[Future Fish] Part 3
Added 2025-03-30 04:43:51 +0000 UTCIt's surreal and actually pretty cool to be sitting on a battlefield and realize you are, to a large extent, invulnerable.
Oh, not from the big stuff. Cannons and stuff, direct hits by mortars and missiles, would still mess me up.
But my energy resistance was in the 60+ range, which basically meant anything less then a cannon wasn't going to hurt me at all. I was immune to anything less then nuclear degrees of heat and electricity, acids and salts wouldn't do anything to me, and I could drink liquid hydrogen like nothing.
On my wrists were magic Bracers, because I couldn't wear actual armor, natch. The first critical effect was Bulletproof, which made me immune to hand-held firearm/tech projectiles of any kind. They would simply hit me and drop down uselessly, kinetic energy stolen and transferred away. It wouldn't affect a cannon shell, but if it could be carried easily, I could ignore it. That meant chakram shooters, bolt guns, flechette rifles, machine guns, and the like simply couldn't do any damage to me.
The second was the Wardstone Against Missiles that was embedded into each Bracer. This gave me a nice +5 AC bonus against any and all ranged attacks incoming, including throat darts, spore sprays, biothorns, and even that cannon and artillery fire. It wasn't complete defense, but what it did is make almost misses, miss.
When you've got reflexes as fast as mine, everything is normally a near miss. Ergo, lots and lots of misses. And since I was Luckless and Fateless, lucky hits by the enemy weren't happening anymore then mine were. Pure skill baby, stack modifiers or go home.
Among other things, it really, really frustrated snipers trying to take a poke at me.
It only helped out a little against grenades and explosives, pushing them a little further away and making sure they didn't burst on top of me. But explosive force was basically thunder damage… detonations weren't actually that dangerous to me, the shrapnel from the explosion was actually more of a concern, since it could have enough punch to penetrate my DR. Cannons were a problem because it was a lot of mass moving very fast. Thankfully, relatively easy to dodge, since I could dodge the first dangerous missile attack every six seconds or so. Since I wasn't worried about being hit, I generally had Iron Expertise cycled up, exchanging the enhanced combat awareness and Dodge bonus to AC of my Melee Expertise for extra damage reduction, leaving me at about DR 25/- ish.
It was a pretty sweet spot to be in. Combat between sentients in a tech universe was so dependent on ranged attacks by default that it wasn't funny. If you were immune to ranged attacks, well, most things just weren't so dangerous in pitched combat.
Certainly not as dangerous as a Ten Melee Sword Grandmaster with an optimized Named Weapon.
Of course, that excluded xenosyms. Xenos loved getting in melee range and tearing apart frail human things. Conversely, they weren't really ready for something that was prepped to slaughter them.
Naturally, we don't have to mention the fact that the whole psychic/eldritch thing was basically pretty useless against me, which really irritated the mutant mindmasters in charge of the various hordes of the enemy. Telepathy, psychokinesis, telekinesis, electrokinesis, pyrokinesis, hydrokinesis, cyrokinesis, spatial warping; they tried it all against me at one time or another, and got exactly no results.
It was just like being back in game - I was the tank there, because magic couldn't take me on, and ranged attacks were basically useless as soon as I turtled up. The only way to break me was to fight me, and that was a whole different world of hurt. If the enemy ignored me, then the hurting I could put on them rapidly climbed into unsurvivable territory.
I was making a lot of Karma. And a lot of money. Actually, a whole lot of new Termites were out there making money, since the bounty rates on the enemy had become very popular for registered Termites when they saw how much I was making. I couldn't be scanned and registered by tech if I didn't allow it, but there was nothing that said I couldn't be put on a leaderboard. Seeing how many things I'd killed and how much I'd been paid for that killing was one of the best recruitment draws the upspires could have thought up.
The partial credits on mecha kills really wowed them, however.
Imperial Marine Sergeant-Brother Johannes chased me down after I helped set up the biomech kill, having the idea that if I could pierce their pshields and knock holes out of them, he could spot for the Iron Walkers contesting with the enemy mecha. I had absolutely no support for that idea until he cleared the level of my pay for helping knock out mechas as a Termite. I thought it a pretty good deal, and went hunting biomecha for fun and profit.
