- Physically Applied Xenophobia
Closed to Alyssa Snow.
- Physically Applied Xenophobia
Closed to Alyssa Snow.
Raieran Space
Pentax Quadrant, Section 12
Amidst a tirade of verbal abuse Lucius awaited an opportunity to speak. Lillith, friend, confident, hot-headed mechanic lay into him for all his many mistakes and maladies. From her tone of voice, he was sure she was going to hit him. She had every right to.
"Have you thought any action through in your damned life?"
She stared at him with the ferocity of an afterburner and folded her arms across her chest. The dark, poky cargo hold served as a sombre backdrop to their encounter, bereft of its usual wealth and hustle and bustle. All around them, the hull of the Prima Vista creaked and grumbled - protested it's mistreatment.
"This was Leopold's idea to begin with," he replied wistfully.
Sweating profusely, Lucius felt his resolve weaken further. Two days prior, Leopold had willingly entered Administrate custody as a ploy to save himself from Rayse Valentino's unrelenting wrath. The fool had dared try to cross one of the galaxy's largest black market organisations. The safest place for him was in a ceramite cell behind plasma force fields. Convincing the rest of the crew a captainless ship was a desirable outcome, on the other hand, made the Prima Vista the least safe place for Lucius.
"Funny thing is, you prick...Leopold isn't here to defend himself."
The cargo hold flickered to life as the strip lights overhead crackled. The double bulkheads on the north wall hissed and began to trundle open. Lillith stepped closer; her chance to intimidate the agent spent, and stared intently into his eyes. She smelt like fuel and sweat, a strange addition to his smoke and bourbon.
"I'll shoot you myself if you choose them over us..."
Though he was beyond guilty already, Lillith pushed him over the edge. He vowed, there and then, to set things right. Even though it was Leopold's plan (he was the captain after all, and Lucius just followed orders), there had to be a better way to avoid the vendetta of the Company.
"I believe you, chuck," he sighed.
They turned in unison to the opening bulkheads, and arranged themselves so they were stood side by side, arms tucked into the small of their backs. Both of them looked like they belonged in the ship's underbelly. Lucius forehead was sodden, his t-shirt patchy and his skin blackened by the long haul through getting the ship back into shape.
"Agent 492, can I speak with you?"
A figure appeared between the bulkheads and stood on the verge, as though awaiting an invitation. Obfuscated by the backlight, the speaker was hidden from view. The ambient voice, however, was immediately recognisable to Lucius. He tensed.
"Who are you?" Lillith chirped, curiosity very much threatening to kill the cat. She made to step closer, but Lucius pulled her back. "Wha-"
"Let me do the talking," he whispered into her ear. He stepped ahead of her and gestured for the speaker to advance.
"Commander P.A.X. How can I assist?"
Last edited by Lucius; 06-23-15 at 11:41 AM.
Six days had passed since Alyssa Snow had arrived in a world beyond her own. Millennia had passed since Althanas then and Althanas now. Despite Lucius’ protestations that she was an appropriate candidate for the initiation tests to join the ranks of the Administrate, Commander Pax was, as ever, overly cautious.
“You were deployed to prevent a paradox anomaly occurring in the structure of Wormhole 91.”
If the android the capacity to scowl, Lucius was sure she would. Instead, her cold, nebulae eyes narrowed with a whir of servos and analysis. He had been in her company enough to know that he was being judged, and judged harshly.
“Analysis indicates that Alyssa Snow, candidate 456, is not stuck in a paradox anomaly herself.”
Lucius smiled. When he realised he was being all too obvious in his self-enjoyment, he snapped out of it. He saluted, again, just to make sure that his subservience to his employer was clear as day. Lillith, knowing better than to interrupt, watched with scrupulous, equally judgemental eyes from the side-lines. The cargo hold echoed with parity and silence. Plots unwoven. Machinations ended.
