Ascension - New Eden

Ascension

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New Eden

                New Eden is an oasis of calm, peace, and progress amidst a barren and desolate landscape.  Built upon the remains of Alexandria, in what used to be Egypt, the arcology of New Eden had been in development long before the events of the Second Fall, the day the angels and devils were all vomited out from their respective afterlives, and Earth became their battleground.  When that fateful day came, New Eden had been less than a week away from going live.  As such, before civilization entirely collapsed, it had been possible for the project to be finished and the power to all be switched on.  While it would be a bit of a stretch to call New Eden a paradise, it was at least secure, had plentiful electricity, clean drinking water, and many of the other essentials of modern life that had been taken for granted by billions of people only a few years before.  In a world that had gone to Hell, New Eden was as close to Heaven as any could hope to get.

                Right at the centre of the pyramid-shaped arcology there is a great tower, known as the Tree of Life, and which leads right up to the pyramid’s summit, bursting through and into the air above, reaching beyond the pall of smog and dust that choked the landscape of northern Africa.  The tower served two principal functions – the disc near its summit, one hundred metres across, was studded with photovoltaic cells that provided much of New Eden’s power; and the very tip of the spire was a massive intake/exhaust, where fresh air could be drawn down into the arcology, and stale air and fumes pumped out.  Within the disc itself was a private club and the offices of its owner, one Addison Caine.  Caine, an immortal Nephilim, was generally considered the most influential, if not most outright powerful, person within New Eden, and subsequently one of the most important people in the whole of the Mesopotamian region.  An information and power broker, there were many who believed him to be the real power in the city, with New Eden’s mayor little more than a figurehead in Caine’s employ.

                Donovan reached into his jacket again, fingers nervously checking that his gun was still there.  It was a snub-nosed Defender, absolutely lethal at five metres but unlikely to cause much more than minor flesh wounds at ten.  For what he had in mind, it was all that was needed.  Besides, if everything went well he’d not need to even fire it.  The Mattix Defender series of pistols were as ugly as they were powerful, and were designed to look about as intimidating as a handgun possibly could.  Some guns were for pros, but the Defenders were definitely for show – the idea was that if you were attacked and pulled one of those out, your assailant would need proverbial balls of steel to not back right the frak off there and then.  And if they did have the balls, or the stupidity, to not leave you alone, then the short-range firepower of the gun would leave an exit wound in their back the size of a football.  The selection of the weapon had been important in the planning.  The Arcology for The People Movement, or ATP for short, were very specific in their intents, and how they went about them.  They absolutely would not stand for any kind of civilian collateral at all, and they recognised that the majority of the people that worked in the arc, even here in the Spire, were still just ordinary folk trying to make a living.  They could be reasoned with, they could be intimidated, but they were not to be hurt because that would only harm the ATP’s agenda.  Tobias had also insisted on a lack of body armour in the mission.  Donovan hadn’t been quite so happy about that, but Tobias had assured him that the extra bulk under his jacket would only draw attention and wouldn’t really help him because the Spire’s security packed non-lethal takedown devices that would bypass any armour anyway.

                Getting the gun had been easy.  Getting a holster that was impervious to the Spire’s automatic screening had been trickier.  A lot of places in New Eden had metal detectors on the door, some even scanned for specific types of electronics, currents, and densities.  But the Spire had nearly a kilometre of scanners, detectors, and counter-measures built into the elevator shaft, and the elevators were the only way of getting up here to the club.  Well, unless one wanted to leave New Eden’s environs entirely and go mountaineering up the side of the arcology through the dust and smog outside, then try to find a way in through the air intake at the very summit and crawl through the air duct to get to the club.  Which had actually been considered, but what limited blueprints the ATP had managed to get their hands on had suggested that this option was only viable if Donovan was somehow immune to the effects of going through a particle scrubber, i.e. getting liquefied into a protein substrate and then vaporised in a plasma field.  Besides, he was an activist, not a damned ninja.

