"Never underestimate the competition."
- Ergo Glast, of the Perrin Sequence
Prospect 141.
Stack city. Tithe city. Vice city.
It resembled a gleaming candlestick; one that steadily became more battered and rotten the deeper it descended. The base of the city was entirely metal; a weatherworn criss-crossing trellis of support girders and ribbed pipework; containing entire industries: power stations, flight hangars, habitation stacks. Storm shielding protected the summit of the tower from the violent winds and extreme shifts in hot and cold that plagued the surface of Venus.
Not so the lower stacks. These were of wrought iron and steel gantry; decaying. The sheer volume of metal kept it upright. Squashed between landing bays and acid-stained grain silos lived entire communities; vertical slums where the lowest in Corpus society huddled, simply grateful to have somewhere to eke out an existence; however miserable. There was no natural light here. Cold street lights and neon advertising banners cast long shadows on steel streets.
To Telin it was home. There were many ways to make a living in Prospect 141. Working the mining crews had been their parent's way; overseeing the drones and hand-sorting processed materials into refinement bins; serving as cheap labour where cost-cutting measures ensured human hands proved cheaper than the automated crews more prevalent throughout Corpus Society.
Indentured service in the Corpus Navy was another; signing your life away for a comparatively comfortable, if strictly regulated, life among the stars. One's freedom was a small price to pay for a regular meal and a humble stipend.
Telin and Kelpo had chosen another path. Frontier work. Life on the blasted surface was not easy, but it was one of the few honest trades left. An entire economy had been built upon the misery permeating Prospect 141's Low-Stacks. Casinos, extortion rackets; scrappers and mechanists, guns for hire. You could buy it all in Prospect 141, if you had the credits and the standing.
Politically the city was deemed independent. A lie, of course. All elections were corp-approved; and almost universally the realm of the Upper Tier Families. Members of the Corpus Guilds lived isolated lives in their gilded towers high above; interacting with the movers and shakers that rocked the trade ways of the Solar Rail; never once witnessing the squalid underbelly that festered beneath and made it all possible.
Telin and his companion's arrival was not a dramatic one. The city continued to teem with its own frenzied activity, oblivious. Never once did anyone notice the arrival of an overdue, low-rent skimmer; nor did they realise that its arrival would usher in a sequence of events that would change the city forever.
Telin's all but slammed the skimmer into hangar bay 2-12. He popped his restraints; leant over and unclasping Kelpo's. His stocky friend was still out of it, a shadow of his hearty self. The ship was a rental. Its arrival was registered by Tower Control; their return to the city surely documented. They had to go.
The boy was conscious but weak. He was slow to get to his feet. Telin noticed him shiver for the first time. Whatever Void trickery the boy employed in the battle had taxed heavily.
Telin threw an insulated field jacket around the kid's shoulders, audibly fussing. The boy might be a murderous Void Witch, but he was their murderous Void Witch; complete with a generous finders fee.
The only trick was living long enough to collect it.
"C'mon kid, let's go." Telin pulled Kelpo up onto his shoulder once more. "Got a safe place in mind."
The boy followed; coat draped over him like some ridiculous cloak.
A drone buzzed out towards them as they shuffled across the landing dock towards the Arrival gate. It was from the rental company. A series of credit demands flashed at them; pulsing a violent red. Late payment. Overdue invoices. Unacceptable landing protocol. It then began detailing an extensive list of punishments and penalties; up to and including off-world military service.
Telin snarled and waved his credit disc at the drone. Whatever scant few credits he had left vanished in an instant.
Pleased, the drone flushed a fulsome green and bid them a nice day. Telin scowled. That too would be tracked. Telin Voss was no a warrior, but he wasn't stupid either. In the Low Stacks of Prospect 141, a digital trail was a dangerous thing to leave behind.
Battered and bruised, the trio vanished into the jostling crowds of the wider city beyond.
All but invisible beneath the dark shadows of a neon billboard; a hooded figure detached itself from the wall, and followed.
The Severance Package languished in a holding pattern, one of six similar sized barges awaiting clearance. Behind them the blasted Venusian landscape stretched out; the unending baleful sun causing the floating glaciers to glisten and shine as they drifted over the landscape; serene and alien in equal measure.
Their berth was Anyo-sponsored; strictly Mid-Tier. Most of the ships around them were semi-private crews - mining ships and bulk haulers on long leases, intended for regional travel across the planet's surface. The Severance was the exception, in that it was only privately owned vessel, that also happened to bristle with weaponry. Other crews rubber-necked as the Severance idled beside them; wondering just how such a rangy, mean looking killer could be permitted in their esteemed company.
This section of the city formed a central belt buffering the Upper Tier from the more skeletal, industrial foundations below. The higher the tier, the more prevalent the Corpus iconography, as the patrols became more regular and visible. Viewing galleries looked down upon the idling barges; row after row of cafes, restaurants and other luxuries far beyond the grasp of the average crewman.
Anyo Corp were not the sole controlling Corpus power in Prospect 141. Fortunate Dawn exhibited a significant presence, as did Luxor and several of the other major Guilds. The City Watch were a subsidiary of the Corpus Navy; privately funded by the various stakeholders that controlled the space lanes to and from the colony. While not the largest colony on Venus, Prospect 141 held a peculiar form of significance on Venus: its semi-independent status at the fringes of Corpus society granting it notoriety for being a useful, if somewhat disreputable, place to conduct business.
