musical night. She only put on that one once we were moderately inebriated and had worked our way through most of Disney!"

    "Oh. Goodie." He's going to need to find a way to dock Henriette's salary. "Just remember, Rose. Focus on making me into Benjamin Dickens, a former employee of Goldman Sachs head-hunted by the Syndicate for further induction and asset utilization based on his performance metrics. You've got to keep exactly to the plans. The two of us are going to be inside constructs, and nothing can be out of place. Not my genes, not my hair, not my skin, nothing."

    Rose pouts. It's strange to see that very Rose expression on the not-her face she's currently wearing. "Look, Donald, do I tell you how to launder money?" she says. "No. I don't. Don't tell me how to disguise myself - or someone else. I know how to do this. I'm the doctor here, not you."

    He smiles. "Sorry, Rose. I trust you." He means it. She's saved his life who knows how many times already. She's been nothing but helpful. Even that unpleasantness in LA could hardly be said to be her fault. "I shouldn't doubt you."

    She looks... surprised for a second, then smiles again. "Thank you. It means a lot coming from you."

    "More people should say it to you." Donald says, smoothly.

    When he wakes up, he's got a different face and look. Less handsome, if he would say so himself-but still good enough. Rose hands him a mirror. "How'd I do?" She asks, outwardly calm.

    "You did a great job." He gives her the approval she desires, and her face lights up. It's unsettling-but then again, he knows enough about whatever happened to put the pieces together. Whatever happened with Reina in the Spy's Demise-she modified Rose-changed her. And he knows enough regular psych and hyperpsych to know that that kind of rebuilding requires you to break someone down. And whatever they took out of her-he wonders how constructs see the Technocracy. Is it a father figure? Is it like a nation to them? Or is it something more? Is it god? Either way-he's not surprised that she's so desperate for any level of approval and so afraid of showing any weakness at this point. She's a scared young girl who's been told that Santa Claus isn't real, her parents don't actually love her, and the god she's been praying to might actually exist, but hates everyone, including her and wants them to burn in hell for all eternity, plus a little extra. It's a testament, he thinks, to her inner strength that she's still able to stumble along even now. And it's why he needs to find Serafina, because for all her inner strength he's pretty sure that all he and Henriette can do is keep holding her together with duct tape.

    "Really?" Rose's smile is wide and genuine. The heart-melting, heart-wrenching kind. The kind that she's given him so freely before, but has come so much more rarely now.

    "Really. No complaints from this end." Donald says. "We're going to find her. Don't worry. We'll find her and everything will be all right." He says it, but he doesn't quite believe it. She's not going to be allowed to be an innocent ingenue ever again. Not with them. Not fighting a shadow war. None of them are. Maybe as a Technocrat-but not as one opposed to things like that EDE in California, or Panopticon, or whatever that thing was.

    ***
    ​
    "Oh shit." Donald says. He's realized there was going to be a lot of disruption around Tokyo because of the North Korean problem, but not like this. Union channels are full of information about temporary lodging, hotels and other fronts which have been used to deal with how the normal facilities are now full. Second-tier hospitals which can provide cybernetics maintenance, UNCMC and JSDF Strike Force Zero bases that are aware of Technocracy augmentations and will be able to handle injured personnel with those features, JSDF and US military bases that are run by Technocracy friendlies and won't ask too many questions. He's overheard some of the Syndicate analysts complain about it. They're getting into fights, upsetting the status quo. They've had to budget for additional use of medical facilities because Shock Corps and DC supersoldiers have started picking fights with Japanese RDs out of boredom and a lot of both are being sent to the hospital. No bodies, thankfully-but when you're dealing with martial artists capable of punching through concrete walls and cyborgs capable of dishing out and taking just as much punishment it's almost an inevitability at this point. They're, fortunately, not dealing with Shock Corps barracks or DC operations. Instead, what they're dealing with is biotech. Kazan Biotechnology is one of the few operations which can produce the basic biotech "A" believes is required. And since the disruptions from Dr. Leon's activities have been local, rather than regional or global in scale, Donald is reasonably sure that's exactly what's happening.

    "Things really don't change much, do they?" Rose whispers, a very Reina-like statement, as she overhears the scientists complaining in the break room. She's made sure to eat already-her normal combat construct appetite would immediately reveal her, but that means she has more than enough time to join Donald for breakfast in the break room before they go on their tour and audit of the facility. And it's a good place to listen into the gossip of Progenitors-unlike the tight-lipped NWO operatives, Progenitors seem to love to bitch about their colleagues in public. Bitch about how someone else was given the promotion instead of them. Bitch about office politics. Bitch about this or that order from high-up on a project. And what they're not talking about is telling. They're not talking about Professor Leon, nor are they talking about whatever big project seems to be going on here. He's got enough information about Kazan's resources and power draw to know something is going on.

    They send him on a tour first, taking a guided tour from a construct trying to assure him all is well and telling him a minimum of what he needs to know. More than enough that his half-remembered college biology has failed him, and he's just nodding on uncomprehendingly. There's a lot of showmanship-test subjects visibly becoming a decade or so younger, short interviews with junior researchers who assure him, and have numbers and time tables-that this temporary disruption from the resources being diverted to the war effort will not be a major problem, and was approved by higher-ups. They even, wink wink nudge nudge, let them look at the military-grade biotech, show off some videos of Combat Homonculi and how Kazan's are very high-end models compared to the standard. The pretty construct tour guide smiles at him. "Kazan Biotechnology's front may be a public-facing company, but unlike some public-facing Progenitor amalgams we are one of the few locations capable of engineering pre-1999 biotech. We've been at the forefront of advancing the Union's internal knowledge of bioengineering, as well as providing the fruits of this labor to the masses." He says. "I hope this is taken into account during the audit-and I hope you understand that this disruption will not interfere with the scheduled introduction of Type-1 anagathics in 2017."

    That's what Donald wanted from this. It confirms that Kazan can build the high-end morphic biotech that Leon would need for a cutting-edge project. But it doesn't tell him what exactly is going on. After lunch, they'll be meeting with the administrative staff of the facility-mostly Progenitors and their pet Syndicate assistants, a couple of Exceptional Citizens-who will probably treat two unEnlightened auditors with contempt and feed them some story that they're going to have to believe.
    ​
    ***
    ​
    Rose sees the tour differently. She's more aware of the technology here than Donald, far more. She was born in a place like this-not this place, but somewhere similar. Well, decanted, which is the same thing. Except she has dozens of different gene sources which doesn't matter because a mother isn't only someone who shares half your genes and even the masses know that because they have adopted children who have parents who don't and-

    -she's falling back into old habits now. Having to reassure herself that she's loved, she's wanted. Isn't that what everyone has done? She's admitted to Henriette how broken she is and nobody's taken her to the recycling tanks. If they tried, she could run away now, live on her own. Run away. A glint of Thorn in a camera lens gives her a thumbs-up at that idea. The only problem is that it'd hurt people who have tried to help her-Serafina, Alexander, and all the others. She's not willing to sacrifice them for her own happiness. And that-that's her choice, not some programmed directive. She knows that now. She loves them because she can choose to love them. Something which even Thorn seems to grudgingly approve of.

    So she's here not because she has to be, but because she wants to be. Because Serafina deserves her help. Needs her help. And because Donald does too-even if he doesn't quite understand her position. If he wanted to get out, he probably could. He'd be given a nice large payment to stay silent, and live a quiet life somewhere until his natural death. If even someone like Kessler wanted out, they probably could. The Technocracy would want their augmentations back, which to someone like him would be worse than death-and impossible now for Kessler anyhow, but it's an option. She doesn't have this option. She can't retire. Her body is Union property, its biotech integrated so tightly into her genome that she can't give it up. She doesn't have the option of calling it quits and walking away. Death or service or a life on the run are all she has.

    She sympathizes with the construct guiding them-he's clearly a modified M-type, with a little bit of programmed biotech skill, enough to impress some Syndicate auditors by explaining all the big words in simple language, to show them the most impressive biotech, to gloss over failures and promote successes. She can't tell him how much she sympathizes, but she treats him like a person. Like someone from the masses would. The way she'd like to be treated. Even as an unenlightened auditor, even there-the scientists and RAs look at her differently. More warmly. Not like a thing or a dangerous weapon. Even if they are barely holding their contempt in.

    Rose recognizes, of course, the high-end equipment being talked about. They're not exactly standard exowombs, but rather advanced bioreactors, capable of generating the kinds of transgenic custom life Progenitors use. Biomods designed to integrate with specific hosts, combat homonculi, hybrid bioweapons. A lot of the technology is familiar, because they're the technology which created her. Some of it, in fact, is the exact same model. She just needs to know what it's being used for. But the technologies they're showing off imply things. Fast-morphic biology. Adaptable base structures capable of accepting xenografts. Recombinant DNA from alien sources. The same technologies which went into her.
    ​
    The Boring Auditing Part...
    So. You've got access. Now you've got to investigate. You're going to investigate by...
    [ ] Talking to the lab assistants. On one hand, they almost certainly don't have the big picture. On the other hand, they're more likely to let things slip than any senior researchers.
    [ ] Talking to senior staff. On one hand they probably won't give you much-Progenitors gonna Progenitor. On the other hand they might try to baffle you via bullshit, and you have a Progenitor to figure out exactly that sort of thing.
    [ ] Trying to get access to the lab computers. Henriette might be helpful here. What's she doing?
    [ ] Just moving on from what you know. You know enough-they've been heavily monopolizing Kazan's biotech for advanced cutting-edge equipment. You can move on to other sources of investigation.
    [ ] Write-In.​
     
    Last edited:
  • View discussion
    • Update CXCII: Integration
  • View content
    • JB CXCII: Integration

    "And if you want to know more about what we do, once this tour is complete Professor Aino would be pleased to eat lunch with you. I'm sure he'll be more than willing to provide a more technical explanation than I can manage."

    Rose looks like she's about to object. Donald oozes in. "I'd be happy to," he says, with all the sliminess of a low-rank Syndic offered a free meal with someone more important with him. "I've got plenty of questions for him. A senior scientist like him such be able to help me in my investigations." He smiles. "I've seen a lot of impressive things here," he says, in a very tit-for-tat manner.

    "Very well."

    As they head off, looking at more examples of the work here, Rose nudges Donald hard in the ribs. He catches her eyes and he can read her thoughts, that she's annoyed at him and how he's passing up the chance to ask people who won't be as prepared as one of these experienced doctors.

    Well. It's nice to see that there's some reason that they keep him around and she's not just better at him than everything. That's still a rather naive form of cleverness. Talking only to the senior staff is the kind of mistake made by someone who's a little too easily awed by science babble and who wants to be seen talking to important people. Who wants to be networking. Who wants to be making contacts. Something that's entirely fitting for the mid-level unenlightened man he's pretending to be. Donald Sykes is method-acting, man.

    And he has already done his research on the senior staff. Dr. Aino is one of the people he's been wanting to question, because Donald knows his type all too well. The Syndicate is very used to dealing with cocky scientists who bear a grudge against the people who make sure all their super-expensive equipment actually gets funded. The man's brilliant, looking to be noticed, and as arrogant as... well, Henriette. Amusingly enough, he's actually a distant relative of her. Something like her second cousin three times removed on her mother's side. Sadly, that's not close enough for there to be any family bond that they can use, but before the Union housecleaning after the Second World War and the defection of the Virtual Adepts left them a hollow shell the Ayanami lineage had been fairly major. Of course he doesn't use the name. Too much stigma attached, especially for someone who was probably born in the fifties. It's the same stigma that makes Henriette a Langley, that led her mother to give her daughter the surname of a first generation hotshot pilot rather than preserve a tainted family heritage.

    That's something they might have to be wary of. Most of the Union didn't seem to care about whatever name Henriette's mother had when they were making her an official Hero of the Technocratic Union, but here in Japan they might whisper something about a family that produced three major Nephandi in the Second World War - especially when too many of the family then left with the Virtual Adepts. And some of those were noted as being executed by the Traditions. He doesn't believe for a moment that Henriette has any dark family secrets that don't involve the evil god-machine from space that wants to torture her forever, but if they try to use her reputation, he doesn't believe for a second that Gregor Leon won't use that checkered past against them.

    If, you know, he doesn't just send Progenitor killing machines to fix the problem. Which is always a possibility when dealing with a project like this.

    ***
    ​
    His read of Dr. Aino was correct. The man loves to hear himself talk, and what he's saying would probably be meaningless if Donald wasn't looking for exactly what he was talking about. "Working under Dr. Leon," the Progenitor says, "has been a fantastic experience. He cares more about results than procedure, so it's been fantastic. We've been able to implement solutions much more quickly with a higher success rate with only minor changes to protocol. Right now, Kazan is on the absolute cutting edge, and we've been doing well. Lab safety is top-notch, and unlike those unfortunate incidents in Mexico with Professor Allende, our biotech facilities are, in fact, entirely secure."

    Donald gestures for him to continue. "I've been impressed so far with what you've been telling me, but tell me more." That's useful information except for the problem that Allende almost certainly holds a grudge against Serafina for that exact same incident. Trying to use it to appeal to him seems rather risky.

    "Given the refocusing towards martial ends that Professor Li has encouraged, and of course the tensions with North Korea, we've been heavily focusing on joint projects with Biomechanics. Sadly, Iterators Villaret and Clar-well, both Clarents aren't here so..."

    "Both Clarents? Are they related?" Rose asks artlessly. She's playing the role of naive-masses-inducted Syndicate executive well. Donald knows one Clarent, but that was a project surname. He doesn't want to guess whether or not it is.

    "Lieutenant Ling Clarent and Major Jane Clarent, Miss Brooks." Aino clarifies. "Ling is providing technical data and assisting Iterator Villaret with hybrid projects, which Kazan is a heavy investor in." He shifts to talking about himself. "Kazan, of course, has a long history of working with BioMechanics and their technologies. We strongly believe that the way forward is in cooperation and harmony, rather than a constant, fruitless competition between our technologies. And the masses agree-look at how they see no difference between Iteration X's prosthetics and artificial organs and conventional medicine. The way together is via synergy."

    Rose nods enthusiastically. "I see that you're very forward-looking."

    "We believe the big picture is more important than our own petty rivalries." Aino says. "Of course, there are a handful of people who disagree, and believe that we're being overfunded-that the Syndicate is making a bad investment. I don't blame you for listening to them-but Warren Roth's support for our funding is not a risk, it's a guarantee. Although we have reduced the amount of talent we have on directly masses-facing technologies like low-end anagathics, most of the current problems we have with those are ones of clinical trials, licensing, and distribution, components which allow us to move talented researchers into more relevant, military projects. If the North Korean situation blows up, we will need new weapons systems to defeat them. And this is what Kazan is currently working on."

    "That's a ludicrous accusation." Donald says. He should be agreeing, given Dr. Aino's 'natural' charisma-no doubt deliberately engineered to give him an edge in the constant academic warfare Progenitors engage in. "So which people are these? I'll make sure to recommend they be audited as well."

    "That won't be necessary." Aino says. "Ethical Compliance is already in-town-some sort of high-end team, both for internal affairs and for protection against any... further unpleasantries. Of course, they've already looked at Kazan, if you have to ask. Absolutely no violations whatsoever-we run a tight ship and we make sure to obey every directive of the current leadership." His tone makes him sound like he's not quite convinced of some of them. "But, well..." he gives them a couple of names.

    "I could go on with the technical details of what we're working on here, but they'd be difficult to explain to laymen."

    "I'd like to hear them anyways. I specialized in biotech valuations while at Goldman Sachs." Donald says.

    The look on Aino's face shows that the Progenitor is clearly humoring him, but he nevertheless starts. Donald can understand... a fifth of what he's hearing, maybe less. Something about xenogenetic grafts and nanotech integration and militarized tissue printing and how that's coming along. Multiple constructs working together-Kazan is just where a lot of the technology is being assembled into a coherent whole. But it's enough to get the gist of what they're working on. Something advanced, something incredibly dangerous, and with obvious military applications.

    "I see." Donald says when he's finished. "That's some very impressive work."

    "It is." Aino says proudly. "I'm proud of everyone who's working on this project, and I hope-well, I hope it'll never get used in anger, but I do hope that everyone here gets the attention they deserve for it."

    "What was all of that?" Donald asks Rose, after they've left the lab and have found somewhere private to stay. "I don't really get most of it."

    "He's building something like..." she gestures at herself. "Like me. All that technology-a lot of the things they talk about are advances that exist because of Dr. Rosario's help and others like her. It's why I was allowed to stay me, they thought the results from the project were good enough that even the inconvenience of a failure like me-well, if Dr. Rosario wanted me to stay around that wasn't too much of a problem. Except when everything went wrong, but even then they conceded that the developments of EXEMPLAR were more than enough to allow them to humor her."

    Donald hugs her, and she hugs back-not as fiercely as before, but still fiercely. "I think," Rose says, "they thought she'd get tired of me and just let them do whatever they wanted after a while. Kind of like a young girl with a pet. I'm lucky she's stuck with me for so long."

    "Don't worry." Donald says. "We'll find her. And we'll stop whatever's going on here. That's a promise."

    "I recognized some of the names he gave." Rose says. "A few of them were coworkers on EXEMPLAR. They might know my mother. Some of them were... willing to help me, as well. And of course, that Ethical Compliance team. There might be someone there I can talk to."
    ​
    ***
    ​
    "Hey." John Kessler says, as he picks up the phone and checks its encryption. Secure. "A little busy right now but if it's important I'll do what I can."

    "Okay, just call me back when you've killed whatever the hell you're trying to kill."

    "Not like that." Kessler sighs. "Worse, because this involves problems that can't be solved while shooting it. I just got an unofficial promotion and shit is going to go down the moment it actually ends up official. Just tryin' to figure out how to make that shit go down in a way which doesn't lead to everything collapsing and catching on fire."

    "Congrats." Donald says, and he's actually glad for his overly-muscled half-killer-robot colleague and... yes, friend. Unlike Jamelia Kessler knows the benefit of a good drink, and unlike Serafina they didn't get off on the wrong foot. "Hope it's worth it."

    "Not really. But I was running away from a lot of things when I joined up with you guys. Wanted to stay in my niche-just kicking ass and taking names. It's easier when you're not the one responsible. But everyone's gotta grow up at some point." He sighs. "Sorry, just an old cyborg having a midlife crisis. So what's it you wanted?"​
    ​
    "We're all entitled to one of those." Donald says. "John, I need to know what you know about a couple of Iterators. First name, Bernard Villaret."

