Arrow saw the flying hunk of concrete a second too late.
It smashed into him before he could disLocate, knocking him to the ground and crumbling into rubble over him. He spit blood and teeth into the dirt and disappeared.
He reappeared on the top of a Goshi barracks in order to get a better vantage point. It proved to be a bad move as the Sennin came rolling by at a steep arc, .50 caliber bullets ricocheting off her hull. The wind she displaced nearly blew him from the roof and white tendrils of dust popped up all around him where stray bullets and shrapnel hit the building. He rolled against a retaining wall for cover and tried to catch his breath.
Fuck. Fuck. Motherfuck. He cursed about the pain in his ribs, he cursed about several near scrapes. He cursed the obscene contradicting orders coming through the network.
"All units forward march," they said. Surely they didn't mean the Hei Shi, that would be idiotic.
"No, 10 divisions stay back to guard the camp. The rest forward march. Hei Shi engage the Gogajin force." That made no sense either. The Hei Shi are not trained for large scale military engagements. Ask them to assassinate some generals or something, but a vague "engage" order was asinine.
Nevertheless, Arrow knew better than to disobey an order. As long as he had a disLocator embedded in his spine Goshi command could send him wherever they wanted whenever they wanted. It wouldn't take long for them to realize that he was in the wrong place and then they'd bring him in for "discipline". So he clenched his fist and disLocated to the sky over the mob of Gogajin, picked a target and disLocated again.
He appeared on the Gogajin's back, psychic knife buried in the kidney. It mattered not. These fuckers were unstoppable. The Gogajin grabbed his arm, shattering the bones with her grip, and threw him like a wet rag under the hooves of another Gogajin in animal form, charging the machine gun emplacements. Arrow twisted so the hooves only dealt him a glancing blow, but they still knocked the wind right out of him.
Before he could move another brute was on top of him. He shoved his knife under the bastard's chin and blood came running out, but as fast as he drew life and energy out of his assailant it seemed to come right back. They were invincible, literally, invincible. All around him his fellow Hei Shi, and Goshi soldiers were having as little success as Arrow. The Gogajin grabbed his throat and crushed his windpipe before he disLocated again.
This time to the infirmary. Dizzy, stumbling and unable to breathe, he didn't even register his surroundings. Lights flashed. He heard shouts. He could tell the infirmary was busy, probably swamped with sudden injuries. His throat was bad, he knew. If he didn't get air soon...
He grabbed the nearest doctor, some girl in a white coat. She just fell over, arrows protruding from her back. Arrow sobbed, collapsing to his knees. Vision swimming he could feel the darkness reaching out to claim him.
A voice pulled him back from the abyss for a moment. A small voice. He turned to see a blood-drenched Zipsum standing in front of him. The Zipsum was not alone, they were all over the infirmary.
"I am Cuts-Through-Bone, and Karia has made me invincible!"
Arrow said nothing as the knives plunged through his skull.
Showing posts with label Goshi. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Goshi. Show all posts
When it Rains...
Black smoke billowed into the sky. The Behemoths continued their slow and steady march south, cutting and burning through the jungle like glaciers sliding over hot metal. The ground was scorched and smooth behind them, while copper towers spewed ash and smoke skyward. The noise was obnoxious, so Arrow scanned the mind of the Mechified sergeant in front of him who was busily shouting incomprehensible words.
Something in the sky.
Yes, Arrow thought he might have seen it too in the midst of all the charcoal clouds. He sent the message buzzing over the psychic network to his superiors. Not my business, he thought.
The reports arrived on Rain's desk before they were sent. Two or three scouts reported an unidentified flying object at high altitude, and scans from the Varan revealed it had to be an airship. Only one other airship it could possibly be, so she didn't waste any time double-checking the scout's reports. Her lieutenants stood around anxiously expecting some kind of attack order.
"Don't be idiots," she told them. "How many times do you have to have your asses handed to you before you learn to change tactics. If they want to look, let them look. It won't change their fate any. I mean for this to happen on a battlefield where lives are at stake. Make them choose between protecting the rebels, or coming after us. We have nothing to gain by inflicting stupid casualties on ourselves at this point."
She could tell that her lieutenants disagreed, but were equally relieved not to be the one tasked with going after the Sennin. Let them disagree. They know that I'm the only one here with enough brains to get this thing done. There were times when Rain wished she had Katashi Blade's facility for making people give unquestioning obedience, but what she couldn't accomplish with force of personality, she managed by obsessive planning. Every man and woman in her chain of command owed Rain a debt, or feared her with good cause. So even if the obedience came with questions, it came all the same.
She ordered the Varan to follow the Sennin so she'd have an idea of what her enemy knew about her army, but it wasn't long before word was sent back that the Sennin had been lost.
"They have a good pilot," was the lame excuse.
Whatever. Knowledge wouldn't win them the war. Not by a long shot.
For example, she knew that at best she'd be facing a force of 10 million or so untrained and poorly equipped rebels. An enormous army by any standard, but at her disposal she had the combined forces of the former Yogensha League, every militia and conscripted force Goshi had been able to assemble during their months of political dominance, and a great many more divisions hastily recruited, but well armed. Dragging along behind her like some bloated centipede she had over 56 million infantry. In two separate columns coming from Thalosh and Galata she could rely on another 23 million. She had enough vehicles to make a necklace for the planet, including almost 1/2 a million tanks, and a silly amount of artillery besides. Still fighting for her, she counted 114 Mecha, among them the best pilots surviving from Washi San Academy.
Even she felt like this was overkill. As conservative as she could be, as much as she liked to rig the odds in her favor... it was unreasonable to imagine any result but a massacre. In fact, some part of her dimly held out hope that the rebels would see her army arrayed before them and realize the futility of their position. Kiyoshi and Moses at least claimed to be reasonable people, and Daitokuji Ichirou had an overdeveloped sense of responsibility. Surely, they would be willing to give their lives rather than inflict certain death on countless refugees. Only lunatics would push this thing to its ultimate conclusion.
The other part of Rain, with a bit of sadness, told her that she was indeed dealing with lunatics.
Which is why she was not even content relying on her obscenely large army. Her deal with the Shadowfang had gone rather well. So far they had fed him three members of the Biomade Oversight Council in return for his cooperation. It was an exorbitant price to pay for the somewhat dicey prospect that he would succeed, but Rain considered it a worthwhile investment, even with the risk, whenever she imagined the potential chaos he could cause.
And while Shadowfang was a risky investment, she was growing more and more satisfied with herself for taking Drives-Like-Oni up on his suggestion to capture the Many Kicks Tribe. While it had incited the rest of the Zipsum tribes against Goshi, they were more of an annoyance than a real concern and since their aggression wasn't very discriminating, it was likely to cause just as much of a problem to the Rebels as to her. No, the rewards of having these captives were going to be substantial, if fleeting... the oxymoron made her giggle inwardly.
Giggle. That's odd. Rain had never been one to indulge in laughter much, but then she had never been one to bleed from the tear ducts as she had been doing from time to time lately. She'd been careful to limit her exposure to White Rock, but she could read the signs, and they made her more convicted to finish this business post-haste.
Wiping the drop of crimson from her cheek she looked up in time to see her newest adviser entering the tent. Toshiyaki Onyx, was his name. A member of the Biomade Oversight council who agreed to serve her rather than remain a prisoner. He'd been the source of a number of brilliant suggestions, and he had Rain's gift for keeping people off-balance. There was something about his eyes that set people on edge, and Rain liked the discomfort she sensed in her lieutenants whenever Onyx was around. Still, there was something about him that she didn't trust.
"Have you been working with Whiterock again, Onyx?" she asked, tossing the soiled tissue in the trash. He nodded, and she went on, "make sure you're thoroughly cleansed before coming to see me next time. That stuff is poison. You should stay away from it yourself."
"Of course, executor. I've only come to tell you that our experiments with the Zipsum have been very promising. You should get the results you're after."
"Good. Now let me attend to the annoying supply chain issues." The dismissal in her voice was firm and he immediately departed. As Onyx left she remembered why she didn't trust him. Toshiyaki Onyx had been one of the Biomade Oversight Council members that she fed to Shadowfang. No sooner had she realized this than she promptly forgot it again.
Something in the sky.
Yes, Arrow thought he might have seen it too in the midst of all the charcoal clouds. He sent the message buzzing over the psychic network to his superiors. Not my business, he thought.
The reports arrived on Rain's desk before they were sent. Two or three scouts reported an unidentified flying object at high altitude, and scans from the Varan revealed it had to be an airship. Only one other airship it could possibly be, so she didn't waste any time double-checking the scout's reports. Her lieutenants stood around anxiously expecting some kind of attack order.
"Don't be idiots," she told them. "How many times do you have to have your asses handed to you before you learn to change tactics. If they want to look, let them look. It won't change their fate any. I mean for this to happen on a battlefield where lives are at stake. Make them choose between protecting the rebels, or coming after us. We have nothing to gain by inflicting stupid casualties on ourselves at this point."
She could tell that her lieutenants disagreed, but were equally relieved not to be the one tasked with going after the Sennin. Let them disagree. They know that I'm the only one here with enough brains to get this thing done. There were times when Rain wished she had Katashi Blade's facility for making people give unquestioning obedience, but what she couldn't accomplish with force of personality, she managed by obsessive planning. Every man and woman in her chain of command owed Rain a debt, or feared her with good cause. So even if the obedience came with questions, it came all the same.
She ordered the Varan to follow the Sennin so she'd have an idea of what her enemy knew about her army, but it wasn't long before word was sent back that the Sennin had been lost.
"They have a good pilot," was the lame excuse.
Whatever. Knowledge wouldn't win them the war. Not by a long shot.
For example, she knew that at best she'd be facing a force of 10 million or so untrained and poorly equipped rebels. An enormous army by any standard, but at her disposal she had the combined forces of the former Yogensha League, every militia and conscripted force Goshi had been able to assemble during their months of political dominance, and a great many more divisions hastily recruited, but well armed. Dragging along behind her like some bloated centipede she had over 56 million infantry. In two separate columns coming from Thalosh and Galata she could rely on another 23 million. She had enough vehicles to make a necklace for the planet, including almost 1/2 a million tanks, and a silly amount of artillery besides. Still fighting for her, she counted 114 Mecha, among them the best pilots surviving from Washi San Academy.
Even she felt like this was overkill. As conservative as she could be, as much as she liked to rig the odds in her favor... it was unreasonable to imagine any result but a massacre. In fact, some part of her dimly held out hope that the rebels would see her army arrayed before them and realize the futility of their position. Kiyoshi and Moses at least claimed to be reasonable people, and Daitokuji Ichirou had an overdeveloped sense of responsibility. Surely, they would be willing to give their lives rather than inflict certain death on countless refugees. Only lunatics would push this thing to its ultimate conclusion.
The other part of Rain, with a bit of sadness, told her that she was indeed dealing with lunatics.
Which is why she was not even content relying on her obscenely large army. Her deal with the Shadowfang had gone rather well. So far they had fed him three members of the Biomade Oversight Council in return for his cooperation. It was an exorbitant price to pay for the somewhat dicey prospect that he would succeed, but Rain considered it a worthwhile investment, even with the risk, whenever she imagined the potential chaos he could cause.
And while Shadowfang was a risky investment, she was growing more and more satisfied with herself for taking Drives-Like-Oni up on his suggestion to capture the Many Kicks Tribe. While it had incited the rest of the Zipsum tribes against Goshi, they were more of an annoyance than a real concern and since their aggression wasn't very discriminating, it was likely to cause just as much of a problem to the Rebels as to her. No, the rewards of having these captives were going to be substantial, if fleeting... the oxymoron made her giggle inwardly.
Giggle. That's odd. Rain had never been one to indulge in laughter much, but then she had never been one to bleed from the tear ducts as she had been doing from time to time lately. She'd been careful to limit her exposure to White Rock, but she could read the signs, and they made her more convicted to finish this business post-haste.
Wiping the drop of crimson from her cheek she looked up in time to see her newest adviser entering the tent. Toshiyaki Onyx, was his name. A member of the Biomade Oversight council who agreed to serve her rather than remain a prisoner. He'd been the source of a number of brilliant suggestions, and he had Rain's gift for keeping people off-balance. There was something about his eyes that set people on edge, and Rain liked the discomfort she sensed in her lieutenants whenever Onyx was around. Still, there was something about him that she didn't trust.
"Have you been working with Whiterock again, Onyx?" she asked, tossing the soiled tissue in the trash. He nodded, and she went on, "make sure you're thoroughly cleansed before coming to see me next time. That stuff is poison. You should stay away from it yourself."
"Of course, executor. I've only come to tell you that our experiments with the Zipsum have been very promising. You should get the results you're after."
"Good. Now let me attend to the annoying supply chain issues." The dismissal in her voice was firm and he immediately departed. As Onyx left she remembered why she didn't trust him. Toshiyaki Onyx had been one of the Biomade Oversight Council members that she fed to Shadowfang. No sooner had she realized this than she promptly forgot it again.
Family Ties
A wisp of smoke is hard to see through jungle foliage in the middle of the night, on the night of the new moon.
Arrow teleported to a spot high enough in the sky that he would have time to get his bearings during the fall and choose a good spot in the canopy to disLocate into. It was quick. It was silent. He sent his thoughts through his earbud, I'm in, send the others. Seconds later the air was filling with his compatriots.
Timing, he reminded himself, would be crucial. Not speed. Timing. There was no way to be faster than a Zipsum, but you might catch them by surprise, if you were careful. Therefore, Arrow sat patiently, waiting for his compatriots to find similar perches in silence. They communicated by thought, avoiding even gestures that might rustle a tree branch and alert their sleeping quarry.
Patience and timing, were virtues Arrow prided himself on. They were his keys to survival. A Lieutenant in the Goshi army, a veteran Hei-Shi, and a survivor of no less than two encounters with the outlaws (once on the deck of the Rodan, and once at a flop house in Geneva Minor), Arrow made a habit of not getting himself killed - even when it seemed like Goshi command had it in for him, like tonight.
At his signal the first two units began disLocating into and out of Zipsum nests. Pink blades flickered to life sedating the sleeping Zipsum and their unconscious bodies were tossed into padded crates one on top of the other. Even as silent and as well coordinated as this effort was, it wasn't more than half a minute before the conclave began to stir, to awaken, and to realize they were under attack.
Now. Arrow sent the single word command out through the network.
In perfect unison the second two units of Hei-Shi deployed specially prepared gas bombs. They hissed to life all over the grotto as enraged Zipsum were drawing bows and grabbing wicked curved knives. The combination of steam and a neural destabilizer sent the Zipsum warriors into uncontrolled paroxysms as their bodies involuntarily began to shift forms and they lost all control of their extremities. While the blueish smoke wafted around trembling Zipsum bodies could be seen everywhere.
With the gas bombs deployed the rest of the Hei-Shi, including Arrow, leapt into action. It would be no use to try to contain the whole tribe. Some Zipsum had already escaped through underground burrows, or out small holes in the trees, or just by running really goddamn fast. But Arrow was pleasantly surprised by how many they had caught. Occasionally a conscious one would dive at him and he would happily bring a bluish blade into being on his fist and dispatch the maddened animal. His orders were to capture as many as possible, but he'd let his men know that they should defend themselves with lethal force. No playing games and getting injured.
While the rest of the Hei-Shi were fighting and gathering Zipsum bodies to be tossed into crates, Arrow looked around for the person that had been described to him. She would be painted in the colors of the tribe and wearing a chain of shrunken Cheldrun skulls. He found her tiny squirrel body quivering on the ground in a large hollowed out trunk of a Sygola Tree. Without hesitating he stepped on her hind legs with all his weight crushing them both, then he picked her up and brought her eyes level with his own. The pain in her legs made her lucid and as she looked at him her eyes narrowed in anger.
"Are you Living-Scarred-Heart, mother of High-Dive-Bludgeon?" He asked to be certain, according to his information she was the only one in the tribe who would probably understand Cheldrun.
She didn't reply but spit in his face, which he took as an affirmative. In response he squeezed until he felt a rib snap and walked back toward the rest of the Hei-Shi.
He tossed her into one of the crates that was nearly full, closed it and sealed it. Looking around, the work was almost done. Plenty had escaped, and one of his Hei-Shi had taken a poisoned blade in the neck, but otherwise it had gone according to plan.
The voice of Goshi Command came in over his earbud, Did you find them?
Yeah, he sent back, Tell Drives-Like-Oni that we got his whole motherfucking tribe.
Arrow teleported to a spot high enough in the sky that he would have time to get his bearings during the fall and choose a good spot in the canopy to disLocate into. It was quick. It was silent. He sent his thoughts through his earbud, I'm in, send the others. Seconds later the air was filling with his compatriots.
Timing, he reminded himself, would be crucial. Not speed. Timing. There was no way to be faster than a Zipsum, but you might catch them by surprise, if you were careful. Therefore, Arrow sat patiently, waiting for his compatriots to find similar perches in silence. They communicated by thought, avoiding even gestures that might rustle a tree branch and alert their sleeping quarry.
Patience and timing, were virtues Arrow prided himself on. They were his keys to survival. A Lieutenant in the Goshi army, a veteran Hei-Shi, and a survivor of no less than two encounters with the outlaws (once on the deck of the Rodan, and once at a flop house in Geneva Minor), Arrow made a habit of not getting himself killed - even when it seemed like Goshi command had it in for him, like tonight.
At his signal the first two units began disLocating into and out of Zipsum nests. Pink blades flickered to life sedating the sleeping Zipsum and their unconscious bodies were tossed into padded crates one on top of the other. Even as silent and as well coordinated as this effort was, it wasn't more than half a minute before the conclave began to stir, to awaken, and to realize they were under attack.
Now. Arrow sent the single word command out through the network.
