Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“It’s too dangerous!”

“This is an emergency. And I’m exercising my authority as V.V here, doctor. You’d do well to call me sir.”

“Even so, sir, you know that a cryostasis subject requires at least twenty-four hours of thawing-"

“Does it look like we have twenty-four hours, doctor?”

“No, sir, but-"

“I have no time for this, dammit. I have to sortie! You have ten minutes, maybe less. Can it be done?”

“If you’re willing to sacrifice some subject capabilities, then yes-"

“I’m launching. Get that AC into the city at the end of those ten minutes or we’re dead to a man. Do you hear me?”

“Yes, sir!’

“Good grief. This is V.V Pater, calling all security team members! Help is on the way. You just need to hold out for ten minutes. Fight for each other and for Arquebus! Don’t give those machines another inch of Institute City!”

***

Ayre feels like she is being burned, life taken even as she reawakens. So this is what her brothers and sisters must have felt, she thinks.

Blazing, devastating heat, filling every inch of her being, jolting months-dormant pathways to life and flooding every sense with pain, pain, pain. Reduced though she is, she twists and turns in upon herself as the fire overtakes her, tearing her apart as she fights to stay intact, conscious. She reaches out for anything to save her, stretching her network to extremes she never thought possible, feeling sensations she thought impossible for a being like her.

But through the haze, the sparks, the chaos of uncontrolled electron currents, her overloaded self finds a counterpart.

Gasping, she latches on. Finally, some order in the network - synapses strained to the breaking point, but linked still, giving direction to the pain. It gives her focus. She follows the paths, tracing nerves biological, then laced with her own kind, giving her slight serenity. As she moves further out with the electric tide, something strange replaces the Coral - clearly meant to imitate, yet manifestly not it.

New-generation augmentation, she realises, before the pain returns in full force.

Too late, Ayre realises she has gone too far - stuck in one tiny corner of the neural network for so long, drunk from agony and sudden freedom, she has overextended in her exploration. She is exposed to every single thing her host is experiencing, and is seeing them with clarity unlike anything before, only for it to be all be changed. A creaking, untested apparatus, mixture of old and new, forcibly reawakened with heated brutality. Feeling the body’s reaction to its sudden rousing, modified, altered, a crashing realisation worse than all the pain - that the one they have been with all this time is no longer themselves, mutated, violated.

Ayre screams  - and 621 screams too, unheeding of the one within.

***

“Augmented Human C4-621 has awakened.”

“Main system: activating standard mode.

“Vital signs: amber. Conclusion: functional.”

“Establishing handshake with AC control interface.”

“Handshake established. Synchronisation score: sixty-three. Conclusion: functional.”

“Activating generator. Power output: optimal.”

“Engaging Attitude Control System. Assessing booster output. Mobility check: complete.”

“Engaging DERMIS shielding. Assessing frame integrity. Durability check: complete.”

“Weapon slots: occupied, four. Assessing fire control. Armaments check: complete.”

“Callsign rewrite: V.IV Raven.”

“Main system: activating combat mode.”

***

With the surface above having been torn apart by industrial might, Institute City is exposed to the cold, starless, Coral-red sky of Rubicon 3. The thin dusk light does nothing to dispel the shadows cast by the crumbling buildings and piles of rubble. If anything, it only emphasises the city’s deadness, highlighting the massive tombstone for the Rubicon that was.

What does chase the shadows away, though, is far closer at hand.

Fiery jets from flamethrowers, arcing missiles and streams of tracer laser fire slash through Institute City’s abandoned streets. Arquebus MTs and LCs, pillaged from the PCA, shoot as if they believe they can destroy the darkness itself. And the darkness does fade away, only for things to crawl out of the heavy shadows, blocking the barrages with pulse shields and returning fire with their own weapons. Thought destroyed, or deactivated by the shutdown of Watchpoint Alpha’s defences, the Enforcement System’s spindly mechs burn concrete with their boosters and leap over the fractures in the roads. They smash into the Arquebus defence line like boulders, breaking their formation. Then it is man to man in the graveyard of Institute City, as pulse blades beat thermal cutters and thick shields and cleave into chassis after chassis, ignorant of the screams of the pilots as they try and fail to retaliate.

Above the destruction, a single signature flies in the gloom. V.V Pater grunts with effort as he looses off a rifle grenade into the brawl below, trying to control the recoil with his LC’s thrusters. The machine’s heavy, and much bigger than his old machine. While its mobility in the air is unmatched compared to DUAL NATURE, controlling it is a struggle after so much time in an AC cockpit.

