2022-11-28: Give a dog a bone, Leave a dog alone
- Cast: Puru Two, Cascade Wattana
- Where: Tamil Nadu, India
- Date: U.C. 0096 11 28
- Summary: Puru Two snakes a member of the Nega Force, convincing them to form a shady cross-faction agreement between abused Cyber-Newtypes in order to one day reduce Yuliana Kafim to her constituent atoms.
<Pose Tracker> Puru Two has posed.
It might be a trap. That's the logical conclusion to reach, in saner times.
But these are completely insane times. And the more the layers to this strange invitation are peeled away, the stranger and more interesting things get.
It started with with an e-mail. A cryptic message from out of the blue, it bore all the hallmarks of a weird scam.
'i know how they're using you.'
But weird scam emails don't tend to find @rea.gov.mil addresses. They also tend not to know sensitive military details about the recipient.
'you survived, became strong. but you're still suffering. right?'
'dispersal won't take her foot off until you're in the ground.'
There's a phone number attached to the bottom. Like 27 digits. That's for calling fuckin' interplanetary.
'think about it.'
And if that didn't convince Cascade Wattana that someone was listening, then maybe the dead-drop with a letterhead from Bailuo Labs did. Maybe the news clippings of human rights trials getting strangely adjourned, with leading experts in human experimentation walking free.
Maybe the last memo.
'i _really_ hate her.'
>> 0096-11-28
>> MITHRAN CAFE, TAMIL NADU REGION, MADURAI
Nothing left to it now but to see if this is a trap. For the both of them.
Puru Two, and definitely not Lt. JG Callisto Diana, is sitting at a flatpack table in a remarkably upscale cafe for an otherwise fairly depressed area. But depressed areas are good, because the people there are real. They're too busy taking care of their own shit to worry about yours. She simply waits, perched on a marginally comfortable chair with a tablet in one hand and a chai in the other. As agreed, there is an actual honest-to-god newspaper folded on the table. It's from near the end of the One Year War. The headline is yelling something about Flanagan madmen playing God.
Also as agreed, to be easily identified, she is wearing a dark red leather jacket and a pair of enormous mirror-shade sunglasses. There is practically nobody else inside, and a sonic dampener lies beneath the newspaper.
She eyes the clock on her tablet. Almost time. How's this gambit looking?
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
Cascade Wattana did not attend the wedding, even though they're having the sort of agender day which would absolutely rock a suit.
No: they were in the office. They didn't have anywhere to go, actually.
That's when they get the message. It's like a weird scam, but Parminder has gotten their personal email server locked down, so it's strange to Cascade to see something so bizarre in their inbox.
"What the hell," they remark, to an empty office, as they click on it.
"... what the hell," they say, again, but far less flippantly.
Their purple eyes narrow; they write down the number. They delete the email. If he finds it, later, Parminder doesn't ask questions.
They really hate her...
... yeah, they do.
-*-*-
When Cascade Wattana enters the Mithran Cafe, she's having a femme day, instead, with a fluffy pink barette holding up her blue hair and a pink blouse which is just about cute. She looks like any average tourist, and not a black ops specialist from the REA.
She doesn't even have a visible gun, though she certainly has a feeling of tension about her, drawn up like a twisted string.
(Not a visible one, anyway.)
She sights the leather jacket, and does not look to Puru Two again until she's gone to the counter and ordered her own mug of chai. She goes to find a seat on her own table -- coincidentally, the one right behind the woman in that leather jacket.
The way she pulls her chair about, she can just about meet her eyes, glancing sidelong. She pulls out her phone, and plays with it, one-handed, as she sips on her chai. She doesn't look particularly angry; nevertheless she IS, a tangled mess of vengeance all caught and snared about her.
"You're the one," she asides, moments later, in a low voice. "Aren't you?"
<Pose Tracker> Puru Two has posed.
Time slows to a crawl as the second party enters the cafe. You don't need the psychic headlights switched on high-beam to sense that melange of existential frustration and maybe a little despair. The spice of one who has been wronged, and can only carry on.
Puru Two takes another sip, listlessly scrolling her tablet. She hasn't paid much attention to the contents. Especially not now, knowing the time is nigh. She reflects briefly on how much easier it is to simply lash out and -do-, rather than fret and wait. Hm.
