Chapter 19-15 Change the Doors (II)

Chapter 19-15 Change the Doors (II)

Okay. So. Youve survived your first five runs. Good for you. Good, good, good. Maybe you're made of more than luck. Maybe there is a lick of skill or potential inside you. Maybe you gonna be more than just fighting meat bound for the Maw.

Seeing that you made it this far, let old lady Tavers give you some advice.

Up to this point, youre probably still alive because youre not like the other idiots. You notice things. You anticipate. Plan ahead. Prepare. Learn the terrainwho you might be facing. You invested in the right kinds of consangs, equipment, training, and intelligence instead of vanity augs or drugs.

And now new thoughts are crawling up your head. You think youre ready for the big time. You think you wanna start hunting big game; hitting Syndicates or stealing from the Guilds.

Keep yourselves steady now. It aint that easy; this games about more than just killing.

First, your last few runs were probably pretty straightforward affairs. Go here, hit that, snuff him. Basic shit with objective parameters that even your average ganger can understand. Going up though, things get complicated, and you need to invest in compilation preventatives.

Besides being able to fight, what will keep you standing at the end of the day is understanding. Knowledge. Politics is nasty bullshit but its nasty bullshit youre going to learn to navigate if you dont want to end up getting betrayed. For every idiot squire, there is a dumber middler trying to screw everyone around them over. Do your own research. Figure out the angles you can. Keep yourself insured both operationally and intellectually. You dont get to be the muscle or the smart one. Specialization is for bioforms and insects, and were not either. Know your gigs. Know who to trust. And always have a plan to break and run.

The second is for the run itself. Fighting is performance-in-action. Thats how things get doneand circumstantially, how you get out of a fuck-up. Most of the time, I dont like fighting. I dont like being in an active gunfight. Thats bad business. Im not an assault team. Im not a Godclad. Ill be snuffed or nulled in seconds if I go in hard and recklessly. Be flexible, be fast, and be constantly creating variables for the opposition to deal with rather than being a variable to be dealt with.

More than planning, you have to understand the concept of control. You can buy all the weapons in the world, have all the intel you need, have the backing of an entire Guild, and still fuck up your gig because something unexpected slipped your grasp. Thats life. Shit happens, but you need to catch the shit with your hand before it hits the fan and paints you in yesterdays undigested goulash.

Control. I say again. Control. More than just preparation. When you can exert control, thats when you can call yourself a real squire. Thats when you can be considered a vet.

If you can actively change the situations on the ground or influence mass amounts of people on a strategic level. All it takes is a few select hostages related to a certain Syndicate lieutenant for you to walk out of one of their strongholds instead of needing to risk it all in a messy shootout. Take the time to learn the key factors behind the success of your run and influence them however you can.

This isnt a lesson that anyone can just teach you. Dive the vicarities. Live other peoples mistakes. Make your own. And if youre still alive by the end of this, I might just be able to congratulate you in person.

-Quail Tavers, The School of the Warrens

19-15

Change the Doors (II)

Avo had to admit his uncertainty. What he requested of Essus treaded the edges of the mans trauma. Deploying him as an on-site coordinator in refugee encampments or gutter settlements to protect others like him from Syndicate predation seemed the most optimal use of his talents. Still, much of the ask hinged on how well his mind state was, and if he was even willing to leave the city at all.

Essus had suffered much to see himself and his son brought into the city. And instead of reaping any final rewards upon his arrival, he found only misery and death. The severance of his love and legacy. The desecration of his mind and body. Everything traded for more loss.

Returning him to the place where he made his greatest mistake seemed an insult, but it was where he offered the most use.

Your choice, Avo said. He directed his attention at Dice who was in the specially-fabricated meeting room as well. Both of yours. Wont force either of you into anything. Will listen if you have other ideas. See if theyre good.

Avo had a private space generated to offer both former refugees privacy. His socially astute templates advised hosting this meeting away from the attention of the others. Somewhere the two wouldnt feel pressured into decisions they would otherwise not make to fit in with the group. Despite how warped humanitys clades were compared to their baseline selves, that tribalism lingered still in most; a want to belong, a need to fit in.

{A trait naturally shaped by eons of persistent survival,} Calvino had said. {Considering how you can affect minds, however, you can probably burn that mechanism away. The question is what replaces it thereafter, and what changes befall the altered. Keep that in mind before you change anyone: the stars were once littered with the bones of countless peoples who modified themselves into extinction. Systems are deviously subtle. I suggest that you build if you can, break if you must, but bear the structure of what youre changing in mind always.}

The words resonated in more ways than one as Avo considered the two former FATELESS seated on smart-matter chairs before him. Between the two, Essus looked more uncomfortable by far, his pudgy cheeks expelling thermogenic sweat, the oily substance adding a slickness to his curled hair. In contrast, Dice was stone-still, unblinking eyes locked on Avo as the face of her sleeping nu-cat peeked out from one of her coat pockets. The two of them were both survivors in their own right and through Avos Conflagration and canons, they could be forged into people stronger still.