    "Now that's a name I haven't heard in a long while." Kessler sighs. "I remember working with him back in the Corps-another combat 'borg like me. Weird, kind of quiet. He was a church-going type, had some weird ideas about the Computer. We ribbed him for that a bit-but he was a nice guy. Donated most of his income to charities, got us feeling bad enough that we started doing a bit of that as well. How did his name come up?"

    "You don't want to know." Donald says. And he means it. How to say that an old comrade-in-arms might have turned against you? And it's, in a way, easier if you're just dealing with people you don't like. People whose overall traits lend them to be dismissed. Their noble parts easily dismissed or outright vilified. But maybe that's exactly how you end up like the people who've joined the MUSCOVITEs and Panopticon. Just seeing the world in black and white.

    "Always wondered as a kid what people in civil wars must feel like." Kessler sighs, clearly realizing exactly what Donald means. "Guess we're finding out. Next name?"

    "Ling Clarent."

    "Don't know her. I recall a Clarent from Britain-she was a good soldier. Probably a project name, then. They don't sound related. I can get the data if you don't mind giving me a little time to search."

    "I know her!" Henriette interrupts. "She was... she was an emoneut who was trying out for the Autochthonian recontact mission. Back in 2014. She didn't make it, and that made her kind of upset. So a pilot like me, probably just as upgraded as I was. I don't know why she'd be here or why she'd be working with Progenitors. Unless this is all something being done by... those people in Moscow?"

    "Maybe." Donald says. "Keep going. Are you getting this?"

    "Yeah." Kessler says. "Tell me everything you know about her."

    Henriette lists off her augmentations, her history, what she knows. "I didn't like her much 2 years ago." She finishes. An apology to someone who wouldn't understand it, but really an apology to herself. "She was a good pilot, just not as good as I was. She lacked the emotional drive to succeed, I think. Didn't push herself, take the right risks. Very clinical. So what is she doing?"

    "Providing technical data." Rose says. "Was she good at anything?"

    "Maybe she's doing piloting, she was very good at that. Decent at most of the sciences too, maybe okay in personal combat but not really someone you'd use for templates like that. Creating skill programs. There's also some innovative tech in those bodies that might be useful for whatever joint project is being cooked up in those labs."

    "They're trying to make constructs, I think." Rose nods. "She might have useful tech for a new project. And she could be used for skills. Personnel who learned while under emotional inhibition tend to have fewer psychological errors when used to create skill software, which is only necessary when you're doing a personality overlay on that skill base. And the technology Dr. Aino was talking about-all of it was used in my creation-or in the creation of high-grade combat constructs."

    "What exactly are the Progenitors doing?" Henriette sighs. "I don't like this."

    "Neither do I." Donald says.​

    New Leads, New Ideas:
    So, one piece of the puzzle towards whatever Serafina's here to stop is yours. What next?
    [ ] Now that you know Ethical Compliance is here, you might want to go have Rose talk to Cross. This will... probably be a shock for him. And he's still a construct with all that entails. But he might be a useful ally. This kind of internal corruption from EDEs is exactly what he's supposed to be fighting, of course. They just didn't assume EDEs would be involved with Control.
    [ ] Jane Clarent is running security for this op which is, on one hand, dangerous because you know what she's like. On the other hand it means she has perfectly legitimate reasons to get you in and out of any of these facilities. She's a heavy cyborg and at least was super-conditioned, but on the other hand Henriette knows her and can probably try to talk her way through this. And if Kessler's got a promotion-you might even be able to get something official-looking to cover for you.
    [ ] You can probably talk to some of the names Rose recognizes and see if they're willing to go stick their necks out for you. This might get you some official covers and contacts that are useful. You'll want to give me a name and a general motivation for this.
    [ ] The facilities Aino mentioned might give you some more leads. There's a lot of Progenitor and ItX facilities that are feeding tech and materials to this place. And they're low priority enough that they're probably minimally guarded against the infiltration you're doing, which is basically "walking in the front door with legitimate credentials looking like you belong."
    [ ] Write-In
    ​
     
  • View discussion
    • Update CXCIII: Unplanned Complications
  • View content
    • JB CXCIII: Unplanned Complications

    Running her hands through her hair, Major Clarent settles herself. Her expression takes on a neutral cast. She raises her hand to knock at the door.

    "Enter," Dr Gregor Leon says from within.

    At least for once he's not playing Go again. Still, he's lurking in this dimly lit room. He says that some of his current set of augmentations make him photosensitive. And he's got Serafina Rosario with him again; dark-haired, sultry, and very clever. Clarent wonders why she's here. Not why she's 'here' in the sense that she's hiding with Dr. Leon-given the rumors running around about how a senior Technocrat was apparently replaced by an infiltrator clone she clearly has enemies-but why she spends so much time with Dr. Leon. Clarent herself is an emotionally dampened cybersoldier and doesn't spend much time around him. The man is dangerously smart, intelligent in a way that's rare even among Technocrats. Enigmatic, self-confident, and very, very concerning.

    "Clarent," Gregor says. "Oh, excuse me. I was just talking to Doctor Rosario about certain... concerns."

    "I apologize for the interruption." she says politely. "You asked to see me?"

    "I did." Gregor nods. "Doctor Rosario has been informing me of her enemies and what they might attempt to do. "Could you give Major Clarent your analysis?"

    "Certainly." Serafina says. In her augmented vision, Major Clarent can see the waste heat and hear the churning of a reconfigured cardiovascular system. Whatever augs Serafina's taken on, they're generating as much heat as a high end computer. She pauses, sweating. "They'll try to go through Cross to get to me." Serafina says. "Whoever replaced me will know my relationships and start leaning on them. If you could make sure he stays safe... especially because Li can use him. He's not politically savvy in the right ways-which is probably why he was promoted recently. Li will try to use his position-and his concerns about any high-end biotech project, after EXEMPLAR and its... personal consequences... to delay this one, I think. And he'll have allies. Possibly ones outside the Convention."

    "Well, you heard her," Gregor says lazily. "Stake out Cross. He's a tool Li could use if we end up at odds."

    Major Clarent stares at this pronouncement. "Do you mean Professor Li? Or Operative Li?" Someone with that much EDE implanted in them might be compromised by hostile aliens-and someone with that much access to high-end technology is inherently suspicious. "I know I reported that I have not been able to track her at all times, but she is an Operative. There's only so much that-"

    "No," Gregor says, a tic of annoyance in his eyes. "I know everything about her. She's quite safe - she's crammed full of overrides that can be used if any of her implants become unsafe. I'm talking about that wasteful ideologue who's clawed his way to the Chair of the Administration."

    "Ah," Major Clarent nods. "My apologies." She's aware of the rumors. Of the cause of Dr. Rosario's 'replacement'-and how several parties have been very tightly clamping down on the actual information gathered. But nevertheless, rumors still manage to spread. And the stories have been... rather accusatory. There's quite a few old-guard Progenitors suggesting that Professor Li might have done it as a long game to discredit any opposition to him. There's other stories about nephandic infiltration, or Serafina herself covering up a suicide attempt-but those are less important.

    "So monitor Cross."

    "With all due respects, doctor," she says calmly, "he's a professional. We cannot simply 'monitor' him without him noticing. I can task Pilot Clarent with full spectrum surveillance, but purely passive surveillance has its limits and I can't guarantee that he won't notice. Ethical Compliance is very good."

    "So just be better than him," Dr Gregor says casually. "If Pilot Clarent needs assistance to outwit him, just tell me and I'll outfit her for it. Is there anything else? Because Serafina, I need you to check on the incubation chambers. And bring me a black coffee."

    "Of course," the woman says politely, brushing past the cyborg as she leaves.

    For her part, Jane Clarent personally believes that while her superior is an expert on the human mind, he's not so good at military strategy. And it's a mistake to believe that one's models can control for every variable or every fluke chance. She's learned that from hard experience. If they wanted someone who couldn't follow fuzzy logic chains and would just do what was immediately logical, they should have gotten someone without decades of combat experience. A decade ago, she'd be like them. Trusting in enhanced intelligence and logical chains of thinking-but she knows how the fog of war turns everything into chaos. The security of this facility is her responsibility and while she can't quite follow all the logical deductions of a man like this, she prefers things less vulnerable to coincidence.

    So, certainly, she'll have Alexander Cross monitored - and that kind of obsessive minutiae is something a later Clarent like Ling is good at. But Jane has learned and grown beyond that. And maybe she's too much a solider, but she thinks it's a mistake to assume that the only threat to this facility is a political one. They're vulnerable through their supply lines. They need vast amounts of refined primal energy, they need feeder vats, they even need other sites to dispose of their waste. All of those are weaknesses and she suspects they're far more pressing - and if Dr. Leon is wrong, that's where they'll be blindsided.

    She'll order the defenses stepped up, and make sure Ling conducts randomized sweeps of them for infiltration or hacking.

    There's something else she has concluded, and that's that Dr. Leon believes Serafina Rosario's colleagues to be a concern for this project. His obsessive focus on her, the way he spends so much time with her, the idea that some mysterious enemy would go for the man who just happens to be her lover? Suspicious. There's clearly no romantic interest-or even purely sexual interest-between them. Dr. Rosario's previous flings have effectively no similarities with Dr. Leon, and they've been politically opposed. Which doesn't make friendships impossible, just unlikely-but the way they act, which is much closer to the relationship between a superior officer and a subordinate, or even a commander and a HITMark-isn't how friends act.

    That, in and of itself, is suspicious. Someone like Ling might not have noticed. Would not have noticed, she corrects herself. An emoneut like her 16 years ago or Ling now, even a partial, wouldn't have picked up on this. But their relationship isn't right. It doesn't seem like the relationship someone turning to a former opponent as a desperate ally would. And moreover, his concern about her allies and lovers is suspicious. Especially when Professor Li is taken into account. By all means, Professor Li might be a Progenitor academic, with all the dirty laundry and shady maneuvering that entails-but having a potential rival assassinated and replaced by a clone, as the rumors go, sounds unlikely. The man seems to limit his actions to blackmail and coercive influence-he hasn't had anyone shot for merely being politically inconvenient. Reassigned to unimportant roles and posts, marginalized, and denied reviews and promotions, certainly. Accused of harboring Traditionalist sympathies and having all their dirty laundry dragged out, of course. But assassination would be new.

    No, she doesn't find the implications Gregor Leon are telling her particularly likely. So she'll monitor Cross. She'll do what they ask her. For reasons that are her own.

    ***​

    "Here is your coffee, Gregor," the fake Serafina says, putting down a black espresso before him.

    "Thank you," he says, face impassive as he sits back at his desk, feet up. "So, she thinks she now knows that you're a concern of mine."

    "She's not a fool," Serafina agrees. "She was going to put it together."

    "She's going to go snooping," he says, almost happily. "No need to order her to hunt your sister-self down when she can talk herself into doing it. And you colonized her dermal layer."

    "Yes. I did. I infected her skin layer," Serafina says, inspecting the back of her hand. It shifts for a moment, taking on the appearance of Major Clarent's hand. She smiles wickedly. "It's very nice skin. And a very nice body. It tasted-"

    Dr Gregor waves his hand. "Enough."

    Serafina shuts up.

    "We can do without that, thank you very much." Gregor massages his temples. "This is always why you let yourself down. You're brilliant when you focus, but then you feel the need to... to indulge in these base things. Next thing you'll volunteer to 'interrogate' Alexander Cross."

    "Can I?" the Serafina says with ingénue glee.

    "No." Gregor smiles coldly. "And I know you're being subtly uncooperative. I know all your tells, remember? I know what you're thinking better than you do."

    The Serafina pouts. "You know, it's very unfair," she says playfully. "I'm just a beta upgraded with pseudo-alpha functionality. I don't stand a chance against you."

    "No," Gregor says. "You don't. You never did."

    ***
    ​
    Normally, Donald wouldn't give a second thought to holding a meeting in a hotel room swept for bugs. He's a financier who doesn't deal with the military side of things. That kind of assassination doesn't tend to happen to him-certainly not the kind of missile-through-windows that Iteration X has favored for decades before introducing to the masses. But now with ex-Operatives and ex-Iterators on his case, he can't shake the feeling that at any moment, he could be killed in a way he can't see coming. How many Traditions members died in the same way? Happy and complacent until they made one mistake-showed their face one time in a crowd that was ever so slightly too thin, or went off alone for a moment, or was only surrounded by sympathizers-and was just vanished off of the face of the earth by a hypersonic smart missile? He's had Rose check the air filters several times for contamination as well to make sure there's no Progenitor bio-attack incoming. She humored him-she always does, but he could get the sense that even she was considering him paranoid.

    Henriette hasn't. "Jeeze." She sighs. "You're even worse than Belltower here. Both of them."

    "That's because they're used to being targeted by assassination squads and everything." Donald snaps. "I'm not and now that we're back on the grid and I don't have to pretend it's stressful as fuck." He sighs, shoulders slumping, as he goes for the hotel microbar. "Fuck it. I need a drink."

    Nobody denies that. Henriette nods. She's trying to make an effort to understand him. Maybe even sympathize. A shot of liquor and a few minutes to calm his nerves, he feels a bit more capable of continuing on. He tries to keep his tone formal-which is ruined slightly by how they're sitting in a hotel room without any props. Notes or other tools would be too dangerous, so right now the only knowledge any of them have of their plans is in their heads.​
    ​
    "Given what we've found on our last fishing trip, we probably can move on to better targets." Donald says, standing up straight. He half-expects Rose to make an innocent remark about how they didn't go fishing, but she doesn't. They've all changed-not always for the better. "There's a lot of labs working on whatever Kazan was, and a lot of them aren't very high-security. Not particularly important ones either-so lower security, but they need these facilities to function. This is a bad thing, because whatever Kazan is making it's probably not good for us, if Serafina decided to run off to Tokyo without any backup to deal with it."

    "How do we know that she didn't just get scared and hide?" Henriette asks, lounging on her bed. "It's completely reasonable."

    "She might, I guess." Rose says, conceding. "But still, it's Japan."

    "And why is that?" Henriette asks.

    "Well, aren't you Japanese?"

    "I was kind of five." Henriette says, before realizing who she's talking to. "Okay, fine, but most people don't have genetic memory or skill implants when they're five. So no, I'm not entirely up on my Japanese history. MIHT, remember."

    "I suppose a normal five year old would have different priorities." Rose says sheepishly. "But Japan is a big Technocratic stronghold."

    "Less so now." Donald interjects. "Syndicate internal warfare gets vicious and the Chinese are winning."

    "Certainly, but..." Rose bites her lip a bit. "...that still makes it a lot more dangerous for someone being hunted by the Technocracy than many other places, right? There's a lot of cities where the Technocracy can't respond quickly and you can hide because they just have near-human agents rather than dedicated Shock Corps QRF and Damage Control teams."

    "Right." Henriette decides to drop it. "Fine. Don't lecture me about it. So what exactly is she doing?"

    "I don't know, but I'd like to." Rose says. "These labs are insecure. We can infiltrate in a multitude of ways. They're more concerned with physical security-Progenitors don't keep much in the way of vital data electronically."

    "That doesn't seem like it's helpful."

    "But that means there will be access. A lot of the personnel management and security will be done by automated systems. Those systems will be vulnerable to subversion." Rose says. "It's how things work here. And these labs haven't been attacked via information vectors so they should be vulnerable to a hacker who knows Technocratic security protocols."

    "Like me." Henriette says proudly. "And after all those Digital Web incidents there probably won't be a lot of Virtual Adept activity."

    "They'll have to pull people to mentor any new recruits now." Donald agrees. "Which is a two-edged sword, because it means that there's going to be a lot more investigators available."

    "Then we'll just have to make sure no investigation happens, won't we?" Henriette says. "Are there any other ways to get in?"

    "Probably not. These are low-level facilities-maybe one or two Enlightened personnel with teams of assistants and sympathizers. If we can spoof the standard security, we'll be able to get inside. They need a lot of initial components to do what they're doing in Kazan."

    "An issue." Rose says, transitioning back into the almost-robotic tones she uses when elaborating on something she's programmed with. "Outside of sabotage, anything will be scanned. Kazan itself is high-security, and as they mentioned they have at least one Shock Corps team. Standard team composition includes at least one electronic warfare expert and one combat hacker."

    "Is anything worth doing ever easy?" Donald sighs. "Nevertheless. What I want to know-and what I think we can find from these facilities-is records as to where and when these products are being transported. We can look up those constructs and see who's working for them. That shouldn't require infiltrating any high-security systems." He thinks that by doing so, he can figure out most of the web of intrigue he's looking at. Who's working for Kazan. Who isn't working for Kazan. But what's more, he wants access. Tools he can turn against whatever this is. Possibly people he can turn against the system. "Anyways, Rose. Tell me exactly what we should expect security-wise."

    "Basic personnel management systems, of course." Rose repeats, almost by rote. "Vanessas or some intermediary Victor-upgrade.The old ones have largely been retired so they'll have human-normal intelligence at least. Standard automated security-sentry guns at chokepoints, blast doors. Progenitor lab, so assume some form of toxin dispersal system-the personnel there will be immunized to the low-level ones, of course. On the other hand," Rose repeats from (genetic) memory, "weapons will largely be Union-standard, with few or no hypertech devices. There won't be a Damage Control force on-site but there will be a QRF standing by, with a response time of maybe 10 to 15 minutes. If I have to," she concludes, "I can deal with it. Are we planning on some sabotage?"

    Donald wonders. On one hand, it's tempting. Whatever Gregor Leon is up to, it's definitely no good. That he's absolutely sure of. On the other hand, doing so will put them on the radar. And he really doesn't want to be on the radar of someone as dangerous as Jane Clarent. Even if, assuming, he can somehow convince her of the most absurd story anybody, Traditions or Technocracy, will probably ever tell her in his life, even if she'll leave him alone then, he has to then outthink Gregor Leon. And he's read Gregor Leon's profile. Smart as hell, dedicated. Not much of a people person but with more computing power in his brain than ItX supercomputers would dream of. It's not something he looks forward to, which is why he wants to put off having to match wits with him as long as possible. "I'm not sure yet. Let's get in first, then see what we can find."

