AnnaAnna thought the offer over for a split second after getting the poke from Tyrin, before she nodded. Even if it was going to be unpleasant to experience or if he was going to lash out with his last thoughts, the possibility of getting intel from an actual presbyter was worth the risk.
Accept the offer and give the man his peace of mind. Find out what he knows and use the mindbar as a shield from at least some of the mental feedback.
You extend your mind towards the Presbyter carefully, accepting his psychic offer in spite of the possible dangers.
The instant you touch his thoughts, he latches on with the strength of the desperate and dying. You almost recoil before you realize that the grasp is not an attack, merely the death throes of the Presbyter's vast abilities.
"I would explain in detail, if I could," the presbyter's voice whispers softly through the temporary link,
"but there is no time, and I have no strength left. Watch, and I will interpret." You don't understand what he means until disjointed images begin to flare within your mind, a flickering slideshow that you understand intuitively. Memories, the Presbyter's own life condensed into a format that you can interpret.
When the images first become coherent, you find yourself looking up at an older, snarling man. You're nine years old, the year is 2181, and the man that snarls at you is not your father. Your father died, the victim of an undiagnosed and long term solar radiation leak. People say it's a miracle that the doctors were able to reverse the rad damage in you, but you're not sure it was such a blessing. The man before you is your father's brother, and you know that he's a very important sub-councilor for the city. He also hates you. You don't know why.
In public, you can stand beside him, and sometimes he makes you hold his hand when he's talking with people. When at home, he doesn't want to see you. He knows everything that you do, wherever you are, and he always punishes you. You want to hate him, but you can't. He was your dad's brother, and you don't think your dad would have wanted you to hate is brother. The first knuckle comes down, in between your ribs where the bruise won't show, and you endure it because you must.
"An angry man, but a good man once," the Presbyter's voice adds, sounding faintly sad.
"He killed my father. Engineered the disaster so that he could make his brother a martyr for the cause he wanted to champion. My father was only a maintenance engineer, barely a step above a maintenance worker, and his death must have seemed a fair trade in order to secure support for a campaign that should have saved hundreds more. They'd grown apart, and I don't think my uncle ever knew I existed. He hated me because I reminded him of his treachery. I forgave him long ago for the things he did, but for a time he served as an example of everything I should not allow myself to become." The images break apart again, skipping over years of the Presbyter's life. The line of thought reforms almost a decade later, the nine year old boy transformed into a young man, and you find yourself rubbing your bloody knuckles. You know that every punch you deal out, every spectacle you make, hurts your surrogate father. He can't disown you without shattering the image of his campaign of tolerance, can't do anything more to you than land a few bruises, maybe crack a rib if he can get his rage up for it. Even now, he's stronger than you are -thanks in large part to medical augmentation- but you're already tougher than he'll ever be.
You look down at the man whose face you just bloodied, feeling a twinge of pity. He didn't deserve it. He was arrogant, stupid, foolish, and tended to echo whatever his Mother, a prominent military adviser, said with a voice like a sugar-high parrot. Beating the boy up wasn't justified because of the way he acted, but it wouldn't hurt him in the long run, and it would serve to make the boy's mother furious. The thought of your surrogate father trying to put out that fire is enough to bring a smirk to your mouth. You kneel beside the boy and roll him over so he can look at you. He cringes away from you and begs, you ignore it and wait patiently for him to shut up. The exact words you use flit through the old memory without substance, but you remember the point. Unless the boy goes running to mommy, you're going to break out one of his teeth a day. You smile at the boy and stand, offering a hand to help him to his feet. He stares at you as if you've gone mad and scrambles away, limping his way to anywhere away from you. You wouldn't really have removed his teeth, you're not willing to cross that kind of a line, but he doesn't know that.
You stay in the now empty lecture room for a little while longer. Wiping blood and leaving fingerprints in places they can't possibly be missed, wrecking the room as far as you can without actually damaging anything. You've done it before, and leaving damning evidence about yourself and your weekly activities isn't any sort of new activity.
