KEREU TAAKI

The central news station of Windrush was not even on Windrush. Radio Television Frontier and Mainworlds belonged to the Sparrow Corporation and was headquartered in Mountainchill. However, there were radio and television studios in Windrush, working for RTFM. These mostly provided local news and the occasional scenes of Windrushian nature for productions on earth, where actors would look seemingly unaffected by the winds that gave the planet its name, making all people on other planets think that high level people have the ability to shrug off the winds as if they were not there. While that was not completely wrong and high Resilience can help shrug off a lot of the effects of the strong winds, none of that can prevent the hair from blowing, unless stasis artefacts were used. Which Kereu knew because he saw people try to do outdoor meetings and parties in the summer of Windrush. Which led to some of the most miserable company meetings and parties with mandatory attendance he had the misfortune to be in.

And now, Kereu was en route to the television studios. He needed to prevent the situation from being spun by the media. Kadish and Jiiti were with him. Jiiti because she had worked as a cleaner in the station for a few months and knew her way around before the temporary employment agency changed her contract to clean the Greenland offices instead, where she learned about Solidarity. Kadish because he was the most well-spoken in the group and could work as the face of the movement. And Kereu? Well, he had the idea and could help if someone was injured.

The group travelled by the flying contraption just after it returned to the dungeon and an exhausted Jaaru and Init curled up in the gazebo and apart from saying that the elites could not leave ever, refused to talk about the incident and just hugged and sobbed.

The station was in a series of buildings that didn't look like any of them belonged on Windrush. They looked as if someone dropped capsules next to each other in the outskirts of the city and connected them with tubes. The buildings looked like they would collapse in any decent storm. Jiiti mentioned that the place was seriously damaged a few times but was rebuilt just the same, for seemingly no apparent reason than hubris.

Jiiti led the group to an entrance, knocked and with a tired voice said: "Akiiu? You there? The agency sent me but they fucked up getting us badges again. Care to let me in?"

There was a voice who responded: "Jiiti? You're back? I'm gonna tell Shuaar!"

Jiiti rolled her eyes silently, but responded in the same tone as before: "Sure, I am also happy to see him!"

The voice sounded happy and shouted: "One moment!" and several moments later, an elderly guy opened the door.

"Akiiu!" Jiiti shouted and hugged.

There was a moment in which she caught up with him. Exchanged inside jokes, asked him about his wife's health. Kereu and Kadish looked at the scene, each other, and then decided not to say anything. Eventually Jiiti introduced them as two friends from the agency who got the same assignment. Akiiu led them to a changing room and got them uniforms. He then gave them a map with certain rooms marked in red, green and yellow and explained the rules: "Red areas get cleaned only after they have been signed out in the room reservation system, green areas are priorities, and yellow areas only get disturbed is there is no red reservation, but in case of a green one, going ahead is okay. Oh, and the white areas, just clean the floors and woe betide you should you touch the equipment."

The group grabbed cleaning carts and was on their way.

As soon as they were out of earshot, Jiiti rolled her eyes again: "Akiiu is always so positive at work. It's like he's under a spell. But then, most people here are. It's frustrating to me, it seems dishonest. I always feel like I can see the desperation in people's eyes here!"

Kereu looked at her: "Do you mean that people here constantly have a customer service smile? Even in the break room? That's eerie!"

Jiiti nodded: "It is indeed. I was happy to get out there. Greenland was miserable, but not, like, fake. That's a difference."

They entered the first green room and Jiiti immediately twitched. There was something in the air here. Kereu felt himself affected and threw his skill at the matter. He twitched. There was an influence. There was a kind of magic, something that stuck to people. He realised that he needed to purge this foul influence. When looking through it with his skills, he saw the foreign influence and it felt incredibly hostile. He used his skill and first scrubbed it from himself, but as it kept on coming, this was a useless endeavour more akin to solving a leak in a pipe with a sponge. This was why he tried to do something else. He needed to first seal the leak. He used his healing magic to form a shield around the places it entered. Ethereally covering his eyes and ears. This helped and he suddenly felt sane again after the onslaught of the foul influence. As he opened his eyes again, he saw a notice:

New skill: Resistance against foreign manipulation skills (Level 1)

He gasped: "So, that is what this is!"

Kadish looked at him: "What is?"

Kereu whispered to him: "This room is chock-full of magical manipulation."

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Kadish nodded: "I noticed. What can we do?"

Kereu whispered: "Can you try to use your magic to shield yourself against it?"

Kadish made a vague gesture. "I don't know how to. This sounds to me like you want me to see out of my elbow!"

Jiiti in the meanwhile looked glassy-eyed and moved her hoover as if she was about to actually do cleaning.

Kadish's expression changed when he saw her and he put his hands on her and shook her.

Jiiti whispered: "Stop what you are doing, I am playing a role here!"

Kadish whispered back: "I have gained a skill"

Kereu asked: "Resistance against foreign manipulation skills?"

