After spending an hour looking through Viper’s documents there is only one thing I can say, the management around here is atrocious. All I’ve managed to learn over the last hour is that Viper has a lot of money and spent a lot of it on, but I have no idea where it comes from or where it goes. Even Vos kept better records than this. I can see what happened before the last head took over but that’s exactly when all records simply stop.
*knock knock knock* “Gerald here, I’ve come to report on the situation regarding freeing the populace and spreading information.”
“Enter,” I permitted.
He opened the door and peeked inside before stepping inside. He closed the door behind him and stood still near the door, not daring to take another step towards me.
“Please take a seat,” I said with a smirk as I gestured towards the seat in front of my desk.
He nodded and nervously walked up to the seat, staring at it with hesitation before timidly sitting down.
“So, you have a report on the situation?” I asked.
“Yes,” he said seriously with a nod, “Everyone who was locked up underground has successfully been freed and found shelter with friends or family, but those with rigged collars are still being processed. With the three top dogs of Viper dead there are no concerns about the collars being detonated remotely, but having the collar is still disconcerting.”
“Removing those collars is proving a little trickier than we’d like?” I asked half-heartedly as I turned a page.
What is it with gangs and using physical paper? Such out-dated technology…
<[ If I had to hazard a guess, I’d say they do it to hide information. In today’s day and age anything with a processor can be hacked. ]>
Possibly, but the reason doesn’t matter right now, only the data does.
“Uhh, yes,” Gerald said, “The collars are rigged to explode when forcibly tampered with. I don’t think they invested in particularly sensitive triggers, but we don’t have anyone who has the proper training to deal with this.”
I nodded and said, “I’ll sort out the bomb squad. In the meantime, gather everyone with collars in the mansion courtyard.”
He nodded and stood up, turning towards the door without any questions.
As he headed for the door I called Captain Lorrig with my Digita, he picked up immediately and said, “Ah, perfect timing, I was about to call you.”
“Let me guess,” I said as a smile spread across my face, “the bomb collars?”
“Not quite,” he said, destroying my smile, “I wanted to talk about the patrols you plan to send out. The bomb collars are also a pressing issue though.”
“I’ll make this quick, can you send a bomb squad to the courtyard to disarm the collars? I’ve told one of the representatives to gather everyone with collars there,” I said with a neutral tone.
“I can send two squads, if everyone who needs to get a collar removed gathers in one place then we won’t have to run around and waste time trying to find people,” he acquiesced.
“Send both, a lot of people have collars to be removed,” I said.
He responded quickly and decisively, “Understood, I’ll relay those orders immediately. About the patrols you spoke about…”
“I plan to enact that in every area under my control, please plan accordingly,” I said, pausing to give him a chance to respond.
“That would be wise. Do I have permission to incorporate my own men into the squads?” he asked.
“Yes,” I replied, “but in limited quantity. Your men can act as team leaders to help keep everyone in line for now, but we should eventually put locals in charge of the local area. It will be easier to handle the populace that way.”
“I’ll agree with you on that point, people will relate better to people they know than randomly assigned armed forces,” he said thoughtfully, pausing for a moment before asking, “And what of educating everyone? The people that live in these areas of the slums have little to no access to knowledge.”
“What difference does it make? We don’t have the resources to teach a large number of people anyway, why should we put in the effort for this?” I ask with slight irritation.
“It can make a huge difference,” said Captain Lorrig plainly, “Education will make the peasants understand the value of their king – or queen in this case. Knowing the value of the king will work against a bad one as it will make the peasants capable of rebellion. Conversely, it will work in favour of a good king as the peasants will make an effort to keep the king in place so they can maintain their lifestyle. If you were a king that abused your subjects then you’d want them to be uneducated. Judging from your previous speech however, you want to rule by monopolising their faith. With this in mind, it would be prudent to make sure that your subjects understand your ‘value’ compared to those who oppose you.”
I closed my eyes and leant back, thinking about his words. They were indeed true, a populace that idolises me would make taking over much harder for any would-be usurpers. I could brainwash them but that would take far too long and there would be lots of gaps – not to mention the way distrust would grow among those who haven’t been brainwashed. They will naturally idolise me as their living conditions improve, but that will be short lived since an uneducated mind lives in the moment and does not think beyond surviving until the next day – I am proof of that; I can remember nothing from before I stole that lead scientist’s knowledge, memories were irrelevant besides learning experiences. If I want to make them idolise me in the long term, they have to be able to compare their life under my rule to their life under someone else’s rule. Even then, if I have a prolonged rule then the younger generations will not have the same understandings as their parents. By educating the youth and giving them examples of worse alternatives I can ensure loyalty in the long-term.
