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Tentacles are magic! As for the other...
Whats'a matter man, don't you dig gibberish? (insert rant N+1 about yuku messing up inline links)
Feeding the bunnies is what I'm here for, so no, your author cred is fine. And just in time to be tackling this plot thread, I think - any longer and it would begin to drag, rather than build.
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Bluemage Wrote:A good point, too. Will I lose author cred (what little I have) if I mention that I didn't even think of that? The guys in my game group have learned to be afraid when I say "That's a lot better than what I came up with!" when I'm the GM. Take it, run with it, acknowledge it in the story credits - you'll keep your author cred.
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I never got along with the Gibberese. They don't make no sense.
I think I've figured out a way to run with CD's idea, too- one that makes my original plans more possible and more concrete. Thanks for that. ^^
********** Now let's see what the Sein of now thinks of the Quattro of the future.
"Imagine, if you will, somebody who you think of as family... as the little sister you never had. Sure, she's a big goofy, and not always the most dependable person, but she seems to care about you. Sure, nobody else seems to like her, but there's no accounting for taste. People are idiots- it wouldn't be the first time they hated someone decent." I could see that Sein was following me, so I kept going. "Then, one day, you find out that your friend, somebody you think of as family, is a fabrication. Everything you think you know about her is wrong... and the truth is far, far worse.
Instead of a close, loving relationship," I spat, "it turns out that she's just been pretending to love you, and you fell for it. The only person she actually likes turned out to be a psychotic murderer- everybody else are, collectively, losers, to be kept around until they're no longer useful. The girl you thought you knew isn't goofy, but serious; isn't kind, but cruel; and isn't NEARLY as undependable as she pretends to be.
All the people who don't like her? She's been playing head games with them for months, torturing them mentally and emotionally whenever you weren't looking. Nobody ever said anything because they were too scared of her to even bring it up." I paused, took a deep, unsteady breath (drawing on a few real bad experiences for the right emotional state), and plunged right back into it. "Oh, and the way you found out? You walked in on her torturing a little girl, just because she could.
THAT is why I had such a problem talking to Quattro. Every time I looked at her, I saw those two girls as well... and I couldn't decide whether to kill her, accept her, or just keep her at arm's length." I looked down at the metal floor, poked at it a bit with my finger, then back up at Sein, who had gone from sadness, to shock, then to outrage, and finally to deep thought. "...and now I don't have that option any longer. She saw me talking at Due, and ran out of the room, crying."
"...oh. That explains it." Sein looked down at the floor, herself. Why do we keep finding the floor so interesting? Awkward conversations are awkward. "You want to make up with her?"
I could feel a small, wistful smile drift onto my face. "...I don't think I can, any more. I'd be satisfied if I could just stop hurting her... and maybe clear the air enough that we could talk to each other." I sighed, cradling my head in both hands. "I'll understand if you don't want me around any longer. I'd want me gone, too, if I saw myself hurting my sister like that. Probably punch myself in the face, throw myself against a wall, and threaten to kill myself if I ever saw me again.
...ohgods, that did NOT come out right. Made a lot more sense in my head, and why are you looking at me like that?"
For the first time since the conversation started, Sein smiled. It was a particularly enigmatic smile, one that brought to mind memories of both the Mona Lisa, and the proverbial cat. "...oh, no reason." Okay, that was ominous. "But we're sort of off-topic, here. Imma, you admitted that you're unhappy, explained why you're unhappy... but you've got one very important thing left to do." Wow, that's an intense glare. What could she... hold on. Let me go back over that conversation... got it, I think?
I cracked a grin. "Sorry for thinking you don't care about me, little sis~," I said, in my best teasing voice. "I pwomise I'll nevah, nevah do it again?"
The glare didn't disappear... but the fury behind it did, instantly replaced by amused annoyance. Then that vanished, along with the glare... and Sein's grin came back. "Good boy." She ruffled my hair- it's going to take me at LEAST thirty seconds to fix that! Curse you!- and stood back up. "Now that's done with, how 'bout we get you out there blowing stuff up, eh?" Crisis averted. Now I can get to work.
"Sure!"
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Quote:Why do we keep finding the floor so interesting?
Well, you just can't get parquet like that any more...
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Always happy to help. More and higher quality fiction around is a win for everyone. Sein's "Oh, nothing~" is remarkably un-reassuring, though.
