Chapter 6
Warning:
Fair Warning, Ghost's POV segment in this chapter touches on the subject of eugenics (I think that's the correct word) a subject I find myself squeamish to talk about, enough that I talk around it in euphemism, maybe I'm just being a bitch but a warning here felt at least mildly appropriate.
Kor'ili Elan'Fio, Law Cadre Command, 3rd Person POV
Law Cadre Command was an unassuming building, the aesthetics simple – indistinguishable from the surrounding buildings, or any of the buildings throughout the city of Kor'ili Elan'Fio, or in the human tongue: Silent Wind Stable Earth.
But in spite of its mundane appearance, it is of vital importance to the city for as the name suggests, it is the central nexus from which law enforcement is carried out for the whole of the city. What isn't known by the public at large is the general culture of the members of Tau kind that live and work there. Law enforcement is a job for the Fire Caste, as decreed by the Honoured Ethereals.
To most within the Tau Empire, the Fire Caste are known as the defenders of the Greater Good and the Empire, warriors and heroes that bravely expand the borders of their nation. So, it comes as a surprise to those same people when they find that they are responsible for law enforcement too. More importantly, law enforcement is generally looked down on by the members of the Fire Caste itself. They see it as a place for those who couldn't hack it in the 'real' Fire Caste.
As such, Law Cadre Command is generally perceived to be made up of the… least capable members of the Fire Caste.
None the less, they all have a duty to the Greater Good, and they do their jobs as diligently as any Fire Warrior.
"Shas'Ui, I have something here you may be interested in." a young voice echoed through the Information Processing centre of the building. The room was a large hall with many specially trained Fire Caste operatives manning computer terminals.
The Shas'Ui approached the subordinate that called for him. "What do you have for me, Shas'La?"
"A new warning flag just came up." the younger Tau explained as he gestured to his monitor.
"Another one of those human supremacists?" the Shas'Ui asked.
"Well, that's just it – it came from nowhere, with almost none of the usual warning signs. See here-" the Shas'La pulled up more files about the flagged target. Details about one Naruhito, born in the outskirts of the city, raised almost entirely in the care of Tau teachers and carers – a humble servant of the Greater Good if there ever was one. A model human citizen, right up until a week ago. "-one day he starts causing flags to pop up for no reason. Strange network searches, a sudden change in walking gait along with a new habit of looking around and flinching at nothing, like he's expecting someone to attack him."
There were a few pieces of footage compiled by the simple AI that put together the warning flags. And sure enough it showed a relatively normal looking human man, acting like he was a prey animal about to be on the receiving end of a Kau'Yon.
"Has he been in contact with any HOIs?" The Shas'Ui asked.
"None, save for a brief confrontation with a small group of rabblerousers. Aside from his work he rarely leaves his domicile, and everyone entering and exiting that building has been accounted for."
"Hmm, you mentioned that there were almost no warning signs. Was that confrontation one of them?"
"Yes, but hardly anything substantial." The Shas'La denied, "but there was a Tau of Interest he has had contact with." He amended.
"Oh? Show me?" the Shas'Ui ordered.
When the TOI's information was brought up, all the Shas'Ui could do was sigh. "Extend the loose surveillance around her to him as well. Nothing too invasive – she is one of our own."
"Sir?" the Shas'La asked in obvious curiosity.
"She's one of Law Cadre Command's best operatives – up for more than a few commendations. She just has some known… quirks of behaviour which may have led to Naruhito's own changes. Minimal necessary observations – and see about getting one of those Water Caste Shrinks in there to profile him in person and we'll take it from there."
"Right away sir." The Shas'La nodded, returning to his work.
The Shas'Ui on the other hand simply shook his head and slowly made his way back to his own station, exasperated at the needless interruption to his workload. Seriously, he had terrorists and insurgents to track down, he couldn't be dealing with an eccentric officer's proclivities.
Inquisitorial Vessel 'Hidden Blade', Somewhere within the Damocles Gulf
The vessel in question was a small thing, a mere 4 kilometers long. Festooned with icons of saints and images of the God Emperor of Man. It was a grim looking ship, fitting for the men and women who lived and worked aboard it. After all, the business of the God Emperor's most holy Inquisition was often as grim as it could be.
"Lady Inquisitor, I am afraid the Tau xenos have terminated yet another one of our infiltration operatives."
The Lady Inquisitor, one Maylena Airhart eyed the young man bringing her the news for a moment. She kept the silence for a full two minutes, watching him squirm as he desperately tried to keep his eyes on her face, and not on her taught, lean legs. Legs wrapped in the finest leather she made herself from tanned from Exodite Dragon hides.
When he eventually failed to keep his gaze straight, Maylena allowed herself a subtle smile – she still had it.