“When I realised that Alyssa Snow was destined to destroy Althanas, I realised it was because I was sent back in time.” It had taken him long enough, but there it was, clear as day. “Crossing paths with her ensured that she would be brought forward in time and in turn, sent back on an assignment that would result in her own creation.”
Pax, an automaton shell that was as intelligent and sentient as any being in the galaxy, drew on all the data banks in her employ. She calculated risk, probability, and intent. She cocked her head, as instructed by humanisation matrix, and nodded.
“Calculations indicate that her technology is discovered by her creators. Her mission, though successful and as yet unspecified, leaves evidence in Althanas 1.”
Lucius frowned. Now he understood. He was not sure how Alyssa managed to contaminate the timelines, but he guessed a walking weapon as she was now left an undeniable impression. For once, rather than wishing for liquor, he wished for a mission to end with a merit and a long night’s sleep.
“How should I proceed, Commander?” He enquired. His tone was genuine, a rare occurrence.
Pax, once again, calculated an outcome that was likely to be unfavourable to Lucius. She circled the duo with cold motions. Her feet, heavier than Lucius was clanged against the metal floors. She stopped when she circled them entire.
“Agent 492. Mission 43. You are to mentor Alyssa Snow through the initiation process and train her in the fundamental requirements of an Administrate Agent.”
Lucius cursed silently. Never had ‘you reap what you sow’ had quite as much meaning.
“Yes, Commander.” He bowed. Pax bowed in return. “May Guidance Grow.”
“May Guidance Grow,” Pax replied, before departing.
A few awkward moments of silence followed. Lucius looked at Lillith. Lillith looked Lucius. They frowned, swore in tandem, and longed for reprise.
How many days had it been? It felt like a week, but Alyssa struggled to place the time. Here, in this strange place of metal and lights, the sun did not rise nor did it set. Were it not for the guardsmen shutting off the lights regularly and shouting, "Lights Out" she would have lost all sense of time. As for sleep, while the bed they provided was unbelievably comfortable, her racing mind would not afford her the rest. So much of this alien place reminded her of the Alerian Lab she was "born" in. She hated it.
This hatred stemmed out further to the deceitful little prick, Lucius, who landed her in this situation. They robbed her of her equipment, stole her clothes, and forced her to wear plain white shirt and shorts. It felt like a prison, but Alyssa had to admit that they made every attempt to comfort her needs. Instead of a prisoner, she felt more like guest to a foreign family - not trusted, not understood, and not permitted to leave the confines of her grey room without explicit permission.
Fortunately, they accommodated her request for the book she left back in the real world. In her isolation, she spent her time screaming about this injustice to the guards, regretting not shooting the man who brought her here, asking herself endless questions as to why, and flipping through the pages of the leather bound manuscript. She didn't understand most of the words, but occasionally she would pick up on a few. Mention of "alac'thai" reoccurred frequently along several diagrams of humanoid anatomy. Another word she picked out of the fray, "chunik'lou", seemed to refer to a crystal or mineral of sorts. What the correlation was between the two, Alyssa couldn't figure it out.
This only added more frustration to her current state of being.
Currently, the book lay open on the legless table jutting form the wall. On it's pages stood a most obscure image of what seemed to be a stone. Symbols and ornate lines were carefully represented on the surface with small annotations in the side columns. Several question marks littered certain circled areas and most intriguing was the our of place tradespeak word scrawled in large letters on the top, "Origin".
Alyssa sighed in her bed with an arm across her forehead. She blankly stared at the unnaturally smooth ceiling. Were it not for the occasional sound of the guard shifting outside the door or groan of metal on metal, her cell would be perfectly silent. Eerily silent. No wind, no carriages in the street, no rustling leaves, birds, or bugs singing into the expanse. It was flat, dead, lifeless.
"Oh, Anthony," she called out in a sing-song tune to the guard at the front door.
"My serial number is 036042, Candidate 456," came the strange voice from the other side.
"No, we've been over this. You are Anthony, because I refuse to call you a number even if you are a metal man," she replied while glaring at the windowless wall where his voice came from.
