Embers After Flames, Chapter 10.2

10.2

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The battle that followed was quick, violent, and utterly lethal. Six ACs versus the entire PCA army, and the former went through the latter like a hot knife through butter.

It was a chaotic clusterfuck. The PCA’s army had not been prepared to lose the Warship, and it showed. Cohesion had been lost, and the army had broken up into numerous different parts rather than fighting as a cohesive whole.

621 chose to go after an AH12B first. My Firekeepers split up into three groups, two of them going solo to deal with the other pair of Helicopters. The rest chose to go deal with the army.

The drones were barely worth mentioning. The Cavalry units were the real threat, with the Heavy Cavalry being piloted by those who were decently capable. Against the three highly developed ACs wielding a full complement of Coral weaponry, however, it just... wasn’t enough.

The ACs tore through them. Before the fury of Coral, their armour was worth less than nothing. Their mobility was their defence, but the ACs were faster, with pilots sharper and more refined. Forget 621, my Firekeepers had been dealing with odds like this for years.

As for their efforts, well, they certainly tried their hardest.

When the battle was over, 621 was fine, of course. Still wholly unscratched, as though all the weapons in the world were simply a concern for other people. My Firekeepers were fine, no major damage to the internals but more than a little surface damage from what had managed to get through the Primal Armour. Still, the moment the last of the PCA was down, the Firekeepers immediately turned and left, following the orders I’d given them to avoid involvement with 621 at all costs. 621 didn’t try to attack, and I heard Ayre tell 621 that the unknown ACs were friendly, so... if 621 was actually listening to her, great.

It was a mission complete for 621, and it was another perfect run. Walter got back into contact quickly, sending the transport over to pick 621 up before the PCA got any ideas about sending additional forces.

Of course, the deployment of Firekeepers where 621 could see them had its own effects. Especially with the fact that they had assisted 621 in battle, providing 621 with a rather thorough amount of first person data gathered by LOADER 4. In turn, that meant that when 621 got back to base, Walter was able to review it.

He called Carla very quickly, and then all of RaD started to go over with a fine-toothed comb.

“What the hell is this?” Carla asked. “It’s like Pulse Shielding but it uses Coral?”

“Judging by the data, it’s technically not Pulse-based at all.” One of her underlings stated. “It’s a... Coral particle field, wrapping around the entire mech. When something hits it, the field energizes, vaporising physical matter while scattering and dispersing energy weapons... It’s really elegant.”

“Forget that.” Another said. “What I want to know is what the hell is deploying it? The NGI 028 is an entire Back Unit, but every single one of these ACs has its own shielding.”

“It’s not behaving the same way, either.” A third mentioned. “Look at the particle field density. It increases the longer it goes unused. It would take multiple continuous hits to deplete it. It’s not Pulse Shielding, it’s some kind of... regenerating ablative armour.”

Listening in on that lot talking about my work was... quite something.

“Who cares about the shielding, look at that thing!” Somebody said, pointing at a clip playing on the screen. It was, incidentally, a clip of the Chainsaw being deployed against the Warship. “I don’t know what the fuck that thing is, but I want to take two of them and strap them to an AC.”

Oh, don’t we all.

“I’ve never seen something go through high-grade armour like that!” She continued. “It’s not like a Warhip’s hull is thin, but that thing went straight through it.”

“You can see it cooling down for nearly eight full seconds.” Another stated. “But it does look like it has a continuous low-power mode?”

And so it continued. For hours, the group poured over every single second of the footage, dissecting and analyzing every single thing they could see. Weapons were speculated over, the data calculated from what they were seeing. Speculation as to precisely how much we were capable of was rampant, even as they discussed all the potential strengths and weaknesses...

I could tell that Carla was impressed by it. She was trying very hard to be annoyed by it, but it wasn’t quite working.

I just listened in, taking the unknowing criticism given by genuine experts in their fields, and filing it away for the next time I went on a designing spree. I doubted it would be any time soon, not right now in so close to the final acts, but later on... That’d be a different story, wouldn’t it?

In between all of that, however, a few words were occasionally spoken about 621 and the role that the Hound had played in things. Mostly it was admiration for 621’s skill, which was entirely fair in my opinion.

But then one of them said something that caught my attention.

“Hey, Walter.” He said, getting an acknowledging grunt from the man in question. “You said that your Hound said they were allied ACs?”

“Yes.” Walter answered.

“What did your Hound say, specifically?”

Oh?

Walter gave a ‘hmm’. After a few seconds he spoke up again. “I asked 621 why there was no conflict. 621 sent this: ‘Voice said ‘Firekeepers are friendly ACs’.’. Why do you ask?”

“When did you tell 621 what they were named?”

Oh ho! Finally! Someone finally pointed that part out!

Walter stayed silent for a few seconds. When he spoke, I could hear the realization in his voice, too. “I didn’t.”

There was a pause in the conversation.

“What do you mean ‘You didn’t.’?” Carla asked, sharply. “I sure as hell didn’t mention it, and 621 didn’t talk to anybody else here. How does your Hound know the name?”

“The voice.” Walter murmured, just loud enough to catch the microphone. “Of all the things-” He let out an aggravated noise. “I thought it was just mind games!”

...