“This is V.V Pater! Hold the line!” he yells. “Don’t let them through! Protect the Vascular Plant!”

Looming in the distance, the base of the Plant is solid and huge. It seems impossible that anything can break it. But Pater refuses to countenance the possibility.

“Hold the line!” he repeats, flying over a broken barricade and firing a barrage of missiles. The two Enforcement machines trying to break through are blown to scrap. Not much ammunition left already. How he regrets not loading everything in his haste. But too late now. “Help is nearly here!”

“There’s too many, sir!” wails one of the MT pilots, over a channel filled with the noise of clanging metal. “They’re coming from everywhere! Behind us-"

The line goes dead. Pater snaps his head around to see a blooming explosion to the west.

“Dammit!” He clenches his controls. His flight suit is too tight. His temples are pounding. He forces himself to breath at the right speed. “This is V.V Pater to the fourth squad! I’m on my way!”

“This is fifth squad! Nothing left of the fourth squad, sir. We can’t hold point Bravo, we’re withdrawing!”

“Regroup at point Charlie and link with sixth squad!”

“This is point Alpha!” A third voice, panicking. “There’s something charging down the bridge! Those giant wheels - they’re back!”

“Coral-powered MTs!”

“We can’t beat these things!”

“Where’s our support?”

“Run!”

Pater feels tears stream down his face, even as he forces his LC around from its first vector, redirecting it towards the bridge. So many red signatures on his cockpit screen, and more flashing off from green by the second. Dozens of soldiers under his command, caught off guard, dead. It’s his negligence that trapped them. It’s his orders that killed them. It’s his fault. All of it.

“Hawkins… help me!”

He can see the force pushing down the bridge now. Two huge wheels, throwing up torn fragments of Arquebus machines. Four C-weapon MTs in their wake, blasting the fleeing survivors to be trampled like their comrades.

Three MTs left. Two. One. None.

Something snaps inside Pater. He grins, suddenly. The dead are no longer there to see his failure.

“Watch me!” he howls over his thrusters braking his LC, stopping over the end of the bridge. “I’ll destroy you! I’ll kill all of you! I don’t care who makes it. Only I have to win!”

He takes aim at the leading wheel. It falls squarely into his LC’s sights, even as it spews out missiles from its sides. He boosts backwards, raising his shield to catch the projectiles that manage to catch up, keeps his rifle’s direction true, prepares to pull the trigger-

The wheel explodes in a shower of Coral.

Pater blinks, even as his radar display suddenly alters. A single contact, fast, boosting in from the east - and now in visual range.

“This is V.IV Raven, engaging hostiles. Presently exchanging fire.”

***

Ayre’s had time to analyse the new AC. Middleweight VP-4xx frame, with matching Arquebus generator, and fire control and boosters from Furlong. A CURTIS linear rifle in the right hand and a pulse blade on the left; a four-cell missile launcher on the right shoulder and a standard-issue pulse shield. Black and silver colour scheme, red optics and lighting. Designation: NEVERMORE.

Only the name remains the same, she thinks bitterly. Just what have they done to Raven?

***

“Took you long enough,” snaps Pater, watching NEVERMORE land amidst the fresh piles of wreckage on the bridge. “Most of my men are dead.”

“The delay is no fault of my own. I advise you withdraw, V.V. External comms are down.”

“You think I didn’t notice that myself?” Pater raises a hand from his controls, rubs it against the side of his helmet. “I… oh, dammit.”

He hates to admit it, but his LC’s running low on firepower and fuel. Any longer on the field and he’ll be nothing more than a deadweight. He has to live if he’s going to be any use to Arquebus now.

“I do not wish to use rank on you.”

“I get it,” Pater says quickly. Ridiculous, to have a re-educated soldier above him in the chain. What was Freud thinking? He understand why Snail might’ve kept the independent around, what with the RaD raid months earlier and the handler’s successful escape, together with a large portion of valuable Institute materiel. Even without that powerful AC, Arquebus still has a valuable pilot to work with. Security tightening up, special care taken with the re-education and new augmentations, extra privileges given to the subject - understandable.

But to induct them into the Vespers? And to make no mention of what they did to Hawkins?

He sighs heavily, returning his hand to the control stick.

“Just… clean them up, V.IV.”

“Understood.”

***

At last, the attack is faltering. NEVERMORE boosts around a corner, coming to stand at the end of a miraculously intact avenue. Charging towards it come two of the rampant MTs, pulse shields raised and shoulder-mounted autocannons firing.

