Interlude: The Guide

Interlude: The Guide

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Commissioned by Binge Reader

Wordcount: 2030

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“So, there’s no need for the plan to deal with her anymore, Creighton?”

“Hopefully not.”

“So, we’re keeping it in mind.”

“Yes. A contingency plan. Nothing more and nothing less.”

“Without our computers, I’m sure we’d have lost count of all our contingencies, Creighton.”

“They’re necessary, and it’s better to have a plan than not.”

“Of course, of course. Well, at least, there’s some problems that solve themselves, even if there’s so many popping up nowadays.”

“The world thanks you for your service, Azille.”

Upon the dial tone and the vanishing of your friend’s face, you can only take a deep calming breath, and recline in your chair.

The aftershocks of CORE’s last project has sent the world careening wildly, whilst CORE can barely react. Threat after threat arises. Battle after battle comes into being. Enemies, allies, and strange new beings are appearing everywhere.

You’ve kept CORE lean, quick, and decisive over the last couple years. While the LRU, CSG, and Templar bulked up, using humanity’s firm alliance to prop themselves up, you invested into humanity and waging war from the shadows. Technological progress, refinement of manufacturing, and planning for years and years in advance was CORE’s greatest asset.

CORE doesn’t eliminate brushfires, it stops them from happening, and that’s taking it’s toll.

While humanity’s other defenders are now holding fast, doing their duty, and fighting, CORE’s can only act as a speedy scalpel, when the role is much better served by the Preservers.

Trying to fight at their pace, against their foes, and with their success rate is impossible for CORE’s current forces, save for the best of the best, and even then… the casualties wouldn’t be the sterling 0 the Preservers have.

So, while the CSG, Templar, and LRU can do their part and handle the coming tide for years and years, CORE cannot. Your forces are designed for speed, destruction, and assassination of key targets. However, there are now too many Chimera swarming across the world, and the targets you need to assassinate will wreak grievous havoc upon your forces, including assets…and friends…  that you cannot replace.

Of course, there are benefits elsewhere due to the streamlined, sophisticated nature of the military you’ve assembled. Humanity is united due to careful background checks, social engineering, and intensive education. Massive factories churn out automated warriors for humanity, contributing immensely to the bulk of humanity’s ground forces, and humanity’s cities, factories, and food production capabilities are now in space. While CORE cannot hope to face the greatest dangers of the time, CORE has utterly and completely saved humanity from the Chimera, and has secured a method of retreat into the stars.

Still, the greatest dangers of the time keep you awake at night.

Conflict.

The End.

Time.

The Eighth.

Each one, with a mere gesture, can turn the Cradle into a graveyard. And they’re all in play, pursuing their own goals, and woe upon any in their way.

Li Song, Conflict, is undoubtedly an ally of humanity, is beloved by humanity, and has no urge to rule over it. Calling him a danger would earn you chastisement, even though it’s your job, from quite a few individuals close to you. He’s saved millions of lives, taken on the brunt of many attacks, and led an attack against Destruction Reborn whilst weakened. You saw the pictures before the meeting between the strongest beings in Reality. He’d fought whilst nearly crippled, whilst he burned, and whilst many others would’ve wished to die, when he could’ve chosen to fight with his absolute strength, but hadn’t because that would’ve meant a soldier’s death elsewhere.  

Keeping Azille aware of him, of the threat he poses, and keeping the two away from one another in case something terrible occurs is something you never wish to bear fruit.

Then, there’s the End, Li Song’s counterpart. She named herself Coda, because she did not have a name before, thus she became the opposite of her counterpart. Innocence in spite of adversity. Mercy in spite of suffering. Sacrifice for all, despite being despised. You know her path well, because of who and what you are. Some part of you wants to help her, to fulfill her duties, because she will truly bring peace. However, that is something you wish for, not what all of humanity wishes for, so there must be contingencies for her, besides Li Song.

To your shame, the only means CORE has to destroying her is via her own mind and willingness to take pain upon herself.

She is strong, mighty, and with purpose, but she is a Human Aspect.

And, humans can break.

Then, there is the outcome of the path you’d set CORE upon. The Silver Maiden. A conglomeration of science, magic, and atrocities with the singular purpose of saving humanity at any cost. You can see why she is CORE’s final answer in the face of the Ebony Emperor. She was an unfailing, unrepentant, and perfect weapon, one that can learn from every mistake, and with all the power and might she’ll ever require.  It is something you can see CORE pursuing. Isn’t that the means to your success? Invent, innovate, and deploy with stunning, initial success that the enemy can never recover for.

Looking at the truth of the Silver Maiden, you feel like you look upon a mountain of your grand achievements and everything you’ve prided yourself in…placed upon a foundation of the lives you decided were acceptable.

And, at its base, the Eighth stands with noose in hand.

You shake your head.

The night has been long and your thoughts are growing increasingly vague and nightmarish.

You must look upon the brighter side of things.