Worms, scorps, spiders, walkers, lizards - I was happy to pop off their shield emitters and open them up for Johannes to spot for a missile barrage from a blind fire point. If it didn't take the mech out instantly, it generally crippled it and opened it up for lethal follow-up with plasma lances or similar direct fire, and the biomech generally couldn't do a damn thing about it. Even its regenerative capabilities couldn't deal with injuries accentuated by Blooding, after all, so the pshields simply weren't going to come back up.
We picked off 32 separate biomechs of all sizes. The crews of Stalwart and Longstrider, the medium and light mechs who glommed onto me, ended up having the highest number of enemy mech kills in this theater of war, and for almost no damage taken in return. Needless to say, I became very popular with the Iron Walkers. I even partnered a couple non-mecha kills on the smaller ones, as Sergeant-Brother Johannes requisitioned some fusion mines out of somewhere, I delivered them and put them where he told me, and he cooked them off when I jumped free. A biomech, like any engine of war, didn't work too well if you carbonized/glassed the driver. Poor cerebrovore.
The Sergeant seemed to be tickled by the idea of taking down mechs, too. Alas, I might have been able to solo them, except No-Tech Sama not have reliable explosives. Since I wasn't willing to blow myself into oblivion by accidentally detonating a mini-nuke atop myself, welp, partners it was.
When we ran out of biomechs to blow away, the Sergeant and I took on most any comers. That got us into considerable hot water - swarms of flying xenosymwasps, anyone? - but also proved hella fun when we won. His computer-aided firing let him target stuff every bit as well as I could, or even better if shooting in a preprogrammed pattern. I even let him hook up to my microfusion generator to let him strafe a formation of luckless Pslaved, and a wall of laser fire punched through a lot of skulls and set them free of the enemy hivemind, sweeping an entire street with a shot every square foot or so.
He very quickly learned to stay close to me when engaging anything with psychic attacks, be they physical or mental, and trust in just how nasty my Sword was against those kinds of enemies. He was also happy to requisition more exploding arrow-heads for me, and I was happy to use them. Nothing says Hello! like some titanically unstable chemicals converting themselves to free energy in your face, and he was astonished when I could actually shoot better than he could.
And fight. He was stronger than I was, having the same kind of grav-boosts on top of power armor, so eh. But he couldn't actually fight as well, which stupefied him, since I wasn't using psi to boost my martial ability. Of course, my Sword was all kinds of mean…
------------------------------------------
Tomatoes, spices, and pasta, and I could even afford almost-real cheese from upspire, and decent wine.
Da Mick ate slowly, savoring every single steaming forkful. The sacred dishpan of lasagna had graced his lunchtime, and his thanks to the Emperor was pious and repetitive.
"Heard you got a couple promotions!" I said to him around my own forkful.
"I will have you know that this unrepentant sinner is now a Lieutenant Colonel in the Emperor's Legion Reserves! I think the additional pension will let me enjoy an extra bottle of wine per month…"
"Sounds about right, given your tastes in wine."
"Indeed, indeed." He poured me another glass of the aforementioned liquid. It was almost organic, and someone had paid attention to it, so QL 21 or so. Passable. "You have been making yourself incredibly photogenic the last few weeks."
"I have?" For reasons, I didn't check the internet much.
"You didn't happen to let Jigs inspect your Termite recorder, did you?" he sighed for me.
"Well, he cleaned it for me a couple times, sure." As if I didn't notice some very, very minor additions to both the muzzle cam and shoulder-drone. But, hey, I was tech-stupid and everyone knew it.
"And he's been posting pics all over the place of you making money. He even put up a cash bar on the side to show the credits you've been stacking up, and little ding-ding sounds like you won a flashpop game in a street arcade." He paused to savor yet another piece of gooey goodness. "Damn, girl, you run fast. And did you just toss around an Imperial Marine like that?"
"The Sergeant-Brother has gyros and didn't hold it against me," I said defensively.
"And you dropped five stories onto a biomech through its shield and point defenses without airbrakes?"
I rolled my eyes. "I told you I'm a gravvy gene. And their little psionic freak show isn't going to impress me any more then any other mutant alien thingie."
