Embers After Flames, Chapter 6.4 (Patreon)

6.4

+++

“All settled in, I hope?” Flatwell asked.

“Naturally.”

Ayre’s addition to the family occurred the same way that most of my rescued children had. 

It started slowly, at first. She was a being who had never had a conversation with another person, Human or not. Where she differed from most of the other rescuees was in the fact that she’d had access to a fairly consistent stream of data, which had come from the Watchpoint that we’d raided to retrieve her.

It left her in an odd position. Knowledgeable, in certain topics. Capable, under certain conditions. Ayre was, for example, well practiced in encryption breaking, which was a skill that she’d picked up in order to make sense of the PCA’s data and transmissions. She was, in fact, natively nearly as good at it as Ezra was, and I’d been teaching Ezra tips and tricks for years now.

This, ultimately, was a good thing. It gave her something to talk about for her initial socialization, which was something a lot of her siblings hadn’t had.

As with most, she started off unsure of herself and her place here. Again, she had literally never had a conversation before. We were, however, all communal organisms, and as time passed she started gaining confidence in herself, her curiosity coming forth. When the others were able to share and reciprocate their own stories of isolation, she quickly formed bonds, which then naturally extended until she’d opened up and found herself comfortable.

That took a good month by itself.

The next month was spent carefully exploring, finding the barriers we all had, figuring out how, precisely, she fit into the family. It wasn’t too long before she was trading jokes and poking fun, even as she offered her assistance and support however she could. Moving on from coming to know the family to being a part of it.

My own role in this was a familiar one by now. I was the parent, offering my unconditional love and support, giving the gentle guidance they needed in order to truly flourish. 

Ayre had been a little clingy to start. Like Levi, but without Levi’s boundless extraversion that would see him latching onto one person or another at a time. No, unlike the most excitable of my children, Ayre was a calmer sort, only really needing me to be something of a shield when she became overwhelmed by how busy the family could be. She needed it less and less as she became more used to it, of course; she wasn’t introverted or anything like that, just unprepared at first.

Still, that gave me plenty of time to bond with her. She was a delight. I finally had someone who appreciated big booms as much as I did!

She was also no slouch when it came to picking up the things I could teach her. Her hacking and information gathering skills rounded out nicely after a bit of effort, and her piloting skills...

She had a real knack for that. She could get very good performance out of pretty much any machine after only a short time controlling it. 

I suppose that was fitting for somebody who was both a final boss and your support against another final boss. Since she seemed to genuinely be enjoying herself, I spent a fair bit of time in the simulators with her, throwing her through a variety of scenarios that she did reasonably well at adapting too. She made good use of a wide spread of equipment and machines, from normal machines with Coral Control Interfaces to C-Weapons.

If I had to judge, she was hovering around Flatwell’s level at the moment. It was a combination of raw talent and the advantages of being a Coral Mind, but she lacked the experience and tenacity that Flatwell had built up over the decades. Time and effort would refine her into something quite magnificent, I think.

It would take a bit more than just simulations for it to happen, of course. The sims were hardly perfect, despite all the effort that had gone into them. There were still many factors of real life that couldn’t be completely replicated. 

But it could be arranged.

“She should be the last one for now.” I continued. “Watchpoint Delta was the last on the list for probable locations of Coral Minds. All other locations are low confidence- though I will of course be checking them all as the opportunities arise. After that, however...”

Flatwell nodded, typing at his terminal. “The voices of the sky.” He spoke, still typing. “And that would be all your children.”

“I am still uncertain as to their actual nature, admittedly.” I could hear them, but they weren’t like my other children. Nothing so... distinct. Not surprising, of course, since all my other children had formed in Coral colonies, and the Coral Storms were not normal colonies.

I didn’t have the data to make the guess as to what could have happened, could be happening, up there, and I wouldn’t until my own Colony grew enough to make the Contact possible.

“Your augmentations haven’t had any problems, right?” I asked. I was fairly certain they hadn’t, but it never hurt to make sure.

Flatwell smiled. “I’m feeling better than I’ve felt in years. Dolmayan was right, it does take years off of you.”

“That would be the telomere regeneration in action.” Well, there was a bit more to it than just that. C6 Augmentations would produce a nearly complete cellular replacement and renewal over the course of their changes, which, guided by the Coral-Nanobot infusions, effectively lead to a full body rejuvenation, most of which was relatively under the hood.

Flatwell had been a product of C2 Augmentations. The work... hadn’t been great. Not quite the complete butchery of C1 Augmentation, but not that much better. 

His skin and hair had been the only things that had avoided deeper alterations. He was going to appear to be aging backwards over the next few years as his body replaced both. 

