#the nanites are from their blood yes | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

five-rivers · 10 months

Text

Checkerboard

Will add an AO3 link once the ddos attack is over. In the meantime, please enjoy this Gen Rex fic! It's whump. :)

Edit: AO3 Link!

One moment, Rex was breaking free of the control collar, as planned. The next–

Caesar hadn't realized that witch could move that fast.

The fight was, in a word, brutal. Rex was good, very good, even Caesar could see that, but against both an equal opponent and the relentless black pawns, even he had limits. Especially when he was avoiding lethal blows. It appeared he hadn't, quite, realized that the black pawns were robots.

That was an oversight on Caesar's part, he'd admit. He knew that Rex had the ability to detect nearby nanites, but he didn't know if that ability was behind the consciousness partition his parents had set up in the onboard AI, and even if it wasn't, well, having the ability to perceive something and understanding the information it gave you were two very different things. Especially under stress.

Black Knight crushed Rex's latest set of smack hands with a nanite-generated hammer, then tipped him over, wrapping him with her whip. He hit the floor hard, but it was obvious he was going to break free momentarily, and possibly even counter with his own whip build, but Black Knight's hammer shifted into a sword, and she brought it down through Rex's shoulder.

"Stop! Stop! What are you doing?" demanded Caesar.

The black pawns moved in, aiming at Rex from point blank range.

"Kill or control," said Black Knight. "That's Providence's current protocol. If we get your brother back under control, we can put ‘cure’ back on the table, but until then… What will it be?" The ultimatum, because that's what it was, was delivered in the same falsely pleasant tone Black Knight gave all her orders in.

Caesar clenched his jaw. Some people might think he was cold and disconnected, that he lacked empathy, feelings, care for anything that wasn’t one of his experiments. Dr. Holiday, for example, had, shortly after Rex’s disappearance, accused Caesar of being a psychopath.

Well. Caesar knew there was something not quite right about him. Never had felt like getting a diagnosis. But he hadn’t cried over his parents’ deaths, and he hadn’t cried over Rex’s disappearance. He certainly hadn’t gotten as emotional as Holiday, or even Six.

But he did love his brother. He knew that love was just the result of neural connections in the brain, coupled with certain chemical reactions, but that didn’t make it less real. He wanted his brother to be healthy and happy. That was love, yes?

But for Rex to be healthy and happy, he also had to be alive.

He met Rex’s eyes. Rex, unlike Caesar, was emotional. Caesar could easily read the pain, fury, and fear on Rex’s face. Fear that quickly slid into terror as Rex realized what Caesar was going to do.

“Dr. Salazar, your decision. You can stop stalling. We neutralized the robot monkey, and even all the Numbers working together couldn’t break into this facility fast enough to keep me and my pawns from terminating this EVO.”

“He-ahhhh!” Rex’s protest was cut off with a sideways jerk of Black Knights blade, ending with a high-pitched whine. There was no blood - Rex, as a rule, didn’t bleed. His nanites had instructions about that. But even so…

“Alright, alright!” said Caesar. “I’ll do it! I’ll just. This isn’t something I can do immediately. I told you Rex’s nanites were different.” He had. Multiple times. Some of those times were even after his six-years-in-fifteen-minutes trip.

“I’d think it’d be a simple matter, considering you worked on him before. And your control of the Omega-1 during your… reappearance.”

“I’d think,” said Caesar, retrieving a set of new control collars and checking their serial numbers, “you’d appreciate the difficulty, considering anything that could easily be done to Rex could easily be done to you.”

Black Knight’s smile grew sharper, showing teeth. “Careful. Dr. Salazar.”

Caesar made sure his tablet computer was synchronized with the main control computer and walked towards Rex. The pawns who weren’t aiming at him were now aiming at Caesar. He held up the collars and his tablet. “I’ve got to start somewhere, right?”

“Let him by,” said Black Knight in an almost magnanimous tone. She had a lot of practice with that one.

“Okay, mijo,” said Caesar, with false cheer, “let’s get started.”

“Don’t do thi–”

His protest was cut off as Black Knight changed the angle of her sword, enlarging the wound. Rex gasp, breath hitching, and Caesar decided the best way to handle this was fast, like ripping off a bandaid. He wrapped the first collar around Rex’s neck.

Predictably, because Rex could be predictable, sometimes, (it was, Caesar thought, probably a result of many of his subconscious thought processes and actions being directed by nanite programs) the skin on his neck lit up with blue lines that crossed over onto the collar and took it apart.

“Don’t–” said Caesar, quickly. “Don’t. There’s a reason I brought more than one, yes?”

“You have fifteen minutes. My arm is getting tired.”

“Please, Rex, just… Let it happen.”

Rex bit his lower lip and glared up at him. Caesar swallowed and checked his tablet, looked at what, exactly, Rex had done to the collar, and made a few adjustments. He had to - he had to get this right.

Despite the whip and despite the sword, Rex still tried to twitch away from the collar. This time, Caesar could hear the activation tone of the nanites. They’d intended to remove some of the audio cues after the nanites got out of the prototype phase, but since things had turned out the way they did, they’d never gotten around to it.

He kept an eye on the tablet, watching the feedback and already making adjustments to the next collar. When the second - or should he count it as the third? - one broke, it was ready to slide into place.

And… There! He’d need some more changes. Just a little more. But this time… Yes! He could stop Rex from breaking this one for long enough to get his foot in the door, at least. And Rex was wearing out.

He had limits. And Caesar wasn’t exactly fighting fair.

He snapped the next collar - hopefully the last one - into place. The program, a construction command for the Omega-1, started running immediately, relaying its results to the tablet. Caesar watched them anxiously, but he didn’t have much faith in that particular program as anything but a delaying tactic. Rex’s self-programming capabilities had taken care of that particular backdoor within the first week of Caesar’s return.

But the program he was loading up now was a bit different. Simple, yes, there wasn’t time for anything complex, but hopefully effective, given Caesar’s special permissions and privileges in the nanite system.

The second program worked like this: it sent a request for access to Rex’s code interface, tagged with Caesar’s administrator codes. For various ethical and practical reasons (their parents didn’t quite trust Caesar not to use higher-level access for pranks) Caesar had never been given full, unimpeded access to Rex’s nanite programming. But… the admin codes meant that he got a response. A little popup that said nothing but ‘request denied.’ Rex also could accept the request, but, well…

Caesar looked at Rex, whose face was screwed up into an expression of pained but determined confusion. That just didn’t seem likely. Even if the request was handled entirely behind the consciousness partition.

The program didn’t just send one request, though. It sent repeated requests. As many as it could, on a code loop only a few lines long.

The whirr of the nanites became more stressed as they worked on endless access requests. The nanites were tiny, brilliant computers, but they were, in the end, still computers. Computers (and everything, really), as a rule, generated heat when they were working. They’d managed to break physics in so many ways working on the nanite project, but not that one.

Rex began to sweat and pant as his body tried to regulate its internal temperature. Every inhale hitched and every exhale was accompanied by a pained whine. As a rule, Caesar didn’t experience empathy, didn’t feel with other people. Probably a mirror neuron problem. But this? This hurt.

He didn't want to do this.

His tablet beeped.

Their parents hadn’t trusted Caesar not to play pranks on his little brother, but they did trust him to look after Rex’s wellbeing in an emergency. An emergency like a significantly elevated body temperature and a huge hole in his body.

The popup now read, ‘access granted.’

The first thing Caesar did was make a new back door. He was confident that this one, the one he used to get in just now, would be patched within a week. Probably some limit on access-requests-per-minute, even for admins.

Rex’s code was a mess. Six years of unregulated self-modification would do that. Few of the new programs were instantly understandable, even to Caesar. Builds, wifi hacking tools, a series of ‘handshakes’ for various systems, dormant EVO-originating code, probably copied from people and animals he’d cured, active EVO code, from the same, a rather ingenious fix for a problem they’d never solved, back in the nanite project days. But buried underneath all that was the original code for Rex’s nanites. Even the Omega-1.

He brought up the set of programs they’d written after the first time Rex had forgotten everything. It was just a little something to help him recognize them, trust them, in case it happened again. It was why it had been so easy to convince Rex to come with him, when they had met again.

But family wasn’t the only thing on the list anymore. Dr. Holiday, Six, Noah, and even Bobo were there, primarily identified through their nanite loci, rather than the facial, vocal, and code recognition that identified the Salazars. Although, now that he looked, he could see that Rex had appended Caesar’s nanite locus to his ID data.

He went to the part of the code that dictated how much and how the nanites could influence Rex’s thoughts about a given person, and changed a few variables and permissions. He went back to the main list, added in Black Knight, and generated variables for her, too.

There. Rex was controlled. Not, perhaps, the same way all the other EVOs were, but with the values Caesar had just assigned, saying ‘no’ to him or Black Knight would be given roughly the same avoidance priority as self harm, and just being around them should feel vaguely pleasant.

Rex made a tiny noise of protest, but judging by how glazed over his eyes were, and how clammy his skin looked, Caesar doubted he was really aware of what Caesar had just done. He would be, though.

Caesar went back to the main list one more time, and told Rex’s nanites that Rafael and Violeta Salazar were dead. The effect of this was immediate and far more dramatic. Rex started sobbing.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” He really was. But this was the fastest way to get to the other thing he wanted. The consciousness partition. Without their parents, Caesar was now recognized as having the highest level of admin access.

He… hesitated before he deleted it. There were a vast number of reasons it existed. The primary one being to keep ten-year-old Rex from accidentally deleting his liver, but also because the nanite project’s… well, Caesar’s… track record with AIs was not good, and even if this was more of an integrated intelligence, than an artificial one…

But Rex needed this. For that matter, if Caesar’s original plan had worked, and Rex had escaped, and he got Providence to restart the project, and, and, and… Eventually, the partition would have been removed anyway, was the point.

He hit the button and moved on. Medical options. He brought up a list of prearranged medically-related voice commands - it was short, for emergency use only, in case Rex lost control of his nanites while he was ill. He interdicted Rex’s builds, put them behind a voice authorization from a ‘person of trust’ and he desperately hoped Rex would figure out that particular loophole. He told the nanites to take over Rex’s breathing reflex for the moment, because the way he was currently breathing had to be cutting him up on Black Knight’s sword. He–

“That’s been fifteen minutes, Dr. Salazar.”

“Rex,” said Caesar, clearly, “go to sleep.”

Rex’s eyes fluttered closed.

“There you go!” said Caesar, a horrible approximation of a smile on his face. “All under control!”

"Dr. Donevsky," said Black Knight.

Caesar flinched as the doctor approached from the side of the room. He hadn't noticed anyone else come in.

“It won’t be the same as with the other EVOs, his base programming is too different,” said Caesar, now anxious as Donevsky checked Rex’s pulse and reflexes. “You won’t be able to– To puppet him around. There are only a few voice commands he has to follow, but–”

Black Knight raised an eyebrow. “That doesn’t sound like under control.”

“I’ve made him trust us,” said Caesar. “Even more than he trusts Holiday or Six. I’ve made it– You are familiar with Pavlov’s experiments with dogs, aren’t you?” It wasn’t quite what was going on, but, honestly, he didn’t want to explain it to Black Knight.

“He’s really asleep, ma’am,” said Donevsky, stepping back.

“Hm,” said Black Knight. She withdrew her builds. “How long does this last for?”

“Eight hours,” said Caesar. “That’s the recommended amount, after all!”

“Interesting. We’ll give this a trial run.”

Other medical staff, who had been standing at the periphery of the room, came forward. They heaved Rex up onto a gurney and started taking more measurements and readings. Rex stayed entirely limp throughout, like a rag doll. The doctors conferred over their results for a moment, then started to wheel him out of the room. Caesar began to follow.

Black Knight’s hand on his shoulder stopped him.

“I think we have some things to discuss, before you join your brother,” she said.

It wasn’t as if Rex had never been stabbed before. He had. Mostly by Van Kleiss and his stupid, stabby, sucky fingers. It sucked, but he could deal with it. Maybe with some complaining and a bit of encouragement from Dr. Holiday or Six, or some well-timed snark from Bobo, but he could deal with it.