"Negative. My serial number is--"
"The sooner you start working with me, Anthony, the easier this stay is going to be. The way I see it, you're my personal butler. Speaking of, would you be so kind as to bring me something to drink, I'm parched." Alyssa rolled herself to the edge of the bed and sat herself upright. Her eyes locked on where she remembered the door would be. Unlike back home, these doors seamlessly flushed with the wall. The only time she saw the door itself is when it opened and shut.
"Request approved," came the typical response followed by what Alyssa grew to know as metallic footsteps. Some audible tones sounded from the wall and with a sudden hiss, the wall opened. In the frame stood what looked like a man in armor, but where muscles and intestines should be, Alyssa could see through the series of cables and rods.
"Hello Anthony," she greeted.
"My serial number is... correction: Hello, Candidate 456..."
Alyssa's eyes shot wide and her hands clapped from a sudden burst of joy.
"You did it! You finally did it! Now if only I could get you to call me Alyssa."
The door hissed shut behind the metal man without making direct line of sight with his glowing eyes. He turned a perfect ninety degrees and stepped to a panel on the wall Alyssa had come to understand produced basic living essentials. The metallic man hoisted his firearm to his shoulder which somehow latched the barrel to his body. Alyssa assumed this was a safety thing to prevent her or anyone else from disarming the man. He touched the panel just above a recess in the wall and shortly after, a glass of crystal clear water seemed to just appear from a collection of little lights.
"Your request for beverage is complete," Anthony stated as his torso turned a full 180 degrees, soon followed by his legs.
"Thank you, Anthony." Alyssa swung her feet out and plopped on the cold, smooth floor. Immediately, Anthony's body whirred and clicked. His eyes shifted to a red hue and within a fraction of a second, Alyssa found the tip of what she could only assume was a weapon pointed at her.
"You are in violation of Acting Protocol 45, Section 2-A. Candidates are to remain seated in the presence of--"
Alyssa flopped back on the bed and crossed her arms with a pout.
"Fine! Fine! I remember, I remember... Sheesh, and here I thought we were getting to know one another..." The young girl cocked her head to the side in protest like a spoiled teenager.
A few seconds ticked by before Anthony's eyes changed back to blue and his body shifted to an at ease position. Again, he turned a perfect parallel stride to the wall before it cracked open again. He spun one last time, and vanished from view.
"I have got to get out of here..." Alyssa mumbled.
Last edited by Alyssa Snow; 11-02-15 at 02:24 PM.
Just as the Administrate candidate rued her new circumstances, her counterpart two years in the future accepted hers. The scene is morose, but clinically clean. Alyssa Snow is strapped to a surgical table and connected to a vast array of nodes and cybernetic augmentations grids. Each one carefully adapts her body to interface both with an A.R.I.A device.
“Two years of my life wasted.” Lucius watched the procedure, now in its eight hour, through one way mirrors lining the theatre’s eastern wall. Despite his outward dismissal, he was secretly swelling with pride. Alyssa’s graduation from training was a love child he had nurtured for what seemed like a lifetime.
Lillith had wondered the same thing but was distracted admiring the remotely controlled robotic arms alter physical form. As ever, she wore a clean cut supported top and carried an array of tools on a belt around her waist. To the knee, she wore flame retardant leather, and her boots were strapped tight to the shin to cover the burns and scares of her profession.
“Are you listening?” Lucius asked, half-asleep, to his engineer.
She sighed, but looked away reluctantly just as a servo arm delicately pierced the lens of Alyssa’s right eyeball. Security cameras recorded every second of the transformation, so Lillith forgave the interruption to enjoy the moment later.
“I explained to you the vital importance of your ‘sacrifice’, and how it was down to your sacrifice that Leopold was able to find himself out of his...legal predicament.”
“Actually, you sort of ranted in incomprehensible gibberish I didn’t understand and trudged back to the Prima Vista.” Lucius’s expression was bashful with a hint of mischief.