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Quote:ClassicDrogn wrote:
Sein's "Oh, nothing~" is remarkably un-reassuring, though.
Indeed! Now I'm wondering what exactly is going through that cute little sneaky-sneak's head. 
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Quote:blackaeronaut wrote:
Quote:ClassicDrogn wrote:
Sein's "Oh, nothing~" is remarkably un-reassuring, though.
Indeed! Now I'm wondering what exactly is going through that cute little sneaky-sneak's head.
If translated, part of it would be something like "That sounds like something I would say!
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Well, we've already established that the ceilings are familiar...
As for Sein, I think I've already pretty much explained that. There's a crush there, and I will be teasing a relationship... emphasis on teasing.
Also, today was a good writing day. The words... flowed. The Emperor was pleased.
**********
Okay, so Sein says that this building needs to go, as violently as can be managed. Let's see what I need to work with.
Looks like an office building. Eight stories tall... looks like older construction to me. It's not a tower of glass, anyway. Say... that gives me an idea.
[Any magical signatures inside the building?]
[NO MAGES DETECTED.] Perfect.
[Area Search. Send the globes along these* paths. Focused scanning. I want structural analysis and life sign detection, covering the entire building.]
As I thought the word 'these', I sent a mental image to Malleus, with the paths in question laid out. Really need to research how this telepathic communication thing works. It's all kinds of useful.
[SEARCH COMPLETE. EIGHTY-SEVEN HUMANS DETECTED. BUILDING STRUCTURE ANALYZED.]
To my eyes, the facade of the building seemed to fade, becoming an indistinct purple mass. Where it once was, I was instead seeing a web of orange lines, with green blobs scattered around it haphazardly. Weight-bearing beams and human occupants. Very nice. Very useful.
Hmm.
All I *have* to do is tear the building down. I wasn't told to kill all the occupants, or retrieve anything from inside it, which means I can let the occupants live if I feel like it. I just have to get them out before I blow the place up... and subdue them. Yes. Don't want them escaping. I can call up TSAB law enforcement, and leave the occupants here to be picked up... with some evidence, to make sure they get what they deserve.
Now how do I capture all of them? If I can get them all out of the building, that's simple enough- I've got just the spell for it- or will, once I revise it a bit. So the question of the day is 'how do I get everybody out of the building?'
Breaking in would get a local panic going. Nah. I need something building-wide. Can't just start shooting the place up, either; who knows what'd happen? I might end up bringing a floor down on somebody.
...say, I think I have an idea.
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Pull the fire alarm?
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That would get everybody (except the emergency response team) out of the building, but wouldn't get them arrested...
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The more important question may be what exactly does our enemy do with this building. Once we know that, we can better deduce their soft spots, and know what will scare the shit out of them. And now I am thinking of that one line from Close Encounters of the Third Kind:
"Wait, that's good, that's good, I like that. But it may not evacuate everybody. There's always some joker who thinks he's immune. What I need is something so scary it'll clear three hundred square miles of every living Christian soul. "
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He's been studying spell SFX, so it shouldn't be too hard to get some flashing lights going and a voice amp to shout "This is the TSA, we know you have no mages present and the building is surrounded, so exit in a calm and orderly fashion and you will not be harmed!"
Or he could play with gravity to simulate an earthquake or something, possibly going with a variation on the above to pretend to be emergency services, though my impression was that this is another remote and at least semi-secret location, not somewhere you'd expect a quick EMS response.
An establishing shot of the location might be a useful thing to add in the edit, actually, to clear that up.
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Rob, the point was that I can get them from 'leaving the building' to 'arrested' just fine; the question was how to get them all out of the building. The answer is below.
BA, this is one of the Syndicate's Perfectly Legitimate Businesses (read: money-laundering vector and supplementary funding source). It's full of innocent employees and white-collar criminals, in roughly equal proportions. That's why none of them detect as combat mages- this is a low-profile, low-heat operation... for them.
Reading my mind again, Jorlem? Actually pulling the fire alarm lacks a certain something, though- I went with the fun/classy option.
CD, you're right about the location- I really should've made that more clear. For current reference, the building is in a corporate office development area- much like similar places on Earth, except more spread out. It's for medium-sized businesses that a) want some grounds for themselves, and/or b) want a bit of privacy, and is on the edge of its settlement. TSAB presence in said settlement is mostly concentrated 'downtown', and emergency response time suffers a bit because of it.