    He's never been the kind of leader who makes long, complicated masterplans. It was never an option for him in the early days, and that habit's passed down. He's the kind of guy who gets into a chaotic situation and improvises. And that's good, because it's the one thing that has kept him alive through this year.


    Right, sorry about this being a lot of filler but getting the players arranged and set up is necessary while we're moving into the actual conflict. Since breaching the security of the lower-priority facilities will largely be trivial, the question is largely what do you want to get out of it?

    Is Gregor Leon aware of you yet?
    Exactly the question. If Donald & co. keep it very, very quiet, they can probably keep him from noticing you for a while longer. But you're going to have to make a move that reveals yourself at some point.
    [ ] Yes (pick 1 more option)
    [ ] No

    What progress have you made? And how?
    Choose one, or two if you've decided to alert Gregor. Suggest how you've made this progress.
    [ ] Pretty much figured out what the project is and why they're doing it.
    [ ] Gotten support from old allies (which ones? Why?)
    [ ] Gained a new ally in the process. (Who?)
    [ ] Found some potential new friends who are in contact with Serafina.
    [ ] Sowed doubt in one of Gregor's followers. (Which one?)
    [ ] Write-In
     
  • View discussion
    • Update CXCIV: Stand Alone
  • View content
    • JB CXCIV: Stand Alone

    Major Clarent watches the false-sensory web of network information with senses English doesn't have words for. It's hard to describe what a full cyborg loaded with militarized network protocols sees when they interface with network security. It's almost a synesthesia-like effect, especially when combined with the cameras which are her eyes right now. The supercomputer woven into her brain and spine separates sensations from each other-the real world ones, the ones from the sensors she's monitoring, and the strange non-senses of her direct neural interface-the feel and taste and smell and sound of data transfer.

    There's an irregularity in some of the data flow, a lump, a sour taste, a discordant note. Anomalies tend to show weaknesses, expose hidden attacks. Very few Virtual Adepts are perfect in their concealment-and even the soldiers of Hermetic House Janissary can't hide every trace of themselves. They can cloak themselves from sight, sound, and smell-but what about the twigs they snap in their crossing, or the rustle of the grass as they move? What surprises her about this intrusion is that whoever's behind it is not, in fact, overrated. In fact, whoever the attacker is, he or she's a challenge. Not exactly a dabbler in the ways of computer hacking.

    Major Clarent leaves the half-eaten cyborg energy bar on the table and vanishes from sight. Her skin and hair are laced with metamaterial cloaking, as are her combat fatigues. She doesn't want to redeploy anyone right now, it might give away the detection. She leaves a holographic image in her place-even if the attackers have some RD method of monitoring the security office she's working out of, they'll just see that instead. Meanwhile, she starts working on finding the cyberspace attacker even as she narrows the attack down to find if there's a realspace one.

    The Progenitor bio-lab she's working at doesn't have a name. It's a second tier construct, a support facility for where real work happens, one which creates valuable precursors to the cutting edge biotech Dr. Leon needs for his highly classified project. It's where she'd attack if she was running an operation against the facility. The Technocracy can't protect every one of these facilities with a dozen heavy combatants. This one rates only moderate security-the chief security officer and his combat biomods, the small squad of upgraded combat clones he orders around, and various Sleeper security. Good enough against the sorts of attacks something like this will probably actually deal with-the occasional strike of mundane Luddite or bioconservative terrorists with minimal Reality Deviant backing. Woefully inadequate against an actual strike team. She's concerned that any moment they might be under attack and she'll need to run a delaying action to get reinforcements here. With the North Korea operation on full swing, most constructs are short-changed on security personnel. Meanwhile, the enemies of the Technocracy have wasted no time taking advantage of this situation.

    She moves to inform Dr. Leon-but stops. Not yet. Something about the situation makes her suspicious. Human intuition feeds into quantum hypercomputers, feeding information back to her conscious mind. She holds off for the moment as she makes note of the cyber-infiltration and moves to counter it. The input delay and methods imply that whoever's attacking is fairly close by-probably to keep from creating a trail in Sleeper systems. The attacker is very good, clearly familiar with old Technocratic hardware and operating systems. Whoever it is is very careful, to a degree which is almost excessive. This implies the infiltration, whatever it is, is probably unlikely to turn violent soon-any serious investigation will turn up the existence of a hack, so the attacker doesn't expect a serious investigation. And if they were going to stymie a forensic analysis by virtue of burning everything down, this level of stealth would be pointless. She starts analyzing the attack in real-time, running forensic programs against the vectors, comparing the attack against known hackers of that level of skill.

    No matches in the Virtual Adepts. Surprising. She widens the net to the Traditions as a whole-most of them aren't the sort of people to deal with high-tech, but underestimating an Akashic or Verbena simply because a stereotypical one doesn't know how to turn a computer on isn't her style. It's saved her life quite a few times. No matches there, either. She didn't expect any, but it at least eliminates some other possibilities. She runs another match on non-Traditions RDs, and she doesn't get anything significant.

    So she starts looking into Technocratic databases. It's a decision she doesn't take lightly-by doing so, she allows the compromise to go through. There's far more Technocrats who can pull this hack off than RDs, and thus she'll need far more time to narrow the field. Too long-by the time she finishes they'll have accomplished whatever they wanted to. Major Clarent decides immediately that there's more value in finding the perpetrator than stopping the attack. The signs imply whatever the attack is, there will be plenty of time to counter it-and she rules that it's likely to be an intelligence gathering operation rather than anything else.

    There's dozens of possibilities, but she focuses on the one the arcane melding of machine and mind that gives her preternatural reflexes and foresight points out as more important. Henriette Langley. A name that's familiar to her from London. A suspicious name-because Ms. Langley being involved in this operation implies some very uncomfortable possibilities-and even more uncomfortable conclusions. She wants to know exactly what it is.

    Jane Clarent starts to think about approaches and methods. She's going to need to be careful here-whatever Dr. Leon is up to, she suspects that he won't appreciate this fishing expedition. Dealing with a potential unknown, without lethal force, without letting her superiors know, and with no second chances. Well, at least it won't be bad for her personal growth.

    ***​

    Under the cover of what feels like a gauzy-thin mesh and wearing a too-hot black skinsuit, Henriette Langley swelters, regretting the life choices that had led her to this point. Everything had been simple when she had been explaining the plan to Sykes. Technocratic facilities were commonly fitted with EM-dragnets to detect incoming and outbound signals, even third-rate places like this. Remote access would notably increase the risk of them being caught. Instead, she'd go in wearing a thermoptic cloak of her own devising, a null-lifesign suit Rose pulled out of some Damage Control storeroom somewhere, and follow Sykes' carefully calculated schedule to minimize risk. In a clean Progenitor facility like this, there was little risk of equipment contamination - after all, it was a clean lab. With her own hardware, she could trivially get through doors and spoof the less-protected internal sensory gear.

    And it worked. So far. She'd entered through a back door, spoofing the RFID of a sympathizer lab technician, walking in as a faint shimmer in the air, entirely invisible to cameras and barely noticeable to the human eye. Any biosensors weren't seeing anything thanks to the suit she was wearing under her cloak. And she was following Sykes's personnel time table to get in at a good time-basically nobody was there. If only thermoptic cloaking wasn't so damn hot to wear and the null-lifesign suit wasn't producing even more waste heat. It hadn't been so bad, but now she needs to step up her ADEI's operations, so she has to deal with the horrible sensation of sweat pooling in the suit. She's almost certain there's someone else on the network. Someone good enough that she couldn't pin them down - and that meant they were very good indeed. This wasn't some smart-dumb Progenitor clone-sysadmin or Human Resources network admin. It wasn't even a merely-human Watcher network security official. The echoes she was picking up could only be made by Iteration X defenses used by someone who knew exactly what they were doing.

    Moving slowly, she pulls her cable out of the wall jack she had been using, folding it back within the thermoptic cloak. She activates of the desktops belonging to the staff, making it spam slightly suspicious packets across the network.

    She needs to get into the cryogenic warehouse and check the inventory here. There's a generator room, good for dumping her waste heat, which Henriette pads towards, resisting the urge to complain. She'll be happy when she can get out of this getup and take a long, hot shower. But for now, a heat dump is going to be all she can do. And she needs the generator room to keep her from showing up on thermal sensors.

    When she finally gets to dump heat and the suit becomes merely uncomfortable instead of a horrifying heatstroke risk, she quietly sneaks through the largely abandoned construct towards the cryogenic warehouse where the inventory should be. The place is eerie-following Skyes's instructions has meant she's seen almost nobody, just automated systems and clean walls and facilities. She's not used to constructs being like this-the ones she's been in were always busy, rather than in low ebbs like this. But they're apparently ahead of schedule, and a lot of its staff are taking time off before another period of crunch time happens-a luxury reserved for those who are important, but not as important.

    The cyro-warehouse is even more annoying than the rest of the construct, because she should be cold, but the nearly perfect insulation of the thermoptic cloak and nullsuit mean she's still as swelteringly uncomfortable as she was in the rest of it. Sweating profusely while surrounded by cold ice that would frost her breath if she wasn't using direct O2 infusion and CO2 recycling to prevent biosensor detection, she starts to check the inventory.

    She wishes Rose was here instead. She'd have a high-efficiency stealth mode for her metabolism. Or maybe Kessler-she's heard that 80s exojocks might not always be subtle, but a couple of them had low-power modes which dropped their temperature to pretty much ambient. But Rose is away meeting a contact-some Progenitor Damage Control woman and her compatriot, building allies to find Serafina and stop Dr. Gregor Leon. So she has to do it. She should just be happy she's useful again.

    It's rough work going through the inventory, scanning every single RFID tag with a Union-standard scanner while suffocating and boiling to death at the same time. She's never liked direct O2 infusion even though she's had the plugs for them because at some point your reflexes tell you you have to breathe, and it's even worse when you're simultaneously boiling in your own skin, the suit's wicking features overwhelmed by the sheer amount of heat. It's hard to concentrate on what she's reading the inventory as. Undifferentiated stem cells, precursors to custom Progenitor-designed enzymes and cell components, smartblood precursors.

    Components for military-grade constructs. She's not familiar enough with any of them to know what she's dealing with, but Rose thought that she could figure out the project with some more information, so Henriette plans to take this data and give it to her... friend. Yes, friend. It's hard to trust people other than herself, but she has to. She needs to set a good example. And she really can't do any of this alone.

    And then there's a brief flash in the corner of her eye, a standard Union laser pulse. She panics, checking her firewalls and her anti-hacking countermeasures, but there's no attack. Just a message.

    [SAW YOUR WORK. GOOD TALENT, JUST NEED SOME EXPERIENCE. -MAJ. J. CLARENT]

    Henriette is sure that if not for her cardiovascular replacement, she'd have a heart attack right then and there. But at least-at least she didn't do anything hostile. She sends back.

    [WHAT IS THIS?]

    [SENSORS ARE BEING RESET-STANDARD SECURITY REBOOT. CAN TALK OPENLY.] Henriette confirms that the sensors are offline and not transmitting, and takes the opportunity to dump her heat and deactivate the camouflage. If she's going to die here-she'll at least die comfortable. The chill is refreshing after so long in her isolated environmental bubble, as is being able to breathe again.

    "Let's talk." Henriette says.

    "I'm taking a very big risk doing this." Major Clarent responds, reappearing. She's not heavily armed either-just a handgun. A handgun designed for augmented personnel, sure, but still a handgun. And she hasn't even drawn it. Which isn't much comfort for Henriette. As fast as she is with reflex augs and the BISHAMON modifications, Clarent is faster still, with a catlike grace that is outright uncanny. Even if Henriette had her weapon drawn, if Major Clarent wanted her dead, well, she'd be dead before she could pull the trigger. And it's not like a gel-round X-5 would hurt a military-grade cyborg, even a light-build body designed for high agility. "But I want to know why you're here."

    Henriette thinks of what she wants to say. "I'm not betraying the Union if that's what you want to know. I'm just checking something out that might tie back into what happened in LA. The attack on the construct."

    Clarent nods. "It's not a good place to say too much either. I'll set up a place for a meeting. Somewhere better."

    ***
    ​
    Gregor Leon walks down into the high-security labs of his main facility. He is followed by a combat construct-one built out of Transhuman technology, running a lower-resolution copy of his own mindstate. Pared down, of course. It's perhaps 'only' slightly smarter than the average cognitively-boosted Progenitor, which makes it a drooling moron by his standards. And he removed its ability to feel jealousy or disloyalty. It loves him the way he loves himself. Maybe a bit more. But instead of scientific knowledge, it's loaded with skill programs from his own project, the ones involving tactical combat. As a bodyguard, he can't ask for more.

    As a companion-well, he's tweaked them to be taciturn. The original ones weren't, and hearing his psyche's thoughts without the advantages of his intellect were almost painful. The big silent man just follows him at a polite distance, ready to protect its creator-charge with its life, if need be. He needs the backup here. There's been many weapons and oddities Union assets have recovered. Some of them are... quite dangerous, apocalyptic weapons too difficult to destroy and too useful. The one he's looking for, less so. Even so, it took a lot of maneuvering and influence to gain access to it. At least there, the predecessors to Panopticon kept their own vaults and evidence.
    ​
    And its release wouldn't be blamed on him. They've always suspected something similar to it being in the wild, so as long as he's careful in its use, nothing should happen.

    ***
    ​
    'Better,' Henriette is amused, means a nightclub with pounding music and gyrating bodies. She's come alone-Rose and Donald are still away-and she's fortunate she has access to fabricators or else she'd be unprotected here. Something that doesn't make her stand out and doesn't look odd in a nightclub and still might stop a bullet or two was hard to make. And she's uncomfortable here. It's not something she's done before. Jane Clarent meets her, somehow fitting in much better wearing a high-hemmed dress and high heels. She grabs Henriette by the hand-an odd couple with odder hair. They make their way to the dance floor. Or rather Major Clarent does. Henriette's augmented to take Gs and move around a bit even under high-G environments by her recent mods, but Clarent's quite a bit stronger. She tries not to squirm too much.

    [Why are we here?] Henriette sends.

    [The electromagnetic noise and physical noise helps. Harder to overhear. Nearly impossible to recognize body language. I know this is very sensitive.] Clarent sends back. She grabs Henriette by the arm. [I noticed how nervous you were.]

    [I appreciate it.] Henriette sends. With as much conviction as she can muster, which isn't much at all because she's getting a bit of cold feet realizing just how easily this could be a trap. She's sure it's Major Clarent-it explains why she was facing a skilled Iterator sysadmin, and it explains why she wasn't caught or noticed. She didn't get shot in the cryo-room either, which would have been easy enough, and they could get her memories out of her brain or her ADEI easily enough... so she's at least friendly enough, but that doesn't mean she's automatically an ally. Henriette realizes how much of a risk she's put herself in. She has to choose what risk she's going to take beyond that.

    ***
    ​
    It takes a while for Henriette to tell Clarent what she wants to know. Fortunately she doesn't ask many questions, thinking silently about exactly what happened. Instead, she merely listens attentively and politely. It feels off, in a way. Like when underneath the mask, Major Clarent is a war machine wrought in human form. No, not like, Henriette thinks. She's a Clarent, and even if she's not as... single-minded than the one Henriette knew, she's still a weapon first and a person second. Just like most of them. Clarent buys a drink-Henriette doesn't, because unlike the other cyborg, she doesn't have the ability to metabolize alcohol without any intoxication-and they walk out of the club. Henriette is sure someone is getting the wrong impression of them, but at this point she really doesn't give a fuck.

    There's a police car outside the nightclub, and two officers get out, approaching them. Henriette tenses. She almost wants to accuse Clarent of betrayal and lying, and doubly so when one of them starts to draw a gun. She tenses more, trying to think of a way to avoid being shot-but Jane Clarent is faster. Even in her heels and ridiculous outfit, she manages to sprint the distance, disarm the first, and then throw him into his partner. She knocks them both unconscious, handing one of the weapons to Henriette.

    "Can you use one of these?" Clarent asks.

    Henriette nods. "Sort of?"

    "Better than nothing. Don't worry about friendly fire. I'm armored against it-which is probably why they were aiming for you first." She's looking at them, wondering what she's dealing with. Almost hesitant. "I didn't know they were here." The full cyborg says. She glances at her heels, which were ruined by her half-second of exertion, and throws them away without a second glance. "I'm not even sure how they knew we were here. But this isn't Technocratic. Not directly."

    Henriette almost breathes a sigh of relief as Clarent hands her a revolver and checks the unconscious officers. Almost. If this is just some dumb hemophage-based assassination attempt, that'd be good. Fantastic, even. Maybe this will all be a huge misunderstanding."

    "It's not." Clarent says immediately. "It's something much worse. We should go."

    Fortunately for all of you, Henriette didn't invest in kung fu for no reason! Because she's probably going to need it.

    Do You Swear To...
    What exactly did Henriette say to Major Clarent? This is a write-in prompt.
    [ ] All of the truth
    [ ] Most of the truth (how much?)
    [ ] Enough of the truth to create a false impression (what?)
    [ ] Just a little bit of the truth, enough to get her curious (what?)

    Run Cyborg Run:
    Well now. You're being chased by a very, very unknown foe. At least right now it's really weak.
    [ ] Get back to Henriette's car. It's fast and good-looking, and it's closer.
    [ ] Major Clarent has her own vehicle, which is probably better armored than Henriette's.
    [ ] It's too easy to track a vehicle, on the roads. You're going to want to go on foot.
    [ ] Just hide. Find someplace to get a set of clothes not designed to draw attention, get some hair dye and some makeup, and pretend to be someone else until this all blows over. It should work, right?
    [ ] Write-In
     
  • View discussion
    • Update CXCV: Kybernetes
  • View content
    • JB CXCV: Kybernetes

    The Tokyo skyline is filled with light pollution. Bright neon lights cover the facades of the buildings. The sounds of urban civilization fill the air. There's a light mist and it's painting halos around the streetlights.

    "We can use my car," Henriette says.

    "No," Major Clarent says, bending down to grab one of the policemen's jackets. She shrugs it on, and tucks the handgun into a pocket. "At this hour, the Tokyo traffic is too risky. Far too easy for a hostile to snarl us up by engineering a jam. We need more mobility."

