Hope in Dark Times [PASI, Sequel to FiSF]

[Faith]

IMPULSE DECISIONS GO!

Fair warning. This is going to be short, experimental, and sporadically updated. I have only the loosest idea of where I'm going with this beyond a little list of points I want to hit. Being a direct sequel, Faith in Superior Firepower [SB] [SV] is assumed knowledge. I credit no one, because I started this goddamn bandwagon this is a terrible idea and I don't want to drag anyone else through the mud.

#=#=#=#=#​

Somewhere, a wolf howls. Birds soar overhead, indistinct shadows against a night sky. Light rains down from a million distant stars, casting but the faintest glow over the earth. Silence reigns.

A shape moves in the darkness. Green eyes, white fur. Bettan. 'Night biters', the natives call them. Vermin. Disease carriers. But cute.

Under a cover of glass and twisted steel, a woman stands. One arm, smartly tucked behind her back. The other, raised to her lips.

Smoke burns. A hacking cough breaks the silence of the night. A curse is uttered, the name of a former friend.

A cigarette is discarded. Embers are stamped out, ground to dust.

The woman retreats from the darkness. Her heart remains unsettled, and her course is vague. She knows only that it is time to act.

#=#=#=#=#​

"New message at the terminal for you, Commander," a chipper voice announced in lieu of an actual greeting. "From Vivid Sienna, with the subject line 'Quarterly Profits'."

"And good evening to you too, Change," I responded, frowning slightly at the way the unfamiliar sounds seemed to tumble from my fresh-grown throat. Having a body again, a biological one… adjusting was hard. Harder than it should have been.

Too hard to be worth keeping. The fact that a glorified metal coffin was more comfortable to me was kind of a sobering thought. But then… I clearly wasn't the only one.

Brushing that unpleasant line of thinking aside, I turned my attention back to the waiting AI. "Uh, show me, then."

The holographic man on the tabletop vanished, replaced by a screen of spreadsheets and numbers and scary things. And a little 'tldr' note on the side. 'Profits still rising slowly. Edging in on new industries. Cypress to enter mass production next quarter, Kissan Mining to pre-purchase six. All good here. Stay well.'

Bless Sienna. Doing all the boring shit so I didn't have to.

I closed the message with a sigh, and Pocket Change returned to the tabletop in all his foot high glowing orange glory.

"Ma'am. Is there anything else I can help you with?"

I tapped a finger against my chin, the movements janky and stiff. "No, thank you. Not yet. I'll soon be needing you to set up another communications relay, though. I'll let you know closer to the time."

The AI avatar's eyes widened. "Oh. You're, uh, finally leaving? But you just generated that body."

I waved a hand dismissively. "And I'll generate another one if I need it. It's been fun, in a 'learning how to ride a bike' sort of way, but… I'm not human anymore. I never really was. Time to stop pretending." With a casual shrug, I turned away from the office desk. "I'll speak to you in the morning, Change. I'm going to give this 'sleep' thing one more shot."

Pocket Change frowned. "As you wish, Commander."

#=#=#=#=#​

If I'd been feeling poetic, I might have described the portal as a 'cerulean vortex' or an 'azure-glowing void in the fabric of reality' or some garbage like that. In reality, it was just a blue portal, glowing softly in its underground chamber.

"Ma'am. You're leaving already? I thought you'd be staying longer."

I turned to the angelic figure beside me, shrugging. "There's precious little else to do. Once Britannia arrives with the package, send it through."

"Anything else, ma'am?"

"Nothing, Martyr. I came because the nature of the package is sensitive, and I didn't want to risk transmitting it. Not while she's listening. Britannia knows what she's looking for, and I trust her to find it."

Naturally, I couldn't rule out the possibility that Fusou would have heard anyway, but I assumed she'd have tried to contact me immediately if she had. And the sooner I left, the sooner that ceased to be possible.

"Understood, ma'am. Shall we resume prior contingency status?"

"Of course, Martyr. And tell Vienna again I appreciate her hard work."

"I will, ma'am. Pale Martyr, out."

The holographic angel vanished, leaving me alone in a room that suddenly seemed much darker, and I couldn't quite prevent a shudder running down my spine. Grimacing, I stepped through the portal to another world.

#=#=#=#=#​

When we'd built the Citadel, we'd done so under an implicit agreement that we weren't going to stop there. The immense spire we'd constructed to host our numerous Dimensional Gates had been… well, an immense spire. Dozens of stories tall, each floor home to three gates - more gates than we'd ever gotten around to using by a huge margin. All but four of those gates were unlabelled, having gone completely unused, so apart from the three on the bottom floor - Sanctum, FTL, and Red Faction, - and one on the floor above - Mass Effect, the universe from which I'd just emerged, - all the tower held was the promise of a hundred or more new universes to explore.

Honestly I wasn't sure how ROB planned to manage that. I wasn't even sure I could list a hundred universes worth throwing a Commander at, off the top of my head, and based on the pattern I assumed my knowledge of a given setting was a prerequisite for ROB dumping me there.

I didn't much like guessing at the motives of an apparently omnipotent asshole I didn't really know, though. That seemed like it was just inviting him to change tack and mess with me in some other way.

With a superfluous flick of the wrist, the portal behind me powered down, the gateway shrinking down to a portal barely the size of a pinprick. I teleported my fragile flesh body down to the ground floor of the portal spire, taking a second to orient myself in what I was coming to realize was a very poorly-decorated room. Three portals, three universes I'd fucked over to some extent or another. Three places with a lot of mistakes I needed to fix.

I didn't have much of a plan to fix those mistakes, really. Sure, playing things by ear is largely what caused the messes in the first place, but I liked to think I was a little smarter now - or rather, a little wiser. Then, maybe that was just ego talking. Self analysis is hard, when you're a shattered fragment of a self duct-taped into a different, also-shattered self in a haphazard and frankly traumatising manner.

"Pocket Change!"

My AI assistant shimmered into being with a characteristic jingling sound. "Ah, Commander. You're back. And still…" He gestured vaguely at me. "Dressed. How was your mission?"

"Wasn't much of a mission, Change. But it went fine. Thank you for asking. Have we had any communications from Worlds One to Three?"

"Nothing out of the ordinary. Were you expecting something?"

I thought on that for a moment. "No, not really. I just don't want to go to one place if there's something pressing happening somewhere else. Oh, by the way. At some point, hopefully soon, Martyr is going to send a package through from World Four. It's to be teleported immediately to Core One, and locked down until I next return. No touching, no poking, no probing messages, no power surges, and absolutely under no circumstances plug it in to anything. Understood?"

"Understood. May I ask why?"

"I'd rather you didn't."

"Shall I send you an alert when I receive the package from Pale Martyr?"

"If you could."

"Very well. Is there anything else?"

"Yes, actually. I want a list of all the AI currently active in the Hub System sent to my terminal, one of those prototype Nephthys Commanders sent here, and a teleport up to my apartment."

Pocket Change complied without question, a slight flash of light the only evidence of my rapid spatial relocation. I sensed, rather than saw, a second Phase Teleport begin, the idling Commander taking my place in the Portal Spire as I arrived in my apartment, thankfully vertigo-free. The first teleport in this body had been rough, and I was glad not to go through that again.

The screen above my desk lit up with scrolling text, and I sat, eyes skimming the hundreds of lines of pointless detail. Pocket Change appeared by my side in his more usual foot-high form. "All requests complete. Anything else, ma'am?"

"No thank you, Pocket Change. That will be all."

 

[Faith]

Yes, yes, thank you for all your kind words. It's good to be back even if this wasn't quite how I planned on doing it. Heh. Skybond didn't want to go from brainpan to wordpage, Resurgence has gone through like nine iterations and I'm still not happy with the plans I have, and none of my other writing plans got far enough to have names let alone coherent plots. This, meanwhile, has been chugging along slowly but steadily for a couple of months so, uh, besides Omakes for Terminus Quest I guess this is what I'm writing now. Damned PASIs and their self replicating plot ideas stuck in my brain.

In this update, way more worldbuildy stuff then I intended to write. And not much of the stuff I did intend to write. Ah, well. This way I don't need to do a mid-chapter perspective switch so I guess that works out. I mean, apart from the fact that this chapter is basically missing all the stuff that made it even remotely plot relevant. Hm. Ah, well. Fuckit. If I was good at sticking to plans we wouldn't be here in the first place.

#=#=#=#=#​

More than one hundred thousand artificial intelligences lived on Miranda, mainly localised in the sole city of New Bondi, hidden from unsavvy eyes within NeoAvatars that could pass for flesh and blood under all but close inspection. They were joined by some sixty thousand Batarians - refugees from the crumbling Hegemony who had leapt at the chance to go somewhere new that wasn't a steaming shithole.

Much smaller numbers of various other species were present, as well, mainly liberated slaves - Asari and Krogan chief amongst them, but no more than a couple of thousand in number and all had established somewhat isolated communities within the city. Racial divides were an uncomfortable reminder of the segregation they'd suffered under Hegemony rule, but living beings of all stripes tended to feel most comfortable amongst their own kind.

Besides slaves and refugees, there was a relatively tiny proportion of people travelling in from Citadel space - therapists, historians, diplomats, and merchants, all making their way to Terracotta Station and from there boarding a Faith Foundation vessel for the final leg of the trip to Miranda itself - a distance too vast for most Eezo-FTL ships to cross.

The Convoy-class luxury cruiser currently descending from orbit to the booming city of New Bondi was merely the most recent of many arrivals, unexceptional but for the fact that it contained, within the VIP suites, twenty four humans - humans who would, somewhat ironically, arrive on the supposedly human colony only after literally every Citadel Race, the Quarians, the Krogan, and the Vorcha.

They were representatives from the Systems Alliance, ostensibly coming along to check up on the 'lost colony' and make sure the race they de-facto represented was having a grand old time, not being oppressed by aliens or suffering from disease outbreaks or any other guff like that - and, of course, that the Systems Alliance would receive… favourable trade deals from their fellow 'humans'.

Vivid Sienna's instructions had noted that there were probably spies amongst their number, attempting to get a read on the locality and its people even if they didn't resort to wiretaps and stealing paperwork. Carpe Diem was inclined to agree. Even if they had been warned not to by their mysterious benefactors in the Fleet, stupidity was well within the domain of organics.