"And you know that every soldier in the city has probably heard you sing 'Shining Light of Heaven', right?"
"What?" No, I hadn't. "Hey! That buckethead actually recorded that?! The bastard. Did he include his rendition of 'Imperial Throne'? He had a pretty rocking baritone…"
"It must have gotten edited out…"
"The rotter! I'm going to have Jigs pull the audio and counterpost him! I only sang that because the Sergeant got all uppity with his pious hymnals and said there was no way some down-spire lowbreed like myself could possibly appreciate the sanctity and purity of the High Hymnals! Bastard! Well, I'll show him and splash his damn singing voice all over the net and see what the citizens of the Empire think about their singing Imperial Marine in power armor! Hmmph!" I slorged down most of the glass of wine.
"If you could get him to do a song and dance routine that would be pretty classic," he offered thoughtfully.
"I'd try, but he's a pretty stiff servant of the Emperor, Praise Him Forever With Xeno Kills," I said in perfect deadpan. Da Mick wasn't one to hold lack of piety against someone, and adopted the same serenely reverent expression. "Anyhoos, I'll probably never see him again. Shakes fist impotently in his direction." I waved my hand randomly.
And his phone buzzed for his attention. Da Mick gave it a rather scathing glare, and his hand came over slowly, as if he were going to squish something offensive as he punched the button. "Yes, Dors?" he asked in a voice that promised cold and slimy doom for interrupting his lasagna.
"Doctor, that Umbran is here to see you and the miss." Dors was naturally completely unruffled by anything short of the Emperor's direct wrath.
Our eyes met. "Well, we mustn't disappoint The Emperor's Throatcutters. Send him on in." He conveyed his total lack of enthusiasm quite clearly as he signed off. He also eyed me. "He isn't here for me. What did you do?"
Slurp. "Um?" I rolled my eyes. "I'm famous, and he's an ass-watcher. Maybe he wants to ask me out."
"In the middle of my pasta? Not even the Dark of the Emperor could be so cruel." There was a knock on the door, and he buzzed it open. Pervy MyAsswatcher walked in, and actually had a rather serious expression on his face.
He also had a familiar data drive in his hand. His dark eyes zeroed in on me with rather more intensity then his last visit. "Sama Rantha. Where did you get this drive you gave to me?" he asked, not even glancing at Da Mick, who just cocked a knowing eyebrow at me and ate another forkful smugly. I glowered back at him and did the same. "Wait, is that lasagna?" Pervy asked, shocked.
I turned half away from him and Da Mick also put some distance between himself and the Umbran, picking up his eating pace visibly. "Get your own," I sniffed back, and ate another forkful.
He blinked, shook his head, and got back into focus. "I need to know where you got this drive from."
I kind of frowned at him. "One of the refugees who had some tech skills and some time made it up for me. Pretty fast and clean, said he did shockvids for one of the uptown corps. Nice change of pace from a three-second eyebleep, he told me." I smiled despite myself. "Did it get leaked?"
"Yes, I leaked it myself." I lifted an eyebrow. Unexpected. "There's nothing like a false image of incompetence to really surprise one's opponents when the time is right." Straight-up honest, almost challenging me. "Can you describe this person? Do you have a vid of them?"
"Uh? Well, he had bandages around half his face from a hydro tank going off in front of him. I think he had black hair, but he'd been buzzed, and his eyes were kind of muddy brown…" Pervy's lips thinned. "Why? He get nude pics of you off my cam?"
His jaw worked. "You didn't watch the disk?" Slurp, slurp in between his questions. His fingers twitched as the lasagna disappeared quickly.
"I saw the original like ten times, and if I put it into a computer, I'd break it, and be lucky if I didn't fry the comp." Slurp. Da Mick nodded agreement with me. I was not allowed to touch any of his tech. "So, no, I didn't read it, and I'm sure you ran some computer validation muckity-muck of times it had been accessed before you even asked the question."
He grunted with displeasure at my astuteness. "And you haven't seen that person since?" His resignation was apparent.
I thought about that a moment, slurp, slurp. His mouth twitched. "Nope, can't say I have," I admitted after a moment. "Should I be worried about something? Did I pass you cheatcodes to Hot Babes Assworks, or something?"