                Of course, what had been really tricky had been getting access to the Spire at all.  Technician access would have been straightforward, but that would only have let him use the maintenance elevators, and they didn’t stop at this level, or at any other level that had access to here.  So they’d had to get a one-day guest access to the club itself, which had required calling in just about every political favour they currently held.  To call the Spire’s club ‘exclusive’ would be an understatement – nobody got up here without the knowledge and consent of the club’s owner, Addison Caine.  Donovan couldn’t even remember under what pretence he was here under but it didn’t really matter.  If he had access, nobody would ask how or why, they just accepted that he was cleared.  And once in the club itself, everyone operated on the basis that anyone else there was demonstrably allowed to be there.  So he’d bought a drink to help steady his nerves – just the one, partly because he didn’t want to line Caine’s pockets any further, but mostly because he couldn’t afford a second.  The club’s exclusivity was matched by the exorbitance of its prices.  You could get anything you wanted up here, no matter how black market, but it didn’t come cheaply.

                Donovan stared at his glass of synth-rum, and then downed the last mouthful.  For something produced in a chemistry lab from synthesised sugars, it wasn’t actually too bad.   Right, now or ne-

                “Mr Donovan Zahra?” enquired a polite voice from somewhere behind his right shoulder.  Donovan froze.  Whatever name had been on his access card he was damn sure it hadn’t been his own.  He turned slowly on his bar stool, pushing down the urge to flee or panic.

                “Yes?” he managed, his voice betraying just the barest squeak of tension.  There was no point denying his name – if they knew him, they knew him.  Before him stood someone with a complexion like those NeoItalian coffees his ex-wife loved so much – smooth mocha with a hint of caramel.  That was the first thing Donovan noticed.  The second was that the man was shirtless and had neither nipples nor navel.  Which meant he was an angel.  Fuck.

                “My name is Allegory, and I work for Mr Caine.  Could we speak for a moment in private, please?”  Allegory.  That was the name of Caine’s bodyguard.  He sure was a lot politer than Donovan had imagined, but this was still not good.

                “I’m, ah… I’m kinda busy.  I’m waiting for someone and I don’t want them to pop by while I’m in another room and have them think I’ve ditched them, y’know?”  Donovan smiled uneasily.  It wasn’t the most convincing of lies but it was plausible enough.  The angel stared at him with unblinking violet eyes that were older than Donovan’s entire species.

                “It will only take a minute or two, Mr Zahra.  Please.”  A hand was placed on Donovan’s shoulder.  The touch was gentle, and vaguely comforting on a level he’d struggle to articulate, but also vice-like.  Donovan knew a little bit about angels.  Knew enough to know how much of the popular knowledge about them was just urban myths and how much was actually true.  One thing that was definitely true was that they were physically superior to ordinary humans in just about every way – tougher, faster, stronger.  If the angel wanted him to go somewhere, then he wasn’t really left with a lot of choice.

                “Uh.  Okay.  So long as it’s quick.”

                “I promise I won’t detain you for any longer than is necessary.”  Donovan didn’t find that particularly comforting.  He stood unhurriedly, despite his arteries clanging with adrenaline, and covertly thumbed the safety on his pistol.  If… when this went south, he knew that every fraction of a second would count.  The angel stepped back and gestured towards one of the side doors that led to the quadrant of the disc’s interior that was occupied by offices and storage rather than the club.  Without even seeming to notice, the crowd between Allegory and the door parted, as if every person along that line had subconsciously and simultaneously decided to take one step to the side.  Donovan walked ahead of the angel, his jaw clenched and his hands balled into fists as he focussed on his breathing, trying to keep calm.  “Just through that door up ahead, if you please.”  Allegory hardly needed to give directions, the Miracle of the Parting of the Crowd had effectively created a tunnel of people for them to walk through.  Donovan suspected, too, that besides them moving to make way, they’d also have moved so that the crowd would be at its densest by the gap, to make it as difficult as possible for him to run.  He stopped at the door, and the angel reached past him to open it.  Beyond was a small, well-lit, and very modern office with a woman about Donovan’s age seated at the room’s only desk, intently staring at the screen before her and frowning slightly.  She gestured vaguely to the seat on the side of the desk nearest to Donovan.

