Valiant: Tales From The Archive

[CURSEd #10: Dogma]

Log Date: 1/6/12764

Data Sources: Darrow Bennion

Event Log: Darrow Bennion

Pallus: CURSE Storage Site 9

6:22am SGT

“Alright, big guy. Wake up, we’re here.”

I groan, pressing a hand to my face and rubbing. “Yeah, I know.” I’ve been awake all of five seconds; the rocking of our flyer setting down on the landing field brought me back out of the light, predawn sleep I’d fallen into. Yawning, I stretch my arms up over my head, then open my eyes to take a look at where we’ve landed.

It doesn’t look like much, at least from what I can see through the forward window. The landing field is just a stretch of flat pavement in front of a slight bump on the plains; aside from regular anti-air missile turrets ringing the knoll, there’s no other structures out here. A single tunnel slopes down into the rounded bump in the ground, so… “I assume that the warehouse is underground, then?”

“Yup.” Kent says, starting to power down the flyer. “Figure it’s less of a target that way. Can’t drop-pod your way in for a quick raid, and the only entrance is easy to bottleneck. Most of the other high-value storage sites are like this; think they’re actually repurposed missile silos. Pretty well-defended, could survive most forms of bombardment.”

I push myself up in the copilot’s chair, reaching down quickly to catch the data slate before it slides out of my lap. Kent notices, and nods to it. “Must’ve been a gripping read. Put ya right to sleep on the way here.” he remarks.

I look down at the slate, and the report on it. “After-action report on the ambush in the Hagburt System. It actually is interesting; I’m just drivelagged from the trip to this system.”

“Oh yeah.” Kent says, unbuckling and standing up. “Heard rumors about that going ‘round the HQ. The renegade Challengers got their asses to them?”

“It’s… a little more complicated than that.” I say, getting up and following as he leaves the cockpit. “The mercs we hired disabled their mobile fortress, but their ships got away.”

“So we hunt ‘em down, right?” Kent says, heading down the corridor and into the flyer’s cargo bay. “It’ll be a lot easier to take out individual ships than it is a mobile fortress.”

“It’s easier said than done.” I reply, scrolling through the report. “Details are still coming in as the intelligence department does their analyses, but this didn’t go down as easy as it should’ve. The mercs we hired for the job reported getting hit with some sort of stealthed multi-warhead missile; did a hell of a number on the siegebreaker.”

“Whoa, no way. Let me see that.” Kent says, reaching out for the data slate after hitting the switch on the wall to open the cargo bay door.

I smirk at him, folding it back to my chest. “I don’t think so. This is above your security clearance.”

He groans as a widening slice of sunlight starts to spread across the bay. “C’mahn, man, don’t do this to me. You’re killing me.”

“Just be happy I’m giving you bits and pieces. You’re not even supposed to be privy to that much.” I say, walking over to the cargo door and waiting for it to finish lowering.

“Multi-warhead stealth missile. Man, I just gotta know the specs on that.” Kent says, shaking his head. “That’s serious shit, Axe. You don’t just pick one of those up at the weapons depot. That sort of stuff is made in-house, or stolen. How’d a half-bit mercforce get their hands on something like that?”

“Well, they didn’t make it in-house, so it was probably stolen.” I say, watching as the ramp finishes lowering. “Missile’s only part of the problem, though. Trying to sort through all the technobabble in the report, but there’s an entire section here dedicated to analyzing the mobile fortress’s response time. That’s the part that put me to sleep, but best I can tell, intelligence is worried about how quickly the mercs reacted to the ambush. They keep on citing something called ‘possible angelnet involvement’.”

“Really?” Kent says, tucking his hands in the pockets of his vest as he starts down the ramp. “That’s… not good, Axe. If the Challengers have an angelnet, it’s going to make it a lot harder to track them down and catch them.”

“Aren’t angelnets the things that manage cities with a high tech density?” I ask, following him down the ramp.

“Forget cities. There are some angelnets that can manage entire worlds, entire systems, if you give them enough server farms to do it.” Kent says, walking around the flyer. “An angelnet is just… I don’t know how to put this, they’re just dangerous. They can organize and coordinate entire fleets, do predictive analysis and damage mitigation, paralyze defenses or even assume control of them by hacking them. Supply logistics, tactics, forward planning, defense, offense… give an angelnet enough processing power, and there’s not a lot they can’t do.” He looks over his shoulder as we start to near the entrance of the storage site. “It’s a good thing we’ve got an angelnet of our own.”

“We do?” I ask, starting to close out the report on the slate.

“Yeah. What did you think SCION was? The galaxy’s worst holographic cheerleader? There’s a reason he’s in every one of CURSE’s systems.” Kent says, starting down the slope leading to the entrance recessed into the hill. “He manages nearly everything in CURSE. Logistics, finance, intelligence, analytics… he’s got his digital fingers in every single pie. The administration might be calling the big shots, like which conflicts to respond to and where to deploy Peacekeepers, but SCION calls all the little shots. Where to keep operatives on standby, how much food to order every month and where to send it, weapon procurements and background checks, everything all the way down to how the file system is organized. If we didn’t have SCION, CURSE would collapse in on itself.”

