As a result, after an unknown amount of time had passed, controls were eventually returned to Reaper One, the side effect of her controls being returned was slight memory loss, and as it dawned on her she glared Specter One's way, knowing what that must have meant.
“The Specter Act allows me to ‘modify’ orders I may receive. After the completion of this mission, Specter Team will be officially ‘retired’. My interpretation, and the files thereafter will be purged. Any evidence of their existence will become a clerical error, as would yours. The final dispensation of all commissions and pensions at the completion of this mission”
It would seem The Planetary Governor had informed the latter of The Board of Governors' Intentions prior to what they may discover within that facility. Specter One was naturally exempted from their purview, and for good reason.
As it was likely they would have to ‘appease’ Specter One after his return?
To put it bluntly, he was The Hand of Governor Ernest E Rothen, Planetary Governor of New Harvest, The Director, and The Founder, an individual who ruled over The Board and had the final say to make or break it at any given moment..
There was always a bigger fish, only in comparison he was The Ocean that ‘allowed’ those bigger fish to experiment, innovate, and create without borders.
There were only taboos, and every member of The Board knew them, however as a collective they had naturally made their own.
Alpha’s ‘retirement’ could be said to have followed a similar train of thought? As for all it had entailed, she was summarily erased with extreme prejudice. Only, that was not the case as only The Board truly believed it so.
And only Governor Ernest & Specter One was privy to that information, and neither were at liberty to share, nor acknowledge that was not the case. The Board had similar ‘Acts’ in place but none of them could compare or reach so extensively.
Leaving Alpha and Reaper One who ‘knew’ him to a lesser extent, to acknowledge that his words and actions thus far had displayed such certainty, that if ever truly said aloud was the truth, and only the truth.
An impossible feat in any ordinary circumstance, but not Specter One. Reaper One may not idolize the man nor admire him to such extent, however she and Calisto ‘knew’ and valued his words to the extent that every word had value, if not he wouldn't have spoken them aloud.
Neither were blind to it, or how it may appear, thus they understood what would have happened and what will no doubt happen only for their fates to be drastically altered in their favor. And unlike Reaper One, Alpha knew who resided under Specter One’s suit.
As for everyone else including Reaper One and to the exception of Ernest, he could be anyone, as was the secrecy of his identity to both The General Population & The Board in their entirety.
Ernest knew him due to personal circumstances, Alpha knew him as currently she resided within his neural implant connected to his spine, and brainstem. Both of which required a level of trust not easily given to another human being, even less so for an artificial intelligence.
Alpha in turn strived to make up the difference as Specter One disconnected Reaper One and the entirety of his team’s access to New Harvest but not without time sensitive backdoor codes that would soon expire within forty eight hours.
A simple side effect being a subtle memory wipe as their implants were purged of any information relating to New Harvest or waiting to do so as it followed closely with the time sensitive access codes.
Alpha ensured the selective nature of the micro-memory wipes, to such an extent, enough to only target anything they possessed that would allow them to return to New Harvest, without endangering their memories as a whole.
At most, forgetting access codes, influential names, and doing so at such an insignificant rate that such memories could easily be forgotten as mere forgetfulness was preferred over the alternative, was a mercy.
Their ability to retain bonds, relationships, stories, and personal moments without the risk to New Harvest Security was worth the price as it had in all intents and purposes did so while already fundamentally stepping on that metaphoric line.
“At the completion of this operation, Reaper One will take command of an unmarked vessel, relocating the members of the team to these coordinates, and disposing of it thereafter at her discretion”
Specter One strictly instructed, only to in turn remove an A.I Chip from his suit before ultimately leaving it on Reaper One’s flight controls without another word. That of course was Alpha’s inferior copy, Specter One was relinquishing it, it was at Alpha’s request.
The Inferior Copy in terms of ‘power’ and synthetic might could not be compared in any meaningful sense of the word, only in terms of her personality, and memories of her interactions with Reaper One as Alpha held Specter One and Reaper One were held in a similar regard.
The only difference was undoubtedly due to the threshold between Alpha and her copy, her copy couldn’t hope to become Ascendant, while Alpha had either broken through or neared a breakthrough, but due to her shackles and other drastic measures, she was ultimately forced into stagnation.
The Curators were Ascendant A.I who at the ‘height’ of The Golden Age of Technology and shortly after recovering from an unknown war that left humanity at a critical state, ‘took’ Earth, The Sol System, the vast majority of The Milky Way in the centuries that followed.
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To them the human body was an organic machine, they believed much of Humanity was ‘shackled’ considering their potential, and for unknown reasons or the other nearly ended humanity before their civil war allowed Humanity to escape into The Universe.
Curators could manipulate The Human Body nearly as efficiently as they could technology, an example of this is allowing a human a seamlessly immortal lifespan, bio transference, and the ability to become an A.I without sacrificing the brain.
While in terms of technology they could seemingly turn a derelict shattered in two into a perfectly functional vessel, as was their insight to that extent.
And when it came to Organic Ascendants, those mostly being human for one reason or the other, they were naturally far older and at one point or the other were called ‘Perpetuals’ during the days of The Precursors. However, those details are for another time..
…
After leaving Reaper One to her cockpit, Specter One emerged in the squad bay as he was soon greeted by members of Specter Team.