A voice breaks the silent monotony of your criminal work, and you turn, startled hands balling once more to fists as you face a tall woman in plain clothes. The memories recall surprise to your mind: surprise that the woman somehow made it into the room without you noticing, surprise that her voice is calm and her face amused. The conversation that follows is a mixture of impressions, original memories mixing with constructed recollection. Oddly, as you begin to feel the memory break apart again, the impressions become sharper, and the woman's voice becomes a perceptible reality. "I know why you do this," she says without real preamble, the memory washing out around her face, "and your reasoning is both petty and selfish. You bring others pain in order to bring down a man you can’t hurt directly, a man who does nothing but the best he can. I don’t even think that you believe you can ‘win’, I think you’re simply interested in any vengeance you can get for his crimes against you.”
You snort, feeling a certain amount of indignation and outrage at being called petty. Worse, you feel it mixed with a twinge of guilt. You don’t give a damn about interfering with your father’s good works, but the blood on your knuckles weighs heavier every day. "So what would you suggest?” You respond, forcing a lazy smile and a relaxed posture. “Smiling at dear daddy, acting the paragon's own little paragon, responding to fists in the gut with 'please, sir, may I have another'? No. I may be petty, I may be hurting his 'grand design', but I’m just fine with that."
The woman smirks, her face dissolving as the memory fades. "No, you're really not. I've watched you, and the beatings you dole out don't suit you. You understand that people are tools, but you're not a bully. You wound, but never cripple. You beat them privately and spare them humiliation. More oddly, you stay behind to make absolutely certain that responsibility for the beating falls solely to you." The woman's now featureless head cocks sideways at you, empty eyes considering. "I've seen your aptitude scores. In one month's time, when you're picking an advanced academy path, you will be given a special option within the domain of the Church. I'd recommend it for a man of your... promise."
"Wait- You're offering me a job?" Even as everything else fades, the voices remains crystal clear.
"I'm offering you a life, power to make a difference without always resorting to pain, and answers to questions you've held for eight years. You've got a month to think about what you want. You can join the church and become something more than you are, something new. Alternately, you can stay as you are, a shadow of your godfather’s own wounded anger, a scion to nothing but wounded pain."
"Her name was Elizabeth Ginty, the presbyter's dying voice adds, a note of respectful fondness shining through the exhaustion.
"She was my trainer, and she never lied to me. She withheld the truth often, kept it until I could use it, but she never lied. She was the one who eventually told me what my uncle had done. She explained it so calmly, neither condemning nor condoning my uncle as she explained how he'd engineered my father's death for political gain. She explained my uncle, not as a monster who murdered his brother and beat his nephew, but as a tired man who'd killed his own kin because it was the only way to rally political sympathy to repair and overhaul the technology that kept so many alive. A man wracked by grief and the self-loathing, who couldn't stand the nephew that reminded him daily of the blood that stained his every good deed. A weak man, but a man nonetheless." Memories whirl through your linked minds, somewhat more sluggish now as the Presbyter dies by degrees, but still bright. You find yourself seventeen years older, but still physically in your early twenties thanks to Church sponsored biological augmentation. You've risen quickly through the ranks, not a record breaker, but certainly one of the brighter stars. You're calmer now than you once were, and though you hold no claim to be a fervent believer in the religious aspects of the Church, you have found a conviction in its goals. The duty of the Technocracy is to uphold the superstructure of the system; the spires and resources they require, the colonies, the research, the gate network. The duty of the church is to hold the microstructure together; the people, the day to day lives of the citizenry, the ideals and morals that cannot be described by a mere system of justice as defined in law. You don't have enough rank yet to understand why the Technocracy leaves so many messes behind for your kind to clean up, or why their doctrines border on the oppressive, but you are confident there is a reason. Even if there isn't, you have a future ahead of you, decades upon decades of life to shape the world and change if for the better.
Which is what makes it all the stranger that you have a pistol pointed at your godfather's head, ready to throw everything you have away.
