Re: The Great Belligerency [Round 2: New Shambhala]
12-07-2010, 04:54 AM
Originally posted on MSPA by slipsicle.
The girl pursed her lips and nodded crisply to herself as she stalked through a service passageway. I've created an electronic history for you new identity. Who do you want to be?
I shall need a background in military matters, though it should be unassuming enough to pose no threat to this city's rulers.
A security consultant then... we'll still need to give you a reason to be here, though.
The girl passed a maintenance crew, who nodded a polite greeting, and turned a corner. She opened a panel in the floor, and descended into a rather large ventilation system.
You mentioned you were planning on killing one of the leaders? A member of the "Administration", yes? Perhaps the one you plan to kill requested my presence before his death?
That... is quite cunning, actually. Setting up a virtual paper trail now. You arrived this morning, and the Administrator - one "Dr. Traven Slott" - sent you a rather urgent-sounding message about a week ago, requesting your expertise at earliest possible convenience. I've set up accounts in your name across the city, and given you a penthouse in a high-end hotel in the main business bloc. I'm arranging a care package to be sent to your room, with all the electronic devices you'll need to be a properly functioning citizen of galactic culture.
What about weapons?
A wall panel in a closed warehouse fell to the floor, and the girl slid out without a sound. She glanced around the room, her augmented vision picking up every detail in the low-light environment. Before her lay an assortment of machinery and tools which workers used to perform maintenance on the city's tram system. The tram was a marvel of engineering, allowing frictionless /and/ inertialess acceleration, transporting people around New Shambala in a timely manner, all while giving them a silent and comfortable experience.
The girl smiled. This would do.
It is being taken care of.
---
Ambrose Lom, username "cr3-79" ("Cree", to her friends), hunched towards her bank of display cubes, and squinted. "That's odd," she murmured. She reached forwards, and the holographic gloves circling her hands and fingers responded. Her fingers dove into one of the display cubes - a glowing holographic cube which contained the user interface for her unit's custom (and highly illegal) computer system, and her gateway into the city's 'net. She continued to waggle her fingers, and icons within the cubes danced to their movements. She paused, reading a few more displays, before she reached over and activated another floating icon.
An image of a horn appeared, and a green aura flicked on around it, indicating a connected user. The word "minotaurus" appeared below it.
"Minnie, have you been creating any fake identities?"
"First, don't call me that. Second, no."
"Well do you know anyone who might be?"
"No."
"Aaare you sure?"
"Don't insult me. All the burners in New Shambhala know not to barge in on my territory. At least not without my permission."
"Right right, Minnie. You're the big man and all that."
"I told you not to call me-"
"Anyways I thought you should know that someone just created a fake ID in the city's systems, complete with an entire life-history. It's pretty heavy-duty."
"What? Damnit..."
A few seconds passed, and Ambrose waited.
"... Cree, whoever did this is serious. I don't think it was someone from the city."
"That's what I'm thinking. You got the 'cast about the explosion earlier?"
"Yeah. You think it's the same people?"
Ambrose rocked back on her floor.
"I dunno... but keep an eye out. Something's not right. I don't think that was an accident."
"Agreed."
The horn disappeared, as "minotaurus" disconnected. Ambrose leaned forward again, and looked at the ID card on one of her cube's faces. "Matthew Vanhart... who are you?"
---
It was perhaps twenty minutes later, and the girl was tucking an oddly-shaped collection of metal and ceramic inside a back pocket. Vandrel had, following her instructions, started off towards his hotel room. The girl, however, was headed somewhere different.
---
As tripeds went, the Yun were the most gangly and ungraceful example of tripedal biology. They were also incredibly paranoid, and despite their reputation for clumsiness, Yun guerrilla forces were renowned galaxy-wide for their ruthlessness, efficiency, and stealth. Not that Yo Shi'i Lop was a guerrilla fighter. In fact, the Yun scientist had never had a violent thought in his life. Yo Shi'i Lop was something of a coward - most Yun were, what with the paranoia inherent to a species of herbivores - so when he heard the thump of something landing behind him, his first instinct was not to turn and look, but to run.
He'd made it two feet before something hit the back of his elongated neck, and his unconscious body flopped to the ground in a tangle of limbs and clothing.
He woke some time later, and began struggling when he found his six limbs all thoroughly bound. A curt voice brought him up short.
"Stop." The word was translated into his language though an earbud in his lower auditory receptor. He looked up to see the barrel of a gun pointing at him, and did what most any Yun would do.
He freaked out.
The small room where he'd been brought was abruptly filled with the screeches and whoops as Lop's two vocal head-appendages began spurting his displeasure.
The girl winced. She'd downloaded the publicly-available translation programs for this species, and had integrated them into her aural implants, but they could do nothing about the sheer volume of this alien's protests. From what she'd read up on them, however, they were disinclined to resist when exposed to pressure, or threats. Unless they were guerrillas, which this one most certainly was not. She shoved her makeshift gun closer to his sensory-stalk. The motion did not go unnoticed. The sensory stalk went rigid, and was quite obviously focused on the piece of metal staring it down.
