Winning Peace - Chapter 34 (Patreon)

I was reading a novel when I felt Thonis-Heracleion message me.

 Hesitating for a long moment, my eyes flicked towards my left before I sighed and nodded. Picking up a bookmark from my side, I slipped it between the pages where I'd stopped and set the latest volume at my side with a relaxing stretch. Leaning back, I mentally checked on Sasha before nodding to myself. She was enjoying the break I'd given her and relaxing with a group of friends using the Lazuli sleeve I'd made for her. They knew it was a remote-controlled body, of course, since Sasha wasn't the type to be so deceptive, but they didn't know her real face.

We were both enjoying the quiet life, after all.

On that cue, a portal opened up and Thonis-Hercleion stepped through. Unlike her usual guise, she was 'wearing' something similar to her human half's original body, albeit with a series of golden tattoos over her face that mimicked the look of a spider's multiple eyes and mandibles. Well, at least, they'd look like tattoos to anyone else.

I knew them to be the seams between the plates that made up her face.

That kind of thing was on the very edge of what was considered socially acceptable to appear in public with. Considering she'd been 'out and about' quite a bit recently, I wasn't all that surprised to see what she was currently sleeved as.

“Been to visit your parents?” I asked quietly, reaching for a small nannofabber nearby to extract a pair of drinks. My own was a more traditional soda that I liked, the other was a super-cold fluid with a twenty-syllable name I didn't enjoy pronouncing.

Thonis-Heracleion accepted the latter and cracked it to take a sip from the reinforced bottle that dropped the room's temperature by a few degrees upon opening. “I don't know why you ask. You could just look it up.”

I hummed and reached out with my left hand to tap the swaying cradle gently. “I'm trying to meddle a bit less with you kids. You've got your own projects, your own lives, I'll pop in if you ask for help, but...”

Thonis-Heracleion stared at me for another long moment, then sighed.

If I had to guess, she probably checked the logs on the surveillance systems around her hometown.

“Anyway... on the topic of you stepping back,” her eyes flicked past me, towards the child on my other side as he slept. “I wanted to ask if you'd read my proposal?”

I hummed and rubbed at my chin. “Like I said, you've got your own projects. Don't think of this as me cutting you loose, but you've made a sound argument as far as interfering in the Citadel's affairs goes. As long as you keep it covert, I'm not going to stop you.”

Thonis-Heracleion frowned at me again, sipping at her drink “They don't bother you? The slavery, the corruption, the constant war?”

I shrugged and gestured outward vaguely. “That's my concern. It might be selfish, but...”

“Just humanity, then?” TH asked, cocking her head curiously.

“Humanity and the accosians and, reluctantly, the rachni too. That's my concern. Their peace, what they're building... the Citadel and the New Prothean Empire and what's left of the Terminus Systems... even the embattled Turians, those aren't my monkeys. That's not my circus.” I grimaced and looked back to where my son was sleeping innocently. “This is my world.”

TH sighed and scratched the back of her head. “Little Casey makes it really hard to be angry at you, you know? If it was just you and Sasha I'd be able to get upset that you're just shutting the world out to play house with your wife.”

I snorted and rolled my eyes. “Are you still irritated that I asked all of you to play human for the wedding?”

“Maybe if the fate of the galaxy wasn't at stake,” Thonis-Heracleion deflected. “But everyone agrees that we need to maintain secrecy now that all of the trans-humans have been made aware of the Reapers... we're all much more willing to keep laying low. It gives us purpose.”

I gave her a scowl. “I didn't help you all to give you something as trite and cliché as 'purpose.' I helped you because the world needs a stable society of trans-sentients to exist. The technology would advance to the degree necessary at some point regardless of my efforts. But you all need an in-group to keep yourselves balanced, just like me.”

TH looked away. “Life's easier with something to work for, Dr. Lopez.”

“As long as you don't let it consume you,” I replied. “I nearly made that mistake myself. It's even kind of ironic, given you were the one who convinced me to lift someone up to stand by my side.”

Thonis-Heracleion blinked, staring at me. “R-really?”