Kadish shook his head: "Conveying protection against foreign manipulation skills. I am not sure if I can use it on myself." He grimaced for a few moments.

Kereu stepped towards him and tried to feel the same influence with his skills. It was not as easy as it was for himself, but eventually, he was able to provide the same protection he had himself, except that, without constant access to his magic, it would slowly deplete.

New skill: Conveying protection against foreign manipulation skills (Level 1)

Kereu saw the notification and smiled. "I gained the same one."

Jiiti said: "Let's pretend to be cleaning while we are going there. Just because I am not as good a fighter as Jaaru and don't want management to find out until it's too late."

They proceeded to do so as they reached the server room, a black room. They didn't have the keys, but a glassy eyed look and a polite question to someone working there opened it for them. Jiiti again "cleaned" the floor, but he noticed there was a skill activation, then Jiiti grimaced as if she had a sudden migraine. He raised an eyebrow silently, to which Jiiti said: "Interception."

Kereu nodded and looked around. Everything was clearly labelled, as if the company was used to constantly changing staff where people were expected to sink or swim without training. He would not have been surprised if the exact layout was used in every server room and on every planet where this particular Sparrow Corp had a subsidiary. He couldn't understand the design that was so much not made for the weather otherwise. He couldn't imagine people just being dumb. Having completely different priorities, sure, but dumb? Not even the managers at his job were dumb, they just prioritised profit or alternatively not being arsed with any issues that emerged over providing a decent workplace. Kereu read various labels, mostly containing technical terms, but then, he found a term he recognised: "Here, Jiiti, it mentions earth!" He showed her a label on a cable.

Jiiti looked at it and nodded: "The label sounds like there is data coming from earth here, but I cannot intercept it because it's not wireless."

"I can!" Kereu said and removed the cable and put it into his pocket, which made Jiiti giggle.

They checked further but found nothing else that they deemed relevant. it took a moment to notice something: "The mind manipulation magic has ceased. Apparently, it was sent live."

There was a stunned silence as people realised that.

Moments later, the door was opened frantically, a frantic looking elderly human woman in a uniform ran towards the location. Kereu, all of a sudden, had an idea. He saw the formulaic movement of these people and just how much this company relied on mind control. So he just tripped her. She came down like a sack of bricks. Jiiti immediately tried to tie her arms together, with the cable, but after realising it was too short, instead used a rope that Jiiti had on her.

The woman tried to get up again and again. She never gave a verbal reaction to the situation, instead remaining eerily silent.

Only after her arms and feet were secured, did Kereu use his new skill to wipe the manipulation out of her system. Or at least he tried. The same magic that flowed rather easily out of their systems was stuck in hers. It would require a significant expense of magic and stamina to scrub her off the taint of whatever they did to her. Kereu made a motion that indicated futility. Kadish nodded and Jiiti unhappily grimaced. Then, they investigated the room further.

Two more zombie-like people went to look into the server room as they did, but they all were easily made to fall and, using the cables of this place, mostly spares in cupboards, not live ones of systems, prevented from movement.

Kereu tried to talk to these people, but they just silently tried to get up without reacting, as if they were malfunctioning robots, so they just moved them into a corner.

Not having found anything directly related to broadcasts, the group left. Kereu asked: "This feels eerie, doesn't it!"

Kadish nodded: "It totally does. I don't think that we can even use it! There is an evil in these walls that requires shutting the entire thing down!"

Jiiti shook her head: "This is loudspeakers and subliminal magic, not curses and evil. It's much more mundane."

Kadish nodded: "I was speaking metaphorically. But the extent of the manipulation makes me desperate."

Kereu nodded: "It's something from earth! Probably most of the higher level ones are controlling all the branches in one go."

Kadish breathed in audibly, as if in thought. A few moments later, he responded: "That makes sense, yeah. I guess we need to break the offworld link and operate this place locally!"

Kereu asked: "Do you know how to do that?"

Kadish smiled: "I know just the way to get others to tell me."

It was actually really easy to fake an email that requested people to isolate the device due to solar flares. These people weren't in control of their mental faculties and thus their critical thinking was not interfering. The only response was that they needed a sparrowtape. Having a good idea as to what that was, Kadish responded that they didn't as this was all part of an A/B test. Just a few minutes later, the tiny radio and TV studio broadcasted a very different message: "Welcome to Radio/Television Free Windrush! We are here to inform you about what is happening and what is going to happen! A great injustice has been committed against the people of Windrush and the agreement that was supposed to secure their rights was repeatedly broken. The governor that was supposed to ensure that this didn't happen was moved into an isolated dungeon to make this happen! While Ishtaan likely cannot be recovered, we are moving into a new age of Solidarity! Integration into the new system is possible for everyone who qualifies, Sigya-ha-Sygia, human or otherwise!" Followed by instructions about how to get to the repository and the suggestion to just ask for integration. Once this message was set to loop with a few well-crafted emails, the group tried to free these employees from their manipulation.