He's gotten old now, his face creased from a lack of body augs in recent years. His political campaigns, constantly calling for revisions and improvements to the spire subsystems, have lost popularity. His star has dimmed, his accounts are dry, and he doesn't even have any family members left to kill in order perk up his fallen career. Stress lines cross his face, running perpendicular to the wet streaks of fresh tears. He cries in the face of his death, but he doesn't blubber. You're not sure how you expected your godfather to react when you confronted him about his brother's death, but you hadn't expected... remorse.
"Why?" You ask again, layers of training keeping your voice cool and hard. You've heard the explanation already from Ginty, an explanation of politics and rationality. An explanation that you cannot believe capable of driving one man to murder his brother. You're too close to the situation, and you know it clouds your judgement, but you're also beyond caring.
Tears fall as your Godfather turns his eyes to the floor, tearing them away from yours. "I... I believed it was right." Your uncles' voice is quiet and shaky, but his tone is one of resignation rather than desperation. "The death of one worker seemed a small price to pay for the gains, no matter who that worker was."
Your free hand clenches in old habit, your gun hand remaining carefully loose. "Gains? What gains?" Your jaw aches with the effort of keeping your tone level. "You became a political darling for a decade and a half, at the cost of the life of a good man, your own brother? Your betrayal brought you nothing. All you gained was a few more years to play at politics and write a few pointless regulations in the blood of your famil-"
"Silence!" Your uncle shouts, rage suddenly boiling out of a man with nothing left. His eyes lock with yours, and you see the same nameless rage present in every blow of your youth. "You may have earned the right to carry a weapon and complete the will of the Church, but you're still a child in this. I enacted fifty-three new regulations to support the safety of men like my brother, each one of which will prevent the deaths of countless good men and women until long after my bones are dust. Your father was a good man and I-" the older man's voice breaks for a moment, and his eyes finally break from yours. "I would give almost anything to have my little brother back, but the good he did was interred with his bones. I did a terrible thing, but the good from it will last for decades yet. I chose to destroy one life to save countless others. If it was a stranger, a man you had never met, would you not make the same decision I did?
Your grip on the pistol begins to shake slightly. A long time ago, in the month when you'd applied to the Church's service, you'd been interviewed on a very similar question; whether the taking of one life was justified if it saved two others. You had responded with a quick affirmative, and had backed it up with examples from philosophy, politics, war, and even the history of the Technocracy itself.
You uncle doesn't seem to notice the effect the question has on you, his eyes focused on some point in the distance. "I am a monster, and I'm sorry that I couldn't have done better for you. I... I'm ready to die, but don't destroy what good I've managed to do with my life. Let my sins die with me."
"I hate you," you whisper, the calm of your conditioning finally breaking.
"I know," your uncle replies, his distant eyes sad and old. "I don't think I could've stood the pain if you had ever loved me."
"I didn't kill him," the dying Presbyter says, letting the memory of his broken uncle fade away.
"My uncle lived another three decades, alone, broken, and with nothing left but the cold comfort of his achievements. I wondered for years whether it would have been kinder to simply kill him, but I couldn't justify the bullet. My uncle betrayed and killed because he believed that it was right, my killing him out of hatred and a need for personal vengeance would have damned me as something worse." The voice pauses, and you can feel the presbyter's resolve strengthen.