He managed to not even blink. "No, something else." Other then a vid. He took a deep breath. "I have been following your exploits on the 'net. You are acquiring an impressive resume."
"Sweet-talking me for a plate of lasagna," I sniffed.
"One forkful. I wish to compare it to Ellecioni's, for purely academic purposes." I looked to Da Mick for an explanation.
"Pasta chef at Tri-Summer Rise. Kinda famous upspire," he explained sagely, all daddy-wise and experienced. Then he looked at the Umbran, and promptly swept the last three pieces on his plate into his mouth. Pervy almost rolled his eyes.
I debated, then grumbled aloud. I speared two pieces, made sure to swirl them in sauce dribbles, and held it out for him. He started to reach for it, thought better of it, and obediently bent over to bite it directly off my fork, keeping my eyes. His teeth slid along the metal, and he began to chew thoughtfully as he straightened back up.
I polished the rest of my plate off as he ruminated. He wasn't getting any more.
He swallowed slowly and thoughtfully. "That was exceptional," he judged, glancing at Da Mick, who just nodded agreement. "Where did you learn to cook like that? There were twelve different spices in there, perfect noodle texture, the balance of the sauce was incredible, I can feel it tingling on my tongue and all the way down my throat…"
I rolled my eyes. "Fresh ingredients, duh. The cheese still tastes like recycled dung, but I can't get fresh cheeses to save my life. Half the damn recipe is about trying to salvage the damage the cheeses do to it, but it just ain't right without that texture." Da Mick nodded sage agreement, giving me a thumbs-up.
"So… if you had the real ingredients, it would actually taste right?" he asked lightly, but glanced again at Da Mick, who suddenly had a very interested expression on his face.
I laughed despite myself. "You can't buy that kind of stuff, you have to order it special delivery, it's all gourmet off-planet reserved crap. Not to mention it's rotten milk, full of bacteria and ecosystem-endangering stuff. You need a Mithral-Class License just to ask for the stuff, and it's revoked if you resell it. Plus I wouldn't trust a reseller to not cut it or try to do a chemdupe on it."
He nodded slowly. "All true." He didn't sound intimidated.
Da Mick looked at him, then me, back at him. "Chiagatelli," he said aloud, pouring himself more wine.
The Umbran looked at the doctor quizzically. "What about it?" he asked.
"Her chiagatelli is the best in the city. Neither Ellecioni nor Qzwimba can compare." He took a drink of the wine, sighing in remembrance.
I eyed him myself. "You never told me that."
"Throne, girl, if I told you how good your cooking was, you might have stopped coming by to feed me these divine lunches and get some job running a Plat-class eatery upspire making in a day what I do in a month."
"Like they'd have room to grow decent tomatoes." I swiped the bottle of wine back and refilled my glass with the dregs.
"You've eaten Ellecioni and Qz?" Pervy seemed startled.
"We wander over to Mekner's place once a month, they bring a dish or two to pass, I help critique it for them. El's nose hasn't been the same since that gas leak back then, and Qz has a problem with the right salt balance, plus she hates garlic and overdoes the pepper." Da Mick patted his twelve-hour beard with a surgical cloth, while Pervy tried to hide his amazement. "I also tell them about some of the downspire cooking they might want to try out. We go through a lot of take-out here, and I like to eat around the area when I've got a night free."
"It's 'cause he can't cook for shit," I said out of the side of my mouth. "You should watch him burn a pre-pack in the heater following directions. Freaking hilarious." Pervy crooked an eyebrow at that detail.
Da Mick looked serene. "Yes, but I don't blow the heater up," he noted calmly, and I scowled at him. "And I have nurses to run the heater." I scowled more, narrowing my eyes.
"I am going to make montacellisi bron once for you, and never again, and you are going to cry," I threatened him.
That did get him to purse his lips, he glanced at the Umbran. "I can demonstrate how to follow directions and burn a pre-pack, if you like?" he gallantly offered the imperial assassin in his office.
"I believe I shall pass." I sniffed at Pervy's refusal, lifting my nose proudly. Da Mick slumped slightly, but I'm sure he was mentally calculating that he'd actually won the round.
"And you're going to take me to one of these get-togethers you have with people who might actually know how to cook," I growled at Da Mick, who just nodded once with a sigh.