As for (simulated) earthquakes, nope. I could develop the spell, sure. Probably even cast it, eventually. The problem is that I don't have the experience to reliably shake the building without collapsing it, and would need a good bit of architectural engineering/demolitions expertise on top of that. Still, an option for the future.
Running a false flag op like that... could work. If I'd thought of it, I'd've been worried about the possibility of people calling for backup. Or worse- legal representation.
**********
That figured out, I started by pulling up my spell design system, and doing a bit of tinkering. ...reverse the values here, give it a new name, and save! Good- onto Phase Two.Phase Two, put simply, was casting the spell I'd just created. I just ducked behind a nearby building, cast it (and let me tell you, that one took some effort, even for me), and walked back out to where I was. Can't see it yet. Good. It should kick in when somebody leaves the building... curses. Now I can't just walk up to the place. How do I start Phase Three?
SMACK ...duh, I can fly. Really deserved a smack upside the head for that one.Wincing at my own stupidity, I fired up an Air Comet, and flew up and away from my target building. Once I was high enough- is anybody likely to look this high up? Nah- I positioned myself directly over the building, and lowered myself back down, onto the roof. Now to Phase Three.
I opened the roof access, and walked into the building. Left, forward two meters, right, forward 2.3 more meters, and another right. There's the elevator. Apply a bit of gravity there and there... and now the shaft is open.
[Mal, anybody in the elevator, or within a meter of it?]
[ONE AUGMENTED HUMAN, AND A HIGHLY ADVANCED DEVICE.]
[Very droll, Malleus.]
That settled, I hovered into the elevator shaft, pointed Mal straight down, and brought up one of my experimental spells.
Gift of Forethought, warm our thoughts and kindle our spirits! Pyropotamos!WHOOSH ...
Is that what a flamethrower really looks like? I think that that's what a flamethrower really looks like.The Flame River wasn't quite what I'd come to expect. Instead of a billowing cloud of short-ranged flames, the way all the video games tended to portray flamethrowers, what I got was a bar of incandescence shooting out of my magic circle. Potent fire, plus tight control, plus overpowered propulsion, equals heat beam. Maybe I should back it down a bit later?I took a look down the shaft. Sure burned through that elevator well enough, but it's not really catching anything on fire. Version 2 needs less power behind it, and a good bit more spread. Ah, well. Have to work with what I've got. Maybe shoot it out the doors?
I moved my casting arm, causing the spell to track sluggishly across the top of the elevator... and the bottom of the elevator... and the concrete-like floor of the shaft. Carefully... CAREFULLY... THERE WE GO! That melted door should do nicely. Now I just cut the power, move my aim up a level, and...
...and...
...okay, V2 also needs to cast faster. That delay was just silly. ANYWAY, burn this elevator door out, and move up again.By the time I got to the fifth floor, I could hear alarms going off across the building. FINALLY. Wondered how much fire it'd take. Just track up to the seventh floor for a bit, very carefully, and... good! [How's the evacuation, Mal?]
[ALL OCCUPANTS MOVING. PROGRESS LIMITED BY STAIR CAPACITY-]
-Whoa, dizzy. High mana drain. Trap?-[-EIGHTEEN OCCUPANTS. ALL CANNOT MOVE. TWELVE ARE UNCONSCIOUS.]
Yep. Trap. Note to self: Gaea's Love doesn't scale up well as it is. Time to move out.
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Dude. You made the heat projector from War of the Worlds? Sooo coool...
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Not really, no. By definition, even! ^^
Actually, my mental image of this came from balefire, out of Wheel of Time, but now that you mention it...
**********
Yep. Trap. Note to self: Gaea's Love doesn't scale up well as it is. Time to move out.A quick fly up to the top floor, dash to the roof, and Air Comet later, and I was floating off to one side of the building, watching people bail out of the ground floor. Every time somebody left the building, my spell triggered, crushing them to the ground with a solid two gees of force.
...wait a minute, that guy just threw himself out a window! Oh, some sort of hover belt... but it's not doing so well. I can hear the thing humming from here- sounds almost like it's... !As the man's flying device shut down, I threw as much power as I could into my Air Comet, willing myself forward desperately. Going to make it- adjust for speed of fall- BELOW HIM- now slowslowSLOW and... got him! Phew. As the man fell into my arms, I actually dipped in midair. Nearly fell... but I caught myself in time, hit him with a quick bolt of magic to knock him out, and upped the power on the Comet.
