Alright. I've figured out how things are going to work, now.

Details are at the end of this post.

5.0

March 28, 29 years post Fires of IBIS.

It was amazing how quickly the unusual could fade into the regular, how things that were strange became things that were completely normal.

I watched idly as my Firekeepers engaged in a battle. Beta Squad, in this case. Flickering bolts of red and lines of blue exchanged back and forth, missiles and bullets flying in every other direction. It was the newest engagement we've had with the PCA, and it was going about as well as I could expect at this point.

A laser flashed across the battlefield, scoring a direct hit; yet, a haze of red scattered its energy into something that wasn't much worse than a burning of the paintjob of Beta Melee. The returning blast of Surging Coral from Beta Support reduced that MT to a cloud of its constituent particles.

Overkill? I guess so. Did it really matter?

No.

Not to us, and not even to the PCA for that matter.

It was just a drone.

The PCA had made some changes to the way they did things on Rubicon, these days. After three-ish years of a slowly, steadily growing clusterfuck, they hadn't had any other choice. Between us, Dolmayan and the RLF, as well as ALLMIND and the mercenaries, it turns out that they had to start padding out their numbers with drones lest they start needing to answer uncomfortable questions. Questions like "Why are you losing so many pilots in police actions?" and "What is happening on Rubicon?".

It meant that most of the 'regular' forces were simple drones, these days. Automated MTs, which may as well be scrap metal before an AC. Plenty of other, smaller drones, though, utilised in numbers that really toed the line on the PCA's industrial allowance.

They were categorised under autonomous munitions, actually. Used and expended with about as much though, too.

The actually piloted mechs were higher tier, upgraded and advanced things, these days. Cavalry units entered full-scale production only six months ago, and I had to admit, they were actually some solid pieces of work. They had the performance profiles of an AC, and some decently powerful weaponry.

Whether or not they were actually good was another matter, though. Cavalry units were nearly fifty percent larger than the average AC, and they also lacked any of the modularity associated with the former. These traits were in some ways good and in other ways pretty bad.

Half again as large and still only the same performance? Sure, they're beefier, and their standardisation makes them more easily built and replaced, but that was only relatively speaking. Their extra durability didn't matter in the face of modern weaponry, let alone the Coral weaponry that we employed, and the ease of construction was still nowhere near the replaceability of even Heavy MTs. They'd have been better served springing for higher quality. After all, even nearly three decades out of date, stock RRI technology was mass-for-mass just flat out better, and I'd only continued upgrading since then.

My attention drifted back to the battlefield as a flash of red light heralded a thunderous boom; the detonation of a fuel tank large enough that it shook the ground for kilometres around.

The force of it tore the rest of the area apart, the lights flicking off and leaving the area in darkness as the power ceased to flow...

"All hostiles eliminated, Beta Squad. Slag everything, then return to base for debrief and repairs." I spoke.

"Roger that."

It was the latest in a series of missions that my Firekeepers had undertaken. The PCA's slowly growing usage of drones was something I wasn't super fond of, one part of which was because it let them project power, and one part of which was because I simply didn't think the PCA deserved to have anything nice.

So, in between hitting what few remaining Doser factions there were and whichever Corp or Merc that had earned my ire recently, I made a point of also blowing up some bases that the PCA was staging out of.

Because fuck 'em.

Bastards probably thought we were having a shadow war, after all of their stuff that we've blown up. I might have agreed to that, even if it was more like us just coming out to sucker punch them every couple of weeks, but to be honest, when it came to shadow wars, my other opponent was a lot better.

"Slagging completed. We're leaving." Beta Squad's leader reported.

"Confirmed. Mission closed." I stated. Beta Squad wasted no more time, now that they were done. They were gone from the area within twenty seconds.

That did not mean I no longer had eyes on it, however.

Several minutes pass in silence. The base is visible to me from three separate viewpoints, and I allowed myself a moment to enjoy the sight of it burning to the ground. It fits well with the burning in the skies.

Eventually, however, the silence is broken. A pair of PCA AH12s rocketed in, bleeding off speed as they finished their approach.

"This is... Code 26e. Confirm?" One of them broadcasted.

"Confirmed." The other agreed. "Protocol is clear. Sweep the area. We need to see if there's any tracks."

The two Subject Guard helicopters split up, both of them beginning to search outwards in a spiralling pattern.

"There's nothing here." The first broadcasted, right as he flew directly above one of my three little spying eyes.

And yet, no reaction.

"No. Code 21."

Most excellent.

"Confirmed. Setting course."

And with that, both of them resumed formation and accelerated away.

Mmm. Good to see that the MDD was functioning correctly.