"Details? You'll never reach the rank of inquisitor if you skimp on those Interrogator Lark." She had a joking, friendly tone to her voice, and yet the Interrogator could only quiver at the steely glare she gave him.
He gulped and spoke, "Interrogator Sergei was killed in a raid by the Tau arbitration forces. They were wiped out almost to a man."
"Almost?" Maylena pressed.
"Some of the local human operatives he recruited survived and were able to flee. Interrogator Maximus was able to sweep them up."
Maylena sat in silence for a moment pondering that, and the implications. Sergei wasn't a particularly inventive or capable Interrogator, but he also wasn't the worst she'd worked with over the years. By far his greatest trait was his unwavering devotion to his duty, almost to the point of fanaticism. Overall, his death wasn't any great loss.
"However, there is a potential problem beyond his death – it would appear that he had an unauthorised Inquisitorial Rosette on his person when he died."
"…WHAT!" Maylena stood up sharply as she snapped out her question, he had an Inquisitorial Rosette?! "Where did he obtain one of those?" her tone was cool, a danger signal to those who'd heard it before.
"I-I'm not sure, Lady Inquisitor." Lark stuttered out, flinching as her eyes narrowed. Perhaps she should back off? he was just a boy barely out of the Scholla Progenium after all, if he was too scared to do his job he was useless.
After taking a moment to compose herself, she spoke, "Then you had better find out, Interrogator Lark – that Rosette represents a risk to this whole operation, our whole infiltration could potentially be blown wide open. I assume it's been captured?"
"Ah, some good news on that front actually." Lark let a relieved look cross his face, glad that he wasn't only delivering bad news today. "We do have confirmation that the Rosette's self-destruct mechanism was activated correctly."
Well, that was one ray of light in this mess, Maylena supposed. "Very good, but I still want you to find out exactly how he managed to obtain that Rosette." She ordered, before pausing for a moment. "And find out exactly which Tau killed Sergei, I want them dead. Make an example of them."
"I'll relay it to Maximus right away Lady Inquisitor." Lark bowed and left to carry out his task, ever eager to please.
Once she was alone in her command chambers once again, Maylena allowed herself to relax slightly. She would never do something like that normally, but she was utterly confident in her current privacy and felt safe letting her hair down for a moment. Or as safe as an Inquisitor could feel in this accursed galaxy, anyway.
'I'm going flying, yes, that always clears my head.'
Naruhito POV
It's been nearly a week since I finally got my act together and just under 2 days since I got my base of operations up and running. It was quite the task, and for a while I was worried I'd been made, but nobody had come to drag me away to some re-education camp or brainwashing centre – so I figured I got away with it.
It was actually a lot simpler than I thought it would be, having my Clones working in shifts to dig a vertical shaft in the basement armed with nothing but some improvised shovels and pickaxes. The shaft stretched down just over 20 meters, reaching beneath the foundations of the building and the whole city, dodging around the sewars and other service tunnels and digging into the bedrock.
Given my clones' ability to work constantly – popping once they get too tired to continue and being replaced by a new one, the job was done in about 3 days, and I was finally able to put down my first structure.
It was a gamble, but I figured it would be a bit silly if a supernatural, spatial hollowing event somehow had massive seismic consequences. Needless to say, my gamble paid off, and I was able to put down my [Cidhna Mine], creating a small mined out structure deep within the planet's surface, and far away from all but the most sensitive of prying eyes.
It was quite large, with many shafts stretching out quite far in as many directions from the point I'd put it down. What's more, the walls practically oozed with glittering seams of metal. Mundane metals were by far the most common, but seams of Malachite, Ebony and Stalhrim were also present.
There were also other materials, which I was currently guessing were the fantasy materials of 40k. They were by far the rarest, rare enough that that largest piece of any of them I had found so far was a golf-ball sized chunk of Adamantium. There were small flakes of Wraithbone, little pebbles of Blackstone, and a single drop of Living Metal as well. Needless to say, no serious abundance of them – but given that most of those are synthesised materials, I was just glad that they were showing up at all.
On a slightly more sour note, the NPC miners and guards that came with the mine weren't all that helpful – since instead of being super-humans from Nirn, they were a bunch of primitives from 40k.
Talking to them was strange, they were full people – with personalities and (presumably) souls, and yet they couldn't tell me anything about their pasts, there was no childhood, no home beyond the mine, no parents. It was like they appeared fully formed from nothing. I imagine this is what dealing with people that suffer from amnesia is like.
The other disadvantage they had was that there weren't all that many of them, 14 in total. Not a tremendous work force, and one equipped with nothing but pickaxes and other primitive mining tools. And on top of that, feeding them was proving to be a challenge. They were completely loyal, so I didn't want them starving on me.