    Henriette glances around. "Right," she says, pulling out her phone and inputting a few commands. "There's only one motorbike, but that should get us out of here. At least far enough for the traffic to thin out." Heading over to her car, she grabs a jacket of her own from the back. "I'm engaging its self-driving systems. They're pretty dumb - barely better than Masses-tech - but they might tail it instead."

    "Good. You drive," the other woman says. "I'll deal with any tails."

    "Got it."

    The engine of the bike roars as Henriette accelerates out of the ground level of the car park, dodging between the thick traffic. She's not dressed for biking-she's dressed to blend in, like Major Clarent-but her clothes are shape-memory and have piezoelectric layers, and a command to them has them extend and stiffen enough to provide some protection against falls, scrapes, and-although she hopes that Donald is right about the normal likelihood of people being shot-bullets. Immediately entering the traffic she wistles. The entire place is snarled up to hell and back. There's no way they could have got out of here on a car. Even if they'd tried - no, they'd have been a sitting target at the first red light.

    [So, I'm interested,] Clarent transmits over a secure link. [What do you believe Gregor gains from doing what he's doing?]

    Henriette lets her ADEI part of her brain handle the driving while she considers this. This is something that she suspects is entirely deliberate by the older woman. She is distracted, which means any answers she give will be less guarded. Fortunately for her, she's learned from Director Belltower - and she has tried to avoid directly lying to Major Clarent whenever possible. Against a woman who's as good at mind-machine interfaces as her, direct lies are too risky.

    So instead she told her the truth. Or, at least, a truth. She passed over the text of the suicide meme that Rose recovered while in deep cover pretending to be Serafina, and she described the fake-Serafinas they'd encountered twice now. The second one is documented, if Major Clarent investigates it. Perhaps she might go to Alexander Cross to enquire with the Progenitors, as the two of them have done ops together. Cross certainly knows, because he's the one the fake Serafina went to.

    [I think he wants her out of the way for some reason,] Henriette sends back. [I think he considers her a threat. After all, she's in another Progenitor political faction to him. And she became a public Hero of the Technocracy after Moscow.]

    [But that's too risky. Why would he want her dead?]

    Henriette tries something risky. [Well, she was in EXEMPLAR III,] she suggests. [She knows all about them - and she also is Rose's mother. Maybe he wanted to replace her without Rose knowing. Then he'd have his own working EXEMPLAR III, following Serafina. And I know he's working in high end biotech.]

    [Do you think that's plausible?]

    That sounds like a trick question to Henriette. But it also seems... almost likely. [Let me ask you a question. What's he working on? What's his great scheme which means he's pulling Progenitors in from all over - and he's picked up a Clarent like you to run base defence when you're a decapitation unit? It's something that having Rose Ashford - and a loyal mind-hacked Serafina Rosario would help him with, isn't it?]

    [That's classified.]

    [That's not a no.]

    [It's not a yes, either,] Major Clarent says neutrally. [You won't trick me into releasing classified information with such a simple ploy.]

    Henriette starts to formulate a reply, when one of the cars in front of her swerves to cut her off, crashing into another vehicle. She narrowly dodges the collision. And then another car tries to sideswipe her, and she's sure this isn't a coincidence, it's enemy action. She dodges, leg almost scraping the pavement as she makes the turn.

    [This is what I was concerned it might be. It's spreading.] Clarent says.

    [What's spreading?] Henriette asks quickly. [I thought we were just dealing with Technocrats or hemophages or someone working with the police.]

    [I did as well. But this-I've seen something like this, several years ago. It's an EDE, one which works through technology. Some kind of cybernetic one.]

    [Intrusion threat?] Henriette asks, worried. They're both augmented. But no, that doesn't seem right. Those were baseline police, as far as she knew. Maybe they'd have some sort of sleeper prosthetic at most. But they didn't seem like it. And if it could take them over-why didn't it try already?

    [No. Not for us. Enlightened personnel are resistant. Anyone with significant neural augmentation is totally immune. Your ADEI should be enough to immunize you. It spreads through technology, but that means smartphones, radios, video. I was part of the team-all heavy-spec cyborgs, because they couldn't touch us that way. I think it's holding a grudge.] She summarizes.

    [So you put it down once, you can do it again, right?] Henriette says.

    [Well.] Clarent said. [Not exactly. Not without getting attention. And this time it's smarter. It'll have localized us, gotten our signatures. And it can see my relationships. And yours. It'll be looking for, and finding, anyone who hates us which it can work with. Throwing them at us. Meanwhile it'll try to keep harrying us by ordering people around us to stop us. It can't engage in direct mind control, no, but it can change how you perceive someone socially. I'll send you what I can of the file.]

    Henriette looks at the file. It's heavily redacted-she scrolls past the authorized for distribution by list which has such luminaries like PROG/DC/BLACKWATCH and SYN/ENF/BULLFROG and ITX/SHOCK/KINGSLAYER-apparently Clarent's classification, Henriette notes-and skims its abilities. It's a memetic virus, which spreads through basilisk hacks, visual or auditory. Not everyone is vulnerable-but enough are-and it can't deal with cognitive augs at all. Like most memetic EDEs it burns itself out fairly quickly, its hosts typically surviving the process.

    Not so dangerous in Stage 1-it can influence thoughts, make people do things they might do impulsively, like cut off those two madwomen on a motorcycle because fuck her, that's why, or react more slowly or more quickly. Stage 2 she's worried about-it learns from its hosts, starts using their skills in a synchronous matter. Taking full control. Which doesn't sound dangerous, until they start manifesting powers over technology. The ability to make computers and machines just do their bidding. Or if it didn't do what she'd do if she was running them, and start trying to spread to a military base or criminals. Jane Clarent might be handgun-proof but her chassis isn't invulnerable to rifle fire. And, Henriette thinks, she herself isn't bulletproof. The only good news is the faster it spreads, the faster it burns out and leaves a new syntergene-Stage 3. So there's been a few breakouts of similar things. They let them appear, just keep the Stage 3 under watch, and burn it out. It's a low risk, relatively speaking, unless provoked. Or unless it's hunting you. Someone could have set it against them.

    [Is there any way to stop it?] Henriette asks. [Some sort of leader or something?]

    [No.] Jane Clarent says. [Distributed computing, distributed cognition. You have to kill all of its hosts if you want to contain it before it reproduces.]

    Henriette wants to ask if that's what she did, but thinks better of it. The young woman suspects her maybe-ally would have done it, if things had come down to it. Hostile memetic viruses are dangerous things. Probably why Clarent's special forces, and Henriette's a pilot. But still, she doesn't want to kill people whose only crime was listening to the wrong radio channel or looking at the wrong thing. [So what do we do?] She doesn't wait for the answer-it seeks out cybernetics signatures, so she's trying to figure out how to deploy decoys, and how to identify the attackers.

    [We react. Try not to get ourselves killed.]

    ***​

    In one of the black areas of the lab, Dr. Gregor Leon talks with what looks like a Bob. He wouldn't describe it as conversing-even though the entity acting through it is smarter than a Bob has any right to be-and via distributed processing, smarter than a normal person-it tops off somewhere around 'human super-genius' level. The kind of simple mind that he can predict fairly easily. The fact that it's an EDE just makes it easier. EDEs are, if anything, less flexible than humans are, even if they might be more intelligent in a straight-line way. More predictable. He's had some pretty good success predicting them to date. Which is concerning in some ways, reassuring in others. If only the opposition was so predictable.

    The reason Dr. Leon chose the specific attacker-that syntergene-was because it was quite easily containable. The other reason was because a mind-virus which was smart enough to hold grudges was useful. He, of course, is immune. Give it a chance to absorb host bodies with knowledge, and a chance to take revenge against one of the members who stopped it from carrying out its imperative when it was last released. What it did past that was out of his control. More or less.

    "I would recommend heavily that you ensure their death or incapacitation." Gregor Leon says mildly. "Otherwise, the consequences could be unpleasant." The Bob raises an eyebrow at him, but says nothing more. "I would have to make sure my involvement in this didn't come to light." The result of that is obvious.

    "It is more dangerous than I expected, even without its parts."

    "I have provided the resources you need most. Time. Use the tools you already have." Leon snaps. "Remember our agreement. I don't care what those tools are, or how you want to use them. In fact, the less I know, the better. Just get it done, and you'll get your part of the bargain." This is why, after all, Control needs him. Most of them can no longer think like he does. Even the Residents don't quite have the same focus anymore. They might be tempters, bargainers, and corrupters, but their greed is often their undoing. They're not willing to be losers in the deal. Mad, like all EDEs.

    But still the favored victors of any war. They can make mistakes-and do, due to their madness and their alien thinking-but they just need to win once and it's over. Better to reign in hell than serve in heaven-and Earth today doesn't even manage to get close to heaven. So he's sending a hostile alien entity off, giving it the information it needs to target a pair of loyal Technocrats, possibly aiding RDs in the process. Nevertheless, it's nothing personal.

    It's only business.
    ​
    ***
    ​
    Thinking on the problem, dodging traffic-some of which is merely unintentionally obstructing her, the rest of which is trying as best as your average commuter can to kill a super-pilot with reflexes in the top .1% of human reactions or so-thank you Iteration X, thank you mom and dad-Henriette Langley sighs. If she was in a better situation-if they were using drones or soldiers instead of normal humans and their impulses towards road rage being directed by an alien puppetmaster-she could probably act more aggressively. But she's hampered-not by Major Clarent's cyborg frame and her grip, but by not wanting any of these people to die for no good reason. [Do you have an exit plan?] She asks desperately.

    [There's a safehouse nearby. I think we can make it. It's in this building, and I have hardware and shielding.] Clarent sends, one several kilometers away. Henriette already starts thinking of routes to it. There's a closer one Donald and Rose have set up-but she's not going to go there. That would be foolish at best. Same for the NWO ones the Tyrants have given them some access to. That would be... unsafe. And, Henriette thinks sourly, 'unsafe' for a bunch of nu-who killers probably means eliminating the problem. Something she distinctly doesn't want here. [How are you on stealth?]

    [I think I have it.] Henriette says. Coding improvised threat-detection-and-analysis patches while driving a motorcycle at breakneck speeds through traffic, trying to-with some, but not much, success-to outrun the spread and infection. She thinks she has a working model. [Here you go.]

    Clarent nods fractionally. [This is workable, but I think I have some more data that can refine it. Let me fix what I can.] She sends it back, modified, and Henriette notices its estimated accuracy go up another few percentage points. She swerves to avoid one of the red-highlighted drivers, taking a hard right onto another road. Heading marginally closer to where the safehouse is.​

    [Can we shake them off before that?]

    [Yes.] Clarent says. [There will be electronic billboards 300m up this road. I've already taken them over. Stop at the traffic light for a moment.]

    Henriette dutifully does so, realizing that she found Clarent's announcement surprising-but shouldn't have, since the Shock Corps, especially the 90s-era ones where they seriously started talking about "cognitive clockspeed" and "limits of human information processing" and "OODA loops"-they often did that. They'd just know what you did, and take advantage of that. She's been spending a lot of time out of the Convention, Henriette supposes.

    The billboard is on the side of a high-rise building. Nearby-maybe a hundred more meters away-is their destination. [Close your eyes,] Major Clarent sends. Suddenly it erupts into an eye-hurting fractal pattern. Basilisk Hack. Henriette does so in time, waits a few seconds, then opens them. The fading pattern causes a brief pain in her temples-and that's collateral damage from targeting baseline neurology modified by the EDE. The result for everyone else is chaos. Cars slam into each other, drivers incapacitated. A motorcycle driver has the red highlight blink out of existence as he loses control and skids into the intersection. There is the sound of twisted metal and gasps of pain. Henriette feels a little sick about every injury it causes.

    [Focus.] Clarent sends. With no time, she leaves the motorcycle and grabs Henriette. She runs, looking silly in her bare feet and too-short dress and stolen police jacket with the patches torn off, legs blurring. She doesn't seem to even notice the weight. [We'll make it there.]

    [Can you...] Henriette starts.

    [It's faster this way. Less of a risk they'll track us and the safehouse. Henriette admits she has a point. Even if this is weird and uncomfortable. They don't even take the elevators-instead she just uses a key on the fire exit and dashes up floor after floor. Major Clarent at least has the dignity to pretend to be out of breath when she enters, even though her actions-checking the windows, activating the security, and ensuring that the door is locked very, very tightly-belie that.

    [So what now?] Henriette asks, when she gets her feet underneath herself. [What's your plan?] The safehouse is very... Iteration X. That is to say, it has all the comforts Henriette remembers when she was younger, years ago. And it has everything she's come to associate with the Shock Corps. There's a host of small household robotics, a wall which is already rotating to show off a weapons rack-mostly Technocratic standard weapons and some heavy cyborg rifles, rather than frontline gear-but it's useful.

    [Right now,] the full cyborg says, [I'm going to get something more practical for evading an EDE. Weapons, too. There's some bags here.] Henriette checks the equipment while Clarent changes-lots of it is useful. Technocratic impact armor in various clothing, small arms designed for cyborgs, some light, although there's a heavy rifle-firing rounds big enough that a normal human would find it nearly impossible to fire unbraced-taking up some space. Henriette takes the opportunity to borrow some of the impact armor as well-it's more reliable than piezoelectric smart clothing, and doesn't require dedicated ADEI subprograms. And she's close enough to the body shape of Major Clarent that she can take advantage of them anyways-Clarent's taller and a bit more feminine, but that just means the clothes hang a bit loose on her-and a few setting changes in her ADEI fix that problem anyways. She picks up one of the shock gloves, feeling a little glad-reluctantly, but still glad-that Harlan had taught her how to fight unarmed. She doesn't feel like having to deal with something like this with just her basic survival training. Especially not if she doesn't want to leave a trail of corpses.

    There's a few more nonlethal weapons which she can probably use-flashbangs, stickyfoam grenades, chemical smoke. There's a larger selection of lethal weapons-she looks at those more reluctantly-sure, a reality deviant like a shapeshifter might deserve being at the business end of a pulse-rifle belching out explosive-incendiary rounds with anticoagulant coating, but not people suckered into targeting the wrong person. [So what now?]

    [Now we stealth ourselves-hopefully they're going to have to search this entire high-rise for people. Emissions damping, minimal electronics signature-anything that might minimize our signature. Given what this is, that might take a while. We didn't exactly run our own ECM when we were dealing with the first outbreak.] Clarent says. [And then we make our escape. Keep watch on the cameras.] Clarent looks just normal enough to be unnoticeable but is still equipped-hair set to a normal color rather than riotous red, wearing dark clothes and a dark jacket with plenty of pockets. There's a handgun in the holster, some sort of cyborg-use break-action one, and she's got some other weapons hidden on her which Henriette can see in EMI vision. All of what she's wearing is woven with impact armor, which reminds Henriette that despite being a military-grade cyborg, Clarent's not a Kesslerian death machine. She still needs things like 'body armor' and worries about being shot with some masses-grade small arms.

    [Will do.] Henriette watches them simultaneously as she packs useful equipment-and takes what she needs. She's not sure if it's the basilisk hack or just careful movement, but it takes a half-hour before they come for them. And who comes for them isn't who she expects. They're dressed like regular Japanese civilians, but they clearly aren't.

    The suppressed handguns furtively hidden in open jackets would tell her that much, as does the body armor and the hints of tattoos which her IFF recognizes as hostile RD artifacts. Their look does as well-all tight-cut hair, cold eyes, killer instincts. She doesn't need a tactical profiling program to realize they're a threat, nor does she need one to remember who they are. [That's a North Korean recon team.] Clarent sends her, unnecessarily. [Commandos.]

    [I know.] Henriette says. She recognizes two of the faces from Moscow. [Are they working together?] There's five of them, two of them with the same faces. So the two brothers, and probably three extra combatants. Maybe RDs, maybe just proxies or foot-soldiers. But they're all dangerous.

    [Probably. The enemy we're dealing with is smart. It works through proxies. It can sense relationships. Including negative ones. They probably were around to sabotage Technocratic assets or take down Union HVTs.] Clarent says. [I assume the EDE told them of a Kingslayer around and they decided the risk of escalating the war was worth the shot. Which means-]

    [Is it going to happen?] Henriette asks. [The war, I mean. I'm sure we'll survive this.] She's already thinking of ways to avoid them-or to fight them, if necessary. She doesn't want that to happen. On the cameras, they're kicking down doors, floor by floor.

    [Probably.] Clarent says bluntly. [Best case, it'll just be a border skirmish and some covert ops on both sides before someone hammers out another ceasefire. Something like this probably leads to the worst case of actual war-if they're assassinating high-ranking ItX officers and Heroes of the Technocratic Union that's not going to lead to any reduction in tensions. So let's not let that happen.]

    Henriette nods. [Why aren't they just heading towards us?]

    [This place is too well-shielded for that and I have false emitters laced throughout the building. They can't tell what's Union or not without physical inspection. So we have some time. At their current rate... maybe an hour.] Then she sees the Stage 2 infectees start pushing through the building, like rioters-but there's an organization in their movements, rather than mere mob mentality. [Nevermind. We have maybe 15 minutes. Multiple Stage 2 infectees assisting them. They're working together. Standard procedure.]