She makes no sudden movements, waiting for Cascade to get comfortable. A sound system in the background thrums warmly; the scraping of chair legs barely even registers. For a brief moment, their eyes meet and it's like Puru Two isn't wearing any glasses at all. A cold blue gaze stares back, confirming that: yes, you're in the right place. Must be a trick of the light.
"That's me." Puru Two confirms. Patient, if not pleasant. The subject matter doesn't warrant pleasant. Not yet. "Our newlywed friend's biggest fan."
A dry smirk tugs at the corners of her mouth. It does not reach her eyes. "Is it some political thing, or did she find someone just as poisonous as she is? Tch. Anyway, welcome."
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
"I have no idea who the wife is," Cascade says, and there's the acid, in her tone. "Something 'Kafim', apparently -- we got the paperwork through, the demon's changing her damn name and everything."
She scowls, leaning back against her chair. (It gives her a little extra leeway to glance alongside to Puru Two.) "Wen says she's an immortal horror witch or some shit like that," with a snort of derision for Yuliana's romantic choices, "so yeah, I'd say she's probably just as poisonous." And in all her anger she does not think to connect this mysterious Kafim with a certain shadowy benefactor of hers --
The thoughts just slide right off it.
She looks down at her phone, but she isn't really seeing it. Scroll, scroll. They all have shell accounts for sockpuppeting installed on their devices; it's an easy way to score low-effort wins against their enemies. This one's currently tuned to encouraging war in Britannia through an image board. Whatever.
"You know who I am," Cascade starts, finally. "All about me, in fact. I think you had better introduce yourself, too."
A beat, as she looks at all this tension, with something other than her eyes.
"More than you have."
<Pose Tracker> Puru Two has posed.
Immortal witch?
Nightmare demon?
These were concepts which, until a few weeks ago, Puru Two would have relegated to the realm of fantasy. But having witnessed the most famous dead Gundam-man coming back to life through a nightmare portal to the bullshit dimension, it now feels more like a warning. The girl with the orange hair simply takes her sunglasses off, for they're far too big for her face. She blinks once and holds Cascade's gaze.
Christ, she's younger than the REA Officer is. That, or they don't feed people properly where she's from. Take your pick.
"I don't know everything about you," Puru Two corrects her. "I just know enough. I know the important parts. I'm like you, see." she sets her cup down and nudges it away, before leaning back in her chair. "Let me share. I don't have a real name, just a number." it doesn't register as a lie. "Psychotic old men cooked me up in a test tube in space. Raised me in a ranch with a bunch of clones. Fried my brain with drugs and surgeries." it's like reading from a shopping list. It's nothing special.
"And more, but you get me by now. Here," Puru Two holds up a hand. There's a faded old identification booklet pinched between thumb and middle finger. It was bright red, once, but the gold logo of Neo-Zeon is still reflective. "Have a look if you want. I'm not hiding anything."
"My point is this. I'm like you, but I killed the man holding my leash. It was very empowering. I'm all about empowering people like us. Is that a good start?"
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
OST: Edison - A Cold Wind In My Mind https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kh_ZlPC-2bY
And Cascade is the youngest member of her squad, at that.
Depressing, huh?
Just a number... there's recognition, in Cascade's eyes and her heart, at that. The booklet just tells her what she's already guessed, having seen what Yuliana's put her squad up to researching.
... Callisto 'Puru Two' Diana.
She frowns, long, as she looks down at her phone -- and then sidelong, to Puru Two, again. "Well... let's say I believe this isn't a set-up," she settles on, after a moment. "But I'm out of my lab, now. I mean, another one's dealing with me, but not... like that." She shrugs, and leaves the details to assumption.
(There are a lot of details. Cascade went through a specific process of attunement; it was a lot of extra stress to make her particularly keen and stubborn. Effort they spent... in 0088.)
"Besides," she shrugs, again, "I don't even entirely hate the guy with my leash, right now. Now I know --" She takes a breath, and looks up, to the ragged ceiling. "Ahh, damn it, I know this is the worst violation of opsec..."
<Pose Tracker> Puru Two has posed.
For clarification on numbers: if the girl with the spacenoid paleness is telling the truth, and her documents aren't fake, her military ID was issued at age 10.
Neo-Zeon are real go-getters.