In perfect unison the second two units of Hei-Shi deployed specially prepared gas bombs. They hissed to life all over the grotto as enraged Zipsum were drawing bows and grabbing wicked curved knives. The combination of steam and a neural destabilizer sent the Zipsum warriors into uncontrolled paroxysms as their bodies involuntarily began to shift forms and they lost all control of their extremities. While the blueish smoke wafted around trembling Zipsum bodies could be seen everywhere.
With the gas bombs deployed the rest of the Hei-Shi, including Arrow, leapt into action. It would be no use to try to contain the whole tribe. Some Zipsum had already escaped through underground burrows, or out small holes in the trees, or just by running really goddamn fast. But Arrow was pleasantly surprised by how many they had caught. Occasionally a conscious one would dive at him and he would happily bring a bluish blade into being on his fist and dispatch the maddened animal. His orders were to capture as many as possible, but he'd let his men know that they should defend themselves with lethal force. No playing games and getting injured.
While the rest of the Hei-Shi were fighting and gathering Zipsum bodies to be tossed into crates, Arrow looked around for the person that had been described to him. She would be painted in the colors of the tribe and wearing a chain of shrunken Cheldrun skulls. He found her tiny squirrel body quivering on the ground in a large hollowed out trunk of a Sygola Tree. Without hesitating he stepped on her hind legs with all his weight crushing them both, then he picked her up and brought her eyes level with his own. The pain in her legs made her lucid and as she looked at him her eyes narrowed in anger.
"Are you Living-Scarred-Heart, mother of High-Dive-Bludgeon?" He asked to be certain, according to his information she was the only one in the tribe who would probably understand Cheldrun.
She didn't reply but spit in his face, which he took as an affirmative. In response he squeezed until he felt a rib snap and walked back toward the rest of the Hei-Shi.
He tossed her into one of the crates that was nearly full, closed it and sealed it. Looking around, the work was almost done. Plenty had escaped, and one of his Hei-Shi had taken a poisoned blade in the neck, but otherwise it had gone according to plan.
The voice of Goshi Command came in over his earbud, Did you find them?
Yeah, he sent back, Tell Drives-Like-Oni that we got his whole motherfucking tribe.
Restoring Order
Rain was still silently berating herself for having failed to follow her own safety protocols. The moment Director Kiyoshi and Moses had arrived in Geneva Prime she had insisted that all executives and officers be accompanied at all times by a disLocator equipped bodyguard. The purpose of such measures was to ensure the survival of key personnel in the event of sudden catastrophic occurrences. Yet she of all people, had been the one to tell her bodyguard to wait outside the room, during the advisory board meeting.
At the time it had seemed like an appropriate action. Her guard at that hour did not have the necessary security clearances to be present in the meeting, and Moses had unleashed one massive attack on the city just 24 hours prior. It did not seem likely he would strike again, so soon. But by the time the warnings started coming in the building had already begun to tremble. Clouds of dust burst in through the open sides of the building, where the glass had been demolished by Nevergem shards. Coughing and sputtering she had stumbled for the door. She found her man just as the entire room lurched sickeningly to the side and something struck her in the forehead.
There was no point dwelling on mistakes, but Rain was not accustomed to such narrow scrapes with death. As she sat in her new office in Marina looking at a display counting off the number of Goshi employees reporting, those injured, those declared dead, and those still missing, she could not help but reflect on how close she had come to being in the column labeled 'deceased'. A shiver went down her spine. It was the only expression of emotion she allowed herself. From that point she returned to the business at hand.
Goshi losses had been staggering, no question. Even Rain was forced to swallow the bitter admission that she had been brutally defeated. By what she could not say. By some power beyond the rational.
Katashi Blade had understood what was happening. She was sure of that. She was also sure that he had somehow intended it, or planned it. Not, perhaps, the destruction of the Goshi Tower, but at least he had intended the conflict with Moses and friends. He had known what he was getting into and believed he could handle it.
Rain had no such illusions. She would not enter into situations she could not control and since Daitokuji Kiyoshi's new associates were uncontrollable she would not engage with them. Despite her brush with death she felt no resentment toward them. They were merely an obstacle to be avoided rather than overcome. Based on the principal of avoidance she had ordered a full withdrawal from Geneva Prime - an order that included her new airship, Varan. Giving that order was the first time in her life that she had directly contradicted the will of Katashi Blade. It was vaguely possible she had been indirectly responsible for his death, by abandoning him, but she did not think it likely. The words of Moses echoed through her mind, "I'm going to show you that there is something more powerful than Katashi Blade..." Yes. She had not always believed that to be the case, but it was undoubtedly the truth. She realized it the moment she gave the order to retreat and leave Blade to his fate.
With Blade now dead, she was effectively the new Executor. Executor of a defunct corporation without access to its source of income, or means of production, and with very little capital to speak of. What she did have at her disposal was an enormous military.
Prior to the upheaval Rain had already begun the process of decentralizing, as a precaution. She'd established these offices in Marina, a series of armories and supply depots along train lines, outside major cities, and several redundant command centers for deploying the Hei Shi. Though Goshi no longer meaningfully existed as a mining corporation, it was still the most powerful military force in the world, and with this military Rain intended to reestablish order.
Order, it seemed to her, was her purpose. She had been created with a gift for figures and logistics. Not a telepath, nor physically gifted like the Hei Shi, she had nevertheless earned a place for herself in this world by demonstrating repeatedly that she understood how to make things function. Blade had trusted her like he had never trusted anyone else. A choice, which ironically had turned out to be incorrect, but he had based that trust on her incomparable competence. If you wanted something done right, Rain was the person to ask.
And so she planned to wipe out the resistance in Stardown, not because she bore it any grudge, nor even because she had any loyalty to Goshi, but because the resistance, going back to the UMA a year ago, had been the source of disorder in her estimation. Cheldrun society would go back to a normal, functional, kind of existence if she could only excise the elements of disruption.
Yes. Surely that is how it will work.
At the time it had seemed like an appropriate action. Her guard at that hour did not have the necessary security clearances to be present in the meeting, and Moses had unleashed one massive attack on the city just 24 hours prior. It did not seem likely he would strike again, so soon. But by the time the warnings started coming in the building had already begun to tremble. Clouds of dust burst in through the open sides of the building, where the glass had been demolished by Nevergem shards. Coughing and sputtering she had stumbled for the door. She found her man just as the entire room lurched sickeningly to the side and something struck her in the forehead.
There was no point dwelling on mistakes, but Rain was not accustomed to such narrow scrapes with death. As she sat in her new office in Marina looking at a display counting off the number of Goshi employees reporting, those injured, those declared dead, and those still missing, she could not help but reflect on how close she had come to being in the column labeled 'deceased'. A shiver went down her spine. It was the only expression of emotion she allowed herself. From that point she returned to the business at hand.
Goshi losses had been staggering, no question. Even Rain was forced to swallow the bitter admission that she had been brutally defeated. By what she could not say. By some power beyond the rational.
Katashi Blade had understood what was happening. She was sure of that. She was also sure that he had somehow intended it, or planned it. Not, perhaps, the destruction of the Goshi Tower, but at least he had intended the conflict with Moses and friends. He had known what he was getting into and believed he could handle it.
Rain had no such illusions. She would not enter into situations she could not control and since Daitokuji Kiyoshi's new associates were uncontrollable she would not engage with them. Despite her brush with death she felt no resentment toward them. They were merely an obstacle to be avoided rather than overcome. Based on the principal of avoidance she had ordered a full withdrawal from Geneva Prime - an order that included her new airship, Varan. Giving that order was the first time in her life that she had directly contradicted the will of Katashi Blade. It was vaguely possible she had been indirectly responsible for his death, by abandoning him, but she did not think it likely. The words of Moses echoed through her mind, "I'm going to show you that there is something more powerful than Katashi Blade..." Yes. She had not always believed that to be the case, but it was undoubtedly the truth. She realized it the moment she gave the order to retreat and leave Blade to his fate.
With Blade now dead, she was effectively the new Executor. Executor of a defunct corporation without access to its source of income, or means of production, and with very little capital to speak of. What she did have at her disposal was an enormous military.
Prior to the upheaval Rain had already begun the process of decentralizing, as a precaution. She'd established these offices in Marina, a series of armories and supply depots along train lines, outside major cities, and several redundant command centers for deploying the Hei Shi. Though Goshi no longer meaningfully existed as a mining corporation, it was still the most powerful military force in the world, and with this military Rain intended to reestablish order.
Order, it seemed to her, was her purpose. She had been created with a gift for figures and logistics. Not a telepath, nor physically gifted like the Hei Shi, she had nevertheless earned a place for herself in this world by demonstrating repeatedly that she understood how to make things function. Blade had trusted her like he had never trusted anyone else. A choice, which ironically had turned out to be incorrect, but he had based that trust on her incomparable competence. If you wanted something done right, Rain was the person to ask.
And so she planned to wipe out the resistance in Stardown, not because she bore it any grudge, nor even because she had any loyalty to Goshi, but because the resistance, going back to the UMA a year ago, had been the source of disorder in her estimation. Cheldrun society would go back to a normal, functional, kind of existence if she could only excise the elements of disruption.
Yes. Surely that is how it will work.
Prelude to the End of Season Three
A league under the waves, where no sunlight reaches, the Sea-Dragon people known as Sasarrans flitted from luminescent coral apartments to begin their patrols of the surface. The sacred obligation must never be permitted to lapse, even for a moment, into lackadaisical disinterest. Eternal vigilance was required of their whole people to contain the demons who create in order to consume.
Ceralon, a proud matriarch of her people, was not headed to the surface with the others. She swam with strength and purpose deeper into the coral city, headed for the sacred sanctuary, where all the matriarchs would confer. The departing patrol was a delicate rainbow of fronds, fluttering up toward the sunlight. She watched them as they went, proud of their dedication.
Ahead of her the sanctuary entrance yawned - a cavernous opening in the coral leading through twisting passages into the vast heart of the city. It was too sacred a local for common warriors, outsiders or men to enter, but even matriarchs like Ceralon felt a quickening of the heart when approaching it.
The others would want to have her wisdom concerning the strangers who passed from the East a few days ago. She had spent her whole rest-cycle contemplating the matter. It remained perplexing to her that anyone would desire to go to the Emerald Isle who was not a servant of the demons. However, she would shock the matriarchs today by declaring what she believed to be truth - the strangers were genuine. Perhaps events beyond our horizons are underway, she thought. The idea gave her shivers.
Whatever the reality, she would ask the gathered matriarchs to pray for the success of those strangers. Pray for the end of all demons everywhere. Yes, that would be a good prayer.
***
They first named it Shadowfang in the logging camps south of Geneva Prime. In a day and age when teleportation is real, communication is fast. So it was no surprise to find that news of this mysterious killer made it to all the rural outposts and logging camps between Epsis Four and Ithica. It became popular among the easily frightened Mechified laborers to blame any unexplained death on the Shadowfang. Most foremen, just shook their heads and tried to dispel unhelpful superstitions. There were all sorts of things in the jungle that could kill a man.
What was more disturbing than all the reports was the fact that Shadowfang was real and on the move. It was notoriously hard to get any reliable sightings of the beast, but members of a secretive information brokerage out of Marina had been paid quite well to keep track of it. Even they didn't learn much, but they tracked a pattern of violent killings, some by Jevumm, some with Cheldrun weapons, that appeared to be moving along the edges of wilderness toward the north. At best guesstimate it was now somewhere in the vicinity of the Wreck of the Bosporus and still moving.
Goshi had no interest, when informed of the matter. Just another sighting of the Enemy, they alleged, and used it as an argument for beefing up security. But someone on the Biomade Oversight Council was quite convinced otherwise. It appears to be some kind of Karian-Cheldrun hybrid, he wrote in the memo. We should bring it in if we can and study it for interesting genetic properties...
***
"Good Bye, my beloved Moon."
Those had been his words, carried on the wind over countless kilometers. She sang them and re-sang them in her heart and every time it was a song of such sorrow that no one could hear it without weeping. The Grand Chantry, her choir, the prophecies, Karia itself, could dissolve and become nothing for all she cared. Her love, her Mokuzai, was gone and nothing else mattered.
From the balcony of the highest tower in the Grand Chantry she nightly composed songs of rage at the heavens. She waited for the Wandering Star to rise - late as it had been doing every night recently, an omen of doom. She waited and when it came she unleashed everything within her, calling all the power of the winds, all the vastness of the sky to her obedience, begging them to tear the Wandering Star down.
Once Twilight was sent by the Elders to fetch her down since her shrieking was causing such a disturbance that people below were being sent into a panic. Twilight was nearly blown over the edge by her rage and no one had made the mistake of disturbing her mourning from that moment.
The Wandering Star winked at her malevolently from its spot just above the horizon.
"You took my mate from me," she screamed back at it. "But I swear by the Dusk Sages, by Karia, by the primal foundations of music itself that I shall outlive you! I will live to see the day that you never rise again."
Her screams echoed over the forest and the effect was satisfying, but no amount of screaming would ever close the wound in her soul.
***
Ryuunosuke did not believe he could ever hate anyone more than he hated Lord Daitokuji Ichirou. And Kiyoshi. He hated Kiyoshi and Ichirou. And the stupid First Minds. Fucking First Minds and their fucking artifacts. He hated First Mind artifacts and he especially hated Kiyoshi and Ichirou when they used their First Mind artifacts. Fuck fuck fucking hate. Like really loathe...
There was no way to describe his fight with Ichirou without using the words utter and humiliation - two words that Ryuunosuke also hated (unless they were being applied to someone else). It would have been bad enough to die in that duel, but Ichirou had allowed nothing of the sort. He systematically dismantled Ryuunosuke, broke his Katana in seven pieces, and refused to accept his surrender until he had pissed himself in front of the whole Silver Phoenix clan while begging for mercy.
Ichirou still insisted that he would face justice for all the members of the Silver Phoenix clan he had killed, especially Kiyoshi, but he refused to say precisely when that would take place. Until then Ryuunosuke had been dragged along, shackled, behind the caravan as they headed overland toward the city of Stardown. Ryuunosuke only stopped brooding on his inchoate rage when he first glimpsed the enormous purple energy dome - and then only for a moment.
They reached the city a few nights ago, entering to fanfare and celebrations. Stardown had become the hub of the resistance to Goshi almost overnight with the creation of the dome. A feat supposedly accomplished by a giant talking lizard - which just proved that the world had gone mad. Lord Daitokuji Ichirou immediately became a general in the resistance and began lending his tactical advice. From time to time he would appear in his enormous silvery Mecha with purple veins of stone all over its surface to impress the citizens and drum up support for the resistance.
Ryuunosuke thought the whole thing was absurd. He hoped Goshi would sweep in here and destroy all of these clowns with a sweep of their hand. He hated purple domes, and giant lizards, and the resistance. He hated it all. Most especially himself.
***
The silhouette of the Geneva Prime skyline receded into the distance at a very slow rate. Every last man, woman and child in this troop was a kill on sight target. So Matthew knew they couldn't draw attention to themselves. Slow and steady, that was the way to go unnoticed. So that was the way they traveled.
Looking back over the ragtag group of 65 or so individuals that were all that remained of the Cheldrun Freedom Coalition, he couldn't help but be very proud. What they were doing was terribly risky, it is true, but since all of their hideouts in the city were ferreted out there really was no place for them to go back to. Hence, they'd agreed to Matthew's proposal that they strike out overland and try to get to Stardown to join the resistance.
Matthew had plenty of worries. He worried that he was an incompetent leader. He worried that he would get all of these men and women killed pointlessly, after he had persuaded many of them to take actions which made an accommodated life impossible. He worried, more simply, that he would get lost on the way to Stardown - geography was never his strong suit. Or that they would arrive too late and Goshi would already have crushed the uprising there.
But he couldn't let his worries distract him now. There were miles to cross. There were mouths to feed. There were Hei-shi to kill. This last part was by far the easiest.
***
Deep in the slums of Geneva Prime battles continued to rage, but the war had long ago been lost. For Cog, a broken shell of a young Mechified with his first adult-sized implant, the war would never end, which meant that he would just go on losing and losing. His whole life was confined to that moment in the alley next to his collapsed tenement, weeping over the body of his mother. He could never escape it, and so he spent his time trying to take vengeance on the Goshi soldiers who brought the tenement crashing down.
His vengeance was the frustrated pointless vengeance of the impotent. He committed vandalism, or threw garbage at soldiers when their backs were turned. Once in a while he was daring enough to shout curses before running away. On most days this would just be ignored, but apparently he'd picked the wrong soldiers to fling garbage at today. They chased him down into an alley and pinned him against a brick wall. One pulled out a military knife and the other joked about practicing cybernetic surgery.
Cog closed his eyes before the pain started. He gritted his teeth, trying not to scream, but it was futile when the knife dug into his arm. They laughed as his adolescent voice cracked when he shouted.
Then, suddenly, they were dead. Cog opened his eyes to see both men with wide eyes. A 3 meter length of rebar had gone through the ear of one and out the neck of the other. They collapsed and the pain in Cog's arm decreased.
He had heard of a hero lurking in the streets of the city. The Bronze God they called him. Cog looked to the end of the alley and saw a figure retreating around the corner. Could it be him?
***
Rumors suggested that one could see the whole of Karia from the top floor of the Goshi Tower. It wasn't true, but Katashi Blade had other ways of keeping tabs on things happening far away. It didn't stop him from peering out the panoramic windows up here in appreciation. Who can say what he saw, but whatever it was he could not have missed the landscape indelibly marked with his hand.
Behind him, Sever and Stitch shifted their weight back and forth uneasily. The Executor was prone to these long moments of silence and it was extremely unsettling. Eventually, Sever couldn't keep it in any longer.
"We really don't know where she is, Executor."
Silence.
"We've checked everywhere. We would have sworn she'd come to us at some point. Maybe she really did die when the Rodan sank."
Silence.
"Anyway, if she's incompetent or a traitor we'll deal with her in our customary way. Just because she's our sister don't me we love her..."
"much." Stitch added helpfully.
Blade made no motion to respond while the brothers kept on prattling in their own defense. Eventually, he cut them off.
