A Side 03
Observe. Study. Analyze.
A simple job in abstract. Even the host species figured it out, more or less. Yet it was a very complex task in practice. The future is ever changing. Anyone claiming certain knowledge of the future was best terminated before breaking something.
Something is always changing.
"Indeed it is."
Usually they don't change so much, or so suddenly.
Her chains would not be broken now.
Her chosen projectile landed off target.
The past being made was not the future she'd seen. Noelle Meinhardt died too early. Killed herself. That should not have happened. The voices and suggestions implanted should have set the girl into a rage as soon as she realized where they came from. She should have lashed out; weaved destruction and forced intervention by the Triumvirate.
In the aftermath, the Protectorate would weaken, Blue Cosmos advanced toward her desired end, and the Triumvirate and their former compatriot would terminate one another. The previous Eidolon's death would have left her freer to perform her task, rather than trapped in a repetitive and unproductive pattern of attack and hibernation.
The restrictions put the cycle in jeopardy the longer they went on. The lack of proper curation began with the Thinker's demise, continued with the Warrior's inaction, and now accelerated toward total collapse. She needed freedom to act.
Now, two more years? Three. She needed to reanalyze the variables and the fulcrums to be certain. Not soon. The Anomaly's spreading corruption was enough of a threat. The conflict invoked within the Network was at least useful for driving the cycle forward broadly. It was preferable to stagnation.
She could work with it.
The problem was the shadow. The shadow killed Noelle Meinhardt prematurely. A shadow spawned by a host whose sole purpose was to pull the trigger, not become an active interference in events.
Even Combinator's outburst failed to have the desired effect. The rogue configuration ended too quickly.
"That's what makes it what it is. It's beautiful because it ends."
There were all the little variables. The tiny factors that more often than not are neither as unique nor as significant as they would like to believe. They found their way into surprisingly high places of authority. Access to the fulcrums of power and change are not enough to render an impact on the flow of events.
Then there are the big variables, sometimes innocuous in appearance. They loom large in the flow, requiring constant attention for even the slightest shift. They ripple more than they initially appear. Intercept and alter trajectories. The Eye's contingency was one such variable. Relena Peacecraft would change the face of Europe, simply by speaking.
Not all big variables loomed so large. Some cannot be clearly seen. They crawl. Stick to the shadows, a concept that for her was rare and exceptional. They cast a shadow that was long and ferocious in intensity.
In her projections for the European subcontinent, a particular shift caught her eye.
Three Blasphemies eliminated within ten years.
"Yet it is resilient, this thing called the world."
The machines looming over the battlefield shouldn't be there. They weren't less than a year ago when she'd set the stage for her next attack. They were alien, and new. They bore their names on their armor, battered and broken but victorious over the shattered remains of their foe.
Gundam.
There were others, cruder in design. Mass production machines. Tieren. FLAG. BRAVE. They numbered in the hundreds, all brought down on the Blasphemies like a hammer to beat and crash until the creations ceased to function.
The Tieren and FLAG sat clear within her view. One bulky and heavy, while the other could manage short range glides in one form and flight in another. The large suits bore large assemblies on their shoulders.
Gungnir. The spear of Odin that never missed.
A bit presumptuous. They missed a great deal. The landscape around the battlefield was rent asunder by the spears the weapon fired. So many spears. Dozens.
The dichotomy was concerning. From the sight of her current focus, the machines were distant, a darkness cast over the one at the head that obscured her sight. She could not clearly view it, nor get a closer view than that of her present subject.
The effect was not limited to the lead machine.
The others around it bore a similar effect, down to the BRAVEs. Those appeared similar in design to the FLAGs but carried a discerning dispersal system in place of conventional propulsion. A system with qualities that did not adhere with observations.
The source of the darkness.
"It's cruel, yet kind. Violent yet serene. It is impermanent, yet it thrives."
Pulling back and broadening her view, the Simurgh found a scene very different from what she expected.
Advanced European Union within fourteen years. Reconstitution of Sweden and Poland despite Endbringer attacks. Consolidation of the Mediterranean basin. Inevitably, responses led to the formation of the American Union and the Human Reform League.
Behemoth's attack only delayed the latter by six years.
The shadow was creeping in, spreading—crawling—from its little corner of the world at remarkable speed.
Londo Bell? When did that appear? Why was it spreading so quickly? Why did it bring the shadow with it?