“Seriously?” I say as we cross into the shadow of the tunnel. “I doubt it’d be that bad.”

“Okay, well maybe I was pushing it a little.” Kent admits. “But we’d be a lot more inefficient. Our response times would suffer in a big way. We’d have to hire on a ton of people to replace what SCION can do all on his own.”

“Ah, so the robot came and took somebody’s job?” I say with smirk.

“The robot took a lot of people’s jobs.” Kent snorts as we arrive at the double bunker doors at the end of the tunnel. “Saved CURSE a ton of money in the process. Helped them build up that war chest they’re using to hire on all these new operatives.”

“How do you know all this?” I ask as he leans in for the biometrics pad on the side of the tunnel wall. “I work at the upper levels and even I don’t know some of this stuff.”

Now it’s his turn to smirk. “You think you’re the only one I talk to? You and Whisper always complain that I can’t keep my mouth shut, but it’s got its benefits. If you talk, people will talk back to you. You can learn a lot of stuff that way.”

With that, he leans back from the biometrics pad as the bolts in the bunker doors clunk into their unlocked position, and the doors start grinding open. The scene that’s slowly laid open before us is that of a circular room with a freight elevator in the middle — a big one, something that could probably fit a couple tanks side by side. There’s a guardpost installed into the far wall of the room, with automated turrets mounted on the ceiling in positions where they could fill the entry tunnel with a deadly crossfire of coilgun spikes.

“Good to see they’re taking security seriously.” I murmur, following Kent into the room. 

“The warehouses are where CURSE keeps all of the junk from the Challenger facilities they stormed and took possession of.” Kent explains as he steps onto the elevator. “Even fifteen years later, we’re still sorting through it and trying to figure out what some of it is. The Challengers had thousands of research projects on all sorts of experimental technology in the works — some are duds, others could be revolutionary, but it’s trying to figure out which ones are which that’s the hard part.”

“Didn’t they leave records?” I ask, stepping onto the elevator with him.

“Fragmented records, yes.” Heading over to the control panel, Kent turns it on and starts flicking through it. Guardrails click up around the edges of the elevator, and the rumble of machinery echoes through the room as the platform starts descending. “After the Songbird Incident, most Challenger facilities tried to zero-wipe their databases if they were breached or taken over. And since checking on the facility’s computers is less important than securing the facility and making sure there are no traps or ambushes, often they got away with it. From what I hear, there were several facilities where we managed to secure all their assets, but we had no idea what the hell we’d gotten our hands on because the facility’s computers had been wiped clean.” He motions outwards as we fully depart the room above. “All those mystery assets ended up in warehouses like these, to be stored and guarded while the research department works through them, trying to figure out what they are and if it’s something CURSE can use.”

I look around. Presently we’re descending through a multi-level atrium that does indeed look like it was once a missile silo. Each level has a walkway carved into the wall, with a number of doors that I can only imagine lead to storage rooms. Here and there, staff in white labcoats can be seen moving on the walkways, venturing between doors or pushing carts of items along the walkways.

“You know an awful lot about these sites.” I observe. “You come here often?”

“Yeah, I come here every now and then to pick up stuff to tinker with.” Kent says, leaning on the railing. “This is where the Axiom suit came from. It was originally a Challenger project, something we were able to pick up and finish. Unfortunately, that means any upgrades have to come from here, since it’s only compatible with certain kinds of technology — namely, the Challenger kind.”

“Yeah, about that.” I say, making my over to stand beside him. “I know we were coming here to look for upgrades for my suit — what did you have in mind?”

“Haven’t the damnedest idea.” Kent shrugs. “Most times, I just come here, root around till I find something interesting, and take it back to the HQ to see if I can incorporate it into the suit and oh you’ve got to be kidding me, what is he doing here?”

“What is it?” I ask, looking around.

“It’s him.” Kent mutters, lowering his voice as he points over the railing to one of the lower levels. I can’t see much from here, but it looks like he’s pointing at someone a few levels down, with brown hair. “The Anayan xenophobe that’s supposed to be helping us with the resurgent Challengers.”

“Oh, Prophet?” I say, recognizing him now. “He led a semi-successful raid against one of the Maskling Sanctuaries. Didn’t catch Songbird or any of the Challengers, but I heard he got pretty close to catching one of the Masklings' high-level operatives.”

“I don’t like ‘im.” Kent grumbles, hunching his shoulders. “Matter o’ fact, I don’t like anybody that would tell me who I can and can’t sleep with. Even if he is sticking it to the Masklings.”

“Kent, you’ve never even talked with the dude before.” I say, rolling my eyes. “Literally the only thing you know about him is his religion, and you’re judging him based off that. He could be a nice guy, and besides, even if he did judge you for chasing Halfie tail, there’s an easy way to avoid it: just don’t talk about your love life with him.”

“It’s the principle of the thing, Axe.” Kent growls as we get closer to the level that Prophet’s on. “Fraternizing with hardline Anayans is an implicit approval of their dogma.”