Specter Three, Director Alec Mercer. Specter Two, Major Elijah Keyes, a competent and strategic officer and back up CO. Specter Four, Lieutenant Royce Foster, Combat Engineer, and Cargo Mech Certified.
Specter Five, Lieutenant Grayson Hood, a Historian, Translator, and Tactical Negotiator. And finally Specter Six.. Calisto Alpha or alternatively, Calisto, or Alpha for the sake of simplicity.
“Do my eyes deceive me.. Is that our poster girl Alpha in the flesh? Ok now.. Specter One you got some explaining to do! Is she one of those fancy Curators now or did you use one of those fancy dancey vats to clone her up a body-”
Royce unceremoniously blurted out, with his heavy southern charm resemblant to that of a wholesome southern gentleman.
Something of which, Specter Team had already grown accustomed to as Roy was a wholesome southern gentleman who wouldn't hurt a fly, except if that fly was a bonafide Terrormorph, in which case.. no one would be able to stop him from riding it off into the sunset.
Ironically, he had done so with a much smaller runt of a Terrormorph litter after volunteering to a series of weapons tests. He would return several hours later after essentially freeing it and managing to take a photo of it with a cowboy hat and cold beer in one of its claws.
Sadly, it was later discovered it had wandered off into an unrelated minefield and had died soon after. Roy would mourn by burying it and at every sunset, and sitting a beer by its gravestone..
Disregarding how utterly bizarre he truly was, Roy was born on a farm within the borders of The Freestar Confederacy, on a rural frontier world before enlisting into The Desert Rangers, and later joining The Navy, before eventually finding himself in The Special Forces.
Or more specifically Marine variant, which was especially surprising considering he was predominantly a Combat Engineer specializing in Slipspace Drives, something not many ‘could’ say without being dragged away to a Science Institute.
Alpha personally found him quite ‘charming’ considering the vast majority of circumstances and predicaments she could not only remember but had actively predicted.
One of which consisted of him hunting down a ‘cloned’ Terrormorph for weapons testing only for him to show up drunk and inside of a random cargo mech with unfortunate souls following behind in an attempt to stop him.
No one knew how he did it, only the fact alone that he did.
The only downside then was no doubt that the weapon’s testing had never actually begun leaving mixed results and a great deal of angry but equally impressed researchers who from that day forth nicknamed him The Fabulous Country Bumpkin.
“Lieutenant Foster, you didn’t tame anything too troublesome while I was away? The cost of your last pet was especially troubling, now what was it? You needed the bones of the last known grizzly bear found outside of the milky way, smuggled from a museum, then cloned in secret..”
Calisto coldly humored.. leaving not much for interpretation as she saw him discreetly hiding a picture of a massive grizzly bear with a cowboy hat, and cigar in its mouth, directly into his pocket.
“You know.. isn’t that something? Those bones? They must have been fake! It cloned a rock! Don’t ask me how! Specter One here can vouch for me! Right buddy?”
Roy unceremoniously coughed, only for Specter One to say nothing at all. Evidently, Alpha was present throughout Roy’s Heist, naturally Specter One was present, and by extension her. While the sudden population of Grizzly Bears appearing on New Harvest didn’t help his case?
“Brushing past that particular ecological disaster.. The Installation in question is currently silent, and the last three or should I say six teams sent in haven’t reported back. From what The Board of Governors are ‘willing’ to disclose, earlier estimations reveal a long abandoned curator installation, manned by the joint forces of three governors who shall remain anonymous-”
Alpha’s words including her sudden mentioning of the origins of the installation added a level of uncertainty that warranted Specter One’s behavior thus far.
“I hope there’s enough left of their corpses for a proper study..”
Mercer unceremoniously chimed in, which was understandable considering anything Curator would be the find of a century.
Current Humanity had only recently left The Dark Age within the last decade, the minor exception being too few to count while much of humanity didn’t consider Arcadians to be truly human any longer due to their sheer technological level and that of their sciences being.
However, much like The Precursors, they were for another time, as Alpha proceeded to inform the others of their new arrangements after the completion of their mission, before briefing them further, only ever ending when they were ETA Ten Minutes out from their LZ.
To say she was met with some surprise only for Spector One to both confirm and back her voice, naturally led to Roy smiling far more than he should have while Mercer hoped to collect a few.. ‘scraps’ of Curator Technology for study.
Naturally the others also spoke of their plans, Roy for one planned to ‘retire’ from the combined commission and pension which equated to six hundred and.. ninety million credits? A lot considering he’d practically ‘almost’ be a billionaire.
New Harvest’s Budget could easily reach trillions in funding alone, impressive even at a universal level, and considering a cataclysmic amount of tax evasion and shadowy figures at play, good ol Roy would get it all.
Mercer on the other hand was getting nine hundred million, while the others were between five seven four hundred million. The exception being Reaper One who was getting eight, and had Specter One been a part of that equation he'd easily receive nearly five billion.
That included his two separate pensions & retirement, their hazard pays, both of his identities commissions, and a great deal of ‘appeasement’ & favoritism that could be found among The Board.
They were also unaware he was Specter One, and had unknowingly favored his real identity slightly more than Specter One’s. Specter One would have received a final dispensation of two billion, while his true identity would have received three.