17-6 Midnight Games (II) (Patreon)

+Seeker Kazahara:

I think the Registry might have a hit for the one you’re looking for. It’s a single instance and the facial capture is only partial, but the physical characteristics match the memories you sent.

155.45 centimeters.

Female. Possibly adolescent.

Heavyset musculature for her size judging from the width of her shoulders.

The memory was sourced to a street ganger of the “Silver Tongues.” A Marhir Nanadrugupta. Running his imaging through the Registry confirms him as deceased. Exsanguinated like the others in his outfit. He managed a kill on your an-sus (AUTO-TRANS: anonymous suspect), but while they were trying to deactivate her holocoat, she resurrected and tore through the gang.

The flash of her features was revealed during this instance. I’m casting you the sequences.

…

Seeker, from what I can tell, our an-sus is a Fallwalker–as well as her master before her. I have mem-data on him, but her profile is empty. There’s nothing about any Agnosi performing Frame maintenance or canonicity upgrades. Not from the Exorcists or Paladins. We’re looking at an unexplained Godclad operating in the city.

I’ll be here in support if you need someone to trawl the Nether. Things are getting bad between Clan D’Rongo and Clan Nasaganda. A few Concaves and Convexes just had their identities leaked. Quite a few people have died from accidents caused by “metaphysical desyncs.” A bomb was found in Elder Kerrington’s aero.

Leave it to the Council to squabble over politics at a time like this.

I hope you find this girl soon. And that she leads you to the prime suspect. I’ve pulled mem-logs from our Incubi regarding his background and… the guy’s a demented psychopath. I tried peeking at some of his content and threw up at my table. Be careful when dealing with him, Seeker. He seems like the kind to deliberately trigger the Rash for an advantage in combat.+

-Wiser Nara (Ori-Thaum Special Intelligence and Deep Nether Operations Officer)

17-6

Midnight Games (II)

It took less than an ounce of will on Avo’s part to reshape Elegant-Moon’s mind. Depositing her in a new holding cell on the George Washington after Draus opened a passage, he scrambled her mind to avoid anyone mem-locking her after his departure. He would rebuild her mind via her template after and reactive her sessions and other phantasmics after he plotted how to use her. After checking that she still had two cyclers and Heavens clean of Rend, he killed her and let her resurrection play out.

Kae asked to stay and observe their new “guest.” There was something about the Sang’s Frame that intrigued her–the make of a new design affecting just how fast Elegant-Moon’s return from death progressed.

That was the second priority after meeting with Dice. He still had to convene with his grafters about how his “projects” were coming along. The Sang would prove useful there as well, offering rapid modifications to flesh via her Heavens. Perhaps he could have her be directed by Ruveca towards fuller effect.

“Avo,” Cas said, catching him just as he was about to step back through the glass. “I got her out? The asset. The squire that used to work for me. She contacted me earlier and said she slipped out the district after your girl hit all those Silver Tongue watch lobbies. There’s no one hunting for her anymore. She’s slipped the district. I’m going to be preparing to make a few new acquaintances.” He rubbed at his jaw and grimaced. “Damn shame too. I was beginning to like this face.”

“Have to be you personally?” Avo asked, turning to face the Columner. “Risky. Could deploy another one of your people in your place.”

“What I’m planning needs someone with a Frame,” he said. “Highflame, Ori-Thaum, and a whole bunch of others are clamoring for Fallwalker middlers. And that’s just what my cover provides. It’ll let me do some more public-facing shaping for the cult anyway.” A grin of satisfaction painted his face. “I’ve been wanting to be a player in the game for some time. Figure now’s the moment, with all that we’ve got going on, and all the openings you’re starting to provide.”

“Always thought Denton was more the spy.”

“Yeah, well, we got different vectors of pressure to exert. Her job is to be quiet and subtle–ambiance. I’m about the noise, and how to use it. People hear what they want to hear when the song is good enough; doesn’t matter what the lyrics say.”

That was true, if to a vague and limited extent. “How’s Skintaker and our thoughtcast?”

