Bear witness to fate changing.
Beta'd by Sesparra
Naturally, the first place we got sidetracked was the weapons bay.
"What kind of cannon is this?" asked Sanya, frowning as the sword belted at his side shifted to lean towards the primary armament of the Future Witness, then with a muted flash of white light and a smell like ozone and something vaguely smoky and herbal, it once again hung straight at his side.
"You know what a coilgun is?" I asked.
"I cannot say that I do."
"Ah. What about a railgun?"
"That one I do know. So, it's something like that?"
"Not precisely the same, but it relies on magnetic fields to launch fuckoff huge chunks of metal at way-too-fast miles per hour. Some of the really high-end ones have gotten up to about point two five C, but those ones are bigger than this ship." I shrugged. "They're mostly meant for ship-to-ship combat, although the Spirit of Fire used them as de facto artillery strikes, the crazy bastards, so if things get really bad I can get up here and upcast some Rods from God."
Sanya's brow furrowed as he tilted his head to the side, not unlike a confused puppy. "Rods from God?"
"Right, yeah, that's not declassified yet. Okay, so, long story short, Rods from God are what people use to refer to a satellite weapons system that essentially took big ol' rods of titanium weighing about a ton, put them in Earth orbit, and then dropped them like meteorites. Never actually got off the ground, but it's a relatively common concept in dystopian sci-fi for the next couple decades since it's a real Big Brother move especially as the idea of combination spy-bombardment satellites takes off in the late 2020s." I frowned. "I might actually have a couple of books that lean into that in my quarters, if you're okay with the detour."
Sanya shrugged in a display of the stoicism I'd come to associate with the man. "Is your ship. Lead the way!"
As I crossed through the doorway to my quarters on the Future Witness, the Forge glowed with a dim golden light, and, after a moment, a chip about the size of my palm appeared on a small pedestal that had grown out of the side of the larger stand that the model of the Future Witness was suspended over.
I recognized the chip.
After a moment, the hum of the ship's reactor intensified, and almost immediately after, I felt the communicator built into the bodysuit buzz. "Hang on, I gotta take this," I said, and before Sanya could say anything, I grabbed my helmet out of thin air and put it on, making sure that the fine connecting wires that I'd refitted the helmet to have plugged in to their sockets on the high collar of my bodysuit.
"Dr. Carpenter? Why are you so… young?" asked the caller, in a voice that I had missed more than I thought I would. Supposedly, she'd been offlined during the Infinity's mission on Requiem at some point after leaving dock… but, then again, the Future Witness had been mostly retired after she and I'd transferred to Concord to work on the Infinity-class, so I supposed anything was possible.
"It's a long story, Aine," I said, tapping at my datapad almost unconsciously. Then, after a moment gazing at nothing, I took a closer look at the thing and almost facepalmed at how off I was being- there were more than a few things I should have done, but now that I had an actual manufacturing facility, if one limited by the size of both the Future Witness and the lab fabbers, I could get a good head start on the technology in the massive data dump I'd gotten, and if Aine was willing to help pitch in with sorting and indexing (which, given how she'd been predisposed back when we worked together, was likelier than not), we might actually be able to bring some of it to bear before Nicodemus could skip town.
The issue there was the fact that I had no way to connect the datapad to the Future Witness' systems, although given how well I knew the architecture of its coding structure and perhaps a smidgen of help from Aine, I should be able to put together an interface and let her have free run of the database.
"It's a long story," I said, tapping Sanya on the shoulder and gesturing for him to follow me as I started heading for my lab. "What do you know about multiverse theory?"
Sanya wasn't sure what to make of Molly Carpenter, the first child of a Knight who had taken up the Sword when he wasn't much older than she was now.
The first time he had had real cause to interact with her was when she was late for dinner, and at that point she was very clearly off balance from being sent back in time, if Sanya could believe it- off balance enough to let him see-
Sanya shuddered in the workshop chair, forcing the vivid-edged scene down to where the most indelible memories from his time with Magog lived, the ones seared into his brain by Hellfire and adrenaline, and turned back to Molly.
She'd grown much more confident since then, especially since arriving here on the literal spaceship (and wasn't that a real kick in the teeth, knowing that somewhere out there were species who were both capable of building this kind of technological wonder and, more importantly, in a position where reverse engineering other technology was a viable option. Sure, Molly said that they were in another universe from… wherever the ship had come from… but given that that wasn't enough to prevent her from having access to the ship, he found himself glad for the fact that the Swords would give him, Michael, and Shiro a fighting chance against anyone or anything who decided to… involve themselves in the world), and the new threads certainly contributed to that.