I opened my eyes and looked forwards at nothing in particular; taking a deep breath before saying, “Get anyone with any form of education to spread their knowledge. I’ll look into organising proper teachers and resources later, but work with what you’ve got for now.”
“All my men have at least a basic education, I’ll send some of them to jumpstart the process,” he said with acknowledgement. “Ah!” he exclaimed, “Before we drift too far from the original topic… How do you plan to divide the territory into areas?”’
I paused and thought for a moment before answering, “Split the territories by street… If that creates too many areas to process, then group streets by natural separations such as major roads. Treat market clusters as areas of their own.”
“Noted,” replied Captain Lorrig, “What about the viper’s former elites?”
“We only have one to find, they only left two back here when they went across to Dragon’s Nest,” I said as I looked over the documents in front of me, “the one I killed on arrival and another one by the name ‘Jennifer Redding’… She looks like bad news, renowned for her ruthlessness. She often fought against the other elites and killed a good few of them. The documents claim her to be a sniper specialist but considering her track record in close combat with the other elites she is highly skilled in close quarters combat, whether this means that the documents or wrong or that she is simply that dangerous I can’t tell...”
“If she’s an elite then doesn’t she hold a remote detonator?” he asked sceptically.
“No, all nine detonator keys have been accounted for,” I said thoughtfully, “Maybe she had too many conflicts with the other elites? Well, whatever the case, we confirmed that the collars only respond to nine remote signal keys. We have collected and isolated all the chips with keys and they are impossible to duplicate without military-grade equipment.”
“Hmm… I’ll set up some signal jammers in the courtyard just in case,” proposed Captain Lorrig.
“That would be prudent,” I acquiesced, “Though, isn’t there a chance of it getting in the way of disarming?”
“We’ll be using an SSED to jam the signal,” said Captain Lorrig in a way that suggested it was common sense.
“What’s an ‘SSED’?” I asked him.
He sighed and said, “A ‘Static Shell Emission Device’ projects a thin but concentrated shell-like static field… Imagine an egg that’s been drained of the contents, the shell is a thin film of static energy that scrambles any signals that pass through it. This does have the side effect of creating a low buzz from the shell and distorting the visuals across the shell... Also, irritates Psions.”
If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.
“I’ll keep that in mind,” I said dryly, “Anything else?”
“Not for the time being,” he said, “But keep an eye out for Jennifer, she could be more trouble than you think.”
“Will do,” I said before closing the connection and sighing.
The territory is on the fast track to recovery, but this rogue sniper is very unsettling. I could be picked off at any moment if she is hostile. With no clear solution to the sniper in sight I picked up the next pule of paper and continued reading. Another monotonous hour passed in this fashion when things suddenly heated up.
Without warning, Dawn took over and slammed our hands into the desk while throwing our body backwards, resulting in us tumbling off the chair backwards. She returned bodily control to me afterwards but the shattered window and hole in the wall next to me quickly filled me in on the details. I quickly rolled up to the wall and slammed my back in cover next to the window.
Dawn, well done, how did you react in time?
<( Took precautions against the sniper by extending our psionic domain as far as possible in a cone towards the window, ignoring everything else and filtering out anything bigger than a hand to gain as much precision as possible. I sense rapid movement and immediately acted to evade. )>
<[ Can you map out the trajectory? ]>
<( Yes, doing so now. I’ll display it with an artificial hallucination. )>
A moment later a wispy and ethereal line appeared, leading away from the bullet hole and out through the window. I peeked through the window and saw the trail widen slightly as it drew further away, eventually encircling five windows of an abandoned hotel about two kilometres away.
<( She’s somewhere there. )>
I quickly dialled Captain Lorrig, as soon as he picked up the phone I shouted, “Jennifer has made a move. She’s about two kilometres south-south-west of us! Send squads to trap her immediately!”
“Da, da, I’m already on it,” said Chesnokov non-chalantly.
“Chesnokov!?” I yelped in surprise.
“Save your questions for later,” he said, “I have a woman to catch.”