“Shooting up. We’re getting sixty-six percent retention and about twelve million new followers a day. Not incredibly, but steady. It’s probably better this way–keeps us off Guild DeepNav more than spiking in popularity does. Most of the audience is split between understimulated Tiersfolk and the chromed-out savages infesting the Spine. Seems both types like watching ghouls and monsters get crushed for different reasons. I had Chambers tweak Skintaker’s mind a bit–have him be more positive and personable. We’re probably going to have him start direct sessions soon with certain people–mostly our plants at first. We think the best way to start building an inner circle of recruits is for them to be vetted personally and intimately by Nether and coldtech profilers.

“Good,” Avo said. He himself considered new angles they could add to their influence. Their silent war against the Guilds was to be a full-spectrum offense. He would poison the entertainment people consume, collapse the industries the Guilds possess, subvert their Syndicates, choke them of extraneous deaths, and finally turn their very own Godclads against them as facets of his own consciousness.

Abrel and Elegant-Moon was a start. A decent one. But there were millions beyond millions of Ensouled arrayed against him. He needed to keep them confused, divided, and chasing shadows while swelling his own forces.

Increasingly, he found himself wondering about the potential of reaching outside the city as well. Across the Sunderwild were pockets of humanity in feral tribes and Fallwalker enclaves that dotted the uncoiling madness. Much opportunity presented itself there, in such a lawless and unwatched place.

He would speak of this idea later as well. If he could reach beyond the borders of the city using Syndicate smuggling routes to circumvent Naeko’s orders of enclosure, then perhaps his ranks would swell ever faster, and he could freely reap the bounties of death he needed like a falling scythe rather than a dagger in the dark.

That, and there were all the Fallen Heavens he could claim. As his Frame grew, so too would his ability to soak in Rend and drain the ruptures.

Yes. This would be the most viable next step–another foundation for him to build his strength.

{Avo,} Calvino said, voice lined with polite apprehension. {Let’s try to keep this to people who have done harm, shall we? And maybe take the idea a bit further. Unleash a bit of goodness for a change, help the unfortunates living beyond the megacities.} The EGI filtered a flood of recollected atrocities through his mind, all of them uncovered by Aegis from various enclaves.

New Vultun was a slavering dog of a city that always wanted to bite you, but the space beyond its borders was madness unleashed. The things done out there were beyond the pale of words and neutered only by the comparative weakness of the Fallwalkers themselves. Without even a hint of authority like Paladins or Exorcists, the only guidelines present were force and chance.

Corner added his past to the collection as well, his childhood arriving as a miasma of violence and abuse. Every degradation was inflicted on him and then returned in favor. He was captured, tortured, and sold more than once, and each time he survived, finding his abusers.

Those of them foolish enough to spawn children or have lovers regretted it the most.

{Thank you for adding personal and vivid detail to my already horrific collage,} Calvino said sarcastically.

The template just shrugged. [We’re all godsdamned animals. Had to be. When life’s a dark forest, you learn to play the warg, or you learn to suffer the lamb.]

Abrel just shook her head in disappointment. [This is what happens when you let the unworthy be Ensouled. Undisciplined Chaos. Chaos and despair.]

[H-hey, speak like you’re any better, Guilder,] Osjack Thenden shot back, shouting with anger after days of depressed silence.

[We are better. We are the reason you can go stand in the rain at night and not die from some randomly mutating hyperplague. We are the reason why Idheim was built after the Godsfall. The Agnosi repaired the damage. Voidwatch provided the supplies. We beat the entropy and chaos back. Us. We pushed the ruptures back for cities to be rebuilt, the skies to be reclaimed, and the void to be stabilized so our dear cousins had a place to park their homes after fleeing across the dark for millennia.]

[Oh,] Osjack sneered, [I guess I should thank you for breaking it all in the first place. Praise Jaus and the noble fucking genocide his glorious usurpation caused–]

[Bitch,] Abrel said, scoffing. [You’re a bitch. A sow.]