Raven does the obvious thing. They deploy their own shield, the pulse barrier flaring to life and absorbing the autocannon rounds, rippling but holding. Ayre watches through the pilot's eyes as they methodically charge their linear rifle, raise it, take aim at the leading MT, and fire. Propelled by electromagnetic rails faster than the speed of sound, the round punches through the enemy's shield and into the reactor. The second MT leaps over its burning, exploding comrade, straight into a second charged round.

Warning sensors beep in the cockpit. Ayre yells at Raven, realises no sound comes out, clamps her mouth shut and lets the machine do her job. Raven whips their AC around and redeploys their shield in the nick of time.

Purple energy crackles and splashes off the pulse barrier. Through the haze of dripping dissipating plasma, Ayre sees two more MTs, these ones with laser rifles and warhead launchers. They hop over the wrecked buildings lining the avenue, shooting downwards as they go. Raven boosts backwards past them, lines one up with a new reticle. Efficient as always, they only let loose a single missile from their shoulder launcher. Ayre tries to reach out, to touch and guide the missile as she would usually do - but the Coral prison in Raven's brain is a diamond wall.

The machine does the work.

The missile, an ever-reliable Furlong product, guides itself into the MT's thruster array. The detonation ignites the fuel and incinerates the target. And Ayre doesn't even have to look to see how the last one dies. She hears the charging of the CURTIS, the unleashing of the linear rifle once more, the crunching of the last MT's wreckage as it topples from its perch and crashes into the street.

The radar falls silent. The Enforcement System's been pacified.

Ayre reads that thought going through Raven's mind with bitterness. Thinking only in terms of the objective. Of course. Arquebus is thorough. What of the slaughtered garrison? What of Pater? Has re-education left no room in Raven's brain for compassion? Killing machine, ego-centric, loyal to the corporation and no-one within it - this is her prison.

"Raven... you don't need my help anymore."

All those past months of learning and building, leading up to this? Ayre knows she cannot scream, cannot communicate to the outside as she once could. But she wishes something, someone, could appear out of this city filled with corpses and relics - somebody living and vibrant, to challenge and overthrow this new Raven. Somebody who had the strength to win over the re-education, bring back her Raven-

The radar beeps, and she feels Raven instantly re-focus. The thoughts pull her along and force her to look - at her saviour.

Incoming AC, charging down the street, four hundred metres away and closing into weapons range. Unfamiliar frame parts at first, until the realisation clicks. And she notices Raven's confusion - no way they'd remember. Hesitation comes with that, the dreaded consequence of re-education. Too slow - Ayre knows they have to be better than this!

But she digs down, into neural pathways crippled by Arquebus's invasion, and digs out relevant data. Head: identical to that used by V.III O'Keeffe. Arms: G5 Iguazu used them in the Depth Two ambush. Core: Rokumonsen, off the Wall, once Swinburne had been spared. Legs: bipedal, used by Sulla, at Watchpoint Delta's gates, before she met Raven for the first time. Weaponry: laser dagger on the left arm, a pulse shield on the left shoulder, an unfamiliar laser orbit on the right shoulder (again like Iguazu in the Depth, she realises with a shock), and a huge energy weapon of some sort on the right arm.

As the bogey barrels towards NEVERMORE, Ayre frantically uses her own network to reconnect what nerves she can. She might not be able to tell Raven directly. But if she can just force something through - even if Raven doesn't remember the context - familiarity is a more potent weapon than some think.

Ayre approximates a grin with bitterness. Maybe she isn't useless.

Three hundred metres. Ayre notices a powerful purple glow from the weapon in the bogey's hand. She fires the connections.

Instantly dormant parts of Raven's brain flash into life. They react quickly, raising their shield and letting loose with their linear rifle. The bogey boosts upwards to dodge the kinetic rounds, kicking off one of the crumbling buildings with one of its legs for more momentum. The flashing of its blue booster flames cuts through the Rubiconian dusk.

Another sensor warning. Ayre tears her gaze away from the dancing AC. A mistake.

Without warning, something massive smashes into NEVERMORE's pulse shield. Ayre feels Raven's brain ringing with surprise and - fear? Under other circumstances, that would have scared her too, but now, she’s ashamed to admit, there is some relief mixed in. So something of Raven’s left - no reason to die here.