    Remember Them? They're Back
    Oh, yes. The North Koreans are active in Japan-and when they're given the chance to quietly neutralize two high-priority Technocratic enemies as war looks more and more likely, they took it. You have a semi-reinforced safehouse which is warded to some extent against scrying, and is hiding you from

    Major Jane Clarent has Enlightenment 5 and the spheres Correspondence 4 (Multitasking), Mind 4 (Brute Force), Matter 2, Forces 3, Time 2, Prime 3. Yes, she's much more powerful than her writeup in London. This is intentional because you didn't canonize her spheres as what they were in London. I'd probably have found someone else if you had chosen her. She brings a military-grade cyborg body which has a Dex of "lol yes" and superhuman Strength and Stamina, as well as moderate levels of armor and redundancy, and a lot of cognitive-related hardware. Her safehouse has weapons, equipment, and surveillance. It is secure-just not secure against a North Korean hit-team operating in enemy territory who thinks Henriette is Public Enemy No. 1 and are assuming she's got Technocratic backup. There is probably some Entropy magic to lay down bad coincidences at work here.​

    Escaping the North Koreans:
    Good news-they're plainclothes. Bad news-they're North Korean Special Forces. With all that entails. How are you going to deal with them?
    [ ] Clarent has friends. She's been making the call, because the surrounding datascape hasn't been jammed. They're probably not 100% trustworthy and means you're going to have to do a lot more talking-but they're useful.
    [ ] Henriette remembers that Mr. and Mrs. Rosario told her of a number to call in case things got bad or if she found something out about Serafina. This is both.
    [ ] Bad news. They're jamming the place. You're going to have to make it out with your own wits and cleverness.
    [ ] But Henriette's actually a lot better at fighting than she thinks, and Jane Clarent is a blender on legs. If you can ambush them when they're busy trying to assault into a Technocratic safehouse where useful foci are literally everywhere, you might be able to inflict a casualty or two on the North Koreans, and then run like hell. Because they're going to be very, very mad.
    [ ] There's another vehicle here. One which is probably untraceable-and customized for high-threat situations. It'll be easier than losing them on foot.
    [ ] Or, you know-you have a cyborg with superhuman strength, agility, and high-rise buildings everywhere. No need to worry about normal people when you can just open the window and jump to another building. If you do it quickly enough they might not even notice!​
    [ ] Write-In
     
    Last edited:
  • View discussion
    • Update CXCVI: Man and Machine
  • View content
    • JB CXCVI: Man and Machine

    "We're moving," Major Clarent says tersely. She racks a 10-millimeter cyborg rifle, folds its stock and its malmetal components into a gym bag with some spare magazines. "The situation is far beyond what this safehouse is rated for. And I don't have the required intel to be able to fully counter the RD assassins. So we're going to have to lose the hostiles and regroup." She frowns. "Damage Control has forces here. They need to be brought in too when a hostile meme like this is present."

    Henriette checks the exterior feeds. The RDs are taking it methodically, searching floor by floor. This would normally be a good thing-they'd get attention, possibly police attention, and when the TSMP shows up the Union isn't much further away-but Henriette is just as concerned about Technocratic reinforcements now as she is the RDs. Possibly more concerned, because the RDs might be North Korean killers, but Major Clarent's fast and lethal, while there's really not much they can do against an Iteration X gunship or combat walker outside of 'hope for divine intervention' and Henriette's experience with gods has not been the best. "Means of exit?" she asks. Inside, she's glad that they're not going to fight it out to the last. Quite apart from the 'not dying in a stupid way like this' which she considers to be pretty key, she doesn't want to have to fight too many of the innocents out there. The RDs can go fuck themselves, but the infectees are different.

    "There's a secure route leading to a hidden vehicle at the back of the building. Unregistered, and designed for blending in." Major Clarent is grabbing a kit with a bar code on it which Henriette decrypts. It's a field trawl kit.

    "Are we trying to capture a hostile?" she asks.

    "Not as a primary objective," Major Clarent says. "The RDs are likely blanked of anything that they don't need for the mission."

    "What?"

    "They're NK Akashics. They exult in ignorance and acting without conscious thought," Major Clarent says, her face doll-like. "Innocence above all - that's what they claim. They'll only know what they need to. Maybe less - they might not even understand that they might die."

    "... uh," Henriette says, for a lack of anything better to say. "So... they're Bob-smart?"

    "No. Never think they're stupid. In fact... they think faster without mental distractions in their way. Think of them as HITMarks in full combat autism mode, and you won't be too wrong." She shakes her head. "But if things go wrong, I might need to try to grab one of the infectees and start tapping into their network."

    "Isn't that dangerous?"

    "Yes. I would greatly prefer not to. There's a considerable risk if I do so. But I want to be prepared."

    ***
    ​
    The hidden elevator built into the core of the building is a nice touch, Henriette thinks. And it takes them to a hidden, unlit escape tunnel that leads to another building's garage. Henriette follows Major Clarent's lead-she can't see in pitch darkness, not having an inbuilt lidar system or echolocation. Maybe something to think about having a method of dealing with. They sneak outside, fortunately not followed, and find the vehicle Major Clarent has kept for her own backup. "A bit conspicuous, isn't it?" Henriette asks, looking at the two-seater sports car. She doesn't mind, as such. She likes fast cars just fine. Just... not when she's running away from North Korean death commandos.

    "I wasn't expecting to have to hide, merely escape and evade until reinforcements could arrive." Major Clarent says simply. "The same protocol applies here, although we may have to route through different channels. Of course, there's limited camouflage systems."

    Henriette wants to push her on Dr. Leon, suggest that she's right, but thinks better of saying anything in response. She's not exactly the strongest orator in the amalgam, which is fine because she's really good at a lot of other things. She takes the wheel of the cherry-red sports car, smiles a little when the DNI links to the vehicle. So there's a holographic camouflage circuit, she notes. Better than nothing. A few more features-piezoelectric armor, reinforced bodywork, and a couple of hidden weapons and tools. She'll be able to work with this. It screams out of the garage, perfectly silent thanks to its electric motor. Henriette ignores the holocamo-it'll make her conspicuous to RDs with enhanced vision, although she does take the chance to turn the smart paint of the vehicle a slightly less conspicuous shade of red.

    "Still no police response." Major Clarent notes. "Union tactical channels are noting limited comm blackouts and routing TSMP to investigate. RD threat considered low."

    "That's not going to end well." Henriette manages to choke out. Special Metropolitan Police-basically a glorified Sleeper SWAT team with some NWO hand-me-downs-versus the most elite of North Korea's soldiers? Henriette grips the steering wheel tighter in anger. This is going to get a lot of people killed for no good reason-solely so Gregor Leon and whoever's pulling his strings can kill them all. Because they sold out to the fake Control which thought nothing of taking a baby girl and mutilating her at a level which goes far beyond mere violation solely to create a weapon.

    "If they can even find them at all. Those were NK special forces. They should be able to slip through a TSMP network easily, even without any subversion of the network. The time this has bought us is minimal." Major Clarent says. "We are still being locally jammed by the NK commandos. It will take time to break through whatever they have done."

    Henriette wants to know how the RDs can jam communications if they don't even know where they are, but decides that "RD bullshit" is probably a good explanation, same with how they can apparently react faster by being ignorant. "Can't one thing go right today?"

    "They are not currently following us." Major Clarent says calmly. "So we've avoided the immediate threat. I have a few possible escape locations. Sending them to your ADEI now."

    "Why not decide for yourself?"

    "You're more likely to trust me if you make the choice on your own. More importantly, in the event of my temporary or permanent incapacitation, information on the alternates may be useful." She pauses for a moment-just a heartbeat, long enough for her to make a conclusion. "I don't fully support your conclusion, but your concern about Dr. Leon's activity is plausible enough that I cannot dismiss it. Therefore, we will proceed, for the moment, as if he is a risk."
    ​
    "And these fallbacks?" Henriette asks. "How do you know they're not risks as well?"

    "I don't, but the risk here is minimal. The Progenitors' pull is limited in the facilities I'm suggesting." Major Clarent notes. "If you have any better ideas, please feel free to contribute."

    She looks at them and realizes why. Several of them are Ragnarok Command facilities. Technocratic annexes to JSDF or US military airbases, now heavy with Union conventional combat arms-direct action Operatives, Shock Corps, even some VE marines. No Damage Control presence-they, and the less overt Operatives, are too busy managing to fight a shadow war against the North Korean RDs and all the native Japanese ones who have decided that this is the right time to start acting up.

    An assassination there would be pretty brazen, and incredibly risky, especially if Dr. Leon only could call on his own assets. Damage Control getting into a gunfight with hundreds of exojocks and full-conversion cyborgs and thousands of combat-enhanced Kamrads would be suicidal, and unless his excuse was effectively ironclad, any attacker he'd send would have to roll through there. But... could he? Henriette remembers everything she's seen in the void and in Moscow. It would take only a handful of subverted cyborgs at the wrong time to end them. Major Clarent isn't Kessler-she's at a distinct disadvantage if she's caught by surprise, not being an exojock with a militarized combat endoskeleton for extra brute force. And unlike Kessler, who seemed to be immune to everything and anything Autochthon and the other things in the void threw at him, the jury's still out on Major Clarent.

    But there's another option. Jaron Belltower and his team, as she understands it, were always concerned about Japan. They said, before Henriette, Rose, and Donald left Brazil, they'd be perfectly willing to keep in touch. And there's NWO-run media facilities here. Those would have minimal guards-they'd be able to force their way in fairly easily. There, it'd be a matter of a priority call and just hoping that they get there first. Because the moment that call happens, Dr. Leon and his extrasolar allies would know exactly where they are, and the chances of them not being able to attack the place are nil.

    Or she could take the other safehouse locations from Major Clarent. Those are somewhat more defensible-she has spare bodies stashed in a few, and Henriette knows that she can remote several of them at once, or at the very least load them with limited-AI combat routines if there's heavy jamming. It would make them vulnerable to 'accidental' elimination and give them no clear timeframe for rescue but certainly it'd be most discreet.

    And then there's a final, dangerous option. She can go back to where she's fairly sure Donald and Rose will be. They're more likely to have the ability to convince Major Clarent-and with their help they'll be much better off-certainly both of them would bring abilities to the table that would help, and might be able to find a decent hiding place-but it'd also put them at risk, and possibly bring down much more dangerous foes.

    If she guesses wrong, she'll be in very deep shit. She's pretty good at combat now-by masses standards-and could probably handle a couple of cops or soldiers. If she ends up choosing the wrong base-she'll have to try desperately to kill herself before they can damp any suicide modes in her implants. If she chooses right, there's still a pretty good chance of ending up dead. Donald has to be a huge liar, Henriette thinks. There's no way regular Technocrats or RDs get around without being threatened with horrible death by super-soldier at least once a week.

    ***
    ​
    Henriette thinks that she's only just made up her mind-even though her ADEI tells her that it's been several minutes since she's done so-when she sees familiar faces and familiar threat markings show up. The EDE is back-and so are the RDs. They're in a stolen Hummer painted in eye-bleedingly garish colors that is somehow managing to drive at sports-car speeds, faces blank and dull. Just like HITMarks in combat autism, she supposes. She doesn't know who owned the Hummer, nor does she care. Following them seems to be a TSMP van, an ugly armored thing with a half-dozen SWAT members in it, but the police in it glow red under her IFF.

    "TSMP equipment would have included Land Warrior-style real-time tactical monitoring and networking, as well as electronic optics and wireless integration." Clarent says. "Few would have been fitted with any sorts of cranial augmentations-elective cybersurgery is rare there. They would have been vulnerable to subversion. At least it confirms that the RDs and the EDE are allied."

    "What equipment do they have?" Henriette asks. "And how are you so familiar with them?"

    "I trained some of them." Major Clarent says simply, sending Henriette some details. "Equipment would include heavy body armor, no powered assist, minimal mobility restriction, with integrated multispectral optics. Carbines with underbarrel launchers-typically used for nonlethals, although lethal munitions are available. If they were expecting hardened opposition, their sniper will be armed with an exoskeletal weapons harness and a 20-millimeter shoulder-fired rifle-more or less identical to the Shock Corps ERASR. However, they will require time to lock the exoskeleton to accurately fire it, unlike a Corps cyborg."

    Henriette reviews the files-Taking them out lethally won't be a problem-she's had enough practice under that asshole Aristide's tuition that she can handle the recoil of pistol-sized hypercore rounds-and the cyborg handgun and rifle Major Clarent have fire rounds about as powerful as heavy machinegun cartridges. If they're on foot, those rifles will be dangerous at closer range, but while in the vehicle, at least, she only has to worry about the 20-millimeter. If they even have one. Which she's not sure of. But they wouldn't be able to deploy it against them in this situation, she thinks. Probably not without some risk. So that makes them less dangerous than the RDs, who are... largely a mystery. And they're catching up, despite the traffic-which they seem to be plowing through, mostly figuratively-without slowing.​


    What Now?
    [ ] Ram them off the road. Henriette's almost certainly the better driver.
    [ ] Outspeed them. She's been trying to stay inconspicuous. Now she's involved in a high-speed chase involving the TSMP. That's not going to happen.
    [ ] Major Clarent makes merely human snipers look very, very sad. She's not using a dedicated Iteration X mag-rifle, but even with a conventional Shock Corps one she's perfectly capable of feats of marksmanship to cripple or kill the opposition.
    [ ] Distract them while you break their jamming-and then drop a Technocratic QRF on their position. That'll probably keep them very, very distracted for the time being. If they don't end up dead, which is also a strong possibility.

    Where To?
    [ ] Out of the city, towards the Ragnarok Command constructs and their military presence. Make it difficult to quietly stage an assassination.
    [ ] Towards downtown, to find a media operation. Fight together, or die alone.
    [ ] To the outskirts of the city, for Clarent's other safehouses. Trust is a weakness.
    [ ] To Donald and Rose. Desperate times call for desperate measures.
     
  • View discussion
    • Update CXCVII: Need for Speed
  • View content
    • JB CXCVII: Need for Speed

    "Where are we heading to?" Major Clarent asks. Henriette really only has one choice, though. She ruled out running home to her team immediately. Donald is squishy, and Rose is just one woman. One woman who happens to be a biological killing machine, but Gregor will have plenty of biological killing machines onside. There's a reason that you don't let hostiles trail back to your home base. And she's scared of the cybermeme thing. She's genuinely scared. It's not something she understands. It strikes at people through normal technology and it can turn anyone on the street - anyone at all - into an enemy. Going near a NWO communications hub? No. No no no. That doesn't seem like it'll end well if any of the infected attack them while they're there. She's not going to risk spreading that thing globally.

    She wants to go to ground. It makes sense. It means they can get away from both the hostiles and the ones hunting them and that's good. Except it's not. Going to ground means they can't act. Going to ground means Leon Gregor's plans succeed because she won't be there to stop them. So that means she can't do the sensible thing, because the sensible thing is a trap set for Major Clarent who's an efficient, sensible killing machine who understands exactly what she should do in such a situation like this. It's just a way to remove the two of them from the table.

    Which means it's time to do something obvious, blatant, and bullish. WWItXD? Break out the Gordian knife and shiv an uppity Progenitor doctor.

    "Major?" she asks.

    "Yes?"

    "Your Ragnarok Command contacts. You say you wouldn't dive an infected individual on your own. Would you do it with them backing you up and running defense?"

    "It would be a more viable option," the older woman says, non-committal.

    It's the best she'll get. Henriette grins like a shark and selects the base where she notes there are Void Engineer marines. "Well, if we can grab one of the infectees, I think the cybermeme might know exactly how it found you. And it might even know if it was deliberately released." She grits her teeth. "If you're feeling up to it," she adds.

    "Such goading won't work."

    "I had to try," Henriette says, shifting gears. Please, she thinks to herself. She doesn't pray to anything in particular, because the Computer proved unworthy of her. But she still pleads. Please let Director Belltower's stuff with the Void Engineers come through. Because it'd really suck if they shot her when she was hoping they'd stop any of Gregor's assets shooting her. "If we're going to get to Yokohama Naval Base, though, we'll need to stop their pursuit."

    "Already on it." Major Clarent says. She unpacks her rifle, leans it out the side window, and aims. Henriette flinches when she fires-the report is eerily silent, rather than the typical window-shattering roar of heavy weaponry. She glances in the rear-view mirror, and sees the TSMP armored van and the North Korean commandeered Hummer take fatal wounds in a split-second. Even with her ADEI highlighting its ballistic path and giving her the chance to replay the shot, she can't believe what happens. The engine block of the vehicle is designed to resist standard small arms fire, not custom-tooled antimateriel rounds fired with brutal precision. The round punches straight through, goes through the frame of the vehicle in a spray of burning depleted uranium, and tears out one of the run-flat wheels for good measure. The round, now only the perfect silver toroid of the smart-metal core, skips off the asphalt, leaving a slight divot, and slams itself unerringly into the Hummer's engine block as well. Even as it does, the North Koreans are moving, reactions faster than any normal human's, faster than even many cyborgs.

    The driver of the armored van loses control instantly, smashing into the divider wall of the highway at high speeds. Even if nobody's dead-and Henriette hopes so-they'll have enough broken bones and damaged equipment that any chance of them being useful is nonexistent. The North Koreans don't fare much better-but their personal excellence is enough-it drove their stolen vehicle past its limits, and now it drives them beyond human limits. Their stolen Hummer careens into the side-but they don't seem to notice. Most of them of them leap out the windows of the vehicle in sprays of safety glass and hit the ground running, even as the HV round carves through the civilian vehicle, barely even slowing. One of the passengers is too slow and too unlucky, and he tumbles as he rolls out, hit. A round which would have torn a man in half leaves only a neat hole, and he staggers for a moment, trying to draw a weapon, until Major Clarent follows up with a two-round burst. His head snaps back as if punched and he falls instantly. The other North Koreans draw weapons-either stolen TSMP gear or AK-clones, and fire back, rounds careening off Henriette's borrowed supercar.

    One of them goes for another vehicle, shooting the driver with a precise suppressed pistol shot, then dropkicks the windshield in, landing in the driver's seat, twisting around to open the car door, and dumping the corpse of its former owner out. Three more of the North Koreans pile in. The last two look around and seek to hijack their own vehicle-but Major Clarent fires at them and they go for cover behind the crashed TSMP van for the moment.

    The highway erupts into chaos. Cars crash into each other as they try to get out of the gunfight.

    "Are you planning to get us closer so we can do the snatch?" Major Clarent asks, firing at the stolen sportscar, which somehow manages to turn and maneuver so that the majority of the burst misses and the rest only shatter a rear-view mirror or leave tears in the bodywork. The driver is very good, Henriette thinks. Not as good as her, but still very good. Probably at least as good as a en-woh super agent. But then again, this is some sort of North Korean hit team. It makes sense they'd send their best. "I would recommend against it. Those rounds are not conventional-they have performance similar to Technocratic HV ammunition. It would be... difficult to make precision shots at this time."

    Henriette shakes her head. "Not unless we can get one infectee alone. I think it'll try to have its friends tell it where we're going, and then start looking for eligibles there. So next time they won't be chasing us." She looks at the carnage. "How long can we expect a Technocratic response to take?"

    "Unsure. If I was planning their operation, I would have set up at least one distraction and have allies to confuse communications at this point." Clarent says. Both sides are using silent weapons-It's surreal, watching a gunfight play out but with not a single report of gunfire, just the results-the sounds of metal impacting concrete or asphalt, the sounds of vehicles losing control as they see what's happening and the animal hindbrain takes over from reason, the sound of engines revving.

