Debauchery BioTech 2 (Patreon)

Debauchery BioTech

Chapter 2

-VB-

Terra, ComStar. 3029.

A god descends.

“This is the last report of our agent from the inside of that disgusting cult,” Precenter Tharkad Ulthan Everson noted before turning to Acting Precentor ROM Tojo Jarlath. “She was one of your agents, no? Rho-Rho? It’s quite a thing for a ROM agent to dabble in heresy like this.”

“But can you blame them?” Tojo drawled. “We all saw their … ‘mechs.’”

Calling their biological abominations as “mechs” was a mislabel. The Priesthood, which the First Circuit knew was just a shortened name for the cult’s true name, reared monstrosities to serve them on the battlefield, if not outright wear them as some kind of biological power armor. 

“The latest League attack on Zdice has ended in failure,” Primus Tiepolo remarked as he pushed his archaic round glasses up. “Our agents within the League expended quite the number of connections, favors, and security access to make sure this happened, but we learned very little. Is there anything new that you can tell us that hasn’t been covered before, Jarlath?” 

“No, there is not, if we have already covered the Priesthood’s cultist behavior, belief in some heathen god, their ideology, and their supernatural ability to mold biomass.”

“Nothing?” Precentor Dieron Myndo Waterly asked incredulously. “How hard is it to learn about one cult in the Lyran Commonwealth? It isn’t as if we are asking you to learn about SAFE’s internal server sites. The ones that we don’t know about.”

“On the contrary,” Jarlath replied. “We’ve learned everything we can about them without having one of our own among their leadership. We know that they use some kind of advanced biological technology paired with personal abilities to … mold flesh, just not how it is done. We know that they are open to new converts, and have a few of our members among them just like every other intelligence agency does.”

“Yes, only in the lowest ranks,” Waterly countered. “What did they call it? Orin?”

“Yes. From lowest to highest, it is orin, zend, then voluntaar, and finally karcist,” he replied. 

“Do we truly have no idea how they are doing what they do?” Everson asked. 

“No,” Jarlath gritted his teeth. “We have exactly three instances that we saw their unnatural abilities used in public.”

“Beyond the biomechanical monstrosities.”

“Beyond those. The first was when the cult first appeared on Tharkad itself.”

Everson knew it well. It was shown across all media within the Lyran Commonwealth. 

He shuddered. 

“I remember seeing that,” the primus grunted. “He took slabs of beef and turned it into … a person.”

Calling that thing a person was weird to Everson. It may look like a person on the surface, but it also had horns and cow ears instead of human ears. Even if the geneticists claimed that it was a genetically human male, there was something fundamentally wrong with creating a human out of beef and then mocking the creation and the creator itself by giving it bovine features.

“He did, and did it in under five minutes,” the Precentor ROM nodded. “And then, he took inspiration from ancient creation myths and breathed life through the nose of the person. That … cow-person is still alive. Apparently, he prefers computer software work to any farm work.”

Tiepolo snorted. “And where does that leave us?” he asked. 

“... Still not enough information on the cult,” Jarlath admitted. “We have a trend of their activities, but for all we know, that’s only going to hold before something changes.”

“Exactly,” Waterly replied. “We should be striking at them directly!”

Everson wanted to groan. That again? Waterly was probably the violent of the Precentors here in the First Circuit. She was no different than the successor state nobles in his eyes. Build an army! Build a navy! Sabotage this! Sabotage that!

It really irked him that someone like her ended up as a member of the First Circuit. 

“If they go into hiding, then it’s all over.”

Everyone turned to look at Precentor Atreus, but also how Jarlath nodded to Precentor Atreus’s statement. 

“What do you mean?” Tiepolo asked. 

“It has to do with how a cult like the Priesthood operates the moment significant public oppression comes down on them,” Atreus replied. “As long as their leader survives, they will go underground and spread themselves out so that they cannot be easily targeted. They will start to co-opt leadership wherever they go. While normal cults do this over time through manipulation, this cult can provide a service no one else can. I wonder just how fathers and mothers wouldn’t sign over half of their lands and armies if it meant their children could be cured of whatever terminal disease they suffer?” 

Silence met his reply. 