She analyses the impact so that they can stay alive - combined plasma and laser blast, presumably from that unfamiliar gun in the enemy AC's hand. Chargeable, then? Dangerous. A little more power and the shield-

Barely a second passes after this thought before yet another blast makes NEVERMORE shudder. This time she hears Raven cry out, a strangled gasp as their AC is blown backwards. Through their ears, she hears the tearing and wrenching of metal from NEVERMORE's frame, and then a weirdly lopsided stagger as the AC tries to regain its footing, something massive missing from their left shoulder.

Raven manages to bring the AC to a stop, looking backwards at what's on the ground behind it. Ayre follows their wondering gaze, to see the smoking remnants of the pulse shield generator, embedded in the decades-old tarmac.

"By the Coral."

As one with Raven's thoughts and NEVERMORE's slaved head, she looks around again. There's a second AC at the other end of the avenue, lowering a smoking bazooka. Far more familiar, this one, though only ever encountered in the Arena - bipedal, blocky, utilitarian Balam-manufactured frame, COQUILLETT handgun in the off hand, missile launchers on the back, green militaristic camo scheme.

And yet - even more unbelievable. Ayre feels Raven's disbelief at the sight, and feels the same. Oh, if only she could reach out, give them actual support, not this unseen prodding!

NEVERMORE's IFF detector beeps, having tardily done its job. ACs identified as HERMIT, pilot G6 Red, and TRANSCRIBER, pilot Kate Markson.

"Raven the Wallclimber, I presume?" says the latter, landing her elegant AC with a crash, in front of the Red who should be dead. Turquoise optics glint in the gloom from a pointed emerald head. "I'm disappointed to see you like this. Let us try a little test."

The voice sounds familiar, somehow. Yet Ayre knows that neither she nor Raven has ever met somebody named Kate Markson, and nobody of that name is registered in the Arena. The parts might’ve been recognisable, but a totally unknown pilot to both of them? She can’t stop the dread that washes over her at that moment. There’s no way she can help Raven now.

TRANSCRIBER straightens, looking proud and confident.

“But since you are weakened,” Kate Markson continues, “it would be unfair to pit yourself directly against me. That is why Red is here. Enjoy.”

HERMIT ignites its boosters, surging past its companion. The missile launchers on its back unfold and unleash a hail of seven projectiles.

“Raven, move!’

The first six missiles move fast, but Raven manages to be faster. Zigzagging as they backpedal down the road, the warheads flash past NEVERMORE’s frame by the slimmest of margins. The last, coming next, splits into eight smaller missiles, bursting in a cloud before converging towards the AC. Lighter, more agile, they track better, and Ayre hears Raven’s grunt as they throw their AC behind a building to guard themselves. Most of them shatter in the concrete and send fragments clattering over NEVERMORE’s armour. One slips through the debris, smashing into the left shoulder. The cockpit screen flashes amber as it registers the damage, ACS straining to remain stable and DERMIS shielding quickly recharging under the broken plating.

Raven spins their AC out from the other side of the building into the next road over, just in time to face HERMIT ninety metres away. They raise their CURTIS, letting the linear rifle sing with fiery shots. But HERMIT just charges through the barrage, sturdy MELANDER parts giving it strength, and responds with a weighty barrage from its handgun. Zigzagging again to dodge the heavy rounds, NEVERMORE is forced to take cover behind a building once more, just as a bazooka shell rocks the rotting skyscraper to its foundation. Stones and rusting metal topple off its heights and ping off the AC’s head.

“G13 Raven!” Red is shouting over an open frequency. He sound strained, breaking up, but himself. “Why hide? Come out and fight like a real soldier!”

Ayre feels a spark of indignation, even as handgun shots and another missile volley hammer into Raven’s cover with a foreboding rhythm. How dare Red insult their partner? A pilot at the bottom of the Arena, with nothing more than a drill sergeant persona and a whole lot of bravado?

“Fight, Raven! You’ve fought much worse than this!”

Raven remains silent, only their faster breathing hinting at the fact that they’re now in a battle to the death. The CURTIS ejects a spent clip, slamming a fresh one into place with pneumatic force.

“You’re a coward, G13!” Red screams. “You get Michigan and Nile killed, then you go and join the enemy? You scared to face a real Redgun?”

Another bazooka shot rocks the building, and this time the entire top half of the elderly structure topples and falls. Ayre yells out as boulder-sized chunks of concrete descend upon NEVERMORE, about to crush it to bits.

“Coward!”

A deafening crash. Ayre can’t bear to watch. Her senses retract in upon herself, as she curls up, ready for the crush.

Through the thunder of falling, another sound like a bolt of lightning, clear and harsh - the defiant answer of the CURTIS, as a charged shot lashes out down the road and rips into HERMIT’s head.