Come on, Walter. Seriously?

“What?” Carla asked.

“Listen.” He said, and a few seconds later, the conversation I’d had with him in the aftermath of the Coral detonation started playing through the speakers.

The camera gave me a pretty good view of Carla’s face, and how it went from annoyance, to confusion, to concern, and then to something else entirely.

“Not just a voice, then.” Walter said, after it was finished.

Carla was still. “Send me all the reports. We need them now.”

It took her nearly fifteen minutes to get through it all. She was looking at more than just text documents; she went through 621’s vital signs, all the activity that had been recorded by 621’s neural lace. A long, complete, and thorough record.

She worked nearly in silence. The rest of them discussed in low tones.

Then, finally, Carla stood up.

Anybody else might have waited, stopped to gather more information, tried to sort things out on their own.

But Carla had always been an impulsive sort.

She didn’t wait. She just walked over to the terminal, and started pressing buttons.

A few seconds later, I received a comm request through my systems.

“Fine then.” Carla spoke, with all of RaD listening in. “Let’s talk about whatever this is.”

Even after all this time... Well, why should I expect anything else, really?

“Oh, hi Carla. Yes, I’m doing great. You are as well? Excellent.” I said. “So good to catch up. We haven’t talked in weeks.”

“Yeah yeah yeah whatever.” Carla gave an annoyed sigh. “Look, I’m not going to bother socializing with a person I’ve never actually seen, especially since this isn’t a social call.”

“You have seen me, but you apparently still haven’t figured that one out.” I hummed. “Alright, go ahead. How may I help you today, Carla?”

“It’s 621, Walter’s Hound.” She says, as though the clarification is at all necessary. “According to Walter, 621 has been hearing voices-”

“A voice.” I corrected.

“- and we just discovered that this so-called voice happened to provide 621 with information that nobody else had mentioned.” She continued seamlessly. “Care to explain that one?”

“Well, if I were to be looking at things from your perspective, I’d have no choice but to conclude that ‘this so-called voice’ is, in fact, a bit more than just a hallucination brought forth as a side effect of Augmentation.” I said calmly, before making a point to scoff. “But you already knew that, of course. You are, ultimately a scientist, and rejecting the data isn’t your habit.”

“Just- Just explain, would you?” Carla growled. I could hear the frustration in her voice, briefly boiling over...

And yet... no. It wasn’t quite right.

“It is as it is.” I said, lowering my tone into something more sedate. “621 is not suffering from schizophrenia, hallucinations, or any form of mental malady. 621, at least by the standards of Fourth Generation Augments, remains fully sane and stable. The ‘voice’ is a person, and 621 has been put in Contact with her through the circumstances that the both of them encountered.”

“How?” Carla stressed. “And who? Because I’ve been reading the reports, and it doesn’t make any damned sense as to what’s happening. 621 is an entire continent away from the Delta colony, any Synchronicity would have broken by now, so that shouldn’t be a vector for information transfer, and there’s no AGI that ever managed to function on pure Coral without a translation unit.”

“... You are so close to the truth, you know that?” I asked.

She’d just laid it out, and she hadn’t even realized. It’s like watching a person being one single step away from finishing a problem and they’re still just not putting it together...

“She is not an AGI. That is all I shall say on the matter.”

“What, you’re not going to explain?” Carla asked. “What are you expecting? We obviously can’t let this continue. A complete unknown meddling with things?”

“You won’t risk doing anything to 621 during this current crisis.” I refuted her. “And you are far too curious to not try and figure it out before you try to get rid of her. With that said, don’t worry. I’m only planning on holding my silence for a bit longer.”

“Care to stop dancing around the subject?”

“I would wager it will take a few days at most, judging by how Arquebus is acting at the moment.” I continued. “You have until then to put the final clues together on your own. Afterwards, I shall explain everything... And hopefully, that will be enough to convince the lot of you.”

“There aren’t many things you could be trying to convince us of, you know?” Carla’s voice suddenly flipped back to her normal tone. Her performance was done, it seems. “Is this still about Nagai?”

“Everything that happens on Rubicon ultimately comes back to Nagai sooner or later.” I responded. “You know why.”

“We’ve had this conversation, yes.” Carla agreed. “I stand by what I said back then. It was not an easy choice.”

“Nagai’s choice burnt five light years in every direction.” I said. “He did it in order to end the ‘threat’ he foresaw in the mutation of Coral. He was, and I have little issue admitting this, a spectacularly intelligent man. Well-learned. His decision was based on hard data, and that was the only reason it could convince you. But there’s one problem with his decision, disregarding the morality and ethics of the consequences.”

“And that is?”

“He did not know everything.” I stated. “He knew much. Of all those who lived on this world, I’d dare to say that there was only one person who knew more about Coral than he did. But those critical little pieces of information he was missing? They change things.”

I paused for a second.

“At least, I hope they will.” I said. “Perhaps you’ll agree. Perhaps not. Either way, as I said to Walter, when the time comes, we’ll all have choices to make.”

I closed the channel.

I was honestly kind of expecting to try and call back, but she didn’t bother. Just leaned back in her chair and raised an eyebrow at everyone else present in the meeting.

“Well?” Carla asked. “We’ve just been challenged. Time to figure this shit out.”