"It took me nearly thirty years to forgive him, to understand him. Eventually, I... I came to agree with him. If you think these images pointless, you are wrong. I hated a man who committed a crime I didn't understand, I hated a man that beat me because the weight of his betrayal could never allow him to love me, I nearly killed that man when I learned what he'd done and had the power to stop him. Yet I held my vengeance, because, for all that the harm he had done, for all the righteousness in my anger, I was the one without justification for murder. We, the Technocracy, have done horrible things, but we have also done the impossible. We stopped a war that would have reduced the human race to a stone-age shell of its former glory, we advanced science to the point where we could sustain our existence on poisoned earth, we colonized our solar system, and we unlocked the secrets of entanglement and distant action that broke Einstein's cage and allowed us to seed the human race to Eridani. Now... Now we prepare to fight a war that most citizens can't even begin to imagine. We have committed atrocities in order to prepare for what comes, but for every life we take, for every freedom we steal, and for every bit of independence we crush, we do it to save the lives, freedoms, and independence of all future generations. What we do is monstrous, and it has made us into monsters, but that is the harder path in life. Those who see themselves as heroes, they are simple people. They do what they know how to do, they do it without question, and they do without hesitation. Heroes don't make the hard choices, they simply follow the black and white guidelines of their own morality. Monsters... We have to make the hard call, we have to be the ones to decide that murdering one child is worth saving the lives of two." There's a mental slump from the presbyter, a sagging of will and vitals.
"One last memory... The most important, now that you have the context to understand it." Memories submerge you almost instantly, the Technocrat throwing the last of his reserves into forcing you to live his past with crystal clarity. You're in your seventies now, but your body remains at a respectable prime. You've proven yourself time and time again, and it's possible that you may live for centuries yet. You are a valuable asset, a political force, and you've had the entanglement augmentations grafted into your body. You are one of the first generation of such grafts, and the full limits of your longevity are still not known with perfect precision. 'Forever' hasn't been ruled out yet.
The Church hall you stand in is beautiful, holographically enhanced, but still an architectural feat in its own right. You are being spoken to personally by the Pontiff, the two of alone but for the few assistants who manage the old man's needs. Formalities between the two of you have been brief and clipped, and strain is etched into every line of the Pontiff's face.
"My son, there is little time to explain what you must know, and it may yet shake your faith in our cause. I ask you to remain steadfast. Your death here because of apostasy would serve no purpose."
"I stand ready, Father, the will of the Church is never unwelcome." You reply respectfully, imminently aware of the multitude of tiny, well shielded cannons in the ceiling. You can't see them, but, if you extended your will just slightly, you could probably feel them. That, however, might indicate a threat to his Holiness. You might not be one of those who believes in the divinity present in the church, or in anything, but the Pontiff is a great man, and one that could have you killed very easily.
"Your abilities, the grafts you were chosen to receive, are the rewards of faith and the fruit of science. However, the science that spawned them was not... original." The pontiff waves his hand, and one of his assistants activates a projector and tunes the display to show a large, primarily toroidal object floating in a field of stars. The Earth terminal of the gate network. "Up to this point, you have been told what the world has been told. That the gates were created eleven ago as the third miracle of the Technocracy. This, however, is a lie. The gate network existed long before the Technocracy, and it was an artifact that they reverse engineered and learned to manipulate. Yet, they gate network was not abandoned. There is sentient life outside of the human race, and we killed them upon first contact. It is from their technology that we derived the augmentations that allow the mental activation of action at a distance, from their moons that we terraformed new worlds for humanity to flourish on."
Your exterior remains impassive as the Pontiff speaks, but you feel as though physically struck. On the one hand, the confirmation of life outside earth is fascinating. It presents a number of problems for the official doctrine of the Church of the Virgin World, but it's still amazing. On the other end, this means that you have experimental alien technology seeded throughout your entire body. Worse, you have a suspicion of why you've been called here. A dead alien race would be one more skeleton in the Technocracy's closet, but... "They're not all dead, are they, father?"
The pontiff nods. "You see quickly. Deep space sensors in Eridani, themselves based off of reverse engineered technology, have detected an incoming attack. All gates save the Sol link have been destroyed, but these others are capable of faster than light travel without apparent need for gates. We have reason for assuming that their goal is retribution, and that our previous methods of attack are no longer effective. This is the race that invented the technology that is incorporated into your body, and projections of their abilities are... horrifying."
"How much time do we have?" The question is automatic, a reflexive assessment of mission parameters while the rest of your mind processes.
The pontiff looks over to one of his assistants, and the young woman immediately responds to your question. "The new sensors are inexact as to the speed of the alien fleet, but it's estimated that they will reach us in approximately twenty-five years."