The girl took a moment to study her captive. She'd never seen an alien before now; there had been none in her home universe, and this one certainly met the criteria of "alien". The Yun were a tripedal-based species, meaning they had three legs, three arms, and three "heads", each on an elongated, highly flexible neck. Two of the heads were mouths, both capable of forming speech. The third head played host to a large array of sensory organs, both natural and (in modern Yun) artificial. The ocular, aural and olfactory organs were standard-fare on all carbon-based life forms, but the Yun, being skittery herbivores, had enhanced senses for detecting danger. Their ocular organs gave them nearly 360 degrees of unimpeded vision, and their brains allowed them to easily notice and process any movement in that field of view. They could also see further into the infrared spectrum, as well as into the ultraviolet, though their sensitivity in the so-called "visible" spectrum was weaker than in other species, resulting in moderate colorblindness. Their aural sensors were positioned in threes; a trifectum ringed the top of their oblong "head", and three others rested at the base of the sensory stalk, where it met the body. This three-dimensional placement gave them the ability to, with a fair degree of accuracy, determine the distance to and the vertical and horizontal positions of most sounds. A Yun torso was a slightly elongated oval, which flared out slightly at the bottom where the double-jointed triplet of legs splayed out. On the back and front of the torso were breathing slits, and Yun clothing was designed around giving these slits maximum exposure and maximum protection.
The two mouth-stalks had finally stopped yowling, as the eye-stalk continued to focus on... "Is... is that a g-gun?" Lop whimpered.
"Yes".
"A GUN?! There are no guns on New Shambhala! How did you get it on here?! Those things are dangerous OH BY THE CIRCLES ARE YOU GOING TO KILL ME PLEASE DON'T KILL MEEEEEEEEEHEEEHUUUBUBBUHH" the poor scientist's protests quickly devolved into the Yun equivalent of pathetic blubbering.
"Shut up." The gun was suddenly jammed into a trembling mouth-stalk, which, much to Lop's shock, he was unable to move. "You're going to do something for me."
"Why? Why should I! You're going to kill me when you're done and you're going to kill me if I refuse! Either way I'm dead! Dead dead DEAD!"
"Wrong. If you refuse, I'm going to start cutting off your limbs one-by-one, until all that's left is your squishy little potato of a body and a single eye. You'll still be able to breathe, hear and see, but you'll be powerless to run as I track down the rest of your herd and eviscerate them in front of you. Slowly."
She had Lop's full attention now. "W-what do you need me to do?"
The girl smiled. Lop had never put much effort into interpreting human expressions, but he was fairly certain there was something very wrong with that smile.
---
Ambrose and "Minnie" had been working together to try and find the origin of the Matthew Vanhart identity. Minotaurus was... a bit territorial, however, and so Ambrose had been shunted off to trying to figure out who might want to use it. What she'd found was troubling.
She quickly brought up the horn icon, which blinked green almost instantly.
"Minnie, we've got a problem. Whoever's using this identity put in a special effort to make it seem like his presence on New Shambhala was requested. By Administrator Slott."
"Dr. Travin Slott? Are you certain?"
"Yeah, I've got records of a message sent from Slott's personal station to Vanhart's public inbox. It's disturbing enough that an Administrator would quietly 'request' the presence of a Security Consultant on New Shambhala, but add in that the contents are encrypted using an incredibly advanced algor-"
"Give it to me."
"Minnie, I know you've got to maintain the whole 'anti-social genius' thing but really, is a little tact too much to ask for?"
"Give it to me, please."
"Better. I still want to know why you want it."
"I know someone that can decrypt it."
"Someone who's not me? Who do you know that's a better burner than me?"
"Not important, they just are."
Ambrose raised an eyebrow. "You'll share the results with me, right?"
"Yeah sure."
She sighed. "Minnie, you're kind of an ass sometimes, you know that?"
"Whatever." The horn blinked out, and Ambrose gave the empty space the finger. A small tone chimed from one of her cubes, and she looked at the message displayed on its face. "Oh hello there..." she muttered. "Checking in, eh? Well, let's see what you've got on you..." her fingers moved quickly, as she burned through Hotel Reccxer's security systems. A man could be seen on a screen in the corner of the cube's face. The man looked exactly like the picture in Vanhart's ID file, and, in fact, was Vanhart, at least according to the hotel's automated concierge system. Ambrose was now using that same system to scan Vanhart's localized network, and download the details on his implants and any other cybernetic upgrades he might hav-
She straightened suddenly and gasped out a "What?!" as the results of her burn came back. Vanhart had no implants! No localized network, no cybernetic upgrades, nothing! Electronically, the man didn't exist. He gave off no electromagnetic emissions, and showed exactly zero signs of any technology anywhere on his body. Which, in this modern age, what not just rare, it was impossible. Every human was born with cybernetic implants, grown with them in the womb using nanobots. You couldn't even navigate through galactic civilization without some piece of integrated tech. Yet this man...