“Worse, we wouldn’t be able to track them. They have shown extensive ability to change biology in other beings, both living and dead. It would not be hard to change their appearance, co-opt an immigration officer for ten extra years of youth, and get fake identifications. Once they spread out, then they will be able to gather much more followers. They will form cells. They will become terrorists waiting the order of their “godly” founder, the man who made biological warmachines and brought life to carcass. Religions have been founded on less evidence, and the Priesthood has a literal miracle as their founder.” He shook his head. “No. In fact, striking at them is the last thing we want to do. Biological horrors are something we cannot control while they can. Do we know if any of them are on sabbatical? Do we know exactly every single individual the cult has contact with? Do we know if any of their middle or higher ups are hiding, never having revealed themselves to the world? The files we have on them show us that there are at least nineteen Zends but only know the names, faces, and voices of twelve. Where are the rest?”

Tiepolo hummed. “You speak the truth. Attacking someone when we don’t even know their true strength or even close to it? That is a mistake too many idiots make.”

Waterly gritted her teeth at the obvious jab at her.

“Leave them alone. In fact, approach them and try to co-opt them to our cause if we can,” the primus ordered. “They are people of the Inner Sphere. Even they must have reservations about the state of the Inner Sphere the successor houses have brought it down to.”

-VB-

Zdice, Lyran Commonwealth

Frederick Steiner was not a stranger to religion. Nor was he a stranger to cults, occults, and all other forms of “spiritual” manipulation.

But this was the first time he felt compelled to reach out to this cult. 

Why?

He wasn’t sure. 

Maybe it was because they offered something he couldn’t seem to get as a Steiner. For all of his work and personal excellence, the rest of the family and the Lyran Commonwealth didn’t appreciate him.

No, they saw him as a threat to the status quo and the prosperity they enjoyed. 

After all, Frederick Steiner couldn’t have gotten them the biggest alliance the successor states have seen since the fall of the Star League. Frederick Steiner couldn’t have gotten the Commonwealth the entirety of Tikonov Commonality (whether or not it’s yet to happen was another matter, apparently). Frederick Steiner wasn’t even a general. Frederick Steiner didn’t do this, didn’t do that, didn’t make this, didn’t have that, didn’t -!

Frederick had to stop himself and took a deep breath in.

Yeah.

No one seemed to appreciate him, and the one friend who “supposedly” did turned out to be a traitor. 

Yeah, that hurt personally and professionally. A military officer who associated with a traitor whether he knew it or not? Good luck ever climbing the ranks ever again.

He was Frederick Steiner. The perpetual colonel. The “average” Steiner. 

He wanted to be something more than that. 

So he came crawling to Katrina’s pet cult. 

“Oh, Colonel Steiner! I didn’t expect to see you here!” Voluntaar Orianna greeted him. The veiled woman wearing a form-fitting yellow one piece dress tickled his fancy, especially with how curvaceous she was, but he wasn’t here to pick up a date. Nor did he think that she was interested. Or if he was even sure about picking up any member of the Priesthood for a date considering that they can manipulate their own body and see additional appendages as “blessings.”

Just as he opened his mouth to speak, one of the “Eradicator” biomechs walked up next to the entrance of the Priesthood’s main four story building within their private compound and lifted its bone plate helmet up. 

Frederick saw for the first time that there was an actual pilot in the thing, and he was behind some kind of transparent hard film and had a lot of what looked like wires or muscle fibers attached to the pilot. 

He wouldn’t be surprised if they were actual nerves and muscles. 

He watched as all of those detached and the film itself split open unevenly down the middle. He jumped back in shock when fluids splattered underneath the creature and the pilot fell down, landing on all four.

“Andrew! What are you doing in front of the guest?!” Voluntaar Orianna hissed at him.

The pilot, a mature man who looked to be in his late 30’s or early 40’s, grunted as he stood up in a body suit that looked more flesh than fabric. “Sorry, big sis,” he replied. “Karcist asked me to report on Jay-1’s status here. You know how it is.”

Orianna sighed. “Yes. Jay-1 had his arm blown off in the raid.”

Frederick blinked as he looked up at the biomech that was still standing around and shuffling lightly. That thing had its arm blown off? But it had both of its arms right now! Was this a ploy to show off their techniques and skills because he was a military official?

… Well, he certainly didn’t mind the thought of a biomech that didn’t mean expensive repairs. 

Then both she and “Andrew” paused before she turned back to him. “Colonel Steiner, Karcist Croy will meet with you. Please, follow me.”

She turned around immediately and walked into the building, the mechanical doors smoothly and silently opening when she approached. Only after a moment of hesitation, he followed after her. 

The lobby was warm and welcoming in the traditional big city business manner: clean, smooth surfaced, and staffed by competent-looking and pretty people. He knew from the get-go that this was not what their “true” selves were like. The cultists liked to surround themselves with flesh wherever possible. He knew that because that’s what they were like on Tharkad when he first met Orianna. 

