---Blame---
---Alchyinad’s perspective---
The bright man sits on the couch, his arms wrapped around the head of the brightest organic being I’ve ever encountered!
She’s so bright that I’m forced to ask “Victor… would you mind if I put on some eye protection? Fluffy is… burning my retinae a little to look at…”
“Oh… erm… course!… She does run quite hot!”
“Thank you.” I smile, before extracting a pair of heavily tinted lenses and putting them on, reducing the dazzling pair to a tolerable dimness.
Victor looks slightly confused before asking “Those… tinted in the IR spectrum? They look clear in mine…”
I chuckle “I assure you they are, however they might look!”
He shrugs and returns his hands to nervously working through the fur at the bottom of his pet’s chin.
His arms don’t quite make it all the way around her enormous head.
She seems to be fully appreciating the level of attention she’s receiving.
It’s difficult to say whether she understands the implication that her Human is… not doing well right now.
Rather than directly tackle the [elephant in the room], I decide to start with something he’ll probably be much more comfortable talking about.
“So… Victor… I take it, from the new jewellery, that Tuun gave a favourable response?” indicating the jewelled, metal band on the digit IV of his left hand.
He smiles a smile that does not touch his eyes as he raises the hand to look at the ring, transferring his right hand to the space between his pet’s ears.
“Yeah… she did…” he says, contentedly “…we’ve put in a request for leave, for after the current mission’s over. She wants to get married on Nova Fennoscandia and I agreed since she’s got a lot more people to invite from there than I have from Earth… I don’t s’pose Tcakqaal’d refuse it but we might need to do a bit’ve negotiatin’ about when… I also feel a bit bad about everyone I know from Earth who’ll get the choice between spendin’ weeks trekkin’ out to a planet on the edge of Terran Space and not coming… Treg, Lloyd and Chelsea, Jeanne and Ezra, Aunt Tamsin and Uncle Rex… Maia’ll probably just rent a droid. I’m gonna try to make it clear to ’em that I won’t be offended if they tell me it’s too far to come and we can set things up for ’em to view it remotely…”
“You’re generally happy with it all?”
“Extremely!” he says with conviction.
Nevertheless “I sense a ‘but’ there, Victor?” I smile kindly.
He sighs “Yeah… just, after what happened… I don’t know… everything feels a bit… precarious.”
And here’s that [elephant](!)
“Would you like to talk about what happened, Victor?”
Another sigh “I guess I should…”
“Only if you want to… You set the agenda, Victor.” I say, kindly but firmly.
He pauses for a moment, running his right hand from Fluffy’s head between both her sets of shoulder blades a few times while he considers.
“I want to…” he finally decides “…how much do you know already?”
“I know you, Tuun, Ms Hunter, Ms Arran and Master Yuán were all attacked and hospitalised. Other than that, not much.” I answer, honestly.
“Emiko and Mudaliar were takin’ a walk over to the Osiyul and Grauntian embassies to meet two of our new experts. I had a bad gut feelin’ for reasons I can’t quite explain so I suggested takin’ a capsule. They convinced me I was bein’ silly but, just in case, I asked Tuun and Samus to go along with me, Thran and Zvaitika (Mudaliar’s bodyguard). Xon, Byrne and Pereira were nearby as well and volunteered to come too. Then, when we were passing through a relatively deserted area of the city (that, in hindsight, might’ve been what was givin’ me the misgivin’s about the walk) we were attacked… He was a cyborg… Stronger than Thran, faster than Tuun, more versatile than Samus and able to fight Shīfu to the point of collapse, even if he did get his arm ripped off for the trouble!… He had these plasmadaggers that, after he threw, he could summon back to his hands… That kinda tech ain’t really feasible for biologicals to use that way… I stuck ’em in the ground which limited the harm they did to burning off some of Thran’s hair and scorching her scalp but he didn’t need ’em!… With just his body he was able to break Tuun’s arm, crack Thran’s skull, crush Samus’ ribs under Thran’s collapsed weight, completely smash up my face and cut Shīfu up so bad he lost consciousness!”
He stops here so I contribute “That sounds like an extremely dangerous individual!… Do you know what he wanted?”
“Well, he said he wanted to collect the Revanchist bounty on Emiko and Mudaliar… I’ve told you about them before?”
“You have… You don’t think he was honest about that?”
“No, no, he definitely did want to but… from how he acted, it sorta seemed like he wanted a good fight more ’an anythin’ else! Like, he came down ahead of us when, if he’d come down on top of us or behind us, he might’ve been able to kill ’em before we’d been able to do anythin’ to stop him! Seemed like he took a sorta… sadistic thrill from the drama and the showmanship of it all! Ran off when Shīfu took his arm though, so he clearly only likes to fight when he’s winning!”
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.
“What happened afterward? After Yuán had driven him off?” I ask.
“Well… bearing in mind I was massively concussed, in agonisin’ pain and slippin’ in and outta consciousness for that bit… I heard Steve came and grabbed the arm like a snake, keepin’ it from gettin’ up to any mischief. Glark, W’ham B’ham and Dr Aerlyght arrived, she stabilised me, after giving me a miniheart attack from waking up to find her straddling my chest. Glark got caught trynna nick the daggers as payback for having his drone shot down with a pebble when he tried to follow the guy with it… Had to have ‘evidence’, ‘crime scene integrity’ and ‘chain of custody’ explained to him(!) We got taken to a hospital where me, Samus, Thran and Shīfu all got regen… Tuun just has to heal naturally since her species are so rare that the nearest regen pod for her is on Fennoscandia and, by the time we made it back there, she’d’ve healed on her own anyway. Sucks for her that she’ll have her dominant arm in a sling for the next few weeks, though! I had to have my teeth cloned back separately ’cause the Human body can’t regenerate those on its own, even in a tube!… Thran had to get her head shaved after the amount of her hair that’d burned off… she seems a bit miserable about that… but, all in all, nothing was as bad as it could’ve been.”