Ambrose hunched forwards intently, fingers weaving a complex symphony of code as she set about tracking everything Matthew Vanhart had done since his arrival, and everything he was about to do.
---
Phil's study of the maps he'd gotten from NSU had led him to what he believed to be the most likely place for him to run into the other contestants: the Central Tram Station. He was standing outside the main building, in a gigantic square (labeled on his map as "Harmony Square") which was surrounded on all sides by gracefully arching buildings which appeared to flow into each other as they stretched towards the sky. Shops, theaters, restaurants, and many other different businesses lined the square, all bringing focus to the huge open archway which led into the CTS. Harmony Square was crowded, as the city's nightlife was beginning to pick up, now that the sun had finally gone below the horizon. Phil was looking around for a nice vantage point when his helmet's communicator beeped. Somewhat confused, he answered the call. The voice on the other end was deep, mechanical, emotionless.
"Phil Girnham."
"... yes, that's me."
"Do you know a young girl, blond hair, not too smart?"
He grimaced at that last one. "You mean Julia?"
"Good, so you do know her. Tell me, if she were in danger, what would you do?"
Phil had to think on that. There'd been a few things that had been bothering him about Julia lately, suspicions he hadn't yet acted upon because there was simply no evidence, and yet...
"I'd kill the person responsible."
"I rather hoped you'd say that. As it happens, Julia is safe. For now. But that will change if you don't follow my instructions."
"Wait, do you- are you saying you have her?"
A pause, then, "Phil! Oh, Phil! I am so scared! I don't know where I am, these-" the sobbing voice was cut off quite suddenly, and replaced with the mechanical one.
"She will be hurt every time you disobey. She will be returned to you safely if you comply."
Phil grit his teeth. Much as he was still suspicious of the girl, she didn't deserve this. He felt... uncommonly protective of her. So...
"What do you want?"
"A global broadcast will soon be made throughout the city. In that broadcast, a gun will be fired. When the broadcast ends, I want you to kill every alien in sight."
Phil blinked inside his helmet. That wasn't a terribly unreasonable request, considering who he was. It seemed too easy.
"That's it?"
"Not exactly. You must ensure that no humans are harmed by your actions. You must cause only alien deaths. Every human death that you cause will be met with instant and severe pain for Julia. That will be all. You should meet very little resistance, as this city is unaccustomed to dealing with armed hostiles."
Phil grimaced. Killing he could do, but specific killing might be a little more difficult. He looked around the square; at least the alien population was fairly dense. "I can do that," he said.
"Glad you understand." The link closed.
Phil moved off towards a nicely elevated platform on some scaffolding he'd noticed, and began pre-combat checks of all his weapons. He was actually a little excited; it'd been a while since he'd had an opportunity to kill and cause destruction with wild abandon. For Phil was a killer at heart, and his favorite orders had always been "Kill them all."
---
The girl stopped speaking, her orders to Phil successfully delivered, and smirked at the paralyzed Yun. Lop was unrecognizable, which was kind of the point. With Lop's forced help, and a little research using New Shambhala's databases, the girl had been able to piece together an outfit that completely concealed all the parts of a Yun which others of its species could use to identify it. The final step had been to keep Lop from moving; Yun were prone to prancing, fidgeting, and general restlessness; and that was when they weren't being threatened with the slow and painful death of everyone they knew. The girl and the alien were in a room together, dark except for a single light shining on the unmoving Yun. One of the scientist's arms was held out perpendicular to his body, and his mid-joint had turned at a right angle, so that his eight-fingered hand was pointing straight down.
It was also holding the gun.
A gun which was pointed at the top of a kneeling man's head.
Administrator Slott was bound, gagged and blindfolded to keep him from speaking, and Lop's mouth-stalks were hidden; his spindly body was under the complete control of the girl's limited telekinesis; if it weren't, he'd be practically exploding off the walls as the urge to run overpowered his higher thought processes. In this state, he was nearly useless as a speaker, but it didn't matter. She just needed an alien body to pull the trigger.
Lop had heard the girl's half of the conversation and, fighting his instincts, managed to get small whimper out, which may have contained actual speech. A few more tries later, and a few words squeaked out from his terrified mouths.
"Y-you... you're insane! Y-you're j-just going to... to..."
The girl looked up from the recording device she'd been preparing, and smiled again.
"Yes. And it's about to get a whole lot worse."
---
Vandrel. Are you at the hotel?
I have arrived. The devices you left me are here, but I am unfamiliar with them.
I'm sending over a mnemonic data package that will help you get up to speed but right now what's more important is that you lay low, and try to stay around humans. Things are about to get a little crazy.
Vandrel nodded quick acknowledgment, though it was mostly unnecessary. He began picking up the various devices inside the small suitcase which he'd found on his bed. The data package unloaded relevant information on each device as soon as he looked at it, and very quickly he knew the basics of the technology he'd just been fitted with. He locked the door, and sat on the bed, as information flooded his brain.