“No it isn’t.” I mutter back to him, keeping my voice low. “If that was true, it would mean that I implicitly approve of you being a horndog, which I don’t. But I still take you out for drinks and hang out with you, because I’m your friend. If you refused to talk to everyone that you disagreed with, you wouldn’t have anyone to talk to.”

“I still don’t like him.” Kent grumps, but leaves it at that, because the platform has slowed to a stop at the level Prophet’s on. A ramp extends from the platform to the walkway and locks into place, so we can cross over; at the sound of it clunking into place, Prophet turns and nods to us.

“Gentlemen.” he says politely. “It’s good to see you. I thought it would be prudent to arrive early, and the staff were polite enough to see me in.”

“Were they now?” Kent says, marching over the ramp. “Funny, I didn’t know CURSE was giving outside contractors security clearance now.”

“The Administrator has seen fit to give me a limited clearance, considering my familiarity with things of Challenger provenance.” Prophet replies, taking his hands out of the pockets of his white, gold-trimmed jacket. “It’s somewhat necessary if I am to aid in the containment of the Challenger resurgency.”

“We appreciate the help.” I say before Kent can serve up more barbs. “That being said, why are you here? I thought it was just Kent and myself today.”

“Axiom, is it?” Prophet says, extending a hand to me. “It’s a pleasure to meet you. To answer your question, I’m actually here for much the same reasons you are: I also have a suit of power armor of Challenger origin. Took it with me when I exited the program under the resettlement agreement. Which, I was technically not supposed to do, but I think we can all agree that it’s worked out to everyone’s benefit fifteen years down the line.”

“Ah. So you’re looking for upgrades for your suit as well.” I say, pulling my hand back once the handshake has concluded. “I’d ask you what class of power armor you have, but if it’s Challenger design, there’s probably nothing like it, since those were all custom designs.”

“Right you are.” Prophet says, turning and following Kent as he starts to walk around the floor that we’re on. “My suit was designed to draw upon and channel the power of the Anayan faith, which it does spectacularly. However, with the threat we’re up against, it would not be remiss to see if I can improve upon its performance.”

“Great. Well, feel free to call dibs on whatever you find, but don’t think we’re going to be handing over the good stuff to you if we find it.” Kent grouses as we reach one of the doors, and he keys in his credentials. “It’s finders keepers ‘round here, so you want something good, you better go dig it up yourself. Don’t expect to go piggybacking off us.”

Prophet just smiles, much to my relief. “I would never. Hard work and self-sufficiency are cherished tenets of the Anayan faith. However, if I find something I cannot make use of, I’d be more than happy to pass it along to you two. One man’s trash could be another man’s treasure, after all.”

Kent just grumbles at that, pulling open the door as it unlocks. He steps inside without another word, and Prophet motions to the open doorway. “After you, Axiom.”

“Don’t mind him.” I apologize, stepping into the dim storage room. “He woke up on the wrong side of the bed this morning.”

“Oh, I’m sorry to hear that. I hope his bed isn’t in the corner of his room, otherwise it’d be impossible to get out of bed on any side but the wrong side.”

“I heard that!”

Event Log: Darrow Bennion

Pallus: CURSE Storage Site 9

8:10am SGT

“Hey, how do you feel about micro-missile racks?”

I take a deep breath. “I don’t know. What’s the context?” I ask, still thumbing through a box of unidentified parts taken from one of the storage shelves.

“Well, say, just in a purely hypothetical sense, we were installing them on the shoulders of your suit.” Kent grunts from a couple shelves to my left. There’s a grating rumble as he drags something off the shelf and turns to show it to me. “Eh? Cool, right?”

I look up from the box I’ve got in hand to see that he’s holding a miniaturized missile battery — like the sort you’d see mounted on a Titan mech, but obviously much smaller. It earns a raised eyebrow from me. “You want to install something like that on the shoulders of my suit.”

“Yeah, I think it’d be neat! You’d be able to bring the big booms to the battlefield!” Kent says, bracing it on his knee to support the weight.

“Okay, what happens when somebody shoots it and detonates one of the warheads, triggering a chain of explosions that blows my arm off?” I ask.

Kent blows a raspberry. “C’mon, like that’ll ever happen. That’s what they’ve got the cover flaps for, to protect the missiles!”

“Look, don’t get me wrong, I think it’s a cool idea, but I’ve been on too many assignments with Onslaught to ignore the danger of hauling around explosives on your person.” I say, going back to the box I’m rifling through. “Honestly, I’m surprised she’s still alive. Actually, I’m more surprised that she somehow still has all her limbs intact.”

“Onslaught never wears any protection. She’s practically asking to get ‘sploded.” Kent says, turning the missile battery around to take a look at it. “I think it’d be cool. And it’ll definitely make bad guys think twice when you arrive onsite. Wouldn’t you think twice if someone with shoulder-mounted missile racks showed up to crash your party?”

“Yes, but I don’t want a box full of warheads mounted where they can explode right next to my head. The Axiom suit’s tough as hell, but it isn’t that tough.” I say, pushing the box I have back onto the shelf, then going to another one and tugging it off the shelf a little with my finger.

