Dark Matter Ascension-Chapter 46B2 - : General Logistics: Interior

Jace had frozen as all the firearms pointed at him, but a voice came over the speakers inside the facility. “That’s enough.”

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It was female, and somehow…familiar to Jace’s ears. Okay, weird. He used the moment to slip away.

Quinn’s voice came over the comms as the map under his chin updated, and he glanced down at the layout of the facility. “Oddly enough,” Quinn said, “The whole route to the server room is locked down…but someone left every door and security system leading to the executive offices disabled.”

The voice came over the loudspeakers again, “Flicker…would you be so kind as to meet me in the executive offices? I know you have a Webwalker who gave you a map of the facility. I permitted her to have access without breaking down a firewall.”

“I thought the security was shitty,” Quinn stated, confirming the statement.

No, I should make my way to the server room, Jace thought as he ignored the female voice and reached a T-intersection. To the left, the path to the server room. To the right, the executive suites.

“Come now…don’t you want to say hi to your dear mother?”

Jace froze. Do you mean that bitch that abandoned me?

“I know it’s you, Jace.” Her voice sounded sincere, and almost begged. “Please, let’s just talk.”

Jace dropped the Dark Matter Cloak. “I’m here,” he said as he looked directly at one of the small, black, domed cameras. “What do you want to say to me?”

“Don’t you want to see me face to face?”

I have to deal with the servers so that we can all get out of here. Jace made his way to the server room, cutting through a set of doors. A hail of bullets fired out towards him from hidden turrets, but they impacted Priam’s barrier and bought Jace plenty of time to run forward and slash each to bits.

“Please, just talk to me!” the woman was pleading. “Do you even remember me? How I would sit down with you on the bed, run my fingers through your hair? My little runner-”

“Shut up!” Jace shouted. “You abandoned me!” Wrath’s Embrace (Rank 10). He almost unwittingly activated the Skill, and the coursing surge of heat through his torso felt right. “You put me in some orphanage!” He tore through another door and carved apart the automated defenses once more as he kept moving towards the server room.

“I had no choice!” she replied, still pleading. “When your father died, his death benefits only lasted for 5 years. I had to get a job, and take care of you! I did what I needed to do.”

“You never visited!” Jace shouted as he shook with rage. Letting out a roar of hatred he kicked another heavily armored door off of its hinges, the object flying across the hallway and into a turret, crushing it. Jace ran forward and sliced through another turret before it had a chance to wheel on him.

A panel next to him snapped on, and he saw a mature-looking woman with black hair, immaculate clothing, and tears streaking down her face. “Please…just listen to m-”

“You abandoned me! You abandoned Chroma!” Jace punched the monitor, and his Anathema Arm went through it and sunk a few inches into the metal and concrete behind it.

“I wasn’t allowed to visit! Only after becoming an assistant to a junior partner…well, then I could have.”

Jace paused in his rampage. What?

“I…” she sobbed. “I tried! I wanted to see you so badly. I’d watch you during my lunch breaks, you sitting on the backyard stoop.”

Jace saw the memory flash through his mind. Sitting on the back porch of the orphanage, looking up at the building across the street, and seeing the silhouette of the woman. It was her? I wasn’t just imaging it? “Why didn’t you save me?” he asked as he felt Wrath’s Embrace deactivate. Again, almost against his will as his emotions took over. “I was bullied! I almost died in the mud!”

“It was part of my contract,” she replied. “My goal was always to work my way up the ranks, and then bring you and Chroma up with me once you were old enough. All the way to the top.” Her shuddering breath came over the speakers after a pause. “Then…you ran away. I tried to find you, but I couldn’t.”

Yeah, because my mentor taught me how to shake those corpo tails. I thought they were just trying to get me back. But...she wanted to find me? “What about Chroma?”

“The result of an affair,” his mother replied as her voice grew steadier. “You have to do distasteful things to climb up the megacorp ladder. I…did not get the chance to know her. I had to give her up at three months old.”

Jace felt the ember of anger flare up again, “You never even took the time to visit her?! She was just a bargaining chip? Blackmail fodder?” He felt that ember flare into an inferno. “Is that why I got tracked down by some random guy from the corp and told me about her? Whoever you slept with wanted her gone, so you couldn’t hold her over them?”

“…That is only partly true. But yes.”

Jace felt that inferno ignite once more, and he resumed his journey to the server room. The crackling aura of crimson miasma sparked around him as he carved his way through another set of doors and turrets. Glancing down at the map, he saw that the server room wasn’t too far off.