---
Ambrose wouldn't have noticed it if she hadn't been so intent on capturing every little detail about Vanhart. So when a few passive sensors in his area picked up weak fluctuations in an electromagnetic field which had suddenly surrounded him, she jumped.
She'd been surprised when Vanhart had been greeted by what appeared to be a care package of modern technology in his room, but all he'd done was open the case and stare at it for a few seconds. Then this field appeared from nowhere, and she had only a few precious seconds to analyze it before it disappeared and he started picking up and installing the implants like he'd known how to all along. The results from the scan were... troubling. She hadn't had a whole lot of time, so things were still vague, but... she'd distinctly picked up a second field, highly focused, coming from... somewhere. It hadn't been active for long enough for her to pinpoint it, but it was definitely there. Now if only she could just-
A horn appeared in front of her, interrupting her thoughts.
"Load up a 'cast. Any 'cast."
"Minnie, what-"
"Just do it."
She did, and was greeted by... a Yun? Holding a gun?! And it hadn't killed itself out of fear yet?
Before she could even begin to process the oddity of what she was seeing, the Yun began to speak. Her computer's auto-translation system turned the howls and yelps of Yunnese into galactic standard English for her.
"Humans of New Shambhala. Your tyranny is at an end. For too long you have discriminated against the other species in this city, and violated the egalitarian philosophies which made this city great. Most of us were willing to tolerate your patronizing, until now. Recently, human commandos have been secretly dispatched to this city. Armed human commandos. Their purpose was unclear, until a group of enterprising non-humans discovered biologically engineered diseases in this city, secretly developed by the humans, specifically for use against all non-humans."
Ambrose was still struggling with the concept of a violent Yun when she realized she couldn't see any of its identifying features. Or its mouths. And it still wasn't moving...
"My name is Prism, and I urge the oppressed non-humans of New Shambhala to rise up with me against our would-be, bigoted rulers. The destruction of Pan-Horizon Solutions in Laboratory District 7b was the first strike against the humans. This is the second."
Now she noticed the human kneeling underneath the oddly-shaped gun - probably designed specifically for use by a Yun, she thought - and her incredulous horror kept her from looking away. Her mouth fell open as she recognized the man - as every being watching recognized the human. "Administrator Slott..." she breathed, and her eyes were drawn inexplicably towards the object pressed against his head.
The gun that the girl had built was not a regular gun. It used the incredibly powerful magnets from the tram system to accelerate any magnetic object small enough to fit inside the barrel to supersonic speeds. It was, in essence, a miniature railgun.
So when Lop's finger (against his will) pulled the trigger, the result was nothing short of spectacular. The projectile plowed through the top of Administrator Slott's head, reaching the floor in less than a hundredth of a second. His body exploded into two separate masses, spewing liquified human everywhere.
The feed was cut, and all hell broke loose.
Her cubes were alerting her of high-priority 'casts from around the city; uprisings, both human and non-human, public officials denouncing... whatever they could find to denounce, reports of human commandos opening fire in Harmony Square... the city was in chaos.
"Cree. You know what that was."
Ambrose shook herself. "I... I'm not..."
"It was a Yun guerrilla fighter. When have you ever seen a Yun stand that still? And who else could have gotten a gun into this city, of all places? It's the only explanation."
Ambrose thought a bit. It was true, the havoc wreaking through the station did have the signature of Yun guerrillas. Maximum damage in minimum time, with an emphasis on stealth. As Yun were, as a species, not generally cut out for being fighters (both physically and psychologically), one would think that Yun guerrillas would be more of a galactic joke than any real threat. Yet how other Yun viewed them was telling; every Yun guerrilla was considered legally insane by every Yun authority. They were trained to use their flight-instincts to their advantage, and underwent rigorous procedures to bring their jitter-prone bodies under control. They were ruthless, efficient, and few had ever actually been seen, though their handiwork was renowned galaxy-wide.
And the very fact that this Yun had been able to hold a gun without flying out of his shoes, much less pull the trigger, was proof that Yun guerrillas were in the city.
Ambrose moaned.
"Exactly," said minotaurus.
---
The girl was already a good distance away from the room where she'd had Lop kill Dr. Slott, and she'd already disposed of the remnants of the bodies.
The video hadn't been sent out live, of course. She'd needed some time to cut Lop's immobilized body into pieces for easy disposal, and to clean up Slott's remains, as she was fairly certain what passed for New Shambhala's authorities would pinpoint the video's origin fairly quickly. So, she'd recorded it, and sent it out after she was a few city blocks away.
As she made her way through the city's underworks to her next destination, her internal monitoring protocols threw up a message. Someone was looking into her creation of the Matthew Vanhart identity, and that someone had found some things she'd rather be left alone. She pulled up the digital profile of the culprit. "'Minotaurus', is it?" she muttered to herself. "I'll have to pay you a little visit, I think."