"Aimi is most definitely alive, and if you two knew about it you couldn't hide it from me anyway. If you find her, bring her to me. Otherwise, leave me alone."
They both headed for the exit as fast as they could. On the way out Sever asked over his shoulder, "So we're good then?"
The Executor's look was icy, "You two aren't creative enough to betray me. Get out."
***
Far higher than Goshi Tower, from a porthole under the wing of Sennin, Julian looked at Karia Vitalus. From this distance it was a huge blue disk, filling most of his vision. Still, it meant that everything he had ever known was incomprehensibly tiny, overall. A disturbing realization.
He tried to express this to Tara, but he wasn't a very eloquent person, and it was difficult to stay on topic when she was quivering and balling like she was right now. Something about nearly everyone dying and space being a horrible dark place and there being too much blood for her to ever erase from her mind.
When she gets in these moods, she's not very uplifting, he thought.
It was true that the experience of the Rusty Nail Rogues in space had been less than glamorous, and more than a little harrowing. Even now, they drifted without power a short distance from the Wandering Star, hundreds of kilometers above the ground, when at any moment a terrifying Oni or thousands of mutated eyeless might pore out of the gaping crater Moses had created. Presumably Kiyoshi would turn the engines on soon and they would go home. At least Julian hoped so.
The planet is such a small place. I never want to see it like this again.
***
As for Karia herself? The words of the Dusk Sage kept rippling through her thoughts... there is no Peace.
Her fragile little self was wounded to the core by such a pronouncement. She felt the emptiness where her chosen soul should have been. She felt the edges unraveling and knew the horrible truth of the saying. There is no Peace.
She wanted to know the answer. Every blade of grass and pebble of sand quivered in anticipation of the climax of the cosmic drama, but once answered there would be no more mystery. Would the absence of mystery feel like the death of Mokuzai? Like a hole collapsing at the edges and dragging meaning and hope with it into the abyss?
There is no Peace. Karia did not like this answer at all. Not one little bit.
Ceralon, a proud matriarch of her people, was not headed to the surface with the others. She swam with strength and purpose deeper into the coral city, headed for the sacred sanctuary, where all the matriarchs would confer. The departing patrol was a delicate rainbow of fronds, fluttering up toward the sunlight. She watched them as they went, proud of their dedication.
Ahead of her the sanctuary entrance yawned - a cavernous opening in the coral leading through twisting passages into the vast heart of the city. It was too sacred a local for common warriors, outsiders or men to enter, but even matriarchs like Ceralon felt a quickening of the heart when approaching it.
The others would want to have her wisdom concerning the strangers who passed from the East a few days ago. She had spent her whole rest-cycle contemplating the matter. It remained perplexing to her that anyone would desire to go to the Emerald Isle who was not a servant of the demons. However, she would shock the matriarchs today by declaring what she believed to be truth - the strangers were genuine. Perhaps events beyond our horizons are underway, she thought. The idea gave her shivers.
Whatever the reality, she would ask the gathered matriarchs to pray for the success of those strangers. Pray for the end of all demons everywhere. Yes, that would be a good prayer.
***
They first named it Shadowfang in the logging camps south of Geneva Prime. In a day and age when teleportation is real, communication is fast. So it was no surprise to find that news of this mysterious killer made it to all the rural outposts and logging camps between Epsis Four and Ithica. It became popular among the easily frightened Mechified laborers to blame any unexplained death on the Shadowfang. Most foremen, just shook their heads and tried to dispel unhelpful superstitions. There were all sorts of things in the jungle that could kill a man.
What was more disturbing than all the reports was the fact that Shadowfang was real and on the move. It was notoriously hard to get any reliable sightings of the beast, but members of a secretive information brokerage out of Marina had been paid quite well to keep track of it. Even they didn't learn much, but they tracked a pattern of violent killings, some by Jevumm, some with Cheldrun weapons, that appeared to be moving along the edges of wilderness toward the north. At best guesstimate it was now somewhere in the vicinity of the Wreck of the Bosporus and still moving.
Goshi had no interest, when informed of the matter. Just another sighting of the Enemy, they alleged, and used it as an argument for beefing up security. But someone on the Biomade Oversight Council was quite convinced otherwise. It appears to be some kind of Karian-Cheldrun hybrid, he wrote in the memo. We should bring it in if we can and study it for interesting genetic properties...
***
"Good Bye, my beloved Moon."
Those had been his words, carried on the wind over countless kilometers. She sang them and re-sang them in her heart and every time it was a song of such sorrow that no one could hear it without weeping. The Grand Chantry, her choir, the prophecies, Karia itself, could dissolve and become nothing for all she cared. Her love, her Mokuzai, was gone and nothing else mattered.
From the balcony of the highest tower in the Grand Chantry she nightly composed songs of rage at the heavens. She waited for the Wandering Star to rise - late as it had been doing every night recently, an omen of doom. She waited and when it came she unleashed everything within her, calling all the power of the winds, all the vastness of the sky to her obedience, begging them to tear the Wandering Star down.
Once Twilight was sent by the Elders to fetch her down since her shrieking was causing such a disturbance that people below were being sent into a panic. Twilight was nearly blown over the edge by her rage and no one had made the mistake of disturbing her mourning from that moment.
The Wandering Star winked at her malevolently from its spot just above the horizon.
"You took my mate from me," she screamed back at it. "But I swear by the Dusk Sages, by Karia, by the primal foundations of music itself that I shall outlive you! I will live to see the day that you never rise again."
Her screams echoed over the forest and the effect was satisfying, but no amount of screaming would ever close the wound in her soul.
***
Ryuunosuke did not believe he could ever hate anyone more than he hated Lord Daitokuji Ichirou. And Kiyoshi. He hated Kiyoshi and Ichirou. And the stupid First Minds. Fucking First Minds and their fucking artifacts. He hated First Mind artifacts and he especially hated Kiyoshi and Ichirou when they used their First Mind artifacts. Fuck fuck fucking hate. Like really loathe...
There was no way to describe his fight with Ichirou without using the words utter and humiliation - two words that Ryuunosuke also hated (unless they were being applied to someone else). It would have been bad enough to die in that duel, but Ichirou had allowed nothing of the sort. He systematically dismantled Ryuunosuke, broke his Katana in seven pieces, and refused to accept his surrender until he had pissed himself in front of the whole Silver Phoenix clan while begging for mercy.
Ichirou still insisted that he would face justice for all the members of the Silver Phoenix clan he had killed, especially Kiyoshi, but he refused to say precisely when that would take place. Until then Ryuunosuke had been dragged along, shackled, behind the caravan as they headed overland toward the city of Stardown. Ryuunosuke only stopped brooding on his inchoate rage when he first glimpsed the enormous purple energy dome - and then only for a moment.
They reached the city a few nights ago, entering to fanfare and celebrations. Stardown had become the hub of the resistance to Goshi almost overnight with the creation of the dome. A feat supposedly accomplished by a giant talking lizard - which just proved that the world had gone mad. Lord Daitokuji Ichirou immediately became a general in the resistance and began lending his tactical advice. From time to time he would appear in his enormous silvery Mecha with purple veins of stone all over its surface to impress the citizens and drum up support for the resistance.
Ryuunosuke thought the whole thing was absurd. He hoped Goshi would sweep in here and destroy all of these clowns with a sweep of their hand. He hated purple domes, and giant lizards, and the resistance. He hated it all. Most especially himself.
***
The silhouette of the Geneva Prime skyline receded into the distance at a very slow rate. Every last man, woman and child in this troop was a kill on sight target. So Matthew knew they couldn't draw attention to themselves. Slow and steady, that was the way to go unnoticed. So that was the way they traveled.
Looking back over the ragtag group of 65 or so individuals that were all that remained of the Cheldrun Freedom Coalition, he couldn't help but be very proud. What they were doing was terribly risky, it is true, but since all of their hideouts in the city were ferreted out there really was no place for them to go back to. Hence, they'd agreed to Matthew's proposal that they strike out overland and try to get to Stardown to join the resistance.
Matthew had plenty of worries. He worried that he was an incompetent leader. He worried that he would get all of these men and women killed pointlessly, after he had persuaded many of them to take actions which made an accommodated life impossible. He worried, more simply, that he would get lost on the way to Stardown - geography was never his strong suit. Or that they would arrive too late and Goshi would already have crushed the uprising there.
But he couldn't let his worries distract him now. There were miles to cross. There were mouths to feed. There were Hei-shi to kill. This last part was by far the easiest.
***
Deep in the slums of Geneva Prime battles continued to rage, but the war had long ago been lost. For Cog, a broken shell of a young Mechified with his first adult-sized implant, the war would never end, which meant that he would just go on losing and losing. His whole life was confined to that moment in the alley next to his collapsed tenement, weeping over the body of his mother. He could never escape it, and so he spent his time trying to take vengeance on the Goshi soldiers who brought the tenement crashing down.
His vengeance was the frustrated pointless vengeance of the impotent. He committed vandalism, or threw garbage at soldiers when their backs were turned. Once in a while he was daring enough to shout curses before running away. On most days this would just be ignored, but apparently he'd picked the wrong soldiers to fling garbage at today. They chased him down into an alley and pinned him against a brick wall. One pulled out a military knife and the other joked about practicing cybernetic surgery.
Cog closed his eyes before the pain started. He gritted his teeth, trying not to scream, but it was futile when the knife dug into his arm. They laughed as his adolescent voice cracked when he shouted.
Then, suddenly, they were dead. Cog opened his eyes to see both men with wide eyes. A 3 meter length of rebar had gone through the ear of one and out the neck of the other. They collapsed and the pain in Cog's arm decreased.
He had heard of a hero lurking in the streets of the city. The Bronze God they called him. Cog looked to the end of the alley and saw a figure retreating around the corner. Could it be him?
***
Rumors suggested that one could see the whole of Karia from the top floor of the Goshi Tower. It wasn't true, but Katashi Blade had other ways of keeping tabs on things happening far away. It didn't stop him from peering out the panoramic windows up here in appreciation. Who can say what he saw, but whatever it was he could not have missed the landscape indelibly marked with his hand.
Behind him, Sever and Stitch shifted their weight back and forth uneasily. The Executor was prone to these long moments of silence and it was extremely unsettling. Eventually, Sever couldn't keep it in any longer.
"We really don't know where she is, Executor."
Silence.
"We've checked everywhere. We would have sworn she'd come to us at some point. Maybe she really did die when the Rodan sank."
Silence.
"Anyway, if she's incompetent or a traitor we'll deal with her in our customary way. Just because she's our sister don't me we love her..."
"much." Stitch added helpfully.
Blade made no motion to respond while the brothers kept on prattling in their own defense. Eventually, he cut them off.
"Aimi is most definitely alive, and if you two knew about it you couldn't hide it from me anyway. If you find her, bring her to me. Otherwise, leave me alone."
They both headed for the exit as fast as they could. On the way out Sever asked over his shoulder, "So we're good then?"
The Executor's look was icy, "You two aren't creative enough to betray me. Get out."
***
Far higher than Goshi Tower, from a porthole under the wing of Sennin, Julian looked at Karia Vitalus. From this distance it was a huge blue disk, filling most of his vision. Still, it meant that everything he had ever known was incomprehensibly tiny, overall. A disturbing realization.
He tried to express this to Tara, but he wasn't a very eloquent person, and it was difficult to stay on topic when she was quivering and balling like she was right now. Something about nearly everyone dying and space being a horrible dark place and there being too much blood for her to ever erase from her mind.
When she gets in these moods, she's not very uplifting, he thought.
It was true that the experience of the Rusty Nail Rogues in space had been less than glamorous, and more than a little harrowing. Even now, they drifted without power a short distance from the Wandering Star, hundreds of kilometers above the ground, when at any moment a terrifying Oni or thousands of mutated eyeless might pore out of the gaping crater Moses had created. Presumably Kiyoshi would turn the engines on soon and they would go home. At least Julian hoped so.
The planet is such a small place. I never want to see it like this again.
***
As for Karia herself? The words of the Dusk Sage kept rippling through her thoughts... there is no Peace.
Her fragile little self was wounded to the core by such a pronouncement. She felt the emptiness where her chosen soul should have been. She felt the edges unraveling and knew the horrible truth of the saying. There is no Peace.
She wanted to know the answer. Every blade of grass and pebble of sand quivered in anticipation of the climax of the cosmic drama, but once answered there would be no more mystery. Would the absence of mystery feel like the death of Mokuzai? Like a hole collapsing at the edges and dragging meaning and hope with it into the abyss?
There is no Peace. Karia did not like this answer at all. Not one little bit.
Director of Distribution and Security
Anyone else would have been complaining that they got more than they bargained for, but not Rain. In the space of two years she had ascended from a 2nd tier efficiency expert to Director of Distribution, assumed the role of Acting Director of Security when Hurricane had her accident, and then seen her employer become a world dominating power. Rain now sat in the driver's seat of a continent-spanning operation of such intricacy that it boggled the mind - and deep down, she was loving it.
It is true, working for the Executor has its drawbacks. He is a demanding man, and he never answers questions, but Rain is not really a curious girl. She is however, extraordinarily good at keeping hundreds of different factors in mind simultaneously and calculating the consequences. Though, Goshi's coup had not been bloodless, it was a far smoother affair than it would have been had anyone else been at the helm. With Blade's informants so well placed she had up to the minute information about the whereabouts and activities of every significant political leader, military commander and Mecha pilot on Karia - a state of affairs that made a rash of assassinations exceedingly easy.
Since then, her sole objective had been quelling dissent and keeping everyone outside the top three floors of the Goshi Tower completely confused. Hei-Shi regularly teleported into and out of public locations. Sometimes they were there for a purpose, sometimes they were there just to make observers wonder. In every city dissenters had to be regularly stirred up and eliminated in such a way that word got out, but no one saw or knew enough to tell the tale straight. The goal was to ensure that no one could be certain what Goshi's motives were. The daily ordinances delivered by public monitors were part of this as well. Every four to six days Rain made sure to put in ordinances that contradicted, in subtle ways, ordinances that had come before. A befuddled and fearful populace is an inactive one.
However, she knew better than to think these tricks would work perfectly forever. No one had been less surprised than her to learn that Stardown had found a way to mount an effective resistance - exclude the disLocators. Precisely how they'd done it remained a mystery to her, but she saw such attempts on the horizon and thus she'd already begun conscripting soldiers for a more traditional terrestrial army before it happened. It would be only a few days before her first regiments were ready to begin the march overland, and however well prepared Stardown might be by then, they could never hope to compete with the unlimited wealth of Goshi Corp.
In fact, she relished the upcoming battle. So long as she kept everyone else out of balance, Stardown was becoming a gravity well for resisters throughout Cheldrun society. Already, she'd been informed that the Silver Phoenix Clan, led by their insufferable patriarch Daitokuji Ichirou and his Mecha, had joined forces with the citizens of Stardown. Prominent members of the UMA were supposed to have made it through the energy dome which protected the region as well. If she waited just a little while longer, every person who was a threat to Goshi would be accumulated in one place. Most likely including Kiyoshi, Moses and friends, she thought, permitting herself a little smile. In one fell swoop she could end the war and secure Goshi dominance for a long time to come.
The key to the whole situation would be waiting just long enough...
It is true, working for the Executor has its drawbacks. He is a demanding man, and he never answers questions, but Rain is not really a curious girl. She is however, extraordinarily good at keeping hundreds of different factors in mind simultaneously and calculating the consequences. Though, Goshi's coup had not been bloodless, it was a far smoother affair than it would have been had anyone else been at the helm. With Blade's informants so well placed she had up to the minute information about the whereabouts and activities of every significant political leader, military commander and Mecha pilot on Karia - a state of affairs that made a rash of assassinations exceedingly easy.
Since then, her sole objective had been quelling dissent and keeping everyone outside the top three floors of the Goshi Tower completely confused. Hei-Shi regularly teleported into and out of public locations. Sometimes they were there for a purpose, sometimes they were there just to make observers wonder. In every city dissenters had to be regularly stirred up and eliminated in such a way that word got out, but no one saw or knew enough to tell the tale straight. The goal was to ensure that no one could be certain what Goshi's motives were. The daily ordinances delivered by public monitors were part of this as well. Every four to six days Rain made sure to put in ordinances that contradicted, in subtle ways, ordinances that had come before. A befuddled and fearful populace is an inactive one.
However, she knew better than to think these tricks would work perfectly forever. No one had been less surprised than her to learn that Stardown had found a way to mount an effective resistance - exclude the disLocators. Precisely how they'd done it remained a mystery to her, but she saw such attempts on the horizon and thus she'd already begun conscripting soldiers for a more traditional terrestrial army before it happened. It would be only a few days before her first regiments were ready to begin the march overland, and however well prepared Stardown might be by then, they could never hope to compete with the unlimited wealth of Goshi Corp.
In fact, she relished the upcoming battle. So long as she kept everyone else out of balance, Stardown was becoming a gravity well for resisters throughout Cheldrun society. Already, she'd been informed that the Silver Phoenix Clan, led by their insufferable patriarch Daitokuji Ichirou and his Mecha, had joined forces with the citizens of Stardown. Prominent members of the UMA were supposed to have made it through the energy dome which protected the region as well. If she waited just a little while longer, every person who was a threat to Goshi would be accumulated in one place. Most likely including Kiyoshi, Moses and friends, she thought, permitting herself a little smile. In one fell swoop she could end the war and secure Goshi dominance for a long time to come.
The key to the whole situation would be waiting just long enough...
Director of Research and Development
White Fog.
Latex gloves peel away and drop into the stainless steel sink. The tap water rinses streams of crimson blood down the drain. Dr. Omura grabs a wire brush and begins to scrape his hands clean. In the past he had never been squeamish about blood, but recently he'd begun to feel that the blood from these autopsies was unnaturally unclean. It was irrational, but all compulsions are irrational.