                “Take a seat; I’ll be with you in a moment.”  Allegory motioned towards the indicated chair and, hesitating for a moment, Donovan went over to sit in it; this was not what he’d been expecting.  The woman opposite him sighed and leaned back in her chair, hands folded behind her head.  “With all the places that were turned into a radioactive wasteland during the Cataclysm, why did Somalia have to be one of the ones to escape?”  Her eyes looked over to Donovan and she blinked, as if not expecting to see him.  “Sorry, you probably don’t care.”  A hand was waved irritably at the monitor, “Increased pirate activity around one of our shipping routes.  They’ve been a constant thorn in our side.  Now…”  She waved her hand again, this time with more intent, switching the screen to a different view.  From the angle, Donovan could make out a picture of a man that looked very much like him.  Exactly like him, in fact.  “Donovan Zahra.  Born in Alexandria and a citizen of New Eden since its founding, you’ve been with the Arcology for The People Movement since 14 AC, were divorced later that same year, and lost your job at InVoq Pharma the year after.  No formal adult education, no formal military training, and no criminal record or history of violence.”  Donovan stared at her.  How the frak did they know so much about him?  “Please, close your mouth; I have no desire to see your molars.  Now, with your history or lack thereof, why in God’s desolate Earth did the ATP choose you to be the man to carry out the assassination of my employer?  Incidentally, please don’t make any sudden movements towards your Defender sidearm – Allegory doesn’t like violence but he is very good at it.”  Donovan’s mouth opened and shut a few times, with no sound but the slight hiss of his strangled breath coming out.  Opposite him, his interrogator leaned forward and rested her elbows on her desk, steepling her fingers and peering across the top of them at Donovan, one eyebrow quirked.

                “I… I… who the frak are you and h-how do you know so much about me?!” he spluttered at last, hands gripping the arms of the chair he sat in.

                “I’m Talija Janer, Mr Caine’s head of security, which neatly answers both of your questions.  Now, let me be very clear in this matter – you are going to tell us the names of everyone in your organisation, and you are going to answer all of my questions.  Then, I am going to kill you and have your body disposed of.  That is the ‘easy’ option.  The alternative is almost identical except that there’ll be a considerable amount of torture involved.  Allegory’s good at that, too.  He’s been studying humankind ever since we learned to say more than ‘ook’ and what he doesn’t know about how to press our buttons could be written on one of your fingernails.”

                “Then,” he swallowed, and closed his eyes, “you’re going to have to torture me.”  Talija stared at him for a few seconds – she sensed no bravado there, simply resignation.

                “You understand you will break, eventually, and you will give us the information we require.  Not even a dedicated spec-ops agent is capable of holding out indefinitely, and you, Mr Zahra, are not even close to that mettle.”

                “Yeah, I know,” he said, shaking his head.  “You’ll get what you need.  But I’m not about to frakking give it over willingly.”

                “I see,” she sighed.  “I wonder, Mr Zahra, if your wife – sorry, ex-wife – and daughter would feel the same way if they were here right now.”  Donovan’s eyes snapped open and stared at her.  “They’re not.  But they could be, quite easily.  I would estimate it taking us,” she swiped at the air in front of her monitor and read the info of a new page, “oh, about twenty, maybe twenty-five minutes to get them here.  And that’s including the five minutes it takes to ride the elevator.  Don’t get me wrong, Mr Zahra, I admire your integrity, I really do.  So many people spill at the mere suggestion of being tortured to death, so to declare your determination to face that speaks of your bravery.  But would Ardelia and little Tayna feel the same way?”  She watched him, dispassionately, while the angel stood by like a vaguely menacing statue.

                “You’d kill them too?” He asked, his voice quavering with emotion.

                “Are you familiar with exotics, Mr Zahra?”

                “Huh?  Sure, yeah.  Hybrids that didn’t take or went wrong.  But wha-“

                “Close enough.  They’re a hybrid whose mind could not cope with the change, nor with the duality of being part-human, part-beast.  Generally they’re insane or of very limited mental faculties.  Barely sentient, in some cases, and little more than wild animals.  The interesting thing about exotics is that a disproportionate amount of them are people who underwent the hybridisation process for sexual reasons – they wanted genitals the shape and size of an animal’s, and the physical power to go with it.”