A blur, and she was gone.
The girl pursed her lips and nodded crisply to herself as she stalked through a service passageway. I've created an electronic history for you new identity. Who do you want to be?
I shall need a background in military matters, though it should be unassuming enough to pose no threat to this city's rulers.
A security consultant then... we'll still need to give you a reason to be here, though.
The girl passed a maintenance crew, who nodded a polite greeting, and turned a corner. She opened a panel in the floor, and descended into a rather large ventilation system.
You mentioned you were planning on killing one of the leaders? A member of the "Administration", yes? Perhaps the one you plan to kill requested my presence before his death?
That... is quite cunning, actually. Setting up a virtual paper trail now. You arrived this morning, and the Administrator - one "Dr. Traven Slott" - sent you a rather urgent-sounding message about a week ago, requesting your expertise at earliest possible convenience. I've set up accounts in your name across the city, and given you a penthouse in a high-end hotel in the main business bloc. I'm arranging a care package to be sent to your room, with all the electronic devices you'll need to be a properly functioning citizen of galactic culture.
What about weapons?
A wall panel in a closed warehouse fell to the floor, and the girl slid out without a sound. She glanced around the room, her augmented vision picking up every detail in the low-light environment. Before her lay an assortment of machinery and tools which workers used to perform maintenance on the city's tram system. The tram was a marvel of engineering, allowing frictionless /and/ inertialess acceleration, transporting people around New Shambala in a timely manner, all while giving them a silent and comfortable experience.
The girl smiled. This would do.
It is being taken care of.
---
Ambrose Lom, username "cr3-79" ("Cree", to her friends), hunched towards her bank of display cubes, and squinted. "That's odd," she murmured. She reached forwards, and the holographic gloves circling her hands and fingers responded. Her fingers dove into one of the display cubes - a glowing holographic cube which contained the user interface for her unit's custom (and highly illegal) computer system, and her gateway into the city's 'net. She continued to waggle her fingers, and icons within the cubes danced to their movements. She paused, reading a few more displays, before she reached over and activated another floating icon.
An image of a horn appeared, and a green aura flicked on around it, indicating a connected user. The word "minotaurus" appeared below it.
"Minnie, have you been creating any fake identities?"
"First, don't call me that. Second, no."
"Well do you know anyone who might be?"
"No."
"Aaare you sure?"
"Don't insult me. All the burners in New Shambhala know not to barge in on my territory. At least not without my permission."
"Right right, Minnie. You're the big man and all that."
"I told you not to call me-"
"Anyways I thought you should know that someone just created a fake ID in the city's systems, complete with an entire life-history. It's pretty heavy-duty."
"What? Damnit..."
A few seconds passed, and Ambrose waited.
"... Cree, whoever did this is serious. I don't think it was someone from the city."
"That's what I'm thinking. You got the 'cast about the explosion earlier?"
"Yeah. You think it's the same people?"
Ambrose rocked back on her floor.
"I dunno... but keep an eye out. Something's not right. I don't think that was an accident."
"Agreed."
The horn disappeared, as "minotaurus" disconnected. Ambrose leaned forward again, and looked at the ID card on one of her cube's faces. "Matthew Vanhart... who are you?"
---
It was perhaps twenty minutes later, and the girl was tucking an oddly-shaped collection of metal and ceramic inside a back pocket. Vandrel had, following her instructions, started off towards his hotel room. The girl, however, was headed somewhere different.
---
As tripeds went, the Yun were the most gangly and ungraceful example of tripedal biology. They were also incredibly paranoid, and despite their reputation for clumsiness, Yun guerrilla forces were renowned galaxy-wide for their ruthlessness, efficiency, and stealth. Not that Yo Shi'i Lop was a guerrilla fighter. In fact, the Yun scientist had never had a violent thought in his life. Yo Shi'i Lop was something of a coward - most Yun were, what with the paranoia inherent to a species of herbivores - so when he heard the thump of something landing behind him, his first instinct was not to turn and look, but to run.
He'd made it two feet before something hit the back of his elongated neck, and his unconscious body flopped to the ground in a tangle of limbs and clothing.
He woke some time later, and began struggling when he found his six limbs all thoroughly bound. A curt voice brought him up short.
"Stop." The word was translated into his language though an earbud in his lower auditory receptor. He looked up to see the barrel of a gun pointing at him, and did what most any Yun would do.
He freaked out.
The small room where he'd been brought was abruptly filled with the screeches and whoops as Lop's two vocal head-appendages began spurting his displeasure.
The girl winced. She'd downloaded the publicly-available translation programs for this species, and had integrated them into her aural implants, but they could do nothing about the sheer volume of this alien's protests. From what she'd read up on them, however, they were disinclined to resist when exposed to pressure, or threats. Unless they were guerrillas, which this one most certainly was not. She shoved her makeshift gun closer to his sensory-stalk. The motion did not go unnoticed. The sensory stalk went rigid, and was quite obviously focused on the piece of metal staring it down.