Four Hei-Shi bodies lay on tables in the room, their chest cavities opened for inspection. The death toll had been phenomenal lately. So much so that most Hei-Shi were nothing of the sort - just your average Biomade athletes crammed into cobalt body armor and given a bare minimum of training. It was embarrassing really, but even Goshi couldn't conjure more soldiers out of thin air.
The deaths were not all combat related. Many were coming back with strange growths like the ones Hurricane had displayed. Others simply had their eyes boil out of their sockets and become mindless killing machines. All of them, even ones who were dissected like the ones on his table, seemed to end up that way eventually - death being no obstacle to the eyeless monstrosities Silex Niveus seemed to create. The solution, for now, was to disLocate the dead and the walking dead to coordinates relayed from Katashi Blade. The coordinates changed daily and no one knew where Blade was getting the information, but they were somewhere in orbit around Karia...
White Fog.
Yes, in orbit. Dr. Omura couldn't believe it himself, but apparently the Executor had gained access to or had knowledge of a spaceship. It went against everything the Cheldrun had sworn as a people since the end of the Flight. There was to be no more space travel. No more tinkering in the pandora's box that once created an empire, but also resulted in that empire's destruction. The only safety from the Enemy was cowering here on this distant planet, landbound and quiet enough not to draw attention...
Dr. Omura scrubbed until the flesh of his hands was inflamed and sore. The astringent soap burned, but it was better than leaving any speck of corrupted blood on his skin.
Of course, it was completely foolish to pretend that the Enemy was just a vague threat from the past any longer. He frequently tried, but he could not deny the evidence of his eyes. The Hei-Shi were transforming into demon-spawn. There was no other word for it. And the demons? They had appeared at least twice, already. Once right here in Geneva Prime about nine months ago. It had exploded killing millions of people. The second time was in Omexon just over two months hence - a vast figure that melted structures and incinerated crowds.
No one was trying to hide this fact. Goshi had been using it to their advantage, actually. Daily bulletins announced the threat of the Enemy and the absolute need for compliance. For most Cheldrun the fear of the Enemy was so instinctual, so overwhelming, that even ancient opponents of Geneva Prime had willingly offered Goshi all their military support to protect Karia.
Nothing made Dr. Omura more ill than knowing that in a small way he was contributing to the eventual annihilation of his species. Every new disLocator installed was another demon-spawn unleashed. Goshi was not protecting the Cheldrun. On the contrary, Goshi was laying the continent bare for an invasion of horrific proportions.
Thinking these thoughts were bound to shorten his lifespan, but Dr. Omura was prepared to bet large sums of money that dying at the hands of an assassin would be infinitely preferable to anything the Enemy would do to him. Indeed, he no longer made any pretenses in front of anyone but Katashi Blade, that he had any confidence in the White Rock Project. In fact, Blade himself could not be under the illusion that his director of Research and Development was a loyal puppy... what could this game be about?
Drying his hands, Dr. Omura brushed his last few hairs across his bald head. He walked across the room to an acrylic panel pulsating with psychic energy and entered in today's coordinates. The Hei-Shi bodies disappeared in a whirl of smoke, gone to some distant spot beyond the atmosphere.
Now why did I do that? I had no intention of sending them away this time. I was going to... White fog.
What was I thinking?
Oh yes, how on earth does Blade keep getting me to do his foul work for him? I want no part of...
...
...
...
White fog.
The door opened and a young lab technician came inside, "Dr. Omura the next batch of autopsies is about to arrive. The Executor sent word that he wants you to inspect this group personally again, because the data you glean is of such excellent quality."
Huh? Had he agreed to do more autopsies? ... "Oh, yes of course. Send them in."
Latex gloves peel away and drop into the stainless steel sink. The tap water rinses streams of crimson blood down the drain. Dr. Omura grabs a wire brush and begins to scrape his hands clean. In the past he had never been squeamish about blood, but recently he'd begun to feel that the blood from these autopsies was unnaturally unclean. It was irrational, but all compulsions are irrational.
Four Hei-Shi bodies lay on tables in the room, their chest cavities opened for inspection. The death toll had been phenomenal lately. So much so that most Hei-Shi were nothing of the sort - just your average Biomade athletes crammed into cobalt body armor and given a bare minimum of training. It was embarrassing really, but even Goshi couldn't conjure more soldiers out of thin air.
The deaths were not all combat related. Many were coming back with strange growths like the ones Hurricane had displayed. Others simply had their eyes boil out of their sockets and become mindless killing machines. All of them, even ones who were dissected like the ones on his table, seemed to end up that way eventually - death being no obstacle to the eyeless monstrosities Silex Niveus seemed to create. The solution, for now, was to disLocate the dead and the walking dead to coordinates relayed from Katashi Blade. The coordinates changed daily and no one knew where Blade was getting the information, but they were somewhere in orbit around Karia...
White Fog.
Yes, in orbit. Dr. Omura couldn't believe it himself, but apparently the Executor had gained access to or had knowledge of a spaceship. It went against everything the Cheldrun had sworn as a people since the end of the Flight. There was to be no more space travel. No more tinkering in the pandora's box that once created an empire, but also resulted in that empire's destruction. The only safety from the Enemy was cowering here on this distant planet, landbound and quiet enough not to draw attention...
Dr. Omura scrubbed until the flesh of his hands was inflamed and sore. The astringent soap burned, but it was better than leaving any speck of corrupted blood on his skin.
Of course, it was completely foolish to pretend that the Enemy was just a vague threat from the past any longer. He frequently tried, but he could not deny the evidence of his eyes. The Hei-Shi were transforming into demon-spawn. There was no other word for it. And the demons? They had appeared at least twice, already. Once right here in Geneva Prime about nine months ago. It had exploded killing millions of people. The second time was in Omexon just over two months hence - a vast figure that melted structures and incinerated crowds.
No one was trying to hide this fact. Goshi had been using it to their advantage, actually. Daily bulletins announced the threat of the Enemy and the absolute need for compliance. For most Cheldrun the fear of the Enemy was so instinctual, so overwhelming, that even ancient opponents of Geneva Prime had willingly offered Goshi all their military support to protect Karia.
Nothing made Dr. Omura more ill than knowing that in a small way he was contributing to the eventual annihilation of his species. Every new disLocator installed was another demon-spawn unleashed. Goshi was not protecting the Cheldrun. On the contrary, Goshi was laying the continent bare for an invasion of horrific proportions.
Thinking these thoughts were bound to shorten his lifespan, but Dr. Omura was prepared to bet large sums of money that dying at the hands of an assassin would be infinitely preferable to anything the Enemy would do to him. Indeed, he no longer made any pretenses in front of anyone but Katashi Blade, that he had any confidence in the White Rock Project. In fact, Blade himself could not be under the illusion that his director of Research and Development was a loyal puppy... what could this game be about?
Drying his hands, Dr. Omura brushed his last few hairs across his bald head. He walked across the room to an acrylic panel pulsating with psychic energy and entered in today's coordinates. The Hei-Shi bodies disappeared in a whirl of smoke, gone to some distant spot beyond the atmosphere.
Now why did I do that? I had no intention of sending them away this time. I was going to... White fog.
What was I thinking?
Oh yes, how on earth does Blade keep getting me to do his foul work for him? I want no part of...
...
...
...
White fog.
The door opened and a young lab technician came inside, "Dr. Omura the next batch of autopsies is about to arrive. The Executor sent word that he wants you to inspect this group personally again, because the data you glean is of such excellent quality."
Huh? Had he agreed to do more autopsies? ... "Oh, yes of course. Send them in."
Director of Operations
Ara Satoshi, Vice President of Operations for Goshi Corporation, placed a Dreamtab under his tongue, leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes. It was the newest thing, his people assured him. Made from Sikolo Powder, but much more refined. More the sort of thing someone in his position could indulge in without looking like a drug fiend.
A few months ago he would never have considered something like this, but working with that woman Rain and the inscrutable Executor could drive anyone to self-destruction. Once or twice he'd considered suicide, but that filthy little Zipsum (Tricks? oh who cares) had suggested Sikolo powder and he thought... why not?
Frequently in the afternoons he could be found just like he was now. Leaning back in his plush office chair, eyes closed, away in another world.
It made no sense. Well, of course it didn't make sense while he was on a Dreamtab. But even sober... what the hell was Blade thinking? When Satoshi first heard the plans for the war he was one hundred percent on board. Okay, first he'd been miffed that everyone else in the company seemed to know about it before him - and how on Karia had Blade kept it a secret for so long? The whole damn operation was so complicated that it must have been almost a decade in the making. All over the continent there were agents and double agents, bribed officials, plants, moles, spies and what have you. None of them knew anything more than their part of the operation. Hell, none of them knew about the damn operation. They thought they were working for Blade on private matters and then boom - Goshi owns the world.
So when Satoshi found out that a war was coming in a month or two he was both shocked and excited. This would mean Goshi control of the chain of distribution and the elimination of competition. He immediately assumed that Goshi would take over the other Blackrock mines including the two largest ones in Ithica and Thalosh. Satoshi had expected his department to triple or even quadruple in size, something he welcomed with glee.
Blade had let him think that, too. Never once had the Executor given a hint that Goshi wasn't interested in the other mines. Why the fuck not? We are a mining corporation are we not?
Whoa... even with his eyes closed Ara Satoshi was getting dizzy. Thinking too fast on Dreamtab is a bad idea. Breathe you fat sonofabitch, breathe. Schools of neon koy were swimming across his dreamscape. Their tales swished leaving trails of rainbow light. He was so entranced he did not hear the ventilation duct above his head being slowly unscrewed and removed.
Heh heh. Satoshi started to chuckle. A deep belly chuckle. The look on Rain's face, like a puckery fish, when she heard about the "disturbance" in Stardown. Ah, he would pay a lot of money to have a giant photograph of that face on his office wall.
Two days ago, for no apparent reason, the disLocators had just stopped working in the vicinity of Stardown. Pop. One minute they worked, the next, nada. Teleportation had only existed for about a year, no more, but to hear the cursing coming from every office in the Goshi Tower you'd think it was a First Mind given right to be able to plant 1,000 Hei-Shi up anyone's ass from 500 kilometers at a moment's notice. "How dare they..." "Are they stupid? They know that Katashi Blade will eat them alive..." "How could they possibly..."
Frankly, Satoshi mused, it was probably time for some kind of hiccup. It isn't good karma for everything to go too smoothly.
Two lithe bodies dropped silently out of the ventilation shaft behind Ara Satoshi, and crept closer to the director's chair.
Blade would no doubt respond quite harshly - it almost made Satoshi feel a twinge of empathy for the citizens of Stardown, but it was hard to feel anything but impish delight on Dreamtab. The soonest an army could be mustered and marched overland to Stardown would be a week or more away, though. In the meantime, anyone with a reason to hate Goshi would be making their way to the city hoping to muster a resistance. It was likely to be entertaining, even though it would end badly for the resisters, one way or another.
His chair suddenly wheeled around and his eyes snapped open. The room twisted in disgusting ways, making it hard for him to see, but he could identify two youngish figures before him.
"Good afternoon director," the one on the right said to him, when he grinned he had absolutely enormous choppers - like a cow or something.
"Hello, to you as well. I'm having a private moment if you don't mind," he said amiably.
The same one responded, "So sorry to interrupt, but we had an appointment."
Satoshi didn't remember making any appointments for today. In his head his calendar just looked like a random collection of purple dots. Completely unintelligible. "Nope, no appointments in the afternoons," he leaned forward with his best serious look, "It's my Dreamtab time." Oops. Shouldn't have said that.
The weird wavy looking figures gave each other a look then the talkative one said, "We know. That's why Blade told us to tell you that 'you should be grateful Sikolo Powder is a good anaesthetic.'"
Suddenly, or he supposed it was suddenly, but everything appeared to be happening in very slow motion, the one who did the speaking drew a line in the air with his finger, which was a childish sort of thing to do, except it caused his stomach to split open like a grapefruit. Rainbow colored confetti poured out.
"Would you look at that?" he mused, reaching down and picking up handfuls of confetti.
The other figure, the one on the left, made some funny gestures and slithering blue serpents rose up out of the mess, hissing in his face, and coiling themselves slowly around his neck. A tad uncomfortable, he thought. The coils wound tighter and tighter and a distant part of his mind nonchalantly informed him that it was probably going to kill him.
Oh. Good.
The junior undersecretary who found him in his chair two hours later was put on medical leave due to 'mental trauma'. She committed suicide shortly thereafter.
A few months ago he would never have considered something like this, but working with that woman Rain and the inscrutable Executor could drive anyone to self-destruction. Once or twice he'd considered suicide, but that filthy little Zipsum (Tricks? oh who cares) had suggested Sikolo powder and he thought... why not?
Frequently in the afternoons he could be found just like he was now. Leaning back in his plush office chair, eyes closed, away in another world.
It made no sense. Well, of course it didn't make sense while he was on a Dreamtab. But even sober... what the hell was Blade thinking? When Satoshi first heard the plans for the war he was one hundred percent on board. Okay, first he'd been miffed that everyone else in the company seemed to know about it before him - and how on Karia had Blade kept it a secret for so long? The whole damn operation was so complicated that it must have been almost a decade in the making. All over the continent there were agents and double agents, bribed officials, plants, moles, spies and what have you. None of them knew anything more than their part of the operation. Hell, none of them knew about the damn operation. They thought they were working for Blade on private matters and then boom - Goshi owns the world.
So when Satoshi found out that a war was coming in a month or two he was both shocked and excited. This would mean Goshi control of the chain of distribution and the elimination of competition. He immediately assumed that Goshi would take over the other Blackrock mines including the two largest ones in Ithica and Thalosh. Satoshi had expected his department to triple or even quadruple in size, something he welcomed with glee.
Blade had let him think that, too. Never once had the Executor given a hint that Goshi wasn't interested in the other mines. Why the fuck not? We are a mining corporation are we not?
Whoa... even with his eyes closed Ara Satoshi was getting dizzy. Thinking too fast on Dreamtab is a bad idea. Breathe you fat sonofabitch, breathe. Schools of neon koy were swimming across his dreamscape. Their tales swished leaving trails of rainbow light. He was so entranced he did not hear the ventilation duct above his head being slowly unscrewed and removed.
Heh heh. Satoshi started to chuckle. A deep belly chuckle. The look on Rain's face, like a puckery fish, when she heard about the "disturbance" in Stardown. Ah, he would pay a lot of money to have a giant photograph of that face on his office wall.
Two days ago, for no apparent reason, the disLocators had just stopped working in the vicinity of Stardown. Pop. One minute they worked, the next, nada. Teleportation had only existed for about a year, no more, but to hear the cursing coming from every office in the Goshi Tower you'd think it was a First Mind given right to be able to plant 1,000 Hei-Shi up anyone's ass from 500 kilometers at a moment's notice. "How dare they..." "Are they stupid? They know that Katashi Blade will eat them alive..." "How could they possibly..."
Frankly, Satoshi mused, it was probably time for some kind of hiccup. It isn't good karma for everything to go too smoothly.
Two lithe bodies dropped silently out of the ventilation shaft behind Ara Satoshi, and crept closer to the director's chair.
Blade would no doubt respond quite harshly - it almost made Satoshi feel a twinge of empathy for the citizens of Stardown, but it was hard to feel anything but impish delight on Dreamtab. The soonest an army could be mustered and marched overland to Stardown would be a week or more away, though. In the meantime, anyone with a reason to hate Goshi would be making their way to the city hoping to muster a resistance. It was likely to be entertaining, even though it would end badly for the resisters, one way or another.
His chair suddenly wheeled around and his eyes snapped open. The room twisted in disgusting ways, making it hard for him to see, but he could identify two youngish figures before him.
"Good afternoon director," the one on the right said to him, when he grinned he had absolutely enormous choppers - like a cow or something.
"Hello, to you as well. I'm having a private moment if you don't mind," he said amiably.
The same one responded, "So sorry to interrupt, but we had an appointment."
Satoshi didn't remember making any appointments for today. In his head his calendar just looked like a random collection of purple dots. Completely unintelligible. "Nope, no appointments in the afternoons," he leaned forward with his best serious look, "It's my Dreamtab time." Oops. Shouldn't have said that.
The weird wavy looking figures gave each other a look then the talkative one said, "We know. That's why Blade told us to tell you that 'you should be grateful Sikolo Powder is a good anaesthetic.'"
Suddenly, or he supposed it was suddenly, but everything appeared to be happening in very slow motion, the one who did the speaking drew a line in the air with his finger, which was a childish sort of thing to do, except it caused his stomach to split open like a grapefruit. Rainbow colored confetti poured out.
"Would you look at that?" he mused, reaching down and picking up handfuls of confetti.
The other figure, the one on the left, made some funny gestures and slithering blue serpents rose up out of the mess, hissing in his face, and coiling themselves slowly around his neck. A tad uncomfortable, he thought. The coils wound tighter and tighter and a distant part of his mind nonchalantly informed him that it was probably going to kill him.
Oh. Good.
The junior undersecretary who found him in his chair two hours later was put on medical leave due to 'mental trauma'. She committed suicide shortly thereafter.
Two Months Later
Tomohiro stood with a crowd, necks bent, looking up at a massive screen, reading the daily ledger of new ordinances being handed down from Geneva Prime. It was difficult to believe that life could change so dramatically in just two months. There were some who refused to accept the change, certainly, but the vast majority, like Tomohiro, rather meekly adapted to the new circumstances. It was uncomfortable, but better than the alternative.
What was most shocking for Tomohiro is that he had been a man of influence two months hence. As part of the city council here in Stardown, he had made a life of politics. Along with others he foresaw the Goshi build-up. He knew about Geneva Prime aggression and had predicted the conflict with the Yogensha League. Unlike some of his peers he had even suspected Geneva Prime would eventually win, but Tomohiro had never imagined it would be so sudden and overwhelming. Even with the ability to deploy soldiers anywhere instantaneously... the planning had been masterful.