“You did well, kid.” Lillith resorted to grunts to illustrate her point but restrained herself from making ape-like hand gestures.
Lucius, in kind, restrained himself from clipping her across the back of the beck with his pistol.
---
“P.A.X.”
Lucius stood to attention in the door frame leading from sterile corridor to plain, unadorned chamber. At its centre, the android that embodied the central mainframe of the Galactic Administrative Authority stood statuesque. White on white, with black overlay, the very embodiment of machine ascended.
The machine thought to itself, gears and circuit boards illuminating within its porcelain shade. Eyes, cold dark portals that saw star systems and time opened. They narrowed, focussing on the Administrate agent before her, and triggered a response.
“Agent 492. State process.”
In her own special way, this was P.A.X’s way of inviting the spy into her office. Lucius stepped across the threshold, boots battered, uniform unkempt and buckles unclipped to alleviate the intolerable humidity of a ship’s interior. So near to the engine room, a man could be forgiven for wanting to strip naked.
“Alyssa Snow’s cognitive analysis is complete. I have assessed her trigonometry and analyses her memory feeds. I believe she is capable of undertaking, and completing, Administrate training in the next intake.” He stood to attention, hand tapping the brim of his hat in error. He whipped it off, stuffed it in a pocket, and then tried again.
“Candidate 456 transfer authorised. She will move from holding to Eluriand 5 in four cycles.” A cycle was an Althanian day. It did not leave Lucius much time to inform the crew of the Prima Vista to rush through repairs after their run in with Rayse Valentino. He bit his lip, knowing better than to let his mouth run the show when so much more than his pride and shut eye was at stake.
“Yes ma’am.” He saluted again.
The porcelain shell of his superior stilled. Somewhere in the android’s body a singular sensor remained alert, to protect against intruders. Lucius knew by now P.A.X was already deep in the databanks, traversing the electronic networks of the galaxy in an eternal vigil against those who deemed the ‘system’ an unworthy method of maintaining galactic order. He relaxed, teeth unclenching from gnarled lip and hands no longer twitching an orchestra through a jittery concerto.
“I’d love to escort her myself,” he said absent-minded as he trudged back through the labyrinthine ship. He had much to do, and the fact he had not slept in four days continued to be a constant pang of regret on his knackered mind. The thoughts of Alyssa Snow whispered to him, gun mage and gun totter as one in a worried expression of a future uncertain.
Alyssa stirred in her assigned cot aboard Lucius's vessel. The warmth of artificial sunlight kissed at her cheeks, stirring her to look at out the window at a vast, peaceful, and expertly rendered forest. It reminded her of home, a place she felt was a distant memory. Alyssa groaned as she rolled on her side. A wave of her hand washed the light from the cold steel room and returned the outer window to an endless expanse of black peppered with lights. Unlike home, space was incredibly silent. It lent far too much time to one's inner thoughts. The teenager sighed, interrupted by the low chime of a system wide announcement.
"Agent 456, your presence is requested in briefing hall zero one."
Another chime noted the end of the announcement.
"Guess that's me," Alyssa groaned. She lifted herself upright and swung her legs over the edge of the bed. Fer feet hit the cold floor and sent a chill up the side of her leg. In the corner of her vision flashed a red exclamation within a small triangle. It faded and stretched a message in blue across the top of her view.
It read, "Heart Rate Elevated 5 bpm. Abnormality noted. Regulating --"
Alyssa shook her head. "Not necessary," she muttered, and the message dissipated.
Lucius had warned her that each Aria augment performed differently per person. He explained it simply that just as twins can become two different people, so can two identical augmentations. Even though Alyssa wasn't necessarily human, or natural, she was still biological. If she walked away from this with one lesson learned, it was that living things are always unpredictable.
Alyssa pushed herself to her feet, her body reminding her that the healing process wasn't entirely complete. She rubbed at one particular spot just under her chest where one of several artificial components were added to her body. This one, in particular, was unique compare to other Agents. This one monitored the only other implant not inserted by the Magistrate, Origin's Key.