"Right." Puru Two chimes in, as Cascade clarifies that she's no longer lab property. Her tone is agreeable, not argumentative. "From one set of hands to another." again, there's a common ground between them. She knows. "You refer to your CO. I'm sure he's fine. I don't mean him." she takes her old identification back. There are things it must still accomplish before she can lose it.
"If you don't hate the man telling you to heel, chances are, it's not him you need to worry about." she comes back to her original point: blaming Yuliana Dis--Kafim. Her brow had started to knit slightly in thought, but it quickly smooths back to neutral as she observes Cascade tilt back in her chair and search for an answer above.
"It's the safest violation you'll ever make. You could leave me the keys to the garrison and I'd only use them to teach the blushing bride a lesson." her point is made not only vocally, but on the mental plane as well. Her need for payback is tightly-wound around her. It girds her, strengthens her, keeps her focused.
"Besides, aren't you tired of her shit?"
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
Cascade listens to this, considers it. (Notably, she doesn't feel much at all, when the second Puru points out that she's being traded about like a card. Fact of life. Whatever.) She hands over the identification without complaint.
Payback...
Cascade puts her mug of chai on her own table, and then, with a motion which looks careless, her hand passes over it, and her phone slips from her fingers into the hot water.
"Oops."
The screen goes black, as the chips fry. She fishes it out, and if she takes a moment too long to do so, it's surely just a matter of the beverage's heat. "I'll get it fixed later," she observes, dryly, as if that's the point.
(The REA loves surveilling its own citizens. The Nega Force has even helped get some systems set up, in the relatively liberal Sri Lanka.)
"All right," she says, voice lowered, "I'll tell you this." She takes a breath, and glances, sidelong, to Puru Two. Their hair couldn't be more different, but their eyes aren't so dissimilar. "It's not just me that's tired of her shit."
She drums her fingers, on the table, and takes a breath. She looks forward, to the window. No one's coming in. Too rich a place for them, probably. "Apparently, the bosses want to find some way to circumvent that demon of a woman, too. Because if we're the future of warfare..."
Her stomach turns. It's something sharp enough to be felt.
"... then the future of the future is people like the Captain. They've already decided that. They want to figure out how to beat her while they're the only people who have one. Tch... that's why I'm not the first one they threw into the unit."
Her fingers still. "Before me, it was Brassy Cachet... before her, a guy named Alexsey Melnik. Medical discharges. According to our intelligence guy, they kinda just... had mental breakdowns. So they just keep throwing people into her fucking jaws... me, too."
<Pose Tracker> Puru Two has posed.
One polite turn deserves another.
"Hm," Puru Two indicates surprise as Cascade's phone hits the water and dies. She slips her old ID on top of that replica newspaper, fingers just slightly stiffening over something as they go. The din of the outside world grows muted and dusky, the cafe's music sounds like it's coming from a concert hall a mile away. And nobody's the wiser.
Oh, that's that spicy tech. That romantic OYW-movie tech. Portable privacy in the palm of your hand.
"That's interesting. Not surprising, but interesting." the clone is filing this away, cataloguing this information. "Disappointing. An arms race built on the backs of the most vulnerable." she examines her nails. Furrows her brow again. -That- troubles her too much to hide. It's also that she makes no effort to hide it.
She then shrugs lightly, for she doesn't have all the answers. "I'm afraid I have no idea how to counter your tormentor. I went to punch her lights out when I saw her choking some passerby on the street, and I blacked out when I got within ten feet of her. Send her on a hot date and then hit her with a car bomb or something, I guess."
"But I'll share this with you. Fair's fair." Puru Two composes herself once more. Like a switch flipped, it's honest-to-goodness self-hypnotic suggestion. But real, and not a meme. "Someone--I don't know who--has engineered something similar to our good friend's 'ability'." she briefly holds her hands in a position mimicking control sticks. Piloting. Gesture, gesture. "It's on something called Unicorn. I kid you not. It shuts us off just like she does."
Another shrug. This one even lighter. More genial. "Maybe that's something to look into. I don't know how it works. But if you follow that breadcrumb and sic that emptiness back on her, or something... that'd be nice."
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
"Interesting," Cascade says, when the music fades. She'll take it.
And Puru Two thinks it's interesting, too, in the end -- disappointing. No argument, from Cascade's heart.