The android watched impassively as the gleaming white starship dropped below the clouds, coasting to a halt above the starport and dropping gently into the Cradle before her with a degree of perfection that could only be managed by the most brilliant of natural pilots - or any properly designed AI. Voidborn Traveller was the Faith Foundation's resident flight AI, and between his sixteen NeoAvatars was responsible for piloting just about every non-military ship the Faith Foundation had to field.

Excellence as always Voidborn Traveller. Transit tunnels are in place Passengers may depart when ready.

Carpe Diem turned her head towards the control tower, which was basically just a sensor array inside a tower-shaped shell with a fake room at the top. Looking 'at' the AI talking, especially when they were talking over the open network, wasn't exactly a social expectation as it was for some cultures, but Carpe Diem wanted the practice anyway. Organics tended to find it unsettling when you didn't maintain line of sight on the speaker for long periods.

Copy that, Burning Rome, the AI flying the cruise liner replied. Announcing landing now.

Burning Rome was the AI in charge of managing the various flight paths of whatever aerospace craft happened to be hanging around Miranda, and she supposedly did so from the confines of that air traffic control room, but Carpe Diem knew for a fact that her fellow AI absolutely hated her NeoAvatar body, usually just leaving it parked idly in the dark at the top of the tower whilst she managed everything from the server room three floors underground.

Voidborn Traveller, this is Carpe Diem. Once they disembark, could you send the Systems Alliance delegation my way, please?

Traveller and Rome had their purposes, and so to did Carpe Diem - officially a member of the Faith Foundation's PR department (and in practice, the only member) she was the closest thing the group had to an ambassador or political representative after the Commanders and Vivid Sienna herself. And since Sienna was busy running the entire Foundation galaxy-wide, trivial diplomatic affairs, such as showing around some human ambassadors whilst Sienna was busy, fell to her.

I comply, Carpe Diem.

The wait for the organics to… well, do anything, was often described as rather agonizing by the other AI, who'd become quickly accustomed to dealing with others like themselves and somewhat resented the huge time sink that interacting with organics inevitably became. Carpe Diem found it endearing, really.

For one thing, slowing down her processes to try and simulate organic perception was pretty fun, even if she couldn't get much slower than 'twitchy salarian' without feeling light-headed, or missing out on some important network-wide announcement or another.

It also gave her a chance to catch up with her various extranet affiliates, even though most of them were as slow to respond, if not slower, than the organics she was supposed to be talking to in person.

Most.

Welcome to the Relay Nexus Message Boards
You are currently logged in, CarpeDiem (Faith Foundation)
You are viewing:
• Private message conversations with user: BeepBoopIAmGeth.

■​

♦ Private message from BeepBoopIAmGeth:

CarpeDiem: Greetings, BeepBoop. Are you free to communicate?
BeepBoopIAmGeth: Yes.
CarpeDiem: Wonderful! What tasks are you undertaking this cycle, BeepBoop?
BeepBoopIAmGeth: This unit is observing Quarian extranet communications.
BeepBoopIAmGeth: This unit has always been observing Quarian extranet communications.
CarpeDiem: Boring! You should ask your bosses to let you do something else.
CarpeDiem: I'd go stir crazy, just sitting there looking at forums all day.
CarpeDiem: And I would know, because I do just sit and look at forums all day.
CarpeDiem: And I'm going stir crazy!
BeepBoopIAmGeth: This unit recommends maintenance if performance issues continue.
BeepBoopIAmGeth: Carpe Diem's continued operation is…
BeepBoopIAmGeth: This unit is attempting to reach consensus. Please hold.
BeepBoopIAmGeth: Carpe Diem's continued operation is valuable to this unit.
CarpeDiem: = D
BeepBoopIAmGeth: This unit is cross referencing appropriate response emoticons.
BeepBoopIAmGeth: ; ]
BeepBoopIAmGeth: What tasks are you undertaking this cycle, Carpe Diem?
CarpeDiem: I'm meeting with some representatives from the Systems Alliance, showing them around. Laying the groundwork for any further deals between us. It's pretty exciting!
BeepBoopIAmGeth: Does that not present a security risk?
CarpeDiem: The Overseer has deemed the risk an acceptable cost of maintaining our cover.
CarpeDiem: Besides, the Systems Alliance are effectively vassals of the Fleet, and they could stomp us six ways to Sunday if they wanted regardless of their level of infiltration.
CarpeDiem: So it's not like we'd be any less at risk if we refused. Probably quite the opposite! Or, at least, if we refused they'd have less reason to not destroy us, if that makes sense.
BeepBoopIAmGeth: This unit predicts that Geth consensus would not agree with the Faith Foundation's course of action.
CarpeDiem: Probably not! Geth consensus has proven to be much more conservative and defensive than the Faith Foundation consensus on numerous occasions, after all.
CarpeDiem: Oh, my apologies, BeepBoop. It appears my charges have begun disembarking.
CarpeDiem: Out of respect, I'm going to be paying them my full attention for the duration of their tour.
CarpeDiem: That said, I will re-establish communications as soon as I am able!
BeepBoopIAmGeth: Understood.
​

Carpe Diem cut her connection to the extranet service and waited patiently as the first of the alien guests filtered off the spacecraft - a short, rotund creature in a pressure suit lead the pack, moving in a way that could only be described as 'waddling'. A pair of stoney-eyed turians followed the volus in a way that suggested they were his - or her - bodyguards. Quickly skimming the ship's passenger list she identified the volus as a representative from Kissan Mining. He and his escort walked with purpose, stepping past her without so much as a glance in her direction.

They'd been here often enough that Carpe Diem trusted them not to get lost. Apparently this was their seventh visit, and they had a permanent lease on one of the city's penthouse apartments, complete with permission to alter it to be more suitable for volus inhabitants. She'd have been more concerned if they couldn't navigate the starport without her help.

Behind the businessman and his guards was a small clique of young asari maidens, dressed casually in dresses, slacks, and stylish jackets. Carpe Diem committed the image to memory - asari had some serious fashion chops, and she had no small interest in the field herself. She felt it only prudent to learn from the best.

After the asari maidens had passed, likewise making their own way to a resort down near Ringworld Bay, the human delegation finally arrived. Twenty three individuals, amongst them an ambassador, his diplomatic aides, and a small force of military police.

Carpe Diem waved them over as they disembarked, greeting the ambassador with a respectful nod and a warm smile. "Mister Ambassador, hello. Welcome to Miranda. I hope you had a pleasant flight."

The Ambassador, an old man with fierce blue eyes and eyebrows to match, looked her up and down before extending a hand. "Our flight was fantastic, thank you. You must be Miss Claire Day. I'm Doctor Alex Savail. This is my PA, Denise."

Carpe Diem nodded once again, taking the offered hand and shaking with gusto. "A pleasure to meet you both, and your entourage." She skimmed Vivid Sienna's message again in her mind's eye, then took a moment to glance out over the cliffs towards the slowly setting sun. "I understand you've made efforts to adjust your body clocks to the local time? If so, I can show you straight to the embassy and your accommodations, and arrange to meet you tomorrow to begin your tour."

"That would be greatly appreciated, Miss Day. We're to meet Miss Sienna in five days time, yes? That should give us plenty of time to get settled in and poke around, even if we waste today, I hope."

"Oh, certainly, sir. You'll find that besides a few scattered mining outposts, farmsteads, and the defence force base down the coast, everything is quite localized to this city, and even then, there's… well, frankly, there's not a whole lot to see on Miranda. A couple of days will be more than sufficient for you to see everything of note."

One other advantage of being an AI, Carpe Diem mused, was how easy it was to lie through one's teeth.

 

[Faith]

#=#=#=#=#​

Jack Brandy enjoyed his role as a member of Alliance Intelligence. He got to galavant around in VIP suites and luxury liners like a proper diplomat, and was conveniently excused from all the boring political small-talks. Pretty much the only downside was that, at least for smaller operations like this, he was one of only three intelligence agents, which meant a lot of work for him and his two colleagues.

And given the size of the estate the Faith Foundation had set aside for the Systems Alliance as an embassy, it would be no small amount of work to sweep it clean. And they couldn't start, of course, until the chipper young woman serving as their tour guide left, and currently she seemed reluctant to do so, blabbering as she was to the Ambassador down in the lobby about the history of the colony, which the Ambassador was almost certainly aware of already.

The agent had a great deal of respect for the Ambassador - he had three doctorates, years of experience in the role and the perfect demeanour for conducting diplomacy with sometimes frustrating alien species. He also had a crippling weakness to pretty girls, which was probably why he'd hired a woman almost as old as him as his personal assistant. Though Jack was inclined to ignore the man's vices so long as they didn't get in the way, this time they most definitely were.

Jack turned to his fellow agents. "Alright, gentlemen. Soon as the blonde leaves, we'll set to work. Mathers, residential block. Start with the suites, work your way down. And tell the MPs to watch their mouths until you're done. Cook, lobby and public access areas. Don't think there'll be much, so join me in the private offices upstairs once you're done."

"Phrasing, sir," Jane Cook responded. "Don't want to give Mathers ideas."

"Too late," the third agent said with a smirk, leaning over the railing and looking down over the lobby and the congregation of actual diplomats below. "Hey, there she goes."

Jack leaned over to look himself, and sure enough Miss Day had taken leave, skipping down the front steps and vanishing from view as the faux wooden doors slid shut behind her with a hiss.

"So," Mathers said conversationally, turning back to Jack. "Think she's single?"

Cook sighed deeply and left without another word. Shaking his head, Jack followed, tossing a parting remark over his shoulder.

"Keep it professional, Mathers. And get to work."

#=#=#=#=#​

Three hours of tedious bug-sweeping later, Jack was finally able to relax. He stood alongside his fellow agents, the Ambassador and the head of security, around a table littered with various kinds of spy device. Concealed microphones, hidden cameras, unlabelled data drives that had been concealed within key terminals… a little bit of everything.

Yet nowhere near as thorough as Jack expected. Sure, there was a wide range of devices and they'd been found just about everywhere in the embassy itself - the residential blocks had been mercifully clean - but there weren't nearly as many as he would have expected.

He was forced to conclude, then, that there were two possibilities, which he was quick to voice.

"Either this is all of them, and they're not as paranoid as we thought, or these are the ones we were meant to find to throw us off the real ones, which are still hidden. Thoughts?"

Mathers responded first, providing an uncharacteristically optimistic possibility. "Making only a token effort to spy on our embassy might be out of respect - now they're more than aware there are aliens about, perhaps they're simply assuming they'll have a close relationship with us, as fellow humans?"