“Let’s take it anyway.” Kent says, setting it down on the hovercart that he’s pulling along with us. “I might be able to do something with it back at the HQ. Maybe I’ll be able to find a way to integrate it into your suit in a way that doesn’t wig you out.”

“You could always pass it on to Prophet.” I recommend. “You dislike him so much, you might as well put him in danger of blowing his shoulder off, instead of me.”

“I’m not going to do him any favors.” Kent mutters, grabbing the handle of the cart and pulling it along. “He wants a nifty new upgrade for his suit, he can find the materials on his own and find his own lab tech to install it.”

“You know he was brought on to help take down Songbird, right?” I point out, pushing the box back onto the shelf before turning and following him. “He’s not perfect, but he’s helping us work towards a good thing. That’s gotta be worth something.”

Kent just shakes his head. “I just can’t get that bad taste out of my mouth, Axe. I’ve seen what happens when you let racists and xenophobes slide. That’s not the kind of galaxy I want to live in.”

“Well, you’re never going to change any minds by ostracizing people. At least not the minds of the people whose minds need to be changed.” I point out. “Since you can’t stand him, I’ll go check on him.”

“You be careful around him, Axe.” Kent warns. “I heard that Anayan extremists know how to twist people’s heads in knots. You might be a stick in the mud sometimes, but I like you the way you are.”

“Please, Kent.” I say, rolling my eyes as I hang a left down the aisle instead of continuing onto the next row with Kent. “Even if that’s true, I’m pretty sure I’m immune to it with how much time I spend around you and Whisper.”

“Just sayin’.” he says as he disappears from view.

I continue walking without him, the sound of his footsteps fading with distance. Folding my hands behind my back, I study the rows of shelves as I walk past them; each one is filled to the brim with relics, artifacts of the Challenger era. The lights in here are dim, and though the rows aren’t long, the aisle that runs through them is.

It’s a lonely, quiet place, and just a bit… unsettling.

Towards the end of the room, there is a gap where, instead of rows of storage shelves, there are instead pallets with crates in them. Filled with, as far as I can tell, junk — an indiscriminate scrum of parts, piled into each box and not yet sorted through. Standing a little ways into this section, peering into one of the crates, is Prophet. At the sound of my feet over the stone, he looks up.

“Your friend still on the wrong side of the bed, I suppose?” he remarks, reaching down to continue pawing through the crate he’s standing over.

“I just figured I’d check on you, since it’s been an hour or so.” I say. “How’s the search going for you?”

“I’ve already found what I needed.” he says, moving some parts around in the crate. “Now I’m just reminiscing. Going through old bones, digging up old memories.”

“Really?” I ask as I walk among the crates. He didn’t bring a hovercart with him, and he doesn’t appear to have anything around him. “That was quick.”

He straightens up, tilting his other hand to show that there’s a hard drive in it. “Your friend seeks parts. My find is thankfully much more compact.”

I tilt my head up at that. “Mind sharing what’s stored on it?”

“Designs. My engineering team will have to start from the bottom up with production of the upgrades, but the end product will be much more coherent than assembling something piecemeal from leftover parts.” he says, taking his hand out of the crate with some unidentifiable part between his fingers. “It’s curious, digging through these relics. I don’t recognize any of them… and yet, they seem familiar to me.”

“Perhaps it’s the design aesthetic?” I ask, pausing by the crate he’s at and peering inside. “Even I can tell they’re Challenger design just by looking at them.”

“I suppose so.” he muses softly, turning the piece between his fingers.

I watch in silence for a moment more. His blue eyes are somewhere distant, as if he could see the past in the piece of junk; studying his face, I take in other details. He looks older than I am, but not middle-age yet; he’s in his forties, if I have to guess. A decade, maybe fifteen years older than I am.

“If you don’t mind me asking…” I say hesitantly. “I remember the Administrator saying you were a childhood friend of Songbird. And someone else mentioned that you were in the same Challenger recruitment class that he was.”

His eyes flick up from the piece in his hand. “I was, yes.”

I lick my lips. “I’ve faced him before, and I was just wondering… what was he like back then? Before he killed Nova.”

Prophet stares at me for a long moment, and I worry that I’ve crossed a line. But then he looks back down to the piece in his hand, folding his fingers around it. Turning in place, he slowly starts walking back to the aisle.

“He was… a nerd.” The word is spoken as he tosses the piece up and catches it out of the air. “He was shy, he was skinny, he was weak, he was innocent, he was socially inept. But all of us are things we didn’t want to be when we’re young, and we haven’t yet grown into ourselves.” The piece is tossed up again, and caught out of the air. “Imagine the most awkward person at your high school, kind but quiet, and would burst into tears if asked to speak in front of the class.”

“That was Songbird?” I guess, following along with Prophet’s slow pace.