The young homunculus stretched her limbs out with a whimper, the cool and stagnant air prickling her exposed skin. She approached her clothes which were neatly folded in the corner stand by Anthony, who no longer treated her like a prisoner. If anything, he now acted like a butler or companion and much more human than the other exoskeletal frames. Before she dressed, she adjusted the strap on the thing they called a "bra" and the auto-tying undergarments at her waist. While they felt infinitely more comfortable then what she came with, her body still hand't quite gotten used to them.
Alyssa took her time getting dressed, trying to avoid sore areas as she pulled the clothing over her. She still cringed regardless. Lastly, she fixed her holsters to her thighs. Over these two years, Alyssa was given free range of their workshop to tinker with her firearms. In an effort to understand them, Alyssa received help from some of the Administrate's mechanics. They helped her with several basic and functional improvements, but the intricacies remained illusive to them and Alyssa struggled to explain it. To her, it felt like breathing, just another extension of herself.
She slid their polished alloy frames into their holsters with a click which, to her surprise, extended into a series of metallic clangs.
"Agent Snow," Anthony chimed from the other side of the wall. "Do you need assistance? You are running behind usual response time."
Alyssa placed her hand against the wall as Aria chirped from the relay unit on her belt. The word "clearance" pinged in the corner of her vision in green then faded. The seam of the door spread across the wall and slid into itself to expose her robotic companion on the other side.
"Good morning, Agent." Anthony snapped his "chin" down and back up in his version of a nod.
"To you as well, Anthony. Have they worked out the bug in your behavioral matrix?"
The robot twitched his head side to side. "No, Agent Snow, all systems diagnosed as normal."
"Good, I like you better this way." Alyssa smiled and patted him on his shoulder. Anthony offered another nod and Alyssa continued pass him into the hall toward the briefing hall.
"You on your way?" asked a familiar voice directly into her mind. Aria identified the the broadcast from A-492, Lucius.
"Yes," Alyssa replied.
"Good. Maintenance finished with your rifle. I'll have it for you when you get here."
"What's this about? Couldn't let a girl rest a bit longer?"
"Order came from you know who. I'll tell you more in person. See you in a bit."
Lucius's ID tag disappeared from her ocular interface.
Alyssa let herself smile. If he had her rifle and the bridge dedicated a system wide PA, that meant she was moving out.
That meant home - Althanas.
“To begin at the beginning, then.”
Lucius pressed his fingers together, his focussing motion, and watched Alyssa carefully. Sat opposite his new charge, the Agent was cross-legged, tired, and more nervous than he had been in a long time. Everything the Administrate had worked towards for a decade culminated in him telling her the role she had in world’s end.
“It might help,” she said softly. Her eyes glistened, as ever they did. Mischief mingling with malady. She listened, ears pricked, as she sipped from a hot drink Lucius didn’t recognise.
“My name isn’t Lucius.”
Not his real name. Not really. He had so many over the ages he forgot at times who he was. Who he had been. Before all this. Now, he just wanted to help. He didn’t really care what people called him.
“Your name badge says otherwise.”
“No, I mean, it is. At least, as far as the Administrate are concerned. My name as was the day I was born…,” he trailed off. He thought, then corrected himself. “Created, was Duffy.”
Alyssa took a moment herself. Information came thick and fast in a digital age. Her connection to her ARIA device still in its infancy, she had to bite her tongue to stop herself from becoming overwhelmed.
“I know that name.”
“I rather feared you would.”
Some conversations started like this, and ended without consequence. The more Lucius and Alyssa talked about who they were in ‘the Old World’, the more they realised their part to play in the very thing they had tried for so long to stop. The end of the world was brought about precisely because Duffy died. It was brought about precisely because, as Lucius, he had gone through that blasted wormhole to find the ‘woman with the gun’.
“When I crossed the threshold of the wormhole I created a paradox.”