On the other hand, the stuff that stabbed him usually wasn’t this big and usually didn’t stay stabbed in him for this long. Benefit of having the most awesome nanites on the planet was that he could safely ignore the whole ‘don’t remove the thing stabbing you or else you might bleed out’ thing… Which he totally hadn’t discovered by ignoring Holiday when she said ‘don’t remove the thing stabbing you or else you might bleed out.’ Good times.

What wasn’t a good time? The fact that the literal backstabbing he was dealing with had come after a metaphorical backstabbing.

(He was pretty sure that when people said siblings were a pain, they didn’t mean like this.)

The whole ‘tied up with a dozen guns pointed at him’ thing was bad, also. But it was kind of… Expectedly bad? Like, it wasn’t anything too out of the ordinary for his life, except for the when and where of it. But Caesar trying to mind control him? That was just…

Well. It sucked. What else was he supposed to say? He didn’t know what to say, which was, maybe, why he wasn’t saying anything while Black Knight was giving Caesar some kind of psycho speech about why he needed to be controlled.

He didn’t know why she was bothering with that, honestly. Caesar had already decided to control him. With that stupidly easy to break collar… that Caesar had to know wouldn’t work on him.

Ughhhhh sometimes he hated being the kind of person who gave others the benefit of the doubt.

He looked up and glared at Caesar, hard enough to hide any trace of hope. Not that he really kept a lot of hope as Caesar’s expression went from ‘blank’ to ‘resigned.’

A bunch of words that Dr. Holiday thought he didn’t know went through his brain so fast they sounded like static. Caesar was a weirdo and a space case most of the time, but he also knew Rex, and his nanites, better than anyone else. Caesar had gotten him to build that freaky containment machine on remote control, sans collar. Caesar could screw him over so freaking much.

Robot monkey? Did that mean Bobo wasn’t under control? And he hated it when people talked over him like he was some kind of object. “He-ahhhh!”

Black Knight must have moved her sword by, like, a foot, because Rex’s entire arm and back lit up like they were on fire. In the back of his mind there was something with the general shape and texture of the few times his nanites had talked to him directly. Not that any information got through to Rex. It was probably just them trying to tell him how stabbed he was, so no biggie. He could figure that out on his own. He had this whole biological system called pain and more pain, oh, and get this, yet more pain, to help him figure it out! Wasn’t that wonderful?

“Alright, alright!” said Caesar. “I’ll do it! I’ll just. This isn’t something I can do immediately. I told you Rex’s nanites were different.”

Yeah, no kidding. He was sure Providence’s new evil overlord knew nothing about that at all. It wasn’t like Providence hadn’t been studying them since Rex first got here.

Caesar strode across the room and out of Rex’s immediate line of sight. His attempt to shift his position resulted in a heel being dug into his spine, the whip tightening to the point of crushing the air out of his lungs, and the sword being twisted so viciously his vision whited out for a second.

“....could easily be done to Rex could easily be done to you.”

Okay, maybe more than a second.

“Careful. Dr. Salazar.”

Rex blinked hard, still trying to follow what was going on around him. It could be done to Black Knight, too? All of this? The mind control thing? Something else?

“I’ve got to start somewhere, right?”

“Let him by,” said Black Knight in an almost magnanimous tone. The agents between Caesar and Rex parted.

“Okay, mijo,” said Caesar, with obvious false cheer, “let’s get started.”

Rex tried to catch Caesar’s eyes. If Caesar didn't want to do this, maybe Rex could convince him not to. Sure, he wasn’t at the point of things where he’d rather die than be mind controlled - he wasn’t that noble, and he remembered the follow-up interviews from the Meechum incident - but seriously injured? Imprisoned? Those both sounded way better.

“Don’t do thi–”

Black Knight wrenched her sword to one side, and Rex’s argument was lost to agony. For a split second, he couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think, and when he could the collar was there. He sent his nanites against it, first disabling the code that let it send messages to his nanites, then telling it to disassemble stuff.

Not for the first time, Rex wondered why people didn’t make things more mechanical and less electronic. If there wasn’t an electronic disassembly command, it would be way harder for him to do stuff like this.

He wasn’t going to ask anyone that, though. His life was hard enough as it was. Case in point, his current situation (which was bad).

“Don’t–” said Caesar. “Don’t. There’s a reason I brought more than one, yes?”

What, was that some kind of threat? Rex had heard better.

“You have fifteen minutes. My arm is getting tired.”

… or maybe he was talking to someone else. Again.

“Please, Rex, just… Let it happen.”

Like heck. If Caesar and Black Knight were going to do this to him, he was going to make them work for it. In the spirit of that - and not because he was scared - he tried to pull away when Caesar picked up the next collar and put it on. Not that it did much good. But it didn’t do Caesar any good, either, so there. Ha.

It had been harder, this time, though. Not a lot harder, but enough to make him apprehensive.

He really hoped Black Knight was wrong about that backup. He didn’t think he’d be able to get out of this on his own, and he was liking his chances of holding out against mind control long term less and less.

He broke the next collar, too. That one had been hard, and Rex was starting to feel tired. More tired. His nanites were starting to protest being diverted from the giant gaping hole in his shoulder.

But Caesar already had the next collar around Rex’s neck. Rex told his nanites to take it apart, too, but… they were… busy? He pushed through, overriding whatever was occupying them, and the collar fell off.

Caesar put the next one on.

For a second, Rex zoned out like he had when Caesar had been sending the Omega-1 instructions. When he came back to himself, he felt hot.

Well, he always felt hot. He was hot. Blisteringly good looking, even. But he was physically hot right now. Fever-level hot. Best he could compare it to was when his nanites had been working overtime trying to counteract the chupacabra poison. Except there was no chupacabra poison this time. Probably. What was Caesar doing to him?

He closed his eyes, trying to focus on getting his nanites back under control. There was a feeling like someone knocking, knocking, knocking on the back of his mind until the sound turned to jackhammer black noise. It hurt, and he was rapidly approaching the temperatures where it was hard for him to think. His skin felt slick and sticky, and he started to pant, even as the motion made Black Knight’s sword saw back and forth inside him.

And then the building pressure against him disappeared all at once. He didn’t exactly relax, but he did go limp, unable to maintain the state of tension from before. He was going to pass out, soon, he could tell. He hated passing out.

With difficulty, he opened his eyes to glare blearily at Caesar. He was hunched over his tablet, tapping away at the screen. Traitor. Backstabber. Jerk. It wasn’t as if Rex hadn’t been backstabbed by, like, everyone, except for Holiday, Bobo (except for really minor things), and Six (there had been that time with the Numbers, and the other thing with the memory loss, but, really, that was fine, water under the bridge and all), but family was supposed to be different. You were supposed to be able to trust family. Family wasn’t supposed to try to mind control you for creepy middle-aged women, which is why Rex had to trust that Caesar was doing this for a very good reason.

Rex blinked slowly. There was something wrong with that train of thought. The people you… Caesar wouldn’t mind control him just because. Caesar had betrayed him– But Caesar wouldn’t do that. Had Rex misunderstood something? Somewhere? Was he not working for Black Knight? Except, Black Knight was a good person. He knew that. He trusted her. Good people didn’t just mind control people for no reason. Or stab people for no reason. So, there had to be a reason. But it was so hard to think of one.

… Had he hurt someone?

A weak whine built in the back of his throat. He didn’t remember hurting… But maybe he did? He was so angry about the control collars, but Black Knight and Caesar said they were good, so…? His thoughts felt so sticky and slow. What had he been thinking about before? Caesar and Black Knight had… They had been…?

He was hit with a wave of grief absolutely unlike anything he had ever experienced before. Grief, like something he’d always had, something he’d held so close he couldn’t even see it, being ripped away from him without warning. A piece of his world, just gone, and he didn’t even know what it was, just that he wanted it back, please, please, please.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”

Rex was sorry, too. He didn’t know what he had done, but he wanted this to stop.

And then, something in the back of Rex’s mind opened up, and his thoughts stopped being anything like coherent. He watched, more or less passively, as Caesar turned on emergency medical controls, put his builds on lock, and made the nanites actively regulate his breathing. Which actually did help, a little. Rex may have been hyperventilating.

Black Knight and Caesar started talking, but Rex couldn’t follow anything they were saying at all. It was okay for him to just… zone out a bit, right? He could… obviously, they could take care of things…

“Rex,” said Caesar, dragging Rex’s attention back into the real world, if only for a moment, “go to sleep.”

To be continued. :)

#generator rex #fic #checkerboard fic

80 notes · View notes

jpitha · 1 year

Text

Just a Little Further 32

Part 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31

This time at least, I expect the tinkle of debris on the hull.

We come out around the same debris cloud as before. Oh, I bet Raaden might be interested in this. I call out on the PA “Raaden, please come up to the Command Deck, this might interest you.”

As we glide silently away from the Gate, Raaden pads up, still in her sweats. “Yes, Empress?” I gesture at the forward screen, showing the destroyed planet and debris field. “Welcome to the Wilds of Besmara. This is the other system we visited before we came to Reach of the Might of Vzzx.”

I will admit a certain small amount of satisfaction that I was able to render such a jaded expert in spaceflight speechless. She stared at the image, mouth agape for a few seconds before catching herself. “What happened here?” She turned to me “Did you do this?”

“No. This is how FarReach found it. We don’t know what happened, but when we got close to the Starbase in the system, some kind of field enveloped us. It was trying to pull us in.”

“How did you escape?”

“FarReach used juke charges to spin us around and we fired the Stardrive at 2gee to overload the field. We were able to escape.”

“I would have just found the source of the emitter and fired on it.”

“That was going to be what we did, but I received like… an impression or a feeling from the Starbase warning us not to do that. It was almost done in a commanding Voice like mine. Regardless, this time we’re going to let the field pull us in.”

Raaden looks at me and then back at the ruined starbase and planet and then back at me. “Why?”

“I want to go aboard the Starbase. I need to see who lives here and if they need help. Clearly this place used to have a planet, but it’s long gone. FarReach’s thermal scans showed that there were people aboard, but not too many. I don’t know how they’re eating or surviving. According to the Nanites I carry, the Wilds used to be a thriving planet and Starbase pair housing over a billion people.”

“Wait, ‘according to the Nanites?’” Raaden walks over to an empty station and sits down, spinning the chair around so she can see us. Ava looks up from a sensor station, she was trying to learn more about the Starbase. “Melody…”

I look over at Ava and shrug. It’s not like she can use the information against us. “The Nanites - the nanomachines that give the Builders their abilities - talk to me.”

“Bullshit.”

“How did you think I did it Raaden? Magic? The air all over here is thick with nanomachines. That's why your earplugs didn't do anything, it was long past that having any kind of affect. The memories and feeling are a part of the Empress package I have. They say that they contain the recorded memories and impressions of previous Empresses. That each Empress would upload them regularly-“ I don’t mention how exactly. I don’t need her escaping and touching a directory stone “-and if or when a new Empress needed to be made, they would get the memories. It’s supposed to be like… an incorruptible advisor I think. They help you rule.”

“So you have… an AI made out of nanomachines in your blood, giving you advice?” Raaden’s face says it all.

“I don’t think they’re intelligent, no. They’re more like… a database or a wiki. And they only know what the previous Empress knew up to the last upload. For example, I don’t know what happened to the Wilds, this happened after the last upload. The Nanites were the ones who told me how the Wilds were a large and thriving colony. They were as surprised as I was to see this.”

“Do any of the other Builder's Nanites… talk to them?”

“No. I get… feelings? Impressions? About things, but no voices.” Ava shakes her head. When I first told her about it, she thought it was kind of odd too. I mean, I guess it is kind of odd.

Raaden shakes her head. "What else do these Nanites do?"

"Well I have an amazing ability to read body language now. I wonder if it's a part of my language processing ability too. I can effectively understand any language spoke to me, but I can only reply in languages I know, and the original Builder tongue."

Raaden glances at Ava and then back at me. "So any language?"

"Yes?"

"It doesn't have to be a language you - or the Nanites - have heard before?"

"Not that I know of, no."

"Okay, now I'm impressed." Raaden laughs lightly.