The first stroke was the annihilation of the Yogensha League leadership in Omexon. The news of the summit disaster had hardly had time to reach Stardown however, before the battle was engaged on every front simultaneously. Katashi Blade must have been planning this for years. In every city, on every council, and the boards of every major corporation, there were men and women ready to defect. They handed over sensitive security details, the names and locations of military leaders. Hei-Shi teleported in and out suddenly and disastrously leaving blood in their wake. For two weeks every day there was a constant rash of assassinations. Before anyone could blink the heirarchy of Cheldrun society, every city-state on the continent, was in a shambles.
Then came the offers. From every Goshi branch office, in every city, there were offers of financial assistance and security to those who would assist in re-establishing order. Tomohiro could have had a place in the new bureaucracy, but he moved too slowly. Stunned by the sudden change of affairs he had hesitated and a co-worker had gotten a promotion by fingering him as a resister. It was a lie, and the Goshi interrogator assigned to his case quickly realized it, but it was too late for him to ingratiate himself and earn a good job. Like the rest of the populace he was left on the outside looking in.
Tomohiro was too meek to do anything, but there were those who attempted to resist Goshi. At first the Mecha Academies had been unsure how to respond. Technically their allegiances were to particular city-states and since this aggression came from a trans-national corporation they hesitated. Everyone agreed that Geneva Prime was somehow responsible, but this was not precisely like a normal war between armies. Most battles were occurring between the private corporate police of Goshi and the private security of local dignitaries. Eventually, accusations were leveled by the academies of Omexon and Matamos against Geneva Prime and to the shock of everyone and no one, Washi-San Academy announced the abolition of historic political arrangements, declaring Goshi Corp the effective Pan-Cheldrun Governing Body to whom all Mecha Pilots owed allegiance. Any Academy wishing to deny this was invited to attend a tournament in which Washi-San pilots would take on all comers in honorable duels to establish the new government.
Needless to say the tournament did not go well for those holding out hopes that someone would mount an effective challenge to Goshi. Washi-San dominated everyone who attended in uncharacteristically bloody fashion. Three Mecha were outright destroyed and six pilots were killed, including the pilots of the destroyed Mecha. Though many had watched with intense interest to see if the disgraced patriarch of the Silver Phoenix Clan would make a showing at the event, he refused to participate in what he called 'public group masturbation', earning outlaw status for himself, his sister and his family, and they have not been heard from since.
Other pockets of resistance popped up among the cells of the Underground Mechified Army that had been spreading ever since the events in the mines in Geneva Prime last year. Most of these were quickly and almost flippantly put down by Goshi. A few were simply ignored as being insignificant, but one or two cells - one in Geneva Prime itself and reputedly run by a mysterious figure known as The Bronze God - had troubled the smooth imposition of corporate rule.
These cells functioned to disrupt things just enough that the iron fist kept a tight grip on the rest of the populace. Everyday crowds would stand, as Tomohiro was doing now, and watch the screens to see the list of new ordinances being announced. Everyday the list of prohibited behaviors grew, and enforcement was instantaneous and without appeal. Stories of Hei-Shi teleporting into the homes of average civilians and murdering a resident before departing just as suddenly were spreading. Many such tales were false, but no one was cynical enough not to believe that at least some of these horror stories were real.
And though the horrors mounted daily and even illiterate Mechified in taverns were wondering aloud what Katashi Blade could possibly be after, there were darker shadows still that stalked the land. Rumors were being whispered and telepaths were gleaning frightening images from shattered minds. Goshi soldiers without eyes. Cobalt blue body armor with horrible appendages growing from beneath the plating. Burning runes and rumbling voices announcing inevitable despair... the Enemy are here.
Tomohiro scanned the list and realized that nothing would significantly affect his plans for the day. Yesterday he had arranged a tryst with his lover, but when he arrived he found only a note left behind explaining that she had been conscripted. Goshi's forces grew in number daily and it was becoming important to learn to avoid press gangs in addition to the Hei-Shi. What the army could be for, since Goshi already controlled every city on the continent, Tomohiro did not know. What mattered is that his last joy in this life had been taken from him.
Turning away from the screen he hurried along with the crowd, ducking down a side alleyway. At the other end he saw three other civilians whispering among themselves. They saw him and nodded. He reached into an alcove and pulled out a sack full of homemade pipebombs, waiting for the signal. When he heard a sudden burst of gunfire and screaming as the crowd in the street became a riotous mob, he didn't bother waiting any longer. He ran out into the boulevard, heaving bombs toward a rank of bullet-spitters to the North, shouting incomprehensible syllables. When the rounds tore through his torso it was a tremendous relief.
What was most shocking for Tomohiro is that he had been a man of influence two months hence. As part of the city council here in Stardown, he had made a life of politics. Along with others he foresaw the Goshi build-up. He knew about Geneva Prime aggression and had predicted the conflict with the Yogensha League. Unlike some of his peers he had even suspected Geneva Prime would eventually win, but Tomohiro had never imagined it would be so sudden and overwhelming. Even with the ability to deploy soldiers anywhere instantaneously... the planning had been masterful.
The first stroke was the annihilation of the Yogensha League leadership in Omexon. The news of the summit disaster had hardly had time to reach Stardown however, before the battle was engaged on every front simultaneously. Katashi Blade must have been planning this for years. In every city, on every council, and the boards of every major corporation, there were men and women ready to defect. They handed over sensitive security details, the names and locations of military leaders. Hei-Shi teleported in and out suddenly and disastrously leaving blood in their wake. For two weeks every day there was a constant rash of assassinations. Before anyone could blink the heirarchy of Cheldrun society, every city-state on the continent, was in a shambles.
Then came the offers. From every Goshi branch office, in every city, there were offers of financial assistance and security to those who would assist in re-establishing order. Tomohiro could have had a place in the new bureaucracy, but he moved too slowly. Stunned by the sudden change of affairs he had hesitated and a co-worker had gotten a promotion by fingering him as a resister. It was a lie, and the Goshi interrogator assigned to his case quickly realized it, but it was too late for him to ingratiate himself and earn a good job. Like the rest of the populace he was left on the outside looking in.
Tomohiro was too meek to do anything, but there were those who attempted to resist Goshi. At first the Mecha Academies had been unsure how to respond. Technically their allegiances were to particular city-states and since this aggression came from a trans-national corporation they hesitated. Everyone agreed that Geneva Prime was somehow responsible, but this was not precisely like a normal war between armies. Most battles were occurring between the private corporate police of Goshi and the private security of local dignitaries. Eventually, accusations were leveled by the academies of Omexon and Matamos against Geneva Prime and to the shock of everyone and no one, Washi-San Academy announced the abolition of historic political arrangements, declaring Goshi Corp the effective Pan-Cheldrun Governing Body to whom all Mecha Pilots owed allegiance. Any Academy wishing to deny this was invited to attend a tournament in which Washi-San pilots would take on all comers in honorable duels to establish the new government.
Needless to say the tournament did not go well for those holding out hopes that someone would mount an effective challenge to Goshi. Washi-San dominated everyone who attended in uncharacteristically bloody fashion. Three Mecha were outright destroyed and six pilots were killed, including the pilots of the destroyed Mecha. Though many had watched with intense interest to see if the disgraced patriarch of the Silver Phoenix Clan would make a showing at the event, he refused to participate in what he called 'public group masturbation', earning outlaw status for himself, his sister and his family, and they have not been heard from since.
Other pockets of resistance popped up among the cells of the Underground Mechified Army that had been spreading ever since the events in the mines in Geneva Prime last year. Most of these were quickly and almost flippantly put down by Goshi. A few were simply ignored as being insignificant, but one or two cells - one in Geneva Prime itself and reputedly run by a mysterious figure known as The Bronze God - had troubled the smooth imposition of corporate rule.
These cells functioned to disrupt things just enough that the iron fist kept a tight grip on the rest of the populace. Everyday crowds would stand, as Tomohiro was doing now, and watch the screens to see the list of new ordinances being announced. Everyday the list of prohibited behaviors grew, and enforcement was instantaneous and without appeal. Stories of Hei-Shi teleporting into the homes of average civilians and murdering a resident before departing just as suddenly were spreading. Many such tales were false, but no one was cynical enough not to believe that at least some of these horror stories were real.
And though the horrors mounted daily and even illiterate Mechified in taverns were wondering aloud what Katashi Blade could possibly be after, there were darker shadows still that stalked the land. Rumors were being whispered and telepaths were gleaning frightening images from shattered minds. Goshi soldiers without eyes. Cobalt blue body armor with horrible appendages growing from beneath the plating. Burning runes and rumbling voices announcing inevitable despair... the Enemy are here.
Tomohiro scanned the list and realized that nothing would significantly affect his plans for the day. Yesterday he had arranged a tryst with his lover, but when he arrived he found only a note left behind explaining that she had been conscripted. Goshi's forces grew in number daily and it was becoming important to learn to avoid press gangs in addition to the Hei-Shi. What the army could be for, since Goshi already controlled every city on the continent, Tomohiro did not know. What mattered is that his last joy in this life had been taken from him.
Turning away from the screen he hurried along with the crowd, ducking down a side alleyway. At the other end he saw three other civilians whispering among themselves. They saw him and nodded. He reached into an alcove and pulled out a sack full of homemade pipebombs, waiting for the signal. When he heard a sudden burst of gunfire and screaming as the crowd in the street became a riotous mob, he didn't bother waiting any longer. He ran out into the boulevard, heaving bombs toward a rank of bullet-spitters to the North, shouting incomprehensible syllables. When the rounds tore through his torso it was a tremendous relief.
Yogensha League Summit
Rain looked over the acrylic tablet in front of her, displaying the real-time status of disLocator units deployed, their coordinates, and giving updates on the progress of the engagement. A wounded Hei-shi officer knelt in front of her, the crimson of his blood contrasting luridly with his cobalt body-armor.
"You're certain that the effort to take Rodan is failed?"
He nodded. "We ran into unforeseen resistance. Moses was there, and the others. They did things... I've no explanation for. The Omexon Navy was about to board in full strength and our losses would have been too heavy. Furthermore, if the bridge had been secured as planned the Rodan would already have begun firing on the city, but her engines and her guns were silent. Something went wrong."
Rain grimaced, something went wrong, indeed. The Executor had assured her that his agent (the one he stubbornly refused to identify) would not fail in taking the bridge. It was not like him to miscalculate. Whoever that agent was, he had better be dead. If Blade ever got ahold of him now...
No matter. Rain had survived as Acting Vice President of Security at Goshi Corp longer than her predecessors because she never went into a situation with only one plan. She could pull success out of the jaws of failure yet.
"You are injured. Report to the infirmary, but on the way relay my command to the 7th battalion to initiate the Swarm Protocol."
She turned her back on the Hei-shi as he limped away. Her eyes were avidly scanning the tablet, absorbing information, discerning patterns and making evaluative predictions. There would certainly be costs for her actions, but they were bearable ones and Goshi would be able to count this a significant victory. As she considered the ramifications she knew already what her next three steps would be.
Pacifying the League would need to be done quickly and decisively. A good thing, she thought, that she was the one giving the orders.
She couldn't deny that some small portion of her mind was still annoyed about the former Director Daitokuji Kiyoshi and his companions. 28 years ought to have been sufficient to get that problem taken care of. She thought she had been inordinately clever delivering two of these interlopers to League facilities in Omexon, and a Biomade Oversight Council lab in Marina. As predicted they had escaped, causing significant destruction and earning the enmity of those bodies in the process. Let them be your problem.
Separating them by the length of the continent should have been more of an obstacle, it seemed to her, but when it came to Kiyoshi and friends, reason didn't enter into it.
Nevertheless, she wouldn't obsess about them. The way to solve a mountain is to go around. To defeat an earthquake, take to the air. They were frustrating, true, but she had no doubt that if they attempted to bring their fight directly to Goshi they would be no match, and so long as they stayed at the edges they could only interfere in minor ways.
A whirl of smoke in the air preceded the arrival of a small squad of Hei-shi directly into her office. They immediately snapped to attention. One of them had blood all over his breastplate.
Her expression was stern as she looked them over. "Report."
"Mission successful, Director. With the chaos on the Rodan and around the waterfront no one saw us come in or go out. We encountered almost no resistance."
With one eyebrow raised she nodded to let him know to continue.
"All the members of the command council of the Yogensha League, save the Liaison from Marina and the Mayor of Omexon who we believe were aboard the Rodan during the conflict, were located. Every last one of them is dead."
"You're certain that the effort to take Rodan is failed?"
He nodded. "We ran into unforeseen resistance. Moses was there, and the others. They did things... I've no explanation for. The Omexon Navy was about to board in full strength and our losses would have been too heavy. Furthermore, if the bridge had been secured as planned the Rodan would already have begun firing on the city, but her engines and her guns were silent. Something went wrong."
Rain grimaced, something went wrong, indeed. The Executor had assured her that his agent (the one he stubbornly refused to identify) would not fail in taking the bridge. It was not like him to miscalculate. Whoever that agent was, he had better be dead. If Blade ever got ahold of him now...
No matter. Rain had survived as Acting Vice President of Security at Goshi Corp longer than her predecessors because she never went into a situation with only one plan. She could pull success out of the jaws of failure yet.
"You are injured. Report to the infirmary, but on the way relay my command to the 7th battalion to initiate the Swarm Protocol."
She turned her back on the Hei-shi as he limped away. Her eyes were avidly scanning the tablet, absorbing information, discerning patterns and making evaluative predictions. There would certainly be costs for her actions, but they were bearable ones and Goshi would be able to count this a significant victory. As she considered the ramifications she knew already what her next three steps would be.
Pacifying the League would need to be done quickly and decisively. A good thing, she thought, that she was the one giving the orders.
She couldn't deny that some small portion of her mind was still annoyed about the former Director Daitokuji Kiyoshi and his companions. 28 years ought to have been sufficient to get that problem taken care of. She thought she had been inordinately clever delivering two of these interlopers to League facilities in Omexon, and a Biomade Oversight Council lab in Marina. As predicted they had escaped, causing significant destruction and earning the enmity of those bodies in the process. Let them be your problem.
Separating them by the length of the continent should have been more of an obstacle, it seemed to her, but when it came to Kiyoshi and friends, reason didn't enter into it.
Nevertheless, she wouldn't obsess about them. The way to solve a mountain is to go around. To defeat an earthquake, take to the air. They were frustrating, true, but she had no doubt that if they attempted to bring their fight directly to Goshi they would be no match, and so long as they stayed at the edges they could only interfere in minor ways.
A whirl of smoke in the air preceded the arrival of a small squad of Hei-shi directly into her office. They immediately snapped to attention. One of them had blood all over his breastplate.
Her expression was stern as she looked them over. "Report."
"Mission successful, Director. With the chaos on the Rodan and around the waterfront no one saw us come in or go out. We encountered almost no resistance."
With one eyebrow raised she nodded to let him know to continue.
"All the members of the command council of the Yogensha League, save the Liaison from Marina and the Mayor of Omexon who we believe were aboard the Rodan during the conflict, were located. Every last one of them is dead."
Prelude to the End of Season Two
Ara Satoshi, Vice President of Operations for Goshi Mining Corporation, scrolled down an inventory of repairs and upgrades that would finally begin in the ravaged mines of Geneva Prime as soon as he gave the approval. Three months ago something inexplicable had gone on a rampage through the city which ended in an explosion that leveled an entire sector and in the aftermath the insurgency had finally been stemmed. Pictures of Acetylene Sue's severed head were plastered around the city. Moses was declared dead in the explosion (again) and the Underground Mechified Army laid down weapons the next day. Every day since then had been a dreary cleanup operation: cataloging the dead, clearing rubble, restoring basic services, flushing out the last few stubborn insurgents - a real nightmare of tedium.
Now, at last, the real work of rebuilding could begin and within a few weeks it might even be feasible to start making projections about the long-term profitability of the mine in light of the costs of the upheaval.
Satoshi was a money man. He took personal pleasure in making the difference between the income column and the expenditure column as heavily weighted toward the former as possible. He loved money, and not in an abstract way. Those digits in black ink were more than a symbolic representation of effort over time. To Satoshi money was an addictive drug. Money presents options. Doors open at the behest of stacks of cash. Mouths open and spill their secrets too. Even legs can be made to open with money.
His love of money had made him a good, efficient executive for Goshi, but he'd seen a great deal of his efforts crumble and burn this past year. None of it would endanger the company. Goshi profits from previous years would easily sustain them through this period of readjustment, but the infrastructure he had so carefully installed was in total disarray and despite his past successes Ara Satoshi had no illusions of being irreplaceable. Typhon, Kiyoshi, Hurricane and Yamoto... the names of fellow directors, executives at Goshi, who within the last year had "been removed". Only his colleagues Rain and Dr. Omura remained with him in the Executor's employ.
Not for the first time he wished he could get his hands on Moses and his associates who had been largely responsible for spurring the insurrection to such catastrophic heights.
Just then the light on his intercom flashed. The voice of his secretary came through, "Director Satoshi, that man claiming to be from the Black Lotus ring is here to see you."
"Send him in."
***
Deep in the jungle, Kufu settled down for a nap, but could not sleep. One of his meals, a few weeks ago now, was still giving him indigestion. Each time he closed his eyes a rushing succession of gory images would roll through his mind. Eyeless corpses. Swelling, pulsating red tumors. A bloody lagoon. Incomprehensible voices from slathering maws on the edge of a hungry abyss.
That hunger which he had always known as a Jevumm was sharper and more urgent now, and somehow, even he recognized it, insidious. Rather than hunting once or twice a week Kufu had been hunting nearly every day lately - and not for small game. He was driven further and further north on his hunts, out of his own territory, close to the Cheldrun frontier. His hunger was specifically for their flesh and he tasted it almost nightly. Not only was he killing more frequently, but as he did he could hear childish feminine laughter echoing from his own mouth.
