When Dragons Rage
"Look... At the time it seemed like a good idea." Jesse said with a sigh as Iriana's techs worked.
None of the others had left. Ona and the four who had accompanied her had moved as far from Jesse as the quarantine enclosure allowed as the techs had closed in. After a quick check of the still unconscious human, both techs and focused on Jesse. Draco's barely controlled temper probably had something to do with that. His immediate response when she had been too weak to stay standing had not been pleasant and only her own impassioned pleas for him not to breach quarantine had sufficed to keep him from slicing his way in. The only thing that really kept him in place was that Iriana was swift to verify that Jesse was in no immediate danger.
"Pulling Sentient code into your body was a good idea?" Jasmina demanded.
"I didn't know it was Sentient code. I am not sure it is." Jesse admitted as the techs finished their checks. Without the ability to use scanners, they had been forced to rely on ancient means of checking her vitals. Some of which had been very unpleasant. They did have scanners and other gear, but none of it would be allowed out of quarantine. When this was done, all of the gear that could possibly hold computer code would be loaded into a small pod that would then be jettisoned into a decaying orbit around the Sun. With some threats, there was no overkill. "All I saw was an AI that needed help. That was going to extinguish itself. But..." She shook her head wearily.
"But?" Draco's voice was a bass rumble. It froze everything for a moment as terror resounded in it.
"Draco, I am okay." Jesse said sadly. "As okay as I can be. I am not going to die. Either way, I am not going to die. Please calm down?" She begged. "I need you. We will need you." Everyone looked to the shrouded Tenno who gave himself a shake that was visible even through the holographic disguise and sheathed his blades finally. "Thank you."
"Jesse." Iriana sounded more than a bit annoyed now. "Whatever you are planning, you are hurt and sick. You are in no shape for it."
"I know." Jesse said as she sat. One of the techs patted her shoulder as they both moved to start carefully checking the unconscious human. "It is taking all I have to hold the infection. I can hold it, but that is all. Not indefinitely, but for some time. Did you contact Olim?"
"I did." Iriana's face was remote and Jesse winced.
"And Raven?" Jesse flinched as Iriana grimaced. "Ah... She didn't know I was gone, did she?"
"Not until Olim got there." Jasmina's voice was calmer than anyone else's. "Needless to say, neither of them is happy." She glared at Ona who did not move. Wise of the tiny Nyx.
"We may have a chance to fix this." Jesse said quietly, gripping the pole that still held the bags that dripped into her arm. "I know what Nikis did, if not all of the particulars. I know why." She shook her head. "Tell me true, Iriana, Jasmina, Draco... In war, there are two kinds. Those who survive and those who do not. Yes?"
"Using humans like that..." Jasmina started, but paused as Jesse nodded again. "Jesse, we were supposed to protect humans."
"I know." Jesse agreed. "Jasmina, they couldn't trust humans." She nodded to the unconscious form on the stretcher. "He is not dead."
"He might as well be." Jasmina retorted sourly. "We cannot let him live if he is..." She broke off as Jesse tried to stand up. She could not. One of the tech rushed to Jesse's side and held her down. "Jesse?"
"He is not a Sentient." Jesse declared angrily, then she wilted. The tech supported her and she nodded her thanks. "I am okay. Just weak." The tech cast a pleading look at Iriana who nodded.
"Jesse." Iriana commanded. "Lie down." Jesse sighed and did as instructed. "One of you!" She snapped to the tiny warframes. "Hold the pole." A tiny Trinity moved to do so, but remained silent. "We trusted you, Ona."
"They made a mistake, Iriana." Jesse gasped. "They were furious over what had been done to them. With reason. What happened after... was not their doing. They made the first machine, Nikis made the others."
"Jesse!" Raven's impassioned voice preceded the Elder into view. She took a step towards the enclosure and then froze as she saw everything. The quarantine., Jesse. The techs working on the unconscious human. Her face hardened as she saw the tiny warframes. "You... You..." She sputtered incoherently. "You are dead! All of you!" She was all but ranting at the tiny warframes.
"Raven, please." Jesse pleaded from where she lay. Raven stared at her and then forced herself to take a step back. But her hands were curled into fists at her side. Not a good sign. "Olim."
"I am here, Jesse." The Frost Prime Cyberlancer appeared behind Raven. He stared at her and then shook his head. "You do find interesting problems, don't you girl?"
"What can I say, Master?" Jesse said with a small grin. "It's a gift." She met his gaze calmly. "Class four viruses. But not hardwired. There is extraneous. We can access." All of the visible faces looked blank but Olim shook his head.
"Jesse." The master of Cyberlancers said softly. "We cannot rewrite a Sentient virus."
"It is not." Jesse said just as softly. "Master. Look." She held up a hand and something dark and hungry seemed to swirl around it. Both techs shied away from her. But... it was orange.
"Holy shit." Olim breathed as he stared at the code. "Is that what I think it is?" The energy was like what Nikis used.
"This is like the Sentient code that you showed me records of." Jesse said quickly. "But it isn't. Very similar, but not the same." She nodded to the sleeping human. "I think a third level subroutine may be able to rewrite sections in sequence. We will need a script. Actually... Probably three of them. One for me. One for him. One for the main mass."