He nods softly, stopping when catches the piece again. “Harmless. But kind, and brilliant. I first met him in middle school, actually. Every day, he would bring a folding chessboard to school, and he would play games of chess before school began.” Reaching over, he starts picking more pieces out of the crate he’s stopped next to. “Never said a word; he’d just set up the chessboard in the middle of the foyer, and he’d play whoever wanted to play him. If no one wanted to play him, he’d play against himself. He always won when he played against other people.”

“So he was a genius of some sort?” I ask, watching as Prophet roots through the crate.

“I wouldn’t say that. What Songbird lacked in social intelligence, he had in… some other sort of intelligence.” Prophet says, flipping another piece over in his hands. “He was good at chess. So good that other students started watching. In the mornings, they would form circles around Songbird and whoever was playing against him. It was…” Prophet pauses, a faint smile touching his lips. “…it was something else, it really was. I’ve never seen something like that in school. You ever seen a silent ring of middle schoolers? It doesn’t happen.” At that point, he scowls. “The school nurse shut it down. Said that having people congregating like that was a ‘fire hazard’. It was an asinine thing to do. He never brought the chessboard again after that.”

I remain quiet. I don’t know what to say to that. I’d thought of Songbird a lot of ways, had seen the media portray him as all sorts of things, but listening to Prophet talk about Songbird was like watching someone shine a light into a dark place no one had thought to look. And what you found there was… not what you expected.

“He and I became friends because we were the same religion, and because Anayans tend to stick together.” Prophet goes on, working on twisting together the two parts he’d found until they click together. “Though I’m ashamed to admit it, I felt… burdened by him and his social awkwardness sometimes. There were others that took care of him, though. He had friends. Good friends. Ones that could see that he was… different, but they were willing to stand up for that, for him, whenever someone thought they could use it to bully him around.”

“I’m guessing he got bullied one too many times and snapped?” I guess carefully.

“What?” Prophet says, looking up and then shaking his head. “No, no. Goodness no. You’re looking for the moment when he went from good to bad, aren’t you?”

I shrug. “I mean, it had to be something…”

“Let me tell you something about the nature of evil, Axiom.” Prophet says, starting to walk again. “You’re not looking for one moment, or two moments, or even a dozen moments. You’re looking for hundreds of moments, thousands of moments. The transformation from a good person into a monster rarely happens all at once. It’s gradual; it happens over time. A few lies, a dozen disappointments, a handful of broken dreams. The wear and tear of life, wearing and tearing at some people more than others.”

“So Songbird just… became what he is, bit by bit, over the years?”

“More or less.” Prophet says, stopping by another crate. “There were influences, though. Nova, more than anything else. He’d been in love with her; had been ever since high school. If she said jump, he asked how high. If she said run, he asked how far. When she applied to the Challenger program, he did too. And when she became a vampire, he did too.”

“But he ended up killing her, didn’t he?” I point out. “Did he snap because she rejected him?”

“No, she rejected him years before that.” Prophet says, starting to root through the next crate. “And he accepted that, and did his best to become every bit as good a Challenger as she was, even if he didn’t have the kind of raw power and charisma she had.” Coming up with another piece of junk, Prophet takes a deep breath as he studies it. “He killed her because he finally saw what she was when she betrayed the Challengers and tried to leak a copy of the backup archive to CURSE. Saw how rotten she was underneath that heroic facade. He’d trusted her for twelve years, and it was only at that point that he realized she’d trade it all for power and dominion.” He rests his knuckles on the edge of the crate. “Our friends, our family, everything. For power.”

“That can’t be right, though.” I say slowly. “I’ve seen the old footage of Nova, she’s—”

“Cheery. Heroic. Selfless. I know.” Prophet says, starting to work the next piece onto the two that he’s clicked together. “Nova was a good liar. She was so good she believed her own lies, and if you believe your own lies, other people will believe them too. There were moments when the facade faltered, and you could see her hunger. But you really had to look for those moments, and most people didn’t. They missed those moments, or pretended they didn’t see them.”

“And Songbird did the latter.” I guess softly.

Prophet stops fidgeting with the pieces he has. “Can you imagine looking up to someone for twelve years, only for them to betray you, Axiom? Can you imagine finding out they don’t believe all the things they told you to believe in? Can you imagine throwing away your humanity for someone, only for them to abandon you?” Slowly, he returns to connecting the newest piece onto the first two. “One of the hardest things we can be asked to do is to see the evil in those we love. And it killed him to finally see that. It sent him to a place that I couldn’t get him back from. That’s what turned him into the monster he is today, Axiom. Seeing the evil in the person he loved.”

It’s a lot to take in. I don’t say anything for a while, leaning against the crate between us, soaking it all up. “I always had this idea of…”

“Nova as a hero, yes. Everybody does.” Prophet says. “The reason the galaxy sees her that way is because that’s the narrative that CURSE pushed at the time, and ever since. Not a traitor that would’ve sold out her friends and family, but a whistleblower that was martyred for trying to expose the truth. And people believed it, because people loved Nova. When given the choice of whether to remember her as a traitor or a martyr, they picked the second one every time, because believing the first one would’ve hurt them almost as much as it hurt Songbird. And nobody wants to be hurt that way.”