Alyssa, unaware of how much time had passed beneath the weight of a galaxy’s information banks on her shoulders could only shrug. She was still fixated on discovering the calibre of her rifle. So much had been promised by the Administrate, so much had been delivered…but that last little link. That golden handshake.
“What I’m trying to say,” Lucius sighed, “is that we need to explore how watertight that paradox is.”
He hated to admit it, but despite his godhood in another age, he was weak, helpless, and reliant on the comfort of strangers. Alyssa was to be their salvation, perhaps, or their doom. Again.
“You’re dragging me through another wormhole, aren’t you?”
That he was. Lucius dragged his hands over the touch screen panel on his desk and conjured a three dimensional image of the Prima Vista above the table. It glimmered in neon green, translucent enough to see sections of the hull and the cargo holds, but not opaque enough to make no sense.
“Your training begins now, if all that made sense?” He did not wait for her confirmation. “Tell me what you know about this ship. Everything.”
Alyssa looked to the projection that she somehow came to know as a "hologram". Her head throbbed, similar to the when the Alerians would force her to study by penalty of shock therapy. As she stared at the sail-less ship, memories and details bubbled to the surface.
"It's..." she strained as she spoke. "It's a ship or a vessel of some sorts?"
Her hand drifted to her head. Alyssa felt a ringing in her mind, but even though it caused her discomfort, she felt a sense of relief as she remembered details she never experienced.
"A name," she staggered. "Rayse Valentino? Who is that? How do I know that name?"
She shook her head, blonde locks swaying side to side. Her hands braced against the metal projection table. Measurements, internal layouts, weapon schematics, and short flashes of what felt like vivid memories swam in her mind. She saw the ship firing cannons of light at another series of ships. They all moved through blackness as swift as birds of prey. Fire burst from their sides and people shot from the holes in the ships, drifting as if falling in water, but never in the same direction.
"What is this?" she asked. "I've never seen this ship before but -- but I remember it."
She lifted her head to Lucius, a look of discomfort clear on her brow. She looked to the hologram and back to Lucius.
"The ship is a problem," she stated.
The migraine of information faded and the glow from the device at her waist faded. The homunculi breathed a sigh of relief and eased her stand.
"I have numbers, but I don't understand them. There's some pictures of what I think are guns? And... It was like daydreams of it firing pulses of light at another ship. For some reason..." Alyssa drawled on, her eyes drifting to the metal beams and plating around them. Her brow quirked. "For some reason, it seemed familiar... Was it this ship?"
Alyssa shook off the foreign feeling of nostalgia. It didn't make sense. None of it really made sense, but at the same time, it felt like she had been here before. She felt like she had seen that ship before. Things that were foreign, she started to recall names and precise detail of origin or make.
"What is this, Lucius? What did you do to me?"
Throughout the process of augmentation, Lucius had watched Alyssa from the shadows. Whilst he was an experienced agent of the Administrate, she was his first pupil. The mentoring process began with the mentor watching someone torn apart and re-assembled. He understood now why his own mentor had seemed so apologetic and troubled when they discussed matters of state. Guilt.
“Galaxy 492 is a conglomerate of cultures too numerable and complicated to teach to an agent in a lifetime.” He smiled weakly. “The A.R.I.A acts both as a defensive system, but also as a companion.”
The magical components of the gunslinger’s body had made the augmentation process more difficult than Administrate scientists anticipated. To ensure she did not reject the enhancements, they adapted their technology to account for the archaic Aleran fusion of myth and metal. These enhancements in turn connected her to the system more competently, and clearly than anyone else in the organisations history.
“What I have done to you Alyssa, is give you all the tools you need in order to survive here. Cultural databases, language primers, legal texts that would fill this freighter if written on paper…everything.”
Rayse Valentino came to the fore of her memory, he strongly suspected, because her subconscious still clung to the vestments of Althanas of Old. It also pinged in every news report for the last three weeks. The incident between the Prima Vista and the Company flagship had sparked a civil war.
“You put a library in my head?” She furrowed her brow. The headache grew the harder she tried to understand. The enthusiasm she had exhibited when she first arrived felt premature to her now. “I should have shot you in the tavern.”