Wow, you're heavy... [Mal! I need a mass-to-weight ratio on this guy, and I need it NOW!]
[MASS TO WEIGHT RATIO IS 0.332.]
...so he's just over three times as heavy as he should be?
Gah. No WONDER that spell took so much out of me! I didn't just cover the ground floor, but everything above it for... how far?With that thought, I began to force myself upward, gaining speed far slower than I'd've liked. [Tell me when that ratio changes, Mal.]
[TWO HUNDRED METERS. NO CHANGE.]
[THREE HUNDRED. NO CHANGE.]
[FOUR HUNDRED. NO CHANGE.]
[FIELD DE-] -and then I suddenly shot upward, as if shot out of a cannon. ..ookay, that was fast... or was it? I was putting a lot of power into upward movement; the instant the grav strength started to fall off, I would've accelerated, making it fall off faster, causing more acceleration...
Eh. I'll just review the data later. For now, let's see about that building.
I turned in mid-air, throwing my passenger over my shoulder, and pointed Mal (almost) straight down.
[Arcane Bolt, extended duration.]
[CHARGING NOW.]
The familiar circle spun itself into existence. Once it was spinning, a tiny ball of mana appeared in front of it, gradually growing larger and larger. I let it get to where it almost blocked my view of the building below, and then snapped off a quick telepathic command.
[Fire!]
The ball stopped growing, and Malleus responded. [FIRING.] I zoomed in on the building below, watching it as carefully as possible, and waited for the beam to hit.
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Work was about seventeen different kinds of draining and busy today, so I didn't get to write much. >.>
EDIT: Things quieted down, and inspiration came to me. Here's some more.
**********
Good hit. Very straight... and right on the edge of the building! I then began to 'walk' the beam around the edges of the building, cutting it away from the outer walls. It's an older building, so the outer walls provide a lot of structural strength. Cut them off, and the center- THERE IT GOES!
I couldn't hear the CRASH of the building proper collapsing, floor by floor, inside its own outer walls... but I could see it in great detail. One building totaled... but that's an AWFUL lot of rubble just sitting there. I should probably clean that up.[What do you think, Mal? Think the walls will contain a good blast?]
[THEY ARE SUFFICIENT]
[Good. Arcane Blast.]
I pointed Mal at the center of the rubble pile, thought my way through the necessary calculations... and then found myself at loose ends while the spell charged.
I must be getting better at this. Wouldn't be able to have this thought otherwise.
...say, why is it that everybody else says their arias out loud? There must be a practical reason for it, else everybody would just cast silently.
Spell's ready. [Fire.]
True to Mal's word, the building's walls were still standing afterwards... if only just. The pile of rubble in the middle of the building, though? Gone, totally.
Okay, now I just need to knock all the people out, and leave some evidence behind. [Magic Missile. Verify non-lethal payload.]
[PAYLOAD SET TO NON-LETHAL.]
[Good.]
I spent the next minute or so juggling numbers like mad. I'd put a bit more power than usual into that spell, so the cloud of missiles was hundreds strong; it took some time to lay in individual targets for each one of them... and a bit more time to fix the inevitable errors, and make sure that every single target got no less than two (and no more than three) missiles assigned to them.
When I finally gave the order, about thirty of my missiles pivoted in place, and then shot off towards the ground. A second later, another thirty missiles aimed and fired. Then another, a second after that. It took about eight seconds to finish shooting... enough time for me to figure out a few tweaks to the spell.
...so I'm always going to be limited by how fast I can calculate new vectors... but it looks like Mal can only transfer vectors in lots of a certain size. Gotta look into streaming vectors as I make them... and making them more efficient.
I took one last look (and a scan, just to be sure) of the area. They're all knocked out. Good. Now for the evidence.
[Mal, patch me through to Uno, please.]
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Aww, you can only launch thirty missiles at a time? Better fix that before you even think about a visit to Macross, young fellow me lad.
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Not so much 'launch thirty missiles at once' as 'upload thirty sets of targeting data simultaneously'. If I wanted to send out three hundred missiles on the same vector, I could- and it'd only count as one towards that limit.
It's a multitasking issue.
**********
A comm window flickered into being in front of me.
[DONE.]
"Uno? Hey, it's Imma. I've finished with the building Sein sent me to."
She nodded. "Good. I'll inform her shortly. We'll be expecting you."