One afternoon he pounced on the Mechified driver of one of the great logging behemoths the Cheldrun drive over the jungles, when a bullet stung his side. A distant sniper, recently placed to protect the loggers because of Kufu's attacks, was lining up a second shot. Kufu disappeared into the underbrush and crept to the sniper's position. He tore the sniper's arms off first, so he would not be able to resist while Kufu snacked on his entrails.
As the sniper's corpse grew cold, Kufu sat in his perch, looking over the Cheldrun camp lit up at night. He had eaten his fill, but the urge to kill had not subsided. Changing into his human form, he picked up the sniper's rifle and it occurred to him that he knew precisely how to use such an instrument. A maniacal woman's laugh rang through the jungle as he peered through the scope.
***
The Griolsa Clan celebrated tonight as they did most nights, but on this evening there was a special occasion. The last cairn was built, the last dead were buried. Tonight they celebrated, for the last time, the fallen of Ben Hamor.
Looking around those gathered at the fire she could see that the clan was disproportionately made of children, now. So many of these children would soon be embarking on their adolescence and may not come back. Normally this would have been no concern, but with their numbers so diminished, every child lost was another blow to her battered soul. She refused to dwell on that tonight, though. Tonight was a time for joyful remembering.
Larkin lead the children in a dance around the fire. As the drums and the fiddles played he extemporized a song about the battle of Ben Hamor. "The demons they tore at us, but could not bring us down, for we fought alongside the Gods no less, and did not give the ground..."
Sloan slid up next to Edana and handed her a horn of mead, "That's a colorful way of putting it, don't you think? Demons and Gods?"
Edana sipped from the horn and nodded, "Colorful and true."
"One of the adolescents ran into Angus out in the fields this morning. Said he thinks he's ready to come back. Normally, Angus said, he would have thought he was too young, but us bein' in the state we are, we could use another strong back."
Edana said nothing, but smiled to herself.
"And besides, we haven't been attacked recently, and the scouts have been finding the Eyeless corpses everywhere. They just fell down dead, like whatever was driving them suddenly got switched off. Winter's here, it'll rain hard in the next few weeks. We might be safe for a while, if the demons are really gone."
She finished draining her horn and looked at him with a mischievous grin, "Why are you trying to have a serious talk with me tonight Sloan?"
With that she tackled him, knocking him into the mud. They rolled over several times, as he tried to get his bicep around her head and she kneed him repeatedly in the stomach. Eventually she dragged him away behind one of the huts and ripped off his clothes. She grabbed the roof of the building, accidentally tearing away thatching and pressing her face against the stone as he groaned behind her. She didn't hear a thing.
***
"Think about it, Rain. You need a chance to test out the new DisLocators that won't trigger too many warnings among other members of the Yogensha League, and we both need something to impress the Executor with." Ara Satoshi's voice came over the telepathic network, through the speaker phone on her desk. She could hear him inhaling his cigarette between sentences.
"You're wrong, director Satoshi. The Executor cannot be impressed. We would do better to simply be efficient at our jobs, rather than improvising."
The link was sending signals of exasperation. She could tell he really wanted to try this, and she was, despite herself, intrigued by the prospect. "Rain, darling, I've been with Goshi for a long time. Longer than you. No doubt you're more in the Executor's favor than I at the moment, but I think you need more perspective. How do you think Blade got into the position he's in? Not by being afraid to take risks, and though he'll certainly keep you around if you aren't making too many mistakes, he will make your life miserable if he ever finds out you failed to capitalize on an opportunity. This is an opportunity."
Rain, did some calculations silently to herself. Satoshi was hearing it all, no doubt, but that was irrelevant.
"Very well. Who is your source?"
Satoshi's response was eager, "A Zipsum. An addict. A low-level errand-boy for the Black Lotus ring. Not the kind of person who inspires confidence, I know, but his descriptions were extraordinarily accurate and he possesses information that he couldn't have known unless he were recently in contact with them."
Rain grimaced, "Sounds like a setup to me."
"I thought the same thing so I had this guy..." There was a pause as Satoshi looked at his notes, "Tricks. I had him subjected to some of the enhanced interrogation techniques that Dr. Aliya Pain developed, you know, the ones that Blade recommended to us a couple years ago. He certainly didn't realize what he was getting himself into when he came to me he was just looking to score some cash to feed his habit, but I think the information is solid. The revolutionary Moses, former director Daitokuji Kiyoshi, the foundling from Project Scion, one of our Prill test-subjects, an unknown Zipsum, and, of all things, a Vorax! They're all in a place called the Grand Chantry."
Rain was growing less skeptical, "And you think this addict's description of the constellations is accurate enough for us to develop some coordinates for the DisLocator's?"
"I do."
The pause as Rain decided was considerable. "Thank you for this information, Director Satoshi. I'll take it from here."
"But... wait!" the link was radiating irritation, "I got this information. I think I should be involved."
"You've already been involved quite enough. As acting director for security at Goshi Corp, the specific arrangements and strategies for deploying the Heishi are mine to handle. Good day."
She severed the connection.
Leaning back in the chair, Rain began running a variety of strategies through her mind. This had all the makings of being a classic security disaster. After witnessing the two security directors before her disposed of for mistakes, she was determined not to step into something without having accounted for all the factors. Without question, this situation presented an interesting opportunity, but however events unfolded, she would not be the one left holding the bag, when it blew up.
Now, at last, the real work of rebuilding could begin and within a few weeks it might even be feasible to start making projections about the long-term profitability of the mine in light of the costs of the upheaval.
Satoshi was a money man. He took personal pleasure in making the difference between the income column and the expenditure column as heavily weighted toward the former as possible. He loved money, and not in an abstract way. Those digits in black ink were more than a symbolic representation of effort over time. To Satoshi money was an addictive drug. Money presents options. Doors open at the behest of stacks of cash. Mouths open and spill their secrets too. Even legs can be made to open with money.
His love of money had made him a good, efficient executive for Goshi, but he'd seen a great deal of his efforts crumble and burn this past year. None of it would endanger the company. Goshi profits from previous years would easily sustain them through this period of readjustment, but the infrastructure he had so carefully installed was in total disarray and despite his past successes Ara Satoshi had no illusions of being irreplaceable. Typhon, Kiyoshi, Hurricane and Yamoto... the names of fellow directors, executives at Goshi, who within the last year had "been removed". Only his colleagues Rain and Dr. Omura remained with him in the Executor's employ.
Not for the first time he wished he could get his hands on Moses and his associates who had been largely responsible for spurring the insurrection to such catastrophic heights.
Just then the light on his intercom flashed. The voice of his secretary came through, "Director Satoshi, that man claiming to be from the Black Lotus ring is here to see you."
"Send him in."
***
Deep in the jungle, Kufu settled down for a nap, but could not sleep. One of his meals, a few weeks ago now, was still giving him indigestion. Each time he closed his eyes a rushing succession of gory images would roll through his mind. Eyeless corpses. Swelling, pulsating red tumors. A bloody lagoon. Incomprehensible voices from slathering maws on the edge of a hungry abyss.
That hunger which he had always known as a Jevumm was sharper and more urgent now, and somehow, even he recognized it, insidious. Rather than hunting once or twice a week Kufu had been hunting nearly every day lately - and not for small game. He was driven further and further north on his hunts, out of his own territory, close to the Cheldrun frontier. His hunger was specifically for their flesh and he tasted it almost nightly. Not only was he killing more frequently, but as he did he could hear childish feminine laughter echoing from his own mouth.
One afternoon he pounced on the Mechified driver of one of the great logging behemoths the Cheldrun drive over the jungles, when a bullet stung his side. A distant sniper, recently placed to protect the loggers because of Kufu's attacks, was lining up a second shot. Kufu disappeared into the underbrush and crept to the sniper's position. He tore the sniper's arms off first, so he would not be able to resist while Kufu snacked on his entrails.
As the sniper's corpse grew cold, Kufu sat in his perch, looking over the Cheldrun camp lit up at night. He had eaten his fill, but the urge to kill had not subsided. Changing into his human form, he picked up the sniper's rifle and it occurred to him that he knew precisely how to use such an instrument. A maniacal woman's laugh rang through the jungle as he peered through the scope.
***
The Griolsa Clan celebrated tonight as they did most nights, but on this evening there was a special occasion. The last cairn was built, the last dead were buried. Tonight they celebrated, for the last time, the fallen of Ben Hamor.
Looking around those gathered at the fire she could see that the clan was disproportionately made of children, now. So many of these children would soon be embarking on their adolescence and may not come back. Normally this would have been no concern, but with their numbers so diminished, every child lost was another blow to her battered soul. She refused to dwell on that tonight, though. Tonight was a time for joyful remembering.
Larkin lead the children in a dance around the fire. As the drums and the fiddles played he extemporized a song about the battle of Ben Hamor. "The demons they tore at us, but could not bring us down, for we fought alongside the Gods no less, and did not give the ground..."
Sloan slid up next to Edana and handed her a horn of mead, "That's a colorful way of putting it, don't you think? Demons and Gods?"
Edana sipped from the horn and nodded, "Colorful and true."
"One of the adolescents ran into Angus out in the fields this morning. Said he thinks he's ready to come back. Normally, Angus said, he would have thought he was too young, but us bein' in the state we are, we could use another strong back."
Edana said nothing, but smiled to herself.
"And besides, we haven't been attacked recently, and the scouts have been finding the Eyeless corpses everywhere. They just fell down dead, like whatever was driving them suddenly got switched off. Winter's here, it'll rain hard in the next few weeks. We might be safe for a while, if the demons are really gone."
She finished draining her horn and looked at him with a mischievous grin, "Why are you trying to have a serious talk with me tonight Sloan?"
With that she tackled him, knocking him into the mud. They rolled over several times, as he tried to get his bicep around her head and she kneed him repeatedly in the stomach. Eventually she dragged him away behind one of the huts and ripped off his clothes. She grabbed the roof of the building, accidentally tearing away thatching and pressing her face against the stone as he groaned behind her. She didn't hear a thing.
***
"Think about it, Rain. You need a chance to test out the new DisLocators that won't trigger too many warnings among other members of the Yogensha League, and we both need something to impress the Executor with." Ara Satoshi's voice came over the telepathic network, through the speaker phone on her desk. She could hear him inhaling his cigarette between sentences.
"You're wrong, director Satoshi. The Executor cannot be impressed. We would do better to simply be efficient at our jobs, rather than improvising."
The link was sending signals of exasperation. She could tell he really wanted to try this, and she was, despite herself, intrigued by the prospect. "Rain, darling, I've been with Goshi for a long time. Longer than you. No doubt you're more in the Executor's favor than I at the moment, but I think you need more perspective. How do you think Blade got into the position he's in? Not by being afraid to take risks, and though he'll certainly keep you around if you aren't making too many mistakes, he will make your life miserable if he ever finds out you failed to capitalize on an opportunity. This is an opportunity."
Rain, did some calculations silently to herself. Satoshi was hearing it all, no doubt, but that was irrelevant.
"Very well. Who is your source?"
Satoshi's response was eager, "A Zipsum. An addict. A low-level errand-boy for the Black Lotus ring. Not the kind of person who inspires confidence, I know, but his descriptions were extraordinarily accurate and he possesses information that he couldn't have known unless he were recently in contact with them."
Rain grimaced, "Sounds like a setup to me."
"I thought the same thing so I had this guy..." There was a pause as Satoshi looked at his notes, "Tricks. I had him subjected to some of the enhanced interrogation techniques that Dr. Aliya Pain developed, you know, the ones that Blade recommended to us a couple years ago. He certainly didn't realize what he was getting himself into when he came to me he was just looking to score some cash to feed his habit, but I think the information is solid. The revolutionary Moses, former director Daitokuji Kiyoshi, the foundling from Project Scion, one of our Prill test-subjects, an unknown Zipsum, and, of all things, a Vorax! They're all in a place called the Grand Chantry."
Rain was growing less skeptical, "And you think this addict's description of the constellations is accurate enough for us to develop some coordinates for the DisLocator's?"
"I do."
The pause as Rain decided was considerable. "Thank you for this information, Director Satoshi. I'll take it from here."
"But... wait!" the link was radiating irritation, "I got this information. I think I should be involved."
"You've already been involved quite enough. As acting director for security at Goshi Corp, the specific arrangements and strategies for deploying the Heishi are mine to handle. Good day."
She severed the connection.
Leaning back in the chair, Rain began running a variety of strategies through her mind. This had all the makings of being a classic security disaster. After witnessing the two security directors before her disposed of for mistakes, she was determined not to step into something without having accounted for all the factors. Without question, this situation presented an interesting opportunity, but however events unfolded, she would not be the one left holding the bag, when it blew up.
New Technology Summit
The seabirds of Marina wheeled through the air above Goshi's flagship Mothra. The crew today was unusually tense. The Executor had returned from his summit with the Biomade Oversight Council visibly pleased. Seeing a man who never showed emotion, and whose whims could result in your death, being outwardly happy was a very unsettling thing. Every sailor and officer on that boat was making every effort to be invisible.
For one person aboard, being invisible required no effort. Her livid eyes materialized out of the shadows, followed by a bright pink bob. Her footsteps making no sound, she slipped down the corridor and out the hatch, stepping nimbly into a shore-boat and nodding to the man at the engine. Without a word he took her skipping across the waves toward the docks. No one on Mothra knew who this girl was, and no one wanted to know. The Executor kept his own council and it was safer that way.
Slipping through the streets of Marina she drew no attention. Despite her remarkable appearance, she had a gift for being inconspicuous. In a city like Marina - full of plazas and monuments where people congregate for long strolls and outdoor meals - it was even easier. No one noticed her slipping the lock on a wealthy townhouse door. She was forgotten before the door closed behind her.
Inside was a subtly lavish apartment. It had a furtive quality to it, as though it knew it was expensive, but didn't want you to know. No big show pieces, but here and there little touches peeked out, indicating someone with champagne taste. From upstairs the steamy sweet smell of a Thula pipe (a local opiate) drifted down. She made her way up the carpeted staircase and into the room from whence the perfume emanated.
A skinny Biomade man with more than a few broken veins in his cheeks failed to notice her until she was already seated in front of him. He jumped suddenly, disturbing the coals under his Thula pipe and burning his knee.
"Ow. Oooh. Hot!" He patted the spot with a cool silk pillow and made awkward faces. "How did you get in here?"
"Nevermind. You sent a message."
"What? No I didn't. I mean, not to you. How did you know?" He shook his head, trying to dispel the fog from his mind. Focus would be necessary and he could hardly see straight.
"You're slow today Sawaguchi. If an old friend of former director Yamoto..."
"Lord Tsuchinaga Yamoto," he corrected her.
"If an old friend of Lord Tsuchinaga Yamoto starts inquiring too much around this business I'm going to find out."
His eyes narrowed and he looked at her suspiciously for a few moments hoping desperately that she was not reading his mind at that very moment. It was a desperate ploy to stall for a moment to regain some sobriety.
"But, your story seems so unlikely," he protested. "I'm sure that his factor was a girl called Samara and he would have told me if he'd changed something that important before his death."
"Fine. Don't believe me, but then, how did I find you, Sawaguchi? How do I know so much about your relationship to him? Why do I keep intercepting your messages? You must have a better explanation." Despite herself, she was enjoying the game, a little.
Head swimming, he admitted he had no such explanation.
She leaned closer to him and put her index finger under his chin. Her smile was impish, and he had to admit, sexy, the kind of girl Yamoto would have liked. "Listen," she said, "Just tell me what you wanted to give to the Biomade Oversight Council today, before I intercepted the message."
The walls were sprouting lilacs. The drugs were taking effect.
"It's just a file. Lord Tsuchinaga Yamoto made me promise to deliver it to the Biomade Oversight Council when Executor Blade was making his proposal to them about some new technology. The Lord was convinced that this technology represented a terrible danger and he said the file would prove it." Sawaguchi paused and she blinked her big red eyes at him in anticipation. "He said if we delivered it too early, then Blade would have time to do damage control. Too late and the technology would already be approved. But if we did it at the Summit then the licenses would be revoked, the project sunk, and that would be that."
Sawaguchi couldn't tell if it was her touch, or her proximity, or the drugs, but something was making him very dizzy indeed.
The girl pulled her hand away and gave him a pitying expression. "Apparently you didn't hear then?" she said.
He stared blankly.
"They moved the time of the meeting up this morning. Blade got his technology approved hours ago. The demonstration was a huge success. Apparently he teleported a HeiShi soldier across the room before their very eyes."
Sawaguchi suddenly looked more alert - and very alarmed.
"But... no. But, my contact on the council said the meeting was this afternoon," he felt the floor crumbling out from beneath his feet.
"I'm afraid that I intercepted those messages too."
His face melted into tears, "He only asked me for one promise. For years he was doing me favors and he only asked me for one promise..."
She watched him sink to the floor and dig his fingers into the lush carpet. "The DisLocators are already in mass production. With this announcement, Goshi is ready to start deploying them. Soon Geneva Prime will have thousands of soldiers equipped with them - the most mobile army in the world."
Every word made him shrink. He sobbed feebly and grasped for the pipe, sucking white cloud through the bubbling tube.
In his incoherent state he babbled, "Maybe it's not too late. I can still give the file to the Council. They might review their decision."
He was still babbling when the psychic knife passed through his temple.
"The permission was just a formality in any case, but Blade would rather if you didn't hand that file in after all." She drained his life right out of him, and kept on draining long after he was unconscious until his body was a dried husk on the floor.
A clear acrylic disk sat on the top of a beautiful wooden chest of drawers nearby. She snapped it in half and strolled casually from the room.
For one person aboard, being invisible required no effort. Her livid eyes materialized out of the shadows, followed by a bright pink bob. Her footsteps making no sound, she slipped down the corridor and out the hatch, stepping nimbly into a shore-boat and nodding to the man at the engine. Without a word he took her skipping across the waves toward the docks. No one on Mothra knew who this girl was, and no one wanted to know. The Executor kept his own council and it was safer that way.