Lucius chuckled.
The flagship of the Administrate advanced over the border of Scara Braen space, a course charted to the home world of one plucky double agent, and the location of its training facility. Soon, the gunsmith would have to prove herself more than just an expert shooter and a world breaking paradox.
“It will take some time to adjust, and to get to know your partner.”
“She has already told me plenty.”
Alyssa jolted. Lucius sat up sternly in his chair. The voice, normally heard inner ear, broke the pace of conversation with a crackle and a quip of sarcasm.
“A.R.I.A?”
“Who else? She’s been talking in her sleep for a week.”
“What. The. Hell?” Alyssa’s expression was less than polite.
“It is okay, Alyssa, That’s the A.R.I.A. It’s a symbiotic relationship, unfortunately that means they sometimes don’t know when to shut up.”
“My name is Pettigrew. A.R.I.A model 4xT. Declaration of bonding complete three days ago. I have accepted Administrate agent Snow and am awaiting instructions from P.A.X Prime regarding orientation.”
“It’s talking to me – through me, at me…with…”
“Just. Pace yourself.” Lucius pressed air, edging Alyssa to lay back and relax. “If it lets you think for yourself for a moment, try and tell me more about Rayse Valentino – what can you see – what can you hear? Close your eyes, let ‘Vilespew’ guide you.”
Alyssa found herself a seat and tried her best to heed Lucius's advice. Aside from the general ache in her skull and body, wrestling control with a foreign entity both proved taxing and oddly familiar. If she could reject and submit Pode, this 'thing' should be no different.
"Okay," she stated more to herself than an acknowledgement to Lucius. She braced her hands against the synthetic arms of her seat and closed her eyes to focus.
"She likes to mention someone by the name, Tobias?" Spoke Pettigrew through the lips of the gunner.
"He's with something called the Company?" Alyssa added with a struggle, tone shifting between artificial and natural.
"Rayleigh, Vincent, and Stella were also mentioned with remorse." The girl's brow pressed together as the foreigner spoke without permission.
"His ship has..." Alyssa pressed her hands against the sides of her head. "More guns than... Something called Prima Vista?"
"When are we scheduled to rendezvous with P.A.X. Prime, Agent 492?" Alyssa's hands covered her mouth. She shook her head.
"It's a resistant little thing, isn't sh-- Stop it! When are we due to arriv-- I said stop it! This isn't ideal to-- Enough!"
Alyssa's chest rose and fell in deep, ragged breaths of silence. In her ear she heard the thing speak once again.
"Background processes enabled. We'll talk later." For once, the words didn't fall from her own lips.
"I don't--" Alyssa took a deep breath and an exhale. "I don't like it taking control like that."
When the gunner looked up to Lucius, she stared through him with spite and anger. Were it not for the fact she had no idea where or when she was nor how to get back home, she would put one right between his eyes. The fact the facility they were on swarmed with armed guards like Anthony also pressed her emotions of heated betrayal at bay. Instead, she slowed her breathing, closed her eyes, and steeled her beating heart.
"Rayse Valentino leads an Empire, not much different from the ones on Althanas. His, however, spans larger than any one continent or nation. He is someone I wouldn't want to be on their bad side. But..." Her eyes opened slowly but her expression soured as she glanced toward her captor made colleague.
"But we are on his bad side, aren't we?" She asked.
"So let me get this straight. First you say I'm some world ending apocalypse, then you bring me here as some kind of guest or hostage - still unclear at this point -, you help me with my weapons, implant some... voice into my head, and now I'm learning you're also at war with some neighboring nation? One with more guns than us? Am I piecing this together correctly," The next word fell from her lips like snake venom. "Lucius?"
"She's got you pegged, Agent," Pettigrew spoke through its vessel.
Alyssa snapped her hands over her mouth and stifled a scream. Namely at her new 'symbiotic relationship' than the sudden desire to enact harm on the man across from her.
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