I shook my head, smirking. "...not yet, please. See, I had an idea. Could you send me a data storage device with the files on what they were up to here? Preferably-"
She finished my thought. "...files connecting the Syndicate, the people working in that particular building, and the crimes they performed?"
I couldn't help but smile at that. "That's it exactly! It's such a pleasure to work with people who know what they're doing!"
I caught just a hint of a blush on Uno's cheeks. "Thank you, Imma!"
...
"...but why would you want that evidence? The building is destroyed, and the people in it..." Uno blinked. "...you didn't leave the people who worked there alive, did you?"
I grinned. "...yes, I did leave them alive. You have no idea how much-"
Okay, that's not a good look. "Imma, the assignment was to dispose of them! Letting them escape, even if you leave the TSAB the evidence-"
My grin got even wider. "Who said I let them escape?"
Uno blinked again, a puzzled look on her face. "You didn't?"
"Nope. Caught each and every one of them as they escaped, bound them, and then knocked them out." As I listed what I did, I ticked off each point on my fingers. "And once you send me that evidence- and do make it look like it came directly from their own machines, if you could- I'll plant it on one of the most connected of them, call the TSAB, and let them investigate."
I cupped my chin with a hand, tapping it with my thumb as though I were deep in thought. "Considering the 'anonymous' tip they received an hour ago, warning them of criminal activity in that very building, procedure would have them search and question everybody they found... and when they find the evidence..."
Uno smiled. "They'll put away every single one of them. I see."
I waved a finger back and forth. "You forgot the most important part, dear Uno. This should be enough to get an official investigation of the Syndicate going... which will put TSAB attention squarely on their public assets. That should make it harder for them to move about freely... and will put the TSAB in a position to do some of our work for us."
As I explained my reasoning, Uno's expression softened. The smile I got at the end of my spiel was... remarkably unrestrained, for her. "My, you really have thought this out, haven't you?"
I smirked. "Of course, dearest Uno. I could hardly let you down at a time like this."
...okay, I'm not sure if that was a chuckle or a giggle. "Well, far be it for me to get in your way, then. I'll let everybody know about your plan, so they can work it into theirs."
Uno turned away from the screen for a second, her hand reaching out to close it- and then stopped in mid-motion, turning instead to a different screen for a few seconds. With a white glow and a thrummm of power, a data solid appeared in midair in front of me; I reached out to grab it, fumbled the catch, and then had to dive for it when it fell out of the air.
When I stood back up, Uno was still there, her hand over her mouth. "I'm sorry, Imma. I'd almost forgotten to send you the data you requested. Good work out there." She was laughing that time- I'm sure of it. Smiling myself, I walked over to my collection of incapacitated Syndicate members, and began turning people over, looking for a likely patsy. ...ah, here we go. Bentley Schwartz, AKA "Blower". Wanted on a handful of minor charges, person of interest for a few more... let's just up that a bit, shall we?
I picked him up, carried him back over to the main entrance of the building, and propped him up in a sitting position, against the wall. Once I had him stable (a much harder thing to do than you might think; unconscious people tend to want to slump), I took one of his hands, laid it palm-up in his lap, and wrapped his fingers around the data solid Uno'd sent over. That should do it. Now to call in the local constabulary.
...well, that was remarkably easy. Heckuva lot simpler than calling 911 would be, and I bet that they'll arrive... oh. Crap.
This should be the point where I run.
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TSA Ground Forces member: "Who was that masked mage?"
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You know, I just worry that someone might start wondering if you're trying to be a little too helpful. :p
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Quote:blackaeronaut wrote:
You know, I just worry that someone might start wondering if you're trying to be a little too helpful. :p
Not sure what you mean... or, more precisely, who, and in what fashion.
If you mean the doctor/Numbers, that's explained. They know I don't kill unless it's necessary; that whole conversation was me justifying a way to keep those people alive while taking them out of circulation, and putting pressure on the real objective to 'sweeten the pot', as it were. As for why I'm willing to help them, there are reasons and then there are reasons, and one of those reasons explains why I get extra latitude on things that would normally indicate disloyalty.
One of the other reasons is that the doctor knows I'm not loyal to him- we're partners by contract, not by ideology. As long as I get what he wants done done, and don't screw it up, he doesn't care so much how I go about it. I don't really get the missions that have to be done one specific way (except when that way is basically "blow up all these guys' things"). This is intentional.