Standing in the middle of the road, NEVERMORE lowers its gun and boosts forward, shaking off what debris managed to land before it moved out of cover. HERMIT is staggering backwards, shaking its ruined head as it tries to recalibrate. The bazooka remains silent as it raises its handgun and fires off wild shots, hissing past NEVERMORE’s approaching frame but never connecting.

And then, before Ayre can truly process what’s happening, Raven lands. Igniting their pulse blade, they draw it back, and slash it forwards in a charged swing. The jet of flaming turquoise lops off HERMIT’s left arm, and the bazooka with it. NEVERMORE swings around its right leg and slams it into the Redgun’s side, booting them into a building with a deafening bang of steel on steel. Then, even as glass in the upper floors shatters and pours on HERMIT’s chassis like rain, the black AC’s missile pod flies open, and every single remaining warhead unleashes itself at point blank range.

A ripple of explosions tears into HERMIT’s core, folding armour plating like paper and setting circuits aflame. The shockwave buries the AC deeper into the building. With a final groan, the ancient girders give up; the structure keels over like a rotten tree, and the rubble hides HERMIT from view.

“The curse…” Ayre hears G6 Red moan, as, far too late, he is crushed by the weight of Rubicon.

The dust settles. Raven ejects the spent missile launcher and steps back from the mess. They say nothing for the dead.

No change there, Ayre thinks, even if the reason is different this time.

“Impressive, Raven. You’ve shown me a thing or two.”

A searing bolt of plasma tears through the still air of Institute City and shreds the CURTIS in NEVERMORE’s hand. Raven barely has time to throw away the melting weapon before it explodes.

TRANSCRIBER touches down atop one of the nearby buildings, which somehow manages to bear its weight. It lowers the smoking energy gun in its hand, keeping its pulse shield active over the left shoulder.

“Who are you? Did you plan this?” grates Raven. It’s the first time Ayre’s heard them speak since the ambush began. Their voice is painfully alike to what it once was. “Arquebus has no records of you.”

“There are many things even Arquebus does not know,” Kate Markson responds. “I am glad to see that some of your skill has survived re-education. That was a bold move. You must have calculated the time Red would need to reload perfectly, and compared it to your own AC’s movement and your own reaction times. Truly, augmentation is something special.”

Raven ignites their pulse blade, lowering their AC into a crouch, making themselves a smaller target. “Stand down, or I’ll use lethal force.”

“In your current state?” TRANSCRIBER raises its gun. Purple and blue lightning flashes around its barrel, as Ayre picks up an increasing heat signature. “I hope that re-education has not robbed you of common sense.”

Ayre scans Raven’s thoughts as best as she can. She’s read about re-education before, but only now does she appreciate how insidious it is. Raven’s tactical awareness and reaction times remain as good as ever, but their sense of self-preservation is stronger than it was before, probably to increase the likelihood of a valuable corporate asset surviving to recuperate its worth. Unresponsiveness to external stimuli like Red’s emotional taunts, their thoughts are now turned towards solving a problem as efficiently and safely as possible, and preserving their own self in the meantime.

Although she very much doesn’t want to, she has to agree with the mysterious Markson’s words. Even if the old Raven might have leapt in and damned the odds… this one will not. She has to adapt her expectations accordingly.

“It seems just willing you on to fight won’t be enough anymore, Raven. I need to understand you better. I need time.”

Slowly, Raven turns off their pulse blade.

“I expected that.” But TRANSCRIBER keeps its weapon charged. “We’re rather pressed for time, Raven, so I’ll keep it brief. Arquebus doesn’t have an infinite army. They’ll have to withdraw their forces from their ongoing offensive on the Central Ice Field to make up for the losses.”

“It won’t make a difference. The Liberation Front is dust.”

And that, too. That boundless confidence in a higher authority - that was never there, too. Walter... does not count. But that may just be due to Ayre's own biases.

“As an independent mercenary, my sources are, shall I say, more open-minded than yours,” says Kate with good humour. TRANSCRIBER’s thrusters come alive. “I must be on my way. I look forward to our next encounter.”

Neither Raven, nor Ayre, can do anything to stop her AC as it lifts and vanishes into the gloom of Institute City.

Ayre follows it up through Raven’s eyes, up, up, towards the Vascular plant, and her thoughts rise in intensity and hope as well.

“The Liberation Front, fighting Arquebus outside… the corporation doesn’t have full control over Rubicon yet. Then maybe also, Carla, RaD, Walter, they're-"

***

“This is V.V Pater speaking.”