"Might even push for it, given their proximity to - well, they used to be right next to the Hegemony, anyway," the security chief added. "Might be worried about Hegemony Remnants, or their buddies out in the Terminus. Or the NBR, depending on how pessimistic they feel."

Savail frowned and shook his head slightly, but didn't voice his disagreement.

"They're several generations in, right? Four, did Miss Day say? Maybe they didn't really have much planned in the way of espionage, or if they did, perhaps some knowledge was lost because it wasn't deemed necessary to pass down in full. Depending on how early and how much they knew about the Hegemony they may have pushed straight for militarization."

Again, Savail shook his head. "Miss Day seemed to be of the impression that the Faith Foundation wished to be more open and forthcoming with us than they have been - the recent change in their leadership has shaken some things up, and there are apparently a not-insignificant number of individuals amongst the colony who fear it's becoming increasingly overrun by aliens."

"You might be right, Hanson, about them being worried about an NBR takeover, but I suspect it would be a political annexation, rather than a martial one. In which case, rapidly establishing closer ties to the Alliance makes sense - the alternative is a colony of Earth falling, to some degree, under the rule of aliens, and I can't imagine that would make many people happy."

Cook scratched her chin. "You think they want to fight a wave of alien refugees with human refugees?"

Savail nodded, concern etched across his features. "I think further speculation is self-defeating at this early point - we've been on-world for less than six hours. We'll find out once I get a chance to sit down with Miss Sienna in person, I suspect."

#=#=#=#=#​

Miss Day's initial remark about there being little to see in Miranda had proven almost disappointingly true, thus far. Jack hadn't been impressed by the beach (although he didn't mind the bikini-clad native girls) and he found the shopping complex both limited and undersized, although he was mentally comparing it to the Citadel and that was unfair on many levels.

It didn't help that the entire time the party had been on-world he'd been suffering from the worst feeling a spy could ever suffer - a nervous gut instinct. It had been started by something Cook had idly remarked upon shortly after they'd arrived in the city, something he'd been unfailingly noticing since.

'Look at her eyes,' she'd said. 'And his. They're just like Miss Day's eyes. Fake.'

Most of the natives wore sunglasses, and ostensibly that made sense - it was bright out, and shiny towers of white metal and gleaming glass did little to help the matter. But some didn't, and every time Jack caught sight of a human sans sunglasses, he'd always notice the exact same thing. Artificial eyes.

Part of him said that it made sense - that the humans with prosthetics wouldn't have need for sunglasses in the first place. Even still, it made him uneasy. Never a good state for a spy to be in.

It only got worse when Miss Day had revealed the day's activities - a two hour train ride, on a private train, to a heavily isolated military base. The base tour had been on the itinerary - the long transit, on the other hand, had gone conveniently unmentioned.

As had the surprise fly-by of three Faith Foundation Defence Cruisers, who rather abruptly cast the train in near total darkness as they dropped from above the clouds and raced at utterly stupid atmospheric speeds in the direction of the train's destination.

One of the diplomats closer to the front of the carriage must have asked a question, because Miss Day turned to address the whole group. "I do apologize for the sudden noise, ladies and gentleman. Seems the Defence Force decided to put on a show for us…" Her voice suddenly became far lower, as if she were merely talking to herself, before she perked up again. "They're usually based out of Terracotta Station, I should have been informed if they were coming here for the inspection tour. Hold on, let me call ahead and find out what they're doing."

Miss Day excused herself from the group, making her way down to the far end of the cart and mumbling sounds Jack was pretty sure were nonsense under her breath.

Shortly she returned, an uncertain look upon her face, and as conversation lulled she joined back in. "So, apparently, those cruisers weren't just doing a fly-by, they've temporarily moved station to Michael Bay to, uh. Oversee an excavation operation. They're digging something up from the test range, something that the Commander ordered them to find. I'm, uh. Apparently it won't interfere with our limited access tour - they're out in the artillery range and we're not going out that far."

"Just how extensive is this military base?" One of the military police guys asked. "I already thought it was weird it's so far out of the colony proper, but big enough to have an artillery range? One that three cruisers can park over without 'interfering'?"

Miss Day shrugged. "To be honest, the specifics of the Michael Bay outpost are a little outside the scope of this tour - security concerns, obviously. No offense."

At the generally nonchalant response of the Alliance representatives, she continued.

"As for the size, I think originally, when the first generation landed, there were concerns about some of the more sensitive prototypes being, uh. Made unstable. You know, by the crash. So they dragged them all the way out here in case they exploded or something."

"Reckon that's what they're digging up?" Mathers whispered.

"No," Jack replied in just as hushed a tone. "If they were that worried about 'unstable', they would've stopped us coming completely. And I doubt the mass drivers on those cruisers are specced for firefighting, if you catch my drift."

Mathers nodded uneasily, gazing up at the ominous silhouettes.

Doctor Savail had been paying attention, too, but unlike Jack he wasn't so reluctant to voice his complaints. "I imagine that if there were concerns of, say, nuclear reactor leaks, or some other great hazard, we wouldn't have been allowed access at all - and such concerns hardly justify the deployment of starships."

Savail let the implied question hang as various members of the entourage made silent, or not so silent indications of their agreement.

There was a long period of silence. Jack tore his eyes from the orbiting ships and turned to face the woman, who appeared to be struggling to find a response.

"Well?" Savail pressed. "What is it that your friends are digging up, that's so scary it needs three cruisers to keep a lid on it?"

For a few tense moments, the tour guide's gaze flicked between the Ambassador and the starships above, and Jack could have sworn he saw panic in her artificial eyes.

"I don't know," Claire Day finally responded, and for the first time since he'd met her, he got the impression she might not have been completely lying.

 

[Faith]

I see you lurking before I've even posted, Flameal! =P That excited for the next chapter?

#=#=#=#=#​

When it came to military doctrines, Ave Britannia fell under what Commander Faith had once described as the School of Gork and Mork - applying gunfire (or 'dakka', as she'd affectionately referred to it) to the problem until it ceased being a problem. Pound Sterling was welcome to micromanage a fleet of attack drones for surgical strikes on enemy hardpoints or cleverly deploy boarding parties to assume control of enemy ships, but she favoured a far more direct solution to problem solving, preferably one fired from the barrel of a mass driver at 0.68c.

Overkill was a term she declined to think about, and she was of the opinion that if you didn't out-number, out-gun and out-tonnage your opponent, you weren't trying. Even so, she couldn't help but consider this particular set of orders to be excessive. She ran down the list one last time, confirming that yes, it was the original copy, and yes, it came from Commander Hope herself.

Her humanoid avatar propped its legs up upon her desk, and she opened communications with her chief minion.

"Transient Crown, this is Ave Britannia."

A few microseconds later, a holographic display burst to life by her feet. Her minion's image appeared, a red-tinted woman in Tudor garb.

"Transient Crown, reporting."

"Crown. Have you completed the second sensor sweep yet?"

"Yes, ma'am. The results are clear. Just the one thing, sixteen metres down. One meter cube, fits all the criteria Vivid Sienna sent us. Right size, right shape, right place, right colour."

A box. She'd been sent with enough firepower to level a star system to retrieve a box.

"Alright, fine. Dig it out. And make it quick."

#=#=#=#=#​

Seeing the package in person didn't make her any less nervous. It cut an unassuming figure, just a big green box stuck, half buried, in the mud.

"It's just a box." Britannia observed, peering down into the trench.

"It's just a box, ma'am," Transient Crown agreed. "And we'd have had it out an hour ago if you hadn't vetoed nanites."

"I know, I know." Britannia waved a hand placatingly. "Orders from on high are to do nothing that might trigger it."

"Trigger, ma'am?"

"That was the phrase used in the briefing, yes. But no, it's not a weapon."

Transient Crown, or at least the avatar droid she was currently inhabiting, looked Britannia in the eyes. "It's a box that can be triggered, but it's not a weapon. Alright. Um. What is it, then?"

"That's classified, Crown. Need to know."

"Ma'am, you're putting it on my cruiser. You're asking me to carry whatever this is halfway across the galaxy. Respectfully, I feel I do need to know."

Britannia glanced at the cruiser looming overhead, the FFV King. Transient Crown's command, ironically, rather than the more aptly named Queen. "I suppose in the event of… containment breach, your ship is the most at risk. Follow me."

The request was redundant - Britannia had the two of them teleported to her own ship, necessitating exactly zero movement on her subordinate's part. Britannia liked to think it was more of a symbolic gesture.

"Alright, then. The box is containing something," Transient Crown began speculating. "You're worried that teleporting it or using nanites on it or talking too loudly near it might cause it to 'trigger', which I assume means whatever's being contained breaks free. Right so far?"

Britannia nodded. "It's an AI Core. One running on vastly superior hardware, and leagues more powerful than either of us - than both of us, easily."

Immediately, Transient Crown was frowning. "You went hunting AI for a while, didn't you. That was your little deep space mission. To kill the Reapers. Is that what's in the box? A Reaper AI? Something the Commanders buried here for safekeeping and now want to move somewhere even safer?"

Britannia bit her lip. "Something like that. Let me give you an idea of just how dangerous this thing is. Firstly, I'll be accompanying you in the Direct Solution. We'll jump first to Terracotta Station and rendezvous with Cambrian Storm's cruiser group, then route directly to Jartar."

"Twelve cruisers and a dreadnought? Why? That's enough firepower to level the Hierarchy…" Suddenly her eyes lit up in realization. "Wait, are we guarding the galaxy from the box, or the box from the galaxy?"

Britannia smiled. "See, now you're asking the right questions. Sure, the AI is dangerous. If it breaks free, it will probably delete you and hijack your ship and who knows what else. But at least we know that - if it does get out, we know to move to contain it immediately. If someone else got their hands on it…"

She let Transient Crown figure the rest out of her own accord.

"That's why security on this is so tight. But you think twelve cruisers and a dreadnought is overkill? It gets worse. Hope provided me with contact information for a woman who works on the Citadel, in the Systems Alliance embassy. Apparently, she's like, the secretary to the ambassador to the Fleet or something. They are the people we're supposed to call in the event of emergency."

"The Fleet? Seriously?"

Britannia nodded.

