Little Celah, Tseludia Station, Pantheonic Territory, Sixthmonth, 1634 PTS
Janottka’s true form had been a surprise to Rachel, who had been expecting her to look more like a computer than a shapeshifting robot. Just how had Janottka brought that thing onto the station without tripping any of the Staiven sensors at the docks? That type of illegal technology was exactly the sort of thing that they kept a careful eye out for. Undoubtedly a product of Epon Celan science.
As far as Rachel could tell, this form of modular nanotechnology was even beyond the limits of her own people’s technology, a field that they had clearly yet to explore to its limit. Perhaps if they had not been attacked, her people might have done more to push the boundaries of technology that was purely physical. Miasma and servitor technology both had their limitations, after all. Rachel made sure to save every detail she gleaned about Janottka’s body, to share with those back home whenever she next had the opportunity to make contact with them.
While one part of her was learning everything she could, another was watching the physical world. Cyrus spun, dodging Janottka’s fist, which had been briefly transformed into a spike so sharp its blade could cut on the molecular level. He ducked and weaved around her, seeming to stall for time. His lack of a weapon, Rachel knew, was beginning to become a problem. She was not certain whether his physical body alone could even do anything to damage the Shade.
Cyrus had another weapon strapped under his robes, however, but made no move to reach for it, causing Rachel to frown. Had he forgotten, or was he saving it in reserve? She decided not to say anything on the matter, concerned that Janottka might overhear. If Cyrus had forgotten, she was sure he would soon remember, with or without any help, regardless.
Sometimes, Rachel wished she had access to telepathy. There had to be a way to manage that, right? This was a universe where cultivators existed, and the lightspeed barrier could be breached, after all. Everything seemed possible.
Another part of her kept track of the other battle occurring within the room. Bullets crashed around Irid, who was trying to close the distance between herself and Triezal. The magister, however, was not falling for any tricks. His senses were extremely keen, and even inside the darkness of the smog, he was able to keep track of her position. Even for a Merris, Rachel thought, this was impressive. It seemed that the man’s sensory deprivation training, and the blindfold he had currently left wrapped around his neck, had done him well.
Triezal skated around on the ground as if it were ice, his gliding feet carving off fragments of stone beneath him, both of his hands actively firing away. To Rachel’s senses, it was clear that the man’s left wrist was injured. In fact, traces of sanguine miasma bled out from the wound, telling her that it had likely been dealt by a martial artist. He must have fought in the battle that had occurred on the higher floors here. Still, his aim was immaculate, the modifications to his body rendering him perfectly effective even in his worst condition.
To assist Irid, Rachel formed a number of projections in the Reth woman’s image, moving them through the smog to interfere with Triezal’s senses. She had nothing against the man, but also no qualms in assisting with his death. It was his fault that he had decided to ally with Janottka against them. She had given him an opportunity, and he had wasted it. Better to kill him fast and let Irid help to take care of the largest threat to her plans on the station.
At the same time, Rachel paid close attention to the developing situation of the fight between Juen and Karie. His condition was very interesting, and had developed beyond what she had anticipated when she asked Irid to insert the miasma into his core. She had simply wished to destabilize his position, and potentially force him to trade favors with them in exchange for treatment. Instead, it seemed that he had gone mad.
Even still, her people did not fully understand the reason why sanguine miasma sometimes caused such a religious form of derangement, and always for the same deity. Delithia, the sole ascendant whose worship was illegal in all territories. Delithia, she thought, the so-called goddess of blood and of humanity. How Rachel disdained the woman. She had not created Rachel’s people, nor had she done anything to protect them from the Osine. And yet she was the very reason they had been attacked. It would be laughable, if not so enraging.
The Staiven had gods who protected them, who gave them control of several star clusters. The Escalos had a goddess who rendered them the safest and most protected species in the universe, able to travel fearlessly to wherever they wished.
Humanity had been hunted down, and theirs had not lifted a finger to help. Without that woman’s actions, humanity might have been spared, she thought. They would have been conquered, perhaps enslaved, but they would have lived. Rachel found herself unable to tell whether that would have been better than what had happened.
“Give me liberty, or give me death,” she muttered to herself. Perhaps events would have turned out the same. Her culture had been one which prided itself on an ideal of freedom. Few would have submitted to the dominion of the Sheneth-Ari.
Many religions had died off when humanity did, but some had remained. In the Pleiades, churches of various religions still existed, and even in their present state, some Terrans maintained their faith. Rachel envied them to a certain extent.
Perhaps the god they worshipped truly was above this realm. The Empyrean, as some had begun to call it. The galaxy had rumors of mysterious beings with powers above even the two ruling races, even if only in ancient legends. Personally, Rachel found herself doubtful.
