[X] EXEC.AQUA_JAMMER
Fire kindles in your head. The faded embers under your mind ignite; sheathe every nerve; Alex is in control.
<<All points, prepare to receive targeting instructions,>> your voice says. <<The passenger is in control.>>
It's so liberating to leave her in control. All the stress and doubt melted into nothing. An intoxicating freedom (an intoxication so profound it might leave the prisoner unable to feel her chains (a fate so monstrous it legitimised all your methods in fighting it)). It's so attractive, seeing the perfect moves she makes with your body. You briefly scold yourself for being distracted in the heat of battle, but dismiss it. Your words aren't needed any more.
– Enemy Comm, type 45344 isolate system.
— Directional unit fixed. ID Coded Escargot pattern 192818.
— Decode time 31536 kiloseconds.
[x] Cancel decrypt. Move to evil twin attack.
– Searching Exploit library
— Exploits Found, 34.
[x] Enemy Comm backbone. Airborne. Within 40,000 metres. Track/Identify target.
–Enemy Comm Drone confirmed. Link 602.
[x] Handshake code confirmed for 6 second ID.
– Enemy Comm drone localised for targeting, altitude 25,000 offset 5000, speed: 0.5
[x] Positional Fix (Orbital)
[x] Positional Fix (Local Targeting)
[x] Neutralise Countermeasures.
[x] Targeting data ready for send.
<<Luyu. Airborne target, plasma. Receive Data Squirt>>
<<Targeting squirt received.>>
The computronium of your meridians flushes with heat. Instructions stack up fast, a million tiny adjustments, too quick to understand. Alex pushes your computational systems past their usual operational limits.
[x] Mortar Programmed.
[x] ECM Round loaded.
[x] Forcefield emitter program loaded and confirmed.
[x] Full Commit. All actions commit.
Your defence aura disengages safeties and takes hold of the water. It should destabilise in an instant; it doesn't, and a kaleidoscope of sonic illusions echoes out through the water. On the mainland, the mortar fires. A moment later, Luyu fires her plasma rifle. White intensity walks down your meridians. You want to cry out but your voice is hers. Her hand reaches out from within you and with her high authority grips you and the world to turn them to a better shape.
– Soldiers of my enemies. Relics of the seas. I am the flames of the sun! Witness my light and be struck blind!
Luyu's shot hits the ECHO CHAMBER drone. At that instant the mortar round is exactly between it and the nearest gunship. The drone's tightbeam comms gutter out and the mortar takes seamlessly over and delivers a package of illusions down the gullet of the mercenary tactical network. The visions align perfectly with the shapes of sound in the water. In an instant, the geometry of the battlefield has changed.
The effect is immediate. An ECHO CHAMBER gunship swings away from its duel with the warmachines and races towards the kelp forest. Its laser slashes through the shadows, then the back end spits out a hailstorm of missiles which fill the kelp forest with detonations. The shockwave knocks you from your footing and you realise you can't refind it even with Alex receding again. Someone grabs you and pulls you toward the beach.
Through the tac-link you can see ECHO CHAMBER and the Nereidi now fully engaged with one another. The illusion has faded but too late, the battle has come alive and is now driven by its own logic. Missiles and plasma bolts criss-cross in the cloudy water. Lasers and biological torpedoes dance near the surface.
You have bigger problems, you're out of breath and taking on water. You think maybe you should try panicking, then Jessica and Juketta pull you out of the ocean onto the beach.
"She's hurt!" one of them says. Everything seems very close and very far and very cold and very hot.
Mirareki? drops down next to you. <<I'm okay.>> You try. In truth you feel quite uncoordinated. <<Maybe you should turn me off and on again.>>
She hauls you onto her shoulder. <<Your squatter needs to mind her host's house a little,>> she mutters.
Out in the bay, one of the gunships is going down with a gaping hole in its side. It tries to make a controlled landing on the top of the temple, releasing sprays of glowing countermeasures and holographic decoys, then an organic munition finds it and the tail comes off, the front section slams into the top of the temple, and the whole thing sides down the far side. There's a momentary lull, and then ECHO CHAMBER reinforcements arrive. There's a sonic boom as a series of drone fighters go over. Two, and two, and two, barely visible as their force field tails and countermeasures seek to delocalise the sound and minimise the vapour trial. You can still see them though, because Alex owns your eyes, and she sees every racing drone and every falling missile and bomb and shrapnel submunition and abstract feature drawn in the higher space of the battlefield. The bay lifts momentarily as the airstrike hits. There's another pause, and then a stream of scarlet energy rips out of the water and impales one of the racing fighters above.