“What…what happened to her?”

“She’s dead!” Jace shouted, screaming his anger out as it echoed down the facility’s empty corridors. “She died on the streets because of your megacorp!” The emotional scar he had built up was cut open once more, and he felt tears on his cheeks. “Because you didn’t stop the goddamn gangs that you let out! Letting people who hated you group up and run the streets. She died right in front of me! I lost my legs! All because of your megacorp.”

There was no response to his declaration, and he cut through the last set of doors as he arrived at the server room. Turrets came online and fired at him, and he simply threw his sword at each of them in turn. Priam’s barrier finally took its full amount of damage and shattered.

He stood, facing the enormous, octagonal spire. Pulling the drive from his pocket, he slid it into the slot. Xera’s voice came over the comms, “Tech-plague uploaded.”

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Jace nodded and turned around, following the map towards the executive suits. He gripped his blade and squeezed tightly.

Priam looked up at the blasted, glasses landscape. There were still mechs approaching, and power-armor wearing figures. But only those that weren’t caught in the blast radius of the first Skill that this powerful figure used.

“We must retreat,” Star Father stated. “They are Tier 8, and that puts me on an equal level. But they are numerous.”

“I thought you were the strongest in your faction. You fought Troxanir,” Priam said.

The man looked back at him, “That was one-on-one. Ascendants and Aspirants may be powerful, but we can still die. And there are,” he glanced at Mizarion, “How many Miz?”

“Four-thousand power-armor suits, two-hundred Infinitum mechs from Teresii, probably courtesy of Deckard.”

Star Father shook his head and looked at Priam. “I can take on armies. But if I went full nova here? You all would be obliterated. And your faction leader, and my current ally, would not like me killing you all.” He looked over at Mizarion once more, “You have enough energy to get us to the portal?”

Mizarion nodded, and Priam tried to shout an objection, but the light encompassed the whole group, and they appeared in front of the portal to The Cosmic Corridor. The people in the streets were gone, having gone indoors as the sound of combat no doubt reached them. “We can’t leave Jace behind!” Priam shouted.

Star Father turned to face him, “The mission is complete.” He tapped his ear, “Quinn tells me that Jace uploaded the tech-plague. It’s now just a matter of waiting until the megacorps fall to bits, and then the Star Council can step in and fix this world.”

Greg walked over to Priam and squeezed his shoulder, “We won’t leave him,” he whispered. Then, he looked up to Star Father, “We won’t leave our ally.”

Dee shuffled over to Priam and nodded, “Yeah, you all saved me. I’m not going to abandon you all.” She frowned, “Unless it looks like we’re all going to die: then I’m saving my own skin.”

Mizarion frowned but nodded as the rest of the Star Council left. “Well, the least I can do is give you energy and get you to your ally.” He held up his hands, and a stream of golden light infused the trio. Priam felt full-up, and well-rested. The pale man looked even more pale, and he chuckled. “Alright. Ready? Travel at the speed of light, right to your ally. But then you might have to fight your way out of the facility.”

“Why couldn’t you do this to get us in?” Greg asked.

“That wasn’t the goal, was it? A beam of light is easy to see traveling, and we were just distracting for Jace to get in.”

Priam nodded, “Let’s go! No time to lose!”

Jace reached the executive offices without issue. No one was there, having been evacuated at some point. But he followed the map, and then glanced at the directory on the wall when the map dead-ended into the entry hall of this well-appointed section of the facility. Felicity Seren. He saw his last name. It must be her.

He never knew her first name, and with the knowledge firmly affixed in his mind, he went to her office, gripped the door, and ripped it away from the metal housing. He tossed it into the hallway behind him and stepped over the threshold.

The office was sumptuous. A large couch was on one wall, a monitor on the other, and two chairs were facing a desk. The desk itself was enormous and made of some rich type of wood that was a dark color. Sitting behind the desk was his mother. “Jace…” she whispered as she let out a slight gasp.

Jace took a step forward, “You abandoned us.”

“I…I…”

He grabbed the chair and threw it to the side. The wood splintered and shattered against the wall. “All because you wanted the high life.”

“I did it for you!” she shouted as she stood up, planting her shaking hands on her desk. “I sold my soul to this megacorp to provide you a life worth living!”

“No!” Jace screamed as the hatred erupted. He dropped the sword and grabbed the desk with both hands, ripping it in half and pushing them to the sides with tremendous thuds.