Ava frowns and looks at both of us. "Raaden, all Builders get that ability. I can understand your conversation."

"I had a hunch. Don't worry Ava, I was already Ordered to be good, and good I shall be. I might use this ability to brush up on my own language skills though. I was skeptical until I started speaking French and you both rolled with it without blinking."

"You know French?"

"I like French comics. The French have had an amazing history of comics for a long, long time. It takes forever for them to get translated into Colonic for off-Earth consumption and most of the old ones never get translated."

A railfan and likes French comics. Better be careful Melody, Raaden is starting to humanize herself. But why does she support such a barbaric and fascist government? Why is she so cruel when she's in command?

"Anyway, we're off track. So sometime between the last Empress upload and now that-" Raaden pointed at the ruined planet "-happened yes? And you want to go and try and find out how and why?"

"Yes. That's why were here."

She shrugs and turns back to the front display.

I look up at the ceiling. "How are we looking Omar?"

"We're cruising along Melody. We've exited the debris field near the Gate and are headed towards the Starbase. Scanners find no evidence of FarReach by their drive exhaust or any other telltales. I think they were telling the truth when they said they were just going straight home."

"I can't wait to get the chance to show FarReach all that we've accomplished here when we come back."

Raaden laughed. "You're going to go back? You can't go back Empress."

"What? Why can't I go back? I would like to open up a dialog with other worlds and colonies and independent Starbases. We have things to trade, we could take on volunteers. I don't see what's so strange about it."

Raaden is unbelieving. She thinks I'm joking. "You don't see what's so strange about a human who can order people to do something and they are forced to obey? Empress, you are being naive. The moment you Voice someone on that side of the Galaxy you are going to catch a long range bullet or a brace of long range missiles. It won't even be Venus that does it, it'll be K'lax."

"More propaganda from the Venusian." I say bitterly. That was probably unfair of me, but I'm upset. Why wouldn't I be able to go back?

Raaden puts her leg down and sits up straight in her chair and pivots to face me. "Empress. I am being one hundred percent honest with you when I say that if we believed the reports about your Voice the Emperor would have ordered me to destroy the Reach of the Might of Vzzx the moment we traversed the gate. No fanfare, no warning, no nothing. Pop out of the gate, missiles until you're destroyed, pop back in. You do not realize how dangerous you are over there."

"Dangerous? Why am I dangerous?"

"Oh. My. Gods. You really don't see it?" She looks at Ava with a pleading expression. "Is this a joke? Does she not see it?" Ava glares but says nothing. Raaden looks at Starlight. "You. Aviens. Starlight. You understand what I am referring to right?"

Starlight turns away and nods. "I think I know what you are referring to, yes, Archduke."

"Empress, after being subjected to your Voice, I understand your title it not some lofty, bombastic aspirational title set by a tinpot dictator. Empress of the Holy Imperial Systems means that if anyone gets close enough to you, they are your subject. No ifs, ands, or buts. You are literally the undeniable. If you use your Voice, someone cannot disobey. You already showed that by ordering Max to stop breathing. Thank you for allowing him to breathe again by the way. He didn't have anything to do with the bombs, nobody onboard did. They're a standard Venus practice." She looks at the screen showing the ruined Starbase and then back at us and continues.

"Do you know what the all of the governments back home will do when they learn that you not only have that power, but are coming back to leverage it? They will come together like never before. Venus will work with AIs, the K'laxi will work with the Xenni, the Independent Starbases will work with the Colonies."

"They will all work together to destroy you. Before you can destroy them."

"I wouldn't hurt any of them! I can't believe this!" This is really upsetting. Raaden thinks that the moment I go back over there I'm going to declare myself Empress of that side of the Galaxy too.

Raaden runs her hands through her close cropped blonde hair. "Melody. You're not getting it. If you want to survive you had better take over."

"What?"

"You had better go over there guns blazing and Voice screaming. The only way you'll survive is if you take up the mantle you've been given and actually rule the Galaxy. The only other alternative is death. Probably by assassination."

I'm struck speechless. Raaden of all people is practically ordering me to take over the Galaxy? Why?

Ava's voice is quiet. "I can't believe I'm saying this but... Raaden is right, Melody. If you don't go to take over, everyone will be so frightened that you could take over, they won't wait for you to try it. They'll just kill you on sight. There is probably quietly a kill on sight order or you among the AIs already."

Raaden nods. "Almost certainly."

Starlight looks awkward. Their feathers ruffle in waves. "Empress, er, I concur with Builder Ava and Archduke Raaden. You cannot leave anyone in question to your legitimacy. If you do not want to rule the entire galaxy, your only other solution is to systematically destroy the Gates on that side. Prevent them from getting here easily and they might not assassinate you."

I feel the ground slipping away from my feet. Can't go home? Will get killed? This can't be right. "Of course you'd say that, Raaden."

Raaden throws up her hands. "Remember, I'm just the prisoner here Empress. I can't even call you anything other than Empress. Why would I try and trick you? For one, you ordered me not to with your Voice. For two, if I did you'd just kill me. I have absolutely no reason to do anything other than be truthful. Empress, if you go back, you will be killed. Not only that, but Starjumpers and Dreadnoughts by the dozen will come to this side of the galaxy and obliterate every Starbase left here. Unless you plan on taking over, don't go home. Ever."

She's not lying. She can't lie. Not to me. I told her not to. She can't undermine the mission, I told her not to. I told her. I told her.

If I go home, I will cause the deaths of everyone over here.

Just then, there's a rumble and we feel the pull of acceleration.

"Melody, the field has just enveloped us, just like last time. We're being pulled towards the Wilds."

Finally, something to pull me back to the here and now. I can concentrate on this and worry about me accidentally killing everyone later. "Thanks Omar, for now, let's let it us pull us. Keep an eye out for weapons targeting and for other things that we should know about. Are we getting any radio signals?"

"No, nothin- wait. Yes, I think we're being pinged."

"Open a channel please."

As Omar activates the radio and it scans for the signal being sent to us, there's a squeal and a hiss of static. The noise calms down and there is... a voice. It's hard to make out in the static, but Omar tries to focus the receiver and it gets tinny, but clearer.

"Who is approaching? Identify yourself."

"This is High Line, operated by the Empress of the Holy Imperial Systems, Melody the First. We would like permission to dock and come aboard. We come from Reach of the Might of Vzzx and would like to open a dialog."

There is a long pause after I make my announcement. I wonder for a moment if we've lost radio contact when I hear a different voice.

"Empress of the Holy Imperial Systems Melody the First? How intriguing. Permission to board has been granted. We shall direct you to a working umbilical and will meet you."

The Radio connection is cut and Ava and look on her screen. "Yes, it looks like we're being steered. I wonder if we have such a field and it's just offline or unused. It might be useful to have. Also, why do you suppose the voice changed."

"I'm sure it was some radio operator who started, and then the real authority was put on to grand our landing." Raaden lounges in her chair, one leg over an armrest. "Smaller Starbases and Stations can sometimes require administrator approval, especially if the Administrator is somewhat of a Tyrant. She looks up at me, but her expression changes when she sees my face. "Empress, what's wrong?"

At that Ava's head shoots up and she looks worried. "What did you hear, Melody? You look like you saw a ghost."

"That other person? The one who gave us permission to dock?"

"That was Janais, the previous Empress."

Part 33

#humans are deathworlders #humans are space orcs #humans go on adventure #humans are space oddities #sci fi writing #writing #humans and ai #humans and aliens #the k'laxiverse #jpitha #just a little further

79 notes · View notes

punchdrunkdoc · 1 year

Text

Part 2, Chapter 10

Summary: After the events of S3, Matt Murdock is trying to once again balance life as a lawyer and a vigilante. But he’s been scarred by loss and betrayal - will a mysterious new neighbour help him heal? Or will her secrets drag him back into the darkness?

Notes: This is a slow burn romance with an original female character, told in 3 parts. There is mystery, intrigue, action/violence and angst - all the good stuff!

Also available on AO3 and Wattpad

Masterlist

Reference pics

————–

This is a longer chapter than normal...because lots of sh*t goes down!

Enjoy!

————–

PART 2

Chapter 10

Yelena jumped off the counter and stalked towards Volkov. “How?” she barked. “How are they tracking us?”

He just smiled.

Her hand shot out and she backhanded him viciously across the face. His head snapped back, but when he faced her again, that damned smirk was still in place.

“HOW?”

The smirk stretched into another savage smile. “Project планктон.”

“Project Plankton?” Yelena translated, sounding confused. “What the fuck does that mean?”

Volkov didn’t answer. And for the first time since he’d stepped foot in the mansion his unflappable countenance faltered. His smiled slipped and he frowned.

“Answer me!” Yelena demanded.

He didn’t answer. Instead, his eyes rolled back in his head and he started jerking and twitching against the restraints.

“He’s seizing!” Sofia yelled. She ran over to him and shone a pen-torch in his eyes, flicking the light back and forth.

“He’s faking,” Kira said.

“No, Melina warned us this could happen.”

“Stabilise him,” Yelena barked at the medic. “We still need answers.”

“No, we need to get out of here!” Inessa objected. “You heard him!”

“And go where? They’re tracking us somehow.” Yelena turned to Anya. “Is there anything about Project Plankton in Dreykov’s files?”

Anya was already scrolling through her ever-present tablet. She didn’t look up from the screen as she bit out a quick, “I’m on it.”

The Widows crowded around her as she searched through the terabytes of information she’d spent the last few months decrypting. “Got it. There’s a single reference to Project Plankton in a memo from 2013. It was a theoretical nanite programme one of the scientists suggested to Dreykov.”

“Theoretical?”

“Well, it was theoretical when this memo was released. Maybe it became practical in the years since, and Dreykov kept it off the books.”

“Nanites?” Calina asked. “As in nanotechnology? That’s well beyond theoretical now. It underpins all of Tony Stark’s latest Iron Man machinery.”

Katya started rubbing her arms. “And they’re inside us? These nanites?”

Anya finally looked up, her face grave. “Do you remember the injection they gave us all after Yelena disappeared? They must have realised they needed another way to keep track of us after she managed to dig out her chip.”

“How do we get them out?” Calina asked, trying to resist the urge to scratch at her own arms. The though of still having Red Room tech inside her was making her feel nauseous.

“We can’t dig them out, that’s for sure,” Anya said. “There’s a reason it was called Project Plankton. Plankton are tiny organisms carried around on tides and currents. The nanites are in our blood.”

“Can we block the signals?” Calina asked.

“For one of us maybe, but not all of us. Not unless we had a jammer the size of a Buick.”

“Fuck,” Kira spat. “So we’re stuck with them?”

“I didn’t say that,” Anya replied. “I just said they couldn’t be dug out. But there is a way to remove them. It’s mentioned in the memo: plasmapheresis.”

“Plasma-what?” Yelena said.

“Plasmapheresis,” Sofia repeated, using her medical knowledge to explain to the group. “Plasma exchange. You remove a person’s blood, circulate it through a machine which filters out the plasma and anything harmful that’s present in it - in this case, evil little robots - and then the blood is returned with a substitution fluid.”

“Is it safe?”

“Yes, but the bigger question is, how the hell are we going to find a plasmapheresis machine before Volkov’s men find us?”

“That’s your new task,” Yelena ordered. “Calina and Anya, help her with anything she needs. The rest of you start implementing lockdown protocol. I want this place turned into a death trap for any motherfucker who comes looking for Volkov.”

———

Calina tightened the strap on her thigh holster and then checked the clip in her gun. The weapons were just a precaution, in case they ran into any of Volkov’s men. The actual mission was a quick in-and-out bit of grand larceny. Anya had found a private clinic just over the border in Georgia that offered plasmapheresis treatments.

And they were going to rob it.

“Keep in contact,” Yelena ordered, as Calina, Anya and Sofia finished arming themselves. “I’ll send a text every 30 minutes. If I miss a check-in, you’ll know the mansion is compromised, so stay clear.”

“No,” Calina said. “We’ll haul ass back here to provide reinforcements.”

“No, Calina. We need at least some of the group to be safe. In case any of us are captured, we need a team to mount a rescue. From a new base, with no nanites in their system.”