You nod slowly. It's enough time to prepare. The Technocracy has been a peacekeeping government all its life, without the need to engage other governments by dint of having already crushed them. Gearing up to war production in order to combat another empire will be... difficult. "What must I do?"
"What you have always done, my son," the Pontiff replies, waving his assistants away. "I know your past, and I know that you understand sacrifice at a level greater than the personal. Things will get worse for the common people, and they will not understand and cannot be allowed to understand. They must be kept in line, they must be kept at peace. Revolution will fester in the coming years, spawned by the very oppression we will use to save them. These are not the times for freedom, my son, these are the times of sacrifice. If ten billion lives must be sacrificed to save the rest, then that is a sacrifice that must be made. You will work personally with Grand Arbiter Yule, and you will ensure stability in the Eridani system as best you can. Do you understand you orders?"
"I understand, father." And you do. There are things you aren't being told, but that is the way of things. Your mission is clear, impossible in its scope and twisted in nature, but clear. You must aid and abet tyranny, in order to serve the greater good of all mankind. There is a bitter irony in that. The memory shatters as the bitterness feeling fills you, leaving a stain on your own emotions that persists after the last sensation fades.
"And now you know why I fight," the Presbyter says softly.
"I betray the secrets of the Technocracy only to fulfill the commands with which I was charged." The link between you seethes as fear begins to bubble through and the presbyter struggles to remain coherent.
"I had that conversation almost twenty-six years ago. The fleet is almost here, and we cannot afford to be torn apart by revolution when it comes. We have weapons, but many of them rely on your kind, on your forced cooperation. I understand your anger, your desire to change the world. You are a hero, pursuing an ideal of freedom, but this is not a time for heroes. Even if you win your freedom, you will destroy humanity with your victory. Please, stay your revolution and lend your strength to the Technocracy. When the war is done, your kind may have your revolution and repeal the tyranny we used out of necessity, but you... you must not... not destroy what we did. My uncle... the good we did... don't let it die with us." The light of the presbyter's mind flickers away as fear surges within him.
"I've never been afraid to die," the last of his voice whispers in your mind,
"I've only ever been afraid to fail. Please..." The presbyter uses the last of his strength on that final word, and his unnaturally sustained life ends like a snuffed candle.
You blink several times, your mind returning to your body on the roof. The presbyter kept most of his death from you, and while you feel confused and stunned, you aren't feeling the awful psychic shock that often comes from links terminated by the death of a member.
Maybe fifteen seconds have passed in the real world, but there's a lifetime of information you have to process.
((If you have no other actions, your group can advance to your next chapter.))
---
Dominique Wakeman"Don't relax yet! They may not have gone far!" Dom said as she (along with her Immortals) jogged over to Fennec. Once she was near him, she took another look into the hall, pinging it with her kinetic sonar to see if she could find the freaks.
You move to support the Arbiter, extending your kinetics as you move to defend. [A.Kinetics 17+2] You make contact almost immediately, finding the creatures lurking around a turn in the corridor. Roughly a dozen, all in different shapes of ugly. Their only similarity is a roughly humanoid appearance, and, thanks to to the weeding done by Fennec's men, they are primarily those capable of generating an armored shell to shrug off darts. They seem... restless. You can feel them approaching the doorway, as if to start another surge of attack, but they invariably turn away before they get a line of sight with anyone. [Gather information 14] Interpreting body language that you can't even see isn't easy, but their movements feel... frustrated. Hungry predators, kept from their prey by glass walls. This group has tasted blood, and, through empathetic senses enhanced by Taric's orientation device, you can literally feel their hunger.
"Thank you, Harlequin," Fennec says as he dusts himself off, surveying your team's position.
"Aside from a bandaged scientist, you seems to have made it through all right." He observes you for a moment, taking in your distant expression with a look of understanding.