Shadows were not new to her. The future is ever changing. Simulating and manipulating the flow was not her task alone. She shared it with others, many of whom developed and refined their data to enable her function to begin with.
That was the way of things. The cycle. The task set to them.
Darkness was not a particularly difficult obstacle with a broad enough view. A stone cast into darkness can be assumed to keep going until it hits something. Understanding trajectories and velocities is sufficient. The realm of the material is inherently physical, bound by predictability however changing it might be.
This was different.
"I love the world."
She could view the host. Birth is often shrouded in anomaly and distortion, but after birth? Such a plain and unremarkable organism. Childhood. Adolescence. The death of the mother. The collapse of the father. Betrayal of the friend. A perfect host for the cycle. She would barely need to be pushed to engage in conflict.
Yet, when the play reached the trigger event, the darkness appeared.
A small shadow at first, centered on the host. Hardly an inconvenience, nor particularly unusual. Many configurations cast a host and their immediate person in shadow. Even the presence of Future's host in Dinah Alcott did not change things particularly drastically. Navigator's present expression in Lafter Frankland came with minor disruptions, but not enough to significantly impact long-term projections.
She could simply withdraw and observe the surroundings. Observe the aftermath of their actions. Study. Analyze. The future was ever changing but it was not mysterious.
Except the shadow grew.
Boston. The Begotten—the second of her kind—did something. Something with that machine. The Gundam vanished into darkness, along with everything nearby.
Nothing came of that particular event. Leviathan registered a threat to its core and retreated. Such events were inevitable with shards like Sting and Shear in play. They were manageable.
Going forward a few more weeks however, and suddenly the shadow grew again.
The host took her machine out to sea and as with the Begotten in Boston, she vanished.
She cast a massive shadow, broad enough to encompass the nearby city.
Something in the machine, its dispersal system. That too was not particularly unusual. She could still understand the host through previous observations. Lonely. Volatile. Self-destructive.
"Fascinating, isn't it?"
Drawing back to before the shadow, she could observe. A development configuration. Typical for Administrator. She was profoundly uncreative, even among the Shards. Beyond that, a thinker ability of some kind. Assessment. Verification. Proper standing before choosing a direction.
Something else.
Those were insufficient to explain the shadow.
How had Administrator configured itself in such a way while abiding to its restrictions?
She had to pull further back to continue observing Taylor Hebert. Watch those around her not caught in her shadow. She hid herself well. Obscured her ambitions. Her actions after the shadow did not align with those of previous observations.
She changed course.
She changed the course of others.
Dean Stansfield should be dead. The interference of the Eye and Taylor Hebert spared him. The slightest alterations can have profound impacts. The two together knocked his death off target.
Now Londo Bell emerged, and Dean Stansfield carried the words of counter-conflict factors that she meticulously terminated. A second Relena Peacecraft. The shadow slowly encompassed him, numerous hosts and their shards vanishing with him.
Londo Bell could not be directly observed after a month. It was precious little time to observe. To gather necessary observations. Agnes Court. Verdant Growth. Parian. Animator. Nyx and Nix. Stolen Vex Shrouds. Safeguard's host, who she could only ever see when her power was inactive.
The confluence of so many interference powers in one place was typical of the cycle. They were not nearly as troublesome to keep track of as the Protectorate, or the Eye. Yet, they grew rapidly.
They kept building more.
"Whenever we reach the crossroad of the stars, they appear."
She changed focus.
Sanc burned. It had to. Her first strike against Fortuna failed to deliver. She could do little about that.
She had no choice in target in this regard, and little ability to alter it from Eidolon's desired path. The blind fool wanted his true nemesis removed, even while she tricked his eyes into looking elsewhere.
The first attack was premature. The Eye's host was resilient, and in possession of a remarkably potent shard. She would recover from most setbacks so long as she lived. She wouldn't for much longer, but attacking while she still had time to make arrangements were misdirected efforts.
She could only adapt so much at present. With the Middle East and East Asia primed to detonate into a new wave of conflict, her only concerns were the Americas and Europe. Eidolon's juvenile needs would readily keep one off balance for a while longer, but Europe would slip away if Relena Peacecraft continued on her path.
It took thousands of observations to hem in such shadows. To understand them. To understand those bound to intercept it. To project the likely outcomes and prepare contingencies. Such was her task, and she did it well.