“Has there been any progress on the new base?” Katya asked from her seat at the dining table. She was rigging up a set of trip-wire devices that would be planted in the garden outside.

“We’ve found a place to rent. The money’s been wired, we’re just waiting on confirmation from the broker. Its in Maine, so I hope everyone likes lobster.”

“We’ll finally be living the high life,” Katya joked - or tried to. There was too much tension in her voice to make it believable.

Calina powered up her phone, ready to receive Yelena’s check-ins. But it started ringing 30 seconds later.

Anya groaned. “You have to do something about that. Now.”

Calina nodded and slipped out the front door. She took a deep breath and hit the answer button. “Matt, you need to stop calling.”

“Calina? Thank God,” he breathed.

It had been less than 48 hours since she’d heard his voice, but she’d missed the deep rich sound so much. It made her long to be back in his apartment, sat in the armchair next to him as they talked about books and courtrooms and everything and nothing.

Was this what homesickness felt like?

She buried the feeling. And the grief at the knowledge that it would never be like that between them again. “Matthew,” she said firmly, her voice as cold as she could manage. “Please stop calling. I need this phone line open and I need radio silence for the next few hours.”

“What do you mean? What’s going on? Are you in danger?”

At that moment, Anya, Sofia and Inessa exited the front door. They jogged passed Calina, and Anya called out to her over her shoulder. “Calina, we need to go! Get your ass in the van.”

“I have to go,” she said to Matt. “Stop calling. I mean it.”

“Wait-”

She hung up. Then stared at the device. A part of her - a small, hopelessly hopeful part of her - wanted it to ring again. She wanted some proof that Matt would keep fighting for her. Some proof that his incessant calling had nothing to do with guilt, and everything to do with love.

But the phone stayed silent.

She ignored the irrational pang of hurt. All it meant was that he was respecting her wishes - especially since he thought she was in danger.

She slipped the phone into one of the pouches on her belt and joined her team mates. Inessa was their get-away driver. She looked ridiculously tiny behind the wheel of the large transit van but she backed out of the driveway and onto the main road with ease. Within minutes they were speeding down the highway towards Augusta.

They arrived at the clinic a few hours later, long after the staff had gone home for the night. Inessa parked a block away and the four of them scoped out the street, checking for CCTV cameras and assessing the level of foot traffic.

“Does anyone else feel guilty about stealing from a medical facility?” Inessa asked from the front seat. “People are gonna arrive for their treatments tomorrow and be turned away.”

“The anonymous $100 000 donation I just made into the clinic’s checking account should lessen some of the pain,” Anya replied.

“Okay. That makes me feel better.”

Calina smiled. It made her feel better too. But she couldn’t help teasing Anya. “Shouldn’t you have waited until after we stole the machines? What if it goes wrong?”

Anya shrugged. “Then our last act as free women will have been one of charity.”

Anya’s off-hand remark went down like a lead balloon.

Free women.

None of them were really free. Even now, there was probably some lackey in Volkov’s ‘faction’ monitoring 4 green dots on a screen and wondering why they’d taken a detour across state lines. That monitoring - that subtle, distant form of control - meant that none of them were truly free.

Their lives would never be their own until they got rid of the tracking devices.

“Let’s get this done,” Sofia growled, echoing Calina’s thoughts. “I want these fucking things out of me as soon as humanly possible.”

The other three women nodded.

Then they went and got it done.

———

At a few minutes after midnight, Anya took a seat next to one of the machines. She was the first one to undergo the procedure.

And she hadn’t volunteered.

None of them wanted to be first - and not because they doubted Sofia’s medical knowledge or were worried about the process. No one wanted to go first, because as soon as they were cleared of the nanites, they would have to leave the compound and start making their way to Maine. They would have to leave their sisters, while the threat of Volkov’s men descending on the mansion grew more and more imminent.

It was Yelena’s plan, and she wasn’t budging on it.

“Sofia says it is going to take 2-3 hours for each exchange of blood,” Yelena had explained to the group as they’d sat around the large dining table. “There are 15 of us in the compound. I don’t have nanites in my system, so that leaves 14 of you to be treated. Even using both the machines that we stole, its going to take more than half a day to treat everyone. Which means, we’re at real risk of not being finished before Volkov’s men arrive.”

“All the more reason why we should stay after we’re treated. Stay and fight,” Kira objected.

Sofia jumped into the debate. “There’s a risk of side effects from the procedure. Dizziness, nausea, low blood pressure, muscle spasms, and more. Not ideal for a combat situation.”

“We need to establish the new base,” Yelena continued. “Like I said to Calina earlier, we need Widows who are free of trackers who can come rescue the rest of us if the worst happens. If we all stay here and fight, we might all lose - especially if you guys aren’t in top form from the procedure.”

“But-” Katya began.

“No,” Yelena said firmly. “This isn’t up for a vote, or even a discussion. There’s no time.” She paused to look at the women around her, and Calina could have sworn there was a hint of tears in Yelena’s eyes. “I know you guys think I’m too controlling sometimes. And too bossy. But I care about each and every one of you. I want us to survive.” She met Calina’s eyes. “And I want us to thrive, and be happy. That can only happen when we’re truly free. This is the best way to get that freedom.”

She’d received several nods of agreement in response. But most of the women around the table just looked resigned, their tight lips and frowns expressing their displeasure.

They’d pulled straws to determine the order of treatment, and that was how Anya - and another woman called Viktoria - found themselves being hooked up to the machines as the other widows watched.

Viktoria was done in just over two hours. Anya took a little longer - more plasma in her system, according to Sofia. But by 3am, the two of them were nanite-free and on the road heading north.

And another two Widows took their place by the machines.

This process repeated itself throughout the morning. As more and more Widows left, the mansion got quieter and quieter, and the tension felt by those left behind ratcheted up higher and higher. The clock on the wall of the make-shift med bay ticked louder and louder, the noise acting as a constant reminder of the passing of time.

Time they didn’t have.

By midday, there were only six widows left in the house, and each one of them was painfully aware that Volkov’s men could be battering down the doors at any moment.

Sofia calmly disconnected Inessa from one of the machines and helped her to her feet. The smaller woman swayed and clutched at Sofia.

“Are you okay?” Calina asked. She was next up in the chair, one of the last two Widows to be treated.

She’d drawn the shortest of straws, but she hadn’t complained. The Widows were a team - and they were all working towards the good of the whole group - not any one individual. It didn’t matter that she had people that she cared about back in New York - like Alma, her elderly neighbour. And Foggy and Karen.

And Matt.

It didn’t matter that she had more of a ‘life’ to save than the other Widows. She was just one of 15 today.

And it wasn’t like she was planning to return to that life anyway.

Inessa straightened up and waved off Calina’s concern. “Yeah, just a bit woozy.”

Calina nodded and took her seat. She’d already unzipped and pulled down the top half of her Widow suit, leaving her in a black tank top. She stuck her arm out and Sofia got to work inserting the cannula. The medic had gone through her own procedure hours ago but had stayed to make sure everyone else got treated properly.

Katya was sat next to her, finishing off her own plasma exchange. She gave Calina a smile. “Hey, Calina, how’s it going?” she asked, as if they were grabbing a drink at a cafe.

Calina laughed at Katya’s attempt to lighten the mood. “Not bad. You know, apart from having had only five hours sleep in the last three days.”

“And apart from finding out you have tracking robots in your blood,” Katya added.

Calina continued the game. “And apart from knowing that a strike team of Red Room operatives is about to descend upon us at any moment.”

“You guys are hilarious,” Yelena mumbled sarcastically. She’d been prowling from one side of the room to the other for hours, her head buried in a tablet which was linked to the security feeds from the exterior of the property. A stockpile of weapons was laid out on the table behind her, and every so often she would grab a gun and pace with it in her free hand.

She was wound tight. And obviously not in the mood for humour.

Inessa laughed though, in between gulping down a litre of water. Evidently, plasmapheresis made you thirsty. Kira was the last of the six, and she was guarding Volkov while she waited for Katya to finish and free up her machine.

Volkov had recovered from his seizure but they hadn’t resumed his interrogation. Melina had advised against dosing him with any more of the serum, and between arranging the new base, securing the old one, and treating the Widows, none of them could spare time to torture answers out of him the old-fashioned way. The plan was to take him with them when they left, and resume his questioning on the road.

“You’re done,” Sofia announced to Katya half an hour later.

“Good,” Yelena said. “Katya, you and Inessa grab your things and get out of here.”

“Nope,” Katya said. She zipped up her suit and tightened the bands holding her tightly curled hair in place.

Yelena straightened up. “What do you mean, ‘nope’?”

“Inessa and I already discussed it. We’re not leaving the four of you here alone. You’re going to need firepower if Volkov’s men arrive in the next few hours, and even if they don’t, you’ll need help securing Volkov in the van.”

“Katya-”

“No, Yelena. You and Calina risked everything to get me out of Seoul and save me from the serum. I’m not going to leave you both behind.”

Calina could tell by the firm glint in Katya’s eyes that she wasn’t going to back down. Yelena could obviously see it too. “Fine,” she said, relenting. “Go down to the basement and relieve Kira. Tell her to get her ass up here stat - she’s the last one in the chair. Inessa, grab your weapons and take watch upstairs.” She passed an earpiece to each of the remaining Widows. “All of you, stay on comms and stay alert.”

“Got it, boss.” Inessa scampered out the room and Katya followed behind her.

Yelena glanced at the clock and checked the clip of the latest gun to have made it into her hands. Calina’s own weapon was in her lap, and she had to resist the urge to clench it in her hand like a scared child with a security blanket.

“It’s going to be alright,” Calina said.

Yelena scoffed. “You don’t believe that any more than I do.”

“Okay, maybe not. But if the worst happens, just know that you tried your best, Yelena. You gave us a home, and kept us safe, as best you could.”

“Says the woman who abandoned that home the minute she could.”

Calina sighed. “I don’t want to fight about that again, Yelena.”

Yelena rubbed her forehead. “I know. I’m sorry - blame it on the stress. For what its worth…”

“What?” Calina prompted.

“For what its worth, I’m glad you got those few months of happiness. Even though it didn’t work out, I’m glad you got to try.”

Calina gave her a small, sad smile. “I’m glad too.”

The two women fell into silence…and watched the second hand of the clock tick and tick and tick.

———

The warning came 90 minutes later.

Inessa’s voice crackled over the comm line. “Five blacked-out SUVs spotted on the coast road. They’re coming this way - fast!”

Yelena jerked upright. “Shit! Here we go. Sofia, where are we on the treatments?”

She checked the two machines. “Calina’s receiving the last of the plasma substitute. Kira…Kira still has two pints of blood left to clean.”

Yelena hooked a sniper rifle over her shoulder and barked out her orders to the three women in the room, as well as the two listening in on the comms. “Kira, you stay hooked up to that machine as long as you possibly can, you hear me? We’ll try to buy time. Sofia, as soon as Calina is done, disconnect her, then you stay with Kira. Inessa, head to the basement - help Katya get Volkov to the van. Calina will cover you when she’s able. I’ll be on the roof.”

“On it,” came Katya’s reply.

“Heading down now. ETA on the strike team is 2 minutes,” Inessa updated.

Yelena ran out of the room. The moment the door closed behind her, Calina started tugging off the tape holding her cannula in place. “Get this thing out of me,” she hissed to Sofia.

“No, you need to finish,” Sofia said firmly.

“Are the nanites out of my system?” she bit back.

“Yes, but you need the rest of the plasma transfusion. If you stop now, your blood volume will be low and your blood pressure could plummet.”

Yelena chimed in over the comms. “Listen to her, Calina.”

“No. I’ll take the risk. I need to be out there providing backup.”

When Sofia still didn’t move, Calina took matters into her own hands. She yanked out the cannula. The plasma substitute in the tubing started leaking on the floor but Calina ignored it. She got to her feet, bracing herself on the arm of the chair as her head swam.

Sofia curse under her breath and grabbed some gauze to stem the blood leaking from Calina’s arm. “Stubborn zhopa,” she muttered, as she taped it into place.