Though the cost has still been paid, and the Eighth still comes, the Silver Maiden is gone and replaced by someone given the ability to choose, to think, and to feel whatever they wish.

The plans regarding her have become contingencies. The horrific losses and terrible price that you and your allies would’ve paid to stop her from going back into time will most likely never be needed to be paid.

However, that does not change the fact that CORE needs to change, so that’ll never occur in the future.

…

Many faces came and went as time passed in CORE. Thankfully, that didn’t mean dying, as CORE still has the least amount of casualties ever incurred by any of the supernatural groups. People simple come and go. Timothy is the best example. She went from simply being the head researcher, to the head of Silicon City, and now she’s the head at one of the finest science-oriented Arcologies of the cradle.

CORE has corporation in its name for a reason.

Even your armed forces are considered employees, albeit ones with much more hazard pay.

However, if CORE experienced a disaster on the scale that any the LRU, Templar, and CSG encountered?

Well, the whole place would be utterly gutted.

The high standards, practices, and quality of CORE has its own drawbacks. Much like a fine-tuned machine, it is capable of incredible feats in a specific role, whilst being average in other fields. However, that comes at a cost. Recouping losses is beyond difficult. If you lose your entire military force, CORE wouldn’t be able to replace all the lost, experienced warriors it has in a decade, let alone the tours of duty expected in the other supernatural groups.

Every CORE asset is one that has been invested into, treated well, and nurtured to the epitome of its ability.

A fine example for a discrete, secret military with only a handful of threats to manage.

Not so much a bulwark of humanity meant to take loses, keep fighting, and never stop no matter who is lost.

It all but apparent that the moment CORE lost in the future that their only option was to create the Silver Maiden. After losing its martial strength and leadership, all it had was what you’d have if you’d lost all your greatest assets and your troops: a massive supply network, access to nearly everything, and an absolute glut of funds, wealth, and excess even after restituting all the of deceased’s relatives.

If you lost Tomoko, Elena, Elisabeth, your children, and all you held dear, as Val did in the future, you can see why creating the Silver Maiden, making a deal with Lucifer, and sacrificing the whole world to slow the Ebony Emperor was something you’d have chosen to do. Everything in Reality would be in your reach, your military and other martial forces cannot be replaced in a timely manner, so there is only a single path forward for you and CORE upon that road, and that is the Silver Maiden.

That needs to change.

Thankfully, you’ve already begun to do that.

The room is a simple affair, merely a table to the casual onlooker, but the moment you take another step forward into the room, the chairs are all filled by individuals who still claim leadership over the largest swathes of humanity.

When you once nearly never bowed to any higher power, you now incline your head whilst taking a seat that head of the conference table, and greet all the individuals with whom you trust, plan to involve further with CORE, and eventually grant access to CORE’s greatest secrets and assets.  

You’re greeted by a multitude of languages, but they’re all translated for you, though you do not require it.

CORE is the tip of humanity’s sphere. The cutting edge of humanity’s assets. Even now your technology is leaps and bounds ahead of every country in the world. What was once the United States, the leading superpower amongst humanity, was the only nation that could compare… and that’s because you lavished it with mass-manufactured, civilian versions of the equipment your labs developed and created for your bases.

Within the depths of CORE’s vaults lies a treasure trove of assets, technologies, and blueprints that the majority of humanity does not have available…and did not for good reason.

Even united against the Chimera, the facts remain that humanity is different from one another, and living within the Cradle will not change that. You fear giving the greatest assets of CORE to all peoples, advancing humanity’s manufacturing and technology at great cost to CORE itself, because what CORE made to save humanity can easily be turned against itself.

However, if all the gathered countries before you had access to what CORE had five years ago, would the Silver Maiden exist?

Could not tens and thousands more AI built by a myriad of governments make so much more progress in Research and Development? Would the common weapons CORE has in its arsenal, designed to level the playing field between a single man and the likes of Angels, be more deadly and usable when mass produced and granted to the world’s armies?  Would there not be more ships amongst the stars, more weapons to bear down upon the greatest of threats, and… more hope after a sudden, disastrous loss on CORE’s part?

This might be the wrong path.

Unlike in CORE, you cannot screen every single individual through trusted sources. Your weapons will fall into the hands of criminals. The technologies you release will be used for ill. There is no telling what shall occur once countries realize that the one with largest number of ships utterly controls the Arcology… and all the other nations therein.

However, it is the only path that you’re sure cannot ever lead again to the Silver Maiden.

CORE cannot remain what it currently is. Though you’ll be putting a stop on many projects, from military, research, and magic, you will now focus on ensuring that humanity and your allies are lifted up to the same standard of technology and quality that CORE enjoys.

Smiling and greeting all the gathered heads of state in turn, you allow yourself a deep breath before returning to the talks that will continue for the many weeks to come.

Whatever ills may come of this decision, you shall endeavor to correct them.

Better absolution and correction, than the utterly terrible absolute choices your daughter was forced to take a long, long time ago…