"Are they going to hit us again?" Health: 121/128
Stamina: 120/120 (+14)
Carried Weight: 124/210
Attire: Harlequin Uniform, Styx Assault Armor (150/150, 60lbs. Integrated Power cell charged 3/3, Internal Ammunition Supply [Cerico, 14])
Inv:
Dominique's Abassy Heavy pistol -laser sight- [6, 8lbs]
.50 pistol clip (7 0.2lbs) x5
Artemis Railgun (3/3 A, 3/3 E 18lbs)
Size S-3 rail spike pack (3, 0.6lbs) x2
Cerico Shotgun (24/8 A, 16lbs)
12 gauge shells (8, 0.3lbs) x5
Stun club (50/50 11lbs)
Advanced Medical Kit (10/10) (5lbs)
Energy Cell (Full, 0.5lbs) x5
ORS (3) x2
Chitin Nodule
Status: Fine
Individuals
Cadet Taiya
Psionic
Health: 102/102
Stamina: 100/110
Armor: Hy-Brasil CF-HES (100/100)
Primary Weapon: Kekkai CM Pistol+ (6/7 (Detonating Rounds)) (5 cartridges; 1 Det., 2 Stun, 1 Bleed, 2 AP); +Side locked dart launcher (2/3)
Reserve: Arbiter Blade
Status: Fine. Low Morale [-2]
Squad 1
Haz-Rec Marine 1
Health: 100/100
Stamina: 98/100
Armor: Hy-Brasil CF-HES (100/100)
Primary Weapon: Leanashe Assault Rifle+ (15/50) (4 clips); +Underslung dart launcher (3/3)
Reserve: Salamander suppression pistol (30/30) (2 spare canisters);
Status: Fine. Low Morale [-2]
Haz-Rec Marine 2
Health: 100/100
Stamina: 98/100
Armor: Hy-Brasil CF-HES (100/100)
Primary Weapon: Leanashe Assault Rifle+ (15/50) (3 clips); +Underslung dart launcher (2/3)
Reserve: Ifrit Incendiary grenades x3
Status: Fine. Low Morale [-2]
Haz-Rec Marine (Designated Gunner)
Health: 114/114
Stamina: 110/110
Armor: Hy-Brasil CF-HES (100/100)
Primary Weapon: Surma LMG+ (45/90) (2 belts); +Underslung dart launcher (2/3)
Reserve: Blade
Status: Fine. Very Low Morale [-3]
Squad 2
Haz-Rec Marine 3
Health: 100/100
Stamina: 98/100
Armor: Hy-Brasil CF-HES (100/100)
Primary Weapon: Leanashe Assault Rifle+ (15/50) (1 clip); +Underslung dart launcher (2/3)
Reserve: Salamander suppression pistol (30/30) (3 spare canisters);
Status: Fine. Low Morale [-2]
Haz-Rec Marine 4
Health: 100/100
Stamina: 98/100
Armor: Hy-Brasil CF-HES (100/100)
Primary Weapon: Leanashe Assault Rifle+ (8/50) (3 clips); +Underslung dart launcher (3/3)
Reserve: Blade
Status: Fine. Poor Morale [-1]
Haz-Rec Marine (Designated Marksman)
Health: 86/86
Stamina: 83/90
Armor: Hy-Brasil CF-HES (100/100)
Primary Weapon: Artemis Railgun+ (2/3 A, 2/3 E) (3 clips, 3 cells); +Underslung dart launcher (2/3); Short Range Scope.
