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Quinn’s new eyes were coming in quite handy, as they could interface with the biotech computer and integrated flawlessly with brain. The result was ocular processing beyond anything she’d experienced previously with her old Cybermind and Cybereyes combination. These Nebula Alliance guys have some really good stuff, she thought. But I would prefer full cybernetics.
She had always heard from her parents that the megacorps had entire divisions of research and development that were dedicated to the sole intent of creating cybernetic augmentations. It was how General Logistics had gone through three full iterations of their prior ‘Cyberware’ as they called their full line of implants. Only the first generation was available to the public prior to Cosmogenic Merging.
But now? After the Nebula Alliance had been on Earth for a month? The whole entire industry had been advanced to a higher level of production and fidelity of product. In other words, the whole world was in the middle of an evolution to a cybernetic era. The one outlier was Pheracorp with their integration of biological materials along with the technological upgrades for a ‘smoother incorporation’, as the doctor who had installed her new eyes and brain had assured her.
As she finished taking apart the EMP device, she heard Priam shout out, “Got it!” as an enormous clunk of metal on concrete jerked her attention to the rabbit-man. He backed away from the door and waved his hand in front of his face, making a gagging noise, “Bleh! What is that stuff?”
Quinn packed up the EMP device components and walked over to join Priam. She wrinkled her nose and pinched it as her eyes shifted to the golden hue of her Cosmic Power and she peered inside. There was a person strapped to a gurney, with festering pustules and wriggling tentacles embedded in the flesh. “Fuck…what is that?”
Priam frowned and raised his hand, “Pulsar Physic (Rank 1),” he stated. The golden glow emitted from his palm, limned the person on the gurney, and faded. “Well, they are dead. Nothing to heal.”
Quinn frowned and clambered up into the vehicle. The rest of the vehicle was barren, and she exited, joining Priam once more. “Let me look this up on the Webnet.” She looked down at her Broker’s Interface on her wrist – which she had integrated her sliverscreen into – and quickly performed a basic search. “Nothing in general, and I don’t have access to Pheracorp’s servers right now,” she stated.
Greg walked around the backside of the convoy on his patrol, “All is clear so far, but we shouldn’t linger.”
“All clear? Really?” a voice asked from on top of the corpse-containing cargo van. Greg pointed his rifle at the top of the vehicle, and Jace materialized. “You let me get right past you,” Jace said with a smile.
Quinn frowned, “Shouldn’t you be in Campinas still?”
Jace hopped down onto the ground, a grimace on his face at hearing the city’s name. “It’s done…” he looked away and lowered his voice. “I…there were casualties.”
Quinn quickly searched up recent news from Campinas and saw the initial reports of people on the ground. “Half the city firebombed; half buried in an earthquake.” She looked up at Greg, and their eyes met for a moment as both looked at Jace’s back. “How the hell did you do that?” she asked.
Jace looked back and those piercing, draconic eyes pierced into her. “Spell-like Skills,” Jace replied solemnly.
Priam looked between the two, “What’s going on? Jace?”
“I destroyed a city,” Jace replied. “Using the Archmage Skills I can use once a day.” He shook his head and knelt next to Priam, “I…I used the geomancy recklessly. I killed a lot of people.”
“You shut down production, right?” Quinn asked as she walked over and crossed her arms.
Jace looked up at her and nodded, “Yeah. I did.” He looked back to Priam, “I’ll want to talk more later,” he told the rabbit man, who nodded in affirmation. Jace stood up and looked at Greg, “What’s the plan?”
The burly man gestured to the convoy, “Well, we should look at this thing first. Quinn couldn’t figure it out.”
He walked over and his spider-Wayfinder crawled out onto the shoulder of his armor. “It is a genetically modified organism. Designed to infest corpses.”
Greg took steps away, “Shit! Did it infect us?”
“No,” Darrin replied. “It looks to be a means to improve the breakdown and decomposition of corpses to create a richer fertilizer. It is not harmful to still-living organics. An intriguing method of improving fertility in farming areas and using corpses. Quite efficient.”
Greg chuckled and slung his rifle, “Okay, that makes me feel better.”
Quinn shook her head, “Let’s go. Nothing left on this convoy. We’re heading to the solar farm.” She led the way back to their APC and everyone piled in.
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“That is all, sir,” Victoria said as she wrapped up her report.
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Her boss, a tall, muscular, and scarred veteran nodded silently. His gaze shifted to Commander Louis, “And you corroborate this report?”
“Yes, sir,” Louis replied.
Victoria smirked. Even though you hate my guts you still backed me up. Must be feeling what I feel. And what she felt was fear. That alien, she was certain, had caused both the earthquake and the firestorm that had devastated their production facilities. The idea that someone had that amount of power was terrifying. She’d heard of what Ascendants could do from the handful of reports she’d seen on the Webnet; but having access to the video feeds to see it happen in real time made it all the more tangible.
She was nothing in comparison to them. And for the third time, she lamented her decision to choose Civilian.
Region Commander Tristan groaned and rubbed his temples, “This is going to be a ton of paperwork,” he stated as leaned back in his chair. “We got some intel from our Nebula Alliance contacts here on Earth. It’s an Aspirant named Flicker. Human. Male.”
“B-b-but his eyes,” Louis whispered in a stutter. “And how fast he moved!”