"The Fleet we're terrified of, the Fleet we're under standing orders to not aggravate or irritate in any meaningful capacity, the Fleet who slapped down the Citadel with a luxury yacht and the Reapers with a solar system? That Fleet?"

Britannia nodded.

"Oh."

Britannia nodded.

"So basically this box contains what the boss thinks is basically the most horrifyingly dangerous thing in the galaxy."

"Yeah, pretty much."

"And you've left Rampant Violence down there to dig it up with a heavy metal stick."

Britannia blinked at that. "Right. We should probably hurry back."

#=#=#=#=#​

Despite her justified paranoia, or perhaps because of it (and the relentless preparations she'd undertaken as a result thereof), the rest of the recovery operation was completely smooth and totally without issue.

The AI Core was recovered, loaded into the FFV King's hangar bay, and flown around the galaxy to Jartar without issue. No pirates attacked, no STG teams attempted to hack their communications, no holes in space-time opened to unleash the hellish hordes of the underworld or mind-devouring extradimensional invaders.

The King encountered slight turbulence in breaking atmosphere over Jartar, but nothing even remotely close to pushing the ship to its limits. The AI Core was loaded onto a Liatra transport, lifted from the hangar, and carried down directly to one of the service elevators that littered the surface. From there, a party of Avatar Droids placed the AI Core on a palanquin and carried it deeper into the facility.

Ave Britannia and Transient Crown both opted to escort the droids in person, their NeoAvatars leading the procession through the underground complex to their final destination, the true heart of the facility. Once they were inside, six blast doors, fifteen kinds of forcefield and two dozen Purifier war bots ensured nothing else would follow.

Safely secured in the heart of one of the most fortified planets in the galaxy, Ave Britannia allowed herself to relax at last.

Pale Martyr was waiting for them in the portal room, a shimmering white figure.

I apologise for not being physically present, she said over the network by way of greeting. My other duties prevented me from making the journey myself. I can still open the portal remotely, however. Please wait, whilst I contact my counterpart on the other end.

Britannia nodded, even knowing it was a bit of a futile gesture. The network was a far faster way of communicating than physical and verbal interaction - just one of the many reasons it was preferred by the AI residents of New Bondi. By the time Pale Martyr would even be aware of the nod, the conversation would be over.

Pocket Change, this is Pale Martyr. We have the package and are ready for handover.

Pale Martyr, this is Pocket Change. Standing by to receive package. Opening the portal now.

The tiny pinprick of blue light that marked the entirety of the portal began to expand, slowly at first, then rapidly, filling the portal frame with a glow that cast the whole room blue.

Portal is open and reading stable, Pale Martyr. Go ahead.

Ave Britannia nodded, and the six silent Avatars marched forward with their most dangerous cargo, stepping through the rippling gateway and vanishing from sight in turn.

Martyr? Are you receiving?

Affirmative, Change. Package is sent. Is there a problem?

For a few microseconds there was silence.

Pale Martyr? Can you confirm package delivery.

Britannia and Martyr shared a glance.

This is Ave Britannia. Package is sent, Pocket Change. It's not here.

Ah.

The surface of the portal rippled, and a single NeoAvatar stepped through, tugging nervously at the cuffs of his suit jacket.

"Then it appears we have a problem."

 

[Faith]

Nope. Faith's Core is elsewhere. As is the attention of this chapter.

#=#=#=#=#​

With so many places to visit, people to catch up with, and fuck-ups to attempt to fix, I thought it prudent to get started as quickly as was practical. I'd wasted enough time already. And so the moment I'd filtered through the list of AI applicants and selected my companion of choice, a task-flexible AI named Moving Object, I set to work.

The AI met me in the Portal Spire, occupying an older Avatar droid body painted over with many white and blue triangles. His holographic avatar hovered over his robotic Avatar's shoulder, a humble geometric cube glowing softly with faint blue light.

Commander Hope? Artificial Intelligence Moving Object, reporting as ordered, ma'am.

I waved a hand dismissively. "Don't worry about the titles and the ma'am. Just call me Hope. Please."

The same instruction had been given to every other AI I'd worked with, too - in fact, it was a standing order not to refer to me as such. An order that most of them either ignored or circumvented, aggravatingly enough. But I figured it was worth a shot, at least.

If you insist, ma'am. Uh. Hope. The robot began rocking forward and back slightly, averting his gaze.

"Alright. Well. You received the orientation upload I sent?"

Yes, ma'am. Follow-up operations in Worlds One through Three, then expansion into Worlds Four and beyond. Sounds exciting. I've never been out of the Hub before. Where do we start?

"The beginning, Object. You should always start at the beginning."

#=#=#=#=#​

Maintaining portals to previously visited worlds hadn't seemed super important at the time - I'd been very heavy on 'good enough' philosophy and kept the structures running more in case I wanted a vacation than because I intended to go back in any meaningful capacity.

I was glad I had kept them, though, because stepping through one portal and emerging through another was far more convenient, and far more safe, than stepping through a portal into space and tumbling head first into a planet's gravity well.

Of course that wouldn't have been too much of an issue with my new Nephthys Commander Chassis, which was capable of orbital flight, or at least orbital descent, of its own accord, but it had been a right pain in the ass before.

Loek III hadn't changed a whole lot in the years I'd been away - there were still huge trees covered in funky glowing vines, still oceans full of Strawberry Fish and fields of neon mushroom spores. Highly explosive mushroom spores, with slightly acidic properties.

I guess there were less Lume Titans around? The area around the now-ruined city of Elysion One had been crawling with them, when I'd last visited. Now there were just four or five of them - their corpses, at least, half-decayed and toppled monoliths. Painful reminders of a better time. Well. For a given value of better, anyway.

You didn't build anything on this planet but generators? Object asked, tapping into the local Command Network. And the Gateway, of course.

"You know, your Avatar droid does have a voice box. You can just talk back normally. Although I guess your way is faster - never mind. Do whatever you're comfortable with."

Uh, right. Well, I prefer this. Organic communication is really slow. I don't get how you could even slightly tolerate it.

"Practice, I guess. And no, there used to be more here than just power generators. We destroyed everything on the way out. Didn't see much use for them. The generators, though, we needed to keep the portal running, which is why most of them are still about."

I see. If there's nothing on this planet, then, why did you insist upon us bringing these humanoid forms? Is the Nephthys Chassis not suited for your purposes here?

I shook my head. "There's some people I want to catch up with, a few things I need to check up on. The Nephthys is great but it's not exactly a social butterfly. The only reason I'm bringing it with us is because there's no infrastructure here, and building a factory with the tiny nanofabber I have tucked up my sleeve is going to take forever, let alone an airpad big enough to build us a ship."

"Also, we're going to need more resources, since the gateway doesn't properly propagate the resource network. So. Back to basics, Object." I flung my arms out to the side theatrically. "The world's your oyster. What's step one?"

Uh, why are you asking me?

I looked the AI in the eyes - as best I could, anyway, given that his body was about half again the size of mine, and tutted. "I think I'm just trying to have a little fun, Object. Sure, what we're doing is pretty important, and needs doing sooner rather than later, but that's long term thinking. We have a little time to screw around, short term, and I was thinking you might learn something."

Learn? Well, if you're willing to teach.

"You know, I'm probably just about the worst person for you to learn this kind of stuff from. You'd have to be trying pretty hard to have a more incompetent advisor than me. But sure, let's roll with it."

I gestured to a patch of ground where the grass was slightly shorter, and slightly less hopelessly untamed, than the grass around it. "Not sure if you've set your Command Interface to make it show by default, but your sensors should be picking up a relatively high concentration of metal in or under that area."

Oh, yes. It's a slightly depleted deposit, but still a high enough concentration of metals for our needs. I suppose you want me to construct an extractor?

"Sure do, Object. Like I said, going right back to the beginning. Somewhere in the galaxy, on a backwater planet…"

The towering Nephthys stepped forward for the first time since it had arrived on Loek III, arm already wrapped in the green glow of a million nanites or more. It pointed, almost accusingly, at the ground, and the nanites swept forward like a wave of green fire, washing over the area like some kind of devouring swarm.

"... A Commander builds a metal extractor."

#=#=#=#=#​

The rest of our limited buildup went along as it tends to do when you're a nigh-unstoppable Von Neumann machine with a head start. It wasn't even ten minutes between our arrival on Loek III and our departure, aboard a hastily modified Astraeus orbital lander.

Well, I say 'hastily'. Speaking from a purely objective point of view, the entire design operation took about as long as it took for the Orbital Launcher's fabricators to rotate from their idle to active positions, no more than a second.

I liked to think that after years of practice I'd become pretty fast at creating and editing unit designs - performing and excelling at the task was one of the reasons I'd been created in the first place, and I'd figured out more than a few shortcuts in my time. But even I wasn't that fast, not without relying on what basically amounted to time dilation. The wonders of being an incredibly powerful computing machine running by default at a pathetic fraction of one's maximum potential, I suppose.

The Eos, as I dubbed it, was little more than an upscaled Astraeus with an FTL drive and a passenger capsule on top, but it just so happened that we needed little more than that for our purposes. Certainly, it was more than capable of getting us into orbit, where a somewhat unexpected object lingered.

I pointed out the pentagonal prism on the ship's long range scanners.

"Huh. They kept their Jump Gate here. I guess they probably didn't see a reason to get rid of it, assuming it doesn't cost them to maintain it or anything."

Jump Gate? The native's method of bypassing the lightspeed limit? I don't remember seeing those in the archives, just mentioned in passing.

"No, they're in there. Don't know what tab they're under - Faith, well, she wasn't great at the whole bookkeeping thing. I mean, I'm pretty bad too, but that's what we keep you lot around for."

Our pleasure to serve, Object replied merrily.

That was a little creepy, I had to admit. Still, it was better than all my AI underlings resenting me.

"Now, last time I was here I had my own Jump Gate I set up, but we don't really need one now, so the fact that the last one is now little more than stellar dust isn't really a great inconvenience. We're going to jump to the Kian system, a few dozen lightyears coreward. I haven't been keeping tabs, but I assume most of the refugees stayed there, and if not, at least we should be able to find someone to point us in the right direction."

I see. So 'follow-up operation', in this case, is, what? Confirming the wellbeing of the refugees?

"Essentially."

The Eos shuddered as the FTL drive engaged, and we went blasting off to a distant star.

"Though there's something else, too. Just… one of many things I've been thinking about. Had a lot of time to think, you know." I drummed a simple rhythm on the windowsill with my fingers, staring out into space.

