Chapter 17-2 Prepared

Chapter 17-2 Prepared

+Yeah. Yeah. I got eyes on the girl.

Really wasnt that hard to track, honestly. Shes quick and efficient, but she doesnt know the city very welland doesnt change up her methods nearly enough. Similar approaches. Similar exits. Similar holocoat setting.

She might have an old Sangeist model burning inside her. Im not sure, but thats what the signs are pointing to.

Relax, Im just trailing the juv. Im going to use my Incog and get a closer look at how she operates. And see if your benefactor shows up again.

I wont lie, Im interested to see if this gift-giving ghoul of yours is all hes cracked up to be. I might end up asking him for a wish of my own.+

-[Redacted to White-Rab]

17-2

Prepared

The Layers dividing the Warrens were filled by a forest of ever-moving machinery. Fabricated by Voidwatchs orbital assemblies and installed planetside via the Guilds, even a partial component making up of one of the sky-shrouding plates deserved the term tectonic. Considering the complexity of their interior, however, perhaps the word art was more suitable.

Requiring over five hundred billion drones to maintain, a machine ecosystem was in place to keep the Layers at optimal functionality, and to repair the inevitable collateral damage from Syndicate spats and other unexplained events.

The true brilliance of its make lay also in its simplicity. Absurd as it sounded, it would not be hard for Voidwatch to create an apparatus capable of expanding the space available to New Vultuns inhabitants while also making the Rash easier to quarantine if they were allowed to use all the tools they had at their disposal.

Making said apparatus from materials and mechanics low-tech enough to dissuade Omnitechand all the other Guilds by that matterfrom compromising its structure and looting its components was another challenge entirely.

But the solution, here, ultimately was simple.

They didnt complete it.

They handed parts of the Layers piecemeal to the Guilds and had the terrestrials assemble it, infusing its design with miracles to bolster what little technology existed within.

From this came an ecosystem ripe for determined smugglers, Syndicates, gangers, and squires to exploit. If one could avoid the attention of drones and Exorcists while surviving the steel-melting heat emitted from the constantly running holo-projector units or the radiation leaking from the nuclear reactors within, then they had the means to maneuver through the foundations of the Warrens.

For Avo and his cadre, accessing Layer Two was a far simpler operation. The Manta entered a maintenance pathway cloaked and unnoticed by the drones. Between the ships hyper-advanced systems, their Incogs, and careful positioning, they traveled free and unseen, tracking the drone carrier that was their quarry.

The organs of the Layer were lit by glowering red, occasionally masked in hissing steam. Waste-heat transference stations studded the interior in stacked panels the size of hills. Heavy alloy dominated the black and chrome of heat-resistant cables running the circulatory system of the structure. A crevice recently made by a fusion burner sparked with electricity and severed wiring.

Down a molten tunnel, the Manta picked up sounds matching an industrial drill designed to break through the hulls of war machines.

Someone was making a quick getaway straight up through the Layer. Considering the noise and damage they were causing, they probably werent going to get away.

Unidentified vessels traveled close to the surface of the inner Layer. The vessels sailing through the air here were less standard aero and more remodified deep-sea subs with retrofitted engines and hangers installed on their backs. Chambers scried at these peculiarities and found them to be transports for contraband. Weapons, drugs, exotic aeros, new augs, and other goods stolen from the Throat and Lights End.

This was part of what the Syndicates called running the black. No one wanted to damage the layers, and high-speed chases inside such a cluttered environment were viable to break something delicate. Jumping between maintenance channels and out from hatches leading down into the air space of the Spine, was part of the lifeblood of the Syndicates.

And something that Avo would burn in the near future.

As they trailed the drone ship, watching to see if or when the unidentified contacts would return, they spent time rehearsing a variety of scenarios within a shared virtuality. The Manta scanned their surroundings and created a simulated space of Layer Two for the purposes of their practice.

Artificial constructs meant to simulate hostile squires were loaded in first, their kit, grafts, and skills based on aggregate data. The cadre handled them without troubleeven managing a non-lethal pacification.