Reserve: Salamander suppression pistol (30/30) (1 spare canister);
Status: Fine. Low Morale [-2]
Squad 3 (Low-Com)
Tech Engineer 1
Health: 60/60
Stamina: 11/60
Armor: Annwn ACFUS+ (50/50) (Masked)
Primary Weapon: Cerico Shotgun (8/8) (8 shells)
Reserve: None
Status: Fine. Low Morale [-2]
Tools: Mechanical Bypass Kit 5/5
Tech Engineer 2
Health: 60/60
Stamina: 11/60
Armor: Annwn ACFUS+ (50/50) (Masked)
Primary Weapon: Cerico Shotgun (6/8) (8 shells)
Reserve: None
Status: Fine. Poor Morale [-1]
Tools: Mechanical Bypass Kit 5/5
Tech Scientist 1
Health: 50/50
Stamina: 29/50
Armor: Annwn ACFUS+ (50/50) (Masked)
Primary Weapon: Fenrir Energy Pistol (5/7) (2 cells)
Reserve: None
Status: Fine. Average Morale [0 ]
Tools: Universal Interface Kit, Advanced Medical Kit (9/10)
Tech Scientist 2
Health: 42/50 (MHD+25)
Stamina: 29/50
Armor: Annwn ACFUS+ (19/50) (Masked)
Primary Weapon: Fenrir Energy Pistol (5/7) (2 cells)
Reserve: None
Status: Wax Poisoning (Weak). Poor Morale [-1], being used as a shield by Spine Freak.
Tools: Universal Interface Kit, Advanced Medical Kit (10/10)
Alonso & Basilio
Basilio, Combat Carapace
Health: 49/49
Stamina: 55/55
Armor: 129/150
Weapon: Edimmu Assault Rifle (14/20 A 34/40 E)
Status: Fine, Utterly Obedient
Alonso, Combat Carapace
Health: 49/49
Stamina: 55/55
Armor: 132/150
Weapon: Edimmu Assault Rifle (14/20 A 34/40 E)
Status: Fine, Utterly Obedient
---
Toomas Amk"Right away. Any other notes before I go?"
If not, move out according to orders. I assume I know where to go, at least. Check out Rob's pistol along the way.
"One thing to add," Murnau says just as you turn to leave, his tone still carrying a current of restrained anger. "If you come back, and I'm not here. Kill this scientist. Now go."
You nod, the only response you feel appropriate, and leave. Your grip on what's been going on with the politics of the Cellburners is less sure than you thought, not that you ever cared for political or social games of any kind. Still, it's worrisome to realize that your map of reality is so incomplete and poorly labeled.
You move quickly to the quarters where the humans are being kept, inspecting Rob's pistol as you walk. You could run, Cellburners don't exactly have a lot to be suspicious of besides madness, and running isn't an indicator of that, but walking makes it easier to avoid the attention of others while still paying attention to the details of Rob's gun. It's an Odei flechette pistol, simple design, quite effective against unarmored targets. Three of its cylinders are still loaded, and you suspect that, given time and tools, you could manufacture a variety of custom cylinders to fit the bore. The fact that the cylinders are designed to detonate well outside of the cylinder should give you quite a bit of freedom in that endeavor.
The contemplation of the interesting things you could do with Rob's firearm is actually distracting enough that you very nearly blunder directly into an argument when you reach the refugee quarters.
The first voice you're aware of is female, low, frustrated, and predatory."Look, Wakeman, you had a good fucking thing, I'll give you that. You dropped the emergency doors, you scrambling the fucking door codes, and you generally wasted our goddamn time, but you see, you made a mistake..."
The unknown speaker sounds familiar, and you take a cautious step forward to get a better look. You can see the backs of Varic and Mia, two of the three that Murnau sent to take care of this situation. Mia seems to be leading for now, and there doesn't seem to be any physical tension in either Cellburner's posture. [Intuition 16] You'd guess that means they have Wakeman trapped alone.
"Really?" Wakeman's voice floats back. "I have what I want, you don't have what you want, and your third wheel is running around somewhere looking for the security equivalent of headlight fluid. In all seriousness, I'm getting a warm fuzzy feeling inside just thinking about what Murnau's going to say when you report back to him." [Gather Information: Hidden] Wakeman seems calm, his tone measured and betraying nothing. You heard that the man was once a scanner that went rogue, and you can imagine him using that same voice to lie to the Technocracy without flinching. "So, where exactly is this mistake of mine?