Slipping through the streets of Marina she drew no attention. Despite her remarkable appearance, she had a gift for being inconspicuous. In a city like Marina - full of plazas and monuments where people congregate for long strolls and outdoor meals - it was even easier. No one noticed her slipping the lock on a wealthy townhouse door. She was forgotten before the door closed behind her.
Inside was a subtly lavish apartment. It had a furtive quality to it, as though it knew it was expensive, but didn't want you to know. No big show pieces, but here and there little touches peeked out, indicating someone with champagne taste. From upstairs the steamy sweet smell of a Thula pipe (a local opiate) drifted down. She made her way up the carpeted staircase and into the room from whence the perfume emanated.
A skinny Biomade man with more than a few broken veins in his cheeks failed to notice her until she was already seated in front of him. He jumped suddenly, disturbing the coals under his Thula pipe and burning his knee.
"Ow. Oooh. Hot!" He patted the spot with a cool silk pillow and made awkward faces. "How did you get in here?"
"Nevermind. You sent a message."
"What? No I didn't. I mean, not to you. How did you know?" He shook his head, trying to dispel the fog from his mind. Focus would be necessary and he could hardly see straight.
"You're slow today Sawaguchi. If an old friend of former director Yamoto..."
"Lord Tsuchinaga Yamoto," he corrected her.
"If an old friend of Lord Tsuchinaga Yamoto starts inquiring too much around this business I'm going to find out."
His eyes narrowed and he looked at her suspiciously for a few moments hoping desperately that she was not reading his mind at that very moment. It was a desperate ploy to stall for a moment to regain some sobriety.
"But, your story seems so unlikely," he protested. "I'm sure that his factor was a girl called Samara and he would have told me if he'd changed something that important before his death."
"Fine. Don't believe me, but then, how did I find you, Sawaguchi? How do I know so much about your relationship to him? Why do I keep intercepting your messages? You must have a better explanation." Despite herself, she was enjoying the game, a little.
Head swimming, he admitted he had no such explanation.
She leaned closer to him and put her index finger under his chin. Her smile was impish, and he had to admit, sexy, the kind of girl Yamoto would have liked. "Listen," she said, "Just tell me what you wanted to give to the Biomade Oversight Council today, before I intercepted the message."
The walls were sprouting lilacs. The drugs were taking effect.
"It's just a file. Lord Tsuchinaga Yamoto made me promise to deliver it to the Biomade Oversight Council when Executor Blade was making his proposal to them about some new technology. The Lord was convinced that this technology represented a terrible danger and he said the file would prove it." Sawaguchi paused and she blinked her big red eyes at him in anticipation. "He said if we delivered it too early, then Blade would have time to do damage control. Too late and the technology would already be approved. But if we did it at the Summit then the licenses would be revoked, the project sunk, and that would be that."
Sawaguchi couldn't tell if it was her touch, or her proximity, or the drugs, but something was making him very dizzy indeed.
The girl pulled her hand away and gave him a pitying expression. "Apparently you didn't hear then?" she said.
He stared blankly.
"They moved the time of the meeting up this morning. Blade got his technology approved hours ago. The demonstration was a huge success. Apparently he teleported a HeiShi soldier across the room before their very eyes."
Sawaguchi suddenly looked more alert - and very alarmed.
"But... no. But, my contact on the council said the meeting was this afternoon," he felt the floor crumbling out from beneath his feet.
"I'm afraid that I intercepted those messages too."
His face melted into tears, "He only asked me for one promise. For years he was doing me favors and he only asked me for one promise..."
She watched him sink to the floor and dig his fingers into the lush carpet. "The DisLocators are already in mass production. With this announcement, Goshi is ready to start deploying them. Soon Geneva Prime will have thousands of soldiers equipped with them - the most mobile army in the world."
Every word made him shrink. He sobbed feebly and grasped for the pipe, sucking white cloud through the bubbling tube.
In his incoherent state he babbled, "Maybe it's not too late. I can still give the file to the Council. They might review their decision."
He was still babbling when the psychic knife passed through his temple.
"The permission was just a formality in any case, but Blade would rather if you didn't hand that file in after all." She drained his life right out of him, and kept on draining long after he was unconscious until his body was a dried husk on the floor.
A clear acrylic disk sat on the top of a beautiful wooden chest of drawers nearby. She snapped it in half and strolled casually from the room.
Aimi's Choice
The spray from the prow of the speeding craft made her pink hair cling to her neck, heightening her desolate appearance. She stared off at the looming stern of the Goshi flagship Mothra and neither moved nor spoke, the stillness of her countenance masking the turmoil of her emotions.
His body flew out over the city, spinning like some kind of grotesque frisbee and slivers of - was that his soul? - dissolved in the air.
Once on deck she was hastily led, package under arm, to the highest and most luxurious state room on board. She felt her mind being probed by a presence not unlike a gynecologist, gentle but precise, as if intimately familiar with the territory. Despite all her preparations she knew that it would be pointless hiding anything here. She would be known for exactly who she was. Very well Blade, take a good look. See anything you like? Do you see that I am determined? Like a bone that, having been broken once, becomes stronger than ever. You can search as deep as you like, but you won't find any shame in me. It was ripped out when that thing ripped the soul out of his chest.
She stood erect in the Executor's suite. He had not offered her a seat, she would have refused. She looked him directly in the eyes, and as everyone always is, she was impressed by something indefinable about them, something alluring and repulsive at the same time, but she let that thought leave her mind as quickly as it came. She came for business, she would keep it that way.
"A person in your position needs someone who can operate outside the rules. Someone who isn't on the payroll, whose name doesn't appear in any company memos. Perhaps you already have a few of these people, but none of them can do the things I can. What I'm asking is for you to give me a purpose. I will be your weapon, and you will find you can reach places even you had trouble accessing before." Her speech was rehearsed, but it was completely genuine. She knew that she wasn't bragging or exaggerating in anyway. Katashi Blade was inscrutable, but he appeared to agree.
That was what she had been waiting for. Aimi neither hesitated nor made any attempt to be dramatic. She set the case on his desk, and flipped the latch. The lid swung open with a hiss revealing the bloody head of Acetylene Sue.
"Are you sure you want to do this?" Sever had asked her in an uncharacteristic moment of empathy. They conferred briefly in the filthy backroom of a clandestine surgery where Stitch was having his shoulders reconstructed from his last encounter with that bird-woman. She'd shown up there, covered in concrete dust, running from the scene of an incredible explosion, feeling like her heart had been ripped whole out of her breast.She was not a capricious little girl anymore. She had become, all in one moment of dreadful clarity, a steel vice. She clamped down on her emotions, she crushed her tenderness, she made herself into exactly who she wanted to be - which is never vulnerable, never lost.
"We could make good money in other cities too. Our particular talents are in demand." In his own way he was trying to comfort her, even though he had no idea what she was going through. He thought she was worried about getting caught, about getting put down like Malicious, like a dog. No one in this city has the brass balls to get me in a trap like that, she thought, but even her own bravado failed to lighten her mood.
His body flew out over the city, spinning like some kind of grotesque frisbee and slivers of - was that his soul? - dissolved in the air.
"But why Blade? You know his reputation as well as I. What makes you think he'll accept your offer?" It was extremely odd to be on the other end of a conversation where Sever was the one attempting to be sensible. Had she been in any other mood she might have been more responsive, or at least she might have made a demeaning remark. As it was she just shook her head and gave him a look that made it clear that she would not be talked out of her decision. Sever loved and feared her, and compared to her he was weak-willed. From now on he would follow her orders, and both of them knew it, so neither of them bothered saying it.The speeding boat she was on pulled alongside the Mothra and giant mechanical arms were lowered to lift the shuttle up to the deck. Goshi soldiers looked at her nervously, and at the package by her feet. Katashi Blade refused to delay the departure of his ship even when he heard of the explosion. His business with the Biomade Oversight Council would brook no delays. That he'd changed his mind for this woman, young girl really, disturbed them. One after the other, the soldiers, sailors, and Goshi functionaries mentally promised to erase her face from their memories as soon as she was out of sight, but that pink bob, those swinging hips and, most arrestingly of all, those vermillion eyes stubbornly refused to be forgotten.
Once on deck she was hastily led, package under arm, to the highest and most luxurious state room on board. She felt her mind being probed by a presence not unlike a gynecologist, gentle but precise, as if intimately familiar with the territory. Despite all her preparations she knew that it would be pointless hiding anything here. She would be known for exactly who she was. Very well Blade, take a good look. See anything you like? Do you see that I am determined? Like a bone that, having been broken once, becomes stronger than ever. You can search as deep as you like, but you won't find any shame in me. It was ripped out when that thing ripped the soul out of his chest.
"Not that you asked, but of course I'm going to help you. The fact that our mark is an associate of those cunts Rei has fallen in with just makes it that much sweeter for me." She nodded. She didn't have to explain to him that she would be going alone to see Blade, or that Sever and Stitch would have to continue laying low for a while as... insurance, Sever understood already - one benefit of being a family of telepaths. Neither did she tell him that the tiny part of her that had indeed come seeking comfort, was gratified that he had offered it in his own inept way. That part of her, though, was quickly being crushed by the vice."Start by telling me what you want. Then show me the proof of what you claim."
She stood erect in the Executor's suite. He had not offered her a seat, she would have refused. She looked him directly in the eyes, and as everyone always is, she was impressed by something indefinable about them, something alluring and repulsive at the same time, but she let that thought leave her mind as quickly as it came. She came for business, she would keep it that way.
"A person in your position needs someone who can operate outside the rules. Someone who isn't on the payroll, whose name doesn't appear in any company memos. Perhaps you already have a few of these people, but none of them can do the things I can. What I'm asking is for you to give me a purpose. I will be your weapon, and you will find you can reach places even you had trouble accessing before." Her speech was rehearsed, but it was completely genuine. She knew that she wasn't bragging or exaggerating in anyway. Katashi Blade was inscrutable, but he appeared to agree.
On the way out the door Sever raised one eyebrow, "I am curious though. What spurred this decision? Why this sudden resolve?" Because! her heart shrieked at her. Because I felt my kiss on his cheek, our link, I felt it shredded into nothingness. Because I know with a certainty that I've never felt before that he was obliterated, and he did it for some reason to save me, but he failed. That thing destroyed me just as definitely as it did him, only I have to keep on living with this empty spot where he used to be."You've got a lot of courage coming here like this. Courage can be useful or it can be a pain in the ass. Usually I find it is the latter, but you're young so I'll give you the benefit of the doubt. However, you must know that I don't play games. Now that you're standing here in front of me, the choices you make are deadly serious," as Blade was speaking she stood perfectly still. She was not foolish enough to try to appear nonchalant, but neither did she let herself be drawn into reacting. "That is why I'm going to give you a choice. If the thing you've got in that package is just going to be an embarrassment to you I'll let you walk out now and never show your face in my presence again. If you are ready to stake your life on my satisfaction, then by all means, open it up."
She waited for Sever to mock her feelings, but his face showed no expression. He was still waiting for her to explain herself. Her thoughts had not leaked out, even slightly. The vice had closed.
"Someone's got to do something now that Mama Pain is gone." She said as she left.
That was what she had been waiting for. Aimi neither hesitated nor made any attempt to be dramatic. She set the case on his desk, and flipped the latch. The lid swung open with a hiss revealing the bloody head of Acetylene Sue.
Prelude to the End of Season One
From the deck of Goshi's flagship Mothra, a Mechified seaman on break surveyed the bustle in the port. Puffing the stub of a cigar, his eyes followed the progress of a newly emptied freight-train up the steep rails to the tunnels which would lead into the valley of Geneva Prime. The city itself was obscured from view here, but over the edge of the mountain he could see wisps of smoke rising, a sign that the chaos was ongoing. Fuckin' unpreceden'ed, he thought. Never thought I'd see the day when Goshi was out of control in their own city.
A chill rippled down his furnace-heated torso. Instinctually he looked up to the state room balconies and caught sight of a man, all in white, on the highest level. The seaman knew he'd been overheard.
Jump overboard. The command was matter of fact, betraying no emotion, but brooking no disobedience.
The plunge into the filthy harbor water was surprisingly serene. Panic didn't set in until he was two-thirds of the way to the murky bottom and realized how difficult it is to swim when your body is a metric tonne of metal.
***
The thoughts of Katashi Blade, like icy wind, rushed over the telepathic network into the ear piece of the Vice President for Distribution, Rain. Yes, Executor. As you command.
Ever the instrument of precision, Rain, had taken over as acting director of Security, in addition to her other roles. The officers in Goshi's security force had come to hold her in a kind of awe already, in her first day. She was far less capricious than their previous superiors, but also completely immune to bargaining. Failure meant termination, and she demonstrated this immediately by issuing orders to banish the loved ones of every officer up the chain of command who had been involved in the debacle at the mine entrance. Yes, she used the word debacle, and she meant it. Nothing like that would be happening under her watch.
Especially not now. While Katashi Blade journeyed to Marina to hold another demonstration of the White Rock DisLocator for the Biomade Oversight Council, this time without interruptions, she was effectively the most powerful person in Geneva Prime. That meant she was responsible, and while Rain was responsible things were going to function like clockwork.
The Executor's orders might have shocked another person, but Rain, didn't hesitate for a moment. Her mind went straight to work calculating costs and came to the same conclusion, she imagined, as him. It would be cheaper this way, and send a message not likely to be forgotten in the near future. She pressed the button on her intercom, a pink light bloomed.
"Yes, director?"
Rain thought carefully about her exact words, "Order the Heishi to begin deploying heat bombs in sectors 4, 35, 171 & 215. Do not stop until I notify them I have received the unconditional surrender of the Underground Mechified Army."
There was stunned silence from the other end.
"Don't think about it, just do it. It's a long walk for your loved ones to get to Stardown from here." She clicked the intercom off, her mind still rattling out a cost-benefit analysis.
***
Out the windows of the Goshi Tower the streets of central Geneva Prime were a battleground. After the initial onslaught at the mine entrance it had spilled into nearby slums, becoming a guerrilla war of slow attrition, confusion and chaos. Goshi soldiers ran in columns down the streets, firing up at insurgents tossing homemade bombs from tenement windows, or disappearing into alleyways. Countless Mechified, spurred by the heroic display put on by Moses at the memorial, had swelled the ranks of the insurgents till it was impossible even for the UMA to know who was a combatant and who was a bystander. As a result, everyone became a target for Goshi bullets.
Behind a manufacturing plant a Heishi breathed his last gasps as a pneumatic hammer pounded like a piston through his skull. Amos shook the gore from his metal arm and looked defiantly at the ring of blue-armored elite soldiers around him. His face was wild and streaked with oil, which he spit in brown streaks from his chapped lips. Who knows what was broken, but it was leaking into his lungs and it tasted like shit.
"C'mon motherfuckers. I haven't had a conscience since my brother Omar was killed. Get too close to my hammer here and you won't have one anymore either."
The Heishi pounced all together. Amos disappeared under a wave of blue.
***
A muscular hand burst up out of the rubble. Concrete dust settled all around. With superhuman effort someone slowly lifted a massive slab, formerly of the ceiling and, placing their feet under it, heaved it to the side with a crunch. From within the rubble of a destroyed tenement, thin wheezing breaths could be faintly heard.
The slow emergence of this casualty from the fallen structure went completely unnoticed by columns of soldiers jogging past in the street. Neither did they notice a small mechified boy weeping in an alleyway over the corpse of his mother, recently retrieved from the same collapsed building. They jogged by with determination, eyes scanning only for potential threats, missing the signs of anguish around them.
The hand grabbed a piece of rebar and heaved. Statuesque shoulders, dreadlocked hair, and then the whole upper body of Balder the Gogajin rose from the ruins. Concrete dust caked in his wounds, labored breathing betraying a pierced lung, his back a nightmare landscape of bullet wounds, half of his face crusted over with an unsightly scab, Balder dragged himself to his feet, and walked on a broken ankle into the street. Instead of blood, his veins flowed with righteous anger and there were some Goshi soldiers nearby who were good candidates to help him do some anger management.
***
The students at Washi San academy were sombre listening to the announcement. It made no sense. Lord Daitokuji Ichirou, patriarch of the Silver Phoenix Clan and first pilot of the academy turned traitor? They might as well have said that gravity temporarily reversed directions or, contrary to all former knowledge, the sun really does revolve around Karia. Impossible. Ichirou and traitor were words that never belonged in the same sentence together unless the traitor was being struck down by Ichirou.
Whatever the students thought, the Grand Master knew what was necessary to save his academy. However much it grieved him, he must cooperate with Goshi and order his students to pursue and capture Ichirou at any opportunity. With a solemnity bordering on the funeral of a beloved monarch the students struck Ichirou's banner - the purple field with three silver feathers. They removed it from the place of honor and ritually desecrated it. The Silver Phoenix clan would require a long time to overcome this dishonor.
***
A nurse rolled her cart down the corridor checking room numbers - ah 324. She looked at the checklist and noting the patient's name, Malicious, withdrew a serial coded syringe from the appropriate compartment. As a precaution none of the nurses in this hospital ever know what the syringes contain, since many of the patients are telepathic and it increases distress if they realize what treatment they are given. Thus, blissfully ignorant, this prim young nurse went into the room where a teenage girl with ebony hair lay unconscious in traction.
She checked the patient's pulse, steady. Listened to her breathing, even. Then turned her arm so that she could have access to a vein, nice and plump.
The syringe went in silently and the clear fluid was dispensed in moments. The orderly rubbed the spot with a little cotton swab to get the drop of blood, and cheerily departed.
Malicious was dead before the door swung closed.
***
Karia watched all of this with something bordering on obsession. Such an intricate web. So complex, the chains of consequences. So many purposes being fulfilled and denied, discovered and destroyed. Karia knew that, as a planet, she had no pulse, even still she felt her heart pounding. There will be ramifications, she whispered, for all of this. There will be prices to be paid and yet...The thing which continually drew her back to this scene is the amazing depths to which these people reached in themselves to find the price that is asked and meet it. Almost instinctually, they seem to understand that their lives matter.