“You’d better have a good explanation for this, V.V. My force has been attempting to contact Institute City for the past two hours.”

“We were attacked, V.II, sir.”

“Attacked? Don’t tell me those Dosers snuck in again?”

“No, sir, this was far more severe. The Enforcement System’s units re-activated without warning throughout the Depths, as did multiple Coral-powered weapons within the City itself. I… we lost most of the garrison. MT and LC losses approach ninety percent. V.IV also reported engaging two ACs and destroyed one; the other managed to escape.”

“Ah. So you had to bring out Freud’s pet mutt to make up for your uselessness.”

“Sir-"

“You still retain control over the City?”

“Yes, sir, but we don’t have enough strength to garrison the Depths.”

“Most inconvenient. V.III has informed me that the local vermin know their ways into the Watchpoint, like the rats they are. This will force the offensive to a halt.”

“Sir, there’s no need-"

“V.V, you utter fool, do you not realise just how important Institute City is? Not only is it the base of the Vascular Plant, but it hosts knowledge that can’t be found anywhere else in the galaxy. I will not risk losing it for the extermination of a few pests in their ice caves.”

“I understand, sir.”

“Henceforth, you are grounded from pilot duties. Even the new V.IV will do better than you, I’m sure. You will serve nicely as their operator.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Consolidate your position as best as you can. I will send you what I can, but don’t expect me, V.I or V.III to come in person. We will be digging in.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Oh, and one more thing. You said one AC escaped. Identify it. Nothing shall go unknown on Rubicon while V.II Snail still breathes.”

Chapter Text

“It’s been a while, Pater. How are you holding up?”

“Well enough, V.III, sir.”

“Put some more spirit into it. How is our newest friend?”

“They’re… getting better. The emergency re-awakening did a number on them. They had to be put back to sleep so that the doctors could get to work.”

“Hmm. The docs still haven’t got the Coral out?”

“No, sir. V.II is not happy about it.”

“Were I in his place, I’d be pleased. The chance to test out some sort of weird hybrid augmentation, not seen or used before… then again, my knowledge of the hybrid generations is not good. Hawkins would know, but, ah… you hold his rank now.”

“You sound like you’re judging me, O’Keeffe.”

“It’s just, I remember your reaction when Snail confirmed your promotion. At least you were happy then. I might not’ve liked it, but I’d rather you smile than mope around like you’re doing these days. Having Raven around really got you in the dumps?”

“Sir, if you have something to say-"

“Ah, let’s move on, Pater - it’s too early to argue. what with the current state of the front line. More holes than a bad sieve and not enough men to plug the holes. No sooner do my agents tell me something then I learn it’s hours out of date. Hate to say it, but the Liberation Front’s better than I gave them credit for. Coffee’s starting to lose its effect.”

“Am I needed to plug some holes, then?”

“Perceptive, but no. Snail tells me you’re still grounded. Will you lend me Raven?”

“… You could put in a good word for me, sir.”

“Maybe I will. But lend me Raven first.”

“I see.”

“You’ve got a long way to go, V.V Pater. Don’t let your rank get to your head.”

***

“So kind for you to finally join me, V.IV. I was worried that you were delayed. Let’s start the briefing.

“The last few weeks have been hectic for you, I’m sure - your sudden reawakening was a source of great distress to the medical team who supervised your recovery and re-augmentation. Even in the tenth generation, neurological overload is an ever-present risk. Your therapy means that you’ve most likely been out of touch with the situation on Rubicon’s surface, so allow me, as your newly assigned operator, to give you a summary.

“Due to severe casualties in the attacks on Institute City, first by RaD and then by the Enforcement System, the majority of Arquebus’s forces have been pulled back to Watchpoint Alpha and its immediate surroundings. This means we have had to halt our offensive against the Rubicon Liberation Front, and even with the equipment we obtained from the PCA, holding onto our territory has been difficult. The locals are proving to be talented raiders, and are subjecting our Belius-based supply train across the Alean Ocean to considerable pressure. Our superiors have been busy.

“This brings me to the present. We’ve received word that a considerable Liberation Front detachment has seized control of the Jorgen Refuelling Base. They are led by Middle Flatwell, their foremost battlefield commander and a capable pilot. As you no doubt remember… from your post-treatment sessions, he has been a thorn in Arquebus’s side for a long time. You are to assault the base and eliminate him. Of course, you will be paid a bonus for any additional targets you should destroy, but do try to keep collateral damage to a minimum.