The girl took a moment to study her captive. She'd never seen an alien before now; there had been none in her home universe, and this one certainly met the criteria of "alien". The Yun were a tripedal-based species, meaning they had three legs, three arms, and three "heads", each on an elongated, highly flexible neck. Two of the heads were mouths, both capable of forming speech. The third head played host to a large array of sensory organs, both natural and (in modern Yun) artificial. The ocular, aural and olfactory organs were standard-fare on all carbon-based life forms, but the Yun, being skittery herbivores, had enhanced senses for detecting danger. Their ocular organs gave them nearly 360 degrees of unimpeded vision, and their brains allowed them to easily notice and process any movement in that field of view. They could also see further into the infrared spectrum, as well as into the ultraviolet, though their sensitivity in the so-called "visible" spectrum was weaker than in other species, resulting in moderate colorblindness. Their aural sensors were positioned in threes; a trifectum ringed the top of their oblong "head", and three others rested at the base of the sensory stalk, where it met the body. This three-dimensional placement gave them the ability to, with a fair degree of accuracy, determine the distance to and the vertical and horizontal positions of most sounds. A Yun torso was a slightly elongated oval, which flared out slightly at the bottom where the double-jointed triplet of legs splayed out. On the back and front of the torso were breathing slits, and Yun clothing was designed around giving these slits maximum exposure and maximum protection.
The two mouth-stalks had finally stopped yowling, as the eye-stalk continued to focus on... "Is... is that a g-gun?" Lop whimpered.
"Yes".
"A GUN?! There are no guns on New Shambhala! How did you get it on here?! Those things are dangerous OH BY THE CIRCLES ARE YOU GOING TO KILL ME PLEASE DON'T KILL MEEEEEEEEEHEEEHUUUBUBBUHH" the poor scientist's protests quickly devolved into the Yun equivalent of pathetic blubbering.
"Shut up." The gun was suddenly jammed into a trembling mouth-stalk, which, much to Lop's shock, he was unable to move. "You're going to do something for me."
"Why? Why should I! You're going to kill me when you're done and you're going to kill me if I refuse! Either way I'm dead! Dead dead DEAD!"
"Wrong. If you refuse, I'm going to start cutting off your limbs one-by-one, until all that's left is your squishy little potato of a body and a single eye. You'll still be able to breathe, hear and see, but you'll be powerless to run as I track down the rest of your herd and eviscerate them in front of you. Slowly."
She had Lop's full attention now. "W-what do you need me to do?"
The girl smiled. Lop had never put much effort into interpreting human expressions, but he was fairly certain there was something very wrong with that smile.
---
Ambrose and "Minnie" had been working together to try and find the origin of the Matthew Vanhart identity. Minotaurus was... a bit territorial, however, and so Ambrose had been shunted off to trying to figure out who might want to use it. What she'd found was troubling.
She quickly brought up the horn icon, which blinked green almost instantly.
"Minnie, we've got a problem. Whoever's using this identity put in a special effort to make it seem like his presence on New Shambhala was requested. By Administrator Slott."
"Dr. Travin Slott? Are you certain?"
"Yeah, I've got records of a message sent from Slott's personal station to Vanhart's public inbox. It's disturbing enough that an Administrator would quietly 'request' the presence of a Security Consultant on New Shambhala, but add in that the contents are encrypted using an incredibly advanced algor-"
"Give it to me."
"Minnie, I know you've got to maintain the whole 'anti-social genius' thing but really, is a little tact too much to ask for?"
"Give it to me, please."
"Better. I still want to know why you want it."
"I know someone that can decrypt it."
"Someone who's not me? Who do you know that's a better burner than me?"
"Not important, they just are."
Ambrose raised an eyebrow. "You'll share the results with me, right?"
"Yeah sure."
She sighed. "Minnie, you're kind of an ass sometimes, you know that?"
"Whatever." The horn blinked out, and Ambrose gave the empty space the finger. A small tone chimed from one of her cubes, and she looked at the message displayed on its face. "Oh hello there..." she muttered. "Checking in, eh? Well, let's see what you've got on you..." her fingers moved quickly, as she burned through Hotel Reccxer's security systems. A man could be seen on a screen in the corner of the cube's face. The man looked exactly like the picture in Vanhart's ID file, and, in fact, was Vanhart, at least according to the hotel's automated concierge system. Ambrose was now using that same system to scan Vanhart's localized network, and download the details on his implants and any other cybernetic upgrades he might hav-
She straightened suddenly and gasped out a "What?!" as the results of her burn came back. Vanhart had no implants! No localized network, no cybernetic upgrades, nothing! Electronically, the man didn't exist. He gave off no electromagnetic emissions, and showed exactly zero signs of any technology anywhere on his body. Which, in this modern age, what not just rare, it was impossible. Every human was born with cybernetic implants, grown with them in the womb using nanobots. You couldn't even navigate through galactic civilization without some piece of integrated tech. Yet this man...