He still remembered that room when he first met the karcist. 

That room filled to the brim with pulsating, warm flesh.

It was totally different from what he was seeing around him now. 

Was he even in the right place? Was he being played around, being only shown the “face” of the cult in their mercenary company? 

“Do not fear.”

His attention snapped to the voluntaar, who are said to be the closest to the karcist. 

“What?”

“Fear is a stench that overwhelms all other smells. It wafts off of you even through your poker face.”

… So they can even detect something like that. 

Could he even hide anything? Even the best spies in the Inner Sphere couldn’t control their biological reactions. He shook his head as he suddenly felt mirthful over that fact. He felt pity for any spies that were trying to infiltrate the Priesthood. 

They came to the end of a tunnel…

And suddenly, he felt himself freeze.

Tunnel.

Not a corridor. 

A tunnel.

A rocky tunnel that had no incline whatsoever. A rocky tunnel that did not lead to an office and didn’t have a beginning.

He looked over his shoulder in a hurry and saw nothing but an inky darkness. 

When did it get dark?

Why was it dark?

“Colonel Steiner?”

Frederick whirled around, his heart pumping and beating like a drum in his ears and chest, and froze at what he saw. He saw the voluntaar. Her one-piece dress was no longer a thing of fine beauty but a grotesque robe of pulsating flesh. It looked yellow. Sickly. But alive and crawling over her shoulders. 

He stumbled as he backed up.

“He is waiting for you,” she said as she stepped aside and gestured to the door. 

He looked and saw a wooden door sitting in the middle of a rocky tunnel. He gulped as he took trembling steps forward. He felt so utterly lost. 

Was … was he going to die? 

“Do not fear.”

Just as he was about to pass by her, she said that. 

He glanced at her. 

And almost vomited when he saw her lips stretch up into some kind of twisted mockery of a smile. It was too wide, stretching past the veil that covered her face. The teeth were too sharp and narrow. And … eyes. There were eyes inside of her mouth. All of them locked onto him.

He glanced back at the other end of the tunnel.

No light. 

No end in sight.

‘The only way is forward.’

Gulping, he grabbed the wooden door’s handle, turned it, and walked in.

He found himself inside of a large office of some sort. There were books and drawings. Standing lamps with soft orange glow. Tables filled to the brim with books.

And a man stood behind a desk. A man who didn’t look human. A man that had eyes and mouths everywhere. A soft darkness that seemed to beckon him forward into the room. To shut the door behind him.

Frederick… he… he …!

“Colonel Steiner?” 

Frederick nearly screamed.

But he froze.

Because he wasn’t in a room with a monster. He was back at a high-end company corridor. A clean, smooth-surfaced, and sleek corridor with powerful white light and windows that showed the outside world. 

“Is something wrong?”

He glanced over to his left and saw Orianna. She looked normal. Her yellow one-piece dress wasn’t some kind of fleshy monster.

She was … human.

Not a monster.

“I’m fine,” he told her, even as his breathing rang ragged even to his ears. “I’m… fine.”

“... Very well. If you are fine, then you may enter. He is waiting for you, sir.”

He looked up and forward, and saw a normal office door. A little more ornate perhaps with wooden frames and an opaque glass in the middle of the door, but a normal door nonetheless. 

He strode forward, opened it, and walked in. 

Frederick let out a sigh of relief when he found himself inside of a normal office.

But the man standing on the other side of the room was anything but normal.

Because as Karcist Croy turned around to look at him, Frederick found himself looking at a man who could walk down the runway as a model but exuded a dreadful and tyrannical mein. 

A king.

“Good afternoon, Colonel Steiner,” he hummed. “What brings you out here to Zdice?” 

Frederick gulped. 

Could he do this? 

What was the hallucination just then? 

What …

Was he prepared? 

“I want to become powerful.”

For a second, he saw the karcist’s lips twitching upward. 

“Tell me,” Karcist Croy began, and Frederick felt the dread returning ten fold. He fell to his knees as an unidentifiable weight crushed down upon him. “How did you like that little vision test I gave you?”

That was real?! That was a test?! 

He wanted to claw at his throat. He couldn’t speak! He couldn’t breathe! 

“Are you prepared for that?” the Red King asked as he walked around the table and up to him. Frederick looked up with bloodshot eyes. His heart heavy with fear and anxiety. The Red King looked down upon him with indifference. “Are you prepared to give up your humanity like Orianna has done? Like I have done? Like everyone will in my Priesthood of Kalmaktama?”

And finally, finally, Frederick managed to spit out a single word.

“Yes.”