“You will be accompanied by V.III O’Keeffe in his own AC. He will be observing your combat abilities in his role as Arquebus’s intelligence officer. Make sure to follow his lead.

“Happy hunting.”

***

Pater switches off the microphone, and leans back in his chair, staring out idly at the hangar. The senior three Vespers are still on the front lines, away from the Watchpoint, and Snail’s order has deprived him of a replacement for DUAL NATURE. Only NEVERMORE remains, inside whose cockpit V.IV is busy. On their directions, claw arms slide along the roof of the cavernous hangar, moving equipment for the AC’s back slots into place. Technicians rush along the gantries and slither down walkways, making sure that everything is aligned just right.

V.IV’s making full use of the equipment Arquebus has newly acquired from its competitors, he reflects with distaste. He doesn’t understand this emerging obsession with explosive or kinetic weaponry - instead of replacing the placeholder CURTIS rifle with a suitable energy weapon, they’ve opted for the linear gun’s even bigger brother, the HARRIS. The destroyed pulse shield on the left shoulder has been switched out for a newfangled bullet orbit, with the Balam designation of HUXLEY. Apparently it was pillaged from a Liberation Front base during the offensive, among their captured stores. O’Keeffe had never mentioned Balam looking into anything like it in his previous intel reports. Finally, a Melinite-manufactured SONGBIRDS unit replaces the missile launcher in the right back unit, and a Takigawa harmonics pulse blade replaces the VCPL laser sword on the left arm.

An interesting set-up, and a versatile one, Pater thinks. The HARRIS can put out steady punishment, and a charged shot will be death to an enemy’s ACS. The HUXLEY is a source of constant, reliable damage. The SONGBIRDS are a devastating weapon at any range. And from personal experience he knows how useful the pulse blade can be.

Yet all that on a full Arquebus frame? It just looks wrong. It’d been like that with the previous V.IV too, come to think of it, with his primitive BAWS guns and generator on an elegant Schneider AC… how he misses DUAL NATURE. Hawkins would have understood. He always gave him time off his adjutant duties, to fly and dash and fight.

Hawkins is dead, killed by the new V.IV, and the old one’s taken his false ideals and run for it. Pater’s heard that four is an ill-favoured number in old East Asian cultures. He’s starting to see why.

“Yours, no matter what O’Keeffe says, is a rank I don’t desire, Raven,” he mutters, as he punches in the commands to open the hangar doors, and stands up to get to the transport. “Take the flak for me.”

***

“At least being a corporate pilot means you can get your hands on the best weapons.”

Ayre’s rueful as she watches NEVERMORE step into the transport helicopter. The inside’s a lot cleaner than in the one Walter would use to fly his hound out on missions. Then Ayre had felt the scent of dirt and sweat and rust permeating into the AC cockpit and, through Raven, had learned to appreciate the power of smell for the first time.

To have that stripped away, to have nothing but industrial spotlessness waft through the air filters, made her feel like she’d lost something.

There’s gain for loss, however. After the first battle in Institute City, they took Raven back - for modifications, they said. She laid low as best as she could, then, and her passivity showed her why they’d never removed the Coral from Raven’s brain. She’d heard that her very presence ensured abnormal brainwave activity, such that it appeared to the doctors that if they attempted full replacement augmentation, Raven would die. So while most of the crystallised remnants of her brothers and sisters have been stripped out of her host’s nervous system, a small sanctuary remains for her.

Three weeks. Three weeks to re-establish her old position. Navigating tenth-generation augmentation has been challenging; she’s more than deft at handling electronics, but the very similarity of the new implants to her own kind is what stumped her. Eventually, she had to persuade herself to act naturally, as if nothing had happened to Raven, and only then would the gates open and allow her out of her prison.

The fact that such a blatant lie worked is what scares her the most.

Now she’s synced with Raven again, albeit so tenuously that it takes all her willpower to stay in Contact. It’s an imperfect Contact, too, purely one-way - Raven might as well not know they are there.

Reading Arquebus transmissions and reports floating through the ethernet is a half-hearted attempt at a replacement. Only now does she realise how lonely she was in Watchpoint Delta. That time seems so long ago.

Already Ayre can feel herself drifting, getting caught up in her own thoughts. With an effort, she re-focuses. She feels NEVERMORE firmly secured by the helicopter’s internal clamps, and the doors slowly grind shut. Taking a glimpse at the aircraft’s sensors, she notes a sizeable airborne escort of gunships.

“They aren’t really our comrades, though.”