Calina slipped her arms into the top of her suit and zipped it closed. She primed the Widow’s bites on her wrists, slotted her gun in her thigh holster and grabbed one of the semi-automatic rifles from the weapons cache. Then she paused in the doorway. She looked back at the other two women in the room and gave them a tight nod. “Stay safe.”

“You too,” Kira replied.

“We’ll see you in the van,” Sofia said.

Calina nodded again then took off running. She could hear the distant crunch of gravel as the cars barrelled up the long driveway. Then a muffled pop-pop-pop, as Yelena fired on them from her sniper’s nest on the roof. She must have hit a tire, because there was the sound of a crash as a car spun and collided with something.

Five SUVs, with four-to-five men per vehicle, meant a strike team of at least 20. Possibly 25.

Not the worst case scenario. Six Widows could easily take them on.

But one of those six was still hooked up to a plasmapheresis machine. One was standing guard, and another two were securing an asset.

That left just Calina and Yelena.

Two Widows to stem the tide of two dozen aggressors.

Calina reached the second floor and used the butt of her rifle to smash out the glass from the small window at the front of the property. Then she crouched down, her sights fixed on the bend in the driveway - the bend the convoy would be rounding any second now.

She took a deep, calming breath, and tried to ignore the slight dizziness the action caused.

Two against 20.

Piece of cake.

———

“KATYA, INESSA, ARE YOU IN THE VAN? DO YOU HAVE VOLKOV” Yelena’s shout was barely audible over the gun fire. She’d taken up a spot a few windows down from Calina after sniping the men fleeing from the crashed vehicle. They currently had the occupants of two of the other SUVs pinned down at the front of the mansion, but the whereabouts of the other two cars - and the teams of men inside - were unknown.

It was worrying Calina...but not as much as their immediate situation. There were eight men outside exchanging gun fire with them. At the moment they were trapped behind their cars - nowhere to go but into a spray of bullets.

But Calina and Yelena were running low on those.

“Negative!” Katya responded. “There are at least ten assailants in the house. They’re between us and the garage.”

Shit. The missing teams had infiltrated the mansion somehow.

This was bad. Very bad.

They needed to get out of there.

Now.

“New objective,” Yelena yelled. “If you can’t extract Volkov safely, kill him. Your freedom is the top priority.”

“Got it.”

Yelena swapped her gun for the tablet and updated the other Widows on what the footage showed. “There are three men in the kitchen, two have entered the living room. Two are coming upstairs to us and the rest are heading towards the med bay.”

She tossed the tablet to the floor, holstered her gun, then called across the room to Calina. “Cover me. I’m going to deal with these assholes out front.”

“What?” Calina yelled. “How?”

Yelena hooked her leg out the window frame and winked at Calina, “Trust me.”

Then she disappeared.

Calina laid down covering fire as Yelena hit the ground and rolled, but within seconds her rifle clicked empty. But it didn’t matter - the men weren’t firing on Yelena. They started chasing her instead as she bolted around the side of the house. They must have been under orders to retrieve rather than kill.

Calina threw down her rifle and prepared to follow Yelena out the window. But just as she grabbed the sides of the frame there was a massive explosion outside, and the blast wave rocked the house. The ceiling rained plaster and all the glassware in the ornate display cabinet to Calina’s left shattered.

“What the hell was that?” Calina shouted down the comms.

“Someone must have tripped the mines I planted,” Katya yelled. Then grunted. A thud sounded, then there was the familiar crackle of a Widow’s bites.

“It was me,” Yelena responded. She sounded slightly winded. “I led those idiots right through the tripwire. I’m on my way to the medbay.”

“I’m coming too,” Calina called. She jumped out the window and hit the gravel below. She absorbed the landing on bent legs and rolled to soften it, but she still felt a jolt through her recently injured knee.

“You’ll have to go through the house - the path around the side is nothing but flames now,” Yelena said.

“Understood.”

Calina unholstered her gun and slowly eased open the front door. She swung into the foyer, gun outstretched as she cleared the four corners of the room.

Empty.

She made her way - crouched and silent - through the next door and into the living space.

Not so empty.

Two men in black combat armour and grease paint were at the far end of the room. She shot the closest one in the head and he dropped to the ground in an instant. The other spun and fired at her. She dove to the ground behind the sofa. She felt a bite of pain in her side as she landed, but ignored it. She could hear the man stalking towards her so she detached one of the taser discs from her wristband and slid it across the oak floor into his path. Bolts of neon blue lighting erupted from the device and latched onto the mans right leg. He seized as the voltage pierced through his body.

Calina jumped to her feet and ran passed him, following the sound of gunfire deeper in the mansion.

“Katya and I made it to the garage,” Inessa said over the comms. “But we lost Volkov.”

“Shit,” Yelena responded.

“It gets worse. We heard him call in for reinforcements - apparently there’s a second wave of strike teams on standby just off the highway. They’re on their way, so you guys have to get out of the house NOW!”

Calina raced down the corridor and rounded the corner at the end - where she almost collided with another assailant. She ducked under his swinging arm and pounded her fist into his side. They exchanged a volley of hits and kicks in the narrow space, Calina falling to the ground after a brutal punch to the face. But she used it to her advantage - she grabbed the knife from her boot and struck upwards, impaling the man in the gap in his armour between his abdomen and thigh and puncturing his femoral artery. He collapsed to his knees and she followed up with a stab to his neck. He hit the floor face first and she crawled passed him and staggered to her feet.

Her cheek was throbbing and her her knee was on fire. She was also getting more and more light-headed, and she assumed she was feeling the effects of her aborted plasma transfusion.

She staggered down the hallway just in time to see the last of three assailants crumple to the floor in a pile of his slain teammates. The sound of gunfire coming from the medbay in front of him stopped, then the yelling began.

“Kira, no!”

“Yes. You have to go!”

“What’s going on?” Calina asked, stepping over the bodies and into the room. Three women whipped around to face her. Sofia looked distraught. Yelena looked angry.

And Kira looked…sad. “Calina,” she said. “You have to get out of here. Take these two and RUN!”

She was still hooked up to the machine. Which meant the treatment hadn’t finished. Calina realised the implications straight away and she met Kira’s eyes with horror.

Kira nodded. “I still have the nanites in my system. If I go with you, they’ll track us. If I run on my own, they’ll find me.”

“We’ll come for you, you know we will,” Yelena pleaded. “We’ll-”

“No, Yelena. I won’t go back to them - even temporarily. I can’t do it. I won’t.”

Inessa’s voice came through the comms. “You guys have to leave NOW! We’re in the van on the coast road - head out back and down the hill and meet us there. The second wave are coming up the driveway. They’ll be there in seconds. MOVE!”

Kira unhooked herself from the machine and grabbed the belt of grenades from the table of weapons. She pulled the pin on the first one and held the trigger. “I’m letting go of this in 90 seconds, Yelena. You’re either in the house when that happens or not - you decide. But I’m not leaving.”

Yelena paused for a split second before nodding. She grabbed Kira around the neck and pressed a quick kiss to her forehead. Then she turned and ran. Sofia quickly followed.

Calina lingered for another moment, her eyes locked on Kira’s.

She didn’t know the other Widow well - they were different ages, and went through training at different times. But in this moment, she saw herself in the other Widow. She understood Kira’s decision, and recognised the conviction the other woman felt.

She too would rather die by her own hand, than risk being under someone’s control again.

She nodded to Kira, and received one in return.

Then she turned and fled.

She’d just made it out of the back door when she heard the sound of several cars pulling up to the front of the house.

And she’d just reached the bottom of the garden when the force of the blast wave from the explosion behind her lifted her off her feet.

She tumbled to the ground and rolled down the steep hill that led to the coast road. When she stopped, she heard someone shout her name, the syllables muffled as her ears struggled to recover from the sound of the detonation. She felt a set of hands grab her under the arms and pull her to her feet. “Calina, get up! Come on!”

It was Katya.

She staggered onto the road, held up by the other Widow. The van was idling on the deserted road, the back doors open. She clambered inside and collapsed onto the floor with a groan. The doors slammed shut and then they were moving, speeding away from what remained of their home.

“Is everyone okay?” Inessa called from the driver’s seat.

There was a chorus of positive replies from the three other women, but Calina couldn’t seem to find the strength to answer. She felt…strange…as if she was in a tunnel, the light around her slowly narrowing to a far off point.

“Calina,” Sofia called, panic suddenly in her voice. “You’re bleeding!”

“Wha-?” Calina whispered, struggling to keep her eyes open.

Sofia’s hands came down on Calina’s side and she pressed firmly.

Calina reared up as the shock of the pain jolted her from her daze. She looked down to see the right side of her suit was dark and wet with blood. It spilled from between Sofia’s fingers.

“What’s going on?” Yelena yelled from the front of the vehicle.

“Calina’s been shot,” Sofia answered.

She’d been shot.

She remembered the bite of pain as the man in the living room fired at her.

Then she remembered nothing at all…as the world went black.

———

CHAPTER 11

@hollandorks @yanna-banana @stilldreaming666 @tearoseart-blog @acharliecoxedfan @freckledbabyyy @chezagnes

#Daredevil #daredevil fic #daredevil fanfic #daredevil fanfiction #marvel's daredevil #daredevil x original female character #Matt Murdock #matt murdock fanfic #matt murdock x oc #tabula rasa

30 notes · View notes

deusvervewrites · 2 years

Note

Because I'm interested, what are some of your favorite fanfics and what fanfics do you love but feel like they should be more popular than they currently are?

You fool.... you have opened the flood gates!

I'm going to stick with the fics that deserve more attention because also listing my favorites that are popular would make this post way too long

In The After by HopeNight. It's a post-canon fic that ignores everything past the Cultural Festival Arc, and follows Midoriya training a girl named Watashi Kiyomi who wants to be a Quirkless Hero. It's excellent and severely underloved.

Ripples on Deep Water by Silver_Snek, which is a rewrite of a fic I really enjoyed up until the ending took a sudden turn, which I assume is related to it being rewriten. This rewrite is still on chapter one, and hasn't updated in... a bit, but I have high hopes.

Don't Forget The Support by FandomsandFlowers, if you want that delicious Support-Heroics Hybrid Quirkless Midoriya

A Sort of Patchwork by DyedViolet, sadly discontinued after the author fell out of the fandom, but otherwise an extremely good urban fantasy with Quirks AU

Syzygy Series by orkestrations. It's Dad For One but everyone already knows and is supportive, and is real good

The Kaiju Hero: Titan Monarch by TreeKiller. The fic that hooked me on Hero Course Hatsume. Should note it has some All Might bashing and Endeavor accidentally gets Inko killed very early on, but if you're cool with that it's fun and wild. Also hasn't updated in a while.

Paper Agency by The Feels Whale, which I'm surprised to see has >100,000 hits. Due to a Department of Education scandal, Midoriya wasn't allowed into any high school. If you think this will stop him, I don't know what manga you've been reading. Starts after graduation.

Okay so Izuku Midoriya vs the World may have been orphaned, but it also has the most interesting take on All Might Negativity I've ever seen in that his entire character arc is overcoming the internalized discrimination he faced growing up that he never had to examine after getting OFA. Abusive Inko.

Flashback by Psyckosama has less than 100,000 hits and that should be a crime. It is easily one of the best Time Travel Fixits, and has some really cool worldbuilding.

Inheritor of Two by The_Mad_Mystic. It's very similar to Chaos For All. Be aware that Midoriya does lose a limb though.

Crossfire by CosmicMerman. Midoriya fakes a Quirk by buying experimental nanites online.

Shared Dream by Beaumains. Midoriya adopts a cat with a Quirk that lets the cat share traits with people she bonds with. So now he has an intelligent cat he can talk to with his mind and also cat mutations.

Duplicity And All Its Cold Comforts by DragonflyxPardoies. Wanna watch a bunch of kids take down society?

Blood and bones and heroism by Elia41. More urban fantasy fused with MHA. Interesting in that after learning magic, Midoriya figures he may as well make his classmates at UA learn magic too.