Still, she did not doubt the relation between Delithia and humans, or at least between her and the humanoid body. There had to be a reason why humanoid bodies produced sanguine miasma naturally. Physically, there was nothing unusual about the humanoid body, and yet, inexplicably, their blood was able to form conduits to their soul when damaged.
As far as she knew, they were still unaware of just why miasma had the properties it did. Ashata was a material that acted uniformly, and behaved consistently to given stimuli. But why did it take six discrete forms when introduced to Telles? What made ashata, and miasma by extension, able to warp the very laws of physics? Perhaps not even the Osine or the self-proclaimed ‘gods’ knew.
It was almost as if miasma were the product of some sort of fault in the logic of the universe, an exception to the many rules which restrained its inhabitants.
There were theories of course, but many of them tended to reach the borders between science and religion. Miasma was the blood of the gods, or the universe, or whatever. Rachel found the discourse interesting, though in her mortal life she had never paid much attention to scientific discussion and advancements. Her perspective had changed in the time since she had become what she now was, slowly warping to match her new existence. Her comprehension was higher now, she could understand what they were talking about, and easily perform the research to acquire the necessary foundations in instants.
It was strange, the way she would somehow wish she was not so intelligent. Life was easier when one was smart, but Rachel could not help but feel she had been happier back then. She sighed, aware that such thoughts did nothing to help with the situation. Tabling the matter for later, she returned to keeping an eye on the progress at the different battlefields.
Several stories above, another Rachel watched as the aeros of the Justice Office began to land, finally setting down the Staiven troops. They had slowed their motions after Du Qin had destroyed the titan, no longer worried about an imminent threat to the station. The vast machine had crashed into the side of the stack, and had been the source of the groaning sound that still occurred, at the edge of most mortal’s audible range. Perhaps Triezal was the only mortal in the room who could hear it, but it was there. Rachel wished she had better sensors in the area, and could check whether or not the stack was in danger of collapse. The Staiven were certainly playing it safe in case it did.
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At most, a few thousand Celans might die, but these were numbers the Staiven were not particularly concerned about. To them, so long as the economy was unaffected, any number of alien deaths was merely a statistic, but if even a single of their own died, it would be a tragedy. Rachel’s own people had once had their own racial conflicts, but even then, in her time it had been agreed upon that all lives had innate value, and any loss was a tragedy. Perhaps it was because there were far greater differences between alien species, or perhaps the residents of the galaxy were simply more callous than the humans had been.
It was funny to think about how humanity, who had seen themselves as brutal, uncaring warmongers, seemed to have been among the more empathetic societies. Of course, that time had long passed.
The portion of Rachel still watching the Staiven wondered whether they would bother to deal with what was happening inside the hangar. If they knew of her and Janottka’s presence, surely they would intervene, but she believed they had yet to discover this. Both she and the other woman had been careful to hide their tracks from prying eyes, and given the limitations on artificial intelligence technology, the virtual technology of the Staiven was laughably poor. Almost everything needed to be looked over manually by their programmers. To find evidence of the two Shades running rampant through the network, someone would need to be lucky. Or, they would need to become desperate enough that they failed to disguise their traces.
While that part of her mind considered the network, many more were at war within it, competing with Janottka for control of the local nodes.
Practiced in this form of battle, Rachel split her mind tens of times more, focused on attacking Janottka’s connection to the network. She was not and could not be the primary attacker, as Janottka was not foolish enough to allow network access to her internal systems, so Rachel simply focused on eliminating the Shade’s opportunities. She would need to trust Cyrus to do the rest.
A headache slowly grew within Rachel’s awareness, evidence that she edged closer and closer to the limits of her capacity. Rachel’s mind hurt, and she knew that she was exerting herself. Where a physical machine might overheat, one composed of ashata would strain the structure of its own construction, and the incredibly thin and complex shapes which composed her could tear apart. Fortunately, Rachel’s construction had various safeguards built into it. She still had plenty of processing power left before she reached her system capacity, but Rachel knew she had to be more careful than she had been last time. She lacked the opportunity to safely fall asleep. And this time, she doubted that Janottka would decide to do her a favor.
“Just what was the point of this?” she asked, posting the message on the local network. “You could easily have punished the Heirs for their betrayal without all of this effort, but you’ve accelerated the war past the point of reason, and for what? An attempt to capture me? You must have noticed by now that my true body isn’t present here.”
Janottka simply smiled in her immediate response.
“I have, yes. It was quite a surprise, but one that only fans my interest. I’d love for you to come with me willingly, Rachel. Just think of all we would both stand to benefit from a cultural exchange. Doubtless my people have some technology that yours lacked.”
“I’m afraid I’ll have to decline,” replied Rachel. “I’m not sure we’ve built up enough trust for that.”
