Pop quiz.
You are in the sublevels of the House of Inquiry of Truth and Justice, in a cell where there is a chair you would be strapped to, which also stinks of age old blood and rust and burned plastic. There is some sort of insurgent saboteur in front of you, with a big, cheery, obviously fake grin that adds 'or else' to every sentence they could say. They are holding a gun. They have used the gun on the guy behind him, who now only has his skull.
Do you follow?
Yes, if you like your head. You like your head. You want to keep it.
Oh man, you think as you hustle behind the saboteur, how are you going to explain this to Triumvir Admiral Suebi vi Markoviz? All hail the Triumvirate, may their foes break like waves on the shore. I have infiltrated the traitorous conspiracy you were looking for, unfortunately, this took the form of my dumb ass being nabbed by one of their pointmen in an operation involving the deaths of your servicemen. They have died for a good cause, I will keep you updated.
He might buy that, you never know. Anyway, the interrogator is only dead, not bricked. The army has backups, it's all good.
The sabouter moves with the experienced tread of a gunman, casually dispatching two more through the walls. His gun is modified, looks like a Zwaise Omnikiller, cut down and modified so all power goes to the kinetic modules, a portion of your brain dedicated to vomiting your entire company catalog helpfully inputs. You carefully step over the two dead bodies, one of which twitches and spits sparks.
The three others in the cell look up, stirred out of their lethargy by the representation of the avatistic instincts of the teeming masses slash the romantic symbol of a better life. "Hey, comrades!" the saboteur repeats, "get out! You're free!"
Two take up his offer, the last refuses. "You're nuts," the dismal woman says. "I'm not following you. I'm not gonna get it on my record. Just… leave me here."
"Oh well," the saboteur shrugs. "Viva Optima!" There was a terrible bright antic flash and the woman is missing a head. "Onwards!" he drags you three by sheer force of personality. Anyway, it's not like you can go anywhere else. "You're in luck," he explains as he motions for you to backtrack. "The stars aligned and we could justify this op. I, personally, would have left all of you to rot, because while sympathizers are all well and good you people contribute a total of jack and shit."
"Wow," you grumble, almost tripping over the same dead body again, "thanks. I really feel embraced by the brotherly spirit of the revolution."
"Tough shit."
The brotherly spirit of the revolution is apparently an abusive bastard.
Actually, you remind yourself as the saboteur stands guard on a breached wall that you all pile through, you do deserve this. After all, you are a backstabbing traitor to the cause that straight up joined on the orders of the tyrants themselves. So you decide that you won't begrudge the guy for being a little spicy at you.
You're a saint, Cylange. A regular beacon of understanding and charity.
The pointy end of the resistance came in through the undercity. What Centre really builds on, after millenia of being the well, center for the EMPIRE, is itself. Strata after strata of city, expanding cavernous under the skin. You remember that fun factoid that in the last seven thousand years, Centre has grown a mile in diameter. It's hell for anyone to track at the best of times, which is why property prices down there are either low as shit with commensurate decreases in quality of life or the inverse of the first, no change towards the second.
They load you up on unobtrusive vehicles. You are absolutely certain that these belong to the government car park, so, good on the Resistance for being smart. One goes on each, and off you went, each speeding on their separate ways. Sadly the bone deep psychomaniac/clear eyed hero of the revolution is riding on your car. "Times short," he says, "so here's what you gotta do, brother man. We're gonna drop you off somewhere, you'll have to find your own way back."
"But there's no rideshare," you protest. "Can you at least drive to my district."
"No."
You are forced to walk.
The good thing is, you think as you lie on your couch (can't be assed to sleep properly) is that you do have a good cover as to why you got picked up and released by the security forces. That is, the pull of Trimvir Admiral Seubi vi Markoviz. Now, of course, you still do have to go to work, and you have to work together with that officious, career climbing prick, Tzhin, to explain why the armor cadding is currently nonfunctional to the steadily more angry Procurement Officer, Jovian gens Caparello…
"What I don't understand," the man says quietly, always a mark of danger, "is the holdup on the armor. You churned this shit out by the mile before. Now I gotta fight you every step of the way to get an inch."
"Uh, just putting the factory back online doesn't actually solve… any of the workflow issues," you respond. "A lot of our foremen died, assassinated by radicals. The machines we use have components smashed, we can't import. It's going to take a hell of a long time to fix any of that, so we only have three facilities working."
Officer Jovian leans back and chews on a pen. "So who does have the spare parts?"
Tzhin and you share looks. "The ENEMY." On cue all of you spit in disgust at the floor. "Oh, and I'm pretty sure the Coalition has some fabs that they can't use but we could salvage. Also, the system that like half of this is ruled by that guy, Lyisan Arpeggio, after he went rogue."
"All great options," Officer Jovian grumbles. "Fine. I'll pass the buck along, but calculate that you can build… fifteen percent, end of this year. You're gonna cut up some salvage for non-essential structural components on the armor, and if this thing dies first thing I'm gonna do is put both of you on stakes. Yeah, even you Tzhin, I don't care if you almost made Lieutenant Admiral."
"Harsh," he mutters. You can hear what he's thinking in his head, it's this: poor inbred prick, titles but no brains.
You take the chance to commiserate with him on both of your breaks, leaning against a balcony facing the Sud Sector, where rows of lux housing are being torn down to serve as proving grounds. "Tough luck with the gens, huh?"
Tzhin shrugs. He takes out a can of some sort of chewing stim and pops a tab in his mouth. "Ayuh. Heard you got picked up."
"Case of mistaken identity," you cheerfully deflect. "Always happens. No shade on your former occupation, but they're clumsy as shit."
"S'why I joined private."
Inside your brain is racing. You're not really scared of getting reported by Tzhin, but it's going to take you out of the office for a while. Your mind starts brewing up a foolproof scheme. What if you… make him a partner? He's military, so Triumvir Admiral vi Markoviz can't complain. He's got the same cost benefit analysis as you do, viz a viz spiking Mr. Ardhak's wheels. But there's still a bunch of ways you can do it, so you're going to…
APPEAL TO
[]- Greed: You're bad at lying (actually you're good), so you'll give it to him straight. Your boss's boss might be a traitor. It would be really convenient if he went missing, right? You scratch my back, I scratch your's, we both cynically backstab our superior to get a bigger paycheck.
[]-Patriotism: Listen, you're going to tell him, Mr. Ardhak is probably running some sort of terrorism op against the Empire. Are you just gonna let that happen? He's military, he'll definitely fall for some moto bullshit like that. And on the flip side, it might even be true.
[]-Rank: You'll tell him you work for his former boss in an important operation, so congratulations! He's been deputized. You don't have the actual formal authority to do this but you hope he doesn't actually know this. He can call bullshit, but hey, you're the one that can report to Seubi vi Markoviz.
