IXTRACTED
The security action had gone on for weeks now at Housing 32-987, a sealed off Cube twenty meters a side on the edge of Block 987, a neighborhood Downtown, Port and Mid-decks on the great mobile citystate of Ix The Undying.
It had gotten really busy. Auditrixes sniping defenders from the nearby buildings, Cans stomping around outside the perimeter tearing at defenses while being hosed down by decaf napalm, engineer acolytes jamming service connections into the block - and it was an interesting time, and everybody had lots of fun.
Until the Imperatrix showed up.
Like your parents coming home early to a party you had in your crèche without permission, Her Most Magnificent Appliance was amused… but more than a little annoyed, She explained, as She lectured Beurefex Rime Set Haber, Chief Auditrix from the Eparchy of Auditrixes, there inspecting the operation. Haber had been lectured many times before by the Imperatrix, over the fifty years of her being Beurefex and years before when she was a simple combat tax accountant for the E of A. So: she remained patient but not bored; respectful but not sycophantic. Ix Herself was the Multiplex Maximus and at any moment could be Goddess, Parent, Supreme Commander or Central Computer… and it was best to be ready to deal with whichever of Her showed up.
“I don’t mind the socializing, or Zens burning off a little steam, Rime, really,” She said, speaking from a small aspect: a stone face set into a bit of crumbly dry fountain in the forum outside the cube. Her voice from the mouth was tinny and sounded rusty, not unusual since a hundred years ago water used to fountain out of it. “I just don’t like the mess.”
And mess there was! Piles of security bodies, trashed Cans, infrastructure smoldering. Yet the Cube still stood, sealed and defiant, a few anxious gun barrels peeking out through slits, anxious eyes behind them.
“Our apologies, Imperatrix,” Rime wheedled. “It’s just that this rebellious Cube has really done a number closing themselves off. They declared they seceded from the church and wanted to be a “free zone”, whatever that is.”
“And you can’t get in.”
Rime gestured towards the Cube, the main entrance shut and armored. “I’m sure we could, Your Most Holy of Transports, but we’re at the point where we’re going to have to bring in heavier ordinance and-“
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“Oh no! No, no, no.” The stone aspect frowned with what was left of its features, dust falling off as it moved. “This is one of the few quiet places I have an aspect where I can hear Myself think.”
Everybody waited. The aspect muttered squeakily to Ixself, thinking. Finally: “How many people are in there?”
Beurefex Haber shrugged. “Most surrendered when things got busy. There’s maybe eighty or so left. Mostly Ploys. Nobody of significance. No Sets, certainly. It’s self-powered and isolated. We found that out when we cut off external services.”
“And it’s the whole Block.”
Rime shook her head. “No Imperatrix, just Cube 32.”
“Oh. Oh! That’s easy then. They just need a Time Out. Please wait.” The aspect closed Her eyes and contemplated.
A flock of delivery drones took to the skies, buzzing and screeching, right before the ground shuddered. With a deafening crunch and grind, the entire Cube in question started descending.
“This might take several minutes,” the aspect muttered.
Confused eyes inside looked out the gunports, panicking. The Cube lowered into the street out of sight, leaving a yawning hole. Gear clacking and crashing continued to sound beneath their feet.
“Almost there,” She said. Several other buildings slid in over the now vacated hole. All the buildings within several blocks moved back and forth by a few meters, evening out. Meanwhile the grinding sound below decks got further and further away.
Finally, after a minute, off in the distance, beyond the walls of Ix a few kilometers away, there was a muffled THOOM. The aspect face made the faintest of nods.
“Beurefex Haber, have Navigation note Our current coordinates,” She said. “I dropped Housing Cube 32-987 Outside. Not on an outside deck, OUT-side, big O. We should be back in these parts in a few decades - we’ll check in on them then, and see if their attitude has improved. The rest of you,” She barked, raising her voice so that the fountain speaker distorted, “go home! The party’s over.”
A few hours later Rime stood on the aft walls, watching the Cube settling into a swamp, getting smaller as Ix left it behind. Anything stationary Outside was going to be covered in monsters, raiders, or worse in short order. Cube 32’s occupant’s only hope of survival was to stay sealed up and recycle resources until Ix was back in the area (and hope they didn’t sink out of sight.)
Rime hoped they had something to read.