A twitch of anger ran through Osjack. [And how is that? Hm. We’re here because Jaus fuckin’ Avandaer–]

[Do you know what your life would have been before Jaus, Osjack? Do you know what your existence would have been without the bloodline of the High Seraph preserving what little dignity you have? You’d be a slave. A ruined, hollow husk that–and this is if you survived the slaughterhouse of your childhood–would get the job of slave-worker or miracle-fodder, then when the wars between the pantheons stalemated or one of the gods decided it wasn’t full enough and you lived out your best physical years, you’d get assigned to “production”. Partake in some of the worst-run eugenics operations in existence, and when all you have is spent, when there is nothing left of you to give, they take you to a pit, tell you about how your gods love you, and that your faith was all worth it, and then sacrifice you as you ascend to one of your Heavens–before you’re expended immediately because the brat of some priest wanted a night light and can’t be assed to light a candle. That’s Jaus’ “noble fucking genocide.” The only difference is that you’re free to bitch and whine and gripe and actually live now. But hey, fuck the Guilds, am I right? Release the people and let them decide their own fate.]

Abrel spat a phantasmal globule of scorn at Osjack–and everyone in the gestalt that judged her. [Our lives are ugly. I know they’re ugly. But I didn’t spend every minute of my life training so that we can all have a chance at a possible utopia to take this shit from someone who was barely more than a street snuffer. You want a look at how the old world was? Go look at the enclaves. We’re letting you live here. We’re keeping our boot away from your heads. These are mercies beyond any pantheon or Fallwalker in the wilds. But hey, I guess if you’re lucky enough to have a brother you can kill if you’re in need of a Frame, life can be pretty good.] She shifted closer and the flames manifesting Thenden flinched. [If. You. Weren’t. A. Bitch. Some of us actually want to help our blood. Even if they are half-strands.]

[F-f-fuck you,] Osjack whimpered, mind rattling as minor trauma cracked through his template.

[Yeah, yeah, fuck me,] Abrel said. [You know the funny thing–I’d swallow this shit if it was coming from the machine, and only the machine.] She gave Calvino a brief sign of acknowledgment. [At least his kind had the stars to fall from. The rest of you never amounted to anything at all. Still the same cattle that you’re ancestors were. You’re just choosing to drug yourselves these days.]

“Avo? You there?” Cas said, waving his transplanted limb over Avo’s face. “Your flames were getting pretty active. A lot more random strings and numbers are spilling out too–do you need to–”

“Fine,” Avo said. “Just having a conversation. Will share more ideas with you soon. Going to have a meeting with someone. The “Dice.” She could do with more options.”

Cas chuckled. “Throw her a nice bone and… maybe consider bringing her in. She seems like she’s unaffiliated. Got no one to turn to. Might just make a good operative with some training.”

The point behind Dice was to be a diversion. Bringing her in would defeat that purpose, but if she continued to perform as she did…

“We’ll see,” Avo said, turning to step through the glass.

As he passed through the other side, he saw the immense form of the Twice-Walker drifting alongside him in this liminal boundary, its presence a weight on his Domains of Space. After the upgrades he infused in Draus, its shape hadn’t changed much, but there was a hardness to its edges that wasn’t there before and only a single shard among all its wings glowed softly, indicating vulnerability.

There was still far more potential for elevation and growth. Draus continued to fight like a soldier, using the Twice-Walker to create opportunities more like a part of herself. Perhaps there would be a way for her to align her methods with the Heaven itself–synchronize the two deeper.

Emerging on the other side through a sheet of glass, Avo watched as his entry collapsed into a shard of glass that Draus promptly tossed into her personal passage for safekeeping. A rush of hot wind brushed over him as he realized he wasn’t in the Manta anymore, standing inside an absolutely destroyed joy den with multiple mangled bodies littering the floor. The lights above him flickered as more gunshots sounded from the rooms above. Phantoms continued to circle at the center of the room–an expensive and likely stolen locus-home entertainment system actively streaming Stormjumpers layering the room in a backdrop of artillery and gunfire.