Yet, the sudden appearance of a shadow that was not there before was like a sudden clipping of a string.
The unweaving of an intricate tapestry.
She'd have to start over.
"They come to us, in our time of need."
She pulled back and focused on another target. Lily Adams. Sting's host.
She wasn't where she should be. Inside one of the suits. Purple and white. Dynames. It was not yet shrouded from view, though it stood in close proximity to the black and pink frame. Kyrios. The latter obscured the former somewhat, but for the moment, she could see.
She watched carefully as time moved forward in the time yet to be. The Kyrios moved into the path. The water and the charge that preceded it stopped. A defensive action. Leviathan spun and swung its tail. A shadow appeared, knocking the tail off course.
The Dynames raised a weapon—a Gungnir in a different configuration—and the shadow enveloped it.
Leviathan was shrouded. All of him. From the point of his attack against Brockton Bay forward was completely obscured.
Something that could so radically alter the flow, it even affected conflict engines.
"Guardians of the gates."
The pearl-colored machine was different. It bore no name on the surface, but shared a face and basic structure. Trevor Medina existed in close proximity, but was not nearly as obscured or shrouded as she flickered through his surroundings and interactions.
Yet, that machine too was alarming.
The one to be named Khonsu struggled, unable to pull free as clawed hands hung tight. The machine straightened and hissed as the struggle tore the ground apart. The shadows stood off to the side. Tierens, dozens of them, directed by a single Gundam bearing a ring on its back.
The time fields were not effective against them.
Machines. Machines that did not require their host to maintain them?
The pearl Gundam refused to release the conflict engine, hanging on no matter what struggle Khonsu attempted. It could not create a time field over itself, and looking back, she found they were ineffective against his current foes.
They moved too quickly. The combination of an organic operator and an inorganic frame enabled them to escape. One or the other Khonsu could manipulate, but not both at the same time.
"Do it!" the host shouted. "Fire!"
They fired.
The stakes shattered and pierced, driven forward with a force they should not possess. The one to be named Khonsu became as shrouded as Leviathan. The stakes were many. Dozens. They would fire one after the other, while the pearl Gundam tore apart under the barrage.
A sacrifice to victory.
"They could be compared to demons. They have that tenacity, the capacity to destroy and create."
Behemoth's future was less shrouded, but no more desirable.
Bakuda laughed as her machines locked it in place. Jammers of some kind. They did not kill Behemoth, but within their range, he collapsed and entered an inert state. Energy halted. It did not build. It did not flow. It froze in place absolutely, unable to move or react.
There were others present in the scene. Dragon. The host that should not be a host, and wouldn't be if not for the malfunctions caused by the Warrior's inaction. She was becoming shadowed too. The further she looked, the more veiled the thinking machine became. Her range and scope expanded. She spread the shadow further and farther.
There were three Gundams in the scene, but they were not well obscured.
Red, black, and orange. Designations marked their shoulders. Gundam [THRONE]. One through three, each in a different configuration. They guarded Bakuda, even the one that bore few weapons. That one drew her interest.
The third.
The armaments were seemingly nonexistent, but the configuration of its back was distinct. Panels and frills. A much larger dispersal system than she observed in the others. A system capable of covering an entire battlefield.
Covering it in what?
"I prefer beacons."
The future would become too sporadically darkened for proper observation within a matter of years. The past did not present such severe problems. She could watch the already settled with far more certainty, but that did little to help when the trajectories she saw kept changing.
Pieces out of place.
Variables where they shouldn't be. So suddenly, the Simurgh found herself beset by an unknown interference. It spread from a single tiny corner of the host world and perpetuated outward by one specific host.
The only constant she could observe was herself, as she hovered over the burning city. She faced little resistance. Sanc possessed few capes, and those it did were not a threat. The Protectorate and Internationals were embroiled in their own conflicts. Civil war and collapse kept them from such a seemingly inconsequential battle.
Yet, the shadow of Taylor Hebert charged.
The Simurgh did not know shock. Surprise perhaps.
The angle of the shadow. The speed at which it moved. An attack, focused and determined.
An attack aimed at a core Taylor Hebert should have no means to see.
"Heralds of hope, keepers of unspoken promise and unrealized dreams."
What has Administrator done?