Born of cold (and winter air) by StormySkiesAhead. Yes it's another urban fantasy. No I will never be sick of them. Midoriya and Todoroki are dragons, and there are a handful of other magical being in Class 1-A. The LoV breaks into Endeavor's agency to glue tiny plastic camels to everything. Literally what more could you want?

i'll be your biggest kept secret and your biggest mistake by sascake. This one has a pretty dark backstory as a future fic, so be careful of that. Namely, there was an explicit suicide attempt. While it's never shown in detail it's discussed pretty heavily, so be careful about that. Despite that it's mostly a cute love story about Midoriya and Todoroki.

Elemental Storm by CatnipKDODO, who follows this blog, so hi! This fic is getting a rewrite but this version is still available for reading. It has that fandom concept of a third transferable Quirk, in this case one themed around all the elements. Hurricane, that Canadian Hero from WIMTBAH is a cameo from this fic. Tagged as All Might bashing but really isn't.

Drown Together by Zirconium40. Wanna watch everyone destroy society? Darkest HPSC depiction I've seen.

Parallel Lines by Endivinity. Midoriya has AFO and is implied to have killed AFO. Mysteries abound.

if I make it through tonight, everybody's gonna hear me out! by x_asche_13. Described as a Leverage AU, and has one of my favorite 'Izuku and Himiko are siblings' dynamics.

Then I'll Do It My Way by justaglitch. BAMF Yaoyorozu.

Defiant by arc1m3d35. OFA!Uraraka and AFO!Midoriya are trapped on an island AFO uses to hold animalistic Noumu.

Son of a Gun by Randomsumofagum. Izuku is the son of Inko and Nagant.

hell is empty (all the devils are here) by idiot_onion. Midoriya is possessed by a demon. This goes surprisingly well for him.

a cubic centimeter of flesh Series by Lucifra. Due to a series of coincidences and a serious mistake by AFO, Midoriya ends up killing him and stealing his body on complete accident.

My Battle Acamaidia by Drink_Some_Water. Shigaraki played a few too many games and decides that what he needs before the USJ attack... is maids. This is a surprisingly wholesome Villain!Fem!Midoriya fic

Key Lime Pie by Violetsumire, another person who follows this blog, hello! The future daughter of Inko and All Might was left unsupervised with Hatsume and naturally Hatsume sent her back in time, and she sets out to save Izuku's life. Discussed suicide.

Eldritch by CosmicAce. A rewrite. Death asked if anyone was gonna mom Izuku and didn't wait for an answer.

#asks #fic recs

69 notes · View notes

neopuff · 1 year

Text

title: patchwork word count: 1675 ship: six/holiday summary: Dr. Holiday is a scientist, not a medical doctor. Six doesn't care. ao3 link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/47280403

Dr. Rebecca Holiday had three PhDs: in nanotechnology, mechanical engineering, and bioengineering. She’d worked in nanite research labs, she’d worked on developing high-tech prosthetics, she’d built machines from scratch with barely a plan in mind. She was good at what she did and she enjoyed doing it.

What she wasn’t, however, was a medical doctor.

But some people didn’t seem to get that. Or they just didn’t care.

After Dr. Fell was fired and Holiday was promoted to his old position, she realized quickly that Rex was going to be too much for a regular doctor to handle. Holiday was well-versed in human biology, but medicine was not her wheelhouse. So in her limited free time, she studied. After all, Rex was both boy and machine. He needed to be taken care of by someone who could understand both sides of him. Someone who had no social life or friends and could spend all her time that she wasn’t working preparing for work.

That was the life she’d chosen when she got all her degrees, after all. Now there was just the added pressure of trying to prevent the death of a (wonderful, funny, caring, sweet) child soldier while navigating the hellscape they were all living in.

So despite her lack of medical license, Holiday became Rex’s doctor in every sense of the word. Providence had plenty of nurses and medical doctors on staff if she needed help, but otherwise she’d handle everything on her own. She’d help him when he got sick and patch him up when he was injured and give him his vaccinations and everything a doctor was supposed to do.

She specifically chose to do all of these things just for Rex. Other soldiers - regular human soldiers without mechanical parts or active nanites - could go to the medical ward and talk to the nurses there.

That’s what they were supposed to do, anyway.

One particular late night while Holiday was working alone in her lab, her door unexpectedly opened and she was greeted by the sound of someone walking in. It’d only been two weeks since they started working closely together, but Holiday knew Six’s footsteps right away. He’d either be silent as a mouse or he would make himself known with an even stride, probably in an attempt not to scare her.

(He was also the only person who would bother coming into her lab so late at night. Everyone else knew she’d be sleeping at her desk or too busy to talk.)

“Doctor Holiday.”

She didn’t turn around, still writing notes about the EVO specimen she was studying. “Agent Six.”

He continued to move and she heard him shuffle something around and grunt a bit. Curious about that, Holiday finally swiveled her chair around to face him. “What are you-” She froze, eyes wide.

Six had a set of scratches across his left bicep that were actively bleeding all over her lab table that he’d decided to take a seat on. His torn jacket and tie sat to his side and his white shirt was clinging to his skin, sticky and wet from the blood.

Holiday stumbled out of her chair and rushed over to him. “What the hell, Six?! Why aren’t you in Medical?”

He frowned and pushed his sunglasses further up the ridge of his nose. “They'd want to sedate me.”

“...yeah,” she said incredulously. “You should be sedated. Are you kidding?” While talking, she started gathering tools and cloth and anything she had on-hand that could help. “Give me a second to call one of the nurses-”

“No.”

She paused, turning to glare at him. “What do you mean, no?”

Six started taking off his shirt, cringing slightly as he pulled the fabric away from his injury. “You can take care of this, can’t you?”

Holiday sighed and helped him get the shirt off, too annoyed to be interested in the view. (Also, of course, the blood was a little distracting.) “Technically yes. But there are much more qualified doctors here that can-”

“I’d prefer you do it.”

She folded up his shirt and placed it on top of his little clothing pile. He was really in the mood to interrupt her - it wasn’t unusual, but it made her feel less and less attracted to him every time he did it. Maybe that was a good thing. “Hopefully you don’t need stitches. You do understand that I’m not this kind of doctor, right?”

He shrugged, clearly regretting the action by the look of pain on his face. “Just do whatever you can.”

In these first weeks, Holiday and Six had not yet found an equilibrium in their working relationship. There were times that they would get along just fine and times where she would want to strangle him. He was often too tough with Rex and too much of a pushover with White Knight. He was still killing EVOs more often than she’d like and he didn’t listen to her very well, especially when it came to Rex’s care.

If he decided that she was going to be his medical caretaker like she was for Rex, then that was fine with her. She’d take on the role just like she’d taken on so many others in the last week. But then she’d have ranking medical authority over him and he’d actually have to take orders from her like a good little soldier.

Something told her he still wouldn’t listen. Either way, Holiday would have to have a conversation with White Knight first. She’d just find an opening in her schedule for another meeting - maybe next month she could fit him in sometime before four a.m.

They didn’t talk while Holiday cleaned up the scratches. She was happy to see that they weren’t anywhere as bad as they looked - the stark brownish red on his usually crisp white shirt really made it look like he was dying. He didn’t seem to be in that much pain, though from what she knew about this man, he probably wouldn’t let her know if he was. Very macho.

Holiday may not have been prepared or interested in giving anyone stitches, but she did have her handy zip-stitch patches - they were perfect for a kid like Rex and she didn't feel nervous about using them. Maybe they weren't as effective as real stitches but they certainly got the job done.

As quickly as she could, Holiday stuck the patches around Six's wound, pulled each cord tight to stop the bleeding, and cleaned up the area once more.

He hadn't said a word or made a noise the entire time. She was so focused on the task at hand that she didn't notice initially, but it made things suddenly awkward after the job was done and she glanced up at his face that wasn’t far from her own. He had some light bruising on his cheek and looked sweaty - whether that was because of the injury or because of her being in his personal space, she didn’t know.

"Is that the only place you're hurt?" she asked as she turned around to put the unused tools away and wash the blood off her hands. As the water went from red back to clear, she realized that he hadn’t told her how he got hurt like this. He probably wasn’t going to.

Six placed his right palm against his faux-stitches, not wanting to scratch but feeling an urge to do so anyway. "That's it."

Holiday chose to believe him. She didn't exactly enjoy cleaning up blood and getting it all over her pure white Providence-issue dress. If she couldn’t get the stains out of this then she was finally making the switch to a normal white coat - it’d make laundry so much easier.

“Are you sure you don’t want any meds?” she asked quickly, turning around and leaning against her counter. “I’ve got some painkillers. Non-drowsy, just for you.”

His gaze seemed to linger on the parts of her dress covered in blood and he hesitated before responding. “I’m sure.” He picked up his clothes and hopped off the table, staring at the pile of fabric in his hands like he was trying to decide if he should walk to his dorm shirtless or put his torn, bloody shirt back on first.

“Should I keep a spare green suit in here in case this happens again?” Holiday asked with a smirk, trying to lighten things up with what was obviously a joke.

He didn’t look entertained by her question - instead, he seemed to really consider it.

“Six.” Holiday sounded exasperated, reacting to the look on his face. “We have a medical ward for a reason. You can’t come here every single time you get hurt.”

He frowned and took a step closer to her. “Did I interrupt your work?”

Her gaze shifted towards the work she’d been doing before he arrived. It had actually been a mind-numbingly boring task and she’d welcomed the excitement, but she didn’t want to let him know that.

Still, she didn’t want to lie, either. “No. It’s fine.”

“Then there isn’t a problem.”

He took another step towards her and Holiday was suddenly very aware of how close he’d gotten. Was he trying to intimidate her? He had to know that wouldn’t work. She couldn’t be threatened by him - only by White Knight. So she glared up at him with a hand on her hip, making it clear that his presence wasn’t going to throw her off.

After another awkward moment of silence, Six suddenly reached out and patted her shoulder twice with his right hand. “Thank you for your help, Doctor.”

She barely had a moment to register his actions before he was out the door and out of sight. Of all the things she expected him to say, thank you was not one of them. It was…surprisingly charming. Holiday bit her bottom lip in thought, putting one hand to her chin.

Maybe she wouldn’t mind being his doctor. He was certainly full of surprises.

#generator rex #holix #rebecca holiday #agent six #carrofics #i luv them

18 notes · View notes

your-tutor-abacus · 8 months

Text

A Strange kind of Flight

I'm lying on my back on Kwera beach, looking straight up at Katofar Mountain, having read up to the latest chapters of Blood in the Duff, by Candril, Student of Vine. It's very early morning, still dark, no sunbirth yet, but the moon hasn't died. It's nearby and casting light on Katofar's glaciers.

It's gorgeous. Ghostly. Haunting. And I'm thinking about the sparse clouds I'm already seeing emerge from the Aft Endcap. It's been a clear night, otherwise.

Ni'a walks up to me from out of my peripheral vision where they hadn't been before, looks down at my face, and says, "Let's go flying!"

"Why flying?" I ask, wondering briefly how they found me. It's obvious, though. They're Ni'a. They can sense where anyone is if they know who they're looking for. "You go flying every birthday, why now?"

"This is different," they say with a smirk on their face.

"New flight suit?"

"Better. And it's your fault."

What could Ni'a think is better than a new flight suit? I ask myself. I've been flying with them countless times by now. They're always trying, and succeeding, at flying higher and further than they've ever flown before. And they do have an unusual advantage, there, being the children of Phage. All three of them are fixated on enjoying flight for all that it's worth, sharing the experience in that singular body of theirs.

The answer to my question is simple, and presented to me demonstrably, after we've made our way to Agaricales in time for the first flight. Apparently, that's where we have to be.

The only thing that Ni'a likes as much as flying is people.

And now there is another way to take people with you when you go flying.

It used to be that you'd all go to the Playground, pick your favorite methods of flight (flight suit, your own wings if you have them, or a nanite exobody) and you all spend a few hours swooping and whirling around each other, and a lot of people find that to be quite a lot of fun. But it's not very relaxed.

Now you can get your friends and family together and do my favorite thing while you're flying.

Eat.

Because someone went an invented a flying building!

[photo of a flying machine above Agaricales forest on the Sunspot, with Katofar Mountain and Tenmouth Sound visible spinward on the upward curved wall of the Garden]

I'm not going to be giving you all that many photos in this blog for a while, if ever. I'm really bad at getting good images of anything. Fortunately, I have Ni'a with me, and they've got us covered today.