I waited a few more minutes before I decided enough time had passed. Two of my modified Antigens shifted, standing up. Their movement didn't break their MDD completely, but if any camera happened to be watching them at that particular moment, it would have smeared across their screens rather unkindly.

The Antigens left, retreating from the area. The third remained, still and silent.

A minute passed, and then another, and then another, and then even more.

And then-

The camera of my final Antigen recorded a smear.

If I'd had eyes, they would have narrowed.

So I have been too predictable.

Hmm.

Well, time for a change in tactics.

"ALLMIND?" Flatwell asked.

"Who else could it be?" My synthesized voice asked back.

It had taken me far too long to put it together. Literally months and months and months of work. It still didn't always work properly; sometimes the interpreter could produce a harmonic tone in some of my syllables.

But, it worked, and that was the important part.

"Ghosts are some rather specialized pieces of equipment." I pointed out. "Quite illegal by the PCA's requirements. You know and share my opinion on their general competence. We both know that simple corporations and mercs aren't going to be able to sneak some of them in. There are a very limited number of ways to acquire them on Rubicon, but if anybody could do it, who stands a better chance but ALLMIND?"

Ghosts, and their more advanced counterparts, the Antigens, were an RRI design. A relatively early one, at that, neither of them even requiring Coral in their construction. The difference between Antigens and Ghosts was mostly in armaments; with the Antigens being more dangerous. Ghosts were usually equipped with just a high-powered Laser weapon, which left them to fill the role of snipers.

Both technically had the same stealth system, but the Antigen's was optimised for refresh speed compared to the Ghost's recovery speed. That meant that the Antigen smeared less when it was moving, while the Ghost became completely invisible faster when it stopped moving.

That's how I knew they were Ghosts, and not Antigens.

"ALLMIND is an AI system who has existed for several centuries." Flatwell sighed, considering my words. "Simply surviving that long would require the kind of intelligence and adaptability to leave it more than capable of staying under the radar of the Enforcement System."

"Oh, ALLMIND would have to do a bit more than 'stay under the radar'. Getting the data for a Ghost is no simple task. It speaks of a considerable information gathering effort. And yet... No indications."

"I haven't heard anything either." He crossed his arms, learning back in his chair. "What's ALLMIND's goal, then?"

"Who knows?" Me. I knew. It was also the subject of privileged information that I couldn't relay because I didn't have any proof on the matter. "ALLMIND has an excellent reputation. Literal centuries and there's no indication that ALLMIND has ever done anything other than fulfill their mission statement. It's unprecedented behaviour. What is the only other thing without precedent on Rubicon?"

"Coral." Flatwell didn't even think about it before answering. "But why?" He frowned. "No. The better question is 'Why not?'."

"The versatility of my corporeality does have a few too many uses for it to be easily confined to just one answer." I say that, but in this case, there is a single primary goal that ALLMIND has for Coral, and that's exploiting Coral Release.

That one couldn't be allowed to happen.

But I also couldn't explain that to Flatwell. Not now, at least.

"Nothing can be easy, can it?" He shook his head. "We'll have to be careful with that situation."

"Gather information in turn. Wait. Be prepared for whatever ALLMIND is up to, and try to keep the secret that we know for as long as is reasonable." I spoke. "Agreed, yes. Though, with that said, you will likely not want to draw that attention yourself."

He nodded. "Good luck then."

"You too, Flatwell."

"Gather 'round, kids, we've got some matters to consider." I called out. "Time for a family meeting."

My call was rather quickly answered.

"Mother~" Ezra sang.

"Mother." Seria answered.

"Mom!" Levi, as always, crashed into me.

But it didn't end there.

"Mom." "Mum." "Mother!" "Mom~" "Hi, mother."

The last three years had been rather productive. My first and second vacuum chamber experiments had led to successful conclusions, forming the 'twins', Ava and Eta. The other new additions were rescues; from the four times we'd hit a Watchpoint and the three times there had been Coral Minds contained there. So it was that Mateo, Asher, and Lyla had joined us all.

"Are you always going to do that?" I asked, a little amused.

"Yep." "Yes." "Yes!" "You know it." "You love it!" "Of course." "Every time."

I chuckled. My children could be a bunch of little shits some times, but I did love them.

My family wasn't done growing yet, either. There were still a lot of other Watchpoints to hit, to say nothing of any other deposits of Coral that might have formed a new colony. I could also hear murmurs during the Firestorms, just on the edge of my perception. How many of those might become somebody new, I had no idea.

It was going to take decades to find them all, but I wasn't going to stop. Until then, though...

"Alright, settle down. First things first, there's a new matter we'll have to consider going forwards..."

One step at a time.