Ollie flew in front of his face, “Do not do this, Jace. Do you really want to commit matricide?”

Jace felt the heat building up more and more. He shouted at Ollie, “I hate her! She abandoned me! Who cares what reason she did it for? She saw me from her high tower while I was getting my teeth kicked in!”

“But I love you,” she said through a whimper as she backed up slightly. “You’re my boy-I just wanted the best for you.”

He grabbed Ollie and pushed him to the side, stepping forward and pushing her against the wall. But Ollie flew back in front of him and punched him, “Otter punch!” It did not hurt in the slightest. Jace growled and grabbed Olie by the scruff of the neck, pulling the otter away. “This is not you!” he shouted.

“Ollie is right, this is not you,” Xera’s voice came over the comms. It was full of reassurance, and warmth, and the type of unconditional care that Jace had craved since this woman had abandoned him. “What would Shhiv think if she saw you right now?”

The burning inferno in Jace’s torso refused to settle, but that question caused it to still, and he stopped in place. What would she think?

And then an unexpected thing happened. He saw a familiar, blue, hand-paw on his wrist, and heard Priam’s voice behind him. “Jace…”

He glanced sideways and down, spotting the bunny-boy next to him. Behind him were Greg and Dee, standing back a respectable distance. “How?” Jace asked at the sudden appearance of his allies.

“Mizarion,” Priam replied. “Don’t punish her. Xera filled us in on what she said. It sounds like she wanted the best for you.”

She…she left me…to try and make a better life for me. Jace felt the flame of hatred and wrath begin to fade. She abandoned me; she didn’t even know Chroma! The flame flickered once more and began to flare up. She wanted Chroma around to blackmail her boss! That’s the only reason for it. And she left me to be raised as a corpo-slave, indoctrinated just like he said they would! The flame roared into an inferno once more, and Jace felt Wrath’s Embrace kick on again.

Priam squeezed his hand, “Please! You don’t want to do this!”

Those words struck a chord in Jace’s mind. The words that his mentor said to a group of street folk while Jace hid nearby. The words that were spoken a few seconds before his mentor was beaten to death. The same man who had visited him in the orphanage on two occasions, and told him about how the megacorp was trying to brainwash him into the perfect employee.

I’m not like them, Jace thought as he swallowed the knot in his throat and turned away from his mother. I can’t do to her what they did to him. “Don’t come looking for me,” he said to her. He let Ollie go, brushed Priam’s hand off his wrist, and recalled his sword to his hand before sheathing it. “You coming?” he asked in a sullen voice as he walked down the hallway.

“I’m proud of you,” Xera whispered. “You did what yo-”

“Just shut up,” Jace replied. Glancing back to make sure his allies were following, he activated Dark Matter Cloak (Rank 3) [Group] and led the way out of the facility.

Felicity Seren was breathing hard. Her heart was pounding in her chest. Those eyes. Jace’s eyes weren’t human.

They were animalistic, primal, untamed, and wild.

She had also seen the articulation in his limbs and knew that he had lost so much more than just his legs. She collapsed into the still-intact chair that she had been sitting in. She reached into her jacket and pulled out her cosmopanel, tapping off a message to Deckard.

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[I regret to inform you that General Logistics was unable to repel Jace Seren and his allies.]

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Pulling out her Sliverscreen, she also sent in a letter of resignation for the megacorp, sold off all of her shares, and tapping the two devices together, converted her creds to Stardust.

I’m not going to give up on you that easily, she thought. You’re still my son. And you don’t need me to provide for you anymore.

A message came over her cosmopanel. She was expecting it to be from Deckard, admonishing her for failing…but it was from someone else.

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[You are not to contact Jace Seren, aka Flicker, unless given my explicit permission. Additionally, you are not to use his name anywhere. Flicker is all you may refer to him as.]

[Any attempts to find him in The Cosmic System, The Cosmic Corridor, or The Eternal City will be stymied.]

[If you follow these instructions, I will obfuscate you within the System and ensure that Deckard and any who might seek to harm you are not able to find you.]

[X.]

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She gulped and typed back a response that she would follow the instructions but left it with a lingering question. She carefully typed out the message.

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[Will you let me see him again?]

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She went over to her wall and slid aside the hidden panel, pulling out her go-bag. She also swapped out her clothing to the more paramilitary attire that was the usual among General Logistics employees. Once she was situated in her disguise, she checked the cosmopanel.

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[Perhaps.]

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