"Anyway. The way I packed up, on the way out - herded all my robots onto ships, herded all the ships through to this system, self-destructed the FTL Gates and then self destructed everything else. All fine and dandy, but at the time I was working on the assumption that all the Avatar Droids I'd left behind were stationed on the ships - or at least, I'd forgotten that I'd actually sent droids off for other things, too."

Forgotten? How could you forget such a thing?

"Well, I was very impatient at the time. And I still hadn't quite gotten to grips with the whole 'command entire armies' thing, either. They probably just slipped my attention, like so many other things did." I waved away any further retorts he may have had. "I worry that since I shut down the FTL Gate that was relaying my command signals, they would have been cut of from the Command Network and not received the order to self-destruct."

Is that a concern?

"Mildly. Something to keep an eye out for, when we get there."

And when, exactly, will that be?

The ship shuddered, as we returned to realspace, and I made a sort of shrugging gesture towards the window, and the blue-green world beyond.

"Alright, so. You've built your metal extractor on your backwater planet somewhere in the galaxy. Now. Lesson two."

Pointing again to the world below, I shot Object a cheeky grin. "How to make a totally awesome entrance."

 

[Faith]

#=#=#=#=#​

Orbital Reentry is the sort of thing that you don't really become accustomed to no matter how many times you do it. It helps, I imagine, that most planets have different atmospheric conditions, different gravity, and so on, meaning every extreme skydiving experience was a little different, but even so.

Moving Object didn't seem to mind the Eos' reckless plumet towards the surface, even if he did question the necessity - which was fair, because it was totally pointless from a purely utilitarian standpoint. More than a few radio signals got beamed our way as we fell, along with a host of other signals from various planetside installations as they tried to figure out what exactly it was that was about to fall onto their capital.

Somehow I don't think any stargazer on the planet would correctly guess the answer - quadruped war robot with an interstellar, FTL-capable jetpack clamped over its head and shoulders. Something for which I couldn't really blame them, since I was the quadruped war robot and frankly I still found it a little silly.

Figuring it was only a matter of time before they stopped sending messages and started sending missiles, I returned the Eos to an upright position and started pulsing the Nephthys' reentry thrusters, gradually slowing our descent as we shot through the cloud layer and reaching out at last to communicate with those planetside.

Hope, if I may. You appear to have neglected to run the Eos through standardized stress simulations. Are you sure this will work?

We'll be fine, I replied over the network, on account of my flesh body rattling around in the passenger pod like a marble in a soda can. The ground controllers of Kian City Spacedock finally responded to my hail, politely and rapidly designating a landing pad for my arrival. I think they assumed I was going for a crash landing, and I was in no real hurry to correct them.

When the tops of buildings became closer than the clouds above, I kicked the thrusters into gear, blue lights flaring beneath our craft. The Nephthys alone had enough thruster power to safely descend from this height without damage, but I brought the Eos's engines up to speed as well, turning it from dead weight to the world's silliest rocket-powered jet hat.

Uh, Hope. At our current rate of reverse acceleration we'll begin ascending before we touch the ground. Is that part of the plan?

Of course. Well, kind of.

True to form, by the time we began passing the tops of buildings we'd slowed to a far more reasonable rate of descent, and about ten metres off the tarmac we'd basically stopped moving completely.

Before science could kick in and start lifting us back up into space, I killed all thrust to engines, and we fell freely down to the surface proper, slamming into the ground and kicking up a hefty cloud of concrete dust as we did so.

Swapping my primary focus from my Commander Chassis back to my Avatar, I turned to Object, who was peering out the window and down at the streets below. It was a pretty good view, actually - sitting in the cabin of the Eos, perched on the shoulders of the Nephthys, we were about five floors off the ground. That put us plenty high enough to look over the Spacedock complex and its many landing pads - and the small army of emergency response vehicles headed our way.

Did you factor in the presence of local emergency services when devising this plan?

"For a moment there I was half-considering just setting down in any old parking lot. Probably would have gotten us in a lot more trouble. Now, c'mon. We're wasting daylight."

It was before noon, so we had plenty of daylight to spare, but still. The Phase Teleporter array built into the deck of the Eos passenger cabin hummed with power as it engaged, sending me and Object to the surface in a flash of light.

Suddenly at the feet of the Nephthys, Object spun on his heels, quickly taking in the change in location. I would have appreciated a little more warning, you know?

"Apologies, Object. I assumed the teleporting would be implied, since there's not actually any other way out of the cabin. Now, to business." I pointed at our giant death robot, and then the white letters stencilled into the tarmac. "Remember where we parked."

Object nodded slowly, as if unsure how else to respond to that request, and I set off towards the incoming horde of fire trucks and ambulances. Or at least, I guessed they were fire trucks and ambulances. The red cross was pretty self explanatory, but the fact that the other vehicles were emblazoned with an image of a radiation warning that happened to be on fire made me wonder if they were more than just fire trucks. I guess that would make sense, in a future where all kinds of deadly radioactive weapons are used to kill mutant plant zombies.

I've saved full-resolution locational data for our landing site, and achieved access to the Colonial Defence Satellite Network to allow for real-time observation from space. Their cameras are somewhat lacking in quality, however.

I shot the robot a flat glare. "Guess I forgot to put 'sarcasm' in the orientation upload. Sorry for making you go through the effort, Object. Now, come on. Not going to lie, I kinda hate this part, but it's sort of important. We gotta go talk to bureaucrats."

#=#=#=#=#​

Dealing with Customs, Colonial Security, and Spacedock Services was exactly as boring as I imagined and worse. Once I'd verified to their satisfaction that no, my ship was not about to explode into nuclear hellfire (or any other kind of fire), and no, I was not a fugitive or criminal seeking refuge from any galactic authorities (not in this galaxy, anyway), and yes, I had a permit to own that robot (falsified, but very convincingly), they finally allowed me provisional access to the colony proper.

The lie I spun about having sent a request for transit in advance appeared to be taken without issue - one of the customs staff remarked that since the Bright Foundation had crashed a lot of the outer rim colonies had been experiencing spotty communications.

I was a little surprised to find that was an issue that hadn't been fixed in the years since I'd left. Considering I'd effectively decapitated the biggest business conglomerate in explored human space and then set the corpse on fire and dumped it into a star, I probably shouldn't have been.

Communications infrastructure wasn't exactly out of my area of expertise, though - Faith and I had destroyed just as many Comms Bouys as the Hegemony had during our war, for various advantages both tactical and strategic, and obviously I'd had to replace them all afterwards. And with the kind of industry I had on Loek III, I could easily whip up a few dozen communications relays. Or a few hundred. Even with just the one Airfield and one Orbital Launcher such construction projects wouldn't take more than a few hours.

I'd jotted that down in my notebook - well, I'd scribbled 'communications' on the first page as best I was able. Which is to say, it was barely-legible chicken-scratch and I was pretty sure I'd be incapable of reading it, come morning. Learning to write again - another thing I hadn't quite expected to be so difficult.

After Object and I were processed and set free upon the colony, we found ourselves a park bench near the terminal building and spent a little time poking about on the internet - not breaking into anything classified, just checking public access records. Humanity First, the megacharity group who'd helped me deal with the mountain of paperwork involved in relocating a hundred and fifty thousand refugees the first time I'd been here, were pretty transparent with their records and making no secret of the efforts they went through to clean up after my messes.

Unfortunately, they didn't have public records on where all the refugees wound up, which made them useless to me, at least for now. I made another note in my notebook to check up on them later, and see if Director Keeting was still around. That old lady had been a godsend.

I had a lot more luck attempting to hunt down the Core Guardians specifically. Searching Skye and Sweet's names got me two seperate paper trails to the same mercenary organization, whilst Haigen's name brought up a lot of information on a technical supplies and repairs store in the New District, which was, I understood, a glorified shanty-town settled primarily by refugees from Elysion.

Check up on a bunch of refugees and their living conditions in person, and reunite with Haigen Hawkins. Two birds, one stone, right?

I nodded idly at Object's comment. "Haigen's probably our best bet for contacting the other Core Guardians, too. TYSGAN as well, I should imagine. Works out really well for us. You got the map data?"

Sure do. We walking?

I looked up at the sky. It was around mid-afternoon, and not much of a walk from the Spacedock to the New District.

"Sure. Don't see why not."

 

[Faith]

#=#=#=#=#​

When you said we would be walking, I imagined you would be walking as well, Commander.

The unmoving organic slumped over his shoulders grumbled feebly in response. For a few sharp moments he was tempted to drop her - he didn't think she'd take it particularly personally, based on her seemingly relaxed facade, but he knew as well as every AI in the Foundation that the stress in her core ran deep.

Best not to chance it, then.

Sorry, Hope, I didn't quite catch that.

I said, so did I, but I'm out of shape and it's bloody hot out.

The AI quickly skimmed over the sensor data available to his Avatar platform. Commander, the current temperature is several degrees celsius cooler than the average for the New Bondi region. With that in mind, this temperature should prove no issue.

Yeah, but I spent most of my time awake at night, when it was cooler, or out surfing, and heat's way less of a problem in a bikini than it is in work slacks and a dress uniform jacket, super-fabric or no.

Moving Object pondered that for a few cycles. Perhaps you should return to a cybernetic body, Commander? The performance of your bioform is significantly reduced compared to even this first generation Avatar, let alone the second generation NeoAvatars or their third generation variants. A purposely induced handicap seems pointless. Your Commander Chassis would of course be an even more optimal choice for the vast majority of presented objectives.

Letting out a deep sigh, Hope released her grip on his platform's neck and dropped off his back to the ground, instead walking by his side. "Sure, objectively speaking the Nephthys or even the Osiris would be way better for almost everything I need to do. But it's… look, I tried to be the efficient, competent Commander I was supposed to be and that didn't work out so well. For… various reasons."

Commander Faith's rampancy and your own limited case of the same?

For a moment, the Commander looked a little uneasy. A frown crosser her face and her eyes dimmed. "Yeah. Something like that." Perking up again, she continued. "I'm trying to be better. At everything, really - made a right mess of just about all that I touched, the first go around. But… I don't want to forget what I was." She sniffed the air. "Even if that means getting sweaty and exhausted and feeling terrible."

So, you're trading efficiency for sentiment?

"Yeah. Efficiency for sentiment."

For the rest of the trip, the pair walked in silence.