I frown at him. “But she was a whistleblower. The Challenger program was corrupt, and it needed to be stopped.”

“It was, yes, and it did, yes.” Prophet asks, still fiddling with the pieces in his hands. “I see that in retrospect. But I cannot deny that there were still good people in the program, and that her actions would’ve hurt them.”

“So what are you saying? That Songbird was right to kill her?” I’ve got my doubts now; I’m no longer quite sure of Prophet’s allegiance.

“Perhaps. Even I don’t know.” Prophet says as the pieces click together. “Who am I to judge what he should’ve done? I can only judge what he is now. A heretic who threw away his humanity; a friend that lost his way and turned from the light of Anaya for the sake of a girl. A monster who, by his refusal to renounce the things she taught him, condemns himself to the darkness. He’s a tortured soul beyond saving, but the least I can do for him, as a friend, is release him from the prison he’s wrought for himself. Perhaps in death, he will have the clarity that Nova deprived him of in life. Perhaps his soul can still be saved.”

With that, he holds out the thing he has been fiddling with all this time. It’s small, looks like a flare or maybe a baton of some sort; I have no idea what it’s supposed to be, but I reach out and take it anyway. “You’re not fighting at our side because you believe what CURSE believes in. You’re fighting alongside us only because you want to take down Songbird.”

“Well, that and cripple the Masklings where I can.” Prophet says, clasping his hands behind his back once more. “But no, I do not believe in CURSE’s decidedly permissive approach to social policy. It’s not that much different from the Challengers’ egalitarian embrace of interspecies mingling, and I already struggled mightily with that. I am not here to support CURSE’s social agenda; I am only here to lay a friend to rest, and fight back against a threat to our ethnic and cultural individuality.”

“The Masklings.” I guess, tapping the baton against one thumb.

“Well. Them, and the Collective. Same threat, different methods.” Prophet says. “But yes. Ours is an alliance of convenience; I’m sure you’ve realized that. SCORN and CURSE have differing values, but as long as we continue to share a common enemy, you can continue to expect us to stand by your side.”

“And when we no longer share a common enemy?” I ask.

He shrugs. “You don’t bother us, we won’t bother you. But your Administrator knows this already.”

I look down at the baton in my hand, thinking of Whisper and Kent. “For the record, I just want to say that there’s nothing wrong with interspecies mingling. Some of my best friends aren’t human.”

“I never said there was anything wrong with having friends of a different species.” Prophet says mildly. “As a matter of fact, there’s nothing inherently wrong with any species except the Collective and the Masklings. But when species mix bloodlines, the result is often something we were never intended to be — hybrids and abominations that ought not be. Which is exactly why the Collective and Masklings are an affront to Anaya.”

I take a breath. “Well, at least you’re consistent on your messaging there. Although I’m curious — you call Songbird a heretic who threw away his humanity. Is that because—”

“It’s because he’s a vampire, Axiom, and those are an affront to nature.” Prophet says, starting to walk again. “This is the cycle of the universe: we live, we age, we die. Our time is finite, and we are merely visitors to this mortal plane. We die so that other souls may have their term on this mortal plane; so that there is room for others to experience the blessing of life. Vampires, and Masklings, and Shanarae, all break that cycle. They extend their time here on the mortal plane at the expense of other lives. Their immortality is fueled by stealing the finite time given to others, and that is a crime against nature, against mortality, against divinity.” He looks to me, his blue eyes mournful. “Songbird knew all this, knew the doctrine of Anaya, and yet he tread a forbidden path anyway. All for love of a woman that would never love him back.”

“I suppose it won’t matter if I point out that each of those species have mostly found ways to compromise and live in a way that respects the rights of other races…” I say, following as he returns to the center aisle.

“We have ceded ground, and made allowances for them that we should not have.” Prophet replies. His hands remain clasped behind his back. “The fault lies not in their methods, but in the very fact of what they are and how they must exist. The Masklings are innocent abominations, as are the Shanarae; they cannot help that they are born as they are. But the vampires, by and large, choose their path. As you know, vampires cannot reproduce — which in itself is a sin against the natural order — but this also means that becoming one is almost always a conscious choice. A decision to forsake one’s humanity, give up their mortality, and exist indefinitely at the expense of all other mortal creatures.”

“I mean, blood banks exist for a reason.” I point out.

“You think the blood banks would exist if not for the meddling and propaganda of the Dodakatheon?” Prophet asks. “More than anything else, that is the great triumph of the vampires: that they normalized their parasitic lifestyle. They used one of the vices of mortality — greed — to carve out a space in society for their ways. They flipped the script, and instead of taking what they needed, they asked for it instead — and then incentivized it with compensation. They turned the exchange of blood into a financial transaction, and the greed of mortals blinded them to the profanity that undergirded that exchange. Giving away the very life that runs through our veins in exchange for profit.” He takes in a heavy breath at this point, as if the topic wearied him. “The blood banks are an institution built on the greed of mortals, and the desperation of those that need quick money. Vampires still prey on us, Axiom, they always have. The only difference between then and now is that they’ve built normalcy into it, and by doing so, have made their blight endemic and systemic.”