If you mean that somebody at the TSAB is going to connect the dots, wonder who did this, and why they did it... well, that's eventually going to happen. I've not considered the long-term ramifications of this nearly as well as I should, and I-the-author plan to use that. I did cover the short term; the only one there who saw anything of me was the guy I caught, and he didn't see enough to ID me before I knocked him out, so there's nothing there to connect this to me/JS. Also, the evidence is good- enough that they can prove it's not a setup, and justify going after the Syndicate. The real problem there is going to come in the post-case wrapup, when one of the people there says "Hey, somebody had to have gift-wrapped these guys... and somebody had to have destroyed all those bases... we should probably track those people down."
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...that... should be enough. Whew.
After I'd (finally) realized that I was standing at a crime scene after calling the local police, I'd nonchalantly walked back to my original arrival point. Yes, I was in a hurry to escape, but people always look for the guy in a hurry... and I really did need to use the same spot again. It makes throwing off pursuit far easier.
Anyway, I got off that planet all right, and went through my usual obfuscation routine. Twice, just to be sure, with a few extra loopbacks worked in there before I reappeared in the lab. !NotalonebackrightGETREAD-... oh.
As soon as I'd noticed a presence behind me, I started to turn, bringing Mal up into a guard position... only to see Cinque leaning up against a wall, smiling approvingly.
"Good reactions, Imma. I'm impressed." She beckoned me closer, and begin to walk to the door. "Walk with me. We need to talk." I hate it when people say that.
"You didn't kill them. Why?"
I looked over at Cinque. Is she genuinely curious? Interrogating me? Best be paranoid about it. "Because they were more useful alive, as a way to attract-"
Cinque held up one hand. "Please. Spare me your justifications. If you had wanted the TSAB to begin investigating the Syndicate for us, a building full of corpses would've sufficed." She whirled around, stepping into my path, and poked me in the chest with a finger. " You chose not to kill those people. You went to considerable effort to ensure that every one of them survived. Why?"
Could still be interrogating, but curiosity more likely. Honest answer not likely to cause problems.I sighed, letting a bit of weariness into my voice. "Because killing them wouldn't have been worth it."
Cinque blinked. "Not worth it?" ...it's not THAT absurd. Really, it isn't. "But it was clearly the optimum outcome. There'd be no chance of any of them coming back to attack us, and no chance of the TSAB discovering our existence early." She looked down, a bit of emotion coloring her words. "...and it would've been safer for you, as well..."
That's either an act, or it's kinda sweet of her. Wrong either way, but still."First," I said, holding up a finger, "I wasn't in any danger. There were no mages in the area- I checked. Second, yes, I could've done as you asked. There would've been no TSAB attention, no left-over Syndicate employees, and no risk of being revealed... at the cost of eighty-five non-combatant lives. Would it have been worth it?"
Cinque opened her mouth. Then stopped. Then closed it again. After a few seconds spent deep in thought, she spoke again- this time less sure of herself. "...I don't know."
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Wow. Tough room.
**********
Just after she finished saying that, as her voice was trailing off, I could see inspiration hit her. "...but how do you know? Why are you so certain that those people's lives were worth the risk?"
...that's... a good question. They were criminals, after all. Why did I bother to save them?"...I don't know, either." No, that's not quite right. "Actually, it's more like ' because I don't know'. I don't know that those people's lives were worth the risk, but I know that they're worth something. Every life is.
Every life has value to it... but there's no way of knowing how much." I scoffed- at myself, as much as the concept. "Heck, people's lives change all the time. Murderers repent. Saints give
into temptation. Useless geeks get put in a position to accomplish something meaningful. Who knows what those people will do in the future?"
Cinque gave me a look. I wasn't really sure how to interpret it- I could see some contemplation in there, but the rest was a jumble of emotions. "So your position is that the value of a life is impossible to define, and changes all the time? That, because of this, you should refuse to kill? I'm afraid I don't see how it's relevant to anything."
"Heh. Not quite. It's possible to define the value of any one life... all you have to do is end it." I snorted at that. "But if you do that, it can't get any better. My point is that lives have intrinsic value, but can also change in value. You can't quantify them... so you have to be very careful about how you spend them. Most people are pretty much what you'd expect... but you never know when one will surprise you."
I looked down at my hands, then turned one arm to look at Mal. "I guess I'm lucky. I've never had to end a life."