Glaives proved to be more difficult entities. The challenge was less to do with their superior implants and training, and more to do with the near-certainty of Incubi support. Being in the vicinity of Yuulden-Yang meant the Nether was still unstable, and the Crown had to stay active.

Just like that, Avos district swallowing flame was reduced to a dagger, though still devastating.

They prevailed the first time, but both Kae and Chambers were listed as nulled, with Draus described as being a vegetable that just wouldnt forget how to shoot and kill the enemy even as the contents of her self-identity leaked out of her.

They burned when they engaged Avo. That was the fate of most unprepared Necros that faced him these dayshawks trying to hunt a storm.

For the following attempts they adjusted. Avo was to be deployed as a field asset to directly engage the enemy. This allowed him to retain maximum effect and negate his weaknesses.

Draus operated as their coordinator in combat. Her voice barked quick orders through their ansibles, highlighting things of note. Operating together was easy when they had shared feeds, but Avo thought they could be more symphonic.

Overkill was good when you wanted things done right.

Feeling miles ahead using his Sanguinity, Avo brushed the titanium composing the carrier with his Woundshaper and deleted the rising urge to liquefy from his mind. It was a bit over ten kilometers away. For a moment, he felt as if

Avo blinked, unable to remember his thoughts.

[Think we just got Incogd] Corner snorted.

[Or the ghouls turning loopy,] Lip said. She paused. [Fuck. Trapped in a mentally disintegrating ghoul for all eternity is not my ideal way to be.]

For a second, he worried if it was the lapse again, but found nothing amiss.

Also, nothing but an Incog could make his mind slip from active thought.

{I think our consangs are there,} Avo replied. {Tried interfacing with it using Sanguinity. Felt at something then forgot what I was doing.}

{Well, thats a sign if Ive ever heard one,} Draus said. {Or youre goin senile.}

[Hah!] Lip barked with laughter. [I like her. When are you going to burn her?]

[Lip, youre not supposed to ask the ghoul when he burns his consang,] Abrel taunted.

Avo sighed. It was like he was made of up a traveling freakshow sometimes.

{Avo,} Calvino said, attempting tact. {You quite literally are a traveling freak show.}

+Thanks, Orb.+



{Youre very welcome.}

Another message came through from Draus. {Alright, rotlick. Youre up. Bring us in.}

He grunted in response and swam free of the Mantas protective cocoon.

Warning: Temperature spike: 1893C

The sheer heat in the air would be useful for Chambers Lushburner.

Enwreathing himself in a shroud of blood, a crimson carapace fused over Avo as he felt Draus connect her Heaven with his reflectivity. He was now the vanguard of the team and tactical insertion point. The rest of the cadre could engage and fight using his blood as a doorway.

{Youre gold,} Draus said. {Sic em.}

Lightning surged through his flowing blood and the world blurred around him. Firing his reflexes, he darted into a jungle of alloyed clutter, the speed and nature of his ontology certain to render him a bullet through the vulnerable interior of the Layer, destroying everything in his path.

A second later, though he did indeed slip through the matter in front of him, nothing was damaged.

Composing himself from a whip of lightning, his Datacaster allowed him to part all inorganic constructs impeding his path while his Sanguinity helped him chart his jump without hitting any living entities lurking about.

Within the span of a second, he crashed back into stable reality right next to the drone hive. Parting panels of blood from his back, he activated his Meldskins thrusters and kept himself aloft as he triggered, shadow of the Mars-made machine drifting overhead. Most of the porous slots on its sides were empty, the drones occupied by other tasks.

Triggering his Skimmer phantasmic, waves of perception rushed over the reach of his Virtuality, its structure insulating him from the instability of the Nether. As the colossal weight of his cognition brushed across the length of the carrier.

Then, he felt it.

A crack of a ghost shattering; the flash of translucent thoughtstuff spilling into the Nether. A feral grin came over his face as a single drone manifested in his vision. {I see them,} he sent. {We have}

Suddenly, a thread of light dove out from the carrier itself, existence vanished around him.

Just like in the last simulation, Avo tumbled into the embrace of his Soul without knowledge of what killed him.