“And? It’s prosthetics, you idiot.” Tristan shook his head. “We can’t fight a threat we can’t see, and all our local production is gone. If I were you, I would begin shoring up my resume.”
“I wasn’t even in control!” Louis shouted back, his anger overtaking his rationality. “This bitch was!”
Tristan pulled a Pheracorp Enforcer pistol from under the table, racked the slide to chamber a round, and pointed it at Louis, “And at least Sector Commander Victoria tried every asset at her disposal. You seem superfluous.” He pulled the trigger, and Victoria only winced slightly as her academy rival’s head exploded. Tristan set the pistol down and looked to Victoria, “You started out commanding this mess, you finish it. I’m not touching it in an official capacity.”
Victoria nodded. He is covering his ass. He’s probably already erased records of this meeting so that he can show that he had no clue what I was up to. I’m going to take the full brunt of this when it comes time to be held accountable. “Of course, sir. I’ll try my b-”
“Do you know why I gave you lead over that sack of guts over there? Because you are willing to see a task through to the end. He was like the rest of them, willing to throw someone under the bus to climb the ranks. But you…you value loyalty.” Tristan pushed the pistol over to her, “This conversation never happened. You were never here. He was in command for that whole fiasco in Campinas.” He pulled a sliverscreen out of his pocket and pushed it over to her, “And…you did not get this sliverscreen from me.”
She grabbed the items off the table and nodded. “Of course, sir.”
“Go ahead, look at the sliverscreen.”
She did so and saw that there was very limited capacity on it. Only a few contacts. And all of them were labeled as Nebula Alliance Assets. “Am I authorized to call them in, sir?”
“There are three total headed to our holdings. Syndr and Syrtr, Tier 4 Ascendants, and Vhell, a Tier 3 Signer. You are to be their contact for their operations to stop this group sabotaging our facilities. They are going to arrive at 1100 hours. You’ve got some time to rest up.”
“Understood, sir.” She was about to ask if she was dismissed, but instead chose to ask a question that had been nagging at her. “Forgive me for asking, sir, but having all of our operations at Campinas destroyed…the company is crippled, is it not?”
“You would think that,” Tristan replied with a smirk. “But my boss has told me that we have something big in the works here at HQ. Don’t worry – the company will be around for a long, long time despite this setback.”
“Thank you, sir,” Victoria replied.
“This is your one ‘get out of shit’ free card, pumpkin. My authority only goes so far. I’ll make sure that Louis takes the fall…but I can only do a cover-up like this once. I’m exhausting my political capital here.”
“I know, dad. Thank you.”
He shrugged, “It was something no one could have seen coming. It’s unheard of. You shouldn’t suffer for that. Now, off you go.”
She left the room with nary a glance spared at her slain rival. She pulled out her sliverscreen and cashed in all her creds, booking a suite downstairs and scheduling one of the surgeons for the rest of the late night into the early morning…and ordering everything she had been adding to her account wish list.
She had been saving up funds for years because she had no real use for them – the company provided her with all her basic needs, and she was a woman of simple tastes and lived for her work. If spending her hard-earned creds on biotech upgrades for herself would ensure she could keep doing that job – it would be worth every single bit.
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Jace finished telling Priam about what happened, his thoughts, and what Xera had told him. Priam nodded with understanding and only showed some amount of emotion when Jace had mentioned the number of people slain. “Well,” Priam said, “They have a Godheart and want to use it for ill intent. In my eyes, that damns the whole bunch of them. You do not mess around with the remains of a dead deity.”
Jace nodded as the APC bounced and jostled the two slightly. Greg was looking at him from across the back seats with stern eyes. “You’ve got a higher kill count than me,” Greg said.
“Not like I wanted it that high,” Jace replied.
“If it makes you feel any better, I can tell you what happens when they died,” Priam said. This drew Jace, Greg, and even Quinn’s attention. He continued, “I mean, at least I can tell you how it works on my world.”
Ollie popped his head out of Jace’s hood, “Do tell.”
Jace looked down at Ollie, “You don’t know what happens when we die? I figured the System would have that all figured out.”
“None know what happens beyond death. Not even The Architects knew. Different worlds have different beliefs. And generally, those beliefs are held close since proselytizing outside of one’s species is generally frowned upon.”
Priam continued, “On my world, the gods judge the soul and send it on to the Eternal Deserts, or the Oasis of Plenty. It depends on how well they lived life following the gods’ decrees.”
Ollie chuckled, “Interesting. Adding that to The Cosmic System. Remind me to bug you later about the specific strictures required, as we have not received that information yet.” He looked up at Jace, “Often, species and their cultures will not share religious information with outsiders. Again, proselytizing is discouraged.”
Jace leaned back and sighed, “Well, no need for an afterlife for me. I just have to get to Tier 10, become an Ascendant, and then I’m immortal. Bring back Chroma, make sure she’s raised well, and then help her in a hands-off way to pass her Aspirant Trial.”
“As long as you do not directly interact with her then you would be able to guard her through the Trial,” Ollie said as he curled around Jace’s neck. “And, even save up a bunch of Stardust to rush her through levels, if you had such an inclination.”
Jace reached his hand up and scratched Ollie’s fur. I’ll make sure I get her back. It doesn’t matter what I have to do.