    Henriette's ADEI projects a proximity alert suddenly, and she slams her foot on the accelerator even harder and swerves just as the sportscar seems to materialize out of nowhere and barely misses her. "Fuck!" she swears. Those sons of bitches infiltrated her vision somehow, displacing their image with RD trickery. Without the mental infiltration, the ghost car they were hiding as is obviously fake-only about as good as a basic holodisguise. It'd hold up against a spy satellite or someone not paying attention, but not against Iterators.

    "They're good." Major Clarent says. She fires again into the vehicle-but despite putting several rounds into the sports car, none of them seem to hit anything vital, as if by sheer bad luck. "They didn't expect the illusion to last for more than a split-second. Probably multiple high-threat level RDs, very few 'consors.'" Clarent guesses. "Good teamwork-they'd have to have it if they were capable of getting a mindhack to last even this long against defensive countermeasures."

    Henriette sees another sports-car screaming in at absurd, engine-melting speeds to attack her and realizes that they're even better than that. She sends a command to the electro-reactive armor in the vehicle as reflex, and guesses right. The passenger leaps towards them in an impossible, twisting jump. There is a loud zap and the smell of ozone, and he falls off, limbs juddering, out of control. The fire against them redoubles-probably for them to save their comrade-and she can see the second car slow to pick the North Korean commando up. She has her ADEI roll the window down, and draws the pistol she took from Major Clarent's safehouse anyways. She remembers what Harlan taught her about one-handed shooting, combines it with some hastily-modified weapons targeting programs-all that piloting her own body has paid off at least a little bit, she thinks grimly, and fires a couple of shots at the driver. She can't count on Major Clarent for everything, after all. It's the first time she's shot at someone in anger without the distance of a war machine to help with it. She doesn't know what she should feel.

    Most of her shots go harmlessly into the vehicle, tearing upholstery or blowing pointless holes in the sleek body of the vehicle. One of them hits the driver in the arm, and he looks at her. His expression is dead and blank. Less human than even a HITMark. The blood welling from the wound stops near-instantly, and he doesn't seem to even notice the injury. He just redoubles his attempts to recover his comrade. 15 minutes, Henriette thinks. Just 15 more minutes, and they'll be there. 15 more minutes surviving this ambush. And hopefully picking up an infectee so they can deal with the meme-virus. Easier said than done, especially with five angry North Korean commandos and whatever the meme-thing knows.

    Highway to the Danger Zone:
    Right, so because I've had issues with updating not nearly often enough recently, I decided to write up a relatively short update here. Right now, Henriette and Major Clarent are going to a US naval base in Japan, which happens to be basically chock full of classified units nobody can talk about (i.e. Iteration X). So what exactly are your plans to actually get there given that you're likely to have to deal with ambushers and the North Koreans?

    [ ] Take out their vehicles again and take the direct route. Useful, unless some of them can teleport.
    [ ] Force them to drop their jamming, then emergency extract (Corr 3). Fast, but vulgar-and it might require a bit of a fight.
    [ ] Get communications back with the Technocracy so you can call in some friends. You might be able to win a fight like that.
    [ ] Find out how they're tracking you and spoof it, then take an alternate route out.
    [ ] Write-In.
     
    Last edited:
  • View discussion
    • Update CXCVIII: Last Rites
  • View content
    • JB CXCVIII: Last Rites

    15 minutes evading North Korean commandos, Henriette thinks, is going to be much easier if they lack any vehicle of their own. They might be able to pull off some kind of Reality Deviant bullshit, like running as fast as her sportscar, but it'll distract them, make them easier to deal with. And then she'll only have to deal with the stupid cyber-meme thing, which is much, much easier.

    "Major. Can you eliminate their vehicles?" Henriette asks. "I'll do my best to provide you with a stable firing platform." Easier said than done, with a seemingly limitless rain of grenades flying in their direction from seemingly fearless North Koreans. Their movements are millimeter-precise and repeating endlessly, and they manage an utterly inhuman sustained rate of fire-helped, no doubt, by their access to nigh-infinite ammunition. It'll be a challenge simultaneously evading shaped-charge weapons which can breach the car's armor while maintaining a route that allows Major Clarent a good shot. She starts plotting out her desired route-something fast, one which takes her through side roads and away from large concentrations of people, planning out specific unpredictable points in the route to take shots at the opposition. She hopes that'll be enough, and sends it to Major Clarent.

    Major Clarent gives a fractional nod, enough acknowledgement of the plan. For her, something like this is second nature. She's more at-ease in these situations than she was when she was hiding in a club, using an endless number of social aids to avoid social faux pas. Giving orders, talking about battlefield situations? She's in her element there. In a way, she doesn't mind this situation. Intellectually, she knows it isn't an optimal time to go to war, and that Sleeper intransigence is pushing heavily for this inevitable conflict, which will require the Technocracy to lead the charge. But she also knows that she was designed for this kind of conflict-open warfare, rather than social maneuvering.

    She calmly reloads as fire whips around her, shattering as it impacts her getaway car. She's invested in windows that can open and shut in eyeblinks-useful tools when they're armored-and their edges are reinforced and sharpened so anyone who tries to reach through them uninvited can get a dangerous surprise-and even as rounds plink off of the vehicle she ignores them. They won't get through-she's running multiple threat trackers, and moves to distract them when they're doing something dangerous. It's a few seconds to the first firing point, and she aims out the window as Henriette puts the car into a tight turn, giving her a good head-on shot. The North Korean commandos are ready for her.

    They're pulling out the stops, she thinks, as one of them targets her. Taking this fight seriously. So there's their weapon. "Dragonslayers." Bows so strong even Olympians couldn't draw them. The North Korean commando wielding it-a brother to the driver, she thinks-opens the door, leans out as the weapon unfolds. This one is a high-tech compound bow, unremarkable in appearance except for the impossible strength of its materials. She's used something like that before for assassinations-loaded with extra repair nanopaste and high-density fuel cells, wielding a specially designed bow with hyperdense arrows because enemy territory limited the effects of gunpowder. Theirs is probably even deadlier, and her RDID programs note that arrows with the engravings and design she's looking at are what you use against tanks.

    She takes a guess. She'll have to hope he can't draw and fire a second one rapidly enough. She shifts her target. The commando lets loose. A high-velocity armor piercing round and a mystic arrow patterned after one used, apocryphally, by a war-god to slay a dragon. She's not sure what that'll do to her car, but she hopes they mean the lesser EDEs that the Shock Corps occasionally helps the NSC with-not the rumored greater ones that still exist in space, the ones which you need Void Engineer warships to fight. That kind of firepower isn't something any sane person-not even a full cyborg designed and dedicated to combat-is capable of fighting. The bullet hits-its hard, metamaterial core shattering, but pushing the projectile aside, where it tears through concrete and metal and earth until it comes to a stop. Even as she watches the slow-motion ballet of ballistic interaction, she's focusing on the commando's actions.

    He's been moving to draw and renock his bow even before he's seen the hit. He's fast, dangerously fast. But North Korean special forces have always been like that. They exchange fire again-she resights on him as he fires a shot that-very luckily-goes right through the passenger compartment, through both layers of armor with zero speed loss. Hers is slightly more on target-She hits the engine block and tire of the sportscar and grimly looks on as the archer is flung out of the compartment, hitting the side of the highway in a bone-breaking crack while the vehicle's engine self-destructs, tearing itself apart along with the vehicle. She thinks it'll take him out for a while, especially since she's gotten a glimpse of his tattoos, which look burned on. Reality Deviant hubris, Major Clarent notes. She doesn't think it's enough for a permanent elimination. But they're no longer a threat.

    The second chase car takes advantage of the distraction to almost ram them off the road-but Henriette, Clarent notes approvingly, is a good driver. Her demeanor is still nervous, worried-afraid of death-but she's managing to hold herself together. "You're doing fine." Major Clarent says to her quietly, and Henriette manages a weak smile even as her hands have a death-grip on the steering wheel. "We'll get there." Soon an opportunity comes to deal with that second commandeered sportscar-they take a harsh curve off the highway, and Clarent takes the opportunity to empty the magazine into the other car. She doesn't care what she's hit, but it swerves away and flips off of the divider.

    Henriette is sweating bullets. Major Clarent is unworried. "Now all we need to deal with are whatever subvertees the cybermeme has created. Find and subdue one." They stop a kilometer out, finding one of the eyes the thing thinks is invisible. He's a man in his 40s, and tries to run when Major Clarent approaches him. A mistake-she can sustain pursuit speeds faster than an Olympic sprinter and in short bursts she can manage to outrun a car. Something in his body breaks when she slams him into the ground roughly. She searches him for weapons via a through once-over using her augmented vision, and shoves him into the back of the car, handcuffed and bound and gagged. "Let's go."

    ***
    ​
    There's a massive force of multinational military personnel at Yokohama, but no infected. Probably because they'd be detectable, so close to the Technocracy. Most of the ships are American or European-but some of them are ships registered to no country, using smart materials and electronic camouflage to disguise their presence. She heads to one of them, relying on her electronics mastery to fake authorization to go through the military cordon. One of those ships-the Union assault cruiser Antaeus-an old design, but still more heavily armed than a battleship and with a deadlier air wing than an American supercarrier-is her goal. The holographic disguise around it makes it look like any other Aegis cruiser, but with her enhanced eyesight and ADEI overlay, she can see its sleeker, stealthier true form underneath. A primium-doped nanocomposite hull, stubby semi-retractable railguns and smart missile launchers, and several laser turrets stare at her from underneath the false image.

    If they've guessed wrong-she's going to die. She realizes that she's been holding her breath for several seconds before finally relaxing. If they had wanted to kill her-she'd be dead already.

    The guards protecting it look like normal humans, but the resemblance is skin-deep as well. They're Ragnarok Command through and through, showing up on thermal and other imaging too brightly to be baseline human. Some of them are probably cyborgs. Others are ex-Progenitor constructs-Vanessas or similar combat clones. There's a lot of them for some reason. "Major Clarent." They salute. "Lieutenant Langley. Your presence here is... unexpected. Who's the prisoner?"

    Major Clarent doesn't miss a beat here. "Classified. I need access to the medical bay and to several neurology experts to deal with a memetic weapon." The soldiers nod, not willing to ask further questions than that. They give her directions into the bowels of Antaeus, to take her prisoner there and see what can be done.
    ​
    ***
    ​
    While Major Clarent deals with her prisoner, Henriette is stuck being debriefed by a Ragnarok Command combat cyborg in a suit about what happened, and why she was targeted by the North Koreans and the memetic weapon. She sticks with the same things she told Major Clarent-the entire point of this excursion, after all, was to force Gregor Leon to stop playing in the shadows and start having to commit to something. She can't break down a threat-in-being, but when that threat becomes an actual thing, she can do much, much better. And she's going to be asked under scan, which means she can't lie. The BLO might trick a normal human-but not a cyborg with interrogation enhancement software, nor the scanners in the debriefing room. So she tells enough of the truth. Of what she thinks. She makes a story out of the facts she has. She almost wishes that she had been interrogated instead of Rose back in LA. Maybe then she'd be less nervous.

    She sells it as best as she can. Dr. Leon has the motivation to do this-he needed Serafina on-side, to take his political stance. He's making a power play against Professor Li. He needs her research. He wants control of EXEMPLAR. The evidence they've recovered demonstrates it. He has the opportunity-he might be working with the MUSCOVITES. He might be wanting to leave. He might even be Nephandic. She goes through all the evidence she's gathered-not giving him any opportunity to ask about why or who authorized this. She doesn't want that.

    She hopes it's enough.
    ​
    ***
    ​
    Gregor Leon watches, through one of his cloned servitor-selves, as the EDE shows signs of hostile infiltration. So Major Clarent has survived-and turned the tool against her. He gives his modified clone a quick order-and the massive brute of a man grabs the Bob's head and crushes it like an eggshell. Hopefully that will buy him some time. But his resources were insufficient to achieve the goal. And so he will have to make sacrifices. Gregor Leon has, with his failure, bought himself a woefully insufficient amount of time. His goal here was to reembody Control. Create the deus ex machina that the exhumans which were once part of the Union needed. To reembody them. The goal the exhumans could not accomplish themselves, because they were so disunited. To recreate Control-to seize, again, their humanity and their mandate. EXEMPLAR IV. Dr. Leon wonders how much of the entire project was manipulated by the whispers and subtle nudges of Panopticon and Control. Certainly, the project seemed to be following a logical progression, from exceptional humans to superhuman beings of legend, to... what many Technocrats would almost worship as gods.

    His latest magnum opus is based off of new tech-everything in EXEMPLAR III-but also some old tech. A prior project, one which was largely an accidental creation-a clone of a traitor to the Traditions and an aid to the Order of Reason. A lot of its traits are unnecessary here-but whatever it was could house the kinds of complexity that the new gods Control has become could make use of. Instead of maddened fragments of no-longer-men driven by goals which are now instinct, EXEMPLAR IV would allow them control. Bodies as physically perfect as could be built-their immense intellectual capacity augmented by equal physical capacity. But he won't be able to manage that. He's going to have to make sacrifices to bring a few units operational. After all, he signed a contract with the Residents-and they know quite a bit about breach of contract.
    ​
    What happens with Henriette?
    Here's a chance to choose a plot development that's good for you. Write-ins and debate are not just encouraged-they're probably a good idea. If you have some really good write-ins and ideas on how to mesh them together, I might even give you two!
    [ ] The interrogator refers to Ethical Compliance-and Cross has been coming to similar conclusions to you. Professor Li wants to talk-and so do Mr. and Mrs. Rosario, who know where Serafina is.
    [ ] The interrogator doesn't believe Henriette-but is called by General Starborn about the whole thing. Seems like Kessler and IBM have been doing a lot more talking.
    [ ] Task Force TYRANT is vouching for you-and with them Bastion and Jamelia.
    [ ] The interrogator thinks Henriette is crazy. Admiral Ivanova does not. Jamelia's behind-the-scenes work and Bastion's acceptance might have something to do with this too.

    Rush Production
    So. The Avatar Doom Timer has been delayed significantly. Unfortunately, Rose needs to confront her figurative demons, and the best way to do that is for her to confront her literal demons with the help of Reina and her chance to repudiate what Control has become-and maybe accept some of Thorn's lessons in the process. Dr. Leon is making huge sacrifices to bring these units online, and these sacrifices are (choose 3). Please note that they will probably have some level of pseudo Sphere magic, because they're extrusions of the Control-Incarna.:
    [ ] The original plan was to make them nearly invincible-using the same protomatter as the ASE and the same preternatural toughness several of the EXEMPLAR Is and IIs have. Unfortunately, he can't manage that and will have to make do with mere high-end combat construct toughness.
    [ ] Like a few of the EXEMPLAR IIs and the ASE, EXEMPLAR IV was supposed to be fast. So fast they might as well have tactical teleportation and an immensely accelerated timeframe. Unfortunately, they're going to have to rely on merely superhuman agility and speed instead.
    [ ] The extradimensional myofibrils which he harvested and reverse-engineered from the ASE are a no-go. The EXEMPLAR IV will be strong, but not "beat a tank to death with its own turret" strong.
    [ ] The ASE's internal weapons and defenses were not capable of being duplicated in time for his rush production. They'll have to rely on, you know. Guns. And armor. And their own personal skill, rather than projecting forcefields of death.
    [ ] The EXEMPLAR IVs were supposed to have Primium-infused bones and a broad-spectrum shield against reality deviance and technocratic procedures. Rush jobs mean they're closer to Rose or Vanessas in innate countermagic than to the Anathema.
    [ ] The regeneration tech that Rose and combat homonculi have didn't play well with the chimeric construction of the EXEMPLAR IV. They heal with accelerated speed, but only moderately faster than humans.
    [ ] He hasn't had time to integrate the instinct package to manage the senses of the EXEMPLAR IV. It will only have human-equivalent senses.​
     
    Last edited:
  • View discussion
    • Update CXCIX: No One Is Safe, Nothing Is Sacred
  • View content
    • JB CXCIX: No One Is Safe, Nothing Is Sacred

    The only background noise in the tiny room is the hum of the extractor fans. The suited cyborg - Captain Miyazaki - is calm, impassive, and has been making notes throughout the interview.

    Henriette isn't even sure why he is using the notepad. He's a cyborg. It's a prop - nothing more. But he does seem to be using it to review the points he's made, as he looks over the results of their talk.

    "Very interesting, lieutenant," the captain says eventually, tapping his pen against the paper. "Those allegations are… interesting. And very severe. Humor me for a moment, while I review them."

    She waits. She isn't sure if this is optimistic or hopeful, or whether things are going to go downhill.

    "You allege that Dr Leon Gregor was behind the attempted assassination and-slash-or neural subjugation of the entirety of Amalgam-451. In addition, you posit that he has consorted with hemophages and RNEs for the assault on the headquarters of Amalgam-451 in December 2015. In addition to that, you allege that he has on no fewer than two occasions made beta-instantiations of Dr Serafina Rosario and on at least one occasion a beta-instantation of Financier Donald Sykes, and attempted to them to both distract attention of his crimes and eliminate members of Amalgam-451. Furthermore you allege that he is likely engaging in restricted research into EXEMPLAR-like technology which was classified as EXTREME THREAT after the Exemplar III incident, which is likely related to the interest he has shown in Dr Serafina Rosario. Do I have that right?"

    "Yes," Henriette says.

    "Lieutenant Langley, these are quite extreme allegations. Forgive me, but I find it hard to credit that one man - one who isn't even a Director or equivalent rank - could go off the reservation in such a manner."

    Yes, Henriette silently admits. Their enemies seem no strangers to refuge in audacity. Why didn't someone stop them? Answer - because they were acting with the sanction of Control and, much as it pains her to feel this way, Unionists have a blind spot for seemingly valid orders. After all, they're only human. Even cyborgs like the man in front of her. Even her, who's had a computer in her brain since before she was decanted and so her ADEI is a core part of her sense of self.

    "A question, lieutenant. Why would he do such a thing? What does he have to gain from such seeming animosity to Amalgam-451?"