Sanya wasn't an expert with technology or anything of the like, but the fact that Molly called both the sleek blue-white bodysuit (looking like if Tron had made medical scrubs) and the many-pocketed lab coat she wore over it armored, despite them not looking much thicker than the kind of thing that regular mad scientists or spies wore in the movies, was… well, it wasn't hard to believe in and of itself, per se, but if he had been just humoring her about her time travel story before, being on the far side of the moon from the Earth, inside a spaceship with an AI that Molly had apparently worked with before in another life would have made him believe her.
Or at least, drive him further into audacity (that is, the idea that he was hallucinating on his deathbed) in response to the absurdity of reality, but that was immaterial to the situation he found himself in- no matter what, it was his job as both a citizen of Earth and as a Knight of the Cross to help where he could, and solipsism wouldn't help anyone. So, he closed the book he'd been pretending to read while he was working through the implications of the situation and stood up from the chair in the cramped but well-loved lab that Molly'd led him to. He wasn't done with the introspection kicked off by the situation, by any means, but he'd done all he could stand to do today, and he'd spent enough time with Rosanna and Namshiel to figure out how they'd act when they'd forgotten that he was there, and the signs coming from Molly matched up.
Even aside from that, though, some instinct in the same part of him that guided him to where the Sword was needed whispered that it was time to step in.
At some point during his legally-distinct existential crisis, she'd gotten into an involved technical conversation with the spirit of the ship, "data transfer rates", "hyperwave code decryption" and "ternary to binary converters" all featuring repeatedly.
"I do not mean to be rude," he said, interrupting the two of them mid-technobabble, "but, ah, what time is it down in Chicago?"
Molly jolted, evidently surprised at his interruption, but the glowing visage of… Aine, he thought her name was, turned her attention to him like she'd just been waiting for him to ask the question. "We're coming up on 5:20 PM," she said in a rich, deep voice with just a hint of an accented burr that was at odds with her high-cheekboned, flower-wreathed appearance.
"Shit," said Molly, almost dropping the cable she'd been fiddling with. "I promised Mom that we'd be back by quarter past to help with dinner."
"Not to worry," Sanya replied cheerfully. "Since it's only five minutes or so, she is unlikely to kill us all the way."
"I am less than reassured," Molly returned, but she was clearly less ill at ease, so he'd call that a win.
"I'll finish up the prototyping for the hypercomm array up here so I can keep in touch with you better, and then spin up the stealth systems so I'm in a position to provide fire support if push comes to shove," said Aine, one daisy-yellow hand coming to rest on Molly's shoulder. "You shouldn't need it, but…"
"Better to have and not need, yeah. I'll try and keep the comm on hand." She said a word in what sounded like Latin and another not-Way opened. "You're the best, Aine."
"Go," she said, smiling, "before your mother really lays into you." Molly offered the spirit a smile before she leapt through the portal, but before Sanya could follow, Aine held a hand across the blue-white vortex. "Take care of Molly for me, please? She's good, when she's paying attention, but…"
"She isn't always," said Sanya, with all the gravity of someone who knew how much this kind of lapse in attention could cost. "I will do what I can, and so will my fellow Knights."
Aine smiled sadly, withdrawing her arm. "That is all I can ask."
Sanya offered her a two-fingered salute as he strode through the portal, which she returned just before he found himself falling three inches to the floor of the Carpenters' kitchen.
Hearing the irritated voice of Charity Carpenter, in counterpoint with the apologetic sounds of Molly's responses, was about what he expected, and he let himself relax for the first time since he'd walked off the planet.
Adventure and new experiences were nice, but there was something to be said for the familiar, and Sanya allowed himself a moment to remember the way that his mother had run the kitchen before setting the Sword (which felt more… settled, now) down in the Carpenters' guest room and returning to the food prep area to help where he could.
Jenny Greenteeth had, naturally, felt reality quake as someone else created an artifact of immense magnitude that drew upon the mysterious powers of the stars. To be entirely honest, it had been longer than she'd expected since she'd felt the world change so, even with the way that the so-called Wise hoarded their knowledge even more so now in the modern age than at any age before, and had all but forgotten how even the stars despised those things from Outside, but there truly was no accounting for the follies of man.
