Vol. 3 Chap. 20 Fragile Systems

Truth lay sprawled on the roof of the restaurant, trying to bring his heart rate under control. What the Hell was that?

He knew that Incisive was impacted by the beliefs of others, and he was running the scales damn hard while he was in the restaurant. He knew who he was the whole time. But why the Hell did he start acting like one of the arrogant young masters he used to bodyguard? Actually, no, he was acting even more high-handed.

He needed someone to get out there and stir the pot. When things were traced back to her (which they rapidly would be), there wouldn’t be a soul in Starbrite or Jeon Security who didn’t believe there was a mastermind pulling the strings of the rebellion in southern Jeon.

And they would be hunting her hard. Once she started digging into those numbers… Well, it’s not like her well-being meant any more to him than De’Ponte’s. Happy thought, maybe he could get her to whip up counterrevolutionary forces. Launch her own wave of assassinations against “collaborators and fellow travelers.”

<<I think you just discovered a new wrinkle in how to use Incisive,>> the System said.

Oh?

<<You were using pretty much the whole spell at the end there- foresight you keep going all the time already, the scales for the persona, the fangs to cut that message into her hand, and the venom to impose your will on her. Pushing on the thoughts and desires she already had to bring her into line with what you want. Stacked with the killing intent that may or may not be a gift from your… “Rough Patron’s” legacy, you did an effective little bit of mental conditioning on her. >>

Okay? How is that different from just making a strong impression for anyone else?

<<You somewhat forcibly impressed the reality you were presenting onto her psyche. The rest of the room didn’t catch it quite as hard, but I’d bet everyone in that restaurant who wasn’t working in the kitchen is ready to swear on their mother’s eyes that the second generation of some ancient clan ate at Number 5 Laurel tonight. Whatshername just became the focus of a lot of attention. And is probably going to be getting a lot of courtesy calls from people looking to read her palm.>>

Oh, we can’t have that. Truth grinned. It would ruin the mystique.

<<Well, she is Level Four. Ought to be able to look after herself and certainly should be able to hire those capable of keeping away the flies.>>

Mmm. Alright, let's follow her and see just who she is. Maybe do a little B&E. The revolution needs funding, after all.

<<Going to test out full unnoticability?>>

No, I’ll admit I don’t really trust it for someone my level and higher. Merkovah said it should work on anyone not specially equipped below the peak of Level Five, but…

<<You don’t want to test that too casually. Right. But how are you going to follow her, then? >>

Steal a carriage and trail her. Easy enough to blend in as another carriage on the road.

<<Now that’s a top-notch plan! Say, Mr. Mastermind, what makes you think she came in a carriage?>>

Eh?

A cloud settled down in front of the restaurant. As long as a commercial wagon, faint rainbows of light shone through the pearl-white wisps. Like the cloud held a thunderstorm of colors within it. The women walked quickly out the door, left hand wrapped in a napkin. The head waiter, as well as much of the staff bowed as she hurriedly hopped up onto the cloud. The driver immediately ordered the cloud to rise and sped away, deeper into the city.

Shit!

He grabbed Thrush’s command medallion. “Attend me at once!” The imp appeared in a burst of black smoke. Before it could speak, Truth pointed at the rapidly shrinking cloud. “Follow that cloud. Find out where it is going and who owns it. Do so discreetly. Do not allow yourself to be spotted or captured.”

“Your servant obeys.” The imp flapped hard, and was gone.

Truth shook his head. He wasn’t too optimistic. He hopped off the side of the building, and caught the staff before they went back in. He was just a Citizen to them, now. “Wow, what a cloud! Who was that?”

The head waiter couldn’t even be bothered to look at him, but one of the junior waiters looked over at him and said “Madame Gullvar. Three Rivers Group. Best mind where you put your eyes, lest someone pluck them out.”

Truth didn’t know if he should laugh or give the waiter a slap. He settled for saying “Thanks,” and walking away. Alright, he had part of a name and a business name. He could work with that. He started jogging in the same direction the carpet went, but the fun had gone out of high speed running.

I want a flying cloud.

<<No, you want a firebird. Faster, more expensive, and it’s a giant bird made out of fire.>>

Yeah. Alright, I would settle for a flying cloud while my firebird was on order.

<<Reasonable. Now hail a carpet, peasant.>>

Truth did just that. Thrush caught up after about twenty minutes. Between the two of them and the carpet driver, they got to the residential tower Madame Gullvar lived in and apparently owned. Her residence was on the roof.

Gullvar had built a mansion forty stories in the air. A stacked series of glass boxes, with a tightly mowed lawn, harshly pruned trees, and some enormous blobs of abstract statuary. It, in Truth’s opinion, was painfully boring. No interesting spirits wandering around or wonderous enchanted creations beautifying and defending the grounds. There were people sweeping, mopping, patrolling. Level One and Two staff and security.

There was also a very respectable collection of defenses- counter-surveillance system, comms setup, anti-summons ward, anti-material ward, anti-spell ward, glamour filter, air filter, disease filter, anti-fungal arrays, precipitation filtering systems, golem command nets, and, naturally, the music system. Truth spent almost as long sorting through what all the various enchantments and wards were than he did getting to the mansion.