                “I don’t se-“

                “I wasn’t finished.  Exotics, the ones who aren’t completely brain damaged, therefore tend to have a hard time finding sexual partners.  Most people aren’t that keen on being fucked by a two-foot-long horse cock wielded by a retard.  I say ‘most’ because there are always exceptions.  But anyway, no, we would not kill your family, or at least not your daughter.  How old is she now, seventeen?”

                “I-“

                “No, what we would do is abduct her, and then give her to Mr Caine’s pack of semi-tame exotics as a fuck-toy.  She would spend days, weeks, even months being fucked in every hole by near-feral creatures with some of the largest and most weirdly-shaped dongs on the planet.  Eventually, she would beg us to kill her.  But we wouldn’t.  Instead we’d get her physically patched up, rig her with a Lust implant, and then send her back into the world knowing full well that she’d be helpless to fight the urge to fuck everything that made a pass at her, and that every time she gave in she’d relive her time as a plaything to guys with donkey dicks.”  Donovan stared at her, mouth agape and a tear rolling down his cheek.  “Ardelia, your ex-wife... no, you’re right there, we probably would just have her killed.  In front of you.  After explaining to her what would happen to her daughter, and that we were only doing it because of your actions.”

                “You... you’re a monster!” he shouted, his voice shrill with a mixture of anger and horror.

                “Oh quite undeniably.  And yet what I said was perfectly true – it is your actions that will result in them being hurt.”  Donovan hung his head and stared miserably at his feet.  She was right, in a perverse way – if he’d never got involved with the ATP, he would never have ended up here, upsetting someone with the power and influence to have his family killed, and worse.  Hell, he’d probably still be married.  His involvement in the ATP had been one of the major factors in Ardelia leaving him.  Kinda contributed to losing his job, too.  Frak.  He’d really messed up.

                “If,” he took a deep, shuddering breath, “if I tell you everything you know, you’ll leave them alone?”

                “I promise,” came Allegory’s voice, from behind him.  That was another thing Donovan knew about angels – they were incapable of lying.  Sure, they could weasel around things with careful wording but they couldn’t outright lie.

                “And me?” Donovan asked.

                “Oh we’ll still kill you,” replied Talija, her tone absolutely matter-of-fact.  “But it will be quick and pretty much painless.  A bullet to the head, nothing fancy.  Hell, if you’re cooperative enough I might even leak to the ether that you held up under torture for a number of days before finally succumbing, and that you cursed us with your dying breath.  At least then you die a martyr to your people, right?”

                “What choice do I have?  Either way you’ll get what you want and I’ll end up dead.  Only difference is whether my family suffer because of me or not.”

                “Exactly!  That’s the spirit!” she replied, while giving a smile that was all too cheerful for the situation.

                “Okay.  I’ll tell you what I know,” conceded Donovan.  Defeated, he held his head in his hands and wept bitter tears.

                “Thank you, Mr Zahra.  You are making the right choice,” said the angel, resting a comforting hand on his shoulder, as Talija leaned across the desk and presented a list of names on a tablet.

                Five days later, when Addison Caine was walking through the streets of the New Eden arcology, the Arcology for The People stepped up their protests against his influence on their city.  A young man, not much more than twenty, stepped out of a crowd and fired a pistol at Addison, while shouting the usual ATP rhetoric about how the arcology belonged to “the people”.  Like Donovan Zahra before him, this would-be assassin was neither trained nor experienced, and cut squarely from the cloth of people who felt that sufficient belief could overcome such obstacles.  Had Addison not been who he was, the young man might well have succeeded.  As it was, he barely managed to raise his weapon before time seemed to slow to a crawl for him, and the shirtless presence of Allegory the Twice-Fallen made itself known, knocking the assassin’s gun off target before landing a blow on the youth that caved in the front of his skull, killing him instantly.  The woman who had been standing to Addison’s immediate right died shortly after from the grievous wound received from the stray shot, but Addison himself was left unharmed and unfazed by events, carrying on as normal and leaving his new head of security to deal with the red tape aftermath of the attack.  It was not the first attempt on Addison’s life, from either the ATP or the other factions that wished to see the Spire’s overlord killed, but it was the one that had come closest to success.