“Please–please, no, no–” The voice upstairs cut off into an agonized scream as something shattered. There were two accretions past the ceiling. One vanished. The other was Draus. Tunneling through matter using one of his Zephyr’s heads, he found himself stepping back into realspace into a puddle of organs. The rest of the body jutted from pools of blood in diamond-like islands, the black carpets drinking in the stains.

Draus stood across from him next to a folded king-sized bed. Two sets of hands and bare feet poked out at the ceiling as red soaked the curve where the mattress was folded.

{T-t-that’s all, folks,} Calvino said, showing Avo snippets of the cartoon he was referencing.

The media voiders consumed was really quite strange.

Standing with her back against the wall next to the doorway, Draus filled one of her new weapons with glass rounds. “What took you so long?”

“Got to talking with Cas. Where are we?”

She cocked her head at all the corpses around him. “Asked Chambers for the mem-data ‘bout who you were sendin’ Dice after next. Figured the juv deserves a break.”

“And you haven’t killed anyone today.”

"And I ain’t killed nobody today.”

“Was it fun?”

“Just used the guns,” Draus said. “Honestly, not really. You gotta feed me some Glaives soon. Or let those monsters you’re growing out.”

“They’re not done.”

“Look plenty done to me.”

“Might have Elegant-Moon tweak them too. Ruveca can help. Or do you want to be impatient and test a half-finished product?”

She collapsed her helmet into her skin so he could better see her sneer. A stillness came over her as her halo spun, ghosts diving back into the accretion as data loaded through into her mind. “Alright. She’s here. Just entered the block. You wanna do this in person or what?”

“I’ll leave a construct. You make a passage with it. We’ll be inside. Talk to her that way. Make it secure for us as well. Should have more redundancies in place if unexpected happens.”

The Regular barked a soft laugh. “You really like this sneak-shit, don’t you? Fuckin’ Necros.”

“Can’t lose all of our old selves.”

His reply made her go silent. She paused. “Suppose not. Let’s get set up?”

“Yeah,” he said. “Let’s.”

***

“Where are you going now?”

The experienced squire studied the distant girl making her way into the worn-down cheap-fabbed tenement building. The walls outside were lined with mem-cons and holo-graffiti alike, both carrying the same message.

A burning and overturned street cleaner completed the mood outside.

+THIS IS WARHEAD TERRITORY, FUCKER! STAY OFF! STAY THE FUCK OFF!+

Warheads. Another peculiar little cliche among the degenerates of the Warrens. These ones were a cultural mash but found solace in a shared habit of heavy implants brought on by their body dysmorphia. Joining was simple–walk in the front door and ask them for a new skull. Afterward, they brought you to one of their grafters, and when you came out, you’d have a face capable of shooting missiles.

Neck supports were, unsurprisingly, a thing of both fashion and necessity for them.

Trailing Dice using a squadron of high-end stealth golems stolen from Omnitech and jocked by a few of her consangs that owed her favors, the squire watched as the girl moved through the crowds, avoiding unknown miracles and technologies she didn’t understand.

The waif was a bit of an ambush predator. She hated the light. She hated anywhere she couldn’t hide or was forced into a straight fight. The girl was fast as a souped-up nu-viper. It would be damn dicey to be anywhere near her when a fight started.

Especially since she had a Sangeist grafted inside her.

+Yo, Tavers,+ Mellow said, sounding like he was eating his namesake while piloting his machine. +Girl’s heading into the building and we got full overwatch. Need any of us trail her in, let us know.+

+Synced,+ Quail Tavers said, as she mentally inputted a few commands into her combat skin. +I’ll be heading in close again. One of you shoot a cast to White-Rab. I’ll wanna talk with him after–keep him on standby just in case too. Anything goes wrong, and he’s our Necro.+

Mellow huffed. +It’s bad business making the client your Necro. Burning imps, Tavers.+

+Ah. But we’re not here for that, are we?+

+Guess not. But still, imps are nice.+

+Don’t you worry your soft, sweet head, Mellow. You’ll get paid. Just keep your eyes open. I’m gonna spark my Incog now. Going solo. Hit my session if you got the need.+

+Synced. Have fun on safari.+