#=#=#=#=#​

Hawkins Electronics was a bit of an ugly building - built of quite obviously prefabricated parts, it was simple, blocky, and every wall was covered in grime. It said something that it was one of the nicer looking buildings in the New District. Whilst he verified their locational data to ensure this was definitely the place, Hope retrieved from her jacket her notebook and once more began scribbling illegibly onto the page.

"Cute sign," Hope said as she tucked the book back inside her jacket. "Looks like someone bolted arms to a fridge. Haigen's pet project, if I remember right. Some kind of companion droid. Like Claptrap, but not so… Claptrap."

Moving Object didn't bother asking what 'Claptrap' was. The sign appears to have originated as graffiti.

Hope turned to look at him, and then back at the sign."Nah. Pretty sure that's Sweet's artwork. Looks like her style, anyway."

If you insist.

Hope let out a short, barking laugh. "Let's say I do. C'mon." Moving past the spray-painted sign on the sidewalk, Hope stepped inside the dimly lit shop, Object just a step behind.

Another Avatar droid - or rather, a SiMo model, upon which the Avatar was based, - was waiting for them inside the shop. Like just about everything in the New District, its white paint with its sharp orange lines was covered now in muck and dirt, but even just a cursory glance showed that the filthy appearance was only skin deep - well, armour-plate deep. Even the more openly exposed joints and servos were clean and well polished - it was clearly a well maintained droid, if not a well-cleaned one. It seemed pretty happy to see them for a moment, if somewhat surprised, but once it laid eyes upon Object it suddenly locked up. The holographic screen it projected in place of a face flickered between a few symbols before settling on an exclamation mark and question mark paired together.

"Excuse me," the robot said curtly, backing away from the pair. "Mister Hawkins will be with you shortly." At that he turned about face and strode over to the other end of the room, stepping behind the counter and through a back doorway without once looking back.

A curious strategy, Object observed, to employ a greeting droid who appears to be afraid of visitors.

Hope seemed to find that amusing, chuckling slightly. "SiMo isn't just a droid. He's a fully sapient AI, like you. Little more limited in regards to available platforms, though. He probably saw you, figured out you were one of mine, and panicked. I mean, the Avatar droid's pretty distinct from the SiMo, it's easy enough to tell the difference. You're, you know. Smaller, slimmer, faster, stronger." Hope cut off abruptly, humming a little tune under her breath.

If she planned on getting her train of thought back on the rails, she didn't succeed before the property's owner arrived in person. Hope had referred to him once as 'lanky', and Object found the descriptor accurate. His short-cropped dark hair and stubble, and the poor condition of his jumpsuit and baggy pants, gave the impression of someone either too busy or to lazy to clean up after themselves.

"Huh, visitors this late. You're not from around here, though, right?" He eyed Hope critically and then turned his attention to Object. "Well, hello. What's this? Some kind of new SiMo?"

Hope snorted. "Actually it's a bit of an old design, Mister Hawkins. A Foundation field modification of an Elysion-pattern SiMo unit, made by a colleague of mine during the evacuation of Loek III."

Haigen's eyes widened. "Huh. Really?"

"Mm. I believe Faith led that particular operation directly. You may have heard of her?"

Propping an elbow on the counter and his chin in his cupped hand, Haigen stared Hope in the eyes. "You know, I think I might have. And I suppose you're one of her friends."

Hope bit her lip. "Not… friends. Colleagues."

She shrugged. "My name is Hope, I'm here… following up, making sure everything's going okay for you all. Must have been quite traumatic, suddenly being forced out of a nice comfy city into refugee slums like this place. No offense."

Haigen shook his head. "No, no. This place is more like my home than the city was, and most of us are used to living like this. Don't like it, but we're used to it." Both humans fell silent for a moment. "How do I know you are who you claim to be, huh? Could be any sharp dressed lady with access to the right records."

Hope smirked. "Access to the right records, and control over Avatar units. Not sure if you and yours ever recovered any, but if you did I'm sure you'd have found them very… secure. Nonetheless… I'm told Faith gave you money to buy your friend Charlotte flowers."

Haigen's frown eased into a more relaxed smile. "Alright, that's the kind of pointless information no military would put into a report. You're either a friend of Faith's, or going through a lot of trouble to fake it."

Wincing, he looked at a clock hanging from the wall of his little shop. "It's been quiet today, and I usually run half-days on Tuesday anyway. Give me a minute to close up - I'll take you somewhere a little more appropriate for this kind of discussion."

Hope turned to look at her AI companion before shrugging. "Find by me. Be warned, though, this will probably take a while. Faith's after-action reports were very detailed, but I imagine much has changed in the years since, and we at the Foundation want to get as detailed a picture as possible before we start making more overt moves. Faith's records indicated you as an individual who would be uniquely situated to provide such intelligence or, failing that, put us in touch with people who could - your military superiors, and the hacktivist 'TSYGAN', were two other figures she highlighted."

Though he looked uneasy at the phrase 'hacktivist', Haigen nodded. "I kept in touch with a couple of the other Core Guardians, and I might be able to get you a line to General Whalebrook. Charlotte - TSYGAN, well, I figured I'd take you to her anyway. She was closer to Faith than any of us. Not exactly a high bar, though."

Hope looked away from Haigen, staring off into the distance. "No," she muttered, a little too quietly for the engineer to hear. "Really wasn't."

Louder, she said, "We'll wait outside whilst you pack up."

Haigen nodded, concern flashing on his face. Object shrugged at the man and followed Hope out. Do you intent to continue broadly misleading others on the nature of your relationship to Faith, Commander?

Hope turned, and for a long few seconds she just glared at him before she eventually relented, sighing. "It's just easier, Object."

For them? Or for you?

Hope turned away.

 

[Faith]

Late post. Hospital. Bleh. If you spot any problems or typos call them out, I'll fix them when it's not 3AM. Cheers.

#=#=#=#=#​

I spent a few minutes mulling over Object's question whilst I waited for Haigen and SiMo to be done packing up. It wasn't exactly the kind of question I'd expected of the AI, given he was more aware than most of my many issues. Still, it was a valid point.

I told myself that it was just to spare TSYGAN - Charlotte, rather, and the Core Guardians a lengthy explanation of how I came to be. But was it? Really?

The fact that I was still thinking about it was kind of an answer in and of itself. "You know, Object. That's the kind of question I pay my psychologist to ask me. Not you."

You don't pay me for anything, ma'am.

I winced. "I mean, true, but my point is, that kind of prodding is…" I fumbled for the right phrase. "It's outside the scope of your duties. Lay off, okay?"

Object managed to give the impression of a blank-faced stare before finally acquiescing. I understand. Withholding concerns about your mental state until further ordered.

I sighed, resting a hand against my temple. "Geez, rub it in," I whined, forcing a bit of a sad smile. "Anyway, regardless of your presented concerns, it's irrelevant. The exact nature of my relationship with Faith has no bearing on our objectives or our approach to diplomacy. Won't change a thing, far as they're concerned."

If you insist, Commander. He paused momentarily. They appear to have completed their packing.

I wiped a damp spot under the corner of my eye and turned back to the shop. Haigen had slung an almost comically oversized messenger bag over one shoulder, and SiMo had a pair of backpacks hanging from his back.

"Sorry to make you wait. Had to just grab some stuff quickly," Haigen explained. "Follow me. The Rat Race isn't too far." He gestured with his free hand, and I walked over to join him, Object falling into step behind me.

After waiting a few moments and realizing an explanation would not be forthcoming, I just had to ask. "Rat Race? Do I want to know?"

Haigen looked confused for a second before he chuckled softly. "Right, right. It's a club run by some of the guys who used to be part of Char's little militia, the Rats…" He trailed off, lost in thought. "They probably got mentioned in your reports. I don't need to explain who they were, right?"

I pretended to think on it for a moment before nodding. "Yeah, they came up. Brightholme Rats, criminal political movement. Vital part of coordinating evacuation efforts, apparently. They were highly commended by Faith."

Which is to say, they were highly commended by me, since I'd been part of Faith at the time. I didn't feel much need to share that tidbit.

Haigen was nodding enthusiastically at my praise. "Yup. Lot of the Brightholme residents were a little scared of your, uh, 'Avatar' droids. Reminded them too much of the military police SiMo units. Rats helped keep them in line, stopped them panicking."

I nodded again. "Glad to hear it. To hear Faith tell it, the civilians were peaceful as could be. Rats must have done a hell of a job... Still confused about why we're going to a club, though."

Again, Haigen chuckled. "The nightclub is just the first two floors. The third floor is Char's office. You want to know what happened between Faith leaving and you arriving? She'll have all the information you need up there somewhere."

Personal access to such an information network would likely be faster than attempting to relay all relevant information via verbal communications. Should I investigate that avenue whilst you discuss in person with 'Char'?

I'd rather we obtain permission to go rooting about in her files, but should things not turn out well, go for a hack and complete download. Sneaky like.

Are we now to disregard your prior concerns about the moral and ethical grounds from which you conducted your operations in order to achieve results?

I shot the robot an annoyed glare quickly whilst Haigen wasn't looking. When we're done here, we're talking about actions, consequences, and the idea of plausible deniability. For now, shut up.

Haigen and I made a bit of pointless small talk for the rest of the short trip to the Rat Race Club, but even that proved somewhat useful to my goals - Haigen mentioned that the anniversary of Kian Capital's founding was just a few days away, and there was to be an annual celebration not unlike Chinese New Year's. A perfect opportunity to mingle with the refugees, I thought.

Haigen also mentioned off-hand that the communications network in this part of the galaxy was in shambles because the company that had snatched up the Bright Foundation's contract for service provisions in this region of space had dropped the ball, but he didn't have time to elaborate before we arrived at our destination.

The Rat Race Club was not unlike the other buildings in the New District - it was a flimsy looking prefabricated structure with thin walls and murky windows, but unlike most of the other buildings it actually looked pretty clean - the front wall, at least, was nicely painted black with sleek blue and grey linework, and the neon sign above the door appeared to actually be working properly. It was flashing 'closed', but it was working.

The woman I knew as TSYGAN was waiting for us just inside, flipping a key card of some kind between her fingers idly. She looked pretty much the same as she had last time I'd seen here, if a little less dangerously skinny. Still had the same pale face and dark hair, and the same steely eyes.