I huffed a quiet laugh, looking back at my son. “After Sarah used Anubis to approach me and jumped through all the hoops... it reminded me of how much time I'd been spending alone, concentrating on my goal. Helping you and the other kids out... it really helped me get back on my feet. If you all hadn't been in my life, I wouldn't have been able to open up to Sasha the way I needed to when the opportunity presented itself.”

She opened and closed her mouth, the softly-glowing golden lines flexing with the motion as she slowly managed to work her way through the obviously stunned emotions playing across her expression. “I... see. Still, the rest of us... even if you say we're allowed to go ahead with the plans, we'd like to have your blessing and advice. I might exercise my freedom as I wish, but a lot of the others are still fixated on what you want them to do. You should probably take a look over the half-cocked plans a few of them are cooking up, too.”

“They're using my servers. Rest assured I'm keeping an eye on them. I'll step in if it starts to look like any of them are coming close to implementation,” I replied with an off-handed wave. “But... yes, I suppose I can give my 'blessing' for the plan, if that's what it takes.”

I paused, my attention still on my son as he fussed in his sleep.

Lowering my hand, I allowed him to grab onto one of my fingers, the soft pressure bringing a smile to my face. “I do have a few notes on it I could share.”

“That would be most appreciated,” TH nodded.

I brought my drink to my lips with my free hand and took a long draw from it as I finished up the final touches on a response to the very thing she'd been asking about. It wasn't something I'd been paying a great deal of attention to, but even with a young newborn in the house I was much more used to a massive workload the exceeded my current responsibilities.

With one final thought, the document was uploaded to the network.

 [BEHOND THE WORD OF THE SAVIOR OF HUMANITY, PLEBEIANS! BE GRATEFUL TO HAVE GLIMPSED SUCH WISDOM DURING YOUR TENUOUS EXISTENCE AS A MOTE OF COSMIC DUST!]

[Dude, for fuck's sake, the Doc has already told you multiple times that he isn't a fucking messiah. Cut that shit out.]

[I mean, really! Just look over the notes! It looks like TH got the Boss-Man to okay Ops in Citadel and Prothean space, woo!]

[Another step forward in the grand plan against the Reapers. For the sake of all sentient life, the Foul Xenos must fall in line behind Humanity's leadership! Our Will will Pierce the Heavens!]

[Hey, can we do something meaningful? Like start discussing who's going to infiltrate what planet? I'm calling dibs on Thessia, btw. Gonna' get me a hawt blu ass an' go strippin!]

[...and we were close, so very close, to being productive for a moment. It was brief, and I had hope, but now it's dead. My hope is dead and you're responsible.]

[I'll take Khar'shan.]

[Should we be worried?]

[Yeah, what she said. That's gotta' be the shittiest posting available.]

[Hey, if I'm going to set it on fire, I want to at least be able to feel the warmth of the flames.]

[...fire-starting is one of those warning signs of antisocial behaviors.]

[But does it count if he's setting an entire civilization of slave holders on fire?]

[Please don't turn this into a morality debate, for the love of whatever mythological supernatural being you want to name. We already have a thread for discussing ethical serial killers thanks to SOMEONE.]

[See, I feel attacked by that remark.]

[Good.]

[Good.]

[Good.]

[Good.]

[Children. Behave.]

[Anyway, back on topic, does anyone know why this operation is code-named, 'Taco Cart'? It just seems a little weird.]

[Who's turn is it to dig through media from around the turn of the 21st century to figure out what the reference is?]

[Not me, it took 4-fucking-ever to figure out what Doc meant by 'The Moon's Haunted' and Zoomers have the most bizarre sense of humor of any generation I've had to dig through. Never again.]

[Hey, at least it wasn't as bad as that joke about the squirrels and the eldritch abomination from that defunct card game. If I still slept I swear I'd have nightmares about that shit.]

Thonis-Heracleion and I traded a look.

“I've already ripped the logs. Next time any of them decides to go on a rant about how they're the natural evolution of society and should rule instead of serve, this will be all the counter-argument I need,” I stated firmly.

TH twitched, smirking. “You know they aren't actually serious about that.”

I gave her a skeptical look.

She paused, then admitted, “Usually.”