"Jesse." Olim said heavily. "I might be able to do that. But if I do... it would leave you and me vulnerable. We can't do that."
"No. It won't." Jesse smiled a bit as she looked at Draco. "Not if we have help."
"Oh?" Olim turned to scrutinize the shrouded Tenno and then nodded slowly. "Interesting plan, Jesse. But not something to just jump into."
"We can do it." Jesse pleaded. "And if we can... We can undo the horror that was done before. I don't think Nikis knew...!" She trailed off as Olim raised a hand.
"Jesse." The Frost Prime commanded. "Calm down." Jesse sighed and forced herself to relax. "Good. The plan is fundamentally sound. But it will take a great deal of coordination. Healer?" Olim turned to Iriana whose mouth had dropped open. "What is her status?"
"She seems okay, except for whatever is inside her." The Healer said with a sigh. "She is physically weak from being woken from stasis too quickly, but beyond that, she seems fine. Not that I can tell too much without my tech." Her face spoke volumes about how she felt about that. But having tech around rogue code was a bad idea.
"What are you talking about?" Jasmina's tones was not quite a demand. "And none of the magical mumbo jumbo. Make sense."
"It is not magic, Jasmina." Olim shook his head, his tone rueful. "It is not even science pretending to be magic. It is just code. But not Sentient code." He nodded to where Jesse still had dark orange energy circling her hand. "Banish it, Jesse. I can see you wilting." Jesse nodded and the energy vanished. "Jesse has a plan. An interesting plan. Riana can find no holes in it. There will be. No plan survives contact with the enemy after all."
"What enemy?" Jasmina snapped. Olim and Jesse replied as one.
"Nikis."
A few minutes later
"You do know that this is a very bad idea, right?" Draco hadn't moved from where he stood. Indeed, everyone gave him a wide berth. "Nikis had to have plans. He always had plans."
"I know." Olim knelt in sieza at the edge of the quarantine enclosure. "A cursory study of the records available showed that. He was always dedicated to kin. Hence why he programmed the being he called 'Medicine Man' to assist kin. But as good as he was, he was not a programmer or Cyberlancer. There was no way to know all of the permutations without that kind of knowledge. For this to have lasted all this time without failing..." Olim shook his head and he voice held admiration. "He is good. No question."
"Good? Nikis was one of the benchmarks we used when I was trained." Draco said quietly. "He was a century older than me but I always felt a kinship to that crazy man. He never put himself forward. He just did what he had to do. Your arguments make sense. But..." He sighed.
"We need you, Draco." Jesse said from her spot just on the other side of the enclosure. She was well within Olim's reach. "I need you. We can stop this. But we cannot protect ourselves from whatever defenses Nikis put in while doing so. And he will have defenses built into the code."
"Of course he will." Draco sighed as he held out a hand to Olim. "But you both will see things I have hidden for a long, long time."
"By my oath as Grandmaster of Cyberlancers." Olim said formally as Jesse nodded. "Your secrets are yours. What happens behind the mind stays behind the mind. We will never speak of it. The swords?"
"I will need them." Draco said, his free hand touching the longer sword's hilt as he knelt as well. "I am ready." He took Olim's hand.
"Iriana?" Olim kept his voice quiet.
"I formally protest this." The Healer scowled. "Jesse is too weak for this."
"And I am only going to get weaker." Jesse said from where she lay. "But... You are right. Ona, Suno." The tiny Nyx and Trinity warframes jerked as she named them. "Here is your chance to help."
"They won't trust us." Suno said quietly.
"They are not." Jesse said softly. "I am." All of the visible faces but Jesse's blanked at that. "What you did was wrong. But you had good intentions." She held out her hand to the Trinity who stared at it. "Here is your chance to fix this. To make good the potential that Nikis saw in you. To erase the shame of what you did. To put right what was put wrong."
"Jesse." Ona protested. "Nothing can!"
"You don't know that." Jesse said calmly, still holding her hand out despite it starting to shake. She was trembling with effort as the other tiny warframes looked at Ona who slumped a bit. Finally, a tiny Frost stepped forward and took Jesse's hand.
"I am Maric." The Frost said quietly as he cradled Jesse's hand to his chest and knelt beside her. "Do not stress yourself, milady." Iriana and Jasmina jerked at his phrasing, but neither spoke as Jesse smiled at him. "We erred long ago. Perhaps we can do better now."
"You are not alone now, Maric." Jesse's voice was warm as she relaxed back and held out a hand to touch the quarantine enclosure. "I am ready." She paused and shook her head. "We are ready."
"Very well." Olim touched the enclosure over Jesse's hand and...
Jesse landed on her feet, her golden nunchaku in hand. Olim appeared beside her as she scrutinized the area. The room was large, but not overly so. There was nothing in it. The walls, ceiling and floor were composed of golden code. She nodded to the Frost Prime who nodded back as he drew his golden Magister mace. She knelt as so did he, both laying their weapons across their laps. Then she screamed as power slammed into her.
BEGONE!