I nod, sympathetically and ask “And, what about the attacker? Was he found?”
Victor twists his mouth and shakes his head “We got a name off the arm… a lot of it had been replaced over the years but there was still enough of the original left to pull up a service record. I suppose it ain’t impossible that the arm got stolen but the guy it traces to definitely lines up with the guy we fought.”
“What was the name?” I ask.
“Jackson ‘Scout’ Stetter. Member of a special unit of the UTC Marines called ‘the Phoenix Brigade’.”
I frown “I’m afraid I’ve not heard of it.”
He gives a joyless smile “Neither had I… and that’s kinda the point… They were a covert ops group that lasted a little past halfway through the War… There were a few others like it but, apparently, they all got shuttered about the same time.”
“Do you know why?”
He purses his lips, causing his lower face to light up from the tensing of the surrounding muscles “Because the theory behind ’em was to take folk who’d lost everything to the War, including their bodily integrity, and offer ’em a chance to get cybernetics fast tracked in exchange for allowin’ ’emselves to be turned into livin’ weapons… Problem was, people like that ain’t exactly the most measured and stable of individuals(!)… One too many warcrimes later and the whole initiative was seen for the ethical fuckin’ quagmire it was and scrapped… One of those warcrimes were done by our pal Jackson… He blew up an entire GU fleet after he’d already been offered a surrender… Served 15 years in a supermax before bein’ broken out by what, in hindsight, were probably the early Revanchists. Since then, he’s had his entire torso and skull replaced… musta cost a fortune too! Durasteel’s a bit outta most folk’s price range but, cybernetics on top of that! You’re talkin’ in the millions of credits!”
“I’m sorry, Victor…” I say, confused “…Am I missing some significance to how much it must have cost for him to undergo this cyberneticisation?”
He nods, grimly “Means, whoever these Revanchists are, they’ve got funding! Powerful folk with cash to splurge on takin’ deadly die hards and makin’ ’em deadlier! Also got expertise, or underworld connections, at least… That body would’ve broken a dozen different laws on any Terran world, so they’ve either got a cyberneticist on payroll or know how to find one who don’t ask questions!”
“I see… you’ve come to understand that the scope of this organisation is grander than you realised?”
“Exactly…” he sighs “…and we all just painted a massive target on our backs by seein’ off what I really hope is one of their heaviest hitters!”
“Didn’t you already have a ‘target on your backs’? He told you Miyazakai had a bounty on her head?” I query.
His mouth tightens as he nods “Yeah… but huntin’ a bounty’s just business to guys like that… Now, he’ll have a grudge!… We were nothing to him! He tossed us around like toys!… He’s gonna be fuckin’ stewing about losing an arm he’s had since the War on that job!… It ain’t gonna be about the money no more… It ain’t gonna be about the thrill of the fight… He’ll be comin’ after us for revenge! He’ll see himself bein’ in need of his honour restored!… Not to mention his backers! They’re not going to like the fact that their top assassin got embarrassed like that!”
“I see…” I nod.
Curling her head up his trunk with her long, powerful, bright body, Victor’s pet protrudes a rounded tongue from between sharp, predatory teeth (that give me some idea of how herbivorous and omnivorous species must feel when they see mine) and licks her master’s face.
He winces from apparent discomfort but, nonetheless, smiles and pats her side, appreciatively.
It seems I wasn’t giving her enough credit before… Apparently, she is more than aware of how her Human is doing.
“Victor… may I ask, is there anything you think you could have done better?”
He gives a mirthless smile and answers “You mean, apart from being a better fighter?”
I nod “I mean, if I offered you the chance to start that encounter again, knowing what you know now, what would you do differently?”
He thinks for a moment before answering “I think I’d swap Tuun for Zvaitika… I’d have him in the holding off party and send her back with the principles.”
“And why didn’t you instruct such the first time?” I probe.
“Well…” he considers, idly working his right hand through his pet’s burning hot fur “…a few reasons, I guess… I didn’t know the guy’s capabilities and thought that a more balanced mix of fightin’ styles gave us a better chance of subduin’ him… Tuun ain’t strong but she’s so fast it ain’t real!… Thing was, the guy was faster… she only got hurt… Zvaitika might’ve been enough muscle to keep him contained until Shīfu showed up… I think, also, Zvaitika don’t really know anythin’ about me… he’s not a colleague and definitely not a subordinate… I worried that, if I said ‘Zvaitika, you’re stayin’ here while your principle runs away’ he mighta just said ‘No, I ain’t’. Mighta been suspicious that I was in on it. Mighta thought that this was a decoy to keep him occupied and get him separated from his charge while the real assassin waited round the corner!… S’pose there’s also the fact that I didn’t know there wasn’t another assassin round the corner either… I still don’t, actually!… I know that that group didn’t get attacked but maybe that’s just ’cause they was countin’ on more of us being occupied with Mr Stetter!”
“So… given the information you had, how well do you think you handled the situation?”
He frowns “I see what you’re drivin’ at but… it don’t make me feel any better!… I did the best I could and still ended up with a smashed in face, a concussed brain and four injured friends and needed to be rescued by my teacher(!)…”
“I can see that, Victor… I just think it’s important that you don’t start thinking anything along the lines of blaming yourself for this. Please, remember that what happened was not your fault.”
He smiles “’Preciate it, Doc! I do have a bit of a nasty habit of blamin’ myself like that!”
I chuckle “I’ve observed(!)”