Embers After Flames, Chapter 9.0

9.0

+++

I told Flatwell first, of course. Of everybody in the RLF, he more than anyone was the person who could properly make use of the information.

When he’d gotten to the combat footage, he’d closed his eyes, breathed deeply, and then released a very emphatic ‘ffuuuuuck’. I felt it in my non-existent bones.

Seeing it did, at least, leave him fully willing to let me handle that particular matter, though, so... victory?

It was actually Branch who got back to me next, Raven’s Operator calling me mere minutes after I’d dipped from the meeting with Flatwell.

“This has to be a joke, surely?” She spoke those words the instant the connection opened. “That didn’t actually happen, right?”

“It is my regret to inform you that when man makes plans, the universe laughs.” I chuckled.

She released a noise, disgust and annoyance in equal measure by my reckoning. “And who is this rather brazen mercenary, stealing my partner’s license?”

“Well, I hear they go by ‘Raven’, now.” Ooh, I could feel the glare even across the audio-only channel. Incredible. “In truth, however? It looks like the license’s new holder is Handler Walter’s newest.”

“A Hound?” She asked, a hint of curiosity burgeoning. “I thought they all died.”

“They arrived today- barely twenty minutes before they took your partner’s license, as a matter of fact.” I offered her a small piece of information. “After the previous three died attacking a Watchpoint facility, it’s not surprising that the PCA suspended the licenses because of it. Walter needed a replacement. Your partner’s just happened to be the most fitting out of those available.”

I heard a brief, considering hum from her. “G7 Hakra. Corporate License, easily traced. Monkey Gordo, no Arena ranking, unlikely to get good jobs from Walter’s normal clientele. What was wrong with Kirks?”

“It expired three days ago.” I explained. “It looks like he just stopped paying the account.”

“That’s... no, unfortunately, that checks out for Kirk.” She sighed. “Just luck, then?”

“So it seems.” I told Carla, Carla told Walter, but I’m not going to let that particular detail out yet. Or, indeed, probably ever. “Look on the bright side. At the very least, the PCA is going to end up chasing someone in a completely different direction.” And they’re going to die for it, too. Then again, it hadn’t been any different for the real Raven, so... Not much had actually changed.

“And the name has been taken by a handler’s dog. It doesn’t fit.” She spoke.

Ah, these idealogues... I chuckled. “Take a seat and watch for a bit. Who knows, you might just end up surprised.” I hadn’t shown them any of 621’s combat footage, admittedly. They didn’t have the advantage of that particular knowledge.

“That is unnecessarily dramatic.” Raven’s Operator commented, but she sighed a moment later. “Still, we do need time. A distraction can’t hurt.”

The link closed, and since I was done there, I moved on to the next step of things.

Before I could actually send any jobs to 621, I’d have to wait for ALLMIND to validate the license and reactivate them. Walter would no doubt begin advertising again afterwards, but hey, if they’re going to use a stolen license, I’m going to take advantage of it.

To do that, I needed a job ready for 621. Making sure that the RLF was the first to hire the merc was going to be pretty critical to this side of things.

That meant that I had to go talk to the RLF’s mercenary liaisons. There were a few who knew the secret, and it was better in this particular case that I have someone else do the actual mission briefings.

It didn’t particularly matter which one I recruited for the task, so it was fairly easy for me to just say fuck it and grab Arshile.

He’s been my usual go-to for the last year or so. There was no grand reason for this, he was just the boy Ziyi was sweet on, and that meant we’d interacted more than most. It’s funny, after all, to tease the hell out of them.

With him as my frontman and face, what I needed next was a job for 621 to do. It had to be something decently opportunistic- and not something you’d just give to a newbie, either. I needed Walter to believe that Raven already had a reputation with the RLF, after all.

We can pretend to come to the realization otherwise fairly quickly, of course, but right now, on basically the day of the theft?

More useful otherwise.

It was fortunately not particularly difficult to find an excuse for the job, at least. After having lost both Hakra and his attendants, Balam was undoubtedly pretty curious about what the hell had happened here, and their scout squad was already underway. Since 621 had yet to leave the area, I had Arshile record the briefings while I put together the visuals.

When ALLMIND reported the license reactivation, it was easy enough to send it off.

It was a fairly simple briefing, all considered.

“Raven. There’s a mission available for you, if you’re free.” Arshile’s voice came alongside the briefing, backed with all the pretty little visuals I’d made. “As you may know, G7 Hakra recently took a number of Balam MTs into the area and engaged in battle with us. Hakra fell in battle, but Balam wants more information. They’ve sent a small army out to comb over the contaminated city, and attempt to piece together the full details of what happened there. We’d like you to make sure they don’t succeed.”

Translation: Kill them all.

“We’re aware that it’s likely a bit below your skill, but you’re the only remotely friendly group in the area, and we’re willing to pay well for it.” Arshile’s voice continued, after a few moments where the visuals played. “As per usual, we’ve attached a full intel briefing separately. Thank you for your consideration, Raven.”