Not just their lives. All lives. Life itself is the question that the cosmos are asking. It could all so easily not be. A tiny shift of a universal constant here, a miniscule blip in the laws of physics there. The universe sat back like an artist considering the composition, undecided. Paint it back to white? Or let the riot of colors continue...
The marked ones, the ones that Karia had cursed with gifts, they would be the pivotal actors in this drama. How would they answer the question? Karia wondered. No, she practically shrieked and danced about in anticipation. Did they feel it? Did they intuit the answer? Did they know the enormous burden that was being placed on them, or comprehend the vastness of that one word question:
Life?
A chill rippled down his furnace-heated torso. Instinctually he looked up to the state room balconies and caught sight of a man, all in white, on the highest level. The seaman knew he'd been overheard.
Jump overboard. The command was matter of fact, betraying no emotion, but brooking no disobedience.
The plunge into the filthy harbor water was surprisingly serene. Panic didn't set in until he was two-thirds of the way to the murky bottom and realized how difficult it is to swim when your body is a metric tonne of metal.
***
The thoughts of Katashi Blade, like icy wind, rushed over the telepathic network into the ear piece of the Vice President for Distribution, Rain. Yes, Executor. As you command.
Ever the instrument of precision, Rain, had taken over as acting director of Security, in addition to her other roles. The officers in Goshi's security force had come to hold her in a kind of awe already, in her first day. She was far less capricious than their previous superiors, but also completely immune to bargaining. Failure meant termination, and she demonstrated this immediately by issuing orders to banish the loved ones of every officer up the chain of command who had been involved in the debacle at the mine entrance. Yes, she used the word debacle, and she meant it. Nothing like that would be happening under her watch.
Especially not now. While Katashi Blade journeyed to Marina to hold another demonstration of the White Rock DisLocator for the Biomade Oversight Council, this time without interruptions, she was effectively the most powerful person in Geneva Prime. That meant she was responsible, and while Rain was responsible things were going to function like clockwork.
The Executor's orders might have shocked another person, but Rain, didn't hesitate for a moment. Her mind went straight to work calculating costs and came to the same conclusion, she imagined, as him. It would be cheaper this way, and send a message not likely to be forgotten in the near future. She pressed the button on her intercom, a pink light bloomed.
"Yes, director?"
Rain thought carefully about her exact words, "Order the Heishi to begin deploying heat bombs in sectors 4, 35, 171 & 215. Do not stop until I notify them I have received the unconditional surrender of the Underground Mechified Army."
There was stunned silence from the other end.
"Don't think about it, just do it. It's a long walk for your loved ones to get to Stardown from here." She clicked the intercom off, her mind still rattling out a cost-benefit analysis.
***
Out the windows of the Goshi Tower the streets of central Geneva Prime were a battleground. After the initial onslaught at the mine entrance it had spilled into nearby slums, becoming a guerrilla war of slow attrition, confusion and chaos. Goshi soldiers ran in columns down the streets, firing up at insurgents tossing homemade bombs from tenement windows, or disappearing into alleyways. Countless Mechified, spurred by the heroic display put on by Moses at the memorial, had swelled the ranks of the insurgents till it was impossible even for the UMA to know who was a combatant and who was a bystander. As a result, everyone became a target for Goshi bullets.
Behind a manufacturing plant a Heishi breathed his last gasps as a pneumatic hammer pounded like a piston through his skull. Amos shook the gore from his metal arm and looked defiantly at the ring of blue-armored elite soldiers around him. His face was wild and streaked with oil, which he spit in brown streaks from his chapped lips. Who knows what was broken, but it was leaking into his lungs and it tasted like shit.
"C'mon motherfuckers. I haven't had a conscience since my brother Omar was killed. Get too close to my hammer here and you won't have one anymore either."
The Heishi pounced all together. Amos disappeared under a wave of blue.
***
A muscular hand burst up out of the rubble. Concrete dust settled all around. With superhuman effort someone slowly lifted a massive slab, formerly of the ceiling and, placing their feet under it, heaved it to the side with a crunch. From within the rubble of a destroyed tenement, thin wheezing breaths could be faintly heard.
The slow emergence of this casualty from the fallen structure went completely unnoticed by columns of soldiers jogging past in the street. Neither did they notice a small mechified boy weeping in an alleyway over the corpse of his mother, recently retrieved from the same collapsed building. They jogged by with determination, eyes scanning only for potential threats, missing the signs of anguish around them.
The hand grabbed a piece of rebar and heaved. Statuesque shoulders, dreadlocked hair, and then the whole upper body of Balder the Gogajin rose from the ruins. Concrete dust caked in his wounds, labored breathing betraying a pierced lung, his back a nightmare landscape of bullet wounds, half of his face crusted over with an unsightly scab, Balder dragged himself to his feet, and walked on a broken ankle into the street. Instead of blood, his veins flowed with righteous anger and there were some Goshi soldiers nearby who were good candidates to help him do some anger management.
***
The students at Washi San academy were sombre listening to the announcement. It made no sense. Lord Daitokuji Ichirou, patriarch of the Silver Phoenix Clan and first pilot of the academy turned traitor? They might as well have said that gravity temporarily reversed directions or, contrary to all former knowledge, the sun really does revolve around Karia. Impossible. Ichirou and traitor were words that never belonged in the same sentence together unless the traitor was being struck down by Ichirou.
Whatever the students thought, the Grand Master knew what was necessary to save his academy. However much it grieved him, he must cooperate with Goshi and order his students to pursue and capture Ichirou at any opportunity. With a solemnity bordering on the funeral of a beloved monarch the students struck Ichirou's banner - the purple field with three silver feathers. They removed it from the place of honor and ritually desecrated it. The Silver Phoenix clan would require a long time to overcome this dishonor.
***
A nurse rolled her cart down the corridor checking room numbers - ah 324. She looked at the checklist and noting the patient's name, Malicious, withdrew a serial coded syringe from the appropriate compartment. As a precaution none of the nurses in this hospital ever know what the syringes contain, since many of the patients are telepathic and it increases distress if they realize what treatment they are given. Thus, blissfully ignorant, this prim young nurse went into the room where a teenage girl with ebony hair lay unconscious in traction.
She checked the patient's pulse, steady. Listened to her breathing, even. Then turned her arm so that she could have access to a vein, nice and plump.
The syringe went in silently and the clear fluid was dispensed in moments. The orderly rubbed the spot with a little cotton swab to get the drop of blood, and cheerily departed.
Malicious was dead before the door swung closed.
***
Karia watched all of this with something bordering on obsession. Such an intricate web. So complex, the chains of consequences. So many purposes being fulfilled and denied, discovered and destroyed. Karia knew that, as a planet, she had no pulse, even still she felt her heart pounding. There will be ramifications, she whispered, for all of this. There will be prices to be paid and yet...The thing which continually drew her back to this scene is the amazing depths to which these people reached in themselves to find the price that is asked and meet it. Almost instinctually, they seem to understand that their lives matter.
Not just their lives. All lives. Life itself is the question that the cosmos are asking. It could all so easily not be. A tiny shift of a universal constant here, a miniscule blip in the laws of physics there. The universe sat back like an artist considering the composition, undecided. Paint it back to white? Or let the riot of colors continue...
The marked ones, the ones that Karia had cursed with gifts, they would be the pivotal actors in this drama. How would they answer the question? Karia wondered. No, she practically shrieked and danced about in anticipation. Did they feel it? Did they intuit the answer? Did they know the enormous burden that was being placed on them, or comprehend the vastness of that one word question:
Life?
The Eyes of Hurricane
Dr. Omura, hands shaking, pressed the call button on his link and a pink bud of light appeared in his ear piece. It was disturbingly silent on the other end.
"They've found her, executor," he fought to keep his voice level. "She was, just as you said, trying to flee the city. Apparently she ran out of energy and her disLocator quit working."
The doctor waited for some kind of response. None was forthcoming. He swallowed, but his mouth was dry.
"I expect them to bring her to the labs within the hour. If you wished..."
"I'll be there," was all that he said before the connection was severed.
Dr. Omura pulled the link out of his ear hastily and leaned over the counter breathing heavily. Looking down at his own aged hands he noticed them quivering involuntarily and tried to still them. They stubbornly disobeyed. He brushed the few straggly hairs he had left out of his face and back over a balding pate where they clung sweatily. He examined his disorganized laboratory, countless unfinished projects lying across every level surface, bubbling under the hood, and sticking out of overfilled cupboards. What would he need? Oh yes. He walked over to a medicine locker and withdrew a scalpel. The hand holding it trembled all the more.
She had to be resuscitated from the stupor the Hei Shi had beat her into. She awoke face down on the laboratory floor gagging at the smell of ammonia. She looked up to see the armed men standing above her and her face blanched. She appeared suddenly far too small for her body armor, which was marred in places by the scrapes and scars of combat.
"Hurricane," she was addressed by the executor, Katashi Blade, who stood in a far corner in his customary white tailored suit looking away from her as if examining, with interest, the contents of a nearby bubbling vial. "I know that you understand the situation you are in, but I want you to nod anyway to make it real for yourself. Nod your head if you know why you are here."
A tear escaped her left eye and fled down her cheek, but she made no sound as she nodded her head slowly. Katashi neither looked nor made any sign that he was paying attention. Dr. Omura tried very hard not to let his thoughts betray how much he resented being made to be a witness to these proceedings.
"Good. You think that I chose you for your talents Hurricane and up till now it has been useful to let you think that. You think that I promoted you over countless other able candidates because I spotted some secret ability the others lacked. Sadly you are mistaken. You are a very ordinary girl Hurricane. That in itself is no great crime. For that I would have had you killed in your sleep so that you would not be awake now, experiencing this anguish," Blade bent closer to the glass of the hood, something was moving about in the vial that caught his attention.
"No Hurricane, I chose you because of your pliability. I required someone upon whom to test the disLocator, and someone who I could blame for Goshi's failure to put down the insurrection. It is convenient that you were able to do both." Katashi Blade turned purposefully to face her, his eyes covered with opaque white shades.
"So you see, I've really brought you here to express my gratitude. You've taught me several, very interesting things, and I am a man who always appreciates a chance to grow," with that he nodded and the Hei Shi immediately grabbed Hurricane's arms and stretched her out. Another soldier came behind her and unfastened her body armor. It came off and clattered to the floor. She flinched.
Dr. Omura, mouth clamped shut to prevent himself vomiting, stepped forward and swiftly cut her shirt away, baring a pale and muscular back. From between her shoulder blades a massive red pulsating cyst protruded, with tendrils that reached out like veins across the whole length of her torso. The sight of it startled Dr. Omura so much he dropped his scalpel.
"Shit. It's... so fast! So much faster than we anticipated, executor," he fumbled around for the scalpel not able to peel his eyes away from the alien growth.
The white form of Katashi Blade remained completely motionless, not a quiver of a single facial muscle betrayed any emotion and yet the room was filling, palpably, with his displeasure. Hurricane felt as though gravity had suddenly become subjective and her destiny lie in being obliterated by the black hole of a man in front of her. Broken in countless ways from within she felt a moist warmth spreading down her thighs and she longed with a profound longing for the bliss of unconsciousness.
Instead, the executor strode noiselessly over to her, crouching to put his face at a level with hers. One hand tipped his shades partway down his nose so that she might see directly into his eyes. His remarkable eyes. Laughing eyes, but cold. Not warm at all. Eyes which made her feel pathetic and worthless.
"Lest you think yourself completely unremarkable in every way, Hurricane, let me assure you that you did surprise me in one fundamental way. I never imagined that you would have Moses and Acetylene Sue within your grasp and still manage to fuck things up so utterly. You've cost me a great deal of money, not to mention the lives of 300 trained Goshi soldiers, and for that I ordered them to wake you up. I ordered them to revive you so that you would be conscious as we remove the disLocator from your body, which to your great misfortune, you gleefully permitted us to install in the place of your first thoracic vertebra. It will hurt, I imagine, quite unlike anything you've ever felt before and because I am something of a connoisseur when it comes to pain I will remain here with you so that I might taste what this new agony is like."
She began screaming before Dr. Omura even touched the scalpel to her flesh...
The surgery did not take long since there was no imperative to keep the patient alive. Very soon a bloody electronic device with a small chip of whiterock lay in an aluminum tray on the counter. Hurricane's body was dumped in an empty cell for disposal in the morning, a jagged hole gaping between her shoulder blades. The corpse lay unmoving all night with only Karia to witness the very early stages of decay commencing. The directors would hear only that Hurricane had failed and been dismissed. If they questioned Katashi closely it might be suggested that she had fled Geneva Prime. In any case, neither they, nor the doctor, nor Katashi himself would ever know that alone in the darkness, in a cell in the Goshi tower, blood began leaking from the eyes of Hurricane.
"They've found her, executor," he fought to keep his voice level. "She was, just as you said, trying to flee the city. Apparently she ran out of energy and her disLocator quit working."
The doctor waited for some kind of response. None was forthcoming. He swallowed, but his mouth was dry.
"I expect them to bring her to the labs within the hour. If you wished..."
"I'll be there," was all that he said before the connection was severed.
Dr. Omura pulled the link out of his ear hastily and leaned over the counter breathing heavily. Looking down at his own aged hands he noticed them quivering involuntarily and tried to still them. They stubbornly disobeyed. He brushed the few straggly hairs he had left out of his face and back over a balding pate where they clung sweatily. He examined his disorganized laboratory, countless unfinished projects lying across every level surface, bubbling under the hood, and sticking out of overfilled cupboards. What would he need? Oh yes. He walked over to a medicine locker and withdrew a scalpel. The hand holding it trembled all the more.
************************
She had to be resuscitated from the stupor the Hei Shi had beat her into. She awoke face down on the laboratory floor gagging at the smell of ammonia. She looked up to see the armed men standing above her and her face blanched. She appeared suddenly far too small for her body armor, which was marred in places by the scrapes and scars of combat.
"Hurricane," she was addressed by the executor, Katashi Blade, who stood in a far corner in his customary white tailored suit looking away from her as if examining, with interest, the contents of a nearby bubbling vial. "I know that you understand the situation you are in, but I want you to nod anyway to make it real for yourself. Nod your head if you know why you are here."
A tear escaped her left eye and fled down her cheek, but she made no sound as she nodded her head slowly. Katashi neither looked nor made any sign that he was paying attention. Dr. Omura tried very hard not to let his thoughts betray how much he resented being made to be a witness to these proceedings.
"Good. You think that I chose you for your talents Hurricane and up till now it has been useful to let you think that. You think that I promoted you over countless other able candidates because I spotted some secret ability the others lacked. Sadly you are mistaken. You are a very ordinary girl Hurricane. That in itself is no great crime. For that I would have had you killed in your sleep so that you would not be awake now, experiencing this anguish," Blade bent closer to the glass of the hood, something was moving about in the vial that caught his attention.
"No Hurricane, I chose you because of your pliability. I required someone upon whom to test the disLocator, and someone who I could blame for Goshi's failure to put down the insurrection. It is convenient that you were able to do both." Katashi Blade turned purposefully to face her, his eyes covered with opaque white shades.
"So you see, I've really brought you here to express my gratitude. You've taught me several, very interesting things, and I am a man who always appreciates a chance to grow," with that he nodded and the Hei Shi immediately grabbed Hurricane's arms and stretched her out. Another soldier came behind her and unfastened her body armor. It came off and clattered to the floor. She flinched.
Dr. Omura, mouth clamped shut to prevent himself vomiting, stepped forward and swiftly cut her shirt away, baring a pale and muscular back. From between her shoulder blades a massive red pulsating cyst protruded, with tendrils that reached out like veins across the whole length of her torso. The sight of it startled Dr. Omura so much he dropped his scalpel.
"Shit. It's... so fast! So much faster than we anticipated, executor," he fumbled around for the scalpel not able to peel his eyes away from the alien growth.
The white form of Katashi Blade remained completely motionless, not a quiver of a single facial muscle betrayed any emotion and yet the room was filling, palpably, with his displeasure. Hurricane felt as though gravity had suddenly become subjective and her destiny lie in being obliterated by the black hole of a man in front of her. Broken in countless ways from within she felt a moist warmth spreading down her thighs and she longed with a profound longing for the bliss of unconsciousness.
Instead, the executor strode noiselessly over to her, crouching to put his face at a level with hers. One hand tipped his shades partway down his nose so that she might see directly into his eyes. His remarkable eyes. Laughing eyes, but cold. Not warm at all. Eyes which made her feel pathetic and worthless.
"Lest you think yourself completely unremarkable in every way, Hurricane, let me assure you that you did surprise me in one fundamental way. I never imagined that you would have Moses and Acetylene Sue within your grasp and still manage to fuck things up so utterly. You've cost me a great deal of money, not to mention the lives of 300 trained Goshi soldiers, and for that I ordered them to wake you up. I ordered them to revive you so that you would be conscious as we remove the disLocator from your body, which to your great misfortune, you gleefully permitted us to install in the place of your first thoracic vertebra. It will hurt, I imagine, quite unlike anything you've ever felt before and because I am something of a connoisseur when it comes to pain I will remain here with you so that I might taste what this new agony is like."
She began screaming before Dr. Omura even touched the scalpel to her flesh...
************************
The surgery did not take long since there was no imperative to keep the patient alive. Very soon a bloody electronic device with a small chip of whiterock lay in an aluminum tray on the counter. Hurricane's body was dumped in an empty cell for disposal in the morning, a jagged hole gaping between her shoulder blades. The corpse lay unmoving all night with only Karia to witness the very early stages of decay commencing. The directors would hear only that Hurricane had failed and been dismissed. If they questioned Katashi closely it might be suggested that she had fled Geneva Prime. In any case, neither they, nor the doctor, nor Katashi himself would ever know that alone in the darkness, in a cell in the Goshi tower, blood began leaking from the eyes of Hurricane.
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