“Do you need backup?” asked Captain Lorrig, completely undisturbed by the intrusion.
“… *thunk* Nah, *flump* I already got her,” said Chesnokov without a care in the world.
“I don’t know whether to be terrified or glad you’re on my side…” muttered Captain Lorrig.
“Might I suggest both?” came a calm yet snarky remark from Chesnokov.
After a moment of silence I spoke, “Right, so you’re bringing her back for questioning?”
There was a moment of silence.
“Is that a yes or a no?” I asked.
“Shit, I forgot this wasn’t a video call!” exclaimed Chesnokov, “Yes, I’ll bring her in. See you in a couple of minutes. Bye.”
Chesnokov exited the conversation after destroying any tension we might have held.
“Well… I suppose that’s sorted,” said Captain Lorrig.
“Indeed…” I muttered and closed the connection.
I sighed loudly and sat on the desk. I folded my arms and crossed my legs as my gaze drifted upwards.
I wonder how this is going to turn out, I have no idea what Jennifer’s motivations are. I want to kill her to return the favour, that’s what I’d usually do, but something tells me that I shouldn’t take such a simple approach to this case. There would be a big difference between her shooting me because she thinks of me as evil and her shooting me because she expects me to be the same as the previous head of viper; if she shot with the objective of protecting people then she might be convinced to side with me.
Suddenly the door opened and a decrepit old man peeked inside. This man was one of Viper’s butlers. Yet another thing that differed between the two gangs; Where Vos hired women as sexual objects under the guise of maids and threw the men out onto the street, Viper’s leader blatantly kept sex slaves and forced the men whom he couldn’t conscript into other labour.
“Achaa…” said the elderly man, “I heard the glass shattering… I didn’t expect it to be this bad…”
“Can you clean it up?” I asked slightly sarcastically.
“Can I stare at your legs?” he asked in return.
I shrugged dismissively in response.
He grinned and started speaking, “Great, then pose like-”
“Don’t test your luck,” I said coldly.
He held up his hands in surrender and said, “Alright, alright… Now, let me get to cleaning.”
Dismissing his presence, I unwound my legs and walked to the backless couch on the opposite side of the room. I sat down and crossed my legs, entering a meditative state as I waited for Chesnokov’s arrival.
I was still intrigued by my previous discovery, so I decided to continue studying the anomalous meditation I discovered earlier. It took a while to recreate that state of mind, but I managed. It’s difficult to describe the difference between this state and regular psionic meditation, but if I had to put it into words then I’d say that this state was one where you synchronise yourself with the world. Normal meditation for psions is more like reading the world with scientific understanding and improving precision through practice, this is much less clearly defined but much more immersive. I can understand the world on a similar level in both forms of meditation – albeit in different ways.
As I was sinking into the meditative state I noticed a total of three points of interest.
The first and most obvious was the Node, it stood out like a beacon with the sheer clarity of the energy that passed through it.
The second was one I had discovered before; the heart. This seemed to act like a source of power, constantly seeding energy into the body. There was a new discovery though, one linking this source of power to the node, mysterious energy from the heart entered the node and psionic energy left. Does this mean that psionic energy is just a converted form of this other energy? If psionic energy is not produced by the mind then why does it weigh on the mind when overused? I’ll investigate this later.
The third and final point of interest was the stomach, a fair bit of the excess energy that radiated within the body without escaping seemed to be pooled up in the stomach. The amount of energy resting in the stomach should have stood out but it was very stagnant which made it blend into the muddy flow of energy around it. This stored energy also differed slightly from the mysterious energy that it came from but I couldn’t tell in what way it differed – I simply understood that it did. There was a direct link from the heart but it was just as stagnant as the energy pooling in the stomach and practically nothing flowed between the two.
I wonder exactly what the purpose these energies hold. Why do I have them? It’s interesting to compare the three forms of energy objectively; the unconverted energy from the heart comes in mild quantity and has poor flow, the decidedly ‘average’ of the three. The energy sitting in the stomach comes in vast quantities but does not flow. Conversely, the energy that comes out of the node is minimal – negligible in comparison to the stomach at that – but is by far the clearest of the energies and has the smoothest movement.
<< What was that? >> I muttered mentally.
<( What was what? )> asked Dawn.
<< … Nothing, just thought I saw another node in my hand. It was probably just a trick of the mind. >> I said with a mental shrug.