"Yeah," she scowls, "she's like that. I can't orient on anything around her... I turn into a damn idiot. She takes advantage of it, obviously." Her words are acrid, and so is her heart, but -- Cascade is ashamed, as well, beneath her anger.
It's hard to let a campaign of such sustained belittling roll right off your back.
She looks to her, then. "That 'Newtype Destroyer' thing? Actually, the Captain's been having us look into it ever since Torrington... haven't turned up that much. Wen says she saw the Unicorn at the wedding, but..." Cascade frowns.
"But that means people are already starting to make more of her," her fingers tighten, on the edge of the table. "Robots, people, whatever, it's all hardware..."
Teeth grit: "Fuck."
Cascade, give her credit, doesn't yell. That would call attention to her. The yelling is all trapped in her chest, lashed to her bones. FUCK!, it yells, into possibility.
(Imagine an echo, if you like.)
"I haven't killed her yet," 'yet,' so casually, "because they'd just make more of her. Harvest her corpse, or whatever... I don't know what those hacksaws do behind the table. I have to figure out what the game is -- what they've got up their sleeve. I can't let the future come this quickly."
Cascade scowls, at the black screen of her phone.
"No... I have to destroy her. Completely."
<Pose Tracker> Puru Two has posed.
Another dry smirk creases the teenager's mouth as Cascade recalls what it's like to have all her ESP shut off. A specially bitter taste. You can't know how wretched it is to lose the gift if you've never had it, after all.
"Yes, that's the one." Puru Two confirms patiently, again, for Cascade as she identifies the NT-D system by name. "It's not perfect. Not as effective as The Captain. It's more like conventional ECM, and it can be overcome. You can run away from it. Just a tip from one poor kid to another, in case you suddenly go half-blind and need to make a decision."
She resumes listening, her part said. Her eyes give away that she's listening deeply, at that. She doesn't just take in this information and store it, she's reflecting on it. Thinking. Trying to meet this brave stranger halfway, if not further.
After all, it's not the biggest leap of faith she's seen in her life. Right, Judau Ashta?
"Heh," the noise is the beginning of a dark chuckle, Puru Two reflecting on the need they both have to erase Yuliana from existence. "I don't have the keys to any nukes, or I'd offer. Yes, you're right: if you leave a body, you're leaving these perverted old freaks with a blueprint on how to do it again. You need to atomize her." her head cants slightly to one side, purely for effect. "It's humane."
The grim amusement dwindles and dies. Like a candle flame pinched with wet fingers. "I can't promise you any miracles. But if you're willing to bide your time... and keep in touch... if I see an opportunity for us, I will take it." and like the slain candle, sharp wisps of smoke rise from her soul. Hatred has an ugly taste, but it's familiar.
"No strings attached. No harm to your unit, your friends, your whatever. This is a covenant between you and me, because it pisses me off--" coals threaten to rekindle anew, but die down after the final syllable is spoken, "--for the same reasons it does, you. We hate the same future they want to build."
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
"For now," Cascade scowls, when Puru Two shares that this other system can be overcome. It's an expression which fits naturally on her face. But then, her records would have shown her to be an orphan from the beginning, so...
She does have to laugh, at Puru Two's dark amusement -- but it's a starved thing, all without humour and life. A bark, and it fades. "If only I had a fucking nuke," she mutters. "Been training on explosives this whole time, but I never get a clear shot..."
Her Laiying 1 is the Nega Force's bombardment specialist unit, as it happens. Why she chose that niche may be much more stark, hearing what she has to say.
Cascade takes a breath. "You're..." She's about to say Puru Two isn't the first person she's entered into a dark pact with, but she starts to say it and her mind suddenly struggles to capture the rest of the thought. It's a feeling entirely unlike the incongruance of how much she hates a future where Yuliana is standard anti-Newtype technology, placed beside her job satisfaction at being told to defeat Yuliana by her boss. They're separate evils, and Cascade dwells on neither, as she shakes her head.
"... look, if you're my ally in this, I welcome your help. I'll leave you a number. I don't know much about the other two, but I'll give you what I've got... they might know something, too. If you can get it out of them." She frowns, at the window.
"Just... don't get yourself killed. She hates us. You and yours, in particular... she's got us keeping an eye on the Ra Mari. I'll tell you all about it, just..." Cascade draws in a breath, looking at her besmirched chai.
"... I gotta get a drink first."