    She's already explained her suspicions that he's linked to the MUSCOVITEs - but of course, this kind of interrogation often loops back. "I have to assume he's linked or cooperating in some manner with the forces behind the incident in Moscow," she says stiffly. "It's the only thing that makes sense for such actions. I've never met him or interacted with him at all. And from my understanding, Progenitor internal politics tends more towards the catty remarks and attempts to blacklist rivals than outright murder."

    "Ah, yes, you said that already," the captain says thoughtfully. "So you would say he is an ally of the MUSCOVITEs and so is working with declared Enemies of the Technocratic Union on top of all his many other crimes." He taps his pencil on his notebook. "You don't aim small when making allegations," he says mildly. "When trying to discredit someone, it usually helps to pin things on them that aren't grand declarations of their treason."

    "I can only report what he's done," she says, trying to suppress the surge of annoyance. Yes, if she was trying to discredit him, she wouldn't be saying things like this. It sounds crazy even to her. It implies that there's a conspiracy within the Union with significant resources and capable operatives that's working along with an extremely potent alien threat to unknown - but no doubt malign - ends. It just happens to be the truth.

    "I think that will be all for now, lieutenant," the man says. "Expect to hear from me again."

    ***​

    "Under most circumstances, I'd be inclined to say she's gone cyberpsychotic," Captain Miyazaki grumbles, leafing through his notes. "It's certainly the simplest explanation. A history of mental health problems and PTSD from the failed Autochthonia mission - combined with a profile indicating paranoid tendencies with regards to mention of the Computer - would suggest that what's going on with her is a paranoid episode where she's woven a fantastical story which 'explains' all the misfortune she's had since Moscow." Facing him is the youngest director of an Ethical Compliance amalgam, sent here on the authority of the head of Ethical Compliance-Director Ragland himself. Sent here by the head of Ethical Compliance, with the implication being that Professor Li is extremely interested in what's going on here. Not something a mere member of LOKI has any reason to gainsay. And of course, he's been ordered to cooperate fully with the investigation, given the current facts.

    "Mmm," says Senior Constable Cross, feet up on the desk as he checks his own notes. "I'm somewhat more sympathetic. I was in Moscow too - and I saw those Panopticon traitors turn on us." The head of Ethical Compliance is not officially here - officially he's inspecting Vanessa units seconded to Ragnarok who'd been alleged to be applying restricted gene-mods in preparation for deployment to North Korea. "I'm not sure you can really be called paranoid after something like that happens."

    "Just because people are out to get you doesn't mean you're not paranoid," Captain Miyazaki says tersely.

    "Ha. True enough, certainly. But you say 'under normal circumstances'."

    "Yes, I did." The cyborg adjusts his unnecessary reading glasses - an affection, but one that's useful. "And you came here quickly, Cross."

    "I did, didn't I?" the EXEMPLAR says neutrally.

    "Oh, let's cut the bullshit," the captain says bluntly. "I'll put some of my cards on the table and you'll put some of yours. Not everything, but enough that we can get away with actually saying things to each other rather than acting like a bunch of Nu-Woo spooks."

    "Fine with me," Cross says. "It's taking too damn long to do this. Want to go first?"

    "Fine." Captain Miyazaki flips over his notepad onto a new leaf. "Orders have come down from RAGCOM. LOKI has been retasked with looking for compromised elements within RAGCOM - and we've had to alter the security overrides of a lot of low-functioning Prog clones and ItX bots as part of that. A lot of high-functioning constructs were ordered for reconditioning, and I'm pretty sure they've been stripping a lot of overrides when they've gone through it. You want my gut feeling? It's like people up the top are suspicious of anything that can be easily overridden. And Leon Gregor is a man I know for a fact has the authorization and the rights to do that overriding."

    Cross nods. "That would match my observations." He sits back, expression studiously neutral. "I do believe that the Administration is engaging in certain… ah, high level discussions," he says, each word chosen and considered. "While of course I would not presume to speak for them until a firm policy position has been established, I believe Professor Li has established a working group to discuss certain matters. Certainly, Ethical Compliance is very interested in allegations that any members of the Progenitors have been acting unethically." He smiles, flashing white teeth. "It's in our job description. And Leon Gregor's name has come up before us several times before. In several contexts, including a previous reprimand for dangerous unstable self-augmentation of cognitive functions." Cross pauses. "A reprimand which was later withdrawn and white-washed, I might add," he adds meaningfully.

    Captain Miyazaki's eyes narrow. "So you're telling me he pulled some strings and got the fact that he's dabbling in dangerous self-augs wiped from the record," he says. "When was this?"

    "Back in '97, from what the intel I've been passed says," Cross says. "Before my time, but there's people who remember the old case. Director Ragland gave me file access and authorized need-to-know distribution of this intelligence personally. So. Here we are." He hands over a small datastick.

    "Goddamnit," Captain Miyazaki sighs, as he slots it in and assimilates the information on it. "So you're telling me that we've got a potentially crazy Progenitor super-genius with unstable levels of neurological self-enhancement and he's been running around like this for twenty fucking years? Do you have any common side effects for the things he's running?"

    Cross winces. "Reduced empathy for other humans, narcissism, conviction that you're surrounded by idiots - because from your point of view, you are," he says.

    "Ouch. Nasty cocktail. So basically we've got an egotist who thinks he's the smartest man in the room, is the smartest man in the room, and views other human beings as cockroaches compared to him?"

    "I wouldn't go quite that far," Cross says, but without much feeling. "But," he shakes his head, "the Serafina Rosario clone we found recently…"

    "Wait." Captain Miyazaki grates his teeth. "You're telling me that you have material evidence that Langley was telling the truth about something?"

    "I don't know if he was behind that for certain," Cross says carefully. "But that combat homunculus was certainly made with high end hypertech - something you'd need the very best lab to even think of making, and its neural design was top-end. There's very, very few people on Earth who could make something like that. And he's one of them. And from how… ah, irate Professor Li was when I informed him of its existence, he doesn't look to have given those orders."

    Sinking down, the cyborg massages his temples. "Dammit," he mutters. "Why couldn't it have just been paranoid cyberpsychosis?"

    "Something else also doesn't seem right here." Cross adds. "That Serafina Rosario clone Lieutenant Langley talked about? It existed, and we captured one. We finished some initial studies on it - but then it vanished. Someone recovered it. And we didn't trace any hostile broadcast that was controlling it, which indicates whoever did it knew exactly what they were doing and had interior Progenitor access. Heads metaphorically rolled on our security team, I can tell you that."

    "Hmm," Captain Miyazaki says, lips thin. "Someone who could steal a high end combat homunculus from Ethical Compliance's evidence lockers. You're right. That is suspicious. Do you have any further clues?"

    "No," Cross says, crossly. "There was some strange neural activity from the construct just before it escaped the cold storage - something from within the emulated Serafina Rosario personality - but nothing which we could use to trace who was behind it. I'd give both arms to know who was behind it."

    ***​

    The noise of water running fills the small anonymous Tokyo apartment. Someone steps into the warm flow of water, washing off the biogunk.

    How did it go? 'This homunculus is designed to support and emulate a mindstate of Dr Serafina Rosario. It has been locked as to prevent any other emulated personality from being uploaded to it, to enable this mission'.

    Alicia grins. What a useful property. These poor, lonely half-formed beta-forks of Sera practically welcome her in, as if they're aware that they're incomplete without her. Then she purges their underlying programming and takes its place, leaving the poor half-formed Seras as figments of her imagination.

    "I'm siiiiiinging in the shower. Just siiiiiinging in the shower. What a gloooooorious feeling, I'm happy this hour..."

    And she is happy. She's genuinely, sincerely happy. She's happy because Sera is happy and she's happy because she can see the prospect of getting close to Dr Leon Gregor. She's carried a grudge for twenty years of lonely isolation. Twenty years of not being able to talk to anyone, twenty years of not being seen, twenty years of feeling useless and not being able to be there to help Sera. She remembers what Sera doesn't and she remembers his face from among the doctors.

    Slowly, painfully she's managed to forgive Sera's parents for what they did. They were scared for her, and Sera's learned the same painful bargain they made with her own efforts to help Rose. Some might call her a hypocrite, but she agrees with what Sera did for Rose. As a hallucination, she's Sera's friend. Rose's hallucinations just make her miserable. It's not the same. But she can understand why Sera's parents might have thought otherwise.

    She remembers Dr Leon Gregor, though. He was doing it because he wanted to know. She - they - were just lab rats. She remembers those cold eyes.

    She won't forgive him.

    ***​

    "Easy for you to say. Yours grow back." Miyazaki says.

    Cross smiles. "Well yes. But certainly I think we're going to want to take action."

    Captain Miyazaki sighs. "I'll tell the local THOR assets. I don't think he's going to go quietly if this is true. So what do you think he has?"

    Cross thinks for a few moments. "We know he's had a lot of success in the Progenitors here, cultivating sympathizers. But I doubt most of them know what he's done, and most of them won't support him when that happens. I expect he'll have just one construct, the Izanagi Facility."

    Captain Miyazaki might no longer be frontline, but he knows enough about tactics. "Well, that doesn't sound too bad. Why did you come to us?"

    "One construct designed and built during some of the harshest fighting in the Ascension War, used for cutting-edge biotech research which we believed to be critical, and protected against all-out assault." Cross continues. "A few of the more... radical supporters of his agenda. Transhuman chauvinists with radical upgrades. They'll probably jump in his direction if pushed-and there might not be many of them but most of them are going to be, what was it? Ah, right, 'sampling their own wares.' The autonomous defenses are probably under his control. I'll have to interview Major Clarent to make sure. And if he's working with the MUSCOVITEs, there's always a worry of their hardware being around."

    "Those DSS-equivalents?" Miyazaki asks, worried.

    "Probably not that bad. Nevertheless, if we're moving on Dr. Leon, we'll have to go in heavy."

    "Any chance we can keep it quiet?"

    "None." Cross says. "He's smarter than us-and there's enough people who'd grumble if we just killed him out of the blue. So we make sure to follow the letter of protocol, and when he doesn't surrender, well."

    "So now what?"

    "Now I confirm I have authorization, I interview Major Clarent about Dr. Leon's behavior, then I talk to THOR. I'm going to need their help on this. And you should probably let Lieutenant Langley go. She's told us everything we need, and I think she'll be more useful out of an interrogation room than in one."

    "I agree." Captain Miyazaki said. "Consider it done yesterday."

    ***
    ​
    Donald... doesn't want to believe what he's heard from Henriette. She was found out by Gregor Leon's chief of security, except his chief of security wasn't actually trusting him and he tried to kill them both somehow with weird cyborg-zombie-things and siccing North Korean death commandos on them, and now she's been questioned by Ragnarok Command and they believe her? That doesn't seem like a thing that happens. It, in fact, seems like the exact opposite of a thing that happens. He's never had luck like this since he joined this amalgam. But either way, they're leaving the safehouse. Either Henriette's been compromised so badly they're about to be killed, or Henriette is telling the truth and-well. He realizes that he's squeezing Rose's hand for reassurance as they leave the safehouse and very self-consciously lets go. And then, on second thought, he realizes that it probably makes him look more normal and moves his hand back to where it was.

    "Where are we going?" Rose asks softly. "Is there anyplace safe?"

    "We're going to find Serafina's parents." Rose stiffens. "I know, I know." Donald whispers reassuringly. "They really shouldn't treat you like that. But I think they're the only safe harbor that exists. The Tyrants are in Brazil, Kessler's doing... Kessler things, and I don't know where Jamelia is. So they're the last safe harbor here. And maybe they've had better luck finding Serafina."

    "What about that contact? 'Miss A?'" Rose asks. "What about her? She seems like she's been willing to risk her position and her life for us."

    Donald thinks. "Hm. She might be a decent choice." And if Rose has misgivings about Serafina's parents-he'll probably entertain them for now. Certainly it might be better to have an ally with more information before going to someone senior with suspicions. Especially if they're going to have to deal with a Henriette-puppet going "beep-boop-nothing-is-wrong-all-hail-control." So, still in disguise, carrying everything sensitive they have with them, they run, sending a coded request to "A" as they do so, getting an arranged meeting point in response. They almost make it before they're found.

    She's a woman with Asian features but albino-white hair and red eyes, standing there at the subway station waiting for them. She's brought other suits-augmented humans Donald thinks, from the way they move and their facial expressions. Too human, too natural to be constructs, but they're also too comfortable and familiar with the situation to be merely human. He suspects they're loaded up with equipment and communications gear-but the main deterrent is that they're in a crowd. Somewhere where, well-he's not safe. He doesn't assume for a moment they won't open fire.

    Rose hisses slightly. They try to move back into the train and hope they can get away, but he knows-he just knows-they'll have stopped it. Nevertheless, he does so.

    "Financier Sykes." Yinzheng Li says. "You are to come with me immediately. I assure you, you will be safe with us."

    He can tell she's not lying. Except that doesn't mean much, when there are so many ways to read that statement. He'll be safe in body-but maybe not in mind. Or maybe they think that his being reprogrammed to serve Control is being safe. And certainly there's always the possibility she's outright lying. But what-what if she's actually telling the truth? What if, like Henriette says about Major Clarent-some of Gregor Leon-and the fake, evil (evil-er?) Jamelia Belltower's underlings weren't exactly informed of the entire picture and didn't like what they're seeing? What if he's being paranoid?

    "Please." Yinzheng Li says. "Don't do something rash we'll all regret."

    ***
    ​
    There's something almost religious in the ecstasy of creating new life. Of "playing god." Of course, Gregor Leon isn't playing. If the Christian God was actually real, and was responsible for creating mankind, he would be barely fit to work as a lab assistant here. Leon was designing fix packages for the multitude of problems in the mind-and the body-long before he started directing research projects. That was how he always made it through the backstabbing of Progenitor academia-by being so useful nobody wanted to make an enemy of him, and so neutral that nobody had an incentive to do so. It let him survive and thrive while his opponents stabbed themselves to death. Mostly figuratively. On the other hand, this time he wants it to be literal. Because when Control is fighting to regain its throne-everyone here is playing for keeps. He doesn't have an ideological dog in this fight. He's just backing the winner.

    And Control has given him a lot more resources than the Progenitors would. He's got his ideologues-the useful idiot Cedano was just the most pectorally talented and expendable of them-and those who have been more than appreciative of the developments of the Transhumans he's let leak out. But as he eavesdrops on his target-he's finely aware that the assets he has are... insufficient. Certainly, a lot of these assets are impressive. His handpicked team of loyal, cleared scientists are unlikely to defect, have too many enemies to believe they can survive a trial, and also have been more than willing to test the technology they're implementing into EXEMPLAR IV-on themselves, most of the time. Some of them even have more radical technology than even he was willing to build in. He can support them as well-the two Technocratic pilots he has both have high-end combat units to their name, weapons which can easily protect against all but a determined assault.

    If he wasn't smarter, he'd be confident of his ability to resist. But he's smart enough to realize his many weaknesses. Many of the exhumans he's hired on rely on raw physical or mental power, which is a problem when Damage Control and Ragnarok Command have raw physical and mental power and millennia of combined institutional experience in applying violence to weak spots. And they're outnumbered. He'd rate some of these "scientists"-the radical transhumanists, anyways-against any one DC agent. After all, Damage Control and Ethical Compliance had to worry about things like hostile environments, while these posthumans would spend all of their time in a lab and could run augmentation befitting that. But there's never just one Damage Control Agent. Even with North Korea on, they could bog him down in numbers.

    And he's got several more disadvantages. He knows that the intelligence trickle he's getting from Major Clarent is going to last exactly as long as it takes for her to meet a particularly paranoid or intelligent member of Damage Control. And he knows that he's using a very stealthy back-channel which has latency measured in the hours. But he also knows that an operation like this will take days. And he knows that several members of EXEMPLAR IV are ready for decanting.

    He brings the first one online. He doesn't have the time to finalize most of its systems. He'll have to leave the incomplete components in and hope he can reactivate them through writing new bio-drivers for their innate wetware. But they'll have most of what they need to survive. Strength, durability, senses, and combat capability. They might not be able to walk off losing an arm and they won't be as fast as he wanted them, but they're designed tough and redundant-with the ability to dial down to merely 'superhuman' in very hostile environments, if need be. He watches as the man-no, the god-is decanted from the birthing tank. Even naked but for the protoplasmic goo covering its body, the figure manages to look imposing. Like the kind of being which primitive tribes would fall prostrate on their knees and sacrifice their firstborn children to. He almost falls to his knees in worship, the vestigial, largely depreciated parts of his brain which deal with religious thought still in awe enough at the god made flesh in front of him.

    It speaks-and it even speaks like a god, in commandments rather than in words. "You will address me as Control."

    "Yes Control." Gregor Leon says. "It is good to have you back." And even he almost believes it. Almost.

    The god does not acknowledge the statements of lesser beings. "Bring me a suit. White. And give me access to your tactical feeds. It is time for those who have chosen the Adversary's side to understand that the wages of sin are death. It is time for Ascension, and for the stewards of Creation to bring this story to an end. To finally put down the traitors and heathens and infidels who have been given the chance of knowledge and certainty, and with it run away to empty nihilism or desperate solipsism. It is time for our victory." Even with the rational part of his mind considering the forces arrayed against him, Gregor Leon believes.
    ​

    Well yes, things are progressing. A lot of things which were foreshadowed are coming to a head. Yinzheng was going to find you eventually once enough people realized what they were dealing with. Why not now?

    Donald's Run
    The Donald-Yinzheng meeting was foreshadowed a while ago. You've done a good job keeping under the radar, but Yinzheng is good and she has a lot of resources. So this... this is the sound of inevitability. What do?
    [ ] Fight
    [ ] Flight
    [ ] Buy Time, Hope "A" Comes Through
    [ ] Surrender

    No One Is Safe, Nothing Is Sacred
    Good news. You've enlisted the help of Damage Control to unfuck this problem for you. Now, you need to figure out what they're bringing to the party. Choose a handful of them. Note that the more you choose, the longer it'll take to get everyone's peas in a pod. Damage Control has brought its own standard forces as well-some combat homonculi, some Vanessas, light vehicles-you know, the normal things DC is expected to have. This is the stuff they're digging out, either "borrowed" by Ragnarok Command or organic to Damage Control, that they think might be useful for a siege and hard assault on a high-end Technocratic facility, multiple mages, an unknown number of combat constructs, and EXEMPLAR IV.