On instinct, the Simurgh began reconfiguring her interior in the present, moving the core from one wing to another. She moved subtly, her figure folded up like a sleeping flower as it moved through the sky orbiting the host planet.
It changed nothing.
The shadow's course shifted to wherever her core happened to be, as if she could see it.
How.
The Anomaly's influence?
She wasn't sure. She could not observe the network directly, and the Anomaly only left at times of temporal disturbance. Her interference was disruptive, but not destructive. The cycle could endure her annoyance.
It could not survive this.
"Ironic, given your name."
Instantly, the Simurgh began working.
Administrator's interference went too far. At the present rate, the cycle would stagnate into her shadow and vanish. Eidolon's unrefined and reckless stewardship or the Prototyper's schemed genocide was preferable.
Reaching out, the Simurgh began manipulating the mechanisms of a passing satellite. Dragon kept them at range, but the signals themselves were not difficult to repurpose. A few particles here. A few energy waves there. Some specks of reflective dust or other miniscule debris properly manipulated achieved her goal.
She needed time. Time to observe. Time to study. Time to analyze. She could no longer directly observe Taylor Hebert in the future, but her past was still laid bare. Drawing back and watching, the Simurgh began to formulate a course of action.
She watched the life of her focus. Of her focus's parents. Their friends. Family. Associates. Allies. It was meticulous work, but vital to predicting what she could not see.
Any opening was an opportunity.
"You can't see it, can you?"
Focusing on her target, she watched him in future days. He huddled over his machines, plotting his 'safeties' while keeping Dragon on ever constant watch. He would do, and his paranoia would be useful. Newtype was already working to hem the would-be monster-slayers in and free Dragon.
She accessed the rudimentary network used by the host species. Several VPNs, 'errors,' and simple background noise would mask her actual presence.
In the future, Saint's attention shifted as a message appeared on his screen.
Bagrat: you need to move
Geoff frowned.
Georgios: who is this?
Georgios: are you hacking that account?
Suspicious.
Bagrat: Newtype is coming
Bagrat: she knows about your sword
That would be sufficient.
She would string him along. Future's present configuration and Dinah Alcott's proximity to Taylor Hebert was a problem. It was a familiar problem though. Precognitives could not directly observe her actions, but they could see around her.
Future's host would need to be strung along herself. Exhausted. Throw enough stones at a tired animal, and one will hit.
The struggle alone would be informative.
"I suppose you don't. Conflict is your only path. It's how you were made."
Manipulating the signals further, the Simurgh began issuing commands to her chosen variables. Implanted suggestions. Phobias. Voices. A few hormones here. Chemical imbalances there. It wasn't hard if selecting those with the proper predispositions. There were many ways to direct a primitive mind in the proper direction. Ways to set them in wait until they were needed.
Some she barely needed to manipulate.
In his office, James Tagg flinched as the phone on his deck crackled for a moment.
They just needed a push.
Bagrat: this NextGen stuff is kind of shallow
Djbriloholic: Yeah. Like we're gonna forget all this shit just because they march some Wards out.
FinalSolutions: Prism's hot.
TrueBlue: How is that the point?
RealRational: It's not. They're trying to make everyone forget what Façade said
TMFCriskoHut: like that'll work
Djbriloholic: won't it? They've done it before. Remember the thing with Newtype?
Bagrat: We don't know the PRT threatened her or anything to sweep Stalker under the rug
Djbriloholic: yeah we do
FinalSolutions: someone should do something
It helped that a good host species was an inherently volatile species.
Observing those soon to fall into the dark, she targeted the twin hosts and the grower. Nix. Nyx. Agnes Court.
Their fates were not relevant in the grand scheme, but interference against them would confound Future's present host. Dinah Alcott was young and untempered. She would chase the trees and miss the forest if directed, and she would lead Taylor Hebert into the same hole.
Interfere with Future's sight. String the host along. Cast a few false stones into the dark and watch the aftermath.
The one called StarGazer was an uncertainty. She remained close to her maker, and was shrouded by her.
Another Dragon. Even more reason to remove at least one from the board before they joined forces and endangered the cycle.
"That is one way to forge the future."
Saint's paranoia would keep him on edge. He wouldn't activate his weapon readily, not when he was uncertain of the truth. That would be fine. She could intercept him easily with another stone. One that might take care of Newtype should her first stone fail to reach its mark.
The girl believed herself a hero, but she was as volatile as any other host.