It wasn’t so complete that he’d regain his youthful looks, though. That would require a more targeted alteration than what the C6 Augments provided. Not that it really mattered too much; the man pulled off the silver fox look quite well.

Index Dunham and Ring Freddie had gone through the treatments first, though where Dunham’s devotion to the cause that Dolmayan espoused had brought him to the point of taking all five injections and proceeding to the final stage of C6 Augmentations, Freddie had chosen to linger at the fourth, acquiring the full physical and mental augmentations but not proceeding to fully integrate Coral completely enough to achieve Contact.

I didn’t begrudge him the choice. It would not have ended well.

With the both of them upgraded, and neither of them requiring the lengthy recovery times and surgeries that were required of every other type of Augmentation, Flatwell had taken the plunge and gone through it all in a single shot, trusting his comrades to be able to handle things in the period where he himself wouldn’t be able to join them on the battlefield, simply sticking to the backline duties until his system had completely settled.

“It is greatly appreciated.” He hit the ‘send’ button, leaning back as he took a moment to stretch. “But back to the topic at hand, now that you have recovered as many of your wayward children as you can, what will you do now?” 

“Well, to be completely honest, that was one of my major strategic objectives, and fulfilling it has left me with a rather freer schedule than we used to have.” Which was certainly a strange feeling, although quite nice regardless. “At the moment, we’ve got nothing but the general operations on it.”

“Poking the PCA so that they never become comfortable?” He raised an eyebrow as he dove back into his work.

“That, and assisting those who are fucking around with finding out.”

He gave a small chuckle at that.

“But, that’s effectively us. Unless you need something, we’re fairly set on things.”

“We’re doing quite well on our own side of things.” He hummed. “The data you pulled from Watchpoint Delta earned us more than a few favours from my outside contacts. Combined with what we lifted from the Staging Point, I was able to secure us a significant amount of support. For the moment, that means the PCA will have a bit of extra attention on them.”

“Ah, that thing the PCA hates the most.” I chuckled. “You should have some breathing room, then.”

“Hopefully enough to consolidate a few things.” He agreed. “A lot of the programs that we were running in the past are starting to bear fruit now.”

“Despite the PCA’s best efforts, you are steadily making progress towards becoming a functional civilization.” It definitely did wonders that the RLF could now do something when somebody decided to destroy the hospitals, raze the schools, and napalm the orphanages. “Well, that’s the bigger problem. The smaller ones?”

“Most of the mercenaries and corps fall into the usual categories.” He frowned. “Though there’s always someone whose sense is outstripped by their ambitions.”

“There is always is and there always will be.” I was well familiar with that. We’d blown up like a third of them. 

“Still, even they are... predictable, at this point.” His head tilted to the side. “We aren’t precisely in the best possible position, but we are on an upwards trajectory. All that we truly need to do at this point is simply hold out. Endure, until we reach the point we need to be in order to achieve our freedom.”

“Were only it not so far away...” I sighed. 

If destroying the PCA was the only thing we needed to do, it would be spectacularly easy. Institute City was full of C-Weapons, and the Enforcement System’s mainframe was sitting directly above it. Do that math and anybody would know I could shatter the Enforcement System more or less at will.

But as much as we didn’t like the PCA, it was keeping most of the people who were interested in Rubicon out. Flatwell’s plan called for a long term approach to the problem, building our assets until we were prepared to do that ourselves. 

One thing that wasn’t negotiable was that we’d need to take some of the PCA’s own assets, as well. Without an orbital defence to keep people away, greed would draw people to Rubicon like moths to the flame. 

To achieve that required more than what we currently had.

We needed time in order to build, yet time brought its own complications. Outside factors would continue to come in. 

Already existing factors would continue to operate.

“Well, that only leaves one thing. I take it that your haunting problem hasn’t faded away yet, either?”

Flatwell sighed. “When we first had that conversation about ALLMIND, I hadn’t realized just how tricky that AI could actually be.” He leaned forwards for a moment, placing his forehead against his fist. “The number of instances that Seria keeps locating is concerning.”

“I know the feeling. ALLMIND is out in force.” So many Ghosts out near RLF positions. Not even actually doing anything, just... watching. Observing.

They had so far not been observed near civilian zones nor the more secret RLF facilities, but the problem with that was these were invisible mechs and ‘not been observed’ was the default for them. It didn’t mean they weren’t there.

They hadn’t approached too closely in any scenario, but still...

Seria was doing her best to keep me up to date. A few of my other children had since joined her on a more regular basis just to help her out.

ALLMIND’s attention had shifted towards the RLF more and more over the past two months. What, precisely, she was after, I wasn’t certain. There were a lot of things she could be after.

It certainly complicated things.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t going to change any time soon.

That’s life on Rubicon.