The fighting seems only to be redoubling as you reach the woods where the two Luyu are waiting. At least it's moving away from the temple.
<<What's up with her?>> asks Luyu.
<<I need to reset her nervous system. She's not in any danger but she doesn't have much motor or cognitive control.>>
Luyu picks you up easily. <<No point in dragging her. Let's get out of here to the shuttle before someone starts dropping nukes or blowing up typhoon systems or something.>>
Light and shadow fall around you as the dark leaves of the jungle close in. Unfamiliar animals cry in the distance. You bound through it, children of the Garden, so fast and graceful. Alex remembers how clumsy humans were in their infancy, how slow. Even running, which they could never have done over such uneven ground.
Ahead of you, in a small clearing, the shuttle stands, ramp opening. You feel the cool shade of the shuttle's back bay, then the brightness of the medical suite, and Luyu puts you down onto one of the medical beds. It adjusts for you, comfortable, supporting your body just so. Nanotech patches press up against your interface meridians and you feel a wash of cool, like lotion being applied to sore flesh.
"We're dusting off." Juketta calls. "Mirareki, is it okay?"
"Yeah. I've got her connected." You see Mirareki above you. Jessica at her side, looking down. "Strap in. The machine has her."
"I burned you past your limits," says Alex, running her hand through your hair. "I'm sorry. You're only human. You should sleep."
"I hate unconsciousness," you whisper.
She leans in. "You'll be fine. I have you."
Your mind
Shuts
Down
You wake to the sound of rain. It's been a long time since this kind of staccato roar. Thunder ripples in the near distance and drops patter on the shuttle's roof. Juketta and Jessica over you, concerned. Mirareki across the room reloading her medical kit.
"How long was I out?"
"About an hour. We just landed." Mirareki says.
"I was a little worried." Jessica says. "Mirareki said you'd be alright but… well, I've never seen anyone unconscious before."
You sit up, and rub a hand over your interface meridian. There's a sort of pleasant sting in your flesh from what Alex did to you. You bite your lip and feel yourself flush a little, aware that both of them can see your sudden heat. Unconsciousness is a very unusual condition from someone from the Garden, so it's not surprising Jessica panicked a bit. You decide to try to keep things business-like as it'll calm things down. You'll probably need to explain Alex to Jessica but you need to figure out how to spin it first. "I have one of the two most feared posthumans in my head" is not a great opening line.
You look out through the ships hull. You're on a rainy landing pad atop a large, vine covered marble villa. A Luyu wearing a bikini under a rain slicker stands sentry on one corner, her plasma gun partly wrapped in a rain cover. Below you, Messendra's Bay is laid out in a series of steps and valleys, tall buildings gleaming in the storm's half light between tree lined avenues of soaked imported greenery. Above, black clouds cover the sky, lightning occasionally playing through them. Rain pours down in great masses, sluicing down all across the settlement and the sea beyond. You see Luyu's hair flicker and whip in the wind, even as she seems not to struggle with it at all.
You're at the house you contracted as a base of operations in Messendra's Bay. It's not far from the university. Unfortunately it now looks like bad beach weather. Though maybe walking around in a storm would be more interesting.
"What's the situation?"
"Apparently the battle was big news, though no mention yet of our involvement." Mirareki says. "Since then, huge storm systems have blown in over basically every human settlement on the planet, and tensions are escalating. We seem to be moving towards a crisis point. And I think ECHO CHAMBER may want that, their spokespeople are laying it on thick about sneak attacks."
"We need to decide what to do." Jessica says. "Should we turn our footage over to the Chrysanthemum maybe? Show them that ECHO CHAMBER are bad news?"
"It's possible we can't really avert this." Mirareki says. "On the other hand the storms aren't exactly knocking the cities down either, so it might just be sabre rattling so far. Maybe we should just stay covert. Reizay has landed and is heading to the university, so we need to join her sooner or later, but it might be wiser to lay low."
What should you tell Jessica?
[ ] Tell her the whole truth, possibly raising suspicions and leaking that you have an enemy of humanity in your head
[ ] Tell her a partial truth (that you have a posthuman in your head but not whom)
[ ] Tell her a lie that you have merely an abnormally strong AI core riding you
What do you do now?
[ ] Go immediately to university to assist Reizay and investigate what you found in the Temple
[ ] Lay low and find some covert lodgings while some of the heat that's likely followed you dies down
[ ] Go to the Chrysanthemum authorities with what you have and try to implicate ECHO CHAMBER
[ ] Go to the Communion authorities with what you have and try to explain they're being lured towards war
[ ] Try to figure out a way to release the footage anonymously so you don't get arrested.