                “I am just expressing my concerns, sir,” explained Allegory later that day, in the privacy of his employer’s private office.  “The frequency of these attempts is increasing, as is the brazenness and desperation of them.”

                “And yet they still meet only with failure,” replied Addison, his tone indifferent, as if the whole subject of people trying to kill him was but a minor nuisance, and a boring one at that.

                “Today is the closest they’ve come.  That shot missed you by less than half a metre.  Had I not intervened, you could have been seriously injured.”  Addison shrugged in response to his bodyguard’s concerns; he had seen far too much over his existence to be fazed by the prospect of being shot.  “I am not bullet-proof, sir, and nor are you.  Gone are the days when mortal weapons could not pierce our sides.”

                “Not sure I ever had those days.  I do recall being stabbed and run-through a number of times over the years,” was the flippant reply.

                “Figure of speech, sir.  My point is that it is entirely conceivable that a well-aimed, or lucky, shot has the potential to kill you.  As your bodyguard, it is my job to ensure that this does not happen.”  He paused and took a breath, quite unnecessarily but out of sheer habit, “Which is why I will be confining you to the Spire from now on.”

                “You’ll be doing what?” demanded Addison, his blasé attitude evaporating.

                “Sir, there are simply too many angles to keep an eye on down in the arcology.  Here in the Spire we control who comes in and who goes out, and about the only attack that I would not be able to see coming is a tactical missile strike.”

                “You are my employee, angel!  I give you orders, not the other way around!”  Addison slammed a fist into his desk, incensed by Allegory’s intentions.

                “Sir, that is correct.  And the principal order you have given me is to protect you from harm.  That overrides all other concerns, and if confining you to the Spire is the only way to do achieve that end then that is exactly what I will do.”  Despite his boss’s sudden anger, the angel’s tone remained as level and as patient as ever.

                “And if I disregard this?” asked Addison, glaring at his bodyguard.

                “You were a nomad, sir, a wanderer.  I was a warrior.”  Lavender eyes met pale red, as Allegory calmly held his employer’s stare, leaving the implied threat hanging in the air.  Minutes passed as the two immortals stared at each other, until at last Addison relented.

                “Very well, I shall agree to remain in the safety of the Spire.  However, I want you and Miss Janer to track down these socialist upstarts and eliminate them.  I will not be confined to my home by a rag-tag bunch of bleeding heart activists.”

                “We’re already on the case, sir,” replied Allegory, giving a solemn nod before turning to leave Addison’s office.

                The Laurent neighbourhood of New Eden was always busiest at night, and the sight of it tended to conjure to mind words such as “bustling”, “heaving”, and “fucking noisy”.  It was a good place to get lost in, deliberately or otherwise, and boasted the second-lowest crime rate in the city.  Of course, this was due almost entirely to the limited police presence in the neighbourhood, meaning more than 80% of crimes committed there went unrecorded.  If one accepted unofficial statistics, it was the most crime-ridden region of the city, by a considerable margin.

                Laurent was where the poor and downtrodden lived, and where the illicit and immoral worked.  As well as being the best place in New Eden to get mugged, it also had an excellent array of tattoo parlours, unlicensed implant surgeries – or “chop-shops” – and brothels.  A good night out in Laurent could see you waking up with a tattoo of the name of a girl you couldn’t remember, and the hastily fitted body modification of your choice. 

Despite this less than savoury reputation, there were a few relatively pleasant areas in Laurent.  Those of a not-so criminal nature tended to band together, like a herd of sheep before a wolf, and there was the odd tenement block that was entirely self-policed by its residents, and where parents could raise their children without having to worry too much about them being abducted and sold into slavery.  The imaginatively named “Block 3” happened to be one of those few apartment buildings, and it was the home of over a hundred hard-working citizens of New Eden and their families.  Across the street from it was the Blue Dragon, a bar/club that defied traditional descriptions, and was a one-stop place to buy all the best and worst things that New Eden had to offer.  The suited and heavily-armed guards at the front of the Blue Dragon spent their day casually watching the constantly-rotating militia that protected the entrance to Block 3, and while there was no hostility between the two groups this was purely on the condition that they both kept to their own sides of the road.