“You sure that’s not a symbiosis?” I ask. “Nobody dies in the blood bank system. The vampires get what they need, and we get paid for it and go on with our lives.”

“That’s true, but for the fact that they continue to exist long after we have died. And in outliving us, they have their victory.” He looks to me again at this point. “This is why I have to kill Songbird. CURSE sees him as a threat; Anaya sees him as a crime against the natural order. And if we do not stop him, he will outlive both of us. You do not want that any more than I do.”

I don’t say anything to that. He’s right; we need to kill Songbird, but I don’t agree with his reasons for doing so. Yet all the same, the way he’s explained the Anayan dogma makes a twisted sort of sense. It’s logical, appeals to the idea that we all ought to be mortal, and that those that immortal are somehow cheating the system, cheating life itself, stealing from others to live longer. Something in me yearns towards that idea, the justice of mortality. And the only part about it that gives me pause is remembering that Prophet, and other Anayan hardliners, might very well use that as justification for wiping out entire species if they could.

Something inside me says I should push back on this. That I should debate it with him, and try to find the flaws, the double standards in his beliefs. Yet there’s another part of me tells me that no amount of logic or reason can change this kind of zealotry, the kind that would lead you to kill a childhood friend.

So instead of trying to change his mind, I change the topic.

“He does need to be stopped. I don’t agree with your reasons, but I agree with the end result, and that’s good enough.” I offer him the baton back to him. “Here you go.”

“Oh no, that’s for you.” he declines. “Consider it a gift. An indication that, though we may not believe the same things, I still respect your convictions.”

I glance down at the baton. “May I ask what it is?”

“That is a miniaturized inverse gravity field drive.” he explains. “You are familiar with how a gravity drive works, yes?”

“Attracts things in a certain direction along a certain plane of orientation, usually the floor of a starship, yes.” I say, studying the baton more keenly now. “But gravity drives are usually structurally bound. They’re too big and their energy requirements are too high for personal use like this.”

“That’s true.” Prophet says as he starts walking. “But with a lower energy input, you can still generate small fields with them, and inverting them makes it so that they repel objects within their field rather than attracting them. It might make for some interesting results if you, say, find a way to integrate that onto the end of your battleaxe, opposite the business end.”

“You don’t say.” I remark, sizing it up. “Well, I’m sure Kent could give it a try and see what he can work out with it.”

“Indeed.” he agrees as we reach the door of the storage room. “At any rate, I’ll leave you and your friend to your search. Being as I have what I need, I see no further reason to gall him with my presence.”

“You don’t want to stay and look for more?” I ask as he pulls the door open. I hold up the miniaturized gravity drive he gave me. “If you were were able to cobble something like this together out of a box of spare parts, I figure you could probably work wonders with some of the other stuff in here.”

He pauses in the doorway, smiling over his shoulder. “That, Axiom, is a little miracle, just for you. Given by the grace of Anaya. I have no outstanding expertise in mechanical tinkering, no education in combat engineering. You think I could’ve rifled through a few boxes and put together something like that on my own? No indeed, and I doubt anyone could, even given great mechanical intelligence.”

I stare at him. “You’re pulling my leg.”

“Only one way to know for sure. Give it to your friend and see if he can incorporate it in the manner I advised. And if it works, let that be your proof.” Prophet says, turning away as the door starts to close. “Faith, Axiom. It’s a powerful thing. You ought to try it sometime.”

With that, the door clicks shut, leaving me alone in the aisle. There’s a moment of silence, before the sound of footsteps over the floor and Kent’s distant shouting. “Is he gone?”

“Yeah, he’s… left.” I call back over my shoulder, slowly turning the drive over in my hands, the same way I’m turning Prophet’s words over in my head.

“Finally! I thought he’d never stop droning on! Downright insufferable…”

“Ah. So you two have something in common, then.”

“Okay, look here, smartass…”

Event Log: Darrow Bennion

Pallus: CURSE Storage Site 9

11:25am SGT

“I don’t like him.”

Kent looks up from his sandwich, raising an eyebrow. “Funny to hear you saying that.”

I peruse the half-eaten sandwich in my hands as I lean on the walkway railing. “He’s… I don’t know. Something about him is just… unsettling. It’s the calmness, I think. If you listen to the words, you can tell he’s an extremist, but the calm tone almost hides it. Makes it seem more palatable, logical.”

“Now that you mention it, he does have a way with words.” Kent says. “I told you talking with him was dangerous.”

“I had to try.” I say, taking another bite of my sandwich. “I might have to work with him on an assignment one day, so I want to at least know a little bit about him.” Watching as a crumb tumbles down into the darkness below, I go on. “He knew a lot about Songbird. Stuff that you never see on the news.”

“Oh really?” Kent says, glancing at me. “Like what?”

“Like Songbird used to be a good person, apparently. And he was in love with Nova, but she didn’t love him back. Also they knew each other since before the Challenger program? And apparently Nova was also a vampire?” I shake my head. “It was a lot of stuff. Honestly it was kinda exhausting to have all that dumped on me.”