I've heard stories that the Founding Crew had to do battle with aircraft during the series of desperate coups on the Terra Supreme that lead up to the creation of the Sunspot. But, Eh says those were unmanned and used for horrific things.

The Sunspot hasn't had flying vehicles until now.

With personal flight as rewarding as it is, and transportation via tram as fast as anything, there really hasn't been much call for it. And the assumption has been that anything larger than a person flinging themself through the air might be too disruptive to the wildlife.

But, I guess, thanks to the tours I've made popular, there's call for multiperson craft to be sent aloft, and the Council approved measured use of them.

And now, if you look up in the sky, you might see this!

[Photo of a flying machine taken from the ground, with the Aft Endcap and a couple of the Sunspot's spokes visible behind it.]

This thing was obviously built to look like a Nufrruhaung, everyone's favorite migratory bottom feeder, and non-vocal cousin of the Cuttlecrabs. It doesn't have the feeding tentacles, though.

And in place of a big, flat, four jawed beak, there is an array of windows, two of which on the lower deck open as portals to let people in.

Of course, I could just constitute a body from the nanite bin aboard the aircraft, but I'm following Ni'a and it's polite to save those nanites for people who might be joining the party mid-flight.

And, yes, it's going to be a party.

Ni'a hasn't been telling me any of this while we've been traveling here. They've been coy and simply asking, "when are you going to start writing about this?" whenever I bring up the subject of our destination and activity.

I'm skipping a lot of stuff, however, because I think this is going to be a long one. And, also, Ni'a's staging pictures.

But, for those who can't see the images, the thing is painted in the ancient colors you can find in the lowermost deck of the Sunspot, purple, pink, and green, with accents of gold and bluish grey. It even has brass trim and fittings.

Ni'a has been ushering me ahead of them, and I briefly look back at them. They've named themselves Purple, Green, and Pink, and I'm wondering if there's some coincidence in that. I know they can't read minds, but they grins as if they can read mine.

If it's not a coincidence, it's hard to say who's choice it was, or whether it was even conscious.

I look back as I step through the portal of the craft, to see that it is already full of people.

There are three decks, each one five meters tall. This accommodates nearly anyone who wants to ride it. And a pair of four meter wide lifts near the center of the decks provide a means for people to go up and down as they please, so long as they're willing to wait a bit sometimes.

The mid deck is the flight deck. All the manual controls for the craft are there, but everyone is ignoring them. The vehicle is being flown by a Tutor who momentarily is the aircraft, inhabiting its structure like a nanite exobody. But, just in case it has a panic attack or some other kind of crisis, there is the means for someone to rush to its aid.

The top and bottom decks are observation decks, surrounded by windows, so that when we're aloft we can see as much of the interior of the Sunspot as possible.

It's not the same as riding the wind using your own wings, or magnetically locked nanites, and being able to look around completely unobstructed, feeling the full impact of the weather on your skin.

But, maybe that's part of the appeal of this. You trade the sensory impact of the open sky for the sensory impact of a crowd.

Well, I like crowds. But, though I know they like people, I'm surprised that Ni'a is excited about this many of them in one place.

And there are people of every type here: Children, Monsters, Crew (both young and Founding), and even Tutors who aren't attached to any Student at the moment. I even catch glimpses of cuttlecrab buggies carting their little sub-collectives here and there through the throng of guests.

Near the aft of this lower deck, there's beverage artisan who informs me of the sweet and savory pastries being crafted on the flight deck. And, apparently, on the top observation deck, someone is roasting goldenfruit and stuffed mushroom caps.

I may have found my new home.

When I get to the upper deck, I learn that even the ceiling is glass! So, if I wanted to take up extra room, I could lie on the floor and resume my contemplation of the sky from earlier today.

I shan't. I don't want to trip anyone.

As I grab one of the roasted goldenfruit, Ni'a nudges me, a level of familiarity that we've developed in the decades since I wrote my novel. They treat me almost like one of their parents, and almost like one of their siblings, and I've grown to like it.

I look at what they're indicating.

Just outside the window, the right forward wing of the craft is flat against the hull, blocking my view of the park it's landed in, Memorial Park, which just happens to be big enough to accommodate three of these craft landing at a time. I do think the clearing around the edges of the city might be better, though.

And I watch as the wing starts moving. It swings outward, and begins to twist flat in the same fluid movement. And I can see that it is held in place and manipulated not by some armature, but by the same magnetic lock my nanites have used when I want to hold my body above the ground or floor.

I can see that the wings have gigantic panels of fractal patterned grill, which I assume is part of the propulsion system, but I'm guessing that that nanite driven magnetic lock is also used to guide the craft when it's near the ground.

Oh! And to make clearance for the wings to extend, the craft has been smoothly lifting off the ground!

We're already flying.

I didn't feel it. My proprioception and sense of balance are fairly fine tuned. I have them adjusted so that I have precise control over my own body and where it is. But this acceleration was subtle and smooth enough that I didn't realize what was happening until I could now see we are already ten or so meters above the ground.

I have to say.

I don't normally combine my people watching with my sky watching. I usually only do one or the other, but food might be involved. And I know this fixation with food at parties is a relatively new thing, made popular by Tutors like me who've spent millennia not eating it, and by Crew who've forgotten what it tastes like and maybe have started listening to us.

And I think maybe this whole thing might actually be a bit too much for me? I'm genuinely surprised that Ni'a isn't near meltdown, but that grin is still plastered to their face. They are positively beaming.

And then, I find we're at a hundred meters and the craft starts to slip forward with the anti-spin-winds, and I can feel that acceleration.

At first the deck pulls me forward by my feet. It feels like it's tilting backward, but that's not what's happening. We're just jerking forward at notable speeds. And then it presses me upward, firmly keeping me where I'm standing, as if the pilot is trying to catch us all and keep us from falling over Aftward. Well, Aft of the craft, not the Sunspot.

And then, after a few minutes of that, it lets up and we're all lighter than we were before.

Our flight mimics the migratory patterns of the Nufrruhaung, And we're moving with the winds, but we haven't completely canceled the spin of the habitat cylinder. Centrifugal force still keeps the craft in actual flight, rather than freefall, and it likewise keeps its inhabitants, us, firmly on the floor of the decks. Just considerably less so than before.

Everyone laughs at the sensation and we all start jumping up and down in a very silly manner.

I don't know that anyone is paying attention to the world around us.

This is too novel.

[Photo of the aircraft from below and behind, with Frra Lake visible in the sky, and the recently birthed sun as it has exited the Forward Endcap is washed out. The spokes of the habitat cylinder of the Sunspot cast ghostly shadows through the light of the sun. Clouds are seen covering most of the Garden, mountain tops peeking through in some places.]

This was, apparently, Founding Crew member Setefere's idea and design. Keh is also, I'm told, working on shuttle designs for exploring the space around us when we finally make proximal contact with the Dancer. And keh is basing that design on what keh is learning here with this aircraft, which maybe has more to do with crew accommodations than aerodynamics. Since there's no atmosphere outside.

We finally might get to use our Shipyards for something besides personal meditation!

In any case, I may take more of these flights. I hope you'll join me.

#a tour of the sunspot #fictional travel blog #sunspot chronicles

2 notes · View notes

werewolfoverlord12 · 1 year

Text

Addendum post fall 4

@delta-hexagon @littjara-compleated-sage

Melira ran towards Urabrask's room, meeting Alistair at one junction and Jazal at a second.

He handed her a stack of papers, folded open a graph,

"What's this?" She asked.

"Comparison of the syringes used by the Sleepers six months ago and two days ago." Jazal said.

"They share similarities but aren't the same?" Melira said handing them back to the Leonin, "we're on a clock. Explain fast in common please, we have an intruder heading for Urabrask's room."

"The syringe they injected him with six months ago contained blood from at least one, if not more, of the other praetors. He fought that one off no problem. The syringe from two days ago contained Glistening Oil from the Urborg swamps."

Melira slowed, "What?"

"Since New Phyrexia failed, maybe they're trying Old Phyrexia?" Alistair said.

"... Would explain why it made him sick... His rooms are right up ahead."

They turned a corner in time to see Slobad, and his new body of iron, tap the keypad for Urabrask's door.

"Slobad?" Melira called.

The goblin stopped and slowly glanced at her with oil black eyes, before turning and heading into the room.

Hovering above an endless sea of crystal clear oil and a sky of warm golden sunlight, Urabrask spoke with an invisible force that seemed to want to aid him.

"Yes, I want something that can give the Xan the few benefits of being Phyrexian without the numerous drawbacks. But I don't even know how to make something like that, let alone reproduce it." He said

The voice and warm air circles him, "Do you know how a body fights a virus?"

"Y-eah? Its immune system tags the foreign body and the immune cells eat it. Why?"

"Because your body doesn't do that. At least not with the virus in the Glistening Oil. It recognizes it, despises it and releases unique antibodies that cause your normally destructive immune cells... To envelope it, break it down and rebuild it."

Urabrask felt a warm hand on his face, "You've already found your blood contains its own nanites, too. They're constantly being reabsorbed by your body and made again when they've gotten too old. The ones in the oil are also being covered with these special antibodies, that cause your nanites to attack and reprogram them."

"Rebuilt and reprogrammed into... What, exactly?" Urabrask asked.

He flinched as a searing pain ran down his spine to the tip of his tail. He brought it to his face and spied a stinger like device, half-way between hypodermic and scorpion, dripping glimmering golden oil.

"The future. Time to wake up; your assassin is here and longs to be free of Old Phyrexia's grip."

Urabrask's eyes snapped open at the same time the lumbering form of Slobad, eyes black as oil, raised his massive hammer above his head. Without a second thought, Urabrask twisted his prone body and lashed out with his tail, the newly formed needle-like tip piercing even Slobad's iron armor.

The goblin gasped as golden light flooded through his veins and he dropped the hammer to the side. The light continued to flow throughout his body and as his eyes blazed gold his goblin torso fell from its mooring within the metal carapice. The stinger tore free from his flesh and Urabrask leaned up on his elbow as Melira ran into the room.

"Urabrask?"

He shook his head, "See about him first." Urabrask pointed at the tiny body slumped against the ground.

Melira stepped forward and crouched beside the goblin,

"He's alive... But whatever you did to him... Its killing off the Glistening Oil. I can't sense it anymore."

As she rose with Slobad in her arms, Jazal stepped into the room in his Crystallian form, green crystal bow cocked,

"Everything alright?" He asked.

Urabrask collapsed back to the bed, "I have no" he cursed in phyrexian, "idea, but I certainly hope so."

#Urabrask #magic the gathering #Fractured Pride

4 notes · View notes

bloodgulchblog · 1 year

Note

I feel like nanites are cool science but cheap story honestly. Like ‘nanomachines son’ is a huge meme but honest to god, as soon as you include nanites in a story they become every armchair author and scientist’s answer for bullshit. It’s wholly insurmountable.

Need to build something? Nanites. Heal someone? Nanites. Hell you can even use them as weapons that are virtually unopposable- an alien with a gun you can shoot, right? But what can a narrative-compliant person do against nanites like, in your blood or in your head? How does one bullshit up an excuse for the bullshit device to not be a one-size-fits-all solution? Maddening.

Halo does not need nanites. It is not that kind of story. It needs aliens with guns and a big green guy with a gun also, and the space zombies are wild enough for everyone. Not nanophages. My head will explode ( from the nanites. )

Yes all of this!!!

We literally were already suspending our disbelief about how medicine works in Halo, this is the world building equivalent of using a battering ram to ask your neighbor if you can borrow a cup of sugar.

#halo lore #asks #I need to go to bed but you're so right

5 notes · View notes

sulky-star-cluster · 3 months

Note

Mars is sorry about biting you Rigel. He got a bit freaked out when you picked him up. And even more so because he noticed you other three had cats and when you mentioned Black Star it gave him the implication that he was going to Black Star's cat and little guy just kind of spiraled. Also Black Star, Mars completed the checking up task. He deserves a treat for his hard work. (And I saved your face from markers) Cygnus will probably complain that Mars made him drop whatever he was working on. He probably will go home afterwards instead of being a nap bud because he's a bit anxious about his people now.