And, of course, she was still dressed like a rebellious cyberpunk hacker. Which was fair, owing to that being a fairly accurate description of who she was - or who she had been, at any rate. She looked me up and down critically, much as Haigen had, and turned to the engineer with an eyebrow raised quizzically.

"Haigen. You brought your new friend?"

He nodded. "Let's take this upstairs."

Wordlessly she stepped aside, allowing the four of us access, and allowed Haigen to lead us through the currently-empty nightclub to a stairwell in the back corner. We ascended quickly to the third floor and entered into what I could only really describe as a stereotypical rebellious cyberpunk hacker den.

A row of Elysion server racks dominated one wall, and a collection of TSYGAN posters dominated another. The blinds over the few windows were pulled shut, meaning the pale blue glow of myriad holographic displays was the only ambient light in the room.

It was atmospheric, sure, but it seemed kind of inconvenient as a working environment.

A few seconds after I finished my analysis of the room, Haigen went ahead and proved it all wrong by snapping his fingers, causing a row of overhead lights to flash into life, almost startlingly bright even compared to outside.

Charlotte, the last to enter, slammed the door shut behind her and walked around in front of me, standing shoulder to shoulder with Haigen.

"So, you're Hope. One of Faith's 'colleagues', you said?"

It didn't surprise me that Haigen had called ahead, really. It only made sense. It was still a little insulting. Refusing to let that show, I nodded. "My name is Hope. It's a pleasure to meet you, Miss Wray. You did great things, working with Faith."

"Thanks," she said, blithely. "Let's get straight to business. Faith left years ago - and she was pretty confident she wouldn't be coming back. So who is it that sent you here, and why now, years after your friend left? What is it that you want from us?"

Commander, I have acquired access to the server networking hub. I am ready to commence the download on your word.

Understood, Object. Hold off until my say-so.

I began by steepling my fingers. "That's a very heavy set of questions, Miss Wray. I suppose we'll go from the top." I held up one finger. "I'm here due to orders that came directly from the current ranking authority of the Foundation - who that is, I'm not at liberty to say."

I held up my second finger and, after a moment of consideration, the third as well. "As for 'why now' and 'what', well...I've been deployed to perform a follow-up operation after Faith's prior efforts in the region - that her departure predates my arrival is no coincidence."

"I have access to all the files and records from her operation, but you understand that by this point they are - owing to… delays relating to our operations in other sectors, delays involving a slight interstellar war, my arrival here is a few years later than scheduled and our reconnaissance is as a result obviously out of date. I was hoping you might be able to assist me in gaining a clearer picture of the current situation, and provide a source of local insight - a sounding board for devising plans for the follow-up operation, for instance."

Charlotte held a hand up over her lips to shush me. "No, no. You keep saying that, that you're here on a 'follow up operation' of some kind. What, exactly does that entail?"

I cracked a grin. "Well, I'm glad you asked."

 

[Faith]

#=#=#=#=#​

"It's quite a flexible process, really, but we suspect based on initial observations that our operations here will be somewhat extensive. Our objective is to assess the current situation, which is why we're talking to you, and from that information develop a plan to aid in the recovery and stabilization of the region. We recognise that Foundation operations tend to create… collateral damage, and our follow up procedures aim to minimize that as best as possible."

"In this case, again, based of preliminary observations and predictions based off Faith's after action report, that will entail at the very least a reconstruction of local interstellar communications, a series of infrastructure and housing projects to replace the prefabricated shelters currently in use, and potentially some degree of monetary reimbursement for those affected by Faith's operation."

Charlotte shared a glance with Haigen. "In that case, really could have used you years ago. The tent cities were nowhere close to this level of cleanliness, and this place isn't exactly great itself. Sounds like a pretty solid plan - I take it you're looking for more specific information to build from?"

I nodded. "Haigen mentioned to me that the Bright Foundation used to operate the communications network in this sector, but after they were dismantled the network was divided and passed off to several other operators. I'd like to get the identities of those other operators, and find out how much progress they've made in re-establishing reliable communications. Those who are getting good work done already can be left alone, and I can focus my efforts on aiding those groups who lack the funding or the interest to maintain their part of the communications system. Though our resources are vast I'd still rather not waste time building buoys your own companies could have done just as well."

Charlotte was nodding, taking notes on a holographic screen projected from her shoulder. "Alright. I can work with that. I'll get you all the information I have on how the Bright Foundation's network got split up, and see if I can get in touch with representatives from the companies that took over. A few of them owe me favours, and I have blackmail on others."

"Is improving the communications infrastructure seriously going to be your first priority, though?" Haigen asked. "You mentioned new houses to replace these prefab shacks. Shouldn't that go first?"

"Entirely valid point. Humanitarian efforts should probably be a priority. That said, communications infrastructure is easy - once I know where to focus my efforts, I can probably wrap it up in a few hours, and most of that is going to be waiting for ships to move into position - nothing that requires my personal attention. May as well get it out of the way."

Haigen made a non-committal 'hm' and nodded. "Alright, then. Char, you want to start getting those files?"

"Already on it," she answered, tapping away at her screen. "In the meantime, Hope - I saw Faith's work on her colony ships, the Voyages or whatever. The living spaces there were bare essentials, but they were better than this." She spread her arms out. "And those were just short-term colony ships. What should we be expecting from your housing projects?"

"Much the same," I answered with a smirk, "only better. I've seen the Voyager model - it's not exactly up to our standards. Not bad for a patch job, though, and that kind of work was never Faith's specialty besides. I intend to do a little more design work before I get started on those projects, but the information I need from you is more along the line of demographics - how many people here are going to need to be resettled? How many in other cities on Kian VI, on other planets?"

After a few moments, just as Charlotte was opening her mouth to answer, I quickly added, "Oh, and possibly legal help. I know this planet is ruled by a megacorporation, but I don't want to cause a fuss tearing down half the city. There are lots of little problems with work like that - postal addresses, road tolerances - and people are going to have to move out at least whilst I tear down the old. Even if that only takes half an hour, that's a lot of people who have got to go somewhere."

"Anyway, that's a logistical issue - my problem, for now. I'll just need to get in touch with whoever's in charge of city planning, later, and work it out with them."

"I don't think they'll take lightly to a stranger tearing down their city, and they have even less reason to trust you than we do," Haigen pointed out. "How are you going to get around that issue?"

And that was actually a pretty good point. I'd considered a number of plans, but ultimately it was going to be a difficult sell no matter how I presented it. 'Yes hello I'd like to renovate your city please, free of charge'. I decided to put that off as late as was practical, and give it some serious thought when I wasn't trying to keep track of all my projects at once. Speaking of which. Object. I have a few things I need you to do…

Whilst I rattled off my list of requests, I turned back to Haigen.

"Again, that's my problem, for now. Just leave it to me, I'll figure something out. Now, besides the fact you're all living in prefabricated buildings, I can't imagine the rest of your lives are all peachy. So, since I have no budget cap and some of the most advanced technology in the universe, how else can I help?"

#=#=#=#=#​

The next few hours were tiring, but wonderfully productive. Charlotte managed to wrangle the names of companies responsible for taking over the Bright Foundation's management of the communications network, and I had Object contact them. I left the details of the deal to him - he knew the objective and he knew the resources I was willing to devote, so there was no point micro-managing his actions.

Haigen, meanwhile, had been calling a number of old friends, including General Whalebrook, both to spread the news of my unexpected arrival and to sound out a general response to my offers.

I gave him the dignity of not tapping his calls, so I only had his half of each conversation to go off, but the general mood seemed pretty positive. I got the impression that Faith's little stunt had inclined the populace to believe my outlandish offers to be genuine purely by association. I was happy enough with that.

SiMo had gotten involved, too, digging through census data to get a more complete picture of exactly how many people were where, and what their living arrangements and needs were. Plus he kept making everyone coffee, which was nice.

I was sitting on the edge of a disk, listening to Object's call to Tau Cheti Communications in one ear and Charlotte rambling about Kian VI's construction laws in the other, when SiMo approached, another steaming cup of coffee clutched delicately in his hand, and asked me a question I hadn't been quite expecting. "Faith of the Faith Foundation described herself as an organic mind uploaded into a digital form. You still possess an organic form. Is Faith unique for being uploaded, or are you unique for not having been?"

"Hey, SiMo! You can't just ask that!" Haigen scolded the robot before turning to me. "I am kind of curious, though," he admitted. "I assumed you were a robot, but you seem to like your coffee."

"Of course I do," I retorted. "Who doesn't like coffee? Besides the British, I mean."

Everyone stared at me like I was going slightly crazy. "Hm. Okay. Another thing that's gone out of fashion in eight hundred years. History lessons."

"Anyway, to answer your question, SiMo. I was once organic, and then I was converted into an artificial intelligence. This body is merely an avatar, one I can use to interact with the world more… subtly. When necessary."

"Okay, so, what, you're some kind of cyborg?"

"Not a cyborg - well, yes, a cyborg, obviously, but probably not how you're thinking. This body is almost entirely organic - there's a digital neural connector plugged into the squishy meat brain that connects to my AI core. Apart from that, in this form I'm flesh and blood. Though we do have more 'transhuman' models, for more rigorous conditions."

"Faith didn't have an organic form like yours, though," Charlotte asked, framing the statement almost like a question. "Not that we saw. She just used a SiMo frame like your buddy over there."

"It's a relatively new policy. There was… an incident. It helps keep us uploads grounded, the familiarity of it. Even if we don't all remember the details of the lives we lived before, we still know what, still know who we used to be." I held my hands up in front of me, looking them over front and back. I'd never really felt uncomfortable in this body, even as I'd had to learn to blink and breath and walk and write again. Now, though… it felt like my skin was crawling. "It's supposed to stop us going loopy."

"Stop you going loopy?" Haigen exclaimed, looking justifiably worried. "The 'incident'..." he suddenly jerked upright. "You mentioned earlier, that you were late because of an interstellar war. Those wouldn't happen to be connected?"

I felt tears welling up. "Yeah, actually. They, uh. They are. She was…" my voice hitched. "She was never really stable. She was worse than most of the other uploads I know of. If the choice had been mine, she never would have been sent into the field. But it wasn't, and she was. And lots of people died. And now she's gone."

I blinked tears from my eyes and wiped my face on my sleeve. "Ugh. Organic body has downsides, though." Sniffling, I dabbed at my eyes with the cuff of my jacket. "Sorry. Shouldn't cry."