Kahrl Bravic paced like a caged beast, barking at Teico. His flustered coms officer weathered the constant stream of snarling, suggestions and beratement with considerable aplomb. The crewman tried Tower Control again for the fifteenth time, his finger tapping on the transmit button with thinly disguised panic.
The Severance's presence here was guesswork on Vern's part. The hunter had looked at each of the surface colonies around them, and surmised that their prey would go to ground in the largest encampment within range. Bravic trusted the man.
Terrenus Vern paid no attention to his employer's impatience. Him and his team made ready in the belly of the cargo hold.
With Ladahr and Bycek gone, replacements were required. There were local crews you could sponsor; hired help. Less specialised, cheaper and decidedly expendable. Their quarry had eluded them once, and carved up two of their own in the process. Vern would not underestimate them again.
Sometimes numbers could make all the difference. Vern hired as many as he could afford; confirming their contracts through Disposable Solutions, a low-market broker.
A holographic representation of the city floated before them. Like most Venusian structures; a centralised core contained the central elevators facilitating access to and from varying tiers throughout the city. Communications between ships were heavily monitored, and purchasing landing data was frowned upon, if not entirely illegal. They would have to rely on local contacts for such direct leads.
City hunting was a different prospect to the Venusian wilds.
The Ostron's skills would be of little use without wider strategic input. The trapper's senses were keen, and while his nose was second to none; he found the tangling streets and narrow alleys bewildering.
Brakarr's deployment was similarly limited. Grineer were of the Empire; indistinguishable from the Twin Queen's war machine. The very sight of the hulking Bombard would likely incite a riot. He would have to be held in reserve, until they were sure of their quarry's location; and even then, carefully used.
Therein lay the challenge. They were looking for three targets; two of them locals. Once again, this was their terrain. Vern's team sought a needle, hidden in a stack of needles. A specialised broker was required.
Terrenus Vern was not a man to leave things to idle chance, or local help. He employed every tool at his disposal.
Isolde set the tarot deck carefully on the deck; legs folded beneath her. The Grineer stared blankly from the corner. He was built for war, not parlour tricks.
The Ostron kept his distance, perched atop a packing crate; as superstitious and squirrelly as ever.
The rest of Bravic's crew hung from the rafters and lurked on the gantries above, too curious not to watch. She was of the Touched. Of the Void. More dangerous and exotic than anything they had ever witnessed. Terrenus for his part folded his legs beneath him and joined her sitting on the floor.
The girl shuffled the cards, humming as she worked. She spread three of them out in a single dextrous sweep. The air grew cold throughout the deck; unnaturally so.
Three cards; each bearing a different face. It was not any deck Vern recognised.
"What do you see?" the hunter asked.
"The Nine of Quills. The Four of Chains." She read the cards, tasting each syllable; stroking each in reverent sequence. "Here, the Fool's Eye. Possibility and chaos. Multiple outcomes, intertwined."
She shuffled again. Three more cards set out; two set face down. The third, turned over and revealed. It depicted a young child of indeterminate gender, bathed in light.
"What do you see?" the hunter repeated.
"The Yuvan." The girl murmured. "It represents Youth…Rebirth. An Awakening."
"And the other two?"
Isolde pursed her lips as she held a hand over the cards. The faintest purple glow emanated from her finger tips. She turned them over, one by one.
The first was an Orokin Structure, inverted. Void energies lashed at its base.
"The Tower." Isolde read aloud, "Darkness and destruction on a physical scale."
"And not the city here?" Vern raised an eyebrow.
Isolde paid no heed, utterly absorbed in the process. She turned over the final card.
A grinning skull, stripped of skin.
Isolde stopped for a moment. Eventually, Vern learned forward and asked.
"Tell me what you see, girl."
Isolde looked at him squarely. Her smile was cold.
"Death."
"All very ominous." Brakarr growled, voice rendered mechanical and menacing by his armoured mask. "What purpose does it serve?"
Isolde rose to her feet, walking in a slow circle about the cards. She held her chin upward, proud and defiant as she addressed the hulking Grineer. Beneath the hood, her features were delicate. For one so young, there was a confidence and poise that far belied her physical age.
"The cards are a means to an end. A yardstick by which any wayfarer interpreting the Void can chart their path. Portents can change with sequencing; and with that sequencing, interpretation."
"Parlour tricks and nonsense." Brakarr scoffed.
"My cloned colleague's disdain is noted." Isolde scowled. "But consider the cards; their disposition. Every-changing, fearful. The destruction of order. Finality - speaking to a fear of death; either of the self or a close companion." Isolde indicated each of the cards. "These are a reflection of an emotional state. Our target's emotion state."
"I have seen you do things I thought not possible, Surah." Parson-Luk began, tentatively. "I do not doubt you. But I too must ask; how does this help us track our prey?"
Isolde stood tall, hands clasped behind her back. She spoke calmly yet her voice carried; filling the air with ease.
"Because our target, like me, is Void Touched." Isolde smiled. "He is uncertain. Terrified of a power that is not quite his to control just yet."
"And these cards?" Vern asked, "They can confirm the target's location?"
Isolde shook her head. Isolde's eyes carried what might have been a semblance of pity.
"No, not directly. But the very resonance of the cards tells me enough."
She swept the cards back into the arcane deck, standing upright once more.
"Our target is here, in this city." She addressed the gallery in full.
"And he is afraid."