"Have you given a thought to what you are going to do once the fighting is over?" Pervy asked thoughtfully, turning the drive over in his hand.
"I have been getting some lucrative offers for merc work, but I swear half of them just want a damn cover girl shot for their advertising posters, and the other half think it's going to let them sleep with me." I tossed back half a glass of wine. "And then there's all these Imperials trying to recruit me for the Marines and the Guard and the pegheads and the puntheads and the fragheads… just, ugh." I rolled my eyes. "And some of those corporate offers… I had to get Jigs to set up my mail to send them right to junk, and I had to shoot two of their lawyers to stop them from coming around."
"Don't forget the three that actually thought there was nothing up the stairs," half-laughed Da Mick. "A good month in a psyche ward did wonders for stopping that line of suits from coming back!"
"You have shown a remarkable talent for killing things powerful and things plentiful," Pervy admitted, his eyes keen at the news. "I admit that I cannot match the sheer volume of bounty you can make during wartime as a Termite, but I can offer you an exceptionally good salary doing work that is exceptionally suitable for your unique capabilities."
Me and Da Mick met eyes, both looked back at him. "Unique? I'm special, now." I crinkled a smile up at him. "You want me to work for the Emperor's Knives? I'm a bit too public now to get away with that, aren't I?"
He leaned back against the door, crossing his arms and shrugging. "You can wear a mask, right? And tie up your hair."
"Ugh. Gee, look at that person in a mask over there. It's a woman using an autobow just like the one on that video we saw last week! Who could it possibly be?!" I grasped both cheeks and shook my head. He quirked a smile despite himself.
"It would probably be an excellent idea for you to affiliate yourself with the Umbrans," he said, with a smile that was at once knowing and resignedly apologetic.
I glanced at Da Mick again. "Here comes the stick," I said, sotto voce. Da Mick just nodded.
"The Mentats are asking questions about you. Your displays of invulnerability to psionic attack have spurred their interests. I'm afraid they've even sent word up their chain of command. They can't touch you here on Tormis, naturally. You've made a fine name for yourself, you've an Imperial Marine Sergeant playing sing-along with you, a Turgeneral of the Iron Walkers kissing your cheek on camera, and you made the most hilarious recruiting campaign vid we've had in ages. But if a Ship Silencium arrives and wants to take you away for observation, there's nothing anyone on the planet can do short of the Chapter Masters of the Coronals and Umbrans."
"And I don't suppose there's any refusing the invitation of the Ship Silencium?" I asked, rolling my eyes.
He grimaced. "Short of death, no, and they'll take your body, too. And if they think you are dangerous, they have full authority to glass the planet to kill you."
I grimaced despite myself, looking at Da Mick. He shook his head. "The boogeymen of the Imperial Fleets. All I know is that they are supposed to harvest psychics for the Empire, hauling them off into the quiet of the void. Their reputation is equal parts ghoulish and mysterious. Nobody knows anything about them, and they like it that way."
I looked back at Pervy. "And they're coming for me?" I asked archly. "I mean, I'm awesome and all, but really? Me?"
His lips quirked again. "You don't seem to realize how threatening your ability to be invulnerable to psychic powers is to elites who built their foundations on psychic might. You live in a Class E zone which should have your brains bleeding out your ears. You can walk through the pshields of a Cerevore Biomech, and disrupt the Mantle of an Elder Spawn. I don't think I even have to go in how ridiculously competent you are in combat, I've seen it myself, and it's been played on a billion vidscreens by now." His eyes bored into me. "And all that despite the fact that I will swear to my grave that you don't have a single bit of psionic ability about you, nor any tech of any level that could do what you do, and I've been exposed to extremes of both tech and psi in my time."
"Any sufficiently advanced tech is indistinguishable from psi," I noted to Da Mick, "until you factor in the id-monsters created from nightmares."
"Them Dem Id-Monsters," he nodded sage agreement with me.
"Add that to the fact there are absolutely no records anywhere of you before four years ago, and no gene-matches on record for ancestry, and you send up all kinds of alarm bells," Pervy went on with grim conviction.
"I didn't go to a schola, either," I told Da Mick out of the side of my mouth.