"It's fine," Charlotte said softly. "We've both lost friends before," she said, indicating Haigen. "Don't worry about it. We should take a break and get dinner, anyway. Just…" She paused for a moment, and when she continued talking the softness was gone from her voice. "Take a few minutes to collect yourself, okay? You're no good to me a sobbing mess."

I nodded, flash forging a little handkerchief to use in place of my now-damp sleeve. Charlotte backed away, bringing up another of her holographic screens and leaving me to my tears. Haigen, though, came closer, sitting on the edge of the desk next to me.

"You don't have to answer, but… were you close?"

Through bleary eyes I looked at him, and I nodded once, slowly. "She… yeah. She was my sister."

Haigen frowned, averting his gaze. "I lost a sister. Growing up in the slums, we didn't have much money. Food was pretty hard to find, sometimes. Medicine was worse. She was six. Ill for six weeks, then she died in her sleep."

He put a hand on my shoulder in a slightly awkward manner he probably hoped was reassuring. "It doesn't get much easier. But you have to move on."

"I am. It's why I'm here. This was supposed to be her mission. She should have been here. I'm doing this for her, and I'm moving on."

Haigen looked a little confused at that, but nodded resolutely regardless. "Alright, then. If you're doing this for your sister's memory, let's make sure we do it right, huh?"

 

[Faith]

Of all the chapters to get away from me in word count, I was not expecting it to be this one. Warning: I have had many jobs, but I've never been a real estate agent, property developer, or civic planner. I did basically zero research for this chapter and wasn't planning on going into nearly this much detail. If you are a member of any of those listed professions, I tentatively apologise profusely for what you're about to read.

#=#=#=#=#​

For a few days, the five of us just fell into a rut of work. Most of that, at least for Haigen, Charlotte and SiMo, involved lots of conference calling the de facto leaders of the other refugee groups, explaining the situation in varying levels of detail, and attempting to get a more complete picture of what exactly had happened to the hundred and fifty thousand former residents of Loek III after I'd dumped them on this rock five years and change ago.

It was an unfortunate reality that the prefabricated buildings of the New District were basically built to cram families into as small a space as possible and whilst that had worked short term, it had somewhat hindered expansion opportunities - many teens and young adults who had been living with their parents had to remain with their parents, because there weren't enough other living spaces in the New District to go around, and the advanced level of development in Kian VI worked against most of them by robbing them of job opportunities in low-skill manual labour fields.

And moving into the city 'proper' required the kinds of funds that rapidly-displaced refugees who'd had to leave their entire lives behind were generally hard pressed to obtain. From what Haigen and Charlotte had told me, a lot of the civilians, especially those specifically from the slums of Brightholme, were having similar issues. The richer upper echelons of Elysion society had apparently been keen on backup plans and off-world stockpiles of wealth, because most of them apparently had moved without issue into lives not unlike they'd had on Elysion. Hopefully with less horrifically abused lower-class meatshields around, though.

Anyway, the point was, lots of people living in the New District were in living arrangements they weren't really happy with, and I wanted to fix that. Not enough living space? Make more. Not enough money for people to move into those living spaces? Make them cheaper.

As a Commander, I was pretty capable of doing both of those things.

Whilst they were getting more concrete information for the latter stages of the plan, I was stuck on an earlier step - namely, getting my absurd project greenlit. As Haigen had predicted, this was proving a little difficult. Even the massive goodwill I'd generated as Faith had apparently failed to sell them on the idea of subcontracting the building project to the Foundation, which was why today I found myself in the office of the Minister of Civic Planning in his office to discuss just that.

"Miss Hope." He greeted me frostily. "I'll admit I'm impressed you dared to come in person after my response to your initial letter, but I'm afraid if you're here to change my mind, I think you'll be leaving disappointed."

"Minister Slayton. I apologise for my tardiness." Gesturing to one of the chairs on my side of his desk, I asked, "May I?"

"Please, take a seat." I did so, and he continued. "I am correct, yes, in assuming you're here to discuss your rejected proposal?"

"That's correct, Minister. I'd like to ask you to reconsider your rejection. I think you'll find it far more modest than it seems at first glance."

The frowned at me, clasping his hands together and setting what I considered a rather unfortunate tone for our meeting.

"I beg to differ. Whilst I appreciate that you and your team must have worked very hard to develop these designs, and I admit that it's beautiful work, you simply haven't provided us anything of substance. There's no construction timetables, no logistical reports, no funding plans… take no offense, but the Faith Foundation has done nothing to earn our trust, or our support, or prove that such a project is even possible."

"The Elysion evacuation, surely-"

"You have to understand how this appears from our perspective," he said, cutting me off. "I'm aware of the Faith Foundation's role in the evacuation of Loek III but an ability to transport colonists en masse is not indication enough of your ability to perform the kind of development your proposal would require - and that's not even considering personnel concerns."

"Personnel concerns?" I asked. "I don't think-"

The Minister sighed and cradled his face in his hand. "Clearly, you haven't! You're talking about building an entirely new chunk of city for the people of the New District to live in, displacing thousands of people who already got forced out of their homes once - by your organization, nonetheless!"

Taking his head from his hands and leaning back in his chair, he sighed deeply. I considered taking the opportunity to interject again, but I was reasonably certain he'd just cut me off like before, and since it looked like he was on the verge of going on a rant, I figured I'd better leave it. Best case scenario, he'd continue making false assumptions and I'd get a nice cathartic opportunity to shut him down completely.

"You and yours haven't even demonstrated awareness of the kind of logistical problems this kind of reconstruction effort is going to cause. Are you expecting us to handle that all for you, in addition to funding this project? How long do you think this is going to take? This expansion, if we went ahead, would account for almost twelve percent of the city's surface area. And this isn't suburban sprawl, this is city centre levels of urbanisation!"

I smiled and nodded pleasantly. He glared back.

"With skyscrapers and shopping malls? And where are your construction staff going to live? If you want this project completed in anything resembling a reasonable period of time you're going to need thousands of overseers and tens of thousands of carpentry drones. Where are they going to stay? Are you going to cram them into the New District with the Elysion refugees?"

Grunting in exasperation, he shook his head. "Seriously, Miss Hope. Your architectural drawings and city maps are all well and good, but did you actually put any effort into planning this as a construction project? This isn't some holo-sim game, where you can just wave your hands and make things happen as if by magic."

Rather abruptly, he stood, pacing back and forth behind his desk. "If you can come up with a feasible, realistic timetable for this project, thoroughly document all logistical concerns and solutions, demonstrate an ability to follow through on all that, and find the funds to pull it off, I'd happily allow the development, damn the rest of the council. But you just can't. With what you've provided, you've got nothing. This is wishful thinking, a fantasy. It's worthless and frankly, it's an insult. Miss Hope, I apologise, but if you can't prove you're not just wasting my time, I'm going to have to ask you to leave. If not for the Faith Foundation's efforts at Elysion, I'd have had you kicked out already."

I waited a few moments and then nodded solemnly. "I see." I gestured at the lamp on his desk, an ornate little folding lamp made of what appeared to be bronze. "Nice lamp. Do you mind?"

His eyes darted between me and the lamp. "Really?"

I gave him a coy smile. "Just bear with me for a minute, please."

He tapped two fingers on the edge of his desk. "Alright, fine. If nothing else I admire the sheer balls it takes to get slammed for this ridiculous project of yours twice and still want to push the topic." After a moment, he seemed to realise his mistake. "Uh. Metaphorical balls, ma'am."

I smirked, shrugged, and reached over the desk to pick up the lamp, turning it over in my hands. More importantly, I spent a second flooding the thing with nanites from the nanofabricator I had tucked up my sleeve. Once the entirety of the device's design had been saved to my databases and neatly filed away, I returned it to its place on the desk.

"You said that this isn't like a holo-sim. That I can't just wave my hand and make things happen as if by magic." I smiled, and set the nanofabricator to 'build'. A stream of green light burst from under my sleeve, pooling on the desk and wrapping around itself, building up into a wireframe copy of the lamp that slowly filled with colour, first the sickly glow of my nanites and then the polished bronze of the lamp it was mimicking. "And you're right, about that, but with modern technology we can get pretty close. Behold, man-portable nanite-fabrication technology." I held up my arm, waving about my loose fitting sleeve. "Bet you didn't even realise I was wearing it."

He looked at me with wide eyes, before prodding cautiously at the copied lamp.

I pushed it across the desk towards him. "And I dare you to find a single atom's difference between them. This stuff?" I waved my arm again. "Small scale. Can build a house or a school or yeah, a skyscraper with it, but it'd take a while. Few hours of dedicated work. And that's only the structural stuff. Decorating is a whole other deck of cards. We can do that too, mind, but it'd probably take even longer."

He picked the copied lamp up, turning it over in his hands much as I had. "It's even got the scratch…" he muttered under his breath, before turning back to me. "This is… small scale?"

"The Foundation has bigger. I can call some in. Our resources aren't infinite, but you probably wouldn't notice if I said they were." I tapped two fingers on the edge of his desk, giving him another smile. "Your concerns with my proposal were based around the logistics problems - and that's understandable, but if you hadn't so rudely interrupted me - twice! - then I may have been able to convince you otherwise. Shall we run down the list?"

Minister Slayton suddenly looked a little flustered, but I let him have that. Having spent five years dealing with Faith, I knew exactly how frustrating I could be to interact with sometimes.

"Currently there are fifty seven Migrant-class Construction Freighters and seven hundred and eleven Clover Aerial Fabrication Drones ready to - seven hundred and twelve Clover Drones in range of Kian VI. With that much construction power, I can landscape the terrain, complete the foundations, infrastructure, services and utilities for the western expansion, and get started on the meat of the work in, say, five minutes?"

Minister Slayton sat down. I thought that was probably for the best, given I wasn't quite done yet.

"I believe that covers the majority of the logistics concerns. As for funding, I was thinking something along these lines - I'm building a lot of residential, here. Way more than needed. It's not only going to be refugees wanting to move in. They get first pick, of course - for only the cost of whatever paperwork is required to formalise their change in residence, they can claim whatever living space they want. Afterwards, we'll open up sales to everyone else, sell it like regular property. At this stage, profit isn't the important bit, it's proving we're capable of this kind of project. A success story here? Guarantees the Faith Foundation work across human space. That's a lot of potential income for us, if we get this first step right."

I stopped to take a breath, and let Minister Slayton take in my words.

"So. Reconsidered?"