I’d give it a mission or two before springing the ‘we know you’re not Raven’ thing.

To my pleasure, we got a quick response to the offer, and that response was an affirmative. Since I was still connected with Grid 135’s systems, I didn’t have to do anything more to keep an eye on the situation.

621, already in the area, dealt with the job with the same unnerving, beautiful efficiency that had been deployed against the AH12B. Balam’s investigation squad posed no more of a challenge to the AC than a blade of grass would pose to a lawnmower. The result was about the same, too, save that 621 wasn’t nearly so ungraceful.

It was downright preternatural, to be honest. 621 acted upon the world in a manner more befitting a natural disaster, utterly unstoppable, but no calamity had 621’s precision.

In any case, the job was completed just fine, and we paid promptly and well. I had Arshile leave another message for 621. A simple thanks, and an acknowledgement of our gratitude that Raven had elected to break from their schedule in order to assist us.

Once 621 went back to their transport helicopter, Walter gave them another job immediately. Arquebus, or Schneider more specifically in this particular situation, had sent out an open call for anyone to take. They wanted Dafeng’s MTs, which were present inside the area, gone. Their open call said it was something about Grid 135 being important to the efforts to conduct Coral surveys in the area, and while I had the data to say that this was not technically untrue, I also had the data to say that this was mostly bullshit, and it was just opportunism to get rid of their rival.

621 answered regardless, and Dafeng lost their MTs.

Answering that call -and doing so spectacularly well during the mission itself- put 621 on the corporate radar. It also gave us the perfect excuse we needed to ‘realize’ that it wasn’t the Raven we knew.

As such, in the aftermath, I placed a call to Carla.

“Hello, Carla.” I greeted. “I found out what you wanted that info about the mercenaries for.”

“You accusing me of something?”

“No. I’m simply saying that you did your colleague’s son a favour.” I allowed a tinge of amusement to colour my tone. “I shall also say that it backfired in a particularly interesting way, but that’s not something that you need to worry about right now.”

“What do you want?”

“Nothing too important. I simply need you to pass a message to Walter.” I stated. “His newest Hound has raised some interest. There are matters coming up that his Hound will be quite useful in.”

“He’s a Handler.” Carla pointed out. “Just hire them as mercs if you want them that badly. Also, he has a new Hound? What happened to the others?”

“Their jobs.” I said, drily. “You two really need to talk more often. The other thing I want you to tell him is that the license he picked up is a bit hotter than he realizes.” I continued, ignoring her words. “The way that things are going, he should expect a few problems in the future.”

“... What, actually free advice, here?

“It happens every now and then.” I spoke. “One last thing. Have you figured it out, yet?”

“I still don’t have any damned idea what you’re on about, no.”

“It’s literally staring you in the face, and it kind of amuses me that you’ve still failed to notice.” Would that I could smile... “But, don’t worry. There ought to be an upset soon enough. Perhaps you’ll learn something.”

Perhaps not.

A few days passed before 621 took up another job. Like the last, this one was also an open call to anybody nearby. A job from Arquebus directly this time, and quite a bit more dangerous than most considering the target was an AC.

TESTER AC, actually. The one, famously meme’d mission, where you’re given the target of an AC with a test pilot who’s there to deliver it to Balam.

It was the same in this life, but I had the benefit of additional knowledge. The TESTER was part of an outreach program that ALLMIND ran, another of her little mercenary support initiatives. She provided sample AC assemblies to beginners, the people who had the makings of AC pilots but hadn’t had the chance. One of the tricks of this was that, since ACs were difficult machines to adapt to for unaugmented pilots, she would go ahead and optimize them for ease of use so that the prospective pilot would be able to dip their feet in the waters.

The fact that this pilot had been chosen was proof enough that ALLMIND saw potential. I suspected that she’d probably been right about it, too, buuuut.

I didn’t get to see it. He was a newbie to AC Piloting, his opponent was 621, and he’d had no idea that 621 was present.

He had been intact, and then he hadn’t been. I’m not entirely sure he’d even had the time recognize that he’d been under attack, unaugmented as he was.

In any case, that was another job completed, and, incidentally, the end of any work in this region. The Contaminated City area and its surroundings were now fairly firmly under the control of Arquebus, and 621 had done most of the work for it. Walter and 621 left the area shortly afterwards.

A few days later, I started to see a massive spike in the megacorporation’s resource flows, something that inevitably heralded a serious effort on their behalfs. Spending a bit of time snooping around quickly led to me finding out what was about to happen, how it was planned to happen, and what both megacorps wanted.

None of it was good for us, of course, so I decided to make it really bad for them.

I made a call directly to Walter, skipping the usual medium of Carla for once.

“Walter.” I greeted. “I’ve got a few jobs for your Hound.”