"Throne, cooking like that? Of course you didn't. Maybe you're an Ovoid infiltrator mind-coded into - ah, no. They are good at both tech and psi, aren't they?" He shook his head. "Sorry, Sam, I'm horrible at conspiracy theories like that."
"Maybe I'm an attempt to infiltrate psi-dead humans into the gene pool. Instead of a man who can have, like, unlimited numbers of kids," I shot back to him.
"So that makes little sense, either. Of course, how you got so good at fighting, in a world where psi-training, virtua training, holo training, gene-coding, or off-the-shelf memory implants couldn't explain such things, surely… ah, crap," Da Mick threw his hands up in the air.
"He's been asking about where I learned to cook for a long time," I told Pervy with a wink.
The Umbran looked back and forth between us, caught somewhere between amusement and frustration. "You are not taking this seriously enough," he observed.
"Oh, I am. I just don't want to leave my babies, and it's going to take another year or two to calm down the spirits in the top fifty to below total fucking nightmare status. You're basically saying I have to blow the planet and take another identity if I want to keep my freedom and fuck me, I don't know if I could even open an airlock, let alone crew a ship leaving here."
"They put scanners in the uniforms," Da Mick advised me kindly. "Of course, if my doors are any indication, you'll put in a passcode and fry the alarm network…"
"Not helping!" I shook my fist at him. "I'd have to be the captain of my own ship, and get everyone else to do the tech thingies while I sit back and decide where to go. Someplace with new foods to cook!" I wrinkled my nose. Both men looked tolerantly amused. "But I think buying a ship is a bit beyond my means still." Pervy sighed and was about to say something. "So, I'd have to steal one. And get a crew together to do it!" I tapped my cheek as he just sort of stared at me, talking about something like this in front of an Imperial agent. "Unfortunately, most of the cool people I know are still rather law-abiding, and while boosting a ride isn't something beyond them, they'd probably balk at lifting a spaceship."
"And they couldn't fly it," Da Mick pointed out. "You don't know anyone in the Guild Vacuo, do you?"
I had to pout. "Like them vac-breathers would ever come downspire."
"They don't know what they are missing," Da Mick agreed.
I gritted my teeth. "Poo! And there's just my kind of yacht sitting in the gilderdocks at the port. I'm sure that fuckwad Huldeiver wouldn't miss it, given how many zeroes he's worth." Ignoring Pervy's blink I leaned forwards. "You ever see the stats on that thing?"
"Huldeiver's precious honeysun ship?" Da Mick made a face. "Is that the one with the aurumic plating all over it, just saying how fucking rich he is?"
"I was more looking at the primary rail gun and banks of particle cannons, but we can go with that." I smiled winningly. "I r glittering prize, kum pirates kum, boompowbang boooooosh." I spread my hands to frame the explosion. "I'm pretty sure that level of firepower in a private ship isn't legal, but nobody cares, 'cause trillionaire." I blew a raspberry with my lips.
"You have something against the richest man in the Spires?" Pervy asked, hiding his interest.
"Me? I couldn't possibly have had any encounters with the electrum-plated minions of his paranoid moneyness and their arrogant noses looking down at me, nope, nope. I'm just a downspire Termite, wherever would I meet such a bunch of self-righteous jack-booted gold-shitting assholes?"
Da Mick coughed once and looked away. "Yes, well, let's not get into that bit of business. I had to sign an NDA, after all."
"Wimp!"
"He says 250k and a new trauma table later!" Da Mick smiled winningly.
"That sounds like an interesting tale…" Pervy said, glancing back and forth between us. I looked up at the ceiling in a huff, Da Mick just looked smug.
"The bastard's corphackers take down vids of any misdoings of His Moneyness' thugs as soon as they come up, and then send more thugs around to make sure they don't go up again. He's a piece of work, and his people are pieces of worm driggle." I wanted to spit, but, doctor's office.
"Don't be shy, tell him how the people really feel about him," Da Mick said pleasantly, but his dark eyes were not smiling.
"Him and his dental implants aren't popular downspire, hmm?" Pervy sort of laughed. "Well, what goes around comes around. How would you like to be involved in a bit of extralegal activity against him?"