Rigel: Wait, did you talk to a cat?

Black Star: You know what. That kind of makes sense. He did seem to understand me.

Rigel: There's a talking cat!

Antares: Why would there be a talking cat?

Black Star: Nanites probably. Could be any function of robot deciding to mess with us.

Rigel: Are you telling me the little red cat was a robot the entire time.

Black Star: ...Yes.

Antares: Hahaha! And now it sounds like you have to pay him back.

Black Star: I never thought I'd be paying back a cat. And even know what I'd pay him back in. A mouse?

Antares: I don't know. Since he's a robot maybe he wants something else?

Black Star: Whatever. Maybe I can figure out what Universe they're in and go visit. Do some sort of physical thing for them. Do tell them that I say thank you at least.

Rigel: A robot cat. You think they're red because they're blood moon?

Black Star: I wouldn't not expect them to turn into a cat.

Antares: I suppose that does fit their mannerisms. Maybe a mouse would work.

#ask #rigel #black Star #antares #sulky star cluster

1 note · View note

ourbygoneage · 1 year

Text

Ch 13: Dr. Duboise Medicine Woman Verse 3

Rachelle worked frantically, her hands moving swiftly and surely over Hank's broken body. She had never seen anything like this before, but she knew she had to do something to save him. She had never been trained to be a doctor, but she was determined to use her skills as a pharmacist to keep Hank alive.

As she worked, she saw the injuries start to stitch themselves back together, the skin knitting together like a seamstress weaving together a piece of cloth. She watched in amazement as bones fused back together, muscles reattached themselves, and the gaping wounds slowly closed up.

But as miraculous as this healing process was, Rachelle knew it came with a price. She had seen this before, in soldiers who had been treated with experimental nanites in the military. If the surface injuries healed too quickly, it could cause life-threatening complications.

"Erzabet," Rachelle called out, her voice shaky with emotion. "We have to be careful. The nanites are healing Hank's injuries, but it could cause his lungs to fill with blood, and we can't let that happen."

Erzabet nodded, her eyes fixed on the wounded man. "I've seen this before," she said grimly. "If his brain loses oxygen, the nanites will start crudely replacing dying brain matter to keep him alive. He could start becoming a zombie."

Rachelle felt a cold shiver run down her spine at Erzabet's words. She knew they had to act fast if they were going to save Hank's life.

Quickly, Rachelle grabbed a syringe from her bag and punched it into Hank's lung, drawing out the blood that had pooled there. It was a risky move, but it had to be done.

As she worked, she saw Hank's breathing start to even out, his color returning to his face. She had done it, she had saved his life.

Breathless and shaking, Rachelle turned to Erzabet, her eyes filled with tears. "We did it," she said, her voice barely above a whisper. "We saved him."

Erzabet wrapped her arm around Rachelle's shoulders, holding her close. "Yes, we did," she said softly. "And we're not done yet."

#zombieapocalypse #survival #flashfiction #nanites #medical #pharmacist #injuries #healing #lifeanddeath #tactics #fightingzombies #dangerouscomplications #savinglives #teamwork #strongwomen #resilience #nevergiveup #hope #chronological

0 notes

larathia · 2 years

Text

Towercom: (this is my brainspace.)

[An office. It’s a nice office, as offices go - well, maybe. There are no windows, the walls are solid heavy stone, and the far wall is ...bunny hutches. Lots and lots of bunny hutches. From the way the little furballs are acting, these are more the kind of bunnies that rip knights’ heads off in sprays of blood than the type that nibble on carrots. On the entire other side of the room is a large antique wooden desk, at which the Lady sits, with quill and ink and stacks of paper. There’s one chair on the other side of the desk for visitors. At the moment, in this chair is a short, wiry-but-very-fit man whose brown hair seems to think gravity is for losers; it flows with every movement as if he’s underwater.]

Larathia: [not looking up from the scratchings of her quill] Please, please tell me he’s gone away.

Kuth: [tired, sitting opposite her, but head tilted back to stare at the ceiling] Nope. Still in the quarantine zone outside the doors. He’s as stubborn in his way as Taran, and almost as crazy.

Larathia: [eye twitching a bit] Don’t say that. Don’t go tempting fate like that.

Kuth: [irritated] Me? You freaking called him. ‘Suicide afficionado’ my ass. You can’t threaten a man who makes fucking puppy eyes at the idea of being shot, Lady. I have no idea what you think I should be doing with him.

Larathia: [wincing] Do I want to know if Taran...?

Kuth: [with strained patience, but calm] Taran is looking forward to having someone to drown with.

Larathia: [the eye twitching is getting more pronounced now] ...Did anyone tell Dazai about the nanites? The anti-death field? I can’t get any writing done if my muses up and die on me. Or are too busy repairing the common room to do any plot work.

Kuth: [lips pursing, he takes out a tablet and checks over some files] Oh. Yeah. The Turks informed him when they handed him the release forms. He wanted to know if ‘nanites’ is the same as ‘ability’. Was told no, they’re not. And then, I’m told, he ‘got quiet’. Which means the Turks are pretty sure he’s plotting something but for now isn’t doing anything.

Larathia: [headdesking now, any hope of writing abandoned] ...I don’t want to know. I’m sorry. I just don’t. The man’s an evil bastard of a mastermind. [pause] No. I have an idea.

Kuth: [winces, in an ‘aw, crap’ way] ...Yes, Lady?

Larathia: [Pointing at Kuth with her quill] Get the Turks to have him sign another form. He promises that, in exchange for being allowed entry, he keeps Taran company and devotes the entirety of his time here to making sure the mad Russian can’t follow him in. Dazai I can deal with. Dostoevsky can die in a fire, provided whatever fucked up power he has allows him to die in a fire, and if he can’t die in a fire I want him tied up and held over one anyway. One crazy fucknut is all I have room for.

Kuth: [blandly] You sure about that, Lady? Because I’ve got some very unpleasant numbers for you if that’s what you think.

Larathia: [pointing her quill at him] You shut the fuck up, Kuth. Just get him to agree that Dostoevsky is not allowed in. I can cope with most of the others. [pause] Uh. But you might want to tell him about Gwynt before he invites the tiger in. Dazai’s allowed a provisional residency permit under those terms.

Kuth: [sighs, stands up] The fucker tries committing suicide anywhere near my morning coffee I’m sticking nails in him. Some of us have actual work to get done.

Larathia: [sighs tiredly] No shit. When you’re done, go get the Voltron kids, would you? I have to do something about their bunny before it gnaws its way out of its hutch.

#this is what my brain tends to be like #I may or may not ever do this again

1 note · View note

officialleehadan · 2 years

Text

First Name Basis

To Build an Empire

The command center was the beating heart not only of the Quasar, but of the entire empire that Cuira’s husband was carving out of the galaxy. It dominated a fair stretch of the great station’s bridge, and had breathtaking views over the entire great ship.

Cuira was technically permitted access whenever she wanted it, but everyone, including her, knew perfectly well that she was of little use in the war rooms. She had no head for tactics, and less head for war. It was, she had decided, far better to be out of the way that it was to be a hindrance.

But now she needed answers, and there was once place she was certain to find them.

“Let me in,” she said to the two guards, and nodded for her handmaidens to stay behind. There was nowhere safer in the Quasar than the command center, and they were nor permitted entry. There was only a moment of hesitation from the two soldiers stationed at the door. They knew her, of course, but she had never come up to the command center after a battle before. Not that there had beena battle since her wedding. “I wish to speak with my husband. Is he there?”

“Yes, Your Majesty,” one of the soldiers said and nodded to the other. They held the doors for her, and bowed as she passed. “His Majesty has been with his generals for the battle.”

“Thank you.”

She swept inside, spared a half-moment to curse her simple dress, and kept going. She hadn’t dressed to face her royal husband or his attending generals. Her hair wasn’t done, and she was without the trappings of her rank.

It didn’t matter, she decided all at once. She was a queen, like it or not, and she didn’t need armor to face her own husband.

“Your Majesty,” one of the generals greeted her when she stepped into the glass-walled command center. Silence fell the moment she closed the door behind her. A stout older man who was entirely bald on top, and had a kind smile. He was a razor sharp master of war, but he never failed to be absolutely respectful to her. His name was Arhen, and he was her favorite of the generals. At his surprised greeting, all of the other generals, and beyond them her husband, straightened up with surprise. “What brings you to the command center?”

“You may have noticed,” Cuira said mildly, as if her heart wasn’t pounding in her chest as she met her husband’s eyes across the table. “That we were just in something of a battle. I came to find out what happened.”

“Cuira. Are you well?”

Cuira had only rarely heard her husband speak, but she was surprised, and pleased, to discover real concern in his voice. The use of her name was unexpected. She hadn’t been certain he even knew her name.

“I’m fine,” Cuira assured him as he approached, clad in his ever-present red armor, and heavily armed. He didn’t bother with a helmet, but Cuira knew that his armor had one that could deploy from his collar. She looked up at him and forced a smile. “I was in the garden domes with my maids.”

“I need the room,” he said, not to Cuira, but to the generals behind him. Cuira was surprised to see that his eyes had a ring of metallic silver around the deep brown. Her husband had nanites in his blood. He watched her carefully as the generals filed out of the room without protest, and closed the door, sealing them in once more. “You were in the gardens?”

“I often spend my time in the gardens,” Cuira said, just a little dry, and bemused that he didn’t already know. She would have thought he would pay more attention to her very existence, but then, she was the wife he didn’t want. “Would you prefer I did not, Your Majesty?”

“Dominik,” he replied shortly. “We are wed. If you are not permitted to use my name, who is? The domes are not ell-defended, and are not the realm of the court. Why there?”

Cuira wasn’t sure what to address first. The subject of his name, which she had known, but only spoken once, during their vows, seemed loaded. Of course, so did his apparent concerns about the gardens. “I have no duties beyond staying out of the way, and no entertainment beyond my crafts, and escaping my maids. If I must trade a little safety for the safe of not being bored out of my mind, so be it.”

As soon as the words escaped her, Cuira bit her tongue. She might be his wife, but she knew better than to think her husband was a kind, or gentle man. Kind, gentle men did not take over the galaxy by right of force.

Fortunately, her defiance seemed to catch Dominik’s interest. “You are bored?”

“My boredom is of little consequence,” Cuira pointed out with a sigh. “At risk of being rude your- Dominik, what happened? I was reading, and then the alarms were sounding, and the dome shutters dropped. Everyone is frightened, and they want to know what happened.”

Dominik was silent for a while. They had shared a dinner or tow, always in silent but for the slightest stiff pleasantries. This was the longest conversation they had ever shared.

Dominik turned away and pressed a button on the console in the center of the room. A glittering map of their territory appeared, and he beckoned her over.

“We are here,” he said, a little stiff, but trying in a way Cuira hadn’t expected. He drew an outline through the stars around them, butted against another territory in bright light. “Our latest expansion has taken us into the Heclax Empire. It’s a courtesy title. They haven’t a third of our military strength, but they’re putting up a fight. The attack today was their last attempt to fend us off.”

“They attacked even though they didn’t stand a chance?” Cuira couldn’t imagine that. “They attacked the Quasar? How could they ever think that was a good idea?”

“I don’t know,” Dominik admitted, and waved the map away. He turned on her, and Cuira took an involuntary step back. He had never shown her violence, but he was intimidating, and she was intimately aware of her bare feet, half-hidden under her skirts. He saw the way her eyes went wide, and winced. “Sorry. You know how to manage court affairs, do you not?”

“Yes,” Cuira said hesitantly, baffled by the sudden change in topic. “I grew up on Herculean. Of course I know how to manage court politics.”

“Good,” Dominik said, much to her astonishment. “You say you’re bored, but you came here with bare feet, to demand answers of me, without knowing how you would be received. You’re braver than any of us, and I need your help.”

+++ Forging an Empire:

Cuira was sent to marry a man who would soon rule a substantial part of their galaxy. She would have been happier about it if she had a chance to meet him first.

Garden Dome

Claxon Call

+++