"The mistake, is that you actually changed the field. Slowing us down, that's fine, pretty fucking irritating, but fine. I'm a patient woman." You watch Mia's shoulders shrug, and you can hear a smile form in her voice. "When you spirited away all the food... that changed things. Murnau wants those humans, and he's not going to be happy with you for taking them. I think, however, that he'll be plenty pleased with us when we bring you to him bound up as a pretty parcel. Then you get to have the information about your precious little meatsacks tortured out of you. They'll still die, but this way you're going to die to. That's your big fucking mistake."
You hear Wakeman snort as Mia concludes. "One, you're really not good at swearing. Two, it's actually rather depressing that you've gotten to the point that you call humans, which we both were not terribly long ago, 'meatsacks'. Three, and most importantly, what makes you think you can take me?"
Mia seems surprised for second, and then she starts laughing. "Oh, God... I can almost believe you're fucking serious. Well, allow me to respond in kind. One, I don't give two shits in a purse about your opinion. Two, I just adapted to the way of the world, and I've found that sentimentality gets you dead real fast. Three, and most importantly for me as well, I was a goddamn peacemaker. I brought people to justice for a fucking living, but you? You were a Scanner, you shuffled digital papers, you talked to people, you used computers. Hell, the most physical exertion in your life probably came from fucking whichever slut you could convince to screw you while you rented your wife to your boss so you could get a raise. Seriously, you don't have an icecube's chance in hell."
There's a long pause, and Wakeman's voice is oddly dead when he speaks again. "Prove it."
Mia laughs again, flexing her fingers as talons burst out of her flesh and begin thickening and sharpening. "You have no fu-"
Varic jumping back suddenly is all the warning you get when Wakeman's attacks. He enters your vision already pulled up in a kick, focusing the entirety of his weight into his heel and driving it into the front of Mia's right knee. You hear bone splitter from across the room. Mia screams and slashes reflexively with half-formed talons. Wakeman doesn't even try to dodge, letting Mia bloody him as he keeps his momentum forward. He drives Mia down, using his foot to keep her leg from regenerating properly, and he catches her by the throat with his free hand and pins her to the floor. Mia claws at the hand clenched around her throat, the instinctual fear of suffocation driving her attacks more than any reason.
Wakeman, however, knows better than to try and strangle a Cellburner. He reverses his force without warning, pulling Mia up and letting her gasp desperately for breath she doesn't need as his other fist comes down like a hammer. The freshly grown spine protruding from that fist drives through Mia's eye socket, punching through the back of her skull as he follows through. He wrenches his wrist sideways after the spike is firmly embedded in her skull, breaking the chitin off inside her brain. It's a far cruder method than the one you saw the scientist use, but the effect is quite similar. Her brain critically damaged, Mia thrashes mindlessly between life and death, her ORS preserving her but unable to eject the mass that's lodged through her skull.
Wakeman stands slowly from Mia's spasming body, turning to look a now visibly frightened Varic in the eye. "In point of fact, I met my wife in a bar fight and have a fair experience with fighting. That, however, is tangential. Are you going to try and take me down as well, or are you willing to listen?"
Neither of them have noticed you. You could step in and change the situation. Wakeman doesn't have the same element of surprise on his side as he did before, and Varic and yourself working together may be able to bring him to Murnau if you take the initiative. Or you could step out and advocate that Varic stand down and let Wakeman talk. Of course, you could also wait and see what Varic does and then go from there.
Health: 440/590 -[1,6]
Degeneration: Irises have lost color.
Carried Weight: 43/120
Attire: Plain Technician Uniform, White. Annwn CFUS (50/50, 15lbs)
Inventory:
Eldjotnar Shotgun (4/4 A, 12/12 E, 10lbs)
Energy Cell x3 (Fully Charged)
20 gauge gauss canister x12
Mechanical Bypass Kit (10 lbs, 8/10)
Mechanic's Utility Knife (1lb)
Pad (Charged, significant free space, 1lb)
Odei Flechette Pistol (3/5, 6lbs)
Status: Fine
Author
Topic: Deviation-22. The End of All Things. (Read 535662 times)