My eyes dropped and locked on Pervy. Da Mick pursed his lips. "Should I leave? I've got patients calling for their mommies, and I want to make them all confused when mommy shows up with a beard and a gun."
Pervy waved his hand. "You have an information network through the local gangs?"
"If you mean that if I ask them for favors that don't hurt their bottom line, they'll do it, sure." Da Mick sat back, meeting the eyes of the Umbran agent calmly. "If you want muscle, that takes money."
"I would simply like to know if there's a street-level opinion of places associated with Hulldeiver that seem… off."
Da Mick and I glanced at one another. "Gangers can be stupidstitious at the best of times, Pervy. You looking for mutts that have seen something, heard something treasonous? They got a pretty broad tolerance for illegal shit, as you might imagine."
"I'm looking for the kind of thing even a hardcore gang doesn't want to get involved with."
"Xeno or cult level, psi-dealing. No gang in its right mind wants anything to do with any of that shit." I glanced at Da Mick. "Kreestil Macht?"
He frowned. "Was that associated with Hulldeiver?" he asked, rubbing his chin.
"When the Grimmer Moon did that hard shake on it, they stirred up a whole lance of Garuda mechs, model JT. I was told hard skinny that nobody but HD corpsec uses the JT, it's a limited run for HD only."
Pervy's eyes were moving. "The Grimmer Moon. They seemed to have been wiped out in a gang retaliation over a year ago?" Exploiting that psi-link to the 'Net to look smart, he was.
I snorted. "Purgers at work. They used to be a major gang spinwards, upwards of five thousand members. One of their underbosses thought this quiet corp in his territory should start paying money, he got bad vibes off it anyways, and wasn't friendly. So he sent in a crew to create a little excitement for protection money, and none of 'em came back.
"That got him pissed, so he did a drive-by with some stolen heavy firepower, damaging some buildings, breaching some walls, random kills, paying back for his missing boys.
"Corpsec came barreling out and shot his crew all to hell, pursued him all the way back to the heart of Grimmer territory. The Moon turned out in force to protect their own, and a whole lance of Garudas as well as black firepower came down and turned the territory into a firezone. Wetwork squads wiped out the families of gang members, blew out Moon business fronts, butchered their clients. Half the Moon were slaughtered outright, almost all of them lost their families, and the bounties on the heads of the survivors are still being paid. If you look them up, I think less then five hundred of them are outstanding yet.
"Sound like a gang war to you? Near a hundred thousand dead? Gangs want the territory, clients, customers, business fronts. This was a wipe, a very clear 'don't fuck with me' sign.
"Worked, too. No gang dares to let their shadow fall on Kreestil ground, or harass what workers they see come and go. But the kind of stories they tell about it, without knowing anything, have that touch to them."
"Touch?" Pervy asked, eyes narrowing.
"The ghoulie touch. What you hear in stories, when people start whispering about the Mythos, the Id, xenos, cults. That look in the eye, that tone in the voice. The ghoulie touch. You don’t hear it when they talk about gangs, or corps, or the law, even this invasion. But they got that vibe on them when they bring up Kreestil Macht." I glanced upwards. "The top fifty." His eyes narrowed. "Yeah, that's it. That look in the eye. The ghoulie touch. When you are talking about something, and there's something about it what just ain't right. Kreestil Macht has the ghoulie touch."
He looked upwards for just a moment, and didn't lower his eyes, he averted them. He was aware of the difference, too. "Kreestil Macht is not on our list of subsidiaries for HD," he noted thoughtfully, one eye focused inside his head. "And you're right, the Percurion model Garuda JT is released exclusively to HD Corp, and no others. There's no secondary market for them."
"I've been all over this city the past few weeks, and I can't remember any action happening around the place, above or below ground. I wasn't looking for it," suuuuuure I wasn't, "but it was in West Valley grounds that saw lots of mech action. I'm sure your number crunchers can process the facts they've got to draw on. How much of the fighting took place close to Kreestil Macht? Was it damaged at all? I'm sure it 'contributed' to the defense, but how much of its operations were actually damaged? Compare that to non-HD companies all over the Valley. What are the odds that HD is going to come out of this smelling so much nicer than his rivals, and poised to make a killing?"