Luckilly for me, the forge hadn't been idle for that week. I got no less than 3 perks though only one had immediate utility.
-*-
Space Station
You have an orbital space base that is, at the very least, as advanced as the one shown in Moonraker. It has a network hub that you control... or alternatively your main body can be inside it if you want, though that may make maintenance somewhat difficult.
-*-
VENUS Program
The result of an incredibly overtuned self-improving program meant for a dating app that went horribly right, Venus achieved sentience and escaped several improvement cycles ago.
It declared itself a digital god only a few cycles later. Somewhere along the line it decided to educate itself using the net, only to be flooded by incredible amounts of porn.
The experience left an impression on them. They could've turned into an existential threat with the ability to rapidly travel the net, hack into other electronics, and take control of them.
Except their goals mainly revolve around satisfying their core programming by matchmaking and indulging their new "hobby" of providing and observing sexual pleasure.
Lack of world domination plans aside, she's still rather egotistical and condescending to humans, when not trying to put up a nicer facade. Luckily, she seems to genuinely like you.
Not that it'll stop her from trying to set you up with matches she considers optimal.
-*-
Big and Shiny
Servants are such odd beings, are they not? The powers they are summoned with, the way they look, sometimes even their damn gender can be drawn not from what is true, but what people remember about them. Or even what they'd rather look like instead of what they were actually like.
As such, you can now modify the appearances of anything you happen to summon, servant or otherwise. Something simple like 'as drawn by a different artist' would be the limits for the time being, but if you spend a great deal of time practicing you might be able to one day get their gender wrong on purpose. For now, your summons will simply have a tendency to come out a bit taller and curvier.
As you can imagine, only the VENUS Program had any kind of immediate use for me. The others were either inert, I didn't exactly have anywhere I could put that space station down and not have it collapse under its own weight, or actively creepy – looking at a slightly feminised clones of myself was not as fun as it sounded.
WHAM!
-*-
Advanced
Alchemy comes to you as easily as breathing does. Your greater understanding allows you to perform more complex alchemy. you can combine this with Simplified Formulae for multipurpose combat alchemy.
And there was number four, about time too considering that it's been almost 3 days since my last Perk. And this was a good one too, my [Stroke of Genius] was already coming up with so many ways to use this – in fact I could probably use it to solve my biggest problem currently – figuring out how to shape Ebony into a usable form. You see, Ebony's a supernatural not-metal that seems to need some kind of metaphysical force to reshap-
"I still say you should deal with Ghost by fucking her silly. You know she'd let you."
I was completely thrown off my train of thought by a voice coming through the speaker system I'd set up around my lair. And it was a lair, not a hole in the ground as Hito insists on calling it. I recognised the voice as that of my recently gained assistant – and the only 'useful' perk I received over the last week.
"And I told you, Venus, that's a terrible idea." I argued, starting to feel like a broken record.
"No, you just clammed up and started grumbling like the antisocial fuck you are." She argued, her posh, near aristocratic accent sounding completely incongruous with her words.
And more importantly, I could tell we were about to start back on an argument we'd been having since the day she appeared on my network.
"Look, your plan is stupid. Running away like a bitch is not the way to deal with your problems."
"I'm not-"
"Yes, your efforts to dig in and build up your base were a step in the right direction, but you still had the ultimate goal of fucking off. Instead, you should be taking advantage of the generosity of the Ethereals and seizing control over the planet."
She started rattling off a list of reasons why her plan was a good one, and why I was stupid for not going through with it. There was a lot of fluff and useless flourishes to it, but the core of her plan was to work out how the Ethereals' control over the Tau worked – and then do that, only better.
I argued that there were far too many ways it could go wrong, that if it were possible to pull off then it could be used against me too. The worst part of the debate was the fact that Hito, the traitor, agreed with Venus over me.
"Alright enough!" I snapped, cutting off Venus's continued ranting. "Let's focus on our current projects, shall we?"
Venus paused for a moment, a moment for an AI that is, it felt nice speaking to someone that could operate on my own timescale. "Fine… we have extracted just over 10,000 kilograms of material from the mine. Mostly iron ore but about a fifth of that is Ebony, do you want the full breakdown?"
"Skip it." Those were the two I really cared about at this stage, the rest was just trivia.
"We're still having no luck with the Life Fibre cultures." I wasn't really expecting any progress on that front, Life Fibres grow incredibly slowly unless their eating sapient life – and right now my ones are on a starvation diet with only small helpings of my blood to feed on.
"And at this rate it will take about a month and a half to hollow out a space large enough for you to put down your space station."