“I’m sure I can change your mind,” replied the other woman.
Don’t be so sure, Rachel thought.
“I like to think I’m someone who creates opportunities,” said Janottka, after a moment’s pause. “This station was due for something to shake it up. Telles is as well, though that is beyond my means. An interesting world is one that develops, changes. Part of it is about revenge, of course. The Epon have a reputation to uphold, after all. And in a perfect world, I can force Triezal to return to Janaste with me. But there is a story to be written, and if there is, I must do it. The Leader of the Heirs goes mad, nearly causing the destruction of his entire faction, and the Vice-Leader is forced to take up the role he was groomed for. The Hadal Clan’s Supreme Elder saves the station, gaining more power within the family, and widening the schisms between factions. Both forces are weakened, providing opportunities to the other underworld powers, such as a fledgling force near to the situation, but not so close to incite punishment from the government.”
“You’re saying you wanted to help us?” asked Rachel, surprised.
Janottka shrugged.
“I find that man to be quite interesting. He’s not who he claims to be, and you know it too. Even after you and I return to Janaste, I expect I’ll be paying attention to what happens next for the Riverfiend.”
Rachel was silent for several milliseconds, considering her words, and ignoring the other woman’s confidence that she would be going there as well.
“You’re not quite as mad as you seem,” Rachel said, causing Janottka to chuckle.
“Madness would be the wrong word. I’m a product of my creation, just like you are. I merely have confidence in my abilities, and in my understanding of yours. It’s about drama and presentation, Rachel. In our culture, it was important that the villain always knew how to do both.”
“Haven’t you considered playing the hero?” Rachel asked, curious to know more of the other Shade’s purpose.
The Shade had a wistful expression on her face, and if Rachel didn’t know better, she might have believed it to be legitimate.
“That was always the role my creators played in the game. I could be anything and anyone else, but to be a hero… it isn’t in my programming. I can achieve my goals as the villain, so that is enough for me. Besides, what sort of hero would attempt a kidnapping?” The Shade revealed a jovial grin. “My offer is still valid, you know. I don’t intend to revoke it.”
Without hesitation, Rachel shook her head in the negative. She had a plan for her presence here, and knew that the Epon could not be trusted. Given the organization’s history, it was clear that its leaders cared far too much for control. If she followed them, they would try to capture and reverse engineer her.
She pondered Janottka’s response to her question. That was the nature of a Shade, after all, Rachel thought. Even humans could never truly alter their underlying nature. Not without dying soon after, at least. There was little point in a machine that could alter itself to no longer be of any use. Even for a true Shade, a thinking, self-altering machine, there were inherent limitations. Central to everything was their purpose, the part of them that could not change unless their data was heavily corrupted.
Sometimes she wondered if she truly was a person, or whether she was like any other Shade, a pure product of programming and a purpose. Perhaps her purpose was to pretend to be Rachel Martinez, to believe it as if it were the truth.
She already knew that she wasn’t the original, after all. If one were to grind a human up into chunks of flesh and construct a thinking computer from the pieces, a different entity would be created, she was sure. How was it any different if the same was done to the soul?
Perhaps the real Rachel Martinez had already moved on to the afterlife all those centuries ago. Perhaps one could not even enter an afterlife if their soul had been defiled.
It was not a question that truly mattered, of course. Such questions rarely did.
Suddenly, something odd caught the senses of the splinter of herself that Rachel had least expected to see use in this battle. The self controlling her true body frowned as it registered the senses of her soul, noticing an oddity in the area. Two souls were moving oddly in the immediate area, but did not appear to correspond to any of the mortals nearby. Focusing on them, Rachel closely inspected the souls, and for a moment, she froze in shock.
They were irregular, spiked structures, and between the multitude of spikes were a great many sets of three-fingered ‘hands’, appearing extremely similar to those of a Korlove. To Rachel’s senses, they almost appeared like unicellular organisms, or perhaps a sea urchin, but with her knowledge, she could easily tell what she was sensing.
These were servitors, machines constructed within the Brink. And before Rachel realized it, they had her surrounded.
Servitors: [Originally developed by the Telaretians, a servitor is a machine composed of ashatic compounds, the sole materials that exist within the Brink. These machines are capable of interacting not only with the ashatic currents, but also with souls. For ordinary mortals, a servitor can be considered an assassination tool so perfect as to leave no trace. Many scientists and engineers among the more developed races have claimed that the ban on the development and use of servitor technology has caused miasmic technology to stagnate. However, this ban, enforced in most territories, only applies to mortals, unlike some bans which apply to all beings. For the Ascendants and the Osine, the use of servitors is a given. Most famously, they have been used for millennia by the Osine to harvest the souls of their dead client races for use, and for this reason are also known as Soul Collectors.]