Ambrose hunched forwards intently, fingers weaving a complex symphony of code as she set about tracking everything Matthew Vanhart had done since his arrival, and everything he was about to do.
---
Phil's study of the maps he'd gotten from NSU had led him to what he believed to be the most likely place for him to run into the other contestants: the Central Tram Station. He was standing outside the main building, in a gigantic square (labeled on his map as "Harmony Square") which was surrounded on all sides by gracefully arching buildings which appeared to flow into each other as they stretched towards the sky. Shops, theaters, restaurants, and many other different businesses lined the square, all bringing focus to the huge open archway which led into the CTS. Harmony Square was crowded, as the city's nightlife was beginning to pick up, now that the sun had finally gone below the horizon. Phil was looking around for a nice vantage point when his helmet's communicator beeped. Somewhat confused, he answered the call. The voice on the other end was deep, mechanical, emotionless.
"Phil Girnham."
"... yes, that's me."
"Do you know a young girl, blond hair, not too smart?"
He grimaced at that last one. "You mean Julia?"
"Good, so you do know her. Tell me, if she were in danger, what would you do?"
Phil had to think on that. There'd been a few things that had been bothering him about Julia lately, suspicions he hadn't yet acted upon because there was simply no evidence, and yet...
"I'd kill the person responsible."
"I rather hoped you'd say that. As it happens, Julia is safe. For now. But that will change if you don't follow my instructions."
"Wait, do you- are you saying you have her?"
A pause, then, "Phil! Oh, Phil! I am so scared! I don't know where I am, these-" the sobbing voice was cut off quite suddenly, and replaced with the mechanical one.
"She will be hurt every time you disobey. She will be returned to you safely if you comply."
Phil grit his teeth. Much as he was still suspicious of the girl, she didn't deserve this. He felt... uncommonly protective of her. So...
"What do you want?"
"A global broadcast will soon be made throughout the city. In that broadcast, a gun will be fired. When the broadcast ends, I want you to kill every alien in sight."
Phil blinked inside his helmet. That wasn't a terribly unreasonable request, considering who he was. It seemed too easy.
"That's it?"
"Not exactly. You must ensure that no humans are harmed by your actions. You must cause only alien deaths. Every human death that you cause will be met with instant and severe pain for Julia. That will be all. You should meet very little resistance, as this city is unaccustomed to dealing with armed hostiles."
Phil grimaced. Killing he could do, but specific killing might be a little more difficult. He looked around the square; at least the alien population was fairly dense. "I can do that," he said.
"Glad you understand." The link closed.
Phil moved off towards a nicely elevated platform on some scaffolding he'd noticed, and began pre-combat checks of all his weapons. He was actually a little excited; it'd been a while since he'd had an opportunity to kill and cause destruction with wild abandon. For Phil was a killer at heart, and his favorite orders had always been "Kill them all."
---
The girl stopped speaking, her orders to Phil successfully delivered, and smirked at the paralyzed Yun. Lop was unrecognizable, which was kind of the point. With Lop's forced help, and a little research using New Shambhala's databases, the girl had been able to piece together an outfit that completely concealed all the parts of a Yun which others of its species could use to identify it. The final step had been to keep Lop from moving; Yun were prone to prancing, fidgeting, and general restlessness; and that was when they weren't being threatened with the slow and painful death of everyone they knew. The girl and the alien were in a room together, dark except for a single light shining on the unmoving Yun. One of the scientist's arms was held out perpendicular to his body, and his mid-joint had turned at a right angle, so that his eight-fingered hand was pointing straight down.
It was also holding the gun.
A gun which was pointed at the top of a kneeling man's head.
Administrator Slott was bound, gagged and blindfolded to keep him from speaking, and Lop's mouth-stalks were hidden; his spindly body was under the complete control of the girl's limited telekinesis; if it weren't, he'd be practically exploding off the walls as the urge to run overpowered his higher thought processes. In this state, he was nearly useless as a speaker, but it didn't matter. She just needed an alien body to pull the trigger.
Lop had heard the girl's half of the conversation and, fighting his instincts, managed to get small whimper out, which may have contained actual speech. A few more tries later, and a few words squeaked out from his terrified mouths.
"Y-you... you're insane! Y-you're j-just going to... to..."
The girl looked up from the recording device she'd been preparing, and smiled again.
"Yes. And it's about to get a whole lot worse."
---
Vandrel. Are you at the hotel?
I have arrived. The devices you left me are here, but I am unfamiliar with them.
I'm sending over a mnemonic data package that will help you get up to speed but right now what's more important is that you lay low, and try to stay around humans. Things are about to get a little crazy.
Vandrel nodded quick acknowledgment, though it was mostly unnecessary. He began picking up the various devices inside the small suitcase which he'd found on his bed. The data package unloaded relevant information on each device as soon as he looked at it, and very quickly he knew the basics of the technology he'd just been fitted with. He locked the door, and sat on the bed, as information flooded his brain.