In one of the higher level bars in the Blue Dragon, Talija Janer, the head of security for the Spire, was having a quiet drink with a long-standing contact of her employer, while information and payment were being passed back and forth.  A few metres away from them, a group of naked people, both male and female, were bending over and holding their toes while a large and hairy man with a huge canine penis went up and down the line, taking each of them in turn.  Neither Talija nor her contact paid this the least bit of attention.  Eventually, the pair stood and shook hands, with Talija heading back to the elevator down to the ground floor, while her contact sat back down and finished his drink, casually watching the floor show. 

Returning to the club’s entrance, Talija nodded to her waiting colleague, who fell in step with her as she headed back out onto the street, where they turned off towards the tramway bridge that ran through this section of the city.

“Kenny Lu’s been able to furnish us with three addresses,” explained Talija, as they walked into the poorly lit area under the bridge, “None of them are exactly top billing but if we can hit them all in the same night then it will send out a clear message.  Meanwhile, he’s also confirmed that one of the other names on our list, Tobias Albach, is pretty much their de facto leader.  Apparently ATP don’t exactly go for hierarchy, which we kinda already knew, but this Albach guy is definitely the first amongst equals.”

“Did he have any leads on where we’d be able to find Mr Albach?” asked her companion.

“Nope, but he knows a guy who does; said he’d be back in touch with us when he knew more.”

“Which means, I suppose, that we’d have to go back to that den of iniquity.”

“Jesus, Mel, what is it with you and ‘sins of the flesh’?” said Talija, a playful smirk on her lips.

“I used to be a messenger,” replied the angel, shifting uneasily and looking away, “I never really had to deal with…” he gestured vaguely with his hands, “all this.  It just makes me uneasy, that’s all.”

“But you’re cool with us storming into people’s homes and murdering them in cold blood?” asked Talija, her smirk spreading into a grin.  The angel shrugged before returning the smile.

“I didn’t always deliver nice messages.”  Talija’s laugh echoed off the stone and steel supports of the bridge overhead, but stopped abruptly when three men stepped out of the shadows to stand in front of them.  Tatty faux-leather jackets, vinyl patches and duct tape holding them together, and with chains and metal plates stitched into every bit of clothing that could take them, the three were clearly gutter rats.

“Ello, pretty girl,” said the one in the middle, before pointedly turning his attention specifically to Talija, “And ello to you, too.  Going for a lover’s stroll?”

“Nope, just out on business.  Now back the fuck off before I bury you small-time pricks,” she replied, in a calm and level tone.

“Oooh, sounds like someone’s on the rag, eh?”  The gang leader turned to the cronies either side of them, who laughed and egged him on.  “Now now, precious, just you be handing over your cash and valuables like a good girl and maybe we won’t hurt either of you.”

“Last warning, maggot.  I’ve been killing fuckers tougher than you for two decades, now back off or you’re rat fodder.”

“Tal…,” began Mayim’el, putting a hand on her shoulder to get her attention.

“I know,” she replied, “You take those two, and these three are mine.”

“Alright!  Talky-time is over!  You cunts want it the hard way, I’ll give it to you th-,” he got no further, as a well-aimed throwing knife struck him squarely in the throat, cutting off his words and causing him to drop to his knees, clutching at his neck as he tried in vain to stop his life’s blood leaking away.  Talija had already moved onto the next target while the knife was still in the air, drawing her sidearm with her off-hand and firing two shots at the goon to the left of the dying mugger.  Behind her, Mayim’el had turned to engage the pair of thugs that thought they had been sneaking up unnoticed, and drew a short hatchet from the inside of his jacket.  The shocked thugs hurriedly tried to ready their guns, with one managing to get a single shot off before Mel was upon them, his hatchet raining down like the judgment of God Himself, and the bullet glancing off his shoulder to leave a minor flesh wound that would be gone by the morning.

“I surrender?” tried the remaining goon before Talija, dropping his knife and holding his hands up as, a dozen metres away, his two remaining colleagues were swiftly and savagely turned into road kill by Mel’s furious onslaught.