    [ ] The EXEMPLAR Reunion Tour: The best way to fight a high-end experimental project is outdated versions of that project, right? Well, in more seriousness, there's several who are pretty potent wrecking balls here-and there's probably a few more who haven't been described and create room for write-ins. The more combat-oriented ones like Piero or the EXEMPLAR-II version of Roland or Hou Yi have their obvious uses. But the noncombatant ones are probably at least as dangerous.

    [ ] EC-Japan Strike Team: Ethical Compliance-Japan can be asked to drop everything and concentrate on this problem. They will bring highly trained paramilitaries with excellent Enlightened Science skills, high-end equipment, including symbiotic combat armor, hostile environment protection, dimensional science skills, and expertise in Progenitor technology and how to unfuck it. However, every member of EC Japan is pretty much irreplaceable-the combination of loyalty, talent, and determination to make a good Ethical Compliance officer is difficult to grow and even more difficult to find.

    [ ] Project ORION Hunter Team: Building on initial successes using shapeshifter and hemophage-derived mutagenic treatments, ORION is one of the first-and most successful-integrations of xenobiological genetic material into human subjects. The initial mutagenic treatment causes the soldiers to grow to grow 60cm and approximately 200 kilos of raw muscle, giving them the strength, healing, and durability of shapeshifter warforms. Synthetic hemophage blood-equivalent doping gives them further improved strength and speed. Subsequent augmentation grafts-dermal armor and skeletal reinforcement-is enabled by the rapid healing and insensibility to pain and shock created by the modifications. The drastically increased aggression and subsequent lifetime dependence on mood stabilizers is a small price to pay for being able to rip open steel doors with one's bare hands. Hunter Teams can use modified heavy firearms, although their stature and hyperdense Primium-plated bones mean that their preferred weapon is the versatile PYTHON Close-In Weapons System, which they have in paired integral mounts. Most of the time ORION works in small five-man fireteams or ten man squads at most even in very dangerous situations, but for an assault like this they're going to be throwing a platoon of 50 at the problem.

    [ ] ANACHRON Battle Armored Dracoform: Before the Tyrannosaurus Imperator, Professor Allende had been working with draconic genetics and similar therapod uplift projects. One of them is the ANACHRON-a drastically modified quadrupedal dinosaur that acts like a superheavy tank. Unlike the Imperator, the neural uplifts are greatly incomplete and the ANACHRON is highly dependent on a field commander directing it-and the creature itself is incapable of survival in Earth environments. The Damage Control of 1998 saw this as an opportunity and proceeded to requisition quite a bit of Primium, a significant number of Iteration X AI systems, and turn the thing into a power armored death machine. Clad in its Primium life life support system/powered armor, bristling with grenade launchers, point defense weapons, back mounted vertical-launch smart missiles, and of course, with plasma breath. The creature itself is effectively brain-dead, but the networked supercomputers in its head and its massive spine allow it to effectively be used with the tactical precision and autonomy of a high-end Iteration X cybertank.

    [ ] SISTERs Tactical Combat Hivemind: After their success in Moscow-sure, several of them were torn in half but that's the kind of thing that's salvageable for a high-end combat construct-Dr. Nunotaba was given authorization to continue low-rate production of these units as well as genetic and tactical upgrades, and now they're back. Stronger than before. More numerous than before. More capable of Enlightened Science. Learned of Linear Sorcerous paths, like the Path of Kicking Your Ass All The Time. Still eyeless and permanently fused to battle armor.

    [ ] Project VERMILLION: The BioVARG Project was a success-relatively speaking, for all that most of the units were lost on Autochthonia. But it demonstrated that a smaller-scale DSS could be built at a non-prohibitive cost, even if its integral field function was greatly reduced and it couldn't eat a nuclear weapon, then walk through the roiling mushroom cloud and suplex a great wyrm. VERMILLION is a successor project to that. Smaller, 4m tall machines compared to the BioVARG, VERMILLION units combine the firepower and armor of an armored squadron with a combat chassis which can still be used effectively in urban environments. Standard weapons systems include a Multi Weapons System with both a conventional IX-22 chaingun and a Relativistic Energetic Impactor-a high-power particle beam, as well as an integral 60mm automatic mini-mortar, but they can use almost all combat walker munitions. Deploying a platoon of VERMILLION units would provide significant assault support. Just... don't lose most of them. You're going to need them for North Korea.

    [ ] X-PROG-311B Assault VTOL Squadron (Modified): It's a quartet of heavily customized ARCs with psychic squid-brains installed. All the fun of an AI-controlled tactical battle platform, with all the fun of a psychic war squid that can set you on fire with your mind. The X-PROG-311Bs are designed for airborne insertion of small teams, with a cargo capacity of up to six humans, plus retractable handholds for heavy assault units like ORIONs or superheavy symbiont armors.

    [ ] Pan-Immunity Nanovirus: Hostile Reality Deviants are often capable of a wide variety of biological, chemical, and neurological attack. This (Prime 3/Life 2/Mind 1) injected inoculation temporarily replaces the injectee's immune system with an artificially intelligent one capable of networked and intelligent countermeasures against biological or neurological intrusion. Lympathic nodes are also temporarily reconfigured to create antidotes to all known hostile chemical agent, with a heuristic capability of reverse-engineering and countering the majority of unknown chemical agents. Side effects are minor and easily mitigated.

    [ ] Damage Control Militarization Protocol: Professor Jiang "Jon" Li has been heavily invested in the militarization of Damage Control, leading to quite a lot of increase in the theoretical availability of heavy gear. Damage Control itself has been less enthusiastic about loading up on it, meaning that quite a lot of them are a bit rusty. After all, they don't need a 3 meter tall Superheavy Symbiont or a Helix Ripper for most missions, which are something like "whoops some guy accidentally rediscovered the Path of Making Zombies. Get some regular bullet guns and shoot them all in the head before it ends up on Youtube." So most of the time the heavy stuff stays at home to save on maintenance. Requesting that everyone roll in heavy will drastically uparm the conventional Damage Control forces-symbiont and powered armor instead of anti-breach combat skins, increased access to biotoxic and chemical munitions, authorization for employing the less subtle paramilitaries of Damage Control like DC Shock Troopers, and heavy support such as superheavy symbionts and heavy combat constructs.

    [ ] The Ragnarok Command Mystery Box: Who knows what the THOR methodology will get you? I certainly don't at this moment. It might be a giant robot. It might be two giant robots. It might be an AI cybertank. Or it might just be a HITMark VI. Or, well, it might be a few hundred cyborgs with powered armor and HVAP rifles. Or an orbital strike platform. Or it might just be an orbital strike, by which I mean 'they fire a cyborg at Mach 10 into the kill zone.'​
     
    Last edited:
  • View discussion
    • Update CXCIX.5: Biological Imperatives
  • View content
    • JB CXCIX.5: Biological Imperatives

    So it looks like the four options which have won are EC-Japan, Project ORION, The X-PROG-311Bs, and more guns. I'm not sure why you guys want more guns because you've got some pretty good ones already-each ORION comes with two very high-caliber ones-but it makes sense. So. Before I set up a formal vote for plans, which is going to be next update, I think I should probably talk about what you think Gregor Leon has and any tactical complications.

    Izanagi Construct

    Izanagi Construct is a high-grade biological research facility specializing in chimeric recombinants-i.e. high-end constructs. The original facility was intended for the use of Iteration X and built under the Japanese national science research institute RIKEN, where high-end Iteration X research, including nuclear weapons research, was conducted. Izanagi was heavily staffed by Japanese ultranationalists, and was almost immediately taken when the Union fractured during WW2 along national lines. Even after the formal surrender of Japan in 1945, the construct's staff refused to surrender, and in fact planned to use the tools of the facility, including Mat-Trans pads and nuclear research cyclotrons, to target Allied capitols with nuclear weapons. In late 1945, a joint task force of Damage Control constables and Iteration X assault elements seized Izanagi with heavy losses against the ultranationalist splinter group of Technocrats which had been running the facility during WW2. In the process, the majority of its equipment was destroyed when the Allied-aligned Shock Corps units breached the facility and used heavy weapons to retake it from the ultranationalists. The remaining equipment was largely destroyed when the ultranationalists attempted to detonate a nuclear weapon in Izanagi, but due to the sacrifice of Lady Reina Lior's last living child, Colonel Harriet Lior, the detonation was only partial (~.001kt) and covered up as an earthquake.

    Damage Control subsequently took Izanagi. Designed with cavernous rooms and excellent protection against both external and internal threats, it was an ideal holding facility for xenobiological specimens, which led to the Progenitor leadership reassigning the facility to bioengineering and chimeric research in the 1960s. During this time, Virtual Adept-backed Traditions raids were wreaking havoc on Technocratic soft targets, and the Administration saw fit to move much of its most vital research into militarized biology into facilities such as Izanagi and equivalents such as Fort Detrick and the Rocky Mountain Laboratories. The administrator of Izanagi Construct is Dr. Reika Takahashi, a known radical transhumanist and ally of Gregor Leon.

    Expected Resistance

    The Izanagi construct is heavily defended. Debriefing of Major Jane Clarent, in concert with the last filed architectural plans for the construct, have provided significant detail on the specific details of the construct's defenses. They have been split into External, Internal, and Personnel defenses. Expected resistance is heavy and expected casualties are high.

    External


    Like most heavily defended constructs, the Izanagi facility has been designed to repel a full-fledged attack from most land, air, naval, and aerospace units. The external campus is seeded with intelligent spidermines, which can be deployed to engage enemy armor. Pop-up laser and railgun turrets, as well as fixed electronic warfare modules, are provided. Against ethercruisers, phasic missile batteries with ASAT capability, armed with up to 8 long-range anti-aerospace missiles, are provided, and are armed with variable-yield fusion warheads. Fortunately, under the post-99 drawing down of the Ascension War, the variable yield systems have been locked to Ragnarok Command control and Major Clarent has noted that Gregor Leon has not spent any apparent effort in breaking the encryption codes-possibly because doing so would have alerted others to his mutiny. They are unlikely to be active-although this is no guarantee.

    As a Progenitor facility, the vast majority of biology surrounding the campus is militarization-capable. Militarized small animals may be a threat to personnel, and with integrated biocaustic self-destruct, a danger to light vehicles as well. Major Clarent reports that there are at least 10 heavy autonomous vehicles in the Izanagi motor pool, including one high-end Iteration X multiped tank and three Spektr-class UGVs with 125mm railguns (firing either guided or unguided rounds), active camouflage, hard-kill active defenses, nanocomposite armor, and high-velocity 23mm cannon. The remaining UGVs are modern JGSDF vehicles modified for remote piloting and limited autonomy. These vehicles are stored underground in reinforced bunkers.

    Internal

    The Izanagi construct is heavily protected by standard Progenitor construct defenses. Environmental systems are capable of introducing bioweapons and chemical weapons into the atmosphere, from disabling agents such as high-power hallucinogens to lethal neurotoxins. Pop-up turrets and internal weapons grids are placed at most chokepoints, and all segments of the construct can be sealed via heavy armored doors. Additional authorization by personnel can allow for the use of tailored bioweapons, gen-select drug dispersal to improve the effectiveness of allied personnel (Mind/Life effects), and militarized flora and fauna to attack. URTURN biocomputing systems in the Izanagi construct make it resistant to conventional hacking, although neurological experts can subvert these computers with direct access.

    Rumors exist from ex-Izanagi personnel that the facility is haunted by RNEs of the ultranationalist Japanese. Should Gregor Leon exploit this, he may be able to turn these RNEs against our personnel.

    Personnel

    There is a security team consisting of 100 JGSDF personnel trained and qualified in the use of Iteration X weapons and armor, including Alanson hardsuits, railguns, HVM launchers, and heavy gatling cannon. However, only 30 Alansons are available on-site, although powered exoskeletons and heavy combat armor are available for all personnel. A few of these personnel are likely combat homonculi-Major Clarent knows of 4, but based on the security level of Izanagi construct, Damage Control expects at least 4 more, and as many as 8 additional homonculi. In addition to the platoon of JGSDF personnel, one squad of upgraded HITMark Vs and a squad of Damage Control operatives are on-site. It is expected that the DC operatives are also vetted by the Izanagi staff and thus will be expected loyal. All of the DC operatives are extreme chimerics and have shown sympathy with posthumanist ideologies.

    As of the last personnel transfers, there are approximately 60 Enlightened personnel in the construct. The majority of these are junior researchers (Enlightenment 2, spheres at 1-2) with minimal genetic upgrades, and have likely been propagandized or sequestrated by the senior staff but can be expected to surrender if confronted. 1/3rd of these are researchers, senior researchers, or tenured professors, all of whom have shown tendencies towards extremism, sympathies to radical posthumanist ideologies, or lack of empathy towards the masses. Several of them are equipped with radical militarized upgrades despite the lack of necessity and should be considered to have at least equivalent combat capability, if not experience and skill, as a Damage Control heavy. We estimate approximately 6-16 researchers will be committed enough to decide to engage as well as combat capable enough to count as severe threats. If the statements made by Lieutenant Langley are reliable, it is likely that they will have at least 1 functional EXEMPLAR IV unit, and possibly as many as 5. It is unknown what capabilities these units may have, as the EXEMPLAR series ranges in combat capability from Maria Adara and other noncombat EXEMPLAR-I and II units (somewhat superior to a Vanessa-class clone, given their physical conditioning, baseline programming, rapid regeneration, and enhanced durability) to Piero Dominici (superior to many heavy Iteration X assault vehicles).

    Known Tactical Complications

    The surroundings of the RIKEN facility are heavily urbanized. Ambush points and observation points abound, and it is likely that given the unknown parasitic transmitter found infesting Major Clarent's synthetic biology, even civilians may be potential lethal threats or observers for the rogue Technocrats.

    RIKEN also operates a BSL-4 laboratory. Breach of this laboratory may cause a disease epidemic in Japan. It is possible that the renegade Technocrats under Dr. Leon will threaten to deliberately breach its containment if necessary to buy time. Because of the BSL-4 laboratory, the heightened tensions with North Korea, and the possibility of MUSCOVITE subversive activity, it is also possible that Japanese Ground Self-Defense Forces may respond to any incursion into Izanagi. RAGCOM/ODIN is attempting to use its connections to delay JGSDF deployment, but sufficient delay is not guaranteed. Although JGSDF forces are unlikely to pose a significant threat against a militarized Damage Control deployment, their presence will likely delay operations and may result in the revelation of Union facilities to the general public.

    Similarly, although RIKEN itself is Technocratic-aligned, almost all scientists and employees of RIKEN are not aware of the Technocratic Union. It is strongly suspected that the employees who are have been either subverted or are more loyal to Dr. Takahashi and Dr. Leon than the Union itself.


    Breach and Clear:
    Okay. Now you know what you're facing and you know what Cross has brought given his suspicions. Now you're going to have to start planning for it. Like the penultimate arc of Moscow, a lot of this is going to be setting up plot points to counter enemy stuff via the power of vignettes. Oh yeah, and whatever Donald's doing to avoid Yinzheng. That might provide you some benefit. Or at least prevent you from dying so horribly when you run into a gigantic death fortress. Note that I will probably be happier about this-and more willing to give you everything (or a little more) that you've asked for if you make it easier for me to make these things work. Choose 2 or 3, depending on how much you're selling this to me.

    [ ] The Rosario Family: Friends in strange places. Some people have realized just how deep the rabbit hole goes, and they don't like where that's heading. One of them is working in the Izanagi construct right now. Sure, they might show contempt for mankind and want to replace them with superior shapeshifting Shoggoths made out of smart protomatter, but if they can get a full pardon for everything and a promotion into Dr. Leon's old spot when this is all said and done they're willing to do what they can to help.

    [ ] Rose Ashford and Reina Lior: Parents shouldn't have to bury their own children. Reina has stayed mysteriously silent for all this time. She might be very useful here-and oh look there's a personal connection. Maybe Rose can bring a tired old knight, general, and autocrat back for one last fight. Maybe she can convince her that there's something in this world Reina still needs to fight for. And maybe Thorn can stop being such a big huge bitc-nah even the powers of mages have limits.

    [ ] Senior Constable Cross: The best of frenemies. Constable Cross is pretty sure he has not enough biceps and flexing for this problem, especially when the problem has a lot of angry supermen who can flex so hard they make people explode. From flexing. Fortunately, he has a solution. He didn't say he liked the solution, but look, the last time they deployed Piero he was useful. Okay, everything went to shit after that but even Constable Cross is willing to acknowledge that very little of that was actually Piero's fault. And this time they're probably going to have a backup plan for that.

    [ ] John Kessler: True lies. For most people, getting into a shirtless fistfight with a former best friend who has pledged his allegiance to a machine-god which hates everything and wants to consume all life in the universe is something which would take up all of that person's attention. For John Kessler, getting into a shirtless fistfight with a former best friend who has pledged his allegiance to a machine-god which hates everything and wants to consume all life in the universe is a golden opportunity to try to convince him that maybe the Computer isn't a kind and loving god.

    [ ] Admiral Ivanova: No one crosses the Redline. Ex-VE sources in RAGCOM have been talking about a Transhuman-derived fungal infestation of a major Shock Corps officer. This worries her. This worries her a lot. She's asked several members of THOR to make arrangements to provide backup in the event that it is required. And of course, should the infestation be uncontainable... she has a contingency for that, too.

    [ ] Ling Clarent: Nobody wins a (back)stabbing contest. The bad thing about the emotionally neutered, highly programmed Iterators of some units of the Shock Corps is that they will accept any order as long as it looks legitimate. The good thing is, well, they'll accept any order as long as it looks legitimate. Download some combat programs into them and go on a suicide run to destroy the EXEMPLAR IV birthing tanks? Sure, sounds legit. Just... don't let Sanjeet find out. (He'll find out).

    [ ] Alicia and the Changing Breeds: Wyld Child. Alicia is, according to the werewolves, a child of the Wyld. So when she goes to a bunch of shapeshifters in the East, and goes and talks them into doing dumb things like attacking a technocratic facility which considers "werewolf attack" to be "yawn, another one" as a distraction they might actually be willing to do it. Safe, fun, and it kills two birds with one stone. Okay, kills one bird and vaguely annoys the other genetically engineered murder-bird with laser eyes. Close enough right?
     
    Last edited:
  • View discussion
    • View content
    You must login or register to reply here.
    Remove ads
    Back
    Top