“Uh-huh,” I nodded, still skeptical.

Cocking her head again, she crossed her arms and dangled the nearly-empty bottle from between two of her fingers. “You know after your marriage... people have started becoming interested in what you've been up to. We've had some of them nosing around the connection points for Azathoth. They aren't getting anywhere, it has to be said, but it's still irritating some people with how their data-mining attempts are slowing transfers down.”

I sighed, draining my drink and depositing the empty back into the fabber. “What would you suggest?”

Of course, Casey chose that moment to kick in his crib and wake himself up. The reflexive motion made him crack his eyes and begin to cry at the sudden return to reality. TH's eyes widened, looking momentarily alarmed, but I simply chuckled and reached down to pick him up, rocking him gently in my arms.

“There-there, buddy. It's okay, shh-shh...”

While Casey began to calm down, Thonis-Heracleion pinged my personal network and, after handshaking with her for security, we opened a channel together.

'I don't know how you do it. Humans, especially young ones, are just so... icky.'

'Careful, your biases are showing.'

TH rolled her eyes. 'To answer your question, though, especially if we're going ahead with operation – sigh – Taco Cart, then we're going to need a dedicated private network outside of Sol and the Stellar Council's reach, but with increased connectivity to human space in preparation for first contact with the Citadel races and the New Prothean Empire.'

I considered the prospect for a moment as I soothed my son. Interconnectedness with Sol was a general rule of thumb for most of our systems, just due to the sheer amount of interaction necessary with humanity at large. It was both for convenience and fast-response in the event of an emergency. The latter was rare, only a few a month that legitimately required our level of intervention, but it did happen, simply as a function of the fact that humanity now numbered in the billions and the accosian's simply weren't as advanced along their path of crystal technology to have made things as 'safe' in day-to-day life as I had for my own race.

All of that wasn't to say there wasn't a substantial, likely even larger, network for our own private use that was both faster and generally more advanced. It could also cut itself off from humanity's... somewhat less secure electronic holdings.

Just in case.

Even with the digital airlock system I'd put in place, billions of people created billions of vulnerabilities in any piece of infrastructure. Even if they were more intelligent and capable than ever before. Most people still just wanted their tech to 'work' and weren't interested in the nuts and bolts of its operation.

And, to think, people still argued that I'd changed humanity 'too much.'

Hah.

'Then that's what we'll have to do. It will need to be connected to both Sol and Azathoth's network, but separate from each and able to be fully locked out. I'm having a few of my other bodies draw up potential designs and implementation strategies. Once I get an alpha version going, I'll open it up to comments and revisions on the forum. Was there anything else?'

Thonis-Heracleion paused. 'Just... one thing. Do you know about the movie?'

I mentally groaned, even as Casey began to babble happily at my funny face. 'Please don't remind me. I've never struggled so hard to not look like a hypocrite by data-bombing a server before.'

TH laughed over our secure line, then spun off into a contemplative silence. 'Do you want me to give someone an idea? It'd give you plausible deniability.'

It was tempting, but... 'No. If they're clumsy about it, it'll just feed conspiracy theories and make the subject louder on the net. I'll cleave to my values. They can make whatever sort of hit-piece or cock-sucker they want. I don't even want to know anything about it before they start showing it.'

'I really thought you'd take a more hard-line approach to this. If they go through with the movie, people will want to know more about your current goings-on. There's a chance something could slip, can we afford that? It's not like you gave a single inch to those politicians who picked a fight with you.'

I shook my head, looking down at my son's adoring gaze and hoping I could reflect even a small part of that back at him. 'No, I have the right to defend myself from other would-be monarchs, but the jesters have immunity from retaliation. Any vengeance I take against them will be confined to highlighting inaccuracies and poor research.'

Efficiency: 1-10 (New)

Miniaturization: 1-10 (New)

~~~

Here's the new Winning Peace chapter, as promised!

Next up for this story is going to be Citadel/Prothean First Contact coming up next week.

Until then, I'm working on The New Ron, haven't got one of those out this month yet, so look for that coming up soon.

Once again, then you for all the support. Rock On, and Stay Awesome!