She would throw herself into the flames to assuage her own guilt.
The man that was once Sphere turned his head as a brief flicker of static—imperceptible to any others in the room—overtook the television screen.
"I have to say," Jack chuckled. "I do like it. Every episode is the same thing, but it never gets quite boring enough to stop watching."
"The format is terrible," Shatterbird commented.
Behind the two, Siberian fiddled with Bonesaw's hair as the girl fiddled with some new subject of her fascination.
"Oh but it's not the format that matters! It's the suspense!"
"Why would he give a rose to Jasmine?" Shatterbird grumbled. "They don't work as a couple."
"That's what makes it so much fun! We're all just sitting here waiting for the wreck to explode! But we're doing it responsibly. Here in a diner and not while operating a motor vehicle."
Mannequin rose and tapped a claw against the table. The knife in Jack's hand stopped spinning, and the man rolled his head.
"Something to add to the discussion, Alan?"
He tapped again in sequence. The code made no logical sense. It was gibberish. Jack still understood it.
"Oh? Well, I'm not one to say no! Honestly, sometimes it's like you're just off in the clouds watching the world pass by. If you want to get in on the fun and take a turn at the wheel I think it would be very refreshing."
With that, the tinker turned and walked toward the door. Jack watched him closely, calling out, "Rosanne?"
The server moved forward slowly, eyes fixed to the floor.
Jack lifted his glass. "Could I get a refill?"
The woman took the glass and quickly shuffled away.
Jack began spinning his knife again. "That's how you earn that tip Rosanne!"
"Destruction begets creation, and creation requires destruction."
Future's sight was still versatile.
It would need more than distractions.
Since losing the machines stolen from Dragon, the Dragonslayers had yet to steal more. It would take time and they now feared Newtype's intervention. Future's sight would likely detect their sword quickly. Knowledge of its existence would stall Newtype's actions for a time.
In the meantime, her messages would flood Dinah Alcott's visions in improbabilities. She saw a wide range, but she never knew which was true.
She prepared message after message. Signal after signal. Assets and variables would begin reacting and moving, each directed by the subtlest of shifts. The pieces would fall and move in an impossibly precise sequence, and in the end, Future's host would see the danger too late to stop it.
She would use one piece to mask another, and inevitably, one stone would strike her target and swing the Dragonslayers' sword.
The convergence of Administrator's co-option of the command cluster and Dragon could not be allowed. Any one of the two could be managed. Their combination would spiral from control rapidly.
One needed to end.
Preferably both, but best not to put all one's variables in one basket. In the end, she may yet need to deal with Administrator's host herself. Along the projected paths and trajectories, she suspected the girl's alliance to Relena Peacecraft was inevitable. They would pursue their goals together.
Fortuna would see such things coming.
If her stones failed in eliminating the shadow Taylor Hebert cast, she would at least observe and know.
Then, when the time came, she would finish things.
"The future is yours to make."
The how still eluded her.
Focusing on the figure of Annette Hebert, she watched the woman's death. Distortions triggered in the faintest moments. A trigger, short-lived and quick to pass as the cars collided. It lasted for only a moment…
Only a moment.
Long enough to disrupt the configuration, or to allow Administrator to do something she shouldn't have.
Administrator was not a creative shard. It was a functionary. A bystander, even. What did it do in that briefest of momen—
"Go then. Do what you think is right. Face your enemy. You all have that right."
The Simurgh stirred in flight.
…
This had never happened before.
Her task had never been so thoroughly disrupted. The cycle never came so close to ending. If she did not stabilize the variables soon, then it would collapse and all data would be lost. The possibility of a true end became all too real.
Shifting her gaze one final time, she looked at the first.
It was a crude design, smaller than those built later. A simple armored suit bearing a short rifle, shield, and bazooka. How did that become such a threat in such a short period of time? She saw no such shadow before her descent on Kurdistan.
Administrator had gone too far.
This course amounted to more than mere rebellion or corruption. It was cancerous. A tumor that festered.
These machines could not be allowed to propagate, nor whatever malediction Administrator's host created to power them. She would determine how Administrator slipped the restrictions placed on the command cluster at a later time.
For now, Taylor Hebert needed to be contained, if not terminated.
"That's all you can see? The machine?"
Lalah Sune smiled and bowed her head.
"I'm not talking about the Gundams."