His appreciation for good spellwork notwithstanding, the bodyguard in him faintly despised the setup. Each system was very good. All of them would have been considered state-of-the-art or better when he went in the well. No weird “innovative” designs either. These were well-tested arrays with good service histories, regular updates to the enchantments, and good support by the component manufacturers. However, when you had multiple standing systems, particularly systems made by different designers and manufacturers, you had interoperability problems.

A mansion like this would have at least one full-time array master on staff whose job it would be to keep this mess up and running. And they needed to be good array masters because you would not want to see, for example, the summoning ward think the water creation talismans were a water elemental incursion or the blackwater banishment system blocked by an overzealous anti-spell ward. The glamour wards were famously temperamental and rarely played well with the music or scry systems. The golem command nets were thankfully more robust, but they did so by being completely separate from, and incompatible with, other systems.

A decision reached after several extremely expensive lawsuits, apparently.

Gullvar could afford excellent staff, and the spells were layered and connected about as well as these things could be managed. That being said, the dense network of arrays was starting to make Truth a little suspicious. You were definitely someone at Level Four, a person of power and status. But a mansion on top of a skyscraper money? She either inherited it, or there was a powerhouse behind her. Possibly both. But if that was true, why was she fishing for help at Number Five Laurel?

Did her backer die? Or did she suddenly lose their support? It would be very plausible, especially with the increasing violence and chaos. Or… oh. Hah. She said it herself. Her power is based on money, not cultivation. And at the end of the month, everything is getting rolled into credits, and none of these people really believe that they are going to still be rich at the end of it.

Truth grinned nastily. There must be an ungodly wave of kidnappings and murders going on now, trying to derail the change over. None of which will stop it, because it’s coming from Starbrite, and Starbrite has more Level Seven’s than your corporate board has directors.

Sorry lady, Truth thought, Looks like you should have put that money into cultivation aids, not a fancier house. That’s what I did. Truth examined that thought for a moment, firmly decided to gloss over any inconvenient details, and began breaking in. He recognized most of these systems, and none of them had some obscure operating principle he couldn’t understand. Between Starbrite, Siphios and vocational school, it was just a matter of time, not skill.

Half an hour later, he had significantly upwardly revised his opinion of both Gullvar, her array master, and her security team. The wards were proving significantly more robust than he had expected, and a lot of long-standing interoperability problems had apparently been fixed in the last few years. He was getting in, just… uncomfortably slowly.

While he was defeating a particularly fiddly bit of bloodline identification (apparently there were creatures that were close to, but not quite, human? News to him,) a flying cloud approached the landing pad. Smaller, no rainbows, but still a genuine article Zorusi Soaring Spirit, with the optional comfort package and the “Summer Dream” color trim. Came it at a cool point-seven-five mill back in the day. Probably more now.

Firebird. Firebird. Firebird. Gonna save the girl, grab the, like, ten people on this planet I’d like to keep alive, get off world, and get a sweet-ass Firebird. Bet they even have better firebirds than what we have here. Goes harder, faster, longer. Maybe they shoot searing beams of light from their eyes.

<<You want to steal that cloud.>>

So much. So goddamn much. They were the definition of impossible-dream-level luxury for me when I was a teen.

<<Maybe you can do a deal with the Shattervoid Clan for a tricked-out ride since they won’t need to ship as many bodies.>>

Valid point, well made. Any idea what to do here? All I can think of is looping the self-check line back on itself and cutting out the permitted visitor microarray. It won’t hold up all that long, which sucks, because I don’t want to spook her just yet.

<<Use the species screen array to designate your undead ass as a separate species, one that is explicitly permitted. Like a beautiful, unnatural, songbird. Cheep Cheep.>>

There is no way that will… Truth traced a few lines and reviewed the talisman architecture. Ok, but it’s going to screen for humans automatically… it did not. It built on top of the entry whitelist the master ward system used. I mean, can it even determine species so granularly it would understand a category of “just me?” Truth thought it through a while longer. He was still quite human, but between the body refinement and all the National Treasures, it was fair to say that he was a half step better than the overwhelming majority of the species on this planet.

Truth carefully nicked a finger and let a single drop fall on the pea-sized golden sample processing micro-array. The blood was annihilated by the spell. The various arrays and microarrays went to work, picking out identifiers, confirming that they met the needs of the identification systems, adding him to the approved whitelist, updating the security systems, running the checks and verifications that would ensure the appropriate access, and lastly, making sure he couldn’t fiddle with the settings of the sound system.

He felt a warm tingle from the wards, then nothing.

<<Cheep cheep charoo.>>

Think they can do me a firebird in blue and gold?

<<Can’t hurt to ask. Wait, look at who’s getting off that cloud!>>

Striding off the cloud was a mountain of a man, their loose shirt barely covering a physique that even Truth could envy. Brutal features came together in a rough handsomeness, so far from the delicate refinement that was popular with the men of Jeon. His eyes burned with red and gold, visible even from where Truth was hiding, well away from the landing pad. All features that could be purchased here in Jeon. Pricey, but money could do it.

What couldn’t be faked was the horrible sense of alienation. Like a too-real doll suddenly turning and looking at you. Gullvar’s wards were built the way they were for a reason. Who or whatever this person was, they weren’t entirely human.