Cinque slowly looked up at me. She looked at me for a while, seemingly considering something... and then slowly, deliberately pulled me into a hug.
When she let go, after a good thirty seconds or so, it was with a look of utter seriousness. "You will. At some point, you will have to. You know that, don't you?"
...why do I feel the urge to crack a joke? Best keep things serious for now."Of course I do. I'm a combat cyborg now. Fighting is what I do... and everybody who fights has to be prepared to kill or be killed." I met Cinque's gaze, and smirked. "I'm not distorted enough to think I can save everyone, or avoid ever having to take a life. If I can save somebody, though, why not? If I can avoid killing somebody, why not?"
"Heh. Why not, indeed?" Cinque looked back at me; it might just be wishful thinking (when did I start craving external approval?), but I could swear I saw fondness in her expression. "Hold onto that ideal of yours, Imma, as best you can. I suspect it will be sorely tested in these next few months."
As Cinque left, I found myself in a pensive mood. She's right. It's always harder to beat an opponent than it is to just kill them. Sure, barrier jackets can absorb crazy levels of punishment, and I can make any of my shooting spells non-lethal on a whim, but what about elemental spells? What of gravity?
Well, Gaea's Love can be ramped up to 'just strong enough', Fencer's Blade defaults to 'taser' level, and the rest of my elemental spells are anti-drone or anti-fortress anyway. Guess that's not a problem... but what about gravity? What if I knock out somebody while they're flying?
Okay, I'll have to develop a rescue spell- some sort of fire-and-forget feather-fall, maybe. Something for later. For now, I think I need to work on my space-time manipulation. My live test subjects should've arrived by now.With that, I wandered down to the testing rooms.
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That's right, Imma! Put aside those puling moral quandaries and safety concerns, for the live test subjects have arrived, and now it is time for SCIENCE!
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"Anko, what you do in your free time is your own choice. Use it wisely. And if you do not use it wisely, make sure you thoroughly enjoy whatever unwise thing you are doing." - HymnOfRagnorok as Orochimaru at SpaceBattles
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Heh. I'd much rather appear to be a mad scientist than actually be one. Safer that way... and when you're developing transportation magic, safer is better.
**********
Lab rats? Literal albino *lab rats*?! Whatever I was expecting for test subjects, this wasn't it.
...oh, wait. Lab *mice*. Not any better, Doc.
Uno and I were down in my usual testing room, preparing for the next phase of my current project. She'd brought a set of sensors- medical-grade scanning and monitoring devices, she'd described them as- down to the room, and was setting them up at both ends of the test area while I examined the subjects.
I mean, sure. I don't recognize the other five types of animals. I can see the progression, though- each subject batch is progressively more complex than the last, culminating in something that looks an awful lot like a primate of some sort.
I also know that biological testing always benefits from an easily-understood, genetically stable subject... and that we used lab mice back at home for that. But here, too? Not some sort of eighteen-legged giant purple caterpillar from an alien planet? How disappointingly mundane of them.
"Imma? All sensors are online. You may begin testing at any time."
"All right. I'll begin casting now."
[Mal, link up to Uno's sensor systems. Designate sensor loci as source and destination points. On my mark, I want experimental spell FS-PT04 cast on the cage at the source point, calibrated to transfer it to the destination point. Allocate power as necessary.]
[UNDERSTOOD.] The spell began to power up- power draw's the same as PT01- interesting- forming an orb of colorless distortion in the air in front of Mal's barrel.
"Casting on my mark, Uno. Mark."
[CASTING FS-PT04.]
The spell flashed out towards my first test subject- one small cage, containing a single laboratory mouse. With a visible bending of space and a relatively loud WZZZZZZZ-PWWWW!, the cage disappeared.
A split instant later, it reappeared, motionless, two feet past (and one inch above) the target location, and clattered as it hit the ground shortly after.
"SQUEEEK!"
Heh. Good to see the mouse is still alive... and energetic, judging by how it's bouncing around the inside of that cage. I don't think it liked being dropped.
[Revise target point downward .75 inches, Malleus, and add that mass/distance/power combination to the data set. The algorithms are off.]
[REVISION SAVED. RECALCULATING NOW.]
While my Device crunched numbers, I watched Uno work... at least, I assumed that she was working. The sensors she'd set up weren't visibly doing anything- what, no lights? No humming noises? Star Trek lied to me!- and I couldn't see what was on her display from where I was, but she was definitely doing something.
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