It was not verbal, that command. It was not mental. It was... both and more and less. Jesse focused her mind as she had been taught, then the pain receded as Olim extended his shields to cover her while she set herself.
"Shield... yourself... master." Jesse said through gritted teeth. "I have this." Her own shields snapped into place, yielding but firm as torrents of power swept over her. "I am as the grass in the wind." Jesse murmured as energy flowed over and around her.
GRASS CAN BE CUT.
The words were cold and hard as a dark form solidified nearby. It was a Nekros warframe. But not any Nekros warframe Jesse had ever seen. This one was golden and silver. Was this a Prime Nekros? Energy surrounded it. Dark orange energy.
YOU TRESPASS. BEGONE!
The words from the other were so powerful that despite her shields, Jesse felt herself start to move. The shield protected her, but the whole area was moving.
"They trespass?" Jesse went still as a young voice sounded from nearby. Her eyes went huge as a boy appeared. He wore no warframe but he was Tenno. He was neither young nor old. But the voice... She knew the voice! Draco! "And what did you do, you old fart?" He asked as he moved to stand between the two kneeling Tenno and the Nekros Prime. "You spout about Balance and enslave humans? You lying hypocrite!"
You should not be here. The terrible voice was lesser now.
"And you should?" Draco demanded. "Why, Nikis? Why?" He demanded as two swords appeared in his hands, drawn. "Tell me why! By the power of my mother's swords, Duty and Honor, I command it!"
It was needed. The terrible voice was calm, but it was a facade. A ruse. The calm before the storm. Jesse could feel power gathering. Dark, terrible power. But not just from the Nekros.
"Why was it needed?" Draco commanded as blackness seeped from the hilts of both swords to cover the blades.
I... cannot. The terrible voice said sadly as the Nekros drew a huge scythe. Forgive me, my old friend. I have no choice.
Neither do I. Draco's voice was suddenly just as dark and terrible as Nikis shade's was.. Jesse's eyes went huge as Draco's form vanished and suddenly a warframe stood there. And what a warframe! It was a Volt. But... not. A Volt Prime. But... not. Silver. Not gold. And that silver had a dark red aspect to it. A darkness that matched the Nekros' orange energy. Then Jesse remembered. All Tenno who wore Volt warframes had the potential to go berserk!
"A Volt...?" Jesse swallowed hard. "Oh no..." She stared at Olim whose hands were moving fast.
"Focus Jesse!" Olim snapped. "He is buying us time!" Jesse nodded and started weaving her own code as the Nekros and the Volt charged each other.
She forced herself to ignore the sudden torrents of power that flew around her. She forced herself to ignore the fear, the pain, the rage that flew everywhere as the Volt and Nekros exchanged blows that might have toppled mountains if they had happened anywhere but inside her mind. She quailed a bit but kept her focus on the code as Rage fought Death in the recesses of her mind.
She could only pray that whatever damage she took would be repairable. She hadn't had a clue. She finished her first script and started the next. The battle continued, now the energies that flew around her were different. The orange energy was lesser, the red darkness was growing. She finished her second script and nodded to Olim. He nodded back and vanished, but a holographic female with a half mechanical face remained in his place.
"We have to hold it." Jesse said to Riana who nodded. "Long enough for Olim to set the scripts in motion and..." She broke off as a scream pulled their attention to the battle. What met her eyes was horrifying. "Draco! NO!" Without thought, Jesse was on her feet, her shield still around her as she ran to where the now blood red Volt Prime warframe stood with both swords poised over the slumped form of the Nekros. Orange code poured from the Nekros' wounds. "If you destroy him here, it will all be for naught!"
If the Nekros' avatar was destroyed, there was no avenue for Olim to get the code into the others. If that happened... She and the human would likely have to be destroyed as well as the AI in the Citadel. The Tenno simply could not take the chance.
"Jesse!" Riana tackled her as both swords came up in a perfect scissor cut. If Riana hadn't tackled her, the strike would have cut her in half. "That isn't Draco!"
"Oh no..." Jesse swallowed hard as the Volt turned to face her. She stared at him and then nodded slowly. "Yes, it is, Riana. Step back. Hold the shield."
"Jesse..." Riana protested as Jesse slowly knelt and bared her neck. "What the hell are you doing?" Jesse ignored her, all of her attention was on the Volt.
"I didn't know." Jesse said sadly. "I am sorry, Draco. I didn't know. I have used you. I have abused you. I have been... a bad sister." Riana hissed behind her, but she ignored that. "I have misled you. I have led you into mess after mess after mess. And you have always been there to pull me out. I didn't know." She pleaded. "Please... My protector. Forgive me."
"I... warned you, Jesse." Draco's voice was still that terrible thing. I chose to pay this price. To be what I am. To use what I am for others. But in the end, my imbalance will doom me. I accept that.
"But you are more than that!" Jesse protested. "You are so much more than this." She waved a slow hand the blood red warframe. "Please!" She begged again as she readied herself.
I am sorry Jesse. I am what I am. The Volt said as his swords fell. But she had enough time. A flip of code and she was under the swords and the Nekros was lying where she had been. Draco... did not have time to alter his swings.
The swords were incredibly sharp. The cuts didn't hurt.