---
Ambrose wouldn't have noticed it if she hadn't been so intent on capturing every little detail about Vanhart. So when a few passive sensors in his area picked up weak fluctuations in an electromagnetic field which had suddenly surrounded him, she jumped.
She'd been surprised when Vanhart had been greeted by what appeared to be a care package of modern technology in his room, but all he'd done was open the case and stare at it for a few seconds. Then this field appeared from nowhere, and she had only a few precious seconds to analyze it before it disappeared and he started picking up and installing the implants like he'd known how to all along. The results from the scan were... troubling. She hadn't had a whole lot of time, so things were still vague, but... she'd distinctly picked up a second field, highly focused, coming from... somewhere. It hadn't been active for long enough for her to pinpoint it, but it was definitely there. Now if only she could just-
A horn appeared in front of her, interrupting her thoughts.
"Load up a 'cast. Any 'cast."
"Minnie, what-"
"Just do it."
She did, and was greeted by... a Yun? Holding a gun?! And it hadn't killed itself out of fear yet?
Before she could even begin to process the oddity of what she was seeing, the Yun began to speak. Her computer's auto-translation system turned the howls and yelps of Yunnese into galactic standard English for her.
"Humans of New Shambhala. Your tyranny is at an end. For too long you have discriminated against the other species in this city, and violated the egalitarian philosophies which made this city great. Most of us were willing to tolerate your patronizing, until now. Recently, human commandos have been secretly dispatched to this city. Armed human commandos. Their purpose was unclear, until a group of enterprising non-humans discovered biologically engineered diseases in this city, secretly developed by the humans, specifically for use against all non-humans."
Ambrose was still struggling with the concept of a violent Yun when she realized she couldn't see any of its identifying features. Or its mouths. And it still wasn't moving...
"My name is Prism, and I urge the oppressed non-humans of New Shambhala to rise up with me against our would-be, bigoted rulers. The destruction of Pan-Horizon Solutions in Laboratory District 7b was the first strike against the humans. This is the second."
Now she noticed the human kneeling underneath the oddly-shaped gun - probably designed specifically for use by a Yun, she thought - and her incredulous horror kept her from looking away. Her mouth fell open as she recognized the man - as every being watching recognized the human. "Administrator Slott..." she breathed, and her eyes were drawn inexplicably towards the object pressed against his head.
The gun that the girl had built was not a regular gun. It used the incredibly powerful magnets from the tram system to accelerate any magnetic object small enough to fit inside the barrel to supersonic speeds. It was, in essence, a miniature railgun.
So when Lop's finger (against his will) pulled the trigger, the result was nothing short of spectacular. The projectile plowed through the top of Administrator Slott's head, reaching the floor in less than a hundredth of a second. His body exploded into two separate masses, spewing liquified human everywhere.
The feed was cut, and all hell broke loose.
Her cubes were alerting her of high-priority 'casts from around the city; uprisings, both human and non-human, public officials denouncing... whatever they could find to denounce, reports of human commandos opening fire in Harmony Square... the city was in chaos.
"Cree. You know what that was."
Ambrose shook herself. "I... I'm not..."
"It was a Yun guerrilla fighter. When have you ever seen a Yun stand that still? And who else could have gotten a gun into this city, of all places? It's the only explanation."
Ambrose thought a bit. It was true, the havoc wreaking through the station did have the signature of Yun guerrillas. Maximum damage in minimum time, with an emphasis on stealth. As Yun were, as a species, not generally cut out for being fighters (both physically and psychologically), one would think that Yun guerrillas would be more of a galactic joke than any real threat. Yet how other Yun viewed them was telling; every Yun guerrilla was considered legally insane by every Yun authority. They were trained to use their flight-instincts to their advantage, and underwent rigorous procedures to bring their jitter-prone bodies under control. They were ruthless, efficient, and few had ever actually been seen, though their handiwork was renowned galaxy-wide.
And the very fact that this Yun had been able to hold a gun without flying out of his shoes, much less pull the trigger, was proof that Yun guerrillas were in the city.
Ambrose moaned.
"Exactly," said minotaurus.
---
The girl was already a good distance away from the room where she'd had Lop kill Dr. Slott, and she'd already disposed of the remnants of the bodies.
The video hadn't been sent out live, of course. She'd needed some time to cut Lop's immobilized body into pieces for easy disposal, and to clean up Slott's remains, as she was fairly certain what passed for New Shambhala's authorities would pinpoint the video's origin fairly quickly. So, she'd recorded it, and sent it out after she was a few city blocks away.
As she made her way through the city's underworks to her next destination, her internal monitoring protocols threw up a message. Someone was looking into her creation of the Matthew Vanhart identity, and that someone had found some things she'd rather be left alone. She pulled up the digital profile of the culprit. "'Minotaurus', is it?" she muttered to herself. "I'll have to pay you a little visit, I think."
A blur, and she was gone.