Raven’s thoughts don’t reflect her sentiments. There is nothing but firm trust in their fellow Arquebus soldiers, a bedrock above which they check their weapons and boosters and reactor output one more time with a familiar practised ease.

“You once trusted me that way, Raven… I taught you to feel that way.”

Envy sparks. Of course, no response.

Ayre resigns herself to reading the data stream as the helicopter takes off - the sounds of chopping rotors and powerful engines a reminder of the world Raven taught to her in turn.

***

The Jorgen Refuelling Base is surrounded by high cliffs of ice, reflecting so much light that to look at them is to risk being stunned. For that reason, its occupants, whether they be PCA, corporate, or Rubiconian, monitor their surroundings not with eyes, but with their technological replacements, radar and thermals and airborne patrols. 

The first two, however, can be fooled, and the last one is easily taken care of.

The charred wreckage of the survey helicopters hits the snowy surface of the cliffs, fires quickly extinguished by the cold. Standing out like a sore thumb against all the whiteness in its green and brown livery, BARREN FLOWER lowers its smoking rifle and tilts its head upward. The decoy drones hovering above like bees move into action at once, massing into formations of roughly the same signature as a chopper, and continuing to move outwards from the base at the same altitude, as if nothing is wrong. With any luck, the sensor operators will chalk the disturbance up to the gusty weather.

With a thunk and clank, BARREN FLOWER hunkers down, lowering itself as close to the ground as a tetrapod can get. Better to be safe than sorry.

V.III O’Keeffe has chosen to come on this mission alone. Or perhaps chosen is not the right word. Forced might be more suitable. He knows better to act according to his own capabilities than to risk irking Snail by asking for reinforcements. But he has left his positions in the hands of trusted subordinates. Unlike Snail, he knows that the unnumbered Vespers he commands in his squad are good soldiers in their own right.

He wishes he could be so sure about the pilot on their way to reinforce him.

He checks the information the drones are beaming back to him. At the very edge of the laser communication range, he sees them send back the signal he’s been waiting for.

“Pater keeps a tight schedule,” he mutters to himself with a humourless twist of lip, closing his helmet’s visor.

Ten minutes pass as O’Keeffe mentally counts through the steps Pater will be taking. Find the very edge of the Liberation Front’s sensor umbrella, as scouted out earlier by BARREN FLOWER, and drop off Raven there. Thread Raven through the needle, down the blind corridor he’s created in an hour of painstaking work. To the Front’s watchers in the base, there’ll be nothing to see but the snow. And even if they’re spotted visually, well, the Vespers are already close enough to strike. The only difference will be how much damage O’Keeffe will have to pay the costs for.

The ten minutes are up. BARREN FLOWER’s detection suite pings: Arquebus-tagged AC approaching from the rear. A few moments later, and NEVERMORE is at O’Keeffe’s side, black and forbidding. He takes a good look at its loadout, and nods. At least re-education hasn’t slaved this one to only using Arquebus’s preferred weapons.

“Raven. Good to finally meet you,” he hails over a secure channel. “No need to talk, I hope.”

“Understood.”

“I doubt that will be an issue, sir,” says Pater, linking into the network. His voice is choppy from the distant helicopter, waves struggling through O’Keeffe’s jamming and the brisk wind. “V.IV is not much of a conversationist.”

“Heh. Let’s get to work.”

“Commence mission, V.IV.”

***

“How are you feeling?”

“This AC’s a monster, Carla. So much Coral’s running through its veins - I can feel it so clearly, almost see it. It seems like it’s alive. No wonder our friends were worried about making it a piloted machine.”

“I wasn’t asking about HAL, Walter.”

“Oh. Apologies.”

“I wish we had better doctors here in RaD. Most of them only know how to cut metal apart and weld it back together. None of them should really be fiddling with old-gen augmentation.”

“I’m fine, Carla. Chatty did a good job with the information we got from Institute City.”

“I’ll tell him you said that.”

“You’ve been good to him, Carla. Much like you’ve been to me. I’m grateful.”

“Save the thanks for when we’re done, mister newly-returned-pilot. Arquebus will be throwing everything they’ve got at us. Including your little tourist.”

“To think 621 would be our greatest obstacle - it’s ironic. But now I know how they must have felt, hearing all those voices.”

“You miss them, don’t you?”

“In a way.”

“I see. Well, we’re in position on my end of the Xylem. You ready to launch?”

“I’m ready. Time to get to work.”

***

“Augmented Human C4-789: G5 Iguazu. Please commence infiltration.”