<( You dare accuse me of trickery!? )> shouted Dawn with exasperation.
<[ Pfft! ]> Nova struggled to hold it in.
<< Where’d you get that impression? >> I said teasingly.
<( But… I’m the mind! )> shouted Dawn indignantly.
<< I’m the mind now. >> I said confidently with a playful arrogance as I mentally flipped my hair.
<( No… no… NOOOOOOOOOOOO!!! Ah~ )> screamed Dawn with intentionally bad acting, inadvertently breaking my meditation.
<( Oops? )>
<< Whatever, your timing was surprisingly good. >> I said as I sensed two figures coming up the stairs.
A few seconds later Chesnokov entered the room while dragging an unconscious woman. He looked up at me and said, “Here’s the woman.”
“Thank you Chesnokov…” I said with a smile, “Please wake her up.”
Chesnokov nodded and reached down to her neck, pinching it with three fingers. She instantly opened her eyes and gasped for air, spluttering as she tried to find her bearings.
“Neat trick,” I said, “Some kind of pressure point technique I take it?”
“No, just pinched the nerve,” he said nonchalantly, “pain makes a great wakeup call.”
The woman groaned as she held a hand on the back of her neck, “The fuck was that for Chezz!?”
“Chezz?” I asked with a raised eyebrow.
“We were once classmates,” he shrugged.
“Classmates?! We were lovers for years!” the woman shouted, “Did that mean nothing to you?!”
“Is this going to take long?” I asked uncaringly.
“We’ll sort this out another time,” he said to her while gesturing towards me, “Right now you have bigger concerns than what happened between us.”
“Fine,” grunted the woman with displeasure, “What do you want, bitch?”
“You should be a little more courteous,” I said coldly, “I’m busy deciding whether or not to spare your life, it would be unwise to anger me.”
“You… that pig…” she said and spat to the side, “You’re all the same.”
“I find it rather insulting to be compared with that guy,” I said with a composed tone.
“You bleed the residents of what little they have,” she grunted, “just like every gang ‘boss’ does… I refuse to stand by and watch innocent people be extorted like that! They’re doing their best to survive and people like you simply trample all over them!”
“This sounds rather personal… you grew up under such conditions didn’t you? It shaped who you are, what you value,” I asked.
She spat again and said, “Yea, I grew up in the slums, I was one of the lucky ones. I actually got a chance to escape.”
“Yes, lucky indeed,” I muttered, “But why the attachment to the people? Why do you care so much? Wouldn’t most people simply accept it and move on?”
“I have my circumstances, don’t go digging into them,” she said angrily.
I held my hands up and said, “I feel no need to investigate your background, my background is also something I’d like to keep hidden – and I’m not a big fan of hypocrisy.”
“Good,” she spat.
“Now then,” I said, getting down to business, “If your concern was for the people living down here… why did you work with the last head of Viper?”
“I wanted to kill the bastard the whole time,” she said while gritting her teeth, “but that bastard killed someone every time I couldn’t fulfil his orders! He even ordered other guys to kill everyone if he died!”
“That’s no longer a concern,” I said, “Everyone with authorisation to kill citizens has been eliminated.”
“Sure, you got all the keys, now you’re gonna do the same, right?” she grunted.
“On the contrary, I want to work with you without resorting to blackmail,” I said with a business smile.
“What are you planning?” she asked while squinting at me.
I smiled and said, “I’ll let you go checkout the changes I’ve started implementing, you can make up your own mind about whether or not you want to co-operate with me… Of course, you will be unarmed and have a guard following you as a precaution.”
“Hmph!” she snorted and turned away from me.
“Chesnokov, would you mind?” I asked.
He nodded and said, “This will be a good chance to catch up with her…”
I nodded solemnly as he led her out of the room. I had a feeling she would come around and be willing to work for me, maybe she could act as the local leader when I move deeper into the slums – time will tell.
There is something else I must look into once I stabilise my rule over my newly expanded territory however, namely the Tanya Smith and her research on Kronos Cells. Knowing more about my own origins and abilities could change my approach drastically. I have some fragments floating around my memory which belong to the old head scientist, but hearing it from someone with a proper understanding will better put things in perspective.
Things are changing, and my life should be far less volatile in the foreseeable future. I might even get some proper training from my mentors.
A smile appeared on my face as I contemplated the future.