Pervy was silent for a minute, eyes flickering as data spun back and forth inside his head. "What do you know of the situation underground there?"
"Corp space. Termites don't go there - no invitations, no reports, no maps of the ground. Corp claims go down all the way to the Undersea, usually, and they defend their space, generally cooperate with one another to keep anyone from sniffing around… except their own wage-slaves, of course. West Valley is a big map of maybe and might-be that nobody outside the corps knows about." I eyed him. "What's with the sudden interest in HD? They pop a treason flag somewhere?"
"We've received information to that purpose, and it has to be verified," he answered easily. I kept his eyes.
"On my data drive showing Pervy MyAsswatcher and his cascade of misses." I affected a disbelieving tone.
"At the end of the show were coordinates for a data drop and the passcode to open the lock. There were significant indications it was stolen from HD, probably by the thief some time ago who escaped from his house sentries." And obviously escaped with something valuable.
I snapped up my hands. "I don't commission thieves. I buy my black market stuff from reputable distributors."
His expression was quite entertaining at that doublespeak. "Whoever they are, they are extremely skilled, I'd like to recruit them." Grin!!!! Inside, of course. "This Kreestil Macht sounds like an excellent starting point."
"Ugh." I wrinkled my nose. "It's not the Kale Merkez, but HD is a paranoid screwball who doesn't scrimp on security, and doesn't have friends, only acquaintances he doesn't own yet. You want to pull a stealth op on the place?" I gave him a look up and down, shook my head. "Only an Umbran."
"Well, seeing as how I'd like you to guide me in, more then Umbrans," he smiled dangerously.
My breath hissed out. Da Mick, looking on patiently, seemed unperturbed. "You're joking, right? I'm a Termite, a raider, not an infiltrator."
He just tilted his head a little. "Please, give me at least a tithe of credit for intelligence. I followed you around for two days through a metal and stone hell with death around every other corner. You never missed spotting a trap, you saw every hidden guard-creature, you felt every psi-ward, you cut apart their bioeyes network, and killed their sentinels so smoothly I want to bring you in to teach a class on moving takedowns. You were so quiet if I closed my eyes I couldn't tell you were there, and you've got no psychic presence whatsoever. And when shit went sideways, you had fun." He accented the word deeply.
Okay, my ears went a little red. "Hey, I already admitted I was awesome," I sniffed. "Quit trying to get me into bed!"
He was getting smarter, as he completely ignored what I said. "I can deal with the tech challenges and security passes. A second set of eyes and arms that won't interfere with me would be invaluable."
"Uh, Perv. You're an Umbran. Bring another Umbran along," I pointed out. "And what about your little skulker, Amox?"
He took a breath. I hadn't said no. "Umbrans make their own missions and kill teams. Rarely are teams made up of all Umbrans, and it will probably not surprise you to learn that we are all very busy doing different things what with the battle winding down. Amox's specialty is infiltration and sabotage, and he will have a separate mission."
My eyes sparked. "He gets to blow things up?! Lucky little bastard," I groused. I waved a hand in an irritated manner. "Fine, fine! What's it pay?" He named a figure, and my eyes narrowed. "I get more then that for helping off a biomech!" I protested.
His smile was entirely too satisfied. "If things go sideways, you can still collect your Termite bounties," he pointed out, adding, "Most of my team registered as auxiliary Termites once they learned that, they've made substantial bonus money on the side after some missions."
"It means the Umbrans are actually cheaper than the Termites." That got a flicker out of his eyes. "Just, ugh. I can see why mercs hate their own jobs. Cheapskate employers."
He got a little gloomy at that. "I can throw a permit in perpetuity to use an unlicensed micro-fusion generator and your blatantly illegal firearm modifications."
"That is a little bit better than my special dispensation from the Exterminators," I admitted. "Of course, it only matters if I have literally thousands of things that need killing, in which case whoever I'm fighting for is going to scream FUCK YES, LET HER KILL THEM ALL, and then try to smother me in issued licenses." His expression slipped a bit more. "And you know, it's strange how people who've just watched me kill all those xenos and brain-fried pslaves and coat the field in burning corpses have no desire at all to tell me I'm toting around some illegal firepower. Mr. Generosity!" Okay, that got a grimace out of him.