But this, like the tasks he offered, was something they needed to choose.

I accept, Essus said, a long-held breath finally leaving him. I will do this. I want to do this. It is where I will serve the most good. His gaze dropped for an instant before he righted himself and met Avos eyes. I wish to confess something. I was afraid.

Avo tilted his head. Understandable. Not unnatural. I can take it away. Change that part of you. Is that what you want?The initial posting of this chapter occurred via Ñøv€l-B!n.

The waif just stared blankly at him for a moment, her thoughtstuff spinning slowly. If Avo didnt have her template burned into his consciousness, he probably wouldnt have been able to guess her thoughts at all. Even inside him, template-Dice was a quiet fire, watching and learning more than speaking and offering. She was a child raised as an attack dog learning to be a person years later than she should have started. In some ways, that made her damaged. In other ways, it made her unbreakableespecially in a world such as theirs.

Perfectly broken. Little wonder she shadowed Draus so much. Like called to like.

When her question finally came, she sounded almost too scared to ask it. Can I come back? I dont want to say out in the dark. I like the city more. I like it a lot here. I want to say. Can I please stay?

[Godsdammit,] Two-Mag choked, cringing as he begged Avo to look away from the girl.

[What? All that slave driving coming back to haunt you?] Abrel taunted.

[Fuck! You!] Two-Mag screamed. [Fuck you! Fuck you! Fuck you fuck you fuck! I didnt want to live that life! I didnt want to ask to be born in the Warrens. Dont pretend this shit is all on me! Im just shoveling the shit you pass downyour people fucked the world! Your people are why she exists! I just have to deal with it! I am not good enough to climb the Tiers! Alright! I was born less than youI would have been less than you probably even if I wasnt! I dont have it! I dont! I was just I was just]

The former slaver began to sob, and the softer of his cohorts likewise shuddered with trauma.

Empathy was like poison when injected into a cruel vessel. Matter. Antimatter. Destruction.

Can do you whatever you want, Avo said. Was wrong to use you as bait. Should have brought you in earlier.

Because I was a good girl, Dice asked. Because I killed the targets?

Yes. Yes, it was because she was useful. Because if she wasnt, the Paladins would have likely interned her, and Avo wouldve never thought of her thereafter. Yes. But things shouldnt be this way. He reduced the empathy radiating from his templates to recompose himself. And together we can change that.

Dice only nodded.

Do you want to do anything else? Avo asked.

The girl frowned. Im not sure. I dont know. Not one asked me that. Before. Ever. Can I think about it?

Have time. Think. Avo noticed Essus looking at the waif from the corner of his eye, a haunted pulling at the mans features as if he finally noticed Dices youth and her casual acceptance of the horrors that broke him. Primary matters over. I am pleased with the conversation. Now. Onto potential improvements.

Improvements? Essus mumbled, not understanding.

Avo gestured at his arms. Augmentations. Modifications. I can make you more. In mind. Body. Soul. Only questions are what you want; what you might need.

Essus opened and closed his chrome fingers unconsciously, shivering as the servos whirred. I I dont want more metal.

Fine. Cant do metal directly anyway. Will require a cybernetics station. Tavers still getting that set up. But biology is another opportunity. Dont even need to look different. I can just give you standard improvements. No deformations required.

Essus swallowed and nodded in thanks.

Dice shot the man a brief look like he was strange before looking at Avo again. Can you turn me into a gun?

Even with her template inside his Conflagration, the question the girl asked caught Avo off-guard. Calvino sighed. Draus template guffawed violently inside his mind. [Ah, shit. Shes probably got that from me. Juvs trying to make me blush.]

Uncertain how to reply, Avo simply grunted. Can attach a gun to you. Can make your entire sheath like a gun. Very extreme morphologies available. Can look over some choices later.

Excitement lit up behind Dices eyes as she nodded vigorously, her effervescence bubbling up in her template as well.

Again, Essus eyed the girl, jaw slightly agape at the things that pleased her. But more than that, however, her boldness spurred a bit of boldness out of him as well. That seems a bit extreme but I I suppose I should be a bit more adventurous too. He tried a small smile, fake as it was. It would not do for a child to be brave alone.