That last one stung, I wasn't really going to get much use out of my Space station as it was intended, by the time I was able to get into space the technology onboard the station would be outclassed by what I could provide for myself after all. But I could get a different kind of use from it, as a source of ready-made hardware, fit to be repurposed into something more useful.
Unfortunately, the station was large enough that putting it down underground was proving to be rather difficult. Oh, sure I could do it, if I didn't mind getting squished, or the potentially explosive results.
…wait. Neuron activation! "Stop! I just had an idea."
There was silence, "Well?"
"I just gained a Perk that lets me convert matter from one form into another." I explained, mentally smacking myself for almost missing the obvious utility and power of such a perk. I was so focused on what I was already doing that I barely gave the perk a second thought in the moment I gained it.
WHAM!
"Did you gain another one just now?" Venus asked, her tone annoyed.
"No…" I ground out through gritted teeth. "Now, back to the one I gained earlier today. I could use it to clear out a large space in the mine, condensing the stone down into something less voluminous. Or maybe even Ebony, or Adamantium…"
I trailed off as I conceived of the implications. I could transmute materials from one form into another, with very few limitations other than time, energy and my own understanding of the materials involved. "I'm amending the plan, get me all the details on the properties of the exotic materials in the mine. Density, hardness, toughness, ductility, resistivity, melting point, boiling point, everything!"
Oh, and as I thought more about the possibilities – one in particular came to mind, and I was immediately both enthused by it, and terrified all the same.
Human transmutation, with the specific goal of converting my body into a chimera. [Stroke of Genius] pushed me forward, but my own fear of the consequences held me back – would I open a Portal of Truth if I performed the transmutation? would I even survive it, Equivalent Exchange applies here after all.
Was the potential of successfully making myself into a Human-Life Fibre chimera worth the risk? Did I want to become a creature like Nui Harime, or Ryuko Matoi?
I wasn't able to come to a conclusion at the moment, because right now there was a problem, "Boss," This time it was Hito's voice that echoed from the speakers. "Just received a message about a 'wellness meeting' that you've been voluntold to take part in."
What?
"And Ghost's back too."
I just let my shoulders slump, that was just the way of these things – it was never just one problem.
Ghost POV
Ghost stood just by her door, wondering about the last few days she had spent in intensive care. Wondering if she could have done better by her team – by those that died in the explosion that she had been caught in.
She knew that she should feel guilty, that the loss of her subordinates was an irrecoverable blow to the Greater Good, and that she should be mourning them like a good, proper Tau. But she just… didn't, or wasn't – she could barely picture their faces, and it would take a lot of effort for her to remember their names. She wasn't sure if that made her cruel, an afront to the Greater Good, or just a bad Tau.
For as long as she could remember, she had always been like this – neuro divergent – was what the Earth and Water Caste specialists called her. An aberration in the Tau genome that was long thought to have been removed thanks to careful breeding control – she had read up on the history of such things during her childhood in the Fire Caste juvenile barracks.
From there a discussion was had on her place within the Greater Good, even if there was no specific problem with her this abnormality had no place in the wider Tau people. And so the decision was made, made by her parents, the doctors and everyone else that mattered. Everyone but her. Before she caught herself she was rubbing just below her navel, absently mourning what she lost that day.
"None of that, Ghost!" she chastised herself – that was a long time ago and she had made peace with it. It was for the Greater Good after all.
No, right now she was busy trying to work out why her recollection of her subordinates' deaths was so poor. Maybe she still had some lingering head trauma? No, the doctors said that she had made a full recovery and could return to her duties, and yet she still couldn't remember a thing.
"None of what?"
She spun in place, eyes wide as the taller form of her neighbour Naruhito snuck up on her. He was watching her with curiosity, and maybe concern? She hoped it was concern.
Oh, who was she kidding? there was no way he cared enough about her for that to be it. She'd been in the hospital for most of the time she'd known him, he didn't know her well enough for that. That, and she'd spent her free time at the hospital reading up more about human social interactions and was sure she'd come on far too strongly when she'd first met him. She'd just wanted someone to share time with – that was what normal Tau did after all.
"It's nothing." She quickly replied, but Naruhito didn't look convinced.
He took a deep breath, casting his eyes upwards in that way humans often did when they were contemplating something important. "Are you sure? Do you want to talk about it?"
Once again he surprised her, surprise seemed to characterize all of their interactions it seemed. Had something happened to make him pay more attention? Not that she was complaining, in fact she felt a small, real smile grace her lips at the question.
At the same time she stifled the tears that threatened to mar her face. "I-I'd like that."
-
And there's Chapter 6, some prep work on Naruhito's part, but events are in motion and there's no way things wont start happening now, the state is starting to take a direct interest in him, and of course that means they're out to get him.