“Really.” Kent says incredulously. “So Songbird killed Nova because he wasn’t gettin’ any?”

“No, at least not the way Prophet tells it. It was complicated. I think that’s the part that’s giving me a headache.” I set my sandwich aside, rubbing my temples. “The story isn’t a straight line like you expect. It’s… complicated. It twists and it winds… I don’t like it.”

“Just Prophet twisting your head around in knots, dude.” Kent says, finishing off his sandwich.

“No, this was different. I know Prophet was telling the truth…” I shove away from the railing, running my hands through my hair. “It irritates me. He’s not just this two-dimensional target anymore; he’s a person.”

“Who, Songbird?” Kent asks.

“Yes, Songbird!” I say, starting to pace. “I thought he was a bad guy, because that’s always been the story. Songbird killed Nova for trying to expose the corruption of the Challenger program. Therefore, Songbird is a bad guy. That’s like— it’s a universal truth. Everyone in the galaxy has lived with that truth for the last fifteen years.”

“Ooookay…” Kent says slowly. “…and your point is?”

“What if that’s not the truth?” I demand, turning to face him. “What if he didn’t kill Nova because he was trying to protect the corruption? What if Songbird killed Nova to protect the good people in the program, instead of the program itself? What if Songbird was just trying to protect the people he cared about?”

“Dude, Prophet’s gone and tied your noggin in a pretzel.” Kent says, pushing off the railing. “Nova was the galaxy’s hero. She died trying to expose the Challenger program, and Songbird killed her. That’s all there is to it. No hidden stories, no secret conspiracies. And if Prophet’s telling you a different story, he’s talkin’ out his ass.” He dusts off his hands as he heads back to the hovercart. “Honestly, you had me worried for a bit there. You were starting to sound like Markos.”

I don’t respond to that, snatching my sandwich off the railing as Kent starts pushing the hovercart around the walkway, back to the ramp that leads to the freight platform. Some part of me very much wants to write it up as conspiracy nonsense, and just stick to the narrative that’s always been told. Being compared to Markos doesn’t do wonders for my mood either — because I know how annoying it is to deal with Markos and his harebrained conspiracy theories. I am tempted just to drop it, and forget about what Prophet’s told me.

And yet I just can’t shake it. And as I follow Kent onto the platform, I find myself thinking back to something Whisper said on the night we spent binging the Challenger anime together.

Whoever controls the narrative gets to reshape reality.

“You okay?”

I look up from my sandwich. Kent’s at the control panel, glancing over his shoulder at me. I just shrug in response, taking a bite out of my sandwich. “Like you said, my head’s in a pretzel. I’m trying to unpretzel it. Got a problem with that?”

“Alright alright, take it easy, big guy.” he says, going back to the control panel. The ramp starts to retract back to the platform. “No need to throw a hissy fit. Next time you want to chat to some religious extremist, I won’t warn you, I’ll just let you run off and do it. How’s that sound?”

My only response is a moody grunt as the platform starts rumbling upwards again. For a while, that’s the only sound in the silo as we slowly head back topside. Kent leans back against the railing, watching the levels pass by as we ascend.

“There a reason we didn’t bring the girls?” he asks after a bit.

“The girls?” I repeat after downing the last bite of my sandwich.

“Whisper and Kwyn.”

“Oh.” I start crumpling up the wrapper left over from the sandwich. “Whisper’s on an assignment. And Kwyn had a few certification exams coming up. Those were more important than having her wander around a storage warehouse digging through junk.”

“Pity. Coulda used something nice to look at while we were rifling through everything. And more hands could’ve made a bigger haul.” Kent says, pushing off the railing and heading over to the hovercart as we near the top. “Not that we would’ve needed more hands, I think. Turns out you’re pretty good at digging through this junk.”

“Really?” I ask as the platform clunks to a halt in the entry room, and the railings fold downwards.

“Yup.” Kent say, starting to push the cart towards the open bunker doors. Reaching forward, he snags the baton that Prophet gave me off the top of the cart. “A functional miniaturized inverse gravity field drive? I’ve only seen these on paper. I thought they were just theoretical. It doesn’t surprise me that the Challengers might’ve been working on one, though.”

“Wait, did you say that was functional?” I demand, following him to the bunker doors.

“Yeah. Hooked it up to a wall socket, works like a charm. It just needs a power source. I’ve got some ideas about how I can incorporate it into your battleaxe, perhaps on the haft end, as a nonlethal alternative to, y’know. Filleting people with the plasma blades on the other end of your axe.” He flips it in the air, catching it like a drumstick. “Hell of a find. I should start bringing you on all my salvage runs.” He looks over his shoulder at me, then slows down. “You okay?”

“Yeah.” I say, forcing a smile as we start up the ramp leading back out to the landing field. I tuck my hands in my pockets, as if that could hide the worry clouding my mind. Worry that if Prophet had been telling the truth about the gravity drive, perhaps he’d been telling the truth about other things as well.

Things like Nova and Songbird.