After handing Jaid the package, the attendant departed immediately, making it seem like he was in a hurry, but he dawdled just long enough to confirm that Captain Luciri had gone back into her room.
From there, the attendant summoned a personal mover to take him to one of the express elevators. Captain Luciri was one of the very few soldiers who got to live in the positive-numbered floors. Most other soldiers were stuck in the barracks on the negative floors. She was even so lucky as to get a number as low as floor 41. If she ever made general, she’d most likely end up in the 15-20 range.
The attendant’s destination was floor 2, where all the important Representatives had their offices. Officially, there was no reason why some Representatives were on floor 2, and some were on floor 3, with new arrivals even spilling over to floor 4 these days. The common speculation was that it was just based on arrival date, but everyone knew it was an inverted hierarchy.
When the attendant got off the elevator, they nearly bumped into Representative Viscelli and her protege. Just given the few words that he overheard, they were scheming something that would need to be investigated later. He pulled a small notebook out of his pocket and jotted it down.
After another quick ride on a personal move, he arrived at the office for the Representative of Horage and rang the buzzer. “It’s me, sir.”
“Ah, Gandr, come in,” Gort Hower replied on the intercom and then the door clinked itself unlocked. Respected and beloved though he may be, the Representative appreciated his privacy above all else. “How was Captain Luciri?” he asked as soon as Gandr had entered the office and closed the door.
“Confused and tired.”
“Well within our expectations then,” the Rep showed no further concern.
“Let me be the first to offer my sincere condolences regarding the raid, sir,” Gandr almost looked like he had a tear in his eye. “I know you worked tirelessly in its preparation.”
Hower let out a haughty huff. “You know as well as I that it was mostly for show. The amount that came out of our budget will be sorely missed, but the losses to the organization were negligible. I’m sure we will face the public ire in some sectors, but like with every other travesty, we will bounce back. And the support we’ll gain from certain groups will have made it all worthwhile.”
“It’s a shame that we didn’t get any of the Fiends we were after. Immortality is off the table for now, but that was a pipedream to gather the momentum we needed behind the scenes anyways. While everything didn’t work as we’d hoped, I’d still say we ended with a marvelous consolation prize.” Hower held up a small vial between his thumb and pointer finger accompanied by an insidious, self-satisfied smile.
“What is that, sir?” Gandr came in for a closer gander. “I don’t see anything.”
“No, you wouldn’t,” Hower’s grin only grew. “The Fiends call them Gizmicros, small machines that attach themselves to your very cells. My agent was able to sneak into their secret lab and steal them. Quite marvelous, that Curse of hers. Thanks to our sea of bodies, her diluted aura was able to slip past Phon Drazah’s notice. Of course, she was limited in the size of what she could bring back, but I don’t think we could have asked for anything more.”
“And what exactly does a Gizmicro do, sir?”
Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
“Well, I had no idea myself at first,” Hower admitted. “But our scientists have been studying them nonstop since it arrived. I just received a report not long before your return, and it is astounding to say the least. If anyone ever needed proof that Drim Drazah is a heartless Draz just like his mother, they need look no further than these.”
“To sum it up, they work as transmitters constantly sending information back to the Fiends For Hire at all times. When Luciri had first infiltrated their organization, she reported that she had been injected with something, a ‘Fiend Detecting Drug’ she called it. Well, we can safely assume that was only one reason for the injection. The main purpose was to implant these Gizmicros.”
“Given that logic, we can assume that all of their members, Luciri herself, and anyone who has ever applied to join them is infested with these. The main thing they transmit is location. Through their own private satellite, they can know the exact coordinates of all those who have been injected at all times. Though with what we know about Phon Drazah’s upgraded ability, this ability isn’t that useful to them anymore.”
“It transmits quite a few other things such as the host’s physical state so that they can know if someone is in danger. What is quite intriguing, though, is that they are able to transmit ‘Intent’ itself.”
“Intent?” Gandr rattled his brain for a moment on what it could mean. “I really don’t think I follow, Sir.”
“Quite understandable, Gandr. I had to reread it a few times myself to fully grasp the concept.” Part of why Hower had earned Gandr’s unyielding loyalty was that he was never afraid to admit his failings to him and him alone.
“To put it simply, it measures if the host is going to do something good or bad—whether they believe what they’re doing is beneficial, or if it’s something that they know is wrong and that they shouldn’t be doing it. We can’t quite say how thoroughly the measurements are yet, not until we inject a few test subjects.”
“But besides transmission there are a few other features. More importantly, there are two that have been permanently disabled. The scientists have assured me that their functions have been irrevocably stripped, so that no one would be able to repair them.”
“First, they’ve removed the ability to assume direct control of any living beings injected with the Gizmicros. So any musings of a thoughtless army are out the window from the get go. However, the scientists believe that they can use it to further enhance our usage of our already existing technologies.”
“The second stripped function is the ability to kill the infected on the spot. That shouldn’t be surprising given the other disabled function. They probably don’t want it used against them, either, if an entity such as ourselves were ever to gain control. However, they did leave the ability to paralyze the hosts—a full body lockdown.”
“As far as we can tell, though, they’ve never used it. As such, we wouldn’t be able to figure out the frequency of the command unless they activate it—probably keeping it as a trump card that as few people know about as possible.”
“Speaking of disabled abilities, there is another that wasn’t stripped, but simply hasn’t been activated. They’re unsure if they’ll ever be able to get it unlocked, not without The Engineer’s assistance anyways. It’s the ability to look directly through the host’s eyes and transmit back a feed of what they’re seeing.”
“If we could get it unlocked, would we possibly be able to see what all the Fiends For Hire members are doing?” Gandr was starting to get wishful.
“Not without directly injecting them again,” Hower shook his head. “I inquired already about patching and making updates to those already injected, and it seems it can’t be done remotely. Nor can we fully take control of their transmission feed. Apparently, the best we can do currently would be hijacking the outgoing signal of those already infected from a very short range.”
“We could always try to experiment on Luciri if needed. However, they assure me that we can retune the Gizmicros with our own transmission signal that the Fiends For Hire themselves can’t access. So, it’d be better to start from scratch with our own trustworthy agents and leave Luciri out of it altogether, lest we raise her suspicions.”
“All that said, I think the Fiends For Hire certainly aren’t using these to their full potential. Simply spying on our own army wouldn’t get us very far. It’s too small minded. No, I have another spectacular idea in mind to use this to eliminate the biggest obstacles in the way of our dreams!”