“Good idea,” replied Talija, calmly shooting him in the forehead.  She shrugged to herself as he fell lifelessly to the ground, “I mean, it wasn’t going to save you, but at least it meant I could get a clean shot off.”  She retrieved her knife from the gang leader, casually cleaning it on his t-shirt before tucking it back away.  “I swear, street thugs get dumber every year,” she said, as Mayim’el walked over to her, blood dripping from his hatchet and splattered over his jacket and face.

“And they were pretty dumb to begin with.  Oh, looks like laughing boy’s still alive.”  Talija glanced over to where the thug with the neck wound was indeed still drawing faint, gurgling breaths, his terrified eyes staring at his intended victims.

“Not for much longer he isn’t.  Anyway, let’s go get you cleaned up before we get back in the drop ship.  Kaede will have kittens if you get blood on the seats.”

“You know, I’ve never understood that particular idiom.”

“Eh,” replied Talija, shrugging, “I’ve often suspected that ninety percent of most cants were designed purely to confuse the fuck out of other people.”  Beside her, the angel chuckled.

“Ah, humans.  You have a greater capacity for complex communication than any other animal that’s ever existed, and you spend much of your energies deliberately trying to prevent others understanding you.”

“Sounds like we had a shitty designer,” she replied with a grin.  The angel scowled and lapsed into silence as they made their way to the nearest hostel to get him washed down.

 Later that week, three members of the ATP were killed in seemingly random attacks – one by a mugger, another in his own home by men who looked to be enforcers for a local loan shark, and the third in a bar fight that got out of hand.  That these three events occurred on the same night and within minutes of each other was a fact that New Eden’s police force completely failed to pick up on.  Three murders happening in one night was hardly unusual in the heavily-populated city, and aside from the victims all being affiliated with the Arcology for The People movement, there did not look to be anything that connected the crimes.  Tobias Albach, unofficial head of the ATP, felt otherwise.

“Five people.  Five good people, in barely more than a week.  Meanwhile, what do we have to show for their sacrifice?  We’ve killed an innocent woman, and our target has apparently now confined himself to his personal fortress.  Hardly a success story.”

“He’s got angels, Tobias, we barely have guns!” shouted one of the council members.

“Which just means we need to be even more careful, Arron.  We’re out-manned, out-gunned, and out-funded; we can’t afford to be sloppy.”

“So what are you proposing?” asked another.

“We need to be patient, and methodical.  Everyone has a weakness, and we just need to find his.  Until we do, and until we have a concrete, water-tight plan on how to get rid of the monster at the heart of our city, I am suspending all aggressive operations.”

“You don’t have the authority!” cried Arron.

“So we vote on it.  All in favour of continuing to sacrifice good people for no gain, raise your hand.”  There was a murmuring around the council table, with a number of members exchanging glances, but none wanting to show their hand.  “I see.  Now, all in favour of biding our time and calculating a solid plan before we act, raise your hands.”  There was more murmuring, and this time four of the seven councillors, Tobias included, raised their hands in favour.  “Good.  Motion carried, with three abstentions and no nays.”

Following the vote, as the councillors started to file out of the chamber, Arron Forgrave caught the eye of one of the other abstainers.

“It seems our ‘leader’ no longer has the stomach for the fight, Jinny,” he commented as they walked out of the chamber together.

“Seems so,” agreed Jinny Wynn, “But what can we do?”

“We need to marshal our people.  Inspire them, if you will.  It is through commitment and sacrifice that we will slay this beast, not through caution and cowardice.”

“Y’got something in mind, Arron?”

“I do,” replied Forgrave, “But it won’t be pretty.”  They walked in silence out onto the arcology walkway that led away from the rented chamber they used for their council meetings.  After allowing his colleague some time to consider the matter, Forgrave spoke up again, “Do I have your support in this matter?”

“Just t’be clear,” replied Wynn, stopping and checking to make sure there was nobody within earshot, “We’re talking coup, right?”  Forgrave nodded, and Wynn hesitated, mulling the idea over in her mind.  “Alright,” she said at last, “I got y’back on this.  Do what need be done.”  Forgrave nodded again, and the two councillors shook hands before heading their separate ways.