She had not, on the other hand, noticed where the artifact was or was not at any given time. Her nature only coincided with the domain of the stars insofar as they predicted her victims, and even then she had little awareness of the predictions that Summer's horse-men made from reading them.
Maeve, on the other hand…
Well. She was set to ascend to the throne of Air and Darkness, should the Queen That Is pass, and those tiny specks scattered out within the endless expanse of the night sky had no choice but to offer up their truest secrets into the eternally listening void around them, which Maeve's ears could hear nearly as well as her mother's.
So, it was less than surprising when Jenny found herself summoned before Maeve, who lounged atop her not-quite-a-throne deep within Undertown.
"The Starsphere," Maeve purred, voice seeming to caress the name that just felt… right to Jenny, "has left this planet."
It took Jenny a moment to chase the implications down through the twists and turns her mind took them in, but not a particularly long one- waiting too long would be a show of weakness, the kind that was intolerable in Winter's frozen halls.
"That is news indeed," Jenny hissed, inclining her head to Maeve. "Shall I hunt it down for you and drag its bearer to hurl themselves upon your mercies?"
Maeve shook her head, half-frozen blue-green locks of hair shifting where they hung down the ornately carved chair. "No, this is not your domain, or the Red Cap's. I will…" Maeve paused, and her pupils dilated as she inhaled, nostrils flaring almost like a cobra's hood.
"It is returned," she intoned, in an almost uncharacteristically flat voice, before turning to Jenny and resuming her earlier thought as if she hadn't stopped speaking at all. "...deal with this situation myself. Even if it is just a mortal practitioner scrabbling at power that they could never comprehend, on their own, they will be an… adequate addition to my court, and I find myself in search of a new distraction now that Slate is solely my mother's domain."
Jenny had to force down a shiver. Those three words… they almost felt like something else was speaking through her mouth, something that knew no emotions save for hatred and disdain, and the intensity of that hatred sent gooseflesh prickling up all over her arms. There was something alien about the emotions, and though they vanished like the last bubbles of her victims' breath, they seemed almost diametrically opposed to the invigorating sensation that killing always brought with it, draining her will and causing her to become almost infirm in body for the briefest of moments.
"So they will," said Jenny. "I presume you intend to be away from Court more often than you have of late to seek the Starsphere and its creator, then?"
"You presume correctly," said Maeve. "I trust you are more than capable of seeing that things do not get… out of hand, in my absence?"
Jenny inclined her head to Maeve. "I swear it will be done."
Maeve waved a hand as if warding off a fly. "You may go."
Jenny turned away and strode down the trail of frost that her waterlogged clothing had left as she entered the heart of Winter's power in this city, very carefully not fleeing from her Lady.
Something about what had just happened was very wrong, and even if it wasn't to the point where she was obligated to break her oaths to Maeve in favor of those she had sworn to Winter itself and inform her mother, it was not entirely impossible that the situation would escalate that far, so she would have to be observant.
Within winter, an adversary could be hidden within any shadow, even one shed by the brightest light.
And that's that!
Perks:
Smart AI (Halo - UNSC, 200CP): The creation of an A.I. like this is as amazing as it is terrifying. Unlike 'Dumb A.I.' which are created using regular programming methods, this one was made by scanning and replicating the neural pathways of a human brain in order to generate them in a superconducting nano-assemblage and create a virtual network which destroys the donor brain and creates the A.I.'s personality. This process is quirky and may end up causing varying degrees of residual memories, thoughts, or feelings from the seed brain that influences the A.I., but in turn it creates a powerful personality that is not only incredibly intelligent but effectively have no limits in what it can learn and comprehend while being able to draw conclusions from an incomplete dataset like a human could. Yet this comes at a price, and as they approach seven years of service they begin to develop so many neural connections that they either overload and fail, or begin to devolve into a rage of uncontrolled emotions thanks to the connections overlapping. Because of their knowledge and limited lifespan, existential philosophy to a Smart A.I. is like teeth-rotting candy to a child.
While you are free to choose the personality and appearance of the Smart A.I., for some reason this particular one won't undergo the seven year flaw known as Rampancy. All attempts to find out why only bring up strange access logs of some kind of computer system you've never seen before.
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